VolumeVolume 28 27 Fall Spring no. 1n. 2016 2 2016 www.GCadvocate.comwww.GCadvocate.com [email protected]@cunydsc.org

Donald Trump and the Death Rattle of Liberal Civility pg. 31

Stranger in my Skin: Racial (un)belonging in the US pg. 18 Gil Bruvel, Dichotomy, Stainless Steel sculpture

editorial The Difficulty of

www.GCadvocate.com Making a Voting Decision [email protected]

Contents Who to vote for in the upcoming election? That is be able to keep calm as most of us have been doing? the question. In past elections, the most important Or will I punch back if I am hit—sweetly punch back things that influenced how I vetted presidential can- in the tradition of the ancestors who recognized the EDITORIAL FEATURES didates included their positions on wars, national need to deploy counter strategies that have given me security, economy, the LGBTQ community, and their the liberties I cherish today. Indeed, how powerfully The Difficulty of Stranger in my Skin: plans for developing regions like the Caribbean, where will I punch back with fists, body, talk, and silence until Making a Voting Racial (un)belonging I am from. In this election, I would love to consider all I die a death that will be forgotten by you who love me Decision in the U.S. those things with equal weight, but it has really come dearly. pg. 3 pg. 22 down to the vulnerability of my body. When will I be For you have your own lives to supervise. And after Alessandro stopped and frisked? Will I be beaten by the police and all, my body will be just another of tens of thousands Zammataro Amy Ashwood Garvey: charged with a felony if they allow me to live? When of black bones, blood, and muscles that will fall and CUNY NEWS A Bibliographic Essay will this inevitable encounter with a corrupt police oc- stink and become a ritual of earth to earth and dust to pg. 30 cur? What mood will I be in when it happens? Will I dust, of bible scriptures and lighted candles. Of course Freedom of Expression Under Threat at CUNY, Again pg. 8 DEBATE Donald Trump and the Where is the Money Going? Death Rattle of Liberal Civility pg. 12 pg. 36

Jon-Christian Suggs Memorial PERFORMANCE REVIEW pg. 18 An Occupation of Loss Review pg. 41

Source: http://samwhiteout.com/2015/08/03/baltimore-riots/

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For deep in America’s consciousness, even mani- evidence, police continue to narrow down black lives fest in our Graduate Center, black bodies are nor- because they know that the nation’s conscience grants mally given freedom, as long as there is some form of them permission. I am not referring to the actions of a administrative patrolling. This fact points to the very small number of white Americans. I am talking about whiteness of the Graduate Center. The hallways are the endemic apathy of the masses that sanctions the white. The dinning clientele in the cafeteria is white. racial violence perpetrated by a handful. All my life, I The elevators are white if there is no one delivering a have witnessed the globalization of U.S. images that package or pushing a sanitation cart, or hurrying back communicate that there is a genetics of black crimi- from a smoke break to the lowest paying jobs in their nality. The violence of this knowledge production and departments. The faculty is so white that some people dissemination has forced even me to try to convince of color seem uncomfortable engaging with other per- myself repeatedly that black people are not danger- sons of color out of fear that their “colorfulness” will ous—that black people are not threats to communities be equivocated with radicalism and potential disrup- wherever they live. Remember this is why, to this date, tion. To this latter note, I guess that a few persons of many black persons have to chant self-love with lines color will jump up into ego mode and on to the self- like, ‘I love my black skin,” “Black and Beautiful,” “Black denial train, and say that they are unaware this hap- Power,” and now “Black Lives Matter.” pens. I dare say, these persons of color are very often Of course knowledge (misinformation) can be ter- the beloved by the marginalizing frameworks of white ror—something that educated, moral, ethnic, and mar- institutionalism. Frankly, they are very dangerous! Be- ginalized consciousness have to resist daily in order cause they lie. Because their lies are very big. Because that it is does not pollute the possessions of truth and traditionally, they are among the few who hold big ex- self-love. As a black person, I have no option than to ecutive positions as they kill pieces of themselves and struggle against the globally circulated misperceptions Source: http://www.publicseminar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/14899170156_575325b6dd_o.jpg others in order to get to the top of the food chain. And of blackness in order that I can maintain the ability this is true of many people of color, not just black per- to love myself and not fear other black people. In my you will forget me. And you should! Because my wish theoretically, administratively, politically, culturally, sons. recent visits to Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Repub- will never be that you must keep mourning for all of psychologically, and globally managed. Where we But let me get right back to the point about white lic, Panama, Guatemala, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and us. There is too much agony in that task, and too many might disagree is my contention that the best of U.S. American consciousness as being responsible for the Costa Rica, I saw that there is indeed a global assault more of us will continue to fall so frequently. And you responses to our predicament will automatically lead mass execution of black lives. No need for us to turn to on blackness that is constantly reinforced by knowl- need to hold your tears, at least so that you can cry for to more management of our bodies rather that allow distant history or cite a few authors to support this ob- edge circulation from the U.S. In all of these spaces, I other things apart from fallen bodies of color. My only us the liberations ascribed to white lives from birth. servation. Indeed there are too many recent accounts learned that black bodies are among the underclasses. wish is that you tell the mourners not to pray for me. I am a trying to be realistic, folks. Which means that of police brutality on black bodies. When black hands I was also informed that these cultural persecutions Lobby so that they will not light a candle for me. Con- I am incapable of accessing the luxury of imagination are lifted in submission, black bodies are shot. When were largely influenced by racial occurrences in the vince them I need no damn Christianized memorial. that the saving of blacks lives will be highly prioritized. black backs are lying in in the streets with unthreat- U.S. I was warned, in several of these places, not to Tell them I have been an atheist for a long time and I Please understand that the best I can reasonably ex- ening aggression, black bodies are shot. When black visit black communities or else I would be robbed. And want to be remembered as such. pect is that Hillary and Donald will ensure that our teeth are trembling to articulate their harmlessness, yes, I didn’t visit some of those communities, because In this imagination of the inevitability of my death, bodies are managed with more respect as part of a black are shot. I didn’t have anyone to accompany me. my election vetting process therefore contends with long-term plan towards full liberation of black bodies. What has long been occurring in this country, the What a shame that I had to stay away from spaces the question of—what is Hillary and Donald going to Is this what I desire—more reasonable management mass slaughtering of black lives, a terroristic pro- that had people of my own color! I hope you under- go do to ensure that American consciousness locates of my body versus full-body liberation? Of course not. cess authored and authorized by white American stand that this incident stripped away pieces of my more respectable means to manage bodies like mine? But this option is something the dominant class will be consciousness is now amplified by the new video confidence. To heal, I had to meditate and return to I doubt you would disagree that bodies like ours are willing to agree to. technologies of our day. Even in the face of camera older experiences and postcolonial discourses. I had

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which both Hillary and himself are participant, Donald also assumes that Blacks are at least smart to acknowl- edge it. Therefore, he asks, what do you have to lose by trying me? My emphasis here—either way, you are screwed! In response to Donald’s question, many persons naively or dishonestly express outrage. They suggest that such a line of questioning represents one of the peaks of Donald’s racist declarations. Critics have at- tacked Donald without basically answering his ques- tion. To answer Donald’s question, we want to know what is Hillary going to do to ensure that my death will be delayed a bit longer. From what I remember of Hillary, sometime last year, she had no passion about addressing black deaths. When first confronted by the Black Lives Matter movement, Hillary had basically asked them what did they want her to do. At the time, I agreed with Hillary for asking the question. But soon after, I did my daily ritual of self-introspection and cul- tural reflection. Automatically, I changed my mind on the premise that if Hillary is running to be president, it is her responsibility to get policy makers and lead- A police squadron passes underneath a Michael Brown “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” display © Overpass Light Brigade | Flickr ers of the dying community together in order to hear their concerns and suggestions. She did this when ad- to engage with a daily task of cultural knowledge re- knowledges that mark black bodies with an inherent dressing questions of national security, immigration, jection in order to acquire self-empowerment. If I am criminality. This becomes further evident in the way and the economy. Yet when it came to saving black bound to do this constant task of self-interrogation he visits black churches and tells congregation mem- lives, she wanted the Negroes to figure out the solu- and cultural reflection given my blackness, I will rea- bers that they have nothing to lose by voting for him. tion on their own and get back to her. Black lives are A review of recent police killings in the U.S. © Elvert Barnes, Flickr sonably speculate that the majority of white persons In articulating this point, Donald is tapping into the not a priority! That was what Hillary was implicitly say- will not endure this daily rigor. Thus, they will cling to way a significant number of white Americans think. ing. Bernie Sanders too showed a similar disdain for lice terrorism facing us. As Maya Angelou says, “when knowledges of niggered-existence, knowledges culti- He knows that white America will not morally exam- black lives when he was confronted by the Black Lives someone shows you who they are, believe them the vated by plantation genealogies, knowledges that are ine the activisms to transform white institutionalism Matter movement and couldn’t even remember any of first time.” I believe Hillary. I believe Donald. So what constantly rejected by the production of enlightened and secure black lives. In explicating his truth, Donald the many persons who had died by police terrorism. am I going to do? I am going to go out and vote on Elec- postcolonial discourses but perpetually remain rooted highlights the glaring fact that the Democratic Party To make his disdain more evident, Bernie had a sassy tion Day. If there is an option to write my name on the within the America consciousness as credibly invalu- has blatantly used black voters during each elec- attitude as he threatened to leave the event. Neverthe- ballot, I will do that. I am going to vote Dadland Maye. able because much of these knowledges articulate tion cycle when politicians pop up and make many less, the persistence of the women in the Black Lives Already I can hear some of you trying to convince me American exceptionalism, imperialism, and pride. promises. Donald, then, correctly theorizes that Hill- Matter movement forced Bernie and Hillary to frame that to not vote for Clinton is to vote for Trump. Now, From listening to Donald’s convention speech em- ary will make only incremental changes that will in- talking points as the months went by. Unsurprisingly, please accept the temperament of my honesty: I really phasis on “law and order,” it seems clear he intends advertently perpetuate the terrorism of black bodies. Hillary is now trying to fool the dying black commu- don’t care. to continue the process of recirculating dangerous Understanding this conspicuous white consensus in nity that she really understands the urgency of the po-

