Musical Identity

Answer only in song titles by a musician:

Are you male or female: "I'm Every Woman" (Chaka Khan)

How old are you: "Age ain't Nothin But a Number" (Aaliyah, RIP)

Describe yourself: "Final Hour" (Lauryn Hill)

How do some people feel about you: "By Your Side" (Sade)

How do you feel about yourself: "Fear not for Man" (Fela Kuti & Mos Def)

Describe your views on significant others: "Possibly Maybe" (Bjork)

Describe what you want: "Mo Money Mo Problems" (Notorious B.I.G, RIP)

How do you see the future: "Beautiful Struggle" (Talib Kweli)

Describe how you love: "Ex-Factor" (Lauryn Hill)

Share a few words of wisdom: "Umi Says" (Mos Def)

Describe the state of world politics: "Ain't Saying Nothing New" (The Roots)
(American Politics?: "The Rape of the World" (Tracy Chapman) )

Want to ask a question? I''ll respond will a song title to all of the two people who check my blog.
(Wish I could do this for essays: i.e. How has rationality changed in Western philosophy, what problems of 'objectivity' have brought about this change: "Nothing even Matters" (Lauryn Hill)

love in the negative

Love in the Negative

As though we live underground
where the scents do not rise but simmer below
many visions exist, still nothing to show
for this underground life we lead

like it means to love when you deny yourself comfort
like it means truth when you choose not to speak
like it means good when you turn your gaze
love in the negative.

Did Mother Theresa Hate?

Okay, its 1:36am. Thinking about yesterday's phone call...

There is a French Proverb that says: "To understand all is to forgive all..."

Not to say I understand everything but my impulse is to rationalize.
But why can't I hate? I just really want to be angry and feel it deep deep inside. The type of anger that is pure ignorance. Where you meet eyes and turn the other way. Where you get a phone call, say 'hello', and then hang up. Where you block the name on MSN. Where you avoid any memories creeping back by doing other things. I am jealous of girls who do this.

But I don't feel it at all.

I want to meet eyes and see the truth. When I pick up the phone I want to listen silently for an explanation and communicate more. I smile with some memories and feel hurt with others.

Maybe there is something wrong here? Isn't the correct response to betrayal, anger? But I just can't feel it. I want to help and be there and show that everything I said and promised was real not contingent on the way things will turn out. But when you do this people mistake integrity with stupidity. So now I have to fake anger and indifference just to get some respect. Takes a lot of energy to play these games. Energy that could be spent on loving.

This is a twisted world, or maybe its a good world with twisted people. Either way, there is some twisting involved - twist or be twisted.

random

Been absent from the blog for a little while.

It is hard to build momentum back up after not writing for a bit. Kinda like working out. You do a great job consistently until that week or two off that throws you off kilter. I am back on track for both of these things. Blogged and worked out today. Hope to be more diligent in both.

So what's new? Had a friend stay with me for a week which explains my absence. But she's not just a friend she's a sister. The kind you fight with every 5 mins then forget about it and laugh for the next 20 mins. Boy can we fight. I think we are both very headstrong and proud. But we are both kind and giving. (talk about tooting one's own horn...)

Otherwise this week has left me rather uninspired. I am busy working on a lot of essays. I am stressed out. Feeling like my skin is not doing well. Bought some organic food on Wed. of last week which is now completely done! So expensive yet so scarce. The price of health here in Canada is ridiculous. It is easier financially to be unhealthy. Nutritional anthropologists actually back up this assumption. I once wrote an essay for some guy (a friend's roomate) on the Fast Food industry in the Western world and how it is demographically organized in my 3rd year of university. (I wasn't in the class but I had to do research and he ended up with an 83%.) I learned among other things how the wealth of Westerners is defined by their resistance to food (avoiding excess) as opposed to the Third World where people are "healthy and rich" according to their access to and consumption of food.

So fast food industry caters to the poor while organic food industry caters to the rich. How ironic.

