I’m probably not the best person to respond to this post, but I think it’s worth responding to nonetheless. To preface, I will say that I do not have an extensive background in race theory, legal or otherwise. I’m taking a class this semester, but given that we’ve only met once, I’m far from an expert. There are many of you who know more about this than I do. Please correct me and add your thoughts. I’m tempted to shut up, but given that these ideas are being expressed on one of the bigger libertarian/conservative blogs out there (and given that I’m a loudmouth), I can’t.
Jeff’s post comes down to a few arguments:
1. Race is not a biological category
2. Race theorists argue that “race” is the same as “culture.” “Culture” is supposedly an anti-essentialist social construct. This definition is problematic, because (a) pigmentation does not equate with individual racial identity, and (b) if race is culture, then once we stop following certain cultural beliefs or practices, we lose our racial identity.
3. Racial identity relies on heritage. But heritage can be handed down by anyone through education — if a black child is raised by white parents, her heritage and her memories will be more like her parents’ than of the “black community.”
4. The idea of “group memory” is ridiculous, because how do you remember something you never experienced?
5. To think of race as socially constructed is to think of it as essential.
6. “We” (in other words, “you”) should put aside our differences.
Where to start. First, like feminism, there isn’t a single version of “race theory” that everyone believes, so arguing that “race theorists thing that…” is inherently flawed. Second, my biggest problem with Jeff’s analysis is that he completely ignores the practical reality, which is that people are, in fact, treated differently by how they are racially classified (visually or otherwise), and that, contrary to what his post would imply, that treatment is not usually beneficial for the person classified as “not white.” I agree with Jeff that race is not based in biology; however, that doesn’t make it any less real. As an imperfect feminist parallel, gender roles are socially constructed. There’s nothing biologically “female” about femininity, or 99 percent of how we define womanhood. But that doesn’t make it any less real in our daily lives.
Race is an even more exaggerated situation. Does it matter to the practical lives of people of color that race is not biologically based when, for centuries, people with lighter skin have had been conferred greater social value? When people of color have had their countries, communities and bodies colonized by lighter-skinned people?
Jeff’s contention that race theorists equate race and culture is also flawed. Many (most?) race theorists see race as something distinctly different from culture. Ethnicity and race are not the same things, and ethnicity is closer to the definition of culture than race is. Some Western ethnic groups used the concept of race to subordinate other groups; this, however, does not make culture and ethnicity the same as race.
However, groups that have been divided into “races” can create collective culture. Many would argue that there exists a “black culture” in the United States.
Collectively, certain races (usually white people) have used race to give themselves greater privilege in society — greater access to capital, and greater economic, social and political power. The examples of this should be obvious enough where I won’t bother to give them. Here, it doesn’t matte all that much if a person self-identifies as white — if they “look” black, and are deemed by the white power structure to be black, then for all practical purposes they are black. And being black comes with a full set of oppressions and constraints. These power structures have been legally enshrined in this country, and they have been institutionalized.
Race is also constructed through belief and ideology which justify racism. The idea that white people are the “average Americans” is one example; Asians as “model minorities” is another.
And race cannot be examined out of cultural context. Racial groups have subordinated each other for centuries. European colonizers didn’t much care for the fact that the peoples they colonized were of diverse racial/ethnic/cultural backgrounds; for all intensive purposes, they were grouped into an “other,” with whiteness being the standard and the ruling category. Colonizers not only ruled, but exploited. The United States was, in the words of two race theorists, a racial dictatorship. Whites made the rules, and defined the race lines. Those lines were biologically inaccurate, but so what? They succeeded in defining “American” as “White.” Those who weren’t white were less American. To argue that this definition has been totally overrun today is completely disingenuous. If I say that someone looks “All-American,” what race is the person you picture? Beyond slavery, there is a long history of American law which other-izes non-whites; beyond that, cultural representations continue to represent America as White. White elites established a power hierarchy in this country based largely on race. This hierarchy remains a fundamental aspect of American society — how, after all, can a nation’s founding principles, which are maintained for centuries, be expected to erode in a mere 50 years? As Michael Omi and Howard Winant write,
[R]acial dictatorship consolidated the oppositional racial consciousness and organization originally framed by marronage an slave revolts, by indigenous resistance, and by nationalisms of various sorts. Just as the conquest created the “native” where once there had been Pequot, Iroquois, or Tutelo, so too it created the “black” where once there ahd been Asante or Ovimbudndu, Yoruba or Bakongo.
To read Jeff, one would come away with the idea that people of color have defined themselves as different since the very beginning. No. White people successfully otherized non-whites, breaking down cultural and ethnic barriers in favor of grouping them all as “black” or “native.” This has had resounding effects; now, being black in America has a particular social meaning that, biological or not, exists.
That doesn’t mean that race isn’t fluid. People who were considered “non-White” (Irish, Italian) have been able to integrate into white society, to the point where they are now considered part of the standard. But the lived reality of their non-whiteness when they were considered non-white mattered. In order to become “American,” immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe claimed to be white, and they succeeded. This is obviously a bigger problem for those people who do not appear “white.”
Jeff writes about the idea of “heritage,” and that it is learned. What Jeff leaves out, though, is the fact that our collective American heritage is a racist one. There is no escaping our history of racial oppression. Regardless of our own racial background, we are raised with a common history which is premised on the idea that certain racial groups are superior to others. None of us can escape this — not the white child raised by black parents, not the black child raised by white parents, not the Asian child, not the Hispanic child, not anyone. One didn’t have to be Rosa Parks to internalize our long history of racism; one does not have to be Al Sharpton to recognize that this history continues to have very real effects on how we perceive ourselves and others. But most of us are so deeply entrenched within this system that it’s difficult to recognize the fact that our beliefs, and our ways of organizing the world, are influenced by race, or perception of race. From Charles R. Lawrence III:
The theory of cognitive psychology states that the culture — including, for example, the media and an individual’s parents, peers, and authority figures — transmits certain beliefs and preferences. Because those beliefs are so much a part of the culture, they are not experienced as explicit lessons. Instead, they seem part of the individual’s rational ordering of her perceptions of the world. The individual is unaware, for example, that the ubiquitous presence of a cultural stereotype has influenced her perception that blacks are lazy or unintelligent. Because racism is so deeply ingrained in our culture, it is likely to be transmitted by tacit understandings: Even if a child is not told that blacks are inferior, he learns that lesson by observing the behavior of others. These tacit understandings, because they have never been articulated, are less likely to be experienced at a conscious level.
When Jeff writes about “race,” he writes about self-reported race, and ignores the fact that race classification operates on two levels — self-reported, and “other-ascribed.” Both versions are obviously problematic, in a variety of ways. Scientific evidence shows no basis for race. And so, race theorists argue, race is socially constructed. Jeff takes issue with this because, he says, recognizing that race is socially constructed is the same as essentializing it.
Well, no. Social construction is, by definition, different from essentialism. Those who say race is socially constructed argue that, though race has no biological basis, race has historically been used as a category to oppress some people (usually dark-skinned) and privilege others (usually lighter-skinned). But the fact that race has no biological meaning doesn’t mean that it lacks social meaning. Being constructed doesn’t mean that it isn’t lived as real. We can argue biology til the cows come home, but the fact will remain that those people who are identified/identify themselves as “black” tend to be poorer, less educated, less respected, and holding of less prestigious positions than those who are identified/identify themselves as “white.”
Essentialists argue that there is some inborn characteristic to blackness or whiteness, which would exist absent social conditioning, history and context. Race theorists may argue that there is difference between people of different racial groups, but that the root of that difference is socialized and constructed through centuries of oppression, subjugation, ideology, belief, and practice. Socially constructed doesn’t mean “fake;” it simply means not innate. Jeff glazes over that fact in asserting that those who argue race is socially constructed are arguing essentialism.
