Renouncing Whiteness: Colonizing the 'Other'? (pt 1)

I wish Giroux would not use so many $50 dollar words. The issues of radical democracy are not so hard to comprehend in simple words.

A woman after my own heart. :)

Acculturation does not equal assimilation, that is the crux of the issue for me as a person and as an educator. Everyone, including whites, have the right to BE.

Hmm, is Giroux really asking whites to forfeit whiteness in the same way that we (white academics) might think about a marked other "assimilating" by forfeiting their marked behaviours, or is "he" proposing something else here? I feel like (and, frankly, hope) there is a more nuanced definition of "whiteness" at work here.

...Or maybe not.

Frankly, by the time I wade through his verbage, I am more exhausted than when reading William F. Buckley. At the end of a Giroux piece, I just don't give a reservoir. I prefer Freire.

Giroux is Canadian and more strident than the Brazilian Freire. I think Freire's writing has more depth because he suffered for "the cause" more than Giroux. I don't see Giroux as a real activist. His academic hands have not gotten very dirty. I see him as an extreme leftist, intellectual snob, really. Perhaps I am parsing, as Freire is a lefty, too.

I know Giroux has written a lot and is very powerful/influential, and to say I don't prefer him is probably politically incorrect, but I don't care.

Freire's nice and accessible.

I am more exhausted than when reading William F. Buckley

Try R. Buckminster Fuller instead. Much more palatable. Did you know he coined the word "debunk"?

R. Buckminster Fuller

I went to an alternative highschool in the 70s, and one of our "resource people" was into Fuller. We made geodesic domes (out of cardboard or q-tips or whatever). I made one out of old record jackets.

I made one out of old record jackets.

That's so cool! I wish I could think of a use for a small one in my apartment (a chandelier made out of test tubes, maybe?) I love those things!

My personal view of the issue of culture is that every ethnic group has a right to celebrate and exercise their unique identity. Acculturization does not equal assimilation, that is the crux of the issue for me as a person and as an educator. Everyone, including whites, have the right to BE.

Says who? That's not what American history (or present) allows. That frame of mind is very idealistic and romanticized. Colorblindness comes to mind. What group of people in America have been ABLE (allowed) to "just be"?

I think Whites try to mask their whiteness, especially young people. I think that sends the message that being White is bad. That is the wrong message. The message should be about inclusion, not cultural genocide.

You're right about whiteness being "uncool"--decades of culture commodification can attest to the long history of fashionable otherness. Though, if what we "know" about the power and privilege of whiteness is true, then we also know that somewhere in the backs of the minds of young people lurks the very clear understanding that being white is advantageous now, and will become "cooler" as they get older. So, on all sides, this is the wrong way to look at things.

Maybe: being White is bad, but being white is not? There are certain political positions denoted by Whiteness: I think it's the "power of Whiteness" and not necessarily the state of being white, that we're confronting here.

With the resegregation of population groups, all this doesn't matter much as an educator. Here in Chicago, you can teach in an African-American school or a Hispanic school or a White school. There is some integration in the affluent areas, but overall, homogenous groups prevail. That makes "otherness" less of an issue, unless you are a white teacher.

Maybe that is some of the despair I feel; white teacher in a minority school is a difficult road, you are always silently apologizing for being white. I hate that.

I understand the problem. I see it on the faces of the children, I am always "other." That never goes away. Teachers will similar faces was the goal and we have achieved it. African-Americans teach African Americans.

Integration was not the goal, was it? I don't think we even knew what the goal was culturally. Educators just wanted the children to learn, and they found children learn better when race is not an issue, so they pumped African-American teachers into African-American schols. The same is now happening with Hispanic schools and Hispanic teachers.

When are we going to learn that all we are doing is resegregating ourselves? Is that the goal? I don't think it is or was, but it is the end result of all our social planning.

God help me, I sound like a Republican!

With the resegregation of population groups

I'm from Toronto--that's Toronto proper, not a suburb. As a person of whiteness (heh) I'm used to being in the minority. Moving to the States was a rude awakening, and appearances aside, I'm skeptical that these groups were ever really "integrated" in the first place.

Maybe that is some of the despair I feel, a white teacher in a minority school is a difficult road, you are always silently apologizing for being white. I hate that.

Are the teachers in your school mostly white?

Are the teachers in your school mostly white?

