Table of Contents

Table of Contents...................................................................................................................................................1 Notes........................................................................................................................................................................7 *****AFF****........................................................................................................................................................9 *RACISM/POLICING IMPACTS.....................................................................................................................10 Rac s!" St#$ct$#al/ %a l&...................................................................................................................................11 Re'et t on of Instances........................................................................................................................................1( Rac al Cont#act....................................................................................................................................................1) AT *a# O/*........................................................................................................................................................1+ AT Oba!a/ M$lt c$lte#al s!..............................................................................................................................1, * l-e#son. Ontolo/ cal %eat0............................................................................................................................11 * l-e#son. *0 te 2o-& 2a-...............................................................................................................................17 * l-e#son. AT Soc al Refo#!.............................................................................................................................13 *AT FRAM4*OR5...........................................................................................................................................(( % sc$ss on of Race 5e&........................................................................................................................................() Role'la& n/ 2a-...................................................................................................................................................(+ Fa #ness"46c$s ona#&.........................................................................................................................................(, AT T0e& 46cl$-e t0e Ne/....................................................................................................................................(1 AT State Refo#!..................................................................................................................................................(7 AT Ce-e t0e Pol t cal...........................................................................................................................................(9 *AFF M4T7O%S*..............................................................................................................................................)) 2$#n t %o8n........................................................................................................................................................)+ 7 ' 7o' Goo-......................................................................................................................................................), M --le Passa/e.....................................................................................................................................................)3 Pe#fo#!at 9e Pe-a/o/&.......................................................................................................................................)9 T0#ee T e# P#ocess...............................................................................................................................................+0 .O#/an c Intellect$als Goo-................................................................................................................................+1 .Pe#sonal 46'e# ence Goo-.................................................................................................................................+( .46'e#ts 2a-.........................................................................................................................................................+) .AT O$# A$t0o#s A#e Incl$s 9e..........................................................................................................................+, *AT 5s..................................................................................................................................................................+7 AT Af#oPess ! s!...............................................................................................................................................+3 Pe#!......................................................................................................................................................................+9 Af#oPess ! s! Goo-...........................................................................................................................................,0 AT Ca' 5..............................................................................................................................................................,+

*****N4G*****...................................................................................................................................................,9 *N4G M4T7O%S ANS*4RS*.........................................................................................................................10 Gene#al :Act 9 s! 2a-;.......................................................................................................................................11 %ebate" *#on/ <en$e........................................................................................................................................1( =se of 2allot 2a-..................................................................................................................................................1+ ***T0#ee T e# P#ocess***...................................................................................................................................17 AT O#/an c Intellect$als.....................................................................................................................................13 AT Pe#sonal 46'e# ences Goo- Fo# %ebate......................................................................................................19 46'e#ts Goo-........................................................................................................................................................7) ***2$#n t %o8n***............................................................................................................................................71 < olence 2a-.........................................................................................................................................................77 AT State 2a-........................................................................................................................................................30 ***Pe#fo#!at 9e Pe-a/o/&***...........................................................................................................................3( 46'e# ence Foc$s 2a-. 4' ste!olo/&................................................................................................................3) 46'e# ence Foc$s 2a-. 2 olo/ s! T$#n............................................................................................................31 46'e# ence Foc$s 2a-. Non.Fals f able.............................................................................................................37 >$# - cal T$#n......................................................................................................................................................33 S$b?ect 9 t&...........................................................................................................................................................39 < ct !0oo- T$#n..................................................................................................................................................90 ***7 ' 7o'*** ....................................................................................................................................................9( Cons$!e# s! T$#n..............................................................................................................................................9) Ste#eot&'es T$#n..................................................................................................................................................9, P#a/!at s! T#a-eoff...........................................................................................................................................91 AT M$st =se 7 ' 7o'/ 49 2a-..........................................................................................................................93 ***M --le Passa/e***.......................................................................................................................................100 *Note....................................................................................................................................................................101 7a t Co$nte#na##at 9e......................................................................................................................................10( Alt Sol9es.............................................................................................................................................................103 Ce-es Po8e# to *0 tes......................................................................................................................................109 N 0 l s! T$#n/A0 sto# cal.................................................................................................................................110 Soc al %eat0/ %ete#! n s! T$#n......................................................................................................................111 **** l-e#son*** ...............................................................................................................................................11, *Soc al %eat0 5 :* l-e#son;*...........................................................................................................................111 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................117 T$#ns Case @ G#a!!a# of S$ffe# n/...............................................................................................................113 46t. 2A................................................................................................................................................................119

T/ A/enc&............................................................................................................................................................1(0 *1NC F#onl ne 9s * l-e#sonBs Met0o-*..........................................................................................................1(( (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................1(3 6tC !et0o- n- ct................................................................................................................................................1(9 6tC 's&c0oanal&s s ba- !et0o-.........................................................................................................................1)1 6tC no alt ba-.......................................................................................................................................................1)( atC ant blacDness.................................................................................................................................................1)) ATC L b - nal 4cono!&.....................................................................................................................................1)+ a-0e#es to 'atte#son...........................................................................................................................................1), ***TOPICAL ACC4SS TO %ISC=SSING RAC4***..................................................................................1)7 2$ses....................................................................................................................................................................1)3 Ne8 O#leans.......................................................................................................................................................1)9 T#ans'o#tat on :Gene#al;..................................................................................................................................1+( =#ban S'#a8l.....................................................................................................................................................1+) ***Af#o Pess ! s! 5***...................................................................................................................................1+1 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................1,1 A0 sto# cal...........................................................................................................................................................1,( Soc al %eat0 L nDs.............................................................................................................................................1,) Soc al %eat0 T/ A/enc&......................................................................................................................................1,, Total E n// N 0 l s! 2a-....................................................................................................................................1,1 ***A/a!ben 46cl$s on 5***...........................................................................................................................1,9 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................111 ***2lacD/*0 te Pa#a- /! 5***......................................................................................................................11) (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................111 T$#ns Case..........................................................................................................................................................117 Ot0e# Races I!'act...........................................................................................................................................113 46cl$s on L nD....................................................................................................................................................119 46tC I!'acts.......................................................................................................................................................170 Lat no/a I-ent t& I!'act...................................................................................................................................17) 2/* Pa#a- /! Alt.............................................................................................................................................17, AT Ma#/ nal Ees 2lacD O''#ess on ................................................................................................................177 AT 5 of Lat no/a................................................................................................................................................173 ***Co!!$n t& 2a- 5***.................................................................................................................................130 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................13( .I-ent t& 4#as$#e................................................................................................................................................13) .46tC Co!!$n t& 2a- .....................................................................................................................................13+

Re?ect on alt........................................................................................................................................................13, Pe#! Ans8e#......................................................................................................................................................131 L nD *all............................................................................................................................................................133 I!'act 46tens ons..............................................................................................................................................139 ***%ete#! n s! 5***.......................................................................................................................................19( (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................19) 46tC L nD.............................................................................................................................................................19+ .AT %en es =to' a..............................................................................................................................................19, ***7o!o/en Eat on 5 ***................................................................................................................................197 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................199 (NC @ A''#o'# at on T$#n..............................................................................................................................(00 (NC @ *0 te F ll In............................................................................................................................................(01 Incl$s on Calls T$#n Case.................................................................................................................................(0( AT Lan/$a/e F #st.............................................................................................................................................(0) ***I-ent t& Pol t cs 5***..................................................................................................................................(0, ***Onto Foc$s 5***..........................................................................................................................................(07 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................(09 L nD @ Ontolo/ cal 2lacDness " 4ssent al st...................................................................................................(10 Re?ect on Sol9es..................................................................................................................................................(11 ***O9e# 46tens on 5*** ..................................................................................................................................(1) (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................(11 Fasc s! L nD.......................................................................................................................................................(17 Fasc s! T$#ns Genoc -e/ Rac s!.....................................................................................................................(19 AT Fasc s! s P#o/#ess 9e.................................................................................................................................((0 46tC 2allot O9e#e6tens on L nDs.......................................................................................................................((1 C0$#c0/State L nDs............................................................................................................................................((( C0$#c0/State M'6..............................................................................................................................................(() Coe#c on M'6.....................................................................................................................................................((+ % sc# ! nat on M'6...........................................................................................................................................((, M'6 Ma/n f e#. Soc al Con-e!nat on.............................................................................................................((1 AT 4!anc 'ato#&...............................................................................................................................................((7 Pe#sonal S$b?$/at on Mo-$le...........................................................................................................................((3 %e!oc#ac& Mo-$le ...........................................................................................................................................((9 %ebate" O8n S'ace...........................................................................................................................................()1 Se'e#at on 5/T %e!oc#ac&...............................................................................................................................()( O9e# 46tens on 5C 46cl$s on I!'acts.............................................................................................................())

ATC T0 s S'ace s Al#ea-& Pol t cal..................................................................................................................()+ ***Post Rac al s! 5***....................................................................................................................................()1 (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................()9 (NC Monol t0 c Mo-$le....................................................................................................................................(+0 N 0 l s!/Total E n/ 2a-.....................................................................................................................................(+( 46tC Monolot0 c..................................................................................................................................................(++ Ot0e#ness 2a-....................................................................................................................................................(+, Foc$s 2a-............................................................................................................................................................(+7 Conce't of Po8e# 2a-.......................................................................................................................................(,1 ***S$ffe# n/ 5***.............................................................................................................................................(,) (NC O/<..............................................................................................................................................................(,, T/ 4ffect 9e Pol t cs............................................................................................................................................(,1 T/ 46cl$s on.......................................................................................................................................................(,3 AT Mo#al t&........................................................................................................................................................(,9 ***Ca' 5 Co!'onents***................................................................................................................................(11 **IMPACTS**...................................................................................................................................................(1( Ca' T/Pol c n/....................................................................................................................................................(1) Ca' T/ Rac s!....................................................................................................................................................(1+ Ca' T/ Co##$'t on.............................................................................................................................................(1, Re?ect on A P# o# ..............................................................................................................................................(11 Global %est#$ct on M'6....................................................................................................................................(17 Root Ca$se Sla9e#&............................................................................................................................................(13 **LIN5S**.........................................................................................................................................................(19 2lacD S$b?ect 9 t& L nD.....................................................................................................................................(70 C0a n of 4F$ 9alences L nD..............................................................................................................................(7( C# t cal Pe-a/o/& L nD......................................................................................................................................(7) 7 ' 7o' L nD.....................................................................................................................................................(7+ L nD of O!! ss on ............................................................................................................................................(7, *0 teness Foc$s L nD........................................................................................................................................(71 **ALT**.............................................................................................................................................................(77 Mate# al P#o-$ct on of Race.............................................................................................................................(73 **AT AFF ANS*4RS**..................................................................................................................................(79 AT Race"4!anc 'ato#&....................................................................................................................................(30 AT O$# 4t0 c O/*.............................................................................................................................................(31 AT M lls..............................................................................................................................................................(3( ***%e#o/#ato#& Lan/$a/e 5***......................................................................................................................(3+

Notes
One frustration that is expressed by debaters/coaches that are interested in debating race is that few debaters are willing to exercise their switch side debate skills and actually engage both sides of the conversation. Far too often debaters simply reach for their framework files and hope that they can win that fairness/predictability will win the day. The ongoing competitive success of teams debating race has demonstrated that the gut check to framework strategy works for a limited amount of time. Eventually, like all good debaters, the best race debaters master the argument that they debate against the most and gear much of their arguments from the beginning of the debate on to answer this predictable strategy. For many of you, however, framework will still be the option that you prefer either for competitive or ideological reasons. For others of you, framework arguments are ust more comfortable. This file is an attempt to engage in the conversation over race for the debaters interested in expanding their argumentative options. Three important notes about this file! "# This file includes both sides! we have tried to the best of our ability to present the arguments for debating race including defenses of methods, defenses of terminal impacts, answers to framework, answers to the $ap %, etc...&e believe that one of the key reasons that people gut check to framework is because they do not understand the race arguments enough to feel comfortable engaging their opponents on the substance of their claims. &e found the process of cutting the affirmative articles/books invaluable and would highly recommend that you not simply skip to the neg section of the file if you want to have the best chance to win with this file. '# There is no such thing as a monolithic (race team.) One of the most damaging ethos moments in debate is when someone makes an argument against a race team that does not apply. *t shows a basic ignorance that carries a performative element. *t is one thing to get a link to politics wrong, it is a whole different problem to assert that the other team+s method is disempowering to people of color and get the method wrong. *f you are going to use any portion of this file, you must first understand the variety of arguments made by teams debating race. That re,uires you to actually scout and research your opponents+ arguments. -# There is some overlap with the framework file. The over#extension %, the personal experiences bad arguments, and other arguments appear in both. .ake sure that you have read both files closely to make sure that you avoid redundancy.

*****AFF****

*RACISM/POLICING IMPACTS

Ig ori g structural racism !lays i to t"e #a$a%e o# &"ite et"ics' !er!etuates racism t"roug" co sta t( seemi gly ormal !olici g( &it"out recog i)i g t"e e*il o# t"e system Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 They prowl, categori7ing and profiling, often turning those

Racism= Structural/ Daily

profiles into murder violence without /serious6 fear of being called to account, all the while claiming impunity. &hat ars the imagination is not the fact of impunity itself, but the reali7ation that they are simply people working a ob, a ob they secured by making an application at the personnel office. *n events such as the shooting of 2madou 5iallo, the true excessiveness is not in the massiveness of the shooting, but in the fact that these cops were there on the street looking for this event in the first place, as a matter of routine business. This spectacular evil is encased in a more inarticulable evil of banality, namely, that the state assigns certain individuals to /well#paying6 obs as hunters of human beings, a furtive protocol for which this shooting is simply the effect. 8ut they do more than prowl. They make problematic the whole notion of social responsibility such that we no longer know if the police are responsible to the udiciary and local administration or if the city is actually responsible to them, duty bound by impunity itself. To the extent to which the police are a law unto themselves, the latter would have to be the case. This unaccountable vector of inverted social responsibility would resonate in the operating procedures in upper levels of civil administration as well. That is, civil governmental structures would act in accordance with the paradigm of policing9wanton violence legitimi7ed by strict conformity to procedural regulations. For instance, consider the recent case of a "' year old 2frican#2merican boy sentenced to prison for life without parole
for having killed a : year old 2frican#2merican girl while acting out the moves he had seen in professional wrestling matches on T;. *n demanding this sentence, the prosecutor argued that the boy was a permanent menace to society, and had killed the girl out of extreme malice and consciousness of what he was doing. 2 "' year old child, yet <ionel Tate was given life without parole. *n the name of social sanctity, the udicial system successfully terrori7ed yet another human being, his friends, and relatives by carrying its proceduralism to the limit. The corporate media did the rest= several >commentators> ridiculed Tate?s claim to have imitated wrestling moves, rewriting his statement as a disreputable excuse! >pro wrestling made me do it.> /0an Francisco $hronicle, -/'@/A"6 Thus, they transformed his naBve awareness of bodies into intentional weaponry and cunning.

One could surmise, with greater ustification than surmising the malice of the child, that the prosecutor made a significant career step by getting this high#profile conviction. 8eyond the promotion he would secure for a ob well done, beyond the mechanical performance of official outrage and the cynicism exhibited in playing the role, what animus drove the prosecutor to demand such a sentenceC *n the face of the prosecution+s sanctimonious excess, those who bear witness to Tate+s suffering have only inarticulate outrage to offer as consolation. &ith recourse only to the usual rhetorical expletives about racism , the procedural ritualism of this white supremacist operation has confronted them with the absence of a real means of discerning the udiciary+s dissimulated machinations. The prosecutor was the banal functionary of a civil structure, a paradigmatic exercise of wanton violence that parades as moral rectitude but whose source is the paradigm of policing. 2ll attempts to explain the malicious standard operating procedure of D0 white supremacy find themselves hamstrung by conceptual inade,uacy = it remains describable, but not comprehensible. The story can be told, as the E" bullets fired to slaughter 5iallo can be counted, but the ethical meaning remains beyond the discursive resources of civil society , outside the framework for thinkable thought. *t is, of course,
possible to speak out against such white supremacist violence as immoral, as illegal, even unconstitutional. 8ut the impossibility of thinking through to the ethical dimension has a hidden structural effect. For those who are not racially profiled or tortured when arrested, who

are not tried and sentenced with the presumption of guilt, who are not shot reaching for their identification, all of this is imminently ignorable. 8etween the inability to see and the refusal to acknowledge, a mode of social organi7ation is being cultivated for which the paradigm of policing is the cutting edge. &e shall have to look beyond raciali7ed police violence to see its logic . The impunity of racist police violence is the first implication of its ignorability to white civil society. The ignorability of police impunity is what renders it inarticulable outside of that hegemonic formation. *f ethics is possible for white civil society within its social discourses, it is rendered irrelevant to the systematic violence deployed against the outside precisely because it is ignorable. *ndeed, that ignorability becomes the condition of possibility for the ethical coherence of the inside. The dichotomy between a white ethical dimension and its irrelevance to the violence of police profiling is the very structure of raciali7ation today. *t is a twin structure, a regime of violence that operates in two registers, terror and the seduction into the fraudulent ethics of social order= a double economy of terror, structured by a ritual of incessant performance. 2nd into the gap between them, common sense, which cannot
account for the double register or twin structure of this ritual, disappears into incomprehensibility. The language of common sense, through which we bespeak our social world in the most common way, leaves us speechless before the enormity of the usual, of the business of civil procedures.

Re!etitio o# I sta ces

1"ite su!remacy is "i%%e 2y its seemi g or%i ari ess' re3ecti g it re4uires 2rea0i g t"e cycle o# re!etitio o# &"ite "egemo y a % !olici g Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 The gratuitousness of its repetition bestows upon white supremacy

an inherent discontinuity . *t stops and starts self#referentially, at whim. To theori7e some political, economic, or psychological necessity for its repetition, its unending return to violence, its need to kill is to lose a grasp on that gratuitousness by thinking its performance is representable. 2nd therein it hides. *f the hegemony of white supremacy is already /and only6 excessive, its acts of repetition are its access to unrepresentability= they dissolve its excessiveness into invisibility as simply daily occurrence. &e can, for example, name the fact of 2lbert &oodfox+s nearly -A#year solitary confinement in 2ngola Frison, but it exceeds the capacity of representation. /The ideological and cultural structure that conceives of and enables doing that to a person in the first place is inarticulable.6 The inner dynamic of our attempts to understand its supposedly underlying meaning or purpose masks its ethic of impunity from us. &hite supremacy is nothing more than what we perceive of it= there is nothing beyond it to give it legitimacy, nothing beneath it nor outside of it to give it ustification. The structure of its banality is the surface on which it operates. &hatever mythic content it pretends to claim is a priori empty. *ts secret is that it has no depth. There is no dark corner that, once brought to the light of reason, will unravel its system. *n each instance of repetition, >what is repeated is the emptiness of repetition,> an articulation that >does not speak and yet has always been said > /Foucault @E6. *n other words, its truth lies in the rituals that sustain its circuitous contentless logic= it is, in fact, nothing but its very practices.

Racial Co tract
1"ite su!remacy is co siste tly o*erloo0e%' e+!lori g t"e Racial Co tact is 0ey Mills 56 / 2ssociate Frof of Fhilosophy G D *llinois, $hicago "HHI $harles#= The Jacial $ontract= p. "#-6 &hite supremacy is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today. Kou will not find this term in introductory, or even advanced, texts in political theory. 2 standard under graduate philosophy course
will start off with Flato and 2ristotle, perhaps say something about 2ugustine, 2,uinas, and .achiavelli, move on to Lobbes, <ocke, .ill, and .arx, and then wind up with Jawls and Mo7ick. *t will introduce you to notions of aristocracy, democracy, absolutism, liberalism, representative government, socialism, welfare capitalism, and libertarianism . 8ut though it covers more than two thousand years of &estern political

thought and runs the ostensible gamut of political systems, there will be no mention of the basic political system that has shaped the world for the past several hundred years. 2nd this omission is not accidental. Jather, it reflects the fact that standard textbooks and courses have for the most part been written and designed by whites, who take their racial privilege so much for granted that they so not even see it as political, as a form of domination. *ronically, the most important political system of recent global history#the system of domination by which white people have historically ruled over and, in certain important ways, continue to rule over nonwhite people#is not seen as a political system at all. *t is ust taken for granted, it is the background against which other systems, which we are to see as political, are highlighted. This book is an attempt to redirect your vision, to make you see what, in a sense, has been there all along. Fhilosophy has remained remarkably untouched by the debates over multiculturalism, canon reform, and ethnic diversity racking the academy both demographically and conceptually, it is one of the >whitest> of the humanities. 8lacks, for example, constitute only about " percent of philosophers in Morth 2merican universities#a hundred or so people out of more than ten thousand# and there are even fewer <atino, 2sian 2merican, and Mative 2merican philosophers." 0urely this underrepresentation itself stands in need of an explanation, and in my opinion it can be traced in part to a conceptual array, and a standard repertoire of concerns whose abstractness typically elides, rather than genuinely includes, the experience of racial minorities . 0ince /white6 women have the
demographic advantage of numbers, there are of course far more female philosophers in the profession than nonwhite philosophers /though still not proportionate to women?s percentage of the population6, and they have made far greater progress in developing alternative conceptuali7ations. Those 2frican 2merican philosophers who do work in moral and political theory tend either to produce general work indistinguishable from that of their white peers or to focus on local issues /affirmative action, the black >underclass>6 or historical figures /&. E. 8. 5u8ois, 2lain <ocke6 in a way that does not aggressively engage the broader debate. &hat is needed is a global theoretical framework for situating discussions of race

and white racism, and thereby challenging the assumptions of white political philosophy, which would correspond to feminist theorists? articulation of the centrality of gender, patriarchy, and sexism to traditional moral and political theory. &hat is needed, in other words, is a recognition that racism /or, as * will argue, global white supremacy6 is itself a political system, a particular power structure of formal or informal rule, socioeconomic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties. The notion of the Jacial $ontract is, * suggest, one possible way of making this connection with mainstream theory, since it uses the vocabulary and apparatus already developed for contractarianism to map this unacknowledged system.

AT 1ar O/1
Focus o i ter atio al &ars i te tio ally glosses o*er &ars occurri g o t"e %omestic #ro t' allo&s #or t"e *icious( racist !olici g o# mi orities Ro%rigue) ,5' P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( !ro# at .C Ri*ersi%e /5ylan, (The Terms of
Engagement! &arfare, &hite <ocality, and 2bolition,) $ritical 0ociology, vol. -: no. " p. "@"#"I-//.456 *n spite of, or perhaps because of, the recent proliferation of Nantiwar+ liberal and progressive discourses challenging the militari7ed D0 global regime of the 8ush 2dministration+s &ar on Terror, the circumstances, scenes, and locations of

warfare have been insidiously periodi7ed and re#sited O not incidentally by the Nantiwar+ left itself O to the nominal historical and geographic exteriors of the D02. There is a political#discursive circuit bridging the extra#national and global military mobili7ations of the D0 state, including
its knowledge#producing and violence#enhancing techni,ues, and the loyal opposition and dissension of the establishment D0 left to a state#induced global Nwar+ that it alleges is being conducted under false, flawed, or immoral pretensions. The energy conducted by this political#

discursive circuit /as with all functioning circuits6 reproduces each of the nominally opposed elements of its bridge while, uni,uely, generating
bodies of social thought /embodied by scholars, pundits, activists, state figures, and public media forms6 and political performances /rallies, Nantiwar+ agendas/manifestos, and rituals of public debate6 that instruct a particular common sense of what Nwar+ is. This common sense obscures and consistently disavows

the material continuities between state#formed technologies of warmaking across re#forming the D0 NLomeland+ as a place of relative Npeace+ O or at least as a place that is not at war O wherein state#produced and state#proctored institutionali7ations of massive racist violence are unrecogni7able as such, and articulations of the current emergencies of domestic warfare O e.g. by prison and penal
historical moments and geographies, while abolitionists /$ritical Jesistance Fublications $ollective 'AAA6, radical women of color antiviolence activists /*M$*TEP &omen of $olor 2gainst ;iolence 'AA:6, and imprisoned radicals and revolutionaries /Lames#4arcia 'AAE= JodrQgue7 'AA:6 O are held with suspicion as the allegations of

those /simply6 unwilling to concede the fundamental tenability and universal reformability of the D0 social and state forms. * am thus addressing a modality of war that is most often contained and disappeared into the categorically unremarkable! that which is so taken#for#granted, assumed so organic to the production of the social landscape, that it is ,uite literally not worthy of extended remark, much less sustained critical comment or analysis . 2s such, this historical present is a warfare mosaic that refuses simplifying categori7ation precisely because its composition absorbs the identification of its observers, and /following 2lthusser+s formulation6 Nhails+ social sub ects with individuali7ing narratives of national vindication. The discursive techni,ues of this war subsume regularly available, locally recogni7able artifacts of martial law /e.g. announced and valori7ed police roundups of Ngangs+ and Nillegal aliens+6, a racist police state /euphemi7ed as Nracial profiling+6, and deeply political or proto#political civil insurrection /e.g. rioting, cop assassination, and property destruction6 under the rubrics of law, policing, ustice, and /most importantly6 Npeace+ or Npeacekeeping+. *n the context of this political#cultural Nnational+ production, ordinary people are not merely witnesses to state#waged atrocity in their midst, but are /sometimes overlappingly6 its participants, enablers, victims, and strategists. Low is it that a national pro ect so consistently and openly reproduced through technologies of warmaking in its domestic and/or immanent geographies of nation#building /including multiple frontiers and borderlands6 can now generally avoid a scrutiny of critical intellectual /and radical political6 emergencyC $an a theoretical rubric that focally situates the peculiar /though not Nuni,ue+ or globally exceptional6 white supremacist social logic of D0 nation#building facilitate such a critical, radical scrutiny and praxisC * have chosen to elaborate these
overarching arguments and provocations through brief meditations on two overlapping, symbiotic, and historically specific articulations of D0 domestic warfare! a6 the current statecraft of Lomeland 0ecurity as a formally multiculturalist and Ndemocracy#building+ national pro ect that sustains a white supremacist technology of locality#making /the social fabrication of a sense of Nplace+6= and b6 the post#"HIAs emergence of a D0 racist state that persistently enunciates itself as a commonly domestic warmaking regime, such that its established terms of political engagement elaborate the structural necessity of racist state violence O as Npolicing+ O to the viability of the D0 national form itself. These pro ects mutually reproduce white

bodily integrity as a fundamental and necessary national#racial entitlement, a historically situated reification that forms the political and conceptual premises of national, popular, and Ncritical+ discourses more generally. *n both cases, * am concerned with displacing the arrested, default liberal political discourses and activist practices of an establishment/progressive left that is politically unwilling and structurally unable to ade,uately address the conditions of D0 white supremacy in its
current articulations. 8ecause the intent of these tracings is to suggest a genealogical tra ectory rather than to fully exhaust the analytical and textual depths of each topic, the primary task of this essay is to clarify the premises and embedded implications of a specific analytical framework as well as to elaborate a political articulation that derives from this theoretical and conceptual positioning. * ask the reader to conceptuali7e this as praxis, or activist theoretical work, rather than a conventional academic essay that moves from the pretenses of ob ectivity or scientific disinterest.

T"eir logic o# multiculturalism is !ater alistic' o ly ser*es to retre c" racism Ro%rigue) ,5' P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( !ro# at .C Ri*ersi%e /5ylan, (The Terms of
Engagement! &arfare, &hite <ocality, and 2bolition,) $ritical 0ociology, vol. -: no. " p. "@"#"I-//.456

AT O2ama/ Multiculteralism

The ascendance of the Obama administration signifies this complex tension between universal /white6 humanity, (non#white) sub ection to logics of disposability/genocide, and multiculturalist empowerment in continuity with the violence of the white supremacist state. &hite supremacy is historically characteri7ed by a periodic flexibility of phenotype /e.g. (first black president) as white supremacist nation#building+s moral/political vindication6 that is already determined by the structural durability of the social logics of racial dominance/violence. Thus, To consider white supremacy as essential to 2merican national formation /rather than an extremist deviation or
incidental departure from it6 inaugurates a deeper theori7ation of how this material logic of violence overdetermines the social, political, economic, and cultural structures that compose 2merican white locality/globality and, crucially, generates the common sense indispensable to its ordering. *t thus is within the confines of Lomeland 0ecurity as white supremacist territoriality O a structure of feeling that organi7es the cohesion of racial and spatial entitlement O that Nmulticulturalism+ is recogni7ed as a fact of life, an empirical feature of the world that is

inescapable and unavoidable, something to be tolerated, policed, and patriotically valori7ed at once and in turn. On the one hand, white locality is a site of existential identification that generates /and therefore corresponds to6 a white supremacist materiality. 2s sub ects /including ostensibly Nnon#white+ sub ects6 identify with this sentimental structure O a process that is not cleanly agential or altogether voluntary O they enter a relation of discomforting intimacy with embodied threats to their sense of the Nlocal+. Those alien bodies and sub ects, whose movement suggests the possibility of disruption and disarticulation, become ob ects of a discrete discursive labor as well as material/military endeavors. .ost importantly, they become specified and particulari7ed sites for white locality+s punitive performances! raciali7ed punishment , capture, and discipline are entwined in the historical fabric of white supremacist social formations from con,uest and chattel enslavement onward, and the emergence of white locality+s hypermobility has necessitated new technologies commensurate with the hyperpresence O actual and virtual O of white sub ectivities. 2s white bodies and sub ects exert the capacity to manifest authority and presence in places they both do and do not physically occupy /call the latter Nabsentee+ white supremacy for shorthand6, the old relations of classical white supremacist apartheid are necessarily and persistently reinvented! racial sub ection becomes a technology of inclusion that crucially accompanies O and is radically enhanced by O ongoing proliferations of racist state and state#sanctioned violence. Further, this logic of multiculturalist white supremacist inclusion does not exclusively rely on strategies of coercion or punishment to assimilate others O such as in the paradigmatic examples of bodily sub ection that formed the institutional machinery of Mative 2merican boarding and mission schools /2dams "HH@= 0mith 'AA@6, but instead builds upon the more plastic and sustainable platforms of consensus and collective identity formation. * do not mean to suggest that
either consensus building or identity formation are benign pro ects of autonomous racial self#invention, somehow operating independently of the structuring relations of dominance that characteri7e a given social formation. Jather, * am arguing that t he social technologies of white

supremacy are, in this historical moment, not reducible to discrete arrangements of institutionali7ed /and state legitimated6 violence or strategies of social exclusion /5a 0ilva 'AAI6 but are significantly altered and innovated through the crises of bodily proximity that white locality bears to its alien /and even enemy6 populations. *t is in these moments of discomfort, when white locality is internally populated by alien others who have neither immigrated nor invaded the space, but have in multiple ways become occupied by the praxis of white locality construction, that logics of incorporation and inclusion become crucial to the historical pro ect of white supremacist globality.

1il%erso ' O tological Deat"

/lac0 ess is a co %itio o# o tological %eat" 7 a *oca2ulary to %escri2e t"is loss %oes 8t e+ist 7 t"e o ly &ay to 2rea0 out o# t"is structure is a com!lete %estructio o# ci*il society a % t"e e!istemological #ou %atio s it rests o 9 1il%erso No Date RFrank, 2ss. Frof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies D$#*rvine (2fro Fessimism) http!//uc# ipc.com/members/'AAS/A:/'-/afro#pessimism/ //liamT 2fro#Fessimism theori7es 8lackness as a position of accumulation and fungibili ty /0aidiya Lartman6= as condition9 or relation9of ontological death= rather than celebrate it as an identity of cultural plenitude. One of the guiding ,uestions of my engagement with
2fro#Fessimism is! Low are the political stakes of analysis and aesthetics raised and altered if we theori7e the structural relation between 8lacks and Lumanity as an antagonism /an irreconcilable encounter6 as opposed to a conflictC The following ,uestion was asked on a graduate student exam for a $ritical Theory 0eminar, entitled (0entient Ob ects and the $risis of $ritical Theory,) that * taught Fall Uuarter 'AA:. Uuestion! &hy are the theorists under consideration Rin this seminarT called (2fro#Fessimists,) and what characteristics do they have in commonC ( 2fro#Fessimists are framed as suchVbecause they theori7e of liberation, refusing

an antagonism, rather than a conflict9i.e. they perform a kind of Nwork of understanding+ rather than that to posit seemingly untenable solutions to the problems they raise .) (RThe 2fro#Fessimists argueT that violence toward the black person happens gratuitously, hence without former transgression, and the even if the means of repression change /plantation was replaced by prison, etc.6, that doesn+t change the structure of the repression itself. Finally /and this is important in terms of the self#definition of the white person6, a lot of repression happens on the level of representation, which then infiltrates the unconscious of both the black and the white person V0ince these structures are ontological, they cannot be resolved /there is no way of changing this unless the world as we know it comes an endV6=
this is why the R2fro#Fessimist relational#schemaT would be seen as the only true antagonism /while other repressive relations like class and gender would take place on the level of conflict9they can be resolved, hence they are not ontological6.) (RThe 2fro#FessimistsT work toward delineating a relation rather than focus on a cultural ob ect.) (0omething that all the 2fro#Fessimists seem to agree upon regarding social death are notions of kinship /or lack there of6, the absence of time and space to describe blacknessV There is no grammar of suffering to describe their loss

because the loss cannot be named.) (RThe 2fro#FessimistsT theori7e the workings of civil society as contiguous with slavery, and discuss the
following as bearing witness to this contiguity! the inability of the slave /or the being#for#the#captor6 to translate space into place and time into event= the fact that the slave remains sub ect to gratuitous violence /rather than violence contingent on transgression6= the natal alienation and social death of the slave.) (RTThe 2fro#Fessimists all seek toVstage a metacriti,ue of the current discourse identified as (critical theory) by excavating an antagonism that exceeds it= to recogni7e this antagonism 1ared, Frank, Taehyung forces a mode of death that expels sub ecthood and forces ob ecthood Rupon 8lacksT.) (For Fanon, the solution to the black presence in the white world is not to retrieve and celebrate our 2frican heritage, as was one of the goals of the Megritude pro ect. For Fanon, a

revolution that would destroy civil society, as we know it would be a more ade,uate response. * think the 2fro#Fessimist such as Lartman, 0pillers, and .arriott would argue there is no place for the black, only
prosthetics, techni,ues which give the illusion of a relationality in the world.) <ike the work of 1ared 0exton, 0aidiya Lartman, 5avid .arriott, Lortense 0pillers, Frant7 Fanon, <ewis 4ordon, 1oy 1ames, and others, my poetry, creative prose, scholarly work, and film production are predicated on the notion that slavery did not end in "S:@= the Dnited 0tates simply made ad ustments to the force of 8lack resistance without diminishing the centrality of 8lack captivity to the stability and coherence of civil society.

1il%erso ' 1"ite /o%y /a%

T"e A##irmati*e ma0es a #u %ame tally #la&e% assum!tio t"at t"ere ca 2e a reco ciliatio 2et&ee t"e a!!aratus o# &"ite America a % Re% a % /lac0 2o%ies9 T"e 1est is o ly a2le to mai tai its "egemo y 2ecause it %isa*o&s t"e ge oci%al act o# cleari g t"at mai tai s t"e co"ere ce o# t"e &"ite 2o%y9 1il%erso :, RFrank (Dnspeakable Ethics), Jed, &hite, W 8lack! $inema and the 0tructure of D.0. 2ntagonisms, "E"#@, //liamT
&ell over twenty thousand &esterns and frontier films have been shot and released since the dawn of cinema.@ Even though they may only appear in a small percentage of the films and for relatively few minutes, Mative 2mericans are central to the libidinal economy of the entire genre. The

&estern?s cinematic imaginary casts the >0avage> as a >clear and probable> danger lurking ust beyond the 0ettler?s clearing. The clearing, then, is imagined by the &estern as a space whose safety is under constant, if sometimes unspoken threat from >0avages> who inhabit the >frontier> or who, typically at the beginning of a film, have inexplicably
> umped the reservation.> $learing, in the 0ettler/>0avage> relation, has two grammatical structures, one as a noun and the other as a verb. 8ut the &estern only recogni7es clearing as a noun. &esterns call on us to bow our heads reverently, to give this noun a proper name and refer to it fondly, the way $hristians gave the child a proper name and called it >the <ittle 8aby 1esus.> 0imilarly, the &estern interpellates us with such reverence to the clearing, whose proper name might be the <ittle 8aby $ivil 0ociety, a genuflection bestowed on the clearing by, for example, 0tagecoach and other films by 1ohn Ford. 8ut prior to the clearing?s fragile infancy, that is, before its cinematic legacy as a newborn place name, it labored not across the land as a noun but as a verb on the body of the >0avage,> speaking civil society?s essential status as an effect for genocide. &hat would happen to the libidinal economy of civil society if, over the course of one hundred years, it had been sub ected to twenty thousand cinematic mirrors, films about itself in which it was cast not as an infant cartography of budding democratic dilemmas, but as a murderous pro ection, a uggernaut for exterminationC 4iven the centrality of the &hite child, the infant, to the &estern?s cinematic solicitation of faith in the ethics of the <ittle 8aby $ivil 0ociety, how shattered might that faith become were the films to reveal that the newborn babe suckled *ndian blood instead of &hite breast milkC: The sinews of civil institutionality could not sustain themselves libidi#nally under such conditions. 2nd civil society would lose its mid# to late twentieth#century elasticity. There

would be, for example, no social space for the &hite cultural progressive who revels in Mative 2merican lore, studies *ndian place names, or otherwise derives pleasure and an enhanced sense of purpose from his or her respect for *ndian culture9 ust as there would be no social space for the &hite person who romantici7es the history of the pioneering &est while neglecting the genocide that clears the space for this history. /These two personas are not so far apart.6 2nyone who was &hite and did not speak, socially and libidinally, in what would be a hyperarticulate and thoroughly self#conscious anti#*ndian fascism would find him# or herself unable to broker relations with other members of civil society, for the ruse of social, sexual, and political hybridity which &hiteness manages to convince itself of, would become
untenable at best, treasonous at worse. One could not, for example, be in favor of Mative 2merican sweat lodge ceremonies, fishing or gaming rights and be, simultaneously, enfranchised within civil society. 0uch postcolonial or democratic ,uestions would become structurally

impossible! one would either be among the living or among the dead9but not, as is assumed today, both . $inema
comes into existence during the "SHAs, precisely when the <ittle 8aby $ivil 0ociety was being weaned from its self#image as a murderous pro ection and establishing itself as a site where the leadership of ideas /hegemony6 replaces direct relations of force, a place where a robust political, sexual, and social hybridity counteracts crude .anichean negotiations of violence. Early cinema is on the cusp of that attempt . 2 moment when the >we> of

&hite sub ectivity is moving from >&e are murderers> toward >&e are citi7ens.> &hat is important for our investigation is the centrality of >0avage> ontology and the institutionality of cinema to the rhetoric, rather than the actual history, of this transition /where, as * have indicated, >transition> is merely a euphemism for disavowal6.

1il%erso ' AT Social Re#orm

Regar%less o# social re#orms( t"e 2lac0 2o%y is still e+clu%e% #rom t"e social or%er9 A a tago istic met"o% is t"e o ly accurate &ay to %escri2e t"e su##eri g9 1il%erso 8:, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies O $al#*rvine, Jed, &hite, W 8lack, pp '# @ //liamT &hat are we to make of a world that responds to the most lucid enunciation of ethics with violenceC &hat are the foundational ,uestions of the ethico#politicalC &hy are these ,uestions so scandalous that they are rarely posed politically, intellectually, and cinematically9unless they are posed obli,uely and unconsciously, as if by accidentC 4ive Turtle
*sland back to the >0avage.> 4ive life itself back to the 0lave. Two simple sen# tences, fourteen simple words, and the structure of D.0. /and perhaps global6 antagonisms would be dismantled. 2n >ethical modernity> would no longer sound like an oxymoron. From there we could busy ourselves with important conflicts that have been promoted to the level of antagonisms, such as class struggle, gender conflict, and immigrants? rights. One cannot

but wonder why ,uestions that go to the heart of the ethico#political , ,uestions of political ontology, are so unspeakable in intellectual meditations, political broadsides, and even socially and politically engaged feature films. $learly they can be spoken, even a child could speak those lines, so they would pose no problem for a scholar , an activist, or a filmmaker. 2nd yet, what is also clear9if the filmogra#phies of socially and politically engaged directors, the archive of progressive scholars, and the plethora of left#wing broadsides are anything to go by9is that what can so easily be spoken is now /@AA years and '@A million 0ettlers/.asters on6 so ubi,uitously unspoken that these two simple sentences, these fourteen words not only render their speaker >cra7y> but become themselves impossible to imagine. 0oon it will be forty years since
radical politics, left#leaning scholarship, and socially engaged feature films began to speak the unspeakable.' *n the "H:As and early "HIAs the ,uestions asked by radical politics and scholarship were not 0hould the Dnited 0tates be overthrownC or even &ould it be overthrownC but when and how9and, for some, what would come in its wake. Those steadfast in their conviction that there remained a discernable ,uantum of ethics in the Dnited 0tates writ large /and here * am speaking of everyone from .artin <uther %ing 1r. prior to his "H:S shift, to the Tom Layden wing of 0tudents for 5emocratic 0ociety, to the 1ulian 8ond and .arion 8arry faction of the 0tudent Monviolent $oordinating $ommittee, to 8obby %ennedy 5emocrats6 were accountable, in their rhetorical machinations, to the paradigmatic Xeitgeist of the 8lack Fanthers, the 2merican *ndian .ovement, and the &eather Dnderground. Jadicals and progressives could deride, re ect, or chastise armed struggle mercilessly and cavalierly

with respect to tactics and the possibility of >success,> but they could not dismiss revolution#as#ethic because they could not make a convincing case9by way of a paradigmatic analysis9that the Dnited 0tates was an ethical formation and still hope to maintain credibility as radicals and progressives. Even 8obby %ennedy /as a D.0. attorney general6 mused that the law and its enforcers had no ethical standing in the presence of 8lacks .- One could /and many did6 acknowledge 2merica?s strength and power. This seldom rose to the level of an ethical assessment, however, remaining instead an assessment of the >balance of forces.> The political discourse of 8lacks, and to a lesser extent *ndians, circulated too widely to wed the Dnited 0tates and ethics credibly . The raw force of $O*MTE<FJO put an end to this tra ectory toward a possible hegemony of ethical accountability. $ onse,uently, the power of 8lackness and Jedness to pose the ,uestion 9and the power to pose the ,uestion is the greatest power of all9retreated as did &hite radicals and progressives who >retired> from the struggle. The ,uestion lies buried in the graves of young 8lack Fanthers, 2*. warriors, and 8lack <iberation 2rmy soldiers, or in prison cells where so many of them have been rotting /some in solitary confinement6 for ten, twenty, or thirty years, and at the gates of the academy where the >cra7ies> shout at passersby. 4one are not only the young and vibrant voices that effected a seismic shift on the political landscape, but also the
intellectual protocols of in,uiry, and with them a spate of feature films that became authori7ed, if not by an unabashed revolutionary polemic, then certainly by a revolutionary Xeitgeist. *s it still possible for a dream of unfettered ethics , a dream of the 0ettlement and the 0lave estate?sE destruction, to manifest itself at the ethical core of cinematic discourse when this dream is no longer a constituent element of political discourse in the streets or of intellectual discourse in the academyC The answer is >no> in the sense that, as history has shown, what cannot be articulated as political discourse in the streets is doubly foreclosed on in screenplays and in scholarly prose, but >yes> in the sense that in even the most taciturn historical moments, such as ours, the grammar of 8lack and Jed suffering breaks in on this foreclosure, albeit like the somatic compliance of hysterical symptoms9it registers in both cinema and scholarship as a symptom of awareness of the structural antagonisms. The election of

Fresident 8arack Obama does not mitigate the claim that this is a taciturn historical moment. Meoliberalism with a 8lack face is neither the index of a revolutionary advance nor the end of anti#8lackness as a constituent element of D.0. antagonisms. *f anything, the election of Obama enables a plethora of shaming discourses in response to revolutionary politics and >legitimates> widespread disavowal of any notion that the Dnited 0tates itself, and not merely its policies and practices, is unethical . 8etween "H:I and "HSA, we could think cinemati#cally and
intellectually of 8lackness and Jedness as having the coherence of full#blown discourses. From "HSA to the present, however, 8lackness and Jedness manifest only in the rebar of cinematic and intellectual /political6 discourse, that is, as unspoken grammars. This grammar can be discerned in the cinematic strategies /lighting, camera angles, image composition, and acoustic design6, even when the script labors for the spectator to imagine social turmoil through the rubric of conflict /i.e., a rubric of problems that can be posed and conceptually solved6 as opposed to the rubric of antagonism /an irreconcilable struggle between entities, or positions, the resolution of which is not dialectical but entails the obliteration of one of the positions6. *n other words, even when films narrate a story in which 8lacks or *ndians are beleaguered with problems that the script insists are conceptually coherent /usually having to do with poverty or the absence of >family values>6, the nonnarrative, or cinematic, strategies of the film often disrupt this coherence by posing the irreconcilable ,uestions of Jed and 8lack political ontology9or nonontology. The grammar of antagonism breaks in on the

mendacity of conflict. 0emiotics and linguistics teach us that when we speak, our grammar goes unspoken. Our grammar is assumed. *t is the
structure through which the labor of speech is possible.@ <ikewise, the grammar of political ethics9 the grammar of assumptions regarding the ontology of suffering9which underwrites film theory and political discourse /in this book, discourse elaborated in direct relation to radical action6, and which

This notwithstanding, film theory, political discourse, and cinema assume an ontological grammar, a structure of suffering. 2nd this structure of suffering crowds out others, regardless of the sentiment of the film or the spirit of unity mobili7ed by the political discourse in ,uestion.
underwrites cinematic speech /in this book, Jed, &hite, and 8lack films from the mid#"H:As to the present6 is also unspoken.

Rece t social a%*a ces %o 8t mea a yt"i g 7 t"e co %itio s o# sla*ery mig"t seem icer( 2ut at t"e e % o# t"e %ay you8re still a sla*e9 1il%erso a % ;o&ar% :, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, Fercy, Fsychotherapist, (Frank &ilderson, &allowing in the $ontradictions, Fart ') http!//percy-.wordpress.com/'A"A/AI/"E/frank# wilderson#wallowing#in#the#contradictions#part#'/ //liamT F& Keah. Orlando Fatterson wrote a book called (0lavery and 0ocial 5eath ), and *+m not sure Fatterson would agree with where *+ve taken this but what * like about his book is he says that work is an experience of slavery but it doesn+t define slavery. Le says that slavery is general dishonor, that the being is dishonored regardless of what he or she does natal alienation of the being whose family ties or kinship structure in his or her mind is not respected by anyone else. /0lavery is also punctuated by6 openness to gratuitous violence, which is a body that you can do anything with . 2nd what interests me is that if that becomes the definition of a slave, the slave can work, but the slave can also sit on a divan and eat bon#bons.
FL 2bsolutely. F& Kou knowC *n my hometown of Mew Orleans in the days of physical slavery you could buy the slave to in ect them with poisons to watch them die. 0o what+s interesting to me is that, as * was saying earlier today, there+s a way in which the 2rabs and the Europeans came to

a consensus /not sitting down at a table but over years6, that 2frica is a place where people are generally dishonored, where we do not respect their kinship structures and where their bodies are available to us to do to them whatever we would. This has been our /8lack people+s6 place ever since then. Once * got to that and started thinking that through it occurred to
me that cinema was ust another place in which the 8lack 8ody was possessed and deployed in the way that one would possess and deploy a slave in any other context. FL Jight. F& 2nd that there is no reformist program for ridding ourselves of that . * mean, it+s like if we+re gonna get out of that

we+re gonna be in a whole new world order.

FL Jight. 2nd it+s interesting because you look at film as ust a context, a context for this process to occur. Kou know, one can * think 0ay the same thing about the M82. F& Exactly, yeah. FL *t brings back the scenario in which the slave can eat bon#bons and make Y'A#million a year. F& Exactly, exactly. FL 8ut you+re still a slave, because to me, that really sort of encapsulates the whole conceptuali7ation of fungibility.

T"e curre t or%er %eri*es its o tological co siste cy i o!!ositio to 2lac0 ess( tryi g to &or0 &it"i t"is system is %e#i itio ally im!ossi2le9 I stea%( stri*i g #or im!ossi2le re!aratio s is t"e o ly &ay to create a !olitics 2eyo % curre t com!re"e sio 9 1il%erso a % ;o&ar% :, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, Fercy, Fsychotherapist, (Frank &ilderson, &allowing in the $ontradictions, Fart ") http!//percy-.wordpress.com/'A"A/AI/AH/frank#b# wilderson#ZE'ZSAZH$wallowing#in#the#contradictionsZE'ZSAZH5#part#"/ //liamT
F& Jeparations

suggests a conceptually coherent loss. The loss of land, the loss of labor power, etc. *n other words, there has to be some form of articulation between the party that has lost and the party that has gained for reparations to make sense. Mo such articulation exists between 8lacks and the world . This is, ironically, precisely why * support the Jeparations .ovement= but my emphasis, my energies, my points of attention are on the word (.ovement) and not on the word (Jeparation .) * support the movement because * know it is a movement toward the end of the world= a movement toward a catastrophe in epistemological coherence and institutional integrity9* support the movement aspect of it because * know that repair is impossible= and any struggle that can act as a stick up artist to the world, demanding all that it cannot give / which is everything 6, is a movement toward something so blindingly new that it cannot be imagined. This is the only thing that will save us. FL 2s a
Fsychotherapist, * was very interested to see your contrasting Frant7 Fanon and <acan concerning their conceptuali7ations of potential paths to (emancipation in the libidinal economy), as you put it. * am ashamed to admit that * have never read Fanon, but have read <acan. Flease illuminate your idea that the stark difference in their conceptuali7ations of conflict/antagonism differ are based on the fact that <acan would still see 8lacks as fundamentally situated in personhood, but that Fannon /and yourself6 see 8lacks as (situated a priori in absolute dereliction). F& This is a big ,uestion, too big for a concise answer9* think * take about thirty to forty pages to try and get my head around this in the book. 8ut the key to the answer lies in the concept of (contemporaries.) Fanon rather painfully and meticulously shows us how the human race is a community of (contemporaries.) *n addition, this community

vouchsafes its coherence /it knows its borders6 through the presence of 8lacks. *f 8lacks became part of the human community then the concept of (contemporaries) would have no outside= and if it had no outside it could have no inside . <acan assumes the category and thus he imagines the analysand+s problem in terms of
how to live without neurosis among ones contemporaries. Fanon interrogates the category itself. For <acan the analysands suffer psychically due to problems extant within the paradigm of contemporaries. For Fanon, the analysand suffers due to the existence of the contemporaries themselves and the fact that s/he is a stimulus for anxiety for those who have contemporaries. Mow,

a contemporary+s struggles are conflictual9that is to say, they can be resolved because they are problems that are of# and in the world. 8ut a 8lacks problems are the stuff of antagonisms! struggles

that cannot be resolved between parties but can only be resolved through the obliteration of one or both of the parties. &e are faced9when dealing with the 8lack9with a set of psychic problems that cannot be resolved through any form of symbolic intervention such as psychoanalysis9though addressing them psychoanalytically we can begin to explain the antagonism /as * have done in
my book, and as Fanon does6, but it won+t lead us to a cure.

*AT FRAM<1OR=

Discussio o# Race =ey

Pu2lic %iscourse a % %eli2eratio o# t"e i tersectio o# race a % e%ucatio are critical to !ro%uci g social c"a ge Rei%'/ri 0ley( > /5r. 0hanara Jeid#8rinkley, Dniversity of Fittsburgh 5epartment of $ommunications, (TLE L2J0L JE2<*T*E0 OF
(2$T*M4 8<2$%)! LO& 2FJ*$2M#2.EJ*$2M FO<*$K 5E82TEJ0 ME4OT*2TE JEFJE0EMT2T*OM TLJOD4L J2$*2< FEJFOJ.2M$E 2M5 0TK<E) 'AAS6 0o, within public discourse, how race is coded rhetorically in public deliberation is of critical importance in

evaluating the efficacy of efforts to increase racial and ethnic diversity. &e need knowledge of how rhetorical style in 2merican public deliberation functions within a race, I class, and gender hierarchy. Low is race signified in
public deliberationsC Low does this signification impact efforts to create a more diverse or inclusive public sphereC Low do language, social structures, practices and styles signify raceC 2nd, how does white privilege affect the deliberation processC These series of ,uestions must inform our critical efforts at understanding the rhetoric of race, ethnicity and diversity in 2merican education discourse. Jacism is ever so much more subtle now

than it has been in the past. *t is this subtle nature of racism and white privilege that provide a cover for the normal, (everyday practices) that reproduce racial separations and social dominance.-' &e can only study these normal, everyday practices of subtle racism by studying locali7ed examples of racial conflict . T"e %e!e %e ce o sta %ar%s a % accou ta2ility %iscourse is es!ecially sig i#ica t &"e attac"e% to %iscussio s o# racial i e4uity i stu%e t aca%emic !er#orma ce9 -- *n terms of the European context, 4illborn
notes that such reform efforts have resulted in higher rates of minority academic underachievement.-E Educational psychology scholar 1erome Taylor argues that the conditions are similar in the 2merican context.-@ *n 2merica, this persistent problem within

public education has been connected to the (black/ white achievement gap) mentioned above. The last two decades have indicated a measured decline in the academic achievement of black students in relation to white students in the D.0., particularly as measured by standardi7ed testing measures. Jeform efforts designed to offset the ine,uities in the educational experience of the poor and racial and ethnic minorities demonstrates a limited effectiveness in reversing the current underachievement trend. Thus, 2merica faces a grave difficulty in resolving this situation.
&e find it difficult to understand why such a situation exists in the first place. *n essence, it is difficult to believe that the $ivil Jights .ovement and the passage of legal legislation to end segregation and S discriminatory practices, targeted at racial and ethnic minorities, did not permanently resolve the problem. Theoretically, all 2mericans have e,ual access to the tools that are necessary to lead a successful life

with the full benefits of citi7enship. The $ivil Jights .ovement and the &omen+s .ovement ensured that racial and ethnic minorities and women achieved e,uality with white men and thus barriers to their successful participation in society had been removed. *f e,uality has been achieved, and yet we find that the heretofore excluded populations are still unable to achieve the educational and economic heights of the 2merican dream, then o e must loo0 to t"at !o!ulatio #or t"e e+!la atio rather than to 2merican society in general.

Role!layi g %etac"es %e2aters #rom real &orl% !artici!atio 7 !layi g t"e ?. ite% States Fe%eral Go*er me t@ !romotes a im!erialist !ara%igm Rei%'/ri 0ley( > /5r. 0hanara Jeid#8rinkley, Dniversity of Fittsburgh 5epartment of $ommunications, (TLE L2J0L JE2<*T*E0 OF
(2$T*M4 8<2$%)! LO& 2FJ*$2M#2.EJ*$2M FO<*$K 5E82TEJ0 ME4OT*2TE JEFJE0EMT2T*OM TLJOD4L J2$*2< FEJFOJ.2M$E 2M5 0TK<E) 'AAS6 0o, within public discourse, how race is coded rhetorically in public deliberation is of critical impor .itchell observes that the stance of the policymaker in debate comes with a (sense of detachment associated with the

Role!layi g /a%

spectator posture.)""@ *n other words, its participants are able to engage in debates where they are able to distance themselves from the events that are the sub ects of debates. 5ebaters can throw around terms like torture, terrorism, genocide and nuclear war without blinking. 5ebate simulations can only serve to distance the debaters from real world participation in the political contexts they debate about. 2s &illiam 0hanahan remarks! Vthe topic established a
relationship through interpellation that inhered irrespective of what the particular political affinities of the debaters were. The relationship was both political and ethical, and needed to be debated as such. 1"e &e 2lit"ely call #or . ite% States Fe%eral Go*er me

t !olicyma0i g( &e are ot immu e to t"e colo ialist legacy t"at esta2lis"es our !lace o t"is co ti e t9 1e ca ot &is" a&ay t"e "orri#ic atrocities !er!etrate% e*ery%ay i our ame sim!ly 2y re#usi g to ac0 o&le%ge t"ese im!licatio s@ /emphasis in original6."": ""S The (ob ective) stance of the policymaker is an impersonal or imperialist persona. The policymaker relies upon (acceptable) forms of evidence, engaging in logical discussion, producing rational thoughts. 2s 0hanahan, and the <ouisville debaters+ note, such a stance is integrally linked to the normative, historical and contemporary practices of power that produce and maintain varying networks of oppression. *n other words, the discursive practices of policy#oriented debate are developed within, through and from systems of power and privilege. Thus, these practices are critically implicated in the maintenance of hegemony. 0o, rather than seeing themselves as government or state actors, 1ones and 4reen choose to perform themselves in debate, violating the more (ob ective) stance of the (policymaker) and re,uire their opponents to do the same.

Role!layi g %etac"es %e2aters #rom real &orl% !artici!atio 7 !layi g t"e ?. ite% States Fe%eral Go*er me t@ !romotes a im!erialist !ara%igm Rei%'/ri 0ley( > /5r. 0hanara Jeid#8rinkley, Dniversity of Fittsburgh 5epartment of $ommunications, (TLE L2J0L JE2<*T*E0 OF
(2$T*M4 8<2$%)! LO& 2FJ*$2M#2.EJ*$2M FO<*$K 5E82TEJ0 ME4OT*2TE JEFJE0EMT2T*OM TLJOD4L J2$*2< FEJFOJ.2M$E 2M5 0TK<E) 'AAS6 0o, within public discourse, how race is coded rhetorically in public deliberation is of critical impor .itchell observes that the stance of the policymaker in debate comes with a (sense of detachment associated with the

Fair ess=<+cusio ary

spectator posture.)""@ *n other words, its participants are able to engage in debates where they are able to distance themselves from the events that are the sub ects of debates. 5ebaters can throw around terms like torture, terrorism, genocide and nuclear war without blinking. 5ebate simulations can only serve to distance the debaters from real world participation in the political contexts they debate about. 2s &illiam 0hanahan remarks! Vthe topic established a
relationship through interpellation that inhered irrespective of what the particular political affinities of the debaters were. The relationship was both political and ethical, and needed to be debated as such. 1"e &e 2lit"ely call #or . ite% States Fe%eral Go*er me

t !olicyma0i g( &e are ot immu e to t"e colo ialist legacy t"at esta2lis"es our !lace o t"is co ti e t9 1e ca ot &is" a&ay t"e "orri#ic atrocities !er!etrate% e*ery%ay i our ame sim!ly 2y re#usi g to ac0 o&le%ge t"ese im!licatio s@ /emphasis in original6."": ""S The (ob ective) stance of the policymaker is an impersonal or imperialist persona. The policymaker relies upon (acceptable) forms of evidence, engaging in logical discussion, producing rational thoughts. 2s 0hanahan, and the <ouisville debaters+ note, such a stance is integrally linked to the normative, historical and contemporary practices of power that produce and maintain varying networks of oppression. *n other words, the discursive practices of policy#oriented debate are developed within, through and from systems of power and privilege. Thus, these practices are critically implicated in the maintenance of hegemony. 0o, rather than seeing themselves as government or state actors, 1ones and 4reen choose to perform themselves in debate, violating the more (ob ective) stance of the (policymaker) and re,uire their opponents to do the same.

AT T"ey <+clu%e t"e Neg

O ly %eco structi g racism ca sol*e t"eir #air ess a % %emocracy claims' #rame&or0 argume ts are 3ust i sta ces o# !olici g &"ic" !re*e t true i 3ustice #rom 2ei g c"alle ge% Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 This confluence of repetition and transformation, participation and

sub ection gets con ugated inversely so that the target becomes the aggressor and the uniformed aggressors become a priesthood, engineering a political culture whose construction is the practice of whiteness. &hat are wholly and essentially immanent are the structures of racist reason that produce practices without motive. >Folice procedures> become pure form because they are at once both self#defined and subordinated to the implicit prerogatives of this political culture. They empty the law of any content that could be called ustice, substituting murderousness and impunity. The >social procedures> that burgeon in the wake of this engineering also become pure form, emptying social exchange as the condition of white social cohesion. *t flattens all ideals of political life to a .anichean structure that it depicts as whiteness versus evil. *t is a double economy. On the one hand, there is an economy of clearly identifiable in ustices, spectacular flash points of terror, expressing the excesses of the state#sanctioned system of racial categori7ation. On the other, there is the structure of inarticulability itself and its imposed unintelligibility, an economy of the loss of meaning, a hyper#economy. *t is this hyper#economy that appears in its excess as banal= a hyper#in ustice that is reduced and dissolved in the ,uotidian as an aura, while it is refracted in the images of the spectacular economy itself. 8etween the spectacular as the rule and the banal as excess, in each of the moment of its reconstruction, the law of white supremacist attack signifies that there is no law. This hyper#economy, with its hyper#in ustice, is the problem we confront. The intractability of racism lies in its hidden and unspeakable terror, an implicate ethic of impunity. 2 repetition of violence as standard operating /police6 procedure, an insidious common sense, renders any real notion of ustice or democracy on the map of white supremacy wholly alien and inarticulable.

AT State Re#orm
State re#orm #ails' it loo0s to t"e go*er me t to ar2itrate t"e i 3ustice its !olice age ts #irst !er!etuate%9 O ly ra%ical criti4ue ca s"atter tra%itio al co ce!ts o# racism9 Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 *n "HHS, $ritical Jesistance! 8eyond the Frison *ndustrial $omplex, a national conference and strategy#session, reposed

the ,uestion of the relations between white supremacy and state violence. Fascism was the concept often used to link these two terms and the prison industrial complex was considered to be its ,uintessential practice. The political#intellectual discourse generated at and around $ritical Jesistance shattered the narrow definitions of racism that characteri7e many conventional /even leftist6 accounts and produced instead a space for rethinking radical alternatives. This sort of shift in the political landscape has been imperative for a long time now. The police murder of 2madou 5iallo comes to mind as an event re,uiring such re#conceptuali7ation . The 5iallo killing was really plural since it involved other police murders as imminent in the same event. 5iallo+s killing was plural beyond his own many deaths in those few seconds, a killing that took place in the eyes of his friends and family from as far away as 4uinea. *n the immediate wake of his killers? ac,uittals, the MKF5 murdered .alcolm Ferguson, a community organi7er who had been active in attempting to get ustice for 5iallo. /The police harassed Ferguson+s within the next year and arrested his brother on trumped up charges6. Two weeks after Ferguson+s murder, the police killed Fatrick 5orismund because he refused to buy drugs from an undercover cop, because he fought back when the cop attacked. The police then harassed and attacked 5orismund+s funeral procession in 8rooklyn a week later, hospitali7ing several in attendance.
/The police took the vendetta all the way to the grave6. Tyisha .iller was murdered in her car in Jiverside, $alifornia by four cops who knocked on the window of her car and found that she simply didn?t respond. 2ngela 5avis tells the story of >Tanya Laggerty in $hicago, whose cell

phone was the potential weapon that allowed police to ustify her killing,> ust as 5aillo?s wallet was the >gun> at which four cops fired in unison. To the police, a wallet in the hand of black man is a gun whereas that same wallet in the hand of a white man is ust a wallet. 2 cell phone in the hands of a black woman is a gun= that same phone in a white woman+s hand is a cell phone. There were local movements in each of these cities to protest acts of police murder and in each case the respective city governments were solicited to take appropriate action. Dnder conventional definitions of the government, we seem to be restricted to calling upon it for protection from its own agents. 8ut what are we doing when we demonstrate against police brutality, and find ourselves tacitly calling upon the government to help us do soC These notions of the state as the arbiter of ustice and the police as the unaccountable arbiters of lethal violence are two sides of the same coin. Marrow understandings of mere racism are proving themselves impoverished because they cannot see this fundamental relationship. &hat is needed is the development of a radical criti,ue of the structure of the coin. There are two possibilities! first, police violence is a deviation from the rules governing police procedures in general. 0econd, these various forms of violence /e.g., racial profiling, street murders, terrorism6 are the rule itself as standard operation procedure. For instance, when the protest movements made public statements they expressed an understanding of police violence as the rule of the day and not as a shocking exception. Lowever, when it came time to formulate practical proposals to change the fundamental nature of policing, all they could come up with concretely were more oversight committees, litigation, and civilian review boards />with teeth>6, none of which lived up to the collective intuition about what the police were actually doing. The protest movements+ readings of these events didn+t seem able to bridge the gap to the programmatic. The language in which we articulate our analyses doesn+t seem to allow for alternatives in practice. Even those who take seriously the second possibility /violence as a rule6 find that the language of alternatives and the terms of relevance are constantly dragged into the political discourse they seek to oppose, namely, that the system works and is capable of reform. State orms ser*e to !er!etuate a se se o# &"ite 2elo gi g at t"e !rice o# 2lac0 e+clusio ' 2ecomes a culture o# racial !ro#ili g a % o c"ala t( orga i)e% *iole ce Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 &hat keeps getting repeated hereC *t is not ust the repetition of derogation or acts of police impunity. &hile

the police wreak havoc on the lives of those they assault, exercising a license implicit in and extending racial profiling, they engage in a vital cultural labor. On the one hand, racial profiling enables those unprofiled /the average white man and white women who are linked to one6 to ignore the experience of social dislocation that profiling produces. They may recogni7e the fact of profiling itself, but they are free from the feeling of dread. *ndeed, profiling creates insouciance in an atmosphere of organi7ed violence. Official discourse seeks to accustom us to thinking about state violence as a warranted part of the social order. For them the security of belonging accompanies the re#raciali7ation of whiteness as the intensification of anti#blackness. The police elaborate the grounds for the extension of a renewed and

reconfigured white supremacist political economic order . On the other hand, there is terror and the police are its vanguard. The law, clothed in the ethic of impunity, is simply contingent on the repetition of its violence. One cannot master it,
regardless of the intimacy or longevity of one?s experience with it. One can only sense its frightening closeness as a probability, as serial states of brutality or derogation. The dread and suffering of those in the way of these repeated spasms of violence is always here and always on the hori7on. *n the face of racial profiling by the police, however prepared those profiled may be for that aggression, it always appears unexpectedly.

1"ite society re'creates itsel# t"roug" ma i!ulati g 0 o&le%ge' claims o# su!er#icial u %ersta %i g o ly !lay i to t"e system9 True c"alle ges re4uire 4uestio i g o# ot o ly state !olicies 2ut 2roa%er societal structures9 Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456

The foundations of D0 white supremacy are far from stable. Owing to the instability of white supremacy, the social structures of whiteness must ever be re#secured in an obsessive fashion . The process of re#inventing whiteness and white supremacy has always involved the state, and the state has always involved the utmost paranoia. ;ast political cataclysms such as the civil rights movements that sought to shatter this invention have confronted the state as harbingers of sanity. Ket the state+s absorption and co#optation of that opposition for the reconstruction of the white social order has been reoccurring before our very eyes. &hite supremacy is not reconstructed simply for its own sake, but for the sake of the social paranoia, the ethic of impunity, and the violent spectacles of raciali7ation that it calls the >maintenance of order> all of which constitute its essential dimensions. The cold, gray institutions of this society9courts, schools, prisons, police, army, law, religion, the two#party system9 become the arenas of this brutality, its excess and spectacle, which they then normali7e throughout the social field. *t is not simply by understanding the forms of state violence that the structures of hyper#in ustice and their excess of hegemony will be addressed. *f they foster policing as their paradigm9including imprisonment, police occupations, commodified governmental operations, a renewed 1im $row, and a re#criminali7ation of race as their version of social order9then to merely catalogue these institutional forms marks the moment at which understanding stops. To pretend to understand at that point would be to affirm what denies understanding. * nstead, we have to understand the state and its order as a mode of anti#production that seeks precisely to cancel understanding through its own common sense. For common sense, the opposite of in ustice is ustice= however, the opposite of hyper#in ustice is not ustice. The existence of hyper#in ustice implies that neither a consciousness of in ustice nor the possibility of ustice any longer applies. 1ustice as such is incommensurable with and wholly exterior to the relation between ordinary social existence and the ethic of impunity including the modes of gratuitous violence that it fosters. The pervasiveness of state#sanctioned terror, police brutality, mass incarceration, and the endless ambushes of white populism is where we must begin our theori7ing. Though state practices create and reproduce the sub ects, discourses, and places that are inseparable from them, we can no longer presuppose the sub ects and sub ect positions nor the ideologies and empiricisms of political and class forces. Jather, the analysis of a contingent yet comprehensive state terror becomes primary. This is not to debate the traditional concerns of radical leftist politics that presuppose /and close off6 the ,uestion of structure, its tenacity, its systematic and inexplicable gratuitousness. The problem here is how to dwell on the structures of pervasiveness, terror, and gratuitousness themselves rather than simply the state as an apparatus. *t is to ask how the state exists as a formation or confluence of processes with de#centered agency, how the sub ects of state authority9its agents, citi7ens, and captives9are produced in the crucible of its ritualistic violence.

AT Ce%e t"e Political

T"e curre t or%er %eri*es its o tological co siste cy i o!!ositio to 2lac0 ess( tryi g to &or0 &it"i t"is system is %e#i itio ally im!ossi2le9 I stea%( stri*i g #or im!ossi2le re!aratio s is t"e o ly &ay to create a !olitics 2eyo % curre t com!re"e sio 9 1il%erso a % ;o&ar% :, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, Fercy, Fsychotherapist, (Frank &ilderson, &allowing in the $ontradictions, Fart ") http!//percy-.wordpress.com/'A"A/AI/AH/frank#b# wilderson#ZE'ZSAZH$wallowing#in#the#contradictionsZE'ZSAZH5#part#"/ //liamT
F& Jeparations

suggests a conceptually coherent loss. The loss of land, the loss of labor power, etc. *n other words, there has to be some form of articulation between the party that has lost and the party that has gained for reparations to make sense. Mo such articulation exists between 8lacks and the world . This is, ironically, precisely why * support the Jeparations .ovement= but my emphasis, my energies, my points of attention are on the word (.ovement) and not on the word (Jeparation .) * support the movement because * know it is a movement toward the end of the world= a movement toward a catastrophe in epistemological coherence and institutional integrity9* support the movement aspect of it because * know that repair is impossible= and any struggle that can act as a stick up artist to the world, demanding all that it cannot give / which is everything 6, is a movement toward something so blindingly new that it cannot be imagined. This is the only thing that will save us. FL 2s a
Fsychotherapist, * was very interested to see your contrasting Frant7 Fanon and <acan concerning their conceptuali7ations of potential paths to (emancipation in the libidinal economy), as you put it. * am ashamed to admit that * have never read Fanon, but have read <acan. Flease illuminate your idea that the stark difference in their conceptuali7ations of conflict/antagonism differ are based on the fact that <acan would still see 8lacks as fundamentally situated in personhood, but that Fannon /and yourself6 see 8lacks as (situated a priori in absolute dereliction). F& This is a big ,uestion, too big for a concise answer9* think * take about thirty to forty pages to try and get my head around this in the book. 8ut the key to the answer lies in the concept of (contemporaries.) Fanon rather painfully and meticulously shows us how the human race is a community of (contemporaries.) *n addition, this community

vouchsafes its coherence /it knows its borders6 through the presence of 8lacks. *f 8lacks became part of the human community then the concept of (contemporaries) would have no outside= and if it had no outside it could have no inside . <acan assumes the category and thus he imagines the analysand+s problem in terms of
how to live without neurosis among ones contemporaries. Fanon interrogates the category itself. For <acan the analysands suffer psychically due to problems extant within the paradigm of contemporaries. For Fanon, the analysand suffers due to the existence of the contemporaries themselves and the fact that s/he is a stimulus for anxiety for those who have contemporaries. Mow,

a contemporary+s struggles are conflictual9that is to say, they can be resolved because they are problems that are of# and in the world. 8ut a 8lacks problems are the stuff of antagonisms! struggles that cannot be resolved between parties but can only be resolved through the obliteration of one or both of the parties. &e are faced9when dealing with the 8lack9with a set of psychic problems that cannot be resolved through any form of symbolic intervention such as psychoanalysis9though addressing them psychoanalytically we can begin to explain the antagonism /as * have done in
my book, and as Fanon does6, but it won+t lead us to a cure.

Progressi*e mo*eme ts are too timi% a % #ail' i e*ita2ly a%o!t t"ey u %erlyi g te ets o# racism Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 There are oppositional political movements of course= some are

progressive, fewer are radical. 8ut each encounters a certain internal limitation. For instance, there are movements seeking to make the police more accountable to legal and communal standards of conduct= but their role then becomes one of making the state work better and more efficiently. They work, perhaps unwittingly, at reconstructing and not dismantling the white state. &hat they fail to understand or accept is that the police are already accountable, but to something out of reach of the principles of ustice or democracy. There is a /largely symbolic6 multiracial or mixed race movement that understands itself to be the very transcendence of race but, in mixing and matching races supposed to really exist, it subsumes the products of racism in ways that recall many dimensions of white supremacist thinking. The ethic of retribution that legitimates the expanding prison#
industrial complex in the D0 and beyond is one of these products. Even political opposition to that ethic outside the prison wall falls prey to certain acceptance of criminal law= in other words, it assumes that the prison is essential to social order. This acceptance is unacceptable from the point of view of the violence and violation engendered by the prison regime. Folitical /or politici7ed6 prisoners demand an epistemology of a different order, one that challenges the internal limits of opposition in a radical way9the dream of prison abolition. Low can one critically discuss policing and

imprisonment without interrogating the very notions of freedom, citi7enship, and democracyC Low is one to think seriously about /the ends of6 race without rethinking gender, sexuality, and the bodyC Low can any economic ,uestions be raised in this country9 where movements for reparations and against sweatshops and prisons are becoming paramount on the left9 without confronting the specter of slaveryC Low can we think political economy without also disturbing even radical criti,ue and its historicist narratives of development, progress,
and the primacy of productionC

Notio s o# le#tist soli%arity &it" ra%icals merely mai tai %ista ce t"at i "i2its !olitical c"a ge <l =ilom2o I tergalactico ,6 /$ollective in 5urham M$ that interviewed 0ubcomandante *nsurgente .arcos (8EKOM5 JE0*0T2M$E!
E;EJKTL*M4,)libcom.org/files/beyondresistance.pdf//.456 *n our efforts to forge a new path, we found that an old friend9the E [rcito Xapatista de <iberaci\n Macional /Xapatista 2rmy of Mational <iberation, EX<M69was already taking enormous strides to move toward a politics ade,uate to our time, and that it was thus necessary to attempt an evaluation of Xapatismo that would in turn be ade,uate to the real Nevent+ of their appearance. That is, despite the fresh air that the Xapatista uprising

had blown into the D0 political scene since "HHE, we began to feel that even the inspiration of Xapatismo had been ,uickly contained through its insertion into a well#worn and untenable narrative! Xapatismo was another of many faceless and indifferent (third world) movements that demanded and deserved solidarity from leftists in the (global north.) From our position as an organi7ation composed in large part by people of color in the Dnited 0tates, we viewed this focus on (solidarity) as the foreign policy e,uivalent of (white guilt,) ,uite distinct from any authentic impulse toward, or recognition of, the necessity for radical social change. The notion of (solidarity) that still pervades much of the <eft in the D.0. has continually served an intensely conservative political agenda that dresses itself in the radical rhetoric of the latest rebellion in the (darker nations) while carefully maintaining political action at a distance from our own daily lives, thus producing a political sub ect /the solidarity provider6 that more closely resembles a spectator or voyeur /to the suffering of others6 than a participant or active agent, while simultaneously working to reduce the solidarity recipient to a mere ob ect /of our pity and mismatched socks6. 2t both ends of this relationship, the process of solidarity ensures that sub ects and political action never meet= in this way it serves to make change an a priori impossibility. *n other words, this practice of solidarity urges us to participate in its perverse logic by accepting the narrative that power tells us about itself! that those who could make change don+t need it and that those who need change can+t make it. To the extent that human solidarity has a future, this logic and practice do notP For us, Xapatismo was /and continues to be6 uni,ue
exactly because it has provided us with the elements to shatter this tired schema. *t has inspired in us the ability, and impressed upon us the necessity, of always viewing ourselves as dignified political sub ects with desires, needs, and pro ects worthy of struggle. &ith the publication of The ' 0ixth 5eclaration of the <acand\n 1ungle in 1une of 'AA@, the Xapatistas have made it even clearer that we must move beyond appeals to this

stunted form of solidarity, and they present us with a far more difficult challenge! that wherever in the world we may be located, we must become (companerGs) /neither followers nor leaders6 in a truly global struggle to change the world. 2s a direct response to this call, this analysis is our attempt to read Xapatismo as providing us with the rough draft of a manual for contemporary political action that eventually must be written by us all. Re#orm &it"i t"e !olitical system is #utile' e gageme t &it" t"e state !ro!s u! i e4uality <l =ilom2o I tergalactico ,6 /$ollective in 5urham M$ that interviewed 0ubcomandante *nsurgente .arcos (8EKOM5 JE0*0T2M$E!
E;EJKTL*M4,)libcom.org/files/beyondresistance.pdf//.456 0econd, we must reassess the grounds for potential

political change. *f we are to take the Xapatistas seriously and conclude that the politics of the politicians is a sphere that functions through the simulation of public opinion 9through polls and the circulation of sound bites and images9to administer the interests of transnational capital, it would be near suicide to continue to do politics as a competition for influence within that sphere. Mo matter how well#intentioned or (progressive) a given party or platform may be, the proximity of politicians to the vertical structure and logic of the 0tate today assures only their complete functionality to the larger system of ine,ualities. *n addition, we must remind ourselves that these politicians
are not there to simulate for ust any power= they are there to simulate social peace for a global power that is today greater than the collective power of any particular state. Thus, any opposition that limits itself to the level of a single state, no matter how powerful, may be futile. Ket, at the same time that these futilities surface, other strategies and tactics simultaneously emerge within this new situation, strategies that rise to the challenge of the contemporary impasse faced by our previous social visions. $onsider for example the tremendous inspiration provided by the following lines written by 0ubcomandante *nsurgente .arcos= what appears at first as poetic license should be read more carefully as the outline of a brilliant strategy for our times! (The social ship is adrift, and the problem is not that we lack a captain. *t so happens that the

rudder itself has been stolen, and it is not going to turn up anywhere. There are those who are devoted to imagining that the rudder still exists and they fight for its possession. There are those who are seeking the rudder, certain that it must have been left somewhere. 2nd there are those who make of an island, not a refuge for self#satisfaction but a ship for finding another island and another and anotherV)"" T"e le#t8s e##orts are ot"i g more t"a crisis ma ageme t' t"ey #orego o!!ortu ities at a2olitio o# total &ar i t"e .S 2y em2raci g #la&e% state 0 o&le%ge !ro%uctio Ro%rigue) ,5' P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( !ro# at .C Ri*ersi%e /5ylan, (The Terms of
Engagement! &arfare, &hite <ocality, and 2bolition,) $ritical 0ociology, vol. -: no. " p. "@"#"I-//.456 Thus, behind the din of progressive and liberal reformist struggles over public

policy, civil liberties, and law, and beneath the infre,uent mobili7ations of activity to defend against the next onslaught of racist, classist, ageist, and misogynist criminali7ation, there is an unspoken politics of assumption that takes for granted the mystified permanence of domestic warfare as a constant production of targeted and massive suffering , guided by the logic of
normali7ed and mundane black, brown, and indigenous sub ection to the expediencies and essential violence of the 2merican /global6 nation#building pro ect. To put it differently! despite the unprecedented forms of imprisonment, social and political repression, and violent policing that compose the mosaic of our historical time, the establishment left /within and perhaps beyond the D026 really does not care to envision, much

less politically prioriti7e, the abolition of D0 domestic warfare and its structuring white supremacist social logic as its most urgent task of the present and future. The non#profit and M4O left, in particular, seems content to engage in desperate /and usually well#intentioned6 attempts to manage the casualties of domestic warfare, foregoing the urgency of an abolitionist praxis that openly, critically, and radically addresses the moral, cultural, and political premises of these wars. *n so many ways, the D0 progressive/left establishment is filling the void created by what Juth &ilson 4ilmore has called the violent

Nabandonments+ of the state, which forfeits and implodes its own social welfare capacities /which were already insufficient at best6 while transforming and /productively6 exploding its domestic warmaking functionalities O which 4ilmore /'AAIb! EEO@6 says are guided by a Nfrightening willingness to engage in human sacrifice+. Ket, at the same time that the state has been openly galvani7ing itself to declare and wage violent struggle against strategically targeted local populations, the establishment left remains relatively unwilling and therefore institutionally unable to address the ,uestions of social survival, grass roots mobili7ation, radical social ustice, and social transformation on the concrete and everyday terms of the very domestic war/s6 that the state has so openly and repeatedly declared as the premises of its own coherence. 4iven that domestic warfare composes both the common narrative language and concrete material production of the state, the ,uestion remains as to why the establishment left has not understood this statecraft as the state of emergency that the condition so openly, institutionally encompasses /warP6. Ferhaps it is because critical intellectuals, scholar activists, and progressive organi7ers are underestimating the skill and reach of the state as a pedagogical /teaching6 apparatus, that they have generally undertheori7ed how the state so skillfully generates /and often politically accommodates6 sanctioned spaces of political contradiction that engulf Ndissent+ and counter#state, antiracist, and antiviolence organi7ing. Grass roots !rotest mo*eme ts sol*e Ro%rigue) ,5' P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( !ro# at .C Ri*ersi%e
Engagement! &arfare, &hite <ocality, and 2bolition,) $ritical 0ociology, vol. -: no. " p. "@"#"I-//.456 /5ylan, (The Terms of

Our historical moment suggests the need for a principled political rupturing of existing techni,ues and strategies that fetishi7e and fixate on the negotiation, massaging, and management of the worst outcomes of domestic warfare. One political move long overdue is toward grass roots pedagogies of radical dis#identification with the state, in the tra ectory of an anti#nationalism or anti#patriotism, that reorients a progressive identification with the creative possibilities of insurgency /this is to consider Ninsurgency+ as a politics that pushes beyond the defensive maneuvering of Nresistance+6. &hile there are rare groups in existence that offer this kind of nourishing political space /fromthe <.2.#based Kouth 1ustice $oalition to the national organi7ation *M$*TEP &omen of $olor 2gainst ;iolence6, they are often forced to expend far too much energy challenging both the parochialisms of the hegemonic non#profit apparatus and the sometimes narrow politics of the progressive D0 left.

*AFF M<T;ODS*

/ur it Do&
Aiole t re*olutio is 0ey to em!o&erme t a % u ity Fa o B:' re*olutio ary( e+iste tialist t"i 0er /Frant7, (The &retched of the Earth,) p. @"#@'6 &hen it is achieved during a war of liberation the mobili7ation of the masses introduces the notion of common cause, national destiny, and collective history into every consciousness. $onse,uently, the second phase, i.e, nation building, is facilitated by the existence of this mortar kneaded with blood and rage. This then gives us a better understanding of the
originality of the vocabulary used in underdeveloped countries. 5uring the colonial period the people were called upon to fight against oppression. Following national liberation they are urged to fight against poverty, illiteracy, and underdevelopment. The struggle, they say, goes on. The people reali7e that life is an unending struggle. The violence of the coloni7ed, we have said, unifies the people. 8y its very structure colonialism

is separatist and regionalist. $olonialism is not merely content to note the existence of tribes, it reinforces and differentiates them. The colonial
system nurtures the chieftainships and revives the old marabout confraternities. ;iolence in its practice is totali7ing and national. 2s a result, it harbors in its depths the elimination of regionalism and tribalism. The nationalist parties, therefore, show no pity at all toward the kaids and the traditional chiefs. The elimination of the kaids and the chiefs is a prere,uisite to the unification of the people. 2t the individual level, violence is a cleansing

force. *t rids the coloni7ed of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. *t emboldens them, and restores their self#confidence. Even if the armed struggle has been symbolic, and even if they have been demobili7ed by rapid decoloni7ation, the people have time to reali7e that liberation was the achievement of each and every one and no special merit should go to the leader. ;iolence hoists the people up to the level of the leader. Lence their aggressive tendency to distrust the system of protocol that young governments are ,uick to establish. &hen they have used violence to achieve national liberation, the masses allow body to come forward as (liberator. ) They prove themselves to
be ealous of their achievements and take care not to place their future, their destiny, and the fate of their homeland into the hands of a living god. Totally irresponsible yesterday, today they are bent on understanding everything and determining everything . Enlightened by violence, the

people+s consciousness rebels against any pacification . The demagogues, the opportunists and the magicians now have a difficult task. The praxis which pitched them into a desperate man#to#man struggle has given the masses a ravenous taste for the tangible. 2ny attempt at mystification in the long term becomes virtually impossible.

;i! ;o! Goo%

R"etorically e gagi g t"e A#rica 'America 2o%y t"roug" ;i!';o! ee%s to !rece%e a y !olitical %iscussio 2ecause !olitics R<AOLA<S arou % t"eir o!!ressio a % li2eratio a % is t"ere#ore ecessary to u %ersta %i g "o& !olitics F.NCTIONS &"ic" remai s u touc"e% u %er t"eir articulatio o# t"e #ocus o# %e2ate Co"e C0B R$athy $ohen is a Frofessor in the Folitical 0cience 5epartment at the Dniversity of $hicago. 0he is the author of the book The
8oundaries of 8lackness! 2*50 and the 8reakdown of 8lack Folitics and the co#editor of the anthology &omen Transforming Folitics.6 >2frican 2merican Kouth! 8roadening our Dnderstanding of Folitics, $ivic Engagement and 2ctivism .> Kouth 2ctivism . M.p., I 1une 'AA:. &eb."S 1an. 'A"'.]http!//ya.ssrc.org/african/$ohen/^//liamT 2rguably more than any other subgroup of 2mericans, 2frican 2merican youth reflect the challenges of inclusion and empowerment in the post#civil rights period. &hen one looks at a wide array of some of the most controversial and important issues challenging the country, 2frican 2merican young people are often at the center of these debates and policies. &hether the issue is the mass incarceration of 2frican 2mericans, the controversy surrounding 2ffirmative 2ction as a policy to redress past discriminatibn, the increased use of high stakes testing to regulate standards of education, debates over appropriate and effective campaigns for L*; and 2*50 testing and prevention programs, or efforts to limit comprehensive sex education in public schools, most of these initiatives and controversies are focused on, structured around, and disproportionately impact young, often marginally positioned 2frican 2mericans. *n contrast to the centrality of 2frican 2merican youth to the politics and policies of the

country, their perspectives and voices have generally been absent from not only public policy debates, but also academic research. 2s the presence of 2frican 2merican youth as policy targets or perceived threat in the public mind has increased, researchers actually have less systematic information on the political ideas and actions of this group than we did -A years ago. *ncreasingly, researchers and policy#makers have been content to detail and measure the behavior and negative outcomes of young 2frican 2mericans with little concern for measuring and analy7ing their attitudes, ideas, wants, desires and politics . 2s

researchers, it is time to recommit ourselves to understanding and exploring the politics, activism and political attitudes of 2frican 2merican youth in all of their complexity. &hile researchers and policy#makers may be paying less attention to the ideas and politics of 2frican 2merican youth, these young people continue to engage in both traditional and extra#systemic politics. The history of black youth activism personifies struggles

among those disenfranchised to force the country to live up to its promise of e,uality and ustice. $learly, the work of
young 2frican 2mericans in the $ivil Jights .ovement is what most people reference when thinking about black youth activism= nearly all the leaders of this historic movement where young people under the age of -A. 2frican 2merican young people lead boycotts, freedom rides, voter registration drives and rallies across the south. 2frican 2merican high school students sacrificed their safety and often disobeyed their parent+s wishes as they engaged in civil disobedience, filling the ails with their young bodies. 8ut no matter how important young 2frican 2mericans proved to be to the $ivil Jights .ovement, they have been e,ually active and instrumental in other movements and politics. &hether it is the 8lack Fower movement, the 2nti# apartheid movement, or the organi7ed mobili7ation against mass incarceration, 2frican 2merican youth have been and continue to be at the center of these efforts, providing leadership, analysis, and energy. &e must, therefore, expand our understanding of when and where politics happens, pursuing the larger ,uestion of what is political and what counts as politics for young 2frican 2mericans. For example, there has been a continuous

debate in the hip hop community, among ournalists and a few researchers, about hip hop as a cultural vehicle of politics for 2frican 2merican youth. *n a series of focus groups * held with 2frican 2mericans ages "S#'" in $hicago in 'AAE, there was general

agreement among participants thathip hop culture was especially influential in the lives of younger 2frican 2mericans and had the potential to be a significant political force. One participant proclaimed , (*f ust half the folks who listen to rap music could come together, this

government wouldn+t know what hit them.> 2nother explained, (Lip hop is where we can talk to each other about all the things done wrong to us.) *ronically, in the realm of politics, traditional researchers have been the last to take the political influence of hip hop seriously, focusing their work instead on traditional measures of politics, and the ,uestions of whether young people vote and if they are engaged in standard forms of civic activity . 2nd while *, as a political scientist, am interested in young 2frican 2mericans and their engagement in traditional forms of participation /including voting6, * am also interested in the evolving notion of hip hop as not only a cultural form, but also a significant mode of political expression. *n the last presidential election, the presence of the hip hop community was visible. &hether it was F. 5iddy+s ($iti7en

$hange $ampaign) that used the slogan (vote or die,) or Jussell 0immon+s Lip Lop 0ummit 2ction Metwork, or even Eminem+s release of (.osh) ust weeks before the 'AAE presidential election, all these factors could be hypothesi7ed to influence the politics and activism of 2frican 2merican youth in ways that the 5emocrats and Jepublicans never approached. .oreover, beyond the electoral sphere, hip hop artists and cultural workers are to be found among those public celebrities and activists willing to lend their names and energy to issues such as 2*50, debt relief for 2frica, and opposition to the prison industrial complex. Finally,the use of hip#hop across the world as a cultural form of rebellion is evident in countries such as $uba, 8ra7il, and 0outh 2frica. Thus, as researchers,we would be negligent if we did not fully explore the connections being made by

young 2frican 2mericans between hip hop culture and politics. For example, does this group understand hip hop to be an alternative mode of political action, making visible their political, social and economic condition C To what
degree do the themes evident in hip hop culture shape or influence the political thoughts and actions of 2frican 2merican youthC Empirically, does listening to certain forms of hip hop lessen or increase the probability that individuals will engage in politics, develop oppositional political attitudes, or feel greater alienation from the political systemC

Critical ;i! ;o! Pe%agogy c"alle ges tra%itio al !ara%igms( &"ile !ro*i%i g a #rame&or0 to c"alle ge systems t"at re!ro%uce social i e4uality9 T"eir 2elie# t"at %e2ate is a meritocratic e%ucatio al system %eri*es #rom a !ositio o# !ri*le%ge9 A0or ,5 /2. 2. 2korn, 0an Francisco 0tate Dniversity, ($ritical Lip Lop Fedagogy as a Form of <iberatory Fraxis, 'AAH6 *n this article * combine hip hop studies with critical pedagogy to introduce a new framework called $LLF . $LLF differs from hip hop pedagogy because it simultaneously /"6 foregrounds race and racism and their

intersectionality with other forms of oppression= /'6 challenges traditional paradigms, texts, and theories used to explain the experiences of students of color= /-6 centrali7es experiential knowledge of students of color= /E6 emphasi7es the commitment to social ustice= and finally, /@6 encourages a transdisciplinary approach /0olor7ano
W 5elgado 8ernal, 'AA"6. Embedded in this framework is a pedagogical approach that uses Freire+s problem#posing method and case study research as tools for helping student teachers to identity and name the societal and systemic problems students of color face, analy7e the causes of the problem, and find solutions /0mith#.addox W 0olor7ano, 'AA', p. SA6. This framework is important precisely because it challenges the role

that schools play in reproducing social ine,uality. 0chools use (hidden) and (official) curricula that promote the hegemony of the
dominant class /2pple, "HHA6, and embrace pedagogies that devalue the voices and backgrounds of urban and suburban students of color /Friere, "HIA= .c<aren, 'AA'6. 0chool cultures and practices encourage students to believe that a meritocratic educational system exists, that students are responsible for their own failure /2korn, 'AASa, .ac<eod, "HSI6, and that issues of racial ine,uality, hip hop, and social ustice are not worthy of study inside or outside schools. $LLF challenges these assumptions by suggesting that transformative education for the poor and

disempowered begins with the creation of pedagogic spaces where marginali7ed youth are enabled to gain a consciousness of how their own experiences have been shaped by larger social institutions . Dndoubtedly, it is difficult,
however not impossible, to change the tacit beliefs, understandings, and world views that institutions of (higher learning) often hold toward youth of color and low#income youth. Lowever, * contend that by implementing $LLF it is possible to increase the space in the

curriculum for students to unlearn their stereotypical knowledge of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other axes of social difference while analy7ing, problem solving, and theori7ing what it means to be part of a diverse population /0mith#.addox W 0olor7ano, 'AA'6 ;i! ;o! as a li2eratory !ractice #u ctio s &it"i a "istorical a % cultural ma er t"at c"alle ges t"e &"ite e%ucatio system A0or ,5 R2. 2. 2korn, 0an Francisco 0tate Dniversity, ($ritical Lip Lop Fedagogy as a Form of <iberatory Fraxis, 'AAH //liamT *n trying to make sense of the relationship between hip hop and critical pedagogy, * argue that the use of hip hop as a liberatory practice is rooted in the long history of the 8lack freedom struggle and the ,uest for self#determination for oppressed communities around the world. 2s early as the late "HIA+s, hip hop artists, such as %J0#One, also known as (The Teacher,) critici7ed the educational system, its power, its practices, and its pedagogy . *n particular, (The Teacher)
was concerned about the role of an embedded Eurocentricity in the D.0. public school curricula and its impact on 8lack children and youth. *n (Kou .ust <earn) /%J0#One, "HSH6 (The Teacher) flows! (*t seems to me in a school that+s ebony, 2frican history should be pumped up steadily, but it+s not and this has got to stop.) *n another rhyme that sounds like it is straight out of a 8lack Listory $lass, %J0#One /"HSH6 further elucidates the importance of our (real) history! Mo one told you about 8en amin 8anneker, a brilliant 8lack man /who created an6 almanac... 4ranville &oods made the walkie talkie, <ouis <atimer improved on Edison, $harles 5rew did a lot for medicine, 4arret .organ made the traffic light, Larriet Tubman freed the slaves at night. 8y using $ritical Lip Lop Fedagogy /$LLF6 as a form of literacy for freedom, %J0#One paved the way for a

younger generation of critical hip hop pedagogies. For example, Mew Kork 8ased Lip#Lopers, dead pre7, draw on .alcolm _, $arter 4. &oodson, and other 8lack freedom fighters in (they schools,) while offering a scathing criti,ue of the ways in which 8lack folks remain mentally incarcerated if and when we rely on a Eurocentric education system rather than developing curriculum that reflects our own culture, history, socioeconomic, and spiritual realities /2lridge, 'AA@6. 2ccording to dead pre7 /'AAA6! They schools can+t teach us shit. .y people need freedom, we trying to get all we can getV
Tellin+ me white mans lies straight bullshit. They schools ain+t teaching us what we need to survive, they schools don+t educate, they teach people lies Through the use of (imagining)9a term 2lridge /'AA@6 describes as (the process by which Lip Loppers reproduce or

evoke images, events, people and symbols for the purpose of placing past ideas into closer proximity to the present) /p.''H69they (they schools) /dead pre7, 'AAA6 video is able to illuminate both symbolic and active forms of racism by e,uating the image of
the noose with the ways in which the D.0. educational system means a slow death for too many students of color /Tatum, "HHI6

Curre t structures o# e%ucatio lea% us to 2ei g !assi*e rece!tacles rea%y to re!licate t"e curre t o!!ressi*e e%ucatio al system A0or ,5 R2. 2. 2korn, 0an Francisco 0tate Dniversity, ($ritical Lip Lop Fedagogy as a Form of <iberatory Fraxis, 'AAH //liamT
The elements that form the basic core of $LLF draw on KF2J, Freirian pedagogy, and critical race theory to challenge racism and other intersections of social difference in order to prepare young people to be prospective teachers inside and outside of urban and suburban schools. Freire+s work, in particular, provides

us with the foundations for a theory of democratic schooling that is linked to serving the most marginali7ed groups in our society. Lis critical praxis starts from the premise that all education is political, and thus schools are never neutral institutions /0mith#.addox W 0olo7ano, 'AA'6. Freire /"HIA6 firmly believed that one of the ways that schools maintain and reproduce the existing social order is by using the (banking method of education ) /p.I"6. This approach often leads to! /"6 students being viewed as passive receptacles waiting for knowledge to be deposited from the teacher , /'6 mono# directional pedagogical formats whereby students do not feel their thoughts and ideas are important enough to warrant a two#way dialogue with teachers= /-6)cradle classrooms,) in which students are dependent on teachers for the ac,uisition of knowledge= and /E6 students viewing schools as key mechanisms in the reproduction of ine,uality rather than places where education is seen as a practice of freedom, a place to build critical consciousness, and social mobility /4inwright
W$ammarota, 'AA'6

;i! ;o! "el!s #ig"t racism 2y i *a%i g t"e "omes o# t"e &"ite yout" Rei% ,5 R0haheem, .T; Mews NLip#Lop Las 5one .ore Than 2ny Folitician To *mprove Jace Jelations.+ .arch 'A, 'AAH //liamT

1ay#X believes the influence that he and his peers have had on society goes beyond simply entertaining and showing people fresh new dances, the fliest clothes or high#priced luxury items. *n the new issue of 8est <ife maga7ine, the 8rooklyn#born mogul speaks about the powerful effect hip# hop has had on the country. >RLip#hopT has changed 2merica immensely,> Le is ,uoted in the maga7ine as saying. >Lip# hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.> >Jacism is taught in the home ... and it?s very hard to teach racism to a teenager who idoli7es, say, 0noop 5ogg ,> 1ay continued. >*t?s hard to say, ?That guy is less than you.? The kid is like, ?* like that guy, he?s cool. Low is he less than meC? > T"ey loo0 at ;i! ;o! t"roug" a le s o# "omoge eity9 Not all "i! "o! is 2a%( it ca 2e re*olutio ary A0or ,5 R2. 2. 2korn, 0an Francisco 0tate Dniversity, ($ritical Lip Lop Fedagogy as a Form of <iberatory Fraxis, 'AAH //liamT
Even though for generations 8lack people have successfully undertaken the task of educating our own children and youth, teachers in the late twentieth and early twenty#first century have been slow to critically engage with hip hop as a viable discursive space full of liberatory potential. * am not

suggesting that all forms of hip hop are emancipatory, revolutionary, or even resistive9many forms are not9 and some are ,uite the opposite. Lowever, * am suggesting that given the long history of socio#political conscious hip hop as a tool for illuminating problems of poverty, police brutality, patriarchy, misogyny, incarceration, racial discrimination, as well as love, hope oy9academic institution+s under#utili7ation of hip hop+s liberatory potential in the classroom is surprising.

T"e collecti*e trauma o# sla*ery is t"e #ou %i g mome t o# mo%er ity 7 t"is #ore*er re %ers mo%er ity sus!ect 7 &e must co ti ue to i %ict im!erial mo%er ity as &e loo0 to&ar% t"e #uture <s"u 5C R%odwo Eshun .2 in 2rts, $ourse <eader of 2rts at 4oldsmiths $ollege ,Further $onsiderations of 2frofuturism6 Fage - //liamT *magine a team of 2frican archaeologists from the future9some silicon, some carbon, some wet, some dry9excavating a site, a museum from their past! a museum whose ruined documents and leaking discs are identifiable as belonging to our present, the early twenty# first century. 0ifting patiently through the rubble, our archaeologists from the Dnited 0tates of 2frica, the D02F, would be struck by how much 2frodiasporic sub ectivity in the twentieth century constituted itself through the cultural pro ect of recovery. *n their 2ge of Total Jecall, memory is never lost . Only the art of forgetting. *magine
them reconstructing the conceptual framework of our cultural moment from those fragments. &hat are the parameters of that moment, the edge of that frameworkC *n our time, the D02F archaeologists surmise, imperial racism has denied black sub ects the right to belong to

Mi%%le Passage

the enlightenment pro ect, thus creating an urgent need to demonstrate a substantive historical presence. This desire has over determined 8lack 2tlantic intellectual culture for several centuries. To establish the historical character of black culture, to bring 2frica and its sub ects into history denied by Legel et al., it has been necessary to assemble counter memories that contest the colonial archive , thereby situating the collective trauma of slavery as the founding moment of modernity . *n an interview with critic Faul 4ilroy in his anthology 0mall 2cts, novelist Toni .orrison argued that the 2frican sub ects that experienced capture, theft, abduction, mutilation, and slavery were the first moderns. They underwent real conditions of existential homelessness, alienation, dislocation, and dehumani7ation that philosophers like Miet7sche would later define as ,uintessentially modern. *nstead of civili7ing 2frican sub ects, the forced dislocation and commodification that constituted the .iddle Fassage meant that modernity was rendered forever suspect. Ongoing disputes over reparation indicate that these traumas continue to shape the contemporary era. *t is never a matter of forgetting what it took so long to remember . Jather, the vigilance that is necessary to indict imperial modernity must be extended into the field of the future. Re#rami g t"e mi%%le !assage i a a#ro'#uturist arrati*e "el!s !reser*e t"e memory o# !ast atrocities a % !re*e ts #uture o es #rom occurri g9 Das)e0 E R<isa, 2ssociate Frofessor and 5irector of Dndergraduate 0tudies 4eorgia Tech 0chool of <iterature, $ommunication and $ulture, T2M5F @I /;olume '@, Mo. -6(2frofuturism, 0cience Fiction, and the Listory of the Future) http!//sdonline.org/E'/afrofuturism#science#fiction#and#the#history#of#the#future/ //liamT *n conclusion, * want to propose two reasons why it is important to recover the history of 2frofuturism as it has unfolded over the past two centuries. The first reason is a scholarly one, and has to do with our understanding of literary and cultural history. The past two decades have been marked by an explosion of interest in literary representations of science and technology. These studies tend to follow a very specific and very raced tra ectory !
they tell us that white authors including T.0. Eliot, Thomas Fynchon, and &illiam 4ibson are the real founders of modern technocultural narrative and that authors of color did not engage in this kind of storytelling until identity politics exploded in the "H:As. Thus it seems that white authors got there

8y recovering 2frodiasporic future story telling traditions we gain a better understanding of the important intellectual and aesthetic work that these authors have performed on both national and global cultural fronts. *n doing so, we also learn more about how 2frofuturism transforms science fiction and other modes of technologically engaged literature today. .y second reason for wanting to direct attention to 2frofuturism is political. From the ongoing war on terror to Lurricane %atrina, it seems that we are trapped in an historical moment when we can think about the future only in terms of disaster 9 and that disaster is almost always associated with the racial other. Of course, there are many artists, scholars, and activists who want to resist these terrifying new representations of the future. 2s a literary scholar myself, * believe that one important way to do this is to identify the narrative strategies that artists have used in the past to express dissent from those visions of tomorrow that are generated by a ruthless, economically self# interested futures industry. Lence my interest in 2frofuturism, which assures us that we can indeed ust say no to those bad futures that ustify social, political, and economic discrimination. *n doing so this mode of aesthetic expression also enables us to say yes to the possibility of new and better futures and thus to take back the global cultural imaginary today.
first, and that people of color have been mere respondents to the new literary forms of twentieth and twenty#first centuries. 8ut this ust isn+t trueP

Per#ormati*e !e%agogy locates !o&er i t"e 2o%y a % as0s 4uestio s t"at are t"e co %itio o# !ossi2ility #or t"e ra%ical c"alle ge o# &"ite "egemo y 1arre a % Fassett( C,,F RThe 1ohns Lopkins Dniversity Fress. 2ll rights reserved Theatre Topics "E.' /'AAE6 E""#E-A1ohn T. &arren is an assistant professor in the 0chool of $ommunication 0tudies at 8owling 4reen 0tate Dniversity, where he teaches courses in performance, culture, identity, and power. 5eanna <. Fassett is an assistant professor in the 5epartment of $ommunication 0tudies at 0an 1os[ 0tate Dniversity, where she teaches courses in instructional communication and critical, feminist, and performative pedagogies //liamT Ferformative pedagogy, as a method and theory of the body, can ask ,uestions in a way that points to the structure and machinery of whiteness. *t can put flesh to the concept of whiteness. *t can point to whiteness+s perceived absence. *t can name the norm. Ferformative pedagogy, in this way, can serve as a pedagogy of the oppressor9it can ask those in positions of power /via sex, race, class, or sexuality6 to ,uestion their own embodied experiences by demanding that they encounter the other through the mode of performance. For if whiteness functions in dominant discourse as the unmarked center of cultural power, then a performative pedagogy can and must ask how we can create a ground for subversion . Ferformative pedagogy, as a method of enfleshment that brings theory to the body, can ,uestion the normal, stable, inevitable actuali7ation of race, nurturing subversive possibility. Thus, in order to foreground and engage such constitutive performances, we
designed a series of workshops that serve to create space for students to take up and take apart whiteness in their bodies, to make discernable what is already physical by adding heightened critical reflection to that embodiment. These workshops are a means for participants to consider whiteness, to consider the role they play in the making and unmaking of cultural oppression, and to begin subverting the invisibility of whiteness.

Per#ormati*e Pe%agogy

Per#orma ce Allo&s Alter ate Mea s to Ret"i 0 t"e System Outsi%e o# Curre t /ou %aries Das)e0 E# R2ssociate Frofessor and 5irector of Dndergraduate 0tudies 0chool of <iterature, $ommunication, and $ulture /<isa, 1une/0eptember 'AA@, Jethinking Listory. ;ol. H, Mo. '/-, pp. 'HI#-"-. (2n 2frofuturist Jeading of Jalph Ellison+s *nvisible .an)//liamT * esse ce( t"e ( t"e i *isi2le ma 8s 2aseme t "ome 2ecomes a 0i % o# time' a % s!aces"i! t"at carries "im outsi%e o# t"e 0 o& &orl%( !ro*i%i g "im &it" a e& !ers!ecti*e #rom &"ic" "e ca see 2ot" t"e multi!le as!ects o# t"e A#ro%ias!oric e+!erie ce a % its com!le+ relatio s to t"e Gma y stra %s8 o# America reality9 .uch like %odwo Eshun+s ideal 2frofuturist sub ect, then, Ellison+s protagonist begins
to experience the kind of multiple consciousness that is itself the first step towards the creation of a new and more egalitarian multiracial futurity. 0ignificantly, the invisible man+s ability to multiply his consciousness directly correlates with his increasing mastery over new technologies. 2s 2lexander 4. &eheliye notes in his discussion of sonic 2fromodernity, t"e G"egemo y o# *isio 88 a % *isual tec" ologies is a

%isti ctly race% o e i &"ic" t"e !ri*ilege% Gloo0 o# &"ite su23ects %e%uces su!!ose% i #erior racial c"aracteristics #rom t"e sur#ace o# t"e 2lac0 su23ect8s s0i 8 /'AA-, p. "AI6. 8y way of contrast, sonic
technologies that enable the recording and mass distribution of sound both transform and extend what &eheliye identifies as Nthe two main techni,ues of cultural communication in 2frican 2merica+! orality and music /ibid., p. "A'6. T"ese tec" ologies are use#ul #or 2ot"

musicia s a % ot"er artists &"o i cor!orate so ic eleme ts i to t"eir &or0 2ecause t"ey Go!e u! !ossi2ilities #or t"i 0i g( "eari g( seei g( a % a!!re"e %i g t"e su23ect i a um2er o# %i##ere t are as t"at %o ot i sist o mo ocausality8 Hi2i%9I9 I ma y res!ects( Gt"e so ic8 #u ctio s li0e Gt"e scie ce #ictio al8 i A#ro%ias!oric artJ 2ot" !ro*i%e alter ate mea s 2y &"ic" to ret"i 0 "istory a % su23ecti*ity outsi%e o# %omi a t *isual a % %iscursi*e structures9

T"ree Tier Process

A%o!t a t"ree tier !rocess 2ase% o :I!erso al e+!erie ce CI orga ic i tellectuals -I aca%emic i tellectuals T"is is t"e 2est &ay to *eri#y trut" claims &"ile i cor!orati g !erso al 0 o&le%ge t"at is a *ital c"ec0 o !ri*ilege a % e+clusio Rei%'/ri 0ley ,>' P"D #rom .GA( !ro#essor o# commu icatio s at t"e . i*ersity o# Pitts2urg"
/0hanara, (TLE L2J0L JE2<*T*E0 OF (2$T*M4 8<2$%)! LO& 2FJ*$2M#2.EJ*$2M FO<*$K 5E82TEJ0 ME4OT*2TE JEFJE0EMT2T*OM TLJOD4L J2$*2< FEJFOJ.2M$E 2M5 0TK<E,)6 The process of signifyin+ engaged in by the <ouisville debaters is not simply designed to criti,ue the use of traditional

evidence. 2s 4reen argues, their goal is to (challenge the relationship between social power and knowledge.)@I *n other words, those with social power within the debate community are able to produce and determine (legitimate) knowledge. These legitimating practices usually function to maintain the dominance of normative knowledge# making practices, while crowding out or directly excluding alternative knowledge #making S- practices. The <ouisville (framework looks to the people who are oppressed by current constructions of power. )@S 1ones and 4reen offer an alternative framework for drawing claims in debate speeches, they refer to it as a three#tier process! 2 way in which you can validate our claims, is through the three#tier process. 2nd we talk about personal experience, organic intellectuals, and academic intellectuals. <et me give you an analogy. *f you place an elephant in the room and send in three blind folded people into the room, and each of them are touching a different part of the elephant. 2nd they come back outside and you ask each different person they gone have a different idea about what they was talking about. 8ut, if you let those people converse and bring those three different people together then you can achieve a greater truth .@H 1ones argues that without the three tier process debate claims are based on singular perspectives that privilege those with institutional and economic power. The <ouisville debaters do not re ect traditional evidence per se, instead they seek to augment or supplement what counts as evidence with other forms of knowledge produced outside of academia. 2s 4reen notes in the double#octo#finals at $E52 Mationals, (%nowledge surrounds me in the streets, through my peers, through personal experiences, and everyday wars that * fight with my mind.):A The thee#tier process! personal experience, organic intellectuals, and traditional evidence, provides a method of argumentation that taps into diverse forms of knowledge# making practices. &ith the <ouisville method, personal experience and organic intellectuals are placed on par with traditional forms of evidence. &hile the <ouisville debaters see the benefit of academic research, they are also critically aware of the normative practices that exclude racial and ethnic minorities from policy#oriented discussions because of their lack of training and expertise. 0uch exclusions prevent radical solutions to racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia from being more permanently addressed. 2ccording to 4reen! bell hooks talks about how
when we rely solely on one perspective to make our claims, radical liberatory theory becomes rootless. That+s the reason why we use a three#tiered process. That+s why we use alternative forms of discourse such as hip hop. That+s also how we use traditional evidence and our personal narratives so you don+t get ust one perspective claiming to be the right way. 8ecause it becomes a more meaningful and educational view as far as how we achieve our education.:" The use of hip hop and personal experience function as a check against the homogeni7ing function of

academic and expert discourse. Mote the reference to bell hooks. 4reen argues that without alternative perspectives, (radical libratory theory becomes rootless.) The term rootless seems to refer to a lack of grounded#ness in the material circumstances that academics or experts study. *n other words, academics and experts by definition represent an intellectual population with a level of ob ective distance from that which they study. For the <ouisville debaters, this distance is problematic as it prevents the development of a social politic that is rooted in the community of those most greatly affected by the status of oppression.

