The usefulness of whiteness and the paradox of blackness

Those who think of themselves and others who look like them as "white" get upset when they are told that they are not white. 

They are indeed aware of the usefulness of the concept they use to define themselves. Losing it means losing a form of power.

The proponents of whiteness get very upset when a person who "should" behave as "white" chooses not to do so *. They know it is a danger posed to the artificial unity of the "white race". 

In many cases, they are not even aware of any concept behind the word. They were taught to think of it as "skin color", which it is not. It is absolutely not the expression of nature but rather of ideology and culture. 

As the societies they live in have taught them to believe that "whiteness" is natural, it is extremely destabilizing for them to be reminded or told that "white" is a racist notion. (It is just as destabilizing to learn that Christopher Columbus was an invader and a slaver).

"Whiteness" is a belief that holds societies together, that would otherwise explode due to their extreme social violence. In the US, the epitome of such societies, violence is expressed through the hypocritical reference to the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution to justify the "right" to own and use a gun. 

In France, where things are usually expressed in a more subtle way, it is the reference to the Enlighment ("Les Lumières", literally, "the Lights") that keeps the French united behind another type of hypocrisy. Most French people actually believe in the superiority of their "mode of thinking" and their "right" to impose "Human Rights" (les Droits de l'Homme) which the Enlighment unilaterally designed as "universal". 



"Blackness", as a mirroring concept to whiteness, appears in societies where "whiteness" is the dominant ideology. The concept of blackness thus is a tool that dark-skinned people (mostly Africans and descendants of Africans, but also others) find themselves having to use to counteract the ideology of whiteness and its expressions in the system of white supremacy. 

Blackness is no more natural than whiteness is. But as long as whiteness is enforced as a coercitive concept, blackness will exist as a concept that forces itself on people who are the first targets and victims of white supremacy. 

It appears as a uniting conceptual tool, but is still paradoxically imposed by the opposite concept of whiteness. It may appear as a concept people choose, but there is no choice in being designed or labelling oneself as "black". It actually means that white supremacy manages to impose even the concepts its victims use to defend themselves. 

The vicious circle of racial thinking proves to be extremely powerful. Unless people decide that they are going to get rid off it altogether (refrain from using its words), they will remain stuck in a type of thinking that reinforces racism instead of destroying it. This is valid for people labeled as "whites" as well as "black" (and more rarely as "yellow" or "red"). One cannot be "anti-racist" if one defines oneself with the words of "race".

* one example of such a person in French society is Pr Louis Sala-Molins, who has written several books pertaining to the racist laws that were based on the theory of race. A French historian, Alain-Gérard Slama, said this about Pr Sala-Molins: "with a stupefying ignorance Sala-Molins accuses the western, white species he belongs to". As Pr Sala-Molins comments: "All is clear".

"Black slaves"

They were not "slaves". They were Africans, lived on the African continent, were deported by Europeans -mostly- to the Americas, but also to Europe and other places.

There were "slaves" only in the mind of the slavers. It wasn't their nature, it wasn't their culture.


They were not "black". Their skin was dark, they defined and designated themselves and each other in various and different manners, which didn't have much to do with physical appearance, or skin color.


They were "black" only in the mind of those who designated themselves and others (but not all, depending on the benefit they got from it) who looked like them as "whites".

They were not "slaves" or "black" when they left their house, their country, their people, their family.

They were men and women, children and parents.


History books must stop spreading that idea that they were slaves while they are referring to free Africans.

Children must not learn that Africans were supposedly "black slaves" by "nature" or by "culture".

In the same way as today Africans who migrate to Europe are deemed "clandestine" even before they have left the shores of Africa or their village or city. They are not "clandestine" and don't want to be.

Racist ignominy must be denounced and must cease. It has been going on for too long.

Why does it bother you when people call you...

black / white / yellow / red ?

You were never asked that question ?

I was.


So, I reply with an other question: "Why doesn't it bother you ?"

Why doesn't it bother you to be defined racially ?
Why doesn't it bother you, to be applied a color that isn't even a skin color, to be reduced to "that", to that racial object ?

