Black existentialism
Encyclopedia
Black existentialism or Africana critical theory is a school of thought that "critiques domination and affirms the empowerment of Black people in the world". Although it shares a word with existentialism
and that philosophy's concerns with existence and meaning in life, it "is predicated on the liberation of all Black people in the world from oppression". It may also be seen as method, which allows one to read works by African-American writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois
, James Baldwin
, and Ralph Ellison
in an existentialist
frame. Lewis Gordon
argues that black existentialism is not only existential philosophy produced by black philosophers but is also thought that addresses the intersection of problems of existence in black contexts.
and black philosophical thought. Africana philosophy is a form of philosophy emerging out of the critical thought of the African diaspora
. Black philosophical thought pertains to the ideas emerging from black-designated peoples. Such people include, for example, Australian Aboriginal people
, who often refer to themselves as "black." There is thus also work in black existential philosophy from Australia
, such as those organized through forums and articles by Danielle Davis in the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology
in Brisbane
, Australia.
The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University
earned his degree in sociology
, however the work of W. E. B. Du Bois have been honored in the canon of African American philosophy. W. E. B. Du Bois' notion of double consciousness
has been revisited by many scholars as a notion doused in existentialism
. Du Bois addressed several problems germane to black existential philosophy. He raised the question of black suffering as a philosophical problem. Was there meaning behind such suffering? He also observed that black people were often studied and addressed in public discussions as problems of the modern world instead of as people facing problems raised by modern life. Black people, he argued, often faced double standards in their efforts to achieve equality in the wake of enslavement, colonialism
, and racial apartheid. This double standard led, he argued, to "twoness" and "double consciousness
." The twoness was the experience of being "black" and "American," where the two were treated as contradictory. Double consciousness followed in two forms. The first was of the experience of being seen from the perspective of white supremacy
and anti-black racism
. It was from the perspective of seeing themselves as lowly and inferior. The second, however, as Paget Henry argues, involves seeing the contradictions of a system that in effect blames the victim
. That form of double consciousness involves seeing the injustice
of a social system that limits possibilities for some groups and creates advantages for others while expecting both to perform equally. That black people were imprisoned for challenging the injustices of a social system born on the memorable phrase, "All men are created equal...," is a case in point, and the subsequent criticism of whether "men" meant "women too" pushes this point further, as Frederick Douglass
, Anna Julia Cooper, and other earlier 19th century black critical thinkers contended. Du Bois also theorized the importance of black music
, especially the spirituals, and through them raised the question of the inner-life of black people, which he referred to as their "soul
," which in his discussion of double consciousness became "souls" (see, e.g., the work of Terence Johnson, for example, Terence Johnson, “‘My Soul Wants Something New’: Reclaiming the Souls Behind the Veil of Blackness,” in The Souls of W.E.B. Du Bois: New Essays and Reflections, eds. Jason R. Young and Edward J. Blum [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009], pp. 110–133). And Du Bois also raised the problem of history in the study of black existence. He noticed that double standards affected how history is told, and that the misrepresentation of history as an apology for white supremacy and colonialism led to the degradation of black people as passive objects of history instead of makers of history. This occlusion depended on denying the struggles for freedom
waged by black people in the effort to expand the reach of freedom in the modern world.
A danger of black suffering is that it could lead to a sense of pointlessness of black existence and a lack of self worth. Cornel West
has addressed the problem of Black Nihilism
and its effect on the African-American community.
Black suffering is also examined by the Martinican
philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon
(1925–1961). In his book Black Skin, White Masks
(Grove Press, 1967; original French 1952), he argued that the modern world afforded no model of a normal black adult. Instead, there are the pathologies of the black soul, which he calls a white construction. This problem placed black people in an alienated
relationship with language, love, and even their inner dream life. Although he was careful to claim that there are exceptions to these claims, the general situation is as follows. Blacks who master the dominant language are treated either as not really black or receive much suspicion. Worse, they find themselves seeking white recognition, which affirms the role of whites as the standard by which they are judged. The matter repeats itself with love
. Black women and black men seeking white recognition do so, he argued, through asking for recognition from white male symbols of authority. That effort is self-deceiving. It makes such black women ask to be loved as white instead of as women, and it makes such black males fail to be men. Fanon also brings out the philosophical problem of reason
and its relation to emotions by considering whether a flight into Negritude, the intellectual movement coined by Aime Cesaire, could enable blacks to love themselves by rejecting white reason. But Jean-Paul Sartre
's criticism in "Black Orpheus
" led Fanon into "changing his tune" by realizing that such a path was still relative to a white one and faced being overcome in expectations of a "universal" humanity, which for Sartre was a revolutionary working class
. Fanon's response was that he needed not to know that, and later on in A Dying Colonialism
(Grove Press, 1967; original French 1959), he pointed out that although whites created the Negro, it was the Negro who created Negritude. His point was that it was still an act of agency, and that theme of being what he called "actional" continued in his writings. At the end of Black Skin, White Masks, he asked his body to make of him a man who questions. Fanon's point was that racism and colonialism attempted to over-determine black existence, but as a question, black existence faced possibility and could thus reach beyond what is imposed upon it. In The Wretched of the Earth
(Grove Press, 1963; original French 1961), he returned to this question at the historical level by demanding the transformation of material circumstances and the development of new symbols with which to set afoot a new humanity.
