Epic Journeys, Part One

Being a Revolutionary Intellectual – In Radical Process 

(or what the hell am I doing in the academy?)

Sylvia Wynter circa 1972

And I felt that somehow being a revolutionary intellectual might be a goal to which one might aspire, for surely there was no real reason why one should remain in the academic world – that is, remain an intellectual – and at the same time not be revolutionary.

- Walter Rodney

So what our consciousness has been battling against, the regime of "truth" which has structured our "consciousness," is functioning against our best interests. It is negating ourselves; and so there's this constant struggle. You see, it's not just an intellectual struggle. You could call it a psycho­intellectual struggle. Then you could understand why in the '60s it wasn't just a call for Black Studies; it was a call for Black Aesthetics, it was a call for Black Art(s), it was a call for Black Power. It was an understanding that, as Lewis Gordon has been the first to keep insisting, we live in an anti-Black world -- a systemically anti-Black world; and, therefore, whites are not [simply] "racists."  They too live in the same world in which we live. The truth that structures their minds, their  "consciousness," structures ours. So the great battle now is going to be against “the truth.”

- Sylvia Wynter

So I’m finally sitting down to share reflections on my blog consciousvibration of my epic journeys to Ghana in May and Grenada in June, and then I read a beautiful tribute and sad reminder of the anniversary of Walter Rodney’s assassination in my facebook newsfeed. I had just gotten back from Grenada a couple days before, and I was in recovery mode from intense conferencing and back to back (blessed) travels across continents and oceans. I was thinking about the whirlwind of movement, exchange, and beautiful experiences – and wanting to write down every important moment  But my body had other plans for me – a week of rest and healing. So I finally get to this piece of writing and the words of Walter Rodney stay with me until this piece of writing becomes me reflecting on the hows and whys of my travels.

Both of these trips were for conferences funded through my work in the academy yet fueled and reflective of my work outside of it (my creative and community work – my art/poetry/organizing). And so when I read this quote by Walter Rodney above  (on the anniversary of his death on 13 June), it resonated deeply with me as I continue to struggle with my vexing relationship to the academic world – never feeling like I really belong. It also reminded me that if I am to be in it, then I must stay true to who I am in the world: staying in the struggle for freedom and liberation, social and environmental justice, fighting for sexual, gender, class, and racial equality, creating space for resistance and desire, AND using my voice, my art, my teaching, my writing -- as feminist, womanist, anti-imperial, anti-racist, class conscious, queer affirming, loving Blackness, and radical transgressive movement. Being a revolutionary for me means all these things and more… being in the tradition of women of color writers and feminists and all of our ancestors who resisted before/when our revolutions were thought impossible/unthinkable. Revolution means struggle, but it also means healing and radical self-care and love. It also means taking incredible risks and being a warrior – at times alone and afraid but rooted and guided by spirit and the earth…

So I believe that I am (and I aspire to be) as Rodney suggests – a revolutionary intellectual – in radical process. I agree with him completely – it is the ONLY reason (for me) to remain in the academy. I have also reflected on Sylvia Wynter’s reasoning and critique about Western systems of knowledge and how we must constantly do battle with our own consciousness (as Black people particularly but also as people of color and marginalized peoples generally) because “academia is a process of socialization” – i.e. educational systems as they exist function to “reproduce the order of society” (see her brilliant interview in ProudFlesh, Issue 4 2006). Therefore, Wynter argues that we must do battle against “Truth” and engage in a psycho-intellectual struggle. So as we learn and teach in these institutions, we are implicated in an elitist and controlling, western dominated systems of knowledge. But teaching and learning in such institutions forged my intellectual growth and social mobility, even though I know these places were never meant for me/us and that they will never accept me/us fully – somehow I have had to be okay with that – and take what I need and continue to forge my path – and use its resources to further my community and creative work. And while I am in them – do battle with “the truth” – and turn it inside out and make my teaching and writing part of the necessary unsilencing and challenging of these very systems of knowledge. (Let me clear - I know this ain't easy work and I'm not entirely sure if I can make a difference but I push forward - aware of the hypocrisies, the contradictions, and the corporate takeover of universities.) I remain critically engaged (in battle perhaps) with these institutions and the academic world – existing both inside and outside.