Jeff ends his post with a call for “putting aside our differences.” By this, I can only assume that he means “assimilation,” as white society is not generally considered “different.” It’s those who are non-white, regardless of how the category of non-whiteness is achieved, who are expected to put aside the ways in which they differ from the white ideal.
But how do they do that when white society continues to antagonize and attack people of color? Consider immigration, for example. Who are the problematic immigrants? Mexicans, right? And conservatives will insist that it’s because there’s simply so many of them. Consider:
In the midst of cries to limit illegal immigration, the figure of the Mexican border-crosser or of the Chinese boat person make the evening news, whereas the fact that Italians constitute the largest group of undocumented immigrants in New York is obscured. (After the Italians, the most numerous groups of undocumented immigrants in New York come from Ecuador, Poland, Ireland, and Russia.)
-Robert S. Chang and Keith Aoki, Centering the Immigrant in the Inter/National Imagination, 1998
I live in New York. I’m a pretty progressive person with an interest in immigration politics. And never had I ever heard that before.
My idea of “the illegal immigrant” is Mexican. My conception of the “immigration crisis” is one where Mexican immigrants are the problem. I’ll take responsibility for this racist belief. I’ll also point out that “illegal immigration,” in New York and elsewhere, is framed by the media, by politicians, and in the collective consciousness as a Mexican problem. I haven’t heard of any Minutemen staking out Manhattan Beach lately.
Immigration politics have always been informed by racism. You can’t say “race doesn’t biologically exist” and change the fact that people from countries where the dominant population is believed to be non-white are, and have long been, not considered genuinely “American,” and have been singled out when we discuss the centuries-old “immigration problem.”
Should Mexicans “put aside their differences” and acquiesce into an American society wherein non-Mexican-Americans view Mexicans, regardless of their actual legal status, as “foreigners”?
Point being, we can quibble over the definitions of race. We can argue that race is not biologically determined, and we can back that up with scientific evidence. What we cannot obscure is the fact that people are treated differently, and have long been treated differently, according to a racial system of privilege put in place by a dominant class that justified its domination, in part, by its racial superiority. The fact that the traditionally superior racial class continues to occupy most positions of power and prestige in this country is not a coincidence. Jeff wants us to forge a “national identity” — what he ignores is the fact that such a national identity has always been white, irrespective of whether or not “white” scientifically means anything. Whiteness has social currency.
Biologically, there may be “no such thing as race.” But socially, there certainly is such a thing, and it didn’t start with affirmative action. Progressive social programs which recognize race are not attempting to define its biological reality; they are simply dealing with the actual, very real social reality that has been created according to racial lines.
There are problems to be had with categorizing race. Duh. But that fact, coupled with a lack of biological support for the concept of race, does not render that concept obsolete or unimportant. That is what supporters of race-conscious policies like affirmative action recognize: There may be no logical basis for racism, but racial categories are so deeply socialized into our way of understanding the world that simple biological arguments don’t do the trick in actually getting rid of the racial privilege accorded to whites. Attempts to gloss over the fact that race is a lived reality ignore the experiences of the people who are subjugated by that reality, in turn reestablishing and further justifying white privilege.
By pretending that race doesn’t exist, we further emphasize that “whiteness” is the norm — after all, if race doesn’t exist, what’s the default culture? “Americanism?” What does that look like? Who does that look like?
Apologies for the scattered thoughts, the repetitiveness, and anything that didn’t make sense. Further clarification tomorrow, when my brain is not fried, and when it is not 1am and I need to be up by 6:30.
(As a final aside, Jeff’s post was in “honor” of Martin Luther King Jr. day. If there was ever a guy who recognized that race is not biologically determined but is nonetheless very real and cannot be ignored, it was Dr. King.)
The problem was not yours–how can one possibly write a coherent and all-encompassing response to that post? I think you did a fine job given those circumstances. Also, I humbly suggest that in the future when dealing with that kind of multi-faceted shite, y’all break it up into its constituent parts for separate posts. But then I’m a big fan of series.
Your point about the whiteness of SE European and Irish immigrants is spot on. Difficult to remember given their ubiquity in contemporary American society and culture (how American is “Italian” food, for god’s sake?!), but important to recall.
As an addedum, this is a must read on the subject:
Race and Multicultural Politics
Jeff Langstraat
http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/002992.html
Oh, and after I posted this
http://www.culturekitchen.com/liza/blog/who_benefits_from_the_the_whitewashing_of_class
a reader pointed me to this
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-rodriguez14jan14,1,7608322.column
this whole discussion about race and class is definitely in the air.
I didn’t find the post scattered or nonsensical at all; in fact, you did such a thorough job that I have little to add, except personal anecdotes.
I’m white, and my wife is the first child of South American immigrants. Since I met her:
I’ve gotten to see the reaction of people who’ve only spoken to her on the phone, and can’t reconcile her perfect English with her latte-colored skin.
I’ve gotten sidelong glances from (almost exclusively white) people when we’re holding hands at the grocery store.
I’ve had pharmacists address me at the counter, despite the fact that we’re picking up her prescription and she’s standing a pace closer (although it’s hard to resolve gender bias from race bias in that situation).
Claiming that we need to “put aside our differences” is missing the point entirely (no surprise from Goldstein). What we need to do, and what Dr. King spent his adult life trying to achieve, is stop assigning value to people based on how close they are to a false ideal of “whiteness”.
Like Dingbat, I’m really glad you touched on the move from “Otherness” to inclusion of Irish and Italian immigrants. I come from strong Irish and Italian roots, and it’s actually really interesting to have heard about the troubles my great grandfathers dealt with in coming to this country, when, as far as I can tell, nobody bats an eye at my background now.
I’m afraid I can’t add much to your analysis, though. The first thing that popped into my mind when reading the original article was the difference between self identification, and outside identification- how we see ourselves vs. how others see us.
Allow me to make a quick response (even though I’m about as white as one gets, pigmentation-wise):
1. Race is not a biological category
Speaking as a biochemist and an applied mathematician, I can only respond: define biological category.
2. Race theorists argue that “race” is the same as “culture.” “Culture” is supposedly an anti-essentialist social construct. This definition is problematic, because (a) pigmentation does not equate with individual racial identity, and (b) if race is culture, then once we stop following certain cultural beliefs or practices, we lose our racial identity.
I don’t get where he’s going with this one …
3. Racial identity relies on heritage. But heritage can be handed down by anyone through education — if a black child is raised by white parents, her heritage and her memories will be more like her parents’ than of the “black community.”
Speaking from not a theoretical but rather a practical perspective (which I should hope the theory would explain): would the black child still face discrimination on the part of his skin color? if the answer is “yes” as it alas no doubt is, I have no idea what the point he’s trying to make is …
4. The idea of “group memory” is ridiculous, because how do you remember something you never experienced?
I wish Jeff Goldstein would change his name to something less Jewish because he obviously knows nothing about Judaism (and even if he isn’t Jewish, having that name marks him as such — is that point itself on topic?) … Mr. Goldstein, group memory doesn’t exist? Well, then what’s the whole meaning of accepting that you personally were present at Sinai when Moses received the Torah from God if you cannot remember something you’ve never experienced? Judaism is built around the concept of group memory — so if you do not accept that concept, you should make sure that you don’t even get mistaken for being a Jew.
Well, actually, many cultures ask of their members to identify personally with their founding mythologies, so have fun finding an identity, Jeff, if you cannot accept, at least as a vital lie, the concept of group memory. I bet a “libertarian” like you thinks that being without moorings is an ideal state (if that’s true, though, what does that say about the libertarian mindset?), but we’re social animals Jeff … and being all alone in the world, well, gets pretty lonely …
5. To think of race as socially constructed is to think of it as essential.
That word, “essential”, you keep using it. I do not think it means what you think it means … . And yes, I’ll be ad hominem: JG == Vizzinni
6. “We” (in other words, “you”) should put aside our differences.