Black existential philosophical thought was also influential in the South Africa
n anti-apartheid
movement through the thought of Steve Bantu Biko
. In I Write What I Like
, Biko continues Fanon's project of thinking through alternative conceptions of humanity
and offers his theory of Black Consciousness. Black consciousness applies to anyone who is involved in anti-racist
struggle and is marked as the enemy of an anti-black, racist state. Thus for Biko, all people of color—indigenous Africans, Asians, mixed peoples, and whites who are "blackened" by their allegiance to anti-racism—are black. Biko presents here a political view of identity that resists a prior essence of black identity. One becomes black, reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir
's observation that one becomes a woman. South African philosophers influenced by Biko's existentialism include Noël Chabani Manganyi. The influence of Biko's thought is also discussed in Andile, Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel Gibson
(eds), Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Black existential philosophy came to the academy in the 1970s in the work of William R. Jones, who argued for a humanistic response to black suffering through facing the absurd as found in the thought of Albert Camus
and dealing with the contradictions of theological beliefs pointed out by Jean-Paul Sartre. Jones drew upon existential philosophy to reject non-verifiable claims posed by black theology
, where history is presented as God
trying to liberate black people. Historical evidence, Jones suggests, says otherwise. Instead of relying on God, black people should take their lives and history into their own hands and build a better future for human kind. This is not to say that Jones took the position that blacks who believe in God should not love God. His point is that they should not rely on God for the elimination of injustice on earth.
A philosopher heavily influenced by Du Bois, Fanon, and Jones is Lewis Gordon
, who argues that black existential philosophy "is marked by a centering of what is often known as the 'situation' of questioning or inquiry itself. Another term for situation is he lived- or meaning-context of concern. Implicit in the existential demand for recognizing the situation or lived-context of Africana people's being-in-the-world is the question of value raised by people who live that situation. A slave's situation can only be understood, for instance, through recognizing the fact that a slave experiences it. It is to regard the slave as a value-laden perspective in the world" (Existence in Black [Routledge, 1997], pp. 3–4). Gordon later argues in Existentia Africana that such a concern leads to a focus in black existential philosophy on problems of philosophical anthropology
, liberation
, and critical reflection on the justification of thought itself. The first asks the question, What is a human being? The second asks how can one become free. And the third is critical even of the methods used to justify the first two. Gordon argues that these questions make sense because enslaved, colonized, and dehumanized
people are forced to question their humanity. That leads to questioning the meaning of being human. He argues that concerns with liberation make sense for people who have been enslaved, colonized, and racially oppressed. Because these questions are posed as objects of inquiry and demand the transformation of consciousness such as the transition from Du Bois's first form of double consciousness to the second, critical one, Gordon advocates a black existential phenomenological approach, which he sometimes call a postcolonial phenomenology
or a decolonial one.
A philosopher influenced by Gordon is Nelson Maldonado-Torres, whose Against War (Duke UP, 2008) offers a "decolonial reduction" of the forms of knowledge used to rationalize slavery, colonialism, and racism. Drawing upon ideas from Aime Cesaire, the Lithuanian Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas
, Frantz Fanon, and the Argentinian philosopher Enrique Dussel
, Maldonado-Torres calls the practices of dehumanization in the modern world "Hitlerism" and advocates the "decolonial sciences" (race and ethnic studies, Africana studies, women's studies) as critical forms of knowledge to articulate the humanistic project demanded by Fanon.
There is also the growing area of black
feminist existential philosophy. Foundations of this area of thought are in the 19th century and early 20th century thought of Anna Julia Cooper, who explored problems of human worth through challenging the double standards imposed upon black populations in general and black women in particular. She argued, in response to the racist claims of black worthlessness (that the world would be better off without black people), that the measure of worth should be based on the difference between contribution and investment. Since very little was actually invested in black people but so much was produced by them, she argued that black worth exceeds that of many whites. She used the same argument to defend the worth of black women. More recently in the academy, black feminist existential philosophy is taken up by Kathryn Gines, founder of the Collegium of Black Feminist Philosophers. Gines's work brings together ideas from Cooper, Sartre, Fanon, Hannah Arendt
, bell hooks
, and recent work in Africana phenomenology and black popular culture
in such articles as: "Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary Hip-Hop" in Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason—A Series in Pop Culture and Philosophy, eds. Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby
(Chicago: Open Court, 2005) and "The Black Atlantic, Afrocentricity, and Existential Phenomenology: Theoretical Tools for Black European Studies," Black European Studies, on line at Synlabor.de.
's Invisible Man
presents examples of absurdism
, anxiety and alienation
. The novel also addresses alienation and invisibility through its portrait of a nameless protagonist. This namelessness points to the trauma of black people receiving names that were forced on them from the violence of slavery. That re-naming was meant to inaugurate a loss of memory, and that process of dismemberment is explored in the novel as the protagonist moves from one abusive father figure
to another—white and black—to a culminating reflection on living as an invisible leech off of the system that produces light. In Ellison's novel, the only black characters who seemed somewhat free were those designated insane, as in the famous scene at the Golden Day bar where a group from an insane asylum became the critical voice early in the novel.
