Racial Inferiority and Paranoia vs Baldwin’s Mirror of Love
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Lawrence Martin interviews a man of Malayo-Indonesian descent from Madagascar named Tsiory who acknowledges that he developed what he calls a “colonialism in the head” through continued internalization of inferiority to white French people. His strategy for navigating white supremacy in his workplace is to disarm his French coworkers by making them believe they are superior to him, which he now truly believes himself. Tsiory says that regardless of Madagascar gaining its independence in 1960, French white people are still seen as superior—even likening their perception as a “god” in Madagascar. Each of Martin’s interviews echoes that colonization can psychologically spread white supremacy, where people of colour are convinced of their inferiority in relation to white people.
For Tsiory, internalizing that he is inferior is a better alternative to dwelling or analyzing the instances he faces of discrimination—such as his foreign name and appearance hindering his employment opportunities. According to Tsiory, his refusal to dwell on such instances would not be good for him, “[he] might start hating people and [he] doesn’t want to be like that.” This hate would be burdensome for Tsiory. It makes me think of the Buddha’s saying that “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” But instead of hate or succumbing to white supremacy, James Baldwin offers an alternative in his letter to his nephew in In The Fire Next Time. Baldwin encourages his nephew to see how desperately in need white Americans are of love, of loving force to make them see themselves as they are. Because white Americans have tied their inherent identity to the belief that they are superior to black men, where “the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar”, “[white Americans] are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” This parallels to No name in the street, Baldwin’s account for his time in France in 1948– the year after France gave French citizenship and voting rights to Muslim Algerians. Just as white American identity is tied to the subjugation of black people, French identity is connected to the subjugation of its colonial subjects like Algerians. Baldwin highlights a moment of French colonial nostalgia when Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam successfully gained its independence from French rule, and the French were forced to contemplate their imperial dominance, “for the loss of an empire also implies a radical revision of the individual identity.” This resulted in the French further asserting their dominance, in the form of police aggression and brutality of which Algerians, their other colonial subjects, were often victim to. This vindictive reaction to the loss of empire reminded Baldwin of America as the loss of slavery for white America resulted in alternative vengeful oppression of black Americans through police brutality and the industrial prison complex. This colonial nostalgia can also manifest in vindication for colonization as the French argue their legacy for civilizing their empire through building hospitals, schools, and introducing their colonies to resource extraction.
Not only can colonization disseminate the internalization of inferiority among its colonies, but also a fear of rejection that many of Martin’s interviewees resonate with. Throughout my life, I have seen many people of colour grown accustomed to this fear, to which I have been calling a racial paranoia. It is a detrimental way of being that I frequently find myself trying to relinquish as it can often obstruct life opportunities. To confront this paranoia, I have relied on radical pronoia, the belief that the world is conspiring to help you. One of the common mentalities among Martin’s interviewees who do not have the fear of rejection is that they do not dwell on the possibility of bias in everyday life. For instance, Abdel ignores any possibility of racism in potentially racially-motivated conflicts. Abdel assures himself that “the person is grumpy, having a bad day, or he’s just mean by nature.” Ignorance or pronoia can be a tool for self preservation, but can also be counterproductive when fighting white supremacy.
