Furor over New Yorker Cover: What Black Folks Contend With
Posted by Mike E on July 14, 2008
 |
|
|
Lets just say so, straightforward, this is not a piece looking to defend Obama and establish how he is an American, Christian, and loves his country (probably all which is true), but here we are seeking to shine the light and expose White Supremacy as the hegemonic discourse in America. Whatever your thoughts on the Obama campaign per se, hasn’t this campaign been able to show the huge decrypt nature of this system and how a Black man and woman have to twist and turn in the wind in order to be viable for White America.
Today, the new episode of this awful series of racist events that have marked the Obama campaign is the appearance of the new issue of the New Yorker. The title cover is a satirical depiction of all the racist mongering drummed up by white racists and the media about the Obama’s, the concern that Barak Obama is a secret Muslim hiding as a Christian, that Michelle Obama is a radical black nationalist, that they give each other little gestures of black power or terrorist salutes. Google anything I have just said and you’ll find the myriad of fear mongering against Obama that is taken for legitimized discourse.
Even watching CNN today, speaking about the controversy over the cover, they had a man speaking about the absurdity of the claims that Obama is a Muslim radical. He then went on to claim the only concern for Obama should be he is a “Socialist!” No one even said anything to him on CNN, probably out of surprise, but this kind of stuff is spread on the CNN network constantly.
Here is just a clip of Glenn Beck, who has a show on one of the CNN networks.
Or perhaps you can find easily some trolls attacking Michelle Obama for talking about white supremacy as cultural hegemony.
So why has the The New Yorkers’ cover art coming under heavy criticism when it simply is poking fun at all the right-wing racist attacks against the Obamas? Attacks which the Obama campaign had to create their own website to defend themselves from the campaign. They’ve had to tell you his father wasn’t a Muslim, he was an Atheist. That he, himself, didn’t go to a Madrassa. He threw his pastor under the boss for the sake of appearance, had to to denounce Louis Farrakhan, had to tell Black fathers in Bill Cosby-esque “get-your-shit-together” patriarchal uncle tom tone to be personally responsible just to seek the approval of white America. The reason why the Obama camp is trying to squash The New Yorker cover article is to really get rid of race from the agenda of discussion in this campaign altogether. Obama doesn’t want race brought up, and he sees it as only a harmful element in his campaign. So rather than dealing with race and white supremacy, he has only talked about a post-racial society.
When white racists go on a racist campaign against you and its being discussed, its harder to campaign on a platform of “post-racial” society. America is evidently not post-racial, but the Obama campaign has revealed the deep seated white supremacist underpinnings of this system altogether. It didn’t embark on doing that, and is still attempting to avoid, but because they are the legitimate possibility and the likely winners of this presidential campaign, those underpinnings are now around. So even when a liberal-left magazine like The New Yorker publishes a cartoon satirizing the racist depiction of the Obamas’, they are targeted by the Obama camp to “shut the fuck up,” they don’t want to deal with racism in this presidential race.
nando said
Let me start with the main thing which is agreement about key points STP raises: I think the Obama campaign — how it is treated, how it turns out, will teach us all a lot about America, its structural and ideological racism.
I’m not a supporter of Obama — because I think supporting someone like that legitimizes this system overall, and all the reactionary policies that Obama himself so strongly supports. But we will see a lot about America (or Amerikkka) as this year cranks on. and we should take note of it. And we (anyone with a progressive bone in their body) should rise to speak strongly against the racist torrent that is already being mobilized.
Ok. that is my start…. and my main point on STP’s interesting post.
* * * * *
But we also need to dig in together on what we are actually seeing and saying about that. I may misunderstand what STP means, and I don’t want to draw false meanings. so take this as a mutual exploration, not as a polemic.
STP says: “We are seeking to shine the light and expose White Supremacy as the hegemonic discourse in America.”
Is white supremacy really “the hegemonic discourse in America”? Is white supremacy a discourse (as opposed to a structural feature of U.S. capitalism rooted in national oppression and capitalist exploitation)? Is it really hegemonic? i.e. is it basically unchallenged in the society’s formal discussions in academia, the media, the political arena, and so on?
I see many views on race in the U.S. colliding — and not just one hegemonic thing.
STP says: “hasn’t this campaign been able to show… how a Black man and woman have to twist and turn in the wind in order to be viable for White America.”
Is that really what’s going on?
