[00:00:23]
>> Good morning. Adrian Coons That's my name
co-founder co-director of the NAACP a center
for the lump a center a seed nonprofit based
here in Manhattan for the promotion of law
Nobby language and the creation distribution
development of arts and culture and you may
ask Who are the lone Napi them out here is
a name of the original people of the whole
king which includes men had.
[00:01:02]
Half of Pennsylvania all of New Jersey Northern
Delaware. A slice of eastern Connecticut and
lower New York State. The Diaspora will not
be here is really nationwide with two fairly
recognized nations in Oklahoma. Wisconsin
and Ontario and a diaspora that reaches many
states. But I'm here today to welcome you
all and deliver a message from Joe Baker who
is our executive director you can make it
today but he asked me to.
[00:01:44]
Share these words with you in welcome you
to Manhattan. Manhattan you may not know is
actually a low enough in name which translates
as the place where we gather the wood to make
bows. And pronunciation is. Not exactly Manhattan.
Closer to mount a hot tub. But. This is important
**** because many people no longer understand
that the.
[00:02:20]
The original people still exist and are still
with us. There is a huge paradoxical problem
with knowledge and the more is learned the
more comes into sight the more complex the
world becomes and the less is truly know.
This complex city doesn't fit well with isms.
For everyone on earth where do we begin and
where do we end.
[00:02:50]
Are we isolated individuals only needing food
oxygen water to exist or do we need other
people as well. Are we we are and are interdependent
creatures. So how is it possible that we see
others as inhuman or less than human. As a
person as wealth indicative of how human they
are colonialism is not an antiquated future
of the past its way of doing business at all
costs.
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To extract resources by any means this wasn't
only true in the past it's very much part
of the American way as it is with all contemporary
Nations. Conflict leads to riches war is profitable
before during and after. Vacated lands and
the spoils of war are for the winners.
[00:03:56]
In order to reaffirm our survival What are
we left with besides fighting for ourselves.
This doesn't seem enough to maintain a complete
self. What if we identify ourselves by the
number of days we will strive to live. What
if we identified ourselves by what we can
give back to the earth.
[00:04:23]
In return for the gift of life not only at
birth but every day and with every breath.
When the Europeans the Dutch arrived here
they were greeted as humans by the Napi they
were identified as relatives. So identify
anyone who has less is to deny the gift of
life given to all.
[00:04:49]
That we follow a model of extraction or a
model of relations Welcome to the not be hooking
earth has given us life to be here today.
One he she Thank you. And. THANK YOU THANK
YOU THANK. YOU THANK YOU. Thank you thank
you. Very much. We have been asking all the
participants to bring.
[00:17:19]
Some kind of object that deals with this question
of sorting that we've been talking about and
and I got this term from Indy so maybe Mindy
could you kind of tell us about how you're
thinking of sorting and then we'll kind of
go from there yeah it's an idea I got from
the historian Tom Henschel who wrote a book
called sorting out the new South City which
is about Charlotte North Carolina and he noticed
that in eight hundred seventy five it there
he could he had a list of a city directory
and when he plotted out where everybody lived
at all the white people black people and rich
people in the poor people are all scattered
amongst each other but by eighteen and so
that's nine hundred seventy five by one thousand
seventy five hundred years later they've been
sorted out so that the rich white people are
one section and the poor black people are
in another and then sort of the middle groups
are in between so his book is all about the
policies that drove people into these different
directions and that broke apart Charlotte
North Carolina but those policies are national
policies and so you can see them all over
America.
[00:18:21]
So. We've got different tables which kind
of address different parts of the sorting
process and that's a table is a reproduction
of the exhibit we did last year a lot of you
had seen it on eugenics records office and
if you kind of dig through those files and
the bureaucracy of those closure kind of see
the sorting process in action over here we
we have in the back in the back over there
we have some maps that reference what Mindy
is talking about that one big map of Essex
County New Jersey which a place that out you
see these racial kinds of segregation maps
but my object is just something that I have
here I just unfold it for you and show it
is my birth certificate was from Madison General
Hospital I was born in Madison Wisconsin and.
[00:19:19]
You know. The reason that's a sorting document
is that. I was only born because the quota
of the number of Chinese that were allowed
into the country in one nine hundred fifty
one was already filled one hundred five people
a year quota was already filled now why hundred
five people year that seems like an odd number
Well that has to do with an one thousand twenty
four national origins Act which basically
specified it was basic It was driven by eugenics
specifying that the number based on the kind
of a mathematical formula of the number of
Chinese who could qualify to come into the
United States after nine hundred forty three
when the exclusion Law Act was repealed I'll
explain that in a minute was one hundred five
people write well if your type you are a family
could qualify under that number so the only
way they could my parents who are in visitors
visas could stay in this country was to have
me OK so I was the youngest of six who became
the anchor baby right for this family to enable
my parents to stay now what was the Chinese
Exclusion that I don't know I think a lot
of people in this room know about that but
most Americans don't know about it the exclusion
law was enacted in one thousand nine hundred
two saying sorry unless you're a merchant
or unless you're a scholar unless you're a
diplomat or student could not come into this
country in fact it was presumed all people
were presumed to be guilty of not belonging
unless they could prove otherwise.
[00:21:00]
So I had no idea that my sorting it preceded
me but I was kind of born into this whole
process. So I want to encourage all of you
to kind of think about that sorting document
and that sorting object you have as well.
Maybe what you're sorting. So when I brought
is a map of it's a gerrymander map of map
of a school gerrymander so JERRY MANDERS are
maps that wiggle the lines so they can group
people who are alike so this is this is the
wiggle and it was meant to take all these
people who are African-American so the kids
would go to the black school and not the white
school but it happened there were some white
kids over here but they went to the white
school so the line had to wiggle to pick up
the black people and then we're going to leave
out the white people my parents found this
map when I was seven and started us a school
fight and this was ended in the back I've
brought the redlining map of Essex County
redlining was done in the one nine hundred
thirty S.
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and it was a process of sending people around
with survey forms and looking to see where
the undesirable racial elements that would
be pretty much everybody in this room would
qualify as an undesirable racial element of
where we lived and where we were moving to
see if you happened to compare this map to
the redlining map you'll see that this little
section is not in red it's not a black neighborhood
at that time that map was made which is why
they had to wiggle costs you know people move
and that they called infiltration so they're
always looking for infiltration of of media
meaning we moved.
[00:22:51]
I mean my family was trying to move into Oak
Park West Side of Chicago and the racial covenant
laws were such that a Chinese family could
not move in there at the time so they went
to the next neighborhood which is integrated
black and white neighborhood went around the
block asking all the neighbors to see well
there's this Chinese family wants to move
in is it OK you know and people said OK so
I ended up living in Maywood Illinois for
them.
[00:23:19]
Years in my life it's not that long ago. So
what's the goal of this gathering over two
days we've kind of brought together a real
mixture of people to do some collaborative
problem solving and the question really is.
How have we all been impacted and why did
these things happen and how have these things
happened in a way that has fragmented so many
of us but at the same time we're not even
aware of those fragmentations So we're hoping
that we can kind of solve this problem together
and in some ways it's really working against
the trend of let's say a place like a research
university which thrives on specializing specializing
specializing to the point that people are
not talking to each other but they're very
secure in their own hyper specialisation of
this particular aspect of this particular
something.
[00:24:21]
We're working in the opposite way which is
trying to bring these together and to think
together about these questions so all of us
come from very special particular backgrounds
and which are trying to communicate across
these differences Mindy I know you've set
up this free university of orange and I was
trying to think well what can we name our
university for these two days and so I came
up with the state of N.Y.U. maybe the People's
University of New York but the problem with
that is that it's P U N Y puny you know so
I didn't think that would be the last name
so you should help me with kind of thinking
up I don't know if you have a better name
but.
[00:25:02]
So but. We're very much inspired by Mindy's
work which is why don't we call it the University
of Illinois OK. Great OK there it like that
name OK OK Let's let's go with that so we're
officially. Official. We make this the University
of them well enough to help you so thank you
that's a great idea.
[00:25:24]
Some in these words are a line create connects
a line in the sense of we're gathering folks
we're trying to cool our ideas trying to create
a collaborative way of speaking and thinking
together across differences and we're connecting
in terms of networking and this is what's
going to sustain us not only over these two
days but we're hoping online in the future
gatherings and ways in which we're thinking
we're documenting this event really wanting
to kind of spread the word and share beyond
the limited numbers that are in this room
to those larger audiences.
[00:26:05]
So. We want to encourage you as you're being
a part of this and as you're filling out this
tree and as you're checking out our different
activities or going on our walking tour to
be also thinking about how you might contribute
to our website that is being developed and
that website will be the major vehicle which
will have clips from these presentations and
performances but then also how you know kind
of what is your story what is your sorting
document what is the ongoing impact and legacy
of this kind of whole process that's been
going on for decades and really more than
a century how does it impact on us today and
how can we do something about it which is
really the big question.
[00:26:52]
So yeah. So there are some rules of I was
going to say these are the puny code of conduct
but we're going to save the University of
an IP hoping rules of conduct one of them
is this idea that Joe Dolan and David Romano
have come up with which is quite critical
generosity we are in this together we need
to be critical but the same time totally understand
what each of us are.
