January 31, 2011

Why queer Black womanist liberation poiesis matters to straight White dudes doing theatre

Earlier I talked about why you should care what queer Black women have to say. Now I'm going to talk about why a queer Black womanist liberation poesis matters to the people who seem most diametrically opposed to it, at least in principle - (presumably straight - but in theatre it matters a bit less) White men.

But first, a slight detour to provide a little context. Isaac is asking who the greatest living playwright of the English language is. Coming right on the heels of That Coversation, this seems a particularly intriguing juxtaposition. How many of us would be surprised if most, if not all, people on that list were White and/or male? Are we then to assume that the reason why we don't come across more Great Works of Theatre by women and/or people of color is because they simply can't hack it? If not, then what is it about our criteria for determining quality that makes it highly unlikely that a woman or a person of color (or - gasp! - a woman of color!!!) would appear on anyone's top ten lists for The Greatest?

It would be easy to dismiss this as a matter of taste, and I've often done just that. The fact of the matter is that in the world we live in, theatre is dominated by the tastes of well-off White dudes. There are already so many stories about how wonderful, special, and unique White men are (and how lucky we are that they're in charge!). But we already knew that. In my more cynical and self-doubting moments (which are more frequent than this blog makes apparent), I can get pretty down on myself for not being eager and/or able to make works supporting that fact. I can feel guilty and ashamed of myself because my energies are not spent toward silencing and erasing myself from my own stories. Yet this seems to be the exact reason why simply throwing up our hands and saying it's a matter of taste is the wrong way to go about it. It leaves the current system the way it is and limits opportunities for finding new ways of knowing and expressing - of being in the world.

I understand the desire to understand "pure" art uncontaminated by messy, chaotic life and dirty, nasty politics. I'm afraid that's impossible. Art for art's sake is dead, if it ever existed in the first place. This is especially true of theatre because it is the art form most intimately connected to life as it is lived (internally as well as externally). So, for me, discussing quality without addressing liberation is not wrong so much as incomplete.

Art does not need to serve a political agenda to be art. However, politics is a part of the human condition. I don't mean politics in the terms of law and government and policy, but in the terms of the power dynamics between people. As the art form that is, at its core and without exception, about people, theatre is - from initial concept to final curtain - innately political, even if particular political concepts and buzzwords are never uttered in the piece.

Personally, I believe that liberation is the most important act an individual or society can participate in. With various systems of oppression still in place, ideals like justice and freedom remain much too far out of reach for way too many people. Without justice and freedom, much of what we do is ultimately arbitrary and meaningless. I'm not here to convert anyone or convince anybody to agree, but if you want to understand how I define quality, you need to know this about me.

When I talk about liberation, I'm talking about what Chimamanda Adichie mentions in "The Danger of a Single Story." I'm talking about the power of stories to shape lives. The stories we tell to and about one another define the possibilities and limitations we accept for ourselves. As such, stories are absolutely vital to the process of liberation - from exploring the things that imprison us to giving us visions of liberated selves.

That's not to say I don't appreciate craft, but there needs to be more than that. I'm remembering a visit I made to Miya Shoji a few months ago. Looking at the shoji screens and tables and other furnishings, I saw more than craftsmanship. There was more to what's going on than the smoothness of a table's surface or the way parts fit together without using a single nail or screw. I saw creations inhabited by the values of a people. I saw a process informed by history and language and culture. I saw simplicity, elegance, a reverence for natural harmony. Yet each piece was vastly different from the others, even those of the same type, not by surface distinctions such as color or shape, but by the approach to these ideas. This was a liberated space - a space where each piece could freely be itself for itself, a space where each piece is appreciated because of rather than despite itself.

Without liberation, we cannot even approach the discussion of quality without acting out oppressive frameworks. I'm not arguing over whether there is or is not such a thing as quality. If we want our theatre to do more than ego-stroke the privileged, we need to examine what we bring to our understanding of quality. We need to interrogate our assumptions, not to shoot holes into them, but to name them for what they are and explore the possibilities and limitations they put in place.

For instance, in Aristotelian drama, there is not much room for the kind of playing that validates and affirms anyone except those occupying dominant identities. In Aristotle's time, it was wealthy, land-owning Greek men (One wonders what Aristotle would have thought about Lorraine Hansberry or Suzan Lori-Parks). Today, it's affluent White guys. There's nothing bad or wrong with it, but let's be honest and say that this paradigm doesn't speak for or about everyone - including White men who participate in and benefit from it.

