“Being universal” is the idea that there is a way of being human that is beyond culture and ethnicity, that one can transcend race. Like wanting to be known as a writer, not as a “black writer”.
There is no such thing as being universal. You cannot be human without practising a particular culture. To be universal you would have to practise a universal culture. There is no such thing. Those who think there is have bought into one of two related ideas:
- The White Default: Many White Americans like to think they have no culture, that they are beyond race and ethnicity, that they are just people. But all they are doing is being blind to their own race and ethnicity. Everyone is “ethnic”, everyone practises a particular culture.
- Western universalism: The West sees itself as universal, as meant for the whole human race, as what history has been leading to all along. It sees the spread of its inventions, languages and practices as proof of that. But that success, at bottom, came at gunpoint. Western culture is no more naturally universal than Chinese, Iroquois or Igbo culture.
Langston Hughes pointed out during the Harlem Renaissance that wanting to be a “writer” instead of a “black writer” means wanting to be a “white writer”, wanting to be white. Trying to “transcend race” or “just be American” (or British or French, etc) means, in practice, trying to be white. Trying to be “non-ethnic” simply means exchanging one’s own ethnicity for another.
But that is not the worst of it:
“Being universal” buys into the idea that there is something wrong with one’s own culture, ethnicity or race, that it is not as good, as valuable, as human. That it cannot be a centre of art, beauty, objectivity, truth. That only white is beautiful. This is known as internalized racism. It is choosing the white doll.
It means not being yourself, not being true to who you are deep down inside. Film critic Kartina Richardson says that in trying to be universal “we erase ourselves from the inside.” Nothing true and good and lasting can come from that.
White Americans are racist enough to think they are the centre of the universe, the measure of all that is good. They are not. Not hardly. If whites like what you do, great, but if they do not, screw them. As it is, the things they like from other cultures, like anime, hip hop, pizza and jazz, were not created with them in mind.
Toni Morrison:
Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That’s what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say “people”, that’s what I mean.
See also:
Abagond 
Your posts have been wonderful the past few days! I just wanted to let you know. This is an amazing piece to consider, because I am an artist and a black woman and have been working very hard to decenter whiteness and reinstate myself as the default. I realised I have to be myself and open about ALL my experiences as a black woman, which has caused some shitstorms amounst my nearest and dearest, but has slowly allowed the more marginalised folk in my circle to start singing their truth too. Fear is a bitch. I have no truck with it anymore and actively confront people about the white default. That beautiful, beautiful quote by Junot Diaz has me hyphenating the ethnic hell out of everything, because we need to smash the silence around whiteness.
— Junot Diaz, Facing Race 2012
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This is fascinating.
I recently came across an article about Zoe Saldana where she claimed that there are no things as people of color, and that she chooses not to be identified as ethnic. But from reading this, I gather that her refusal to identify with her ethnicity is an example of internalized racism and a desire to be something else…WHITE.
I’m not sure her PR people are doing their jobs. After portraying Nina Simone and then to make a silly comment like “people of color don’t exist;” she could do everyone and herself a favor by keeping her mouth shut until after she’s read a few books.
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Zoe Saldana is lost, afloat without a hope. First the blackface Nina Simone biopic and her apparent disengenuosness over that, then that colourblind bs. that girl has been frolicking around white folk for far too long.
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The Zoe Saldana comment about not being ethnic is what this post is about to me. She comes across as being not very bright sometimes.
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I think the late king of pop Michael Jackson was of this mindset.
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I notice on jazz blogs, if a great trumpeter, like Terrance Blanchard , comes in, and sais he doesnt want to call it jazz anymore, he wants to call it “Great Black Music”, white posters come in and get all up in arms about it. It just shows there are a lot of white people in denial in the jazz world and institutions, who dont even want to acknowledge, the fundimental origins of jazz
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Zoe saldana is delusional just like many biracials in hollyweird. Halle going around saying her daughter is black when she has a white father and a half white mother smh. And now zoe going around thinking she white after she played a black role. This is why I said they should’ve had a black actress play her, she was only in it for the money. Nina was not about being ashamed of blackness and is turning in her grave knowing this person who is the opposite of what she represents was allowed to play her.
Anyway as for being on topic yea this is where the you are acting white thing stems from. I watched comedian Gabriel Iglesias and he was talking about how he went to Saudi Arabia and that was the first time he was called an American comedian, he said before that he was always referred to as the latino comedian.
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Something must be wrong with either you or me Abagond as I seem to be regularly liking your more recent posts here!
Don’t you think its time you wrote something I could be a bit more critical of? 🙂
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So Abagond, you were an Astro boy fan, huh?? lol
Baby Boomer? 🙂
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I loved the movie Astro Boy too.
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I think this is a tricky argument in regards to Zoe, if we say that she is trying to be White by not identifying as ethnic, are we then saying White people are not ethnic? It’s like the one drop rule, someone above mentioned Halle Berry’s child and Halle claiming her Black, which is true on the “one drop” standards but if Halle said her child was White, would Black people claim she was in denial of her Blackness? They (not all, cause I’m not worried much) were already mad that she had a baby with a White man. Also, Nina Simone had a baby with a White man, no? (Should’ve re-googled) So she was very much proud of her Blackness, but could not find someone Black w/ similar views? It reminds me of the Lois Gates guy, his various Black articles and documentaries and White wife. I think its hard to pinpoint who really has Black pride cause, you can always point out something to argue otherwise.
I read rapper Kendrick Lamar used a dark-skin gil as a video lead (Pharell already did that in “Frontin” and Wale in “Lotus Flower Bomb”, I could go on), the girl he chose wasn’t exactly as dark as say Bria Myles, so I wasn’t impressed. Lamar also mentioned liking Brown girls, so I felt flatter, but I read somewhere he had a Hispanic, light-skin girlfriend and felt like his brown skin love was a ploy. But a friend told me, you can have a preference, and still date other people, which is very true. You will not always get what you prefer. Hope I didn’t go off topic.
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girl* flattered*
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This post is excellent. The truth is universal, blacks should seek it in our midst and write/speak it without fear. Writers who worry about being universal are more interested in the sales figure for their work than in making a serious statement.
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@ $0.02
If halle said her child was white, lol white people would not allow that and say she is biracial. It is blacks that allow everyone to say they are black. White people made the one drop rule and sadly black people enforce it. We should not be forced to accept people that don’t want to accept us and that white people don’t want any part of. With Obama people say he is black even though he is biracial. If black people started calling him white because he has the same views and ideas as white politicians whites would say no he is black or biracial. I don’t think we should claim anyone and call them black when clearly they are biracial. If halle called her daughter white I would laugh and think well we’ll see how long they’ll let that slide.
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“Abagond,
Being universal” is the idea that there is a way of being human that is beyond culture and ethnicity, that one can transcend race. Like wanting to be known as a writer, not as a “black writer.”
Linda says,
Abagond, your take on this term is interesting.
I’ve always viewed the phrase coming from Americans as “not wanting my race thrown in my face constantly, view me as an individual” — wanting to be seen as “just a person” and not a “black” person that has to have their actions viewed/ skewed from a racial POV all the time.