But for today, I find much comfort in Rodney’s words – and hold them close as I make sense of my years and discomfort in the academy. I think about my travels since I started my career in academia. I think about the mobility and access to places and people I may never have had if I didn’t get my academic hustle on and funding to present at dozens of conferences around the world – from Brazil to France, all over the U.S., and across the Caribbean – my homespaces (places I have come to know and love because of opportunities afforded me through the academic world). And I remember me as a little girl who dared to dream that I could be something other than poor and troubled, and that maybe one day I would leave Nassau and travel. And I remember when I found out that there was a thing called University – and I wanted to go – even when I dropped out of high school. I dreamed, worked hard, and took advantage of opportunities as they came my way – knowing that they came with a price and that some of these had something to do with my light skin, mixed race’ness and silence about race and class, while others came when I stopped being silent. (The paradox of difference. The paradox of being both invisible and hypervisible. The dilemmas of so-called multiculturalism and post-racial colorblind belief systems / bullshit – even when evidence to the contrary proves otherwise.)  And so I live in this paradox and embrace all the in-betweens and contradictions – and do what I can to create the spaces inside and outside where we can be critically engaged in resistance/revolution and re-build our consciousness - as Wynter says we must.

And so I am grateful and blessed to have these experiences, as they have made me even more committed to community organizing, creativity, and praxis. Since the beginning of my journey in the academy, I have insisted on making my commitment to community work and my creative self a priority. It is fitting then that my most recent journeys reflect a combination of my/selves as writer/poet/artist/teacher/scholar/activist – and that my invitation to share at the Yari Yari Ntoaso conference in Accra, Ghana was rooted in my creative writing and my grassroots organizing work in Haiti. And my work with the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) and its annual conference has been grounded in regional organizing and support of Caribbean sexual minority organizations, as well as creating space for Caribbean Sexuality Studies and LGBT-identified scholars, artist, activists and allies within CSA and across the region. (More reflections and photos of epic journeys soon come - in my next post.)

Sitting with the words and works of Walter Rodney and Sylvia Wynter over the past few days as I wrote this piece has given me a renewed sense of place and perspective on what I am doing in the academy and what I will continue to do in spite of and because of my discomfort and un-belonging. All I can do is hold onto the promise and work of Revolution and stay in the struggle. There is so much going on right now across the world, its hard to make sense of it all and figure out where to put one’s energy – in this time of planetary shifts, environmental and economic catastrophes with masses of people rising up against austerity measures and government/corporate control, continued wars and occupations and too much bloodshed and sexual assault in the face of U.S. imperialism, prisoners at Guantanamo on hunger strike, attacks on LGBTQ people and rights, the alarming numbers of sexual abuse and domestic violence, the new bounty on Assata… and too much more… my heart wants to break with all this sadness, pain, and destruction…  but instead I mend her up with these dreams and hopes of revolution… and keep working. 

Thank you Sylvia Wynter for your insights, your brilliance, and the depth of your intellectual battles. Thank you for continuing to keep us on our intellectual rigor to overstand and embrace your mighty words and theories. 

Rest strong in the struggle Walter Rodney. Thank you for your work, your wisdom, your insistence on revolution. Thank you for keeping us honest and critical.

the state of public discourse

As an educator, I am constantly overwhelmed by how little my students (in college courses) know about history and how much they want to believe we live in a colorblind world. These two are related - the lack of knowledge about history, or the watered-down version of history they learn in high school and college, feeds the belief in colorblindness and the idea that everyone is equal now. Many of them seem to believe there is no such thing as racism or sexism - and even when I provide examples and talk about these as systems of oppression, they are still unable to discuss these issues in any critical way. I am mystified at how much they don't know and how resistant they are to new or progressive ways of thinking. But then I read mainstream news headlines and reports, and I think about the state of public discourse. There is such a lack of critical engagement in most public discourse, especially mainstream news. Thankfully, there are alternatives, like Democracy Now, Left Turn Magazine, Inter Press Service, and others. But often we have to seek out alternative news media, whose perspectives are deemed by the mainstream as "too radical" which keeps certain voices on the margin. Mainstream has become really conservative, so much so it now the norm. 

