#black study

(63)Using New Academic Fields for Ideological Infiltration

One of the great divides, generally, between white people and black people (or the wealthy and the not wealthy) is noise. White people hate our sounds and our volume (unless we’re singing for them). This isn’t new. This goes back to antebellum slavery when they outlawed drumming for it’s “disturbance of the peace” and its ability to communicate messages in a way they couldn’t decipher. They tried to outlaw drumming in Harlem not too long ago. What they want, despite whatever practical reasons they might hide behind, is for us to be as silent as possible so that they might avoid witnessing our joy and stay oblivious to our pain, while continuing to pretend that we only exist in the periphery.

Managing trauma does not require dismantling structural racism, which is why university administrators focus on avoiding triggers rather than implementing zero-tolerance policies for racism or sexual assault. Buildings will be renamed and safe spaces for people of color will be created out of a sliver of university real estate, but proposals to eliminate tuition and forgive student debt for the descendants of the dispossessed and the enslaved will be derided as absurd. This is also why diversity and cultural-competency training are the most popular strategies for addressing campus racism. As if racism were a manifestation of our 'incompetent' handling of 'difference.'

While men may think they are being "sensitive" by turning to feminism, while white people may think they are being right on by opposing racism, no one will really be able to embrace the mission of tearing "this shit down" until they realize that the structures they oppose are not only bad for some of us, they are bad for all of us.