...I decided to not blog at tumblr.
Okay then. Happy new year and stuff!
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
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In my first year, first quarter in grad school, I was taking a philosophy course called Subjectivity. The professor used the word "black" to convey "depressing" or "pessimistic."
Immediate interior conflict. The ability to sustain dissonance: "Great, let's outcast blackness during my first ten minutes at grad school." vs "Don't let yourself get too pulled away from class by your own sense of hurt and pc-ness, focus on his point." Having a consciousness of the profound pervasiveness of oppression, creating a perpetual sense of dread, while also being committed to pragmatic living, recognizing that I have to go along to get along.
I would not be the girl to challenge that prof on my first day of school. But I was one of two black women in class. Another sister (darker than me, I noted), poked the problem with a stick and asked: "Why is the word "black" used to convey things that we reject?"
Indeed. Shifts and discomfort from the white students and, did I mention?, white professor. I smiled inwardly, even though I was disappointed that I was not as brave.
That was almost exactly five years ago. The grad school hustle did not get easier, and I increasingly checked out. It is difficult for me to make sense in that space, and make sense of that space. But I am sitting here reading and writing and trying my hardest to get my dissertation completed so it doesn't end up being five or more years of what I like to describe as acid flashbacks.
And I am reading these feminist philosophical articles about women's oppression and autonomy. Apparently there is a forty-year debate, A FORTY-YEAR DEBATE, about whether or not a "deferential wife" is sufficiently morally autonomous. I can't even... The terms of the debate are nowhere near anything that resonates with me and it feels a little crazy-making to even engage the essays deeply. What are they talking about. But if you asked me, I could tell you exactly what they are talking about. I could probably write a pretty good exposition of the arguments. But, in another way, on a different and deeper register, I have no idea what they are talking about.
Anyway, I was reading this 1998/99 article by Kathryn Abrams (I presume a white law prof, but I'm not certain) who puts in her two cents about how autonomous or agentic women are or aren't. Then I read an article by Judy Scales-Trent (a black law prof) who responded to Abrams' article in a way that was so...weird and kind of perfect. She briefly dismisses Abrams' ideas as well as the whole question, and then the majority of her paper is about her tour of "colonial Williamsburg" which is near the location of where the conference for these paper presentations is being held. She proceeds to describe the absurdist ways in which the existence of black people and the fact of slavery is obscured, invisible, or profoundly distorted. She writes,
This paper is outstanding. I can not think of a more perfect response.
Of course, I imagine that some folks read Scales-Trent's response and was like "WTF?" "This is off topic." "I didn't say that." "Why is she talking about Williamsburg for pages???" "This doesn't make any bloody sense!" "This is crazy."
Yes. It makes no sense at all in one context. (How does Ani DiFranco put it? "Taken out of context, I must seem so strange.") Scales-Trent decided to not accept one single premise in the debate, didn't even bother entertaining the premise that she thought were obviously wrong, and just moved on to write pages and pages recounting her unbearable experiences in Williamsburg. I think it's incredibly brave to insist on a stance that radically departs from a dominant methodology and from premises widely assumed to be obvious.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, a black dude who writes for The Atlantic, thought it was a good idea to say that the the blocking of marriage for lgbt people in the US today is like the blocking of marriage for slaves in the US. I think that comparison ridiculously and needlessly understates the experience of slavery, a position I've gone over here at length. I often like Coates' writing because he's funny and can be sharp, but he can also be rude and arrogant. I tried to engage him in comments in a narrow way that accepted his premises, but instead picked on a turn of phrase, when in fact I thought his whole post was extremely whack. Unfortunately, he was rude and arrogant in his response.
I wish I had been braver and really went there with him, and didn't give a fuck if he or anyone else thought I was just another crazy black girl who is off topic. I want to be unafraid of writing & speaking in that different register. I want to be flexible in it. I want to be able to sing the high notes.
