Plantation Memories. Chapter 1- Part 2

THE WOUND¹

Within this unfortunate dynamic, the Black subject becomes not only the ‘Other’ — the difference against which the white ‘self’ is measured — but also ‘Otherness’ — the personification of the repressed aspects of the white ‘self.’ In other words, we become the mental representation of what the white subject does not want to be like. Toni Morrison (1992) uses the expression ‘unlikeness’ to describe whiteness as a dependent identity that exists through the exploitation of the ‘Other,’ a relational identity constructed by whites defining themselves as unlike racial ‘Others.’ That is, Blackness serves as the primary form of Otherness by which whiteness is constructed. The ‘Other” is not the other per se; it becomes such through a process of absolute denial. In this sense, Frantz Fanon writes:

-What is often called the Black soul is a white man’s artifact (1967: 110)

This sentence reminds us that it is not the Black subject we are dealing with, but white fantasies of what Blackness should be like. Fantasies, which do not represent us, but the white imaginary. They are the denied aspects of the white self which are re-projected onto us, as if they were authoritative and objective pictures of ourselves. They are however not of our concern. ‘I cannot go to a film’ writes Fanon ‘I wait for me’ (1967:150). He waits for the Black savages, the Black barbarians, the Black servants, the Black prostitutes, whores and courtesans, the Black criminals, murderers and drug dealers. He waits for what he is not.

We could actually say that in the white conceptual worlds, it is as if the collective unconscious of Black people is pre-programmed for alienation, disappointment and psychic trauma, since the images of Blackness we are confronted with are neither realistic nor gratifying. What an alienation, to be forced to identify with heroes who are white and reject enemies who appear as Black. What a disappointment, to be forced to look at ourselves as if we were in their place. What a pain, to be trapped in this colonial order.

This should be our preoccupation. We should not worry about the white subject in colonialism, but rather about the fact that the Black subject is always forced to develop a relationship to her/himself through the alienating presence of the white other (Hall 1996). Always places as the ‘Other,’ never as the self.

‘What else could it be for me,’ asks Fanon, ‘but an amputation, an excision, a hemorrhage that spattered my whole body with black blood?’ (1967: 112).He uses the language of trauma, like most Black people when speaking of their everyday experiences of racism, indicating the painful bodily impact and loss of characteristics of a traumatic collapse, for within racism one is surgically removed, violently separated, from whatever identity one might really have. Such separation is defined as classic trauma, since it deprives one of one’s own link with a society unconsciously thought as white. ‘I felt knife blades open within me… I could no longer laugh’ (1967:112), he remarks. There is indeed nothing to laugh about, as one is being overdeterminated from the outside by violent fantasies one sees, but one does not recognize as being oneself.

This is the trauma of the Black subject; it lies exactly in this state of absolute Otherness in relation to the white subject. An infernal circle: ‘When people like me, they tell me it is in spite of my color. When they dislike me, they point out that it is not because of my color.’ Fanon writes ‘Either way, I am locked’ (1967:116). Locked within unreason. It seems then that Black people’s trauma stems not only from family-based events, as classical psychoanalysis argues, but rather from traumatizing contact with the violent unreason of the white world, that is, with the unreason of racism that places us always as ‘Other,’ as different, as incompatible, as conflicting, as strange and uncommon. This unreasonable reality of racism is described by Frantz Fanon as traumatic.

-I was hated, despised, detested, not by the neighbor across the street or my cousin on my mother’s side, but by an entire race. I was up against something unreasoned. The psychoanalysts say that nothing is more traumatizing for the young child than this encounters with what is rational. I would personally say that for a man whose weapon is reason there is nothing more neurotic than contact with unreason (Fanon 1967:118).

Later he continues, ‘ I had rationalized the world and the world had rejected me on the basis of color prejudice(…) it was up to the white man to be more irrational than I’ (1967: 123). It would seem that the unreason of racism is trauma.

The mask, therefore, raises many questions: Why must the mouth of the Black subject be fastened? Why must she or he be silenced? What could the Black subject say if her or his mouth were not sealed? And what would the white subject have to listen to? There is an apprehensive fear that if the colonial subject speaks, the colonizer will have to listen. She/he would be forced into an uncomfortable confrontation with ‘Other’ truths. Truths that have been denied, repressed and kept quiet, as secrets. I do like this phrase “ quiet as it’s kept.” It is an expression of the African Diasporic people that announce how someone is about to reveal what is presumed to be a secret. Secrets like slavery. Secrets like colonialism. Secrets like racism.

The white fear of listening to what could be possibly be revealed by the Black subject can be articulated by Sigmund Freud’s notion of repression, since the ‘essence of repression,’ he writes, ‘lies simply in the turning something away, and keeping it at distance, from the conscious’ (1923: 17). It is that process by which unpleasant ideas — and unpleasant truths — are rendered unconscious, out of awareness, due to the extreme anxiety, guilt or shame they cause. However, while buried in the unconscious as secrets, they remain latent and capable of being revealed at any moment. The mask sealing the mouth of the black subject prevents the white master from listening to those laten truths she/he wants ‘to turn away,’ ‘ keep at a distance,’ at the margins, unnoticed and ‘quiet.’ so to speak, it protects the white subject from acknowledging ‘Other; knowledge. Once confronted with the collective secrets and the unpleasant truths of that very dirty history², the white subject commonly argues: ‘not to know…,’ ‘not to understand…,’ ‘not to remember…,’ ‘not to believe…’ or ‘not to be convinced by…’. These are expressions of this process of repression by which the subject resists making the unconscious information conscious; that is, one wants to make the known unknown.

