The Panopticon of Ecclesial White-ness: Taking Foucault to a Church divided

A third of five engagements with James K.A. Smiths "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?" by Anthony Smith, a leader of the Emergent Cohort in Charlette, NC.,teaches racial reconciliaton for an inner ministry (Warehouse 242), is a participant with Emerging Theologians, and blogs at Musings of a Postmodern Negro.

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Download The_Panopticon_of_Ecclesial_Whiteness.doc --g.h.

---  by Anthony Smith

But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?  Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen! -    W.E.B. Du Bois

The purpose of this particular engagement is to bring together conversation partners and philosophers James K. A. Smith, Michel Foucault, and George Yancy to examine the relationship and resonances between the Christian tradition, postmodernity, and race.  Specifically this essay focuses on whiteness as an extension of the conversation on race.  James Smith has done a great service by bringing to the conversation, the question, for some Christians, as to whether or not postmodernity, as expressed through the work of Continental philosophers (e.g. Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault) as something Christians should be afraid of.  Is postmodernity the new Communism, secular humanism, a kind of philosophical or ideational terrorism?

Postmodern French philosopher Michel Foucault teaches us that the operative nature of
power has a disciplinary effect on human society.  Power relations in societies create dimensions of knowledge and categories of ‘truth’. Foucault described this as the power/knowledge nexus.

A few thoughts from Smith on Foucault lay the groundwork.

Foucault. The seemingly disturbing, even Nietzchean claim that “power is knowledge” should push us to realize what MTV learned long ago: (a) the cultural power of formation and discipline, and hence (b) the necessity of the church to enact counterformation by counterdisciplines.  In other words, we need to think about discipline as a creational structure that needs proper direction.  Foucault has something to tell us about what it means to be a disciple. (Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? p 23-24)

For Foucault, at the root of our most cherished and central institutions-hospitals, schools, businesses, and yes, prisons-is a network of power relations.  The same is true of our most celebrated ideals; at root, Foucault claims, knowledge and justice reduce to power….Foucault’s postmodern axiom is that “power is knowledge.”  However, Foucault himself resists any bumper-stickerization of this notion.  As he clarifies, he does not mean that knowledge and power are identical; in stead, he means to emphasize the inextricable relationship between knowledge and power.  Knowledge, or what counts as knowledge, is not neutrally determined.  Instead, what counts as knowledge, is constituted within networks of power- social, political, and economic. p 85

One such knowledge or truth is the ubiquitous reality of race.  Specifically, the ubiquitous reality of whiteness.  Entering the conversation is African-American philosopher George Yancy, in an essay “A Foucauldian (Genealogical) Reading of Whiteness” (2004).  A contribution from the book What White Looks Like: African-American philosophers on the Whiteness Question.  Yancey uses the work of Foucault to craft a framework through which to analyze and interrogate race – namely the social reality of whiteness:

My sense is that Foucault has provided a helpful conceptual framework, particularly as developed in Discipline and Punish and the first volume of The History of Sexuality, for coming to terms with how whiteness, as a power/knowledge nexus, is able to produce new forms of knowledge (in this case “knowledge about black people) that are productive of new forms of “subjects.”  p. 108

What I want to explore is how whiteness has disciplined and disciplines church. Yancy waxes Foucauldian-style on the question of “whiteness as the embodiment and production of specific truth claims, claims that are inextricably linked to a (white) regime of truth and modalities of power.” (p. 108)

Yancy gives us a genealogical reading of whiteness:

This will involve a process of coming to terms with whiteness’ historical “positionality.”  In this way, whiteness, as a presumed “universal” value code, will be shown to consist of an embodied set of practices fueled by a reactive value-creating power.  The aim is to call into question the idea that whiteness exists simpliciter.  What will be shown is that whiteness creates values, norms, and epistemological frames of reference that unilaterally affirm its many modes of instantiation- political, institutional, aesthetic, and so forth…

I will also explore how whiteness attempts to hide from its historicity and particularity, which I maintain is a function of how whiteness represents itself as “universal.”  In short, whiteness masquerades as a universal code of beauty, intelligence, superiority, cleanliness, and purity; it functions as a master sign. (p. 108)

This examination of the deep biases that bolster the creation of particular truth-claims is a method defined as ‘genealogy’ or archaeology.  “…whose task is to uncover the secret, submerged biases and prejudices that go into shaping what is called the truth.  There is no claim to truth that is innocent; there is no knowledge that simply falls into our minds from the sky, pristine and untainted.  What might be claimed as obvious or self-evident is, in fact, covertly motivated by other interests-the interest of power.” (Who's Afraid? p.86)

What has this to do with the Church and the project that Jamie offers us?  My engagement here suggests that race is a disciplinary power in the Church primarily through what I call the panopticon of ecclesial white-ness that has created the knowledge or ‘truth’ that white-ness is norm.  Foucault’s image of the panopticon captures the power/knowledge nexus of whiteness and helps me see (apocalypses or unveils) the dominance of the white cultural pole in most of the American Christian aesthetic.   

As one who speaks primarily from an  Evangelical and Neo-Pentecostal context the white-breaded-ness of Evangelical ecclesial culture often overwhelms me (and much of modern American Christianity…even in some expressions of the Black Church!) and the way it is foisted upon others (think: The Passion of The Christ…even The Da Vinci Code).  I remember as a child attending a traditional Black Baptist church with a stained glass mural of white Jesus behind the baptismal pool (a legacy of slave Christianity and racial Constantinianism).  Or walking through the “Christian” bookstore (yes, I know, there is usually a black gospel section in the back.).  I am also reminded of an episode in a Christian bookstore where I was formerly employed, the manager, by confession, ordered the wrong kind of praying hands.  They were black praying hands!  He ordered whites ones.  He wanted the right (white) ones.  How do I know this?  I took the black praying hands and put them up front for display, then, came back to work the next day to find them in the store room out of sight out of mind.  What kind of discipleship and formation has this particular Christian gone through?

Of course this is completely anecdotal but it brings out the way space and aesthetics in explicitly Christian spaces tend to primarily express a white racial/cultural pole. Specifically, this exemplifies the ‘knowledge’ of white-ness as ‘norm’ that created through the power nexus of white ecclesial-ness.

Jamie does not escape the panopticon as well.  As an example of how the ecclesial habits of white-ness operate I offer a brief comment by Jamie.  First, let me put this in context.  This brief sentence is found in the middle of a passage about Derrida, text, interpretation, and community.  Derrida’s famous axiom: there is nothing outside the text.  In other words, interpretation goes all the way down:

To say there is nothing outside the text is to say that there is no aspect of creation to which God’s revelation does not speak.  But do we really let the Text govern our seeing of the world? Or have we become more captivated by the stories and texts of a consumerist culture?  Is our worldview shaped by the narratives of a hip-hop culture more than the stories of God’s convenantal relationship with his people?

I will give Jamie the benefit of a doubt.  Mentioning the “narratives of a hip-hop culture” as opposed to “the stories of God’s convenantal relationship with his people?” suggest that these narratives and traditions have no resonance and are mutually exclusive.  Are they mutually exclusive?  Are there no traditions within hip-hop that resonate with the stories of God’s redemptive acts in history?  Of course this does not mean that Jamie believes this but this sentence make me wonder.  Especially, when we read the next sentence:

One of the challenges of Christian discipleship is to make the text of the Scripture the Text outside which nothing stands.  As U2’s song “When you Look at the World” attests, this is not always easy; sometimes I “can’t see what You see, when I look at the world.”  But the sanctification of the Spirit is aimed at enabling us to see the world through this lens.

Apparently, a song and narrative by U2 best captures, for Jamie, how there is nothing that should be interpreted outside the text of Scripture.  Evidently, the narratives of rock-n-roll, at least U2’s,  aide us in governing our seeing of the world through the Text of scripture.  But not hip-hop?  Why not hip-hop?  Hip-hop, an artistic expression and tradition (yes, it is a tradition), arose out of the inner city streets of subjugated knowledges and practices.  Of course I cannot romanticize hip-hop.  It has its expressions that do not resonate with the redemptive narrative of God’s Text, just like expressions of Rock-n-roll. 

Why even mention this?  Not to beat a dead horse but such habits reveal how the panopticon disciplines us according to the normativity of whiteness.  According to Jamie, the narratives of hip-hop offer us no guidance toward the Text of God’s story.  I beg to differ.  There are traditions within hip-hop culture too numerous to mention here.  Off the top of my head I could come up with a couple of hip-hoppers whose lyrics profoundly point us to elements of God’s story.  I think about rappers and singers like Common, KRS-ONE, Talib Kweli, Lauryn Hill, Leela James, Public Enemy, etc. 

Ignoring white-ness as norm and its disciplinary power within the church frustrates Christians seeking racial-ethnic reconciliation or harmony. Granted, much work has been done in the area, and much of it is to be commended, but it is clear that white-ness remains in the church even as race-ism and the assertion of white privilege operates more subtly.  However, Foucault illumines for us that ignoring race as a disciplinary power blinds us to the realities that continue to hinder the church from moving beyond our racial impasse.  We can look at our discursive practices in our respective churches and see how we, consciously and unconsciously, give credence to the universal code of beauty that is presumed to be white.