Anyway...I've figured that eating expensive granola is not the only way to eat healthy. You can eat tons of fruit with fibre such as apples which is less expensive overall. I think that drinking 2L of water/day is a great concept but it makes you go pee like mad. My pee looks like water and I keep interuppting people while they talk to go to the toilet. Ah well good way to end conversation anyway.

You know, one of my best friends used to always say that I was the best at ending conversations. We would bump into people at the mall and she'd say wow, we all wanted to leave but you eventually did it. You did the ugly deed, ending the useless babble of acquaintances.

I think this is the reason why I'll eventually rule the world.

ode to neruda & gibran

two of my favourite poets growing up were pablo neruda and kahlil gibran; they still are, although I have less time to browse through my leisure books now. But I went back to my old friends pablo and kahlil today, before the clock strikes 12 and we say good night to st. valentine. Found a few jewels, doggy-eared pages in the books...

XVII

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other
way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you.
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
------------------------------------------------------------
The Prophet (1923)

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. '
And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

[...]

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully [...]
-----------------------------------

Here I end what turned out to be a Valentine's Day special...much love to all!

men

Just talked to a friend for an hour about some relationship issue she's having...
One thing I've learned is that women tend to think that men have all the answers in a relationship. We generally don't see how vulnerable they also are. So we think they know what direction things are heading, as if they have a master plan, when usually we're just taking each other for a rollercoaster ride.

love without borders

Mexican-U.S. lovers exchange Valentine's day greetings, it's beautiful, love without borders...

Made me think of parts of a book by Chicana feminist writer
Gloria Anzaldua (RIP): Borderlands/La Frontera.

La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness (Anzaldua)
Una lucha de fronteras/A Struggle of Borders

Because I, a mestiza*,
continually walk out of one culture
and into another,
because I am in all cultures at the same time,
alma entre dos mundos, tres, cuatro,
me zumba la cabeza con lo contradictorio.
Estoy norteada por todas las voces que me hablan
simultaneamente.

As Anzaldua writes:

"The ambivalence from the clash of voices results in mental and emotional states of perplexity. Internal strife results in insecurity and indecisiveness. The mestiza's dual or multiple personality is plagued with psychic restlessness. In a constant state of mental nepantilism, an Aztec word meaning torn between ways, la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another. Being tricultural, monolingual, bilingual or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed: which collectivity does the daughter of a dark-skinned mother listen to?

"Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and their value systems, la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders, an inner war." (McCann & Seung-Kyung Kim Eds., Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, p. 179.)

I wish I could copy the whole essay here. In the rest of the essay Anzaldua talks about how people who live in-between places, i.e. an African in Australia, a South Asian in Norway, must come to tolerate ambiguity and perplexity and, in a word, contradiction.

*Mestiza is a woman of mixed-race ancestry, especially European and Native American. "Mestiza like corn, is a product of crossbreeding, designed for preservation under a variety of conditions. Like an ear of corn- a female seed-bearing organ - the mestiza is tenacious, tightly wrapped in the husks of her culture. " (Anzaldua, 182)

Too little too late.

Guess who calls twice, a week later.
Too little too late.
Of course you miss me.

On a happier note, I'm going to see Mpenzi: Black Women's Film Festival tonight, actually in about an hour. Should be exciting can't wait to see the films. There are some great features on actually. Will keep you updated.

Peace in the East, Helenism.

No matter...

No matter how attractive you might be, your picture should not scare people.

Don't mean to crack on people (especially religious people for some reason) but doesn't the Bible also say 'thou shall not be vain'? I forgave myself for having my pictures on my blog when I saw Amy Kathryn's...

Found this great poem on Mental Acrobatics' blog it pretty much sums up my life philosophy. Balance- or critical 'middle of the way'. I really like this peice as a philosophy student too (by the way, why is it the male students in my M.A. program already call themselves philosophers but the women still refer to themselves as students? It is something I've noticed & it says a lot about the genders: ownership vs. subordination to subject matter.) because of these three lines:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

It is my emphasis to add the "wo" to "Man" at the end of the poem. We ladies live just as virtuously than you men.


