I'll Use Clay, You Can Use Paint

Henry Gates’ article about “writing ‘race’” explores some very interesting implications of writing and representation that I don’t think any of the previous theorists we have looked at in this section have really addressed. In his article, “Writing ‘Race’ and the Difference it Makes,” Gates explores the concept of remaking or rewriting. When talking about the Pope’s interaction with the African animistic priests, Gates claims that the Pope “[denied] Africans the right to remake European religion in their own images…” (Gates, 6). This is interesting because I think it is really related to the next point Gates brings up: writing, reason and man’s humanity as a function of these two things.

When Gates talks about Enlightenment philosophy, he claims that it is “characterized by its foundation on man’s ability to reason” and because of this, “it simultaneously used the absence and presence of reason to delimit and circumscribe the very humanity of cultures and people of color…” (Gates, 8). Here Gates is saying that the perception of Europe in regards to other “races” and cultures (at least in a Darwinian-like hierarchical scale) is determined by how much they deem other cultures capable of reason. Now, according to Gates, Enlightenment philosophy claimed writing as the highest indicator of reason (8).

Through simple logic it would seem that the easiest way to assert one’s equality using this set of premises would simply be to start writing. However, this is not what happens. Looking back to the reaction of the Pope towards the animistic priests, we can imagine what has happened. The African voice has been denied legitimacy. Of course, not completely, but Gates proposes an excellent question here that I really think is pertinent, “how can the black subject posit a full and sufficient self in a language in which blackness is a sign of absence?” (Gates, 12). In a sense, what Gates is pointing out is that the “black subject” (or really any subordinate group) does not gain a voice by using a superordinate’s language the reason being that the superordinate group has already established the screen through which the subordinate group is seen.

In a sense, they have established the terms of the argument. Any action taken by the subordinate group to overthrow the argument by using its language would necessarily “tend to create and maintain each other [referring to the language of the subordinate and superordinate]” (Gates, 15).

I think this is a really intriguing idea and one that almost seems illogical at first. However, if we use Burke’s “Terministic Screens” as a lens, the idea becomes a little more obvious. To use the terms of a superordinate’s argument would be something like using the wrong material in an art project. You might be using what the “best kid in the class” is using, but you may fail to fully express your own artwork because it doesn’t quite fit.