On reparations

Are reparations hard to do? Yes and no, although I tend to think no. Small reparations, but with a mentality for more, include affirmative action, which is in fact NOT a bad thing. Leslie, 4+: What are you doing? Why are you covered with papers when it is not exam week? Aged One, 30+: I … More On reparations

Hélpide dulce

In Greek hope, the hope that was the last entity in Pandora’s box, is elpis, ἐλπίς — from which Vallejo, as Franco reminds us, derived the name Hélpide, of an invented deity. Now, elpis, it seems, means hope or also foreboding, despair: it is an expectation of good or ill. And the kingdom of God … More Hélpide dulce

Jorge Klor, “evoke-and-elide,” and the colonial difference

I had a footnote using Jorge Klor de Alva . . . something smart from, I think, 1995 . . . and I am going to have to resurrect this in a next paper. What is the “colonial difference” (Mignolo)? In theory I know, but there is more to know about it. Is evoke-and-elide the … More Jorge Klor, “evoke-and-elide,” and the colonial difference

Not footnoted.

This paragraph: Whether “border” identities are necessarily radical ones is another pertinent question here. Though Anzaldúa’s book is based on the notion of radicalizing experience, it does not address the failure of experience to provide radical consciousness. For example, when Anzaldúa asserts a type of natural bond between the gay and the mestiza, she denies the existence … More Not footnoted.

More juicy footnotes — being excised, this is too complicated and has to be for another paper

These questions–raised by Medina, on whether you really can just take from a culture what you want and leave the rest, and by me [following others], on the distance between giving voice to the subaltern subject [that may be you, although the subaltern cannot speak] and creating a new, liberated subject–lead back to issues of … More More juicy footnotes — being excised, this is too complicated and has to be for another paper

Excised from footnotes

Every footnote could become part of a new paper, and perhaps should. I cut from one footnote: Scholars like Peter Wade note that mestizaje as ideology has worked as a uniting force in some communities, but Bolivia is now a plurinational state and Ecuador’s most recent constitution gives indigenous peoples their own cultural rights. There … More Excised from footnotes

Joshua Lund

Look at this person’s bibliography: race and the state, and hybridity, and now Herzog. Admiration and envy are my feelings on this — I wanted to be in a position to spend time on these things myself. Perhaps I can now. Axé.

Spain, race as a global construct, and lagniappe

Race is about politics. The concept of race was invented in Spain in the 14th century. Originally this was about religion (the Jews) but then it became about social and political power — the idea being not to share power with the conversos. So otherness then became about genealogy, not current religious difference, and Jewishness … More Spain, race as a global construct, and lagniappe