AT: Anti-Blackness

The division between white and black is not ontological---its contingent

Peter Hudson 13, Writer at the Political Studies Department, University of the Witwatersrand,
The state and the colonial unconscious, Social Dynamics: A journal of African studies, 7/12/13,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02533952.2013.802867
Thus the self-same/other distinction is necessary for the possibility of identity itself. There
always has to exist an outside, which is also inside, to the extent it is designated as the
impossibility from which the possibility of the existence of the subject derives its rule (Badiou
2009, 220). But although the excluded place which isnt excluded insofar as it is necessary for
the very possibility of inclusion and identity may be universal (may be considered
ontological), its content (what fills it) as well as the mode of this filling and its reproduction
are contingent. In other words, the meaning of the signifier of exclusion is not determined
once and for all: the place of the place of exclusion, of death is itself over-determined, i.e. the
very framework for deciding the other and the same, exclusion and inclusion, is nowhere
engraved in ontological stone but is political and never terminally settled. Put differently, the
curvature of intersubjective space (Critchley 2007, 61) and thus, the specific modes of the
othering of otherness are nowhere decided in advance a certain ontological fatalism might
have it. The social does not have to be divided into white and black, and the meaning of these
signifiers is never necessary because they are signifiers. To be sure, colonialism institutes an
ontological division, in that whites exist in a way barred to blacks who are not. But this
ontological relation is really on the side of the ontic that is, of all contingently constructed
identities, rather than the ontology of the social which refers to the ultimate unfixity, the
indeterminacy or lack of the social. In this sense, then, the white man doesnt exist, the black
man doesnt exist (Fanon 1968, 165); and neither does the colonial symbolic itself, including its
most intimate structuring relations division is constitutive of the social, not the colonial
division.
Rebellion and opposition to the system is possible but requires concrete
change
Peter Hudson 13, Writer at the Political Studies Department, University of the Witwatersrand,
The state and the colonial unconscious, Social Dynamics: A journal of African studies, 7/12/13,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02533952.2013.802867
Be this as it may, whiteness and blackness are (sustained by) determinate and contingent
practices of signification; the structuring relation of colonialism thus itself comprises a knot of
significations which, no matter how tight, can always be undone. Anti-colonial i.e.,
anti-white modes of struggle are not (just) psychic6 but involve the reactivation (or desedimentation)7 of colonial objectivity itself. No matter how sedimented (or global), colonial
objectivity is not ontologically immune to antagonism. Differentiality, as Zizek insists (see Zizek
2012, chapter 11, 771 n48), immanently entails antagonism in that differentiality both makes
possible the existence of any identity whatsoever and at the same time because it is the
presence of one object in another undermines any identity ever being (fully) itself. Each
element in a differential relation is the condition of possibility and the condition of impossibility
of each other. It is this dimension of antagonism that the Master Signifier covers
over transforming its outside (Other) into an element of itself, reducing it to a

