Often, as a white male activist, I find myself wondering where my energy comes from. Maybe I should rephrase that… when I have the time I often find myself wondering where the root of my tireless commitment to “the movement” comes from. This is never something I have allowed myself to explore because the answers are pessimistic and discouraging, not to mention difficult to come by. For me, when I sit alone, there is an omnipresent pain and anxiety at the core of my being. I believe activism, as with most endeavors in my life, is a way to channel my fear of confronting the terrifying realities of my past into another space. Just as somebody would self-anesthetize with drugs or booze; I self-anesthetize with organizing, among other things.
Organizing is in and of itself is not a destructive activity, however, coming from a place of anxiety and urgency, rather than love and conscious intentionality, I believe it can do more harm than good. I could also add guilt into the equation for most white folks. I believe, correctly or incorrectly, that fear and anxiety and the urgency to be rid of them lie at the heart of what drives most men in our society. I must be conscious of this or my life becomes a means of displacing these emotions on others. This urgency, often combined with white guilt, can become a primary vehicle for re-enacting oppressive modes of thought and being, particularly in progressive circles. The tendency to look at other people as objects of oppressive systems rather than people with agency can lock interpersonal relationships into the framework of white supremacy or sexism (or any oppressive system for that matter).
It has also been my experience that over-intellectualization of anti-oppression work further distances my analytical perceptions from actual lived experience. By just "keeping me busy," organizing work can be a tool to challenge white supremacy and patriarchy on an institutional level while also maintaining the distance between my conscious (often intellectual) worldview and the core of my being (for me, my emotional being) that is most handicapped by patriarchy and white supremacy. I believe binary thinking like this is a product of our society and forces many institutionally privileged people who study or think about systems of oppression to separate lived experience from ideological framework instead of one informing the other. For example, many white people or men who think about white supremacy or patriarchy frame sexism as a "women's issue" or racism as "something that I don't live through". While men and whites are by no means the targets of such systems of oppression, the personal and psychological wounds for people who are "privileged" are real and by connecting personal experience to theoretical framework, I believe it is possible to gain a much more real understanding that can inform actions and activism. Unfortunately, the drive for consumption and immediate gratification that is instilled in us by a capitalist system works to placate deep pain and drive a deep wedge between what we think of ourselves and who we are. In my opinion, unless there is a conscious effort to bridge the gap, I believe the divide deepens over time, fed by a drug that draws from the exploitation of others to ease the pain of those in power.
In this way, I disagree with those who stress the critical importance of strategic planning of organizing in liberation work but do not acknowledge the centrality of the healing process in the life of an activist like myself. Combining theory, action and reflection in a cycle of praxis, as is outlined by Paolo Friere in his famous book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", is essential to a process of developing critical consciousness. We must embody the change we hope to make. I believe in this statement wholeheartedly. As men and white people, or anyone who benefits from institutionalized privilege, we must come into touch with the fears, anxieties and guilt of what it means to be ourselves in a white patriarchal capitalist society. The process of interrogating who we are and critically evaluating past experiences can be a tool for developing fuller understandings of what we are fighting against, just as research into social constructions of whiteness can illuminate the shadows of its historical specificity.
My own conception of colonization stems from my experience growing up with a father who handcuffed my own development as a person by (sometimes) violently enforcing his vision for my own growth and imposing his own boundaries on what I could think or how I could act. I now see his desire to “help” me become a man is couched in his own inability to be his own man in the most tender and loving send of what it means to be a man. He needs to deal with his own anger, fear of loss and pain before he can ever think about helping me or before we can ever again have a functional relationship. His need to help is a prison cell for my own growth. This experience has shed light on what my own presence may mean in non-white and feminist activist circles.
In addition, my experience and reflections on traveling home this fall to see my parents (mom and step dad) have helped me to more fully understand the pain of what it means to be tokenized. Going home is painful for me. It is not a friendly place. My parents are friendly to me but it is not a place where I can feel at ease with who I am. It is hostile, for whatever reason. Yet still, my parents want me to come home. When I am home, they do not take the time to sit and see how I am or how I have changed. Though they lament that I do not seem happy. When I attempt to articulate my feelings, I only offend them and then am left feeling guilty. At a deep level, my parents are not interested in who I am as a person, only the spectacle of my happy presence in their home, just as most straights enjoy and crave the spectacle of a queer presence to subsidize their own sexual emptiness.
These connections are real for me although they may not make sense for the outsider. In sharing these stories, I hope to lay groundwork for other white people and men to delve into their own histories- either personal or collective- to better understand the context in which our identities are born and the privileges they carry.
