Identity is actually one of the most interesting things possible. The fundamental question is "who am I?, what am I doing here?" That is pretty much what all literature is about.
The problem is that identity politics takes that complex problem and empties it of its nuance. Identity become a monolithic block, to be seen in black and white terms (literally and figuratively). Intersectionality should help with this, but ends up not. It should help because it introduces nuance again. It doesn't help because it ends up being a way of keeping score or of scoring points. Now it seems as though there were only one way to think. For someone who learned a certain way of thinking about race from Henry Louis Gates, the popularity of Robin D'Angelo is deeply disturbing. The lack of historical depth and the anti-intellectualism is astounding.
We get all the social constructionism of postmodernism, but wedded to a puritanical essentialism. How is that supposed to work? Everything is constructed, nothing is in nature, but WE get to decide exactly what construction is valid, and what exact terminology is allowed.
11 comments:
Why Gates in particular - because he talks about mixed and tangled origins, and doesn't think only Black people can understand Black literature, etc.? I remember being excited about him in late 80s, early 90s, because he was talking race and talking theory; later I got into other theorists and he began functioning a lot as a kind of curator and explainer -- a good role and useful, but less about the new.
But he's a scholar in the humanities, whereas this other author, the white fragility author, is in a more technical field in a way, closer to HR or something. I've seen some somewhat useful pieces by her on practical matters, e.g. how to actually diversify faculty, etc. On White fragility and other books, how to undo your racist upbringing in 10 easy lessons, etc., it just doesn't work that way. You can learn watered-down versions of 10 concepts, or 10 smart-sounding sentences to say, but this doesn't amount to undoing all your racist education or even make much of a dent. Actually reading Gates (for instance) will do more, but of course that means reading more books and not just a manual.
I'm thinking of the Critical Inquiry anthology on race (?) and The Signifying Monkey. Just the general feeling in those days was that race was not to be essentialized. His book on the canon wars, which I read a few years ago, seemed very dated, but that's understandable. No one advocating racial reeducation in the HR context is advocating we read actual works by black intellectuals with any historic depth. Even the 1980s seems a long time ago, but I think we have to look at Houston Baker, etc... see what the debates are and have been historically.
Critical inquiry anthology was groundbreaking in its time; I used to teach the Signifying Monkey when it was new and came up with the conclusion it was thin. Students: "This is clearly something written to get tenure, it does a few tricks with texts but isn't actually very well thought out if you know the field and are comfortable with theory." Yes, canon wars, he's a key figure in them. I appreciate Gates and all and especially did in 80s but he's this 90s liberal multiculturalist en el fondo and is precisely the kind of person di Angelo wants people to read in order to historicize disciplines, etc.
Di Angelo *does* want people to have that kind of depth and more, to an unrealistic degree, I would say, and is *far* better on issues such as how to do an unbiased interview than any HR person I've met in real life although I am perhaps underprivileged, have not met the best. However, I wouldn't say di Angelo has it herself.
Still, I appreciate the heck out of her work because it does point toward improving policy. There was a huge fight here during the summer, English wanted to commit to hiring more nonwhite people and got attacked by some Black faculty from the HBCU saying there were no qualified Black candidates. This idea, "there are no qualified candidates," is one of those di Angelo helps take apart. Yes, if you consider people deficient that you BELIEVE will be, and you thus make them "deficient" starting as undergraduates, keep doing that in graduate school and on the job market, on the tenure track, you'll be able to get 'em out sho' 'nuff while patting yourself on the back and calling yourself neutral.
It's been a long time since I looked at the signifying monkey. I'm sure it is way better than most books written just to get tenure. It depends whether your point of comparison is the average book by any academic and the truly brilliant work. That historic depth has not come through in any reviews I've read of D'Angelo, positive or negative, so I guess I'll have to read the book and see for myself.
I haven't read the Di Angelo book and am not that interested, my impression of these manuals, how to become anti-racist in one quick read, are sort of like the phrasebooks, how to speak perfect Spanish in 30 days. The more interesting material I've seen from her is in discrete articles, which are a cut above some other HR-style stuff I've read.
And sure, better than the average tenure book, definitely. And kind of blockbusting too if you aren't already familiar with the interesting material he uses, interesting on the level of facts. The wisecrack I got from students (not entirely wrong) was, ah, deconstructive tricks again, now with some of the folklore and popular culture we have out here on the streets. It wowed white people more than Black, it seemed
... Still considering this. "Identity is actually one of the most interesting things possible. The fundamental question is 'who am I?, what am I doing here?' That is pretty much what all literature is about."
I guess it is true and it is interesting, and I do research / writing on this, but I'd have said interesting literature wasn't about this fundamentally. I'd have said it was: "I saw this. Did/can you see it? What did you hear/see?" I think I am in the minority on this
Can you give me examples of this?
Las babas del diablo, although one could say it's about identity. García freakin' Lorca. Almost anything I'd write would be about seeing things happen, or what people said. Consider this, what it means! or how odd, or how symmetrical, or whatever it is. But: I saw this, did you? Now you're making me wonder, though. I look at almost everything as a story of something seen or heard first. I have a tough time getting into characters, identities, psychological novels, etc., and was at sea in English classes for this reason -- hmmm.
I can see that that is powerful idea too, especially if I witness something that makes not impression on any one else. The witness marked as different from having seen something.
So earlier today I was reading Roberta Quance about Lorca's suites, and thus about ultraísmo and all of that, and realized that in addition to the witness imperative, I'm just one of those avant-garde people, I'm for dehumanized art!!! ;-)
Roberta is great. I don’t think any poet agreed with Ortega about dehumized art though
Post a Comment