{"id":200,"date":"2015-10-10T14:02:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T13:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/?p=200"},"modified":"2017-04-18T09:21:32","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T08:21:32","slug":"mark-dery-interview-24-a-communitys-fight-at-stake-all-the-more-topical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/mark-dery-interview-24-a-communitys-fight-at-stake-all-the-more-topical\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview w\/ Mark Dery (2\/4) : A community\u2019s fight at stake (all the more topical)"},"content":{"rendered":"

All over the world is now rising a new perception that mankind history was just one of migrations, never without pain and suffering, violence and injustice that only today get a tentative resolve through universal\/pacific settlements of recognitions, repairs and memory celebrating.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

Black(s) to the Future : <\/strong>According to you, what is today the new battlefield for the black community, beyond the Hip-hop legacy iconed by its intelligentsia ? To be more specific and perhaps rough\u2026 : is still any identity stake out there for the black community or was the melting pot successful enough to forge a new American identity, ready to confront new external threats to its integrity as one people, one nation? This question being all the more decisive as we cannot but take into account loads of \u201cfriction points\u201d – among whose the latests, ranging from Cleveland & Baltimore protests to the release of the movie \u201cDear White People\u201d…<\/p>\n

Mark Dery :<\/b> Since I\u2019m one of the Dear White People, it would be presumptuous of me (in the extreme!) to speak on behalf of African-Americans, much less to draw up a cultural battle plan for black America.<\/p>\n

That said, your reference to the politics of black identity makes me think of the striking contrast between the internationalism of black liberation struggles in the past\u2014I\u2019m thinking specifically of W.E.B. DuBois<\/b><\/a>\u2014and the way that today\u2019s direct actions for civil rights, social justice, and freedom from fear<\/b>\u2014massive street protests, the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, the \u201cI Can\u2019t Breathe\u201d meme, Bree newsome shimmying up the flagpole at the South Carolina state Capitol and hauling down the Confederate flag\u2014are taking place, in the United States<\/b>, against a slow-rolling assault on the gains of the civil-rights era<\/b> and a societal trend toward the island self.<\/p>\n

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Two demonstrators following the riots in Ferguson, opposed to the systemic violence faced by Africans Americans (source : @occupythemob<\/a> on Twitter\u00a0)<\/h6>\n

By \u201cslow-rolling assault,\u201d I mean the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, widespread voter suppression, gerrymandering (tactical redistricting to weaken the political impact of communities of color), the criminalization of the poor, the mass incarceration of young black men by the prison-industrial complex and, not least, the brutalization and murder, more often than not with impunity, of black people by an increasingly militarized police force whose real job is to protect the property and peace of mind of the ruling class from an increasingly discontent underclass.<\/b> So there\u2019s that, on one hand. And on the other there\u2019s a growing focus on the self.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s most evident in the narcissistic Culture of the Selfie normalized by social media. But it\u2019s also clear for all to see in the prevailing presumption, on college campuses, that professors like Laura Kipnis<\/b><\/a> at Northwestern University, who challenge students\u2019 cherished beliefs, are a threat to the notion that the classroom should be a \u201csafe space,\u201d free from unsettling ideas. We can also see this closing down\u2014this fixation on the social atom, the Me who is the measure of all things\u2014in the furor over \u201ctrigger warnings,\u201d which again attempt to police professorial speech on the assumption that students who\u2019ve been traumatized by sexual violence will be re-traumatized by, say, a discussion of a novel touching on the theme of sexual violence. And then there\u2019s the notion of \u201cmicroaggression\u201d\u2014the little, unconsidered racist, homophobic, or transphobic words and deeds that, we’re told, inflict the death of a thousand cuts on people of color, gays, and transgendered persons. This zooming in on the politics of the individual, away from any sense of common cause, and this emphasis on the politics of emotions\u2014giving and taking offense, hurting and being hurt\u2014is at least partly the unhappy fruit of the academic fad, in the \u201890s, for identity politics.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean to make light of this heightened awareness of the politics of everyday life, nor to dismiss the million little ways in which power is strategically deployed. But the historical movement away from a wide-angle DuBois-ian internationalism to a politics that zooms in on the individual, focusing on micro-political issues related to the self and the body, strikes me as a capitulation to the status quo.<\/b><\/p>\n