Talk:Josephine Baker

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of Japanese people, does that make you Japanese? "Jazz experience" is a vague, ambiguous term in a field (jazz) that has many vague, ambiguous terms. It doesn't need more. That's one reason why there has always been so much disagreement. There's a self-defeating desire to avoid defining and making distinctions. Josephine Baker appears to be more of a stripper than a jazz dancer. That's why she's in the Burlesque Hall of Fame. I have to make decisions about what gets included in the jazz project. There are 7.7 billion people in the world, 27,000 jazz articles, and two of us do most of the work. Two. I have to draw the line somewhere. I know it won't please everyone. I do think about what I'm doing, and I do make mistakes.

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references, none of them are used to back up this claim. I don't know if Baker was bisexual or not. But neither do you. It is not enough to assume; it is not enough to say "everyone knows this is true." Prove it. Where are credible sources which state this, with page citations? To whom did her adopted son give this alleged interview (also without a source, by the way)? This section should be trimmed unless some better citations are added.

1614: 1067: 2221: 2634:. He was a fan who changed his name to cash in on her celebrity. He did, in fact, write that he "hated her" and did, in fact, refer to himself 18 times on the first page of his alleged biography of someone else. The source is not credible and the claim is pure gossip. I was not "bashing" Mr. Baker but simply stating facts from his highly questionable book, after more reasonable edits were removed. The section as it stands now is 1645: 1467: 1516: 1495: 2149: 441: 2128: 1822: 1403: 1526: 1379: 1230: 1099: 1083: 379: 351: 1413: 283: 2364: 1051: 262: 3169:(2nd ed.), which I have next to me, has no entry for Baker. AllMusic online has an entry about her that begins "dancer and singer Josephine Baker progressed from vaudeville to New York theater to the Parisian cabaret scene and became the toast of Europe before the age of 21." Nowhere in the article is she called a jazz musician or a jazz singer. Vaudeville, cabaret, traditional pop, but not jazz. 936: 515: 1242: 497: 1295: 1274: 2268: 1305: 220: 1008: 997: 986: 975: 3124:"Seems to me that she should be considered part of the subject of Jazz music, otherwise all the mentions of her singing French Jazz should be excised and all the Refs mentioning Jazz or on the subject of Jazz that included Baker - like the Oxford Companion to Jazz, and the articles like "Real First Lady of Jazz" & "Le Jazz-Hot" could be regarded as suspect..." 2938:) or never addressed such a claim during their lifetime is presumptuous and wrong. I believe readers should make up their own mind about such things (whether they want to bitch about Knowledge "whitewashing" or being too conservative is irrelevant as most complainers are silly and more interested in the sensationalized aspects of subjects' careers) and we should 1875: 1986: 1854: 465: 2315: 876: 837: 3474:, there is no mention at all of anything to do with a beating death of a furniture shop owner. Are there (perhaps) two Willie McGees? The quoted sentence above does not have a reference, so it may not be entirely accurate. I'm not familiar with this topic, though, so I don't feel comfortable figuring out which is correct. ··· 964: 389: 3304:

Jazz dance didn't really begin until years later, associated with Gene Kelly, Gus Giordano, Luigi, and Bob Fosse (all of them trained in classical ballet), and it doesn't have much to do with jazz music. The first use of the word "jazz" was in the baseball sports pages in San Francisco around 1906. I

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OK. I'm here to discuss why you think the Jazz Categories ought to be deleted from this article. You're the editor who removed them - how about let's discuss why you think those categories should be deleted. As for the beginning of why I think the Jazz categories should be retained, i'll refer you to

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I’m glad to see the first paragraph “bisexual” has been removed in the last few days. French Knowledge didn’t make a big thing of it. Similarly “Freemason” should be given much less prominence. Baker’s sexuality or membership of a Masonic lodge are minor aspects of her life and giving such prominence

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Garber's book is hardly more authoritative than Jean Claude Baker's. Apart from the quote from Maude Russell (unless the Russell quote comes from Baker's book? Having trouble finding the citations page in Garber's book, and I'm unsure if Garber interviewed Russell or if she sourced the interview from

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These sources are not good: they rely on Baker's book, or other sources which rely on Baker, as their source. Where are the "tons" of sources which do not rely on Baker's memoir? Did this claim exist anywhere before 1983, when Baker's book was published? The citation for Queer Noise (above) has only

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of this "biography" refers to Josephine Baker four times and the author writes the words I or me 18 times. There are no footnotes, no endnotes. No list of interview subjects. The book reads like the fantasy of an untalented never-was using a tenuous connection to a celebrity for his own gain. This is

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Is anyone aware of an independent source for the statement that "In 1968, was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination."? Seems that this claim may derive from statements in books by members of Baker's