I find that the only way I can bring something new and valuable to the discussion on race, gender, sexuality (and capitalism) is to come in touch with my own emotions and how I was formed in this society. While the archive of work on these subjects is extensive, I believe it is essential for all white people, men and straight folks to make the connections personal so as to embody the discourse we espouse. In this way, I (we) can bring can bring something real to the conversation, articulate on my (our) own terms that which I (we) consume as part of organizing for power and the liberation of all peoples everywhere. For me then, counseling, quiet reflection, and scary messy conversations with others about common past experiences is also the work of revolution. This is not to say it can take the place of real struggle against oppressive institutions to build power and win concrete objectives, but it is work that must be done.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
activism and the politics of identity
this is an article that i wrote for a local student newspaper at boston college...
In my own limited experience as somebody who is concerned with "politics", I have quickly learned that "politics" is never just that. Political. At least political in the sense that what we do is entirely disassociated from our own identities. Many activists and scholars have put it best in saying that "the personal is political". Or alternately, the person is social. Social in the sense that our identities as "individuals" are directly related to how we are formed by society. This is a process shaped by politics. So to say that human beings are social animals is to also say that human beings are political animals as well. This argument has been made many times in the past.
My point, before it gets too confusing and abstract, is that all of these things are linked. How we project who we are (and how we are perceived) is intimately linked with the society in which we live and the roles we play in that society. A society, which historically, has privileged white folks, men, heterosexuals, and people who have access to money. If you want evidence of this... read about the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system in Massachusetts, or perhaps how people of color were and still are denied access to loans from banks through the process of "red lining", or maybe ask why isn't domestic work (performed mostly by women) included in GDP... etc etc etc. Or really, you can just look at the latest issue of the Observer and see a photo of the GOP debate and that the stage of presidential candidates is filled with white dudes (Alan Keyes entered the race 9 days later). It's not much different in the Democrats either. This is not a coincidence but is indicative of the society in which we live and how institutional and legal relationships (examples above) shape our personal lives.
To take it back to the beginning then... the politics we practice is influenced by the social privilege that society bestows on certain individuals.
Since I am a white man then my progressive political project- to be a part in creating and re-creating a more inclusive, loving, expressive and just society- becomes a project of challenging my privilege at an institutional, as well as personal level. Not to mention maintaining a critical vigilance of how my actions re-produce a white supremacist, male-dominated (patriarchal) society. For rich people, whites, men, hetero-folk, or people who rest at intersections of these socially privileged identities; maintaining this critical vigilance means re-framing the traditional liberal political agenda.
It's not enough to pursue a liberal or progressive politics of activism (an activism that is issue based) if this project does not push us to critically examine and continually re-examine who we are in society and how our actions re-enforce oppression. I say this because I believe we all must embody the change we hope to make.
Black Liberation Theologian James Cone makes very clear the effect of such non-critical actions in a passage of his book "A Black Theology of Liberation" where he offers a critical analysis of whites who do service in non-white communities...
"It seems whites forget about the necessary interrelatedness of love, justice, and power when they encounter black people. Love becomes emotional and sentimental. This sentimental condescending love accounts for their desire to "help" by relieving the physical pains of the suffering blacks so they can satisfy their own religious piety and keep the poor powerless. But the new blacks, redeemed in Christ must refuse their "help" and demand that blacks be confronted as persons. They must say to whites that authentic love is not "help," no giving Christmas baskets but working for political, social, and economic justice which always means a redistribution of power. It is a kind of power which enables the blacks to fight their own battles and thus keep their dignity. 'Powerlessness breeds a race of beggars.'"
I think the position I am trying to articulate is important because Boston College, as a historically white and male-dominated institution, pushes its students to be "men and women for others" often without pushing them to critically examine what the implications of this mission are. To come to a more informed conception of what that means for folks who are socially privileged (and that means all of us to a certain extent because we are in college in the first place), involves critically examining how our identities shape what we do on a very personal and intimate level. Greater social consciousness then prevents us from taking actions that re-produce historically oppressive dynamics in the way Cone argues above.
I am involved in activism and politics not because I want to do good (I do), but because politics for me involves exploring my own conception of myself and how I relate to others, as well as taking action that is informed by this consciousness. This critical self-reflection involves deepening friendships because it can almost never be taken on alone.
