Excerpts from journal # 2

"Fixed." It is a word as double-edged as "partiality." In this sense, I suppose it means "unchanging." But suppose it meant "repaired." This is my struggle. I attempt to fix (repair) the perceptions of the world around me by imposing my "fixed" (somewhat unchanging) view of how things are on others. I am referring to the perceptions of the two cultures I straddle. I work very hard to keep an open mind. This does not mean that I do not have some views from which I will not be moved. It does mean that I allow others to have their own opinions, even if I do not agree. Though this sounds contrary to what I stated above, I work very hard not to force my ideologies on others. I believe that force is the most difficult and least effective way of changing minds. Rather, I intend to erode the (in my mind) erroneous perspectives of others with open, loving acceptance and by acting as a living example. When I do attempt to vocalize my views, rather than imparting my insights, most often I am just viewed by strangers as a bigot. Not so by the people who know me. To them, I float cultural and ethnic boundaries freely. For these, my very existence challenges their formerly "fixed" world view. But others hear my personal rhetoric and accuse me of racism against all, including the race to which I belong.

Allow me to explain. I am white. Yes, I said it: "White." Pale-faced. A cracker. Yes, those are racist terms. No, I won't be more politically correct. I will not apologize for the term. I will not apologize for "my people" (whatever that means). While I am a white American, I grew up as a minority. I think this gives me a unique insight into "the way things are" in cultures across this country. I went to high school on the reservation, where I was the only white kid. I sat in classrooms as my peers berated me for what "my race" had done to theirs. I was told I didn't belong. I was told to go back where I came from. I was told to go to a white school with "my own kind." I heard a lot of things about how "white people" are. I quietly went about living my life and my classmates decided I was different. Eventually, they labeled me as "one of us" and "a rez girl." When they would talk about "white people" and I'd snicker or smirk, they'd look at me and say, "Oh, not you. You're not white."

On the other side of the chasm my constructed identity bridges is my white family and my non-Native friends who know nothing of reservation life. These people are as ignorant and generalizing about Natives (Yes, I am using the term Natives. That is the term my rez friends and I use in conversation. Deal with it.) as Natives are about whites. And, again, all I can do is try my best to quietly use my life and experiences as an example to the contrary. This has resulted in non-Natives also seeing me as something other than "white." My family wondered if I would be able to "reintegrate into white society" after high school. Friends (again, without reservation experience) have referred to me as "the most Native person they know."

Since I have left the reservation for school, however, I feel like my acceptance there has begun to wane. Likewise, my non-Native friends have tried to persuade me to leave the reservation in my past. Yet, I feel alienated out in the "real world." It is discouraging for me. While I feel like I am a window between the two cultures through which they peer at each other, I also largely feel like I'm falling in the crack and not succeeding to belong to either. When I talk to others from my high school who have pursued higher education, they seem to slightly relate. They get brow-beaten by their tribes for being traitors because they leave the reservation and "try to be white." On top of feeling put down by their own people, they feel completely out of place being away from their tribes. They struggle with breaking the stereotypes non-Natives have for them. They try to convince their own people to be more accepting of outsiders and other ways of life without feeling like the tribal culture is being threatened. Essentially, they are the other side of my coin. When we talk, our views and goals are the same for what we would like to see for their tribes and how we plan to go back to give back to the communities that made us who we are. There is this sense of mutual understanding between us that we do not feel either among our college classmates or with our friends back on the reservation....

The Fecundity of Living

I am reminded of the African concept of "ubuntu" (resonant of the classical Greek construct of "nomos").  Both concepts reflect the inherent codes (grammar of belonging) of language and rhetoric that promotes coherence.  My husband has often commented that my huge Irish Catholic family operates on "herd instinct."  "They don't talk. They migrate." I think he is right. This quality of language and culture has always fascinated me. It what promotes the fecundity of living together in community.

On "Subjects of the Inner City"

Chapt 8 in REL, “Subjects of the Inner City”

David Fleming, going against W J. Wilson’s thesis in The Declining Significance of Race (1978), argues, on the basis of the example of Chicago, the most segregated city in the world, that it’s race, not class, which has the most significance, and not just for this situation, but all over the country (world?). Race trumps class, according to David Fleming.