'Orga ic I tellectuals Goo%

Focus o orga ic i tellectuals is 0ey' o ly &ay to reco cile t"e i*ory to&er &it" !olitical c"a ge ;all 5B' !ro#essor emeritus at O!e . i*ersity( cultural t"eorist( #ormer !resi%e t o# t"e /ritis" Sociological Associatio /0tuart, ($ritical 5ialogues in $ultural 0tudies,) p. 'A//.456 *n N$ultural studies and its theoretical legacies+ Lall argues that cultural studies always needs to hold both theoretical and political ,uestions Nin an ever irresolvable, but permanent, tension+ /shades perhaps of 2lthusser+s conception of moments of what he called Nteeth#gritting harmony+6, constantly allowing Nthe one to irritate and bother and disturb the other+, because Nif you lose that tension, you can do extremely fine intellectual work, but you will have lost intellectual practice, as a politics+. 2s so often with Lall, the key to this perspective is 4ramsci, and, in particular, 4ramsci+s conception of the role of the Norganic intellectual+. *n his own actions, Lall has demonstrated his commitment to living out the contradictions of the role of the Norganic intellectual+ identified by 4ramsci 9the commitment to being at the very forefront of intellectual, theoretical work and, simultaneously, the commitment to the attempt to transmit the ideas thus generated, well beyond the confines of the Nintellectual class+. Orga ic i%eology is 0ey' o ly &ay to !ri*ilege t"e su2or%i ate class a % create u i#ie% mo*eme ts ;all 5B' !ro#essor emeritus at O!e . i*ersity( cultural t"eorist( #ormer !resi%e t o# t"e /ritis" Sociological Associatio /0tuart, ($ritical 5ialogues in $ultural 0tudies,) p. '"H//.456 2nd the role of an Nopened up+ ideology is crucial to these struggles. &hat Lall calls an Norganic ideology+, that is one arising from the shared material conditions of various formations of the people, can act to unify them and construct for them something approaching a class identity, a class consciousness. This organic ideology unifies by providing forms of intelligibility which explain the collective situation of different social groups! an organic ideology, then, empowers the subordinate. Feminism is a clear and potent example of an organic ideology working to unify and empower. /*ncidentally, the comparative lack of acknowledgement of feminism in Lall+s work is both surprising and unfortunate.6 The notion of an ideology empowering the subordinate rather than the dominant may seem, on the face of it, a surprising one but it is a vital part of Lall+s respect for the subordinate, for their power to resist the dominant, and to maintain awkward social
contradictions.

Orga ic i tellectualism %oes ot #orego t"eory' i tegrates it i to *ital !olitical acti*ism o t"e #ro tli es ;all 5B' !ro#essor emeritus at O!e . i*ersity( cultural t"eorist( #ormer !resi%e t o# t"e /ritis" Sociological Associatio /0tuart, ($ritical 5ialogues in $ultural 0tudies,) p. ':I//.456 8ut * think it is very important that 4ramsci+s thinking around these ,uestions certainly captures part of what we were about. 8ecause a second aspect of 4ramsci+s definition of intellectual work, which * think has always been lodged somewhere close to the notion of cultural studies as a pro ect, has been his re,uirement that the Norganic intellectual+ must work on two fronts at one and the same time. On the one hand, we had to be at the very forefront of intellectual theoretical work because, as 4ramsci says, it is the ob of the organic intellectual to know more than the traditional intellectuals do! really know, not ust pretend to know, not ust to have the facility of knowledge, but to know deeply and profoundly. 0o often knowledge for marxism is pure recognition9the production again of what we have always knownP *f you are in the game of hegemony you have to be smarter than Nthem+. Lence, there are no theoretical limits from which cultural studies can turn back. 8ut the second aspect is ust as crucial! that the organic intellectual cannot absolve himself or herself from the responsibility of transmitting those ideas , that knowledge, through the intellectual function, to those who do not belong, professionally, in the intellectual class. 2nd unless those two fronts are operating at the same time, or at least unless those two ambitions are part of the pro ect of cultural studies, you can get enormous theoretical advance without any engagement at the level of the political pro ect. *+m extremely anxious that you should not decode what *+m saying as an anti#theoretical discourse. *t is not anti#theory, but it does have something to do with the conditions and problems of developing intellectual and theoretical work as a political practice. *t is an extremely
difficult road, not resolving the tensions between those two re,uirements, but living with them. 4ramsci never asked us to resolve them, but he gave us a practical example of how to live with them. &e never produced organic intellectuals /would that we had6 at the $entre. &e never connected with that rising historic movement= it was a metaphoric exercise. Mevertheless, metaphors are serious things. They affect one+s practice. *+m trying to redescribe cultural studies as theoretical work which must go on and on living with that tension.

.si g !erso al e+!erie ce %oes ot create a co #essio al #ormatKit8s a o!!ortu ity to s"are e+!erie ce a % e+!ose %ise #ra c"iseme t Rei%'/ri 0ley :/'E/:C
/5r. 0hanara J. Jeid#8rinkley, 1une 'E, 'A"', (Fersonali7ed 5ebate and the 5ifficulty of 8uilding $oalitions), http!//resistanceanddebate.wordpress.com/'A"'/A:/'E/personali7ed#debate#and#the#difficulty#of#building#coalitions#'/6F0 Kou make a few assumptions about the use of personal experience in debate that * want to ,uestion. .ost of the students who

'Perso al <+!erie ce Goo%

use personal experience in debate are not doing so to ust win the round. The students of color /and their allies6 that make race centric arguments are not ust talking about their personal experience to win a ballot. There are way more easy ways to win a ballot than to make yourself vulnerable by discussing your personal experience. Their use of personal experience is a choice to share, to offer those who have never encountered the issues they face an opportunity to put names to the faces of real people facing real problems. 5ebate encourages us to remain disconnected from the sub ect matter and makes it easier to ignore the cries of the disenfranchised. That you assume they are asking you to engage personally ust to win the debate is incorrect. *nstead, they are asking you to open yourself up to honest engagement which re,uires that you make yourself vulnerable too. *t is out of that space of vulnerability that real empathy across difference can be built. This is not about individual debate rounds, its about the very nature of the debate community. &hen they ask you to
invest yourself personally, they are asking you to oin hands and put your body on the line, ust like they do every time they step foot in the hostile environment of national debate tournaments.

I clusio o# !erso al e+!erie ce is i e*ita2le a % ecessary to co #ro t !o&er structures( &"ic" must 2e e+!lore% a % ot merely acce!te% as stasis !oi ts #or %e2ate /utler :/'@/:C
/8utler, 1udy, 1une '@, 'A"', (0ome Thoughts on the Jole of Fersonal Experience and 5ebate), http!//resistanceanddebate.wordpress.com/'A"'/A:/'@/some#thoughts#on#the#role#of#personal#experience#and#debate/6F0 The ,uestion is not do we debate from our personal experiences /* have never heard a team say we personally experience oppression and you don+t so we win6 but whose personal experiences do the structure of topics reflect O * would humbly suggest that t hey

presuppose a relation to the state as a neutral, natural and normal tool of policy, that you can program in a goal and out comes an ODT$O.E O not an historically 2M5 $DJJEMT<K hostile institution that was anything but neutral in its sub ugation of you and those who look like you O "S to 'E year old black males know they disproportionably populate the ails as a class O their FJ*EM50 go to ail, it is not a statistic that they ust read about O and the concomminent day to day reality of
the policing of young black men that re,uires a great deal of real, in person contact between the security organs of the state and those young men O and not much of it is positive or feels like protection O the statistics are glaringly apparent.

Fretending debate or any policy making deliberation can be somehow separated in anything but a very surface and artificial way from ones personal experience is counterintuitive O you can acknowledge it or not O but * defy you to teach
novice debaters how to debate without appealing and referring to their personal experiences

'<+!erts /a%
A!!eali g to Ge+!erts8 sile ces alter ate *oices( 2uttresses eoli2eralism( a % !er!etuates %iscrimi atio =ot"ari ,E' I stitute #or De*elo!me t Policy a % Ma ageme t( . i*ersity o# Ma c"ester( /Dma,
(2uthority and Expertise! The Frofessionalisation of *nternational 5evelopment and the Ordering of 5issent,) 2ntipode//.456 * discuss the successful co#optation of NNalternative++ approaches to international development into the mainstream

neoliberal agenda of multi#lateral and bi#lateral agencies, and argue that this is enabled by the ongoing professionalisation and technicalisation of the D% development industry. * suggest here that an increasingly technocratic and tool#kit approach to development has exacerbated the depoliticisation of development and the atheoretical perspective of much development discourse. This h as been achieved by limiting the effectiveness of critical voices and contesting discourses through their conscription into neoliberal discourses and practices. * focus upon how the key figure of the development NNexpert++ acts as an agent in consolidating unilinear notions of modernising progress , construed as NNthe only force capable of destroying archaic superstitions and relations, at whatever social, cultural and political cost+ + /Escobar "HHI!S:6. Through this agency, NNexperts++ embody the une,ual relationship between the NNFirst++ and NNThird++ &orlds, and between donors and aid recipients, and exemplify the process through which development is located within institutionalised practices. This production of the NNprofessional++ development expert, identified as such not solely because of the extent and form of their knowledge but often because of who they are and where they come from, legitimises and authorises their interventions by valorising their particular technical skills and reinforcing classifications of difference between, for example, the NNdeveloped++ and NNdeveloping++ worlds /see 8habha "HHE6. T"eir a!!eal to e+!erts re!licates t"e !ater alism o# colo ialism' esta2lis"es !olice as t"e o ly source o# 0 o&le%ge =ot"ari ,E' I stitute #or De*elo!me t Policy a % Ma ageme t( . i*ersity o# Ma c"ester( /Dma,
(2uthority and Expertise! The Frofessionalisation of *nternational 5evelopment and the Ordering of 5issent,) 2ntipode//.456 * begin with an examination of the post#war production of the development expert and the reproduction of

systems of expertise and forms of authority that they articulate. To highlight the rising status and importance of the expert, * subse,uently contrast the contemporary development professional with the 8ritish colonial officer, a figure who was fre,uently opposed to these new systems of expertise and sub ectivity. .any former colonial officers who subse,uently worked for the aid industry condemn post#independence development NNexperts++ as self#designated professionals arguing that they possess limited knowledge and experience of the countries for which they advise, design and implement policies. This discussion exemplifies the continuities and divergences from colonialism to development and, more importantly, the tra ectory from colonial rule to the
neoliberal agenda and discourse of contemporary international development. The third section demonstrates the constraining effects of designating and channelling expertise and the subse,uent co#optation of potentially critical discourses. This discussion focuses

upon the creation of professionals and the exclusive forms of knowledge that surround the practice of participatory development9a popular approach that through its incorporation into mainstream, orthodox development has led to its widespread adoption in
development policy and practice reflecting, in part, the continuing universalising pro ect and strategies of neoliberalism /see %othari and .inogue 'AA'6. These refer primarily to the policies of economic reform, minimalist states, privatisation and principles of marketbased economics and the policy instruments of, for example, the &orld 8ank and *.F+s structural ad ustment programmes that enable them. 8ut neoliberal policies further extend to, and affect, social, cultural and political issues including processes of social change and development, access to rights and ustice as well as forms of individual and community dispossession /see Larvey 'AA-6.

Relia ce o e+!erts ecessarily sile ces t"e *oices o# mi orities' lea%s to racism a % euroce trism =ot"ari ,E' I stitute #or De*elo!me t Policy a % Ma ageme t( . i*ersity o# Ma c"ester(

/Dma, (2uthority and Expertise! The Frofessionalisation of *nternational 5evelopment and the Ordering of 5issent,) 2ntipode//.456 5evelopment is predicated on the assumption that some people and places are more developed than others and therefore those

who are NNdeveloped++ have the knowledge and expertise to help those who are not /Farpart "HH@!''"6. These often unspoken assumptions are highly problematic but continue to prevail in development thinking and are embodied in the ideas and practices of the professional. The forms of expertise produced are developed in part by reasserting /colonial6 dichotomies that distinguish between the NNmodern++ and the NNtraditional++, whereby the NNtraditional++ culture , forms of social organisation, production and beliefs of the Third &orld are seen as outmoded and in need of being succeeded by more NNmodern++, inevitably &estern, attitudes and practices. 2s Escobar writes! 5evelopment fostered a way of conceiving of social life as a technical problem, as a matter of rational decision and management to be entrusted to that group of people 9the development professionals9 whose speciali7ed knowledge allegedly ,ualified them for the task. *nstead of seeing change as a process rooted in the interpretation of each society+s history and cultural tradition . . . these professionals sought to devise mechanisms and procedures to make societies fit a pre#existing model that embodied the structures and functions of modernity. /"HHI!H"6 Escobar /"HH@6 also maintains that NNprinciples of authority++ are in operation within development
discourse which involve the role of the expert who continually identifies problems, categorises and labels them and then intervenes to resolve them. *ndeed, the use of these NNtechnical assistance experts++, as they used to be known in the "H@As, is central to most development interventions

/$rewe and Larrison "HHS!H-6 and conse,uently, as shown below, development schemes r eflect

a form of cultural imperialism founded on

ideas about the NNprofessional++, NNexpert++ and NNexpertise++. $rucially, however, these are not neutral categories but are notions reconfigured through neoliberal development imaginaries. They are taken up by prevailing ideological orthodoxies contemporaneously and ideas about professionalism, for example, have been absorbed by neoliberal thought and operationalised in development practice. Furthermore , by privileging

certain groups of individuals and particular forms of knowledge, they articulate a eurocentrism that is highly gendered and racialised. There is also a discursive practice in development that shapes NNwho can speak, from what points of view, with what authority, and according to what criteria of expertise= it sets the rules that must be
followed for this or that problem, theory or ob ect to emerge and be named, analysed, and eventually transformed into a policy or plan++ /Escobar "HHI!SI6. 0upporting this view, $rewe and Larrison /"HHS6 suggest that the perception of the ignorance of NNlocal++ people

sometimes emerges out of their lack of familiarity with the latest development techni,ues , although these have often
emerged out of &estern fashions which are necessarily updated so rapidly that building expertise in them is always ust beyond the reach of NNlocal++ development practitioners. *ndeed, NNexperts are also able to confirm the legitimacy of their role and intervention by claiming to possess the latest and more advanced expertise++ /$rewe and Larrison "HHS!HI6. This superior knowledge NNrelies on constant reiteration and renewal of technical language, methods and orthodoxies++ /"AH6 and as $hambers posits, NNthe rate of obsolescence of development fashions and ideas has accelerated++ /"HH-!"6.

'AT Our Aut"ors Are I clusi*e

<##orts at i clusio are mea t to %o%ge criticism' t"ey merely i stitutio ali)e alter ati*e %iscourse i to t"e eoli2eral mai stream =ot"ari ,E' I stitute #or De*elo!me t Policy a % Ma ageme t( . i*ersity o# Ma c"ester(
(2uthority and Expertise! The Frofessionalisation of *nternational 5evelopment and the Ordering of 5issent,) 2ntipode//.456 2ccordingly, in the "HSAs the &orld 8ank and other multi# and bilateral development agencies appeared to encourage

/Dma,

these seemingly alternative approaches incorporating concerns around issues of participation, gender, empowerment and environment onto their agenda /see &orld 8ank, &orld 5evelopment Jeports6. Forms of alternative development become institutionalised and less distinct from conventional, mainstream development discourse and practice /Fieterse "HHS6. Following co#optation, these discourses became increasingly technicalised in order to fit into the more formalised development planning frameworks and models favoured by these organisations. This process was enabled by the relatively weak theoretical rootedness of some of these formative approaches that allowed them to be more easily encompassed. This strategy of appropriation reduced spaces of criti,ue and dissent, since the inclusion and appropriation of ostensibly radical discourses limited the potential for any challenge from outside t he mainstream to orthodox development planning and practices! NNthe conscription of critical discourses into the mainstream is often accompanied with a watering down of the challenges and political commentary that went with their construction++ /%othari and .inogue 'AA'!""6. 2s these approaches were adopted they were embedded within a neoliberal discourse /Jist "HHI6 and became increasingly technicalised, sub ect to regimes of professionalisation which institutionalised forms of knowledge, analytical skills, tools, techni,ues and frameworks. These competencies were, in turn, ac,uired through training schemes and courses of study, producing professional NN experts++ ready to go into the field and apply these criteria in the
practice of development. *ndeed, as Francis writes, NNFJ2+s distinctive combination of personal transformation, political empowerment and methodological practice is above all embodied in and transmitted through speciali7ed training++ /'AA"!IH6.

*AT =s

AT A#roPessimism

Perm
Permutatio %o 2ot"J A#ro !essimism is ot a totali)i g re3ectio o# 2lac0 social li#e( 3ust a ac0 o&le%gme t t"at t"e social li#e is ot li*e% i t"e &orl% e*eryo e else occu!ies Se+to :: R1ared, Dniversity of $alifornia, *rvine /Frogram in 2frican 2merican 0tudies6=T (The 0ocial <ife of 0ocial 5eath! On 2fro#Fessimism and 8lack Optimism) http!//www.yorku.ca/intent/issue@/articles/pdfs/ aredsextonarticle.pdf //liamT R'ET To speak of black social life and black social death , black social life against black social death, black social life as black social death, black social life in black social death9all of this is to find oneself in the midst of an argument that is also a profound agreement, an agreement that takes shape in /between6 meconnaissance and /dis6belief. 8lack optimism is not the negation of the negation that is afro#pessimism, ust as black social life does not negate black social death by inhabiting it and vitali7ing it. 2 living death is as much a death as it is a living. Mothing in afro#pessimism suggests that there is no black /social6 life, only that black life is not social life in the universe formed by the codes of state and civil society, of citi7en and sub ect, of nation and culture, of people and place, of history and heritage, of all the things that colonial society has in common with the coloni7ed, of all that capital has in common with labor9the modern world system. 8lack life is not lived in the world that the world lives in, but it is lived underground, in outer space. This is agreed. That is to say, what .oten asserts against afro#pessimism
is a point already affirmed by afro#pessimism, is, in fact, one of the most polemical dimensions of afro#pessimism as a pro ect! namely, that black life is not social, or rather that black life is lived in social death. 5ouble emphasis, on lived and on death. That+s the whole point of

the enterprise at some level. *t is all about the implications of this agreed# upon point where arguments /should6 begin, but they cannot /yet6 proceed.

A#roPessimism Goo%
Regar%less o# social re#orms( t"e 2lac0 2o%y is still e+clu%e% #rom t"e social or%er9 A a tago istic is t"e o ly accurate &ay to %escri2e t"e su##eri g9 1il%erso 8:, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies O $al#*rvine, Jed, &hite, W 8lack, pp '#@ //liamT &hat are we to make of a world that responds to the most lucid enunciation of ethics with violenceC &hat are the foundational ,uestions of the ethico#politicalC &hy are these ,uestions so scandalous that they are rarely posed politically, intellectually, and cinematically9unless they are posed obli,uely and unconsciously, as if by accidentC 4ive Turtle
*sland back to the >0avage.> 4ive life itself back to the 0lave. Two simple sen# tences, fourteen simple words, and the structure of D.0. /and perhaps global6 antagonisms would be dismantled. 2n >ethical modernity> would no longer sound like an oxymoron. From there we could busy ourselves with important conflicts that have been promoted to the level of antagonisms, such as class struggle, gender conflict, and immigrants? rights. One cannot

but wonder why ,uestions that go to the heart of the ethico#political , ,uestions of political ontology, are so unspeakable in intellectual meditations, political broadsides, and even socially and politically engaged feature films. $learly they can be spoken, even a child could speak those lines, so they would pose no problem for a scholar , an activist, or a filmmaker. 2nd yet, what is also clear9if the filmogra#phies of socially and politically engaged directors, the archive of progressive scholars, and the plethora of left#wing broadsides are anything to go by9is that what can so easily be spoken is now /@AA years and '@A million 0ettlers/.asters on6 so ubi,uitously unspoken that these two simple sentences, these fourteen words not only render their speaker >cra7y> but become themselves impossible to imagine. 0oon it will be forty years since
radical politics, left#leaning scholarship, and socially engaged feature films began to speak the unspeakable.' *n the "H:As and early "HIAs the ,uestions asked by radical politics and scholarship were not 0hould the Dnited 0tates be overthrownC or even &ould it be overthrownC but when and how9and, for some, what would come in its wake. Those steadfast in their conviction that there remained a discernable ,uantum of ethics in the Dnited 0tates writ large /and here * am speaking of everyone from .artin <uther %ing 1r. prior to his "H:S shift, to the Tom Layden wing of 0tudents for 5emocratic 0ociety, to the 1ulian 8ond and .arion 8arry faction of the 0tudent Monviolent $oordinating $ommittee, to 8obby %ennedy 5emocrats6 were accountable, in their rhetorical machinations, to the paradigmatic Xeitgeist of the 8lack Fanthers, the 2merican *ndian .ovement, and the &eather Dnderground. Jadicals and progressives could deride, re ect, or chastise armed struggle mercilessly and cavalierly

with respect to tactics and the possibility of >success,> but they could not dismiss revolution#as#ethic because they could not make a convincing case9by way of a paradigmatic analysis9that the Dnited 0tates was an ethical formation and still hope to maintain credibility as radicals and progressives. Even 8obby %ennedy /as a D.0. attorney general6 mused that the law and its enforcers had no ethical standing in the presence of 8lacks .- One could /and many did6 acknowledge 2merica?s strength and power. This seldom rose to the level of an ethical assessment, however, remaining instead an assessment of the >balance of forces.> The political discourse of 8lacks, and to a lesser extent *ndians, circulated too widely to wed the Dnited 0tates and ethics credibly . The raw force of $O*MTE<FJO put an end to this tra ectory toward a possible hegemony of ethical accountability. $ onse,uently, the power of 8lackness and Jedness to pose the ,uestion 9and the power to pose the ,uestion is the greatest power of all9retreated as did &hite radicals and progressives who >retired> from the struggle. The ,uestion lies buried in the graves of young 8lack Fanthers, 2*. warriors, and 8lack <iberation 2rmy soldiers, or in prison cells where so many of them have been rotting /some in solitary confinement6 for ten, twenty, or thirty years, and at the gates of the academy where the >cra7ies> shout at passersby. 4one are not only the young and vibrant voices that effected a seismic shift on the political landscape, but also the
intellectual protocols of in,uiry, and with them a spate of feature films that became authori7ed, if not by an unabashed revolutionary polemic, then certainly by a revolutionary Xeitgeist. *s it still possible for a dream of unfettered ethics , a dream of the 0ettlement and the 0lave estate?sE destruction, to manifest itself at the ethical core of cinematic discourse when this dream is no longer a constituent element of political discourse in the streets or of intellectual discourse in the academyC The answer is >no> in the sense that, as history has shown, what cannot be articulated as political discourse in the streets is doubly foreclosed on in screenplays and in scholarly prose, but >yes> in the sense that in even the most taciturn historical moments, such as ours, the grammar of 8lack and Jed suffering breaks in on this foreclosure, albeit like the somatic compliance of hysterical symptoms9it registers in both cinema and scholarship as a symptom of awareness of the structural antagonisms. The election of

Fresident 8arack Obama does not mitigate the claim that this is a taciturn historical moment. Meoliberalism with a 8lack face is neither the index of a revolutionary advance nor the end of anti#8lackness as a constituent element of D.0. antagonisms. *f anything, the election of Obama enables a plethora of shaming discourses in response to revolutionary politics and >legitimates> widespread disavowal of any notion that the Dnited 0tates itself, and not merely its policies and practices, is unethical . 8etween "H:I and "HSA, we could think cinemati#cally and
intellectually of 8lackness and Jedness as having the coherence of full#blown discourses. From "HSA to the present, however, 8lackness and Jedness manifest only in the rebar of cinematic and intellectual /political6 discourse, that is, as unspoken grammars. This grammar can be discerned in the cinematic strategies /lighting, camera angles, image composition, and acoustic design6, even when the script labors for the spectator to imagine social turmoil through the rubric of conflict /i.e., a rubric of problems that can be posed and conceptually solved6 as opposed to the rubric of antagonism /an irreconcilable struggle between entities, or positions, the resolution of which is not dialectical but entails the obliteration of one of the positions6. *n other words, even when films narrate a story in which 8lacks or *ndians are beleaguered with problems that the script insists are conceptually coherent /usually having to do with poverty or the absence of >family values>6, the nonnarrative, or cinematic, strategies of the film often disrupt this coherence by posing the irreconcilable ,uestions of Jed and 8lack political ontology9or nonontology. The grammar of antagonism breaks in on the

mendacity of conflict. 0emiotics and linguistics teach us that when we speak, our grammar goes unspoken. Our grammar is assumed. *t is the
structure through which the labor of speech is possible.@ <ikewise, the grammar of political ethics9 the grammar of assumptions regarding the ontology of suffering9which underwrites film theory and political discourse /in this book, discourse elaborated in direct relation to radical action6, and which underwrites cinematic speech /in this book, Jed, &hite, and 8lack films from the mid#"H:As to the present6 is also unspoken. This

notwithstanding, film theory, political discourse, and cinema assume an ontological grammar, a structure of suffering. 2nd this structure of suffering crowds out others, regardless of the sentiment of the film or the spirit of unity mobili7ed by the political discourse in ,uestion. T"e A##irmati*e ma0es a #u %ame tally #la&e% assum!tio t"at t"ere ca 2e a reco ciliatio 2et&ee t"e a!!aratus o# &"ite America a % Re% a % /lac0 2o%ies9 T"e 1est is o ly a2le to mai tai its "egemo y 2ecause it %isa*o&s t"e ge oci%al act o# cleari g t"at mai tai s t"e co"ere ce o# t"e &"ite 2o%y9 1il%erso :, RFrank (Dnspeakable Ethics), Jed, &hite, W 8lack! $inema and the 0tructure of D.0. 2ntagonisms, "E"#@, //liamT
&ell over twenty thousand &esterns and frontier films have been shot and released since the dawn of cinema.@ Even though they may only appear in a small percentage of the films and for relatively few minutes, Mative 2mericans are central to the libidinal economy of the entire genre. The

&estern?s cinematic imaginary casts the >0avage> as a >clear and probable> danger lurking ust beyond the 0ettler?s clearing. The clearing, then, is imagined by the &estern as a space whose safety is under constant, if sometimes unspoken threat from >0avages> who inhabit the >frontier> or who, typically at the beginning of a film, have inexplicably
> umped the reservation.> $learing, in the 0ettler/>0avage> relation, has two grammatical structures, one as a noun and the other as a verb. 8ut the &estern only recogni7es clearing as a noun. &esterns call on us to bow our heads reverently, to give this noun a proper name and refer to it fondly, the way $hristians gave the child a proper name and called it >the <ittle 8aby 1esus.> 0imilarly, the &estern interpellates us with such reverence to the clearing, whose proper name might be the <ittle 8aby $ivil 0ociety, a genuflection bestowed on the clearing by, for example, 0tagecoach and other films by 1ohn Ford. 8ut prior to the clearing?s fragile infancy, that is, before its cinematic legacy as a newborn place name, it labored not across the land as a noun but as a verb on the body of the >0avage,> speaking civil society?s essential status as an effect for genocide. &hat would happen to the libidinal economy of civil society if, over the course of one hundred years, it had been sub ected to twenty thousand cinematic mirrors, films about itself in which it was cast not as an infant cartography of budding democratic dilemmas, but as a murderous pro ection, a uggernaut for exterminationC 4iven the centrality of the &hite child, the infant, to the &estern?s cinematic solicitation of faith in the ethics of the <ittle 8aby $ivil 0ociety, how shattered might that faith become were the films to reveal that the newborn babe suckled *ndian blood instead of &hite breast milkC: The sinews of civil institutionality could not sustain themselves libidi#nally under such conditions. 2nd civil society would lose its mid# to late twentieth#century elasticity. There

would be, for example, no social space for the &hite cultural progressive who revels in Mative 2merican lore, studies *ndian place names, or otherwise derives pleasure and an enhanced sense of purpose from his or her respect for *ndian culture9 ust as there would be no social space for the &hite person who romantici7es the history of the pioneering &est while neglecting the genocide that clears the space for this history. /These two personas are not so far apart.6 2nyone who was &hite and did not speak, socially and libidinally, in what would be a hyperarticulate and thoroughly self#conscious anti#*ndian fascism would find him# or herself unable to broker relations with other members of civil society, for the ruse of social, sexual, and political hybridity which &hiteness manages to convince itself of, would become
untenable at best, treasonous at worse. One could not, for example, be in favor of Mative 2merican sweat lodge ceremonies, fishing or gaming rights and be, simultaneously, enfranchised within civil society. 0uch postcolonial or democratic ,uestions would become structurally

impossible! one would either be among the living or among the dead9but not, as is assumed today, both . $inema
comes into existence during the "SHAs, precisely when the <ittle 8aby $ivil 0ociety was being weaned from its self#image as a murderous pro ection and establishing itself as a site where the leadership of ideas /hegemony6 replaces direct relations of force, a place where a robust political, sexual, and social hybridity counteracts crude .anichean negotiations of violence. Early cinema is on the cusp of that attempt . 2 moment when the >we> of

&hite sub ectivity is moving from >&e are murderers> toward >&e are citi7ens.> &hat is important for our investigation is the centrality of >0avage> ontology and the institutionality of cinema to the rhetoric, rather than the actual history, of this transition /where, as * have indicated, >transition> is merely a euphemism for disavowal6. /lac0 ess is a co %itio o# o tological %eat" 7 a *oca2ulary to %escri2e t"is loss %oes 8t e+ist 7 t"e o ly &ay to 2rea0 out o# t"is structure is a com!lete %estructio o# ci*il society a % t"e e!istemological #ou %atio s it rests o 9 1il%erso No Date RFrank, 2ss. Frof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies D$#*rvine (2fro Fessimism) http!//uc# ipc.com/members/'AAS/A:/'-/afro#pessimism/ //liamT 2fro#Fessimism theori7es 8lackness as a position of accumulation and fungibili ty /0aidiya Lartman6= as condition9 or relation9of ontological death= rather than celebrate it as an identity of cultural plenitude. One of the guiding ,uestions of my engagement with
2fro#Fessimism is! Low are the political stakes of analysis and aesthetics raised and altered if we theori7e the structural relation between 8lacks and Lumanity as an antagonism /an irreconcilable encounter6 as opposed to a conflictC The following ,uestion was asked on a graduate student exam for a $ritical Theory 0eminar, entitled (0entient Ob ects and the $risis of $ritical Theory,) that * taught Fall Uuarter 'AA:. Uuestion! &hy are the theorists under consideration Rin this seminarT called (2fro#Fessimists,) and what characteristics do they have in commonC ( 2fro#Fessimists are framed as suchVbecause they theori7e of liberation, refusing

an antagonism, rather than a conflict9i.e. they perform a kind of Nwork of understanding+ rather than that to posit seemingly untenable solutions to the problems they raise .) (RThe 2fro#Fessimists argueT that violence toward the black person happens gratuitously, hence without former transgression, and the even if the means of repression change /plantation was replaced by prison, etc.6, that doesn+t change the structure of the repression

itself. Finally /and this is important in terms of the self#definition of the white person6, a lot of repression happens on the level of representation, which then infiltrates the unconscious of both the black and the white person V0ince these structures are ontological, they cannot be resolved /there is no way of changing this unless the world as we know it comes an endV6=
this is why the R2fro#Fessimist relational#schemaT would be seen as the only true antagonism /while other repressive relations like class and gender would take place on the level of conflict9they can be resolved, hence they are not ontological6.) (RThe 2fro#FessimistsT work toward delineating a relation rather than focus on a cultural ob ect.) (0omething that all the 2fro#Fessimists seem to agree upon regarding social death are notions of kinship /or lack there of6, the absence of time and space to describe blacknessV There is no grammar of suffering to describe their loss

because the loss cannot be named.) (RThe 2fro#FessimistsT theori7e the workings of civil society as contiguous with slavery, and discuss the
following as bearing witness to this contiguity! the inability of the slave /or the being#for#the#captor6 to translate space into place and time into event= the fact that the slave remains sub ect to gratuitous violence /rather than violence contingent on transgression6= the natal alienation and social death of the slave.) (RTThe 2fro#Fessimists all seek toVstage a metacriti,ue of the current discourse identified as (critical theory) by excavating an antagonism that exceeds it= to recogni7e this antagonism 1ared, Frank, Taehyung forces a mode of death that expels sub ecthood and forces ob ecthood Rupon 8lacksT.) (For Fanon, the solution to the black presence in the white world is not to retrieve and celebrate our 2frican heritage, as was one of the goals of the Megritude pro ect. For Fanon, a

revolution that would destroy civil society, as we know it would be a more ade,uate response. * think the 2fro#Fessimist such as Lartman, 0pillers, and .arriott would argue there is no place for the black, only
prosthetics, techni,ues which give the illusion of a relationality in the world.) <ike the work of 1ared 0exton, 0aidiya Lartman, 5avid .arriott, Lortense 0pillers, Frant7 Fanon, <ewis 4ordon, 1oy 1ames, and others, my poetry, creative prose, scholarly work, and film production are predicated on the notion that slavery did not end in "S:@= the Dnited 0tates simply made ad ustments to the force of 8lack resistance without diminishing the centrality of 8lack captivity to the stability and coherence of civil society.

Rece t social a%*a ces %o 8t mea a yt"i g 7 t"e co %itio s o# sla*ery mig"t seem icer( 2ut at t"e e % o# t"e %ay you8re still a sla*e9 1il%erso a % ;o&ar% :, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, Fercy, Fsychotherapist, (Frank &ilderson, &allowing in the $ontradictions, Fart ') http!//percy-.wordpress.com/'A"A/AI/"E/frank# wilderson#wallowing#in#the#contradictions#part#'/ //liamT Orlando Fatterson wrote a book called (0lavery and 0ocial 5eath ), and *+m not sure Fatterson would agree with Le says that slavery is general dishonor, that the being is dishonored regardless of what he or she does natal alienation of the being whose family ties or kinship structure in his or her mind is not respected by anyone else. /0lavery is also punctuated by6 openness to gratuitous violence, which is a body that you can do anything with . 2nd what interests me is that if that becomes the definition of a slave, the slave can work, but the slave can also sit on a divan and eat bon#bons.
F& Keah. where *+ve taken this but what * like about his book is he says that work is an experience of slavery but it doesn+t define slavery. FL 2bsolutely. F& Kou knowC *n my hometown of Mew Orleans in the days of physical slavery you could buy the slave to in ect them with poisons to watch them die. 0o what+s interesting to me is that, as * was saying earlier today, there+s a way in which the 2rabs and the Europeans came to

a consensus /not sitting down at a table but over years6, that 2frica is a place where people are generally dishonored, where we do not respect their kinship structures and where their bodies are available to us to do to them whatever we would. This has been our /8lack people+s6 place ever since then. Once * got to that and started thinking that through it occurred to
me that cinema was ust another place in which the 8lack 8ody was possessed and deployed in the way that one would possess and deploy a slave in any other context. FL Jight. F& 2nd that there is no reformist program for ridding ourselves of that . * mean, it+s like if we+re gonna get out of that

we+re gonna be in a whole new world order.

FL Jight. 2nd it+s interesting because you look at film as ust a context, a context for this process to occur. Kou know, one can * think 0ay the same thing about the M82. F& Exactly, yeah. FL *t brings back the scenario in which the slave can eat bon#bons and make Y'A#million a year. F& Exactly, exactly. FL 8ut you+re still a slave, because to me, that really sort of encapsulates the whole conceptuali7ation of fungibility.

T"e curre t or%er %eri*es its o tological co siste cy i o!!ositio to 2lac0 ess( tryi g to &or0 &it"i t"is system is %e#i itio ally im!ossi2le9 I stea%( stri*i g #or im!ossi2le re!aratio s is t"e o ly &ay to create a !olitics 2eyo % curre t com!re"e sio 9 1il%erso a % ;o&ar% :, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, Fercy, Fsychotherapist, (Frank &ilderson, &allowing in the $ontradictions, Fart ") http!//percy-.wordpress.com/'A"A/AI/AH/frank#b# wilderson#ZE'ZSAZH$wallowing#in#the#contradictionsZE'ZSAZH5#part#"/ //liamT
F& Jeparations

suggests a conceptually coherent loss. The loss of land, the loss of labor power, etc. *n other words, there has to be some form of articulation between the party that has lost and the party that has gained for reparations to make sense. Mo such articulation exists between 8lacks and the world . This is, ironically, precisely why * support the Jeparations .ovement= but my emphasis, my energies, my points of attention are on the word (.ovement) and not on the word (Jeparation .) * support the movement because * know it is a movement toward the end of the world= a movement toward a catastrophe in epistemological coherence and institutional integrity9* support the movement aspect of it because * know that repair is impossible= and any struggle

that can act as a stick up artist to the world, demanding all that it cannot give / which is everything 6, is a movement toward something so blindingly new that it cannot be imagined. This is the only thing that will save us. FL 2s a

Fsychotherapist, * was very interested to see your contrasting Frant7 Fanon and <acan concerning their conceptuali7ations of potential paths to (emancipation in the libidinal economy), as you put it. * am ashamed to admit that * have never read Fanon, but have read <acan. Flease illuminate your idea that the stark difference in their conceptuali7ations of conflict/antagonism differ are based on the fact that <acan would still see 8lacks as fundamentally situated in personhood, but that Fannon /and yourself6 see 8lacks as (situated a priori in absolute dereliction). F& This is a big ,uestion, too big for a concise answer9* think * take about thirty to forty pages to try and get my head around this in the book. 8ut the key to the answer lies in the concept of (contemporaries.) Fanon rather painfully and meticulously shows us how the human race is a community of (contemporaries.) *n addition, this community

vouchsafes its coherence /it knows its borders6 through the presence of 8lacks. *f 8lacks became part of the human community then the concept of (contemporaries) would have no outside= and if it had no outside it could have no inside . <acan assumes the category and thus he imagines the analysand+s problem in terms of
how to live without neurosis among ones contemporaries. Fanon interrogates the category itself. For <acan the analysands suffer psychically due to problems extant within the paradigm of contemporaries. For Fanon, the analysand suffers due to the existence of the contemporaries themselves and the fact that s/he is a stimulus for anxiety for those who have contemporaries. Mow,

a contemporary+s struggles are conflictual9that is to say, they can be resolved because they are problems that are of# and in the world. 8ut a 8lacks problems are the stuff of antagonisms! struggles that cannot be resolved between parties but can only be resolved through the obliteration of one or both of the parties. &e are faced9when dealing with the 8lack9with a set of psychic problems that cannot be resolved through any form of symbolic intervention such as psychoanalysis9though addressing them psychoanalytically we can begin to explain the antagonism /as * have done in
my book, and as Fanon does6, but it won+t lead us to a cure.

AT Ca! =
Su2oor%i ati g racism to class relatio s remo*es a y !ossi2ility o# re#orm Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456

<eftist approaches that come as close to radical criti,ue as any already fall short. The liberal ethos looks at racism as ignorance, something characteristic of the individual that can be solved at a social level through education and democratic procedure . For .arxist thought, racism is a divide#and#con,uer strategy for class rule and super#exploitation . Lowever, the idea that it is a strategy assumes that it can be counter#strategi7ed at some kind of local or individual level rather than existing as something fundamental to class relations themselves. For anti#colonialist thinking, racism is a social ideology that can be refuted, a structure of privilege to be given up, again at the local or individual level. &here liberalism subordinates the issue of racism to the presumed potentialities of individual development, .arxism subordinates the issue of race to class relations of struggle, and anti#colonial radicalism pretends its mere existence as a >movement> is the first step toward eradicating racism. 8ut liberalism+s social democracy pretends that state oligarchy is really interested in ustice. 2nd the more radical criti,ues subsume the issue of racism in promises of future transformations of the power relations to which de#raciali7ation is deferred. Placi g ot"er issues 2e#ore racism is a #aile% e!istemological attem!t to e*a%e guilt a % res!o si2ility #or racial i e4uities Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456 *n both arenas a hidden depth, a secret drive, an unfathomed animus is

postulated and a procedure derived that will plumb that depth, excavate the problem, dredge out the muck that causes these aberrant behaviors that we call racism. 2nd in both approaches an issue is skirted. *t is as if there were something at the center of white supremacy that is too adamantine, off of which the utmost of western analytic thought slides helplessly toward the simplistic, the personal or the institutional. The supposed secrets of white supremacy get sleuthed in its spectacular displays, in pathology and instrumentality, or pawned off on the figure of the >rogue cop.> Each approach to race subordinates it to something that is not race, as if to continue the noble epistemological endeavor of getting to know it better. 8ut what each ends up talking about is that other thing. *n the face of this, the left+s anti#racism becomes its passion. 8ut its passion gives it away. *t signifies the passive acceptance of the idea that race, considered to be either a real property of a person or an imaginary pro ection, is not essential to the social structure, a system of social meanings and categori7ations. *t is the same passive apparatus of whiteness that in its mainstream guise actively forgets that it owes its existence to the killing and terrori7ing of those it raciali7es for the purpose, expelling them from the human fold in the same gesture of forgetting. *t is the passivity of bad faith that tacitly accepts as >what goes without saying> the postulates of white supremacy. 2nd it must do so passionately since >what goes without saying> is empty and can be held as a >truth> only through an obsessiveness. The truth is that the truth is on the surface, flat and repetitive, ust as the law is made by the uniform. <ike going to the state to protect us from the police, these criti,ues approach a variety of white ideologies and disciplines as a means of gaining insight into white supremacy. *t is a pro ect dedicated to only looking so far at race , racism, or white supremacy so as to avoid the risk of seeing oneself there, implicated as either perpetrator or victim . *n effect, all of these theories remain disguises for the role of race and racism as social categori7ation. Once one recogni7es that the power relations that
categori7e as such are genocidal, as 1oy 1ames has demonstrated, then the very discriminatory hierarchy that structures them must already subsume as strategies for itself the class struggles, privileges, educational facilities and uridical operations to which the left goes. The task of the criti,ue of

white supremacy is to avoid these general theoretical pitfalls and to produce new analyses, modes of apprehension, and
levels of abstraction.

Put your ca! 0 a&ay 7 t"is is 2igger t"a 2rea0i g %o& t"e ca!italist system( it8s a %estructio o# t"e &orl% as &e 0 o& it9 1il%erso a % ;o&ar% :, RFrank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, Fercy, Fsychotherapist, (Frank &ilderson, &allowing in the $ontradictions, Fart ') http!//percy-.wordpress.com/'A"A/AI/"E/frank# wilderson#wallowing#in#the#contradictions#part#'/ /liamT
&hat *+m trying to say is at the level of relations of power, what does it mean to be 8lackC *n the way that .arx said, at the level of the relations of power what does it mean to be a workerC &ell, what it means to be a worker is that one goes through one+s life captive to two ,uestions= how long will * have to work and how much will * have to doC F& 2nd that the only things that change one+s life are the particulars of those ,uestions when you change obs, when you earn more money, etc., etc. 8ut why he calls capitalism unethical is because those are paradigmatic ,uestions for one class of people, and the other

class of people doesn+t have those ,uestions.

2nd so what * think is that there+s so much talk about hybridity, diversity, and possibility that what

* want to contribute to the world is a

text about impossibility, 8lackness as a space of impossibility.

Mow having said that, there are things * do to manage myself, to help me be okay, know what the world is saying or whatever, in a place where everyone sees me as their ob ect, you know. One of the things * said in psychoanalysis and another thing that * do is consult regularly with a teacher, 8abalawo, who consults ancestors to help me. 8ut *+m, *+m a little cautious and uh, uncomfortable with incorporating that into my political analysis and my political philosophy. One, because * don+t write about, * don+t write

the answer to <enin+s ,uestion, what is to be doneC * think, * believe that the liberation of 8lack people is tantamount to moving into an epistemology that we cannot imagine. Once 8lacks become incorporated and recogni7ed * don+t think we have the language or the concepts to think of what that is. *t+s not like moving from $apitalism to $ommunism, it+s like the end of the world. A tiracist mo*eme ts are a !rere4uisite to ca!italist struggles' 0/t e sure mi ority !artici!atio a % e gage i !olitical !rotest( rat"er t"a le#tist t"eory 1est 5>' !ro#essor o# A#rica America stu%ies at Pri ceto ( ;o orary C"air o# t"e Democratic Socialists o# America /$ornel, (0ocialism and 2ntiracism! Two *nseparable Ket Mot *dentical 4oals,)
http!//race.eserver.org/toward#a#theory#of#racism.html6 *t should be apparent that racist practices directed against black, brown, yellow, and red people are

an integral element of D. 0. history, including present day 2merican culture and society. This means not simply that 2mericans have inherited racist attitudes and pre udices, but, more importantly, that institutional forms of racism are embedded in 2merican society in both visible and invisible ways. These institutional forms exist not only in remnants of de ure ob, housing, and educational discrimination and political gerrymandering. They also manifest themselves in a de facto labor market segmentation, produced by the exclusion of large numbers of peoples of color from the socioeconomic mainstream. /This exclusion results from limited educational opportunities, devastated families, a disproportionate presence in the prison population, and widespread police brutality. 6 *t also should be evident tha t past .arxist conceptions of racism have often prevented D. 0. socialist movements from engaging in antiracist activity in a serious and consistent manner. *n addition, black suspicion of white#dominated political movements /no matter how progressive6 as well as the distance between these movements and the daily experiences of peoples of color have made it even more difficult to fight racism effectively. Furthermore, the disproportionate white middle# class composition of contemporary democratic socialist organi7ations creates cultural barriers to the participation by peoples of color. Ket this very participation is a vital precondition for greater white sensitivity to antiracist struggle and to white acknowledgment of ust how crucial antiracist struggle is to the D. 0. socialist movement. Frogressive organi7ations often find themselves going around in a vicious circle. Even when they have a great interest in antiracist struggle, they are unable to attract a critical mass of people of color because of their current predominately white racial and cultural composition. These organi7ations are then stereotyped as lily white, and significant numbers of people of color refuse to oin. The only effective way the contemporary democratic socialist movement can break out of this circle /and it is possible because the bulk of democratic socialists are among the least racist of 2mericans6 is to be sensiti7ed to the critical importance of antiracist struggles. This conscienti7ation cannot take place either by reinforcing agoni7ed white consciences by means of guilt, nor by presenting another grand theoretical analysis with no practical implications. The former breeds psychological paralysis among white progressives, which is unproductive for all of us= the latter yields important discussions but often at the expense of concrete political engagement . Jather what is needed is more widespread participation by predominantly white democratic socialist organi7ations in antiracist struggles##whether those struggles be for the political, economic, and
cultural empowerment of <atinos, blacks, 2sians, and Mative 2mericans or antiimperialist struggles against D.0. support for oppressive regimes in 0outh 2frica, $hile, the Fhilippines, and the occupied &est 8ank . 2 ma or focus on antiracist coalition work will not only lead

democratic socialists to act upon their belief in genuine individuality and radical democracy for people around the world= it also will put socialists in daily contact with peoples of color in common struggle. 8onds of trust can be created only within
concrete contexts of struggle. This interracial interaction guarantees neither love nor friendship. Ket it can yield more understanding and the reali7ation of two overlapping goals## democratic socialism and antiracism. &hile engaging in antiracist struggles, democratic socialists can

also enter into a dialogue on the power relationships and misconceptions that often emerge in multiracial movements for social ustice in a racist society. Lonest and trusting coalition work can help socialists unlearn Eurocentrism in a self#critical manner and can also demystify the motivations of white progressives in the movement for social ustice. &e must frankly acknowledge that a democratic socialist society will not necessarily eradicate racism. Ket a democratic socialist society is
the best hope for alleviating and minimi7ing racism, particularly institutional forms of racism. This conclusion depends on a candid evaluation that guards against utopian self#deception. 8ut it also acknowledges the deep moral commitment on the part of democratic socialists of all races to the dignity of all individuals and peoples##a commitment that impels us to fight for a more libertarian and egalitarian society. Therefore concrete antiracist

struggle is both an ethical imperative and political necessity for democratic socialists . *t is even more urgent as once again racist policies and Third &orld intervention become more acceptable to many 2mericans . 2 more effective democratic socialist movement engaged in antiracist and antiimperialist struggle can help turn the tide. *t depends on how well we understand the past and present, how courageously we act, and how true we remain to our democratic socialist ideals of
freedom, e,uality, and democracy.

T"eir ca! = ser*es to sile ce t"e *oice o# racial i%e tity !olitics a % amou ts to !ater alism' 2ecomes a mi%%le class %e#ault Ross C0' Pro#essor o# < glis" a % A#rica 'America Stu%ies at .AA /.arlon, (Fleasuring *dentity, or the
5elicious Folitics of 8elonging,) Mew <iterary Listory, ;ol. -", Mo. E, pp. S'I#S@A 10TOJ6 2lthough in his contribution Eric <ott targets Frofessor .ichaels?s comments and his own recent feud with Timothy 8rennan /who unfortunately is not included in this volume6 rather than %en?s argument, what Eric says about >left and liberal fundamentalists> who >simply and somewhat penitently>

urge us to >?go back to class?> could also be directed at %en?s conclusion. %en writes, >$rafting a political left that does not merely reflect existing racial divisions starts with the relatively mundane proposition that it is possible to make a persuasive appeal to the given interests of working and unemployed women and men, regardless of race, in support of a program for economic ustice.> On this one, * side with Eric, rather than Tim and %en. 0tanding on the left depends on
whose left side we?re talking about. .y left might be your right and vice versa, because it depends on what direction we?re facing, and what direction depends on which identities we?re assuming and affirming. Eric adds, >Even in less dismissive Rthan Tim?sT accounts of new social movements

based not on class but on identities formed by histories of in ustice, there is a striking a priori sense of voluntarism about the investment in this cause or that movement or the other issue as though determining the most
fundamental issue were a matter of the writer?s strength of feeling rather than a studied or analytical sense of the ever#unstable balance of forces in a hegemonic bloc at a given moment.> * agree, but *?ll risk mangling what Eric says by putting it more crassly. Touting class or >economic

ustice> as the fundamental stance for left identity is ust another way of telling everybody else to shut up so * can be heard above the fray. 8ecause of the force of >identity politics,> a leftist white person would be leery of claiming to lead 8lacks toward the promised land, a leftist straight man leery of claiming to lead women or ,ueers, but, for a number
of complex rationali7ations, we in the middle class /where all of us writing here currently reside6 still have few ,ualms about volunteering to lead, at least theoretically, the working class toward >economic ustice.> &hat Eric calls here >left fundamental ism,> *?d call, at the risk of sounding harsh,

left paternalism. Of the big identity groups articulated through >identity politics, > economic class remains the only identity where a straight white middle#class man can still feel comfortable claiming himself a leading political voice, and thus he may sometimes overcompensate by screaming that this is the only identity that really matters which is the same as claiming that class is beyond identity. Fartly this is because .arxist theory and .arx himself /a bourgeois intellectual creating the theoretical practice for the work ers? revolution6 stage the model for working#class identity as a sort of trans#identification, a magical identity that is transferable to those outside the group who commit themselves to it wholeheartedly enough. *f we look back, we reali7e even this magical ,uality is not special to a history of class struggle, as whites during the Mew Megro movements of the early twentieth century felt that they were vanguard race leaders because they had putatively imbibed some essential ,ualities of Megroness by cross#identifying with the folk and their culture. T"eir "istorical a alysis is i correct' racism is t"e root cause o# ca!ital e+!loitatio 1il%erso ' !ro# o# A#rica America stu%ies a % %rama at .C Ir*i e /Frank 8. ***, (The Frison 0lave as
Legemony?s /0ilent6 0candal,) 0ocial 1ustice, 0an Francisco! 'AA-. ;ol. -A, *ss. '= pg. "S6 8y examining the strategy and structure of the 8lack sub ect?s absence in, and incommensurability with, the key categories of 4ramscian theory, we come face to face with three unsettling conse,uences! /"6 The 8lack 2merican sub ect imposes a radical incoherence upon the

assumptive logic of 4ramscian discourse and on today?s coalition politics. *n other words, s/he implies a scandal. /'6 The 8lack sub ect reveals the inability of social movements grounded in 4ramscian discourse to think of white supremacy /rather than capitalism6 as the base and thereby calls into ,uestion their claim to elaborate a comprehensive and decisive antagonism. 0tated another way, 4ramscian discourse and coalition politics are indeed able to imagine the sub ect that transforms itself into a mass of antagonistic identity formations, formations that can precipitate a crisis in wage slavery, exploitation, and hegemony, but they are asleep at the wheel when asked to provide enabling antagonisms toward unwaged slavery, despotism, and terror. /-6 &e begin to see how .arxism suffers from a kind of conceptual anxiety. There is a desire for socialism on the other side of crisis, a society that does away not with the category of worker, but with the imposition workers suffer under the approach of variable capital. *n other words, the mark of its conceptual anxiety is in its desire to democrati7e work and thus help to keep in place and insure the coherence of Jeformation and Enlightenment foundational values of productivity and progress. This scenario crowds out other postrevolutionary possibilities , i.e., idleness. The scandal, with which the 8lack sub ect position >threatens> 4ramscian and coalition discourse, is manifest in the 8lack sub ect?s incommensurability with, or disarticulation of, 4ramscian categories! work, progress, production, exploitation, hegemony, and historical self# awareness. Through what strategies does the 8lack sub ect destabili7e # emerge as the unthought, and thus the scandal of historical materialismC Low does the 8lack sub ect function within the >2merican desiring machine> differently than the ,uintessential 4ramscian subaltern, the workerC $apital was kick#started by the rape of the 2frican continent, a phenomenon that is central to neither 4ramsci nor .arx . 2ccording to 8arrett /'AA'6, something about the 8lack body in and of itself made it the repository of the violence that was the slave trade. *t would have been far easier and far more profitable to take the white underclass from along the riverbanks of England and &estern Europe than to travel all the way to 2frica for slaves. The theoretical importance of emphasi7ing this in the early '"st century is twofold. First, capital was kick#started by approaching a particular body /a black body6 with direct relations of force, not by

approaching a white body with variable capital. Thus, one could say that slavery is closer to capital?s primal desire than is exploitation. *t is a relation of terror as opposed to a relation of hegemony. 0econd, today, late capital is imposing a renaissance of this original desire, the direct relation of force, the despotism of the unwaged relation. This renaissance of slavery, i.e., the reconfiguration of the prison#industrial complex has, once again, as its structuring metaphor and primary target the 8lack body. The value of reintroducing the unthought category of the slave, by way of noting the absence of the 8lack sub ect, lies in
the 8lack sub ect?s potential for extending the demand placed on state/capital formations because its reintroduction into the discourse expands the intensity of the antagonism. *n other words, the positionality of the slave makes a demand that is in excess of the demand

the positionality of the worker. The worker demands that productivity be fair and democratic /4ramsci?s new the slave demands that production stop, without recourse to its ultimate democrati7ation. &ork is not an organic principle for the slave. The absence of 8lack sub ectivity from the crux of radical discourse is symptomatic of the text?s inability to cope with the possibility that the generative sub ect of capitalism, the 8lack body of the "@th and ":th centuries, and the generative sub ect that resolves late
made by hegemony, <enin?s dictatorship of the proletariat, in a word, socialism6. *n contrast, capital?s over#accumulation crisis, the 8lack /incarcerated6 body of the 'Ath and '"st centuries, do not reify the basic categories that structure conflict within civil society! the categories of work and exploitation.

Perm sol*es 2est' t"eir color2li % a!!roac" !er!etuates &"ite ess S4uires a % =u2ri ,B' *!ro#essor o# sociology a % c"air o# t"e De!artme t o# Sociology at G1( ** associate !ro#essor o# sociology at G1( coe%itor o# Crime a % Society /4regory and $haris, (Jace,
Opportunity and Dneven 5evelopment in Drban 2merica,) http!//nhi.org/online/issues/"EI/privilegedplaces.html6

*n response, it is argued that while the ,uality of life for racial minorities has improved over the years, such approaches simply do not recogni7e the extent to which race and racism continue to shape the opportunity structure in the Dnited 0tates. $olorblindness is often a euphemism for what amounts to a retreat on race and the preservation of white privilege in its many forms. *n a world of scarce resources, class#based remedies dilute available support for combating racial discrimination and segregation. From this perspective, it is precisely the controversy over race that the class#based proponents fear, which demonstrates the persistence of racism and the need for explicitly anti#racist remedies, including far more aggressive enforcement of fair housing, e,ual employment and other civil rights laws. On the other hand, race#based remedies alone may not resolve all the problems associated with race and urban poverty given the many non#racial factors that contribute to racial disparity as indicated above. *n reality, both approaches are re,uired. $lass#based policies /such as increasing the minimum wage and earned income tax credit, implementing living wage re,uirements6 and race#based initiatives /more comprehensive affirmative action and related diversity re,uirements6, are essential if the underlying patterns of privilege are to be altered.

*****N<G*****

*N<G M<T;ODS ANS1<RS*

Ge eral HActi*ism /a%I

De2ate= 1ro g Ae ue
<*e i# t"ey ma0e race *isi2le( si ce it8s a %e2ate a % &e "a*e to gi*e a :NC/CAC( &e are literally i ca!a2le o# agreei g &it" t"em9 Teams &rite 2loc0s a % cut strats to 2eat t"em( ot to coo!erate i c"a gi g t"e commu ity9 T"ey acti*ely tra%e'o## &it" !ro%ucti*e !u2lic o ' com!etiti*e %iscourse outsi%e o# rou %sK!re#er our e*i%e ce 2ecause it8s s!eci#ic to %e2ate !ractice( ot 3ust aca%emia Atc"iso a % Pa etta G5 R1arrod 2tchison, 5irector of 5ebate G Trinity Dniversity, and Edward Fanetta, 5irector of 5ebate G the
Dniversity of 4eorgia, *ntercollegiate 5ebate and 0peech $ommunication! *ssues for the Future, p. -"I#-E //liamT The larger problem with locating the (debate as activism) perspective within the competitive framework is

that it overlooks the communal nature of the community problem. *f each individual debate is a decision about how the debate community should approach a problem, then the losing debaters become collateral damage in the activist strategy
dedicated toward creating community change. One frustrating example of this type of argument might include a udge voting for an activist team in an effort to help them reach elimination rounds to generate a community discussion about the problem. Dnder this scenario, the losing team serves

as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of community change. 5ownplaying the important role of competition and treating opponents as scapegoats for the failures of the community may increase the profile of the winning team and the community problem, but it does little to generate the critical coalitions necessary to address the community problem, because the competitive focus e courages teams to co ce trate o "o& to 2eat t"e strategy &it" little regar% #or a%%ressi g t"e commu ity !ro2lem. There is no role for competition when a udge decides that it is important to
accentuate the publicity of a community problem. 2n extreme example might include a team arguing that their opponents+ academic institution had a legacy of civil rights abuses and that the udge should not vote for them because that would be a community endorsement of a problematic institution. This scenario is a bit more outlandish but not unreasonable if one assumes that each debate should be about what is best for promoting solutions to diversity problems in the debate community.` *f the debate community is serious about generating community change , then

it is more likely to occur outside a traditional competitive debate. &hen a team loses a debate because the udge decides that it is better for the community for the other team to win, then they have sacrificed two potential advocates for change within the community. $reating change through wins generates backlash through losses. 0ome proponents are comfortable with generating backlash and argue that the reaction is evidence that the issue is being discussed.` From our perspective, the discussion that results from these hostile situations is not a productive one where participants seek to work together for a common goal. *nstead of giving up on hope for change and agitating for wins regardless of who is left behind, it seems more reasonable that the debate community should try the method of public argument that we teach in an effort to generate a discussion of necessary community changes . 0imply put, debate
competitions do not represent the best environment for community change because it is a competition for a win and only one team can win any given debate, whereas addressing systemic century#long community problems re,uires a tremendous effort by a great number of people.

I %i*i%ual %e2ate acti*ism #ails' i sulate% #rom commu ity at large( e+clu%es ot"ers( u %ermi es o!!ortu ity #or coalitio a % co se sus 2uil%i g Atc"iso a % Pa etta 5 R1arrod 2tchison, Fhd Jhetoric Dniversity of 4eorgia, 2ssistant Frofessor and 5irector of debate at &ake Forest

Dniversity, and Edward Fanetta, Fhd Jhetoric 2ssociate Frofessor Dniversity of Fitt and 5irector of 5ebate at 4eorgia, *ntercollegiate 5ebate and 0peech $ommunication, Listorical 5evelopments and *ssues for the Future, Intercollegiate Debate and Speech Communication: Issues for the Future, The Sage Handbook of hetorical Studies, !unsford, "ndrea, ed# $!os "ngeles: Sage %ublications Inc#, &''() p# *+,-**. //liamT This section will address the >debate as activism 3 perspective that argues that the appropriate site for addressing community problems in individual debates. *n contrast to the >debate as innovation> perspective, which assumes that the activity is an isolated game with educational benefits, proponents of the >debate as activism> perspective argue that individual debates have the potential to create change in the debate community and society at large. *f the first approach assumed that debate was completely insulated, this perspective assumes that there is no substantive insulation between individual debates and the community at large. ` From our perspective, using individual debates to create community change is an

insufficient strategy for three reasons. First, individual debates are, for the most part, insulated from the community at large. 0econd, individual debates limit the conversation to the immediate participants and the udge, e+clu%i g many important contributors to the debate community . Third, locating the discussion within the confines of a competition diminishes the additional potential for colla2oratio ( co se sus( a % coalitio 2uil%i g . The first problem that we isolate is the difficulty of any individual debate to generate community change . 2lthough any debate has the potential to create problems for the community /videotapes of ob ectionable behavior, etc.6, rarely does anyone debate have the power to create communitywide change. &e attribute this ineffectiveness to the structural problems inherent in individual debates and the collective forgetfulness of the debate community . The structural problems stem from the current tournament format that has remained relatively consistent for the past -A years. 5ebaters engage in preliminary debates in rooms that are rarely populated by anyone other than the udge. 1udges are instructed to vote for the team that does the best debating, but the ballot is rarely seen by anyone outside the tabulation room .` 4iven the limited number of debates in which a udge actually writes meaningful comments, there is little documentation of what actually transpired during the debate round. 5uring the period when udges interact with the debaters, here are often external pressures /filing
evidence, preparing for the next debate, etc.6 that restrict the ability of anyone outside the debate to pay attention to the udges? ustification for their decision. Elimination debates do not provide for a much better audience because debates still occur

simultaneously, and travel schedules dictate that most of the participants have left by the later elimination

rounds. *t is difficult for anyone to substantiate the claim that asking a udge to vote to solve a community problem in an individual debate with so few participants is the best strategy for addressing important problems. T"is creates a egati*e 2ac0las" &"ic" #or#eits coalitio s a % allia ces Atc"iso a % Pa etta 5 R1arrod 2tchison, Fhd Jhetoric Dniversity of 4eorgia, 2ssistant Frofessor and 5irector of debate at &ake Forest
Dniversity, and Edward Fanetta, Fhd Jhetoric 2ssociate Frofessor Dniversity of Fitt and 5irector of 5ebate at 4eorgia, *ntercollegiate 5ebate and 0peech $ommunication, Listorical 5evelopments and *ssues for the Future, Intercollegiate Debate and Speech Communication: Issues for the Future, The Sage Handbook of hetorical Studies, !unsford, "ndrea, ed# $!os "ngeles: Sage %ublications Inc#, &''() p# *+,-**. //liamT *f the debate community is serious about generating community change, then it is more likely to occur outside a traditional competitive debate. &hen

a team loses a debate because the udge decides that it is better for the community for the other team to win, then they have sacrificed two potential advocates for change within the community. $reating change through wins generates 2ac0las" through losses. 0ome proponents are comfortable with generating 2ac0las" and argue that the reaction is evidence that the issue is being discussed. From our perspective, the discussion that results from these hostile situations is not a productive one where participants seek to work together for a common goal. *nstead of giving up on hope for change and agitating for wins regardless of who is left behind, it seems more reasonable that the debate community should try me method of public argument that we reach in an effort to generate a discussion of necessary community changes. 0imply put, debate competitions do not represent the best environment for community change because it is a competition for a win and only one team can win any given debate, whereas addressing systemic century#long community problems re,uires a tremendous effort by a great number of people.` The >debate as innovation> perspective views each debate in a vacuum with little to no conse,uences on any other community. The >debate as
activism> perspective views each debate as a site of resistance where the debate community can confront problems in an effort to change. 8oth extremes replicate the education versus competition tension that has been a part of the debate community ever since the move away from the literary societies. *n the final section of this chapter, we outline a potential solution to the divergent perspectives that is based on tournament

experimentation. Our goal is to outline a blueprint for a community dialogue that could be replicated week in and week out at regional and
national tournaments throughout the country.

.se o# /allot /a%

T"ey rely o a 3uri%ical co ce!t o# !o&er9 T"ey "ol% &"ites res!o si2le( call #or a &i L a lossM Mc1"orter E R<adelle, Frof. of Fhilosophy and &omen?s 0tudies, Dniversity of Jichmond, Fhilosophy W 0ocial $riticism, vol -" nos @O:, 'AA@,
p. @--O@@: //liamT

*n the growing body of literature that makes up what has in recent years come to be called N&hiteness 0tudies+, observations like the following are commonplace! N&hiteness has, at least within the modern era and within &estern societies, tended to be constructed as a norm, an unchanging and unproblematic location, a position from which all other identities come to be marked by their difference+ /8onnett, "HH:! "E:6." 2ccording to &hiteness 0tudies theorists, the white race functions not so much as a race, one among many, as, at times at least, the race O the real human race O and, at other times, no race, simply the healthy, mature norm of human existence as opposed to all those other groups of people who are somehow off#white, off#track, more or less deviant. &hiteness, the racial norm in &estern industrial societies, is at one and the same time the exemplar of human being and the unmarked selfsame over against the racially marked other /s6.'` This understanding of whiteness emerged in the late "HSAs and
"HHAs as race scholars in the D02 and the D% began to treat white identity as an epistemic ob ect, in contrast to many earlier race theorists who studied non#whites primarily.- 8y taking whiteness as an ob ect of study, these scholars problemati7ed the status of the white race as an unmarked norm and exposed the racism implicit in its having that status. Thus, it seemed, these new race theorists had discovered a potentially very powerful tool for dismantling racism. Jevealing the ways in which whiteness functions as a racial norm, they began to denaturali7e it and thereby rob it of some of its power to order thought and practice. Their scholarship was and is, deliberately and unapologetically, deeply engaged political activism. Feminist sociologist Juth Frankenberg articulates this confluence of theory and practice well when she writes! NMaming whiteness and white people helps dislodge the claims of both to rightful dominance+ /Frankenberg, "HH-! '-E6.` &hile readers of the work of .ichel Foucault may well be struck by the deep affinities between Foucaultian genealogy, counter#memory, and counter#attack on the one hand and &hiteness 0tudies+ denaturali7ation of heretofore largely un,uestioned racial categories on the other, surprisingly most writers in the &hiteness 0tudies movement seem all but unaware of Foucault+s analytics of biopower and his descriptions of normali7ation.E Their repeated observation that whiteness functions as a norm

and their close analyses of its unmarked status come not out of an awareness of Foucaultian genealogy but rather out of sociological studies of institutional racism like Omi and &inant+s Jacial Formation in the Dnited 0tates! From the "H:As to the "HHAs /"HHE6. Their work sounds like Foucault+s at times, but if they are moving toward an analysis that is like his in some ways, it is from a starting point that is radically different. *n this paper * will argue that, in part because of the limitations imposed by that different starting point, &hiteness 0tudies theorists typically miss their mark both naalytically and politically. Their ma or problem lies in the fact that they still work within what Foucault calls a uridical conception of power, a conception that simply does not capture the ways in which power operates in modern industriali7ed societies, especially in relation to the so obviously bio#political phenomenon of racial oppression. T"eir 3uri%ical mo%el o# !o&er lea%s to useless actio Cam!2ell 5> R5avid, /Kes The 0ame $ampbell,6 Frofessor of *nternational Folitics at the Dniversity of Mewcastle in England.
http!//calliope. hu.edu/ ournals/theoryaWaevent/vAA'/'."racampbell.html //liamT &ith her own rhetorical virtuosity and acute philosophical acumen, 8utler sets out to interrogate the assumptions behind key arguments concerned with hate speech and the strategies to counter it. *n so doing, she begins from a particular position sympathetic to those worried by hate speech in order to make a specific point that diverges from their normal position! That words wound seems incontestably true, and that hateful, racist, misogynist, homophobic speech should be vehemently countered seems incontrovertibly right. 8ut does understanding from where speech derives its power to wound alter our conception of what it might mean to counter that wounding powerC 5o we accept the notion that in urious speech is attributable to a singular sub ect and actC *f we accept such a uridical constraint on thought # the grammatical re,uirements of accountability # as a point of departure, what is lost from the political analysis of in uryC *ndeed, when political discourse is collapsed into uridical discourse, the meaning of political opposition runs the risk of being reduced to the act of prosecution /@A6. The collapse into uridical discourse, backed by the power of the state or specific agents of the state, is obvious in the scenes above, and 8utler?s anxiety about the minimali7ation of political opposition # particularly in the first case, where the

dubious nature of the ?offence? diverts attention from racism more generally # appears fully

ustified. The ,uestion is, however, whether the non uridical and nonstate forms of agency and resistance 8utler places her faith in are up to the task set for them. <et?s leave that concern to hang for a bit. <et us first ask how it is that the dominant modes of dealing with hate speech appear universally uridicalC *n answering that ,uestion, 8utler demonstrates well the way in which critically interpretative thought can combine a series of theoretical assumptions to demonstrate the limitations of prevalent discourses and alternative possibilities. *n so doing, Excitable Speech is a powerful statement in response to those who would maintain that arguments imbued with the idea of a >modernity without foundations> /":"6 evacuate ethico#political concerns from our hori7on. Those

who argue that hate speech demands uridical responses assert that not only does the speech communicate, but that it constitutes an in urious act. This presumes that not only does speech act, but that >it acts upon the addressee in an in urious way> /":6. This argumentation is, in 8utler?s eyes, based upon a >sovereign conceit> whereby speech wields a sovereign power, acts as an imperative, and embodies a causative understanding of representation. *n this manner, hate speech constitutes its sub ects as in ured victims unable to respond themselves and in need of the law?s intervention to restrict if not censor the offending words, and punish the speaker! This
ideali7ation of the speech act as a sovereign action /whether positive or negative6 appears linked with the ideali7ation of sovereign state power or, rather, with the imagined and forceful voice of that power. *t is as if the proper power of the state has been expropriated, delegated to its citi7ens, and the state then rememerges as a neutral instrument to which we seek recourse to protects as from other citi7ens, who have become revived emblems of a /lost6 sovereign power /S'6. Two elements of this are paradoxical. First, the sovereign conceit embedded in conventional renderings of hate speech comes at a time when understanding power in sovereign terms is becoming /if at all ever possible6 even more difficult. Thus the uridical response to hate speech helps deal with an onto#political problem! >The constraints of legal language emerge to put an end to this particular historical anxiety Rthe problematisation of sovereigntyT, for the law re,uires that we resituate power in the language of in ury, that we accord in ury the status of an act and

trace that act to the specific conduct of a sub ect> /IS6. The second, which stems from this, is that /to use 8utler?s own admittedly hyperbolic formulation6 >the state produces hate speech.> 8y this she means not that the state is the sovereign sub ect from which the various slurs emanate, but that within the frame of the uridical account of hate speech >the category cannot exist without the state?s ratification, and this power of the state?s udicial language to establish and maintain the domain of what will be publicly speakable suggests that the state plays much more than a limiting function in such decisions= in fact, the state actively produces the domain of publicly acceptable speech, demarcating the line between the domains of the speakable and the unspeakable, and retaining the power to make and sustain the line of conse,uential demarcation> /II6. The sovereign conceit

of the uridical argument thus linguistically resurrects the sovereign sub ect at the very moment it seems most vulnerable, and reaffirms the sovereign state and its power in relation to that sub ect at the very moment its phantasmatic condition is most apparent. The danger is that the resultant extension of state power will be turned against the social movements that sought legal redress in the first place /'E6 .si g e+!erie ce to esta2lis" t"e *ali%ity o# 0 o&le%ge ma0es !olitics a % sc"olars"i! e+clusio ary( ot ema ci!atory9 I stea% o# ma0i g t"e !erso al !olitical( t"is #rame&or0 ma0es t"e !olitical o ly !erso al9 Scott 5C R1oan, 0chool of 0ocial 0cience at 8rown, (.ulticulturalism and the politics of identity,) October v :" 0ummer p. "I#"S //liamT
There is nothing wrong, on the face of it, with teaching individuals about how to behave decently in relation to others and about how to empathi7e with each other?s pain. The problem is that difficult analyses of how history and social standing, privilege, and subordination are involved in personal behavior entirely drop out. $handra .ohanty puts it this way! There has been an erosion of the politics of collectivity through

the reformulation of race and difference in individualistic terms . The "H:As and ?IAs slogan >the personal is political> has been recrafted in the "HSAs as >the political is personal.> *n other words, all politics is collapsed into the personal, and ,uestions of individual behaviors, attitudes, and life#styles stand in for political analysis of the social . *ndividual political struggles
are seen as the only relevant and legit#imate form of political struggle.@ Faradoxically, individuals then generali7e their perceptions and claim to speak for a whole group, but the groups are also conceived as unitary and autonomous. This individuali7ing, personali7ing conception has also

been be#hind some of the recent identity politics of minorities = indeed it gave rise to the intolerant, doctrinaire behavior that was dubbed, initially by its internal critics, >political correctness .> *t is particularly in the notion of >experience> that one sees this operating . *n much current usage of >experience,> references to structure and history are implied but not made explicit= instead, personal testimony of oppression re#places analysis, and this testimony comes to stand for the experience of the whole group. The fact of belonging to an identity group is taken as authority enough for one?s speech= the direct experience of a group or culture#that is, membership in it#becomes the only test of true knowledge. The exclusionary implications of this are twofold! all those not of the group are denied even intellectual access to it, and those within the group whose experiences or interpretations do not conform to the established terms of iden#tity must either suppress their views or drop out . 2n appeal to >experience> of this kind forecloses discussion and criticism and turns politics into a policing operation ! the borders of identity are patrolled for signs of
nonconformity= the test of membership in a group becomes less one?s willingness to endorse certain principles and engage in specific political actions, less one?s positioning in specific relationships of power, than one?s ability to use the prescribed languages that are taken as signs that one is inherently >of> the group. That all of this isn?t recogni7ed as a highly political process that produces identities is troubling indeed, especially because it so closely

mimics the politics of the powerful, naturali7ing and deeming as discernably ob ective facts the prere,uisites for inclusion in any group.

***T"ree Tier Process***

AT Orga ic I tellectuals
No 2rig"t li e #or &"at co stitutes a orga ic i tellectual' o t"eorist or !ro#essor is &"olly remo*e% #rom !olitical acti*ism Im!ossi2le to %eli eate &"o is a orga ic i tellectual 7 i e*ita2ly #all !rey to &is"#ul t"i 0i g a % aca%emic !essimism ;all 5B /0tuart, ($ritical 5ialogues in $ultural 0tudies,) p. ':://.456 * tried on many occasions, and other people in 8ritish cultural studies and at the $entre especially have tried, to describe what it is we thought we were doing with the kind of intellectual work we set in place in the $entre. * have to confess that, though *+ve read many, more elaborated and sophisticated accounts, 4ramsci+s account still seems to me to come closest to expressing what it is * think we were trying to do. 2dmittedly, there+s a problem about his phrase Nthe production of organic intellectuals+. 8ut there is no doubt in my mind that we were trying to find an institutional practice in cultural studies that might produce an organic intellectual. &e didn+t know previously what that would mean, in the context of 8ritain in the "HIAs, and we weren+t sure we would recogni7e him or her if we managed to produce it. The problem about the concept of an organic intellectual is that it appears to align intellectuals with an emerging historic movement and we couldn+t tell then, and can hardly tell now, where that emerging historical movement was to be found. &e were organic intellectuals without any organic point of reference= organic intellectuals with a nostalgia or will or hope /to use 4ramsci+s phrase from another context6 that at some point we would be prepared in intellectual work for that kind of relationship, if such a con uncture ever appeared. .ore truthfully, we were prepared to imagine or model or simulate such a relationship in its absence! Npessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will+. T"is a!!roac" is i%ealistic a % aN*e' orga ic i tellectuals "a*e o a%*a tage o*er tra%itio al sc"olars or acti*ists Fisc"ma a % McLare E /4ustavo and Feter, (Jethinking $ritical Fedagogy and the 4ramscian and Freirean <egacies! From Organic to
$ommitted *ntellectuals or $ritical Fedagogy, $ommitment, and Fraxis,) $ultural 0tudies $ritical .ethodologies, ;olume @ Mumber E, 'AA@ E'@# EEI//.456 One of the main challenges of 4ramsci+s /"HI"6 framework, and one that is repeated by many in the field of education, that of

is contesting the supposed categorical assumption that organic intellectuals must develop some sort of supranatural level of consciousness, avoiding or overcoming the contradictory personal and social struggles present in everyday life. 2t the same time, this valori7ation of the role of one small group of leaders and organi7ers replicates the heroic myths of romantic idealism of the past century, which in turn reflects its positivistic heritage, and a firm belief in
the existence of a normal and teleological line of progress for all societies /i.e., from backward societies to capitalistic forms to socialist and finally communist societies6.

Tur ' orga ic i tellectuals are ot ra%ical e oug"' ma0es o*ertur i g ca!italism im!ossi2le Fisc"ma a % McLare E' !ro#essor at Ari)o a State( !ro# at .CLA /4ustavo and Feter, (Jethinking $ritical

Fedagogy and the 4ramscian and Freirean <egacies! From Organic to $ommitted *ntellectuals or $ritical Fedagogy, $ommitment, and Fraxis,) $ultural 0tudies $ritical .ethodologies, ;olume @ Mumber E, 'AA@ E'@#EEI//.456 One of the main goals of these diverse coalitions should be to suffocate the authoritarian power of the state and

curb its ability to support other structures of oppression. To do so demands moving beyond locali7ed radical struggles and the creation of networks of micropolitical struggles. This does not mean we re ect community#based multiform politics, but rather stress the need to coordinate our single#issue and micropolitical efforts so that the power of the state+s apparatus is not underestimated and can be effectively challenged. Of course, we also acknowledge that the state is not the all#encompassing and indomitable structure of domination that orthodox .arxists have often claimed, as there exist fault lines than enable challenges from below. 8ut we also recogni7e that state formations, whereas more fluid in the context of global markets and the internationali7ation of capital, have not become obsolete. *n fact, they are functionally necessary to promote the reproduction of capitalist social relations and their transnational expansion. 2lthough we agree with 8oggs /"HH-6 that a reconstituted definition of the organic intellectual emphasi7es transnational social movements that are not necessarily linked to social identity or class formation, we worry that such a dialectical movement between intellectuals and social forces or movements is insufficiently powerful, at present, to overturn the highly integrated power structures of global capitalism associated with the economic exploitation of the masses, ecological genocide, and bureaucratic domination.

T"eir !rioriti)atio o# e+!erie ce as t"e starti g !oi t #or all !olitical actio is a %a gerous e!istemological mo*e &"ic" ele*ates i%e tity o*er %eli2eratio Kt"eir met"o%ology is a 2ree%i g grou % #or *iole t #actio alism( ot !rogressi*e !olitics9 Irela %( C,,C R$raig , 2merican $ulture98ilkent (The 2ppeal to Experience and its $onse,uences,) $ultural $riti,ue @' Fall 'AA' p.SI#SH //liamT Once an arcane philosophical term, experience over the last three decades has become a general bu77word. 8y the "HIAs, experience spilled over into the streets, so to speak, and it has since then become the stuff of programmatic manifestos and has been enlisted as the ground from which microstrategies of resistance and subaltern counterhistories can be erected.
8ut for all the blows and counterblows that have carried on for over three decades between those who appeal to the counterhegemonic potential of experience and those who see such appeals as naive voluntarism, such debates show no signs of abating. On the contrary, they have become yet more strident, as can be seen by .ichael Fickering?s recent attempt to rehabilitate the viability of the term >experience> for subaltern historiography by turning to E. F. Thompson and 5ilthey and, more recently still, by 0onia %ruks?s polemical defense of experience for subaltern in,uiry by way of a reminder that poststructuralist critics of experience owe much to those very thinkers, from 0artre to .erleau#Fonty, whom they have debunked as if in oedipal rebellion against their begetters. 0uch debates over experience have so far gravitated around issues of epistemology and agency, pitting those who debunk experience as the stuff of an anti,uated philosophy of consciousness against those who argue that subaltern experience provides an enclave against strong structural determination. <ost in such debates, however, have been the potential conse,uences of appeals to immediate experience as a ground for subaltern agency and specificity. 2nd it is ust such potential conse,uences that will be examined here. These indeed demand our attention, for more is at stake in the appeal to experience than some epistemological faux pas. 8y so wagering on the

AT Perso al <+!erie ces Goo% For De2ate

perceived immediacy of experience as the evidence for subaltern specificity and counterhegemonic action, appeals to immediate experience, however laudable their goal, end up unwittingly naturali7ing what is in fact historical, and, in so doing, they leave the door as wide#open to a progressive politics of identity as to a retreat to neoethnic tribalism. .ost alarming about such appeals to REnd Fage SIT experience is not some failure of epistemological nerve9 it is instead their ambiguous political and social ramifications. 2nd these have reverberated beyond academia and found an echo in para#academia9 so much so that experience has increasingly become the core concept or key word of subaltern groups and the rallying call for what $raig $alhoun calls the >new social movements> in which >experience is made the pure ground of knowledge, the basis of an essentiali7ed standpoint of critical awareness> /E:S n.:E6. The conse,uences of such appeals to experience can best be addressed not by individually considering disparate currents, but by seeking their common denominator. 2nd in this regard, E. F. Thompson will occupy the foreground. *t is safe to say that what started as an altercation between Thompson and 2lthusser has since spawned academic and para#academic >histories from below> and subaltern cultural in,uiries that, for all their differences, share the idea that the identities and counterhistories of the disenfranchised can be buttressed by the specificity of a group?s concrete experience s. .uch theori7ing on experience by
certain cultural and historiographical trends, as many have already pointed out, has been but a variation on a persistent Thompsonian theme in which Thompson?s >kind of use of experience has the same foundational status if we substitute ?women?s? or ?black? or ?lesbian? or ?homosexual? for ?working class?> /0cott, IS:6.

Perso al #ocus o race #ails Tonn 5

/Tonn, .ari 8oor, Frofessor of $ommunications at the Dniversity of .aryland, Fall 'AA@, (Taking $onversation, 5ialogue, and Therapy Fublic), Jhetoric W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. S, *ssue -, Fall6F0 The $onversation on Jace visibly demonstrates the inertia endemic in a discursive model lacking direction and

mechanisms for closure. Five months into the racial dialogue, &hite Louse aides conceded no consensus had emerged even on fundamental goals! whether the initiative should formulate race related policy or merely explore racial attitudes.S: .oreover, $linton himself expressed weariness over the failure in public meetings to move beyond the repetitive airing of personal opinion on issues such as affirmative action,SI concurring with critics that (we need structure for the discussion . . . so we can actually get something done. )SS .onths more of racial conversation, however, produced few substantive results. The Dniversity of Mew Lampshire+s extended dialogue over the proposed conversational forum engendered similar fatigue and inaction. 2rguments forwarded by both camps centered on pivotal differences between (debate) and (conversation,) problem#solving tasks and relational aims , and formal and informal modes of gauging opinions. *ronically, more than one lengthy (conversation) over the conversational proposal produced no action, leading one exhausted participant to observe, (This RprocessT goes to the heart of my frustration with ever making this Rconversational ForumT viable.)SH 2s 8urke maintains, while some symbolic forms contain (a Nway in,+ Nway through,+ and Nway out,+) others
(lead us in and leave us there.) HA

Discussing social location creates a confessional format, privileging selfish apology over responsibility and reform Tonn 5
/Tonn, .ari 8oor, Frofessor of $ommunications at the Dniversity of .aryland, Fall 'AA@, (Taking $onversation, 5ialogue, and Therapy Fublic), Jhetoric W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. S, *ssue -, Fall6F0

$linton+s $onversation on Jace not only exemplified the fre,uent wedding of public dialogue and therapeutic themes but also illustrated the failure of a conversation#as#counseling model to achieve meaningful social reform. *n his speech inaugurating the initiative, $linton said, (8asing our self#esteem on the ability to look down on others is not the 2merican way . .

. Lonest dialogue will not be easy at first . . . Emotions may be rubbed raw, but we must begin.) Tempering his stated goal of (concrete solutions) was the caveat that (power cannot compel) racial (community,) which (can come only from the human spirit.)I'

Following the president+s cue to self#disclose emotions, citi7ens chiefly aired personal experiences and perspectives during the various community dialogues. *n keeping with their talk#show formats, the forums showcased what Orlando Fatterson described as (performative Nrace+ talk,) (public speech acts) of denial, proclamation, defense, exhortation, and even apology, in short, performances of (self) that left little room for productive public argument.I- 0uch personal evidence overshadowed the (facts) and (realities) $linton also had promised to explore,

including, for example, statistics on discrimination patterns in employment, lending, and criminal ustice or expert testimony on cycles of dependency, poverty, illegitimacy, and violence. &hereas $linton had encouraged (honest dialogue) in the name of (responsibility) and (community ,) 8urke argues

that (The $athartic Frinciple) often produces the reverse. (R$Tonfessional,) he writes, (contains in itself a kind of Npersonal irresponsibility,+ as we may even relieve ourselves of private burdens by befouling the public medium.) .ore to the point, (a thoroughly Nconfessional+ art may enact a kind of Nindividual salvation at the expense of the group,+) performing a (sinister function, from the standpoint of overall#social necessities .)IE Frustrated observers of the racial dialogue9many of them 2frican 2mericans9echoed 8urke+s concerns. Fatterson, for example,
noted, (when a young Euro#2merican woman spent nearly five minutes of our Nconversation+ in .artha+s ;ineyard . . . publicly confessing her racial insensitivities, she was directly unburdening herself of all sorts of racial guilt feeling. There was nothing to argue

about.)I@ 8oston 4lobe columnist 5errick X. 1ackson invoked the game metaphor communication theorists often link to skills in conversation,I: voicing suspicion of a talking cure for racial ailments that included neither exhaustive racial data nor concrete goals. (The game,) wrote 1ackson, (is to get Nrid+ of responsibility for racism while doing nothing to solve it.)II Conversations about personal experience reinforce hierarchies while causing complacency Tonn 5
/Tonn, .ari 8oor, Frofessor of $ommunications at the Dniversity of .aryland, Fall 'AA@, (Taking $onversation, 5ialogue, and Therapy Fublic), Jhetoric W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. S, *ssue -, Fall6F0 *n certain ways, 0chudson+s initial reluctance to dismiss public conversation echoes my own early reservations, given the ideals of egalitarianism, empowerment, and mutual respect conversational advocates champion. 0till, in the spirit of the dialectic ostensibly underlying dialogic premises, this essay argues that various negative conse,uences can result from transporting conversational and therapeutic paradigms into public problem solving. *n what follows, * extend 0chudson+s criti,ue of a conversational model for democracy in two ways! First, whereas 0chudson primarily offers a theoretical analysis, * interrogate public conversation as a praxis in a variety of venues, illustrating how public (conversation) and (dialogue) have been coopted to silence rather than empower marginali7ed or dissenting voices. *n practice, public conversation easily can emulate what feminist political scientist 1o Freeman termed (the

tyranny of structurelessness) in her classic "HIA criti,ue of consciousness raising groups in the women+s contrary to its promotion as a means to neutrali7e hierarchy and exclusion in the public sphere, public conversation can and has accomplished the reverse. &hen such moves are rendered transparent, public conversation and dialogue, * contend, risk increasing rather than diminishing political cynicism and alienation. 0econd, whereas 0chudson focuses largely on ways a conversational model for democracy
liberation movement,"@ as well as the key traits *rving <. 1anis ascribes to (groupthink.)": Thus, may mute an individual+s voice in crafting a resolution on a given ,uestion at a given time, * draw upon insights of 5ana <. $loud and others to consider ways in which a therapeutic, conversational approach to public problems can stymie productive, collective action in two respects."I First, because

conversation has no clearly defined goal, a public conversation may engender inertia as participants become mired in repeated airings of personal experiences without a mechanism to lend such expressions direction and closure. 2s Freeman aptly notes, although (RuTnstructured groups may be very effective in getting RpeopleT to talk about their livesR,T they aren+t very good for getting things done . Dnless their mode of operation changes, groups flounder at the point where people tire of N ust talking.+)"S 0econd, because the therapeutic bent of much public conversation locates social ills and remedies within individuals or dynamics of interpersonal relationships, public conversations and dialogues risk becoming substitutes for policy formation necessary to correct structural dimensions of social problems. *n mimicking the emphasis on the individual in therapy, $loud warns, the therapeutic rhetoric of (healing, consolation, and adaptation or ad ustment) tends to (encourage citi7ens to perceive political issues, conflicts, and ine,uities as personal failures sub ect to personal amelioration .)"H Unstructured dialogue focused on the personal causes inactionit disincentivizes action and leaves participants without a mechanism to act Tonn 5
/Tonn, .ari 8oor, Frofessor of $ommunications at the Dniversity of .aryland, Fall 'AA@, (Taking $onversation, 5ialogue, and Therapy Fublic), Jhetoric W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. S, *ssue -, Fall6F0 2pproaching public controversies through a conversational model informed by therapy also enables political

inaction in two respects. First, an open#ended process lacking mechanisms for closure thwarts progress toward resolution. 2s Freeman writes of consciousness raising, an unstructured, informal discussion (leaves people with no place to go and the lack of structure leaves them with no way of getting there.)IA 0econd, the therapeutic impulse to emphasi7e the self as both problem and solution ignores structural impediments constraining individual agency. (Therapy,) $loud argues, (offers consolation rather than compensation, individual adaptation rather than social change, and an experience of politics that is impoverished in its isolation from structural criti,ue and collective action.)

Fublic discourse emphasi7ing healing and coping, she claims, (locates blame and responsibility for solutions in the private sphere.)I" Discussions of social location are an ineffective formattheyre inherently inaccurate Tonn 5
/Tonn, .ari 8oor, Frofessor of $ommunications at the Dniversity of .aryland, Fall 'AA@, (Taking $onversation, 5ialogue, and Therapy Fublic), Jhetoric W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. S, *ssue -, Fall6F0 $ontributing to the ineffectiveness of a therapeutic approach in redressing social problems is its common pairing

with

what 8urke terms (incantatory) imagery, wherein rhetors invite persons to see themselves in an ideali7ed form.IS $omparing a current conflicted self against a future self individuals aspire to become is a therapeutic staple, a techni,ue $linton mimics in his
speech on race. *n one breath, he acknowledges persistent racial (discrimination and pre udice)= in another, he overtly invites audience members to picture themselves in saintly fashion! ($an we be one 2merica respecting, even celebrating, our differences, but embracing even more what we have in commonC) IH 8ut outside private therapy, this strategy rarely results in honest selfdisclosure, especially regarding

thorny issues such as race. 2ndrew Lacker argues that individuals seldom speak candidly about race in public= rather, they express an (ideali7ed) self with ideas and feelings they desire or, more commonly, believe they should possess, a phenomenon evident even in anonymous polling. SA The ha7ard of blending the confessional with the incantatory, 8urke writes, is a (sentimental and hypocritical) false reassurance that society is on the proper course, rendering remedial action unnecessary.S" This danger is compounded if the problem initially has been couched as essentially attitudinal
rather than structural, as $linton did! (&e have torn down the barriers in our laws. Mow we must break down the barriers in our lives, our minds and our hearts.)S' *ndeed, in commenting on the therapeutic bent of the $onversation on Jace, &illiam <. Taylor argues that the late 8ayard Justin+s reservations about the social#psychological approach to race were prescient! (Justin said he could envision 2merica being persuaded

figuratively to lie down on the psychiatrist+s couch to examine their feelings about race. They would likely arise, he said, pronouncing themselves either free or purged of any bias. 2nd nothing would have changed. )S- Furthermore, identification intrinsic in narrative experiences is doubleedged= while identification can neutrali7e domination by creating empathy, identification also can fortify hegemony. 2s $ornell &est warns, the privileging of emotional responses to
racism and racial self#identities over other data can contribute to (racial reasoning,) which blacks employ to their peril. To illustrate, he points to the failure of black leadership to challenge the ,ualifications by typical measures of black 0upreme $ourt nominee $larence Thomas, opting instead to submit to deceptive racial solidarity built upon premises of (black authenticity.)SE 8ecause the problems plaguing contemporary black 2merica,&est writes, result from a complex amalgam of structural and behavioral factors,S@ weaving solutions demands analysis of data beyond

sub ective personal narratives and performances of self#identity. Do 8t let t"em get a&ay &it" !layi g t"e ?all your e*i%e ce is a !ro%uct o# racism@ car%Kt"eir e!istemological accou t is re%uctio ist a % em!iricism is *ali%9 Perso al i sig"t is o ' #alsi#ia2le a % "as o 2rig"tli eKt"e re3ectio o# all ?<uroce tric@ met"o%s mea s t"ey are too ar2itrary to ge erate real %iscussio 9 Niemo e :, R1ack Miemonen, 2merican 0ociologist, E"/"6, ES#S", (Fublic 0ociology or Fartisan 0ociologyC The $urious $ase of &hiteness
0tudies) //liamT

5espite recognition that racial classification systems are not constant, proponents of whiteness studies treat whites as if they were an immutable, bounded, and cohesive category /8onnett 'AA-= Eichstedt 'AA"= 4abriel 'AAA= 4iroux "HHI= Lartigan "HHI= %eating "HH@= %incheloe "HHH= %olchin 'AA'= <evine#Jasky 'AAA= .c$arthy 'AA-= Fugliese 'AA'= 0idorkin "HHH= Kans 'AA: 6. They posit a generic white sub ect, both privileged and unaware of the extent of that privilege . Lowever, even if whites coalesce at certain historical unctures, we cannot conclude that the category (white) is an entity that will continue indefinitely in the absence of antiracist initiatives /.c5ermott and 0ampson 'AA@= Kans 'AA:= cf. Miemonen 'AAI6. Jeification has
the unintended conse,uence of neglecting how the construction of racial identities is a negotiated, indeed manipulative, process /8onnett "HHS= Jock,uemore 'AA'6. *n doing so, proponents of whiteness studies understate the contradictions, inconsistencies, and

ambivalences within white and nonwhite identities. They assume before the fact that whites regard whiteness rather than nationality,
ethnicity, religion, or class as the main factor that separates the civili7ed from the uncivili7ed. 2nd, they oversimplify the challenges that nonwhites face by implying that their problems are largely race#related and hence attributable to racism /$roteau et al. 'AA'= Lartigan 'AA'= %olchin 'AA'= .ansfield and %ehoe "HHE= &arren and Twine "HHI6. Emphasi7ing the unifying interest in, and reproduction of, dominance minimi7es how the boundaries of racial categories are negotiated, reinforced, or challenged in daily life /2lcoff "HHS= 8ash 'AA:= Ferera "HHH6. <argely ignored are the complicated interactions between race, class, and sex, and the struggles of many whites to ac,uire privileges in a class#stratified society, especially economic security and some degree of self#autonomy /8onnett "HHI= Eichstedt 'AA"= Lartigan "HHI, 'AAAb= Lubbard 'AA@= %olchin 'AA'= <ee "HHH= &inders 'AA-6. Jeifying

the concept of race fails to capture the processes through which it ac,uires meaning, confers status, or exerts a (structuring effect) /8ash 'AA:= <ewis 'AAE6. 8y suppressing intra#group divisions and contradictions, whiteness studies ignore how multiple
statuses work together in people+s lives /cf. 8rekhus "HHS= .erton "HI'6 and perpetuate an (us#them) view of difference9the binary perspective that is at the core of racist discourses. The reification of racial categories endows them with causal potential and predictive ability, implying that all persons classified as white will exhibit the undesirable traits associated with whiteness, since being white is a condition with distinct, identifiable, but largely negative attributes that are in need of corrective attention /2lcoff "HHS= 8ash 'AA:= Lartigan 'AAAb= %eating "HH@= 0antas 'AAA= 0cott 'AAA6. *n a

reversal of the historical e,uation, (white) has become reprehensible whereas (nonwhite) has become virtuous /4illborn "HH:= %eating "HH@6. &hiteness studies posit racism as a mono#causal explanation for almost everything. 2ll other forces, including the class struggle, are relegated to the margins. &illiam 1ulius &ilson+s work is dismissed out#of#hand as a defense of the culture of poverty thesis /e.g., Larrison "HHS= <adson#8illings "HH:= &elcome 'AAE6. Jacism is the problem. Therefore, whites either actively resist its reproduction or they perpetuate existing

ine,ualities /Lartigan 'AAAb= %olchin 'AA'= .oon and Flores 'AAA= Troyna "HHE6. This premise allows for the subse,uent argument that whiteness is the source of oppression. *f it is eradicated, then social ustice will emerge /.oon and Flores 'AAA= Trainor 'AA'6. Once whiteness is demoni7ed, whites have no choice but to view their selves9ironically9in the context of a deficit model that identifies their failings, after which they may redeem themselves by becoming race traitors. &hites are re,uired to renounce their whiteness but at the same time celebrate the alternatives. 0uch arguments inevitably result in anger and bafflement /4illborn "HH:= %olchin 'AA'6. The concept of racism suffers from conceptual inflation= it is used to mark any
racially suspect attitude, behavior, policy, or practice /8lum 'AA'6. *t is defined as a property of whites who act against nonwhites /4abriel 'AAA= .ansfield and %ehoe "HHE= Fearce 'AA-6. &hiteness studies proponents dodge the ,uestions of whether or not whites can be victims of racism, and whether or not nonwhites+ atrocities against other nonwhites should be regarded as racist. They generally conclude that nonwhites cannot be racist, for the latter are not beneficiaries of a white#privileged world. Monwhites lack the power to institutionali7e the means that would disadvantage whites and advantage themselves /Eichstedt 'AA"= 4illborn "HH:= 1ohnson et al. 'AAA= <adson#8illings "HH:= Tehranian 'AAA6. 8eing cast as nonwhite means that one cannot escape thinking about race= it means being wounded, hurt, and hampered /1ohnson et al. 'AAA= <eonardo 'AAE6. Thus, in serving as a term of moral reproach, racism has oined vices such as dishonesty, cruelty, cowardice, and hypocrisy /8lum 'AA'6. 2s opposed to recogni7ing that rationality, ob ectivity, and truth are themselves contested concepts that have been the sub ect of centuries of philosophical debate, whiteness studies conflate this history into a reductive, indeed monolithic, Eurocentrism. Fainting Eurocentrism as the enemy creates the impression that it is static over time. *t is caricatured as the claim that&estern epistemology is omnipresent and wielded as a weapon of indoctrination against nonwhites. The struggle

against Eurocentrism is transformed into an epistemological pro ect in which the necessary, if not sufficient, condition for overcoming privilege is to disclose the truth about it /%ruks 'AA@6. Lowever, standpoint epistemologies may not constitute a satisfactory alternativ e /2ya 'AAE= Lammersley "HH-6. For example, on what grounds can the claim be made that one or more groups have privileged insight into realityC *t cannot be declared before the fact= otherwise, all groups may make the same claim with no possibility of ad udication /Lammersley "HH-6. 2lthough distinctive insights are possible9for example, as demonstrated in the work of Fatricia Lill $ollins9 the claim that nonwhites have privileged access to the world whereas whites do not is 2m 0oc /'A"A6 E"!ESOS" :@ implausible at best /Lammersley "HH-=
0rivastava "HH:6. 0uch an argument begs the ,uestion of how a correct perception of the world is achieved. *n other words, the argument that personal experience occupies the same epistemological ground as social science is rife with logical and empirical problems. 8y grounding their

framework on the epistemology of provenance /that only the oppressed can claim epistemic authority by virtue of their experiences6, proponents of whiteness studies have blurred the distinction between scientific ustification and folk beliefs. Fersonal experiences may be atypical or distorted by self#interest. Ket, to suggest so devolves into debates about the speaker+s authenticity and his or her right to speak. *f an ob ective understanding of the world is impossible, then sociological concepts such as (concentration effects) may be more sophisticated, but no more valid, than the accounts offered by anybody else. *f so#called higher values are little more than the hegemonic tactics of whites, and if the epistemology of provenance decides truth and falsehood, or right and wrong, then knowledge is local convention, and any outsider who disputes that claim is a racist /2ya 'AAE6. 0ociological research may
not escape from normative concerns. Lowever, this body of work is much more sophisticated than the proponents of witnesses studies claim /cf. 2lba "HHH= 8ash "HIH= <ee "HHH= <ubienski 'AA-= .ckee "HH-= Miemonen 'AA'6. Even if the worth of this work should be evaluated by its public relevance, the claim on the part of whiteness studies proponents that its validity should be evaluated in the same way is ,uestionable. Froponents of

whiteness studies imply that true understanding is impossible across bounded groups because the latter construct discourses that9by virtue of the postulates of standpoint epistemology9cannot be communicated across boundaries without violating their authenticity /0idorkin "HHH6. This premise creates a dilemma! Low is it possible to appeal to social ustice, while at the same time disavowing the possibility of authentic communication /0idorkin "HHH6C *n fact, the boundaries between discourses are drawn too rigidly as a result of a conception of the social that is fixed, static, and homogenous /.erton "HI'6. *n this context, whiteness is an arbitrary designation that underpins a political pro ect that could not succeed in the absence of reification.

<+!erts Goo%
I tellectuals 0ey' some #iel%s re4uire s!eciali)e% 0 o&le%ge /ro er ,F' !ro# o# !olitical scie ce at Rutgers( P"D #rom /er0eley /0tephen, (Jeclaiming the Enlightenment,)
$olumbia Dniversity Fress, p. II#IS6 8ut praise for the amateur also has of

its limits. To ignore the need for critical disciplinary intellectuals with various forms scientific expertise is to abdicate responsibility for a host of issues involving knowledge of fields ranging from physics and genetics to electronics and even environmentalism. There is surely an overabundance of argon and mystification and, as has been mentioned before, the need exists for a new sensitivity to the vernacular. -H 8ut it is also the case that complex issues sometimes re,uire complex language and, often for good reasons, fields generate their own vocabularies. 2 udgment is undoubtedly necessary with respect to whether the language employed in a work is necessary for illuminating the issue under investigation! that udgment, however, can never be made in advance. There must be a place for the technocrat with a political conscience as surely as for the humanist with a particular specialty. The battle against oppression re,uires a multi#frontal strategy. 8est to consider the words of Frimo <evi who understood the critical intellectual as a (person educated beyond his daily trade, whose culture is alive insofar as it makes an effort to renew itself, and keep up to date, and w ho does not react with indifference or irritation when confronted by any branch of knowledge, even though, obviously, he cannot cultivate all of them.) T"e alter ati*e to e+!ertise is aN*e #ait"' Pali !ro*e t"is is %isastrous ;arris ,>' P"9D9 i euroscie ce #rom .CLA( C<O o# Pro3ect Reaso /0am, (&hen 2theists 2ttack,)
http!//www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/'AAS/AH/"H/when#atheists#attack.html6 The prospects of a Falin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Falin *nstitute for Fediatric Meurosurgery. 2sk yourself!

how has >elitism> become a bad word in 2merican politicsC There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. &e want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. 2nd yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. &hen it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions , then we suddenly want someone ust like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down#to#earth9in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn?t seem too intelligent or well educated. * believe that with the nomination of 0arah Falin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex9and dangerous9with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. 0hould she become president, Falin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. &hen asked why she is ,ualified to shoulder more responsibility than any
person has held in human history, Falin cites her refusal to hesitate. >Kou can?t blink,> she told 4ibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. <et us hope that a Fresident Falin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civili7ation.

Our argume t is ot t"at e+!erts are i #alli2le( 2ut t"at t"ey are cre%i2le ' t"eir totali)i g re3ectio is too e+treme 1alto 56' P"D #rom t"e . i*ersity o# Toro to /5ouglas, (2ppeal to Expert Opinion! 2rguments from 2uthority,) p. 'H#-A,
4oogle 8ooks6 The problem with appeal

to expert opinion as a type of argument is that people in the past have tended to swing to extremes. The modern viewpoint has tended to assume that the method of science is the only kind of thinking that has validity and represents the truth. This view tends to defer to authority too much, thinking of the expert in absolute terms as someone who knows everything about his or her sub ect and who, conse,uently, cannot be ,uestioned with any credibility by a non#expert. The postmodernist viewpoint, going to the other extreme, re ects authority as an elitist conception and refuses to defer to it at all. The problem with this pendulum reaction is that appeal to expert opinion as a type of argument cannot be evaluated reasonably. &e need to seek out a middle way between these extremes if it is to be analy7ed as a rational and useful kind of argument . Expert opinion needs to be treated as an argument that has some weight of presumption in its favor, but is not absolute, and is inherently open to critical ,uestioning. T/ %is%ai #or e+!ertism %e*ol*es i to 3i goism Lilla ,>' !ro#essor o# "uma ities at Colum2ia /.ark, (The Ferils of NFopulist $hic+),
http!//sec.online.ws .com/article/08"'':"A@@SAAES"A'E-.htmlCmodbarticle#outset#box6 The die was cast. Over the next '@ years there grew up a new generation of conservative writers who cultivated none of their elders?

counter#intellectuals. .ost are well#educated and many have attended *vy <eague of the masterminds of the Falin nomination was once a Larvard professor. 8ut their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that
intellectual virtues ## indeed, who saw themselves as universities= in fact, one

tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Mobel Fri7e#winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting ingoistic ournalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. 2nd with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape
that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them. 8ack in the ?IAs, conservative intellectuals loved to talk about >radical chic,> the well#known tendency of educated, often wealthy liberals to pro ect their political fantasies onto brutal revolutionaries and street thugs, and romantici7e their >struggles.> 8ut >populist chic> is ust the inversion of >radical chic,> and is no less absurd, comical or ominous. Traditional conservatives were always suspicious of populism, and they were right to be. They saw elites as a fact of political life, even of democratic life. &hat matters in

democracy is that those elites ac,uire their positions through talent and experience , and that they be educated to serve
the public good. 8ut it also matters that they own up to their elite status and defend the need for elites. They must be friends of democracy while protecting it, and themselves, from the leveling and vulgari7ation all democracy tends toward. &riting recently in the Mew Kork Times, 5avid 8rooks noted correctly /if belatedly6 that conservatives? >disdain for liberal intellectuals> had slipped into >disdain for the educated

class as a whole,> and worried that the Jepublican Farty was alienating educated voters. * couldn?t care less about the future of the Jepublican
Farty, but * do care about the ,uality of political thinking and udgment in the country as a whole. There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of 2merican public debate and helped to keep it sober. Those days are gone. 2s for political udgment, the promotion of 0arah Falin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Jepublican Farty and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead. 2nd all of us, even liberals like myself, are poorer for it.

***/ur it Do& ***

Prese t'%ay ;aiti !ro*es 2ur i g it %o& is ot a sustai a2le !olitical strategy9 O ly &ay to ac"ie*e gratuitous #ree%om is to a##irm your i%e tity &it"i material co %itio s Ne&ma , Fostdoctoral fellow! Dniversity of &estern 2ustralia, conducting research in the area of contemporary political and social though, 'AA
/0aul, (0tirner and Foucault,) Fostmodern $ulture6 .oreover, Foucault is able to see freedom

Aiole ce /a%

as being implicated in power relations because , for him, freedom is more than ust the absence or negation of constraint. Le re ects the >repressive> model of freedom which presupposes an essential self##a universal human nature##that is restricted and needs to be liberated . The liberation of an

essential sub ectivity is the basis of classical Enlightenment notions of freedom and is still central to our political imaginary. Lowever, both Foucault and 0tirner re ect this idea of an essential self##this is merely an illusion created by power . 2s Foucault says, >The man described

for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a sub ection much more profound than himself> /Discipline -A6. &hile he does not discount acts of political liberation##for example when a people tries to liberate itself from colonial rule##this cannot operate as the basis for an ongoing mode of freedom. To suppose that freedom can be established eternally on the basis of this initial act of liberation is only to invite new forms of domination . *f freedom is to be an enduring feature of any political society it must be seen as a !ractice##an ongoing strategy and mode of action that continuously challenges and ,uestions relations of power. c This practice of freedom is also a creative practice##a continuous process of self#formation of the sub ect. *t is in this sense that freedom may be seen as positive. One of the features that characteri7es modernity, according to Foucault, is a 8audelairean >heroic> attitude toward the present. For 8audelaire, the contingent, fleeting nature of modernity is to be confronted with a certain >attitude> toward the present that is concomitant with a new mode of relationship that one has with oneself. This involves a reinvention of the self! >This modernity does not ?liberate man in his own being?= it compels him to face the task of producing himself > /Foucault, >&hat> E'6. 0o, rather than freedom being a liberation of man?s essential self from external constraints, it is an active and deliberate practice of inventing oneself. This practice of freedom may be found in the example of the dandy, or #lO eur( >who makes of his body, his behavior, his feelings and passions, his very existence, a work of art> /Foucault, >&hat> E"#'6. *t is this practice of sel#'aest"etici)atio that allows us, according to Foucault, to reflect critically on the limits of our time. *t does not seek a metaphysical place beyond all limits, but rather works within the limits and constraints of the present. .ore importantly, however, it is also a work conducted upon the limits of ourselves and our own identities. 8ecause power operates through a process of sub ectification##by tying the individual to an essential identity##the radical reconstitution of the self is a necessary act of resistance. This idea of freedom, then, defines a new form of politics more relevant to contemporary regimes of power! > The political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is not to liberate the individual from the 0tate and its institutions, but to liberate ourselves from the 0tate and the type of individualisation linked to it > /Foucault, >0ub ect> '":6. Aiole ce ca e*er ac"ie*e racial 3ustice ML= BB /5r. .artin <uther %ing 1r., (*n * Lave a 5ream, ed. 1ames &ashington, "HS:6 $onditions are such for Megroes in 2merica that all Megroes ought to be fighting aggressively. *t is #as ridiculous for a Megro to raise the ,uestion of self#defense in relation to nonviolence as it is for a soldier on the battlefield to say he is not going to take any risks . Le is there because he believes that the freedom of his country is worth the risk of his life. The same is true of the nonviolent demoristrator. Le sees the misery of his people so clearly that he volunteers to suffer in their behalf and put an end to their plight. Furthermore, it is extremely dangerous to organi7e a movement around self#defense. The line between defensive violence and aggressive or retaliatory violence is a fine line indeed. &hen violence is tolerated even as a means of self#defense there is grave danger that in the fervor of emotion the main fight will be lost over the ,uestion of self #defense. &hen my home was bombed
in "H@@ in .ontgomery, many men wanted to retaliate, to place an armed guard on my home. 8ut the issue there was not my life, but whether Megroes would achieve first class treatment on the city?s buses. Lad we become distracted by the ,uestion of my safety we would have

lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors. * must continue by faith or it is too great a burden to bear and violence, even in self#defense, creates more problems than it solves. Only a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead us toward a community where men can live together without fear.
Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will re,uire a ,ualitative change in our souls as well as a ,uantitative change in our lives.

