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COMLIT 60AC All the Feels: Race, Literature, Emotion (Race & Racism…

- - - - “Is it a wrong that has something in common-in structure, if not intent-with the most straightforwardly oppressive ways of speaking about anger. The misogynist dismisses a woman’s anger by calling her shrill or strident; the racist dismisses the black person’s anger by calling him a thug or an animal.” (Srinivasan 128)
        
        Srinivasan argues on the aptness of anger, and when being angry as a response is productive, versus when it makes things worse. Anger may lead to violence against family or community. There is a thin line on what is necessary versus what is harmful. The anger must be proportional to the reason for anger.
        
        “I want to suggest that getting angry is a means of affectively registering or appreciating the injustice of the world, and that our capacity to get aptly angry is best compared with our capacity for aesthetic appreciation.” (Srinivasan 132)
  - - - Themes:
        -Language
        -Silence and Speech
        -Gender and gender barriers
        -Fear of visibility
        -Seeing vs being seen
        -Vulnerability
    - - Language is used in these texts to show separation from American colonialism, and the struggle minority groups face in their integration with American ideals. Language also allows as a platform in which these groups can express their identity that has not yet been taken, an in-between.
  - - - Themes:
        -The Supernatural (Fukú)
        -Love
        -Identity
        -Power and Sexual abuse
        -Gender
        
        The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao plays with stereotypes of Dominican men as playboys, super-masculine, and all having insatiable sex drives. Oscar Wao and Yunior both fit and don't fit this model in many ways, despite being starkly different.
        
        [Oscar] [h]ad none of the Higher Powers of your typical Dominican male, couldn't have pulled a girl if his life depended on it. Couldn't play sports for shit, or dominoes, was beyond uncoordinated, threw a ball like a girl. Had no knack for music or business or dance, no hustle, no rap, no G. And most damning of all: no looks.” (Díaz)
- - - - “This suspended assimilation-this inability to blend into the “melting pot” of America-suggests that, for Asian Americans, ideals of whiteness es are continually estranged. They remain at an unattainable distance, at once a compelling fantasy and a lost ideal.” (Eng and Han 671)
  - - - Themes:
        -Talk-Story and Identities
        -Gender roles (esp. pertaining to Chinese culture)
        -Silence vs Speech (American Standards of women)
        -Immigrant experience/ struggle and Poverty
        -Supernatural
    - - In the Woman Warrior, based on American ideals of beauty, Brave Orchid among other women have to adapt to how she is supposed to act if she wants to “attract men”.
      - In the Bluest Eye, Pecola encounters hate from those around her and is not the subject of interest in due to her looks in contrast with the white, traditional standards of beauty.
    - - Chinese women are said to be typically loud and brash, but in the United States a woman with a loud voice is not feminine, thus unattractive to men.
      - American ideals of beauty
    - - Throughout the story, Ghosts represent fear and the unknown. In Woman Warrior, Brave Orchid believes that the ghosts are not their ancestors, as she believes “the ancestors are busier than that” and are most likely at rest. Instead, Brave Orchid believes they are entirely different, and in her narratives of Chinese legends as well as in the United States, she uses the metaphor of ghosts to refer to Americans whose customs and habits Kingston’s family cannot understand or assimilate into.
      - Supernatural
- - - - Themes:
        -Who fear which bodies?
        -Appropriation of black bodies for white benefit
        -Femininity and vulnerability in women’s bodies in public
        -Fear is a response to the threat of violence
        
        “Anxiety becomes an approach to objects rather than, as with fear, being produced by an objects approach.” (Ahmed 66)
    - - In Get Out, Chris is finally meeting his girlfriend, Rose’s family. However, after arriving, he realizes that something is off, and throughout the movie deals with his own anxiety in the situation of being the only black man who seems to see the issue with her family, while also trying to find a way to Get Out.
  - - - Themes:
        -Race and Racism
        -Slavery/appropriation of black bodies
        -Horror
        -Love and betrayal
        -Horror
        -Fear/Paranoia/Unease
  - - - Themes:
        -Negligence
        -Race and Racism between communities of color
        -Violence
        -Police brutality
        -Terror and fear
        -Mourning
        
