Post 4: Undocumented, Unapologetic and Unafraid

    My thesis examines the aspects of the New Negro embodied today in Undocumented Latino Immigrants. Because I am looking at contemporary youth activism in comparison to the Negro youth of the New Negro movement, interviewing undocumented youth and exploring interviews in newspapers has been a staple in my research. I have found that, while fervor over the Dream Act, a bill that would allow a path to temporary citizenship for undocumented immigrants under thirty that wanted to attend college or enter the military, increased and then subsided in its failure, the spirit of the undocumented youth persevered. Many who had "come out" and exposed themselves have taken a new initiative, fighting for the rights of their people by risking their own security. In a New York Times' article entitled, "After a False Dawn, Anxiety for Illegal Students" by Julia Preston, an undocumented youth, Ms. Aguilar commented on the universal fear of "your name being attached with "undocumented" and then there is always this fear of being deported". However, many youth are pressing up against this fear, exposing themselves, asserting their undocumentedness and becoming spokespeople for the cause. Although, the Dream Act failed, many youth are maintaining high spirits like Ms. Aguilar because, as she says, "I think losing the shame overshadows the fear...I'd much rather clarify to the public that being undocumented is just a circumstance I find myself in. I'd much rather have that out in the public than just living in fear." Ms. Aguilar represents a new attitude and movement of undocumented immigrants, specifically college youth, who are resisting against the presumption of fear and vulnerability assigned to undocumented individuals. Whether than waiting to be exposed, and criminalized by white society, they are exposing themselves adopting a self-assertive, proud, and confident attitude much like the New Negro.
     Like the New Negro, these undocumented students represent a shift in self-determination and racial expression. There is a new display and embrace of one's self, despite the mantras repeated to it by white society. Undocumented youth embody the hope and autonomy of the New Negro, paving the road for themselves, when dominant society won't give it to them. The New Negro, exists in many forms today, but can be seen rising up in undocumented youth activism around the country.

The Dynamic New Negro, explored through Locke and Baldwin

   Through the exploration of both Locke and Baldwin's analysis of the New Negro, we can begin to grasp a holistic and nuanced understanding of the dynamic new movement in the Black community in the 20th century. 

    Alaine Locke's analysis of the New Negro is localized in Harlem and argues the explosion of Negro art and expression as the revolutionary indicator of the New Negro. He argues that the new shift into the self-expression of the Negro, about his internal world, signals a change in the Negro spirit that is proud, confident, and defiant. Locke suggests that "the elements of truest social portraiture...in the artistic self-expression  of the Negro to-day [is] a new figure on the national canvas and a new force in the foreground of affairs"(Locke, xxv). Therefore, Locke defines the New Negro as the artist who exposes the internal reality of the their own mind and spirit, and take back a narrative about themselves that has so long been defined by the language and paradigms of white society.  

     While Locke defines the New Negro as the ground-breaking artists of Harlem, Baldwin defines the New Negro as the rising Black Entrepreneurs in Chicago, who are challenging the hegemonic structures of white society through the economic arena. Baldwin explores the success of Madam C.J. Walker, who established herself as a prominent staple in the beauty market. Madam C.J. Walker 'promoted herself ' from the cotton fields to the typically white, and typically male world of business. While she didn't experience the universal support of black leadership at the time, and the "old settlers" of Chicago, she established herself as a lucrative business woman making it on her own accord. Madam C.J Walker fundamentally shifted the paradigms of beauty culture and ignited the "emergence of black beauty not just as an enterprise but also as a vibrant intellectual discourse about about alternative expressions of New Negro womanhood"(Baldwin, 56). Baldwin describes Madam C.J. Walker and others who broke  through the economic restraints of the "invisible hand" and single-handedly creating a new black middle class. 

   Although Locke and Baldwin differ on their specific definitions of the New Negro, both look to a population that is disrupting the racial hierarchy and hegemonic structures through their own means. This blatant assertion of agency in both the economic and artistic realms reveals a New Negro set on defining his reality beyond the narratives of white society. No longer does the "Negro" passively, adhere to the abuses and oppression of White society, rather he (she) finds new ways to challenge, destabilize, and disrupt the structures of white society that have inhibited the black community for too long. 

Claude McKay's "White Houses" and the eternal strength of "The New Negro"

