Whiteness vs. Blackness — Analysis of Michel Foucault & Fred Moten

To what extent is the Panopticon a suitable analogy for power?

I must first make an assertion about two concepts which will be used throughout this blog — Power & power. For our purpose will be referred to as: Whiteness and Blackness. Let me begin by constructing the parameters for these concepts — they both hold "power" in different matters, modes, & can be reconciled differently. Thankfully, there are patrons who will guide us in our understanding of these conceptions as well as their relationship and exercise, namely Fred Moten & Michel Foucault. Fred Moten's The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study will serve for us as the guide through Blackness and Michel Foucault's Discipline & Punish will serve as the guide through Whiteness.

I must preface both concepts for my own reason and the pleasure of the reader. Blackness, Motenian power, is the spirit of ALL Black people — the life of ALL Black people, the re-categorization of power. Yes, this Blackness, birthed from Slavery, became the social death for Blacks. This is the key distinction in our analyzation of Power. To continue, Whiteness, the Foucauldian Power, is the spirit of all Whites — privilege & fantasy. Now, we must understand Whites have not suffered this death but instead been the operators of atrocities. I must note, Whiteness is a conception of Moten and will be used wisely. Now that we are organized, I will argue that together Moten and Foucault reveal variances in the concept of Power & its operationality in society which is found in analyzation of modern institutions, disciplines and human relations — which creates separate realities of existence for Individuals which gridlocks Politics.

Note: Power is whiteness, power is blackness — the capitalization of P is to resemble the power ascribed to each.

Foucault and the Infancy of Punishment

Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish is a clear analyzation of Power and its own evolution from a tribal sense to a sophisticated creature in modern life. His analysis, though thorough, is fallacious — his operative is in a tone of Whiteness, a single oriented view of Power or rather the ability to have Power. Let me begin by introducing the infancy of Punishment as an instrument of Power:

"Laws that define the crime and lay down the penalties must be clear, so that each member of society may distinguish criminal actions from virtuous action."

Here, Foucault offers the root of Punishment, the best medicine for an ill soul. For Foucault, Punishment will always have the ability to be correct & be corrective by setting precedent for the actions of members of society. Though accurate in his initial analyzation he forgets to mention the manipulability & inaccuracy of such tool for Power such as the Law. His notion of the "hands of the king" as the vector of Power creates unease — reason can be seen throughout History, where Power is used maliciously.

May I color an example? During the Reagan Administration in California, there was an Open-Carry law which permitted for all individuals to carry Arms. Justly, a colored-group exercised their liberty & found their exercise — shutdown. Reason? Reversal of a Law because of Fear from the group in Power — Whites. Their reaction to this exercise served as a distinguishment of action: Law(s) only serve those with Power. And this created a necessary evolution for Power to conceal itself so it could continuously serve the "virtuous" & penalize the "criminal". This punishment, as seen, is simply reactionary to the demands of the "virtuous", as it champions such behaviour. Power as an organism is innate with humans and thus seeks to control.

The Panopticon and Whiteness

This simple deconstruction adds speculation and reason as to the shift for Power & Punishment. For Foucault, this is where "the gaze became alert everywhere", where the domain of Power expanded into its true ecosystem — Society. From the Laws & Prisons to every facet of life, Power has become ubiquitous and Foucault alludes to this:

"There is no risk, therefore, that the increase of power created by the panoptic machine may degenerate into tyranny; the disciplinary mechanism will be democratically controlled, since it will be constantly accessible to the great tribunal committee of the world... it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole."

This shift to Panoptic Power is the justification and the solidification of White Dominance in the Western world. In American History, the realm of Power and its different levels is attributed to color of Skin — the darker you get, the less you have. Thus this "democratically controlled" mechanism can only be thought of through the realm of Social Classes and in our reality, the White Person rules.

The Panopticon is the embodiment of Ubiquity and thus serves my analogy of the United States. The Founders of this nation rooted Power into the seed of the State as the ultimate Sovereign. This Power vested in their commitment to creating a Democratic society. Unknowingly they released Whiteness into the roots of societies and with Time it was able to continuously mature to a Tyrannical ideology — White Power. Now here, we can understand Power (capital P) is to be synonymous with Whiteness, as it is the Ubiquity that Foucault points out.

When faced with this evolution, Foucault creates the solution for Power:

"How will power, by increasing its forces, be able to increase those in society instead of confiscating or impeding them? The solution is that the productive increase can be assured only if, on the one hand, it can be exercised in the foundations of society & if it functions outside the sudden, violent forms of sovereignty."

The very foundation of the United States was to "function outside the violent forms of sovereignty" & against the "exercise of the sword" and the solution? Democracy, Modernity, Liberalism. The principles of the United States which are rooted in the Constitution of the State and guide action internally. A political structure such as democracy can be dissected to be transparent & true but instead acts in accordance as the Panopticon — transparent, easily accessible, & knowledgeable.

Police Power

As Foucault has mentioned, laws benefit the virtuous actions of Society:

"The coextensive apparatus of Police power must bear 'over everything'... in order for this power to be exercised it had to be given the instrument of permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent surveillance... the police added this disciplinary function to the auxiliary of justice in its pursuit of criminals and as an instrument for political supervision of plots, movements or revolts."

Here is a main function of Power at work in the United States. The police are the epitome of Power in American Society, as they are seen as an extension of the law which is set to distinguish "violent action from virtuous action". As their power is also ubiquitous — every town and city has an extension of this power. But interesting that Foucault says "disciplinary function to the auxiliary of Justice" — a disciplinary Mechanism which is ubiquitous is the definition of the Panoptic Power and Whiteness.

