DagSeoul: Positions, Populations, Punk, Poetics

dagNotes: tumblr is *white* dildos

dagseoul:

Tired of reading posts where people attempt to justify standardizing/quantifying various narratives of oppression and privilege to compare “racial” groups in order to argue which groups are more or less privileged, hence, more or less oppressed. This isn’t going to cut it and for one very important reason. Quite frankly, it’s a white man’s game. As such, it’s reactionary and regressive.

If we’re speaking of privilege in communities of color in the US, then we’re examining individuals (and the communities they represent) who have been interpellated as white subjects. To use those interpellated subjects as if they usefully represent actual communities of color, in other words as well-defined minority communities, reinforces the white power structure. Why do we insist on objectifying—using quantities and percentages—to talk about oppression, or worse “the oppressed”? I think it makes it easier to ignore history, for one thing, and easier to cultivate a proper, unambiguous, and standard civility for traditionally white scientific discourse about society as a whole.

How can we compare Asian-American experience(s) of oppression and privilege to Black experience(s) of oppression and privilege without necessarily standardizing their experiences as a standard minority experience (SME) thus privileging the notion that communities of color are monoliths of ethnic experience organized according to dominant white modes of observation. White power helps creates an SME that permits comparison across “color”. White power literally counts on it. We criticize this attempt to standardize narratives of experience when we see it in colorblind discourse, don’t we? Why not everywhere it’s implemented, then?

In my opinion, this standardization becomes more problematic when we consider immigrants and immigration.

dagNotes: tumblr is *white* dildos

dagseoul:

Tired of reading posts where people attempt to justify standardizing/quantifying various narratives of oppression and privilege to compare “racial” groups in order to argue which groups are more or less privileged, hence, more or less oppressed. This isn’t going to cut it and for one very important reason. Quite frankly, it’s a white man’s game. As such, it’s reactionary and regressive.

If we’re speaking of privilege in communities of color in the US, then we’re examining individuals (and the communities they represent) who have been interpellated as white subjects. To use those interpellated subjects as if they usefully represent actual communities of color, in other words as well-defined minority communities, reinforces the white power structure. Why do we insist on objectifying—using quantities and percentages—to talk about oppression, or worse “the oppressed”? I think it makes it easier to ignore history, for one thing, and easier to cultivate a proper, unambiguous, and standard civility for traditionally white scientific discourse about society as a whole.

How can we compare Asian-American experience(s) of oppression and privilege to Black experience(s) of oppression and privilege without necessarily standardizing their experiences as a standard minority experience (SME) thus privileging the notion that communities of color are monoliths of ethnic experience organized according to dominant white modes of observation. White power helps creates an SME that permits comparison across “color”. White power literally counts on it. We criticize this attempt to standardize narratives of experience when we see it in colorblind discourse, don’t we? Why not everywhere it’s implemented, then?

In my opinion, this standardization becomes more problematic when we consider immigrants and immigration.

I found it. This is the post I wrote that people are pissed about. It’s from May of this year. And if people are upset about it, too bad. I spent a lot of time talking to Praise about this one. Her parents immigrated to the US from Korea in 1978. She was born shortly after they emigrated from Korea. Praise is consistently criticized as not really being Korean or not really being American, depending on how it suits the person talking to her. I’ve never seen anything else like it. No matter how a discussion about racism goes, she is always judged to be lacking. Somehow she’s always the lucky one in comparison to other people of color, though her experiences beg to differ. In addition, she’s treated as the passive model minority yet given no benefits for the privilege of being profiled as closer to white than people with darker skin. I’ve witnessed this as she talks with other US citizens both home and abroad. So, I’ve witnessed whites and people of color unapologetically apply racist stereotypes when talking to her.

My post was picked up by bloggers after an idiot sent an ask to one insisting that Asian Americans are actually more like white people than they’re willing to admit, a common and crass insinuation from many poc bloggers. And whenever the crass claim is countered, black bloggers call Asian Americans antiblack. Well, there’s a problem. I didn’t get involved in the discussion because I had no business commenting on that. But I did get involved when social justice tumblr decided to take sides and start throwing the word “antiblack” around regarding the upset bloggers who reblogged my post. Things got heated and I understand why.

