Posts tagged: race
If one were to examine, closely, the hegemonic discourses of black American history, one would be surprised to find a long history of militant armed struggle. Slave rebellions, urban “guerilla” insurgencies, rural defense leagues, are all part of a tapestry of black militant rebellion to subjugation. The most recent icon of black armed struggle, the Black Panther Party, is a linchpin in understanding the development of this phenomenon in the late 1960s, which saw its high point in the 1970s. But it was not the only organization that used or opening advocated the use of force against the state. Others did exist. They did not exist in the public or “aboveground” as the Panthers did between the years of 1966 and 1974. Other factions of the organization existed outside the public eye—clandestinely. Not coincidently, this history exists clandestinely. Clandestine is also a fitting way to describe some of the writers of this history. It is fitting because they, like the histories of armed struggle in U.S., don’t exist in the open, but they exist nonetheless.
Many of those who (clandestinely) trace the historical trajectories of armed struggle are (or were) prisoners of the state. Assata Shakur, George Jackson, Kuwasi Balagoon, and Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, all participated in armed struggle. Branded by the state as criminals, underground black radicals, as well as white underground radicals were part of a network of militant “paramilitary” insurgencies. By several accounts this movement lasted from the late 1960’s until the beginning of the 1980’s. Today, imprisoned underground activists continue to write of this subjugated history from the cells that hold them.
Josh Russell, Excuse Me, Can You Please Pass The Privilege?
DING DING DING!
via vladislava:faketrain:upmountains:shakepaper
maryjanes:itsobjectis:ihatethismess
(via sexartandpolitics)
lams:
Whenever I see photos like the one above, a part of me is led to believe that young white photographers are desperately consumed with acknowledging and representing their sexual, intimate lives in a way that many young people of other races do not (or do not appear to do). Meaning, when I see a photo of this, the two individuals almost always look like the two individuals in any of the other hundreds of thousands of photos that show two young people kissing or having sex. It is an apparent aesthetic that I have to wrap my head around but one that I can’t help but think about because I see it everywhere, all of the time, especially on Tumblr.
If we are increasingly becoming a visual culture, what does it mean when the aesthetics of these images are used to represent what it means to be young and sexual? There is a freedom inherent in these photographs that I can’t identify with, yet I yearn to do so. They remind me of the alternative, yet aspirational youth in many of Ryan McGinley’s photographs.
They also remind me of the sexual issues that I face as a young Black woman. Unlike women my age of other races, the number one killer of African-American women ages 25-34 is HIV/AIDS, and I have to largely consider whether or not my sexual choices will turn me into another statistic or if I will be able to live another day HIV/AIDS-free. This differs from many of my white female friends who more frequently admit to a fear of pregnancy than a life-threatening STD. There is, not entirely but significantly, a presence of weariness that comes to being young and sexual and Black and female. That is not to say that the “bliss” of such photos can’t be achieved by people with HIV/AIDS. Rather, I wonder what thoughts would arise in me if the figures in these photos were altered. Would I still think of “the beauty of youth,” or “freedom,” or “healthy sexual relationship” if the woman was Black, or if both the woman and the man were Black?
(Photo by Martien Mulder, a Dutch photographer based in New York. From Dossier)
This is my thesis. The heavy usage of white bodies for this aesthetic because they are perceived as culturally neutral, while bodies of color are sexually “marked” in ways that do not easily lend them to this type of expression.
