Blackness is (always) on Trial (again): SCOTUS's VRA decision and the George Zimmerman trial

(Warning: this is a long piece. Please stay for the whole bit, though.) 

In the days following the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act, I was absolutely furious every unoccupied minute of the day. If I wasn’t engrossed in reading, writing, working with students, or training, I was stewing in my anger, completely incapable of articulating any kind of reasoned and unemotional response.

Rep. John Lewis, former chairman of SNCC, and Rep. John Conyers had strong reactions to the decision.

We couldn’t even get to 50 years of the Voting Rights Act’s life! It has literally been less than one full lifetime since black people in the South were subjected to ridiculous poll exams and literacy tests like this one. But apparently things have changed so it’s alright to gut the law’s key provision. I wonder why things have changed? Maybe – I don’t know – it might have something to do with the Voting Rights Act being a barrier to the kinds of legalized disenfranchisement that were one of the hallmarks of Jim Crow (and let’s be real, one of the hallmarks of the very founding of this country and its continued commitment to civic exclusion of black and brown people – but let’s not get into mass incarceration just yet). 

Thankfully, many folks have written excellent pieces on the decision and all the reasons why it is so asinine.

There really is no need to articulate another argument against the decision. Justice Ginsberg, writers at Colorlines, and even the folks over on The Daily Show, as well as numerous people of color with presences in social and traditional media and teachers and citizens across the country have illustrated myriads of reasons why the decision was wrong. So let it be said that I agree with this general position.  

One thing I would like to say, however, is that I think we should refuse to accept the burden to “prove” that “racism still exists,” because that burden is placed on the shoulders of anti-racists by the very assumption that the claim is somehow contestable – like there is legitimate reason to believe otherwise.

This is a direct parallel to the VRA case. In their ruling, the SCOTUS left in place the option for people to sue after the fact if they believe voter discrimination had taken place. This places the burden on the individual being disenfranchised (i.e. the individual who is already being disempowered by the power dynamics of race) to prove to the satisfaction of institutions of power that discrimination took place. Not only does this allow the problem to continue by adjusting the temporality of the problem-solving strategy from one of prevention to one of reaction (which in the end isn’t a problem-solving strategy at all!), but it continues the practice of placing the burden of proof on those arguing for an already marginalized form of knowledge. In the real world, epistemologies cannot be separated from power dynamics, and this is directly reflected in where we place the burden of proof in these cases of voter discrimination and these discussions of racism.    

This guy is the guy on trial. He is not Trayvon Martin.

This discussion of marginalized epistemologies also necessitates that we think about dominant epistemologies, or dominant cultural narratives which become epistemologies. And so we turn to the George Zimmerman trial.

Not the Trayvon Martin trial. Trayvon Martin is not on trial. He is dead.

But actually, he kind of is on trial. You see, while what this case is trying to decide is whether or not Zimmerman is guilty of murder, it has also become a performance where his defense attorneys try to convince the jury that Martin was assaulting Zimmerman and the latter therefore had a right to kill Martin in order to stop him.

Let this sink in for a second: Nobody debates the fact that Zimmerman killed Martin. Nobody debates the fact that after being told not to follow Martin, Zimmerman pursued the boy anyway. Yet, what the entire defense rests on is proving that Zimmerman was justified in killing Martin.

How to do that? By drawing on hegemonic epistemologies, based on dominant cultural narratives, that say that (young) black men (or teenagers) are inherently violent. Therefore, despite being older, stronger, much bigger, and much more armed for combat than Martin, according to this epistemology it was totally reasonable that Zimmerman – after being the one to follow Martin and therefore being the one whose actions made conflict possible in the first place – be afraid of Martin. Afraid enough that he’d have to stand his ground. 

(Michael Denzel Smith makes this point, but does it better, in his article on The Nation.) 

I wonder… if Martin had been armed with a gun instead of Skittles and Iced Tea, and he killed Zimmerman because, well, the creepy neighborhood-watchman who was twice his size (yes, exaggeration – get over it) was following him when all he was doing was minding his own business and therefore felt threatened and frightened, would folks be as willing to believe Martin was Standing his Ground?

I’ll answer my own question. No.

And yes, the reason is because he was a black boy wearing a hoodie in a neighborhood where he “shouldn’t have been.”

Also, read this article by Sergi Avteniev on the scrutiny and racism aimed at Rachel Jeantel. I really can’t say it any better than he does, so please go read it.

But what does this have to do with the SCOTUS’s VRA decision, right? I mean, besides the courtroom setting.

What we are witnessing in these two cases is the relationship between law and blackness in the United States. And this relationship can be summed up by the phrase “anti-blackness.”

