9 JULY 2016
Reginald Anderson
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
9 July 2016
OPINION OF THE WEEK
Conclusion 1: Whiteness is contingent
How do
we know this? Whiteness and relevant (meaning colonized[1])
racial identities were racialized through white supremacy. Mills’
account of the historical project of racial domination in The Racial
Contract gives a suitable outline of the way in which whiteness and colonized
racial identities are founded on white supremacy. The symptoms of the
historical project of racial domination leave us with a material basis[2]
for whiteness which has been used post
hoc ergo propter hoc to fallaciously defend white supremacy because
this is the only way in which white supremacy can logically be defended.
Tone policing[3]
is also often offered as pseudo-support for white supremacy. Since
racialized identities are performed by humans within human societies, white
supremacy is not separate from the ideologies and worldviews that human
beings hold.
Conclusion 2: Whiteness can be leveraged for just
means
Given
the fact that colonized racial identities are performed and reinforced
through human beings, attacks on post hoc
ergo propter hoc logically fallacious moral defenses of white supremacy
and calling out tone policing are an attack on white supremacy itself.
The question is thus not whether whiteness is a good or bad thing and
whether you should feel guilty about colonized racial identities; it’s
what you do with it that counts. The question is whether your whiteness
is rooted in liberating others and eradicating white supremacy through
an active grappling and wrestling with the origin of the historical project of
racial domination in the Hegelian master self that fuels western expansion, black
exclusion from the dialectic of recognition which produces self-consciousness
(including missing a turning signal, even if that was the issue in why we lost
Sandra Bland; reaching for an ID or wallet during a traffic stop by a cop, even
if that was the issue in why we lost Philando Castile; or freedom of expression
in wearing a hooded sweatshirt, even if that was the issue in why we lost
Trayvon Martin), and asking yourself whether the world we live in is safe for
human beings who are not like you. If we were to take seriously the notion that
Leonard Peltier should and could be removed from jail, how many people would have
to speak up about it to free him? Where would those voices have to speak from
to register as a valid questioning of his criminality?
Conclusion 3: Black Lives Matter Given the fact that eradicating
white supremacy is not done by questioning whether white people
should feel good or bad about colonized racial identities, the
eradication of white supremacy is to be prioritized over the protection
of the white fragility complex. To say that my work is dedicated to the eradication
of white supremacy is to say that Black Lives Matter more than job
security, materialism, militarism, living out your dreams, how much money I will make this week, and how much
money I will make next week. To say that my work is dedicated to the
eradication of white supremacy is to say that Black Lives Matter more
than for-profit prisons and the American Criminal Justice System. In my
opinion, to say my work is dedicated to the eradication of white supremacy
is to say that Black Lives Matter more than the American education, judicial,
and economic systems, and that Black Lives Matter more than American
Christianity[4]
or the perpetuation of whiteness as a colonized racial identity.
Sometimes if you leave the candle behind you find that the sun was out
the whole time…
[1] The
moment of biting one’s tongue occurs as a result of “whiteness,” “white
supremacy,” and “colonized” being colonized terms
[2] Youtube:
“Charles Mills on Materializing Race,” Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtU5TjPiyO0.
9 July 2016.
[3] http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/tone-policing-and-privilege/
[4]
This is where I will be thrown away. I am here referring to American
Christianity as a tax-deductible, state-run religion (following Vine Deloria,
Jr.’s God is Red) which was imposed on this continent through violence
during the conquest of North America and South America. Also,
since Jesus was Jewish, it would be anti-Semitic to oppose his followers. This
is where I differ from Nietzsche’s self-identifying as the Antichrist and Osho’s
making jokes at Jesus’ expense.
For a further discussion of logical fallacies used in defending white supremacy, see: http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-20-fall-2001/feature/rhetoric-hate
ReplyDeleteI should also mention that I intended this blog post to be relevant to anyone who can answer affirmatively to any of the following:
1) Do you believe that social inequality in America "is not a class issue, but a race issue?" (I would argue that Mills' lecture that I cited addresses this
2) Do you think that colorblindness is not racism?
3) Have you told me to "tone it down"?
A thumbnail description of Mills' lecture that I reference is: "It is true that here is a material basis for race if we look at current disparities in levels of intergenerationally accrued wealth -- rather than annual household income -- between whites on the one hand and blacks, natives, and people of color on the other. However, the best material basis for race is simply the fact that at some point in time, white people tried to take over the world and declared that in order to be a human being, one had to be white."
ReplyDeleteTo me this is a bullseye in discussions of race in America and the Black Lives Matter movement because I grew up hearing, and continue to hear white people (especially in Iowa) claiming that a) Black people have nothing to be upset about and need to get over the victim mentality, b) "Scientifically, race doesn't exist so stop talking about it because race doesn't exist", and c) "People have always been bad to one another throughout the history of the world so really we should just shrug our shoulders."
Mills' work is lethal to all three claims because it shows that there is a material basis for race, and the strongest one pins it back on whites. In that sense his work is medicine because it means that Black people, Natives, Asians, and People of Color are not the only ones socially responsible or the ones to be held accountable for eradicating white supremacy.
Questions I would be interested in getting data on folks' opinions are:
ReplyDelete1) Does it hurt more when someone says "All Lives Matter" if the person is white versus a Person of Color? (That's the corrective differential I want to address -- that context, that identity can influence the quality of the message)
2) How does the concept of rape relate to the notion that whites should default to positions of sympathy with People of Color, when possible? i.e., in rape cultures, both victim and assailant (rapist, perpetrator) can give genuine accounts of their subjective experience wherein the rapist can say "I genuinely believe that I had consent" while the victim can say "I genuinely communicated that I did not want this," both are giving genuine accounts of their subjective experience, and a rape occurred. This is a reflection of systemic issue of rape culture.