I found Charlotte really interesting as a character because crucial to Mumbo Jumbo Reed is its important commentary on cultural appropriation, and Charlotte is one of the most blatant depictions of this phenomenon, especially as it relates to black music and dance. She learns the "The Work" from Papa LaBas, but she then quits and goes on to profit from what she has learned, despite LaBas's protests that "you shouldn't attempt to use any aspect of The Work for profit" (pg 52). The first sentences of Chapter 28 summarize Charlotte's situation well: "Charlotte has struck it wealthy with her Plantation House routine. She possesses a richly endowed apartment as a result of her ability to Stop the Show." Not only is Charlotte - a white woman - gaining success doing the same things that black people are villainized for, but she is doing it with a "Plantation House routine." In short, she is profiting off the oppression of black people and their culture, using methods that she has learned from black people and their culure.

This seems like pretty expected behavior from a white person, but remember, Charlotte is not just white, she is a white woman. So, she not only receives the mocking, satirized depiction that we commonly see in the white characters of Mumbo Jumbo, but she also receives Reed's sub-par treatment of women. She is depicted as pretty sexually promiscuous, but not in a "cool, female sexual liberation" way. Instead she is hypersexualized to the extent that her entire value in the book is reduced to her ability to seduce Hinkle Von Vampton with sex.

Also, in case you hadn't noticed, only two of the primary characters in Mumbo Jumbo are women. Two. Just for reference - two is about the number of pullups that I can do. Actually though, that's kind of incredible. In a book which has so many characters that it's hard to keep track of them all, a grand total of two are women. What's more, the one (one!) black woman in the book has a pretty lame storyline. So as much as Reed does an incredible job of representing African and African American culture, he does a pretty crappy job of representing black women.  (PS I left out Isis partly because I wouldn't exactly call her a primary character but mostly because I forgot about her until after I had written this.)

Obviously the black woman I'm talking about is Earline, whose storyline, at least initially, is just her waiting around for Berbelang to return and give her the time of day. When he does come home, he treats her as a sexual object present only for his own gratification, rather than a person with feelings and concerns. Later, when Berbelang is killed, the male characters are more or less unaffected in comparison to Earline who becomes possessed by the loa, representing the age old idea that women are weak and more susceptible to corruption. We see Earline seducing Black Herman, and like we talked about in class during Grace and Catalin's panel presentation, the implication is that Earline's sexuality is purely a product of some corruption of her body. It's a problem that has to be solved - she must be cleansed of the loa, and consequently her sexuality in order to be returned to her passive self, and I think that this is really illustrative of Reed's overall depictions of women.

I finished Mumbo Jumbo really happy with the message it had conveyed - it was a validation of black culture, and a really a important commentary on how white people have historically, unfailingly sought to destroy it. It called out serious issues like cultural appropriation and Western imperialism, all while being pretty stupidly ridiculous and not taking itself too seriously. What I had forgotten though, was my discomfort with Reed's depiction of women throughout basically the entire book. It really wasn't until tonight that I realized Reed's pro-African and African American narrative oftentimes comes at the expense of women, specifically black women. So despite all the things that Mumbo Jumbo does right, we must remember that  representation isn't truly representation if it excludes women from the narrative.