I guess since America focuses so much on splitting everything into “Race”, it’s easy to say that white American culture is “Universal” but it’s not…I’m sure a Chinese person living in Asia views their culture as “Universal” and the normal.
To me, outside of America, most people will define you based on your Nationality and will see you as a person (not a Colour). People in the world do see skin colour and will have their judgments / stereotypes but even those stereotypes will largely be formed by what country you’re from.
When I lived in Europe, if asked what I am, I would say “Jamaican” — they would ask me questions (stereotypical questions) about reggae or rastas (as if I know, right) but they didn’t ask me about Africa or America.
If the Europeans questioned my black American mates, it would be about America (not Africa or Caribbean) .. they realized that non-white people are individuals coming from different places and we are not representatives of the collective.
unlike US of America, where once a white American person gets comfortable enough with a black person, they turn around and ask,”why do all black people do ‘xyz’ — as if 1 black person is the spokesperson for every living and breathing black person walking on the planet.
but to me, in America, the divisiveness is too much and out of place… like when a book about doctors is labeled “African American” just because 1 or 2 leads are black but if you read the book, you wouldn’t know their “race” unless you saw their pictures on the cover.
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“I’m not going to spend my life being a color”. Michael Jackson’s song Black or White.
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Being Universal is the idea that there is a way of relating to the universe and life that is definitely beyond race, culture, and ethnicity. The universe does not exist because of race, culture, and ethnicity. Race culture and ethnicity exist because of the universe. To limit our existence to being “Black” is to limit our potential as a people to a colonial construct created by ignorant white people.
Whether we want to believe it or not, everything we do is rooted in universal concepts. Africans (those whose origin is represented by a landmass titled by “someone” as Africa) originally moved from universal concepts. Their very basis for life was understanding Universal Law (the only real Law), Natural Harmonious Order, and Life Preservation, all universal understandings that everyone can benefit from. Our problem is that most of us are out of “universal” order and trying to live based on the limited understandings, so-called laws, and philosophies of Men.
The “White Default” and “Western Universalism” are terms that suggest that white people are the “Fathers” and “definers” of universal understandings. White people have proven to be the chief violators of life, living, and universal understandings. Because of the necessity to mentally and physically defend ourselves against white people, we have digressed to the point of being mentally and physically contaminated with a colonial thought process which leads to limited potential. The key component with universal thinking is to know that no matter what one thinks he/she knows or understands, there is always a next level of knowing and understanding, or unlimited potential. Having this understanding is where the qualities associated with being compassionate, humble, and patient with one another makes life a more positive and productive experience.
The Harlem Renaissance itself was a white creation based on the ability of a limited number of Blacks to be accepted as having the ability to do what white people were doing. White people defined who would be accepted as writers, musicians, and entertainers. It was white people who Black people wanted to be like. Blacks put on their best clothes on Sunday, read their (white) suggested magazines, listened to their (white) suggested Jazz, and walked through (white) suggested areas of Harlem in an attempt to act free (as defined by white people). So in all actuality, being “African” transcends race or any colonial title. Yes, being African means moving from a greater understanding than race. The race construct, created by white people, can fit on a spec of dust from one grain of sand. This is how small the race construct is as it relates to all that is available to us in the universe and through universal understandings.
All we have to do is check the history of every indigenous group of people on the planet and we will find that they all, from Kemet to Korea, originally moved from universal understandings.
Being universal suggest that there is a “construct’ that is much more significant in helping us tap into our infinite potential as human beings. Ethnicity and race is only relevant to the extent that reality suggests this is the platform that we must move from in order to return to our universal roots. The race construct that white people have successfully embedded into our consciousness, is nothing more than a way of life that is a slow, miserable death. Some call it genocide. We will never truly experience what “living” is about until we remove ourselves from the “race” construct.
Alphonso McGriff III:
To write for Black people is to understand that colonial contamination is real. From my limited understanding and perspective White people’s actions have demonstrated that they are incapable of moving from a universal foundation. For this reason, everyone who has been in contact with them has been contaminated with a raced based colonial consciousness. True Growth can only take place for non-whites though the recovery of universal concepts.
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@ Alphonso
I think what you’ve contributed here is an excellent expansion of this “universalist” concept. Particularly as it is falsely applied to white people. I also would agree, among other things, with what you say here:
“…All we have to do is check the history of every indigenous group of people on the planet and we will find that they all, from Kemet to Korea, originally moved from universal understandings…”
But I am curious …What do you believe those general shared universal understandings might consist of?
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@Kwamla and Alphonso
I think there are universal human “things” (for want of a better word). Of course I may be deluded. It’s just that I have had these experiences of connecting with people with whom I had no culture, religion or ethnicity in common. In a lot of such cases, it had to do with children, hopes, from woman to woman. My current partner of 15 years is not of the same ethnic background as I am, unless you consider the fact he is part Irish and I am part Breton (both Celtic Europeans), but there are many things that we are in complete agreement about.
At the same time, I entirely agree with Abagond: we have been manipulated to believe that the default position is white, and not just white, a very special kind of white, the dominant (still) US variety, the one that is obsessed by every shade of colour and defines itself in the most limiting way possible. The sad thing is that this pseudo default has created great art, and so they find it legitimises their vision. They are just being ignorant of the other great art created elsewhere, which for me includes Iceland as well as Madagascar.
In linguistics, we say a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Linguists, ethnologists and anthropologists are working very hard to promote the notion that there is no such thing as a primitive language (there is a lot of philosophy contained in the grammar in some native south American languages) and culture, but sadly that knowledge does not seem to have reached the general public. I think this applies to art: universal art so far, was art with the backing of power. So we need to consider this: the big universal is the fact that we all do art, that no earthly culture exists without art, all arts: in words, pictures, music, sculptures, buildings.
People with a claim to universality are the people who are able to appreciate arts not linked to their culture. Obviously there will be limitations, as individuals probably cannot be that universal and appreciate all art, and we are all influenced by our culture and the languages we speak.
Finally, there are plenty of instances of people from disparaged races and cultures who were transplanted into the “white default”. They adapted so as to live the same life and achieve according to the same criteria. Things also took place the other way round, so there is enough inherent commonness between us. We know some yearned for their lost roots. Did they all do? How were they feeling inside at being different?
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@ Dorian
Poor Zoe Saldana. There was a time when she would say she was black and Latina without qualification, without apology. It is like she sold her soul to the devil to make that Nina Simone film. Sad.
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This is a seriously racist argument, and it is exactly what I would expect from a “multi-culturalist”. If tomorrow I discovered that Black culture had more merit than how I currently behave, I would copy it. Your only friends are the cultists, who wish to preserve this notion that humanity cannot transcend its artificial boundaries because they see their whole lives as being intimately tied up with a cult identity. And of course your friends include whomever cultists manage to deceive.
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EK, your comment is hilarious! especially since it emanates from deep within the cult of whiteness.
Another awesome post Aba!
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I submitted my first graphic novel for publishing, and I fear that it will get turned down for the subject discussed in this blog, not to mention the fear that most of the characters are POC and I don’t want to hear the excuse that they are not “universal” (white).
It’s frustrating that white people think that only white people are “relatable” in any story, but POC are not. And thus, it would not sell.
