the hopeful struggle: Consciousness, Liberation, and the Global South--(Privilege and) Social difference

I suggest you walk

Into my pain as into the breaking

Waves of an ocean of blood, and either

We will both drown or we will

Climb out together and walk away (Marge Piercy, Intimacy) 

In the first installment I looked at the economic issues structuring not only the lives of Jamaicans, but, by proxy, our own lives as well.  Any analysis of the world and its social phenomena must be framed against the backdrop of capitalism and the logic of capital.   

In the June issue of Monthly Review, Michael Lebowitz, a retired economics professor who has followed the Bolivarian Revolution on Venezuela closely, observes, “The logic of capitalism . . . can never lead to the full development of human beings.  Because the whole goal of capital is profits. . . .To increase profits, capital does everything it can to increase its exploitation of workers by separating them and turning them against each other. . . .It compels people to compete for jobs by working for less.  It uses the state to outlaw or destroy trade unions or shuts down operations and moves to parts of the world where people are poor and trade unions are banned. . . .It is logical for capital to do everything possible to turn workers against each other, including using sexism and racism to divide them. . . .The more precarious the existence of the worker, the greater her dependence on capital” (p. 5). 

What is obvious upon flying into Jamaica and taking a short drive in any direction from the airport is how poor Jamaica is (outside the insulating and artificial walls of resorts, of course.  See “Service learning, social justice and hope in the summer 2004 Rouge Forum news: http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/newspaper for more).   

Of course, what is also quite noticeable is race.  Even though race has no biological reality, its social and political reality is overwhelming as most Jamaicans are noticeably not ‘white’.  Upon interaction, what also becomes obvious is how gender gets used as a tool of separation.  While the social and political construction of race is used even among Jamaicans for stratification purposes (‘whiter’ upper class to ‘browner’ middle class to ‘blacker’ lower classes), gender is most certainly used as a social and political (and artificial) boundary.  Patriarchy abounds as Jamaican women and touring/visiting women from abroad are objectified by males.  Though women often hold offices of prominence (even one year as prime minister, which is further than the US has gone) and are often the breadwinners for their families (as is the case in many of our personal contacts in Jamaica), women clearly hold a subservient role to men.   

These differences divide us at our ultimate peril, as Lebowitz’s take on the logical of capital above outlines.  Imagine if men and women worked together to overcome the artificiality of the gender constraints we accept and with which we fit/limit ourselves.  Imagine brothers and sisters working together outside the political and social construction of race to recognize the common plight of our economic alienation, slavish consumerism, and manufactured competition that enriches few and impoverishes many. 

This type of consciousness requires us to do this work, to constantly dig into our privilege, to challenge our socialization, and to recognize the tools developed to separate us, helping some “get ahead” instead of helping everyone “get together.” 

In this consciousness-raising spirit, then, let us consider a relatively new form of social difference that has been hierarchicalized and is used to separate us: sexual orientation.  I use “relatively new” since heterosexuality was invented/constructed in the late 19^th century.  By default, then, homosexuality was also subsequently invented/constructed for social/political purposes—i.e., to keep us artificially separated.  Such an invention is rational given the logic of capital and its connection to and use of religion to further its own purposes.   

Capitalism needs the constant production of workers, so heterosexual relationships and reproduction are fairly crucial to this endeavor (until more recent scientific breakthroughs, of course—artificial insemination et al).  As well, heterosexual relationships fit well within the hegemony of patriarchal arrangements in which the father (the man) sits at the head of the household (the objectified woman and children).  And, religion, then, is used to render the heterosexual relationship as ‘normal’ and moral and the homosexual one as ‘different’ and bestial. 

Perhaps an interesting discussion could ensue about any of the above points.  To move on, though, I take them as axiomatic in order to turn the lens on our experience in Jamaica and to see how sexual orientation has become one of the latest weapons of separation.   

In past conversations with Jamaicans, we have known sexual orientation to be a hot-button topic.  Narratives of hyper-masculinity and narrow morality overcome any rational discussion about homosexuality.  One would hope that a more nuanced/tolerant discussion might be possible at the governmental or, at the very least, at the academic level.  Unfortunately, neither seems to be the case. (And, one could argue, of course, that this mirror is reflective of our own US culture/discourse at both these levels.) 

Midway through our trip this year, we had a chance to see the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the newly elected member of the JLP, Mr. Bruce Golding, interviewed on Hardtalk by Steven Sackur, a broadcast of the BBC.  Much of the conversation surrounded the issue of violence in Jamaica (a topic I will take up in a later dispatch).  However, late in the interview, Sackur hounded Mr. Golding with a succession of questions about sexual orientation.  Moving from a more pointed question of would you appoint someone whom you knew was gay to a cabinet post to a more benign question of would you like to see this in the future, Mr. Golding responded respectively: “No;” “I do not think that is necessarily the direction in which I want my country to go.” 

Perhaps more remarkable and even more disconcerting was the follow up commentary in the Sunday edition of The Gleaner, Jamaica’s leading newspaper.  One, a sociologist at the University of the West Indies, Dr. Orville Taylor, writing under the title, “Closet maybe, cabinet no!” noted, “He [Prime Minister Golding] couldn’t have said anything else.  Indeed, why should he?”  Postulating that there are too many “lies, half-truths, and incomplete information” that frames the gay/anti-gay debate, Dr. Taylor seems to engage in some of his own inflammatory half-truth-/lie-telling.  First, he hints at a connection of homosexuality and paedophilia [sic]—an inflammatory comment at best.  Next, he prioritizes the conflicts facing the country in order to diminish the comparatively limited violence wrought upon homosexuals (indeed, not connecting the conflicts/violence in any critical way as I think a sociologist should).  And, finally, he unequivocally states, “You cannot protect that which does not yet exist.  No freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation exists in the UNs Charter of Rights.”  So, is he indicating that we have no duty to protect anyone not explicitly mentioned in the UN Charter of Rights?  This is not a sociology with which I am familiar. 

