Tongues Untied: On 'Barbershop Conversations,' Black Masculinity, and Sexuality

Tongues Untied: 

On 'Barbershop Conversations,' Black Masculinity, and Sexuality

by Darnell L. Moore & Wade Davis, Jr. | HuffPost BlackVoices

This is our second conversation as part of our Huffington Post series, "Tongues Untied: Wade Davis, II and Darnell L. Moore in Conversation." (Read the first conversation here.) The title of our column is our way of paying tribute to the many black gay men who have given us the language and ancestral strength to freely live our lives as black gay men today. Many will notice that our title bears the name of Marlon Riggs' semi-documentary film Tongues Untied, which brought to the fore a vital conversation on racial and sexual difference in the U.S.

We recognize that the freedom we have to name ourselves and to write words, which we hope others will find transformative, exists because of the lives and legacies of those who came before us. We are thankful to extend conversations on race and sexuality started by folks like Riggs, Essex Hemphill, Joseph Beam, Assotto Saint, Colin Robinson, and so many others, in this series, not because we think that we can match their brilliance but because we realize that so many others have been speaking truth before us and have challenged us to do the same.

What follows is a dialogue on what we call "barbershop conversations."

Wade: I have been having the most amazing conversations recently about gender, sex, and sexual orientation with my barber since he found out I was gay. And I look forward to going to the barbershop and spending two hours there more than ever before.

Darnell: That's ironic. Most people don't imagine barbershops, especially those serving black folk, to be spaces where people freely talk about those issues. And when issues related to sex and sexuality are discussed in barbershops, people seem to think that the conversations always take a homophobic or sexist turn. I've experienced a range of conversations, some good and some bad, taking place in the spots that I've been in. I am interested in hearing about your motivation for telling you barber that you were gay, though. What actually happened?

Wade: Well, I didn't actually tell him I was gay. He read an article about me on ESPN.com, and when I walked in the shop and sat down, he said, "Oh my God, did any of you hear about the gay football player named Wade Davis? Imagine if that guy walked in the shop and no one even knew who he was." Then he looked at me and said, "Wait, isn't your name Wade Davis?" I was speechless, and I couldn't do anything but laugh, because he was smiling at me so big. I just smiled and laughed uncontrollably. Are you out to your barber?

Darnell: That would have made me extremely nervous. I mean, that was a forced type of public disclosure, but I understand that he was trying to be cool. My barber and I have a great relationship that developed as a result of me boycotting his shop. He was cutting another customer's hair. The guy kept using words like "faggot" and "sissy" during his conversation with my barber. I wasn't sure if he decided to elevate his voice and increase the number of derogatory comments that he spewed because I happened to be sitting directly in front of him and he assumed me to be gay, but it angered me, so I politely left with my money in hand and didn't return for six months or so. I even encouraged friends not to return until one day, while out of town, my barber called me and asked why it was that I hadn't returned. I let him know that I'd decided to keep my money (tip and all) because he'd let another customer use language that hurt me. The funny thing is I never actually disclosed my sexual identity. He apologized over the phone and invited me to talk with him over lunch upon my return. Since then, we've been comfortable talking about anything. I have a lot of love for him and his girlfriend. I actually love telling this story, because people tend to think that black heterosexual men are somehow less capable of engaging their same-gender-loving/gay/bi brothers, yet we have examples showing that this isn't always the case.

Wade: Exactly! To be honest, I never would have imagined having conversations about homosexuality and sexism in my barbershop. I'm so proud of you for speaking up, though; I'd like to think I would have done the same thing. But I will say that I don't always agree with my barber and some of the patrons on some of the issues like homosexuality and, especially, views on women (which are sometimes sexist), but I love the fact that we can at least have the conversation.

Darnell: How do you negotiate "tough" conversations in the barbershop? Do you find yourself talking or acting differently (i.e., more "manly")? Do you feel pressured to insert that you have a male partner if they are talking exclusively about women?

Wade: Fortunately, I do not feel pressured to perform a certain way, because 90 percent of the time the conversations are about sports (my specialty) or music, so I feel authentic having those discussions. When it comes to relationships, I would intentionally use the word "partner" to see the reaction, but strangely enough, no one ever said anything. I won't lie, though: I did, at some points in various conversations, feel the pressure to conform, to fit in, but I never wanted to disrespect my partner by referring to him as a woman, as I did in my past. When I wasn't "out" I experienced more trepidation at my barbershop when people were having specific conversations. I had to really contemplate what I would say and how I would act. Since you were "out," how did you navigate those situations?

