Now that the Black Student Alliance Invitational (BSAI) weekend is over, the black student body here at Duke can put away their costumes and stop the performance of unity and hospitality. Every year, Duke and BSA collaborate to orchestrate a performance of blackness in order to entice prospective students into believing that our campus is a nurturing environment for black students. BSA plans a fun-filled weekend that masks the reality of our condition here at Duke. Once the prospective students have left, we go back to our separate clusters, only to unite the following year to once more perform this illusion of community.
BSAI weekend in 2001 was one of the most memorable because of The Chronicle's decision to publish David Horowitz's ad against reparations the preceding week. Black students actively protested against the Chronicle's decision to publish the ad and the administration's support of the Chronicle. Fearful of how the demonstrations would reflect on the image of the institution, however, Duke requested that students refrain from protesting during the weekend's events. Duke presents a "controlled image" of the black student population by censoring the undesirable images of student protests (against the Horowitz ad) and masking the disunity that exists within the "black community."
Organizing events such as BSAI that attract black people to visible places on campus while prospective students look on creates an illusion that there is a substantial black presence on this campus. In truth, black bodies are attracted to these rehearsals of black unity precisely because such unity is lacking. For one weekend, black students have the opportunity to perform "real blackness," with all its implications of struggle, hyper-masculinity, homophobia, and lack of privilege. BSAI is thus not only a performance for the administration, but also a performance for ourselves. We want to believe that "cultural events" such as step shows, fashion shows, and "man-tanning" around are the only authentic reflections of blackness. As black students, we must acknowledge that we are performing these notions of blackness.
But first, let us explain the current constructions of blackness that we are allowed to embrace: the negative and culturally affirmative. The negative: "driving while black," "the angry black woman" and "the menacing black male" are forms of blackness that are imposed upon the performers: black objects. This is a blackness minus black agency, which causes black people to withdraw into a protective cocoon. This protective cocoon can be seen as the second form of blackness: an affirmative performance of cultural blackness that is a reactionary apolitical withdrawal from the societal imposition of the negative first form. The culturally affirmative form of blackness, in other words, does not address the causes of the negative. Instead, it weatherproofs the black self against the racism of the negative form by safeguarding from and avoiding inflammatory issues.
If affirmative blackness is politicized, it is a politics that is limited to the boundaries of the status quo, i.e. the model minority. We say this to challenge black students to deconstruct and re-imagine their blackness, which has been politically neutralized in our society.
To begin we must first realize that we are part of the black elite.
Although we dare not say it, we up-and-coming black doctors and lawyers represent the future of the black bourgeoisie, a distinction that is not much different from our white counterparts. As we ascribe to attain positions of higher status, black students are not being critical of our positions and still hold on to the rhetoric of oppression and discrimination. This directly relates to black people's sense of entitlement to reparations that includes not only a monetary benefit, but also the privilege garnered by ascribing to these notions of cohesive struggle. Many of the black students at Duke are first generation Americans whose parents migrated from Africa and the Caribbean, and have not inherited the same burden as African American descendants of slaves. A lot of us represent model minorities--a status that is used as a weapon against the masses of African Americans descended from slaves who may never be able to enter circles of privilege such as Duke. In this sense, many of the black students here at Duke claim a black experience without having clearly defined what it is and how it applies to them. Please do not be misled, we recognize that black people still suffer under institutions of oppression.
However, racism is changing and, unlike the black masses, black students at Duke are in a position of privilege and more realistically becoming part of the problem as we ascend the class ranks. Among us are the future Colin Powells and Condoleezza Rices of our generation.
Once we insert politics into this idea of uniformed blackness, the myth of unity crumbles. Instead of creating an identity politics based on the construction of an identity or role that was created for us to perform, we should create a political identity for ourselves. Gloria Anzaldua explains that it is not enough to stand in opposition to whiteness, for we become locked in a "duel of oppressor and oppressed" in which all "reaction is limited by and dependent on, what it is reacting against," the oppressor. We must create a political identity, whereby we "act and not react" to claim control over the production of our own subjectivity. The Black Power movement offers us examples of this self-creation as seen in the revolutionary declaration that black is Beautiful. It is now our responsibility to produce new subjectivities that speak to our current moment. Can blackness become resistance? Can blackness become womanist? Can blackness become gay or lesbian? Can blackness become powerful? As Anzaldua says, "the possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react."
This article was primarily written by Trinity senior Ekua Annan and Trinity sophomore Zachari Curtis, with some additions from Chronicle columnist Yousuf Al-Bulushi.
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