Of course, contemporary theatre has long since moved away from Aristotle as the ultimate authority on what defines quality. But there are still people everyone should "just know" if they want to participate in the dialogue without looking or feeling stupid. They are often male and/or White. This in itself is not a problem, yet there seems to be an implicit understanding that in order for it to matter, we have to put male and/or White ways of knowing at the center of our conversation - even if those ways of knowing are in direct conflict with who we are (which includes a whole lot of White men too!). This way of knowing tends to prioritize the abstract over the concrete, the impersonal over the personal, mind over body, objectivity (or the appearance of objectivity) over subjectivity, education over life experience, reason over feeling.

A liberation poetics frees us from the expectation to act, react, and interact from only half (or less!) of who we are.

28 comments:

  1. The consensus favorite for Greatest thus far is Caryl Churchill. She's white, but she's also, you know, a she (she'd also probably get my vote.) The other two options floated are Edward Albee (who is white, and male but gay) and Maria Irene Fornes (who is neither white nor male.) I don't mean any of this to take away from the larger points of your post, and I understand you're trying to use that conversation as a jumping off point to a different topic, but I'd appreciate you characterizing it accurately.

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  2. To my mind, this is the the section of your post that I connect with most powerfully:

    "When I talk about liberation, I'm talking about what Chimamanda Adichie mentions in "The Danger of a Single Story." I'm talking about the power of stories to shape lives. The stories we tell to and about one another define the possibilities and limitations we accept for ourselves. As such, stories are absolutely vital to the process of liberation - from exploring the things that imprison us to giving us visions of liberated selves."

    I believe we are living in a dangerous age in which one story (or collection of stories) -- those on which the rocks of the major western religions have been built -- need desperately to be undermined and repulsed and overthrown by a multiplicity of stories, told in all different styles and by all different voices (including those of straight white men like me, but only in approximate proportion to our segment of the American population). I crave diversity (and do what little I can to evoke it) because it feels like -- well, I'll use your word: liberation. Stories will set (and keep) us all free.

    I suspect there are things in what I've written there that you might disagree with... but I wanted to engage with the important questions you've raised rather than, you know, try to be a bit more nuanced.

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  3. I believe we are living in a dangerous age in which one story (or collection of stories) -- those on which the rocks of the major western religions have been built -- need desperately to be undermined and repulsed and overthrown by a multiplicity of stories, told in all different styles and by all different voices (including those of straight white men like me, but only in approximate proportion to our segment of the American population).

    How do you see this dominance of a particular story (or set of stories) playing out?

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  4. I don't mean any of this to take away from the larger points of your post

    Unfortunately, you kinda did.

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  5. Isaac, you know this isn't really about you.

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  6. Oh I know, I'm simply pointing out a factual error in the post. The rest of it I think is well worthwhile and I don't have much to add to it, but there's no need to mischaracterize a comment thread on my site to make any of the totally valid points that it makes. And, despite what you might think, RVCBard, I did not mean to take away from any of the larger points, actually much of this came up in my Contemporary Black Theatre class today w/r/t the reception of the Broadway production of Raisin in the Sun, so I'm happy to see it aired here. There's just an easily correctable factual error in the post.

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  7. There's just an easily correctable factual error in the post.

    Where? Honestly, I don't see it.

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  8. (Responding to your question, not to your exchange with Isaac...)

    Approximately one third of the population of the United States -- most of it white, and most of it Christian, though the group is far from uniform on either front -- allows that one set of stories to serve as the basis for oppressing (or trying to oppress) other people. The stories seem to lend themselves, historically, to all-too-frequent narrow interpretations that inspire violence and torture and slavery and genocide -- not in everyone who reads them, mind you, but in great swaths of humanity. They are, I have concluded -- as have others before me -- dangerous; they contain or embody dangerous memes that lead to wretched behavior. I believe that the antidote to this particular poison is more new narratives: a delightful, multi-colored, tremendous flood of them. I believe that in time, such a flood would prove irresistible even to the most close-minded, book-burning, I-only-read-the-Bible (and-I-take-it-literally) segments of our population: the shameful fuckers who keep good people down.

    That's how I see it playing out.

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  9. @Gwydion:

    Ah. That explains it. I was thinking you meant the prevalence of messiah type narratives where there's a Chosen One who will save the world. When you dig beneath that (just speaking of that one story), you get some pretty ugly shit cropping up.

