Paper #6 It all comes down to this — Being a scholar of ???

Being a scholar of ???

This weekend I will place myself in the midst of an ongoing debate in American society.  I will stand in front of City Hall and recite the names of African American men, women, and children who were victims of police brutality and excessive force.  In addition to being murdered, their stories and identities were high-jacked by the police to rationalize their brutal deaths.  The media was complicit in framing these men, women, and children as welfare queens, thugs, and wayward products of a morally bankrupt and crime-ridden culture.  It is a tactic as old as the story of the first African to survive the Middle Passage.  Dehumanize him and you can justify and blame him for any harm he endures.

As I stand in the winter cold, I will be the embodiment of Critical Race Theory as I push back against racism, power, and the law.  I will challenge the legal rhetoric and language used to dehumanize the victims and assert a personal and cultural identity in an era that claims not to see my skin color at the same time as it erects and fortifies institutional, structural, and systemic racism.

One of Zora Neale Hurston's most famous quotes interpreted literally with black print on a white background.

One of Zora Neale Hurston’s most famous quotes interpreted literally with black print on a white background.

Being a Scholar of Race, more specifically Critical Race Theory, Legal Rhetoric, and Cultural Studies in the formation of personal and cultural identity is much more than an academic endeavor, it is personal.  As Zora Neale Hurston stated, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp, white background.”  Critical Race Theory’s origins in the social justice movements of the 1980s appeal to my sense of justice, my conflicting feelings about law, and the use of counter-narratives that are the basis of Critical Race Theory to rewrite ourselves back into history and push back against the structures that seek to define and contain us.  In this aspect, I see myself engaging in the social justice arm of Critical Race Theory through protest and on the street activism.  The early pioneers of the movement were willing to sacrifice their careers, often engaging in protests alongside their students and members of marginalized communities.  The social activism aspect of Critical Race Theory has evolved to include contemporary concerns such as environmental justice and prisoner’s rights.  While these areas impact African American communities, I see myself focusing my social activism on abuse of power in the courts and police on the streets.

This semester has taught me that perhaps my role in Critical Race Theory and my chosen subdisciplines lies outside of the academy. I don’t think the academic world of analyzing race and racism and writing papers is enough for me.  I see myself contributing by getting out of academia, at least outside of research, conferences, and the pedantic ego-stroking and infighting.  One possible area I see myself pursuing is getting back into law in the area of civil rights litigation.  Maybe I’ll remain myself in the classroom where the impact is on the individual level.  My most rewarding classes are the ones in which I see students evolve from close-minded superficial thinkers to critical consumers of the mass media who can evaluate social justice issues and the intersectionality of race, class, and gender in their own lives and the lives of others.  One thing that CRT has taught me is that you can’t topple the top without first destabilizing the base.  In regard to race and other social justice issues, I am destabilizing the base not by telling them what to think, but by teaching them how to think.

Should I choose to stay in academia, I find the modern arm of Critical Race Theory that focuses on the contemporary issues of race, law, and power that were not present when the discipline was first conceived ripe for research and examination.  My approach to CRT maintains the “old school” focus on social justice and combines it with the

Microaggression percentages with frequency level greater than "a little/rarely" broken down by race.

Microaggression percentages with frequency level greater than “a little/rarely” broken down by race.

contemporary interest in how race and microaggressions shape personal and cultural identity in the law.  For example, I was recently discussing African American anger and stereotypes of the Angry Black Woman and the Dangerous Black Man.  As I wrote in Paper #2, both of these stereotypes are used in an attempt to derail discussion about the circumstances that lead to the real, or perceived anger.  Often, it’s not even the overt racism that results in the frustration and anger (ironically, when non-people of color demonstrate anger, it’s often called righteous anger, passion, or even patriotism, depending on the circumstances), but the multitude of microaggressions over a day, a year, a lifetime that result in the harsh tone or outburst when someone asks to touch your hair (this is not a zoo), states that you are articulate (unspoken: for a black person), asks “What are you?” (I’m a who, not a what), questions your credentials (do I need to pin my resume and recommendations to my chest?), or gives you a backhanded compliment (as in the recent kerfluffel with the New York Times columnist who called Shondra Rhimes, an accomplished and successful producer of hit televisions shows, an Angry Black Woman and expected it to be perceived as a compliment) that often go unaddressed by social justice and anti-racist activists.Not addressed in Paper #2 is the fear of being accused of being an Angry Black Woman or Dangerous Black Man.  This anxiety often deters African Americans from asserting a genuine or authentic voice.  The Angry Black Woman and Dangerous Black Man narratives or a silencing tactic designed to quell dissent and individuality.  Not only have I seen this in numerous articles and studies that address these stereotypes, but I have subjected myself to the self-doubt that occurs when I want to speak up about an issue.  Although written over a century ago, W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Souls of Black Folks” accurately describes this internal/external dialogue as “double consciousness”:

Not addressed in Paper #2 is the fear of being accused of being an Angry Black Woman or Dangerous Black Man.  This anxiety often deters African Americans from asserting a genuine or authentic voice.  The Angry Black Woman and Dangerous Black Man narratives or a silencing tactic designed to quell dissent and individuality.  Not only have I seen this in numerous articles and studies that address these stereotypes, but I have subjected myself to the self-doubt that occurs when I want to speak up about an issue.  Although written over a century ago, W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Souls of Black Folks” accurately describes this internal/external dialogue as “double consciousness”:

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.

As a side note, I am fully aware of the difficulties African Americans face in academia and realize that being an African American woman in higher education is an uphill battle.  I find that asserting myself in meetings or even in the classroom offends people in a way that would not occur with a white male.  If you are not African American and have never experienced this, you are just going to have to trust me on this.  So part of my dilemma is whether or not I want to engage in the liberal colorblind racism that I will encounter in academia or go to a more welcoming environment.  For example, museums like the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh had an exhibit entitled RACE: Are We So Different? The prospect of consulting with museums, businesses seeking to establish real, effective diversity initiatives, or working for non-profits such as the Equal Justice Initiative is appealing.

But back to race, law, and power — overt racism, microaggressions, and other stereotypes find their way into the legal system.  Mario L. Barnes, Professor of Law at University of California, Irvine and Co-Director of the Center for Law, Equality, and Race compiled information about black women’s interactions with the criminal justice system and found that “social and legal constructions of black women’s identities” resulted in stereotypes and prejudices made their race hypervisible to the exclusion of facts, or opaque observers in the courts rather than participants (945).

Barnes’s study established how courts use racialized social codes and stereotypes to create a negative black female identity that undermines not only individuality of the

Do racialized stereotypes used to get television ratings impact minorities in court? You bet they do.

Do racialized stereotypes used to get television ratings impact minorities in court? You bet they do.

women, but the court proceedings themselves (950).  Not only are personal narratives used to demonstrate the dehumanizing racism of the justice system, but dehumanizing narratives are created by the justice system in order to justify racially loaded determinations from racially neutral facts (967).

In addition to creating a false identity, the hypervisibility of racially coded traits serve to diminish social status (969).  Barnes provides an example of welfare status as in example of an identity trait being imbued with racial overtones (970).  In his example, welfare is often used as a sign of low status and thus, low character (970).  Barnes claims that welfare is also conflated with race and culpability (970), thus creating an image based on traits regardless of any real culpability.  African American women are often treated as guilty because their race is hypervisible to a court that imbues their dark skin with legal prejudices and biases.  Barnes’ notes that when black women are on trial, their morality is also on trial regardless of any direct link to the case before the court.  The number of sex partners, the number of children, and references to morality are all elements of hypervisibility that affect the attitudes of the triers of fact, but also play into the stereotype of the wanton, sexually reckless black woman (974).  While this determination is not a legal one, it is a social construction that is destructive both in and outside of the court room.

Barnes’s research provides a way to approach Critical Race Theory from a perspective that makes it less of an academic thought experiment and more of a practical way to effect change.  One way I see myself contributing to and extending Barnes’s research is through a Cultural Studies approach to Critical Race Theory.  Although Barnes’s research focuses on the law and stereotypes, those narratives are coded and reinforced in the law and in American culture.   As stated in PAB #2, Imani Perry’s work would provide an entry way for discussing cultural narratives that impact the law.   In her article Cultural Studies Critical Race Theory and Some Reflections on Methods (2005), Perry argues for examining the narrative created by “social practices and forms of consumption (television, church, film, games) (917)” and evaluating those cultural artifacts “as they relate to the structural power of law, and the underlying ideologies of constitutional and private law” (917).  For example, rather than disdain the “low brow” appeal of pop culture such “paternity test shows” that create and reinforce stereotypes about race (917), Perry argues that such artifacts of cultural production should be read as a series of interdependent texts that communicate values that influence, and are influenced by, law (917).