IF - by Rudyard Kipling


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting;
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating;
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings- nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a (wo)Man, my son!

For the love of Hip Hop

How I fell in love with Hip Hop 


So I got this from the Dragon Ash website. It was one of their albums. Got me to start thinking...how did I fall in love with Hip Hop.

I grew up in a pretty white city so it was only when I came to visit my older male cousin in Jane and Finch, Toronto that I was introduced to the raw stuff: NWA, Ice Cube, Ice Tea. I was a trendsetter at Hampton Heights middle school. I'd come back with bandannas in my back pocket rockin' the latest t-shirt. Remember those 2Gether 4Ever T-shirts with black cartoon people on them? Yeah, those were the 'lick' as we used to say. But I remember that all the white guys who were the 'gangstas' started to rock the bandannas in their back pocket after me: Matt Doyle, Ryan Fisher, Steven Miller, Andrew Perron. Ha! I still remember their names. And they started calling themselves "The Crew". Tehehe. This is when I got into Pac. I loved 2Pac: 'Keep your Head Up' and 'Blacker the Berry'. But before 2Pac it was Das FX, Pharcyde, Souls of Mischief (I loved A+), Lost Boys, Bone Thugs N' Harmony, (I found out their inspiration...Bone Thugs were inspired by Freestyle Fellowship in the 80s, underground Cali sound) Aceyalone. I know I am missing people? Oh of course! MC Lyte, Queen Latifah (U.N.I.T.Y.: who you callin a bitch?)

But my love for hiphop had a precursor: R&B, Reggae. There was Salt n' Pepa, Jade "Don't walk away boy", SWV: "I get so weak in the knees I can hardly speak I lose all control and something takes over me..."
Xcape: remember that song that Asmeret (our male cousin's sister) taught us how to sing Senait? Me and my sister sucked at it...she had the best voice in the world.

"Play me some music, Pour me some wine. Cause I'm in the mood now, got love on my mind. And I want you know that I like it reaal slow so whenever you're ready, you can slide off my clothes and touch my body annnyway. I'm yours tonight make it right, baby I'll take you there."
Chorus: "Take your time and work it slowly (Slowly, Slowly) Cause I'm the kinda girl, you're the kinda guy that can last (Last, Last) Don't need no man around if you're comin down too fast. Gotta work it sloowly."

I love how we used to sing all these songs about love, sex, etc. and we knew nothing about either. We were like 10 or 11. Man...who do young black girls have to listen to these days? I can't even imagine. Just Destiny's Child. Who else? Running a blank here...help me out people...

And we used to play this game with her by saying one word and she'd connect it to some song. Like we'd say, "mirror". And she'd sing Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson. Or "control" and she'd be like "Tease me, Tease me, Tease me till I lose control" by Maxi Priest. Whew! Those were the dayz man. And she was so good she never skipped a beat.

Ok I'm off-track. So I got into Wu-Tang like hardcore in grade 9. I had a t-shirt and visor with the WU symbol on it. All the older guys in my high school really like it and I sold it to Kevin Marcellin for $15 which he paid in $5 installments over the period of 4 months. Of course I kept the visor which was my favourite part until he paid me the whole balance. :) We used to always meet in front of the cafeteria. Boy, I got so much attention for that get-up and I got it from Jane & Finch Mall which is so shifty cause there were always men with really full vans tryna sell you stuff, (at least one of them never left the driver's seat...)

But all throughout high school I loved Biggie on the low but pretended I didn't care too much for him in public cause I wanted to seem different. Never really like Puff Daddy/Mase. I actually like Puff better now than I used to cause I respect him as an entrepeneur. Then I liked Jay Z and also pretended with him too. But I still loved 2Pac & there was NO pretense there. Whew, I wanted to marry 2Pac and my mom used to threaten to throw out all my posters if I didn't clean my room/do dishes/take out garbage, whatever.