        Conducted by Anna Deveare Smith, because she was the only one who portrayed many characters, it allowed for smooth transitions, the unity of different groups, focuses the attention on the monologue, and created a sense of familiarity.
  - - - Themes:
        -Beauty vs Ugliness
        -Women/femininity
        -Race and Racism
        -Home and Family
        -Poverty/Work
        -Sex and coming of age
    - - Shame and its Sisters, Silvan Tomkins
        
        “In contrast to all other affects, shame is an experience of the self by the self. At the moment when the self feels ashamed, it is felt as a sickness within the self. Shame is the most reflexive of affects in that the phenomenological distinction between the subject and object of shame is lost. Why is shame so close to the experienced self? It is because the self lives in the face, and within the face the self burns brightest in the eyes.” (Tomkins 136)
        
        Eyes/ Seeing vs being seen
        
        In the Bluest Eye, Pecola constantly references having blue eyes, as she would finally be seen as she wishes to be. Because she is embarrassed in her skin, she hides her gaze to avoid humiliation.
        
        Themes:
        -We don’t want to be seen when we are shameful
        -Shame is self inflicted
        -Shame and humiliation is linked with love and identification
        -Contempt and disgust is linked with the Individuation of hate
        
        “The shame response is literally an ambivalent turning of the eyes away from the object towards the face, towards the self. It is an act of facial communication reduction in which excitement or enjoyment is only incompletely reduced. Therefore it is an act which is deeply ambivalent.” (Tomkins 137)
    - - In the Bluest Eye, we see both Pecola’a struggle with poverty as well as her parents, and we also follow the three prostitutes, who are forced to work to survive.
- - - - After moving to Princeton from Pakistan for undergraduate study, Changez falls for classmate Erica on a trip to Greece. However, Erica is plagued with the memory of her dead boyfriend, and Changez works to make himself an integral part of her life. However, Erica slowly loses her mind and eventually leaves from Changez’ life altogether, coincidentally at the same time he started to socially separate from the United States post 9/11.
        
        Besides dealing with Erica, Changez is also subject to post 9/11 racism and stereotypes due to his looks and background. After becoming the subject of fear, Chnagez disassociates with the American mainstream, which becomes apparent to those around him such as his employer and classmates.
        
        Themes:
        -Patriotism and Post 9/11
        -Racism and Fundamentalism
        -Love and Loss
        -American Imperialism and disassociation
        
        Stereotypes and racism
        
        Love
    - - Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination, Bell Hooks
        
        “They do not know this thing we call “difference.” Systems of domination, imperialism, colonialism, and racism actively coerce black folks to internalize negative perceptions of blackness, to be self-hating.” (Hooks 166)
        
        Themes:
        -Stereotypes based on race/ethnicity
        -Absence of recognition is what causes othering
        -Seeing vs Being seen
        -Terror
        -Race and racism
        -Racial unease
        
        “It was a movement away from the segregated blackness of our community into a poor white neighborhood. I remember the fear, being scared to walk to Baba’a, our grandmothers’s house, because we would have to pass that terrifying whiteness-those white faces on the porches staring us down with hate. Even when empty or vacant those porches seemed to say danger, you do not belong here, you are not safe.” (Hooks 175)
        
        This quote directly relates to the opening scene in Get Out, as the man seemed uncomfortable in the white suburbs, no matter how safe they seemed to be. This shows that despite one area feeling safe for a group people, it is also a source of terror for those who do not belong in that area.
  - - - “Profound mourning, the reaction to the loss of someone who is loved, contains the same painful frame of mind, the same loss of interest in the outside world- in so far as it does not recall him-the same loss of capacity to adopt any new object of love (which would mean replacing him) and the same turning away from any activity that is connected with thoughts of him.” (Freud 244)
      - “I generally remember being a little contemptuous of the Quilt. A little. I also cried at the Quilt. I mean, I was aware that these were people’s lives being represented... but I was a little contemptuous of the Quilt, ‘cause in some ways, it seemed to divert energy from anger. It seemed to say ‘mourning is the valid response’ and not say the other thing that needs to be said with that:.... ‘turn your mourning into anger’.... And so it seemed a bit reformist and diverting of energy to a lot of us (Hause 2000; emphasizes hers)” (Gould 228)
        
        In the case of ACT UP, anger was promoted as a direct response to mourning to accomplish public knowledge on the issue and create change.
    - - ARTFORUM, Gran Fury, Douglas Crimp
        