Re3ecti g Aiole ce Is A Im!erati*e For Sur*i*al ML= B6 H5r .artin <uther %ing, 1r., (The Trumpet Of $onscience,) p. :I#:S6 This $hristmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. &e have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paraly7ing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night, Our world is sick with war= everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. 2nd yet, my friends, the $hristmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. *f we don?t have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. &isdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any

longer serve as a negative good. 2nd so, if we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war#and so let us this morning explore the conditions for peace. <et us this morning
think anew on the meaning of that $hristmas hope! >Feace on Earth, 4ood &ill toward .en.> 2nd as we explore these conditions, * would like to suggest that modern man really go all out to study the meaning of nonviolence. its philosophy and its strategy. &e have experimented with the

meaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial ustice in the D nited 0tates, but now the time has come for man to experiment with nonviolence in all areas of human conflict, and that means nonviolence on an international scale. Mow let me suggest first that if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional . Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation= and this means we must develop a world perspective. Mo individual can live
alone= no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. Mow the udgment of 4od is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.

No 'Aiole ce Is T"e O ly <sca!e From O!!ressio 1i 0 a % 1i 0 5F' *Associate at Cleary( Gottlie2( Stee L ;amilto ( ** late Pro#essor <meritus at Au2ur T"eological Semi ary( #ormer Peace Fello& at t"e . ite% States I stitute o# Peace
/0tephen and &alter 2uburn Theological 0eminary= 0aint <ouis Dniversity <aw 1ournal, &inter, "HH-# "HHE!

;iolent opposition to the dominating system risks perpetuating precisely the system it seeks to transcend. >&hoever fights monsters,> warned Miet7sche, >should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.> For the most part, where movements of the oppressed lash out at the dominant group the cycle of violence escalates and it ends by either destroying or further marginali7ing that movement in society, or by establishing that movement as the new oppressor. 8ut if we sit passively by, we become accessories by our inaction to the in ustice of the system. 0omehow, we must swim against the tide of the current paradigm in an effort to find another way to oppose this system. The principle of nonviolence is grounded in the immorality of domination. &e assert this immorality without resorting /for the moment6 to stories about absolute truths, practical reasonableness, or pragmatic principles for support. &e need not address these issues to talk about the palpable effects of the system and assert that our lives need not include these effects. Monviolence, or the recognition of the other?s essential humanity, provides a methodology for transforming the current system without simply replicating it! it shows the promise of transcending the current paradigm . *f domination is to be transcended, it will re,uire a

criti,ue and methodology from outside that system. The 1udeo#$hristian tradition provides one such standpoint, though it is pierced with ambiguity, since both religions have been deeply penetrated by domination and violence. &hen one strips away later creedal assertions and simply regards the teachings of the biblical prophets and 1esus of Ma7areth as a criti,ue of domination, however, one discovers an astonishing strategy for transforming the prevailing paradigm. *n his teachings on nonviolence and the love of enemies, 1esus articulated a vision of the possibility of a domination#free order. *t was not until .ahatma 4andhi /and, later, .artin <uther %ing, 1r.6, however, that nonviolence was operationali7ed and used effectively in modern society. .ore recently, the year "HSH witnessed thirteen nonviolent revolutions, all but one of them successful, involving a third

of the human race. Though still in its infancy, nonviolence as a means of social change has at last demonstrated its viability. Monviolence, as a practice, allows individuals to engage the system without ultimately succumbing to its methods. *n this sense, nonviolence is less a moral edict than it is a practical tool for dismantling the mechanism of domination . 2s de la 8oetie pointed out, we are the dominator?s eyes, hands and feet= the power he exerts is in the myth that is internali7ed by both the dominated and the dominator. This is the source of the leverage of domination. The myth provides an intentional blindness toward the

humanity of those the dominator must suppress as ob ects of his power. The myth teaches that these ob ects are incapable of wielding the responsibility for maintaining order that has been thrust upon the dominator by virtue of his place in society. The acceptance of this story as true and natural allows for its perpetuation. 8y exposing the myth and its supporting ideology of ob ectification and resulting superiority, its power evaporates like

a mirage in the desert. The dominator is forced to come to terms with the humanity of the other as he is no longer

protected by the story of his >rightful> position. *n the same way that it is difficult for those who live in a two#dimensional world to visuali7e a cube, it can be difficult to conceptuali7e ust how nonviolence disarms the dominator . .oreover, nonviolence has been repeatedly

confused with nonresistance, passivity, and supine acceptance of wrong. 1esus told several stories that concretely illustrate the practical effects

of nonviolence and, yet, the popular misinterpretation of these stories has led to much of the confusion between passivity and nonviolence. 2n example of this is 1esus? teaching about turning the other cheek. *n the historical context of this story, 1esus was not en oining his peasant audience

to compound in ury by deliberately inviting additional blows. Jather, he was urging his hearers to neither capitulate to evil, nor oppose it violently , but to seek a third way. Le taught, >*f anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.>
This refers, not to a blow with the fist to the right cheek /which would re,uire use of the left hand6, but a backhand. The backhand was not intended to in ure physically but psychically! its purpose was to humiliate, dehumani7e, demean, and shame an upstart inferior and re#insert such a person into his or her social role. *t was administered by a superior to an inferior! master to slave, husband to wife, parent to child, Joman to 1ew. > Turning the the other cheek, the oppressed person creates a logistical problem! it is now impossible to repeat the backhand since the other?s nose is now in the way. /This scene can only be fully understood by physically demonstrating it.6 8ecause of the 0emitic taboo against using the left hand, the aggressor?s

other cheek> is an act of defiance. The >inferior> refuses to be re#inserted into the inferior role . 8y physically turning only alternative is to actually strike a blow. 8ut a blow with the fist would establish the parties as e,uals and

destroy the dominator?s leverage. 1esus is urging his hearers, who are accustomed to such treatment />if anyone strikes you>6, to refuse to accept it any longer, thus forcing the dominators to recogni7e them as human beings. Le challenges them to refuse to be humiliated any longer. This forced

acknowledgment of e,uality is certainly no way to avoid trouble= the master or parent may respond with a flogging. 8ut it breaks the cycle of domination by an act of defiance that shatters the myth and changes the existing power relations. There

are two other examples 1esus gives that have been similarly misunderstood. >*f anyone sues you for your outer garment, give him your under garment as well> does not mean, as it has been so often taken, that one should submit to every in ustice. Jather, the poor person whose long cloak is being possessed

as collateral for a loan in default is counseled by 1esus to strip off his undergarment and sub ect the court to his or her nakedness. *n those times, the taboo of public nakedness placed the greater shame on the onlookers rather than on the naked person. The effect of this command was that the creditor could only take advantage of the debtor at the creditor?s social peril. Thus, a negotiation is fostered that by its very existence acknowledges the power of the debtor. The tables are turned, the truth is unveiled and the oppressed discover that they can assert power even when the legal system is rigged to their disadvantage. The remarkable thing about this exercise is that it illuminates the nakedness of the dominator once the mythic cloak of power is removed. The myth of redemptive violence and domination is a tale spun from invisible thread. *n a third example, 1esus alludes to the Joman legal right of angaria, whereby a soldier could force a civilian to carry his pack one mile but no further. To force a civilian to carry his pack a second mile would be an infraction of Joman military law. &hen 1esus suggests carrying the soldier?s pack two miles, he is not advising his peasant audience simply to be nice and extend themselves, but to put the soldier in legal eopardy. One can imagine the soldier?s confusion and consternation as the civilian strides boldly ahead after the mile marker is passed. &hy is he doing thisC &ill he report this to the centurionC *s the soldier in danger of punishmentC The soldier, so used to exercising power, has lost control of this situation entirely. Once again, the peasant has found a way to step outside of the domination system and force the soldier to confront him as an e,ual. &e are taught that biological evolution

prepared us for two responses to threat! flight or fight. Either we submit, withdraw, flee, surrender, or we strike back in kind. Monviolence represents a third way, neither passive nor violent! active nonviolent resistance. 1esus, through these teachings, exhorted his usually supine hearers to sei7e the moral initiative and find a creative alternative to violence. The system is confounded when people refuse to accept their assigned roles. 1ust by refusing to sit in the back of a bus, Josa Farks cataly7ed an avalanche of social change in this country. The powerful can be forced by non#in urious coercive action to recogni7e and acknowledge the humanity of those whom they normally suppress, and, in the process, recover their own humanity. 0imilarly, the capacity to recogni7e the humanity of one?s oppressors /loving one?s enemies6 makes it possible for each party to a conflict to be reconciled. Monviolence is the only truly viable option for the powerless. &e scarcely have begun to tap the power of this ancient but recently burgeoning
method for overcoming domination. Tolstoy wrote .ahatma 4andhi in "H"A stating that the non#violent resistance campaign in 0outh 2frica >RisT the most important activity the world can at present take part in, and in which not $hristendom alone but all the people of the earth will participate.>

No 'Aiole ce Tra s#orms T"e Cycle O# Aiole ce 1i 0 a % 1i 0 5F' *Associate at Cleary( Gottlie2( Stee L ;amilto ( ** late Pro#essor <meritus at Au2ur T"eological Semi ary( #ormer Peace Fello& at t"e . ite% States I stitute o# Peace
0tephen and &alter 2uburn Theological 0eminary= 0aint <ouis Dniversity <aw 1ournal, &inter, "HH-# "HHE6 That we are at the end of an era is not something that can be proved scientifically. One senses it or one does not. One knows by intuition that the old images, as 2rchibald .ac<eish says in The .etaphor, have lost their meaning. The old images may yet have some meaning, but their grip has loosened sufficiently to allow us to consider alternatives. &e are now faced with the opportunity to dismantle the myth of redemptive

violence and break the cycle of domination. The fragmented exclusivity of our separate struggles for ustice must be discarded for the common ground of opposition to the domination system in all its forms= it is the common enemy. Through the recognition and acknowledgment of each other?s humanity, we can open a way to a new possibility for life. <ife outside this cycle. *n the legal context, this principle re,uires the recognition and rectification of ine,uality under the law. *t re,uires the recognition of the

humanity of those oppressed by the operation of law as practiced. *t re,uires the acknowledgment by the legal system of the ob ectification and subse,uent harm to women by pornography. *t re,uires the recognition that the law?s perspective remains that of men. *t re,uires the recognition that the colorblindness of the constitution means that it mainly sees white. *t re,uires that people acknowledge and celebrate their cultural and linguistic differences and support each other?s full participation in society. Low can violence be redemptive when it only begets more and more

violence and exacts a continuing price from each participant. That is not the path to victory, only defeat . The battle we must fight is not against the dominators as individuals, but the system in which all are victims. The struggle must be oined, not against something so as to overcome or dominate it, but rather to transcend the domination system itself ## the paradigm of our existence. The choice between oining the system or fighting against it remains a choice that serves the system in either case ## it is a 7ero#sum game, a Lobson?s choice. The alternative is to seek a third way in every human endeavor= a way that shifts the context from domination to a partnership among people= a way that affirms the humanity of one?s enemies and seeks their well#being along with our own in a community of e,uals where the humanity of all is affirmed. Tur J Puestio i g T"e I e*ita2ility O# Aiole ce Is A Moral Im!erati*e 1i 0 a % 1i 0 5F' *Associate at Cleary( Gottlie2( Stee L ;amilto ( ** late Pro#essor <meritus at Au2ur T"eological Semi ary( #ormer Peace Fello& at t"e . ite% States I stitute o# Peace Dnderstanding the system that creates domination through violence brings to light the choice available to individuals and societies! either continue in the complacency that is complicit in its evil and the reactionary violence that feeds it, or engage the system in a way that demands a new possibility for ustice ## a possibility that does not include domination violence. *t is precisely this possibility that the system in which we live desperately tries to keep hidden. *n Fart ** of this 2rticle, we ,uestion whether domination violence is really necessary for the establishment and propagation of human
societies. Fart *** discusses the origins of domination violence and the pervasive system it founded. Fart *; provides a brief sketch of the development of law and its attendant ine,uality as instrument and exemplar of this system of domination violence. Fart ; then offers not an alternative paradigm, but

interim methods for extricating ourselves from the grip of the current system ## a task we believe to be a moral imperative

I stitutio al a!!roac"es are crucial to e##ecti*ely c"alle ge t"e #la&e% state !olicies9 Gross2erg( 5C R<awrence, .orris 5avis Frofessor of $ommunication 0tudies at the Dniversity of Morth $arolina at $hapel Lill, (&e 4otta 4et
Out of this Flace! Fopular $onservatism and Fostmodern $ulture), page -SS#-SH //liam T

AT State /a%

The demand for moral and ideological purity often results in the re ection of any hierarchy or organi7ation. The ,uestion#can the master?s tools be used to tear down the master?s houseC#ignores b oth the contingency of the

relation between such tools and the master's power and, even more importantly, the fact that there may be no other tools available. Institutionalization is seen as a repressive impurity within the body politic rather than as a strategic and tactical, even empowering, necessity. It sometimes seems as if every progressive organization is condemned to recapitulate the same arguments and crisis, often leading to their collapse. @E For example, .inkowit7 has
described a crisis in 2ct Dp over the need for efficiency and organi7ation, professionali7ation and even hierarchy,@@ as if these inherently contradicted its commitment to democracy. This is particularly unfortunate since 2ct Dp, whatever its limitations, has proven itself an effective and imaginative political strategist. The problems are obviously magnified with success, as membership, finances and activities grow. This refusal of efficient

operation and the moment of organi7ation is intimately connected with the <eft?s appropriation and privileging of the local /as the site of democracy and resistance6. This is yet another reason why structures of alliance are inade,uate, since they often assume that an effective movement can be organi7ed and sustained without such structuring. The <eft needs to recogni7e the necessity of institutionali7ation and of systems of hierarchy, without falling back into its own authoritarianism. *t needs to find reasonably democratic structures of institutionali7ation, even if they are impure and compromised.

***Per#ormati*e Pe%agogy***

T"eir !rioriti)atio o# e+!erie ce as t"e starti g !oi t #or all !olitical actio is a %a gerous e!istemological mo*e &"ic" ele*ates i%e tity o*er %eli2eratio Kt"eir met"o%ology is a 2ree%i g grou % #or *iole t #actio alism( ot !rogressi*e !olitics9 Irela %( C,,C R$raig , 2merican $ulture98ilkent (The 2ppeal to Experience and its $onse,uences,) $ultural $riti,ue @' Fall 'AA' p.SI#SH //liamT Once an arcane philosophical term, experience over the last three decades has become a general bu77word. 8y the "HIAs, experience spilled over into the streets, so to speak, and it has since then become the stuff of programmatic manifestos and has been enlisted as the ground from which microstrategies of resistance and subaltern counterhistories can be erected.
8ut for all the blows and counterblows that have carried on for over three decades between those who appeal to the counterhegemonic potential of experience and those who see such appeals as naive voluntarism, such debates show no signs of abating. On the contrary, they have become yet more strident, as can be seen by .ichael Fickering?s recent attempt to rehabilitate the viability of the term >experience> for subaltern historiography by turning to E. F. Thompson and 5ilthey and, more recently still, by 0onia %ruks?s polemical defense of experience for subaltern in,uiry by way of a reminder that poststructuralist critics of experience owe much to those very thinkers, from 0artre to .erleau#Fonty, whom they have debunked as if in oedipal rebellion against their begetters. 0uch debates over experience have so far gravitated around issues of epistemology and agency, pitting those who debunk experience as the stuff of an anti,uated philosophy of consciousness against those who argue that subaltern experience provides an enclave against strong structural determination. <ost in such debates, however, have been the potential conse,uences of appeals to immediate experience as a ground for subaltern agency and specificity. 2nd it is ust such potential conse,uences that will be examined here. These indeed demand our attention, for more is at stake in the appeal to experience than some epistemological faux pas. 8y so wagering on the

<+!erie ce Focus /a%' <!istemology

perceived immediacy of experience as the evidence for subaltern specificity and counterhegemonic action, appeals to immediate experience, however laudable their goal, end up unwittingly naturali7ing what is in fact historical, and, in so doing, they leave the door as wide#open to a progressive politics of identity as to a retreat to neoethnic tribalism. .ost alarming about such appeals to REnd Fage SIT experience is not some failure of epistemological nerve9 it is instead their ambiguous political and social ramifications. 2nd these have reverberated beyond academia and found an echo in para#academia9 so much so that experience has increasingly become the core concept or key word of subaltern groups and the rallying call for what $raig $alhoun calls the >new social movements> in which >experience is made the pure ground of knowledge, the basis of an essentiali7ed standpoint of critical awareness> /E:S n.:E6. The conse,uences of such appeals to experience can best be addressed not by individually considering disparate currents, but by seeking their common denominator. 2nd in this regard, E. F. Thompson will occupy the foreground. *t is safe to say that what started as an altercation between Thompson and 2lthusser has since spawned academic and para#academic >histories from below> and subaltern cultural in,uiries that, for all their differences, share the idea that the identities and counterhistories of the disenfranchised can be buttressed by the specificity of a group?s concrete experience s. .uch theori7ing on experience by
certain cultural and historiographical trends, as many have already pointed out, has been but a variation on a persistent Thompsonian theme in which Thompson?s >kind of use of experience has the same foundational status if we substitute ?women?s? or ?black? or ?lesbian? or ?homosexual? for ?working class?> /0cott, IS:6.

T"eir met"o%ological %ogmatism causes a !rioriti)atio o# 0 o&er o*er 0 o&le%ge( causi g !olitics to %ege erate i to us *ersus t"em s4ua22les &"ic" are totally a2se t o# t"e ty!e o# critical %eli2eratio t"ey claim to 2ri g to t"e #ore#ro tKt"e !rese tatio o# t"eir a##irmati*e is a %ou2le tur &it" its co te t9 Moore a % Miller 55 RJob, $ambridge, 1ohan, Dniversity of $ape Town, (The 5iscourse of ;oice and the Froblem of %nowledge and *dentity in the 0ociology of Education,) 8ritish 1ournal of 0ociology of Education 'A /'6 p. "HH#'AAT The pedagogic device /8ernstein, "HHA6 of voice discourse promotes a methodology in which the explication of a method?s social location precludes the need to examine the content of its data as grounds for valid explanation . &ho says it is what counts, not what is said. This approach favours an ethnography that claims to reveal the cultural specificity of the category ##the ?voice? of membership. &hat is held to be the facts, to be the case, is only so# and can only be so#from a particular perspective. The world thus viewed is a patchwork of incommensurable and exclusive voices or standpoints. Through the process of sub#division, increasingly more particularised identity categories come into being, each claiming the uni,ue specificity of its distinctive experience and the knowledge authorised by it. The conse,uence of the abolition of the knowledge boundary that follows from the epistemological theses of postmodernism is the increasing specialisation of social cate# gories /see .aton, "HHS6. .aton describes this process of proliferation in terms of the way such ?knower? discourses, ... base their legitimation upon the privileged insight of a knower, and work at maintaining strong boundaries around their definition of this knower#they celebrate difference where ?truth? is defined by the ?knower? or ?voice?. 2s each voice is brought into the choir, the category of the privileged ?knower? becomes smaller, each strongly bounded from one another, for each ?voice? has its own privileged and specialised knowledge. The client ?knower? group thus frag# ments, each fragment with its own representative ... The procession
of the excluded thus becomes, in terms of the privileged ?knower?, an accretion of ad ectives, the ?hyphenation? which knower modes often proclaim as progress. *n summary, with the emergence of each new category of knower, the categories of knowers become

smaller, leading to proliferation and fragmen# tation within the knowledge formation . /ibid., p. "I6

2s .aton argues, this

The device that welds knowledge to standpoint, voice and experience, produces a result that is inherently unstable, because the anchor for the voice is an interior authenticity that can never be demonstrated, only claimed /Taylor, "HH'= 0iegel, "HHI= Fuss, "HHA, "HH@6. 0ince all such claims are power claims, the authenticity of the voice is constantly prone to a purifying challenge, ?*f you do not believe it you are not one of us? /Lammersly W 4omm, "HHI, para. -.-6 that gears down to ever more rarefied specialisations or iterations of the voice category= an unstoppable spiral that 8ernstein /"HHI, p. "I:6 has referred to as the ?shrinking of the moral imagination R"AT. 2s 8ernstein puts it, ?The voice of a social category /academic discourse, gender sub ect, occupational sub ect6 is constructed by the degree of specialisation of the discursive rules regulating and legitimising the form of communication ? /"HHA, p.'-6. *f categories of either agents or discourse are specialised, then each category necessarily has its own specific identity and its own specific boundaries. The speciality of each category is created, maintained and reproduced only if the relations between the categories of which a given category is a member are preserved. &hat is to be preservedC The insulation between the categories. *t is the strength of the insulation that creates a space in which a category can
move promotes a fundamental change in the principle of legitimation#from what is known /and how6 to who knows it. become specific. *f a category wishes to increase its specificity, it has to appropriate the means to produce the necessary insulation that is the prior condition to its appropriating specificity. /ibid.6 $ollection codes employ an organisation of knowledge to specialise categories of person, integrated codes employ an organisation of persons to specialise categories of knowledge /8ernstein, "HII, pp. "A:#"""6. The instability of the social

categories associated with voice discourse reflects the fact that there is no stable and agreed#upon way of constructing such categories. 8y their nature, they are always open to contestation and further fragmentation. *n principle, there is no terminal point where ?identities? can finally come to rest. *t is for this reason that this position can reappear so fre,uently across time and space within the intellectual field#the same move can be repeated endlessly under the disguise of ?difference?. *n 8ernstein?s terms, the organisation of knowledge is, most significantly, a device for the regulation of consciousness. The pedagogic device is thus a symbolic ruler of consciousness in its selective creation, positioning and oppositioning of pedagogic sub ects. *t is the con# dition for the production, reproduction, and transformation of culture. The ,uestion is! whose ruler, what consciousness C /"HHA, p. "SH6 The relativistic challenge to epistemologically grounded strong classifications of knowl# edge removes the means whereby social categories and their relations can be strongly theorised and effectively researched in a form that is other than arbitrary and can be challenged by anyone choosing to assert an alternative perspective or standpoint.

1"ile &e agree &it" t"e !e%agogic goals o# t"eir !ro3ect( t"ey must 2e se!arate% #rom t"e #la&e% e!istemology i &"ic" t"ey are couc"e%9 O ly a egati*e 2allot is a2le to ma0e !ossi2le t"e ty!e o# !rogressi*e !olitics u!o &"ic" t"eir sol*e cy is !re%icate%9 Irela %( C,,C R$raig , 2merican $ulture98ilkent (The 2ppeal to Experience and its $onse,uences,) $ultural $riti,ue @' Fall 'AA' p."HH#'AA //liamT Our purpose in this paper is to raise some issues about epistemological debates and approaches to knowledge in the sociology of education . Our starting point is the observation that since the phenomenologically inspired Mew 0ociology of Education in the early "HIAs to postmodernism today, approaches that ,uestion epistemological claims about the ob ectivity of knowledge /and the status of science, reason and rationality, more generally6 have occupied an influential position in the field.
*n earlier times, this approach was often referred to as the ?sociology of knowledge? perspective. Ket then, as now, it is precisely the idea of knowledge that is being challenged. 0uch approaches adopt, or at least favour or imply, a form of perspectivism which sees knowledge and truth claims as being relative to a culture, form of life or standpoint and, therefore, ultimately representing a particular perspective and social interest rather than independent, univer# salistic criteria. T"ey com!lete t"is re%uctio 2y tra slati g 0 o&le%ge claims i to

stateme ts a2out 0 o&ers9 %nowledge is dissolved into knowing and priority is given to experience as specialised by category membership and identity /.aton, "HHS6. For instance, a so#called ?dominant? or ?hegemonic? form of knowledge, represented in the school curriculum, is identified as ?bourgeois?, ?male?, or ?white?#as reflecting the perspectives, standpoints and interests of dominant social groups. Today, the most common form of this approach is that
which, drawing upon postmodernist and poststructuralist perspectives, adopts a discursive concern with the explication of ?voice?. *ts ma or distinction is that between the dominant voice and those /?Others?6 silenced or marginalised by its hegemony. 2s Fhilip &exler /"HHI, p.H6 has recently observed!

?The postmodern emphasis on discourse and identity remain over# whelmingly the dominant paradigm in school research, and with few exceptions, gives few signs of abating? /see also 5elamont, "HHI6. The main move is to attach knowledge to categories of knowers and to their experience and sub ectivities. This privileges and specialises the sub ect in terms of its membership category as a subordinated voic e. %nowledge forms and knowledge relations are translated as social standpoints and power relationships between groups. This is more a sociology of knowers and their relationships than of knowledge. &hat we will term ?voice discourse? is our principle concern, here. Listorically, this approach has also been associated with concerns to reform pedagogy in a progressive direction. 2t the time of the Mew 0ociology of multicultural and postcolonial education, and with postmodernist criti,ues of the ?En# lightenment Fro ect? and ?grand

Education in the early "HIAs, this move was expressed in the debate between ?new? sociologists such as .ichael Koung /"HI", "HI:6 and the philosophical position associated with J.0. Feters and Faul Lirst. .ore recently, it has been associated with developments such as anti#sexist,

narratives?. The crucial issue, for such approaches, is that where social differentiation in education and the reproduction of social ine,ualities are associated with principles of exclusion structured in and through educational knowledge. Lence, the criti,ue of knowledge and promotion of progressive pedagogy is understood as facilitating a move from social and educational exclusion to inclusion and the promotion of social ustice . This
history can be summarised as follows! in the early "HIAs, the Mew 0ociology of Education produced a criti,ue of insulated knowledge codes by adopting a ?sociology of knowledge? perspective that claimed to demystify their epistemological pretensions to cognitive superiority by revealing their class base and form. %nowledge relations were transcribed as class relations R"T. *n the late "HIAs, feminism challenged the masculinist bias of class analysis and turned attention to the gendered character of educational relations, rewriting knowledge relations in terms of patriarchy. This was in turn followed by a focus upon race. *n the "HSAs, the primary categories employed by gender and race approaches fragmented as various groups contested the vanguardist claims of the earlier proponents of those perspectives to be representing the interests of women or blacks in general. The category ?woman?, for instance, fragmented into groups such as women of colour, non#heterosexual women, working#class women, third#world women and 2frican women /&olpe, "HHS6. These fractions of gender and race were further extended by a range of sexualities and, to some degree /although never so successfully6, by disabilities. Dnder this pressure of fragmentation, there was a rapid shift away from political universalism to a

thoroughgoing celebration of difference and diversity= of decentred, hyphenated or iterative models of the self and, conse,uently, of identity politics. This poststructuralist celebration of diversity is associated with proclamations of inclusiveness that oppose the alleged exclusiveness of the dominant knowledge form that is revealed when its traditional claims to universalism and ob ectivity are shown for what they really are#the disguised standpoints and interests of dominant groups. On this basis, epistemology and the sociology of knowledge are presented as antithet# ical. The sociology of knowledge undertakes to demystify epistemological knowledge claims by revealing their social base and standpoint . 2t root, this sociology of knowledge debunks epistemology. The advocacy of progressive moral and political arguments becomes conflated with a particular set of /anti#6 epistemological arguments /0iegel, "HH@= .aton, "HHH6. 2t this descriptive level, these developments are usually presented as marking a progressive advance whereby the assault upon the epistemological claims of the domi# nant or ?hegemonic? knowledge code /rewritten in its social form as ?power?6 enables a succession of previously marginalised, excluded and oppressed groups to enter the central stage, their histories to be recovered and their ?voices? oined
freely and e,ually with those already there R'T. &ithin this advance, the voice of reason /revealed as that of the ruling class white heterosexual male6 is reduced simply to one among many, of no special distinction. This is advance through the multiplication of categories and their differences. 5isparities of access and representation in education were /and are6 rightly seen as issues that need addressing and remedying, and in this respect constitute a genuine politics. *t is important to stress, here, that the issues are real issues and the work done on their behalf is real work. 8ut the

,uestion is! is this politics best pursued in this wayC The tendency we are intending to criti,ue, then, assumes an internal relation between! /a6 theories of knowledge /epistemological or sociological6= /b6 forms of education /traditional or progressive6= and /c6 social relations /between dominant and subordinated groups6. This establishes the political default settings whereby epistemologically grounded, knowl# edge#based forms of education are politically conservative, while ?integrated? /8ernstein, "HII6 or ?hybrid? /.uller W Taylor, "HH@6 knowledge codes are progressive. On this basis, socially progressive causes are systematically detached from epistemologically powerful knowledge structures and from their procedures for generating and promoting truths of fact and value. For us, the crucial problem , here, is that t"ese %e#ault setti gs "a*e t"e e##ect o# u %ermi i g t"e *ery argume tati*e #orce t"at !rogressi*e causes in fact re4uire i or%er to !ress t"eir claims. The position of voice discourse and its cognate forms within the sociology of education has, also, profoundly affected theory and research within the field, with little attention being paid to structural level concerns with social stratification and a penchant for small#scale, ,ualitative ethnographic methods and ?culturalist? concerns with discursive positioning and identity /.oore, "HH:a= Latcher, "HHS6. &e will argue that this perspective is not only politically self#defeating, but also intellectually incoherent#that, in fact, progressive claims implicitly presuppose precisely the kind of ?conservative? epistemology that they tend to re ect and that, to be of value, the sociology of education should produce knowledge in the strong sense. This is important because the effects of the /anti#6 epistemological thesis undermine the possibilities of producing precisely that kind of knowledge re,uired to support the moral/political ob ectives . *ndeed, the dubious epistemological assumptions may lead not only to an ?analytical nihilism that is contrary to /their6 political pro ect? /<adwig, "HH@, p.'''6, but also to pedagogic conclusions that are actively counterproductive and ultimately work against the educational interests of precisely those groups they are meant to help / 0tone, "HS"= 5owling, "HHE6. &e agree, thus, with 0iegel that, ?... it is imperative that defenders of radical pedagogy distinguish their embrace of particular moral/political theses from untenable, allegedly related, epistemological ones? /ibid., p.-E6.

<+!erie ce Focus /a%' /iologism Tur

<+ter ally( t"eir #etis"i)atio o# li*e% e+!erie ce %ege erates i to a cru%e 2iologism &"ic" ma i#ests itsel# i racial *iole ce9 Irela %( C,,C R$raig , 2merican $ulture98ilkent (The 2ppeal to Experience and its $onse,uences,) $ultural $riti,ue @' Fall 'AA' p.SI#SH //liamT .ore is involved here than some epistemological blunder. *n their bid to circumvent ideological mediation by turning to the presumed immediacy of experience, Thompsonian experience#oriented theories advance an argument that is not so much theoretically specious as it is potentially dangerous! there is nothing within the logic of such an argument that precludes the hypostati7ation of other nondiscursive bases for group membership and specificity9bases that can as readily be those of a group?s immediate experiences as they can be those of a group?s presumed materially immediate biological characteristics or physical markers of ethnicity and sexuality . *f the criterion for the disruptive antihegemonic potential of experience is its immediacy, and if, as we have ust seen, such a criterion can readily lead to a fetishi7ation of the material body itself, then what starts out as an attempt to account for a nonmediated locus of resistance and agency REnd Fage H@T can end up as a surenchdre of immediacy that by but a nudge of a cluster of circumstances can propel toward what .ichael Fiore?s 8eyond *ndividualism calls >biologism>9an increasingly common trend whereby >a person?s entire identity resides in a single physical characteristic, whether it be of blackness, of deafness or of homosexuality> /,uoted in 4itlin, :6. 8lut und 8oden seem but a step away. The step from a wager on immediate experience, whether from theories
hoping to account for agency or from groups struggling for cultural recognition, to rabid neoethnic fundamentalisms is only a possible step and not a necessary one= and the link between these two trends is certainly not one of affinity, and still less one of causality. &hat the parallelism between the two does suggest, however, is that in spite of their divergent motivations and means, they both attempt to ground group

specificity by appealing to immediacy9by appealing, in other words, to something that is less a historical product or a mediated construct than it is an immediately given natural entity, whether it be the essence of a ;olk, as in current tribalisms, or the essence of material experiences specific to groups, as in strains of 2lltagsgeschichte and certain subaltern endeavors. *f a potential for biologism and the specter of neoethnic tribalism are close at hand in certain cultural theories and social movements, it is because the recourse to immediate experience opens the back door to what was booted out the front door9it inadvertently naturali7es what it initially set out to historici7e. The tendency in appeals to
experience toward naturali7ing the historical have already been repeatedly pointed out by those most sympathetic to the motivations behind such appeals. 1oan &. 0cott9hardly an antisubaltern historian9has argued, as have Mancy Fraser, Jita Felski, and others, that it is precisely by predicating identity and agency on shared nonmediated experiences that certain historians of difference and cultural theorists in fact >locate resistance outside its discursive construction and reify agency as an inherent attribute of individuals>9a move that, when pushed to its logical conclusion, >naturali7es categories such as woman, black, white, heterosexual and homosexual by treating them as given characteristics of individuals> /0cott, III6. 2lthough such a tendency within experienceoriented theories is rarely themati7ed, and rarer still is it intended, it nevertheless logically follows from the argument according to which REnd Fage H:T group identity, specificity, and concerted political action have as their condition of possibility the nonmediated experiences that bind or are shared by their members. On the basis of such a stance, it is hardly surprising that currents of gay identity politics /to take but one of the more recent examples6 should treat homosexuality, as Mancy Fraser has noted, >as a substantive, cultural, identificatory positivity, much like an ethnicity> /S-6. *t may seem unfair to impute to certain experience#oriented theories an argument that, when carried to its logical conclusion, can as readily foster an emancipatory politics of identity as it can neoethnic tribalism. The potential for biologism hardly represents the intentions of experience#oriented theories= these, after all, focus on the immediacy of experience, rather than on the essence of a group, in order to avoid strong structural determination on the one hand, and the naturali7ing of class or subaltern groups on the other. 8ut if there cannot be a discursive

differentiation of one experience from another9the counterhegemonic potential of experience is predicated on its prediscursive immediacy, and mediation is relegated to a supplemental and retrospective operation9and if a nondiscursive or ideologically uncontaminated common ground becomes the guarantor of group authenticity, then the criterion for group specificiy must be those elements that unite groups in nondiscursive ways. 2nd such elements can as readily be those of a group?s shared nonmediated experience, such as oppression, as they can be those of a group?s biological characteristics. 2t best, >the evidence of experience ,> 0cott notes, >becomes the evidence for the fact of difference, rather than a way of exploring how differences are established> /IH:6= at worst, the wager on the immediacy of experience fosters tribalistic reflexes that need but a little prodding before turning into those rabid, neoethnic >micro fascisms> against which F[lix 4uattari warned in his last essay before his death /':#'I6.

<+!erie ce Focus /a%' No 'Falsi#ia2le

.si g e+!erie ce automatically legitimi)es t"e s!ea0er8s 0 o&le%ge 7 o '#alsi#ia2le claims !re*e t %iscursi*e i 4uiry( t"is %estroys e%ucatio a % argume tatio Scott G5: R1oan &., Dniversity of &isconsin, Fh.5= Dniversity of *llinois at $hicago $ircle, 2ssistant Frofessor= Morthwestern Dniversity, 2ssistant Frofessor= Dniversity of Morth $arolina at $hapel Lill, 2ssociate Frofessor, Frofessor= 8rown Dniversity, Mancy 5uke <ewis Dniversity Frofessor, Fembroke $enter for Teaching and Jesearch on &omen, Founding 5irector= *nstitute for 2dvanced 0tudy, .ember, Frofessor, Larold F. <inder Frofessor, (The Evidence of Experience,) $ritical *n,uiry, ;ol. "I, Mo. E /0ummer, "HH"6, p. IS-#SE //liamT The concepts of experience described by &illiams preclude in,uiry into processes of sub ect#construction= and they avoid examining the relationships between discourse, cognition, and reality, the relevance of the position or situatedness of sub ects to the knowledge they produce, and the effects of difference on knowledge. Uuestions are not raised about, for example, whether it matters for the history they write that historians are men, women, white, black, straight, or gay= instead, as de $erteau writes, >the authority of the ?sub ect of knowledge? Ris measuredT by the elimination of everything concerning the speaker> />L,> p. '"S6. Lis knowledge, reflecting as it does something apart from him, is legitimated and presented as universal, accessible to all. There is no power or politics in these notions of knowledge and experience. 2n example of the way
>experience> establishes the authority of an historian can be found in J. 4. $ollingwood?s *dea of Listory, the "HE: classic that has been re,uired reading in historiography courses for several generations. For $ollingwood, the ability of the historian to reenact past experience is tied to his autonomy, >where by autonomy * mean the condition of being one?s own authority, making statements or taking action on one?s own initiative and not because those statements or actions are authori7ed or prescribed by anyone else.>?H The ,uestion of where the historian is situated#who he is, how he is defined in relation to others, what the political effects of his history may be#never enters the discussion. *ndeed, being free of these matters seems to be tied to $ollingwood?s definition of autonomy, an issue so critical for him that he launches into an uncharacteristic tirade about it. *n his ,uest for certainty, the historian must not let others make up his mind for him, $ollingwood insists, because to do that means giving up his autonomy as an historian and allowing someone else to do for him what, if he is a scientific thinker, he can only do for himself. There is no need for me to offer the reader any proof of this statement. *f he knows anything of historical work, he already knows of his own experience that it is true. *f he does not already know that it is true, he does not know enough about history to read this essay with any profit, and the best thing he can do is to stop here and now.'A For $ollingwood it

is axiomatic that experience is a reliable source of knowledge because it rests on direct contact between the historian?s perception and reality /even if the passage of time makes it necessary for the historian to imaginatively reenact events of the past6. Thinking on his own means owning his own thoughts, and this proprietary relationship guarantees an individual?s independence, his ability to read the past correctly, and the authority of the knowledge he produces. The claim is not only for the historian?s autonomy, but also for his
originality. Lere >experience> grounds the identity of the researcher as an historian. 2nother, very different use of >experience> can be found in E. F. Thompson?s .aking of the English &orking $lass, the book that revolutioni7ed social and labor history. Thompson specifically set out to free the concept of >class> from the ossified categories of .arxist structuralism. For this pro ect >experience> was a key concept. >&e explored,> Thompson writes of himself and his fellow Mew <eft historians, >both in theory and in practice, those unction#concepts /such as ?need?, ?class?, and ?determine?6 by which, through the missing term, ?experience?, structure is transmuted into process, and the sub ect re#enters into history.>'" Thompson?s notion of experience oined ideas of external influence and sub ective feeling, the structural and the psychological. This gave him

a mediating influence between social structure and social consciousness. For him experience meant >social being>#the lived realities of social life, especially the affective domains of family and religion and the symbolic dimensions of expression. This definition separated the affective and the symbolic from the economic and the rational. >Feople do not only experience their own experience as ideas, within thought and its procedures,> he maintained, >they also experience their own experience as feeling> />FT,> p. "I"6. This statement grants importance to the psychological dimension of experience, and it allows Thompson to account for agency. Feeling, Thompson insists, is >handled> culturally as >norms, familial and kinship obligations and reciprocities, as values or /through more elaborated forms6 within art and religious beliefs> />FT,> p. "I"6. 2t the same time it somehow precedes these

forms of expression and so provides an escape from a strong structural

determination. <+!erie ce %e ies us t"e a2ility to scruti i)e your e!istemology 7 t"is !ro%uces a 2a% mo%el o# %e2ate Scott G5" R1oan &., Dniversity of &isconsin, Fh.5= Dniversity of *llinois at $hicago $ircle, 2ssistant Frofessor= Morthwestern Dniversity, 2ssistant Frofessor= Dniversity of Morth $arolina at $hapel Lill, 2ssociate Frofessor, Frofessor= 8rown Dniversity, Mancy 5uke <ewis Dniversity Frofessor, Fembroke $enter for Teaching and Jesearch on &omen, Founding 5irector= *nstitute for 2dvanced 0tudy, .ember, Frofessor, Larold F. <inder Frofessor, (The Evidence of Experience,) $ritical *n,uiry, ;ol. "I, Mo. E /0ummer, "HH"6, p. ISS#SH //liamT

8y definition, he argues, history is concerned with explanation= it is not a radical hermeneutics, but an attempt to account for the origin, persistence, and disappearance of certain meanings >at particular times and in specific sociocultural situations> />*L,> p. SS'6. For him explanation re,uires a separation of experience and meaning! experience is that reality which demands meaningful response. >Experience,> in Toews?s usage,

is taken to be so self#evident that he never defines the term. This is telling in an article that insists on establishing the importance and independence, the irreducibility of >experience.> The absence of definition allows experience to resonate in many ways, but it also allows it to function as a universally understood category#the undefined word creates a sense of consensus by attributing to it an assumed, stable, and shared meaning. Experience , for
Toews, is a foundational concept. &hile recogni7ing that meanings differ and that the historian?s task is to analy7e the different meanings produced in societies and over time, Toews protects >experience> from this kind of relativism. *n doing so he establishes the possibility for ob ective

knowledge and for communication among historians, however diverse their positions and views. This has the effect /among others6 of removing historians from critical scrutiny as active producers of knowledge. The insistence on the separation of
meaning and experience is crucial for Toews, not only because it seems the only way to account for change, but also because it protects the world from >the hubris of wordmakers who claim to be makers of reality> />*L,> p. HA:6.

Quri%ical Tur
Qu%gi g !er#orma ce 2ac0#ires9 It !resumes a cou ter!ro%ucti*e 3uri%ical mo%el o# !o&er /utler 5E /0udith, %rofessor of hetoric and Comparati1e !iterature, 2C 3erkele4, %erformati1it4 and %erformance, 5d# %arker and Sedg6ick,
"HH@, p. 'AE //liamT

That words wound seems incontestably true, and that hateful, racist, misogynist, homophobic speech should be vehemently countered seems incontrovertibly right. 8ut does understanding from where speech derives its power to wound alter our conception of what it might mean to counter that wounding power C 5o we accept the notion that in urious speech is attributable to a singular sub ect and actC *f we accept such a uridical constraint on thought # the grammatical re,uirements of accountability # as a point of departure, what is lost from the political analysis of in ury when the discourse of politics becomes fully reduced to uridical re,uirements CC *ndeed, when political discourse is collapsed into uridical discourse, the meaning of political opposition runs the risk of being reduced to the act of prosecution. Low is the analysis of the discursive historicity of power unwittingly restricted when the sub ect is presumed as the point of
departure for such an analysisC 2 clearly theological construction, the postulation of the sub ect as the causal origin of the performative act is understood to generate that which it names= indeed, this divinely empowered sub ect is one for whom the name itself is generative.

More e* Cam!2ell 5> RFrofessor of *nternational Folitics at the Dniversity of Mewcastle in England.

http!//calliope. hu.edu/ ournals/theoryaWaevent/vAA'/'."racampbell.html //liamT &ith her own rhetorical virtuosity and acute philosophical acumen, 8utler sets out to interrogate the assumptions behind key arguments concerned with hate speech and the strategies to counter it. *n so doing, she begins from a particular position sympathetic to those worried by hate speech in order to make a specific point that diverges from their normal position! That words wound seems incontestably true, and that hateful, racist, misogynist, homophobic speech should be vehemently countered seems incontrovertibly right. 8ut does understanding from where speech derives its power to wound alter our conception of what it might mean to counter that wounding powerC 5o we accept the notion that in urious speech is attributable to a singular sub ect and actC *f we accept such a uridical constraint on thought # the grammatical re,uirements of accountability # as a point of departure, what is lost from the political analysis of in uryC *ndeed, when political discourse is collapsed into uridical discourse, the meaning of political opposition runs the risk of being reduced to the act of prosecution /@A6. The collapse into uridical discourse, backed by the power of the state or specific agents of the state, is obvious in the scenes above, and 8utler?s anxiety about the minimali7ation of political opposition # particularly in the first case, where the

dubious nature of the ?offence? diverts attention from racism more generally # appears fully

ustified. The ,uestion is, however, whether the non uridical and nonstate forms of agency and resistance 8utler places her faith in are up to the task set for them. <et?s leave that concern to hang for a bit. <et us first ask how it is that the dominant modes of dealing with hate speech appear universally uridicalC *n answering that ,uestion, 8utler demonstrates well the way in which critically interpretative thought can combine a series of theoretical assumptions to demonstrate the limitations of prevalent discourses and alternative possibilities. *n so doing, Excitable Speech is a powerful statement in response to those who would maintain that arguments imbued with the idea of a >modernity without foundations> /":"6 evacuate ethico#political concerns from our hori7on. Those

who argue that hate speech demands uridical responses assert that not only does the speech communicate, but that it constitutes an in urious act. This presumes that not only does speech act, but that >it acts upon the addressee in an in urious way> /":6. This argumentation is, in 8utler?s eyes, based upon a >sovereign conceit> whereby speech wields a sovereign power, acts as an imperative, and embodies a causative understanding of representation. *n this manner, hate speech constitutes its sub ects as in ured victims unable to respond themselves and in need of the law?s intervention to restrict if not censor the offending words, and punish the speaker! This
ideali7ation of the speech act as a sovereign action /whether positive or negative6 appears linked with the ideali7ation of sovereign state power or, rather, with the imagined and forceful voice of that power. *t is as if the proper power of the state has been expropriated, delegated to its citi7ens, and the state then rememerges as a neutral instrument to which we seek recourse to protects as from other citi7ens, who have become revived emblems of a /lost6 sovereign power /S'6. Two elements of this are paradoxical. First, the sovereign conceit embedded in conventional renderings of hate speech comes at a time when understanding power in sovereign terms is becoming /if at all ever possible6 even more difficult. Thus the uridical response to hate speech helps deal with an onto#political problem! >The constraints of legal language emerge to put an end to this particular historical anxiety Rthe problematisation of sovereigntyT, for the law re,uires that we resituate power in the language of in ury, that we accord in ury the status of an act and trace that act to the specific conduct of a sub ect> /IS6. The second, which stems from this, is that /to use 8utler?s own admittedly hyperbolic formulation6 >the state produces hate speech.> 8y this she means not that the state is the sovereign sub ect from which the various slurs emanate, but that within the frame of the uridical account of hate speech >the category cannot exist without the state?s ratification, and this power of the state?s udicial language to establish and maintain the domain of what will be publicly speakable suggests that the state plays much more than a limiting function in such decisions= in fact, the state actively produces the domain of publicly acceptable speech, demarcating the line between the domains of the speakable and the unspeakable, and retaining the power to make and sustain the line of conse,uential demarcation> /II6. The sovereign conceit

of the uridical argument thus linguistically resurrects the sovereign sub ect at the very moment it seems most vulnerable, and reaffirms the sovereign state and its power in relation to that sub ect at the very moment its phantasmatic condition is most apparent. The danger is that the resultant extension of state power will be turned against the social movements that sought legal redress in the first place /'E6

Su23ecti*ity
Per#ormati*e !e%agogy #ails9 It &or0s o 2etter t"a c"a ce9 Pe %le2ury E /Shirle4, %rofessor of 5ducation, head, Di1ision of Curriculum, 2ni1ersit4 of the 7it6atersrand, in The
positioning. *t takes and voices where, outledge Falmer eader in %hilosoph4 of 5ducation, 7ilfred Carr, 'AA@, p. @I //liamT Ferformative pedagogy calls on the teacher to see her own slippery position, to be aware and wary of her own authorial and authoritative

sub ectivity seriously through a radical turn to specificity , an ever#shifting play of relationships, perspectives if anyone has authority, it is the learner O and then only at the moment of expression. <earner#centredness here rests on an apparent presumption in favour of the view from below O apparent because it involves something of a pretence by the teacher and because there is no singular view from below, but many.` Taking sub ectivity seriously in this way thwarts the very pro ect it intends to ,uicken and undermines the constitutive goods of teaching . Low soC` For a start, without normative benchmarks, anything goes. 8y treating all voices and views as e,ually valid , $armen <uke /herself a feminist6 argues, the feminist teacher risks a dangerous sameness! N;iews and voices from everywhere and every body potentially are views and voices from nowhere and no body ) /<uke, "HH:! 'H"6. *f anything goes, then changing learners+ perceptions becomes a matter of chance and if the teacher has a role at all, it is to play stagehand to happenstance. Lere teaching would seem to be thoroughly luck#dependent, leaving the teacher without resources to establish the enabling conditions for
fulfilling the definitive ends of her practice /cf Fendlebury "HH@6.

Narrati*es o# su##eri g !erma e tly relate su23ecti*ity to *ictim"oo% a % e+clu%e a yo e &"o %oes ot #it t"e mo%el o# su2or%i atio /ro& 5B /&endy 8rown is Frofessor of &omen?s 0tudies and <egal 0tudies, and is $o#5irector of the $enter for $ultural 0tudies at the Dniversity of $alifornia, 0anta $ru7. The Dniversity of $hicago <aw 0chool Joundtable "HH:, //liam6
*f, taken together, the two passages from Foucault we have been consider# ing call feminists to account in our compulsion to put everything about women into discourse, they do not yet exhaust the phenomenon of being ensnared ?in the folds of our own discourses.? For if the problem * have been discussing is easy enough to see##indeed, largely familiar to those who track techni,ues of co#optation##at the level of legal and bureaucratic discourse,

Aictim"oo% Tur

it is altogether more dis,uieting when it takes the form of regulatory discourse in our own sub# and counter# cultures of resistance . . . when confessing in ury becomes that which attaches us to the in ury, paraly7es us within it, and prevents us from seeking or even desiring a status other than in ured. *n an age of social identification through attributes marked as culturally significant##gender, race, sexuality, and so forth## confessional discourse, with its truth#bearing status in a post#epistemological universe, not only regulates the confessor in the name of freeing her as Foucault described that logic, 2ut e+te %s 2eyo % t"e co #ess' i g i %i*i%ual to co stitute a regulatory trut" a2out t"e i%e tity grou!9 $onfessed truths are assembled and deployed as >knowledge> about the group.
This phenomenon would seem to undergird a range of recurring troubles in feminism, from the >real woman> re oinder to post#structuralist deconstructions of her, to totali7ing descriptions of women?s experience that are the inadvertent effects of various kinds of survivor stories. Thus, for example, the porn star who feels miserably exploited, violated and humiliated in her work invariably monopoli7es the truth about sex work= as the girl with math anxieties constitutes the truth about women and math= as eating disor# ders have become the truth about women and food= as sexual abuse and viola# tion occupy the knowledge terrain of women and sexuality. *n other words, even as feminism aims to affirm diversity among women and women?s ex# periences, confession as the site of production of truth and its convergence with feminist suspicion and deauthori7ation of truth from other sources tends to reinstate a unified discourse in which the story of greatest suffering becomes the true story of woman. /* think this constitutes part of the rhetorical power of .ac%innon?s work= analytically, the epistemological superiority of confes# sion substitutes for the older, largely discredited charge of false consciousness6. Thus, the adult who does not suffer from her or his childhood sexual experi# ence, the lesbian who does not feel shame, the woman of color who does not primarily or >correctly> identify with her marking as such##these figures are excluded as bonafide members of the categories which also claim them. Their status within these discourses is that of being >in denial,> >passing> or being a >race traitor.> This is the norm#making

process in feminist traditions of >breaking silence> which, ironically, silence and exclude the very women these traditions mean to empower. /*s it surprising, when we think in this vein, that there is so little feminist writing on heterosexual pleasureC6 8ut if these practices tacitly silence those whose experiences do not parallel those whose suffering is most marked /or whom the discourse produces as suffering markedly6, they also condemn those whose sufferings they record to a permanent identification with that suffering. Lere, we experience a temporal ensnaring in ?the folds of our own discourses? insofar as we identify ourselves in speech in a manner that condemns us to live in a present dominated by the past . 8ut what if speech and silence aren?t really oppositesC *ndeed, what if to speak incessantly of one?s suffering is to silence the possibilities of overcoming it, of living beyond it, of identifying as something other than itC &hat if this incessant speech not only overwhelms the experiences of others, but alternative /unutterableC traumati7edC fragmentaryC inassimilableC6 7ones of one?s own experienceC $onversely, what if a certain modality of silence about one?s suffering##and * am suggesting that we must consider
modalities of silence as varied as modalities of speech and discourse##is to articulate a variety of possibilities not otherwise available to the suffererC

***;i! ;o!***

Co sumerism Tur
;i! "o! is i e*ita2ly mar0ete% to &"ite co sumers' tur s 2lac0 culture i to a commo%ity t"at ca 2e tosse% a&ay ;artiga E' !ro# o# a t"ro!ology R .T( P"D #rom . i*ersity o# Cali#or ia( Sa ta Cru)
/1ohn, 0outh 2tlantic Uuarterly "AE.-, 0ummer, ($ulture against Jace! Jeworking the 8asis for Jacial 2nalysis//.45)6 One might be tempted to assume that 4ilroy+s stance is largely polemical, but his criti,ue is thoroughgoing, as

is his call to re ect NNthis desire to cling on to Nrace+ and go on stubbornly and unimaginatively seeing the world on the distinctive scales that it has specified.++ *n spite of powerful, novel efforts to fundamentally transform racial analysis9such as the emergence of NNwhiteness studies++ or analyses of the NNnew racism++94ilroy is emphatic in NNdemandRingT liberation not from white supremacy alone, however urgently that is re,uired, but from all raciali7ing and raciological thought, fromraciali7ed seeing, raciali7ed thinking, and raciali7ed thinking about thinking++ /EA6. *n contrast to ;isweswaran9and, interestingly, voicing concerns over NNcultural politics++ that resonate with 5omingue7+s criti,ue9 4ilroy sees a host of problems in NNblack political cultures++ that rely on NNessentialist approaches to building solidarity++ /-S6."E Mor does he share Larrison+s
confidence in making racism the centerpiece of critical cultural analysis. 4ilroy plainly asserts that NNthe starting point of this book is that the era of Mew Jacism is emphatically over++ /-E6. 2 singular focus on racism precludes an attention to NNthe appearance of sharp

intraracial conflicts++ and does not effectively address the NNseveral new forms of determinism abroad++ /-S, -E6. &e still must be prepared NNto give effective answers to th e pathological problems represented by genomic racism, the glamour of sameness, and the eugenic pro ects currently nurtured by their confluence++ /E"6. 8ut the diffuse threats posed by invocations of racially essentiali7ed identities /shimmering in NNthe glamour of sameness++6 as the basis for articulating NNblack political cultures++ entails an analytical approach that countervails against positing racism as the singular focus of in,uiry and criti,ue."@ From 4ilroy+s stance, to articulate a NNpostracial humanism++ we must disable any form of racial vision and ensure that it can never again be reinvested with explanatory power . 8ut what will take its place as a basis for talking about the
dynamics of belonging and differentiation that profoundly shape social collectives todayC 4ilroy tries to make clear that it will not be NNculture,++ yet this concept infuses his efforts to articulate an alternative conceptual approach. 4ilroy conveys many of the same reservations about culture articulated by the anthropologists listed above. 0pecifically, 4ilroy cautions that NNthe culturalist approach still runs the risk of naturali7ing and normali7ing hatred and brutality by presenting them as inevitable conse,uences of illegitimate attempts to mix and amalgamate primordially incompatible groups++ /'I6. *n contrast, 4ilroy expressly prefers the concept of diaspora as a means to ground a new form of attention to collective identities. NN 2s an alternative

to the metaphysics of Nrace,+ nation, and bounded culture coded into the body,++ 4ilroy finds that NNdiaspora is a concept that problemati7es the cultural and historical mechanics of belonging++ /"'-6. Furthermore, NNby focusing attention e,ually on the sameness within differentiation and the differentiation within sameness, diaspora disturbs the suggestion that political and cultural identity might be understood via the analogy of indistinguishable peas lodged in the protective pods of closed kinship and subspecies++ /"'@6. 2nd yet, in a manner similar to Larrison+s prioriti7ing of racism as a central concern for social in,uiry, when it comes to specifying what diaspora entails and how it works , vestiges of culture reemerge as a basis for the coherence of this new conceptual focus . &hen 4ilroy delineates the elements and dimensions of diaspora, culture provides the basic conceptual background and terminology. *n characteri7ing NNthe 2tlantic diaspora and its successor#cultures,++ 4ilroy se,uentially invokes NNblack cultural styles++ and NNpostslave cultures++ that have NNsupplied a platform for youth cultures, popular cultures, and styles of dissent far from their place of origin++ /"IS6. 4ilroy explains how the NNcultural expressions++ of hip#hop and rap, along with other expressive forms of NNblack popular culture ,++ are marketed by the NNcultural industries++ to white consumers who NNcurrently support this black culture++ /"S"6. 4ranted, in these uses of NNculture++ 4ilroy remains critical of NNabsolutist definitions of culture++ and the process of commodification that culture in turn supports. 8ut his move away from race importantly hinges upon some notion of culture. &e may be
able to do away with race, but seemingly not with culture.

Ra! a % "i! "o! are tools to 2e e+!loite% 2y cor!oratio s' images o# ra! as a !lat#orm 3ust e tre c" racism =it&a a C' #ello& at t"e Qamesto& Pro3ect( t"i 0 ta 0 R ;ar*ar%
/8akari, (The Lip Lop 4eneration,) p. H#""//.456 <et us begin with popular culture and the visibility of 8lack youth within it. Today,

more and more 8lack youth are turning to rap music, music videos, designer clothing, popular 8lack films, and television programs for values and identity. One can find the faces, bodies, attitudes, and language of 8lack youth attached to slick advertisements that sell what have become global products, whether it+s $oca#$ola and Fepsi, Jeebok and Mike sneakers, films such as Love Jones and Set it Off, or popular rap artists like .issy Elliot and 8usta Jhymes. &orking diligently behind the scene and toward the bottom line are the multinational corporations that produce, distribute, and shape these images. That 8lack youth in Mew Orleans,
<ouisiana, and $hampaign, *llinois, for example, share similar dress styles, collo,uialisms, and body language with urban kids from <os 2ngeles, $hicago, and Mew Kork $ity is not coincidental. &e live in an age where corporate mergers, particularly in media and

entertainment, have redefined public space. &ithin this largely expanded public space, the viewing public is constantly bombarded by visual images that have become central to the identity of an entire generation . &ithin the arena of popular culture, rap music more than anything else has helped shape the new 8lack youth culture . From "HHI to
"HHS, rap music sales showed a -" percent increase, making rap the fastest growing music genre, ahead of country, rock, classical, and all other musical

forms. 8y "HHS rap was the top#selling musical format, outdistancing rock music and country music, the previous leading sellers. Jap music+s prominence on the 2merican music scene was evident by the late "HHAs# from its increasing presence at the 4rammy+s /which in "HHS, for example, awarded rapper <auryn Lill five awards6 to its pervasiveness in advertisements for mainstream corporation like 2TWT, The 4ap, <evi+s, and so on. $ultural critic $ornel &est, in his prophetic Race Matters /8eacon Fress, "HH-6, refers to this high level of visibility of young blacks , primarily professional athletes and entertainers, in 2merican popular culture as the 2fro#2mericani7ation of white youth . The 2fro#2mericani7ation of white youth has been more a male than female affair given the prominence of male athletes and the cultural weight of male pop artists. This process results in white youth#male and female# imitating and emulating black male styles of

walking, talking, dressing and gesticulating in relations to others. The irony in our present moment is that ust as young black men are murdered, maimed, and imprisoned in record numbers, their styles have become disproportionately influential in shaping popular culture. &hereas previously the voices of young 8lacks had been locked out of the global age+s public s,uare, the mainstreaming of rap music now gave 8lack youth more visibility and a broader platform than we ever had en oyed before. 2t the same time, it gave young 8lacks across the country who identified with it and were informed by it a medium through which to share a national culture. *n the process, rap artists became the dominant public voice of this generation. .any have been effective in bringing the generation+s issues to the fore. From M&2 to .aster F, rappers#
through their lyrics, style, and attitude# helped to carve a new 8lack youth identity into the national landscape. Jappers+ access to global media and their use of popular culture to articulate many aspects of this national identity renders rap music central to any discussion of the new 8lack youth culture.

The irony in all this is that the global corporate structure that gave young 8lacks a platform was the driving force behind our plight.

Stereoty!es Tur
;i! "o! rei #orces stereoty!es'gi*es racism a gree car% =it&a a C' #ello& at t"e Qamesto& Pro3ect( t"i 0 ta 0 R ;ar*ar%
/8akari, (The Lip Lop 4eneration,) p. xxi//.456

2 final obstacle is the unprecedented influence 8lack youth have achieved through popular culture , especially via the hip#hop phenomenon. Koung 8lacks have used this access, both in pop film and music, far too much to strengthen associations between 8lackness and poverty , while celebrating anti#intellectualism, ignorance, irresponsible parenthood, and criminal lifestyles. This is the paradox! given hip#hop+s growing influence, these Birth of a ation! styled representations receive a free pass from 8lack leaders and organi7ations seeking influence with the younger generation. These depictions also escape any real criticism from non#8lack critics who , having grown tired of the race card, fear being attacked as racist. ;oid of open and consistent, criticism, such widely distributed incendiary ideas /what cultural critic 0tanley $rouch calls (the new minstrelsy)6 reinforce myths of 8lack inferiority and insulate the new problems in 2frican 2merican culture from redemptive criticism.

/e real 7 "i! "o! re*olutio is a !i!e %ream a % calls #or it !reclu%e realistic actio Mc1"orter C,,> R1ohn, &illiam 0imon Fellow in 2merican 0tudies at $olumbia Dniversity, 0enior Fellow at the .anhattan *nstitute for Folicy Jesearch, Former 2ssociate Frofessor of <inguistics at D.$. 8erkeley and $ornell, Fh.5. in linguistics from 0tanford, ..2. in 2merican 0tudies from MKD, contributing editor to The Mew Jepublic and $ity 1ournal, 2ll 2bout the 8eat! &hy Lip#Lop $an+t 0ave 8lack 2merica, pp.E'#EE //liamT The politics of hip#hop is exactly like this. 8eing oppositional feels good and makes for good rhymes spit over great beats. 8ut meanwhile, black people?s lives are improving in ways that have nothing do with sticking up their middle fingers. They are overcoming in the real 2merica, the only 2merica they will ever know. The hip#hop ethos, ever assailing the suits, cannot even see any of this, because it is all about that upturned middle finger . The beat is better over here. 8ut what
about the great things going on where there is no beatC Lip#hop, ,uite simply, doesn?t care. &hy would itC *t?s music. Too often for it to be an accident, * have found that people making big claims about the potential for hip#hop to affect politics or create a revolution have mysteriously little interest in politics as traditionally understood, or political change as it actually happens, as opposed to via dramatic revolutionary uprisings. Jehashing that

Pragmatism Tra%eo##

too many black men are in prison, they know nothing about nationwide efforts to reintegrate ex#cons into society. &hipping up applause knocking Jepublicans, they couldn?t cite a single bill making its way through $ongress related to the black condition /and there are always some6. They are not, really, political unkies at all. The politics that they intend when referring to its relationship to hip#hop is actually the personal kind! to them, politics is an attitude. 2ttitude alone will do nothing for that ex#con. Efforts that help that ex#con are sustained in ongoing fashion ,uite separately from anything going on in the rap arena or stemming from it. This means that if we are really interested in moving forward, then in relation to that task, hip#hop does not merit serious interest. Lip#hop is a style, in rhythm, dress code, carriage, and attitude. 8ut there is style and there is substance. Lip#hop?s style, however much it makes the neck snap, is ill#conceived to create substance
for black people or anyone else.

;i! "o!8s call #or a %estructio o# t"e system &o 8t get a y2o%y a y&"ere 7 !olitical actio s to ma0e real &orl% c"a ge are t"e 2est a % o ly &ay to im!ro*e t"e li*es o# t"e o!!resse% Mc1"orter C,,> R1ohn, &illiam 0imon Fellow in 2merican 0tudies at $olumbia Dniversity, 0enior Fellow at the .anhattan *nstitute for Folicy Jesearch, Former 2ssociate Frofessor of <inguistics at D.$. 8erkeley and $ornell, Fh.5. in linguistics from 0tanford, ..2. in 2merican 0tudies from MKD, contributing editor to The Mew Jepublic and $ity 1ournal, 2ll 2bout the 8eat! &hy Lip#Lop $an+t 0ave 8lack 2merica, pp."-@#"-H //liamT The >message> of hip#hop can be fairly described as saying two things. The first one= >Things really suck.> The second! >Things will keep sucking until there is a revolution where the white man finally understands and does a complete "SA#degree turn.> * see this as a message of weakness and passivity. * see it that way for a very specific reason! there is no logical way that the revolution in ,uestion could ever happen. *t may be fun to think about, but in the light of day, it is nothing but
an idle fantasy. The sixties will not happen again. * say that not because * have some problem with how our $ivil Jights heroes made the sixties happen. * say that not because * have some reserved, bourgeois antipathy toward noise. * am not saying that protest is inappropriate. * am

saying that the call to turn the system upside down was useful and bore fruit in the fifties and sixties as the result of a chance confluence of several factors that could never occur again . * stress! it was useful and it bore fruit. * fully
understand my debt to my elders. *t was useful and it bore fruit9then, but now is not then. * am saying that today, the call to turn the system upside down is not effective in addressing the problems we face in our own era, and when wielded, it does little but provide for street theater without actually helping anyone. The problems are different. Jeal solutions will go far beyond telling white people to stop doing

something. Once again= that indeed was the kind of solution that worked in the fifties and sixties. 8ut now it is not. 2nd for that reason, * believe that
politics regarding black 2merica that can be classified as revolutionary, radical, or nationalist disregard the very people those politics claim to be concerned about. Jap of a >revolution,> of we >niggas> rising up from a cage, and you are preaching a message of defeat, stasis, impotence9because what you are really saying is that black 2merica will only improve when whites again change the way they think. &e all know none of that shows any sign of ever happening. *t appeals merely in the artistic sense. Japping (Things suck> and leaving it there is not prophetic but weak. &ack, * might say. *t?s like someone singing >Twinkle, twinkle, little star> . . . and then ust sitting there, as you ache to hear them complete it with >Low * wonder what you are.> Or, more apropos, imagine 1ay#X on Jeasonable 5oubt yelling >$an * kick itC> and the track ust ending there. Obviously, what?s supposed to come next is >Kes, you canPPPP> *n other words, on ine,uality, can we kick itC Kes, we can9if we get back to real civil rights and start fetishi7ing solutions rather than postures. &e get nowhere in thinking that to be political is ust to, as it were, >kick it,> in the sense of making

noise, en oying the idle self#medication of being angry. 1ay#X accusing the 8ush administration of racism in >.inority Jeport> is one
thing, but it is still a static gesture. Le+s saying! shitP * seek more than this in something presented to me as politically significant. *n 'AAS, all indications are that black 2merica is going to overcome rather ,uietly. 5efinitely but ,uietly. >2in?t long for you get y?all acres,> 8lack Thought tells us, the subtext being that ust over the hori7on, blacks will finally get that forty acres and a mule. 8ut no, it?s not going to go down that way, not with that brand of drama. 0ome will never be able to muster much interest in change that happens ,uietly, gradually9or even definitively. $hange it may be, but not interesting. Mot worthy of writing articles about. Mot worthy of mentioning at book signings. Mot the shit. This is because they are wedded to a fantastical notion that change will happen in a way that starkly gets back at >whiteness> and occurs to the kind of beat that gets them moving in their seats. ?These people are, in the end, pleasing themselves rather than thinking seriously about how the nation

operates and how to carve a space within it where black people who need help can get it . Those of us interested in helping people9 which is different from Dtopian leftist incantations9must walk on by. &hat really helps peopleC Frankly, it has no beat. Kou can?t dance to it. *t isn?t in anyone?s face. *t is, in a word9a word used in an original sense that hip#hop has distracted us from9real . JE20OM0 FOJ LOFE 0napping our necks to beats and rhymes will have

no effect on what happens in the congressional chamber. 8ut all is not lost. Dnlike in "H'A, we have the advantage that the $ivil Jights revolution did happen forty years ago, and mainstream attitudes in 2merica did change. They did not change in such a way as to be interested in a black $ivil Jights revolution occurring again. 8ut as the result of awareness of the first one, philanthropists are wide open to funding efforts targeted at poor black people. 4rassroots organi7ations like the Larlem $hildren?s Xone are supported in part by rich white people, after all. $orporations are behind organi7ations like this in any city! in *ndianapolis, $hristamore Louse, helping turn lives around in the inner city, is backed by Eli <illy. *n "H'A, to most people with money, black uplift efforts sounded about as important as saving spotted owls. &ashington may not be set to apply a .arshall Flan to black ghettoes9 and it?s not an easy ,uestion as to ust where the funds would go under such a plan /e.g., recall that flooding bad schools with money results in well# funded bad schools6. Lowever, &ashington does create programs like Mo $hild <eft 8ehind, the Faith#8ased *nitiatives, the 0econd $hance 2ct reintegrating ex#cons into society, and the Jesponsible Fatherhood and Lealthy Families 2ct. There are flaws in all of them. 8ut in "H'A all of them would have sounded like something from the fourth dimension. 2s they would have as late as "HHA. 2s late as 'AAA, efforts that have now culminated in the 0econd $hance 2ct were seen as rewarding the >undeserving poor.> &e have something to work with today. Of course racism is still

around. 8ut in deciding what is possible today, black people must do their grandparents the courtesy of remembering what 2merica was like in the old days. *n this, black people will also do themselves a courtesy, in working from what is constructive and positive about our times. 0moking out one more indication that racism is still alive in subliminal ways must be less interesting to us than coping, dealing, building. *f black people did this when they weren?t even allowed to eat with white people in public, then surely we can do this now. Fretend that black people need the total eclipse of racism to do anything better than okay, and you are disappointing the spirits of our elders.

AT Must .se ;i! ;o!/ <* /a%

T"eir #rame&or0 %oes 8t !reclu%e us #rom rea%i g e*i%e ce( com!are it to t"eir !er#orma ce Rei%'/ri 0ley C,,S R0hanara, (TLE L2J0L JE2<*T*E0 OF (2$T*M4 8<2$%)! LO& 2FJ*$2M# 2.EJ*$2M FO<*$K 5E82TEJ0 ME4OT*2TE JEFJE0EMT2T*OM TLJOD4L J2$*2< FEJFOJ.2M$E 2M5 0TK<E), pp. S'#S@ http!//www.comm.pitt.edu/faculty/documents/reid# brinkleyashanaraara'AASA@aphd.pdf //liam6
4reen+s repetition of the phrase it (doesn+t take) is delivered in an angry and rhythmic tone. 4reen appears to be (loud#talkin) her opponents, in essence she indicates her frustration and disgust with their reliance on expertise. The repetition of the phrase seems designed to demonstrate the irony of experts who identify and define for people what is occurring when people have the ability to observe it for themselves. Even more important, her tone implies distrust for expertise, particularly the kind that often attempts to mask reality or convince people to ignore what they see, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Ler intent seems to be to raise the common knowledge of the average person to the level of real knowledge. *n other words, she ,uestions the normative acceptance of expert testimony in contrast to lay testimony. 0he notes that the common person can make observations about the practices of state institutions and international organi7ations. 0uch observations may be even more legitimate as the average person has less direct connection to the levers of institutional power. 4reen+s argument also represents the significance of social knowledge as oppositional to expert knowledge within the traditions of black communication practices. *f expertise is not a necessity in interrogating the actions and practices of institutional state apparatuses, then 4reen+s argument begs the ,uestion of why the debate community continues to privilege expert evidence. 0uch a privileging of expertise creates parameters through which certain kinds of speakers have the right to speak through public discourse. *t is not that <ouisville re ects the use of traditional evidence types. Mote the following argument from 4reen+s '2J in the octo#finals against &ake Forest! (One of the things that they talk about how O they talk about debate research is a uni,ue space and things of that nature. Ok, granted, we understand that you know, we+re not saying that research is bad or things of that nature, it+s how you use that research is what

becomes the problem.) @: *n other words, the practice of signifyin+ is not as simple as an outright re ection or negation of traditional or dominant practices . The process of signifyin+ engaged in by the <ouisville debaters is not simply designed to criti,ue the use of traditional evidence . 2s 4reen argues, their goal is to (challenge the relationship
between social power and knowledge.) @I *n other words, those with social power within the debate community are able to produce and determine (legitimate) knowledge. These legitimating practices usually function to maintain the dominance of normative knowledgemaking practices, while crowding out or directly excluding alternative knowledge#making practices. The <ouisville (framework looks to the people who are oppressed by current constructions of power.) @S 1ones and 4reen offer an alternative framework for drawing claims in debate speeches, they refer to it as a three#tier process! 2 way in which you can validate our claims, is through the three#tier process. 2nd we talk about personal experience, organic intellectuals, and academic intellectuals. <et me give you an analogy. *f you place an elephant in the room and send in three blind folded people into the room, and each of them are touching a different part of the elephant. 2nd they come back outside and you ask each different person they gone have a different idea about what they was talking about. 8ut, if you let those people converse and bring those three different people together then you can achieve a greater truth. @H 1ones argues that without the three tier process debate claims are based on singular perspectives that privilege those with institutional and economic power. The <ouisville debaters do not re ect traditional evidence per se, instead they seek to augment or

supplement what counts as evidence with other forms of knowledge produced outside of academia . 2s 4reen notes
in the doubleocto#finals at $E52 Mationals, (%nowledge surrounds me in the streets, through my peers, through personal experiences, and everyday wars that * fight with my mind.) :A The thee#tier process! personal experience, organic intellectuals, and traditional evidence, provides a method of argumentation that taps into diverse forms of knowledge#making practices. &ith the <ouisville method, personal experience and

organic intellectuals are placed on par with traditional forms of evidenc e. &hile the <ouisville debaters see the benefit of
academic research, they are also critically aware of the normative practices that exclude racial and ethnic minorities from policy#oriented discussions because of their lack of training and expertise. 0uch exclusions prevent radical solutions to racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia from being more permanently addressed. 2ccording to 4reen! bell hooks talks about how when we rely solely on one perspective to make our claims, radical liberatory theory becomes rootless. That+s the reason why we use a three#tiered process. That+s why we use alternative forms of discourse such as hip hop. That+s also how we use traditional evidence and our personal narratives so you don+t get ust one perspective claiming to be the right way. 8ecause it becomes a more meaningful and educational view as far as how we achieve our education.

***Mi%%le Passage***

*Note
*f you don+t want to read the counternarrative, the 2fro Fessimism 52 has the same argument without the narrative

T"e :AC8s o tological criti4ue o# ci*il society a % mo%er %emocracy argue t"at t"e Sla*e a % t"e /lac0 ca ot 2e ;uma 9 T"at 2ecause "uma ity( #ree%om( a % auto omy are 4ualities %e#i e% i o!!ositio to t"e Sla*e( t"at &e s"oul% tras" mo%er "uma ist strategies o# e+!a %i g t"e circle o# ;uma ity9 T"e o tological #orm o# t"e a##8s criti4ue as0s 4uestio s a2out /ei g 7 &"at is a % &"at it is !ossi2le to 2e9 T"ey say it is im!ossi2le to 2e a /lac0 su23ect or a "uma &it"out a sla*e9 1e critici)e t"e a2solute ess o# t"e o tological criti4ue o# t"e ;uma ( t"e mo%er ( a % t"e Sla*e9 T"eir a2solute o tological %i*isio 2et&ee Master a % sla*e or "uma a % sla*e %oes *iole ce to sla*es a % %ooms our !olitical strategy to o e o# u success#ul re*olutio ary *iole ce. AI Mo%er ity a % ci*il society Our "istorical rea%i g o# t"e relatio s"i! 2et&ee sla*ery a % ci*il society a % "uma ity "o ors t"e legacy o# sla*e re*olutio 9 T"e ;aitia re*olutio co tai e% a % e+!a %e% i%eas tra##ic0e% i ci*il society o# u i*ersal "uma ity9 DAS; :, R1. .ichael 2fricana 0tudies French, 0ocial and $ultural 2nalysis G MKD +"A 8ook Jeview! Dniversal Emancipation! The Laitian Jevolution and The Jadical Enlightenment 0lavery W 2bolition -" /"6 p. "E'#"E- //liam T
Dniversal Emancipation argues against the French appropriation of universalism as the exclusive product of the revolution of "ISH. From the broad focus of Mesbitt+s narrative, the age of revolution becomes a truly global phenomenon and furthermore, the Laitian revolution surpassed that of the metropole in realising the goal of universal freedom. This is not a new story. .ichel Jolph Trouillot, for instance, argued in "HH@ N The Laitian revolution

;aiti Cou ter arrati*e

was the ultimate test to the universalist pretensions of both the French and the 2merican revolutions+ ." <ater, for
another ma or scholar <aurent 5ubois, the Laitian Jevolution Nrepresented the pinnacle of Enlightenment universalism+.' Furthermore, $.<.J. 1ames in the 8lack 1acobins reminded us that the revolutionary events in France+s colony would take the French Jevolution further than was ever intended. The slaves of 0t 5omingue were left out of the universalist claims of "ISH but they used its ideals to press for their freedom. 2s 1ames put it, the slaves

Nhad heard of the revolution and had construed it in their own image . . . they had caught the spirit of the thing. <iberty, e,uality, Fraternity+.- Mesbitt asserts that there is nothing surprising about the fact that the slaves caught Nthe spirit of the thing+ since
they Nneeded no interpreter+ but the fact that they were Non the so#called periphery of the modern world#system in "IH"+ meant that the Ntruth of "ISH could be most fully comprehended+ /-:6. Furthermore, the Laitian revolution Nserves to disprove the notion that there was any

single NEnlightenment pro ect+ but Na variegated complex of multiple (enlightenments )+ /'A6. $onse,uently, the former slaves of 0t 5omingue were not Npassively parroting ideas imported from France+ but Nautonomously exercised their faculty of udgement in order to illuminate the universal implications of the natural rights tradition in ways unthinkable for the Morth 2merican or Farisian political class+ /:A6. *n re ecting a Nlinear filiation+
between Enlightened Europe and savage colony, Mesbitt scrambles centres and peripheries and challenges the silencing of the Laitian Jevolution by asserting that Nit succeeded in displacing the center of modernity . . . not only for a small peripheral island but for the entire world system+ /"-"6. The

revolution is rendered Nthinkable+ through an intricate discussion of the universally operative nature of 0pino7a+s concept of natural law and %antian universalism, which meant human beings were free Nto define themselves in their differential singularity+ /"A"6. For Mesbitt the abstract concept of freedom or liberte emanating from Europe was
reinterpreted by the ex#slaves of 0t 5omingue as libete and formed the basis for the creation of a self#regulating egalitarian bossale state. *n this regard, he ventures where historians of the Laitian revolution fear to tread. For historians, the impact of ideas on the revolution is hard to ,uantify and is therefore underplayed. Le speculates that political awareness came through such Ntransnational 2tlantic sites+ as waterfronts and marketplaces. The

slaves then transformed this Enlightenment#derived liberty into the idea of absolute freedom for post#plantation 0t 5omingue. 0ince Dniversal Emancipation depends on no new research into the circumstances of the Laitian revolution, Mesbitt depends heavily
on the work of $arolyn Fick and the late 4erard 8arthelemy to make his case for the importance popular insurgency inthe making of the revolution. *n their refusal of large#scale agrarian capitalism, the exslaves produced an egalitarian peasant system that could harmonise

social relations without recourse to government, police, or legal code . Le follows 8athelemy in citing social strategies, such as
the refusal of technological innovation, the subdivision of property from generation to generation, and active caco resistance to the outside world that supported bossale egalitarianism. Laitian peasant society is presented as a maroon enclave beyond the reach of the liberal individualism and boundless consumerism of the &est. This seems a pu77ling departure from both Eugene 4enovese and .ichel#Jolph Trouillot who are cited at other times with approval. 4enovese argued in From Jebellion to Jevolution that the great achievement of the Laitian revolution was the attempt

to create a modern black state and not continue the restorationist practices of marronage .E 0imilarly, Trouillot has argued that those who insist on the isolation of the moun andeyo or the Ndualist sociologists+ have Nmissed the depth of penetration of urban civil society+ by the peasantry.@ *n both instances, Laitian peasants are seen to be part of a global process and not the world+s indigestible other . The modern heroes of Mesbitt+s spirited narrative of mass#based revolution are
the agronomist turned broadcaster 1ean 5omini,ue and the priest turned politician 1ean 8ertrand 2ristide. *n both instances, heroic popular resistance masks the much more complex reality of the spread of modern technology, of cassettes and transistor radios in rural Laiti, and the doctrine of liberation theology spread by the grassroots church or ti legli7. The idealising of strategic marronnage and stateless egalitarianism in Laiti is aimed ultimately at Nall who believe that the coming shift from unlimited consumerism to an ethics of global responsibility will re,uire fundamental changes to the sociopolitical system that has brought us to the brink of disaster+ /"I"6. *t might have been more useful to think of the Mew &orld context and not the new &orld order. Oddly enough there is no reference, except for a fleeting allusion to 8ra7ilian music at the end, to other instances of the radicalisation

of the idea of the rights of man in the hemisphere. &hat of 4uadeloupe, for instance, which had a parallel history at the turn of the centuryC 5o other peasant societies in the $aribbean share Laiti+s bossale cultureC Trouillot claims to have learned more about the Laitian peasantry after Nfifteen months doing fieldwork on the peasantry of 5ominica+ than he did Nduring eighteen years in Fort#au#Frince.+ : &hat Mick Mesbitt does very persuasively is present the Laitian revolution as the most radical revolution of its time. Le is less convincing in enlisting the Laitian moun andeyo in his campaign against global capitalism.

/I ;uma ity 1e s"oul% ot a2a %o t"e category o# u i*ersal "uma ity9 A ti'sla*ery a2olitio a % its i tersectio s &it" criti4ues o# ge %ere% citi)e s"i! %re& o u i*ersal "uma ity as a source o# soli%arity9 GILROD 5 RFaul, 2nthony 4iddens Frf. of 0ocial Theory G <ondon 0chool of Economics NH Jace and the Jight to be Luman p. :#"" //liamT 2t times, the movement against slavery was extended into a comprehensive assault on racial hierarchy which invoked an idea of universal humanity /by no means always religious in origin6 as well as an idea of inalienable rights". That alternative

provides my point of departure this evening. *t was articulated in distinctive accents which were neither bourgeois nor liberal'. *t re,uires us to follow a detour through colonial history which has come under revisionist pressure as a result of recent attempts to revive imperial relations. That dubious

development has made it imperative to place the west+s avowal of modern, liberal, humanistic and humanitarian ideas in the context of the formative encounter with native peoples whose moral personality and humanity had long been placed in doubt. The approach * favour re,uires seeing not ust how all#con,uering liberal sensibilities evolved unevenly into considerations of human rights but how a range of disputes over and around the idea of universal humanity9its origins, its hierarchies and varying moral and uridical dispositions9 were connected to struggles over race, slavery, colonial and imperial rule, and how they in turn produced positions which would later be narrated and claimed as liberal. This agonistic enterprise necessitates a different genealogy for human rights than is

conventional-. *t begins with the history of con,uest and European expansion and must be able to encompass the evolving debates over how colonies and slave plantation systems were to be administeredE. 2t its most basic, it must incorporate the contending voices of <as $asas and 0epulveda. *t should be able to analy7e the contrapuntality of a text like Thomas Lobbes+ <eviathan with the introduction of England+s Mavigation 2cts and illuminate the relationship between 1ohn <ocke+s insightful advocacy on behalf of an emergent bourgeoisie and his commitment to the colonial improvers+ doctrine of the vacuum domicilium. This counter#narrative would certainly include the Treaty of Dtrecht and the 2ssiento. *t could terminate uneasily in the contemporary debates about torture and rendition or in discussion about the institutionalisation of rightslessness which floods into my mind each time * navigate the halls of the 0chiphol complex. Focusing on that combination of progress and catastrophe through a

postcolonial lens yields a view of what would become the liberal tradition moving on from its seventeenth century origins in a style of thought that was partly formed by and readily adapted to colonial conditions@ . This helps to explain how an obstinate attachment to raciology recurs. 0truggles against racial hierarchy have contributed directly and consistently to challenging conceptions of the human . They valorised forms of humanity that were
not amenable to colour#coded hierarchy and, in complicating approaches to human sameness, they refused the full, obvious force of natural differences even when they were articulated together with sex and gender. These struggles shaped philosophical perspectives on the fragile

universals that had come into focus initially on the insurgent edges of colonial contact 7ones where the violence of raciali7ed statecraft was repudiated and cosmopolitan varieties of care took shape unexpectedly across the boundaries of culture, civili7ation, language and technology:. One early criti,ue of the humanitarian language and tacit

raciali7ation of the enlightenment ideal had been delivered by the militant abolitionist 5avid &alker in his "S-A commentary on the D0 constitution! 2ppeal to the $oloured $iti7ens of the &orld, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the Dnited 0tates of 2merica. Lis famous text supplies a useful symbolic, starting point for generating the new genealogy we re,uire. Erecting secular demands over the foundation of a revolutionary, Fauline $hristianity, &alker made the problem of black humanity and related issues of rights9political and human9intrinsic to his insubordinate conception of world citi7enship. Lis plea that blacks be recogni7ed as belonging to (the human family) was combined with a view of their natural rights as being wrongfully confiscated in the condition of slavery which could, as a result of their exclusion, be ustifiably overthrownI. Lis address was primarily offered to the coloured citi7ens of the world but the tactical reduction of that universalist argument to the parochial problem of oining the D0 as full citi7ens soon followed. The conse,uences of that change of scale can be readily seen in the humanistic abolitionism that followed. Frederick 5ouglass9 particularly in his extraordinary "S@' speech on the meaning of the Eth of 1uly to the slaveS, spoke directly to the D0 in the name of its polluted national citi7enship. Lis indictment of slavery was a cosmopolitan one in which the elo,uent facts of plantation life were udged, ust as &alker had suggested they should be, through global comparisons. They were compared with all the abuse to be found in (the monarchies and despotisms of the Old &orld /and in6 0outh 2merica). 5ouglass concluded that (for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, 2merica reigns without a rival). Le continued, again echoing &alker! (.ust * undertake to prove that the slave is a manC That point is conceded already. Mobody doubts it. The slave#holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. . . . . . Low should * look to#day, in the presence of 2mericans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedomC speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.)H *n

demanding e,uality based on natural rights and exploring the relationship of debased citi7enship and tainted law to raciali7ed life, 5ouglass was drawing upon the thinking of an earlier cohort of abolitionist writers . .any of

them had, like &alker and other anti#slavery radicals, practiced a chiliastic $hristianity that built upon 0t. Faul with incendiary conse,uences which could not be limited by the heading of anti#slavery. $onsider the way in which 2ngelina 4rimk[ had articulated the concept of human rights in her "S-: 2ppeal To The $hristian &omen of The 0outh! . . . man is never vested with . . . dominion over his fellow man= he was never told that any of the human species were put under his feet= it was only all things, and man, who was created in the image of his .aker, never can properly be termed a thing, though the laws of 0lave 0tates do call him Na chattel personal=+ .an then, * assert never was put under the feet of man, by that first charter of human rights which was given by 4od, to the Fathers of the 2ntediluvian and Fostdiluvian worlds, therefore this doctrine of e,uality is based on the 8ible"A. 4rimk[ elaborated upon this inspired refusal of the reduction of people to things in a memorable /"S-S6 letter to her friend $atherine 8eecher /the older sister of Larriet 8eecher 0towe6. There, she connected the notion of divinely instituted human rights to a growing sense of what it would mean for women to

ac,uire political rights. Ler insight was framed by a deep engagement with the problem of a gendered alienation from the humanity of (species being)! (The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to better understanding of our own. * have found the 2nti#slavery cause to be the high school of morals in our land9the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood and taught, than in any other. Lere a great fundamental principle is uplifted and illuminated, and from this central light rays innumerable stream all around . Luman beings have rights,

because they are moral beings! the rights of all men grown out of their moral nature, they have essentially the same rights. )"" *t is not easy to assimilate this variety of critical reflection to the political traditions inherited by modern liberalism from
revolutionary France. The foregrounding of race is, for example, a fundamental and distinguishing feature as is the suggestion that reflecting upon the thwarted rights of slaves promotes a richer understanding of the rightslessness known by women. Lere, slavery was not only a political metaphor. 2 different kind of connection was being proposed! whoever we are, we can learn about our own situation from studying the

suffering of others which instructively resembles it. This approach makes the disinterest in abolitionism shown by today+s liberal chroniclers of human rights struggles all the more perplexing . The long battle to appropriate the language
and political morality of human rights re#worked the assumptions which had led to articulating the unthinkable prospects of black citi7enship and black humanity in the form of the ancient rhetorical ,uestions immortali7ed in &edgewood+s porcelain! (2m * not a .an and a brotherC) (2m * not a &oman and a sisterC). The liberatory recognition solicited by those in,uiries was pitched against the corrosive power of

racial categories and mediated by the cosmopolitan power of human shame. *t asked that the social divisions signified by phenotypical difference be set aside in favour of a more substantive human commonality. *t promised an alternative conception of kinship that could deliver a world purged of in ustice in general and racial hierarchy in particular. < lig"te me t u %ersta %i gs o# "uma ity &ere al&ays #racture% 7 a ti'Im!erial stra %s i u i*ersal "uma ity s"oul% 2e recog i)e%9 T"ere &as a ro2ust stra % o# a ti'Im!erial u i*ersalism t"at critici)e% %is!ossessio a % sla*ery9 M.T;. - R0ankar, Foli 0ci G $hicago Enlightenment 2gainst Empire p. '::#'I" //liamT Dniversal 5ignity, $ultural 2gency, and .oral *ncommensurability 5o commitments to the idea of a shared humanity, to human dignity, to cross#cultural universal moral principles, and to cross#cultural standards of ustice rest upon assumptions and values that unavoidably denigrate, or that disturbingly undermine respect for, cultural pluralism, that is, the wide array of human institutions and practices in the world C": 2re they imperialistic either
explicitly, to ustify Europe+s political, military, and commercial sub ugation of the non#European world, or implicitly, by indicating a rank ordering of superior and inferior peoples, which could then be used to ustify a more indirect, ,uasi#imperial Ncivili7ing+ processC The aforementioned commitments are sometimes collectively gathered under the term NEnlightenment universalism+ and, as we have seen, they are sometimes considered to constitute the core of Nthe Enlightenment pro ect+. * have suggested already that

such assertions mask and distort a complex reality. *n this case, they obscure the multiplicity of universalisms across eighteenth#century European political thought, each with distinct foundational claims, varying relationships to conceptuali7ations of human diversity and to humanity /which
themselves differ from thinker to thinker, and even from text to text6, and different political orientations toward the nature and limits of state power in theory and in practice. These philosophical sensibilities and approaches can yield remarkably dif ferent political arguments toward foreign peoples, international ustice, and imperialism. Thus, rather than ask whether Nthe Enlightenment pro ect+ and NEnlightenment universalism+ are compatible with an appreciation of cultural pluralism or whether they are at bottom imperiali7ing ideologies, it is more constructive to pose more precise

and historically accurate versions of such ,uestions with regard to particular texts and thinkers. *n this book, * have

studied a distinctive variant of Enlightenment writings against empire, one which includes the philosophical and political arguments of 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder. &hile there is no such thing as NEnlightenment universalism+ as such, let alone a larger NEnlightenment pro ect+, there is nonetheless an identifiable set of philosophical and political arguments, assumptions, and tendencies about the relationship between universal and pluralistic concepts that animates the strand of Enlightenment political thought under study here. &ith this in mind, one can more meaningfully ask what the relationship is between universalism, pluralism, and incommensurability in such political philosophies, and how precisely they yield anti#imperialist political commitments. 2nswers to these more circumscribed ,uestions can be given by better understanding the core elements of 5iderot+s, %ant+s, and Lerder+s political philosophies, and how they differ from earlier /and, indeed, from many later6 understandings and udgements of empire. *mmanuel %ant remarks pointedly in Toward Ferpetual Feace that the Europeans who landed and eventually settled in the Mew &orld often denied indigenous peoples any moral status. &hen 2merica, the Megro countries, the 0pice *slands, the $ape, and so forth were discovered, they were, to them Rto EuropeansT, countries belonging to no one Rdie keinem angeheortenT, since they counted the inhabitants as nothing. /S!-@S, emphasis added6 &hat

philosophical concepts and arguments were necessary for Mew &orld peoples to be counted finally as something and especially to be considered as e,uals, as they were eventually in some crucial respects, by anti# imperialist political thinkers in the Enlightenment eraC *n this section, * focus on what * have taken in this book to be the

philosophically most robust strand of Enlightenment anti#imperialist political thought."I 5espite the many differences in the ethnographic sources that 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder consulted, the philosophical languages that these thinkers employed, and the particular concepts they drew upon to attack European empires, their anti#imperialist arguments intriguingly overlap in important respects. Thus, in this section, * identify and elucidate the family resemblances that exist among their philosophical arguments and rhetorical strategies, and discuss the underlying assumptions, ideas, and intellec tual dispositions that make their version of anti#imperialist political thinking conceptually possible. *n contrast to what is effectively the premiss of the kinds of familiar ,uestions asked at the opening of this section, the commitments of 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder to moral universalism, cultural diversity, partial incommensurability, and the delegitimi7ation of empire are not fundamentally in tension but rather reinforce one another. Overall, there are three

principal philosophical sources of Enlightenment anti#imperialism. The first and most basic idea is that human beings deserve some modicum of moral and political respect simply because of the fact that they are human. This
humanistic moral principle alone, however, was far from sufficient for engendering an anti#imperialist politics. The whole modern tradition of natural right and social contract theory held this view in some form. .oreover, 2merindians in particular were explicitly described by such thinkers as the pure, natural humans of the state of nature. Ket much of this tradition of modern political thought, from 4rotius onward, was either agnostic about imperialism or lent philosophical support to European empires. Mot every understanding of what it means fundamentally to be a human fosters the philosophical materials necessary to build a more inclusive and pluralistic political theory that could serve as the basis of anti#imperialist arguments. *ndeed, as * will argue, some understandings of humanity that are manifestly egalitarian can nevertheless impede such a development. 0econd,

therefore, these anti#imperialist arguments rested upon the view that human beings are fundamentally cultural beings. 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder all contend that the category of the human is necessarily marked by cultural difference= in this view, humanity is
cultural agency. This thicker, particulari7ed view of the human sub ect, paradoxically, helped to engender a more inclusive and meaningful moral universalism. Third, a fairly robust account of moral incommensurability and relativity was also necessary for

the rise of anti#imperialist political thought. The anti#imperialist arguments offered by 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder all partly rest upon the view
that peoples as a whole are incommensurable. From this perspective, entire peoples cannot be udged as superior or inferior along a universal scale of value. .oreover, in distinct but closely related ways, these thinkers argue that our cultural freedom produces a wide variety of individual and collective practices and beliefs that are incommensurable, given their view that many practices and beliefs lie outside the bounds of a categorical udgement or universal standard. &hen these three conceptual developments were brought together, the strand of Enlightenment anti#imperialist political theory that * have identified became philosophically possible. * want to reiterate here that this framework is not meant to elucidate all of the anti#imperialist arguments that one can find in the philosophical writings of the Enlightenment era. .oreover, the distinc tive intellectual dispositions, personal idiosyncrasies, and domestic political commitments of Enlightenment#era thinkers significantly shaped their particular arguments on the issue of empire. 0till, as * will show, these three philosophical ideas play a crucial role in enabling the development of a rich

strand of anti#imperialist political theory in the late eighteenth century . *n discussing the development of a more inclusive and
anti#imperialist political theory, my focus in this section /as it has been generally in this book6 is on Europeans+ political attitudes toward non# Europeans. .any thinkers in non#European societies clearly operated with similarly self#centred conceptions, but my emphasis throughout is on Europeans+ intellectual responses to the fact of cultural difference and imperial politics, not with non#European peoples+ understandings of each other or of their accounts of European peoples. Mor do * examine here the variety of intra#European distinctions between allegedly superior and inferior groups, those, for instance, involving linguistic, geographical, class, religious, and gender differences, which of course historically also legitimated differential treatment within European societies. Thus, * do not intend to argue that Enlightenment anti#imperialist political philosophies are inclusive as such, for their underlying principles do not necessarily /and, in the eighteenth century, they manifestly did not6 support egalitarian arguments against every form of exclusion. 2s * have noted, the first idea that enables Enlightenment anti#imperialism9 first both historically and analytically9is that foreigners are human beings and, conse,uently, that they deserve moral respect, however understood. The development, in other words, of some variant

of a humanistic moral universalism ensured that the shared humanity of both Europeans and non#Europeans would be acknowledged and given some due. The philosophical and political legacy with which Enlightenment anti#imperialist thinkers struggled, as they themselves understood, was one of exclusion . 2s they often noted, ethical
principles of respect and reciprocity had been limited almost always to /some6 members of one+s own tribe, polis, nation, religion, or civili7ation. 2ccordingly, the distinction between one+s own society, however defined, and the barbaroi /others, foreigners6, whether ustified outright or tacitly assumed, influenced not only the anthropological conceptions of, and popular understandings about, foreign peoples, but also legitimated the often brutally differential treatment of various groups. *t is along these lines that %ant expresses dismay, in a lecture on moral philosophy, at what he calls the (error that the RancientT 4reeks displayed, in that they evinced no goodwill towards extranei Routsiders, or foreignersT, but included them all, rather, sub voce hostes a barbari Runder the name of enemies, or barbariansT). /'I!:IE6 *n the long history of imperial exploits, actions that in at least some contexts might have provoked outrage in one+s own land not only gained legitimacy on foreign soil but were deemed praiseworthy, noble, and even morally obligatory abroad. &hile European imperialists in the Mew &orld, writes 5iderot, (faithfully observe their own laws, they will violate the rights of other nations in order to increase their power. That is what the Jomans did.)"S Enlightenment anti#imperialists recogni7ed that such 1anus#faced practices constituted the very core of imperial activity from the empires of the ancient world to the imperial con,uests and commercial voyages of their day. The fact of difference itself lay at the heart of such inconsistent behaviour from Europeans+ initial encounters with 2merindians onward, as 5iderot notes! (RtThe 0paniard, the first to be thrown up by the waves onto the shores of the Mew &orld, thought he had no duty to people who did not share his colour, customs, or religion.) "H Mot wanting to single out the 0panish, 5iderot suggests further that the Fortuguese, 5utch, English, French, and 5anes all followed in precisely the same spirit of exclusion and in ustice. From an anthropological viewpoint, such discoveries of non#European peoples no doubt played a role in Europeans+ changing conceptions of humanity. From Lerodotus onward, of course, travel narratives played a central role in contemplating what it might mean to be, in some fundamental sense, a human being. 4iven that theori7ations of human nature relate, in complicated ways, to changing understandings of the range and characteristics of human societies, institutions, and practices, the European discovery of Nnew+ lands and peoples accordingly generated further, and at times more complex, theori7ations of humanity.'A .oreover, from the sixteenth century onward, thinkers were particularly keen to consult and appropriate the latest ethnographic reports. *n part, the heightened interest no doubt complemented, and may in part have resulted from, what is often described as the intellectual revolution in Nnatural philosophy+ and the resulting emphasis on experimentation, empirical study, and inductive reasoning in fields such as astronomy, but also /especially from the mid#seventeenth century onward6 in the study of human anatomy, physiology, and psychology. 2lthough many of Lume+s contemporaries did not share his hope of introducing (the experimental method) to moral philosophy, there was nonetheless a widespread presumption that an understanding of the human condition needed to take account, in some manner, of the growing anthropological literature that detailed the vast range of human experiences, customs, and practices throughout the globe.'" This turn toward what 4eorges 4usdorf has called Nhuman science+, however, re,uires a stable referent for what counts as Nhuman+ while also upsetting the stability of the term by focusing attention increasingly on human difference.'' *n this sense, the attempt at identifying the most salient features of humanity was often an erratic and inherently conflicted task, as 1ohn <ocke argued it would have to be, given the very nature of our self#knowledge.

T"e sla*e re!rese ts t"e i #ra'"uma 7 ot t"e o '"uma 9 I clu%e% as o ly !artly "uma t"e status o# t"e sla*e "as "istorically 2ee co teste% 2y a!!eals to u i*ersal "uma commu ity9 As &it" . cle Tom8s Ca2i 7 t"e #act t"at t"is ty!e o# !olitical acti*ity simulta eously co tai e% egati*e e##ects #or our u %ersta %i g o# t"e sla*e %oes 8t mea it s"oul% 2e re3ecte%9 GILROD 5 RFaul, 2nthony 4iddens Frf. of 0ocial Theory G <ondon 0chool of Economics NH Jace and the Jight to be Luman p. "-#"@ //liam T
The structure of sentimental feeling articulated by Larriet 8eecher 0towe was instrumental in the formation of a trans#national moral collectivity and in winning recognition of the suffering humanity of the slave whom it was no longer possible to dismiss as a brute. Through her voice and chosen genre, distinctive patterns of (heteropathic) identification appear to have leaked not only into Europe but further afield as well. Dncle Tom+s $abin

helped to compose a cosmopolitan chapter in the moral history of our world . *s all of that potential for political action and pedagogy to be damned now because campus anti#humanism doesn+t approve of the dubious aesthetic and moral registers in which an un#exotic otherness was initially made intelligibleC The scale of the historical
and interpretative problems posed by the case of Dncle Tom+s $abin can only be glimpsed here. 4eorge 8ullen, keeper of books at the 8ritish .useum compiled a bibliographic note included in the repackaged "SIH edition. Le revealed that almost three decades after publication, 0towe+s novel had been translated into numerous languages including 5utch, 8engali, Farsi, 1apanese, .agyar and .andarin. Fourteen editions had been sold in the 4erman language during the first year of publication and a year later, seventeen editions in French and a further six in Fortuguese had also appeared. *n Jussia,

the book had been recommended as a primer in the struggle against serfdom and was duly banned. The first book to sell more than a million copies in the D0, the publication of 0towe+s novel was a world historic event. Though it cemented deeply problematic conceptions of slave

passivity, redemptive suffering and indeed of racial type, it was also instrumental in spreading notions of black dignity and ontological depth as well as the anti#racist variety of universal humanism that interests me. This combination
merits recognition as a potent factor in the circulation of a version of human rights that racial hierarchy could not ,ualify or interrupt. The example of 0towe draws attention to issues which would reappear through the nineteenth century as part of struggles to defend indigenous peoples, to improve the moral and uridical standards of colonial government and to reform the immorality and brutality of Europe+s imperial order. This activity was not always altruistically motivated. Low those themes developed in the period after slavery is evident from the para#academic work of campaigners like Larriet $olenso, *da 8. &ells, Joger $asement and E.5. .orel. The constellation of writings produced by these critical commentators

on racism, ustice and humanity needs to be reconstructed in far greater detail than is possible here . They can
nonetheless be seen to comprise a tradition of reflection on and opposition to racial hierarchy that, even now, has the power, not only to disturb and amend the official genealogy provided for Luman Jights but also to re#work it entirely around the tropes of racial difference. 2llied with parallel

insights drawn from struggles against colonial power, these interventions contribute to a counterhistory of the contemporary conundrum of rights and their tactical deployment . This neglected work remains significant because debate in this field is increasingly reduced to an unproductive ,uarrel between urists who are confident that the world can be transformed by a better set of rules and sceptics who can identify the limits of rights talk, but are almost always disinterested in racism and its metaphysical capacities . Thinkers like &ells and .orel
were alive to what we now call a deconstructive approach. They identified problems with rights#talk and saw the way that racial difference mediated the relationship of that lofty rhetoric to brutal reality. They grasped the limits of rights#oriented institutional life empirically and saw how rights#claims entered into the battle to extend citi7enship. 8ut, their vivid sense of the power of racism meant that the luxury of any casual anti#humanism could not be entertained. They wished to sustain the human in human rights and to differentiate their own universalistic

aspirations from the race#coded and exclusionary humanisms which spoke grandly about all humanity but made whiteness into the prere,uisite for recognition. Their alternative re,uired keeping the criti,ue of race and racism dynamic and demanding nothing less than the opening of both national# and world#citi7enship to formerly infrahuman beings like the negro. 4rimk[, &ells and the rest appealed against racism and in ustice in humanity+s name. Their commentaries might even represent the ,uickening of the new humanism of which Frant7 Fanon would speak years later. The movement these commentators created and mobili7ed persisted further into the twentieth century when new causes and opportunities were found that could repeat and amplify its criti,ue of raciali7ed political cultures and terroristic governmental administration . The political significance of humanity is both terrible and terribly important. Though the concept of humanity makes us guilty, it also is a pre#re,uisite for a politics that can fight atrocity.

Ra%ical "uma ism ta0es u! t"e 2ur%e a % t"e am2iguity o# "uma ity9 I%e ti#icatio &it" commo "uma ity across li es o# o!!ressio o!e s u! !ossi2ilities #or e*ery%ay !olitical *irtue9 GILROD 5 RFaul, 2nthony 4iddens Frf. of 0ocial Theory G <ondon 0chool of Economics Jace and the Jight to be Luman p. 'A#'- //liam T

2rendt and 2gamben are linked by their apparent distaste for analy7ing racism and by their complex and critical relations to the idea of the human. This combination of positions can facilitate hostility to the pro ect of human rights which is then dismissed for its inability to face the political and strategic processes from which all rights derive and a related refusal to address the analytical shortcomings that arise from the dependence of human rights on an expansion of the rule of law9which can incidentally be shown to be fully compatible with colonial crimes'-. Listories of colonial power and

genealogies of racial statecraft can help to explain both of these problems and to break the impasse into which the analysis of human rights has fallen. This is another reason why anti#racism remains important. *t does not argue naively for a world without hierarchy but practically for a world free of that particular hierarchy which has accomplished untold wrongs. The possibility that abstract nakedness was not so much a cipher of insubstantial humanity but a sign of racial hierarchy in

operation arises from the work of concentration camp survivors. 1ean 2m[ry recogni7ed his own experience through a reading of Fanon. Frimo <evi, his fellow 2uschwit7 inmate and interlocutor, who interpreted the lager+s brutal exercises in racial formation as conducted for the benefit of their perpetrators, suggested that racism+s capacity to reconcile rationality and irrationality was expressed in the dominance of outrage over economic profit. 8oth men saw infrahuman victims made to perform the subordination that race theory re,uired and anticipated but which their bodies did not spontaneously disclose. *nspired by <evi, by the philosophical writings of 1ean 2m[ry, and various other observers of and commentators on the pathologies of European civilisation, we should aim to answer the corrosive allure of absolute sameness and purity ust as they did, with a historical and moral commitment to the political, ethical and educational potential of human shame. Though being ashamed may sometimes appear

to overlap with sentimentality or even to be its result, they are different. Excessive sentimentality blocks shame+s productivity, its slow, humble path towards ordinary virtue. 0hame arises where identification is complicated by a sense of responsibility. 0entimentalism offers the pleasures of identification in the absence of a feeling of responsible attachment. 2m[ry was an elo,uent proponent of what he called a radical humanism.

Through discovering his 1ewishness under the impact of somebody+s fist but more especially as a result of having been tortured by the Ma7is, he ac,uired a great interest in a politics of dignity which could answer the governmental actions that brought racial hierarchy to dismal life. Ferhaps for that very reason, he found through his post#war reading of Fanon, that (the lived experience of the black man . . .

corresponded in many respects to my own formative and indelible experience as a 1ewish inmate of a concentration camp. . .). Le continued! (* too suffered repressive violence without buffering or mitigating

mediation. The world of the concentration camp too was a .anichaean one! virtue was housed in the 00 blocks, profligacy, stupidity, malignance and
la7iness in the inmates+ barracks. Our ga7e onto the 00#city was one of Nenvy+ and Nlust+ as well. 2s with the coloni7ed Fanon, each of us fantasi7ed at least once a day of taking the place of the oppressor. *n the concentration camp too, ust as in the native city, envy ahistorically transformed itself into aggression against fellow inmates with whom fought over a bowl of soup while the whip of the oppressor lashed at us with no need to conceal its force and power.)'E &ith <evi and Fanon, 2m[ry shared a commitment to extracting humanistic perspectives from the

extremity he had survived in the lager. *n a famous R"H:ET essay exploring his experiences at the hands of the 4estapo, he insisted that
torture was (the essence)'@ of the Third Jeich and in making that case, shows how these issues should become important again in comprehending and criticising the brutal, permissive conduct of (the war on terror).

