cut and heal: cultural expressions

in thinking about Kara Walker, i could make many "entry points"--affective communities, sex objects, queer temporalities, black abberations, bodies in dissent, scenes of subjection, terrorist assemblages, homonationalisms....

i want to make a kind of Chaldean cultural entry point that has to do with collective linguistic practices and the practice of insincerity as a form of cruelty.

I have in mind what we call "Cut and then heal": in Aramaic = jarhet ew kum daramnet" (you cut and then you put medicine on the wound) or in Arabic -tjrah wit dowee (wound/cut and heal)

another one: T'ma kheit basameer (to throw spears or darts)

Both of these are metaphorically speaking. You could engage in this practice but most people talk about it as having been done TO THEM.

so far example, someone says something insulting about your brother or you, how you look fat or how you are not married or whatever they see as some visible vulnerability. Then after wounding you, they pretend like they were complimenting you and "Switch" the verbiage or even say the opposite as a way of healing the wound and deflecting from their rudeness. It is also a good diversionary tactic. IF you call someone on it, s/he (mostly shes) say they were joking, playing, or "I love you. What do you mean? I did not do that. I was complimenting you. You are just so American. you don't understand our culture."

OUR culture? who owns culture when you are born in the Diaspora? who has rights to cut and wound and heal those wounds?

I never like to participate in these games. They are sick, a sickness. My husband is really good at it and he has tried to teach me these techniques because in belonging to a large community, he wants me to survive these cuts and not keep them on my body. He and I each have like 60+ first cousins + endless second and third cousins. When I lived in Michigan, I saw people all the time: funerals, weddings, birthdays. I would say 1-2-3 events per week was normal. I would say at at least once a week, I found myself subjected to one of these slice/dice/recuperative games. I am not an exception. many/most women have these exchanges. usually older women subject younger women.

example: friend has three girls. Every Sunday in church the same lady (she is not a relative) comes up to her and says. "I am praying for when God blesses your house w/ a boy. I already have a gift for him. When will you have a boy? aren't you sad you have daughters?" This friend who get into such a rage and all through mass would have violent thoughts. The lady always undercuts her rudeness with "how beautiful your girls are. they look just like you" as my friend was about to bust out crying.

another friend: one boy, one girl
"I guess you are not much of a woman. you only had two kids. Your sister is a real woman, she has four."
my friend's response: Silence, dirty look, walk away

When people tell me how they feel sorry for me that I don't have kids and that they are praying for me, I say thanks. "Aren't you lucky, your husband doesn't leave you." Thank you. so nice of you to notice that my husband is very nice. "I feel sorry for him. It must be hard for him to carry that cross". We are good at carrying our cross. That is what God wants. Will you keep us in your prayers? ..... AND THEN I WALK AWAY.......

living in LA is like being away at a spa. no one in my department asked me if I have kids. Academics do not give a shit if you procreate. in fact, they are kind of hostile to "breeding". ASE as a dept is very kid friendly and lots of faculty and students have children. It is a space that is inclusive and sympathetic to those reproductive ruptures. It feels good to be here where it does not matter if i have kids but there is not that academic condescension towards those who decide to have families beyond couples. just because I love Edelman's critique of reproductive futurity does not mean I am anti-kid. I have 17 or maybe 18 nieces and nephews and am close to my brothers' kids (three each) and my sister's daughter who is my goddaugther. It 's fun being the cool aunt. I don't have to yell. I don't ignore them or huff in exasperation every two seconds or tell them to get the hell out of my face. If i had my own kids, i might have been that impatient kind of parent. hard to say.

thinking about community, engagement, belongings, and outsider status. how do they happen? how do we create the communities we want? I feel like it's about finding existing networks of folks and plugging into the ones that make political, personal, aesthetic sense.

off to campus to write more on kara walker. believe it or not, all this cutting and wounds IS TIED TO MY reading of Walker's discursive cuts, wounds, and who is left cut open....

nayj