Power is knowledge.

Power structures produce knowledge or truth.  They also produce, I believe, ‘worlds’ that discipline and form individuals into specific kinds of people.  In his essay on Foucault, James K.A. Smith describes for us, using Foucault’s concepts regarding discipline and formation, how capitalism disciples, habitualizes, and disciplines people to become consumers:

In other words, marketing capitalizes on fundamental structural human desires for meaning and transcendence and presents products and services as ways to satisfy these human longings.  It then utilizes the tools of disciplinary practice to inject these values into the very character of human beings-internalizing the values so that they become part of the person. (Who's Afraid? p. 104-105)

Smith’s description of market culture as disciplinary power that shapes and forms people into consumers provides the categories for us to discuss the power of race and white-ness as norm in particular. 

When one studies the history of Christendom, especially during the 16th century, a modern narrative of race emerges.  In particular, a racial hierarchy begins to emerge, with white people at the top.  Such a world became a part of the DNA of Western Christendom and habits began to form. .  One only has to do a genealogy of how the church justified racism with scripture and particular doctrinal formulations (e.g. the curse of Ham).   Modern racism, a product of the Enlightenment, gave scientific justification for the hierarchy of races.  Christendom, on the other hand, sacralized white-ness.  Christendom sacralized or divinized a racial order that emerged out of 16th century Europe. Contextually, this had devastating consequences for how race would play itself out in American church culture.  Power relations within Christendom created knowledge or truth that described ‘white-ness’ as norm or standard and non-whiteness or blackness as deviation or sub-standard.

A recent example of this is the popularity of author Dan Brown’s the controversial book turned into movie The Da Vinci Code.  There were many books, articles, and commentaries written about this movie from leading Christian authors and leaders.  Many sermon series preached about how the Code did not pass the historicity test in relation to the story of Christ.  Good stuff.  But one glaring reality stood out for me.  I did not read one major Evangelical or Conservative Christian commentary that pointed out the whiteness question. Brown’s Jesus, the one pictured in his book, the white Jesus, is guilty of two sins: having male genitalia and using it. Of course in using it his progeny are, what? Europeans, of course! The book has been described as "controversial," but apparently there is nothing controversial about the aesthetic of Brown’s Jesus. If we honestly assess the concerns expressed by Evangelical Christians, I have to wonder: Are we really concerned about the historicity of Brown’s Jesus?

What this reveals, I believe, is the entrenched narrative or story, albeit conscious or unconscious, of whiteness-as-norm.  There is much to say here.  Little room.  Jamie’s engagement with Foucault, I believe, can begin a new area of discussions of the reality of race in the church…and the vision set forth by Christ for us to be ‘one’ as Father, Son, and Spirit are one.   

Comments

[John Doyle]

A succinct presentation of a controversial issue -- nice job, Geoff.

Foucault traces the gradual interiorization of discipline in Western culture. Once we feared the punishment of a distant king; now we tyrannize ourselves through self-discipline, and we tyrannize one another through mutual surveillance.

Foucault came from a historically Catholic culture. Max Weber told essentially the opposite story: modern Western dominance comes from the progressive exteriorization of an inner spiritual force characteristic of Calvinism. Democracy and capitalism, not conquest and exploitation, are the means by which diligent, self-controlled Protestants manage to amass wealth and power. The disenfranchised are the opposite of free because they’re unregenerate, and so they can’t master themselves, and so they can’t exert power in the world.

For traditional Catholics, the non-Western peoples are rebellious savages in need of subjugation and surveillance. For traditional Protestants, the non-Western peoples are unregenerate sinners in need of salvation. Either way, the blacks collectively are blamed for their own marginalization. Is there any truth to either or both of these two versions of Christian modernity?

In Foucault’s post-modern, post-Catholic world, only those who have no “inner tyrant” remain free: the mad, the chronically unemployed, the habitual criminals, the members of non-Western cultures, the non-Christian. In the secular late-modern Protestant West, what’s envied is creativity, self-expression, playfulness, hedonism.

In 1900, only 20% of Christians were non-white; now it’s around 60%. Two-thirds of the world’s Anglicans live in Africa. What do today’s Africans want? Do we assume they want what the white Europeans want?

American postmodern white Protestants want a little more Catholicism, a little more third-world traditionalism. What do American black Protestants want?

[Phil]

For clarity’s sake, and to give credit where credit is due, Anthony Smith is the author of "The Panopticon of Ecclesial White-ness".

Anthony brings up some important points in this engagement with Jamie Smith’s work. It is a due reminder that, human beings are people(s) situated, with contexts that influence, shape, and en-habit them in countless ways, and this kind of recollection can be illuminating, and (hopefully) redemptive in discussions about race – particularly conversations in a North American context.

(As a person of Euro-American descent, one with postmodern proclivities, and someone with a hope for race reconciliation and willingness to participate in such initiatives (and by training a historian), it is important to acknowledge my situatedness as a white male, basically middle class, and essentially catholic evangelical.)

Anthony suggests – and I wholeheartedly concur – that those of Euro-American descent who live and work in a North American context (a discussion about global whiteness would be relevant as well I’m sure) must familiarize themselves with, carefully understand, and boldly interrogate the ways in which white-ness, and particularly ecclesial white-ness, is a historical construct. Furthermore, folks must devote time, thought, and discussion to see the ways in which it (white-ness) operates, both visibly and invisibly, overtly and covertly.

For my own journey, I had a stark encounter with racism that, to put it bluntly, revolutionized (radicalized?) the way that I saw/see/am seeing my own whiteness. This prompted a kind of soul-searching reading/discussion journey that began with vigorous discussion among friends and colleagues. I began with a foray into critical white studies (e.g., David Roediger, etc.). A bit more reading and further discussion, particularly reading African American authors (e.g., James Cone, bell hooks, James Baldwin, Cornel West, Thandeka, etc.), confirmed a realization that I was in the process of making: I am white, it is situated, it has meant something in history, it means something now, and I must learn to see it – and hence interrogate it – better.

Not only should persons of Euro-American descent make an attempt to better understand the formation of their socially and culturally situated white-ness, reading habits and reading selections/discussion must encompass authors of color.

I close with a few quotes.

David Roediger, a white historian whose work focuses on labor:
“[F]ew Americans have ever considered the idea that African-Americans are extremely knowledgeable about whites and whiteness. In the mainstream of American culture, and certainly in intellectual circles, a rough and unproductive division of labor exists where claiming expert knowledge and commonsense wisdom on race are concerned. White writers have long been positioned as the leading and most dispassionate investigators of the lives, values, and abilities of people of color. White writing about whiteness is rarer, with discussions of what it means to be human standing in for considerations of how racial identity influences white lives. Writers of color, and most notably African-American writers, are cast as providing insight, often presumed to be highly subjective, of what it is like to be “a minority.” Lost in this destructive shuffle is the fact that from folktales onward African Americans have been among the nation’s keenest students of white consciousness and white behavior” (from David Roediger, ed. Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to be White, p. 4).

James Baldwin, a black essayist and playwright, from a 1965 essay titled “White Man’s Guilt”:

“I have often wondered, and it is not a pleasant wonder, just what white Americans talk about with one another.

I wonder this because they do not, after all, seem to find very much to say to me, and I concluded long ago that they found the color of my skin inhibiting....This is utterly futile, of course, since they do see what they see. And what they see is an appallingly oppressive and bloody history known all over the world. What they see is a disastrous, continuing, present condition which menaces them, and for which they bear an inescapable responsibility. But since in the main they seem to lack the energy to change this condition they would rather not be reminded of it. Does this mean that in their conversation with one another, they merely make reassuring sounds[?]. It scarcely seems possible, and yet, on the other hand, it seems all too likely. In any case, whatever they bring to one another, it is certainly not freedom from guilt. The guilt remains, more deeply rooted, more securely lodged, than the oldest of fears.

The record is there for all to read. It resounds all over the world. It might as well be written in the sky. One wishes that Americans – white Americans – would read, for their own sakes, this record and stop defending themselves against it. Only then will they be enabled to change their lives.

The fact that they have not been able to do this – to face their history, to change their lives – hideously menaces this country. Indeed, it menaces the entire world.

White [person], hear me! History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read....the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations. And it is with great pain and terror that one begins to realize this.

My point of view certainly is formed by my history, and it is probably that only a creature despised by history finds history a questionable matter. On the other hand, people who imagine that history flatters them (as it does, indeed, since they wrote it) are impaled on their history like a butterfly on a pin and become incapable of seeing or changing themselves, or the world.

