smack aff file

8/11/2019 Smack Aff File

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1AC


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i met a traveler from a ravaged land,who in one handheld a mapthat charted the paths of the stolen,

the trapped,kin.now bonds are broken,she told me,replaced with the holdof history.i sat to listen to the unfoldingof timeand before i could get my mind right,

as quick as light,shed begun!the year is 1"#1$e%erson declares that the people of the &nited'tates are blessedbypossessing a chosen country,with room enough for ourdescendants to thethousandthand thousandth generation. Two years later the JefersonAdministration approximately doubles the size o the original states with the

Louisiana Purhase rom !rane.($ane )ranklin, 1**+ Cuba and theUnited States, p-+/

so there it was,the birth of a nationnursed for centuriesby motherswhod never heldtheir own to nurture.

i know well that legacy,i thought.to hell with this story again,i thought.so i moved for the door,but before i could ghost,she had more!


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in the year 1"#0oussaint 23uvertureorgani4es a slave revolt in "ispaniola# orms a guerrilla group and gainsontrol o$er the entire island. Though Toussaint dies in prison in %&'(# this

5lackled rebellionleads to independene rom !rane and

inspiresmany other movements against slavery and forindependence. )ome o the)rench landowners 6ee toCuba, creating more plantations with subsequentincreased demand for slaves.To meet this demand# )pain allowsoreign $essels to transport sla$es. *.). shipowners play a ma+or part in this lurati$ebusiness. ($ane )ranklin, 1**+ Cuba and the United States, p-+/

7n 1"#", $e%erson sends8eneral $ames9ilkinson toCuba to :nd out if the 'panish would consider ceding

Cuba to the &nited 'tates. )pain is not interested. %&', Joa-un/nante organizes a plan or o$erthrowing the )panish go$ernment in 0uba. 1$er thenext deades the )panish authorities use prison# exile# torture and death to -uell

insurretions.($ane )ranklin, 1**+ Cuba and the United States, p-+/

%&',2%&%'!ormer President$e%erson writes tohis suessor# James;adison# in 1"#*, 7 candidly confess that 7 have e$erlooked upon Cuba as the most interesting additionthat can be made to our system of 'tates. 3ith 0uba and0anada# he says# we should ha$e suh an empire or liberty as she has ne$er

sur$eyed sine the reation. 5ut ;adison settles on a policy ofleaving Cuba to the domination of 'pain# a relati$ely wea4ountry# while guarding against its sei4ure by anymightier power. /n %&%'# ;adison instructs his ministerto 8reat 5ritain to tell the 5ritish that the &nited'tates will not sit idly by if 5ritain were to try to gainpossession of Cuba.%&%& )pain allows 0uban ports to open orinternational trade. 3ithin two years# o$er hal o 0uba5s trade is with the *nited)tates. %&6%2%&6( 3ith )im7n 8ol$ar emerging as the 9reat Liberator in the battlesor independene raging in Latin Ameria# 0ubans organize an underground. !orexample# in %&6% Jos: !raniso Lemus and others orm the )oles y ;ayos


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before proceeding!you see, son,she said,its all about fruit.

and loot, i added.and she smiled!its the same economy.believe me.in April 6 1"-ect,but before i couldshe was back!Eeember ,#1"-0At the battle o Ayauho in Peru# )im7n 8ol$ar leads thedeeat o the last )panish ores on the mainland.'pain increasesrepressionin its remaining possessions# 0uba and Puerto ;io.

'ome Cuban landowners, fearful that independencewould mean the end of slavery as in @aiti, havebecome anne=ationists in alliance with slaveowners inthe &nited 'tates who want Cuba as a slave state.($ane )ranklin, 1**+ Cuba and the United States, p-+/


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5etween the 1"


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Dnslaved 9omen and the 8endered errain of 'lave 7nsurgencies inCuba, 1"0


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the story of these womens fateleft me wanting moreso 7 asked, >ust threeI

surely that couldnt be.and again she looked at me and smiled.son, o better understand the emergence anddisappearance of certain female :gures in the %&FFtrialrecords,scholars must view these records as part of acolonial knowledge pro>ect that sought to disciplineand punish in particular ways.The questionsthat militaryauthorities posed were inspired by events that didinat take place# andthe responsesthey reorded were mostcertainly drawn from enslaved peoples statements.