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Freedom of Expression Under The policy saw its first iteration er CUNY governing bodies. students enroll in CUNY schools. in the draft of 27 July 2013, which Despite the recent beating the The change will also benefit stu- Threat at CUNY, Again was circulated to the University policy received from the CUNY dents eligible for the Federal Free Faculty Senate and its commit- community, the central admin- or Reduced Price Lunch Program, tees at the end of October 2013, istration remains adamant on those living in federally subsidized but was shelved due to strong op- implementing a draconian policy public housing, a foster home, or position from students and fac- that not only strives to stifle any who are homeless, as well as un- ulty alike. The Board of Trustees form of political dissent but also documented students in these The CUNY Board of Trustees is, yet again, ada- calls “expressive conduct” or “expressive activity” in proposed to float the policy again disproportionately targets stu- categories. mant on reconsidering the deeply problematic the university. The language of the proposed policy in June this year, in a calculated dents and faculty of color. The The application fee for CUNY is CUNY Policy on Freedom of Expression and Expres- ordains the administration with overarching powers move to surreptitiously vote it into policy has been proposed for a $65 per student, a seemingly pal- sive Conduct at its upcoming general meeting. This of surveillance on students and faculty, empowering effect when a majority of the stu- vote again at the Board’s upcom- try sum but a sufficient deterrent CUNY-wide policy that the administration has been it to crackdown on demonstrations, curtail the dis- dent community was out on sum- ing meeting in October, and in for many of the city’s students nursing for over four years now, despite repeated semination of information, and criminalize the con- mer break. Notwithstanding these its build-up, the administration is from applying to college. The fee protestations, aims to prohibit and police what it gregation of students in shared CUNY spaces. underhanded measures, the Doc- hard at courting the UFS and the waiver allows students to submit toral Students’ Council and other USS for its support. an application listing up to six CUNY activists organized quickly CUNY schools free of charge. The to deliver a stubborn rebuttal. A CUNY Application Fee Waiver initiative is said to cost $2.4 mil- petition against the proposed pol- for Low-Income Students lion annually, with the city putting icy garnered over 500 signatures in $2 million and CUNY continuing in less than two weeks and many New York public school stu- to fund the 6500 waivers it cur- CUNY members testified against dents from low-income families rently does for $400,000. the policy at the Board’s public will no longer have to pay to apply The present move is part of the hearing on 20 June, compelling to CUNY, according to a new city city administration’s Equity and the administration to postpone initiative announced by Mayor Bill Excellence for All agenda, which the vote. de Blasio, Schools Chancellor Car- aims to ensure that, by the 2018- The DSC Executive Committee, men Fariña, and CUNY Chancellor 2019 school year, every city stu- in an open letter to Senior Vice James Milliken on 26 September. dent will have the resources and Chancellor Frederick Schaffer dat- This move, which will be in effect support at their high-school to ed 17 June, also raised questions from this fall’s application sea- prepare them for a college educa- about the undemocratic and con- son, is part of the administration’s tion. In addition to the CUNY ap- spiratorial manner in which the move to make college education plication fee waiver, the program policy was drafted and put before more accessible for city students. also includes a SAT school day, the Board. The central adminis- CUNY presently waives applica- when all 68,000 New York City tration did not hold any public tion fees for about 6500 students high-school juniors will be able to discussions on the policy at the every year, but the new initiative take the SAT free of charge on a University Faculty Senate or the is expected to affect 37,500 stu- school day. The initiative is also University Student Senate, nor did dents. Almost sixty per cent of the funding new training programs at it attempt to reach out to any oth- city’s college-bound public school 100 high schools across the city https://defendmoralesshakur.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/img_4999_small.jpg

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this year to build a school-wide to staff classes with replacement strations, the administration was culture that encourages and sup- faculty, many of them assigned to finally compelled to revoke the ports students towards enrolling courses they had little experience lockout in light of mass student for college. of. As Amy Goodman reports in walkouts from classes in protest The fee waiver at CUNY is a Democracy Now, “In what the against the replacement staffing. crucial measure in its historic school later called an error, the The lockout ended with the ad- mission of equitable access to university’s chief operating offi- ministration and the faculty union education for all. cer, formerly a professor of po- reaching an agreement to extend litical science, was slated to teach the expired contract to 31 May LIU Locks Out Professors yoga. The dean of students for 2017, as negotiations for the new for Twelve Days as the College of Liberal Arts and Sci- contract continue meanwhile. Contract Expires ences, a botanist by training, was For an academic community tapped to teach ballet.” that has just emerged from its In an ominous move that is The lockout sparked mass pro- own long battle for a contract, possibly unprecedented in US tests and demonstrations by fac- the regressive attack on the fac- history, Long Island University ulty and students alike, many of ulty union at LIU should signal locked out its own professors whom took to social media to gar- towards the increasingly unequal from its Brooklyn campus after ner solidarity. They shared their distribution of power in higher the administration failed to reach disaffection with the administra- education. Boards of Trustees an agreement on a new faculty tion in the contract negotiations servile to state and corporate in- union contract. When the existing and highlighted the predicament terests do not baulk from tactics contract expired on 31 August, of the professors suddenly de- of intimidation when interests of the faculty found themselves nied pay and insurance. the workers stand in the way of locked out of their offices and After twelve days of demon- their neoliberal reforms. email accounts, and their health insurance cancelled. The lockout is believed to have been a preemptive measure on the part of the administration, in light of the union’s history. The union called for strikes in the last five of six contracts, and wields them as immense bargaining power in ne- gotiations. In the present negotia- tions for a new contract, the union rejected the administration’s offer that entailed a reduction in sala- ries for new adjuncts and elimi- nated a clause in place on parity pay for faculty in the university’s various campuses. The university was preparing Brooklyn’s Long Island University administration locked out faculty ahead of fall classes Source: https://www.democracynow.org/images/blog_posts/61/32861/full_hd/liu1.jpg as a negotiating tactic. Photograph: Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty

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Where is The Money Going?

Janet Werther

On August 4 2016, CUNY’s date for the ratification, the nego- cate a ‘No’ Vote on the Tentative union, the Professional Staff tiation was not without its detrac- Contract” that outlined a seven Congress (PSC) announced that tors from within the ranks of the point refusal of the contract and the new contract, negotiated by union membership. Specifically, highlighted particular ways in union leadership through arbi- the Adjunct Project (cunyadjunct- which this new contract reifies tration with a very resistant ad- project.org), a resource and ser- inequality in CUNY employment ministration, was ratified by the vice organization for adjuncts practices. Using adjunct labor union membership with a ninety- and teaching fellows at the CUNY to prop up a system that values four per cent “yes” vote. Despite Graduate Center, published senior level administrators (let’s the seemingly overwhelming man- the article “7 Reasons We Advo- call them executives), full-time

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/an-unprecedented-faculty-lockout/499016/

tenured and tenure-track faculty, that further institutionalizes my and graduate fellowships are and full-time staff (including mid own disposability, I can’t help but simply so strapped for cash that and lower level administrators), wonder what spurred so many of we’ve become desperate for any in that order, the new contract my adjunct and graduate fellow crumbs (e.g. half the $1000 bonus leaves the majority of teaching colleagues to vote “yes” to a con- being offered to full-time faculty staff – adjuncts – competing for a tract that so thoroughly dismisses and staff—if you qualify) that the few crumbs of potential job secu- our interests - the interests of the university and our union deigns rity and sharing fractions of the vast majority of teaching staff. to toss in our general direction. pay increases soon to be enjoyed A common view shared by Maybe we’re all still hoping that by full-time faculty and staff. My many within our college commu- our lives as adjuncts – scraping goal in this article is not to rail nity is that the contract is “better by, depending on financial sup- against the new contract but, than nothing.” Maybe so! Maybe port from our partners and fami- having voted “no” to a document those of us on adjunct “salaries” lies, using public assistance when Source: http://www.hpprintercartridges.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/money-printing-plates.jpg