I don’t know what to do in these situations on tumblr and typically, when it’s not white bloggers, I stay out of it.  As you can see, all I had addressed was the concept of a standard minority experience in white supremacist discourse that I feel was implemented to taunt bloggers and tease them about being more white than they would admit, which made us angry while we were reading the arguments. (Us: me and Praise) Anyway, taunting women of color who aren’t black by claiming they’re more white or that they want to be white or that they are treated white is fucking dishonest bullshit. It’s just not true, except as a white supremacist trope for “Asians” in America.

I can’t speak on behalf of bloggers who are no longer present, but this is my level of participation in that argument, and I’m not at all ashamed of it.

I like what I wrote and I still agree with it.

dagNotes: On Freedom; Or, Why I don’t trust most white people.

dagseoul:

They believe they have a freedom that, factually and historically, no person of color has, the freedom (to pretend) to be ignorant of difference. The performance of this ignorance to others—white and not-white—is one of the most pervasive and irritating aspects of everyday whiteness. This freedom is a distinctly white privilege. I’d say, this freedom is the most recognizable marker for whiteness as it’s the most ordinary in appearance. People who can be free from knowing about others who are not white are fully composed white individuals. The others-to-be-ignorant-of are composed white subjects. The relation is inherently oppressive. One group is liberated while the others are bound. 

In the US, the social interpellation process is one of becoming white, living with whiteness, bargaining with white power, coping with white supremacy. It’s violent, interpellative social action. It occurs where all social action is organized, within the free market. Thus, it is both passively and actively consumed. It’s both affliction and consolation. Those who are afflicted are passively composed white subjects who endure composition regardless; those who are consoled are actively composed white individuals who answer an invitation to composition without endurance. It’s from this interpellation the supremacist conception of the individual and its western philosophical tradition springs. Capitalism has embraced this conception from its beginnings and has sublimated the concept in its contemporary state. Hence, white individuals are often aggressively recalcitrant participants in anti-racist action; obstinate and uncooperative toward the authority in any discourse that confronts white supremacy, yet passively obeisant to the authority in white power. For example, we’re asked to embrace an equality and social justice discourse that ignores oppressive power relationships in exchange for attention to singular issues that fail to significantly confront white supremacy and its power structure. We must talk about distribution of goods and services; we must address all individuals as consumers and employees. In other words, we are always already encouraged to see others without difference, to see others as if we all are equally born, that we are, in a significant manner, equivalencies.

It’s a rare occurrence to find a white person unconditionally willing to betray the authority in whiteness. And it’s why I’m dutifully mean about it with white tumblr bloggers; as mean as I am about it IRL. I won’t permit the passive violence in white power between social liberals to sit unexamined and have made a promise to return any and all forms of violence with like violence. I’m especially mean to tepid social justice discourse that pushes for the degraded equality I discussed just above. I expect the libertarian white boys to deny all of this outright. I expect more from people who claim enlightenment and progressivism.

I will do this until we reside in societies that have overcome white power. Don’t see that happening any time soon. So, fucking deal is my attitude. I can’t trust white people who aren’t willing to betray their permissive whiteness, their unexamined possessive-whiteness, their unearned ambition.

(via dagseoul)

dagNotes: On Freedom; Or, Why I don’t trust most white people.

dagseoul:

They believe they have a freedom that, factually and historically, no person of color has, the freedom (to pretend) to be ignorant of difference. The performance of this ignorance to others—white and not-white—is one of the most pervasive and irritating aspects of everyday whiteness. This freedom is a distinctly white privilege. I’d say, this freedom is the most recognizable marker for whiteness as it’s the most ordinary in appearance. People who can be free from knowing about others who are not white are fully composed white individuals. The others-to-be-ignorant-of are composed white subjects. The relation is inherently oppressive. One group is liberated while the others are bound. 

In the US, the social interpellation process is one of becoming white, living with whiteness, bargaining with white power, coping with white supremacy. It’s violent, interpellative social action. It occurs where all social action is organized, within the free market. Thus, it is both passively and actively consumed. It’s both affliction and consolation. Those who are afflicted are passively composed white subjects who endure composition regardless; those who are consoled are actively composed white individuals who answer an invitation to composition without endurance. It’s from this interpellation the supremacist conception of the individual and its western philosophical tradition springs. Capitalism has embraced this conception from its beginnings and has sublimated the concept in its contemporary state. Hence, white individuals are often aggressively recalcitrant participants in anti-racist action; obstinate and uncooperative toward the authority in any discourse that confronts white supremacy, yet passively obeisant to the authority in white power. For example, we’re asked to embrace an equality and social justice discourse that ignores oppressive power relationships in exchange for attention to singular issues that fail to significantly confront white supremacy and its power structure. We must talk about distribution of goods and services; we must address all individuals as consumers and employees. In other words, we are always already encouraged to see others without difference, to see others as if we all are equally born, that we are, in a significant manner, equivalencies.

