This is an experimental post with some thoughts that are floating around in my mind.
I'm trying to get into my dissertation grind mode. I frequently find myself in bookstores and online looking for titles that might possibly help me with my endeavors. As I was glancing through my latest search of books, the term "Post Hip Hop" came up. I turned my head slightly sideways and said, "que?"
I went ahead and ordered the book and have yet to receive it. First thought that immediately came to mind while looking at the title: "what the hell is 'Post Hip-Hop?'" My second question: "why?"
I hope you can feel me on this one, folks. We are in the post "whatever-the-hell-you-want-here-to-make-it sexy" age. Postracialism, Postindustrialism, post Hip Hop-ism, Post....Americanism? I have yet to wrap my mind around this concept for a couple of reasons:
1.) The push to live in a post society overlooks the need to identify the experiences, people, and events within America that assisted in its construction. This band-aid approach to dealing with those issues and concerns that cloud utopic dreams of equality also dismiss the critical traumatic moments that frame and influence ethnic identity in American society. Which leads me to my next thought: Post-ism for who? It seems that these campaigns address the erasure of ethnic identity and do not attempt to deconstruct white discourse and normalcy. In other words, it's the black and brown folks that need to dismiss race as an indicator of identity and lived experience.
Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist (1998) has a brilliant scene that challenges these notions of racial privilege, obliviousness, and identity performance. African American elevator inspector Pompeii and his white colleagues are at the company's annual Christmas Party. A minstrel show ensues and Pompeii laughs the loudest and hardest, painfully neglecting the ignorance being performed in front of him. One way to approach this scene is to think of it as "the quiet negro is the safe negro" complex. Pompeii's non-reaction indicates a numbness not only to his (lack of) blackness but also his dismissed masculinity. He is safe and no longer in need of attention because he simply accepts his position (both racially and within the company's hierarchy). Pompeii's participation in the minstrel show can be seen as a survival move - both to protect his life from his drunken white companions and to save his job so that he can continue to provide for his family. Spike Lee's Bamboozled (let's be real, the MAJORITY of Lee's catalog) address similar themes of hushed subordination and its consequences on self-identity and blackness.
2) These attempts are rushed. Now, one of the post-movements that makes complete sense is Post-colonialism because it reflects the struggle and need to address a previously embattled people and the residue influences of their (often European) oppressors on social-cultural interaction. Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Chinua Achebe, and more recently Vijay Prashad acknowledge and explore the racial divide often motivated by colonial rule.
In American society, our celebration of reaching post-dom is a trend, a fad that is often embodied in distinct "moments" of racial harmony and bliss (or such intentions). Take, for example, the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s. With the ruling of racial segregation as unconstitutional, legislation was put into place for incorporation into American social practice to ban the racial inferiority complex. What was not taken into consideration was the fact that social practice does not change overnight. Racial attitude and interpretation is so deeply embedded into our fiber that racial profiling is second nature. The election of President Barack Obama also seems to coincide with the initiation of postracial America. Right. We do not simply have another president. This time we have a president who is so scrutinized that he has to hide any brotha tendencies lol.
To play that girl, I'll take the bait and entertain the idea that we are in a post-racial America. What I will NOT accept, however, is that we are colorblind. As I stated in a previous post Prashad's astute observations that American society refuses to face color in an effort to present a monolithic American society and, perhaps more importantly, a monolithic ethnic American community, will prove detrimental to our progression as a nation.
Instead of becoming a "clear" community with no indications of race, wouldn't a more proper definition of post-racial be the acknowledgement of ethnic identity sans the bias behind those associations?
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Beautifully constructed "post". I personally abhorred post-isms because they operate on blindness (color, race, religious, sex, gender, etc.). I follow Ralph Ellison, who advocates speaking to experiences not ill-defined and overly simplistic social categories. He doesn't wish to restrict the telling of the African American story, for example, or completely eliminate the values developed from racially-specific experiences. Instead, "the values of my own people are neither 'white' nor 'black,' they are American," which he identifies as a multi-dimensional political and cultural identity. (Shadow and Act, 270) Here, we cannot ignore how social categories influence what it means to see and be seen as an American or a part of humanity. If you are interested in post-isms, you might like Ralina Joseph's 2009 essay “Tyra Banks Is Fat”: Reading (Post-)Racism and (Post-)Feminism in the New Millennium.
