Came back to Twitter to promote something I co-wrote with my advisor for @Himalistan on media & Kamala Harris' mediation of Brahminness, brownness, Blackness. Many thanks to @raisalw for all her efforts. https://www.himalmag.com/becoming-kamala-devi-harris-2020/

But wanted to add that one of the things we dug out for this piece was Loïc JD Wacquant's essay on the "logic of the trial," which he describes as a certain "will to exonerate this or that society, institution, or group, for or from the terrible sin of 'racism.'"

Wacquant's point is that discourses of racism have been mired in questions of attributing racism to a person or institution, the search for an origin point where blame can be placed, & a desire to absolve others including writers & readers from this "sin" of prejudice.

What Wacquant is criticizing is how such a discourse of "who is responsible for racism" obscures the potential to analyze the processes through which races are made, of "racial(ized)" fabrications & inventions that govern difference.

Which is to underscore how people *become* racial subjects, rather than simply inherit racial identities that are then held on trial in the public gaze. We apply this to Kamala who is expected to perform Blackness & brownness in tangible ways to be a "legitimate" POC subject.

But of course, I am also interested in this as a matter of caste-peformativity, and what processes determine how we receive the common-sense of who is a Brahmin, who a Reddy, who is Dalit, etc. Rajesh Rajamani's "Discreet Charm of the Savarnas" is an excellent illustration...

... of how certain assumptions of the "real Dalit" govern savarna storytelling. Such public trials of caste authenticity are particularly amplified in the media (news & socme esp.), where lists of "Dalit women to follow" or "Dalit commentators" have become the norm.

So we now have "authentic" representatives from the community, who can identify "authentic" oppressors in caste society. Like Wacquant, I'm wondering what this obscures in terms of the processes of fabrications & inventions that govern caste difference.

Put simply, what are we missing when we focus on agents of a system rather than the practices, beliefs, and mechanisms of the system as well? I am particularly thinking of the news media's sudden hyper-awareness of caste & its victims.

Wacquant also cites Ann Laura Stoler as she explores racial histories as a "regime of truth," which as Foucault points to not being truths themselves but the "ensemble of rules according to which true and false are separated & specific effects of power are attached to the true."

In the specific context of news discourse, I'm wondering, what rules & practices govern the sudden legibility of caste in cases like CISCO or Hathras? What agreed-upon notions of casteism are now becoming common sense & more importantly, what notions of casteism are not?

Lastly, Stoler asks "are these anti-racist histories so much a... product of racial discourse that they are, despite intention, subject to its regimes of truth?" I'm similarly concerned with caste & how news now mediates questions of casteism within a Brahminical regime of truth.

Because it is the Brahminical regime of truth than can even frame questions like "is caste relevant in Hathras" or "is there caste in Silicon Valley" and stage an entire debate involving anti-caste activists whose sole purpose is to demonstrate that caste is a reality.

Anyway Lois Wacquant's essay "For an Analytic of Racial Domination" is available here:

https://loicwacquantorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/lw-1997-for-an-analytic-of-racial-domination.pdf

Ann Laura Stoler's "Racial Histories & the Regimes of Truth" is here: http://www5.galib.uga.edu/reserves/docs/scanner%20pc%20shelter/ill%20scans/5_2_2019/stoler_racial_histories_and_their_regimes_of_truth.pdf