[reposting] Where does race come from and where is it taking us?

In order to really understand the idea of “race” as a literary construct would require that we understand first the historical context of its conception and the different usages that it has obtained throughout history. Henry Louis Gates Jr. attempts to break down the differences of the term and the various usages of the idea as well. He says that "western writers in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and English have tried to mystify these rhetorical figures of race, to make them natural, absolute, essential. In doing so, they have inscribed these differences as fixed and finite categories which they merely report or draw upon for authority" (Gates 6). He goes on to explain a bit about how the creation and usage and perpetuation of this idea of "race" only really serve to alienate people from one another. This huge dichotomy is especially drawn between people of less fortune as seen in historical and contemporary examples. Gates explains that "takes little reflection, however, to recognize that these pseudoscientific categories are themselves figures. Who has seen a black or red person, a white, yellow, or brown? These terms are arbitrary constructs, not reports of reality” (Gates 6).

[reposting] Race Manifested in Society

In Sue Hum’s essay, Between the Eyes: The Racialized Gaze as Design, she opens her essay with a quote form Gunther Kress that not only provides a smooth entry into her theory of Design, but nicely summarizes it as well. Kress said that individuals “shape their interests through the design of messages with the resources available to them in specific situations (191).” In other words, people’s interests are unconsciously generated from images and messages that are created with available resources and their invisible dominant perceptual practices. However, Hum argues that a person’s dominant perceptual practices, as well as their cultural perceptual practices, may “influence and even limit the rhetorical purposes of images seeking to initiate social transformation (193).” Thus, why she advocates that the English studies needs “a theory of Design that better acknowledges the dominant perceptual habits that function to both constrain acts of choice-making and restrict the repertoire of available resources (192).”

[reposting] racialized gaze as reality

All three of these theorists have ideas that are grounded similarly yet take off in different directions. Cooper and Gates’s arguments seem to run most parallel out of the three. Cooper shows some strong-toned rhetoric at the beginning of her work, where you can almost see her anger bleed into her thesis. Gates, too, goes on a long-winded (but insightful and very necessary) elaboration on how racism is a “fiction” (4) and a “dangerous trope” (5). She spends several pages roasting racism to the point where any conceivable marginalization of anyone sounds not only under-evolved but completely dumb. Cooper would greatly add onto Gates’s argument in the way that Cooper claims that black people have not truly had a chance to contribute to humanity because they’ve been oppressed (383). Hum makes an interesting point as she elaborates on her term of racialized gaze as design. Racialized gaze is a perceptual habit, meaning a habitual way of looking at something. Racialized gaze as Design argues that design has been influenced because of these perceptual habits. She claims that racialized gaze as design makes it harder for artists to express what they mean to (193) because the audience’s perceptual habit keeps them from fully empathizing with the artist. My issue with this claim is that if the audience is so affected by racialized gaze, then the artist should too be heavily affected by it. Further elaborating on these ideas, the only African American influence we currently have is one that has been shaped by racialized gaze, regardless of whether or not this gaze is held by the audience or the artist. 

How Racialized Gaze Shapes Our Perception

It is often said that “race is a social construct” and Hum and Gates both support this argument by showing how throughout history the voices of black authors have been altered. In “Between the Eyes: The Racialized Gaze as Design,” Hum draws attention to the fact that individuals make strategic choices in the design of their rhetoric based on a culture’s dominant perceptual practices. She writes that “when we speak of "the white race" or "the black race," "the Jewish race" or "the Aryan race," we speak in biological misnomers and, more generally, in metaphors.” (Hum 4) We, as individuals, rely on our racialized gaze as an available resource of design. Sometimes we use these resources subconsciously without even realizing it.

Most simply, Race and Design intersect at the corner of creation and perception. Hum crafted an article to discuss the ethical considerations we must make as content creators with regards to race.  Hum writes that designers must, “attend to  how  perceptual  habits,  such  as  the  racialized  gaze,  are  interwoven  with  their production of persuasive ensembles.” (Hum 192) More simply, as creators, we have a moral obligation to keep a very watchful eye on the perception of our audience. Some might argue that this suggests the power of the audience, as this indicates their ability to guide and direct the creativity of the content producer.