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needed, commuting across the city taxes) per course per semester. At ing half the rent in an apartment travel to and from the confer- teaching load is considered “heavy” ing wage of $50,000 for New York to multiple campuses – are only $3000 per course, a CUNY adjunct that costs $2,400 per month, this ences that might help them land for full-time faculty. Full-time ten- City residents, it is nonetheless temporary, and that one day soon teaching five classes per semester hypothetical adjunct will spend a full-time job etc. In other words, ured and tenure-track faculty at significantly more than adjuncts we’ll be noticed for our expertise will earn $15,000 per semester. $14,400 per year on rent alone, an adjunct teaching the maximum NYU have a standard teaching load are able to earn teaching 5-5 loads as educators and our brilliance as If that adjunct is able to maintain leaving them $15,600 for all their number of courses at CUNY will of 2-2. The lowest pay rate for full- on multiple campuses. Within my scholars, shepherded out of the that very full schedule across two other expenses: transportation to spend approximately half their time assistant professors at CUNY, own field of theatre studies, there contingent faculty hamster wheel, or more campuses each semes- and from those classes, the tech- pay on rent alone to live in New based on the PSC documents, is is an annual research grant for and folded into the tenure-track ter, they will earn $30,000 for the nology needed to teach them and York City’s outer boroughs. currently $42,873 annually. While faculty with high teaching loads professoriate. My friends and col- year. Living in New York City, pay- maintain their research, food, For comparison, a 3-4 or 4-4 this remains below a standard liv- awarded by the American Society leagues: don’t hold your breath. for Theatre Research (ASTR). While I teach and research in the arts this can ostensibly be awarded to and humanities, but I believe that a contingent faculty member, one a bit of basic math is in order. example of the kinds of research Right now, and continuing under support it can be used for is the new contract when it is finally “course release” (http://www.athe. implemented, rules that are in- org/news/305136/ASTRATHE-Ad- tended to, as the Adjunct Project junct-Survey-Data.htm). Adjunct puts it, “limit our exploitation” are instructors are not eligible for hamstringing our collective capac- course release. ASTR recently con- ity to earn a living wage. Under the ducted a somewhat informal sur- 9/6 rule, CUNY adjuncts cannot vey of adjunct labor in our field, teach more than nine credit hours in collaboration with the Associa- per semester on one campus, and tion for Theatre in Higher Educa- can then teach a maximum of only tion (ATHE) (http://www.athe.org/ six credit hours at other campuses. news/305136/ASTRATHE-Adjunct- That is a total of three three-credit Survey-Data.htm). Based on the courses on your primary campus results of that survey, one of the and two three-credit courses on suggestions offered to ATHE for across the other campuses, or a the support of adjunct laborers total of five three-credit courses. I at our annual conferences was a am currently paid as an “Adjunct series of awards for teaching and Assistant Professor” and not as an research specifically targeting ad- “Adjunct Lecturer” because I have junct faculty. This kind of recog- an MFA, a terminal degree. This nition in our broader field might means that, unlike so many of help mitigate the perception of my peers who have MA degrees, inadequacy that keeps full-time but like so many of my colleagues adjuncts (an oxymoron) in the who have completed their PhDs bottom tier of faculty while young and are still adjuncting, my hour- scholars who are able to and in- ly rate is $73.53 (as compared to terested in landing post-doc posi- $64.84). That still turns out to be tions and visiting lectureships are only slightly over $3000 (before often more able to convert those http-//www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/04/13/adjunct_pay_a_quarter_of_part_time_college_faculty_receive_public_assistance.html

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precarious positions and their peripatetic lifestyles ulty at Baruch, this seemed to be a reasonable num- into full-time work. The fact, nonetheless, remains: ber. All faculty, however, do not use Blackboard. “Av- adjuncts are not only being paid less than full-time erage” faculty usage therefore includes faculty who faculty, we are being paid less for more work. use no space at all! Faculty needing more space than This brings me to the crux of my complaint. the 750 MB can petition for increased limits. Each se- When students are paying record high tuitions at mester. This petition requires filing a written justifica- a university that used to be free for New York City tion and enables the kind of direct oversight of our residents, when the majority of classes are taught teaching practices that might lead to censorship or by contingent faculty earning poverty wages, when non-renewal of adjunct contracts. Notably, neither in budget cuts out of Albany lead to cuts in library ser- the effort to reduce spending on Blackboard storage vices first and foremost, the mission of the univer- nor in the budget cuts to the library did Slavin or his sity is no longer being served. I teach at Baruch Col- colleagues in upper level administrative and execu- lege, where the average class size is fifty students. tive positions suggest cutting their own six-figure sal- At $275 per credit hour, it takes only four students aries to meet the educational needs of our students. to more than pay my $3000 per course salary. Yet Notably, Chancellor Milliken has continued to accept a $20,000 per month apartment while failing to im- classes won’t even run with fewer than ten students, plement the contractual increases and back pay in a and most require at least twenty. Just over a year timely manner. Notably, not accepting a $20,000 per ago, at the beginning of the Fall 2015 semester, all month apartment as part of his compensation seems faculty in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences not to have occurred to our chancellor. Here at the received an email from the Associate Provost and Graduate Center, President Chase Robinson informs Assistant Vice President for Teaching and Learn- us that, in order to meet budgetary restrictions, when ing, Dennis Slavin, informing us that due to budget senior level administrators (he does not mean execu- constraints, the library’s funding was being cut. The tives) retire, their positions are not being renewed. Newman Library at Baruch, we were told, was no This means that mid-level administrators are being longer able to buy books to keep on reserve. Slavin required to take on those tasks without pay increas- suggested several options for those of us wishing to es or promotions. Yet when graduate students ask Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/ provide books on reserve for our students, nearly President Robinson what the college can do to better archive/2016/09/an-unprecedented-faculty-lockout/499016/ all of whom work and some of whom are on pub- support a variety of student concerns – diversity, the RW=1440&RH=812#/SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO6 lic assistance: 1) we could use old versions of the needs of international students, pedagogical training, 1YZA9PF&SMLS=1&RW=1440&RH=812&PN=1 books if the library already had those available, students with disabilities, etc. – his response is con- workers, out of touch with the challenges our stu- 2) we could loan the library our personal copies, sistently that “we should hire someone for that.” This dents face. Rather, I would suggest that our slogan 3) we could buy a copy of the book and donate it cycle is untenable. as we work for an actually equitable contract in 2017 to the library (on our adjunct “salaries”), or 4) we I attended a PSC union meeting for the first time should be “Where is the Money Going?” I suggest this could scan sections of the book and upload them last year. My goal was to draw attention to the prob- slogan because there is one place the money is obvi- to Blackboard. What he failed to mention regarding lem of our union’s slogan. “CUNY Needs a Raise” is a ously not going, and that is to teaching and learning. the use of Blackboard, however, was that the col- true statement. Yet it grossly miscommunicates the If we at the CUNY Graduate Center are producing and lege had recently implemented a 750 MB cap on the issue to city residents and especially to students and becoming the next generation of faculty, if we are in- amount of content we are permitted to upload. In a families paying those record high tuitions. This slo- vested in colleges and universities as institutions of separate email regarding this cap Slavin noted that, gan makes those of us at CUNY who do desperately higher education, my question for us is: what are we based on the amount of space being used by all fac- need a raise look like money-grubbing white collar going to do about it? Source: http://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO61YZA9PF&SMLS=1&RW =1440&RH=812#/SearchResult&VBID=2K1HZO61YZA9PF&SMLS=1&RW=1440&RH=812&PN=1

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Jon-Christian Suggs Memorial

