As we as a society move further into the future, as we develop further, all factions and sub-groups are coming to the consciousness of self-development and actualization. To that end sexuality, or more precisely it’s labeling for the individual is coming not simply under examination but a form of transformation. The terms bi, gay, heterosexual, lesbian, even homosexual, are derived from Westernized concepts of pseudo-scientific demarcation as well as historical controls that don’t serve the people of the African Diaspora fully in the 21st century. First let me same that when I speak of the “African Diaspora”
I’m including men and women whose ancestors came from Africa to Central and South (Latin) America in the African Diaspora. The division that skin color based racism has created is a delusional discordant separation between the people (progeny) of the African Diaspora. Bluntly, people who obviously ain’t Anglo Saxon “White” disavow being in any part Black or African. Such a dissonance is racism at work. To think of yourself, your origins in Africa as not a part of the Diaspora is to align with the slave based mentality. Truthfully to do so as a Latino person may’ve historically meant survival, the ability to prosper and less abuses, degradation and enslavement rules years ago (in places like Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.) but just as there is the connection for Mexicans and Caribbean folk to the nearly eradicated Taino people, there is the connection to the vibrant African spiritual and physical heritage that exists on all the continents in its people.
I often have to make this racialized overview in my work with men of color, Black and Latino, here in America because racism aligned into hegemony is so pervasive that many people do not know what they are. Nor appreciate the value of knowing so. Or even worse they have assumed the racial, cultural and spiritual segregation rules of the enslaver. While this might seem far afield of the point of sexuality, it is not as you’ll see in part s to come.
But what then of “mixed” brothers and sisters who, even like myself, can trace and perhaps even have been cared for and loved by White family members. Are they being asked to eschew those people, those memories, and those ancestors in favor of only African, Native/indigenous ones?
Never.
Instead I offer to you to expand your context of not only yourself but what you can racially and culturally contain, be and love.
What I am suggesting is that by being a person integrating or wholly of color means that your ontology can be greater, broader than an overly simplistic European one. People of color, whether African, Native or Asiatic in origin are not White/European people and don’t contain simply a European/American framework for understanding themselves, the Universe around them or even sexuality. It’s always easiest to instead define what I mean by “framework” in a racialized context first:
Ontology is one’s understanding of the nature of reality.
White history is largely deterministic, reductionist, rational, and objective in its historical and continuous ways of rationalizing what is real. White people believe that the world can be the world can be understood (and controlled) through the application of science and hypothesis testing. Therefore time is linear, with the past and future workings pushing them (and others) to reify progress as superior. To assume that technology is advancement as a whole and not simply tool. Logic and facts then become synonymous with the truth. Knowledge and reality are assumed to be generalize-able and universal. If it can be tested, examined, it can be named and by naming and labeling it, it is what the speaker, the labelerdetermines it to be. Such a perception in no way allows for the context nor the individual to determine in a particular way it’s own meaning.
Epistemology is the system of knowing what is known or knowable.
White systems of knowing include individualism, competition, positivism, constant rationality, adherence to logic and objectivity; all powerful and discerning science and constant dualism (right/wrong, good/bad. Approved/disapproved). Pan African activist, author and organizer Marimba Ani boils the European epistemological mode down to this: “Rob the universe of its richness, deny the significance of the symbolic, simply phenomena until it becomes mere object, and you have a knowable quantity. Here begins and ends the European epistemological mode.”
Such an epistemological frame in no way allows for community, grouping, teams, unification, irrationality, innovation, creativity if those forms don’t adhere to the rules of a dominant culture epistemology. In many ways you see this throughout history where in the Western world there have been hundreds of years of only incremental progress in terms of thought, beingness, science, technology because there has been such a rigid adherence to “certain ways of knowing and therefore doing things.”
Methodology asks how the information is gathered for creating knowledge.
The scientific process where hypothesis testing for quantitative results by objective researchers is expected. This is considered a reliable norm for finding answers and then it is allowed to contribute to what is judged as valid knowledge. The search for immutable laws; application of cause and effect, affect to effect, to form an understanding that can then be generalized to larger populations has long been bedrock for White methodology. Though predicated on religious thoughts and teachings, it comes into conflict with itself when trying to “explain” the miracles of its own spiritual beliefs. In many ways the greatest irony of White methodology is that its own methodology both points at and then ridicules its own community beliefs.
