Brief for 9/10
Can You Be Black Looking At This?
In the article, Can you be BLACK and Look at This?: Reading the Rodney King Video(s), the author Elizabeth Alexander defines race as a “complex fiction, but one that is perfectly real in significant aspects of all of our day to day lives” (81). I thought this was an interesting way to talk about race because it relates to the racial formation that we talked about last class. I interpreted “complex fiction” as the racial beliefs people place on one another and the influence on our lives as the result of rationalizing these ideologies as if they were logical. It is crazy to me how the inequitable treatment of others can be rationalized to the point where it becomes “common sense.”
Although I do not agree with how people rationalize the treatment of others, the article made me understand how common sense forms. It all has to do with the power of grouping. For instance, the Rodney King video showed Los Angeles police officers beating a man of color. When the video was played frame by frame, two opposing racial groups saw the video differently. White audiences looked at Rodney as the aggressor, a “probable ex con,” advancing onto the officers whereas black audiences saw just the opposite (84). I interpreted this as protection within a group. When someone gets beaten or hurt by others it does not always concern those of the opposite race. This is because people believe if it did not happen to someone of their race or in their group, then it cannot happen to them. As result they do not actively try to fix the situation even if what they see is wrong. This makes me question the idea of love being the force for change that was talked about in Emergent Strategy. Maybe people can only solve things within The System through personal pain instead of empathy for those who experience it.
Expanding on the formation of common sense, grouping not only allows people to turn a blind eye to those that are different from them, but it also gives people ideas on how they should be treated. Under the section A Witness and a Participant, the author includes passages from Frederick Douglass. In one of the passages, Douglass writes about his experience watching his Aunt Hester being whipped and writes “I expected it would be my turn next” (86). By saying this, Douglass assumes that he is going to get the same treatment and turns this situation into a new piece of knowledge – my aunt got whipped so that means I can get whipped too. This made me realize how quickly definitions of race change and what that change means for those in the larger racial group. It seems everyone understands that tragedy opens up opportunities to hurt others. As another example, when talking about the murder of Emmett Till, the author notes how important his age was to his story. She writes how it was the first time people had known a young black person to die indicating the story would not have been as significant if the same thing happened to an old man. Tills age was important because it demonstrated to young black people that “their fate was interchangeable with [his]” (92). Again after every new tragedy, the rules of race and how you can treat those in different racial groups appears to change. These new rules are understood by both those inside and outside the group. This makes me wonder if something positive could change the dynamic of the group as easily.
Aside from the formation of “common sense,” I also thought about an inner truth after reading the article. The author writes, “white authored national narrative deliberately contradicts the histories our bodies know” (84). I interpreted this statement as whites contradicting what black bodies remember in history. Although the true story can change, our bodies never truly forget what has occurred. This idea makes me think about if there is a self outside the system. What our bodies know is the inner truth that cannot be swayed by the larger consensus and makes me hopeful that there is a force strong enough to change the way we live our lives.
Overall the article “Can you be BLACK and Look at This?”: Reading the Rodney King Video(s) by Elizabeth Alexander discusses race and what it means to it means to be a part of a racial group. It is important to examine the dynamics of racial grouping to better understand why people are treated the way they are and how things change the way they do. This way we are closer to understanding how The System works and how it affects our everyday lives.