I'm sending this to the list because it seems to tie in to several other
threads. If you are a person who hates long posts, please accept my
apologies in advance.
>I am currently working on a paper re: whiteness and cyberspace, and would
>like to pose a question based on the recent posts re:
>Eurocentrism/Euro-Americans, etc., which is probably not directly related
>to Foucault, but what the heck. Many cultural theorists have argued that
>whiteness (especially as it correlates with Americanness) is a social
>construction that places whites in a position of privelage.
Something happens here in Canada (I live in Vancouver) vis-a-vis
"whiteness", "Americanness" and "Canadianess" that you may find interesting.
Many "liberal" white people in Canada beleive that Canada is not as racist
as the States, and this is taken as "a point for our side" in the ubiquitous
Canadian pastime of patting our own backs at Americans' expense. I have
frequently witnessed one particularly bizarre manifestation of this attitude
in my home city, which has a substantial First Nations, Asian-Canadian, and
South Asian-Canadian communities. Racism of Euro-Canadians against First
Nations people, Asian-Canadians , and South Asian -Canadians is deemed
"acceptable" or at least "understandable" by centrist and liberal folks (I
confess that I don't know very many rightist white folks, so I'm not going
to speak about them), whereas racism pointed at African-Canadians is frowned
upon by these same individuals. A friend of mine who attended a anti-gulf
organizing meeting told me the following story: One of the speakers talked
for awhile about anti-Arab images and representations in North American
media, and tried to show how this was connected to racism. One
politcally-active white woman stood up and said "I'm not sure what that has
to so with Vancouver . . . I mean, we have hardly any people of colour here
. . ." It appears that she understood the phrase "people of colour" to
indicate African- or Carribean-Canadians only. Since Vancouver is hiome to
very small African- and Carribean -Canadian communities, she understood
Vancouver to be a "white" city, and thus racism to be something of a
non-issue. But, she made certain that the other people at the meeting knew
she knew racism was wrong, because she added " It's not like it's the States
here or something. This is Canada!"
>The transperance of whiteness allows for it to be everywhere and nowhere within
>society. Do you think this transfers to the Internet? For example is it
>assumed that a majority of the Foucault list members are white, since
>Foucault has been criticized for representing a white intellectual
>viewpoint? Are multi-cultural lists, AfroAm lists, post-colonial studies
>lists viewed as less/non white or more multi-cultural?
I think you're right that many of us on this and other lists assume other
list members are white. Does anyone have any stats. on the cultural
designations of Net users?
>I guess what I'm getting at is the notion that everyone can be invisible on
>the Internet (black, white, yellow, brown, woman, man, queer, hetero,
>etc.), but in many ways the Internet is just another representation of
>society.
I may have the opportunity to be invisible on the Net, but I'm not sure if
I've managed to take it (and I'm not sure if I want to-- I can see pros and
cons to both ways of doing things). As a woman, I often feel *exposed* on
the Net , as if my secondary sexual characteristics were hanging out, but
that might just be me . . . One thing I have encountered on other lists is
racism (or an attempt at it)-- people read my surname and assume that I'm a
woman of colour, I'm told because my name "looks foreign". They then
proceed to do or try to do various gross things. I encounter the same thing
when I leave business-related phone messages. (I'm not whining about this--
as a white person, I have the culturally inherited power to shut these
would-be racists down. I mention it because I think it has something to do
with your question) Since people of my cultural designattion (Irish/French
Canadian) have been considered "white" for over/about 100 years , I was
raised in a way that firmly wedged me into the usual idiotic, unquestioned
racism.
Re: the issue of the Net replicating society at large. Yes and no . . . on
one hand, the prevailing attitudes on any topic can't help but ooze into
cyberspace, since people take their attitudes with them wherever they go,.
So it's not suprising that any given attitude finds it's way onto the Net.
On the other hand, since a big chunk of North Americans are poor by N.
American standards, and not (or only marginally) computer literate, the Net
cannot help but be dominated by folks with the financial resources,
education/skills and spare time to diddle in cyberspace. I think a
thorough consideration of "race" in relation to cyberspace needs to be
tempered with some analysis of class (or at the very least, money), and how
these two factors (do and do not) combine.
OK, so there are my opinions on your topic. I think it will be an
interesting paper-- good luck.
I have a general question that will pull this back to the work of Foucault:
hopefully someone else will find it interesting. To wit: What can be said of
reprentations of "race" in sexually explicit materials (i.e. "pornography",
"erotica", whatever you want to call it) in light of Foucault's insights in
the introduction ("We Other Victorians") of _The History of Sexuality, Vol
I_? I'm thinking here not just of porn, but also 20th century eugenics
tracts, the Scottsboro trial ( a trial in which several African-American men
were accused of raping (1 or 2, I'm not sure) white women, and the
mainstram American film _The Bodyguard_. I realize that this is a *huge*
question, but maybe that's a good thing.
ta ta
chloe
"The women who hate me cut me
as men can't Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough" Dorothy Allison
threads. If you are a person who hates long posts, please accept my
apologies in advance.
