Interrogating Privilege

Most people who attended the Philosophy Conference hosted on Friday went to the first session to hear Megan Craig on philosophy of and through art, with a few (myself included) who were at the second lecture on an experimental philosophy approach to the question: "Did morality evolve?" I cannot speak for the first lecture, but the title and content of this blog are supposed to reflect some of the disconnect I felt with what was said and my own lived experience. By this, I mean that while listening to the carefully crafted words delivered by Dr. Machery (U-Pitt), it felt as I was being pushed toward the Ivory Tower dungeon: to be caged in a level of abstraction removed from the world. What I found striking was a phrase he made during his introductory remarks. To paraphrase, Dr. Machery claimed the following: Because I am a philosopher, whatever I am interested in becomes philosophy.

I want to deconstruct this claim because, as Taylor and others note, racial grammar is an important aspect of how we conceptualize our world and those within it. His words didn't sit well with me. First, it implies, to me, a sense of philosophical entitlement in which he, as a white male, is worthy and what's more, obliged to lift the folds and corners of the universe to discover truth regarding whatever his particular interest happens to be. Dr. Machery’s words remind me of an article we read in a Philosophical Issues and Contemporary African Experience course I took while in Ghana, whose central claim was a call for “conceptual decolonization”: deconstructing the primarily Western conceptual constructions with which non-Western philosophers, by virtue of being philosophers in this world, are required to not only thoroughly understand, but through which they articulate a non-Western reality. But I’m not claiming that Dr. Machery should have just added an adjective before philosophy to clarity; I think there is something deeper at stake here. The earlier statement evokes a sense of boundlessness: philosophically speaking, the world is his. This, then, begs the question by implication: what does this mean in a discipline largely void of non-whites, women, and other minorities? If the philosophy of white men becomes philosophy, then we (including white men) ought to be concerned that this conceptualization of the world and the language we use to articulate our experience within it is severely limited.

This brings me to a second point, more specific to his actual lecture. Admittedly, I am tempted to reduce his topic (“Did morality evolve?”) as little more than philosophical masturbation: a unique emphasis on issues that excite debate, which are utterly removed from the struggle and existence of everyday people, particularly the marginalized and vulnerable. Perhaps this is a prejudice of my own towards a discipline that seems largely to be more concerned with conceptual clarity than it does with the actual subjects it addresses. To Machery’s presentation, his critique was based on the presumptuousness of philosophers in assuming, as a premise, that morality evolved without considering the truthfulness of this assumption in regards to empirical evidence. Two of the three arguments for morality are empirically support and also frequently employed by scientists, while the third is not and most commonly cited by philosophers. However, such a conversation undoubtedly sounds, to me, steeped in privilege—one certainly characteristic of the academic lifestyle. I say that to say this: for example, when I experience racism on this campus or anywhere else, my inclination, even upon reflection, is not to consider whether or not it is true that morality exists; my concern is that within the framework of existing circumstances, someone has acted immorally in such a way that is harmful to my well-being. I find it important to consider the profound contrast between the marginalized and those capable of coming to the conclusion that something like morality is not evolutionary and therefore, those who are marginalized deserve what comes their way. Of course, this is a very crude way of putting it. But it is noteworthy that the debate regarding the Affordable Care Act is not very far off from using a similar language.

Higher Learning

"...we mustn't romanticize our resistance, but fight to maintain its presence in our lives, knowing that it could easily vanish in a moment of weakness, anger, insecurity, or fear" (92).

By now, I assume it is somewhat evident that I prefer to use quotations from the text as my entry point into discussion. The quote above was written by Wise in regards to an incident with his mother in his teenage years when she was intoxicated. After returning home from a Peace Fair, his mother initiated a conversation that gradually descended into her spewing vitriolic of Black people on welfare, and ultimately a personal criticism of her Black colleague. Wise recognizes this moment as significant in his own anti-racist consciousness because in indicates that even those who are perceived as the progressive, Wise's mother in this case, are not and indeed, never will be exempt from the privilege one is afforded.

In addition to a poignant commentary about, generally, the commitment required in being an ally for marginalized peoples, this quote is even more noteworthy in light of recent criticism Tim Wise has recently received himself for ranting on Facebook in a manner that "reflects his own white privilege."