James de Jongh

I am James de Jongh, professor emeritus at the Suggs in a general way as a colleague at another City City College and the Graduate Center English depart- University of New York campus, and a reliable CUNY ment. I was also director of the Institute for Research stalwart. I had run into him at faculty governance https-//www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Certificate-Programs/Africana-Studies on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Ca- activities I attended during several terms as Chair of ribbean (IRADAC) for about a decade. The late Profes- the City College Faculty Senate. But it was here at the about the same time, roughly a quarter century ago, ter had been on the verge of creating an advanced sor Jerry Watts followed me as director of IRADAC, Graduate Center, where we both held appointments served on some of the same academic committees, degree program in Black Studies—an MA program and Distinguished Professor Robert Reid-Pharr now in the Ph.D. program in English, that I had a chance to and participated in oral comprehensive examina- conceptualized by Professor Ofuatey Kojo and oth- ably occupies the position. When I was appointed to interact with him in detailed and granular ways. tions and dissertation defenses together. We shared ers. The initiative was highly controversial and the fi- the Graduate Faculty, I knew Professor Jon-Christian Chris Suggs and I joined the Graduate Faculty at similar intellectual and cultural interests, tended to nancial crisis that ended free tuition at CUNY was an show up at the same Friday afternoon presentations easy excuse for denying the proposed MA Program. and chatted afterwards over wine and cheese. After Resistance to the postgraduate study of the lives the move from the 40th floor of the Grace Building and experiences of people of color persisted all on 42nd Street, we also shared a communal office through the 80s and 90s and into the new century. across the corridor here on the 4th floor. We collabo- Nonetheless, because of the committed efforts of rated most intensely on our common commitment to a number of faculty and students, a Certificate Pro- African-American and Africana studies, however, and gram in Africana Studies exists today at the Graduate so it is to the informal but very productive leadership Center. As director of the Institute for Research on role that he played in the collective effort to bring Af- the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Carib- ricana Studies to the Graduate Center as a program- bean (IRADAC), I had the privilege to witness the out- matic field of study that I want to address my brief standing role Chris Suggs played in that effort over remarks today. the course of more than a decade. Professor Suggs The pursuit of graduate programs in Black Studies was one of the active participants at the foundational at the City University was not a new initiative. Teach- gathering of faculty and students in the late 1990s ing and studying the lives of people of color at the (Colin A. Palmer and the late Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. graduate as well as the undergraduate level had been were others) that reestablished postgraduate Afri- one of the explicit demands of the Black and Hispanic cana studies at City University as a strategic mission student uprising on the City College South Campus in for IRADAC, which had recently been created. Chris the late 1960s, before either Chris or I was hired as was there again a few years later to support the cre- junior faculty. In the mid 1970s, the Graduate Cen- ation of the Africana Studies Group (ASG), a new stu- CUNY Scholar James De Jongh discusses The Proud Valley with Jerry Carlson Photo: Vincent Verdi/CUNY TV

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dent-led organization, along with its first co-chairs, know I was not alone in this response. Others would Lise Esdaile and Jonathan Gray. light up when he appeared on the scene just as I did. At the memorial at John Jay College a couple of Chris, we mourn the loss of your warm company weeks ago, President Travis described Chris Suggs as but the lasting imprints of your generous spirit will his “president whisperer.” It’s also an apt description be “the living record of your memory.” of the role Chris played with IRADAC and the ASG. He never held a formal leadership office in either group but he was always there whenever he was needed as the ASG took the lead and IRADAC provided logis- tical support in cultivating the intellectual context on the ground, articulating a ratio- nale, and advocating for the programmatic necessity of Africana Studies at the Gradu- ate Center. And when it was time for ASG to navigate the parliamentary and admin- istrative labyrinth of CUNY governance, the technical expertise he had gleaned from his time in the Office of Academic Affairs at 80th Street proved to be invaluable. ASG’s successful effort to establish the concen- tration in Africana Studies laid the ground- work for the current Certificate Program in Africana Studies that was established only a few years later. If our never abandoned goal of a full Ph.D. Program in Africana Studies is ever finally realized at CUNY, whether at the Graduate Center or in some other configuration, Jon-Christian Suggs will deserve a significant part of the credit. There was a singular quality of grace about Chris Suggs. He always projected a welcoming and inviting spirit. He was al- ways eager to do what was needed. His quiet suggestion was often just the thing to resolve an impasse. A few minutes of small talk in our shared office before a commit- tee meeting, after class or whenever usu- ally made me feel so much better. And I Above: Jon-Christian Suggs; source: http://newyork.carpediem.cd/events/737810- jon-christian-suggs-memorial-at-john-jay-college-moot-court/

20 — GC Advocate — Fall no. 1 2016 Fall no. 1 2016 — GC Advocate — 21 Stranger in my Skin: Racial (un)belonging in the US

Tommy Chung

Although my parents had fre- quently made me cognizant that I am Korean, it had always been difficult for me to fully accept that identity since I have always lived in the U.S. and did not grow up around other Koreans. Now, however, I live in an area with a large Korean population. Yet why do I feel like a stranger? I was born and raised in Atlanta, Geor- gia, years before the 1996 Summer Olympic Games helped transform it into the international city it is today. I spent my formative years growing up in a predominantly White neigh- borhood. The elementary, middle, This article was first published as a differ- and high schools I attended were ent draft, “Perpetual Stranger in the U.S,” composed of roughly half Black and in the first issue of a new student pub- half White students. There were lication, The Korean Student Association only a small handful of South and (KSA), of the Graduate Center. East Asian students. And I had no Korean friends because there were none to speak to. After I attended a Gil Bruvel, Flowing, Stainless Steel sculpture Fall no. 1 2016 — GC Advocate — 23 22predominantly — GC Advocate — Fall White no. 1 2016 liberal arts col- lege in the Midwest, I lived in a few FEATURES FEATURES different Black neighborhoods in in the race-conscious ways of the targeted me every day and the at- curring refrain throughout my life. fun activities at the summer camp Atlanta city limits. The majority of Atlanta. Years later when I moved world. However, this grace period tacks were verbal and physical. The physical bullying ranged from such as swimming, hiking, play- their customers were old, middle- up north to New York City, I lived ended just a few short years later. They shouted insults like “chink” kids pulling up the sides of their ing sports, and making crafts, but class White women. However, a in two different neighborhoods in When I was six years old, my and “ching chong,” and sang the eyes to mimic my “chinky eyes” I mostly remember being bullied few years after they bought the Brooklyn: Park Slope — an affluent parents sent me to a two-week- song “Me Chinese, me play joke, to boys cornering me and taking relentlessly, feeling alienated, and store, there was a massive White White neighborhood — and Crown long summer camp at Stone me put pee-pee in your Coke.” turns putting me in headlocks and wanting to go home. I told my par- flight, and the neighborhood tran- Heights — a predominantly Black sitioned into a low-income Black Caribbean neighborhood. While I neighborhood. Not surprisingly, largely had good experiences living I did not comprehend the racial in most of these places, I stuck out dynamics that I witnessed. In my like a sore thumb because I was al- young and inexperienced eyes, ways the only or one of just a few all I could see was Black custom- Asians around. Throughout my life, ers calling my parents “chinks” I have been accustomed to being and also telling them to go back a racial/ethnic minority wherever to their country. I found it curious I found myself, whether it was at that Black people were using the school, work, neighborhood, or same rhetoric as the White kids play. at summer camp. I could not un- Although certain northeastern derstand why our skin color and suburbs of Atlanta are now home almond-shaped eyes seemed to to a growing and thriving Korean make other people so upset. Of community, this was not the case course, it was not until years later during my formative years in the that I would learn about slavery, 1980s and 1990s. After initially liv- Jim Crow, institutionalized racism, ing in a low-income neighborhood middleman minority theory, and of Atlanta called Lakewood in the deeply-embedded structural fac- 1970s, my family settled in Stone tors that keep the cards stacked Mountain, a suburb located a few against Black people. However, miles east of Atlanta city limits. Al- that still did not explain the ani- though Stone Mountain is home mosity that I seemed to experience to a large memorial to the leaders from all directions. And more than of the Confederacy who condoned that, it still did not make me want slavery, you may be surprised to to identify as Korean or Asian. hear that I actually did not experi- In high school, I had an epiph- ence much prejudice (or, at the very any when my sister and I discov- least, I wasn’t aware of it) based on ered and latched on to the punk my ethnicity during my first few rock subculture. Although punk’s years as a sentient being. I was one Source: http://www.palo-mayombe.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/multiracial.jpg music, style, and ethos appealed of a few Asian students at my el- to us, in hindsight, I can clearly see ementary school and I knew that I Mountain Park. The majority of the They also told me to go back to my hitting me. Some of the boys asked ents I never wanted to go to sum- that it also served as a buffer for was a little different somehow and other kids and camp counselors country, which was very confusing me why I did not know Kung Fu mer camp again. our racial difference. Instead of that my parents spoke a language were White. From the first day, a to me since I was pretty sure that like Bruce Lee, which was actually In 1978, when I was two years allowing others to impose a for- other than English at home, but I group of boys marked me as differ- I was already in my country. This the first time I had ever heard of old, my parents purchased a small eign racial identity on us, adopt- had not yet been indoctrinated ent because I was “Chinese.” They particular line would become a re- him. I know that I engaged in some wig store in Decatur, just outside ing the physical markers of punk

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rock, such as black leather jackets, shoved down everyone’s throats encouraged me to combat boots, and crazy haircuts explore other genres of music, subcultures, under- allowed us to choose our identity ground cinema, fine art, street art, and literature. It and have some sense of control made me want to travel and get outside of my comfort over how we presented ourselves zone. It was like a gateway to aspects of culture and and were thus perceived by others. the world that I never even knew existed. Although Instead of just being Asian or Ko- my newfound interests led me to meet some friends rean kids, we became “those crazy who were people of color, many of these subcultures punks” or “freaks,” which, believe were largely composed of White people. However, I it or not, was preferable. In that grew to feel pretty comfortable and accepted, perhaps sense, we were able to dictate how because I identified primarily as a punk or an artist. we were Other-ed. Although I was Being Asian or Korean was secondary, and most peo- still very much on the margins of ple that I met during this period in my life rarely even mainstream American society, this brought up race. was the first time that I felt proud of being different.