No. See comment 4.3

Oh, you mean:

African-Americans teach African Americans.

Do you feel the same, uh, white shame (I guess?), when you're among those colleagues?

Do you feel the same, uh, white shame (I guess?), when you're among those colleagues?

For the most part, it depends upon the colleague. With some there is no barrier or "chip on the shoulder," no "axe to grind."

With others that are into militant "black power," those who want no whites around, I feel like I have no right to exist, no right to earn a living.

With Hispanic teachers, it is even worse at times!

On another note, I remember about seven years ago, a young Mexican woman, very young, an unwed mother, kept allowing two of her children to climb my six foot wrought iron fence and mess around on my porch. I went over there to ask her to keep them out of my yard and off my fence, a fence that exists to keep a boundary between myself and the house next door, less than a two foot space. I honed up on my Spanish with my little
"Conversational Spanish" book.

She had only lived in the neighborhood for a few months. I had lived here four years. The conversation did not go well. Her English was very good! She told me to move out of the neighborhood!

The property owners, also Mexican, are not at all hostile towards us. When they moved in they were wary, but soon we were getting along very well. We get invited to parties on their floor, their children play with my nieces and nephews, I used to read to them on my front porch, etc.

It all depends on the individual person how ashamed I feel of being white.

Overall, though, there is a hostility towards the whites in both the African and Hispanic communities, though they don't always project it directly at me as an individual.

Having lived here 11 years now, I think we are more accepted than we used to be, Lord, I hope so. We know most of our neighbors of various cultures and we all get along pretty well.

At schools though, I am taking the paycheck from a minority person, and that is another issue altogether than being a neighbor.

With others that are into militant "black power," those who want no whites around, I feel like I have no right to exist, no right to earn a living.

There are still people who are into "militant black power"? Yeesh...I mean, your prerogative, I guess, but...huh. Surprised me, I guess.

At schools though, I am taking the paycheck from a minority person, and that is another issue altogether than being a neighbor.

That's really interesting. Is that something you feel? Something your colleagues have told you? Both? I don't even know what other questions to ask. I wouldn't know what to think in your shoes. I'd like to hear some other folks weigh in on this.

This is an impoverished area. Jobs are scarce.

Are my impressions/feelings valid? I have had colleagues say to me, "I have children to feed." meaning that because I have no kids, I have no right to the job. That is as blatant as it has gotten.

In February, when they start deciding who gets a job for the next school year, it becomes survival of the fittest.

Are there militant blacks? Louis Farrakhan comes to mind.

when people of color aren't made to feel comfortable in lots of places, why should whites be able to be feel "cosmopolitan" as if the whole world was made for them?

The responsibility for "belonging" lies with the individual. The rest of us can only facilitate that so much. Let me tell, once again, a story of something that happened recently. I attended a seminar on loan processing software. The event was well attended and by the time I got there the room was filling up . . . .an incredible diversity of people I have never seen anywhere but the Bay Area. As I scanned the room I noticed that, while Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans and Euro-Americans were all mixed in together, there were two tables that were exclusively black and there were no blacks scattered in with the rest of us.

I'm very sensitive to that sort of thing, since besides being bi-racial myself (Euro/NA) I have a daughter who is part African-American. I was appalled that this group might have excluded these poor people. So I determined that I would make sure the next black that came through the door was made to feel welcome. And I did. A black woman came through the door and as she scanned the room, looking for a place to sit, I caught her eye and smiled warmly and indicated there was space by me. She glared at me and averted her eyes. She searched some more deliberately avoiding me, passing over the many partially filled rows and focusing on one of the tables of blacks. She heaved a sigh and went to sit in the tightly packed row between two apparently stranger men.

Now, I'm a woman, so I know the choice to sit with men you don't know is a very difficult one even for women who have not be abused. . . and yes, that is sexist, but that is another issue. What was wrong with me that she would choose the stress of that choice over sitting with me? What was wrong with all the seats at tables with Indians and Asians? We did NOT force her to do it. No one besides me even noticed her, they were all chatting happily. She, and likely the others but I didn't see that, excluded herself.

