Dear friends,
I'm following the discussion of preferences for and/or implications of
the choice of a sociocultural or sociohistorical frame of reference with
great interest. I hope, Mike, that you do assemble the readings you
mention. I am also struck by how this discussion is also hovering
around issues of diversity and oppression. These references bring me
back to the exchanges on internalized oppression as well.
I am admittedly a "beginner mind" when it comes to activity theory and
so would like to put something on the table that I hope feels relevant
to this conversation (if not I'm sure this message will, appropriately,
slip by, "trailing clouds of glory" ;-)) and that also might inspire
some thoughtful and theoretical insights from members of this list,
advancing my own understandings of these issues in the context of
activity theory.
I have been trying to think about racism in the context of activity
theory. The "ism" part, with all of its cultural baggage of
intentionality and "conspiracy theories" throws me off a bit. So
perhaps I should be focusing on the activity/ies of racial domination.
I should be clear that I am speaking of skin color when I reference
"race," and the privileges and oppression associated with what Enid Lee
has called "the hierarchy of shade and color."
It seems to me that there are actions and operations that may certainly
be understood as contributing to the activity of racial domination (best
term?). In terms of "white privilege" a motive might be what George
Lipsitz calls "the possessive investment in whiteness," all of the
political, social, economic, institutional and day-to-day reinforcements
designed to maintain the wealth and power associated with whiteness.
In this view, as in many views about dismantling racism there is little
need to discern "intentionality" there is just the need to understand
that it is counterintuitive and simply unlikely that people who benefit
from certain privileges will work earnestly to dismantle those (to
paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr.).
I am struck by this difference then between "intention" and "motive." I
take "motive" here to mean perhaps in this instance to be engaged in
activity where the goal is the preservation of my privilege - which I am
likely to associate simply with the goal to achieve and maintain "the
good life" for me and mine. I certainly do not need to have a
commensurate intention to do wrong by someone else in the process
(though admittedly I'd have to maintain a key lack of critical awareness
to doubt that is the case).
Does this seem like an appropriate activity framework to pursue in
thinking about racism? What are some alternate ways to conceive of
this? And does my separation of "intention" and "motive" seem
reasonable or helpful? I think that racism (which of course should not
be strictly separated from classism, gender inequity, etc.) begs us to
view both historical patterns and the artifacts, actions and operations
(the "culture"?) that perpetuates those.
Or am I off in the wrong direction?
In Peace,
Kevin Rocap
Director, Program & Development
Center for Language Minority Education and Research, CSULB
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