Thoughts and Qutoes from Audry Lorde's Sister Outsider

within most patriarchal societies were are socialized and taught to respect, revere, and idolize the extraordinary. in addition to that we are taught that only the actions of men are extraordinary. thus it is only the heroes and not the heroines that are honored, and in addition to we are taught the lives and experiences of our sisters and mothers are not extraordinary. for a great deal of time i did buy into this paradigm, and the fact is it was only a recent realization that i did not have any females that i reguarded as being a person i could aspire to be. so here's some words from Audre Lorde that i found extraordinary.

from "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving"

Racism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.

Sexism: The belief in he inherent superiority of one sex and thereby the right to dominance.

Heterosexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby its right to dominance.

Homophobioa: The fear of feelings of love for members of one's own sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings in others.

THE ABOVE FORMS of human blindness stem from the same root - an inability to recognize the notion of difference as a dynamic human force, one which is enriching rather than threatening to the defined self, when there are shared goals....

from "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power"

...
But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.

from "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"

...
And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own. For instance, "I can't possibly teach Black women's writing - their experience is so different from mine." Yet how many years have you spent teaching Plato and Shakespeare and Proust? Or another, "She's a white woman and what could she possibly have to say to me?" Or, "She's a lesbian what would my husband say, or my chairman?" Or again, "This woman writes of her sons and I have no children." And all the other endless ways in which we rob ourselves of ourselves and each other.

What does Diaspora Mean to You?

Tersely speaking, the diaspora is the movement of bodies from their “native” territory to a new territory. Originally applied to describe the dispersal of the Jewish people from the territory called Israel or Palestine, it has been applied to various other populations such as Blacks, Pilipina/os, or any immigrant population under the sun. For myself, the notion of diaspora holds significant meaning. As a second generation Pilipino-American, I feel diaspora is a term that explains the nature of the majority of my identity. A good portion of my experience as an individual is based upon the interactions I have with my parents. At times there have been large amounts of conflicts and I feel it is because we have different diasporic experiences.

In describing the relationship between my family, the diaspora, and I; two important notions are that of the “imagined community” and the concept of “home.” Home, or more specifically, the feeling of the existence of multiple homes for oneself, is a marker of a diasporic experience. I identify home not only as the U.S., but the Philippines as well. This is interesting in that I have only been to the Philippines once as a child. How is it that I have an attachment to a land that I have only been to once? If my parents also identify the same two homes, how can they still consider the Philippines a home after they have left it? This question ties directly to the idea of the “imagined community,” a term coined by Benedict Anderson. The Philippines is a land that dwells within the imagination of our minds, for my parents it also dwells within their memory. It is a place that I have given value and attachment to; not only does it have a completely autonomous existence in reality, but I have added in my own ideas of what the Philippines is and created an alternate reality of what that land is for myself.

The difference between the diasporic experience of my parents and I lies in our immigrant status. As a second generation immigrant still living in the U.S., the experience of living in the Philippines is one that can only exist in imagination. Therefore, the land becomes a symbol of all the ideals that I have conferred upon it; and having a more radical, anti-colonial mindset, the country became an idealized symbol of resistance and struggle. As first generation immigrants, the Philippines exist as a completely different land of imagination for my parents. Having prescribed to pro-western colonial values, they view the Philippines as a land of decadence, a perspective which had influenced their decision to flee to the U.S. for employment opportunities. In addition to their imagined view of the Philippines, the country becomes locked in stasis existing within memory. While time flows on the other side of the globe, the Philippines remains what they remember it to be. Thus, changes that they may learn of become unsettling as they try and consolidate the home in their memory and the other reality they learn through newspapers, television, or the internet.