It’s a rare occurrence to find a white person unconditionally willing to betray the authority in whiteness. And it’s why I’m dutifully mean about it with white tumblr bloggers; as mean as I am about it IRL. I won’t permit the passive violence in white power between social liberals to sit unexamined and have made a promise to return any and all forms of violence with like violence. I’m especially mean to tepid social justice discourse that pushes for the degraded equality I discussed just above. I expect the libertarian white boys to deny all of this outright. I expect more from people who claim enlightenment and progressivism.

I will do this until we reside in societies that have overcome white power. Don’t see that happening any time soon. So, fucking deal is my attitude. I can’t trust white people who aren’t willing to betray their permissive whiteness, their unexamined possessive-whiteness, their unearned ambition.

dagNotes: On Freedom; Or, Why I don’t trust most white people.

They believe they have a freedom that, factually and historically, no person of color has,  the freedom (to pretend) to be ignorant of difference. The performance of this ignorance to others—white and not-white—is one of the most pervasive and irritating aspects of everyday whiteness. This freedom is a distinctly white privilege. I’d say, this freedom is the most recognizable marker for whiteness as it’s the most ordinary in appearance. People who can be free from knowing about others who are not white are fully composed white individuals. The others-to-be-ignorant-of are composed white subjects. The relation is inherently oppressive. One group is liberated while the others are bound. 

In the US, the social interpellation process is one of becoming white, living with whiteness, bargaining with white power, coping with white supremacy. It’s violent, interpellative social action. It occurs where all social action is organized, within the free market. Thus, it is both passively and actively consumed. It’s both affliction and consolation. Those who are afflicted are passively composed white subjects who endure composition regardless; those who are consoled are actively composed white individuals who answer an invitation to composition without endurance. It’s from this interpellation the supremacist conception of the individual and its western philosophical tradition springs. Capitalism has embraced this conception from its beginnings and has sublimated the concept in its contemporary state. Hence, white individuals are often aggressively recalcitrant participants in anti-racist action; obstinate and uncooperative toward the authority in any discourse that confronts white supremacy, yet passively obeisant to the authority in white power. For example, we’re asked to embrace an equality and social justice discourse that ignores oppressive power relationships in exchange for attention to singular issues that fail to significantly confront white supremacy and its power structure. We must talk about distribution of goods and services; we must address all individuals as consumers and employees. In other words, we are always already encouraged to see others without difference, to see others as if we all are equally born, that we are, in a significant manner, equivalencies.

It’s a rare occurrence to find a white person unconditionally willing to betray the authority in whiteness. And it’s why I’m dutifully mean about it with white tumblr bloggers; as mean as I am about it IRL. I won’t permit the passive violence in white power between social liberals to sit unexamined and have made a promise to return any and all forms of violence with like violence. I’m especially mean to tepid social justice discourse that pushes for the degraded equality I discussed just above. I expect the libertarian white boys to deny all of this outright. I expect more from people who claim enlightenment and progressivism.

I will do this until we reside in societies that have overcome white power. Don’t see that happening any time soon. So, fucking deal is my attitude. I can’t trust white people who aren’t willing to betray their permissive whiteness, their unexamined possessive-whiteness, their unearned ambition.

Whiteness: To, For, and Against

dagseoul:

Always a white person around to tell Koreans about Korea and Korean culture.

Koreans are bound to have something to say about the upcoming Cloud Atlas film adaptation and its representation of Seoul and already white fans of the book are in defense mode against any hint of criticism. White people like to inform Koreans that their nationalism doesn’t makes sense because they’re already so Westernized, and they level the criticism without a hint of consciousness about how the critique is ridiculously short-sighted, narrow-minded, and insulting. As if to-become-first-world meant Koreans had to become “Western”. White foreigners do it all the time: a successful Korea means a Korea full of Koreans who are basically white people and all their new friends who helped them get there. In other words, to be successful means to not be Korean. That’s the implication. It’s understandable most Koreans push back against such interpellation.