Darnell: Well, I was never really "in." I try not to think of myself as a one-dimensional being. I mean, the persons I choose to love and/or engage with sexually is one aspect, an important one for sure, of my whole self. So, whether I am in a barbershop or not, I try not to narrowly define myself or allow others to do the same, for that matter. But, like you, I have not always spoken up during some "barbershop conversations," whether they occurred in the actual shop or not. There are moments when I overheard sexist statements, words that dehumanized women, and even homophobic comments and I remained silent. There were moments when I was honestly nervous to speak up. I'm not sure what that was/is about. What provoked my silence? What was I afraid of? Why are we men (some of us, anyway) afraid of confronting each other over sexism and homophobia? There's a lot of anxiety that comes as the result of feeling the need to constantly acquiesce to racialized gender norms that harm us more than they heal us. It takes a lot of futile work to perform "the man," to perform a caricature created by others that will never allow space for us to be our best selves.

Wade: Yes! That's exactly how I feel. There has to be a space where my sexuality can be silent, where I can choose to disclose or not disclose and not feel as if I'm disrespecting the "gay community" for not saying I'm gay during a conversation in a space where my safety can be at risk, and also when I just want to exist as a person for a moment, not as a fragment of a whole person -- gay one day and black another, or trying to pass as straight -- but as me, Wade (whether I am talking about Jay-Z or D. Wade), without feeling as if I've let down the gay community or the black community.

Darnell: Is your sexuality ever "silent"?

Wade: "Silent" may have been the wrong word choice, but it does go unnamed unless I announce to the world that I'm gay, and I don't always feel compelled to make that proclamation in certain spaces where I just want to be Wade and not "the gay male" or "the athlete" or "the partner." Not to compare athletics to sexuality, but I often engage in conversations about football with people who don't know I'm an ex-NFL player, and I don't announce my history, just because I don't want to be the "expert" or the token "jock." And I know many would say I have great privilege in being able to exist without naming my orientation, and that's true, but I also shouldn't be criticized because of it.

Darnell: I get it. As we discussed before, the power to name exists in the hands of the individual or communities whom others have attempted to name, historically. Yet, we are always are sexual (and, therefore, political) selves at all times. And, let's go there. We may have felt safe or comfortable in spaces like the barbershop, and we may have experienced acceptance because of our gender presentations, whether we disclosed our sexual identities or not. I think about that often. But to say that a barbershop, street, or neighborhood is safe for all LGBTQ people is to forget that not all LGBTQ people share the same privileges that we do. For example, would a feminine-performing brother be safe in your barbershop? Would a masculine-performing sister feel safe in mine? We may "get by" because folk feel safe with us. We may not provoke folk in ways that disrupt their levels of comfort, but when we do, I am sure that we, too, may discover that safety is relative. To put it another way, folk tend to perceive us to be masculine (read: "straight") black men... you probably more than me. We receive a certain type of acceptance and receptivity because of that perception. And that's the problem. Folk are less concerned about whom we love or sleep with. They react and are provoked initially by what they perceive, what they see in terms of our clothing choices (which may also have something to do with perceived economic status), the way we talk, walk, etc. Gender performances that don't fit the script that society has written for us make people uncomfortable. And I am totally fine with others experiencing that type of discomfort.

Wade: See, that's the point. I don't try to perform anymore. I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm learning to love myself, and acting as I did in the past isn't a part of that self-love process, but people still read me as straight, and it's not always my responsibility to inform them otherwise unless I see fit.

Darnell: "Straight" thinking is the problem, for sure.

Wade: But I have to give my barber credit. He's been great ever since he learned of my sexual orientation. He still asks if anyone knows that "Wade Davis character" -- the gay football player. It makes me laugh every single time, but he doesn't "out" me in a negative way. His bringing up the "gay football guy" in the shop has allowed customers to discuss everything from Frank Ocean to sexism and misogyny to HIV in the black community to the prison-industrial complex like never before. I even convinced him to go out and purchase Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. So I do see the power of naming myself gay, inviting folk into that part and other aspects of my life, in a presumed straight-dominated space.