condition of its possibility.8 All symbolisation produces an ineradicable excess over itself,
something it cant totalise or make sense of, where its production of meaning falters. This is its
internal limit point, its real:9 an errant object that has no place of its own, isnt recognised in
the categories of the system but is produced by it its part of no part or object small a.10
Correlative to this object a is the subject stricto sensu i.e., as the empty subject of the
signifier without an identity that pins it down.11 That is the subject of antagonism in
confrontation with the real of the social, as distinct from subject position based
on a determinate identity. As weve seen under colonialism, (the real of) non-meaning
is brought into the logic of the system the colonised directly experiences the void
of non-identity as the meaning of its subject-position (or social identity). Under
capitalism, proletariat designates this (non-designated) part of no part, this object without a
designated place, this non-totalisable excess produced by the system that cant integrate it,
however, as it is not recognised in its categories. Note that under capitalism, the working class
first has to separate itself from itself qua working-class before it can become proletariat it has
to go through self-dissolution, whereas the colonised is always already dissolving.
The system of white colonialism in opposition to the black body doesnt
not have to exists in the strict binary that we identify it as
Peter Hudson 13, Writer at the Political Studies Department, University of the Witwatersrand,
The state and the colonial unconscious, Social Dynamics: A journal of African studies, 7/12/13,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02533952.2013.802867
Fundamentally, for Fanon, colonialism is about the construction of white subjects and black
subjects these are in no sense necessary identities (as racist discourse claims).
Secondly, flowing from this, there is no foundation to colonialism: it doesnt rest on Man or
History, it is just a contingent social relation a differential (over-determined) relation, which
its got to be if it is a contingent construction that can be transformed and replaced. Neither
white nor black has value independently of their relationship white is the difference between it
and black, and vice versa. The whiteness of white, where whiteness = brimming with identity
self-posses- sion and sovereignty depends on the blackness of black, where blackness =
without identity and self-control. Colonialism satisfies the conditions of a signifying dyad in that
its elements (coloniser and colonised) do not exist independently of the relations into which
they enter and through which they determine each other reciprocally (Deleuze 1973, 302). On
their own, they dont have a determinate value but only acquire one through their reciprocal
determination in relation. This is a differential relation, because whiteness only has its colonial
meaning in its relation to blackness, and vice versa. The presence of the one in the other
precludes either from attaining full identity to itself. Neither is a self-sufficient substance that
can rest on itself; rather, each only exists through its relationaldifferential tension vis-a-vis the
other in the colonial matrix. This latter is itself a contingent set of signifying practices, notwithstanding the fact that the fundamental social division they institute presents itself as
ontological. But and this is crucial within this interdependence, there is asymmetry:
whiteness is the master signifier, and it has both white and black subjects in its grip. White
subjects identify with it and thus see themselves through it as whole and in control of
themselves it invests them with at least the illusion of self- sufficiency and full autonomy. But
black subjects also identify with it they want to be white (a central theme of Black Skin, White
Masks) and so they look at them- selves (blacks) through the white signifier also but what they
see (which is exactly the same as what the white subject sees when he looks at the black) is a
body manque not the corporeal schema (Fanon 1968, 78) the white sees when he looks at
himself which gives him a body image and an image of himself which is structurally
harmonious (114) but something undefinable and unassimilable (114) into the white order

of being with which he seeks to identify the black sees himself as non-existent (98, 139),
with nothing to hold onto. Torn between two impossibles to be white and to be black the
first barred and second an impossi- bility in its own terms as there is no black being
blackness produces no ontological resistance (77, 78) turn white or disappear (71) sums up
the Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 07:39 31 July 2015 ontological void of the
black colonised subject. Made to want to be white, but incapable of this he is black; and his
blackness seen through his own white eyes reduces him to nothing. The colonial symbolic is
so constructed as to give the black subject nothing to hold onto no orthopaedic support for an
identity just a whiteness forever eluding him and a blackness that doesnt exist in any case.
Within the colonial matrix, this is the ontological vortex that is the elementary colonial identity
and lived experience of the colonised black subject; and all his compulsive (self-destructive)
pathologies, his specific repertoire of reactional conduct, have their source in this primary
ontological differential. So, fundamen- tally, colonialism is an ontological differential between
white and black subjects; and this orders each and every sphere or sector of colonial society
(including the economy).