You’ve likely seen the criticism Jim Sturgess is receiving for his insensitive discussion about his preparations for part of his role as Adam Ewing/Im Hae Joon in Cloud Atlas. I’m a Tykwer fan and not a Wachowski fan, so I’m already meh about the film. I don’t know what you do with an actor who has to play different characters with different ethnicities. I’m not a director. I do know that, at least, we should have actors who understand the complexities of culture, who understand racist film culture and its history, and who can appropriately address their roles without being racist themselves. White actors like to pretend they are unselfconscious about these things and it’s insulting and precious.

For what it’s worth, I have nothing to write about it that I haven’t written already. Although, I have noticed something about whiteness that’s worth discussion.

The ideological apparatus whiteness* works differently at home than away from home. At home, whites tend to use people of color and foreigners as barometers for the health of society at home in a way that recollects an idealized white society. In this manner, we can see how white supremacy uses white people in an effort to maintain its authority. Away from home, where white supremacy is challenged, whites tend to speak to people of color and their hosts about the health of their society in a way that (attempts to) interpellate others as subjects of white supremacy. In other words, white people attempt to address not-white subjects as white subjects. We can see this in the way that many Native Speaking English Teachers across Asia compose lessons that are intended to instruct students not only how to use English well but how to think about the world well. So to use English becomes a way to use whiteness. The teachers approve of others using whiteness/English well and so re-establish the authority in white supremacy.

*I use whiteness instead of white supremacy. White supremacy permits us to address of state of affairs. White supremacy is a fact. We can historically examine white power by addressing white supremacy. Whiteness is about something particular within white supremacy. It isn’t a narrative about a culture or society and its history. Whiteness modifies particular events and individuals. Rather than addressing action as white supremacy does, whiteness addresses acts. In this way, I can illustrate how whiteness composes (addresses) individuals, say English teachers, at home and abroad.

keeping this up top…some anon questions.

Whiteness: To, For, and Against

dagseoul:

Always a white person around to tell Koreans about Korea and Korean culture.

Koreans are bound to have something to say about the upcoming Cloud Atlas film adaptation and its representation of Seoul and already white fans of the book are in defense mode against any hint of criticism. White people like to inform Koreans that their nationalism doesn’t makes sense because they’re already so Westernized, and they level the criticism without a hint of consciousness about how the critique is ridiculously short-sighted, narrow-minded, and insulting. As if to-become-first-world meant Koreans had to become “Western”. White foreigners do it all the time: a successful Korea means a Korea full of Koreans who are basically white people and all their new friends who helped them get there. In other words, to be successful means to not be Korean. That’s the implication. It’s understandable most Koreans push back against such interpellation.

You’ve likely seen the criticism Jim Sturgess is receiving for his insensitive discussion about his preparations for part of his role as Adam Ewing/Im Hae Joon in Cloud Atlas. I’m a Tykwer fan and not a Wachowski fan, so I’m already meh about the film. I don’t know what you do with an actor who has to play different characters with different ethnicities. I’m not a director. I do know that, at least, we should have actors who understand the complexities of culture, who understand racist film culture and its history, and who can appropriately address their roles without being racist themselves. White actors like to pretend they are unselfconscious about these things and it’s insulting and precious.

For what it’s worth, I have nothing to write about it that I haven’t written already. Although, I have noticed something about whiteness that’s worth discussion.

The ideological apparatus whiteness* works differently at home than away from home. At home, whites tend to use people of color and foreigners as barometers for the health of society at home in a way that recollects an idealized white society. In this manner, we can see how white supremacy uses white people in an effort to maintain its authority. Away from home, where white supremacy is challenged, whites tend to speak to people of color and their hosts about the health of their society in a way that (attempts to) interpellate others as subjects of white supremacy. In other words, white people attempt to address not-white subjects as white subjects. We can see this in the way that many Native Speaking English Teachers across Asia compose lessons that are intended to instruct students not only how to use English well but how to think about the world well. So to use English becomes a way to use whiteness. The teachers approve of others using whiteness/English well and so re-establish the authority in white supremacy.

*I use whiteness instead of white supremacy. White supremacy permits us to address of state of affairs. White supremacy is a fact. We can historically examine white power by addressing white supremacy. Whiteness is about something particular within white supremacy. It isn’t a narrative about a culture or society and its history. Whiteness modifies particular events and individuals. Rather than addressing action as white supremacy does, whiteness addresses acts. In this way, I can illustrate how whiteness composes (addresses) individuals, say English teachers, at home and abroad.