Darnell: I hear you. I love that you talk about those topics with your barber. I want to challenge this idea that black straight men are incapable of loving black queer/gay/bi/same-gender-loving men, and vice versa. I think that it is expedient to produce that narrative, because it divides us and feeds the misconception that black and brown folk are more homophobic than white folk, but there are so many examples of black men loving black men, as Joseph Beam would say, whose mutual love and respect is revolutionary. The story of your barber, and mine, are but a few.

Wade: Exactly. I'm blessed to have a barber and fellow patrons who are willing to discuss these seemingly explosive issues in such a way that makes me feel welcomed and my perspective appreciated and, in some ways, desired. This is how our community starts to come together in love and solidarity to effect change. Though it may seem to be on a small scale, the effects can last a lifetime, especially when I think that my barber has a son who may have an LGBTQ classmate or teacher, and knowing that I may have helped change my barber's perspective and, therefore, affected his life and that of his son.

***

Darnell L. Moore is a writer and activist who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Currently, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. 

Wade Davis is a nationally-recognized speaker, activist, writer and educator. Davis is a former NFL football player who played for the Tennessee Titans, Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks, as well as two different teams within the NFL Europe league. He is also an LGBT Surrogate for President Obama. In the role of surrogate he speaks at events on behalf of the President. Also he's a member of the GLSEN sports advisory board - where he advocates for creating safe spaces for LGBT youth. He also has an autobiography coming out in early 2013 entitled Interference.

BLACK LOVE: A RE-IMAGINING: Swagger, Sexuality, Identity, Masculinity - An Intimate Public Conversation

EMOTIONAL JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2012

In partnership with

WBAI99.5FM

presents

‘BLACK LOVE: A RE-IMAGINING’: Sexuality &  Masculinity

Feat: Dr. Rich Blint  & Darnell Moore

Moderated by Esther Armah

Come on out to this intimate public conversation.

This is Emotional Revolution. One conversation at a time.

There is nothing more revolutionary than black love.

Let’s talk Sexuality and masculinity. How have those who loved and raised you informed your relationship with your sexuality and masculinity? What was your journey to coming out? How was that journey shaped by those who raised, influence, loved, hurt, helped, left you? How do you live and walk your masculinity and sexuality? How do we re-imagine swagger and sexuality? How has the way you love been informed by how you were treated? How do you express your identity, sexuality and masculinity? What lessons, legacy, loss and learning can you share around your masculinity and sexuality? What have you had to unlearn? In what ways did you need healing?

This is Emotional Justice. Join the conversation.

Join:

Dr Rich Blint - Writer and Cultural critic. He has taught courses and guest lectured at NYU, Columbia University School of Law, Hunter College, Yale College, Vassar College, and The Brecht Forum. He is co-editor of the Winter 2013 special issue of African American Review on James Baldwin.

Darnell Moore - Activist Scholar & Writer. His work examines notions of race, gender, and sexuality. He is presently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University.

Moderated by:

Esther Armah – New York Radio Host, Award winning international journalist, Playwright, National best-selling author

DATE: TUESDAY JULY 17 2012

TIME: 7PM TO 9.30PM

VENUE: The Dwyer Cultural Center, 258 St. Nicholas Avenue • New York, NY • 10027 Entrance on 123rd Street between St. Nicholas Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard

Subway: A, B, C, D, B to 125th Street

ADMISSION: $10 cash only; first come, first served

This is part of Season 3 - 2012 ‘EMOTIONAL JUSTICE UNPLUGGED

The Arts & Conversation Series’

Multi-Media, Multi-Platform, Arts & Critical Community Conversation series: Live, On Air, On the Stage, On the Page

Post-Whiteness

Post-Whiteness

by Darnell L. Moore | Huffpost BlackVoices

Many Americans are invested in the idea of a "post-racial" moment -- a moment marked by our purported movement beyond a historical chapter colored by race-based discrimination, intolerance, inequity, and violence. Such a turn signals America's fascination with the notion of a transracial future and a utopian vision of an America, where bodies will be free from racialization. But, we must ask: whose bodies and lives will this grand social vision benefit especially when considering the counter-investment in notions of "blackness" that post-racial propagandists seem to maintain?