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  10. Gwydion, as a person of faith, I can attest that it is, in my experience, exposure to multiple narratives that help any sort of fundamentalist get past dogmatic arrogance and learn that faith does not require us to be exclusively "right" and dominant.

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  11. @Shawn -- I totally agree. The Messiah story (and its variants) always seem to me to emerge from a sense of powerlessness and self-loathing. I'm also totally creeped out by the fact that an image of torture (a man on a cross) hangs in churches all over the world.

    @Aaron -- I'm a former person of faith (though it's been three decades), and I know that stories are what helped me see other perspectives and become more human, present, and questioning. I think it's important to disinvest that particular set of faith narratives of their supremacy... because only then can we find whatever beauty or poetry or wisdom they contain safely...

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  12. Isaac, I honestly don't want to give this a lot of airtime because the main discussion is way more important. Basically, the way I read Bard's comments was not as a description of what was said in comments on your blog, but a description of how she thinks the question would play out with most "theater people."

    But regardless, when these issues of race come up in the context of actively fighting oppression (or as stated here, liberation), it is really common for us white people to get defensive. It's natural, right? Because the basic idea is that we white people have benefited because all the institutions around us have been set up to serve us, so effectively and quietly that we don't have to know about it, and we can even be personally opposed to it without giving up those privileges. So we don't always see the way we're benefiting from and perpetuating these racist systems, and we're usually not doing it on purpose, so it surprises and shocks us to have to face our own complicity. I know you already know all this.

    What I'm trying to say is, whenever we get defensive because we're trying to be the good kind of unbigoted white people, we bring the focus back onto us, and this doesn't help. It often puts pressure on our friends of color to try to smooth things over and make us feel better, which just reasserts a system that is all for our benefit.

    It takes practice not to get defensive. Practice, and an internal pause button on our comments.

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  13. Christian narratives have a lot to do with perpetuating the racist, misogynistic, homophobic dynamics we see in narratives today (yes, even seemingly secular ones).

    However, let's get back on race, gender, and sexuality for a moment. The breaking down of hierarchies (and all the top/bottom dynamics that implies - and not in the nice and kinky way) is a crucial element of a queer Black womanist liberation poetics.

    To what extent do you see the need to be "exclusively 'right' and dominant" (as Aaron says) being a function of a specific worldview that holds maleness, Whiteness, and heterosexuality (to name but a few) as more inherently valuable than "Others"?

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  14. On a completely different tangent, I like how Ursula K. LeGuin frames things as non-Euclidean. That's kind of what I'm going for here, but a lot of that stuff is for much later, when I get into defining (or at least attempting to describe) what a queer Black womanist liberation poetics looks like.

    But it'd be great to hear from you: What do you see as being crucial elements of a queer Black womanist liberation poesis?

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  15. Hmm. Well, I really think Gwydion was onto something that a queer Black womanist liberation poesis would probably not be: focused on a singular or reductive dominant narrative. Maybe there can't be a "canon" in your poesis?

    He unpacked that in context of religion, but it's definitely also there in our foundational American myths: "Brave, pious men came from England to be free (forget about the criminals and the rum-runners). Our founding 'fathers' created a Constitution that, because their wisdom was so great, still has not been matched, and cannot any longer be improved upon. They didn't invent democracy but they perfected it. We had this problem with bigotry and we enslaved people, but then great white men like Abe Lincoln and LBJ helped us work that out of our system. Ronald Reagan proved that democracy beats communism. Etc. Etc." We can see time and again how the worst thing you can do, in the eyes of some in this country, is not to believe that America is the greatest, most blessed nation on earth. So that's another example of how the need to be exclusively right and dominant would lead us to disregard the Other.

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  16. I would add that I think the very notion that there is one defintive narrative for any event is part of the oppressive/hierarchical system that troubles us. To that end, the poesis you've described might acknowledge the importance of a multiplicity of narratives, none privileged above another.

    I think of Monet's haystacks paintings (to call up a dead white male). He didn't paint one, then figure he'd gotten it right -- he kept painting the same haystacks from multiple angles and in different lights in order to explore the subject in greater depth.

    Now... I would argue that narrative is different from fact. Facts are facts are facts, even if we don't always know them or record them or describe them accurately. So I'm not saying there isn't a knowable truth out there... I'm just saying that one individual piece of art isn't the way to get to that truth. You need a lot of art, made me a lot of different people, and then you have to add it up and sit with the contradictions and complexities. Right now, we're missing the pieces of that puzzle that would be contributed by artists from marginalized/oppressed groups. Until we have those pieces, we're only part of the way to learning or knowing anything important.

