I will briefly explore two issues from the class readings in this reflection: the idea of the United States being a “state of denial” (2008, p. 52) from Mills’ “Racial Liberalism” paper and how this idea functions well in analysis combined with Mile’s (1989) concept of appeals to race and nation in the process of Othering and racialization. I want to suggest, briefly, that the processes that facilitate the state of denial and allow signification in the U.S., steeped in and bolstered by notions of race and nation, predicated on denial of fundamental racial injustice, are not just central to racial injustice but to social injustice and how it is used in general in the United States and other Western “democracies”.
Image is a central facet of political life. In the United States, those who hold public office maintain a public image of “respectability” and “family values,” etc. The images that these politicians portray are usually far from the real person inhabiting the suit and kitsch. The public must deny this as the norm when politicians get into scandals. I have given this brief example to demonstrate the fundamental role of denial in Western politics. Its is not surprising, then, that one may implicate denial in the processes of racial injustice, and appeals to nationalism to justify or avoid blame for racial injustice.
Racial injustice is one of the most pervasive and systemic of injustices committed in the United States, and the experience of governing a racialized state have provided a virtual user’s guide for committing social injustice in general. Take for example, a press conference being held by a politician. The conference is supposed to be a public forum. The politician, being a public servant, is accountable to his constituents. A concerned citizen, or maybe an activist, who has been denied the ear of the politician stands up and demands that her questions be answered. The politician looks on approvingly when instead of having her demand honoured, is forcefully escorted out by police or security and labeled as an Other. The media ask their pre-approved questions at the end and it is business as usual. The politician merely has to deny the problem exists and the system ensures it goes away.
How does this example highlight the point I am trying to make? In the post 9/11 world, one not need be even racialized to face systemic injustice (although I am not suggesting that whites still hold greater privilege); all one must do is be considered a threat to “security” and the contemporary nationalism will construct one as an Other and said person will be marginalized or punished accordingly. This process is, of course, worse for those who are racially Othered, but the basis of subjugation in the United States is one which the template arises from the experience of racializing and oppressing Blacks and Native Americans for hundreds of years.
The “state of denial” that Mill’s makes mention of as a sort of catch phrase for the way in which those who claim to be liberal and not to be racist are actually making use of a masked racism built on a system of denying the past and therefore the present is predicated on the perceived benevolence of race and nation in the United States. It sets the stage for the projection of desirable values while at the same time participating in various forms of Othering and oppression which are easily and unquestionably (in most cases) denied in a appeal to those very values. The question I am left asking when putting these concepts together is: If my suggestion or a correlation would indeed stand up to empirical testing, in what other ways are the systemic oppression of dissidence and racialized groups linked, and are the links more pervasive in a systemic sense than one might otherwise think? Furthermore, if the template for many other types of oppression and the subsequent denial of this, while retaining the exact opposite image (i.e. colourblind racism) then would the task of those who wish to eradicate other problems first need to tackle those of a racial nature first?
References
Miles, R. (1989). Racism pp. 69-98, London & New York: Routledge.
Mills, C. W. (2008). “Racial Liberalism,” PMLA 123, pp. 1380-1397.
No comments:
Post a Comment