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Blackness and the Formation of the Nation A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ PASSING FOR SOVEREIGN, PASSING FOR FREE: BLACKNESS AND THE FORMATION OF THE NATION A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in POLITICS with an emphasis in FEMINIST STUDIES and HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS by Sandra Harvey June 2017 The Dissertation of Sandra Harvey is approved: _________________________________ Associate Professor Vanita Seth, Chair _________________________________ Associate Professor Dean Mathiowetz _________________________________ Professor Eric Porter _________________________________ Associate Professor Marcia Ochoa _________________________________ Professor Herman Gray _______________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Sandra Harvey 2017 Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgments v Introduction: “The Stage Was Already Set”: Regimes of Surveillance and the Pass 1 1. The HeLa Bomb and the Science of Unveiling 28 2. Passing for Sovereign: Black Applications for Enrollment to the Choctaw Nation, 1898–1914 54 3. Passing and Personhood 99 Conclusion: The Call for an Abolitionist Ethics of Knowing 134 Works Cited 141 iii Abstract Passing for Free, Passing for Sovereign: Blackness and the Formation of the Nation Sandra Harvey Passing for Free, Passing for Sovereign examines the relationship between narratives of race and gender passing, histories of slavery that these narratives draw upon, and the hetero- nationalist imaginaries that they inform. Much of the scholarship on passing emphasizes the political and affective agency of “passers” to attain social mobility or escape racialized and gendered violence. However, this approach often pre-supposes an individual with autonomous and rational, liberal agency. It also leaves under-examined the accusation of passing itself. In contrast, this dissertation brings to the forefront accusations of passing as techniques of disciplining bodies and regulating populations in order to investigate the political assumptions embedded within them. It points to the ways the passing accusation has been institutionalized in a range of historical periods and spheres of activity including: positivist science, which centers the human as the knowing and unveiling subject; law and its role in defining free, liberal individuals and their belonging to the nation; and Enlightenment philosophy that posits an ethics based on rational universalism. It concludes by asking after the grounds for an ethical form of knowing not tethered to the anti-black epistemologies of passing but instead rooted in epistemologies of abolition. iv For Curly Buckins, Myrna Johnson, and Victor Harvey v Acknowledgements This dissertation has benefited from the outstanding mentorship of my advisor, Vanita Seth, as well as my dissertation committee members: Eric Porter, Dean Mathiowetz, Marcia Ochoa, and Herman Gray. This incredible interdisciplinary team has invested countless hours of reading my writing, discussing the ins-and-outs of the project, teasing out underlying themes and historical context, challenging my arguments, and allowing me to try out unconventional paths in political thought. I have gained enduring and invaluable lessons from their teaching. Each of them models the sort of academic professionalism and care that I aim to embody in my future endeavors. Aside from my formal dissertation committee I must acknowledge the wonderful advising I have received from other faculty members. Much of my training has occurred in the departments of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies. I have taken more classes with David Marriott than any other professor at UC Santa Cruz. His writing and teaching in political philosophy, and in particular on Franz Fanon and Immanuel Kant, continue to be an animating force in my scholarship. I am grateful for his challenges to my work and for keeping me on my toes. The scholarship and pedagogy of Angela Davis and Anjali Arondekar were my introduction to feminist thought, critical theory, postcolonial studies, and citation politics. Who could ask for more? In their classes I learned to think more critically, read against the grain, be fearless in my interdisciplinarity, and avoid self-deprecation at all costs. vi In addition to my research, I spent much of my time at UC Santa Cruz collaborating to implement the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) program. Despite the immense challenges to this effort, we were successful in starting the program. The faculty, activists, comrades, students, and invited scholars created my intellectual home, and I am honored to have worked with them. I am also grateful for the struggle and what I have learned from it: the grit and grind of faculty and students of color, our emotional and academic labor are the backbone of the public university. I wish the following generations of scholars well in cultivating the CRES space and molding it to serve their needs. Without the support of