I say this because my own interrogation of maleness, whiteness and of the role that sexuality plays in my friendships has often pushed me to a psychological breaking point. Interrogating parts of my identity have inevitably led to new (and sometimes terrifying) avenues of understanding myself and ways in which my often personal history influences interactions with people today. I say this because I see personal formation as being closely linked to processes of social and historical formation. I believe that studies of these historical processes can inform critical self-reflection and vice versa. For example, I have discovered the role of my father in my life is very much tied to a historical (and patriarchal) construction of being a (white) male. I see my relationship with my father as analogous to one between colonizer and colonized that now reproduces itself in my life separate from my dad. Moving forward in exploring these new realms of consciousness is not easy and support from peers, who can both push me and offer support, is key. However, such personal interrogation can lead to a critical self-consciousness that informs understandings of academic concepts, making them more real to the individual and therefore more applicable to personal life and political activism. For example, I believe that deepening bonds of friendship can also help us realize how heteronormative constructions of sharing emotions in monogamous (heterosexual) relationships can sometimes limit other forms of friendships and bonding. From my own reading then, I am able to better conceptualize how social pressures to enter hetero-monogamous "relationships" exert themselves on me daily (if not hourly) and then that these "relationships" become a basis for gender oppression in society.
To put it more generally, this process constantly forces me to re-conceptualize how I frame my own politics and activism. The pursuit of "freedom" and "truth" then take on new and more real meanings that are very different from what we are taught by dominant (white, patriarchal, heteronormative and capitalist) tradition. See first issue of the Observer.
I see so much of the positive work that people at Boston College are doing but also believe that social privilege can destroy the change we hope to make. I have seen my own blatant ignorance get in the way (and continue to get in the way) all too often. That is why i believe that interrogating our identities as humans who are both privileged and oppressed by a gendered, racialized, sexualized and classed society is a project of liberation that not only brings us to a greater self-consciousness, but pushes our political project further than we could have imagined.
In my own limited experience as somebody who is concerned with "politics", I have quickly learned that "politics" is never just that. Political. At least political in the sense that what we do is entirely disassociated from our own identities. Many activists and scholars have put it best in saying that "the personal is political". Or alternately, the person is social. Social in the sense that our identities as "individuals" are directly related to how we are formed by society. This is a process shaped by politics. So to say that human beings are social animals is to also say that human beings are political animals as well. This argument has been made many times in the past.
My point, before it gets too confusing and abstract, is that all of these things are linked. How we project who we are (and how we are perceived) is intimately linked with the society in which we live and the roles we play in that society. A society, which historically, has privileged white folks, men, heterosexuals, and people who have access to money. If you want evidence of this... read about the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system in Massachusetts, or perhaps how people of color were and still are denied access to loans from banks through the process of "red lining", or maybe ask why isn't domestic work (performed mostly by women) included in GDP... etc etc etc. Or really, you can just look at the latest issue of the Observer and see a photo of the GOP debate and that the stage of presidential candidates is filled with white dudes (Alan Keyes entered the race 9 days later). It's not much different in the Democrats either. This is not a coincidence but is indicative of the society in which we live and how institutional and legal relationships (examples above) shape our personal lives.
To take it back to the beginning then... the politics we practice is influenced by the social privilege that society bestows on certain individuals.
Since I am a white man then my progressive political project- to be a part in creating and re-creating a more inclusive, loving, expressive and just society- becomes a project of challenging my privilege at an institutional, as well as personal level. Not to mention maintaining a critical vigilance of how my actions re-produce a white supremacist, male-dominated (patriarchal) society. For rich people, whites, men, hetero-folk, or people who rest at intersections of these socially privileged identities; maintaining this critical vigilance means re-framing the traditional liberal political agenda.
It's not enough to pursue a liberal or progressive politics of activism (an activism that is issue based) if this project does not push us to critically examine and continually re-examine who we are in society and how our actions re-enforce oppression. I say this because I believe we all must embody the change we hope to make.
Black Liberation Theologian James Cone makes very clear the effect of such non-critical actions in a passage of his book "A Black Theology of Liberation" where he offers a critical analysis of whites who do service in non-white communities...
"It seems whites forget about the necessary interrelatedness of love, justice, and power when they encounter black people. Love becomes emotional and sentimental. This sentimental condescending love accounts for their desire to "help" by relieving the physical pains of the suffering blacks so they can satisfy their own religious piety and keep the poor powerless. But the new blacks, redeemed in Christ must refuse their "help" and demand that blacks be confronted as persons. They must say to whites that authentic love is not "help," no giving Christmas baskets but working for political, social, and economic justice which always means a redistribution of power. It is a kind of power which enables the blacks to fight their own battles and thus keep their dignity. 'Powerlessness breeds a race of beggars.'"