Most mainstream news outlets, and by extension much of public discourse, lack the language and tools to discuss issues around race, gender, class, and sexuality. It is amazing the gap that exists between academic discourse and public discourse. The language/embrace of multiculturalism, diversity, and colorblindness seems to trump so much of the work done in the humanities, social sciences, and alternative news media that exposes various systems of oppression and reveals how they operate. The moment of political correctness and belief in post-race, post-feminism, just-work-hard-and-you-will-make-it, everyone is equal has completely disrupted our abilities to talk about identity politics and social justice. It is no wonder my students can't talk about race, much less gender, class, and sexuality, and forget global and sexual politics or feminism and feminisms.

If we do talk about race, especially if one is a person of color, we are "playing the race card"; if we talk about gender and sexism, its because women are being overly sensitive; and when white people are asked to think about white privilege, they look confused. This leads to the ridiculous notion of equal opportunity racism and how anyone/everyone can be "a racist" -- this undermines real discussions about racism as systematic and prevents conversations about class and gender dynamics that complicate race. There is no public language to discuss racism and sexism as systematic, but rather people obsess over individual prejudices; there is no public language to really dialogue about racial, class, and gender oppression or privilege; there is no public language to expose interlocking systems of oppression. This is why people of color have been assaulted lately, from attacks on Sonia Sotomayor and President Obama to outright smear campaigns on community organizations like ACORN. This is why we are fearful of the "R" word.

We live in a moment of intense belief in "my opinion"; a moment where dichotomous logic in terms of politics reigns supreme in most news media, in which debate means representing two opposing points with no clear analysis of either side; a moment where there are just two sides (yes/no, for/against) to any & every debate. How did we come to this? When did we loose a grasp of multiple sides, critical analysis, support for one's point of view, evidence to support one's argument that is biased? What happened to the U.S. news media and mainstream journalists who called upon/relied on scholars, researchers, and organizers to clarify and complicate issues of concern from multiple perspectives -- not just two very biased and polar opposite sides that seem to only incite further controversy as opposed to real integrity-driven debate?

The state of public discourse is scary, and speaks to how difficult it is to have real public dialogue and critical reflection. It doesn't help that the first African American President of the United States refuses to really talk about race or admit the extent to which his race affects how people in this country see him. In fact, it makes our jobs as educators, community and intellectual workers, writers, artists, activists, and so on even harder. His presidency is continuously held up as the sign of a "post-racial" america. Thankfully, there are still some journalists who are willing to take the risk and talk critically about race. Recently, Democracy Now covered the issue of President Obama and race when talking with journalist Naomi Klein. Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein discuss Klein's article in Harper's Magazine where she talks about the various ways in which President Obama has avoided dealing with race during his presidency. She connects the Obama Administration's decision to not attend the UN Durban Review Conference on Racism this past April with other big silences concerning race. A shorter version of Klein's article is available online through The Guardian.

The show and article reminded me of how many disappointments we've seen these past few months with President Obama: from not attending the UN Conference on racism to his troubling response to Former President Carter's assertion that racism remains an issue and concern in this country. Carter astutely and clearly stated the obvious -- that the health care "debates" and attacks on President Obama are rooted in racism. This could have been a perfect opportunity for Obama to engage in a conversation about race; it could have been a beautiful moment of critical reflection, and what better person to do it with than someone who is well-respected, a former U.S. President, and active in human rights issues! But alas, no... instead Obama "disagrees" with Carter - in what I see as a very dangerous move. He could have simply said that Carter was entitled to his opinion (which would have been fine, since we live in "opinion happy" moment). He could have said nothing. I suppose I would rather have silence than a response that simply panders to the right wing and the notion of colorblindbess.

I wrote here on conscious vibration back in November that I did have hope in President Obama; that I believed this could be a time of change. I wrote how in spite of my hope I still had fears and concerns. But now my hope is lost...  what belief I did have during the first days and months of his presidency have been dimmed through the continued wars, the bank bailouts, and the no-public-option health care plan. And even though on some level, I knew he wouldn't be able to rock the boat that much - after all he is part of the system, particularly one that perpetuates U.S. hegemony and imperialism - still I hoped he would do some of the things he promised.

