Anthropology Times

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’ve been continuing my review of chemistry. The book has a bit of a narrative in which scientific study and discovery are touted as the height of human achievement; it’s the most important and the most glorious of human endeavors. I marveled at the grandiose absolutes used for self-defined values, at the totally straight-faced delivery. I’m reminded of an episode of “The Simpson’s” in which Bart bangs a pot and sings, “I am so great. I am so great. Everybody loves me. I am so great…” His lyrics are said to be a byproduct of the terrible two’s. I love and enjoy scientific pursuits, but I cannot dampen my awareness of its culturally defined importance.

I continue to ponder where to go next with what I write here. I will return to my reading of Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics next week.

Ever yours,

S.

“Seeking the Ancestors: Forging a Black Feminist Tradition in Anthropology” by A. Lynn Bolles
(This is the first in a series of essays presented in Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

As I have felt more acutely aware of the value of the sense of shared experience, I particularly enjoyed this historical overview of black women in anthropology. When Bolles writes about why black women study anthropology, I understood and felt every word of it. She writes of how black women are attracted to anthropology’s embrace of its own eclecticism and of its holistic approach that draws on perspectives from multiple disciplines, *and because it can be used as “a tool to locate the sources of inequality, and in some instances, as a place where one could participate in finding a ‘cure’.”  She also speaks to some of my concerns when she writes that black women anthropologist do not receive appropriate recognition in the anthropological canon, that their intellectualism is held suspect, and that they often feel strongly driven to exert a corrective influence on theoretical and historical perspectives in anthropology. In light of these concerns, I have considered that as a black woman, my views on culture (in the public arena) might be better respected if I had an advanced degree in physics than if I had an advanced degree in anthropology as such a degree would be seen by the wider public as more convincing proof of my intellectualism.

Continuing that line of thought, I have often wondered whether as a black woman I should study a subject like physics because I can. Bolles commentary on the black intellectual tradition speaks directly to my reasons for thinking this. She quotes Leith Mullings as summarizing the goals of the tradition thusly: “(1) the charge of uplifting the race, (2) dealing with the social and material condition of the race, and (3) finding ‘a cure for inequality’.” So my question to myself has been, given the view of the study of physics in the wider public, whether I would do more to further the stated goals by increasing the number of black women with advanced degrees in physics. A female physicist (Kawtar Hafidi) with whom I felt some commonality regarding her childhood joy in studying math expressed similar considerations: “[My father] said, ‘What will you do with literature? It’s not useful to the country. Since you are good at everything, you should do science.’ So he convinced me, and I went ahead with science, because I thought I could help my country this way. So I started mathematics and physics in university.” As a black child who excelled in academics, it was impressed upon me early that I had to consider how what I studied and how well I did in school reflected on black people generally. During the many years that I spent (mildly) philosophically opposed to further study in academia, I wondered whether I should feel obligated to return due to the above mentioned considerations.

Yours truly,

S.

*edited to add

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I imagine that it’s common with Anthropology and others areas of social research that when one studies at a certain level it may give rise to sensations of out-of-body experience. Concentrated study of how we live and think and interact can create such a disconnect with the sense of self. In this way I think study in areas such as math and physics may be easier… at least for me. At the moment, working math problems is calming for me in a way that reading anthropology is not, but I could see this changing. I enjoy the anthropological perspective, the vast scope of the field, the natural appeal to interdisciplinary approaches… but I fear serious study might be a quick road to insanity.

I think that press coverage of anthropology adds to my anxiety when thinking about further study in the field. I believe anthropology (along with sociology and psychology) suffers a lot more from poor coverage in the popular press. Unfortunately, a lot of culture commentators with no background in social fields get billed as culture experts and a lot of “experts,” people from top schools, put out crap research (for financial gain?) that gets top coverage because of the hotness of the topic. Sometimes it’s hard to keep even the obviously bad stuff separate when thinking about the field generally. At times it’s hard to distinguish whether seemingly reputable people are being deliberately deceitful or whether the methodologies are just that faulty. I wish there were more rigorous methodology classes earlier in social study. This past year of reading in anthropology has been helpful in pointing me toward where to look for “real” anthropological research.

