Guest Post — Brownfemipower on Blogging and Race

[ Note from Kai: I'm proud to present this guest-post by esteemed hermana Brownfemipower as a contribution to the Carnival of Radical Action being hosted this month at Having Read The Fine Print.]

Radical Knowledge: Where are all the bloggers of color?
by Brownfemipower

Where are all the bloggers of color?

This question makes the rounds in blogland oh, every three or four months. Invariably, a white blogger is the one doing the asking and a whole slew of white folks are speculating about the answer.

I don’t usually make a point of paying attention to those conversations. Knowing that I’m a blogger and I’m right here, makes it really hard for me to pay attention to all the garbage that usually gets spewed out (i.e. they’re too poor to blog, they don’t care about blogging, they aren’t educated enough to blog, they don’t have the time to blog etc). But this time I read such interesting commentary from different bloggers of color, I was inspired to try to unravel some of my own thoughts about the “where are they” conversations.

For those of you who don’t know, this recent round of “Where are they now” was brought on by the Yearly Kos conference that just took place in Chicago. Apparently, despite attempts to do otherwise, the conference was notable in its lack of “diversity” and “inclusion”. Because there was a concerted effort to reach out to the “diverse” crowd (i.e. men of color and white women), organizers and attendees alike walked away feeling pretty baffled and upset.

The thing is, I’m not exactly sure why they were baffled and upset. Why do these bloggers care if there’s no diversity in their ranks? 

I ask not because I want to spend time speculating about “intentions.” I find speculating about intentions to be ultimately unsuccessful in changing things or making things better or different. 

I ask because there is a long history in the U.S. (and other places as well), of especially white centered leftist groups going round and round with communities of color about “diversity” and “inclusion”. 

And yet, at the same time, none of these groups that are so concerned about “diversity” or “inclusion” really have any idea what’s going on in any community of color, much less the communities that live one google search away from them. They’re not even sure if we exist.

So why do they care if none of us showed up to their party?

But let me back up a minute here.

Contrary to popular opinion, communities of color have not sat about for the last few years wringing our hands wondering how we can get those white folks to pay more attention to us. Our communities are flourishing and full of intellectual diversity. Most of the more progressive/radical bloggers are blogging about grassroots social justice issues that directly affect their communities. I almost never read mainstream news sources any more — I link through my favorite bloggers of color to find out what’s going on with people of color who live in Greece, Mexico, Australia and the U.S. I read comments to find out what other people of color are thinking about events. Through the “colored” blogging community, I have become more connected to other people like me than I have probably ever been in my life.

Which is not to say there are no problems. I’ve seen significant tensions between heterosexual bloggers of color and queers, rich or more well off bloggers and not so rich or poverty stricken bloggers, male and female bloggers, trans bloggers and cis bloggers, Latin@, Black, Asian, Arab, Indian etc bloggers. I could go on and on. Every type of fight between bloggers of color has happened, which exposes exactly how much work our communities have to do with each other.

So when we have so much work to do between ourselves and within our own communities, there better be a very good reason to attend a mostly white conference that is expensive as hell, largely has no interest in anything bloggers of color are doing outside of the conference, has gone to some lengths to even kick bloggers of color out of their community, and pretty much means almost the opposite of what bloggers of color mean when it says “create change”. 

But as of today, I have not read or heard a single reason for white bloggers’ interest in “diversity” or “inclusion” that was not in some way connected to “We don’t want to look like we’re just a bunch of old white guys. It’s not like that. We swear. We mean well and all want the same thing. We need to work together.”

But the first thing almost every blogger of color I read (and granted, I’m in the more progressive/radical community) would say to this argument is, “We want the same thing? Who knew?”

