What if I told you that time has a race, a race in the contemporary way that we understand race in the United States? Typically, we talk about race in terms of black and white issues. In the African-American communities from which I come, we have a long-standing multi-generational joke about what we call "CP time," or "colored people's time." Now, we no longer refer to African-Americans as "colored," but this long-standing joke about our perpetual lateness to church, to cookouts, to family events and even to our own funerals, remains.
Šta ako bih vam rekla da vreme ima rasu, rasu u savremenom smislu našeg razumevanja rase u Sjedinjenim Državama? Obično govorimo o rasi u vezi sa problemima crnaca i belaca. U afroameričkim zajednicama iz kojih ja potičem, imamo dugoprisutnu višegeneracijsku šalu o onome što nazivamo „vreme za OLj“ ili „vreme za obojene ljude“. Više ne govorimo o Afroamerikancima kao „obojenima“, ali ova stara šala o našem stalnom kašnjenju u crkvu, na izlete, na porodična dešavanja, pa čak i na sopstvenu sahranu, nastavlja da traje.
I personally am a stickler for time. It's almost as if my mother, when I was growing up, said, "We will not be those black people." So we typically arrive to events 30 minutes early.
Lično sam cepidlaka za vreme. Kao da je moja majka rekla dok sam odrastala: „Nećemo biti takvi crnci.“ Tako da obično stižemo na događaje 30 minuta ranije.
But today, I want to talk to you more about the political nature of time, for if time had a race, it would be white. White people own time.
Ali danas želim da vam govorim više o političkoj prirodi vremena, jer kada bi vreme imalo rasu, ona bi bila bela. Belci poseduju vreme.
I know, I know. Making such "incendiary statements" makes us uncomfortable: Haven't we moved past the point where race really matters? Isn't race a heavy-handed concept? Shouldn't we go ahead with our enlightened, progressive selves and relegate useless concepts like race to the dustbins of history? How will we ever get over racism if we keep on talking about race? Perhaps we should lock up our concepts of race in a time capsule, bury them and dig them up in a thousand years, peer at them with the clearly more enlightened, raceless versions of ourselves that belong to the future. But you see there, that desire to mitigate the impact of race and racism shows up in how we attempt to manage time, in the ways we narrate history, in the ways we attempt to shove the negative truths of the present into the past, in the ways we attempt to argue that the future that we hope for is the present in which we're currently living.
Znam, znam. Usled iznošenja takvih „zapaljivih izjava“ osećamo se neprijatno. Zar nismo prevazišli tu tačku u kojoj je rasa stvarno bitna? Zar rasa nije grub koncept? Zar ne treba da krenemo napred sa svojom prosvetljenošću i progresivnoću i odstranimo beskorisne koncepte poput rase na smetlište istorije? Kako ćemo ikada prebroditi rasizam ako nastavimo da govorimo o rasi? Možda bi trebalo da zaključamo svoje koncepte rase u vremensku kapsulu, zakopamo ih i iskopamo za hiljadu godina, sagledavajući ih uz jasno prosvetljeniju, bezrasnu verziju nas samih koja pripada budućnosti. Međutim, vidite, ta želja da ublažimo uticaj rase i rasizma prikazuje se u načinu na koji pokušavamo da upravljamo vremenom, u načinu na koji pričamo istoriju, u načinima na koje pokušavamo da gurnemo negativne istine o sadašnjosti u prošlost, u načinima na koje pokušavamo da tvrdimo da je budućnost kojoj se nadamo sadašnjost u kojoj trenutno živimo.
Now, when Barack Obama became President of the US in 2008, many Americans declared that we were post-racial. I'm from the academy where we're enamored with being post-everything. We're postmodern, we're post-structural, we're post-feminist. "Post" has become a simple academic appendage that we apply to a range of terms to mark the way we were. But prefixes alone don't have the power to make race and racism a thing of the past. The US was never "pre-race." So to claim that we're post-race when we have yet to grapple with the impact of race on black people, Latinos or the indigenous is disingenuous. Just about the moment we were preparing to celebrate our post-racial future, our political conditions became the most racial they've been in the last 50 years.