@EthnicKonflict
I can only assume that you’re white as seeing as how it’s the same old ‘You’re racist for pointing out racism’ rigamarole. Well, if my project is rejected for the aforementioned rejections we observe in the massive white-owned media landscape, am I supposed to just grin and bear it and learn to create for white people as if they matter and we don’t and be glad about it?
Are all POC who are silenced for the same reasons supposed to put on a happy face and carry on as if they didn’t feel insulted?
I don’t expect a response from you, but these are thoughts that are put into perspective for those of us who want to tell our stories. That is what racism does to POC.
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[…] "Being universal" is the idea that there is a way of being human that is beyond culture and ethnicity, that one can transcend race. Like wanting to be known as a writer, not as a "black writer". Th… […]
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[…] See on abagond.wordpress.com […]
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@ Kwalma
But I am curious …What do you believe those general shared universal understandings might consist of?
1. We are a universal body.
2. All universal body parts function in the best interests of the (whole) body.
3. If one body part is adversly affected, the entire body is also affected.
4. There can be no healty body unless its body parts are healthy.
Healthy Body Parts can refer to humans and a communal body, mental body parts, personal physical body parts, spiritual body parts, universal body parts, etc.
I hope this gives a little insight.
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@ Abagond
A human universal is something that is found in all known human societies, like music, language, the use of fire or nepotism. But it does not say what form that universal has to take. Thus all the kinds of music, all the different languages and the different uses of fire.
Western universalism, on the other hand, says it has achieved the best, universal form of these things.
The White Default goes further still and says that the other forms are screwed up, not normal. On top of that it adds requirements on race.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/human-universals/
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@ Brothawolf
Hi there! I would love to read your graphic novel! Is there anyway you can publish it on the web and we can buy it off you that way?
@Alphonso
The universal human thing is that we all do art. Some cultures may have a reputation for being better at this or that type of art (based on questionable notions as we have established…), but every culture does all forms of art: pictorial, musical, cooking, stories/poetry, etc. That is the human universal.
@ all: as a woman, I often get the feeling that culture is dominated by males, They are the default and we are always found wanting, and that too seems a universal.
Stop knocking Zoe. It is so tough being a non-white woman in a white + male dominated industry where it is so easy to be discarded. She is not supposed to be a thinker, and that’s all right!!! That’s why it is so important that those of us who are thinkers challenge the dominant ideology 🙂
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“Zoe saldana is delusional just like many biracials in hollyweird.” Which one of her parents is white? She looks black with some distant white ancestry. Being of Hispanic heritage she probably believes that one drop of white blood makes her white. The USA isn’t the only place with the one drop rule.
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@ gro jo
Your comment illustrates how afroamericans have internalised the paranoid “every shade of non-white counts” view of race which dominates in the USA. I deeply believe that we should all be proud of every ingredient we are made of, and then be free to choose the one/s which resonate/s the most deeply, but it is so hard to do in the USA, you can end up being called/feeling a traitor. I am not American and do not live in the USA, I am proud to have Breton in me, even if you can’t see it. They too have a great culture and they too were oppressed (500 000 killed during the French revolution, laws against their culture and language), and I do not feel I am a traitor to any colour for feeling this way, because I do not see this pride and awareness as incompatible with colour. So, I wonder if your judgement of Zoe is based on colour being so polarised in the USA? think of it from another angle: in some ways, she is also a victim, because if she is denying part of who she is (if this is what she did, jury still out), then it makes her a poorer human being. Finally…I am convinced that any mixed race person is a slap in the face of racism, cos in my experience, racists are happy with Blacks/Hispanics/Asians/Native Americans etc as long as they remain easy to spot (undiluted) and “know their place”. They can even treat them quite civilly if they “know their place”. I have seen it happen!!!I have even seen a racist black person and a racist white person sort of fraternise in the shared belief people should not mix. I felt like throwing up.
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annef1
I sent it to comixology.com a few weeks ago to have it published online. I’ve yet to hear from them on whether they approved it or not.
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@ Legion
Thanks for the link to the Zoe Saldana interview. Her comments on race over the past year probably need a post of their own.
In terms of THIS post where I disagree with her is the idea that being black or Latina is a box, is limiting. There is nothing beyond those boxes except other boxes. The white box acts as if it is beyond ethnicity and race, but it is not, especially not in Hollywood. It just has more money and better distribution. She can sell out and even frame it in high-sounding colour-blindness, the kind her mama taught her, but it is still a deal with the devil.
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@ Brothawolf
I assume here that “POC” refers to “people of color,” which incidentally includes “white” people. Let me use this construction in an interesting way that perhaps you have not considered. POC includes Asians, Blacks, Indians, Polynesians, East Africans, Amerindians, African-Americans, etc. Ironically, white advocates, who are the version of your philosophy expressed by people of European ancestry, would include Jews as “POC,” since Jews consider themselves to be “Mediterreanean,” like Arabs, though they certainly do not think of themselves as being like Arabs. Universalism is like this “POC” construction, except that instead of attempting to defend irrational ethnicity or even color itself!, universalism tries to include all people, and in more radical conceptions, aliens, post-humans, animals, and whatever else is sentient or conscious.
The most interesting counter-argument that “POC” poses is the impossibility argument, which is in fact the same argument posed by the Egotistical Universalists (ala Ayn Rand). In effect, some of “multi-culturalism” believes that it is impossible for humans to relate to each other as rational, and of course, conscious entities. I found this argument to be endlessly ironic because the Egotistical Universalists pose that it is impossible for humans to overcome their animal nature in order to share! Same fallacy.
Trancendental Universalism, which is the sort this blog describes, makes no such pessimistic assertions. In fact, it believes that to overcome “human nature” is critical to continued human existence. The retort becomes that human nature itself must be altered. Making racist decisions because one feels that to do otherwise is impossible is no more morally valid than stealing or hoarding a car because one feels the desire for this and so human nature leads one to do it.
There are many idiots in this world, and no shortage of them find their way into academia. Be careful about these Egotists and these Multi-culturalist. There is one binding glue that holds them together so that they may punch each other endlessly: racism.
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“gro jo,
Zoe saldana is delusional just like many biracials in hollyweird.” Which one of her parents is white? She looks black with some distant white ancestry. Being of Hispanic heritage she probably believes that one drop of white blood makes her white. The USA isn’t the only place with the one drop rule.”
Linda says,
Zoe’s mother is Puerto Rican…the J-Lo type of “white” Puerto Rican, she is a mixture of Spanish and Native.
I once read where Zoe said her Father was Dominican and Jamaican, so hence, her African side…so the girl is multiracial, just like many Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, etc…
She just wants to be “Latina” but it’s not possible in the US, because her fathers genes dominated… black people in America aren’t pleased that she chose to label herself as “Latina” and not “black” … she got attacked for playing Nina Simone, so now she’s trying compensate and says what she has to make everyone happy.
her family: mother, maternal grandmother, step-father, and half-brother. If you go to 1:42, you’ll get a clear picture of her family.