5ut their questions were also formulated to select themost visible, dramatic, and violent episodes of theentire movement.?ilitary oHials ramed their -uestions in terms owho killed, who set :reto buildings# who wrestedmachetes, who released people from oshackles, whoassaulted white employees, who led rebelsto nearbyplantations# and how the witness positioned himsel or hersel within these e$ents.

uestions li4e these indiate that the colonial authorities wereinterested in prosecuting an easily identi:able set ofagitators, and punishing those whose belligerentstagings of destruction had e=posed the fragility ofwhite control.heir queries thus reveal a patriarchalcommonsense that equated slave rebellion withviolent and combative activity, as well as with actionsthat were plainly visible toBor more to the point# direted atC militiasand plantationauthorities. 7t was a logic that consistentlycalled attention to black men# and one that onsistently presumedbla4 menIand ertain bla4 men at thatIshould be -uestioned and punished. 8ut

it was also a logic that occasionally threw into sharp

relief black women who enacted similar threats towhite bodies and property. 7n this way, the colonialarchive consumed women like )ermina and Carlotathrough narratives of masculinity that made theirinsurrections much more visible than others#and rendered!ermina Band probably 0arlota had she li$edC dangerous enough to be exeutedbeore a plantation publi. This reading o bla4 insurgent impulses also legitimated a4indred set o logi that demanded spetaularly $iolent punishments o rebel sla$e


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men# and o those women the state deemed e-ually threatening. 3hile it is lear thatwomen were hardly spared rom publi disipline and men were oten terrorizedbehind losed doors# these same reords suggest that the olonial state waspartiularly in$ested in orms o publi punishment that ould be attahed toaggressi$e resistane and ultimately to ertain orms o masulinity. There seemsthen to ha$e been a lear lin4 in the olonial mind between bla4 masuline

misbeha$ior and publi punishabilityIa lin4 that rendered !ermina the only womanto reei$e a ormal sentene in the two ma+or re$olts that erupted in %&F(. 3hethershouting to other sla$es to grab that at white man or slash2 ing the o$erseer5sdaughter# the ations o 0arlota and !ermina Luum were $iewed as immediately

threatening to the ustodians o the plantation world. And indeed they were. 5uttheirs were also actions that became more relevant toprosecuting authorities, in ways that those of womenwhoNfor e=ampleNescaped the plantations during allthe chaos and confusion or 6ed to look for their kinand loved ones or sought to protect themselves fromfurther violence did not.As suh#the power of thecolonial state should not be the :rst and lastbarometer of how these accounts are read, and thepeople and activities they failed to ask about orprosecute must also be taken into carefulconsideration. The stories o women who were areul to highlight theirminimalisti in$ol$ement in$ite urther deonstrution o the idea that ew womentoo4 part in these rebellions# and they ofer a ompelling window into the broaderways one might understand the ma4ing o a rebellion. (Aisha )inch B9hat2ooks 2ike a evolution! Dnslaved 9omen and the 8endered errainof 'lave 7nsurgencies in Cuba, 1"0


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constraints of everyday life under slavery ande=ploited opening in the system for the use of theenslaved. ('aidiya @artman, 1**+ Scenes of Subjection: Terror,Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century merica, p. #1/

then she gave another smilebefore she stood,as if to leave.thats it, 7 asked,nothing moreIthe civil war,she said as she collected her thingsends e%orts to anne= Cuba for slavery.7n 1"H, when the Civil 9ar ends, the African slave

trade ends in Cuba, but slavery itselcontinues. ($ane)ranklin, 1**+ Cuba and the United States, p-+/

then, in 1""H Dconomic conditions ha$emade it morepro:table for most slaveowners to free their slavesand hire them for work by the day, avoiding thee=pense of yearround support. 3n 3ctober +# with onlyabout 6K#''' sla$es remaining# slavery is abolished in Cuba byroyal decree. ($ane )ranklin, 1**+ Cuba and the United States,p-+/

but slavery continues.the clocks still ticking.when will the fruitbe ripe for the pickingImaybe sooner than later,said the traveler,as she gestured to nearby a newspaper.economic engagementI

thats loot rightIand fruit, she said,as she began to leave.then it hit me!its the same economy.he slave was a commodity.