Immediate interior conflict. The ability to sustain dissonance: "Great, let's outcast blackness during my first ten minutes at grad school." vs "Don't let yourself get too pulled away from class by your own sense of hurt and pc-ness, focus on his point." Having a consciousness of the profound pervasiveness of oppression, creating a perpetual sense of dread, while also being committed to pragmatic living, recognizing that I have to go along to get along.
I would not be the girl to challenge that prof on my first day of school. But I was one of two black women in class. Another sister (darker than me, I noted), poked the problem with a stick and asked: "Why is the word "black" used to convey things that we reject?"
Indeed. Shifts and discomfort from the white students and, did I mention?, white professor. I smiled inwardly, even though I was disappointed that I was not as brave.
That was almost exactly five years ago. The grad school hustle did not get easier, and I increasingly checked out. It is difficult for me to make sense in that space, and make sense of that space. But I am sitting here reading and writing and trying my hardest to get my dissertation completed so it doesn't end up being five or more years of what I like to describe as acid flashbacks.
And I am reading these feminist philosophical articles about women's oppression and autonomy. Apparently there is a forty-year debate, A FORTY-YEAR DEBATE, about whether or not a "deferential wife" is sufficiently morally autonomous. I can't even... The terms of the debate are nowhere near anything that resonates with me and it feels a little crazy-making to even engage the essays deeply. What are they talking about. But if you asked me, I could tell you exactly what they are talking about. I could probably write a pretty good exposition of the arguments. But, in another way, on a different and deeper register, I have no idea what they are talking about.
Anyway, I was reading this 1998/99 article by Kathryn Abrams (I presume a white law prof, but I'm not certain) who puts in her two cents about how autonomous or agentic women are or aren't. Then I read an article by Judy Scales-Trent (a black law prof) who responded to Abrams' article in a way that was so...weird and kind of perfect. She briefly dismisses Abrams' ideas as well as the whole question, and then the majority of her paper is about her tour of "colonial Williamsburg" which is near the location of where the conference for these paper presentations is being held. She proceeds to describe the absurdist ways in which the existence of black people and the fact of slavery is obscured, invisible, or profoundly distorted. She writes,
...I read a flyer put out by the Williamsburg Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, noticing immediately that all of the people pictured in colonial garb had white skin. Had there really been no African-Americans at all in Williamsburg during this period? I then saw that, indeed, there must have been African-Americans in the area because, according to the Visitors Bureau, tourists could visit a "reconstructed slave quarter" on the outskirts of Colonial Williamsburg. What aggravated me in this flyer, however, was the extensive description of the plantations tourists could visit, to see how the "colonial aristocracy" lived. "Aristocracy?" What a fine word! Doesn't it sound elegant and graceful and genteel? I wondered if we were thinking about the same people: were the writers of this brochure thinking about those people who were running slave labor camps? Were they thinking of the same people who kidnapped workers so they would not have to pay them a fair wage? Were they describing the people who enacted laws stating that those African-American workers who tried to escape from forced labor camps were to be punished by dismemberment?And...her paper just sort of goes along like that for the rest of the essay, offering testimony about her experience of constantly being told up is down during her visit of southern slave plantations. Finally she submits her conclusion in maybe one or two sentences: if anyone should be worried about their autonomy, it should be white people, because their devotion to power and control seems to disrupt any real potential to exercise deliberative choice. She does not defend this view, she simply treats it as self-evident after pages of recounting her bizarre trip to Williamsburg.
This paper is outstanding. I can not think of a more perfect response.
Of course, I imagine that some folks read Scales-Trent's response and was like "WTF?" "This is off topic." "I didn't say that." "Why is she talking about Williamsburg for pages???" "This doesn't make any bloody sense!" "This is crazy."
