mappemunde

Sharon Patricia Holland, “The Erotic Life of Racism”

"When we want to think of one race, the human race, then we become insensitive to the very real, very material effects of racist practice; but when we return to that practice, we can only see something produced by the machinations of large systems like the university or the state. We often only have eyes for the spectacularity of racist practice, not its everyday machinations that we in turn have some culpability in. This desire to see ourselves as exempt from racist violence, no matter how small, is part of the same logic that attempts to excise life choices, erotic choices from these larger systems. What we would have called racism is now “personal choice” or becomes mildly prejudicial. For example, to say that I am not hurting anyone when I say that I prefer to sleep with one racialized being over another, is to tell a different story about the erotic—-one where the autonomous becomes clouded by the sticky film of prejudice morphed into quotidian racism.The erotic, therefore, touches upon that aspect of racist practice that cannot be accounted for as racist practice but must be understood as something else altogether."

Sharon Patricia Holland, from the introduction to “The Erotic Life of Racism”

tags: racism blackness the erotic life of racism race critical race theory

"The focus on moving “beyond” race and its black/white binary…actually speaks to a persistent problem inherent in the black/white encounter: namely, that this crossing seems impossible; that this crossing almost never happens. In other words, what happens when someone who exists in time meets someone who only occupies space? Those who order the world, who are world-making time—-those animals and humans who are perceived as having no world-making effects—-merely occupy space. When James Baldwin asked, “How much time do you want for your progress?” he was marking this dichotomy. If the black appears as the antithesis of history (occupies space), the white represents the industry of progressive-ness (being in time). It is possible to surmise that resistance to this binary might actually be telling a truth about our sense of time and space instead of a truth about the meeting itself. We often talk of inequalities that emerge in black/white meeting, but we rarely understand those structural impediments and inequalities in terms of the phenomenological readings of time and space."

♥ 28
→ 29 May 12 at 5 pm “A major intervention in the fields of critical race theory, black feminism, and queer theory, The Erotic Life of Racism contends that theoretical and political analyses of race have largely failed to understand and describe the profound ordinariness of racism and the ways that it operates as a quotidian practice. If racism has an everyday life, how does it remain so powerful and yet mask its very presence? To answer this question, Sharon Patricia Holland moves into the territory of the erotic, understanding racism’s practice as constitutive to the practice of racial being and erotic choice.

Reemphasizing the black/white binary, Holland reinvigorates critical engagement with race and racism. She argues that only by bringing critical race theory, queer theory, and black feminist thought into conversation with each other can we fully envision the relationship between racism and the personal and political dimensions of our desire. The Erotic Life of Racism provocatively redirects our attention to a desire no longer independent of racism but rather embedded within it.”

i just got this in the mail and i am freaking out. so excited to read this.

tags: the erotic life of racism critical race theory

“A major intervention in the fields of critical race theory, black feminism, and queer theory, The Erotic Life of Racism contends that theoretical and political analyses of race have largely failed to understand and describe the profound ordinariness of racism and the ways that it operates as a quotidian practice. If racism has an everyday life, how does it remain so powerful and yet mask its very presence? To answer this question, Sharon Patricia Holland moves into the territory of the erotic, understanding racism’s practice as constitutive to the practice of racial being and erotic choice.
Reemphasizing the black/white binary, Holland reinvigorates critical engagement with race and racism. She argues that only by bringing critical race theory, queer theory, and black feminist thought into conversation with each other can we fully envision the relationship between racism and the personal and political dimensions of our desire. The Erotic Life of Racism provocatively redirects our attention to a desire no longer independent of racism but rather embedded within it.”
i just got this in the mail and i am freaking out. so excited to read this.