Whiteness: To, For, and Against

Always a white person around to tell Koreans about Korea and Korean culture.

Koreans are bound to have something to say about the upcoming Cloud Atlas film adaptation and its representation of Seoul and already white fans of the book are in defense mode against any hint of criticism. White people like to inform Koreans that their nationalism doesn’t makes sense because they’re already so Westernized, and they level the criticism without a hint of consciousness about how the critique is ridiculously short-sighted, narrow-minded, and insulting. As if to-become-first-world meant Koreans had to become “Western”. White foreigners do it all the time: a successful Korea means a Korea full of Koreans who are basically white people and all their new friends who helped them get there. In other words, to be successful means to not be Korean. That’s the implication. It’s understandable most Koreans push back against such interpellation.

You’ve likely seen the criticism Jim Sturgess is receiving for his insensitive discussion about his preparations for part of his role as Adam Ewing/Im Hae Joon in Cloud Atlas. I’m a Tykwer fan and not a Wachowski fan, so I’m already meh about the film. I don’t know what you do with an actor who has to play different characters with different ethnicities. I’m not a director. I do know that, at least, we should have actors who understand the complexities of culture, who understand racist film culture and its history, and who can appropriately address their roles without being racist themselves. White actors like to pretend they are unselfconscious about these things and it’s insulting and precious.

For what it’s worth, I have nothing to write about it that I haven’t written already. Although, I have noticed something about whiteness that’s worth discussion.

The ideological apparatus whiteness* works differently at home than away from home. At home, whites tend to use people of color and foreigners as barometers for the health of society at home in a way that recollects an idealized white society. In this manner, we can see how white supremacy uses white people in an effort to maintain its authority. Away from home, where white supremacy is challenged, whites tend to speak to people of color and their hosts about the health of their society in a way that (attempts to) interpellate others as subjects of white supremacy. In other words, white people attempt to address not-white subjects as white subjects. We can see this in the way that many Native Speaking English Teachers across Asia compose lessons that are intended to instruct students not only how to use English well but how to think about the world well. So to use English becomes a way to use whiteness. The teachers approve of others using whiteness/English well and so re-establish the authority in white supremacy.

*I use whiteness instead of white supremacy. White supremacy permits us to address of state of affairs. White supremacy is a fact. We can historically examine white power by addressing white supremacy. Whiteness is about something particular within white supremacy. It isn’t a narrative about a culture or society and its history. Whiteness modifies particular events and individuals. Rather than addressing action as white supremacy does, whiteness addresses acts. In this way, I can illustrate how whiteness composes (addresses) individuals, say English teachers, at home and abroad.

dagNotes: Individualism will always let you down. You’ve been had.

A social space (a rhetorical space, for that matter) never has existed in which individuals as citizens (even sovereign individuals, if we can imagine such people,) volunteer to associate with others without a social organizing principle, in other words a state, that passively or actively constructs ground for voluntary participation in society and interaction with others. I’d argue spaces without social organizing principles cannot exist. A market has yet to exist without a state. The important aspect is not the choice an individual makes to volunteer, that fantastic and illusive Choice crass libertarians fetishize, but the prepositional phrase WITH OTHERS.

Libertarians conveniently forget the with others society imposes without human social interaction. We do not impose a with others; IT does. When we talk about nature, we’re not talking about the destiny for human action and its social organization in a capitalist free market as Austrians and some neoclassical theorists would have us believe. Actually, nature is the source of bearing every day life with others. That’s our destiny. The market is secondary. The kind of market we construct is tertiary. In the order of things relating to human action, power is primary.

Our relationship with others may factually (observably) and historically (reportedly) be in a market but is always primarily with others. To insist the social order of the capitalist market is primary is an ideological position constructed to compose individuals as capitalist subjects. It’s merely an argument, a claim, a plea for an excuse to extend the privileges the capitalist class enjoys to plunder and exploit natural and human resources to each and every one of us. In other words, it’s a fantasy. A power trip.