Yes. It makes no sense at all in one context. (How does Ani DiFranco put it? "Taken out of context, I must seem so strange.") Scales-Trent decided to not accept one single premise in the debate, didn't even bother entertaining the premise that she thought were obviously wrong, and just moved on to write pages and pages recounting her unbearable experiences in Williamsburg. I think it's incredibly brave to insist on a stance that radically departs from a dominant methodology and from premises widely assumed to be obvious.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, a black dude who writes for The Atlantic, thought it was a good idea to say that the the blocking of marriage for lgbt people in the US today is like the blocking of marriage for slaves in the US. I think that comparison ridiculously and needlessly understates the experience of slavery, a position I've gone over here at length. I often like Coates' writing because he's funny and can be sharp, but he can also be rude and arrogant. I tried to engage him in comments in a narrow way that accepted his premises, but instead picked on a turn of phrase, when in fact I thought his whole post was extremely whack. Unfortunately, he was rude and arrogant in his response.
I wish I had been braver and really went there with him, and didn't give a fuck if he or anyone else thought I was just another crazy black girl who is off topic. I want to be unafraid of writing & speaking in that different register. I want to be flexible in it. I want to be able to sing the high notes.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
On The Fear of a Black Planet
Basically. What did they think Sherrod is going to do -- help white farmers to death?
Before Obama was elected, Melissa Harris Lacewell said something to the effect that it was less interesting that she would have a black president than the fact that Rush Limbaugh, et al would have a black president. After a year and a half, the response has been clear: it's panic about perceived black power.
And Rachel is right, this white fear of perceived black power narrative is not new. Indeed, it's a classic joint. Old school, if you will. The white Southern response to Reconstruction (a short era when some black people were allowed to have a minimal level of institutional power) is Birth of a Nation, the KKK, Black Codes, and thousands lynched because of perceived fear used as a justification to utilize and strengthen white supremacist power. Sherrod herself is intimately familiar with this violent project of sustaining white power when a white farmer murdered her father, a farmer who some sources say was also a member of the Klan.
The way in which male-dominated NAACP and Tom Vilsack chose to trust a fucking tea party blogger over a black woman who has been doing exceptional work for decades shouldn't surprise me, but the absurdity of it continues to boggle the mind. That black men sold out a black woman because they were scared of what white people would say because those white people are scared of that same black woman's "power," even though she is actually helping white people after white people killed her father is so beyond anything I can wrap my head around. I can't even write a proper post about it. It's far too incongruous. All I have to offer is Richard Pryor.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Apparently, I watch hot Ciara videos instead of updating my blog.
I have about a thousand blog posts memorized, but about a thousand other things I'm committed to that have to take priority. I mean, watching this video continuously for about a half hour, sure, but other stuff too. Political work, dissertation writing, attending to my relationships, and holding down a full time job. And yet, everytime I think I should call it a wrap and delete this little website, I just can't bring myself to do it.
Let's see how the summer goes. In the meantime...
Let's see how the summer goes. In the meantime...
Friday, January 15, 2010
Farewell, Crone Mary Daly
While I am slowly wrapping my head and heart around the catastrophe in Haiti, I received news that Mary Daly has died.
Here's the thing. My politics are pro-black, pro-intersectionality, anti-essentialist feminism. But, I confess that I have a soft spot for old school lesbian separatist gender-essentialist intersectionality-weak feminist theory. Before I got the chance to read core black feminism, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, etc, my introduction to feminist theory was white-dominated lesbian separatism. Sarah Hoagland. Andrea Dworkin (who wasn't exactly a lesbian, but I always thought of her as a lesbian separatist). Mary Daly. And that was the stuff that saved my life in a time when it desperately needed saving.
But I can occasionally table some of these issues when I rest. These ideas don't have to be like a handbook that shapes an on the ground organizing and life practice. But they can be available when a distance is desperately called for and required. When one's mind is at the state of Enough. There's something about the militancy of it that I find comforting. That it's there if we really need it. It's a reminder that there's a way to completely shut off the volume of noise if we can no longer constantly battle it.
I am so incredibly grateful for her work and I am so sad that she is gone. Safe travels, Crone Mary, may the Elemental Spirits carry you to the next Otherworld.