It is argued that multiple gains have been made in the area of racial relations since the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of us witnessed the appointment of our country's 65th and 66th Secretaries of State, General Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, the former was the first African-American and the latter was the first African-American female, both were Republican. An African-American man and woman, Bob Johnson and Oprah Winfrey, both notable African-American entrepreneurs, have appeared on the Forbes Billionaire List. To the astonishment of the international community, America was brave enough to elect a bi-racial or Black (or, non-White) man, Barack Hussein Obama, as the 44th President of these United States. And, now our nation's capital is home to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and will soon be the home of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to open officially in 2015. For some, these few moments evidence racial progress, particularly those of African Americans in the twentieth century.

To be sure, Daniel Schorr, NPR Senior News Analyst, noted in 2008 that America was moving into a "post-racial era" that was defined and "embodied" by Barack Obama. He went on to argue that we are in an "era where civil rights veterans of the past century are consigned to history and Americans begin to make race-free judgments on who should lead them." Schorr connects post-racialism to the ascendancy of Obama, a multi-ethnic brown African-descended man, and not, say, his then opponent, John McCain. The fact that Obama is cast as the catalyst of this post-racial era illuminates what post-racialists understand as that which is in need of e(race)sure, namely, blackness. It is unsurprising, then, why post-racialism is a concept that has been taken up to talk about one's transcendence from blackness into a state of being where his/her blackness is "blurred" or ceases to be altogether.

But imagine, if you will, a societal advancement of the notion of "post-white." If you tried, to no avail, to imagine -- like I did -- an America that sought to intentionally and aggressively move beyond whiteness, don't be alarmed because it is a feat that is nearly impossible.

"Whiteness" is an enduring social force that produces a racialized system of access/excess. Those with access have phenotype, structure advantages, and racial legacies to thank. But it is also, as Judy Helfand suggests, that which "is shaped and maintained by the full array of social institutions -- legal, economic, political, educational, religious, and cultural." In other words, whiteness is methodically sustained through ideology and praxis. It is not easy to disappear and, I am pretty certain, that there are many White post-racialists who would rather not live in a post-white moment because the legal, economic, political, educational, religious, and cultural benefits assigned to their whiteness would be no more.

The notion of post-whiteness, or the leaving behind of whiteness as we've come to know it, might very well provoke fear and anxiety among some. For example, the Eagle Forum, which is an interest group started by the conservative anti-feminist Phyllis Shafley, released a legislative alert in response to the New York Timesstory, "Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S." The "alert" cautioned, "NY Times liberals seek to destroy the American family of the 1950s, as symbolized by Ozzie and Harriet. The TV characters were happy, self-sufficient, autonomous, law-abiding, honorable, patriotic, hard-working, and otherwise embodied qualities that made America great." The only descriptor that remains loudly unpronounced on the Eagle Forum's list of positive characteristics is the racial identity of both Ozzie and Harriet.

Despite the racial anxieties of our present moment, it is time for Americans to investigate what it might mean for us to consider post-whiteness as an idea and material possibility during this so-called post-racial era. I would sign on as a proponent. We could even ask Tim Wise to lead the way as we begin interrogating the ideas (and advantages) of whiteness as they manifest in these United States and around the world. I long for the day when the Mitt Romneys of the world will argue for a move in the direction of a post-racial, or, rather, a post-white moment: a moment when White racism is really called out and destabilized; a moment when the vestiges of skin privilege are diminished; when real-time material conditions like wealth accumulation, criminalization, and poverty aren't disproportionately shaded by race. Oh, what a day that would be.

Colorblindness, as Schorr intimated, is not the issue. Indeed, the only "color" that seems to move undiscerningly among post-racialists is whiteness. And it's not White people alone who have made such a turn, see, for example Touré's Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? or Ytasha L. Womack's Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity. In most cases, blackness is the"color" that we are beckoned to transcend in this post-racial era which is why it is a fallacy to name it such. We are more embedded in the socially constructed categories of race than ever before. Don't believe me? Ask the Tea Party or check the US Census Bureau's statistics on the median incomes of whites in comparison to black and brown folk in our country. Take a look at the number of non-whites who make up our prison and death row populations. Ask the livid "Hunger Game" fans who vented on Twitter because the film's director cast a young African-American actress, Amandla Sternberg, rather than a White actress to play the role of Rue. Or consider the psychic traces of race/racism, the ways in which racism shaped our settler-colonial state and its laws, and the ways we embody and live out race-thought every day.

The point is: America's troubled past and complicated present is wedded to the social reality of race. American history serves as a reminder of our country's troubled race relations and even the moments when difference was celebrated. Americans also know, all too well, that whiteness functions as a non-race that does not require bodily and cognitive transcendence. Similarly, White racism and White privilege show up as non-issues that are eagerly critiqued, yet, rarely undone. Therein lies the problem.

