Performing whiteface in contemporary Senegal: mimicry, self-censorship and the disruption of postcolonial whiteness

Whiteface is a staged embodiment of whiteness; it is the act of 'dressing up' as whiteness/a white person. For the Senegalese artist Samba Sine, this means painting himself white and putting on a French accent. This article examines one of Sine's whiteface performances, Tajabóon Tubaab (A White/Foreign Tajaboon) (2011), and argues that whiteface, as a form of mimicry, has the power to circumscribe self-censorship and to critique postcolonial whiteness. In doing so, I draw upon Bernard Noël's concept of sensure, which can be described as a form of self-censorship in which speech/texts are allowed to exist but remain void of meaning. The interview I conducted with Sine, representative of such self-censorship, appears as a clear antithesis to Tajabóon Tubaab and its critique of postcolonial whiteness. Mimicry, as theorized by Homi K. Bhabha, is therefore extended into a reflection on Senegalese whiteface as a means to overcome self-censorship. Whiteface, as performative mimicry, circumvents sensure, therefore replacing meaning into the text. Mimicry can legitimize imperial whiteness, but when performative, can also ensure the voicing of marginalized ideas. It is especially through temporary embodiment of power figures, through the donning of the white mask, that an artist can present a disturbing, displacing gaze.