Why doesn't it bother you to be taken away from your own self and reified ?

Why doesn't it bother you to be "proud of your race" ?

Because, it doesn't bother me at all, not at all, not to belong to a race.

Not at all.

Who said I must be racially defined ?
Who said it is an obligation ?

Is it not racists ?
First those that created races. Then those that inserted them in the laws. Then those that exploited them. Then those that expressed their race pride. Then those that continue to use those terms without even knowing what they are referring to.

Denying your race. Renier votre race.

An amazing, extraordinay (really) and powerful speech by Walter Mosley. An appeal to "white people" to deny their "race" as a start to the deconstruction of racism.

Un discours extraordinaire (vraiment pas ordinaire) et puissant de Walter Mosley, auteur américain. Un appel aux "blancs" à renier leur "race" comme début de la fin du racisme...

Walter Mosley, Brooklyn Academy of Music, January 2011.

More reflections on Makode Linde's cake

‎"Makode made the Culture Minister Liljeroth and her spectators laugh while cutting the cake, instead of showing empathy to the theme of FGM."

Did he ? Or did THEY laugh ? That is the problem. I asked him on his FB if there had been people leaving the room or not even entering it at all as a gesture of refusal to participate in the "performance". He replied that there had been all kinds of reactions, including one he said he "couldn't" describe (?). Now I can't see my post on his wall anymore.

"the black race that he also genetically belongs to".
He would if "race" had a genetic basis. It is dangerous to criticize pieces that have a racist aspect and at the same time not be careful about one's own representations...

But.... somehow I *think* (that's where my analysis of this has led me so far) that Makode's goal was not FGM, but rather to show "us" (and them ?) that racists are racists, ie that their racism makes them totally insensitive to its effects.

The "performance" appears like a "mise en abîme" (damn I don't know how to translate that) of the effects of racism, with a kind of cascading layering of reactions that reflect the multiplicity of possibilities, depending on one's background and knowledge. This is why the author of this article makes a difference between the African and the African-American reactions and also finds reasons to evoke Linde's own background.
The problem being, if Linde's goal was indeed to provoke that snapshot exposing the Whites' continuing racism, that he indeed did nothing "against" FGM.

But at the same time, it may have been a way of saying, "this is none of your business, let the Africans take care of it, you have put your nose in their business (their private parts) long enough, to the point of literally eating them up, and this has made things worse for them, not better, last time I noticed."

If that's what he has done, then it is interesting, but do they understand it ? That's the problem. But it is the problem with racism as a whole.
How do you make a racist aware of his/her racism ? Observers can see it, but the actor doesn't. That's exactly what that performance did, right ? A picture of that scene. So will the actors manage to step back to the observers' stance and see themselves being racist ?

The Imposture of the Caucasian

How many people from the USA and the UK have ever traveled to the Caucasus ?

Oh, so few ? How come ? They're supposed to be Caucasians, right ? Why not go visit their ancestors' place ?

Oh, well, then maybe they know. They know that their ancestors actually have nothing to do with the Caucasus.

They know that the "Caucasian" is just another racist imposture, a lie and a voluntary confusion of facts.

The Caucasians were a people of warriors and horsemen, they have a recent history of fighting the northern invader, Russia. That's another "white" people, isn't it ? With plenty of racists there who despise the people of the Caucasus (the real Caucasians) and treat them like n...s... Yes !

The Caucasian women used to be the slaves that are pictured in the wonderful Harem paintings of the 18th century of the Ottoman Empire and the prostitutes that pleased the European man in the brothels of the Mediterranean in the same century.

In one the ideological twists that is the secret of racism, they were "admired" (as whores are) for the "brightness" of their skin and the "blush" on their cheeks. That's maybe why the racists thought "Caucasian" would be a good reference for "whiteness" (I still have to dig into that). Out of pure fantasy.

Most Caucasians are also Muslims (like the Chechens) or worship other deities, like the Sun. But that, Americans don't know. They allow the law to call them Caucasians. Without even knowing what it refers to.

That is a very strange way to build one's identity.

A racist cake by Makode Linde

This "thing", if not disgust, might bring discussion among people who know what they are talking about. 