>I am currently working on a paper re: whiteness and cyberspace, and would
>like to pose a question based on the recent posts re:
>Eurocentrism/Euro-Americans, etc., which is probably not directly related
>to Foucault, but what the heck. Many cultural theorists have argued that
>whiteness (especially as it correlates with Americanness) is a social
>construction that places whites in a position of privelage.
Something happens here in Canada (I live in Vancouver) vis-a-vis
"whiteness", "Americanness" and "Canadianess" that you may find interesting.
Many "liberal" white people in Canada beleive that Canada is not as racist
as the States, and this is taken as "a point for our side" in the ubiquitous
Canadian pastime of patting our own backs at Americans' expense. I have
frequently witnessed one particularly bizarre manifestation of this attitude
in my home city, which has a substantial First Nations, Asian-Canadian, and
South Asian-Canadian communities. Racism of Euro-Canadians against First
Nations people, Asian-Canadians , and South Asian -Canadians is deemed
"acceptable" or at least "understandable" by centrist and liberal folks (I
confess that I don't know very many rightist white folks, so I'm not going
to speak about them), whereas racism pointed at African-Canadians is frowned
upon by these same individuals. A friend of mine who attended a anti-gulf
organizing meeting told me the following story: One of the speakers talked
for awhile about anti-Arab images and representations in North American
media, and tried to show how this was connected to racism. One
politcally-active white woman stood up and said "I'm not sure what that has
to so with Vancouver . . . I mean, we have hardly any people of colour here
. . ." It appears that she understood the phrase "people of colour" to
indicate African- or Carribean-Canadians only. Since Vancouver is hiome to
very small African- and Carribean -Canadian communities, she understood
Vancouver to be a "white" city, and thus racism to be something of a
non-issue. But, she made certain that the other people at the meeting knew
she knew racism was wrong, because she added " It's not like it's the States
here or something. This is Canada!"
>The transperance of whiteness allows for it to be everywhere and nowhere within
>society. Do you think this transfers to the Internet? For example is it
>assumed that a majority of the Foucault list members are white, since
>Foucault has been criticized for representing a white intellectual
>viewpoint? Are multi-cultural lists, AfroAm lists, post-colonial studies
>lists viewed as less/non white or more multi-cultural?
I think you're right that many of us on this and other lists assume other
list members are white. Does anyone have any stats. on the cultural
designations of Net users?
>I guess what I'm getting at is the notion that everyone can be invisible on
>the Internet (black, white, yellow, brown, woman, man, queer, hetero,
>etc.), but in many ways the Internet is just another representation of
>society.
I may have the opportunity to be invisible on the Net, but I'm not sure if
I've managed to take it (and I'm not sure if I want to-- I can see pros and
cons to both ways of doing things). As a woman, I often feel *exposed* on
the Net , as if my secondary sexual characteristics were hanging out, but
that might just be me . . . One thing I have encountered on other lists is
racism (or an attempt at it)-- people read my surname and assume that I'm a
woman of colour, I'm told because my name "looks foreign". They then
proceed to do or try to do various gross things. I encounter the same thing
when I leave business-related phone messages. (I'm not whining about this--
as a white person, I have the culturally inherited power to shut these
would-be racists down. I mention it because I think it has something to do
with your question) Since people of my cultural designattion (Irish/French
Canadian) have been considered "white" for over/about 100 years , I was
raised in a way that firmly wedged me into the usual idiotic, unquestioned
racism.
Re: the issue of the Net replicating society at large. Yes and no . . . on
one hand, the prevailing attitudes on any topic can't help but ooze into
cyberspace, since people take their attitudes with them wherever they go,.
So it's not suprising that any given attitude finds it's way onto the Net.
On the other hand, since a big chunk of North Americans are poor by N.
American standards, and not (or only marginally) computer literate, the Net
cannot help but be dominated by folks with the financial resources,
education/skills and spare time to diddle in cyberspace. I think a
thorough consideration of "race" in relation to cyberspace needs to be
tempered with some analysis of class (or at the very least, money), and how
these two factors (do and do not) combine.
OK, so there are my opinions on your topic. I think it will be an
interesting paper-- good luck.
I have a general question that will pull this back to the work of Foucault:
hopefully someone else will find it interesting. To wit: What can be said of
reprentations of "race" in sexually explicit materials (i.e. "pornography",
"erotica", whatever you want to call it) in light of Foucault's insights in
the introduction ("We Other Victorians") of _The History of Sexuality, Vol
I_? I'm thinking here not just of porn, but also 20th century eugenics
tracts, the Scottsboro trial ( a trial in which several African-American men
were accused of raping (1 or 2, I'm not sure) white women, and the
mainstram American film _The Bodyguard_. I realize that this is a *huge*
question, but maybe that's a good thing.
ta ta
chloe
"The women who hate me cut me
as men can't Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough" Dorothy Allison