While the Philippine diaspora was created through U.S. imperial force and “benevolent” coercion, in the neo-colonial setting, U.S.-Philippine relations are marked by the contemporary trend towards globalization. According to Arjun Appadurai in his work Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, globalization is more than just merely cultural homogenization. He argues that there are five “-scapes” of movement that do not flow in just one direction, but intersect and flow back and forth across boarders. The ethnoscape, or movement of people, shows just that with the case of the Philippines. While Pilipina/os have been moving away from the Philippines, citizens of other countries, with interests in the archipelago, have moved in; whether they be missionaries or workers of multinational corporations. Although having moved away, my parents have also made return visits. The technoscape is the global configuration of technology, which has connected the world and has in essence made it “smaller.” This allows for communication across boarders, and has been a source of exporting labor in the technological field. While the Philippines has made great strides in engineering and technology and has had much worked outsourced to it’s shores, a large portion of the country has yet to experience it, as my relatives do not even have their own telephone line. Financescapes are the movement of global capital, and as Appadurai states, is dependent on the movement of the ethnoscapes and technoscapes. As the movement of people and labor in technology move away from the country the value of the Philippine peso is greatly effected as it has been decreasing in value to the dollar at a steady rate. The media and ideoscapes are particular subjects of interest when dealing with the Philippines. The mediascape is the flow of popular cultural and imaged based stories, while the ideoscape deals with the ideologies and beliefs. While the Philippines is known to consume American popular culture and reproduce it, sometimes more faithfully than reproduced in it’s country of origin; Philippine media is also emulated by second generation Pilipina/os here in the United States. The mediascape is one venue to help push the ideoscape, as it has been a pathway for U.S. ideology to take hold in the Philippines by presenting a certain image of the U.S. However, for second and 1.5 generation Pilipina/o-Americans, it is also through the mediascapes that radical Philippine ideology reaches the shores of the U.S.; through the news and video.

An Oral History Project

Decolonization continues to be an act of confrontation with a hegemonic system of thought; it is hence a process of considerable historical and cultural liberation. As such, decolonization becomes the contestation of all dominant forms and structures, whether they be linguistic, discursive, or ideological.

-Samia Nehrez

Antonio Gramsci defines hegemony as the consolidation of power through the coercion and consent of the governed (Omi and Winant 67.) There can be no perfect a description of the imperial and colonial relationship between the United States and the Philippines than that. While formal control of the archipelago was given back to the Philippine people on July 4 of 1946, a date selected to further ingrain US dominance post-colonialism, it takes little research to provide evidence that the US still wields a considerable amount of influence in both the politics and society of the Philippines to this date, or in other words the two countries maintain a globalized or neo-imperial/colonial relationship. In his work, Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said states: “imperialism did not end, did not suddenly become ‘past,’ once decolonization had set in motion the dismantling of the classical empires” (San Juan Jr. 65.) While state sponsored terrorism and repression have contained numerous movements for independence and equality in the Philippines; media, education, and other institutions and sites of power have psychologically impacted the Philippine people creating what is described by many as the “colonial mentality,” which could also be articulated as the consent of the colonized. It goes without saying the condition of the Pilipina/o diaspora, or even the very fact there is one, is a direct result of the legacy left behind by colonialism. Not only is this relationship both racialized and based upon class, but in considering Pilipinas, it is also gendered and sexualized; creating what Patricia Hill Collins describes as a Matrix of Domination (Hill Collins.) To further analyze this relationship I had interviewed my mother about her life. Through both her responses and reactions to some of the questions, I was able to receive insight into both the effects of the hegemonic relationship between the US and the Philippines in creating a matrix which situates Pilipinas at the bottom and how this and other forms of internal oppression become translated into future generations. Needless to say, the project became not only a critical examination of the life of my mother, but of how many of the events and beliefs that faceted my life went previously unquestioned.

My mother, Nenita Manansala Macapinlac, was born Nenita Miranda Manansala June 16, 1959 in Lubao, Pampanga in the Philippines. She was raised in the town of Santa Cruz which today, like much of the province, is very rural. While being part of the lower class, her mother only attaining a second grade level education, she was able to complete her associate’s degree at a local agricultural college. As part of the benevolent assimilation program placed by the United States at the start of the 20^th century, public education was one of the main institutions immediately implemented. Through these institutions many of the peasantry became able to have access to education which was previously reserved for the elite during the Spanish colonial period. However, this education was highly westernized and created an image or, what Benedict Anderson coined, an “imagined community” of what the United States was (Anderson). On May 19, 1980, at the age of 21, she had married my father, Pablo Manalansan Macapinlac. Traditionally within Spain and her colonies, people take their mother’s maiden name as the middle name. While more considerate than other European nations, this is still a patriarchal practice as the surname of the male has dominance over the female’s surname. My mother’s marriage to my father is significant as it is the catalyst for her move from the Philippines to the United States, as he was newly enlisted into the US Navy.

