Friday, May 25, 2007

Anti-immigrant and Pro-Black

This is an interesting, though not unique situation. I recently came across this article written in the Black Commentator by Bill Fletcher Jr. regarding the recent twist in the anti-immigrant campaign by the "Coalition for the future American worker." The ad features a prominent civil rights veteran by the name of T. Willard Fair, decrying amnesty for illegal immigrant labor. What makes this interesting is Fair's rationale: that amnesty means less jobs for African Americans. You can find the article here. Although the editorial doesn't necessarily take on the subject as well as I'd hoped, the theme of the article remained intriguing.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Historical Subjects?

I was perusing my department's website yesterday and was surprised by what I found. On the faculty webpage, instructors and professors are expected to list their interests or research subjects. One in particular stood out. The following are the historian's list of interests, please note the last one.

• American Revolution
• Emancipation
• Slavery
• Political Ideology
• Free Blacks

What does "Free Blacks" mean? Is this a common subject title in contemporary American history? Please don't get me wrong, I'm more perplexed than offended (even amused at the awkardness of such a phrase), but there must be a more "academic-like" manner to describe this subject other than "Free Blacks".
I mean if emancipation is already up there, can we just use "post-emancipation" or "post-slavery", after all isn't the current political and ideological discourse concerning Black people in the U.S. an extension of the rupture of slavery/emancipation? Furthermore, since the idea that "Blacks" are "free" (especially politically and ideologically) at present, is still in debate, shouldn't this historian be more sophisticated in describing research subjects? This of course isn't merely a nitpicking rant, but rather a question of liberalism and power in the academy. Whether as lecturers or authors, professors at the end of the day are teachers who teach their subjects (I am speaking of subject more in terms of research interest rather than individuals). This reality leads me back to a Foucault and the subject. For example in order for the historian to truly become better disciplined, the historian must know his/her subject through objectifying it. In other words, to truly be interested in a subject, one must not care about that subject.