While present racial movements have not been as successful as possible,

there is still the possibility for systematic change we must consider first
Michael Omi & Howard Winant 13, Both have a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California, Santa Cruz, Resistance is futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias, Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 2013 Vol. 36, No. 6, http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rers20
So we agree that the present prospects for racial justice are demoralizing at best. But we do not
think that is the whole story. US racial conditions have changed over the post-Second World
War period, in ways that Feagin and Elias tend to downplay or neglect. Some of the major
reforms of the 1960s have proved irreversible; they have set powerful democratic forces in
motion. These racial (trans)formations were the results of unprecedented political
mobilizations, led by the black movement, but not confined to blacks alone. Consider the
desegregation of the armed forces, as well as key civil rights movement victories of the 1960s:
the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Act (Hart- Celler), as well as
important court decisions like Loving v. Virginia that declared anti- miscegenation laws
unconstitutional. While we have the greatest respect for the late Derrick Bell, we do not believe
that his interest convergence hypothesis effectively explains all these developments. How does
Lyndon Johnsons famous (and possibly apocryphal) lament upon signing the Civil Rights Act
on 2 July 1964 We have lost the South for a generation count as convergence? The US
racial regime has been transformed in significant ways. As Antonio Gramsci argues, hegemony
proceeds through the incorpora- tion of opposition (Gramsci 1971, p. 182). The civil rights
reforms can be seen as a classic example of this process; here the US racial regime under
movement pressure was exercising its hegemony. But Gramsci insists that such reforms
which he calls passive revolutions cannot be merely symbolic if they are to be effective:
oppositions must win real gains in the process. Once again, we are in the realm of politics, not
absolute rule. So yes, we think there were important if partial victories that shifted the racial
state and transformed the significance of race in everyday life. And yes, we think that further
victories can take place both on the broad terrain of the state and on the more immediate level of
social interaction: in daily interaction, in the human psyche and across civil society. Indeed we
have argued that in many ways the most important accomplishment of the anti-racist movement
of the 1960s in the USA was the politicization of the social. In the USA and indeed around the
globe, race-based movements demanded not only the inclusion of racially defined others and
the democratization of structurally racist societies, but also the recognition and validation by

both the state and civil society of racially-defined experience and identity. These demands
broadened and deepened democracy itself. They facilitated not only the
democratic gains made in the USA by the black movement and its allies, but also
the political advances towards equality, social justice and inclusion accomplished by
other new social movements: second- wave feminism, gay liberation, and the environmentalist
and anti-war movements among others.

AT: Pan
The unstable nature of the IR sphere itself makes it so that new
competitors will always rise and fall but our method of pre-emption is key
to prevent conflicts
John J. Mearsheimer 14, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Can
China Rise Peacefully?, The national interest, 10/25/14,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204
After 1989, however, American policymakers hardly had to worry about fighting against rival
great powers, and thus the United States was free to wage wars against minor powers without
having to worry much about the actions of the other great powers. Indeed, it has fought six wars
since the Cold War ended: Iraq (1991), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001
present), Iraq again (200311), and Libya (2011). It has also been consumed with fighting
terrorists across the globe since September 11, 2001. Not surprisingly, there has been little
interest in great-power politics since the Soviet threat withered away. The rise of China appears
to be changing this situation, however, because this development has the potential to
fundamentally alter the architecture of the international system. If the Chinese economy
continues growing at a brisk clip in the next few decades, the United States will once again face a
potential peer competitor, and great-power politics will return in full force. It is still an open
question as to whether Chinas economy will continue its spectacular rise or even continue
growing at a more modest, but still impressive, rate. There are intelligent arguments on both
sides of this debate, and it is hard to know who is right. But if those who are bullish on China are
correct, it will almost certainly be the most important geopolitical development of the twentyfirst century, for China will be transformed into an enormously powerful country. The attendant
question that will concern every maker of foreign policy and student of international politics is a
simple but profound one: can China rise peacefully? The aim of this chapter is to answer that
question. To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory of international politics that explains
how rising great powers are likely to act and how the other states in the system will react to
them. We must rely on theory because many aspects of the future are unknown; we have few
facts about the future. Thomas Hobbes put the point well: The present only has a being in
nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all.
Thus, we must use theories to predict what is likely to transpire in world politics. Offensive
realism offers important insights into Chinas rise. My argument in a nutshell is that if China
continues to grow economically, it will attempt to dominate Asia the way the United States
dominates the Western Hemisphere. The United States, however, will go to enormous lengths to
prevent China from achieving regional hegemony. Most of Beijings neighbors, including India,
Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia, and Vietnam, will join with the United States to contain
Chinese power. The result will be an intense security competition with considerable potential for
war. In short, Chinas rise is unlikely to be tranquil. It is important to emphasize that my focus is
not on how China will behave in the immediate future, but instead on how it will act in the
longer term, when it will be far more powerful than it is today. The fact is that present-day China
does not possess significant military power; its military forces are inferior to those of the United
States. Beijing would be making a huge mistake to pick a fight with the U.S. military nowadays.
Contemporary China, in other words, is constrained by the global balance of power, which is
clearly stacked in Americas favor. Among other advantages, the United States has many
consequential allies around the world, while China has virtually none. But we are not concerned
with that situation here. Instead, the focus is on a future world in which the balance of power