Perhaps you will say, "Well, her experience made her feel she would be excluded." BWAAAAMP. Wrong answer. While I'll accept experience to a certain extent, her experience with some whites is not an excuse for her to be racist and assume that we are all the same. Especially those of us who only look white. I have been repeatedly and often brutally victimized by men. I don't, however, blame all men for the actions of my abusers. And, yes, sitting down next to men I don't know would not be my first choice, but if one of them indicated they had space and would like me to sit next to them, I would probably do so. And if I chose not to sit with him, I would not blame him for excluding me.

She excluded herself. No one did it. She made that choice, in spite of my attempts to welcome her. The responsibility for how she felt was hers alone. The same goes for every individual. We will all face being excluded at some time in our life, if we allow that to rule our decisions in the future, we are the only ones to blame.

boy, that black woman really has a lot to learn from you about racial tolerance, doesn't she?

That's it? That's all you have? Not surprised. There is no real way you can challenge my actual experience and my evaluation of the situation. So you resort to oblique personal attack. ::shrug:: Typical of extremists with drums to beat. Well, go right ahead, don't let reality interfere with your whining about how oppressed blacks are.

seems really privileged to me to want to fit in no matter the situation. when people of color aren't made to feel comfortable in lots of places, why should whites be able to be feel "cosmopolitan" as if the whole world was made for them?

God forbid we entertain the idea of a world where anyone can be comfortable in any place. I don't think it's very constructive to racialize the right to desire. What are you really trying to say?

I was appalled that this group might have excluded these poor people.

This statement is troubling to me. And I think I might have an incling as to what's showing up as postleft's frustration.

To begin with, I see only two plausible options for how to feel about reading this. The first option:
anyone who is capable of having this thought is patronizing and probably bigoted. 'Those poor people'? Really? Don't 'those' people have brains? Do we think that maybe they can take care of themselves without the mighty 'us' to give them seats?

But, okay, that's just the first option. The second option - the one I'm going to prefer - is that someone might simply be a tiny bit ignorant of how inflammatory the specific language is bound to be. Another piece of evidence favoring this latter option is the part about the 'the next black'. I assume that's a 'person', right?

This is really problematic language, for a lot of reasons which I'd be happy to elaborate. For the time being I'll cling to the idea that perhaps the author of this prose was simply unaware of how it might be received.

I hope, that is; because otherwise it's blatantly racist. Unless someone can give me another option? Please?

The first option: anyone who is capable of having this thought is patronizing and probably bigoted. 'Those poor people'? Really?

Or a mother who thinks of most folks in trouble as "poor people". If I go by an accident, I think "those poor people".

Another piece of evidence favoring this latter option is the part about the 'the next black'. I assume that's a 'person', right?

Oh, so you have no problem with me saying "white" or Asian-American? They aren't "people", too.

I hope, that is; because otherwise it's blatantly racist. Unless someone can give me another option? Please?

Given that I'm multi-racial myself and have a part African-American child and the only minor racism I have is a prejudice against whites, my explanation is that you are incapable of having a real discussion of the story I told and have no other option than tear apart how I told it. The truth is very clear. I attempted to make another person feel welcome and she, in what could be seen as racism, excluded me.

And now, I will do what I forgot to do, untrack this conversation.

actually i was trying to foster a constructive conversation and engagement by pointing out that, no, you cannot refer to a 'black' and expect very many - if any - of us to ignore it.

because, yeah, there are a whole lot of other problems with your story as well.

let me just say for now that i enjoy how your own self-reported whiteness and parentage of a non-white child, and status as a woman, all somehow excuse your bigotry and sexism by telling us that you're now somehow 'off-limits.'

no one ever said you've gotta be explicitly mean-spirited to practice racist misogyny.

Justin, I had no idea you were so PC. :) Let's set aside the language for a moment, and look at the meat of the story. By the way, Gwenny never self-reported as white, but "multi-racial". Just FYI.

I think it's pretty clear that Gwenny, a nonwhite nonblack (is that OK, Gwenny?), wants to illuminate the possibility that she feels she's experienced hostility from black people who perceive her to be white. In other words, she was judged because of the (apparent) colour of her skin when all she did was extend an open arm.

I wasn't there; I didn't see the scowl, and I didn't see the beeline this woman made for the only "black" table in the room. But if we take Gwenny's word for all of it, it opens up the conversation to an otherwise impossible avenue: that the hostility that some people of colour hold toward the blander race interferes with a larger project of, uh, eracism.