Whiteness travels in stealth; it is supplemented by what anti-racist feminist Peggy McIntosh, writing on White privilege, unforgettably names the "invisible knapsack." The fact is: that "knapsack" has been quite visible in the lives of native and non-white Americans. It has only been invisible to those who carry the weightless knapsack on their backs. Indeed, the burden of the sack is felt by everyone but the bearer. It seems, then, that there is a need for new interrogations of our present racial moment. This may very well be the perfect moment for us to enter, as opposed to transcend, America's racial imagination.

How's that for a postulation?

***

Darnell L. Moore is Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University.

Black Manhood and the Racist Imagination

Black Manhood and the Racist Imagination:

On Trayvon Martin and the two Un-named Black Men Attacked in Texas

by Darnell Moore | special to NewBlackMan

Trayvon Martin has suffered multiple murders. His character was annihilated by the racialized mistrust of George Zimmerman, a 28-year old White gunman. His life was, subsequently, terminated by a bullet from Zimmerman’s 9mm handgun shortly after. In fact, the continued references to his suspension from school and suspicion surrounding his character, as scholar David J. Leonard has rightly pointed out, are but another type of assassination.

Trayvon’s tragic death has set afire a portion of the translucent veil that has only partially protected us from truly “seeing” others and ourselves in racialized America. And with his taking, we are being summoned, yet again, to deeply examine our conscience and the ways that racialization shapes our thinking and behavior.

Robert Zimmerman, the 64-year old father of the gunman, has identified his son as “Hispanic,” as someone who grew up in a “multiracial family.” In his mind, Zimmerman’s racial and ethnic identities are significant points of consideration because it authenticates his father’s argument that the murder has nothing to do with race.

According to Zimmerman’s father, "[George] would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever.” He went on to say that "[t]he media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth."

His father seems to be arguing that the brutal murder of a blameless young Black male by another “multiracial” (read, non-white) body disallows even the remotest possibility of racist motivation. But let’s consider some other possibilities.

The multiracial perpetrator (though, it should be noted here that the term “Hispanic” is not a racial signifier but an ethnic category) stared upon the 17–year old black male victim and perceived him to be “suspicious,” which is another way of reading the victim as a potential threat.

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something,” Zimmerman can be heard voicing on a recorded conversation with police during a 911-call.

It could be argued that Zimmerman interpreted Trayvon’s comportment, affect, body frame, clothes, style, skin color, and gender presentation (i.e. the extent to which he acted out senses of masculinity or femininity) as signs that conspired to produce an image of distrust and terror in his mind. Trayvon’s black male body became the object of Zimmerman’s “multiracial” gaze.

Zimmerman imaged a “suspicious” guy and not a “typical kid who loved sports and music.” Zimmerman interpreted Trayvon to be someone who “looks like he’s up to no good” and not the adoring son who saved his father from a fire. According to Zimmerman, Trayvon had to be “on drugs or something” and not someone’s teenage son who has been described by a teacher “as an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness,” who just happened to be armed with skittles and a can of iced tea as opposed to heroin or crack, when he was slain.

What prevented Zimmerman from seeing Trayvon as anything other than treacherous? What forces impact our seeing so that our images of others are distorted?

A turn to another recent, under-reported incident that occurred in Texas might provide another way to assess the problematics of White racism and the ways that it shapes our understandings of Black manhood. The Texas incident is grounded in a different set of circumstances than Trayvon’s murder. In fact, the Texas case does not involve differently raced perpetrators and victims and is not centered on a murder; yet, there are some similarities that should be seriously considered.

Two unnamed Black men, 20 and 27, were brutally beaten, left unconscious in the northeast section of Dallas on March 13th. According to police reports, a group of five or so Black men yelled the dehumanizing epithets “fag and sissy” from their vehicle, exited with two baseball bats, and began to beat the victims. The incident has since been identified by police as a hate crime though the sexual orientations of the victims have not been identified out of respect for the victims’ privacy.

In the Dallas case, the victims were also the objects of the perpetrators’ gaze. Might they have similarly interpreted the victims’ comportments, affect, body frames, clothes, style, skin color, and gender presentations as signs? Is it possible that the group read the two victims as the antithesis (i.e. fag and sissy) of a certain construct of Black manhood?

