Friedman BeyondWhiteOther 1995

Beyond White and Other: Relationality and Narratives of Race in Feminist Discourse
Author(s): Susan Stanford Friedman

Source: Signs , Autumn, 1995, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 1-49
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3175121
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Signs
This content downloaded from

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Beyond White and Other: Relationality
and Narratives of Race in
Feminist Discourse
Susan Stanford Friedman
< T H E B E AT I N G O F Rodney King by four police of

the violent aftermath of their acquittal in Los Angeles in
of 1992 underlines the explosive status of race and ethnic
the United States in the 1990s. The videotape of the b
played and replayed on TV screens for months-captures the
white" of the beating in a double sense. It images metonym
whiteness of the police and the blackness of Rodney King, th
of power and the powerlessness of victimization, and the b
white/black as it has materialized in the history of European
racism toward African Americans in the United States. But the violent
upheaval after the trial-also imprinted repeatedly on the national con-
sciousness by the media-tells other stories, ones that supplement rather
than replace the story of white and black in America.
These narratives pit not just black against white but African Ameri-
cans, Latinos, and Asian Americans (especially Korean Americans)
against each other. Reginald Denny was not the only man to be pulled
from his truck. Guatemalan immigrant Fidel Lopez, for instance, was
seized, beaten, doused with gasoline, and nearly torched by an angry mob
that included the same African American men accused of attacking
Denny-Damian Williams and Henry Watson. Like Denny, Lopez was
saved by courageous African Americans (Gross 1993). In spite of the
media's tendency to emphasize African American violence, the rage and
Earlier versions of this article were delivered at the Carolyn G. Heilbrun conference,
New York, October 1992; the International Conference on Narrative, Troy, N.Y. 1993;
the Modern Language Association convention, Toronto, December 1993; and the Wom-
en's Studies Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. For their challenges
and encouragement, I am indebted to these audiences, to the many who read earlier
drafts (especially Joseph Boone, Edward Friedman, Linda Gordon, Amy Ling, Nellie
McKay and the faculty Draft Group of the University of Wisonsin-Madison English
department), and to my toughest critics, the anonymous readers for Signs.
[Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1995, vol. 21, no. 1]
? 1995 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0097-9740/96/2101-0002$01.00
Autumn 1995 SIGNS 1

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Friedman BEYOND WHITE AND OTHER
looting were not restricted to a single cultural gro

uprising of 1965, Asian American, African Americ
American shopkeepers faced rainbow mobs of peo
resentment, and desire overdetermined by the politic
class, gender, and immigration. Blacks and Latinos
Korean American shop owners and targeted Korea
the group that the media has made into "the mode
American Dream story, whose very "success" cover
remain poor for their "failure" to succeed. Moreove
between members of related racial or ethnic groups, o
differences of class and immigration status-pa
Americans versus Central Americans and Korean Americans versus other
Asian Americans. What essayist and PBS commentator Richard Rod-
riguez calls the dualistic "black and white checkerboard" of race that has
long dominated the American consciousness of racism has been recon-
figured in multiracial, multicultural terms by the aftermath of the white
police officers' acquittal for beating Rodney King (Rodriguez 1993, 14).1
These narratives of multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural conflict
do not, of course, render irrelevant the systemic forms of white racism
against people of color in the United States. As both Elaine Kim (1993)
and David Polumbo-Liu (1994) demonstrate in their analyses of media
representations of Korean Americans during the Los Angeles events, the
institutional and attitudinal manifestations of white racism played a sig-
nificant role in the media portrayal of besieged Korean Americans both
as near-white, model Americans defending their property against bar-
baric African Americans and Latinos and as ruthless shopkeepers at
blame for the economic deprivations of other Americans. The media
focus on the interracial, interethnic, and intraethnic dimensions of the
uprising performs in part the cultural work of suppressing awareness of
the way the structures of white racism intensify conflict between racial
and ethnic others. The worsening socioeconomic profile for inner cities
all across the United States in which white racism plays a large part
functions as a crucial context in which immigrant groups are set up to
scramble with impoverished African Americans for less and less in an
increasingly polarized and transnational economy.
At the same time, however, these events urgently testify to another
reading that exists as a supplement to, not a displacement of, the effects
of white racism. This reading of multiethnic, multiracial, and multicul-
1 See esp. Robert Gooding-Williams's invaluable collection, Reading Rodney

King/Reading Urban Uprising (1993) for information about and different interpretations
of the Los Angeles events, some of which attest to the continued relevance of the
white/black binary, others of which place the events within larger socioeconomic con-
texts, and others of which reflect upon the multiracial aspect of the events.
2 SIGNS Autumn 1995

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
BEYOND WHITE AND OTHER Friedman
tural conflict and connection focuses on the significan

demographics in the United States as we move into th
tury in an increasingly globalized, mobile, and cyber
not mean multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultura
people of color, a usage that reinforces the racist notion
Euro-Americanness is a "natural" identity, not a socia
many, Los Angeles represents the avant-garde of
America," a phrase that ambiguously invokes the rise
minorities, the enormous influx of nonwhite immigrant
States, the proportional decrease of Euro-Americans
phenomenon of racial and ethnic mixing, the growin
syncretism of all cultural groups (and individuals wit
and even the dissolution of fixed boundaries in the "conventional black
and white dialectic" (Rodriguez 1993, 14). As parable, the events in Los
Angeles suggest that binary categories of race should be supplemented
with a more complicated discourse, one that acknowledges the ongoing
impact of white racism but also goes beyond an analysis of white strat-
egies that divide and conquer people of color. We need a language beyond
fixed categories of good and evil, of victims and victimizers, a discourse
beyond the binary of black and white, a language that could explain the
statement by Lopez's daughter, who said she did not hate her father's
attackers because "I understood why they were so mad" (Gross 1993).3
Feminists have much to learn from the demographic landscape and
tumult of Los Angeles as race and ethnicity become ever more central
concerns in our classrooms, organizations, conferences, and writing.4
2 Racist ideologies often assume that "race" is a property only of the racial other. For
analysis of the construction of whiteness as a racial identity, see, e.g., Frye (1981) 1983,
1992; Pratt 1984; Nielson 1988; Frankenberg 1993; and duCille's critique of "a
would-be oppositional feminist criticism whose practitioners continue to see whiteness as
so natural, normative, and unproblematic that racial identity is a property only of the
nonwhite" (1994, 607).
3 For explicit critiques of the white/black binary, see esp. Spillers 1989; Lorne 1991;
Cho 1993; Omi and Winant 1993; and Oliver et al. 1993. For analysis of the rise of
multiracialism in the context of census data collection and affirmative action in the
United States, see Wright 1994. For an anthropological perspective on increasing mobil-
ity, the "global ethnoscape," and identity, see Appadurai 1991.
4 Throughout, I refer to race and ethnicity as related but not identical categories,
both of which reflect the propensity of human beings to organize themselves into groups
defined in opposition to others. I assume both race and ethnicity to be cultural con-
structs, with race usually connoting biological and ethnicity suggesting cultural differ-
ence, although this distinction repeatedly breaks down in actual usage (see, e.g.,
Michaels 1992, and Rensberger 1993, who reports on a multimillion dollar research
project aimed at analyzing DNA samples from four hundred ethnic groups worldwide).
For overviews of social science treatments of these terms, see Stocking 1968; Fortney
1977; Peterson, Novak, and Gleason 1980; Stepan 1982; Omi and Winant 1986; Ban-
ton 1987; and Thompson 1989. For anaysis of racial discourse, see Fields 1982; Gates
1986a; Goldberg 1990; Dik6tter 1992; and Higginbotham 1992. For a sampling of
those who regard "race" as a false, dangerous construct, see Appiah 1986; Gates 1986b;
Autumn 1995 SIGNS 3

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Since the 1970s, feminism in the United States has

come to grips with issues of racism: with race as a cen
identity and as the basis of both domination and resis
analysis of gender and race (along with other comp
interactive systems of stratification has developed
the rapid expansion of knowledge about the varied
en's cultural histories. American feminists have had m
fronting the issue of racism and engaging in meani
teraction, however. The shattering of binary thinking
Los Angeles events holds out creative possibilities f
about, talk about, and act upon this difficult dimensio
fruitful way.
"The very act of writing or speaking about race," Dominick LaCapra
writes in his introduction to The Bounds of Race, "is fraught with dif-
ficulty even when one attempts to go about it in a critical and self-critical
manner," especially for "those who are not 'people of color' " (1991, 2).
As a Euro-American woman who inevitably benefits from the system of
racial stratification in the United States, I am particularly aware of how
difficult it is for me to address these questions, affected as the process is
by my own and my readers' different positions within a society in which
"racism is the clearest way Americans have of understanding social di-
vision" (Rodriguez 1993, 14). This problem is all the more pressing in the
context of the academy's current "race for race," especially for white
academics to teach and write about race.5 As Ann duCille points out in
reference to black women, this desire on the part of white academics to
write about black women all too often includes a failure to include real
black women in the discussion or to understand black women as cultural
producers rather than simply as objects of the racial gaze (1994). None-
theless, I cannot accept the notion that the racial privilege of my white-
ness should enforce my silence about race and ethnicity, issues of vital
ethical and political importance not only in the United States but also in
a global context. The land mines are everywhere-my own ignorances
based on racial privilege and the rush of others to dismiss, censor, not
hear, condemn, withdraw. Yet I ask that you hear me out. I offer these
reflections in the spirit of dialogue, of what Sharon Holland calls
Radhakrishnan 1991; Appiah and Gates 1992a, 625-29; and Higginbotham 1992. For
those who advocate continued use of racial categories because of their ideological force
and material consequences, see, e.g., Baker 1986 and West 1988. For examples of the
conflation of race and ethnicity, see Sollors 1986, 1989; and Boelhower 1987; for ex-
amples of insistence on their distinction, see Omi and Winant 1986; and Wald 1987.
5 I here adapt Barbara Christian's title, "The Race for Theory" (1988) to suggest that
similar power dynamics are at work in discussions of race in the 1990s as in those she
critiqued in the academy's "race for theory" in the 1980s. See also n. 14.
4 SIGNS Autumn 1995

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
"complementary theorizing" among people of diff

racial identities (duCille 1994, 624)-a precond
growth and change in the academy and feminist
In my view, feminist discourses about race and eth
caught up in repetitive cultural narratives st
white/other binary: victims and victimizers, co
slaves and masters, dominated and dominator
"good guys against the bad guys." As a result, dis
racism often collapse in frustration, anger, hurt,
drawal, and profound belief that different "sides" ar
learn from the other. This all-too-familiar dead e
Fellows and Sherene Razack have called "the diff
1051), often occurs in spite of the best intention
feminists to move beyond such repetitive pattern
the different locations feminists occupy in racial
cussions often recapitulate instead of moving thr
ignorance, anger, guilt, and silences about race an
products of power relations in the larger society.6
More hopeful, attempts by women of color to
their own differences with other women of color
the dissolution of the white/other and white/black
relations between two or more marginalized group
racial issues in the United States need to be mor
than as the power relations between European A
Americans. But because these coalitions are based on a shared difference
from white women, they often end up reconfiguring binary thinking in
the form of white women/women of color or First World/Third World
binaries. Vast differences in culture and history among nonwhite women
of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and even among women of the
same racial or ethnic backgrounds have made alliances difficult, often
conflict-ridden and ephemeral.7
6 For some accounts of such stalled discussions, see Frye (1981) 1983; Huntado
1989; Anzaldia 1990c, xix-xxi; Pheterson 1990; and Fellows and Razack 1994. Confer-
ences of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) have included many par-
tially fruitful but also often nonproductive discussions. See, e.g., Sandoval's 1990 report
on the 1981 NWSA conference; Albrecht and Brewer's collection about the 1988 NWSA
conference focused on coalitional politics (1990); and the accounts of the walkout of
women of color from the 1990 NWSA conference and the consequent near demise of
NWSA in Longnecker 1990; Musil 1990; NWSA Women of Color Caucus 1990; Os-
borne 1990; Ruby and Douglas 1990; Sales 1990; and Schweickart 1990. For more
hopeful accounts in the classroom, see Romero 1991; and Thompson and Disch 1992.
7 For the white/color binary as the basis for alliance among women of color, see,
e.g., Moraga and Anzalda 1981; Anzalda 1990c; Longnecker 1990; Musil 1990; NWSA
Women of Color Caucus 1990; Osborne 1990; Ruby 1990; Sales 1990; Sandoval 1990;
and Schweickart 1990. For discussion of the difficulties of alliance among different
Autumn 1995 SIGNS 5

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Such tentative progress around issues of race amo

of feminists is still matched by the anger, failures of
drawal that can suddenly explode or slowly sour the d
classrooms, conferences, and organizations. The e
within the larger society has surely undermined man
to move the dialogue forward. But the cultural na
think about race and ethnicity not only reflect but al
realities of racism. The binary structures of thought
to shape these narratives may well develop out of
Lyotard regards as the very nature of language and
views as agonistic, or based in conflicting oppositi
a struggle.8 Historically produced discursive forma
take narrative forms that circulate overtly and cover
ideological and oppositional values, texts, and cult
kinds. These cultural narratives about race thus bo
racial politics. Like David Theo Goldberg, editor of
I do not see racial thinking as fixed, "singular and mo
same attitude complex manifested in varying circu
Rather, I see it as an unfixed set of linguistic and
that emerge from, respond to, and help construct
conditions. Consequently, a great deal is at stake in
narratives that underlie our racial discourse. To move
nist agenda against racism requires not only an e
and privilege; it also requires interrogation of th
about race that affect what we see, say, write, and
writes, "Discourse and practice are interdependent.
course, while discourse is generated by practice" (1
material effects of racism affect patterns of thoug
language of race matters and has material consequ
Binary modes of thinking about race often have
especially for identifying certain systems of dom
"black and white" of Rodney King's beating or of
dents in the Life of a Slave Girl ([186111973); the "
Gloria Anzalduia's Borderlands/La Frontera (1987);
of Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller (1981); the "y
Joy Kogawa's Obasan (1981). I want neither to dec
place this binary thinking. But I do believe that by
groups, see esp. Chai 1985; Anzaldfia 1990a; Harris and Ord
Sandoval 1990; and Uttal 1990. For alliance building among wo
cludes white women, see Molina 1990.
8 See Lyotard 1979, esp. 10-11, 16. While agonistic narrativ
narrative is not exclusively agonistic; see, e.g., Allen 1986. For
tural narratives, see Jameson 1981; DuPlessis 1985; and Heilbr
6 SIGNS Autumn 1995