Kada je Barak Obama postao predsednik SAD 2008. godine, mnogi Amerikanci su izjavili da smo „postrasni“. Ja sam sa akademije gde smo oduševljeni time da smo „post“ svega. Postmoderni smo, poststrukturalni, postfeministički. „Post“ je postao jednostavan akademski dodatak koji primenjujemo na niz termina da bismo naznačili kakvi smo bili. Ipak, prefiksi sami po sebi nemaju moć da učine rasu i rasizam stvarima prošlosti. SAD nikada nisu bile „prerasne“. Dakle, tvrdnja da smo postrasni, kada tek treba da se borimo sa uticajem rase na crnce, Latinoamerikance i urođeničke narode je neiskrena. Baš u trenutku kada smo se spremali da proslavimo svoju postrasnu budućnost, naši politički uslovi su postali rasni najviše što su bili u proteklih 50 godina.
So today, I want to offer to you three observations, about the past, the present and the future of time, as it relates to the combating of racism and white dominance.
Danas želim da vam iznesem tri zapažanja o prošlosti, sadašnjosti i budućnosti vremena, što se tiče borbe protiv rasizma i dominacije bele rase.
First: the past. Time has a history, and so do black people. But we treat time as though it is timeless, as though it has always been this way, as though it doesn't have a political history bound up with the plunder of indigenous lands, the genocide of indigenous people and the stealing of Africans from their homeland. When white male European philosophers first thought to conceptualize time and history, one famously declared, "[Africa] is no historical part of the World." He was essentially saying that Africans were people outside of history who had had no impact on time or the march of progress.
Prvo, prošlost. Vreme ima istoriju, kao i crnci. Ali mi se ophodimo prema vremenu kao da je neograničeno, kao da je uvek bilo ovako, kao da nema političku istoriju vezanu za pljačku zemlje starosedelaca, genocid domaćih naroda i krađu Afrikanaca iz svoje domovine. Kada su beli evropski filozofi muškog roda prvi put pomislili da osmisle vreme i istoriju, poznato je da je jedan izjavio: „Afrika nije istorijski deo sveta.“ U suštini je govorio da su Afrikanci ljudi izvan istorije koji nisu imali uticaj na vreme niti ubrzano kretanje napretka.
This idea, that black people have had no impact on history, is one of the foundational ideas of white supremacy. It's the reason that Carter G. Woodson created "Negro History Week" in 1926. It's the reason that we continue to celebrate Black History Month in the US every February.
Ova ideja da ljudi crne rase nisu imali nikakav uticaj na istoriju jedna je od temeljnih ideja za uverenje o superiornosti bele rase. Razlog je tome što je Karter G. Vudson 1926. stvorio „nedelju crnačke istorije“. Razlog je tome što nastavljamo da slavimo mesec crnačke istorije u SAD svakog februara.
Now, we also see this idea that black people are people either alternately outside of the bounds of time or stuck in the past, in a scenario where, much as I'm doing right now, a black person stands up and insists that racism still matters, and a person, usually white, says to them, "Why are you stuck in the past? Why can't you move on? We have a black president. We're past all that."
Takođe vidimo ideju da su crnci narod koji je naizmenično ili izvan granica vremena ili zarobljen u prošlosti, u scenariju u kome, kao što ja radim sada, osoba crne rase ustane i insistira da je rasizam i dalje bitan, a neka osoba, obično bele rase, joj kaže: „Zašto si zatočen u prošlosti? Zašto ne možeš da nastaviš? Imamo crnog predsednika. Prevazišli smo sve to.“
William Faulkner famously said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." But my good friend Professor Kristie Dotson says, "Our memory is longer than our lifespan." We carry, all of us, family and communal hopes and dreams with us. We don't have the luxury of letting go of the past. But sometimes, our political conditions are so troubling that we don't know if we're living in the past or we're living in the present. Take, for instance, when Black Lives Matter protesters go out to protest unjust killings of black citizens by police, and the pictures that emerge from the protest look like they could have been taken 50 years ago. The past won't let us go. But still, let us press our way into the present.