Seven months pregnant with my kuya, my mother moved to Oakland, California on April 1982. This was due to the fact that my father was stationed at the Navy base in Alameda. When asked why she did not stay in the Philippines she replied with an implicit tone of common sense: “To join your dad because he was working here [in America] in the military.” For my parents, the goal had been to raise their family in the “States,” not only due to notions of the imagined community within the United States which they were raised upon, but simply because the living conditions in their former home were so poor. The very nature of the Philippines as a Third World country is explained by its history as a colony to two imperial powers. While my parent’s subsequent move away from the Philippines can be read as a form of colonial subjugation, in considering the situation of Overseas Contract Workers (OCWs) and the desire of global capitalism in destroying the nuclear family in order to have a worker purely dedicated to their specific job; her move in order to protect our family can also be read as a form of resistance. While it can be read as a form of resistance in terms of imperialism, at the same time this prescription of women as guardians of the family can also be seen as a form of submission to gender roles.

From Oakland, her family was moved to Norfolk, Virginia where my ate and I were born, and then another move to Honolulu, Hawai’i. From the time of her marriage in 1980 until 1987, my mother had dedicated her full time to the formation of her family. This corresponds to Anne McClintock’s analysis of the Cult of Domesticity which is the prescription of Westernized notions of the definition of true womanhood to women of the Third World (McClintock 34.) Without a doubt at the time, my mother had felt her place was in the private sphere of the home and that the duty of raising the family rested upon her back rather than her partner’s, or in other words a gendered division of labor. It was not until 1987 that she had decided to work at a sewing company, I can recall some of the clothing I wore as a youth as being sewn by my mother. Once again, this profession was a prescribed role for women. After our move to San Diego, another show of patriarchy as the family moves with the father, and after the birth of my younger sister; my mother would take another domestic role of babysitting other children in addition to my little sister. These other children would be from family friends who were also working class, which shows the nature of the extended Pilipina/o families. While the prescription of gender roles is fundamental to the patriarchal nature of American society, the standards of living coupled with the size of her family demanded that my mother enter the work force, which could also be described by McClintock as the reinvention of gender (McClintock 34.) In addition to working a full time job, she would also still be expected to perform such domestic tasks as preparing meals due to the fact that my father would often be away from the home at sea. While this would equate to the proverbial “second shift” performed by many working women, unlike the general stereotype her’s would be performed prior to her formal job as she worked the graveyard shifts. Other such domestic duties would be regulated to the children.

It was not until the mid 1990s that my mother would formally enter the work force. Before becoming employed in her current job she had a short stint working as a maid at the local Marriot Hotel. While not so much within California, it should be noted that the presence of Pilipinas working in hotels as maids is highly prevalent within Hawai’i, which also brings notions of gendered roles and similarities between OCWs, although my mother did not specify if that commonality had impacted her choosing that career. After around six months a family friend had referred her to where she currently works, which is Presidio Components. The use of networking is also described as a form of social capital, a more intangible capital as opposed to the more widely known forms of industrial and financial capital. When asked what she does, she had specified her job was as a “term operator, which covers the electrodes of semiconductor chips with silver and gold ink.” Essentially she stated it was an “electronics manufacturing company.” I had asked her whether the education she received was involved with her career, in which she responded that it did not. In viewing her surrounding co-workers, I had noticed that they were all primarily Pilipinas with very few Pilipinos. The majority of the workforce was composed of not only friends, but of family members as well, some which would be classified as second generation; my kuya being employed there for four years until recently. In terms of socioeconomic status, and social mobility I asked what her wages were and if there was any possibility for upward mobility in her company. She responded that she made around $10.30 an hour and that there was barely any mobility. She had also responded that she had been with the company for nearly nine years now. While much discussion of Pilipina-Americans is directed towards professionals and domestic workers, there is also a large mass that work in both textile and electronic manufacturing, which is described by Chandra Mohanty. Mohanty describes third-world women in the electronics industry as located “as mothers, wives, and supplementary workers” (Mohanty 15.) This is not only a racialized but gendered division of labor in which the “married woman” defines the job parameters. The management of the company my mother works for consists mainly of white males, with the only female being the wife of the owner, as the company is family owned. There are many factors which may contribute to the abundance of Pilipinas that work for the company: Pilipinas being a part of the model minority stereotype, the fact the company is family owned may also be a reason for them welcoming relatives and friends of workers, it can also be interpreted as a modern day “White Man’s Burden” to give needy Pilipinas work in order to help them and their families out. Ultimately, the reason why my mother does not seek to become further educated to move up the socioeconomic ladder is due to the fact that up until now three of her children were still in college, there are only two now, and that her working was critical in maintaining the financial stability of her family. This restriction is not only imposed by her gendered role as family guardian, but also by the socioeconomic level of her family.

