La Salle University
La Salle University Digital Commons
Explorer Café
Explorer Connection
Fall 11-11-2015
What Does White Supremacy Look Like Today?
Jacob Bennett MFA
La Salle University, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/explorercafe
Part of the African American Studies Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons
Recommended Citation
Bennett, Jacob MFA, "What Does White Supremacy Look Like Today?" (2015). Explorer Café. 42.
http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/explorercafe/42
This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by the Explorer Connection at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted
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[email protected].
White Supremacy
Supremacy
What Does White
Look Like Today?
Explorer Café, 11 November 2015
Jacob A. Bennett, NTT English Instructor
This presentation begins with some framing terminology,
defining “white supremacy” and then expanding and
complicating that definition; then introduces and defines the
related concepts of “colonial ideology” and “racialization.”
These definitions are followed by a partial exploration of a
history of legal and penal statutes that have, with or without
intentionally racist motivation, eventuated in an overwhelming
and disparately negative impact on black-skinned
individuals, their families, and their communities.
This slide added after presentation as explanatory note.
The latter portion of the presentation focuses on a small
number of examples of contemporary poetry and poetics,
indicating the presence in that field (as in other fields of creative
production and academic inquiry, as in the general population
of America) of an ongoing discourse regarding race,
appropriation, gender, and other aspects of the “imperialist
white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” described by bell
hooks.
This slide added after presentation as explanatory note.
It seems important to note, as do hooks, Kelley, Omi, Winant,
and Horne (among others, and in their own ways), that the
racial hierarchies identified herein are artificial in their
construction, yet devastatingly real in their inculcation.
This slide added after presentation as explanatory note.
It also seems important to note, as is made both implicit and
explicit in the content of the list of texts created and performed
by black or African-American authors, that the perpetuation of
white supremacy—the circulation of its colonial ideology—is
not a process owned solely by avowed white supremacists,
the KKK and their ilk, but a kind of thinking also present in the
actions and utterances of well-meaning “liberals” and
“progressives,” as well as in intraracial “colorism” or the
denigration of dark-skinned characters and persons.
This slide added after presentation as explanatory note.
The final four slides present a list of works cited directly in the
presentation, but also many other texts for suggested reading.
My hope, implied by the “concluding questions,” is to extend the
discourse beyond a handful of disputes about the nature of this
or that poet’s work, and to address more extensively and
directly the ways in which racial hierarchies (not to mention
those of gender and class and religion) impact our lives as
students, teachers, and staff on a college campus devoted and
committed to “contribute to the common good.”
This slide added after presentation as explanatory note.
Strict definitions imply conscious
belief and intent: “White supremacy is
believing not only that white people
are superior based on their skin
color, but that they have the right to
rule over other people”
hooks, bell. "Killing Rage: Ending Racism." Interview by Brian Lamb. Booknotes. C-SPAN. Washington, D.C., 19 Nov. 1995. Television. Transcript.
Expanded framing admits complex of
colonial, racial, economic, gendered
hierarchies: “I often use the phrase
‘imperialist white-supremacist
capitalist patriarchy’ to describe the
interlocking political systems that are
the foundation of our nation’s politics”
hooks, bell. Understanding Patriarchy. Louisville KY: No Borders/Louisville Anarchist Federation Federation, 2014. Web.
“Anticipating the explosion of work we
now call ‘postcolonial studies,’ [Aimé]
Césaire reveals how the circulation of
colonial ideology—an ideology of
racial and cultural hierarchy—is as
essential to colonial rule as the
police and the use of forced labor.”
Kelley, Robin D. G. "Poetry & the Political Imagination: Aimé Césaire, Negritude & the Applications of Surrealism." Introduction. A Tempest. By Aimé Césaire. New York: TCG
Translations, 2002. xi. Print.
“This of course did not occur overnight.
[...] With slavery, however, a racially
based understanding of society was
set in motion which resulted in the
shaping of a specific racial identity not
only for the slaves but for the European
settlers as well.”
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
“Then there was the developing
notion of ‘whiteness,’ smoothing
tensions between and among people
hailing from the ‘old’ continent, which
was propelled by the need for
European unity to confront raging
Africans and indigenes[...].”
Horne, Gerald. Introduction. The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. New York: NYU, 2014. Print.
