BSWM II

Having just completed chapter 3, I find that each chapter is richer than the preceding one.  So far, Fanon has drawn from the fictional work of popular Martinique authors to illustrate and analyze the relationships between colonized Martinicans and colonizing French people.  He speaks about the woman of color and the white man in chapter 2, who longs to enter the white world (thereby escaping her own race) through romance and marriage to a white man.  The black woman ("Mayotte Capecia") not only wants to save herself, but to save her race by whitening her race.  With this being the goal, Fanon writes that "we know a lot of girls from Martinique, students in France, who confess in lily-white innocence that they would never marry a black man," (30).  I was surprised to find that in this chapter a substantial portion addressed the negative effects that this woman-of-color/white-man dynamic had upon the black man (the appropriate correlate cannot be found in chapter 3--possibly a sign of the book's male-centered bias.)  In chapter 3, a similar behavior is found by the black man ("Jean Veneuse") who encounters a white woman.  Fanon describes Veneuse as introverted, anxious, and lacking self-esteem.  As a student in France, he struggles to believe that he is equal to his white peers or worthy of the love of a white woman.  And his peers, trying to guarantee him of his acceptance, happily proclaim that Veneuse is not a real Negro.  "[In France] there is a general refusal to consider [students of color] as authentic 'Negroes.' The 'Negro' is the savage, whereas the student is civilized," (50-1).  In both cases, the black and colonized Martinican desire white skin, society, and acceptance.  Blackness and Martinican culture are chains from which to seek deliverance and stains from which to be washed clean.  In positioning themselves in relation to the civilizing culture (see my previous post), Fanon is presenting blackness, in the colonized mind, as the repulsive deprivation of whiteness--lacking in beauty and civility.  Blackness is a region of non-being.  "It is commonplace in Martique to dream of whitening oneself magically as a way of salvation," (27).  However, these dreams bear devastating results since both black and white are trapped in their own particularity and hopelessly fighting to escape (the black man to whiteness and the white man to universal manhood).

BSWM

My friends and I recently formed a book club (I know...geeky, nerdy, whatever).  We're starting off with Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon.  I expect that this will be both a challenge for me and a joy.  A challenge because even though I am familiar with critical theory, I've had little experience with post-colonialism and psychoanalysis.  If approach well, I expect that this will be a growing experience.  A joy because I hope that this highly praised and important work will provide me more tools for thinking through current realities of racism and of contemporary forms of colonization.  Additionally, even as I read through the first chapter, I could identify some of his analyses in my own life, in my family, and in my work with the low income, black communities here in Washington, D.C.  I'll end this post with a terrific excerpt from his first chapter:

"All colonized people--in other words, people in whom an inferiority complex has taken root, whose local cultural originality has been committed to the grave--position themselves in relation to the civilizing language: i.e., the metropolitan culture.  The more the colonized has assimilated the cultural values of the metropolis, the more he will escape the bush.  The more he rejects his blackness and the bush, the whiter he will become.  In the colonial army, and particularly in the regiments of Senegalese soldiers, the 'native' officers are mainly interpreters.  They serve to convey to their fellow soldiers the master's orders, and they themselves enjoy a certain status."

-Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 2-3.

Modernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman had already grabbed my attention when I read his phenomenal work, Liquid Modernity; now I've picked up one of his more celebrated works, Modernity and the Holocaust.  Bauman's text exhibits profound insight, critical analysis and development, along with amazing accessibility (which helps initiate a broad readership into very complex ideas).  Below are just a few passages from this text:

Regarding bureaucracy and the suppression of moral capacity.

"Dehumanization is inextricably related to the most essential, rationalizing tendency of modern bureaucracy... Once effectively dehumanized, and hence cancelled as potential subjects of moral demands, human objects of bureaucratic task-performance are viewed with ethical indifference..."(Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 103)


And, on survivor's guilt and the indissolubility of  moral responsibility, Bauman writes:

"One story, however, carved itself into my brain deeply and haunted me for many years.  This was a story of a saintly sage who met a beggar on the road while traveling with a donkey loaded with sackfuls of food.  The beggar asked for something to eat.  'Wait,' said the sage, 'I  must first untie the sacks.' Before he finished the unpacking, however, the long hunger took its toll and the beggar died.  Then the sage started his prayer: 'Punish me, o Lord, as I failed to save the life of my fellow man!'...

.... Even if one knows that not much more could have been done practically to save the victims of the Holocaust (at least not without additional, and probably formidable, costs), this does not mean that moral qualms can be put to sleep.  Nor does it mean that a moral person's feeling of shame is unfounded (even if its irrationality in terms of self-preservation can be, indeed, easily proved)."(204)

This is an incredible book and I highly recommend it for anyone of us who are still caught up in the myths of modernity: progress, rationality, objectivity, and the supremacy of science.  He argues that modernity is the necessary condition, though not the determinative factor, for the Holocaust to have taken place.  In fact, the Holocaust is a demonstration of modernity's power, not modernity's failure.  He exposes contemporary racism as a thoroughly modern project (even though there were prejudices and forms of segregation in the past, racism as it is understood today has its roots in the modern project).  The emergence of racism coupled with guided by the principles of progress and the belief of social engineering lead to frightening results.  It was the The modern bureaucratic machine--in its division of labor, suppression of morality capacities, and cost-effecitve rationality--that enabled the Holocaust enlist "normal" citizen into carrying out the final solution.  Again, this book comes with my approval.