I haven’t come up with a plan for reading anthropology in the new year. I will likely take a few weeks off as I am cramming to hopefully take a chemistry placement test so that I don’t have to take Intro to Chemistry. It may turn out that I will want to read some anthropology to break up the chemistry study such that I will post like normal until I come up with a plan.

See you in the new year,

S.

INTERROGATING RACISM: Toward an Antiracist Anthropology
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 34: 667-693 (Volume publication date October 2005)
Leith Mullings
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I thought it would be nice to read a journal article again. Seeing as I have been thinking about what it would mean to me to be a female, black anthropologist, I looked for an article by a female, black anthropologist. Reading the article, I was reminded of a conversation with a black, male student encouraging me toward an academic career because of the importance of black students having black role models in academia. I was reminded because I felt an immediate sense of shared experience reading this article that alleviated in small part my hesitancy in thinking about continuing study in anthropology. Mullings writes that “many cultural anthropologists, in distancing themselves from the truly barbaric consequences of biological racism, have become ‘race avoidant’ (Brodkin 1999, p. 68), considering race to be socially constructed, but in the process ignore racism.” This statement left me wondering whether this avoidance then lead to less mention of black anthropologists in the majority of introductory cultural anthropology courses seeing that black anthropologists tend to write a lot about racism and racial topics.

Not far into the article, Mullings mentions several early African American anthropologists including St. Clair Drake, Allison Davis, Hortense Powdermaker and Eleanor Leacock all of whom worked to interrogate racism. Thinking of early anthropology peopled with black faces spoke to me, and even a slender section on racism in introductory texts might lend a greater sense that anthropology, not just the black anthropologists, was looking to speak on issues that greatly impact my life. Mullings wrote that she thought that anthropology had theoretical perspectives and methodologies particularly suited to interrogating and investigating racism and would do well to do more work in this area.

This tendency to avoid discussion of racism in the discipline and in introductory courses may add to an uneasiness as far as being able to discuss issues of racism within anthropology departments and/or the discipline as a whole; this being of particular interests if one were, as a black person, considering a career as an academic. Going in one would expect that such departments would be overwhelmingly white and middle class and not necessarily the most welcoming if one were not that. My first anthropology professor stated at the beginning of class that being a white, middle class woman that was the perspective she knew and that was the perspective from which she taught and that if you were not that, you may not identify with a lot of what was discussed or how it was discussed (this was a women’s studies class). Did I feel uncomfortable and excluded? Yes, but most of the time this was the type of perspective one faced in mostly white environments and often without any acknowledgement that the comfort/inclusiveness of those environments was limited as a result.

Until next time,
S

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

So over this time of my convalescence, it has become more clear to me that I will pursue further study at the academy. I don’t have the most positive view of academia, but over the years I have never achieved the level of study I would have liked on my own. In addition, more so than any other time I have been possessed with the thought that I want to get it right– I want to study something because I want to study it and not in consideration of a job or what seems to make sense based on what I have studied thus far. A dispassionate overview of my self-study tendencies over the past 15 years or so suggests that I would most want to study physics. This past week my thinking about what it would mean to me to be a black anthropologist was put on the back burner in favor of my thinking about why I’ve never considered returning to physics in an academic setting.

At first I thought it strange that I would be deciding between physics and anthropology; but as I was reading a review of an anthropology book, I was reminded that Franz Boas was a physicist. I won’t be applying to graduate school for at least another year and a half, and I’ve decided to take math and physics classes during that time. I have spent the week doing design work for a blog to document my experience of returning to science as an older student. I will write more about this later.

I plan to continue my study in anthropology and writing here at Anthropology Times. I’m on the lookout for areas where anthropology and physics intersect.

