Emancipation Theory : Milton S. F. Curry
 |
In a convoluted way, I began this essay in the third grade, where my
interest in architecture originated—there, one black among others. It was
also in that space of intellectual primacy that the forces that would most
profoundly influence my educational and professional pedigree would come
into existence. The forces of which I speak are those of alienation and
identity.
Entrenched in discourses of difference, otherness, subalterity, marginality, and the like, my initial thoughts for these inaugural remarks in this new discursive space had more to do with my status as an individual within any one of these categories than with any presumed group identity. And by group identity, I am recalling instances in which I am constantly asked to explain myself relative to outdated, racist, and ignorant perceptions of what I am supposed to represent to any number of different constituencies at any one time. In addition, I am often addressed as if I were still an outsider, whether in an educational or professional context. At a recent church service I was told that I looked like a preacher, simply because I was clean-cut, dressed in a suit and tie, and was black and male. At architecture juries, I am perceived as the mad black nationalist, for bringing cultural issues to the fore. In some black circles I am perceived as a traitor because I attended elite, predominantly white universities. In some white circles I am treated as the "exotic" because my own subjectivity and acculturation cut across so many social and cultural boundaries. For some I am too white. For others I am too black. The complexity of these negotiations—these shiftings of identity between black, American, heterosexual, male, professional, academic, etc.—led me to a closer examination of areas within my own discipline of architecture that acted to perpetuate these circumstances where overdetermination by others is total. I set out on parallel paths: one line of inquiry was to define those internal mechanisms (internal to the institution of architecture) that perpetuated myths of categorization, stereotype, and cultural ignorance, and the other was focused on the dynamic of how other disciplines and society as a whole affect the discipline of architecture in ways that uphold these stereotypes and deficiencies. |
I found chronic and pathological inconsistencies in the
mainstream logics of several so-called architectural theorists, as well
as broader problematics within other disciplines and society as a totality.
It was not until this crisis that I realized that the rules of engagement
were one-sided: I was constantly being asked to relinquish any cultural
differences or ethnic "baggage" to conform to normative paradigms, while
the normative paradigms neither shifted nor inflected to accommodate what
seemed 
like my own alienated subjectivity. This is precisely where alienation
and the construction of identity (racial, national, social, sexual, etc.)
intersect. |
I found architectectural thoery ... to be a
haven for the production of an elite and guarded discourse that claims
cultural authority without sufficiently grounding itself in the lived experiences
of those whose lives are affected by its dissemination.
|
| A second and equally important set of discoveries were explicitly connected
to the notion of "theory." I found architectural theory (as defined thus
far in its incubancy) to be a haven for the production of an elite and
guarded discourse that claims cultural authority without sufficiently grounding
itself in the experiences of those whose lives are affected by it.
I also found a profound reluctance on the part of contemporary revolutionary
intellectuals in architecture (of which there are extremely few) to use
theory as a site of resistance and critical dialogue. Instead I found prominent
black architects, in particular, actually mocking theory, and demarcating
it as an exclusively white terrain and the site of elite rhetoric.
In architecture there has long existed an interdisciplinary ideal for
the field. Although the cultural/economic status of the architect has Representational paradigms, new visual media, and veiled political agendas
have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between progress and
regress (how many of us watched with sorrow and ambivalence the Senate
confirmation hearings of Judge Clarence Thomas?). Moreover, the different
perspectives within which to frame these constantly shifting realities
are diminishing, the site of resistance becoming an ever-narrowing corridor
of escape. The seemingly monolithic viewpoint of black Americans toward issues
of social change agendas and the dearth of divergent voices among self-appointed
and group-appointed spokes-persons has added to the confusion. By insisting
on singular group identities (i.e., black, heterosexual, Democrat, churchgoer,
etc.) and excluding those who do not fit the profile (black, homosexual,
non-churchgoer, Republican, etc.), these leaders have bought into white
institutional thinking, which defines solidarity as sameness. They seek
to reinstate the same characterization of individualized Afro-American
life that abolitionists promoted in their publication of slave narratives:
"Reviews and advertisements for the narratives routinely noted that 'slaves
had a simple but moving story' to tell—use of the singular noun testifying
to belief in an undifferentiated sameness of existence."1 |