Inadvertent Alienation

Throughout history, there has been racial prejudice within literature. These depictions, in text and image, influenced thought and belief in Western culture continually. The alienation of different races severely affected how each culture was perceived within history.

 Each illustration, description, reference and stereotype shown to the public created or maintained a racial format, per say, for others to follow. Sometimes furthering these ideas were not even meant to be prejudice. Gates described how literature has altered the term "race" into something more than just appearance between  people. He claimed that "the relation between "racial character" and these sort of characteristics has been inscribed through tropes of race, lending the sanction of God, biology, or the natural order to even presumably unbiased descriptions of cultural tendencies and differences" (5). This suggested belief that their differences are completely naturally made, and not the work of years and years or stereotypes made by others furthers racism and the ignorance to itself in literature.

The Harmful Implications of Racialized Gaze

When addressing the existence of race in literature, we encompass what seems to be an extremely large portion of American literature. This is largely due to the existence of a racialized gaze amongst both the audience and the author of a text. No matter the intent of a writer or a piece of literature, the inclusion of race brings forth implicit assumptions about that race from the audience. Sue Hum addresses this process as “racialized gaze as design”, as these messages about race are created through the simple inclusion of other races. In other words, “no one approaches images with an innocent eye” (Hum 193).

Chicken vs The Egg/Design vs The Image

Both Hum and Gates reflect notions of postcolonial literary criticism in their respective essays. While Gates is heavily critical of antiquated ideas surrounding the colonial literature and how it pertains to the broad concept of race, Hum holds the indoctrinating process of Design to task due to its ability to self-perpetuate negative stereotypes, specifically in regards to race. Both of these theorists subscribe to postcolonialism as both their theories advocate for a certain change in the discourse. Hum argues that, if assessed properly, Design can “promote a socially tolerant and racially inclusive future” (Hum 208). Gates even reflects Hum’s notion of Design when he states that “the languages we employ to define [our] supposed differences not only reinforce each other but tend to create and maintain each other” (Gates 15). This is ostensibly an alternative articulation of Hum’s theory that “perceptual habits,” a term also used by Gates in his essay, “increase choice making processes” and establish somewhat of a cultural hegemony (Hum 193). Since both these theorists reflect several of the same themes, as well as place a lot of authority on perception and how it influences aspects of Design and development, I wish to bring them into conversation with one another in order to come to a conclusion as to whether the images we see influence, or design as Hum would put it, the way we interact and perceive the world or if the way we view the world based off of Design influences how we interpret images.

The "Dominant" Design: Why We Must Dismantle Universality

Critical Race Theory in the 21st century has many intersections and distinct voices that contribute to a nuanced conversation. Importantly, there is no single "dominant" leader who speaks for every experience. Thus, for congruence with this nuanced conversation, it seems most logical to highlight unique view points such as Sue Hum’s Between the Eyes: The Racialized Gaze as Design and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Writing “Race” and the Difference it Makes. From there one may synthesize how Hum and Gates as individuals together can offer very valuable experiences and knowledge sets to expand rhetorical theory and ideas of (re)presentation.

Race Writes History

Or at least, in this case, how modern society views the historical context that surround certain significant events in the past. Whether it was purposeful or not, history was written with a racial bias; this is especially relevant here in America, where we have a long past of shameful racial prejudices throughout the development of our nation. Ever since the Colonial days when white Western-Europeans came to already-inhabited America and claimed this land their own, it has become evident that these white European's fancied themselves as the dominant race. One of the most prime examples is the continued celebration of Christopher Columbus day; it is a holiday celebrating the exploratory spirit and the navigator, who while looking for a direct route to Asia from Europe, "discovered" the American continent. This is a very biased way of learning about the events that transpired; it is often vaguely described how there were already a native people in this land, and there had been for thousands of years. But the day that a white man accidentally landed upon its shores, it was "discovered", which has a positive connotation associated with it. It is common for educational systems in America to teach about the historical time period this way, but fail to see the events that transpired in the Native American context. Christopher Columbus and his men took advantage of the welcoming Natives, ravaged them of their resources, stripped them of their lands, and essentially began the genocide of the Native American population. So why only teach about one viewpoint? Because the white race, which has established itself as the dominant one within the racially constructed hegemonic American society, has been responsible for the "white-washing" of recorded history.