[00:27:19]
Coming from a very different place in a different
way and not be the usual academics which are
kind of it's almost like a gladiator fight
about who is the smartest and who's going
to win out the and survive the longest So
we're not doing that OK So we want to have
you leave your the high Western male academic
approach behind that is not part of what goes
on at this University also in order to be
able to have these discussions with each other
we need to have a strict time limit so we're
asking all the presenters who are framing
the questions that we're going to be talking
not to be talking from their area of specialization
and necessarily kind of reading a long paper
or you know reading is OK writing some of
the we want to communicate we want to really
be speaking directly to every one and to each
other so reliving those presentations to just
eight minutes OK just eight minutes it's actually
hard to do that and then those who are commenting
back just five minutes because we want to
make sure there's enough time for some real
discussion but also a flow of ideas and creative
activities along the way.
[00:28:32]
But I guess the final role of this university
is that we want this to be. An exhilarating
experience in which we can really enjoy the
fact that these things that many of us has
spent many years dealing with can we can in
which we can kind of has the pleasure of each
other's company and be able to talk about
our shared interests that we have no idea
is actually shared so Mindi any kind of additional
thoughts and comments before we start the
first session one of the things about the
University of our churches free peoples University
in Orange New Jersey is that it's all of our
classes tend to be multi-generational So sometimes
we have students as young as three and sometimes
as old.
[00:29:19]
Is ninety six so it's it's so part of the
challenge is that is really that all the generation
should feel free to speak and so some of you
are middle school students or and. So I just
want to say two things first of all the American
Medical Association said yesterday that fidgeting
is good because after a long as facility for
too long is very bad for your health but fidgeting
kind of wakes up your muscles so fidgeting
is good and raise your hands if you have something
to say.
[00:29:53]
And if you want to come up and speak just
let us know it's very important that everybody
who's here of all ages feel like you're here
you have something to teach and we all have
something to learn so you're here to teach
to you know OK well let's start the first
session.
[00:30:08]
The framers could come up we're going to sit
here with you but let you come up and then
we're going to have the mikes up as well on
this one here OK. But when it's over speaking
gets to tell a political case because you
know I want to know your.
[00:30:26]
Worth it is like you are. Low brow or high
profile case the term and everything about
our culture or our civil. About this oxymoron
but that's all I was thinking was for I'm.
All for when you're. In America you or I or
I say I want to take you out on here's the
line created connect by thinking about your
past tension I want on how I can get the next
Sunday they very much how I understand it's
a very last of the five zero critically important
things about today was I watched this you
know I was last time I was I was in a car
and.
[00:31:19]
We are not equally at all situated in the
past and present in this in the way and I
understand it is a US AND WE while they are
left we have different kinds of consultations
in the world and so this is an image of a
car to busy to and Exley girl child would
be used to raise money for our emancipated
and formerly enslaved people for education
and I put this here to think about the idea
of grace as also a practice of social sorting
and that this is why some black people look
like a less than one hundred fifty years ago
and so I was going to be back there maybe
we can talk about that during the Q.
[00:32:02]
and A I'll just move on to the next slide
and to learn the Ark City now and I want to
think about what are some of the laws governing
black city life in that city in colonial New
York City so in the seventeen hundreds and
one of the things that I was looking at something
called Lantern laws and these were laws that
were set up in the early seventeenth hundreds
by the Common Council of New York City and
they worked to govern laxity life and this
particular laws were set up so that black
mixed race and indigenous people if they were
not accompanied after dark by some random
white person they would have to walk with
a candle and so this lit candle became a kind
of supervisory device a technology that mark
the black mixed race and indigenous body as
unfree within the city to move about and so
you can think about this technology of something
as simple as I like to imagine it as a flashlight
or a candle fire as a way of marking which
bodies were in place and which bodies were
out of place you can think about the idea
that this also became a way of having black
mixed race and indigenous people as the kind
of in.
[00:33:19]
The structure of the city in terms of lighting.
And of course people resisted this so there
were many laws that were set in place in the
seventeen hundreds in colonial New York City
governing what people can do mobility and
these types of things no riding horseback
on Sunday no gambling no using loud voices
all of these things that many people resisted
and escaped I'm going to move on to branding
to particularly think about how biometric
technology the power use thinking simply of
biometrics as Bio the body and metrics as
measurements using these kinds of power how
can I allow us to ask questions about our
biometric present think like Minority Report
and iris scans or fingerprint scans those
types of things so this is the image again
another cart to busy eat from eight hundred
sixty three.
[00:34:10]
Wilson chin a branded slate and so he had
the parade and liberated himself and Exley
you can see in the image that he has many
tools of correction at his feet he's wearing
a like iron there's a paddle other types of
a bar with schools one thing that's interesting
about this image that you might notice is
that he has something around his neck called
A Long Horn and this will prevent people who
were immense trying to escape from being able
to take rest a kind of thinking about of like
horns of a coward I don't know cows half words
but just long horns around that another thing
that you'll notice about you won't notice
you're going on the explain to you if he has
a brand on his forehead V.B. and those are
the initials of somebody who had previously
owned him and in this way the brand also functions
to govern black mobility is tomorrow which
bodies were out of place so the branding came
about making the black body into a commodity
marking the black body as well so it was you
can understand this is a kind of traumatic
head injury but despite this he still ran
away and escape So branding.
[00:35:19]
The move out of that fly was done these are
quite violent technologies the idea of using
a iron and oil or some other type of substance
to mark the skin this would be done as a form
of punishment and as a means of identification
people might be branded with literally the
mark of the sovereign so you can imagine the
British crown on someone's are for our chest
I read two minutes or so the idea I want to
kind of think of this as a kind of early link
to modern identification technologies people
might be marked with the letter T.
[00:35:52]
for sugar plantation or S for sugar plantation
or tea or there was a Society for the propagation
of the bar of the Gospel in Barbados that
would mark everyone on their chest that they
had own with the word society this is a branding
iron and I saw an even a about five years
ago for over a thousand dollars so this technology
still haunts our current moment move on to
the next this is a runaway notice of someone
who had run away in New York City and took
many things I'm with him and these notices
can also let us know about some of the social
sorting practices of the pass this one here
is for the law to work quadroon girl named
Sarah or Sol who would.
[00:36:32]
Somebody face and she would cover her face
and paint to pass as weight and to pass into
freedom and this way she was hiding in the
lake in downtown New York City using the kind
of racial naming practices of the at the time
she was either had one black current and one
white parents or one.
[00:36:51]
One five grand parent and three black three
white grandparents and then we'll be named
a mulatto or quadroon and she still escaped
these practices others move on to the last
like this one here that one there is a young
man named Sam and it was there that he would
often roll his eyes when spoken to and so
on these are some of the technologies of slavery
that allow us to think how.
[00:37:19]
The historical formation of slavery of eugenics
is not outside of the historical formation
of surveillance so thank you very much. Thanks
good morning to I don't know if I have a slight
I. Can be that one second that's there well
it doesn't have to slide one is. This is not.
[00:37:46]
I'll just explain in the I'll give you my
framing comments this is not an actual D.N.A.
identity card but this company was at a tribal
enrollment conference there are there's a
national tribal unrolling conference that
happens every year three hundred approximately
federally recognized tribes there are state
recognized the non recognized tribes but those
that have these very dense longstanding relationships
with the federal government have this conference
every year when they talk about the governmental
processes of enrollment and there's a D.N.A.
testing company that comes and sells tries
to market their D.N.A. testing to them and
that was like I have a book called Native
American D.N.A. tribal belonging and the false
promise of genetic science and when I was
researching and I was going to this conference
a couple of times and I got this little sample
card that ship was what it would do is it
would have you would take a D.N.A. test and
then that chip would have would be used by
all the tribal government offices tribes are
kind of like states if it's a federally recognized
tribes so they'll have an environmental science
program the have a human resources they'll
have a tribal employment program we'll have
a police force jails courts you know basically
what a state would have and in that little
chip would have all your personal data so
whatever social service unit you go to in
the tribal government they can immediately
pull up all your stuff a form of surveillance
right but we do that with the state too so
it's I don't know that it's super different
if we go back to the traveling Roman card
this is an old school technology and so I'm
going to talk a little bit about the difference
between D.N.A. testing and notions of blood
or blood quantum which gets a lot of press
particularly by native study scholars and
I think in the public too because we've had
a lot of bad.
[00:39:19]
Press some tribes kick out a bunch of members
when they suddenly get rich from casinos and
they use notions of blood quantum and D.N.A.
to disenroll those people out there they're
very different I.D.'s the way the D.N.A. testing
is used in tribal enrollment is very different
than the way that this notion of blood has
been used to store me that's my old travelling
Roman card you can see I was a lot younger
there than I am now but if you look at the
back the next slide you can see my blood quantum
fractions that freaks people out who aren't
accustomed to tribal enrollment but I'm used
to it so I'll talk a little bit about that
you can leave that one out so the first thing
I wanted to do before I come back to blood
quantum in the notions of blood and D.N.A.
and race and tribal enrollment as I wanted
to talk about.