That’s the real point, isn’t it? Something bad happened, but it was in the past, so the victims should just move on and get over it. That, pace all their rhetoric on responsibility, seems to be the “conservative” mind-set in general, doesn’t it? The “Old Testament” gets much maligned by liberals and many religious conservatives claim to have their morality inspired by it, but a key aspect of “Old Testament” morality is that, while vengeance is wrong (something which many think is required of the “Old Testament” as they confuse vengeance and justice), justice and morality sometimes require not just moving on … individuals and society must take responsibility for those whom they hurt and it’s unjust and hence immoral (as well as pretty skeevy) for the perp to ask the vic to just “move on”.
I guess it’s ok for a “libertarian” to make such a blatantly immoral argument (although as my dad points out, if people were more responsible and did the right thing on their own, we wouldn’t need so much government, so libertarians should be — and real libertarians are — the first to advocate for responsibility, not eschew it as pseudo-libertarians so often do, albeit under the guise of arguing for “individual responsibility”), but much of the “religious right” also accepts this sort of argument (often to cover up their own personal racism), which is yet another way in which the religious right seeks to mandate immorality and ignores the Bible and “Old Testament morality” they claim to cherish so much.
for all intensive purposes,
I think you must mean “for all intents and purposes,”
I used to make that mistake myself. It’s hard when you’ve heard it said, but never spelled out. The words slur together. It’s a very easy mistake to make.
Jeff wants us to forge a “national identity” — what he ignores is the fact that such a national identity has always been white, irrespective of whether or not “white” scientifically means anything… By pretending that race doesn’t exist, we further emphasize that “whiteness” is the norm — after all, if race doesn’t exist, what’s the default culture? “Americanism?” What does that look like? Who does that look like?
I think these passages get to the root of Jeff’s confusion. He probably senses on some level that, as you point out, “whiteness” is an American construct that has no scientific or cultural/historical foundation outside our borders, and he concludes that it must therefore be wholly imaginary and therefore harmless.
I would be very much interested in a dissection of whiteness. I assume it could be seen as originally based on English norms and incorporating other European cultural traits as various other ethnic groups were brought under its umbrella; this hybridization probably inherited the foreign traits in proportion to the assimilated population’s size and social influence. But there does seem to be a paradox at work: there must be a norm of “whiteness” to which immigrant cultures sought to assimilate, but in what could this whiteness consist if not the sum of its constituent cultures? Is it really just WASP culture? The original American aristocrats, from Washington onward, certainly identified themselves as Englishmen; is this the standard of whiteness to which all immigrant have conformed? And if so, then why do the English seem so foreign to us today?
Assimilation is the process by which all cultures are born. I think the Left’s beef with assimilation to whiteness is the power differential: it’s a question of proportionality in the mutual incorporation of the other culture’s signifiers. But it’s absurd to claim that the American cultural norm doesn’t already incorporate huge segments of Black American culture, Irish culture, German culture, etc. So what is this whiteness that threatens to swallow us all up? To some extent, I think that Jeff’s confusion is understandable, if his conclusions are not.
People who were considered “non-White” (Irish, Italian) have been able to integrate into white society
I had an anthropology professor who was a child of Sicilian immigrants (who hence had a Latinate, and hence Hispanic sounding name as well as being a bit swarthy). He would tell how he was born as a non-white person. At some point as a kid he became white. And when he moved to So-Cal, he became, and he still can’t get over this one, an “Anglo”. I guess that’s kinda like how the Amish might refer to me (an Ashkenazic Jew) as “English” even if my ancestry is more akin to theirs than it is to an actual Englishman’s.
FWIW, though, considering his argument, this point is exactly the point JG would make if he had a little bit of a brain (and people like him with just enough of a brain to be dangerous do make this point): the Irish and the Italians have been able to become “white”, why can’t the blacks? Which, of course, ignores so much of American history and even the present, it would be laughable if people weren’t so serious and dangerous about making this point …
Anyway, another interesting random note on race: last time I was visiting my (very obviously non-white) gf (we live in different states), she overheard some people speaking about me in the shul: “he’s fairer skinned than I remember”. Somehow, even if I am unforgettably white, it seems like it’s important to some people that I should at least be a little off-white if a Black person is to be dating me.
I’ve gotten to see the reaction of people who’ve only spoken to her on the phone, and can’t reconcile her perfect English with her latte-colored skin. – Robert M.
At one point in my life I happened to know a lot of Latin Americans of pretty much straight up European ancestry (as well as a lot of Spaniards) — so I regularly saw the opposite: people who’ve only spoken to X on the phone before who cannot recollect his/her strong Hispanic accent with his/her non-latte but white skin. And people who cannot accept that some white person speaks perfect Spanish.
This guy’s post was just a long-winded exposition on how we should all be “colorblind.” Meaning, blind.
Funny how differentiating on the basis of skin color never seemed to bother conservatives when it was done, say, in the South in 1963. But when anyone suggests that the slightest accommodation should be made in our educational, legal or social systems for people of color, why then, huff puff, how awful it is to make racial distinctions! It’s the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” blah blah blah.
As the long citation at the beginning of his post suggests, Jeff’s building on the work of Walter Benn Michaels here. I put together a WBM reading list prior to the Valve’s book-event on The Trouble with Diversity which may help contextualize Jeff’s thinking. (Some of those links require access to JSTOR or Project Muse. If you don’t have access but would like to read them, send me an email.)
All of which is only to say that, ideally, Jeff’s argument doesn’t entail a default culture which is “white” or “American” in the pejorative sense. For WBM, “culture,” like race, is an incoherent category, the difference being that while race is based on a false assumptions about biology, culture is based on false assumptions about an individual’s relationship to history. So, for example, WBM would respond to this:
Not by refuting the effect of arbitrary, socially-constructed racial categories on American history, but by attacking the implied necessity of continuing to construct and embrace what we know to be arbitrary, socially-constructed racial categories. Yes, they have been important, but since culture does not exist, nothing will be lost if the tie between race and culture is severed. Since there is no “soul” of “black folk” passed down from one generation to next–after all, if the same person was “white” on one bank of the Mississippi and “black” on the other, his “essence” was somehow linked to legal definitions and state borders–the fight for, say, equitable treatment before the law shouldn’t be based on race but appeals to common humanity. (And, being that WBM belongs on the class side of the race vs. class debate, he would argue that, today, equitable treatment before the law is determined by the quality of the lawyers one can afford, not the color of one’s skin.)
All of which is very inflammatory, I know, and I’ve probably done a terrible job communicating this at 7:55 a.m. So if I’ve said something extremely offensive, I beg of you, give me the benefit of the doubt. WBM’s ideas are challenging, but they’re only racist if someone (like, possibly, me) oes a poor job of explaining them.
“oes” s/b “does,” obviously. (See! 8:00 a.m. is bad for the brain!)
Anybody read David Hollinger’s book Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism? I read it a few years ago for a class and generally thought it dealt admirably with the issue that so many people have a tough time grasping: that just because race is not essential, biological in a simple way, or the same for all members of any given group, that doesn’t mean that it’s imaginary. It has consequences and it shapes people’s lives and identities.
Anyway, it’s been a few years since I read this book, and I’d be curious to see how it holds up. Anyone read it and have thoughts?
Race is an extremely odd thing. I remember learning about the Holacaust as a kid and being SO confused. I’d already known all about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, and it was simply common knowledge that being black was something that didn’t endear you to the white powers-that-be: but the idea that they exterminated Jewish people blew my mind. To me, they were white people, so why were other white people calling them inferior and killing them? Then we learned about the poor treatment of the Irish and it dawned on me: “Oh! None of this actually makes any sense! Racism is just stupid.” Which was really a load off of my little kid mind.