I know change must begin on the ground, and that we must all take responsibility for creating and sustaining movements. But we also need to hold leaders and governments accountable. And we must also hold those who do work in the name of "public service" accountable. We need to expect something better from those who engage in public discourse, especially the mainstream news. We need to break down the divides among what is deemed "intellectual" and "academic" and what is deemed "public" and "community" -- these divisions only reinforce the hierarchies that already exist. We need public language and new voices to talk about issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality. We need honesty and real dirty talk. We need folks to be able to express their anger in useful ways and channel these energies into change.

Audre Lorde talks about the issue of anger and racism in her 1981 essay titled "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" - her keynote address to the National Women's Studies Association Conference. Her theories about the uses of anger in an early 1980s moment in which Black feminist scholars and organizers were calling out white women about their racism can be useful for us now - given the lack of public discourse on race, class, and gender. Lorde explains why her response to racism is anger, how it should make us all angry, and how we can use this anger:

My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to use it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life. Once I did it in silence, afraid of the weight. My fear of anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that anger will teach you nothing, also. Women responding to racism means women responding to anger; the anger of exclusion, of unquestioned privilege, of racial distortions, of silence, ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, betrayal, and co-optation. ... Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies. Anger is loaded with information and energy.

So many of us are angry, and yes people of color are angry, women of color are especially angry, and as a Black queer migrant women, I'm hella angry... we have a right to be angry - there has been so much backlash and so much regression...  we are livin in scary times... so let's continue to fight and use our anger, express it, and transform it into action.

criminality in "post-race" america

I've been under a rock these past weeks - packing, moving, unpacking, getting settled in my new place, and preparing for my new job. It's been a hectic month... and I am missing New York terribly. But now that I am finally hitting my groove again :) it's time to write, reflect, and keep sendin' out into the universe conscious vibration...

I started a piece a while back about the arrest of Professor Gates, but didn't get a chance to finish it till now. I don't want to re-hash any of the debates already out there about his arrest. But rather I want to use this situation as an opportunity to discuss criminality in what many are calling a "post-race" moment. The most disturbing part of this entire issue was (and still is) the lack of critical discourse about "justice" and the prison system (or the prison industrial complex); AND the accusations hurled at Professor Gates - that he played the race card.



U.S. racial politics and the long history of serious injustice in “the law” and criminal system must be considered. The law and police as institutions are mired in this sordid history. Racial profiling is an everyday experience for people of color. So it is a fallacy to say that Professor Gates “played the race card” – because race was/is already an issue within the daily social, political, and legal fabric of this country. Black, Latino, and Native American men are incarcerated at higher levels than white men NOT because they commit more crimes, but rather because their bodies are criminalized and policed more than white bodies. Black and Latina women face the same harsh reality. (I hate statistics, and I know they can be manipulated to serve different agendas, but these stats have been used by a number of different sources: The 2006 U.S. Dept of Justice Reports "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, the figure is one in nine for black males in that age group. Men are still roughly 13 times more likely to be incarcerated, but the female population is expanding at a far brisker pace. For black women in their mid- to late-30s, the incarceration rate also has hit the one-in-100 mark").

Unfortunately, these stats are often used to sustain the fear of the Black male in america, and it also perpetuates the racial stereotype of inherent criminality onto Black and Brown bodies. But these numbers/reports should make us want to understand why so many people of color are locked up in prison, and ask ourselves who profits from this system. The drug sentencing laws alone reveal injustice in the system - from the disparities in crack/cocaine laws to the fact that more than HALF of the people locked up are in there for NON-VIOLENT drug offenses.

(Do your own research; read the latest Pew Report on the prison system; check out Law Professor Ian Haney Lopez’s book titled White By Law for a detailed study of the law and race; AND read Angela Davis' Are Prisons Obsolete? -- she traces the connection between the end of slavery, the rise of the chain gang and the prison industrial complex, which fed/feeds the country's & corporations' need for cheap/free labor.)

NUMEROUS studies show that racial profiling, longer/harsher sentencing, unjust/racist laws, privatization of prisons, and the intense policing of poor communities is what in fact contributes to the high numbers of people of color being locked up in U.S. Jails and Prisons. Again, there are more people of color in prison NOT because crime is on the rise OR that we commit more crimes, its because of the system itself -- longer sentences, ridiculous probation laws that basically guarantee return to prison, lack of resources to help people coming out of prison, and the grim reality of poor communities with few resources exacerbated by state/federal monies going to build prisons instead of schools, spending money on war instead of community.