Is this about “White America”? Is that who candidates have to prove their “viability” too?
Is there not a ruling class? Is there some “White America” that really HOLDS state power in this society? How uniform and unified is that “white America”?
I see a white nationality in the U.S. (a european-American nationality formed over time and in stages)… but most people who are part of that nationality don’t wield power, don’t choose candidates or presidents.
celticfire wrote in a related thread that in his home town:
“Obama received his biggest crowd of support when showed up in town, and many white liberals prove just how un-racist they are by showing off their Obama paraphernalia.”
While I agreed with many other things Celticfire wrote in that comment rejecting post racialism, is it fair to imply that Obama’s white supporters really so phony, superficial, deceptive and (ultimately) racist? (Or am I misunderstanding you Celticfire? If so, look forward to hearing your actual impressions.)
Is there a link between Celticfire’s dismissal of Obama’s white supporters in Portland, and STP’s discussion of a “white America” tormenting the Obamas?
Are we really going to imply that whites who are against Obama are (generally) openly racist, while the whites who are for Obama are probably just as racist, but just (generally) more dishonest and phony about it?
Shouldn’t we make a lot of room in our view for whites who are HONESTLY against the mistreatment and disrespect of African Americans? Aren’t there literally tens of millions of white people who are truly exploited and oppressed in the U.S., and also tens of millions of white people who are truly ANTI-racist? And aren’t there millions of people in both categories? Won’t there be lots of people (including white people) who will be genuinely horrified by the emergence of open racism aimed at Obama — and don’t we have a job to do to increase their numbers, and help urge them to voice their opposition to it? If we don’t have a sense that we can win over a powerful chunk of white folks to radical anti-racist politics, then what possible hopes does a progressive movement have?
I unite with much that both STP and Celticfire wrote: Yes, lets expose Obama’s imperialist nature. Yes, lets expose and denounce the white racism of his detractors. But isn’t there also a broader anti-racist sentiment in play (and not just or mainly among black people themselves!) that we should be tracking, revealing, augmenting, articulating and radicalizing?
[And apologies in advance to both STP and Celticfire if I have somehow misunderstood or simplified their arguments/assumptions -- any distortions are unintentional, any probings are an attempt to help you get deeper into what you actually thing. So let's dig in and lay out what we actually see happening, and what the various forces actually are that we see in play.]
John Steele said
Not to distract from the main thrust of this thread, but Juan Cole has a good comment this morning on another aspect -
“It is typical of the atmosphere in America today that the New Yorker cover caricaturing the Obamas is called offensive by the Obama campaign but virtually no one is talking about how demeaning it is of American Muslims. A little detail like that. Imagine if a US candidate had been depicted as an Orthodox Jewish settler with an Uzi machine gun in the West Bank, the hue and cry that would ensue.”
http://www.juancole.com/
ShineThePath said
When I wrote that we have to expose “white supremacy as a discourse,” it was of course in context of the written article and its subject matter which had not intention of going into the oppressive social relations Black people in this country face. That is another piece, another time. My piece had to do particularly with the very real universal consciousness of White Supremacy, which is in fact a hegemonic discourse in the realized extend of which social relations have made it so, and its actual Ideological function as coordinates for our own very thought.
I rather not get into these simply fruitless questions of sociology and psychology of whether or not there are functional groupings of white people that are anti-racist or whether each individual person is just being dishonest about their thoughts on race, etc. These are quite uninteresting questions, the answer is quite seriously to both “yes.” There of course white people seriously organized around anti-racist lines, but what that “anti-racism” actually means objectively is anyone’s guess. There of course many white people, especially with politics of liberalism (which either goes into the question of white guilt or post-racism) or of the politics of class reductionism and simple paternalistic attitude on the Left that show that there are many conscious contradictions white people have to face in dealing with white supremacy. To the extent this plays out, is purely a individual case study, and not relevant.
The question here is not then a form of categorical investigation, which is necessary but ultimately only in a pragmatic way, but a theoretical questioning or necessary critique of Ideology of white supremacy, in all its layers of complexity, in how it functions as actualized concrete consciousness, and also as a universal consciousness that is not particular to a subject but is corresponding to the conditions of social relations. The latter critique of Ideology means the possibility to get beyond white supremacy in a real way of consciousness, and this is ultimately the importance of communist work to change and raise the consciousness of the masses altogether.