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
naries create dead ends. They must be supplemented

lational narratives in which the agonistic struggle b
victimizer is significantly complicated, as it is in the
The legitimate insight of binary narratives is blind to m
that cannot be fully contained within them. Most esp
ratives are too blunt an instrument to capture the lim
dictory subject positions or the fluid, nomadic, and migr
ties of what I have elsewhere called the "new geograp
feminist analysis of identity as it is constituted at th
ferent systems of stratification requires acknowledging
oppression are often not absolute categories but, rathe
to different axes of power and powerlessness.
To explore ways in which feminist discourse might
nary thinking, I will identify four cultural narrati
ethnicity that have circulated since the late 1960s in
charged and overdetermined arenas of North America
ences, classrooms, manifestos, collectives, coalitions
meetings, essays, collections, and books. The first th
call narratives of denial, accusation, and confessi
within the agonistic white/other binary. While they h
important narratives to the formation of a multicultura
also represent stories that are caught in a cul-de-sac,
etition. By themselves, they cannot lead beyond the b
the fertile borderlands. The fourth script-the narra
positionality-moves beyond binary thinking. It has
more recently, at first considerably muted in the 1980s
scripts, but gaining visibility and frequency in the 19
What I intend to do here is to call greater attention
relational positionality as a supplement to, not a rep
scripts of denial, accusation, and confession. I do
jump-start a stalled dialogue about racism and rac
encourage self-reflection and conversation across ra
suggest that feminists can also look outside the acad
narratives about race and ethnicity that forge a dis
white/other binary-not only in the multilayered pa
Angeles upheavals but also in representations of rac
the news media and in popular cultural texts like film
sometimes outpaces feminist theory, as I will attem
9 In Friedman 1994, I note the omnipresence of spatial figuration

positionality, location, borderland, terrain, migratory, nomadic, tra
network, intersection, axial, circuits, etc.) that have supplanted or
wholeness, centers, cores) rooted in romanticism. See also Hicks
Perez-Torres 1993-94; and Davies 1994.
Autumn 1995 SIGNS 7

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
discussion of globalized accounts of race and ethnicity

and in the fictionalized explorations of relational
temporary films, Mira Nair's Mississippi Masala (
dan's The Crying Game (1992). In spite of the med
and film as commodified and ideological institut
both at times break out of the white/other binary; b
tant cultural work around issues of race from which feminists can learn
a great deal.
Cultural narratives of denial, accusation, and confession
These three feminist scripts about race-denial, accusation, and

confession-are, on the one hand, diachronic cultural formations that
reflect the epistemological positionalities of the feminists who produced
them and the historical conditions out of which they arose. They are, in
other words, what Donna Haraway (1988) calls "situated knowledges,"
located at the intersection of different systems of alterity.10 On the other
hand, they can also function synchronically as theoretical formulations
about race that stake out different political stances. A "thick description"
of these scripts (to echo Clifford Geertz [1973]) would detail their de-
ployment in space and time as reflections of different locations on the
terrain of racial stratification. My purpose here, however, is to evoke
these narratives in starkly structural terms. I use them not as a fixed
taxonomy but, rather, as a strategic schematization designed to address
the theoretical gridlock that characterizes much current feminist dis-
course about race, racism, and ethnicity.
Scripts of denial, produced largely by white women for whom race has
not been a source of oppression, cover a range of stories affirming female
and feminist sisterhood that, in their exclusive focus on gender, covertly
refuse the significance of race. Such texts as Sisterhood Is Powerful (Mor-
gan 1970) and Woman in Sexist Society (Gornick and Moran 1971)
represented an exhilarating assertion of the category woman as a cen-
tral prism through which to perceive human experience. Women's lives,
these scripts held, had been ignored, trivialized, or distorted in the struc-
tures and repositories of human knowledge-in what has come to be
called the symbolic order. Feminism would create, so the story went, an
alliance of women everywhere based in the commonality of women and
10 Haraway considers only gender, but for other articulations of locational politics
and epistemology that include other constituents of subjectivity, see esp. DuPlessis
(1979) 1985; Dill 1983; Hartsock 1983; Pratt 1984; Rich (1984) 1986; Martin and Mo-
hanty 1986; Spivak 1987a; Alcoff 1988; King 1988; Hurtado 1989; de Lauretis 1990;
Mohanty 1991a; Russo 1991; Smiley 1992; Friedman 1993, 1994; Harding 1993; Las-
lett 1993; duCille 1994; and Fellows and Razack 1994.
8 SIGNS Autumn 1995

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
in opposition to the patriarchal societies within wh

insight-and I stress the importance of its initial an
bution as a foundational premise of women's studi
ness to categories of race and ethnicity as coordi
defining the otherness of woman, it denies the struct
ering" by a host of other factors such as race, ethn
religion, national origin, and age.
Scripts of denial implicit in such a framework refle
cal standpoint of racial privilege from which the
They take many forms, but some of the underlying n
can be provisionally reconstituted as follows: "I'm
feminist, so how could I be a racist?" "I'm oppress
an oppressor?" "My experience is just like your ex
sisters." "Tell me all about yourself; I'm sure I can u
a woman or are you black (Jewish, Chicana, etc.)?
suffered from more, being a woman or being a m
oppressed as women," with its unsaid corollary, th
are not relevant to feminism.'1 And so forth.
Scripts of accusation, produced largely by feminist (or womanist, as
some prefer to be called) women of color who were marginalized by
racism both in and beyond the feminist movement, sprung up dialecti-
cally in response to the scripts of denial in the 1970s and 1980s. Denying
the universality of woman, these scripts accused white feminists of ig-
noring, trivializing, or distorting the lives of women who were "different"
through other forms of othering. As an advance in feminist theory pio-
neered especially by women of color, lesbian women, and Jewish women,
these accusations led to important reconceptualizations of feminist
theory in relation to other systems of oppression. In structural terms, they
paralleled those that all feminists had been making against men-but
with a difference. Many feminists who engaged in scripts of accusation
felt themselves to be in a liminal position-linked to the men of their
cultural group by race and ethnicity but separated from them by gender
and, conversely, linked to other feminists by reason of gender but sepa-
rated by reasons of race and ethnicity. In academic feminism specifically,
essays like Alice Walker's "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" ([1974]
1983a) and "One Child of One's Own" ([1979] 1983b), Barbara Smith's
"Toward a Black Feminist Criticism" ([1977] 1985), and Audre Lorde's
11 Mary Daly's notorious response (1979) to a question about race at the 1979 Si-
mone de Beauvoir conference-words to the effect that race did not interest her-
epitomizes these scripts of denial. Daly's appropriation of Indian, Chinese, and African
women's experience to a gender analysis isolated from an analysis of race, class, and
colonialism in Gyn/Ecology (1978) led to the question. See Lorde's critique of Daly's
Gyn/Ecology in "An Open Letter to Mary Daly" ([1979] 1984).
Autumn 1995 SIGNS 9

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
essays from the 1970s and early 1980s collected in S

led to a groundswell of (still) necessary attack on w
suppressing the differences among women, to the f
feminisms based on racial and ethnic identities, an
coalitions among women of color and Third World
accusation resulted in the important formation of t
of color and Third World women, and of discourse
analysis of the common ground shared by nonwhite w
racial and ethnic groups.
Scripts of accusation, reflecting the material and ps
of racism, often contain core messages that can be syn
"You are a racist." "I am not like you." "You haven
racial privilege." "I am both a woman and black (J
tive American, etc.), and I can't sort out the oppr
gender." "Gender can't be separated from race and
understand my experience or perspective." "You ar
you don't even know it." "You have left out women of
that your own experience is like all other women's." "
(teach, talk, etc.) about women of color because we
speak for ourselves." "You must include women of
(books, articles, etc.)." "You have to take the respon
about us on your own; we should not have to take
(time, energy, etc.) to educate you." "I don't want to w
to talk with you; I'm going to devote all my energy to
And so forth.
Scripts of confession, produced overwhelmingly b
whom their own racial privilege had recently becom
ralized, mushroomed in response to scripts of acc
and 1990s. Agreeing with the attacks, many white
turn the accusations upon themselves-as individual
white, ethnocentric feminists.12 Not all accusation wa
sion; some women responded by reconstituting sc
white feminist stories of guilt proliferated from the
a number of forms, some more constructive than oth
confessional script led to significant reformulations o
knowledged some women's complicity in other sy
and called for social change that addressed all forms o
12 For discussion of the rhetoric of feminist confession, see B

sional scripts focus mainly on race in the United States, not, e.g.
heterosexism. For feminist discussions of Christian ethnocentrism
see e.g., Bulkin, Pratt, and Smith 1984; Bourne 1987; and Phet
13 See, e.g, Adrienne Rich's examination of her two "mothers,"
(1976, 253-55), and her subsequent attempts to construct a glo
based in her lesbian/feminism in "Disloyal to Civilization" ([1
10 SIGNS Autumn 1995

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
times, this gaze at the Medusa of white feminist r

ralysis, frozen guilt, perpetual mea culpas, chest beati
race to confession-in short, to a performance of guilt
tends to displace and thereby reconstitute the other a
times, this guilt has resulted in an embrace of "oth
academic feminism has meant a rush to include, focus
become the other, as Biddy Martin and Chandra T
out (1986, 207). At its most extreme, this embrac
tishization of women of color that once again reconst
caught in the gaze of white feminist desire.14 Called i
of accusation, scripts of confession nonetheless hav
tantly to feminist theory by making white women in
lens of critique upon themselves, upon the web o
privilege that had remained invisible to them.
Scripts of confession, reflecting the racial privile
tempt (with questionable success) to disavow th
power, circulate among such familiar lines as these
guilty." "I'm so guilty that I can't do anything but th
I am." "Feminism is a white middle class movement." "Western culture is
totally oppressive." "There must be something bad in being white." "I
want to help women of color." "I must listen to women of color and not
answer back."15 "White women (always) leave out women of color." "I
am not going to leave out women of color any more." "I want women of
color to like me, approve of me, be my friend." "Women of color are
more authentic than me, more oppressed than me, better than me, and
always right." And so forth.
These three cultural narratives of denial, accusation, and confession-
emerging as they do from different locations in the societal distribution
of power along racial lines-can be interpreted provisionally as parts
of a single story about race and ethnicity in the feminist movement,
14 See, e.g., Jane Gallop's assertion that black women now occupy the position of
authority for her that she once gave to Jacques Lacan and other French theorists (Gallop
et al. 1990, 363-64). See also Smith 1989; Abel 1993; duCille 1994; and Homans
1994, who variously critique the white feminist tendency to place women of color in the
position of ultimate authority and authenticity as a fetishized object of desire or as a
form of embodiment for theory; Martin and Mohanty's view that the "assignment of
fixed positions-the educator/critic (woman of color) and the guilty and silent listener
(white woman)" prevents a "working through [of] the complex historical relations be-
tween and among structures of domination and oppression" (1986, 199); and Suleri's
criticism of women of color who use "strategies designed to induce a racial discomfort"
and accord an "iconic status" for themselves and postcolonial feminism in relation to
white women (1992, 764, 759).
15 One structured format for promoting antiracism used at some women's studies
conferences and programs involves women of color speaking about racism to white
women, who must remain silent for a predetermined amount of time, after which they
may speak, but only about their own racism.
Autumn 1995 SIGNS 11

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
ametanarrative that can be reconstructed in its simple

as follows: "I'm not a racist, we are all women," sa
"You are a racist, you are different from me," say
feminist. "You are right, I am a racist," says a wh
propose this metanarrative as a fixed structure tha
discourses on race. To do so would be reductionist
anced heterogeneity of many manifestations of these
Moreover, each script has made and continues to m
tributions to feminist discourse. But what this str
metanarrative discloses is the underlying binary of w
erates within a victim paradigm of race relations
suggest, a story we have heard repeatedly. By itself, i
end. It is hindering the development of a more broadl
tural feminism whose agenda centrally includes the er
and the globalization of feminist theory and praxis
Both the metanarrative and the dead end are starkly
Anzaldua's description of a course on U.S. wome
taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz
give full play to the "soundings" of denial, accusa
that reverberate throughout her account:16
At first, what erupted in class was anger-anger f

color, anger and guilt from whites, anger, frust
feelings by Jewishwomen who were caught in th
anger and frustration on my part from having to m
all these groups [note the scripts of denial and accus
body became a vessel for all the tensions and ang
going to class. Some of my students dreaded go
gradually the mujeres-of-color became more asser
ing and holding whites accountable for their una
and chronically oppressive ways [accusation]. . .
women or Jewishwomen attempted to subvert
women-of-color's feelings to their own feelings of c
lessness, anger, guilt, fear of change and other insec
sion], the women-of-color again and again redir
back to mujeres-de-color [accusation]. When seve
stood up in class and either asked politely, pleade
demanded (one had tears streaming down her fa
of-color teach them, when whitewomen wanted t
of-color in time-consuming dialogues [confession
16 I am borrowing Houston Baker's metaphor of soundings for

narratives that underlie African American modernity (1987).