That is the problem. What about those, (like the people in the room) who don't know a thing ?

Here is my take on this... 

It seems to me that Africans have been objectified enough so that one doesn't have to add another layer of it (in the form of cake and distasteful charcoal chocolate glazing). 

This is obviously not offensive to the "whites" in the room, they are obviously not laughing out of "embarrassment".

If only they could leave Sarah Baartman alone... Even after 150 years, they won't let her soul rest.

Also, it is yet another misconception from the west (even though the artist is "black") to think that excision is practiced only in Africa (as if it was something "reserved" for the black woman's body). It is also practiced in other countries. The art piece and artist may have as a goal to denounce excision, but in the end the accused will be the “black” man/ African / Muslim man (as always).

His performance deliberately concentrates racist representations... To "provoke", they say.

Sarah Baartman is the archetype of the African women being used, exploited, dissected, "eaten" up by white society at "tea time", for entertainment.

It is quite obvious, and if it is not, then it is part of the analysis of that art object... there obviously are references to other objects, and in that very case, the "Afromantics" the artist refers to cannot be without the very "character" of Sarah Baartman... the "invented" African woman at the period during which race-ism became racism and romanticism was at its peak. She was not representative of the average African woman and yet she became “her” in the eyes of Europeans.

Cuvier (a French naturalist) and others had her put in different jars, in particular her genitalia. As you preserve vegetables. Or herbs. Or medicine. As if they hoped that somehow they could later on get some kind of aphrodisiac out of it. It was already gravitating around the "private" (how private, right ?!) parts of the African woman.

It is still. To "preserve" it -they say-, again (African female genitals are very precious to the white man it seems). But now they are invited to eat it and they do...

The confusion and disturbance around this piece of "art" comes from the confusion it contains in itself.

It certainly hasn't achieve anything as far as female genital mutilation or racism. As yet.

Let's just hope discussions around it will bring up real arguments, discussions and elements of history that will not be dismissed with a "no repentance" 

instead of will to learn and take responsibility in the present.


I am not sure that most light-skinned people "can" (that is have enough knowledge and will, because "white" societies haven't taught them how to) really grasp what behind this. It is not going to be "a piece of cake", for sure, to turn around centuries of racist ideology with a such a piece of cake.

Racial equality ?

Race IS the tool of separation, alienation, classification.

How can it be the epithet of equality ?

This is an un-achievable goal because it was never meant to be.

Race was meant to be a paradigm of in-equality.

Either there is race and inequality,

or

there is no race and equality.

Humanity. In all its diversity.

White, black, yellow, red

Why bother with the words the racists used ? 

White, black, yellow, red. 

You can turn them around as much as you want. They were boxes in which they put themselves and others. 

So that we forgot our common humanity. 

They chose them because they had a meaning that dated back to the European Middle Ages.

They were never meant to define "WHO" we are but "WHAT" we are supposed to be in THEIR minds. 

"WHAT" because these were first LIES and then LEGAL DEFINITIONS. In the Virginia laws of the late 1660s that DECIDED Africans were "blacks" and *therefore* slaves for generations and in the French "Le Code Noir" which stated the exact same thing. 
And it still works 300 years later, in our minds.

Now, I can understand that African-Americans (which I think is a more accurate political description) would continue to call themselves "black" as a way to "possess" the definition that those who called themselves "whites" imposed on them. 

But it doesn't change the fact that these words designate races and that races are the fundamentals of racism...

Racial justice ?

race

just

Can race be just ?

Can justice be racial ?

Race was invented to support injustice.

The injustice of the exploitation of "others" by Europeans was justified by race.

How can justice be racial ?

How can race be just ?

just

race ?

Trayvon Martin, race and bullying in the USA

The fact that George Zimmermann hasn't been tried, not even arrested, 
that millions of people have protested it, 
that some portions of the American population are after Trayvon Martin's memory 
instead of after Zimmermann's wrongdoings and calling for the law to be applied says a lot about the state of things in the USA.


It is what we call "un dialogue de sourds" in French and looks very much like what happens in "bullying": the victim becomes the accused. 