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Your comment illustrates how afroamericans have internalised the paranoid “every shade of non-white counts” view of race which dominates in the USA. Really? I lived in Brittany as a child and I can tell you that your fellow Brettons are in no way free of racial prejudice. My sister was nearly lynched by a bunch of football hooligans in the fair city of Rennes. As for my afroamerican paranoia it comes from rubbing up against racists of the white and brown want to be white variety. Are you familiar with the history of the Dominican Republic where Saldana’s father comes from? In the late 1930’s tens of thousands of Haitians were murdered by Dominicans for being black. Here is a sample of latin color blindness:http://ryfigueroa.blogspot.com/2013/05/anti-haitian-sentiment-in-dominican.html Note the racist depiction of Haitians and the absurd depiction of Dominicans as whites.
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Aside from Breton, what else do you have in you? By the way, despite being a very dark-skinned black I believe I also have Breton ancestors. Were I Dominican I could absurdly claim to be Breton. I’m Haitian and proud of it.
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To my knowledge, Zoe Saldana has always said she is Black and so has Obama..again, if the person self-identifies as Black who am i or anyone else to say they aren’t?
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As far as I know Zoe Saldana had always said she was black and Latina, and was proud to be so, but sometime last year she started to act cagey about it, just like she does in the interview Legion linked to. Not sure what is going on with her.
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Read Linda Alcoff’s article in The Idea of Race (infortunately, it seems as if the Google Book version doesn’t display it -page 169) where she sums up her take on it.
On her blog you’ll have access to her take on what Abagond summarizes in this post. I don’t agree with all she says, but her approach is very interesting.
http://www.alcoff.com/content/whiteque.html
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@Gro jo
I have never lived in Brittany, so I do not know how they would have reacted to me. I am really sorry they were so horrible, but it kind of proves the point that oppression does not make people better unless they reflect on its mechanism and consequences. The attitude of many Jews (not all!!) towards Palestinians illustrates this. Besides quite a few Bretons are catholic bigots (not out to get catholics, only bigots of whatever persuasion).
I would like to speak about another heritage that does not show: I am part Asian (Laos or Vietnam) there are pics of my great-great-great grandmother, costume and all, but we know absolutely nothing about her background, and can’t seem to find anything. The complete eradication of this side makes me very sad and uncomfortable. How did she feel about it? was she wearing her national dress as a mark that even if all were forgetting her origins and culture, she was not? Was she an early version of a catalogue bride subjected by her husband or was it a romantic love story?
As a black Haitian, you can claim kinship with wonderful Toussaint L’Ouverture, one of the world’s not sung-enough hero.
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Abagond, phoebeprunelle,
To me, I noticed that her responses change, depending on who she is talking to.
In the beginning of her career and when she speaks with Spanish media (in Spanish), she refers to herself as “Latina” not Afro-Latina or black. The subject of her racial identification doesn’t even come up when she is speaking to Spanish media.
except for the time she when I believe she did an interview with Latina magazine 2006, and stated that when she is in the DR and when she talks to the press, she says she is not “triguena” but “una mujer negra”
http://foro.univision.com/t5/Reinas-de-Republica-Dominicana/Entrevista-a-Zoe-Saldana-en-revista-Latina/td-p/90373943
but in all honesty, when I read Spanish-speaking articles about her, they call her “triguena” and she refers to herself as “Latina”…I don’t see anything wrong with that because that’s who she is..
before the whole Nina Simone thing, I did not see her calling herself “black” until she started doing more interviews with black American magazine.
I think Zoe knows who and what she is and how to play the game, as most of us do.
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I personally think that since we have brains and the ability to change our views, we can. I do not believe in biological human races at all. There is only one in this planet. There are many cultures and languages, but biologically only one human race.
In order to cross these so-called “race barriers” one has to deal with racism. One has to accept it in one-self. Only then one can dismantle it, destruct it in one-self. It is not easy, it is not a trick or something that can be bought or adopted as a good idea, there is no magical pill that wipes it away. One has to identify it, learn about it and then bit by bit, spot by spot, wipe it out from ones own thoughts and beliefs.
It is not easy. It is a process, not a course nor an ideology. It is on going process within one-self. We are all surrounded by racism every day. We are taught it every day. It is in our media, movies, books, songs, litterature, paintings, all around us every day. It is in our culture. It is spoon fed to us by those who believe in it but also by those who can not see it or recognise it. We must spit it out every time we get it in our mouths and souls. Every time we get racist idea in our brain, we must stop and take it out.
BUT it can be done. There is no reason why not. There is no higher desicion, law of nature, order by the Great Spaghetti Being which dooms us into racism. It is not written in the stars, it is not in the wind or water. It is made up by men, just like us.
Put a bunch of small babies in a same room. They do not care what color or “race” any of them are. But they will learn. And they will learn it from us. All our suspicions, fears, ignorance… We teach that to them. You and me. That is why it goes on and on. If we want it stop, we must start from ourselves. Each one of us. All of us must take a good hard look at our-selves. Be honest. Brutally honest. Frightningly honest. Then when we find it in our selves, we start.
It is easy to hide behind slogans, political ideologies, dogmas and tricks. It is easy and comforting to blame “those” or base ones beliefs on “studies”. It is so easy to find someones who gives us good one-liners, ready-made dogma or explanations so that we don’t have to deal with the racist within us.
It is not a nice feeling to realise that “I am a racist”. It is not a nice feeling to begin the process. First of all, once you get it, there is no one to blame anymore. There are no excuses anymore. There is no hiding places left. If you really want to wipe out the racism within you, it becomes scary. It is only then when you realise how and how long you have been fooled. It is only then when you realise how you have been divided and separated from your fellow man. And it is only then that you realise that somebody is benefitting from this division between people.
Yes, it is only then that you realise that somebody is really dividing and conquering, and you have been conquered all your life. You realise that you have been lied all your life just to make you impotent, powerless, a puppet. And once you realise that, there is no going back.
BUT once you get it, once you begin to understand, you can start to resist. You can start the revolution within yourself, and spread it out. You can begin to see what the word humanrace actually means. What the word unity means. You also understand why somebody fears that unity so much. Unity means real power. Power of the people. Power of humanbeings.
That is why it is so important to uphold racism. That is why it is so important to teach you and brainwash you to believe in separate races. It is essential to make you believe in races, separate entities of people. That way none of you will have any power. Ever.
You will stay in your race ghettoes, right were someone wants you to be. You stay there weak and alone, mistreated or corrupted, hating each other, being affraid and frustrated, angry. Lost. Just like somebody wants you to be. Blind and weak and angry and scared, swinging wildly around missing everything important. Harmless mosquitoes, insects, scaresly living beings.
That us why they do not want you to believe in unity. They do not want you to cross the race barriers. They do not want you to realise the reality that we are all the same. They do not want you to see what is. They want you to go on, be a racist. Fooled, misguided, ingnorant, without a voice of your own. Without yourself. Without you. The humanbeign.
Unversalism? Egoism? This ism or that ism? No.
Just human beings.
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Legion, agreed about Zoe…she has to play the game because she wants some freedom to be “universal” in America but she also has to keep her fan-base and value.
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Linda
A lot of people learn that they have/belong to/are part of a “race” when they step foot on US soil…
That is a fact that I have experienced and witnessed for others.