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he slave was a living ob>ect that could be used forwhatever purpose the master desired. he slavee=ists under the threat of death, so the slave mustcomply in order to stave o% this imminent destiny.Thesla$e5s only right then was a right to death G

not to die an honorabledeath, butsimplyto be consigned to a death in theshadow of history.Ohis history continues after theabolition of plantation slavery,(?icholas 5rady, JhMCandidateat &C7, -#10 iding with Meath! Me:ning Anti5lackness, httpMMprogressi$epupil.wordpress.omM6'%FM'6M6NMright2to2death2dening2anti2bla4nessM/

we still remain the strange fruit to whet theappetites of a nation.(?icholas 5rady, JhM Candidateat &C7,-#10 iding with Meath! Me:ning Anti5lackness,

http!PPprogressivepupil.wordpress.comP-#10P#-P-+Prighttodeathde:ningantiblacknessP/

then i looked back at the paper.economic engagement, i though,stands in stark contrast to what those invisiblewomen fought for.their politics included arefusal to cultivate the plantation,to pick the fruit,

to be property,or to reproduce that status.they were improper motherswho refused to willingly nurse generations ofmasters.with full knowledge of their worth,they chose to invest in,to mother,themselves,

proving that mothering# the prodution o radial diferene#whendone for ourselves as a reclamation of laborand a re6e=ive intervention against the reproductionof sameness,is an alternate mode of production. (Ale=is 8umbs, -#1#9e Can 2earn to ;other 3urselves! he Queer 'urvival of 5lack)eminism 1*H"1**H,p1*#1*-/


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what a revelation, i thought aloud,and i wished to share it with the travelershed be proud,

i knew.but she was long gone,and i wished now for a few more moments of hertime,

>ust enough to say, thank you motherfor your lesson.


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-AC


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efusal

8umbs 1#


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efusal@alberstam 1


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ransient Rones of )reedom

@artman *+


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laims o pain. The bla4 is both insensate and ontent# indiferent to pain and indued to wor4by threats o orporal punishment. These ontraditions are partly explained by the ambiguousand prearious status oten bla4 in the great hain o being2in short# by the pathologizing othe bla4 body2this abhorrene then ser$es to +ustiy ats o $iolene that exeed normati$estandards o humanely tolerable# though within the limits o the soially tolerable as onernedthe bla4 sla$e. /n this regard# pain is essential to the ma4ing o produti$e sla$e laborers.

he sheer enormity of this pain overwhelms or e=ceeds the

limited forms of redress available to the enslaved. hus thesigni:cance of the performative lies not in the ability toovercome this condition or provide remedy but in creating aconte=t for the collective enunciation of this pain,transforming need into politics and cultivating pleasure as alimited response to need and desperately insuScient form ofredress.


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Misruption of JropertyPJroperties 8ood

8umbs 1#


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'urvival Jedagogy

8umbs 1#ectivity to devalue our bodies, our breathing, our time./ weare sur$i$ors# who we are is the -uestion o sur$i$al# and whether we survivedepends on the generation of a set of relationships thatprioriti4es who we are to each other through our queer acts ofloving the possible collectivity represented in each of ourbodies.6 'urvival is a queer act for oppressed communitiesbecause it interrupts the social reproduction of the sanctioneddeaths of those who were never meant to survive.


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;othering

8umbs 1#


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A! &niversityPAcademic Co3ption

8umbs 1#


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ommunity ser$ies li4e housing# welare# healthare and eduation are delared ban4rupt while massi$eamounts o state money goes towards military in$asions and pri$ate setor bailouts. !or those o us whoare organizing to end $iolene against women o olor in the ae o mass media $iliation o sur$i$ors#the orgotten strategies o these 8la4 eminists# who organized against polie brutality# rape# domesti$iolene and womanslaughter are important to remember as we too stand on the onstant edges odeision built by legal praties designed to riminalize sel2deense by oppressed people whiledownplaying the se$erity o rimes that draw on the logis o raial $iolene li4e noose2hangings# gangrapes# tru4 draggings and the 4idnapping and torture o women o olor. !or those o us determined to

teah the world open# to instigate the unlearning o oppression and nurture the growth o li$able# lo$inglogis# the pedagogial experimentation and aith o these 8la4 eminist proessors# and ommunitywor4shop ailitators an impat what# how and i we teah in uni$ersity lassrooms and in ourommunities in the age o what radial eminists o olor are now alling the Aademi /ndustrial 0omplex.!or those o us who write# read and li$e the poeti as a radial pratie o ollaborati$e reation(# these8la4 eminist poets ofer an intergenerational arhi$e with whih to engage as readers and pratitionerso poetry# generating a denition o poetry that turns the BreCprodution o language into lie itsel and an