Here's the thing. My politics are pro-black, pro-intersectionality, anti-essentialist feminism. But, I confess that I have a soft spot for old school lesbian separatist gender-essentialist intersectionality-weak feminist theory. Before I got the chance to read core black feminism, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, etc, my introduction to feminist theory was white-dominated lesbian separatism. Sarah Hoagland. Andrea Dworkin (who wasn't exactly a lesbian, but I always thought of her as a lesbian separatist). Mary Daly. And that was the stuff that saved my life in a time when it desperately needed saving.
Courage to Live (1985 ed.): the Courage to refuse inclusion in the State of the Living Dead, to break out from the deadforms of archetypal deadtime, to take leap after leap of Living Faith; Fiercely Biophilic Courage
Surviving [derived fr. L super- beyond + vivere to live--Webster's] : the process of Spinsters living beyond, above, through, around the perpetual witchcraze of patriarchy; Metaliving, be-ing. Canny Comment:
If anyone should ask a Negro woman what is her greatest achievement, her honest answer would be: "I survived!" -- Pauli Murray, 1970Heterosexual psychodrama had been kicking my ass. I went back to school. I stopped dating altogether, I was no longer interested in it. I don't endorse separatism as a political project, but perhaps I can get behind separatism as a temporary meditative project. There is a rescuing that happens with separatist imagination. That moment when I was so filled with rage, I needed breathing room. An imaginative breadth where I could see myself in a pause. Space to not have to deal with the ongoingness, the relentlessness of the violence that I once saw as core in the engagement between men and women.
Parthenogenesis (Anne Dellenbaugh) n [derived fr. Gk parthenos virgin + Gk genesis birth--American Heritage] 1 : process of a woman creating her Self 2 : process by which a Virgin brings forth Daughters by herSelf without the interference or input of any male 3 : process by which a Spinster creates unfathered works: SPINNING. See Virgin (W-W 2)I read Mary Daly's Wickedary and it was like an awakening. A gaping hole in front of me. I hadn't imagined that anyone could break from whole epistemologies, entire vocabularies, miles and miles of crazymaking premises. That book is a work of artistry, of irony, urgency, and love.
Philosophia n : "the wisdom formulated by women; love for the wisdom of women; desire and passion for understanding: an intellectual urge toward love of live"--Emily Erwin Culpepper. See Parthenogenetic CreationMy politics are now so different from this body of work. Now I'm full of plenty of rage for white people too! Ha! There are profound differences regarding race politics, sex work, trans politics, nation... And, in any case, it's not sustainable, realistic, or even desirable to separate from whole groups of people, even if it were possible to draw boundaries through gender, or race, or other constructed populations. Which it's not. And even if it were not possible to love and have relation across those borders. Which, of course, it is. The theories I prioritize and the politics that drive me now seem so alien from and largely opposed to this particular kind of feminism that rescued me so long ago. Even as I flip through Wickedary this evening and review Daly's definition for "Ethnic," I think...noooo. Whiteness and the lessons of difference will never allow me to literally think of the population of women as a nation, an idea that seems to fit snugly in these pages.
But I can occasionally table some of these issues when I rest. These ideas don't have to be like a handbook that shapes an on the ground organizing and life practice. But they can be available when a distance is desperately called for and required. When one's mind is at the state of Enough. There's something about the militancy of it that I find comforting. That it's there if we really need it. It's a reminder that there's a way to completely shut off the volume of noise if we can no longer constantly battle it.
Third Eye : Super Sensory power of transcendent vision; Elemental capacity of Nag-Gnostics to envision Other Whys, Other ways, and Other worlds.Black feminism is written down on my body, threaded through my heart, it gives form to my relationships, it makes sense of my subjectivity. But my life was already saved by the time I got to it. And even though I can read Gyn/Ecology now and know that it will make me cringe, I will never deny the powerful imaginary that Daly's work provided. What can be done in the absence of the thing that makes one mad, that's hard to name, and seems inescapable? A breather could change everything.
I am so incredibly grateful for her work and I am so sad that she is gone. Safe travels, Crone Mary, may the Elemental Spirits carry you to the next Otherworld.
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