Ch. 1 Response

Based on this chapter, I do think an ordered system is the product of colonization. On p. 2 in my text, Fanon says that "decolonization... is clearly an agenda for total disorder." Within this conversation is a strong pull to placing movements for decolonization within history. Thinking of the U.S. context both historically and globally, how does decolonization emerge? I have read the syllabus (only) for my course on Fanon next year, and the professor talks about the erasure of Fanon’s work because it does not believe in working within the system, but in breaking it. I think a lot about which makes sense: reformation or transformation. What has become clearer to me following the election is that society seeks to bounce itself back to normalcy and order no matter what. In 13^th, Ava DuVernay essentially argues that “law and order” have been the foundation of every presidential election since the 1970s, and 2016 was certainly no different. I am wondering: What does the activist surge post-election have to do with disorder and chaos? Will Trump impel the chaos required to revolutionize society? What will the pushback be? I have already seen denigration of those protesting, whether it be Kaepernick, at Standing Rock, or the Trump-related protests. Called riots, the rhetoric seems to maintain a world without dissent, and militarized police press into First Amendment rights. Trump himself decries dissent, threatening jail or loss of citizenship to those who burn the flag, threatening media, threatening left wing (biased) academics. What will all of this mean? What tools can we create to counteract? One of the things I have learned about CRT is that it rocks for analyzing, but it struggles with supporting actions. This relates to your questions: "How do we make lives of constant interruption?  How do we know that we are pushing into new areas?" The only thing I have concluded so far is that actions must be within communities, with the body, and not just in academia. Tuck warns of the dangers of bringing decolonized work into the academia, only to be colonized or appropriated. I wonder what my role as a academic can/should be... Or do I need to push to other venues in the community and leave the academy? What does constant friction look like?

I am thinking, in particular, about the role of whiteness in U.S. colonization, wherein white supremacy is the colonizer. In this context, whiteness centers authority and control; adherence to whiteness ideologies and norms dictates the acceptability of actions, even in protest. Thus, even though the calling cry by many has been the U.S. economic divide since the election, U.S. colonization centers race because lower class whites adhere to whiteness ahead of humanity, as Baldwin attests.

Because decolonization is a historical process, what does that mean and how does that emerge in a society of historical erasure? This—connected to the concept of epistemological ignorance wherein, because of white privilege, which people’s mechanisms for knowledge creation are flawed and lacking—necessitates centered leadership of color. Curricula—including the hidden curricula—of schooling and, we could say the media, “fabricates” (p. 2) the colonized, impelling the law and order rhetoric and rendering the conclusions of the colonizer always suspect, always limited (Leonardo & Porter, 2010). And, since the power structure erases history, this decontextualized reality becomes fact in the minds of many, colonized included. What is the role of history in decolonization, and how can society’s historical understanding expand to be inclusive of multiple histories?

Because of decontextualization and erasure, law enforcement maintains a “clear conscience” (p. 4) as though its actions are justifiable since the colonized transgress the whiteness that they are expected to uphold—or else be rendered “foreigner” (p. 5) or “declared impervious to ethics” (p. 6), connected to Bonilla-Silva’s “cultural racism.” Regardless, though, race maintains foreigner status as white skin, the visual marker of whiteness, cannot be obtained.

I keep thinking about Thompson Dorsey and Venzant Chambers’ (2014; citation below) process of convergence, divergence, reclamation. Essentially, in line with Derrick Bell’s interest convergence, progress is made for civil rights when the needs of the power structure converge with the civil rights. But, after action toward rights, the interests diverge and the power structure attempts to reclaim (the whiteness) that was lost. This seems to fit the current political climate in terms of shifting from Obama to Trump. How can/Can this cycle be disrupted/destroyed? What would that require?

Ultimately, I think we need to stop working so tied to the system that is because the supposed neutrality and objectivity inherent in the colonizer’s mechanisms are only reinforced by working within the system. This, for me, calls into question the role of academia in that system and what, really, transformation would look like. The chapter ends on the colossal task of reframing how people exist in the world. Fanon says, “In order to do this, the European masses must first of all decide to wake up, put on their thinking caps and stop playing the irresponsible game of Sleeping Beauty” (p. 62). I read an article yesterday (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/#.WDwRo1kzQHw.facebook) that argues that fundamentalist, rural America does not need to be understood: it needs to understand itself. How do we wake up colonists/the masses in a way that won’t propel them to reinscribe inequity? Can we? Ellison says that there is nothing more dangerous than sleep walkers, that we shouldn’t wake them. Thus, so we need to exist on parallel planes?

