Category: race

  • The Black Body as a feared Necessity in the Post-Industrial Urban Economy

    response paper to the Sixth Annual African American Studies Conference at Macalester College

    Freedom Movements
    February 16, 2005
    Yongho Kim

    In her keynote speech Democracy and Captivity, Joy Ann James argues that the prison-state constitutes the institution through which neoslave narratives are embodied in the United States. A neoslave narrative, James argues, is “a recycling of the fear/hate of the black body”, but in her use of the prefix neo, I think, she is also pointing out parallel structures of doxa regarding the slave and its relationship to the master in american public discourse, both during pre-“emancipation” and in the current times.

    As Rose Brewer and Nancy A. Heitzeg, and several other speakers/participants argue throughout the conference, the prison-state weaves itself closely together with the prison industrial complex, an economic structure aimed at squeezing a critical surplus required for sustained economic growth. With the rise of the post-industrial ghetto, white america fears and decimates the unnecessary black bodies while simultaneously depending on its cheap or free labor to sustain a new economy.

    In this paper, I trace the path of this development through a small sample of focus points in history and try to set the grounds for understanding the business downtown/inner city ring/suburb as an expression of neoslave narrative.
    (more…)

  • [email] The Mantra of Multiculturalism, two years later

    Adelante! and cultural org leaders,

    two and half years ago, leaders at orgs of students of color congregated and drafted The Mantra of Multiculturalism, a 13-point document delineating strategies to advocate for multiculturalism in the face of a hostile Macalester administration. Of course, this is my interpretation. Take a look at the document yourself:
    (more…)

  • memos, Joy Ann James Keynote Speech

    Duchess Harris quote: (not exact)

    I’m the chair of American Studies, we deal with comparative Racial Formations and we are excited to be part of the curriculum

    ow! existential crisis!

    African American Studies Conference
    Incarcerated Intelligence: African Americans and the Prison Industrial Complex
    macalester.edu/americanstudies/conference/

    Joy Ann James keynote speech: Democracy and Captivity

    memos

    James shows two maps that were oft used during and after the 2004 elections to make the point that republicans were racist: a map of 19th century “free states” and “slave states” matching in color with the blue/color divide in the 2004 elections. This was a discourse used by democratic, reformist, radical and otherwise whites to make the point that a similar ideology ran undercurrent in the so called “left”. Too simplistic!

    A more meaningful comparison is the distribution and sprawal of prisons across the U.S., with a slide from 1900, 1950, 1990 and 2004. The process of expansion was gradual and did not make a distinction between the so-called “blue” and “red” states. I think I saw a main hub going from MA to MN, another one sweeping the southern coast, and another circular sprawal around L.A.

    What is at stake in the whole rhetoric concerning “racist republicans”, James explains, is a neoslave narrative. A Neoslave narrative is defined as a recylcing of the fear/hate of the black body.

    19th c slave narrative, as expounded by the likes of Harriot Jackobs, Frederick Douglas.
    in the process of reproduction, prisoner’s bodies become commodified.
    the narrative promises a redemption, or a reborn, if the slave crosses over to the “free” states.

    James did not push this point forward, as it was obvious, but similarly in a neoslave narrative, the slave can be redeemed by simply voting democrat. (An epistemiological singularity)

    Jackobson: it’s not just the prison that is the problem, it’s the prison-state. [is he twistinc the nation-state here?]

    [I kept thinking it was a “pheno-state” where she was saying “penal” state]

    new abolitionists

    in the narrative: master, abolitionist, slave

    emancipation is “given”
    freedom is “taken” <- ontological individual

    parole-democracy

    plantation – place/sites – modern prison
    similarities: argument to restrict the body, substandard health (HIV) – criticism that touches upon the CDC's rather plain report on black women and AIDS and p6's comment, forced migration, dnial of birth family and kin,

    more on women: high rates due to males coming back from prison and transmitting the disease – thus prison walls are permeable.

    slave narrative is imagined as an antebellum reality.