And white folks don't limit themselves to assuming that “we all want the same thing”. Some of the more popular assumptions are as follows:

1. Bloggers of color means “black”.
2. Bloggers of color are poor.
3. Bloggers of color hold mostly menial labor jobs (hence the lack of time or willingness to do something “educated” like blog).
4. Bloggers of color haven’t been educated at elite universities.
5. Bloggers of color don’t have their own thriving communities.
6. Bloggers of color didn’t create those communities as a direct result of the neglect and/or outright racism of white bloggers.
7. Bloggers of color are standing outside the Doors of the Elite and staring balefully through the windows, longing with all our hearts to be invited in.
8. Bloggers of color need white folks.
9. Bloggers of color don’t have a very real existing and standing critique of white leftists and their organizing strategies.
10. Bloggers of color have not made the deliberate choice to not be involved in the organizing efforts of white led/centered groups.

What many white folks haven’t figured out yet is that their very assumptions and speculations are what's wrong with “inclusivity”. The assumptions and speculations white folks have about everything from what action needs to be taken, to who are the actual people they are working with, hides the reality of a particular situation to the point that white people often aren’t aware that they are the only person in the room.

The failure on the part of white people to incorporate a critical analysis of “inclusivity” that draws on the historical failures of white led/centered movements, as well as the vocal and varying opinions of people of color, has real repercussions for both white folks and people of color interested in social justice.

For example Michal Osterweil asks about anti-globalization movements that fashion themselves on feminist organizing:

What does it mean to see yourself as part of a movement governed by feminist and minoritarian logics when in so many of the most visible spaces, the voices and languages of women continue to be less audible? Does it matter if we have a fabulously astute and sensitive notion of what a good democratic — non-representative — politics would look like if we cannot involve more people in the conversation? Worse, is it of any use to have a great theoretical notion of the politics you want, but the very subjects you are claiming to be inspired by — that is those who have traditionally been othered, marginalised, excluded — are not present to participate in the discussion? If theoretical and reflective practice is so important to us today, even as an ethical and formal element, how do we live with such inconsistencies between our theoretical language and our experiences?

She then goes on to point out in her own media based organizing, she is the only female on the editorial board of her magazine — and despite the fact that the magazine’s intention is to be feminist and inclusive of women, they have had an incredibly difficult time of collecting submissions from women. She states, “For despite our best intentions and the belief that we were not exclusive or biased, I don’t think that the absence of many voices, especially those of women, is a coincidental or accidental occurrence. I believe it was influenced by dynamics that have everything to do with the mostly white, male editorial board, as well as cultural-structural factors harder to articulate. Moreover, I don’t think going to press — despite these obvious lacks — was an obvious or inevitable choice. Rather it was the product of a certain rubric of value. One that placed greater value on both getting it out there, and on the time and effort we had put into publishing this journal regardless of the shortcomings, over the cost of having a journal with so many voices and perspectives missing.”

In other words, her collective made the decision to go to press having been built on “inclusivity” as a theory rather than a practice. But if “inclusivity” is only important in theory when building the most important part of any organization (the base), why on earth would inclusivity naturally flow out of something where it didn’t exist to begin with?

Most organizations that struggle with “inclusivity” and “diversity” follow this pattern — they believe that they must move “fast”. That their work is so important and necessary, it doesn’t matter if people of color or women or disabled people or non-citizens or any of the marginalized communities they claim to be wanting to help are a part of the basic fundamental decision making that is a part of organizing a grassroots movement. Much of this logic rests on the truth that we live in desperate times, and desperate things are happening as we speak. But much of this logic also rests on hierarchies of power that place the people who think “we’ll worry about ‘inclusivity’ later” at the top of the power structure.

In short, white folks make a deliberate choice to set up their base/structure without the participation of people of color — and they make that choice because they have the power to do so. And once they make the choice to set up their structure without the participation of people of color, it is white privilege (power) that allows white people to build a discourse of assumptions that write out the very existence of people of color on the net.

It is white privilege that allows white bloggers the confidence and self-assurance to assume that the reason bloggers of color did not show up to their conference is because we don’t exist. It is white privilege that allows white bloggers to assume that they are our allies when they don’t even know for a fact that we exist. It is white privilege that allows white bloggers to assume there must be something wrong with communities of color otherwise they would be blogging. It is white privilege that allows white bloggers to assume that they have the answers to the problem people of color supposedly present to the blogging world. 

And it is white privilege that allows white bloggers to assume that bloggers of color have never asked ourselves “How does it feel to be a problem?” 

