Revisiting an old topic
This is going to be long, because I'm prefacing the actual post with a previous posts. I need you to encounter a few concepts first so it was this or post things backward. Please note that all text contained within the brown borders is quoted, and not originally written by me. The links are still live, so you can read them in their original context if you wish
… and white people can't be n-----sTurn down your verbal sensitivities for a minute. I'm gonna use some bad words. You have been warned.
Ampersand at Alas, A Blog, still in deep conversation over the question of
Can Men Be Feminists? quotes
a comment (whew!)
Men can be affected by prejudice against because they are male. This is not sexism.
Similarly, white people can be affected by prejudice against because they are white. This is not racism.
Sexism and racism are more than individual actions -- they are systemic. Without the systemic aspect, it is not sexism or racism, it is prejudice.
I do not support prejudice in any of it's manifestations -- but I do and will recognize the difference between individual prejudice and systemic sexism/racism.
and comments himself:
I'd prefer to say "both people of color and whites are sometimes victims of individual racism, but only people of color experience systematic racism." I think the important distinction to be made isn't between "prejudice" and "racism," but between things that happen on a individual level and things that happen on a systematic level.
and
Bean and I don't disagree on substance here - merely on which words to use. In my experience - and maybe Bean has found otherwise - my wording is more useful for explaining feminist and anti-racist positions in everyday life. Most people - especially people who have never taken a women's studies class - will find it easier to understand the distinction between "individual-level racism" and "systematic racism," but will resist making the distinction Bean suggests between "prejudice" and "racism."
(Why do people resist it? Because no one likes being told they don't know what everyday words mean. To ask people to distinguish between "individual racism" and "systematic racism" isn't asking them to accept new definitions for words they already know. But to tell someone that someone who says "all white people are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to breed" isn't a racist is to tell them that they don't know what the word "racist" means. And that bugs people, understandably.)
Now, I refered to this discussion before, just to say I was feeling the original comment. And I was willing to let it go at that.
But you know, it
does bug people to be told they don't know what racism is. It really, really does. Especially if you see it, oh, at least three days out of the week (yes, brothers and sisters, I know … I'm being charitable, though). You may not feel it directed at you everyday, but you see it. You DO feel it on occasion, no matter what your class or social standing.
And I guarantee you, you best-est, closest Black friend who grew up down the block from you, when fresh (read: within five days) from one of those racist encounters, has to fight down the urge to pimp-slap you when you say "Are you suuuuuure?" or "You're being oversensitive."
Ampersand made a critically important statement: "Bean and I don't disagree on substance here - merely on which words to use." Having this level of understanding make it possible to cut through the fog and find allies. But to be clear, there is a reason for the disagreement on terminology.
Um, here come the bad words.
There's no such thing as a Black racist, any more that there's any white niggers. You can use the terms those ways as a figure of speech, a metaphor about symbols. But each term is specific to its respective race. See, "nigger" was created especially for Black folks in the particular condition our people were in. It is historically associated with us and represents a condition and set of expectations we desperately avoid association with, or succumb to. Then you have racist … not crakka, honky or any of that other weak shit. "Racist" was created especially for white folks in the particular condition they were in. It is historically associated with them and represents a condition and set of expectations they desperately avoid association with, or succumb to.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but "racist" is the only word that makes white people as crazy as "nigger" makes Black people. It makes them
crazier. White people don't want to hear you talk about
ANY white person being racist. They'll start telling you how many Black friends they have (I was going to quote an example from the net, but nevermind).
And lets look at how Black people have dealt with "nigger." We denied it. Said there ARE no niggers. Well, you see how well
that worked… The we tried to intellectualize it away. I heard people say:
You dont have to be Black to be a nigger. A nigger is just a low class person. There's niggers in all races. There's white niggers, Porto Rican niggers, (that's how we used to say it back then, "porto.") Chinese niggers …
Then we embraced because we couldn't escape it.
So it has gone with "racist." White folks denied it. Said there ARE no racists. Well, you see how well
that worked, (though they still working on it) … Then they tried to intellectualize it away. I heard people say:
You dont have to be white to be a racist. A racist is just a low class person. There's racists in all races. There's black racists , Poto Rikkin racists, Chinese racists …
The Republicans are in full embrace mode.
