Filed under: Randomness
History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.”
“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”
-James Baldwin
Filed under: Culture, Feminism, Gender, History, Human Trafficking, Law, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-Colonialism, Race, Subaltern Studies, The Continent of Africa, The United States of America, Womanism, life
Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather, consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power.” -Michel Foucault (History of Sexuality, Volume 1, 1984)
In a previous post, I outlined Foucaultian conceptions of power very briefly.
I gleaned 5 things from this section of History of Sexuality:
- Power relationships are strictly relational
- relationships of force are not violence, rather they are “discursive and disciplinary” powers expressed as “a general line of force that travel the local oppositions and link them together…” bringing about “redistributions, realignments, homogenizations, serial arrangements and convergences of force relations” (94, Foucault)
- There is no exteriority from power relations.
- “Where there is power, there is resistance” implies a certain reciprocity, granting discourses like Post-Colonialism, (and other subaltern studies/discourses) status as participatory discourses
- Foucault is careful to distinguish the state’s power from power as he conceives it (omnipotent)- as state power is always “local and unstable” (dependent on the ascribed legitimacy of its leaders, and/or government apparatus,)
The most important of which is the 4th point: “Where there is power, there is resistance” implies a certain reciprocity, granting discourses like Post-Colonialism, (and other subaltern studies/discourses) status as participatory discourses”
Couple this with this quote from James Baldwin:
“The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.”
Another quote of his cites the paradox of education- it induces the educated to question the system that taught them. He sums up the process of politicization (burgeoning consciousness ofbeing and relational identity [ontology?]) well.
In my undergraduate studies, I learned to re-frame Post-Colonial and Sub-Altern discourses in a way that maximizes the agency of the subjugated. This necessitated moving away from messianic histories or away from the over-wrought histories of the victimized. This also meant casting a critical eye on the histories written by the victors.
For example: Black women worked as domestics in the South in the late 20th century, early 21st century. These women were subject to violence (particularly sexual) in their workplaces, and they had little legal recourse in most cases. BUT, women’s history tells us of the networks Black female domestic workers formed in order to provide a support. These networks enabled women to avoid employers who would abuse them, renege on their pay or force them to work overlong hours. These women exercised AGENCY in consciously resisting the system. They became threats to the status quo, as opposed to being pawns. They may not have changed their reality, but they changed how they responded to it. That is the first thing we must do before we can change anything.
…
With this in mind, I offer a challenge: are you part of a participatory discourse? Or are you still regurgitating the history of the victimized?
…
Before I end this: some quotes from Jimmy Baldwin
“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
-James Baldwin
I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
-James A. Baldwin
“I [Jesus] have revealed You[a] to those whom You gave me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to me and they have obeyed Your Word. 7Now they know that everything You have given me comes from You. 8For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.”
John 17:6-12 (NIV)
Consider this in conjunction with this C.S. Lewis quote-
“Continue seeking God with seriousness. Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him”
And when Jesus addresses the crowd in John 6:28-9:
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
This essentially invalidates any argument in favor of a works-based faith that presupposes that man can be righteous of his own effort.
see also:
Romans 8:29-31
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
&
Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Click the pic for a larger view –>
Sources:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html
Filed under: Economics, History, Popular Culture, Race, The United States of America
Want evidence? See this letter Pres. Lincoln wrote to Liberal Republican, newspaper editor Horace Greeley. I have included the text below.
Lincoln’s chief intention was NOT to free enslaved African-Americans. In fact, he would have been happy with “the union as it was”, back to the status-quo. After all, as a relatively privileged white male, he BENEFITTED from the institution of slavery. The racial and class hierarchies entrenched within the institution ensured that he had some level of status in American society. This applies also to poor whites in the South. While they did not benefit from slavery (economically) themselves, they benefitted socially. This was why poor white males volunteered their time as “patrollers,” policing the behaviour of African-American slaves- they could exert a modicum of dominance over another group. Take away slavery, and you take away the tangible, legally sanctioned basis for their superiority.
Anyway, here’s the text of the letter. Before I end this, it is worth noting that the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in REBELLING states. This excluded the Union slave states of Maryland, Delaware. Missouri and Kentucky. Also the state of Tennessee, which was split between Union and Confederate at the time was not included in the Emancipation Proclamation.
—–
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
Filed under: Feminism, Gender, History, Politics, Race, The United States of America, Womanism
Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was the first Black and female presidential candidate of a major party. She was also the first African-American woman elected to Congress in 1968. She was well aware of the intersection of race and gender and feminist/womanist thought was embedded in her rhetoric.