Racialization is part of Amerikkka. You can’t define yourself by something else than FIRST race in the US, it’s the entrance door. After that, you can add what you want to your identity pie. If you have forgotten the “race ingredient”, you’re considered as not complete, not normal (because “race” is the norm here), you are made to think that you “lack” something… People WANT you to fix in the box, otherwise THEY are lost. And that is mostly “Whites” and “Blacks”.
This is what Linda Alcoff explains in the article I mentioned. Back in the 90s, I bought a book called “Racially Mixed Children in America”, which started by stating that “mixed-race” (whatever that means) children are not seen not recognized and considered as monstruous.
Most Americans don’t realize that this a very Amerikkkan thing and that it can’t be imposed outside of the US where people have known and experience many many other ways of self identification.
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To come back to “being universal”.
The French are the champions of Universality with a Capital U and therefore the Masters of Hypocrisy and Arrogance in this world. Far ahead of the Americans.
The Elightment philosophers were the Masters of the Masters, and Voltaire was the King.
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@ Cornlia
I agree with you. This is exactly what I meant when I wrote about the obsession with every drop of non-whiteness and the fact that racists hate mixed race people more than anything. This is not just the USA, in the Uk, they are also forever asking you what ethnicity you are. I hate it because I am so mixed, and I do not see why I should privilege one against another, why one should be played against another. If they are creating a state of war inside people because of colour, they are creating the conditions for a state of war between people on the basis of colour.
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@ Cornlia
How well do you know the French?
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Isn’t wanting to impose “race” onto everyone and the world (Tout le monde means everyone and all the world at the same time in French) exactly what “Universalism” did ?
hmm ?
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@ Legion
I think Saldana’s racial identity becomes an issue in her case and not in, say Rosario Dawson’s, because:
1. She has sent out mixed signals.
2. She has played two classic black women – Uhura but more particularly Nina Simone.
I did not say she is a sellout just that she could be.
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Yes, Whites believe they’re universal unless one of their children wants to marry a Black person.
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annef1
too well… *sigh*
I am one of them !
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“It says more about those making the demand.”
Legion…
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annef1
I would be curious to live in the UK for a while. I know the US and France well, but have just a superficial knowledge of the UK. Especially on the topic of “race”, the UK seems to be a “third path”, the US being the clearly “racialist” one and France being the one that will not recognize its racism* because of its supposed “Universality” which has always been the pretext for its colonialist and imperialist policies. Until these days, still. Mali and Niger being the obvious examples (but not to most of the French who feel offended when one dares mentions France’s attitude there), Guadeloupe, Haiti and Tahiti being the more difficult to show ones.
Recently, Holland, in a supreme Sarkozian sentence, said that the French “help” (understand military occupation) of Mali was France’s way to “do reparations for slavery” !!!!!!!!!!
Yeah.
That’s how a lot of my fellow-countrymen and women still think. It’s called Universalism and “Human Rights” in their “language”. And don’t you dare challenge them on that ! They refuse to “repent” !
* as is often the case on many topics, France seems to be divided on this too, with a minority of people aware of the reality of our national hypocrisy and ready to tell history the way it is. In the past people like Miles Davis, Nina Simone and other African-Americans seem to have felt some “relief” living in France so there must have been a time when things were better (though James Baldwin was extremely critical of the way “Arabs” (North-Africans) were treated – he called them “the Niggers of France”- and sorry French people type the whole words, no “beeps” on radio or TV either) But since the arrival of Sarkozy in power a few years ago, following LePen’s rise, the frankly racist “parole” (talk) has been liberated in all layers of society. It also corresponds to the immigration of more and more dark-skinned Africans.
And you annef1, how well do you know the French ? Are you and I -partly- fellow-citizens ?
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On the Nina Simone portrayal: it is REALLY difficult to understand how anyone in his/her right mind would not choose a very-dark-skinned woman to play her role. She was not Nina Simone and all that goes with it for nothing…
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Legion I read your last post after posting mine (on Nina Simone) and I totally agree with you.
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Linda, thanks for the video. I see no reason to change my initial comment that she is a black woman. The mother, grandmother, stepfather and half brother all fall within the range of black phenotypes. At the root of this debate is the negrophobia of the civilization we live in. People who claim they can opt out of being black are in fact saying everything is alright with the way things are. Blacks should be at the bottom and white is what we all should aspire to be. Have you ever wondered what the reaction would be to someone who is 1/8th white?
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Well hmmm…
On another episode of how does Obama see himself, he said the following:
Taken from
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-3546210.html
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“Gro Jo,
The mother, grandmother, stepfather and half brother all fall within the range of black phenotypes.”
Linda says,
you mean they fall into America’s range of “black phenotypes” because if they lived in Africa, they could easily be considered north African “Arabs”
I don’t run with America’s one drop rule of claiming anyone with African blood as “black”…. In Jamaica or Honduras, we call those people “brown” or mestizo.
If black American people are so “proud to be black”, then why is it necessary to drag in half-castes to bulk up the numbers….the Africans themselves don’t do it.
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@Linda,
I think i understand where you are coming from, but i can’t say if even most of Black Americans feel this way. The problem is that historically in the U.S., when children were born–many times out of wedlock or via rape–to a Black mother and white father, it was the Black communities who readily accepted these children as their own.
In recent decades, it has been proven that the majority of “Black” children in foster care are in fact the children of white women and Black men. Again, these kids are picked first by Black families. So i think it is a complicated issue.
As you probably already know, during and after WWII there were quite a few Black American soldiers stationed in Germany who had relationships with German women who became pregnant. The GIs–many of them–did not marry the women or were shipped off without ever knowing of a pregnancy and some of the German women chose not to raise their “Brown Babies” in post WWII Germany and instead put them up to be adopted by African American families so they could at least be in the homeland of their fathers.
All i am saying is that it is a complicated issue. I do not know of any Black people personally who have tried to enforce Blackness on half-Black people. In my experience, Black Americans are the Americans who have been way more tolerant of mixed race peoples who have one Black parent.
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Linda, they fall within the range of black phenotypes based on their facial features. We both know that places like Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic etc. adhere to a variant of the one drop rule which excludes anybody with any amount of white ancestry from the black race. I go along with J-J Dessalines who decreed that everyone is black, even the blond blue eyed Poles that Napoleon left behind. That rule is no less correct or absurd than any of the others. Personally, I don’t care if someone with no visible white traits wants to call himself white, I have no interest in playing gatekeeper to whiteness. What I want people to fess up to is their negrophobia, i.e. being black somehow would make them less human. I don’t see color prejudice as being somehow more humane than good old white racism, in fact, it’s more absurd since the half-castes must, if they want to be consistent, admit that they are inferior to the lowest white man, something they are usually loath to admit. what other, than white ancestry, distinguishes them from the other blacks?
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why is it that everyone wants to define “mixed-race” people…shouldn’t we be able to define ourselves within the context of the society we live in.
I agree, Obama should call himself what he wants to but in reality, he calls himself “black” because he Has to, based on his experiences and how other people define him.
I think black people are still confused when it comes to who they are as “African” descendants.
