The Critical Witness

"A white college student from a private college goes into a poor neighborhood and volunteers four..."

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:09:37 +0100

“A white college student from a private college goes into a poor neighborhood and volunteers four hours a week and that’s considered exemplary. [Whereas] a poor kid who lives in that community and takes care of all the kids in that neighborhood four hours every day is not seen as a volunteer.”

- Dr. Patricia Hill Collins quoting Public Allies CEO Paul Schmitz in her talk Answering the Call to Community Service. (via sexartandpolitics)

A microcosm of one of the fundamental issues with the non-profit industrial complex.

(via myflagisblackandred)

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Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:18:26 +0100

"Consciousness of racism becomes understood as a kind of false consciousness, as consciousness of..."

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:16:53 +0100

“Consciousness of racism becomes understood as a kind of false consciousness, as consciousness of that which is no longer. Racism is framed as a memory that if it were kept alive would just leave us exhausted. The task of citizenship becomes one of conversion: if racism is preserved only in our memory and consciousness, then racism would “go away” if only we too would declare it gone. The narrative implicit here is not that we “invent racism,” but that we preserve its power to govern social life by not getting over it. The moral task is thus “to get over it,” as if when you are over it, it is gone.”

- Feminist Killjoys (And Other Willful Subjects) - Sara Ahmed

Today I met Sara Ahmed, heard her speak about willful subjects, then we had drinks and dinner and it has been AMAZING. She is one the kindest and most generous people I’ve met in a long time. The downside of meeting someone like her is that now I cannot stop thinking. Hours of the most interesting conversation can do that.

(via redlightpolitics)

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Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:18:49 +0100

Submitted Post: Eric Clapton - Rassismus

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:36:00 +0100

Am 5. August 1976, auf einem Konzert in Birmingham, äußerte Eric Clapton sich auf rassistische Weise gegen die ansteigende Immigration in England. Offensichtlich unter Drogen- oder Alkoholeinfluss unterstütze Clapton den rechtspopulistischen Politiker Enoch Powell mit den Worten: „Ich denke Enoch hat Recht…wir sollten sie alle zurückschicken. Schmeißt die Kanaken raus! Haltet England weiß!“ Diese letzte Aussage war zu der Zeit eine Parole der British National Front. Clapton weiter:

“I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking [indecipherable] don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck’s sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he’s a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he’s our man, he’s on our side, he’ll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he’s on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!”

Dieser Vorfall, sowie einige offensichtlich pro-faschistische Aussagen von David Bowie etwa zur gleichen Zeit und die Nutzung von Nazisymbolen durch Sid Vicious und Siouxsie Sioux waren der Hauptauslöser für die Rock Against Racism Kampagne.

In einem Interview im Oktober 1976 erklärte Clapton: „Ich dachte eigentlich, es war ganz lustig. Ich weiß nicht viel über Politik. Ich weiß nicht ob es gut oder schlecht ist, wenn er [Powell] gewählt wird. Ich weiß noch nicht mal wer der momentane Premierminister ist. Ich weiß nicht, was in dieser Nacht über mich gekommen ist […] Ich dachte das alles wäre ein bisschen wie Monty Python. Da spielt diese Rockband auf der Bühne und der Sänger fängt an über Politik zu sprechen. Das ist so albern.“

In einem Interview im Jahr 2004 beschrieb Clapton Powell als „unerhört tapfer“ und gab an, „dass sich seine Gefühle dazu nicht geändert hätten“. In seiner Autobiographie 2007 schrieb er, dass er nie von „Rassenkonflikten“ betroffen gewesen sei und sie auch nie verstanden hätte. Es würde ihn nicht interessieren, wo ein Musiker herkomme oder welche Hautfarbe er habe. Trotzdem sei er zehn Jahre später als Rassist bezeichnet wurden (was keinen Sinn machen würde). Seit dem habe er gelernt, seine Meinung für sich zu behalten. Im Dezember 2007 wiederholte Clapton in einem Interview seine Unterstützung für Enoch Powell und bestritt, dass dessen Ansichten rassistisch wären.

Clapton tritt häufiger mit Schwarzen Musikern auf und scheint hier einen Unterschied zu machen, zwischen Schwarzen als Musiker (wodurch er natürlich schon vorhandene Rassismen benutzt) und Schwarzen die er als Bedrohung seiner Weißen Dominanzkultur sieht (und als Einwanderer in diese). Machen Schwarze nur Musik, scheint das in Ordnung, werden sie aber Teil seiner Gesellschaft ist das eine Bedrohung.