Band Name: Wire Band Name: Minor Threat Song title: Another the Letter Song Title: Minor Threat Released: 1978 Released: 1981

Band Name: The Ramones; Band Name: The Sex Pistols Song Title: Judy is a Punk Song Title: Pretty Vacant Released: 1976 Released: 1977

After living in Brooklyn for several years, in 2015, I Punk rock helped broaden my moved to Flushing, Queens, which is home to a large perspectives. Rejecting the main- Chinese and Korean population. For the very first time stream media that was being in my life, I was surrounded by people who look like Source: http://66.media.tumblr.com/a7ab299e13d565daa9b4e3599d416975/ Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/6 tumblr_o6btqsHXDu1rcf4reo1_540.jpg c/76/8b/6c768b5dd3be1f7bfa63391c89332029.jpg

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ing at the business districts. The ally understand a good portion of area around downtown Flushing conversations in Korean. I think and the subway station is dominat- some of my discomfort stems from ed by Chinese restaurants and oth- not fully grasping the nuances of er types of businesses, whereas jokes, slang, Korean idioms, or the Korean business district begins subtle cultural aspects of Korean east of Union Street. Even the Jo- ways of interacting. While the age seonjok (ethnic Koreans who were hierarchy, honorifics, and drinking born and raised in China) have etiquette are ingrained in Korean their own little residential and Koreans (which is how I refer to commercial pocket. people who were born and raised Although I grew up in a house- in Korea and speak Korean as their hold where my mother mostly first language), those things are spoke to me in Korean, I only speak not second nature to me. While I simple conversational Korean and do not feel completely comfortable I do not have mastery of the lan- interacting with a group of Koreans guage or customs. Ironically, when who are speaking Korean quickly March 22, 2016 - Graduate Center PSC picket (credit: Tahir Butt) I am surrounded by Blacks, Whites, and rattling off jokes and stories, https://s-media-cache-ak0. and other non-Asians, I am very I do feel some sense of solidarity pinimg.com/474x/a7/1f/9f/ a71f9f30c519c4c23a284576c5574069.jpg conscious of my “Asianness” or and even affection when seeing or “Koreanness.” And when I am sur- encountering strangers that I rec- am a stranger in my own country, rounded by Koreans or Chinese, I ognize as Korean. I am not sure if the land where I was born. On the suddenly feel extremely American. this qualifies as jeong (a Korean When I enter a Korean establish- word for the compound of affec- other hand, when I am surrounded ment, I often feel like a fish out tion and sympathy). In all honesty, by other Koreans, I feel as if I will of water. Koreans instantly recog- the concept of jeong is still some- never be fully accepted as Korean nize my accent and intonation as what new to me since I did not because I am too American. I am American, and I still feel slightly grow up in Korean society and I also a stranger in my ancestral awkward when engaging in con- just learned the term a few years homeland, the country of my par- versation, tilting my head when I ago. Since I was born and raised ents and their parents. As a result, say hello, goodbye, or thank you, in the U.S., my tastes, manner- over the years, I have cultivated a Source: https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2933/13935852051_0bea67d6a3_b.jpg or even trying to order food or isms, and mentality are distinctly fluid and hybrid identity as a sur- me. One might assume that I would feel comfortable many U.S.-born children of immigrants who are hy- ask for the check. I feel even more American, and I feel comfortable vival mechanism. I have become living among other people of Asian descent. While I phenated Americans just like me, many of these awkward and self-conscious when with American customs. However, accustomed to living in liminality, must admit that I do sometimes enjoy feeling anony- young people have grown up in this area and are ac- I actually hang out with Koreans I also feel that many people do and I think back to my teenage mous around people who are obviously not paying customed to the particular brand of multiculturalism who are speaking Korean. It is dif- not accept me as fully American years when I discovered punk rock any attention to me based on my race, I still do not that Flushing has to offer. For the most part, people in ficult to describe. My Korean has because of my Asian features and and learned that I did not have to feel like I belong. Many of my neighbors are immi- Flushing seem to self-segregate based on nationality. improved substantially since I mar- ancestry. To borrow a term from blindly accept labels or identities grants and I hear far more Mandarin, Korean, and The Koreans live in certain areas separate from the ried a Korean international student the scholar Mia Tuan, Asians in the that others imposed on me. I am Spanish than English in Flushing. While there are also Chinese. This becomes even more obvious when look- and moved to Flushing, so I actu- U.S. are seen as “forever foreign”. I okay with being a stranger.

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from 1916 to 1918. In addition, she also describes the strict color Amy Ashwood Garvey: and class stratifications among the canal laborers that Marcus Garvey initially saw on his visit to Panama A Bibliographic Essay in 1911. Douglas Egerton’s 2015 book, Rhone Fraser Borderland on the Isthmus, de- scribes Panama Canal life but mainly from the perspective of Amy Ashwood Garvey (1897- Negro” through her strategic own- sumptions on which the current the white, often U.S.-born citizens, 1969) was the first wife of radical ership of property; her promotion White supremacist capitalist econ- known as “Zonians.” Stratifications journalist Marcus Garvey (1887- of the Negro World paper across omy depends. on the Panama Canal included 1940). In a year when numerous Latin America and the Caribbean; Lionel Yard wrote a biography white Zonians at the top, who did U.S. liberals are heavily invested her creation of a safe space for of Amy Ashwood Garvey in 1990, not have to pay utilities and black in promoting the first U.S. female radical thought; her tracing of her which was published by the As- laborers who did at the bottom. president, the life of a political Ashanti heritage from Jamaica to sociation for the Study of African Julie Greene’s 2009 book, leader like Amy Ashwood Garvey Ghana; her promotion of Garvey- American Life and Culture (AS- The Ca- deserves recognition and study ism in Africa where she sought to ALH). Then, in 2007, Tony Martin nal Builders: America’s Empire at like never before. She was a leader strengthen an independent Ghana published another biography of the Panama Canal, describes only who identified as a “feminist” like as a symbol for African indepen- her from his independent press, some of the numerous tensions be- Hillary Clinton. In addition, she dence. Her life in the twentieth The Majority Press. While, Martin tween colors that Ashwood knew identified herself as a “Pan- Afri century stands as a valuable lesson writes about the political history intimately during her time there. canist” and agreed with Garvey’s for our own times on how to awak- of Ashwood, Yard is more occu- White Zonians were paid for their mission of “awakening the Negro en all peoples of African descent pied with her emotional history in less menial labor in gold whereas to his sense of racial insecurity.” to a world that continues to pro- his book. “Awakening the Negro to black Panamanian, Jamaican, and Ashwood sought to “awaken the mote racial injustice and prevent his sense of racial insecurity” was Barbadian labor were paid in sil- the realization of any substantive Ashwood’s quote of Garvey, who http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/amy-garvey ver. Both Senior and Garvey de- form of Black nationalism. This es- approached her in Jamaica in July steadfast determination to be by mother’s parents. Her father was scribe life from the perspective of the laborer. say will look at biographical works of 1914. His intellect appealed to her side despite her mother disap- also a successful baker who owned Tony Martin’s 1976 biography on Amy Ashwood Garvey and his- her, as hers to him. According to proving of him. Ashwood’s mother businesses in the Panama Canal torical works that can throw light Martin, Garvey invited Ashwood of Marcus Garvey called Race was so staunchly opposed to their Zone and in Colombia. Here, Olive on her lived experience. Much of to join his then nascent Universal First mentions Garvey’s stint as union that she sent her to live in Senior’s 2014 book, Dying to Bet- my engagement with these works Negro Improvement Association a newspaper editor in Costa Rica, Panama with her father, who was a ter Themselves, proves to be an stems from my research for a bio- (U.N.I.A.) after hearing her win a Honduras, and Panama before graphical play that I am working debate by arguing that “morality positive affirming force in her life. important start in understanding Ashwood went there. He writes on. All of these works in some way does not increase with the march When young Amy Ashwood in- life in Panama from the perspec- that Garvey was a timekeeper for speak to the central political proj- of civilization.” She would see the quired about her African past, her tives of Panamanians, Jamaicans, the United Fruit Company, where ect informing her life which is, in truth of this argument in different father introduced her to her great and Barbadians who emigrated he organized Black laborers for a her own words, “the awakening forms as her twentieth century life grandmother Grannie Dabas, who there for job opportunities. Senior few months in order to “awaken” of the Negro to his sense of racial progressed. Marcus began a very would later facilitate Amy’s jour- gives a vivid account of the labor them to their exploitation by the insecurity.” This awakening com- involved courtship with Amy Ash- ney to Ghana in 1947 to meet the that went into building the Panama Company. Aviva Chomsky’s 1995 prehensively deconstructs the as- wood. Lionel Yard describes his descendants of her great grand- Canal while Ashwood lived there book, West Indian Workers and http://www.ligali.org/images/amy_ ashwood_garvey.jpg

