Absolutely thrilled to announce that my forthcoming book HOW TO BE LESS STUPID ABOUT RACE just earned a STARRED review from Kirkus! Warm thanks to Stony Brook University for this generous coverage and write up!
I can’t wait for the book to get out into the world this September! Pre-order your copy today and let me know what you think!
This past week I’ve been trying to understand the political construction of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ work in relation to neoliberalism and state violence. Coates is in the news as he makes the rounds to launch his new book We Were Eight Years In Power, a retrospective on the Obama era and the rise of Trump. While I congratulate the widely acclaimed author on the publication of his latest tome, I cannot personally recommend his fundamentally flawed and largely superficial thinking “about race”, for reasons I have outlined elsewhere.
For now, I want to focus on what’s been keeping me up at night for the last several years: the complicity of the Democratic Party (and Obama’s coterie of willfully ignorant fans) in the maintenance of multiple forms of state violence. Because Coates writes so much about Obama–and because of his positioning as one of the most widely read black social critics at the apex of the corporate media and publishing worlds–any consideration of Obama’s presidency must take into account the portrait produced in Coates’ writing. His romantic portrayals of the first black president (and his descriptions of race and politics) play an influential role in shaping (and setting the boundaries of) the convoluted and largely useless national conversation “about race” . In trying to understand Coates’ structural position and appeal to powerful white liberals, it’s become increasingly clear to me that his views (at least, the views he has publicly expressed) are obviously related to the political agenda of at least one of his employers, namely The Atlantic.
I confess that until very recently (as in, the last few days), I knew nothing of the politics of The Atlantic. But a cursory review of the editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, makes a few things quite clear: the man at the helm of magazine is a prison-guard-turned-journalist strongly aligned with the Democratic Party who whitewashes Democrats’ war crimes accordingly, regularly uses his publishing platforms to rationalize state violence, defends the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land (while expressing the appropriate amount of liberal hand-wringing over the settlements), undermines and discredits critics of Zionism, and, predictably, hates Noam Chomsky.
It should come as no surprise that Goldberg is a big fan of Barack Obama and has played a leading role in producing a relatively rosy portrait of the 44th president. Goldberg and some of his colleagues at The Atlantic promote what they view as a “liberal” vision of “democracy” that somehow happily coexists with settler colonialism, massive state violence, white supremacy, systemic racism, poverty, hypercapitalist exploitation and the indiscriminate killing of innocent people, including women and children, who stand in the way of the ruling elites’ determination to acquire absolute hegemony and strategically secure material resources no matter the cost. Of course, even publications that whitewash war crimes, like The Atlantic, have to at least gesture toward a functioning moral compass. And so we see articles like this one covering Obama’s drone strikes (and the lies he’s told about them) alongside popular puff pieces written by the likes of Ta-Nehisi Coates. In fact, such “gotta see both sides” coverage functions to bolster The Atlantic’s false appearance of objectivity and fair-mindedness.
Cue the music . . .
Alright. I know I’ve been absent from this space for a really long time. I’ve been playing in other sandboxes and writing many other things, but I do think I’m finally in a space where I’m ready and willing to come back to this blog and share some of my musings at the intersection of politics and spirituality. For those who are still reading, feel free to check out my recently updated professional website with news and information about my book projects, upcoming talks and so on. In the meantime, stay tuned.. I’ve got more words for you.
Okay.. it’s been .. a really, really long time since I updated the blog. There are two main reasons for this neglect. First, most of my public writing these days now takes place on Twitter. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, my professional writing absorbed most of my brain power for the past few years. The good news? My first book – a significant revision of my dissertation – has finally been published! Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France is now available from Temple University Press and can be purchased wherever books are sold.
Resurrecting Slavery uses critical race theory to significantly advance scholarship on racism in France and Europe. Drawing on ethnographic observation, archival research and in-depth interviews with activists and descendants of slaves in Paris, I examine how commemorations of enslavement and abolition both challenge and reproduce the racial order.