In particular, my Cultural Studies Objects of Study would include, among other things, police reality TV shows, news reports, print media, commercials, blogs, press releases, and police and eyewitness testimony.  Through an analysis of these texts, it is possible to examine law and culture as social control through the way they define and create race and the racialization of black bodies.  During my October 10, 2014 interview with Dr. Phillips, we discussed critical race theory, African American cultural studies, African American literature, and racialized bodies.  The interview helped narrow my approach to African American literature and focused my use of CRT analysis.  For example, we discussed the increased exposure of police brutality and violence. When looked at through CRT, the focus is on how power and law reinforce power structures through violence against black bodies while still predominantly privileging white bodies in similar situations.  This was clearly seen in #pumpkinfest where white college students at Keene College in New Hampshire participated in the annual pumpkin festival by rioting, destroying property, fighting each other, and terrorizing locals.  Not only did the rioters taunt officers into using heavy duty militarized equipment, the police response was negligible compared to the police response to civil disobedience protesting the killing of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri .  The internet did not take long to notice the discrepancy between how the police and the media treated the two events. Similar disproportionate response by police officers have been noted in how they seek to quell civil disobedience in the wake of the death of Eric Garner following an banned chokehold by a white police officer.

Another example of law, language, and narrative in creating racialized body is in Darren Wilson’s Grand Jury testimony.  Aside from the other legal irregularities, Wilson characterized Michael Brown as a “demon” and expressed fear at his size.   – Michael Brown was no longer an 18-year old, he was a beast.  As Wilson claimed,

“When he looked at me, he made like a grunting, like aggravated sound and he starts, he turns and he’s coming back towards me.”

Michael Brown was a dangerous Black man.  As a litigator I know how language and stories are essential to creating persuasive arguments.  How lawyers construct narratives is similar to the way authors, producers, and other storytellers construct narratives.  As an avid reader and literature professor, I see how texts are living and how society is reflected in the texts and how texts are reflected in society – they are a mirror of who we are.  How Wilson described Brown is how society sees African American men.  I want to examine real trial testimony, police reports, and press releases.  Additionally, I want to examine African American literature that contains trials, police encounters, and any other interactions with power, law, and racism beginning with Richard Wright’s “Native Son,” a powerful and scathing protest novel that addresses race, racism, law, and the narratives we create and the narratives we allow others to create for us.  It is one of the most influential African American protest novels.

When studying race and the impact of racism, history matters.

When studying race and the impact of racism, history matters.

Since literature and cultural artifacts, such as reality television, bestseller lists, and press conferences, are not created in a vacuum, a New Historicism approach which “reflects a concern with the period in which a text is produced and/or read” (“Critical Approaches”), would be a secondary lens through which to view these texts.  The necessity of using a New Historicism lens is evident given the reliance on how both Narrative and CRT and Legal Rhetoric are so closely tied with historical categories of race and examinations of identity and classification over time and how those identities are mirrored and reinforced in culture.  New Historicism would also be useful in examining how the law in effect at the time implicitly and explicitly influenced not just the creation of the text, but the content as well and how culture influenced the law (i.e. Barnes’s study about the legal impact of cultural stereotypes in the courtroom).

As I stated in Paper #5, Narrative Theory, Legal Rhetoric, and Critical Race theory converge and is where my theoretical interests are most clearly reflected.  Critical Race Theory focuses on the explicit and implicit interaction between power, race, and the law.  Although there are many ways to engage with CRT, I am most interested in how legal rhetoric creates both personal and cultural identity and how the law and African Americans reinforce and/or resist the narrative created by those in power.  As Haney Lopez states, the law is not a monolithic entity (114), but a system of interdependent mechanisms by which legal rules, social taboos and expectations, and “legal actors” engage in a system of racial definition and separation.  How these racial definitions are redefined or reinforced in African American literature and Cultural Studies how African American authors and readers create and resist narration and navigate the strictures and limits imposed by law will probably be a focal point of my research.

The dominant narratives and legal personas created by the law and legal rhetoric provide no real sense of authentic identification for African Americans. Examining African American literature through a CRT lens limns the previously unacknowledged counternarratives and spaces that reshape and reclaim personal and cultural identity through resistance to legal definitions of race.

My epistemology naturally emerges from my objects of study and my theories.  While qualitative and quantitative research is essential to gathering knowledge, social constructionism most aptly describes what how I determine truth and evidence.  As I stated in Paper #5,  “social constructionism” is a “theory of knowledge that emphasizes that the world is constructed by human beings as they interact and engage in interpretation” (O’Leary).  Social construction helps us understand and get our bearings about race, the law, language, and our place in the world.  Some things we know only because we experience them and some things we know because we are given the language to relay our personal experience.  All of that can only be understood or interpreted in light of the social constructs that give them context.  However we define knowledge, it’s always bounded by the culture we live in.   Thus, for me, knowledge and truth is based on lived experience and human interactions with the law and the social boundaries in which we exist.

As stated at the beginning of this essay, I’m not sure where all of this leaves me.  I recognize the value in academic research, in fact my knowledge of the impact of the law on race and racism and my ability to take part in protests and demonstrations is because someone has already done research on these issues.  However, at this time, I think my best use of the academy is to apply the research and studies created by other scholars in the field to make my work in the streets, the classroom, the non-profit, or the courtroom more effective.

 

Works Cited

Barnes, Mario L. “Black Women’s Stories and the Criminal Law: Restating the Power of Narrative.” 39 U. C. Davis L.  Rev. (2005 -2006): 941-90. Web. 05 Sept. 2014.

“Critical Approaches to Literature.” Critical Approaches to Literature. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.

Haney Lopez, Ian F.  “White by Law:  The Legal Construction of Race.”  White by Law.  New York:  NYU Press, First Ed. 1996,  111-153.

O’Leary, Zina. “Taking a Leap into the Research World.” The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project.  Chapter 1, 1-17.SAGE Publishing. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.

Perry, Imani. “Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory and Some Reflection on Methods.” 50 Villanova Law Review 4 (2005): 915-24. Law and Society Commons. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.

 

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Paper #5 – Theories and Epistemology

Theories and Epistemology

One of the most interesting and fulfilling facets of using Critical Race Theory to examine law and race in African American Literature is that the multidisciplinary approach inherent in CRT doesn’t require me to align my theories to narrow, artificial boundaries.  There are two theories, however, that are central to, and intertwined with, CRT and African American literature:  Narrative Theory, Legal Rhetoric (as a component of CRT), and New Historicism.  I do not have preferred Objects of Study, as I am open to any text that allows for the reclaiming or recreation of personal and cultural identity.  Thus, my personal objectives and professional objectives in Narrative Theory, Legal Rhetoric and Critical Race Theory, and New Historicism are inseparable.  Additionally, these theories influence and are influenced by my social constructionism epistemological alignment.

Theories

Narrative: 

Narrative theory “concerns itself with the structure of narrative – how events are constructed and through what point of view” (“Critical Approaches).  The applicability of narrative theory to literature of any genre is obvious.  I, however, want to go a step further in analyzing the language and structure of narrative to examine how law and race

Frederick Douglass reading at his desk in Washington, D.C.

Frederick Douglass reading at his desk in Washington, D.C.

influence, among other things, literary characters, plot, and themes even when the narrative does not directly address issues of race.  Race is an inescapable lived experience and Narrative Theory examines how socially and culturally African Americans are impacted by those experiences.  For example, Frederick Douglass’s “Learning to Read and Write” is an important example of the how narrative and the creation of narrative is essential to understanding oneself as an African American.  Frederick Douglass knew that he was a slave, but until he read the narrative of another slave in “The Columbian Orator” he did not know how to give voice or thought to his own condition.  A narrative text enabled him to examine his own personal narrative and the voices, events, and structures that created who he was and how he thought about the world.  Once he was exposed to this narrative, he was able to deconstruct it and begin to recreate it from his own point of view and perception of events.  It becomes even more meta in that he was then able to create a written narrative from his own experience that deconstructed the narrative that others would try to create for him.  This ability to create self-narratives in opposition to the damaging self-serving portrayal of African American masculinity, femininity, family, and history, among other things, is essential in establishing healthy self-perception and cultural identity.

Legal Rhetoric and Critical Race Theory:

Narrative Theory, Legal Rhetoric, and Critical Race theory converge and is where my theoretical interests are most clearly reflected.  Critical Race Theory focuses on the explicit and implicit interaction between power, race, and the law.  Although there are many ways to engage with CRT, I am most interested in how legal rhetoric creates both personal and cultural identity and how the law and African Americans reinforce and/or resist the narrative created by those in power.  As Haney Lopez states, the law is not a monolithic entity (114), but a system of interdependent mechanisms by which legal rules, social taboos and expectations, and “legal actors” engage in a system of racial definition and separation.  How these racial definitions are redefined or reinforced in African American literature and how African American authors and readers create identity in opposition to the legal rhetoric that creates identity and the laws that reinforce racialization is the thrust of my inquiry.