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
color expressed their hundred years weariness o

whites about Racism. They were eloquent in expr
ticism about making alliances with whites when
. . needed reassurance, acceptance and validation
de-color [accusation].... The problem was that w
white Jewishwomen, while seeming to listen, were
ing" women-of-color and could not get it into th
was a space and class on and about women-of
accusation]. As one student-of-color wrote: "I t
thing for me was having to understand that the
class . . . [could not] understand the experience
[accusation]. Though there were important lesson
ability to listen and hear, along with the confu
doubts about ever being able to work together almo
apart [dead end]. (1990c, xx)
Anzaldua is to be commended for her honesty in ex

racial dynamics in her class. The pedagogical pro
anger, guilt, and miscommunication produced
scripts of denial, accusation, and confession no do
ness about racial and ethnic chasms. But I think th
inevitable as these scripts are because of the diff
positionalities represented in the class, they con
"difference impasse," the blocked movement, and
many feminist discussions about race and racism
First, these cultural narratives foster the cont
scripts in which white remains the center, the defin
to the other, which remains at the margins. As a
narratives end up reinscribing the very pattern t
Second, they require the construction of white (o
lithic, unchanging category that even in racial an
vast differences of culture and history punctuate
the conflict between the English and the Irish; t
French; the Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats; the Euro
the Gypsies, both of whom in the European conte
scapegoat races (not ethnicities). Along with the
of twentieth-century ethnic violence in Europe (both
fueled by racial concepts of national identity), Wo
to be sufficient in themselves in calling into que
white and Western as unitary categories.17
17 See Stocking 1968; Poliakov 1971; Stepan 1982; and Bant

of European racialism, which included not only identification

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Third, the binary of white/other embedded in

ethnocentric, not sufficiently global in perspective.
edge how the processes of racial and ethnic othe
phenomenon, not the exclusive product of Cauca
dealings with people of color. (More on this later.)
inhibit the development of scripts about the relation
to (an)other-a Korean to a Japanese woman, an Af
Asian American woman, a Cuban American to an
woman, a Hindu to a Muslim woman in India, a H
in Rwanda, for example. Not all boundaries betwe
Western women can be explained in terms of whit
Too often, the word racism implies the assumed
construction of racism as always already white reflec
white racism in the United States. But it also res
operates to make invisible the existence of other raci
United States or elsewhere in the world).
Fifth, these cultural narratives are often founded o
tion of racial and ethnic purity that denies the world
constantly produced biological and cultural syncr
tures are not so easily put into fixed categories b
nicity; claims for such purity are often based on the
pure/impure in which mixing constitutes a form
zaldiua writes, "Racial purity, like language purity
146). She attacks specifically the Chicana/o "denial of
one reason or another cannot 'pass' as 100% ethn
exists" (1990b, 146). It is a cornerstone of racist think
cultures do, and must be made to, occupy spaces
purity. In her visionary call for "the new mestiza
zaldiua configures the liminal space she occupies as
enting, but ultimately fertile borderland beyond the
identity politics (1987, esp. 77-98).18
Sixth, these cultural narratives that proscribe the w
implicitly privilege race and ethnicity as the primary
sion to which all other systems of alterity must b
producing, with all its limitations, the categorical
by certain Marxists with class and radical feminis
quently, for all their explanatory power in some
scripts actually hinder the analysis of how different
also the division of Europeans into many different races. See

status of the Roma (Gypsies) in Europe.
18 For discussions of syncretism and hybridization, see, e.g
1991; Hicks 1991; Lowe 1991; Pratt 1991; Davies 1994; Fried
1993-94; and Wright 1994.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
cation intersect in the construction of identit

oppression. In particular, they suppress an und
tory subject positions.19 Nor can they explain t
and alterity in a woman who is part of both a
marginalized one-such as a relatively dark-skin
who moves back and forth between London and Calcutta. As a Brahmin
she is privileged by caste; as a woman, she is oppressed. As a frequent
traveler, she is well-off in class terms, but called black by the British and
subject to the disorientations of a bicontinental postcolonial identity. As
a dark-skinned woman, she is differently disadvantaged within the Indian
context of colorism and the British context of racism. The categories
"woman of color" and "Third World woman" are insufficient to explain
her position at the crossroads of different formations of power relations.
Finally, these binary scripts dim to near invisibility any common
ground that might exist between women who occupy the opposing sites
of "white" and "color." At times, exclusive emphasis on the differences
among women threatens the category of feminism itself, eliminating not
only the concept of worldwide efforts to better women's status but also
the very possibility of multiple feminisms. Even in the plural, feminism
depends upon the premise that gender, in combination with other cat-
egories, is a constituent element of hierarchical social organization. I am
not for a moment suggesting an abandonment of the recognition and
celebration of differences as a necessity and source of strength in femi-
nism. But the identification of differences among women needs to be
complemented by a search for common ground, however differently that
commonality is materially manifested. For example, a white woman
raped by a black man and a black woman raped by a white man in the
United States share the experience of rape and have much to learn from
each other about its psychological, sexual, familial, and legal conse-
quences. But the different histories of interracial rape between whites and
blacks with the legacy of slavery color what these women share, inflecting
their commonality with difference. Understanding this difference de-
pends upon first identifying rape as a shared issue based on gender.20
"The shared ground [between Us and Them]," writes S. P. Mohanty in
his critique of cultural relativism, "helps us situate and specify difference,
understand where its deepest resonances might originate" (1989, 21). In
his view, "a simple recognition of differences across cultures" leads only
"to a sentimental charity, for there is nothing in its logic that necessitates
19 Fellows and Razack report on this phenomenon in the roundtable discussions they
led among a group of women in which, "with respect of one another, every participant
was simultaneously a member of a subordinate as well as a dominant group" (1994,
1051).
20 See Cole 1986 and Gordon 1991 for discussions of the importance of feminist
identification of commonality among women as well as differences. See also Crossette's
report on this issue at the 1994 U.N. conference on population in Cairo (1994).

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
our attention to the other" (23). The primary share

and Them, he argues, begins with the assumption o
which he defines as "the capacity that all human 'p
in principle possess to understand their actions an
terms of their (social and historical) significance
white/other binary discourages the location of suc
tends to deny the agency and subjectivity of the othe
"Women all over the world have a lot of things
Wang Jiaxiang, a women's studies activist and teach
an exhilarated delegate at the United Nations Conf
and Development in Cairo (Crossette 1994). Given t
of domination that separate women, the search f
often seems utopian. This longing for alliance rep
pleasure in and connection across difference, not
presses but one that flourishes in the intimate spac
pathologies of otherness.21 Such desire underlies the k
exists as a form of healing in Anzaldua's Borderlan
it is not enough to stand on the opposite bank, sh
challenging patriarchal, white conventions. A cou
into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mort
cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a comm
violence. The counterstance ... is a step toward libe
domination. But it's not a way of life. At some point,
consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite ba
the two mortal combatants somehow healed so th
shores at once" (1987, 78).22
Cultural narratives of relational positionality

What I call (for want of a better term) scripts of
ality began to emerge during the 1980s in feminist
21 See Ruth Bloch's critique of what she sees as feminist theor

on models of domination, exploitation, and power, which she b
gender that cannot be explained entirely within a victim paradig
ing parts of Bloch's call for a "culturalist feminist theory," Barb
need to understand feminist pleasure in terms that exceed mo
See also Harding's response (1993).
22 Anzaldua's vision of healing here refers specifically to the
Mexican, and Indian (Aztec) within herself, not to alliances amon
women. In Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), however, Anzaldua
of broader alliance through her dedications of poems to Judy G
West, and Irena Klepfisz. In "Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar or
edges the role of "love and friendship" and ritual behaviors su
gether as a "good basis" for alliance work, as long as it does no
power invisible (1990a, 229-30).

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
out of the accusatory and confessional stories abou

racism. Produced by women and men of different rac
points, these scripts regard identity as situationall
fined and at the crossroads of different systems of a
tion. They rest upon significant advances in femin
by narratives of accusation and confession, namely
tiple oppressions and interlocking systems of oppr
pioneered especially by women of color and the ne
tion, positionality, and standpoint. It is also root
relations theory, which in its feminist revision of ps
phasized how the formation of identity, particula
unfolds in relation to desire for and separation from
shows the influence of poststructuralist and post
identity and formulations of subjectivity, which s
indeterminate, nomadic, and hybrid nature of a lingu
identity.23
But cultural narratives of relational positionality go beyond these
foundations by resisting and dissolving the fixities of the white/other
binary. They deconstruct what Homi Bhabha describes as "an important
feature of colonial discourse"; "its dependence on the concept of 'fixity'
in the ideological construction of otherness" (1983, 18). Within a rela-
tional framework, identities shift with a changing context, dependent
always upon the point of reference. Not essences or absolutes, identities
are fluid sites that can be understood differently depending on the van-
tage point of their formation and function. For example, in relation to
white people, Leslie Marmon Silko and Paula Gunn Allen are women of
color, Native American, and partially white. In relation to women of
color, they are Native American. In relation to Native Americans, they
are members of the Laguna Pueblo. In relation to each other, they are
individual women who characterize the Laguna Pueblo culture in star-
tlingly different ways. Scripts of relational positionality construct a mul-
tiplicity of fluid identities defined and acting situationally. They also go
23 For earlier formulations of what I am calling relational positionality, see Friedman

1993, 1994. Throughout his essays, Radhakrishnan uses the terms relational and rela-
tionality in similar ways; see also Chandra Mohanty's somewhat different use of rela-
tionality (1991a, 12-13). For examples of integrated analysis of multiple oppressions,
see esp. Walker (1974) 1983a, (1979) 1983b; Smith (1977) 1985; Lorde (1979) 1984;
Moraga and Anzaldua 1981; Dill 1983; Chai 1985; Anzaldfia 1987, 1990c; King 1988;
hooks 1989; Mohanty 1991a, 1991b; and Higginbotham 1992. For rhetoric of stand-
point, location, and positionality, see references in n. 10. For object relations theory, see,
e.g., Chodorow 1978; Gardiner 1981; and Benjamin 1988. For a sampling of the vast
literature on subjectivity influenced by poststructuralism and postcolonial studies, see
Belsey 1980; Bhabha 1983; de Lauretis 1986, 1987, 1990; Radhakrishnan 1987, 1989a,
1993; Spivak 1987b, 1988; Miller 1988; Smith 1988; Smith 1989; Hicks 1991; Lowe
1991; Appiah and Gates 1992b; P&rez-Torres 1993-94; and Davies 1994.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
beyond feminist discourses of static positionality, wh

propriated for scripts of accusation and confession
The fluidity of situational identity suggests as w
meable boundaries, a notion that adapts object re
theorization of cultural syncretism. Such mixtures of
especially (but not exclusively) evident in the United
has drawn immigrants from all over the world. "H
denied, is built into American identity formation,
American Indian nations. Moreover, different hy
continually affect other hyphenated Americans. Sc
sitionality are more suited to dealing with the p
between races and ethnicities. Such scripts also mo
tialism of fundamentalist identity politics without
realities of identity, as poststructuralist deconstruct
theory tend to do.24 Stressing that individuals are
many group identities and cannot be reduced to any
are able to be flexible in dealing with global variat
erness and contradictory subject positions.
The concept of relational positionality should no
pluralism, which always runs the risk, as Chand
points out, of suppressing the analysis of structur
systems of domination. American celebrations of
argues, all too often domesticate difference and d
"discourse of civility" by presenting it in individu
(1989-90, 203). I do not mean to suggest that all
and "equal" within a menu of differences. Scripts
ality foster neither pluralism nor identity politics
lectivity. Rather, they acknowledge that the flow
systems of domination is not always unidirection
victimizers; agents of change can also be complicit
particular axis of power one considers. This co
power relations by insisting on identification of w
calls a "totality" of the different constituent elemen
81). It complicates as well organizational strategi
lectivities can one organize political entities if eve
tiple groups? Nonetheless, scripts of relational positi
door for dialogue, affiliations, alliances, and coali
ethnic boundaries.
24 I distinguish here fundamentalist identity politics from other kinds of identity poli-
tics, particularly what I might call a syncretist identity politics based in a notion of iden-
tity as culturally constructed, historically specific, and open to change and interweaving
with other identities. As I have written elsewhere, I do not believe that feminists and
other marginalized groups can afford to give up the concept of identity and political or-
ganizing based on various group identities in favor of poststructuralist notions of iden-
tity as sheer play and performance (Friedman 1991).