I think the position I am trying to articulate is important because Boston College, as a historically white and male-dominated institution, pushes its students to be "men and women for others" often without pushing them to critically examine what the implications of this mission are. To come to a more informed conception of what that means for folks who are socially privileged (and that means all of us to a certain extent because we are in college in the first place), involves critically examining how our identities shape what we do on a very personal and intimate level. Greater social consciousness then prevents us from taking actions that re-produce historically oppressive dynamics in the way Cone argues above.
I am involved in activism and politics not because I want to do good (I do), but because politics for me involves exploring my own conception of myself and how I relate to others, as well as taking action that is informed by this consciousness. This critical self-reflection involves deepening friendships because it can almost never be taken on alone.
I say this because my own interrogation of maleness, whiteness and of the role that sexuality plays in my friendships has often pushed me to a psychological breaking point. Interrogating parts of my identity have inevitably led to new (and sometimes terrifying) avenues of understanding myself and ways in which my often personal history influences interactions with people today. I say this because I see personal formation as being closely linked to processes of social and historical formation. I believe that studies of these historical processes can inform critical self-reflection and vice versa. For example, I have discovered the role of my father in my life is very much tied to a historical (and patriarchal) construction of being a (white) male. I see my relationship with my father as analogous to one between colonizer and colonized that now reproduces itself in my life separate from my dad. Moving forward in exploring these new realms of consciousness is not easy and support from peers, who can both push me and offer support, is key. However, such personal interrogation can lead to a critical self-consciousness that informs understandings of academic concepts, making them more real to the individual and therefore more applicable to personal life and political activism. For example, I believe that deepening bonds of friendship can also help us realize how heteronormative constructions of sharing emotions in monogamous (heterosexual) relationships can sometimes limit other forms of friendships and bonding. From my own reading then, I am able to better conceptualize how social pressures to enter hetero-monogamous "relationships" exert themselves on me daily (if not hourly) and then that these "relationships" become a basis for gender oppression in society.
To put it more generally, this process constantly forces me to re-conceptualize how I frame my own politics and activism. The pursuit of "freedom" and "truth" then take on new and more real meanings that are very different from what we are taught by dominant (white, patriarchal, heteronormative and capitalist) tradition. See first issue of the Observer.
I see so much of the positive work that people at Boston College are doing but also believe that social privilege can destroy the change we hope to make. I have seen my own blatant ignorance get in the way (and continue to get in the way) all too often. That is why i believe that interrogating our identities as humans who are both privileged and oppressed by a gendered, racialized, sexualized and classed society is a project of liberation that not only brings us to a greater self-consciousness, but pushes our political project further than we could have imagined.
Friday, August 3, 2007
nas was right... hip hop is dead
a couple of friends and i traveled to new york city this past weekend to attend "rock the bells"... a concert boasting a lineup that featured the best in "real" hip hop, including such names as the roots, mos def, talib kweli, erykah badu, wu-tang, rage against the machine, cypress hill, public enemy, immortal technique, murs, bother ali... i think you get the idea. this concert was gonna be sick... and it should've been, the ticket was over 80 bucks.
lemme first explain what i mean by "real" hip hop... not that mainstream shit you hear on the radio that reinforces images of black male rappers who are violent and mysogenistc... but the underground stuff. it's often political, non-commerical, musically more experimental... and you don't hear it on the radio. it appeals to a wide ranging audience but when my two friends and i (one staight black male and the other a latino gay male) walked up out of the subway at 125th street in harlem... the line to get into the show was composed of about 75% white males.
so we get to the show and the first group on stage is boot camp click performing a remix of buju banton's "boom bye bye"... more or less rappin about shootin gays in the head. alright, so i figure this will be an aberation and good vibes will follow. the line up roles along and we'd ended up meeting some other friends, at which point immortal technique comes on. this dude is angry, leftist, and violent. not to mention, i'd say about 1 in 15 people had white immortal technique t-shirts on that read "revolutionary" with the picture of a gun beneath it. it was clear to me all these white boys needed to proclaim their radicality to the world. so given the homophobic context of previous songs... we all really started to freak out once immortal technique started to yell out "yall need to be pointing your guns at the RIGHT people!"
ok, so let's break this one down... maybe he's talking about the christian right? probably not, but maybe. the people in power? another good guess. but in the same verse where the man is proclaiming violence against women and following acts that glorify shooting gays... it could mean pointing "your" (the 75% white male audience's) guns at anyone. and for white men, these targets have traditionally been people of color, women and non-heterosexuals.