False Assumptions

   While reading Sue Hum’s “Behind the Eyes,” and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “Writing Race and the Difference it makes,” I noticed that Gates address the history and reality of racial issues, and Hum discusses how and why race has come to influence society.  By putting these two authors and their works in conversation, we can unpack race and its constructs within literature and design.

           

Racialized Gaze As Old As Race: Understanding Author's Racialized Gaze

Hum and Gates expose the unspoken issues within hegemonic culture, where society is built from certain cultural thoughts and expectations from a dominating cultural group that undermines and excludes other groups to terrible extremes. Hum focuses on an artist from the dominant group in our hegemonic society who has taken the task upon himself to re-present what Gates calls "the Other (be that odd metaphorical negation of the European defined as African, Arabic, Chinese, Latin American, Yiddish, or female)"(2), in Hum's case study, Chinese immigrants. Gates also discusses the author from the dominant group who attempts to re-present "the Other" by creating "pseudoscientific categories"(6). "Western culture's use of writing as a commodity to confine and delimit a culture of color" is exactly how these categories are contrived or, at least, supported (6). Since "reason was privileged, or valorized, above all other human characteristics" and "writing...was taken to be the visible sign of reason", "blacks were 'reasonable,' and hence 'men,' if -- and only if -- they demonstrated mastery of 'the arts and science'" through writing (8). And, unfortunately, "blacks and other people of color could not write" (9). Gates focuses on "the Other" as an author/artist representing their self.

Foundational Racism

“We invent what we see” Hum (191.)

It is my belief that none of us are born with pre-conceived notions, we all are sponges, absorbing whatever is taught to us and said to us from the moment we are born, and the way we are raised is so vital, as it shapes who we become the rest of our lives. This is all too true when pertaining to race, as such a big part of racism is the way people are brought up, and how some are taught from an early age that certain races are inferior at certain tasks, superior at others, etc. This stereotyping has been a problem in this country forever, and despite making steps it is still a major issue today. The key aspect about racism in America that people easily forget is how recent the civil rights movement was, and how our parents and grandparents were alive when many blacks were still being forced to use separate water fountains, or when the Chinese were viewed as aliens, or how the National Guard had to be called in to let a black girl attend a high school.

The Stereotype of All Stereotypes

Established ideas and frames of mind direct every other aspect of one’s life whether he or she is fully cognoscente of it. Some of the effects on those aspects are more explicitly influenced by details of the subconscious than others, but are nonetheless present factors. Cultures make it a point to acknowledge differences based on physical attributes and qualities, using them to construct ideas and form assumptions as means of categorizing people. Society and exposure are mainly responsible for these perceptions and understandings of how the world works and how people are; things heavily associated with other things frame these expectations that people have for things or people categorized in a certain way (going beyond race). A specific case that demonstrates the concept is the influence of racial gaze and perception of “design”.

An Accurate History Through the Racialized Gaze

The last book my 6th grade English class read was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We began our unit on the book with short lecture from our teacher. “I know I am strict about no foul language in this classroom” she began, “but in understanding this book, we are going to encounter some”. She explained to us a bit about the book and its context. She explained that there are words in this book, racial slurs, that we should never repeat to another person. “But” she explained, “to pretend that these words were not used as they were at this time in our history would be an insult to all those who endured it”.

How Race Can Alter History

Made up depictions of race throughout history have developed and staged how we view certain races. In regards to how people shape their views by the content that is available to them, "...shape their interests through the design of messages with resources available to them in specific situations" (Hum 191). The process of design is one in which everything about the design is made up in part by the designer based off certain characteristics that negatively depict a race. Hum uses "radicalized gaze" (Hum 192) in order to describe how these images aimed focus on a  negative aspect of the race, "by directing our attention to how designers may unwittingly sustain practices of racialization and perpetuate racially based sociocultural exclusions" (Hum 192).