ReplyDeleteTo channel Kwame Anthony Appiah for a moment, do all these "posts" mean the same thing? (i.e."Is Post- in Postmodern the Post- in Postcolonial?") There's a semantic difference between "post" as "after", a temporal marker, and "post" as a space clearing, a discursive move. No doubt, even the space-clearing "post" itself could be liable for the same kinds of epistemological violence you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteI agree that "postcolonial" makes a lot more sense than post-racial or the new post- flavor-of-the-month. Still, it's troubled too. Sure, that particular kind of colonization is over but decolonization itself is a fraught process, and how postcolonial can one's country be if a bourgeois elite has simply supplanted the colonizer and left the structures and institutions of colonialism intact?
PS: I think your observations here are right on: "Which leads me to my next thought: Post-ism for who? It seems that these campaigns address the erasure of ethnic identity and do not attempt to deconstruct white discourse and normalcy. In other words, it's the black and brown folks that need to dismiss race as an indicator of identity and lived experience."
ReplyDeleteAnd it's inevitably someone from a position of privilege that's making the decision that it's time to be "post".
This is a brilliant analysis on the "post-isms" of the present age. I also believe that the idea of a post-racial America was erected to cover up the wrongs of a covertly racist America. To claim to be post-racial is to eradicate race altogether and when this has been done racism can no longer be cited as a motivation for one's crimes against humanity. Its a clever but empty construction of our propaganda system. I also was intrigued that you mentioned Frantz Fanon. I am currently reading his text titled "Black Skin, White Masks". It's deeply revealing. I also wanted to know if you were familiar with the work of James Cone. He also has much to say about Black identity in contemporary America and its meaning in a largely Anglo-American social construct.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis is spot on. I pondered something similar not too long ago about the so-called Post- Racial America, which I don't think exists. I think the use of the prefix "Post" is commonly attached to concepts that are taboo. It suggests that we've moved beyond something. But when attached to terms like race, hip hop and colonialism, I beg to differ. We'd like to distance ourselves from social injustices associated with colonization and racism, but we have yet to do the work. A Black president does not mean that we are beyond racism. In fact, it is more pronounced than it has been in the past decade.
ReplyDeleteI am still grappling with the term "post- hip hop" for a number of reasons, but I will give it a chance. I was first introduced to this concept in Molefi K. Asente Jr.'s book, It's Bigger than Hip Hop: The Rise of The Post- Hip- Hop Generation. I haven't quite wrapped my mind around this concept but it sort of feels like it references a sort of evolved stance and a critique of hip hop culture that places me (a hip hop head) in a subordinate space. But I digress.
The point is that this concept of "post" anything often infers some sort of evolution that in the case of race and colonialism have yet to be adequately addressed. Arizona, racialized critiques of Obama, and attacks on race-based programming suggests that this has not occurred. Likewise, the term post-hip-hop suggests that hip hop (a culture, not just a generation) no longer speaks to the issues and experiences of this generation. One would have to truly understand the culture to say that, thus I have to push back a bit on that idea.
Anyway, I appreciate your analysis and look forward to reading more. Good luck on your dissertation. I am at the same point in my studies and am struggling to get into a rhythm, Maybe I'll try to blog about it, because you certainly are on a roll.
I'm not academia savvy, but I presume the term post-racism was coined by white guilt. It's a euphimisim for the 200 years of slavery and the assination of black leaders. In my view there is nothing post-racial about race relations ;espcially, when African Americans are involved. The fabric of every black persons life will always be tainted with racism ;for example, using the criminal justice system as a suppression of young black males, poorlyfunded black public schools, anda black president whose if scrutinized through a microscope. Calling the unethical justice of African American post-racial is like blindfolding one's self to the deliberate wildfire. loved this post. Please read and comment on mine
ReplyDeleteThank you all! I'm still waiting on Asante's book. And all of you have really great points that I just can't argue against. Isn't it intriguing though that this is picking up such interest in discussions yet we cringe at the words "race and discrimination?" Bandaid I said. Rip it on off! Humph. Post indeed. =)
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