This is the place in which it seems most white Americans find themselves. Impaled. They are dimly, or vividly, aware that the history they have fed themselves is mainly a lie, but they do not know how to release themselves from it, and they suffer enormously from the resulting personal incoherence. This incoherence is heard nowhere more plainly than in those stammering, terrified dialogues....The nature of this stammering can be reduced to a plea. ["]Do not blame me. I was not there. I did not do it. My history has nothing to do with Europe or the slave trade. Anyway it was your chiefs who sold you to me. I was not present in the middle passage. I am not responsible for...the cotton fields of Mississippi....I also despise the governors of southern states and the sheriffs of southern counties, and I also want your child to have a decent education and rise as high as capabilities will permit. I have nothing against you, nothing! What have you got against me? What do you want?["] But on the same day, in another gathering and in the most private chamber of his heart always, the white American remains proud of that history for which he does not wish to pay, and from which, materially, he has profited so much.

[T]he history of white people has led them to a fearful baffling place where they have begun to lose touch with reality – to lose touch, that is, with themselves – and where they certainly are not truly happy for they know they are not truly safe. They do not know how this came about. On the one hand they can scarcely dare to open a dialogue which must, if it is honest, become a personal confession, a cry for help and healing which is, really, I think, the basis of all dialogues and, on the other hand, the black man can scarcely dare to open a dialogue which must, if it is honest, become a personal confession which fatally contains an accusation. And yet if neither of us cannot do this each of us will perish in those traps in which we have been struggling for so long.

The American curtain is color. Color. White men have used this word, this concept to justify unspeakable crimes and not only in the past, but in the present. One can measure very neatly the white American’s distance from his conscience – from himself – by observing the distance between white America and black America. One has only to ask oneself who established this distance, who is the distance designed to protect, and from what is this distance designed to protect?” (from a selection in Black on White, pp. 320-323).

[postmodernegro]

"American postmodern white Protestants want a little more Catholicism, a little more third-world traditionalism. What do American black Protestants want?"

I cannot speak for "all" American black Protestants. Many of them are Evangelicals of different stripes. And many different things are going on in the black church. If I am not mistaken only 5-10% of black Christians are Catholic. It may be a smaller number. Aside from that black Christians fall into essentially three American Protestant molds:

1. Storefront Churches
2. Mega Churches
3. Tradition Mainline Churches (AME, Baptists, COGIC and other Pentecostal denominations).

And there is overlap between these different traditions within American black Protestantism.

However, I can offer what I, a black American Protestant, wants. And others who share my particular sensibilities.

1. A more deeply rooted faith in the (c)atholic tradition.
2. A more holistic and cosmic understanding of the salvation wrought by Christ's life, death, and resurrection...and the eventual outpouring of God's Spirit.
3. An ecclesiology unwedded, as much as possible, from market culture.
4. Leadership styles that look less like CEO-Noblemans and more like Community griots that share the deep subversive wisdom of the Christian tradition that casts a vision of life in the kingdom. Rather than a program for a particular Pastor's non-profit organization.
5. Also, I am hungry to learn more about the Christian tradition outside the walls of Evangelical Protestant culture. I have been immersing myself into Catholic and more Eastern Christian traditions. Interesting stuff. However, I do not want to do it because it is 'interesting'. I want to do it because I find so much of my current tradition deeply wedded to ideologies and powers, I believe, undermine some of the core tenets and practices of the catholic Christian tradition.

So in a word, I am a black (c)atholic Neo-Pentecostal Post-Evangelical looking for the Church to see itself as a Spirit-clothed Eucharistic community bearing witness and giving sign to the coming Kingdom of God.

[Cynthia R. Nielsen]

I want to add to a couple of excellent points brought out by Phil and postmodernegro—thank you both for your posts. Also, seeing that musical examples were mentioned in the original post, I also want to suggest that jazz provides an excellent example of resistance to oppressive sameness and real hope in the midst of suffering. In fact, when one traces the genealogy of jazz, one finds that jazz not only has deeply spiritual (i.e., Christian) roots, but also that it was birthed in a context of unjust suffering experienced by African Americans which in many ways parallels the afflictions of the Hebrews of the Old Testament.

Having recently read James Cone’s book, The Spirituals and the Blues, in preparation for a paper for an upcoming conference, I was gripped both by sadness and hope by Cone’s account of the unjust treatment of Africans and African Americans by white oppressors, which included those who claim the name of Christ. As Cone brings to our attention, slave catechisms were created in order in order to produce more docile slaves and to attempt to convince slaves that they were in fact created to be slaves—all done by those affirming that all human beings are created in the image of God. In tracing the Christian origins of both blues and jazz, Cone helps us to see that in spite of the unjust and compassionless treatment of African Americans, the African spirit resisted a reduction to white sameness. As Cone explains,

“When white people enslaved Africans, their intention was to dehistoricize black existence, to foreclose the possibility of a future defined by the African heritage. White people demeaned black people’s sacred tales, ridiculing their myths and defiling the sacred rites. Their intention was to define humanity according to European definitions so that their brutality against Africans could be characterized as civilizing the savages. But white Europeans did not succeed; and black history is the record of their failure” (pp. 23-24).

One area in which this resistance manifested was in what we might call (for lack of a better term) the specifically “religious” sphere. “Slave religion” (Cone’s term), which continually asserted the dignity of blacks because they too are created in God’s image, not only affirmed freedom from bondage but also freedom in bondage (p. 28). That is, though it is the case that Christian slaves did seek a final end to their sufferings in the world beyond, they also believed in and sang spirituals about a God who was actively involved in history now—in their history—“making right what whites had made wrong. Just as God delivered the Children of Israel from Egyptian slavery, drowning Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, he will also deliver black people from American slavery” (p. 32). As Cone observes, the spirituals are often inspired by biblical passages that emphasized God’s care for and active involvement in liberating oppressed people. In these spirituals we encounter a deep trust in God’s promise to deliver his people. Yet, the spirituals also allowed the slaves to cry out in the agony of their suffering, “How long, O Lord?” Here we have not only an eschatological hope on the basis of who God is and what he has done and is doing in history past and present, but we also have an acknowledgment of the real eschatological tension that we experience in the present life where injustice often prevails. When the day finally came and God liberated the slaves from their bonds, these African American believers experienced what Cone calls an “eschatological freedom […] affirming that even now God’s future is inconsistent with the realities of slavery.” Thus, for black slaves, freedom “was a historical reality that had transcendent implications” (p. 42). Here we find one of the central theological themes of black spirituals, viz., the belief that God had not forsaken his people coupled with the conviction that he would one day deliver them from their unjust human oppressors.

Though often downplayed, one should not overlook the influence of black spirituals and hence Christianity on jazz. On the most basic level, one is certainly correct to understand jazz as a fusing of European harmonic structures and practices with African distinctives such as syncopation, swing, and polyrhythms. Blues as well played a significant role in shaping jazz. In fact, one might say that in the blues and black spirituals we find the soul that animates jazz. In both of these musical styles, we encounter improvisatory elements, syncopated rhythms, call and response patterns, and the use of “blue notes,” i.e., flattened 3rd, 5th, and 7th scale tones that musically imitate a wide spectrum of human emotions—from agonizing pain to ecstatic joy. In other words, just as the spirituals served as a way not only to tell the black story, but also the black story as understood within the history of redemption, so too jazz retains part of this narrative nature and expresses the joys, sorrows and hope of the African American experience and beyond. For example, though slavery had been officially banned in the late 1800’s, racism was of course still alive and well in the early 1900’s when jazz musicians like Duke Ellington and Charlie Christian were breaking into the jazz scene. There are numerous accounts of jazz musicians who, though excelling their white counterparts in musical talent, were not permitted to participate in white groups. In spite of this unjust treatment, jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, himself a professing Christian, were able to transcend these injustices by means of their music—music that I suggest continues to reflect the Christian metanarrative of creation, fall, redemption in Christ, and final consummation in Christ where all things will be set right.

In hope,
Cynthia

[postmodernegro]

Cynthia,

Thank you for bringing this insight into the mix. Especially this:

"In spite of this unjust treatment, jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, himself a professing Christian, were able to transcend these injustices by means of their music—music that I suggest continues to reflect the Christian metanarrative of creation, fall, redemption in Christ, and final consummation in Christ where all things will be set right."

This is an excellent example of how the panopticon works. You will rarely see references (Like your Ellington reference) to non-white Christian voices this way in popular Christian mediums.

Of course we will privilege white voices, texts, symbols, and practices assumed to be 'out of the box' to challenge status-quo forms of American Christianity. For instance, even in socalled emerging church, postmodern, postliberal, post-evangelical voices you still see a privileging of the white narrative voice. The panopticon is in full effect even in these circles. Of course the first habit of ecclesial whiteness is to revert back to an insipid individualism that wants to focus on personal intentions and attitudes. Saying, "I don't hate." Intentions and feelings aside, what we are talking about are unconcious habits that have been around for centuries. Simply giving them a nod to their existence does nothing. We have to investigate rigorously the various ways American Christianity has been enslaved to the "powers" of race and whiteness so as to silence 'other' voices.

