Discussion Questions: Class #1
1. To define the term “ethnos”. As Wynter will explain the term “ethnos” has moved from defining “us” to designating an “other” that makes “us” possible. Wynter is interested in whether we can find a way of defining community WITHOUT depending on exclusion. Is there an “us” with out a “them”? If so…for Wynter this would be the true “ethnos”.
So let’s see. I’m interested in what you all think about this question. After reading the piece think about these things in the context of your own life/work. Do you find it effective to define community against something that is recognizably NOT your community? Can you think of any examples of community or connection that you have experienced that don’t require exclusion? Wynter suggests that jazz is an example of black people creating an “us” that doesn’t require a “them”. Do you agree? How does art or a creative process change our relationships to community?
2. The second thing that Wynter is concerned with defining is “poetics”. For Wynter every truly creative process is a “poetic” process. She is not limiting her definition to words or rhyming or anything like that. Wynter is asking us to imagine a poetic process that allows people to create and articulate their relationships to their environments. She is asking for this in order to replace what she sees as the “cultural racism” which she believes is “organic to western capitalism” in which people are defined as man or subhuman based on their relationships to objects (most importantly guns…in the colonial moment).
Do we agree with this definition of “poetics”? Does a creative process allow us to CREATE our relationships to each other instead of CONSUMING them? What are we creating anyway. My dad says that he thinks about what Wynter is calling a “poetic” approach as a “purposeful” approach…an approach that acknowledges a divine purpose in each individual life. How do you think about this? Do you have other names for what Wynter is calling the “poetic”?
Now on to DuBois. The major idea that DuBois launches in the section of Souls that we will be reading together (though I recommend reading the rest of the book someday) is “double consciousness” a constant “two-ness” that characterizes the difficulty black people face in the United States. He also laments the dilemma of the educated black person in the United States who is constantly “between” the black majority which in his time (and I would add to this day) has been denied access to validated forms of education and the dominant culture. This dilemma seems especially poignant to me…because DuBois is actually writing this text FROM the position he describes.
How does DuBois’s navigation of audience strike you? Does the fact that he seems to be addressing a predominantly white audience (”men”) on behalf of “black folk” shape your interpretation of his narrative? (Also…how do you navigate similar dilemmas? I know of women of color who blog and make zines who worry about what it means for their work to mostly be read by white bloggers and zinesters. I know of community organizations dedicated to serving communities of color who worry about what it means when they are accountable to foundations that are NOT controlled by people of color for grant reports. DuBois seems to share this worry.)
Does DuBois’s choice to use poetry and music to frame each of his chapters have an effect of the potential of his text?
Finally…what do you think Sylvia Wynter would have to say about this section of DuBois’s text? Does DuBois’s idea of “between-ness”challenge the heirarchy (animal-savage/black -man) that Wynter points out…or does it reproduce it?
Wynter points out that within western culture large sections of the mind and spirit are trapped “on reservations”, making the point that the oppression inflicted on indigenous people costs everyone their soul. (Though on the other hand issues of Essence magazine around the time period when Wynter gave her talk suggested that surest way to lose your soul was to lapse your subscription to the magazine. Which was full of ads for hair-taming products…but I digress.) What about DuBois’s soul? Do we sense that he had to put it on lock-down to address his audience…or did he perform a liberatory feat that allows us to have this conversation right now?