One thing I find fascinating about race is how it intersects with ideas of beauty. Generally, I suppose I’m considered to clean up pretty nice, and people are always asking what I’m “mixed with.” And really, I am one of the most racially unambiguous people I know: dark brown, broad-nosed, practically black-eyed, full-lipped, bubble-butted… basically, I’m an afro away from being the poster child of blackness. But it’s as if the idea that a collection of purely African features might be nice to look at is totally foreign. When I respond to queries with “I’m just black,” it’s met with skeptical looks.
Great food for thought — makes me want to go back to college and take some race theory courses.
I was always fascinated by my grandfather, a proud man of Irish descent, who keeps a linen map of the island on his wall with his family’s origin prominently marked and celebrates St. Patrick’s Day like most people do the 4th of July. He’s also convinced that dark-skinned folk are biologically inferior, and that if the Mexicans would just give up their culture and act more like ‘Mericans, they wouldn’t be so troublesome.
Right. Way to make sense, Grandpa.
Off-topic, but there’s an interesting thread on Slashdot regarding gender discrimination in the engineering fields.
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/16/233204
Because Slashdotters are known for their logic and objective viewpoints on gender equality…
My father’s family has been in America for 100+ years longer than both sides of my boyfriend’s family. You would think that the extra 100 years would have made my family completely American and thus made people blind to our race, and able to navigate the world in exactly the same way as the BF’s family. But, strangely enough that hasn’t happened. I wonder why.
The BF’s family (Italian) has never had a neighborhood start a petition to keep them out of a house (in 1983). The BF’s family has never been stopped for driving or walking on the wrong neighborhood. Or told (as my brother was) that they fit the description of two men who had committed a crime. My family, an middle class black family has had to deal with some of the most racist bullshit imaginable. Threats in our mailboxes, racial slurs screamed out as I waited for the school bus, racial slurs carved into my desk at school. My parents who both grew up in the segregated south, could not believe the things that were happening to our family. All they wanted was a good life for their children, which included quality education and safe neighborhoods. Why couldn’t we have those things, since we were as All-American as anyone else?
My childhood taught me that sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you work, or where you live, or how much education you have, the world still judges you based on what they see. And what they saw when they looked at us was black skin, and nothing else mattered. So perhaps instead of lamenting the fact that people of color in this country don’t just get over it, and start being colorblind, JG needs to realize that racists are responsible for racism, not the victims of it.
Hopefully, that made sense, I’ve only had one cup of coffee….
Great post JIll! What Jeff fails to realize is that while it is true that race is socially contructed, racism is quite real.
Matt – If you’re interested, a lot has been written recently in the relatively new field of Whiteness Studies. The field was kick started by Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark–an excellent book, but it deals mostly with literature. Other books I’d recommend would be Valerie Babb’s Whiteness Visible, Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, George Lipsitz’ The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics, and speaking of the Irish and Italians, Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became White.
There’s more, much more to be found here.
Kim,
Are you serious? What kind of question is that to ask anyone?! I guess I’m showing my own naivete, but I can’t believe people would be so incredibly rude. (I mean, I believe it, I’m just astonished.) And that they would remain skeptical is ridiculous. They’re lucky you don’t respond with such a polite, straightforward answer, and not by telling them to go fuck themselves.
Sigh. But then, I guess there have been occasions (few and far between, but they exist) when I’ve been told I “look Jewish,” and I certainly don’t know how to respond to that.
Oooh, thanks. I’m slogging through the worst Graham Greene novel evar, but I’ll have to check those out.
Dave Neiwert’s series on eliminationist rhetoric over at Orcinus is crammed with interesting cites, too. The book on sundown towns by wossname looks really good.
Personally, unless there is a seriously unusual combo going on– and usually, it has more to do with their name than what they look like — I’ve never felt compelled to think too much about anyone’s background. But a lot of people are interested, apparently. I don’t think it’s MEANT to be rude: they probably have never given the underlying issues any real thought. I feel like it makes them feel more comfortable to know where to “place” you in relation to themselves. Kinda like how a lot of people dislike not being able to tell what gender someone is, because they don’t know how to properly interact without those cues being visible.
Oh. Another weird thing is that I apparently get read as Hispanic when my hair is either curly or very very straight. (And once, I was Polynesian!) Race is wacky.
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
Just picked it up Tuesday. I am only about 50 pages in but it covers an aspect of racism of which I had been aware, but had never seen anything in depth.
The book is by James Loewen. He wrote the “Lies My Teacher Told Me” book.
i am finding here something that drives me crazy about non-feminist strains of post-modernism. feminism (and other fabulous ideas and activisms about the world) have debunked the idea that there are only certain kinds of people who are naturally more powerful than others. but backlash takes over, and balls it up in its slimey (not in a good way) hands and says “well, never mind, you say power isnt important anyway, so ‘can’t we all just put aside our differences, eh, eh?’” where ‘putting aside differences’ really means putting aside those people and ideas that are not of already privileged categories.
which brings me here:
and here:
jill, i love these articulations of a critical difference. and, to me, no matter what Jeff is extrapolating on, we need to heed this point: people have been treated/(not)respected/(not) acknowledged as mattering (partly) based on the perceived color of their skin. and that is gross. it seems that we need to be able to hold both ‘things are socially/culturally constructed’ as true, as well as ‘these constructs have real socializing effects and affects.’ what do y’all think?
also, when it is asserted that something has been (partly) socially constructed, non-feminist post-modernists often translate that into ‘it doesn’t exist,’ which often leads to ‘there are no effects there of’ otherwise known as ‘get over it’. a major annoyance for me. and that reminds me of the asshat from Virginia who said that folks should ‘get over’ slavery. what’s up with that?
Don’t know if it counts as biology, but physical anthropologists do actually divide people into three races, though they don’t call it that, and those ancestral groups don’t generally have much influence over how race is perceived socially. The idea is that you can usually distinguish between someone of European vs African vs Asian descent by skeletal characteristics. The fun part is when you apply it to the groups that are most often stigmatized in our society: for example, the skeleton of a Hispanic will tend to have a somewhat even mixture of European and Asian traits (since the natives of the Americas look like Asians, skeletally), making them ‘white’ and ‘model minority’ rolled into one. And according to my professor, African-Americans have on average 25% European characteristics, and it’s rare to find an African-American decedent without a few European identifiers, which is especially interesting because (skeletally speaking, of course) Europeans and Africans are much more different from each other than either is from Asians.
</morbid thread drift>
Was going to skip right over the ad homs and reply at length, but I think Scott has done an admirable job already.
I certainly do realize racism exists. And I’m well away of the fact that we are often defined by how people see — and consequently categorize — us.
I simply believe that the answer to the “problems” with race is to force a paradigm shift in which the category of race is relegated to the dustbin of history, being, as it is, based on either lousy science, or some unintentional rehabilitation of lousy science through the backdoor of cultural studies. Just because we have come — incorrectly — to see race in a particular way should not prevent us from correcting our worldviews.
What I think is preventing us from doing so is that many people, in a society drenched in identity politics, are reluctant to give up on the categorizations “race” provides, even though they don’t wish to be associated with a school of thought that suggests, however obliquely, that we are practically different species based on something so mundane as pigmentation.
Which is to say, we don’t need to keep bolstering bad science simply because we’ve long bolstered bad science. Christ. Some of you hear sound like Ptolemians.
Please also note that much of this post (as I believe I mentioned in a comment) was written back in the late 90s, and was in direct response to two things: a call by our student newspaper to “celebrate the differences” (which is why I reprise the word “differences” in the conclusion — not, as some here would have it, because I’m somehow constrained by a white worldview that sees whiteness as “normal”), and a response to what was prevalent in racial theorizing at the time (and is still prevalent now). It was likwise tied into some work I was doing on interpretation theory and history, and branched off from competing discussions of identity formation in Beloved and Portnoy’s Complaint.