The prison system in its present state DOES NOT WORK and it certainly doesn't make our communities any safer. But we are suppose to believe in the law and the police without question. And so when Professor Gates gets arrested, it is easier for us to believe that it was an accident, that he "acted out" and therefore deserved it, that the police are just doing their job, that the system and law are colorblind, that he should have just "behaved" properly. It is much harder to question the system itself or consider that the police may lie - they have a code (all police) and they abide by it. And it is much harder to ask why Professor Gates' Black body is seen as threatening in so called "post-race" america -- especially with a Black president. It is even harder to admit that our belief and dependency in/on the prison system makes it work even more.

Ironically, Professor Gates has really never been one to talk about these difficult issues (in terms of the law, prison system, and injustice). In one of his PBS specials "America Beyond the Color Line," he briefly addressed the issue of Black men in prison, but he only touched upon racial profiling. And so now, Professor Gates is faced with the toughest of questions and challenges in an “america” that so wants to believe it is colorblind. He's already lined up to do a special on racial profiling. Is it too much too hope for that he offers a deep analysis of the system? All I can do is dream at this point.

We need alternatives. We need critique. We need to be armed with information/history/herstory to fight against racial stereotypes and misuse of statistics. We need to admit that race (gender, class, sexuality, religion, nationality, & ability) affect how we are treated within a given society and within institutions. We need to develop ways of building communities instead of destroying them. I am anti-prison and I think prison abolition is what we must fight for/towards -- a lot of people think this is ridiculous and some people think the system is too far entrenched to be changed. But I believe we have to start somewhere - and we should aim and struggle for RADICAL change at the root. Research and organizations already exist that offer maps/studies/visions for change. Places to start: - Instead of Prisons; Real Cost of Prisons; and Critical Resistance.

Critical Resistance (a national organization that works to dismantle the prison industrial complex) offers an important resource and space for us re-think, question, and challenge the prison system. Here is how CR defines the problem and their vision of change:

The U.S. uses prisons and policing as a failed “solution” to social problems. As a result, our communities are being destroyed.
• In the past two decades, the number of people in prison in the U.S. increased 400%.
• Prisons are filled with 68% people of color.
• 4 million people who have been in prison face barriers to jobs, parental rights, public assistance, and housing.
• In neighborhoods where people are most affected by mass imprisonment and policing, we see the direct impact of our annual $50 billion investment in prisons and policing: closed schools, homelessness, basic health care is out of reach, and poverty remains a reality in the richest country on earth.

Critical Resistance’s vision is the creation of genuinely safe, healthy communities that do not rely on prisons and policing to respond to harm. We call our vision “abolition.” We take the name “abolitionists” purposefully from those who called for the abolition of slavery in the 1800’s. Abolitionists believed that slavery could not be fixed or reformed – it needed to be abolished.

We must challenge the systems that keep us all locked up - physically, mentally, and spiritually. We must start thinking outside the box. We do not live in a "post-race" or colorblind world. But rather, we live in a world of difference - and we need to keep building across & through our differences to create the world we want to live in, the world we want for future generations.

Race and Racism - by Dr. Faye Harrison

February 26, 2007 - “A Series of Unfortunate Events? A Look at Race”

Faye V. HarrisonProfessor of African American Studies & Anthropology
University of Floridafayeharr@ufl.edu

Questions posed by organizers:
What is the state of our national conversation on race? Are we moving forward or moving backward in race relations? Do we need to correct our current course? How?