It saddened me that people overlooked her role in history during President Obama’s campaign. She had died a mere 4 years before the inauguration of the United States’ first African-American president.
Nevertheless, she is not forgotten. I honor her legacy. It is rare to find a politician with moral fortitude, character and honesty.
I admire this woman so much. Read up on your Black (Women’s) History. Black women activists worked on the community level, doing bottom-up activism in their neighborhoods, cities and states. This activism was often termed “putting band aids on bullet wounds”- accomodationist but not revolutionary. I challenge this notion. As women charged with the nurturing of their communities (see: “other-mothers”), Black women activists had less freedom than their male counterparts within the Liberation Movement. Many were mothers, grandmothers, wives and sisters whose obligations tied them to their community.
That’s all for now! I should be looking for a job…
Filed under: Culture, God, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Race, The United States of America
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”2
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
“…teaching a man to hate himself is much more criminal han teaching a man to hate others.”
“Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other? No… Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.” (May 22, 1962, Los Angeles)
Side note:
I agree that men will never be recognized as men as long as they do not protect the women in their lives.
I’m sorry, but the sheep!
The subtle denigration of Republicans as sheep, and FCINOs as wolve- in-sheep’s-clothing is just hilarious to me. What would Fiorina’s potential-constituents say if they knew that Republican party members were analogized as SHEEP? Everyone here has read George Orwell’s Animal Farm- I hope. The sheep were the mindless, uncritical demagogues who uttered the dogmas and mantras of the leaders to whom their ignorance ascribed power [errrr awkward phrasing.] What I mean to say is that the ignorance of the masses simultaneously empowers (power of the mob) and disenfranchises them (the reduction of politics to talking points which bear little relation to the lives of most citizens).
I won’t even talk about Fiorina’s reign as CEO of Hewlett- Packard or the fact that “fiscally conservative” measures are what got California into this predicament. That’s for the politicos.
Meanwhile, my sides hurt from laughing at the childish antics of politicians.
10 Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions.11 Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing
and benefits those who see the sun.12 Wisdom is a shelter
as money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is this:
that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor.13 Consider what God has done:
Who can straighten
what he has made crooked?14 When times are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider:
God has made the one
as well as the other.
Therefore, a man cannot discover
anything about his future.
“Consider what God has done; who can straighten what He has made crooked?” Think about it- this is powerful. My God is all-powerful, sovereign, mighty, just and merciful. I should be utterly humbled in His presence, bowing before Him. I love how verse 10 chides us for looking back and living by what we see- the same mistake Lot’s wife made when she looked back at the burning ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah- “”why were the old days better than these?”
It’s easy to ask that now- this recession, the events in Haiti, the deterioration of our planet- It’s too easy to live by sight and not by faith. But is it really living? If we are too busy looking back at what was, we miss out on what is, and is to come. After all, we can only anticipate the works of God’s hands, as we cannot predict them! Read verse 14 again:
14 When times are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider:
God has made the one
as well as the other.
Therefore, a man cannot discover
anything about his future.
For years, this was a sore topic for me. I was under the mistaken impression that I could strike a deal with God- in exchange for not dating in high school, God would send me a husband in college. As some say, “Man plans, God laughs.” Maybe God didn’t laugh at my folly, but He certainly did not dignify it with a response. To think that I, a lowly, sinful mortal could ask an omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign and holy God to strike me a deal? Ha!
Now that I’m done with college, I see this with a fresh perspective. At 21, I’m more settled in myself than I ever have been before. A week before graduation, I found myself with a boyfriend. 5 weeks after graduation, I was single again- by choice. I don’t feel as unsettled… as if I am incomplete without a prospective-husband- not anymore. Really, if God wishes that I marry, I will. It’s His timing. (Proverbs 18:22)
“He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.”
Proverbs 18:22 addresses men, admonishing them to be proactive, taking initiative in their pursuit of a wife. It says “He who FINDS.” Call me sexist, but the pursuit is the evidence of desire. I hold on to the belief that a man should pursue a woman respectfully, romantically, and intentionally. If he is a godly man, he will not push a woman to violate the letter of the Law for his own gratification. After all, Song of Solomon 8:4 says:
Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.
In plain speech- do not defile the marriage bed.
I’m taking time out to mature, grow and cultivate myself, and know myself more. All else follows. I am far more capable and focused when I am not looking out of the corner of my eye for “the one.” I hope to live prayerfully, bringing my requests, concerns and praises to the Lord Almighty.
That is all for tonight 
I will be reading Proverbs 31 now.