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of communities of color in nearly ography of Amy Jacques, she cred- of nine volumes including key edi- ing into the belief of a basic infe- every place she lived in after Pan- its Ashwood for making sure that torials of the Negro World news- riority, he arises “confident, and ama. the U.N.I.A. constitution required paper and papers from Garvey’s determined the recapture his fun- Martin writes that about a year that each new branch have not most profitable business, Black damental rights as a human being, and a half after arriving in New York only a president but a female co- Star Line enterprise, which was the kind of man the black woman and working with Garvey to build president. Ashwood encouraged started months before he married would gladly love, honor and re- the membership of the U.N.I.A., Garvey to hire Amy Jacques as sec- Ashwood. Hill’s edited collection spect.” Ashwood’s father gave her about retary. Jacques was also a brides- includes memos from the Bureau Ashwood’s interview anticipat- one thousand dollars to buy a maid at Ashwood’s 1919 wedding of Investigation, run by J. Edgar ed two studies that her life and ex- brownstone in Harlem, without the to Garvey, and Yard writes about Hoover, surveilling the U.N.I.A. perience speak to. The first study permission of Garvey. This, among Ashwood’s betrayal most compre- These memos show a narrative of her analysis anticipated was the other reasons, including charges of hensively. He writes that Garvey a successful undermining of the growing white mainstream pub- infidelity detailed in Martin’s biog- secretly established residence in Black Star Line with the help of in- lishing industry’s exclusive interest raphy, led Garvey to seek an annul- Missouri in order to deny Ashwood formants who deceptively posed in black women that sparked with- ment of their two-month old mar- due process in his annulment. as U.N.I.A. members sympathetic in a year of her passing, as seen in riage on 6 March 1920. He sued After Garvey married Jacques in to Garvey’s black nationalist cause. the 1970 publication of The Black Ashwood in August of that year on 1922, Ashwood sued Garvey for Hill’s early volumes also note the Woman by Random House and grounds of adultery. However, ac- “absolute divorce” and Yard writes presence of Ashwood at U.N.I.A. edited by Toni Cade Bambara. The cording to Yard, Garvey never le- that the legal battles between them meetings. second study her analysis speaks gally divorced Ashwood because at ended in a draw. Despite this, she Jeffrey B. Perry’s edited collec- to is the pioneering work by Black the time of their marriage, as she continued the pursuit of “awaken- tion called A Hubert Harrison psychologists like Kobi K.K. Kam- wrote to Amy Jacques, there was ing the Negro when she toured Reader, includes the writings of bon on cultivating positive Black no federal divorce law. Ashwood Europe and, after a worldwide Garvey’s newspaper editor and relationships. In Kambon’s self- filed a countersuit against Garvey distribution of the Negro World bibliophile Hubert Harrison, who published book, African/Black Psy- saying that his marriage to a sec- newspaper, identifies publicly as says that the failure of the Black chology in the American Context: ond Amy, Amy Jacques, qualifies “Mrs. Amy Garvey.” Star Line and the Garvey move- An African Centered Approach, as bigamy. Yard also describes Around 1923, Ashwood meets ment was not due to the trumped he writes that African nationhood how, on several counts, Ashwood legendary Calypsonian singer Sam up charge by the government but consciousness was destroyed by believed that Amy Jacques Garvey Manning and begins a professional was rather a result of Garvey trust- Eurocentric conceptual incarcera- usurped her power and benefited and romantic relationship with ing people who had little knowl- tion, and that men and women from the hard work that she initiat- him as a pioneering musical the- edge of ships or ship building. who are involved in functionally ed with the U.N.I.A. in Jamaica and atre producer. She and Manning While Yard attributes the Garvey relevant Africentric (Kambon’s the United States. Ula Y. Taylor’s write and produce several plays movement’s failure to Garvey’s term for African centered) relation- meticulous 2002 biography of Amy described by both Yard and Martin. mercurial temperament, Martin ships must have a strong sense of Jacques Garvey entitled The Veiled Sandra Pouchet Paquet’s edited quotes Ashwood in a 1960 Ebony their collective African identity and Garvey describes the important 2007 collection of essays on Ca- magazine interview with Lerone cultural heritage. Source: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52b087efe4b04f67f91cbeb9/ work Amy Jacques undertook to lypso, called Music, Memory, Re- Bennett Jr., where she notes that When Amy and Sam moved to the United Fruit Company, 1870- ma Canal who were locked within publish Garvey’s The Philosophy sistance: Calypso and the Carib- Garvey’s failure was due to his in- London in 1936, they opened a 1940, is an account of the various a strict color and class hierarchy. and Opinions of Marcus Garvey bean Literary Imagination, shows ability to share responsibility and night club and restaurant called attempts that went into destroy- In Panama, she learnt the impor- when he was imprisoned in 1923. calypso as a critique or mocking of his being too autocratic. She also the Florence Mills Restaurant and ing the printing press in Costa Rica tance of property ownership from At the same time, Yard’s bi- the colonial order that Manning’s tells Bennett that as the black man Social Club that, Yard says, provid- that Garvey depended on. her father, and would later apply ography also states that it was music provided in a subtle way. attempts to erase the social im- ed tribal fellowship for black im- Ashwood saw the same need to Garveyite principles upholding Ashwood who introduced Amy Robert A. Hill edited The Mar- pediments and psychic debilitation migrants in England “who needed “awaken” the laborers of the Pana- property ownership for the benefit Jacques to Garvey. In Taylor’s bi- cus Garvey Papers, which consists caused by centuries of brainwash- a shelter from the stress and strain

32 — GC Advocate — Fall no. 1 2016 Fall no. 1 2016 — GC Advocate — 33 features features of living in a foreign country.” This Hakim Adi’s 2015 book, Pan- tracing her African heritage, an- sold by the Ashanti to the English. ences, but to no avail. Danquah’s we-Asamoah’s 2004 book, Kwame club was a testament to Ashwood’s Africanism and Communism, also ticipating by thirty years a practice Ashwood’s friendship with J.B. consistent critique against what Nkrumah’s Politico-Cultural determination to create a safe looks closely at this decade and made popular by Alex Haley in his Danquah continued up to and be- he saw as Nkrumah’s capitulation Thought and Politics, provides space for radical thinkers. Her Flor- evaluates the working class move- television miniseries in 1977. Mar- yond Kwame Nkrumah’s role as to British imperialists landed him a more sympathetic look at Nk- ence Mills club was a place where ments among Black immigrants tin wrote a 1990 appendix where leader of Ghana in its indepen- in prison, on Nkrumah’s orders, rumah and shows Danquah as a intellectuals like C.L.R. James or- in London at this time. In London, he retraces Amy Ashwood’s steps dence from Great Britain (sentence where he remained until he died. die-hard traditionalist who simply ganized meetings for the Inter- Ashwood met J.B. Danquah, a Lon- called “In the Footsteps of Amy doesn’t make sense). However, Ama Biney’s 2014 book, The Politi- wanted to replace Nkrumah’s posi- national African Friends Service don student from the Gold Coast, Ashwood Garvey: To Kumasi and Danquah challenged Nkrumah’s cal And Social Thought of Kwame tion of privilege with British impe- of Abyssinia, in response, Martin to whom she told of her Ashanti Darman in 1990.” He includes an- leadership on so many levels. Yard Nkrumah, candidly discusses Nk- rialists. writes, to the Italian fascist aggres- heritage, and Danquah helps her other appendix by Ashwood called writes Amy Ashwood tried to get rumah’s missteps that allowed A close study of Amy Ashwood sion against Ethiopia. It is likely locate descendants of her an- “My Ashanti Roots” that details Danquah to meet with Nkrumah C.I.A. functionaries to succeed in Garvey’s life is provided by her that James worked on early drafts cestry. By 1947, Ashwood begins how her great grandmother was and reconcile their political differ- deposing him in 1966. Kwame Bot- own papers that includes her nu- of his original 1938 history of the merous unpublished manuscripts. Haitian revolution called The Black Her unpublished manuscripts are Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture currently in the Lionel Yard Collec- and the San Domingo Revolu- tion which is in the possession of tion in Ashwood’s club, fed by her his family. nourishing meals, as she was also More important however is the known to have been an impeccable anticolonial, Pan-African, anti-Zion- cook. ist lens through which Martin looks Bryant Terry’s 2014 book called at Amy Ashwood Garvey’s life. He Afro-Vegan: Farm Fresh African, is particularly sensitive to the ways Caribbean, and Southern Fla- that, following Garvey’s indepen- vors, Remix includes a recipe for dent commercial success and di- a drink called the “Amy Ashwood” vorce from Amy Ashwood, white, that contains ginger and cayenne. Jewish moneyed interests like Lew This book that James was writing while frequenting Ashwood’s club Leslie employed both Sam Man- is notable for its exclusive lens ning and Amy Ashwood to be part that relates the struggle of the of shows that used blackface and Haitian people against European profited from stereotypical depic- propaganda to the Western pro- tions of black people. Martin writes paganda against efforts at black about how Judge Julian Mack, an self-determination in his own avowed Zionist, sentenced Garvey time. James writes about Toussaint to prison while supporting his rival L’Ouverture’s personal failures in group the N.A.A.C.P. A close look at a manner similar to how Ashwood Amy Ashwood Garvey’s life shows characterized Garvey’s personal that twenty first century scholarly failures, as quoted in Martin. He attention on Garvey is not only had the space to offer a serious woefully late but woefully hypo- study of analyzing the Garvey critical, because it willfully ignores movement in a way that would ul- the latent influence of Marcus and timately improve nationalist move- Amy Ashwood Garvey throughout ments. the twentieth century. Marriage to Marcus Gravey, source: http://alchetron.com/Amy-Ashwood-Garvey-978301-W#-