When bloggers are blinded by these privileges before they begin to organize — when they continue to remain blinded by these privileges even after they have built their base and decided what’s important and why they are doing what they are doing — when their very organization is built on the privileged idea that people of color (or any other marginalized group) are not important enough to be a part of the brick and mortar that builds the foundation of the organization, is it any wonder that these organizations continue to recreate racist (and homophobic, ableist, nationalist, sexist) agendas that people of color only want to be a part of on a conditional basis, if that?

Is it any wonder that we have stopped extending the ‘benefit of the doubt’ and have gone about finding ways to build our own organizations?

~ ~ ~

But what are white bloggers to do — if they accept the basic fact that the problem of inclusivity rests on their shoulders? Are they supposed to destroy everything and start over again? Should they continue their desperate efforts to convince people to please please pretty please come? Should they continue ventures like the Chicago 17? What is to be done?

I don’t believe it’s necessary to tear everything down and start over again (for an amazing example of people restructuring and working with what is already there, see the Allied Media Conference). But I do believe that it’s important to recognize that nothing is sacred. Not the structure of the organization, not the organizations goals, not the people who are a part of the structure — nothing can escape the challenge of introspection and deliberation. And if it doesn’t pass muster, it must be dropped or changed.

What this means for white bloggers who are truly interested in working with bloggers of color in their organizing is that they will challenge the very concept of what “blogging” is. They will question: What is news? What is legitimate news? Who is the news about? What news is important? Why is it important? Who is reading their blogs? Who is commenting on them? What news is important to communities of color? Is a pretty academic essay that breaks down the Bush administration as helpful or necessary to a community whose kids are being imprisoned for protesting segregation in their schools as news about the upcoming rally is? And if it’s not, why are most white bloggers who are interested in diversity blogging about the Bush adminstration rather than the upcoming rally?

Nothing can be safe from deep and thoughtful introspection and deliberation. Because I promise, once introspection and deliberation start happening — white bloggers will discover that they’ve been asking the wrong questions. It’s not “Where are all the bloggers of color?” but rather instead, “What are people of color already doing?” It’s not “How can we get more people of color to show up to our stuff?” but rather instead, “How can I become more integrated into the movements run by people of color?

But reaching the point where people of color share answers with white folks can only happen if white people (or whoever holds the position of power) recognize that their “base” has been constructed using the blueprints to a harmful and violent structure that has done incredible damage to communities of color.

It’s not a “mistake” that white folks didn’t have time or forgot to “include” people of color in everything they have done. And the first step to working together is for white folks to admit that and be accountable to the repercussions of that reality. It's a difficult thing to do, but it has happened. In the blogging world there’s hundreds of examples of white bloggers who are consistently and thoughtfully anti-racist. A good place to start working is to talk to those bloggers (for a list of anti-racist bloggers see here).

White folks must recognize they’ve had it all wrong — they are the problem. It is they who must change, not people of color. But they must also recognize that if they are the problem, they can also be a part of the solution, if they really want to be. 

And I for one, hope they want to be.

~ ~ ~

Special thanks to the following bloggers who helped me work through my ideas:

The Field Negro
Having Read The Fine Print
Zuky
The Unapologetic Mexican
Ebogjonson
Jack and Jill Politics

~ ~ ~

More community-based media by people of color:

Black and Missing But Not Forgotten

CORA: The Carnival of Radical Action

The Solutions Blog to bring about social and political change that benefits the African Diaspora by using Media activism — using media and communication technologies for social activism. Media activism includes publishing news on web sites, creating video and audio materials, collecting online resources, spreading information about issues, spreading information not available by mainstream news, and net-based campaigns to encourage a new and winning attitude towards education in the Black Diaspora.

Allied Media Conference is an annual, weekend-long gathering of influential, alternative media-makers and committed social justice activists. The AMC is a vital contributor to the growth of a large-scale social movement around media that centers issues of race, class, gender and other systems of oppression at its focal point. This year's theme is developing participatory media that empowers the producer and receiver, transformative media that breaks silence and builds movements.