I see this glaringly in recent responses to the Emerging movement. There are a 'resurgence' of voices that decry the embrace of 'difference' and 'plurality'. What I hear in this call is more of the same. The dominance of the white male theological and ecclesial voice. Look at the aesthetic of these events. The theological references used, the canons used, the way the medium is used. White male Christians together for the gospel...once again. These types of ecclesial practices I would love to see challenge.

Unfortunately, what will happen, I could be wrong here, is that my rant might be interpreted as liberal propanda. This could be further from the truth.

I raise these issues because I believe Christ has raised from the dead...and has defeated the 'powers' on the Cross. One of those powers is the domination of particular ethnic creational structures (i.e. whiteness) that wants to continue to make the rules and contruct the canons of 'authentic' truth and knowledge of the Christian faith.

What I want is shalom.

[adrian walker]

Anthony Smith devotes his statement to formulating two claims: (1) that race is a major area where power is knowledge and (2) that James Smith hasn't escaped the racial panopticon---as evidenced by his preference for U2 over hip-hop.

I have to say that I find this intellectually thin and even potentially dangerous.

Intellectually thin for three reasons. First, it's not at all clear that/how Foucault is right about Power Is Knowledge, or that Foucault is the best guide to unravelling how pervasive un-Christian worldviews operate. Second, it's not at all clear to what extent race has really been an all-pervasive consciousness-shaper in "Christendom" (I mean,to throw out just one example, Ethiopian Christianity, which goes back to the Patristic period, is also a "Christendom" in the fullest sense of the word. Are Armenian Orthodox "white"? Are today's Nigerian Anglicans?). Third, Anthony Smith hasn't really directly engaged James Smith's argument as an argument, except to supplement it with his own ideas and to point out a supposed faux pas (to be frank, this seems downright discourteous to me).

Potentially dangerous? Beause, however serious the race/racism problem is in the US---and I don't intend to minimize that seriousness for a moment---there's a huge danger of making the race issue, rather than the Gospel, the prism through which we see everything.

I realize that it will immediately be objected that there is no pure, a-historical, a-contextual access to the "Gospel." That's no doubt true, but it can't mean that there's no such thing as the Gospel. As one of the "traditional Catholics" John Doyle refers to, I believe in, yes, Tradition, which is (from one point of view) a history of re-appropriations of the Gospel. But I don't believe that that history is nothing but a string of context-driven re-inventions.

Again: I am not trying to minimize the race/racism problem, or even to deny that there is an invisible white-ism, at least in American Christianity, which the Gospel calls us to convert from mentally (as it does from all forms of idolatry). I'm simply trying to point out that (1) getting clear about the problem will require much more sober analysis and much less breast-beating (not the same as repentance) and accusation and (2) that the fact that the Gospel offers us a platform from which to notice and judge the racial panopticon suggests that the Gospel is more than just a platform for noticing and judging the racial or any other panopticon.

Cordially,
Adrian

[Steve K.]

Yo Adrian,

(Sorry I couldn't resist the Rocky reference)

I think you're making a wrong assumption that Anthony is viewing things through the lens of "the race issue" rather than the Gospel. It is precisely because he is viewing things through the lens of the Gospel that he as able to see the racial fragmentation that continues to exist and be pervasive in the Church.

And to suggest that Anthony only views the Gospel as "a platform for noticing and judging the racial panopticon" is just plain ignorant. Perhaps you should read some of his other comments in this thread to get a more complete picture of where he is going with all of this: "What I want is shalom."

If you thought Anthony's critique of where Jamie Smith falls prey to this notion of ecclessial white-ness was "downright discourteous," I'd say your critique of Anthony's article is then more of the same.

I'm glad you're willing to take "the race/racism problem" seriously, as you claim in your closing comments. I really want to challenge you to take Anthony Smith seriously too.

Is there "more sober analysis" needed? Absoultely! Is Anthony's article just "breast-beating and accusation," as you suggest? I think you're way off.

Grace and peace,
Steve K.

[adrian walker]

Yo Steve,

Thanks for your post.

I have to eat some humble pie here.

First, you're right that I was jumping to conlcusions about A.S.'s agenda. I will say in my defense, though, that I would have written differently if I had known that Postmodern Negro (I assume that's what you mean by A.S.'s other comments on this thread) and A.S. were one and the same person.

Second, having re-read A.S.'s statement, I would also have to qualify my claim that he doesn't much directly engage J.K.S's work. He clearly develops his own claim in dialogue with the discussion of Foucault in Who's Afraid?

I guess I was hoping for an engagement with J.K. Smith's book in the sense of reviewing the arguments, wighing their merit, and so forth.

Yes, I am a jerk---but it doesn't follow from my jerkiness that A.S. is right in his main thesis, or that this thesis doesn't raise issues that have to be dealt with, and which he doesn’t deal with in his statement. I tried to indicate some of them in my post, however clumsily.

If I could start over, I would say this: granted that racism is a problem, in what sense is whiteness "ubiquitous" in the Church, as A.S. says at one point? Unless properly qualified, this claim could end up---beyond A.S.’s intentions, which I emphatically do NOT want to call into question (any longer)---making race as powerful a thing as the Gospel. (Again---A.S. does not want to say this; it’s a question of the implications of certain of his claims, unqualified).

So, again, granting that A.S. has no intention of going there---what, exactly, is the role of whiteness in shaping ecclesial consciousness? Indeed, what is the role of any unChristian worldview in shaping any consciousness? Is Foucault the most helpful guide here? It’d be great to see more discussion on this topic (see b/c I will be watching from the sidelines for the time being).

Cordially,
Adrian

[John Doyle]

"I might be a jerk, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong" -- dude, that's like my personal motto. Maybe it's a Catholic thing? The first time I brought my Protestant wife-to-be home to meet the folks, my dad, after baiting her on some now-forgotten topic, finally asked her: "So, you don't like to argue?" Maybe Catholics rely more on external surveillance to keep themselves in line: lists of sins, the confessional, other people pointing out their jerkiness. Protestants live under the perpetual gaze of the inner panopticon, dying daily to the inner jerk and perpetually manifesting their regenerated nice selves. But I digress...

Apropos of the jazz discussion, Cornel West talks about the distinctively black performative persona: "a spectacular form of risk-ridden execution that is self-imposed -- be it a Charlie Parker solo, a Sarah Vaughan rendition, Muhammad Ali footwork, a Martin Luther King, Jr., sermon, a James Brown dancing act, a Julius Erving dunk shot, or a Kathleen Battle interpretation of Handel. This feature not only results from the African deification of accident -- the sense of perennially being on a slippery tightrope; it also comes from the highly precarious historical situations in which black people have found themselves. And with political and economic avenues usually blocked, specific cultural arenas become the space wherein black resistance is channeled."

Let's grant that musical, rhetorical and athletic improvisations are embedded in collective cultural traditions. Still, we're looking at supremely individualistic acts of prowess and daring under the spotlight. "Purists" (usually white) dismiss acts of flamboyant excess(usually performed by blacks) as undesirable egoism, detracting from team play, good sportsmanship, and the purity (= whiteness?) of the game itself. I think about Zidane, the great French footballer ejected from the World Cup final match for head-butting an Italian opponent in the chest. A sad ending to a brilliant career, lament the purists. Still, when you say you're going to "Zidane" someone, everybody knows what you're talking about. (Or at least over here they do.)

There's a certain denigration of individualism implicit in the postmodern critique of modernism. But then there's Nietzsche to remind us that philosophical writings aren't depersonalized universal truths but the personal expressions of individual philosophers.

The panopticon is a suppressor of difference in the name of solidarity and social order. The culture might label a particular difference as sin, heresy, crime, bad taste, madness, jerkiness, or egoism -- whatever it is, it's got to go. To perform a distinctly personal act of physical or intellectual or spiritual daring while the crowd is watching -- to walk on the slippery tightrope under a spotlight that is also the panopticon -- can we white people learn something about that from black people?

[adrian walker]

Dear John Doyle,

I never thought of classifying jerkiness along Catholic-Protestant lines. I'll have to chew on that. . .

Interesting what Cornel West says about black performance persona. As for Zidane, I kind of think that Materazzi had it coming and that it's too bad that it was caught on camera. Zidane is a bad ass, no question.

One friendly query, though. At the end of your post, you say "The culture might label a particular difference as sin, heresy, crime, bad taste, madness, jerkiness, or egoism." My question: don't some differences merit those names? Or, to put it another way, aren't there really such things as heresy, crime, bad taste, etc.?

I agree that modernity/liberalism levels all differences while pretending to respect them. But it also seems to me that cultures or whatever go wrong not so much by excluding differences (they have to exclude some differences, although not everything) per se as by excluding the wrong ones. Obviously, it's easy to make mistakes. And, human nature being what it is, exclusion is always going to be mixed up with self-assertion, but exclusion does not automatically equal self-assertion.

