David Graeber's "Debt" and Colonialism (Quotes/Build)

Where to start? I could have begun by explaining how these loans had originally been taken out by unelected dictators who placed most of it directly in their Swiss bank accounts, and ask her to contemplate the justice of insisting that the lenders be repaid, not by the dictator, or even by his cronies, but by literally taking food from the mouths of hungry children. Or to think about how many of these poor countries had actually already paid back what they’d borrowed three or four times now, but that through the miracle of compounded interest, it still hadn’t made a significant dent in the principal. I could also observe that there was a difference between refinancing loans, and demanding that in order to obtain refinancing, countries have to follow some orthodox free-market economic policy designed in Washington or Zurich that their citizens had never agreed to and never would, and that it was a bit dishonest to insist that countries adopt democratic constitutions and then also insist that, whoever gets elected, they have no control over their country’s policies anyway (3)

                This quote, and the next quote to follow, are from the beginning of the chapter when Graeber described an encounter he had with a so-called activist attorney. The quotes presented here will be in reverse order, a deliberate choice of mine to aid in my analysis. In her blog “Debt and ‘Morality’” Deirdre quotes the same paragraph and begins her analysis by calling this economic colonialism. I both agree and disagree with this label. I have found that nowadays people often use qualifiers before leveling a critique of a system and labeling it colonialism. I think this has to do with the mindset that colonialism is a part of the “colonial period” and the “colonial period” is over. However, Graeber’s excerpt above shows that colonialism is not over, not even close. So yes, it is economic colonialism, and the reason it is economic colonialism is because it is simply colonialism; the economic manipulation and domination is a given. This is a point I feel Graeber could have made a bit more strongly. A bit later on in the chapter he does note that un-coincidentally many of these “third world” nations that are falling into this debt trap are ones that were ‘former’ colonial entities (5). My critique is that he could have been more explicit: these are not simply former colonial entities, these are countries that are still fighting colonialism to this day!

                In “TheWeapon of Theory” Amilcar Cabral offers definitions of colonialism and neocolonialism. He states:

the first [form of imperialist domination] is direct domination, by means of a power made up of people foreign to the dominated people (armed forces police, administrative agents and settlers); this is generally called classical colonialism or colonialism. [The second form] is indirect domination, by a political power made up mainly or completely of native agents; this is called neocolonialism (7) [emphasis Cabral's]

The first definition is one that most people are familiar with and the one that they think of when they hear the word “colonialism”. Unfortunately, the second form of imperialist domination, and the overall nuances of colonialism, is less familiar to most. I would make the argument that neocolonialism is simply a branch of colonialism, and so a colonized entity can have elements of both forms of domination. In truth, in order to have the latter the first must be in place. For the only reason that a native force would engage in this form of imperialist domination is because they have identified with their foreign colonizers and are thus doing the work of their colonizers. Do we not see, then, that the unelected dictators that Graeber mentions are simply doing the work of the empire? I will quote another passage of Cabral, one that is more obviously related to what we are discussing:

The so-called policy of ‘aid for undeveloped countries’ adopted by imperialism with the aim of creating or reinforcing native pseudo-bourgeoisies which are necessarily dependent on the international bourgeoisie, and thus obstructing the path of revolution (9)

Colonizers are like viruses. They infect the host by implanting their own ideologies and multiplying. Because this is the tactic, the original colonizers need not still remain in the host, for they have already replicated and turned native bodies into mirror-images of themselves.

On page two Graeber notes that:

The IMF then stepped in [to the Third World debt crisis] to insist that, in order to obtain refinancing, poor countries would be obliged to abandon price supports on basic foodstuffs, or even policies of keeping strategic food reserves, and abandon free health care and free education; how all of this had led to the collapse of all the most basic supports for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. I spoke of poverty, of the looting of public resources, the collapse of societies, endemic violence, malnutrition, hopelessness, and broken lives.

After reading these two quotes I would be positively shocked if even a moderately-informed person would try to argue with me as to whether or not colonialism still exists and is showing itself through the “Third World debt crisis”. This is how the virus of colonialism works! Do you not see how in order to “fix” the debt, the IMF is suggesting that forms of socialized structures must be abandoned and that these nations most adopt “democratic constitutions” (3). In this way, democratic constitutions=Capitalist constitutions.  The virus eradicates what was once in place and replaces it with its toxicity. Look at the Tonton Macoutes in Haiti for example. Native forces? Perhaps. They were native forces trained by US military, and funded by the US government. This is how modern imperialist domination works. It creates particular rules concerning debt, enforces these rules in inhumane ways, and uses the debt leverage as a way to further erode “third world” nations. 

