What is considered relevant develops out of a primary
discourse and this discourse out of normative leanings which historically have
emerged out of white supremacy and privilege and its terms of knowledge
exchange. As one who identifies as a
Black, female and transgender I find that relevance is very much about
contextuality and the discourses within that particular context. As I hear of a man in Manhattan Beach, a city in
Southern California, pushing forward a proposal on the sodomy act more popularly known as the “kill the
gays” proposal and then Indiana making discrimination against gay people and by
implication anyone who does not identify with the pseudoism of racial
heterosexuality, lawful on the grounds of religious freedom I ask, “who are
they appealing to, who is their audience?”
The political discourse which undergirds these ideas is rooted in very
narrow, oppressive, and at times, repressive theological interpretations which are
the foundations of white supremacy, privilege, lynchings and the prison
industrial complex. And then Ted Cruz announced that he was
running for President of the United States, to reclaim the so called hope that
was lost. Of course he did this in
Lynchburg, VA one of the most conservative areas in the United States and home
of the moral majority.
As a matter of critique these three acts, at least in my
opinion, seek a particular relevance to a U.S. American narrative which is
gradually shifting the narrative of color, hue, terrain and symmetry. More and more I believe the motivation behind
the repressive policies is one of relevance.
This is the preeminent concern of a conservative agenda put forward by a
Republican Party oriented towards white supremacy and privilege as the United
States transitions from the primacy of white discourse and white imagination to
a diversity of discourses and imaginations without a center or dominant
discourse. This concern necessarily has
psychological, sociological and by implication law enforcement consequences
which were reflected in the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, considered a flashpoint in the
struggle for relevance as it was discovered through an investigation by the
U.S. Department of Justice that law enforcement, composed for the most part of
white men, was used primarily as a tool to inflict personal and structural injustice
upon a community of African American and people of color.
Daily insults of the first African American President and
the First Lady, the gradual dismantling of voting rights, challenges to immigration,
historically a positive narrative for a nation of immigrants, and those of the
middle passage and slavery, now an issue, as more and more people from Central
and South America seek citizenship, a consequence of disastrous Republican
military and political policies inflicted on the people and their institutions
of Central and South America call into question traditional models of identity
predicated on an economy of white desire.
Now I will suggest here that Identity, that precious albeit precarious subject of heteronormative
and racial supremacy and privilege is in the throes of transformation but more
so it is actually being queered as Franz Fanon's white gaze, historically the authoritarian
critique of all things of socio-cultural and of political import and associated
discourse is organically displaced by an identity matrix delinked from the traditional
vision of the white citizens council.[1]
We must be mindful that the philosophy and ideals of the white citizen’s council are
powerful and entrenched in the U.S. American psyche. Those of us who engage
this psyche whatever our identity construct must do so with an unyielding hope. I experience this unyielding hope as I rise
each day with full knowledge that as a Black transgender woman I and those similar
are at great risk of danger and harm. This
risk of danger and harm does not deter me from walking in the light of this
unyielding hope but it strengthens my resolve to embrace the hope embodied in
the sacred acts of the revolutionary and the queer. Beloved reader of this blog post the great
fear of the powerful and the established who have become the masters of destiny
as defined by white supremacy and privilege is that you and I know that we are
relevant and in this hopeful and engaged in a great cultural and societal struggle
of immense proportions.
[1]
The White Citizen’s Council was a group of white men in the south who were responsible
for making sure that the regime of white supremacy and privilege and segregation
were maintained in the South at the expense of Black people.