(BTW: If Foucault is saying that exclusion is nothing but a mechanism of social control understood as a form of self-assertion of some kind, I would disagree with him, and I would repeat my question about whether or not Foucault is the most helpful guide for thinking about racism as a structure of sin.)

Cordially,
Adrian, Catholic Jerk

[Matthew Draft]

Anthony,

I was hoping you might be able to offer a few "practical" suggestions for helping white Christian Americans see their white-ness and ultimately to overcome a history and present reality of white dominance. I agree with the majority of your post, but at the end was left wondering, "what can I do or how can I help my predominantly white church to overcome the panopticon of ecclesial white-ness?" if Foucault is correct, and I believe he is, then is it enough to simply balance the power/knowledge nexus between say blacks and whites or should we, as Christians, rethink the power/knowledge nexus in light of the gospel? Perhaps Foucault’s understanding of power is part of the problem. If we were to apply an eschatological hermeneutic to the question of ecclesial white-ness, what would it look like?

Matthew Draft

[Rod]

Much has been said here, so I just want to add a few additional points.

First, Anthony has rather skillfully brought the issue of race (the proverbial elephant in the room) into a wonderful discussion on Christian faith and postmodernity which has been stimulated by James K.A. Smith's recent book on the topic.

As an African-American, I am both fascinated by the growing interest in posmodern Christianity and skeptical at the same time. In various conversations with Anthony, a.k.a. "Postmodernegro" (we are close friends) I have made the observation that black folk are postmodern by default. Intuitively and intellectually we knew like Derrida, "there is nothing outside the text," (the Gospel story as received in the midst of white racial oppression and the black struggle against it); before Lyotard was born we were very suspicious of metanarratives (especially one's which sought to justify our subjugation in the name of God), and we knew that white power is knowledge to paraphrase Foucault, which meant that we had to develop our own epistomology and hermeneutics. Had we not understood these theological, philosophical and spiritual realities we would have been vanquished long ago.

In essence, we were engaging in a more sophistocated form of pre-modern religious thought, and postmodern Christianity potentially follows on that trajectory if it truly embraces the voices, traditions and experiences of all members of the body.

Which is why I am skeptical. While we have this very stimulating discussion, tens of thousands of displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina (mostly black) are unemployed and homeless; which is but a fraction of the total number of African-Americans who are impoverished and undereducated. Both the Katrina survivors specifically and African-Americans in general suffer from the historical and still present panopticon of white superiority (let's just call it what it is). There are countless numbers of other people throughout the world who struggle against the reverberations of systems of apartheid and colonialism as well. And there are many who are considered white today who were under the oppressive gaze of whiteness in the past. As Anthony has pointed out, this is not about a few bad, individual white people. This is about principalities and powers which are opposed to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and God's Kingdom.

Even the most highly educated black people will rarely use the term postmodern even if they are familiar with the concept. Although postmodernity isn't a fixture in our collective vocabulary, we are a living testimony of it. It's not a mere philosophical exercise. That's what the Negro Spirituals, Blues, Jazz and Hip-Hop at its best are all about.

The kind of hip-hop that Smith references as highlighted by Anthony in his post is the product of white cultural and economic power. Did black hip-hop artists develop the capitalist mantra "sex sells" or violence for that matter. Were black entertainers the first to sexually objectify women of color in this country? Are the stereotypical images that black artists perpetuate created in a vacuum that has no historical precedent (who taught us to degrade ourselves?). The hip-hop that so many people rail against is financed by large media corporations that are run by white executives and unfortunately the growing number of black executives are too deceived or too powerless to challenge the white panopticon in their industry.

All that being said, I think Smith's book is an outstanding introduction for the subject at hand. Dialog can lead to and must precede effective action/redemption. Grace and peace to all who have taken the time to participate in this discourse.

[Matthew Draft]

Rod,
Thanks for the comments. I agree that dialog is necessary in laying the groundwork for action/redemption. I do, however, wonder if dialog carries with it the danger of becoming an end in itself. Is it enough to diagnosis the problem? Is there healing to be found in discourse alone? My fear is that Anthony's brilliant article will be reduced to an opportunity to cash out the problem without seeking the change that animates this discussion.

[John Doyle]

Adrian et al.,

Foucault has a paranoiac's view of social coercion to be sure. For him there are no sins, heresies, crimes etc. other than what any paricular society decides -- and its decisions change over time. To be part of such a society means being a component of a mutual surveillance and disciplinary apparatus whereby we keep each other, and ourselves, in line.

My sense of this exercise is to explore the extent to which Foucault's ideas are instructive to the church. Certainly a lot of people outside the church regard it as the panopticon par excellence. Distinguishing morality from social convention, love from coercion, community from fascism, creative brilliance from sinful excess -- these are Foucault's issues, I believe. He might not have the answers, but he does ask some good questions.

I was going to wax literary at this point and bring Moby Dick into the discussion of whiteness, but in light of the last couple commenters' apparent disdain for thought and discussion that doesn't lead to pragmatic action, I'll reluctantly put a sock in it.

As for New Orleans, it was probably the pivotal event in bringing the Bush administration under widespread mistrust among the American public, thereby achieving what the continued disdain for Asian civilian lives in the Middle East failed to do.

[Matthew Draft]

Right, thanks John.

My "disdain" is not that Moby Dick does not have something interesting to add to the discussion. My disdain, if any, is that the conversation thus far seems to be uninterested in any sort of application. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this site not designed to provide an “opportunity for contemporary philosophy and critical theory to ‘hit the ground,’ so to speak, by allowing high-level work in postmodern theory to serve the church’s practice.”

[John Doyle]

Nope, too late, you'll get no Moby Dick from me.

[adrian walker]

Dear John,

The questions you raise---how to distinguish morality from social convention, etc.---are and are not Foucault's questions. Aren't: he was not, as you mention, seeking a morality distinct from social convention, etc. Are: he was seeking some kind of liberation from the "cave". Convention---whatever you name it---implicitly points to the concept of nature---whatever you name it---as a foil. (And the connection between convention and sin is a really interesting one, and one not easy to unravel.)

In this sense, Foucault is indeed putting his finger on what has been a central philosophical question since Socrates.

Of course, one could ask: why not then read Socrates (too) Is classical philosophy the problem or part of the solution?

Dear Matt,

Application is important, but are we sure we know what the problem is, much less how to fix it?

Dear Steve K.,

One more apology: I hadn't noticed that A.S. is introduced at the top as blogging at Postmodern Negro. Shoulda read more carefully. Sorry, all.

Cordially,
Adrian

[John Doyle]

Dear Adrian,

Points well taken. I wonder, though, whether the "blogs at" surmounting this post wasn't put there after the fact, as a courteous clarification. I don't remember seeing it before either. Which is more reliable as original source material: oral tradition, or an online text that can be changed with the click of a mouse?

Okay, now I'll shut up.

John

[postmodernegro]

I apologize for the late reply to some of the comments made this weekend. Busy weekend.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.

On the matter of application. I am in agreement with this:

"Application is important, but are we sure we know what the problem is, much less how to fix it?"

As someone who is engaged in racial reconciliation ministry Smith's proscription at the end of ch.4 provides, I believe, a good framework to add to this particular project. Of course he targets consumer culture and the way it shapes and forms humans into consumers. He also discusses the 'telos' of such a system. Raising the issue of race and whiteness in ecclesial spaces fits well, I believe, with what Jamie discusses with consumerism and capitalism and the profound way it directs our desires, orients our worlds, inscribes habits communally and personally.

Initial Prescriptions:

Discernment and Recognition to the Cultural Power of Discipline Formation

On pages 104-105 Jamie describes the disciplinary power of market culture:

"...marketing capitalizes on fundamental structural human desires for meaning and transcendence and presents products and services as ways to satisfy these human longings. It then utilizes the tools of disciplinary practice to inject these values into the very character of human beings-internalizing the values so that they become part of the person. By using repetition, images and other strategies-all of which communicate truths in ways that are not cognitive and propositional-marketing forms us into the kind of persons who want to buy...This covertness of the operation is also what makes it so powerful: the truths are inscribes in us through the powerful instruments of imagination and ritual."

"All of us certainly find ourselves in multiple webs of power relations and subject to multiple disciplinary mechanisms bent on forming us into certain kinds of people."

"By unveiling the cultural power of disciplinary formation, Foucault can be a catalyst for the scales falling from our eyes so that we see what is happening."

Point of clarification. I do not believe that post-structuralists like Foucault are a magic bullet, a substitution for the gospel. Focault can be a catalyst in aiding us apocalypse how we Christians are profoundly shaped by these larger cultural forces and narratives.

Especially along the lines of race and whiteness. The 'telos' of this kind of discussion is to foster ecclesial communities that can enact counterdisciplines and counterformations that 'war' against the racialized narratives and practices I mentioned in the above post.

That means a couple of things...