Until next time,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’ve been thinking more about further studies.  I rolled in my head the thought of myself as a black, female anthropologist.  And the thought of it rubbed me the wrong way.  Part of my distaste has to do with the history of racism in the field as discussed in the post “Stuff White People Like: Anthropology, apparently” over at Zero Anthropology.   Another consideration was this sense that as a black person studying anthropology, one can’t just study anthropology, one has to be an active and aggressive ambassodor for genuine cultural diversity.  While I might encounter difficulties as a black woman studying physics, interacting with the mostly white and male population in that field, I wouldn’t be also burdened with the same kind of sense of needing to fix physics at a fundamental level or the sense that the average physicist I encountered wasn’t really thinking like a physicist.  In the Fall 1997 issue of Michigan Today, anthropology student Jennifer A. Scott says, “Many of us Black anthropology students and students from formerly colonized countries say that we are trying to ‘decolonize anthropology.’ We mean that we are trying to extend the field beyond the regional area where we conduct our research to include the academy, itself, as an object of anthropological inquiry.”  The article in Michigan Today presents the views and thoughts of three female anthropology students.

I’ve spent the week browsing around the net and I have more links.  I’ve also written much more on the topic inside my head.  When it came time to put words actually on the page, I was slow/hesitant to do so.  I’ll write more next week.

Yours truly,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…
Reading: America Day by Day, The Second Sex

My dearest Simone,

I badly planned my reading of America Day by Day in that the book had to be returned to library last week. I got it back just today, so not enough time to get back into it. I wasn’t sure when it would wind its way back into my temporary possession, so I started an initial glance at The Second Sex. I haven’t read the work before, but I’m certain that I’ve read excerpts and certainly I have read writers who were heavily influenced by this book.

I came across Francine du Plessix Gray’s review of The Second Sex for the New York Times.  I was taken aback by the virulent hostility.  The light peppering of faint praise seems added only to enhance the intensity of the aggressive expression of distaste and disdain.  For instance in the opening salvo, Gray introduces us to early reviews of the work.  She notes two highly negative reviews from the Catholic Church and Albert Camus, then nestles in the middle that Philip Wylie thought the work, “one of the few great books of our era,” before ending with two reviews with the harsh accusations that the work was “pretentious” and “tiresome,” and “bespattered with the repulsive lingo of existentialism.”  Gray says nothing good about the work other than echoing certain accepted platitudes and spends the bulk of her review poorly critiquing Beauvoir’s views of women in the workplace, marriage, and motherhood.  I do not find my own beliefs on these matters perfectly instep with those of Beauvoir, and even I, who love her, could come up with better-reasoned arguments in opposition to some of her views.  At some point Gray offers up observations that boy toddlers reach for cars and guns over dolls as proof that Beauvoir was mistaken in her assertion that gender is learned.

I figured others had certainly been critical of Gray’s review.  In her post, “Curses and blessings,” Cynthia Haven made note of others who expressed a distaste.  Haven makes extensive reference to a letter by Marilyn Yalom, Senior Scholar with the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, published in the New York Times following publication of Gray’s review.  Among other things, Yalom finds fault with Gray’s critique of the more recent English translation of the The Second Sex:

Yalom finally zeroes in on Gray’s lambasting the new translation, which the critic finds wordy and cumbersome.  Yalom counters:  “The Second Sex is — among other things — a philosophical text. Would anyone think of translating Heidegger so that he flows nicely, when he rarely does?”

Though critical of the  translation (by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier), Gray called the introduction to the new translation written by Judith Thurman, “splendid.”  Judith Thurman’s review of the new translation published in the New York Times just a few days after Gray’s is a much more balanced review.  Thurman provides biographical details that give better context to Beauvoir’s views.  Whereas Gray seems to characterize Beauvoir as a woman driven to hysterics by the lack of the right to vote and being denied access to birth control, Thurman details both the surrounding political climate as well as Beauvoir’s bourgeois upbringing including mundane truths of how her lack of a dowry dimmed her prospects for the [customarily arranged] marriage.  Whereas Gray sums up comments about Beauvoir’s love life with a conclusion that Beauvoir had a “pronounced sexual appetite,” Thurman provides both a more thorough and nuanced recount of Beauvoirs romances along with an acknowledgement that Beauvoir engaged in love as a thoughtful woman.  Thurman characterizes Beauvoir as a woman who loved also with her mind, whereas Gray gives brief, sultry details by way of making a cheap shot at Beauvoir’s supposed physicality.