In returning to the theory of hegemony, while power is gained by coercion it is not consolidated unless there is also consent; a feeling also shared by Machiavelli. In addition to formally controlling the government and people through physical means, colonial powers also colonized the minds of their subjects in order to consolidate control. The effects of colonization and hegemony equate to the re-engineering of illogical concepts into beliefs that are not merely ordinary, but common sense or even fundamental to our existence. As such, emigration from the home country is natural, children being raised by people other than their parents is natural, women taking jobs below their education level is natural, mothers leaving their families to work in another country for decades is natural. We as people are left to believe that our current conditions are the way that it has been, the way that it should be, and the way it will always be. In returning to Nehrez, in order to truly decolonize and enter a post-colonial era, we must contest these notions of normativity continuing to confront hegemonic systems of thought and the tangible institutions they form.

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991

McClintock, Anne. “The Lay of the Land-Genealogies of Imperialism,” Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995, pp.21-74

Mohanty, Chandra T. “Women Workers and Capitalist Scripts: Ideologies of Domination, Common Interests, and the Politics of Solidarity,” Feminist Genealogies, Colonial legacies, Democratic Futures. New York: Routledge, 1997

Omi, Michael and Winant, H. Racial Formation in the United States, From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994

Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990, pp. 221-238

San Juan, E. Jr. After Postcolonialism: Remapping Philippines-United States Confrontations. Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000

Rewriting a Rewritten Past

The Modern Era was the age which had laid the foundation for the present, one could argue this had begun with the age of enlightenment. However the exact starting point is irrelevant, more importantly this age was embodied as giving birth to scientific method as a result of the classical revival, the revival of the so called great civilization of Greece. As Gordon points out with his quotation of Hegel, Western Modern thought was deeply rooted with Anti-Blackness, as well as failing to discuss issues of gender and sexuality. Using Antonio Gramsci’s definition of hegemony, the consolidation of rule through coercion and consent, Modern thought with its emphasis on scientific truths combined with the underlying theme of Anti-Blackness has served to promote Western if not White Supremacy in the vast majority of the world, thus generating consent of rule. Many works have come out as a critique of Modern thought such as various writings by Michel Focoult, Jaques Derrida, and Franz Fanon. These writings have been labeled as Post-Modernist works, though Fanon would mainly fit into the Post-Colonial category as it applies Post-Modern thought to a critique of colonialism. Martin Bernal’s Black Athena rekindled a long standing debate about the significance of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece because it deconstructs the Modern notion of the conception of civilization.

Fanon argues that Anti-Blackness arises from the “sociogenic” dimension of the situation, which refers to the role of human institutions in the constitution of what human beings regard as “natural” in the features of social life. In the denial of Africa as the cradle of civilization and instead the promotion of Greece and the West as the birth of civilization, there is an implication of White/Western Supremacy as being natural; that it always was this way, that it was meant to be this way, and that it always will be. In another contemporary context this sociogenic situation fuels attacks on Cultural Studies by feeding claims that the West is the only place where anything that mattered occurred. Thus Black Athena aims at the crux of the argument posed by the Western Supremacist.

A point was made in the film by a critic of Bernal that his work has the opposite effect of promoting Whites rather than Blacks by arguing Bernal favors Western thought though merely wishes to give credit to Blacks. By implying the superiority of Western thought, Bernal’s work leaves an impression of the goal of Blacks laying claim to what is considered Whiteness. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire writes that an oppressed people’s ideal is to be human, but their sociogenic situation leads them to believe to be human is to be what their oppressors are, which could also be described as the poststructural parlance of the black chasing the signifier in hope of becoming the signifier. However, Fanon writes: “A total retreat from Western rationality as rationality leads to a glorified blackness that inevitably realizes its self-deception: An essentialized blackness that intensifies white hegemony.” Fanon goes on to say: “Let us decide not to imitate Europe but combine our muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us create the whole human being, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth.” Therefore, the goal of a true Anti-Racist is to seek liberation not just for the oppressed, but the oppressor as well and ultimately create that whole human being.

4/26/05

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comments from jollene:

1) are we living in a time where Western Modern thought is no longer deeply rooted with Anti-Blackness?

2)here is where i think post-modernism is basically impossible. how are we to start right at the beginning w/o a past? i dont think that erasing the past is the answer to creating a just future. i think revolutions are contingent on the fact that peoples are able to finally write and interpret their own histories. i think "moving beyond the modern era" is impossible materially at this point when we are barely realizing our own past and ignorant of our present (outside of our own experience in an imperialist country). what do you think?