The Black Panthers acted legally on a Law but had their action — their "just action" — overturned. So restriction of liberty is Justice? The United States has gone through a stage of rampant Police Violence — innocent murders and exploitation of Liberties to name a few perversions. This Police Violence has been mostly perpetrated on People of Color by White Officers, extensions of the Panoptic mode of Power.

Whites never suffered this — they had never been put in a position of a minority in the United States but yet Blacks did. Their arrival on this land was met with a death — a subjection, a loss of personal freedoms, & humanity. These losses gave the Foundation of such country the ability to dissociate these Individuals from society and deem them unequal targets who embody criminality for the "violence of Power & Discipline". The police as a tool of the Panopticon is meant to continually feed the "political supervision" and as stated the politics of the United States is a democracy. This violence is meant to keep the Founding spirit alive.

Foucault says these techniques are to "adjust the multiplicity of men", keeping them in Power:

"That is why discipline fixes; it arrests or regulates movements; it clears up confusion; it dissipates compact groupings of individuals wandering about in unpredictable ways."

Those individuals, those groups — People of Color. The discipline of Power urges to weed away those who do not fit. By encompassing all embodiments, previous evolutions of Power such as Police Violence, Punishment & Discipline — the ruling class is able to control, arrest and regulate the operation of Individuals. In the United States, 56% of the incarcerated are People of Color — this is a clear indicator of Panoptic power at work. A spirit that is all knowing, everywhere and able to dictate who is able to Operate, Live and prosper in the realms of Normal Society.

Fred Moten and the Undercommons

Fred Moten offers us a completely different view for Individuals and for power in society but especially American Society. His dissection of the "undercommons" is the world in which we will dwell into to understand power & colored existence. Moten would have labeled Foucauldian power not only as Whiteness but also as the "Commons" which serve as the "Normal" or Normalization of Society — where life is seen to be perfect, where social life is actualized, a luxury that is only operational by Whites.

Because of the Foucauldian Power, which means to dissipate any "wandering individual", this has forced blacks into "enclosure... where they are always at war, always in hiding". Now here we can better understand the Motenian power of Blackness which lives in the realm known as the Undercommons:

"We are the general antagonism to politics, we are disruption and consent to disruption. We preserve upheaval! Sent to fulfill by abolishing, to renew by unsettling, to open the enclosure whose immeasurable finality is inversely proportional to its actual area, we got politics surrounded. We cannot represent ourselves. We can't be represented."

Revolution! This is power for blackness, the ability to preserve the previous done perversion. Through the mutual debt of Slavery which all Blacks encompass, the responsibility of the undercommons is to "falsify the institution" of Power.

Moten transitions to say: "The only possible relationship to the university today is a Criminal One." The Panoptic Mode of Power is obsessed with the notion of the Criminal. The University is a Social Institution whose purpose is to manipulate and correct an Individual. Furthermore, the University is an institution of knowledge and Power such as the Panopticon is vested on Knowledge much like the Democratic politics of the United States.

The Undercommons are "the questioning of knowledge which always ends in restoration", a place where knowledge is manipulated to advance & create a harmonious environment. As Moten says about the University, "it is a place of refuge and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment". The University is an Institution where Blacks & Blackness can prevail and Study and Plan.

Study and Hapticality

To Study other people, to understand the operators of this Power and create a term of Social credit. For Moten, this Study is very important:

"They study without an end, plan without a pause, rebel without a policy, conserve without a patrimony. They study in the university and the university forces them under, relegates them to the study of those without interests, without credit... They never graduate. They just ain't ready. They're building something there, down there... Mutual Debt."

This study is done in the escape of the criminalization of Violence set forth by the Panoptic Power. The power here is the ability to revolt without interference from the Police Power. They can revolt through thought — thought of the debt owed through the social death. Here in the undercommons, they can counter the experience of the Black Panthers. They can create not policy, but rather an idea, a "study without an end", that could possibly manifest itself in the realm of Commonality.

Moten alludes to the answer to the study for Blacks:

"Hapticality, the touch of the undercommons, the interiority of sentiment, the feel of what is to come is here. Hapticality, the capacity to feel though others, for others to feel through you, for you to feel the feeling — this feeling of the shipped is not regulated, at least not successfully."

The answer of the Revolution and the arm of power for Blacks. The essence of Blackness is the ability to be human and not necessarily a proponent or body of Power. By escaping the gaze of Commonality, Blacks were able to perpetuate a thought and create an embracive community known as the Undercommons. This gaze along with the social debt allowed for no-representation that ultimately created its own Sovereignty — Love.

Even within the world of Power, there is a community of Individuals that exists in a different life. Constantly being criminalized, victimized, and ostracized — and thus placed in a realm of Revolt and enclosure. But within this Realm, they were able to undermine the component of Knowledge and perverse Power to advance their Agenda of receiving credit.

The Politics of Love

For Moten:

"What's left is politics but even the politics of the commons... can only be a politics of ends... there must be a regulatory end of the common."

The continuity of the commons — the Power of Whiteness — is ultimately leading to an end. In 2019, the United States was in the midst of a Civil War — with race relations high and Power exceeding its justification, it is evident that the essence of the Founders is having a detrimental effect on American Society. If Police Violence is to be continued, this politics of Power, then there will be an imbalance and revolt will prevail. For the more violence and force that is perpetuated by Whiteness, the greater the ability that Blackness has to study and revolt.

But what would you say if I offered a solution? A politic of Love.

The study of the Undercommons, the revolt to Power, underlies and finds progress in Politics. As Fred Moten says:

"The Undercommons is a box, and if you open it you can enter into our world."

The rule of the Common must end, and those perpetrators of Power must open the box to the Undercommons and release Love. This is the only answer to the gridlocking of Politics in the United States. By having a separation of Factions based on Skin Color is only creating an imbalance in Power but also in Social progress. The State must encompass empathy into its own study of its citizens to even consider Politics.