Carl Hagenbeck
In attempting to understand the origins of racism, it is important to avoid removing it to a historical past or displacing its sources onto the oppressed. Any investigation or representations of [otherness], then, must take a critical look at Euro-American whiteness to understand the construction of race as a category. As critic Coco Fusco has insisted, “To ignore white ethnicity is to reduce its hegemony by nautrualizing it”
Brian Wallis, Black Bodies, White Science: Louis Agassiz’s Slave Daguerrotypes, in “Only Skin Deep”, p. 179
In the original quote, “otherness” was “african-american blackness”, but as we move out towards Euro-American ideals of seeing “types”, it becomes the other. This is post is a reaction to a recent post that was featured on Sociological Images, Human Zoos at the Turn of the 20th Century. The post featured this mans quotes and appeared to be in response to a Speigel Online article on remains being returned home. The article featured a small photogallery. Instead of using the image of the man behind the terror/horror, the only images that accompanied the article, and article that led with the trigger warning on the image above, only featured images of the “victims”, not the man. I think the trigger warning should sit with the man holding the gun. If we are going to face it, we should see the proper faces of the violence. Not the metaphorical remains of their inhumane actions. That strips those people and their descendants of their humanity, over, and over, and over again. The new term I learned this weekend from my psychoanalysis reading was “soul murder”. I’m starting to think that is what the displacement of oppression does.
The image above is my attempt at properly facing the trigger warning, because he was not one of the ones who stayed so behind the scenes of the people and the photographs that we do not have his name or quotes or (hi)story, and because his name is still spoken, anytime someone wants to go to his zoo, the one that bears his name.
The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has a Whispering Gallery. It is a 40 foot long sroom covered in metal. The thing is, when you stand at one end, you can whisper the quietest whisper you can manage, and the person at the other end can HEAR you as though you were speaking right into their ear. That moment when you realize that your little voice has made it to the other side, because the other side replies and you experience what happened to them when they heard your whisper, is a moment of glee. And then you keep doing it until other people show up because even though you may have heard that voice before, you know get to hear it as breath, a whisper, loud and clear. Digital media, for me is like that whisper. There is loud talking about what it means to be black and what it means to be a black woman and what the black experience is supposed to feel like, look like, sound like, taste like, etc. that we have a hard time letting it just be. When I say be, I mean it in terms of being a state of becoming.
Ghana 1881/1895
Digital media is the place where I can’t see the other side of the whisper room, but I know it is there. I hear the whispers that make their way to me, across time and space, through cables (as light, yay fiber optics!). Digital media is the space where I can find a photograph and post it with the whisper “did you know she was this beautiful?” and I can hear back “she really is”. And while yes, she might be and/or represent all those things that define the black experience, in fact, I may be even placing her as “the Black Woman” at that moment of whisper, we are allowed to just see her and see that yes, she was, is, and will always be beautiful. And we are allowed to see her and say yes, she is and will always be, like me.
I go into my project knowing it is not a critical mass project. However, I know how whispers affect feeling and how seeing affects world making. My only hope is that by sharing these photographs of women who were here before us, I help keep their images in mind. Having that image creates a new world. This is, of course, the moment when things move from media to performance.
I totally survived. In fact, I kind of sort of had an amazing time. By far though, the most amazing for me thing was the Echo Park Film Center:
http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org
I first saw them at the Mozilla Science Fair, on Thursday night, the night I arrived, and was exhausted (the super shuttle took 2 hours!!!). I also presented at the Science Fair on Future class (more on that later), and was put next to this table with tons of DVDs, prop films, buttons, and two super charismatic guys (I wish I had taken a picture. I’m sure someone did, and I’ll find them and add them later).