So let's recap. "Niggerism" is the degraded condition common to Black people in the USofA prior to the legal end of Jim Crow. It was forced upon the culture to make it fit the demands of a "racially" distorted economy and political system. Too many still suffer from it, and these people are called "niggers." Racism is the degraded condition common to white people in the USofA prior to the legal end of Jim Crow. It was forced upon the culture to make it fit the demands of a "racially" distorted economy and political system. Too many still suffer from it, and these people are called "racists."
You may now return to your accustomed level of racial sensitivity. Thank you.
Later, at
Mac Diva's suggestion, I
rewrote it to say the same thing in a way that was a bit more palatable to the mainstream, but this is the version that Ampersand linked to, and the version that came straight from my head and gut.
LATER: I think I need to be clear. This is NOT a statement on race relations. There is NO statement on who hates or is capable of hating based on the rather ill-defined concept of race in any of this post, particularly not in the text that follows.
This is all still rather polite but it's been my experience that it rubs a lot of folks the wrong way, talking about niggers and racists. That's my intent here, to rub folks the wrong way. I
want y'all raw. It's the first, necessary step in my plan, which is to install a Negro in everyone's head.
Black folks, of course, already have a Negro in their head, so y'all can check me if you think I go off track.
Let's examine the facts here. According to the Census Bureau's
Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin [PDF], six out of eight people in this country classify themselves as white. Black people are approximately 12% of the population; that's roughly every eigth person..
What I want to do is reverse the situation.
Imagine that of every eight people you see in public spaces, six are Black. Your bosses are Black. Your kid's teachers are Black. You go to the newsstand and see Ebony and Savoy but not Time and People.
Now, imagine that roughly one third of these Black people, that's one out of every four people you encounter lets you know, through body language, shying away or even sometimes a direct statement, that they think you are a racist bastard.
These are people who don't know you and never will. But it's pretty clear—not blatantly obvious, by pretty clear—that they are uncomfortable around you. They visibly relax when you say something that indicates you're not going to invoke white privilege. A few that do know you will ask your opinion with the inflection that indicates the collective "you." A few others will occasionally squeeze their butt-cheeks tight and add a nasal twang to their voice as a sign of solidarity with you. And you know if you, even accidentally, validate those assumptions in any way you will be ostracized to some degree, even my other white people.
You with me? Really?
Good. You now have your own personal Negro. Feed it well and ask it questions once in a while.
Previously entered comments
one of these days we're going to have a terminology summit.
fyi, here are my terms.
whitefolks - average american who knows he's white and knows what it means.
blackfolks - average american who knows he's black and knows what it means.
institutional racism: pretty much equals what you call 'systemic racism'. i prefer institutional because 'the system' is everything. institutions can be isolated. clearly institutional racism at dennys can't (and shouldn't) be cured the same way as institutional racism at nationwide insurance. but they can be cured. you want to talk about curing 'the system', where do you start? when do you finish?
individual racism: people believe in an idea or they don't. it's simple enough to investigate that despite the fact that nobody ever does. people generally don't bother to separate the idea from the act. so when somebody says 'prejudiced' i say that's just soft pedalling squishy language and excuse making. can you call somebody a nigger without believing black people are inferior? of course. can you think that black people are inferior without ever calling them a nigger? of course. can you believe blackfolks are inferior without ever doing anything racist? yes, yes, yes.
i say it's the idea that counts. it allows me to distinguish between intent and effect.
it's also possible to be a bigot because of institutional racism without ever asking yourself hardball questions about whether or not you are racist. i think this is the touchy area where a hell of a lot of whitefolks are. they have no idea what questions to ask, are afraid of the answers and won't dare ask anybody who's not white. so they either go ass-backwards into discussions saying 'i know i'm the ofay white racist but..' or start off with stupid shit like 'everybody is a little racist...'. understandable, dumb, probably not excuseable, especially since my answers have been on the net for as long as they have.
again that's a lot of nuance for people who are generally just interested in name-calling, or avoiding being name-called. but you and i know the net and name-calling is where most people are at.