Was mich stört ist, dass das scheinbar nie öffentlich diskutiert wurde und kaum jemand davon zu wissen scheint. Kann ich also davon ausgehen, das es der Mehrheit nicht relevant erscheint? Sicherlich. Der Rassismus wird ausgeblendet und der Künstler hier von seiner menschenverachtenden Einstellung getrennt.
Und so wird auch argumentiert: Das sei eine “Entgleisung” im Drogenrausch, man würde ihm unrecht tun dies zu diskutieren, wie soll er rassistisch sein, wenn er mit B.B. King auftritt.

Mir geht es vor allem um Bewustseinsmachung. Wie kann es sein, dass jemand mit solchen Aussagen einfach so durchkommt?

Und das führt für mich letztlich zu der Frage: Darf ich Clapton noch toll finden? Kann ich die Kunst von dem Künstler trennen?

CW: Ich bin nicht Dein Gewissen. Du kannst letztlich toll finden was Du willst. Aber ich höre keine Musik von Rassisten und ich schaue keine Filme von Polanski und ich höre keine Musik von R. Kelly. Nicht weil ich die nicht vielleicht gut finden könnte, sondern weil ich Vergewaltiger und Pädophile nicht unterstütze, ganz einfach.

"We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is..."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:48:51 +0100

“We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic.”

- bell hooks (via revolutionnow)

FYI: Another Blackface "incident" in a German Theater! Please rant!

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:11:00 +0100

Hello everybody,

as some of you might have already seen on yo, is this racist? there is - once again I must say - another theater production in a Berlin based german theater company where they use Blackface instead of Black actors!

As if that wasn´t stupid enough, no the theater decided not to take any of the criticism seriously and/or maybe refrain from showing the play “I`m not Rappaport” by Herb Gardner, they first made fun of the criticism, second (and this is still going on) denied any racist implications by painting a white man black (it´s a “tradition”, you know…) and third complain about being labeled “racist” which is very mean, hurts their feelings and most importantly of course, we cannot prove the racism. Plus, the theater director said he is against racism and likes all people! But because stubborn narrow-minded anti-racist activists tend to be extremely dramatic and exaggerating with “accusing” random unreflected white people of racism - which is of course bullocks, since racism has been dismissed from Germany`s official agenda in dunno 1945?! (back me up on this one please), a person cannot be racist because there is no racism. And blackfacing is a good ol´german theater tradition, or maybe is this just another defense mechanism? Right.

With the theater´s first official statement they did let us know that they simply didn´t have any Black actors at hand, and that there is no need for hiring a Black actor in a german theater because there are not even enough roles for them to play, because all the plays are from white people for white people so why bother. And since Blackface is such a wonderful german “tradition” that nobody has ever protested against they decided it´s a *fabolous* idea! Here is the original quote:

“Kaum einem Ensemble eines Theaters in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz gehören schwarze Schauspieler an. Allein deswegen, weil das Stückrepertoire der Theater ihnen zu wenige Rollen in einer Spielzeit bieten könnte, die ein Festengagement rechtfertigten.”

So the saga continues, business as usual:

Racism is performed.

Racism gets named as such and is criticized.

Performers of racism deny racism.

Critizers of racism start to explain the racism. Links, Videos, Articles etc. are being posted.

Performers still in denial. Get touchy. Start talking about their feelings. “It´s unfair! I know black people….”

Anti-Racists continue explaining. It gets tiring.

Racists still deny racism by making racist remarks.

It gets nasty. Very open about their racism-racists show up, posting n-words all over the place.

Anyhow, you get the system.

Racism is still not recognised as the problem. Instead activism against racism gets problematized. Nothing new.

I do encourage everybody here to VENT!

Go over to Das Schlosspark-Theater´s facebook page and have your say on Blackface and racism!

THANK YOU!

More soon…

UPDATE: Here you can find all the informations, letters, mails, links that have already been sent or posted or whatever: Mostly in german it is.

Best Of Rassismus-Verleugnungsstrategien Part 2! Die ganze Story...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:14:00 +0100

Best Of Rassismus-Verleugnungsstrategien Part 2!

Die ganze Story vom “Festival du Racisme” (©Noah Sow) hier!

Medley der besten Ego-Defence Mechanism in Bezug auf “den...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:04:00 +0100

Medley der besten Ego-Defence Mechanism in Bezug auf “den Lampenvorfall” beim Asta der Uni Fulda, nachzulesen bei Noah Sow.

Meme freundlicherweise zur Verfügung gestellt von “Cultural Appropriation Cracker”.

"„The body of a muslim woman, a body fixed in the Western imaginary as confined, mutilated, and..."