Big diff tween yr theory and yr practice. You should learn to bridge that gap.

dagArchives: (March 9, 2012) On the plea for the existence of reverse racism

reposting this with two small additions that clarify context and strengthen the conclusion.

dagseoul:

Anonymous Ask’d:

I have no idea how to make my friends see that there is no reverse racism because they keep telling me that the definition of racism is being discriminated based on the colour of your skin, so my argument is invalid because people from other ethnicities sometimes discriminate white people. fucks sake, what do I do? they keep saying that the black panthers are racist etc etc. one of them is actually half black.

___________________________________________________________

Social movements, past or present, that are self-defined, self-determined, well-organized, popular, and opposed to the white power structure, not white people, are always called racist. I’ll get to why below. The Black Panther Party (in actuality) was a social organization working to educate, protect, feed, and house black people. It had nothing to do with white people. For your friends to claim that The Black Panther Party is a racist organization is typical. If anything, the Black Panther Party attempted to step outside of the socially constructed binary for racial discourse in America. They were organized to work without whites, not in opposition to whites. This is significant because white culture has always represented its self-determination as just and manifest destiny. To claim Black Panthers are racists is to willfully ignore and to silently admit centuries of racist white power.

Racism is not discrimination based on the color of your skin. It’s discrimination based on the color of their skin. (It’s more complicated than that, but I’m sticking to our specific example of reverse racism and focusing on the pronouns in the context of American discourse.) Ethnicities without dominant power structures in Europe and America may hate the dominant white power structure and hold white people in contempt and responsible for inequality and bigotry, but that does not make them racist. Racism is not recognizing inequality and oppression. While the white (and liberal) response to racism is reactionary, self-determination and disciplined social organization is a reasonable and rational response to oppression.

Racism and white supremacy both involve a directed discourse. As I mentioned at the beginning of last paragraph, it’s a directed discourse from us to them. In other words, racism has a trajectory, and white supremacist rhetoric cultivates its force. Reverse racism is problematic because it ignores the us versus them dynamic that racial discrimination constructs for racist discourse. Moreover, it ignores that dynamic while invoking it. Reverse racism doesn’t really exist. Racism exists.

The plea for the existence of reverse racism is an attempt to legitimize white reactionary racial discourse. It deconstructs the us-them binary and interpellates a white subject who claims, I am the one experiencing an unjust response to a situation I am not responsible for creating. Reverse racism is actually an appeal to the innocence of white subjects who have chosen to bargain with white supremacy. The plea for the existence of reverse racism evokes racism and racist discourse for a very good reason. Reverse racism cannot exist without white supremacy. The white power structure is its sine qua non. In addition, it only works in one direction, to me. It only works for white subjects.

Reverse racism is itself a racist construction. It’s always a white response to critical discourse about white supremacy. Remember: white ideology interpellates all individuals as white subjects. In other words, you’ll find people of color who claim reverse racism is a reality. That doesn’t matter. The plea for the existence of reverse racism naturalizes the white gaze. In other words, the white gaze is constructed to be natural and naturally dominant, inevitable, useful and positive while the gaze of all others directed at white subjects is naturally submissive, constructed, useless, and harmful.

This is how I’d begin to answer your friends’ concerns because it illustrates the reasoning behind the argument that The Black Panters are a dangerous, racist organization and why the reasoning is incorrect and false. To be sure, Black Panthers were a righteous group of radicals who were doing what white America has always claimed we have the right, freedom, and obligation to do. They were doing what they had to within the law to strengthen themselves and their community. To claim otherwise is to purchase a racist lie about black power and to be anti-black, as far as I am concerned.

"I believe that the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of this new moment of late consumer or multinational capitalism. I believe also that its formal features in many ways express the deeper logic of this particular social system. I will only be able, however, to show this for one major theme: namely the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social infor­mation have had, in one way or another, to preserve. Think only of the media exhaustion of news: of how Nixon and, even more so, Kennedy, are figures from a now distant past. One is tempted to say that the very function of the news media is to relegate such recent historical experiences as rapidly as possible into the past. The informational function of the media would thus be to help us forget, to serve as the very agents for our historical amnesia."

Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998

I never was comfortable with Jameson’s formulation of experience in capitalist society; never could articulate my discomfort, though. I made an attempt in one of my doctoral comp essays after reading his Singular Modernity. I almost got it out, then, but our department Modernist and Jameson scholar was not at all happy that I made what amounted to not much more than an accusation in passing within my answer to a different question. I only have a draft to that answer handy, so I can’t really go back to that exam. I can see how Jameson is answering Fukuyama’s argument about the end of history here, but my problem is with the plural possessive our:

I will only be able, however, to show this for one major theme: namely the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social infor­mation have had, in one way or another, to preserve.