The Diary of a Palestinian Mother. This blog is about the trials of raising our son between Gaza and the US, while working as a journalist, and everything that entails from potty training to border crossings. Together, we endure a lot, and the personal becomes political. This is our story.

The Latin Americanist

Blogging While Brown 2008

Comments

[Nanette]

This is a great post. I have to re-read it tomorrow when my eyes aren't so tired and comment more in depth then, but wowee!

I signed off my feministe stint with the first few paragraphs and then a link to this. It needs to be read by many.

[Blackamazon]

something baout you and awesome and adding you to peopel to make out with goes here

I just wanted to express my gratitude for this post.

[Joan Kelly]

Yippee at seeing BFP on the www again, and thank you for this post. I should be used to the impact of your thoroughness and accuracy and heart, the way your writing always clicks things into place for me that longed for the clicking...but it still always mixes surprise with the satisfaction on this end.

Thanks, Kai for the magical BFP appearance, and thanks Nanette for linking from your Feministe-goodbye as I saw it there before my regularly scheduled visit here.

[Melis]

Utterly wonderful, brilliant, and all-round *perfection*. Thank you so much!

[Nightprowlkitty]

You ask why some folks want diversity. I am no expert, not really even all that political, but for what it's worth, here's a couple of personal anecdotes on why I value diversity -- and it is personal to me, not political.

Working as a secretary at a law firm in New York City. I am sitting next to a black secretary, Pat, someone who has been there much longer than I. I remark "oh, this is such a liberal firm, isn't it?" She gave me quite a look. I asked her, "well, don't you think this is a liberal firm?" After all, many of the partners of this firm were famous liberals, working for justice, all that jazz.

She simply looked at me and said, "How many black secretaries work for partners?" At that time (unlike now), partners' secretaries had a lot more privileges than associates' secretaries.

I recalled only one woman. That was it. One woman. Pat looked at me again. I had nothing to say. It changed the way I thought. I found that valuable.

Another anecdote. I worked for an associate, Sheree, a young black woman, a brilliant Yale Law School graduate. Each year our firm put on a summer outing for the associates. That year, it was found that the country club the firm had contracted was known to have racist membership policies. I was outraged, the old liberal that I am, and let Sheree know this was just unacceptable.

Once again I got a look, and I asked her what she thought. Sheree told me she felt sorry for the partners, not angry. She said, "we have better country clubs than that one, we don't need to go to this fool place. This isn't the 1960's. Your thinking is out of date when it comes to this situation." She did speak to the partners about this, though, and the venue was changed. And again I changed the way I thought.

The value of diversity for me is finding different views that change and expand my mind. It's a personal thing. It's why I moved to New York from the Midwest. I needed it as nourishment as much as food and water, and I still do.

Of course you are writing about politics and that's a very different thing. I agree with what you have said. I don't know if the folks who attended Yearly Kos in "positions of power" will make the changes you call for in your post -- I don't know if they can even understand the reality of how to make those changes. They'd have to change their minds in order to do so. I hope they will. And if they do, it'll be because of writing like yours.

[brownfemipower]

The value of diversity for me is finding different views that change and expand my mind. It's a personal thing. It's why I moved to New York from the Midwest. I needed it as nourishment as much as food and water, and I still do.

I think this is a really interesting point. On the one hand, the idealist in me agrees with you completely. Although I love living within a community where there is a strong Chican@ presence, at the same time, I don't like it to be *only* Chican@s--I think as a community, we become so closed off then, it becomes stifling.

On the other hand, the idea that "diversity" is personally beneficial to individuals does scant little to encourage or promote meaningful or significant changes in this structure. I was a student at the university of michigan when all the debates about affirmative action were happening. Unfortunatly, the debates were all framed within the context of "People of color improve your mind". that is--white folks can improve the quality of their education if there are people of color there pushing them to expand themselves.