the term you are missing is 'white supremacy'. black people can be white supremacists. that's exactly what an uncle tom is, a black person (fits into blackfolks) that believes whitefolks are superior. similarly, a 'banana' is an asian who wants to be white because she believes whites to be superior. yes virginia there are coconuts too.
here you can demonstrate that millions more americans believe in various forms of white supremacy than black supremacy (if that's the point you want to make). furthermore, you make racism something that's not 'owned' by blackfolks, which is an idea gets under everybody's skin, especially mine.
i'm not sure i get your idea of reversing the races, or putting a negro in whitefolks heads, so i won't say that i think it's not helpful until i get it.
but my prej
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 5:14 am | #
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my prejudice says it won't work. analogies don't work. role reversals don't work. just deal with the shit head on.
15% of the people who respond to my poll come out straight racist. not just bigoted, but answering 'true' questions like: 'races are naturally antagonistic' and 'each race has its unique message to the world'.
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 5:18 am
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As usual commenting on your comment could become a whole post.
I'm assuming when you say it won't work you see the intent of this pot as challenging racism or changing someone's mind. It's not. The intent is to communicate a specific subjective experience. I admit that's somewhat disingenuous…given the current state of discussion and the nature of humans there's a pretty specific set of probable reactions and responses a successful effort ould bring about. But my effort is seriously to bring a new piece of data into the discussion.
To do this I only needed to isolate a couple of specific ideas, The only difinitions in the repeated post that were mine were of nigger, racist, niggerism and racism. Stated raw because we react to them raw. All the elegant discussion is had a step back from the gut check we all make when we're hip-deep in it.
A terminology summit is an interesting idea—I came close enough to saying "amusing idea" that I needed to get this in here. For my part, I generally find it easiest and best to understand and assume the terminology of the folks I'm talking to. I'm pretty good at it and it hands me my best tools and weapons. Ed "Darkstar" Brown knows me from (what used to be) the Afroam-L mailing list and can confirm this.
Finally, for now, I note you find the subjective (idea) more important than the objective (action) and use objective measures to gauge things. I find the objective more important—more accurately, I don't give a damn about the subjective as long as the objective is correct. The most useful tool to give folks to keep their objective in check (most folks do want to) is a yardstick they can accurately use.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 9:08 am
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Where do asians fit into all of this? Because there was a lot of talk about black and white. But Asians also play a pivotal role in many of the major "race" events in the last 25 years.
Look at the LA riots. Many white owned stores were passed by during the riots while the Korean owned stores were torn apart. (Site: "Blue Dreams" for more on relations between the africana, caucasian, and asian communities of LA)
A lot of class reductionists use the Asian American situation as an arguement for why we shouldn't talk about race but should only focus on class. I strongly disagree with this, but i'm curious how you work communities such as the Korean American community in LA into this system?
I understand how koreans can't be racist towards whites. But would you allow koreans to be racist towards african communities? And can Africans be racist towards Koreans or is that out of bounds?
Also, I worry about using analogies for racism that involve amounts of people. Because this lets people say "So once there is certain number of black people in the US, racism will disappear" - which is completely untrue. I think the most important points should be "Your bosses are Black. Your kid's teachers are Black."
brian | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 11:20 am
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I had to add the following to the post:
LATER: I think I need to be clear. This is NOT a statement on race relations. There is NO statement on who hates or is capable of hating based on the rather ill-defined concept of race in any of this post, but in particular not in the text that follows.
What I'm doing is communicating the subjective experience of being Black, independant of economic class. Being an actual countable minority of the population is an integral part of that experience.
I can't speak to the subjective experience of being Korean or Asian in the USofA.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 12:42 pm
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ok i get you. yes and i think putting a negro in the head of whitefolks helps to convey the subjective experience.
i tend to think that white supremacy is 80% of the problem and the varying degrees by which all people buy into it determines the relationships between people of color.
it's the same brand of racial prejudices. for example. i don't think that koreans have come up with an entire new set of stereotypes to apply to blackfolks. white supremacy says 'niggers steal'. anti-semitism says 'kikes cheat'. koreans don't come up with new names for blackfolks or jews and attach different values.