    def of slave is contended (ref to Matthe Man Siems) slavery and social debt

    existential wealth of the white.
    political currency

    • vote
    • to be "tough" on crime (nixon)

    upperstate NY: movement of black bodies from NYC to prisons in the rural area. now, because the population increases, white dwellers in those rural areas get more congressional votes, but they become more influential because these black prisoners, who count as inhabitants, can't vote (thus white residents cast their votes in lieu of the black prisoners)

    electoral college

    Q&A

    Paul Dosh: in CA prison system, prisoners separated as black, white, mexican, and others. when a black prisoner does a wrong, every black prisoner is punished. thus reinforcement of categories..
    RE: collective punishment, used also in international politics. In Ittaca, prisoners resisted this by calling themselves "the prison race", which is not to ignore the races within, but to present themselves as a prison race

    Ben Mearns: it's great that you pulled that map, because it really counters what white liberals are saying about how they are supposedly less racist for the sole fact of being liberals [or something of that order: we later chatted on how Ben put it more blatantly for those so-called-do-goodie-"liberals" at Mac, and he references a former email of his: yokim.net/wiki/ElectionsSlavery ]
    RE: localize "evil" as embodied by republicans. once you locate racism in the south, it's very easy for whites in the north to just sit and blame everything to the southerners. they don't have to do anything, they "become antiracist" for the sole fact of not being located in the south. for instance, the south was known for having "chain gangs". now AZ, which is not the "deep south" establishjed chain gangs. further reference on chattel slavery, reoncstruction, convict prisoner, segregation & jim crow, prison state

    slave traume syndrome

    [here I followed an idea of the core white business center/ inner ring/suburbs as an economic model that allows the production of surplus value as there is abundant unemployed black body + not yet legalized immigrant bodies available at a very low cost, surrouding the business downtowns; also relating to early industrial development of the u.s. also, how the killing of blacks might be related to postindustrialization, as excess labor is not needed?]

    two bush things:
    bush talked about working with churches for social justice, such as fostering children whose parents went to prison. there is no mention of the structural forces incarcerating children, but simply sending children to foster centers. now, there's something Dorothe comparingfostering with captivity, because the links are lost.
    in the 2005 state of the union address, he talks about death penalty [I missed her point on this one, but James talked about Bush's killing record and how Alberto Gonzales simply "forgot" the fact that those on the death row were actually innocent, with purges from the police, the accusers, etc etc]

    Hmong man Killing several people in december 2004
    RE: before emancipation, victims of lynching and prisoners were mostly white. after emancipation, they became black. so, one body representing all (insofar as it is symbolic) when charles mason killed a bunch of people, no one from the "white community" stood up and said "that's not a typical behavior of a white person", for there is no social pressure. in another case, (chicago park?) where a group of black youngsters were charged with raping a white woman, where at the end it was found to not be true, but the audience was mostly black and latino, but they would not look at the youngsters into their face for fear of association. they wanted to dissociate themselves from those feautrees.

    Alessandra Williams: so what do they fear?
    RE: affluent white body is assumed to be aesthetic to the space, unlike the black body which destabilizes it. I start with Foucault because he cannot deal with the black body. He talks of the normative body [missed the line here]. So whites are building an identity of supremacy through the lack thereof in the black body. They fear realizing that it's actually what's missing in the whites.

    She talked about love, and how there are infinite ways to resist oppression.

  • so andrè carrington is coming to mac on…

    so andrè carrington is coming to mac on the af-am conference, if i heard it well in class!

    so tawanda was saying back in spring:

    you won’t bring him NOW. the school better pay him some heavy bucks if you plan on bringing a NYU scholar, after messing with him while being an undegrad.

    i wonder, though? with AMS being the main sponsor?

    will rosenberg try to pay off back to the “colored camp”, so to say, in admin speech, after we (they?) maintained a neutral stand? what’s the deal with joi? with nick? do they talk to each other?

    err.

    too much speculating.