What’s his evidence? He cites a negative example of racist whites who use class as a way of avoid or even deny the racial question by insisting that it’s not race; if a “negro” doctor wants to move in next door, fine, but keep out the trash, low income types from across the racial divide. Fleming claims that this shows that racist whites use class to disguise their racism.

But don’t those whites have a point?

Aren’t they telling the truth when they say that they don’t want to live next to poor people, no matter what the color?

I think that it has been thoroughly demonstrated, at least in the Marxist tradition, that class is the cause, yes, cause, of racism.  Before racism, i.e., before western contract with people of color, and certainly before the slave trade, before the scramble for Africa of the 1890’s, before western colonialism and subsequent economic imperialism, before that, there existed “racism” in the sense that the exact same hatreds towards and subhuman categorizations against, say, the Irish, as lazy, shiftless, promiscuous, criminal degenerates, known as the Irish, prevailed.

Slavery was of course especially pernicious in branding slaves as inferior and therefore deserving of their fate, aided and abetted by all the institutions which benefited from the massive profits, reinvested in industrial-ization, until a civil war had to be fought to put an end to a hideously immoral super-exploitation of hapless human beings, who just happened to be black. But then came Jim Crow and Apartheid (segregation).

Fleming seems to want more of the reforms necessary to wage a war, to use the language of such broad plans, against segregation, legally, financially, morally -- make it a national priority; it’s the only thing that will help.

Let’s all work for a racially integrated society, completely integrated; then, this other problem, concerning public housing will, if not go away, at least be ameliorated, even though, we will have to admit, this Anti-segregationist Marshal Plan, would further divide the working class, along racial lines, whites resenting this new affirmative action, as they always have, perhaps even inciting racism in some.

Another objection to the more-affirmative-action-in-low-income-housing is that liberalism is bankrupt. There’s literally no money for such projects or even the recognition of the need for them, In the present political climate, there is no way such funds would be released in this way (more than 10 years after this article was written). Not gonna happen. An Obama second term will be equally useless in this regard. Money is there, maybe, but its expenditure would require a radical reprioritization of national tax revenue. 

   

Fleming is also able to downplay the significance of class by reducing it to income, in the fashion of bourgeois sociology. But class is about who owns the economy versus the rest of us, who work for them, directly or indirectly, indirectly by such as David Fleming, who performs the service of attacking Wilson and hypostatizing the concept of racism as possessing more explanatory power than class, limiting our definition of the problem to a reformist solution only, requiring only more 60s-style liberalism.

No, racism is perpetuated by a capitalist economy with its winners and losers; it thrives on the divisions it opens up between workers (alongside other divisions on the basis of nationality, gender, and of course money).

I am reminded of Marx and Engels' observation (Manifesto, 1848) that there comes a time when capitalism fails and the capitalist class has to take care of workers (subsidized housing, food stamps, etc) instead of being taken care of by them. For Marx and Engels, this was evidence of the unfitness of the capitalist to rule; they cannot even manage successfully their own system.

Love is Everywhere and so are Metaphors

Maria Elwan

Eng 440/540

September 24, 2012

Journal & Field Log #5 – CC Chapter 4 Semiotics and Cultural Criticism

             Lakoff and Johnson (1980) see metaphors as central to our thinking, “Most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action” (Berger 86). The use of metaphors helps me personally make sense of situations; it helps me make comparisons by using metaphors. When I am trying to come to an understanding on something, visualizing the comparison helps give the definition meaning to me. It may be that the definition takes on a culturally based meaning, for example in the U.S. saying "Her icy words turned my heart to stone" takes on a stronger visual meaning than "Her mean words made me dislike her."

Metaphors are everywhere and are a favorite on the evening news. On June 7, 2012, Mitt Romney was quoted on the news using a weather metaphor referring to the Affordable Care Act as “a great cloud that’s been raining over small business.” I’ve heard it said that using metaphors in your writing is cliché but I have to admit, I have a personal fondness for them, and it is the first thing that comes to my mind when I have to write an essay or report. I find my mind thinking in metaphors and I often have to come up with other terms and ways of expressing myself.