This project has been a long time coming (to say the least) and it’s wonderful to be able to finally say it’s DONE! Aside from the satisfaction of revising the doctoral thesis and completing a major requirement for tenure, the book also represents the fulfillment of a childhood dream. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I remember. Although it’s an academic book, I wrote Resurrecting Slavery with a broad audience in mind and hope that it will be of interest to people who would like to know more about the legacies of slavery as well as the global dynamics of racism, white supremacy and anti-blackness.
I will post more about the book and upcoming events soon, but for now, I’d just like to express gratitude to my longtime readers on the blog. While there haven’t been many recent posts, I still receive positive feedback from people who followed my early chronicles on the tenure track. Stay tuned..
Up to 275 schoolgirls were abducted from their classrooms.
Two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago.
Everyone in any relevant position of power – and I do mean everyone – has been slow to act on this. And, if you’ve been living off of mainstream media, you probably haven’t heard much about it. One of the reasons undoubtedly has to do with the fact that these girls are in Nigeria.
Two hundred and seventy five girls.
And now? Reports suggest that they’re being forced to “marry” the militants who abducted them. What this really means is that they are, in all likelihood, being raped and enslaved. There has been no massive response by the Nigerian president or military. Yesterday, parents and supporters in Nigeria protested for the second straight day to raise awareness about the plight of their children. On social media, the hashtag #bringbackourgirls is being used to spread the news and promote the sense of urgency. Many of us have been tweeting and talking about it, particularly over the last week, but almost none of us reacted quickly enough.
President Obama personally spoke to the recent Donald Sterling mess in the NBA, but, to my knowledge, has not said a word about these two-hundred-and-seventy-five abducted schoolgirls.
There’s a Change.org petition to sign. Please do what you can to inform folks in your circles about this and let us all know what we can do to help.
I didn’t hear about the movie theater attack in Aurora until two days after it happened. I had been traveling – and, thankfully – am almost totally unplugged from the Media Industrial Complex. I quit social media (Facebook) last December after having spent nearly 8 years living through the minutiae of everyday life as well as the mania spurred on by various “tragedies” with 600 of my best friends.
Of course my heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those who were hurt and killed in Aurora. My heart also goes out to the approximately 80 people killed each day in the United States from gun related violence. Beyond our borders, there are hundreds, if not thousands of others, who die from gun-inflicted wounds every single day in civilian and war-related killing. To their numbers, we must add everyone else who experiences suffering from other types of violence every minute of every day.
I mention these countless other cases of suffering and violence not for the purpose of minimizing what happened in Aurora, but rather for the purpose of drawing attention to the arbitrariness of the hysteria that surrounds certain events. When we take a step back, a familiar pattern emerges: (1) a certain case of violence somehow garners attention and 24/7 news coverage in the media (2) lots of everyday people, talking heads, politicians, intellectuals, religious leaders, etc. pontificate with great moral outrage about the ills of our society (3) touching memorials take place as people commemorate the victims (4) feelings of fear, dread, sadness, nihilism, anxiety and anger overcome the populace.
To the extent that such mass attention might raise consciousness about the costs of our current gun policies and the representations of violence and dehumanization that characterize so much of our popular culture, there is much good that can come from greater awareness of these issues. And yet, there are many disturbing things about the obsessive attention and collective angst wrought by events like Aurora:
(1) The attention is always short lived. It will reach its peak and then slowly dissipate. At some point in the near future, no news outlet will report anything related to Aurora on any given day. And, on the unknown future date, most people will not think about any of the victims. In other words, life will return to “normal”.
(2) Many people who express moral outrage rarely use these occasions as an opportunity to put their principles into action in their own lives. Instead, they have very detailed opinions about how other people should change without realizing that positive change concretely depends on how we all live our lives on an on-going basis. That means that if I want a society that values the dignity of all living beings, then I need to take stock of the choices I make in my life in addition to calling my congresswo(man).
(3) The mass hysteria produced by media-driven coverage of tragic events is inherently arbitrary. That is to say: the event(s) that come to occupy the collective conscious are always a mere subset of a much larger sample of horrific happenings.
So, what to make of Aurora? Or the Trayvon Martin case? Or the Giffords shooting? Or any other tragedy that captures the public’s imagination? I have a few ideas.