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Again, for clarity, in his book Jean Claude Baker wrote "I've never even been her fan" and "I loved her, hated her." The book has no endnotes and has a listing of magazine articles by title, but not by article. There is no list of interview subjects. Can this really be acceptable as a source for the

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I flinch when a Knowledge article makes blanket statements like "Person X was bisexual." Of the two sources listed, one is an article on the Gay and Lesbian Review website, with no page citations. The other is a bio of Frida Kahlo with no page citations. Of the several biographies of Baker listed in

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However, some language affirming her bisexuality as fully accepted fact has made itself back into the article, all still with sources that uncritically quote the Jean-Claude Baker book. For example: "Baker was also involved in sexual liaisons, if not relationships, with Ada "Bricktop" Smith, French

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To your point: I'm not sure what you mean by "the jazz experience". Baker did perform briefly at the Cotton Club as a chorus girl, so she was around many jazz musicians (good ones) as it was being defined. But if you are in a room of surgeons, does that make you a surgeon? If you are in a room full

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I'm not sure why Baker is categorized as bisexual based on a claim made by her son. A claim is just that, a claim. I can claim the moon is made of cheese. I can even write a book about the claim but it doesn't make it fact. I have no issue about the subject of the claim because one's sexuality is a

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I presume there are biographies of her in French, since that's where she spent much of her life. I wonder if there is a way to collaborate with the Knowledge French projects to try and get access to those sources? Maybe there's something in those sources that can add more clarity? In the meantime,

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According to the page on Jean Claude Baker (Jean-Claude Julien Léon Tronville), there were 2 Jean-Claude Bakers. One was a member of the tribe and the other was an older person whom Baker met in 1943. It would be good to have some clarification on this. It was Jean-Claude Julien Léon Tronville who

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Wouldn't it be more fitting to list her as American-French. She was a US citizen for almost half her life and while France was her adopted country for most of her life and that is where she made her career and Family, she did not abandon the US at all. She was very prominent in the US civil rights

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Good editing has reasons. "Different strokes" isn't one of them. Neither is "inclusionist". Those are nonsense terms that substitute for thought. There's no such thing as inclusionist or deletionist. This isn't a football game where one chooses sides. Malik Shabazz is correct: Baker doesn't belong

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Seems to me that she should be considered part of the subject of Jazz music, otherwise all the mentions of her singing French Jazz should be excised and all the Refs mentioning Jazz or on the subject of Jazz that included Baker - like the Oxford Companion to Jazz, and the articles like "Real First

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Further reading on the subject raises another concern: can the biography written by her "son" be acceptable as a source? He was, in fact, not legally adopted by Josephine Baker, and met her when he was 14 and she was 52. He is apparently bisexual himself and an article listed on his own, separate,

3833:." I believe it became Johnson Street in the first few years of the century, probably before Josephine's family lived there, but I can't find a good source on that, or exactly when the rename occurred. The street, which ran North to South between 14th and 15th Streets, was bulldozed to create the 3296:

By the way, why do you keep capitalizing "jazz"? That's the third time I've mentioned it, but you neither change how you are writing it nor ask me. Debate and disagreement are part of the normal functioning of Knowledge. Mistakes are OK. Everyone makes mistakes. It's when we don't learn from them

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categorize people on factual merits. There's way too much of "let's try to appease complainers" instead of sticking to facts. There are a billion other places on the web that people can claim someone is gay or whatever else they fancy, those kinds of things shouldn't be in an encyclopedia that is

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This is a minor quibble, I know, but the paragraph on her childhood home refers to it as "212 Targee Street (known by some St. Louis residents as Johnson Street)" which sounds clumsy and makes little sense. From what I can discern, the street was renamed, but it's unclear when. It was definitely

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As for the Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, Josephine Baker is listed in one sentence along with 45 other people who "have been identified" as being bisexual. That is not evidence. It's just a claim made up without corroboration. Every article on Knowledge must be vigorous in not allowing

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After the declaration of war the German embassy in Paris was closed. How many Germans with knowledge of (secret or important) information worked at non-German embassies, ministries (in Paris of course ministries of the French Republic) or spent their time in night clubs in the enemy's capital?

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So y'all agree that Josephine Baker's article doesn't belong in WikiProject Jazz?... I can see removing her from the jazz singer categories and yes it is up to the contributing members of WikiProject Jazz to delineate who belongs in the Project and who does not...Just the deletions caught me by

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The source book on which all later claims of bisexuality is based was published only in 1993, years after Josephine Baker's death. Perhaps the sentence on the main text here should simply be modified to read something like 'In 1993 Miss Baker was posthumously reported to have been bisexual'.