Mantsios' "Media Magic"-Hyperlink

                In “Media Magic” Gregory Mantsios argues that the mainstream media works to steer the class narrative in a direction favored by the ruling class. Throughout his essay Mantsios notes the ways in which the media that people are consuming provide a skewed look at poverty and wealth in America. Early in the essay he states that “we maintain these illusions [about living in an egalitarian society], in large part, because the media hides gross inequities from public view. In those instances when inequities are revealed, we are provided with messages that obscure the nature of class realities and blame the victims of class-dominated society for their own plight” (100). The first third of the essay Mantsios backs up this argument by providing examples of how the media clouds the true narrative of poverty into one that portrays the impoverished as undeserving (of help, although deserving of their social status), parasitic, and generally unpleasant. He then goes onto to note the ways in which the media makes people, middle and working class people, believe that they are a part of the wealthy class, or at least believe that they have more commonalities with the wealthy class than with working-class or poor folk.

                Mantsios spends a lot of time using the news media to support his arguments. While reading this essay I began to wonder what shows on television now serve to support the arguments Mantsios puts forth in this essay, and furthermore if there were any nuances to the media’s portrayal of poverty that Mantsios glides over. At some point while reading the essay the show “2 Broke Girls” popped into my head. I began to wonder what exactly is it about those girls that would make them “broke” and therefore more likeable as opposed to “poor”, and thus undeserving, parasitic, etc. Mantsios spends a lot of time talking about the ways in which we, as media consumers, are tricked into identifying with the wealthy and scorning the poor, but he doesn’t spend much time discussing the more subtle ways in which the media works to bolster the us-vs-them mentality (them being the poor, us being…everyone else). I would argue that at times the media does have varied representation, particularly in film and television, but not varied enough to show an accurate representation of the class-landscape of the States. This brings me back to my question of what is the difference between “broke” and “poor”. As that question danced around my brain I was reminded of an article I saw on Jezebel last month about the very same thing (being “broke” vs being “poor”). This article was a summary of a longer (and better) article found on The Nation called “What ‘Girls’ and ‘Shameless’ Teach us About Being Broke, and Being Poor”. I don’t watch either of the shows that Nona Aronowitz uses for her article, but her explanation of the two protagonists’ lifestyles answered my question on what the difference between “broke” and “poor” was in our dominant discourse. “Broke”, what the media chooses to focus on when it deigns to attempt class representation, is basically what a middle-class college student is. It is a temporary position brought upon by life-choices (choosing to work at an artsy non-profit, choosing to attend an expensive liberal arts university and not picking up a side job) and the broke person can often be bailed out by family or have some sort of support system. If you are “poor”, however, your life-chances and opportunities are very different. There is no family support system to bail you out when things get tough. Eating ramen and black beans every night isn’t something you’ll look back at one day with fond memories. If you’re “poor” you are looked at like lazy scum when in reality you are working as many jobs as mouths you have to feed (for example). Media tends to not look at “poor” people, unless it’s to criticize, mock, or provide paternalistic sympathy. The media will, however, give us a few shows about broke people because those broke people generally come from middle-class households and have something aspirational about them. They can serve to be our motivation, “look, so-and-so, is getting her life together, so can I!”

                I feel like there’s something there in the narrative of “broke vs poor”. It would have been interesting to see Mantsios tackle that and other, more nuanced, ways in which the media manipulates the image of class in America.  

Faces of Addiction

I stumbled upon an amazing photostream today, it's called Faces of Addiction. Really powerful images. Here's the photographer's description of the album:

‎"The stories of addicts in the Hunts Point neighborhood, the poorest in all of New York City. I post people's stories as they tell them to me. What I am hoping to do, by allowing my subjects to share their dreams and burdens with the viewer and by photographing them with respect, is to show that everyone, regardless of their station in life, is as valid as anyone else. Its easy to ignore others. By not looking, by not talking to them, we can fall into constructing our own narrative that affirms our limited world view. "

Kozol-Quotes

                Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace is a wonderful example of a text that depicts racial chattel slavery in its afterlife. Perhaps we could address this text from merely a class standpoint but that would be to do the people Kozol mentions, and the other people like them that they represent, a great disservice. For it is the intersection of class and race that created the circumstances present in Kozol’s account. Kozol paints an incredibly bleak and despondent picture for his readers. The people in his story live a life that no one should have to live; a life that, if it were presented without certain details, people would more than likely assume took place in an “underdeveloped” nation as opposed to the “Great US of A”. In reality, as we can see from the text, these lives and stories very much do take place in the United States. I would argue that the history of the States makes these stories incredibly unsurprising. The past actions of the U.S. bleed into the present and work to create communities that seem more like fictive dystopias than real communities in New York (or California, or Mississippi…the list goes on).  

