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

["claudia raddatz" <claudia@anat.org.au>]

i love VARIERTY, i wouldn't like to live in a UNIFORM WORLD ... 

there is nothing wrong with 'them' and 'us' and 'they' provided that:

WE ALL RESPECT EACH OTHER LIVES,

WE DON'T GO AROUND THE WORLD TAKING OTHER PEOPLES LAND AND SAYING 'THOSE'
PEOPLE WEREN'T EVEN THERE (which is exactly what happened in Australia)

QUESTIONING SUCH STUPID THINGS AS: DO 'THESE TYPES OF PEOPLE' HAVE SOULS
LIKE 'US' (spanish pondering in the Americas)

DESTROYING OTHER PEOPLES SACRED LANDS AND THEN CALLING IT PROGRESS

the system in power at the moment likes UNIFORMITY because it is easy to
control people this way ... i am weird and i like it like this, i cannot be
put on a box and then tagged with: you are this ...

this system in power, actually intends to create alienated robots that spend
an entire life consuming products

it is a stupid system ... once more i am propping the agenda here!

cheers claudia {;-)


----------
>From: Danny Butt <db@dannybutt.net>
>To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>Subject: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy
>Date: Fri,  12:27
>

> 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
>
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