I don’t like the way much theory assumes a unified theory of representing history exists that fairly represents our society, our culture, our experiences. There’s no excuse for this kind a master narrative in theoretical discourse, especially about late capitalism and the postmodern. Who does Jameson think he’s addressing with this OUR anyway?

dagArchives: 3 posts precisely illustrating one of many problems with the general social justice community

In chronological order:

1. March 26th, 2012, 0858:

dagNotes: on writing about whiteness

Here’s something that’s very important for bloggers to remember when they attempt to write about whiteness. It’s a problem that tumblr social justice bloggers almost always ignore. I’d say, they’re are either willfully ignorant about this basic problem or woefully naive. Whatever the reason, it’s the source of so many problems with discourse about whiteness and privilege on tumblr.

1. When we write about whiteness, we write about a way individuals, who may or may not be “white”, are composed as white subjects.

2. When we write about people of color, we write about individuals who are people of color.

Do you see the problem?

Here’s the deal. If you don’t see the problem, you’re likely participating in white supremacy, which is seeing the world, thinking about it, as a white subject (whether or not you’re white).

2. March 26th, 2012, 0949:

dagNotes: on the failure(s) of social justice

I know we live in a white supremacist society, but it’s not enough to simply point out racist shit like so many do via reblogs and what amounts to little more than stupid taunting or lame attempts at shaming. It would be nice to work together to articulate what it is that’s occurring and what to do about it.

I’m trying to address a specific problem—how concrete details about everyday life are overlooked by design to permit abstract representations of everyday life in open public discourse about significant events. This is an outline for a bigger discussion. Feel free to participate.

I have no doubt in my mind that Trayvon Martin was shot because he was black. Is it possible that Trayvon was shot because he was black and, once killed, he ceased being black and became a much more abstract representation of how white supremacist culture sees black male bodies? Thus, he became fully interpellated as a white subject when he died. Black bodies cannot be white subjects. Not really. Hence public discourse focuses on what he was carrying and wearing rather than a discussion about the young man himself. White people and their bodies are certainly never investigated with such scrutiny. (I’m thinking of the problem Richard Wright illustrates very well in Native Son.)

It didn’t take long for Trayvon to become a symbol, did it. I don’t really know anything about Trayvon. At all. He’s been fully abstracted. He’s now nothing more than a hoodie. Were we to actually address Trayvon, we’d address much more than a victim, much more than a consumer, much more than a young black man. And we’d have to address his violent death. The symbolic Trayvon may inject vigor and vitality into a social justice movement for a few weeks, but I wonder if that’s a good thing. We want to discuss the order in society that permitted unwarranted violence to occur. It’s understandable, but it may be the first step for excusing the man with a gun who stalked and killed Trayvon—at least, may be inadvertently allied with the racist police response.

We are so dependent (lazily dependent) on the liberal social order the police felt the need to conduct a thorough examination of Travyon’s corpse in order to determine (and this is an important word here) what Trayvon did to have earned being shot by George Zimmerman. You may not think the police department’s actions are representative of yours and my participation in the liberal social order, but I do. Trayvon must be guilty of something because George Zimmerman doesn’t appear to be the kind of subject who shoots others for no reason. YOU might not believe Trayvon was guilty but our society had already determined his guilt. It’s as if everyone from the police to the protesters accepts that the shooting is, in fact, his destiny.

We’re so invested in the social order that protests have embraced a consumer product as the most concrete representation of Trayvon’s killing. They decided to wear hoodies. I imagine hoodie sales are up while Trayvon’s family and friends mourn. In fact, everyone but them profits from the unnecessary discharge of a weapon. Trayvon’s death is now a style that can be worn to represent something that no one has yet been able to utter in a precise and accurate manner.

In this manner, the social justice community as much as anyone else seems to naively embrace a kind of social determinism that they would otherwise claim to reject…and let’s tie this to my previous post. White people are never examined as socially determined white bodies but as free individuals who are passively embraced in a white supremacist culture and, thus, are unexamined. People of color are not easily interpellated into the white order, especially if they break the rules or misbehave or protest or speak to white power. In this manner, most people of color are always addressed as people with colored bodies that must be examined in order to discover what’s wrong with them, or for social justice whites, what’s wrong with us. It’s flat out racism.