while i can understand that immortal technique raps from a place of great anger... to awaken a revolutionary spirit in others who are OPPRESSED... this music is consumed by an audience (white males) which already benefits from enormous privilege at the expense of others. his lyrics dilude a privileged audience into thinking that they are part of the revolutionary fight to claim a free space... a space that is already their own in many senses. when immortal technique calls for everyone to raise their fists in the air... it reminds me more of a hitler youth rally than a revolutionary war cry.
and how much do these white males really understand this "revolutionary" ideology that they claim to be so whole heartedly committed to? well, obviously, they have the "revolutionary" t-shirt, so that must mean something, right? yeah, that they're consuming a fetishized image of what it means to be a revolutionary. they can buy into the part, consuming (that's what real CAPITALISTS do, right?) the image, and dilude themselves that they are "down" in the struggle while ulitmately they are probably scarring the shit out of any non-staight white male at the concert and reasserting their dominance of the space and making it unsafe for anyone else. it's clear most of the people there had no fucking clue, and the atmosphere at the concert was quite indicative of this. not to mention, when a mud wrestling match broke out in the middle of the concert like 600 people circled around to watch and weren't even listening to the music.
to me, this is even more telling of an audience who can pay the money to attend a "real" hip hop concert and play the part of a progressive white person, but ultimately, when (quite literally) push comes to shove... they really don't give a shit about any kind of revolutionary change. only consuming the image of blackness and revolutionary social change. if this is how hip hop functions in our society, it is only creating a revolutionary simulacra for the diluded imaginations of the privilieged few who have the the money to buy the CDs or the tickets and the time to waste searching the internet for the newest group.
lemme first explain what i mean by "real" hip hop... not that mainstream shit you hear on the radio that reinforces images of black male rappers who are violent and mysogenistc... but the underground stuff. it's often political, non-commerical, musically more experimental... and you don't hear it on the radio. it appeals to a wide ranging audience but when my two friends and i (one staight black male and the other a latino gay male) walked up out of the subway at 125th street in harlem... the line to get into the show was composed of about 75% white males.
so we get to the show and the first group on stage is boot camp click performing a remix of buju banton's "boom bye bye"... more or less rappin about shootin gays in the head. alright, so i figure this will be an aberation and good vibes will follow. the line up roles along and we'd ended up meeting some other friends, at which point immortal technique comes on. this dude is angry, leftist, and violent. not to mention, i'd say about 1 in 15 people had white immortal technique t-shirts on that read "revolutionary" with the picture of a gun beneath it. it was clear to me all these white boys needed to proclaim their radicality to the world. so given the homophobic context of previous songs... we all really started to freak out once immortal technique started to yell out "yall need to be pointing your guns at the RIGHT people!"
ok, so let's break this one down... maybe he's talking about the christian right? probably not, but maybe. the people in power? another good guess. but in the same verse where the man is proclaiming violence against women and following acts that glorify shooting gays... it could mean pointing "your" (the 75% white male audience's) guns at anyone. and for white men, these targets have traditionally been people of color, women and non-heterosexuals.
while i can understand that immortal technique raps from a place of great anger... to awaken a revolutionary spirit in others who are OPPRESSED... this music is consumed by an audience (white males) which already benefits from enormous privilege at the expense of others. his lyrics dilude a privileged audience into thinking that they are part of the revolutionary fight to claim a free space... a space that is already their own in many senses. when immortal technique calls for everyone to raise their fists in the air... it reminds me more of a hitler youth rally than a revolutionary war cry.
and how much do these white males really understand this "revolutionary" ideology that they claim to be so whole heartedly committed to? well, obviously, they have the "revolutionary" t-shirt, so that must mean something, right? yeah, that they're consuming a fetishized image of what it means to be a revolutionary. they can buy into the part, consuming (that's what real CAPITALISTS do, right?) the image, and dilude themselves that they are "down" in the struggle while ulitmately they are probably scarring the shit out of any non-staight white male at the concert and reasserting their dominance of the space and making it unsafe for anyone else. it's clear most of the people there had no fucking clue, and the atmosphere at the concert was quite indicative of this. not to mention, when a mud wrestling match broke out in the middle of the concert like 600 people circled around to watch and weren't even listening to the music.
to me, this is even more telling of an audience who can pay the money to attend a "real" hip hop concert and play the part of a progressive white person, but ultimately, when (quite literally) push comes to shove... they really don't give a shit about any kind of revolutionary change. only consuming the image of blackness and revolutionary social change. if this is how hip hop functions in our society, it is only creating a revolutionary simulacra for the diluded imaginations of the privilieged few who have the the money to buy the CDs or the tickets and the time to waste searching the internet for the newest group.
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