Like Trayvon, the two Dallas victims are also cast in the imagination of the perpetrators as “suspicious” bodies. In both cases, the bodies of the victims (Trayvon and the two unnamed men) are read as “suspicious” bodies because they are Black men. In both cases, the perpetrators’ perceptions precede the actual materializing of the Black males that they subsequently victimize. In other words, the perpetrators’ set of beliefs about Black boys and men, which shaped their seeing of the victims, also influenced their acts of violence. Trayvon was shot, first, by Zimmerman’s skewed perception of a “suspicious” Black teen male. The bullet followed. The two men in Dallas were beat, first, by the perpetrator’s skewed perceptions of the two suspiciously imagined Black men. The bats followed.

In both tragic cases, the perpetrators read Black male bodies through a particular racialized gendered lens. In the case of Trayvon, he was interpreted by a “multiracial” perpetrator as a hyper-masculinized Black male subject and, therefore, a site of terror, (sexual?) power, criminality, heterosexuality, of suspicion. In the case of the two Black men in Texas, they were interpreted as having failed to achieve this archetypal (racist) construction of Black manhood (in other words, they may have been read as non-masculine,, perceived as weak, non-heterosexual, and helpless) and were surveilled, policed, and beaten because of their suspicious gendered, and, therefore, racialized, appearance. In both instances, the representations imagined are re-configurations of White racist cultural tropes like the “Big Black Buck.” The internalization of the ideas associated with these tropes is a phenomenon that affects even those who are cast as the objectified other in the White racist imaginary.

We (Black men) are at once the object of others’ myopic gazes and the ones who might very well objectify other Black men by freezing them in constructions of Black manhood that were never meant to heal us, free us. Our reliance and internalizing of White racist prescriptions of Black manhood and masculinity will further the brutalization of Black boys and men like Trayvon and the two hate crime victims. In this regard, Cleo Manago, the founder of The Black Men’s Xchange and the AmASSI National Health & Cultural Centers, offers the following considerations in an opinion piece in the LA Sentinel:

A very doable remedy to this American cultural and institutional phenomenon would require explicit and active resistance to conditioning to be in denial about the problem of Black internalized [White] racism. Blacks have to actively commit to unlearning and acknowledging their high likelihood of having "White biases" themselves. These are essential to breaking out of this often unconscious, anti-Black trance.

The unconscious buying into of a project that seeks our demise allows racist ideas to be insinuated in the minds of folk like Zimmerman, the group of men in Dallas, and in all of our minds. Such internalizations result in the type of violations that kill spirits and bodies like Trayvon and the two unnamed Black men in Dallas. But how can we reverse this trend and bring about justice?

Many of us want justice now. We want Zimmerman jailed. And Zimmerman will be jailed, we hope. And justice will seem to have been served. His gun will, alas, be stripped from his person. Yet, it is very possible that his perceptions of Black men will remain. We want the group of men who beat the two Dallas victims into unconsciousness imprisoned. And the group of men will be jailed, most likely. The prison cell will hold their bodies, but it may not transform their minds or those of society at large.

But many of us also desire other ends like transformation of the mind. We desire violences of all types, especially those forged in the belly of racism, to never be imagined or enacted. We desire an end to the premature deaths of black men by others’ hands and our own. This is not the time—and it never is—for untimely deaths.

In these times—and all times—daily living is a radical act of resistance if you happen to exist in the world as a suspicious boy, fag and sissy, threat, as a Black man. The only demise that we should now desire is that of the racist imaginary that has and continues to construct and constrict us.

***

Darnell L. Moore is a writer and activist who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Currently, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University.

Our Eyes Witnessed: On People of Color in the United States and The Palestinian BDS Movement

Our Eyes Witnessed:

On People of Color in the United States  and The Palestinian BDS Movement

by Darnell L. Moore & Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz | special to NewBlackMan

Colorlines recently featured a story entitled “The Israel Lobby Finds a New Face: Black College Students,” which highlighted the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) recruitment of young black and brown college students to support their Zionistagenda.

According to AIPAC’s website, they recruit “[o]n campuses across America—from Ivy League universities, to small liberal arts colleges, to Historically Black and Christian schools,” as a means to help students, “find their voices in support of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.”

