Comments on: Slips of the Tongue and Things to Chew http://www.theobamanation.com/2008/04/16/slips-of-the-tongue-and-things-to-chew/ Mulatto Moments in "Post Racial" America. Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:29:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Margit http://www.theobamanation.com/2008/04/16/slips-of-the-tongue-and-things-to-chew/comment-page-1/#comment-24 Margit Fri, 09 May 2008 05:16:28 +0000 http://www.theobamanation.com/wpblog/?p=70#comment-24 So this was an interesting "slip" of the tongue I heard from one of my students today. Working with teenagers in and around Los Angeles, you encounter lots of declarations of identity. Sometimes it is in direct opposition to the group, sometimes it is an attempt to be included by a certain group, sometimes its a slip. The director we were working with did an excercise with the kids called train track. Everyone stands on the train track and as the train comes down the track you must decide which side of the track you will jump off to...each side of the track is something that you believe or identify with or is true about you. For example, I believe in God on one side /I don't believe in God on the other side. So after getting the hang of it, the choice was I'm Black/I'm White. So there was a lot of confusion. First of all there really weren't any students that were obviously black or white. Well, being both, I got stuck on the train tracks. Not such a big surprise...but many other students were stuck as well, they didn't identify with either. Some were latino/a, some were Persian/Middle Eastern, one student was white but she wasn't sure what part of her background made her white because she was half Italian, one of the instructors is African but he refused to choose and said that he was human. Here is the intriguing part for me: one girl asked, "do you mean what really are or how we act?" this was said by the girl who said she was Persian. So does that mean that blackness and whiteness are no longer attached to the epidermal reality? Well, that has always been true to a certain extent But what does that imply for a claim of a post racial america? i thought, well these kids don't identify with any of the categories that America has used to carve out its identity. Our engagement with otherness is racially based and constructed as a performance. What we really are or how we act? What defines us? Not so directly related but that is my riff on slips of the tongue. So this was an interesting “slip” of the tongue I heard from one of my students today. Working with teenagers in and around Los Angeles, you encounter lots of declarations of identity. Sometimes it is in direct opposition to the group, sometimes it is an attempt to be included by a certain group, sometimes its a slip. The director we were working with did an excercise with the kids called train track. Everyone stands on the train track and as the train comes down the track you must decide which side of the track you will jump off to…each side of the track is something that you believe or identify with or is true about you. For example, I believe in God on one side /I don’t believe in God on the other side. So after getting the hang of it, the choice was I’m Black/I’m White. So there was a lot of confusion. First of all there really weren’t any students that were obviously black or white. Well, being both, I got stuck on the train tracks. Not such a big surprise…but many other students were stuck as well, they didn’t identify with either. Some were latino/a, some were Persian/Middle Eastern, one student was white but she wasn’t sure what part of her background made her white because she was half Italian, one of the instructors is African but he refused to choose and said that he was human. Here is the intriguing part for me: one girl asked, “do you mean what really are or how we act?” this was said by the girl who said she was Persian.

So does that mean that blackness and whiteness are no longer attached to the epidermal reality? Well, that has always been true to a certain extent But what does that imply for a claim of a post racial america? i thought, well these kids don’t identify with any of the categories that America has used to carve out its identity. Our engagement with otherness is racially based and constructed as a performance. What we really are or how we act? What defines us?

Not so directly related but that is my riff on slips of the tongue.

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