Check it out:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/the-stream/the-stream-officialblog/2013/9/17/anti-racism-activistgetsbacklashoverrant.html

To paraphrase a quote from James Baldwin, one finds her/himself at war upon becoming conscious of the fallibility of one's own society in promoting injustice and choosing, rather than being complicit, to act morally. However, this is an external conflict that overlooks the internal conflict with the same oppressive forces that have socialized our self-understanding. I believe that Tim Wise recently found himself caught up in this internal conflict, which he openly admitted was "inappropriate." Particularly for those who identify as allies, I think this example offers a sense of support and anxiety: you're going to struggle (although not in the same manner of the marginalized group(s) you advocate for) and inevitably, fail in your attempts to be this ultra-conscious being that has a super-human moral and ethical compass. However, these moments should not instill one with anxiety or sentiments of hopelessness; these are critical moments of learning. What's more, dismantle and deconstruct the pedestals on which you've hosted up others in your life (even Tim Wise)! I think about this often in terms of my own feminism, at moments when I've had men and women claim that "I'm different than other guys." Granted, we may be more or less conscious than others in our advocacy and activism, but that does not make me (or anyone, by implication) exempt from engaging in and subscribing to patriarchal and sexist beliefs, thoughts, actions, practices and institutions. Committing oneself to justice is often accompanied by not only failure to adequately support the oppressed, but also frustration, depression, alienation, and in certain circumstances, even (physically, verbally, emotionally, and spiritually) violent opposition. The value, I believe, in promoting love—because supporting an ethically just and inclusive society is one that places primary importance on a way of being that encourages compassionate empathy with everyone—is understanding that our resistance, far from romanticized, must be contextualized within the historical struggle for justice: the blood, sweat, tears, and life shed by those who were "prisoners of hope" that we might one day be free.

Born To Belonging

Although it is a point raised in the nascent portion of these two chapters, the discussion about ancestry is always one that I find particularly interesting. Wise states, "Even if you don't directly inherit material advantages from your family, there is something empowering about the ability to trace your lineage back hundreds of years, as so many whites but so few persons of color can....The exercise provided, for the whites at least, a sense of pride, even rootedness; not so much for the African American students." This excerpt struck me from the context of my own experience with ancestry. In 1925, African American poet Countee Cullen published a book of poetry, including the well noted "Heritage," which raises the famous inquiry: "What is Africa to me?" Wondering about this question even led, in part, to my study abroad experience in Ghana last year. I kept a journal while there and after visiting Cape Coast and El Mina slave castles, which approaches Wise's discussion about ancestry from a different perspective. So I offer the following, without any critical analysis other than what's already been written:

“Black Americans snapping pictures, as Saidiya Hartman says, is the result of a ‘growing sense of despair and an exhausted political imagination incapable of dreaming of radical change.’ It is this context that I’m fascinated with.   Enslaved Africans, the captives, held in bondage physically, mentally and even spiritually whose descendants, still suffering neo-bondage, neo-slavery, neo-colonialism, seek to capture those very same captives whose legacy they claim, lament and embrace through a narrow lens manufactured and produced by another captive- in this sense, economically- to construct a tangible manifestation of ownership in a world dominated by identities so innately interwoven with a history of inhumane treatment. Staring through the lens, finger poised on the shutter, the captive past meets the present bondage in a dance of self-destruction. Ingrained in this moment for the photographer is the desperate necessity to grapple with feelings of neglect and abandonment, a perpetual inability to simply belong: my seventh grade heritage day in white roman catholic school when I asked my Black gram to make me sweet potato pie because I had no concept of ancestry. Frederick Douglas begins his autobiography with the crushing assertion that he never knew the date of his birth; that is, he could not trace when his existence began in the world. The hopelessness about locating myself in history I felt that day echoed Douglas’ sentiment of having no true beginning. All other students in the class claimed some Irish or Italian ancestry and were basking in the gluttonous consumption of endless containers filled with Irish potatoes. My teacher approached my untouched pie, inquired if it was pumpkin which I denied, and then she walked away without a word. Even the crumbs of identity that tasted sweet to me were valueless in the eyes of the masters as I stood unimpressively alone, worlds apart, on the auction block of heritage.