[00:40:01]
These fundamental binary is that are noted
in your program so if you look at the program
they say they talk about how did by Neris
of normal abnormal. Unfit good citizen other
become the political culture of America for
Americans I think a lot about fundamental
binary is and I kind of feel like all binary
is are essentially different forms of the
same.
[00:40:28]
Divide So I think a lot about race and I look
at the intersections of race and indigeneity
or indigenous people's identities and while
those things intersect they're not synonymous
because indigenous identity in this country
involves I won't speak about other countries
so much I work in the U.S. and Canada but
it involves political recognition by other
indigenous groups and by states.
[00:40:52]
And so it's a political concept that intersects
with notions of race so but the fundamental
binary as I think about that have led us to
have the notion of white versus a black or
white white versus brown white in the rest
we can go back quite a while and think about
this fundamental divide of christian them
versus heathens right a long time ago before
we had concepts of race we had this notion
that there was the Christian world these were
the civilized.
[00:41:19]
People and then there were all the rest and
we still have resonances of that today right
Islamophobia and I want to think about how
these different divides can get conflated
in overlap so there was that one first and
that one was used to justify colonization
in the United States I heard the pope is making
a saint out of some horrible genocidal missionary
that's kind of perturbs me so that's happening
while he's doing all this social justice dialogue
here he's also making a saint out of a genocidal
missionary this week but but that notion that
there were Christians and heathens was used
to justify the slaughter of native people
and their enslavement and then the dispossession
of my ancestors from from this land then we
get this notion as this kind of form as this
notion of race rises up post fourteen ninety
two right this notion of Europe and the rest
but Europe is Christian largely and it's doing
a lot to drive out non Christians you know
a lot of a lot of slaughtering going on over
there as well and that continued for hundreds
of years and is still happening.
[00:42:20]
And then Europe comes to be signify whiteness
right so we move from christian them versus
the rest to Europe versus the rest to whiteness
versus blackness versus brownness and again
the fundamental divide is still who is considered
civilized in advanced and enlightened and
who is considered backwards and enlightened
and worthy of slaughter and dispossession.
[00:42:40]
And then we move into the current moment in
this is something I write about and I study
and work with a lot of scientists because
I work with D.N.A. testing companies I work
with human population geneticists who study
human migrations who are really interested
in the population of the Americas and it's
becoming very clear to me that the the the
idea the scientific subject becoming a scientist
buying into scientific discourse as that is
conflated with neutrality is becoming a new
form of whiteness so what I see among scientific
subjects so geneticists in particular whom
I study is this idea that.
[00:43:19]
They have a right to the resources and native
bodies and other bodies and sick bodies so
they can produce science and knowledge for
the good of all if you look back at the nineteenth
century the idea that the that white people's
founding fathers could could take this land
and enslave people this was for the good of
all this was for the good of the nation well
who was considered part of the nation human
beings and of course black people and brown
people weren't fully human So what we have
today is we if we if we compare scientific
conversations to nineteenth century US colonial
conversations you see very similar types of
language Sciences in light and in forward
looking it's extracting resources from other
human bodies from the world to develop technologies
and cures for the good of all but science
is performed more on people's best some people's
backs than others and it produces benefits
that are more for some people that others
and so one of the things I'm looking at is
the way that scientists can access what I
would say is a new form of white privilege
and we're getting into a an era and I'm trying
to find language for this because it's controversial
to talk about people that we would consider
nonwhite as well as people we would consider
white accessing forms of white privilege but
I see this even among scientists of color
if there is a desire to talk about science
is this neutral always a good program that
is for the good of all and anybody who opposes
it is anti science and backwards I see accessing
that kind of privilege and rights as a new
form of whiteness and so I'm trying to think
about how to how to call this I'm thinking
maybe post ancestral whiteness I'm not sure
I was on a panel with a very famous legal
scholar Sheryl Harris a few years ago who
is a critical race scholar who wrote a really
important piece looking at.
[00:45:04]
The history of whiteness it in the United
States and she was also struggling with this
idea of how do we talk about new forms of
whiteness that are not necessarily tied only
to having ancestry in Europe while we. I have
to think about the way that European colonization
has helped form science the way that it is
now and so that's something that I think a
lot about how is becoming a scientist if you're
not careful about the language that you're
using.
[00:45:33]
A form of accessing white privilege and so
I guess I didn't get to the blood quantum
stuff but. I think I'm going to stop there
because otherwise it would take too long I
guess I just want to say and maybe we can
talk about this in conversation that while
a lot of people criticize the technology of
blood quantum and it is an old school technology
a social technology I actually find D.N.A.
testing much more problematic because tribes
have internalised and figured out how to tweak
the symbolics of blood blood talk in a way
that sometimes works to their advantage D.N.A.
testing is really outside of our control right
now we don't have a lot of indigenous scientists
who can advise tribal governments on this
work and so that's kind of a controversial
position that I take that most people would
say blood on his is absolutely horrible and
racist I see D.N.A. testing is actually more
racist.
[00:46:21]
We're used to dealing with the lesser of two
evils sometimes in this country in particular
so I will stop there. I want to talk just
briefly about reconciling the past and present
and thinking about the world we live in today
and the world that existed more than one hundred
years ago and the value of this came home
to me in about two thousand and two thousand
and nine at Rutgers Newark where I organized
a teach in on the great recession the economy
had just crashed our overwhelmingly working
class student body was in deep economic distress
and I thought it would be useful to bring
people together to talk about what this might
mean and we have a good forum we did we had
students we had five activists talking about
what this meant in historical perspective
and what it meant today but I couldn't get
around the point the fact that we're not for
a group.
[00:47:19]
I have to say somewhat elderly Trotskyist
in the back of the room who kept raising really
tough points about the economy and what we
should do about it and overthrow capitalism
the discussion would have been really kind
of tap it it wouldn't have been that passionate
and it wouldn't have proposed political alternatives
to the present way of doing things and I thought
about why might this be because in the thirty's
in the Great Depression Americans had a vigorous
debate about their economic system and what
it might be and they also had another and
why because I would say from roughly fifty
years from the eight hundred eighty S.
[00:47:55]
to the one nine hundred thirty S. in the era
of the Gilded Age in the era of the populists
in the era the progressives the Socialist
Party the advocates the I.W.W. Americans have
gotten used to debating capitalism and talking
about its strengths its weaknesses its cruelties
and changing it and posing alternatives to
it very moderate alternatives very radical
alternatives and then in some ways the habit
of mine for doing that had been lost and I
began to think about the circumstances under
which that way of thinking and critiquing
capitalism gain strength and how we lost it
and what I don't see was one of the periods
when he gave this habit of critique game strength
was what we might call the first age of globalization
the late nineteenth century the early twentieth
century the eighty's the eight hundred eighty
S.
[00:48:44]
the eight hundred ninety S. the nineteenth
ends and in that ferment emerged some valuable
ideas the point is not to think them through
again as if we just need to pull them out
of Amber but to recover some of the habits
of radical perspective and radical critique
that made those years so fertile even though
flawed in many ways so what was that period
like a little more than one hundred years
ago an increasingly global capitalism accompanied
by a growth in migration that troubled the
boundaries of nations everywhere the rise
of a second industrial revolution.
[00:49:19]
In effect which was dependent on large amounts
of money large amounts of scientific research
and large work forces and international forms
of communication and transportation that troubling
of national boundaries by migration by workers
in pursuit of livelihoods all around the world
not just in the United States was complemented
by imperial projects in which the United States
moved into the Caribbean Central America and
the Asian Pacific indecisive ways and European
powers conquered parts of Africa and later
the Middle East and home Americans were living
in the shadow of the Civil War This only American
republic with all the flaws that Lincoln described
had been to come to an end but what New Republic
was going to emerge on the bones of that was
not yet clear forms of control like slavery
were being replaced by new forms of control
like Jim Crow at the same time the growth
of a corporate economy that did not require
manual labor led some people to think that
white men would become shriveled up and weak
from working behind desks and then overcome
by black men and Asian men and European men
from the southern parts of Europe who had
in the racist thought of the mind natural
manly vigor because they were so smart there
was a widespread sense in the US and not just
in the US in this new world that there had
to be a regeneration through struggle or regeneration
through struggle that sometimes took expression
in social reform movements sometimes in imperial
projects and sometimes openly led I think
to the slaughter in World War one around the
world.
[00:51:08]
Still and look back on this period with a
certain degree of affection and at the same
time revulsion I always grew up loving Jack
London stories but then when I realized that.
Jack London was an example of one of many
racists to be found on the left I had to rethink
Jack London and his significance and my affection
for him at the same time though I look back
on that period and I see a couple things that
are worth thinking about there was an international
traffic and ideas about reforming radicalism
that were not confined to national boundaries
radical circulated regularly between countries
moderate reform ideas circulated between countries
historian named Daniel Rogers has written
eloquently about this my friend Steve Pryor
was writing about a tally of radicals who
went back and forth between the U.S. and Italy
many of them anarchists many of them labor
organizers who did important work in both
countries there was I believe internationally
and this is my old professor Tom benders point
that people believed cities were part of a
large set of problems that could be solved
the problems of the time were not beyond address
they're not beyond race affect the responses
cities could be made more just cities could
be made more you made some of the projects
that attempted to make cities would just add
their own problems and they bear fruit sometimes
and the uglier aspects of progressive reform
that were shaped by eugenics that were shaped
by exclusion Nonetheless the ideas of learning
to critique the economic order that we live
in the ideas of thinking that capitalism needs
to be regulated and controlled the ideas that
capitalism needs to be.