The dominant narratives and legal personas created by the law and legal rhetoric provide no real sense of authentic identification for African Americans. Examining African multiracialidentityjpg-706114dd0fbeed1dAmerican literature through a CRT lens limns the previously unacknowledged counternarratives and spaces that reshape and reclaim personal and cultural identity through resistance to legal definitions of race.  The “mixed-race” movement in which people refused to acquiesce to the black/white binary established by the legal system resulted in an expansion of racial categories on the U.S. Census and other legal documents is one example of this resistance.  Furthermore, this lens also exposes the ways that narratives and lack of personal or cultural resistance against them foster cultural and personal anxiety.  Thus, personal and professional interests in how language creates identity drive this theoretical approach to my study.

New Historicism:

New Historicism “reflects a concern with the period in which a text is produced and/or read” (“Critical Approaches”).  It also ties the texts to a broader range of ideas such as biography, cultural studies, the self, and literature as cultural texts.  The necessity of using a New Historicism lens is evident given the reliance on how both Narrative and CRT and Legal Rhetoric are so closely tied with historical categories of race and examinations of identity and classification over time.

Epistemology

Social constructionism:

Zina O’Leary describes “social constructionism” as a “theory of knowledge that emphasizes that the world is constructed by human beings as they interact and engage in interpretation” (7).  Social construction helps us understand and get our bearings about race, the law, language, and our place in the world.  Some things we know only because we experience them and some things we know because we are given the language to relay our personal experience.  All of that can only be understood or interpreted in light of the social constructs that give them context.  However we define knowledge, it’s always bounded by the culture we live in.   Thus, for me, knowledge and truth is based on lived experience and human interactions with the law and the social boundaries in which we exist.

Works Cited

“Critical Approaches to Literature.” Critical Approaches to Literature. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.

Haney Lopez, Ian F.  “White by Law:  The Legal Construction of Race.”  White by Law.  New York:  NYU Press, First Ed. 1996,  111-153.

O’Leary, Zina. “Taking a Leap into the Research World.” The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project.  Chapter 1, 1-17.SAGE Publishing. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.

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Paper #4 — Mulling Over Methods

Mulling over Methods

While some scholars lament what they see as the end of literary studies as we have known it, others such as Sreevvidya Surendran recognize that literary studies has not disappeared, but it “has suddenly widened to include a cornucopia of diverse media” (Surendran).  In his article “Of Methods and Methodologies in Literary Studies and Humanities” Surendran states that incorporating  objects of studies from other disciplines into literary studies,  literary studies has broadened so much from its original methods and objects of study that it is “almost melding into that field of terrifying and infinite variety:  Cultural Studies” (Surendran).   This can be seen in many English Departments across the country that combine the Literary & Cultural Studies into one discipline.  Where one ends and one begins is a debate within English Studies departments across academia.  This debate centers around issues of funding, legitimacy, and prestige, among other things, as we’ve discussed this semester.  It also, however, has a basis in theories, methods, and methodology. We’ve seen similar contentions over methods within the Game Studies narratology versus ludology discussions and World Englishes debates over standardized or community centered English learning.

How to choose which methods to apply to African American Literature and Critical Race Theory within a department are even more complicated by the marginalization of those studies within English Departments.  While some universities have African American Literature and Cultural Studies departments, a study of African American literature and/or Critical Race Theory will often be placed within an English Studies department but require scholars to seek classes and expertise in other disciplines and methods from other departments.  This is where the interdisciplinary approach to Literary Studies is helpful.  However, it’s also where contentions in what are considered acceptable methods can take place.  Methods and objects of study within an African American Studies department, Sociology, or Psychology may not be traditionally accepted within a Literary Studies tradition. Therefore, as Surendran suggests, what is needed is “to integrate disparate ideas and identities that teem under the umbrella term of ‘Literature’ and create a method that is not applicable to all, but one that allows itself to be suitably tailored for each research question” (Surendran).  Thus, I believe, the major questions in addition to the research questions will guide the approach to history, objects of study, and methods rather than artificial boundaries of study and inquiry based upon disciplinary predetermination and departmental posturing.

magnify-dictionary-research.jpg

A critique over methods is presented by Aldo Nemesio in his article “The Comparative Method and the Study of Literature” in which he claims that contemporary research is more focused on gathering information and not as concerned with producing new areas of knowledge (Nemesio).  Nemesio asserts that academic biases and personal vanity impede true literary research or knowledge (Nemesio).  By way of example he cites the over 6000 articles about Shakespeare in just one decade (Nemesio).  While his claim that no one scholar can access and research all of these articles is valid, his assumption that these articles were only about “celebration, entertainment, or satisfaction of vanity” lacks basis or clear rationale.  More importantly, his argument decenters reading texts as objects of study because the finds that method vapid and counter to true learning and knowledge.  Instead, he advocates a comparative method of study in which “nationalist” texts are disfavored and human literary study which incorporates “what happens elsewhere . . . in the comparative method” is elevated (Nemesio).  While this seems inclusive, multicultural, and multiethnic, it poses a danger for already marginalized departments and studies (such as Asian literature or African American literature) that are already marginalized cultures within the “nationalist” literary tradition.  Nemesio is taking a very privileged view of “national” and what literature is by not even considering the possibility that his assumption of what human literary history is excludes a vast number of humans.  His attempt at inclusivity is oppressive and his choice of methods reaffirms what already exists in the academy  — the larger voices, no matter the canon or “nation”, will be heard.

Nemesio’s view is not a loud voice in the field of methods and literary studies, but it’s one of the ways that African American Literature and indeed, the voice of other marginalized texts and studies have to consider how some methods are privileged over others.  As with Surendran’s article, it demonstrates that research and literary study may be influenced through a determination of what methods are available and privileged.  They also brings to bear the questions of research and academic careers in departments in which my methods and research questions are not considered as valid as others.

Racialized bodies in American Culture: "Black bodies are already imagined, constructed as exotic, violent, alien, primitive, inferior and thus treated as out of the ordinary by hegemonic discourses and groups. The image below plays on the tried-and-tired trope of Black male sexuality as inherently heterosexual, dangerous and misogynistic."    -Egbert Alejandro Martina

Racialized bodies in American Culture: “Black bodies are already imagined, constructed as exotic, violent, alien, primitive, inferior and thus treated as out of the ordinary by hegemonic discourses and groups. The image below plays on the tried-and-tired trope of Black male sexuality as inherently heterosexual, dangerous and misogynistic.”
-Egbert Alejandro Martina

Because I have chosen to focus my research on Critical Race Theory and African American Literature, both of which involve narrative and counternarrative, the inclusion of Cultural Studies is necessary in order to examine the ways in which race and identity are created through, among other things,  the media, law, art, music, and texts.  I anticipate that my research will borrow heavily  social science methods as well as law in forming methodologies and theories.  These methods will include, but are not limited to social science methods such as:

Archival research – Articles, other research and data already collected, manuscripts, first-person accounts of important events and life stories, databases, etc.

Visual“This includes using the visual as a documenting tool to produce visual records, in interviews to elicit comments from informants, in participant observation to research ways of seeing and understanding, analysing visual and material culture and using visual media to represent the findings of such research” (Pink).

Ethnography“Ethnography is a type of social science research that investigates the practices and life of a community, by becoming one of its members. It is based on learning about a context and the people living in it, by understanding their values, needs and vocabulary. It requires faithful reporting of what is experienced or observed, avoiding any interpretation or evaluation as far as possible” (“Ethnographic Research”).

Biographical“Rather than concentrating upon a ‘snapshot’ of an individual’s present situation, the biographical approach emphasises the placement of the individual within a nexus of social connections, historical events and life experiences (the life history). An important sub-stream of the method focuses upon the manner in which the respondent actively constructs a narrative of their life in response to the social context at the time of interview (the life story)” (Miller).

As evidenced by just some of the methods above,  the methods I will use vary widely as are the academic departments and theories I apply to my research.   In fact, Kim Fahle’s  October 28, 2014 comment on my last paper   “For instance do you see yourself using legal and cultural documents to contextualize and interpret literature, or are you examining literature in conjunction with other documents as equivalent texts that provide a window to theorize and discuss racialized bodies?” has helped shape the direction of my research because I was, until then, trying to articulate how I was going to approach the discussion of racialized bodies.  Knowing the research question or at least the direction of the research question is essential in determining methods.  I am going to use literature and other documents as equivalent texts to theorize and discuss racialized bodies.  Legal methods will included written law, quantitative and qualitative analysis of the law and public policy, and a historical view of the law.  Much of my approach to incorporating Cultural Studies into my research will include the above social science and legal methods.  Thanks, Kim!

 

Works Cited

“Ethnographic Research.” Experientia Putting People First. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.

Miller, Robert. “BIOGRAPHICAL METHODS.” The A-Z of Social Research (2003): n. pag. : SAGE Research Methods. SAGE Publishing, 2003. Web. 02 Nov. 2014

Nemesio, Aldo. “The Comparative Method and the Study of Literature.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Purdue University, Mar. 2007. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

Pink, Sarah. “VISUAL METHODS.” The SAGE Dictionary of Social Research Methods (2006): n. pag. : SAGE Research Methods. SAGE Publishing, 2006. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.