But this whole scenario is about appearances, right? So, on the other hand, that gesture could construe other sentiments: "Look at me, I'm 'white' and I'm 'down'!" comes to mind, or "You poor black person, you have nowhere to sit? Come, sit with the white lady! I can afford to be good to you!"

Or maybe she was just looking for an acquaintance who happened to be black, and who happened to be sitting at that table. And maybe, Gwenny, your sensitivity to such matters made a squint or a dismissive glance look more menacing than was intended.

that was perhaps the first PC thing i've ever written. it may also be the last.

at least, in the guise under which it was delivered, because i was just trying to be helpful, which is another out-of-character activity. the more this discussion proceeds, though, the more i feel like these are not slips of the tongue or lazinesses.

i've not seen anything to let me think otherwise. i think andrew chased gwenny back behind her rampart, though, so we may be out of luck.

in so far as i'm willing to accede to your interpretation, ryan, i think that's the problem. what i'm seeing - here, and in a lot of places - is a claim to victimhood that is in turn used to justify victimization.

gwenny seems to feel that she's been screwed. and she's proceeding to take that out on as many people as she can.

can't we see that as a particularly salient iteration of a much broader pattern?

if others think you're white, you benefit from whiteness regardless of your racial background.

Apparently, one can also suffer for it. Gwenny did. What about people of mixed race heritage who can't "pass" for either colour? Where do their experiences lie on your white and nonwhite map?

Andrew, you appear to have a talent for shutting down conversation, but browbeating is generally not a very successful rhetorical strategy. You've stated your case time and again, but don't you find it frustrating that people (of colour) still don't seem to be buying it?

can't we see that as a particularly salient iteration of a much broader pattern?

Yes, absolutely, but if you charge at Gwenny with that blunt interpretation, as you have, you're not going to do much for Gwenny or the conversation, are you? Are we here to engage, or are we here to talk about how progressive and smart white people can be about the plight of people of colour? To people of colour, no less?

i don't think its fair to say that this 'rhetorical strategy' is binarizing. not yet, anyway. especially if we consider that gwenny seems to be a complete nut? purposefully or otherwise, she's not proving to be a valid standard here.

especially if we consider that gwenny seems to be a complete nut?

You've been talking to people, haven't you. :P You're right. She's not a standard. She's a person. People talk to her all the time, and I bet they listen, too. I bet she has whole conversations about things in her life without ever getting angry or upset.

Andrew, that's a big and exhausting point. Why not write a thesis?

OR take a step back and explain it to us, respectfully, without patronizing the personal experience and convictions of your audience.

People talk to [Gwenny] all the time, and I bet they listen, too. I bet she has whole conversations about things in her life without ever getting angry or upset.

I'll hypothesize that she's filtered her social circle to eliminate people who are going to call her out on stuff (just like any of us would). Or, in another sense, I'll bet she has conversations in person, where people can just laugh at her when she does things that aren't okay.

oh, and i'm still trying to figure out how to have constructive conversations online. i'm still pulling the 'i'm new' card. and, as long as i do that, am trying to decide how much it's worth trying to convince people that they're wrong. even when they're very clearly wrong.

as for me, and your other question, a long time ago i wrote an article about my wounded inner child and ended a sentence saying

...as a white man who feels like it might risk presumptiveness to speak blindly of the marginality of Others whom, ostensibly, I am both Othering and marginalizing.

incidentally, i still don't have an answer.

Hey, I was trying, still am trying, but I think that this is going to have to be an in-person conversation. We can talk about your wounded inner child then too.

great! s/he will come too. can't wait.

I'll hypothesize that she's filtered her social circle to eliminate people who are going to call her out on stuff (just like any of us would). Or, in another sense, I'll bet she has conversations in person, where people can just laugh at her when she does things that aren't okay.

It's possible, I suppose. But my point is throwing a lot of theory and opinions at someone about their personal experiences is not the way to generate good conversation. You'd be better off asking questions that tease out your points.

and, as long as i do that, am trying to decide how much it's worth trying to convince people that they're wrong. even when they're very clearly wrong.

In this case, I think it took a turn for the taboo and we're not fully engaging the options in our "analysis." I'm also not totally comfortable "analyzing" someone else's personal experiences and passions the way you and Andrew (moreso from Andrew) have done here. I think we can probably be a little more sensitive or, at least, receptive.

