The essays we have read for our unit on race have shown to us that we cannot
construe the "Nation" as a metaphysical or magical category, made out of
ectoplasm ( angelical fabric) and existing in a vacuum. The Nation
is always in the making, rebuilding itself, re-founding itself. It
is true that this Nation, the USA, set itself up in 1776, but since that
time it took a movement of its own. To look nostalgically to the
Nation of the "founding fathers" for something solid that we have
lost is to forget the movement of the nation since 1776. But most
importantly, is to forget that the the "fathers" did not form a Nation
but a project for living with "justice and freedom for all."
Paradoxically, this project makes the Nation something "indivisible,"
a substance with an essence that cannot be broken down into the elements
that constitute it. But the Nation is not metaphysical substance
or an indivisible particle like an atom; it is a political and social
category. The Nation is really a system of interpersonal, social
and political relations and relationships. It is a process, and not
a particular event. It is certainly not a THING.
I believe that our unit on race has been designed to invite us to ask ourselves
whether the project of nation-building is one in which the goal of
"freedom and justice for all" has been adequately fulfilled. Of course,
this presupposes that we accept that freedom and justice for all is an
axiological (value) principle that we all share. If this is accepted,
and we have a project of nation-buliding going on, it is wise to assess
it, and to wonder whether we are on the right track as we continue our
project of nation-building. This searching for where we stand
in the process of nation-building takes the form of a critical inquiry.
Criticism is nothing else than a self-inspecting act of asking, questioning,
and inquiring whether we are on the right track. Politics is whatever
action we take to get us back on track in the process-project-of-nation-building.
It might as well be that we need to put ourselves on track, that is, that
we never really got going, and that we have not moved at all, or if we
have, we have done it too slowly. The truth is that there is not
a constant velocity for fairness. The dictum "Justice
and freedom for all" carries with it a ring of URGENCY!
The nation-building-process-of-justice-and-freedom-for-ALL has not been
successful if one considers issues such as racial prejudice, misogyny,
anti-gay and lesbian attitudes and when we refer to minorities with, what
is to me, the unfortunate term "special interests groups." What these
so-called special interest groups stand for is their inclusion as legitimate
and active protagonists who have equal power in the nation-building project.
There is nothing "special, " self-centered or egotistical about this interest
in sharing power. It is not a concession, it is a RIGHT!
The "SOME" remind us that they also make up the "ALL!"
The so-called "minorities" are really those who have been left behind in
the process of nation-building. The justice-freedom-for-all-nation-building-
process-project requires then, that those left out from it (the excluded)
assert themselves in the nation-building-project. Some groups had
the advantage of being recognized as protagonists in the justice-for-all-nation-building-project.
This idea of dominant group in the justice-for-ALL-nation-building-project
is really a contradiction in terms because a dominant group is just a "SOME"
and the project is for ALL. Hence, the excluded SOME need to
take leadership in the nation-building-project in order to TRULY build
the nation-with-justice-and- freedom-for-ALL. If we are not ALL participating
as builders, with freedom and justice, the nation-building project-process
has slowed down. (If I invite and summon EVERYBODY for dinner and
then just allow SOME to eat, my dinner-party cannot truly be a success.
Some might call it unfair, unjust, oppressive, abusive, but it is certainly
not access to food for ALL.)
Those that have been the protagonists (in charge) of the nation-building
project- for-freedom and justice-for-SOME (which by definition is not a
nation-building project at all!) are the dominant society which in sociological
terms we call an "ideology." This is so because the unjust, unfair
nation-builders are NOT particular people, but a way of nation-building,
a set of ideas that invites ALL for the national dinner and then leaves
SOME anxiously waiting for the promised food of Justice and Freedom for
ALL. There is, then, a contradiction, a conflict, a profound incoherence,
in the very definition of the nation-building process. Perhaps, just
perhaps, the multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-gender all-inclusive
whole threatens the INDIVISIBILITY of the Nation, wrongly understood in
metaphysical terms.
Let's pause for a moment and see whether a plurality is necessarily divisible
and if divisibility is a threat to the nation-building project. We
all know that any set can be made up of heterogeneous members.
As I look now to my rather baroque desk I see videotapes, books, family
pictures, hair pins, lipsticks, ribbons and the ever-present cup of coffee.
All these disparate and unique elements constitute a pastiche which
is dear to me and that I call "my desk." Each element on my
desk is unique, defined, and not melted into any other. I have an
all-inclusive, yet well-organized desk. My desk is not a melting
pot. It redefines itself as I populate it with different objects;
it becomes at times a library, a cafe, a toilette (vanity), and in such
ways its existence is hyphenated as, desk-library, desk-toilette, desk-cafe
and sometimes desk-altar. It has come a long way since its founding
father-mother made it just a square table with a simple chair.
But no matter how much it has changed and will continue to
change it will continue to be my desk. My desk is really my ever-changing-desk.