T"e alter ati*e sol*es t"e case Mote G> RFrofessor of .odern Foetry G 5uke,Fred, TLE $20E OF 8<2$%ME00, $riticism, 0pring 'AAS, ;ol. @A, Mo. ', pp. "IIO'"S //liamT
0exton and $opeland turn to the Fanon of 8lack 0kins, &hite .asks, the phenomenologist of /the lived experience of6 blackness, who provides for them the following epigraph! * came into the world imbued with the will to fi nd a meaning in things, my spirit fi lled with the desire to attain to the source of the world, and then * found that * was an ob ect in the midst of other ob ects. /8lack 0kins, II6 R1+arrivais dans le monde, soucieux de faire lever un sens aux choses, mon fme pleine du d[sir d+gtre h l+origine du monde, et voici ,ue e me d[couvrais ob et au milieu d+autres ob ets.TI Fanon writes of

Alt Sol*es

entering the world with a melodramatic imagination , asFeter 8rooks would have it9one drawn toward the occult installation of the sacred in things, gestures /certain events, as opposed to actions, of muscularity6, and in the subterranean field that is, paradoxically, signaled by the very cutaneous darkness of which Fanon speaks . That darkness turns the would#be melodramatic sub ect not only into an ob ect but also into a sign 9the hideous blackamoor at the entrance of the cave, that world underneath the world of light that Fanon will have entered , who guards and masks (our) hidden motives and desires.S There+s a whole other economy of skins and masks to be addressed here . Lowever, * will defer that address in
order to get at something /absent6 in 0exton and $opeland. &hat * am after is something obscured by the fall from prospective sub ect to ob ect that Fanon recites9namely, a transition from thing/s6 /choses6 to ob ect /ob et6 that turns out to version a slippage or movement that could be said to animate the history of philosophy. &hat if we bracket the movement from /erstwhile6 sub ect to ob ect in order to

investigate more ade,uately the change from ob ect to thing /a change as strange as that from the possibility of intersub ectivity that attends ma ority to whatever is relegated to the plane or plain of the minor6C &hat if the thing whose meaning or value has never been found finds things, founds thingsC &hat if the thing will have founded something against the very possibility of foundation and against all anti# or post#foundational impossibilities C &hat if the thing sustains itself in that absence or eclipse of meaning that withholds from the thing the horrifc honorific of (ob ect)C 2t the same
time, what if the value of that absence or excess is given to us only in and by way of a kind of failure or inade,uacy9or, perhaps more precisely, by way of a history of exclusion, serial expulsion

Ce%es Po&er to 1"ites

T"eir claim t"at 2lac0 ess is a site o# a2solute %erelictio at t"e le*el o# t"e real o*er!articulari)es %eat" a % gra ts e+cessi*e !o&er to &"ite ess' o ly %ou2le g"oste% ess !ro%uces e##ecti*e !olitics a % a alysis o# *iole ce Peterso G6 R$hristopher, <ecturer G Dniversity of &estern 0idney, %indred 0pecters! 5eath, .ourning, and 2merican 2ffinity, //liamT
&hat * am calling redoubled ghostliness situates racial and sexual minorities in intimate contact with death . This heightened proximity to mortality is not only social, moreover, but material. 2s %arla Lolloway observes in Fassed On! 2frican#2merican .ourning 0tories, black 2mericans historically have had a (particular vulnerability to an untimely death,) from lynching to suicides, from police violence to disease. '@ Echoing Lolloway, 2bdul 1an.ohamed argues that 2frican 2mericans are (death#bound#sub ectRsT...formed, from

infancy on, by the imminent and ubi,uitous threat of death .) ': Tracing the emergence of this sub ect in Jichard &right+s fiction,
1an.ohamed argues that slaves, and by extension, (emancipated) black 2mericans, live under a constantly commuted death sentence. 5rawing from Leidegger+s account of death in 8eing and Time, 1an.ohamed notes that, ( if natural death marks the termination of life and,

thereby, retroactively defines the entirety of life, then this is even more so the case for the slave because he faces the imminent presence of death on a mundane basis ) /'SE6. 1an.ohamed is certainly right that Leidegger+s account of death
does not provide a detailed account of death+s une,ual social and historical distribution. Ket, in (correcting) this elision, 1an.ohamed reduces death to its political deployment. Le writes!` The existential description of death tends to be radically agnostic about the source or agency of death....For the slave, death is not an eventuality that somehow (comes) or (arrives) in the natural course of events . . . but rather something deliberately brought and imposed on him by another, by the master. /"@6 The problem with this formulation , however, is that it figures death as

originally exterior to the slave, coming to inhabit him only via the master+s monopolistic violence . 2s 8auman astutely observes with regard to the modern interdiction of mortality, ( we do not hear of people dying of mortality. They die only of individual causes, they die because there was an individual cause /"-S, his emphasis6. Lence, we ought to say that the slave+s availability to death is first conditioned by his (having) a body, which means that death is both what (comes) or (arrives) and is what the master wields as a form of coercive control . 'I *f finitude were (always embodied in the agency of the master,) then death would name a condition uni,ue to the slave as such /'HE6. *ndeed, by insisting on a radical dis unction between the death that haunts all life and the historical particularity of the immanent death to which 2frican 2mericans are uni,uely bound, 1an.ohamed reinscribes the exceptionalist logic through which the master evades death by pro ecting it onto the slave. *n short, 1an.ohamed+s analysis overparticulari7es death, thereby reproducing the (state of exception) that he seeks to avoid . 2ccording to this logic, the master presides over the slave+s
life and death all the while exempting himself from the death that he deploys. 'S &hile 1an.ohamed contends that the slave, unlike the master, (has always already been condemned to death in the present,) this presumes that the master+s ontology is not also always already put into ,uestion by the spectrality that disturbs each and every present /'S'6. 5eath is not a (final punctuation mark that retroactively defines) the

(syntax) of one+s life /'HS6. On the contrary, death stretches along the syntax of each and every life according to incommensurate social and political grammars. To speak of the redoubled ghostliness of racial and sexual minorities, then, is not to subsume the particularity of social death under a universal being#toward#death that effaces political and social distinctions . Dnlike what has often been said of death, spectrality is not the great e,uali7er. Lowever, one
cannot fully separate the particularity of social death from the generality of each sub ect+s being#toward#death,` as if finitude were reducible to its political distribution, or for that matter, to its external imposition . This does not mean that we should turn our attention away

from the particular political and material losses exacted by the history of racism and heterosexism in 2merica .
*ndeed, the readings of literary texts by $hesnutt, .orrison, and Faulkner offered in subse,uent chapters bear witness to this violence while working to rethink the law+s erasure of minority kinship in relation to the absence that founds all social relations. 8efore turning to those literary readings, however, the remainder of this chapter aims to elaborate further how kinship is implicated in a dialectical negation that

(precedes) any legal effacement of particular kinship relations.

Ni"ilism Tur /A"istorical

T"ey assume t"at a ti'2lac0 a imus arises #rom ot"i g ess 2ut its caug"t u! i a 2roa%er &e2 o# "istorical !o&er relatio s"i!s li0e Islamo!"o2ia a % ati*ism C"aroe yi g > RTimothy, citing Melson .aldonado#Torres, Frof of Ethnic 0tudies, D$ 8erkeley, *slamophobia W 2nti#8lackness! 2 4enealogical 2pproach, http:88crg#berkele4#edu8content8islamophobia-antiblackness-genealogical-approach //liamT
The year "EH'

marked a ma or turning point in the tra ectory of &estern $ivili7ation . Elementary age children are taught famously crossed the 2tlantic. 2n e,ually significant event that year, was the 0panish con,uest of al# 2ndalusOa .oorish province on the southern *berian peninsula established eight centuries earlierOand more importantly , the last ma or .uslim stronghold on the European continent. $ritical race scholars have argued that these two events would not only shift the geopolitical balance of power from the Orient to the Occident, but fundamentally alter conceptions about religious and racial identity.` 2ccording to Melson .aldonado#Torres, of the Dniversity of $alifornia, 8erkeley, the expulsion of the
this as the year $olumbus

.oors from continental Europe marked a transition from an age of imperial relations between $hristian and .uslim empires, to an age of European colonial expansion throughout the known world. The (discovery) of (godless) natives in the 2mericas would also inspire the

great debates between <as $asas and 0epilveda in "@@A on the nature of the human soul. 0uch a geopolitical and philosophical shift, .aldonado#Torres argues, would lead to a Eurocentric, re#categori7ation of humanity based upon religous 9and ultimately racial9differences. .aldonado#Torres has proposed that anti#black racism is not simply an extension of some historical bias against blacks, but rather, is an amalgam of old#world *slamophobia linked to the history of the *berian peninsula, and to the notion of souless beings embodied in popular conceptions about the indigenous natives of the 2mericas.` These beliefs would contribute to an ideological basis for, and ustification of, colonial con,uests in the name of cultural and religious conversion, as well as pave the way for the enslavement and human trafficking of sub#0aharan 2fricans.

T"eir i"ilism tur s t"e case 7 greatest com!arati*e t"reat Mia" 4uoti g 1est i 5F R.alik .iah, $ornel &est?s Jace .atters, .ay#1une, http:88666#solidarit4us#org8node8*',( //liamT *n the chapter, (Mihilism in 8lack 2merica,) &est observes (The liberal/conservative discussion conceals the most basic issue now facing 8lack 2merica! the nihilistic threat to its very existence. This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and political powerlessness ## though economic well#being and political clout are re,uisites for meaningful 8lack progress. *t is primarily a ,uestion of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in 8lack 2merica.) /"'#"-6` (Mihilism,) he continues, (is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine ... it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaningless, hopelessness, and /most important6 lovelessness.) /"E6` (Mihilism is not new in 8lack 2merica. . . . *n fact,) &est explains,)the ma or enemy of 8lack survival in 2merica has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the nihilistic Threat ## that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive. The self#fulfilling prophecy of the nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no future, that without meaning there can be no struggle.) /"E#"@6

Social Deat"/ Determi ism Tur

T"e a##irmati*e8s c"oice to #rame t"e ature o# o!!ressio t"roug" t"e r"etorical a % i%eological #rame o# ?social %eat"@ e tre c"es !essimism a % %es!air /ro& ,5 R;incent 8rown is Frofessor of Listory and of 2frican and 2frican#2merican 0tudies at Larvard Dniversity. 2.EJ*$2M L*0TOJ*$2< JE;*E&, 5E$E.8EJ 'AAH http:88histor4#fas#har1ard#edu8people8facult48documents8bro6n-socialdeath#pdf //liamT
0lavery and 0ocial 5eath was widely reviewed and lavishly praised for its erudition and conceptual rigor. 2s a result of its success, social death has become a handy general dejnition of slavery, for many historians and non#historians alike. 8ut it is often forgotten that the concept of social

death is a distillation from Fatterson+s breathtaking survey9a theoretical abstraction that is meant not to describe the lived experiences of the enslaved so much as to reduce them to a least common denominator that could reveal the essence of slavery in an ideal#type slave, shorn of meaningful heritage. 2s a concept, it is what Frederick $ooper has called an (agentless abstraction) that provides a neat cultural logic but ultimately does little to illuminate the social and political experience of enslavement and the struggles that produce historic transformations. *ndeed, it is
difjcult to use such a distillation to explain the actual behavior of slaves, and yet in much of the scholarship that followed in the wake of 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath, Fatterson+s abstract distillates have been used to explain the existential condition of the enslaved. Laving emerged from the discipline of sociology, (social death) jt comfortably within a scholarly tradition that had generally been more alert to

deviations in patterns of black life from prevailing social norms than to the worldviews, strategies, and social tactics of people in black communities. Together with Fatterson+s work on the distortions wrought by slavery on black families, (social death) rekected sociology+s abiding concern with (social pathology)= the (pathological condition) of twentieth#century black life could be seen as an outcome of the damage that black people had suffered during slavery .Dniversity of $hicago
professor Jobert Fark, the grand#pelre of the social pathologists, set the terms in "H"H! (the Megro, when he landed in the Dnited 0tates, left behind almost everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament.) S Fatterson+s distillation also conformed to the nomothetic imperative of social science, which has traditionally aimed to discover universal laws of operation that would be true regardless of time and place, making the synchronic study of social phenomena more tempting than more descriptive studies of historical transformation. 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath took shape during a period when largely synchronic studies of antebellum slavery in the Dnited 0tates dominated the scholarship on human bondage, and Fatterson+s expansive view was meant to situate D.0. slavery in a broad context rather than to discuss changes as the institution developed through time. Thus one might see (social death) as an obsolete product of its time and tradition, an academic artifact with limited purchase for contemporary scholarship, were it not for the concept+s reemergence in some important new studies of slavery. H &*5E<K 2$%MO&<E54E5 20 2.OM4 themost onerous of social institutions, slavery has much to tell us about the way human beings react to oppression. 2t the same time, the extreme nature

of the institution naturally encourages a pessimistic view of the capacity for collective agency among sub ugated people. 2s a result, trends in the study of slavery, as with the study of dominancemore generally, often divide between works that emphasi7e the overwhelming power of the institution and scholarship that focuses on the resistant efforts of the enslaved. *n turn, this division frames a problem in the general understanding of political life, especially for the descendants of the powerless. *t might even be said that these kinds of studies form different and opposing genres9hopeful stories of heroic subalterns versus anatomies of doom9 that compete for ascendance. *n recent years, if the invocation of Fatterson+s (social death) is any indication, the pendulum seems to have swung decidedly toward despair. T"eir met"o%ology is #la&e%KT"eir #ocus o social %eat" %isem!o&ers social age cy a % !us"es us a&ay #rom !olitical acti*ism9 1e s"oul% recog i)e t"at &e li*e i a &orl% &"ere culture creates o!!ortu ities #or us to #i % em!o&erme t a % &e s"oul% re3ect t"e otio t"at o!!ressio is #orm o# social %eat" /ra %om :, REric 8random 8rown v 2gamben ;. 8rown, ?0ocial 5eath and Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery?, The 2merican Listorical Jeview, ""E, /'AAH6, pp "'-"#"'EH. http:88ebrandom#blogspot#com8&''(8+&8bro6n-1-agamben#html //liamT
This essay is most straightforwardly a corrective to what 8rown sees as the misuse /overuse6 of Orlando Fatterson+s categorical definition of slavery as social death. 2ccording to 8rown, historians have often taken what Fatterson meant as an ideal type definition to be a

description of reality itself. Listorians have long re ected, however, the basic result of such a definition! that it would strip slaves of agency. .anifestly, historians have pointed out, slaves had agency. One need look no further than the continuous rebellions and occasional revolutions to emerge from new world slavery to see this. 8rown+s real goal, though, is deeper than this. *n step with his historical work in The Jeaper+s 4arden, 8rown wants to retell the story of slavery from the perspective of what we might call the micro#politics, or cultural politics, of everyday life. 8rown argues that what he calls mortuary politics, conflict and negotiation over death, burial, and associated rituals, are of the greatest importance. One might make this argument in many contexts, but $aribbean slavery is a privileged field. *ncreasingly, it the worldview forged in the "Sth century experience of slavery and revolution has come to be recogni7ed as central to modernity as such /European, 2tlantic, or even if you like, $apitalist6. .ortuary politics is found to be central to

the world of slavery, to the movement of the Laitian Jevolution, and thus to modernity. One effect of 8rown+s argument, or rather one conse,uence of the argument that he wants to make, is a firm and empirically#oriented re ection of 4iorgio 2gamben. 8rown deals with this in a few paragraphs explaining the limits of an 2gambenian perspective such as that taken in *an 8aucom+s 0pecters of the 2tlantic. 2gamben+s notion of bare life , for 8rown, is

piggybacked into the historical study of slavery as a sort of compliment to and intensification of Fattersonian social death. 8rown doesn+t exactly want to re#open old debates about agency /vs structureP6, but he does want to argue that it is plainly wrong to see $aribbean slaves as without culture, in the sense of without resources or

community. Le cites &illiam 0ewell+s recent definition of culture, commenting, (practices of meaning are better seen as tools to be used than as
possessions to be lost.) There are several somewhat separable issues here. First, there is the methodological ,uestion of how one should think about culture and agency. *n this, * simply agree with 8rown. * prefer to treat culture /or, ,ua intellectual historian, unit ideas6 as a bundle of tools to be manipulated9tools that empower, but also limit, channel, and react upon, those that wield them. Then there is the more empirical ,uestion of the admissibility and utility of the notion of Nsocial death+ in the study of slave systems, say specifically in the $aribbean. Mot having read all the relevant texts, * defer with enthusiasm to 8rown. &hat * have read leads me to believe that he is entirely correct.

T"eir met"o%ology o# co structi g a y #orm o# 2arrier i li#e as ?social %eat"@ !reclu%es li2eratio a % ma0es greater ma i!ulatio a % o!!ressio i e*ita2le Mu"&ati ,E R*tai .uhwati 5epartment of 2frican <anguages and <iterature, Dniversity of Ximbabwe http!//ir.u7.ac.7w!SASA/ spui/bitstream/"A:E:/@"@/"/.uhwati#.ass#Meurosis.pdf //liamT The physical wreckage and spiritual paralysis that is by definition an expression of this image, leads to an agonising realisation that, in life+s vicissitudes, and life+s race of race survival, 2frican people remain undeveloped and fledgling stutters. The images of characters in these novels whose titles are vapid pro ect 2fricans as victims of collective inertia, wallowing in cultural and historical amnesia and disintegrating in irretrievable mentacide. 2s a result , in terms of agency and mobility, the 2frican race remains glued on the starting line, ,uite overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable hurdles in the race of life. Through the choice of titles, most of the writers seem to have adopted a modality that inordinately pro ects social death and a host of other social sicknesses as new forms of social identity in the
contemporary dispensation. &hile their absolutisation of mass neurosis, closure and entrapment might be said to be a reflection of the state of the nation in the post independence period, it is also estimable that such images of social sickness, paralysis and mass neurosis can be manipulated

by 2frica+s anthropological detractors in their

ustification of a static and back pedalling 2frican race, particularly along

The paper also puts forth argument that, the adoption of an axiological paradigm that legitimises closure and race entrapment nullifies any prospects towards racial
the evolutionary spectrum, which is presented as a universal standard of valuation. salvation. *t is an act of defining the 2frican race as doomed. 0uch a definition which trivialises the 2frican existential tra ectory pays homage to the subversive labels that Europe has generously donated to 2frica. 0uch labels include Third &orld= Dnderdeveloped= 5ark $ontinent= Foor ma ority, cultural other and many more. These are designations that bespeak helplessness and mass neurosis.

T"e r"etorical #rame t"ey c"oose i #rami g li#e as %eat" ma0es %isem!o&erme t i e*ita2le a % ris0s e+ti ctio Mu"&ati ,E R*tai .uhwati 5epartment of 2frican <anguages and <iterature, Dniversity of Ximbabwe http!//ir.u7.ac.7w!SASA/ spui/bitstream/"A:E:/@"@/"/.uhwati#.ass#Meurosis.pdf //liamT 2s natural speakers of 2frican languages, there is need for 2frican people to be careful of not using the natural gift that language is to disempower themselves. &hen language is recklessly used, it can become one of the subtle forms
of ideological and pedagogical disempowerment. <anguage constitutes one of the oldest and effective forms of technology that humanity has always deployed for the purposes of transcendence. For that reason, the language or discourse that a people adopt and adapt can

enhance or @ negate survival. Lenry Faget /"HHI! "@6 explores the 2frican possibilities of visualising themselves as finite sites of agency. Le advises us that! *t is the fate of this capacity for agency that is crucial for our attitudes toward existence. Through its sense of agency, an individual or group makes an estimate of its chances for successful self#assertion or strategic intervention vis#h#vis its environment. 0uccess or failure in such undertakings are RsicT important determinants of our
attitudes.

T"eir met"o%ology o# *ie&i g li#e e+!erie ces as %eat" %estroys age cy a % ma0es %eat" a !erma e t co %itio o# li#e9 I# you t"i 0 t"at e*ery 2arrier you co #ro t i li#e mur%ers your s!irit t"a li#e 2ecomes co sta t %eat"9 I# you %e#i e someo e ru i g to!icality agai st you as a act o# ge oci%e t"a e*ery 2arrier you co #ro t i li#e 2ecomes t"e e+!erie ce o# %eat"9 Se*eral e+am!lesJ :9 My teac"er ma%e me &rite a !a!er o a to!ic s"e c"oseKs!irit %eat" C9 I got a 2a% gra%e i class'''s!irit %eat" -9 I lost a %e2ate rou %Ks!irit %eat"9 T"is is su!!orte%J Mu"&ati ,E R*tai .uhwati 5epartment of 2frican <anguages and <iterature, Dniversity of Ximbabwe http!//ir.u7.ac.7w!SASA/ spui/bitstream/"A:E:/@"@/"/.uhwati#.ass#Meurosis.pdf //liamT 0tories in .asango .avi as well the general social picture in .apen7i reflect an annihilatory vision. 0uch a vision centralises closure and entrapment. The story titled (.ashiriapungana) /complex/ difficult situation6 in .asango .avi presents a people whose future is frighteningly bleak. The characters are so overcome with death to the extent of losing belief in the pro ect of life. 2 closer examination on their condition shows that they no longer die once but several times because they have adopted a nihilist vision. Lowever, such a social vision is dangerous in that it subverts agency and participation while entrenching surrender and defeatist attitudes as social ideals. 1 ames 8aldwin
/"H:-!"-6 comments on the ramifications of embodying such a vision. Le observes in the letter to his brother that, (VheV RdiedT before he died because he really believed whatVpeople said about him.) 5eath is so prevalent in this story. The author tells us that! ;anhu vapabasa pake vaiva vashoma asi painge pagara pachingobatanwa maoko 7uva ne7uva. 57imwe nguva aishaya kuti pai7opera makore gumi kambani yainge ichiri kushandirwa naiye

neshamwari d7ake hereV /"E6. Fellow workers were very few yet it had become a norm to exchange condolences almost every day. 2t times he was not sure if the same company would still have the same workers in ten years time. The integrity of a nation revolves around the physical presence of its people. 0uch physical presence depends on a host of other factors which include the emotional, psychological and spiritual health of a people. &hen

death and other forces of degeneration tend to out manoeuvre life and forces of regeneration , existence becomes a nullity. 0ome of the characters even prepare for their death in advance because life is said to have become very short. $hiwome
caricatures such people and presents them as neurotics. Lowever, the neurosis is so prevalent to the extent that chances of survival for the race are ,uestionable. This is the kind of mass neurosis that leads to closure and entrapment. &hen the race loses faith in

both the present and the future, individual and group development becomes a mirage .

***1il%erso ***

*Social Deat" = H1il%erso I*

AI T"e logic o# social %eat" re!licates t"e *iole ce o# t"e mi%%le !assage 7 re3ectio is ecessary to "o or t"e %ea% /ro& C,,5 O professor of history and of 2frican and 2frican 2merican 0tudies speciali7ing in 2tlantic 0lavery /;incent, (0ocial 5eath and
Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery,) http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf6 8ut this was not the emphasis of Fatterson+s argument. 2s a result, those he has inspired have often conflated his exposition of slaveholding ideology with a description of the actual condition of the enslaved. 0een as a state of being, the concept of social death is ultimately out

of place in the political history of slavery. *f studies of slavery would account for the outlooks and maneuvers of the enslaved as an important part of that history, scholars would do better to keep in view the struggle against alienation rather than alienation itself. To see social death as a productive peril entails a subtle but significant shift in perspective, from seeing slavery as a condition to viewing enslavement as a predicament, in which enslaved 2fricans and their descendants never ceased to pursue a politics of belonging, mourning, accounting, and regeneration. *n part, the usefulness of social death as
a concept depends on what scholars of slavery seek to explain9black pathology or black politics, resistance or attempts to remake social lifeC For too long, debates about whether there were black families took precedence over discussions of how such families were formed= disputes about whether 2frican culture had (survived) in the 2mericas overwhelmed discussions of how particular practices mediated slaves+ attempts to survive= and scholars felt compelled to prioriti7e the documentation of resistance over the examination of political strife in its myriad forms. 8ut of course, because slaves+ social and political life grew directly out of the violence and dislocation of 2tlantic slavery, these are false choices. 2nd we may not even have to choose between tragic and romantic modes of storytelling, for history tinged with romance may offer the truest acknowledgment of the tragedy confronted by the enslaved! it took heroic effort for them to make social lives. There is romance, too, in the tragic fact that although scholars may never be able to give a satisfactory account of the human experience in slavery, they nevertheless continue to try. *f scholars were to emphasi7e the efforts of

the enslaved more than the condition of slavery, we might at least tell richer stories about how the endeavors of the weakest and most ab ect have at times reshaped the world. The history of their social and political lives lies between resistance and oblivion, not in the nature of their condition but in their continuous struggles to remake it. Those struggles are slavery+s be,uest to us. /I T"is is a a!riori 4uestio /ro& C,,5 O professor of history and of 2frican and 2frican 2merican 0tudies speciali7ing in 2tlantic 0lavery /;incent, (0ocial 5eath and
Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery,) http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf6 2frican 2merican history has grown from the kinds of people+s histories that emphasi7e a progressive struggle toward an ultimate victory over the tyranny of the powerful. $onse,uently, studies that privilege the perspectives of the enslaved depend in some measure on the chronicling of heroic achievement, and historians of slave culture and resistance have recently been accused of romantici7ing their sub ect of study.E' 8ecause these scholars have done so much to enhance our understanding of slave life beyond what was imaginable a scant few generations ago, the allegation may seem unfair. Mevertheless, some of the criticisms are helpful. 2s the historian &alter 1ohnson has argued, studies of slavery conducted

within the terms of social history have often taken (agency,) or the self#willed activity of choice#making sub ects, to be their starting point.E- Ferhaps it was inevitable, then, that many historians would find themselves charged with depicting
slave communities and cultures that were so resistant and so vibrant that the social relations of slavery must not have done much damage at all. Even if this particular accusation is a form of caricature, it contains an important insight, that the agency of the weak and the power of the

strong have too often been viewed as simple opposites. The anthropologist 5avid 0cott is probably correct to suggest that for most
scholars, the power of slaveholders and the damage wrought by slavery have been (pictured principally as a negative or limiting force) that (restricted, blocked, paraly7ed, or deformed the transformative agency of the slave.)EE *n this sense, scholars who have emphasi7ed slavery+s corrosive power and those who stress resistance and resilience share the same assumption. Lowever, the violent domination of slavery generated

political action= it was not antithetical to it. *f one sees power as productive and the fear of social death not as incapacity but as a generative force9a peril that motivated enslaved activity9 a different image of slavery slides into view, one in which the ob ect of slave politics is not simply the power of slaveholders, but the very terms and conditions of social existence.

1il%erso 8s *ie& o# social %eat" %ismisses tra s#ormati*e !olitics /y #ocusi g o t"e "orror o# sla*ery( rat"er t"a t"e !rogressi*e !olitics &"ic" emerge% #rom it( 1il%erso %ismisses all #orms o# A#rica America i o*atio a % resista ce Regai i g age cy 2y re3ecti g t"is %etermi istic a!!roac" is a !rere4uisite' t"at8s /ro&

CNC O/A

T.RNKT"eir esse tialist u %ersta %i g o# t"e "istory o# t"e sla*ery sile ces a % o2scures t"e la guages o# gratuitous #ree%om /ro& 'A,5 O professor of history and of 2frican and 2frican 2merican 0tudies speciali7ing in 2tlantic 0lavery /;incent, (0ocial 5eath and
Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery,) http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf6 &J*T*M4 TLE L*0TOJK OF 0<2;EJK in a way that emphasi7es struggles against social alienation re,uires some read ustment in commonplace understandings of culture and politics. Listorians and social scientists have often debated the ,uestion of slave cultures

Tur s Case 7 Grammar o# Su##eri g

and the cultures of slavery through residual ;ictorian understandings of culture as the civili7ational achievements of (the &est,) (2frica,) or various other groups, to be attained, lost, or re#created. The meanings attributed to things are often taken to indicate complete and integrated systems of belief and behavior, even identities, that corresponded to distinct population groups. This approach has been sub ected to critical scrutiny in a number of disciplines.E@ &hile culture may still refer to what
&illiam 0ewell, 1r. has called (the particular shapes and consistencies of worlds of meaning in different places and times) that somehow fit together despite tension and conflict, the fluidity of this definition would suggest that practices of meaning are better seen as tools to be used than as possessions to be lost.E: 2nd though culture is still sometimes portrayed as a holistic set of worldviews or attitudes commensurate with circumscribed populations,

historical writers should begin from a different point of departure, highlighting instead particular meanings as situational guides to conse,uential action9motivations, sometimes temporary, that are best evaluated in terms of how they are publicly enacted, shared, and reproduced. The focus would be less on finding an integrated and coherent ethos among slaves and more on the particular acts of communication that allowed enslaved people to articulate idioms of belonging, similarity, and distinction. The virtues of this method are on display in 1ames 0idbury+s 8ecoming 2frican in 2merica! Jace and Mation in the Early 8lack 2tlantic, which shows how 2nglophone black people expressed their sense of being 2frican (in tension with, and in partial opposition to, memories and experiences of the indigenous cultures of 2frica, rather than directly out of them.)EI The meaning of the category (2frican) was not merely a reflection of cultural tenacity but the conse,uence of repeated acts of political imagination.

Claimi g social %eat" tur s t"e a## 7 :I It rei #orces t"e otio o# 2lac0 %e*ia ce CI It uses t"e la guage o# mo%er ity t"ey critici)e -I It a!!lies a s a!s"ot !icture o# a te2ellum sla*ery to 3usti#y its assertio /ro& C,,5 O professor of history and of 2frican and 2frican 2merican 0tudies speciali7ing in 2tlantic 0lavery /;incent, (0ocial 5eath and
Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery,) http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf6 Laving emerged from the discipline of sociology, (social death) fit comfortably within a scholarly tradition

<+t9 /S

that had generally been more alert to deviations in patterns of black life from prevailing social norms than to the worldviews, strategies, and social tactics of people in black communities . Together with Fatterson+s work on the distortions wrought by slavery on black families, (social death) reflected sociology+s abiding concern with (social pathology)= the (pathological condition) of twentieth#century black life could be seen as an outcome of the damage that black people had suffered during slavery.
Dniversity of $hicago professor Jobert Fark, the grand#pelre of the social pathologists, set the terms in "H"H! (the Megro, when he landed in the Dnited 0tates, left behind almost everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament.)S Fatterson+s distillation also conformed to

social science, which has traditionally aimed to discover universal laws of operation that would be true regardless of time and place, making the synchronic study of social phenomena more tempting than more descriptive studies of historical transformation. 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath took shape during a period when largely synchronic studies of antebellum slavery in the Dnited 0tates dominated the scholarship on human bondage, and Fatterson+s expansive view was meant to situate D.0. slavery in a broad context rather than to discuss changes as the institution developed through time. Thus one might see (social death) as an obsolete product of its time and tradition, an academic artifact with limited purchase for contemporary scholarship, were it not for the concept+s reemergence in some
the nomothetic imperative of important new studies of slavery.H

No met"o% #or 1il%erso 8s stu%y 7 treat t"eir argume ts as assertio s <lliso C,:: O Fh.5. from Dniversity $ollege, <ondon /.ary, (8ook Jeview! Jed, &hite and 8lack! cinema and the structure of D0 antagonisms,)
Jace $lass OctoberO5ecember 'A"" vol. @- no. ' "AA#"A-6 These are two illuminating, but frustratingly flawed books. Their approaches are different, although both fre,uently ,uote Frant7 Fanon and 1ac,ues <acan. Frank &ilderson utilises the iconic theoreticians within the context of a study that concentrates on a

conceptual ideology that, he claims, is based on a fusion of .arxism, feminism, postcolonialism and psychology. Le uses a small number of independent films to illustrate his theories. $harlene Jegester has a more practical framework. 0he divides her book into nine chapters devoted to individual female actors and then weaves her ideological concepts into these specific chapters. 8oth have a problem with clarity. Jegester uses less complex language than &ilderson, but still manages to be obtuse at times. &ilderson starts from a position of using ontology and grammar as his main tools, but manages to consistently misuse or misappropriate terms like fungible or fungibility. &ilderson writes as an intelligent and challenging author, but is often frustrating. 2lthough his language is complicated, his concepts are often oversimplified. Le envisions every black person in film as a slave who is suffering from irreparable alienation from any meaningful sense of cultural identity. Le believes that filmmakers, including black filmmakers, are victims of a deprivation of meaning that has been condensed by 1ac,ues <acan as a Nwall of language+ as well as an inability to create a clear voice in the face of gratuitous violence. Le cites Frant7
Fanon, Orlando Fatterson and Lortense 0piller as being among those theorists who effectively investigate the issues of black structural non# communicability. Lis own attempts to define Nwhat is blackC+, Na sub ectC+, Nan ob ectC+, Na slaveC+, seem bound

up with limiting preconceptions, and he evaluates neither blackness nor the Nred+ that is part of his title in any truly meaningful way.

T/ Age cy
Social %eat" is a re%uctio ist co ce!t t"at %oes little to actually e+!lai t"e sla*e e+!erie ce 7 t"is !essimistic *ie& erases otio s o# age cy o# t"e o!!resse% !eo!le9 /ro& ,5 R;incent= 2.EJ*$2M L*0TOJ*$2< JE;*E& 5E$E.8EJ 'AAH http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf //liamT
0lavery and 0ocial 5eath was widely reviewed and lavishly praised for its erudition and conceptual rigor. 2s a result of its success, social death has become a handy general definition of slavery, for many historians and non#historians alike. 8ut it is often forgotten that the concept of social

death is a distillation from Fatterson+s breathtaking survey9a theoretical abstraction that is meant not to describe the lived experiences of the enslaved so much as to reduce them to a least common denominator that could reveal the essence of slavery in an ideal#type slave, shorn of meaningful heritage.: 2s a concept, it is what Frederick $ooper has called an (agentless abstraction) that provides a neat cultural logic but ultimately does little to illuminate the social and political experience of enslavement and the struggles that produce historic transformations.I *ndeed, it is difficult to use such a distillation to explain the actual behavior of slave s, and yet in
much of the scholarship that followed in the wake of 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath, Fatterson+s abstract distillates have been used to explain the existential condition of the enslaved. Laving emerged from the discipline of sociology, (s ocial death) fit comfortably within a scholarly

tradition that had generally been more alert to deviations in patterns of black life from prevailing social norms than to the worldviews, strategies, and social tactics of people in black commun ities. Together with Fatterson+s work on the
distortions wrought by slavery on black families, (social death) reflected sociology+s abiding concern with (social pathology)= the (pathological condition) of twentieth#century black life could be seen as an outcome of the damage that black people had suffered during slavery. Dniversity of $hicago professor Jobert Fark, the grand#pelre of the social pathologists, set the terms in "H"H! (the Megro, when he landed in the Dnited 0tates, left behind almost everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament.)S Fatterson+s distillation also conformed to the nomothetic

imperative of social science, which has traditionally aimed to discover universal laws of operation that would be true regardless of time and place, making the synchronic study of social phenomena more tempting than more descriptive studies of historical transformation. 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath took shape during a period when largely synchronic studies of
antebellum slavery in the Dnited 0tates dominated the scholarship on human bondage, and Fatterson+s expansive view was meant to situate D.0. slavery in a broad context rather than to discuss changes as the institution developed through time. Thus one might see (social death) as an

obsolete product of its time and tradition, an academic artifact with limited purchase for contemporary scholarship, were it not for the concept+s reemergence in some important new studies of slavery .H &*5E<K
2$%MO&<E54E5 20 2.OM4 the most onerous of social institutions, slavery has much to tell us about the way human beings react to oppression. 2t the same time, the extreme nature of the institution naturally encourages a pessimistic view of the capacity for

collective agency among sub ugated people. 2s a result, trends in the study of slavery, as with the study of dominance more generally, often divide between works that emphasi7e the overwhelming power of the institution and scholarship that focuses on the resistant efforts of the enslaved . *n turn, this division frames a problem in the general understanding of political life, especially for the descendants of the powerless . *t might even be said that these kinds of
studies form different and opposing genres9hopeful stories of heroic subalterns versus anatomies of doom9that compete for ascendance. *n recent years, if the invocation of Fatterson+s (social death) is any indication, the pendulum seems to have swung

decidedly toward despair.

*:NC Fro li e *s 1il%erso 8s Met"o%*

T"e core o# 1il%erso 8s argume t is 2ase% i a9 A to io Negri8s mar+ism 29 !syc"oa alysis i #ilm stu%y c9 se+to s co ce!t o# t"e li2i%i al eco omy 2ase% o u co scious %ri*es 1il%erso 8:, /Frank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies O $al#*rvine, Jed, &hite, W 8lack, pp I#S a ones6 The aim of this book is to embark on a paradigmatic analysis of how dispossession is imagined at the intersection of /a6 the most unflinching meditations /metacommentaries6 on political economy and libidinal economy, /e.g., .arxism, as in the work of 2ntonio Megri, and psychoanalysis, as in the work of %a a 0ilverman6, /b6 the discourse of political
common sense, and /c6 the narrative and formal strategies of socially or politically engaged films. *n other words, a paradigmatic analysis asks, &hat are the constituent elements of, and the assumptive logic regarding, dispossession which underwrite theoretical claims about political and libidinal economy= and how are those elements and assumptions manifest in both political common sense and in political cinemaC $harles 0. .aier argues that a metacommentary on political economy can be thought of as an >interrogation of economic doctrines to disclose their sociological and political premises in sum, RitT regards economic ideas and behavior not as frameworks for analysis, but as beliefs and actions that must themselves be explained.>I 1ared

0exton describes libidinal economy as >the economy, or distribution and arrangement, of desire and identification /their condensation and displacement6, and the complex relationship between sexuality and the unconscious.> Meedless to say, libidinal economy functions variously across scales and is as >ob ective> as political economy. *t is linked not only to forms of attraction, affection, and alliance, but also to aggression, destruction, and the violence of lethal consumption. 0exton emphasi7es that it is >the whole structure of psychic and emotional life,> something more than, but inclusive of or traversed by, what 2ntonio 4ramsci and other .arxists call a >structure of feeling >= it is >a dispensation of energies, concerns, points of attention, anxieties, pleasures, appetites, revulsions, and phobias capable of both great mobility and tenacious fixation.>S This book interrogates the assumptive logic of metacommentaries on political and libidinal economy, and their articulations in film, through a sub ect whose structure of dispossession /the constituent elements of his or her loss and suffering6 they cannot theori7e! the
8lack, a sub ect who is always already positioned as 0lave. The implications of my interrogation reach far beyond film studies, for these metacommentaries not only have the status of paradigmatic analyses, but their reasoning and assumptions permeate the private and ,uotidian of political common sense and buttress organi7ing and activism on the left.

a9 t"e totali)i g materialism o# sc"olars li0e Negri is sel# co tra%ictory a % messia istic Pui 2y 8,F /<ee, $hair 5istinguished Teaching in Lumanities O Lobart and &illiam 0mith $olleges, Empire+s Mew $lothes, p. '-- a ones6 5emonstrating Empire+s millennial drift is a complicated undertaking, in no small part because of Lardt+s and Megri+s tendency to say one thing and yet do another. For example, even though they explicitly claim a nonprophetic stance by stating that they can see (only shadows of the figures that will animate our future) /'A@6, much of what actually animates the book is its prophetic vision of the nature and role of the militant, the poor, the nomad, the new barbarian, and the multitude. *n place of specific and concrete analysis9a hallmark of a genealogical approach9they stamp their theory with messianic categories that diminish rather than expand our understanding of productive and reproduc tive life. This contradiction is particularly noteworthy because Empire+s millennialism is what makes it compelling. .illennial rhetoric stirs the imagination toward exhilarating poles of fear and hope , promising a culminating and righteous telos to those who adhere to its tenets of belief. *t is hard not to be drawn in. 2 second interrelated contradiction arises from the fact that Lardt and Megri specifically re ect transcendence, making numerous explicit claims for the immanence of their materialist approach, often drawing on Foucault to help make their case. *n their opening pages, for example, they (rule out) the (idea that order is dictated by a single power and a single center of rationality transcendent to global forces) /-6. Mevertheless, their recurrent appeals to certain categories of thought cast their theoretical framework back into transcen dental molds integral to millennialism, which is both totali7ing and abstractionist in its history and basic formulation . 29 Psyc"oa alytic #ilm stu%ies rei tre c" e+clusio ( co #late social structure &it" sig i#icatio ( a % margi ali)e mo*eme ts Seiter >> O FL5, Menno Endowed $hair in Television 0tudies at D0$?s 0chool of $inematic 2rts. / Ellen ( Je#vision! the limits of psychoanalysis)
from 1ump $ut, 2 Jeview of $ontemporary .edia no. --, Feb. "HSS, pp. @H#:" http!//www.e umpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/1$--folder/Je;isionJeview.html a ones6

Our attention turns from the woman?s ga7e to the woman?s voice in %a a 0ilverman?s >5isembodying the Female ;oice.> Ler formal analysis of the sound/ image relation in terms of gender concentrates on the conspicuous absence of a female voice#over
in classical cinema. This absence symptomi7es the exclusion of the female sub ect from the production of discourse. 0ilverman?s essay has implications for the practice of feminist filmmaking, and it invites the re#analysis of Lollywood films with attention to the construction of the soundtrack and to the way the films obsessively refer the female voice to the female body. 0ilverman discusses the use of the >disembodied> female voice#over in a number of films directed by women, finding Kvonne Jainer?s 1ODJMEK0 FJO. 8EJ<*M /"HI"6 a powerful example of this formal strategy. The final essay in the volume, Teresa de <auretis? >Mow and Mowhere! Joeg?s 825 T*.*M4> is the most indebted to discourse theory. *n its choice of topic, it seems the most pu77ling essay to find in a book on feminist film criticism. Micholas Joeg?s film 825 T*.*M4 concerns the police investigation of a psychoanalyst who is suspected of attempting to murder and then raping his lover. 5e <auretis? choice of this particular film seems to be a kind of worst#case exercise in proving Foucault?s assertion that >the points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network.> 0he also admires the director as auteur a great deal. * cannot summari7e 5c <auretis? complex argument here, but * would suggest her analysis is seriously limited by concentrating on a film such as

825 T*.*M4, which does not offer most women what it has offered de <auretis. These four essays contribute many original and stimulating ideas to feminist film criticism. The emphasis on theoretical perspectives derived from psychoanalysis, however, seriously

limits their appeal to a wider feminist readership. .any feminist filmmakers and critics will certainly be troubled by the dearth of
references to feminist theorists working outside of film or semiotics, and will be alienated by the fre,uency with which the names of the fathers appear here. Only <inda &illiams? piece has the kind of skepticism about psychoanalysis that most feminists demand. &hen .ary 2nn 5oane cites Freud?s case study on masochism, >2 $hild *s 8eing 8eaten,> she comes dangerously close to offering Freud?s reports on women patients

as empirical evidence of the structures of the feminine unconscious . The influence of psychoanalysis can also be seen in the choice of films to write about. &omen?s films and horror films contain a lot of vulgar Freudianism, which makes psychoanalytic approaches particularly inviting. %a a 0ilverman discusses this work of many women filmmakers, such as Kvonne Jainer, whose films deal on an overt narrative level with psychoanalytic principles. 0ilverman excludes other filmmakers whose work has broader social implications , such as .ichelle $itron. 5e <auretis chooses a film that is literally about a
psychoanalyst. 2ltogether they emphasi7e English#language and avant#garde cinema to the exclusion of other kinds of film and fail to consider class and Finally, the theoretical perspectives employed in these four essays have reproduced the heterosexism of their

model, psychoanalysis. <esbianism is scarcely mentioned in any essay except 8. Juby Jich?s >From Jepressive Tolerance to Erotic <iberation! .2E5$LEM *M DM*FOJ. /reprinted from 1D.F $DT, Mo. 'E#'@. .arch, "HS"6. <esbian filmmakers, writers and ournals are consistently excluded from the historical overview in the introduction. Thus lesbianism is marginali7ed to one
essay in the volume and one film in history /as something of the exotic past, &eimar 4ermany6. *n a book that purports to see >difference differently, revising the old apprehension of sexual difference and making it possible to multiply differences,> this is inexcusable. 8. Juby Jich?s article, along with 1udith .ayne?s >The &oman at the %eyhole! &omen?s $inema and Feminist $riticism> and $hristine 4ledhill?s >Jecent 5evelopments in Feminist Film $riticism,> are the broadest in scope and the most accessible articles in the book. &hile teaching feminist film courses at the Dniversity of Oregon for the past several years, * have found Jich?s essay on .2E5$LEM *M DM*FOJ. to have a profound impact on students, opening up a wide range of critical issues and stimulating discussion throughout the course. The integration of textual analysis of the film with its production history and a sophisticated analysis of the film?s social, cultural and political context make Jich?s essay an exemplary piece of feminist film criticism. *n >The &oman at the %eyhole,> 1udith .ayne relates feminist literary criticism to issues addressed in films made by and for women. .ayne discusses the relation between the film and the novel, and she examines both as meditations on the split between the public and the private spheres, arguing that we should consider voyeurism in this context. .ayne?s overview includes women as writers of fiction, as critics, and as filmmakers. 0he places some of the critical ,uestions raised by feminist film criticism in an historical perspective. .ayne defines feminism as >the attempt to theori7e female experience into modes of resistance and action.> $hristine 4ledhill reflects this concern in her extremely useful theoretical summary and analysis, the first essay in the volume. 4ledhill traces the ideas of <ouis 2lthusser, Joland 8arthes and 1ac,ues <acan as they have been used by feminist film critics, especially Fam $ook, $laire 1ohnston and <aura .ulvey. This essay offers both a lucid explication of the theories involved and a careful analysis of the way these theories have directed feminist film criticism away from understanding women in social practices other

than cinema by >conflating the social structure of reality with its signification.> These theories have also pulled feminist film criticism away from considering the >intersection of gender with class and racial differences among others> because they have adopted <acan?s theory of the sub ect with its attention to the constitutive force of language. 4ledhill describes the entrapment that has resulted from these theoretical applications in this way! > The unspoken remains unknown, and the speakable reproduces what we know 9 patriarchal reality.> 0he calls for feminist critics to pay attention to what they have left out as they have emphasi7ed the power of narrative structure, to pay attention to >the material conditions in which it functions for an audience.> &e must not privilege film discourse to the exclusion of all other discourses and practices, according to 4ledhill, and we must attend to the interactions and contradictions among these. The act of re#vision will involve an ongoing evaluation of the conse,uences of employing psychoanalysis, semiotics and structuralism as dominant theoretical paradigms. &e will need to integrate a much broader spectrum of feminist thought in our work. &e will need to listen to women of color, lesbians and working class
women. 2nd as teachers and critics we must keep in mind 2drienne Jich?s words! >Our struggles can have meaning and our privileges 9 however precarious under patriarchy 9 can be ustified only if they can help to change the lives of women whose gifts 9 and whose very being 9 continue to be thwarted and silenced.>R"T

c9 Se+to ig ores ot"er #orms o# racial o!ressio ( erases i%e tity( a % c"erry !ic0s e*i%e ceK re3ect "is i%eas S!ic0ar% ,5 # Dniversity of $alifornia, 0anta 8arbara /Faul 2malgamation 0chemes! 2ntiblackness and the $riti,ue of .ultiracialism /review6
2merican 0tudies # ;olume @A, Mumber "/', 0pring/0ummer 'AAH, pp. "'@#"'I a ones6 One of the ma or developments in ethnic studies over the past two decades has been the idea /and sometimes the advocacy6 of multiraciality. From a theoretical perspective, this has stemmed from a post#structuralist attempt to deconstruct the categories created by the European Enlightenment and its colonial enterprise around the world. From a personal perspective, it has been driven by the life experiences in the last half#century of a growing number of people who have and acknowledge mixed parentage. The leading figures in this scholarly movement are probably .aria Joot and 4. Jeginald 5aniel, but the writers are many and include figures as eminent as 4ary Mash and Jandall %ennedy. 2 small but dedicated group of writers has resisted this trend! chiefly Jainier 0pencer, 1on .ichael 0pencer, and <ewis 4ordon. They have raised no controversy, perhaps REnd Fage "'@T because their books are not well written, and perhaps because their arguments do not make a great deal of sense. *t is not that there is nothing wrong with the literature and the people movement surrounding multiraciality. 0ome writers and social activists do tend to wax rhapsodic about the glories of intermarriage and multiracial identity as social panacea. 2 couple of not#very#thoughtful activists /$harles 8yrd and 0usan 4raham6 have been coopted by the 4ingrichian right /to be fair, one must point out that most multiracialists are on the left6. 2nd, most importantly, there is a tension between some 8lack intellectuals and the multiracial idea over the lingering fear that, for some people, adopting a multiracial identity is a dodge to avoid being 8lack. *f so, that might tend to sap the strength of a monoracially#defined movement for 8lack community empowerment. &ith 2malgamation 0chemes, 1ared

0exton is trying to stir up some controversy. Le presents a facile , sophisticated, and theoretically informed intelligence, and he picks a fight from the start. Lis title suggests that the study of multiraciality is some kind of plot, or at the very least an illegitimate enterprise. Lis tone is angry and accusatory on every page. *t is difficult to get to the grounds of his argument,

because the cloud of invective is so thick, and because his writing is abstract, referential, and at key points vague. For 0exton /as for the 0pencers and 4ordon6 race is about 8lackness, in the Dnited 0tates and around the world. That is silly, for there are other raciali7ed relationships. *n the D.0., native peoples were raciali7ed by European intruders in all the ways that 2fricans were, and more! they were nearly extinguished. To take ust one example from many around the world, Lan $hinese have raciali7ed Tibetans historically in all the ways /including slavery6 that &hites have raciali7ed 8lacks and *ndians in the Dnited 0tates. 0o there is a problem with 0exton?s concept of race as 8lackness . There is also a problem with his insistence on monoraciality. For 0exton and the others, one cannot be mixed or multiple= one must choose ever and only to be 8lack. * don?t have a problem with that as a political choice, but to insist that it is the only possibility flies in the face of a great deal of human experience, and it ignores the history of how modern racial ideas emerged. 0exton does point out, as do many writers, the flawed tendencies in multiracial advocacy mentioned in the second paragraph above. 8ut he imputes them to the whole movement and to the sub ect of study, and that is not a fair assessment. The main problem is that 0exton argues from conclusion to evidence, rather than the other way around. That is, he begins with the conclusion that the multiracial idea is bad, retrograde, and must be resisted. 2nd then he cherry#picks his evidence to fit his conclusion. Le spends much of his time on weaker writers such as 4regory 0tephens and 0tephen Talty who have been tangential to the multiracial literature. &hen he addresses stronger figures like 5aniel, Joot, Mash, and %ennedy, he carefully selects his ,uotes to fit his argument, and misrepresents their positions by doing so . 0exton
also makes some pretty outrageous claims. Le takes the fact that people who study multiracial identities are often studying aspects of family life /such as the shaping of a child?s identity6, and twists that to charge them with homophobia and nuclear family#ism. That is simply not accurate for any of the main writers in the field. The same is true for his argument by innuendo that scholars of multiraciality somehow advocate mail#order bride services. 2nd sometimes 0exton simply resorts to ad hominem attacks on the motives and personal lives of the writers

themselves. *t is a pretty tawdry exercise. That is unfortunate, because 0exton appears bright and might have written a much better book detailing
his hesitations about some tendencies in the multiracial movement. Le might even have opened up a new direction for productive study of racial commitment amid complexity. 0exton does make several observations that are worth thinking about, REnd Fage "':T and surely this intellectual movement, like any other, needs to think critically about itself. 0adly, this is not that book.

t"eres o 2asis #or t"e u co scious mo%el O8/rie L Qurei%i i( C /4erard W 1on, 0enior <ecturer in the 5epartment of Fhilosophy at the Dniversity of 2delaide W Fh5 /Flinders6 is a
child psychiatrist who has completed a doctorate in philosophy of mind, (5ispensing &ith the 5ynamic Dnconscious,) "hilosoph#, "s#chiatr#, $ "s#cholo%# H.', pro ect muse a ones6

*T *0 TLE FJ*.2JK TEMET of psychoanalysis that there is a subterranean region of our minds inhabited by mental entities9such as thoughts, feelings, and motives9that are actively prevented from entering consciousness because of their painful or otherwise unacceptable content. These mental entities, in spite of being consciously inaccessible, are assumed to have a profound impact on our conscious mental life and behavior, and in so doing are thought to be responsible for many of the psychopathologies, both ma or and minor, to which we are sub ect. This con ectured subterranean region of our minds is nowadays known as the dynamic unconscious, and there is no more important explanatory concept in all of psychoanalytic theory. Ket, despite its importance to psychoanalytic thought and practice, and despite almost a century of research effort since its first systematic articulation, the dynamic unconscious is in %ee! trou2le9 The met"o%ologic %i##iculties associated with theori7ing about this putative mental underworld are legio /4runbaum "HSE6, and recent years have seen a growing skepticism about the very notion of a dynamic unconscious and with it the whole apparatus of psychoanalysis /see, for example, $rews "HH:6. *n the face of these difficulties, a number of proponents of psychoanalysis have turned to
contemporary cognitive science for assistance /see, for example, Epstein "HHE= Erdelyi "HS@= 0hevrin "HH'= and &esten "HHS6. Their aim has been to show that psychoanalytic con ectures about the dynamic unconscious receive a great deal of support from the empirical evidence in favor of the cognitive unconscious. 8y variously integrating the dynamic unconscious with the cognitive unconscious /Epstein "HHE6 or extending the cognitive unconscious to cover psychical entities and processes traditionally associated with the dynamic REnd Fage "E"T unconscious /&esten "HHS6, the hope is that the struggling psychoanalytic concept will be buttressed by its healthier counterpart in cognitive science. *t is our contention, however, that this hope is

misplaced. Far from supporting the dynamic unconscious, recent work in the cognitive science suggests that
t"e time "as come to %is!e se &it" t"is co ce!t altoget"er9 &e will defend this claim in two ways. First, we will argue that

any attempt to shore up the dynamic unconscious with the cognitive unconscious is bound to fail, simply because the latter, as it is understood in contemporary cognitive science, is incompatible with the former as it is traditionally conceived by psychoanalytic theory. 0econd, we will show how psychological phenomena traditionally cited as evidence for the operation of a dynamic unconscious can be accommodated more parsimoniously by other means. 8ut before we do either of these things, and to set the scene for our subse,uent discussion, we will offer a very brief recapitulation of the
dynamic unconscious, especially as it was originally conceived by 0igmund Freud.

Age cy Disa% a9 1il%erso 8s social %eat" argume t is too s&ee!i g( %e ies /lac0 age cy( a % ca tra slate to !olitics /S ::

ot

/5r. 0amr .aty, Frofessor of Film O Dniversity of Fortsmouth and $o#Editor O The Encyclopedia of 4lobal Luman .igration, (The D0 5ecentred! From 8lack 0ocial 5eath to $ultural Transformation), $ultural 0tudies Jeview, "I/'6, 0eptember, p. -S@#-SI a ones6

9&*<5EJ0OM+0 &L*TE &2T$L 0EE0 JE5 OM 8<2$%! 0O.E &E2%ME00E0 2 few pages into Jed, &hite and 8lack, * feared that it would ust be a matter of time before &ilderson+s blackassocialdeath idea and multiple attacks on issues and scholars he disagrees

with run /him6 into /theoretical6 trouble. This happens in chapter two, NThe Marcissistic 0lave+, where he criti,ues black film theorists and
books. For example, &ilderson declares that 4ladstone Kearwood+s 8lack Film as 0ignifying Fractice /'AAA6 Nbetrays a kind of conceptual anxiety with respect to the historical ob ect of study9 ... it clings, anxiously, to the film astextaslegitimateob ect of 8lack cinema.+ /:'6 Le then ,uotes from Kearwood+s book to highlight N ust how vague the aesthetic foundation of Kearwood+s attempt to construct a canon can be+. /:-6 2nd yet &ilderson+s

highlighting is problematic because it overlooks the N5iaspora+ or N2frican 5iaspora+, a key component in Kearwood+s thesis that, crucially, neither navelga7es /that is, at the D0 or black 2merica6 nor pretends to properly engage with black film. Furthermore, &ilderson separates the different waves of black film theory and approaches them, only, in terms of how a most recent one might challenge its precedent. 2gain, his approach is problematic because it does not mention or emphasise the interconnectivity of/in black film theory. 2s a case in point, &ilderson does not link Tommy <ott+s
mobilisation of Third $inema for black film theory to Kearwood+s idea of 2frican 5iaspora. /:E6 2dditionally, of course, &ilderson seems unaware that Third $inema itself has been fundamentally ,uestioned since <ott+s "HHAs+ theory of black film was formulated. Ket another conse,uence of ignoring the 2frican 5iaspora is that it exposes &ilderson+s corpus of films as unable to carry the weight of the transnational

argument he attempts to advance. Lere, beyond the D0centricity or Nsocial and political specificity of RhisT filmography+, /H@6 * am talking

about &ilderson+s choice of films. For example, 2ntwone Fisher /dir. 5en7el &ashington, 'AA'6 is attacked unfairly for failing to acknowledge Na grid of captivity across spatial dimensions of the 8lack (body), the 8lack (home), and the 8lack (community)+ /"""6 while films like 2lan and 2lbert Lughes+s .enace ** 0ociety /"HH-6, overlooked, do acknowledge the same grid and, additionally, problematise 0treet Terrorism Enforcement and Frevention 2ct /0TEF6 policing. The above examples expose the fact of &ilderson+s dubious and ,uestionable conclusions on black film. Jed, &hite and 8lack

is particularly undermined by &ilderson+s propensity for exaggeration and blinkeredness . *n chapter nine, N(0avage)

Megrophobia+, he writes! The philosophical anxiety of 0kins is all too aware that through the .iddle Fassage, 2frican culture became 8lack Nstyle+ ... 8lackness can be placed and displaced with limitless fre,uency and across untold territories, by whoever so chooses. .ost important, there is nothing real 8lack people can do to either check or direct this process ... 2nyone can say Nnigger+ because anyone can be a Nnigger+. /'-@6I 0imilarly, in chapter ten, N2 $risis in the $ommons+, &ilderson addresses the issue of N8lack time+. 8lack is irredeemable, he argues, because, at no time in history had it been deemed, or deemed through the right historical moment and place. *n other words, the black moment and place are not right because they are Nthe ship hold of the .iddle Fassage+! Nthe most coherent temporality ever deemed as 8lack time+ but also Nthe (moment) of no time at all on the map of no place at all+. /'IH6 Mot only does Finho+s more mature analysis expose this point as preposterous /see below6, * also wonder what &ilderson makes of the countless historians+ and sociologists+ works on slave ships, shipboard insurrections and/during the .iddle Fassage,S or of groundbreaking a77 studies books on crosscultural dialogue like The Other 0ide of Mowhere /'AAE6. Mowhere has another side, but once &ilderson theorises

blacks as socially and ontologically dead while dismissing a77 as Nbelonging nowhere and to no one, simply there for the taking+, /''@6 there seems to be no way back. *t is therefore hardly surprising that &ilderson ducks the need to provide a solution or alternative to both his sustained bashing of blacks and anti 8lackness.H <ast but not least, Jed, &hite and 8lack ends like a badly plugged announcement of a bad Lollywood film+s badly planned se,uel !
NLow does one deconstruct lifeC &ho would benefit from such an undertakingC The coffleapproaches with its answers in tow.+ /-EA6

29 De yi g Age cy is i %e!e %e tly &ro g 7 s"oul% 2e re3ecte% Ma"o ey G5C

/.2JTL2 J. .2LOMEK O 2ssociate Frofessor, Dniversity of .iami 0chool of <aw. 0outhern $alifornia <aw Jeview O Dniversity of 0outhern $alifornia O .arch, "HH' O (Exit! Fower and the *dea of <eaving in <ove, &ork and the $onfirmation Learings) :@ 0. $al. <. Jev. "'S- O lawrev= lexis a ones6 Once exit is defined as the appropriate response to abuse, then staying can be treated as evidence that abuse never happened . *f abuse is asserted, >failure> to exit must then be explained. &hen that >failure> becomes the point of in,uiry, explanation in law and popular culture tends to emphasi7e victimi7ation and implicitly deny agency in the person who has been harmed. 5enying agency contradicts the self#understanding of most of our society, including many who share characteristics and experiences of oppression with the person who is being harmed. The conservative insistence that we are untrammeled actors plays on this sensibility, merging re ection of victimi7ation with an ideology that denies oppression. The privati7ation of assaults on women makes it particularly difficult to identify a model of oppression and resistance, rather than one of victimi7ation and inconsistent personal behavior .

Fatalism Disa% a9 1il%erso 8s o tology ma0es #atalism i e*ita2le a % o##ers o alt "# (teaches film at Portsmouth University (U !. "e researches #race$, the #postcolonial$, diaspora, the transnational &aribbean cinemas and film festivals! $$

and

film

#genre$,

%frican

and

('a(r )aty, *he U' +ecentred, &ultural 'tudies ,eview, volume -. number / 'eptember /0-- a1ones! *n chapter nine, N(0avage) Megrophobia+, he writes! The philosophical anxiety of 0kins is all too aware that through the .iddle Fassage, 2frican culture became 8lack Nstyle+ ... 8lackness can be placed and displaced with limitless fre,uency and across untold territories, by whoever so chooses. .ost important,

there is nothing real 8lack people can do to either check or direct this

process

... 2nyone can say Nnigger+ because anyone can be a Nnigger+. /'-@6I 0imilarly, in chapter ten, N2 $risis in the $ommons+, &ilderson

addresses the issue of N8lack time+. 8lack is irredeemable, he argues, because, at no time in history had it been deemed, or deemed through the right historical moment and place. *n other words, the black moment and place are not right because they are Nthe ship hold of the .iddle Fassage+! Nthe most coherent temporality ever deemed as 8lack time+ but also Nthe (moment) of no time at all on the map of no place at all+. /'IH 6 Mot

only does Finho+s more mature analysis expose this point as preposterous

/see below6,

* also wonder what

&ilderson makes of the countless historians+ and sociologists+ works on slave ships, shipboard insurrections and/during the .iddle Fassage,S or of groundbreaking a77studies books on crosscultural dialogue like The Other 0ide of Mowhere /'AAE6. Mowhere has another side, but once &ilderson theorises blacks as socially and ontologically dead while dismissing a77 as Nbelonging nowhere and to no one, simply there for the taking+, /''@6 there seems to be no way back. *t is therefore hardly surprising that &ilderson ducks the need to provide a solution or alternative to both his sustained bashing of blacks and anti 8lackness.H <ast but not least, Jed, &hite and 8lack ends
like a badly plugged announcement of a bad Lollywood film+s badly planned se,uel! NLow does one deconstruct lifeC &ho would benefit from such an undertakingC The coffle approaches with its answers in tow.+ /-EA6

29 Tur s t"eir args 7 greatest com!arati*e t"reat Mia" ,uoting &est in 5F

/.alik .iah, $ornel &est?s Jace .atters, .ay#1une, http!//www.solidarity#us.org/node/-AIH a ones6 *n the chapter, (Mihilism in 8lack 2merica,) &est observes ( The liberal/conservative discussion

conceals the most basic issue now facing 8lack 2merica! the nihilistic threat to its very existence . This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and political powerlessness ## though economic well#being and political clout are re,uisites for meaningful 8lack progress. *t is primarily a ,uestion of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression,
personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in 8lack 2merica.) /"'#"-6 (Mihilism,) he continues, (is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine ... it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaningless, hopelessness, and /most important6 lovelessness.) /"E6 (Mihilism is not new in 8lack 2merica. . . . *n fact,) &est explains,) the ma or enemy of 8lack survival in 2merica

has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the nihilistic Threat ## that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive. The self# fulfilling prophecy of the nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no future, that without meaning there can be no struggle.) /"E#"@6 1il%erso is too e+treme i "is o!!ositio to re#ormism 7 "is 2oo0 %oes ot o##er muc" o# a co tem!orary strategy9 Gra"am G5

5r. 0hane 4raham O 2ssociate Frofessor of English at Dtah 0tate Dniversity. Jeview of Frank 8. &ilderson ***, *ncognegro! 2 .emoir of Exile and 2partheid, $ambridge, .2, 0outh End Fress, 'AAS, @A" pp. /pbk6 HIS#A#SH:A#SIS-#@ O 0afundi! The 1ournal of 0outh 2frican and 2merican 0tudies ;ol. "A, Mo. E, October 'AAH, EIHOEHE O via Taylor W Francis Online 5atabase a ones6 &ere you upset, offended, or outraged by 8reyten 8reytenbach?s recent article in Larper?s .aga7ine, in which he took Melson .andela to task for all the failings of the post#apartheid administrationsC *f you were bothered by 8reytenbach?s piece, * would recommend avoiding Frank &ilderson?s *ncognegro. *n it, the author recalls

declaring in "HSH that .adiba would be of greater service to the revolution dead than alive. Throughout the book he repeatedly rails against (.andela?s people ) as agents for an accommodationist, neo#

liberal agenda. Le even recounts a speech he attended in "HHE by the newly elected state president, in which he stood up and grilled .andela about plans for the Jeconstruction and 5evelopment Frogram. This all culminated in "HH@ with a phone call from a .ail W 4uardian reporter who asked for a comment because (Melson .andela thinks you+re a threat to national security) /EIA6. The book acket declares that &ilderson is one of only two 2mericans ever to be a member of the 2frican Mational $ongress /2M$6. 2n 2frican 2merican, he first visited 0outh 2frica in "HSH on a brief research expedition, during which he met the Tswana woman he would later marry. Le settled more permanently in 1ohannesburg in "HH", where he was soon elected to the executive council of the local and sub#regional branches of the 2M$. 8ut even as he was holding aboveground positions in the newly unbanned liberation party, he was also working with an underground cell loyal to $hris Lani and &innie .andela, in defiance of Melson .andela?s decision to disband Dmkhonto we 0i7we and cease all covert operations. *n this capacity, &ilderson (gathered information on RvisitingT 2mericans and worked on psychological warfare, propaganda, disinformation, and general political analysis) /'I:6. From his position as lecturer, first at &its Dniversity and later at the 0oweto campus of ;ista Dniversity, he was charged with capturing (as much territory /real and imagined6 of the university#industrial complex before the 2M$ came to power as possible) /"E-6. &ilderson?s perspective on the events of "HSHO"HH: is uni,ue! he sees the seminal moments of 0outh 2frica?s transition both as an insider /as an elected official in the 2M$6 and as an outsider who never fully gains the trust of the party?s power structure. 2nd whereas even a couple of years ago his condemnations of the (Mew 0outh 2frica) and its economic policies might have struck many middle#class 0outh 2frican readers as strident and delusional, the predictions he recalls making now seem undeniably prescient in light of the recent power shift within the 2M$. 2fter all, one wonders whether 1acob Xuma?s demagoguery would have ever found political traction had Thabo .beki?s wing of the party not succeeded in prioriti7ing laisse7#faire liberalism above material reparations for the poor. Lad &ilderson been content to

write a political memoir of his modest but interesting role in the 0outh 2frican transition, it would have been a slender but compelling, occasionally even gripping, book. *nstead, &ilderson gives us a sprawling @AA#page tome that attempts to serve not ust as political memoir but also as autobiography, therapeutic exercise, and character assassination against former colleagues, to whom he gives very thinly veiled pseudonyms. 2s an account of growing up black in the white Dnited 0tates, *ncognegro experience in 2merica covers familiar ground and adds little to our understanding of that experience beyond fresh layers of indignation and rage. Re3ect 1il%erso 8s call #or a2solutism 7 o mo*eme t is a ti'esta2lis"me t e oug" #or "im Gra"am G5
5r. 0hane 4raham O 2ssociate Frofessor of English at Dtah 0tate Dniversity. Jeview of Frank 8. &ilderson ***, *ncognegro! 2 .emoir of Exile and 2partheid, $ambridge, .2, 0outh End Fress, 'AAS, @A" pp. /pbk6 HIS#A#SH:A#SIS-#@ O 0afundi! The 1ournal of 0outh 2frican and 2merican 0tudies, ;ol. "A, Mo. E, October 'AAH, EIHOEHE O via Taylor W Francis Online 5atabase a ones6

offers a few engaging stories! he visited Fred Lampton?s house in $hicago at age thirteen, soon after Lampton had been shot dead by police= and he took part in battles with the police and national guard in 8erkeley in "H:H. Otherwise, though, the book?s representation of the black

author would no doubt respond to any criticism /of the book?s tone, for by attacking the reviewer as a deluded ,uisling of the global capitalist establishment and (blah, blah, blah) /to ,uote &ilderson?s own paraphrase of .andela?s
instance, or of its clumsy, self#consciously postmodern structure, which umps randomly between time frames 6 response to his aforementioned ,uestion6. *n my pre#emptive self#defence, * can only emphasi7e again that it is this memoir?s narcissism and self# indulgent tone that made it an unpleasant read for me, not its politics. There is no doubt that the revolution let down a lot of

The difficulty of reviewing a book such as this is that the

people. 8ut it was always going to let down Frank &ilderson because it seems that, for him, nothing can ever be pure enough.

CNC O/A
Multi!le Das to 1il%erso 8s met"o% T"ree reaso s "is argume ts are grou %e% i !oor t"eory :' ;is relia ce o Negri8s Mar+ism is ri%%le% &it" co tra%ictio s a % relies o a u #easi2le( messia ic rescue #rom materialism' #alls !rey to totali)i g met"o%ology' t"at8s Pui 2y C' .se o# !syc"oa alytic #ilm lea%s to #urt"er e+clusio ' margi ali)es &ome ( e tre c"es !atriarc"y( &"ic" %estroys a y "o!e #or i tersectio al colla2oratio agai st o!!ressio ' t"at8s O8/rie -' A%o!ts Se+to 8s a%*ersarial( /lac0'o ly i%eology' %eli2erately ig ores mi+e% causes o# i%e tity 2y relyi g o a sole race #ocus T"is c"erry !ic0s "istorical e+am!les o# o!!ressio a % %estroys a y o!!ortu ities at 2uil%i g coalitio s' tur s case' t"at8s S!ic0ar% I %e!e %e tly( 1il%erso 8s argume ts %estroy age cy a % lea% to #atalism T"ey !ortray o!!ressio as i e*ita2le a % %e y t"e age cy o# tra s#ormati*e 2lac0 mo*eme ts T"is lea%s to a loss o# "o!e &"ic" is t"e si gle most e##ecti*e &ay to u %ermi e tra s#ormati*e struggles' t"at8s /a a % Mica" A % #i ally t"e !artici!atio DA' 1il%erso is ra%ical 2y t"e most li2eral o# sta %ar%s Rails agai st Ma %ela( la2els !romi e t lea%ers as sellouts T"is alie ates almost e*ery acti*e mo*eme t' o e are !ure e oug" to meet 1il%erso 8s i%eology Creates im!ossi2le sta %ar%s &"ic" a2a %o !ragmatic re#orm

;is u *eri#ia2le ge erali)atio s are u %ersta %a2le 2ecause "e relies o# Laca ia a % Mar+ist structuralism 7 1e8ll 4uote 1il%erso 8s met"o% sectio 1il%erso 8:, /Frank, 2ssoc prof of 2frican 2merican 0tudies O $al#*rvine, Jed, &hite, W 8lack, a ones6
2 Mote on .ethod '-#'E Throughout this book * use &hite, Luman, .aster, 0ettler, and sometimes non#8lack interchangeably to connote a paradigmatic entity that exists ontologically as a position of life in relation to the 8lack or 0lave position, one of death. The Jed, *ndigenous, or >0avage> position exists liminally as half#death and half#life between the 0lave /8lack6 and the Luman /&hite, or non#8lack6. * capitali7e the words Jed, &hite, 8lack, 0lave, 0avage, and Luman in order to assert their importance as ontological positions and to stress the value of theori7ing power politically rather than culturally. * want to move from a politics of culture to a culture of politics /as * argue in chapter a6. $apitali7ing these words is consistent with my argument that the array of identities that they contain is important but inessential to an analysis of the paradigm of power in which they are positioned. Jeaders wedded to cultural diversity and historical specificity may find such shorthand wanting. 8ut those who may be put off by my pressing historical and

+tJ met"o% i %ict

cultural particularities#culled from history, sociology, and cultural studies, yet neither historical, sociological, nor, oddly enough, cultural#should bear in mind that there are precedents for such methods, two of which make cultural studies and much of social science possible! the methods of %arl .arx and 1ac,ues <acan. .arx pressed the microcosm of the English manufacturer into the service of a pro ect that sought to explain economic relationality on a global scale. <acan?s exemplary cartography was even smaller! a tiny room with not much more than a sofa and a chair, the
room of the psychoanalytic encounter. 2s 1onathan <ee reminds us, at stake in <acan?s account of the psychoanalytic encounter is the reali7ation of sub ectivity itself, >the very being of the sub ect. >-" * argue that >0avage? Luman, and 0lave should be theori7ed in the way we theori7e worker and capitalist as positions first and as identities second, or as we theori7e capitalism as a paradigm rather than as an experience#that is, before they take on national origin or gendered specfficity Throughout the course of this book * argue that >0avage? Luman, and 0lave are more essential to our understanding of the truth of institutionality than the positions from political or libidinal economy. For in this trio we find the key to our world?s creation as well as to its undoing. This argument, as it relates to political economy, continues in chapter i, >The Juse of 2nalogy!? *n chapter ', >The Marcissistic 0lave,> * shift focus from political economy to libidinal economy before undertaking more concrete analyses of films in parts ', -, and E. Mo one makes films and declares their own films >Luman> while simultaneously asserting that other films /Jed and 8lack6 are not Luman cinema. $ivil society represents itself to itself as being infinitely inclusive, and its technologies of hegemony /including cinema6 are mobili7ed to manufacture this assertion, not to dissent from it. *n my ,uest to interrogate the bad faith of the civic >invitation=? * have chosen &hite cinema as the sine ,ua non of Luman cinema. Films can be thought of as one of an ensemble of discursive practices mobili7ed by civil society to >invite!? or interpellate, 8lacks to the same variety of social identities that other races are able to embody without contradiction, identities such as worker, soldier, immigrant, brother, sister, father, mother, and citi7en. The bad faith of this invitation, this faux interpe<lation, can be discerned by deconstructing the way cinema?s narrative strategies displace our consideration and understanding of the ontological status of 8lacks /social death6 onto a series of fanciful stories that are organi7ed around conflicts which are the purview only of those who are not natally alienated, generally dishonored, or open to gratuitous violence, in other words, people who are &hite or colored but who are not 8lack. /* leave aside, for the moment, the liminality of the Mative 2merican position#oscillating as it does between the living and the dead.6 *mmigrant cinema of those who are not &hite would have sufficed as well= but, due to its exceptional capacity to escape racial markers, &hiteness is the most impeccable embodiment of what it means to be Luman. 2s Jichard 5yer writes, >Laving no content, we R&hite peopleT can?t see that we have anything that accounts for our position of privilege and power . . . . The e,uation of being white with being human secures a position of power!? Le goes on to explain how >the privilege of being white... is not to be sub ected to stereotyping in relation to one?s whiteness. ?&hite people are stereotyped in terms of gender, nation, class, sexuality, ability and so on, but the overt point of such typification is gender, nation, etc. &hiteness generally colonises the stereotypical definition of all social categories other than those of race.? Dnlike 5yer, * do not meditate on the representational power of &hiteness, >that it be made strange!? divested of its imperial capacity, and thus make way for representational practices in cinema and beyond that serve as aesthetic accompaniments for a more egalitarian civil society in which &hites and non#&hites could live in harmony. <audable as that dream is, * do not share 5yer?s assumption that we are all Luman. 0ome of us are only part Luman />0avage>6 and some of us are 8lack /0lave6. * find his argument that &hiteness possesses the easiest claim to Lumanness to be productive. 8ut whereas 5yer offers this argument as a lament for a social ill that needs to be corrected, * borrow it merely for its explanatory power#as a way into a paradigmatic analysis that clarifies structural relations of global antagonisms and not as a step toward healing the wounds of social relations in civil society. Lence this book?s interchangeable deployment of &hite, 0ettler, and .aster with#and to signify#Luman. 2gain, like <acan, who mobili7es the

psychoanalytic encounter to make claims about the structure of relations writ large, and like .arx, who mobili7es the English manufacturer to make claims about the structure of economic relations writ large, * am mobili7ing three races, four films, and one subcontinent to make e,ually generali7able claims and argue that the
antagonism between 8lack and Luman supercedes the >antagonism> between worker and capitalist in political economy, as well as the gendered >antagonism> in libidinal economy. To this end, this book takes stock of how socially engaged popular cinema participates in the systemic violence that constructs 2merica as a >settler society> /$hurchill6 and >slave estate> /0pilers6. Jather than privilege a politics of culture/s6#that is, rather than examine and accept the cultural gestures and declarations which the three groups under examination make about themselves#" privilege a culture of politics! in other words, what * am concerned with is how &hite film, 8lack film, and Jed film articulate and disavow the matrix of violence which constructs the three essential positions which in turn structure D0. antagonisms.

1il%erso is a"istorical'' "e assumes t"at a ti'2lac0 a imus arises #rom ot"i g ess 2ut its caug"t u! i a 2roa%er &e2 o# "istorical !o&er relatio s"i!s li0e Islamo!"o2ia a % ati*ism C"aroe yi g /citing Melson .aldonado#Torres, Frof of Ethnic 0tudies, D$ 8erkeley6 >
(*imothy, Islamophobia 2 %nti34lac5ness6 % 7enealogical %pproach, http688crg.ber5eley.edu8content8islamophobia3anti3blac5ness3genealogical3approach! The year "EH'

marked a ma or

turning point in the tra ectory of &estern $ivili7ation. Elementary age children are taught this as the year $olumbus

famously crossed the 2tlantic. 2n e,ually significant event that year, was the 0panish con,uest of al#2ndalus Oa .oorish province on the southern *berian peninsula established eight centuries earlierOand more importantly, the last ma or .uslim stronghold on the European continent. $ritical race scholars have argued that these two events would not only shift the geopolitical balance of power from the

Orient to the Occident, but fundamentally alter conceptions about religious and racial identity . 2ccording to Melson
.aldonado#Torres, of the Dniversity of $alifornia, 8erkeley, the expulsion of the .oors from continental Europe marked a transition from an age of imperial relations between $hristian and .uslim empires, to an age of European colonial expansion throughout the known world. The (discovery) of (godless) natives in the 2mericas would also inspire the great debates between <as $asas and 0epilveda in "@@A on the nature of the human soul. 0uch

a geopolitical and philosophical shift, .aldonado#Torres argues, would lead to a Eurocentric, re#categori7ation of

humanity based upon religous9and ultimately racial9differences . .aldonado#Torres has proposed that anti#black racism is not simply an extension of some historical bias against blacks, but rather, is an amalgam of old#world *slamophobia linked to the history of the *berian peninsula, and to the notion of souless beings embodied in popular conceptions about the indigenous natives of the 2mericas. These beliefs would contribute to an ideological basis for, and ustification of, colonial con,uests in the name of cultural and religious conversion, as well as pave the way for the enslavement and human trafficking of sub#0aharan 2fricans .

Psyc"oa alysis is a close% system o# assertio t"at %oes 8t %escri2e reality Per!ic" E /5ian Frofessor of FL*<O0OFLK 2T ;anderbilt (Figurative <anguage and the NFace+ in <evinas+s Fhilosophy) Fhilosophy and Jhetoric
vol. -S!'6 <evinas+s hesitations about the value of psychoanalysis9indeed, what might be called his allergic reactions to psychoanalysis9are similarly based. Fsychoanalysis, he writes, (casts a basic suspicion on the most unimpeachable testimony of self#consciousness ) /"HSIb, -'6. Fsychological states in which the ego seems to symbols for

+tJ !syc"oa alysis 2a% met"o%

have a (clear and distinct) grasp of itself are reread by psychoanalysis as a (reality that is totally inaccessible) to the self and that is the expression of (a social reality or a historical influence totally distinct from its Rthe ego+sT own intention ) /-E6. .oreover, all of the ego+s protests against the interpretations of analysis are themselves sub ect to further analysis, leaving no point exterior to the analysis! (* am as it were shut up in my own portrait) /-@6. Fsychoanalysis threatens an infinite regress of meaning, a recursive process that leads from one symbol to another , from one symptom to another with no end in sight and no way to break into or out of the chain of signifiers in the name of a signified. (The real world is transformed into a poetic world, that is, into a world without beginning in which one thinks without knowing what one thinks) /-@6. Fut less poetically, <evinas+s worry is
that psychoanalysis furnishes us with no fixed point or firm footing from which to launch a criti,ue and to break with social and historical determinations of the psyche in order to udge society and history and to call both to account. *ndeed, his uncharacteristic allusion to (clear and distinct) ideas betrays his intention! to seek, against both religious and psychoanalytic participations, for a relationship in which the ego is an (absolute,) (irreducible) singularity, within a totality but still separate from it, that is, still capable of a relation with exteriority. To seek such a relation is, <evinas says, (to ask whether a living man RsicT does not have the power to udge the history in which he is engaged, that is, whether the thinker as an ego, over and beyond all that he does with what he possesses, creates and leaves, does not have the substance of a cynic) /-@6. The naked being who confronts me with his or her alterity, the naked being that * am myself and whose being (counts as such) is now naked not with an erotic nudity but with the nudity of a cynic who has thrown off the cloak of culture in order to present him# or herself directly and (in person) through (this chaste bit of skin with brow, nose, eyes, and mouth) /E"6. <evinas picks up the thread of this worry about psychoanalysis in (Ethics and 5iscourse,) the main section of (The Ego and the Totality.) To affirm humankind as a power to udge history, he claims, is to affirm rationalism and to re ect (the merely poetic thought which thinks without knowing what it things, or thinks as one dreams) /EA6. The impetus for psychoanalysis is philosophical, <evinas admits= that is, it shares initially in this affirmation of rationalism insofar as it affirms the need for reflection and for going (underneath) or getting behind unreflected consciousness and thought. Lowever, if its impetus is philosophical, its issue is not insofar as the tools that it uses for reflection turn

out to be (some fundamental, but elementary, fables ... which, incomprehensibly, would alone be une,uivocal, alone not translate /or mask or symboli7e6 a reality more profound than themselves ) /EA6. Fsychoanalysis returns one, then, to the irrationalism of myth and poetry rather than liberating one from them . *t resubmerges one
within the cultural and historical ethos and mythos in a way that seems to <evinas to permit no end to interpretation and thus no power to udge. Le imagines psychoanalysis as a swirling phantasmagoria in which language is all dissimulation and deception. (One can find one+s bearings in all this phantasmagoria, one can inaugurate the work of criticism only if one can begin with a fixed point. The fixed point cannot be some

incontestable truth, a Ncertain+ statement that would always be sub ect to psychoanalysis= it can only be the absolute status of an interlocutor, a being, and not a truth about bein gs) /E"6. *n this last claim, the fate of Leideggerian fundamental ontology that is an understanding of 8eing rather than a relation to beings /or to a being, a face6 is hitched to the fate of psychoanalysis and both linked to participation, the (nocturnal chaos) that threatens to drown the ego in the totality .

T"is is o '#alsi#ia2le a % #ails 7 o su!!ort #or ge erali)i g #rom t"e !articular Ro2i so /Fh5 Folitical Theory, Dniversity of Mottingham6 ,E
/Theory and Event, 2ndrew, S!", The Folitical Theory of $onstitutive <ack! 2 $riti,ue a ones6 One of the functions of myth is to cut out what Trevor Fateman terms the >middle level> of analytical concepts, establishing a short#circuit between high# level generali7ations and ultra#specific /pseudo#6 concrete instances. *n 8arthes?s classic case of an image of a black soldier saluting the French flag, this individual action is implicitly connected to highly abstract concepts such as nationalism, without the mediation of the particularities of his situation. /These particularities, if revealed, could undermine the myth. Ferhaps he enlisted for financial reasons, or due to threats of violence6. Thus, while myths provide an analysis of sorts, their basic operation is anti#analytical! the analytical schema is fixed in advance, and the

relationship between this schema and the instances it organi7es is hierarchically ordered to the exclusive advantage of the former. This is precisely what happens in <acanian analyses of specific political and cultural phenomena. nioek specifically advocates ?sweeping generali7ations? and short#cuts between specific instances and high#level abstractions, evading the >middle level>. ?The correct dialectical procedure... can be best described as a direct ump from the singular to the universal, bypassing the mid#level of particularity?. Le wants a ?direct ump from the singular to the universal?, without reference to particular contexts.

Res!o si2ility #or actual alter ati*e or #ailure is i e* Day 5

+tJ o alt 2a%

/$hristopher, The Listorical Failure of 2narchism! *mplications for the Future of the Jevolutionary Fro ect, http!//mikeely.files.wordpress.com/'AAH/AI/historicalafailureaofaaanarchismachrisadayakasama.pdf a ones6 Finally revolutionaries have a responsibility to have a plausible plan for making revolution . Obviously

there are

not enough revolutionaries to make a revolution at this moment. &e can reasonably anticipate that

the future will bring upsurges in popular opposition to the existing system. &ithout being any more specific about where those upsurges might occur it seems clear that it is from the ranks of such upsurges that the numbers of the revolutionary movement will be increased, eventually leading to a revolutionary situation /which is distinguished from the normal crises of the current order only by the existence of a revolutionary movement ready to push things further6. Feople who are fed up with the existing system and who are willing to commit themselves to its overthrow will look around for likeminded people who have an idea of what to do. *f we don+t have a plausible plan for making revolution we can be sure that there will be

somebody else there who will. There is no guarantee that revolutionary#minded people will be spontaneously drawn to anti#authoritarian politics. The plan doesn+t have to be an exact blueprint. *t shouldn+t be treated as something sacred. *t should be sub ect to constant revision in light of experience and debate. 8ut at the very least it needs to be able to answer ,uestions that have been posed concretely in the past. &e know that we will never confront the exact same circumstances as previous revolutions. 8ut we should
also know that certain problems are persistent ones and that if we can+t say what we would have done in the past we should not expect people to think much of our ability to face the future. There is a widespread tendency in the anarchist movement /and on the left in general6 to say

that the ,uestion of how we are going to actually make a revolution is too distant and therefore too abstract to deal with now. *nstead it is asserted that we should focus on practical pro ects or immediate struggles. 8ut the practical pro ects or immediate struggles we decide to focus on are precisely what will determine if we ever move any closer to making revolution. *f we abdicate our responsibility to try to figure out what it will take to actually make revolution and to direct our current work accordingly we will be caught up in an endless succession of (practical pro ects and immediate struggles) and when confronted with a potentially revolutionary situation we will be pushed to the side by more politically prepared forces /who
undoubtedly we will accuse of (betraying) the revolution if they don+t shoot all of us6. &e will be carried by the tide of history instead of attempting to steer our own course. 2nd by allowing this to happen again it will be we who have really betrayed the revolution. The net result of the refusal to deal with what it will actually take to make a revolution is that anarchism has become a sort of directionless but militant reformism. &e are either building various (counter#institutions) that resemble nothing so much as grungier versions of the social services administered by different churches= or we

are throwing ourself into some largely reactive social struggle in which our actions are fre,uently bold and courageous, but from which we never build any sort of ongoing social movement /let alone a revolutionary organi7ation6.

?a ti'2lac0 ess@ *s ?&"ite ess stu%ies@ is a %isti ctio &it"out a %i##ere ce9 T"e e##ects a % !olitical mec"a isms are i %isti guis"a2le Sulli*a G: # 2ssociate Frofessor of Fhilosophy and &omen?s 0tudies at Fenn 0tate at Dniversity Fark /0hannon (<iving 2cross W Through 0kins !
Transactional 8odies, Fragmatism W Feminism)A:/'AA" p":"#":' a ones6 This experiment demonstrates that pro#whiteness and anti#blackness

atJ a ti2lac0 ess

can be distinguished psychologically. The different ways in which the egalitarian nonracist participants responded to the inadmissible confession in the case of white and black defendants shows that those participants were not biased against blackness, but were biased in favor of whiteness. Lowever, in support of *gnatiev+s position against thinking of whiteness as preserved, the experiment also demonstrates that the effects of pro#whiteness and anti#blackness disadvantage black people in e,uivalent ways. Even though the distinction between anti#blackness and pro#whiteness can be useful for distinguishing different types of psychological reactions to situations involving race, it does not mean that pro#whiteness does not have adverse effects on people of color. This is signipcant because the effects, not the mere psychology, of pro#whiteness are most relevant to racism and its elimination. 2s compared to a black defendant who made no incriminating confession, a black defendant who
did make such a confession was treated fairly by the egalitarian white participants. $ompared to a white defendant who made such a confession, the black defendant who confessed was not treated fairly by the white egalitarians. The white defendant received benepcial treatment that the black defendant did not, disadvantaging the black defendant in a signipcant way9 solely because of the defendant+s race. Even if one claims that the

black defendant received ustice while the white defendant received mercy, the verdicts are racist because they awarded special treatment to the white defendant because he or she was white. &hile the anti#outgroup bias of traditional racists and the proingroup bias of egalitarian nonracists do so in different ways, both unfairly discriminate based on race. 8oth pro#whiteness and anti#blackness attitudes are racist because they have racist effects. 1il%erso is a"istorical'' "e assumes t"at a ti'2lac0 a imus arises #rom ot"i g ess 2ut its caug"t u! i a 2roa%er &e2 o# "istorical !o&er relatio s"i!s li0e Islamo!"o2ia a % ati*ism C"aroe yi g /citing Melson .aldonado#Torres, Frof of Ethnic 0tudies, D$ 8erkeley6 >
(*imothy, Islamophobia 2 %nti34lac5ness6 % 7enealogical %pproach, http688crg.ber5eley.edu8content8islamophobia3anti3blac5ness3genealogical3approach! The year "EH' marked a ma or turning point in the tra ectory of &estern $ivili7ation. Elementary age children are taught this as the year $olumbus famously crossed the 2tlantic. 2n e,ually significant event that year, was the 0panish con,uest of al#2ndalus Oa .oorish province on the southern *berian peninsula established eight centuries earlierOand more importantly, the last ma or .uslim stronghold on the European continent. $ritical race scholars have argued that these two events would not only shift the geopolitical balance of power from the

Orient to the Occident, but fundamentally alter conceptions about religious and racial identity . 2ccording to Melson
.aldonado#Torres, of the Dniversity of $alifornia, 8erkeley, the expulsion of the .oors from continental Europe marked a transition from an age of imperial relations between $hristian and .uslim empires, to an age of European colonial expansion throughout the known world. The (discovery) of (godless) natives in the 2mericas would also inspire the great debates between <as $asas and 0epilveda in "@@A on the nature of the human soul. 0uch

a geopolitical and philosophical shift, .aldonado#Torres argues, would lead to a Eurocentric, re#categori7ation of humanity based upon religous9and ultimately racial9differences . .aldonado#Torres has proposed that anti#black racism is not simply an extension of some historical bias against blacks, but rather, is an amalgam of old#world *slamophobia linked to the history of the *berian peninsula, and to the notion of souless beings embodied in popular conceptions about the indigenous natives of the 2mericas. These beliefs would contribute to an ideological basis for, and ustification of, colonial con,uests in the name of cultural and religious conversion, as well as pave the way for the enslavement and human trafficking of sub#0aharan 2fricans .

T"eir claims to a li2i%i al eco omy are a s"am9 ;istorici)i g sla*ery a % ca!italism t"roug" t"e le s o# social %eat" e##aces t"e age cy a % li*e% e+!erie ces o# t"e sla*e9 /ro& C,,5 O professor of history and of 2frican and 2frican 2merican 0tudies speciali7ing in 2tlantic 0lavery /;incent, (0ocial 5eath and
Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery,) http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf6

ATJ Li2i%i al <co omy

0pecters of the 2tlantic is a compellingly sophisticated study of the relation between the epistemologies underwriting both modern slavery and modern capitalism, but the book+s discussion of the politics of anti# slavery is fundamentally incomplete. &hile 8aucom brilliantly traces the development of (melancholy realism) as an oppositional discourse that ran counter to the logic of slavery and finance capital, he has very little to say about the enslaved themselves. 0ocial death, so well suited to the tragic perspective, stands in for the experience of enslavement. &hile this heightens the reader+s sense of the way 2tlantic slavery haunts the present, 8aucom largely fails to acknowledge that the enslaved performed melancholy acts of accounting not unlike those that he shows to be a fundamental component of abolitionist and human rights discourses, or that those acts could be a basic element of slaves+ oppositional activities. *n many ways, the effectiveness of his text depends upon the silence of slaves9it is easier to describe the continuity of structures of power when one downplays countervailing forces such as the political activity of the weak . 0o 8aucom+s deep insights into the structural features of 2tlantic slave trading and its afterlife come with a cost. &ithout engagement with the politics of the enslaved, slavery+s history serves as an effective charge leveled against modernity and capitalism, but not as an uneven and evolving process of human interaction, and certainly not as a locus of conflict in which the enslaved sometimes won small but important victories. ""

1il%erso a%"eres to Patterso /ru0er C,:: O Temple Dniversity /.alia, Jeview! JE5, &L*TE W 8<2$%! $*ME.2 2M5 TLE 0TJD$TDJE OF D.0. 2MT24OM*0.0, 1ournal
of Film W ;ideo= &inter'A"", ;ol. :- *ssue E, p::#:H6 &ilderson aligns himself with 2fro#pessimists such as Lortense 0pillers, Jonald 1udy, 5avid .arriott, 0aidiya Lartman, Orlando Fatterson, and 1ared 0exton, whom he references throughout the book. *n the lengthy and dense chapter (The Marcissistic 0lave,) &ilderson builds heavily on the work of Fran7 Fanon to argue against the possibility of <acan and <acanian film theory to apply to black people. (&hereas <acan was aware of how language Nprecedes and exceeds us,+ he did not have Fanon+s awareness of how violence also precedes and exceeds 8lacks) /I:6. &ilderson sees <acan+s process of full speech for whites as contingent on the black Other as a frame of reference, (which remonumentali7es the /&hite6 ego) and (is an accomplice to social stability, despite its claims to the contrary) /I@6. Fatterson+s work is the foundation of the theory 8rown 'AAH O professor of history and of 2frican and 2frican 2merican 0tudies speciali7ing in 2tlantic 0lavery /;incent, (0ocial 5eath and Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery,) http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf6 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath was widely reviewed and lavishly praised for its erudition and conceptual rigor. 2s a result of its success , social death has

a%"eres to !atterso

become a handy general definition of slavery, for many historians and non#historians alike. 8ut it is often forgotten that the concept of social death is a distillation from Fatterson+s breathtaking survey9a theoretical abstraction that is meant not to describe the lived experiences of the enslaved so much as to reduce them to a least common denominator that could reveal the essence of slavery in an ideal#type slave, shorn of meaningful heritage.: 2s a concept, it is what Frederick $ooper has called an (agentless abstraction) that provides a neat cultural logic but ultimately does little to illuminate the social and political experience of enslavement and the struggles that produce historic transformations.I *ndeed, it is difficult to use such a distillation to explain the actual behavior of slaves, and yet in much of the scholarship that followed in the wake of 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath, F atterson+s abstract distillates have been used to explain the existential condition of the enslaved.

***TOPICAL ACC<SS TO DISC.SSING RAC<***

/uses
Mo%er 2us system 0ey to race tolera ce a % i tegratio Ma 5B' %irector o# t"e La2or/Commu ity Strategy Ce ter( #ormer %elegate to t"e .9N9 1orl% Co #ere ce Agai st Racism /Eric, (2 Mew ;ision for Drban Transportation,) 0trategy $enter Fublications, <os 2ngeles//.456 <os 2ngeles could have a first#class public mass transit system, serving low#income people, wellpaid working people and even the upper middle class, if they are willing, that is, to mingle with (the masses.) *t could serve <atinos, 2frican 2mericans, 2sian/Facific *slanders, Mative 2mericans and whites, women and men, inner city and suburbs, students, the elderly, and the disabled. *n theory, this first class mass transit system could dramatically reduce auto use, and reduce noxious and lethal emissions from autos, thereby improving the public health. *t could bring low#income workers to their obs, help out#of#work workers look for obs before Fresident $linton+s (five year and starve) rule takes effect, serve night#shift anitors and day#shift professionals. 8y dramatically reducing auto use, it could generate more pedestrian centers, bringing the races together through a transportation system that is more social and far more rich culturally than the private automobile.
8y dramatically reducing fares, increasing service, and giving high#speed buses the right#of#way, it could increase daily mass transit use9some estimate doubling the present level of bus riders from -@A,AAA to IAA,AAA per day over a decade of consistent improvement. 2 first#class bus system that comes on#time and with such regularity that you don+t need to call the .T2 for a schedule would

allow the elderly to break out of their home#prison of fear and aloneness, allow disabled residents in wheelchairs rapid and courteous service, permit high school students from the inner city to travel to good schools around the county in a reasonable amount of time, and allow working men and women to take their children to childcare , visit their sick relatives, and take the entire family to a park or beach without a care or a car. *n theory this new vision of urban transportation could cure as many ills as penicillin, ogging, and a
low#fat, high#fiber diet combined9providing green obs to produce electric buses in ob#starved areas, creating new bus shelters and bus depots in blighted communities, and allowing an exhausted working class to consider going to parks, museums, and free concerts miles away. .oreover, with an immediate moratorium on rail funding and either a movement or a court#imposed policy for massive funding of the bus system, the following key demands of the 8illions for 8uses plan would make this vision come to life.

Ne& Orlea s
Tra s!ortatio i #rastructure is t"e cru+ o# racism i Ne& Orlea s' mass tra s!ort #or e*acuatio is crucial to 2rea0i g %o& t"e racial 2arriers &"ic" le% to mass mi ority %eat" %uri g =atri a 1ailoo et al9 :, /%eith &ailoo# 8.2, "HSE, Kale Dniversity= ..2., "HSH, and Fh.5. /Listory and 0ociology of 0cience6, "HH', Dniversity of
Fennsylvania= oint appointment! 2ssociate Frofessor of Listory, %aren .. O+Meill# %aren .. O+Meill studies how land and water policies change the standing of program beneficiaries and experts and change government?s claims to authority and power., 1effrey 5owd# graduate student, Joland 2nglin# 2ssociate Jesearch Frofessor= 5irector, 1oseph $. $ornwall $enter for .etropolitan 0tudies 0chool of Fublic 2ffairs and 2dministration /0F226 Jutgers Dniversity#Mewark = %atrina+s *mprint! Jace and ;ulnerability in 2merica= ""/'A"A= pages '-#'I6 2 landmark decision most known today for its application beyond transportation, Flessy v. Ferguson provided the legal basis for basis for separate schools, restaurants, theaters, hospitals, cemeteries, and public facilities of all kinds from "SH: through "H@E, when the legal doctrine of separate but e,ual was overturned by the 0upreme $ourt+s 8rown v. 8oard of Education decision. Lowever, in wake of recent events in Mew Orleans,

the issues involved in Flessy+s support of segregated transportation retain their relevance and are worth revisiting. For, despite the broad applications that would shape its subse,uent history, Flessy ultimately turned on the issue of public access to transportation, which 1ustice 1ohn .arshall Larlan, the sole dissenter on the Flessy verdict, discussed with great elo,uence. Jailroads, he noted, were public (highways.) 2lthough privately owned, they served the public and exercised public functions, as demonstrated by legislatures+ use of the public#spirited right of eminent domain to sei7e land for the construction of railroad tracks. (The right to eminent domain nowhere ustifies taking property for private use,) he emphasi7ed. 2ccordingly, Larlan reasoned, all citi7ens should have e,ual rights to the use of the railroads as a matter of civil rights. (Fersonal <iberty,) he maintained, citing 8lack+s $onstitutional <aw, (consists of the power of locomotion, or changing situation, or removing one+s person to whatsoever places one+s inclination may direct.) ;arla 8s &or%s are e&ly reso a t i t"e a#termat" o# Lurricane =atri a, where we saw a tremendous failure in the power of personal locomotion that was largely defined by race. %atrina+s illustration of persistent and pervasive racial ine,ualities regarding transportation in the Dnited 0tates suggests how little this nation has really traveled since Flessy. 5escribed by some as a wake#up call about racial ine,uality in 2merica, %atrina left behind O in the 0uperdome, stranded on the rooftops of their homes, and paddling through the waters that flooded Mew Orleans O a group of residents who were overwhelmingly black. 2lso among those unable to evacuate were prisoners, the elderly and disabled people, both black and white O
many of whom did not survive. *ndeed, the old and the sick number prominently among %atrina+s fatalities O for obvious reasons. &hat unifies this group is their social status as immobile people, a status overcome during emergencies only if ade,uate money and planning are in place. 8ut what explains that race, rather than age and physical fragility, was the common factor that united the vast ma ority of those who remained in the city after %atrina struckC Of the 'IA,AAA %atrina survivors stuck in Mew Orleans, H- percent were black. 2nd those left behind shared characteristics that are often unevenly distributed by race. They

were predominantly poor and unskilled! II percent had a high school education or less, :S percent had neither money in the bank nor a useable credit card, and @I percent had total household incomes of less than Y'A,AAA per year . Foverty is one of the ma or reasons why many of the evacuees did not manage to leave before the storm. They lacked the resources to either travel or support themselves once they had relocated. .oreover , the evacuees also tended to share one characteristic closely related to both their racial and economic demographics! @@ percent had no car or other way to evacuate . *n this respect, Lurricane %atrina+s victims were not uni,ue to Mew Orleans. 2lthough no longer legally prohibited from traveling freely on the nation+s (public highways,) like their segregation era counterparts, many contemporary 2frican 2mericans both in Mew Orleans and elsewhere experience a similar restriction on their mobility, largely as a conse,uence of low levels of car ownership and a deficient public transportation system. 2ccess to Transportation 2cross the nation, 2frican 2mericans are three times more likely to lack a car then whites. <atinos come in second when it comes to carlessness O they are two and half times more likely to own no vehicle. The racial shape of this disparity becomes clear when one looks at the statistics! only I percent of white families in the Dnited 0tates own no vehicle, as compared with '" percent of black households, "I percent of <atino households, "@ percent of Mative 2merican households, and "- percent of 2sian 2mericans households O and disparities with whites are even greater in urban areas. 2cross the nation, people of color are also less able to rely on the cars they do own for longer trips, as might be re,uired during emergencies like evacuation. Their cars are usually significantly older and cheaper than those owned by whites . 0tereotypes about
2frican 2mericans favoring $adillacs not withstanding, cars owned by blacks and <atinos have median values in the Y@,AAA range, while the value of cars owned by white family households averages well over Y"',AAA. .eanwhile, the many blacks and <atinos who own no car are still worse off, as automobile owners typically have better access to employment, healthcare, affordable housing, and other necessities. .ore to the point, as

%atrina demonstrated, in a disaster, access to a car can be a matter of life or death. T"is is es!ecially true i ur2a areas suc" as Ne& Orlea s, where people of color constitute a larger portion of the population than they do in the country as a whole. 2ccording to the 'AAA D.0. $ensus, people of color make up -A percent of the nation+s population, but Ipercent of the population in Mew Orleans. *n the counties affected by Lurricane Jita, %atrina, and &ilma in 'AA@, blacks and <atinos made up 'E percent and "E percent of the carless households, respectively, whereas only I percent of white households lacked a car. These statistics ac,uire real urgency in the case of disasters such as the hurricanes of 'AA@. Dnlike the
citi7ens of nations such as 4ermany, 1apan, Lolland, and 8ritain, all of which have fairly comprehensive public transportation systems in place,

The stranding of 2frican 2mericans in Mew Orleans , then, can be read through the intersection of economics and racial discrimination. 2lthough urban dwellers in metropolitan areas with effective public transportation, like Mew Kork city, sometimes choose
2mericans who have no access to cars are carless in a society where an automobile is often crucial to both daily life and emergency transportation. not to own automobiles as a matter of convenience, not owning a car is inconvenient in many other 2merican cities. The infrastructure of the highway informs the preparation of 2merica as a nation obsessed with cars and ownership. 2s a result, in the 8ig Easy, as in most of the nation+s urban areas, (public transit is considered a mode of last resort or a novelty for tourists and special events. .ost middle#class

residents seldom use public transit and so have little reason to support it. 2s a result, service ,uality is minimal, and poorly integrated into the overall transport system.) 2frican 2mericans , however, depend on public transportation despite its many limitation . For low#income 2frican 2mericans in Mew Orleans and elsewhere, the economic challenges posed by car ownership and 2merican car culture are only compounded by the expensive and exclusionary forms of discrimination that attend virtually every economic transaction re,uired to buy and maintain an automobile. 2frican 2mericans routinely pay more for cars of similar value than whites. Though no
research group has yet produced a national study of this, a "HH: class action suit against an 2tlanta#area car dealership revealed that the dealership routinely made between two and seven times as much profit on cars sold to 2frican 2mericans as compared with vehicles sold to whites. .oreover, broader evidence from a study performed by economists *an 2yres and Feter 0iegelman suggests that such practices are not unusual. 2udits of the car prices offered to more than three hundred pairs of trained testers dispatched to negotiate with $hicago#area car dealerships produced final price offers on which black males were asked to pay Y","AA more than white males for identical vehicles, while the prices offered to black and whte women exceeded those offered to white men by YE"A and YH', respectively. Once they do buy a car, blacks and <atinos alike are often re,uired to

pay a significantly higher annual percentage rate than whites on car loans O on average, I.@ percent as compared with : percent, which accounts to a difference of YHAA over the life of a six#year loan on a Y'A,AAA car. $ar insurance differentials , while they vary from state to state, are even more striking. *n $alifornia, a recent proposal to eliminate 7ip code insurance premium pricing by the $alifornia
*nsurance $ommissions /the outcome of which has yet to be resolved6 illuminates the problem. The $onsumers Dnion found that $alifornia+s largest insurance companies typically charge a female driver with a perfect driving record and twenty#two years driving experience an average of "'.H percent, or Y"@', more if she lives in a predominantly <atino 7ip code versus a non#Lispanic white area. *n some cases, differentials were as high as :: percent O the surcharge imposed on the predominantly 2frican 2merican residents of 8aldwin Lills, $alifornia. 2nother less well documented, but

perhaps more formidable barrier to car ownership among black urbanites is the lack of affordable parking in many of their neighborhoods. 0uburban development around cities such as Mew Orleans was designed with car ownership /as well as white
flight6 in mind, but the older housing stock and apartment buildings that dominate many urban areas do not include garages or space for parking. .oreover, as tourism and business travel increasingly displace other forms of commerce in many historic cities,

even less parking is available to residents O making car ownership ever more expensve and difficult in many inner#city neighborhoods. Tra s!ortatio i #rastructure is critical to e*acuatio 1ols"o ( ,B O 2ssistant Frofessor in the 5epartment of $ivil and Environmental Engineering at <ouisiana 0tate Dniversity /8rian, (The
2ftermath of %atrina), http!//www.nae.edu/Fublications/8ridge/The2ftermathof%atrina/EvacuationFlanningandEngineeringforLurricane%atrina.aspx6//8X

2lthough little can be done to alter the weather, we can prepare for the eventuality of hurricanes and other natural and man#made ha7ards. For decades, engineers and scientists have been developing techni,ues, strategies, and materials to help the built environment withstand the effects of hurricanes. *n addition, building and 7oning codes have been changed to keep critical infrastructure away from ha7ardous areas to minimi7e the risks of flood and wind damage. The only way to protect people, however, is to evacuate them when threats arise, but this is often easier said than done. 2t the fundamental level, the concept of evacuation is simple9move people away from danger . *n reality, evacuations, particularly evacuations on a mass scale, are complex undertakings. 2s the nation clearly saw during Lurricanes %atrina and Jita, it is not always possible to evacuate
everyone who is in danger. The most obvious problem is the sheer scope of the event. Lurricane evacuations may involve millions of people over hundreds of thousands of s,uare miles. *n addition, because evacuations are inconvenient and disruptive, evacuees often

delay travel decisions until the threat appears imminent, thus compressing the enormous travel demand into shorter time periods. One complicating factor is that tra s!ortatio i #rastructure is eit"er !la e% or %esig e% to accommo%ate e*acuatio 'le*el %ema % = building enough capacity to move the population of an entire city in a matter of hours is simply not economically, environmentally, or socially feasible . Joadways are not even designed to be delay#free under routine peak#period condition s. The effectiveness of an evacuation is also
greatly affected by human behavior and socioeconomics. Mo matter how threatening the conditions, some people refuse or are unable to leave. 5espite these difficulties, the evacuation of Mew Orleans for Lurricane %atrina was widely viewed as a success= data show that more people were able to leave the city in a shorter time than had been thought possible. There were also apparent failures, however, particularly in the evacuation of low#mobility groups. This article highlights the development of the evacuation management plan for Lurricane %atrina and summari7es some of the facts, findings, and unresolved issues. The discussion is presented from the perspective of a transportation engineer and centers primarily on the highway#based aspects of the evacuation, including demand, capacity, and issues related to the non#evacuees. This article also presents some lessons learned and how they may be applied to other locations and other threat scenarios and identifies unanswered ,uestions and research needs that should be addressed in the future. The %atrina Evacuation Flan T"e city o# Ne& Orlea s "as lo g 2ee co si%ere% ?a %isaster &aiti g to

"a!!e .) For those who prepare for, respond to, and study such events, t"e le*el o# %eat" a % %estructio &roug"t 2y =atri a &as ot outsi%e t"e realm o# !ossi2il ity. 2lthough a complete evacuation of the city has been the cornerstone of
hurricane preparedness planning for the region, the highway evacuation plan used for %atrina evolved over a period of many years based on valuable lessons learned from prior storms in <ouisiana and elsewhere.

