Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 01:33:51 -0700
Subject: RE: White men et al.


Well said, Raka....
I don't hear any hegemonic snickering either....

It takes a lot of tolerance for a certain kind of tension that does not 
individualize these issues....but can handle facing the 
complexity....nave(sic)-ity (a la Spivak) is no excuse......

power issues are symbolically processed through tropes like....
"Salvation" comes through the hands of the conquering heros...

When are conquering heros "brown" or "red" or "yellow" or "black"....
When are virgins that give birth to "Saviors" brown or yellow or red or 
black....

the post WWII USA (Land of the (white) Free and Home of the Brave 
(non-Native)) was the first choice of European immigrants who were "saved" 
.....the promise....FREEDOM of the individual...for those whose FREEDOM was 
becoming American and the pursuit of the American Dream with the melting 
pot philosophy promised immunity from the hegemony of the American 
imperialism and was probably subsumed by the FREEDOM from Nazism...the 
melting pot is not...multiculturalism is...and with it comes the need for 
heightened understanding that its not about dichotomies but about 
complexities that we need to understand...the postcolonial discourse is a 
valuable means for such...

Marlene


At 12:58 AM 07/16/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Pardon me for saying so (I usually tend to be a lurker but I could not
>resist the temptation to "come out" as it were) but I find your last
>statement --and indeed your entire argument--highly problematic in that you
>are, I believe, able to make this argument because you are not adopting
>SYSTEMIC AND IDEOLOGICAL view of power but locating white, "brown", "red",
>"yellow" etc men and women on the same playing field, and hence
>INDIVIDUALIZING the issue.   What the whole issue of white men saving brown
>women.....etc suggests, and initially theorized by Spivak in her famous "Can
>the Subaltern speak" essay, is the systemic and ideological enactment of the
>white savior narrative that so informs and shapes the cultural imaginary of
>the west.
>
>Further, your issue about "love"--that is your suggestion/question that
>don't people just marry for love--can also be complicated...Much has been
>written about "racialized desire" or "racialized love" ...which is not to
>say there is no "love" but that "desire" and "love" cannot be seen outside
>of the ideological systems in which they are embodied and become
>materialized, since the terms of "love" and "desire" are already written and
>regulated by the state. The issue then is not that such "unions" as you put
>it are to be "sneered" at in their individual relational locus, but rather,
>what intersecting power relations--of race, hetero-patriarchy, globality
>etc...get resecured through processes.
>
>In sum, it is less a matter of "intentions" or individual "telos"; but more
>a matter of complex enactment of ideologies that occur in these seemingly
>merely invidualized relational issues.
>
>Best regards, Raka Shome
>----Original Message-----
>From: laohu - -AT-Home
>To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Sent: 7/14/00 9:36 PM
>Subject: White men et al.
>
>A fair amount has been posted on this list the last few days in which a
>comment about white men saving brown women from brown men has featured
>prominently.  I am not familiar with the original context of this
>observation, but, as it stands, it strikes me as facile, reductive and,
>ultimately, superciliously condescending to both brown and white of both
>genders.
>
>Here is a ridiculous teleology.  On the assumption that white men marry
>or
>date brown women to save them from brown men, then it should likewise be
>the
>case that brown men and yellow women marry or date so that yellow women
>may
>be saved from yellow men; or that black men and red women marry or date
>in
>order that red women be saved from red men; or that white men and black
>women marry or date to save black women from black men?  Or, to be more
>specific, if a white American man and an Indian woman get married or
>date
>is the telos of the mans action that she be saved from Indian men?  If a
>black man from Botswana and a white woman from Iceland get married or
>date,
>is his agenda to save her from Icelandic men?  If an American man
>brought up
>in Sweden and a Chinese woman brought up in Taiwan get married or date,
>is
>the telos of the mans action that she be saved from Chinese men?  How
>about a Peruvian man and a Spanish woman?  a Bulgarian man and a Russian
>woman?  a Danish man and a Norwegian woman?  a rich man and a poor
>woman?  a
>short, fat man and a tall, slim woman?
>
>Are any of these women even autonomous human beings?
>
>Is it possible that all these people get married or date for the rather
>ordinary and uninteresting reason that they are in love with each other?
>Well, without -- and even with -- an endless and narcissistic
>deconstruction
>of love and the obligatory attempt to tuck a circumscribed version of
>same
>into a procrustean Western bed, I suppose that the higher hermenauts who
>sail this list will snicker hegemonically at such a nave aetiology for
>unions of this kind.
>
>Finally, in that original formulation about white men saving brown women
>from brown men,  why is it that it is white men who are made the marked
>category here?  *Quelle suffisance!*  How are we to know that in such
>unions
>it isnt really a matter of brown women saving white men from white
>women?
>
>e b holtsmark - aka jack     ran frst och frmst
>laohu-AT-avalon.net               esse quam videri
>                                           aien aristeuein
>
>
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>
>
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Marlene Atleo,
Doctoral Candidate, Educational Studies, UBC






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