Surendran, Sreevidya. “Of Methods and Methodologies in Literary Studies and Humanities.” Sociological Imagination. N.p., 27 June 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

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PAB #4: Theories and Methods. Well, mainly methods.

Methods and Literary Studies

I used the first half of the semester to become acquainted with Critical Race Theory’s legal and academic scholars, history, its interdisciplinary application, and debates about its future. For this Progressive Annotated Bibliography, I chose to address my focus on literature and literary studies.  Although the PABs are not directly addressing issues in African American Literary Studies, the ideas and implications are influential in how to approach the discipline and the texts.

cultural-studies

The Cultural Studies word cloud contains many ideas and concepts present in Literary Studies. Where does one discipline begin and the other end?

As we’ve discussed all semester, the field of English Studies as a whole is constantly in flux, as are the various departments that comprise the field and even the internal research and foci of the departments themselves.  As Sreevvidya Surendran states in “Of Methods and Methodologies in Literary Studies and Humanities,” the interdisciplinary approach to the study of the humanities no longer centers the research question as the focus of the school but on the method and methodology (Surendran).  Although Surendran’s discussion of methods and methodology is worth of discussion in a longer post, what is most relevant for the purposes of this short entry is that an interdisciplinary approach to literary studies means that “the corpus of literary study has suddenly widened to include a cornucopia of diverse media” (Surendran).  Surendran notes that this has broadened literary studies so much from its original methods and objects of study that it is “almost melding into that field of terrifying and infinite variety:  Cultural Studies” (Surendran).  Indeed, as my last paper explained, if everything about a text, from the writer, to reader, to market forces are considered in analysis of the text, then is the focus of my research literary studies or cultural studies?  Does the method create the discipline or the discipline define the method?  I think these are questions that are at the core of the debates in contemporary Literary and Cultural Studies departments.  It comes back to what we have been discussing all semester:  How do we define and individuate departments and disciplines and what are the benefits and detriments of those choices, particularly in a field like African American literature which is often a sub-department of English Departments.  For example, an interdisciplinary focus in American or British literature (and those terms themselves focus on exclusion as if African American and Black British authors are frequently excluded from the canon), is more easily accomplished in American university with film, history, and sociology departments that contain classes steeped in the dominant.  Many institutions of higher education do not have classes, much less departments, that study African American film, sociological impacts of race, etc.  While they may be a small part of a class, they are seldom the focus of interdisciplinary departments.

Surendran suggests that “the key is to integrate disparate ideas and identities that teem under the umbrella term of ‘Literature’ and create a method that is not applicable to all, but one that allows itself to be suitably tailored for each research question” (Surendran).  Thus, I believe, the major questions in addition to the research questions will guide the approach to history and objects of study rather than artificial boundaries of study and inquiry based upon disciplinary predetermination and departmental posturing.  This still doesn’t address the Balkanization of minority studies, but it allows for the attempt to expand the limited research opportunities within a department to other areas of viability.

Works Cited

Surendran, Sreevidya. “Of Methods and Methodologies in Literary Studies and Humanities.” Sociological Imagination. N.p., 27 June 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

 

I include a PAB to Aldo Nemesio’s article “The Comparative Method and the Study of Literature” to highlight an interesting debate in the field over methods used.  Nemesio criticizes contemporary research as collecting data with an emphasis on the gathering of information rather than the production of knowledge (Nemesio).  He claims that repetition of research strategies, methods, theories, and methodologies are in service to celebratory research that does not delve into uncharted territories, but rather rehashes already existing knowledge (Nemesio).  Instead of studying what he calls “human literary behavior,” literary researchers seek to further their own cultural models or values at the expense of literary research (Nemesio).

Nemesio delves into the reasons that the study of literature has developed in a certain way, but what’s most interesting to me about his essay is critique of limiting research to a “national” literature.  He calls such a focus “professional laziness” and while it produces certainty and cohesion, it does not produce literary research or knowledge (Nemesio).  In fact, he claims, it produces situations in which over 6000 articles about Shakespeare are produced in a decade (Nemesio).  The volume is not accessible to even the most ardent Shakespeare enthusiast and researcher.  Nemesio asserts that production on this scale is not about knowledge, but about “celebration, entertainment, or satisfaction of vanity” (Nemesio).

How much more can be said about Shakespeare?

How much more can be said about Shakespeare?

I include his article here for two reasons:  One, it addresses the idea of what methods are used and worthy of literary study.  We have talked on many occasions about what disciplines and departments get priority when it comes to status, funding, or faculty.  Nemesio advocates a comparative method of literary study in which “nationalist” texts are disfavored and human literary study which incorporates “what happens elsewhere . . . in the comparative method” is elevated (Nemesio).  Ascribing to this idea of what “true” literary research is poses a danger for already marginalized departments and studies (such as Asian literature or African American literature) that are already marginalized cultures within the “nationalist” literary tradition.  Nemesio is taking a very privileged view of “national” and what literature is by not even considering the possibility that his assumption of what human literary history is excludes a vast number of humans.  His attempt at inclusivity is oppressive and his choice of methods reaffirms what already exists in the academy  — the larger voices, no matter the canon or “nation”, will be heard.

The second reason I include Nemesio’s article is because it also addresses our class discussions about the role of new media and the web in expanding what literary studies means.  He does not elaborate on this point, unfortunately.  However, he does critique the volume of materials published every year.  I agree with Nemesio that it goes beyond any researcher’s ability to read, digest, and respond.  Nemesio, however, goes further and claims that if the purpose of research is to add to the discourse and communicate significant achievements in literature, it is improbable this goal is met and that most writing published is for sheer vanity.  I disagree with this glib assessment, but do agree that a difficulty arises in who, what, and how to read the sheer number of texts within a field.  How Nemesio eliminates this conundrum through comparative literature and a departure from “nationalist” writing is not quite clear.

This article does lead me to think about the methods used and how some methods are privileged over others.  This definitely influences research and literary study through a determination of what methods are available, privileged, and what departments and research questions are given validity.  So while not directly related to my line if inquiry, these are things that I need to think about as I develop my career as an academic.

Works Cited

 Nemesio, Aldo. “The Comparative Method and the Study of Literature.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Purdue University, Mar. 2007. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

 

 

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Paper #3 Objects of Study in a Shifting Field: CRT, African American Literature, and Racialized Bodies

Text and Context: Objects of Study in Critical Race Theory, African American Literature, and Racialized Bodies

Trying to write about and narrow the application of Critical Race Theory (CRT)  to African American Literature has been simultaneously frustrating and illuminating.  It’s frustrating because Critical Race Theory, by the very nature of a theory that seeks to invalidate stereotypes and labels, resists a one-size-fits-all application of its principles even within the same discipline.  It has been illuminating because in trying to apply CRT to African American literature, I have encountered new ways to approach the study of African American literature, the law, and CRT.  Thus, the fluidity and flexibility of CRT and even the various ways to approach the study of African American literature makes simple, clear-cut answers to this week’s questions impossible.  Therefore, I can only address how I am going to attempt the study of CRT and African American literature and the objects of study particular to my approach.  Much of my insight was gained through an interview with Dr. Delores B. Phillips (Old Dominion University, Postcolonial Theory and Literature).

Ida B. Wells - Civil rights activist, journalist, suffragist.

Ida B. Wells – Civil rights activist, journalist, suffragist.

Anthony Ryan Hatch, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University, Cultural Studies Critical Race Theory and Some Reflections on Methods (Hatch).  Hatch includes the study of the social construction of race and the racism as essential to the tenets of CRT.  Not explicitly mentioned in Hatch’s article is the role of the law in codifying and reifying social constructs of race and its influence on the administration of social systems throughout history.  Instead, he focuses on the historical approach to understanding race and racism by emphasizing the importance of writers and activists like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois and objects of study.  Hatch also recognizes that this historical approach is intertwined with contemporary objects of study such as colorblind racism (Hatch) as the historical approach provides a foundation and understanding of the social construction of race from the 1700s through today (Hatch).  ­­­

The difficulty with Hatch’s assessment of “race and racism” as the objects of study is that those terms on their own are ambiguous without the social context and cultural implications and materials that create their meaning.  How do you study racism?  Via interviews, surveys, observations?  Hatch writes about core themes of CRT.  It is these core themes, in my view, that provide some insight into potential objects of study:  the American mythos of democracy and meritocracy, lived experiences, and colorblind racism, to name a few.  Within these core themes, the approach that provides a more solid base of inquiry and study that involves one of the basic approaches to CRT:  narrative – how these themes impact and influence race, racism, and identity in individuals and cultural groups.  The collection and study of how people interact with American democracy, the observation of the impact of colorblind racism, etc. are all potential objects of study. However, it is Hatch’s emphasis on recognition of the historical foundation for modern CRT through the work of activists and writers like Douglass, Wells, and Du Bois that leads into my interest in African American literature.  The study of their lives and their work is a connection and transition to the study of CRT as it applies to African American literature.  It is not only their textual narratives that create the bridge, but the interactions with source of cultural, social and political power that serve as a catalyst for those narratives that apply CRT to African American literature.