34 — GC Advocate — Fall no. 1 2016 Fall no. 1 2016 — GC Advocate — 35 debate debate

Donald Trump and the Death Rattle of Liberal Civility Asher Wycoff

Source: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150729145544-03-trump-quotes-super-169.jpg

something apocalyptic. He witnesses the undoing of platform is granted far less importance than the pre- order in United States politics. “This, Mr. Trump,” he sentation of it. Pundits and talk show hosts criticize proclaims, “is why we practice civility.” Trump for his “divisive rhetoric.” A Clinton campaign I am fascinated with Saunders’s insistence on “civil- ad plays an extended montage of Donald Trump say- ity.” He believes firmly, and perhaps correctly, that it is ing inflammatory things before asking the viewers not the content of Trump’s proposals that enraptures what kind of president they want their kids to see. or enrages people, but their presentation. Conversely, Op-ed after op-ed bemoans the Republican Party’s the real problem with Trump is not his racism, xeno- downward trajectory from the Great Communicator to phobia, chauvinism, or his delight in the prospect of a sideshow caller with a bad toupee. Although some uprooting, brutalizing, or killing millions of people. No, center-left commentators pay lip service to the dan- Source: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12185086/clinton-role-models-trump the real problem with Trump is that he relinquishes gers facing Muslims and the undocumented, it is not the stoic dignity of “Goldwater and Reagan” in favor of primarily the lives of marginalized people that are at The 11 July issue of The New ates every rally in characteristically alarming clash between protesters the empty sensationalism of “Fox News and reality TV.” stake; it is the sense of dignity in the electoral arena. Yorker was dominated by a matter-of-fact prose. At each stop and supporters at a Trump rally in Saunders is more concerned, for instance, about the This sense of dignity is important to liberals be- lengthy George Saunders piece on on this journey, he stands in awe San Jose, Saunders summarizes spectacle surrounding the Wall (capital W) than the cause it offers plausible deniability when Democratic the Trump campaign. Saunders fol- of the mutual aggression between the scene in a glib allusion to Yeats: actual proposal of the wall (small w) and its probable politicians do exactly what we’re supposed to be afraid lows Trump from Fountain Hills to Trump supporters and anti-Trump “The center failed the hold.” In the calamitous effects. To emphasize civility, often to the of Republicans doing. It is easier to give a president Tucson to Eau Claire and beyond, protesters. Awe is the appropriate theatrical narrative he constructs exclusion of all else, is de rigueur in liberal election the benefit of the doubt who maintains decorum, who rendering the hostility that perme- word here, for after a particularly for himself, Saunders witnesses commentary. Again and again, the content of Trump’s has the decency to be surreptitious about their less

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defensible actions. This has in- pointment or any residual hope as appointment of Obama, the best unlivable for the working class) bel- to an audience of ostensible pro- to be respectful as she does them. formed the mantra of the Obama a sign of immaturity. Come now, president we can hope for is an lowed, “Donald Trump, you are no gressives, it was a ringing endorse- When one points out that the presidency. Of course Obama think pragmatically! experienced, dignified moderate - Ronald Reagan!” The notion that ment. things Clinton has “gotten done” in couldn’t change everything over- Now with Hillary Clinton, a pres- if that. At the Democratic National the Democratic nominee would be For like Ronald Reagan, Hillary her career include the expansion night, no matter how much he of the carceral state, the destabili- might have wanted to. He’s prac- zation of dozens of Latin American tical. He takes this stuff seriously. and Middle Eastern countries, the He means business. Did he want to evisceration of the welfare system, close Guantanamo? Did he want to and even periodic support for a pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan Trump-style border wall, one gets earlier? Did he want single-payer the stock liberal response. “Sure, healthcare? Of course he did, but Hillary’s done some distasteful his hands were tied! On the other things in the past, but any political hand, did he want to bomb twice career as long as hers is bound to as many countries as Bush did? Did have some blotches! Besides, do he want to deport over two million you really think Trump won’t be undocumented immigrants? Did worse?” he want to continue bank bailouts, Of course Trump would be keep Bernanke as Fed chair, ap- worse than Clinton. But I’m tempt- point Geithner as Treasury Secre- ed at this juncture to side with tary, and so forth? Of course not, the George Saunderses among us but his hands were tied! after all. Maybe the critical differ- More important to the center- ence between the two candidates left than material change is the does lie more in their presentation fantasy of change. In the 2008 than in their platforms. Maybe the campaign, we saw an unprece- problem is not that Trump intends dented effort to raise hopes for a to deport eleven million people, sweeping overhaul of the political wall off the nation, administer re- system, and in subsequent years ligious tests, and the like, but that we saw the stoic abandonment of he announces these intentions, every hope raised. The conven- boldly and without apology. The ci- tional wisdom on Obama went vility for which the center-left feels from “He’ll change everything!” to such nostalgia is an integral com- “He’ll change everything, but he’ll ponent of the United States liberal wait until his second term!” to, fi- project’s ideological legitimating nally, “What, were you really so na- mechanism. This mechanism dis- ïve as to believe that Obama could http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-rhetoric-reality-214233 guises the everyday violence with- change everything?” The same out which the United States proj- field of liberal commentators who idential candidate around whom Convention, a stadium of liberals a better facsimile for Reagan than Clinton is civil, dignified, and prac- ect could not be sustained, and deliberately stoked anticipation of there is precisely zero excitement, cheered wildly as Michael Bloom- the Republican nominee should be tical. As we have been told count- condemns it where it cannot be systemic change overnight steadily cynical pragmatism is the neces- berg (a man whose entire career a damning condemnation of the less times, she knows how to get disguised. As regards the past, this came to treat any note of disap- sary starting position. After the dis- centered on making New York City party’s shift to the right. Instead, things done, and she knows how mechanism takes the form of ret-