As for constructive conversation, Justin, I think you're doing an excellent job. It's too bad Gwenny had to run off before we really sank our teeth in here.

Excited to meet your inner children. :)

Oh, and:

SS: why the need to tell me what my rhetoric is doing? I know exactly what I'm doing. I first tried nuance argumentation and that didn't work, I got strawmanned.

Strawmanned, eh? You fit right in on Newsvine! ^^

I guess I felt the way you addressed Gwenny ("boy, that black woman really has a lot to learn from you about racial tolerance, doesn't she?") was snark, rather than nuance. You could have done a lot better. What was in your deleted comment?

stolte-sawa

K, sweetie, I came back and I read all the stuff. And I don't see what I can add here. I'm just one fat old half breed woman who has struggled with racism all her life against two smart white boys who know everything. What could a complete nut like me, the manager of one of the oldest real estate offices in her city with her own television show and who ran for the hospital board getting the highest number of votes of non-incumbents and who was elected last night to head a citizens advisory committee that oversees the disbursement of funds to low income and elderly programs POSSIBLY have to offer to these men who are obviously better, smarter and more experienced.

Thanks for the invite back. I just don't know that there's enough common ground here for a real dialog. I'll just take my crazy half-breed ass to some other thread and leave the thinking to the book learned white boys. :D

Well, stick around anyway, Gwenny. We can figure something out. I know it. :)

The current wave of "imperialist nostalgia" (defined by Renato Rosaldo in Culture and Truth as "nostalgia, often found under imperialism, where people mourn the passing of what they themselves have transformed" or as "process of yearning for what one has destroyed that is a form of mystification") often obscures contemporary cultural strategies deployed not to mourn but to celebrate the sense of a continuum of "primitivism." In mass culture, imperialist nostalgia takes the form of reenacting and reritualizing in different ways the imperialist, colonizing journey as narrative fantasy of power and desire…by the Other. This longing is rooted in the atavistic belief that the spirit of the "primitive" resides in the bodies of dark Others whose cultures, traditions, and lifestyles may indeed by irrevocably changed by imperialism, colonization, and racist domination. The desire to make contact with those bodies deemed Other, with no apparent will to dominate, assuages the guilt of the past, even takes the form of a defiant gesture where on denies accountability and historical connection. Most importantly, it enables a contemporary narrative where the suffering imposed by structures of domination on those designated Other is deflected by an emphasis on seduction and longing where the desire is not to make the Other over in one's image but to become the Other.

Commodification of Blackness has created a social context where appropriation by non-black people of the black image knows no boundaries. If the many non-black who produce images or critical narratives about blackness and b lack people do not interrogate their perspective then they may simply recreate the imperial gaze [I'm think Edward Said and Orientalism] the look that seeks to dominate, subjugate and colonize…

The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. With commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.

Bell Hooks "Black Looks: Race and Repersentation

Maybe: being White is bad, but being white is not? There are certain political positions denoted by Whiteness: I think it's the "power of Whiteness" and not necessarily the state of being white, that we're confronting here.

Once people realize that race is a social construct and nothing more then we can understand it is the "power" and value associated or not associated with different races that is the problem.

Re: #4.36, Melissa, can you give us some context for your quotes? The input is great, but where (in this conversation) are you applying it?

Once people realize that race is a social construct and nothing more then we can understand it is the "power" and value associated or not associated with different races that is the problem.

Sure, and that's just what we're grappling with here. I mean, whoever heard of someone being White but not white?

I agree with Annie, race has nothing to do with abuse of power.

That is so true! In the Chicago Public schools, misappropriation of funds by minority race principals is as rampant as in white schools!

Power corrupts, race is irrelevant.

Power corrupts, race is irrelevant.

Race is relevant to motives and useful for analyzing power relations that occur around race.

What was the point of that expletive filled rant about modern medicine? I listened for three minutes and just wasn't getting anything out of it.

try starting at 3:08 where the conversation turns to Native Americans... of course it ends with about 30 seconds "angry Whites" where Rock suggests that "White people" feel they are losing the country... and ends with the repeated refrain "If y'all losing, whose winning?"

Rock suggests that "White people" feel they are losing the country... and ends with the repeated refrain "If y'all losing, whose winning?"