The idea of studying literature through outside forces that shape a text is further developed in Maryemma Graham and Jerry W. Ward, Jr.’s  study of African American literature and objects of study in the Introduction to the Cambridge History of African American Literature.  Graham and Ward’s approach to studying African American literature is multi-faceted, beginning with the slave trade and slavery through contemporary America and its conflicting ideals of democracy and oppression (4).  In this way, it is very similar to Hatch’s approach of using literary history as a foundation of CRT.  It, however, is more specific as they state that “writers are not the sole shapers of literature” (4).  Literature should be looked a via the historical forces that created the text, but also through the “roles of publishers, editors, academic critics, common readers, and mass media reviewers” that nurture, create, market, consume, and evaluate the texts (4).  These are vital objects of study in the physical creation of the text.

In my research of African American literature and CRT, I wish to pursue and in-depth study of the forces that shaped the text, the law, and the transaction between the text and the law and society.  In particular, I am interested in how race and the law affect racialized bodies.  Analyzing race through racialized bodies looks at race as “not merely a social category, but an embodied experience. This cluster brings together scholars who examine the ways that contemporary and historical notions of race, racial ideology and racial politics are manifested in how the “body” is represented, inhabited and regulated” (Blair).  How are racialized bodies manifested in African American literature?  How are racialized bodies manifested in culture and society?  What is the transaction between bodies racialized by the law in society and culture and African American literature?  How do people create counternarratives to resist racialized efforts to define and control their bodies?

During my October 10, 2014 interview with Dr. Phillips, we discussed critical race theory, African American cultural studies, African American literature, and racialized bodies.  The interview helped narrow my approach to African American literature and focused my use of CRT analysis.  For example, we discussed the increased exposure of police brutality and violence. When looked at through CRT, the focus is on how power and law reinforce power structures through violence against black bodies while still predominantly privileging white bodies in similar situations.  This was clearly seen in last week’s #pumpkinfest where white college students at Keene College in New Hampshire participated in the annual pumpkin festival by rioting, destroying property, fighting each other, and terrorizing locals.  Not only did the rioters taunt officers into using heavy duty militarized equipment, the police response was negligible compared to the police response to civil disobedience protesting the killing of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.  The internet did not take long to notice the discrepancy between how the police and the media treated the two events.  Twitter was alight with satire and disdain for the way the drunk, belligerent white rioters were treated versus the way African American peacefully protesting a murder were treated.  The difference is obvious — African American bodies are racialized and must negotiate state sanctioned violence in ways that white bodies do not.

One of these things is not like the other -- the difference between how the police, media, and society view African American protesters and white rioters.

One of these things is not like the other — the difference between how the police, media, and society view African American protesters and white rioters.

While CRT would focus on the interaction of law and race, a look a racialized bodies would analyze how the public violence against black bodies engaging in civil disobedience further stigmatizes black bodies and black anger as thuggish, dangerous, and in need of severe control.  White bodies on the other hand, are sometimes “unruly,” but rarely dangerous.  This analysis transfers to African American texts even when the law is not overtly present – how do racialized bodies move through the

The cover of "A Gathering of Old Men"

The cover of “A Gathering of Old Men”

world and negotiate violence and outsider status even as citizens of their own community and nation?  For example, in what I think will be one of my seminal texts, “A Gathering of Old Men” by Ernest Gaines, an African American man has killed a white man, Beau Boutan, in self-defense.  The story centers not around justice, but against the threat of violence against African American men who dared to defend their bodies and their lives against violent social control.  After discussing the direction of my research with Dr. Phillips we talked about centering my research around a literary text (for example, “A Gathering of Old Men”), pulling in a correlative cultural artifact (the television show “Cops”), and finishing with a legal case or legal topic that ties everything together.  These things, the texts (and the forces that lead to their creation), the cultural artifacts, and the law will be my objects of study.

All of these perspective address the Major Questions of CRT and African American literature because it reinforces the fact that CRT is interdisciplinary, that there is no one way to address race and racism, and that objects of study are wide-ranging.  Additionally, areas of study may splinter, combine, or be discarded without threatening the tenets of CRT because the tenets are fluid.   I, however, have narrowed my research to the law as social control through the way it defines and creates race, racialization of black bodies, and the creation of texts as well as the text themselves.

 

Works Cited

Hatch, Anthony Ryan. Critical Race Theory. Ed. George Ritzer. N.p.: Blackwell Reference Online, 2007. PDF.

Phillips, Delores.  Personal Interview.  14 October 2014.

Graham, Maryemma, and Jerry W. Ward, Jr.  Introduction. “Cambridge History of African American Literature.”  Cambridge University Press, 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. PDF.

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October 21, 2014 · 5:26 pm

PAB #3 Race, Racism, and Objects of Study

Objects of Study & Critical Race Theory

Anthony Ryan Hatch, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University, writes that Critical Race Theory is comprised of a larger body of thought than simply an offshoot of Critical Legal Studies in the 1970s and 1980 that examines how race and racism are created and perpetuated by the law (Hatch).  Hatch states that while it may not have had a formal name, the work of writers and activists like Frederick Douglass, Ida Well-Barnett, and W.E.B. DuBois established the foundation upon which modern Critical Race Theory “interrogate[s] the discourses, ideologies, and social structures that produce and maintain conditions of racial injustice” (Hatch).  Hatch describes the framework of this historical and contemporary movement against racism as “intellectual activism” (Hatch).

Hatch states that there are core themes that unite this wide-ranging body of work.  The first core theme he addresses are the objects of study, race and racism.  Using the historical framework, Hatch states that since the seventeenth-century, the social construction of race and the racism that accompanies it are essential to the administration of social systems, the rise of capitalism, and science and medicine from the 1700s through today (Hatch). His nod to contemporary approaches to Critical Race Theory includes institutionalized racism as coming under the umbrella of the race and racism objects of study.

What is race?

What is race?

Although I had never considered the historical perspective of activists and anti-racist work as part of Critical Race Theory, I can see how Hatch and other scholars connect a historical lens to contemporary discourses on race and racism. Additionally, I do not disagree with Hatch’s assessment of race and racism as objects, of study, but I think his statement is too vague.  What does it mean to study race and racism?  The answer is found in Hatch’s discussion of additional core themes of critical race study.  Although he creates them as individual themes, they provide greater context and understanding of what studying race and racism entails – their objects of study.

The additional core themes are lived experiences, an interdisciplinary approach, a variety of methodologies, and science.  Hatch also writes of American mythos of democracy and meritocracy, the emergence of colorblind racism, and contemporary proposals to undo systemic racism.  The potential focus of objects of study under these core themes is vast.  For example, as discussed in prior papers, lived experiences and narratives/story telling are essential to modern critical race theory that seeks to give voice to marginalized peoples.  An object of study from an interdisciplinary approach would be determined by the discipline.  If utilizing CRT in the study of anthropology, one could examine bones and teeth to determine health and other physical characteristics of minority peoples in a certain period of time or geographic location and provide information about social status or even genetics.  A modern approach to CRT would use the law and legal institutions (as discussed in prior posts) but also, social media such as dating sites or (Online Dating, An Uneven Playing Field for Black Women) even tumblr  (Microaggressions, Power, Privilege and Everyday Life) for information about race and racism in modern institutions.

In my view, any limits on objects of study in Critical Race Theory would be artificial given that CRT is almost limitless in its interdisciplinary, social, and cultural approach to examining the broad category of race and racism.

 Works Cited

Hatch, Anthony Ryan. Critical Race Theory. Ed. George Ritzer. n.p.: Blackwell Reference Online, 2007. PDF.

 

African American Literature — A different approach to Objects of Study

Because I am interested in Critical Race Theory as a lens through which to approach African American literature, I looked at objects of study for literary studies, knowing that there had to be more than just “look at the books.”  Maryemma Graham and Jerry W. Ward, Jr.  address one way to approach the study of African American literature and objects of study in the Introduction to the Cambridge History of African American Literature.  Graham and Ward state that literary historians approach the study of literature through “shaping stories about texts and contexts (3). They site Mario J. Valdes and Linda Hutcheon’s Rethinking Literary History:  A Dialog on Theory (2002) as placing a focus not just on the writing produced, but the forces that helped create the writing and the literary history (3).

Although a literary historicist approach to African American literature looks at African American literature as it is:

  • Related to the slave trade and the institution of slavery in the United States.
  • The creation of African American identity through the amalgamation of various African ethnic groups.
  • Contact between African, native, and European groups that created new forms of oratory and expression.
  • The struggle for freedom, education, and literacy.
  • The social dynamics of race.
  • American democracy and its ideologies. (4)

While I think these points are important in understanding the creation of African American identity, I will need to read further to see how several of these points influenced

Classics written by African American authors.  Where should they be shelved?

Classics written by African American authors. Where should they be shelved?