    Claude McKay's poem "White Houses" resonates with the stories in "The Warmth of Other Suns" for it addresses the everlasting discipline and enduring strength of the Negro. In McKay's poem he reverses the negativity of the Negro plight to a source of strength. He argues that  the need for "superhuman power/ to hold me to the letter of your law!" elevates the Negro, as a noble sufferer, drawing an immeasureable amount of strength to survive in a world that isn't even human (Locke, 134). He must be "Super-human" to endure the "law" of white society. Consequently, the strength of the Negro's endurance is beyond human ability, its noble, divine, heroic.  McKay suggests that his strength and self-restraint is a divine battle. Later he claims, that he must save his own heart from the "potent poison of your hate" arguing that it is his heart that is pure, and ultimately must be protected from the villainousness poison of white society( Locke, 134).  Here he is honoring the element of patience, reserve, and self-restraint in black folk who have endured the poisons of white society, and still wait, hopping for something better. This motif of patience and endurance for something better is seen throughout "The Warmth of Other Suns" as each character silently endures their sacrifices though an internal rebellion. Although Robert Joseph Pershing Foster is overqualified and smarter than his peers, there continues to be a narrative of sacrifice throughout his story. However, there is a power within this sacrifice, because it occurs within as certain knowledge and hope, of a larger collective gain. And in doing that they are undercutting the white power structure through the strategic methods of their deceit. In "Beginnings" Pershing fights his way into the job market that discriminates against him two-fold. Firstly because he's a man of color, and secondly he's educated, which makes him a double threat to the white foremen hiring him. Yet he needs a job to continue school, and establish a career. The invisible hand seems to be at work again. However, Pershing finds a way through these restrictions and works despite the foreman's refusal to hire him. He commits a level of endurance and sacrifice for his greater dream of medicine, and comments on this experience by saying,  "Sometimes you have to stoop to conquer" (Wilkerson, 117). Therefore, in both McKay's poem and Pershing's experience, there is a narrative of suffering for the self, and suffering for the greater good of one's people. And, of course, not implying that the suffering is neither justified nor right, but rather a part of a choice, within one's own agency, to empower oneself, and take the necessary actions to do so. Both stories reflect a determined and shining light within the "New Negro" that takes his reality and transforms it into a process of endurance, strength, hardening oneself, to be a survivor.
   This is crucial. because if asserts a certain agency within suffering. One is not simply suffering and oppressed passively, but rather planning and plotting to be something great, something better than the "poison" around him. This asserts not only a positive self image, but a better self image, better than the abuse around him, and better than the abusers around him. In short it makes the Negro spirit indestructible. It turns is suffering into fuel against his oppressors, and even more importantly, instills a hope for something brighter within himself. Both texts illustrate an autonomous shift, not only for the Negro to separate himself from the world around him, but to position himself above it, and that is a beautifully strong and inspiring narrative.

1st Blogging Entry: Black Studies courses, and how I got here

    I never planned on being a black studies major. As a white girl from northern California, I had no idea of the deliberate social, economic, and political injustices imposed on the Black community. I have always had a passion for social justice, but never understood the deep historical roots of Western exploitation and marginalization against people of color. Fall quarter of my freshman year I took black studies 7: Caribbean Studies with Professor McAuley and was shell-shocked. Not only had McAuley established himself as my new favorite professor, who I would continue to follow throughout my undergraduate journey, but he gave me a new perspective to interpret the world around me. This class had the biggest impact on me, for it confronted the unquestioned assumptions made about the world, by white society through media, education, and rhetorical discourse. I simply had never had an education relaying the true American history, and furthermore, the international history of Imperial conquest. The systemic exploitation of Caribbean nations through colonization, and presently neo-colonialism and globalization, sparked a fire in me that I never knew was there. The fact that these injustices were so calculated, and meditated to secure Western profit, and economic paralysis in third world nations, infuriated me. Suddenly everything became clearer. Real reasons as to why some people controlled power, and some didn't begin to formulate in my new and revised world view. The fact that I had never been exposed to this kind of knowledge until my freshman year of college, through a class taken spontaneously, deeply frightened me, for how were people supposed to obtain this knowledge, that I was so blessed to only begin to scratch the surface of? The answer of course was that they weren't, and wouldn't if things didn't drastically change. And, that is what set the wheels in motion, igniting an undergraduate passion for Black Studies.
    I went on to take black studies 3,4,5,38A, 100, 104, 122, 126, 129, 130A, 133, 191, and am now, about to graduate, and enrolled in Black Studies 190. My other favorite courses, were McAuley's 100: U.S/ African foreign Policy and Black Studies 104: Black Marxism because they gave me an economic context to understand the West's historical and contemporary oppression of people of color at home and abroad. Professor H. Johnson's Black Studies 122: Black Child in Education, broke my heart, and really shifted my attention to the very present and very real disadvantages facing black youth in education. The fact that schools are more segregated now then when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated is truly a testament to the severity of our broken school system. The systemic complications within housing and education, act as the fundamental stepping stones to how one builds his/her life. Understanding the supreme disadvantages placed on people of color in buying houses, maintaining real estate value, attending an accredited school, obtaining a job despite racism, and still living in a society where whites dominate economic affluence was further developed in Professor Wood's class Black Studies 129, pertaining to the construction of the ghetto, and Professor G. Johnson's Black Studies 4: Critical race theory. All of my Black Studies courses have worked to problemitize, promote, and propel my hunger to know more in the Black Studies field.
    As a double major in English, these classes have also aided in my understanding of racial issues in contemporary America. The absence of racial discourse, and complex readings of literature has left me disappointed on more than one occasion, and further solidified my conviction that Black Studies is the most pertinent study in intellectual discourse.
   As a senior, and soon to be Black Studies graduate, I still have so much to learn. Its daunting when I think of how much new education needs to reach people, and how severely whites need to interrogate the politics of their own realities and the identities constructed with their hegemonic power structure.