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his proposals, but his utter lack of shame in presenting them. Under Obama, mass deportations, border fence expansions, and remote bombings have been carried The Fetish of the Mourning Other out in mortified silence. Trump has grabbed hold of the liberal establishment’s guilty secrets and turned Review of Taryn Simon’s them into rallying cries. And he has done so with as- tonishing success. I believe what we see crystallized in the phenome- An Occupation of Loss non of Donald Trump is the implosion of United States liberalism’s self-criticizing mechanism. The rejection of decorum is a synecdochic representation of a more Sarah Lucie fundamental rejection: that of critical thinking. Trump has no time to second-guess and no time to apologize. He has no time to interrogate the past or the present. Taryn Simon’s most recent work, An He’s a business man. He wants to get us a good deal. Occupation of Loss, is billed as a sculp- He has to act fast. He has to commit. As an unnamed tural installation that comes alive with Trump supporter tells Morning Edition, “He’s a nego- the laments of professional mourners tiator. Of course he takes a hardline position.” The lib- after sundown. In collaboration with eral project’s internal critical mechanism must go out Shohei Shigematsu of the Office for Met- the window. The time is to uncritically embrace excess ropolitan Architecture, Simon has built in all its most dreadful forms. This approach has un- https://lockerdome.com/sonsoflibertymedia/8051496051935252 eleven concrete towers that reach forty- derstandably resonated with a wide swath of frustrat- rospective self-criticism. In an appropriately Kantian eight feet into the Park Avenue Armory’s ed, white, middle-class United States citizens. The new fashion, the United States holds out an ideal of ab- Drill Hall rafters. While this sculpture is normal post-recession has compromised their once- solute human freedom, far beyond anything it could open to the public during the day, the guaranteed future of pleasant domesticity, has intro- concretely achieve. Although it builds itself through real performance begins in the evening, duced doubt where they have only known certainty. one brutality after another, it looks back upon each when the towers’ bases transform into When all that is solid begins to melt into air, who can brutality it completes with scorn, regarding it as an un- individual cells for the eleven groups waste time being polite? Take the firm position. Get a fortunate hurdle that had to be cleared on the path of professional mourners from differ- good deal. to its ultimate goal. Through this teleological outlook, ent religious or cultural traditions. The Liberal civility offers no response to Trump. Trump’s United States liberalism confesses to, and in so doing, performance installation seduces with campaign is a fundamental rejection of it. It is an absolves itself of its own crimes. When similar crimes all the supposed merits of intercultural- open celebration of the systematic expropriation and are committed in the present, they are stifled, silenced ism — a study of how the world mourns violence that forms the material basis of the United but no less noxious, like flatulence at a funeral. that transcends lingual and cultural di- States liberal project, a refusal to cloak it in euphemis- When Trump is condemned as “un-American” for vides to uncover some sort of “univer- tic terms. Trump’s supporters are sick of being civil. his racism, xenophobia, or whatever else, the temp- sal” experience. The affective intensity They are sick of being “politically correct.” They are tation is to point out that Trump’s proposals are not of witnessing the mourners’ laments is sick of exercising restraint when unbridled capitalist without precedent in United States politics. The border undeniable. And yet, the performance excess has screwed them over and, more insultingly, wall is not a novel idea, nor is a policy of mass depor- also falls prey to the pitfalls that any looked so fun in the process. The frustrated petty tation. The proposal of Muslim exclusion has been lik- bourgeoisie is laying claim to the excess that the bour- critic of interculturalism already knows ened, not unfairly, to everything from the Chinese Ex- geoisie has so far kept to itself. And we are nowhere — minority cultures are exoticized and clusion Act to the refusal of Iranians during the Carter near prepared for that dreadful moment when they decontextualized for an artistic vision administration. But perhaps this misses the point. The finally seize it. that leaves us no more connected than remarkable thing about Trump is not the content of we were before. Image courtesy OMA. Image © Naho Kubota

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Upon arrival, the audience was directed to a waiting area around one side of the Armory. This area and side entrance is not commonly used in Armory performances, and while it effectively avoids the lav- ish mansion entrance, it is entirely theatrical in its own site-specific way. The audience then climbed a flight of stairs to enter onto a bal- cony within the Drill Hall, where we encountered the towering spec- tacle. The structure is reminiscent of grain silos or giant organ pipes, eleven gray concrete columns reaching into the air. The cavern- ous space is dark but for subdued white lights within each structure and around the periphery of the towers. From the balcony, the au- dience waited as the procession began, and one by one each tower became a chamber as the mourn- ers moved into their cells. Some walked alone, some in groups, and some with the help of stagehands. With a ceremonial beat of a drum, the audience was ushered down the stairs off the balcony and re- leased into the semicircle of tow- ers. On the night that I attended, we paused, looking at each other with sheepish trepidation. What An Occupation of Loss by Taryn Simon at the Park Avenue Armory do we do now? The group came to a tacit conclusion, and dispersed time. The sheer size of the towers and instrumental sounds is creat- into the cells. Each mourner was is impressive, and when observed ed, as each voice joins with the oth- activated by the approach of an from a distance they feel historic, ers to create something larger than audience member, and one voice even important. When the tow- itself, larger than life. But then, soon multiplied into a symphony. ers are activated by their human each column’s base is like a little The experience was both monu- instruments within, an impossibly hut, and the audience members mental and personal at the same large atonal cacophony of voices within it experience something that

Image courtesy OMA. Image © Naho Kubota

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is more intimate. I first joined two ing fused with the echoes of the final creation. Buddhist monks, Tashi Galay and myriad experiences surrounding I should clarify here that when Phurba Tshering, who had traveled us, and I was made aware of all I approached the first chamber, from New Delhi. They played two that took place outside my little there was no way of knowing who long horns before chanting with a corner. It is perhaps this duality was inside. In fact, the audience large drum, and my body vibrated of the local and the global that is was given no information what- with the proximity and intensity of the piece’s greatest strength. Each soever, and so each mourner had the sound. In some instances like performance of mourning is given to be approached on an aesthetic this one, all other sounds disap- its own equal space and attention, level only as it was impossible to peared and the singular mourning rather than Simon mining aspects know where they were from, what experience took over. But then, I of each for something new. But the ritual tradition they were perform- visited Hanna Koduah, who had separate traditions still combine to ing, or more simply, what their traveled from Accra, Ghana, as she form a new entity, as the individual names were. After a short thirty sat in silence. This quiet mourn- voices add to the complexity of the minutes in the space, a door to

Source: http://oma.eu/projects/taryn-simon-an-occupation-of-loss

the street was opened and the performance is delivered through The political dimension, al- audience received a booklet filled excerpts from supporting docu- though it always already exists, was with this information on their way ments submitted to the U.S. Citi- underscored by this inclusion of out. It felt like too little, too late zenship and Immigration Services. immigration documents. Simon’s for me, as I unsuccessfully tried to It was here that I discovered that performance installation clearly match each performer with their Hanna Koduah was only one of highlighted the simple fact that the mug shot. But this booklet is un- four mourners accepted to the U.S. ways people mourn are different, if deniably part of the performance from Accra. The other three were viscerally moving and superficially itself, as information about each denied with no further informa- relatable. Any illusion of unity, performer is relayed through their tion. Grieving is not so universal, however, disturbingly approaches U.S. Visa applications, while more then, when national borders force a sense of pre-cultural universal- contextual information about their many to mourn alone. ism. It’s easy to feel as if we have Image courtesy OMA. Image © Naho Kubota

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own lives either. Perhaps, rather than actively mourning, these per- formers are perfect examples of affective labor in action. But the question will remain ambiguous as the audience is not empowered to ask such questions, or indeed to interact at all with the mourners. Language barriers might be one obstacle, but there were performa- tive barriers of the artistic space as well, with the audience instructed to remain silent. I was in a cell with the Shiite lamenters as the thirty- minute performance period end- ed. The women stopped, looked at me and the other woman in the space, and said, “Thank you.” It took me a moment to bring myself out of the performance mindset, where the women were off-limits much in common when we spend female Shiite lamenters are at the performers, into the reality of two three minutes together engulfed margins of society, here represent- women sharing an intimate space, by the beats of a drum. But, while ed by Lala Ismayilova and Haji Ra- where I could form my own “thank the ways people mourn are differ- hila Jafarova from Azerbaijan. I was you” in response. The problem is ent, what people are mourning for able to enter their cell as a woman, that the audience was encouraged is different too. It may have been but men could only listen from be- to see each performer as some- a coincidence to open the perfor- yond the entrance. Indeed, we all thing separate from themselves — mance so close to September 11, have much to mourn. At a personal to watch quietly and sample these but as any New Yorker knows, the level, perhaps mourning itself is exemplars of a foreign tradition as date cannot be ignored, and I had universal, but the objects being voyeurs, rather than relate to them encountered a few modes of New mourned are starkly different. at any physical or metaphysical lev- York City’s mourning in the preced- The ambiguity of what exactly el. And so, their status as the exotic ing days. For me, 9/11 images re- was being mourned added to the Other is never questioned. Per- surfaced during the performance, complexities of the installation. In haps An Occupation of Loss would but I can be sure that these im- the absence of a personal impulse have felt more like an honest study ages were my own. After spend- to mourn, witnessing such intensi- of the world’s mourning if mourn- ing some time with the provided ty of emotion felt, at times, uncom- ers not marked as “the Other” to a booklet, I found that the practice of fortable and voyeuristic. But the New York audience were also in- Kantaomming, performed here by authenticity of anyone’s mourning cluded. Priests and rabbis also per- three men from Cambodia, nearly was questionable as these mourn- form professional mourning tasks, disappeared during the cultural ers are professionals. Perhaps they do they not? destruction of the Khmer Rouge themselves are not mourning any- era. I also found that professional one or anything specific to their Source: http://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/occupationloss03.jpg Source: http://afasiaarchzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/OMA-.-Simon-.-An-Occupation-of-Loss-1.jpg

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