[-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy

[Danny Butt <db@dannybutt.net>]

tV wrote on 24/7/03 2:09 PM:

>> much at all of what they have been giving for centuries

> Critically, isn't the problem this "they" though?
> Ie not essentialising a human based on colour, over generations?

Kia ora koutou - de-lurking here thanks to all for an interesting discussion
in an area of critical importance - as a few have noted our methods for
exploring race in new media are so undeveloped, the languages and forums
available so transitory. It annoys the hell out of me that race gets so
little discussion in so many supposedly "political" forums which - surprise!
- happen to be dominated by white guys. So much to be done! Thanks to the
empyre crew for getting this moving.

I wanted to comment on Tobias' point above, because the rhetorical move he
makes here is to my mind actually "the problem": shifting discussion from
particular power relationships (say, between whites and negroes)  to
abstract, "universal" phenomena (say, "racism"). It's a move which attempts
to take us as subjects out of the relationship: to seek a space where we
*don't need to think about race* because we are not complicit in its power
relationships, we are not "essentialising", "oppressing", or doing any bad,
racist things.

Now while that's nice and everything, surely our cross-cultural interactions
show this to be unrealistic. We are always white, brown, black, male,
female, wealthy, poor, educated, *in relation* to another person. This
difference or solidarity creates a power dynamic. I think to seek flight
from this power dynamic is to relegate it to the subconscious and place it
out of conversation/negotiation. This is a standard default strategy if yr
white and male because we are aware that in any discussions of that dynamic
we are in positions of privilege not of our own choosing, and this makes us
uncomfortable, and probably racist! Who wants that? So white male culture
presents itself as not cultural - in Sharon Traweek's terms white male
culture is the "culture of no culture" - it's just the "way things are". We
seek to move discussions into abstract terms, rather than, like linda,
acknowledge the very personal ( and often excessive and uncontrollable)
emotions these power imbalances cause. So to avoid doing bad things, we
withdraw into a "safe" position - but it is that withdrawal which is the
engine of race conflict! That move to my mind also becomes a bit
paternalistic if it privileges a "universal ethics" (e.g. essentialism is
bad) - a white ethics! - through critiquing a specific intervention like
damali's. In the *realpolitik* of race relations, our abstract ideals are
challenged through the lived experience of our relations to one another. My
view is that understanding our experience of those relations in their
fucked-up, messy, unbalanced, irrational, unfair, and inherently *political*
specificity is the way the relationships can move forward. And I think as a
contribution to *that* project, Damali's rent-a-negro.com is a significant
initiative.

best,

Danny

-- 
http://www.dannybutt.net