[Reader-list] Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks
Madhumita Lahiri
ml49 at duke.edu
Wed Nov 12 19:37:02 IST 2008
Hi Paul and others,
Thanks for the thoughts on Obama/Nader/etc. I'm confused however as to why this is about Southern whites in particular -- or why it is interesting to see them, in Paul's words, into "a reverse Other." Is it because they are "poor uneducated whites," or "evangelical"? Does believing in Genesis make you a racist? Then how are there so many biblical interpretations of the Obama presidency among the progressive black community in America?
If you look at the electoral map many of the red states were not Southern states (or Confederate states) at all. My state of residence, North Carolina, went blue this year (hooray!), as did Virginia, etc, and some of those who voted for Obama were Southern whites, after all.
I'm not white; I'm not even Christian. And this is certainly not an accusation against Paul, or anyone else in the conversation. I've just found that certain brands of elitism -- poor, uneducated, rural -- or simple geography are frequently offered as "explanations" for racism. Not sure it's true, or helpful.
Hope this is constructive, and thanks for reading,
Madhumita
-----Original Message-----
From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Paul Miller
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 12:51 AM
To: Vivek Narayanan
Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
Subject: [Reader-list] Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks
Hi Vivek, Kshemendra, Nicholas - I have a little quote from one of the
seminal texts of post colonial discourse that I think still echoes
over the Obama debate: Black Skin, White Masks:
"The Negro and Language":
"For it is implicit that to speak is to exist absolutely for the
other. // The black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the
other with the white man. A Negro behaves differently with another
Negro. The this self-division is a direct result of colonialist
subjugation is beyond question. . . ."
Let's reverse engineer that phrase and see what pops out of the logic
of diaspora that Obama represents. Is he white or black? Both or
neither?
If you apply the context vs content breakdown of the unease that
Obama's presidency strikes in Southern whites, it's that their role is
being displaced and reclaimed. They are artifacts of a different era.
If you read stuff like Camus's The Stranger, and compare it to the
alienation of U.S. soldiers occupying Iraq, there's still a resonance:
an occupied territory, whether it's the Confederate States after the
Civil War, or the Iraq of today, creates insurgency in the struggle to
reclaim identity. That's the way I see Bush - the last colonial vector
of the Enlightenment, the last gasp of the Civil War. The red states
and blue states have been caught in a vortex of remixes.
Liberty, Justice, Equality at Guantanamo!
The right to testify! The right to an attorney and to know the charges
being leveled at you! Things like that have been thrown into the
dustbin of history by Bush, but the idea is that these concepts can be
re-animated. That's precisely what is going on at the moment:
reclamation of public will to imagine a different world. I really
think that the "they" of this transformation - the Bush-Mccain
demographic: are now "The Other" - poor uneducated whites who now face
globalization without the tools of the average worker of places like
China or India (math, physics, etc are not "Evangelical values"). I'm
curious to see how the reverse "Other" fares in this globalized
economy based on information. It's now about "confidence in the
markets" - it certainly isn't about whether the earth was made in 7
days, or how to count people are 3/4 of a human for tax purposes a la
that central document of the Enlightenment: The U.S. Constitution.
Just a late nite rumination.
Paul
On Nov 12, 2008, at 12:14 AM, Vivek Narayanan wrote:
> Kshemendra,
>
> I'm sure Gordimer said what she said with all good intentions, I was
> not
> implying otherwise. However, as you must know, most Black Americans
> can
> anyway trace an ancestry back not only to Africans, but also to
> Europeans and Native Americans at the very least. And this is not
> just
> a matter of genetics--it's profoundly true as a matter of cultural
> heritage as well. This does not take away from the reductiveness with
> which these matters are often presented in public discourse. So
> even a
> "full" Black American (by Gordimer's dubious definition) in the white
> house would *still* symbolise "the importance and potential of
> pluralism"-- as does not only Obama's genetic circumstance (in a very
> simplistic way), but also the composition and conduct of his campaign.
> I'm surprised that Gordimer would be so hung up on genetic precision
> (maybe it's just the reporter who gave an offhand, joking comment
> undue
> importance) but I wonder if, in the back of her mind, she was using
> Obama to fight a shadow rhetorical battle relating to current South
> African politics...
>
> Vivek
>
> Kshmendra Kaul wrote:
>> Nadine Gordimer seems to have been very assertive in her comments
>> which carried positivity. She does not appear to be enouraging any
>> debate over whether Obama is "really black". She said (as reported):
>>
>> """""He's been celebrated as a black man. But it's not being
>> pointed out that he's half black and half white. To me, it
>> symbolically represents a kind of advancement in recognising the
>> human tribe as one."""""