Anyway, Out the Window consists of many film and media centers that are doing outreach to marginalized youth. It gives them a space to create, express themselves, explore etc. They brought a group of kids that had participated in the various programs to speak during their panel, well, really during the question and answer session. They were AMAZING!!! All of them said that they were empowered, and all of them, without prompting, explained their experience as a chance ot think critically. I LOVED it. So I had to ask a question, that is related to my research interests of course. I asked them if participating in these groups, and learning how to and actually creating these alternate narratives and representations of themselves and their neighborhoods and communities had changed how they view their communities, neighborhoods and how their role in them. One kid stood up. He was latino, tall, lanky with long hair and a red ski cap on. His name was Walter. Let me tell you, Walter blew us ALL away.
He talked about how all the representations he’s ever seen were made by people who had the money to control all the messaging that gets out on a massive scale, and all that messaging made people like him and from his neighborhood seem bad, less than and not worthy. But the project had allow him to see what he can do, and explore the rest of LA and see what it was like, and he was just like everyone. His participation made him feel empowered, and let him think critically about the situation and it allows him to show it for what it was.. and you could just feel the love and empowerment and it was seriously, tears. I talked to other people and they had the exact same experience. Just phenomenal and mind blowing.
The best part of all of this is of course that there is a big blue bus called the film mobile that has been gutted and turned in to a mobile cinema and production studio and it will be coming to North Carolina over the summer. I am SOOOOO there.
Even cooler, I got a couple of the DVDs of things the kids have made and I’m planning on sharing them with some of my classes and of course, guarding them as the sacred items they are for years to come.
Then there was the DML Showcase, which was amazing! I will have to write more about that later (probably with video), but it was soooo inspiring.
On to what I did
SCIENCE FAIR: Future Class
So, there was a Mozilla Science fair at DML2011. I exhibited as Future Class. I had my drumbeat site up and explained that my role in the class was to see how digital media could be used in ethnographic projects. The best comment was “isn’t that just a blog?” my response was of course, yes, and I explained that the purpose was to show a quick and easy way to create a discursive space where you field site can visibly say yay or nay to your observations. Even if it is just a blog, most people aren’t allowing for that type of exchange yet and blogs are easy and simple.
I also had a very small activity. I explained that future class was about thinking in the digital age and exploring what that means and what the challenges are in the university setting. It was a project based tutorial for the most part, but we also had to determine what needed to be different than the traditional classroom experience. I had tons of post its and pens and let people cover the table with words, sentences and paragraphs of what they needed to be changed. Almost everything centered around assessment and community/engagement. There were also quite a few on media.
A Taste of Mozilla Drumbeat: Storming the Classroom Grading and Community
The next thing I did was have a workshop session at the drumbeat workshopping session. The purpose of this was to create a foundational idea of what we want grades to do so people could then move on to brainstorming tools and methods to get them to where they needed to be. I had the smallest group but we had a wonderful time. I brought a ton of markers and a roll of paper and we created a “cloud” of thoughts (there were 4 of us), first on what was bad about how grading currently works, then what was good about how grading currently worked and finally on what are wishless was for how grading should work in the future. Everything ended up being that grading needs to be a community driven type of thing that allows for continuous feedback rather than relying on test that are incapable or measuring what people actually learn. Oh, and collectives. Classroom spaces need to be more community driven. I think the paper we had ended up being at least 14 feet. We taped it up on the wall. Even though we were few, we did something big, literally.
PANEL: New Collectives HASTAC Scholars as a Case Study
The last thing I did was a panel with Cathy Davidson, Fiona Barnett and Dixie Ching, on the HASTAC Scholars. I showed a short film (final edited forth coming) and share a website: http://jadedid.com/dml2011
The other three women on the panel? Simply amazing. I continue to be humbled to be sitting with these people.
I also shared my big revelation from DML2011.
ACADEMICS are just HACKERS and REMIXERS and FORKERS of KNOWLEDGE! By that I mean, what is a dissertation or a thesis other than taking the existing body of knowledges, mixing them, remixing them, forking them, modifying them, changing them, breaking them and coming up with something new and then publishing them? We just do it on paper (and that is starting to change slowly but surely).
I don’t know why it took me so long to come to that realization. When I think about academic work like that though, it makes me super happy.