For the person who notes above that Judaism is constructed around group memory (aren’t all religions in some sense), I answer, so what? I never said group narratives don’t exist. I argued, instead, that it makes no sense to refer to these as “memories.” Monarch butterflies have constitutional memories. Humans problem do, as well, to a certain biological extent. But those genetic memories have nothing whatever to do with narratives we’ve told ourselves. Instead, they are more likely tied to things we think of now as “instinct.”
Religion is also based on a leap of faith — the faith in this case being the willingness to buy into the concept of group memory. I don’t mind that people do it — hell, I don’t even think it necessarily wrong in all contexts, just logically incoherent when conceived of as “memory” rather than “narrative” — I had just hoped to point out how it works, and why it fails intellectually when pressured. Because it does, in fact, rely on the same kind of blood argument that used to motivate race theory.
What my post is doing is simply showing the underlying problems with the logic of race (if you get a chance, click through the link where I debate from the “cultural” side on this issue with Steve Sailer and other hereditary geneticists.)
p.s. i love the conversations that happen here. damn.
Was this directed at me? If so, can you explain where I used any ad homs in response to you?
I hear this complaint often enough in seminars, but never have I encountered the object of it. Even the harshest critics of WBM acknowledge that while they find his argument unconvincing and, well, offensive–even they acknowledge that his proposed solution isn’t “get over it,” but “look at the economic and class basis of the problems you believe race-related.” In fine, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone with an intellectual debt to post-structural/post-modern thought who doesn’t believe discrimination is both a historical and pressing problem; you will, however, find many who believe that problems associated to issues of race would be better approached by attending to issues of class.
For example, I certainly won’t say that racial discrimination shouldn’t exist, and therefore doesn’t exist, and that people should just “get over it.” I will say that racial discrimination exists, but that the solution involves, say, the redistribution of tax revenue, such that under-funded inner-city schools receive more money, provide a quality education for their largely African-American students, thereby allowing them to compete with wealthier children on a more level playing field. I will say that affirmative action at the college level represents a “too little, too late” approach to social equity and social justice, that it’s the proverbial band-aid over a sucking chest wound, &c.
Jill, I think he was referring to #6, in which he was unfavorably compared to a certain clever Sicilian hunchback.
No, wasn’t aimed at you, Jill. In fact, I put up a new post in which I called your response “courteous.”
In re: Scott’s latest comment: I have come out as a potential proponent for affirmative action based on economic considerations and access to opportunity. This, to me, seems entirely more sensible and defensible than race-based affirmative action.
He also correctly identifies the strawman argument I hear so often. I am not telling anyone to “just get over it.” I am instead proposing a way how we, as a country, can learn to get past the racial divide, such as it is and will remain, particularly so long as we follow the same failed course we;ve been following since the Great Society days.
Thank you so much for doing the tremendous work of critically analyzing Jeff’s argument. Doing that reveals just how illogical many of the points are. Just one of the choice insights you provide: “To read Jeff, one would come away with the idea that people of color have defined themselves as different since the very beginning. No. White people successfully otherized non-whites, breaking down cultural and ethnic barriers in favor of grouping them all as ‘black’ or ‘native.’” Yes!
It’s amazing how easy it is for people in dominant groups in our social hierarchy (white, middle-to-upper-class, ablebodied, heterosexual, male) to say we need to “put aside our differences” and “get over” race. Easy to do when you never are acknowledged as being different, you never have to explain your presence, you never feel anything but natural and universal.
RE: Kim’s story about being asked if she’s “mixed.”
For any of you who may be thinking that perhaps she’s jumping to conclusions by conflating this with notions of beauty, I can vouch from my own experience that these inquiries are most often preceeded by a remark on physical attractiveness. It’s never brought up in a discussion in which white people are going on about how they’re “mixed” with Irish, Italian, and a dash of Cherokee, so they want to know what you’re “mixed” with too. It’s always, “Wow, you’re gorgeous. Where are you from? No, I mean, where are you from *originally*?” Or “Mixed people are always so pretty! What are you mixed with?”
I’m sure many of the impolite inquisitors are black, too. At least a good number of the people who ask me the same thing are.
And no, Kim, you’re not an Afro away from being the poster child for blackness (presuming you’re capable of growing one, which all black people aren’t). As someone who stopped straightening her hair in order to look blackER (which is a stretch because, like Kim, I’ve got dark skin, hair, and eyes, a broad nose, and well-padded lips and glut’s), I’m here to tell you it doesn’t work. If you’re attractive enough, and I suspect you might be, not even an Afro will confirm your blackness in the minds of racists. The cognitive dissonance of finding someone attractive and acknowledging their blackness *at the same time* is just too much for many.
I do wonder if black men get this as often as black women, since it’s more acceptable to find black men attractive than it is to find beauty in black women. Any anecdotes?
Was this directed at me? If so, can you explain where I used any ad homs in response to you?
Nope. If I may be such an egoist, I was the one making ad hom arguments …
Actually, it’s interesting to bring up Kierkegaard (“leap of faith”) in connection with Judaism and the Jewish notion (which, as Jeff points out is not unique to Judaism) of shared memory. I had the opportunity to give two sermons this year on the Akedah, and I had thought about some discussion along these lines, but decided I didn’t have enough time to think through the issues enough to do justice to any comparison between what Kierkegaard had to say and what the Rabbis had to say about the Akedah. I’ll need to remember this thread, though (and to give credit where credit is due), if I end up giving any sermon where the Torah portion involves the reading of the 10 commandments — I really should wade into Kierkegaard at least at that time.
Anyway, of course, in many ways Jeff is correct about the problems with the logic of race (and anyway, a celebration of differences doesn’t necessarily imply an enshrinement of racial differences — there are many kinds of differences involved in life and viva la differance!): but as Kevin points out, even if the concept of race is logically problematic, racism is still quite real — race not making sense as a construct does not imply racism doesn’t exist.
As to the issue of class vs. race, I would indeed agree that, while our country’s horrendous history of racism (which is not merely remembered as group memory … many people alive personally remember the days of segregation … c.f. Greg Palast’s comments on a key reason why the media didn’t report the FL disenfranchisement story correctly) explains the association between class and race, what really keeps the under-class down is often not racism, but classism. More needs to be done to address class issues in our society, but, because of our self-interested aristocratophilic punditocracy, class is the 3rd rail of American politics. Still, racism does exist and its consequences must be rememedied.
I have come out as a potential proponent for affirmative action based on economic considerations and access to opportunity. This, to me, seems entirely more sensible and defensible than race-based affirmative action. – Jeff G.
In many ways indeed it is, even where (institutional) racism is at the core of the discrimination to be remedied. For instance, my mom grew up in a mainly Hispanic community (it was where my grandparents could afford to live). The schools were bad. Some of the problem was a matter of economics (class). But some of the difference in educational quality was likely due to racism. But the fact that my mom’s not hispanic didn’t exempt her from getting a bad education (OTOH, because my mom’s Jewish and was a member of a Jewish youth group, she did have the opportunity to meet up with kids who were not living in her neighborhood and, e.g., discuss school work — so she knew the weaknesses of her education in a way that her classmates admittedly would not know): and the argument that “your mom’s parents were white and coulda lived elsewhere” is somewhat fallacious. It would apply to, e.g., comparing a white family with an African-American family living in a segregated region, but what kept the families living where my mom grew up living their was not discrimination but rather the costs of moving and the lack of affordable housing.
Well, I see Tara is not a particularly close reader…
It seems to me that this whole thing seems to rest on a bizaare equating of people’s concern for their own family history and cultural identity, and a tendency to classify other people by their percieved race and treat them to fit the sterotypes. It’s not the same thing, as any look at Irish-American culture will show you. People can hang onto their sense of themselves as part of a particular culture, and a particular heritage without somehow causing others to treat “those people” as a monolithic type. And lacking an internal sense of yourself as a particular race isn’t going to protect you from other people’s perception.