The problems with this logic is that
1. it recreates social heirarchies--white people get to decide if they want to be "expanded" or not.
2. it ignores the social justice context that civil rights advocates fought to get affirmative action implemented to begin with--righting past injustes, improving community standards, eliminating jim crow, eliminating familial privileges etc.
3. it puts people of color in the position of needing to "prove" they are worthy or "changing"--many of the debates I heard around campus consisted of indignent white people pointing to detroit and flint and other urban areas and saying "see!?!? we "gave" them affirmative action, and look what they did with it!!!" Thus, the fact that a singular individual admittance to a university setting didn't change the entire community dynamic of detroit, was proof enough that people of color were *naturally* lazy and ungrateful, and continued diversification attempts were unlikely to work, thus they should be eliminated.

I think that "I need diversity because it makes me a better person" is a great personal goal--but in the climate we live in--as a political argument intended to convince and change minds--i think it's just incredibly problematic and far too easily manipulated by those who could give a shit about people of color, you know?

[brownfemipower]

And thank you so much to everybody for the lovely comments--it's nice to be back if even for a guest post!

And thank you so much kai, for your super hero editing and feedback and just for being a swell dude.

xo

[Roni]

Brava!

Thank you so much....I'm continually evolving my idea of what it means to be latina in this progressive movement & blogosphere. As for the idea that POC are needed to expand the white community's view of the world, I feel like that just makes us one more tool. I love how you frame the questions that should be asked..."What are POC doing now? How can I contribute?" Not, "where are they? how can I get them to my event?" Boy, I know so many people who should read this.

con besitos

[Nightprowlkitty]

Thank you for your excellent response.

Of course, I was speaking only personally, which is why I added in my post:

"Of course you are writing about politics and that's a very different thing."

I don't so much think diversity makes me a better person -- I don't really know what that even means. I just find it of great value, and yes, in a completely personal sense.

As far as the political realm, you are right, there is absolutely no benefit to viewing diversity as some sort of proving ground, that people of color "owe" the prevailing power-structure some icing on their cake so they can pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on improving their beautiful minds.

I agree with your definition of affirmative action as one step in rectifying injustices of the past that made it inherently impossible for people of color to compete on a level playing field. The measure of success in that arena is whether the playing field is indeed leveled, and nothing else. It should certainly not be viewed as any kind of favor or "good deed," because that is simply perpetuating the injustice it was built to correct.

As far as changing minds, I put the onus on myself, not others -- though of course I do rely on others to explain their perceptions to me when I ask them. And generally, most folks are more than willing to oblige.

When it comes to the "powers that be" in the YK2-type blogosphere, I wonder if they are even aware they are missing something. In order for minds to be changed they have to be open to begin with. I'm not so sure that's the case at present with these folks.

[Arwen]

Wow. Yes.

This is framing recent frustrated headbanging I did recently around organizing community. I'm very leftist, but suddenly came up against this sort of horrible "we'll do for the poor dears" patronizing that freaked me out and made me angry. I kept saying, unsuccessfully, that as soon as you start bringing people into your construction of utopia, you need to negotiate with the people about whether or not it works. And it won't, 9 times out of 10, since systems and people interact: the vision HAS to change (or be re-addressed) as more people join the discussion or it's not an inclusive vision.

And it can, too, I've seen the other side; things will go a little more slowly, and sometimes issues will need to be revisited as the population shifts, but SO WHAT? That's what inclusion IS, not saying, "I'm including you so shut up and like it and agree with me because I'm including you."

You're not allowed to have a snotty, pants-twisted snark that people should just suck it up because you were so noble to do all this work and call yourself inclusive. I didn't know how to say all that, really.

So this really resonated.

Thank you.

[brownfemipower]

When it comes to the "powers that be" in the YK2-type blogosphere, I wonder if they are even aware they are missing something. In order for minds to be changed they have to be open to begin with. I'm not so sure that's the case at present with these folks.