>>
>> List member V Ramaswamy attended the lecture by Nadine Gordimer in
>> Kolkatta and had this to say:
>>
>> """" Asked about the Obama victory, she clarified that Obama was
>> not a "black" man, he was actually half black and half white, and
>> thus symbolises the importance and potential of pluralism."""""
>>
>>
>> Kshmendra
>>
>>
>> --- On Tue, 11/11/08, Vivek Narayanan <vivek at sarai.net> wrote:
>>
>> From: Vivek Narayanan <vivek at sarai.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ralph Nader, "White" Boy?
>> To: "Nicholas Ruiz III" <editor at intertheory.org>
>> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
>> Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 10:18 AM
>>
>> Nicholas, the left has historically tried to discount (for example)
>> racial or caste-based discrimination by claiming class as the only
>> relevant or "real" category, and this strategy has always backfired.
>>
>> Nader is trying to reuse this old saw, but ironically in a way that
>> only
>> points more directly to his deep, oblivious immersion in racialised
>> rhetoric, his way of seeing the world through racial lenses. He
>> uses a
>> contemptuous, derogatory epithet that can only be applied against
>> Black
>> Americans; that's inexcusable, yes, but what is more fascinating is
>> how
>> completely out of touch it shows Nader to be, as a politician and
>> as an
>> activist. Anyone who has spent some amount of time in the US would
>> understand how and why Black Americans feel infuriated at even being
>> innocently called "uncle"-- let alone "uncle Tom". By not
>> getting this,
>> Nader has completely alienated a huge section of his potential
>> support
>> base for all of time. I doubt he would have done that if he was
>> more in
>> touch. It may that this is a generational disconnect, as Paul
>> suggests;
>> or it may be a disconnect that goes much deeper.
>>
>> Perhaps you're right only in the sense that Nader perhaps *thinks*
>> that
>> Obama's election signifies a post-racial world, and now he can say
>> whatever he likes without anyone taking (or having the right to take)
>> offence. This is why Davey D's example of "the white boy at the
>> party
>>
>> who thinks he's cool enough" feels so appropriate. In the coming
>> months, I suspect we will continue to see a lot of comments based on
>> just such an assumption. The discourse of race may have evolved
>> significantly, but we are still entangled in it; to pretend that it
>> has
>> gone away only entangles us further.
>>
>> Or perhaps there are more cynical reasons for Nader's comments.
>> For all
>> he says, he is still very much invested in electoral politics*. This
>> has been a campaign full of slurs, vicious, below the belt and "let's
>> try anything" attacks. Perhaps Nader is just doing his own bit to
>> come
>> into view. [*the article I posted earlier to this list eventually
>> points to the ultimate limitations of electoral politics itself,
>> and I
>> think that would be a much more interesting and useful base to
>> critique
>> and challenge Obama]
>>
>> Naeem, I'm surprised that you would make Nader's and Davey D's
>> comments
>> equivalent (as you seem to be doing.) Incidentally, Nader's
>> ancestry is
>> Maronite Catholic from Lebanon; this is a community that began
>> emigrating from Lebanon (to escape persecution) to places like the US
>> and South Africa from the mid-1800s onwards, and was universally
>> accepted as "white" in all of these places (in Apartheid era South
>> Africa, Maronites were classified as whites by law; other Maronites
>> settled and were integrated/intermarried into the white social
>> world in
>> places like the American South). Todd Palin is, of course, Native
>> American. And of course there's that debate, revived by Nadine
>> Gordimer
>> apparently, over whether Obama is "really black". Or, as a far less
>> sophisticated fellow was insisting to his friend outside my local
>> wine
>> shop yesterday (in Tamil), "No no no, I tell you, he's not a Negro--
>> he's a Muslim, African Muslim!" All of these intricate and comically
>> tedious technical questions are mostly separate from the way that
>> Nader,
>> Palin and Obama are commonly figured in public discourse, in the
>> dramaturgy of racialised politics.
>>
>> Vivek
>>
>> Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
>>
>>> greetings paul/all...I see your point...it's just that Nader seems
>>> to
>>>
>> be calling up the old phrase to highlight what he sees as the
>> irrelevant nature
>> of race in Obama's presidency...it's not his skin color that will
>> make
>> the political difference, even as most recent 'political' commentary
>> surrounding Obama's win, revolves around the historic nature of a
>> U.S.
>> president of a different hue...