but in addition to this there is a layer which is specific ethnicity by ethnicity. i would say that ethnic rivalries tend to be more specific beefs. they don't translate nationally. for example, the blacks vs jews conflict exemplified by the crown heights fights in new york city did not resonate in los angeles. blacks and jews here in los angeles simply don't have a negative history. but the issues between the lubavitchers and black muslims is legendary there.
btw. darkstar and i go waaay back. we need to get him into the blogosphere. actually, visioncircle.org is my multi-author blog. feel welcome to put your more interesting and authoritative stuff there. if things work out, it could be the subjective spot where negrophile is the reporting. a long time ago several of us dreamed of this, we called it 'higher ground'. it was lester kenyatta spence, ed brown, art mcgee, michael r. hicks and myself. hell, i still have the logos. lester is already posting regularly at visioncircle. i'm going to chase down the other bros. thanks for reminding me.
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 2:16 pm
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Gah! Racism is prejudice or bias against anyone/any group by virtue of their race -- which may also be directly related to their ethnicity and country of origin.
I see it on ALL sides. Whites against peoples of ALL colors; peoples of all colors against whites and other peoples of color.
I've seen Koreans biased against anyone not Korean - pick another race/ethnic group/country of origin, I've seen it. I've worked with corporate-sponsored internal diversity groups as a consultant, watched these groups compete against each other because of racism. GAH!!!
NO ONE GROUP HAS EXCLUSIVE DOMAIN OVER RACISM!!! YOU -- ALL YOU HUMANS -- ARE CAPABLE OF IT!!!
What we need to do is remove race/ethnicity/country of origin as delimiters between people, see it for what it is -- physical responses to environment (genetics) and arbitrary social constructs (memetics), both of which are embedded in the smallest amount of human genetic and memetic material. The question becomes, which genes and which memes will rule this earth?
And then step back and take another look: the survival of all genetic and memetic material (human and otherwise) requires the complete co-operation of the entire human genome.
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 2:49 pm
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Cobb:
You mentioned SCAA a while back, so I figured you knew Darkstar. Art is administering the remains of Afroam-L, whose death was caused by a pathogen I unwittingly unleashed years ago.
I believe I have Michael Hick's address around too. Last known as of February this year. I just sent him email with our blog addresses.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 3:54 pm
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Rayne:
Gah! Racism is prejudice or bias against anyone/any group by virtue of their race -- which may also be directly related to their ethnicity and country of origin.
I feel you, sis. And for purposes of constructive engagement, I'd work with you and your definition.
For purposes of this post, I'm taking that word, and the word "nigger," away from you and everyone else. Within this post, the thing you describe is known as "race hatred." And it's not under descussion.
There is NO statement on who hates or is capable of hating based on the rather ill-defined concept of race in any of this post.
Neither is there a description of the problem nor prescription for its solution. There is only the verbalization of a specific subjective experience, the essential experience of being Black independant of class, economic resources or any other quality.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 4:08 pm
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So...the "n-word" is a bad piece of memetic material, bad in that was deliberately constructed from other bad memetics (racism). There are other equally bad memetic material, like the negative words for Asian and Hispanic/Latin peoples or peoples of non-Anglo origin (chink, zipper-head, wetback, wop, and so on). Humans across the genome use them against each other - period.
We who are not black cannot know exactly what the qualia of being black is, any more than you can know the qualia of being Asian or female. The common denominator here is that none of us can know exactly of the qualia of other's lives, cannot share the same human experience with any degree of certainty. That is the unifying trait of humanity.
You cannot know what it is to be the only woman walking into a board room filled with male executives -- no matter the color of woman, no matter the color of the board members. You can hazard a guess to the relative qualia of discomfort. We all of us share that as humans.
We need to agree that we are all capable of sharing this discomfort, and agreeing that certain memetic material is inherently bad -- highly flawed, buggy social software -- that should belong to NO ONE. That one person's/group's negative label(bad meme) can easily be used against others.
As an example, let's use the MSBLaster virus; just because it only strikes MS WinOS users doesn't make it right for Mac users to use the label against them (say, "viral-loaded WinScum"), nor even for MS users to use it against others or themselves. The virus is bad -- we need to work to be rid of it. It could just as easily be turned against those not affected; kill the viral meme, regardless of who is affected.