In many areas of White culture (particularly in translation to social norms, such as social class differences between those in poverty, middle class and upper class) there is an emphasis on direct verbal and written communication, content, and task over process and relationship, timely adherence to agendas versus spontaneity, considerable discomfort with non-rational ways of knowing, such as through our bodies, the spiritual or artistic expression. To not adhere to these points or ways of being is considered bestial, lower than or irrational so that reality becomes a place dictated by rules that are agreed upon not by observation but by ruling council.
Axiology is the ethics and values of a people.
It is where people create themselves, where they see themselves in relationship to God, Nature, the Universe, the fabric of reality around them. We use this to answer life’s mysteries and s[peculate and then create ephemeral possibilities. But when supported by the above frameworks, a society’s, a person’s, internal to external perception is instead supportive not expanding of the White frameworks described before. We then experience and see a damaging form of education when we consider reality only through an Aristotelian value based system, where knowledge itself is the only intrinsically worthwhile endeavor. The way this manifests now is in the modern propensity to educate the intellect in damaging disassociation from feeling, imagination and action. Aristotle, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Descartes and Darwin were useful to loosen White people from other White people with more dogmatic religious and feudal based societal thinking. However compartmentalization has become a way in which White people see themselves and prioritize their lives and experiences and maintain their grip on reality along such a continuum. Appreciation, veneration, communication with one’s ancestors and connection to the natural world are two indigenous values that get less attention in White culture, with destructive outcomes for people and the environment.
All of the above is why people of color are not always in “step” with White people. We view reality intrinsically differently. It doesn’t mean that with concerted effort we can’t learn to understand the other’s ways of thinking but people of color have had more demands upon themselves to learn White people for basic survival than White people ever had the other way around. If we push this framework even further we can replace ‘White” with heterosexual. If one is not heterosexual, one is not considered right or good or part of nature by certain scientific and religious frameworks. The reason why such bias and discrimination can occur is because bias and discrimination are at the heart of White ontology. It’s not a huge leap to transfer that from race to sexuality.
But the actions and potential blame doesn’t fall to simply White people. We too must take responsibility and concerted action to see ourselves, to self-perceive and create ourselves in a healthier cultural alignment. We do this by understanding the stages of cultural and racial self perception. And as those of us color must do so must individuals who aren’t of color must move through stages of identity formation in order to clearly see and be able to navigate themselves and this world healthily.
Helms Model
6 Stages, J.E. Helms (1990), Black and White Racial Identity: Theory Practice
Frankenberg Model
(White Framework Movements)
Stage 1-Content Stage
People of Color are exoticized, White are oblivious to their own racism; nor see themselves as White
Phase 1
Essentialism Racism
Biological difference is basis of racism---usually what Whites really mean when they say “I’m not racist.”
Stage 2-Disintegration
Notice racism, distance themselves from Black and Latino people out of guilt/shame from White privilege.
Phase 2
Color Blindness
Common discourse, seeing race at all is prejudiced; and being able to designate/nullify color is a position/privilege of a “White self”
Stage 3-Reintegration
Whites believe there is an element of truth to racial stereotypes and avoid associating with them or treat them badly/act violently.
Phase 3
Power Erosion
See race, recognize racial difference but do not acknowledge the power of difference between Whites and People of Color---but are pointedly careful to avoid discussions of unequal power relationships; focuses on internal thought
Stage 4-Pseudo-Independent
Whites begin to understand that they aren’t superior but might still perpetuate the belief through actions.
Phase 4
Race Cognizance
(Transforming Silence Into Language and Action)-able to use the term my racism; political activism seen as way to deal with racism; focus becomes more collective
Stage 5-Immersion/Repellent
Whites start coming to terms with what it means to be White; join White consciousness groups, talk to other Whites about racism.
Stage 6-Autonomy Stage
People have a positive definition of Whiteness and understand Whites perpetuate racism, but they seek ways to eradicate racism on personal and societal levels.
As we grow, we change and expand, as all life does and must.
Ashe.
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
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