Leaky Designs & Superfluity

Part I.

Thinking about race with and through schizoanalysis, I am struck by the fact that race is not a fluent matter. Rather, race is a code, a way of channeling and filtering fluent matter(s). 

Schizoanalysis has taught me a great deal about flows and codes. First and foremost, it has taught me that codes are the filters and channels through which flows pass. Codes filter out determinate elements from the flows that pass through them, and they channel these determinate elements in different directions. Codes do not transcend the flows that they filter and channel but are immanent to the flows that they filter and channel: they are the intra-actions of flows, expositions of fluent matter(s) as opposed to impositions on fluent matter(s).

Going further, schizoanalysis has taught me that fluent matter(s) are indeterminate until they are coded. Coding, the filtering and channeling of flows, is the process of generating determinate elements from indeterminate matter(s). This is to say, in other words, that the determinate elements that are filtered and channeled from a given flow do not exist as determinate elements until after a given flow has been filtered and channeled. 

Thinking about race with and through schizoanalysis, I am struck by the fact that neither black individuals nor white individuals are determined as such prior to their racial coding, prior to the filtering and channeling of flows by race. Before the racial coding of flows there only exist fluent matter(s) of an indeterminate race or, in other words, racially determined individuals only ever come into being as the result of the racial coding of matters that are otherwise racially indeterminate. The existence of individuals of determinate races, e.g. white individuals and black individuals, is an effect of the racial coding of racially indeterminate matter(s) flowing into and over a social body. 

Going even further still, schizoanalysis has also taught me about stratification. It has taught me that the filtering and channeling of fluent matter(s) can lead to stratification but need not necessarily do so. To be brief, stratification only takes place when determinate elements are filtered out and channeled from an indeterminate flow in a way that minimizes or reduces their confluence and remixing. Which is to say, in other words, that stratification does not take place when the determinate elements that have been filtered out from a flow are promptly channeled back to a confluence where they are (re-)mixed together into an indeterminate flow. 

Thinking about race with and through schizoanalysis, I am struck by the fact that the racial stratification of black individuals and white individuals, which privileges the latter over the former, only exists (and persists) insofar as black individuals and white individuals are filtered out from racially indeterminate flows and channeled apart in ways that minimize or reduce their confluence and (re-)mixing. What’s more, thinking about race in its broader social context, I am struck by the fact that our societies are stratification by race is compounded with and through stratification by sex, by wealth, by education, by nationality, and many other codings. Alongside the codes that filter black from white and channel them apart, we must also deal with the codes that filter and channel apart men from women, rich from poor, educated from uneducated, First World nationals from Third World nationals, etc.

Artful reparations, as I imagine them, would deconstruct these many social strata in order to (re-)create confluences where men and women, black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, First World and Third World are (re-)mixed into indeterminately queer and créole flows. That being said however, artful reparations, as I imagine them, would not create a world in which all social distinctions have been eliminated. To the contrary, artful reparations are artful because they do not deconstruct all filters and channels that create social distinctions but, instead, select for deconstruction only those filters and channels that create and maintain social strata. All social stratifications are the products of pipelines—streamlined designs that filter and channel determinate elements apart from each other for extended periods of time—and artful reparations only deconstruct pipelines. 

The concept of a “pipeline” is my own: it is not a schizoanalytic concept, but it is informed by the schizoanalytic concepts of “territorialization” and “deterritorialization”. What schizoanalysis calls “territorialization” is the extension of the duration for which one determinate element is filtered and channeled apart from others. What schizoanalysis calls “deterritorialization” is the abbreviation of the duration for which one determinate element is filtered and channeled apart from other elements. Stratification occurs when the duration of a determinate element's separation from others is extended beyond a critical point so as to break the determinate element’s fluent connection to the indeterminate flow from which it was parted. Ay, and a pipeline is just that: a channel reserved for a determinate element that has been extended beyond a critical point, breaking a determinate element’s fluent connection to the indeterminate flow from which it was parted.

Let us take, for instance, the pipelines that convey the richest and most “educated” white men of the First World to lives of leisure and luxury and the pipelines that convey the poorest and least “educated” black women of the Third World to lives of service and squalor. These pipelines break the fluent connections between rich white men of the First World and poor black women of the Third World so that the two feel no empathy and responsibility for one another. Rich white men of the First World only “care” about poor black women of the Third World in order to signal their own virtues to other rich white men of the First World. The charitable and philanthropic efforts of rich white men of the First World do not repair broken connections between them and the poor black women of the Third World but, rather, cover up the fact that the connections are broken. Artful reparations, as opposed to charity and philanthropy, would deconstruct the pipelines that have broken the fluent connections between rich white men of the First World and poor black women of the Third World, and artful reparations would repair these broken connections so as to (re-)create mutual empathy and responsibility amongst rich white men of the First World and poor black women of the Third World.