There is always a moment of hesitation as a Black student when you find out that a particular lesson will be focused on Black histories (it almost always narrowly centres on slavery in the United States, along with a striped-down account of important events leading up to and during 1960s civil rights movements) or, that an entire course will focus on these same histories but typically in more depth and scope.
For me, these lessons in elementary/secondary school often followed a singular narrative:
- Teacher begins to speak about slavery (specifically Transatlantic chattel slavery in the U.S.)
- White students exchanged hushed commentary to one another, unabashedly stare and quickly glance at the one or two black students in the class
- Teacher looks to Black students to speak about their opinions or offer a "fresh" perspective
- Black students have nothing to say. Too much has already been said.
In university, the narrative seems to shift -only slightly- but still noticeably different from elementary
- Teacher begins a discussion about Black histories (sometimes broad, sometimes limited)
- White students do not stare, do not look around, eyes remained fixed. They are silent.
- Teacher will pause for student intervention/commentary of any sort. They do not push.
- Black students have something to say. Often, nothing is said because too much has already been said but sometimes, not enough has been said.
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Talking and Hearing about Whiteness is not a new concept for me.
Listening to someone talk about Whiteness is no different.
However, talking about Blackness is new.
And I mean really talking about Blackness.
Using the words and the theories and the frameworks and the passion and the affect of Blackness to talk about Blackness is new.
Getting use to the idea that the histories that are told to you by family members or discovered on your own while scavenging the depths of libraries on late summer nights, are centred and privileged not merely for a single week in an entire unit but for an entire course is new. And as such, it takes getting use to.
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Hearing a sound
or a group of sounds
or a group of cries and celebrations is not new, at least not anymore.
Those sounds were often muffled but they are clear now.
They ring in my ears and it's hard to ignore them.
I hear them and I feel compelled to speak or cry.
I've wondered how no one else seemed to hear them.
My first impressions: the sound is getting louder and maybe now, all will stop and listen.
What might it mean to listen, and to listen closely, to that which you have trained yourself not to hear, to that which you have been trained not to hear? It will be a long time before we have listened enough (and of course that time can never come). In the listening and the moving-with that comes with emergent attunement, there is action, and, as Angela Davis might say, revolution. This revolution involves something very different from inclusion or assimilation, as she said so beautifully today. It involves making a new world, a world that needs to know differently, and with that knowing, to listen, and thereby to live, in new ways.
ReplyDeleteFugitivity is immanent to the thing but is manifest transversally
BY FRED MOTEN
1.
between the object and the floor
the couch is a pedestal and a shawl
and just woke up her hair. she never
ever leaves the floating other house
but through some stories they call.
later that was her name the collaborator
of things shine in the picture. hand
flew off her early hair though held
by flowers. later her name was grete.
her hair feels angles by flowers that
before her name was shori the
penetrator in the history of no décor.
the station agent intimate with tight
spaces refuse to hit back or be carried.
later her name was danielle goldman
and his serene highness thierry henry.
her head is cut off by a shadow of primary
folded streets she harrass with enjoyment.
later her name is piet. she come from cubie
with the whole club economy in her hand.
when she reclines her head is lifted
by a turn, someone’s arm they left there.
later her name was elouise. watch her
move into the story she still move
2.
and tear shit up. always a pleasure the banned
deep brown of faces in the otherwise
whack. the cruel disposed won’t stand
still. apparatus tear shit up and
always. you see they can’t get off when
they get off. some stateless folks
spurn the pleasure they are driven
to be and strive against. man, hit me again.
Fred Moten, “Fugitivity is immanent to the thing but is manifest transversally” from hughson’s tavern. Copyright © 2008 by Fred Moten. Reprinted by permission of Leon Works.
https://media.poetryfoundation.org/uploads/media/default/0001/07/2d657db9c539d161af8cd62002b1cc660fb92575.mp3
ReplyDelete(this is direct audio link to the recording of Moten reading the text : )
Hi Kelann
ReplyDeleteI understand what you're saying.
Maybe we can talk about it before the class starts? Say at 12:30pm?
Let me know
Ronald
Hi Ronald, I'm so sorry I didn't respond to your reply. I didn't see it until a few days ago and as you might have noticed I wasn't present during last week's class. I don't know if I'll able to meet you before class at 12:30 tomorrow, but I should be around EV for 12:45 or so. Perhaps we could speak then or during break? thanks
Delete