Week 10

I'm still hung up on a question that has been somewhat of a specter in our conversations, which is, is the formation of racial identity for people of color always in relation to whiteness? This has come up when we've talked about migration and crossing borders, both within the U.S. and internationally, and when people are granted conditional access to whiteness to further white supremacist projects of hierarchical domination (readings from Sanchez, readings on Asian Americans, discussions on mixed black folks crossing borders and becoming legally white by different states' definitions), or when people are framed in terms of their relation to whiteness, whether that relation is oppositional or proximal. I think my original question/wording could be a little fatalistic, so I'll add another one: how has and can identity formation subvert the dominating effect of whiteness, maybe even or necessarily by working in a different framework altogether? What are these different frameworks that are possible? Does "people of color" always imply an inherent definition in relation to whiteness? How does the term "people of color" operate, become salient or irrelevant, take on different meaning when put in a global context?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Response to Clare Kendry (Callan)

Dear Ms. Kendry,   I want to thank you for taking the time to write to me.   I appreciate hearing support from members of my community.   Many critique me for betraying my identity and hiding behind an identity that I am not.    However, I want to say that I am only passing because I feel as though I must.   While indeed it is hard to justify sacrificing one’s morals and identity, I truly believe that the work I am doing is worth the moral compromise I am making.   I take on the role of “Incognegro” purely for the sake of the access that being white provides.   The unfortunate and ironic truth is that passing as white allows me to advance my race in ways that my being black does not.   If I could see the same things and write the same way without having to pretend to be something I am not, I would do so in a heartbeat. I believe we can be more than just one thing and I hope that we will ultimately reach a point where this will not be...
Read more

Quarter Review BlogPost

The thing that I am most struck by going back and rereading my blog posts is how much I have learned throughout this quarter both in class and by doing the readings.  It is sometimes hard for me, in the thick of it, to realize how much it is!  I'm always caught up in the day to day of working, seeing friends, eating, but this class has truly been extraordinary.  The amount and scope of reading (and watching and of course, discussing) we have done is incredible.  I think back to the first day of class, I didn't anticipate how much this class would change me, but it has.  I think I still have a lot of questions.  There are many untied ends. Can someone be transracial and was Rachel Dolezal treated unfairly?  How can we understand the era of our nation's founding today?  How can we write history about it, when there are so many narratives that are virtually impossible to tell with the sources we still have?  How should we treat the Founding Fa...
Read more

Week 8 response : To Zane, From your brother Alonzo

Dear Zane, Poughkeepsie has been treating me well, as well as any rural place can. It's a lot different here compared to Mississippi. My handyman job at Vassar has been paying me well enough to where haven't really thought about the loot of shine we left. I have set up a still though, a small one, just for me. Speaking of Mississippi, I do have something to say to you. Would like to preface by saying that I am appreciative of what you did to help me. Without you and Carl I'd likely be rotting in some hodge podge ditch, and Michaela'd be sittin fat on the spoils of my death and hard work. I am thankful for that. What I'm wondering about is how you talked to me when I was locked up, joking how I was always the troublemaker, that I'm a jackass. I know that what you do ain't easy but that don't make what I got into my fault. You're doing good work, but watch yourself in what you ask and expect of black people, people who don't pass like you. ...
Read more