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Adding to this idea of self-hatred, it’s striking to see how the notion parallels Khatun’s critique of white Australia’s obsession with progress narratives. Khatun emphasizes how the movement of non-white women goes against linearity—appearing almost dreamlike, as they traverse borders and identities in ways that reject the rigid path from "traditional" to "modern."

Nonetheless, these very progress narratives have been internalized by non-white families like Rajiv's, who bear the weight of their ancestors’ complex journeys: "For her, going to India was a reversion to an uncouth past. To return from India would mean that I would come back less intelligent, having regressed." To believe in this progress narrative is to further engage in self-hatred, to discard ancestral narratives and epistemes. It’s depressing to see how deeply these attitudes, nurtured by whiteness, have taken root.

This idea of melancholia extending to indigenous peoples is also interesting. Ahmed’s definition suggests a melancholia rooted in not knowing, an ignorance that shapes the migrant experience. But for indigenous peoples, knowledge of what their land once was—and could still be—is painfully clear. For many melancholics (not all), their landscapes are dead fictions. For many indigenous peoples, that death is still ongoing, all around them.

Clear @saarah_jabar has read GhaneaBassiri well!

The contrast between the flying plane and the parked car is especially striking in @saarah_jabar’s post, which is excellent as usual. Sarah Ahmed theorizes a great deal about “being stuck”…I would like to think more about the valence of Pinky’s “stuck-ness” in the film.

Fantastic analysis of "Soup Boys," zeroing in on the indiscriminate nature of Islamophobic violence and how it is represented at both the level of the US military and at the level of individual hate crimes, and backing it up with reference to Rana and Husain. Excellent.

Thank you for your comment, Safiya. I think you make a great connection with Muñoz's idea of disidentification. Your point that "their culture and identity is solidified through the existence of the Other ..." reminds me very much of what Said was saying in Orientalism as well.

I love the invocation of Leila Ahmed and the whole feminist spin on Said's idea of Orientalism. Great analysis of "Batalvi" too.

After reading Fanon's "The Fact of Blackness" and listening to Kendrick Lamar's "The Blacker the Berry", I found myself grappling with the similarities in the ways these men perceive and handle their "blackness". Both men speak at length about the hate they receive simply due to the nature of their skin. They are oppressed, discriminated against, feared, just for being black, due to the abhorrent assumption that black people are uncivilized, dangerous, and brutish. They talk about how they are being perceived by white society, how they are expected to act "thuggish" and how their every move and motive is being combed over by the Whites around them. Both of these men know that they are confined by their race, that all judgements made about them are made at the instant they are seen, and that at present there is no way to avoid these unjust and racist stereotypes. They both talk about giving in, truly being a black man, but Kendrick Lamar's ideas here seem to diverge from Fanon's.

When Fanon comes to the conclusion that he will always be known for his race first, he realizes that attempting to go unnoticed and be invisible is both an impossible task and also one that doesn't actually benefit him or other black people at all. He must stand as a black man, and do his best to dispel the myths of the black savage. Kendrick Lamar similarly understands that attempting to avoid being seen as a black man is an impossible task, but instead of talking about dispelling mythos he instead speaks on how these myths perpetuate themselves in black communities, how some black people allow themselves to (or are forced to, more accurately) become the very black devilish caricature that white society wishes for them to be. This is why he calls himself "...the biggest hypocrite of 2015" at the beginning of every verse, because while he discusses how society has demonized and forced the black man to assume a violent, aggressive persona and how this is obviously a detrimental form of oppression on the black community, he himself acknowledges that he plays this caricature himself in the way he walks, talks, carries himself and presents himself to the world. He laments the oppression that killed Trayvon Martin while he himself helps to perpetuate this society of violence.