So, all in all… wonderful amazing trip. There are so many people out there doing amazing work, and being around them is simply inspring. I’ve got to do more. I just have to.
So, I participated a week ago in the Peer-to-Peer Pedagogy (p3) workshop and (un)conference at Duke on September 10th. I’ve been holding off on writing something up. I needed to let my thoughts marinate and then meditate. The most important conclusion I came to was that this peer-to-peer stuff seems to be keeping the invisible people invisible.
Here is a transcript from the backchannel (the chat that was going on during the presentations). I am “Jade”:
http://hastacscholars.wikispaces.com/P3+Back+Channel+Transcript
Two things were said that made me a little uneasy. The first was the idea of letting people go in to a peer-to-peer situation without guidance. Some people are better equipped than others to do certain things. Different levels of education, access, socialization and culture will impact how well people will be able to handle collaborative learning/teaching/grading. I don’t like the idea of the professor abdicating their role as facilitator and educator when the need arises. So, I wrote the following:
Jade: Sometimes the babies don’t learn to walk if you don’t stand them up first, right?Sep 10
I was thinking of the experience of my own two children learning to walk. They saw other people their size walking. They were interested and frustrated by their immobility. They would scream and cry. So, I stood them up. We turned it in to a game. I got so excited when they would stand for prolonged periods. This moved to holding my hand and taking steps on their weak legs. As they got stronger, I would sit with their father on the opposite side, maybe a two feet away. We’d say “come here” with a big smile on our faces and our arms out stretched. The baby would take steps. And slowly, as their confidence grew, we would sit further apart, until, one day, the baby decided he was ready, and he’d stand up by himself, and walk across the room without needing a hand. I don’t think students are babies, but, I think we learn new things by observation, and experience. Often, those experiences need to be facilitated.
So, the other thing that was said was in the backchannel. Here is the exchange:
Grace Hagood: I think (coming from the standpoint of teaching composition) that students are better able to understand not only issues of audience, but also their own agency as authors when they’re involved in producing digital work that they know is going to be available online.Sep 10
Grace Hagood: They’re very tuned into how they present themselves in a public digital context, often.Sep 10
Amanda Phillips: @grace I will probably make the forum more open next time. But does it feel public to them if no one from the outside is responding?Sep 10
Grace Hagood: @amanda I think it feels public as long as the class has access, but no doubt that’s compounded if outside readers are allowed.Sep 10
Amanda Phillips: I mean if you make a forum public, will students treat it as such if no one from the outside is posting? The Internet is a big place and can feel emptySep 10
Nilspete: Public space for students to work on toy assignment will not draw a real community. That is why you need real problems situated in real communitiesSep 10
Jade: @Nils, I think it is good for practice though so students feel comfortable going out to real communities.Sep 10
Nilspete: @jade. Learners do need to understand and develop these skills. But I’d argue, dare to be bold.Sep 10
The conversation continued a bit, and then I posted the following:
Jade: @nils, I agree it is important to be bold but it goes back to the question of making sure communities that have a history of not being included are integrated.Sep 10
There was no response to that from anyone. I have this new thing. Well, it isn’t new. It is something I determined for me and my research interest and methodological leaning will be important. It is called a”privilege check”. The space I am coming from, the status I have etc gives me so many more privileges than people I interact with every day in daily life, the classroom, research etc. I don’t want to take it for granted. To me, my research will not be meaningful if I don’t check my privilege and try to ensure that everyone I am interacting with has an equal voice. If they don’t, I need to try to help level the playing field as much as I am able to. I feel like, especially in a University setting, people should feel they are safe to explore knowledge and expression of knowledge (or learning I guess). For some people, that might be just the basics; learning that their ideas and thoughts are as valuable as any other idea or thought.
Not everyone feels safe enough to be bold. Not everyone IS safe enough to be bold. To ignore that is unrealistic. It is something that must be discussed when looking towards a peer-to-peer system in a University context.