African American texts.  I am more intrigued by their statement that “writers are not the sole shapers of literature” (4).  They state that the “roles of publishers, editors, academic critics, common readers, and mass media reviewers” shape texts and tastes.  To me, these should be considered objects of study when it comes to analyzing and interpreting African American literature.

For example, I’m thinking of the limited range of exposure African American authors get in mainstream literary recognition.  Everything from African American-centric  novels being segregated from mainstream (read “White”) novels in bookstores and libraries, to white female authors achieving recognition for writing about African American women’s experiences while African American female authors struggle for recognition.  These forces can’t help but shape what African American authors write and what African American readers read, and are just as important to studying African American literature as the actual texts themselves.

While this article doesn’t directly address the objects of study I had intended to investigate (how race and racism is interrogated in African American literature), it opens up ways to examine how race and racism in the production of African American literature influences African American texts.

 Works Cited

Graham, Maryemma, and Jerry W. Ward, Jr.  Introduction. “Cambridge History of African American Literature.”  Cambridge University Press, 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. PDF.

 

 

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Paper #2 — Major questions, different directions

Major Questions, Different Directions

As CRT has grown, it has faced criticism from within the movement and without.  The external criticisms are worth mentioning briefly because in some ways, they reflect some of the internal criticism of the movement.  Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic address these criticisms in “Critiques and Responses to Criticism.”  Delgado, Derrick Bell, and Mari Matsuda, who helped establish CRT, have been accused of privileging minority voices as experts at the expense of non-minorities who may have insights or expertise (“Critiques” 99-100).  The movement has also been accused of “racial essentialism” and disregard for merit (102).  The most crucial criticism, however, stems from those who denounce CRT’s narrative methodology as being too ambiguous and amorphous to meet acceptable standards of academic rigor (103).  These, and other external criticisms have been addressed by Delgado and other members of the movement, but they have also served to turn a critical eye inward to a movement that must evolve and adapt to a changing world.  Recent critique of CRT argues that the black/white binary upon which CRT was based in the years following Brown v. Board of Education are too exclusionary given the contemporary significance of multiculturalism, intersectionality, and other forms of racism in the 21st century.  The major questions in the field hinge on the direction academics and CRT scholars want to go:  Move away from narratives?  Go beyond the black/white binary?  Incorporate and adapt CRT concepts, theories, and methodologies to contemporary issues of race such as multiculturalism and microagressions?  This entry will briefly address those issues.

Visual art representing concepts in CRT

Visual art representing concepts in CRT

Imani Perry, Professor, Center for African American Studies at Princeton University touches on narrative by asserting that storytelling alone is not sufficient to address racial inequity.  Perry approaches narrative through  cultural studies. In her article Cultural Studies Critical Race Theory and Some Reflections on Methods, she argues for examining the narrative created by “social practices and forms of consumption (television, church, film, games) (917)” and evaluating those cultural artifacts “as they relate to the structural power of law, and the underlying ideologies of constitutional and private law” (917).  For example, rather than disdain the “low brow” appeal of pop culture such “paternity test shows” that create and reinforce stereotypes about race (917), Perry argues that such artifacts of cultural production should be read as a series of interdependent texts that communicate values that influence, and are influenced by, law (917).

Perry’s approach is just one of the ways adherents of CRT address the criticism of a storytelling methodology.  She critiques culturally produced stereotypes and implicitly insists on counter-narratives to these stereotypes.  Rather than rely on stories or narratives that may be “atypical” or “a distortion of public discourse” (Delgado and Stefancic 103), cultural studies creates a narrative through consistent and cumulative artifacts.  This reflects an important aspect contemporary CRT in that it incorporates social media, new media, and digital technologies that were not part of the narrative framework during the early decades of CRT.  There are many ways to approach CRT — whether through literary studies, American studies, legal rhetoric, etc. – and each discipline has adapted the narrative aspect of CRT to keep CRT relevant and dynamic.

Gloria Ladson-Billings and Tara J. Yasso address another current debate in CRT:  the black/white binary.  Ladson-Billings and Yasso disagree about whether the black/white binary is still essential to CRT.  Ladson-Billings believes that the issue is not the binary, but how racial and ethnic identities are categorized according to their relation to Whiteness (116).  Yasso, however, believes that in a multicultural society, we need to move beyond the binary to address issues of liberal colorblindness, multiculturalism, cultural capital, and appropriation (117).

In addition to the aforementioned areas of contention, CRT has yet to come up with a theory that adequately addresses contemporary concerns of intersectionality and globalization.  These concerns include a wide variety of issues from the impact of class on housing segregation (“Critical Race Theory Today” 120), elite jobs (121), standardized

There isn't just "one" road.

There isn’t just “one” road.

testing (121), environmental justice (121), and poverty (123), just to name a few.   In contrast to these areas of concern that reflect Derrick Bell’s interest convergence theory and social justice, discourse analysts examine ideas such as identity, microaggression, race as a social construct function in the 21st century.

The major questions of CRT do not have clearly delineated trajectories or histories.  They have fuzzy borders as individual scholars, sociology departments, law schools, history departments, etc. determine the application of theories and methods.  Similar to Dr. Haitsma’s evaluation of the major questions in the field of Rhetoric and Composition, the questions in CRT are merely differences in application and not ideological or pedagogical debates that fracture the field and create the type of intradepartmental hostilities evident in Dr. Moberly’s articles on game studies.

I agree with Dr. Yasso’s contemporary insight into CRT.  My own vision for addressing race and racism maintains the “old school” focus on social justice and combines it with the contemporary interest in how race and microaggressions shape racial and personal identity in law and literature.  For example, I was recently discussing African American anger and stereotypes of the Angry Black Woman and the Dangerous Black Man.  Both of these stereotypes are used in an attempt to derail discussion about the circumstances that lead to real, or perceived, anger.  Often, it’s not even the overt racism that results in the frustration and anger (ironically, when non-people of color demonstrate anger, it’s often called righteous anger, passion, or even patriotism, depending on the circumstances), but the multitude of microaggressions over a day, a year, a lifetime that result in the harsh tone or outburst when someone touches your hair (this is not a zoo), states that you are articulate (unspoken: for a black person), asks “What are you?” (I’m a who, not a what), questions your credentials (do I need to pin my resume and recommendations to my chest?), or gives you a backhanded, racist compliment.

What are you?  A common question asked of mixed race people.

What are you? A common question asked of mixed race people.

Overt racism can be addressed through legal channels or even social media which is implements its own form corrective castigation; microaggressions, however, are often unaddressed because they are typically subtle.  Calling out microaggression can cause someone to be labeled as “too sensitive” or “playing the race card.”  This perspective provides a fresh way of looking at African American lives and addressing it in literature.  What are the microaggressions that influence the character’s responses?  How do we see them shaping personal as well as cultural identity?  How is the law complicit in creating and reinforcing microaggression? These are some of the contemporary CRT questions I intend to address in my research.

 Works Cited

 

Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. “Critiques and Responses to Criticism.” Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 2012. 99-111. Print.

—– “Critical Race Theory Today.” Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 2012. 113-142. Print.

Ladson-Billings, Gloria. “The Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in Educational Scholarship.” 8 Race Ethnicity and Education 1 (2005): 115-19. Web.

Perry, Imani. “Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory and Some Reflection on Methods.” 50 Villanova Law Review 4 (2005): 915-24. Law and Society Commons. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.

Yosso, Tara J.  “Whose Culture Has Capital?  A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth” (2005).

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PAB#2 Questions, but no right answer

Critical Race Theory & Cultural Studies — Departing from the Counternarrative 

Imani Perry, Professor, Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, discusses the methods used in cultural studies and Critical Race Theory (CRT) in her article Cultural Studies Critical Race Theory and Some Reflections on Methods (2005).

Perry recognizes that while the conventional narrative approach to exploring and critiquing the relationship between law and race are a key components of CRT, cultural studies provides a methodology that uses “social practices and forms of consumption (television, church, film, games) as they relate to the structural power of law, and the underlying ideologies of constitutional and private law” (917).  She argues that it is social practices such as the consumption television of talk shows she calls “paternity test shows” that create and reinforce stereotypes about race (917).  Rather than disdain the “low brow” appeal of pop culture, Perry argues that artifacts of cultural production

Talk show host, Maury Povich, frequently hosts young, impoverished women of color seeking to establish paternity of their children.

Talk show host, Maury Povich, frequently hosts young, impoverished women of color seeking to establish paternity of their children.

should be read as a series of interdependent texts that communicate values that influence, and are influenced by, law (917).

While Perry may seem to be advocating a departure from the narrative approach of CRT, she only approaches the narrative from a different framework.  In fact, she states that continued viewing of the absurd hypersexuality and promiscuity on display in the “paternity shows,” creates a narrative that is not only reified in stereotypes at large, but influences family law in which the stereotypes shape the decisions of judges, lawyers, and juries (918).