But I suppose it’s easier to complain about things like multi-cultural days and Black Student Unions because they’re publically visible, rather than look at what actually harms people, because most people know to deny racism even when they’re crossing the street to avoid walking near a black person, or claiming that a skinny sixteen-year-old boy with a ‘fro on a bicycle ‘fits the description’ of a suspect who’s a big bald guy with a car (happened to a kid I knew).
Oh. And for those interested, here is a link to the comparison of identity formation in Beloved and Portnoy’s Complaint that I wrote of earlier.
I add this here because it addresses the Othering notion that is so important to Jill’s response, and to the responses of many of the commenters here.
I think the issue I see is that “identity politics” are a backlash to the other-ascribed categorizations, specifically the other-ascribed categorizations foist upon the marginalized by those in power. In other words, if you’re constantly hearing the accomplishments of white people lauded, while accomplishments of your own are at best ignored and often disparaged, it’s not surprising that you’d want to celebrate the accomplishments of those who fit into the same other-ascribed category as you do. Furthermore, in order to feel pride and turn things back on the class in power, you will find pride in the very thing they have ascribed to you, even though their view of it is negative. If you can’t escape it, you might well embrace it. it’s a survival mechanism.
What I’m getting at is the only real way you’re going to get rid of racial categorizations is to start with those in power. What, however, is their incentive to do so? Sure, it’s bad science, but it helps keep them in power. You’ve got an agency problem. And it doesn’t help the marginalized to give up their self-classification, because the classification will still be thrust on them from the outside.
Or as a commenter “Black” said on Jeff’s blog, “You first,” meaning whites in general. IOW, the class in power needs to give up ascribing characteristics to the marginalized before the marginalized will give up their own categorizations. Now, how do you do that? One way might be teaching people it’s bad science. I don’t think that goes far enough to deal with the agency problems, though. How do you force the paradigm shift?
I’ve seen percieved race wind up with some funny results. When I was in the Philippines, nearly all white people would be percieved as Americans (which is a good way to drive European people up the wall), but two other Americans I knew were frequently seen as Filipino on first impression.
One woman had exclusively Chinese ancestry, but her aptitude for the local languages and her skin being browner than the common Filipino idea of how Chinese people looked led to them thinking she was a Filipina of the predomonant Malay ethnic group.
Another friend had predomonately African ancestry, with some Cherokee, I think. She fit the common American idea of what a black person looked like (and she did have an afro), but a lot of Filipinos assumed she was one of the indigenous dark-skinned Aeta (a small local ethnic group who are about as genetically related to Africans as Europeans are).
Great post, Jill, you were certainly able to make a lot more sense out of that meandering post than I was.
Here’s what I think is so funny about these theoretical sleights of hand: as a person of color, you get it pounded into your head your entire life, in a million ways, in your visceral non-theoretical interactions with white people (ranging from subtle humiliations and psychic violations to physical violence), that your non-white race makes you different from, inferior to, less attractive than, and otherwise less deserving of status than white folks; then one day, on a whim, white folks suddenly wake up and say, “But there’s no such thing as race. And you know, all those childhood experiences of being singled out for your race, all those movies and TV shows in which you had to watch your person being emasculated on screen, all those slurs and fistfights, they don’t count. We take it back. Forget about race.”
As Nezua recently wrote:
Peace.
One other thing I ought to have added. The class in power also needs to stop ascribing characteristics to itself. Which I actually think is more important.
I can’t speak to what black men are told to their faces, but I have repeatedly heard people speak of actors like Denzel Washington in similar terms, not that he’s an attractive black man, but somehow crosses into an undefined territory of being attractive despite being black.
Its as if there is one set of standards for being attractive and white, and another, different set for being attractive and black, and that he is so attractive that he manages to qualify in both.
It isn’t often quite that blatant, but the idea is under there somewhere.
damn. i want to apologize. I inadvertently suggested that you, Jeff, were saying ‘just get over it.’ i do take issue, though, with the idea of ‘putting aside our differences,’ and maybe it is the phrase ‘put side’ that leaves a bod taste in my mouth. i must admit that when i hear ‘put aside’ i hear a parenthetical ‘get over it.’ i will, however, take you on your word that you are not saying that, especially since you said this is an older post. oh, and i do agree that race and class get conflated way too often.
but, Scott, what’s with this?:
the first strikes me as quite passive aggressive: i am the student to your teacher, is it? please correct me if, and i hope i am, wrong. what do you mean?
and for the second part, i am not sure what you mean? do you mean you have never encountered the person/idea that asserts a cleaver reinvention of the terms? if so, then i offer up deleuze & guattari,’ especially A Thousand Plateaus. i find a lot of what they say wonderful, but it is telling that they suggest throwing out ‘identity’ and ‘concepts’ just as the feminist movement, as an identity, it taking hold. this, to me is a version of ‘get over it.’ and when you are part of a culturally sanctioned and visible identity that is deemed to have agency in the world, part of the group that matters, that signifies as ‘human’ (let’s call it privilege, and i will include myself here), it is easy to philosophically suggest or condone the ‘death of identity politics.’
I can’t speak to what black men are told to their faces, but I have repeatedly heard people speak of actors like Denzel Washington in similar terms, not that he’s an attractive black man, but somehow crosses into an undefined territory of being attractive despite being black.
Hmm. Could you give me an example of how this might be phrased? I remember a sort of opposite complaint on the Fametracker boards, back when Fametracker had boards–a black woman (she mentioned this in her post, IIRC) said (I believe it was in the “Unpopular Opinions” thread) that she didn’t really find Denzel Washington all that attractive, and she sort of suspected a lot of people only said they did because he was considered the Serious But Still Attractive Black Actor, like people had to sort of show how they could in fact be attracted to a black man.
Anyway. But I have trouble thinking of how a conversation you’re describing might go (not doubting you that it happens, just a failure of imagination on my part) so I’d be curious as to what’s going on.
i am the student to your teacher, is it?
Not unless you promote me. To rephrase: in Critical Race Theory seminars I’ve taken, I’ve often heard complaints in the form of “Thinker X believes Y to be a social construction, therefore think it an issue beneath notice, which people should just ‘get over.’” But, as with my WBM example–about whom such complaints are frequently aired–most of the time there’s no actual “get over it,” only a redirection of attention (or a proposed redirection of social action) in another direction.
it is telling that they suggest throwing out ‘identity’ and ‘concepts’ just as the feminist movement, as an identity, is taking hold. this, to me is a version of ‘get over it.’
You’ll need to parse this for me in more detail, as I haven’t read D&G in years. Off the top of my head–not necessarily the best place to start, mind you–I can think of many reasons having nothing to do with the rise of identity politics for D&G to reject identity as a concept in the mid- to late-70s. Foremost among them, the fact that early identitarian thought was deeply indebted to psychoanalytic and anti-psychoanalytic discourses–the very binary Deleuze, at least, had been trying to think his way out for the better part of 15 years. He wouldn’t be telling anyone to “get over it.” He’d be rejecting conceptual basis of the activist strains of then-contemporary feminist theory.
that she didn’t really find Denzel Washington all that attractive, and she sort of suspected a lot of people only said they did because he was considered the Serious But Still Attractive Black Actor, like people had to sort of show how they could in fact be attracted to a black man.
Honestly? I don’t think Denzel Washington is the most attractive black male actor ever, but then, I don’t think Brad Pitt is the most attractive white male actor ever. But they’re still both attractive enough to deserve their accolades (as well as being good actors). So I think she’s off base.
Actually, Brad Pitt is the most attractive white male actor. And Mos Def is the most attractive black male actor.