[00:52:57]
Maybe even overthrown in some people's mind
had a currency then that we've lost I think
we need to recover that in a new way in our
own time absent and this is no small thing
absent the current of scientific pseudoscientific
racism that existed on both the left and the
right there are still useful ideas worth recovering
from the age of the Industrial Workers of
the world the Socialist Party a variety of
anarchists and free thinkers and we formers
that made the world of the twentieth century
early twentieth century.
[00:53:32]
A place of possibilities a place of Froment
a place of conflict thanks thank you. Thank
you thank you very. Much So each of you has
already final minutes to. Respond to what
you heard your first off thank you Christopher
it's like to go first. Everyone. Like to talk
about and think Dr Chen for inviting me and
he spoke to me at the Ha this year and a surprise
and I can actually do a conference on my research
but just responding on from three percent
target.
[00:54:16]
The main thing I got from all three presenters
as to who gets to control the bodies of people
residing in a nation. Under surveillance or
just the others versus the Christians others
or says the way this or even just who gets
to control people in the life of capitalism
the big problem that we have in our nation
is just that there is a creation of other
and a fear of other and because you appear
other we create.
[00:54:44]
Mechanisms to make sure that the other is
taking control of. So on my research not trying
to play it by so deeply into it I deal with
a guy named Charles Davenport who spends his
time you know negotiating with the U.S. government
through all his research supermoto ideals
of sterilization and anti-miscegenation laws
in a way of making sure that white purity
is kept in this nation because in his ancestry
his genealogy white ancestry created a great
nation so that's just pretty much the bulk
of what I got from those three presentations
is that there's a big fear of other groups
arising in the United States because you ISIS
was built on a certain ideal of free men but
who were these free men the few men came from
English backgrounds Scottish backgrounds or
Western European backgrounds so as people
come from southern and eastern Europe or maybe
as free free men become more politically involved
or as you know there's yellow peril on the
West Coast United States or as United States
took up make half a Mexico you have these
new groups said we want more local party more
economic power do you integrate them into
a society where everyone is able to live freely
or do you maintain the status quo because
that's what create the nation that was built
so that's my comments and I'll take any nice
questions after an expensive and thank you
thank you it was thank you good morning everyone
thank you so much to the organizers thank
you to all of you for being here today.
[00:56:20]
My response is going to be primary by talking
about my own work which I think is absolutely
overlapping and echoes a lot of the things
that have been already said. So if you know
I have a bunch of slides and I began my research
on Hawaii and I look at how whole what he
became a part of the United States primarily
through this process of colonialism OK So
only ten months after helping to lead the
overthrow.
[00:56:44]
Of the Hawaiian Kingdom Lauren Thurston is
pictured here was in Chicago at the eight
hundred ninety three Columbia exposition so
Thurston was a third generation sutler of
some of the first American missionaries to
Hawaii and he was in Chicago managing his
killer whale cyclorama which is also pictured
there and the second Rama was a five story
high four hundred foot wide landscape painting
of killer whale creator the killer whale volcano
that was the sign to encircle the viewer and
give the impression as if you're actually
in the Creator's volcano so placing a large
American flags at the top of the cycle Rama
Thurston used it as a kind of advertisement
for both tourism and an exception so for an
exception this whole what he needed to be
seen not as an internationally recognized
nation that had been since eight hundred forty
three whole while he had foreign delegates
throughout the world including Britain in
Britain but instead Hawaii need to be seen
very much like how it seemed today as a primitive
and exotic place which is made a new with
the joint help of white settlers in Hawaii
and the newly industrialized United States.
[00:57:55]
And so with more than twenty seven million
visitors the exposition World's Fair was used
to commemorate the four hundred thousand or
verse three of Christopher Columbus is quote
so-called discovery of the Americas I don't
know how you discover something that already
has one hundred million people existant there
right so it basically what the exposition
did was it narrated the conquest of Native
Americans and the settlement of their land
as an achievement evidence of white superiority
so U.S. claims of white racial superiority
However occurred at a time when their economic
dominance was most threatened the U.S. nation's
economy by each in ninety three when the major
depression with five hundred banks closed
fifteen thousand companies shut down and by
the middle of eight hundred ninety four a
record four million people were unemployed
and.
[00:58:44]
This economic depression created numerous
radical movements they were Carling arguing
the capitalism was itself a system that benefited
the rich at the expense of the poor and they
were those calling for revolution and so in
order to quell these revolutions what the
Harrison administration what President Harrison
did was he in not did a policy called depression
diplomacy and basically what that was was
there are going to see.
[00:59:10]
They're going to seize other parts in the
Pacific and in the Caribbean as stepping stones
to larger markets in Asia OK and that was
going to get them out of the economic depression
so colonization imperialism itself had an
economic motive how they're depicting these
populations. Itself had a particular political
aim or economic game.
[00:59:34]
And so the Columbia exposition was divided
into two main sections so that long horizontal
strip was a two mile strip that was called
the middle of his songs and it led to the
White City and it's told the story about the
benefits of white civilizations conquest of
the nonwhite world so most of the non-Western
world was placed on exhibit at the Midway
Smithsonian ethnologist oldest tucked in Mason
identified three modern types of savagery
the American meaning Native Americans negroid
quote and the Malayo Polynesian so the label
Polynesian laid the groundwork for casting
these populations of unfit for self-government
OK And basically it laid the ground for a
colonial power colonial project and what we
saw won and the genocidal war in the Philippines
were upwards of two million Filipinos were
killed by Americans with the Americans could
teach Filipinos to be democratic.
[01:00:39]
So the similarities between whites their claims
over Native American Hawaiian lands were not
law. Lost on cannot be native Hawaiians or
native Americans so in a letter to Queen the
little Kalani who is the queen of Hawaii at
the time the citizens of the Cherokee Nation
writes to them to her and asks how many volunteer
Americans what it required to reestablish
your Majesty's Government and displace the
oligarchies that are SERPs your country some
cannot but we are also aware of the commonality
of their struggle with the Filipino struggle
against US occupation in the Philippines so
Robert Wilcox a Hawaiian nationalists wrote
two letters to Emily AGA NALDO was himself
other leader a Philippine work in the states
and expresses his solidarity with the Filipino
fight for independence and to offer his services
and so the racist idea.
[01:01:31]
That the darker races needed to catch up to
the wider ones was visually expressed at the
midway where groups are a range that savage
races quote unquote on the far left Oriental
quote unquote cultures in the middle and to
tonic or Celtic races nearest to the White
City so location of the killer whale cyclorama
placed near points between the American Indian
show and an exhibit on the Algerian Tunisia
and I was I taught a class at the Everest
in Hawaii once and one of my students said
that actually this is very reflective of hollow
the island of Oahu is also racially organized
so the farther.
[01:02:10]
East for instance if you're on the west of
the I don't need trouble East people skin
colors get lighter but so that do these communities
and becoming more affluent. And so as an advertisement
for. Actually skip ahead. I'm actually out
of time so can you just skip. Right there
so this is the inside of the school the way
cyclorama and it was primarily used as a way
to describe why it was that the United States.
[01:02:44]
Should seize control over Hawaii OK And so
in it you can see on the very bottom images
kind of hard to see but there's a geologist
walking within the crater OK and he's painted
as white and it's the images of drawn by painted
by water birds. Was a Chicago landscape artist.
[01:03:05]
And the reason why they painted a geologist
in the crater was because after you went into
the second Rama after the pit chanted to Pele
after they made you fearful of this irrational
illiterate female threat superstitious female
threat that superstitious female threat could
be pacified by a white masculine science a
geologist who could explain away the superstition
and explain the scale of the Kaino how to
pick a volcano works and by comparing two
sets of knowledge is right a whole wind we
have conception which is actually not depicted
here or a representation of point knowledge
and then geology.
[01:03:47]
White settlers could presume to have a more
advanced knowledge over the creator and thus
be more deserve it over Hawaii so this is
one of the ways I think that masculine scientists
and white masculine science absolutely plays
a role primarily in and disconnecting hoeing
cultural and spiritual associations with this
place THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
[01:04:16]
But there's so much richness here. You know
I guess I wanted to kind of make some connections
and kind of take a deep breath because all
of this has such a huge impact on those to.
I was growing up at a time in which the term
mongoloid T.V. It was still common any of
you have heard that term mongoloid idiot Have
you guys heard that term at all you know.
