Race, Postcolonialism, Globalism, and the idea of the other...

Gayatri Spivak, "Who Claims Alterity,"
Coco Fusco, "Racial Tim, Racial Mark, Racial Metaphors," in Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self



Both the readings this week by Spivak and Fusco were concerned with archetypes that have been created by the Cultural Apparatus' we have existed in since the dawn of civilization and how through social injustice, colonialism, political ambition, and a desire to control the masses these methods for controlling have become magnified. For Spivak she is most concerned with the ideology of class while Fusco focused on race. Both these constructed instance of society seem to be made for the purpose of defining the "other." For the class, race, religious affiliation, etc in power this "otherness" could be used to create differences between their own bourgeois culture and those of the lower mass. Although these ideologies of race, class, gender, etc were used as a means for control I believe they now hold their own power within our present day culture; a power that has run rampant and can no longer be wrangled with even those residing in a ruling class position. Presently we have created so many other modes of control for defining the "other" and for lulling the masses that these archaic archetypes have been exposed for what they really are, but because we have begun to identify ourselves within them instead of only relating them to alterity they will not suffer to be broken down and discarded. This is where our problem lies; how do we break free from what is so ingrained within our perceived essence without tearing us apart in the process? These modes of alterity and stereotype have festered like a tumor upon the body of humanity and where once a benign growth hindered now a cancerous mass grows. This is precisely why I believe Spivak speaks about the alteration of history and how we must undo this hallucination.