I’m just reporting the facts. Don’t take it personally. ;-)
Mos Def was hot… until I found out he has like 6 kids with 5 women. Now he’s just funny-looking.
George Clooney and Djimon Honsou will be surprised to hear of that, Jill.
George can take the silver medal. But Brad might have to share the gold with Romain Duris.
Jeff – My apologies for my statement above. I do stand by the statement as a general principle to remember because I’ve heard too many times people argue that racism is a thing of the past, but it was wrong for me to assume that you yourself don’t acknowledge that racism exists since I’ve never seen you write such a thing.
I want to reply to both your and Jill’s posts at length, but it will have to wait because I want to spend some time re-reading your original post and response to Jill before doing so. I will say though that like i.m. butch I read the “put aside our differences” bit and cringed. Kai hits the nail on the head here for me. Where I grew up, I was often chased down the street by thugs calling me nigger. At my school, just a little over a year ago, a prospective black student was stabbed for daring to stand up to a bunch of students hurling epithets at him. Believe it or not, this is common shit for a lot of PoC; and the result is that many PoC have had to learn, that’s right learn, how to love themselves. So, when I hear arguments that say I should now chuck race out the window, even if I agree that it is a socially constructed concept, well, I think that’s easier said than done–at least at this stage of the game.
i.m butch – I don’t think Scott is being passive aggressive here. He’s a grad student and I think he’s referring to his experiences in grad student seminars as a student, not as a teacher of such seminars.
justicewalks – Well I can say that I have gotten the “what are you mixed with?” or worse “what are you?” question my entire life; and it’s usually in the context of “my you’re so exotic.” I’ve got the afro, I’ve got the full lips, and I’ve got the broad nose, but I’m light-skinned and have high cheekbones, which I guess makes me seem “exotic.”
Am I allowed to count an Arab as white, if he can get away with playing a Russian? If so, Omar Sharif, at the age he was when he played Doctor Zhivago, is the definitive most attractive white male actor ever. If not, I’ll have to settle for George Clooney. The most attractive black male actor hasn’t yet been named, but that’s OK, since the ones suggested are not bad, either :-).
More seriously,
So, what exactly is “early identitarian thought,” then? Is this something stemming out of the Frankfurt School? And does it have anything at all to do with “identity politics” as the phrase gets commonly used outside the academic world?
A little late to the thread, but about the race and biology thing:
Skull anthopometry is ok to a certain degree, but it will class the Khoisan of southern Africa, because of their skull shape, as Asians, even though they’re obviously African. Furthermore, what would happen with a person of mixed race? For example, there are some Hispanic people who have very Native American features but fair coloring.
Also, racial categories are difficult to define. Races/species are sometimes defined, for sexually reproducing species, as ones that can or can’t interbreed (and obviously different races of humans can). In the US at least, we think in essentialist terms of “white” (as in Nordic white), “black”, “Asian” (in terms of East, usually Northeast Asian), “Hispanic (in terms of a dark-skinned Native American type), etc.
However, Indian and Middle Eastern people, especially if they are dark, are not considered “white”, although they are genetically closer to Europeans than to Africans or Asians. The vast majority of black Americans are actually mixed race, but when we see them we think they are black. Some nationalities, where there is a lot of ethnic diversity, don’t have an identifiable appearance – in places like Brazil, you can have blond blue eyed as well as very African looking Brazilians, in Afghanistan, some people look South Asian, some people look European and some people look Asian, and of course many people in between.
Only skimmed the comments (apologies – feel migraine coming on) but after reading the post, a key question that I always find when discussing race, multiculturalism etc is when you do connect people by race.
I’m a swimming instructor and where I work, I teach quite a few kids of Sudanese and Indian/South Asian descent and whilst I would never say all because all kids are different, 99% of the kids from these heritage can not or hardly float/do things on their back. From the Race type classes I have taken at school and uni, I shouldn’t say these things and I feel so rude/bad/hate myself (hello other post!) for it but it is very common. For some reason, it is alright to note that large kids float very well but the same can’t be said for ‘race’.
And people who cannot accept that some white person speaks perfect Spanish.
One of the things I experienced a lot when I was a kid here in Australia (Chinese mother, British father and an appearance that usually passes as white but does get questions semi-regularly), was that I’d get all this praise when people discovered I could speak Cantonese, because “it must be so hard learning another language”, and I was always so confused when the same people would dump on immigrants for not speaking perfect English, because they’d just told me learning a second language was hard. I still think it’s ridiculous. Now I know *why* it’s ridiculous.
thanks for your clarifications, Scott. this brings us back to the crux, i think – the idea of re-direction of attention. i have often found that feminism and race theory are ways of thinking that consistently get (re)directed away from, rather than toward.
as an example: i agree (also top of my head) that D&G were trying to think through that (anti)psychoanalytic binary, but it was french feminism that became part of the carnage, as it was at that moment that french feminism was deeply entrenched with psychoanalytic thought.
D&G, is netiher here nor there (or there), really. but i am deeply interested in how we can redirect attention toward the ideas/activisms we think are important without inadvertently covering over other often marginalized thoughts. and
this seems important here in our discussion of Jeff: how can he redirect attention toward “affirmative action based on economic considerations and access to opportunity,” for example, without being accused of ignoring race? that kind of thing i constantly struggle with. any suggestions?
I’m white as well and my husband is Sri Lankan (and very dark) and we get some of the oddest looks when we go out. I’ve mostly gotten used to it, but I also get very rude questions when I’m out with my kids (without the husband) that just annoy me to no end. I constantly get asked where I adopted them from, etc. Mostly from little old ladies. For some reason, people assume that I must have adopted them because a red headed white girl can’t ever have brown babies naturally. It just seems very difficult for them to wrap their brains around the fact that I might have willingly had sex with, and had the children of, a non white person.
Oh, and on the subject of the most attractive black actor, it’s Don Cheadle (sp?). Also, Morgan Freeman when he was younger.
Lynn:
So, what exactly is “early identitarian thought,” then? Is this something stemming out of the Frankfurt School? And does it have anything at all to do with “identity politics” as the phrase gets commonly used outside the academic world?
I wanted to point to the moment post-structuralists started to appropriate mainstream ’60s radicalism — literary scholars discovering second-wave feminism in the ’70s would be one example. Most such adoptions — then and, sadly, now — were heavily influenced by psychoanalytic theory, which would lead to Deleuze’s rejection of it. That said, it isn’t coterminous with what’s popularly called “identity politics,” as the popular iteration entails social activism like the Civil Rights Movement. Academics who work on identity politics like to bask in reflected glory, however, which is why the two (and criticism of them) are often confused.
For example, I’m vehemently opposed to academic theories of identity politics, not because I disagree with the goals of, say, the GLBT community, but because the theories of identity formation and maintenance propounded by academics relies on psychoanalytic theories of development. Much academic work on identity is unscientific, and I can’t abide by it. All of which is only to say:
I don’t believe “identity politics” means the same thing in academic and popular discourse, but many academics do — and they like to throw the label “conservative” at people like me because of it.
i.m.butch:
thanks for your clarifications, Scott.
No problem. (Although I was kind of hoping you could promote me. Sigh.)
i agree (also top of my head) that D&G were trying to think through that (anti)psychoanalytic binary, but it was french feminism that became part of the carnage, as it was at that moment that french feminism was deeply entrenched with psychoanalytic thought.
This is certainly true; then again, as I said above, I think there’s more to be gained by moving away from psychoanalytic theory than there is to be had by sticking to your Lacanian fusille. I’ve tempered my opinion somewhat in the past year, but I still feel, quite strongly, that any theory of identity predicated on psychoanalysis gets off on shooting itself in the wrong foot.
but i am deeply interested in how we can redirect attention toward the ideas/activisms we think are important without inadvertently covering over other often marginalized thoughts.