>>
>>> Nader's critique seems effective here: it decharges the race
>>>
>> element...by stating the obvious... that 'Uncle Tom' is a vestigial
>> phrase best left that way... while recalling the words, as an
>> attempt to
>> eliminate the conspicuous activist charm of 'race' that has
>> relegated,
>> for Nader, the itemized political issues to the backwaters of media
>> coverage and
>> commentary...
>>
>>> NRIII
>>>
>>> Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
>>> Editor, Kritikos
>>> http://intertheory.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: Paul Miller <anansi1 at earthlink.net>
>>> To: Nicholas Ruiz III <editor at intertheory.org>
>>> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
>>> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:50:53 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ralph Nader, "White" Boy?
>>>
>>> Hi Nicholas - yes, that clip got passed around alot. I still totally
>>> and utterly disagree with Nader's use of what is viewed in a
>>> political
>>>
>>
>>
>>> context as ridiculously stupid rhetoric.
>>>
>>> To call someone an "Uncle Tom" is a highly charged term in
>>>
>> African
>>
>>> American culture - I'm not sure what the South Asian equivalent
>>> would
>>>
>>
>>
>>> be. Of course there's a reason Fox News (never the most progressive
>>> place...) would highlight Nader saying that, and of course, he's
>>> trying to gain media traction by using incendiary terms.
>>>
>>> I'd like to elevate the discourse a bit. If you look up Birth of a
>>> Nation and it's fear of an African American political leadership -
>>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
>>
>>> you can see a similar aesthetic at work. Will the new leader be the
>>> saviour of his people or be controlled by whites as a kind of
>>> stand in
>>> for their own agenda? That film was in 1915. Nader's comments were
>>> in
>>>
>>
>>
>>> 2008. If we look at the philosophical implications of Obama's
>>> presidency, we need to look at something like Frantz Fanon's
>>>
>> "Black
>>
>>> Skin, White Masks" as a guide - perhaps. Or maybe, just maybe, the
>>> Obama presidency will be something totally new. It's too soon to
>>> say.
>>>
>>> To be fair, one needs to have some kind of equilibrium. I don't
>>> think
>>>
>>
>>
>>> that Nader's comments were, as Fox News likes to say "fair and
>>> balanced."
>>>
>>> in peace,
>>> Paul
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 10, 2008, at 9:06 AM, Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Let's be fair...and not take Nader's comment out of context:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibsP6XN2dIo
>>>>
>>>> There is little that is hurtful about the way in which Nader meant
>>>> to articulate a critique of the political (not racial) similarity
>>>> of
>>>> Obama and McCain...
>>>>
>>>> NRIII
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
>>>> Editor, Kritikos
>>>> http://intertheory.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: Paul Miller <anansi1 at earthlink.net>
>>>> To: V Ramaswamy <rama.sangye at gmail.com>
>>>> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
>>>> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 7:57:45 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ralph Nader, "White" Boy?
>>>>
>>>> Hello Naeem, and hello V - -I'm now writing to you from the far
>>>> northeast of the U.S. where I'm doing an artist residency at
>>>>
>> Dartmouth
>>
>>>> University.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry about the delay in communication - I had a 9 hour flight from
>>>> Vienna to Washington D.C. then plane transfer to New England etc
>>>> etc
>>>> This is from my cell phone, so it's brief.
>>>>
>>>> OK - response:
>>>>
>>>> I'm a big fan of looking at things from the viewpoint of
>>>>
>> hybridity:
>>
>>>> yes, Nader is Lebanese American. Is it an identity he claims in
>>>> public
>>>> discourse? No.
>>>>
>>>> If a person who was identified as "white" American said that
>>>>
>> Obama was
>>
>>>> an Uncle Tom on a major news channel it would be greated with
>>>> outrage
>>>> (as Nader's comment was).
>>>>
>>>> I've lost a lot of respect for Nader from his comments. Imagine if
>>>>
>> in
>>
>>>> India a minority from the Muslim population (Muslim's make up
>>>>
>> about
>>
>>>> 13% of India's population), became Prime Minister, and these kinds
>>>>
>> of
>>
>>>> comments started up in the media. I'm sure people would be
>>>>
>> outraged.
>>
>>>> In any case, I definitely think it was simply a poor choice of
>>>> words,
>>>> and theintent to critique what Nader views as Obama's agenda got
>>>>
>> lost
>>
>>>> in the poor choice of rhetoric.