Tra s!ortatio !olicy is t"e root o# tra s!ortatio i e4uality 7 t"is lies at t"e "eart o# racial( e *iro me tal i e4uality( a % classism9 Pastor et al9 ,B R.anuel Fastor is codirector of the $enter for 1ustice, Tolerance, and $ommunity at the Dniversity of $alifornia, 0anta $ru7.
Jobert 5. 8ullard is &are Frofessor of 0ociology and director of the Environmental 1ustice Jesource $enter at $lark 2tlanta Dniversity. 1ames %. 8oyce is professor of economics at the Folitical Economy Jesearch *nstitute of the Dniversity of .assachusetts, 2mherst. 2lice Fothergill is assistant professor of sociology at the Dniversity of ;ermont. Jachel .orello#Frosch is $arney 2ssistant Frofessor in the 0chool of .edicine at 8rown Dniversity. 8everly &right is professor of sociology and director of the 5eep 0outh $enter for Environmental 1ustice at 5illard Dniversity.T (Environment, 5isaster and Jace 2fter %atrina) http!//urbanhabitat.org/files/Fastor.8ullard.etc.Env.%atrina.pdf Low conse,uential is racial ine,uality in environmental conditionsC 2 0outhern $alifornia study estimating lifetime

Tra s!ortatio HGe eralI

cancer risk from air toxins shows, for example, that risk declines as income rises, but is still around @A percent higher at all income levels for 2frican 2mericans, <atinos and 2sians. 2nd lead poisoning, commonly triggered by conditions in older housing, is five times more common among 8lack children than white children. 5isaster ;ulnerability and Environmental 1ustice The social dynamics that underlie the disproportionate environmental ha7ards faced by low# income communities and minorities also play out in the arena of disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery . *n a sense, environmental ustice is about slow#motion disasters9and disasters reveal environmental in ustice in a fast#forward mode. 8oth revolve around the axes of disparities of wealth and power. <ack of wealth heightens the risks that individuals and communities face for three reasons. First, it translates into a lack of purchasing power to secure private alternatives to public provision of a clean and safe environment for all . 0econd, it translates into less ability to withstand shocks /such as health bills and property damage6 that wealth would cushion. Third, it translates through the (shadow prices) of costbenefit analysis into public policies that place a lower priority on protecting (less valuable) people and their assets. *n the aftermath of %atrina, there is an added risk that transfers could turn Mew Orleans into a little more than a theme park for affluent tourists. *n the vicious circle of disaster vulnerability, those with less wealth face greater risks, and when disaster strikes, their wealth is further sapped. 8ut risk is not ust about money! even middleclass 2frican 2mericans, <atinos, and 2sians face elevated environmental risks. This reflects systematic differences in power and the legacy of racial discrimination . Fower also shows up in private decisions by firms choosing where to
site ha7ards and how much to invest in environmental protection! their choices are constrained not only by government regulations, but also by informal governance exercised by mobili7ed communities, civil society, and the press /see Fargal et al. "HHI= 8oyce 'AAE6. *n both public and private arenas, then,

power disparities drive outcome disparities9and the resulting patterns reflect race and ethnicity as well as wealth. " &hyC <and, .arkets, and Fower The power explanation suggests that low#income people and communities of color are systematically disadvantaged in the political decision#making process . This argument can incorporate the other

explanations! what seems to be rational land use, after all, may be predetermined by political processes that designate disenfranchised communities as sacrifice 7ones /see Fulido 'AAA= 8oone and .odarres "HHH= &right 'AA@6. *ndeed, land use decisions often build on accumulated disadvantage. *n the largely <atino community of %ettleman $ity in $alifornia+s $entral ;alley, for example, an effort to place a toxic waste incinerator in a landfill already proximate to the city was viewed as building on existing dis#amenities but

added insult to in ury for an already

overburdened community /$ole and Foster 'AA"6. <ikewise, income is a marker of political power as well as of market strength. The interplay
of land use, income, and power means that certain variables used in statistical analyses9such as 7oning and household wealth9 carry multiple explanations. To demonstrate convincingly that power is behind siting decisions re,uires the inclusion of some variables that are directly and irrefutably connected to power differentials. The most important of these variables is race . ' 5isparate patterns by race, particularly when

most clearly point to the role of une,ual influence and racial discrimination. Jacially disparate outcomes are also important in their own right. They can result from processes that are not so much a direct exercise of power as essentially embedded in the nature of our urban form, including housing segregation and real estate steering, informal methods that exclude communities from decision#making processes /including less provision of information regarding health risks6, the past placement of ha7ards /which ustifies new ha7ards as rational land use6, and other forms of less direct (institutionali7ed) or (structural) racism /see Feagin and Feagin "HS:= *nstitute on Jace and Foverty 'AA'6. 2nd it is precisely raciali7ed risk that has galvani7ed a movement for environmental e,uity rooted in civil rights law and activism 9 Race a % racism t"ere#ore are at t"e "eart o# t"e e*i%e tiary %e2ate . *t is Mot 1ust La7ards < *iro me tal a % tra s!ortatio 3ustice are at t"e "eart o# emerge cy !re!are% ess a % emerge cy res!o se . The former provides a guidepost to who is most likely to be vulnerable to the disaster itself, and the latter provides information about who will need the most help when disaster strikes. *t is to the intersection of disaster vulnerability with race, income, and other social characteristics that we now turn.
one has controlled for income and other variables involved in the land#use and market#dynamics explanations,

.r2a S!ra&l
Tra s!ortatio is =ey to sol*i g ur2a s!ra&l' t"at8s t"e !ro+imate cause or racism a % em!loyme t %iscrimi atio S4uires a % =u2ri ,B' *!ro#essor o# sociology a % c"air o# t"e De!artme t o# Sociology at G1( ** associate !ro#essor o# sociology at G1( coe%itor o# Crime a % Society /4regory and $haris, (Jace,
Opportunity and Dneven 5evelopment in Drban 2merica,) http!//nhi.org/online/issues/"EI/privilegedplaces.html//.456 *f there is one single factor that is most critical for determining access to the good life, it might

be employment. This is particularly true in the Dnited 0tates where individuals and households are far more dependent on their obs to secure basic goods and services than is the case with virtually all other industriali7ed nations. The importance of place and race have long been recogni7ed by spatial mismatch theorists who posit that lower#income residents of poorer communities generally reside in or near central cities while ob growth has been greater in outlying suburban communities. Those most in need of employment, therefore, find it not only more difficult to learn about available obs but also more expensive to get to those obs when they find one. 2s of 'AAA, no racial group was more physically isolated from obs than blacks . The metropolitan areas with higher levels of black# white housing segregation were those that exhibited higher levels of spatial mismatch between the residential location of blacks and the location of obs. $ompounding these troubles are the (mental maps) many employers draw, in which they attribute various ob#
related characteristics /such as skills, experience, attitudes6 to residents of certain neighborhoods. 2 ob applicant+s address often has an independent effect that makes it more difficult, particularly for racial minorities from urban areas, to secure employment. .oreover, recent research by 5evah Fager, assistant professor of sociology at Frinceton, has found that it is easier for a white person with a felony conviction to get a ob than a black person with no felony convictions, even among applicants with otherwise comparable credentials or where blacks had slightly better employment histories. 0uch divergent employment experiences, of course, contribute directly to the income and wealth disparities. *n many cities, racial differences in poverty levels, employment opportunities, wages, education, housing and health care, among other things, are so strong that the worst urban conditions in which whites reside are considerably better than the average conditions of black communities. *n (Toward a Theory of Jace, $rime and Drban *ne,uality,) from $rime and *ne,uality, Jobert 0ampson and &illiam 1ulius &ilson assert that in not one D.0. city with a population over "AA,AAA do blacks live in ecological e,uality with whites when it comes to the basic features of economic and family organi7ation. 2 depressing feature of these developments is that many of

these differences reflect policy decisions which, if not designed expressly to create disparate outcomes, have contributed to them nevertheless. Folicy .atters *t has been argued that individuals or households make voluntary choices, based on their financial capacity, in selecting their communities when moving to those areas offering the bundle of services for which they are willing or able to pay. That is, they (vote with their feet.) 8ut many urban scholars have noted the role of public policies and institutionali7ed private practices /such as tax policy, tra s!ort !atter s( la % use !la i gI that serve as barriers to individual choice in housing markets and as contributors to spatial ine,uality in metropolitan areas. .ost households select their neighborhoods on the basis of the services, obs,
cultural facilities and other amenities that are available within the constraints of their budgets. $ritical for many households is a dense network of families, friends and various social ties that bind them to particular locations. Even the most distressed neighborhoods, including some notorious public housing complexes, often have a culture, social organi7ation and other attributes that residents want to retain. $ommunity, defined in many different ways, attracts and retains residents of all types of neighborhoods. 8ut, again, these choices are made in a context shaped by a range of public policy

decisions and private institutional practices over which most individuals have little control. Those decisions often have, by design, exclusionary implications that limit opportunities, particularly for low#income households and people of color. The conflict and hassles
that racial minorities face outside their communities lead some to choose a segregated neighborhood for their home, even when they could afford to live elsewhere. 0uch decision making is framed and limited by a range of structural constraints. *ndividuals exercise choice, but those choices do not reflect what is normally understood as voluntary. *f suburbani7ation and sprawl reflect the housing choices of residents, they are constrained choices. .any

factors contributed to the development of sprawling suburban communities! the long#term -A#year mortgage featuring low down payment re,uirements= availability of federal insurance to protect mortgage lenders= federal financing to support a secondary market in mortgage loans /Fannie .ae and Freddie .ac6, which dramatically increases availability of mortgage money= tax deductibility of interest and property tax payments= and proliferation of federally funded highways. The federal government+s
underwriting rules for Federal Lousing 2dministration and other federal mortgage insurance products, and enforcement of racially restrictive covenants by the courts, along with overt redlining practices by mortgage lenders and racial steering by real estate agents, virtually guaranteed the patterns of racial segregation that were commonplace by the "H@As. $oncentration of public housing in central#city high#rise complexes reinforced the patterns of economic and racial segregation that persist today. Exclusionary 7oning ordinances of most suburban municipalities that created minimum lot si7e and maximum density re,uirements for housing developments /often prohibiting construction of multifamily housing6 complemented federal policy. 4overnment policy has also encouraged the flight of businesses and obs from cities to surrounding suburban

communities and beyond. Financial incentives including infrastructure investments, tax abatements and depreciation allowances favoring new
e,uipment over reinvestment in existing facilities all have contributed to the deindustriali7ation and disinvestment of urban communities. Often such investments subsidi7e development that would have occurred without that assistance. 2s one observer noted, (0ubsidi7ing economic development in the suburbs is like paying teenagers to think about sex.) The end result is often an unintended subsidy of private economic activity by urisdictions that compete in a (race to the bottom) in efforts to attract footloose firms and mobile capital, starving traditional public services O like education O for resources in the process. 2 downward spiral is established that further undercuts the ,uality of life. Flace, Frivilege and Folicy One of the more unfortunate debates in recent years has been over the ,uestion of whether race#specific or universal remedies are more appropriate for addressing the issues of race and urban poverty. /2n even more unfortunate debate, of course, is with those who simply think we have done enough, or perhaps too much, and that neither race nor class remedies are needed.6 The primary attraction of the universal, or class#based, approaches, according to its proponents, is pragmatism. Jecogni7ing the many common interests of poor and working households of any color, it is argued that the most significant barriers confronting these groups can be addressed with policy initiatives and other actions that do not ignite the hostility often associated with race# based discussions and proposals. Jace#neutral policies that assist all of those who are working hard but not ,uite making it reinforce traditional values of individual initiative and the work ethic, thereby providing benefits to people who have earned them rather than to the so#called undeserving poor. 4iven the socioeconomic characteristics of racial minorities in general, it is further argued that such approaches will disproportionately benefit these

communities, nurturing integration and greater opportunity in a far less rancorous environment than is created with debates over race#specific approaches. 4iven the (race fatigue) among many whites /and underlying pre udices that persist6, class#based approaches are viewed as a much more feasible way to address the problems of urban poverty that affect many groups, but particularly racial minorities. *n response, it is argued that while the ,uality of life for racial minorities has improved over the years, such approaches simply do not recogni7e the extent to which race and racism continue to shape the opportunity structure in the Dnited 0tates. $olorblindness is often a euphemism for what amounts to a retreat on race and the preservation of white privilege in its many forms. *n a world of scarce resources, class#based remedies dilute available support for combating racial discrimination and segregation. From this perspective, it is precisely the controversy over race that the class#based proponents fear, which demonstrates the persistence of racism and the need for explicitly anti#racist remedies, including far more aggressive enforcement of fair housing, e,ual employment and other civil rights laws. On the other hand, race#based remedies alone may not resolve all the problems associated with race and urban poverty given the many non# racial factors that contribute to racial disparity as indicated above. *n reality, both approaches are re,uired. $lass#based policies /such as increasing the minimum wage and earned income tax credit, implementing living wage re,uirements6 and race#based initiatives /more comprehensive affirmative action and related diversity re,uirements6, are essential if the underlying patterns of privilege are to be altered. Dncommon 2llies .any constituencies that traditionally find themselves at odds with each other can find common ground on a range of policies designed to combat sprawl, concentrated poverty and segregation. *dentifying and nurturing such political coalitions is perhaps the key political challenge. $oalitions that cut across interest groups and racial groups are essential. .any land use planning, housing and housing finance policy proposals, for example, are generally articulated in colorblind terms. Fair#share housing re,uirements, tax#based revenue sharing and inclusionary 7oning are universal in character, although they often have clear racial implications. .any suburban employers are unable to find the workers they need, in part because of the high cost of housing in their local communities. Often there are local developers who would like to build affordable housing and lenders who are willing to finance it, but local 7oning prohibits such construction. These interests could oin with anti#poverty groups and affordable housing advocates to challenge the traditional exclusionary suburban 7oning ordinances. 5evelopers, planners and affordable housing advocates came together in &isconsin and secured passage of a state land use planning law that provided financial incentives to local municipalities who developed plans for increasing the supply of affordable housing units in their urisdictions. 0imilarly, school choice and fair housing groups O two groups that rarely ally O might recogni7e that severing the link between the neighborhood in which a family lives and the school that children must attend may well reduce homebuyers+ concerns with neighborhood racial composition. This would reduce one barrier to both housing and school segregation while giving students more schooling options. *n many cities, developers, lenders, community development corporations, environmental groups, local

governments and others are coming together to sponsor transit#oriented development. 0uch developments create new obs for working families in locations that are accessible by public transportation, reducing traffic congestion, infrastructure costs and other disamenities. 4rowing such development would yield greater efficiencies in public investment, fewer environmental costs and more ob opportunities.

***A#ro Pessimism =***

1e critici)e t"e a2solute ess o# t"e o tological criti4ue o# t"e ;uma ( t"e mo%er ( a % t"e Sla*e9 T"eir a2solute o tological %i*isio 2et&ee Master a % sla*e or "uma a % sla*e %oes *iole ce to sla*es a % %ooms our !olitical strategy to o e o# u success#ul re*olutio ary *iole ce9 AI Mo%er ity a % ci*il society Our "istorical rea%i g o# t"e relatio s"i! 2et&ee sla*ery a % ci*il society a % "uma ity "o ors t"e legacy o# sla*e re*olutio 9 T"e ;aitia re*olutio co tai e% a % e+!a %e% i%eas tra##ic0e% i ci*il society o# u i*ersal "uma ity9 DAS; :, R1. .ichael 2fricana 0tudies French, 0ocial and $ultural 2nalysis G MKD +"A 8ook Jeview! Dniversal Emancipation! The Laitian
Jevolution and The Jadical Enlightenment 0lavery W 2bolition -" /"6 p. "E'#"E- //liam T Dniversal Emancipation argues against the French appropriation of universalism as the exclusive product of the revolution of "ISH. From the broad focus of Mesbitt+s narrative, the age of revolution becomes a truly global phenomenon and furthermore, the Laitian revolution surpassed that of the metropole in realising the goal of universal freedom. This is not a new story. .ichel Jolph Trouillot, for instance, argued in "HH@ N The Laitian revolution

was the ultimate test to the universalist pretensions of both the French and the 2merican revolutions+ ." <ater, for
another ma or scholar <aurent 5ubois, the Laitian Jevolution Nrepresented the pinnacle of Enlightenment universalism+.' Furthermore, $.<.J. 1ames in the 8lack 1acobins reminded us that the revolutionary events in France+s colony would take the French Jevolution further than was ever intended. The slaves of 0t 5omingue were left out of the universalist claims of "ISH but they used its ideals to press for their freedom. 2s 1ames put it, the slaves

Nhad heard of the revolution and had construed it in their own image . . . they had caught the spirit of the thing. <iberty, e,uality, Fraternity+.- Mesbitt asserts that there is nothing surprising about the fact that the slaves caught Nthe spirit of the thing+ since
they Nneeded no interpreter+ but the fact that they were Non the so#called periphery of the modern world#system in "IH"+ meant that the Ntruth of "ISH could be most fully comprehended+ /-:6. Furthermore, the Laitian revolution Nserves to disprove the notion that there was any

single NEnlightenment pro ect+ but Na variegated complex of multiple (enlightenments )+ /'A6. $onse,uently, the former slaves of 0t 5omingue were not Npassively parroting ideas imported from France+ but Nautonomously exercised their faculty of udgement in order to illuminate the universal implications of the natural rights tradition in ways unthinkable for the Morth 2merican or Farisian political class+ /:A6. *n re ecting a Nlinear filiation+
between Enlightened Europe and savage colony, Mesbitt scrambles centres and peripheries and challenges the silencing of the Laitian Jevolution by asserting that Nit succeeded in displacing the center of modernity . . . not only for a small peripheral island but for the entire world system+ /"-"6. The

revolution is rendered Nthinkable+ through an intricate discussion of the universally operative nature of 0pino7a+s concept of natural law and %antian universalism, which meant human beings were free Nto define themselves in their differential singularity+ /"A"6. For Mesbitt the abstract concept of freedom or liberte emanating from Europe was
reinterpreted by the ex#slaves of 0t 5omingue as libete and formed the basis for the creation of a self#regulating egalitarian bossale state. *n this regard, he ventures where historians of the Laitian revolution fear to tread. For historians, the impact of ideas on the revolution is hard to ,uantify and is therefore underplayed. Le speculates that political awareness came through such Ntransnational 2tlantic sites+ as waterfronts and marketplaces. The

slaves then transformed this Enlightenment#derived liberty into the idea of absolute freedom for post#plantation 0t 5omingue. 0ince Dniversal Emancipation depends on no new research into the circumstances of the Laitian revolution, Mesbitt depends heavily
on the work of $arolyn Fick and the late 4erard 8arthelemy to make his case for the importance popular insurgency inthe making of the revolution. *n their refusal of large#scale agrarian capitalism, the exslaves produced an egalitarian peasant system that could harmonise

social relations without recourse to government, police, or legal code . Le follows 8athelemy in citing social strategies, such as
the refusal of technological innovation, the subdivision of property from generation to generation, and active caco resistance to the outside world that supported bossale egalitarianism. Laitian peasant society is presented as a maroon enclave beyond the reach of the liberal individualism and boundless consumerism of the &est. This seems a pu77ling departure from both Eugene 4enovese and .ichel#Jolph Trouillot who are cited at other times with approval. 4enovese argued in From Jebellion to Jevolution that the great achievement of the Laitian revolution was the attempt

to create a modern black state and not continue the restorationist practices of marronage .E 0imilarly, Trouillot has argued that those who insist on the isolation of the moun andeyo or the Ndualist sociologists+ have Nmissed the depth of penetration of urban civil society+ by the peasantry.@ *n both instances, Laitian peasants are seen to be part of a global process and not the world+s indigestible other . The modern heroes of Mesbitt+s spirited narrative of mass#based revolution are
the agronomist turned broadcaster 1ean 5omini,ue and the priest turned politician 1ean 8ertrand 2ristide. *n both instances, heroic popular resistance masks the much more complex reality of the spread of modern technology, of cassettes and transistor radios in rural Laiti, and the doctrine of liberation theology spread by the grassroots church or ti legli7. The idealising of strategic marronnage and stateless egalitarianism in Laiti is aimed ultimately at Nall who believe that the coming shift from unlimited consumerism to an ethics of global responsibility will re,uire fundamental changes to the sociopolitical system that has brought us to the brink of disaster+ /"I"6. *t might have been more useful to think of the Mew &orld context and not the new &orld order. Oddly enough there is no reference, except for a fleeting allusion to 8ra7ilian music at the end, to other instances of the radicalisation of the idea of the rights of man in the hemisphere. &hat of 4uadeloupe, for instance, which had a parallel history at the turn of the centuryC 5o other peasant societies in the $aribbean share Laiti+s bossale cultureC Trouillot claims to have learned more about the Laitian peasantry after Nfifteen months doing fieldwork on the peasantry of 5ominica+ than he did Nduring eighteen years in Fort#au#Frince.+ : &hat Mick Mesbitt does very persuasively is present the Laitian revolution as the most radical revolution of its time. Le is less convincing in enlisting the Laitian moun andeyo in his campaign against global capitalism.

/I ;uma ity

1e s"oul% ot a2a %o t"e category o# u i*ersal "uma ity9 A ti'sla*ery a2olitio a % its i tersectio s &it" criti4ues o# ge %ere% citi)e s"i! %re& o u i*ersal "uma ity as a source o# soli%arity9 GILROD 5 RFaul, 2nthony 4iddens Frf. of 0ocial Theory G <ondon 0chool of Economics NH Jace and the Jight to be Luman p. :#"" //liamT 2t times, the movement against slavery was extended into a comprehensive assault on racial hierarchy which invoked an idea of universal humanity /by no means always religious in origin6 as well as an idea of inalienable rights". That alternative
provides my point of departure this evening. *t was articulated in distinctive accents which were neither bourgeois nor liberal'. *t re,uires us to follow a detour through colonial history which has come under revisionist pressure as a result of recent attempts to revive imperial relations. That dubious

development has made it imperative to place the west+s avowal of modern, liberal, humanistic and humanitarian ideas in the context of the formative encounter with native peoples whose moral personality and humanity had long been placed in doubt. The approach * favour re,uires seeing not ust how all#con,uering liberal sensibilities evolved unevenly into considerations of human rights but how a range of disputes over and around the idea of universal humanity9its origins, its hierarchies and varying moral and uridical dispositions9 were connected to struggles over race, slavery, colonial and imperial rule, and how they in turn produced positions which would later be narrated and claimed as liberal. This agonistic enterprise necessitates a different genealogy for human rights than is
conventional-. *t begins with the history of con,uest and European expansion and must be able to encompass the evolving debates over how colonies and slave plantation systems were to be administeredE. 2t its most basic, it must incorporate the contending voices of <as $asas and 0epulveda. *t should be able to analy7e the contrapuntality of a text like Thomas Lobbes+ <eviathan with the introduction of England+s Mavigation 2cts and illuminate the relationship between 1ohn <ocke+s insightful advocacy on behalf of an emergent bourgeoisie and his commitment to the colonial improvers+ doctrine of the vacuum domicilium. This counter#narrative would certainly include the Treaty of Dtrecht and the 2ssiento. *t could terminate uneasily in the contemporary debates about torture and rendition or in discussion about the institutionalisation of rightslessness which floods into my mind each time * navigate the halls of the 0chiphol complex. Focusing on that combination of progress and catastrophe through a

postcolonial lens yields a view of what would become the liberal tradition moving on from its seventeenth century origins in a style of thought that was partly formed by and readily adapted to colonial conditions@ . This helps to explain how an obstinate attachment to raciology recurs. 0truggles against racial hierarchy have contributed directly and consistently to challenging conceptions of the human . They valorised forms of humanity that were
not amenable to colour#coded hierarchy and, in complicating approaches to human sameness, they refused the full, obvious force of natural differences even when they were articulated together with sex and gender. These struggles shaped philosophical perspectives on the fragile

universals that had come into focus initially on the insurgent edges of colonial contact 7ones where the violence of raciali7ed statecraft was repudiated and cosmopolitan varieties of care took shape unexpectedly across the boundaries of culture, civili7ation, language and technology:. One early criti,ue of the humanitarian language and tacit
raciali7ation of the enlightenment ideal had been delivered by the militant abolitionist 5avid &alker in his "S-A commentary on the D0 constitution! 2ppeal to the $oloured $iti7ens of the &orld, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the Dnited 0tates of 2merica. Lis famous text supplies a useful symbolic, starting point for generating the new genealogy we re,uire. Erecting secular demands over the foundation of a revolutionary, Fauline $hristianity, &alker made the problem of black humanity and related issues of rights9political and human9intrinsic to his insubordinate conception of world citi7enship. Lis plea that blacks be recogni7ed as belonging to (the human family) was combined with a view of their natural rights as being wrongfully confiscated in the condition of slavery which could, as a result of their exclusion, be ustifiably overthrownI. Lis address was primarily offered to the coloured citi7ens of the world but the tactical reduction of that universalist argument to the parochial problem of oining the D0 as full citi7ens soon followed. The conse,uences of that change of scale can be readily seen in the humanistic abolitionism that followed. Frederick 5ouglass9 particularly in his extraordinary "S@' speech on the meaning of the Eth of 1uly to the slaveS, spoke directly to the D0 in the name of its polluted national citi7enship. Lis indictment of slavery was a cosmopolitan one in which the elo,uent facts of plantation life were udged, ust as &alker had suggested they should be, through global comparisons. They were compared with all the abuse to be found in (the monarchies and despotisms of the Old &orld /and in6 0outh 2merica). 5ouglass concluded that (for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, 2merica reigns without a rival). Le continued, again echoing &alker! (.ust * undertake to prove that the slave is a manC That point is conceded already. Mobody doubts it. The slave#holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. . . . . . Low should * look to#day, in the presence of 2mericans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedomC speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.)H *n

demanding e,uality based on natural rights and exploring the relationship of debased citi7enship and tainted law to raciali7ed life, 5ouglass was drawing upon the thinking of an earlier cohort of abolitionist writers . .any of

them had, like &alker and other anti#slavery radicals, practiced a chiliastic $hristianity that built upon 0t. Faul with incendiary conse,uences which could not be limited by the heading of anti#slavery. $onsider the way in which 2ngelina 4rimk[ had articulated the concept of human rights in her "S-: 2ppeal To The $hristian &omen of The 0outh! . . . man is never vested with . . . dominion over his fellow man= he was never told that any of the human species were put under his feet= it was only all things, and man, who was created in the image of his .aker, never can properly be termed a thing, though the laws of 0lave 0tates do call him Na chattel personal=+ .an then, * assert never was put under the feet of man, by that first charter of human rights which was given by 4od, to the Fathers of the 2ntediluvian and Fostdiluvian worlds, therefore this doctrine of e,uality is based on the 8ible"A. 4rimk[ elaborated upon this inspired refusal of the reduction of people to things in a memorable /"S-S6 letter to her friend $atherine 8eecher /the older sister of Larriet 8eecher 0towe6. There, she connected the notion of divinely instituted human rights to a growing sense of what it would mean for women to ac,uire political rights. Ler insight was framed by a deep engagement with the problem of a gendered alienation from the humanity of (species being)! (The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to better understanding of our own. * have found the 2nti#slavery cause to be the high school of morals in our land9the school in which human rights are more fully investigated and better understood and taught, than in any other. Lere a great fundamental principle is uplifted and illuminated, and from this central light rays innumerable stream all around . Luman beings have rights,

because they are moral beings! the rights of all men grown out of their moral nature, they have essentially the same rights. )"" *t is not easy to assimilate this variety of critical reflection to the political traditions inherited by modern liberalism from
revolutionary France. The foregrounding of race is, for example, a fundamental and distinguishing feature as is the suggestion that reflecting upon the thwarted rights of slaves promotes a richer understanding of the rightslessness known by women. Lere, slavery was not only a political metaphor. 2 different kind of connection was being proposed! whoever we are, we can learn about our own situation from studying the

suffering of others which instructively resembles it. This approach makes the disinterest in abolitionism shown

by today+s liberal chroniclers of human rights struggles all the more perplexing . The long battle to appropriate the language
and political morality of human rights re#worked the assumptions which had led to articulating the unthinkable prospects of black citi7enship and black humanity in the form of the ancient rhetorical ,uestions immortali7ed in &edgewood+s porcelain! (2m * not a .an and a brotherC) (2m * not a &oman and a sisterC). The liberatory recognition solicited by those in,uiries was pitched against the corrosive power of

racial categories and mediated by the cosmopolitan power of human shame. *t asked that the social divisions signified by phenotypical difference be set aside in favour of a more substantive human commonality. *t promised an alternative conception of kinship that could deliver a world purged of in ustice in general and racial hierarchy in particular. < lig"te me t u %ersta %i gs o# "uma ity &ere al&ays #racture% 7 a ti'Im!erial stra %s i u i*ersal "uma ity s"oul% 2e recog i)e%9 T"ere &as a ro2ust stra % o# a ti'Im!erial u i*ersalism t"at critici)e% %is!ossessio a % sla*ery9 M.T;. - R0ankar, Foli 0ci G $hicago Enlightenment 2gainst Empire p. '::#'I" //liamT Dniversal 5ignity, $ultural 2gency, and .oral *ncommensurability 5o commitments to the idea of a shared humanity, to human dignity, to cross#cultural universal moral principles, and to cross#cultural standards of ustice rest upon assumptions and values that unavoidably denigrate, or that disturbingly undermine respect for, cultural pluralism, that is, the wide array of human institutions and practices in the world C": 2re they imperialistic either
explicitly, to ustify Europe+s political, military, and commercial sub ugation of the non#European world, or implicitly, by indicating a rank ordering of superior and inferior peoples, which could then be used to ustify a more indirect, ,uasi#imperial Ncivili7ing+ processC The aforementioned commitments are sometimes collectively gathered under the term NEnlightenment universalism+ and, as we have seen, they are

such assertions mask and distort a complex reality. *n this case, they obscure the multiplicity of universalisms across eighteenth#century European political thought, each with distinct foundational claims, varying relationships to conceptuali7ations of human diversity and to humanity /which
sometimes considered to constitute the core of Nthe Enlightenment pro ect+. * have suggested already that themselves differ from thinker to thinker, and even from text to text6, and different political orientations toward the nature and limits of state power in theory and in practice. These philosophical sensibilities and approaches can yield remarkably dif ferent political arguments toward foreign peoples, international ustice, and imperialism. Thus, rather than ask whether Nthe Enlightenment pro ect+ and NEnlightenment universalism+ are compatible with an appreciation of cultural pluralism or whether they are at bottom imperiali7ing ideologies, it is more constructive to pose more precise

and historically accurate versions of such ,uestions with regard to particular texts and thinkers. *n this book, * have
studied a distinctive variant of Enlightenment writings against empire, one which includes the philosophical and political arguments of 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder. &hile there is no such thing as NEnlightenment universalism+ as such, let alone a larger NEnlightenment pro ect+, there is nonetheless an identifiable set of philosophical and political arguments, assumptions, and tendencies about the relationship between universal and pluralistic concepts that animates the strand of Enlightenment political thought under study here. &ith this in mind, one can more meaningfully ask what the relationship is between universalism, pluralism, and incommensurability in such political philosophies, and how precisely they yield anti#imperialist political commitments. 2nswers to these more circumscribed ,uestions can be given by better understanding the core elements of 5iderot+s, %ant+s, and Lerder+s political philosophies, and how they differ from earlier /and, indeed, from many later6 understandings and udgements of empire. *mmanuel %ant remarks pointedly in Toward Ferpetual Feace that the Europeans who landed and eventually settled in the Mew &orld often denied indigenous peoples any moral status. &hen 2merica, the Megro countries, the 0pice *slands, the $ape, and so forth were discovered, they were, to them Rto EuropeansT, countries belonging to no one Rdie keinem angeheortenT, since they counted the inhabitants as nothing. /S!-@S, emphasis added6 &hat

philosophical concepts and arguments were necessary for Mew &orld peoples to be counted finally as something and especially to be considered as e,uals, as they were eventually in some crucial respects, by anti# imperialist political thinkers in the Enlightenment eraC *n this section, * focus on what * have taken in this book to be the
philosophically most robust strand of Enlightenment anti#imperialist political thought."I 5espite the many differences in the ethnographic sources that 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder consulted, the philosophical languages that these thinkers employed, and the particular concepts they drew upon to attack European empires, their anti#imperialist arguments intriguingly overlap in important respects. Thus, in this section, * identify and elucidate the family resemblances that exist among their philosophical arguments and rhetorical strategies, and discuss the underlying assumptions, ideas, and intellec tual dispositions that make their version of anti#imperialist political thinking conceptually possible. *n contrast to what is effectively the premiss of the kinds of familiar ,uestions asked at the opening of this section, the commitments of 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder to moral universalism, cultural diversity, partial incommensurability, and the delegitimi7ation of empire are not fundamentally in tension but rather reinforce one another. Overall, there are three

principal philosophical sources of Enlightenment anti#imperialism. The first and most basic idea is that human beings deserve some modicum of moral and political respect simply because of the fact that they are human. This
humanistic moral principle alone, however, was far from sufficient for engendering an anti#imperialist politics. The whole modern tradition of natural right and social contract theory held this view in some form. .oreover, 2merindians in particular were explicitly described by such thinkers as the pure, natural humans of the state of nature. Ket much of this tradition of modern political thought, from 4rotius onward, was either agnostic about imperialism or lent philosophical support to European empires. Mot every understanding of what it means fundamentally to be a human fosters the philosophical materials necessary to build a more inclusive and pluralistic political theory that could serve as the basis of anti#imperialist arguments. *ndeed, as * will argue, some understandings of humanity that are manifestly egalitarian can nevertheless impede such a development. 0econd,

therefore, these anti#imperialist arguments rested upon the view that human beings are fundamentally cultural beings. 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder all contend that the category of the human is necessarily marked by cultural difference= in this view, humanity is
cultural agency. This thicker, particulari7ed view of the human sub ect, paradoxically, helped to engender a more inclusive and meaningful moral universalism. Third, a fairly robust account of moral incommensurability and relativity was also necessary for

the rise of anti#imperialist political thought. The anti#imperialist arguments offered by 5iderot, %ant, and Lerder all partly rest upon the view
that peoples as a whole are incommensurable. From this perspective, entire peoples cannot be udged as superior or inferior along a universal scale of value. .oreover, in distinct but closely related ways, these thinkers argue that our cultural freedom produces a wide variety of individual and collective practices and beliefs that are incommensurable, given their view that many practices and beliefs lie outside the bounds of a categorical udgement or universal standard. &hen these three conceptual developments were brought together, the strand of Enlightenment anti#imperialist political theory that * have identified became philosophically possible. * want to reiterate here that this framework is not meant to elucidate all of the anti#imperialist arguments that one can find in the philosophical writings of the Enlightenment era. .oreover, the distinc tive intellectual dispositions, personal

idiosyncrasies, and domestic political commitments of Enlightenment#era thinkers significantly shaped their particular arguments on the issue of empire. 0till, as * will show, these three philosophical ideas play a crucial role in enabling the development of a rich

strand of anti#imperialist political theory in the late eighteenth century . *n discussing the development of a more inclusive and
anti#imperialist political theory, my focus in this section /as it has been generally in this book6 is on Europeans+ political attitudes toward non# Europeans. .any thinkers in non#European societies clearly operated with similarly self#centred conceptions, but my emphasis throughout is on Europeans+ intellectual responses to the fact of cultural difference and imperial politics, not with non#European peoples+ understandings of each other or of their accounts of European peoples. Mor do * examine here the variety of intra#European distinctions between allegedly superior and inferior groups, those, for instance, involving linguistic, geographical, class, religious, and gender differences, which of course historically also legitimated differential treatment within European societies. Thus, * do not intend to argue that Enlightenment anti#imperialist political philosophies are inclusive as such, for their underlying principles do not necessarily /and, in the eighteenth century, they manifestly did not6 support egalitarian arguments against every form of exclusion. 2s * have noted, the first idea that enables Enlightenment anti#imperialism9 first both historically and analytically9is that foreigners are human beings and, conse,uently, that they deserve moral respect, however understood. The development, in other words, of some variant

of a humanistic moral universalism ensured that the shared humanity of both Europeans and non#Europeans would be acknowledged and given some due. The philosophical and political legacy with which Enlightenment anti#imperialist thinkers struggled, as they themselves understood, was one of exclusion . 2s they often noted, ethical
principles of respect and reciprocity had been limited almost always to /some6 members of one+s own tribe, polis, nation, religion, or civili7ation. 2ccordingly, the distinction between one+s own society, however defined, and the barbaroi /others, foreigners6, whether ustified outright or tacitly assumed, influenced not only the anthropological conceptions of, and popular understandings about, foreign peoples, but also legitimated the often brutally differential treatment of various groups. *t is along these lines that %ant expresses dismay, in a lecture on moral philosophy, at what he calls the (error that the RancientT 4reeks displayed, in that they evinced no goodwill towards extranei Routsiders, or foreignersT, but included them all, rather, sub voce hostes a barbari Runder the name of enemies, or barbariansT). /'I!:IE6 *n the long history of imperial exploits, actions that in at least some contexts might have provoked outrage in one+s own land not only gained legitimacy on foreign soil but were deemed praiseworthy, noble, and even morally obligatory abroad. &hile European imperialists in the Mew &orld, writes 5iderot, (faithfully observe their own laws, they will violate the rights of other nations in order to increase their power. That is what the Jomans did.)"S Enlightenment anti#imperialists recogni7ed that such 1anus#faced practices constituted the very core of imperial activity from the empires of the ancient world to the imperial con,uests and commercial voyages of their day. The fact of difference itself lay at the heart of such inconsistent behaviour from Europeans+ initial encounters with 2merindians onward, as 5iderot notes! (RtThe 0paniard, the first to be thrown up by the waves onto the shores of the Mew &orld, thought he had no duty to people who did not share his colour, customs, or religion.) "H Mot wanting to single out the 0panish, 5iderot suggests further that the Fortuguese, 5utch, English, French, and 5anes all followed in precisely the same spirit of exclusion and in ustice. From an anthropological viewpoint, such discoveries of non#European peoples no doubt played a role in Europeans+ changing conceptions of humanity. From Lerodotus onward, of course, travel narratives played a central role in contemplating what it might mean to be, in some fundamental sense, a human being. 4iven that theori7ations of human nature relate, in complicated ways, to changing understandings of the range and characteristics of human societies, institutions, and practices, the European discovery of Nnew+ lands and peoples accordingly generated further, and at times more complex, theori7ations of humanity.'A .oreover, from the sixteenth century onward, thinkers were particularly keen to consult and appropriate the latest ethnographic reports. *n part, the heightened interest no doubt complemented, and may in part have resulted from, what is often described as the intellectual revolution in Nnatural philosophy+ and the resulting emphasis on experimentation, empirical study, and inductive reasoning in fields such as astronomy, but also /especially from the mid#seventeenth century onward6 in the study of human anatomy, physiology, and psychology. 2lthough many of Lume+s contemporaries did not share his hope of introducing (the experimental method) to moral philosophy, there was nonetheless a widespread presumption that an understanding of the human condition needed to take account, in some manner, of the growing anthropological literature that detailed the vast range of human experiences, customs, and practices throughout the globe.'" This turn toward what 4eorges 4usdorf has called Nhuman science+, however, re,uires a stable referent for what counts as Nhuman+ while also upsetting the stability of the term by focusing attention increasingly on human difference.'' *n this sense, the attempt at identifying the most salient features of humanity was often an erratic and inherently conflicted task, as 1ohn <ocke argued it would have to be, given the very nature of our self#knowledge.

T"e sla*e re!rese ts t"e i #ra'"uma 7 ot t"e o '"uma 9 I clu%e% as o ly !artly "uma t"e status o# t"e sla*e "as "istorically 2ee co teste% 2y a!!eals to u i*ersal "uma commu ity9 As &it" . cle Tom8s Ca2i 7 t"e #act t"at t"is ty!e o# !olitical acti*ity simulta eously co tai e% egati*e e##ects #or our u %ersta %i g o# t"e sla*e %oes 8t mea it s"oul% 2e re3ecte%9 GILROD 5 RFaul, 2nthony 4iddens Frf. of 0ocial Theory G <ondon 0chool of Economics NH Jace and the Jight to be Luman p. "-#"@ //liam T
The structure of sentimental feeling articulated by Larriet 8eecher 0towe was instrumental in the formation of a trans#national moral collectivity and in winning recognition of the suffering humanity of the slave whom it was no longer possible to dismiss as a brute. Through her voice and chosen genre, distinctive patterns of (heteropathic) identification appear to have leaked not only into Europe but further afield as well. Dncle Tom+s $abin

helped to compose a cosmopolitan chapter in the moral history of our world . *s all of that potential for political action and pedagogy to be damned now because campus anti#humanism doesn+t approve of the dubious aesthetic and moral registers in which an un#exotic otherness was initially made intelligibleC The scale of the historical
and interpretative problems posed by the case of Dncle Tom+s $abin can only be glimpsed here. 4eorge 8ullen, keeper of books at the 8ritish .useum compiled a bibliographic note included in the repackaged "SIH edition. Le revealed that almost three decades after publication, 0towe+s novel had been translated into numerous languages including 5utch, 8engali, Farsi, 1apanese, .agyar and .andarin. Fourteen editions had been sold in the 4erman language during the first year of publication and a year later, seventeen editions in French and a further six in Fortuguese had also appeared. *n Jussia, the book had been recommended as a primer in the struggle against serfdom and was duly banned. The first book to sell more than a million copies in the D0, the publication of 0towe+s novel was a world historic event. Though it cemented deeply problematic conceptions of slave

passivity, redemptive suffering and indeed of racial type, it was also instrumental in spreading notions of black dignity and ontological depth as well as the anti#racist variety of universal humanism that interests me. This combination
merits recognition as a potent factor in the circulation of a version of human rights that racial hierarchy could not ,ualify or interrupt. The example of 0towe draws attention to issues which would reappear through the nineteenth century as part of struggles to defend indigenous peoples, to improve the moral and uridical standards of colonial government and to reform the immorality and brutality of Europe+s imperial order. This activity was not always altruistically motivated. Low those themes developed in the period after slavery is evident from the para#academic work of campaigners like Larriet $olenso, *da 8. &ells, Joger $asement and E.5. .orel. The constellation of writings produced by these critical commentators

on racism, ustice and humanity needs to be reconstructed in far greater detail than is possible here . They can
nonetheless be seen to comprise a tradition of reflection on and opposition to racial hierarchy that, even now, has the power, not only to disturb and amend the official genealogy provided for Luman Jights but also to re#work it entirely around the tropes of racial difference. 2llied with parallel

insights drawn from struggles against colonial power, these interventions contribute to a counterhistory of the contemporary conundrum of rights and their tactical deployment . This neglected work remains significant because debate in this field is increasingly reduced to an unproductive ,uarrel between urists who are confident that the world can be transformed by a better set of rules and sceptics who can identify the limits of rights talk, but are almost always disinterested in racism and its metaphysical capacities . Thinkers like &ells and .orel
were alive to what we now call a deconstructive approach. They identified problems with rights#talk and saw the way that racial difference mediated the relationship of that lofty rhetoric to brutal reality. They grasped the limits of rights#oriented institutional life empirically and saw how rights#claims entered into the battle to extend citi7enship. 8ut, their vivid sense of the power of racism meant that the luxury of any casual anti#humanism could not be entertained. They wished to sustain the human in human rights and to differentiate their own universalistic

aspirations from the race#coded and exclusionary humanisms which spoke grandly about all humanity but made whiteness into the prere,uisite for recognition. Their alternative re,uired keeping the criti,ue of race and racism dynamic and demanding nothing less than the opening of both national# and world#citi7enship to formerly infrahuman beings like the negro. 4rimk[, &ells and the rest appealed against racism and in ustice in humanity+s name. Their commentaries might even represent the ,uickening of the new humanism of which Frant7 Fanon would speak years later. The movement these commentators created and mobili7ed persisted further into the twentieth century when new causes and opportunities were found that could repeat and amplify its criti,ue of raciali7ed political cultures and terroristic governmental administration . The political significance of humanity is both terrible and terribly important. Though the concept of humanity makes us guilty, it also is a pre#re,uisite for a politics that can fight atrocity.

Ra%ical "uma ism ta0es u! t"e 2ur%e a % t"e am2iguity o# "uma ity9 I%e ti#icatio &it" commo "uma ity across li es o# o!!ressio o!e s u! !ossi2ilities #or e*ery%ay !olitical *irtue9 GILROD 5 RFaul, 2nthony 4iddens Frf. of 0ocial Theory G <ondon 0chool of Economics Jace and the Jight to be Luman p. 'A#'- //liam T
2rendt and 2gamben are linked by their apparent distaste for analy7ing racism and by their complex and critical relations to the idea of the human. This combination of positions can facilitate hostility to the pro ect of human rights which is then dismissed for its inability to face the political and strategic processes from which all rights derive and a related refusal to address the analytical shortcomings that arise from the dependence of human rights on an expansion of the rule of law9which can incidentally be shown to be fully compatible with colonial crimes'-. Listories of colonial power and

genealogies of racial statecraft can help to explain both of these problems and to break the impasse into which the analysis of human rights has fallen. This is another reason why anti#racism remains important. *t does not argue naively for a world without hierarchy but practically for a world free of that particular hierarchy which has accomplished untold wrongs. The possibility that abstract nakedness was not so much a cipher of insubstantial humanity but a sign of racial hierarchy in
operation arises from the work of concentration camp survivors. 1ean 2m[ry recogni7ed his own experience through a reading of Fanon. Frimo <evi, his fellow 2uschwit7 inmate and interlocutor, who interpreted the lager+s brutal exercises in racial formation as conducted for the benefit of their perpetrators, suggested that racism+s capacity to reconcile rationality and irrationality was expressed in the dominance of outrage over economic profit. 8oth men saw infrahuman victims made to perform the subordination that race theory re,uired and anticipated but which their bodies did not spontaneously disclose. *nspired by <evi, by the philosophical writings of 1ean 2m[ry, and various other observers of and commentators on the pathologies of European civilisation, we should aim to answer the corrosive allure of absolute sameness and purity ust as they did, with a historical and moral commitment to the political, ethical and educational potential of human shame. Though being ashamed may sometimes appear

to overlap with sentimentality or even to be its result, they are different. Excessive sentimentality blocks shame+s productivity, its slow, humble path towards ordinary virtue. 0hame arises where identification is complicated by a sense of responsibility. 0entimentalism offers the pleasures of identification in the absence of a feeling of responsible attachment. 2m[ry was an elo,uent proponent of what he called a radical humanism.
Through discovering his 1ewishness under the impact of somebody+s fist but more especially as a result of having been tortured by the Ma7is, he ac,uired a great interest in a politics of dignity which could answer the governmental actions that brought racial hierarchy to dismal life. Ferhaps for that very reason, he found through his post#war reading of Fanon, that (the lived experience of the black man . . .

corresponded in many respects to my own formative and indelible experience as a 1ewish inmate of a concentration camp. . .). Le continued! (* too suffered repressive violence without buffering or mitigating mediation. The world of the concentration camp too was a .anichaean one! virtue was housed in the 00 blocks, profligacy, stupidity, malignance and
la7iness in the inmates+ barracks. Our ga7e onto the 00#city was one of Nenvy+ and Nlust+ as well. 2s with the coloni7ed Fanon, each of us fantasi7ed at least once a day of taking the place of the oppressor. *n the concentration camp too, ust as in the native city, envy ahistorically transformed itself into aggression against fellow inmates with whom fought over a bowl of soup while the whip of the oppressor lashed at us with no need to conceal its force and power.)'E &ith <evi and Fanon, 2m[ry shared a commitment to extracting humanistic perspectives from the

extremity he had survived in the lager. *n a famous R"H:ET essay exploring his experiences at the hands of the 4estapo, he insisted that
torture was (the essence)'@ of the Third Jeich and in making that case, shows how these issues should become important again in comprehending and criticising the brutal, permissive conduct of (the war on terror).

CNC O/A
T"e a##irmati*e8s a#ro'!essimism u %ermi es "uma ity8s u i*ersalism a % !re*e ts t"e !ossi2ility o# c"a ge A mo%er a!!roac" to racism re4uires a re3ectio o# social isolatio ism T"is ma %ates a a!!roac" &"ic" ac0 o&le%ges i tersectio ality a % u i*ersalism' t"at8s Gilroy a % Das" T"eir criti4ue o# &"ite ess u %ermi es t"e role t"at a ti'im!erialist mo*eme ts( #emi ism i t"e Ci*il 1ar "a*e "a% i com2ati g racism' t"at8s Mut"u . !ro%ucti*e s0e!ticism "as to 2e re!lace% &it" a cosmo!olita ism "istory' t"is is ot aN*e( 2ut acce!ts t"at e*e #la&e% systems ca 2e et #orces #or goo%' t"at8s Gilroy

T"ey assume t"at a ti'2lac0 a imus arises #rom ot"i g ess 2ut its caug"t u! i a 2roa%er &e2 o# "istorical !o&er relatio s"i!s li0e Islamo!"o2ia a % ati*ism C"aroe yi g > RTimothy, citing Melson .aldonado#Torres, Frof of Ethnic 0tudies, D$ 8erkeley, *slamophobia W 2nti#8lackness! 2
4enealogical 2pproach, http:88crg#berkele4#edu8content8islamophobia-anti-blackness-genealogical-approach //liamT The year "EH' marked a ma or turning point in the tra ectory of &estern $ivili7ation . Elementary age children are taught this as the year $olumbus

A"istorical

famously crossed the 2tlantic. 2n e,ually significant event that year, was the 0panish con,uest of al# 2ndalusOa .oorish province on the southern *berian peninsula established eight centuries earlierOand more importantly , the last ma or .uslim stronghold on the European continent. $ritical race scholars have argued that these two events would not only shift the geopolitical balance of power from the Orient to the Occident, but fundamentally alter conceptions about religious and racial identity.` 2ccording to Melson .aldonado#Torres, of the Dniversity of $alifornia, 8erkeley, the expulsion of the

.oors from continental Europe marked a transition from an age of imperial relations between $hristian and .uslim empires, to an age of European colonial expansion throughout the known world. The (discovery) of (godless) natives in the 2mericas would also inspire the

great debates between <as $asas and 0epilveda in "@@A on the nature of the human soul. 0uch a geopolitical and philosophical shift, .aldonado#Torres argues, would lead to a Eurocentric, re#categori7ation of humanity based upon religous 9and ultimately racial9differences. .aldonado#Torres has proposed that anti#black racism is not simply an extension of some historical bias against blacks, but rather, is an amalgam of old#world *slamophobia linked to the history of the *berian peninsula, and to the notion of souless beings embodied in popular conceptions about the indigenous natives of the 2mericas.` These beliefs would contribute to an ideological basis for, and ustification of, colonial con,uests in the name of cultural and religious conversion, as well as pave the way for the enslavement and human trafficking of sub#0aharan 2fricans. T"eir i"ilism tur s t"e case 7 greatest com!arati*e t"reat Mia" 4uoti g 1est i 5F R.alik .iah, $ornel &est?s Jace .atters, .ay#1une, http:88666#solidarit4-us#org8node8*',( //liamT *n the chapter, (Mihilism in 8lack 2merica,) &est observes (The liberal/conservative discussion conceals the most basic issue now facing 8lack 2merica! the nihilistic threat to its very existence. This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and political powerlessness ## though economic well#being and political clout are re,uisites for meaningful 8lack progress. *t is primarily a ,uestion of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in 8lack 2merica.) /"'#"-6` (Mihilism,) he continues, (is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine ... it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaningless, hopelessness, and /most important6 lovelessness.) /"E6` (Mihilism is not new in 8lack 2merica. . . . *n fact,) &est explains,)the ma or enemy of 8lack survival in 2merica has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the nihilistic Threat ## that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive. The self#fulfilling prophecy of the nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no future, that without meaning there can be no struggle.) /"E#"@6

Social Deat" Li 0s
T"e a##irmati*e8s c"oice to #rame t"e ature o# o!!ressio t"roug" t"e r"etorical a % i%eological #rame o# ?social %eat"@ e tre c"es !essimism a % %es!air /ro& ,5 R;incent 8rown is Frofessor of Listory and of 2frican and 2frican#2merican 0tudies at Larvard Dniversity. 2.EJ*$2M L*0TOJ*$2<
JE;*E&, 5E$E.8EJ 'AAH http:88histor4#fas#har1ard#edu8people8facult48documents8bro6n-socialdeath#pdf //liamT 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath was widely reviewed and lavishly praised for its erudition and conceptual rigor. 2s a result of its success, social death has become a handy general dejnition of slavery, for many historians and non#historians alike. 8ut it is often forgotten that the concept of social

death is a distillation from Fatterson+s breathtaking survey9a theoretical abstraction that is meant not to describe the lived experiences of the enslaved so much as to reduce them to a least common denominator that could reveal the essence of slavery in an ideal#type slave, shorn of meaningful heritage. 2s a concept, it is what Frederick $ooper has called an (agentless abstraction) that provides a neat cultural logic but ultimately does little to illuminate the social and political experience of enslavement and the struggles that produce historic transformations. *ndeed, it is
difjcult to use such a distillation to explain the actual behavior of slaves, and yet in much of the scholarship that followed in the wake of 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath, Fatterson+s abstract distillates have been used to explain the existential condition of the enslaved. Laving emerged from the discipline of sociology, (social death) jt comfortably within a scholarly tradition that had generally been more alert to

deviations in patterns of black life from prevailing social norms than to the worldviews, strategies, and social tactics of people in black communities. Together with Fatterson+s work on the distortions wrought by slavery on black families, (social death) rekected sociology+s abiding concern with (social pathology)= the (pathological condition) of twentieth#century black life could be seen as an outcome of the damage that black people had suffered during slavery .Dniversity of $hicago
professor Jobert Fark, the grand#pelre of the social pathologists, set the terms in "H"H! (the Megro, when he landed in the Dnited 0tates, left behind almost everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament.) S Fatterson+s distillation also conformed to the nomothetic imperative of social science, which has traditionally aimed to discover universal laws of operation that would be true regardless of time and place, making the synchronic study of social phenomena more tempting than more descriptive studies of historical transformation. 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath took shape during a period when largely synchronic studies of antebellum slavery in the Dnited 0tates dominated the scholarship on human bondage, and Fatterson+s expansive view was meant to situate D.0. slavery in a broad context rather than to discuss changes as the institution developed through time. Thus one might see (social death) as an obsolete product of its time and tradition, an academic artifact with limited purchase for contemporary scholarship, were it not for the concept+s reemergence in some important new studies of slavery. H &*5E<K 2$%MO&<E54E5 20 2.OM4 themost onerous of social institutions, slavery has much to tell us about the way human beings react to oppression. 2t the same time, the extreme nature

of the institution naturally encourages a pessimistic view of the capacity for collective agency among sub ugated people. 2s a result, trends in the study of slavery, as with the study of dominancemore generally, often divide between works that emphasi7e the overwhelming power of the institution and scholarship that focuses on the resistant efforts of the enslaved. *n turn, this division frames a problem in the general understanding of political life, especially for the descendants of the powerless. *t might even be said that these kinds of studies form different and opposing genres9hopeful stories of heroic subalterns versus anatomies of doom9 that compete for ascendance. *n recent years, if the invocation of Fatterson+s (social death) is any indication, the pendulum seems to have swung decidedly toward despair. T"eir met"o%ology is #la&e%KT"eir #ocus o social %eat" %isem!o&ers social age cy a % !us"es us a&ay #rom !olitical acti*ism9 1e s"oul% recog i)e t"at &e li*e i a &orl% &"ere culture creates o!!ortu ities #or us to #i % em!o&erme t a % &e s"oul% re3ect t"e otio t"at o!!ressio is #orm o# social %eat" /ra %om :, REric 8random 8rown v 2gamben ;. 8rown, ?0ocial 5eath and Folitical <ife in the 0tudy of 0lavery?, The 2merican Listorical
Jeview, ""E, /'AAH6, pp "'-"#"'EH. http:88ebrandom#blogspot#com8&''(8+&8bro6n-1-agamben#html //liamT This essay is most straightforwardly a corrective to what 8rown sees as the misuse /overuse6 of Orlando Fatterson+s categorical definition of slavery as social death. 2ccording to 8rown, historians have often taken what Fatterson meant as an ideal type definition to be a

description of reality itself. Listorians have long re ected, however, the basic result of such a definition! that it would strip slaves of agency. .anifestly, historians have pointed out, slaves had agency. One need look no further than the continuous rebellions and occasional revolutions to emerge from new world slavery to see this. 8rown+s real goal, though, is deeper than this. *n step with his historical work in The Jeaper+s 4arden, 8rown wants to retell the story of slavery from the perspective of what we might call the micro#politics, or cultural politics, of everyday life. 8rown argues that what he calls mortuary politics, conflict and negotiation over death, burial, and associated rituals, are of the greatest importance. One might make this argument in many contexts, but $aribbean slavery is a privileged field. *ncreasingly, it the worldview forged in the "Sth century experience of slavery and revolution has come to be recogni7ed as central to modernity as such /European, 2tlantic, or even if you like, $apitalist6. .ortuary politics is found to be central to
the world of slavery, to the movement of the Laitian Jevolution, and thus to modernity. One effect of 8rown+s argument, or rather one conse,uence of the argument that he wants to make, is a firm and empirically#oriented re ection of 4iorgio 2gamben. 8rown deals with this in a few paragraphs explaining the limits of an 2gambenian perspective such as that taken in *an 8aucom+s 0pecters of the 2tlantic. 2gamben+s notion of bare life , for 8rown, is

piggybacked into the historical study of slavery as a sort of compliment to and intensification of Fattersonian social death. 8rown doesn+t exactly want to re#open old debates about agency /vs structureP6, but he does want to argue that it is plainly wrong to see $aribbean slaves as without culture, in the sense of without resources or community. Le cites &illiam 0ewell+s recent definition of culture, commenting, (practices of meaning are better seen as tools to be used than as
possessions to be lost.) There are several somewhat separable issues here. First, there is the methodological ,uestion of how one should think about culture and agency. *n this, * simply agree with 8rown. * prefer to treat culture /or, ,ua intellectual historian, unit ideas6 as a bundle of tools to be

manipulated9tools that empower, but also limit, channel, and react upon, those that wield them. Then there is the more empirical ,uestion of the admissibility and utility of the notion of Nsocial death+ in the study of slave systems, say specifically in the $aribbean. Mot having read all the relevant texts, * defer with enthusiasm to 8rown. &hat * have read leads me to believe that he is entirely correct.

T"eir met"o%ology o# co structi g a y #orm o# 2arrier i li#e as ?social %eat"@ !reclu%es li2eratio a % ma0es greater ma i!ulatio a % o!!ressio i e*ita2le Mu"&ati ,E R*tai .uhwati 5epartment of 2frican <anguages and <iterature, Dniversity of Ximbabwe
http!//ir.u7.ac.7w!SASA/ spui/bitstream/"A:E:/@"@/"/.uhwati#.ass#Meurosis.pdf //liamT

The physical wreckage and spiritual paralysis that is by definition an expression of this image, leads to an agonising realisation that, in life+s vicissitudes, and life+s race of race survival, 2frican people remain undeveloped and fledgling stutters. The images of characters in these novels whose titles are vapid pro ect 2fricans as victims of collective inertia, wallowing in cultural and historical amnesia and disintegrating in irretrievable mentacide. 2s a result , in terms of agency and mobility, the 2frican race remains glued on the starting line, ,uite overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable hurdles in the race of life. Through the choice of titles, most of the writers seem to have adopted a modality that inordinately pro ects social death and a host of other social sicknesses as new forms of social identity in the
contemporary dispensation. &hile their absolutisation of mass neurosis, closure and entrapment might be said to be a reflection of the state of the nation in the post independence period, it is also estimable that such images of social sickness, paralysis and mass neurosis can be manipulated

by 2frica+s anthropological detractors in their

ustification of a static and back pedalling 2frican race, particularly along

The paper also puts forth argument that, the adoption of an axiological paradigm that legitimises closure and race entrapment nullifies any prospects towards racial
the evolutionary spectrum, which is presented as a universal standard of valuation. salvation. *t is an act of defining the 2frican race as doomed. 0uch a definition which trivialises the 2frican existential tra ectory pays homage to the subversive labels that Europe has generously donated to 2frica. 0uch labels include Third &orld= Dnderdeveloped= 5ark $ontinent= Foor ma ority, cultural other and many more. These are designations that bespeak helplessness and mass neurosis.

T"e r"etorical #rame t"ey c"oose i #rami g li#e as %eat" ma0es %isem!o&erme t i e*ita2le a % ris0s e+ti ctio Mu"&ati ,E R*tai .uhwati 5epartment of 2frican <anguages and <iterature, Dniversity of Ximbabwe
http!//ir.u7.ac.7w!SASA/ spui/bitstream/"A:E:/@"@/"/.uhwati#.ass#Meurosis.pdf //liamT

2s natural speakers of 2frican languages, there is need for 2frican people to be careful of not using the natural gift that language is to disempower themselves. &hen language is recklessly used, it can become one of the subtle forms
of ideological and pedagogical disempowerment. <anguage constitutes one of the oldest and effective forms of technology that humanity has always deployed for the purposes of transcendence. For that reason, the language or discourse that a people adopt and adapt can

enhance or @ negate survival. Lenry Faget /"HHI! "@6 explores the 2frican possibilities of visualising themselves as finite sites of agency. Le advises us that! *t is the fate of this capacity for agency that is crucial for our attitudes toward existence. Through its sense of agency, an individual or group makes an estimate of its chances for successful self#assertion or strategic intervention vis#h#vis its environment. 0uccess or failure in such undertakings are RsicT important determinants of our
attitudes.

Social %eat" is a re%uctio ist co ce!t t"at %oes little to actually e+!lai t"e sla*e e+!erie ce 7 t"is !essimistic *ie& erases otio s o# age cy o# t"e o!!resse% !eo!le9 /ro& ,5 R;incent= 2.EJ*$2M L*0TOJ*$2< JE;*E& 5E$E.8EJ 'AAH http!//history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/documents/brown#socialdeath.pdf //liamT
0lavery and 0ocial 5eath was widely reviewed and lavishly praised for its erudition and conceptual rigor. 2s a result of its success, social death has become a handy general definition of slavery, for many historians and non#historians alike. 8ut it is often forgotten that the concept of social

Social Deat" T/ Age cy

death is a distillation from Fatterson+s breathtaking survey9a theoretical abstraction that is meant not to describe the lived experiences of the enslaved so much as to reduce them to a least common denominator that could reveal the essence of slavery in an ideal#type slave, shorn of meaningful heritage.: 2s a concept, it is what Frederick $ooper has called an (agentless abstraction) that provides a neat cultural logic but ultimately does little to illuminate the social and political experience of enslavement and the struggles that produce historic transformations.I *ndeed, it is difficult to use such a distillation to explain the actual behavior of slave s, and yet in
much of the scholarship that followed in the wake of 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath, Fatterson+s abstract distillates have been used to explain the existential condition of the enslaved. Laving emerged from the discipline of sociology, (s ocial death) fit comfortably within a scholarly

tradition that had generally been more alert to deviations in patterns of black life from prevailing social norms than to the worldviews, strategies, and social tactics of people in black commun ities. Together with Fatterson+s work on the
distortions wrought by slavery on black families, (social death) reflected sociology+s abiding concern with (social pathology)= the (pathological condition) of twentieth#century black life could be seen as an outcome of the damage that black people had suffered during slavery. Dniversity of $hicago professor Jobert Fark, the grand#pelre of the social pathologists, set the terms in "H"H! (the Megro, when he landed in the Dnited 0tates, left behind almost everything but his dark complexion and his tropical temperament.)S Fatterson+s distillation also conformed to the nomothetic

imperative of social science, which has traditionally aimed to discover universal laws of operation that would be true regardless of time and place, making the synchronic study of social phenomena more tempting than more descriptive studies of historical transformation. 0lavery and 0ocial 5eath took shape during a period when largely synchronic studies of
antebellum slavery in the Dnited 0tates dominated the scholarship on human bondage, and Fatterson+s expansive view was meant to situate D.0. slavery in a broad context rather than to discuss changes as the institution developed through time. Thus one might see (social death) as an

obsolete product of its time and tradition, an academic artifact with limited purchase for contemporary scholarship, were it not for the concept+s reemergence in some important new studies of slavery .H &*5E<K
2$%MO&<E54E5 20 2.OM4 the most onerous of social institutions, slavery has much to tell us about the way human beings react to oppression. 2t the same time, the extreme nature of the institution naturally encourages a pessimistic view of the capacity for

collective agency among sub ugated people. 2s a result, trends in the study of slavery, as with the study of dominance more generally, often divide between works that emphasi7e the overwhelming power of the institution and scholarship that focuses on the resistant efforts of the enslaved . *n turn, this division frames a problem in the general understanding of political life, especially for the descendants of the powerless . *t might even be said that these kinds of
studies form different and opposing genres9hopeful stories of heroic subalterns versus anatomies of doom9that compete for ascendance. *n recent years, if the invocation of Fatterson+s (social death) is any indication, the pendulum seems to have swung

decidedly toward despair.

Totali)i g/ Ni"ilism /a%

Re3ect t"eir totali)i g u %ersta %i gs o# race 7 o ly 2y a2a %o i g esse tialism ca &e co struct e& u %ersta %i gs o# 2lac0 ess i t"e &orl% a % c"alle ge t"e i"ilism t"reate i g !ro%ucti*e mo*eme ts9 2ell "oo0s 5, R(FO0T.O5EJM 8<2$%ME00), Fostmodern $ulture vol." http!//www.africa.upenn.edu/2rticlesa4en/Fostmoderna8lacknessa"S'IA.html //liamT *t is sadly ironic that the contemporary discourse which talks the most about heterogeneity , the decentered sub ect, declaring breakthroughs that allow recognition of otherness, still directs its critical voice primarily to a speciali7ed audience , one that shares a common language rooted in the very master narratives it claims to challenge . *f radical postmodernist thinking is to have a transformative impact then a critical break with the notion of >authority> as >mastery over> must not simply be a rhetorical device, it must be reflected in habits of being, including styles of writing as well as chosen sub ect matter. Third#world scholars, especially elites, and white critics who passively absorb white supremacist thinking , and therefore never notice or look at black people on the streets, at their obs, who render us invisible with their ga7e in all areas of daily life, are not likely to produce liberatory theory that will challenge racist domination, or to promote a breakdown in traditional ways of seeing and thinking about reality, ways of constructing aesthetic theory and practice. From a different standpoint Jobert 0torr makes a similar criti,ue in the global issue of 2rt in 2merica when he asserts! To be sure, much postmodernist critical
in,uiry has centered precisely on the issues of >difference> and >otherness.> On the purely theoretical plane the exploration of these concepts has produced some important results, but in the absence of any sustained research into what artists of

Endless second guessing about the latent imperialism of intruding upon other cultures only compounded matters, preventing or excusing these theorists from investigating what black, Lispanic, 2sian and Mative 2merican artists were actually doing . &ithout ade,uate concrete knowledge of and
color and others outside the mainstream might be up to, such discussions become rootless instead of radical. contact with the non#white >other,> white theorists may move in discursive theoretical directions that are threatening to and potentially disruptive of that critical practice which would support radical liberation struggle. The postmodern criti,ue of >identity,> though relevant for renewed black liberation struggle, is often posed in ways that are problematic. 4iven a pervasive politic of white supremacy which seeks to prevent the formation of radical black sub ectivity, we cannot cavalierly dismiss a concern with identity politics. 2ny critic exploring the radical potential of postmodernism as it relates to racial difference and racial domination would need to consider the implications of a criti,ue of identity for oppressed groups.

&e must engage decoloni7ation as a critical practice if we are to have meaningful chances of survival even as we must simultaneously cope with the loss of political grounding which made radical activism more possible. * am thinking here about the postmodernist criti,ue of essentialism as it pertains to the construction of >identity> as one example. Fostmodern theory that is not seeking to
.any of us are struggling to find new strategies of resistance. simply appropriate the experience of >otherness> in order to enhance its discourse or to be radically chic should not separate the >politics of difference> from the politics of racism. To take racism seriously one must consider the plight of underclass people of color, a vast ma ority of whom are black. For 2frican#2mericans our collective condition prior to the advent of postmodernism and perhaps more tragically expressed under current postmodern conditions has been and is

There is increasing class division and differentiation, creating on the one hand a significant black middle#class, highly anxiety# ridden , insecure, willing to be co#opted and incorporated into the powers that be, concerned with racism to the degree that it poses constraints on upward social mobility = and, on the other, a vast and growing black underclass, an underclass that embodies a kind of walking nihilism of pervasive drug addiction, pervasive alcoholism, pervasive homicide, and an exponential rise in suicide. Mow because of the deindustriali7ation, we also have a devastated black industrial working class. &e are talking here about tremendous hopelessness. This hopelessness creates longing for insight and strategies for change that can renew spirits and reconstruct grounds for collective black liberation struggle. The overall impact of the postmodern condition is that many other groups now share with black folks a sense of deep alienation, despair, uncertainty, loss of a sense of grounding, even if it is not informed by shared circumstance. Jadical postmodernism calls attention to those sensibilities which are shared across the boundaries of class, gender, and race, and which could be fertile ground for the construction of empathy##ties that would promote recognition of common commitments and serve as a base for solidarity and coalition. >Kearning> is the word that best describes a common psychological state shared by many of us, cutting across boundaries of race, class, gender, and sexual practice . 0pecifically in relation to the postmodernist deconstruction of >master> narratives, the yearning that wells in the hearts and minds of those whom such narratives have silenced is the longing for critical voice . *t is no accident that >rap> has usurped
characteri7ed by continued displacement, profound alienation and despair. &riting about blacks and postmodernism, $ornel &est describes our collective plight! the primary position of JW8 music among young black folks as the most desired sound, or that it began as a form of >testimony> for the underclass. *t has enabled underclass black youth to develop a critical voice, as a group of young black men

The postmodern sensibility appropriates practices as boasts that announce their own##and conse,uently our own##existence , like a rap song boasting of the imaginary /or real##it makes no difference6 accomplishments of the rapper. They offer forms of empowerment not only in the face of nihilism but precisely through the forms of nihilism itself! an empowering nihilism, a moment of positivity through the production and structuring of affective relations . $onsidering that it is as a sub ect that one comes to voice, then the postmodernist focus on the criti,ue of identity appears, at first glance, to threaten and close down the possibility that this discourse and practice will allow those who have suffered the crippling effects of coloni7ation and domination to gain or regain a hearing. Even if this sense of threat and the fear it evokes are based on a misunderstanding of the postmodernist political pro ect, they nevertheless shape responses . *t never surprises me when black folk respond to the criti,ue of essentialism, especially when it denies the validity of identity politics, by saying >yeah, it?s easy to give up identity, when you got one.> Though an apt and oftentimes appropriate comeback, this does not really intervene in the discourse in a way that alters and transforms. &e should indeed suspicious of postmodern criti,ues of the >sub ect> when they surface at a historical moment when many sub ugated people feel themselves coming to voice for the first time . $riticisms of directions
told me, a >common literacy.> Jap pro ects a critical voice, explaining, demanding, urging. &orking with this insight in his essay >Futting the Fop 8ack into Fostmodernism,> <awrence 4rossberg comments! in postmodern thinking should not obscure insights it may offer that open up our understanding of 2frican#2merican experience. The criti,ue of essentialism encouraged by postmodernist thought is useful for 2frican#2mericans concerned with

&e have too long had imposed upon us, both from the outside and the inside, a narrow constricting notion of blackness. Fostmodern criti,ues of essentialism which challenge notions of universality and static over#determined identity within mass culture and mass consciousness can open up new possibilities for the construction of the self and the assertion of agency. Employing a criti,ue of essentialism allows 2frican#2mericans to acknowledge the way in which class mobility has altered collective black experience so that racism does not necessarily have the same impact on our lives. 0uch a criti,ue allows us to affirm multiple black identitie s, varied black experience . *t also challenges colonial imperialist paradigms of black identity which represent blackness one#dimensionally in ways that reinforce and sustain white supremacy. This discourse created the idea of the >primitive> and promoted the notion of an >authentic> experience, seeing as >natural> those
reformulating outmoded notions of identity.

2bandoning essentialist notions would be a serious challenge to racism . $ontemporary 2frican# 2merican resistance struggle must be rooted in a process of decoloni7ation that continually opposes reinscribing notions of >authentic> black identity . This criti,ue should not be made synonymous with the dismissal of the struggle of oppressed and exploited peoples to make ourselves sub ects. Mor should it deny that in certain circumstances that experience affords us a privileged critical location from which to speak. This is not a reinscription of modernist master narratives of authority which privilege some voices by denying voice to others . Fart of our struggle for radical black sub ectivity is the ,uest to find ways to construct self and identity that are oppositional and liberatory. The unwillingness to criti,ue essentialism on the part of many 2frican#2mericans is rooted in the fear that it will cause folks to lose sight of the specific history and experience of 2frican#2mericans and the uni,ue sensibilities and culture that arise from that experience. 2n ade,uate response to this concern is to criti,ue essentialism while emphasi7ing the significance of >the authority of experience.> There is a radical difference between a repudiation of the idea that there is a black >essence> and recognition of the way black identity has been specifically constituted in the experience of exile and struggle. &hen black folks criti,ue essentialism, we are empowered to recogni7e multiple experiences of black identity that are the lived conditions which make diverse cultural productions possible. &hen this diversity is
expressions of black life which conformed to a pre#existing pattern or stereotype. ignored, it is easy to see black folks as falling into two categories##nationalist or assimilationist, black#identified or white#identified. $oming to terms with the impact of postmodernism for black experience, particularly as it changes our sense of identity, means that we must and can rearticulate the basis for collective bonding. 4iven the various crises facing 2frican#2mericans /economic, spiritual, escalating racial violence, etc.6 we are compelled by circumstance to reassess our relationship to popular culture and resistance struggle .any of us are as reluctant to face this task as many non#black postmodern thinkers who focus theoretically on the issue of >difference> are to confront the issue of race and racism.

***Agam2e <+clusio =***

Politics o# i%e tity is ecessarily #ou %e% i e+clusio ' tur s case McLoug"li ,5' P"D i !"iloso!"y #rom t"e . i*ersity o# Ne& Sout" 1ales( lecturer at A%elai%e La& Sc"ool /5aniel, 2pril, (The Folitics of $aesura! 4iorgio 2gamben on <anguage and the <aw,) <aw $riti,ue /'AAH6 'A!":-O
"I://.456 The traditional determination

of political identity is one of inclusion and exclusion, that is, of belonging to a class or set by virtue of common features. This logic is common to a range of formulations of political community, from that of the nation state, with its division between citi7ens and aliens, to the politics of gender, sexuality, or race. *n this paper, * will refer to this political logic as the Npolitics of identity+, because all of these approaches to politics ground community in an identity unified by a particular shared characteristic. &hile this logic is central to the tradition of political philosophy, 2gamben is not, however, known for his engagement with it. The politics of identity appears in Lomo 0acer only as something whose traditional logic has ceased functioning, having unravelled in modernity through the generalisation of the sovereign exception. Further, 2gamben+s best known work on community, The $oming $ommunity, is explicitly directed against the politics of identity. For 2gamben the future of political thought rests not in an attempt to revive traditional concepts of community, but the attempt to overcome it through a politics of radical singularity , a Nwhatever being+ that is neither being with this or that characteristic, nor being deprived of all characteristics, but rather Nbeing such that it always matters+ /2gamben "HH-, p. "6. Lowever, as we can observe from these two examples, the understanding of political community as determined by identity and belonging is an abiding, if submerged, concern of 2gamben+s, for it is the political
tradition over and against which his analysis emerges. The problem * face in this section then is 2gamben+s understanding of the politics of belonging, and its relationship to both law and language. This analysis will establish the frame within which 2gamben+s account of the limits of language and politics should be understood in the remainder of this essay. *t is 2gamben+s recent text, The Time That Jemains, that offers a key to understanding this problem, as it contains two important treatments of the issue of political identity and its relationship to law. The first is the idea of Nnation+ that

features in his discussion of the relationship between *srael and the Torah. The second is the concept of Ncalling+ or vocation, which appears in Faul+s discussion of the relationship between the messianic community and political status. The former appears to be an immediately uridical problem, while the latter reflects what we might call a Nprofession+9that is, a socialOeconomic category pertaining to someone+s public persona, and which does not appear to have any immediate uridical significance. 5espite the seeming differences between these two articulations of the logic of belonging, 2gamben posits an originary unity between them, and the argument for their unity casts light on the sense in which 2gamben uses the term Nlaw+, and will enable us to observe its relationship to the nature and structure of language. *n the 1ewish tradition the Torah is understood as a Ndividing wall+ or Nfence+ that separates 1ews from non#1ews /2gamben 'AA@a, p. EI6. 2s a conse,uence, 2gamben argues Nthe principle of the law is thus division. The fundamental partition of 1ewish law is the one between 1ews and non#1ews , or in Faul+s words, between *udaioi and
ethne+ /2gamben, 'AA@a, p. EI6. *udaioi are members of the nation of *srael, the elected people, and this status as being#1ewish is defined by the common characteristic of being a party to this pact, that is, being sub ect to 4od+s law. To generalise this logic, to be part of the political

community of Nthe nation+ is to be sub ect to the same law, t he uridical order marking common belonging to the set. &hile it is the Torah that defines the 1ewish community, modernity thinks this belonging in the con unction between state, law and people, and membership as a citi7en in the political community is defined through the rights and obligations of positive law. Further, as we observe in the distinction between iudaioi and ethne , the definition of political identity and community through inclusion in a law, necessarily articulates a simultaneous exclusion of those who are outside or indifferent to it." *n
Faul, this is the division between 1ew and non#1ew, and in the modern nation#state the division between citi7ens and aliens.' To produce political community through law is thus to produce a shared identity through common belonging to a legal order, and this generates a division between inclusion or membership in the political group Nnation+, and exclusion from it.

Calls #or G2elo gi g8 are a!!eals to a commo i%e tity &"ic" asserts a la&'li0e regime o# e+clusio ary !olitics McLoug"li ,5' P"D i !"iloso!"y #rom t"e . i*ersity o# Ne& Sout" 1ales( lecturer at A%elai%e La& Sc"ool /5aniel, 2pril, (The Folitics of $aesura! 4iorgio 2gamben on <anguage and the <aw,) <aw $riti,ue /'AAH6 'A!":-O
"I://.456

2gamben+s discussion of the logic of political division in The Time That Jemains appears to locate it as operating in two different spheres9first, the uridical problem of nation= second, the politico#economic problem of calling. 2propos the latter, 2gamben identifies a shift from a Ncalling+ that pertains to one+s total identity, to the narrower modern notion of vocation. Lowever, all of these forms of political and economic determination are possible only on the basis of a more originary sense in which 2gamben, drawing on Faul, deploys the term klesis. *t is this notion of klesis that gives us the key to both the broad determination of the concept Nlaw+ at operation in 2gamben+s work, and its relationship to language.
Faul uses the term both to describe being Ncalled+ as an apostle, and also to state that those called by the messiah should Nremain in their calling+ /2gamben 'AA@a, p. "H6. Faul thus writes that Ncircumcision is nothing, and the foreskin is nothingV <et every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 2rt though being called a slaveC $are not for it+ /Faul, * $orinthians I!"HO'A6. For Faul, undergoing the former, messianic klesis,

being called by the messiah, does not entail abandoning the latter, one+s Nworldly calling+. &hat is important about this passage for our discussion is that Faul uses klesis to describe both the fundamental division of the uridical order /circumcision/foreskin, 1ew/goy6, and the socio#political and economic division of class / slave/free man6. %lesis here is simply a matter of Nbeing called+, and

while being called a slave, or being called a 1ew, are social, political and economic problems, to be called is also a problem of language. Thus, while modernity limits the notion of calling to the economic sphere, there is a more fundamental politico#linguistic logic at operation here, that unites the seemingly disparate spheres of the political, uridical and economic. NTo be called+, is to be sub ect to the law in the broadest sense9 as 2gamben puts it elsewhere, it is to be in a Nworldly+ or N uridical#factical+ condition. This is related to the signifying function of language because, for 2gamben, law is, in a fundamental way, like language. To use signifying language is to determine categorically an entity as being# x, and this determination groups an entity together with others designated by a general name. <ikewise, law produces determinate identities through the application of abstract normative categories to entities, or in the language that 2gamben uses in Lomo 0acer,
applying Nlaw+ to Nlife+. Thus being#1ewish is determined by the application of the uridical categories of the 1ewish <aw to an individual, while being#a# slave is determined by the application of the laws of property to people. <aw and language both operate by grouping entities

through the name on the basis of a common identity, and they achieve this by bringing words into relation with things, designating particularities as belonging to certain sets on the basis of shared characteristics. The most
fundamental of these borders is that designated by the law of the political community9in Faul, this is the division between the iudaioi and the ethne, but in the language of the modern nation#state, it is the split between citi7ens and aliens, the parties to the social contract and those who fall outside it. &ithin the wall demarcated by the national law there are further divisions, such as those of class, gender, family, and race, all of which are legal phenomenon, understood in its broadest sense as a mechanism that regulates and produces sociopolitical identities. <aw and language are

machines for producing determinate identities. To be politically determined as the member of a group is to be sub ect to a law of naming, that is, Nto be called+ and hence divided through the performative power of language . <aw and politics are
thus to be thought for 2gamben in relation to language, and the ability of law to generate political identity is grounded in the linguistic logic of the name.

CNC O/A
Calls #or i%e tity !olitics a % commu ity 2elo gi g retre c" e+clusio a % tur case T"e i%ea o# a !erso al commu ity 2uil%s a i%eological G#e ce8 arou % outsi%ers T"e calli g a % *ocatio o# t"e commu ity mor!" i to la&'li0e im!erati*es &"ic" reassert !o&er structures a % !igeo "ole outsi%ers i to #i+e% i%e tities i o!!ositio to t"e mo*eme t' t"at8s McLoug"li T"is tur s t"eir et"ics a % i clusio claims

Ge erali)i g %escri!tio s o# race ma0e ge oci%e !ossi2le ;artiga E' !ro# o# a t"ro!ology R .T( P"D #rom . i*ersity o# Cali#or ia( Sa ta Cru)
/1ohn, 0outh 2tlantic Uuarterly "AE.-, 0ummer, ($ulture against Jace! Jeworking the 8asis for Jacial 2nalysis) //.456 These racial identities define the type of sub ects that ;isweswaran advocates bringing into view via NNa conception of race which is socially dynamic but historically meaningful,++ even though their ob

***/lac0/1"ite Para%igm =***

ectification potentially risks contributing, unintentionally, to the current resurgence in sociobiological notions of race. ;isweswaran+s approach brings race to the fore of critical analysis , but the problem is that it also risks reproducing racial thinking in much the way NNculture++ has been accused of perpetuating race. Lerbert <ewis highlights the perils in efforts to articulate this broader sensibility concerning race.S &here ;isweswaran strives to reanimate the
NNrichly connotative "Hth century sense of Nrace,+ ++ with its invocations of NNblood++ as a form of collectivity that encompasses NNnumerous elements that we would today call cultural,++ <ewis cautions against a NNreturn to the pre#8oasian conception that combines race, culture,

language, nationality and nationality in one neat package++ /HSA6. 2nd though the e,uation of racial identity with the forms of persecution and exploitation highlighted by ;isweswaran is insightful, <ewis observes that, pursued further, this logic reactivates a concept that NNindissolubly connects groups of people and their appearance with beliefs about their capacity and behavior++ /ibid.6.4iven the criteria she lists, <ewis argues, NNit follows presumably that we should recogni7e as Nraces+ all those who have suffered one or another form of ill#treatment. $ertainly 1ews would now return to the status of a Nracial+ group /as the Ma7is contended6, as do 2rmenians, 4ypsies /Jom6, NDntouchables+ /5alits6 in *ndia, East Timorese, .uslim and $roats in 8osnia and 0erbs in $roatia, educated $ambodians in Fol Fot+s $ambodia, both Lutu and Tutsi in Jwanda and 8urundi++ /ibid.6. Every similarly sub ected group would be reinscribed and reidentified with the very terms used initially to distinguish them for exploitation and persecution . 5omingue7+s concerns about culture+s propensity for NNperpetuating the
very terms9of hierarchies of differential values9that constitute the hegemony++ seem e,ually relevant to this attempt to ensconce race at the forefront of critical social analysis. There follow interminable ,uestions of subdividing and distinguishing such races. ;isweswaran+s description of the processes

that produce NN$hicanos and Fuerto Jicans as races++ leads <ewis to ask, NN2re these two different Nraces+ or oneC $an rich, powerful, and selfassured Fuerto Jicans belong to this Nrace+C 5o 5ominicans, Ecuadorians, and $ubans each get to be their own race, or can they all be in one race with $hicanos and Fuerto Jicans because they all speak /or once spoke6 0panishC $an 0panish#speakers from 0pain belong, tooC++ /HSA6. The problem with formulating research in terms of race is that it becomes very difficult to proceed without reproducing various raciali7ed logics that promote the notion that groups are essentially differentiated9experientially and in terms of innate capacities and dispositions9by race.H This is a problem that 4ilroy takes as a
basis for his criti,ue of NNraciology,++ which * will examine further below.

T"eir &"ite su!remacy a!!roac" is esse tialist' re!ro%uces t"e most %a gerous #orms o# racism a % is %oome% to #ail ;artiga E' !ro# o# a t"ro!ology R .T( P"D #rom . i*ersity o# Cali#or ia( Sa ta Cru)
/1ohn, 0outh 2tlantic Uuarterly "AE.-, 0ummer, ($ulture against Jace! Jeworking the 8asis for Jacial 2nalysis) //.456 One might be tempted to assume that 4ilroy+s stance is largely polemical, but his criti,ue is thoroughgoing, as

is his call to re ect NNthis desire to cling on to Nrace+ and go on stubbornly and unimaginatively seeing the world on the distinctive scales that it has specified.++ *n spite of powerful, novel efforts to fundamentally transform racial analysis9such as the emergence of NNwhiteness studies++ or analyses of the NNnew racism++94ilroy is emphatic in NNdemandRingT liberation not from white supremacy alone, however urgently that is re,uired, but from all raciali7ing and raciological thought, fromraciali7ed seeing, raciali7ed thinking, and raciali7ed thinking about thinking++ /EA6. *n contrast to ;isweswaran9and, interestingly, voicing concerns over NNcultural politics++ that resonate with 5omingue7+s criti,ue9 4ilroy sees a host of problems in NNblack political cultures++ that rely on NNessentialist approaches to building solidarity++ /-S6."E Mor does he share Larrison+s
confidence in making racism the centerpiece of critical cultural analysis. 4ilroy plainly asserts that NNthe starting point of this book is that the era of Mew Jacism is emphatically over++ /-E6. 2 singular focus on racism precludes an attention to NNthe appearance of sharp

intraracial conflicts++ and does not effectively address the NNseveral new forms of determinism abroad++ /-S, -E6. &e still must be prepared NNto give effective answers to th e pathological problems represented by genomic racism, the glamour of sameness, and the eugenic pro ects currently nurtured by their confluence++ /E"6. 8ut the diffuse threats posed by invocations of racially essentiali7ed identities /shimmering in NNthe glamour of sameness++6 as the basis for articulating NNblack political cultures++ entails an analytical approach that countervails against positing racism as the singular focus of in,uiry and criti,ue."@ From 4ilroy+s stance, to articulate a NNpostracial humanism++ we must disable any form of racial vision and ensure that it can never again be reinvested with explanatory power . 8ut what will take its place as a basis for talking about the
dynamics of belonging and differentiation that profoundly shape social collectives todayC 4ilroy tries to make clear that it will not be NNculture,++ yet this concept infuses his efforts to articulate an alternative conceptual approach. 4ilroy conveys many of the same reservations about culture articulated by the anthropologists listed above. 0pecifically, 4ilroy cautions that NNthe culturalist approach still runs the risk of naturali7ing and normali7ing hatred and brutality by presenting them as inevitable conse,uences of illegitimate attempts to mix and amalgamate primordially incompatible groups++ /'I6. *n contrast, 4ilroy expressly prefers the concept of diaspora as a means to ground a new form of attention to collective identities. NN 2s an alternative

to the metaphysics of Nrace,+ nation, and bounded culture coded into the body,++ 4ilroy finds that NNdiaspora is a concept that problemati7es the cultural and historical mechanics of belonging++ /"'-6. Furthermore, NNby focusing attention e,ually on the sameness within differentiation and the differentiation within sameness, diaspora disturbs the suggestion that political and cultural identity might be understood via the analogy of

indistinguishable peas lodged in the protective pods of closed kinship and subspecies++ /"'@6. 2nd yet, in a manner similar to Larrison+s prioriti7ing of racism as a central concern for social in,uiry, when it comes to specifying what diaspora entails and how it works , vestiges of culture reemerge as a basis for the coherence of this new conceptual focus . &hen 4ilroy delineates the elements and dimensions of diaspora, culture provides the basic conceptual background and terminology. *n characteri7ing NNthe 2tlantic diaspora and its successor#cultures,++ 4ilroy se,uentially invokes NNblack cultural styles++ and NNpostslave cultures++ that have NNsupplied a platform for youth cultures, popular cultures, and styles of dissent far from their place of origin++ /"IS6. 4ilroy explains how the NNcultural expressions++ of hip#hop and rap, along with other expressive forms of NNblack popular culture ,++ are marketed by the NNcultural industries++ to white consumers who NNcurrently support this black culture++ /"S"6. 4ranted, in these uses of NNculture++ 4ilroy remains critical of NNabsolutist definitions of culture++ and the process of commodification that culture in turn supports. 8ut his move away from race importantly hinges upon some notion of culture. &e may be
able to do away with race, but seemingly not with culture.

T"e alt is to e gage i a cultural %iscussio ' sole race #ocuses !re*e t e##ecti*e liste i g ;artiga E' !ro# o# a t"ro!ology R .T( P"D #rom . i*ersity o# Cali#or ia( Sa ta Cru)
/1ohn, 0outh 2tlantic Uuarterly "AE.-, 0ummer, ($ulture against Jace! Jeworking the 8asis for Jacial 2nalysis) //.456 The countervailing point to concerns about past misuses of culture in relation to race is that the culture concept

holds perhaps the most powerful counterweight to racial thinking, since it depicts, on the one hand, the mutable and artificial aspects of racial identification , and, on the other, all the forms of commonality that undercut raciali7ed inscriptions of essential orders. Lowever, the work of these and other ethnographers neither directly addresses nor specifically counters the charge
leveled by 2bu#<ughod and 5omingue7 concerning racial impacts and implications of using culture.'@ Mor should my efforts here to articulate a positive role for culture in response to this criti,ue be regarded as a refutation of their arguments or a re ection of the claims that there are negative racial effects to invoking this concept. Even though * think we need culture to make sense of race, * recogni7e that 2bu#<ughod and 5omingue7 are right that we

need to remain circumspect about the potential for culture to reinscribe racial thinking . The uses * am advocating here will re,uire continued vigilance. To use culture in relation to race will necessarily depend on also engaging with and disrupting popular uses and imaginings of the term that do e,uate its sub ects with static, traditional, and unchanging exotic entities. 8ut it is exactly this type of engagement with embedded assumptions that underscores the central reason for making renewed use of culture in relation to race. From my efforts to teach students about race, * reali7e that without an overarching attention to culture it is very hard to, first, convey the extent of racial thinking and, second, effectively engage the multiple, overlapping structures of perception and experience that reproduce racial identities and
collectives. .any people cannot begin to recogni7e how thoroughly the significance of race informs social life unless they have the ability to first grasp culture as a field of intelligibility that structures their actions and perception. Fundamentally, one needs a cultural vision in order to

denaturali7e the view of race as a natural order of difference. *n the Dnited 0tates, in particular, it is critical to engage the
processes of sociali7ation that lead whites to see each other as individuals and, in contrast, to see peoples of color as representatives of vaguely comprehended groups. Listorian 4eorge <ipsit7, in analy7ing the economic, political, and social bases for white

dominance, labels this process the NNpossessive investment in whiteness.++': One of the keys to disabusing white people of this powerful form of racial thinking and perception involves getting whites to recogni7e the profound group circumstances that contour life chances in racial terms in the Dnited 0tates. That is, we must critically frame and analy7e the collective forms that benefit whites as a group, regardless of individuals+ personal sentiments about the significance of race. 2nd this work must be done against the grain of white 2mericans+ sociali7ation to see the world strictly in terms of individuals. 0uch a thoroughgoing sociali7ation can best be disrupted and critically ob ectified by the concept of culture. 2 cultural perspective addresses both this inability to grasp the distinctive social conditioning that individualism entails and the attendant ignorance of how collective processes shape our experiences and the very ground of the social order.'I This approach has the potential to engage whites+ racial thinking, at least initially, by shifting discussions away from the charged accusations of racism and onto a ground9the sub ect of sociali7ation9 that may be more conducive to both thinking about race and recogni7ing its intersection with other critical categories of social identity. &e cannot effectively think through the processes of racial identification and disidentification without a cultural perspective.'S 2n inability to grasp culture and its dynamics is central to why many whites are unable to think critically about race or to grasp its various manifestations and operations . &ithout some understanding that our experience
of the world is culturally contoured, it is difficult to regard racism asmore than ust an individual failing or a vaguely perceived NNinstitutional++ by# product. &ithout a recognition of the interlocking aspects of cultural perceptions and categorical identities, race

appears as ust another isolated sub ect of political correctness. 8ut by starting with basic cultural dynamics, it is easy to show how race both inflects and is shaped by udgments 2mericans make about whether or not certain people
appear to be nice, or friendly, or hardworking9each reflecting crucial categorical demarcations that ostensibly make no mention of race but that certainly operate at times in racial registers. 2 cultural perspective allows us to place race simultaneously in the mix of everyday

life, shaping perceptions that ostensibly do not appear racial, but without reductively asserting that everything is about race.

T"eir #ocus o race ig ores alter ate( cultural #orms o# %i##ere ces Mes"i g culturally %i##ere t 2ut racially similar grou!s toget"er &it"out a eye to %i##ere ce "as create% "istory8s &orse ge oci%es' ;utu a % Tutsi i R&a %a( Su i a % S"i8ite Muslims !ro*e I %e!e %e tly re!licates a socio2iological me tality to&ar%s race &"ic" re%uces t"e *alue o# "uma li#e a % o!e s t"e #loo%gates to moral atrocity li0e social Dar&i ism' t"at8s ;artiga T"e alt is to e gage t"e "arms o# t"e :AC t"roug" a cultural !ers!ecti*e rat"er o e t"a )oome% i o race Disru!ti g static i%e tity otio s i *ol*es t"e greatest um2er o# !eo!le i i%e tity mo*eme ts <*a%es t"e tra! o# sca!egoati g all !eo!le &"o %o 8t 2elo g to a !articular racial grou! a % i *ol*es alter ate !ers!ecti*es i social !rogress' !ro*es t"e alter ati*e is met"o%ologically su!erior

CNC O/A

Tur s t"e a## 7 &e ca e*er sol*e &"ite racism Perea :, R$one, &agner, Mugent, 1ohnson, La7ouri W Joth Frofessor of <aw, Dniversity of Florida <evin $ollege of <aw, 1uan, 2M E002K OM TLE
*$OM*$ 0T2TD0 OF TLE $*;*< J*4LT0 .O;E.EMT 2M5 *T0 DM*MTEM5E5 $OM0EUDEM$E0, ;irginia 1ournal of 0ocial Folicy W the <aw, ;ol. "S!", Fall, p. @I#@S, http:88scs#student#1irginia#edu819spl8+:#&8%erea#pdf //liamT <astly, recogni7ing a fuller scope of civil rights struggles is important in helping us understand the full measure

Tur s Case

of unremedied past in ustice. *f we take no account of denials of civil rights to .exican 2mericans, 2merican *ndians, and Mative Lawaiians, among other groups, then we underestimate dramatically the scope of white racism. Every struggle against racism and oppression deserves recognition . The iconic status of the 2frican#2merican $ivil

Jights .ovement is a testament to the power of righteous struggle. &hile it certainly deserves its hallowed place in our history and our hearts, we should be careful that its long shadow not obscure the importance of other righteous struggles. *f we care about ustice, we should always be attuned to struggles for greater ustice, whether or not they resemble the 2frican#2merican struggle for civil rights. 2s inspiring as the 2frican#2merican

struggle has been, we may find additional inspiration, and more possibilities for ustice, if we cast our ga7e beyond the 2frican#2merican $ivil Jights .ovement, ga7ing further back, further forward, and to the side.

Ot"er Races Im!act

T"e co ce!tio o# race t"roug" a 2lac0/&"ite !ara%igm margi ali)es ot"er races( e+clu%i g t"em #rom rele*a t !olicy %iscussio s Perea 56' !ro# o# la& R .F( *isiti g !ro# R ;ar*ar%( lea%i g sc"olar o race a % t"e la&
/1uan, (The 8lack/&hite 8inary Faradigm of Jace,) $alifornia <aw Jeview//.456 Faradigms of race shape our understanding of race and our definition of racial

problems. The most pervasive and powerful paradigm of race in the Dnited 0tates is the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm. * define this paradigm as the conception that race in 2merican consists, either exclusively or primarily, of only two constituent racial groups, the 8lack and the &hite. .any scholars of race reproduce this paradigm when they write and act as though only the 8lack and the &hite races matter for purposes of discussing race and social policy with regard to race. The mere recognition that (other people of color) exist, without careful attention to their voices, their histories, and their real presence, is merely a reassertion of the 8lack/&hite paradigm . *f one conceives of race and racism as primarily of concern only to 8lacks and &hites, and understands (other people of color) only through some unclear analogy to the (real) races, this ust restates the binary paradigm with a slight concession to demographics. .y assertion is that our shared understanding of race and racism is essentially limited to this 8lack/&hite binary paradigm. This paradigm defines, but also limits, the set of problems that may be recogni7ed in racial discourse . %uhn+s notion of (normal science,) which further
articulates the paradigm and seeks to solve the problems perceivable because of the paradigm, also applies to (normal research) on race. 4iven the 8lack/&hite paradigm, we would expect to find that much research on race is concerned with understanding the dynamics

of the 8lack and &hite races and attempting to solve the problems between 8lacks and &hites. &ithin the paradigm, the relevant material facts are facts about 8lacks and &hites. *n addition, the paradigm dictates that all other racial identities and groups in the Dnited 0tates are best understood through the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm . Only a few writers even recogni7e that they use a 8lack/&hite paradigm as the frame of reference through which to understand racial relations. .ost writers simply assume the importance and correctness of the paradigm, and leave the reader grasping for what ever significance descriptions of the 8lack/&hite binary relationship have for other people of color. 2s * shall discuss, because the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm is so widely accepted, other raciali7ed groups like <atinos/as, 2sian 2mericans, and Mative 2mericans are often marginali7ed or ignored altogether. 2s %uhn writes, (those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all.) T"e e+clusio o# Lati os( Asia America s a % Nati*e America s i t"e /lac0/1"ite !ara%igm !lays i to &"ite %omi atio /o&ma :' !ro# o# la& RMS.( QD #rom Du0e
/%risti, 5uke <aw 1ournal (The Mew Face of 0chool 5esegregation,) http!//www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.plC@Aq5ukeq<.q1.q"I@"//.456

&hite privilege is reinforced when racial and ethnic groups are conceptuali7ed not as &hite, 2frican 2merican, <atino, 2sian 2merican, Mative 2merican, etc., but instead as &hite or Mon#&hite. 2cknowledgement of differences among groups disappears in a &hite#Mon#&hite paradigm, because instead of allowing racial or ethnic groups to identify themselves by what they are,'-S all Mon# Rrpg "ISIT &hite groups are explicitly identified by what they are not, and only by reference to whiteness. 2lthough aspects of a specific Mon#&hite group might be easier to identify than >&hite culture,> this occurs because &hite culture is mainstream culture. The culture of a specific Mon#&hite group appears distinctive because it deviates from the norm. Frofessor .artha .ahoney notes that a term such as >racially identifiable> in the context
of housing and urban development generally refers >to locations that are racially identifiably black.>'-H The same is true in the context of education! racially identifiable means racially identifiably Mon#&hite. The &hite#Mon#&hite paradigm reinforces the power dynamic of the acted and the acted upon, of presence and absence, of the defining and the defined. The

power that &hites receive from their unearned privilege in the &hite#Mon#&hite duality >is, in fact, permission to escape Rthe debate of raceT or to dominate.>'EA &hen federal courts reinforce this dynamic in the name of school desegregation, they perpetuate the normali7ed, mainstream practices and institutions that reinforce racial ine,uality. *t is often these practices and institutions that are
most damaging in terms of perpetuating oppression because they are not usually ,uestioned. They are conceptuali7ed as ust normal.'E" *n contemporary school desegregation urisprudence, &hites are normali7ed, and all Mon#&hites are collapsed into the

category of >other.> <ike 2frican 2mericans, <atinos have been the victims of state#sanctioned educational segregation='E' but if courts gave
attention to the present differences between 2frican 2mericans and <atinos, courts? remedial orders would likely be structured differently. 2s will be discussed below, the recognition of <atinos and 2frican 2mericans as distinct groups that continue to suffer different harms is easily within reach.

Focus o t"e 2lac0/&"ite 2i ary margi ali)es ot"er races' re&or0i g t"ese !erce!tio s is 0ey Perea 56' !ro# o# la& R .F( *isiti g !ro# R ;ar*ar%( lea%i g sc"olar o race a % t"e la&
/1uan, (The 8lack/&hite 8inary Faradigm of Jace,) $alifornia <aw Jeview//.456 The point of critical theory generally is to demonstrate shortcomings in our current understandings of legal and social structures and perhaps to suggest alternatives that improve upon these shortcomings. One implication of this 2rticle is that, to the extent that critical theory has focused

<+clusio Li 0

on ,uestions of race, it is still tightly bound by the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm . 2lthough this is much less true of critical
race theory in particular, as some writers have focused on the points of view and histories of many raciali7ed 2merican groups, a true paradigm shift away from the 8lack/&hite paradigm will only occur when such scholarship is more widely promulgated and accepted than is currently the case. .y review of important literature on race establishes the existence of the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm and its structuring of writing on race. The

(normal science) of race scholarship specifies in,uiry into the relationship between 8lacks and &hites as the exclusive aspect of race relations that needs to be explored and elaborated. 2s a result, much relevant legal history and information concerning <atinos/as and other raciali7ed groups is simply omitted from books on race and constitutional law. The omission of this history is extraordinarily damaging to .exican 2mericans and other <atinos/as. 8y omitting this history, students get no understanding that .exican 2mericans have long struggled for e,uality. The absence of <atinos/as from histories of racism and the struggle against it enables people to maintain existing stereotypes of .exican 2mericans. These stereotypes are perpetuated even by 2merica+s leading thinkers on race. *gnorance of .exican#2merican history
allows 2ndrew Lacker to proclaim that Lispanics are passive (spectators) in social struggle, and allows $ornel &est to imply that <atino/a struggles against racism have been (slight through significant.) To the extent that the legitimacy of claims for civil rights depends on a public perception of having engaged in struggle for them, the omission of this legal history also undermines the legitimacy of <atino/a claims for civil rights. This may explain why courts treat <atino/a claims of discrimination with such indifference. Faradigmatic descriptions and study of &hite racism against

8lacks, with only cursory mention of (other people of color,) marginali7es all people of color by grouping them, without particularity, as somehow Rr"'@ST analogous to 8lacks. (Other people of color) are deemed to exist only as unexplained analogies to 8lacks. Thus, scholars encourage uncritical readers to continue to assume the paradigmatic importance of the 8lack/&hite relationship and to ignore the experiences of other 2mericans who also are sub ect to racism in profound ways. $ritical readers are left with many important ,uestions! 8eyond the most superficial understanding of aversion to
non#&hite skin color, in what ways is &hite racism against 8lacks explanatory of or analogous to &hite racism against <atinos/as, 2sian 2mericans, Mative 2mericans, and othersC 4iven the uni,ue historical legacy of slavery, what does a deep understanding of &hite#8lack racism contribute to understanding racism against other (OthersC) &hy are (other people of color) consistently relegated to parenthetical status

and near#nonexistence in treatises purporting to cover their fields comprehensivelyC *t is time to ask hard ,uestions of our leading writers on race. *t is also time to demand better answers to these ,uestions about inclusion, exclusion, and racial presence, than perfunctory references to (other people of color.) *n the midst of profound demographic changes, it is time to ,uestion whether the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm of race fits our highly variegated current and future population. Our (normal science) of writing on race, at odds with both history and demographic reality, needs reworking.