I've found that in general, they're not open at all. WHich is why these conversations generally tend to either go nowhere or they happen "off broadway" (if you will, haha)--poc talk about it extensivlly between ourselves--white radical/progressive bloggers, indy media makers, and/or organizers (all of whom generally don't get the kind of hits that the kos folks do) may be reading what poc are saying and talk about it on their blogs to sort of work out their own feelings on it--and white folks who are trying to figure out where we all are--that's pretty much the extent of what's going on. Which is pretty depressing. but at the same, it's also a great opportunity--the type of conversations I've seen happen between poc--the type of *organizing* i've seen happen--it's inspiring to say the least. And there's nothing more horrible than seeing an amazing conversation disrupted by some defensive white person who is really at a race 101 level. so I believe strongly and fully being under the radar of the big guns is really beneficial to us.

but it does get irritating to keep hearing how we don't exist.

Arwen--that's the thing that SOOOO many organizers forget. Organizing is not fun and games. it's not inspirational and wonderful and world shattering. It's HARD WORK. Of course, it's life changing--but in a SLOOOOOOOW way. It's like being frozen cold, and wearing layers and layers of clothes--and trying to un-peel those clothes from your body--even when you can't move your body because you're so cold. It's hard work, and it hurts, and you spend a lot of time crying and being angry because you *just* want to change the world and everybodies being SO DIFFICULT!!!!!!

it takes *time* to organize--much less organize with people who you have a 500 year history with, you know?

[brownfemipower]

Boy, I know so many people who should read this.

unfortunately, I do too. which is why i can speak with authority on race and white folks. haha.

[ottermatic]

This is a great post. I'm still processing so much of it, but I wanted to say thank you for posting it.

[Kai]

Thanks to BFP for this amazing piece!

And thanks to all the kind commenters for sharing your thoughts and support.

As I read this thread, I find myself thinking about different perspectives on the word "diversity", flipping that word over in my mind and checking out various angles on it, seeing if any new insights might pop up from the exercise.

Something that occurs to me is that one of the hallmarks of life as a person of color growing up in a racist society is dual-consciousness; by which I mean, switching back and forth between our ethnic consciousness and white consciousness, something most of us learn to do in order to survive in a white-dominated society. Language, social cues, cultural norms and assumptions and reference points, value systems, overarching historical worldviews, all shift (to varying degrees in different individuals) in order to accommodate whiteness in any number of situations; usually either to make white people around us comfortable or to negotiate our encounters with white power structures (schools, banks, cops, landlords, government officials, doctors, etc) which can negatively impact our lives if we do not make these necessary adaptations. In this sense, we already experience a certain level of "diversity" in that we have internalized perspectives (i.e. white perspectives) which come from outside of our own racial and/or ethnic background and identity. So maybe increasing "diversity" for people of color, in our minds and also in our organizations, would mean building additional layers of perceptual orientation on top of our dual-consciousness, internalizing non-white ethnic and racial perspectives other than our own, in order to further broaden dialogue and facilitate coalition-building.

Well, it's a thought, anyway.

[Sudy]

YAY BFP!

I am so happy to read this and threw confetti all over blogland after I read this.

It's that joyful and energizing.

[contaminated spinach]

"White folks must recognize they’ve had it all wrong — they are the problem. It is they who must change, not people of color."

Yeah, that's gonna work. Change, white people, change!!!

[Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez]

great stuff, bfp. you help me work out my thoughts, too.

and kai, i love it when you think out loud, bro. it almost always helps me get somewhere.

[belledame222]

But if “inclusivity” is only important in theory when building the most important part of any organization (the base), why on earth would inclusivity naturally flow out of something where it didn’t exist to begin with?

This is a great point. It ties back into the basic problem of, lookit guys, we're talking about -structural- change. That means the macro society and it also means looking at the micro structuring of the -relationships-, the dynamics of institutions you're/we're a part of -right now.- It doesn't just mean "by the time it's codified into law."

And what you don't realize, sometimes, till you try to change 'em: organizations take on a life of their own that's more than the sum of their individual parts.

What are the assumptions?

[belledame222]

White folks must recognize they’ve had it all wrong — they are the problem. It is they who must change, not people of color."

Yeah, that's gonna work. Change, white people, change!!!

Well, you could say the same thing about the whole damn human race, say, from the perspective of y'know, nuclear weapons global warming oil crunch tipping point yadda yadda we're really maybe about to wipe our whole sorry selves off the map. At a certain point it becomes about, "no, it's not 'change in order to please some stranger and assuage some vague guilty feelings.' It's, CHANGE OR DIE, because the current model is NOT WORKING."

