Prometheus 6

James read the White Studies article I linked to yesterday.His comments are quite good. One may even go so far as to say correct.

Long comment, though. Several, in fact. If you're pressed for time, read the first paragraph of the first chapter, and the last paragraph of the last chapter of his comment. Last two paragraphs, actually.

So much to say…

Okay, his first paragraph:

All right, I tend to be dubious about the prospect of a group of perpetually guilt-wracked European Americans being logically or politically sustainable. The author wants students to accept a secular analogue of original sin, without any concomitant narrative of redemption. Having been there as a student (thankfully, with people who were a little more psychologically astute), I can say that Prof. Thompson is really not serving the interests of anyone by this attitude.

How dubious are we about the prospect of a perpetually guilt-wracked group of African Americans? When we have Bill Cosby (as an example) taking the underclass to task for shif'less when they are the ones driving Black college enrollment to new levels and vote at higher levels than the upper class…at the same time we rag folks like gangsta rappers for providing what the mainstream market demands…at the same time we demand of Black media moguls more relevant entertainment as though there's enough of a market for it that you can just throw stuff against the wall like Hollywood does.

A perpetually guilt-wracked group of African Americans is not merely logically and politically sustainable but is de rigeur. It's thinkable, desirable. And for the mainstream? Unthinkable, undesirable. Judgments based not on justice, ethics, morality or law but on power relationships.

So as for the last two paragraphs:

Excuse me? That's so absurd and impossible. I'm really glad I never wasted time taking a course with this instructor, because I'm rather gullible and it might have taken a lot of time to realize that she herself is the victim of the very malady she diagrams: a white, trapped in the narrative of original sin, insists on a paradox for a conclusion. I've noticed that a lot of mystics like paradoxes at the heart of their philosophies because they aren't falsifiable--they cannot be refuted, the way a legitimate statement of fact could be. But the narrative she's working with is not a seeming paradox--it's a real paradox, with no truth content. At the heart of this lengthy essay, with some excellent explosions of white defense mechanism, lies the same defense mechanism--gibberish.

The narrative of racism as original sin is harmful. It leads the author in circles--and she's a talented writer! IMO, we're already half-way there to abolishing the narrative when racism is construed as a function of community, not individual guilt. Racism should be externalized. Racism is an illusion created by imperialist institutions, not original sin.

…of course it ends in paradox.

Paradoxes are the intellectual equivalent of a naked singularity—conceptually fascinating, but not ever seen in the wild. I'm reaching for a metaphor about trying to reduce the irreducible…it works, but you need to read "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene to get a sufficient grip on string theory that it would make sense.

I understand the power of narrative. And I understand many narratives can be created from any given set of facts.

You got paradoxes in your narrative because you need it to say some things that aren't supported by history and to be silent on other things that are. Prof. Thompson's article merely brings them to the surface and I'm not sure that's the best thing to do without having a resolution handy (generally in the form of additional information). On the other hand, this early in the enterprise I'm not sure there's an alternative. Naked singularities are one thing "beelions and beelions of light years away." They're another thing entirely as a lynchpin of culture.

White folks need a new narrative. It needs to account for the facts as we know them because the memory of a people in CENTURIES long…a people will remember things no individual person is aware of. This narrative can not deny history or humanity as past narratives have done. And white folks need to be the ones that come up with it. I have NEVER understood why white folks ask me how they can avoid being racist. I have NEVER understood how the same folks who ask me that are so very confident about how I can avoid being racist.

Sorry for lapsing into rhetorical mode there, but I'm leaving it.