Same with all other bad memetic material. It works against the entire genome.
The question is, how do we purge bad memes without affecting good memes? How do people kill memes, the "n-word" among them?
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 5:02 pm
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Okay, Rayne. I'll work in memes with you.
The common denominator here is that none of us can know exactly of the qualia of other's lives, cannot share the same human experience with any degree of certainty. That is the unifying trait of humanity.
You're wrong. We all share a single human experience. What this post offers is a sharing of the Black experience, by using white experience. I haven't asked anyone to give up their viewpoint. I've asked them to insert their viewpoint into the situation Black people find themselves in.
For instance, I DO know what it is to be the only Black person in a board meeting full of white executives. It's a easy parallel to you woman's example.
There's a huge difference between saying you don't understand (which, due to lack of experience, is forgivable) and saying you CAN'T understand. When you say we can't share experiences, you actually declare there's a absolute difference between us. You can't build unity that way, understand?
The question is, how do we purge bad memes without affecting good memes? How do people kill memes, the "n-word" among them?
You don't...you're asking for light without shadow, sis. The best you can do is change the context in which they operate. Look at how the "liberal" meme was changed. How, in fact, the "conservative" and "libertarian" memes were changed.
In fact, initially there was only Black and White under consideration when dealing in race and racism. Your definition of racism represents a casting of the original meme into a wider context.
Those "bad memes" you mentioned are not the root memes, you see. They are values assigned to "identity memes" (to coin a phrase on the fly).
What is needed is either a context where the values are not invoked, one where the difference in identity memes are seen to have positive value sufficiently compelling as to be universally accepted or a framework that offsets the negative values sometimes attached to the identity memes.
We still have gills, fer chrissake. They operate in a prenatal environment and as our physical developmental context changes they change into lungs. But we don't get rid of them.
Tha arrow of time points in one direction only. The goal you want to accomplish can't be done by uncreating ideas. We must grow to the point that the ideas are insignificant parts of the whole.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 6:30 pm
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Earl, you wrote:
"I find the objective more important�more accurately, I don't give a damn about the subjective as long as the objective is correct. The most useful tool to give folks to keep their objective in check (most folks do want to) is a yardstick they can accurately use."
I find this really interesting and would like it if you expanded on it. What I hear you saying is that we can't control our gut responses to one another, but we can control how we behave to one another. Is that what you mean? Cause you know I am still working out my "liberal white guilt" [said with tongue in cheek, but we know there's more than a grain of truth in it] and I am wondering to what degree it is possible to purge myself of those knee jerk split-second bursts of emotion at the synapses.
Ibyx | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 10:41 pm
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how do memetics and genetics and qualia translate into something that is tangible to the law and politics?
if these are tools to help us understand how the ideas flow and how to rid them from our minds, that's all good. but my point about the belief in ideas had everything to do with the fact that people will be suseptible to particular political arguments and will act on those ideas in what they percieve is their self-interest.
the racism inherent in jim crow was not a pervasive idea because of memetics. it was a pervasive idea because it was the law, and police, judges and elected officials enforced it. nobody bothered to map genetics anything onto negroes, people knew one when they saw one.
i want to know how understanding memetics helps us make a uniform hate crime standard across 50 states. if it cannot, then i have little use for it. i want to know how thinking about the qualia of whitefolks helps us turn around the politics of proposition 54 and why that way of thinking about the problem makes better sense than the kind of writing wood is doing.
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.17.03 - 11:06 pm
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ibyx:
What I hear you saying is that we can't control our gut responses to one another, but we can control how we behave to one another. Is that what you mean?
Nope. I'm saying I can't control other people's gut reaction so I focus on their objective behavior. As Cobb said, a person can believe Black people are inferior without ever performing a racist act. My position is, as long as they don't perform a racist act I don't care what their gut reaction is because it has no impact on me.
I may go into white liberal guilt later.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 8:33 am
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Cobb:
i want to know how understanding memetics helps us make a uniform hate crime standard across 50 states. if it cannot, then i have little use for it.
You're going to have little use for it, then.
