For clarity, it seems that the question that we are answer is what is place, how does colonialism change it, and how can we tell. The short answer is there is no answer to any of those questions, but there are thoughts we can consider to get to discuss this thang called "place."
Last week we came to see that place is as much about feelings and experiences as it is to physical location and time. We can make sense of what/where a place is by streets, landmarks, and monuments, but we can also connect to it by the stories we hear about the place from people that lived or visited this location.
The BreakBeat Poets for example, neither Saenz or Murillo provide enough context for me to know exactly where they are at, but I get possible clues to where they may be based on how they describe life at the time. Murillo gives us 1989 which subconsciously paints an image on the place he's at because we know hip-hip emerged in the 80s and we pick-up that he's involved in this scene with the references to "the engineer worries the mix board," Quincy Jones, and Frankie Beverly. But at the same time, in Renegades of Funk, and Evolution of my Block, we understand the place of Saenz and Murillo because they're describing growing up in a world as a person of color in a society where you are seen as thugs, the underclass, banger, or expected to keep silent. This place they describe, is their place in society and may be the result of colonialism, slavery, segregation and other social injustices people have faced. We see this again in Casa Blanca 1991, we get a hint of place with the time reference, but we understand Ismail's place more deeper based on his place in society, his descriptions imply to me that he feels out of place or foreign. I get that same feeling from Rin in Plucking Flowers.
But that could be my own projections and this is why I'm conflicted on whether I'm answering this week's questions correctly. On one hand I don't want to assume that I know that all these poets are talking about places being stolen from them because of colonialism. I say this because last week I discussed growing up in a "ghetto Oakland" in comparison to the hipster culture that is here now. Elmaz reminded me of a different Oakland with a thriving Black economy and another Oakland when natives controlled this land. Here I am calling out gentrification when historically I may have "stolen" this place from someone else. I may benefit from colonialism when new buildings here mean something positive to me yet could be a negative trigger for someone else that their place is changing in a different way than they know it. I say this because I find myself siding with the poets and their feelings (which are valid), yet trying to see if I'm giving them ownership of place because I'm assuming they've been burned by colonialism and "the man."
It seems that even with examining myself, wondering about the poets backgrounds, and their intentions with their work, I still can't fully determine what is place or who owns it. It just depends on who's story you want to listen to I guess.
Thanks for this! You lift up a lot of important views here, around " what is place, how does colonialism change it, and how can we tell." One thing I appreciated is the difference between places poets named and places left either obscure or simply unmentioned. It immediately shifted the questions I brought to the pieces, and made me ask "what is place and how is place."
ReplyDeleteOne thing that peeked my interest is the conversation on gentrification. It's clearly the continuation of colonialism, and is important to name whose land we are on and it's name. One of the question we have to ask ourselves as black folks are the ways that we do "benefit from colonialism" and also push back on the narrative that we are the directly impacted by colonialism.
It's a structure that took place simultaneously as slave trade not separately. Afrikans cleared the clearing that was native land for the Settler Master's use. the site of American colonialism is through breeding the workers to keep expansion on native land feasible and possible, and indigenous people of Afrika were enslaved to the indigenous peoples land here (while indigenous folks here were, too, enslaved and often dragged elsewhere).
I find that interesting: Black folks who are the descendant of enslaved folks in the US are neither migrants or the colonizer, and often must grapple with similar questions of both around what this place means to us.
Good kick at the work Brea, I appreciate your talking about the unnamed and then Van pointing out that Af-Am's are congested with immigrants (as are Native Americans). We can only use the broader ideas when the place i unnnamed, but the poets use such bright details, we can get a sense of the erasure or the exploitation and whatever we are trying to explore in the post-col reference.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff
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