  • Bamboozled, Mandela, and the Dialectics of Racism-Capitalism. class notes

    AMST394-11 Freedom Movements. Class notes, Feb 7

    music played: Mbongan Nugema.

    how to find articles on Safundi, which spans a broader spectrum of research done on sa www.safundi.com/members/login.asp . rachleff )the dept?) purchased a semester-long access for the whole class. username: school, pass: here

    will announced first diversity weekend meeting. thursday 9pm, cc215

    african american studies conference. rachleff: don’t need to go to all of them, but that would be nice. write something creative and tie it together with the class materials.

    Bamboozled

    Will: issues of working middle class and racial representation
    Peter: agreed, but the two issues not related causally.
    Zach: capitalism creates racial caegories by need (black athletes)
    ref: Augusto Bael (theater of the oppressed)
    church (ft Spike lee)
    is the movie a self-criticism?
    basketball
    born black in SA is being political
    Alex F: careful in process of reclamation

    creation of representation
    appropriation -> make money
    how to connect material culture
    know to resist

    eric la black minstrelsy-> post industrialization
    white working class, use of slavery as a reference point
    “at least I’m not a slave”
    strong denial — (needs) –> reinforcement of perfoming the other
    30’s Dubios wrote a bio of John Brown

    20th C Baudeville & Broadway, black people playing minstrelsy
    Chapelle Show
    Lily L: hegemony: marginalize people’s participation, compromise peronsal for greater goals

    Zach: even in the black communities it is a tbaoo to go into “culture” fields
    Alex Rubinstein: structures of white supremacy alienate communties
    Alex F: (disagrees) families follow capital regardless
    Tennis Guy
    AFLO: but the colored/white divide in “artists”?
    E. hist.
    mau mau

    Rachel: david wolpes & spike lee
    Alessandra: Mandela on oppressive systems cannot be reformed, nikey commercials
    women not part of movements

    Peter: watch 4 girls, susan rose park
    AFLO: Delacroix assisted the process of PAC criticizing the ANC
    Will: p.20, Mau Mau reactionary masculinity women burning passes

    wolpe -> single women in towns
    Eugene Debs: sick Salvatore with Debs Hopes to go back what people react

    E. Hutchinson: Mandela is in prison, black consciousness -> young people come to him

    Rachel: Mandela’s position as a listener, heoized, did the PAC leave out of will or were they expelled from the movements?

    Alex Rubinstein: 1 million dollar corruption case, ANC is sinking

    Peter: last week we agreed capitalism has a role in white supremacy, has anyone challenged that?

    Camilo paris: b link,

    Patrick Bond is a white american who came to south africa for a citizenship

    Alex Rubinstein: W-A-R? Move your stretch
    journalist’s account in SA
    different exp
    need for violent protest
    how the black leadership was constructed intot the white government (homelands)
    use capital to alienate people

    Rachel: skilled/unskilled divide out of question in south africa

    P: in the 70’s two big issues: racism and vietnam. one group said those were “mistakes”

    issue: to understand the “mistakes” as integral part of the U.S. society

    P: what do we mean by “liberal”? approach to capitalism/racism
    Jared: National Liberation as a paradox
    Nicole: alternate systems. masculinity as part of a package
    Roladn McKay: Frederickson, Herrenvolk Democracy

    Alyssa: p.121 dialectical materialism, but Mandela doesn’t take on that anymore further in his actions

    WIll Clarke: National liberation, communist party black belt
    nation of islam in the ’30s.