Thompson Dorsey, D. N., & Venzant Chambers, T. T. (2014). Growing C-D-R (Cedar): Working the intersections of interest convergence and whiteness as property in the affirmative action legal debate. Race Ethnicity and Education, 17(1), 56-87. doi:10.1080/13613324.2013.812628

I really like that Thompson Dorsey and Venzant Chambers article!  I've been stuck on thinking about violence and how often I see it .  Fanon's writings about violence being an interruption, being a disruption of our lives and our experiences.  Colonization was an act of violence, constant violence against the way of life and the capacity to build life experiences among the people who live the colonized spaces.  White supremacy may definitely plays a role in controlling and dictating the spaces that we live in, the other fact is that white supremacy has also normalized behavior on social media sites as well.  Discourses of white supremacy have always found ways to disrupt the lives of those they seek to push off and marginalize and social media is no different.  The fact that the President-Elect builds his support and rallies his followers through twitter should be proof enough of this.  How do we carve out spaces in resistance to this violence and how do we disrupt a tweet? or a twitter storm?  Of course, we are still working on ways to disrupt the physical violence and emotional violence that is encountered every day, but I think these questions are linked.

The normalization of violence without the acknowledgment of it is challenging to grapple with... Certainly, this violence is not new, and it also has become so apparent, so unquestioned in many spaces. I would have hoped, in my naïveté, that when racism was blatantly exposed, most people would acknowledge and be disgusted by it. Instead, people seem to take the overt racism as permission to amplify their beliefs. I am struggling with how to counter and disrupt these beliefs and notions. And, social media alters the tenor and pace of white supremacy, though I also think counter movements, like Black Lives Matter, benefit as well from the communication. How do we resist violence in a way that doesn't entrench it further? I have had experiences challenging beliefs where I know what I said made the person cling to their racist/sexist/zenophobic/anti-LGBTQIA sentiments more strongly. Have you read Invisible Man?

I read the invisible man many years ago and I have felt the need to read it again very recently.  Race (as well as sexism, ageism, ableism, genderism, religion, and so many other isms) have become amplified since the election and since the inauguration.  One thing I am struggling with that Fanon is helping me think through and read through is the willingness of people to go along with systems of oppression and colonialization.  I've been thinking about the ban on Muslims traveling into the US and the ban on Refugees.  How that is driven out of sphere and Fanon charts the resistance to decolonization is born out of fear.  How is fear creating a new politics, or rather, how is fear reproducing the old power structures?  Is this fear intentional or is it subconscious?

Violence in Fanon

One thing that struck me throughout the chapter "On violence" was the sense of pace and timing that went into the document.  Colonization was tied into acts of violence but also provided the colonized with a sense of what was and wasn't appropriate.  Colonization, as a form of capitalism, came with its own schedule and mentality about what is and isn't appropriate for the colonized people and spaces.  Local elites were replaced with an urban elite that now took over control of the nation and the mentalities of the newly created space.  Fanon's work represents an underlying facet that violence, isn't necessarily physical, but rather, represents an interruption in the process and bodies of the people.  Colonization, usually maintained through some form of apartheid, interrupts how people think, plan, and consider their own lives.  Without much considering, it is easy to find ways that minoritized groups are interrupted and disrupted.  I remember something that Dr. Leonardo said at CRSEA16 that we have to take back violence (meaning interruptions), and I wonder about a life of constant interruptions.  I know that chaos theory says something about chaos not really being chaotic but being ordered in large macro-ways and being freeing in some ways.  Is an ordered system the product of colonization?  Is chaos part of un-colonization?  Or should we stress the de-organizational aspect of this work?

