Race @ Rhodes

Frantz Fanon & The Master's House

Today in class, Dr. Johnson alluded to a really important essay on resistance by Audre Lorde called, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House." Fanon, a strong proponent of communism (I know that appears redundant, but I just wanted to make it clear), was a strong advocate of cultural, economical, and social revolution. Using violence and force--the Master's tools--actually could actually potentially lead to a form of psychological liberation from the mental colonization of the colonizer. With respect to the Algerian War, Fanon actually participated in the armed revolt that led to the Evian Accord, in 1962, and the ousting of the French government. (Regrettably, Fanon died the year before the treaty was signed, and thus never had the opportunity to see a "free" Algerian state.) In this case, clearly, a revolution successfully destabilized the ruling government, but, as we can observe now, the war never really ended in Algeria. The colonizing influence reverberates until this day. Although, now, the Algerians are doing it to one another. As the fight for power wages on, we must consider what this means for this kind of revolution, the kind that merely inverts the power dynamic that existed during colonization. If, in fact, the must foundational cultural elements reinforce and underscore the racist proclivity--that is any tendency to discriminate arbitrarily, could a revolution that does not include the effacement of all French cultural palimpsests truly lead to a new Algeria? According to Lorde's thesis, the answer is no. With the state of Algeria today, it would not be difficult to argue that she is correct. Ultimately, what does that mean for armed revolt, or liberation in general? Historically speaking, we can say that things have gotten better in this country, but at an astoundingly slow pace. The overt acts of racism--like lynching and segregation--have simply been replaced by a new more subtle, elusive forms of racism. The structure of our Country remains essentially the same as before the Emancipation, before the Harlem Renaissance, and before the Civil Rights Movement. The foundation continues to reinvent novel ways of maintaining the hegemony, the social norms, and the myth of white superiority and the Negro. As Lorde would say, we are still in the Master's House, its has just been repainted, there have been some add ons, and its now got central heating. If we take Heidegger seriously when he claims that language is the, "House of Being," what must change to build a new house, with new tools, and a new way of being? Lorde gives us some idea in "Poetry is Not a Luxury." (Another very short essay that I would encourage everyone to read.) In this piece, she focuses on the resistance potential of narrative, of appropriation, and linguistic resistance. Poetry, according to Lorde, is not one of the Master's Tools, but, I would argue, that doesn't necessarily mean that using it will dismantle the Master's House. Ultimately, poets have broken through, using the colonizer's English, and I am sure most of us can name several Black poets; however, these exceptions are too often used as evidence that we no longer live in "racist" society, which only postpones the necessary moment of self-reflection. Because, in reality, we do. And, I doubt, contradicting Heidegger, that adopting a new language would help. My question to this class is simple: what ways, subtle ways, do we all resist? What are our metaphorical phone calls to congress people? What, perhaps, can we do that we aren't doing to resist?

The reality is, I'm not convinced that we can ever get out of the Master's house without burning it down while all of us are in it. I hope some of you cats can convince me otherwise.