    P: Mandela’s operating from a minority status. Pan-African nationalism

    Will: inside/outside the system. quote: within the system is the hierarchies of competition
    same situation in the u.s. capitalism

    malaysia
    too much crime, too much work ethic
    adanise, chinese

    (are stus less dev?)
    both movements from challenging capitalism
    are they engaging capitalism?
    inefficacy
    oft overlooked
    shana, economic and social agency
    sam great to move “up” sustains capitalism
    safety/ scarcity
    self-sufficiency
    eti lewis “home sphere” (church)
    Julia: Tarzan Ujama, 1950-60s

    no cognitive diffence between “reform” and “revolution”
    Sophie: Mandela’s otrobro not solely as reflection -> intended to soothe allies
    compassionate to oppressor (prison guard)
    R1 jaito: runs the workshop

    PR: tip

    def what is a liberal via park?
    cart transcripts -> only where to talk + nachie
    Nkrumah, Lumumba,

  • aurora levins morales

    aurora levins morales talk, 12:00pm

    sense of history -> resistance

    destruction of memory -> subjugation (makes oppressedness seem like a natural aspect of the peoples lives)

    self as an counterexample “adwomenster (sp)”
    Nelson Myers 1898, spanish war, great plains, arabian peninsula, immigrants

    Puerto Rico, intermediaries, the work of women, produce ginger, used for the working class (ginger bread) in Shakespeare’s England

    tiva arriving out of africa -> geographical/racial?

    Railroad women
    labor movement, struggles as anyone else

    antiwar activist
    67 left PR
    denied tenure in UPR
    76 Berkeley CA

  • RE: Freedom Movements Technology

    EDIT: good reference en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_software

    blah, I got tired of writing this. kind of pointless, anyway, now that the blog is up there. it’s just another semester of classes.
    (more…)

  • film notes, bamboozled

    is Delacroix playing the west indian?
    misrep people?

    why is his room (the white boss) full of “negro” stuff?
    “variety skit show”

    boss at the middle, evaluators to the side, the performer in the middle
    is he wearing the arab stuff on purpose?
    urgency/diff

  • movements, notes. capitalism

    class notes. jan 31. freedom movements

    fr nights, Golden town

    Mapantsula
    visual imagery
    thrown out of the window
    Themba
    “John” speaking Afrikaans
    english had subtitles (also aimed at non-english speaking native audience)
    1976 Soweto’s school students boycott Afrikaans language

    Afrikaans develops not to be understood by masters? but why don’t they speak it then?

    violence / peaceful resolution

    Duck
    1. lower middle class
    2. tails cat the N

    Manning Marable: Race is the modality through which class is expressed.

    Nothing but a man – filmmakers are white
    violence: Tactially to attract (white) sympathy

    every slave had to be zambo =//= need to be tamed?
    Lily: nothing but a man “north” as a safe place
    Pathe: Film noir detective, anti hero (Rosenberg?)
    Priest
    Social history -> women making “stuff” possible
    movement history

    (leola Johnson) extradiotigenic personality
    on Abby Lincoln 1963

    Jesse Goldman on Black Marxism, Cedric Robinson
    freedommovements.blogspot.com/2005/02/linking-racism-and-capitalism-robinson.html
    -Theoretical background: racism & capitalism -> formation of europe
    racism predates capitalism -> influences
    immigratory movements in Africa care about work places of works
    going to another place slavs as natural slaves
    capitalism comes from a social order (racism)
    capitalis is a process of “heteroginization”

    Zach Cheema on Harold Wolpe
    freedommovements.blogspot.com/2005/02/harold-wolpe-capitalism-and-cheap.html
    (P: racial and labor control in tension)
    white domination
    1. capitalist -less pay >>>> anti-capitalis (less efficiency)
    2. af-am / blacks in SA
    af-am considered inferior
    sa considered equals
    Wolpe is fixating in making Apartheid separate from segregation
    strategies to create breaches among black/white workers

    Jonathan Fredor
    Cooper. black ideology
    songs of Zion Tiembo
    (P: Cooper doesn’t like Frederickson)
    doesn’t walk much about U.S.
    criticizes on mechanical comparison, too much white perspective (no black agency)
    interested in how religions and ideology works

    Shula Marks
    freedommovements.blogspot.com/2005/02/white-supremacy-review-shula-marks.html
    -highest agers of white supremacy, John S.
    marks is SA historian
    doesn’t like comparative historical method
    generalizing is bad
    not enough info
    George Frederickson had historical inaccuracies