inter$ention into the pratie o orm that ofers alternati$e orms o soiality and possibility or all o us.)or those of us who hold out foolish hope that our borrowedtime in universities need neither kill our spirits nor tame ourvision, 7 o%er this critical literary work itself as a model ofintergenerational practice, a method of engagement andsurvival full of faith, love and poetic falling apart as an

intervention into what we mean by scholarship and where thatship should take us.This is spiritual wor4# an ofering made o lo$e. !or all o us.3hih means this is ritial in more ways than one. B3e were ne$er meant to sur$i$e.C Andwhen the sun rises we are araid it might not remain when the sun sets we are araid it mightnot rise in morning. 2rom Litany or )ur$i$al And or this reason Bwe were ne$er meant to

sur$i$eC this critical work of love is also :lled with fear. )ear isthe primary te=t. )ear is the instigator of this archive. Dveryword e=amined here was born in a conte=t of fear. )ear thatthe violence would never stop, fear that the resistance wouldbe forgotten, fear that words would never be enough. 5ut theydecided it was better to speak. And to write.


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'urvivalV 7ntervention into 'pace W ime

8umbs 1#


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@istoryPJrogressVGiolence that we can survive

8umbs 1#


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$ersion o sur$i$al# reerening a soial world that was not reprodued# but a ustom thatremains nonetheless# pro$ides a -ueer spae or the understanding o a -ueer uture./nSuened by Ea$id >ng and Ea$id Xazan+ian5s wor4 on mourning# this dissertation deals withthe politial signiane o remains# and the loss that ma4es them into remains# but also$alues the existene o remains as e$idene o the possibility o hange. "ow will our desireexeed a system so deadly that it alls us to want something elseV ?y engagement with theterm sur$i$al in the wor4 o these two radial 8la4 eminist authors is an attempt to

reati$ate the hope that our sur$i$al will obliterate the $iolent hegemoni narrati$es that ma4ea radial# letist# -ueer 8la4 eminism neessary. /n this hapter / read Jordan and Lorde#respeti$ely# in order to examine the linguisti ontext in whih the term sur$i$al beomesneessary and the poeti inter$ention through whih the meaning o sur$i$al an shit.

Mrawing on this multiplicity and the queer temporality in theword survival, 7 use survival here to imagine a futuristicrelationship in the present that does ?3 presuppose thereproduction of that present in the future. hus 7 :nd the wordsurvival generative and evocativeto desribe the praxis o 8la4 eministswho imagined that their praties# inompatible with the world reprodued by the dominantnarrati$e o their time# would sur$i$e as traes in a uture beyond their ageny.


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;otheringV Challenge to Cap

8umbs 1#usti:es thereallocation of public resources towards the private interestsof the wealthy#it also reates and enores a mythi narrati$e that responsibility orood# soial eduation and housing are indi$idual problems instead o ommunity onerns. As

Patriia "ill 0ollins points out in 8la4 !eminist Thought# the criminali4ation of5lack mothers diverts attention from the political andeconomic inequality a%ecting 5lack mothers and children andsuggests that anyone can rise from poverty if he or she onlyreceived good values at home.%& )he also pointed out the 8la4 domestiwor4ers who partiipated in 8onnie Thornton Eills %,&' study taught their hildren not todeer to white people# and not to beome domesti wor4ers# reusing to reprodue their role as

an exploited labor ore.%, /n other words 5lack mothers are dangerous ifthey teach 5lack children to value themselves and not torevalori4e racism. The riminalization o 8la4 mothering is onstruted but the threato 8la4 mothering is real. 8la4 mothering is a threat beause it enats a -ueer alternati$e to

the soial reprodution o heteropatriarhy. 5lack motheringas a orm o -ueer literary

prodution is a threat because it challenges the values of westerncapitalism, starting with one of its central value statements!some lives are valuable and some are not. This dissertation examines-ueer 8la4 eminist literary prodution as a spae or alternati$e meanings or B8la4C liebased on the sur$i$al o dangerous and de$ious bodies Bo wor4C. / argue that it is nooinidene that the entral 8la4 eminist texts# inluding the groundbrea4ing anthology"ome 9irls A 8la4 !eminist Anthology# June Jordan5s anti2imperialist poeti text Li$ing ;oomand the autonomous women o olor run and lesbian entered Xithen Table 3omen o 0olorPress all signiy at the point o reprodution# the pathologized eminized 8la4 home. Theseliterary maniestations were part o a broader inter$ention into the meaning o 8la4 lie# at thepoint o reprodution Bthe pathologized 8la4 motherC# whih were the rasion d5etre or theontemporary 8la4 eminist mo$ement. >xploring the narrati$es o raialized motheringwritten in the legal and politial rhetori o the *nited )tates in its domesti and globalenatments o neo2liberalism# this hapter ontexualizes the poeti brea4 theorized by June

Jordan# Alexis Ee Ueaux and Audre Lorde in their relamation o the term mother and thetropes o housewor4# hildare and other labors o sustenane or a 8la4 -ueer sur$i$alistworld$iew.