1. Attending to ecclesial space. Texts, symbols, music, words, etc.. There are a large constellation of symbols in American Christianity that are a part of a legacy of white privilege and supremacy that need to be challenged. When we have gatherings for the purpose of racial reconciliation...what is the aesthetic like? what are the esteemed theological voices? what are they offering as counterdisciplines to the panopticon.

Have we done the genealogical work? Have we investigated our particular tradition's complicity with race-ism and white privilege? If we have have we made some course corrections?

More later...

[James K.A. Smith]

Anthony Smith is one of the reasons I take blogs seriously. I have learned much from his postmodernegro blog, his thoughtful comments over at the Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank, and in private email correspondence. His post here confirms that he is one of our most important emerging theological voices.

I think Anthony has astutely named something too often repressed and forgotten, and has also sketched a program for trying to rectify this situation. I think using this Foucauldian paradigm to consider whiteness as a formative disciplinary power (akin to the market) is incredibly fruitful, and really points up a huge lacuna in my book. (Interestingly, we just had Willie Jennings [Duke] give a lecture as part of the Seminars in Christian Scholarship program here at Calvin. His lecture was entitled "Visible Signs/Invisible Works: Whiteness as a Theological Problem." So I've been prompted to think about this alot lately.)

Anthony's suggestion of seeing race as an analogue and correlate to, e.g., the market is suggestive and deserves a full development. Indeed, as Anthony and I have discussed before, one could imagine a volume on race in the "Radical Orthodoxy" series. One finds there "radical" theological critiques of the market, the state, etc., but _nothing_ about race. This is a huge lacuna, particularly in an American context.

Anthony is also right to point out--even if it is a kind of hyperbole and tongue-in-cheek--that the panopticon of "whiteness" continues to shape my own location and sensibilities. And I can't so easily chalk this up to "taste." I will confess that I'm not a hip-hop "fan," though I do have some Lauryn Hill here at home. And I certainly didn't mean to suggest that hip-hop is a problem while U2 isn't. But Anthony already knows that. What's interesting is how this still testifies to what Willie Jenning's called the "invisibility" of my whiteness as a white male. Is it really just a matter of "taste" that I only go to Radiohead or Coldplay concerts--whose audiences are _very_ whitebread? Or is there something more insidiuous going on there. I'm open to considering the latter.

(Interestingly, related to in/visibility, the funny thing is that the "family" in the final description in the book I envisioned to be an African-American family. In fact, the name Anthea is a bit of a shout-out to Anthea Butler, a friend and scholar of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity and Afro-American religion. But looking at this now, I can see ways in which I've imagined a black family in the image of our white, half-bohemian, half-yuppy selves!)

In fact, just this past weekend I was struck and convicted by how insidious this "whiteness" can be. I was reading a 1994 short story by Ellen Gilchrist called "The Stucco House," set in New Orleans. It was the tale of a boy's struggles in a somewhat bohemian family, particularly with a poet mother given to drunkenness who he once had to retrieve from a stairwell where she passed out wearing only her nylons. The story goes on to describe his exile to his grandparents, his love for a kind stepfather, etc. About two-thirds of the way through the story, I suddenly realized, and asked myself: "Why am I imagining this family is black?" There were no overt indications of this, and not even any 'markers' (e.g., in names, etc.). And yet I realized that, without warrant, I envisioned this family as black. Why? The effects of Katrina coverage (talk about panopticon of whiteness!!)? My still-seated assumptions and judgments about poverty and race? It was a disturbing wake up call for me. To then turn to Anthony's post this morning...well, it's got me thinking the Spirit is trying to tell me something!

Thanks, Anthony, for such faithful thinking.

[adrian walker]

Not that anyone cares, but now I feel like an even bigger idiot after J. Smith's post---I didn't realize that I was blustering into a conversation amongst friends. I guess context does matter, after all. So, once again, apologies all around.
Adrian

[postmodernegro]

Adrian,

I care brother. No offense taken. You actually had me doing some soul-searching this weekend. Thanks for your challenging comments.

Ant

[Steve K.]

Yo Adrian,

You're alright, bro. To pull the veil back a little further: Anthony is a good friend of mine as well. Although I don't know James K.A. Smith as Anthony has gotten to know him, I couldn't agree more with his rousing endorsement of Anthony. Perhaps Anthony will get to write that "volume" on this topic which has only been scratched on the surface here.

Peace,
Steve K.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

hello all,
I too was gone for the weekend and am very please at all these wonderful comments.

Here's a pseudo-editorial comment: for all those conspiracy theorist, I did mention in the original post that A.S. posted at Postmodern Negro, but I also recognize that I need to be clearer who is speaking (i.e. editorial comment vs. actual post). Sorry, I guess we are all still learning.

[Geoff Holsclaw]

two things:

this is for A.S. and Phil: (being the primary source guy that I am) what books/essays should I be reading so that I don't leave this thread later this week feeling good about myself for having thought about race for a couple of minutes, but can continue to move forward as a pastor?

and second: talking about power and disciplines, what counter-disciplines can we engage in that will not only form us out of 'market-capitalism' but also 'ecclesial-whiteness'? How can I beat my (white/make) body into submission?

[adrian walker]

Dear Anthony,

Thanks for being such a good sport. I misunderstood what you were doing because I wasn't paying attention to/aware of the context in which you were doing it.

A couple of thoughts about racism, if I may.

It seems to me that human beings are spontaneously "ethnocentric," because one tends automatically to identify with those who are closer to one than "outsiders." Now, this spontaneous "ethnocentrism" is an ambivalent phenomenon.

On the one hand, there's something natural about identifying with a people. The "inculturation" of the Church seems to have agreed: Jesus is black in Ethiopian icons, Slavic in Russian ones; Mary is mestiza in the Guadalupe image, etc.

On the other hand, identification with a people leads, as we know, very, very easily to unChristian thougts and acts---in the extreme to genocide.

Now, the peculiarity of the white-black issue in America is that "whites"---originally all members of different, sometimes antagonistic peoples (think English and Irish)---have come to identify themselves as "white" over against "blacks"---also originally members of different peoples and tribes, who were then fused into a group in the crucible of history.

Whites grow up thinking of themselves as Americans full stop. Which is legitimate as far as it goes---except that it raises the question of whether or not they then think that American full stop=white. I daresay most whites do spontaneously think that, although I also submit that most of them would want to distance themselves from this assumption once it was pointed out to them. Of course, it's hard to break old habits and associations.

Now, as conservatives are wont to point out, it is true that whites have in fact mostly created mainstream American culture. Leaving aside the question of their doing so under an unfair balance of power in their favor, there is another problem: what's so great about creating mainstream American culture?

Yes, there are great things about it. But it also means the propagation of a kind of Englightenment individualist worldview. Bad news in my book.

Perhaps this is one area where blacks could help save America from itself?

Of course, that can't happen until whites ask for forgiveness---and blacks agree to forgive. There is a black reverse racism, too. You use the term reconciliation: absolutely key, for both parties.

The question I have is: how helpful is Foucault really for sorting all of this out? In other words: if Foucault holds that all distinctions drawn among people are conventions of Power, then he misses the good side of the ethnocentrism problem (it's good and natural for there to be different races and peoples), and missing that, he cannot help us appreciate the positive value of the difference between races and peoples, which, as believers, we hold are there, not just for war, but for communion. Of course, I may be misreading Foucault.

It seems to me that the promise of Pentecost is to create communion among the peoples without simply abolishing their ethnicity. So a death AND a resurrection of ethnicity. Which would mean: not denying you are X, even being proud to be X---but only in the context of putting what is distinctive about X at the service of all other peoples in the communion of the Church, which would then increase, not decrease, the distinctiveness of Xness.

Christians have failed miserably to maintain this balance, to be sure, but, just as the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, the miracle of Pentecost is given again and again in the Church, not just as promise, but as reality---at least for those who have eyes to see. Witness the fact that you do reconciliation ministry.

That word is key to the Christiann worldview.

Cordially,
Adrian

[postmodernegro]

Adrian,

Thanks again for continuing the conversation. To answer your question:

"The question I have is: how helpful is Foucault really for sorting all of this out? In other words: if Foucault holds that all distinctions drawn among people are conventions of Power, then he misses the good side of the ethnocentrism problem (it's good and natural for there to be different races and peoples), and missing that, he cannot help us appreciate the positive value of the difference between races and peoples, which, as believers, we hold are there, not just for war, but for communion. Of course, I may be misreading Foucault."

Again. I do not think Foucualt offers a comprehensive answer to this issue. He offers us a bit of insight by alerting us to the disciplinary effects society has on communities and individuals. He alerts us to attend to our various social practices and ideals that are extensions from the power/knowledge nexus. To be honest with you he isn't saying anything new (fundamentally). From my reading of the Hebrew Scripture and some of the works of Paul he is simply echoing the prophetic. However, contextually, Foucault speaks in our modern times.

So...I do not see Foucault as an answer to all the questions. I hope I did not give that impression.