Also we see metaphors as signs when we are on our computers and click to our desktop. These computer icons all represent symbols which we have been trained to recognize and seeing them is very intuitive to us.  We don’t give it a second thought, we know the blue compass will take us online to the web; the yellow legal pad is what we click on when we want to take particular notes to remember something. Even the name Windows PC 7 is a metaphor, my computer does not have a real window in which I look out and grab notebooks and calendars. These are all symbols for this current time in history. It is a powerful symbol because it carries the same meaning in all cultures around the world.  Children in Asia, African or the Americas turn on computers and all understand the same icons on their desktops.  Symbols usually have specific cultural meanings, but computer symbols transcend all cultures and religions. What a powerful signifier to help our brains get rewired and help us think more alike on a global basis.

The metaphors we use in our daily living are also symbolic signifiers of what we believe and are passionate about. I drive a Prius because I care about conserving our natural resources, and it is a symbol of my personal attitudes.  Also people wear symbolic religious icons a Yakama on their heads, or cross around their neck to profess their religious faith. Symbols and metaphors are all around us to the degree that they fade into the background and are almost unnoticeable. I have to make a conscious effort to see them and then their pervasiveness is overwhelming, I am bombarded with these metaphors on a daily basis -- online, in the media, and in all my private/public spaces.   

Changing Lenses-- The Evolution of Discourse

(from Journal #1, by Tiffany Tackett)

            Writing has changed constantly since the moment of its advent.  New forms of writing are invented as they are needed, and because of that, new forms of discourse must also evolve to deal with them.  The internet is a prime example of a recent evolution of writing, and the constantly altered discourse orbiting it.

            There are many different types of writing which can occur on the internet, and each of these have specific formats, terminology, and norms by which those participating are expected to abide by.  The emergence of the blog is a prime example of a new writing environment with all three of these features.  A blog is expected to be in block format, each paragraph an un-indented chunk, often times with subheaders or images breaking up the text.  The terminology can vary blog to blog, but there are some which remain the same throughout, the name “blog” being one of them.  The social situation of a blog also varies, but usually those responding to posts are expected to be respectful of the blogger’s opinion, and the blogger is supposed to be respectful and authoritative, even when criticizing something (or discussing politics).  This is very different from an environment like Facebook.  On Facebook, people are expected to keep their posts short and generally mundane (where a blog can be deep and introspective); this is enforced by the post length limit.  The terminology is different as well, because you can “like” something to show interest in a topic, you can “poke” someone to get their attention, and “share” your photos and the photos with others on your “feed”.  The social situation is a completely different matter. A lot of people take thinly veiled stabs at people in their statuses, and often times those people are on their friends list.  Banter is expected to be friendly and light and casual, but oftentimes people complain or point out flaws, or point out that the person is procrastinating or not doing what they said they are doing.  Each social environment is different, and thus, we should have a different way of looking at each.

            One might not look at a Facebook page with any sort of seriousness, but blogs are now considered a viable source for information in research, as is demonstrated in the fact that MLA and APA have both devised formats for citing work from a blog.  Many professionals use blogs, so now people can read their information for free, online, rather than paying for a scholarly journal subscription.  One also has to be careful, though, because absolutely anyone can post anything online under any alias.  Information is easier than ever to find, but easier than ever to falsify as well.

            In this internet age, the way people write papers is changing as well.  As an English tutor at CNM, I see this every day.  Students who are web savvy often use internet lingo without even realizing it, most of which is (still) deemed inappropriate for the world of academia, so I have to point this terms out and explain how to replace them.  Because of mediums like Facebook, discourse among peers is becoming more and more informal, which is then translating to written work for the academic setting.  It would be one thing to fight against this insurgence of “informal language.”  That is not happening.  More and more often, I see assignment sheets from professors imploring their students to engage the topics using their own language and voice, which often involves the informal language of the internet and common, 21^st Century social interactions.