CRT is about the production of counter-narratives to oppose false pictures and stereotypes created by the dominant power structure that thrives on institutionalized racism.  Counternarratives have been critiqued as ineffective to combat systemic inequality and scholars like Perry have posited new ways to approach CRT.  Yet, the methodological approaches to CRT I have so far encountered seem to return to its narrative origins – it is only the lens through which the narrative is created and consumed that changes.

Perry’s discussion about family law and the influence of negative stereotypes reminds me of Dr. Mario L. Barnes’ article “Black Women’s Stories and Criminal Law.” Barnes, Professor of Law at University of California, Irvine and Co-Director of the Center for Law, Equality, and Race, writes that black women’s interactions with the criminal justice system revealed that “social and legal constructions of black women’s identities”(945) resulted in stereotypes and prejudices that undermine[d] not only individuality of the women, but also the court proceedings (950).  This article, like the one summarized below, demonstrates the overlapping application of CRT to a wide variety of academic disciplines.

A question that emerged from this reading pertains to the participation of African Americans in the stereotypes and cultural artifacts that serve to further oppress them.  This is where CRT merges with psychology and sociology and What does it mean to be African American? and the question of who decides.  I think it is apparent through CRT that power and law decides.  I like the ways in which CRT attempts to move beyond that paradigm to create counternarratives.

 

Works Cited

Perry, Imani. “Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory and Some Reflection on Methods.” 50 Villanova Law Review 4 (2005): 915-24. Law and Society Commons. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.

Barnes, Mario L. “Black Women’s Stories and the Criminal Law: Restating the Power of Narrative.” 39 U. C. Davis L.  Rev. (2005 -2006): 941-90. Web. 05 Sept. 2014.

 

 

Critical Race Theory in Educational Scholarship

In “Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in Educational Scholarship” Gloria Ladson-Billings gives a quick overview of some of the articles compiled for the April 2004 American Educational Research Association symposium (115).  While I plan to read each of the articles submitted for the symposium, Ladson-Billings’ introductory article gives a quick overview of some of the debates in the field of CRT.  I am going to give a quick review of the article most relevant to my area of study.

Gloria Ladson-Billings on the cover of University of Wisconsin- Madison's Isthmus Magazine.

Gloria Ladson-Billings on the cover of University of Wisconsin- Madison Isthmus Magazine.

Ladson-Billings critiques Tara J. Yosso’s “Whose Culture Has Capital?  A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth.”  Yosso, Professor of Chicano Studies at UCLA, insists that CRT must move beyond the “black/white binaries” (116).  Ladson-Billings proposes that the issue is not the binary , but how Whiteness is the standard by with all other racial and ethnic identities are categorized (116).  Ladson-Billings’ opposition to extending the discussions of CRT beyond the black/white binary is unconvincing as she goes on to discuss the variety of racial categories on the 1890 census and other racial groups that have been able, at one time, to claim Whiteness.  I think this is too fine a line.  Whether or not their identity was in relation to Whiteness, it did move beyond the black/white binary simply because the people claiming Whiteness were able to do so because they were not Black.  Although at certain times Asian Indians, Mexican Americans, and the Cherokee  were able to claim Whiteness (116), it was only possible because they were not Black.

Yosso’s article was written in 2005.  I’d like to find more recent work about moving beyond the binary, particularly in light of the colorblind and multicultural liberalism that has pervaded 21st century education.  Kimberle Williams Crenshaw’s article, “Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory Looking Back to Move Forward” addresses the significance of  multiculturalism and colorblindness in the 21st century “post-racial” discussions about race.  Her critique that these “post-racial” liberalisms impede social justice and racial equality by taking race off the table for discussion (1337) can inform an analysis of the binary.

Yosso also addresses cultural capital and appropriation.  In an example of a Coca-Cola commercial in which the “joke” stems from the viewer’s assumption that the Black person could not also be the Latino person, Yosso’s binary is again confirmed.  The commercial was banking on assumptions of “not Black” even though there was no “White” in the picture (117) – obviously moving beyond the black/white binary.

Although this article and the symposium from which it emerged focuses on CRT in education, it demonstrates the widespread application CRT principles.  Regardless of the academic discipline, the use of narrative/counternarrative and the analysis of race v. power/law are central tenets of CRT analysis.  The law component may be explicit, such as an analysis of the impact specific laws or interactions with the police or judiciary.  The law component may also be implicit, a silent, but present force that shapes behavior and expectations. The critiques and questions posed by Ladson-Billings are critiques that can be posed in the application of CRT to any academic discipline, and in fact have been applied by academics in support of an in opposition to CRT.

While this article doesn’t directly address how I want to use CRT in analyzing literature, it does address some of the issues with black/white and the role of CRT in education.  I reviewed several English and Literature department web sites.  Many of the larger universities have a Cultural Studies and Critical Race Theory division.  It is evident that Critical Race Theory has become its own discipline in English Studies and in education.  How and to what extent is a question that is constantly being negotiated.  I know that I want to direct my career toward working in department with a recognized Critical Race, Gender, and Cultural Studies component.

Work Cited

Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. “Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory.” 43 Connecticut Law Review 5 (2011): 1253-352. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.

Ladson-Billings, Gloria. “The Evolving Role of Critical Race Theory in Educational Scholarship.” 8 Race Ethnicity and Education 1 (2005): 115-19. Web.

Yasso, Tara J. “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth.” 8 Race Ethnicity and Education 1(2005): 69-91. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.

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Paper #1 — Critical Race Theory

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Richard Delgado ‘s “Liberal McCarthyism and the Origins of Critical Race Theory” (2009) and Kimberle Williams Crenshaw’s , “Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory Looking Back to Move Forward” (2009) trace the development of Critical Race Theory (CRT) from the backlash in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s against progressive professors advocating for social reform to what Williams calls the “institutional and discursive struggles over the scope of race and racism” (1259)on the campus of Harvard in the 1980’s. These birth stories define the impetus of the movement as a response to institutional inertia and de facto segregation and the loci, the American higher education system.

Delgado asserts that “liberal McCarthyism” within the higher education system resulted in the ejection of civil rights activists from the academy.  Ironically, it was in response to liberal pressure to depoliticize campuses and prevent radical professors from influencing the influx of African American students making their way into higher education for the first time as a result of Brown v. Board of Education.

David Trubek was hired at Yale in the late 1960’s, but was denied tenure for supporting student activism against Yale’s “let the courts do their work” mentality.  Trubek’s political views resulted in an unstable academic career, during which he mentored and advised Kimberlie Williams Crenshaw, who became one of the leading members of CRT.  Her dissertation is a doctrinal CRT document (1536).  He also sponsored the participation of Crenshaw and a group of minority professors at the “New Developments in Minority Scholarship” panel, recognized as the foundation of CRT (1536).

Another Yale professor, Richard Able also drew the ire of the administration.  His critiques of law, government, and of Yale’s own resistance to social reform resulted in his dismissal (1537).  Like Trubek, Able’s most important contribution to CRT occurred when he organized the “New Developments in Minority Scholarship” panel (1537).

Staughton Lynd, also a Yale professor, took his activism beyond the classroom to speak at rallies and participate in protests (1539).  Even after his dismissal, he continued

Staugton Lynd teaching at a Freedom School

Staugton Lynd teaching at a Freedom School

to write and influence CRT, as his material-determinist view of the intersection of race and history influenced Derrick Bell Brown v Board and Interest Convergence (1539).

Delgado’s analysis of Trubek, Abel, and Lynd’s influence on CRT neatly intersects with Crenshaw’s discussion of the frustrations and activism of African American law students at Harvard Law School.  In 1982, Harvard Law’s Black Law Student Association confronted their concerns over the lack of minority professors (1264).  Derrick Bell, a well-respected African American law professor, had left earlier that year in frustration over Harvard’s hiring policies and refusal to review hiring practices that eliminated qualified professors of color (1265).  With Bell’s departure went all courses that dealt with law and social justice, a particular concern to minority students who were in the first wave of law students to benefit from Brown v. Board of Education.  Not only did the dean minimize their concerns, but his response was tinged with condescension and more than a bit of racial tone-deafness.  It was clear to Crenshaw and other Harvard Law minority students “whose legal problems would be served by Harvard Law School and which interests were not” (1274).

Derrick Bell walking with a group of Harvard Law School Students after taking his voluntary leave of absence.

Derrick Bell walking with a group of Harvard Law School Students after taking his voluntary leave of absence.

In 1989, Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, David Trubek, and twenty-one others developed a “New Developments in Minority Scholarship” panel, organized in part by Richard Abel, at a CLS conference in Madison, Wisconsin.  Not only did the documents produced for this panel create the foundation for CRT, but as Crenshaw states, “[they] were able to link [their] projects together within an emerging ideological frame.  The project thus grew into its name:  Critical Race Theory” (1300).

CRT embraces methodologies and adapts theories from other disciplines to examine the roots and exercise of power on individuals and institutions.  CRT not only pervades legal study, but is also cross-disciplinary tool used in “education, psychology, cultural studies, political science, and even philosophy” (1256).  Unlike other areas of study, such as Game Studies discussed last week, CRT does not derive its principles based on exclusion or by drawing narrow boundaries.  In fact, such practices would be antithetical to its origins.

