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roachboy · 04-05-2008, 06:48 AM

to expand on 53 a little--which, modesty aside, seems to me important--african-american as a category is a creation of the particular history of american racism---you can look at it as a consequence not only an initial erasure of distinctions between ethnicities/groups/backgrounds/histories during the period of slavery, and so as a kind of residuum, an index of the crudeness of euro-american perceptions of Others, one which reduces them to the color of their skin---but also as a category that has not gone away, but rather has continued and is reinforced and perpetuated through the history of segregation---of separation geared around this same crude one-dimensional category--that has been in a sense taken over and made into a source of positive identification over time---and so can refer to the much of the cultural experience that has been separated and shaped through separation.

so the category functions in a way that "white" simply does not: think about it--you ask a group of white folk (myself included) about their ancestry, say, you'll probably get answers that refer to irish or french or italian or russian or ukranian or whatever backgrounds that then get the hyphenated american thing--so the histories have not been erased systematically, the grouping is not the same--this is a function of having power, of having had power, of having used that power--maintaining one's history in this case is an index.

you can figure it out from here: this is not difficult and if you think about it, it corresponds in a general sense to experience.

mlk and myriad others looked forward to a day when this history would no longer matter--BUT WE ARE NOT ANYWHERE NEAR THAT.

i mean, look the hell around you. jesus.

in conservativeland, there is this bizarre-o claim that we somehow have floated free of the history of racism, that it no longer matters--this claim seems geared around the core consituency of conservative populist politics, the Eternal Victim, the white petit bourgeois--who on this is set up as the Victim of attempts to address racism the Victim of the history of it. that these arguments recapitulate the same arguments made by elements of the same social class to justify the appalling period that we laughingly call "reconstruction" does not matter--history has been vaporized for the populist right and so there we are.

this is one of the central problems in the debate across political viewpoints on race and racism---conservatives make assertions from a position that is particular to their own politics about history and its relation to the present---outside that political viewpoint, these assertions make NO sense.

so one possible space to talk reasonably is about why these claims do not make sense (for the rest of us, say) or why they do (for conservatives)--but that would assume that conservative folk are both willing and--more to the point--able to defend this position and not just assert it.

second: since this claim resonates not with historical or social reality but with the sense of Being-Victim of the constituency of populist conservatism, it is hard not to see in pan's performance here a kind of repeat of the internal logic of the ideology itself. to justify the claims, he has to CREATE the sense that he is Victim--even if that means running, unmotivated otherwise, into this strange little rat's nest which seems to start each time "people have called me a racist, but i am not" which translates "poor me i am a Victim"

so there is a choice: we can talk about the validity of conservative-specific claims about racism in america--claims that sometimes (as here) utilize the kinda nasty little trick of quoting martin luther king for their own purposes, standing these quotes on their heads, using them to legitimate themselves and their politics rather than as claims which speak to aspirations that we, collectively, have not gotten anywhere near reaching and, if threads like this are any indication, do not know how to even start approaching---or we can assume that this is just another bizarre-o performance piece that is mostly about pan--who at least has the fortitude (intentional or not) to do the performance (no matter how irritating folk find it to be, there IS a way to see this that points to a problem bigger than narcissism)---by which i mean the appeal of these claims about racism in america for conservatives is NOT about their historical or social accuracy, but is rather about the sense of Being Victim they enable conservatives to derive from them.

personally, i see the argument in the op as so weak empirically and so naive historically, that the only plausible grounds for coming up with it seem to me to involve this persona of Eternal Victim, which is at the core of populist conservative politics---it is the way subjects are interpellated by that ideology (positioned as subjects)

04-05-2008, 06:48 AM	#85 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	to expand on 53 a little--which, modesty aside, seems to me important--african-american as a category is a creation of the particular history of american racism---you can look at it as a consequence not only an initial erasure of distinctions between ethnicities/groups/backgrounds/histories during the period of slavery, and so as a kind of residuum, an index of the crudeness of euro-american perceptions of Others, one which reduces them to the color of their skin---but also as a category that has not gone away, but rather has continued and is reinforced and perpetuated through the history of segregation---of separation geared around this same crude one-dimensional category--that has been in a sense taken over and made into a source of positive identification over time---and so can refer to the much of the cultural experience that has been separated and shaped through separation. so the category functions in a way that "white" simply does not: think about it--you ask a group of white folk (myself included) about their ancestry, say, you'll probably get answers that refer to irish or french or italian or russian or ukranian or whatever backgrounds that then get the hyphenated american thing--so the histories have not been erased systematically, the grouping is not the same--this is a function of having power, of having had power, of having used that power--maintaining one's history in this case is an index. you can figure it out from here: this is not difficult and if you think about it, it corresponds in a general sense to experience. mlk and myriad others looked forward to a day when this history would no longer matter--BUT WE ARE NOT ANYWHERE NEAR THAT. i mean, look the hell around you. jesus. in conservativeland, there is this bizarre-o claim that we somehow have floated free of the history of racism, that it no longer matters--this claim seems geared around the core consituency of conservative populist politics, the Eternal Victim, the white petit bourgeois--who on this is set up as the Victim of attempts to address racism the Victim of the history of it. that these arguments recapitulate the same arguments made by elements of the same social class to justify the appalling period that we laughingly call "reconstruction" does not matter--history has been vaporized for the populist right and so there we are. this is one of the central problems in the debate across political viewpoints on race and racism---conservatives make assertions from a position that is particular to their own politics about history and its relation to the present---outside that political viewpoint, these assertions make NO sense. so one possible space to talk reasonably is about why these claims do not make sense (for the rest of us, say) or why they do (for conservatives)--but that would assume that conservative folk are both willing and--more to the point--able to defend this position and not just assert it. second: since this claim resonates not with historical or social reality but with the sense of Being-Victim of the constituency of populist conservatism, it is hard not to see in pan's performance here a kind of repeat of the internal logic of the ideology itself. to justify the claims, he has to CREATE the sense that he is Victim--even if that means running, unmotivated otherwise, into this strange little rat's nest which seems to start each time "people have called me a racist, but i am not" which translates "poor me i am a Victim" so there is a choice: we can talk about the validity of conservative-specific claims about racism in america--claims that sometimes (as here) utilize the kinda nasty little trick of quoting martin luther king for their own purposes, standing these quotes on their heads, using them to legitimate themselves and their politics rather than as claims which speak to aspirations that we, collectively, have not gotten anywhere near reaching and, if threads like this are any indication, do not know how to even start approaching---or we can assume that this is just another bizarre-o performance piece that is mostly about pan--who at least has the fortitude (intentional or not) to do the performance (no matter how irritating folk find it to be, there IS a way to see this that points to a problem bigger than narcissism)---by which i mean the appeal of these claims about racism in america for conservatives is NOT about their historical or social accuracy, but is rather about the sense of Being Victim they enable conservatives to derive from them. personally, i see the argument in the op as so weak empirically and so naive historically, that the only plausible grounds for coming up with it seem to me to involve this persona of Eternal Victim, which is at the core of populist conservative politics---it is the way subjects are interpellated by that ideology (positioned as subjects) __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 04-05-2008 at 06:53 AM..