Poznato je da je Vilijem Fokner rekao: „Prošlost nikada nije mrtva. Nije čak nikada ni prošla.“ Ali moja dobra prijateljica profesorka Kristi Dotson kaže: „Naše pamćenje traje duže od našeg životnog veka.“ Svi mi nosimo nade i snove porodice i zajednice sa sobom. Nemamo taj luksuz da oslobodimo prošlost. Međutim, ponekad, naša politička situacija toliko zabrinjava da ne znamo da li živimo u prošlosti ili sadašnjosti. Uzmite, na primer, kada demonstranti pokreta „Životi crnaca su važni“ izađu da protestuju protiv nepravednih ubistava crnih građana od strane policije, a slike koje se pojave sa protesta izgledaju kao da su mogle biti uslikane pre 50 godina. Prošlost neće da nas pusti. Ipak, hajde da se probijemo u sadašnjost.
At present, I would argue that the racial struggles we are experiencing are clashes over time and space. What do I mean? Well, I've already told you that white people own time. Those in power dictate the pace of the workday. They dictate how much money our time is actually worth. And Professor George Lipsitz argues that white people even dictate the pace of social inclusion. They dictate how long it will actually take for minority groups to receive the rights that they have been fighting for.
U sadašnjosti, rekla bih da rasne borbe koje doživljavamo predstavljaju sukobe nad vremenom i prostorom. Kako to mislim? Pa, već sam vam rekla da belci poseduju vreme. Oni koji su na snazi diktiraju dinamiku radnog dana. Diktiraju koliko novca naše vreme zapravo zavređuje. Profesor Džordž Lipstic smatra da belci diktiraju čak i dinamiku društvene inkluzije. Diktiraju koliko dugo će zapravo potrajati da bi manjinske grupe dobile prava za koja su se borile.
Let me loop back to the past quickly to give you an example. If you think about the Civil Rights Movement and the cries of its leaders for "Freedom Now," they were challenging the slow pace of white social inclusion. By 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act was passed, there had been a full 100 years between the end of the Civil War and the conferral of voting rights on African-American communities. Despite the urgency of a war, it still took a full 100 years for actual social inclusion to occur.
Dopustite da ponovo zaronim u prošlost na brzinu da bih vam dala primer. Ako pomislite na pokret za građanska prava i vapaje njegovih predvodnika za „slobodu sada“, oni su se suprotstavili sporosti bele društvene inkluzije. Do 1965. godine, kada je donet Zakon o pravu glasa, prošlo je punih 100 godina između okončanja građanskog rata i dodeljivanja prava na glasanje afroameričkim zajednicama. Uprkos hitnosti rata, ipak je bilo potrebno čitavih 100 godina da se zaista dogodi društvena inkluzija.
Since 2012, conservative state legislatures across the US have ramped up attempts to roll back African-American voting rights by passing restrictive voter ID laws and curtailing early voting opportunities. This past July, a federal court struck down North Carolina's voter ID law saying it "... targeted African-Americans with surgical precision."
Od 2012. godine, konzervativna državna zakonodavna tela širom SAD pojačala su nastojanja da unazade afroamerička prava na glasanje donošenjem restriktivnih zakona o glasačkoj identifikaciji i ograničavanjem mogućnosti ranog glasanja. Prošlog jula je savezni sud poništio zakon o identifikaciji glasača Severne Karoline navodeći da je „hirurški precizno bio usmeren na Afroamerikance“.