Some other albums: The Roots "Do you Want More?"/Illadelph Halflife/Things Fall Apart (WICKED!!! Damn I miss that album gotta listen to it...I went to the concert and saw Jill Scott for the first time. I got the T-Shirt: "Who is Jill Scott?" and this girl Lucrecia stole it from me...well I let her borrow and she never gave it back!!) Bahamadia, Common (Retrospect for Life & 1999 with Sadat X...love the first line "Yo I'm strugglin for freedom"!)

But my love for hip hop reached its pinnacle with the grandest, dopest MCs:
Talib Kweli & Mos Def: Blackstarr! I'm so excited just thinkin of it. Every song on that album was dope and I just played it out.
Lauryn Hill came out with the dopest in 1999: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill . Track 3 "Zion" and Track 7 "Forget title" But the song goes like this:

"I write this like a thesis, well-written topic broken down into peices. I introduce then produce words so profuse it's abuse..." She is just...ah, **speechless**

Okay gotta do laundry now, To be Continued...

Senait & Guru from Gangstarr

Senait & Guru from Gangstarr in Leeds, UK 

Negative Freedom

The "Negative" in Negative Freedom can serve as description. It qualifies the truth, that said 'Freedom' is negative for many.

February 14th

This February 14th I am gonna be a Valentine's Day Hater.
I hate you Valentine's Day! Poo on U!!! :~Þ

Hehehe...I am acting like those Japanese girls who blog crazy ish like:

Love is grand love is sweet, if you don't love me I will die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, lalalalalalalalala, I love you Jukyimoto, lalalalalalalala.

Knomsayn? If you don't get what I mean just check out some blogs click "Next" and these will come up every other blog. Guarantee it.

Africa as home

I miss Eritrea - the smell of the air, the women cloaked in white, the simultaneous sound of the Mosque and Orthodox church in Asmara. I can't wait to go back next year. I plan to go when I finish my Master's.

But I never know if I am missing home (my mom/dad/brother/sister) or missing Africa. I find it interesting how these are one and the same in my head. I miss Eritrea because my aunts, cousins, uncles, grandmother, all extended family is there but it is not technically 'home'. I was not raised there is what I mean. But when I miss home it is everything I miss - immediate family here but also extended family there.

I miss the white sand in Keren. The older women roasting coffee bossing around the youngest child to go get some sugar. I miss the small shops that sell Arabic and Italian sweets with American pop music playing and the handsome teenage boys with shining eyes and smiles singing along with their accents. I miss seeing the slightly ripped posters of Michael Jackson and Tupac slipping off the warm, moist walls.

I miss going to Edaga, the market, to buy the brightly coloured scarves with unique prints, to choose the right meter and the style of dress. I miss bargaining for prices and going as low as you can go. I miss them trying to rip me off cause they think I'm a rich tourist. Having a sharp tongue with the owner, I miss hearing him laugh with surprise that such a young girl from abroad has good command of the language and is not afraid to use it. I miss catching his wink as we leave the store...

I miss going home and struggling with the door to the complex, my grandmother asking if I want tea. Coffee? Milk? My cousins asking if I need help to wash my hair, clothes, shoes. Always asking, always someone considering your need even when you have no need. All you want to do is sit on a rock and look up at the black sky uninterrupted by florescent street lights. Just a dark sky with a half-hidden moon and huge, luminous, stars. No need except to smell the fresh air unpolluted by the smog of urbanism. No need except to smile at the neighbour walking by and say 'B'ruk Mishet'- Good night.

A funny blog

Roomate Problem?

Chillin in the U.K

Senait and Julia in Leeds. 

Funky Fanalicious

Funky Fanalicious  


Okay so I found this site on Kashata's blog. It is so hilarious. You go there to Pimpify your name. Try it: P-I-M-P-I-F-Y.

I just made up "Funky Fanalicious" but it is so hilarious to try. I just do it over and over....talk about procrastination.

Senait the Pantherette.