I am thinking again about Colin Kaepernick.  He's a football player, activist, and someone who also believes in America.  When he interrupted the order, the first claim was that he was just a football player.  He disrupted the order and the order demanded that he stay in the box.  How do we arm ourselves for this constant friction?  How do we make lives of constant interruption?  How do we know that we are pushing into new areas?  How do we de-colonize the ordered system?

Initial thoughts...

I am thinking a lot about the text so far (intro/preface/chapter 1) in terms of what is going on presently in regards to police brutality and to Colin Kaepernick's (and others) sitting during the National Anthem and people's reactions to those protests as disrespectful or not the correct method. Fanon says, "At the critical, deciding moment the colonialist bourgeoisie, which had remained silent up till then, enters the fray. They introduce a new notion, in actual fact a creation of the colonial situation: nonviolence. In its raw state this nonviolence conveys to the colonized intellectual and business elite that their interests are identical to those of the colonialist bourgeoisie and it is, therefore, indispensable, a matter of urgency, to reach an agreement for the common good" (p. 23; are our books the same?). In thinking about Kaepernick through this lens, one of the common arguments by his critics is that his wealth separates him from other people of color--and even from the common (white) hard-working American. On these grounds, then, he should not be mad or protesting. This reasoning conflates economic wealth and relative prestige to a liberated existence and fails to account for his embodied self and history. Even though his protest takes a nonviolent form, which is, according to Fanon, a colonialist creation that serves its ends, the colonizers cannot handle it because of what the protest may initiate: violence and systemic restructuring. Acts that push against the power structure, like Kaepernick's, result in repercussions as majoritarian discourse tries to quiet the unrest and maintain stasis.

So much in the first chapter address the question of when is the right time to engage in a struggle for liberation and how, and I think Kaepernick's sitting represents an act toward bigger acts, a coalescing of communities and energies that seek alterity rather than continuing in oppressive stasis.

I am wondering a lot about Leonardo and Porter's (2012, I believe) hot and cold violence--have you read it? How does Fanon define violence? Must a society created on violence dismantle with violence? And, if so, must it be violence of the same sort?

...more to come.

Part II

The Intro/preface/chapter 1 also really had me thinking.  There are so many applications to how the world is today.  The connection that stuck with me the most is how the colonized live in a world of constantly moving standards and lost histories.  Kaepernick's act and the response to it are great examples.  People are reacting to his political act, not with logical retorts or questions about the limit of speech, but with emotional reactions, with visceral reactions.  The accusations that the protest is UnAmerican highlights the ahistorical nature of colonization.  Violence, as I am reading, interrupts that process and interrupts the vicious cycle of colonization.  While violence isn't merely physical, I am wondering if violence, in this definition, can only be momentary, at least systemically.  People can lives of constant interruptions, but does is that what is need to fend off and defeat colonialism?  I am thinking that perhaps the answer to Spivak's question 'Can the Subaltern speak?' needs to come through daily acts of violence that invert and inverse the status of the Subaltern.  Perhaps, for Fanon, the question isn't about speaking, but in listening.  "can we listen to the Subaltern without getting in the way?"  Can we stop privilege and live lives of violence that interrupt the forces of marginalization and subjugation?

What do you think?

I think a lot about the lost histories and ahistorical nature of our society and epistemologies. I have always seen it as attempts by the (white) power structure to maintain dominance. What do you do as a historian to connect to lost histories or bring them to the fore of your work? 

Also, if Kaepernick's protest is unAmerican, then the acceptance and silence of rape and abuse by athletes seems to imply that rape and male supremacy with women is American... A serial rapist was just nominated for the Hall of Fame?! And, Trump...?! I feel like we are in the midst of an intense moment of attacks on women and people of color, so brutal and overt, yet completely excused by a massive segment of the population. Where do we need to go from here? What are the next steps, beyond calling out injustice? 

