Today I learned more about coloniality and the harm we perpetuate by describing matters in “post-Enlightenment” terms. Such a term is a form of [European] violence.

I wonder if we can make a similar argument about the sacred/profane dichotomy.

A typical sociological argument might be that Black American culture is maligned, yet it is the fulcrum upon which White culture rests. Black culture is “sacred” (even when its creators are not respected) b/c it is used to strengthen beliefs in White superiority/purity

See: legacies of culture of poverty, cultural appropriation.

White culture would be “profane” since Whiteness is the default orientation. But I think this position takes colonization for granted + frames it as an unfortunate inevitability. Functionalism-lite, if you will.

Instead, racism and White supremacy is why this relationship exists in the first place. And it was not inevitable, but a concerted effort to ensure permanent degradation.

The frame works so far as the items, symbols, and gestures belong to *people*/the human. As Moten and Hartman say: “fuck the human”. Complicates the human in her work; specifically how it is a position that only White people can inhabit.

Been thinking about what Jefferson said: “Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry."

That’s the backdrop for the human, sacred/profane relationship. A conversation that Black folks were written out of from jump. Durk was definitely not one to shy away from controversy (his own ethnographic descriptions are proof enough).

EMORF is canonized but I think we can push back and reconsider, especially when we think about when it was written and what was going on in the world at the time.

References for the Moten and Hartman convo: https://chimurengachronic.co.za/to-refuse-that-which-has-been-refused-to-you-2/

Also see @ZIJackson and “Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an AntiBlack World”.