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:46:24 +0200

“„The body of a muslim woman, a body fixed in the Western imaginary as confined, mutilated, and sometimes murdered in the name of culture, serves to reinforce the threat that the Muslim man is said to pose to the West, and is used to justify the extraordinary measures of violence and surveillance required to discipline him and Muslim communities. Against the hyper-visibility of the Muslim woman´s body (customs officers, shop clerks, and restaurant workers now all presume to know how Muslim women are oppressed by their terrible men), it is virtually impossible to name and confront the violence that Muslim women (like all groups of women) experience at the hands of their men and families without providing ideological fuel to the ,war on terror‘.”

- Sherene Razack (via julinkah)

microaggressions: Nivea beauty ad: “Look like you give a damn....

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:36:07 +0200

microaggressions:

Nivea beauty ad: “Look like you give a damn. Re-civilize yourself.” reblogged from black girl with long hair.

I had seen this first on Questlove´s facebook.

Most outrageous racist add I had seen in a while. Plus, that model of “modern” masculinity the other pics from the add suggest. ARGH!

Rassistische Kackscheiße!

belindaotas: DSK accuser goes public with ‘rape’ story ( If you...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:19:30 +0200

belindaotas:

DSK accuser goes public with ‘rape’ story ( If you were her lawyer, would you allow her to give the media an interview?)

The hotel maid who accused the former head of the International Monetary Fund of attempting to rape her has spoken out. Nafissatou Diallo gave her first television interview to ABC’s Good Morning America, after two months of silence. The 32-year-old hotel-maid from Guinea says she wants justice. Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey reports from New York.

"Whiteness is, …’a strategic component of the colonial legacy, of the remains of empire..."

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:03:52 +0200

“Whiteness is, …’a strategic component of the colonial legacy, of the remains of empire retained within the structures of emergent postcolonial societies and subjectivities’.”

- Alfred J. Lopez

“Posts and Pasts” chapter “Whiteness and the Colonial Unconscious”

hijabikitch: The Muslim Feminist - I speak for myself by Hebah...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:06:20 +0200

hijabikitch:

The Muslim Feminist - I speak for myself by Hebah Ahmed

As many of us are aware, there is much out there about Muslim women. We seem to hear about how Muslim women are oppressed, beaten, tortured, manipulated, brainwashed, and mere pawns of men. Wars are fought in order to liberate us and laws are passed to protect us from our own choices. Well, it is high time Muslim women are given the opportunity to speak for themselves. “I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim” (www.ispeakformyself.com) is just the kind of anthology to help understand the diversity among Muslim women as well as to counter their misconceptions. The book is a compilation of 40 essays written by 40 different Muslim American women, of which I am included. The essayists represent a large spectrum of Islamic thought ranging from mainstream, to the varying sects, to those only exposed to cultural Islam. I encourage those who choose to read this book to do so from a non-judgmental perspective, extracting lessons rather than condemnation. The book is a valuable read to those who want to make dawah and work with the youth. It shows the struggles that Muslim American women go through in balancing their parents’ culture, their view of religion, and the societal norms and pressures surrounding them. It also highlights the importance of organizations such as campus MSAs and youth groups. I wanted to share with you the following essay I wrote for the book, which describes my own personal struggles, my complex relationship with my father, and how I came to finally submit myself to Islam.

"The notion of ‘situatedness’ entails indeed the idea that all practices – veiling and not-veiling –..."

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 21:57:08 +0200

“The notion of ‘situatedness’ entails indeed the idea that all practices – veiling and not-veiling – need to be positioned within distinctive power structures. Yet by only locating the agency of the non-veiled in the disciplinary operation of ‘the secular’, a perception is implicitly adopted that ignores the way veiling and not-veiling are implicated by this same power structure. The popularity of the headscarf among Muslim youth in Western-Europe (and the Middle East) can indeed equally be viewed as a reaction to secularist and neocolonial policies, and thus reduced to these power structures. This perspective has been adopted by scholars who have explained the popularity of the veil by pointing to the role of anti-colonial authenticity movements such as Islamist movements or by viewing it as an affirmation of Muslim identity politics. This perspective has, however, rightfully been challenged in its incapacity to account for the ethical agency of Muslim women and their references to the Muslim normative tradition. I, therefore, advocate a complex notion of agency that not only looks at the ways power structures regulate subjects, but also at the complex ways individuals inhabit these power structures. This means, applied to our case, that one should examine the complex ways in which secular normativity is inhabited, reproduced and/or contested by those who refuse to veil, and its interactions with the Muslim ethical tradition.”