Hey, I like Chris Rock. But are you SERIOUSLY trying to used the profanity laced rants of a comedian as an argument to support your side of a debate? ::sighs::

There is a really good book, somewhere on one of my shelves... damn... off to find it..... Ah, here it is. Any how, there is a fairly good book by Alfred Lubrano called Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams that manages to approach this class issue and the attenuated class strategies well that you are broaching, Andew. It is a mix of good theory with ethnographic work.

folks say that it isn't about race, only class (lower class, I assume), and then refuse to watch a debate because of profanity?

He was talking about Superman and being crippled and blind. I REPEAT, what does that have to do with a discussion of racism? Superman was white. He couldn't be cured. Stevie Wonder is black. He and rich and he couldn't be cured. SO WHAT?

And I repeat, are you SERIOUSLY offering the rants of a comedian as evidence you are right? Seriously?

Oprah getting refused at a French boutique because "we've been having problems with North African lately,

BULL@!$%#. You like profanity. That was not what happened. What happened was RICH Oprah got pissed because they wouldn't REOPEN the store to serve her. It was closed. It pushed her buttons. Again, she is projecting her own insecurities and childhood traumas on a situation that was not related. She wasn't excluded, she FELT excluded. She considered herself PRIVILEGED and she was pissed because she could not exercise her right as the moneyed class to get what she wanted. OH BOO HOO.

rock's punch line "I'm just gonna ride this whole white thing out" was what i was going for. I think some folks would appreciate it, but apparently not everyone.

Chris Rock is a comedian. While much of what he says is humorous and there may have been a point to his rambling that might have touched on this discussion, you are in error to believe that folks want to wade through the foolishness to harvest some supposed gem of wisdom that is STILL JUST A PUNCHLINE. Racism, sexism and the like are NOT PUNCHLINES!

That's. I'm gone. I'm not feeding your revenue.

The point, I think, to which postleft is alluding - he's a deep guy, so it's probably too deep for a lot of people - is that the punchline wouldn't have worked if it wasn't tapping into something. Chris Rock is funny because he's caricaturing reality - and he wouldn't be funny if we didn't all know something about that underlying reality. Knowledge that we can juxtapose with his caricature...
I know, it's heady stuff. It's just postleft. Some of us have to deal with him every week.

Damn, Gwenny, you gotta chill out. Here's what was up with the Chris Rock act:

His point is that the racism is relative; that Natives got the really, really short end of the stick, and in spite of the fact that nonwhites continue to suffer systemic racism in the United States, white authorities (news anchors, mayors, graduate students) are not only terrified of "losing the country" to nonwhites, but have the privilege of entertaining their racist paranoia on national TV, in the senate, in the classroom, and in history books.

Chris Rock is pointing out how the overwhelming presence of white authorities and the absence of nonwhite bodies in media and in the real, everyday world (When's the last time you met Two Indians? I've seen a polar bear ride a tricycle in my lifetime; I've never seen an Indian family that's chillin' out at Red Lobster) is evidence for systemic racism in the good ol' US of A.

I don't know about these folks, but I'm comfortable invoking Chris Rock in serious conversation because he provides biting and accessible shorthand for the $50 words academics use to describe the very same, very real problems. So don't be pissed about it! But you can be pissed about Oprah. That's OK with me. :)

Hell, you're both being combative. Let's just settle down, shall we?

His point is that the racism is relative

I must not have gotten the right link because the one I saw he was talking about Superman being in a wheel chair.

race has nothing to do with abuse of power. It's not about race, it's about class

The power of whiteness depends not only on white hegmony over separate racialized groups, but also on manipulating people of color to fight against one another, to compete with each other for white approval, and seek the rewards and privalages of whiteness for themselves at the expense of other racialized populations - Lipstiz

That is so true! In the Chicago Public schools, misappropriation of funds by minority race principals is as rampant as in white schools! Power corrupts, race is irrelevant.