Both speak on the problem of people of color adopting a white perspective

Hum introduces her idea of Design to talk about the racialized gaze. Her term, Design is related to both the noun and the verb. Design as verb “spotlights the processes of stregic choice making involved in deploying representational resources, such as images and words, to enact our communicative purposes” (Hum 191). Design as a noun: “focuses on the existing resources from which those representations are crafted” (Hum 191).

Access of Sight

On page 191, Hum wrote, “We invent what we see.” In the 1880s during The Yellow Peril, Thomas Nast, a self-proclaimed progressive and American cartoonist, documented the “progressive” ideologies at the time. However, his stereotypical portrayals of foreigners and minorities did anything but spread a progressive message. In Mitchell’s article, we look at Jacob Rii’s How The Other Half Lives and examine how the process of the photographs taken during nighttime police raids perpetuate a violent dynamic between a photographer and his subject/powerless victim. Hum breaks down design as a process that roots from existing resources, and in photo-journalism, photographers often go to dangerous extents in order to expose a certain “truth”. However, the intentions of cartoonists and photographers and the constructs of both industries are based on the obsession of making vulnerable moments, peoples, or situations, into subjects of their narrative.

Race and Design

Hum introduces the idea of design to us as both a noun and verb. As a verb, design can be understood as the “process of strategic choice making involved in deploying representational resources (images and words) to enact our communicative purposes, while, as a noun, design is defined as the “existing resources from which those representations are crafted.” Design, as Hum argues, provides a theoretical framework for visual rhetoric by directing our attention to how designers and authors may sustain practices of racialization and perpetuate racially based sociocultural exclusions, referred to as the habit of racialized gaze. This gaze as design functions as both the choice-making process of design and the available recourses used. This framework of race-related visual phenomena offers first, the methodological possibility, with design promoting a conscious awareness of the recursive relationship between rhetorical purpose and perceptual habits, while visual representations shape even as they are shaped by our ideologies on race relations. Theoretical possibility focuses on how both processes and resources are already sedimented with perceptual habits that may run counter to designer’s professional goals. The pedagogical concept requires that designers cultivate an overt awareness of the diverse culturally dominant perceptual habits that influence design. Combining these ideas, we can analyze the ways in which design takes into account the ways in which a culture’s own perceptual habits influence or limit the rhetorical purpose of images seeking to initiate social transformation.

Oppression in Literature

Gates uses a similar methodology as Hum to describe the roll race and history play in literature. For Gates, early literary theory was concerned with historical perspectives in literature. Literature was interpreted according to the period in which and the people by whom it was written. Race was crucial in literary criticism. It was considered to be the origins of man, the truths, ideas and ideals held by the author as part of the race. These were expressed implicitly and explicitly in their work. For gates, many of his ideas stem from his belief in the meaninglessness of race as a biological classification. We as a society treat race like a scientific classification. That classification leads us to further isolate ourselves from one another by attributing characteristics and biases to that race. To clarify lets dissect a concept called “talking white”. This is a concept that Gates addresses in another one of his works. “Talking white” is the idea that ones ability to speak properly and intelligently is attributed to their relative “whiteness”. Similar to the story about Phillis Wheatley, it’s as if other races must “prove” their whiteness in order to be considered intellectually equal. But under this racialized white gaze like the one described in Hum’s work, African Americans will never be able to create their own personal perception of themselves or the work they create because of the feeling of “otherness” that this gaze and racial classification causes. We associate characteristics concerning intelligence with the attributes of certain races. Gates would likely take issue with that sentence alone simply for its acknowledgment of specific races having specific attributes, an idea that contradicts his argument.

Adjusting Our Gaze

Throughout her essay Hum calls on readers to identify the relationship between design and race, specifically the racialized gaze. First she provides readers with clear definitions for both terms, identifying design as a “processes of strategic choice making involved in deploying representational resources” (191), and the racialized gaze as “a dominant cultural habit for perceiving race related phenomena” (192).  When looking at the relationship between the two Hun asks readers to recognize how designers may sustain racialization and stereotyping and perpetuate racial exclusions. She also goes on  to explain how this racialized gaze is often ingrained in design decisions, oftentimes without deliberate intent.