Ethnic/cultural particularity is a creationl/structural "good". A gift from the Creator. The introduction of modern racism into the marrow of Western Civilization and Christendom has created a situation where ethnic/particularity has run amock in unjust power relations. We are talking about modern conceptions of 'race'. What is 'race'? Race, as conceived in modernity, was an outgrowth of unrighteous and unneighborly relations. Race is not a natural given but a very powerful social idea and set of practices that deviate from the goodness of ethnic particularity.

White-ness, for instance, refers less to people and more to an idea and a relation among people. White-ness is 'positionality'.

We need to get our terms straight before we venture into this conversation.

When we say race, whiteness, etc.. I am not referring primarily to people in their ontological-ness. I am referring to their relationship to each other...as neighbors.

This is why Foucault's analysis of the disciplinary society is important and crucial. He seems to have stumbled upon the unjust relations and the various ways they are embodied in modern Western society.

Foucault is a catalyst sort of speak. He is not the answer. The answer is indeed the gospel. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation comes from God.

Foucault has somethings to teach us about how the mundane mini-practices in our communities sustain and perpetuate 'worlds'. Worlds that can be out of line with the world of the kingdom of God that is come and coming.

From what I have read of Foucault he is not saying that all power is 'bad'. In our communities we need power relations among Christ's disciples. We need teachers, elders, etc. And we also need students and disciples. If I have read Foucault wrong on this and he is saying that power is bad then I part with him there...on that fundamental level. But he is good in that he alerts us to how there is indeed a power relation there in the dispensing of knowledge, truth, and ways of being in the world.

[postmodernegro]

Adrian,

One more thing. I agree that Pentecost is a very powerful image that captures the goodness of ethnic particularity. Remembering Pentecost and the rituals and practices that go along with it (I know you are aware of the Church's long tradition on this score) can offer a profound and prophetic corrective to ethnic performances that look more like the panopticon than the day of Pentecost.

Side note: I have contributed a chapter to a forth coming book being put out by Baker and Emergent: Emergent Manifesto. The chapter will be titled "Practicing Pentecost".

This is why I am developing a deep affinity for emerging, postmodern, and Radical Orthodoxy traditions. There is a re-hearsal of ancient pathways and subversive wisdom traditions that can open up new possibilities in our present. We can re-visit our modern challenges with ancient wisdom. Pentecost offers a salve for the racial un-neighborliness that characterizes elements of Western Christendom.

[adrian walker]

Dear Anthony,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond.

I find your distinction between ethnicity as a creational good and race as ethnic particularity run amok in unjust power relations helpful. I think we are basically on the same wavelength, as I was trying to argue for the possibility of a similar sort of distinction.

I'm mainly concerned about protecting the distinction between creation/nature and sin and the ontolgical primacy of the good, and it's clear we're on the same wavelength about that, as I said.

You weren't giving the impression that you thought Foucault was the answer. It's clear that you consider him a helpful catalyst, as you say.

My question had more to do with Foucault as guide to diagnosing the problem. What you say on that score makes sense to me. Still, I think you are rightly adding a crucial element that is needed for the diagnosis and that Foucault doesn't have: precisely the distinction between creation and sin, ethnicity and ethnicity constructed into race, etc.

I'm no Foucault expert, but I would guess that, for him, power conflict is basic, but also a-moral and arbitrary. But I am open to correction here, and, in any case, you have already said what needs to be said about how power can be good, too, which I fully agree with.

It'd be interesting to explore more the idea that society disciplines for good and for ill. That's clearly the case, which is why, as you said earlier, you can't deal with things like race or the market individualistically, on the basis of "my good will." There are structures of sin, as John Paul II liked to say. But how they work is an interesting question. As well as how they are related to structures of good, so to speak.

Sorry this is so hurried.

Cordially,
Adrian

[Rod]

Adrian, I appreciate your attempt to get at some of the nuances of the question of ethnicity in the context of postmodern approaches to Christianity.
As Anthony stated, race is a social construct, and biblically speaking, "a power" that is actually quite unnatural. The vocabulary of "white" and "black" is so ingrained and so much a part of our social fabric that it seems almost impossible to distance ourselves from it. I think as "theologians" we have to begin to distinguish "whiteness" from white people, who are really those of various European backgrounds. By doing this white people can realize that they are not the enemy, but rather the system which has afforded them immeasurable historical privileges. In that sense we can all fight "the power."

As far as reverse racism, it is important to clarify terms once again. Racism is by definition to put it simply "prejudice + power." In order for one to be racist, one has to be a member of the group which dominates the resources of a given society. Despite any gains that black folk have made, we are not the managing partners of this project called the United States of America. When one thinks about the black power movement as best exemplified by the Black Panther Party, this manifestation was not reverse racism (though it did have its prejudice) it was a natural and inevitable reaction to 350 years of white violence (psychologial and physical) against black people. Black power was not the answer, but until we had a healthy degree of ethnocentrism we could not begin to see ourselves as truly equal, regardless of the changes in policy. This also speaks to the importance of Malcolm X's legacy.

Foucault is indeed a catalyst for Christians to engage in a critical reflection on the world that we inhabit. Salvation through Jesus Christ opens our eyes so that we can see the world as it is and as it should be. The Holy Spirit enables us to see, but spiritual discernment does not happen naturally; we have to be discipled to unveil the forces of darkness. Foucault, like Marx, and others challenge us to think more deeply about the power relations in our societies and give us the critical tools to deconstruct a context which is much more complex than that which we find in the pages of Scripture. No postmodern philosophy is not the answer, but it is another testament that every good and perfect gift can be used for God's purposes if it is submitted to His authority.

[adrian walker]

Dear Rod,

Thanks for your post.

The way you put the distinction between whiteness as a construct and ethnicity as a God-given thing is helpful.

As for racism, I think we disagree. If racism=prejudice+power, then, yes, blacks cannot be racist. But what if it just=prejudice? That exists among some blacks towards whites.

Yes, it's understandable. But it's still not right.

And it is also an obstacle to reconciliation, which BOTH sides must receive as an unmerited gift from God (which does not mean whitewashing the historical truth, if you will pardon the pun).

Let it be clear that I am not identifying this prejudice, which is bad, with a healthy sense of self among America blacks as having become, through history, a people with a distinctive and rich culture. That sense of self is definitely a good "ethnocentrism."

I agree that Foucault can help identify problems, but I am not sure how far he can help diagnose them correctly. Power is Knoweldge needs to be itself discerned as we are using it to discern.

Cordially,
Adrian

[John Doyle]

Anthony, Adrian, Rod --

Foucault talks mostly about how societies enforce their norms through surveillance. If we buy into a common set of standards, we can help enforce those standards by keeping an eye on one another: it's called community. Eventually we keep an eye on ourselves as individuals, too: it's called conscience. What Foucault points out is that these powerful surveillance mechanisms can be turned against freedom into the tools of totalitarianism, discrimination, and sadomasochism.

So Foucault alerts us to incipient fascistic tendencies when the surveillance apparatus is used corruptly. Illegal spying on our own citizens in the name of counterterrorism. Border patrols in the name of national security. Long-term incarceration in inhuman hellholes of huge numbers of people -- mostly people of color -- in the name of law and order. Tight supervision of poorly-paid, "lazy" manual laborers in the name of productivity. These are Foucaultian concerns -- I'm sure there are other examples.

I think Foucault's other concern is when the social norms themselves are corrupt. In Minneapolis once I called the cops to report a car break-in in progress. The first question I was asked: "Is the person black?" Criminality, unemployability, promiscuity -- these kinds of societally marginal behaviors become associated with blackness. It's in white people's heads; it's probably in black people's heads too. Statistically speaking black people do perpetrate more violent crimes (though usually against other blacks), do have higher unemployment rates, do have higher HIV rates. I think if I were black I'd be more afraid of a black stranger than a white one. So when blackness itself becomes a negatively charged social category in the minds of the powers that be -- you know what you've got then.

To the extent that Foucault makes us aware of these things he's a valuable voice. What perhaps he's best at is showing how deeply ingrained these sorts of things are, not just in society but in the individuals as well. In so doing he makes us aware of just how hard it is to make much of a dent in the problem. Which perhaps we already knew.

John

[Rod]

Not sure what you mean by "just=prejudice". If one takes the view that racism is primarily a matter of personal prejudice, then in that sense black people can be racist, but the term "racism" as is the case with all "isms" denotes a reality that is intrinsically systemic.

Whatever prejudices individual black people may have against whites it can not be deemed to be systemic or grounded in the social fabric of this country, though it is a result of the ideology of white superiority which has inevitably produced suspicion and even antipathy among many blacks towards white people, especially those from disadvantaged situations which suffer the most from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow.

It's a nuanced argument and one I try to make with discretion. Given the nature of this discussion and the intellectual depth that has characterized it, I felt that it was worth including.

[Rod]

Excellent points John. And yes black people do internalize stereotypes about themselves which affects how they view other black people and also, oftentimes how they behave (e.g. mainstream hip-hop). It's the pathology of self-hate that we still contend with.