“racialization” is a socio-historical
process that subsumes complex
cultural difference: “the establishment
and maintenance of a ‘color line’”
Ibo, Yoruba, Fulani, Irish
“black”
English, Irish, German
“white”
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
“In statutes enacted at various times between
the 1720s and 1750s, slaves in Boston were
forbidden to buy provisions in market; carry
a stick or a cane; keep hogs or swine; or
stroll about the streets, lanes, or Common at
night or at all on Sunday. Punishments for
violation of these laws ranged up to 20
lashes, depending on aggravating factors.”
Harper, Douglas. "Slavery in Massachusetts." Slavery in the North. N.p., 2003. Web. 11 Aug. 2015.
The Compromise of 1850
revised the Fugitive Slave Act
of 1793, federalizing marshals
and deputies even in “free
states” under threat of harsh
penalty ($1000 fine in 19thcentury dollars!) for refusing
pursuit of self-emancipated
ex-slaves
1.
2.
"Compromise of 1850." Primary Documents of American History. Library of Congress, 20 Apr. 2015. Web. 12 Aug. 2015.
April 24, 1851 poster warning “colored people of Boston” after passage of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Digital image. Wikipedia. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc., 5 Nov. 2015.
Web. 7 Nov. 2015. Image published in entry for Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Civil Rights Act of 1866 passed over President
Andrew Jackson’s veto, proclaiming that “all
citizens enjoy basic civil rights in the same
manner ‘enjoyed by white persons.’”
Johnson denounced the law: “The distinction
of race and color is by the bill made to
operate in favor of the colored and against
the white race.”
Foner, Eric. "Why Reconstruction Matters." Opinion. The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
“The Reconstruction Acts inaugurated the
period of Radical Reconstruction, when a
politically mobilized black community, with
its white allies, brought the Republican Party
to power throughout the South. [...] It was a
remarkable, unprecedented effort to build an
interracial democracy on the ashes of slavery.”
Foner, Eric. "Why Reconstruction Matters." Opinion. The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
“The Ku Klux Klan and kindred groups began a campaign
of murder, assault and arson that can only be described
as homegrown American terrorism. [...] As a result of a
bargain after the disputed presidential election of 1876, the
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes assumed the Oval Office
and disavowed further national efforts to enforce the rights
of black citizens [...] Political and economic inequality,
summarized in the phrase Jim Crow, had come into being
across the South.”
Foner, Eric. "Why Reconstruction Matters." Opinion. The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
Fast forward to 1960s: “The name
Special Weapons Attack Team [...]
made some elected officials wince
[...]. What emerged instead was
Special Weapons and Tactics.”
With a name change, “Los Angeles’
SWAT team tested its mettle in
1969 against a local Black Panther
militia[...].”
1.
2.
Crowder, Guy. Black Panthers Office, 4115 Central Avenue, Los Angeles, California. 1969. Guy Crowder Gallery, Tom & Ethel Bradley Center, California State University,
Northridge. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
Haberman, Clyde. "The Rise of the SWAT Team in American Policing." The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 Aug. 2015.
Despite similar rates of
concomitant violence,
1970s’ “war on drugs” leads
to 1980s’ harsher penalties
for crack cocaine—much
more frequently used by
“black” than other
races/ethnicities—
than for powder cocaine
offenses.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Table 19
Public Broadcasting Corporation. "Thirty Years of America's War on Drugs: A Chronology." Drug Wars. Frontline. WGBH, 2014. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.
United States Sentencing Commission. “Historical Background.” Report to the Congress: Impact of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. By Patti B. Saris, et al. Aug. 2015.
Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
–––. “Table 3: Demographic Characteristics of Federal Cocaine Offenders.” Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy. By Diana E. Murphy, et al.
May 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
–––. “Table 19: Bodily Injury in Powder Cocaine and Crack Cocaine Offenses.” Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy. By Diana E. Murphy, et
al. May 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
With racial
discrepancies in
mind, U.S. Sentencing
Commission requests
equity in sentencing
guidelines for crack
and powder cocaine
in 1995, 1997, 2002,
2007.
United States Sentencing Commission. “Historical Background.” Report to the Congress: Impact of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. By Patti B. Saris, et al. Aug. 2015. Web. 6 Nov.
2015.
Fair Sentencing Act signed
into law in 2010.
United States Sentencing Commission. “Historical Background.”
Report to the Congress: Impact of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.
