[I]f repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge, and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost: nothing less than a transgression of laws, a lifting of prohibitions, an irruption of speech, a reinstating of pleasure within reality, and a whole new economy in the mechanisms of power will be required. For the least glimmer of truth is conditioned by politics (5).
This passage, from Foucault’s book The History of Sexuality does, of course, focus on sexuality, though it seems just as applicable to our study of race. The story of the Gena six and perhaps all racial conflict is the story of a corrupted and uneven politics of language. As evidence, we see that members of Gena’s African-American community refer to the hanging of the 3 nooses on the schoolyard tree as a “terrible hate crime” and the beating of the white student as “a school fight” while the white citizens represented on the Dr. Philippe show had the exact opposite view of the magnitude of each event. Systemically, there is no resort, of course, otherwise Dr. Phillippe would not need to be talking to these people and their would have been fair and equitable treatment for all parties. More importantly, though, there’s also no easy remedy in the philosophical discourse. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’s entry for “race” is shorter than its entry for “comedy.” Tying and hanging a noose is surely less insidious (though more overt) than the real injustice: there’s no statute to prosecute the act under. It is obvious, further disturbing the situation, that the problem is not with Gena, but rather the entire culture. Indeed, the power behind society seems to, quite literally, quarantine and segregate such problems to the geographically remote “Other” which is no longer quantifiably associated—except that it is everywhere within it. Perhaps there is something latently teleological and dialectical about any binary—male and female, modern and postmodern, black and white—which does not only allows, but leads to the power struggle over linguistics and knowledge. Even by looking forward and claiming that compromises can be reached is only a matter of affirming the repression (The History of Sexuality 7). It is not enough to be weary of politics, the system, or society, one must also take a critical eye to the language and knowledge controlled under the hegemonic dominance of the aforementioned institutions. To watch Dr. Philippe is to actively take part in racism; then again, to not watch Dr. Philippe is also to engage actively in racism. In a Foucauldian universe, there is perhaps more benefit to all sitting down and admitting that we are each alike and united in our socially embedded, inescapable racism.
