Culture & Nostalgia
Culture is a collective unconscious that manifests in the forms of art, athletics, clothing, entertainment, food, literature and poetry, music, relationship dynamics, religious doctrines / dogmas / myths, superstitions, behaviors, expectations, norms, taboos, and traditions. Culture is a conglomerate of time: the past (memory and nostalgia), the present, and a projection into the future that culture will be upheld through generations. Culture is both exclusive to those who live within the framework of its imposed reality, and inclusive to the outside factors that inform and influence culture’s myriad aspects. Culture can be a caricature of itself when those who identify as members of the in-group take cues from scripted traits and perform stereotypical cultural behavior. Culture consists of parts that are embedded (and seemingly inescapable) or optional – but there are consequences for those who do not conform to the collective norm. Culture is made of elements both tangible and sensory, and intangible – the inner workings of influence and memory; structures, processes, assumptions. Culture is a flag and culture is a funeral; culture is sports and culture is sexual mores. Culture is the echo of history that is heard and embodied in the living moment.
When reflecting upon the element of memory in culture, I think about nostalgia – how it makes meaning and churns emotionally-driven narratives that influence perception and behavior, particularly collectively.
As research professor Brené Brown noted in her book Atlas of the Heart: “Nostalgia was considered a medical disease and a psychiatric disorder until the early nineteenth century… nostalgia is more likely to be triggered by… our struggles to find meaning in our current lives… It can be an imaginary refuge from a world we don’t understand and a dog whistle used to resist important growth in… the broader culture and to protect power, including white supremacy… [Nostalgia is] a yearning for the way things used to be in our often idealized and self-protective version of the past.”
This definition immediately calls to mind the cult of Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”
When was it great? What made it great? Why isn’t it great now? How can it be made great again?
Trumpers feel nostalgia for… what exactly? A time when people who didn’t look and live like them weren’t so visible? When there wasn’t a clarion call to acknowledge and uphold the dignity and rights of every human being? When anyone who wasn’t an able-bodied, straight, Christian, gainfully employed, white, cis-male “knew their place?”
“Make America Great Again” is the battle-cry of a culture that seeks to dominate, degrade, and dehumanize anyone in the “out-group.”
Racecraft & Post-Racial Perspectives
A key takeaway from A Tour of Racecraft by Karen and Barbara Fields is this reflection: “Those of racecraft govern… where human kinship begins and ends… and how Americans look at themselves and each other…”
We know that race is a sociocultural construct, and we know that all humans regardless of their ethnic background are members of a common species. And yet perception of ourselves and other people is subjective and fraught with influence and bias, unconscious or otherwise.
Those who see race in terms of hierarchy pit themselves against the Other, positioning those who are different in a lower status so as to maintain authority and power. Those who perceive themselves and others through this lens of qualification ultimately quantify their own humanity as being defined and justified by their race, fraying the actual biological bonds of kinship with the Other.
Racism bolsters those who historically have always had dominion over the Other. We see this play out in the narrative thread of genocide, slavery, prejudicial legislation, and all forms of bias. Simply put, the system works – because the system is created and sustained by those it serves, protects, emboldens, and empowers.
The perception and practice of dehumanization justifies atrocity and prejudice, past and present – whether it’s seeing another person as property (slavers) or a “Welfare Queen” (Reagan) or an “animal” (Trump), this is how racecraft persists.
Here is a key takeaway from Brittany Cooper’s TED Talk “The Racial Politics of Time” ~
[P]refixes alone don’t have the power to make race and racism a thing of the past. The US was never “pre-race.” So to claim that we’re post-race when we have yet to grapple with the impact of race on black people, Latinos, or the indigenous is disingenuous.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the term “post-racial” before and now it’s unavoidable. It also begs the question, what alternate reality are people living in who actually believe that racial discrimination and prejudice no longer exist? Both statistical data and lived experiences prove that policies have not dismantled the structure of racism that is the foundation of our society, nor have they changed the minds of people who assume and maintain power over others. This country was founded because of the concept of superior and inferior races – it was founded on the bones of genocide and the blood, sweat, and tears of enslaved people. This isn’t something that just magically goes away because a law is passed. It’s an ethos that is the undercurrent of our systems, flowing through generations. There also persists a total lack of appropriate reckoning and reconciliation for how non-white people were and continue to be treated throughout the history of this country. The idea that America is “post-racial” is delusional and damaging.
Critical Race Theory
Race is a social construct and, according to Critical Race Theory founder and literary scholar Richard Delgado, “racism is a means by which society allocates privilege and status.” Specifically, that privilege and status is allocated to the group that already holds most of the power, creating a self-serving system that continuously reinforces their dominance. A key takeaway from CRT is to consider this “interest convergence” in society, which is “our system of white-over-color ascendancy [that] serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the dominant group.” Simply put, white people are set up to succeed and anyone outside of that dominant in-group is confined within a system of inequity – and those who uphold that structure know exactly what they’re doing. And of course they refuse to relinquish their power. The power that has been afforded to them for generations, for centuries, simply based on the color of their skin and the privilege they have deemed to deserve because of it.
