File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1999/postcolonial.9907, message 133


Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 06:14:43 -0700
From: "Marlene R. Atleo" <maratleo-AT-island.net>
Subject: Re: Not White, Not Quite?


>you just can't
>have sympathy to be a dehegemonizer.
Do you mean: sympathy just isn't enough....?

to critique from within still, in my opinion, requires insight that comes
from personal sociohistorical experience that provies the affective base to
make theory work...

such people are often currently considered "white" ....
lets face it Gramsci was "white" but he wasn't "quite right" enough and
penned that stuff in jail because he was "left"
the spaceo-racial metaphors are no coincidence because of the way space is
organized by "whiteness" and "rightness" which goes back to seating
arrangements and living arrangements on the land to indicate status....and
the very different perspectives they represent.....English confounds such
in a way that tends to obscure it where as other languages use markers
which retain it....its probably a product of language development of the
nation state and colonization....and the other the discourse that is
anti-hegemonic......
so we could possibly ask: what is the nature of the historical experience
of oppression that is the model for ones own anti-hegemonic
tendencies....and then how is that model sufficient or insufficient for
transferrance onto other situations...what are the limitations....this is
tough de-constructive slogging...not for the faint of heart....

At 05:49 AM 7/27/99, you wrote:
>I think you mean empathize.  Also, there is a term which signifies a person
>who is part of the dominant culture but who critiques it from within for
>the purpose of ceasing hegemony and, thus, opening more space in the
>discourse for the silenced "subaltern."  This Spivakian term is
>"de-hegemonizer," and I think that she borrows the notion from Gramsci.
>However, the criteria for such a person are rather intense--you just can't
>have sympathy to be a dehegemonizer.
>
>Ben L.-N.
>
>
>At 05:07 PM 7/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>>Steinbeck and Joyce have not/could not meta themselves in their writing
>>>from that perspective....
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Why not?  Are you saying that only a colonized person can relate to the
>plight
>>of the colonized?  I have never suffered from the AIDS virus, yet I can
>>certainly sympathize with those who have.  I don't pretend to know the pain
>>they feel, but I can certainly attempt to offer my own interpretation of it
>>and thereby offer some sort of sympathetic mind set.
>>
>>Andrew
>>
>>
>>
>>     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>>
>
>
>
>     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>


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