Gray seems to cite Beauvoir uses of “derogatory phrases like ‘the servitude of maternity,'” as proof of Beauvoir’s “paranoid hostility toward the institutions of marriage and motherhood,” as if she has never read Aristotle or Aquinas as Beauvoir makes clear that she has in her introduction to The Second Sex.  Thurman picks up on themes from Beauvoir’s introduction and uses them to illuminate aspects of Beauvoir character.  Beauvoir writes how in Genesis Eve is depicted as having been made from a bone of Adam.  Thurman draws parallels between Beauvoir and the author of Genesis saying that Beauvoir “begins her narrative, like the author of Genesis, with a fall into knowledge.”  Prior to this statement Thurman notes that Beauvoir would object to her work being called a “feminist bible,” in that she dismissed religions, “even when they worship a goddess — as the inventions of men to perpetuate their dominion.”

Ok, rush to publish before midnight….

In love and friendship,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…
Reading: America Day by Day

My dearest Simone,

You write of Harlem as if it’s the same America as the rest of New York City. I wonder whether people at the time were upset about that. Even in my lifetime there was still this heavy sense that black America was America with an asterisk. It’s not so much less true nowadays as it is that many right-thinking people, as you say, have declared that being a different skin color isn’t a problem anymore as long as you’re just like white America in every other way. A lot of lip service is given to multiculturalism, but I find that most (particularly middle-class white Americans) are not comfortable with that concept in practice beyond a colorful holiday or the like; in social situations and everyday encounters, (middle-class) white people expect non-whites to act white or at the very least to acknowledge that the white way is the right way (gender roles, household makeup, family structures, rules of politeness…) In some ways the “racist” South is more geared toward accepting cultural difference than the rest of America. Among people who believe that a god made the “races” separately, there is a deeper acceptance of the idea that you have to learn to live with difference somehow; they do not as readily accept or apply the concept that homogeneity is the solution to inequality due to racism. I often heard growing up that in the North a white person can have a black person over for dinner, but they can’t be friends, while in the South, a white person can’t have a black person over for dinner, but they can be friends. After living out West for a while, I find it easy to imagine the genesis of that statement.

I appreciate the bits of history that you include. I was not familiar with the “Father of Harlem” Philip A. Payton, the black man who spearheaded the idea to rent spaces in difficult-to-fill apartment buildings to blacks. I was familiar with the “white flight” that you described, that as blacks moved into more of the apartment buildings in Harlem, whites left the area en masse. A recent article in the Washington Post makes note of a trend toward more segregated neighborhoods in Prince George’s County resulting from affluent blacks wanting to live in neighborhoods with other affluent blacks. Some of the comments may speak to the fact that despite the promises of post-racial rhetoric, it may not be so simple for blacks, even educated, affluent ones, to pass for white once skin color is discounted and further they don’t want to. I’m interested in whether the trend in Prince George’s County is present elsewhere.

I will write more on February next time.

With all my heart’s sweetness,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…
Reading: America Day by Day

My dearest Simone,

When I first started writing here I considered keeping a running illness narrative documenting my return from medicated mind fog.  For the most part I did not do this, but since it’s been a year it seems like a good time to add to the notes I did make here and there.

Reading of your arrival in New York, I see the perfect description of my return from the land of fog.  I recognize my mind again.  I recognize my thinking, but still it doesn’t feel completely real.  When you write, “All the world is in limbo. I say, ‘This is New York.’ But I don’t completely believe it,” it’s as if you have known my mind’s journey.  The mechanics, the structures, the pathways are all familiar to me again, but the flesh, the skin is missing.  It’s all a matter of exercising my faculties and rebuilding a certain level of confidence.  “Will I be able to reincarnate myself?” you ask, and this is my worry.