[01:04:40]
It was referring to people with. What is now
oftentimes referred to is Down syndrome or
trisomy and I can't remember the numbers to
say remember the numbers of trisomy. Twenty
one OK thank you which trisomy twenty one
doesn't have the kind of catchy phrase mongoloid
idiot but monthly did it referred to people
with Down syndrome or people who you know
had a certain kind of profile in terms of
the way they looked and the theory behind
this was that these people were spontaneously
degenerating to the mongoloid level so that
that doesn't make any sense either right so
how do we unpack that well the idea was premised
on racial degeneration that if white people
who were superior were to approximate or intermingled
with an Asian person or a black person or
a Malay person etc etc They would begin to
degenerate their children we degenerate to
the to the lower race and this really drove
a lot of eugenics thinking.
[01:05:55]
But it also meant that there's a media a certain
kind of hierarchy of who you thought you should
marry who you thought you should get into
a relationship who how you should control
your urges of sexual attraction right and
who you should absolutely avoid So it really
played out immensely in terms of laws about
who should marry and laws that said you cannot
marry someone that were laws that happen in
many states of the nation but it also played
itself out spatially so that I would argue
and it's there's not enough time to kind of
put this up I'm going to kind of set the table
here in this first session with some of the
historical patterns I would argue that we
take.
[01:06:44]
Base for granted now in terms of what a concert
good parts of a city and bad parts of the
city but also the good suburbs being that
you move further and further away from the
city and now the reverse of that in which
gentrification displacement is what is now
recreating out of bad parts of the city good
parts of the city right doesn't just end there
also what are considered places of retreats
in which we can get away from the congestion
of the city Well you know for a moment right
for a month and or a national park now we
appreciate the fact that Teddy Roosevelt built
these national parks but the same time it
was premised he was someone deeply connected
and believing in your generous ideas and it
was really a notion that we need to kind of
clear out the low Protestants the how low
folk.
[01:07:41]
From places in the Appalachians and create
parks parks that would kind of clear out those
folks so that people who were the exhausted
White Anglo Saxon Protestants in the cities
could go out to and recharge in nature so
in some ways all of what we're talking about
is very much a reorganization of the space
of not just the city and its relationship
to suburbs but also relationship to the nation
itself and how really whiteness and racial
degeneration in the fears of degeneration
so much organize the space of this nation
I just kind of want to put that out there
and I would suggest that a lot of what we're
talking about spatially actually works itself
out spatially and that's something that we've
tended tended not to kind of understand it's
part of the history that we don't know about
and part of the way in which we I think in
some ways are.
[01:08:44]
Resist and don't connect up with a lot of
these particular stories about this disability
or that kind of law I know that doesn't have
anything to do with me but in fact it has
everything to do with all of us next. To a
car so. I just want to go to the middle school
students and you guys remember your middle
school.
[01:09:12]
High school all right cool what's on your
mind listening very patiently or really proud
of your mindset. What if you're that made
sense well what I thought I. Was sad I thought
that. I was. Talking. About. Why. I'm. Right
that. The presentation about. You know. About.
This story about
a scientist taking.
[01:10:17]
Blood that was secret from trial. In the brain.
Things like that and I thought he was very
interesting in the D.N.A. testing could be
more precise in things like. Robert Yeah you
know you're. Busy. He's in the office remote.
And on the roof using equal or other forms
is going well and it's been put down by certain
things in our society be going too far you
know only because of the force he can't be
sure of other forms with capitalism so really
of the world.
[01:11:05]
Let me say. So. I thought. I was really interesting
I like things that you talked about because.
I just like the concept of a it's like Brandon
It was just like so what brought so many different
ways that I think most of the really well
you're teaching. This is really just thinking
about how all of this like concept still effects
like people's lives today and I just thought
it was really interesting you talk.
[01:11:46]
About Where are. You knowing how to write
an article. By. Kind of push to you know render
the body into something digital in a passport
or facial recognition technology or the fingerprint
as well too as tying the body to get to an
identity or verification purposes and so I
try to trace those histories as one history
of biometric technology through the branding
of people so you know thank you for that comment.
[01:12:21]
A really. Awful red line even separation in
the old like bump out in the school district
and stuff like that a very big thing ignores
because it is something that you talk about
high school or at least I have with I want
to teachers supposedly history of US That
is a thing that has been historically done
and even currently that different races have
been segregated without even them realizing
just different.
[01:12:46]
Trying to work here like our financial stability
isn't just different areas. I also found the.
Branding all very interesting concept as well
as the fact that. It is a very shocking thing
how people are going to fight starting already
to just chill the number to Social Security.
That itself can be just racial and to get
a specific number point it's about America
where.
[01:13:16]
One of the problems with with mapping and
sort of representing differences between people
on a map is it all depends on the lens you
use I was I did a book about Washington Heights
and the other night happened and I looked
at the Homeowners Loan Corporation map of
northern Manhattan and it looks at the racially
ethnically integrated section and says racial
ethnic racially and ethnically integrated
bad choice for investment don't give any loans
here stay away from this neighborhood right
and that just condemns the people at the economic.
[01:13:47]
Decay and problems you know with which never
really went away in the same time period I
saw another that sure the same neighborhood
was produced for newspaper advertisers and
what these newspaper guys wanted to do was
find eager consumers who would want to buy
newspapers and would eagerly read the ads
and go out and buy the products they raided
the same neighborhood that the Homeowners
Loan Corporation saw as a disaster as a great
place to sell newspapers and find willing
consumers because they grasped that most of
those people in that neighborhood were immigrants
African-American migrants up from the south
people from Cuba all of that eager to make
their way in the city they saw them through
an entirely different lens and what other
people said saw disaster and avoided they
saw great place to invest same neighborhood
completely different reactions to.
[01:14:39]
I was wondering what are your thoughts on
campaign. Fetus research. And I believe the
genetics I'm not an expert in this but I'll
give it a crack OK this coming week. We may
be having another one of those moments in
which the Congress will not renew the budget
for this very reason so that the Republican
Party is actually.
[01:15:05]
Saying that they're not going to Renu the
federal budget because the government has
been there's a small amount of money that's
going towards Planned Parenthood so it's a
huge issue that's going to be coming up again
and again in the election campaign. Part of
what they're saying is that Margaret Sanger
basically was a eugenicist and therefore and
a founder of Planned Parenthood and therefore
as part of this kind of right wing critique
of using eugenics and identifying with top
down state support that that that should be
stopped that's part of an argument that.
[01:15:50]
Those who are supporting deregulation and.
The government getting out of people's lives
is building some traction as a way to kind
of support the Republican and really kind
of really right wing kinds of arguments as
opposed to efforts to the government to regulate
which is oftentimes of the Democratic Party
stands for right so in some ways we're at
this moment in which the Gilded Age I think
we're in the second gilded age in which there's
incredible money and the wealth and poverty
separation in this country has never been
greater right so in some ways that's what
happened in the first go to date and now we're
in the second go to the end there's a lot
of anxiety and and crying out against that
in justice but the same time will the regulations.
[01:16:45]
Of that some people are suggesting be the
solution to that right so in some ways that's
kind of sets the table of that particular
accusation that's being made now the difficulty
of this and this is part of the discussion
about well how can we have a pack as Rob was
suggesting the.
[01:17:03]
Progressive movement. Especially against the
populist movement and radicals is that it's
an arguments a very effective argument by
the right wing. And it's really not so very
accurate in the sense that it was really the
genesis and those in the people who are involved
in the so-called Gilded Age people like Art
Andrew Carnegie and Rockefeller's and many
of these other people who are making so much
that money moving to New York City forming
Fifth Avenue society that we're going to kind
of talk to in the tour we are very much protecting
and advocating a kind of scientific racism
scientific management is really premised on
a certain kind of hierarchy of who's on top
and who should not belong who is unfit so
this whole process really so so and Margaret
sayers relationship is more complicated than
what people are saying so this is really a
process in which the elites were the ones
who were most behind eugenics So when the
right wing is claiming that this is just examples
to control they're actually not dealing with
the real power relationships that we're being
supported in in both the gilded age and also
the progress of a lot of progressives where
elites who were really trying to find a way
to kind of maintain social control and all
of the bureaucracy and the meritocratic system
that we now live in really emerges out of
that kind of time period interest in which
society and space and every day lives are
kind of organized and regimented accordingly
so part of what we're trying to get at is
kind of how do we critique that hundred.
[01:18:44]
Stand out so it's not just an either or choice
of laissez faire capitalism or regulation
because neither are really cool your solution
I don't know from did you want to add on to
that or for anybody else this is the comment
of caution Jack So the president the word
red line came from the practice first of the
Homeowners Loan Corporation drying those maps
and then that corporation morphed into a lot
of things that are around today or old house
to get a stray shower bag it's better in a
group red lines around racially changing neighborhoods
so the idea of change itself was used by the
appraisal industry to connote something that
you would get into property value rather than
all that happened under a Democratic administration
with the best of intentions trying to deal
with a really tough economic.
[01:19:36]
Situation and yet it's still all going today
in these a DIA seem to take on a reality once
the. Numerator had a. Brand of it label the
same way that creates a culture so in effect
the regulation happens naturally because a
government after a while may have been initiated
there but it's taken root in the culture in
the market place of my cautionary note you
open up on the comment about Congress and
where the Democrats or Republicans are at
most people if you ask them who do you know
which party do you think was empowering when
their practice started with say well of course
if they had stayed they said Republicans but
it didn't happen that way so there wasn't
a focus on what the intent was enough in whether
it was working enough on those things and
was an awful lot of feedback or transparency
when those powers issues were being made.