All us, black or brown African descendants, live in white-majority countries (USA, UK, Canada, etc), educated and operate in a white western world, embrace their ideology of who they are and who “we” are….no matter how empowered or enlightened black people like to think they are, we no Nothing of what it means to be “African”
As Kola Boof likes say:
“Not a single Black person would dare claim that “anybody can be White” (even when they LOOK White). But they will claim that Africans are so inferior that just any 2% mattress-f’ck can be a Black person.
The KKK invented the 1 drop rule….to encourage Blacks to breed themselves into bastardization.
Blacks try to uphold this rule for dear life. They are still slaves. And it’s a disgrace. But most of all, it shows their UTTER contempt and hatred for Africa and for Black people.”
Here entire statement:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/kola-boof/#comment-155614
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@Legion,
Darn it! i wrote ” on another episode” to be light- hearted and highlight your point above about
🙂
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Linda, I’m not impressed by Kola Boof’s statement. “The KKK invented the one drop rule…” Ha, don’t make me laugh, this is arrant nonsense. the KKK wasn’t even a glint in a racist eye when that rule was invented. I see that you don’t want to deal with the negrophobia behind both the USA and Jamaican , Haitian, Dominican variants of the one drop rule. They all have one thing in common, the attempt to bestialize blacks. This has been great fun, good night.
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“gro jo,
We both know that places like Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic etc. adhere to a variant of the one drop rule which excludes anybody with any amount of white ancestry from the black race.
Personally, I don’t care if someone with no visible white traits wants to call himself white, I have no interest in playing gatekeeper to whiteness. What I want people to fess up to is their negrophobia, i.e. being black somehow would make them less human.”
Linda says,
“less than human” – come on now, that’s taking it a little bit too deep
As a mixed-race, half Latina, I would be lying if I said I don’t know where you are coming from with the Caribbean / Latino propensity to play down their African blood and push up their European or Asian blood…. my mothers family were an anomaly– they are proud of their African blood because their black ancestors were Jamaican Maroons…who doesn’t want to claim the side that won.
There was a serious “mind-f’ck” that took place in the Caribbean and Latin American countries that has affected black and brown people until this day…
the “Love of Self” will have to come from within — too many people enjoy being told “you’re not black, your triguena/morena/mestizo/indio,etc” — because being black means being “poor” to some, or being lower-class or at the bottom of the totem-pole.
Even the British slave-holders did it — they claimed, accepted, and educated their mixed-race children and encouraged them to distance themselves from their African mothers…this is where the confusion comes from
it takes moving to a country like the USA for them to understand that the rest of the “white world” might not be so willing to look beyond their obvious “African” or Native heritage — and many Afro-Latinos are getting the message, so trust, not all is lost.
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“Gro Jo,
Linda, I’m not impressed by Kola Boof’s statement. “The KKK invented the one drop rule…” Ha, don’t make me laugh, this is arrant nonsense. the KKK wasn’t even a glint in a racist eye when that rule was invented.”
Linda says,
I think Kola was using them as an analogy for “white racists” so that people would get the point
here statement would not have the same impact if she said “Eugenic Scientists”
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“phoebeprunelle,
In recent decades, it has been proven that the majority of “Black” children in foster care are in fact the children of white women and Black men. Again, these kids are picked first by Black families. So i think it is a complicated issue.”
Linda says,
No, it’s not complicated at all….white Americans (unlike the British or Spanish) denied their mixed-race children and made it a “shame and disgrace” to publically acknowledge their part-African offsprings.
having African ancestry was the marker used to define who is “white” in America…that’s why black American society claims anyone with African blood — they had to because white society refused to acknowledge their European blood…they weren’t given the door that Spanish America gave their mixed-race children…
To me, that is the reason black America had become so strong back then, they were able unify and gain strength from this segregation and gain political strength and make changes on their behalf..
that’s why Marcus Garvey came to the USA– he thought Caribbean/Latin American black people were a lost cause because they bought into the “Mejorar la Raza (improving the race)” mindset and happily married light or white…
but as Marcus Garvey discovered towards the end, black Americans were just as confused and struggling to love themselves.
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I wasn’t aware that Zoe Saldana was biracial, it makes the whole decision of her playing Nina Simone even more wrong. From the shaky way she been behaving this past year, she is definitely having some issues . Still,her claiming her identity as “black” or “Latina” or “triguena” is nobody’s business but her own. I don’t understand the need to contest it, simply because of her phenotype. I mean look at her younger brother, they have the same parents, and if he decides to present his ethnic identity as “Latino” nobody is going to say boo. But nope because she looks black, she is black, and damn whoever her parents is. This type of attitude, I’ve noticed, is mostly coming from white and black Americans , as a Nigerian raised in Europe, I don’t need every person who is part black, looks black to say that they are black. I’ve seen too many biracial families where one sibling looks like one race, and another look like another race. I’ve seen a pair of fraternal twins in which one looked like a dark complected Mexican and the other completely Irish. If other “white” people have a problem accepting them as their own, so what?? Let it be THEIR problem, we don’t need, and shouldn’t need to make it OUR problem as well, after all, it’s just another way of demonstrating their racism. We know this, but yet we keep enforcing it.
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Then we are essentially saying the same thing…
I mean by being complicated the fact that i have not encountered where Black people are “forcing” anything on half-Black people–at least in my lifetime.
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Racist societies are having issues. Not people.
Accepting “races” as a social fact is what is creating problems, because “races” are the decision of a small group of people years ago, a concept that served their interests and no-one else’s. “Races” are not “who” people are.
The attitude that consists in trying to/imposing an identity on people is the same as forcing them into a religion.
If you feel comfortable telling someone “what” he/she is, when he/she is telling you they don’t perceive themselves that way, what is the difference between the way you are acting and the way rac-ists acted when they first invented and imposed the labeling ?
Shouldn’t we all be more concerned with labeling GMOs ?
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There is just one thing that is for sure.
Rac-ism is alive and kicking.
Self-propelled. Self-fueled.
A very well oiled machinery.
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And to bring it back to “universalism”.
It seems as if most people think the way they think is “universal”… and should therefore be imposed on everyone else.
Racism is also very contagious.
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@ Alphonso
This is based on a general universal principle: “The One is the ALL and the All is ONE.
I would agree this way of thinking or perceiving the world permeated most ancient cultures of the past. Indeed, it is what allowed for co-operation and sustainable environmentally interconnected communities to prosper and survive for millennia.
There is a general universal appreciation that we all share which is based on how we “FEEL” within our own bodies. This is shared in basic communications with all life forms. We ALL “instinctively” know what the other person is feeling based on our own experience of that same shared feeling.
This is what is called “heart centred” knowledge. Its not based on mind centred “thought” first. It based on heart centred “feeling” first. This is universally experienced by every living being on the planet to the point at which most of us just literal take it for granted.
Its clear those things which are universal are those which we all instinctively know and share. The projected universal qualities of the “white default” model is obviously not one of them!
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@ Kwamla,
You are sooo on point with this. And the reason why this type of thinking is taught as “crazy, hippie” stigmatized madness is purely planned as well. We are being turned into ADHD scatter brained “consumers” who have to be shown what to do, what to BUY, where to live, WHO TO LOVE, and it’s our heart-centered purpose to reject these attempts at shutting us off from accessing our conscious selves.