Restricting African-American inclusion in the body politic is a primary way that we attempt to manage and control people by managing and controlling time. But another place that we see these time-space clashes is in gentrifying cities like Atlanta, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Washington, DC -- places that have had black populations for generations. But now, in the name of urban renewal and progress, these communities are pushed out, in service of bringing them into the 21st century.
Ograničavanje inkluzije Afroamerikanaca u političkom telu je primarni način na koji pokušavamo da upravljamo ljudima i kontrolišemo ih time što vršimo upravljanje i kontrolisanje vremena. Još jedno mesto na kome vidimo ove sukobe vremena i prostora je u gradovima ubrzanog razvoja kao što su Atlanta, Bruklin, Filadelfija, Nju Orleans i Vašington - mestima koje su generacijama imale crnačko stanovništvo. Međutim, sada, u ime urbane obnove i napretka, te zajednice su istisnute, zarad uvođenja u 21. vek.
Professor Sharon Holland asked: What happens when a person who exists in time meets someone who only occupies space? These racial struggles are battles over those who are perceived to be space-takers and those who are perceived to be world-makers. Those who control the flow and thrust of history are considered world-makers who own and master time. In other words: white people. But when Hegel famously said that Africa was no historical part of the world, he implied that it was merely a voluminous land mass taking up space at the bottom of the globe. Africans were space-takers. So today, white people continue to control the flow and thrust of history, while too often treating black people as though we are merely taking up space to which we are not entitled. Time and the march of progress is used to justify a stunning degree of violence towards our most vulnerable populations, who, being perceived as space-takers rather than world-makers, are moved out of the places where they live, in service of bringing them into the 21st century.
Profesorka Šeron Holand je postavila pitanje šta se dešava kada osoba koja postoji u vremenu sretne nekog ko samo zauzima prostor? Ove rasne borbe su bitke između onih na koje se gleda kao na zauzimače prostora i onih koji se doživljavaju kao stvaraoci u svetu. Oni koji kontrolišu proticanje i pritisak istorije smatraju se stvaraocima u svetu koji poseduju vreme i vladaju njime. Drugim rečima, belci. Kada je Hegel izneo poznatu izjavu da Afrika nije istorijski deo sveta, podrazumevao je da predstavlja samo obimnu masu zemlje koja zauzima prostor na dnu Zemljine kugle. Afrikanci su zauzimali prostor. Danas belci nastavljaju da kontrolišu proticanje i pritisak istorije, pri čemu prečesto tretiraju crnce kao da samo zauzimamo prostor na koji nemamo pravo. Vreme i stupanje napretka se koristi da bi se opravdao zapanjujući stepen nasilja prema našem najugroženijem stanovništvu, koje, pošto se sagledava kao da zauzima prostor umesto kao da su to stvaraoci u svetu, premešta se iz mesta u kojima živi, kako bi se uvelo u 21. vek.
Shortened life span according to zip code is just one example of the ways that time and space cohere in an unjust manner in the lives of black people. Children who are born in New Orleans zip code 70124, which is 93 percent white, can expect to live a full 25 years longer than children born in New Orleans zip code 70112, which is 60 percent black. Children born in Washington, DC's wealthy Maryland suburbs can expect to live a full 20 years longer than children born in its downtown neighborhoods.
Skraćeni životni vek s obzirom na poštanski broj je samo jedan primer kako se vreme i prostor povezuju na nepravedan način u životu crnaca. Deca koja su rođena u Nju Orleansu, na poštanskom broju 70124, gde su 93 procenta belci, mogu očekivati da žive čitavih 25 godina duže od dece koja su rođena na poštanskom broju 70112 u Nju Orleansu, gde su 60 posto crnci. Deca rođena u Vašingtonu, u bogatim predgrađima Merilenda, mogu očekivati čitavih 20 godina duži život od dece rođene u naseljima u centru grada.
Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that, "The defining feature of being drafted into the Black race is the inescapable robbery of time." We experience time discrimination, he tells us, not just as structural, but as personal: in lost moments of joy, lost moments of connection, lost quality of time with loved ones and lost years of healthy quality of life.