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A! &niversityV Class Jrivilege

8umbs 1#ustifes."owe$er# the way in whih Lorde# Jordan# Ee Ueaux and )mith engaged anddisrupted the dominant narrati$e o 8la4 mothering is not merely theoretial and should beunderstood with the ontext o this wider rhetorial# i not literary# use o the term mother as amobilizing term or 8la4 women who insisted on an alternati$e logi during the rise o

neoliberalism. 9hile each of the writers that this dissertationfocuses on had access to intellectual connections andresources that other women did not have at their disposal,each of these writers also su%ered economic consequences fortheir decision to challenge the literary and academic means ofproduction in which their work was uneasily and problematicsituated.Ater her di$ore June Jordan really was a single 8la4 mother with no money orood# waiting or reelaning he4s to ome in and ontemplating 4eeping her young son withher parents so that he ould eat. Alexis Ee Ueaux5s reusal to tra$el the path o least resistanewith in the publishing# writing and teahing industries let her without stable healthare#resulting in a number o late2diagnosed tumors and ulers whih she was only able to treatbeause she was nominally on >ssene ?agazines staf e$en at a point when she was not on

the payroll. Audre Lorde wor4ed in toxi and radioati$e onditions in a atory in order to earnmoney to sur$i$e and to go ba4 to shool. Though she ne$er had an exess o money sheontinually sent her tax returns as ontributions to Joseph 8eam or 8la4M1ut magazine# to PatPar4er or wor4shops in prisons# to the 0ombahee ;i$er 0olleti$e or photoopying osts.8arbara )mith desribes literally rolling oins rom hange she searhed or in her home to be

able to pay the expenses o Xithen Table Press. hese e=amples are notintended to provide class cred to writers who clearly hadand have a di%erent level of class mobility from many 5lackwomen. 7 o%er these e=amples to conte=tuali4e the choices


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these women made to identify with their accountability to theircommunities against the norms of capitalism, and to remindreaders that the consequences in terms of health, career andmarketability are not coincidental, but are part of the narrativethat punishes 5lack women for creating products and

processes that e=ceed and disrupt the narrative that rebirthsinequality in economic terms.


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A! Queer heoryP;othering is@eteronormative

8umbs 1#

ect of di%erential life valuethrough the criminali4ation and targeting of raciali4edmothers, as well as arguing the importance of an genealogy ofqueer theory# whih as argued by ;oderi4 !erguson among others# starts with 8arbara)mith5s Towards A 8la4 !eminist Literary 0ritiism and the 0ombahee ;i$er 0olleti$e)tatement. 8uilding on the wor4 o !erguson# ?unoz# >$elyn "ammonds and others# assert


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that a queer of color critique illuminates and queers thereproductive narrative through which queer theory hasconstructed its own genealogy.


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;ust 7ntervene in ;asculine @istory

)inch 10nsla$ed 3omen and the 9endered

Terrain o )la$e /nsurgenies in 0uba# %&F(G%&FF# Journal o 3omenYs"istory# Uolume 6K# @umber %# )pring# p%%F2%%K=These inter$entions were transormati$e in part beause they om2 pelled a reimagining oresistane that entered on women and oregrounded the daily deisions that most sla$esmade# and in part beause they ofered a paradigm or sla$es5 oppositional politis in plaesthat did not produe exessi$e numbers o armed re$olts or during long moments o apparent