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
June Jordan's autobiographical essay "Report f

(1985) lends concreteness to my attempts to theori
positionality. As a deliberately self-reflexive and
the essay takes us through Jordan's discovery of
plexities of relational identity in which no single
determines the totality of experience. Jordan tells th
African American of West Indian descent, harri
teaching at a New York public university, sett
Sheraton British Colonial Hotel in the Bahamas fo
Instead, the hotel greets her with markers of col
history within which she-as black, West Indian, co
mother, tourist-occupies contradictory subject po
share and not share with Olive, the maid who
wonders? In relation to race, they are connected; in r
are disconnected. She reflects, "Even though b
inside a conflict neither one of us created, and ev
therefore hurt inside that conflict, I may be one of
to eliminate from her universe and, in a sense, sh
monsters in mine" (47).
Both the bond and the gulf between Jordan and
tions about fluid identities based in race, class, and
the bond she shared with a Jewish student who brou
ska's The Bread Givers, a novel about a Jewish w
that resonated with her own experience. His love o
own love of West Indian language. But the racial g
when he said he did not care about the cutbacks in ai
a policy that directly affected her son and many oth
Jordan's experience of her own otherness in the whi
ence interweaves with the otherness of Olive, from w
by geography and class in spite of their shared ra
Such shifting positionalities form the basis, Jordan
ing connections made out of need and partial com
such a connection she helped make between a w
woman (Cathy), who had had an alcoholic, abusiv
South African woman (Sokutu), whose alcohol
friend in the antiapartheid movement, was beatin
and powerlessness, privilege and oppression, move
axes of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and nationa
race, Jordan and Sokutu were connected not onl
activism in the antiapartheid movement but also
terrorized by Irish kids who introduced me to th
48). But in relation to gender, the Irish and South
more in common than either had with Jordan. Shy b
difference, Cathy reaches out to Sokutu to provide

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
cannot give her. "I walked behind them," Jordan r

trip home from the Bahamas, "the young Irish w
South African, and I saw them walking as sisters
other, and whispering and sure of each other and
who they were but what they both know and w
preparing to do about what they know that was goin
free at last" (49).
Like feminists before her, Jordan in "Report from
that we understand race, class, and gender as mul
systems of oppression. But she writes against the gra
identity politics as she questions the use of race,
automatic concepts of connection" (1985, 46). "Th
tion" between people, she writes, "cannot be the e
who you are, in other words, but what we can do for
determine the connection" (47). She breaks throu
new multicultural feminist discourse-in proposin
shift in focus depending upon situation and refere
ping connections forged by different peoples strugg
oppressions. Her approach suggests the possibility of
of impasse that tore apart Anzaldua's class and th
feminist attempts to cross racial and ethnic bound
June Jordan is not alone in contemporary femin
moting and performing relational thinking about
and there, speak in similar terms. Scripts of relat
variously present in the work of such people as
Spivak, Sara Suleri, William Boelhower, R. Radha
lina, Jenny Bourne, Mary Louise Fellows, Sherene
durai, Aida Hurtado, Carole Boyce Davies, Minnie
Williams, Biddy Martin, and Chandra Talpade
sampling. Martin and Mohanty's "Feminist Politics
Do with It?" (1986), for example, uses Minnie Br
graphical reflections in "Identity: Skin Blood Hear
"the fundamentally relational nature of identity" (19
lesbian Southerner whose father and grandfather
Pratt lives in a predominantly black community
where she realizes that every exchange with her Afr
bors is overdetermined by the politics of racial locat
a lesbian-ever an outsider in her father's world-
for the remapping of "community." Concerned t
ern" feminism tends to "leave the terms of West/
polarities intact," Martin and Mohanty find in Pra
"the feigned homogeneity of the West and what seem
and political stability of the hierarchical West/E

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
though not theorized as such, some feminist theo

begun to posit relational positionalities in which
multifaceted ways instead of flowing unidirecti
white/other binary.
Beyond white/other in contemporary news med

In spite of the scattered existence of relational
porary feminist discourse, the scripts of denial, a
sion tend to dominate feminist classrooms, confe
and research. This state of affairs is due partly, I
racial polarization and nationalist/separatist sent
States, developments that reflect the worsening s
inner cities and the growing racially inflected b
grants, the poor, and affirmative action-all symp
the overwhelming, multiracial support for Califo
aimed at eliminating aid for illegal immigrants,
But I also believe that the repetitive round of d
confession among feminists is also partly the res
meticism in feminist theory itself, especially in the
tendency of academic feminism to feed off i
interdisciplinarity-an insularity that is endemic
intellectual fields of discourse. This aspect of the
accounts for much of its insight, but also for so
cultural praxis. In the United States, demographi
have converged to produce in the mass media an
relational scripts-far more than occur within fe
mass media bombard us daily with varied cultural
ethnicity, and racism-some structured by the wh
many constituted outside it. I suggest that we fe
racial and ethnic standpoints, step outside our aca
a moment to see what surrounds us, to seek what
the broken record of so many of our exchanges abou
racism. In some ways a powerful avant-garde, w
behind the times.
Television, newspapers, magazines, and movies
about racial/ethnic conflict and bridge building
white/other binary. This is not to say that the w
narratives of denial, accusation, and confession d
in popular culture. They certainly do. (The camp
Horton in 1988 and promoting Proposition 187 in
Even the celebrations of "diversity" encased in th
can pluralism-American culture as a gorgeous

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
stir-fry, stew, orchestra, patchwork quilt, sympho

instance-contribute to the essentialism toward wh
politics tends. Such metaphors depend heavily on t
sight-that figure prominently in racialism in all its f
itself, they tend to fix everyone's difference in st
within impenetrable boundaries. Even the widely used
in its most common meanings operates as a code
races and ethnicities, thus covertly reinstating the wh
Nonetheless, the mass media also produce, reflec
tives that refuse fixity, exhibit relational thinking, an
white/other binary-narratives to which we academ
well to pay attention. I urge this immersion in mas
with some trepidation. First, feminist theorists s
sources for theoretical insight; rather, such cultural f
often a site for critique. Second, these cultural texts a
subject to the demands of an increasingly globalize
to package "facts" and stories as commodities aimed at
est possible market share. As is evident in the account
upheavals, the news media often sensationalize stor
card" for all it is (financially) worth. As Jimmie
Campbell write in Cracked Coverage, the news med
report facts, but function "as a vital social force in
reality, . . . the enforcement of norms, and the produ
(1994, 7). And in the Hollywood entertainment ind
audience, the more likely white perspectives defin
ethnicity and the less likely people of color (especi
shape the production of their own social realities
particularly the economically driven ones, appear t
a poor source for theoretical insight.
Some cultural studies approaches to mass culture
reductionistic equation of media with ideology as
25 The multicultural mosaic appears quite frequently in ethnic
ment for the assimilationist image of the "melting pot" without
potential reinforcement of fundamentalist identity politics. See
Gleason 1980; and Chametzky 1989-90. The term multicultural
without consistent meanings in its many usages and easily open
ebrations of pluralist diversity that obscure underlying power r
American context multicultural most often means nonwhite raci
together, but it also sometimes refers to cultural diversity of all
and Western), to a group that is itself multicultural (e.g., Africa
Americans), and even to individuals of mixed heritage (e.g., Lo
Marmon Silko). See Jameson 1991; Miyoski 1993; Perez-Torr
1994.
26 For discussions of minority filmmakers and the entertainment industry, see e.g.,
Parkerson 1990; Dash 1992; and Fregoso 1993. For discussion of the increasingly glo-
balized economy of mass media, see Jameson 1991; and Miyoshi 1993.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
allied with power.27 Instead, many critics insist that m

be read as sites of contested meaning in which producer
various constituencies interpret events and stories in ac
ent agendas and political standpoints. In writing of
tations of race, for example, television critic Herm
"possible strategies of counter hegemonic readings, l
ruptions of television's domesticating power" (1993
that the meanings of such representations as The Co
given; rather, viewers define and use the representation
for different reasons" (1989, 376). Although I ackn
popular culture as mediated articulations, I treat the
wresting meanings about race and ethnicity beyond
nary, meanings that feminists can use for progressive
retical purposes.
Take, for example, newspaper accounts of events a
nicity (sometimes inseparable from religion) for wh
binary offers only partial or no explanatory power.
stories (however mediated) that I have clipped from
newspapers since the events in Los Angeles forceful
should broaden our understanding of racial and ethn
stories can potentially internationalize our understan
a global phenomenon that includes but cannot be re
ism against nonwhite people. Some events reflect b
which neither side is "white"; others reflect racial or et
more than two groups. All demonstrate how conflict
power tends to be racially or ethnically inflected,
ethnocentrism is the cause or the effect of such conflict
provisionally, not to argue for a transhistorical and
in full recognition that each instance is historically spe
and overdetermined. I do so strategically, in catalog for
weight of global events force us out of an exclusive foc
in the context of the United States.
-The forty-eight ethnic wars being fought in Eur
South America, and the Middle East during 1993 (
-The Serbian use of systematic rape, concentration
ciless shelling of besieged civilians as part of its "et
the Bosnian Muslims-this, in the context of a t
religious war rooted in centuries of conflict, evident n
the Croat and Bosnian Muslim genocidal exterminat
thousands of Serbs during World War II.
27 See, e.g., Fiske 1987; Gray 1989, 1993; and D'Acci 1994.
28 These examples have been taken mostly from the New York
State Journal, and the Washington Post National Weekly Edition

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
-Clan warfare in Somalia that led to millions of

-The longstanding conflict between the majority
(but traditionally dominant) Tutsis in Rwanda th
killing of some half-million people in April and
top of the murder of some one hundred thousan
Burundi in 1993.
-Fundamentalist Hindu destruction of a sixteenth-century mosque at
Ayodhya (supposedly the site of a Hindu temple destroyed with the
Muslim conquest of India) that led to thousands of deaths, especially
in pogroms against Muslims in Bombay.
-The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the victims of anti-Semitism
become victimizers of cousin Semites, in which each victim group
lashes out against the other for who they are, in which attempts at
peace are regularly subverted by violence on both sides.
-The racial/ethnic/political cauldron in South Africa among Zulu,
Hxosa, South Asian, "coloreds," Afrikaaners, Jews, and other whites
of British or European descent.
-The seventy-six areas of ethnic strife emerging after the breakup of
the Soviet Union, including the Armenian and Azerbaijani hostilities.
-The Protestant/Catholic violence in Northern Ireland, rooted in a
centuries-old English racial and ethnic prejudice against the Irish.
-Kuwaiti abuse of Asian women who enter the country as domestic
workers.
-Conflict between the Buddhist Tamils and Hindu Sinhalese in Sri
Lanka.
-Long-standing racism of the Japanese against the Koreans, evident
most vividly in the recent exposure of the Japanese use of Korean
women as "comfort women" held captive in camps for sexual exploi-
tation by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
-Resurgence of anti-Gypsy, anti-Jewish, and anti-"foreign" feelings
in Germany and Eastern Europe.
-Ethnic strife between the Katangans and the Kasai in Zaire.
-Clan conflict in China, as well as Chinese racism against its African
students and the Chinese policy of wiping out Tibetan culture in its
occupation of Tibet.
-Divisions between the Spanish-Indian Mestizos and the British-
Indian-African Creoles of Belize.
-The uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, heavily inflected with conflict
between indigenous Indians and the dominant mestizos, of mixed
Spanish and Indian descent.
-The complicated multiethnic, decades-old war in Myanmar (for-
merly Burma) among the ethnic Burmese, Kachin, Wa, Kikang, Pa-
laung, Shan, and other groups.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
-Three-way divisions threatening national unity am

tion peoples, the Euro-Canadians of British descent,
in Canada, increasingly complicated by extensive im
East Asia, South Asia, and the Caribbean.
-Conflicts between African Americans and Korean Americans in Los
Angeles and Brooklyn, between African Americans and Latinos in Los
Angeles, between Latinos and Asian Americans in Los Angeles, be-
tween African Americans and Cuban Americans in Miami, and be-
tween African Americans and Jewish Americans in Crown Heights.
This, in the context not only of the structural foundations of white
racism in the United States, but also of a 1994 survey showing that
"minorities held more negative views of other minorities than do
whites" (Holmes 1994).29
The point of this catalog is not to fetishize racial and ethnic conflict.
The news media tend to report, even sensationalize, racial and ethnic
violence and to ignore efforts at building bridges across cultural divides.
Douglas Martin's New York Times (1993) story of the Korean-American
Grocers Association of New York, which now sponsors scholarships for
African American students, is a rare exception to the focus on violence.
So also are such examples as the plea for "rooting out the unfortunate
link between ethnicity and the bogeymen" by Sri Lankan poet Indran
Amirthanayagam in the New York Times (1993); a PBS documentary on
Malaysia, which includes a segment on not only the 1969 race riots but
also a joint business school effort by a few Chinese and Malays to move
beyond the racial hatred and distrust that divides their society; and a
CNN feature on the village in Northern Ireland, home of an Irish Re-
publican Army terrorist whose bomb killed a little boy, that produced a
Christmas play in the boy's hometown as a peace offering. The U.S. news
media's focus on ethnic violence around the world may well function as
a commodified displacement of violence at home, mostly perpetrated by
the institutions of white racism. The covert effect of such mediated re-
porting might feed white paranoia about racial others and ease white
guilt about racism in the United States.
But as sites of contested meaning, these news reports can also be read
as forceful disruptions of the white/other binary. Thick descriptions of
some of the events behind these reports reveal some continuing effects of
white and Western racism. As colonial rulers, for example, the Belgians
issued ethnic identity cards in the 1930s to the majority Hutus and
minority Tutsis, groups between whom the physical differences were so
29 If accurate, this Louis Harris survey, called "Taking America's Pulse," may reflect
the success of scripts of accusation resulting in white self-censorship of continued stereo-
typical thinking, as well as the permission victimization often brings to think stereotypi-
cally of all others. Two other polls had similar results.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
insignificant that "ownership of cattle became th