has shifted sharply against the United States, where China controls much more relative power
than it does today, and where China is in roughly the same economic and military league as the
United States. In essence, we are talking about a world in which China is much less constrained
than it is today.
Realism makes rising powers and power conflict inevitable --- predictions
of conflict are key to prevention
John J. Mearsheimer 14, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Can
China Rise Peacefully?, The national interest, 10/25/14,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204
In its simplest form, my theory maintains that the basic structure of the international system
forces states concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate
goal of every great power is to maximize its share of world power and eventually dominate the
system. In practical terms, this means that the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony
in their region of the world while also ensuring that no rival great power dominates another
area. The theory begins with five assumptions about the world, which are all reasonable
approximations of reality. First of all, states are the key actors in international politics, and no
higher authority stands above them. There is no ultimate arbiter or leviathan in the system that
states can turn to if they get into trouble and need help. This is called an anarchic system, as
opposed to a hierarchic one. The next two assumptions deal with capabilities and intentions,
respectively. All states have offensive military capabilities, although some have more than
others, indeed sometimes many more than others. Capabilities are reasonably easy to measure
because they are largely composed of material objects that can be seen, assessed, and counted.
Intentions are a different matter. States can never be certain about the intentions of other states,
because intentions are inside the heads of leaders and thus virtually impossible to see and
difficult to measure. In particular, states can never know with complete confidence whether
another state might have its gun sights on them for one reason or another. The problem of
discerning states intentions is especially acute when one ponders their future intentions, since it
is almost impossible to know who the leaders of any country will be five or more years from now,
much less what they will think about foreign policy. The theory also assumes that states rank
survival as their most important goal. This is not to say it is their only goal, for states invariably
have numerous ambitions. However, when push comes to shove, survival trumps all other goals,
basically because if a state does not survive, it cannot pursue those other goals. Survival means
more than merely maintaining a states territorial integrity, although that goal is of fundamental
importance; it also means preserving the autonomy of a states policymaking process. Finally,
states are assumed to be rational actors, which is to say they are reasonably effective at
designing strategies that maximize their chances of survival. These assumptions, when
combined, cause states to behave in particular ways. Specifically, in a world where there is some
chanceeven just a small onethat other states might have malign intentions as well as
formidable offensive military capabilities, states tend to fear each other. That fear is
compounded by what I call the 9-1-1 problemthe fact that there is no night watchman in an
anarchic system whom states can call if trouble comes knocking at their door. Accordingly, they
recognize they must look out for their own survival, and the best way to do that is to be
especially powerful.

