ABSTRACT
Color matters as a "doing" of bodies. This doing of the body can be seen as performative or, as Butler has labeled it: "styles of the flesh". These are never fully self-styled, for styles have a history which conditions and limits the possibilities. It is also worth noting that Maria's background is not that of "black/white" mixed identity, but rather of "white/Asian", which brings with itself several nuances such as gendered stereotypes about Asian women and Asian people in general. We can see this very clearly in Mike's narrative when he claims that he does use such stereotypes in order to "act" or exaggerate his own ethnicity. The equation looks very similar to older tropes of biologically deterministic racial ideology in that it takes cultural practices such as dancing of black men to make a norm. The visual field is about knowledge, where we find ways of "knowing" the Other based on coding of, for instance, skin color.
