Unlearning White Superiority Consciousness-raising on an online Rastafari Reasoning Forum CHRISTIAN STOKKE Thesis submitted for the Cand.polit. degree Department of Social Anthropology University of Oslo April 2005 Emancipate yourself from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds Bob Marley Abstract This thesis is based on participant observation on a Rastafari discussion forum on the internet, run by a Trinidadian organization dedicated to personal empowerment and spiritual development, as well as to collective Black liberation and social justice. Black experiences and analysis of racism, as well as personal and political strategies to resist it, are central topics of discussion. The forum is primarily oriented towards Diaspora Blacks, but there are also a number of white Rastas who tend to downplay the significance of white racism and Black resistance. The ensuing interracial dialogues on racism are the main focus of my thesis. Most whites define racism as prejudice and discrimination, and suggest good intentions and “colorblindness” as a solution, while Blacks define it in terms of group dominance, structural inequality and cultural hegemony. Black Rastas point out that whites tend to show dominating behavior in the discussions, and see this as a reflection of a “white superiority complex.” Black Rastas consistently confront whites and hold them responsible for their conduct, although it is usually unintended and unconscious. Through this confrontation, many whites become aware of their taken-for-granted ‘white privilege’ and start “unlearning white superiority.” Rastafari resists the hegemonic ideology in two ways. It resists cultural imperialism by rejecting the imposition of a Eurocentric definition of reality on Blacks. Eurocentric knowledge claims are delegitimized when they fail to meet the criteria of an alternative Rasta epistemology where knowledge must be experience-based and morally engaged. Allegedly universal and objective knowledge claims are exposed as a reflection of the experiences and interests of privileged whites. Rastafari also rejects the competitive logic of capitalism and imperialism, which justifies that the stronger defeats the weaker. Instead, Rastafari promotes a spiritually informed ethics of peace and love, combined with uncompromising integrity in the face of opposition. As a Black liberation movement, Rastafari represents the struggle of one of the most oppressed groups, the descendents of African slaves in the Americas, fighting for their human dignity. In our common struggle for social justice, we may have some things to learn from the insights of the most oppressed, as our global community is no better than how it treats its lowest class. Acknowledgements Although I alone am responsible for this thesis, it is also the result of a collective effort, and I would like to thank those whose ideas have inspired me as well as those who have supported me throughout the writing process. I would like to thank my family, friends and co-students (you know who you are) for having endured my countless discussions. I am grateful to Halvard Vike for support and good advice, and especially for helping me translate my oftentimes polemical arguments into anthropological analysis. The people at the Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum will be credited for their statements throughout the thesis. The images on the front page I have borrowed from the Africa Speaks website at www.africaspeaks.com. In solidarity with those fighting against oppression, I hope this thesis may be a contribution, however small, to the global struggle for social justice and human dignity. Christian Stokke April 2005 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Epistemology and Eurocentrism 7 Alternative epistemologies 9 Intersecting oppressions 10 Hegemony and resistance 12 Towards a decolonized anthropology 16 The critical study of racism 19 Structure of thesis 21 Chapter 2: The Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum 24 My fieldwork on the Reasoning Forum 24 The Africa Speaks Community 26 Administrators and moderators 27 Other participants 29 The digital divide 31 Purpose and focus of the discussion forum 33 Privacy policy on the forum 34 Chapter 3: The Symbolic Dimension of Rastafari 37 Dread Talk 38 I-words 40 Deconstructed words 42 Symbolic concepts beyond language 42 Symbolic resistance 46 Beyond symbolism 49 Chapter 4: Reasoning on the Internet 52 Reasoning and consciousness-raising 52 The internet and the real world 56 Critical discourse analysis 59 Trust 62 Negotiating a credible identity 64 Personal experience and integrity 66 Revealing “hidden” racism 68 Chapter 5: White Supremacy 71 Racism and colorism in the Americas 72 Structural racism 74 Eurocentrism – projecting white as normal 76 Colorism – light-skin preference and privilege 80 Chapter 6: The Black Liberation Movement 82 Black social movements 82 Black Nationalism and ‘white Rastas’ 84 The colorblind ideology 86 The essentialist debate 87 Race or integrity? 