This is why I assert that the system works… because the system is created, controlled, and sustained by those it benefits (whites) while keeping those considered inferior (non-whites) trapped in the cycles of its machinations on every level – personal, professional, political, social, cultural, financial, educational, and even the healthcare that non-white people receive. The system upholds advantageous privilege and opportunity for the dominant group while disenfranchising those outside of that echelon of power.
Richard Delgado noted that Critical Race Theory “builds on the… radical feminism… insights into the relationship between power and the construction of social roles, as well as the unseen, largely invisible collection of patterns and habits that make up patriarchy and other types of domination.” Cultural media educator Ukumbwa Sauti notes that “racism, class, and heterosexism work in concert with patriarchy and other oppressive systems” and perceives a “crossroad” of patriarchy and racism. This fits with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s infamously coined term intersectionality which explores this very concept of crossover and connection.
Sociology professor Berch Berberoglu identifies class, gender, and race as “the triangle of oppression” in capitalist society. According to Akiba Solomon of Yes! magazine, if we don’t acknowledge the omnipresence of patriarchy, “feminism and women’s work [becomes] singular examples of heroism rather than important interventions that struck at the heart of all of the more popular isms such as racism.”
Critical Race Theory is now coupled with the work of bell hooks that has illuminated my awareness and understanding of the “interlocking systems” of domination, exploitation, oppression, and power that she defined as a “white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” The connection is clear between CRT and the foundational ideology of feminism, as they both challenge the structures and categories of domination in our society. Indeed, as noted by Paola Rudan and Matteo Battistini in the USAbroad Journal of American History and Politics, “no feminist theory is practicable without addressing the problem of race and exploitation.”
Professor Rossina Zamora Liu provided an honest and heartfelt perspective about the importance of Critical Race Theory and the importance of investigating the “Why” behind its scholarship and scholars. Those who oppose CRT seem oblivious to its actual focus and purpose, and rather than seeking to understand, choose instead to hurl accusations and sow discord. Where CRT seeks to examine, repair, and heal division, opponents thrive in creating deeper and more damaging chasms of disconnection. It’s logically impossible to talk about race and racism without explicitly talking about race and racism, but that’s exactly what politicians demand that people do, as they dismantle efforts to educate on CRT or to promote DEI. Reasons range from the weak excuse that we are “post-racial” (after all, Obama was President, right?!) to the outright lie that CRT and DEI are racist. I think at the heart of this opposition is the fear that if we examine how, to quote Professor Liu, “we all participate in [racist] structures and how they perpetuate” then those who benefit from that imbalance of power will be exposed. So they will do everything they can (including lying about and shutting down CRT and DEI) to maintain that power, and those committed to social justice will keep fighting back. We can use personal experience, storytelling, and the experiences of others to breathe life into this scholarship. We can focus on the crucial importance of intersections and marginalization. And we should heed the wise advice of Professor Liu as we embark on this committed journey of social justice by asking ourselves who we are in relation to this work and what’s at stake for us.
Wokeness & White Fragility
In a March 2023 interview with The Guardian, scholar and civil rights leader Kimberlé Crenshaw observed that “Wokeness has become the oppression, not the centuries of enslavement and genocide, and imperialism that has shaped the lives of people of color, in ways that continue into the present.” This hit hard for me as I am barraged by “anti-woke” rhetoric and policies in Florida that degrade, dehumanize, attempt to suppress historical and present-day facts, and compromise the education of our youth, including my daughter.
Critical Race Theory has been a hot topic in the media and politics here in Florida, denounced by Governor DeSantis and his cronies. But the question remains: do they actually know what CRT is? They are threatened by what they perceive to be anti-white propaganda – when in fact, CRT (and “wokeness”) is about awareness of the systems of inequity and how they impact people. Or perhaps that’s exactly why they’re so against CRT and spin it as “indoctrination” – because then the very systems that they benefit from will be brought into the light and called into question, and that’s a threat to the status quo that ensures their power.
Analyzing our societal institutions through a critical lens requires honesty, humility, vulnerability, empathy… traits that don’t readily come to mind when thinking about the anti-woke brigade.
Dr Robin DiAngelo defines white fragility as “a state in which even a minimal amount of racial stress in the habitus becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.” In these situations, white people reframe themselves as the victims being attacked, blamed, and hurt in some kind of “reverse racism.” Part of this emotional reaction may be due to a binary perspective that frames a racist as a bad person – thus the white person is triggered and feels the need to defend themselves. I also draw a parallel between narcissism and white fragility.
When a person who feels wronged attempts to bring up the impactful situation, the narcissist not only doubles-down on their innocence but also then flips the focus onto their own feelings and thus becomes the victim. This seems to be the same process when race or racism is addressed with someone operating from a place of white fragility – they immediately go into an offensive-defense. But in any situation where feelings are involved, harm can never be fully confronted, resolved, and mitigated if people continue to deny the impact of their behavior.
Ego and armor must be set aside so that empathy and healing can transpire.
Alma Canción 