Re: [-empyre-] Fwd: ayo should go byo

["tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@rhizome.org>]

> Which leads me to another question--and this may be a grotesque
> generalization--it seems that this month has been fairly light; but damali's
> site gets >5 emails a day expressing (inarticulate) outrage, hostility,
> etcetera... It seems to me that those with polemic views have no problem
> sharing them. However, it seems to me that there is not a great amount of
> thoughtful discussion (in non-academic fora) about how race is a part of
> social discourse. Is it fear of giving offense that mutes considered
> conversation?

Well, as I already made a brief foray into this -- I'll be honest and say
"yes."

I sat and considered these sites and this conversation for awhile.. and what
I realised was that, "as a Canadian"--and I'm not sure what that means--my
involvement with race differs from what I grossly generalise as "the
US-based conception." I'm not judging one over the other (far from it), but
trying to grapple the difference found in theories and practicalities of
race on the two sides of the Northern border. Identity-politics are less an
issue in Canada... perhaps it goes back to the difference in melting pot v.
multiculturalism gov't policies, or back to the earlier differences in
slave-trade history... which isn't to say Canada isn't racist (far from it;
our history includes the probable genocide of various First Nations, the use
of Japanese immigrant slave-labour to build the railroad, Japanese-Canadian
internment camps in World War II, a horrible record with residential schools
and the abusing power of the Church, a disastrous record with the Inuit, and
all the power manifestations of white (primarily male) domination across
Canadian society). 

So the issues are tangled for me, and marked by difference of "nation"
(ironic to hear in the theorisation of post-nationalism... but not
surprising in Canada given our urgent desire to mark ourselves as different
from US imperialism). I tend to think of the "satirical" sites mentioned
here as being very provocative, and for lack of a better word (& opening
myself to attack), "American." I'm trying to figure out if there is a
different artist response up here, and what that might mean in terms of
earlier comments about "not getting it"-- that maybe the satiric approach
only works with a certain "culture," perhaps a class, that "will" get it.

I'd be curious to know where the emails are coming from, I guess...

best, tobias