[brownfemipower]

Yeah, that's gonna work. Change, white people, change!!!

Well, I did just buy a magic wand.

::rolls eyes::

[brownfemipower]

would mean building additional layers of perceptual orientation on top of our dual-consciousness, internalizing non-white ethnic and racial perspectives other than our own, in order to further broaden dialogue and facilitate coalition-building.

this is such an interesting thought, Kai, and I feel like it sort of explains part of me--having spent so much of my life in inner city flint (which is one of the most segregated cities in the u.s.--blacks in one section, mexicans in another, whites surrounding us), I feel like on many levels I have achieved a double consciousness or tripe consciousness between the three communities. I worked with the black community, lived with the mexican community and had family in the white community--it reminds me a lot of gloria anzaldua and her border lands stuff--the idea that there is no way you can build a fence around an identity--it all bleeds into each other. Some ways are more harmful than others, but in the end, their all interconnected and the goal is not to eliminate one of the identities, but to eliminate the violence that one of the identities brings to the others. Oh, and recognizing that separation (willful or otherwise) is itself, a form of violence...

anyway, I'm off to the races with your thoughts, kai (;->).

[Chuckie K]

"We mean well and all want the same thing."

Isn't that what George Bush and Hilary Clinton have been trying to explain to al-Maliki?

[Black French Blogger]

Well, thanks for the analysis. I will translate it and publish it on http://www.faunesparisiennes.blogspot.com

[Joan Kelly]

"the goal is not to eliminate one of the identities, but to eliminate the violence that one of the identities brings to the others. Oh, and recognizing that separation (willful or otherwise) is itself, a form of violence..."

What you say here, BFP, and Kai what you said before, that sparked these words here, makes me think about the confusion between what you both spell out so powerfully versus the "white" idea of assimilation = everybody loving each other = racism gone forever. I am not awake enough yet to say anything else besides - love how you put it, and thanks.

[Blackamazon]

Kai , isn't what you're talking about the double consciousness Dubois'theory?

I agree whole heartedly with your adjustment though. It's not just a state of being or even a literal skill.

I often wonder if thats why when we talk REALLY talk about inter ethnic conflicts they are all most always related to a triangulation by the dominant culture ?

[Professor Zero]

Reciting from memory the first lines of Cuban scholar Roberto Fernandez Retamar's famous essay CALIBAN (ca. 1971):

"A European intellectual - and furthermore, a leftist - asked me: 'does a Latin American culture exist?'"

[Kai]

Yup, DuBois:

BETWEEN me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

[M]

So maybe increasing "diversity" for people of color, in our minds and also in our organizations, would mean building additional layers of perceptual orientation on top of our dual-consciousness, internalizing non-white ethnic and racial perspectives other than our own, in order to further broaden dialogue and facilitate coalition-building.

I keep thinking (and it hurts! *ba-dum-psh*) how this process of adding and building layers of consciousness upon our current foundations of duality needs its own conceptual framework of description, its own socialization and development. As it stands, margin-to-center discussions of social order and relationships between oppressors and oppressed are ever-changing, ever-altering. Power structures don't seem like reliable bases for what you're proposing.

Narrowing down a good foundational base that is active in its layering, its learning, and its coalition-building is excellent because it needs to happen. It needs to happen under different structures and with different motivations than the current coalition models and perceptions of social and political activity. People of color -- within the racial framework of things, at least -- are in terms of power structures the best educators because we have intimate knowledge of our own consciousness and the external, white paradigm we internalize as inhabitants of a white-dominated framework. Perhaps this fact frightens the white-dominated spaces because our work no longer centers interactions between us and them. We work to understand each other; we work to keep ourselves from slipping in the cracks of the white-dominated machines of keeping order. We develop new forms of interaction and order. And it never stays on one group or one thing for any ordained period of time; we never flock to find our mold with our names beneath it in that hardened center of white perception and stay there. We remain fluid and active, and we adapt. But we don't have structures with enough elasticity to accommodate those changes yet.