DEAL.

3. March 26th, 2012, 1047:

dagNotes: on writing about whiteness

num-yabisc: “…I might understand this. Not sure.”

So, the point is that in writing about people of color, we should be writing about a way in which individuals, who may or may not be “colored,” are composed as non-white subjects?

I’m not suggesting how you or anyone should write about people of color. I’m pointing out what happens when you or anyone writes ABOUT people of color. I’m writing about the problems with the social justice rhetoric.

Did you read my last post “dagNotes: on the failure(s) of social justice”? It’ll help you see how I am thinking about this problem in a specific context. The last paragraph should help you see what I mean:

“In this manner, the social justice community as much as anyone else seems to naively embrace a kind of social determinism that they would otherwise claim to reject…and let’s tie this to my previous post. White people are never examined as socially determined white bodies but as free individuals who are passively embraced in a white supremacist culture and, thus, are unexamined. People of color are not easily interpellated into the white order, especially if they break the rules or misbehave or protest or speak to white power. In this manner, most people of color are always addressed as people with colored bodies that must be examined in order to discover what’s wrong with them, or for social justice whites, what’s wrong with us. It’s flat out racism.”

dagNotes: tumblr is *white* dildos

Reblogging this because it got lost behind my tit-4-tat with pragmatic-realist. I think my claim deserves attention within the strident social justice blogging community. Who, when confronted with divergence from the standard discourse and other general disagreements, immediately point the finger and accuse others (mostly poc) of anti-blackness, among other things. It’s vacant, meaningless, self-serving crap.

I wrote this because I don’t think social justice folks are very interested in considering the problems with immigrant narratives nor how such narratives betray the cultivation of a standard minority experience in the US and other places. I’m of the opinion that social justice is nothing more than a progressive ruse for supporting white supremacy. On tumblr, it’s certainly nothing more than reactionary discourse aimed at telling on bloggers who are overtly racist, sexist, homo- or trans-phobic or confronting poc bloggers who transgress the accepted narrative of minority experience, which as I’ve argued before is created from white ideological representations of others.

I am explicitly claiming that poc bloggers often use white ideological representations and narratives for minority communities to discipline transgressive poc dissent. That’s a bunch of racist bullshit, imo.

In other words, the social justice community likes to point out the obvious bigotry and scapegoat transgressive poc.

dagseoul:

Tired of reading posts where people attempt to justify standardizing/quantifying various narratives of oppression and privilege to compare “racial” groups in order to argue which groups are more or less privileged, hence, more or less oppressed. This isn’t going to cut it and for one very important reason. Quite frankly, it’s a white man’s game. As such, it’s reactionary and regressive.

If we’re speaking of privilege in communities of color in the US, then we’re examining individuals (and the communities they represent) who have been interpolated as white subjects. To use those interpolated subjects as if they usefully represent actual communities of color, in other words as well-defined minority communities, reinforces the white power structure. Why do we insist on objectifying—using quantities and percentages—to talk about oppression, or worse “the oppressed”? I think it makes it easier to ignore history, for one thing, and easier to cultivate a proper, civility for traditionally white scientific discourse about society as a whole.

How can we compare Asian-American experience(s) of oppression and privilege to Black experience(s) of oppression and privilege without necessarily standardizing their experiences as a standard minority experience (SME) thus privileging the notion that communities of color are monoliths of ethnic experience organized according to dominant white modes of observation. White power helps creates an SME that permits comparison across “color”. White power literally counts on it. We criticize this attempt to standardize narratives of experience when we see it in colorblind discourse, don’t we? Why not everywhere it’s implemented, then?

In my opinion, this standardization becomes more problematic when we consider immigrants and immigration.

dagNotes: on writing about whiteness

Here’s something that’s very important for bloggers to remember when they attempt to write about whiteness. It’s a problem that tumblr social justice bloggers almost always ignore. I’d say, they’re are either willfully ignorant about this basic problem or woefully naive. Whatever the reason, it’s the source of so many problems with discourse about whiteness and privilege on tumblr.

1. When we write about whiteness, we write about a way individuals, who may or may not be “white”, are composed as white subjects.

2. When we write about people of color, we write about individuals who are people of color.

Do you see the problem?

Here’s the deal. If you don’t see the problem, you’re likely participating in white supremacy, which is seeing the world, thinking about it, as a white subject (whether or not you’re white).