/lac0/&"ite !ara%igms !re*e t e##ecti*e coalitio s to c"alle ge racism a % mas0 t"e America caste system Delga%o C0' !ro# R Seattle La&( Pulit)er Pri)e omi ee
/Jichard, .ay, (5errick 8ell+s Toolkit# Fit to 5ismantle That Famous LouseC) Mew Kork Dniversity <aw Jeview, lexis, d.a. I#"-//.456 8lack/white or any other kind of binary thinking can also warp minorities? views of themselves and their relation

<+tJ Im!acts

to whites. 2s social scientists know, $aucasians occasionally select a particular minority group as a favorite , usually a small, non#threatening one, and make that group overseers of the others or tokens to rebut any inference that the dominant group is racist. n""A .inorities may also identify with whites in hopes of gaining status or benefits under specific statutes, such as the naturali7ation statute, that limit benefits to whites. n""" The siren song of specialness may also predispose a minority group to believe Rr-AAT that it is uni,uely victimi7ed and entitled to special consideration from ini,uitous whites. <atino exceptionalists, for example, sometimes point out /if only privately6 that <atinos have the worst rates of poverty
and school dropout= n""' are soon to be the largest group of color in the Dnited 0tates= n""- fought bravely in many foreign wars and earned numerous medals and commendations= n""E and are raciali7ed in perhaps the greatest variety of ways of any group, including language, accent, immigration status, perceived foreignness, con,uered status, and certain particularly virulent stereotypes. n""@ Meedless to say, specialness lies entirely in the eye of the beholder and can be maintained only by presenting a particular interpretation of history as the only true one. :. *mpairment of the 2bility to 4enerali7e and <earn from Listory! Jeinventing the &heel 8inary thinking and exceptionalism also impair the ability to learn from

history= they doom one to reinvent the wheel. For example, when recent scholars put forward the theory of interest convergence to account for the ebb and flow of black fortunes, n"": the theory came as a genuine breakthrough, enabling readers to understand a vital facet of blacks? experience. Ket, the long train of *ndian treaty violations , n""I as well as .exicans? treatment in the wake of the Treaty of 4uadalupe Lidalgo, n""S might have led commentators to arrive at that insight earlier and to mold it into a broader, more powerful form. 8y the same token, the treatment of 2sians,
with one group first favored, Rr-A"T then disfavored when conditions change, n""H might have inspired a similar, more nuanced theory. n"'A 2nd in .exican 2merican urisprudence, &estminster 0chool 5istrict v. .ende7, n"'" decided seven years before 8rown v. 8oard of Education, marked the first time a ma or court expressly departed from the rule of Flessy v. Ferguson in a challenge to de ure segregation. n"'' Lad it not been for a single alert litigator on the staff of the M22$F <egal 5efense Fund who recogni7ed the case?s importance and insisted that the organi7ation participate in .ende7 as amicus, n"'- .ende7 would have been lost to 2frican 2mericans and the road to 8rown would have been harder and longer. n"'E Finally, when .exican 2mericans were demanding their rights, 4eorge 0anche7, anticipating one of the arguments that the M22$F used to great effect in 8rown # namely, that continued discrimination against blacks endangered the Dnited 0tates?s moral leadership in the uncommitted world # argued that mistreatment of <atinos in the Dnited 0tates could end up in uring the country?s relations with <atin 2merica. n"'@ Earlier, the 1apanese in $alifornia had effectively deployed a similar argument when 0an Francisco enacted a host of demeaning rules. n"': &ritings by 5errick 8ell n"'I and 4erald Josenberg n"'S pointing out the limitations of legal reform for minorities are foreshadowed in Rr-A'T the experience of 2merican *ndians when the state of 4eorgia refused to abide by the 0upreme $ourt?s ruling in &orcester v. 4eorgia n"'H and Fresident 2ndrew 1ackson did nothing to enforce it. n"-A 2fter 8ell wrote his signature $hronicle of the 0pace Traders, n"-" .ichael Olivas observed that <atino and $herokee populations had experienced literal removal several times in history. n"-' I. *mpairment of $oalitions Finally, dichotomous thought impairs groups? ability to forge useful

coalitions. For example, neither the M22$F nor any other predominantly 2frican 2merican organi7ation filed an amicus brief challenging 1apanese internment in %orematsu v. Dnited 0tates, n"-- or in any of the other cases contesting that practice. n"-E Earlier, the <eague of Dnited <atin 2merican $iti7ens /<D<2$6, a politically moderate litigation organi7ation for <atinos, distanced itself from Rr-A-T other minority groups and even from darker#skinned <atinos by pursuing the >other white> strategy. n"-@ 2nd in Morthern $alifornia, 2sians, .exican 2mericans, and blacks recently have been at loggerheads over admission to
<owell Ligh 0chool and D$#8erkeley. n"-: 0ometimes, minority groups do put aside differences and work together successfully. For example, $hinese# and 0panish#speaking parents successfully challenged monolingual instruction in 0an Francisco in <au v. Michols. n"-I 1ews and blacks marched hand in hand in the sixties. n"-S 2 coalition of $alifornia <atinos and 2sians collaborated in litigation striking down Froposition "SI, which denied social services and public education to undocumented immigrants. n"-H 2nd another coalition of minority groups has been working to change the nearly all# white lineup on current television programs. n"EA The school desegregation case .ende7 v. &estminster 0chool 5istrict, n"E" which /as * described earlier n"E' 6 was a rare exception to the inability of minority groups to generali7e from other groups? experiences, is worth recounting in some detail as an example of minority groups working together successfully. 8y the "H'As, .exican immigration had made .exican 2mericans the largest minority group in $alifornia. n"E- 2lthough state law did not re,uire school districts to segregate .exican 2merican schoolchildren, pressure from parents led most school boards to do so on the pretext that the .exican children?s language difficulties made this in their best educational interest. n"EE On .arch ', "HE@, a small group of .exican 2merican parents filed suit in federal district court to en oin that practice. n"E@ The court Rr-AET ruled, nearly a year later, that because $alifornia lacked a segregation statute, the doctrine of >separate but e,ual> did not apply. n"E: .oreover, it found that sound educational reasons did not support separation of the .exican children, that separation stigmati7ed them, and ruled the practice unconstitutional. n"EI The school districts appealed to the Minth $ircuit $ourt of 2ppeals, at which point the case came to the attention of the 2merican 1ewish $ongress and the M22$F <egal 5efense Fund. n"ES The M22$F?s amicus brief, prepared by Jobert $arter, advanced many of the same arguments the attorneys for the .exican plaintiffs had put forward in the trial court, but added a new one based not on legal doctrine or precedent, but on social science. n"EH Jelying heavily on data collected by 2mbrose $aliver, an 2frican 2merican researcher employed by the D.0. 5epartment of Education, $arter argued that racial segregation would inevitably lead to inferior schools for minorities because few school districts could afford the cost of a dual system and would inevitably cut corners with the schools for .exicans and blacks. n"@A $iting the work of 4unnar .yrdal and others, $arter also argued that racial segregation demorali7ed and produced poor citi7enship among minority individuals and thus contravened public policy. n"@" The M22$F?s brief was cautious and incremental in arguing that segregation invariably led to spending differentials. 2t the same time, its social science was rudimentary, relying as it did on studies of the adverse effects of segregation in general, rather than on studies showing that segregated education harmed minority schoolchildren. n"@' 2 second brief authored by a group of social scientists and submitted by lawyer and historian $arey .c&illiams supplied many of the links missing from the M22$F?s brief. n"@- The social scientists marshalled studies showing that young children were especially vulnerable to the crippling effects of forced racial separation and were ,uick to absorb the lesson of their own inferiority. n"@E 0egregation became a psychologically damaging >badge of inferiority> that could not be s,uared Rr-A@T with the Fourteenth 2mendment. n"@@ This more narrowly targeted argument was the very one the M22$F would adopt, years later, in 8rown v. 8oard of Education. n"@: 2lthough the Minth $ircuit affirmed the trial court opinion, it did so on the narrow ground that $alifornia law lacked any provision for the segregation of the .exican schoolchildren. n"@I Two months later, 4overnor Earl &arren eliminated that loophole by signing a bill repealing all of $alifornia?s statutes re,uiring racial segregation. n"@S Thus, official segregation in $alifornia came to an end. &hile the appeal was pending, the M22$F sent their brief to &illiam Lastie, one of the principal figures in the campaign against segregated schooling. n"@H 2ppreciating its significance, Lastie wrote to Thurgood .arshall, encouraging him to develop the argument

contained in the social scientists? brief, >with as little delay as possible.> n":A .arshall agreed, and assigned 2nnette L. Feyser, a young staff member with a background in social science, to do so. n":" 0he did, and other social scientists, learning of the M22$F?s interest, pursued their own studies of the intrinsic harm of forced racial separation, n":' many of which found their way into the graduate school litigation cases, n":- and ultimately into 8rown itself. n":E The .ende7 case demonstrates that narrow nationalism not only deprives one of the opportunity to oin with

other groups, n":@ it also closes one off from the experiences and lessons of othe rs. *t can conceal how the 2merican caste system, in a complex dance, disadvantages one group at one time and advantages it at another. n":: *t can Rr-A:T disguise the way 2merican society often affirmatively pits groups against one another , using them as agents of each other?s subordination, n":I or uses mistreatment of one group as a template for discrimination against another. n":S 8ecause almost all racial binaries consist of a nonwhite group paired with whites, they predispose outgroups to focus excessively on whites, patterning themselves after and trying to gain concessions from them, or aiming to assimilate into white society. n":H /lac0/1"ite %ic"otomies !it %i##ere t races agai st o e a ot"er to e tre c" %iscrimi atio Delga%o C0' !ro# R Seattle La&( Pulit)er Pri)e omi ee
/Jichard, .ay, (5errick 8ell+s Toolkit# Fit to 5ismantle That Famous LouseC) Mew Kork Dniversity <aw Jeview, lexis, d.a. I#"-//.456 1udith?s entrancement with 8luebeard may stand as a metaphor for the dichotomous ,uality that afflicts much racial thought n-H 2s scholars such as 1uan Ferea have pointed out, traditional

today. civil rights thinking deems a single group paradigmatic , nEA with the experiences and concerns of other groups receiving attention only insofar as they may be analogi7ed to those of this group. nE" 8inary thinking often accompanies what is called >exceptionalism,> the belief that one?s Rr'H"T group is, in fact, so unusual as to ustify special treatment , nE' as well as nationalism, the belief that the primary business of a minority group should be to look after its own interests. nE- $onsider now, the many ways that binary thinking # like 1udith?s initial refusal to consider the fates of 8luebeard?s three previous wives # can end up harming even the group whose fortunes one is inclined to place at the center. ". 0hifting Tides! Low 0ociety 2rranges Frogress for One 4roup to $oincide with Jepression of 2nother The history of minority groups in 2merica reveals that while one group is gaining ground, another is often losing it. From "SE: to "SES, the Dnited 0tates waged a bloodthirsty and imperialist war against .exico in which it sei7ed roughly one#third of .exico?s territory /and later colluded with crafty lawyers and land#hungry 2nglos to cheat the .exicans who chose to remain in the Dnited 0tates of their lands guaranteed under the Treaty of 4uadalupe Lidalgo6. nEE Ket only a few years later, the Morth fought an e,ually bloody war against the 0outh, ostensibly to free the slaves. nE@ 5uring Jeconstruction /"S:@ to "SII6, slavery was disbanded, the E,ual Frotection $lause was ratified, and black suffrage was written into law. nE: Ket, this generosity did not extend to Mative 2mericans! *n "SI", $ongress passed the *ndian 2ppropriations 2ct, providing that no *ndian nation would be recogni7ed as independent and capable of entering into a treaty with the Dnited 0tates. nEI 2 few years later, the 5awes 2ct broke up land held ointly Rr'H'T by tribes, resulting in the loss of nearly two#thirds of *ndian lands . nES *n "SIH,
2rticle _*_ of the $alifornia constitution nEH made it a crime for any corporation to employ $hinese workers. n@A 2nd in "SS' $ongress passed the $hinese Exclusion <aws n@" that were soon upheld in $hae $han Fing v. Dnited 0tates. n@' 4oodwill toward one group, then, does not necessarily translate into the same for others. *n "H"-, $alifornia?s 2lien <and <aw n@- made it illegal for aliens ineligible for naturali7ation to lease land for more than three years, a measure that proved devastating for the 1apanese population, many of whom derived their livelihood from agriculture. n@E 2 few years later, $ongress eased immigration ,uotas for .exicans because they were needed by large farm owners. n@@ 4o figure. 5uring the first half of this century, *ndian boarding schools sought to erase *ndian history and culture , n@: while $alifornia segregated black

and $hinese schoolchildren to preserve the purity of young 2nglo girls. n@I Ket, in "HEE, <ope7 v. 0eccombe n@S found segregation of .exicans from public parks to violate the E,ual Frotection $lause , n@H and a short time later a federal court declared $alifornia?s practice of re,uiring .exican 2merican children to attend separate Rr'H-T schools unconstitutional. n:A 2nd, in a horrific twist, in the "HEAs, the Dnited 0tates softened its stance toward domestic minorities, who were needed in the war industries and as cannon fodder on the front, but turned its back on 1ews fleeing the Lolocaust. n:" 0hortly after the war, at a time
when vistas were beginning to open up for returning black servicemen, $ongress reversed its policy of giving Dnited 0tates citi7enship to Filipino &orld &ar ** veterans. n:' Even today, the patchwork of progress for one group coming with retrenchment for another continues. For example, at a time when *ndian litigators are winning striking breakthroughs for tribes, n:- $alifornia has been passing a series of anti#<atino measures, including English#Only, n:E Froposition "SI, n:@ and restrictions on bilingual education. n:: Rr'HET '. 2ffirmative Fitting of One 5isadvantaged 4roup 2gainst

the Other Mot only does binary thinking conceal the checkerboard of racial progress and retrenchment , it can hide the way dominant society often casts minority groups against one another, to the detriment of both . For example, in colonial 2merica, white servants had been treated poorly . n:I *n "IA@, however, when the slave population was growing, ;irginia gave white servants more rights than they had en oyed before, to keep them from oining forces with slaves. n:S *n the same era, plantation owners treated house slaves /fre,uently lighter skinned than their outdoor counterparts6 slightly better than those in the fields, recruited some of them to spy on their brothers and sisters in the field, and rewarded them for turning in dissidents . n:H *n the years immediately following the $ivil &ar, southern
plantation owners urged replacing their former slaves, whom they were loath to hire for wages, with $hinese labor. nIA They succeeded! *n "S:S, $ongress approved the 8urlingame Treaty with $hina, under which larger numbers of $hinese were permitted to travel to the Dnited 0tates. nI" *mmediately following the $ivil &ar, the 2rmy recruited newly freed slaves to serve as 8uffalo 0oldiers putting down *ndian rebellions in the &est. nI' *n Feople v. Lall, nI- the $alifornia 0upreme $ourt used legal restrictions on blacks and Mative 2mericans to ustify banning $hinese from testifying against whites in criminal trials. The court wrote! *t can hardly be supposed that any <egislature would attempt... excluding domestic negroes and *ndians, who not unfre,uently have correct notions of their obligations to society, and turning loose upon the community the more degraded tribes of the same species, who have nothing in common with us, in language, country or laws. nIE Rr'H@T 0imilarly, 1ustice Larlan?s dissent in Flessy

v. Ferguson staunchly rebuked segregation for blacks, but supported his point by disparaging the $hinese, who
had the right to ride with whites. nI@ 2nd, in "H"', when the Louse of Jepresentatives debated the ,uestion of 2merican citi7enship for Fuerto Jicans,

5uring $alifornia?s Froposition "SI campaign, proponents curried black votes by portraying .exican immigrants as competitors for black obs. nII Earlier, even the sainted 4eorge 0anche7 exhorted his fellow .exican 2mericans to oppose further emigration from .exico, on the ground that it would hurt .exican 2mericans already here. nIS -. Over#*dentification with &hites 0ometimes the pitting of one minority group against another, inherent in binary approaches to race, takes the form of exaggerated identification with whites at the expense of other groups. For example, early in .ississippi?s history, 2sians sought to be declared
politicians used the supposed failure of other minority groups to ustify withholding rights from the newly coloni7ed. nI: white so that they could attend schools for whites. nIH Early litigators followed a similar >other white> policy on behalf of .exican 2mericans, Rr'H:T arguing that segregation of .exican 2mericans was illegal because only the variety directed against blacks or 2sians was expressly countenanced by law. nSA $hinese on the &est $oast responded indignantly to Feople v. Lall, nS" the $hinese testimony case, on the grounds that it treated them the same as supposedly inferior Megroes and *ndians. nS' <ater, 2sian immigrants sought to ac,uire Dnited 0tates citi7enship but learned that a naturali7ation statute that had stood on the books for "@A years, beginning in "IHA, denied citi7enship to anyone other than whites. nS- *n a series of cases, some of which reached the Dnited 0tates 0upreme $ourt, 2sians

from $hina, 1apan, and *ndia sought to prove that they were white. nSE 2nglocentric norms of beauty divide the <atino and black communities, enabling those who most closely conform to white standards to gain obs and social acceptance, and sometimes to look down on their darker#skinned brothers and sisters. nS@ 8ox#checking also enables those of white or near#white appearance to benefit from affirmative action without suffering the worst forms of social stigma and exclusion. nS:

Lati o/a I%e tity Im!act

Attem!ti g to #it Lati os/as i to t"e 2lac0'&"ite 2i ary relegates t"em to t"e !o&erless ot"er' erases i%e tity t"at ca 8t 2e categori)e% 2y !ara%igms
2T Education 5isparity on the F& debate# <atinos/as can+t receive as much from the school system because of the way they+re classified in the white/black system

/o&ma :' !ro# o# la& RMS.( QD #rom Du0e

/%risti, 5uke <aw 1ournal (The Mew Face of 0chool 5esegregation,) http!//www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.plC@Aq5ukeq<.q1.q"I@"//.456 0cholars refer to <atinos as both a racial and an ethnic group,@' but trying to classify <atinos in only one category /race or ethnicity6

illustrates the problematic nature of the categories themselves. *f <atinos are viewed as a separate race in order to be (on par) with 2frican 2mericans, then their ethnic identity will have been collapsed into their racial identity. 4iven the history of slavery and the continued (demarcation line of skin color) that have created the 8lackO &hite racial binary,@- there is little room within the racial framework for a distinct <atino racial category. 2lternatively, if <atinos are viewed only as an ethnic group, then to fit within the larger 8lackO &hite binary they must also be assigned to one of the two racial groups. 2s will be discussed later, the $ensus 8ureau has taken this approach, classifying <atinos as racially &hite in every decennial census except the "H-A $ensus.@E The only way for <atinos to receive the full benefits of school desegregation is for the discourse to shift away from the restrictive 8lackO&hite @@ and race#ethnicity binaries. 2s Frofessor 1erome $ulp suggests, the most important category of social construction may not be the demarcation of race, ethnicity, or nationality, but that of (other.)@: The role of (other) connotes powerlessness, and it is not necessary to distinguish among race, ethnicity, and nationality if one is in a marginali7ed group. The classification of Mon#&hite embodies otherness. /lac0 &"ite 2i aries margi ali)e ot"er #orms o# %iscrimi atio a % e+cuse ot"er #orms o# racial *iole ce Delga%o C0' !ro# R Seattle La&( Pulit)er Pri)e omi ee
/Jichard, .ay, (5errick 8ell+s Toolkit# Fit to 5ismantle That Famous LouseC) Mew Kork Dniversity <aw Jeview, lexis, d.a. I#"-//.456 8inary thinking can also impair moral insight and reasoning for whites. 1ustice 1ohn Larlan, author of the famous dissent in Flessy v. Ferguson, nSI wrote a shockingly disparaging opinion on the $hinese Rr'HIT ust a few years earlier in the $hinese Exclusion case, $hae $han Fing. nSS Jecently, 2sian 2merican scholars have pointed out how the great 1ustice turns out to have suffered a blind spot that besmirches his reputation. nSH 0imilarly, others have pointed out how Earl &arren, who en oys towering fame as a liberal ustice who

supported civil rights for blacks and, as governor of $alifornia, put an end to school segregation for 2sian and .exican 2merican schoolchildren, was a prime mover in the effort to remove 1apanese 2mericans to concentration camps in the beginning months of &orld &ar **. nHA Dntil recently, most historians and biographers embraced the official version in which &arren played at most a minor role. nH" *t seems ,uite likely that binary, monocular thinking made possible the selective empathy that enabled these two famous figures to misstep as they did . nH' 8inary thinking can easily allow one to believe that 2merica made only one historical mistake # for example, slavery. nH- *f so, the prime order of business is to redress that mistake by making its victims whole= the concerns of other groups would come into play only insofar as they resemble, in kind and seriousness, that one great mistake. 8ut simplifications of that form are always debatable, never necessary, and rarely wise. 2s a leading Mative 2merican scholar put it! >To the *ndian people it has seemed ,uite unfair that churches and government agencies concentrated their efforts primarily on the blacks. 8y defining the problem as one of race and making race refer solely to black, *ndians were systematically excluded from consideration.> nHE The truth is that all the groups are exceptional= each has been raciali7ed in different ways= none is the paradigm or template for the others. nH@ Rr'HST 8lacks were enslaved. nH: *ndians were massacred and then removed to the &est . nHI 1apanese
2mericans were relocated in the other direction. nHS 2frican 2mericans are stereotyped as bestial or happy#go#lucky, depending on society?s shifting needs= nHH 2sians, as crafty, derivative copycats or soulless drones= n"AA .exicans as hot#tempered, romantic, or close to the earth. n"A" 8lacks are

raciali7ed by reason of their color= <atinos, *ndians, and 2sians on that basis but also by reason of their accent, national origin, and, sometimes, religion as well. 2ll these groups were sought as sources of labor= *ndians and
.exicans, as sources of land. n"A' Fuerto Jicans, *ndians, and .exicans are raciali7ed by reason of con,uest. n"A- <atinos, *ndians, and 2sians are pressured to assimilate= blacks to do the opposite. n"AE The matrix of race and raciali7ation thus is constantly shifting, sometimes overlapping, for the four main groups. n"A@ Rr'HHT This differential raciali7ation renders binary thinking deeply problematic. $onsider the

recent trial of Jonald Ebens for the murder of ;incent $hin, whom he beat to death for being a >1ap> supposedly responsible for the loss of obs in the automobile industry . n"A: 2fter Ebens?s first trial in 5etroit, which resulted
in a twenty#five year ail sentence, was overturned for technical reasons, his attorney moved for a change of venue on the ground that Ebens could not be tried fairly in that city. n"AI The motion was successful, and the second trial was held in $incinnati, where Ebens was ac,uitted. n"AS 2

Dnited 0tates $ommission on $ivil Jights report speculated that the ac,uittal resulted from the limitations of the black/white paradigm of race, which may have misled the $incinnati ury, sitting in a city where 2sian 2mericans are few, into disbelieving that racism against 2sians played a part in the crime! The ultimate failure of the 2merican ustice system to convict Ebens of civil rights charges, perhaps partly because of the $incinnati ury?s difficulty in believing in the existence

of anti#2sian hatred, also implies that many 2mericans view racial hatred purely as a black#white problem and
are unaware that 2sian 2mericans are also fre,uently targets of hate crimes.

I *isi2ility o# ot"er races i relatio to 2lac0s a % &"ites e tre c"es margi ali)atio Lu a -' QD . o# Cali'/er0eley
/Eduardo, (Low the 8lack/&hite Faradigm Jenders .exicans/.exican 2mericans and 5iscrimination 2gainst Them *nvisible,) <a Ja7a <aw 1ournal//.456 The omission of .exican/.exican 2merican experiences extends far beyond legal academia. *ndeed, .exican/.exican 2mericans

are poorly represented in popular media such as the news, and the film, television, and music industries. The invisibility of .exicans/.exican 2mericans is partly attributable to the 8lack/&hite paradigm. 0cholars and popular media alike almost exclusively utili7e the 8lack/&hite paradigm to conceptuali7e race/ethnicity. The paradigm promulgates 8lack experiences but fails to represent <atinos, 2sians, Mative 2mericans and other non#8lack minority groups ade,uately. The coverage of the <os 2ngeles riots by news media supports such an assertion .
The <os 2ngeles riots took place in late 2pril and early .ay of "HH'. The catalyst for the social unrest is largely attributed to the ac,uittal of the four white police officers who beat 8lack motorist Jodney %ing. The resulting riot claimed @@ lives and in ured more than ',-AA persons. .ore than one thousand buildings were damaged or destroyed and the resulting property damage was estimated in the billions of dollars. 2mont the images in the news media presented were police officers beating Jodney %ing, 8lack rioters beating the &hite motorist Jeginald 5enny, confrontations between %orean storeowners and rioters and finally, rioters looting. The news media paid considerable attention to the role racial/ethnic discrimination played in precipitating the riots. Lowever, the ournalistic and scholarly works focused on the dynamics between &hites, 8lacks

and %oreans. .exicans/.exican 2mericans were all but excluded from the discussion. Frofessor Ferea notes that, (only
on published article focuses exclusively on describing and explaining the role of <atinos during the <os 2ngeles riots.) The anthology contains works by 8lack, 2sian, and &hite scholars. Their articles detail the perspectives of their respective communities concerning the riots. The anthology+s analysis

is inexcusably incomplete, especially when considering the role .exicans/.exican 2mericans played in the riots. The ma ority of the victims of early riot violence were <atinos. 2 full third of the dead victims of the riots were <atinos . 8etween
twenty and forty percent of the businesses damaged were <atino owned, and <atinos comprised one half of all the arrested. These statistics are far from surprising because <atinos, primarily .exicans/.exican 2mericans, comprise over half of 0outh $entral <os 2ngeles+ population. $onsidering these statistics, what should be surprising is the lack of attention visual and print media gave to .exicans+/.exican 2mericans perspectives concerning the riots. .edia coverage and scholarly analyses of the <os 2ngeles riots provide a poignant example of how the

8lack/&hite paradigm distorts the lens through which we view racial/ethnic group dynamics in the D nited 0tates. Dnder the 8lack/&hite paradigm, .exicans/.exican 2mericans are omitted from racial/ethnic analyses, their harms and grievances are under#reported and their marginali7ation is exacerbated.

//1 Para%igm Alt

De2ates are t"e 0ey starti g !oi t #or remo*i g !ara%igms Perea 56' !ro# o# la& R .F( *isiti g !ro# R ;ar*ar%( lea%i g sc"olar o race a % t"e la&
/1uan, (The 8lack/&hite 8inary Faradigm of Jace,) $alifornia <aw Jeview//.456 2nother ob ection that critics might raise to this work is that * am merely substituting another, nearly e,uali7ing oppressive paradigm for the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm. *n other words, the criti,ue would be that * am advocating a 8lack/&hite/<atino/a paradigm which would give <atinos/as more visibility but would render even more invisible 2sian 2mericans, Mative 2mericans, 4ypsies, and other raciali7ed groups. This is not the case. * have demonstrated that the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm renders invisible and irrelevant the history of every

group other than &hites and 8lacks. The rest of us become part of the undifferentiated mass of (minorities) or (people of color.) &hile * have used .exican#2merican legal history to demonstrate the inade,uacy of the 8lack/&hite paradigm, and * have written from my point of view as a <atino scholar, * have used this history to illustrate how much is lost in the service of normal science and research on race, and how the introduction of omitted history can present a radically different picture of what we are taught to believe about the story of struggles for e,uality. * know that ust as much is lost regarding 2sian#2merican and Mative#2merican legal history. *n like manner, scholars must also present this omitted history prominently as part of the development of constitutional law and other legal sub ects. .y argument is really an argument against the use of paradigms of race, against orthodox attempts to understand the experiences of every raciali7ed group by analogy to 8lacks, and for the development of particulari7ed understanding of the histories of each and every raciali7ed group. Finally, * do not see my efforts as divisive. *f anything, the paradigm * critici7e is divisive because of its silencing of many groups. $oalition between 8lacks and <atinos/as, for example, depends upon <atinos/as being active participants in debates about racism and racial ustice. *t re,uires mutual understanding of the particularities of each others+ condition and of the particular ways in which &hite racism affects members of different groups. De2ates a2out race must accou t #or class a % cultural similarities ;artiga E' !ro# o# a t"ro!ology R .T( P"D #rom . i*ersity o# Cali#or ia( Sa ta Cru)
/1ohn, 0outh 2tlantic Uuarterly "AE.-, 0ummer, ($ulture against Jace! Jeworking the 8asis for Jacial 2nalysis) //.456 From a somewhat different tack, both 8rumann and 0ewell argue that a key dimension of deployments of the

culture concept is its ability to reference a general aspect of human activity ac,uired through learning /in contrast to instinct6 that systematically
imbues material and social relations with meaning. 0ewell observes, NNThis distinction between culture as theoretical category and culture as concrete and bounded body of beliefs is . . . seldom made.Ket it seems to me crucial for thinking clearly about cultural theory.++ "S &ith this distinction in place, one

can invoke culture in relation to race without delineating or implying discrete, essentiali7ed forms , such as NNwhite culture++ and NNblack culture.++ 0uch an approach has been crucial to my work on whiteness in the Dnited 0tates."H There are certainly plenty of reasons for depicting starkly opposed, racial perspectives on topics of contemporary concern9 such as whether racism is declining or whether affirmative action should be supported or discontinued9but ust as striking to me are the overarching commonalities that white and black 2mericans share in viewing the world in characteristically 2merican cultural terms. *n my ethnographic fieldwork in three distinct neighborhoods in 5etroit9 an inner# city, NNunderclass++ 7one= an ad acent NNgentrifying++ area= and an outlying working#class neighborhood9 * found, in each of these sites, local idioms and discourses that whites and blacks speak with varying degrees of commonality in positioning themselves, neighbors, and strangers in relation to identities marked in terms of both class and race. 'A These commonalities are linked to class structures that cross racial lines and that turn on charged intraracial contests over belonging and difference. 0uch idioms are cultural but do
not parse along the racial lines of whiteness and blackness. Other ethnographers studying racial dynamics in the Dnited 0tates have also identified discursive forms that whites and people of color share.'" 0teven 4regory+s study of black middle#class homeowners is an excellent example.'' 4regory+s attention to the NNconstruction of black class identities through the political culture of grass#roots activism+ + /"I6

opens a view onto social forms that operate across racial lines and yet are also distinctly inflected in the process of racial formation. *n analy7ing the way black middle#class residents of Uueens speak a NNhomeowners+ discourse,++ 4regory reveals9in concerns over local social service agencies and their clients9 points of interracial commonalities along the lines of class interests. Furthermore, 4regory+s account of how these homeowners NNinterpret, debate, and publicly perform the present meanings of black class divisions and racial identities++ /ibid.6 provides a nuanced reading of processes of racial identification and disidentification that would not be possible either by relying solely upon the concept of race
or by paying too little attention to cultural dynamics.

I 4uiry i to t"e "istories o# ot"er racial grou!s is 0/t sol*e margi ali)atio Perea 56' !ro# o# la& R .F( *isiti g !ro# R ;ar*ar%( lea%i g sc"olar o race a % t"e la&
/1uan, (The 8lack/&hite 8inary Faradigm of Jace,) $alifornia <aw Jeview//.456 The very conscious recognition and use of &hite#against#8lack racism

as a paradigm , while a significant step towards clarity in the

intellectual tools we use to understand racism, also has its limitation s. Feagin and ;era assert that deeper in,uiry into the paradigmatic relationship is a necessary condition for understanding the racism experienced by any other raciali7ed 2merican minority groups. They assert, in essence, that normal, paradigmatic research is the key to solving pervasive, multiple racisms. The 8lack/&hite paradigm, thus asserted, may become an even more unyielding and impenetrable form of study and discourse than it was before. 2ll other racial studies must be dependent upon the results of

(normal) science. *n my view, Feagin

and ;era are wrong in asserting that a deeper understanding of the 8lack#&hite relationship will be necessary to promote understanding of the particularities of other racisms. * agree with Feagin and ;era that
an understanding of &hite#against#8lack racism may be helpful in understanding the deployment of racism against other non#&hites, for example in understanding the persistent use and tolerance of segregation against non#&hite peoples. Lowever, an exclusive focus on the 8lack#&hite

relationship, and the concomitant marginali7ation of (other people of color,) can operate to prevent understanding of other racisms and to obscure their particular operation. For example, the attribution of foreignness to <atinos/as and 2sian 2mericans, or discrimination on the basis of language or accent, are powerful dynamics as played out against these groups that do not appear to be as significant in the dynamics of &hite#against#8lack racism . Thus
the &hite Jacism books, spanning three decades, all reproduce and reify the same 8lack/&hite binary paradigm of race. *n %uhn+s terminology, these books represent the (normal science) of scholarship on &hite racism, consisting of exploration and elaboration of the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm. Only the most recent &hite racism book, by Feagin and ;era, makes explicit the 8lack#&hite paradigm and its key assumption! that somehow a deeper understanding of the 8lack#&hite relationship will yield understanding of the racism experienced by <atinos/as, 2sian 2mericans, Mative 2mericans, and other raciali7ed 2merican groups. 2fter three decades of books on &hite Jacism focusing only on racism against 8lacks, one can fairly ask how much anyone understands about racism against <atinos/as and the particular forms that such racism takesC The obvious answer is (not very much.) For example, one could study the 2merican 8lack/&hite relationship forever and never understand the language and accent discrimination faced by many <atinos/as and 2sian 2mericans. Today <atinos/as can be fired from their obs merely for speaking 0panish in the workplace, and 2sian 2mericans can be passed over for hire because their accent is not ,uite right. 5espite nominal statutory protection from such discrimination under the (national origin) provisions of Title ;**, the courts remain almost uniformly indifferent and find no actionable discrimination in such cases. The reason for this indifference is that such discrimination does not fit the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm of race discrimination.

Jedressing the particular forms of discrimination experienced by <atinos/as, 2sian 2mericans, Mative 2mericans and other raciali7ed groups re,uires very careful in,uiry into the particular histories of these groups
and the forms of discrimination they have experienced. 8ut recognition of the importance and particularity of groups other than 8lacks and &hites re,uires in,uiry well beyond the paradigm, in,uiry beyond the current bounds of (normal science) and research. From the point of view of <at$rit studies, then, the issue becomes why there is such a rigid and unyielding commitment to an exclusively 8lack#

&hite understanding of race that is clearly underinclusive and inaccurate. Jobert 8launer, writing in "HI', recogni7ed and
forcefully critici7ed the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm. Lis criti,ue may be applied generally to scholar who have embraced and reified the binary paradigm while ignoring actual racial complexity. 8launer noted that .exican 2mericans cannot be understood within the confines of the 8lack/&hite paradigm not the model of immigration and assimilation. The encounter between .exican#2mericans and the Dnited 0tates is sui generis, it cannot be forced into the ethnic model of immigration#assimilation nor into the category of black/white relations. That is why $hicanos, painfully aware of their uni,ue history, resent and resist being classified, interpreted, or (understood) through analogs with the 2fro#2merican.

<rasi g t"e 2lac0/&"ite 2i ary sol*es #or li2eratio #rom %iscrimi atio Delga%o C0' !ro# R Seattle La&( Pulit)er Pri)e omi ee
/Jichard, .ay, (5errick 8ell+s Toolkit# Fit to 5ismantle That Famous LouseC) Mew Kork Dniversity <aw Jeview, lexis, d.a. I#"-//.456 .inority groups in the Dnited 0tates should consider abandoning all binaries, narrow nationalisms, and

strategies that focus on cutting the most favorable possible deal with whites, and instead set up a secondary market in which they negotiate selectively with each other. For example, instead of approaching the establishment supplicatingly, in hopes of a more favorable admission formula at an elite school or university system, 2sians might approach 2frican 2mericans with the offer of a bargain. That bargain might be an agreement on the part of the latter group to support 2sians with respect to
an issue important to them # for example, easing immigration restrictions or supporting bilingual education in public schools # in return for their own promise not to pursue ,uite so intently rollbacks in affirmative action or set#asides for black contractors. The idea would be for minority

groups to assess their own preferences and make tradeoffs that will , optimistically, bring gains for all concerned.
0ome controversies may turn out to be polycentric, presenting win#win possibilities so that negotiation can advance goals important to both sides without compromising anything either group deems vital. <ike a small community that sets up an informal system of barter, exchanging obs

and services moneylessly, thus reducing sales and income taxes, this approach would reduce the number of times minorities approach whites hat in hand. 0ome gains may be achievable by means of collective action alone. &hen it is necessary to approach whites for something, a nonbinary framework allows that approach to be made in full force. *t also deprives vested interests of the opportunity to profit from flattery, false compliments, and mock sympathy />Oh, your terrible history. Kour group is so special. &hy don?t we....>6. *gnoring the siren song of binaries opens up new possibilities for coalitions based on level#headed assessment of the chances for mutual Rr-AIT gain. *t liberates one from dependence on a system that has advanced minority interests at best sporadically and unpredictably . *t takes interest convergence to a new
dimension. 8luebeard?s $astle could ust as easily have served as an allegory about gender imbalance and the social construction of marriage between une,uals. 2lthough 8ell does not draw this lesson from it, it is certainly as implicit in the French fairy tale as the lesson 8ell extracts about black progress. 0een through this other lens, a straightforward solution, one that 1udith apparently never contemplated, would have been to engage in collaborative action with 8luebeard?s three previous wives against their common oppressor, the gloomy noble bent on sub ugating them all # in short, an in ection of feminist solidarity. Fersisting in an unsuccessful strategy, waging it with more and more energy, can prove a

counsel of despair. 0ometimes, as with the black/white binary, one needs to turn a thought structure on its side , look at it from a different angle, and gain some needed distance from it, before the path to liberation becomes clear.

T"ey misu %ersta % t"e argume t' /lac0 "istory is a cor ersto e o# racial stu%ies 2ut &e s"oul% a aly)e ot"er i sta ces or racial i 3ustice as &ell Perea 56' !ro# o# la& R .F( *isiti g !ro# R ;ar*ar%( lea%i g sc"olar o race a % t"e la&
/1uan, (The 8lack/&hite 8inary Faradigm of Jace,) $alifornia <aw Jeview//.456

AT Margi ali)es /lac0 O!!ressio

One might ob ect that * am distorting history by suggesting that slavery and the experience of 8lack 2mericans has not been of central importance in the formation of 2merican society. * believe this ob ection misunderstands my arguments. There can be no ,uestion, * think, that slavery and the mistreatment of 8lacks in the Dnited 0tates were crucial building blocks of 2merican society. The fact that the text of the $onstitution protects slavery in so many places demonstrates the
importance of slavery in the foundation of the country. The constitutional, statutory and udicial attempts to create more e,uality for 8lacks, imperfect as these all have been, correspond to the history of mistreatment of 8lacks. .y argument is not that this history should not be an

important focus of racial studies. Jather, my argument is that the exclusive focus on the development of e,uality doctrines based solely on the experience of 8lacks, and the exclusive focus of most scholarship on the 8lack#&hite relationship, constitutes a paradigm which obscures and prevents the understanding of other forms of ine,uality, those experienced by non#&hite, non#8lack 2mericans. The 8lack/&hite binary paradigm, by defining only 8lacks and &hites as relevant participants in civil rights discourse and struggle, tends to produce and promote the exclusion of other raciali7ed peoples, including <atinos/as, 2sian 2mericans and Mative 2mericans, from this crucial discourse which affects us all. This exclusion is both the power and the stricture of the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm. *ts
power derives from the fact that a limited sub ect of in,uiry makes possible the study of the 8lack#&hite relationship in extraordinary detail and with great insight. *ts stricture, however, is that it has limited severely our understanding of how &hite racism operates with particularity against other raciali7ed people. Furthermore, the binary paradigm renders the particular histories of other raciali7ed peoples

irrelevant to an understanding of the only racism# &hite racism against 8lacks# that the paradigm defines to be important. This perceived irrelevance is why the history of <atinos/as, 2sian 2mericans, and Mative 2mericans is so fre,uently missing from the texts that structure our thinking about race.

AT = o# Lati o/a
T"e term lati o is !art o# ?strategic esse tialism@' our %iscourse "as t"e goal o# re*eali g social i e4uality a % mo2ili)i g agai st it /o&ma :' !ro# o# la& RMS.( QD #rom Du0e
/%risti, 5uke <aw 1ournal (The Mew Face of 0chool 5esegregation,) http!//www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.plC@Aq5ukeq<.q1.q"I@"//.456 &hile abstract conceptions of race have existed for centuries, the origin of a common <atino identity is uncertain. 2s employed in

contemporary 2merican society, the <atino group label generally applies to those with $entral 2merican, 0outh 2merican, or $aribbean heritage. Though the use of the term (<atino) has been critici7ed as overly broad @I and arguably repeats the same sort of essentiali7ation * seek to avoid through deconstructing the &hiteOMon#&hite paradigm,@S my approach is to be, in Frofessor 0tephanie &ildman+s term, (strategically essentialist)@H with the goal of illuminating socially constructed ine,uality . <atinos in the Dnited 0tates share many commonalties, illustrated by the shared social treatment of those labeled9and thus viewed9as <atinos,:A and by their economic position.:" The mutable, non#fixed nature of group identity is illustrated by the perception that <atinos who were not born in the D nited 0tates must learn to per#form the 2merican <atino identity.:' 5espite variations in the (education levels, income, and political power) that may distinguish $hicanos, Fuertori,,uenos, $uban 2mericans, and those with $entral or 0outh 2merican heritage , <atino students uniformly (face increasing levels of school segregation in all parts of the country.):-

***Commu ity /a% =***

Attem!ti g to sol*e mi orities rig"ts t"roug" i clusio e sures *iole ce Glo&ac0a GB /$ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 $ommunity and the &ork of 5eath! Thanato#Ontology in Lannah 2rendt and 1ean#<uc Mancy,
5orota 4lowacka 200O$*2TE FJOFE00OJ OF LD.2M*T*E0= 251DM$T FJOFE00OJ .2/&roclaw6, Fh5/0DMK6

Jeflecting on the correlation between nationalism and totalitarianism, 2rendt presses the ,uestion about multi#ethnic national communities, which were artificially carved out by the Feace Treaty of ;ersailles, and in which different ?proper names?, circumscribed by often conflicting political stakes, were monstrously lumped together . 2rendt reflects on what she believes to have been the colossal failure of the ;ersailles and minority treaties of "H"S#"H"H, and on the plight of the millions of stateless and minority people who, as a result of this ?disastrous experiment? /"HI-! 'IA6, had lost a political guarantee of their supposedly inalienable human rights and thus suddenly found themselves as if outside the pale of humanity altogether. 2s Mancy?s list of bloodied proper names dramatically manifests, after &orld &ar **, the precarious condition of the stateless people and of the ethnic minorities in Europe only became aggravated, and today, the ,uestion not only remains urgent but also has become pressing on the global scale.: *n ?The Ma7i .yth?, Mancy and <acoue#<abarthe augment 2rendt?s analysis by identifying t he correlation between the flourishing of the totali7ing communitarian myths and the metaphysical logic of sub ective identification . I%eas o# commu ity create 2i aries 2et&ee i si%ers a % outsi%ers'lea%s to !assi*ity i t"e #ace o# ge oci%e Glo&ac0a ,B' P"D #rom S.ND( Pro#essor o# ;uma ities at . i*ersity o# =i g8s College /5orota,
($ommunity and the &ork of 5eath! Thanato#Ontology in Lannah 2rendt and 1ean#<uc Mancy,) $ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 http!//www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view2rticle/-S/E://.456 ?&hy is the idea of community so powerful that it is possible for its members to willingly die for such limited imaginingsC? /2nderson, "HS-! I6 The anthropologist?s answer is that the &estern conception of community has been founded on the mythical bond of death between its members, who identify themselves as sub ects through the apology of the dead heroes. Ket is not this endless

recitation of prosopopeia, which serves as the self#identificatory apparatus par excellence, also the most deadly mechanism of exclusionC &hose voices have been foreclosed in the self#addressed movement of the epitaphC *ndeed, who, in turn, will have to suffer a death that is absolute, whose negativity will not be sublated into the good of communal belonging, so that community can perpetuate itselfC ?Two different deaths?! it is the ?they? who will perish, without memory and without a remainder, so that the ?we? can be endlessly resurrected and blood can continue to flow in the veins of the communal body, the veins now distended by the pathos of this recitation. The ,uestion * would like to ask in this paper is whether there can be the thinking of community that interrupts this sanguinary logic. 2 collectivity that pro ects itself as unified presence has been the predominant figure of community in the &est. 0uch community reveals itself in the splendor of full presence, ?presence to self, without flaw and without any outside? /Mancy, 'AA"!"@= 'AA-a! 'E6, through the re#telling of its foundational myth. 8y infinitely /self6communicating the story of its inauguration, community ensures its own transcendence and immortality. For 1ean#<uc Mancy, this immanent figure of community has impeded the ?true? thinking of community as being#together of humans. Twelve years after writing his seminal essay ?The *noperative $ommunity?, Mancy contends that ?this earth is anything but a sharing of
humanity ## it is a world lacking in world? /'AAA! xiii6. *n 8eing 0ingular Flural /"HH:6, Mancy returns to Leidegger?s discussion of .itsein /8eing#with6 in 8eing and Time, in order to articulate an ontological foundation of being#together or being#in#common and thus to move away from the homogeni7ing idiom of community. 5eparting from Leidegger?s habit of separating the political and the philosophical, however, Mancy situates his analysis

in the context of global ethnic conflicts, the list of which he enumerates in the ?Freface?,- and to which he returns, toward the end of the book, in ?Eulogy for the .gl[e /for 0ara evo, .arch "HH-6?. The fact that Mancy has extended his reflection on the modes of being# together to include different global areas of conflict indicates that he is now seeking to re#think ?community? in a perspective that is no longer confined to the problematic of specifically &estern sub ectivity . This allows me to add to
Mancy?s ?necessarily incomplete? list the name of another community#in#conflict! the Folish#1ewish community, and to consider, very briefly, the tragic fact of the disappearance of that community during the events of the Lolocaust and in its aftermath. &ithin a Mancean problematic, it is possible to argue that the history of this community in Foland, which has been disastrous to the extent that it is now virtually extinct, is related, as in 0ara evo, to a failure of thinking community as 8eing#with. &hat * would like to bring out of Mancy?s discussion, drawing on the Folish example in particular, is that rethinking community as being#in#common necessitates the interruption of the myth of communal death by death understood as what * would refer to, contra Leidegger, as ?dying#with? or ?8eing#in#common#towards#death?. 2lthough Mancy himself is reluctant to step outside the ontological hori7on as delineated by 5asein?s encounter with death and would thus refrain from such formulations, it is when he reflects on death /in the closing section of his essay ?Of 8eing 0ingular Flural? in 8eing 0ingular Flural6, as well as in his analysis of the ?forbidden? representations of Lolocaust death in 2u fond des images /'AA-b6, that he finds Leidegger?s pro ect to be lacking /en sufferance6. This leads me to a hypothesis, partly inspired by .aurice 8lanchot?s response to Mancy in The Dnavowable $ommunity /"HS-6, that the failure of experiencing

the meaning of death as ?dying#with? is tantamount to the impossibility of ?8eing#with?. *n the past and in the present, this failure has culminated in acts of murderous, genocidal hatred, that is, in attempts to erase a collectivity?s proper name, and it is significant that many of the proper names on Mancy?s list fall under the "HES Dnited Mations? definition of the genocide as ?acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group?.E The Folish national narrative has been forcefully structured by communal identification in terms of the work of death, resulting in a mythical construction from which the death of those who are perceived as other must be excluded. *t is important to underscore that the history of Folish#1ewish relations has never been marred by violence of genocidal

proportions on the part of the ethnic Foles. * will argue nevertheless that what

this history discloses is a fundamental failure to produce modes of co#habitation grounded in ontological being#in#common. 2s became tragically apparent during the Lolocaust and in its aftermath, Foles? disidentification with their 1ewish neighbors led to an overall posture of indifference toward /and in some cases direct complicity in6 their murder. 2gain, * will contend that this failure of ?8eing#with? in turn reveals a foreclosure of ?dying#with? in the Folish mode of communal belonging, that is, a violent expropriation of the 1ewish death. 2t this fraught historical uncture of ontology and politics, * find it fruitful to engage Mancy?s forays into
the thinking of death and the community with Lannah 2rendt?s reflection on the political and social space. *n ?The Ma7i .yth? /"HSH6, which Mancy co# authored with <acoue#<abarthe, 2rendt?s definition of ideology as a self#fulfilling logic ?by which a movement of history is explained as one consistent process? /The Origins of Totalitarianism, ,td in <acoue#<abarthe and Mancy, "HSH! 'H-6 is the starting point for the analysis of the myth. Mancy and <acoue#<abarthe elaborate 2redn?t analysis in order to argue that the will to mythical identification, which saw its perverse

culmination in the extermination of European 1ews during the Ma7i era, is inextricable from the general problematic of the &estern metaphysical sub ect. *t is also in that essay that Mancy and <acoue#<abarthe condemn ?the thought that
puts itself deliberately /or confusedly, emotionally6 at the service of an ideology behind which it hides, or from whose struggle it profits?, citing Leidegger?s ten month#involvement with Mational 0ocialism as an example par excellence.

Re3ect t"e a##' Re3ectio is t"e o ly &ay to %eco struct t"e myt" o# t"e commu ity Mori GB /$ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 Futting $ommunity Dnder Erasure! 5errida and Mancy on the Flurality of 0ingularities .arie#Eve .orin
5epartment of Fhilosophy. -#E@ 2ssiniboia Lall. Dniversity of 2lberta. Thus the community of human beings excludes animals,

and the community of beings in general excludes ghosts. To escape this double violence, it is necessary, according to 5errida, to cut the bond that binds me to, or excludes me from, a group. Only then will there be an experience of the other, or a relation to the other, which will respect and do ustice to its otherness, its difference. Though Mancy does not criticise fraternity directly, his discussion of the interruption of myth serves the same purpose. The myth presents the community to the community itself = it is the identificatory mechanism of a community. <acoue#<abarthe and Mancy explain! 2 myth is a fiction in the strong, active sense of shaping or moulding, or as Flato himself says, of ?plasticity?! it is a fictionning, whose role is to propose, if not to impose, models and types, ## types by whose imitation an individual ? or a city, or a whole people ? can grasp and identify itself. /<acoue#<abarthe W Mancy, "HH"! -E6 The interruption of myth means that it becomes impossible for us to represent our common origin. 8ecause the genealogical relation rests on a phantasmatic commonality of origin, the loss of common origin means the impossibility of recognising each other as brother. *n their having been interrupted, myths do not disappear, but they no longer function as the ground of communal belonging! it becomes impossible for us to gather around the narration of our common origin . The interruption does not build a community , it un# works it, that is, it lets a space open in the identification of the community with itself. This un#working is the active incompleteness of community! it prevents the community from effecting itself as work.

T"e a##8s a!!eal to commu ity re!licates t"e #aile% e##orts at social i tegratio o# i co gruous grou!s &"ic" #ollo&e% t"e Treaty o# Aersailles a % !reci!itate% t"e Seco % 1orl% 1ar Force% multiet" ic i clusio is t"e ?%isastrous e+!erime t@' lea%s to i tra'commu ity rese tme t a % a ger' t"at8s Glo&ac0a T"e alter ati*e is to re3ect t"e myt" o# commu ity' Mori i %icates t"is is ot a col%'"earte% a2a %o me t o# em!at"y or #rater ity( 2ut rat"er a !rotest agai st t"e #orce% s"a!i g to orms &"ic" occur i commu ities a % lea% to i %i##ere ce a % "ostility

CNC O/A

Commu ities lea% to i%e tity erasure' eutrali)e %i##ere ce Mori ,B' !ro# o# !"iloso!"y at t"e . i*ersity o# Al2erta /.arie#Eve, (Futting $ommunity Dnder Erasure! 5errida
and Mancy on the Flurality of 0ingularities,) $ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 http!//www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view2rticle/-I/E@//.456 First, communities tend to neutralise differences by treating all

'I%e tity <rasure

members as brothers, that is, as the same. The other belongs to my community only insofar as he is like me, and the ?us? # # the group of those who belong together ## appears as a homogeneous group. *t is because of this tendency to homogenise that fraternity can include apparent non# brothers /such as women6 and that the fraternal community can present itself as universal . The woman gets included in fraternity when she becomes a brother for humanity, that is, when she is not /completely6 woman anymore. 8ecause ?man? is the archetype of humanity and ?brother? the archetype of the relation between siblings, the woman can become human or sibling only insofar as she resembles the archetypes of ?man? or ?brother ?. Fraternity as a process of universalisation is a process of inclusion, but here ?to include? means to neutralise difference. 0econd, communities are inscribed in a field of opposition= they define themselves in an oppositional logic, by excluding ?them,? that is, those who do not belong, those who are not ?brothers,? not ?the same?. *f * can identify my brothers, then by using the same criterion, * can also identify those who are not my brothers. 2ll groups function in the same way! they define a criterion which functions as a wall erected around the group, a wall filled with certain type of openings that let only the right elements in. Of course, some criteria of appurtenance are more inclusive than others because they are shared by more people. 8ut no matter how inclusive a group is, it is always possible to find elements that are excluded. Thus the community of human beings excludes animals, and the community of beings in general excludes ghosts. To escape this double violence, it is necessary, according to 5errida, to cut the bond that binds me to, or excludes me from, a group. Only then will there be an experience of the other, or a relation to the other, which will respect and do ustice to its otherness, its difference. Though Mancy does not criticise
fraternity directly, his discussion of the interruption of myth serves the same purpose. The myth presents the community to the community itself= it is the identificatory mechanism of a community. <acoue#<abarthe and Mancy explain! 2 myth is a fiction in the strong, active sense of shaping or moulding, or as Flato himself says, of ?plasticity?! it is a fictionning, whose role is to propose, if not to impose, models and types, ## types by whose imitation an individual ? or a city, or a whole people ? can grasp and identify itself. /<acoue#<abarthe W Mancy, "HH"! -E6 The interruption of myth means

that it becomes impossible for us to represent our common origin . 8ecause the genealogical relation rests on a phantasmatic commonality of origin, the loss of common origin means the impossibility of recognising each other as brother. *n their having been interrupted, myths do not disappear, but they no longer function as the ground of communal belonging! it becomes impossible for us to gather around the narration of our common origin. The interruption does not build a community, it un#works it, that is, it lets a space open in the identification of the community with itself.
This un#working is the active incompleteness of community! it prevents the community from effecting itself as work.

'<+tJ Commu ity /a%

Commu ity is o!!ositio al' creates &ar a % et" ic clea si g Norris C0' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom .C Sa ta /ar2ara( assista t !ro# at .C Sa ta /ar2ara /2ndrew, (1ean#<uc Mancy and the .yth of the $ommon,) $onstellations ;olume I, Mo ', 'AAA, &iley//.456 Mancy, however, is deeply suspicious of this understanding of community. On his account, the move from the individual to the community will do us no good if the community is understood as being a sub ect of the same sort as the individual. *n the end this will only produce a politics of identity in which different identities and interests are defined in opposition to one another. Though this is an implication of the communitarian argument that 0andel and Taylor do not
emphasi7e, it is clearly recogni7ed by Legel, who argues that war is a fundamental possibility of political life, one that is not entirely regrettable. *t is a fundamental possibility because the state is, vis#h#vis other states, an individual, (and individuality essentially implies negation. Lence

even if a number of states make themselves into a family, this group as an individual must engender an opposite and create an enemy.)"A 2nd it is not an absolute evil because war allows for the display of martial courage, in which the citi7en transcends his limited position and becomes one with the universal in the form of the state."" External conflict and its possible glorification is not the only or even the most pressing danger Mancy would associate with the politics of communal identity. Le argues that conceiving of the community or the state as a sub ect entails that we understand the community to have an identity that is immanent to it, and that needs to be brought out, and put to work. *n Mancy+s terminology, the community as sub ect necessarily implies the community as sub ect#work. *f one+s (true) or (higher) or (more universal) self is found in one+s shared communal identity, it becomes the work of politics to acknowledge and bring forth that immanent communal identity. This will entail not merely conflict with other political identities, but the purification of one+s own community. To reali7e their political identity, 0erbians must unite so as to become more (truly) 0erbian= doing so re,uires that they slough off what is not truly 0erbian. Fut more bluntly, it re,uires that they cleanse their community of foreigners, and rid themselves of the influence of such. *n Mancy+s terms, people like .ilosevic
seek to put community (to work.) &hen it is not simply the blind pursuit of power or the expression of base passions, politics for such people is a matter of discovering the immanent or implicit identity of a group and setting it to work, drawing it out and allowing it to express itself in functional activity. The conception of politics as work thus relies upon and follows from the conception of community as immanent identity! ( $ommunity

understood as work or through its works would presuppose that the common being, as such, be ob ectifiable and producible.)"' Re3ecti g !olitical age cy creates 2or%er'li0e %i*i%es 2et&ee %i##ere t commu ities Mitro!oulos a % Neilso ,B' **P"D #rom Dale( !ro#essor at t"e I stitute #or Culture a % Society at t"e . i*ersity o# 1ester Sy% ey H2ngela and 8rett, ($utting 5emocracy?s %not,)
http!//www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view2rticle/EA/ES//.456 Therefore, alongside the democracy of the market##and in relation to European premonitions of a globally extended constitution and citi7enship## there

is the democracy of the border. *t is well known that the border, no matter how constantly it recomposes itself, entails processes of selective inclusion as well as exclusion. 8ut, contrary to recent insistences that the border constitutes /according to
Etienne 8alibar, among others6 the ?non#democratic? element of the demos, democracy no less than the market is the democratic element par excellence in the foundation of citi7enship and politics. This is to say, there can be no democracy without the border. Even if that border is imagined as coextensive with the circumference of the planet itself, the

border as a technology of inclusion#exclusion can still function, whether as the internal demarcation between ?passive? and ?active? forms of citi7enship /which can be traced in the historically parallel tra ectories of the granting of citi7enship to more people alongside increasing stratifications within citi7enship6, or in the recourse to the revocation of citi7enship itself, whose criteria and rulings have by no means disappeared but, today, proliferate. This is merely to note the formal operations of citi7enship laws,
without having touched on the casual operations of border technologies, as they are articulated through, say, the police checkpoints in the banlieues no less than in the demands that migrants /whether this status as a migrant is legal or semantic6 must continually prove their belonging. *n any case, without the border, there is neither demos nor kratos. This is why .ichael Lardt and 2ntonio Megri can call, in the final chapters of Empire /'AAA6, for a global citi7enship under the sign of ?absolute democracy?. Ket, t he

diplomacy that might seemingly favour the proposition of democracy as an empty placeholder for the ,uestion of ?constituent power? fails to confront the politics of the demos and the kratos that invocations of democracy set to work, not least because diplomacy is already a techni,ue of statecraft and a form of address that distinguishes and fuses kratos and demos.

Re3ectio alt
Re3ectio o# t"eir !la creates a %i##ere t mo%e o# !olitics Mitro!oulos GB /$ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 Lome 2bout <og *n Jegister 0earch $urrent 2rchives Jeviews *nterXone $0e2J$L $utting
5emocracy?s %not 2ngela .itropoulos The possibility of, as we would put it,

a non#sovereign decision##of a distributed or diffuse decision that does not rely on the mystical and auto#representative identity of the people##is the ,uestion around which the criti,ue of democracy turns. 2nd while one might frame such a decision around, say, the way in which languages or forms of life might change, the attempt to reign it back to some new political sub ect, figured either as the many or the one, reinstates the endless oscillation between citi7en and sub ect on the terrifyingly familiar and empty grounds of democracy as we know it. 5emocracy, we argue, binds us, and what ?us? might mean, in certain ligatures. *t leaves us bound in an indissoluble knot, where divergent tendencies##the many and the one, citi7en and sub ect, law and sovereignty, society and community##tighten against each other in ways that are at once mutually reinforcing and mutually antagonistic. To cut this knot involves a kind of total risk. *t means breaking the swing between abstract formalism and substantive identity that democracy, as a political form, ?manages? but also is. 2nd, thus, far from amounting to a radical gesture, cutting this knot is the uninsurable action that restores politics as a ,uestion of relation, of the tie and the decision to tie or not, of who it is that might enter into relation, and so on. These are the ,uestions through which politics as a praxis might be reopened. *t is, in short, a break for freedom that cannot be integrated to the tendencies of the day but which slices through the present with an incision that scrambles all tenses and leaves the political up for grabs.

Perm A s&er
It o2*iously li 0s 7 t"e :AC &as ri%%le% &it" otio s o# commu ity a % i clusio T you ca 8t u %ue a s!eec" act9 T"e !ermutatio #ails' it rei #orces otio s o# commu ity a % agreeme t t"at erase %i##ere ce Secom2 GC= /Fractured $ommunity <innell 0ecomb 0pecial *ssue! 4oing 2ustralian! Jeconfiguring Feminism and Fhilosophy ;olume "@, *ssue ',
pages "--O"@A, .ay 'AAA 5espite these deficiencies within liberal Enlightenment universalism, 8enhabib argues that a

post#Enlightenment universalism is still viable. This, she suggests, would be >interactive not legislative, cogni7ant of gender difference not gender blind , contextually sensitive and not situation indifferent> /"HH', -6. 8enhabib proposes a universalist theory of community which attempts to overcome the problems of Enlightenment thinking . This vision of community involves a >a discursive, communicative concept of rationality>= >the recognition that the sub ects of reason are finite, embodied
and fragile creatures, and not disembodied cogitos or abstract unities of transcendental apperception>= and >a shift V from legislative to interactive rationality> /"HH', @O:6. This reformulated universalist model of community would be founded on >a moral

conversation in which the capacity to reverse perspectives, that is, the willingness to reason from the others? point of view, and the sensitivity to hear their voice is paramount> /"HH', S6. 8enhabib argues that this model does not assume that consensus can be reached but that a >reasonable agreement> can be achieved. This formulation of community on the basis of a
conversation in which perspectives can be reversed, also implies a new understanding of identity and alterity. *nstead of the generali7ed other, 8enhabib argues that ethics, politics, and community must engage with the concrete or particular other. 2 theory that only engages with the generali7ed other sees the other as a replica of the self. *n order to overcome this reductive assimilation of alterity, 8enhabib formulates a univetsalist community which recogni7es the concrete other and which allows us to view others as uni,ue individuals /"HH', "A6. 8enhabib?s criti,ue of universalist liberal theory and her formulation of an alternative conversational model of community are useful and illuminating. Lowever, * suggest that her vision still

assumes the desirability of commonality and agreement, which, * argue, ultimately %estroy %i##ere ce. Ler vision of a community of conversing alterities assumes sufficient similarity between alterities so that each can adopt the point of view of the other and, through this means, reach a >reasonable agreement.> 0he assumes the necessity of a common goal for the community that would be the outcome of the >reasonable agreement.> 8enhabib?s community, then, while attempting to enable difference and diversity, continues to assume a commonality of purpose within community and implies a sub ectivity that would ultimately collapse back into sameness. .oreover, 8enhabib?s formulation of community, while re ecting the fantasy of consensus, nevertheless privileges communication, conversation, and agreement. This privileging of communication assumes that all can participate in the rational conversation irrespective of difference. Ket this assumes rational interlocutors, and rationality has tended, both in theory and practice, to exclude many groups and individuals, including! women, who are deemed emotional and corporeal rather than rational = non#liberal cultures and individuals who are seen as intolerant and irrational= and minoritarian groups who do not adopt the authoritative discourses necessary for rational exchanges. *n addition, this ideal of communication fails to acknowledge the indeterminacy and multiplicity of meaning in all speech and writing. *t assumes a singular, coherent, and transparent content. Ket, as 4ayatri 0pivak writes! >the verbal text is constituted by concealment as much as revelation. V RTThe concealment is itself a revelation and visa versa> /0pivak "HI:, xlvi6. For 0pivak, 1ac,ues 5errida, and other deconstructionists, all communication involves conttadiction, inconsistency, and heterogeneity. 5errida?s concept of diff[rance indicates the inevitable deferral and displacement of any final coherent meaning. The apparently rigorous and irreducible oppositions that structure language, 5errida contends, are a fiction. These mutually exclusive dichotomies turn out to be interrelated and interdependent! their meanings and associations, multiple and ambiguous /5errida "HI-, "HI:6. &hile 8enhabib?s ob ective is clearly to allow all groups within a community to participate in this rational conversation, her formulation fails to recogni7e either that language is as much structured by miscommunication as by communication, or that many groups are silenced or speak in different discourses that are unintelligible to the ma ority . .inority groups and discourses are fre,uently ignored or excluded from political discussion and decisionmaking because they do not adopt the dominant modes of authoritative and rational conversation that assume homogeneity and transparency. The feminist criti,ues of community have usefully revealed the exclusion of difference and the abstraction from the specificity of corporeal existence which characteri7e the dominant philosophical models of community. .any feminist theorists, however, continue to endorse
the apparent necessity of a final agreement or a unifying solidarity within community. &hile some, like Koung, propose an alternative politics >conceived as a relationship of 0trangers> /Koung "HH', '-E6, there continues, even in this endorsement of heterogeneity, to be an assumption that

these diverse strangers would share a common goal and that this would be the basis for the polity. The goal for Koung is a radical,
egalitarian democratic politics /'ESO@:6 which enables the differentiation, variety, eroticism, and publicity of city life /'-:OE"6. &hile Koung overcomes the liberal and communitarian imperative of unity and fusion of identity she continues to endorse a commonality in the goal and purpose of community. * suggest, however, that this risks the re#creation of an affinity between the strangers of the city which would once

again undermine their difference through a fusion of common political pro ects and goals which would create a merging
of alterity into an identity founded on common purpose. *n order to overcome the unifying and totali7ing tendency of community it is necessary both to emphasi7e the specificity of citi7ens, as 8enhabib has done, and the radical differences of strangers within the polity which is the basis of Koung?s formulation of city life. Lowever, in order to avoid a final conflation into sameness through the creation of a common

goal it is also necessary to envisage a community without common ends and pro ects . 1ean#<uc Mancy?s work on

community develops this possibility by describing community as an >unworking> without common purpose. Mancy?s thinking on community marks

DM&OJ%*M4 $O..DM*TK a radical departure from the universalist conceptions of both community and

sub ectivity. Mancy?s vision of community and singularity, formulated in the light of Leidegger?s 5asein and .itsein, puts in ,uestion accepted ideas
about human existence and society /Leidegger "HH'6. For Mancy, as for Leidegger, the human existence is not an individual, sub ect, or citi7en, but, in Leidegger?s terms, a >being#there,> or in Mancy?s, a >singularity.> For Mancy, the human existence is a singularity that is from the outset an inclining towards others and a sharing with and exposure to others.

T"e "olocaust &as ot a a2erratio ' t"e &ester co ce!tio o# commu ity e sures totalitaria ism a % ge oci%e &ill 2rea0 out Norris GC= /1ean#<uc Mancy and the .yth of the $ommon 2ndrew Morris &onstellations 'olume (, o ), )***+ &hen it is not simply the blind pursuit of power or the expression of base passions, politics for such people is a matter of discovering the immanent or implicit identity of a group and setting it to work, drawing it out and allowing it to express itself in functional activity . The conception of politics as work thus relies upon and follows from the conception of community as immanent identity! ($ommunity understood as work or through its works would presuppose that the common being, as such, be ob ectifiable and producible.)"' *f this is taken to suggest that Legel or 0andel are indistinguishable from Ma7is and racist 0erbian nationalists, one would surely be right to re ect the argument out of hand. 8ut Mancy is hardly this simplistic. &hat the holocausts of our century have revealed is not that Legel is really .ilosevic= nor have they revealed that totalitarianism is (immanent) to the &est. 4iven Mancy+s re ection of the logic of immanent identity, that would only land him in an obvious contradiction. 2s he and <acoue#<abarthe argue, Ma7ism does not sum up the &est, nor represent its necessary finality. 8ut neither is it possible to push it aside as an aberration , still less as a past aberration. 2 comfortable security in the certitudes of morality and of democracy not only guarantees nothing, but exposes one to the risk of not seeing the arrival , or the return, of that whose possibility is not due to any simple accident of history."- Lere a comparison with Lannah 2rendt O who greatly influences Mancy O might be helpful. *n The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2rendt attacks those political theories that center around the defense of human rights. 0he does so not because she is eager to see such rights violated, but because, ironically, their direct defense can undermine them. On her account, what is needed is rather a recognition of the ultimate basis of civil rights O what she
terms the (right to have rights.)"E This basis 2rendt finds in political action. Froperly understood, human rights are civil rights! they are based on forms of human action, not a set of moral truths about the laws of 4od or nature."@ *t is as political, not legal, actors that we are granted rights= and it is through political action that we defend those rights. 8ut to do so successfully, we must defend them at their foundations! we must defend the right and the preconditions necessary to engage in political action. To neglect this, and to concentrate solely on the rights that are attached to

politically passive and invisible legal sub ects leads us to misdirect our resistance to totalitarianism O a misdirection that may prove fatal. *n a similar vein, Mancy argues that our victories against totalitarianism and (ethnic cleansing) will remain intermittent at best if we resist them only by supporting a rival community, one committed to norms and values that are, if nothing else, at least better than those of racists and Ma7is. &hat is re,uired is an understanding of how totalitarianism can erupt in the midst of what seems to be a civili7ed community or nation#state O an understanding that will allow us to resist totalitarianism in its genesis. To do that we need to ask what the
relationship is between our civili7ation and totalitarianism. There is a temptation to avoid this ,uestion, and to assume that totalitarian and racist movements such as Ma7ism are solely or essentially the result of evil, or pathology. 8ut Ma7ism was not wholly devoid of sense. To all too many people it made all too much sense. To

assume that all of those people were mad or evil or benighted will not allow us to understand what attracted them to totalitarianism . *f our history is one of arbitrary eruptions of insanity, we would seem to be helpless in the face of an e,ually arbitrary future . *f fascism and genocide are truly insane, they will lack all
internal logic O which will make them all but impossible to resist in their genesis. $ontesting this, Mancy and <acoue#<abarthe write! (There is a logic of fascism. This also means that a certain logic is fascist, and that this logic is not wholly foreign to the general logic of rationality inherent in the metaphysics of the 0ub ect.)": Fut more plainly, this means that what we today count as politically rational has something in common with what counted for rational politics in Ma7i 4ermany.

Li 0 1all
No matter &"at t"e a## c"a ges( selectio i clusio e sures e+clusio Mitro!oulos GB /$ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 Lome 2bout <og *n Jegister 0earch $urrent 2rchives Jeviews *nterXone $0e2J$L $utting
5emocracy?s %not 2ngela .itropoulos Therefore, alongside the democracy

of the market##and in relation to European premonitions of a globally extended constitution and citi7enship##there is the democracy of the border. *t is well known that the border, no matter how constantly it recomposes itself, entails processes of selective inclusion as well as exclusion. 8ut, contrary to recent insistences that the border constitutes /according to Etienne 8alibar, among others6 the ?non#democratic? element of the demos, democracy no less than the market is the democratic element par excellence in the foundation of citi7enship and politics. This is to say, there can be no democracy without the border. Even if that border is imagined as coextensive with the circumference of the planet itself, the border as a technology of inclusion#exclusion can still function, whether as the internal demarcation between ?passive? and ?active? forms of citi7enship /which can be traced in the historically parallel tra ectories of the granting of citi7enship to more people alongside increasing stratifications within citi7enship6, or in the recourse to the revocation of citi7enship itself, whose criteria and rulings have by no means disappeared but, today, proliferate. This is merely to note the formal operations of citi7enship laws, without having touched on the casual operations of border technologies, as they are articulated through, say, the police checkpoints in the banlieues no less than in the demands that migrants /whether this status as a migrant is legal or semantic6 must continually prove their belonging. *n any case,
without the border, there is neither demos nor kratos. This is why .ichael Lardt and 2ntonio Megri can call, in the final chapters of Empire /'AAA6, for a global citi7enship under the sign of ?absolute democracy?. Ket, the diplomacy that might seemingly favour the proposition of democracy as an empty placeholder for the ,uestion of ?constituent power? fails to confront the politics of the demos and the kratos that invocations of democracy set to work, not least because diplomacy is already a techni,ue of statecraft and a form of address that distinguishes and fuses kratos and demos.

Tra s!ortatio %iscussio is 0ey to re%uce metro!olita #ragme tatio a % !ro! u! otio s o# commu ity Or#iel% 55' #ello& at /roo0i gs( la& !ro#essor a % %irector o# t"e I stitute o# Race a % Po*erty at t"e . i*ersity o# Mi esota /.yron, (.etropolitics! 2 regional agenda for community and stability,) Forum for 0ocial Economics
;olume 'S, *ssue ', "HHH6

*n order to stabili7e the central cities and older suburbs and prevent metropolitan polari7ation, there are six substantive and one structural reform that must be accomplished on a metropolitan scale. The reforms are interrelated and reinforce each other substantively and politically. The first three reforms are the most significant in terms of the socioeconomic stability of
the core. They are /"6 fair housing, /'6 property tax#base sharing, and /-6 reinvestment. Together, these reforms deconcentrate poverty, provide resource e,uity, and support the physical rebuilding necessary to bring back the middle class and private economy. The second three, /E6 land

planning/growth control /@6 welfare reform/public works, and /:6 transportation/transit reform, reinforce the first three and allow them to operate efficiently and sustainably. *n addition, these reforms provide for growth that is balanced socioeconomically, accessible by transit, economical with governmental resources, and environmentally conscious. *t is extraordinarily likely that these reforms can only be accomplished, administered, and sustained by an elected metropolitan government. Finally, a panoply of tax and public finance reforms should occur to overcome the perverse incentives created by generations of a highly fragmented, over#regulated local marketplace.

Im!act <+te sio s

T"e !rocess o# commu ity i clusio eutrali)es %i##ere ce a % e sures e+clusio Mori GB /$ulture .achine, ;ol S /'AA:6 Futting $ommunity Dnder Erasure! 5errida and Mancy on the Flurality of 0ingularities .arie#Eve .orin
5epartment of Fhilosophy. -#E@ 2ssiniboia Lall. Dniversity of 2lberta. First, communities tend to neutralise differences by treating

all members as brothers, that is, as the same. The other belongs to my community only insofar as he is like me, and the ?us? # # the group of those who belong together ## appears as a homogeneous group. *t is because of this tendency to homogenise that fraternity can include apparent non# brothers /such as women6 and that the fraternal community can present itself as universal . The woman gets included in fraternity when she becomes a brother for humanity, that is, when she is not /completely6 woman anymore. 8ecause ?man? is the archetype of humanity and ?brother? the archetype of the relation between siblings, the woman can become human or sibling only insofar as she resembles the archetypes of ?man? or ?brother?. Fraternity as a process of universalisation is a process of inclusion, but here ?to include? means to neutralise difference. 0econd, communities are inscribed in a field of opposition= they define themselves in an oppositional logic, by excluding ?them,? that is, those who do not belong, those who are not ?brothers,? not ?the same?. *f * can identify my brothers, then by using the same criterion, * can also identify those who are not my brothers. 2ll groups function in the same way! they define a criterion which functions as a wall erected around the group, a wall filled with certain type of openings that let only the right elements in. Of course, some criteria of appurtenance are more inclusive than others because they are shared by more people. 8ut no matter how inclusive a group is, it is always possible to find elements that are excluded. T"e creatio o# a myt"ical commu ity is &"at allo&s #or &ar Norris GC= /1ean#<uc Mancy and the .yth of the $ommon 2ndrew Morris &onstellations 'olume (, o ), )***+ Mancy, however, is deeply suspicious of this understanding of community. On his account, the move from the individual to the community will do us no good if the community is understood as being a sub ect of the same sort as the individual. *n the end this will only produce a politics of identity in which different identities and interests are defined in opposition to one another. Though this is an implication of the communitarian argument that 0andel and Taylor do not emphasi7e, it is clearly recogni7ed by Legel, who argues that war is a fundamental possibility of political life, o ne that is not entirely
regrettable. *t is a fundamental possibility because the state is, vis#h#vis other states, an individual, (and individuality essentially implies negation. Lence

even if a number of states make themselves into a family, this group as an individual must engender an opposite and create an enemy.)"A 2nd it is not an absolute evil because war allows for the display of martial courage, in which the citi7en transcends his limited position and becomes one with the universal in the form of the state."" External conflict and its possible glorification is not the only or even the most pressing danger Mancy would associate with the politics of communal identity. Le argues that conceiving of the community or the state as a sub ect entails that we understand the community to have an identity that is immanent to it, and that needs to be brought out, and put to work. *n Mancy+s terminology, the community as sub ect necessarily implies the community as sub ect#work. *f one+s (true) or (higher) or (more universal) self is found in one+s shared communal identity, it becomes the work of politics to acknowledge and bring forth that immanent communal identity. This will entail not merely conflict with other political identities, but the purification of one+s own community. To reali7e their political identity, 0erbians must unite so as to become more (truly) 0erbian= doing so re,uires that they slough off what is not truly 0erbian. Fut more bluntly, it re,uires that they cleanse their community of foreigners, and rid themselves of the influence of such. *n Mancy+s terms, people like .ilosevic seek to put community (to work.) Perso al com!licity &it" commu ity is t"e ultimate i ce ti*e #or t"ese acts o# *iole ce a % ge oci%e 'uzanne . iac0e, Prof. Philosophy 9 U of :ollongong, ;une, 855 (International ;ournal of Philosophical 'tudies <ol. ., Iss. /! :e bear responsibility for the outcome of another$s actions, for instance, when we provo5e these actions (Iago!= or when we supply the means ( evor5ian!, identification (;udas!, or incentive (>ve!= or where we encourage another to act as he ?or she@ does (Aady )acbeth!. +espite his disclaimer, Pilate cannot acBuit himself entirely of the outcome of what others decide simply by ceding the 1udgment to them. In these eCamples agents are indirectly, partly responsible for the outcomes of what others do in virtue of something they themselves have done . 4ut indirect, partial responsibility for what another person does can also arise through an agent$s non3intervention and be grounded in intention or fault = for eCample, when %rthur does not prevent 4rian 5illing &atherine, because
%rthur wants &atherine dead, or because %rthur simply cannot be bothered to warn her or call the police. Df course attributions of indirect, partial responsibility can be dif cult. %nd as far as absolutism is concerned, the relevant sense of #brings about$, outlined earlier, will sometimes be Buite stretched where an agent is attributed with responsibility for what someone else does. %ll the same, by our non3intervention we can help bring about some things that are directly

and voluntarily caused by others./E %odernity isnt the root cause of violenceits always proximately caused& The alternative leaves us unable to deal with any global problems&

'urtler () O Fh5 Fhilosophy, Lugh, (rediscovering values! coming to terms with postnmodernism) EE#I The second and third concerns, though, are more serious and to a degree more legitimate. The second concern is that >reason is the product of the Enlightenment, modern science, and &estern society, and as such for the postmodernists, it is guilty byassociation of all the errors attributed to them, RnamelyT, violence, suffering, and alienation in the twentieth century, be it the Lolocaust, world wars, ;ietnam, 0talin?s 4ulag, or computer record#keeping . . .> /Josenau "HH', "'H6. 2lthough this is a serious concern, it is hardly grounds for the re ection of reason, for which postmodernism calls in a loud, frenetic voice. There is precious little evidence that the problems of the twentieth century are the
result of too much reasonP On the contrary. To be sure, it was 5escartes?s dream to reduce every decision to a calculation, and in ethics, this dream bore fruit in 1eremy 8entham?s abortive >calculus> of utilities. 8ut at least since the birth of the social sciences at the end of the last century, and with considerable help from logical positivism, ethics /and values in general6 has been relegated to the dung heap of >poetical and metaphysical nonsense,> and in the minds of the general populace, reason has no place in ethics, which is the proper domain of feeling. The postmodern concern to

place feelings at the center of ethics, and udgment generally 9which is the third of their three ob ections to modern reason9 simply plays into the hands of the hardened popular pre udice that has little respect for the abilities of human beings to resolve moral differences reasonably. $an it honestly be said of any ma or decision made in thiscentury that it was the result of >too much reason> and that feelings and emotions played no partC 0urely not.$an this be said in the case of any of the concerns reflected in the list above! are violence, suffering, and alienation, or the Lolocaust, ;ietnam, 0talin?s 4ulag, or 2uschwit7 the result of a too reasonable approach to human problemsC Mo one could possibly make this claim who has dared to peek into the dark and turbid recesses of the human psyche. *n every case, it is more likely that these concerns result from such things as sadism, envy, avarice, love of power, the >death wish,> or short#term self#interest, none of which is >reasonable.>One must carefully distinguish between the methods ofthe sciences, which

are thoroughly grounded in reason and logic, and the uses men and women make of science. The warnings of romantics such as 4oethe /who was himself no mean scientist6 and .ary 0helley were directed not against science per se but rather against the misuse of science and the human tendency to become embedded in the operations of the present moment. To the extent that postmodernism echoes these concerns, * would share them without hesitation. 8ut the claim that our present culture suffers because of an exclusive concern with >reasonable> solutions to human problems, with a fixation on the logos, borders on the absurd.&hat is re,uired here is not a mindless re ection of human reason on behalf of >intuition,>

>conscience,> or >feelings> in the blind hope that somehow complex problems will be solved if we simply do whatever makes us feel good. Feelings and intuitions are notoriously unreliable and cannot be made the center of a workable ethic. &e now have witnessed several generations of college students who are convinced that >there?s no disputing taste> in the arts

and that ethics is all about feelings. 2s a result, it is almost impossible to get them to take these issues seriously. The notion that we can trust our feelings to find solutions to complex problems is little more than a false hope. &e are confronted today with problems on a scale heretofore

unknown, and what is called for is patience, compassion /to be sure6, and above all else, clear heads. *n a word, what is called for is a balance between reason and feelings9not the re ection of one or the other. One need only recall
Miet7sche?s own concern for the balance between 5ionysus and 2pollo in his 8irth of Tragedy. Miet7scheknew better than his followers, apparently, that one cannot sacrifice 2pollo to 5ionysus in the futile hope that we can rely on our blind instincts to get us out of the hole we have dug for ourselves.

***Determi ism =***

T"e !ortrayal o# t"e A#rica race as stuc0( motio less( !er!etuates %etermi istic attitu%es a % u %ermi es racial a%*a ceme t Mu"&ati ,B' De!artme t o# A#rica La guages a % Literature( . i*ersity o# Uim2a2&e /*tai,(.ass
Meurosis, Entrapment, $losure and the Jace+s Jace of <ife in .asango .avi /"HHS6 and .apen7i /"HHH6,) ir.u7.ac.7w/ spui/handle/"A:E:/@"@//.456 The 2frican image in ,uite a number of literary creations in Ximbabwean literature is palpably bedridden in intensive care. This

image finds revelation in the titles themselves. The physical wreckage and spiritual paralysis that is by definition an expression of this image, leads to an agonising realisation that, in life+s vicissitudes, and life+s race of race survival, 2frican people remain undeveloped and fledgling stutters. The images of characters in these novels whose titles are vapid pro ect 2fricans as victims of collective inertia, wallowing in cultural and historical amnesia and disintegrating in irretrievable mentacide. 2s a result, in terms of agency and mobility, the 2frican race remains glued on the starting line, ,uite overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable hurdles in the race of life . Through the choice of
titles, most of the writers seem to have adopted a modality that inordinately pro ects social death and a host of other social sicknesses as new forms of social identity in the contemporary dispensation. &hile their absolutisation of mass neurosis, closure and entrapment might

be said to be a reflection of the state of the nation in the post independence period, it is also estimable that such images of social sickness, paralysis and mass neurosis can be manipulated by 2 frica+s anthropological detractors in their ustification of a static and back pedalling 2frican race , particularly along the evolutionary spectrum, which is presented as a universal standard of valuation. The paper also puts forth argument that, t he adoption of an axiological paradigm that legitimises closure and race entrapment nullifies any prospects towards racial salvation. *t is an act of defining the 2frican race as doomed. 0uch a definition which trivialises the 2frican existential tra ectory pays homage to the subversive labels that Europe has
generously donated to 2frica. 0uch labels include Third &orld= Dnderdeveloped= 5ark $ontinent= Foor ma ority, cultural other and many more. These are designations that bespeak helplessness and mass neurosis.

<m2raci g #or&ar% o!timism is t"e o ly c"a ce #or !rogress' crucial #or o!!ortu ity a % 3ustice Mu"&ati ,B' De!artme t o# A#rica La guages a % Literature( . i*ersity o# Uim2a2&e /*tai,(.ass
Meurosis, Entrapment, $losure and the Jace+s Jace of <ife in .asango .avi /"HHS6 and .apen7i /"HHH6,) ir.u7.ac.7w/ spui/handle/"A:E:/@"@//.456 &hile the picture might be said to be generally true, the author+s vision remains nihilist and alarmist. *t creates an impression that this is a

race that is not synonymous with growth and continuity . 0uch a picture is spiritually disempowering and energy sapping. *t has the capacity to engender life#threatening behaviours as people compete to act out their roles before the Nfixed+ end. *t imposes limits to where we can go as a race. *t is fixating. &e argue that, whatever the circumstances and however debilitating and menacing, 2frican people should simply re ect such asphyxiating images. One might
even ha7ard to say that the same version of our life as portrayed in .ashiriapungana pays homage to the efforts of western social scientists on 2frica whose statistical data on chances of 2fricans+ survival is carefully crafted in order to signal disaster for 2frica. This is crucial for the titillation

of the western progeny.

CNC O/A
T"is a##8s re!rese tatio o# t"e A#rica race as stu te%( struggli g creates social i ertia a % a egati*e %etermi ism &"ic" e sures mass eurosis a % u %ermi es social c"a ge T"is is ot to %e y t"e "istorical o!!ressio o# race' "o&e*er( em2raci g t"e alt8s #or&ar% o!timism is t"e o ly &ay to !re*e t s!iritual %isem!o&erme t &"ic" c"o0es o## t"e !ote tial #or !rogress' t"at8s Mu"&ati

<+tJ Li 0
Portrayals o# race as u %er!ri*ilege%( su##eri g #ee% e tra!me t a % eurosis Mu"&ati ,B' De!artme t o# A#rica La guages a % Literature( . i*ersity o# Uim2a2&e
/*tai,(.ass Meurosis, Entrapment, $losure and the Jace+s Jace of <ife in .asango .avi /"HHS6 and .apen7i /"HHH6,) ir.u7.ac.7w/ spui/handle/"A:E:/@"@//.456 2 people whose social theory is vague and mangled are likely to find it difficult to persevere in the race of life. 2 closer look at titles that are part of Ximbabwean literature, including the titles of the novels analysed in this paper, testily problematises our social existence. One is left wondering whose social theory informs creativity and indeed the generality of the nation. Evidence from the above titles confirms a

bastardised, truncated and self#immolating social theory. 0uch a theory fixes Ximbabwean people in a context of non possibilities, closure and entrapment. &e are forced to write against the popularisation of such a creative disposition which on closer examination turns out to be a darker version of white neurosis and decadence. *n the race of life, where the ultimate ob ective is to claim our share of the trophies of life, the challenge is to constantly engage and re#engage, create and re#create vitalising and nourishing ideals . The situation in Ximbabwe in the "HHAs and beyond demands that we not only propose and confirm a social theory that acknowledges the stasis and social death inherent in the country , but more importantly, increase awareness on ability to overcome forces inimical to the realisation of life as a great
ceremony. Jesponsible acts of creation always endeavour to strike a balance between opposites # that is, life and death. 8oth .abasa and $hiwome embrace the surreal tradition to parade the entrapped and neurotic condition of the race.

'AT De ies .to!ia

.to!ia *isio s are little more t"a %reams' em2races esca!ist #a tasy a % a2a %o s acti*e e gageme t Mu"&ati ,B' De!artme t o# A#rica La guages a % Literature( . i*ersity o# Uim2a2&e /*tai,(.ass
Meurosis, Entrapment, $losure and the Jace+s Jace of <ife in .asango .avi /"HHS6 and .apen7i /"HHH6,) ir.u7.ac.7w/ spui/handle/"A:E:/@"@//.456 These dreams reflect people+s ambitions and their expectations of independence. 0uccumbing to dreams in such a

manner is an indication of the failure to take life head on. 5reams become an avenue to escape engagement. 0ince they are escapist, it entails an abandonment of the race. 2gain, dreams are largely spiritual. Lowever, any meaningful engagement in the race of life should strive on the concatenation of both the physical and the spiritual . To live life in the spiritual alone is purely to disengage from the urge to be immersed in the thick of things . Monetheless, through the 7eal shown by Tongai,
$hiwome shows that the 2frican race is a race of Nrunners.+ *t is only the hostile environment punctuated with corruption, nepotism and favouritism which subverts people+s ability to finish the race. <ife in the city is presented as crippling. There are a number of expenses that thwart investment and personal growth. Tongai can not save any money to accomplish his personal goals. Le has to pay for water, electricity food and other expenses that re,uire money. This is the reason why Tongai escapes into the surreal world, the world of dreams. <ife becomes

indomitable and overwhelming.

***;omoge i)atio = ***

Tur J ;omoge i)atio 9 T"ey !resume t"eir !er#orma ce i terru!ts &"ite su!remacy 2ecause it gre& out o# resista ce9 It !a!ers o*er ot"er *ie&s i A#rica America culture9 1"e you assume a la guage o ly e+!resses resista ce( it !re*e ts %ialectic to c"a ge t"ose i%eas9 1ohn h. Mccle %o ***, 8ates $ollege 1ournal of 0peculative Fhilosophy, ;ol. "S, Mo. E, 'A ,F. F.-AS#H
2dditionally, the function of various forms of social stratification9especially the impact of class contradictions9harbors the real possibility for different ideological responses to commonly experienced conditions of life. *n the manner of the .arxist conception of ideology, as found in The 4erman *deology, * presume that philosophy /ontology6 is a form of ideology /.arx and Engels "HI:6. Lence, only on the presupposition that the 2frican 2merican community is socially homogeneous can it plausibly be argued that 2frican 2mericans all share the same ontology. 4iven it is not the case that the 2frican 2merican community is homogeneous, then there is no plausible warranting for the belief that all 2frican 2mericans share a common ontology. This leads directly to point three and my charge of Kancy+s /and 0mitherman+s6 vindicationism, where he argues that resistance to

white supremacy is the defining characteristic of 2frican 2merican culture and hence language. &hen 2frican
2merican vindicationism is bereft of dialectical theory and method, as a determinate philosophical approach to 2frican 2merican culture, it neglects a very important aspect of the historical dialectic of 2frican 2meri can culture, vi7. that 2frican 2merican culture is not in any way a

monolithically formed culture where there are only manifestations of resistance . There is more to 2frican 2merican history and culture than a continuous line of resistance to oppression , for, by way of example, not all 2frican 2mericans sang the spirituals with an eye to oining the Dnderground Jailroad /Fisher "HHA6. 0ome believed
that freedom was wearing a robe in (heaben) and that washing in the blood of 1esus would make one (as white as the snow.) Or that loyalty to .assa was the highest virtue and resistance and revolt were of the greatest folly. The modern day connotation for (Dncle Tom) did not enter the lexicon of 2frican 2merican language without the historical presence of real, existing (Toms.) *t is no accident that there is the current exercise in 2frican 2merican locution of playing on this word /Tom6 whenever 0upreme $ourt 1ustice, $larence (Tomto# us) is mentioned among 2frican 2merican political speakers. 2fter all, the historical record indicates that the failure of 4abriel Frosser+s, 5enmark ;esey+s, and Mat Turner+s slave insurrections were due in part to other slaves that were more loyal to .assa than their own liberation. .ind you that those who ratted out the slave revolts shared in

the same language, ate the same food, lived the same experiences, but also had a different worldview /conception of reality6 and set of values. The idea that social ontology and identity among 2frican 2mericans, past and present, are preeminently the same for all is the sort of reductionism that flattens out the cultural, social, political, and ideological landscape called 2frican 2merican culture. 2lbeit, resistance is cardinal and crucial to any description, definition, and interpretation of 2frican 2merican culture, nonetheless, it is not exhaustive of its actualities and even of its future possibilities. 2frican 2merican culture in its full substance and scope is more complex than a singular thrust in the monodirection of resistance . Jather, 2frican 2merican culture historically constitutes an ensemble of traditions in which we are able , for analytical purposes, to locate what are two primary and yet contradictory forms, vi7. one of resistance and another of accommodation . This internal dialectic is undermined when a scenario of resistance sans accommodation gains support via
vindicationism.

It8s !reac"i g to t"e c"oirJ little tra s#ormati*e !ote tial <ynn Clar0e, 5epartment of $ommunication 0tudies and Theatre, ;anderbilt Dniversity, 1ournal of 0peculative Fhilosophy, ;ol. "S, Mo. E, 'A ,F.,
p. -'" Jeturning to the ,uestion of creative power+s compass9Kancy+s account of Mommo raises problems here as well. *n the account, recall,

the word+s generative function funds (an oppositional way of speaking) /Kancy 'AAE, 'SH6. 2mong other products, the speech acts of resistance manifest themselves in a black identity and reality based on a presumption of shared interests among 2frican 2merican selves.E 2t the same time, however, Mommo+s creative force is conceptually detached from the word+s power to constitute intersub ective relations between selves and others within the 2frican 2merican community. Thus, Kancy+s concept of Mommo only admits a generative power to create identification among blacks who already agree to the presence and terms of shared interest. The power of this Mommo fails to reach those 2frican 2mericans who disagree with black ma oritarian terms. This relatively minimal compass of power suggests that
Mommo+s potential to define black community and reality may need to be reconceptuali7ed beyond the presumptions of shared experience and common values to consider Mommo+s potential to forge relations between 2frican 2mericans who are divided on the terms of their present and future.

Per#orma ce is 8t a rou % &i er9 T"ey %o 8t &i #or usi g it9 Claimi g it %oes lea*es o s!ace #or %isse t or %eli2eratio 9 <ynn Clar0e, 5epartment of $ommunication 0tudies and Theatre, ;anderbilt Dniversity, 1ournal of 0peculative Fhilosophy, ;ol. "S, Mo. E, 'A ,F.,
p. -"H#'" Motwithstanding the importance of creative speech to philosophy of language and to a community+s self#formation, it remains unclear whether the collective resistance embodied in 22< meets certain interests expressed by those in whose name it is theori7ed. To be sure, and as Kancy argues, oppositional speech matters to the lives of the oppressed. Ket, ,uestions remain about the terms and relations of Mommo+s creativity and its significance for 22<. $onceptually, there is no account of whether Mommo is oriented toward coerced or communicatively

reasoned terms of communal harmony. This absence raises a ,uestion of relation! 0hould 22< be understood as linguistic resistance without intent to relate to self#defined black individuals who disagree with black ma oritarian termsC Fut another way, do the terms of Kancy+s 22< community open a space of interaction within (8lack 2merica) for the sort of opposition that Kancy+s linguistic framework defendsC E,ually important, do these terms direct attention to speech practices that have the potential to render the dissent productive of black people+s deliberation on the legitimacy of their community+s self#understandingC Extending the boundaries of humane community a bit further, might the power

of Mommo move beyond the constitution of 2frican 2merican identity, experience, and community, to promote the intersub ective transformation of oppressive social norms as Fanon both worked for and hoped /Fanon "H:I, "AA, '''6C 2sked in brief, these ,uestions may be folded into two ,ueries!

what compass of creative power should a philosophy of language attribute to /the speech of6 22<, and how might this power be held accountable to the very members of the community in whose name/s6 22< is said to createC *f there is good reason to commend the presupposition of shared nonidentity that informs these two ,uestions, neither a sheerly instrumental Mommo nor a sheerly oppositional theory of 22< may do .' 2ddressing the second ,uestion first, the problem of holding power accountable to those in whose name it speaks is apparent in certain deployments of Mommo as instrumental force. The speech practice of (call and response) is a striking example. *n Kancy+s invocation of Mommo to account for this dynamic (co#signing and co#narrating of a shared communicative reality,) a speaker makes (a verbal point) to an audience charged with responding /'H-6. The conceived, expected response is one of (approval.) *f not received, the audience will likely be deemed (Ndead.+) %nowles#8orishade, who comes closest to
thinking the ,uestion of Mommo and dissent, offers a somewhat different account. *n it, responders co#create the caller+s (message9the &ord) by either sanctioning or re ecting it (spontaneously during the speech,) based on (the perceived morality and vision of the $aller) and (the relevance of the message) /%nowles# 8orishade "HH", EHIOHS6. 2ccording to %nowles#8orishade, call and response aims at (consensus) determined by (the people themselves) /EH-OHE6. Through the process of (checks and balances) that constitutes call and response, (levels of perfected social interaction) are promoted. Ket, in Kancy+s and %nowles# 8orishade+s discussions of call and response, an account of disagreement and its

potential to hold power accountable does not appear . 2t most, disagreement is figured as privati7ed re ection. The grounds of this response remain unknown to the speaker and audience members, among whom reasons for dissent may vary. *n the face of silent re ection, the accounts of 22<+s call and response are mum on what ought happen next. The dead audience plays no transparent cognitive# practice role. The caller is free to cast his word#spell . The absense of
accountability in a sheerly productive word appears more readily in 2sante+s conception of 2frican communication. *n it, the group is thought to take precedence over the individual /2sante "HHS, IE6. To 2sante, this (strong collective mentality) warrants a focus on the aesthetic dimension of speech in (traditional 2frican public discourse.) The focus is relatively narrow, prompting a declaration that, (The 2frican speaker means to be a poet= not a lecturer,) inducing (compulsive relationships) and invoking the audience+s (inner needs) through (the inherent power) of (concrete images) /H"6. Though reason may matter on this account of Mommo, it is tough to see how and why. *ndeed, talk of reason appears relatively

unimportant in 2sante+s (traditional) understanding of 2frican public discourse /I@, HAOH"6. $reativity+s (highlight) shines in the absence of an explicit role for communicative reason in public speech. - 2ccountability appears as a non#issue, lurking uncomfortably in the shadow of creative power.

CNC O/A
T"eir met"o% o# !er#orma ce co structs mo olit"ic i ter!retatio s o# A#rica America i%e tity a % !a!ers o*er alter ati*e *ie&!oi ts T"is re%uctio ist co ce!tio o# i%e tity is %oome% to #ailure' &"ile it reso ates &it" t"ose &"o already s"are similar *ie&!oi ts( it alie ates t"ose t"e !er#orma ce is tryi g to !ersua%e &"o %o 8t alrea%y agree &it" t"eir *ie&!oi ts' t"at8s McCle %o a % Clar0e Do 8t 2uy i to t"eir claims t"at t"ey s"oul% &i 2ecause t"ey &ere #irst to !er#orm T"is s"iel%s t"eir argume ts #rom scruti y a % !romotes a lac0 o# accou ta2ility T"ere8s o i "ere t reaso to !re#er !er#orma ce't"at8s Clar0e

Tur J A!!ro!riatio 0hannon Sulli*a , Fenn 0tate Dniversity, 1ournal of 0peculative Fhilosophy, ;ol. "S, Mo. E, 'A ,F. F. -A"#' &hile a white/2nglo person+s learning 0panish can begin to balance the relationship of power and knowledge between white/2nglo and <atino worlds, it also can have the opposite effect of increasing the hegemony of the white world. This occurs when white people learn a language other than 0tandard 2merican <anguage 90panish, 2frican 2merican <anguage, or otherwise9precisely to dominate the world that speaks that language . $ertainly this happened during times of colonialist con,uest, but it also continues today as business corporations and advertising firms in the Dnited 0tates learn /bits of6 2frican 2merican <anguage and 0panish to better market products that promise the (exoticism) of 8lackness and the (spiciness) of <atino culture. /0tandard, middleclass whiteness is so unhip nowadays, as Kancy notes RKancy 'AAE, 'I:T.6 *t also can happen in less insidious ways, however, such as when white people learn another language to /try to6 break out of their white solipsism. Even in these well#intentioned instances, the protection provided to minority races by white people+s ignorance of their languages can be eroded once white people begin to understand and speak them.

CNC 7 A!!ro!riatio Tur

Tur J O!e s s!ace #or &"ite "egemo y 0hannon Sulli*a , Fenn 0tate Dniversity, 1ournal of 0peculative Fhilosophy, ;ol. "S, Mo. E, 'A ,F, p. -A' This point was brought home to me when a <atina friend and philosopher explained that she did not want white/2nglo people to learn 0panish because their knowledge would intrude on the 0panish/<atina world that she and other 0panish#speaking philosophers are able to create in the midst of white/2nglodominated conferences.' Opening up her world to white/2nglo philosophers tends to result in the destruction of a valuable point of resistance to white racism. 8ecause of the dominance of white people in philosophy in the Dnited 0tates, she fre,uently is forced to travel to white worlds and wants to preserve a small space that is relatively free of white people and the issues of race and racism that their presence inevitably /though not necessarily deliberately6 produces.

CNC 7 1"ite Fill I

I clusio Calls Tur Case

T"e call #or more i clusio a % tolera ce ris0s a #a$a%e o# c"a ge t"at re!ro%uces t"e structures t"ey critici)e9 Ui)e0 56 R0lavo nioek, bearded 0lovenian, "HHI (Jepeating <enin,) http!//www.lacan.com/replenin.htm //liamT One is therefore tempted to turn around .arx?s thesis ""! the first task today is precisely MOT to succumb to the temptation to act, to directly intervene and change things /which then inevitably ends in a cul de sac of debilitating impossibility! >what can one do against the global capitalC>6, but to ,uestion the hegemonic ideological coordinates. *f, today, one follows a direct call to act, this act will not be performed in an empty space 9 it will be an act &*TL*M the hegemonic ideological coordinates! those who >really want to do something to help people> get involved in /undoubtedly honorable6 exploits like .edecins sans frontiere, 4reenpeace, feminist and anti#racist campaigns, which are all not only tolerated, but even supported by the media, even if they seemingly enter the economic territory /say, denouncing and boycotting companies which do not respect ecological conditions or which use child labor6 9 they are tolerated and supported as long as they do not get too close to a certain limit. This kind of activity provides the perfect example of interpassivity'! of doing things not to achieve something, but to FJE;EMT from something really happening, really changing. 2ll the frenetic humanitarian, politically correct, etc., activity fits the formula of ><et?s go on changing something all
the time so that, globally, things will remain the sameP>.

AI De2ate a2out social a % !olitical structures i #a*or o# %iscussio s o t"e mi utia o# termi ology9 1"ile la guage matters( material #orces are a im!orta t structuri g #actor i t"e &ay la guage !lays i our egotiatio o# reality9 To assume t"at it is all a2out la guage misses im!orta t structural co %itio s o# racism &"ic" t"ey ca ot access9 /est L =ell er 5: R0tephen 8est and 5ouglas %ellner, DT#2ustin, "HH", Fostmodern Theory! $ritical *nterrogations, p. '@H#:A //liamT Fostmodern theorists do not do social theory per se, but rather eclectically combine fragments of sociological analysis, literary and cultural readings, historical theori7ations, and philosophical criti,ues. They tend to privilege cultural and philosophical analysis over social theory and thereby fail to confront the most decisive determinants of our social world . Ket we believe # against much postmodern theory # that the pro ect of social theory itself continues to be a valuable one. 1ust as individuals need cognitive maps of their cities to negotiate their spatial environment, they also need maps of their society to intelligently analy7e, discuss, and intervene in social processes. For us, social theories provide mappings of contemporary society! its organi7ation= its constitutive social relations, practices, discourses, and institutions= its integrated and interdependent features= its conflictual and fragmenting features= and its structures of power and modes of oppression and domination. 0ocial theories analy7e how these elements fit together to constitute specific societies, and how societies work or fail to function /I La guage is a co sta t egotiatio 9 1e u %ersta % t"at la guage is e*er static or is mea i g e*er close% o##9 1e still "a*e to try to commu icate i%easOur #rami g re!rese ts our 2est attem!t to commu icate &it" t"e im!er#ect system &e "a*e9 /iesec0er >5 R8arbara 8iesecker, professor of communication at D42, "HSH (Jethinking the Jhetorical 0ituation from &ithin the Thematic of
5ifferance,) in Fhilosophy and Jhetoric, ;ol ''., Mo. ' //liamT 8ut what about this diffiranceC &hy should rhetorical critics struggle with this complicated internal division that is said to inhabit all writing, structure all speech, and scandali7e all textsC &hat is so critical about this seemingly critical differenceC *n his essay >differance> 5errida provides a possible answer! >5ifferance is what makes the movement of signification possible . . . .> The play of differance , as 5errida puts it, is

AT La guage First

>the possibility of conceptuality, of the conceptual system and process in general!> will thus be the movement of play that >produces> /and not by something that is simply an activity6 these differences, these effects of difference. This does not mean that the differance which produces differences is before them in a simple and in itself unmodified and indifferent present. 5ifferance is the nonfull, nonsimple >origin>= it is the structured and differing origin of differences.'' To repeat, differance makes signification possible. Only to the extent that we are able to differ, as in spatial distinction or relation to an other, and to defer, as in temporali7ing or delay, are we able to produce anything.
&hat we note as differance ??5ifferance> is, as 5errida puts it, >the formation of form.> Lere we do well to look a bit closer at an essay in which 5errida provides an extensive structural description of differance and then proceeds to discuss at even greater length its enabling power. *n ><inguistics and 4rammatology> he says, RdifferanceT does not depend on any sensible plentitude, audible or viable, phonic or graphic. *t is, on the contrary, the condition of such a plenitude. 2lthough it does not exist, although it is never a thing#present outside of all plentitude, its possibility is by rights anterior to all that one calls sign . . . concept or operation, motor or sensory. This differance is therefore not more sensible than intelligible and it permits the articulation of signs among themselves the same abstract order ... or between two orders of expression. *t permits the articulation of speech and writing9in the collo,uial sense9as it founds the metaphysical opposition between the sensible and the intelligible, then between signifier and signified, expression and content, etc. 5errida?s differance is, as 4ayatri $hakravorty 0pivak points out, the name for >the lack at the origin that is the condition of

thought and experience>= all writing in the narrow sense, like all speech, marks the play of this productive non#identity. > 5ifferance, 5errida writes, is the structural condition which makes it possible for us to perform any act.

***I%e tity Politics =***

Sole #ocus o i%e tity !olitics is #la&e%' e+clu%es ot"er met"o%s o# trut" *eri#icatio a % a%o!ts a re%uctio ist a!!roac" to t"e attitu%es o# all mi orities Scott 5C' !ro#essor o# social scie ce at Pri ceto /1oan, (.ulticulturalism and the Folitics of *dentity,) October, ;ol. :",
The *dentity in Uuestion /0ummer, "HH'6, pp. "'#"H, 10TOJ//.456 There is nothing wrong, on the face of it, with teaching

individuals about how to behave decently in relation to others and about how to empathi7e with each other?s pain. The problem is that difficult analyses of how history and social standing, privilege, and subordination are involved in personal behavior entirely drop out. $handra .ohanty puts it this way! There has been an erosion of the politics of collectivity through the reformulation of race and difference in individualistic terms. The "H:As and ?IAs slogan >the personal is political> has been recrafted in the "HSAs as >the political is personal.> *n other words, all politics is collapsed into the personal , and ,uestions of individual behaviors, attitudes, and life#styles stand in for political analysis of the social. *ndividual political struggles are seen as the only relevant and legit# imate form of political struggle .@ Faradoxically, individuals then generali7e their perceptions and claim to speak for a whole group, but the groups are also conceived as unitary and autonomous. This individuali7ing, personali7ing conception has also been be# hind some of the recent identity politics of minorities= indeed it gave rise to the intolerant, doctrinaire behavior that was dubbed, initially by its internal critics, >political correctness.> *t is particularly in the notion of >experience> that one sees this operating. *n much current usage of >experience,> references to structure and history are implied but not made explicit= instead, personal testimony of oppression re# places analysis, and this testimony comes to stand for the experience of the whole group. The fact of belonging to an identity group is taken as authority enough for one?s speech= the direct experience of a group or culture #that is, membership in it# becomes the only test of true knowledge . The exclusionary implications of this are twofold! all those not of the group are denied even intellectual access to it, and those within the group whose experiences or interpretations do not conform to the established terms of iden# tity must either suppress their views or drop out . 2n appeal to >experience> of this kind forecloses discussion and criticism and turns politics into a policing operation! the borders of identity are patrolled for signs of nonconformity= the test of membership in a group becomes less one?s willingness to endorse certain principles and engage in specific political actions, less one?s positioning in specific relationships of power, than one?s ability to use the prescribed languages that are taken as signs that one is inherently >of> the group. That all of this isn?t recogni7ed as a highly political process that produces identities is troubling indeed, especially because it so closely mimics the politics of the powerful, naturali7ing and deeming as discernably ob ective facts the prere,uisites for inclusion in any group. Pri*ilegi g i%e tity'2ase% 0 o&le%ge is a 2a% mo%el' #alls !rey to t"e same criticisms o# systemic 0 o&le%ge Gur'UeVe* 5>' Lecturer( Faculty o# <%ucatio at t"e . i*ersity o# ;ai#a /*lan, E5D$2T*OM2< TLEOJK / Fall
"HHS / ;olume ES / Muiiibcr E (Toward a Monrepressive $ritical Fedagogy,) 10TOJ//.456 From this perspective, the consensus reached by the reflective sub ect taking

part in the dialogue offered by critical pedagogy is naive, especially in light of its declared anti#intellectualism on the one hand and its pronounced glorification of the (feelings,) )experience,) and self#evident knowledge of the group on the other. $ritical pedagogy, in its different versions, claims to inhere and overcome the foundationalism and transcendentalism of the Enlightenment+s emancipatory and ethnocentric # arrogance, as exemplified by ideology#criti,ue, psychoanalysis, or traditional metaphysics. .arginali7ed feminist knowledge, like the marginali7ed, neglected, and ridiculed knowledge of the 8ra7ilian farmers, as presented by Freire or %athleen &eiler, is represented as legitimate and relevant knowledge, in contrast to its representation as the hegemonic instrument of representation and education. This knowledge is portrayed as a relevant, legitimate, and superior alternative to hegeinonic education and the knowledge this represents in the center. *t is said to represent an identity that is desirable and promises to function )successfully.) Lowever, neither the truth value of the marginali7ed collective memory nor knowledge is cardinal here. (Truth) is replaced by knowledge whose supreme criterion is its self#evidence, namely the potential
productivity of its creative violence, while the dialogue in which adorers of (difference) take part is implicitly represented as one of the desired productions of this violence. .y argument is that this marginali7ed and repressed self#evident knowledge has no superiority

over the self#evident knowledge of the oppressors. Jelying on the knowledge of weak, controlled, and marginali7ed groups, their memory and their conscious interests, is no less naive and dangerous than relying on hegemonic knowledge. This is because the criti,ue of &estern transcendentalism, foundationalism, and ethnocentrism declines into an uncritical acceptance of marginali7ed knowledge , which becomes foundationalistic and ethnocentric in presenting )the truth,) (the facts,) or (the real interests of the group) #even if conceived as valid only for the group concerned. This position cannot avoid vulgar realism and naive positivism based on the (facts) of self# evident knowledge ultimately reali7ed against the self#evidence of other groups.

***O to Focus =***

AI LIN=Kt"eir assum!tio o# o tological 2lac0 ess esse tiali)es 2lac0 ess as a racial category su2ser*ie t to &"ite ess 1elcome 'AAF O completing his Fh5 at the sociology department of the $ity Dniversity of Mew Kork?s 4raduate $enter /L. 2lexander, >&hite *s
Jight>! The Dtili7ation of an *mproper Ontological Ferspective in 2nalyses of 8lack Experiences, 1ournal of 2frican 2merican 0tudies, 0ummer#Fall 'AAE, ;ol. S, Mo. " W ', pp. @H#I-6

*n many of the studies of blacks, the experiences of whites, not blacks, are used as the backing for the construction of the warrants/rules that are employed to evaluate black experiences , delimiting the >concepts and relationships that can exist> in the black community. The life histories of whites are used as the standard against which black experiences are measured and as the goals to which blacks are encouraged to strive. The employment of this ontology fallaciously limits the range of black agency, producing deceitful narratives where the navigation of the social environment by blacks is dictated by either a passive response to, or a passive adoption of, white scripts. This ontology erroneously limits descriptions and evaluations of black experiences, excluding viable causal determinants of the socio# economic status of blacks and constructing restricted descriptions of black agency. The utili7ation of whiteness to determine and/or evaluate blackness begins when whiteness and white life histories come to represent what is >right.> >&hite is right>
is a sarcastic phrase that was an extremely popular slur during the 8lack Fower movement in the mid#"H:As to the early "HIAs= the utili7ation of this phrase represents a form of social criti,ue that takes exception to both the privileging of white biographies as accurate descriptions of history and the reconstitution of these histories as a template that blacks and other people of color should follow for navigating social environments and achieving positive social mobility. Fart of the prominence of the >white is right> perspective comes from the numerical superiority of whites. 2s a group, whites have been in the ma ority throughout the history of the Dnited 0tates and the prominence of the white experience has been used to argue that white experiences should be used as a social template. *t has been used as such in the works of Jobert Fark /"H-H6 and 4unnar .yrdal /"HEE6, both of whom suggested that by copying the patterns of whites, blacks would achieve positive social mobility. Lowever, use of the numerical superiority of whites to support claims about the >rightness> of white experiences relies on the e,uation of ,uantitative dominance with ,ualitative dominance and the employment of the fallacious argumentum ad populum. The actual source of the dominance of the >white is right> perspective

lies in the dynamics of power. The location of the origins of the dominant ideology in power relations is conceptuali7ed in the work of .ichel Foucault /"HSA6, who theori7ed that power is imbricated with discourse!
&e must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling#block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. 5iscourse transmits and produces power= it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it /p. "A"6. %ey to the deployment of discourses is

an underlying strategy. 2s such, the prominence of the >white is right> perspective can be traced to attempts to create an >order,> or a way of thinking. Foucault?s theoretical lens supports the hypothesis that the privileging of white experiences and the use of these experiences as an ontological framework for the analyses of black experiences is an effect of power imbalances. /I Tur s Case 7 esse tialism ma0es true i surrectio im!ossi2le Ne&ma , Fostdoctoral fellow!Dniversity of &estern 2ustralia, conducting research in the area of contemporary political and social though, 'AA
('aul, F'tirner and Goucault,H Postmodern &ulture! The idea of transgressing and reinventing the self##of freeing the self from fixed and essential identities##is also a central theme in 0tirner?s thinking. 2s we have seen, 0tirner shows that the notion of human essence is an oppressive fiction derived from an inverted $hristian idealism that tyranni7es the individual and is linked with various forms of political domination. 0tirner describes a process of sub ectification which is very similar to Foucault?s! rather than power operating as downward repression, it rules through the sub ectification of the individual , by defining him according to an essential identity. 2s 0tirner says! > the

0tate betrays its enmity to me by demanding that * be a man . . . it imposes being a man upon me as a duty> /":"6. Luman essence imposes a series of fixed moral and rational ideas on the individual, which are not of his creation and which curtail his autonomy. *t is precisely this notion of duty, of moral obligation##the same sense of duty that is the basis of the categorical imperative##that0tirner finds oppressive. For 0tirner, then, the individual must free him# or herself from these oppressive ideas and obligations by first freeing himself from essence##fromthe essential identitythat is imposed on him.

Freedom involves, then, a transgression of essence, a transgression of the self. 8ut what form should this transgression takeC <ike Foucault, 0tirner is suspicious of the language of liberation and revolution##it is based on a notion of an essential self that supposedly throws off the chains of external repression. For 0tirner, it is precisely this notion of human essence that is itself oppressive. Therefore, different strategies of freedom are called for##ones that abandon the humanist pro ect of liberation and seek, rather, to reconfigure the sub ect in new and non#essentialist ways. To this end, 0tirner calls for an insurrection! Jevolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former consists in an

overturning of conditions, of the established condition or status, the state or society, and is accordingly a political or social act= the latter has indeed for its unavoidable conse,uence a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start from it but from men?s discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising but a rising of individuals, a getting up without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The revolution aimed at new arrangements= insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on >institutions.> *t is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers,
the established collapses of itself= it is only a working forth of me out of the established. /'IH#SA6 0o while a revolution aims at transforming existing social and political conditions so that human essence may flourish, an insurrection aims at freeing the individual from this very essence. <ike Foucault?s practices of freedom, the insurrection aims at transforming the relationship that the individual has with himself. The insurrection starts, then, with the individual refusing his or her enforced essential identity! it starts, as 0tirner says, from men?s discontent with themselves. *nsurrection does not aim at overthrowing political institutions. *t is aimed at the individual, in a sense transgressing his own identity##the outcome of which is, nevertheless, a change in political arrangements. *nsurrection is therefore not about becoming what one is ##becoming human, becoming man##

but about becoming what one is not9This ethos of escaping essential identities through a reinvention of oneself has many important

parallels with the 8audelarianaest"etici)atio

of the self that interests Foucault. <ike 8audelaire?s assertion that the self must be treated as a

work of art, 0tirner sees the self##or the ego##as a >creative nothingness,> a radical emptiness which is up to the individual to define! >* do not presuppose myself, because * am every moment ust positing or creating myself> /"-@6. The

self, for 0tirner, is a process, a continuous flow of self#creating flux##it is a process that eludes the imposition of fixed identities and essences! >no concept expresses me, nothing that is
designated as my essence exhausts me> /-'E6. Therefore, 0tirner?s strategy of insurrection and Foucault?s pro ect of care for the self are both contingent practices of freedom that involve a reconfiguration of the sub ect and its relationship with the self. For 0tirner, as with Foucault, freedom is an undefined and open#ended pro ect in which the individual engages. The insurrection, as 0tirner argues, does not rely on political institutions to grant freedom to the individual, but looks to the individual to invent his or her own forms of freedom. *t is an attempt to construct spaces of autonomy within relations of power, by limiting the power that is exercised over the individual by others and increasing the power that the individual exercises over himself. The individual, moreover, is free to reinvent himself in new and unpredictable ways, escaping the limits imposed by human essence and universal notions of morality. The notion of insurrection involves a reformulation of the concept of freedom in ways that are radically post#%antian. 0tirner suggests, for instance, that there can be no truly universal idea of freedom= freedom is always a particular freedom in the guise of the universal. The universal freedom that, for %ant, is the domain of all rational individuals, would only mask some hidden particular interest. Freedom, according to 0tirner, isan ambiguous and problematic concept, an

>enchantingly beautiful dream> that seduces the individual yet remains unattainable, and from which the individual must awaken. Furthermore, freedom is a limited concept. *t is only seen in its narrow
negative sense. 0tirner wants, rather, to extend the concept to a more positive freedom to. Freedom in the negative sense involves only self#abnegation## to be rid of something, to deny oneself. That is why, according to 0tirner, the freer the individual ostensibly becomes, in accordance with the emancipative ideals of Enlightenment humanism, the more he loses the power he exercises over himself. On the other hand, positive freedom##or ownness##is a form of freedom that is invented by the individual for him or herself. Dnlike %antian freedom, ownness is not guaranteed by universal ideals or categorical imperatives. *f it were, it could only lead to further domination! >The man who is set free is nothing but a freed man R...T he is an unfree man in the garment of freedom, like the ass in the lion?s skin> /"@'6. Freedom must, rather, be sei7ed by the individual. For freedom to have any value it must be based on the power of the individual to create it. > .y freedom becomes complete only when it is my##might= but by this * cease to be a merely free man, and become and own man> /"@"6. 0tirner was one of the first to recogni7e that the true basis of freedom is power. To see freedom as a universal absence of power is to mask its very basis in power. The theory of ownness is a recognition, and indeed an affirmation, of the inevitable relation between freedom and power. Ownness is the reali7ation of the individual?s power over himself##the ability

to create his or her own forms of freedom(which are not circumscribed by metaphysical or essentialist categories. *n this sense, ownness
is a form of freedom that goes beyond the categorical imperative. *t is based on a notion of the self as a contingent and open field of possibilities, rather than on an absolute and dutiful adherence to external moral maxims.