[John Doyle]

Oh yeah -- Another thing Foucault talks about is segregation. He begins with illness and madness and illness: the leper colony, the tuberculosis sanitorium, the graveyard on the outskirts of town, the asylum. People are afraid of contagion, so they segregate the ill and the crazy.

But then Foucault starts talking about other fears of infection. Prisons and juvenile detention homes. Poor houses and work farms. Ghettos. We're afraid of being contaminated by crime and poverty and minority-ness. So the chronically poor and sick and crazy and criminal can infect each other -- and infect the minorities too.

[Dave]

Wow, some great conversation here. I enjoyed reading all the subsequent comments.

In reference to "practical strategies," I think the church can and should engage in highlighting the structures and social discourses that privilege not only whiteness, but the economic organisms that thrive on it. Anthony's reference to hip-hop made me think about the documentary Merchants of Cool. Thought it's 10 years old now, it's still relevant. It shows the ways hip-hop has been co-opted and sold back to us.

The powers and principalities thrive by keeping us all - white and black - slaves to debt, lust, and anxiety. The church must find a voice to challenge images of female beauty (which are white), not just because of their sexual content, but for the way they use male and female sexual anxiety to sell products.

One of the ways I'm challenging this in my own church is to use Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly as a launching point for a 6-week class called Media Vaccine: Inoculating your Family against Advertising. It's only a drop in the bucket, but it begins to call people's attention to whiteness and maleness and how these things are used to sell us crap.

I think the church is the only power that can name and unmask these other powers. Christian education is not the answer, but perhaps is a component. I do think most Sunday school materials in use today reinforce whiteness rather than call it into question.

[John Doyle]

Rod, regarding self-hatred... I speak as an individual, a benefiary of white American privilege, so I don't know how my experience relates. My self-hatred is the other side of my self-love. Similarly, my hatred of others is the flip side of my love for them.

I've tried to pursue a course different from the one laid out for me by society. I did so not in pursuit of personal pleasure but out of a sense of mission, or calling. I was prepared to walk into the wilderness in search of something like truth, so I could bring it back and share it with everyone else.

So I went away, I found/created something, I brought it back with me -- and nobody cared, nobody was interested, nobody could see. They were so enmeshed in their culture that what I offered was just irrelevant. It was as though I didn't exist.

I can come back to life if I join the culture, participate in its pleasures, walk its well-worn conversational paths, etc. But when I do that I lose what's most valuable to me, and what I think is the greatest value I bring to others. In living to the culture I no longer exist to myself.

I resent my old friends because they can't value what gifts I bring them. And then I think: what if they're right? What if the gifts I offer really are worthless? What if I'm just on an ego trip? My anger and depression, the consequence of offering gifts that no one wants -- maybe I'm just sick, maladjusted, in need of medication...

But enough about me. From a cultural standpoint, I could imagine something like this: You bring something unique to the mainstream white culture and nobody sees it. They like you if you join their club, but if you insist on offering your unique gifts you might receive a cordial hearing but you've now erected a barrier between you and them. On the other hand, making this effort to bridge the cultural gap instills resentment in your culture of origin. To them, your offering this gift to the others is just a sellout. So you resent both cultures. You're trying to build a high bridge between them, but you find yourself down in the valley in between, by yourself.

Does any of that ring true in your experience?

[adrian walker]

Dear Rod,

I guess what I meant was that prejudice is sufficient to constitute racism---not that racism is only always a matter of individual hearts.

I also think that prejudice can be systemic among groups that are not in power. I wonder how Tibetans are taught to think about the Chinese as children. Whether something like this is true of blacks is an empirical question that I won't enter into here.

Finally, whatever prejudice against whites there is among blacks is indeed perfectly understandable, perhaps even inevitable in the sense of "what else would you expect?" But it is nonetheless not right.

Recognizing that it isn't right doesn't require any minimizing of white racism, any moral equivalency. My only point is that reconciliation, if and when it comes, is/will have to be received by BOTH sides as an UNMERITED gift.

May it come.

Dear John,

It seems to me that we can already come to a judgment about the justice/injustice of Guantanamo without Foucauldian categories. All we need for that are the old ones of justice/injustice.

I suppose that where F. would be helpful is in calling attention to the way in which injustice is a permanent temptation precisely of social order, along the line of the idea that evil is always a corruption of the good. Of course, I'm already putting things in language that Foucault would have problems with.

But that is just the point.

Cordially to both,
Adrian

[jonny]

have been at greenbelt festival. returned (again) to the 'slog' - it's the busiest blog i can think of!!!!

anyway great stuff again. thanks...

i think cynthia and i should probably go off and have a separate conversation about music and improvisation because i'm still thinking about that.

i loved the comments about jazz and hip hop. but here's what i was thinking... (i am not a connasieur in any way of either genres, just someone with an eclectic taste). can't you make a case that hip hop is a spin off of jazz or a reinvention of the traditions of jazz?

guru rapping on gangstarr's song 'jazz thing' seemed to be celebrating the traditions of jazz citing many of the greats and then in response to those who say it's dead says it isn't.. - see http://www.lyricsondemand.com/g/gangstarrlyrics/jazzthingvideoversionlyrics.html for one place i found the lyrics.

the other hip hop tune that sprang to mind was all that jazz by stetsasonic. have a read of the lyrics - http://www.lyricsdir.com/stetsasonic-talkin-all-that-jazz-lyrics.html the issue here is sampling. hip hop is being accused of not being a true art form because it samples other peoples tunes/riffs. and the track is a full on defense locating hip hop in the tradition ('this jazz retains a new format') whilst simultaneously jazz as a word is used negatively some times to indicate where it seems stuck . i love the bold line that james brown was old until erik and rakim came out with i got soul! in other words where music/jazz/tradition gets stuck it needs remaking, sampling, remixing to make it live again. james brown should be thanking hip hop for giving him a new lease of life - cheeky claim but a lot of truth in it. this is the improvisation of tradition that i think is so rich for how in practice we remake the ropes (mixing my metaphors using the image from whalerider that jamie uses).

maybe the issue connecting with anthony's thoughts is that our improvisation could contain huge blind spots and be a lot poorer for it....

i may of course just be talkin all that jazz when i should be talking more theology - forgive me ;-)

[fernando]

Not a lot to add other than to say Anthony has expressed some deep feelings of mine about the way i hear some folks talking about postmodernity, especially in terms of cultural markers.

In fact, over on another good blog, I commented on this piece, saying "...I'm deeply skeptical about the way some discourses on postmodernity within the church are naive to race, globalisation and postcolonialism. I keep reading postmodern "revelations" which are long term lived realities for people from a latin american background. Moreover, my experience in India opened up a lot of literature and critical thought in the postcolonial world that echoespostmodern discourses about power and language."

Anthony keep writing man; I've cherished your blog for some time now and I want to hear more of your thoughts!

[Rod]

Thanks for sharing part of your testimony John. I thank God for white brothers like yourself. Just to clarify I'm talking primarily about a collective self-hate that black folk experience as a consequence of living in a white hegemonic country for 400 years. Slavery and segregation were not just physical experiences, there were psychological. I would even say that black people have been subjected to psychological warfare which has created inferiority complexes within us and often made it difficult for us to value ourselves and one another. I offered the most crass expressions of hip-hop as a contemporary example of this.

On a personal level though, I have experienced disfavor from whites and blacks albeit for different reasons. Just like many whites there are quite a few blacks who do not understand the importance of continuing to fight for a fully integrated society, let alone a church which is not divided so sharply along racial and cultural lines. In school some of my black peers (typically from disadvantaged backgrounds) did accuse me of acting white because I often spoke "proper" and made an effort to do well in school. They were casualties of the self-hate that I have described.

Today, I do not feel that most African-American adults of any socio-economic situation would call me a sell-out, though some may feel that certain arguments that brothers like Anthony and myself make are irrelevant or out of touch with the community. Yet, it is difficult to make that case when we constantly challenge the church (and ourselves) to face the legacy of racism head on, make ministry to the poor a priority and not a periphal issue, promote the peace of Christ and not be silent in a time of military aggression and terrorism. We may be called many things, but I pray "sell-out" will not be one of them.

[Rod]

Adrian, I think we understand where each of us is coming from for the most part and that's what's important. Peace.

[John Doyle]

Rod -

Thanks for your thoughts. I can see how group self-hate would still be a big problem, keeping blacks from stepping out in dignified self-assurance. In this discussion you did exactly what you're talking about -- offer up a challenge to pay attention, to come to some self-realizations, and hopefully to take a stand. I feel a greater conviction to stand up as a consequence of this discussion. Thanks again.

John

[adrian walker]

Dear Rod,

I agree.Peace to you, too.

A.

[James K.A. Smith]

As a follow up to Athony's reflections, readers might be interested in J. Kameron Carter's recent article in _Comment_ magazine, on race and baptismal identity and entitled "Whiteness as a false reality." Find it at http://www.wrf.ca/comment/article.cfm?ID=208