-uiet. 7n revisiting the intellectual genealogy on slave womensresistance, it is also important to centrally locate theinterventions that black feminists made into twentiethcenturyhistories of struggle. Li4e the ontributions abo$e# transnational blackfeminism provided a set of theoretical frame works,epistemological positions, and methodological questions that

revo lutioni4ed the understanding of what constituted politicalsub>ectivity and political opposition.hese and other feministtheoretical innovations can therefore o%er critical signpostsfor the study of enslaved womens history. The reent publiation oAroubanas historia# pensamiento y prZtias ultura2 les onstitutes a partiularlygroundbrea4ing ontribution to bla4 eminist theory and praxis in 0uba and Latin Ameria#and is thereore ritial to the way in whih / oneptualize sla$e women5s politial

onsiousness in the nineteenth entury. 'ome four decades after the call forgendered histories was :rst sounded, however, womencontinue to be invisible in most histories of organi4ed slaveprotest. 9hile this dearth of literature remains deeplytroubling, the insights of the last four decades also underscore

the dangers and limitations of casting everyday or unorgani4edresistance as categorically di%erent from collective, organi4edprotest. 9hat might happen to our picture of rebellion # orexample# if scholars were to see rape, se=ual assault, pregnancy,birth control, and so forth as pivotal to the organi4ation, form,and outcome of slave insurgenciesI 7n the spirit of thesequestions 7 endeavor to think with, rather than in oppositionto, the literature on daily resistance. 'uch an approachultimately suggests a way to conceptuali4e slave insurgency asa challenge to white patriarchal control, as much as aconfrontation against racial violence. /n late Eeember o %&F(# an

enslaved woman named Jolonia 8angK informed her owner,Dsteban 'anta Cru4 de 3viedo, that his sugar property wasabout to be engulfed in open rebellion. Jolonias infamousconfession has since passed into mythology as the event thatsparked the unraveling of a mammoth movement in westernand central Cuba. ;any histori cal accounts of the conspiracyof 2a Dscalera begin their chronology with this discovery# and inso doing loate Polonia5s dislosure at the heart o a long and bloody in-uisition that spanned


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outward through the pro$ine o ?atanzas. Polonia5s re$elation thus onstitutes its ownreation story# i one o a peuliar 4ind. "ers is a story that imposes its own ending at thepreise moment that it announes its beginning. At one# the massi$e sla$e mo$ements o%&FF are thrust into na4ed $isibility and unra$eled in sanguine horror. Palonia onse-uently

stands gurati$ely at both the mo$ement5s genesis and its undoing. 8ut commencingthe story of 1"00 at the moment of Jolonias declaration also

necessarily equates a womans betrayal with the unleashing ofa black bloodbath, and e%ectively disappears a much longertra>ectory of black political struggle in rural Cuba. Jolonia,until recently, was practically the only woman that readers of2a Dscalera would encounterIPolonia# whom they -ui4ly learned was atraitor.his story of female treachery is a familiar one thatpersists through out the history of slave movements in theAmericas. Although women were hardly the only ones whoacted as informants to white authorities during times ofunrest, men who revealed rebel plots were often implicitlyfemini4ed through their role as domestic servants or, indeed,

through the very act of traitorship.As suh# the trope o eminized betrayal isoten a entral eature in the story o bla4 rebellion. The story o Polonia 9angZ# howe$er# isbut one o many in the rural opposition o the %&F's. Contrary to what thehistoriography would sug gest, slave women took part in,helped to organi4e, and became leaders in the rebelmovements of 1"0< and 1"00. )inding records of thatparticipa tion, however, can often be characteri4ed with littleirony as searching for the invisible woman.As militias rounded upbla4 onspirators and insurgents# emale witnesses were usually brought in to testiy in arewer numbers than their male ounterparts. 3hen these women were -uestioned theyre-uently said $ery little# and# i they did pro$ide inormation# it was rarely about their own

in$ol$ement. hus to narrate the participation of women in rebel

slave movements is in many ways to push the archive to itsfurthest limits, and perhaps even to rearrange the categoriesof what it meant for slaves to collectively revolt.


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hetorical Dthic 5ad

Ani *0


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e$idene o the ideologial ommitments o the >uropeans andthereore as indies o the nature o >uropean ulture. hey areXcritical,X because they say that the imperialistic behavior ofthe Duropean has represented a con6icting theme orXnegativeX tendencyin >uropean de$elopment. he result of their

theories, however, is that they succeed in making theDuropean responsible for everythingthe XgoodX as well asthe XbadXand in the end the good far outweighs the badand will, of course, triumph along with Xreason.[


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2anguage is 5odily

8umbs 1#


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'assure# in his theory o pure language# wants the word to have adependable father, a stable lineage, towards the dream of oneauthor, who could be pointed to as the owner of his speech.9riting is dangerous because it is 5lack, deviant, bodily,unpredictable, diasporic.3ho 4nows what will happen with those words one theymaterialize# when they an tra$el so ar rom the ather2spea4er. They ould mean anything.