the Institute for Humanities Research, this dissertation might not yet be complete. In particular, I am grateful for the unending support and mentorship of the IHR’s Managing Director, Irena Polić, and its staff, Evin Guy and Courtney Mahaney. They have instilled in me a deep appreciation for public humanities. Together we have worked on numerous projects to bridge the gap between the university, its scholars, and the surrounding communities. Any decrease in federal funding for the arts and humanities would be an enormous tragedy not just for the university but also the public more broadly. The work for chapter 2 of the dissertation stemmed from long discussions with fellow members of the Race, Genomics, and Media reading group at UC Santa Cruz. I would like to thank Herman Gray, James Battle, Maile Arvin, Tala Khanmalek, Jennifer Reardon, and Sally Lehrman for our conversations. In particular, Herman, James, Maile, and Tala have been significant in my own professional development, and there are simply no words that articulate just how grateful I am for you all. vii To Robin Mitchell, you swooped up in the final moments of my time as a graduate student, but your impact was significant. You have taught me what it looks like to support women of color in academia. I will pay it forward. To Robin Bates, you showed me appreciation for travel, for expanding horizons, and for what hard work and prayer can do. You have been present for me in some of the more difficult moments. You helped edit my very high school first term paper. I will always look up to you. My graduate school besties, Claire Lyness, Sam Cook, Sara Mak, Holly Johnson, Omid Mohamadi, Steve Araujo, and Megan Martenyi are the reason I am alive and well. I could not imagine life without you all, and I look forward to many more barbeques, long walks, Real Housewives’ reunions, intellectual debates, museum tours, and hot tub soaks in the future. Lastly, I am humbled by the love and support of my family. My husband Aleixo Gonçalves has made great sacrifices so that we could reach this goal together. I love him with all my heart. My parents Jean and Jammie Harvey provided intellectual, emotional, and reproductive labor without which this dissertation would not exist. You will always be with me. To my grandmothers Curly Buckins and Myrna Johnson and to my brother Victor Harvey, I have felt you with me everyday. I thank God for you. This dissertation was supported in part by the Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship and the UC Consortium for Black Studies in California. The text of this dissertation includes reprints of the following previously published material: Harvey, Sandra. 2016. "The HeLa Bomb and the Science of Unveiling." Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 2(2). viii Introduction “The Stage Was Already Set”: Regimes of Surveillance and the Pass On the evening of February 26, 2012, a 911 dispatcher of the Sanford Police Department in Florida received an emergency call. The person on the other end on the line was George Zimmerman. He reported, Hey we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there’s a real suspicious guy, uh, [near] Retreat View Circle … This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around looking about. Dispatcher: Okay, and this guy is he white, black, or Hispanic? Zimmerman: He looks black. Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing? Zimmerman: Yeah. A dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, and either jeans or sweatpants and white tennis shoes. He’s [unintelligible], he was just staring … Dispatcher: Okay, he’s just walking around the area … Zimmerman: … looking at all the houses. Dispatcher: Okay … Zimmerman: Now he’s just staring at me. … Yeah, now he’s coming towards me. Dispatcher: Okay. Zimmerman: He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male … Something’s wrong with him. Yup, he’s coming to check me out, he’s got something in his hands, I don’t know what his deal is. 1 Dispatcher: Just let me know if he does anything, okay? ... Zimmerman: Okay. These assholes they always get away … Zimmerman gave the dispatcher instructions on how to find his suspect once the police arrived. The dispatcher asked: So it’s on the left-hand side from the clubhouse? [sic] Zimmerman: No you go in straight through the entrance and then you make a left … uh you go straight in, don’t turn, and make a left. Shit he’s running … Dispatcher: Are you following him? Zimmerman: Yeah Dispatcher: Okay, we don’t need you to do that.1 Nevertheless Zimmerman, armed with a nine-millimeter pistol, continued to follow his suspect, Trayvon Martin. Martin, who was seventeen years old, had left his father’s girlfriend’s house in the neighborhood to buy some snacks and was on his way back home when he noticed that he was being followed. He called his best friend, Rachel Jeantel, and as she later told ABC News, “He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on … I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast.
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