You're looking to change the results within the current paradigm. Memetics is an attempt to change the paradigm, to swap it out. As it happens, I don't think it'll work for the majority of people…it's kind of like expecting a kid to learn jazz saxaphone by studying musical history. Which is not to say it's a useless field to study, but you gotta learn to play the instruments before studying the various stylings can help you expand your repetoire.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 8:59 am
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memetically speaking (i think) there's one tool i have found useful.
the idea is to defeat essentialism by making the distinction between the look of race from the meaning of race. this is useful in the instruction of pro-colorblind people to get over the myth that 'mentioning race just reinforces racism.' they suffer the cognitive error of believing that one always means the same (putatively negative) things when one says 'black'.
the instructive device is to sing 'amazing grace' to the tune of the theme to gilligan's island.
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 1:56 pm
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this doesnt' get body one out of the ghetto, but it's always fun to do.
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 1:57 pm
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Hmm. I see for Cobb a need for definitions.
Meme = a transferrable, replicable piece of knowledge, information, concept or idea
Memetics = the aggregate of memes and the study of the same
Think of genes as hardware, memes as software. Genes can be modified to a degree, as can hardware, but there are design limitations. Memes change modified and suppressed to a larger degree than genes because they are intangibles.
A society's culture, its laws, its knowledge, even its religions are all memetic. We learn them, and pass them on once acquired. We can change memes, just as we've grown in knowledge over the centuries, changed our laws accordingly, changed our worldviews.
Prometheus believes that memes, like genes, can only be suppressed and not deleted. I'm not certain of that; I think of the ancient Egyptian rulers who struck out the history of others who pissed them off royally, literally removing them ("so let it be written, so let it be done"). They are no longer part of our conscious history; we struggle to know anything of them. Can we not do the same, refuse to own any part of racism including sub-memes/meme-lets like racial epithets and labels? Can we not excise them and leave our future heirs and assigns struggling to piece it into the historic meme?
Think of bad memes like racism as a type of virus that is infectious; it has certain limitations of infection, a fairly specific rate of contagion. We have a lot of examples of "cures" or "healing"; cannot we not get rid of this meme instead of just telling each other, "Hey, you don't know what it's like inside this particular meat suit."
[Promotheus: my guess is if you and I both walk into a board room filled with white male board members, none of them will expect YOU to get coffee for them. You still have the advantage of capital that comes with your gender. The single unifying theme is that every individual human experience is different; we have the opportunity to learn from each other to our mutual benefit if we learn to transcend and override the negative social software someone else transferred to us.]
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 1:59 pm
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the instructive device is to sing 'amazing grace' to the tune of the theme to gilligan's island.
THAT is about the funniest thing I've read all month.
I think of the ancient Egyptian rulers who struck out the history of others who pissed them off royally, literally removing them ("so let it be written, so let it be done"). They are no longer part of our conscious history; we struggle to know anything of them. Can we not do the same, refuse to own any part of racism including sub-memes/meme-lets like racial epithets and labels?
If we were a command culture, like the Egyptians, a Deocracy, then the God we worshiped could issue such a command. But that's still done out of HIS self-interest, and still would take at least a generation to accomplish. It would still have holes in it. And as long as a social structure that implements the division existed…for instance some pharoahs tried to eliminate the worship of other dieties only to have them return after the pharoah's death…it will fail.
That's Cobb's point. Refusing to use the memes would have pretty much the same effect as Proposition 54...racism would continue, unspoken of, unreflected on because the social structure and mechanisms assume racial division. You are at a strategic loss by refusing to recognize those divisions are active.
my guess is if you and I both walk into a board room filled with white male board members, none of them will expect YOU to get coffee for them. You still have the advantage of capital that comes with your gender.
And your "get the coffee mechanism" applies to me when I'm in a department store. In what context do you find yourself rendered invisible as I have been as a consultant in board meetings? I'm sure you can find a parallel.
You say the only thing we share is that we can't share. You don't see a problem with that?
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 2:57 pm
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And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.
When I talk about the ancient Egyptian culture as an example of writing out a meme, I'm talking about this specific act of writing out the meme -- not the expansion of the example to mean that we, a modern democratic (allegedly) society, should emulate Egyptian culture to a "T". It's the specific act of using agency, actively choosing the meme to use rather than allowing the meme to use us, actively choosing to suppress a meme to the point of extinction. It is this particular point of success which I look to, not the entire culture. (Christ, next you'll think I'm into embalming and cat worship...)