CNC O/A
T"e a##8s use o# 2lac0 o tology a%o!ts a esse tialist a!!roac" o# &"ite ess &"ic" uses &"ite ess as t"e measuri g stic0 agai st &"ic" 2lac0 ess is com!are% T"is u %erlyi g %iscourse limits 2lac0 age cy a % tur s case Limiti g t"e !o&er o# t"e i %i*i%ual ma0es coalitio 2uil%i g a % e##ecti*e mo*eme ts im!ossi2le' t"at8s Ne&ma %

o tological 2lac0 ess is esse tiali)i g a % %e ies 2lac0 age cy Pi 'A,F O Frofessor of Jeligious 0tudies at .acalester $ollege in 0t. Faul, .innesota /2nthony 8., NN8lack *s, 8lack 2in+t++! ;ictor 2nderson,
2frican 2merican Theological Thought, and *dentity, 5ialog! 2 1ournal of Theology . ;olume E-, Mumber "6 This connection between ontological blackness and religion is natural because! NN ontological blackness

Li 0 7 O tological /lac0 ess = <sse tialist

signifies the totality of black existence, a binding together of black life and experience . *n its root, religio, religion denotes tying together, fastening behind, and binding together. Ontological blackness renders black life and experience a totality. ++"- 2ccording to 2nderson, 8lack theological discussions are entangled in ontological blackness. 2nd accordingly, discussions of black life revolve around a theological understanding of 8lack experience limited to suffering and survival in a racist system . The goal of this theology is to find
the NNmeaning of black faith++ in the merger of black cultural consciousness, icons of genius, and post#&orld &ar ** 8lack defiance. 2n admirable goal to be sure, but here is the rub! 8lack theologians speak, according to 2nderson, in opposition to ontological whiteness

when they are actually dependent upon whiteness for the legitimacy of their agenda . Furthermore, ontological blackness+s strong ties to suffering and survival result in blackness being dependent on suffering, and as a result social transformation brings into ,uestion what it means to be black and religious . <iberative outcomes ultimately force an identity crisis, a crisis of legitimation and utility. *n 2nderson+s words! Talk about liberation becomes hard to ustify where freedom appears as nothing more than defiant self#assertion of a revolutionary racial consciousness that re,uires for its legitimacy the opposition of white racism. &here there exists no possibility of transcending the blackness that
whiteness created, 2frican 2merican theologies of liberation must be seen not only as crisis theologies= they remain theologies in a crisis of legitimation."E This conversation becomes more NNrefined++ as new cultural resources are unpacked and various religious alternatives acknowledged. Ket the bottom line remains raciali7ation of issues and agendas, life and love. Falsehood is perpetuated through the NNhermeneutic of

return,++ by which ontological blackness is the paradigm of 8lack existence and thereby sets the agenda of 8lack liberation within the NNpostrevolutionary context++ of present day D0 2. One ever finds the traces of the 8lack aesthetic which
pushes for a dwarfed understanding of 8lack life and a sacrifice of individuality for the sake of a unified 8lack Nfaith+. Ket differing experiences of racial oppression /the stuff of ontological blackness6 combined with varying experiences of class, gender and sexual oppression call into ,uestion the value of their raciali7ed formulations. *mplicit in all of this is a crisis of faith, an unwillingness to address both the glory and

guts of 8lack existence9nihilistic tendencies that, unless held in tension with claims of transcendence, have the potential to overwhelm and to suffocate. 2t the heart of this dilemma is friction between ontological blackness and NNcontemporary postmodern black life++9issues, for example related to NNselecting marriage partners, exercising freedom of movement,
acting on gay and lesbian preferences, or choosing political parties.++"@ Low does one foster balance while embracing difference as positiveC 2nderson looks to Miet7sche.

Pi

'A,F O Frofessor of Jeligious 0tudies at .acalester $ollege in 0t. Faul, .innesota /2nthony 8., NN8lack *s, 8lack 2in+t++! ;ictor 2nderson, 2frican 2merican Theological Thought, and *dentity, 5ialog! 2 1ournal of Theology . ;olume E-, Mumber "6 ;iewing these issues from the context of overtly religious thought, it is reasonable to say that 8lack religious studies participates in this ideological game by demonstrating the uni,ueness of 8lack religion in opposition to &hite religious expression. Ontological blackness denotes a

Re3ectio Sol*es

provincial or Nclan#ness+ understanding of 8lack collective life, one that is synonymous with 8lack genius and its orthodox activities
and attitudes. Jace is reified, that is, treated as an NNob ectively existing category independent of historically contingent factors and sub ective intentions in the writings of historical and contemporary 2frican 2merican cultural and religious thinkers.V ++H To avoid this dilemma, 2frican

2merican criticism must be pragmatic enough to subvert all racial discourse and NNcultural idolatry,++ and sensitive enough to appreciate diverse and utopian or transcendent visions of life."A &hen this is done, both the friction between cultural and religious criticism highlighted by 0aid and preoccupation with blackness9 physically and culturally9are resolved. Joom is made for a religiously informed cultural criticism.

***O*er <+te sio =***

T"eir role o# t"e 2allot argume t o*ere+te %s t"e !olitical 2y claimi g t"at t"is %e2ate s!ace re!rese ts somet"i g more t"a a com!etitio #or a &i 9 Argui g t"at t"e 2allot carries %iscursi*e sig i#ica ce is t"e same logic as t"e %iscourse t"eory o# citi)e s"i! &"ic" claims e*ery actio is !olitical9 Ru#o a % Atc"iso ( C,::
/%en Jufo, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, 1arrod 2tchison, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, Revie, of &ommunication, ;ol. "", Mo. -, 1uly 'A"", pp. "H- '"@6 <aclau /"HH:6 has written about the inherent emptiness at the heart of the hegemonic formulation, and

here we would suggest that the political as a conceptual edifice en oys the same fundamental insolvency . For <aclau, these empty signifiers exist NNbecause any system of signification is structured around an empty place resulting from the impossibility of producing an ob ect, which, nonetheless, is re,uired by the systematicity of the system++ /p. EA6. 2n empty signifier structures the relations between agents that comprise the larger system via their relation to each other, but does so while supplying none of the substance that structures those relations. 2s such, the political has ceased to be a regional category ... the political is, in some sense, the anatomy of the social world, because it is the moment of the institution of the social ... which involves, as we know, the production of empty signifiers in order to unify a multiplicity of heterogeneous demands in e,uivalential chains. /<aclau, 'AA@, p. "@E6 Dnderstood this way, it would be a mistake to think that the political is constituted by an aggregate of individual components! policy makers, citi7ens, civic institutions, and so on. *nstead, the political provides a constitutive conceptual umbrella that then makes possible the thinking of the citi7en as that entity, that idiot, that is always already both a member of the body politic and its inade,uate and life# threatening missing piece. To summari7e, the best way to reconcile the various disciplinary deployments of the citi7en thus far culled from the pages of our communication ournals is to understand the citi7en as epiphenomenal. This is to say that the citi7en operates/appears discursively as an after effect of our thinking of the political, or put differently, that the political body produces the individual citi7en as a function of its own incompleteness, rather than being the as#yet#incomplete pro ect of a multitude of ,uasi#functioning citi7ens. This explanation provides a way of
understanding citi7ens and citi7enship commensurate with the use of these terms in our own discipline+s research efforts= the ,uestion of whether or not this reflects some ob ective determination about the contours of politics can be left for others to decide. They continueV..

2sen+s argument proceeds from an acknowledgment of the participation gap we noted previously , and the attendant
concerns that 2merican democracy is under threat from an absence of citi7en participation. Too often, 2sen avers, these discourses key on accounts of what ,ualifies as citi7enship and then proceed to in,uire whether these ,ualities or practices are present in sufficient numbers to indicate a healthy political order. For 2sen /'AAE6, this approach dooms itself to failure and obsolescence! NNJather than asking what counts as citi7enship, we should ask! how do people enact citi7enshipC++ /p. "H"6. 8y focusing on how people enact citi7enship, 2sen suggests, we can develop a

process#oriented, discourse theory of citi7enship that sees citi7enship as a series or mode of public engagement/s6, rather than the specific and rarefied domain of a few privileged acts. $iti7ens can thus enact their citi7enship through practices as diverse as voting, which 2sen dubs the NN,uintessential act of citi7enship++ /p. 'A@6, blogging, conversing with neighbors, buying a particular cup of coffee, and so on. 2nd the NNso on++ goes on and on and on= as 2sen puts it, a NNmode cannot be contained easily. 2s a mode citi7enship cannot be restricted to certain people, places or topics++ /p. "H@6. Lence, the ma or motivation behind 2sen+s work! to think and affirm political sub ectivity in a way that minimi7es or even precludes the exclusion of citi7ens from the possibility of public engagement /pp. "H' "HE6. Le writes that NNa discursive conception of citi7enship may offer one case ... of an affirmative articulation of public sub ectivity++ /p. "H'6. This begs certain ,uestions about the nature of sub ectivity, intention, and agency, of courser,uestions 2sen believes are answered or addressed, in part, by the idea of process and modality. *n addition, 2sen also makes plain his interest in theori7ing NNsub ectivity through citi7enship, ++ a claim that effectively circumscribes some of the larger debates about sub ectivity by placing them within the context of the process of public engagement in a NNdemocratic++ articulation of the political. 2nd we should make clear that, for 2sen, the larger hori7on against which citi7enship is to be understood is that of public engagement and
democracy. : 2sen /'AAE6 writes of situating democracy via the discourse theory of citi7enship= he writes of democratic renewal and of democracy+s spirit manifesting NNin its most ,uotidian enactments++ /p. "H:6. 5rawing on 5ewey+s notion that NNdemocracy+s the idea of community life itself, ++ 2sen explains that a democracy means that individuals participate, groups work together to liberate NNindividual potential, ++ and that NNhuman interaction++ in its broadest sense NNsecures democracy++ /'AAE, p. "HI= 'AA', p. -E@6. The discourse theory of citi7enship is at the same time a

theori7ing /or presupposition6 about the nature of the political itself, at least in as much as the political is understood as being broadly democratic, and as an invocation or extrapolation of publicness from what might otherwise be private circumstances /e.g., choosing a consumer good or %e2ati g with neighbors over dinner6.

;istory %emo strates to us t"at t"is o*er'e+te sio carries &it" it t"e see%s o# tyra o# resista ce9 Ru#o a % Atc"iso ( C,::

y i stea%

/%en Jufo, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, 1arrod 2tchison, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, Revie, of &ommunication, ;ol. "", Mo. -, 1uly 'A"", pp. "H- '"@6

2 Fascism of/and the Folitical *f our feeling of foreboding seems absurd, it does so because of two historical trends. The first is the apotheosis of the political in the "Hth and 'Ath centuries, starting with massive spread of enfranchisement and the increasing demand for inclusion within the political process. Lence, slogans like NNeverything is politics++ or NNthe personal is political, ++ wherein the implication is that every action carries with it political realities, conse,uences, or overtones. One+s choice of church, a kindness to a stranger, the goods or services we consume, the entertainment we en oy, the food we eat, the way we dress, the way we vote, the way we argue, what we argue aboutrall are political acts. The political has become so pervasive that it has become commonplace to assume its status as the unsurpassable master hori7on of our age. $arl 0chmitt, writing in the early "H-As, was one of the first to warn against the overextension of the political. *ts encroachment into areas of life that were not, at one point, obviously political resulted in an interpenetration of the state and society, a condition he called the total state. Therein ostensibly neutral domainsrreligion, culture, education, the economyrthen cease to be neutral in the sense that they do not pertain to state and to politics. 2s a polemical concept against such neutrali7ations and depoliticali7ations of important domains appears the total state, which potentially embraces every domain. This results in the identity of state and society. *n such a state, therefore, everything is at least potentially political.... /0chmitt, "HH:, p. ''6 For advocates of this penetration, what is happening is a recognition of certain political realities, but for 0chmitt the total state made impossible any real accounting of the political, because in the absence of any sphere absolutely distinct from the political, the political lost its specific meaning. &hile some might contend that the failure to recogni7e the political ramifications results in a hidden politics, 0chmitt countered, NN*n actuality it is the total state which no longer knows anything absolutely nonpolitical...++ /p. '@6. &hat becomes hidden in the total state, in other words, is the very character of the political itself. For 0chmitt, the political is to be defined by the distinction between friend and enemy, a
distinction that added significant conceptual clarity but that also misconstrued the limits of the political in its relationship to the community. *n some ways, it might be more accurate to suggest that 0chmitt offered an historically contingent accounting for the political for the time in which he was writing, wherein the friend and enemy distinction was the sine ,ua non of international relations. 8ut the friend and the enemy can be more broadly understood as figures that produce particular instantiations of community, of a polis, and that pose that community as a ,uestion of relation to other e,ually posed communities. *t is here that the work of <acoue#<abarthe and Mancy /"HHI6 compliments 0chmitt, as they

understand the political as the ,uestion of the figure of a community, or of figuration in general. Fut differently, Mancy and <acoue#<abarthe see the political NNas the will ... to reali7e an essence#in#common on the basis of a figure of that in#common++ /p. xxii6. The figure, whatever it might be, or the process of figuration that makes identification with a common figure possible in the first place, constitutes a hori7on of intelligibility that overdetermines what we think of as a politics. The figure of the friend, and the figure of the enemy, or the immigrant, or the terrorist, provide a sort of ontological shorthand that produces and structures particular political arrangements. Jailing against NNthe sense of the obviousness /the blinding obviousness6 of politics, the Neverything is political+...++ /p. ""'6, Mancy and <acoue#<abarthe suggest what is needed is a more rigorous ,uestioning and determination of the
political, in its specific essence. The figure of the citi7en, so prominently on display in the work of our field, prompts exactly these sorts of ,uestions, in that any determination of the citi7en is necessarily a determination of the extent and comportment of the political per se.

Our alter ati*e is to *ote WWWWWWWWWW to resist t"e o*er'e+te sio o# t"e !olitical9 T"eir co siste t call #or you to use your 2allot to su!!ort c"a ge is t"e o*er'e+te sio o# t"e !olitical t"at al&ays #ocuses o i creasi g !olitical !artici!atio 9 /e#ore you co si%er usi g your 2allot i t"e ame o# c"a ge you must co #ro t t"e #ascist ature o# "ol%i g our e tire commu ity "ostage to t"eir i s!ectio 9 Ru#o a % Atc"iso ( C,::
/%en Jufo, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, 1arrod 2tchison, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, Revie, of &ommunication, ;ol. "", Mo. -, 1uly 'A"", pp. "H- '"@6 The mention of fascism is of particular importance here in this debate . 2s a field, we are entering an era of thinking about the NNpublic++ determined on the one hand by a theoretical interrogation of how discourses circulate and constitute a variety of publics and on the other hand a material explosion of distribution channels and media saturation that ensure the robustness with which discourses circulate. The 2merican people

are increasingly offered more ways to contribute, to participate, to receive news, to listen and read pundits and commentators of all stripes, to see entertainment+s political function, to be conscious of their consumer choices for the sake of labor, partisanship, the environment, and so on. &e are seeing, then, a massive opportunity for inclusion within the public/political realm, in a way that parallels the growth of mass communications media and enfranchisement in the "Hth and 'Ath centuries. This is the cosmic soup from which Fascism first emerged, an NNinvention created afresh for the era of mass politics++ /Faxton, 'AAE, p. ":6. &e cannot help but be concerned, amidst talk of .inute .en militias and Tea Farties, about what may emerge as a result of the current changes.

Lence, our interest in promoting a note of caution. &e think it time to ask ourselves as a discipline! when do we reach a point of oversaturation, when citi7en participation in the political becomes less determined by the danger of lack and more determined by the danger of excess C Mancy /'AAS6 suggests that NNEvery time the Npolitical+ refers to such a totali7ing property, there is indeed Ntotalitarianism. + That is to say, the hori7on of this thought is that of a Npolitical+ absorption or assumption of every sphere of existence+ + /p. '@6. S Ferhaps this seems too strongly worded, but it nonetheless matches the historical record for fascist states. Faxton /'AAE6 summari7es that record thusly! fascist regimes tried to redraw so radically the boundaries between private and public that the private sphere almost disappeared. Jobert <ey, head of the Ma7i <abor Office, said that in the Ma7i state, the only private individual was someone asleep. For some observers, this effort to have the public sphere swallow up the private sphere entirely is indeed the very essence of fascism. /p. "EE6

CNC O/A
Claimi g t"e %e2ate s!ace is !olitical e+te %s !olitical sig i#ica ce to all !erso al actio s T"is lea%s to e croac"me t i t"e !ri*ate s!"ere &"ic" is t"e #ou %atio o# #ascism Allo&s religio ( culture( !erso al %ecisio s to 2e !u2licly co %em e% T"is em!irically lea%s to t"eocracy( ge oci%e( &itc" "u ts &"ic" tur t"eir e+clusio claims a % i %e!e %e tly create mass su##eri g T"e alter ati*e is to *ote egati*e to resist t"eir o*ere+te sio o# t"e 2allot a % a##irm %e2ate as a are a #ree #rom #ascist i s!ectio

Fascism Li 0
Perso al !olitics allo&s masses to 2e le% i to #ascism a % %ictators"i!' cau%illos !ro*e Fit)gi22o E6' #ormer !ro# o# !olitical scie ce at .CLA /Jussell, (The Farty Fotpourri in <atin 2merica,) The &estern
Folitical Uuarterly, ;ol. "A, Mo. " /.ar., "H@I6, pp. -#''//.456 *n almost all other countries # though it is always dangerous to gen# erali7e too dogmatically # putting the word in ,uotation marks6 were

the >parties> /and probably we are ustified in so much the ad unct of per# sonalism in politics, were individually so dependent on the career of the single person whose property they constituted, that to think of them as operating on the same basis as our Federalists and Jepublicans, our &higs and 5emocrats and again Jepublicans, is entirely misleading. *n our own party history we have little to compare to this very prevalent picture of nineteenth#century <atin#2merican parties unless it be the brief >period of personal politics> which followed the &ar of "S"'. Those few years repre# sented an anomaly in Dnited 0tates party development= the same phenome# non was far from atypical in <atin 2merica. *f most <atin#2merican parties very largely lacked the organi7ational characteristics of those in the Dnited 0tates or 8ritain, they certainly far surpassed them in the role played by the individual leader. This was the omnipresent and often glamorous caudillo. The word cannot well be translated into English#it
loses so much of overtone and color in the process. *t is true that the caudillo had some elements of the party boss in 1ersey $ity or $hicago or %ansas $ity or .emphis, but he was and is significantly different from a Lague or a %elly or a Fendergast or a $rump. The latter breed usually avoided the limelight and fre,uently operated deviously= the caudillo as often gloried in every lumen of calcium glare he could

command. Le was a man on horseback, a man whose gaudy uniform had to be ample to accommodate all the medals, ribbons, and braid which he either devised for himself or exchanged prodigally with his fellow caudillos. The caudillo?s European cousin, the dictator, says Meumann, >is responsible to no man but to 4od and the nation /who are conveniently removed from any direct interference6, and in his very irresponsibility he is revered by the emotional, rootless, and amorphous masses seeking mystery, devotion, and the miraculous.> "A The party was largely incidental in the power structure erected by the caudillo. 0 o completely did he dominate it that it often took its popular designation from his name , family or $hristian! thus we have the Feronistas /in this case a legal as well as a popular name6, the .onttvaristas, 2rnulf# istas, and many others.l" Even in a country where
party stability probably exceeds that of any other in <atin 2merica # Druguay # the ma or parties, or at least the leading wings of them, are known as 8atllistas and Lerreristas as commonly as they are called $olorados and 8lancos. &e have very little in Dnited 0tates experience which can provide a counterpart for the <atin# 2merican caudillo. Fossibly the closest example would be Luey <ong, who for a number of years operated as the erratic, publicity#seeking, strong# willed, egocentric owner of the 5emocratic party in <ouisiana. 8ut the 5emocratic party in <ouisiana did not disintegrate with <ong?s removal from the scene and in that way it differed from many caudillo#dominated parties in <atin 2merica. *n this latter aspect our best example, and indeed one of only a few illustrations, would be found in the relationship of Theo# dore Joosevelt to the short#lived Frogressive party which followed him on his brief crusade to 2rmageddon with something of the fanatic fervor of a caudillo?s party in <atin 2merica. *f we search for the nature

of the bond which links the member of this kind of party to its leader , i.e., the caudillo, we must look beyond the sorts of linkages which would be familiar in this or various other countries in determining party membership, e.g., the promise of political patronage or electoral support or business concessions, the fact that it is socially or region# ally comme il faut to belong to one party or another, even the irrational reason that one?s father belonged to the same party. *t is in the subtle area of the charismatic appeal of the caudillo to his followers that much of the <atin#2merican political affinity is to be explained. The bemedaled uniform and the constant and effective use of political symbols doubtless exercise at least a mild mesmerism over those who fall especially within the visual range of the party leader. *f to such attractions the efe can add the oratori# cal arts of the demagogue he often becomes irresistible. 2n Ecuadorian opponent of 1ose .aria ;elasco *barra once testified! * was violently opposed to his policies and uniformly voted against them. One day, how# ever, Fresident ;elasco *barra came to congress to deliver personally a message urging passage of one of his pro ects.... Mever before had * heard such a speechP &hen it was finished the president and congress were unashamedly in tears, and we stood up and voted unanimously for his bill. . . . On my way home, * scolded myself many times, for * had been a fool , such a fool, to vote for his insane measureP "' .ax &eber perhaps best analy7es the nature of the relationship when he writes that the leader?s charismatic claim breaks down if his mission is not recogni7ed by those to whom he feels he has been sent... . Le does not derive his >right> from their will, in the manner of an election. Jather, the reverse holds! it is the duty of those to whom he addresses his mission to recogni7e him as their charismatically ,ualified leader . . . Fure charisma does not know any >legitimacy> other than that flowing
from personal strength, that is, one which is constantly being proved. The charismatic hero does not deduce his authority from codes and statutes . . . nor does he deduce his authority from traditional custom or feudal vows of faith. . .. The charismatic leader gains and maintains authority solely by proving his strength in life.... *f Rhis followersT do not fare well, he is obviously not the master sent by the gods."> &eber doubtless wrote those phrases without the <atin#2merican political landscape in mind but they admirably describe the relationship which even yet exists between the caudillo and his >party> or following. .ichels also well described, more than forty years ago, the phenomenon of charismatic party leadership."E 8y long psychologic

conditioning the man in the ranks, despite his own individualism, is attuned to accept uncritically the personal leadership of a magnetic caudillo. To borrow the title of a popular television program, it is a >person to person> relationship. >*n this respect,> a <atin#2merican writer well puts it, >the masses possess a rare feminine sense. From initial admiration they pass easily to adherence and obedience, and from there to unconditional submission. The chief or leader or caudillo then becomes an oracle, and on occasion is invested with almost divine attributes.> "@ 2fter death he is occasionally politically canoni7ed, as
witness Josas and Evita Fer:n in 2rgentina, 0aravia in Druguay, and various others.":

I %i*i%ual !olitics comes at a %irect tra%eo## &it" ratio al go*er me t

Fit)gi22o E6' #ormer !ro# o# !olitical scie ce at .CLA /Jussell, (The Farty Fotpourri in <atin 2merica,) The &estern
Folitical Uuarterly, ;ol. "A, Mo. " /.ar., "H@I6, pp. -#''//.456 &hy did a reasonable facsimile of a biparty system

persist through much of the nineteenth century in $olombia,

Druguay, and $hileC The ,uestion is much easier to ask than to answer. *n all three countries political issues early arose which cut much more
deeply than in most of the <atin#2meri# can states. *n $olombia and $hile at an early date and in Druguay after the advent of 8atlle at the end of the century these issues were intensified by valid and significant socioeconomic differences between parties. The three countries went further than most in perfecting and extending down# ward a systematic development of party machinery. Fersonalism, though not obliterated, gave way in degree to

the discipline of ideology and organi7a# tion. 2nd, as &eber puts it, >*t is the fate of charisma, whenever it comes into the permanent institutions of a community, to give way to powers of tradition or of rational sociali7ation. This waning of charisma generally indicates the diminishing importance of individual action. 2nd of all those powers that lessen the importance of individual action, the most irresistible is rational discipline.> "S

Fascism Tur s Ge oci%e/ Racism

Fascism 3usti#ies ge oci%e( ot"eri)atio ( a % racism' !ro*i%es lice se to "ate =allis ,5' !ro#essor o# Mo%er a % Co tem!orary ;istory at La caster . i*ersity( P"D #rom <%i 2urg" /2ristotle,(4enocide and Fascism the Eliminationist 5rive in Fascist Europe,) p. S@#://.456 The following two chapters explore the ingredients, contours, and conse,uences of the fascist ideological synthesis between national rebirth and cleansin%+ The former pointed to an ideal state for the individuals /the Nnew man+6, the national community, and the nation#state as its historic#political vessel# the three bound together into a single utopian vision. The latter was both the precondition and the conse,uence of the vision of Nrebirth+, purging the national community from allegedly threatening and/or harmful Nothers+ and thus preparing it for the future state of a full sovereign existence. *t is this latter element of Ncleansing+# and its incorporation into the core message of Nrebirth+# that is of particular interest to this book, for it helped shape a redemptive licence to hate directed at particular Nothers+ and render the prospect of their elimination more desirable, more intelligible, and less morally troubling. Through this Nlicense to hate+, fascism produced a discourse of permissible hatred against them that helped nurture and later unleash suppressed eliminationist tendencies, first on the level of collective consciousness, and later in terms of violent action. *t also legitimi7ed the use of violence against them# as a formulative experience for the Nnew man+ and the reborn national community, as the expression of the nation+s full sovereignty, and as the necessary vehicle for the production of an ideal
Nnew order+.

AT Fascism is Progressi*e
I%eologist !arties i e*ita2ly #ail at re#orm' lose touc" &it" t"e !eo!le Fit)gi22o E6' #ormer !ro# o# !olitical scie ce at .CLA /Jussell, (The Farty Fotpourri in <atin 2merica,) The &estern
Folitical Uuarterly, ;ol. "A, Mo. " /.ar., "H@I6, pp. -#''//.456 2nother difficulty faced by many of these parties is that they so often

become so deeply involved in the implications of their ideologies that they fail to respond to the exigencies of practical politics. <atins, in <atin 2merica and elsewhere, are said to be fond of playing with ideas but this fondness, at least in <atin 2merica, is often not accompanied by a corre# sponding intellectual discipline and toughness which would enable the ideas to be properly assorted and evaluated. Lence, the ideology#based parties have in some instances tended to lose touch with reality and progress, such concrete realities as the growth of industriali7ation, changing patterns of land tenure, etc. <atin#2merican 0ocialist parties provide a good case in point. 8eing originally .arxian, their orientation should be toward the working classes. 8ut in country after country they have become increasingly doctrinaire, academic, and intellectuali7ed. They have developed undeni# ably articulate leaders and
their newspapers have had highly stimulating editorial pages, but <atin#2merican 0ocialist parties have had relatively little genuine influence over the masses= they have allowed that role to be pre#empted by such organi7ations as the $ommunist parties and the Feronista party in 2rgentina. 1orge 4aitan, the later#to#be#murdered $olom# bian political leader, put it neatly when he said, in almost the only English phrase he used in an evening of conversation with me in "HEE, that the $olombian 0ocialist party lacked >political sex appeal.> >Th e 0ocialist weakness,> wrote Jay 1osephs about the 2rgentine party /but it could describe other <atin#2merican 0ocialist parties as well6, >lies

in addiction to theory and philosophy and what we might call their lack of practical, sound common sense.> '-

<+tJ /allot O*ere+te sio Li 0s

T"ey o*ere+te % t"e role o# t"e 2allot' mi+i g com!etitio a % coo!eratio u %ermi es %emocratic !rocesses Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456 0till, the egalitarian advice was within a context. There

was also advice on the ways to speak to one?s superiors and inferiors, and it did not have to be said at all that some people were outside the conversation. 0pontaneity was encouraged 9 yes, but there was also advice on how to produce it. $ooperation9 yes, but the early manuals also recogni7ed the competitiveness in conversation and the desire to shine. Listorian Feter 8urke /"HH@6 concludes that >a truly general theory of conversation should discuss the tension and the balance between the competitive and cooperative principles,
between e,uality and hierarchy, between inclusion and exclusion, and between spontaneity and study, rather than placing all the weight on the first item in each of these pairs.> /p. H'6 Jecogni7ing a tension between principles in conversation is one way to arrive at a more coherent and realistic view of conversation. * propose, alternatively, that two rather different ideals of conversation are intertwined and confused . One ideal could be termed

the sociable model of conversation, the other the problem#solving model. The distinguishing feature of the sociable ideal is its insistence that conversation be non#utilitarian. *n a conversation, as political philosopher .ichael Oakeshott wrote, the aim is not in,uiry, there is no hankering after a conclusion. Meither informing nor persuading are crucial. Jeasoning >is not sovereign> and conversation >does not compose an argument.> $onversation has no end outside itself. *t is >an unrehearsed intellectual adventure> and9 >as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering>S /Oakeshott, "H:', p. "HS= see also 0hapin, "HHE, pp ""E#"'"6.-

C"urc"/State Li 0s
Se!erati g i %i*i%ual co %uct #rom !olitical sta ces is 0/t se!aratio o# c"urc" a % state Au%i >5' !ro#essor o# !"iloso!"y at Notre Dame /Jobert, (The 0eparation of $hurch and 0tate and the Obligations of
$iti7enship,) Fhilosophy W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. "S, Mo. - /0ummer, "HSH6, pp. '@H#'H://.456 The issue of separation of church and state has great moral, legal, and

political importance, and the sub ect currently

holds special interest. 2n unprecedented number of people are in ecting religion into politics = pressures are mounting both to have religious observances in public schools and to support sectarian education through tax revenues= and the Dnited 0tates 0upreme $ourt may soon be reinterpreting constitutional constraints on the relation between religion and public life. *n this article * approach the separation of church and state from a conceptual and moral standpoint. .y broadest aim is to build a framework that clarifies certain moral, legal, and

political ,uestions about religion and civil life. .y specific purpose is to develop a theory of separation of church and state that serves two ma or ends. The first is to clarify the traditional separation doctrine as usually
understood#as addressed above all to governmental institutions. The second aim is wider and has not so far received substantial treatment in the literature! it is to ascertain what restrictions on individual conduct should, in a free and democratic society, accompany a commitment to separation of church and state. * Fart * interprets the separation doctrine. Fart ** considers its basis. Fart *** applies the doc# trine to some important current issues. Farts *; and ; introduce the second phase of my theory, concerning the obligations of citi7ens in a free and democratic society= here *

propose principles of separation for individual conduc t. The concluding sections apply the principles of individual conduct and explore the connections among religion, morality, and democracy. T"e ?!erso al is !olitical@ me tality allo&s religious *ie&s to i #iltrate !olitics' t"e a2ortio %e2ate !ro*es Sa"ar a % =arasa&a ,E' *P"D #rom .CLA( !ro#essor o# !syc"ology at 1"eato College( **Pro#essor o# Psyc"ology Nagoya . i*ersity( Qa!a /4ail and %aori, (*s the Fersonal 2lways FoliticalC 2 $ross#$ultural
2nalysis of 2bortion 2ttitudes,) 820*$ 2M5 2FF<*E5 0O$*2< F0K$LO<O4K, 'I/E6, 'S@O'H://.456

(The personal is political,) a phrase used fre,uently during the women+s liberation movement, seems to capture the nature of the abortion issue very well in the Dnited 0tates. *t is difficult to conceive of a deeply personal issue as politically charged as abortion. $ertainly, it is among the most politically divisive domestic legal issues of our time. One predominant explanation for the contentiousness of the issue in the Dnited 0tates is that contrasting beliefs about abortion represent entirely different worldviews or value systems /<uker, "HSE6. <uker argued that the pro# life and pro#choice activists, who define the nature of the conflict in the Dnited 0tates, differ strongly in many deeply held values regarding sexuality, gender roles, and even the meaning of life. The abortion debate calls these values into ,uestion and causes individuals to (feel that their entireworld viewis under assault ) /p. "@S6. *n terms of psychological theories, this worldview approach to abortion attitudes brings to mind the symbolic politics model , which holds that individuals ac,uire learned affective responses or symbolic predispositions toward particular symbols during early sociali7ation /0ears, <au, Tyler, W 2llen, "HSA6. These predispositions are activated by political symbols encountered later in life and influence attitudes toward such symbols. Folitical ideology, morality, and religiosity are examples of potent symbolic predispositions that have been shown to influence attitudes and policy preferences /e.g., see 0ears W
Luddy, "HHA6 and are linked to abortion attitudes in the Dnited 0tates. For example, in the Dnited 0tates, abortion approval is negatively related to religiosity /$ook, 1elen,W&ilcox, "HH'= LallWFerree, "HS:= LarrisW .ills, "HS@= 07afran W $lagett, "HSS=&ilcox, "HHA= Xucker, "HHH6, as well as moral traditionalism and political conservatism /4ranberg W 4ranberg, "HSA= Xucker, "HHH6. That is, the more religious, morally traditional, and politically conservative individuals are, the less they approve of abortion. *n addition, the pro#life position has been associated with endorsement of traditional gender roles /<uker, "HSE6.

Se!erati g t"e !erso al a % !olitical is 0/t #air go*er a ce Far ey ,5' Political Stu%ies De!artme t( Puee 8s . i*ersity /1ames, (The Fersonal *s Mot Folitical! The Frogressive
$onservative Jesponse to 0ocial *ssues,) 2merican Jeview of $anadian 0tudies ;ol. -H, Mo. -, 0eptember 'AAH, 'E'O'@'//.456 The central claim of this article is that the response of $anadian conservatives to the extension of same#sex rights and the liberali7ation of abortion during the late "H:As to the early "HHAs O while deeply conservative O was not socially conservative, as the term is now understood. 0ocial

conservatism accepts that the personal has become politici7ed and seeks to use political means to promote traditionalist notions of correct sexual behavior and family structure. Frogressive $onservatives, on the other hand, consistently portrayed such issues as moral, rather than political, and sought to minimi7e the linkage between the conservative position on social issues and conservative positions on other issues. This buffering was portrayed not merely as an electoral necessity but as a necessary implication of the party+s ideology. One can characteri7e this response as a refusal to acknowledge the extension of politics! the personal was not, and should not become, politici7ed.

C"urc"/State M!+
Religious li2erty is 0/t all "uma rig"ts a % !re*e ti g atrocity' "istory o*er&"elmi gly !ro*es Sc"ar##s ,F' QD #rom Dale La&( !ro#essor o# la& at /rig"am Dou g . i*ersity /8rett, (The 2utonomy of
$hurch and 0tate,) lexis//.456

Jeligious liberty is at once the grandparent and the neglected stepchild of international human rights norms .'"
Jecogni7ed at least since the first century 2.5., religious liberty, in this now secular era, has lost some of its urgency, perhaps due to the marginali7ation of religious belief, at least among academic and policy elites, and perhaps due to the inevitable conflicts that arise between religious rights and other important human rights.'' 8ut because of the fundamental importance of religious liberty and the horrific problems

with religious fanaticism, the once neglected grandparent has again moved to the fore . 2s 2rcot %rishnaswami observed over forty years ago in his influential study of religious liberty, R tThe right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is probably the most precious of all human rights, and the imperative need today is to make it a reality for every single individual regardless of the religion or belief that he professes, regardless of his status, and regardless of his condition in life.'Mevertheless, whether viewed with a wide historical lens from anti,uity9through the Joman Empire and the .iddle 2ges9or through a prism focused on the terrible middle years of the last century and the attempted extermination of the 1ewish people, or with a focus on the events of 0eptember "", 'AA", religion has served as a factor in much of the pain and suffering that human beings inflict upon one another. 'E 4iven the importance of religious liberty and the dangers associated with religious fanaticism and hatred, finding and developing appropriate approaches that allow for freedom of religion or belief while guarding against atrocities such as those mentioned above must be counted as one of the most pressing and vexing problems facing the world today .'@

Coercio M!+
Se!aratio o# c"urc" a % state 0/t sol*i g &orst i sta ces o# go*er me t coercio Au%i >5' !ro#essor o# !"iloso!"y at Notre Dame /Jobert, (The 0eparation of $hurch and 0tate and the Obligations of
$iti7enship,) Fhilosophy W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. "S, Mo. - /0ummer, "HSH6, pp. '@H#'H://.456 *t is plain that a society without religious liberty is simply not ade# ,uately

free. .oreover, freedom is re,uired for democracy, at least in any sense of ?democracy? relevant here.H Thus, if one?s ideal is a free and democratic society, one wants a social /presumably constitutional6 framework to guarantee at least this! /*6 freedom of religious belief,
understood to prohibit the state or anyone else from inculcating religious beliefs in the general population, where this is taken to exclude or re# strict cultivation of competing religious beliefs= /'6 freedom of worship, involving, minimally, a right of peaceable religious assembly, as well as a right to offer prayers by oneself= and /-6 freedom

to engage in /and to teach one?s children6 the rites and rituals of one?s religion , provided these practices do not violate certain basic moral rights. $learly, then, a free and democratic society should adopt the libertarian principle. &ithout the freedom it guarantees, there would be inade,uate protection against governmental coercion.

Discrimi atio M!+

C"urc"/state se!aratio 0/t !re*e t religious ta0eo*er t"at lea%s to mass %iscrimi atio Au%i >5' !ro#essor o# !"iloso!"y at Notre Dame /Jobert, (The 0eparation of $hurch and 0tate and the Obligations of
$iti7enship,) Fhilosophy W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. "S, Mo. - /0ummer, "HSH6, pp. '@H#'H://.456 The case for the e,ualitarian principle is more complicated. The /or a6 central premise is

that if the state prefers one or more religions, people might well find it hard to practice another, or would at least feel pressure to adopt the /or a6 religion favored by the state. The degree of pressure would tend to be proportional to the strength of governmental prefer# ence. T he pressure might be as great as re,uirement of a certain reli# gious affiliation as a condition for holding a government ob, or as minor as inviting clergy from ust one religion to officiate at certain ceremonies. 2ny governmental preference, however, creates some tendency for greater power to accrue to the preferred religion, particularly if it is that of the ma ority. 0uch concentrations of power easily impair democracy, under which citi7ens should have e,ual opportunities to exercise politi# cal power on a fair basis, even if certain disproportionate powers do not actually /or at least do not directly6 restrict anyone?s liberty. .oreover, when a state establishes or prefers a given religion , it is to be expected /though it is perhaps not inevitable6 that certain laws will significantly reflect the outlook on life associated with that religion . These are among the reasons why a free and democratic society should adopt the e,uali# tarian principle. Even when the libertarian principle is respected, the e,ualitarian principle is needed for protection against governmental dis# crimination.

M!+ Mag i#ier' Social Co %em atio

Failure to 0ee! religio out o# state !olicy lea%s to social co %em atio o# all outsi%ers' tur s racism a % %iscrimi atio Au%i >5' !ro#essor o# !"iloso!"y at Notre Dame /Jobert, (The 0eparation of $hurch and 0tate and the Obligations of
$iti7enship,) Fhilosophy W Fublic 2ffairs, ;ol. "S, Mo. - /0ummer, "HSH6, pp. '@H#'H://.456 &hat is the rationale for the neutrality principleC Jecall that religious liberty, broadly conceived,

includes the freedom to re ect religious views. *f the state shows preference for religious institutions as such /or for religion in general6, there may well be pressure to adopt a religion, and ,uite possibly discrimination against those who do not. On the other hand,
there are kinds of governmental preference that are consistent with religious liberty= hence, the neutrality principle cannot be simply derived from the libertarian principle. There are many domains of possi# ble preference for the religious! prayer sessions in public schools, ex# emptions from combat duty, and eligibility to adopt children are exam# ples. 0uch

preference may also tend toward political domination by the religious. Thus, even if there is protection both from religious tyranny and from discriminatory exclusions on religious grounds, govemmental preference of the religious as such is likely to give them political, eco# nomic, and other advantages that threaten a proper democratic distribu# tion of political power. *t can also reduce the level of free exercise of lib# erty, as opposed to its mere legal scope . &hat is legally permitted, or even solicitously protected by law, may still seem to many people too trouble# some to be worthwhile in day#to#day life. *f, for example, exercising a freedom goes against governmental policy or even social tradition, it may be costly. $onsider someone who declines to participate in state#spon# sored patriotic activities= here, and surely even in absenting oneself from state# or community#sponsored voluntary prayer sessions, one might conspicuously separate oneself from most others.

AT <ma ci!atory
T"eir a!!roac" #ails' %oes 8t c"alle ge t"e structures &"ic" are t"e root cause o# e+clusio S4uire ,C' P"D ca %i%ate i &ome 8s stu%ies /0arah, (The Fersonal and the Folitical! &riting the Theorist+s 8ody,)
2ustralian Feminist 0tudies, ;ol. "I, Mo. -I, 'AA'//.456 One example of a poststructural approach to experience is that of feminist

historian 1oan 0cott, who has criti,ued the use of experience as a foundational concept located within a Nrealm of reality outside of discourse+.- *n examining appeals to experience in corrective accounts of normative history, 0cott identifies the ways in which experience is viewed as an incontestable form of evidence which rests upon a referential notion! Nwhat could be truer , after all, than a sub ect+s own account of what he or she has lived throughC+E Freviously ignored standpoints are often taken as transparently self#evident once Nuncovered+, making visible /and thus truthful, given a scopophilic epistemological frame6 kinds of experience otherwise unrecognised. This view of experience, while politically cogent, leaves unchallenged the assumptions and practices which excluded different experience in the first place.@ Evidence for difference is established, 0cott argues, but not how that difference is constructed and constituted within sub ects. Perso al !olitics create 2i aries amo gst !erso al e+!erie ces t"at %o ot #it a !olitical mol%' tur s e+clusio S4uire ,C' P"D ca %i%ate i &ome 8s stu%ies /0arah, (The Fersonal and the Folitical! &riting the Theorist+s 8ody,)
2ustralian Feminist 0tudies, ;ol. "I, Mo. -I, 'AA'//.456 *n this kind of approach, attention is drawn to

the discursive processes which Nposition sub ects and produce their experiences+.: Experience is, in this instance, not something that is possessed9package#like9by individuals, but something that is produced in the construction of individuals themselves. Feminism, as with other social movements, has been organised around experience as a unifying commonality that establishes women+s identity and agency, and hence their political and theoretical legitimacy. Lowever, to view experience in this way necessarily excludes other forms of experience9notably differences among and within women9as well as leaving unproblematised the historically and culturally situated ways in which we come to understand our experiences.
The point here is not that experience isn+t important, but9to put it more bluntly9how it is that we experience our experience. Experience cannot be viewed outside of, or prior to, particular discursive moments. The theorisation of experience therefore needs to be one that does not merely make experience visible as in a literal rendition of a previously excluded or overlooked difference /such as in bringing to light the different experiences of women who practise eating disorders6. The deployment and interpretation of Nthe personal+ should not be that which

renders it as singular and atemporal, or as outside of the practice of theory. Jather, reference to personal experience needs to
encompass a critical interrogation of its own articulation.

Perso al Su23ugatio Mo%ule

Tur ' claimi g t"e !olitical is !erso al "eists social res!o si2ility o to i %i*i%uals' %e#lects guilt o to t"e *ictim To2ac" 5F' P"D i com!arati*e !syc"ology #rom ND. /Ethel, ( . . . Fersonal is Folitical is Fersonal is Folitical . . .)
1ournal of 0ocial *ssues, ;ol. @A. Mo. * , "HHE. pp. ''"#'EE//.456 *f Lawkesworth /"HSI6 is correct, and as it appears to me from the comments by people about the meaning of the slogan, she is,

how did the slogan come to deemphasi7e the political and emphasi7e the personalC 0everal processes may have been involved! ". The severe effects of sexism on individuals+ mental and physiological state re,uired some form of relief and the small group
discussions were reasonable vehicles for seeking relief. This could be used without the conse,uences /payment, record of having sought help6 of seeking professional help. .any women seek or are put in therapeutic positions whether they wish it or not. This happens , for instance, when

women are in prison or when they are dealing with social agencies or private physicians. These are usually situations in which the personal problem is seen as the responsibility of the individual rather than the result of societal problems. ', *t was difficult to develop political programs that would unite women for effective action. The personal activity was in the end easier. -. *t was difficult to develop action programs /political6 in the academic setting without endangering the futures of the students and the faculty. Examination of the feasibility of developing a personal/political aspect to feminism in academia is needed. Perso al !olitics #ail' su23ect t"e !erso ( rat"er t"a t"e i%eology( to re!ressio To2ac" 5F' P"D i com!arati*e !syc"ology #rom ND. /Ethel, ( . . . Fersonal is Folitical is Fersonal is Folitical . . .)
1ournal of 0ocial *ssues, ;ol. @A. Mo. * , "HHE. pp. ''"#'EE//.456 * was also reminded of the slogan that integrated the individual and society. &hen * first heard the slogan (personal is political,) it rang a clarion note of validity for personal, political, and scientific activity. *t epitomi7ed the uni,uely human process of conscious activity, an aspect of behavioral evolution * have been studying /Tobach, "HIE, "HS", "HSS, "HH"b6. *t reflected a commitment that * and political co#workers have struggled to reali7e and understand. *t reminded me of examples of the integration of the political and personal in the field of research in which * had earned my living. 2bove all, it presented a way to formulate approaches to problems and to problem solving. * wish to tell three narratives that

exemplify the issues inherent in the slogan. Each of the narratives illustrates the interconnectedness of the personal /as exemplified in the intellectual, scientific, or academic labor of the individual6 with the societal significance of that labor. The second and third narratives explicate the centrality of history#the need for vigilance to understand the implications of scientific work for societal policies and practices. *t is the general applicability of the persona Dpolitica" concept that brings the narratives together. The three narratives are as follows! ". Feminism in academi a. *t was feminist theory and practice that produced the slogan. The origins and contemporary status of the slogan are discussed. '. $omparative psychology, ethology, and sociobiology. This
narrative focuses on the use of science to support repressive policies. *t also raises ,uestions about the responsibility of scientists for human welfare. -. The T. $. 0chneirla narrative demonstrates the ever present danger of espousing unpopular theories in a

repressive, or potentially repressive, atmosphere. No sol*e cy' all !eo!le &oul% "a*e to "a*e t"e same !erso al e+!erie ces To2ac" 5F' P"D i com!arati*e !syc"ology #rom ND. /Ethel, ( . . . Fersonal is Folitical is Fersonal is Folitical . . .)
1ournal of 0ocial *ssues, ;ol. @A. Mo. * , "HHE. pp. ''"#'EE//.456 The forms, the policies, and the practices of government typically reflect

the biases of those who have the power to determine the politics. To envision that governments can be changed to reflect the personal experiences of those who have been without power is a radical idea. *t indicates a relation of forces that is somehow different from the typical description based on forms of society /slaveowning, feudal, monarchical, republican6, or of class relations, or of religion. Jathe r it speaks to some universal experience that underlies all the politics and all the states, that could apply not only to the condition of women but to the consciousness of all those who suffered from the genocidal practices of states
against groups of people because of their race or ethnicity as well.

Democracy Mo%ule
Perso al co *ersatio s are ot t"e #ou %atio o# t"e !u2lic s!"ere' create %a gerous e croac"me ts i to %emocratic orms Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456

TLE MOT*OM0 of >civil society> and >the public sphere> have drawn attention to the character of >talk> as a constitutive feature of democracy. &hen 1iirgen Labermas writes that >a portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body> /"HIE, p. IH6, conversation is granted an exceedingly important political role. *f democracy is, as it has often been called, government by discussion, or, more precisely, >government by rational and free public discussion among legally e,ual citi7ens,> conversation must lie close to its heart." This
was certainly the view of 1ohn 5ewey. For him, talk was the central feature of democratic life. The chief re,uirement for revitali7ing public life, he wrote in "H'I, is >the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public> /5ewey, "H'I, p. 'AS6. 0uch high authority notwithstanding, it is this claim that * want to critici7e. * do so in a friendly spirit= that is, * am critici7ing a notion * myself find very appealing. 8ut * also think

it has been misleading, perhaps dangerously so.

T"e s!o ta eity o# !erso al co *ersatio u %ermi es %emocratic orms Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456 8ut what is#or what was or what might be9this

ideal conversation at the very soul of democratic lifeC 2re we to imagine it as a form of social life spontaneous and freeC This would seem to be an important part of what makes conversation central. 8ut it would be wrong to assume that the spontaneous is the authentic or true. 2n emphasis on the spontaneous draws attention away from the contrivances necessary for democracy 9indeed, it draws attention away from the fact that democracy is a contrivance. * will argue that democratic talk is not essentially spontaneous but essentially rule#governed, essentially civil, and unlike the kinds of conversation often held in highest esteem for their freedom and their wit, it is essentially oriented to problem#solvingle. Pro2lem sol*i g mo%els are %isti ct #rom !erso al( social co *ersatio s' rules are ecessary to im!ro*e t"e 4uality o# t"e game( e gage &it" o!!o e ts( a % !ro*i%e i clusio ary orms Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456

8oth the sociable and problem#solving models of conversation emphasi7e the e,uality of conversational partners. *nside the conversation, e,uality, civility, and fairness reign. 8ut the barriers to entry differ. The sociable model emphasi7es cultivation and sensibility= conversational partners should develop subtle capacities for fresh, entertaining, and responsive talk. The problemsolving model, in contrast, focuses on argument, the conversational partners? capacity to formulate and respond to declarative views of what the world is and what it should be like. The sociable model sees conversation as an end#in#itself, an aesthetic pleasure. The problem#solving model sees conversation as a means to the end of good government . .ore strongly, it pictures conversation itself as a model of good government. The skill or capacity of a competent participant in sociable conversation is verbal facility, wit, and sociability itself. The capacity of the participant in problem#solving conversation is reasonableness9as political theorist &illiam 4alston puts it, it is both >the willingness to listen seriously to a range of views> and >the willingness to set forth one?s own views intelligibly and candidly as the basis of a politics of persuasion > /"HH", p. ''I6. The recuperative and interactive
nature of conversation makes it particularly apt as a model both of sociability on the one hand and of public reasoning on the other. 0o does its essentially cooperative character. Even in an argument, there is mutual support#if only in the agreement to stay engaged,

to keep focused on the other person, and to not abandon the talk for either sticks and stones, on the one hand, or >the silent treatment> on the other. Even in a hostile exchange, philosopher Faul 4rice?s /"HI@/"HSH6 >$ooperative Frinciple> is often satisfied, that participants speak according to >the accepted purpose and direction of the talk exchange > in which they are engaged. *n the sociable conversation, talk?s interactive engagement provides the ,uality of a rich game9say, chess9with plenty of constraints on moves, but with little predictability of outcome. <ikewise, the communicative virtue of problem#solving conversation is not the speaking or the listening or even their close proximity. *t is the interaction of the participants and the ongoing capacity for each statement to be revised in accord with the prompts or responses of the other. This, in turn, depends on a degree of good will. 2n argument out of control is a conversation where each statement?s ambiguity is read in the most hostile way possible. *f the
husband and wife are fighting, and one says, >* can?t take this any more, *?m going out,> the other may reply, >0o you don?t love me any moreC Kou want a divorceC Kou?re leaving meC> *t might have been ust as logical to respond, >Okay, maybe we both need to cool off for awhile.> 1ust because people

are in a conversation, there is no guarantee that they will take advantage of conversation?s recuperative powers. Mot the fact of conversation but the norms that govern it make it serviceable for democratic self#government.

There is many a slip twixt conversation and democratic government. 8ecause that is so, the ground rules of conversation are more important than the spontaneity that may arise therein. $onversation can be and, without appropriate training, education, and social e,uality, normally is , highly inegalitarian. The rules of democratic conversation can help protect the slow of speech, who are otherwise disenfranchised by the articulate and by the glib.

De2ate= O& S!ace

Fear o# em2arrassme t is "uma ' t"at ecessitates !u2lic %e2ate as a are a remo*e% #rom t"e !erso al to !ro*i%e a la2 #or testi g i%eas &it"out ris0i g !erso al "umiliatio Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456 The fear of embarrassment the ;ermonters express is

a fundamental human characteristic. $harles 5arwin argued that every human expression of emotion except one has an analogue in other species . The distinctively human manifestation of emotion is blushing= 5arwin explains that it is >the thinking what others think of us, which excites a blush.> &e blush, in a word, because we are embarrassed. For sociologist Erving 4offman /"HS"6, the effort to avoid embarrassments provides the central and continuous drama to human social life. *t is no accident that the situations 4offman regularly analy7ed are public ones. There are situations where the possibility of embarrassment is minimi7ed, particularly where people feel completely at home or where religious or political fervor or the passion of love make people practically asocial, that is, relatively insensitive to the opinions of mere ac,uaintances or strangers. 8ut in public meetings, streetcorner conversations, and other interaction with ac,uaintances in public, the presentation of self and the embarrassment risked by it come to the fore /see 0chudson, "HSE6. &e should perhaps distinguish two kinds of conversations in democracies , both of them necessary, but in radically different ways, to the functioning of democratic society. *n homogeneous conversation, people talk primarily with others who share their values and they expect that conversation will reinforce them in the views they already share . *n these conversations, people may test their opinions , to be sure, and venture ideas that may not be warmly received, but they do so in full knowledge that they agree on fundamentals and that the assumptions that they share will make such experimentation safe. Feople may be prepared in these familial conversations for citi7enship in the more daunting form of heterogeneous conversation. Lere, in what we might term >truly public> conversation, citi7ens talk with other citi7ens who may not share their views and values. *n these conversations, friendly testing is all but impossible= in these settings, there are penalties for expressing uncertainty and doubt, rewards for speaking with conviction and certainty. Tempers may flare and working partnerships may be frayed or severed. 8ut there may also be the exhilaration of
achieving agreement /or, for one side or another, of extracting concessions6 and in the face of the hurdle of heterogeneity getting the public business done.@

Democracy is #u %ame tally u com#orta2le' t"at ecessitates rules o# e gageme t #or #air' mi %e% %eli2eratio 'o ly &ay to !re*e t !erso al i timi%atio Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456

$onversation provides no magic solution to problems of democracy. 5emocracy has little to do with intimacy and little to do with community. *t can be thrilling, it can be boring, it can provoke anxiety, it is often uncomfortable. * rarely en oy the deliberative discourse of publics assembled in relatively large numbers to make decisions. * prefer two#person conversations to large gatherings. * prefer seminars to large assemblies. The larger the group, the more * want rules of engagement because * am slow of speech. This is part of what the romance of#conversation fails to understand. There is another thing * would add, as a coda, that the romance of conversation fails to grasp. 5emocracy sometimes re,uires withdrawal from conversation, withdrawal from common public sub ects. 5emocracy, as 0tephen Lolmes suggests /"HH@, pp. 'A''-@6, may insist that even talk itself be constrained. - *n the Dnited 0tates, the dangers of disunion and dismemberment of state
and civil society by religious passions led to the First 2mendment and now a 'AA#year history of a specific $onstitutional efforts to keep religion out of political discussion. 5emocracy may, in a sense, choose to gag its political deliberations, removing them to civil society or the private sphere. 5emocracies may even choose to

gag directly political speech in the interests of fair#minded deliberation. The most familiar instance of this, practiced throughout the Dnited 0tates, is a prohibition on political speech within a certain specified distance of polling places on election day. Lere speech is treated as action, as a form of intimidation or unfair advantage. <egislators around the country have concluded that a moat of political silence should surround the castle of the polling place. *n voters+ last steps toward the voting booth, collective rights of political expression are sacrificed to individual rights of personal deliberation.

Se!eratio =/T Democracy

;a*i g orms steer co *ersatio is 0/t %emocracy Sc"u%so 56' P"9D9 i sociology #rom ;ar*ar%( #ormer !ro# o# commu icatio a % sociology at .CSD( curre t !ro# o# 3our alism at Colum2ia /.ichael, (&hy conversation is not the soul of democracy,) $ritical 0tudies in
.ass $ommunication ;olume "E, *ssue E//.456 $onversation at large is the 5M2 or germ plasm of

social life. *t has the capacity to replicate, to combine, to exceed itself. *t is inherently neither public nor private but social. *t exists not only in democracies. $onversation in democracy may differ from conversation elsewhere not because democracy bubbles up from conversation but because democratic political norms and institutions instruct and shape conversations to begin with. Mothing in conversation itself necessarily suggests democracy, not even its formal egalitarianism= in early modern Europe, it suggested, if anything, aristocracy because it depended on cultivation. *t may be that democracy sets up norms that affect even familial or homogeneous conversations in democracy. $iti7enship seeps from the common political forum into private settings . &here this
happens, in the family, for instance, it becomes difficult for the parent to answer the child?s >&hy should *C> with >8ecause * said so.> The norm of reason#giving competes with the assumption of parental authority. 5emocracy creates democratic conversation more than

conversation naturally creates democracy. 2s philosopher 4eorge %ateb has suggested, democracy cultivates a certain kind of self, subtly, incompletely, but effectively nonetheless. The >mere status of citi7en,> he writes, which makes a person eligible to run for office or to vote, >is a continuous incitement to claim the status of citi7en . . . in all nonpolitical relations of life. *ndeed, the incitement is to politici7e the nonpolitical relations of life and thus to democrati7e them>
/%ateb, "HH', p. EA6.

O*er <+te sio =J <+clusio Im!acts

Claimi g t"at e*eryt"i g is !olitical remo*es a y age cy #or !artici!ati g i or &it"%ra&i g #rom t"e !olitical9 T"is is t"e !recursor to mass e+clusio 2ecause it sim!ly ta0es a ma3ority to %etermi e t"at a y actio re!rese ts a t"reat to t"e 2o%y!olitic9 I# you truly care a2out !re*e ti g e+clusio t"e you must !reser*e a s!ace #or %e2ate outsi%e o# !olitics 2y *oti g egati*e Ru#o a % Atc"iso ( C,::
/%en Jufo, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, 1arrod 2tchison, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, Revie, of &ommunication, ;ol. "", Mo. -, 1uly 'A"", pp. "H- '"@6 &e believe 2sen+s work, despite its many benefits and growing popularity, gives rise to some fundamental ,uestions. First, what does agency

look like in such a formulationC *f citi7enship affirms public sub ectivity, and sub ectivity is theori7ed through citi7enship, have we simply sidestepped the issue of agency and the sub ect by way of a sort of self#referential loopC *f sub ectivity is affirmed by the citi7en enacting their citi7enship and this citi7enship cannot be restricted to people or topics, then who is this sub ect that acts, how are we to ascertain the mechanisms, processes or structures that allow or disallow a choice of or for political action in the first placeC 2sen /'AAE6 understands this, to be sure, convinced as he is that by NNconsidering the activities of citi7ens ... we may also learn something about the category of citi7en by considering processes of citi7enship++ /pp. 'AE 'A@6. This claim strikes us as recursive, and ultimately uncompelling= if the citi7en is determined by their how of citi7enship, then the NNsomething++ we learn about the category of citi7en is always already determined by the almost infinitely prolific range of NNhows. ++ 8ut since nothing bounds the range of these potential enactments, this tells us nothing about the ,ualifying processes that might structure citi7enship, nor the resulting anchors and affinities by which we might think of the figure of the citi7en. *n other words, it works persuasively only if we allow for a bleeding or confluence of the citi7en and the discourse theory of citi7enshipronly if we assume that the one is coterminous with the other, and many of the obvious ,uestions of sub ectivity and publicity are simply left unresolved and in abeyance. *ndeed, when 2sen actually articulates the shift from the what to the how of citi7enship, he does so by asking NNhow do people enact citi7enshipC++ 2s such, the relation between sub ect and practice is one of agent /people6 and act /enacting citi7enship6, wherein the action of a particular agent constitutes citi7enship as a discursive reality. Fhrased this way, the NNhow++ of citi7enship+s procession is always already and by necessity a concatenation of NNwhats, ++ and how one assesses those enactments will re,uire passing through a bramble of presuppositions woven from one+s various ideologies. Lere, those presuppositions include rather unproblematic notions of intentionality /witness 2sen+s discussion of coffee purchases as enactments of citi7enship, which ac,uire their political value from a critic+s post hoc divination of a consumer+s private motivations6, as well as certain presumptions about the viability and desirability of participation in political affairs. Lence, a second set of ,uestions! if voting is the NN,uintessential++ moment of citi7enship, if consumerism may be the secret hori7on of citi7en engagement, if trailing a motorcade in the wake of one+s recent loss of employment shows creative citi7enship, if discussions with neighbors and strangers alike all ,ualify as illustrations of NNhow citi7enship proceeds, ++ then what action, what how, what step could one take that would possibly not ,ualify as one of citi7enship+s many modes of engagementC *n effect, given the cohesive stretch of a discursive thinking of the citi7en, and with the dismissal of any sense of categories or duties that would mark the threshold between the authentic citi7en and its other, doesn+t this model simply transform the whole of life into default political activityC *n other words, doesn+t it condemn us to citi7enship irrespective of our wishesC 5oesn+t it result in a refiguring of existence as a form of theoretically coerced public engagementC 2s 8rouwer and 2sen /'A"A6 suggest elsewhere, when it comes to public engagement, NN$irculation happens in many waysrwe prefer to recogni7e all of them++ /p. I6. 0urely, advocates of this more fluid, multimodal understanding of the citi7en would take umbrage= after all, they are simply casting about for a way of framing the citi7en in the contemporary political scene that opens up space for resistance and criti,ue and new, productive modes of engagement. The alternative, as 2sen /'AAE6 suggests, is the conventional wisdom of the citi7en as a class, as NNthe possession of citi7ens++ or a NNstatus attribute++ /pp. 'A- 'AE6. 8ut it is a mistake to believe that there are only two ways of thinking
citi7enshiprone as a citi7en+s process and one as the citi7en+s possession. 2 third way would be to think of the citi7en as the possession of citi7enship, to see in citi7enship a certain uridical, social, and political determination that stamps the sub ect as a sub ect ,ua citi7en, that imposes upon sub ectivity the obligation toward public engagement and one+s incorporation into the political. Dnderstanding citi7en thusly resolves the tensions that 2sen+s work likewise addresses, but it does so with a far more suspicious and limiting sense of the extent and value of the political. 2sen concludes by writing! NNThe power of citi7enship engagement arises in important respects from its capacity to refashion social norms and beliefs and to recast nonpolitical activities as political++ /p. 'AI6. I $onsidered alongside the inability to limit the conceptual range of citi7enship and coupled with the compulsion toward political participation, such a proclamation strikes us with foreboding rather than enthusiasm, for it portends a political without end or outside.

ATJ T"is S!ace is Alrea%y Political

Tur J T"e assertio t"at t"ere is o s!ace outsi%e t"e !olitical is t"e %a gerous !recursor to #acism t"at &ill ultimately ma0e %e2ate MOR< e+clusi*e Ru#o a % Atc"iso ( C,::
/%en Jufo, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, 1arrod 2tchison, Fh.5. in Jhetoric from the Dniversity of 4eorgia, Revie, of &ommunication, ;ol. "", Mo. -, 1uly 'A"", pp. "H- '"@6 2s we have seen, the functional conse,uence of our field+s imprecise use of the citi7en, and of attempts like those of 2sen+s to rectify

and enhance our understanding of citi7enship are in danger of eclipsing the private and subsuming it under the public, of theoretically producing sub ectivity as defined by its citi7enship, of thinking of citi7enship as an inescapable conceptual inclusion in the political, while at the same time maintaining a totali7ing obviousness of the political that lacks any specificity other than its overarching encroachment. There is nothing wrong with public engagement, with practicing one+s citi7enship, in being political= but there is something wrong, and even dangerous, in producing theory that excludes its own outside in the name of ending exclusions. NN$iti7enship is, ++ as Fletcher /'AAH6 reminds us, NNdangerous ... *ts danger ought not to lead to abandonment but to vigilance++ /p. '-E6. There are some bridges that should not be built over and over again without ,uestion, and some connections that are more coercive than liberating. The circulation of political discourses has swelled such that we might as well harken to circulation+s roots! the political as circus, the big top under which all things political happen. There is a point at which circulation becomes bound by the political, its loose ends and outliers tied together like those bundles of rods that
served as the symbol of Joman power and as an inspiration to the *talian fascists, the fasces= and the moment at which circus gives way to fasces rests very much on the pivot of how we conceptuali7e and enact citi7en and citi7enship. On the one hand, we see in our field a casual and imprecise use of the term citi7en, one that has grown in popularity and that often aligns the citi7en as an agent outside of the state, even as it yearns to prompt somehow their more robust inclusion. On the other hand, we have a discourse t"eory o# citi)e s"i! t"at sees all citi)e s as al&ays a %

alrea%y i cor!orate% i to t"e 2o%y !olitic9 &hile the first use#pattern envisions a citi7en semantically distinct and normatively obligated to be political, the latter sees t"e citi)e as o tologically cotermi ous &it" t"e !olitical as suc"9 <it"er !at" &oul% "a*e us arri*e at t"e same %esti atio ( a %esti atio o# a e+cessi*e !olitical( e*e a #ascist !olitical loosely co strue%( a % a %esti atio &e s"oul% 2e a!!roac"i g &it" #ar more cautio a % *igila ce than we as a discipline are now. Our hope is that this paper will encourage others to consider the trends of our field and our community anew, and to consider the dangers of this excess and extremity rather than focus so heavily on those tragic conse,uences that flow primarily from one+s exclusion from an imagined, ideal political order. &e should begin to in,uire into a way of living, a being#with of community that is, strictly speaking, not political.

T"e struggle o# C:st ce tury !olitics is ot a struggle orie te% arou % raceT rat"er( it is t"e *ery co ce!t o# race &"ic" "as come to i "i2it a % co strai ra%ical !olitics9 T"e a##irmati*e8s %e!loyme t o# t"e co ce!t o# race as t"e orga i)atio al #ocus o# !olitical struggle is a smo0escree &"ic" o2scures t"e %y amics o# o!!ressio 7 t"e *ery %e!loyme t o# race as a co ce!t itsel# is t"e ly c"!i o# raciali)e% o!!ressio 9 Dar%er a % Torress F /"ntonia Darder, %rof of education polic4 studies at 2 of Illinois, and odolfo Torress, "ssociate prof of latino studies
at 2C Ir1ine, "fter ace: acism after multiculturalism, p# +-& 88liam; Over a century ago, &. E. 8. 5u 8ois in The 0ouls of 8lack Folk proclaimed one of his most cited dictums! >The problem of the 'Ath $entury i!s the problem of the color line> /"HSH, "A6. *n this book we echo his sentiment, but with a radical twist . The problem of the twenty#first century

***Post Racialism =***

is the problem of >race>#an ideology that has served well to successfully obscure and disguise class interests behind the smokescreen of multiculturalism, diversity, difference, and more recently, whiteness . &hether the terms of analysis are >race,> > racial identity,> >race consciousness,> or >political race ,> the category of >race> and its many derivatives function as the lynchpin of racism, which > forbids its ob ects to be other than members of a race> /Fields 'AA", EH6.
2s 8arbara Fields has noted with respect to 2frican 2mericans, 2fro#2mericans themselves have fought successively for different ways of naming themselves as people . ... Each name, once accepted into the general public vocabulary, has simply become a variant word for 2fro 2mericans? race. 2 sense of peoplehood, nationhood, or comradeship in struggle may be available to others= but, for persons of 2frican descent, all reduces to race, a life sentence for them and their issue in perpetuity. /@A6 To radically shift directions and speak >against race ,> as Faul 4ilroy /'AAA6 suggests, or >after race> as we attempt to do here,

is to uncompromisingly refuse to accept or legitimate any longer the perpetual raciali7ed demarcations of >raced> /4uinier and Torres 'AA'6 or >problem> /5u 8ois "HSH6 populations. Our intention is
to contest the notion that the color of a person?s skin, and all it has historically come to signify within the sociological, political, or popular imagination, should continue to function as such. &e seek to shatter dubious claims that essentiali7e the responses of populations,

whether they exist as ob ects or sub ects of racism= and by so doing, acknowledge the complexity of the world in which we negotiate our daily existence today. To be clear, we are not arguing in the tradition of the color#blind conservatives or political
pundits who would have us believe that the structures and practices that have formidably embedded racism as a way of life for centuries in the Dnited 0tates and around the world have been undone and that the problem of racism has been ameliorated. Our position, in fact, is diametrically opposed to this argument. *nstead, the political force of our analysis is anchored in the centrality of >race> as an ideology and racism as a powerful, structuring, hegemonic force in the world today. &e argue that we must disconnect from >race> as it has been constructed in the past, and

contend fully with the impact of >race> as ideology on the lives of all people #but most importantly on the <ives of those who
have been enslaved, coloni7ed, or marked for genocide in the course of world history.

S!eci#ically( t"ey see t"e &orl% i 2lac0 a % &"iteJ t"e a##irmati*e8s !ara%igmatic citatio o# t"e &"ite/2lac0 2i ary ma0es re%ress o# t"e multi!le i tersectio s o# o!!ressio im!ossi2le7 t"e a##irmati*e8s sim!listic a alysis o# racism as !re%omi a tly a issue t"at a##ects A#rica ' America s egates t"e reality o# ot"er !eo!le o# color9 Alco## - /!I<D" =" T>< "!C?FF, S4racuse 2ni1ersit4 Department of %hilosoph4, !"TI<?8"S, "SI"< "=5 IC"<S, "<D TH5 3!"C@A7HIT5
3I<" B The 0ournal of 5thics ,: CA&, 88liam; The discourse of social ustice in regard to issues

involving race has been dominated in the D.0. by what many theorists name the

>black/white paradigm,> which operates to govern racial classifications and racial politics in the D.0., most clearly in the formulation of civil
rights law but also in more informal arenas of discussion. 1uan Ferea defines this paradigm as the conception that race in 2merica consists, either exclusively or primarily, of only two constituent racial groups, the 8lack and &hite ... *n addition, the paradigm dictates that all other

racial identities and groups in the Dnited 0tates are best understood through the 8lack/&hite binary paradigm.@ Le argues that this paradigm operates even in recent anti#racist theory such as that produced by 2ndrew Lacker, $ornel &est, and Toni
.orrison, though it is even clearer in works by liberals such as Mathan 4la7er. Openly espousing this view, .ary Francis 8erry, former chair of the D.0. $ivil Jights $ommission, has stated that the D.0. is comprised of >three nations, one 8lack, one &hite, and one in which people strive to be something other than 8lack to avoid the sting of &hite 0upremacy.>: To understand race in this way is to assume that racial discrimination operates exclusively through anti#black racism. Others can be affected by racism, on this view, but the dominance of the black/white paradigm works to interpret all other effects as >collateral damage> ultimately caused by the same phenomena, in both economic and psychological terms, in which the given other, whether <atino/a, 2sian 2merican, or something else, is placed in the category of >black> or >close to black.> *n other words, there is basically one

form of racism, and one continuum of racial identity, along which all groups will be placed. The black/white paradigm
can be understood either descriptively or prescriptively /or both6! as making a descriptive claim about the fundamental nature of raciali7ations and racisms in the D.0., or as prescribing how race shall operate and thus enforcing the applicability of the black/white paradigm.I 0everal <atino/a and 2sian 2merican theorists, such as Elaine %im, 4ary Okihiro, Eli7abeth .artine7, 1uan Ferea, Frank &u, 5ana Takagi, and community activists such as 8ong Lwan %im have argued that the black/white paradigm is not ade,uate, certainly not sufficient, to explain racial realities in the D.0. They have thus contested its claim to descriptive ade,uacy, and argued that the hegemony of the black/white paradigm in racial thinking has had many deleterious effects for <atino/as and 2sian 2mericans.S *n this paper, * will summari7e and discuss what * consider the strongest of these arguments and then develop two further arguments. *t is important to stress that the black/white paradigm does have some descriptive reach, as * shall discuss, even though it is inade,uate when taken as the whole story of racism. 2sian 2mericans and <atino/as are often categori7ed and treated in

ways that reflect the fact that they have been positioned as either >near black> or >near white,> but this is not nearly ade,uate to understanding their ideological representation or political treatment in the D.0. One might also
argue that, although the black/white paradigm is not descriptively ade,uate to the complexity and plurality of raciali7ed identities, it yet operates with prescriptive force to organi7e these complexities into its bipolar schema. $ritics, however, have contested both the claim of descriptive ade,uacy as well as prescriptive efficacy. That is, the paradigm does not operate with effective hegemony as a prescriptive force. * believe these arguments will show that

continuing to theori7e race in the D.0. as operating exclusively through the

black/white paradigm is actually disadvantageous for all people of color in the D.0., and in many respects for whites as well /or at least for white union households and the white poor6. T"eir *ie& o# !o&er a % &"ite !ri*ilege as ? orms@ t"at are !ossesse% ig ores t"e !rocess o# t"e co stitutio o# i%e tity9 T"ere is o co"ere t &ay #or o '2lac0s to !artici!ate i t"eir mo*eme t 2ecause t"ey ca 8t 3ust Gta0e o##8 t"eir 0 a!sac0 o# !ri*ileges9 T"is !er!etuates e+clusio s a % guara tees t"e #ailure o# t"eir mo*eme t9 Mc1"orter E /<adelle .c&horter, Dniversity of Jichmond, (&here do white people come fromC 2 Foucaultian criti,ue of &hiteness 0tudies,)
Fhilosophy 0ocial $riticism 'AA@ -"! @-- //liam 6 *t is true then that, as the &hiteness 0tudies theorists so often say, whiteness is a norm. 8ut the assertion by itself, no matter how often repeated, does very little to further analysis. Flacing race O and of course whiteness O in the context of the development of biopower gives a much clearer picture of what it means to say whiteness is a norm and indicates some important directions for further study. Once that context is supplied, the work of historians like 2llen, Joediger, and 0axton can help explain why it is whiteness /rather than 0axonness, for example6 that functions as the racial norm in the D02. <ike &hiteness 0tudies theorists, Foucault meant for his work to have political effects, to disrupt power formations and make new configurations possible. <ooking back on the publication of 5iscipline and Funish, he had this to say to an interviewer! &hen the book came out, different readers O in particular, correctional officers, social workers, and so on O delivered this peculiar udgment! NThe book is paraly7ing. *t may contain some correct observations, but even so it has clear limits, because it impedes us= it prevents us from going on with our activity.+ .y reply is that this very reaction proves that the work was successful, that it functioned ust as * intended. *t shows that people read it as an experience that changed them, that prevented them from always being the same or from having the same relation with things, with others, that they had before reading it. /Foucault, 'AAA! 'E@O:6 Dnable to continue with Nbusiness as usual+, people are forced to think critically and make deliberate choices. Fower relays are disrupted, which at least opens the possibility that power networks will be realigned and come to function in different ways. Effects like this are what &hiteness 0tudies theorists aim for as well. They hope

their work will bring white people up short, make it difficult for them to continue to function unthinkingly within a white supremacist social system, and make it possible for them to imagine and create different ways of living. &hiteness 0tudies is less effective at this kind of political intervention than Foucault+s work is, however, and far less effective than it might yet be if it took Foucault+s analytics of power and account of normali7ation seriously. The problem lies, * believe, in &hiteness theorists+ failure to criti,ue the conception of power that they have inherited from traditional &estern political theory. 8y holding on to a conception of power that insists upon the primacy of a sovereign sub ect and uncritically deploys economic metaphors of possession and distribution, &hiteness 0tudies impedes its own efforts to account for the political production of racial sub ects and works against its own explicitly stated agenda, i.e., dethroning white sub ectivity. * will spend the rest of this essay showing how the conception of power
that Foucault criti,ues still operates in &hiteness 0tudies. 2s good students of Omi and &inant, &hiteness 0tudies theorists believe that racism operates much of the time without the consent or to be responsible for racism= they still believe that racism originates in sub ectivity, not in structures or institutions or practices. This belief is implicit in their search for a psychological account of racism+s persistence. The account offered in virtually every &hiteness 0tudies theorist+s work can be summed up in two words! white privilege. The story goes that white people exercise power not so much by exercising their capacity to harm non#white people but by exercising the privileges that hundreds of years of racism have put in place for them. They are in fact deploying racist power, but they do not see it as such because to them it seems that they are simply claiming for themselves the goods to which they are entitled, and they have a deep investment in being able to continue to do so. 2cross the very different social analyses that &hiteness 0tudies theorists put forth and across their very pronounced disagreements over political strategy, this concept of white privilege stretches= it, like the claim that whiteness functions as a norm, unites theorists who otherwise have very little in common. .y contention is that wherever we see the concept

of white privilege operating, we can be sure the conception of power that is also operating is the traditional uridical conception that construes power as the possession of a preexistent sub ect . Mo thorough overview of &hiteness
0tudies ever omits reference to Feggy .c*ntosh+s article N&hite Frivilege! Dnpacking the *nvisible %napsack+ /"HSH6. 2lthough .c*ntosh+s article is tentative and limited to description at a very basic, individualistic level, it populari7ed the notion that white people possess /like tools in a knapsack6 something called Nwhite privilege+."" .c*ntosh lists E: of these Nunearned assets+ /.c*ntosh, "HSS! "6, including such disparate Ntools+ as! /-6 N*f * should need to move, * can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which * can afford and in which * would want to live+= /@6 N* can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that * will not be followed or harassed+= /'"6 N* am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group+= /''6 N* can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world+s ma ority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion+= /--6 N* am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race+= and /E"6 N* can be sure that if * need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me+ /.c*ntosh, "HSS! @OH6. One could spend a lot of time criti,uing this list and pointing out various problems with it, but what is important here is the focus on privilege itself. .c*ntosh claims that racism persists because white people use tools that non#white people have not been given. *f we want to eliminate racist exercises of power, white people have to divest themselves of those tools. $learly this sort of analysis can never lead to an account of the production and maintenance of white sub ectivities within racist regimes of power O unless all we mean by Nwhite sub ectivity+ is a generic sub ect plus a knapsack full of white privileges, a knapsack that the generic sub ect can ettison without seriously altering its own composition. 8ut that is surely not what the thesis of the social construction of white identity amounts to. 0o

why do &hiteness theorists hang onto this terminology C &hy does the concept of white privilege appear in virtually every &hiteness
0tudies book and articleC <isa Leldke and Feg O+$onnor are among the few writers who expend any effort at all trying to ustify their use of the concept of white privilege. 2ccording to them, the analytic value of the term Nprivilege+ lies in its ability to play the opposite role to

Noppression+. Everyone generally agrees that there is such a thing as racial oppression and that the members of some races are oppressed, but what of the races that are not oppressedC Leldke and O+$onnor write! N0ome will argue that domination is the companion concept of oppression= they assert that if you are not a member of a particular oppressed group, then you are automatically a dominator+ /Leldke and O+$onnor, 'AAE! 'HH6. They dislike the term
Ndomination+, however, because it Npresupposes that a group or an individual exercises power over another group in very obvious and overt ways+ /ibid.6= in other words, it runs counter to the apparent fact that, as analyses like Omi and &inant+s make clear, racism does not operate in obvious and overt ways /at least not by the lights of most white people6 and many white people are not aware of its functioning at all. Leldke and O+$onnor+s analysis continues! . . . oppression has many different faces= it is created in all kinds of social practices, structures, and institutions . *n many instances of

oppression, we may not be able to point to any person or group of persons who are actively engaged in

dominating the oppressed group . . . &e need a companion concept that has as many different faces as does oppression. The concept of privilege will fill the bill= its multiple aspects allow us to describe and understand the roles that different Nunoppressed+ groups play in the maintenance of oppressive systems. /Leldke and O+$onnor, 'AAE! 'HH6 *n sum, within racist societies there are three kinds of people= there are oppressed people /those without much power6, dominators /those with power who intend to oppress others6, and people who exercise privilege /those with power who do not intend to oppress others but do so anyway6. *f we hang onto a conception of power that makes it the property of a pre#constituted sub ectivity and do not posit that third group, we cannot explain how racism can continue to exist if most people are not avowed racists . &e will need a psychological theory to explain the persistence of racism. *n other words, if we hang onto a traditional uridical conception of power, we will remain stuck where race theorists were stuck -A years ago . * contend that the pervasiveness of the term Nwhite privilege+ is testament to how deeply and profoundly stuck race theorists typically still are.

CNC O/A
T"e a## u %ermi es !artici!atio i mo*eme ts to 2rea0 %o& o!!ressio T"eir *oca2ulary o# ?race%@ !o!ulatio s( ?!ri*ilege(@ a % ?o!!ressio @ e+clu%e !eo!le o# alter ate 2ac0grou %s #rom !artici!ati g i t"eir mo*eme t' t"at8s Mc1"orter A %isco ect #rom t"is i%eology is 0ey' ot"er&ise t"e 2lac0/&"ite !ara%igm &ill co ti ue to !re*e t u i*ersal e##orts at e4uality' t"at8s Alco##

CNC Mo olit"ic Mo%ule

T"eir mo*eme t creates a static *isio o# &"ite ess Mo a"a > R.ichael 1., 2ssistant Frofessor of Fhilosophy, .ar,uette Dniversity, Jacial 1ustice and the Folitics of Furity, 'AAS,
http:88666#temple#edu8isrst851ents8documents8=ichael=onahan2pdated#doc 88liam T The abolitionist/elimitavist position demands that any legitimately anti#racist endeavor stand simultaneously as a re ection of race, or at least raciali7ed identity. 2s 2lcoff and Outlaw have argued /though in different ways6, this demands that one have an ahistorical sense of identity O that one re ect the way in which one+s (interpretive hori7on) has been positioned by one+s racial membership. 2gain, this is because the abolitionist ontology both

reduces whiteness to white supremacy O whiteness ust is O purely # an affirmation of white supremacy, and offers an effectively disembodied account of agency, such that the only way to be anti#racist is to re ect whitenes s. 8ut what * have been trying to show is the way in which the history of white people has always been one of ambiguity and contestation over the meaning of whiteness /and that the same is true, though in different ways, for members of all racial categories6. The history is one of different people who were white in certain important ways, but were not white in other ways , or at least were white in ways different from other white people, engaging in a process of arbitrating the meaning and significance of that whiteness. Fart of the pro ect of white supremacy, therefore, was not merely the domination of non whites, but the determination of the meaning of whiteness as fixed, given, and above all, pure. *t is a history of brutal con,uest, genocide, chattel slavery, torture, and 1im $row, and by no means do * wish to suggest that we ignore or (white wash) that history. 8ut it is also the history of 1ohn 8rown, 0ophie 0choll, the 0an Fatricio 8rigade, and, among others, those *rish servants in 8arbados who risked their lives alongside enslaved 2fricans. The insistence that antiracism must re ect whiteness O that 1ohn 8rown, in struggling against white supremacy, was therefore not white Ocapitulates to the politics of purity . &e
must understand racial membership, therefore, not as a static and pure category of identity, but as an ongoing context for negotiating who (we) are /both as individuals and as groups6 and how we relate to each other. 8ecause races, like all social categories, are historical, and this history gives them meaning and significance, their reality is manifest both politically /in how our social structures and organi7ations take shape and interact6 and individually /in how we understand ourselves and our place in the world6. 8ut, and this is the crucial point for my approach, the histories themselves are histories of contestation of meaning, and fraught with ambiguity, such that we participate in the process of shaping the meaning of race not only in the here and now, but also its meaning and significance historically. The elimitavist ontology insists, therefore, not only on purity for racial

categories themselves /one either is or is not white6, but also employs a politics of purity in its approach to history. That is, it treats the history of whiteness purely as a history of white supremacy, and any individuals or groups who break politically with white supremacy thereby demonstrate their non#whiteness . &hat * am calling for is a re ection of purity in both of these senses. Jacial memberships and the identities that go along with them never really function as all or nothing categories /though they may pretend to do exactly that6, and to ignore white struggles against white supremacy is as much of an inade,uate interpretation of history as it would be to ignore white affirmation of white supremacy .
2nd this is true for all racial categories and identities. They are all fraught with ambiguity, indeterminacy, and even outright contradiction, and part of my claim is that the damage is done in large part by trying to conceive of them as purified of that ambiguity and contradiction, for it is that insistence

on purity that links racial categories to oppressive norms. T"is re %ers all t"ose &"o #all outsi%e t"eir i%e tity a % t"eir mo*eme t as Got"ers8 t"at must 2e sacri#ice% #or t"eir cause Mic"aels C0 R&alter 8enti, Frof English G D *llinois#$hicago, >Folitical 0cience Fictions>, Mew <iterary Listory, -".E //liamT

*n texts like _enogenesis and _enocide, then, the fundamental differences are between humans and aliens, and the fundamental ,uestions are not about how society should be organi7ed but about whether the different species sor, alternatively and inconse,uentially, different cultures6 can survive. H indeed, one might say that t"e re!laceme t o# i%eology 2y 2o%ies a % cultures ma0es it i e*ita2le t"at t"e

o ly rele*a t 4uestio 2e t"e 4uestio o# sur*i*al( which is why texts like _enogenesis and _enocide are called _enogenesis and _enocide. /ecause t"e tra s#ormatio o# i%eological %i##ere ces i to cultural %i##ere ces ma0es t"e %i##ere ces t"emsel*es *alua2le( t"e !olitics o# a &orl% %i*i%e% i to cultures Ha &orl% &"ere %i##ere ce is u %erstoo% as culturalXI must 2e t"e !olitics o# sur*i*alK a !olitics( i ot"er &or%s( &"ere t"e &orst t"i g t"at ca "a!!e &ill 2e a culture% %eat"9 ;ictory

over the enemy on the cold war model may be understood as the victory of good over evil#this REnd Fage :@@T is what the victory of the humans over the insect#like aliens called >buggers> looks like at the end of Ender?s 4ame, the first volume of $ard?s series. 8ut insofar as the enemy is redescribed not as people who disagree with us as to how society should be organi7ed /communists6 but as people who occupy different sub ect positions /aliens6, the happy ending of their destruction must be redescribed too. 8y the beginning of the second novel in the Ender series /0peaker for the 5ead6, the very thing that made Ender a hero /destroying the enemy6 has made him a villain /destroying an entire species6. The ideological enemy has been

rewritten as the physiocultural other= all conflict has been reimagined on the model of the conflict between self and other. 2nd this is true whether the texts in ,uestion understand difference as essentially #physical or as essentially cultural. *t is for this reason that the essentialist/antiessentialist debate in contemporary theory is so fundamental##not because the disagreements between the two positions are so fundamental but because their agreement is. &hat they agree on is the value of difference itself, a value created bv turning disagreement into otherness. The dispute, in other words, between essentialism and antiessentialism is only secondarily the expression of a dispute about whether difference is physical or cultural! it is primarily the expression of a consensus about the desirability of maintaining difference, of making sure that differences survive. *f difference is physical, then what must survive are different species! if difference is cultural then it is cultural survival that

matters. The point of both stories is that the happy end cannot be the victory of one species/culture over another. The idea here is not merely that survival as such#whether it is the survival of this species or the survival of the culture9is valued. &hat the interchangeability of species and culture makes clear is rather the value of identities#it is identities that must survive#which is to sav that it is not death but extinction that must be avoided. On Earth, this distinction is made vivid in contemporary imaginations of what are, in effect, nonviolent genocides, as in, for example, the idea that current rates of intermarriage and assimilation doom 2merican 1ewry to destruction and thus constitute a second Lolocaust. *ntermarriage poses no threat to the people who intermarry, which is ust to say that when someone like 2lan 5ershowit7 worries about The ;anishing 2merican 1ew, he is worried not about people who are 1ewish but about the identity that is their 1ewishness. *t is the identity, not the people, that is in danger of disappearing. "A

Ni"ilism/Totali)i g /a%
Re3ect t"eir totali)i g u %ersta %i gs o# race 7 o ly 2y a2a %o i g esse tialism ca &e co struct e& u %ersta %i gs o# 2lac0 ess i t"e &orl% a % c"alle ge t"e i"ilism t"reate i g !ro%ucti*e mo*eme ts9 2ell "oo0s 5, R(FO0T.O5EJM 8<2$%ME00), Fostmodern $ulture vol." http!//www.africa.upenn.edu/2rticlesa4en/Fostmoderna8lacknessa"S'IA.html //liamT *t is sadly ironic that the contemporary discourse which talks the most about heterogeneity , the decentered sub ect, declaring breakthroughs that allow recognition of otherness, still directs its critical voice primarily to a speciali7ed audience , one that shares a common language rooted in the very master narratives it claims to challenge . *f radical postmodernist thinking is to have a transformative impact then a critical break with the notion of >authority> as >mastery over> must not simply be a rhetorical device, it must be reflected in habits of being, including styles of writing as well as chosen sub ect matter. Third#world scholars, especially elites, and white critics who passively absorb white supremacist thinking , and therefore never notice or look at black people on the streets, at their obs, who render us invisible with their ga7e in all areas of daily life, are not likely to produce liberatory theory that will challenge racist domination, or to promote a breakdown in traditional ways of seeing and thinking about reality, ways of constructing aesthetic theory and practice. From a different standpoint Jobert 0torr makes a similar criti,ue in the global issue of 2rt in 2merica when he asserts! To be sure, much postmodernist critical
in,uiry has centered precisely on the issues of >difference> and >otherness.> On the purely theoretical plane the exploration of these concepts has produced some important results, but in the absence of any sustained research into what artists of

Endless second guessing about the latent imperialism of intruding upon other cultures only compounded matters, preventing or excusing these theorists from investigating what black, Lispanic, 2sian and Mative 2merican artists were actually doing . &ithout ade,uate concrete knowledge of and
color and others outside the mainstream might be up to, such discussions become rootless instead of radical. contact with the non#white >other,> white theorists may move in discursive theoretical directions that are threatening to and potentially disruptive of that critical practice which would support radical liberation struggle. The postmodern criti,ue of >identity,> though relevant for renewed black liberation struggle, is often posed in ways that are problematic. 4iven a pervasive politic of white supremacy which seeks to prevent the formation of radical black sub ectivity, we cannot cavalierly dismiss a concern with identity politics. 2ny critic exploring the radical potential of postmodernism as it relates to racial difference and racial domination would need to consider the implications of a criti,ue of identity for oppressed groups.

&e must engage decoloni7ation as a critical practice if we are to have meaningful chances of survival even as we must simultaneously cope with the loss of political grounding which made radical activism more possible. * am thinking here about the postmodernist criti,ue of essentialism as it pertains to the construction of >identity> as one example. Fostmodern theory that is not seeking to
.any of us are struggling to find new strategies of resistance. simply appropriate the experience of >otherness> in order to enhance its discourse or to be radically chic should not separate the >politics of difference> from the politics of racism. To take racism seriously one must consider the plight of underclass people of color, a vast ma ority of whom are black. For 2frican#2mericans our collective condition prior to the advent of postmodernism and perhaps more tragically expressed under current postmodern conditions has been and is

There is increasing class division and differentiation, creating on the one hand a significant black middle#class, highly anxiety# ridden , insecure, willing to be co#opted and incorporated into the powers that be, concerned with racism to the degree that it poses constraints on upward social mobility = and, on the other, a vast and growing black underclass, an underclass that embodies a kind of walking nihilism of pervasive drug addiction, pervasive alcoholism, pervasive homicide, and an exponential rise in suicide. Mow because of the deindustriali7ation, we also have a devastated black industrial working class. &e are talking here about tremendous hopelessness. This hopelessness creates longing for insight and strategies for change that can renew spirits and reconstruct grounds for collective black liberation struggle. The overall impact of the postmodern condition is that many other groups now share with black folks a sense of deep alienation, despair, uncertainty, loss of a sense of grounding, even if it is not informed by shared circumstance. Jadical postmodernism calls attention to those sensibilities which are shared across the boundaries of class, gender, and race, and which could be fertile ground for the construction of empathy##ties that would promote recognition of common commitments and serve as a base for solidarity and coalition. >Kearning> is the word that best describes a common psychological state shared by many of us, cutting across boundaries of race, class, gender, and sexual practice . 0pecifically in relation to the postmodernist deconstruction of >master> narratives, the yearning that wells in the hearts and minds of those whom such narratives have silenced is the longing for critical voice . *t is no accident that >rap> has usurped
characteri7ed by continued displacement, profound alienation and despair. &riting about blacks and postmodernism, $ornel &est describes our collective plight! the primary position of JW8 music among young black folks as the most desired sound, or that it began as a form of >testimony> for the underclass. *t has enabled underclass black youth to develop a critical voice, as a group of young black men

The postmodern sensibility appropriates practices as boasts that announce their own##and conse,uently our own##existence , like a rap song boasting of the imaginary /or real##it makes no difference6 accomplishments of the rapper. They offer forms of empowerment not only in the face of nihilism but precisely through the forms of nihilism itself! an empowering nihilism, a moment of positivity through the production and structuring of affective relations . $onsidering that it is as a sub ect that one comes to voice, then the postmodernist focus on the criti,ue of identity appears, at first glance, to threaten and close down the possibility that this discourse and practice will allow those who have suffered the crippling effects of coloni7ation and domination to gain or regain a hearing. Even if this sense of threat and the fear it evokes are based on a misunderstanding of the postmodernist political pro ect, they nevertheless shape responses . *t never surprises me when black folk respond to the criti,ue of essentialism, especially when it denies the validity of identity politics, by saying >yeah, it?s easy to give up identity, when you got one.> Though an apt and oftentimes appropriate comeback, this does not really intervene in the discourse in a way that alters and transforms. &e should indeed suspicious of postmodern criti,ues of the >sub ect> when they surface at a historical moment when many sub ugated people feel themselves coming to voice for the first time . $riticisms of directions
told me, a >common literacy.> Jap pro ects a critical voice, explaining, demanding, urging. &orking with this insight in his essay >Futting the Fop 8ack into Fostmodernism,> <awrence 4rossberg comments! in postmodern thinking should not obscure insights it may offer that open up our understanding of 2frican#2merican experience. The criti,ue of essentialism encouraged by postmodernist thought is useful for 2frican#2mericans concerned with

&e have too long had imposed upon us, both from the outside and the inside, a narrow constricting notion of blackness. Fostmodern criti,ues of essentialism which challenge notions of universality and static over#determined identity within mass culture and mass consciousness can open up new possibilities for the construction of the self and the assertion of agency. Employing a criti,ue of essentialism allows 2frican#2mericans to acknowledge the way in which class mobility has altered collective black experience so that racism does not necessarily have the same impact on our lives. 0uch a criti,ue allows us to affirm multiple black identitie s, varied black experience . *t also challenges colonial imperialist paradigms of black identity which represent blackness one#dimensionally in ways that reinforce and sustain white supremacy. This discourse created the idea of the >primitive> and promoted the notion of an >authentic> experience, seeing as >natural> those
reformulating outmoded notions of identity.

2bandoning essentialist notions would be a serious challenge to racism . $ontemporary 2frican# 2merican resistance struggle must be rooted in a process of decoloni7ation that continually opposes reinscribing notions of >authentic> black identity . This criti,ue should not be made synonymous with the dismissal of the struggle of oppressed and exploited peoples to make ourselves sub ects. Mor should it deny that in certain circumstances that experience affords us a privileged critical location from which to speak. This is not a reinscription of modernist master narratives of authority which privilege some voices by denying voice to others . Fart of our struggle for radical black sub ectivity is the ,uest to find ways to construct self and identity that are oppositional and liberatory. The unwillingness to criti,ue essentialism on the part of many 2frican#2mericans is rooted in the fear that it will cause folks to lose sight of the specific history and experience of 2frican#2mericans and the uni,ue sensibilities and culture that arise from that experience. 2n ade,uate response to this concern is to criti,ue essentialism while emphasi7ing the significance of >the authority of experience.> There is a radical difference between a repudiation of the idea that there is a black >essence> and recognition of the way black identity has been specifically constituted in the experience of exile and struggle. &hen black folks criti,ue essentialism, we are empowered to recogni7e multiple experiences of black identity that are the lived conditions which make diverse cultural productions possible. &hen this diversity is
expressions of black life which conformed to a pre#existing pattern or stereotype. ignored, it is easy to see black folks as falling into two categories##nationalist or assimilationist, black#identified or white#identified. $oming to terms with the impact of postmodernism for black experience, particularly as it changes our sense of identity, means that we must and can rearticulate the basis for collective bonding. 4iven the various crises facing 2frican#2mericans /economic, spiritual, escalating racial violence, etc.6 we are compelled by circumstance to reassess our relationship to popular culture and resistance struggle .any of us are as reluctant to face this task as many non#black postmodern thinkers who focus theoretically on the issue of >difference> are to confront the issue of race and racism.

<+tJ Mo olot"ic
T"ey rei#y &"ite ess' #ocusi g t"e %e2ate o &"ite ess ma0es it i to a mo olit"( sustai i g t"e arcissism t"at ele*ates &"ite ess to a s!ectacle A"me% GF R0ara, Dniversity of <ondon Jace and $ultural studies, >5eclarations of &hiteness! The Mon#Ferformativity of 2nti#Jacism,>
8orderlands, ;ol - Mo ', http:88666#borderlands#net#au81ol*no&D&''.8ahmedDdeclarations#htm 88liam T -. &hiteness studies is after all deeply invested in producing anti#racist forms of knowledge and pedagogy . *n other words, whiteness studies seeks to make whiteness visible insofar as that visibility is seen as contesting the forms of white privilege, which rests on the unmarked and the unremarkable Nfact+ of being white. 8ut in reading the texts that gather together in the emergence of a field, we can detect an

anxiety about the status or function of this anti#racism. The anxiety is first an anxiety about what it means to transform whiteness studies into a field. *f whiteness becomes a field of study, then there is clearly a risk that whiteness itself will be transformed into an ob ect. Or if whiteness assumes integrity as an ob ect of study, as being Nsomething+ that we can track or follow across time and space, then whiteness would become a fetish, cut off from histories of production and circulation . Jichard 5yer
for instance admits to being disturbed by the very idea of what he calls white studies! N.y blood runs cold at the thought that talking about whiteness could lead to the development of something called N&hite 0tudies+ /"HHI, "A6. Or as Fine, &eis, Fowell and &ong explain! Nwe worry that in our

desire to create spaces to speak, intellectually or empirically, about whiteness, we may have reified whiteness as a fixed category of experience= that we have allowed it to be treated as a monolith, in the singular, as an >essential something>+ /"HHI, xi6. E. The risk of transforming whiteness into Nan essential something+ might be a necessary risk, for sure. &e have
to choose whether it+s a risk worth taking. 8ut the risk does not exist independently of other risks. The anxiety about transforming whiteness into Nan essential something+ gets stuck to other anxieties about what whiteness studies might do. One of these anxieties is that whiteness studies will sustain whiteness at the centre of intellectual in,uiry, however haunted by absence, lack and emptiness. 2s Juth Frankenburg asks N why talk about

whiteness, given the risk that by undertaking intellectual work on whiteness one might contribute to processes of recentering rather than decentering it, as well as reifying the term, and its >inhabitants >+ /"HHI, "6. @. 2nother risk is that in centering on whiteness, whiteness studies might become a discourse of love, which would sustain the narcissism that elevates whiteness into a social and bodily ideal . The reading of whiteness as a form of narcissism is of course well established.

The Nwhiteness+ of academic disciplines, including philosophy and anthropology has been sub ect to devastating criti,ues /see, for examples, .ills "HHS= 2sad "HI-6. For example, a postcolonial criti,ue of anthropology would argue that the anthropological desire to know the other functioned as a form of narcissism! the other functioned as a mirror, a device to reflect the anthropological ga7e back to itself, showing the white face of anthropology in the very display of the colour of difference. 0o if disciplines are in a way already about whiteness, showing the face of the white sub ect, then it follows that whiteness studies sustains the direction or orientation of this ga7e, whilst removing the Ndetour+ provided by the reflection of the other. &hiteness studies could even become a spectacle of pure self#reflection, augmented by an insistence that whiteness Nis an identity too+. 5oes whiteness studies function as a narcissism in which the loved ob ect returns us to the sub ect as the origin of loveC &e do after all get attached to our ob ects of study, which might mean that whiteness studies could Nget stuck+ on whiteness, as that which Ngives itself+ to itself. 5yer talks about this risk when he admits to another fear! N* dread to think that paying attention to whiteness might lead to white people saying they need to get in touch with their whiteness+ /"HHI, "A6. &hiteness studies would here be about white people learning to love their own whiteness, by transforming it into an ob ect that could be loved.

Ot"er ess /a%

Co *erti g ?%i##ere ce@ i to ?ot"er ess@ !ro%uces e+iste tial *iole ceK egatio o# t"e ot"er8s *oice re4uires 2rutality a % #orce to mai tai a u i#ie% social or%er /ur0e 6 R2nthony, 0enior <ecturer in Folitics and *nternational Jelations, Dniversity of Mew 0outh &ales, 'AAI (&ar as a &ay of 8eing! <ebanon,
'AA:, Theory and Event,) "A!'", .use //liamT The conceptual template for such an image of national security state can be found in the work of Thomas ;o22es( with his influential conception of the political community as a tight unity of sovereign and people in which their bodies meld with his own to form a ?<eviathan?, and which must be defended from enemies within and without. Lis image o# e##ecti*e security a % so*ereig ty &as o e t"at &as

i tolera t o# i ter al %i##ere ce a % %isse t( legitimati g a stro g state &it" coerci*e a % e+ce!tio al !o&ers to !reser*e or%er a % same ess9 T"is &as a *isio ot merely o# !olitical or%er 2ut o# e+iste tial i%e tity( set o## agai st a ra ge o# e+iste tial ot"ers &"o &ere sources o# t"reat( 2ac0&ar% ess( i sta2ility or i co gruity .'H *t also, in a way set out with frightening clarity by the theorist $arl
0chmitt and the philosopher 4eorg Legel, exchanged internal unity, identity and harmony for permanent alienation from other such communities /states6. Legel presaged 0chmitt?s thought with his argument that individuality and the state are single moments of ?mind in its freedom? which ?has an infinitely negative relation to itself, and hence its essential character from its own point of view is its singleness?! I %i*i%uality is

a&are ess o# o eVs e+iste ce as a u it i s"ar! %isti ctio #rom ot"ers9 It ma i#ests itsel# "ere i t"e state as a relatio to ot"er states( eac" o# &"ic" is auto omous *is'a'*is t"e ot"ers999t"is egati*e relatio o# t"e state to itsel# is em2o%ie% i t"e &orl% as t"e relatio o# o e state to a ot"er a % as i# t"e egati*e &ere somet"i g e+ter al .-A Sc"mitt is im!orta t 2ot" #or u %ersta %i g t"e &ay i &"ic" suc" alie atio is seen as a %e#i iti*e &ay o# imagi i g a % limiti g !olitical commu ities( a % for u %ersta %i g "o& suc" a rigi% %eli eatio is li 0e% to t"e i e*ita2ility a % !er!etuatio o# &ar9 Sc"mitt argue% t"at t"e e+iste ce o# a state V!resu!!oses the political?, which must be understood through Vt"e s!eci#ic !olitical %isti ctio 9992et&ee #rie % a % e emyV9 T"e e emy is Vt"e ot"er( t"e stra gerT a % it su##icie t #or "is ature t"at "e is , in a specially intense way, e+iste tially somet"i g %i##ere t a % alie ( so t"at i a e+treme case co #licts &it" "im are !ossi2le?.-" The figure of the enemy is constitutive of the state as ?the specific entity of a people?.-' 1it"out it society is ot !olitical a % a !eo!le ca ot 2e sai% to e+ist ! Only the actual participants can correctly recognise,
understand and udge the concrete situation and settle the extreme case of conflict...to udge whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent?s way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one?s own form of existence. -- Sc"mitt li 0s t"is star0 o tology

to &ar &"e "e states t"at t"e !olitical is o ly aut"e tic V&"e a #ig"ti g collecti*ity o# !eo!le co #ro ts a similar collecti*ity9 T"e e emy is solely t"e !u2lic e emy( 2ecause e*eryt"i g t"at "as a relatio s"i! to such a collectivity of men, particularly to t"e &"ole atio ( 2ecomes !u2lic 2y *irtue o# suc" a relatio s"i!...in its entirety the state as an organised political entity decides for itself the friend#enemy distinction?. -E 1ar( i s"ort( is a e+iste tial co %itio J t"e e tire li#e o# a "uma 2ei g is a struggle a % e*ery "uma 2ei g is sym2olically a com2ata t9 T"e #rie %( e emy a % com2at co ce!ts recei*e t"eir real mea i g !recisely 2ecause t"ey re#er to t"e real !ossi2ility o# !"ysical 0illi g9 1ar #ollo&s #rom e mity9 1ar is t"e e+iste tial egatio o# t"e e emy .-@ 0chmitt claims that his theory is not biased towards war as a
choice /?*t is by no means as though the political signifies nothing but devastating war and every political deed a military action...it neither favours war nor militarism, neither imperialism nor pacifism?6 but it is hard to accept his caveat at face value.-: 1"e suc" a t"eory ta0es t"e

#orm o# a social %iscourse /which it does in a general form6 suc" a o tology ca o ly su!!ort , as a kind of originary ground, the basic $lausewit7ian assumption t"at &ar ca 2e a ratio al &ay o# resol*i g !olitical co #licts ## because
the import of 0chmitt?s argument is that such ?political? conflicts are ultimately expressed through the possibility of war. 2s he says! ?to the enemy concept belongs the ever#present possibility of combat?.-I &here 0chmitt meets $lausewit7, as * explain further below, the existential and rationalistic ontologies of war oin into a closed circle of mutual support and ustification. This closed circle of existential and strategic reason generates a number of dangers. Firstly, t"e emerge ce o# co #lict ca ge erate military actio almost automatically sim!ly

2ecause t"e &orl% is co cei*e% i terms o# t"e %isti ctio 2et&ee #rie % a % e emyT 2ecause t"e *ery e+iste ce o# t"e ot"er co stitutes a u acce!ta2le t"reat( rat"er t"a a c"ai o# actio s( 3u%geme ts a % %ecisio s9 HAs t"e Israelis i siste% o# ;e)2olla"( t"ey V%e y our rig"t to e+istV9I T"is e##aces age cy( causality a % res!o si2ility #rom !olicy a % !olitical %iscourseJ our actio s ca 2e co cei*e% as i %e!e %e t o# t"e co #lict or 4uara ti e% #rom critical e 4uiry( as ecessities t"at ac"ie*e a i strume tal !ur!ose 2ut %o ot co tri2ute to a e& a % u !re%icta2le causal c"ai . 0imilarly the $lausewit7ian idea of force ## which, by transporting a Mewtonian category from the natural into the social sciences, assumes the very effect it seeks ## further encourages the resort to military violence. 1e ig ore t"e com!le+ "istory o# a co #lict( a % t"us t"e alter ati*e !at"s to its resolutio t"at suc" "istorical a alysis mig"t !ro*i%e( 2y !ortrayi g co #lict as #u %ame tal a % e+iste tial i atureT as !ossi2ly co tai a2le or e+!loita2le( 2ut al&ays irresol*a2le9 5ominant portrayals of the war on terror, and the *sraeli#2rab
conflict, are arguably examples of such ontologies in action.

Sole #ocus o racism i !rese t times is cou ter!ro%ucti*e

Mc1"orter > R1ohn, linguistics prof, S90tanford. senior fellow at the .anhattan *nstitute. Mominated for an M22$F *mage 2ward for
Outstanding <iterary &ork in Mon#Fiction. Fh5 in linguistic 1une @, 'AAS= (Jacism in Jetreat=) The 0un, http!//www.nysun.com/opinion/racism#in# retreat/IH-@@/ //liamT Lis victory demonstrates the main platform of my race writing. The guiding ,uestion in everything * have ever written on race is ! &hy do so many

people exaggerate about racismC This exaggeration is a nasty hangover from the sixties, and the place it has taken as a purported badge of intellectual and moral gravita s is a tire#block on coherent, constructive sociopolitical discussion.
Lere?s a typical case for what passes as enlightenment. On my desk/top6 is an article from last year?s 2merican Fsychologist. The wisdom impartedC To be a person of color these days is to withstand an endless barrage of racist >microaggressions .> 0ay to someone, >&hen * look at you, *

don?t see color> and you >deny their ethnic experiences.> Kou do the same by saying, >2s a woman, * know what you go through as a racial minority,> as well as with hate speech such as >2merica is a melting pot .> Other >microaggressions> include college buildings being all named after straight, white rich men /*?m not kidding about the
straight part6. This sort of thing will not do. &hy channel mental energy into performance art of this kindC 0ome may mistake me as implying that it would be okay to stop talking about racism. 8ut that interpretation is incorrect! * am stating that it would be okay to stop talking about

racism. &e need to be talking about serious activism focused on results . Those who suppose that the main meal in the
aforementioned is to decry racism are not helping people. 2t this point, if racism was unattended to for "A years, during that time it would play exactly the same kind of role it does in 2merica now 9 elusive, marginal, and insignificant. Mote that * did not say that there was no racism. There seems to

be an assumption that when discussing racism, it is a sign of higher wisdom to neglect the issue of its degree. This assumption is neither logical nor productive. * re ect it, and am pleased to see increasing numbers of black people doing same. Of course there is racism. The ,uestion is whether there is enough to matter. 2ll evidence shows that there is not.
Mo, the number of black men in prison is not counterevidence! black legislators were solidly behind the laws penali7ing possession of crack more heavily than powder. *n any case, to insist that we are hamstrung until every vestige of racism , bias, or ine,uity is gone indicates a grievous lack of confidence, which * hope any person of any history would re ect. 2nyone

who intones that 2merica remains permeated with racism is, in a word, lucky. They have not had the misfortune of living in a society riven by true sociological conflict, such as between 0unnis and 0hiites, Lutus and Tutsis 9 or whites and blacks before the sixties. *t?d be interesting to open up a discussion with a 5arfurian about >microaggressions.> To state that racism is no longer a serious problem in our country is neither ignorant nor cynical . &arnings that such a statement
invites a racist backlash are, in 'AAS, melodramatic. They are based on no empirical evidence. Ket every time some stupid thing happens 9 some comedian says a word, some sniggering blockhead hangs a little noose, some study shows that white people tend to get slightly better car loans 9

we are taught that racism is still mother?s milk in the D.0. of 2. >2lways ust beneath the surface.> 8arack Obama?s success is the most powerful argument against this way of thinking in the entire four decades since recreational underdoggism was mistaken as deep thought. 2 black man clinching the 5emocratic presidential nomination 9 and rather easily at that 9 indicates that racism is a lot further >beneath the surface> than it used to be . 2nd if .r. Obama
ends up in the &hite Louse, then it might be time to admit that racism is less beneath the surface than all but fossili7ed.