The other, a “veteran journalist,” Mr. Ian Boyne, reporting under the heading, “Golding and the Gays” essentially develops a manifesto of anti-gay logic for heterosexists.  Writing from the opinion that “Golding had no option to insist that he would not bend over to accommodate the gay agenda” (my emphasis added), Boyne excused the ill treatment of homosexuals since, “[at least] we don’t execute them by law, as in Iran!”  Free at last.  Developing his manifesto, Boyne further urges anti-gay proponents to use the following ‘rational’ arguments to fend off this activist lobbying group whom he deems despicable due to their “willingness to use economic sanctions and political clout to force compliance to their obnoxious views.”  Apparently, Mr. Boyne is not familiar with the kinds of politics used against gays and lesbians.  So, two main points structure his argument: 

• Use democratic theory.  Since a majority of Jamaicans oppose homosexuality, “no such Cabinet [which would appoint homosexuals] would command the respect of and authority to govern the Jamaican masses.”  This is democratic theory? 
• Use moral authority.  Boyne urges, “Remember that, philosophically, gays are on treacherous ground when it comes to ethics.  Christians hold to what philosophers call Divine Command Ethics.”  (Jesus must be rolling his eyes.)  Further driving home this argument, Boyne observes, “Secularists have no means of objectively determining morality outside of culture and custom.  There is no ethics from above, or ‘out there’ (say many); nor does any elite have the right to determine for the masses what is right and wrong.”

Setting aside, for a moment, the fact that Jesus never gave us any direction on heterosexuality (since it was invented/constructed 1900 years after those writing about him] or homosexuality, I am deeply troubled by Boyne’s analysis and what I find to be his fear-/hate-inciting rhetoric.  Using his analysis, then, slavery should have never ended in the US (or anywhere, including Jamaica).  A democratic majority certainly favored slavery (as slaves and women and poor people couldn’t vote). And, the Bible (written and updated by non-slaves, non-women, and non-poor people) was interpreted in such a way that rendered slavery OK.  Enslaved Africans, then, held no democratic sway, nor no moral authority.   

That an editor would allow such nonsense to be printed is unconscionable.  However, unfortunately, I fear it represents the commonsense (if wholly ignorant) thinking of most of us. Evil is not only the despicable acts committed against ‘minority’ populations.  Evil is our willing ignorance to believe mythical stories of democracy and morality that substantiates such violence and renders it rational. To disconnect ourselves from the evil visited upon the oppressed/marginalized/disenfranchised is to help load the gun and pull the trigger.  Silence is, indeed, our most deadly weapon. 

In my last dispatch I took some shots at understanding a pragmatic solidarity both against the backdrop of a “permanent cultural revolution”—producing new ways to be human—and also built upon a critical consciousness for which we understand the subjectivity with which we insert ourselves into the world.  Here consciousness, toward a new way to be human and for which we might more solidaristically join the oppressed is primary: How do those of us faced with a minority position in any of these social arrangements (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) see ourselves as hooks urges as both oppressed and oppressor?  Can our understanding in the oppressed/objectified position help us better see those times when we act with a dehumanizing subjectivity as oppressor (e.g. poor man who uses his whiteness to his advantage.  Gay man who uses his privileged class position.  Latino who castigates homosexuals as immoral. Etc.)? What about those privileged by nearly every social advantage?  What is our role?   How can we shed the albatross of oppressor? 

How can we all speak our consciousness in such a way that our self-change becomes a lens through which others might change?   

How can we wrestle with our own socialization (a long term process) toward becoming more human while simultaneously ending dehumanizing trends that demand immediate attention (and which may result in imperfect and, perhaps dehumanizing action, of our own, like violence]? 

Referencing the work of postcolonial and cultural studies scholars who attempt to shed light on the taboo areas of our culture, Denise Levertov, a poet, asks, “Where is the angel for me to wrestle?” What are the areas of social difference, resulting in social injustice, for which “history mouths / volume turned off?”  “Where is the angel to . . . wound . . . my throat / so curses and blessings flow storming out?” 

It seems crucial as we deal with our own consciousness (the only one we can really deal with) that our next step is learning to speak it.  Speaking it may take many forms; words being only one of them.  Crazy enough, we have the privilege (those of us probably reading this), even if faced with some oppression in our lives, to decide whether or not we will even take up this challenge or to continue to live where, again quoting Levertov, there is “no driving snow in the glass bubble.” 

Our decision will have an intimate impact on others.  Marge Piercy notes, “I suggest you cook me / or sew me back up.”  We are no longer able to disconnect ourselves from evil in the world. We live it.  We do it (through inaction, through silence, etc.).  We are it. Our socialization in the Global North demands it.  Thankfully, we have a decision, though.  It begins with a new way of looking at ourselves and the world.  It continues by connecting the dots that have so cleverly been kept just out of view.  It further evolves by coming to voice.  And, it never finishes because it is process—a process that we must learn to translate into the various spheres within which we live. 

This is the process that will allow us to “climb out and walk away together.”