Black Power by Charles Hamilton and Stokely Carmichael (kka Kwame Ture)

Black Power means proper representation and sharing of control. It means the creation of power basees, of strength, from which black people can press to change local or nation-wide patterns of oppression-instead of from weakness.

It does not mean merely putting black faces into office. Black visibility is not Black Power. The power must be that of a community, and emanate from there.

Black Power recognizes-it must recognize-the ethnic basis of American politics as well as the power-oriented nature of American politics. But while we endorse the procedure of group solidarity and identity for the purpose of attaining certain goals in the body politic, this does not mean that black people should strive for the same kind of rewards (i.e., end results) obtained by the white society. The ultimate values and goals are not domination or exploitation of other groups, but rather an effective share in the total power of the society.

Nevertheless, some observers have labled those who advocate Black Power as racists; they have said that the call for self-identification and self-determination is "racism in reverse" or "black supremacy." This is a deliberate and absurd lie. There is no analogy-by any stretch of definition or imagination-between the advocates of Black Power and white racists. Racism is not merely exclusion on the basis of race but exclusion for the purpose of subjugating or maintaining subjugation. The goal of the racists is to keep black people on the bottom, arbitrarily and dictatiorially, as they have done in this country for over three hundred years. The goal of black self-determination and black self-identity - Black Power- is full participation in the decision making processes affecting the lives of black people, and recognition of the virtues in themselves as black people.

"...In short, the failure of American leaders to use American power to create equal opportunity in life as well as law, this is the real problem and not the anguished cry for Black Power.

...Without the capacity to participate with power, i.e., to have some organized political and economic strength to really influence people with whom one interacts, integration is not meaningful.

...America has asked it's Negro citizens to fight for opportunity as individuals, whereas at certain points in our history what we have needed most has been opportunity for the whole group, not just for selected and approved Negroes.

...We must not apologize for the existence of this form of group power, for we have been oppressed as a group and not as individuals. We will not find our way out of that oppression until both we and America accept the need for Negro Americans, as well as for Jews, Italians, Poles, and white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, among others, to have and to wield group power."

Who Controls the Past Controls the Present

The major point in discussing racial formation is how various racial projects throughout history frame modern “common sense” about the racial hierarchy of contemporary society. Indeed, one such project is that of Black Sexuality. Patricia Hill Collins reinforces this aspect of racial formation as she asserts in her work “Why Black Sexual Politics,” that “Sarah Bartmann’s past frames J-Lo’s present” (Hill Collins 27.) What she finds important to express is that the new racism of this century does not replace the prior forms of racial rule, but instead incorporates elements of past racial formations (Hill Collins 32.)

In order to fully grasp Hill Collins’ thesis it would be necessary to understand who Sarah Bartmann was and the significance that her life and subsequent dissection play in creating the sexual stereotype of Blacks. Born into a tribe of Khoi Khoi, Bartmann was later captured and enslaved in South Africa. She was then put into a contract with the brother of her master to go to Great Britain. Upon her arrival she was treated similarly to a slave, while the country had just ended the slave trade. She was paraded around as a “freak” of nature for the size of her buttocks and sexual organs. After traveling to France, Bartmann continued to be announced as an oddity; however she was also submitted as a research specimen. It was not until her death in 1815, that researchers would dissect her and conclude that her African sexual organs were not human while scientists today conclude they were.

With the subsequent dissection of Sarah not only can we see how racism intersects between the various “schools” of academia, but how there is also the creation of the stereotype of the animalistic nature of Africans in terms of their sexuality. Hill Collins chooses to highlight Bartmann in comparison to J-Lo due to society’s fascination with both of their rear ends. While it may be argued by some that there is a clear difference in their treatment, Bartmann being considered a “freak” while J-Lo is considered a sex symbol; this is precisely the point which Hill Collins is making. Bartmann’s proportions helped frame notions of the hypersexuality of Blacks which evolved allowing for J-Lo’s butt to be considered sexy in this modern context. It is this very notion of the “wild,” animalistic sexual nature of Blacks which causes Destiny’s Child and other Black models to associate with animal skin print clothing and sets in which they appear in cages, etc.