Senait the Pantherette. 

Senait the Pantherette on the real. This sista is straight out revolutionary...she changes her clothes like what! The shoes, forget about it. And accessories? Guerilla warfare through and through. Got it from her big sis ;)...

hehehe...I'm dead.

Can't Sleep

I can't sleep.

I have been in bed since 1:00am. It is now 3:00am.
I turned my computer back on to figure out exactly what it is I need to do because usually I can't sleep if there is something I've forgotten to do and I can't remember or if there is something pending that I realize I need to get out of the way before I can relax. I don't usually forget things that I need to do, although at times I might just ignore them...so this can't be the reason.

I am blogging now hoping that I'll remember soon. So what can I talk about?

I miss my sister man. I wish she was here so we could just chill, talk, laugh.
(About why I can't sleep...don't know yet.)

I miss Lem too. She should be coming tomorrow so I'll talk to her then. Her birthday is coming up on the 15th. Kesha's on the 13th. Sarah's on the 26th. Lots of Aquarians.

I always find it interesting how otherwise smart and 'scientifically-oriented' people know thier horoscopes. Even for the average Kwame, why should he know his horoscope. It's funny. I asked my friend Raka awhile ago what his horoscope was and he said "Aquarius", "Fish". I am just laughing at this cause everyone knows Aquarius are the scales. But it's like a peice of North American/European cultural knowledge that's known by everyone, believed or not. I'm a Virgo but cusp Libra. Critical, Balanced, Perfectionist, Loyal, Committed, Analytical (but I don't know what they mean by analytical: as in linear or probing? Perhaps both. Haha...just realized I did it now so it probably means probing...wow, I'm putting a lot of trust in this.)

I like being a Virgo.
(Circumstance-rationalization! Too late to be anything else that's for sure.)

Okay I am tired but I know if I go back to bed I won't sleep for another hour. It is just one of those nights. Wow I miss that song by Monica "Just one of dem days...that a girl goes through".

Eyes burning. Yawning. I'm out.

"untitled"

I know a lot of things bug me, but I don't hold grudges and I let it go after a second so it's ok. But I am a little anal so it reaallllly bugs me when people say:

"don't know nothing" (double negative) or

"if you had doubts that I wasn't the one" (again, double negative used incorrectly in Destiny's Child song "Is She the Reason" on the new album. It's a great song, but it BUGS me when Kelly sings this part because she is trying to say, "why didn't you let me know that you had doubts about me being the one" but she is really saying "why didn't you let me know that you did not have doubts about me at all" in which, case there is no problem because he was sure she was the one.)
or "ain't" or "I seen her" (ugh! I have fought with Kesha about this since grade 6!!! Ask her- I have been correcting her on this one for eons...now she is conditioned to correct herself when she does it, it is so funny.)

Not trying to seem arrogant about my command over the English language because I do make many mistakes and I try to correct them myself. And let's be honest here, for most of us English is a second language so it serves a functionalist purpose rather than a literary, creative one. But SOMETIMES PEOPLE DO NOT MAKE SENSE. Then I have to say "What do you mean?" Then it seems like I am just being anal but really I do not know thier true intention. I feel sorry for logicians who deal with True and False truth-tables/scales. And computer programmers. And Engineers. How to deal with indeterminacy? Ambiguity makes up most of life and yet we seek 'scientific' clarity if only in vain.

One more thing I can't stand:

When artists label a song or album or poem "untitled". We know what the title is supposed to be: "This is my most profound contribution to the cd/album/book so please do not judge it ruthlessly". Untitled always implies depth. As if the content of the work evades categorization. I think people should always categorize so that you do not seem like you are trying to evade it. A simple title is always better than "untitled" because then you can admit that this is just another song like all the rest of them and the listener does not feel pressured or better yet coerced to elevate the "untitled" song over the rest. If it really was untitled it wouldn't have a title. It's a guilt trip really.

Helen

Guess again. She's my aunt.  

Some dogs in Vancouver...I got out the car at Stanley Park to take this shot.  