Tanahasi Kouts smatra da „karakteristika koja određuje izdvojenost u crnu rasu je neizbežna pljačka vremena.“ Doživljavamo vremensku diskriminaciju, poručuje on, ne samo kao strukturalnu, već kao ličnu, kroz izgubljene trenutke radosti, izgubljene trenutke povezanosti, izgubljen kvalitet vremena sa voljenim osobama i izgubljene godine zdravog kvaliteta života.
In the future, do you see black people? Do black people have a future? What if you belong to the very race of people who have always been pitted against time? What if your group is the group for whom a future was never imagined? These time-space clashes -- between protesters and police, between gentrifiers and residents -- don't paint a very pretty picture of what America hopes for black people's future. If the present is any indicator, our children will be under-educated, health maladies will take their toll and housing will continue to be unaffordable.
Da li vidite crnce u budućnosti? Da li crnci imaju budućnost? Šta ako pripadate upravo rasi ljudi koja je uvek bila sučeljena sa vremenom? Šta ako je vaša grupa ona za koju budućnost nikada nije bila predviđena? Ovi sukobi prostora i vremena - između demonstranata i policije, između bogatih doseljenika i meštana - ne daje naročito lepu sliku o nadama Amerike za budućnost crnaca. Ako je sadašnjost neki pokazatelj, naša deca će biti nedovoljno obrazovana, zdravstveni problemi će uzeti svoj danak, a stambeni prostori će nastaviti da budu finansijski nepristupačni.
So if we're really ready to talk about the future, perhaps we should begin by admitting that we're out of time. We black people have always been out of time. Time does not belong to us. Our lives are lives of perpetual urgency. Time is used to displace us, or conversely, we are urged into complacency through endless calls to just be patient. But if past is prologue, let us seize upon the ways in which we're always out of time anyway to demand with urgency freedom now.
Stoga, ako smo zaista spremni da razgovaramo o budućnosti, možda bi trebalo da započnemo priznanjem da smo izvan vremena. Mi crnci smo uvek bili izvan vremena. Vreme nam ne pripada. Naš je život večite hitnosti. Vreme je korišćeno da nas razmeste, ili obrnuto, podstaknuti smo na samoprihvatanje kroz beskrajne pozive samo da budemo strpljivi. No, ako je prošlost prolog, hajde da iskoristimo načine na koje smo ionako uvek van vremena da hitno zahtevamo slobodu sada.
I believe the future is what we make it. But first, we have to decide that time belongs to all of us. No, we don't all get equal time, but we can decide that the time we do get is just and free. We can stop making your zip code the primary determinant of your lifespan. We can stop stealing learning time from black children through excessive use of suspensions and expulsions. We can stop stealing time from black people through long periods of incarceration for nonviolent crimes. The police can stop stealing time and black lives through use of excessive force.
Verujem da je budućnost onakva kakvom je stvorimo. Ali najpre moramo da odlučimo da vreme pripada svima nama. Ne, ne dobijamo svi podjednako vreme, ali možemo da rešimo da vreme koje dobijemo bude pravedno i slobodno. Možemo da zaustavimo pretvaranje poštanskog broja u glavnu odrednicu dužine životnog veka. Možemo da zaustavimo krađu vremena za učenje od crnačke dece kroz preterano korišćenje suspendovanja i isključivanja. Možemo da zaustavimo krađu vremena od crnaca kroz duge periode smeštanja u zatvor zbog nenasilnih krivičnih dela. Policija može da prestane da krade vreme i živote crnaca kroz preterano korišćenje sile.
I believe the future is what we make it. But we can't get there on colored people's time or white time or your time or even my time. It's our time. Ours.
Verujem da je budućnost onakva kakvom je stvorimo. Ali tamo ne možemo stići u vreme obojenih ljudi, niti vreme belaca, niti vaše vreme, pa čak ni moje vreme. To je naše vreme. Naše.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)