Focus /a%
I clu%i g &"ite ess i t"eir mo*eme t is 0ey to redefine traditional notions of racism and give

white people a role in emancipatory politics

Sulli*a > R0hannon, Fenn 0tate Dniversity $harles 0. Feirce 0ociety. Transactions of the $harles 0. Feirce 0ociety. 8uffalo! 'AAS. ;ol. EE, *ss. '=
pg. '-:, 'I //liamT *t is commonly acknowledged today, at least in academic circles, that racial essences do not exist. Jacial categories, including whiteness, are historical and political products of human activity, and for that reason the human racial landscape has changed over time and likely will continue to change in the future. *n the wake of this acknowledgement, critical race theorists and philosophers of race debate whether whiteness must be eliminated for racial oppression to be ended. 4iven whiteness?s history as a category of violent racial exclusion, eliminativists and >new abolitionists> have argued that it must be abolished. *f >whiteness is one pole of an une,ual relationship, which can no more exist without oppression than slavery could exist without slaves,> then as long as whiteness endures, so does racial oppression.' *n contrast, critical conservationists have claimed even though it has an oppressive past, whiteness could entail something other than racism and oppression. .oreover, since lived existential categories like whiteness

cannot be merely or ,uickly eliminated, white people should work to transform whiteness into an anti#racist category. * count myself as a critical conservationist, but * also acknowledge the force of eliminativist arguments. *f whiteness necessarily involves
racist oppression, then attempting to transform whiteness into an antiracist category would be a fool?s game at best, and a covert continuance of white supremacy at worst. .y goal here is not to rehearse the disagreement between new abolitionists and critical conservationists= excellent work explaining the details of their positions already exists.- * instead approach that disagreement by asking the pragmatic ,uestion of whether a rehabilitated version of whiteness can be worked out concretely. &hat would a non#oppressive, anti#racist whiteness look likeC &hat difference would or could it make to the lives of white and nonwhite peopleC *f the ,uestion of how to transform whiteness cannot be answered in some practical detail#if it?s not a difference that makes a difference#then critical conservatism would amount to a hopeful, but ultimately harmful abstraction that makes no difference in lived experience and that damages anti#racist movements. *n that case, abolitionism would appear to be the only alternative to ongoing white supremacy and privilege. * propose turning to 1osiah Joyce for help with these issues, more specifically to his essay on >Frovincialism.>E This turn is not as surprising as it might initially seem given that Joyce wrote explicitly about race in >Jace Uuestions and Fre udices.>@ *n that essay, Joyce issued an antiracist, anti#essentialist challenge to then#current scientific studies of race, especially anthropology and ethnology, which claim to prove the superiority of white people, and he even briefly but explicitly names whiteness a possible threat to the future of humanity. : * focus here on >Frovincialism,> however, because even though the essay never explicitly discusses race, it can help explain the ongoing need for the category of whiteness and implicitly offers a wealth of useful suggestions for how to transform it. >Frovincialism> is an exercise in critical conservation of the concept of provincialism, and while not identical, provincialism and whiteness share enough in common that >wise> provincialism can serve as a model for developing >wise> whiteness.I Joyce?s essay thus can be of great help to critical philosophers of race wrestling with ,uestions of whether and how to transformatively conserve whiteness. Exploring similarities and differences between wise provincialism and wise whiteness, * use Joyce?s analyses of provincialism to shed light on why whiteness

should be rehabilitated rather than discarded and how white people today might begin living whiteness as an anti# racist category. $omparing Frovincialism and &hiteness Jace Traitor is a contemporary ournal with the motto >Treason to whiteness is loyalty to
humanity,> and its editor, Moel *gnatiev, makes a scathing case against the critical conservation of whiteness.S *gnatiev argues that there is no valid white culture to transform. Mor is there any biological rationale for whiteness. *n his view, whiteness merely concerns status, privilege, and exclusion and thus cannot form a legitimate, antiracist identity. To suggest that it can, as critical conservationists do, is to encourage white supremacists by giving their worldview intellectual support. Even if critical conservationists do not intend to provide this support, the effect of arguing for the conservation of whiteness is still extremely dangerous. *n addition to unintentionally validating white supremacy movements, it tends to divert the energies of well# intentioned white people away from political struggle for racial ustice to whiteindulgent racial sensitivity and diversity workshops. 2ccording to *gnatiev, what anti#racist movements need is not a white identity that well#intentioned white people can feel good about, but race traitors who are willing to defect from whiteness. The only way for white people to be loyal to the human race is for them to be disloyal to their racial identity. <ike critical conservationists regarding whiteness, Joyce knows that he faces an uphill battle in convincing many of his interlocutors of the value of provincialism. Fut positively, provincialism tends to connote a healthy fondness for and pride in local traditions, interests, and customs. .ore negatively, it means being restricted and limited, sticking to the narrow ideas of a given region or group and being indifferent, perhaps even violently hostile to the ways of outsiders. &hat connects these different meanings is their sense of being rooted in a particular cultural#geographical place. *n Joyce?s definition, which emphasi7es conscious awareness of this rootedness /an important point to which * will return6, a province is a domain that is >sufficiently unified to have a true consciousness of its own unity, to feel a pride in its own ideals and customs, and to possess a sense of its distinction from otherRsT.> 2nd correspondingly, provincialism is, first, the tendency for a group >to possess its own customs and ideals= secondly, the totality of these customs and ideals themselves= and thirdly the love and pride which leads the inhabitants of a province to cherish as their own these traditions, beliefs and aspirations> /:"6. Emphasi7ing unity, love, and pride, Joyce?s definitions steer away from the negative connotations of provincialism. 8ut in Joyce?s day# and not much has changed in this regard#it was the negative, or >false,> form of provincialism that most often came to people?s minds when they thought about the value and effects of the concept. 2s Joyce was writing in "HA', the false provincialism, or >sectionalism,> of the Dnited 0tates? $ivil &ar was a recent memory for many of his readers. *n the $ivil &ar, stubborn commitment to one portion of the nation violently opposed it to another portion and threatened to tear the nation apart. Frovincialism, which appealed to regional values to disunite, had to be condemned in the name of patriotism, which united in the name of a higher good. Joyce?s rhetorical strategy is to take the challenge of defending provincialism head#on! >.y main intention is to define the right form and the true office of provincialism#to portray what, if you please, we may call the Ligher Frovincialism, #to portray it, and then to defend it, to extol it, and to counsel you to further ust such provincialism> /:@6. Joyce readily acknowledges that >against the evil forms of sectionalism we shall always have to contend> /:E6. 8ut he denies that provincialism must always be evil. 4oing against the grain of most post#$ivil &ar thinking about provincialism, Joyce urges that the present state of civili7ation, both in the world at large, and with us, in 2merica, is such as to define a new social mission which the province alone, but not the nation, is able to fulfil RsicT . . . .RTThe modern world has reached a point where it needs, more than ever before, the vigorous development of a highly organi7ed provincial life. 0uch a life, if wisely guided, will not mean disloyalty to the nation. /:E6 &isely developed, provincialism need not conflict with national loyalty. The two commitments can#and must, Joyce insists#flourish together. <ikewise, whiteness need not conflict with membership in humanity as a whole. The two identities can#and must#flourish together. The relationship between provincialism and nationalism, as discussed by Joyce, serves as a fruitful model for the relationship of whiteness and humanity, and critical conservationists of whiteness should follow Joyce?s lead by taking head#on the challenge of critically defending whiteness. <ike embracing provincialism, embracing whiteness might seem to be a step backward for the modern world#toward limitation and insularity that breed ignorance, pre udice, and hostility toward others who are different from oneself. <ike having a national rather than provincial worldview, seeing oneself as a member of humanity rather than of the white race seems to embody an expansive, outward orientation that is open to others. 8ut there is a >new social mission> with respect to racial ustice that whiteness, and not humanity as a whole, can fulfill. Jace relations, especially in the Dnited 0tates, have reached a point where humanity needs a >highly organi7ed> anti#racist whiteness, that is, an anti#racist whiteness that is consciously developed

and embraced. Low then can we /white people, in particular6 wisely guide the development of such whiteness so that it does not result in disloyalty
to other races and humanity as a wholeC 8efore addressing this ,uestion, let me point out two important differences between whiteness and provincialism as described by Joyce. First, while Joyce calls for the development of a wise form of provincialism, he is able to appeal to existing

>wholesome> forms of provincialism in his defense of the concept. Le addresses himself >in the most explicit terms, to men and women who, as * hope and presuppose, are and wish to be, in the wholesome sense, provincial,> and his demand that >the man of the future . . . love his province more than he does to#day> recogni7es a nugget of wise provincialism on which to build /:@, :I6. The development of wise provincialism does not have to be from scratch. *n contrast, it is more difficult to pinpoint a nugget of >wholesome> whiteness to use as a starting point for its transformation. *nstances of white people who helped slaves and resisted slavery in the Dnited 0tates, for example, certainly can be found#the infamous 1ohn 8rown is only one such example#but such people often are seen as white race traitors who represent the abolition, not the transformation of whiteness.H The task of critically conserving whiteness probably will be more difficult than that of critically conserving provincialism since there is not a straightforward or obvious >right form and true office> of whiteness to extol. 0econd, true to his idealism, Joyce describes both provincialism and its development as explicitly conscious phenomena. Joyce notes the elasticity of the term >province>#it can designate a small geographical area in contrast with the nation, or it can designate a large geographical, rural area in contrast with a city /@I#@S6#but it always includes consciousness of the province?s unity and particular identity as this place and not another. Fut another way, probably every space, regardless of its si7e, is distinctive in some way or another. &hat gives members of a space a provincial attitude is their conscious awareness of, and resulting pride in, that space as the distinctive place that it is. On Joyce?s model, someone who is provincial knows that she is, at least in some loose way. The task of developing her provincialism, then, is to develop her rudimentary conscious awareness of her province, to become >more and not less selfconscious, well#established, and earnest> in her provincial outlook /:I6. *n contrast#and here lies the largest difference between provincialism and whiteness#many white people today do not consciously think of themselves as members of this /white6 race and not another, not even loosely. Excepting members of white militant groups such as the %u %lux %lan or the $reativity .ovement, contemporary white people do not tend to have a conscious sense of unity as fellow white people, nor do they consciously invoke or share special ideals, customs, or common memories as white people. They often are perceived and perceive themselves as raceless, as members of the human species at large rather than members of a particular racial group. This does not eliminate their whiteness or their membership in a fairly unified group. 1ust the opposite! such >racelessness> is one of the marks and privileges of membership in whiteness, especially middle and upper class forms of whiteness. &hite people can feel a pride in the ideals and customs of whiteness and possess a sense of distinction from people of other races without much, if any conscious awareness of their whiteness and without consciously identifying those ideals and customs as white. To take one brief example, styles and customs of communication in classrooms tend to be raced /as well as classed and gendered6, and white styles of discussion, hand#raising, and turn# taking tend to be treated as appropriate while black styles are seen as inappropriate."A &hite students often learn to feel proud and validated by their teachers as good students when they participate in these styles, and this almost always happens without either students or teachers consciously identifying their style /or themselves6 as white. 0uch students appear to belong and experience themselves as belonging merely to a group of smart, orderly, responsible students, not to a raciali7ed group. *n the Dnited 0tates and &estern world more broadly, unconscious habits of whiteness and white privilege have tended to increase after the end of de ure racism."" Dnlike provincialism as described by Joyce, whiteness tends to operate more sub# and unconsciously than consciously. 8ut * do not think that this fact spoils wise provincialism as a fruitful model for wise whiteness. First, and reflecting a basic philosophical disagreement that * have with Joyce?s idealism, * doubt that provincialism always functions as consciously as Joyce suggests it does. The unity, pride, and love that are the hallmarks of provincialism could easily function in the form of unreflective beliefs, habits, preferences, and even bodily comportment. *n fact * would argue that many aspects of our provincial loyalties#whatever type of province is at issue#operate on sub# or unconscious levels. *n that case, provincialism and whiteness would not be as dissimilar in their operation as Joyce?s description implies. 0econd, even if provincialism tends to consciously unify people while whiteness does not, Joyce?s advice that people should attempt to become more, rather than less self#conscious in their provincialism still applies to white people with respect to their whiteness. 4iven whiteness?s history as a racial

category of violent exclusion and oppression, one might think that white people need to focus less on their whiteness, to distance themselves from it. 8ut ust the opposite is the case. 4iven that distance from racial identification tends to be the covert modus
operandi for contemporary forms of white privilege, white people who wish to fight racism need to become more intimately ac,uainted with their whiteness. Jather than ignore their whiteness, which allows unconscious habits of white privilege to proliferate

unchecked, white people need to bring their whiteness to as much conscious awareness as possible /while also reali7ing that complete self#transparency is never achievable6 so that they can try to change what it means. 8ut why focus on increased
awareness of whiteness simpliciterC * mentioned briefly above that raced styles of communication also tend to be gendered and classed, and even more accurate would be to say that race, gender, class, sexuality, and other significant axes of lived experience transactionally co#constitute one another. Jace, including whiteness, is never lived in isolation from these other axes. *n the Dnited 0tates, the way that a white person experiences and is impacted by her whiteness likely will vary depending on his/her ethnicity, gender and class in particular, and across the globe, national differences can give whiteness a very different meaning."' For these reasons, one might wonder why * do not urge white people?s increased consciousness of, for example, their *rish# 2merican#whiteness, 0outhern#woman#whiteness, or lesbian#working#class#whiteness. 0uch forms of hyphenated whiteness might seem more likely to be sources of consciously felt unity, shared customs, and memory than would generic whiteness. *n that case, >wise whiteness> should be read as mere shorthand for an indefinite number of forms of anti#racist whiteness. * agree that one of the functions of the term wise whiteness is to serve as an umbrella for the infinitely rich and complicated ways that white people embody their whiteness. 8ut * think it is important that the term not be understood merely as a bit of convenient shorthand that could be discarded without loss. *t has a more substantial function than that of an umbrella, and treating it as mere shorthand risks letting white privilege and white supremacy off the hook too easily. Especially in the case of white ethnicities, insisting that whiteness always be considered in connection with other axes of identity can collapse race into ethnicity and work to deflect attention away white domination and oppression. &hiteness does mean different things for, e.g., *rish#2merican#whites and *talian#2merican#whites, and these two groups of white people have different racial histories and therefore at least somewhat different racial presents. 8ut its full meaning is not contained in those different ethnicities. There is something to being white that being contemporarily *rish or *talian alone does not capture. 0o while whiteness is always transactionally constituted in and through other categories of lived experience, a functional separation of race from those other categories can be and sometimes needs to be made. *n practice there is no such thing as whiteness by itself, and yet for particular purposes and because of the tendency of its erasure, it can be useful to focus on whiteness in abstraction from other lived categories. *n that pragmatic sense, with the term >wise whiteness> * speak not only of the rehabilitation of a collection of hyphenated forms of whiteness, but also for a rehabilitated whiteness simpliciter. Joyce?s elo,uent pleas on the behalf of provincialism speak to my point about bringing whiteness to as much conscious awareness as possible. 2s Joyce appeals to his readers, he urges, >* hope and believe that you all intend to have your community live its own life, and not the life of any other community, nor yet the life of a mere abstraction called humanity in general> /:I6. On the same theme, he later compares the problem of wise provincialism with the problem of any individual activity, which admittedly can become narrow and self#centered. 2cknowledging this problem, Joyce counters, 8ut on the other hand, philanthropy that is not founded upon a personal loyalty of the individual to his own family and to his own personal duties is notoriously a worthless abstraction. &e love the world better when we cherish our own friends the more faithfully. &e do not grow in grace by forgetting individual duties in behalf of remote social enterprises. Frecisely so, the province will not serve the nation best by forgetting itself, but by loyally emphasi7ing its own duty to the nation . . . . /HS6 The disappearance of the individual does not well serve larger social enterprises. Those enterprises thrive only if the personal, passionate energies of individuals are poured into them. <arge enterprises and institutions tend to become anemic abstractions if they are not rooted in felt individual commitments. <ikewise, properly understood, the nation need not be in a competitive relationship with the various communities that it shelters. <oyalty to and love for one?s more local connections can be a powerful source of meaningful loyalty to and love for one?s nation. *n both cases, the same pattern can be detected! rich ties to the smaller entity#the individual or the community#are what sustain meaningful connections to the larger entity#the philanthropic cause or the nation. The two are not necessarily in conflict, as is often thought, and in fact the larger entity would suffer if ties to the smaller entity were cut off. *t is useful to anti#racist struggle to think of a similar relationship holding between particular races, including the white race, and humanity at large. &hile it might initially seem paradoxical, the larger entity of humanity can best be served by people?s ties to smaller, more local entities such as their racial groups. 2 person?s racial group is not the only smaller entity that provides the rich existential ties of which Joyce

speaks#he rightly mentions family, and we could add entities such as one?s neighborhood, one?s church, mos,ue or synagogue, and even groups based on one?s gender or sexual orientation. 8ut race also belongs in this list of sites of intimate connection that can and often do sustain individual lives and that can support rather than undermine the well being of humanity. Forgetting one?s duty to one?s particular race in the name of working for racial ustice, for example, tends to turn that goal into a remote abstraction. >Kou cannot be loyal to merely an impersonal abstraction,> Joyce reminds us."- Effectively serving the goal of racial ustice is more likely to occur if one concretely explores how racial ustice could emerge out of loyalty to one?s particular race. This claim might not seem ob ectionable when considering racial groups that are not white. <oyalty to other members of their race has been an important way for 2frican 2mericans, for example, to further the larger cause of racial ustice. 8lack slaves who helped each other escape their white masters fought against slavery and thus helped humanity as a whole. 8ut the history of whiteness suggests that white people?s loyalty to their race not only would not help, but in fact would undermine struggles for racial ustice. Low could white people serve the larger interests of the human race by being loyal to a race that has oppressed, coloni7ed, and brutali7ed other racesC &hat possible duties or obligations to their race could white people have, responsibilities that must be remembered if racial ustice is to be a concrete, lived goal for white people to work towardC On the one hand, these ,uestions can seem outrageous, even dangerous. Talk of duty to the white race smacks of militarist white supremacist movements, and indeed the first of the $reativity .ovement?s sixteen commandments in their >&hite .an?s 8ible> is that >it is the avowed duty and holy responsibility of each generation to assure and secure for all time the existence of the &hite Jace upon the face of this planet,> and the sixth is that >your first loyalty belongs to the &hite Jace.>"E Moel *gnatiev?s concern about the scholarly validation of white supremacy through the critical conservation of whiteness could not be better placed than here. Temporarily setting aside the dangerous aspect of these ,uestions, they also can seem nonsensical if they do not refer to the goals of white supremacist movements. &hat antiracist duties, we might ask with some sarcasm, do white people have that must not be forgottenC 2frican 2mericans and other non#white people might be able to combine loyalty to their racial group with loyalty to humanity, but white people cannot. Their situations are too different to treat their relationships to their races as similar. Those relationships are asymmetrical, which means that white people?s loyalty to the human race, including racial ustice for all its members, conflicts with loyalty to whiteness. <oyalty to humanity would seem to re,uire white people to be race traitors. On the other hand, these ,uestions present a needed challenge to white people who care about racial ustice. Jather than rhetorically or sarcastically, the ,uestions can be asked in the spirit of Joyce?s call for each >community RtoT live its own life, and not the life of any other community, nor yet the life of a mere abstraction called humanity in general> /:I6. For white people to fight white supremacy and

white privilege does not mean for them to attempt to shed their whiteness and become members of the human species at large. 2ttempting to become raceless by living the life of an abstraction called humanity merely cultivates a white person?s ignorance of how race, including whiteness, and racism inform her habits, beliefs, desires, antipathies, and other aspects of her life. *t does not magically eliminate her white privilege for even if she succeeds in thinking of herself as a raceless member of humanity, she likely will continue to be identified and treated as white, even if unreflectively or unconsciously, by others. 8y allowing her white privilege to go unchecked in this way, a white person?s living the life of abstract humanity actually tends to increase, not reduce her racial privilege. To increase the chances of reducing her racial privilege, she must resist the temptation to see herself as raceless and instead figure out what it could mean for her to live her own life as a raciali7ed person. <iving as a raciali7ed, rather than abstract person does not mean attempting to take on a different race. 2ttempting to
take on a different race implicitly acknowledges that whiteness is problematic, and it can seem to be an expression of respect for non#white people. 8ut it often is no better a response to white privilege than attempting to shed one?s whiteness. This is because a white person?s taking on the habits, culture, and other aspects of another race often is an expression of ontological expansiveness, which is a habit of white privileged people to treat all spaces# whether geographical, existential, linguistic, cultural, or other#as available for them to inhabit at their choosing."@ 2ppropriating another race in this way thus is closer to imperialist colonialism than a gesture of respect. For this reason, white people need to stop trying to flee the responsibilities and duties that come with being white and figure out how to live their own raciali7ed li fe, not the life of another race. Once they no longer ignore or

attempt to flee their whiteness, they can then ask how work for racial ustice fits with their duties and responsibilities as a white person and how they might live their own anti#racist white life. Three >Evils> Eliminated by
&ise &hiteness Joyce lists three specific problems in modern 2merican life that cannot be solved without wise provincialism. Lis discussion of these >evils,> as Joyce calls them, also illuminates >evils> that a wise form of whiteness could help meliorate. The first evil is the neglect of and disruption to a community when people are only loosely associated with it and do not invest in, care about, or have a significant history with it. Joyce argues that this problem is growing in fre,uency and significance as people are increasingly mobile, changing their residency multiple times over their lifetime and often moving great distances from where they were born and raised. This means that communities are increasingly dealing with a large number of newcomers who do not /yet6 have an intimate, caring connection to the new place they inhabit. This is >a source of social danger, because the community needs well# knit organi7ation> /I-6. Frovincialism helps these newcomers care for their new home, and a wise provincialism does so without generating any hostility toward either other provincial communities or larger social bodies such as the nation. *n a similar fashion, when white people who care about racial ustice have virtually no conscious or deliberate affiliation with their whiteness, the meaning and effect of whiteness is left to happenstance or, more likely, is determined by white supremacist groups. Joyce?s primary concern is the dissolution of communities through neglect, and if well intentioned white people do not care about, invest in, or acknowledge a significant history with their whiteness, then whiteness will be neglected. 8ut unlike provincial communities, whiteness does not necessarily unravel or wither away because of simple neglect by anti#racist white people. *ts neglect by anti# racists whites instead leaves it wide open for racist white groups to develop. <ike a garden, whiteness can easily grow tough weeds of

white supremacy if it is not wisely cultivated. The evil of abandoning whiteness, allowing white supremacists to make of it whatever they will, can be mitigated by a wise form of whiteness . *n practice, this means that white people who care about racial ustice need to educate newcomers to whiteness# namely, white children#to be loyal to and care
about their race. &hile Joyce?s comments about the problem of newcomers due to increased geographical mobility do not apply directly to whiteness,": white children can be thought of as newcomers to the community of whiteness who do not /yet6 have an intimate connection to their race or know how to cultivate and care for it. Lere again is an instance in which white supremacists have been allowed to corner the market on

whiteness! almost all explicit reflection and writing on how to raise white children as white has been undertaken by groups such as the %u %lux %lan, &orld $hurch of the $reator, and 0tormfront."I The association is so tight that the mere suggestion of educating white children in their whiteness is alarming to many people. 8ut educating white children about their whiteness need and should not mean educating them to be white supremacists. 2 wise form of whiteness would help train the developing racial habits of white children in anti#racist ways. "S Joyce calls the second problem addressed by
provincialism that of >the leveling tendency of recent civili7ation> /IE6, but more accurate, * think, would be to characteri7e the problem as one of monotonous sameness. Joyce is concerned that the increase of mass communication means that people all over the nation, indeed the globe, are reading the same news stories, sharing the same ideas, fashions, and trends, and more and more imitating one another. The rich diversity of humankind, the independence of the small manufacturer, and distinctiveness of the individual are being absorbed into a vast, impersonal social order. 2 wise provincialism is not wholly opposed to these tendencies. There is great value in large groups of people coming to understand each other across their differences. 8ut, Joyce argues, there often also is great value to be found in their differences, and those differences ought to be allowed to thrive. 2 wise

provincialism helps protect the variety of different places and communities so that they are not forced to be identical with each other. *n a similar way,

wise whiteness helps preserve racial differences without treating people of various races as wholly alien to each other and thus incapable of understanding each other across their differences . 2s <ucius Outlaw asks, >&hy is it, after
thousands of years, that human beings are not all ?light khaki? instead of exhibiting the variety of skin tones /and other features6 more or less characteristic of various populations called racesC>"H The answer, according to Outlaw, is not merely that racism and invidious ethnocentrism have worked to establish inviolable boundaries between white and non#white races. *t also is that different races are >the result of bio#cultural group attachments and practices that are conducive to human survival and well#being.>'A&ith &.E.8. 5u 8ois, Outlaw argues that racial differences can enrich everyone and that even if racism disappeared tomorrow, we should want discernibly distinct races to continue to exist .'" The baby need not be thrown out with the bathwater. The rich variety of human racial and ethnic cultures need not be eliminated to eliminate racism and invidious ethnocentrism. 2 wise whiteness also would caution, however, that white people?s appreciation for racial diversity and variety also can be an insidious form of whiteness in disguise. Too often, celebrations of multiculturalism and racial diversity function as a smorgasbord of racial difference offered up for /middle#to#upper class6 white people?s consumption and en oyment. They do this by acknowledging some differences while simultaneously concealing others. *t is very easy for white people to recogni7e and even celebrate racial difference in the form of different food, dress, and cultural customs. *t tends to be much more difficult for them to recogni7e racial difference in the form of economic, educational, and political ine,ualities. Joyce?s criticism of the leveling tendencies of modern culture does not explicitly depolitici7e the issue, and he does mention that variety is needed particularly to counter >the purely mechanical carrying#power of certain ruling social influences,> an example of which is the hegemony of white culture /I:6. 8ut given the tendency of white /middle#to#upper class, in particular6 people to see whiteness as

cultureless and boring and thus want to spice it up by dabbling in other, >exotic> cultures, care must be taken that appreciation of diversity is not saniti7ed through an avoidance of the history and present of white privilege. &hen that happens, appreciation of plurality and diversity tend to become a covert vehicle for white ontological expansiveness. *n contrast, a wise whiteness values and thus transactionally conserves different races, as Outlaw does, without depolitici7ing the meaning of those differences. The third evil discussed by Joyce, the mob
spirit, occurs when all individual udgment has been given up and a person becomes totally absorbed in a large social mass. &ithout discriminating individuals, the crowd or mob is psychologically vulnerable to a strong leader, idea, or even a song that enflames emotions and leads people to act in ways they ordinarily would not act. This danger is closely related to the one of sameness for behind the two dangers lay the same phenomenon! that of wide, inclusive human sympathy /H'#H-6. Openness to and sharing in the lives and the feelings of others is not always a positive event, Joyce cautions us. Dndiscriminating sympathy can lend support to base absurdities as easily as to noble kindness, and as such sympathy is more of a neutral base for psychological development than an automatic good to be ubi,uitously cultivated. Dnder certain conditions#conditions that Joyce thinks are increasingly present in the modern world#wide, inclusive sympathy for others can become not only monotonous, but also dangerous /H@6. <oss of the small#the particular, the local, the individual#as it is absorbed into the large is something to resist, and a wise provincialism helps prevent that loss Joyce?s concern about the mob spirit does not directly speak to problems faced by a wise whiteness.'' 8ut in this concern we can see the streak of organic individualism that runs through Joyce?s work, which can tell us something important about the relationships of white individuals to their race. Joyce?s legendary concern for community does not sacrifice or dissolve the individual into the larger whole. 1ust as false forms of provincialism set up a false opposition between provincialism and nationalism, false forms of individualism set up a false opposition between individualism and community or social causes. That kind of individualism fails because of its >failure to comprehend what it is that the ethical individual needs,> which is a cause greater than the individual that she can passionately serve /-S6. Lere is where Joyce?s individualism is distinctive! it insists that real individuality is found through personal choice of a larger cause that one loyally serves, not through endless insistence that one is a single individual with personal initiative. This insistence is empty if never acted upon, leaving the so#called autonomous individual lost and floundering. >8e an individual,> Joyce urges exasperatedly, >RbTut for Leaven?s sake, set about the task.>'- To be a real individual, a person needs something larger than herself to be a part of. 2nd as communities of meaning, racial groups historically have developed as one of those things. *n <ucius Outlaw?s words, racial and ethnic identification in part >developRedT as responses to the need for life#sustaining and meaningful acceptable order of various kinds /conceptual, social, political6.> 'E Luman

beings need to create conceptual, social, political and other structures, including individual and social identities, to give their lives meaning and purpose. &hile Outlaw talks about this need in terms of order and Joyce speaks of it in terms of a cause to devote one?s self to, both point to an existential need that racial identity, including whiteness, can serve and historically has served. 2nd they both suggest that a theory of racial ustice that ignores this need will not be effective in practice.

T"eir met"o% o# "ol%i g &"ites res!o si2le( calli g #or &i a a % a loss #ails' o sol*e cy &it"out 2rea0i g t"e 3uri%ical co ce!t o# !o&er Mc1"orter E R<adelle, Frofessor of. Fhilosophy and &omen?s 0tudies, Dniversity of Jichmond, Fhilosophy W 0ocial $riticism, vol -" nos @O:,
'AA@, pp. @--O@@: //liamT

Co ce!t o# Po&er /a%

*n the growing body of literature that makes up what has in recent years come to be called N&hiteness 0tudies+, observations like the following are commonplace! N&hiteness has, at least within the modern era and within &estern societies, tended to be constructed as a norm, an unchanging and unproblematic location, a position from which all other identities come to be marked by their difference+ /8onnett, "HH:! "E:6." 2ccording to &hiteness 0tudies theorists, the white race functions not so much as a race, one among many, as, at times at least, the race O the real human race O and, at other times, no race, simply the healthy, mature norm of human existence as opposed to all those other groups of people who are somehow off#white, off#track, more or less deviant. &hiteness, the racial norm in &estern industrial societies, is at one and the same time the exemplar of human being and the unmarked selfsame over against the racially marked other/ s6.' This understanding of whiteness emerged in the late "HSAs and
"HHAs as race scholars in the D02 and the D% began to treat white identity as an epistemic ob ect, in contrast to many earlier race theorists who studied non#whites primarily.- 8y taking whiteness as an ob ect of study, these scholars problemati7ed the status of the white race as an unmarked norm and exposed the racism implicit in its having that status. Thus, it seemed, these new race theorists had discovered a potentially very powerful tool for dismantling racism. Jevealing the ways in which whiteness functions as a racial norm, they began to denaturali7e it and thereby rob it of some of its power to order thought and practice. Their scholarship was and is, deliberately and unapologetically, deeply engaged political activism. Feminist sociologist Juth Frankenberg articulates this confluence of theory and practice well when she writes! NMaming whiteness and white people helps dislodge the claims of both to rightful dominance+ /Frankenberg, "HH-! '-E6. &hile readers of the work of .ichel Foucault may well be struck by the deep affinities between Foucaultian genealogy, counter#memory, and counter#attack on the one hand and &hiteness 0tudies+ denaturali7ation of heretofore largely un,uestioned racial categories on the other, surprisingly most writers in the &hiteness 0tudies movement seem all but unaware of Foucault+s analytics of biopower and his descriptions of normali7ation.E Their repeated observation that whiteness functions as a norm

and their close analyses of its unmarked status come not out of an awareness of Foucaultian genealogy but rather out of sociological studies of institutional racism like Omi and &inant+s Jacial Formation in the Dnited 0tates! From the "H:As to the
"HHAs /"HHE6. Their work sounds like Foucault+s at times, but if they are moving toward an analysis that is like his in some ways, it is from a starting point that is radically different. *n this paper * will argue that, in part because of the limitations imposed by that different starting

point, &hiteness 0tudies theorists typically miss their mark both analytically and politically. Their ma or problem lies in the fact that they still work within what Foucault calls a uridical conception of power, a conception that simply does not capture the ways in which power operates in modern industriali7ed societies, especially in relation to the so obviously bio#political phenomenon of racial oppression.

***Su##eri g =***
I%e tity !olitics #ail' lea% to a et"ics o# su##eri g( alie ates %i##ere t i%e tities( a % a2a %o s ema ci!atory !olitics /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 .2MK L2;E 20%E5 LO&, given the totali7ing regulatory and >othering> characteristics

of identity in/as language,

identity can avoid reiterating such effects in its ostensibly emancipatory mode .? * want to ask a similar ,uestion but in a historically specific, cultural and political register not because the linguistic frame is unimportant but because it is insufficient for discerning the character of contemporary politici7ed identity?s problem# atic investments. There are two levels to this in,uiry. First, given the sub ec# tivi7ing

conditions of identity production in a late modern liberal, capitalist, and disciplinary#bureaucratic social order, how can reiteration of these conditions be averted in identity?s purportedly emancipatory pro ectC &hat kind of political recognition can identity#based claims seek#and what kind can they be counted on to want#that will not resubordinate the sub ect itself historically sub ugated through identity categories such as >race> or >sex,> especially when these categories operate within discourses of liberal essen# tialism and disciplinary normali7ationC 0econd, given the averred interest of politici7ed identity in achieving emancipatory political recognition in a posthumanist discourse, what are the logics of pain in sub ect formation within late modernity that might contain or subvert this aimC &hat are the particular constituents#specific to our time, yet roughly generic for a diverse spectrum of identities#of identity?s desire for recognition that seem as often to breed a politics of recrimination and rancor, of culturally dispersed paralysis and suffering, a tendency to reproach power rather than aspire to it, to disdain freedom rather than practice itC *n short, where do elements of politici7ed identity?s investments in itself and especially in its own history of suffering come into conflict with the need to give up these investments in the pursuit of an emancipatory democratic pro ectC T"eir !er#orma ce is o e o# *ictim"oo%' lea%s to resse time t /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 Lowever, it is not only the tension between freedom and e,uality but the

prior presumption of the self#reliant and self#made capacities of liberal sub ects, con oined with their unavowed dependence on and construction by a variety of social relations and forces, that makes all liberal sub ects, and not only markedly disenfranchised ones, vulnerable to ressentiment! it is their situatedness within power, their production by power, and liberal discourse?s denial of this situatedness and production that casts the liberal sub ect into failure, the failure to make itself in the context of a discourse in which its self#making is assumed, indeed, is its assumed nature. This failure, which Miet7sche calls suffering, must find either a reason within itself /which redoubles the failure6 or a site of external blame on which to avenge its hurt and redistribute its pain. Lere is Miet7sche?s account of this moment in the production of ressentiment! For every sufferer instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering, more exactly, an agent= still more specifically a guilty agent who is susceptible to suffering#in short , some living thing upon which he can on some pretext or other, vent his affects, actually or in effigy ... This ... constitutes the actual physiological cause of ressentiment, vengeful# ness, and the like! a desire to deaden pain by means of affects ... to deaden, by means of a more violent emotion of any kind, a tormenting, secret pain that is becoming unendurable, and to drive it out of consciousness at least for the moment! for that one re,uires an affect, as savage an affect as possible, and, in order to excite that, any
pretext at all."S Jessentiment in this context is a triple achievement! it produces an affect /rage, righteousness6 that overwhelms the hurt, it produces a culprit respon# sible for the hurt, and it produces a site of revenge to displace the hurt /a place to inflict hurt as the sufferer has been hurt6. Together these operations both ameliorate /in Miet7sche?s terms, >anaestheti7e>6 and externali7e what is otherwise >unendurable.>

I%e tity i %uce% resse time t ma0es e##ecti*e c"a ge im!ossi2le /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 *f ressentiment?s >cause> is suffering, its >creative deed> is the reworking of this

pain into a negative form of action, the >imaginary revenge> of what Miet7sche terms >natures denied the true reaction, that of deeds.>'' This revenge is achieved through the imposition of suffering >on whatever does not feel wrath and displeasure as he does >'/accomplished especially through the production of guilt6, through the establishment of suffering as the measure of social virtue, and through casting strength and good fortune />privilege> as we say today6 as self#recriminating, as its own indictment in a culture of suffering! >it is disgraceful to be fortunate, there is too much misery.>'E 8ut in its attempt to displace its suffering, identity structured by ressenti# ment at the same time becomes invested in its own sub ection. This invest# ment lies not only in its discovery of a site of blame for its hurt will, not only in its ac,uisition of recognition through its history of sub ection / a recogni# tion predicated on in ury, now righteously revalued6, but also in the satisfac# tions of revenge that ceaselessly reenact even as they redistribute the in uries of marginali7ation and subordination in a liberal discursive order that alter# nately denies the very possibility of these things or blames

those who experience them for their own condition. *dentity

politics structured by ressentiment reverses without subverting this blaming structure! it does not sub ect to criti,ue the sovereign sub ect of accountability that liberal indi# vidualism presupposes nor the economy of inclusion and exclusion that liberal universalism establishes. Thus politici7ed identity that presents itself as a self# affirmation now appears as the opposite, as predicated on and re,uiring its sustained re ection by a >hostile external world.>'@ O ly &ay to sol*e is to tra sitio #rom a culture o# 2lame to o e o# as!iratio ' t"is em2races t"e !ossi2ility o# #uturity &it"out mi imi)i g !ast e+!loitatio /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456

&hat if it were possible to incite a slight shift in the character of political expression and political claims common to much politici7ed identityC &hat if we sought to supplant the language of >* am>#with its defensive closure on identity, its insistence on the fixity of position, and its e,uation of social with moral positioning#with the language of reflexive >wanting>C &hat if it were possible to rehabilitate the memory of desire within identificatory processes, the moment in desire#either >to have> or >to be>#prior to its wounding and thus prior to the formation of identity at the site of the woundC &hat if >wanting to be> or >wanting to have> were taken up as modes of political speech that could destabili7e the formulation of identity as fixed position, as entrenchment by history, and as having necessary moral entail# ments, even as they affirm >position> and >history> as that which makes the speaking sub ect intelligible and locatable, as that which contributes to a hermeneutics for ad udicating desiresC *f every >* am> is something of a resolution of desire into fixed and sovereign identity, then this pro ect might involve not only learning to speak but to read >* am> this way, as in motion, as temporal, as not#*, as deconstructable according to a genealogy of want rather than as fixed interests or experiences. The sub ect
understood as an effect of a /ongoing6 genealogy of desire, including the social processes constitutive of, fulfilling, or frustrating desire, is in this way revealed as neither sovereign nor conclusive even as it is affirmed as an >*.> *n short, this partial dissolution of sovereignty into desire

could be that which reopens a desire for futurity where Miet7sche saw it sealed shut by festering wounds expressed as rancor and ressentiment. >This instinct for freedom pushed back and repressed ... incarcerated within.>-E

CNC O/A
T"e a##8s i%e tity !er#orma ce creates a !olitics o# su23ugatio &"ic" e ge %ers resse time t T"is e acts itsel# i t"e #orm o# sca!egoati g' re%istri2utes i 3uries a % re3ects e gageme t &it" ema ci!atory %emocratic !ro3ects 2ecause t"ey8re !ercei*e% as !art o# t"e Gsystem8 O ly em2raci g a !olitics o# #uturity a % tra sitio i g #rom a culture o# 2lame to as!iratio ca recog i)e !ast o!!ressio &"ile mo*i g i to more !ro%ucti*e social mo*eme ts' t"at8s /ro&

T/ <##ecti*e Politics
O!!ositio al !erso al !olitics !er!etuates su##eri g a % lea%s to !aralysis /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 Jevenge as a >reaction,> a substitute for the capacity to act, produces

identity as both bound to the history that produced it and as a reproach to the present that embodies that history. The will that >took to hurting> in its own impotence against its past becomes /in the form of an identity whose very existence is due to heightened consciousness of the immovability of its >it was,> its history of subordination6 a will that makes not only a psychological but a political practice of revenge, a practice that reiterates the existence of an identity whose present past is one of i nsistently unredeemable in ury. This past cannot be redeemed unless the identity ceases to be invested in it, and it cannot cease to be invested in it without giving up its identity as such, thus giving up its economy of avenging and at the same time perpetuating its hurt#>when he then stills the pain of the wound, he at the same time reinfects the wound. >-' *n its emergence as a protest against marginali7ation or subordination, politici7ed identity thus becomes attached to its own exclusion both because it is
premised on this exclusion for its very existence as identity and because the formation of identity at the site of exclusion, as exclusion, augments or >alters the direction of the suffering> entailed in subordination or marginali7ation by finding a site of blame for it. 8ut in so doing, i t installs its

pain over its unredeemed history in the very foundation of its political claim, in its demand for recognition as identity. *n locating a site of blame for its powerlessness over its past, as a past of in ury, a past as a hurt will, and locating a >reason> for the >unendurable pain> of social powerlessness in the present, i t converts this reasoning into an ethici7ing politics, a politics of recrimination that seeks to avenge the hurt even while it reaffirms it, discursively codifies it . Folitici7ed identity thus enunciates itself, makes claims for itself, only by entrenching, dramati7ing, and inscribing its pain in politics and can hold out no future#for itself or others#that triumphs over this pain. The loss of historical direction, and with it the loss of futurity characteristic of the late modern age, is thus homologically refigured in the structure of desire of the dominant political expression of the age#identity politics. *n the same way, the generali7ed political impotence produced by the ubi,uitous yet discontinuous networks of late modern politica l and economic power is reiterated in the investments of late modern democracy?s primary oppositional political formations. Politici)i g i%e tity creates !olitical im!ote ce' !ro!s u! systems o# e+!loitatio /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 Enter politici7ed identity, now conceivable in part as both product

of and >reaction> to this condition, where >reaction> ac,uires the meaning that Miet7sche ascribed to it, namely, as an effect of domination that reiterates impotence, a substitute for action, for power, for self#affirmation that reinscribes incapacity, powerlessness, and re ection. For Miet7sche, ressentiment itself is rooted in >reaction>#the substitution of reasons, norms, and ethics for deeds#and not only moral systems but identities themselves take their bearings in this reaction. 2 s Tracy 0trong reads this element of Miet7sche?s thought, *dentity . . . does not consist of an active component, but is a reaction to something outside= action in itself, with its inevitable self#assertive ,ualities, must then become something evil, since it is identified with that against which one is reacting. The will to power of slave morality must constantly reassert that which gives definition to the slave! the pain he suffers by being in the world . Lence any attempt to escape that pain will merely result in the reaffirmation of painful structures.'" Re3ecti g a et"ic o# *ictim"oo% %oes ot mea &e em2race #aile% !olitical mo*eme ts' 2ut s"i#ti g t"e #ocus #rom o tology to a tago istic %e2ate is 0/t s"a!e t"e #uture o# !olitical outcomes /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456

0uch a slight shift in the character of the political discourse of identity eschews the kinds of ahistorical or utopian turns against identity politics made by a nostalgic and broken humanist <eft as well as the reactionary and disingenuous assaults on politici7ed identity tendered by the Jight. Jather than opposing or seeking to transcend identity investments, the replacement # even the complex admixture#of the language of >being> with >wanting> would seek to exploit politically a recovery of the more expansive moments in the genealogy of identity formation. *t would seek to reopen the moment prior to its own foreclosure against its want, prior to the point at which its sovereign sub ectivity is established through such foreclosure and through eternal repetition of its pain. Low might democratic discourse itself be invigorated by such a shift from ontological claims to these kinds of more expressly political ones, claims which, rather than dispensing blame for an unlivable present, inhabited the necessarily agonistic theater of discursively forging an alternative futureC

T/ <+clusio
I%e tity !olitics re!licate e+clusio a % are i e*ita2ly re%uctio ist /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456

$ontemporary politici7ed identity contests the terms of liberal discourse insofar as it challenges liberalism?s universal >we> as a strategic fiction of historically hegemonic groups and asserts liberalism?s >*> as social #both relational and constructed by power#rather than contingent, private, or autarkic. Ket it reiterates the terms of liberal discourse insofar as it posits a sovereign and unified >*> that is disenfranchised by an exclusive >we.> *ndeed, * have suggested that politici7ed identity emerges and obtains its unifying coherence through the politici7ation of exclusion from an ostensible universal, as a protest against exclusion, a protest premised on the fiction of an inclusive/universal community, a protest that reinstalls the humanist ideal#and a specific white, middle#class, masculinist expression of this ideal#insofar as it premises itself on exclusion from it. Fut the other way around, politici7ed identities generated out of liberal, disciplinary societies, insofar as they are premised on exclusion from a universal ideal , re,uire that ideal, as well as their exclusion from it, for their own perpetuity as identities."- Folitici7ed identity is also potentially reiterative of regulatory, disciplinary society in its configuration of a disciplinary sub ect. *t is both produced by and potentially accelerates the production of that aspect of disciplinary society that >ceaselessly characteri7es, classifies, and speciali7es,> that works through >surveillance, continuous
registration, perpetual assessment, and classification,> through a social machinery >that is both immense and min# ute.>"E 2 recent example from the world of local politics makes clear politici7ed identity?s imbrication in disciplinary power, as well as the way in which, as Foucault reminds us, disciplinary power >infiltrates> rather than replaces liberal uridical modalities.?@ <ast year, the city council of my town reviewed an

ordinance, devised and promulgated by a broad coalition of identity#based political groups, w hich aimed to ban discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of>sexual orientation, transsexual# ity, age, height, weight, personal appearance, physical characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, sex or gender.>?: Lere is a perfect instance of the universal uridical idea of liberalism and the normali7ing principle of disciplinary regimes con oined and taken up within the discourse of politici7ed identity. This ordinance# variously called the >purple hair ordinance> or the >ugly ordinance> by national news media #aims to count every difference as no difference, as part of a seamless whole , but also to count every potentially subversive re ection of culturally enforced norms as themselves normal, as normali7# able, and as normativi7able through law. *ndeed, through the
definitional, procedural, and remedies section of this ordinance /e.g., >sexual orientation shall mean known or assumed homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexual# ity>6, persons are reduced to observable social attributes and practices= these are defined empirically, positivistically, as

if their existence were intrinsic and factual, rather than effects of discursive and institutional

power= and these positivist definitions of persons as their attributes and practices are written into law, ensuring that persons describable according to them will now become regulated through them. 8entham couldn?t have done it better. *ndeed, here is a perfect instance of how the language of unfreedom, how articulation in language, in the context of liberal and disciplinary discourse, becomes a vehicle of subordination through individuali7ation, normali7a# tion, and regulation, even as it strives to produce visibility and acceptance. Lere, also, is a perfect instance of the way in which differences that are the effects of social power are neutrali7ed through their articulation as attributes and their circulation through liberal administrative discourse! what do we make of a document that renders as uridical e,uivalents the denial of employment to an 2frican 2merican, an obese man, and a white middle#class youth festooned with tattoos and fuschia hairC

AT Morality
Calls #or moral %ecisio s create a culture o# im!ote ce' %e ies sel#'a##irmatio /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 *nsofar as what Miet7sche calls slave morality produces identity in reac# tion

to power, insofar as identity rooted in this reaction achieves its moral superiority by reproaching power and action themselves as evi l, identity structured by this ethos becomes deeply invested in its own impotence, even while it seeks to assuage the pain of its powerlessness through its vengeful morali7ing, through its wide distribution of suffering, through its reproach of power as such. Folitici7ed identity, premised on exclusion and fueled by the humiliation and suffering imposed by its historically structured impo# tence in the context of a discourse of sovereign individuals, is as likely to seek generali7ed political paralysis, to feast on generali7ed political impo# tence, as it is to seek its own or collective liberation. *ndeed it is more likely to punish and reproach#>punishment is what revenge calls itself= with a hypocritical lie it creates a good conscience for itself?#than to find venues of self#affirming action.':

***Ca! = Com!o e ts***

**IMPACTS**

Ca! T/Polici g
Ca!italism !er!etuates !olici g a % racism to ma+imi)e !ro#it' o ly reclaimi g t"e state #rom ca!italism ca e % t"is cycle a % lea% to re#orm <l =ilom2o I tergalactico ,6 /$ollective in 5urham M$ that interviewed 0ubcomandante *nsurgente .arcos (8EKOM5 JE0*0T2M$E!
E;EJKTL*M4,)libcom.org/files/beyondresistance.pdf//.456

The war with no front has two faces. The first is destruction. 2ny coherent logic and practice that allows for the organi7ation of life outside of capital, anything that allows us to identify ourselves as existing independent of capital, must be destroyed or, what may be the same thing, reduced to the ,uantifiable exchangeability of the world market. $ultures, languages, histories, memories, ideas, and dreams all must undergo this process. *n this regard, struggles for control over the production and subordination of raciali7ed and gendered identities becomes a central battlefield. 2ll the colors of the people of the earth face off with the insipid color of money. For the capitalist market, the ultimate goal is to make the entire world a desert of indifference populated only by e,ually indifferent and exchangeable consumers and producers. 2s a direct conse,uence, the (Empire of .oney) has turned much of its attention to destroying the material basis for the existence of the nation#state, as it was through this institution that for the last century humanity was able to, even if only marginally, keep the forces of money at bay. The second face is reorgani7ation. Once the (Empire of .oney) has sufficiently weakened the nation#state, it then reinvigorates this same institution for its own ends through the introduction of schemes intended to benefit the structure of the market itself, specifically the advent of privati7ation as government policy. This allows for the increasing intervention of the state with the end of minimi7ing its redistributive or social capacity and using it as a mechanism for the insistent imposition of the market. This imposition is so expansive that literally everything becomes a business opportunity, a site for speculation, or a marketable moment. &hat was previously a site for community strength /i.e. a mural6 is today simply a wall for corporate advertisement= what was previously knowledge passed down to be shared socially is today the site for the latest pharmaceutical patent= what yesterday was free and abundant today is bottled and sold. &ithout any social safety net and bombarded with images of an ever# present enemy, the logic of policing extends to that figure previously known as (the citi7en) of the former nation#state. This figure is today reconstituted as an atomistic self#policing sub ect, (a competitor) who enters /i.e. misses6 all encounters believing that (the other,) that which is not me, exists only to defeat me, or be defeated by me. 2 total war indeed. Today there is
simply no ,uiet corner to rest and catch one+s breath.

Ca! is t"e root cause o# racism Cole 5 /.ike $ole, 8ishop 4rosseteste Dniversity $ollege <incoln, D%, ($ritical Jace Theory comes to the D% ! 2 .arxist response), Ethnicities 'AAH
H! 'E:6

Ca! T/ Racism

&hile, for .arxists, it is certainly the case that there has been a continuity of racism for hundreds of years, the concept of Nwhite supremacy+ does not in itself explain this continuity, since it does not need to connect to modes of production and developments in capitalism. *t is true that .ills /"HHI6 provides a wide#ranging discussion of the history of economic exploitation, and that Freston /'AAI6 argues that $JT needs to be considered alongside .arxism. Lowever, unlike .arxism, there is no a priori need to connect with capitalist modes of production. Thus 4illborn /e.g. 'AA@, 'AA:a6 is able to make the case for $JT and Nwhite supremacy+ without providing a discussion of the relationship of racism to capitalism. For me, the .arxist concept of raciali7ation@ is most useful in articulating racism to modes of production, and * have developed these
links at length elsewhere /e.g. $ole, 'AAEa, 'AAEb6. .anning .arable /'AAE6 has used the concept of raciali7ation to connect to modes of production in the D0. Le has described the current era in the D0 as NThe Mew Jacial 5omain+ /MJ56. This Mew Jacial 5omain, he argues, is

Ndifferent from other earlier forms of racial domination, such as slavery, 1im $row segregation, and ghettoi7ation, or strict residential segregation, in several critical respects+. T"ese early #orms o# raciali)atio ( "e goes o ( &ere 2ase% !rimarily( i# ot e+clusi*ely( i t"e !olitical eco omy o# .S ca!italism9 N.eaningful social reforms such as the $ivil Jights 2ct of "H:E and the ;oting Jights 2ct of "H:@ were debated almost entirely within the context of 2merica+s expanding, domestic economy, and a background of %eynesian, welfare state public policies.+ The political economy of the Mew Jacial 5omain, on the other hand, is driven and largely determined by the forces of transnational capitalism, and the public policies of state neoliberalism, which rests on an unholy trinity, or deadly triad, of structural barriers to a decent life. These oppressive structures are mass unemployment, mass incarceration and mass disfranchisement, with each factor directly feeding and accelerating the others, Ncreating an ever#widening circle of social disadvantage, poverty, and civil death, touching the lives of tens of millions of D0 people+. For .arable, adopting a .arxist perspective, NThe process begins at the point of production. For decades, D0 corporations have been outsourcing millions of better# paying obs outside the country.The class warfare against unions has led to a steep decline in the percentage of D0 workers.+ 2s .arable concludes! &ithin whole D0 urban neighborhoods losing virtually their entire economic manufacturing and industrial employment, and with neoliberal social policies in place cutting ob training programs, welfare, and public housing, millions of 2mericans now exist in conditions that exceed the devastation of the 4reat 5epression of the "H-As. *n 'AAE, in Mew Kork+s $entral Larlem community, @A percent of all black male adults were currently unemployed. &hen one considers that this figure does not count those black males who are in the military, or inside prisons, it+s truly ama7ing and depressing. .oreover, the new obs being generated for the most part lack the health benefits, pensions, and wages that manufacturing and industrial employment once offered.

Ca! T/ Corru!tio
Fla&s i t"e state ca 2e trace% 2y to ca!italism' re3ecti g it is a a !riori co cer <l =ilom2o I tergalactico ,6 /$ollective in 5urham M$ that interviewed 0ubcomandante *nsurgente .arcos (8EKOM5 JE0*0T2M$E!
E;EJKTL*M4,)libcom.org/files/beyondresistance.pdf//.456 First, 0tates! the 0tate in the Empire of .oney, as mentioned above,

is reorgani7ed. *t is now the (downsi7ed) state where any semblance of collective welfare is eliminated and replaced with the logic of individual safety, with the most repressive apparatuses of the 0tate, the police and the 2rmy, unleashed to enforce this logic. This state is in no way
smaller in the daily lives of its sub ects= rather, it is guaranteed that the power of this institution /collective spending6 is directed purely toward new armaments and the increasing presence of the police in daily life. 0econd, 2rmies! the 2rmy in previous eras was assumed to exist for the protection of a national population from foreign invasion. Today, in the structural absence of such a threat, the army is redirected to respond with

violence to manage /and yet never solve6 a series of never#ending local conflicts /2tenco, Oaxaca, Mew Orleans6 that potentially threaten the overall stability of international markets. *n other words, as the EX<M points out, these armies can no longer be considered (national) in any meaningful sense= they are instead various precinct divisions of a global police force under the direction of the (Empire of .oney.) Third, Folitics! the politics of the politicians /i.e. the actions of the legislative, executive, and udiciary branches6 has been completely eliminated as a site for public deliberation, or for the construction of the previously existing E nation#state. The politics of the politicians has been redirected and its new function is that of the implementation and administration of the local influence of transnational corporations . &hat was previously national politics has been replaced with what the EX<M refers to as (megapolitics)9the read ustment of local policy to global financial interests.
Thus the sites that once actually mediated among local actors are now additionally charged with the mission of creating the image that such mediation continues to take place. *t is best to be careful then and not believe that the politicians and their parties /be they right wing or (progressive)6 are of no use= rather, it is important to note that today their very purpose is the outright simulation of social dialogue /that is, they are of no use TO D0P6.

Dou must re3ect t"e *iole ce &it"i ca!italism 7 it8s costs are 2eyo % calculatio Daly F R5aly, 0enior <ecturer in Folitics in the Faculty of 2rts and 0ocial 0ciences at Dniversity $ollege, Morthhampton, $onversations with Xi7ek p.
"E#": //liamT

Re3ectio A Priori

For Xi7ek it is imperative that we cut through this 4ordian knot of postmodern protocol and recogni7e that our ethico#political responsibility is to confront the constitutive violence of today+s global capitalism and its obscene naturali7ation/anonymi7ation of the millions who are sub ugated by it throughout the world. 2gainst the standardi7ed positions of postmodern culture O with all its pieties concerning Nmulticulturalist+ eti,uette O Xi7ek is arguing for a politics that might be called Nradically incorrect+ in the sense that it breaks with these types of positions and focuses instead on the very organi7ing principles of today+s social reality! the principles of global liberal capitalism. This re,uires some care and subtlety. For far too long, .arxism has been bedeviled by an almost fetishistic economism that has tended towards political morbidity . &ith the likes of Lilferding and 4ramsci, and more
recently <aclau and .ouffe, crucial theoretical advances have been made that enable the transcendence of all forms of economism. *n this new context, however, Xi7ek argues that the problem that now presents itself is almost that of the opposite fetish. That is to say,

the prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can function as a way of not engaging with economic reality and as a way of implicitly accepting the latter as a basic hori7on of existence. *n an ironic Freudian# <acanian twist, the fear of economism can end up reinforcing a de facto economic necessity in respect of contemporary capitalism /i.e. the initial prohibition con ures up the very thing it fears6. This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism. Xi7ek+s point is rather that in re ecting economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the lives and destinies of humanity and our very sense of the possible. *n particular we should not overlook .arx+s central insight that in order to create universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the politico# discursive violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. &hat is persistently denied by neo#liberals such as Jorty /"HSH6 and Fukuyama /"HH'6 is that the gentrification of global liberal capitalism is one whose Nuniversalism+ fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world+s population. *n this way, neo#liberal ideology attempts to naturali7e capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they were simply a matter of chance and sound udgment in a neutral marketplace . $apitalism does indeed create a space for a certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say, the human cost in terms of inherent global poverty and degraded Nlife chances+ cannot be calculated within the existing economic rationale and, in conse,uence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless /vi7. the patroni7ing reference to the Ndeveloping world+6. 2nd Xi7ek+s point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism+s profound capacity to ingest its own excesses and negativity! to redirect /or misdirect6 social antagonisms and to absorb them within a culture of differential affirmation .
*nstead of 8olshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political bouti,uism that is readily sustained by postmodern forms of consumerism and lifestyle.

Mo%er le#tist struggles are stuc0 &it"i coor%i ates o# ca!italismKt"eir e##orts o ly ser*e to regulate t"e &orst e+cesses o# ca!italism &it"out c"alle gi g its glo2al %estructio Ui)e0 F R0lavo , Frof of 0ociology at the *nstitute for 0ociology at < ubl ana Dniv, &onversations -ith .i/ek, pg "ES#HT .y position is almost classical .arxist in the sense that * would insist that anti#capitalist struggle is not simply one among other political struggles for greater e,uality, cultural recognition, anti#sexism and so on. * believe in the central structuring role of the anti#capitalist struggle. 2nd * don+t think that my position is as cra7y or idiosyncratic as it appeared maybe a couple a years ago. *t is not only the so#called 0eattle .ovement= there are many other signals that demonstrate9how shall * put itC9capitalism is becoming a problem again= that the honeymoon of globali7ation , which lasted through the "HHAs, is coming to an end. *t+s in this context that we can also understand the incredible successes of Megri and Lardt+s Empire, which points out that people are again perceiving capitalism as a problem. *t is no longer the old story that the ideological battles are over and that capitalism has won. Ca!italism is o ce more a !ro2lem9 This would be my starting point. 2nd * am not thinking of anti#capitalist struggle ust in terms of consumerist movements. This is not enough. &e need to do more than simply organi7e a multitude of sites of resistance against capitalism 9 T"ere is a 2asic ecessity to tra slate t"is resista ce i to a more glo2al !ro3ect 9otherwise we will merely be creating regulatory instances that control on the worst excesses of capitalism . GDJ This also appears to be at
the base of your dispute with Ernesto <aclau O in 1. 8utler /et al.6 $ontingency, Legemony, and Dniversality O where you seem to be arguing that the existing political struggles are already caught up in a certain liberal capitalist ethos and that the contemporary logiics of hegemony are already hegemoni7ed= already configured within the capital processes themselvesV SQJ Kes, * agree with your formulation that hegemony itself

Glo2al Destructio M!+

is hegemoni7ed. *n what senseC * think that the idea that today we no longer have a central struggle but a multitude of struggles is a fake one, because we shouldn+t forget that the group for this multitude of struggles was created by modern global capitalism. This doesn+t devaluate these struggles! * am not saying they are not real struggles. * am saying that the passage from old#fashioned class struggle to all these post#modern struggles of ecological, cultural, sexual etc. struggles is one that is opened up by global capitalism. T"e grou % o# t"ese struggles is glo2al ca!italism.

T"ey misrea% sla*ery9 No &"ere is t"e #ailure o# t"e a##8s !ara%igm more e*i%e t t"e i t"eir argume t &e s"oul% 2egi &it" sla*ery9 T"e a##8s re'telli g o# t"e "istory o# sla*ery omits t"e ce tral cause o# t"e sla*e'tra%eJ class9 A2se t a accurate u %ersta %i g o# "istorical !rocess( t"ey ca ot "o!e to re%ress t"e "arms o# !ast i 3ustice9 Dar%er, a % Torress, ,F R2ntonia, Frof of education policy studies at D of *llinois, and Jodolfo, 2ssociate prof of latino studies at D$ *rvine, 2fter Jace! Jacism after multiculturalism, p.:#S //liamT
2lthough today (race) is generally linked to phenotypic characteris tics, there is a strong consensus among evolutionary biologists and ge netic anthropologists that (biologically identifiable human races do not exist= Lomo sapiens constitute a single species, and have been so since their evolution in 2frica and throughout their migration around the world) /<ee, .ountain, and %oenig 'AA", -H6. This perspective is simi lar to that which existed prior to the eighteenth century, when the notion that there were distinct populations whose differences were grounded in biology did not exist. For the 4reeks, for example, the term (barbarian) was tied to how civili7ed a people were considered to be /generally based on language rather than genetics6. 0o how

Root Cause Sla*ery

did all this beginC 4eorge Fredrickson /'AA'6, writing on the history of racism, identifies the anticipatory moment of modern racism with the (treatment of 1ew ish converts to $hristianity in fifteenth# and sixteenth#century 0pain. $onversos were identified and discriminated against because of the belief held by $hristians that the impurity of their blood made them incapable of experiencing a true conversio n) /-"6. Fredrickson argues that the racism inherent in the ,uasi#religious, 0panish doctrine of limpe7a de sangre, referring to purity of blood, set the stage for the spread of racism to the Mew &orld! To the extent that it was enforced represented the stigmati7ation of an entire ethnic group on the basis of deficiencies that allegedly
could not be eradicated by conversion or assimilation. *nherited social status was nothing new= the concept of (noble blood) had long meant that the off spring of certain families were born with a claim to high status. 8ut when the status of large numbers of people was depressed purely and simply because of their derivation from a denigrated ethnos, a line had been crossed that gave (race) a new and more comprehensive significance. /--6 Lence,

religious notions, steeped in an ideology of (race,) played a significant role in the exportation of racism into the 2mericas, wheiie domination by the superior (race) was perceived as (inevitable and de sirable, because it was thought to lead to human progress) /$astles "HH:, '"6. The emergence of (race) as ideology can also be traced to the rise of nationalism. Efforts by nation#states to extend or deny rights of citi7enship contingent on (race) or (ethnicity) were not uncommon , even within so#called democratic
republics. Lere, national mythology about those with (the biological unfitness for full citi7enship) /Fredrickson 'AA', :S6 served to sanction exclusionary practices, despite the fact that all people shared (the historical process of migration and intermingling) /$astles "HH:, '"6. Lerein is contained the logic behind what ;alle and Torres /'AAA6 term (the policing of race,) a condition that results in official policies and practices by the nation#state designed to exclude or curtail the rights of raciali7ed populations. *n 4ermany, the Ma7i regime took the logic of (race) to

its pinnacle, rendering 1ewish and 4ypsy pop ulations a threat to the state, thus rationali7ing and ustifying their demise. This example disrupts the notion that racism occurs only within the context of black#white relation s. *nstead, $astles /"HH:6 argues that economic exploitation has always been central to the emergence of racism . &hether it incorporated slavery or indentured servitude, racial i7ed systems of labor were perpetrated in Europe against inunigrants, in cluding *rish, 1ewish, and Folish workers, as well as against indigenous populations around the world . *n the
midst of the (scientific) penchant of the eighteenth century, $arolus <inneaus developed one of the first topologies to actually cate gori7e human beings into four distinct subspecies! americanus, asiaticus, africanus, and europeaeus. <inneaus+s classification, allegedly neutral and scientific, included not only physical features but also behavioral charac teristics, hierarchically arranged in accordance with the prevailing social values and the political# economic interests of the times. The predictable result is the current ideological configuration of (race). used to both ex plain and control social behavior. Etienne 8alibar+s /'AA-6 work on racism is useful in understanding the ideological ustifications that historically have accompanied the exclu sion and domination of raciali7ed populations9a phenomenon heavily fueled by the tensions of internal migration in the $urrent era of global i7ation. RJTacism describes in an abstract ideali7ing manner (types of human ity,) and. . . makes extensive use of classifications which allow all indi viduals and groups to imagine answers for the most immediate existen tial ,uestions, such as imposition of identities and the permanence of vi olence between nations, ethnic or religious communities. /-6 8alibar also points to the impact of (symbolic pro ections and media tions) /in particula= stereotypes and pre udices linked to divine#human ity or bestial#animality6 in the construction of raciali7ed formations. ( Jacial) classification becomes associated with a

distinction between the (properly human) and its imaginary /animal#like6 (other.) 0uch pro ec tions and mediations, 8alibar argues, are inscribed with modernity+s ex pansionist rationality9a ,uasi#humanist conception that suggests that differences and ine,ualities are the result of une,ual access and social ex clusion from cultural, political, or intellectual life but also implies that these differences and ine,ualities represent normal patterns, given the level of (humanity) or (animality) attributed to particular populations. 1ames 8aldwin in (2 Talk to Teachers) /"HSS6 links this phenomenon of raciali7ation to the political economy and its impact on 2frican 2meri cans .The point of all this is that 8lack men were brought here as a source of cheap labor. They were indispensable to the economy. *n order to ustify the fact that men were treated as though they were animals, the white re public had to brain wash itself into believing that they were indeed ani mals and deserved to be treated like animals. /I6 <ee, .ountain, and %oenig /'AA"6 note, ( the taxonomy of race has al ways been and continues to be primarily political ) /E-6. 0ince politics and economics actually constitute one sphere, it is more precise to say that the ideology of (race) continues to be primarily about political economy. Thus, historians of (race) and racism argue that the idea of immutable, biologically determined (races) is a direct outcome of exploration and colonialism, which furnished the (scientific) ustification for the eco nomic exploitation, slavery, and even genocide of those groups perceived as subhuman.

**LIN=S**

Fetis"i)i g 2lac0 su23ecti*ity ma0es class i *isi2leK#aili g to ta0e i to accou t t"ese racist relatio s i t"e ame o# eco omic !rogress Dou g B RJobert, 2sst Frof of English at Dniv of 2labama, Futting .aterialism 8ack into Jace Theory,
http!//www.redcriti,ue.org/&inter0pring'AA:/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm //liamT *ndeed, the discourse of the sub ect operates as an ideological strategy for fetishi7ing conse,uently, it

/lac0 Su23ecti*ity Li 0

the black experience and , positions black sub ectivity beyond the reach of .arxism. For example, in the 0frocentric 1dea, 2sante dismisses .arxism because it is Eurocentric /S6, but are the core concepts of .arxism, such as class and mode of production, only relevant for European social formationsC 2re 2frican and 2frican#2merican social histories/relations unshaped by class structuresC 2sante assumes that class hierarchies do not structure 2frican or the 2frican# 2merican social experiences, and this reveals the class politics of 2frocentricity! it makes class invisible. 2sante?s assumption,
which erases materialism, enables him to offer the idealist formulation that the >word creates reality> /IA6. The political translation of such idealism is not surprisingly very conservative. 2sante directs us away from criti,uing capitalist institutions, in a manner similar to the ideological protocol of the .illion .an .arch, and calls for vigilance against symbolic oppression. 2s 2sante tellingly puts it, >symbol imperialism, rather than institutional racism, is the ma or social problem facing multicultural societies> /@:6. *n the realm of 2frican#2merican philosophy , Loward .c4ary 1r. also deploys the discourse of the /black6 sub ect to mark the limits of .arxism. For instance, in a recent interview, .c4ary offers this humanist re ection of .arxism! >* don?t think that the levels of alienation experienced by 8lack people are rooted primarily in economic relations> /*nterview HA6. For .c4ary, black alienation exceeds the logic of .arxist theory and thus .c4ary?s idealist assertion that >the sense of alienation experienced by 8lack people in the D0 is also rooted in the whole idea of what it means to be a human being and how that has been understood> /*nterview HA6. .c4ary confuses causes and effects and then misreads .arxism as a descriptive modality.

.arxism is not concerned as much with descriptive accounts, the effects, as much as it is with explanatory accounts. That is, it is concerned with the cause of social alienation because such an explanatory account acts as a guide for praxis. 0ocial alienation is an historical effect and its explanation does not reside in the experience itself= therefore, it needs explanation and such an explanation emerges from the transpersonal space of concepts. *n theori7ing the specificity of black alienation, .c4ary reveals his contradictory ideological coordinates . First, he argues that black alienation results from cultural >beliefs>. Then, he suggests that these cultural >norms> and >practices> develop from slavery and 1im $row, which are fundamentally economic relations for the historically specific exploitation of black people. *f these cultural norms endogenously emerge from the economic systems of slavery and 1im $row, as .c4ary correctly suggests, then and contrary to .c4ary?s expressed position, black alienation is very much rooted in economic relations. .c4ary?s desire to place black sub ectivity beyond .arxism creates contradictions in his text. .c4ary asserts that the
economic structures of slavery and 1im $row shape cultural norms. Thus in a post#slavery, post#1im $row era, there would still be an economic structure maintaining contemporary oppressive norms9from .c4ary?s logic this must be the case. Lowever, .c4ary remains silent on the

contemporary economic system structuring black alienation! capitalism. 2pparently, it is legitimate to foreground and criti,ue the historical connection between economics and alienation but any in,uiry into the present day connection between economics and alienation is off limits . This other economic structure9capitalism9 remains the unsaid in .c4ary?s discourse, and conse,uently he provides ideological support for capitalism 9the
exploitative infrastructure which produces and maintains alienation for blacks as well as for all working people. *n a very revealing moment, a moment that confirms my reading of .c4ary?s pro#capitalist position, he asserts that >it is possible for 2frican#2mericans to combat or overcome this form of alienation described by recent writers without overthrowing capitalism> /'A6. Lere, in a most lucid way, we see the ideological connection

between the superstructure /philosophy6 and the base /capitalism6. Fhilosophy provides ideological support for capitalism, and, in this instance, we can also see how philosophy carries out class politics at the level of theory /2lthusser Lenin "S6. .c4ary points out >that 8lack people have been used in ways that white people have not> /H"6. Lis observation may be true, but it does not mean that whites have not also been >used>= yes, whites may be >used> differently, but they are still >used> because that is the logic of exploitative regimes 9people are >used>, that is to say, their labor is commodified and exchanged for profit. .c4ary?s interview signals what * call an >isolationist> view. This view disconnects black alienation from other social relations= hence, it ultimately reifies race, and, in doing so, suppresses materialist in,uiries into the class logic of race. That is to say, the meaning of race is not to be found within its own internal dynamics
but rather in dialectical relation to and as an ideological ustification of the exploitative wage#labor economy. This isolationist position finds a fuller and, no less problematic, articulation in $harles &. .ills? 2he Racial &ontract, a text which undermines the possibility for a transracial transformative political pro ect. .ills evinces the ideological assumptions and conse,uent politics of the isolationist view in a long endnote to chapter ". .ills privileges race oppression, but, in doing so, he must suppress other forms of oppression, such as gender and class. .ills acknowledges that there are gender and class relations within the white population, but he still privileges race, as if the black community is not similarly divided along gender and class lines. Lence, the ideological necessity for .ills to execute a double move! he must marginali7e class difference within the white community and suppress it within the black community. $onse,uently, .ills removes the possibility of connecting white supremacy, a political#cultural structure, to its underlying economic base. .ills empiricist framework mystifies our understanding of race. *f >white racial solidarity has overridden class and gender solidarity> /"-S6, as he proposes, then what is needed is an explanation of this racial formation. *f race is the >identity around which whites have

usually closed ranks> /"-S6, then why is the caseC &ithout an explanation, it seems as if white solidarity reflects some kind of metaphysical alliance. &hite racial solidarity is an historical articulation that operates to defuse class antagonism within white society, and it is maintained and reproduced through discourses of ideology. The race contract provides whites with an imaginary resolution of actual social contradictions, which are not caused by blacks, but by an exploitative economic structure. The race contract enables whites to scapegoat blacks and such an ideological operation displaces any understanding of the exploitative machinery. Lence, the race contract provides a political cover which

ensures the ideological reproduction of the conditions of exploitation , and this reproduction further deepens the social
contradictions9the economic position of whites becomes more and more depressed by the very same economic system that they help to ideologically reproduce.

T"eir !olitics re%uces all struggles to a c"ai o# e4ui*ale cesJ T"eir a alysis o# !o&er relatio s t"roug" t"e le s o# race ma0es re%ressi g i 3ustice im!ossi2le 7 2y ma0i g ca!italism 3ust a ot"er !art o# a c"ai o# e4ui*ale ces o# o!!ressio ( rat"er t"a t"e totali)i g social system &"ic" materially u %er!i s o!!ressio ( t"ey %erail a y real !olitical mo*eme t9 Dar%er, a % Torress, ,F R2ntonia, Frof of education policy studies at D of *llinois, and Jodolfo, 2ssociate prof of latino studies at D$ *rvine, 2fter Jace! Jacism after multiculturalism, p. //liamT
0ince the "HIAs, much of the progressive literature on subordinate cul tural populations has utili7ed the construct of (race) as a central category of analysis for interpreting social conditions of ine,uality and marginal i7ation. *n turn, this literature has adhered to a perspective of (race) as identity. This (raced) identity has received overwhelming attention in both the sociological and political arenas. Dnfortunately, the unrelenting emphasis

C"ai o# <4ui*ale ces Li 0

on (identity) unleashed a barrage of liberal and conservative political movements that unwittingly undermined the socialist pro ect of emancipation in this country and abroad . Jadical mass organi7ations that had once worked to spearhead
actions for economic democracy, human rights, and social ustice were crippled by the fury. *n the midst of the blinding celebratory affirmations of identity, neoliberal efforts to sei7e greater dominion over international markets proliferated and globali7ation became the policy bu77word of D.0. economic imperialism at the end of the twentieth century. 4iven this legacy, it is not surprising that many of the theories, practices, and policies that inform the social science analysis of raciali7ed pop ulations today are overwhelmingly rooted in a politics of identity. $onse,uently this approach9

steeped in deeply insular perspectives of (race) and representation9has often ignored the imperatives of capitalist mulation and the presence of class divisions among raciali7ed popula tions , even though, as 1ohn .ichael
/'AAA6 reminds us, (identity cate gories and groups are always Rraciali7edT and gendered and inflected by class) /'H6. 2s we have previously stated, much of the literature on critical race theory lacks a substantive analysis of class and a criti,ue of capitalism, and when class issues are mentioned, the emphasis is usually on an un differentiated plurality that intersects with multiple oppressions. Dnfor tunately, this (new pluralism) fails to grapple with the relentless totali7 ing dimension of capitalism and its overwhelming tendency to homoge ni7e rather than to diversify human experience /&ood "HHE6. 0trongly influenced by a politics of identity, critical race theorists in corporate the intersectionality argument+ to refer to their examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation and how the com bination of these identities plays out in various settings /5elgado and 0te fancic 'AA"6. This school of thought, common to progressive scholarship, generally includes a laundry list of oppressions /race, class, gender, ho mophobia, and the like6 that are to be engaged with e,ual weight in the course of ascribing plurali7ed sensibilities to any political pro ect that proposes to theori7e social ine,ualities. Lence, inadvertently in the name of recogni7ing and celebrating difference and diversity, this analytical

construct reduces (the capitalist system /or the Neconomy+6 to one of many spheres in the plural and heterogeneous complexity of modern society) /&ood "HH@, 'E'6. &ood argues that the intersectionality argument represents a distorted appropriation of
2ntonio 4ramsci+s notion of (civil society,) which was explicitly intended to function as a weapon against capitalism by identi fying potential spaces of freedom outside the state for autonomous, vol untary organi7ation and plurality. Lowever, as used by many on the left to link multiple oppressions to specific plural identities, the concept has been stripped of its une,uivocal, anticapitalist intent. &ood speaks to the danger inherent in this analytical twist. Lere, the danger lies in the fact that the totali7ing logic and the coercive power of capitalism is reduced to one set of

institutions and relations among many others, on a conceptual par with households or voluntary associations . 0uch a reduction is, in fact, the principal distinctive feature of (civil society) in its new incarnation. *ts effect is to conceptuali7e away the problem of capitalism, by disaggregating society into fragments , with no overarching power
structure, no totali7ing unity, no systemic coercion9in other words, no capitalist system, with its expansionary drive and its capacity to penetrate every aspect of social life. /&ood "HH@, 'E@6 This denial of the totali7ing force of capitalism does not simply substantiate the

existence of plural identities and relations that should be e,ually privileged and given weight as modes of domination. The logic of this ar gument fails to recogni7e that (the class relation that constitutes capital, is not , after all, ust a personal identity, nor even ust a principle of Nstratification+ or ine,uality. *t is not only a specific system of power rela tions but also the constitutive relation of a distinctive social process , the # dynamic of accumulation and the self#expansion of
capital) /&ood "HH@, 'E:6. Furthermore, such logic ignores the fact that notions of identity result from a process of identification with a particular configuration of histor ically lived or transferred social arrangements and practices tied to mate# # rial conditions of actual or imagined survival. The intersectionality argu ment fails to illuminate the manner in which commonly identified diverse social spheres or plural identities exist (within the determinative force of capitalism, its system of social property relations, its expansionary im peratives, its drive for accumulation, its coinmodification of all social life, its creation of the market as a necessity, and so on) /&ood "HH@, 'E:6. There is no ,uestion but that racism as an ideology is

integral to the process of capital accumulation. The failure to confront this dimension in an analysis of contemporary society as a raciali7ed phenomenon or to continue to treat class as merely one of a multiplicity of /e,ually valid6 # perspectives, which may or may not (intersect) with the process of racial i7ation, is a serious shortcoming. *n addressing this
issue, we must recogni7e that even progressive 2frican 2merican and <atino scholars and ac tivists have often used identity politics, which generally glosses over class differences and/or ignores class contradictions, in an effort to build a po litical base . $onstructions of (race) are

ob ectified and mediated as truth to ignite political support, divorced from the realities of class struggle . 8y so doing, race#centered scholars have unwittingly perpetuated the vacu ous and dangerous notion that politics and economics are two separate spheres of society which function independently9a view that firmly anchors and sustains prevailing class relations of power in society.

Critical Pe%agogy Li 0
Critical !e%agogy !er!etuates ca!italism' %oome% to 2e i e##ecti*e u less it a%o!ts a ca!ital' ce tric a!!roac" McLare C0' !ro# at .CLA /Feter, (%nowledge and power in the global economy,) edited by 5avid 4abbard, $hapter -H. &ritical
"eda%o%#//.453 $ritical pedagogy has become closely allied with multicultural education /.c<aren, "HH@= 0leeter W .c<aren, "HH@6. Lowever,

ust as we have witnessed in the pro ect of critical pedagogy an avoidance of issues related to class and the social relations of production, so too have we witnessed in multicultural education an absence of discussions linking the practice of racism to capitalist social relations. $onse,uently, both critical pedagogy and multicultural education need to address themselves to the adaptive persistence of capitalism and to issues of capitalist imperialism and its specific manifestation of accumulative capacities through con,uest /which we know as colonialism6. *n other words, critical pedagogy needs to establish a pro ect of emancipation centered around the transformation of property relations and the creation of a ust system of appropriation and distribution of social wealth. The domestication of critical pedagogy has not infirmed its revolutionary potential.

;i! "o! is %ea%9 T"e a##8s use o# "i!'"o! is a yt"i g 2ut re*olutio ary 7 t"e a!!eal to aut"e tic local !ractices o# e+!erie tial 0 o&le%ge rei tre c"es t"e #a2le o# i%e tity a % ma0es a co"ere t criti4ue o# ca!italism im!ossi2le9 T"eir co ce!tio t"at "i!'"o! is ecessarily tra s#ormati*e is 3ust a ot"er mea s to co*ertly esse tiali)e i%e tity a % o2scure t"e tools o# class a alysis9 Dar%er, a % Torress, ,F R2ntonia, Frof of education policy studies at D of *llinois, and Jodolfo, 2ssociate prof of latino studies at D$ *rvine, 2fter Jace! Jacism after multiculturalism, p. "A"#E //liamT
The process of signification is at work in the emphasis that critical race theory places on (experiential knowledge) /5elgado "HH@= <adson 8il*h0gs "HHH6. Jobin 8arnes /"HHA6 notes that ($ritical race theorists... iisirgrate their experiential knowledge, drawn from a shared history as NO1er+ with their ongoing struggles to transform a world deteriorating under the albatross of racial hegemony) /"S:E9:@6. *n concert with this privileging of experience, critical

;i! ;o! Li 0

race theory employs narratives and storytelling as a central method of in,uiry to (analy7e the myths, presuppositions, and received wisdoms that make up the common culture about race and that invariably render blacks and other minorities one#down) /5elgado "HH@, xiv6. The results of this storytelling method are theori7ed and then
utili7ed to draw conclusions meant to impact public policy and institutional practices. The narrative and storytelling method employed by critical race theo rists sought to criti,ue essentialist narratives in law, education, and the social sciences . *n place of a systematic analysis of class

and capitalist relations, critical race theory constructs (race)#centered responses to Eu rocentrism and white privilege. 5elgado 8ernal /'AA'6 affirms the valid. icy of this position, arguing that &estern modernism is a network or grid of broad assumptions
and be liefs that are deeply embedded in the way dominant &estern culture constructs the nature of the world and one+s experiences in it. *n the Dnited 0tates, the center of this grid is a Eurocentric epistemological per spective based on &hite privilege. /"""6 The narrative method based on this perspective (has become especially successful among groups committed to making the voice of the voiceless heard in the public arena) /;iotti da $osta 'AA", '"6. Lowever, despite an eagerness to include the participation of historically excluded populations, scholars who

embrace the poetics of the narrative approach often (fail to challenge the underlying socioeconomic, political and cultural structures that have excluded these groups to begin with and have sus tained the illusion of choice )
/&atts "HH", :@'6. Thus, the narrative and storytelling approach can render the scholarship antidialectical by creat ing a false dichotomy between ob ectivity and sub ectivity, (forgetting that one is implied in the other, Rwhile ignoringT a basic dialectical prm ciple! that men and women make history, but not under the conditions of their own choosing) /;iotti da $osta 'AA", 'A6. &e agree that ( cultural resources and funds of knowledge such as myths, folk tales, dichos, conse os, kitchen talk, RandT autobiographical stories) /5elgado 8ernal 'AA', "'A6 employed by critical race theory canilluminate particular concrete manifestations of racism. Lowever, we contend that they can also prove problematic in positing a

broader un derstanding of the fundamental macrosocial dynamics which shape the conditions that give rise to the (micro#aggressions) /0ol\r7ano "HHS6 of racism in the first place. *n an incisive criti,ue of the narrative approach, Emilia ;iott da
$osta /'AA"6 argues, The new paths it opened for an investigation of the process of construc tion and articulation of multiple and often contradictory identities /eth nic, class, gender, nationality and so on6, often led to the total neglect of the concept of class as an interpretive category. . . . &hat started as . . . a criti,ue of .arxism, has fre,uently led to a complete sub ectivism, to the denial of the possibility of knowledge and sometimes even to the ,uestioning of the boundaries between history and fiction, fact and fancy.) /"H6 Jobin %elley, in his book Ko+ .ama+s 5isFDM%tional /"HHI6, offers the following illuminating and sobering commentary regarding the limits of personal experience and storytelling! * am not claiming absolute authority or authenticity for having lived there. On the contrary, it is because * did not know what happened to our world, to my neighbors, my elders, my peers, our streets, buildings, parks, our health, that * chose not to write a memoir. *ndeed, if * relied on memory alone * would invariably have more to say about devouring 4ood and Fleneys or melting crayons on the radiator than about eco nomic restructuring, the disappearance of obs, and the dismantling of the welfare state. /E9@6 Lence, we believe the use of critical race theory in education and the social sciences in general,

despite authors+ intentions, can unwittingly serve purposes that are fundamentally conservative or mainstream at best. Three additional but related concerns with the storytelling narrative method are also at issue here. One is the tendency to romantici7e the ex perience of marginali7ed groups, privileging the narratives and discourses of (people of coloi) solely based on their experience of oppression, as if a people+s entire politics can be determined solely by their in dividual location in history. The second is the tendency to dichotomi7e and (overhomogeni7e) both (white) people and (people of color) with respect to ,uestions of voice and political representation /;iotti da $osta 'iO"6. 2nd the third, anticipated by $. <. J. 1ames in "HE-, is the in inevitable (exaggerations excesses and ideological trends for which the only possible name is chauvinism) /.c<emee "HH:, S:6. Dnfortunately, these tendencies, whether academic or political, can result in unintended essentialism and superficiality in our theori7ing of broader social in e,ualities, as well as the solutions derived from such theories. Ket, truth be told, prescribed views of humanity are seldom the reality, whatever be their source.
Luman beings who share phenotypical traits seldom respond to the world within the $onstraints of essentials7ed ex pectations and perceptions. Lence, any notion of (racial) solidarity (must run up against the hard facts of political economy ... and enormous class disparities) within raciali7ed $ommunities /4ates "HHI, -:6. This is why 4ilroy /'AAA6 warns against (short#cut solidarity) attitudes that assume that a person+s political allegiance can be determined by his or her (race) or that a (shared history) will guarantee an emancipatory woridview. For this reason, we argue that such

declarations, though they may sound reasonable, commonsensical, or even promising as literary contributions, have little utility in explaining (how and why power is constituted, reproduced and transformed ) /;iotti da $osta
'AA", ''6.

Li 0 o# Ommissio
Failure to %iscuss ca!italism arti#icially i #lates ot"er sources o# e+!loitatio ' tur s t"e case /ro& 5-' P"D i !olitical !"iloso!"y #rom Pri ceto ( !ro# at .C /er0eley /&endy, (&ounded
2ttachments,) Folitical Theory, ;ol. '", Mo. - /2ug., "HH-6, pp. -HA#E"A, 10TOJ//.456 &hat this suggests is that identity politics may be partly configured by a peculiarly shaped and peculiarly disguised resentment#class

form of resent# ment without class consciousness or class analysis. This resentment is displaced onto discourses of in ustice other than class but, like all resent# ments, retains the real or imagined holdings of its reviled sub ect# in this case, bourgeois male privileges#as ob ects of desire. From this perspective, it would appear that the articulation of politici7ed identities through race, gender, and sexuality re,uire, rather than incidentally produce, a relatively limited identification through class. They necessarily rather than incidentally ab ure a criti,ue of class power and class norms precisely because the in uries suffered by these identities are measured by bourgeois norms of social acceptance, legal protection, relative material comfort, and social indepen# dence. The problem is that when not only economic stratification but other in uries to body and psyche enacted by capitalism /alienation, commodifica# tion, exploitation, displacement, disintegration of sustaining, albeit contra# dictory, social forms such as families and neighborhoods6 are discursively normali7ed and thus depolitici7ed, other markers of social difference may come to bear an inordinate weight. 2bsent an articulation of capitalism in the political discourse of identity, the marked identity bears all the weight of the sufferings produced by capitalism in addition to that bound to the explicitly politici7ed marking.

1"ite ess Focus Li 0

A #ocus o &"ite ess tra%es o## &it" t"e material o!!ressio t"at ca!italism "as cause% to !ro%uce racism9 =os"y : Rassistant professor in the 2sian 2merican 0tudies 5epartment at the Dniversity of $alifornia, " , (.orphing Jace into Ethnicity! 2sian
2mericans and $ritical Transformations of &hiteness), 5uke Dniversity Fress, Fro ect .use //liamT &hiteness studies has focused primarily on the historical emergence of liminal European groups /the *rish and southern and eastern Europeans6 as whites over the last century and a half and on the mutually constitutive nature of whiteness and blackness in the construction of 2merican national identity. $entral to the pro ect of whiteness studies in both areas has been the effort to reveal the status of whiteness as an unmarked marker and to expose its historical contingency as a racial category." Other minority groups have figured only tangentially in the

historiography and sociology of whiteness, thereby entrenching the black#white binary as the defining paradigm of racial formation in the Dnited 0tates. This essay focuses on how 2sian 2mericans produced, and were in turn produced by, whiteness frameworks of the D.0. legal system. *n doing so, it opens up a new area of investigation in whiteness studies and criti,ues the reliance on a black#white model of race relations, which has obscured the complex reconfigurations of racial politics over the last century. Furthermore, the theoretical simplifications of the black#white binary have impeded the articulation of strategies ade,uate to confronting the significant racial and class#based realignments of the postOcivil rights era. These recent shifts have enabled the reconstitution of white privilege as color#blind meritocracy through the consent of new
immigrant groups and model minorities, and have legitimi7ed the retrenchment of civil rights gains in the name of the new global economy. The rearticulation of whiteness in the era of global capitalism highlights another important paradigmatic constraint within whiteness studies, namely, the reliance on the analytic framework of the nation#state for understanding the shifting meanings of whiteness. 8ut the erosion of civil rights gains cannot be fully understood apart from the emergence of a global economy under D.0. geopolitical supremacy in the "HIAs, a connection that seems to have been largely overlooked so far. 0tudies of whiteness that are limited to a nation#state model are unable to address the ways

in which global capital has used, modified, and infiltrated racial meanings in the contemporary context . Mo materialist analysis of racial formation can afford to ignore the implications of the transatlantic and transpacific integration of capital circuits during what .arxist critics have identified as the fourth epochal stage of capitalism, in the progression from mercantile to industrial to monopoly to global capitalism. 2sian 2mericans /of whom approximately :@ percent are foreign# born6 have been a crucial conduit for and a site of the reconfiguration of racial identities . 8y offering a Foucauldian
analysis of the productivity of whiteness in shaping the meanings of 2sian 2merican identities and in creating stratifications within the 2sian 2merican grouping and across minority groups, * hope to foreground the need for developing conceptions of agency that account for complicity and resistance within this intermediary racial group.

**ALT**

T"us( t"e alter ati*eJ *ote egati*e to re#use t"e a##irmati*e8s s!eec" act9 Rat"er t"a ce ter !olitics arou % !ractices o# i%e tity( &e s"oul% e*aluate %e2ates 2ase% o argume t 7 o ly t"is ca o!e s!ace #or a tra s#ormati*e !olitics &"ic" lea*es ?race@ 2e"i % to #ocus o t"e material !ro%uctio o# racism9 Our alter ati*e creates a e& sta %!oi t o a alysis o# i e4ualities9 Rat"er t"a 2egi i g &it" t"e #rame&or0 o# race a % racism to orie t our !olitical struggle( !olitics s"oul% 2egi &it" a criti4ue o# ca!italism 7 o ly u %ersta %i g t"e &ay i &"ic" ca!italism !ro%uces race i t"e #irst !lace ca create a truly e##ecti*e !olitics Dar%er, a % Torress, ,F R2ntonia, Frof of education policy studies at D of *llinois, and Jodolfo, 2ssociate prof of latino studies at D$ *rvine, 2fter Jace! Jacism after multiculturalism, p. HS#"A" //liamT
There is no ,uestion but that the

Material Pro%uctio o# Race

issues raised by critical race theorists in education, policy studies and the social sciences are significant to our un derstanding of the conditions that plague raciali7ed student populations in D.0. schools today. Lowever, one of our ma or concerns with the use of critical race theory to buttress educational#political debates of racial i7ed oppression or racism is directly linked to the use of (race) as the central unit of analysi s.
$oupled with an uncompromising emphasis on (race) is the conspicuous absence of a systematic discussion of class and, more importantly, a substantive criti,ue of capitalism. <et us be more specific here. *n contending with ,uestions of (race) and institutional power, references are indeed made to (capitalism) or ('class) in some works by critical race theorists and, in particular, <atino critical race theorists, who acknowledge that (attention to class issues has a pending, but as yet underdeveloped, tra ectory in the future evolution of <at$rit theory and the consolidation of <at$rit social ustice agendas) /*glesias "HHH, :E6. Lowever, these efforts to explore the ways in which socioeconomic interests are expressed in

the law or education are generally vague and undertheori7ed . 8ecause of this lack of a theo retically informed account of racism and capitalist social relations, critical race theory has done little to further our understanding of the politi cal economy of racism and raciali7ation . *n addition, much of critical race theory+s approach is informed by ambiguous
ideas of (institutional racism) or (structural racism,) which, as .iles /"HSH6 points Out, are problematic due to the danger of conceptual inflation. Our aim here is not to dismiss this important body of work but to point out an important analytical distinction we make in our intellectual and political pro ect. Our analysis of racism in contemporary society be gins with the capitalist mode of production, classes,

and class struggle. The mode of production, which is the site of class relations, is the point of departure in our interrogation of racism as an ideology of social ex clusio n. *n contrast, critical race scholars attribute constitutive power to the
2merican legal system itself. Lence, the (relative autonomy) of legal institutions is invoked to stress the power of (race) and to set their work apart from critical legal scholars, who (could not come to grips with the continuing problems of deeply embedded racism) /4uinier and Torres 'AA', -E6. &e maintain that the legal system /the state6 is located in a given economic context and is shaped by the imperatives of capital. Our criti,ue, then, is tied to the continued use of the traditional language of social theory, which has always been inade,uate in problemati7ing notions of (race) in both research and popular discourse. *n essence, we argue that the use of (race) has been elevated to a theoretical construct, despite the fact

that the concept of (race) itself has remained under theori7ed Lence to employ alternative constructs derived from legal theory to
shape arguments related to educational policy and in stitutional practices, although well meaning and elo,uent, is like beating a dead horse. Mo matter how much is said, it is impossible to enliven or extend the debate on educational policy with its inherent ine,ualities

by using the language of (race.) Even a brief overview of the most prominent writings in critical race theory shows how little movement there has been in furthering our understanding of the concept or redirecting the debate. Overall, most of the work is anchored in the popular intersectionality argument of the postructuralist and postmodernist era, which maintains that (race,) gender, and class should all receive e,ual attention in our understanding of soci. ety and our development of institutional policies and practices. .ore re. cently, 4uinier and Tortes /'AA'6, in an apparent effort to push through the limits of the
intersectionality argument, proposed to advocate for what they term (racial literacy) from which (to identify patterns of in. ustice that link race to class, gender, and other forms of power.) /'H6 5espite their innovative use of (race,) its traditional analytical use remains intact. Our concerns with critical race theory go beyond the desire to construct intellectual abstractions. Jather, our concerns are grounded in political ,uestions such as!

&here exactly does an antirace theory of society lead us in real political struggles for social ustice, human rights, and eco. nomic democracyC Low do we launch a truly universal emancipatory po. lineal pro ect anchored primarily upon a theory of (race)C &here is a cri ti,ue of capitalism or an explicit anticapitalist vision in a critical theory of (race) C $an we afford to overlook the inherent existence of a politics of identity in the foundational views that led to the construction of critical race theoryC &e are also troubled by the confusion with respect to the, terms critical race theorists use to frame their analysis. *n this context, it is important to distinguish between how we under stand the construct of (race) and its genesis. *n our analysis, (race,) simply put, is the child of racism. That into say, racism does not exist because there is such a thing as (race.) Jather notions of (race) are a fundamental ideological construction of racism or a raciali7ed interpretation of phenotypically and, may we add, regionally different human beings. The process of raciali7ation , then, is at work in all relations in a capitalist so ciety . 2lternatively, we might say that the empire is not built on (race+ but on an ideology of
racism9this being one of the primary categories by which human beings are sorted, controlled, and made disposable at the point of production.

**AT AFF ANS1<RS**

T"ere is o eutral !re'%iscursi*e race &"ic" !re'e+ists t"eir i *ocatio T rat"er( t"e a##8s i *ocatio o# t"e co ce!tual imagery o# race calls it i to 2ei g 7 t"e a##8s s!eec" act is t"e ce tral cause i t"e %ialectic 2et&ee aca%emic 0 o&le%ge a % t"e segme tatio o# society i to %isti ct categories9 T"is t"&arts all "o!e o# a ema ci!atory !olitics9 Dar%er, a % Torress, ,F R2ntonia, Frof of education policy studies at D of *llinois, and Jodolfo, 2ssociate prof of latino studies at D$ *rvine, 2fter Jace! Jacism after multiculturalism, p. "' //liamT
&hile we argue against attributing explanatory or descriptive value to (race,) we

AT Race=<ma ci!atory

do not mean to suggest that races have no social reality9they do. This fiction of (race) is produced in the real world, thus serving to legitimate it and give it conceptual meaning and social life. 2t its core, the effort to transmute the concept of (race) into an ob ective reality is limited and , as 2ppiah /cited in Fostal 'AA'6 concludes, a morally dangerous proposition . Lence, there is no need for a distinct /critical6 theory of (race)= instead, what is re,uired is an earnest endeavor to theori7e the specious concept with its illusory 0tatus out of existence and renew our commitment to the interrogation of racism as an ideology of social exclusion /.iles and 8rown 'AA-6. *n other words, if (race) is real, it is so only because it has been rendered meaningful by the actions and beliefs of the powerful, who retain the myth in order to protect their own political#economic interests. (Jace) as a social construct of
resistance comes into play only later as raciali7ed populations and their advocates embrace the concept in reverse to struggle against material conditions of domination and exploitation. Mevertheless, it cannot be denied that the essentialism inherent in the original

epistemological intent of (race) is preserved. 2t its core, the effort to transmute the concept of (race) into an emancipatory category is a limited and unwise undertaking. Thus, it is high time we disrupt the continued use of a dubious concept that cannot help but render our theori7ing ambiguous and problematic. *n its simplest terms, this ambiguity is most visible in the inconsistent, with which the term (race) is applied9sometimes meaning ethnicity, at other times referring to culture or ancestry. .ore often than not, ( terms used for race are seldom defined and race is fre,uently employed in a routine and uncritical manner to represent ill# defined social and cultural factors) /&illiams "HHE6. This explains why in all the w ritings on (race) there is so little substantive theori7ing about the construct itself. The category of (race) is thus suspect with respect to its analytical utility . *f (race) is socially constructed and its origins clearly steeped in an ideology of exclusion, domination, exploitation, even genocide, why should we continue to make sense of people+s lives based on the legacy of a pseudoscientific distortion from a previous eraC *s not racism9as an ideology that exists within a structure of class differentiation and exploitation9. rather than (race,) the concept that merits our attention, particularly in these perilous times of global upheavalC

AT Our <t"ic O/1

T"e e##ects o# t"e a##8s !olitics are #ar #rom 2e ig 7 %es!ite t"e a##irmati*e8s 2est i te tio s( t"ey ca o ly #urt"er e tre c" racism 7 2y %e!loyi g t"e co ce!tual imagery o# %isti ct races to&ar%s t"e e %s o# ema ci!atio ( t"e a## re'i #orces t"e i%ea t"at race is real( salie t( a % e+!la atory9 . #ortu ately( it is t"is *ery co ce!tio t"at u %er!i s racism itsel#9 Dar%er, a % Torress, ,F R2ntonia, Frof of education policy studies at D of *llinois, and Jodolfo, 2ssociate prof of latino studies at D$ *rvine, 2fter Jace! Jacism after multiculturalism, p. -'#E //liamT
Laving recogni7ed the relative distinctiveness of the political and academic space in northwest Europe and then having occupied that space, one can view those social relations defined in 8ritain and the Dnited 0tates as (race relations) from another point of view, for there is no public or academic reference to the existence of (race relations) in contem porary France or 4ermany. *t then becomes possible to pose ,uestions that seem not to be posed from within these intimately interlinked social and historical contexts. &hat kinds of social relations are signified as (race relations)C

&hy is the idea of (race) employed in everyday life to refer only to $ertain groups of people and only to certain social 0ituationsC 2nd why do social scientists un,uestioningly import everyday meanings into their reasoning and theoretical frameworks in defining (race) and (race relations) as a particular field of study C &hat does it mean for an academic to claim, for example, that (race) is a factor in de termining the structure of social ine,uality, or that (race) and gender are interlinked forms of oppressionC &hat is intended and what might be the conse,uences of asserting as an
academic that (race matters)C These are the kinds of ,uestions that .iles has been posing since the "HSAs /e.g., .iles "HS', "HSE, "HSH6, influenced in part by the French theorist 4uillaumin /"HI', "HH@6. The answers to these ,uestions lead to the conclusion that one should

follow the example of biological and genetic scientists and refuse to attribute analytical status to the idea of (race) within the social sciences and thereby refuse to use it as a descrip tive and explanatory concept . The reasoning can be summari7ed as follows /cf. .iles "HS', ''9E-= "HH-, EI9EH6. First, the idea of (race) is used to effect reification within sociological analysis insofar as the outcome of an often complex social process is explained as the conse,uence of something named (race) rather than of the social process itself . $onsider the publication of The 8ell $urve
by Jichard 1. Lerrnsteifl and $harles .urray /"HHE6 and the authors+ com mon assertion that (race) determines academic performance and life chances. The assertion can be supported with statistical evidence that demonstrates that, in comparison with (black people,) (white people) are more likely to achieve top grades in school and to enter leading universities in the Dnited 0tates. The determining processes are extremely complex, including among other things parental class position and active and passive raciali7ed stereotyping and exclusion in the classroom and beyond. The effects of these processes are all mediated via a prior racial i7ed categori7ation into a (black#white) dichotomy that is employed in everyday social relations. Lence, it is not (race) that determines academic performance! rather academic performance is determined by the interplay of social processes, one of which is premised on the articulation of racism to effect and legitimate exclusion. *ndeed, given the nineteenthcentury meanings of (race,) this form of reification invites the possibility of explaining academic performance as the outcome of some ,uality within the body of those raciali7ed as (black.)6 - 0econd, when academics who choose to &rite about (race relations) seek to speak to a wider audience /an activity which we believe to be fully ustified6 or

when their writings are utili7ed by nonacademics, their use unwittingly legitimates and reinforces everyday beliefs that the human species is constituted by a number of different (races,) each of which is characteri7ed by a particular combination of real or imagined physical features or marks and cultural practices. &hen &est seeks to persuade the (2merican public) that (Jace .atters,) there is no doubt that he himself does not believe in the existence
of biologically defined (races.) 8ut he cannot control the meanings attributed to his claim on the part of those who identify differences in skin color for example, as marks designating the existence of (blacks) and (whites) as discrete (races.) Dnintentionally, his writing may thus come to serve as a legitimation not only of a belief in the existence of (race) as a biological phenomenon but also of racism itself. Le could avoid this outcome by breaking with the (race relations) paradigm. Third, as a result of reification and the interplay between academic and commonsense

discourses, the use of (race) as an analytical concept can incorporate into the discourse of antiracism a notion that has been central to the evolution of racism. 2ntiracist activities promote the idea that (races) really exist as biological categories of people. Thus, while challenging the legitimation of une,ual treatment and the stereotyping implicit and explicit in racism , the reproduction within antiracist campaigns of the idea that there are real biological differences creating groups of human beings sustains in the public consciousness the ideological pre condition for stereotyping and une,ual treatment. *n other words, use of the idea of (race) provides one of the conditions for the reproduction of racism within the discourse and practice of
antiracism. For these reasons, the idea of (race) should not be employed as an analytical category within the social sciences. *t follows that the ob ect of study should not be described as (race relations.) To reiterate, while we re ect the (race relations) problematic for the analysis of

racism, we do not re ect the concept of racism. Jather, we criti,ue the (race relations) problematic in order to recogni7e the existence of a plurality of histori cally specific racisms , not all of which explicitly employ the idea of (race.) *n contrast, the (race relations) paradigm refers exclusively to either (black#white) social relations or to social relations between (people of color) and (white people.) This allows for only one racism, the racism of (whites,) which has as its ob ect and victim (people of color) /e.g., Essed "HH"6.

AT Mills
Mill8s t"eory misses t"e 2oat' millio s o# &"ite !eo!le li*e 2elo& t"e !o*erty li e Cole 5 /.ike $ole, 8ishop 4rosseteste Dniversity $ollege <incoln, D%, ($ritical Jace Theory comes to the D% ! 2 .arxist response), Ethnicities 'AAH
H! 'E:6

.ills /"HHI! -I6 acknowledges that not Nall whites are better off than all nonwhites, but . . . as a statistical generali7ation, the ob ective life chances of whites are significantly better+. &hile this is, of course, true, we should not lose sight of the life chances of millions of working#class white people. To take poverty as one example, in the D0, while it is the case that the number of black people living below the poverty line is some three times that of whites, this still leaves over ": million Nwhite but not Lispanic+ people living in poverty in the D0 /D0 $ensus 8ureau, 'AAI6. This is indicative of a society predicated on raciali7ed capitalism, rather than indicative of a white supremacist society. &hile the D0 is witnessing the effects of the 5E82TE 5ownloaded from MJ5 with massively disproportionate effects on black people and other people of colour, white people are also affected. The outsourcing by D0 corporations of millions of better#paying obs outside the country, the class warfare against unions, which has led to a steep
decline in the percentage of US workers, affects white workers too. The loss to D0 urban neighbourhoods of virtually their entire economic
manufacturing and industrial employment creates unemployment for white workers as well, and neo # liberal social policies cut the ob training programmes, welfare and public housing of whites as well as blacks and other people of colour. *n the D%, there are similar indicators

of

a society underpinned by rampant racism, with black people currently twice as poor as whites, and those of Fakistani and 8angladeshi origin over three times as poor as whites /Flatt, 'AAI6. Once again, however, this still leaves some "' million poor white people in the D%, who are, like their 2merican counterparts, on the receiving end of global neoliberal capitalism. Focus o &"ite ess t"eory o2scures o color co%e% racism Cole( 5 /.ike $ole, 8ishop 4rosseteste Dniversity $ollege <incoln, D%, ($ritical Jace Theory comes to the D% ! 2 .arxist response), Ethnicities
'AAH H! 'E:6

.ills acknowledges that there were/are what he refers to as N(borderline) Europeans+ O Nthe *rish, 0lavs, .editerraneans, and above all, of course, 1ews+ /.ills, "HHI! ISOH6, and that there also existed Nintra#European varieties of (racism)+ /.ills, "HHI! IH= see also Ferea et al., 'AAI6. Lowever, he argues that, while there remains some recognition
of such distinctions Nin popular culture+ O he gives examples of an N(*talian) waitress+ in the T; series $heers, calling a &20F character N&hitey+ and a discussion in a "HH' movie about whether *talians are really white /.ills, "HHI! IH6 O he relegates such distinctions primarily to history.: &hile .ills

is prepared to Nfu77ify+ racial categories with respect to Nshifting criteria prescribed by the evolving Jacial $ontract+, and to acknowledge the existence of Noff#white+ people at certain historical periods, he maintains that his categori7ation O Nwhite/nonwhite, person/subperson+ O Nseems to me to map the essential features of the racial polity accurately, to carve the social reality at its ontological oints+ /.ills, "HHI! ISOS"6. *t is my view that this does not address current reality. The characteristics signified vary historically and, although they have usually been visible
somatic features, other non#visible /alleged and real6 biological features have also been signified. * would like to make a couple of amendments to .iles+ position.I First, * would want to add Nand cultural+ after, Nbiological+. 0econd, the common dictionary definition of

Nsomatic+ is Npertaining to the body+, and, given the fact that people can be raciali7ed on grounds of symbols /e.g. the hi ab6, * would also want this to be recogni7ed in any discussion of social collectivities and the construction of raciali7ation /$ole, 'AASb6. *n contemporary 8ritain, there continues to be non#colour#coded racism directed at the *rish /e.g. .ac an 4haill, 'AAA6 and at Joma 4ypsy Traveller communities /e.g. Fuxon, 'AA@6. There is also *slamophobia and xeno#racism.

***Derogratory La guage =***

Derogatory la guage is e*er ema ci!atory' it retre c"es !olice o!!ressio a % aggressio ' tur s case Marti ot a % Se+to ,-' *!ro# at Sa Fra cisco State . i*ersity**P"D i et" ic stu%ies #rom .C /er0eley( Director( A#rica America Stu%ies at .C Ir*i e /0teve and 1ared, (The 2vant#garde of white
supremacy,) http!//www.ocf.berkeley.edu/3marto/avantguard.htm//.456

0pectacle is a form of camouflage. *t does not conceal anything= it simply renders it unrecogni7able. One looks at it and does not see it. *t appears in disguise. Larris, for example, looks at ac,uiescence and cannot see it. $amouflage is a relationship between the one dissimulating their appearance and the one who is fooled, who looks and cannot see. <ike raciali7ation as a system
of meanings assigned to the body, police spectacle is itself the form of appearance of this banality. Their endless assault reflects the idea that race is a social envelope, a system of social categori7ation dropped over the heads of people like clothes. Folice impunity serves to distinguish between the racial uniform itself and the elsewhere that mandates it. They constitute the distinction between those whose human being is put permanently in ,uestion and those for whom it goes without saying. Folice spectacle is not the effect of the racial uniform = rather, it is the police uniform

that is producing re#raciali7ation. Mothing better exemplifies this distinction than the structure of derogatory language. 5erogatory terms do not mean= they assault. Their intention is not to communicate but to harm. Thus they are not discursive signs or linguistic statements but modes of aggression. They express a structure of power and domination, a hierarchy that contextuali7es them and gives them their force. 2s gestures of assault they reflect their users status as a member of the dominant group. The derogatory term does more than speak= it silences. That ability to silence derives from the fact that, in turning its hegemonic position to account, it turns the raciali7ed other into a language for whiteness itself. Those situated lower on the hierarchy have no viable means of defending themselves. This, in effect, renders the derogation unanswerable in its own terms. The derogatory term obtrudes with a small daily violence whose form is gratuitous, without motivation in the situation in which it is used, and w hose content is to render that situation dominated by white supremacy. *f it sits at the heart of the language of racism it is because it is banal and everyday even while symboli7ing racism+s utmost violence, the verbal form of its genocidal tra ectory. Those who use derogatory terms repeatedly are putting themselves in a continual state of aggression= turning their ob ective complicity with a structured relation of white supremacist dominance into an active investment or affirmation. 0uch modes of assault demonstrate a specific obsession with those denigrated that characteri7es the socius of white supremacy, its demands for allegiance, its conditions of membership, its residence in viciousness. 8ecause it is gratuitous and unanswerable, the derogatory term grants itself impunity, reiterates of the excess at the core of each racist event without calling its ethics into ,uestion. The prevalence of derogatory terms in D0 conversation goes unnoticed, seen simply on the margin of common sense, as opposed to an index of white supremacy . *t is a small matter, when set against such things as , for instance, the legal codes of 1im $row or the government+s assassination of Fred Lampton. Ket derogation comes in many different forms 9as stories, aphorisms, discourses, legal statutes, political practices, etc. The repetition of derogation becomes the performance of white supremacist identity, over and over again. The derogatory term occupies the very center of the structure of white supremacy.