Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

we had a discussion about whether people of color and others should vote in solidarity with people of color. Julio Huato and John Thornton (NDN) felt that this was important, that people of color and progressive whites support the struggles and wishes of people of color. my responses:

John T wrote: ”
The idea of standing in solidarity with other minorities carries quite a bit of weight with me.
Even if I lived in a solid blue state I wouldn’t snub my nose at the majority of the citizens who have historically been so cruelly suppressed by not voting for Obama or writing in some nonsensical name.
Too many people have longed for this day for so many years to rain on their parade on election day seems unconscionable to me.
I live in a state that is going to be close and I voted Obama but my vote was an act of solidarity with other minorities as much as anything.
”

and later wrote, “Shag recently wrote that sometimes I really piss her off. I wonder if my earlier post also pissed her off?”

my reply:

huh?

are you talking about taking the side of people of color in the election?

if so, nah. i said long ago that i’d vote obama since i’m in a swing state.

i’m very much in support of _decentering_ whiteness, which does NOT necessarily mean centering people of color. my version is about decentering any center at all, always keeping different groups shifting in and out of that center, and always recognizing that no group has a lockhold on political truth.

but what I would ask is, why draw the boundary around the u.s. and the people of color within the u.s.

what about the uhuru movement, with which I’m closely associated. they don’t support obama at all b/c they argue that he is not in support of people of color world wide. if you ask them, dennis is right. a democrat dropping bombs on their heads isn’t much in support of people of color in afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, iran.

so, _which_ people of color? the ones who might have bombs dropped on their heads? or just the ones in the u.s.? granted that mccain would drop bombs on their heads too. the issue is, of course, the tendency to end up defending the decision of democrat for bullshit domestic issues where were wave flags for The One, supporting his every move, in order to prevent the fuckstain conservatives from getting a stranglehold on our electoral system. sure, sure, the democrats suck , but the republicans suck harder. i’m tired of that shit. yes.

———–

Shane:
Just to clarify: Oblablabla represents what comes out of the “Black”
side of His mouth. What has come out of the “White” side–FISA,
Embargo, Afghanistan, Bailout, Impeachment, Iraq, Israel, Venezuela,
etc.–would better justify the nickname Obomber.
…………….

Dwayne replied:
Maybe you should clarify your clarification.
Because to me, it sounds like you’re saying Obama’s being ‘black’ when
he delivers a pretty speech but is showing his ‘white’ aspects
whenever he wonkily talks about technocratic and imperialist
management topics.

I’ll try to remember this division during the day.

But how would it work? Let’s see…maybe, while inspiring friends with
stirring words (or just having a laugh at lunch) my soulful blackness
is front and center. Later, when I’m trying to work through the
pointy headed technical details of a Beowulf cluster, I’m pushing the
tendencies of my Scottish great grandad to the fore.

W.T.F. Mage?

.d.

I replied to Dwanye:

I think you’d have to WTF at me when I speak of decentering “whiteness”. In other words, I’m talking about institutionalized racism: the notion that there are blacks, Latinos, etc. defined against standard issue whiteness where whiteness represents the norm of citizen, worker, father/mother, adulthood, etc. Whiteness conceived as a process, not a product, is the “good family man” trotted out against the whispered accusation, “He’s a Muslin(tm).”

I *thought* this is what Mage was talking about, particularly because he put “Black” and “White” under erasure, and capitalized both. That was a signal to me that he wasn’t literally talking about race as a thing, a cultural product, but as I say below: a process.

On another thread, at 09:08 AM 11/5/2008, Shane Mage wrote:
Last night, and in the weeks before, numerous celebrants in the media
commented sagaciously how the president-elect would never have risen
like a soufflé if He had not been Black. Oddly, there was not a
single voice to remark that He would not have had a chance if He had
not been White.

I surfed back and forth among all the morning news shows. While I was as caught up in the moment as Chuck was last night, broke out the champagne and toasted the loser even, I was aghast as I listened to all these white people celebrating the fantabulousness of the u.s. I had merely _guessed_ that this was what went through the heads of some white folks, now I have more examples than I can bear. Something on the order of: “Yay! This proves to Europe we’re not racists. You can’t go anywhere in Europe without some snoot bringing up our racist past. No more of that! Take that Germany.”

Joe Scarborough said that.

Others, variations on the idea that this finally put behind us slavery, Jim Crow. Over and over again, references to slavery, Jim Crow, white flight back in some distant past. Others said that this would show racists what’s what. Take that, you racist bigots!

It was this giant celebration of a bunch of Stretch Armstrong figures patting themselves on the back for how wonderful they were.

Racism happened in the past; not one mention of racist incidents today.

But what is really annoying is that it just reinforced the idea that racism is *all* about attitudes and beliefs. That the only thing that matters is that you stop thinking bad things about black folks. Never mind getting at the underlying structural racism — the institutionalized racialization that is endemic to this system.

Race: it’s a process, not a product.