[01:20:31]
Which is why it's good you're holding this
conference we have a chance to revisit these
things and have some tough questions thank
you. Rob. I know. It's a lot like. A. Story.
So I refer specifically to tribes right I'm
not talking yeah yeah. So. I reckon federally
recognized tribes I'll stick with that OK
and I realize some of you may not understand
the difference but those are those are you
know Cherokee Nation Navajo Nation these sort
of tribes with these big bureaucracies.
[01:21:26]
They use most of them there are two ways that
they do in Rome and basically One is to just
do lineal descent every tribe in the country
that does this has what's called a base role
that's a role that's that was constructed
in the early twentieth century usually And
it was constructed so the federal government
could know who was in India and in order to.
[01:21:49]
Dispense money and resources because of course
they had taken all the land and put natives
on reserves or reservations and U.S. lingo
and you could no longer hunter fish or do
what you needed to do to live right so you're
stuck in this little small area that can support
your people and you have to live in houses
and eat white flour and go to church and consume
white white people right well in order to
do that they had to give them money and houses
and plows and try to make them farmers and
all that but if they were going to figure
out which Indians to give that to they had
to have a list of names right.
[01:22:21]
And so the way that tribes do that now is
they decide who belongs according to whether
they can trace descent back to those base
roles now of course some people were left
off some people married out into other populations
and you know their descendants are no you
know no longer identified as native.
[01:22:40]
So when tribes are tracing back to those base
roles the leaders say you just have to be
lineal just. Lineal descendant So Cherokee
Nation does it this way right you just have
to have a great great great great great grandparents
and your and but Navajo Nation doesn't do
it that way and neither does my tribe do it
that way Navajo Nation I believe requires
a what one Puerto quote unquote blood quantum
now nobody's looking at anybody's Bleier right
because there's no nothing to look at that
tells you that somebody is Navajo there's
no properties in blood that are Navajo specific
so I need kind of disagree when people critique
blood quantum for being biologically essential
if there's no biological nothing and no one
on there OK and what you're doing is looking
at documents in order to do probing one border
blood quantum you basically have to have the
form of blood and I say all this was spear
points all the time because they were determined
to be for blood by somebody writing it on
a piece of paper or you're pretty brown and
we don't see any ancestry in your family that's
not Navajo So we'll just say well so then
your head if you marry you know anon that
now the whole becomes half blood that's how
this works right it's all about who wrote
what number on a piece of paper OK so they
require one corner blood quantum might spark
requires this is very interesting it's very
different rules requires one order what it
wants and what the traits of the day it's
what but it doesn't have to be one quarter
system walked in on the table which is what
I'm a member of it can be one quarter of the
in blood Now this gets into federal law gets
it right it's the feds care that you're Indian
what I want to Native American They don't
care about what's right because they're thinking
about rights well trying to care about what's
right so this is a way in which they complicate
it so there's that there's always messy weird
rules that use the word why but really what
they're talking about is they're really ancestors
and counting them in the dividing them up
according to Rocky it's kind of crazy but
they can see companies coming and usually
if you can it's usually fatherhood that's
in question right so when anything occupation
if we want to get a caricature just on how
you talk to ten percent are you going to the
biological father you think you're so it's
dangerous if you can hear the chest in your.
[01:24:44]
Suborn you don't want to do that can disrupt
family relations and you find things out you
may not want to know so. The tribes have this
problem right if they serve the way my you
know seat is a lucrative casino where they're
going to give every member thousand bucks
a month and then suddenly people want to kind
of become her was from there so these are
best well now we're really going to be strict
about who's who's in role in this trial because
now tangible benefits are involved and so
then there will be into D.N.A. testing one
of those trucks and my concern with the testing
is that it's non-native scientists running
these companies doing this work who don't
want to become a complex understanding of
the histories of politics and probably won't
and they give the bad technical advice because
if you're going to do D.N.A. testing for the
moment you need to understand genetics and
you need to understand histories of Indian
policy and what I'm going to be writing for
the public is that people get a quicker grasp
of basic economics then they get a quicker
grasp of copper when wrong and so that's my
that's my concern right in that if you have
no non-native scientists doing all the work
it's not just that the technology is problematic
when applied to romance it's that we're building
other people's companies other people's lives
other people's capacity and I'm kind of tired
of non native nations institutions universities
grant students and scientists building their
Pasadena backs I think we need to have some
self-determination over that sort of.
[01:26:05]
Like what really struck me is about it is
your private like need of people or for straight
stuff or people like running. Everything.
And. I have a question like What is your view
like. Native people. Or. Soccer. So why. Do
you like like a scene of ott. All.
[01:26:49]
Right. But. It's. That's it's. Your question
would be about. Indigenous companies who are
coming and yeah and what it's what it's. Like.
How. You know. That's a big question. I think
trying to gaming is actually happening we're
going there but it's their special conference
and are going to Between the States and France
is because while States not fundamentally
they don't have jurisdiction.
[01:27:30]
The only way that evening I asked was Barry
Bonds agreeing to negotiate individual contracts
with states in order to basically give them
money because prior to pay taxes that man
is exempt from the state not because arms
would be in the. Give us money Herschel in
I don't think the that the problem is gaming
I think I think the problem is giving out
individual of the payments to individual drug
owners medical per capita pain sometimes my
car has frequency I was moderately profitable
but rather middle of the big city we feed
all that money back into the ground called
the Wheeler travel Pedro school fantastic
control school we have been going to non-scientists
women and stuff but there are some tribes
who pay our money every month Grant and they're
the ones that get into big trouble they have
the role of the seeds I'm gearing up against
that this I think it's really been a dream
so.
[01:28:24]
I think again it depends on how you operate
where they can be useful for building tomorrow
when the structure which we need to regulate
around base rate not to speak it's nice to
get leverage if you don't speak science whether
it's biological science or you know physics
in the case of not in the morning you are
you know it's the policy science you don't
get to sit at the table with policymakers
and how legitimate one.
[01:28:44]
When we got to talking. And Sohini research
is not. So. Right. So. It's. Really hurt.
A lot of. People. That are. Saying. Well I'm.
The person who coined attorney general experiences
golf and was actually a cousin of Charles
Darwin so it comes from that period in the
late one thousand nine hundred two where Earth
scientists Well I'll have a proper time but
I get to academics and become very important
in the lives of middle class in the world
bring much Western Europe and United States
so you begin using ideas of Darwinism or in
the US Social Darwinism to determine what
the proper you know genes you start to use
science as a way to determine what's good
for society so that's where it comes from
by actually does read a book about Anglo-Saxon
ism and there's just these ideas about that
there's a period he of certain races so Anglo-Saxon
is actually a combination of different races
there are in England but in those people create
the United States and those people built Britain
into the biggest empire in the world so you
have these ideas of what makes a society great
and these two societies are great so you keep
on building in trying to use science as a
way to prove the greatness of that society
and that builds into why you know.
[01:30:34]
So universities like Harvard which you know
promote these ideas and eventually it's just
a snowball it continues snowballing into what
was great. How was great and eventually by
the one nine hundred twenty S. you have you
know. Person Like the guy John Charles I don't
work who's using these ideas to say we have
to prevent certain groups or integrating into
the greatness of our society or so many groups
are actually great but they cannot be great
in our society so it just is all these conversations
are happening about what's making this world
this empire or you know capitalism is great
at the time but wouldn't you agree that to
some extent this is something we're facing
earlier forms of racism that go back pretty
far right.
[01:31:17]
Shakespear really tries to trash I lock it
merchant so and the whole slave trade is really
around to basing Africans so they marked with
they become scientific racism racism goes
back I see you want to jump on this is really
a scary thing that what we see in the end
of the nineteenth century is older forms of
a trade and racism again this new scientific
overlay which is far more deadly and will
lead to genocides it and slaughters of all
kinds and frankly this is one of the things
that scared me in two thousand and eight in
the in the most globalized cow economy that
we've seen since the eve of the First World
War That's the key thing to grasp on the eve
of the first world war the economy was global
IT WAS AN AGE very similar to our own and
then it that was led to horrific bloodletting
around the world not just in Europe I mean
we forget Well one in Africa world one in
the Middle East we had never had a world the
world we live in today and Syria is a direct
product of the subtle and the World War One
and that's what I fear about our own time
frankly that a kind of all you know bio babble
I get really nervous when people say there's
no alternative to this because it's in our
D.N.A. There's no alternative if this is where
biologically I will are wired to do this this
is like really vulgar not scientific thinking
and frankly that tends to be a justification
for the status quo and suggest that there's
no alternative to the present because we're
hard wired that way.
[01:32:45]
Really scared when I hear this. Yes I am very
active. And. I was smiling at silencing as.
Well. Because I'm very views about his description
of his. He says in New York. His route I'd
like to know with your bluster. That's there
we will send him an email answer you will
check in with.
