se·man·tics

I recently watched a video on Facebook posted by a peer. The video was by janaya khan, an activist and the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada. She proposed the use of the term “white supremacy” rather than “white privilege,” because it refers to the system rather than the individual. At first, I agreed with her argument, and possibly still do, but I wonder how much it matters. I often feel like people (particularly academics) who sympathize with the movement or have radically progressive politics tend to be overly concerned with verbiage and semantics. In the case of privilege versus supremacy, I wonder if those already turned off by the idea that they are endowed with special advantages would be any more willing to accept the idea that they are the benefactors of a systemic supremacy? Further, I’m not fully convinced that these terms don’t essentially mean the same thing.

Despite the above intro, I bring all of this up because of the feelings Alexandra Juhasz discusses at the end of her introduction and her “worries about [doing] the right work” (27) and not to criticize janaya khan, who certainly does more than most to fight for black lives. In my own attempts to do ‘the right work’ I often wonder if the ‘verbiage and semantics’ I obsess over are worth the effort. At one point Juhasz, an academic herself, asks “[w]hat is a video, an article, a book in the face of millions infected and hundreds of thousands dead” (27)? She eventually answers this question, stating “what else is there to do” (28), and further that she uses her book to “mobilize as many ways of knowing and acting as [she] can in the face of horror” (29). However, my poster stays in the land of “thousands dead” and questions the legitimacy of these pursuits, or shall I say my pursuits. What do they matter when black lives are disregarded daily as fodder for a cruel and careless system? Is it possible that there’s power in avenues that are less concerned with naming and category? What might those avenues be?

To end on a more positive note, taking into account my aforementioned feelings of helplessness and possibly looking towards next week’s manifesto: while I believe they should be thoroughly interrogated and kept in check, I think academia, writing, and the pursuit of knowledge embody their own form of power and pursuit. They are worth more than the expectation of immediate action. The cultivation of knowledge is what keeps the history of my people alive. In addition, for me at least, these pursuits are a form of self-care. They are how I’ve chosen to maintain and enjoy my life in the face of what can and will and has gone wrong—they are my armor and the armor of many like myself.