Western epistemology has taught us that to own is to know. And in that flash, as the pain, anguish, resistance, survival and tragedy we wish to illuminate is bathed in white light, the captive past has once more been enchained within our memories, unbound from the struggles against exploitation and dehumanization fought by those “nimble-fingered” workers one, two, three worlds away. The tyrant ships the finished product, washed clean of the blood, sweat, tears and shit that produced it, only to be burdened with the endless task of toil until the day it dies, to be tossed away- as it is not useless- in an unmarked grave of some invisible land. Yet we are seduced by the scent of hope that this flash will transform the suffering of the past into milk and honey, our promised land-—one in which we belong—cognitively distanced form the cries for human empathy of those unseen, invisible right beneath our nose. Stepping outside the UN World Heritage site, we briefly are blinded by this flash, thinking the dark oppressive stench of history gives way to the sweet enlightenment we've anticipated. But we face instead a city bathed in blood- that red coating lining the bottom of your pant legs- a perpetual reminder of the Black-fleshed Nazarenes who once walked this very soil, whose existence meant suffering in the land of the fishers of men. And within this, we become captive to this scent of hope: addicted to the promise of freedom. Longing that the barriers we have built, demarcating the center from the periphery, being from non-being, existence from nothingness will fade away like a worn photograph whose edges we can only caress and wonder what they once held, yet no longer burdened with the spiritual strife that has defined us. With the click of a shutter, with the gentle embrace of a groove on a dirtied wall, with a deep breath of meditation, we hope to capture their suffering, transcending life itself, exhaling joyously that at least we can embrace the feeling of being home, of belonging ‘with all its promises and dangers, where the stateless at last might thrive.’ And we hang it neatly in our minds as our framework for revolution. 

From Anchor Babies to Obama

Taylor makes many claims in this brief concluding chapter that are worth noting, but I would like to comment on his discussion about the underlying motivation for anti-immigrant sentiments, commonly directed towards Latin(a/o) immigrants:

“anti-immigrant activism is an American tradition, defined, like any other tradition, by proprietary rituals and conventions and rhetoric. And this tradition is constituted in part by ritual genuflections to the whiteness of America and to the dangers of immigrants.”

Considering anti-immigrant activism to be a constitutive element of American tradition might, at first, may elicit resistance to accept such a claim for a few reasons I want to examine. First is the mythology of the “American melting pot”: the belief that immigrant populations have historically arrived on the shores of the United States and shortly thereafter, staked their claim to the American Dream. Yet to consolidate the experiences of various racialized ethnic groups by boiling down their identity to “eventually American” tragically overlooks the resistance faced in their journey to gain naturalization rights—from indigenous Americans to Latin(a/o) immigrants.

Second, let’s consider the oft-cited response that anti-immigrant activism is not uniquely American, but a human inclination: survival of the fittest, if you will, in which we reject populations that do not contribute to the success of the country. This is problematic on many levels! As Taylor cites, it is not even entirely clear that rejecting immigrants make the country stronger. We should be cautious of attempts to sweep targeted emphasis of certain populations, which is in part based on race, under the “human” carpet; we cannot discuss these issues simply on an abstracted human level because not all groups are beginning from the same starting point. Further, rejecting racialized immigrant populations sounds eerily similar to a system of racial control that strives for a problematic sense of purity.

This brings us to a third, broader philosophical argument for rejecting anti-immigrant activism as part of American tradition: such a negative practice cannot legitimately constitute American tradition because culture is necessarily composed of the positive aspects of a people. I first encountered this in a Philosophy course at the University of Ghana. The argument made was that nepotism is not part of Ghanaian culture, but a distortion of it. However, we must consider that the paradoxes—racial and otherwise—which have produced our present context are indeed part of a history we must confront if we ever hope of working towards a more equitable society. Herein lies the significance of Taylor’s comment: we must be explicit and honest that racism and white supremacy have and continue to shape the way that meaning is attributed to bodies and bloodlines, and social goods are distributed.