    Peter: comparative history is only done through a U.S. lens, and when you look at Safundi for example, more broad comparisons (brasil, etc) is done

    I brought up racism and racialism from Anthony Appiah, and said Robinson is opposed to Frederickson.

    group discussion
    (what makes a slave) christians are enslaved too, white slaves
    1900-1942
    rights in he americas
    colored in SA, frederickson p.133

    Alessandra Williams on Manning Marable
    freedommovements.blogspot.com/2005/02/how-capitalism-underdeveloped-black.html
    phenotype condition
    black migration
    common worldview was destroyed
    white working class gave up
    George Lukacs -> racism
    whitenes -> took hold off of whiteness
    (P: prof of Af-Am in Columbia)

    Leonard Thompson -> good overview
    freedommovements.blogspot.com/2005/02/thompson-history-of-south-africa.html

    • segregation of homelands

    -blacks created their own economic world, niches
    -ANC formation

    Marable & Homeland LEadership

    Lily on Phil Bonner
    http://freedommovements.blogspot.com/2005/02/bonner-delius-posel-shaping-of.html
    Apartheid’s genesis in the 20th C
    processes of social history
    (district 6 was bulldozed after 1946)

    peter: per books, demographic (b/w in sa/am)
    smilarities

    A. Randolph: WWII as a war on racism, going to DC asking for equal jobs
    no jobs! poor jobs

    SA there are jobs, no political power
    structures & mandela/king

  • white supremacy, racism, racialism

    in “White Supremacy: a comparative sutyd in american and south african history”, frederickson makes the distinction between white supremacy and racism.

    first, racism is too ambiguous. second, racism is an essentialistic mode of thought that gives racial attributes to given populations. (frederickson characterizes them as “the fact that populations groups that can be distinguished by ancestr are likely to differn in culture, status, and power” (p.xii)

    racists, then, make the claim that those are natural and bypass historical ciscumstances. white supremacists claim tha these differences favor whites.

    frederickson introduces white supremacy as an alternative, attitudinal term to racism, while leaving racism to the realm of the epistemic.

    the first reason is that in everyday discourse no one admits to being a racist anymore, because it has been conflated with a multitude of overlapping, and differing, meanings. it has been a blind spot for criticism. many administrators in south africa still admit to being white supremacists, however. alabama had a state motto praising the virtues of white supremacy.

    second reason is that scholars can deal more purely with the study of white supremacists practices, without getting stuck at accusing and pointing out the moral wrongs of racism.

    (so both reasons given by frederickson are of a methodological nature, not by some theoretical reason, such as the one given by appiah.)

    kwame anthony appiah claims in “in my father’s house” that racialism is the mode of thought where racial differences exist. then racism, is the judgement involving the placement of blacks and other colored peoples in an inferior relationship to the white race. he argues this in ch.1, “the invention of africa”, p.13, while trying to make a case for Crummell. i think he also mentions DuBois as an example of racialist thought.

    so frederickson seems to be borrowing on appiah’s theoretical framework of the epistemic aspect and activist (?) aspect of racism. but they differ in terminology

    appiah -> concept -> frederickson -> public discourse
    racialism -> epistemic division of races by attributes -> racism -> racism
    racism -> black and other races are inferior -> white supremacy -> racism

    now, rachleff briefly presented the idea of racial prejudice and racial discrimination as sub-branches of appiah’s “racism”, i don’t where he brought it from (his own?).
    appiah -> rachleff -> notion -> frederickson -> public discourse
    racism -> racial prejudice -> to claim some form of hierarchical racial order -> (no term) -> racism (reverse discrimination if the agent is not white)
    racism -> racial discrimination -> to execute out racial prejudice, e.g. school segregation -> white supremacy -> racism (terrorist, if agent is not white)

    now maybe racial discrimination and the rest of the concepts needs to be separated, because racial discrimination is a form of praxis, while the others are forms of cognition?

    back to the book..

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