By Patti B. Saris, et al. Aug. 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
There is a long tradition of white
supremacy in African-American
literature, featuring racially black
characters who pass, or seek to pass,
as white; wish to be white or otherwise
idealize whiteness; or look down on
darker-skinned characters:
Phillis Wheatley’s “His Excellency George Washington” (1776)
James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912)
Jean Toomer’s Cane (1923)
Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry (1929)
Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929)
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970)
Whoopi Goldberg’s The Spook Show (1984)
Danzy Senna’s Caucasia (1998)
Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry” (2015)
The Goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel binds Her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber’d charms and recent graces rise.
-Wheatley’s poem to Washington
“These pages also reveal the unsuspected fact that
prejudice against the Negro is exerting a pressure
which [...] is actually and constantly forcing an
unascertainable number of fair-complexioned
colored people over into the white race.”
-Publisher’s note to 1912 edition of
Johnson’s Autobiography
“In my body were many bloods, some dark blood, all
blended in the fire of six or more generations. [...] But if
people wanted to say this dark blood was Negro
blood and if they then wanted to call me a Negro—
this was up to them. Fourteen years of my life I had
lived in the white group, four years I had lived in the
colored group. In my experience there had been no
main difference between the two.”
-Unpublished autobiography by Toomer
“More acutely than ever before Emma
Lou began to feel that her luscious black
complexion was somewhat of a liability,
and that her marked color variation from
the other people in her environment was
a decided curse. Not that she minded
being black, being a Negro
necessitated having a colored skin, but
she did mind being too black.”
-Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry
She wore an old white skirt draped over her
head and called it “long blond hair.” She said
her ambition was to sail on the Love Boat, but
with a headful of pigtails that “don’t do nuffin’,
don’t blow in the wind,” she wouldn’t be
welcomed aboard. She had tried other ways
not to be black, but bathing in Clorox didn’t
work.
-Review of Goldberg’s “Little Girl”
So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street?
When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me?
Hypocrite!
-Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry”
a review of responses to
perceived appropriation of,
insensitivity to, or outright
racism against black or
African-American culture:
an excerpt from
“The Change,” a
poem by Tony
Hoagland
Hoagland, Tony. "The Change." What Narcissism Means to Me. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2003. Print.
“I once had a colleague who
wrote what some readers
perceived to be a racist
poem. [...] When asked what
his thinking was while
working on the poem, my
colleague said this poem is
for white people.”
Rankine, Claudia. “Open Letter: A Dialogue on Race and Poetry.” Reprinted: Academy of American Poets.
Poets.org. 5 Feb. 2011. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
“Did he mean it was for white people to see
themselves and their thinking? He did not say
that. He said it was for white people. What I
heard was, I don’t need to explain myself to
you, black girl.
[...]
And though I realized this was me thinking as
him, and not in fact him speaking, when offense
is being taken offense is heard everywhere,
even in the imagination.”
Rankine, Claudia. “Open Letter: A Dialogue on Race and Poetry.” Reprinted: Academy of American Poets. Poets.org. 5 Feb. 2011. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
In Memory of Jordan Russell Davis
In Memory of Eric Garner
In Memory of John Crawford
In Memory of Michael Brown
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
In Memory
because white men can’t
police their imagination
black men are dying
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014. Print.
“To me, you are naive when
it comes to the subject of
American racism. [...] It
seems foolish and costly to
think that the topic of race
belongs only to brownskinned Americans and not
white-skinned Americans.
But many poets and readers
think that.”
Hoagland, Tony. “Dear Claudia: A Letter in Response.” Reprinted: Academy of American Poets. Poets.org. 15 Mar. 2011. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
“I am not trying to sidestep—
of course I am racist.
[...]
Just as you find the posture of ‘angry black person’
simplistic, I find the posture of ‘apologetic liberal
white person’ not just
boring, but useless.
[...]
I don’t believe in explaining my poems to other
poets; they are part of my tribe, and I expect them to
be resilient readers.”
Hoagland, Tony. “Dear Claudia: A Letter in Response.” Reprinted: Academy of American Poets. Poets.org. 15 Mar. 2011. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
Mongrel Coalition
against Gringpo declare war, and make
manifest the “targets”
"TARGETS." The Mongrel Coalition against Gringpo. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
“Conceptual poetry, like conceptual art,
privileges a reader’s thoughts about the text
over the author’s rhetorical devices within
the text. One of the most successful writers
in the movement, Kenneth Goldsmith, said it
best: ‘My books are better thought about
than read.’”
