new crush

from the post-colonial critic

chapter five: "questions of multiculturalism", a discussion between sneja gunew & gayatri spivak

(all quotes by gayatri spivak)

"a hundred years ago it was impossible for me to speak, for the precise reason that makes it only too possible for me to speak in certain circles now. i see in that a kind of reversal, which is again a little suspicious. . . the question of 'speaking as' involves a distancing from oneself. the moment i have to think of the ways in which i will speak as an indian, or as a feminist, the ways in which i will speak as a woman, what i am doing is trying to generalise myself, make myself a representative, trying to distance myself from some kind of inchoate speaking as such. there are many subject positions one must inhabit; one is not just one thing. that is when a political consciousness comes in. . . but when the cardcarrying listeners, the hegemonic people, the dominant people, talk about listening to someone 'speaking as' something or the other, i think there one encounters a problem. when they want to hear an indian speaking as an indian, a third world woman speaking as a third world woman, they cover over the fact of the ignorance that they are allowed to possess, into a kind of homogenization."

"subordinate people use this also; and we are not without a sense of irony: we use it. i talk a lot, right? and when i get very excited i interrupt people; and i am making a joke, but in fact it is never perceived as a joke unless i tell them. i will quite often say, 'you know, in my culture it shows interest and respect if someone interrupts': and immediately there are these very pious faces, and people allow me to interrupt. it is not as if we don't perceive the homogenization; we exploit it, why not?"

"when you are perceived as a token, you are also silenced in a certain way because, as you say, if you have been brought there it has been covered, they needn't worry about it anymore, you salve their conscience."

"i will have in an undergraduate class, let's say, a young, white male student, politically-correct, who will say: 'i am only a bourgeois white male, i can't speak.' in that situation - it's peculiar, because i am in the position of power and their teacher and, on the other hand, i am not a bourgeois white male - i say to them: 'why not develop a certain degree of rage against the history that has written such an abject script for you that you are silenced?' then you begin to investigate what it is that silences you, rather than take this very deterministic position - since my skin color is this, since my sex is this, i cannot speak. i call these things, as you know, somewhat derisively, chromatism: basing everything on skin color - 'i am white, i can't speak' - and genitalism: depending on what kind of genitals you have, you can or cannot speak in certain situations. from this position, then, i say you will of course not speak in the same way about the third world material, but if you make it your task not only to learn what is going on there through language, through specific programmes of study, but also at the same time through a historical critique of your position as the investigating person, then you will see that you have earned the right to criticize, and you will be heard. when you take the position of not doing your homework - 'i will not criticize because of my accident of birth, the historical accident' - that is a much more pernicious position. in one way you take a risk to criticize, of criticizing something which is other - something which you used to dominate. i say that you have to take a certain risk: to say 'i won't criticize' is salving your conscience, and allowing you not to do any homework. on the other hand, if you criticize having earned the right to do so, then you are indeed taking a risk and you will probably be made welcome, and can hope to be judged with respect."