My Number One Feeling

I had a long discussion with my PhD advisers, a Black British woman and Black British man. The discussion was discursive, but mainly concerned pop culture (music, TV), black resistance along gender lines, and the ways in which capitalism continuously exploits black bodies. The discussion lasted two hours and exhausted me. 

I received an email from my male adviser saying the following:

“Also as I was walking home I was thinking about our conversation  and thought of a way to crystallise what I was talking about. It may be possible in pop culture to present nuance and counter narrative. However who defines something a pop culture is the white gaze (that it appeals to the mainstream audience). So even in those counter narrative moment the white gaze is present and that gaze frames and limits representation in pop culture. The presence of the white gaze is something that is always contended with in pop culture.” –K.A.

To which I responded:

“… I will say that while I agree that the white gaze is something to be contended with and is ever-present, I disagree that it always underpins counter narratives in pop culture. Two things come to mind. I recall Toni Morrison specifically saying (a year or two ago) that what she is interested in is writing without the gaze, the white gaze. That when she writes, she is not speaking to white people.  Now Toni Morrison would not be the widely celebrated and decorated writer that she is without a significant white following, but she is not shy of saying her writing is not conceived for them. Still they come because we create significant value and they have appropriated her as ‘authentically african american’. Still she inhabits a space outside of that and in relationship to that gaze.  That is literature–elevated to mainstream, sure. 

In this age of social media and pop culture, black twitter have been naming, celebrating and elevating all kinds of things to pop culture status. The impetus for that love and celebration is not concerned with the white gaze, but the white gaze is concerned with it (e.g. L.A. Times hiring a dedicated journalist to observe black twitter, white media constantly exploiting hashtags for capital gain). Yes, the white gaze is always there, and it has the power to elevate things to pop culture status. However, it has to look to the fruits of black culture for what’s next (which is exploitative under capitalism, I know). Similarly with Toni’s work, the impetus for the creation, and the response it engenders from black people is not always  defined by the white gaze (clearly there is always foolishness some of us are attracted to), even as the white gaze is always seeking to profit off of it. Does that persistent truth mean that the impetus for our creation lies in that ever present gaze? That means that black people are never allowed to define a reality for themselves outside of whiteness.  The pursuit of doing so under the reality of white supremacy, for me, is a form of resistance. 

 Just thinking out loud, so to speak…

  I’ve been thinking a lot about the colours black and white as they relate to that oppressive sociological invention called raced.  A tool of patriarchy, like other rigid binaries, the two colours are interdependent. One derives its meaning from not being the other; it is a negative consequence of the other, as all dichotomies are. White is white because it is not black, and vice versa. Binary opposition normally requires that one thing is the absence of the other thing. But these two colours are different. Blackness is literally everything. It is absorbent, and in so being, the fullness, the richness of its integrity is enhanced. It becomes blacker. It is a colour whose boundaries are porous. Contrast its opposite: the colour white. This colour’s integrity is fragile; dependent on exclusion rather than inclusion. It becomes more pristine by guarding against porosity. Indeed white is the absence of colour. In being tainted in the slightest, white becomes hyphenated (e.g. grey white) needing qualification. It becomes less ‘true’.

If we extrapolate these ideas of literal colours to the sociological ideas behind race, there are similarities (though the differences are glaring). The idea is, whiteness is fragile and utterly dependent on the exclusion of all others in order to protect its own supposition of superiority and purity. But I say ‘supposition of superiority’ because that word implies something that has the mettle which can be tested and not buckle under close scrutiny. To derive one’s sense of being and entitlement on the exclusion and oppression of others is not a position of strength, or superiority, at all. It’s a lie. It is a fundamental sign of fragility. No wonder whiteness has fashioned a hierarchy of value, at the top of which it remains. On its perch on high, whiteness has nothing to support but its own position. But it’s eagle eyes watch with a privileged view, vehemently protecting itself as it draws strength from everyone else beneath who are made to prop up that position. Blackness is at the bottom of this hierarchy, fashioned exclusively by the fragility of the white ego. Blackness must support itself along with the entire structure on its back. The structure depends on the collective strength of the exploitation of those on the bottom.

The idea of whiteness requires a  pristine nature, avoiding the ‘contamination’ of colour. Sociologically, this can be found in obvious things like the One-drop rule, which spawned miscegenation laws in the US and elsewhere. But we spend too much time thinking about ‘whitening’ up blackness, or exoticizing  blackness through reproduction with other ethnicities and ‘races’ and how that somehow creates escape routes from blackness. Blackness is fundamentally unlike whiteness.  As mentioned before, adding other colours to black makes the colour more resonant. In so doing, it does not cease to be black. Its integrity, unlike white, is not dependent on repulsion; it embraces absorption. Clearly, when speaking of literal colours, quantity matters. DNA is much more unpredictable. But the whole point of the idea of race is that it’s not rational because it’s a made up system that has tried to invent science to justify the continuation of white supremacy.

My ‘Black’ Is Enough

By MTV Voices:  itunu abolarinwa 

A black actress will play Hermione on stage — and JK Rowling loves it