classification-an owner of 10 or more cattle became a Tutsi," whom the
Belgians made their middlemen (Bonner 1994). But the slaughter in
Rwanda cannot be explained solely in terms of Belgian colonialism since
the notion of biological difference between Hutus and Tutsis has ex-
planatory power for many Rwandans today, indeed, enough cogency to
justify murder. As one woman told a reporter, "They said, 'You are Tutsi,
therefore we have to kill you' " (Bonner 1994). When power is at stake,
as it is in Rwanda, people often resort to ethnic and racial othering to
explain and justify conflict. Whether as cause or effect of conflict, racial
and ethnic division is a global phenomenon where people compete for
resources. Such global instances of othering shatter the fixity of the
white/other binary as exclusive explanation for all racial and ethnic con-
flict.
Some theorists and critics regard race and ethnicity as constructions of
Western culture, particularly post-Renaissance conquest and post-
Enlightenment imperialism. I share their constructivist view of racial and
ethnic classifications as products of culture, not absolutes of nature. I
acknowledge as well that Western science, especially in the nineteenth
century, systematized racial and ethnic classifications to an extraordinary,
indeed, obsessive, degree, a development that provided ideological ra-
tionales for imperialism, slavery, various legal apartheids, anti-
immigration laws, and other forms of racial and ethnic stratification. But
the notion that the West invented racial and ethnic classifications and
their institutionalization or has been the only culture to engage in such
otherings is highly ethnocentric, itself an embodiment of the white/other
binary.30 To cite some counterexamples, the Chinese, according to Frank
Dikotter, had a fully developed concept of racial difference and hierarchy
before contact with the West (1992). Many people believe that the caste
system in India originated in hierarchical divisions based on color varia-
tions produced in the wake of the Aryan invasion of the Dravidian people
on the Indian subcontinent, a view supported by the Hindu word for
caste, varna, that also means color (Dumont [1966] 1970).31 A Somali
saying reported in relation to clan conflict applies more generally to the
shifting collectivities of human society: "My clan against the enemy, my
family against the clan, my brother and I against my family, me against
my brother" (Ozanne 1992).
I am not proposing a homogenized, universal, static, transhistorical,
primal, or biologically deterministic view of conflict based in ethnocen-
30 See, e.g., West 1982; and Sollors 1989, ix-xx. The belief that racism and ethno-
centrism are European and Euro-American inventions widely underwrites cultural narra-
tives of accusation.
31 My thanks to Edward Friedman and Sivagami Subbaraman for directing my atten-
tion to the forms of colorism in China and India.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
trism. Each form of "centrism" clearly takes on histo

and can be understood only through a synchronic
description of any given society. But the capacity
engage in a kind of us-against-them thinking is gl
because of some genetic feature of the human spec
competition for resources, power, and position as a
the production of racial and ethnic othering.32 Th
has a powerful explanatory power in some contex
encompass countless narratives about race and eth
appear daily in our newspapers and on our televis
tionalizing our thinking on these issues can contri
logjam in our discourses about race and ethnicity
Relationality in popular cinema

Contemporary popular film, like newspapers, is a
tation in which the white/other binary of race relati
Like many other mass culture artifacts, films package
ket, and disseminate "race" and "ethnicity" as socia
of contradiction (like fictional narrative), film po
reinscribes racism-simultaneously working thr
widespread anxieties about difference. It both allow
sion of taboo anger. It both imagines utopian desir
underlines its impossibilities. Rather than seek
particularly the meaning-of a given film, I see a f
negotiating meanings that might well function both r
gressively, depending on who is doing the reading
I want to discuss two such films, both of which
about gender (feminist theory is certainly more ad
but provide fascinating explorations of relational
feminists can learn a great deal. Mira Nair's realist
Masala (1991) and Neil Jordan's postmodern The C
were produced outside the mainstream Hollywood film
ertheless "caught on" to achieve popularity and suc
expectations.33 This success-like that of such othe
Wedding Banquet; Farewell, My Concubine; and Fr
may reflect the way that race and ethnicity titillat
32 For critique of primordialist views of ethnic conflict, see

cussions of othering applicable globally (even if not discussed
1986a; Appiah 1989; and Radhakrishnan 1991.
33 For some of Jordan's other films, see A Neil Jordan Read
in sociology at Delhi University and documentary film at Harvar
for her award-winning documentaries like India Cabaret (198
(1989). See Nair and Taraporevala 1989; Appadurai 1991.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
market. But it may also reflect how the relational na

desire for cross-racial connection in both films tap in
ways to think about race beyond the white/other
In providing relational readings of the films' t
crossings, it is not my intent to present here a full
layered cultural narratives in these films, to prod
analysis of the production and consumption of the
offer a feminist reading of their gender politics, or
as a perfect example of relational thinking. I offer in
intends to make more visible to feminists the pote
thinking about race and ethnicity, with full awarene
racial politics of both films are nonetheless open t
Mississippi Masala centers around a love story
American woman and an African American man
Mississippi, in 1990-a new take, with a happy en
of Romeo and Juliet and its more recent avatar in W
an obedient young woman of twenty-four, lives a
with her parents, pressured by her mother to marry
go to college; Demetrius passed up college after hi
his small carpet-cleaning business out of a truck,
father, Willie Ben, and his brother, Dexter. Living
both Mina and Demetrius are figures of diaspora:
India and he has never been to Africa.
The film cuts back and forth between the sharply etched worlds of
Mina and Demetrius, reproducing for a popular audience the ethno-
graphic, documentary style of Nair's earlier films.35 Mina belongs to the
tight-knit community of Indian refugees who were forced to flee from
Uganda when Idi Amin's black nationalist dictatorship outlawed the In-
dian immigrant class, which was as a whole much better off economically
34 For a critical reading of Mississippi Masala, see hooks and Dingwaney, who retain
the white/other binary in their condemnation of the film as antinationalist and colonial-
ist and as "another shallow comment on interracial, inter-ethnic, transnational 'lust' "
(1992, 41). My thanks to Meryl Schwartz for sending me this review. Hooks also ob-
jects to the racial politics of The Crying Game, which she interprets as an appropriative
film that commodifies race while denying its significance, "cannibalizes" the other, and
perpetuates "white cultural imperialism" (1994, 53-62). While hooks and Dingwaney
are usefully alert to the political limitations of popular film, their readings of the filmic
texts are often one-dimensional, ignoring important iconographic and narrative nuances
and demonstrating the Procrustean dangers of interpreting texts entirely through the lens
of culture as a system of (white/Western) domination.
35 Although hooks and Dingwaney (1992) complain that the film's seeming realism
obscures its stereotypical mockery of Indian culture, I think they miss the self-mocking
but also celebratory humor characteristic of many "ethnic" films produced by members
of the ethnic group they portray, films such as The Wedding Banquet, The Joy Luck
Club, Dim Sum, The Great Wall, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Stardust Memories, and
Moonstruck. Such humor has often been a central survival strategy.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
than most black Ugandans. Trying to hold on

cultural traditions, experiencing the intergener
to many American immigrants, they pursue the
terial success by living frugally and helping e
businesses such as motels and liquor stores. De
family-centered Southern black community, w
American characters images the considerable gen
individual variation in black response to centuri
munity, the white/other binary is fully in play. T
the white restaurant owner and banker constit
and humiliation countered by the strength of the
work of people like Demetrius and Willie Ben, a
culture, clearly rooted in but distinct from Africa
The film undermines the white/other binary by
nature of the category of other while leaving th
monolithically in place. The racism of white Am
with the occasional presence of synecdochal fi
reminders of a fixed, hostile, and racist power
nomic and political dominance over all people
structure is not the narrative center of the fil
racism, distrust, and longing for love that can exi
racial/ethnic groups. As lovers, Mina and Deme
sippi masala-a mixture of spices-that is violentl
of the Indian community for whom intermarri
rica, constitutes a disgrace to family honor. Bo
communities come down hard against the love
Mina for shaming her family by having sex with
Americans against Demetrius for a variety of
they see as his rejection of black women, his d
woman like Lisa Bonet (the actress who play
Show), his foolishness for getting involved with
bition in owning his own business. The Indian
more collective economic power than the black c
canceling all its orders for Demetrius to clean m
leads the banker to cancel his loan, to which Deme
a suit against one of the Indian motel owners.
The unity of "people of color" against whit
Indian had touted to Demetrius earlier in the
bitter confrontation between Asian Americans and African Americans.
"United we stand, divided we fall," sarcastically snorts Demetrius's
friend Tyrone, who leaves in disgust for Los Angeles. The film's relational
approach to race and ethnicity exposes the racism endemic in Indian
culture, prejudice directed not only at African Americans but also at the

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
darker-skinned people like Mina within their o

conflict between two groups constituted as other b
the process of othering with which each of these
This represents a partial displacement of the w
category of other explodes into its heterogeneo
egory of whiteness remains fixed and monolith
The film's relational approach complicates the
however. The film opens in Uganda with the te
Amin's decision in 1972 to "cleanse" the countr
Mina's grandfather had immigrated to Uganda
her father, Jay, was born there and achieves co
lawyer-living out an African version of the A
many immigrants, progress that leaves many b
taged (just as the success of immigrants from othe
States has often been instrumental in keeping
group from substantial advancement). What hurts
her father's closest friend, his black "brother," Ok
he must leave, that "Africa is for Africans, black
mother weep at the parting from Okelo while Jay
hurt far more by Okelo's rejection and the loss of
theft of his material goods and position.
As the love story unfolds, both Mina and her
images of Uganda, flashbacks that underline how
shapes the events in 1990. Mina's attraction to
Leopard Lounge, a black dance club whose sight
a difference-some of the film's Ugandan scene
etrius triggers memories of Okelo. As they make l
Biloxi, Ugandan music plays on the sound track,
earlier birthday in Uganda when her father's pr
dan politics makes him forget to sing "Happy B
sings "Happy Birthday," longing for her fath
merge, only to be brought up short by her nightm
the dead body of a black Ugandan covered by fl
her, but she cannot tell him about Uganda, just
when his family asked why she left. She can on
as "mixed masala": born in Africa of Indian des
for fifteen years, resident of Greenwood for thre
Mina's father is similarly unable to explain t
means by saying that he has forbidden the relatio
struggle." Unaware of the family's experiences i
been known for his criticism of Indian racism and
of black Ugandans, Demetrius accuses him of tr
rant of the long-standing racialism in Indian cu
has been intensified by) British colonialism, De

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
stand that in blocking the relationship, Jay is "ac

aligning himself with racist elements within his own
ing out of his own racial location in the United States
Jay likewise does not understand), Demetrius reflects
Americans who have been embittered by the Amer
sive immigrant groups, a process that Toni Morris
ing to say "nigger"-learning, in other words, to raise
seeing African Americans at the bottom of a syste
tion.36 Demetrius taunts Jay with the color of his ow
lighter than his own, and angrily denounces the
destruction of everything for which he has work
American context, as a member of a preferred mi
minority"), Jay has the license to "act white." Like M
cannot speak to Demetrius about the events in
partially govern his actions. Instead, memories of Uga
Jay, especially Okelo's rejection, repeated in expand
ond time in the film: "'Go to London, Bombay.' 'U
'Not any more. Africa is for Africans, black Afric
Jay tries to explain to Mina what he could no
"After thirty-four years, what it came down to was
People stick to their own kind. I am only trying to
Mina responds by reminding him that Okelo risked h
of jail after he rashly spoke against Amin on the
across racial barriers in Uganda validates her attem
Demetrius and foreshadows her decision to leave h
him. Jay's subsequent return to Uganda to get back h
regime sustains Mina's interpretation of Okelo's br
that Okelo's help of his Indian "brother" cost him
film ends with Jay holding a black Ugandan child wh
touch his face as they watch a woman joyously d
admiring Ugandans. This utopic moment of racial a
ion fades out to the film's credits, which are twic
brilliantly lit embrace of Mina and Demetrius-sh
dress, he in an African hat and shirt, both in a see
beyond racial division. Like all utopic moments, it
gering question about how long it can last in the "
separateness, stratification, miscommunication, a
power of the film's depiction of conflict based in c
difference calls into question the happy ending of
In Mississippi Masala cultural identity, privilege
main fluidly open to redefinition in changing cont
36 Morrison made this point at a lecture at the University o

October 1990; see also Morrison 1992, 47.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
based in white hegemony remains fixed, other po

flow unidirectionally but, rather, circulate among
groups. In relation to most black Ugandans, the
both economically advantaged and politically vuln
Indians refuse intermarriage, a point Nair emphas
television diatribe against the racism of the Asians d
ground of Mina's birthday party. And as Jay himself
before his arrest, the Ugandan Asians have focused
wealth for their "own kind." "Amin is a monster of
tells his Asian friends. Yet expelled from their h
victims of racism, as the black Ugandan soldier's
Mina's mother demonstrates. As immigrants in th
are recipients of racist and culturally insensitive rem
well as white communities. But like other immigr
nomic situation in relation to African Americans imp
The Indian community uses its economic power to
business, but Demetrius's ignorance about the hist
Uganda leads him to misread the complexities of J
relationship with Mina.
Calling into question the whole concept of race,
irony that Jay is more African than Demetrius, alth
same "race" as the black Ugandans who expelled J
versely, the film through its structural parallel
Greenwood highlights how Jay repeats with Dem
which he himself was a victim in Uganda. And as
in a racially liminal position: as darker than her p
a higher dowry to get a good husband in the Indi
black community, her lighter skin and long, straigh
bivalently desirable, akin to light-skinned women wi
Lisa Bonet. In relation to white society, both the
American communities experience racism as "peo
relation to each other, the conditions of their privile
tinually shift, dependent upon ever-changing refe
ment.
The Crying Game goes even farther than Mississippi Masala t

plode the fixity of the white/other binary. Where Mississippi
focuses on the (dis)connections between two groups that exist as oth
relation to a fixed white society, The Crying Game calls into questio
unitary concept of white (and its corollaries, European and West
the film proliferates a dizzying array of shifting alterities. Gen
sexuality supplement race, ethnicity, and nationality as compon
fluid identities. Set first in Northern Ireland and then London, t
narrates the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) kidnapping of a black
soldier (Jody), the relationship he forms with one of his IRA

