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Introduction of Sharon Patricia Holland's The Erotic Life of Racism

Transcript start:

Image #1: A few days after Tupac Shakur’s death in 1996, I pulled into a Safeway park- ing lot in Palo Alto, California, with my friend’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Danielle. We were listening to one of Shakur’s songs on the radio; because he was a hometown boy, the stations were playing his music around the clock-a kind of electromagnetic vigil, if you will. An older (but not elderly) woman with a grocery cart came to the driver’s side of my car and asked me to move my vehicle so that she could unload her groceries. The tone of her voice assumed fruition-it was not only a request but a demand that would surely be met. The Southerner in me would have been happy to help; the critic in me didn’t understand why she simply couldn’t put her groceries in on the other side where there were no other cars or potential impediments. I told the woman that I would gladly wait in my car until she unloaded her groceries—that way, there would be plenty of room for her to maneuver.

Image #2: While she did this, I continued to listen to Shakur’s music and talk with Danielle. We were “bonding,” and I was glad that she was talking to me about how Shakur’s death was affecting her and her classmates. When I noticed that the woman had completed her unloading, I got out and we walked behind her car toward the Safeway. What happened next has stayed with me as one of the defining moments of my life in Northern California. As we passed the right rear bumper of her car, she said with mustered indignation, “And to think I marched for you!” I was stunned at first- when something like this happens to you, you see the whole event in slow motion. I recovered and decided that I had two options: to walk away without a word or to confront the accusation-to model for Danielle how to handle with a modicum of grace what would surely be part of the fabric of her life as a black woman in the United States. I turned to the woman and said, “You didn’t march for me, you marched for yourself—and if you don’t know that, I can’t help you.”

When average people participate in racist acts, they demonstrate a pro- found misreading of the subjects they encounter. The scene related above dramatizes a host of racialized relations: the expectation that black women will cease a connection with their own families in order to respond to the needs of white persons; the comprehension of a refusal to do so as a criminal act; the need to subject black bodies to the rule of race; and the absolute denial of the connection between seemingly disparate peoples that the phrase “civil rights march” connotes. For that woman in the parking lot, the civil rights struggle was not about freedom for us all, it was about acquiring a kind of purchase on black life. I would be given the right

to participate in “democratic process” but the ability to exercise the autonomy inherent in such a right would be looked upon with disdain and, at times, outrage.

Image #3: The scene from the parking lot stays with me as if the woman and I were locked in a past that has tremendous purchase on my present. In my mind, we hover there touching one another with the lie of difference and non- relation balancing precariously between us-like the characters Rosa and Clytie at war on the dilapidated staircase in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, a scene I explicate at some length in the conclusion of this book. The psychic violation of that moment in the parking lot haunts me still;

*banging on your window*

what does it feel like to do heroin

A reply from [deleted]

Actually this is an obvious question but it’s not what you might think. Let me explain it to you, I’ve been an opiate addict for a long time and tried many drugs. Drugs that are ‘uppers’ have the most ‘obvious’ euphoria. For example if you take adderall/coke/meth/speed/MDMA you will get this shining bright euphoria, self confidence, energy, and other drug-specific feelings (for meth like you are king or for MDMA like you love everyone). However, you owe these drugs back what they delivered to you. After a meth binge, or lots of MDMA use, or staying up all night on coke you will feel like shit. To an extent this aspect is similar to an alcoholic hangover.

On the other hand, for many people who experiment with heroin they are underwhelmed (not including IV usage, but most experimenters rarely ever IV first time). They just feel good, chill, happy, but they feel like this spooky drug ‘heroin’ hasn’t delivered. They are just mellow. Oh obviously it has all been a lie they will think. Heroin isn’t spooky, it’s chill. It’s not addictive like everyone else thinks. It doesn’t make you do stupid shit or stay up all day and hallucinate like amphetamines or coke. It doesn’t empty your serotonin like MDMA or give you a hangover like alcohol. People tend to just think oh, what a nice drug.

So the next day they wake up and everything is normal. No headache or shitty feeling–just a slight afterglow of that nice feeling. Oh it was cheap as well! It only cost $10 for a whole night of being high! I thought people said heroin was expensive? And then next weekend comes… There are all these drugs I could do but I liked heroin. It didn’t fuck me up,‘I could still think clearly. No hangover. No feeling like shit later. I still was awake. It just made me happy and content with life. Oh and it’s only $10! Well, I should get some more for the whole weekend. This is great! I will use Heroin on the weekends now!

Now let’s say this person works and has responsibilities. He knows he can’t go into work drunk, or on MDMA, or high. So he doesn’t. It’s actually simple. But heroin… Well the user might actually find they do better work on heroin. Instead of being sad or grumpy or depressed with his job… he is just… happy. Mellow. Content. Everything is fine and the world is beautiful. It’s raining, it’s dark, I woke up at 5:30AM, I’m commuting in traffic. I would have had a headache, I would have been miserable, I would have wondered how my life took me to this point. This point I’m at right now. But no, no, everything is fine. Life is beautiful. The rain drops are just falling and in each one I see the reflection of every persons life around me. Humanity is beautiful. In this still frame shot of traffic on this crowded bus I just found love and peace. Heroin is a wonder drug. Heroin is better than everything else. Heroin makes me who I wish I was. Heroin makes life worth living. Heroin is better than everything else. Heroin builds up a tolerance fast. Heroin starts to cost more money. I need heroin to feel normal. I don’t love anymore. Now I’m sick. I can’t afford the heroin that I need. How did $10 used to get me high? Now I need $100. That guy that let me try a few lines the first time doesn’t actually deal. Oh I need to find a real dealer? This guy is a felon and carries a gun–he can sell me the drug that lets me find love in the world. No this isn’t working, I need to quit.

To answer your question, heroin feels nice. That’s all, it just feels very nice. You can make the rest up for yourself. Attach your own half-truths to this drug that will show you the world and for a moment you will feel as clever as Faust.

Edit: Thank you for the kind words. I received help and I’m doing well now. Luckily I was able to pull up and get help right before I entered the deadly downward spiral. Some of my friends have not done as well. Sorry to steal the limelight from OP

A reply to this from Ifuxdalion

Reading that was more haunting than any anti-drug campaign that I’ve been exposed to. Thanks. A lot.

End of reddit post.

The third image are tags on tumblr. They read #anti-drug campaigns should be run by recovering addicts #cause like #how are you gonna talk honestly about how a drug affects your life if youve never done it #how can you really communicate what it does to your life if you ignore the reasons people do drugs in the first place? #i dont think anyone’s gonna believe you when you say a drug is bad if you never acknowledge the way the drug makes you feel good #tags

I was talking shop with an artist in the studio today and I shared this page from Andrew Loomis, which might be the single most valuable page I've ever encountered in a how-to-draw book. I can't BEGIN to say how many hours this "hanging figures on the horizon" technique has saved me.

(EDIT: Over on another site, someone said they didn’t understand how to read this pic, so maybe adding a second pic and some explanation will help?)

Let’s say I want to draw “Joe” standing further back. I need to know where to place him so he looks like he's the same height, even though he's further away. If I get it wrong, he’ll look giant or tiny.

I can do that by making sure that the horizon cuts thru Joe AT THE SAME HEIGHT, no matter how close or far away he is. In the original picture, it cuts thru the original Joe at the waist.

So let’s look at three different Joes.

A: Wrong. Horizon goes thru his knees. In this context, he’s a giant.

B: Correct. Horizon goes thru his waist, just like the original Joe!

C: Wrong. Horizon goes thru his head. In this context, he’s tiny.