Extension and Constriction
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Although the Ahmed piece was optional, I found it a great lens through which to consider the other readings. I have read Yancy and Fanon for another class, so it was interesting to revisit these texts with the framework of orientation that Ahmed refers to.
Yancy writes of Fanon's interaction with the white child in his text. In this situation, the child is performing their whiteness and imposing identity upon Fanon. Through this, the child is identifying the other. With the simple action of pointing a finger, he imposes Fanon’s blackness and his own whiteness without even referring to whiteness. As for the Kominas song, we can see a similar instance where the Arab man is reduced to a potential for danger. This is where I found the framework of orientation really interesting to apply to these situations.
As Ahmed writes, "whiteness is an ongoing history which orientates body in specific directions, affecting how they take up space and what they can do." She also writes that bodies cannot do work without the knowledge of their surroundings. Ahmed says that race not only interrupts the corporeal schema of a racialized person, but structures its mode of operation. So to be a black body is to be "not," to always be in negation in a world where whiteness = embodiment.
I was interested by the idea that “white bodies are comfortable as they inhabit spaces that extend their shape” while the black body is always stopped. The contrast between flow and resistance carried a strong imagery. It made me think of the extension of whiteness in contrast to the constriction of blackness.
This dichotomy is also interesting when applied to Baldwin's letter where he says the white people are “are trapped in a history which they do not understand.” Baldwin almost flips the extension vs. constriction framework, saying that the white people are the ones constricted. He believes his brother fell into the trap as well because he believed the things that were imposed upon him. To me, it felt as though Baldwin was telling the boy to embody extension rather than succumbing to the constriction placed upon Black bodies. I loved how his letter carried the sentiment that the boy should focus on constructing the black self within himself rather than in relation to or along the framework of how whiteness exists.
I also wrote "I don't get what the pizza means" in my notes which I thought was funny.