Since enslaved Africans were designated as 3/5s of a person in the legal document that founded our current government, black subjecthood has forever been on unequal terms with American subjecthood (to echo a powerful piece from March by Ta-Nehisi Coates, What does it mean to have never been meant to be a part of the American story?). Blackness is always on trial. Blackness always bears the burden of proof. Blackness is always expendable, and yet is also always necessary.

The Voting Rights Act was one instance of hope. One way of offering, if not protection, then meaningful difference (to draw on Toni Morrison’s novel, A Mercy). And when the Supreme Court of the United States decided we didn’t need its most important and powerful provision anymore, they decided that blackness had once again gotten too close to full inclusion in American civil existence. Thus, the borders were retracted.

And celebration followed. 

      

On remembering the origins of Memorial Day

I didn't have time to sit down and write this weekend, but I felt compelled to write something short about Memorial Day, especially given the ubiquity of statements about supporting our troops who "fight for our freedom" and the sheer abundance of disremembering I hear and see all around, both in conversation walking around in physical spaces and in posts/comments/images in the virtual spaces of social media, on a day that is about nothing if not memory itself.

Because I know I'm so predictable by this point, I know those of you who have read my previous posts here at Liberal D.O.G.MA know what's coming: something about race, right? 

Right.

But I promised a short piece.

Ok, so first point: Memorial Day began as something called Decoration Day, which itself was begun following the American Civil War. More to the point, the first Decoration Day was May 1, 1865. To quote from a New York Times op-ed by historian David Blight (go read his book Race and Reunion now): 

"The largest of these events, forgotten until I had some extraordinary luck in an archive at Harvard, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the city’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison. Union captives were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.

After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

The symbolic power of this Low Country planter aristocracy’s bastion was not lost on the freedpeople, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”

The procession was led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Several hundred black women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantrymen. Within the cemetery enclosure a black children’s choir sang “We’ll Rally Around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner” and spirituals before a series of black ministers read from the Bible."

Now, second point: why does it matter that we remember these African American origins of Memorial Day and their relation to the Civil War? 

Again, I promised a short piece. So here we go. 

On one level, it is simply (?) important in itself that we acknowledge the prominent role African Americans played in beginning one of our most definitively American traditions, thus reminding us again that African American identity is central, not merely marginal, to American identity.

On another level, it is important to correct mistakes in the historical record of collective memory. Simply put, most folks don't know at all that the first celebrations of what would later be called Memorial Day were enacted by African Americans following the Civil War. And this has ideological consequences in how we think about Memorial Day.

The first celebrators of Memorial Day were indeed celebrating the memory of soldiers who "fought for our freedom," but there was nothing abstract or politically neutral about this statement, and it was very clear who was included in that "our." Indeed, very literally these early Decoration Day celebrators were acknowledging that soldiers died in a war which ultimately resulted in the eradication of institutionalized chattel slavery. It is impossible to re-remember this origin story of Memorial Day without also re-remembering the story about the reasons for the American Civil War and acknowledging that not all motivations for going to war are created equal. 

When we re-remember this origin story, then, we have to rethink this day about memory. For whose freedom do American soldiers fight? Are all wars "just wars"? Do all wars deserve the same kind of respect? Is it possible to honor the warriors while vehemently condemning the violence and imperialism of the war? (I think so) What kinds of more complex and nuanced understandings of war are necessarily called forth when we remember that Memorial Day began as a celebration of one American cause for fighting -- abolition -- over another -- the continuation of slavery?  

How must we think better about how we think about war, given that the very origins of Memorial Day equally point to both the American motivation to fight for freedom and the American motivation to fight for economic motive at the expense of a blatant disrespect for basic humanity?     

On Mark Sanford, Charles Ramsey, and Race & Redemption

You can't run away from your past.

But what your past means to you, and for you, isn't the same for everyone. Two key figures in this past week's news stories make this abundantly clear: Mark Sanford and Charles Ramsey.

On Tuesday, Sanford (R) won a special election in South Carolina's First Congressional District and took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He had formerly served as governor of South Carolina until a ridiculous scandal (as in, his behavior was ridiculous, not as in the incident was trivial and should be overlooked) in 2009. Sanford went missing for a week in June -- nobody, not even his Lieutenant governor, knew where he was! -- and it was quickly revealed (indeed, he held a press conference about it) that he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina who he called his "soul mate." His wife later filed for divorce and he was forced to resign first from his post as Chairman of the Republican Governor's Association. He also eventually reimbursed the state for taxpayer money that was used during his time in Argentina on a trade tour in South America. A measure to impeach him as governor failed in the state legislature and he served out his term until 2011. So in sum, the man cheated on his wife, admittedly using taxpayer money to partially fund (and his position as a figure of political power to pave the way for) a meeting with his mistress in Argentina, and went missing from his job, relinquishing his responsibilities as a governor, for a week in order to satisfy his own personal desire to be with his mistress, and still got elected to Congress as a figure of successful redemption.