        “AF: This is the way ACT UP functioned on every level. People would bring news items to the meetings. They would throw out snippets from articles, and whatever resonated became the issue we’d organize around. It was an organic process, and Gram Fury worked that way for a long time.” (Crimp 145)
        
        Gran Fury was an art collective formed in 1988 to work in coalition with the aids activist group ACT UP. Gran Fury was named after the car used by the New York City PD, and the group made billboards, postcards, posters, paintings and videos calling attention to the issues associated with the AIDS crisis and the (lack of) attention the government was paying to the people affected by it. These public projects aimed at “exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis”, and demanded reforms and change in public policy to prevent further widespread deaths.
        
        Themes:
        -Love and loss
        -Use anger for activism
        -Political change
        -Art for politics
        -Power in the collective voice
    - - Themes:
        -Use of Emotion to fight injustice
        -Anger and movement
        -Love and loss
        -Honoring those who have been lost
        -Activism
        
        “More generally, each exhortation to feel a given sentiment and every expression of a feeling could be read as an attempt by activists to mobilize specific feelings with the goal of garnering support for the movement.” (Gould 222)
        
        “The ACT UP leaflet located the source of lesbian and gay grief at the government’s doorstep, and then offered a clear, logical response: if you feel grief, as we all do, then you should also feel anger towards those who have caused you to feel grief; and if you feel anger, you should join us in confrontational activism to fight those who are responsible for turning a public health issue into the AIDS crisis.” (Gould 226)
  - - - Themes:
        -Mourning/Melancholia
        -Love and Loss
        -Inability to love
- - - - Themes:
        -Shame/Internal self-contempt
        -In-between culture and language
        -Gender
        -Identity
        -Racial identity not = to national identity
        -Colonialism
        -Failed Integrations
        
        In How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Gloria analyzes the social and cultural differences between Mexican culture and American culture and how immigrants end up falling in between as they try to assimilate per American standards. Not only does she explore language and culture, she also covers topics such as racism and sexism. In each culture, and how women have a harder time in their assimilation when they are constantly looked down upon no matter what they do
        
        Language plays a big role in establishing identity for those of minority groups, as it unifies and makes possible for people to relate to others with similar experiences. Because you are the one speaking, your language and how you choose to speak is a personal choice that nobody can take away from you.
  - - - Beyond anger, Martha C Nussbaum
        
        “Whenever we are faced with pressing moral or political decisions, we should clear our heads, and spend some time conducting what Mandela (citing Marcus Aurelius) referred to as ‘Conversations with Myself’. When we do, I predict, the arguments proposed by anger will be clearly seen to be pathetic and weak, while the voice of generosity and forward-looking reason will be strong as well as beautiful.” (Nussbaum 94)
        
        -Anger leads to revenge
        -We should stray from being vindictive
        -Anger is destructive and gets in the way of our goals/has negative consequences
        -We should think about why the person may have done something and try to forge bonds
        
        Nussbaum mentions the approach Mandela took to further her argument. She believes that retaliation only causes divisions in nations, and because Mandela chose to work with those who opposed him rather than being vindictive, he was able to accomplish more.
        
        “Generosity and friendliness were not justified by past deeds; but they were necessary for future progress.” (Nussbaum 92)
      - Jose Esteban Munoz, Cruising Utopia & Ernst Bloch, Can Hope Be Disappointed?
        
        Cruising Utopia
        
        “My approach to hope as a critical methodology can be best described as a backward glance that enacts a future vision.” (Munoz 4)
        
        Themes:
        -Queerness as a vision
        -Past vs Present vs Future
        -Using the past to form a better future
        
        Can Hope be Disappointed?
        
        “Hope’s methodology (with its pendent, memory) dwells in the region of the not-yet, a place where entrance and, above all, final content are marked by an enduring indeterminacy.” (Bloch 341)
        
        Themes:
        -Hope for the future
        -Disappointment In the future due to the hope of today
        -Dreams can be disappointed, hope hopes that they won’t be dissapointed
    - - Themes:
        -Imposed Standards of whiteness
        -Decolonialsim/back to roots
        -Identity
        -Segregation
        -Race and racism
        -Anger and moving past anger
        
        “I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had kill my father could also kill me.” (Baldwin 90)