(1) No loss of life is more important than any other other simply because CNN says so. There is nothing wrong with focusing on a tragic event if it spurs personal and collective action for the greater good. But such attention must extend to the countless cases of suffering that never make it to the airwaves or the twittersphere. In other words, we need to care about suffering broadly – not just in specific cases that seem to horrify or concern us.
(2) External violence derives from and pales in comparison to the “war within”.
Yes, reasonable people agree that our gun policies obviously need to be reformed and we should all do what we can to make decisions (political and otherwise) that reflect our esteem for human life and dignity. That said, there is no amount of other-directed protest, pontificating or policing can solve the core issue at the heart of violence. External suffering has internal sources. We harm each other physically because of internal limitations on our capacity for love, compassion and peaceful co-existence. I have sometimes remarked that people who decry violence need to ask themselves how realistic it is to expect people to treat others with respect and compassion when most people do not even love themselves! If you pay attention to your inner world (your thoughts, feelings and perceptions) on a daily basis, you will quickly learn how difficult it can be to maintain an attitude of love and compassion not only toward other people, but also toward yourself. Difficult circumstances and situations frequently arouse feelings of anger and fear for all of us on a daily basis. Learning how to achieve inner peace and happiness is the only way we can individually become agents of compassion, cooperation and love in our interactions with others. The war within needs our urgent attention, even as we take steps to address the war in our streets.
(3) Social media and mass media interfere with our ability to maintain equanimity and inner peace. Being informed about local, national and global events is important. I am not advocating burying our heads in the sand. But being continuously plugged into the Media Industrial Complex with its assortment of arbitrary news coverage, commercialized interests and biased representations is a recipe for moral decline, passivity and cultural manipulation. I was so grateful that I did not get wrapped up in the hype about Aurora on Facebook (since I no longer have an account) or through cable news (since I rarely watch it). Yes, I found out a few days after the fact and did follow the story with some interest, but because I came to the story rather than having it come to me, I was able to examine it from a place of calm reflection rather than media-manipulated fear and loathing.
(4) The most important thing any of us can do in response to such tragedies is to ask: How am I living? Before I prioritized my spiritual life, I found myself attracted to execrable popular culture like reality TV, violent action films and generally mindless material. Since the dawn of my spiritual “awakening” (for lack of a better word), I naturally found myself mostly reading about theology and philosophy and watching related media (i.e. Eckhart Tolle’s talks or Mooji’s videos) in my free time. I didn’t consciously try to avoid violent material, but I simply lost interest in it. There are some exceptions — I still love the “Matrix” films and have a slight addiction to Breaking Bad, but I try to watch these things consciously, in a way that strengthens – rather than weakens – my concern for the dignity of all living beings. Perhaps more on that in another post. All of this to say, change is possible and it begins with you.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t watch movies like the “Dark Knight Rises” – I don’t think external responses of that nature are the “answer”. To go on a “violent movie” boycott or to only militate for greater gun control (though we do need it) would be naive and shortsighted. Tragic events like Aurora remind me to pay attention to what’s going on in my world – in my thoughts and emotions. It heightens awareness of emotional and mental violence. The moment I feel myself thinking negatively about someone, I am reminded that such enmity – no matter how minor – is the seed from which all mistreatment and violence grows. How can I expect others to be more compassionate if I myself do not prioritize compassion and kindness? When I feel “pissed off or upset about anything, I use awareness of those emotions to bring me back into conscious recognition of my Self as the Presence of God rather than my “self” as the ego with its tote bag of delusions, petty interests and conditioning. This is why meditation and other practices that focus our attention on the present moment – on stillness – are so important. It is only from a place a inner peace and tranquility that we can come to regard each other with the respect, love and dignity that make external violence inconceivable.
What do you think? Is it possible to consume violent culture while also affirming the dignity of human life? Is there any real good that will come from the intense attention to the Aurora shooting? What can each of us do, individually and collectively, to respond to this event?
I’m so excited about a few guest authors that will be contributing to this site in the coming days/weeks . . .
Aware of Awareness 