China is increasing its sphere of influence now in attempt to become the

new world hegemon --- recognition of impending power shift is a prerequisite
John J. Mearsheimer 14, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Can
China Rise Peacefully?, The national interest, 10/25/14,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204
If China continues its striking economic growth over the next few decades, it is likely to act in
accordance with the logic of offensive realism, which is to say it will attempt to imitate the
United States. Specifically, it will try to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the
Western Hemisphere. It will do so primarily because such domination offers the best way to
survive under international anarchy. In addition, China is involved in various territorial disputes
and the more powerful it is, the better able it will be to settle those disputes on terms favorable
to Beijing. Furthermore, like the United States, a powerful China is sure to have security
interests around the globe, which will prompt it to develop the capability to project military
power into regions far beyond Asia. The Persian Gulf will rank high on the new superpowers list
of strategically important areas, but so will the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, China will have a
vested interest in creating security problems for the United States in the Western Hemisphere,
so as to limit the American militarys freedom to roam into other regions, especially Asia. Let us
consider these matters in greater detail. Chinese Realpolitik If my theory is correct, China will
seek to maximize the power gap with its neighbors, especially larger countries like India, Japan,
and Russia. China will want to make sure it is so powerful that no state in Asia has the
wherewithal to threaten it. It is unlikely that China will pursue military superiority so that it can
go on a rampage and conquer other Asian countries. One major difference between China and
the United States is that America started out as a rather small and weak country located along
the Atlantic coastline that had to expand westward in order to become a large and powerful state
that could dominate the Western Hemisphere. For the United States, conquest and expansion
were necessary to establish regional hegemony. China, in contrast, is already a huge country and
does not need to conquer more territory to establish itself as a regional hegemon on a par with
the United States. Of course, it is always possible in particular circumstances that Chinese
leaders will conclude that it is imperative to attack another country to achieve regional
hegemony. It is more likely, however, that China will seek to grow its economy and become so
powerful that it can dictate the boundaries of acceptable behavior to neighboring countries, and
make it clear they will pay a substantial price if they do not follow the rules. After all, this is what
the United States has done in the Western Hemisphere. For example, in 1962, the Kennedy
administration let both Cuba and the Soviet Union know that it would not tolerate nuclear
weapons in Cuba. And in 1970, the Nixon administration told those same two countries that
building a Soviet naval facility at Cienfuegos was unacceptable. Furthermore, Washington has
intervened in the domestic politics of numerous Latin American countries either to prevent the
rise of leaders who were perceived to be anti-American or to overthrow them if they had gained
power. In short, the United States has wielded a heavy hand in the Western Hemisphere. A
much more powerful China can also be expected to try to push the United States out of the AsiaPacific region, much as the United States pushed the European great powers out of the Western
Hemisphere in the nineteenth century. We should expect China to devise its own version of the
Monroe Doctrine, as imperial Japan did in the 1930s. In fact, we are already seeing inklings of
that policy. For example, Chinese leaders have made it clear they do not think the United States
has a right to interfere in disputes over the maritime boundaries of the South China Sea, a
strategically important body of water that Beijing effectively claims as its own.

The rise of china already feared in the status quo meaning action
inevitable
John J. Mearsheimer 14, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Can
China Rise Peacefully?, The national interest, 10/25/14,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204
The historical record clearly demonstrates how American policymakers will react if China
attempts to dominate Asia. Since becoming a great power, the United States has never tolerated
peer competitors. As it demonstrated throughout the twentieth century, it is determined to
remain the worlds only regional hegemon. Therefore, the United States will go to great lengths
to contain China and do what it can to render it incapable of ruling the roost in Asia. In essence,
the United States is likely to behave toward China largely the way it behaved toward the Soviet
Union during the Cold War. Chinas neighbors are certain to fear its rise as well, and they, too,
will do whatever they can to prevent it from achieving regional hegemony. Indeed, there is
already substantial evidence that countries like India, Japan, and Russia, as well as smaller
powers like Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, are worried about Chinas ascendancy and
are looking for ways to contain it. In the end, they will join an American-led balancing coalition
to check Chinas rise, much the way Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and eventually
China, joined forces with the United States during the Cold War to contain the Soviet Union.
China is still far from the point where it has the military capability to make a run at regional
hegemony. This is not to deny there are good reasons to worry about potential conflicts breaking
out today over issues like Taiwan and the South China Sea; but that is a different matter. The
United States obviously has a deep-seated interest in making sure that China does not become a
regional hegemon. Of course, this leads to a critically important question: what is Americas best
strategy for preventing China from dominating Asia? The optimal strategy for dealing with a
rising China is containment. It calls for the United States to concentrate on keeping Beijing from
using its military forces to conquer territory and more generally expand its influence in Asia.
Toward that end, American policymakers would seek to form a balancing coalition with as many
of Chinas neighbors as possible. The ultimate aim would be to build an alliance structure along
the lines of NATO, which was a highly effective instrument for containing the Soviet Union
during the Cold War. The United States would also work to maintain its domination of the
worlds oceans, thus making it difficult for China to project power reliably into distant regions
like the Persian Gulf and, especially, the Western Hemisphere.