The success of recruitment and propaganda efforts, like that of AIPAC, might be a result of Israel’s efforts to focus attention on its ostensibly progressive track record of human rights while conveniently overlooking its human rights and international law infringements as it relates to its treatment of Palestinian people and possession of Palestinian land. Some critics citeIsrael’s attempt to “pinkwash”, or wipe away its violations against Palestinians by illuminating its receptivity of LGBTQI people.

In the case of black and brown students, it seems that a similar phenomenon may be occurring. The focus on Israel’s seeming stellar record of human rights and progressive practices are again used as a ploy of distraction: a means of shifting the public’s attention away from the occupation of Palestine and in the direction of its record of justice.

For instance, in an article in The Jerusalem Post titled, “Black student leaders slam 'apartheid' characterization,” a representative of the Vanguard Group, which is a “leadership development academy and honor society for top students,” provided the following in response to the pro-Palestine advocacy work of Students for Justice in Palestine, “[L]abeling of Israel, an extremely diverse and vibrant country, as an apartheid state is not only false, but offensive.” The representative went to state that such claims “are highly objectionable to those who know the truth about the Israelis’ record on human rights and how it so clearly contrasts with South Africa’s.”

But whose truths, which truths are represented in the hegemonic discourses shaping the thoughts of students of color like those represented in the Vanguard Group?

AIPAC’s intentional targeting of black and brown college students, in particular, should raise suspicion among those who are concerned about the Israeli occupation of Palestine. As two organizers of color, who work against anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism and who recently returned from a visit to Palestine/Israel, we are deeply troubled by AIPAC’s actions. 

In fact, we believe that the occupation of Palestine is a struggle that all people of color should recognize as our own. Why?

Throughout our recent journey to Palestine as members of the first queer delegation, we witnessed the connections between what our communities have—and continue to face—in the US and those faced by Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government. And we believe that it is important that people of color in the US know what the occupation of Palestine looks like.

We were reminded in our witnessing of the brutal hands of Jim Crow segregation, the 500 years of colonization and displacement of First Nations people and land, the state-sanctioned policing of bodies and borders, the “redlining” of neighborhoods, the prison industrial complex, and multiple forms of environmental injustice as they have manifested in the US. These are daily realities of our past and present that people of color in the US are familiar. They are realities that Palestinians are quite familiar, as well.

Systems of Apartheid

We also witnessed strong parallels between the state-organized system of apartheid in South Africa and the occupation of Palestine. We rely on the stories of Palestinians and the testimonies of others like Bishop Desmond Tutu, who stated after visiting Israel, "It reminded me so much like what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about” to support this claim.

According to Leila Farsakh, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Boston, the systems of apartheid formally employed by the South African government and that presently used by the Israeli government have different historical and social contexts but share striking similarities. Farsakh notes, “Despite their initial differences, apartheid South Africa and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become similar since 1993.”

Apartheid, as it took shape in South Africa and other places throughout the globe, is a system of racial and ethnic separation that has been defined by the international community as a “crime against humanity” that include the following acts:

The inhumane treatment and capricious arrest of members of a racial group;

The deliberate conditions used to impact the living conditions of a racial group;

The advancing of legislative measures that are harmful politically, socially, economically and culturally;

The measures that divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate residential areas for racial groups;

The prohibition of interracial marriages; and the persecution of persons opposed to apartheid.

There are many cases of acts like these committed by the hands of the Israeli government against Palestinians as evidenced through the many testimonies of Palestinians that we spoke with. To be sure, the Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem(ARIJ) and the Land Research Center(LRC) maintains a log of daily reports tracking human violations as an initiative of its joint Monitoring Israeli Colonizing activities in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza program.

Recently, Israel's Supreme Court even upheld a law banning Palestinians who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining Israeli citizenship and/or residency rights. Many human rights groups have decried the court’s upholding of this racist law.

Striking Similarities

Much of our own first-hand accounts of witnessing this occupation will sound strikingly familiar to the dehumanizing segregationist practices used in the US and elsewhere:

We went to Sheik Jarrah, the site of one of the largest Israeli settlements in the Palestine territories. Most settlements are gated communities with manicured lawns, pool facilities, shopping centers, schools, light rail service and garbage collection. They are pristine and full of services like uninterrupted water and electricity. Directly cross the street from this settlement is the massive Palestinian refugee camp named Sho’fat..  The camp has 17,000 people.  It has intermittent water and electricity, almost no municipal services, two schools and one doctor.  All sides of the refugee camp are policed by the Israeli army. The contrast between these “neighboring communities” in East Jerusalem was banal.