[01:33:26]
A meter and your for your we will get. Lost
in the. Well we'll ask thank you back to you
anybody anybody have an idea Glastris are
you. What you think is. Just a turn a New
York. New York swagger I think New Yorkers
have swagger. Wagon. Anybody want to demonstrate
in New York's car was a home full of people
have already described all right.
[01:34:14]
Yes. Yes. You want to jump and you. Want to
change one thing. Not. Even. Both the. Very.
Little But you know. A lot of you're going
to work the following may be a very silently
morning and this is known in the media used
to be. If you were throwing at him with the
dog you.
[01:35:10]
Were really. Really dog with nothing good
on you really were all. There were a series
of papers that we were given that we were
to share to read and one of them makes the
point that the social darwinists. Are concerned
that the White race will disappear and it
will be overtaken by the unfit races.
[01:35:46]
Which is exactly the opposite of Darwin because
Darwin says that the whoever survives is the
fittest So they're saying the white race is
the fittest but it has to be protected so
we can survive from these inferior races will
somehow wipe out so social Darwinism it doesn't
come directly from the principles of darkness
on earth as there are rest of.
[01:36:10]
Us. Well as I say OK. So you're saying. There
will probably get another rustication. I think
Dad Yes there is a. Duty to do for our. Side.
Of the question so if you saw this in the
mirror you know this. Here So the day before
Carol are you all I think on about the low
with me.
[01:36:54]
You get your answer the second grade here
for you as I do this the way so that you know
well I mean you are for those. Who say if
you are aware that while there is work too
hard. To rise to your hands for really good
deeds or Good Friday morning is a good way
for a reason you know to get to the skies.
[01:37:21]
So I just wanted to send you picked up on
what Rob said and I want to throw back out.
What do you guys think I mean how do you think
how do you think people are hardwired to think
they're hard work to fight or hard wired cooperate
who's got an idea.
[01:37:36]
Yet I see him going up what do you think.
You could. Look. Like. And you just are going
to generally if you look back and you do have
you believe. Humans do have an ability to
look to gather in the psyche of a pack get
a different second to go to the Republicans
and the Democrats you know the title and there
you people back years here listening to you
trying to understand you know pack however
you have seen them play Go for it like you
see the only reason wars and all of the past
you have a tendency to clash and things like
territory so again I do feel like humans do
have a very very uneasy significant to come
together and work together towards a common
goal however is that common goal is a struck
by something else and.
[01:38:38]
You know real pain sometimes for you but.
I think that was. We are actually greeted
absence of how we have anybody want to take
that on. So I would say human. Are definitely.
Working together and have done to build civilization
but in ten situations where things are at
risk humans will always end all animals will
always resort to protecting themselves or
their families over anything else.
[01:39:24]
And other thought this is this is our core
problem right back where you want to stand
up. For. You. So. You can action is all around
he goes this is. Really. So how do we create
a bigger sense of family and overcome artificial
boundaries read that that's kind of the profound
you want to jump in.
[01:40:03]
The matter if you. Are. So very. Human and
that you're going to work together some humans
were subject to just are so humanist or are
subject to the same answer all these are about
where you can call. Certainly likely to say
they are now or can I. When I had this conversation.
[01:40:34]
I knew about cooperation. All the Worst I.
Mean I heard differently certainly within
those guys. Well I yeah. Yeah. I was I had
the Michael souls of the stuff going on but
I got the My because of the D.N.A. thing.
And sometimes what we want. May not be.
[01:41:10]
In your family. Create it might come out in
this city very. I actually think that there
is. Going on. This country right now for African-Americans
specifically the ones that. Where we see.
A big. Race being happy has very few. THE
UNION returns Black reports or any of that
you know when I see that the people that I
knew growing up is very hard to fire an American
black guy in you and me out for the guy you
look black then you'll be like this whole
lifestyle and he built this great all of the
dollars that I know.
[01:42:05]
All the other thing that's have been saying
is this whole thing where everybody is black.
The big sign to be black where everybody is
black and everybody is trying to get their
hands on and for lot of these if everybody
is black then we get sick. And then all of
the managers and everything is to be in the
ever.
[01:42:34]
So we might all together not want to not go
because. The N.A.R.. Black person saying you
lie a man who laughs like he's likely to get
it all in the last black person in America
or whatever everybody's trying to get. Some.
You know that. I'm confused. Got is that D.N.A.
really ending or and D.N.A. because.
[01:43:12]
I'm. Actually I right about. This notion I
don't like this when scientists pull this
out we're all African under the sea. And they
pull that out because human origins come out
of what Africa can get but scare quotes around
that to human origins come out of that land
mass that today we know is Africa and that
we've known as Africa for I don't know how
long historian knows that better than me but
whenever you talk about Africa right you're
not just talking about that land mass that
the concept of Africa is loaded with baggage
it's a place of darkness or converse Lee It
was an Indian place it's but it's more backwards
it's more savage.
[01:43:52]
So and So whenever you pull up Africa you
you remember that you're invoking these histories
and concepts right of how Africa and Africans
have been portrayed so it's really interesting
that genetic scientists will portray contemporary
living African populations as the ancient
last of all they will and this is implied
not explicit but they're using contemporary
African populations to represent each and
humanity when they're doing human migrations
research and so you will have a picture of
a make good prototypical dark skinned African
male standing next to a very airy and white
looking fully dressed in modern clothing white
guy and they'll be talking about how we're
all really African under the skin and there
is a danger I think in not recognizing contemporary
racial structures and racist structures that
enable research on brown and black bodies
while simultaneously claiming to be an anti-racist
you know misses then this is going on and
this is why it's hard harder to read the racism
in contemporary science because what's happening
is you're mixing up this anti racist multicultural
language with a system of doing science that
is that is an inherently built on these racial
hierarchy still and yes you have brown and
black bodies around the world and bodies that
are considered perverse or whatever are being
experimented on.
[01:45:08]
In much to much more extensive ways than you
would have privileged white bodies in the
West one of those until they get that but
it's great this makes me want to go to Dean
Dean you mention that the why and legend about
the volcanoes is really it's it's.
[01:45:23]
Woman right the Goddess is the way I have
got that right. Is is a woman who's the goddess
of the volcano and. So I wonder if you could
speak a little bit about that because. He
is in here too. So maybe I'll just actually.
Quote scholar who talks about.
[01:45:45]
All of the stories of Pele who is the goddess
of the volcano of killer whale. And she's
a key figure within a lot of the resistance
movements that take place in Hawaii during
the one nine hundred centuries primarily because
the missionary party in Hawaii was trying
to abide by a white head or patriarchal way
of organizing society so a very pyramid a
way of organising a society which meant that
who for them sexuality was itself fluid.
[01:46:19]
Relationships were themselves fluid. The idea
of women being contained to domestic space
was itself a foreign idea all of these things
were oftentimes argued within the Hawaiian
language newspapers in the home and language
by talking about the stories and so I say
that to kind of frame noise Silva's has a
beautiful book called trade and in it she
says so as opposed to the kind of one dimensional
stories that Lauren Thurston talks about.
[01:46:50]
No no civil rights the women in the epic engage
in meaningful and pleasurable activities they
fight off evils all smart rapists chant and
dance Willow surf practice medicine and religion
and have loves and profound relationships
you specially with each other they are not
cooking cleaning house or worrying about husbands
they are not domesticated rather at the adventurous
and I think in that way that particular story
helps to kind of open and challenge these
seemingly can.
[01:47:23]
Pain categories. That were trying to be utilized
as a means to colonize and justify colonization.
You want to jump in. This is. Why. I'm. Not
crossing state but it's still over me. Maybe
if you can pull that image of. So Pele is
sort of image there right and it's a sculpture
done by Alan Rankin and it's a sculpture that's
primarily trying to utilize the image of or
the politics of beauty as a kind of advertisement
for luring TURSE to Hawaii but Pele who is
herself Hawaiian is imaged with European features
and.
[01:48:28]
Part of what I wanted to kind of end with
but I didn't get a chance to as this whole
narrative of pacifying a powerful female threat.
Was also wrapped very tightly to the narration
of the overthrow of Queen looks so I think
you don't mind going for forward so that's
the queen and the image of her and if you
go for one more time through this right so
you have this kind of depiction of the queen
a little Kalani as licentious there's a topping
block in the back that says for dole it was
just idea that what she wanted to do was to
behead the people who were overthrowing the
kingdom so she says in her book she writes
that beheading was a form of punishment never
used in the Hawaiian Islands right and so
this.
[01:49:19]
Dole for Dole you have a cousin of dole of
dull pain awful. But now has everything that
you guys might be more familiar with and I
think what sort of interesting about this
image is this very much tied in and rocks
to assault I've been reading Sylvia Federici
work around primitive accumulation in the
ways in which witch hunting.
[01:49:39]
Or different kinds of examples of persecuting
women are oftentimes used as the moments of
the origins of capitalism in other words the
message getting women to pacifying women to
domestic space was itself at the expense of
women so many women were themselves rebuilding
which leads to this project of witch hunting
so Sylvia Federici if you guys are interested
has a book about this and she talks about
that as itself an idea that actually has existed
in other places so Laura Thurston is from
New England and he is from a particular place
and he descends from a particular ancestry
the third some kind is very famous in the
area that he's from and they practice this
kind of witch hunting also Thurston his great
grandmother one of the first missionaries
to what he writes about a stalker you will
soon writes about.
