nettime: BOMBARDED IMAGES

[s271502@student.uq.edu.au (komninos zervos)]

> BOMBARDED IMAGES
love your work.
visit my site.
lets begin a dialog.
and sister you better be black.
whilst these things you write in your poem are recognisable as ways in
which whites put down blacks, they are made powerful by the relentless list
of abuses you have presented, but even more powerful by the assumption that
all of these things have been experienced by you in a lifetime of
oppression.
(sorry but today's papers in australia are full of a 47 year old white guy
admitting he wrote a prize winning novel under the guise of being an
aboriginal woman. which of course has brought up the issue of authenticity
of text, and can white people  write from a black person's perspective, or
men from a woman's perspective, or does it matter who the author is as long
as the text stands up on its own, etc., i am sorry if i offend you by
questioning your experiences.)

if i am to look at your poem as a poem, after the initial feeling of wow,
what a powerful piece of writing, and not see it as a report of personal
experiences but as a block of text constructed by a writer to have an
affect on an audience a reader of the text then i must say that the text
speaks from the position of a white supremist, or a conglomeration of all
white supremists or white supremism personified.

i think it works fine up to "move from my door." and in my opinion would
stand up as a poem better just by itself.
the look into the genetically engineered white future doesn't quite work
for me, the white supremist is so over the top we know that it is a
satirical piece, written by someone wishing to be thought of as a white
supremist, a construction within a construction, which reminds us that it
is constructed.
on the other hand the future view of the white supremist's beliefs taken to
the extreme are in fact ridiculous.

i don't know where this discussion is going but if the piece had been
signed jonathon smith(ie the assumption being a white jonathon smith though
i'm sure somewhere out there there must be  black jonathon smiths) i'm not
sure if i would have paid as much attention to it or let it affect me as
much as it did on its first reading.
i assumed a white person wouldn't be insensitive enough to write these
things in print, even if using them in a sarcastic way: i looked at the
name yes it could indicate a black person wrote this piece. i asked what is
the thing it is trying to say and it is a definite statemnent against white
supremism, so a black person could have written it.
the text wants me to believe a black person has written it and it is in
that that it seeks its authority.
as a text without knowledge of the writer the text actually allows white
people to escape the responsibility for racism to see the racist as a
satirical chartacter and not as themselves.
up until "move from my door" i the reader felt like the white supremist in
the poem and took on board that responsibility.
but when that character became an obvious satirical figure i could  escape
feeling responsible any longer.

i hope my comments have been useful but they have more to do i suppose with
the issues we are dealing with at present in australia than the issues
tackled in your poems.
please visit my site and make contact
regards
komninos.

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komninos's cyberpoetry site  http://student.uq.edu.au/~s271502
poetry jukebox  http://student.uq.edu.au/~s271502/jukebox.html
cyberpoetry gallery  http://student.uq.edu.au/~s271502/cybgal.html
sound poetry (mac only) http://student.uq.edu.au/~s271502/talk01.html
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