The hyper-use of masculine/feminine stereotypes and complete obsession with the visual appeasement will accelerate our spiritual decline as we continue to ignore our physical and spiritual and our interconnectedness to each other.
And I also believe certain groups of beings are here to help challenge our spiritual path to the Creator here on Earth. And it’s getting serious..which is why the Universe is battling to keep the balance, even through the internet and sites like this where it’s no mistake we come to converge and keep the spirit replenished and always learning.
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Cornlia said:
“Racist societies are having issues. Not people.”
“Accepting “races” as a social fact is what is creating problems, because “races” are the decision of a small group of people years ago, a concept that served their interests and no-one else’s. “Races” are not “who” people are.”
“If you feel comfortable telling someone “what” he/she is, when he/she is telling you they don’t perceive themselves that way, what is the difference between the way you are acting and the way rac-ists acted when they first invented and imposed the labeling ?”
Legion said:
“What I think should be fessed up to is the defensiveness that Black Americans have from living in a society hostile to them in a number of ways, ways which that are quite concrete. And how part of seeking a solution to the hostile situation is to loudly claim mixed people as being “black”. It’s fine if the mixed person decides that, “yes, they are black.” Like, for example, this Kartina Richardson embraces being black, I think. But for those who choose to identify another way, that’s just too bad for blacks who are looking for conscripts for the informal army. It’s best to have willing members, not flaky members for any group.”
The problem with the above quotes is the authors desperate attempts to talk away history by making something that’s been a social reality for over 500 years into a question of choice and etiquette. Legion can you prove any part of your statement that Black Americans have “loudly” claimed “mixed people” as black. The only examples I come up with, Charles W. Chesnutt, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois and Malcolm X, all loudly claimed the label without any prompting from anybody as far as I can tell, do you have evidence to the contrary? You say it’s just too bad for blacks if some of you choose to identify as other than black, can you elaborate on this point. What would blacks lose if the 1.8 million mixed race people who identify as black were to stop doing so? What would the 32.9 million still left in that category lose? I’d like to hear your horror story about being conscripted into the informal army you speak of. It’s mighty white of you to concede to Kartina Richardson the right to call herself black, looking at her I’d say she was khmer, or Indonesian. As I’ve said before I don’t have a problem calling somebody by whatever label he/she chooses but when I look at some mixed race people I put them in the boxes their physiognomies suggest to me. Black in Saldana’s case, white for Chesnutt and Indonesian for Kartina Richardson. According to Cornlia sorting these individuals in that way would be virtually racist because race is not a social fact, what?! Cornlia, how can you have racist societies without racist people?
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“Cornlia, how can you have racist societies without racist people?”
Where did I imply that ? Never and nowhere.
You said “The problem with the above quotes is the authors desperate attempts to talk away history by making something that’s been a social reality for over 500 years into a question of choice and etiquette.”
There is no “desperation” in my supposed “attempts”.
I’m just stating things, and CERTAINLY not trying to erase an history.
I NEVER even started to imply that “race” was a question fo choice and etiquette. I KNOW it’s a political system that imposes itself on people. That is why I think it should be fought, first by the people who belong to the dominating group, because that’s where the start to change is going to come from.
It is always difficult to discuss “race” with people who totally “believe” in it.
It was constructed, it can be de-constructed. Actually, I think it MUST be.
Otherwise racists win. It is as simple as that.
Now, de-construction sure won’t be easy with dominants and oppressed people in the racist systems adhering to it.
Why on earth would you want to continue a system that is making most people miserable and their lives complicated, when you should (and I am talking of people who are classified as “white” here) be working to denounce, disassemble and destroy this system. No God put it there. Europeans did.
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“phoebeprunelle,
I mean by being complicated the fact that i have not encountered where Black people are “forcing” anything on half-Black people–at least in my lifetime.”
Linda says,
True, black people may not have created and defined “blackness” but they sure do accept the definition and enforce it –in a “passive-aggressive” manner — that’s been my experience.
I wouldn’t say black people in America are totally powerless either when it comes to how they want to be defined — the term “African American” was introduced to white America and it’s now being used to define black Americans –whether the general public agrees or not.
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@ SugarKiss
I always like your commentary it provides an added spiritually aware dimension often missing here…
We are all individually and collectively playing these roles but it should be easy to discern those beings who’ve elected to play the most challenging roles. The degree of individual and collective suffering provides a clue…
But I also believe this is now in the process of being challenged and changed and we will all be involved in choosing new roles. We can see it in the daily scientific revelations and social reverberations unfolding in society daily.
You mentioned ADHD and this is just of those you should be aware of…
http://canadianawareness.org/2013/05/adhd-is-a-ficticous-diseases-admitted-by-the-person-who-invented-it/
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In another post you mention how most people don’t view their own cultures as default, wouldn’t those people then want to be viewed universally as given?
I’m not totally sure how “black” Saldana viewed herself as; like its been said she defined herself as “black and latina”, sounds like just another way of being “mixed” to me.
Of course, that aside it could be pointed out that Saldana started not being comfortably talking about race post the Nina Simone “incident” or in other words she stopped defining herself as black when black people started saying she wasn’t.
Though its interesting that she says she’s had more problems due to her gender than due to her race.
And I didn’t know Nina Simone had married a white guy; I guess throw another one under the “the Blacker the talk, the whiter the Woman (or in this case Man)” saying.
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I was somewhere with my computer and no internet. I was thinking about this topic.
These are just considerations that stem from years of interacting with all kinds of people on this topic, which covers “universality”, because leaving a country with a strong and extremely arrogant “universal vision” to live in one with an equally strong but more naive than arrogant one opens one’s eyes to a lot of things.
I realize with renewed amazement how powerful racism has been in getting its very victims to agree with its major manipulative device.
At the same time I understand it and I don’t (but that’s part of the whole scheme).
I can understand that people who have always defined themselves/ thought they were defining themselves/ accepted to define themselves racially would think that their identity is attacked when the concept that is used to define them is attacked.
But I am not attacking *people* and I am not trying to get rid of *them* when I attack a concept. Concepts/ideas are not eternal. And shouldn’t be when they serve the interests of just a minority. Of course when you are defined by your “racial” identity you will defend it because you have been persuaded it’s you… So it’s *you* under attack when “race” is under attack (I’m thinking aloud here and repeating myself probably).
Just as it is incredible to witness how a person with narcissistic personality disorder manages to control others (literally, when this occurs, people find it “incredible” that one could be controlled to such an extent), it is incredible to witness how racists have managed to make their very victims adhere to their thinking. To the point that the supposed “universality” of their thinking has actually been transfered.
By making people believe they should or must define themselves through a racial identity, they have actually transformed them into defenders (through the concept of “racial pride”, for instance) of the very system they should be attacking… Amazing.