Then there's Ramsey. On Monday, he and neighbor Angel Cordero broke down the door of the home in which Amanda Berry and her daughter, as well as Georgina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight had been held captive by Ariel Castro. Ramsey has since been turned into an internet meme, so I probably don't need to direct you to the video of his first interview or recount everything he did since Goggle can tell you all you need to know and more. In fact, besides being a hero for helping rescue these women (along with his neighbor Cordero, the police, and Berry herself who vocally reached out and alerted others to her situation), Google can now tell you that Ramsey has a history of domestic violence charges reaching back into the late 90s and early 2000s. So now he finds himself as the hero who was revealed to have a not so heroic past.

The temporal arrangements of these two men's stories are interesting to me. In Sanford's case, his past was known beforehand and his newsworthy event redeemed him, apparently, from that past. In Ramsey's case, he was deemed a hero, and then after this news of his praiseworthy action folks made the point of making his past public, to reveal his domestic abuse from ten years ago. So for him, his actions become redemptive retrospectively.

I know that Ramsey's record was revealed legally and ethically via Freedom of Information Act request. I know that we ought to understand people in their full humanity and not put them up on pedestals for doing one good thing (even if it's really, really good). But what I can't help asking, is, what motivated the desire to know about Ramsey potentially having a criminal past? Why make that call to request that information? What kind of lesson are we supposed to learn here? And why does Ramsey's story become one of a man who was a hero but now is a man with a complicated past who managed to turn his life around, as if he learned some kind of lesson, while the story of Sanford is one of a down and out politician who overcame the odds and triumphantly returned to political power, redeemed and ready to govern? Why is Ramsey's story just a bit less linear and self-verifying than Sanford's? Why is his power relegated to the cultural capital of being an internet meme while Sanford's is transformed into state power?

I am suspicious that (the politics of) race and class have something to do with it. Just like that reporter in the video of Ramsey's first interview who absolutely had to end the interview after Ramsey very astutely made a not so inaccurate despite his joking tone observation about race in America, I am aware that this is the point in the conversation in which most folks will want to steer away from this comparison and say "No no no, race has nothing to do with these interesting juxtapositions. We don't want to talk about race." But what if we do?

What happens when we take seriously the thought that a public eye constructed (through generations of segregation and racism, both personal and structural -- which both still exist, by the way) as fairly whitewashed both (a) wants/needs to see a black hero figure as having a criminal and/or violent and/or morally reprehensible past and (b) wants/needs to see a fallen white political figure as a figure of redemption, rising triumphantly out of the ashes of his transgressions to oppose a black political leader ("For voters, his hawkish views on federal spending, his experience and his promise to fight President Obama outweighed any personal transgressions." -NYT)?

I have my thoughts on this. But I'll end this post here to simply suggest that conversation begins, conversation which takes these questions of race seriously as they consider the discourse around the trajectories of redemption in which Sanford and Ramsey find themselves. 

In the meantime, some recommended reading for consideration during this discussion: "An Open Letter to Charles Ramsey"

     

Why Shouldn't We Talk About Politics?

Since this is my inaugural post here at Liberal D.O.G.MA, I figure y'all deserve an explanation as to why I got into this in the first place. Unlike the many others who publicly express their opinions on politics, I'm not in the game to pontificate or proselytize, nor am I here because I get paid to spout the talking points of the day and to get into cat fights with other amateur pundits. No - take away every assumption you have about political blogging and throw them out the window, because I'm about to blow your mind. I'm here to make you both smarter and politically aware, all at the same time

I think - no, I know - that our country is in decline because we, the American people, don't care about what our government is doing, or what direction it's taking. I find it a damn shame that children recognize Ronald McDonald faster than John Adams, or Spongebob Squarepants faster than the Speaker of the House. I find it reprehensible that grown men and women - the taxpayers that make America function - would rather watch "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" over CNN, and they can rattle off the last seven Taylor Swift singles, yet have no idea who represents them in local, state, and federal government. I can't stand how Americans choose not to vote because they "hate politics," but always muster enough breath to whine and moan about how they pay too much in taxes while taking advantage of the services paid for by the taxes they pay. We have a certain level of political ignorance in this country that defies our self-proclaimed status as the "greatest country in the world," or our status as the world's sole superpower.

If you walk the streets of Rome, or sit at a café in Pristina or Athens, or go to dinner with friends in Helsinki, you will find a common trend in conversation: politics. Around the world, people are more aware of political realities than ever before, especially due to the Internet - Canadian students protest the Parti Québeçois for anti-Anglophone legislation, or Greeks contesting an EU bailout - and yet the United States holds the distinct and pitiful title of "Most Politically Ignorant and Apathetic Country in the Developed World."

