After reading through Sam Mckenzie, Jr.’s article twice, I am able to agree with some of its intentions — we all should learn to love one another,etc. — but I am not sure his type of analysis is not giving reason to the very people he is attempting to call out and fight against: racists, primarily, I guess, white racists.
One way to test the metal of his philosophy of race is to ask is there any place in it where an act of segregation and discrimination can occur without it necessarily producing a paranoiac reaction or relation to the Other ? Whether this Other be White, Black, or Tutti-Quanti.
Is the segregation and discrimination of people inherently started by a group of racist whites, blacks, etc. ? Or do these racist acts create the groups? Which came first the chicken or the egg? This type of difficult dogs any causal presentation race, but this not to place to resolve the question.
Many cultures segregate the dead into cemeteries, but do we need to imagine there is always a group of people ‘behind the scenes’ who are ‘pulling the strings’ with bad intentions?
My problem is with the type of analysis of Whiteness being offered by McKenzie: it does not go far enough. It always imagines there is a white Wizard of OZ behind the curtain.
Yet, what if the race problem is worse than that: there is nobody there at the end of the yellow brick road, it is a systemic problem where those claiming to be in control, whether Kings or Presidents, are just the boy scouts of the hour.
Kings, Queens, CEO’s, presidents, etc. may intentionally try to use a system of segregation to discriminate against another, but in the end are they ever in control of these systems/languages?
To determine a response to this question, in fact, explains the white on white effect. Whites do not control the systems you think they do McKenzie. You give them too much credit. To think so, is not only to make a paranoiac relation to the Other, but to give a white supremacist reason to speak. It plays into their hands.
In the end, it may be comforting to think someone is behind that curtain, to have a paranoiac relation to Other, but again, the problem is far worse. How to analyze the cause of racism, when nobody is in control? when no contract with a group or their intentions can explain the violence or injustices done in the name of race and racism. What is this more radical racism? The response to these questions have yet to be written, and would take this small response beyond its limits.
Cheers,
TRG