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
(Fergus), and the aftermath of Jody's death. Se

white woman (Jude) in the IRA, Jody weans Fe
tions of good and evil through a human fellow
resist. Their friendship across racial, cultural,
begins when Fergus has to remove the tied-up
pants to help him urinate. The bond is cemented w
a picture of himself in cricket clothes with his
extracts a promise that Fergus would find Dil if
Fergus's inability to shoot Jody at his commander
attempted escape under the wheels of the Briti
in part killed by Fergus.
In fulfilling his promise, Fergus increasingly c
sition of the black soldier in London. His attemp
love, in part a displaced love for the man he c
openly. This love mutates first into revulsion w
is a transvestite who is gendered female, bodied
ambivalent continuation of desire and protect
Jody, he plays "the gentleman" to Dil and event
place for the murder of Jude, who tries to ki
perform an IRA execution. The film concludes
during jail visiting hours the story about a frog an
had told him. The colonial subject becomes the c
the woman becomes a man, then a woman again
into the homosexual, then back into (at least t
heterosexual. No identity is a fixed essence; no h
every positionality is open to change in the proces
struction and becoming.
The film's radical relationality shows how the
shifts according to one's comparative reference
race, ethnicity, and nationality, for example, J
but differently-"(ambiguously) non-hegemoni
DuPlessis's resonant phrase for contradictory s
1985). Fergus is a colonial subject but also a whi
man but also a member of an imperial army. As a
minority in Northern Ireland, Fergus belongs t
and politically dominated by the Protestant maj
But Jody tells Fergus that "he has been sent to th
where they call you nigger to your face" and tell y
banana tree, nigger" (Jordan 1993, 191).37 From
IRA, Jody is a member of an occupying army, but
37 Repressed within the cultural unconscious of the film,

"Report from the Bahamas," is the history of nineteenth-cen
tions of the Irish as "white monkeys," a "simian race" close
Michie 1992; and Cheng 1995.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
he is a victim of Irish racism and the IRA. Jody s

because he needed a job in racist England, yet Fer
diately in London as a construction worker on a
relational terms, each occupies the position of ra
victimizer in terms of the other.
Jody's association with cricket encapsulates thes
tos and surreal images of Jody in cricket whites fla
screen, clashing his very dark skin against the ve
tropes, these cricket images juxtapose the aristocr
nialists with the colonized's embrace of that spor
love of cricket comes from his father, who taught h
tigua, where "cricket's the black man's game" (191). B
which the family came from Antigua, the game
Preferring the Irish game of furling, Fergus asso
colonizers, a point visually made as he watches En
cricket from the scaffolding at his construction job
gun functions as a trope that emphasizes the re
position. As colonial subject and IRA soldier, Fer
erless to remove the British from Northern Irela
him enormous power of life and death over indiv
verage and execution. It is this power that his relatio
Dil convince him to renounce; and it is this powe
when he accepts responsibility for Dil's crime of mu
very gun he had used to terrorize Jody.
Gender and sexuality complicate the shifting po
ethnicity, and nationality in The Crying Game. Ferg
as a heterosexual. Misled by Jody's clear referen
and deaf to his coded allusion to her ambiguous statu
by homosexuality, bisexuality, and transvestism. O
of heterosexual privilege, he wants fixed and clea
ries: male/female, heterosexual/homosexual. But
notions of Irish victim and British oppressor brea
with Jody, so he must face, in the form of Dil, the d
sex, and sexuality binaries.
As a liminal figure of racial and sexual ambiguit
fixed categories of white and black, male and female
film as a disruption of all rigid definitions. As such,
38 Despite its historical association with the former coloniali

passionately nationalist sport in South Asia and the British We
site of relational politics. When India, Pakistan, and Sri Lank
World Cup in cricket, e.g., the president of the Bombay Cric
a leader of the militant Hindu party, threatened to refuse to a
in Bombay. Yet when India played England in Bombay, Musli
to the stadium to support the Indian cricket team (Wagstyl 1

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
like the figure of the modern "tragic mulatta"

notes, carries the potential for "neither/nor" (1
Dil is Jody's "girl" and then Fergus's. The revel
shocks Fergus, not only because of his homop
his belief in absolute sexual difference. Try as h
stop loving Dil-as-woman and must forcibly rem
also "he." His demand that Dil cut her long ha
and dress in the soldier's cricket whites is a rus
from the IRA, but it also represents his attem
feminine identification, as if the clothes and ap
a masculine gender to go along with Dil's male
Dil's gender, however motivated by protectiven
earlier violence against Jody, whose clothes Dil
level, dressing Dil in Jody's clothes may also act ou
unable to admit: his own homoerotic attraction to
scene cuts sharply from the murder of Jude, perf
hair and Jody's cricket suit, to the jail's visiting
their incarcerated husbands. Dil's reasserted fem
cupies the position of wife in relation to Fergu
heterosexuality to their relationship. Dil's third
question once again binary notions of fixed iden
sexuality.
Yet the very conventionality of their position
which maintains an unspeakable love within th
gests as well a melancholy return to fixed identiti
by the film's fade-out to the song "Stand by Your
of Jody's story of the frog and the scorpion break
white/other and English/Irish, but it can also be r
covert return to essentialist fixities. This story
from Orson Welles's film Mr. Akadin (1955), tel
a fearful frog to carry it across the river and the
frog's query as to why the scorpion stung him wh
the scorpion can only answer, "I can't help it, it
1993, 196). The fable's use of the term nature (c
of the term character) appears to contradict th
identity as cultural construction.40 Its invocatio
binary in the film's final speech appears to halt
39 My thanks to Linda Rugg for this insight. At another l

clothes prefigures her refusal of the position of victim, for
gus, takes his gun, and shoots Jude. (In using female prono
screenplay.)
40 My thanks to Morris Beja for pointing this out; see a
debted as well to James Phelan and Jacques Lezra for sugg
interpretations of this fable.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
deconstruction of fixed identities and agonistic narrat

proverbial conventionality. On the other hand, the fa
insistence on keeping both poles of the nature/cultur
play. However conventional they appear at the end
not what they seem, subtly emphasized by the fact
Man" is sung by Boy George. Moreover, Jody origin
to suggest that connection across difference is possibl
a murderous context, Jody's telling begs Fergus to
"nature," which Jody intuitively knows is not that of
capable of love across conventional racial and sexu
The film's deconstruction of gender and sexual
read as nonetheless caught up within a gynophobic
Jude is the film's only significant biologically fem
sition initially shifts between the white woman used
seduce a black man for political ends to the white
power over others, evident when she smashes Jody
gun. Jody's response to Fergus-"Women are tro
199)-sharply evokes a fixed cultural narrative of e
Jude's transformation from a blond in a traditiona
brunette sophisticate can be viewed as a trope for
formance constituent of all identities in the film. But it also functions as
a revelation of her fixed malevolence. For the rest of the film, Jude
remains singularly evil. Like Eve, Pandora, and Mata Hari, this dragon-
lady-as-IRA-terrorist uses her sexuality and gender to seduce men into
death. Just as Mississippi Masala retains the category of white as fixed
and monolithic, The Crying Game covertly leaves the binary of male
subject/female other in place. We are left with the message that the only
good woman is a dead one. Dil as transvestite fills the position of
"woman" whose exchange between men (first as photo, then in the flesh)
cements their relationship, a homoerotic twist to the exchange of women
identified as central to male bonding by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in Be-
tween Men (1985).41
However partial the film's deconstruction of fixed binaries, The Cry-
ing Game, like Mississippi Masala, promotes an existential leap of love
across the bridge of difference. Although The Crying Game ends on a less
41 The multiple resonances of the film certainly support other readings of Jude, as
well as the other androgynous names in the film, Dil and Jody. As an echo of Jody, the
name Jude undermines absolute gender difference as do its associations with the biblical
figures of Judith, who decapitated Holifernes, and Judas, who betrayed Jesus. Eric Roth-
stein suggested to me that Dil's name may be a shortened form of "daffodil," slang since
about 1945 for an effeminate youth; that Maguire, the ruthless IRA commander, may
invoke the nineteenth-century secret society called the Molly Maguires, known for their
transvestite disguises; and that Jude's masculinist behavior could be read as a critique of,
rather than a reflection of, patriarchy. Helen Cooper also noted to me that Jude's power
can be read as a revision of feminine passivity and her death as yet another transforma-
tion from victimizer to victim.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
euphoric note than Mississippi Masala, its appeal to cr

ing is nonetheless visionary and utopic. Allusions to the C
of love and sacrifice abound in the film, countering the
When Jody asks Fergus to tell him a story to ease t
captivity, an ambivalent Fergus responds by citing a part
letter about love in 1 Cor. 13:11: "When I was a child
child. But when I became a man I put away childish thing
202). Fergus misappropriates the context of the quotat
of love-to suggest that as an IRA soldier he can no l
"childish things" as love, although the irony is that his l
him unable to shoot on command. As figures of suffe
revelation, Jody and Dil echo the story of Christ to
through which Fergus recovers Paul's vision about th
expressed in the opening of 1 Cor. 12:1, the verse tha
directly quote: "Though I speak with the tongues of men
have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkli
in turn, occupies the position of symbolic sacrifice for J
fulfills his promise to the doomed Jody and goes to jail i
Their race (black or white) and their national identity (
alternately construct Jody, Fergus, and Dil as privileged,
and as marginalized, on the other. Their capacity to
racial and national boundaries signifies their ability t
borderland between fixed identities of black/whi
homosexual/heterosexual. Dil, as the androgynous fi
tween all these binaries, functions as the mark and a
Like the romantic narrative of love in Mississippi Ma
narrative of love in The Crying Game (which also scr
one) can be interpreted as a retreat from political critiqu
be read as a narrative of a desire for connection that cou
separate along racial and ethnic lines.
Conclusion
For feminists seeking to move beyond the repetitive rounds of d

accusation, and confession in our discourses about race and ethnicit
42 My thanks to Rebecca Saunders for pointing out to me the importance of th

religious allusions. Jordan's use of African British homosexual figures as symbolic
sions for the bildung of a white, heterosexual man undermines the film's relational
rative, an element that Sharon Capel finds all too common in the film industry. "Un
istic and degrading images of black people" often serve, she writes, as "mule" to a
"message" directed at a "specific audience: a white one." "What relevance," she as
"did interracial relations have to the story line other than expediency? And would
film have worked with an all-white cast?" (1993). Within relational terms, howeve
terracial connections are central to the story, and Dil and Jody are not one-dimen
figures; both have nuanced subjectivities.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
specifically romantic and religious forms of uto

Masala and The Crying Game are not in themselv
films, however, present the desire, however utopian,
across racial and ethnic division as a fertile and
existence. They also provide us with the narrativi
subjectivity based in relational positionalities in w
in complicated ways rather than unidirectionally, in
subject positions allow for the possibility of conne
ethnic boundaries. I believe that our growth as a m
and organizationally depends in part on the conti
relational scripts and for a common ground that ack
erased by difference.
Scripts of relational positionality cannot, I hast
simple cure for the politics of race within and beyon
ment. Categories of thinking do not by themselves e
of racism and ethnocentrism. My own brand of fe
alist and historicist for me to believe that a revolu
symbolic order can, by itself, transform the wor
have power, even material consequences. Cultura
construct as well as reflect power relations within
emy. The categories in which we think do perform
in a larger dialectical context in which language
interpenetrate.
The agency necessary for ethical and political ch
S. P. Mohanty describes as the human capacity to ref
ing of our actions in relation to larger systems of th
the divide between Us and Them, he insists, involv
ine the agency of those other from ourselves, to
like our own, to reflect upon and negotiate the shift
privileges of their multiply constituted positions
this task we need flexible and nuanced categories of
not assume an always already constituted status
powerlessness. Exclusive reliance on binary mo
however much explanatory power they have in ce
may well retard instead of hasten cultural and po
There are dangers for feminists in using scripts of
ality. Like discourses of "multiculturalism" and "d
contradictory subject positions can all too easily
ralism against which S. P. Mohanty and Chandra
warn us, a pluralism that obscures the inequalities of
groups in the social order (Mohanty 1989, 25-2
203). Moreover, stressing the endless play of contrad
as Radhakrishnan points out, of making relational