A few questions: Sounds like your Chicago schools example is an isolated incident (on top of stigmatizing black leadership…but I digress). So how many places do "blacks rule"? Ruling meaning THEY don't have a boss to answer to. And how does this affect the way in which YOU maneuver through society? Is there a Black hegemony subsuming the white one that I don't know about? You could just leave the school. But what are minorities to do when the "white rule" is everywhere? What are, let's say a black men to do when they are more likely to be brought up on fallacious charges or more likely to be given a felony and then become disenfranchised? What are black men being punished multiple times for their crimes (lose of freedom for a while AND can't vote AND can't get a job because they have a felony) What are, lets say, women who don't speak English and are victims of domestic violence and aren't accepted in shelters with not where to go? Who decided that all Americans had to speak English? Are white people the indigenous people? Language and access is a white hegemony construct. How should, lets say, black women feel when they are raped by a man of color and he get minimal jail time as opposed to if he were to rape a white woman? That is placing priority and value on whiteness.

Is there a Black hegemony subsuming the white one that I don't know about?

And this is where the question of "reverse racism" rears its head. The anomalous space, in this case a school and perhaps a neighbourhood, where "blacks rule" is immediately a place of discomfort for whites. This arguably liminal case is a threat to white hegemony in the same way that, as Chris Rock points out, the "flood" of immigrants into the job market is a threat to the Real-American way.

So, I guess, let me ask a touchy question: as an academic and as a person of colour, how do you value hostility "against whites" in nonwhite communities? (Note: the quotation marks indicate, more or less, that I don't prioritize an argument that places whites in a victim's role. I'd like a better turn of phrase for this, uh, phenomenon.)

So, I guess, let me ask a touchy question: as an academic and as a person of colour, how do you value hostility "against whites" in nonwhite communities?

Value hostility? Do you mean, do I think hostility is ok? Not being sure what you are asking, I'm hope I answer your question. I don't think hostility is right if there isn't a just reason. Now, one could say "what's a just reason?" Example, the woman (Annie or gwenny?) who tried to brush up on her Spanish so she could tell her unmarried neighbor (she pointed out) about her kids. I would have gotten upset too. I don't want up to random white people a speak French. I have taught in schools where "blacks rule" (that sounds like such a joke to me) and when the school is predominantly black/brown and many of the teachers are white it is rarely good. Children recognize that the teachers are patronizing them whether or not they have the language to express that. They know they are being treated unfairly and they act out. Hostility (especially directed to people of a particular race, is rarely, I would venture to say never an isolated incident. It is a combination of frustrations because of a marginalized status. It is more so about being aware of people's possible situations (especially if they are your students) or being aware of the type of neighborhood the school you work for is placed in. I can go on about colorblindness and white people "feeling uncomfortable" because the people in power don't look like them and they are "forced" to teach a curriculum that allows for self-affirming images for their minority filled class rooms. But they never question, "I wonder how 'these' people have felt when all they see is white=power and we rarely (never) teach them about people who look like them unless they have been approved by white liberals." (MLK, Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglas, and the sad slaves who just couldn't catch a break).

See above, Annie.

Dismissing people because of profanity is a bourgeois strategy used to a priori marginalize working-class, proletarianized language (creolizations, pidgeonizations).

Dear Postleft,

I do not know you. To assume I am not working class, when I live in the ghetto and was raised by a dirt poor woman from Alabama who was raised on biscuits and gravy is pre-judging me. That dirt poor woman from Alabama who was raised on biscuits and gravy never said the "f" word in her life and I was taught to do the same.

If the fact that I do not embrace profanity is a lack of virtue, then I will have to live with that.

Your tone has changed this column from something of value to a flame war.

I will return on your next seed or column when perhaps the discourse will be better and you will have regained your composure and sense of fairness.

Adios Se·ñor Postleft.

And i do believe that until we can move beyond the shared feeling of victimization and the reliance on the stories of individuals to talk about the lived personal experience of the effects of structural inequality, we will continue to reproduce it.

Agreed. These things are elucidated in Gwenny's story, which also potentially serves as a starting place for talking about all the stuff you rightly lay out here. I'm also pretty sure pointing fingers is not, in any case, the answer.

I am not saying that all unfair treatment is equal. I do not believe that. But i do believe that the ubiquity of unfair treatment and the experience of pain encourages people to fall back on a shared language of victimization as a means of talking about oppression. At that level, all experiences of pain do seem equal.

Pshh. That's just what Chris Rock said. :)

And i do believe that until we can move beyond the shared feeling of victimization and the reliance on the stories of individuals to talk about the lived personal experience of the effects of structural inequality, we will continue to reproduce it.