5lack feminist anticapitalist antiimperialist writing is afurther danger in 'assures protodream of e=tremeintellectual property, because 5lack women are not supposedto have authority to begin with.6& Eerrida5s denition o writing insists thatlanguage is not stable, neither in production nor in circulation,but is unpredictably TreUproduced in play, coproduced in socialuse, surviving and remaking itself through the necessarytension of di%erence./n the hands o these diaspori 8la4 eminist theorists odiferene# intergenerationality and uturity# )assure5s desire or pure language is asimpossible and useless as ?oynihan5s desire or a 8la4 patriarhal imitation. ?ama5s baby#Papa5s maybe. /n their wor4 as writers# teahers and anti2apitalist publishers Lorde# Jordan#

EeUeaux and )mith show us that language is not owned, it is not eveninheritable, though the desire of power will continue topretend that it is, and will continue to buy and sell it. )o dar4.)o de$iant. 3rite it down 2anguage is comothered, shaped andreshaped in community, a constant reminder that thetransition from the maternal to the material, from person intoproperty is never fully successful, and assimilation is notachievable. 3riting is $isible# 8la4 wa$es against white ontext. Language is neessaryonly beause diferene persists and writing is the reminder# here#at the shoreline.


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'ocial 2ifeV 'ocial Meath

'e=ton 1-


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'ocial 2ifeV 'ocial Meath! Jerm

'e=ton 1-


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and a ompliation o the assumpti$e logi o bla4 ultural studies in general and bla4perormane studies in partiular# a disposition that posits a politial ontology di$iding the)la$e rom the world o the "uman in a onstituti$e way. This ritial mo$e has beenmisonstrued as a negation o the ageny o bla4 perormane# or e$en a denial o bla4soial lie# and a number o sholars ha$e reasserted the earlier assumpti$e logi in a gesturethat hypostatisizes aro2pessimism to that end.


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Jroliferation of Mi%erence

?ealon *"nglish and Philosophy atPenn)tateD ;eraining 8eoming 8la4#Sym!lokeK.%# p&(2,R=8ut insoar as our dominant oneptual odes are not well set up to handle suh a

BnonConept# this is easier said than done. All toooften# in a 4eal to makeclaims about the contestatory nature of AfricanAmericanculture, we leave behind some of the comple=ities of theissues at hand. This has been espeially noticeable, for e=ample, in thesocalled gangsta rap debate,where e$eryone rom aademi ritis toradio tal4 show hosts has been -ui4 to ta4e sides either gangsta rap is anauthentic e=pression and e=tension of AfricanAmericancultural traditions, or its a commercial ploy that reinforces towhite suburbanites all the most vicious stereotypessurrounding black culture. his debate poses an alltoo

familiar either"or# and postmodernism has# i nothing else# made ritis suspiious othe either"orwhy either"or and not both"and# as they sayV 3ell# it seems tome thatthesupposed postmodernist both"and solution to the either"ordilemma is actually more dangerous than the dilemma itself.Alltoo oten# this both"and names a moment ofnd Page &N= completeassimilation, the erasure of AfricanAmerican othernessaltogether. / gangsta rap is bothan authenti expression o ontemporary bla4experiene anda rae2baiting sales ploy# this conveniently closes down acomple= web of debate by totali4ing and smoothing over allthe categories involved! the both"and solution presupposesthat we know enough about the categories under

considerationIgangsta rap# Arian2Amerian experiene# the musi industry# whitesuburban youthImerely to onSate them or reate a singular relation among them. 8ut it

seems that if we are# ollowing 8ara4a and Eeleuze# to take account of aculture of becoming, we cannot merely go from the dialecticalseparation of the either"or to the dialectical assimilation of theboth"and rather, we need a critical vocabulary to open themovement of becomingNto enact the s$eci%city of thedi&erence in re$etition #ith a di&erence. o describe thisopenended movement of transformation, then, we need aforce that goes not from either"or to both"and, but# as Eeleuze and9uattari put it# from either"or to either or or or or or or or or or or or . . . D not

from di%erence to assimilation, but from di%erence todi%erence to di%erence. N
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/journals/symploke/v006/6.1nealon.html#FOOT7http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/journals/symploke/v006/6.1nealon.html#FOOT7

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