The nation-building-project-with-justice-and-freedom-for-ALL is like my
desk; it not a melting pot but a project for the creation of a multi-cultural
dynamic all-inclusive society. Like my desk, this society is
ever-changing, redefines itself endlessly and constantly recombines
its elements. However, one must not confuse such a recombination
with chaotic divisibility since this recombining of parts is a process
in which the parts (ALL PARTS) change the whole and the changes in the
whole, in turn, change the parts. The nation-building-process
is actively multi-directional that is to say, it can occur simltaneously
in diffrent directions. Thus, from the very fabric of White America,
Florida elects a governor who speaks Spanish fluently. This is an
example of the influence of the SOME on the ALL. In order to be governor
of a state of the USA, mastery of Spanish becomes a must. The whole
is affected by its parts. In the same fashion, the parts (in
this case the citizens of Florida, especially the Hispanic community) can
imagine a Spanish-speaking White American as a governor. One must
think of other possible combinations and recombinations such as:
A Spanish-speaking Hispanic governor , an African-American Spanish-speaking
female President. The nation-in-the-making cannot be stopped.
It is an open realm of possibilities.
Those who were left out of the the project of nation-building need to remind
the others of the following: 1. that they exist and want to participate;
2. that they deserve participation; 3. That the past cannot be repeated
and that it should be recorded as a memory of a dysfunction in the process
of nation-building (unfortunately some call the act of recording and recognizing
impractical and oppressive ways of nation-building "victimization").
The sectors or groups which are starving for freedom should not expect
that some day they will be invited to the ALL-inclusive dinner. That
kind of waiting proved to be a mistake in the old process of nation-building
(examples: abolition of slavery, vote for women, end of segregation, and
the SOME are still waiting!). The excluded SOME should go ahead
and actively take their portion of the freedom and justice that they deserve
and that they rightfully own. This freedom is for ALL and the
SOME is in the ALL. Those who came to my oppressive dinner party
will do good if they simply work their way into my house and feed
themselves. My invitation was real. It was not a polite
gesture of a "founding-mother." Freedom and justice for all
are not politically correct words uttered by the founding fathers in a
mythical past, but the announcement of a nation-building-project.
These words mean exactly what they say. To take them for what they
mean is to be radical. To take the food of justice and freedom that
was denied to the SOME is to revolt, contest and protest and that, in itself,
is nation-building. The SOME bursts into the ALL! The
"ALL" reconfigures itself...
FANON AND DU BOIS
Fanon says that as a Negro man he must "invent himself into existence"
(259), that is to say, he must go ahead and make his presence known in
the project of nation-building. He can neither hate nor thank the
white man, nor he has the right to be a Negro man. He wants
to burst into the process of nation-building as a MAN, plain and simple,
because he feels that his skin color is not a requirement for his participation
in the nation-building project. The invitation for nation-building
is open. It does not require a tuxedo and a white, black, yellow
or brown face. One comes because one is a person, with no dress,
ethnic, or gender code. We are all sociologically naked. We
nation-build as human beings. Hence, without being a slave of his
slave ancestors, and without being a "Negro" for the white man, Fanon reminds
us that he exists and that he deserves to participate in the making of
the modern Nation.
Fanon says:
Superiority? Inferiority?
Why not the quite simple attempt to touch the other,
to feel the other, to explain the other to myself?
Was my freedom not given to me then in order
to build the world of the You?
(260)
Du Bois says that that he thinks that it is important to a man to be "both
a Negro and an American" (262). He believes that the history of the
African-American person has been a struggle to resolve the duality between
the Negro and the American in his/her consciousness as well as in the consciousnesses
of those that created this duality because they invited ALL men and women
to the nation-building project of building America but then enslaved and
excluded them. What a tease! Half or no justice is not justice
at all. People cannot receive just half of the fairness that they
deserve. It is not fair! It is absurd! Fairness is not
a thing but an attribute. It is not an amount like fifty out of a
hundred in a test, but a value.
Du Bois says that an African-American should not "bleach his Negro soul"
(as the heroine at the end of the film COLOR PURPLE), but should be able
to come to the national dinner, to the justice-for-all-building-of-the-American-nation,
as a Negro, so that America will finally show its Negro face to the world.
Thus, the history of the American Negro is part of the American history,
that is to say, of the strife to make the SOME an ALL, and to make the
ALL exhibit its SOMEness or "this longing to attain self-conscious manhood,
to merge his double self into a better and truer self." (262). In
this merging of the SOME and the ALL and the ALL in the SOME, the Negro
"would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach to the
world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of
White Americanism, for he knows that his Negro blood has a message for
the world." (262). He simply wishes to make it possible for
a man to be "both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit
upon his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly
in his face" (262).
Du Bois believes that the mistakes of African-American exclusion from the
nation-building project should be recorded, and that the American nation-building
project should take into account the histories and stories of the excluded,
incorporate them into the project and continue this archeological recovery
of ourselves as we continue this endless-all-inclusive-project-of-nation-building.
This project has Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and European faces
and histories. ALL of these faces and histories are right now nation-building.
America still has to show its Asian, Negro, Native American and Hispanic
faces. The bearers of these faces are making America. America
is not "out there," in its metaphysical kingdom or on a pedestal,
waiting to incorporate these faces. These faces are here NOW, building
America, redefining it, re-founding it as they demand and actively
obtain Justice and Freedom for ALL.