This is Senait from Vancouver (not my sister Senait)  

Blingin...Kesha and I goin' out tonight!!!!! 

Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon, 1952)

This post is a response to your request Obifromsouthlondon...

This book written by Frantz Fanon should be seen as part of his larger struggle of decolonizing African people from the bondage of colonialism. Fanon is a Martinician psychoanalyst who wrote the great book "Wretched of the Earth" (1963). Particularly, Fanon is fighting alongside Algerians against the French. He is scarcely credited for his work by the Algerians (according to biographer David Macey).

The book is a "clinical study" as he says. The first 3 chapters deal with the modern Negro. He tries to explain the attitudes of the Negro: "the state-of-being" a Negro.

This state-of-being should not be taken carelessly or colloquially. Fanon writes with deep philosophical intention. To understand a "state-of-being" you have to start with the very fact of blackness. You cannot deny your blackness. So basically that is why the book is "Black Skin, White Masks" because many education blacks at that time and more specific to Fanon's study, French black people, were subconsciously denying their blackness.

To quote Fanon:

"There is a fact: White men consider themselves superior to black men. There is another fact: Black men want to prove to white men, at all costs, the richness of their thought, the equal value of their intellect. How do we extricate ourselves?" (Fanon, p.10)

I'll focus on the third Chapter here: "The Man of Colour and the White Woman".

Basically Fanon discusses this chapter with respect to the phenomenon of "recognition". To quote G.W. Hegel in "Phenomenology of Spirit":

"Self-Consciousness exists in-and-for-itself insofar as it exists in-and-for-itself for ANOTHER. That is, Self-consciousness exists only in being Recognized." (Sorry about the tangent here but to make this point and many other points you have to go back to the idea that triggered it, and Fanon is talking about recognition in the philosophical sense that Hegel used it)

To be RECOGNIZED is what makes people self-conscious both on a deeper level as in knowing themselves but also on a social level- it makes them aware of people watching. For example why do we have trouble speaking in public? We are being told who we are by other people's reactions. It makes us nervous and vulnerable. Or, why do we dart our eyes away from someone looking at us in the elevator or at the bus stop? The recognition...we don't trust it, so we hide.

ANYWAY.

Fanon is saying in Chapter 3 that the Black man longs to be recognized by the white women. He wants to know he is a man through her. For example, he says:

"Out of the blackest part of my soul, across the zebra striping of my mind, surges this desire to be suddenly white. I wish to be acknowledged not as black but as white.
Now--and this is a form of recognition that Hegel had not envisaged--who but a white woman can do this for me? By loving me she proves that I am worthy of white love. I am loved like a white man. I am a white man. Her love takes me onto the noble road that leads to total realization...I marry white culture, white beauty, white whiteness. When my restless hands carress those white breasts, they grasp white civilization and dignity and make them mine." (Fanon, 63)

Okay, Fanon is a very provacative writer! But his point is both material and symbolic: Blacks, by virtue of their oppression, want to own whiteness, to become it, for it to be internalized and for it to be theirs. However, the way the black man does this with the white woman is through an intimate/sexual encounter. He plunges into whiteness so to speak. That is the material, physical portion of it...but symbolically he is believing himself to become white. Or as Hegel put it "becoming other". (There is a portion of the book that deals with the eroticization of the black man. He is viewed as "body" and not "mind". The white man fears his potentcy with the white woman and the white woman views him sexually first. The interesting part is that there is very little mention of the black woman. Fanon pretty much ignores her.)

By the way, the "black man" here is a "marked" body...you can replace Black with any indigenousness and the point remains. The idea is indigenousness vs. civility (or the perception of civility).

Because as we all know:

"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another. A historical materialist therefore dissociates himself from it as far as possible. He regards it as his task to brush history against the grain."
-- Walter Benjamin, [from] Thesis X of "Theses on the Philosophy of History"


Okay. Will end this here but feel free to ask any questions would like to go back and research this stuff anyway...