                Before I continue with this post I want to make it very clear: do not fall prey to poverty porn. Very often people will read accounts like these and begin to pity the people they read about. It becomes a sort of paternalistic ‘empathy’, one that works to dehumanize the folks that the readers supposedly care about. These people live lives that we see as depressing, and often times they certainly do as well (which we can see in several of the conversations Kozol recounts for us). However, there are certainly moments of happiness, moments of love and glory, which helps to make the tough times easier. I won’t spend too much time on this point, but I will direct y’all to Nikki Giovanni’s fantastic poem “Nikki Rosa” in which she addresses this.

                Hopelessness was a recurrent theme in Kozol’s piece, although it was not always explicitly stated as such. I personally do not see “hopeless” as an incredibly negative word which is why I feel comfortable using it so frequently in this analysis. For hopelessness can, at times, be the biggest motivator for resistance. Very often it is when we feel like our circumstances cannot get any worse that we become ready for revolutionary action. Sadly, that is not always the outcome (as we see in this text) but it can be, and this is something that I think we should always keep in mind.

                On page five Kozol notes that “in 1991, 84 people, more than half of whom were 21 or younger, were murdered in the precinct”.  This particular statement is salient because of the age that he uses as a marker. Twenty-one. Homicide is the leading cause for young Black males. It is a common adage in the Black community that a Black man should be grateful to make it past 21. This idea is evident in several hip-hop songs as well. In “ADHD” Kendrick Lamar, 23, states “Got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist”. In "Murder to Excellence" Jay Z notes “And they say by 21 I was supposed to die, so I’m out here celebrating my post-demise”. Lastly (for our purposes, although you can certainly Google and find many more examples),  in "So Appalled" Pusha T brags “CNN said I’d be dead by 21, Blackjack, I just pulled an ace”. In all of these cases (except, perhaps, Lamar) these Black men are celebrating, somewhat bitterly, the fact that they beat the odds. They survived past 21, oftentimes considered a feat in some parts of the Black community, like the community depicted in the Kozol text.

                Kozol spends a decent amount of time discussing the waste incinerator in the St Ann’s neighborhood. The incinerator “burns…‘red-bag products’…The waste products of some of these hospitals…were initially going to be burned at an incinerator scheduled to be built along the East Side of Manhattan, but the sitting of a burner there had been successfully resisted by the parents of the area because of fear of cancer risks to children” (7). Lo and behold, the incinerator wound up in the “ghetto”. It is not that the parents did not protest this, but rather their protestations were not taken into account, for their lives were not valuable enough to factor into the equation. The cancer risk that was a danger to the East Side Manhattan children seems to no longer be a problem when the children become those who live near Cypress Avenue.  This is what I would call violence. When talking about the trouble that she needs to go through in order to get her welfare re-instated Mrs. Washington notes that she “feel[s] like somebody beat [her] up” (20). Mrs. Washington feels that way because somebody did beat her up. Society is constantly beating her, her neighbors, and their children up. This is state sanctioned violence!

                To end this post on a depressing note (or, perhaps, perversely optimistic), I will quote the last page of the text. Kozol quotes David Washington as saying, when talking about the drug dealers and their deadly new heroin, “It’s like [the drug dealers are] saying, ‘Come on over here. I’ll show you how to end your life’” (24). Depressing, yes? Yes. However, there is this strange perverse beauty in it. Before you all think me to be sick and depraved let me first draw your attention to the various forms of slave resistance. Suicide was often a form a resistance that slaves, particularly those of the Igbo tribe, undertook. And it wasn’t exactly an act of desperation but rather an act of true rebellion and love. The Igbo, for example, believed that in death they would be returned back (flying Africans!) to their homeland to live with their ancestors; their loved ones. The perversely optimistic way of looking at the acts of suicide happening in modern-day America would be to view them as subconscious forms of resistance bred by hopelessness and desperation. For the shackles could not be cast off in this life, so perhaps it may be better to return to the ancestors. Certainly a reach, but sometimes when reading bleak texts like this Kozol piece even perverse optimism is welcome.

Works Cited

Kozol, Jonathan. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. New York: Crown, 1995. Print.

Image from Anisfield-Wolf