In my view, there is a great deal of denial about race and racism in this country. The denial is not just occurring at the level of ignorant individuals who lack knowledge, sensitivity, and live lives sustained by class and/or racial privilege. The denial is also evident in the language, practices, and policies—both domestic and foreign—of our democratically-elected government. That government and the increasingly neoconservative interests that drive its current administration, promotes colorblindness and a post-Civil Rights notion of diversity management that in many respects denies the severity of present-day racial inequalities and the extent to which they are still being perpetuated by institutional and structural means. Both the legacy and cumulative burdens of past discrimination and the insidious, often subtle, forms of racism that are being reconfigured, restructured and deeply implanted in today’s late modern world operate to the patterned and systemic disadvantage of people of color, from those experiencing racial scapegoating since 9/11 to those who have long been relegated to the bottom of the nation’s social and economic hierarchy. The language of our public conversation on race and our political discourse in general has taken a rightward shift away from many issues that truly need to be engaged from angles that consider explanatory frames and justice-seeking possibilities that go well beyond the established boundaries of Republican Party politics and even beyond those of the Democratic Party’s Liberalism as it’s come to be constituted today. We must remember that Liberals have been among those who’ve advocated the dismantling of welfare as we once knew it and affirmative action, ideologically reduced to quotas, playing the race card, and “reverse racism.” Both of these domains of ideological, legal, and legislative struggle have been racialized in ways detrimental to the interests and well-being of their overlapping and, unfortunately, disunited constituencies—poor folks, the racially subordinated, and women and those who depend upon their contracting resources and hard work, both waged or unwaged.

Black people have long represented the most radical form of difference here in the U.S. Although we know that race relations is more complicated than the bipolarities of black and white, we also know, or should, that the inequalities and racial assaults, both symbolic and physical, that black people experience are often severe. Some of the indicators of the “savage inequalities” and injustices that adversely affect black communities include: the drastically lower net worth (or wealth) of black families compared to white families, the labor force experience of black workers who are among the last hired and first fired in recessions and who suffer the highest rates of unemployment, the inequalities in health and life expectancy, and in the arena of criminal justice the mass incarceration of black males and the soaring rates among black women, whose convictions have dire consequences for families and communities “on the outside” and deprive the convicted of the rights of citizenship for which the black freedom movement has long fought. These regressive changes are occurring right under our noses, yet they remain largely unspoken and silenced as salient matters for serious political debate.

The U.S. has also played a role in attempting to discredit and inhibit the conversations about race and racism that have been gaining momentum in international and transnational arenas, such as those facilitated the pre- and post-conference activities associated with the UN’s World Conference against Racism (2001) as well as other world conferences on related issues. In the language and legalities of international human rights—a regime that is not without its contradictions and flaws—structural racism in its various faces and modalities is a violation of human rights, a violation warranting redress, compensation, and reconciliation. While the U.S. is signatory to the anti-racist treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which took effect way back in 1969, it has presented a major obstacle to the work of monitoring and promoting compliance to this treaty.

Despite the many obstacles, including national and transnational or imperial political agendas, international conversations have led more activists to understand that racism is more than a problem in the U.S. and South Africa. It is a problem of increasingly global scope that is being heightened in contexts reshaped by the contemporary mobilities of both immigrants and capital along with the often problematic impacts of (U.S.) foreign policy. Contrary to the “norm against noticing race” that prevails in international relations, foreign policy is no more color blind than domestic policy is. We need to face the power racism exerts at home and abroad before we can figure out how to dismantle it.

rants on race & gender

so it's been a while - spring blues haven't gotten the best of me - I'm still here in the struggle. The past few months have re-confirmed how much conversations about race, racism, gender, sexism, sex, sexuality, and class (among others) are needed in public discourse. Since the aftermath of Katrina, along with other incidents like the Kramer racial tirade, the Duke lacrosse case (which still has yet to be discussed and dealt with in a decent way & the larger issues of race and class are largely ignored), and the Imus madness - race has emerged in many a public debate and news headlines, but rarely engaged in complex ways. What has been made evident rather is the fear of talking about race, the denial of racism, and the belief in colorblindness as the dominant view of race in this country. This not only helps white people to feel justified in doing whatever they want and casting blame on people of color for our problems, and it also intensifies self-hate and internalized racism for people of color - and/or we just don't want to talk about it either - easier to deny and pretend that everything is equal... We are living in dangerous times - an' still no reparations (and when I say reparations - let's be clear - I don't mean cash, I mean supporting Affirmative Action and structural adjustments that will create social and economic equality for those who have been systematically and institutionally denied equal access).