There’s no way to do it. For me to talk about my dissertation in a prospectus workshop means you can’t talk about yours. I know that’s not a satisfying answer, but it’s all I have. I believe that, one day, my commitment to economic justice will ameliorate social conditions we currently associate with racial tension, and I hope other people can recognize that; but I know that this approach marginalizes those who would tackle race head on. Thing is, I sincerely believe I’m right, that I know better — not that I’m going to force this down anyone’s throat, mind you, but it’s what motivates me to do what little I can whilst being a poor graduate student.
So I only have one suggestion: Ambien. Works for me (sometimes).
scott, i do like me some feminist psychoanalytic theory, i must say. it is the best way i have found to think through the politics of pleasure and desire. not the whole ball, but it is a discourse that works for me more often than not.
and this…
…i like. it’s, well, sweet.
Nooooooo. The most attractive black actor ever is Taye Diggs. I can’t see him in anything without thinking about licking his stomach.
Among other things. Ahem.
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My Lived Life Is All The Theory I Need
As I mentioned in the post below, Jill has written [...]
scott, i do like me some feminist psychoanalytic theory, i must say. it is the best way i have found to think through the politics of pleasure and desire. not the whole ball, but it is a discourse that works for me more often than not.
I lost my high school attachment to psychoanalysis when I wound up majoring in psychology in a heavily experimentally oriented psych department. As far as I can tell, the evidence doesn’t hold for it being useful therapy, or all that good a model of the current state of psychological research. On the other hand, aspects of it still work as metaphor.
Here’s something that puzzles me about Jeff’s response:
“(To wit: in order to know which heritage or group memory to embrace, one must decide before hand what they essentially are. Or, to put it another way, I’m not asserting that social construction is “fake”; I’m saying it only ‘works’ if it is mapped onto the same kernel assumptions that animate traditional essentialist thinking).”
One MUST decide, or social construction doesn’t work? No. It is not as if social constructs have fixed attributes. They are made up of relationships between people and institutions that change. That in itself is enough to make their “essence” useless except for rhetorical purposes, linguistic convenience, ideology…
So yes, essential natures are bandied about. But they are not essential when you’re analyzing identities. These seem to be composed of ideas about relationships between people, and relationships are ephemeral.
Jeff writes of deciding about essences before judging, embracing perhaps. But I think identities are reconstructed on-the-fly from materials at hand; the deciding is about some relationship between you and another person or social institution. In this way, identity need not make sense as it accumulates.
Pardon me for tackling the subject in a half-considered driveby.
I read the first part of the link that Jeff posted (regarding Toni Morrison, etc.). I got tired (as in frustrated)/bored and stopped, because of his conceptualization of the “black aesthetic” is marred by the same error in thought that characterized his reposted blog on fictitious “race theorists.” Jeff conflates a recognition of the existence of races and cultures that roughly–though by no means perfectly–correspond to race with the idea that races, by their very nature have an immutable, irreducible essence. Therefore, by his reasoning, there is no possibility of a black aesthetic that would artistically depict the experience of Africans in America.
Blackness is fictive as essence, so, as the logic continues, it must be *completely* learned. Jeff maintains that any non-black writer skilled enough could simply learn to imitate and skillfully reproduce the tropes of blackness and lose none of the attendant authenticity. (Which on its face is ridiculous, since you cannot spell “blackness” without, ahem, black.) But it is a mistake to believe that the learned nature of a behavior or an identity has the same existence as a simple fact. To possess what we might call black identity, one must be socialized from a very young age (probably birth) and and often (at school, at home, in front of the TV, etc., etc.). Becoming “black,” I can tell you from personal experience, didn’t happen overnight. And much of it wasn’t conscious. One’s identity is so deeply ingrained, that no Other can simply imitate it, not authentically. Again, as so many have said here, the learnedness/constructed-ness/arbitrariness of a thing (particularly as regards race, gender, class, etc.) does not make it any less intractable.
P.S. I also read a lot the comments on Jeff’s post. It was really irritating because it just devolved into a debate on affirmative action (Scott acquitted himself very well). Of course, people wanted to compare racial apples to oranges, and makes the general the child of the particular. You know, the story that begins, “Well, my great-grandfather came to this country 100 years ago and didn’t know a word of English….”
And Jill:
Props on the Omi and Winant reference (in addition to the general kudos for the post). I was thinking Omi and Winant as soon as I started reading, and surprise–there it was.
I wouldn’t go that far. Eventually I threw my hands in the air and wrote a play.
Well, by that point in the thread, I couldn’t blame you :-).
I’m OK with debates on affirmative action in principle, but darn, do they all have to keep returning to the premise that everything got fixed 150 years ago when slavery ended?
Geez, just take the damn compliment.
but the fact will remain that those people who are identified/identify themselves as “black” tend to be poorer, less educated, less respected, and holding of less prestigious positions than those who are identified/identify themselves as “white.”
——
The problem is that all falls apart when we look at certain races (or, more correctly, identity groups): while blacks and latinos may fit the above model, Jews, Arabs, and Asians do not. The latter three groups all enjoy higher incomes and higher status than whites in America.
The fact is, America is a meritocracy. Some cultures (not races, not identity groups) are better suited to succeed, and anyone can decide tomorrow to join a different culture. Blacks, hispanic, Jew, asian or white, one can decide to study and work hard or to live “ghetto” or anything in between. That’s hardly a decision to follow a racial ideal.
In fact, identitarians are actually hurting minorities by perpetuating failed cultures in the defensive guise of racial identities. Instead of being able to say “Hey, maybe you should work hard, stay out of trouble, and succeed” poor blacks are told they cannot succeed because of who they are — and they better not even try, because to do so would be unblack of them. The pariah effect is so common Chris Rock and other black comedians have mentioned it often for years now — succeeding by working hard, studying, and staying out of trouble is perceived as “acting white” (and is thus a betrayal of one’s race), when in fact it is, objectively and without regard to race or identity group, simply a better way to live.
TallDave,
I was scrolling….and scrolling, looking for tiny flicker of common sense, didn’t see any, then decided, in my humble way, to be the first to provide it.
Then I saw your sensible post. You beat me to it gosh darn you to heck.
Gays, by the way, have unusually high incomes. “Oppressed” minorities all over the world often have unusually high incomes (Chinese outside of China, Some Indian minorities, Jews, of course, always the Jews…).
The whole idea floating throughout this post is that Whitey has decided who will succeed and who will fail (having decided, for some reason, to cede professional basketball to blacks…Yeah, right. “We” don’t really want to make millions playing that stupid game. You do that, we’ll sell life insurance. Take that, darkie!).
Since this doesn’t fit with the facts, you get increasingly complicated – but often quite eloquent – rhetoric that just gets progressively more and more baroque and harder to utter or write without those little pangs of consciounce that say, “Do you really believe this crap?”
“We” actually do make millions off that stupid game, Randall. “We” being the team owners. The guys who rake in the dough while white America’s rage is focused on the players, those evil, ungrateful thug like sons-of-bitches who make too much money, think too much of themselves, and get into the occasional game fight that monopolizes national discourse for weeks?
Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.
“We” have decided that “they” will play the game and we will manage it and make money off of it (Where do I go to get my cut?).
We’re a tricksy one, we are. I wish “we” had given “us” more spots on the actual playing floor, though, so “we” could watch “us” playing the game.
But I guess we would rather focus our rage on the hated black basketball players than make a gajillion dollars playing a popular sport and getting all the nook-nook a guy could ever want.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s why I’m not a professional basketball player. I’d rather work for about 1/100th the money in an office 40 plus hours a week.
The opportunity for a little rage-focusing makes the sacrifice well worth it though.
Oh great.
Now we’re letting black coaches into the Superbowl.
Two of ‘em!
Aaaarrrg!!