As for the example of humans' inability to share "qualia": I'll use Damali Ayo's exhibit flesh-tone series #1 as an example. A fairly random sampling of humans are used to interpret the color of human flesh, with widely varying results. If the interpretation of flesh-tones is this broad, what of anything else we humans experience that is not a singular point of reference, what of intangibles?
We have to agree to disagree -- and that in itself is a form of agreement, of contract, of sharing, communion.
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 3:28 pm
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And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.
Be nice.
When I talk about the ancient Egyptian culture as an example of writing out a meme, I'm talking about this specific act of writing out the meme&helliplIt is this particular point of success which I look to, not the entire culture. (Christ, next you'll think I'm into embalming and cat worship...)
I haven't said you were suggesting we do it. You must receive if you wish to be received.
What I'm saying is the only way that will work is if we were a command culture along the lines of Egypt. That or universal agreement, which you will not get as long as a class of people benefit from the cultural structures that assume racial division. More, the written isn't the thought. Get rid of a specific word without getting rid of the thought and we'll just make another word.
The fact is, this entire discussion of memes has nothing to do with the original point of the post, which I stated. You fixate on memes, so (hoping we'd get to a point where you were receptive) I chose to work in your zone for a minute.
But let me ask you...how can you expect to deal in effective memes for a viewpoint you have no experience with? You want to tell folks how to get out of the house when you don't even want to examine the floorplan.
You CAN understand the subjective viewpoint of Black folks. I have given you the instructions on how to see it…at which point you will be no more able to describe it than I, which is why I didn't try to describe it.
When you have the means to understand, agreeing to disagree isn't a form of agreement, it's a form of avoidance.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 4:06 pm
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as soon as i checked ayo's site, i could smell the adrian piper in the air. i basically skimmed everything until i had proof. and there it was down near the bottom of the interview.
i think ayo's inspiration for 'postructuralist theorists' whomever they may be can be useful for artists, especially for performance artists. but i think such folks have painted themselves into the corner of hating spike lee for the rest of their lives.
i like the idea that there are anti-racist and gender-bending themes in the new forms of highbrow cultural production, and i appreciate the cleverness and subtlety of such artists. but i despair of such productions ever having the moral impact of an arthur miller play, and i look forward to the day when dramatic performances can set the world on fire as did lorraine hansberry in her day.
Cobb | Email | Homepage | 08.18.03 - 4:46 pm
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R: And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.
P: Be nice.
I meant absolutely no disrepect in saying the above, Prometheus; that you were not able to deduce that is the limitation of this medium. The only way we can be absolutely certain of other's experience is through what would be a "Vulcan Mind Meld" -- but that is not possible. We can only approximate and agree that there will be gaps in our understanding of each other's experience. (You and I won't even agree on the same shades of green or red -- it's impossible.) Saying there is no gap, that we won't understand fully each other's experience, is denial of diversity. I expect you to be very different from me in a hundred+ ways or more; hell, yeah. That's important in as many ways.
p: What I'm saying is the only way that will work is if we were a command culture along the lines of Egypt. That or universal agreement, which you will not get as long as a class of people benefit from the cultural structures that assume racial division. More, the written isn't the thought. Get rid of a specific word without getting rid of the thought and we'll just make another word.
Getting rid of a word is only part of the meme, that is entirely true and that is my point. But we do have to start somewhere -- like the image of a burning cross. The burning cross in my mind has no other connotation than a threat of violence against people on the basis of their race. Remove that image long enough and the link to meaning may be broken.
Do you want to permanently imbue the burning cross with meaning by saying that YOU (black Americans) OWN IT? I don't think so if that comes at the risk of permanently embuing its associated meme of racism against black Americans.
Let me put it another way, perhaps in your own terms: if EVERYONE in the U.S. was a n*gger, could be called such by anybody, would the word continue to carry its original meaning? Is that one way of breaking not only the ownership but the underlying meme to which it is attached?
If NOONE in the U.S. were a n*gger, could we also break the link?