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Jean Claude Baker's assertion that "she had thousands of lovers," (some of whom were women), reads as an attempt to degrade Josephine Baker based on her number/choice of sexual partners, and as such shouldn't be taken as gospel truth. Maude Russell's claim is more believable, but it's still not

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mentions Josephine Baker on two pages in the 2008 paperback edition, which I have next to me. On p. 700 she appears in one sentence: "The first all-black show on Broadway, Shuffle Along, showcased a spectrum of jazz dancing, from soft shoe and tap to acrobatic dancing, and introduced many jazz

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I think it would be valuable if the section could give a brief outline of the evidence (that she was bisexual) to allow the readers to decide for themselves. As users above me have pointed out, just because something is repeated often doesn't mean there's a sufficient source for it.

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It's an easy mistake to make because the terms are so ambiguous, and the terms we use (jazz, jazz singing, jazz dancing) didn't really get defined until later. But if we didn't have words for things, we would never write to each other or talk to each other. We would sit in

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Thanks. I've tagged the sentence as dubious. I will leave this discussion here for a bit to allow time for anyone to provide sources. If none are provided, then I will remove the sentence (or at least the link, since it's very possible there's another Willie McGee).

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classified as a jazz singer when you compare her to others who are. I agree also about the inadequacy of the term Jazz Age. It's a literary term that doesn't mean much. Too vague, general, and abstract. Maybe English teachers and journalists are OK with it. I'm not.

3357:, it's really hard to argue that Baker was part of the same vocal tradition that they are. And I think that's borne out by the fact that the jazz encyclopedias cited by Vmavanti don't mention Baker or briefly rush by her to focus on the mainstream of vocal jazz. — 2824: 2819: 2814: 2517: 3561:

I found a RS about Miss Baker and her involvement on behalf of Mr. McGee. It says nothing about a furniture store owner or New Jersey. I can't help, but think that this is somebody's idea of a joke. I'm going to change this article over to what the RS says.

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one sentence that says a historian "claimed" that five women were gay - but does not say where he said it. What article? What page number? I don't object to the claim itself; I suggest that every source making the claim is based solely on Jean Claude Baker.

2732: 3381:- the Broadway show which was instrumental in the careers of Miss Baker, Paul Robeson, Eubie Blake, etc. And I don't know that I would exactly characterize Miss Baker's career as her being a stripper... But different strokes for different folks. Cheers, 3776:

My understanding of the previous consensus is that while many sources make a claim to her sexuality, as shown in that earlier talk, almost all, if not 100% of them when traced lead back to the biography of Jean-Claude Baker, whose biography is dubious.

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I'm dismayed that the entire subject of her sexuality has been removed. I *almost* understand reluctance to rely on a given source, though I don't understand how including an emotional statement (saying he hates her) automatically makes the entire book

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In the absence of any discussion, and in the absence of consensus from independent sources that don't trace back to Jean-Claude Baker, I'm going to remove the LGBT related tags from the article. If more information comes to light, let's add them back.

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I think the current description "American-born French" is best. She was a French citizen. She renounced her U.S. citizenship. No one has claimed that she "abandoned" the U.S. It is custom, per Wiki, to list the subject's legal nationality in the lede.

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the reason why people still laugh at Knowledge: anyone can post anything based on the claims of one person. As another editor said above, the paragraph should be completely omitted unless there is reliable evidence which comes from an impartial source.

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Most of the Google hits you link to above aren't reliable sources. To include the assertion that Baker was bisexual—let alone a list of her alleged lovers—we'll need some quality sources. If you have any suggestions, I'm interested in hearing them.

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of his book: "She had thousands of lovers." (p. xvi) How could anyone accept such a claim when the author had not met the women until she was over fifty? Add that to the quotes above that he was not a fan and he hated her. Now consider that on the

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dancers (including an attention-getting chorus girl named Josephine Baker). On page 223 she is mentioned in the context of a song by Irving Berlin sung by Ethel Waters ("Harlem on my Mind, a witty send-up of Josephine Baker)".

2835:), the sheer number of reports of her bisexuality deserves mention. I'm not requesting a return to the version you site, which relies solely on JC Baker's book, but the current version whitewashes her sexuality completely. -- 1090: 855: 3586:

JOSEPHINE BAKER'S LAST DANCE by Sherry Jones, a novel published by Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster in December 2018, should be added to the list of works about Ms. Baker. (Full disclosure: I'm the author.) --Sherry Jones

2524:. Admittedly, many of those books base their information on Jean Claude's, but some of them don't seem to be. Since we have sources that state Baker was bisexual, it seems a disservice to omit this information. -- 153: 3772:

Since a previous discussion of Baker's sexuality is almost a decade old, and since it appears the article no longer reflects the consensus built in that discussion, I want to revive the topic with a fresh start.