[01:50:31]
A blacksmith who was in Hawaii who had a daughter
and the daughter was oftentimes not helping
in the House and with the blacksmith did was
he changed his daughter into the house and
kept her there chain for six weeks so that
is itself and she uses that as an example
of the benefits of what Christianity did to
Hawaii and she talks about that as a way of
teaching that daughter loving the B.D.'s for
the father and so there's this long reoccurring
idea of actually using that kind of incredible
punishment and lowering Thurston who is kind
of thinking through the psychodramas again
utilizing the psychodrama but his primary
is through massage and it's a sexist argument
that is then justifying the overthrow the
way.
[01:51:25]
I mean with this image. You know I think it's
juxtaposition of the idea that. European features
are imagined as beautiful versus hoeing features
that are obviously closely represented in
this image that primitive protocol is itself
not beautiful and there's a certain way in
which the imaging of the Queen as herself
licentious is itself also another kind of
example is to say that because she is.
[01:52:04]
Licentious because she is sexually animated
that then because of that it argues that her
colonization is then made to not matter violence
against her body or heard nation itself not
meant to matter so there's a certain way in
which that politics of beauty is very much
wrapped up into racist ideas of what we can
imagine to be beautiful what we can be held
to be beautiful and what isn't is also wrapped
into.
[01:52:31]
A way of configuring women as not being powerful
or not being capable of anything you. Know
or. Not. You did explain. A lot of it so it.
Would be better. So they use that. So victimizing
as. You know basically just. I don't want
to get to with you know.
[01:53:10]
I just. Go I mean like our arts teacher keeps
explaining example on I think we were with.
Yeah that. Could shorten your sentence if
you're a woman. Remove your. Cereal or yeah
you can get sterilized. You know for the reason
or like. So I went but yeah anyway so yeah
they basically just use that there and it's.
[01:53:51]
Just. You know. Something else and this is.
Already in there with. Like you know I want
to demonize them but I really like trying
to project the site myself. Down here. Well
I mean if you feel that way why. Wouldn't
you say also based on this fact. Somehow I
like almost because.
[01:54:38]
Like I really I feel like if it was me at
that time or even now there's a matter with.
Really all. Your better that's known and used
that to test. Thank you very much we are coming
almost to the end of the session we have a
couple more people who want to get it right
you the teacher Mr please jump in.
[01:55:07]
And that you're. Welcome we're going to hear
you I want to respond to keep hearing like
why it's happening we study a lot about I
think you're. Likely to have a civilized Savitri
and someone to sag. It then you could do every
you wanted a you could place them in a hierarchy
had experimented on them you could move them
to places you could take their land and I
think that language before about Darwin being
objective is really dangerous given time period
I want to come back to it a little bit because
in the Origin of Species no racism that we
can like necessarily but as time progressed
he was in circles with this cause it with
other people at the time and social Darwinism
is really beginning to take place and in the
Senate man he started talking about exterminating
savage races and then here comes that savagery
image again right and he thought that.
[01:56:08]
The Aboriginals in Australia that the British
coming killing them was a part of natural
selection and that's in the scent of man so
it's not that he was necessarily objective
and so that's a dangerous term I think he's
resigned speaking to your point about. Who
is doing the science and how is it being used
and I keep hearing think he's opposite of
like civilized savage objective not objective
or in my intern on the way I just wanted to
make a comment about that I just want to jump
in as somebody and I make my living as a as
a researcher and.
[01:56:44]
The thing that's clear to me is that. So I've
been doing research for thirty years and part
of the system of you know deep in the system
of American science that we spend money for
people to do the science we want to have done
and the science we don't want to have done
doesn't get done so when we use terms like
evidence base this is all entirely about propagating
the evidence that we want to propagate so
science is all about the status quo because
the science that can get done is the science
that's approved by the status quo so sign.
[01:57:23]
To Sir not objective they are biased all of
science is biased and it represents issues
of measurement that are part of the dominant
culture so we have to look at science with
profound suspicion because we only know what
we are able to know through the lenses we're
able to to look through so I really appreciate
your comment and it's certainly everything
in my experience has demonstrated how that
works and we have to go to you know you've
been trying to speak for a long time.
[01:57:53]
This is like the perfect transition to my
questions but and so my name is and I am I
want to jack students basically a little ALL
lot of you actually. Injury to describe the.
Skeptics of visual imagery or anecdotes or
through the documents and I think it is very
easy for people to become desensitized to
shock value types and you know when you're
looking at visuals that you like describe
the next time it's cartoons like this it's
very easy once you're exposed to a lot of
it become desensitized and I think that.
[01:58:32]
Where scientific discourse gains a lot of
that street print I guess is the best way
to put it is they're not relying on this imagery
they rely on what they call hard facts or
art and that is why they are more able to.
Idea objectively than someone. Areas areas
and so my question essentially is how then
can we start to strip back the layers of objectivity
regards to scientific discourse and how can
we rule the ways that data cannot always be
objective and how we begin to introduce this
to academia further down the line one of the
things we have to start with is the concept
the data is never objective and.
[01:59:22]
Can. Take away daters never objected I had
to say I mean feminists theorists of science
have done a really good job of. Pushing back
against the notion that of objectivity as
that gets conflated with neutrality but that's
not going to I don't think that's filtered
down into the public right I mean what academics
say and theorize and publish doesn't necessarily
make it into the public consciousness.
[01:59:46]
So when people say science is that it isn't
objective I don't say that feminists have
redefined objectivity to mean and they don't
use the word bias see there or biased or that
what they talk about is the fact that if we're
going to gets stronger objectivity right we're
going to get we want to produce science that.
[02:00:05]
Is giving is asking a wider variety of questions
and that has to do with who's asking those
questions right so we're not all questions
get asked because not everybody is positioned
in a way to which certain questions will occur
to them questions will occur to them coming
out of their racial or class or gender background
that make them more salient than others so
what feminists have said as let's diversify
science and I used to be skeptical about thinking
browning the laboratory that's not going to
make a difference but I actually think if
you get people who are situated differently
in terms of their gender and sexual orientation
and racial racial background and class into
science they're going to be asking a wider
variety of questions they're going to be bringing
be innovating different kinds of methods of
doing science they're going to feel that they're
accountable to different publics and I think
that the feminists would say that's helping
us to do more strongly object of science you
want to have a wider variety of perspectives
looking down at the world trying to understand
it and so I guess I for me I work with a lot
of indigenous scientists and I have come to
see that there's a tremendous amount of hope
if we diversify science but it's still really
hard even when you get women in there and
**** people and indigenous people and people
of color in doing science they're still largely
working within a power structure that is dominated
by white heterosexual males.
[02:01:23]
And where certain cultural practices are stigmatized
in the laboratory owner Navajo and owls are
profane and you can't be around our rules
that's weird and superstitious all snakes
are profane in your culture that's weird and
superstitious only you need a ceremony to
work on a cadaver how we are there's no such
thing as spirits we need principal investigator
scientists who come from diverse cultural
backgrounds who will learn how to accommodate
people's sincere knowledge as about their
cultures and how to interact with the dead
bodies they're working with how to interact
with non-human animals and do that in respectful
ways and keep them in science saw.
[02:02:00]
How to Get You know you've been raising your
hand yes I think I'll forego this question
of the other folks. Feel. Is rooted feel that
we can have a real heavy conversation about
what this all is it's a purpose the patriarchy
ism is a basic feel loyalism comes out of
the Europeans in order time and place where
the resources are running out they got what
they exist so they created these systems to
keep themselves go that was their guard now
and mystic approach I think will be so what
we do this work we have more people of color
and if we're focused in science what happens
if they still come through the lens of that
fear.
[02:02:42]
Read out you know the patriarchy or the supremacy.
Built out of that fear that they want to still
apply that to and I think what we have to
do in our report always is to know. That the
fear is vested in all of our society so when
we do our work how do we peel it back you
know I love I hope I always pick up my my
column how diverse was the first place in
my life and my mentor said to me that racism
in our lives is there back when they got put
in the black given back is that he'll color
but having a style of like he did back to.
[02:03:19]
And again I say that you're not passed that
on to the young folks that. Again when you
come up against the sexism or the racism of
colorism the culturalism is there back to
give it back to me. And the last observation
I would say thank you for asking your friends
to speak but I noticed that a lot of the brown
and black children are while.
[02:03:42]
Hempel Have you spoken up. In this affects
you immensely or thank you for speaking up
about them and I put you on the spot because
I heard you speak eloquently a profoundly
under your breath don't give up your brother.
Thank you. The A and. Not been poking University
tradition which we have established in this
first session it is wonderful to be intergenerational
and intercultural and of many disciplines
and to exchange are idiots and have great
to exchange ideas across such a great spectrum
of age thank you all for speaking of participating
and inventing this brand new university the
university is going to take a lunch break
and reconvene So come back and let's see what
we can create next time thanks so much one.