ShineThePath said
I think it may be important than to look to the work of the critique of antisemitism that has been done for a long time in the circles of intellectual leftists in Europe, from Sartre, Zizek, to Badiou. The tendency of broad Leftists in Europe has tended to look at this as a justification of Zionism (which ironically for the Zionists, the consider it to be antisemitic), which is unfortunately quite a shallow meager scratch at the surface of what is being done through the critique of antisemitism. It is really a matter of question for them of finding the otherness in Ideology.
I think a similar look through White Supremacy needs to be done.
Nando said
interesting start. I especially agree that we need a new look at the basis and dynamics of the oppression of black people.
I particularly liked Badiou’s critique of the theory of tolerating otherness (in his Ethics). And I would like to morph the insights of Marxism’s “national questoin” with the particularities of “race traitor” theory of the color line in the U.S.
And I want to explore how white supremacy is change — not assume that Obama is just a “black face on the same old thing” — i think that assumption is not dynamic enough and misses the whole picture.
finally i want to explore this thought by STP:
Are these realy “simply fruitless questions”?
Are they simple sociology and psychology — not the heart of radical politics and strategy in the U.S.
Is it “quite seriously” true that antiracist white people are inherently and universally “dishonest” and that we can’t know what their anti-racism means?
Especially if we are talking about a largely white organization of student radicals — with a complex dynamic with non white radicals within it — can we really leave our understanding at such (undocumented) assumptions? And what are the implications of that?
Perhaps I don’t get what you are saying, but (interestingly enough) this seems quite the opposite of what I would assume we should believe on each of these questions.
So lets get into it.
Nando said
the issue is also not just whether there ARE whites who are anti-racist, but what the POTENTIAL is for a mass multinational movement that is resolutely, militantly determined to end the oppression of Black people for ever.
I think there is such a potential, and that its possibility has key strategic value. If there is no such potential, then the whole picture of politics and possibilities in this place look very different.
ShineThePath said
Nando,
I think we need to first and foremost begin with a critique of White Supremacy before we begin with a categorical investigation. Without the first, the latter is ultimately either a sociological study or pragmatic necessity. So categorical investigation is of course ultimately necessary, but it is so in a way that is of course instrumental to the strategic vision of an organization. But that the strategy of course is something which in itself is informed by the understanding of White Supremacy in its concrete conditions and forms and its actualized consciousness. The ISO has a strategy for building a multi-racial antiracist movement, but quite clearly as informed by their sense of what that means (basically race in its own right being just “identity politics”) that is not a strategy worth taking up.
Of course, same for the PLP and most other class reductionist groups. But it is of course also true for the post-modernist Leftists who proceed to reduce everything down to “identity.” Without being aware they accept the basic logic of multi-cultural liberalism and feel the only necessary political solution is tolerance of the other. So class struggle to eliminate the class system is reduced to “classism,” where we need only understand our priviledge and be conscious not to alienate the proles.
But finally on the question of white anti-racists being “dishonest” etc. I never said that everyone is being such, but we can’t speak here without reducing this into vulgar questions of particularities that may or may not be the case. I rather not make foolish statements such as “in the end, we’re all racists” or that a white person can get beyond all prejudices and be beyond race. But this is not just limited to just white people, it extends to asians, latinos, and everyone else (including Black people). What is quite frankly an anti-racist consciousness?
It isn’t for me a negation of all the racist contradictions a person may or may not have. It is the genuine position in my opinion of what I’ll just a sort of “revolutionary death drive.” This is not a use of a Freudian-Lacanian term, but here I mean a simple extension of the logic of Cabral on revolutionary suicide. The true position I think of a revolutionary is the understanding that he himself is an ideological subject, the very place of being a “white” person is forged not essentialized. So here it is a view of the coordinates of Ideology, then the revolutionary position must be consistent with a certain necessary drive towards an overcoming of that, a literal end to your ideological substance. I think this is what the Communist project ultimately aims for. A similar discussion we can really think about here is the question of class consciousness, whether it is necessary just to understand the self as a “worker” or to understand the totality of society as it is.
ShineThePath said
John Steele points out something very interesting.
I just like to point out an interesting video that can be seen on youtube that had to deal with the controversy over muslim women sitting behind Obama at an event.
ShineThePath said
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iNhpjpOj_QM
here was the link, I thought I added it before