One of the questions I have about CRT is how it has adapted to 21st century ideas about race and the expansion of racial and ethnic categories.  In my own life I have wrestled with racial identification, often from the outside as others seek to label my race and ethnicity.  Upon reflection and through my study of CRT, I realize that while most of it has been well-meaning, there is always a hierarchy to labeling and people express a bizarre satisfaction in being able to peg what racial/ethnic group I claim.  I am interested in how these dynamics are incorporated into the race/power dynamics of the legal system.

Finally, in researching the history of the CRT movement, I thought about ways to connect it to my interest in African American literature.  I am particularly drawn to Native Son by Richard Wright and A Gathering of Old Men by Earnest Gaines and how African American men operate within and resist definitions of race and the power of the law.

 Works Cited

Delgado, Richard. “Liberal McCarthyism and the Origins of Critical Race Theory.” Iowa Law Review 94 (2009): 1505-545. Social Science Research Network Electronic     Paper Collection. Web. 11 Sept. 2014.

Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. “Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory.” Connecticut Law Review 43 (2011): 1253-352. Web.  10 Sept. 2014.

Recommended Reading

Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Thomas Kendall, eds. Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement. New York: New Press 1995.  Print.

Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: New York UP, 2001. Print.

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PAB #1 Critical Race Theory, Then and Now

Liberal McCarthyism and the Creation of Critical Race Theory

In 2009, Richard Delgado, co-founder of Critical Race Theory and the current John J. Sparkman Chair of Law at University of Alabama, wrote “Liberal McCarthyism and the Origins of Critical Race Theory.”  Delgado commemorates the origins of Critical Race Theory by explaining how seemingly unconnected forces were essential in the formation of the movement (1506).  The recognition of origins, he claims, is necessary for any movement because it serves a “constitutive function” by “designating an official ideology, selecting a set of heroes, and avoiding the appearance of contingency and luck in explaining how the group came into existence” (1506).  In short, birth stories for movements, like people, give a sense of stability, legitimacy, and even identity.

Derrick Bell’s powerful and groundbreaking Critical Race document “Brown v Board of Education and Interest Convergence” is credited with beginning the Critical Race Theory movement.  However, Delgado makes clear that Bell’s bellwether article is the culmination of the actions and potentially career ending sacrifices made by educators David Trubek, Richard Abel, Staughton Lynd, and Anthony Platt in the years leading up to official recognition of Critical Race Theory.

National Guard outside the Student Union at Berkeley.

National Guard outside the Student Union at Berkeley.

Still reeling from protests, student activism, and unrest of the 1960s and 1970s, universities sought to return to an equilibrium that satisfied the status quo.  What resulted was a national witch hunt that Delgado calls “liberal McCarthyism,” in which professors active in social justice and reform were fired, denied tenure, and blackballed from jobs in higher education.  Rather than be cowed by ejection from the academy, Delgado describes their continued efforts on behalf of social reform by establishing connections, convening panels on race and law, writing articles, and mentoring students who were essential in forming that basis of what we know today as critical legal studies and critical race theory.

In gathering their stories, Delgado utilizes Staughton Lynd’s “history from below” approach and merges those histories into one overarching birth story, demonstrating the unified purpose, methodology, stability, and identity that created Critical Race Theory.  Delgado recognizes that fragmentation and the absence of a clearly defined origin and ideology make it difficult for a movement to gather momentum and articulate goals.  Borrowing from various disciplines there was a tacit understanding of mutual goals that enabled the movement to thrive in a time of instability.

English Studies is experiencing those difficulties today.  Although, Critical Race Theory has had offshoots such as Critical Race Feminism and Critical Latino Theory, they are stronger because they share a common core and related goals.  From what we have studied so far, English studies not only has disparate offshoots, but these offshoots resist acknowledging a common core and often cannot identify their own goals.  This has made me recognize that in entering and engaging with my discipline, one of my goals should also be definition as a scholar within the discipline.  This article has already contributed to my understanding of the discipline.  In other words, roots give wings.

 

Questions:

  1. Although higher education was predominated by white men, I’d like to learn more about the “history from below” of women and minorities involved in the movement.
  2. Many of these men eventually returned to academia.  I would like to know how they and others negotiated that return and their how they practice or implement Critical Race Theory in a so-called post-racial society.

Key Concepts/Terms

Interest Convergence:  Social justice for African Americans is only possible when the needs of African Americans intersect with the needs of the White majority (Bell 523)

Critical Race Theory:  “Radical legal movement that seeks to transform the relationship between race, racism, and power” (Delgado “Glossary of Terms”).

History from Below:  That stories of the nameless, faceless people that shape history through their “invisible actions – rather than the traditional version emphasizing generals, kinds, and wars” (Delgado “Liberal McCarthyism” 1538).

 

Works Cited

Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Comment, “Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma,” 93 HARV. L. REV. 518 (1980)

Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefanic.  “Glossary of Terms”.  Critical Race Theory:  An Introduction.  New York  New York. Univ. Press 2nd Ed. (2012) 159

Delgado, Richard. “Liberal McCarthyism and the Origins of Critical Race Theory.” 94 Iowa Law Review (2009): 1505-545. Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection. Web. 11 Sept. 2014.

 

 Critical Race Theory:  Then and Now

Race Still Matters

From: Colorlines, Youth and Race Focus Group

Kimberlie Williams Crenshaw, who wrote one of the foundational texts of Critical Race Theory, “Race Reform Retrenchment,” looks back on the movement in her Connecticut Law Review article, “Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory Looking Back to Move Forward.”  Crenshaw’s article discusses the differences and similarities of the Critical Race Theory’s beginnings and the challenges of a multi-disciplinary methodology and application along with opportunities and obstacles that developed in our “post-racial era.

Crenshaw takes an encompassing look at the perceptual problem of Critical Race Theory among Conservatives and accusations of anti-Semitism that threatened the survival of the discipline (1311).   Although for many, Barak Obama’s election seemed to indicate that the United States was ushering in a new era of equality and race reform, Crenshaw argues that “formal equality did little to disrupt ongoing patterns of institutional power and the reproduction of differential privileges and burdens across race” (1312).  According to Crenshaw, reframing and broadening Critical Race Theory is vital in order to address the contemporary issues of race, law, and power that were not present when the discipline was first conceived (1313).  She posits that Critical Race Theory must deal with seemingly benign colorblind racism and address what she calls “the Obama phenomenon,”  that is, that with the election of an African American president, America needs to no longer concern itself with race.  When in fact, his election presented a double-bind for African Americans.  By claiming to not see race, colorblind racism ignores the structural and institutional racism that made Obama’s election not so much a victory, but a miracle.  It serves to allow some well-meaning colorblind to be blind to the social, political, and other inequities still in existence and provide an excuse for racists to adhere to their notions of African American self-sabotage and missed opportunities for advancement.

Crenshaw’s analysis of critiques Obama’s reframing and often avoidance of discussions of race, has been a hindrance rather than a help to racial equality and social justice.

NYTimes Declares Racial Barriers Over

NYTimes Declares Racial Barriers Over

In fact, they have assisted not only the courts, but also the American people in drifting back to the harmful ideas about race and power that existed during Critical Race Theory’s early period.  She also addresses a “drifting back” by claiming that Critical Race Theory is in danger of becoming too tied to the civil rights activism of the past rather than incorporating the various formats of twenty-first century activism and the more subtle ways that race and power collide.  Rather than progress, Crenshaw writes, the post-racial world has been a series of regressions that establish the need for a Critical Race Theory that addresses post-racial discourses and moves the movement forward.

Crenshaw’s article not only encompasses the “post-racial” era, but addresses women in law and academia, and the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to Critical Race Theory.  I found this article valuable in answering questions about the progression of the movement and the incorporation and recognition of other voices within the movement.  So many articles about race and law focus on black men.  This article was helpful not only for its attention to women, but because it went in greater detail about CRT’s application to other areas of study.  As I continue to develop my area of interest, the continued application of CRT to other areas was much needed guidance.

In terms of its application to English Studies, what was interesting about this article is that unlike its conception, CRT has become an accepted discipline within various academic departments.  It is still a unifying force among LatCrit theorist, Critical Race Feminists, and others.  The divergence of interests has only served to strengthen CRT over time rather than diminish it.

In the attached video, Crenshaw addresses pervasive structural inequality and how CRT can address it.  It’s an interesting keynote address if you have time to watch it.  I would be interested in your thoughts.  I am working through thoughts about CRT and how/if I would apply it to my research interests, so I would appreciate any questions or comments you have about the post or the video.

Works Cited

Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law, 101 Harvard Law Review 1331-87 (1988). Reprinted in Critical Legal

Thought:  An American-German Debate (edited by Christian Joerges and David M. Trubek, Nomos, 1989

 

 

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