As far as I know “race” has never served the interests of anyone else than those who have defined themselves as “white” and enforced that system of oppression. Getting rid of “race” officially, clearly, loudly and politically has never been tried to such an intensity that it could have an impact. That is, with many people defined as “white” attacking it. I believe it should be done. I already posted this in support of this idea:
Reducing “whiteness” to what it has always been, a fraud, would be an attack on the supposed universality it conveys, and the impacts of it.
gro jo, you mentioned DuBois. A lot of people do. But I have to wonder if they have actually read him. When one does and reaches the point were he mentions Africans, one is in for a very unpleasant surprise: African-Americans/”Blacks’ mission/message consists, among others, in taking the African out of his “dark forest”…. Woah. Now isn’t “universalist thinking” transfered ? DuBois is now dated in the sociological field, but still.
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Linda, I read your post after posting mine. You’re expressing what I think.
I think we all need to stop serving the power. I try to take care of myself, and let others choose. To me it is clear, whiteness has to be destroyed. And to those who laugh at this, whatever. You think whatever you want. I know what I’m saying, Whiteness and racism are branches of “universalism”.
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Cornlia, if anyone de-constructed whiteness it was Chesnutt by accepting the black label. As I stated above the man was really white so going along with the gag that he was black was a witty way to thumb his nose at the whole absurd system. I’ve said all I wanted to say on this subject. Good luck with de-constructing the white supremacist system. By the way, how much longer do you think it will be before it is de-constructed by its beneficiaries? It seems more likely to me that it will perish from the challenge from Asia.
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gro jo thanks for the wishes (even though it was probably sarcasm, I can take anything positive on this topic).
I won’t see it in my lifetime and my great-grand children won’t, that I know. Apart from that, I’m trying my best to make people (so-called “white”, that is) aware of things.
I look “Chesnutt” up. Never heard or read of him. I guess they didn’t like him too much from what you’re referencing. I know racists hate it when the topic of race comes up and I say “there are no races”. (I’m talking of French white supremacists mostly, I don’t even try with Amerikkkans, they don’t even understand what I’m getting at). French racists know “race” is not something “obvious” and has to be politically supported to survive.
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To add one to the series, hoping to make people realize that you can be one “thing” and not have a problem with individuals of “another”, may they be part of the “enemy”, how many here knew that Cheik Anta Diop’s wife was (is, I think she’s still alive) French and “white” ? I posted about that in another thread, a link to a forum where some African-Americans are basically calling him a sell-out ! Wth ! Cheik Anta Diop, a sell-out ? I would like to see how much they have worked and sacrificed to make things better for their so-called “race”… and compare with him.
His wife did the same job as him, they apparently worked together. I haven’t searched more than that.
On Nina Simone, remember she traveled, lived abroad in several countries, she knew other things that the American racial horizon. She and Miles Davis and several other African-American artists could feel and see and the difference when leaving the US and coming back (and were critical of Europeans too when needed be).
Even Malcolm X. That should make those who are so definite on “identity” think a little. And travel (if they can).
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For those who do not believe that racism can be wiped out as an idea, or as an ideology:
So-called communism in eastern block was done away by the people, ordinary, normal people. They just stopped playing it. Period. Naturally new problems, new social and economical predators moved in etc. but the system, the whole ideology was destroyed beyond repair.
Another example: homosexuality. Only few decades ago it was officially a sickness. That was the official scientifical explantion. Now everyone knows that there are homosexuals in almost all the spieces, penguines included. Only the die-hards still maintain that it is a sickness that can be “cured” but not a single seriously taken scientist or normal thinking person thinks so anymore.
Same thing will happen with racism. Personally I believe its hey-day was 1900’s and that it is now on slow decend to the trash bin of history where it belongs. I won’t see that day, I doub if any of us will see that day, but it will come. And the main reson for the global decline of racism will be demography and economics.
Science has proved beyond any doubt that there is only one human race. 100 years ago science proved that there were many. Sixty years ago japanese were compared to monkeys in the west. No more. Chinese are no longer the rat-like slant eyed semianimal torturers they were hundred years ago. Indians, from India, are no longer the loinclothed gurus who sleep on bed of nails and speak funny, who all look like Gandhi etc.
When Africa, or some of its countries, will rise economically africans will no longer be the ones who are either down and out or in need of western patronizing. And it will happen one day. It has already happened with Brazil. Brazil is no longer that funny counrty of joe cariocas, exotiq beauties with string bikins and vast amazonian junbgles with head hunters. It is recognized as an economic powerhouse. No laughs anymore.
There are more and more “racially mixed” people which is natural. In few decades so called “pure races” will be a fantasy. Well, they are already but in the near future, in 2100’s, there are very few people who won’t look “racially mixed”. It is natural development.
There will always be bigots, xenophobics, nationalists, hate groups, religious fanatism etc. but one day in the future racism as a useful tool for the super rich and bug business will be no more. One day racism will not be useful in dividing people, dividing the world. It will be gone.
Our job is to keep that ball rollin. Our generation has to keep up the fight against it. It is not universal, it is not the truth. It will be gone one day.
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Yes Legion. That was what I meant.
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Sam said: “100 years ago science proved that there were many.”
I think one can say they “tried to”… in not very scientific ways. Like using a Greek statue’s head in the place of a Europeans’ to prove Europeans’ superiority (because Greek superiority was becoming fashionable at the time).
The most surprising fact about “race” as far as I am concerned is how obviously stupid it was (it is an opinion, but based on observation). And yet it thrived. Simply because it had political support and enforcement.
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And “Universalism” participated in the support and enforcement of that stupid idea. Universalists, if they had been logical and/or honest (most important), would have realized “their” universalism had nothing universal in it. But it was not their point: they wanted to impose ideas, so that had to impose them as “good for you”.
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“they had” ^^not “that had”
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In echo of Sam’s remark, Africa is already rising, has been for a long while, “growth” there is huge. Simply the media don’t tell us about it.
Americans (with, as my son’s friend would say “their cardboard houses”) and Europeans would feel ashamed if they saw the architectural inventivity in Private housing building. It’s totally amazing to see that one house doesn’t look like any other. They have wonderful architects there who don’t hesitate to invent and are not stopped by conventions and norms.
Whenever someone manages to have a little money to improve their dwelling, they do it. It’s not the case of the all the peoples of Africa, some are more attached to “bling-bling” and showing off, according to some, it is a cultural/ traditional fact that is being transfered into contemporary attitudes. Some peoples greatly emphasize EDUCATION, invest the western institutions and WILL have an impact back home. They have known for a while that Universalism was not meant for them.
But nobody listens to them. To many in “the West”, including Afros, are too busy elaborating their new racist theories that you sometimes can see posted in trains (last one I saw was in Chicago) stating that “women” are the future of Africa, thereby implying that African men are lazy and will have no part in that future. Another “universal” belief. I hope Africans avoid that new trap.
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@cornlia:
Nobody in the west listens, yet. But lets see when african media picks up. Ten, fifteen years ago nobody took Al-Jazeera seriously, but now it is one of the power medias.
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https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/my-advice-to-white-people/#comment-172869
I posted this in the wrong thread. This is related to this topic.
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[…] back to the idea of “neutrality” and “universalism” that has been on my mind, it struck me that the whole business of cultural promotion is based in […]
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How about Christian Universalism? You (Abagond) seem to subscribe to that since you converted to Catholicism, which is very universalist with a sole aim of making the entire planet a Catholic planet through conversions.
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