Most African-Americans find it increasingly difficult to exchange with most European Americans because the latter never listen to the former.


They never listen because their thinking has been formatted so that they can't hear what "Blacks" say and have to say. 
They have been formatted to despise anything coming from their dark-skinned fellow-citizens. They are so sure of themselves that they accept even the most hideous lies from the most hideously racist portions of American society.


Zimmermann's defense has started as lies, continues in the form of lies, and will hopefully not end up as lies, because it would mean that the country and its laws have completely failed the victim. It would mean that they have helped the murderer look like a victim. That they have been manipulated into crushing the victim.

Is America really fighting against bullying ? Because this is bullying:

I beat you, I killed you, but you were looking for it, you were the one guilty of something, you were not trustworthy, and I will move the spotlight from me to you. 

You will be accused and you will have to defend yourself, even if you're already dead. 

You will even be accused of defending yourself. 

People will start losing trust in you. They won't be as confident anymore in the belief they had that you were an innocent child. 

They will start thinking maybe there was a reason ? Maybe HE did something. 

That is how Narcissistic Personality Disorder works. 

That is how individuals with a narcissistic personality disorder CRUSH their victims even after they are dead (often they have pushed them to suicide, and they kill them another time by destroying their personality in other people's eyes). 

What is a racist if not an extremely deranged person with an extremely high narcissistic image of him/herself ? 
Spreading destruction, self-hatred and lack of confidence around him/herself.

"Anti-white racism"

"Anti-white racism" is an oxymoron.

Anti-white racism makes no sense.

In our societies (Europe, Americas, Africa), since it was invented, racism has always been a synonym of white supremacy.

Europeans invented the idea of race for that very purpose.

To talk about "anti-white racism" can have a meaning only in situations where individuals of other "races" than "white" exert a limited power over a limited space.

In other words, as long as we haven't gotten rid of the domination of "the white man", we will be stuck with racism as it was meant to be by those same "whites".

To be white, one has to adopt the dominant state of mind, to be black, one has to accept to adopt the word, and the attached history and meaning.

It is everyone's right, and even duty, to reject this system of thought, this defining and identifying system. No one is forced to accept, though in some societies, "race" is so strongly and institutionally enforced, that it becomes difficult and complicated to dismiss it.

One can come closer to others when one witnesses rejection. "Gregarious instinct" or obvious rejection often stem from subsequent and repeated rejection that pushes people to renounce trying to approach others, not from "anti-white racism". 

Otherwise, there is pure and simple stupidity. And that is difficult to overcome...

Time flies...

Hi visitors, 
time flies... and I haven't been able to work on the ten or so posts that I have started. But it will come. Gush all at once...
Here are the themes I am working on: "colors or races ?", "racism and/or hatred", "what is racism ?", "the Mysteries of Egypt", "Disney and racism", "racism or not ?"


Bonjour chers visiteurs et visiteuses, 
le temps passe tellement vite... Je n'ai pas trouvé le temps de travailler sur les dix ou plus articles que j'ai commencé. Ils vont tous arriver... en même temps.
Voici les thèmes que je prépare: "couleurs ou races ?", "racisme et/ou haine ?" "le racisme, c'est quoi ?", "Les Mystères de l'Egypte", "Disney et le racisme", "racisme ou pas ?"

Dean Atta's Nobody's Nigger traduction en français

Traduit par moi, traduction personnelle, non officielle. 

Postée après autorisation de Dean Atta. 

I Am Nobody's Nigger. (Je ne suis pas ton Négro)

Ne m'appelle pas Négro.

Rappers when you use the word "nigger" remember that's one of the last words Stephen Lawrence* heard, so don't tell me it's a reclaimed word.

Rappeurs, quand vous utilisez le mot “négro”, souvenez-vous que c'est le dernier mot que Stephen Lawrence a entendu, alors ne me dites pas que c'est un mot qui vous appartient.