I admire your warm appreciation of the lies we tell in the convenience of everyday speech and their underlying truths.  You write that you are just a name bandied about among mutual friends when recounting a phone call with otherwise strangers:  “I say again, ‘I’d very much like to see you,’ It’s not even true, and they know it; it isn’t them I want to see because I don’t know them,  But the voices are almost friendly, natural.  This naturalness already comforts me, as a kind of friendship.”  As children we all struggle with this discordance as we learn language and culture.  Does anyone ever really settle into a place of prattling off these repeated and rehearsed lines without a steady dialogue that reads much like what you wrote?  Some people appear to carry out days and weeks and months and lifetimes of these exchanges without much underlying thought, notice, or discomfort.  As my mind becomes more energetic, I feel I must work harder to find the comfort in these exchanges.

Your talk of impoverished artists in America echo some of my current considerations.  “But in Europe there was nothing dishonorable about poverty: a poor artist experienced the favors and friendships of bohemian life.  By lending him money, people provided one of those services that is natural between friends.  Here, says C., no one would let you die of hunger, perhaps, but offers of dinner or a loan are alms granted grudgingly, making friendship impossible.”  I’ve been thinking that friendships with a wide range of people would be more comfortable if I made a bit more money.  I believe it true that if people here feel that your situation begs for assistance even if you do not, they feel less comfortable around you.  The services of which you speak are not natural between friends in America particularly when these friends could be said to be in different economic brackets.  At any rate, I am taking special pains to be more productive at my paid work with this very consideration in mind.

Many times I’ve heard that we are spoiled for choice in America.  A friend once marveled at the length and breath of the cereal aisle.  You write, “A thousand choices, but all equivalent,” and how this abundance of choice might create a false sense of freedom.  I’ve long believed that a false sense of choice has become a cornerstone of American democracy.  In what some have labeled a post-racial era currently, some political candidates take careful recognition of how American have grown comfortable with this false choice.  It seems several “ethnic” candidates have gone with the message that the fact that I look different is a sign a progress and increased choice and opportunity, while communicating strongly that in they ways that matter I’m the same type of candidate you’re used to.  You write, “There are a thousand possibilities, but they’re all the same.  A thousand choices but all equivalent.  In this way, the American citizen can squander his obligatory domestic freedom, without perceiving that this life itself is not free.”

And the clock ticks and tocks.  I should post before midnight.

Until next time,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I plan to read more articles, but in the coming weeks I will write about reading America: Day by Day.  I had planned to do this when I originally mentioned reading the book, but never worked it into my update schedule.  I will likely revisit a few things from the past year before moving on.  Here’s a brief update on my state of mourning for my friend:

I do not feel as much that there is a hole in the world. I think I may have moved on to a more restorative phase of mourning. I can smile and laugh more genuinely when reminiscing as well as when suddenly reminded of him. In recent months, I’ve seen several people in passing who look a lot like my friend. I believe most of the times there has been a similarity with the nose and the shape of the face, but I suspect that if I were to stop the person the overall similarity would be less than the impression created in a fleeting glance. In addition to similarities in physical appearance, I’ve noticed people with similar mannerisms and/or speech.  Several morning ago there was something in the way a stranger greeted me in passing that gave me goosebumps. I don’t immediately recall specific stories of people talking this way during my childhood, but the stories exists and they were generally communicated in a positive fashion. I’m sure I could find several people from Mississippi who would say that these recent experiences were evidence of my friend trying to communicate with me from the beyond, and my most immediate and guttural response is in line with this thinking.  I try to take joy in the feeling rather than be dismissive of it. My friend very much believed in spirits and ghosts and having this feeling reminds me of him. The one other time I remember having this experience also involved someone who died suddenly, and it involved noticing people with similar voice and manner of speaking.  I wasn’t close friends with this person, but we had significant shared experiences and we shared close friends.  That time the experience occurred much closer to the death.

I will mix in some more updates on things from the past year over the next few posts.

Yours always,
S.