Smith, Rich. "Vanessa Place Is in a Fight Over Gone with the Wind's Racism, But It’s Not the Fight She Says She Wants: An Interview." SLOG. The Stranger. Index Newspapers,
LLC, 21 May 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
“Kenneth Goldsmith read Michael Brown’s
St. Louis County autopsy report as a poem.
Goldsmith is known for his conceptual,
‘uncreative writing’ practices [...] — altering
[texts], remixing them, appropriating and
repurposing them without credit to the
original sources.”
Steinhauer, Jillian. "Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes Michael Brown Autopsy Report as Poetry." Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media, Inc., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
Goldsmith revised the autopsy so that the
text he read concludes: “The remaining male
genitalia system is unremarkable.”
Goldsmith later explained: “I always massage
dry texts to transform them into literature[...].
That said, I didn’t add or alter a single word
or sentiment that did not preexist in the
original text[...].”
Steinhauer, Jillian. "Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes Michael Brown Autopsy Report as Poetry." Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media, Inc., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
Steinhauer, Jillian. "Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes Michael Brown Autopsy Report as Poetry." Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media, Inc., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
Steinhauer, Jillian. "Kenneth Goldsmith Remixes Michael Brown Autopsy Report as Poetry." Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media, Inc., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
“[Conceptualist] writers imagine the text not as a
thing that should absorb you, but as a reflecting
pool into which you can look and see and think
whatever you want to see. Conceptualists claim
this dissolves the imperialist and patriarchical
hierarchy implied by the traditional relationship
between author and reader.”
Smith, Rich. "Vanessa Place Is in a Fight Over Gone with the Wind's Racism, But It’s Not the Fight She Says She Wants: An Interview." SLOG. The Stranger. Index Newspapers,
LLC, 21 May 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.
In 2009, conceptualist Vanessa Place
began tweeting the full text of Margaret
Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind,
Place explains her project:
repeating the “ventriloquism” and “black- “I invited Mitchell to sue to
face” of the book’s affected diction.
recover the ‘darkies’ she
claimed ownership of; by
reproducing the entire book, I
invited suit for wholesale theft
of intellectual property. The
question was whether the
State would uphold Mitchell’s
right to profit from her
appropriation against my
appropriation of her.”
Place, Vanessa. “Artist’s Statement: Gone with the Wind @VanessaPlace.”
Notes. Facebook. 19 May 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
A petition demanded removing
Place from AWP committee:
“We find it inappropriate that
Vanessa Place is among those
who will decide which panels
will take place at AWP Los
Angeles. We acknowledge
Place's right to exercise her
creativity, but we find her work
to be, at best, startlingly
racially insensitive, and, at
worst, racist.”
1.
2.
Volpert, Timothy. "Remove Vanessa Place from the AWP Los Angeles Conference Committee." Letter to Association of Writers and Writing Programs. May 2015.
Change.org. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Tweet via @awpwriter. Twitter.com. 17 May 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
“Not long ago I was in a room where someone
asked the philosopher Judith Butler what
made language hurtful. I could feel everyone
lean forward. Our very being exposes us to the
address of another, she said. We suffer from
the condition of being addressable, by which
she meant, I believe, there is no avoiding the
word-filled sticks and stones of others.”
Rankine, Claudia. “Open Letter: A Dialogue on Race and Poetry.” Reprinted: Academy of American Poets. Poets.org. 5 Feb. 2011. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
Concluding questions:
● do you see white supremacy in your field of
study or personal life?
● what does “circulation of colonial ideology”
mean to you?
● what is the effect on non-black, non-white
peoples and traditions?
● can we prevent, stop, or avoid “word-filled
sticks and stones of others”?
● what do you make of Hoagland and
Goldsmith’s texts and explanations?
WORKS CITED (& SUGGESTED)
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–––. “Dear Claudia: A Letter in Response.” Reprinted: Academy of American Poets. Poets.org. 15 Mar. 2011. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
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–––. “Table 3: Demographic Characteristics of Federal Cocaine Offenders.” Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy. By
Diana E. Murphy, et al. May 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
–––. “Table 19: Bodily Injury in Powder Cocaine and Crack Cocaine Offenses.” Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy. By
Diana E. Murphy, et al. May 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
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