- Nadia Fadil, Not-/unveiling as an ethical practice via kawdess

Here’s a great summary of the paper above (which you should read): The analysis will focus less on the various motivations for Muslim women not to veil, but more on the practice of not-veiling. In what follows, I will argue that not-veiling can be understood as an aesthetic of the self that is intimately tied to the formation of a particular kind of moral (Muslim) subject, one that is primarily structured by liberal ethical grounds. While the first part of the paper will set out the contours of this discussion within the Belgian context and the literature, the third and fourth parts of the paper will explore the way this problematisation of the hijab can be viewed as a form of ethical self-fashioning. Such a perspective invites us, I suggest, to denaturalise a perspective on the body that views not-veiling as a ‘natural’ state of being, and to explore the complex agency of non-veiled Muslim women in the current post-migratory context wherein forced unveiling has turned into one of the preferred modes of disciplining Muslims.

(via insaniyat)

10 Strategien der Manipulation - Noam Chomsky

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 21:54:06 +0200

10 Strategien der Manipulation - Noam Chomsky:

julinkah:

1. Kehre die Aufmerksamkeit um

Das Schlüsselelement zur Kontrolle der Gesellschaft ist es, die Aufmerksamkeit der Öffentlichkeit auf unwesentliche Ereignisse umzulenken, um sie von wichtigen Informationen über tatsächliche Änderungen durch die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Führungsorgane…

constantrage: “Cultural appropriation is the adoption or theft...

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:48:01 +0200

constantrage:

“Cultural appropriation is the adoption or theft of icons, rituals, aesthetic standards, and behavior from one culture or subculture by another. It generally is applied when the subject culture is a minority culture or somehow subordinate in social, political, economic, or military status to the appropriating culture. This “appropriation” often occurs without any real understanding of why the original culture took part in these activities or the meanings behind these activities, often converting culturally significant artifacts, practices, and beliefs into “meaningless” pop-culture or giving them a significance that is completely different/less nuanced than they would originally have had.”

Click through to read the whole thing!

Hinweis: Wie Rassismus aus Wörtern spricht. Kerben des Kolonialismus im Wissensarchiv deutsche Sprache. Ein kritisches Nachschlagewerk.

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:59:44 +0200

Pünktlich zur Veröffentlichung des lang erwarteten kritischen Nachschlagwerks zu Rassismus und Sprachhandlungen, ist es endlich im Handel.

Diese schlanke, circa 900 Seiten umfassende Buch, versammelt Artikel zu Rassismus, Weißsein, Sprache, Wörtern die gar nicht gehen, Konzepten die sowas von gehen, ernstes über Kolonialismus und Rassismus, lustiges über Irrungen und Wirrungen von Weißen (Zitat Noah Sow: “`weiß` ist die politisch korrekte Bezeichnung für weiße Menschen”) und noch viel mehr. Wo wir auch beim Thema sind “politicial correctness” wird auch besprochen, von meiner Wenigkeit!

Get it while you can beim Unrast Verlag oder sonstwo im Buchandel!

Achtung, das Teil passt definitiv NICHT in den Briefkasten!

hjaybee: What Happened: A year ago, Keith Smith, a University...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:34:41 +0200

hjaybee:

What Happened:

A year ago, Keith Smith, a University Police Officer at the University of Florida, shot a doctoral student at.

Twice. In the face.

The student, Kofi Adu-Brempong, is still alive yet still recovering.

Keith Smith, though previously noted for racist behavior (such as egging black folks at their homes in the low income areas of Gainesville, FL while off duty) has kept his job.

They pressed charges saying that Kofi Adu-Brempong came towards the police with a metal rod.

This “metal rod” was his CANE. He has polio.

Shorter version:

A white cop shot a black student with polio, and didn’t get in trouble.

Surprised?

Neither am I.

I’m just pissed that it didn’t get more coverage.

So I want you guys to spread the word while I set up a petition =]

Read more about it:

Here & Here

Some Thoughts on Privilege, Activism, and Getting Yelled At « Student Activism

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:12:02 +0200

Some Thoughts on Privilege, Activism, and Getting Yelled At « Student Activism:

You probably can’t make yourself non-racist, but you can make yourself anti-racist. And in the end, being anti-racist is actually more important.

No, you can’t ever rid yourself of privilege completely. But you can go a long way to rid yourself of ignorance of that privilege, and more to the point, you can make yourself into an opponent of privilege as it exists in the world, rather than just as it exists in you.

Jill hit the nail on the head when she said that the struggle to be — and to be seen as — “one of the good ones” can be a distraction from the real work of the activist. If you find stuff that needs doing, you figure out how you can help, and you get to work on doing it, that’s activism. Checking your privilege is best seen as a part (and an ongoing part) of that process, rather than as an end in itself.

If you’re going to be interacting as a person with privilege in progressive spaces, you’re going to get yelled at sometimes. Sometimes people are right to yell at you. Sometimes they’re out of line. Staying open to both possibilities is important, but learning how to distinguish between them — and figuring out how to respond to each in a productive and self-caring way — is too.