I have been fortunate to attend a few excellent forums on race recently [Feb 26th - Panel Discussion - "A Series of Unfortunate Events? A Look at Race" & April 3rd - Lecture - "A Nation of Minorities: Race, Ethnicity, and Reactionary Colorblindness" - both at the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at UF's Law School]. These events have helped me to develop my thoughts, theories, and teaching about race and racism (especially Dr. Faye Harrison's statement on A Look at Race - which I will post in its entirety; and Dr. Ian Haney Lopez's lecture which I talk about below). And they have sparked many debates about race and gender with my friends. These have all created the following rants. I am including them here to keep track of my thoughts and in hopes of sparking more conversations and debates:

colorblind madness & Fox Attacks on Black America
So someone put a montage of Fox News clips that show Fox attacking "Black America" - meaning black issues, Barack Obama, affirmative action, and so on. What struck me was that they had a number of black folks agreeing with accusations of black people and communities being racist. One news reporter asked a conservative black politician if he thought Barack Obama's church was racist because they had in their mission statement a focus on the black community and black people and he said yes. This drove home to me how distorted discussions about race and racism are - especially in the public arena and media - and that we need explain what racism is and what affirmative action is and why it is still needed over and over again. Professor Ian Haney Lopez from UC Berkeley, who writes about race relations and law, does this in his work and talked about this in his lecture - and he gave an exceptional talk on reactionary colorblindness and why/how affirmative action is being attacked through a history of colorblindness and ethnicity in law and public discourse. He drove the point home that - We are now in this colorblind moment (that supports white dominance) where anyone can be racist - because the public sphere does not talk about structural racism - and discussions about race and racism are absent unless it is about an individual or it is based on culture and ethnicity - which are used instead of race. Professor Lopez said we have to de-legitimize colorblindness, support affirmative action, explain what it is - and describe it as "social repair" not preference or privilege - and talk about racial hierarchy and explain racism as a structural issue. If you don't know his work, you should check it out - I think his talk was one of the best discussions of race and law I have ever heard.

racialized gendered language and why imus' apology don't matter
While I am surprised and happy that Imus got fired, I am disturbed at how the media continues to spin this scandal - the discussions about race and gender are seriously problematic, rarely engaging in the history of this language or structural & internalized racism (NPR did have some better coverage) and these women have had to prove that they are "good, professional women," meanwhile discussions about Imus revolved around his "goodness." We live in a moment where people are so focused on the individual character and debates about whether or not Imus is racist and if he is a good person (same shit that happened with Kramer) - as opposed to talking about the fact that WHAT he said is racist and the language he used is racialized and gendered - the fact that an apology from him will never deal with why he was so comfortable saying what he said in the first place - his race and class privilege - on the flippin radio/internet/public sphere/public airwaves. And that he can bust out the tired excuse that - well "they say it to each other" routine - is taking us back to all the debates over the n-word - and reveals the extent to which we can't talk about race and racism in a serious way that addresses structural racism or even racialized & gendered language that's very different than "making fun of people." And the fact that these women feel like they have to (or more than likely advised to) defend themselves against this language and explain that they are not what he said shows us how powerful and loaded these racialized/gendered stereotypes are - because in the media/film/music/popular culture/etc. black women are seen as hos (thinking about the legacy of slavery and the perception that black women can't be raped and automatically thought of as prostitutes - ex. duke lacrose case). These women have been paraded around on shows, press conferences, and so on, to prove they are respectable black women - in other words, not like the "real hos" out there. And I am tired of these accusations that "the black community" has to deal with the language of hip hop and rap - as if various black communities haven't been doing this work for DECADES... as if the largest consumers of hip hop aren't white... as if the producers of the music and the videos aren't mostly white... as if we're the only ones who sustain this language... as if it doesn't come out of the history of slavery and segregation... as if we aren't talking about these issues... BUT I do agree we need to deal with our own issues - we have to talk about this ideal of black respectability and deal with the difficulty of talking about sex and sexuality - especially black female sexuality. Perhaps having these conversations will help us to deal with the aftermath of the duke case - like asking the question, what happened because something happened to this woman - who has now been rendered liar, invisible, and unimportant. So das why I think Imus' apology don't matter - cause it does nothing to deal with these deep-seeded issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class - it just helps to brush them back under the carpet - making this scandal an individual thing that doesn't reflect larger issues.

we are livin in a scary moment - It is regressive, conservative, reactionary, individualistic, capitalist, white-dominated patriarchy, fundamentalist christian... and in it - we are dealin with new kinds of racism and sexism that exist through denial and claims of equality...

stayin in the struggle,
Angelique