Another interesting point Hill Collins chooses to discuss is how the technological advances of mass media allow audiences to view entertainment contained and safe in their private spaces. She questions “Just who are these videos for? What are the imagined race, gender, and sexual orientations of the viewers?” (Hill Collins 31.) There is a lack of accountability in the presentation of these images, “it’s one thing if Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé Knowles profit from their own images…it’s entirely another if adolescent girls tap into this message of female power and head off to their eighth grade classroom decked in the same “bootylilcious” apparel,” (Hill Collins 50.) She reiterates notions of hegemony stating “contemporary forms of oppression do not routinely force people to submit” (Hill Collins 50.) It is through these seemingly benign forms of entertainment that consent is manufactured allowing domination to be achieved as “we lose our ability to question and thus collude in our own subordination” (Hill Collins 50.)

3/01/05

Ethnic Notions: Illusion or Essential?

In their book Race and Critical Theories, Michael Omi and Howard Winant discuss the continued struggle of American society in coming to terms with the concept of “race.” They describe a dual temptation on the part of different groups to think of race as a mere illusion or as essence. This is echoed in the selection of “Ethnic Notions” as the title for the documentary. The combination of the word ethnicity with that of notion, or more precisely the very meaning of notion, suggests there is no concrete definition or description for race or ethnicity. This sentiment is found throughout Omi and Winant’s discussion of racial formation in the United States. Beginning by posing the deceptively simple question: What is Race? Omi and Winant move on to discuss the history of race, implying there was a beginning and possibly an end to this idiom; showing both the answer and the question itself are more complex than they initially seem. The discussion is then shifted to the usage of race in hegemony and the eventual practice of racism itself. In considering the formation of the concept of race and its necessity in developing hegemony, the portrayal of Blacks in popular media, as shown in the film, can definitely be described as not only a natural outcome, but also a necessity as well in both the developing and maintenance of that hegemony. In light of the treatment of Blacks and other marginalized people throughout history, I whole heartedly agree the relationship between these groups and politics as a whole lie in the concept of hegemony which Antonio Gramsci “understood as the conditions necessary for the achievement and consolidation of rule” (Omi and Winant 130.) He further argues consolidation of that rule constitutes a combination of coercion and consent, and it is here where the role of media and popular entertainment play their part.

While our “common sense” may tell us contrary, race as a concept is recent in nature. As W.E.B. Du Bois satrically points out in his book Darkwater, "The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. The Middle Age regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth century we were ahmmering our national manikins in one, great, Universal Man." With the boom of science during the industrial revolution, essential biological notions of race appeared. Unsurprisingly, the rise of Social Darwinism comes in the wake of T.D. Rice’s minstrel act of Jim Crow. Blackface, Minstrel Shows, and their legacy would continue well on towards the middle of the 20th century, some would go as far as to argue it continues today. While there is no doubt that these forms of entertainment were negative and demeaning depictions of Blacks it is important to recognize that racism is more than just ill feelings or bad manners towards a particular group. What is far more important is to recognize how these forms of media helped to consolidate the power of the White ruling class. Through these media Whites were able to control the definition of what is Black and then to further imprint that definition with a badge of inferiority. Therefore notions of Anti-Blackness became “common sense,” it was perfectly natural that Blacks were treated the way they were. Coercion of that racialized power was no longer necessary as consent had been secured by Whites and even many Blacks as well. Through media and popular entertainment those in power are able to reach the masses and control the way they view the world, although it is also important to note that in part of that coercion and consent the hegemony must also entertain ideas contrary to their wants. Thus we find successful well to do Blacks in addition to the oversaturation of images of Blacks as criminals, drug addicts, oversexed single parents, and other negative stereotypes. However, just as it is important to realize that racism is more than simply bad manners, it is equally important to realize that the truth of stereotypes is not the issue; it is the effect that the stereotype has.

One final quote that struck me was that they felt it was crucial to “emphasize that race, class, and gender are not fixed categories” (Omi & Winant 132.) These categories are truly intertwined and constantly interact with each other on a day to day basis.

March 04, 2005


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random quote not in paper

"How easy, then, by emphasis and omission to make children believe that every great soul the world ever saw was a white man's soul; that every great thought the world ever knew was a white man's thought; that every great deed the world ever did was a white man's deed; that every great dream the world ever sang was a white man's dream. In fine, that if from the world were dropped everything that could not fairly be attributed to White Folk, the world would, if anything, be even greater, truer, better than now. An if all this be a lie, is it not a lie in a great cause?"

- W.E.B. Du Bois Darkwater (1920)