I both agree and disagree with what you are putting for here. Yes, until we can move beyond the feelings of victimization due to structural inequality we will continue to reproduce it. However, I do honestly feel that there is some (and I dare to phrase it this way) "use" in the narratives of lived experience in elucidating arguments and highlighting the structures of inequality. You can talk in the abstract all you want about structures and paradigms and schema, and maybe it is just the way that I learn, but the concrete story or example will do far more to push my understanding than all the rhetoric and diagrams in the world.

I do honestly feel that there is some (and I dare to phrase it this way) "use" in the narratives of lived experience in elucidating arguments and highlighting the structures of inequality

Agreed, and (dare I say it) until everyone is afforded the luxury of an education in cultural theory, that's the bulk of what we have to work with. You can write as many text book cases as you want, but to the rest of us, that's all they are.

G2 and S-S--I agree that personal stories have value. I even more think that some narratives tell us as much as any structural analysis. Like Toni Morrison's novels or Sherman Alexie's stories or (dare I say it) the songs of Bruce Springsteen. Examples, of course, can be multiplied.

But here in America, in everyday life--we are all constantly competing against each other, playing a game that is not fair, in which the consequences of losing can be devastating not only for us but for our children. Winning can be amazing, but the game starts again immediately, and the possibility of losing returns. Even worse, the experience of winning or losing is supposed to be only our just due, the result of our individual talents and achievement. That game and the attitude towards the game is the problem.

The game is called raw market society. The relentlessness of the game has its compelling aspects. It makes football look like childplay. Its rewards are amazing. But, like football, it destroys far more bodies than it rewards. Our shared experience of that destruction ought to be a ground for solidarity. But the game does not reward us for solidarity. It only rewards us for winning.

Markets dissolve social relations. In some cases that can be a good thing. In some cases, most cases in our time, it is overdone. Regardless, we all have to work very hard to reconstruct new social relations that can hold us together. And we really have to recognize that the struggle to build effective and meaningful social relations is a multi-generational, multi-decade long task.

To change the game at all, we have to recognize that the game affects not just us who are playing it now. It shapes the lives of those yet to come.

Why is it so hard to get people to think historically, Oakmot? Is it really an online phenomenon? Or is it a more general resistance?

How can you know how it feels to be in marginalization group if the world hasn't treated you as one so that you can make an assesment on WHO is right or wrong?

It seems some commentators on the one hand will speak of "people of colour" and "whites" and race and social construction, but on the other won't allow Gwenny to ally with a persons of colour, even though she doesn't self-identify as white and, uh, has the "genes" to back it up (ugh. I know), because she "looks white."

Can you break this down for me? Am I only as white as I look?

nicely done.

Right, I get all that. A question explicitly regarding Gwenny:

it will take enormous effort and personal relationships to build the trust and confidence of people of color.

So, if I read her correctly, she thought she was one person of colour hailing another under the assumption that people of colour trust each other (more than they trust whites, right?). So your contention, then, is that whether or not Gwenny is half Native-American and regardless of where her racial/social investments lie, looking white makes her a signifier of white hegemony. Right?

As far as this scenario goes, Gwenny seems to understand, at least at a base level, that there's something "wrong" with being white in the eyes of a (hypothetical, general) nonwhite beholder. It's complicated when we turn back to Gwenny and she says "well, sure, but I'm not white. What's wrong with these people? Can't they see that?"

My point is that when Gwenny takes exception to this lady's "hostile" glance, and to lived experiences of reverse racism, generally, her resentment is at least as rooted in the fact that she is routinely excluded from the "nonwhite" category because of the way she looks as it is because of an underlying investment in whiteness. Yes?

So. Now we can talk about what it means to subscribe to the belief that there is such a thing as nonwhite solidarity and how that relates to whiteness, and whether you can be invested in one without being invested in the other.

WHy is it hostile because the woman didn't want to sit by her?!

That's her report. Neither of us were there. Why don't you ask her about it?

Suffer? She said she looked white... not suffering going on at least only from the world treating her are non-white.

My aim isn't to justify her self-victimization, but rather to point out that looking white is causing problems for Gwenny because she is forced to pick either "whiteness" or "otherness" and can't seem to find a common ground. She occupies a complicated space that deserves a place.

What are you talking about? Not buying into what? That there is clearly a white hedegemy that is "on the necks" of marginalizaed groups?

You've made many of Andrew's points clearer through your comments. There's no need to address this. Thanks!