What do you mean by momentary violence? Are you saying that violence exists episodically and must constantly emerge as interruption, or its meaning is lost? I haven't read Spivak, though I am somewhat familiar because it is constantly referenced (I just downloaded it), I do this that the work is daily to invert the status... A constant commitment to protests is important, such as Kaepernick continuing to kneel, but at some point--I think it is already happening--that kneeling becomes "accepted" (not really, but perhaps ignored). Then, the protests must shift or alter to continue the discomfort. I am not sure what that looks like, as far as next steps... I do think it is important for a constant, shifting dissonance to be cultivated. The natural reaction to dissonance is defensiveness, so I do wonder how to engage people in the listening and reflective process to reconsider in a way that doesn't center whiteness. Is it working one-on-one or in small, closer knit groups? Is it a line of questioning? I think about the way that the white identity development continuum works and white people's reluctance to admit fault: what if a model existed, instead, that took hegemonic thoughts and built history around those thoughts to disrupt specific (violent) lines of thinking? 

The question of "stopping privilege" has always been an interesting one to me. I think that extending privileges--equity--to all people so that they aren't privileges is the idea, rather than giving up privileges, though I do think an interrogation of what is beneficial is necessary. Certain privileges--being trusted as doing the right thing in the store, on the street, etc--should be extended, whereas others--unqualified promotions because of connections--should be dismantled. 

I am also thinking about the section in the preface that says, "This walking dead man has lost his wife and his sons; he has seen so much agony he prefers victory to survival; others will profit from the victory, not him; he is too weary. But this weariness of hear is the reason behind his incredible courage" (p. lvii). I feel like people get to moments of desperation, in a sense, where their exhaustion in a situation propels actions. Few people are in such a critical state, and when the exhaustion relents a bit, when a small victory is made, people often back off and take what they have been given, only for the gains to be relinquished over time (see Thompson Dorsey, D. N., & Venzant Chambers, T. T. (2014). Growing C-D-R (Cedar): Working the intersections of interest convergence and whiteness as property in the affirmative action legal debate. Race Ethnicity and Education, 17(1), 56-87. doi:10.1080/13613324.2013.812628). I wonder how to push past this settling, how to get people together to press for changes for long enough and in an intense enough way to make systemic change... And how to recognize systemic change when it occurs. Do you think reform or transformation or needed or some combination? What is the role of wealth redistribution, and how can working class white folks see their struggles as connected across racial lines, given the nature of racial socialization and Harris' whiteness as property? ["This colossal task, which consists of reintroducing man into the world, man in his totality, will be achieved with the crucial help of the European masses who would do well to confess that they have often rallied behind the position of our common masters on colonial issues. In order to do this, the European masses must first of all decide to wake up, put on their thinking caps and stop playing the irresponsible game of Sleeping Beauty" (p. 62).]

"Challenging the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of viewpoints. It is not a discourse on the universal, but the impassioned claim by the colonized that their world is fundamentally different" (p. 7). What is the significance of the fact that multiple worlds exist in a culture that seeks one reality, one normality, and a positivistic truth? What are the implications for what we as academics research and how? How does knowledge production in academia reify normative structures of knowledge production? I am thinking about ways to disrupt linear rationality through the structure of my dissertation, and--I may have told you this--my advisor is an arts based researcher so that I can...

I love all those articles that you cited.  I think about the whiteness as property by Harris a lot, especially if we are going to consider settler colonialism as well.  I think we need to think about how does whiteness act as a colonizing force and how does it navigate through the different systems of the world.  I am wondering how do we make reform until we talk about these systems at work in our society?  If we are going to attempt reform, what does that reform look like and who's experiences does it center and privilege?  I think the issues of doing the systems that create privilege and affirming non-conforming community's values needs to be in tandem and simultaneous.  We cannot simple push at the structures that reinforce whiteness and white privilege and hope that others will be simple take up the vacated space.  Part of this includes doing this work not only now, but in history as well.  Working through and reclaiming history needs to be a task of the utmost importance as well as problematizing the present situations.  A new history that questions and problematizes whiteness and white supremacy represents an interruption of the dominating myths that control our society.  This would also allow us to question and problematize the different ways that whiteness and domination exists in our world.  White Privilege is so tied up with systems of oppression and the discourse that create and perpetuate these systesms, it is hard for me to see a way of "reforming" the system without undoing these structures.  I think about how Kaepernick has been critiqued for not protesting the right way, or how Trump gets to hide behind intelligence for not paying taxes and we are essentially glorifying white privilege by hiding behind colorblind politics or the rhetoric of meritocracy.  How does reform look when it aims to change the basic fabric of our society and the systems at work?