tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343317959180128028.post1348001791886717336..comments2016-09-27T12:30:01.477-07:00Comments on Aint Studying You: Discovering Inhabited Lands: Black Studies Becomes Everybody's Businessaintstudyingyouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04822700387084584850noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343317959180128028.post-33020456422989098712011-08-01T11:39:23.603-07:002011-08-01T11:39:23.603-07:00BG! It's always nice to hear from you. First (...BG! It's always nice to hear from you. First (and most important), I have learned the dagger from your example and will continue to poach tricks from your successful blog. I steal from the best.<br /><br />To your question, it's hard for me to know precisely why this is happening. My sense is that once upon a time, jobs in African-American Studies seemed "reserved" for black scholars (from the US or, sometimes, elsewhere). The success of all the studies (ethnic, feminist, queer, etc) has had the effect of making it somewhat obligatory that everyone has to expect to be able to answer questions about gender, race, and sexuality -- or at least say why they aren't dealing with those topics. We know the conservative pushback against that -- from Newt Gingrich and Lynn Cheney's attacks on multiculturalism here in the US, to the Norwegian terrorist's attacks on literature professors and "queer theory." But what I'm discussing seems to be an in-fight among left-liberals. It seems to me that the impulse of some (say, Reynolds) is to try to get us to return to their vision of an interracial civil rights movement in the 60s -- before Black Power. (That would go with your first point of trying to "discredit early scholars who painted whites in an unforgiving light.") <br /><br />Others, in my view, want to make their position within Af-Am seem like a "natural" fit. I would call these the "mulatto" school -- to use Radano's phrase. If there is no such thing as black culture, if everything black is really a result of inter-racial engagements, then the white scholar in black studies is not out of place. While I have some sympathy with this position, I also agree with Toni Morrison who says, "For three hundred years black Americans insisted that “race” was no usefully distinguishing factor in human relationships. During those same three centuries every academic discipline, including theology, history, and natural science, insisted 'race' was the determining factor in human development. When blacks discovered they had shaped or become a culturally formed race, and that it had specific and revered difference, suddenly they were told there is no such thing as 'race,' biological or cultural, that matters and that genuinely intellectual exchange cannot accommodate it.... It always seemed to me that the people who invented the hierarchy of 'race' when it was convenient for them ought not to be the ones to explain it away, now that it does not suit their purposes for it to exist."<br /><br />Of course, the point of her essay was to talk about the unrecognized influence of the black presence in Western culture. So, perhaps the "mulatto" position is a bit of turnabout is fair play.<br /><br />In the end, I find that some white people can't stand not to be the center of attention. I know: it's petty. But I put the "some" in there!aintstudyingyouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04822700387084584850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7343317959180128028.post-83467082820138952552011-08-01T07:35:35.973-07:002011-08-01T07:35:35.973-07:00Assuming what you've observed is true, what do...Assuming what you've observed is true, what do you think is the overall motivation for this trend? Is it to discredit early scholars who perhaps painted whites in an unforgiving light? Is it just to stoke the fires of an easily controversial subject? Or did I miss the boat entirely?<br /><br />Also, don't for one second think I didn't notice your use of the dagger. Nicely done.Bengemin Grehehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18409408282258703954noreply@blogger.com