Repression is, in this sense, the defense by which the ego controls and exercises censorship of what is instigated as an ‘unpleasant’ truth. Speaking becomes then virtually impossible, as when we speak, our speech is often interpreted as a dubious interpretation of reality, not imperative enough to be either spoken or listened to. This impossibility illustrates how speaking and silencing emerge as an analogous project. The act of speaking is like a negotiation between those who speak and those who listen, between the speaking subject and their listeners (Castro Varela & Dhawan 2003). Listening is, in this sense, the act of authorization towards the speaker. One can (only) speak when one’s voice is listened to.

Within this dialect, those who are listened to are those who ‘belong.’ And those who are not listened to become those who ‘do not belong.’ The mask re-creates this project of silencing, controlling the possibility that the Black subject might one day be listened to and consequently might belong.

In a public speech Paul Gilroy³ described five different ego defense mechanisms the white subject goes through in order to be able to ,listen, ‘ that is in order to become aware of its own whiteness and of itself as a performer of racism: denial/ guilt/ shame/ recognition/ reparation. Even though Gilroy did not explain this chain of ego defense mechanisms, I would like to do so here, as it is both important and enlightening.

Denial, is an ego defense mechanism that operates unconsciously to resolve emotional conflict, by refusing to admit the more unpleasant aspects of external reality and internal thoughts or feelings. It is the refusal to acknowledge the truth. Denial is followed by two other ego defense mechanisms: splitting and projection. As I wrote earlier, the subject denies that she/he has such -and-such feelings, thoughts or experiences, but goes on to assert that someone else does. The original information — “We are taking what is Theirs” or “We are racist” — is denied and projected onto the ‘Others:’ “They come here and take what is Ours,” “They are racist.” To diminish emotional shock and grief, the Black subject would say: “We are indeed taking what is Theirs” or “I have never experienced racism.” Denial is often confused with negation; these are, however, two different ego defense mechanisms. In the latter, a feeling, thought or experience is admitted to the conscious in its negative form (Laplanche & Pontalis 1988). For instance: “We are not taking what is Theirs” or “We are not racist.”

After denial is guilt, the emotion that follows the infringement of a moral injunction. It is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done, or the way around, having not done something one believes one should have done. Freud describes this as the result of a conflict between the ego and the super-ego, that is, a conflict between one’s own aggressive wishes towards others and the super-ego (authority). The subject is not trying to assert on others what she/he fears to acknowledge in her/himself, like in denial, but is instead pre-occupied with the consequences of her/his own infringement: ‘accusation.’ ‘blame,’ ‘punishment.’ Guilt differs from anxiety in that anxiety is experienced in relation to a future occurrence, such as the anxiety created by the idea that racism might occur. Guilt is experienced in relation to an act already committed, that is, racism has already occurred, creating an affective state of guiltiness. The common responses to guilt are intellectualization or rationalization, that the white subject tries to construct a logical justification for racism; or disbelief as the white subject might say: “we didn’t mean it that way,” “you misunderstood,” “for me, there is no Black or white, we are all just people.” Suddenly, the white subject invests both intellectually and emotionally in the idea that “‘race’ does not really matter,” as a strategy to reduce the unconscious aggressive wishes toward ‘Others’ and the sense of guilt.

Shame, on the other hand, is the fear of ridicule, the response to the failure to live up to one’s ego ideal. While guilt occurs if one transgresses an injunction derived from outside oneself, same occurs if one fails to achieve an ideal of behavior one has set for oneself. Shame is therefore closely connected to the sense of insight. It is provoked by experiences that call into question our preconceptions about ourselves and compel us to see ourselves through the eyes of others, helping us to recognize the discrepancy between other people’s perceptions of us and our own conception of ourselves: “Who am I? How do others perceive me? And what do I represent to them?” The white subject realizes that the perception Black people have of whiteness might be different than its own self-perception, as whiteness is seen as a privileged identity, which signifies both power and alarm — shame is the result of this conflict.

Recognition follows shame; it is the moment when the white subject recognizes its own whiteness and/or racisms. It is, therefore, a process of acknowledgment. One finally acknowledges reality by accepting reality and perceptions of others. Recognition is, in this sense, the passage from fantasy to reality — it is no longer a question of how I would like to be seen, but rather of who I am; not what I would like ‘Others’ to be, but rather who they really are.

Reparations then means the negotiation of recognition. One negotiates reality. In this sense, it is the act of repairing the harm caused by racism by changing structures, agendas, spaces, positions, dynamics, subjective relations, vocabulary, that is, giving up privileges.

These different steps reveal racism awareness not so much as a moral issue but rather as a psychological process that demands work. In this sense, instead of asking the common moral question: ,,Am I racist?” and expecting a comfortable answer, the white subject should rather ask: “How can I dismantle my own racisms?”, as the question itself initiates that process.

1)The term ‘trauma’ is derived from the Greek word ‘wound’ (Laplanche & Pontalis 1988), and it is in this sense that I use it here: wound as trauma.

2)A sentence commonly used by Toni Morrison to describe her artistic work. As she argues, her writing brings into light the so-called ‘dirty business of racism’ (1992).

3)Der Black Atlantic, in the Haus der Kulturen de Welt, Berlin, 2004