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I do want to mention that there is a difference between the Fosse Broadway-style "jazz dancing" that started in the 1950s and the vernacular style originally known as jazz dancing (mainly tap) as seen in 1921's

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rather insignificant aspect of one's personality but this rush to categorize every person as bisexual is becoming a bit much. I can think of very few celebrities who hasn't been subject to some author's claim.

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somewhere else). Still, it doesn't seem like enough to definitively state "she was bisexual." Is there a way the section could elaborate on who Jean Claude Baker and Maude Russell are, and then quote them?

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Regardless of whether she was bisexual or not, the reference to Garber's book on bisexuality does not support the claim that she and Kahlo were lovers. That claim, at least should be excised from the page.

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Knowledge page refers to his biography as "an ax to grind" against Ms. Baker. Again, I'm not questioning whether Ms. Baker was bisexual, but whether it can be proven from any impartial, credible source.

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being a jazz singer. People sometimes have different opinions about editing and content - coming to a consensus and editors changing their opinions is one of the great things about Knowledge. Cheers,

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In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany ... She socialised with the Germans at embassies, ministries, night clubs, charming them while secretly gathering information.

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It's pretty obvious that there's a lot of talk about Baker's sexuality. But this page mentions nothing. I mean, the gay and lesbian review, for one, think she was gay or bisexual (

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that there is a problem. I didn't come out of the womb knowing about jazz. No one does. I've read about it during my life and have had experiences which contribute to my knowledge.

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movement. She worked with the NAACP, spoke at the march on Washington. It even states that Coretta Scott King asked her to be the head of the movement after MLK's assassination.

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Are there any published reports in French press that reflect Baker's reluctance to accept the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement primarily for safety reasons?--

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I am going to make an attempt at an edit to be a bit more clear about her alleged bisexuality, basically trying to make it a 'meta' discussion within the article.

3342:). The popular media throw around the word "jazz" with little regard for what it means. Their thinking seems to be that in the U.S. and Europe, the 1920s were the 4052: 4017: 3987: 3962: 3892:

Rather than appearing at Carnegie Hall in 1973, I'm pretty sure Baker appeared at the PALACE THEATRE(47th&Broadway) in a vaudeville revue a-la Judy Garland.

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After checking a copy of the book through Google Books and seeing that the pages in question don't support the broad assertions made, I've removed the section. —

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I understand your concerns about labeling a person has passed on - we cannot ask them if they are/were bisexual, so we can only take what others say about them.

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When I signed-off with "different strokes for different folks" I was referring to your description of Miss Baker being a stripper. I disagree and that's ok.

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and it didn't support the assertion that Baker was bisexual. "nce in a while ... there would be a lady lover in Josephine's life"? Is that sufficient for

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I'm less concerned about which WikiProjects look after an article than I am about the categorization of articles. Looking at the other articles in

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Baker was many things, but I would find it hard to defend a description of her as a jazz singer (even if an author titled her biography of Baker

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I think you made the right choice by deleting the section. I've removed all the LBGT and bisexual categories that resulted from that section. —

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But isn't this formulation a bit inane? This is the literal translation of the first two lines of the chorus of her most famous song:

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remember years ago there was something called "jazzercise". I don't even know if that term exists anymore, but to me it's meaningless.

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Lady of Jazz" & "Le Jazz-Hot" could be regarded as suspect... plus what about the Category of "French female jazz singers"?

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Targee Street in 1898 when Frankie Baker (no relation) shot her boyfriend in the same building, in the incident that inspired "

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removed the article from "jazz singer" categories. The edit cited at the very top of this discussion removed the article from

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Most of those sources are good. Thank you. Why don't you draft a paragraph in the article that's supported by the sources. —

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which, when you look at the citations, cites Jean-Claude's book, and a review of Jean-Claude's book, no additional sources.

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and related articles on Knowledge. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join

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I edited the sexuality section and allowed the unreliable source to remain while including information on the author.

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In this case, we have her adopted son - regardless of his "motives", he *does* offer documentation. We also have

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Seriously - there are tons, and even if some sources are questionable (and I maintain that all of the above are

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And I reverted most of your changes. You can't fix the problems you've identified by bashing the subject's son,

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family, and has possibly been picked up either from there (or from Knowledge?) by some other sources. Regards,

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Rather than simply deleting the information, could you instead post here to the talk page for more information?

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returns a staggering number of other sites that state her bisexuality. One even calls her a "bisexual icon."

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I thank you and hope this will end the discussion for a while, at least. Apologies for going off on a rant

2340: 887:. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a 628: 586: 125: 109: 3509:, I think the link is correct but the content in the Baker article isn’t and should be changed and cited. 3471: 3459: 2976: 2077: 2059: 1761: 796: 620: 2953: 534:

topics on Knowledge. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join

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is intended to discredit her. It is the EMPHASIS that is offensive. It may be politically motivated.

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by Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler (1999 paperback), which I have next to me, has no entry for her.

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