Seeing through Whiteness

[cathy_ndiaye2]

‘’ There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you.’’ When I read this from James Baldwin’s letter, I felt it complemented what I meant to say in last week’s discussion post, when I answered the question about making a home in a whitened space. I totally agree with it. Sometimes, it can be liberating to understand that we do not always have to justify ourselves and even less to justify our presence or existence. Every individual has the right to exist in the social space.

Why must James accept white people, according to his uncle?
I think the author is advising James to make that first step because he (the author) might think that it would be ‘’too much to ask’’ white people to make that necessary first step to ‘’reconciliation’’. Also, in the letter he says to James that he is strong and maybe even stronger than the ‘’White Innocent’’. ‘’ It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an assailable and monumental dignity. ‘’
Also, maybe he is saying that to his nephew because someone needs to be the bigger man and make that first step. By saying that people of colour should accept white people and ‘’understand them’’, Baldwin is bringing the idea that the Black person -the Oppressed- could have that role. Furthermore, Baldwin says that it is dangerous for White Americans to realise that the social hierarchy they have been used to was created by the White because it could represent a loss of identity. Is there a bigger loss than the loss of the self? After reading George Yancy's essay I would also add that it might not be easy to notice whiteness so maybe that is also one of the reasons why Baldwin suggests that Black people should take the first step. As Yancy mentioned helping white people notice whiteness is a that can come from us, people of colour.

Why, according to Baldwin, is it so difficult for white people to escape from this history, this "nature," in which they are trapped?
Baldwin says it so beautifully in the letter to his nephew. He writes that ‘’ Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.’’  In other words, it is a tremendous task because it asks white people to reconsider everything they know. I see it as the methodology Descartes explains as necessary to build knowledge. One of Descartes's principles is that to acquire knowledge, the first step is to doubt about everything you think you know. When everything is put as an uncertainty you can start building certainty(knowledge) by using valid proofs. I think this is exactly why when white people will get to that point (because until this day, as a group, they have not reached that point), it is going to be hard for them.

Why, according to Baldwin, is it so difficult for white people to escape from this history, this "nature," in which they are trapped?
Baldwin says it so beautifully in the letter to his nephew. He writes that ‘’ Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.’’  In other words, it is a tremendous task because it asks white people to reconsider everything they know. I see it as the methodology Descartes explains as necessary to build knowledge. One of Descartes's principles is that to acquire knowledge, the first step is to doubt about everything you think you know. When everything is put as an uncertainty you can start building certainty(knowledge) by using valid proofs. I think this is exactly why when white people will get to that point (because until this day, as a group, they have not reached that point), it is going to be hard for them.

Why does Baldwin assert that white people are not free, and how is their freedom tied to that of Black people?
I think that what Baldwin means by saying white people are not free is that they are imprisoned by this idea of white supremacy. They are imprisoned by the idea that the way a person should be valued is according to the colour of their skin or what some people call race (Personally I don’t like that word). It truly must be a prison or rather a dungeon like the author mentions in the poem, because it prevents the ones imprisoned from thinking beyond ‘’the walls’’ and the limits they set to themselves. They remain stuck in their limited knowledge and assumptions, they restrict themselves.
 Hence, when white people will realise that the colour of someone’s skin is only a part of their identity and that it does not have the importance it was given by colonialism and white supremacy, they will truly be liberated. They will truly be able to live free from those false assumptions about the Other. They will be free to love the Other, no matter what they look like and to not be afraid to know them and to share with them. They will be free to build with them.  I believe that white people being free also means that they need to realise where that idea of the superiority of the White over the Others comes from, it partly comes from colonialism and the desire to dominate.
This idea of white people needing to be free for people of colour to truly be free makes me think of when Muhammad pbuh came to the Arabs with the message of Islam and more specifically the speech he held on Mount Arafat in Hajjat al Wad’a (also ayat 13 in surat Al Hujjurat, amongst others). In pre-Islamic Arabia, relationships were driven by tribalism. When Muhammad pbuh delivered the Message to his people, one of the aims was to help his people change the mentality that Arabs are greater than non-Arabs, or people of colour. What truly matters is the way a person is with others and with themself, their character and what it can bring to the community.

Why would Baldwin say that the white is the real n—?
First, it starts with the recognition that the n- is created by the racist white gaze ‘’ To “see” a negro is to “see” a nigger; it is to “see” a problem—a problem that is deemed, from the perspectives of whites, ontological.’’ There is nothing positive about being described as a n--. Baldwin describes the n— ‘’. The negro is an animal, the negro is bad, the negro is mean, the negro is ugly; … ‘’ I think it is safe to say that people of colour and more particularly Black people don’t see themselves nor identify themselves as n--, which is totally normal since according to many descriptions, the n—is worst than an animal. But for the racist white gaze, the n— exists and it is part of its world. I would even say that (the n-- ) needs to exist in the white’s world, to justify the treatment of Black people and the superiority of the white.
Hence, I think what Baldwin means when he says that the white is the real n—is that it seems that the white needs the n—to exist when for the Black people it means nothing, in the sense that it is not a defining part of their identity.
It's the white that created that ‘’ monster’’, it is in the white’s imagination that the Black man or the Black boy or the Black woman who walks next to him is a n--. About that, Baldwin says that the n— represents the fear of the white gaze towards Black people, it is the ‘’transposition’’ of its fear and by extension, since it represents its fear, it represents them ‘’ …i gather, that the ‘nigger’ is necessary. But he’s unnecessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. I give you your problem back. You’re the ‘nigger’, baby; it isn’t me.”

[cathy_ndiaye2]

@cathy_ndiaye2 said in Seeing through Whiteness:
In Why must James accept white people, according to his uncle? I meant > As Yancy mentioned helping white people notice and be aware of whiteness is a gift that can come from us, people of colour.