Tank Kee is coming, Tank Kee is coming!
In the late 19th century, headlines in local newspapers across the United States heralded the arrival of Tank Kee. A lecturer and entertainer, Kee traveled through small towns in middle America, rhapsodizing about the wonders and greatness of China, especially its history, culture, and people.
But Tank Kee’s real name was George Bailey. When Kee arrived, audiences were surprised to discover he was white. Regardless, onlookers were soon dazzled by Kee’s presentations, filled with fun facts, curious outfits, and a collection of rare Chinese items. One reviewer declared, “He can talk faster than a man can hear…nothing but a roaring blizzard can stop him.” Another dubbed Kee a “master of the stage.”
George Bailey’s story may sound like little more than another story of cultural appropriation. After all, he invented and inhabited an Asian persona, right down to the clothes he wore, and used it for personal profit. But the nature of Bailey’s performance as Tank Kee was different from that of other white performers at the time who claimed to showcase Asian culture. Unlike these other popular performers, Bailey did not perform in yellowface or pander to white audiences by trafficking in cheap stereotypes. Instead, he used his lectures to push back against rising anti-Chinese racism across the United States, believing that anti-immigrant sentiments stemmed from ignorance. His lectures aimed to educate his audiences on Chinese history and culture in order to change their minds about Chinese immigration, a political message Bailey made explicit both in his public lectures and in frequent newspaper articles defending Chinese people against attacks on their morality and character. Even so, Bailey’s success as Tank Kee highlights the central contradiction of white supremacy, the contradiction that drove the anti-Chinese racism Bailey believed he was addressing. To white Americans, depictions of non-white people, whether positive or negative, rooted in historical evidence or the crassest stereotypes, were most valid and “authentic” when they were created by white people.