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  17. Yes, I agree with Gwydion on the need for multiplicity. But I think we're also just restating what you already said in your post, Bard.

    I think there is a link (that may be obvious to you) between the multiplicity discussed here and the reclamation of subjectivity that you discussed at http://rvcbard.blogspot.com/2011/01/big-projects-for-2011.html. In my opinion, we can really only value the subjectivity of others if we respect multiplicity, and being aware of multiple narratives is a way to prevent our subjectivity from becoming personal dogma.

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  18. "In my opinion, we can really only value the subjectivity of others if we respect multiplicity, and being aware of multiple narratives is a way to prevent our subjectivity from becoming personal dogma."

    Quoted for truth. I think that's how we learn is to be open to seeing other people's perspectives and truth with an open mind and an open heart.

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  19. Maybe there can't be a "canon" in your poesis?

    That seems such an obvious thing to include that it's a wonder I think about it.

    To that end, the poesis you've described might acknowledge the importance of a multiplicity of narratives, none privileged above another.

    In the void where canon used to be, how do we create meaningful ways to talk about theatre?

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  20. I'm not sure the desire for lack of a canon (which, incidentally, is what troubles ME about people asking "Greatest Playwright" questions -- the answers to which seem to be pro-canon) undermines my ability to have meaningful conversations about theater. How does that work for you?

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  21. I'm not sure the desire for lack of a canon [...]undermines my ability to have meaningful conversations about theater. How does that work for you?

    I'm not sure. I mean, I can talk about what is meaningful for me and what works for me, but oftentimes it seems like that's not good enough.

    Then again, that may be part of the problem.

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  22. Word to your entire post.

    I think the "hitch" you seem to be alluding to (and that seems to have come up in the comments) is that even the White men who can understand the danger of the single story, the need for White + male to not be the givens when it comes to naming the greatest, etc. often don't want to accept the lack of "shine" (and lack of expertise) that comes with considering the unfamiliar and overlooked. I know very little about art, but I've seen the same dynamic in other contexts, so I hope I'm not way off base.

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  23. I can talk about what is meaningful for me and what works for me, but oftentimes it seems like that's not good enough.

    Bard, I'm also working from your own stated desire to reclaim the subjective as part of this. If I'm overemphasizing that, lemme know. But isn't part of the point that what works for you IS good enough? And what works for the next queer Black woman is also good enough? Instead of a canon on which others can build, maybe people need a framework of access--something that facilitates rather than exemplifies? Is that even possible? I'm a little over my head with this.

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  24. Yes, Jasmin, that is a temptation--to demand excellence as traditionally defined by white men--even when we want to hear from the Other. But there are some pretty good counter-examples, too, like punk rock (to which white men are not strangers).

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  25. But isn't part of the point that what works for you IS good enough? And what works for the next queer Black woman is also good enough? Instead of a canon on which others can build, maybe people need a framework of access--something that facilitates rather than exemplifies? Is that even possible?

    Exactly! I know I'm as much part of my own problem as anybody else. But your idea of a framework of access is intriguing. Do explain.

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  26. But there are some pretty good counter-examples, too, like punk rock (to which white men are not strangers).

    That's a REALLY good comparison.

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  27. The whole "framework of access" is an extremely tentative idea. Maybe "platform" is more well-understood way to think of it? Consider Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or Blogger or WordPress or LiveJournal or... All are technical platforms that allow people to express themselves, find audiences, etc. And lack of shine or polish in the content certainly hasn't held them back. When it works well, it works because the interface is intuitive, and it's easy to add content.

    So, all of those are technical solutions to the question of access to distribution on the internet. They are frameworks of access to distribution. Do you want a framework of access to liberation? I still can't quite think of what this would look like.

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  28. I believe the idea of facilitating rather than exemplifying is a great way to go about it.

    I'm imagining a process-oriented approach, now that I think about it. The whole idea that there is a final product that one can evaluate and judge worthy or unworthy is anathema to the idea of liberation I'm presenting here. While we can examine each step along the way, I believe that we can't act as though a complete script or a single performance is the rubric by which we can determine how a work functions in the process of liberation.

    And I think that last sentence is key. I think the question being asked should not be, "Is it or isn't it liberating?" but "How does a work functions in the process of liberation? What does each element bring to the process?"

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