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
end in itself" (1992, 81). Such Derridean deferral (

concrete political action, which requires some patc
which to advocate change and exercise agency. Flu
but as the frog/scorpion parable in The Crying
fluidity can also bring drowning and flooding. Furth
of relationality borders at times on the rhetoric
cultural relativism that can obscure important po
tween individuals and peoples. The politics of en
construction is not inherently progressive and can
depending upon the use to which it is put and th
deconstructor stops the chain of deferrals.43
Finally, the insight that relational narrative brings
race and ethnicity potentially carries within itself a
An exclusive focus on relational positionality runs
the continuing necessity for the scripts of denial, ac
sion. The historical conditions that led to these three
continue to exist and thus to compel their ongoing c
white/other binary has continued cogency in the bea
and its aftermath, just as the white/people of color b
explanatory power in the Los Angeles upheavals an
the binary of white women/women of color conti
in some contexts. Moreover, discourses of relation
not deflect attention and resources from the critical
logical and theoretical work being done to recov
transmit the often lost or repressed narratives of
and culture have been marginalized by the domina
ment to multiculturalism in the academy involves on
Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates call the
ducing the "local histories" of different racial and
625).
In spite of these potential difficulties, however, I strongly believe that
narratives of relational positionality can play a vitally important role in
feminist discourse in the 1990s and on into the twenty-first century.
Relationality does not have to be a pure concept existing as an end in
itself but can be a conceptual cornerstone of a political teleology and
practice. It can help to break the logjam of belligerence and apology that
paralyzes so many of our classrooms, organizations, and conferences and
that appears formulaically in so many of our writings. To move beyond
the repetitive tropes of denial, accusation, and confession, we need a
43 My thanks to Jacques Lezra for the insight about fluidity in The Crying Game and
its relation to the work of Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray; also to Hortense Spillers
for her warning about the politics of deconstruction.
44 My thanks to Amy Ling for this observation.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
discourse about race and ethnicity that can acknow

and locate the connections in a complexly constit
turalism that avoids ethnocentrism of any kind. We
does not (re)construct a multicultural other with a c
term multicultural with nonwhite. We need a narrative that does not
reinstate white as center and multicultural as margin.
Relational narratives can form the basis for what Radhakrishnan calls
a new kind of "coalitional politics" based on "relationality as a field-in-
process" (1989b, 311). They make possible the route to a genuine con-
nection between different kinds of people that June Jordan identifies as
essential for real change. As she argues, this kind of connection emerges
neither out of appeals to universality (scripts of denial), refusals of simi-
larity (scripts of accusation), nor out of expressions of guilt (scripts of
confession) but, rather, out of unions based on common experience and
need: "The ultimate connection must be the need that we find between us.
It is not only who you are, in other words, but what we can do for each
other that will determine the connection" (1985, 47). The kind of coa-
litions that Radhakrishnan and Jordan call for, that movies like Missis-
sippi Masala and The Crying Game reach for, are based on relational
narratives. They are not bridges made between fixed differences. Rather,
they go beyond absolute categories of pure/impure and oppressor/
oppressed to work instead with the location of shifting positions of privi-
lege and exclusion in global perspective. As Gates writes: "The challenge
is to move from a politics of identity to a politics of identification.... A
politics of identification doesn't enjoin us to ignore or devalue our col-
lective identities. For it's only by exploring the multiplicity of human life
in culture that we can come to terms with the commonalities that cement
communitas. .. . We may be anti-utopian, but we have dreams, too"
(1994, 17). The epigraph from Proverbs that opens Lisa Albrecht and
Rose Brewer's hopeful collection, Bridges of Power: Women's Multicul-
tural Alliances, articulates the vital necessity of such dreams: "When
there is no vision, the people perish" (1990, vi).
A feminist multiculturalism that is global in its reach and configura-
tion needs scripts of relational positionality that can supplement and be
enriched by thick descriptions and local histories of racial and ethnic
difference. Without these relational scripts, feminist classrooms, confer-
ences, organizations, and writing run the politically dangerous risk of
promoting a fundamentalist identity politics that can easily regress into
binaries mirroring hegemonic racism: pure/impure, us/them, self/other.
We cannot afford to give up the utopian dream of coalition and connec-
tion. As the globe shrinks, as racially and ethnically inflected confronta-
tions increase worldwide, as weapons become ever more deadly and
available, as transnational economies further polarize wealth and pov-

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
erty, as U.S. demographics (like those of many oth

toward an even more multiracial and multicultural s
as a species depends on our ability to recognize the
difference as fertile spaces of desire and fluid sites of s
action, and mutual change. As June Jordan reflects dur
from the Bahamas: "I look about the cabin at the h
drinking as they fly and I think even here and even no
connection real between me and these strangers every
other clouds unify this ragged bunch of us, too late
Department of English
University of Wisconsin-Mad
References
Abel, Elizabeth. 1993. "Black Writing, White Reading: Race and the Politics
Feminist Interpretation." Critical Inquiry 19 (Spring): 470-98.
Albrecht, Lisa, and Rose M. Brewer, eds. 1990. Bridges of Power: Women's
Multicultural Alliances. Philadelphia: New Society.
Alcoff, Linda. 1988. "Cultural Feminism versus Poststructuralism: The Ident
Crisis in Feminist Theory." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
(Spring): 405-36.
Allen, Paula Gunn. 1986. "Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approache
Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale." In her The Sacred Hoop: Recovering t
Feminine in American Indian Traditions, 222-44. Boston: Beacon.
Amirthanayagam, Indran. 1993. "Rogue Elephants, Deadly Tigers." New Yo
Times, May 19.
Anzalduia, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Spinsters/A
Lute.
1990a. "Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar or Island: Lesbians of Color Ha
cienda Alianzas." In Albrecht and Brewer, 216-31.
. 1990b. "En rapport, In Opposition: Cobrando cuentas a las nuestras
In her Making Face, 142-50.
, ed. 1990c. Making Face/Making Soul-Haciendo Caras: Creative a
Critical Perspectives by Women of Color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1991. "Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Tran
national Anthropology." In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in
Present, ed. Richard G. Fox, 191-210. Sante Fe, N. Mex.: School of Americ
Research Press.
Appiah, Anthony. 1986. "The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion
of Race." In Gates 1986a, 21-37.
. 1989. "The Conversation of 'Race.' " Black American Literary Forum
23 (Spring): 37-60.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds. 1992a. "Editors' In-
troduction: Multiplying Identities." In Appiah and Gates 1992b, 625-29.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
. 1992b. "Identities," special issue of Critical Inq

Baker, Houston, Jr. 1986. "Caliban's Triple Play." In
. 1987. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance.
Chicago Press.
Banton, Michael P. 1987. Racial Theories. Cambridge
Press.
Beja, Morris. 1979. Film and Literature. New York:
Belsey, Catherine. 1980. Critical Practice. London: M
Benjamin, Jessica. 1988. The Bonds of Love: Psychoan
Problem of Domination. New York: Pantheon.
Bernstein, Susan. 1992. "Confessing Feminist Theory
It?" Hypatia 7 (Spring): 120-47.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1983. "The Other Question ..." S
December): 18-36.
Binder, David, with Barbara Crossette. 1993. "As Et
Strives for a Policy." New York Times, February 7.
Bloch, Ruth H. 1993. "A Culturalist Critique of Tre
Contention 2 (Spring): 79-106.
Boelhower, William. 1987. Through a Glass Darkly: E
can Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bonner, Raymond. 1994. "A Once-Peaceful Village S
da's Violence." New York Times, July 11.
Bourne, Jenny. 1987. "Homelands of the Mind: Jewi
Politics." Race and Class 29(1):1-24.
Bulkin, Elly, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith. 1984. Yours in Struggle:
Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism. Brooklyn, N.Y.:
Long Haul.
Capel, Sharon. 1993. Letter to New York Times, March 7.
Chai, Alice Yun. 1985. "Toward a Holistic Paradigm for Asian American Wom-
en's Studies: A Synthesis of Feminist Scholarship and Women of Color's Femi-
nist Politics." Women's Studies International Forum 8(1):59-66.
Chametzky, Jules. 1989-90. "Beyond Melting Pots, Cultural Pluralism,
Ethnicity-or, Deja Vu All Over Again." Melus 16 (Winter): 3-17.
Cheng, Vincent J. 1995. Joyce, Race, and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Cho, Sumi K. 1993. "Korean Americans vs. African Americans: Conflict and
Construction." In Gooding-Williams 1993, 196-211.
Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and
the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Christian, Barbara. 1988. "The Race for Theory." Feminist Studies 14 (Spring):
67-80.
Cole, Johnnetta B., ed. 1986. "Commonalities and Differences." In her All
can Women: Lines That Divide, Ties That Bind, 1-30. New York: Free
Crossette, Barbara. 1994. "Women's Advocates Flocking to Cairo, Eage
Gains." New York Times, September 2.
D'Acci, Julie. 1994. Defining Women: The Case of Cagney and Lacy. D
N.C.: Duke University Press.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Daly, Mary. 1978. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Ra

Beacon.
. 1979. "Response." Session titled "Developing Feminist Theory" at "The

Second Sex-Thirty Years Later: A Commemorative Conference on Feminist
Theory," September 28, New York City.
Dash, Julie. 1992. Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American
Woman's Film. New York: New Press.
Davies, Carole Boyce. 1994. Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of
the Subject. London: Routledge.
de Lauretis, Teresa. 1986. "Feminist Studies/Critical Studies: Issues, Terms, and
Contexts." In her Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, 1-19. Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press.
. 1987. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
. 1990. "Eccentric Subjects: Feminist Theory and Historical Conscious-
ness." Feminist Studies 16 (Spring): 115-50.
Dik6tter, Frank. 1992. The Discourse of Race in Modern China. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press.
Dill, Bonnie Thornton. 1983. "Race, Class, and Gender: Prospects for an All-
Inclusive Sisterhood." Feminist Studies 9 (Spring): 129-50.
duCille, Ann. 1994. "The Occult of True Black Womanhood: Critical Demeanor
and Black Feminist Studies." Signs 19 (Spring): 591-629.
Dumont, Louis. (1966) 1970. Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste Sys-
tem, trans. Mark Sainsbury. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. (1979) 1985. "For the Etruscans." In The New Feminist
Criticism, ed. Elaine Showalter, 271-91. New York: Pantheon.
. 1985. Writing beyond the Ending: Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-
Century Women Writers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fellows, Mary Louise, and Sherene Razack. 1994. "Seeking Relations: Law and
Feminism Roundtables." Signs 19 (Summer): 1048-83.
Ferguson, James, and Akhil Grupta, eds. 1992. "Space, Place, and Identity,"
special issue of Current Anthropology, vol. 7 (February).
Fields, Barbara. 1982. "Ideology and Race in American History." In Region,
Race, and Reconstruction, ed. J. Morgan Kinsser and James M. McPherson,
143-77. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fiske, John. 1987. Television Culture. London: Methuen.
Fortney, Nancy D. 1977. "The Anthropological Concept of Race." Journal of
Black Studies 8 (September): 35-54.
Frankenberg, Ruth. 1993. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction
of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fregoso, Rosa Linda. 1993. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Cul-
ture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. 1991. "Post/Poststructuralist Feminist Criticism: The
Politics of Recuperation and Negotiation." New Literary History 22 (Spring):
465-90.
. 1993. "Relational Epistemology and the Question of Anglo-Am

Feminist Criticism." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 12 (Fall):

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
. 1994. "Beyond Gynocriticism and Gynesis: The

Identity and Narrative Studies in the 1990s." Paper p
Language Association convention, December, San Die
Frye, Marilyn. (1981) 1983. "On Being White: Thinkin
Understanding of Race and Race Supremacy." In her
Essays in Feminist Theory, 110-27. Trumansburg, N.Y
. 1992. "White Woman Feminist." In her Willful Vi
nism, 147-69. Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press.
Gallop, Jane, et al. 1990. "Criticizing Feminist Criticism
nism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller, 3
tledge.
Gardiner, Judith Kegan. 1981. "On Female Identity and Writing by Women."
Critical Inquiry 8 (Winter): 347-61.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., ed. 1986a. "Race," Writing, and Difference. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
1986b. "Introduction." In Gates 1986a, 1-20.
1994. "A Liberalism of Heart and Spine." New York Times, March 27.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New
York: Basic.
Goldberg, David Theo, ed. 1990. Anatomy of Racism. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Gooding-Williams, Robert, ed. 1993. Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Up-
rising. London: Routledge.
Gordon, Linda. 1991. "On 'Difference.'" Genders, no. 10 (Spring), 91-111.
Gornick, Vivian, and Barbara K. Moran, eds. 1971. Woman in Sexist Society:
Studies in Power and Powerlessness. New York: Basic.
Gray, Herman. 1989. "Television, Black Americans, and the American Dream."
Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6 (December): 376-86.
. 1993. "The Endless Slide of Difference: Critical Television Studies, Tele-
vision and the Question of Race." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10
(June): 190-97.
Gross, Jane. 1993. "Body and Victim Trampled, a Riot Victim Fights On." New
York Times, October 22.
Gutmann, Amy, ed. 1994. Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recogni-
tion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Haraway, Donna. 1988. "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Femi-
nism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective." Feminist Studies 14 (Fall):
575-99.
Harding, Sarah. 1993. "Culture as an Object of Knowledge." Cont
(Spring): 121-26.
Harris, Virginia R., and Trinity A. Ordofia. 1990. "Developing Unity
Women of Color: Crossing the Barriers of Internalized Racism and
Racial Hostility." In Anzaldia 1990c, 304-16.
Hartsock, Nancy C. M. 1983. "The Feminist Standpoint: Developing th
for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism." In Discovering
Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology,
losophy of Science, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka, 2
Boston: Reidel.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. 1988. Writing a Woman's Life. New