A 760 km (470mile) apartheid wall, gates, guns, fences, identification cards, colored-coded license plates, and over 700 military guarded checkpoints are all used to control every aspect of Palestinian life and mobility. Families have been separated for decades by walls and face severe restrictions on mobility. We went to Qalandia check point, which is one of the most brutal checkpoints in Palestine.  Here is what we saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSIe_WbewnI&feature=related. 

Displacement and segregation are strategies commonly used by the Israel government in Palestine. In Hebron, for instance, we witnessed the tools of Jim Crow segregation at work where a few of the main streets were lined with concrete barriers and others used soley by Israeli settlers. We watched as Palestinians were forced to walk on one side of the barrier while the Israeli’s walked freely on the other. In other villages, like Al Wallajeh, we stood on barren land where an entire community once flourished. We learned that Palestinians will demolish their own homes and communities to avoid paying fees to the Israeli government to do it; in order to avoid the severe financial penalties, many Palestinians take the situation into their own hands and demolish their own homes.

Without conflating the particularities of our experiences, it’s important for us as US based people of color to understand that the occupation of Palestine is like the system of apartheid that devastated South Africa, the racist Jim Crow system that still affects people of color in the US today and the sustained colonization of First Nations land and people. Israel will argue that such actions are security procedures. We contend that such actions are dehumanizing and create the atmosphere for violence. We must and find our common paths of solidarity. Our mutual survival depends upon it.

A Case for Supporting the Palestinian Civil Society’s Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement

On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the primary judicial arm of the United Nations, offered an opinionon the illegality of the construction of the Israeli separation wall in the Occupied Palestine Territories. Israel continued to build its wall, despite the opinion of the ICJ, and continues to do so today.

In response to this and other violations of international law, members of the Palestinian civil society called for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) as a means to apply the pressure of the international community on Israel to follow the rule of international law. 

The Palestinian BDS campaign calls for three ends:

1. That Israel end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and that Israel   dismantles its Wall;

2. That Israel recognizes the fundamental human rights of its Arab-Palestinian citizens to the fullest extent of equality; and

3. That Israel respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

Many will recall, that a sustained campaign of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the South African government was instrumental in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa in 1994.

The history of the South African movement against apartheid is a great example of an unarmed, sustained movement against systematized oppression. We have those lessons to guide the Palestinian BDS movement.

“Palestinians and their supporters abroad would do well to take the South African resistance movement into account when rethinking their political vision and resistance strategy,” as Farsakh admonishes. In fact, Palestinian civil society has already embraced BDS as a primary strategy.  

Given the dehumanizing conditions perpetuated by the occupation of Palestine by the government of Israel, we believe that the Palestinian BDS movement, which aims for the end of occupation and colonization, the full recognition of the human rights of Palestinian people, and Palestinian’s right of return as provided in UN Resolution 194, is a campaign that people of color should support.

BDS is an unarmed resistance movement of the international civil society that is anti-racist, anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist. It is a movement aligned with the struggle for liberation of people of color in US and all people.

We call upon our brothers and sisters of color in the US to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian movement for self-determination.  Our struggles against white supremacy and imperialism across the globe are linked. We must do the hard work of witnessing one another’s struggles so that we can be effective and knowledgeable allies across those struggles. Falling prey to the Israeli government’s Zionist project works against all of our interests. Let us work together to stop this occupation and the US governments long history of supporting and financing of it. As a quote from an aboriginal woman so aptly states “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound with mine, than let us work together.” 

For more information on the Palestinian fight for self-determination, please visit the following:

Palestinian Campaign for BDS: http://www.bdsmovement.net/

Statement of the African Heritage Delegation: http://www.ifpb.org/africanheritage/statement.html

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org/

Jewish Voice for Peace: http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/content/jvp-mission-statement

***

Darnell L. Moore is a writer and activist who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Currently, he is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University.

Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz  is the co-founder of intersections/intersecciones consulting with Lisbeth Melendez Rivera.  Weiner-Mahfuz’s writings can be found in Colonize This! Young Women of Color and Feminism (Seal Press, 2002), Fireweed Magazine's “Mixed Race Issue” (Issue 75), and through on a Web-based project titled BustingBinaries, which she co-authors with Ana Maurine Lara.