88 The personal dimension 90 Connecting political ideology and personal behavior 92 Leadership and autonomy of struggle 96 A role for whites in the Black liberation struggle 99 Chapter 7: The White Superiority Complex 101 Forms of everyday racism 101 Ignorance and denial of racism 103 Claiming “reverse” racism 105 Claiming oppression 108 Entitlement and arrogance 109 Paternalism 111 Unconscious racism and consciousness-raising 114 Chapter 8: Character Development 117 Tracey’s development 118 Iyah360’s development 121 Out of Zion’s development 122 Stages in the development of white antiracists 124 Chapter 9: Conclusions 131 Racism and anti-Semitism 133 Society produces evil 134 Resisting socialization 136 Personal integrity and social justice 137 Unlearning White Superiority 138 Bibliography 143 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Rastafarianism is one of the most complex and insightful reactions to colonialism and the oppression of Blacks. Kwame Dawes (2003: ix) Rastafari … offers a philosophy and a critical social theory of the present local and world order, which appear more relevant and persuasive to many than … Marxism or Liberalism. Dennis Forsythe (1999: x) In the modern age, Europe has sought and largely achieved imperial domination over the world. The material development of modern Europe depended on the military conquest, economic exploitation and enslavement of Africa and its people. (Rodney 1972) This was accompanied by the cultural construction of a modern European identity in opposition to supposedly inferior racial and cultural others, especially Africans. Imperialism, racism and slavery were thus integral to the formation of Western modernity. (Gilroy 1993) Eurocentric conceptions of ‘civilization’, ‘progress’, ‘development’ and ‘humanism’ served to reinforce a sense of superiority among Europeans, but have also produced feelings of inferiority among non-white people to the extent that Europe has succeeded in imposing these ideas on its dominated others. On the other hand, the attempted universalization of Eurocentric modernity has always been met with various forms of resistance. The forced dislocation from Africa and subsequent suffering under capitalist racial slavery in the Americas places Diaspora Blacks among the colonized peoples who have had to endure the greatest assaults on their cultural traditions. Black slaves and their descendents in the Americas may have been the first group to become thoroughly ‘modernized’, and were faced with typical ‘postmodern’ problems of identity, arising out of their physical displacement and cultural alienation, earlier than many Europeans. (ibid.) This historical background has produced some interesting forms of resistance in the African Diaspora. Although usually invoking African 1 traditions, Black resistance may be better characterized as ‘postmodern’ rather than pre-modern or traditional. While the social forms of African culture were largely destroyed by slavery, a range of cultural features from West African traditions survived slavery (Herskovits 1941), and some of the strongest African survivals are in the realm of religion. African slaves and their descendents were able to preserve many of their ancestral spiritual practices while outwardly converting to Christianity. Both European and African traditions were reinterpreted and transformed in the light of slave experience. Religion thus has a special significance in the Black Diaspora as a platform from which to mobilize resistance against European cultural imperialism. (Edmonds 2003) A significant surviving feature of African culture is the reluctance to separate religion from politics and everyday life. Socio-political struggle against racial oppression thus converged with religion. (Hall 1985) Out of this historical context emerges the Rastafari movement (Edmonds 2003), the subject of the current thesis. From the 1950s onwards, anthropologists and sociologists have been struggling to come to terms with this movement, approaching it from a range of different theoretical perspectives, often producing great controversy over the ‘correct’ interpretation and significance of the movement. E.B. Edmonds (ibid.) identifies five distinct approaches to the study of Rastafari. The early studies conducted by George Eaton Simpson, Leonard Barrett and Orlando Patterson in the 1950s and 1960s, interpreted Rastafari as a millenarian cult, and presented the movement as escapist rather than revolutionary. According to Edmonds (ibid.), these scholars tended to view opposition to the status quo as pathological. The famous 1960