|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
One of the ways the past becomes indeterminate is through gradual shifts in what it means to "really be" somethingthe essence of it. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sitting in a tattoo parlor, surrounded by people I do not usually hang out with. Young men in black leather vests and sun-bleached hair. I turn to the waiting room reading material, which in this case is the monthly Thunder Press, a newsletter for motorbike aficionados. The lead article asks the question: "Is It Still a Harley" if you have customized your bike yourself? The Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles makes the definitive call: "Anything that is not totally factory built will make it a reconstructed motorcycle, and it will be called 'assembled' on the title" (69). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A major activity in the Harley social world is customizing features of one's motorcycle, and there are important symbolic and affiliative signs attached to the customizing process. Deleting the name Harley from the registration form is perceived as an insult to the owner, and this insult is stitched together in the article with others that come from the government toward bikers (restricting meeting places, insisting on helmet-wearing, being overly enthusiastic in enforcing traffic violations by bikers). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This is a pure example of the politics of essence, of identity politics. It is echoed in many areas of life, for example, in James Davis' (1991) classic study Who Is Black? where the question of the one-drop rule in the United States, and the rejection of mixed-race people as a legitimate category is an old and a cruel story. The central process here is the distillation of the sine qua non out from the messy and crenellated surroundsthe rejection of marginality in favor of purity. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When this occurs, the suffering of the marginal becomes privatized and distributed, creating the conditions for pluralistic ignorance ("I'm the only one"). Meeting the purity criteria of the essentialized category also becomes bureaucratized and again the onus is shifted to the individual alone. Only when the category is joined with a social movement can the black box of essence be reopened, as for example with the recent uprisings and demonstrations of mixed race Hispanic people toward the U.S. census and its rigid categories. The problem becomes clear if one is both black and Hispanic, a common combination in the Caribbean. Through which master trait will the government perceive you? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Source: Anonymous, "Is It Still a Harley,'' Thunder Press 5:4 (July 1996, 1 and 69). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|