Riz Khan: Cornel West and the fight against injustice

Gentrification in DC

I'm indebted to my friend for bringing my attention to the article "DC, Long 'Chocolate City,' Becoming More Vanilla."

This story follows a trend that has happened to numerous Washington, DC neighborhoods--Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights; Petworth is already in the works.  Anacostia is the latest, but not the last, in DC's eastward march of gentrification--enjoyed by hipsters and ladder-climbing suburbanites alike (sadly, that includes me, too).  This article touches upon two very important issues, but fails to distinguish them well enough to make clear the problem at hand.  The title leads one to believe that the problem is primarily a racial matter--a predominantly black city is gaining more white inhabitants and losing it's long standing black residents.  Even though this is true, this covers over the fact that this is primarily a problem about economics and class rather than a racial issue.

Economics and race are inseparably intertwined, however they are NOT identical--and this fact makes all the difference.  First of all, the problem the article highlights is that poor families who have lived in DC are being displaced by rising property values and the increase in the cost of living because white developers are buying property, refurnishing old homes, and opening new businesses in low-income neighborhoods.  That is the problem of gentrification.  Secondly, this also has strong racial component because Washington, DC's has had an overwhelming black population.  This has been the case for at least three reasons, if not more: 1. a disproportionate percentage of poor people are black (one reason why race and economics are intimately tied), 2. many black people who moved from the South in the early 20th century settled in the city, AND 3. white flight in the late 60's created a city abandoned to the poor black populations.  This is an important distinction because the problem is not the presence or lack thereof of black people, but of the poor families who are being pushed out of their neighborhoods.  Therefore, whether the developers and new inhabitants are black or white does not make a difference, the injustice is that poor are being uprooted by the rich.  However, if anyone has an awareness of systemic racial injustice, it will be clear that the majority of the residents of Anacostia are poor black people and a majority of the developers are white.  Economic problems have strong racial implications and discussions about race are never unrelated to economic disparity.  However, if one will do justice to this problem, it must be seen primarily as an economic problem, not a racial matter.

I admit that I am puzzled by consequences of gentrification (actually, displacing the poor is not just a "consequence" of gentrification, but is directly at the heart of gentrification's intent).  Poor neighborhoods are complex systems filled with various relationships and patterns--good and some harmful.  In a poor neighborhood, there are families which care for its members, there are schools with networks of friends, familiar faces in churches and local stores.  These are healthy and vibrant relationships which have found their home in places like Anacostia.  However, there are also brutal gangs which divide the neighborhood into territories of violence and hostility.  There are drugs and prostitution circles--both of which are frequently used to keep people in dehumanizing servitude to others.  The truth is that poor families do not want to live in fear of violence any more than rich families do.  Poor or rich, no parent wants their child's life to be in danger simply by walking to school.  No one wants their sense of security violated by rape, muggings, or burglary.  Even though, I want to advocate for those who are poor, I find these ills hard to ignore--ills which have a direct correlation to burden and persistence poverty.  Unfortunately, the rich continue to believe that they know what the poor need and then, with clear consciences and deaf ears, impose their good works on those who already suffer the most.  Gentrification is the inadequate answer of the rich to the problems of poverty.

Let's not romanticize areas like Anacostia--fear of these areas are not solely a matter of white delusions about predominantly black neighborhoods.  There IS violence and high crime rates in this and other neighborhoods.  I do not want to displace those who are impoverished, but they live do in neighborhoods that are in need of transformation.  But what is needed? Better schools?  Community centers?  The removal of power plants and waste sites--causes of numerous health problems among the poor?  Better police enforcement (I know this would also demand an overall of the justice system and reducing instances of police corruption and brutality.  However, we must remember that despite instances of police brutality, some times the problem is that the police do not show up when needed by those who are live in these areas)?  Is there are a way to remove the ills of poor neighborhoods without uprooting multi-generational family and its beautiful communities?  Some of these communities stand like aged Sequoias in DC's transient population.  Until those who are poor--who have been historically poor--are the guidepost for our actions, then we have yet to do justice.

And how about us suburbanites--black, white, or any other race/ethnicity?  Where do we live and what do we do?  Some with good intentions (some with not-so-good intentions) have moved to these gentrified areas.  But the fact of the matter, whether we like it or not, is that simply our presence can send property value soaring and our neighbors shoved into the streets.  My friend reminds [and challenges] me that where one chooses to live is an ethical matter and I'm still struggling with what that will mean for me.