Pick another word-become-symbol, like the negative words chink, wetback, zipper-head, wop, so-on; what will it take to break any of them as well? Are these not as ugly to the people at which they are thrown? Should they want to OWN them at the risk of perpetuating them and the meme that gave rise to them? Really, can you know what it is to be a "gawddamned slanty-eyed yellow-skinned zipperhead"? Should an Asian seek to OWN that because of their history, regardless of whether you can get into that epithet? Or should the effort concentrate on breaking the entire meme -- words-made-symbols representing the notion of racism?
Much of this appears to be but an exercise in semantics and semiotics -- but human cult
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.19.03 - 1:20 pm
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culture is built on semantics and semiotics. Our perceptions of reality, our consciousness, is reflected in semantics and semiotics. How do we change reality -- change the input and output of our perceptions and consciousness, to change the core of our culture? That is the question here.
Damn, I just lost another two paragraphs because of the weird way Haloscan is acting. I'll have to leave you with that much for now, Promotheus.
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.19.03 - 1:42 pm
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Cobb, I frankly don't look beyond the artist's work or their own descriptions of what went into the work or what the work means to them. I don't give a rat's butt about anything more than that (including their source of inspiration), because the creative spirit of the artist and the interpretation of the beholder/participant requires extensive individual internalization. Art is too subjective for me to care much beyond a few degrees of contact (me and the artist; okay, maybe in case of Monet it's me, him and the gardens).
In the case of Ayo's Flesh-tone series #1 I know I made different observations than she shared about her creative experience. I wrote of it: Fascinating, really, that there were so many different reactions to her request and even more interpretations of the color of her flesh. It�s as if this were an experiment to document the range of differentiation in human experience of qualia � which in turn may even influence our reactions to other humans of all colors.
In what shade would you see me, I�m left to wonder? What shade of flesh do I see myself?
If there�s so many interpretations, why does it matter at all except as an expression of art?
Anybody's antipathy towards Spike Lee or Adrian Piper had nothing to do with my observation or experience. Maybe we don't need an Arthur Miller now either...
Rayne | Email | Homepage | 08.19.03 - 1:44 pm
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Rayne:
Saying this:
And THAT response is a PERFECT example of the inability of humans to have a Vulcan Mind Meld.
followed by this:
(Christ, next you'll think I'm into embalming and cat worship...)
means that this:
I meant absolutely no disrepect in saying the above, Prometheus; that you were not able to deduce that is the limitation of this medium
at best reflects a limitation in the USE of the medium, not the medium itself. At worst, it's a game to make your point.
I state this directly so you know how to deal going forward.
We can only approximate and agree that there will be gaps in our understanding of each other's experience. (You and I won't even agree on the same shades of green or red -- it's impossible.)
The same would apply to me and any other Black person. You can approach it as closely as Cobb (who I only pick on because several others simply haven't posted in these comments).
You say you cannot understand the subjective experience of being Black. I say you are wrong, and have given youthe tools to do so.
In the sidebar is a link to the Racism discussion. The first article discusses how Black people are approaching this bottom-up, whereas the mainstream is approaching it top-down. Give it a read.
culture is built on semantics and semiotics. Our perceptions of reality, our consciousness, is reflected in semantics and semiotics. How do we change reality -- change the input and output of our perceptions and consciousness, to change the core of our culture? That is the question here.
That is NOT the question here. That is NOT what this post was about. Do you recognize that? If not, go back and re-read it.
In addition, you must recognize there is a HUGE difference between changing your perception of reality and changing reality. This was an exercise in changing your perception of reality.
I'll give your meme approach a try when you convince the rest of the world to do so.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.19.03 - 1:48 pm
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Art is too subjective for me to care much beyond a few degrees of contact (me and the artist; okay, maybe in case of Monet it's me, him and the gardens).
And yet racial experience is ALL subjective. It's ALL an interpretation of a human filtered through the memes one has absorbed.
This is why you conclude one can't understand another's experience. You have to get subjective to do so, and you won't.
Prometheus 6 | Email | Homepage | 08.19.03 - 1:52 pm
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Posted by P6 at August 17, 2003 03:41 AM
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