I am nobody's nigger

Ne m'appelez pas négro

So please, let my ancestors rest in peace

S'il vous plaît, laissez mes ancêtres reposer en paix

Not turn in their graves in Jamaica plantations

Ils vont se retourner dans leurs tombes des plantations de Jamaïque

Or the watery graves of the slave trade

Ou dans les fosses remplies d'eau du Commerce triangulaire

Thrown overboard into middle passage

Jetés par dessus bord pendant la traversée

Just for insurance claims

Pour réduire les frais d'assurance

They were chained up on a boat

Enchaînés sur un navire

As many as they could manage and stay afloat

Autant qu'on pouvait y charger sans couler

Stripped of dignity and all hope

On leur avait arraché leur dignité et enlevé tout espoir

Awaiting their masters and European names

On allait leur donner des noms européens

But the sick and the injured were dead weight to toss

Mais les malades et les blessés, c'était du poids mort

And Lloyds of London would cover that cost.

Et la compagnie Lloyds** de Londres ne couvrirait pas ce coût-là.

I am nobody's nigger

Ne m'appelez pas négro

So you can tell Weezy and Drake

Vous pouvez dire à Weezy et Drake

That they made a mistake

Qu'ils se sont trompés

I am nobody's nigger now

Tu as compris ? Ne m'appelle pas négro

So you can tell Kanye and Jigga

Tu peux dire à Kanye et Jigga

I am not a nigger... in Paris

M'appelle pas négro... à Paris

I'm not a nigger in London

M'appelle pas négro à Londres

I'm not a nigger in New York

M'appelle pas négro à New York

I'm not a nigger in Kingston

M'appelle pas négro à Kinsgton

I'm not a nigger in Accra

M'appelle pas négro à Accra

Or a nigger with attitude in Compton

M'appelle pas négro stylé à Compton

Cos "I don't wanna be called yo nigga"

Parce que “je ne veux pas qu'on m'appelle “hé négro””***

How were you raised on Public Enemy

Comment as-tu pu grandir en écoutant Public Enemy

And still became your own worst enemy?

Et quand même devenir ton pire ennemi ?

You killed Hip Hop and resurrected headless zombies

T'as tué le Hip Hop et fait ressurgir des zombies sans tête

That can't think for themselves or see where they're going

Et sans cerveau et qui vont droit dans le mur

Or quench the blood lust because there's no blood flowing

Qui ne peuvent assouvir leur soif de sang parce que la vie est partie

In their hearts, just in the streets

De leurs coeurs, juste dans la rue

They don't give a damn as long as they eating

Ils s'en foutent tant qu'ils ont quelque chose à manger

Their hearts ain't beating, they're cold as ice (bling)

Leurs coeurs ne battent pas, ils sont froids comme la glace (bling)

Because they would put money over everything

Parce qu'il placent l'argent avant tout autre chose

Money over self respect or self esteem

L'argent avant le respect de soi et leur amour-propre

Or empowering the youth to follow their dreams

Oublient de s'occuper des jeunes qui ont encore des rêves

Stacking paper cos it's greater than love it seems

Ils entassent les billets, on dirait que c'est plus fort que l'amour

Call me "nigger" cos you're scared of what "brother" means

Appelle-moi “négro” parce que tu as peur de ce que “frère” veut dire

To know that we share something unspeakable

De savoir qu'on partage quelque chose d'indicible

To know that as high as we rise we are not seen as equal

De savoir qu'aussi haut qu'on parvienne, on n'est toujours pas perçu comme égal

To know that racism is institutional thinking

De savoir que le racisme, c'est de la pensée institutionnelle

And that "nigger" is the last word you heard before a lynching.

Et que “négro”, c'est le dernier mot que tu as entendu avant d'être lynché.

Released by: Dean Atta

Release/catalogue number: TCABD1247656

Release date: Jan 20, 2012

ISRC: 85-970-75-42630

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence

** Lloyds est une compagnie d'assurance anglaise créée en 1688 comme beaucoup d'autres grande compagnie européennes, banques incluses, qui ont prospérées grâce à la traite transatlantique et l'esclavage aux Amériques.

*** “I don't wanna be called no nigga” est une chanson du groupe de hip hop Public Enemy.

Check this out !

A brilliant Open Letter to the Prime Minister of GB.

Here