Hicks, D. Emily. 1991. Border Writing: The Multidimensio
lis: University of Minnesota Press.
Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. 1992. "African-American W
the Metalanguage of Race." Signs 17 (Winter): 251-74.
Holmes, Steven A. 1994. "Study Finds Minorities Resent On
Much as They Do Whites." New York Times, March 3.
Homans, Margaret. 1994. "'Women of Color' Writers and
New Literary History 25 (Winter): 73-94.
hooks, bell. 1989. "Feminism: A Transformational Politic."
19-27. Philadelphia: South End Press.
. 1994. "Seduction and Betrayal: The Crying Game M
guard." In her Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representatio
Routledge.
hooks, bell, and Anuradha Dingwaney. 1992. "Mississippi Masala." Z Magazine
5 (July/August): 41-43.
Hurtado, Aida. 1989. "Relating to Privilege: Seduction and Rejection in the
Subordination of White Women and Women of Color." Signs 14(4):833-55.
Jacobs, Harriet A. (1861) 1973. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Jameson, Fredric. 1981. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Sym-
bolic Act. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Jordan, June. 1985. "Report from the Bahamas." In her On Call: Political Essays,
39-54. Boston: South End Press.
Jordan, Neil. 1992. The Crying Game, film written and directed by Jordan.
.1993a. The Crying Game. In Jordan 1993b, 177-267.
.1993b. A Neil Jordan Reader. New York: Vintage.
Kamm, Henry. 1993. "In New Eastern Europe, an Old Anti-Gypsy Bias." New
York Times, November 17.
Kaplan, Caren. 1990. "Deterritorializations: The Rewriting of Home and Exile in
Western Feminist Discourse." In The Nature and Context of Minority Dis-
course, ed. Abdul R. JanMohamed and David Lloyd, 357-68. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kim, Elaine H. 1993. "Home Is Where the Han Is: A Korean-American Perspec-
tive on the Los Angeles Upheavals." In Gooding-Williams 1993, 215-35.
King, Deborah K. 1988. "Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Con-
text of Black Feminist Ideology." Signs 14 (Autumn): 42-72.
Kogawa, Joy. 1981. Obasan. Boston: Godine.
LaCapra, Dominick, ed. 1991. The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony
and Resistance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Laslett, Barbara. 1993. "Gender Analysis and Social Theory: Building on Ruth
Bloch's Proposals." Contention 2 (Spring): 107-20.
Longnecker, Marlene. 1990. "Marlene Longnecker Responds." off our backs 20
(October): 24.
Lorde, Audre. (1979) 1984. "An Open Letter to Mary Daly." In Lorde 1984,
66-71.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Truma

ing Press.
. 1990. "I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing across Sexualities."
In Anzaldfa 1990c, 321-25.
Lowe, Lisa. 1991. "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian
American Differences." Diaspora 1 (Spring): 24-44.
Lyotard, Jean-Franoois. (1979) 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press.
Martin, Biddy, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. 1986. "Feminist Politics: What's
Home Got to Do with It?" In de Lauretis 1986, 191-212.
Martin, Douglas. 1993. "Korean Store Owners Join Forces, Seeking Ties, Op-
portunity and Clout." New York Times, March 22.
Michaels, Walter Benn. 1992. "Race into Culture: A Critical Genealogy of Cul-
tural Identity." Critical Inquiry 18 (Summer): 655-85.
Michie, Elsie. 1992. "Race, Empire, and the Brontes." Novel 25 (Winter): 125-
40.
Miller, Nancy K. 1988. Subject to Change: Reading Feminist Writing. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Miyoshi, Masao. 1993. "A Borderless World? From Colonialism to Transnation-
alism and the Decline of the Nation-State." Critical Inquiry 19 (Summer):
726-51.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1989-90. "On Race and Voice: Challenges for
eral Education for the 1990s." Cultural Critique 14 (Winter): 179-208.
.1991a. "Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Po
of Feminism." In Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. C
dra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, 1-50. Bloomin
Indiana University Press.
1991b. "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial D
courses." In Third World Feminisms and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Cha
Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, 51-80. Bloomingto
diana University Press.
Mohanty, S. P. 1989. "Us and Them: On the Philosophical Bases of Polit
Criticism." Yale Journal of Criticism 2(2):1-31.
Molina, Papusa. 1990. "Recognizing, Accepting and Celebrating Our Dif
ences." In Anzaldfia 1990c, 326-35.
Moraga, Cherrie, and Gloria Anzaldfa, eds. 1981. This Bridge Called My B
Writings by Radical Women of Color. Watertown, Mass.: Persephone.
Morgan, Robin, ed. 1970. Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Wr
from the Women's Liberation Movement. New York: Vintage.
Morrison, Toni. 1992. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary I
nation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Musil, Caryn McTighe. 1990. " 'Rivers, Swamps, and Vanishing Ponds.' "
Action 3 (Winter): 2-4, 22.
Nair, Mira. 1991. Mississippi Masala, film written by Sooni Taraporeva
directed by Mira Nair. Mirabai Films.
Nair, Mira, and Sooni Taraporevala. 1989. Salaam Bombay! New York: Pen

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Nielsen, Aldon Lynn. 1988. Reading Race: White American

Discourse in the Twentieth Century. Athens: University
NWSA Women of Color Caucus. 1990. "Institutionalized Racism and the Na-
tional Women's Studies Association." Sojourner: The Women's Forum (Au-
gust), 8-9.
Oliver, Melvin L., James H. Johnson Jr., and Walter C. Farrell Jr. 1993.
"Anatomy of a Rebellion: A Political-Economic Analysis." In Gooding-
Williams 1993, 117-41.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1986. Racial Formation in the United
States: From the 1960s to the 1980s. London: Routledge.
. 1993. "The Los Angeles 'Race Riot' and Contemporary U.S. Politics." In
Gooding-Williams 1993, 97-16.
Osborne, Nancy Seale. 1990. "Caryn McTighe Musil Resigns after Six Years as
Director." NWSAction 3 (Winter): 1-2.
Ozanne, Julian. 1992. "Old Clan Rivalries Fuel Bloodshed in Somalia." Financial
Times of London, August 8-9.
Parkerson, Michelle. 1990. "Did You Say the Mirror Talks?" In Albrecht and
Brewer 1990, 108-17.
Perez-Torres, Rafael. 1993-94. "Nomads and Migrants: Negotiating a Multi-
cultural Modernism." Cultural Critique 26 (Winter): 161-89.
Peterson, William, Michael Novak, and Philip Gleason. 1980. Concepts of Eth-
nicity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Pheterson, Gail. 1990. "Alliances between Women: Overcoming Internalized Op-
pression and Internalized Domination." In Albrecht and Brewer 1990, 34-48.
Poliakov, Leon. 1971. The Ayran Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist
Ideas in Europe, trans. Edmund Howard. New York: Basic.
Polumbo-Liu, David. 1994. "Los Angeles, Asians, and Perverse Ventriloquisms:
On the Functions of Asian America in the Recent American Imaginary." Public
Culture 6(2):365-81.
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. "Arts of the Contact Zone." In Profession 91, 33-40.
New York: Modern Language Association.
Pratt, Minnie Bruce. 1984. "Identity: Skin Blood Heart." In Bulkin, Pratt, and
Smith 1984, 9-64.
Radhakrishnan, R. 1987. "Culture as Common Ground: Ethnicity and Beyond."
Melus 14 (Summer): 5-19.
. 1989a. "Negotiating Subject Positions in an Uneven World." In Femi-
nism and Institutions, ed. Linda Kaufman, 276-90. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
. 1989b. "Post-Structuralist Politics: Toward a Theory of Coalition." In
Jameson/Postmodernism/Critique, ed. Douglas Kellner, 276-90. Washington,
D.C.: Maisonneuve.
. 1991. "Ethnicity in an Age of Diaspora." Transition 54 (November):
104-15.
. 1992. "Nationalism, Gender, and the Narrative of Identity." In Nat

alism and Sexualities, ed. Andrew Parker, et al., 77-95. London: Routle
.1993. "Cultural Theory and the Politics of Location." In Views beyo
the Border Country: Raymond Williams and Cultural Politics, ed. Les
Roman and Dennis Dworkin, 275-93. London: Routledge.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Reeves, Jimmie L., and Richard Campbell. 1994. Cracked

News, the Anti-Cocaine Crusade, and the Reagan L
Duke University Press.
Rensberger, Boyce. 1993. "The Melting Pot under a Mi
Post National Weekly Edition (March 15-21), 38.
Rich, Adrienne. 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as
tution. New York: Norton.
. (1978) 1979. "Disloyal to Civilization: Feminism, Racism, Gynopho-
bia." In her On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978, 275-
310. New York: Norton.
. (1984) 1986. "Notes toward a Politics of Location." In her Blood,
Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979-1985, 210-32. New York: Norton.
Rodriguez, Richard. 1993. "Changing Faces." Transcript of MacNeil/Lehrer
Newshour, show 4756, 13-14. September 16.
Romero, Gloria J. 1991. " 'Nose raje, chicanita': Some Thoughts on Race, Class
and Gender in the Classroom." Aztlan 29 (Spring/Fall): 203-18.
Ruby, Jennie, and Carol Anne Douglas. 1990. "NWSA: Troubles Surface at
Conference." off our backs 20 (August/September): 1, 10-16.
Russo, Ann. 1991. "'We Cannot Live without Our Lives': White Women, An-
tiracism, and Feminism." In Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism,
ed. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, 288-96.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sales, Ruby. 1990. "Letter from Ruby Sales." off our backs 20 (August/
September): 25.
Sandoval, Chela. 1990. "Feminism and Racism: A Report on the 1981 National
Women's Studies Association Conference." In Anzaldua 1990c, 55-74.
Schweikart, Patsy. 1990. "Reflections on NWSA 190." NWSAction 3 (Fall): 3-4,
9-10.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1985. Between Men: English Literature and Ma
mosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. 1981. The Storyteller. New York: Little, Brown.
Smiley, Marion. 1992. "Feminist Theory and the Question of Identity." W
and Politics 13(2):91-122.
Smith, Barbara. (1977) 1985. "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism." In The New
Feminist Criticism, ed. Elaine Showalter, 168-85. New York: Pantheon.
Smith, Paul. 1988. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press.
Smith, Valerie. 1989. "Black Feminist Theory and the Representation of the
'Other.'" In Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and
Writing by Black Women, ed. Cheryl A. Wall, 38-57. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press.
Sollors, Werner. 1986. Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Cul-
ture. New York: Oxford University Press.
, ed. 1989. The Invention of Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spillers, Hortense. 1989. "Notes on an Alternative Model-Neither/Nor." In The
Difference Within: Feminism and Critical Theory, ed. Elizabeth Meese and
Alice Parker, 165-87. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1987a. "French Feminism in

Frame." In Spivak 1987b, 134-53.
. 1987b. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. N
uen.
.1988. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" In Marxism and the In

Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271-313
versity of Illinois Press.
Stepan, Nancy. 1982. The Idea of Race in Science: Great Brita
New York: Archon.
Stocking, George W., Jr. 1968. Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the His-
tory of Anthropology. New York: Free Press.
Suleri, Sara. 1992. "Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condi-
tion." Critical Inquiry 18 (Summer): 756-69.
Thompson, Becky, and Estelle Disch. 1992. "Feminist, Anti-Racist, Anti-
Oppresion Teaching: Two White Women's Experience." Radical Teacher, no.
41 (Spring), 4-10.
Thompson, Richard H. 1989. Theories of Ethnicity: A Critical Appraisal. New
York: Greenwood.
Uttal, Lynet. 1990. "Nods That Silence." In Anzaldua 1990c, 317-20.
Wagstyl, Stefan. 1993. "Inter-religious Forgiveness Is Just Not Cricket." Financial
Times of London, February 22.
Wald, Alan. 1987. "Theorizing Cultural Difference: A Critique of the Ethnicity
School." Melus 14 (Summer): 21-33.
Walker, Alice. (1974) 1983a. "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens." In her In
Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. 231-43. New York: Harcourt Brace Jo-
vanovich.
. (1979) 1983b. "One Child of One's Own." In her In Search of Our
Mothers' Gardens, 361-83. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
West, Cornel. 1982. "A Genealogy of Modern Racism." In his Prophesy Deliv-
erance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity, 47-68. Philadelphia:
Westminster.
. 1988. "Marxist Theory and the Specificity of Afro-American Oppres-
sion." In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and
Lawrence Grossberg, 17-34. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Williams, Patricia J. 1989. "The Obliging Shell." In her The Alchemy of Race and
Rights: Diary of a Law Professor, 98-132. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Wright, Lawrence. 1994. "One Drop of Blood." New Yorker 70 (July 25): 46-
55.

139.135.38.55 on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:45:02 UTC

Friedman BeyondWhiteOther 1995

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Friedman BeyondWhiteOther 1995

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Friedman BeyondWhiteOther 1995

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Beyond White and Other: Relationality and Narratives of Race in Feminist Discourse

Author(s): Susan Stanford Friedman

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3175121

This content downloaded from

Susan Stanford Friedman

< T H E B E AT I N G O F Rodney King by four police of

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 1

This content downloaded from

looting were not restricted to a single cultural gro

1 See esp. Robert Gooding-Williams's invaluable collection, Reading Rodney

2 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

tural conflict and connection focuses on the significan

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 3

This content downloaded from

Since the 1970s, feminism in the United States has

4 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

"complementary theorizing" among people of diff

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 5

This content downloaded from

Such tentative progress around issues of race amo

6 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

naries create dead ends. They must be supplemented

9 In Friedman 1994, I note the omnipresence of spatial figuration

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 7

This content downloaded from

discussion of globalized accounts of race and ethnicity

Cultural narratives of denial, accusation, and confession

These three feminist scripts about race-denial, accusation, and

8 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

in opposition to the patriarchal societies within wh

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 9

This content downloaded from

essays from the 1970s and early 1980s collected in S

12 For discussion of the rhetoric of feminist confession, see B

10 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

times, this gaze at the Medusa of white feminist r

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 11

This content downloaded from

ametanarrative that can be reconstructed in its simple

At first, what erupted in class was anger-anger f

16 I am borrowing Houston Baker's metaphor of soundings for

12 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

color expressed their hundred years weariness o

Anzaldua is to be commended for her honesty in ex

17 See Stocking 1968; Poliakov 1971; Stepan 1982; and Bant

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 13

This content downloaded from

Third, the binary of white/other embedded in

also the division of Europeans into many different races. See

14 SIGNS Autumn 1995

This content downloaded from

cation intersect in the construction of identit

Autumn 1995 SIGNS 15