>>>>
>>>> I'm in the middle of releasing a "remix" of DW
>>>>
>> Griffith's film "Birth
>>
>>>> of a Nation" as an art piece. The film was made in 1915 and
>>>>
>> showed
>>
>>>> exactly the same kind of sentiments of Nader. I can only say I'm
>>>>
>> not
>>
>>>> too surprised. Brown on brown racism can sometimes be alot more
>>>> virulent than white on brown racism. Many of my friends in the
>>>> African
>>>> American community were disgusted with Nader's comments. It's
>>>>
>> an
>>
>>>> emotional issue, and all I can say is that Nader lost alot of
>>>> support
>>>> with his comments.
>>>>
>>>> in peace,
>>>> Paul
>>>> On Nov 9, 2008, at 10:18 PM, V Ramaswamy wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Nader's "Uncle Tom" comment is not in his "open
>>>>>
>> letter". I believe
>>
>>>>> that was
>>>>> made in an interview on Fox tv.
>>>>> From what I understood (from an earlier age of literacy), the term
>>>>> "Uncle
>>>>> Tom" was used by radical blacks, to refer to what they
>>>>>
>> perceived as a
>>
>>>>> servile, non-threatening, accommodating attitude, of accepting the
>>>>> white
>>>>> man's game and his domination but seeking something better for
>>>>>
>>
>>
>>>>> oneself
>>>>> within that.
>>>>>
>>>>> The term itself of course comes from the novel "Uncle
>>>>>
>> Tom's Cabin",
>>
>>>>> by
>>>>> Harriet Beecher Stowe, where the protagonist, a slave, Uncle Tom,
>>>>> silently
>>>>> suffers indignities, but never turns against his white masters,
>>>>>
>> whom
>>
>>>>> he
>>>>> continues to love and whose overlordship he neither questions nor
>>>>> rejects.
>>>>>
>>>>> If I am not wrong, Dr Martin Luther King had also been called
>>>>>
>> "Uncle
>>
>>>>> Tom" a
>>>>> few times.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ralph Nader has contested the US presidential election a few
>>>>>
>> times.
>>
>>>>> I don't
>>>>> think he or anyone else seriously believes he will ever win. He
>>>>>
>> has a
>>
>>>>> specific political objective in contesting the elections. To say
>>>>> certain
>>>>> things, to raise certain issues, to ask certain questions. He is
>>>>> ultimately
>>>>> a valuable asset to the US democratic system. In fact this time I
>>>>>
>> was
>>
>>>>> surprised to learn - 2 days ago - that he had contested. That says
>>>>>
>>
>>
>>>>> how
>>>>> marginalised he was in the mainstream media.
>>>>>
>>>>> Even if no one else does so, perhaps Nader sees it as his task to
>>>>>
>> say
>>
>>>>> certain things, to call a spade a spade. For instance, the whole
>>>>> Israel-Palestine thing, on which he has elaborated in detail in
>>>>>
>> his
>>
>>>>> "open
>>>>> letter". I was struck by the fact that notwithstanding
>>>>>
>> Obama's
>>
>>>>> bending over
>>>>> backwards to please Israelis and thus American Jews, most Israel-
>>>>> based
>>>>> Americans apparently did not vote for Obama.
>>>>>
>>>>> Electoral politics is, as we know, a dicey matter, a game that has
>>>>> to be
>>>>> played cunningly. So I suppose non-cunning people should not be in
>>>>> that
>>>>> game, and only cunning people will play. But I would like to think
>>>>> that
>>>>> "cunning" need not always be a negative term! But I
>>>>>
>> would also like
>>
>>>>> to think
>>>>> that by and by, the ways of electoral politics will change, and
>>>>> people can
>>>>> by the force of their convictions, speak the truth, be honest, say
>>>>> what has
>>>>> to be said, and yet prevail.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would like to see Nader as a conscience keeper, rather than a
>>>>>
>> sore,
>>
>>>>> sour-grapes loser, or sniveler. He is holding up the mirror to
>>>>> Obama. He is
>>>>> challenging him with what he must do, if he is to be true to the
>>>>> expectations and hope he has unleashed. I have learnt from life
>>>>>
>> that
>>
>>>>> one's
>>>>> harshest critics turn out to be one's best supporters.
>>>>>
>> "With enemies
>>
>>>>> like
>>>>> these, who needs friends!"
>>>>>
>>>>> For those interested, I am mailing separately Vinay Lal's
>>>>>
>> article on
>>
>>>>> Obama
>>>>> (written before his victory) that appears in the current EPW. And
>>>>>
>> a
>>
>>>>> blog
>>>>> post that expressed the feelings unleashed by Obama's victory.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best
>>>>>
>>>>> V Ramaswamy
>>>>> Calcutta
>>>>> cuckooscall.blogspot.com
>>>>> _________________________________________
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>>>>>
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