...seriously? America - the birthplace of modern republican democracy - is so ignorant and apathetic about its politics that we refuse to even talk about it? We're too apathetic to even exercise the most basic political right of voting? This isn't even a shame - it's a goddamn disgrace, an embarrassment, a massive failure by us to keep alive the passion and interest in politics going for future generations. As an evolving electorate, we must break out of this rut and give this dying institution a little defibrillation, a new spark plug. Without lively political debate, we keep our ideas and views of the world hidden to ourselves and, if we don't challenge our own ideas and the ideas of others, this ideological divide we are witnessing today will only grow more divided. I anticipate that the fires of hatred an violent rhetoric will only grow higher and hotter until it burns alive the fair, beautiful maiden we call Progress.

I will be damned if I allow Progress to die. By sharing our personal politics, we can find common ground, see the similarities in ourselves and see that shared bond we all have for our beloved home. We an make this land truly great once again, and that is why I'm here.

I am not an ultra-lefty Liberal, though I am left-handed. You will see that there are things my colleagues will say with which I will disagree, but you will find that I am a lower-case liberal who demands common sense and progress from his government and his people. I see this land, and this medium, as a classroom for proliferation of great ideas, and I fully intend to be your professor and your moderator in this great debate. I'm about to drop some knowledge, so grab your textbooks, friends - class is now in session.

Disproportionate Repetitions

A couple of weeks ago I read a New York Times editorial about the use of credit-screenings by employers on potential employees. The editorial talked about a recent study that suggests that such practices unfairly designate prospective job-seekers as poor job candidates when in fact there is evidence that poor credit history does not necessarily signify a poor job prospect and the likelihood that "most of those who suffered degraded credit ratings during the recession either lost their job, lacked medical insurance or incurred debt when they were injured or got sick."

But I don't necessarily want to speak to those issues here. You can read the Times' editorial (it's really short). I want to talk about these two sentences:

"The study also underscored the fact that African-American families have been disproportionately affected. They had fewer assets to start with, and were easy targets for predatory subprime lenders who led them deeper into debt." 

Can a sentence become tokenized?

If I had a dime for every time an article about class-based inequality, from news sources both on the Right and on the Left, includes a sentence or two mentioning how African Americans (and usually Latino/as) are "disproportionately" represented in some demographic -- be it the unemployed, the imprisoned, or simply the poor -- I would be a rich man (which is different from being a wealthy man -- and that's important!). It is impossible, I think, to not notice the ubiquity of this repetition.

Almost like the token racialized subject, the sentence about "disproportionate" effects for African Americans is a required piece of any article on inequality that is itself a disproportionate repetition, appearing so many times so as to normalize the poverty of blackness in America, to turn the effects of violence into solidified facts of our socio-economic world.

I will take this opportunity of my first post here at Liberal D.O.G.MA to make clear one of my fundamental positions that will underlie a lot of what I will probably be writing on this blog: Disparities of wealth and income which play out according to racial demographics cannot merely be reduced to an explanation based on class. I will always vehemently reject and refuse the assertion, "It's really about class, not race."

In this blog of three liberals (and let me quickly say that I am a "liberal" on our two-dimensional political spectrum here in the U.S., but I am suspicious of the merits of [neo]liberalism as a political project towards which it is worth retaining an unwavering commitment), I situate myself as someone deeply concerned with material inequalities, but who also does not reduce inequality to issues of pure class struggle. I will always insist on attending to differences in race, sex, gender, sexuality, and other identities as they inflect and complicate strict class-based analysis.

This is because of my attentions to the continuities of history -- even as I wish to attend to ruptures as well. (Us African Americanists can be notorious for insistently invoking the "both/and" all the time!)

To return to the Times' own language, pasted with different emphasis: "The study also underscored the fact that African-American families have been disproportionately affected. They had fewer assets to start with, and were easy targets for predatory subprime lenders who led them deeper into debt."

That phrase I bolded and underlined is taken so much for granted so often in these instantiations of what I want to call disproportionate repetitions. I don't think mainstream dialogue really feels the weight of just what that means. There is so much violence written into that short phrase, from slavery and the unpaid labor that literally built this country's (not just the South's) wealth and power to slavery's aftermath in lynchings and the formations of police forces to control criminal (read as "black" -- see nineteenth-century newspaper editorials or Mayoral speeches for evidence; also read Bryan Wagner's awesome book Disturbing the Peace) people.

My point, I guess, is that while a strictly class-based analysis of material inequality works for a history-less population, it doesn't work in the real world where history -- especially the history of race -- continues to matter.

We need to investigate what's packed up in the "to start with" that always appears, be it implicitly or explicitly, in these disproportionate repetitions and pause to feel the weight of those words.

Where you "start" a story matters.