Race Unites People In a Toxic and Misleading Way

While it is common to think of race as a dividing force between people of different skin colors, religious affiliations, and social situations, the concept of race can also be a cohesive force but in an ultimately negative way. Race seems to imply that the greatest divide between people is their skin color even though, like mentioned by Gates, has no biological backing. The components of the racial divide suggest that people within particular races resemble each other to the greatest degrees of comparison which is disgustingly inaccurate. A white man can resemble a black man in humor, style, taste, and so on just as equally as two people of the same race. Because we have comprised a concept of race, race has now become a prominent literary component, in a way that really is not necessary if this sort of divide had never been created.

Racial Perception Throughout History

Although Hum and Gates elaborate on different focal points in their argument, “Between the Eyes: The Racialized Gaze as Design” and “Writing Race and the Difference it Makes” both make strong accusations that racial perception ultimately influences our interpretation of art and literature throughout history. Hum begins this argument by elaborating on the complexities of racial perspective and breaking down racialized gaze as Design. “No one approaches images with an innocent eye. Designers’ perceptual habits, such as the racialized gaze, influence their choice-making processes, including choosing, sequencing, and combining resources.” (Hum 2) Hum is essentially arguing that one’s racial perspective may be shaped by historical changes in representation. The projections of those representations are what constitutes racialized gaze as Design. Hum views racialized gaze not only as a perceptual habit, but also as a dominant cultural habit for perceiving race-related visual phenomena.

Painting the Portrait of African Americans

In her article "Between the Eyes: Racialized Gaze as Design," Sue Hum writes, "we invent what we see" (Hum 191). The assigned readings by Sue Hum, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Anna Julia Cooper contain a common idea: that for African Americans who have been dehumanized and stereotyped, who "internalize the white racial gaze," and who have been silenced in literature and art, it is nearly impossible to invent without limitation or to create without first responding to traditions of abuse and mockery (Hum 194).

Contemporary Poetry and Racial Gaze

These three readings actually tie together well with something else I've been studying as of late. That being poets of the 20th century of whom are either first or second generation immigrants. In Gates' essay he talks about how the white man discouraged and didn't believe in the writings of a black man/woman. In the 1700's Gates shows us that many theorists were throwing the idea of blacks writing out the window, never letting their work even surface. This caused black writers to learn and speak/write the way of the white man in order to even be remotely heard. How does this relate to poets in the 20th century?

Race and Gender

     While reading these three articles by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Anna Julia Cooper, and Sue Hum, I couldn't help but notice the relation of race to the current understandings of gender. There is the idea that history repeats itself, and that is why we must study history to understand the world around us; but with these articles I kept coming back to the notions of gender specificity taking the place of race in these articles. I am by no way saying that the notions of race that are being addressed in these articles have been solved and it is time for a new ideological set to come to the forefront of society, but rather I present the notion of how gender terminology is now moving into the spotlight in society, as ideas of race become more known.
   

Race as a Construct

A panel from American born Chinese, a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. The character pictured is 

aimed to represent the stereotypes used to label and alienate people of Asian descent.

Understanding the idea of "race" as a construct requires that one understands the historical context of its conception and usage. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. tells us in Writing "Race" and the Difference It Makes, “Western writers in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and English have tried to mystify these rhetorical figures of race, to make them natural, absolute, essential. In doing so, they have inscribed these differences as fixed and finite categories which they merely report or draw upon for authority” (Gates 6). Gates tells us that the creation, usage, and perpetuation of the idea of "race" only serves to alienate people from one another - particularly those who are less privileged in historical and contemporary environments.“It takes little reflection, however, to recognize that these pseudoscientific categories are themselves figures. Who has seen a black or red person, a white, yellow, or brown? These terms are arbitrary constructs, not reports of reality” (Gates 6).