The African-American writer who was the closest to the Sartrean existentialist movement was Richard Wright
, although Wright saw himself as working through the thought of Søren Kierkegaard
with a focus on themes of dread and despair, especially in his novel The Outsider
. Dismayed with his experience of American racism in the south, Wright sought refuge in a Paris
ian life. In France
, he was heavily influenced by Les Temps modernes
members Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty. The existential novels that he wrote after leaving the United States, such as The Outsider, never received the high critical acclaim of Native Son
. In his famous introduction to Native Son, Wright made concrete some of the themes raised by Du Bois. He pointed to the injustice of a system in which police officers randomly arrested
young black men for crimes they did not commit and prosecutors who were able to secure convictions in such cases. He also argued that Bigger Thomas, the anti-hero
of the novel, was produced by such a system and is often envied by many as a form of resistance to it. Wright's insight portended the emergence, for example, of the contemporary black "gangsta," as portrayed in gangsta rap
.
In retrospect, James Baldwin
has been considered by others as a Black existentialist writer; however he was quite critical of Richard Wright and suspicious of his relationship with French intellectuals.
Baldwin also brought questions of interracial and bisexual relationships
into consideration and looked at the question of suffering as a struggle to defend the possibility of genuine human relationships in his novel Another Country
.
The writings of Toni Morrison
are also contributions to black existentialism. Her novel The Bluest Eye
examines how "ugliness" and "beauty" dominate black women's lives as imitations of white women as the standard of beauty. Her famous novel Beloved
raises the question of the trauma
that haunts black existence from slavery. (See, for example, the discussion of that novel in Marilyn Nissim-Sabat, Neither Victim Nor Survivor [Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009], chapter 8.)
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
and that philosophy's concerns with existence and meaning in life, it "is predicated on the liberation of all Black people in the world from oppression". It may also be seen as method, which allows one to read works by African-American writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois attended Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate...
, James Baldwin
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist and civil rights activist.James Baldwin may also refer to:-Writers:*James Baldwin , American educator, writer and administrator...
, and Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
in an existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
frame. Lewis Gordon
Lewis Gordon
Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, philosophy of human and life sciences, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics,...
argues that black existentialism is not only existential philosophy produced by black philosophers but is also thought that addresses the intersection of problems of existence in black contexts.
Black existential philosophy
Black existential philosophy is a species of Africana philosophyAfricana philosophy
Africana philosophy is an emerging term in the field of philosophy representing the works of professional philosophers who are of African descent as well as others whose works deal with the subject matter of the African diaspora.-What is Africana philosophy?:...
and black philosophical thought. Africana philosophy is a form of philosophy emerging out of the critical thought of the African diaspora
African diaspora
The African diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world—predominantly to the Americas also to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe...
. Black philosophical thought pertains to the ideas emerging from black-designated peoples. Such people include, for example, Australian Aboriginal people
Australian Aborigines
Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...
, who often refer to themselves as "black." There is thus also work in black existential philosophy from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, such as those organized through forums and articles by Danielle Davis in the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology is an Australian university with an applied emphasis in courses and research. Based in Brisbane, it has 40,000 students, including 6,000 international students, over 4,000 staff members, and an annual budget of more than A$750 million.QUT is marketed as "A...
in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Australia.
The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
earned his degree in sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, however the work of W. E. B. Du Bois have been honored in the canon of African American philosophy. W. E. B. Du Bois' notion of double consciousness
Double consciousness
Double consciousness, in its contemporary sense, is a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois. The term is used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets...
has been revisited by many scholars as a notion doused in existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
. Du Bois addressed several problems germane to black existential philosophy. He raised the question of black suffering as a philosophical problem. Was there meaning behind such suffering? He also observed that black people were often studied and addressed in public discussions as problems of the modern world instead of as people facing problems raised by modern life. Black people, he argued, often faced double standards in their efforts to achieve equality in the wake of enslavement, colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, and racial apartheid. This double standard led, he argued, to "twoness" and "double consciousness
Double consciousness
Double consciousness, in its contemporary sense, is a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois. The term is used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets...
." The twoness was the experience of being "black" and "American," where the two were treated as contradictory. Double consciousness followed in two forms. The first was of the experience of being seen from the perspective of white supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
and anti-black racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. It was from the perspective of seeing themselves as lowly and inferior. The second, however, as Paget Henry argues, involves seeing the contradictions of a system that in effect blames the victim
Victim blaming
Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment are held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against them. Blaming the victim has traditionally emerged especially in racist and sexist forms...
. That form of double consciousness involves seeing the injustice
Injustice
Injustice is the lack of or opposition to justice, either in reference to a particular event or act, or as a larger status quo. The term generally refers to misuse, abuse, neglect, or malfeasance that is uncorrected or else sanctioned by a legal system. Misuse and abuse with regard to a particular...
of a social system that limits possibilities for some groups and creates advantages for others while expecting both to perform equally. That black people were imprisoned for challenging the injustices of a social system born on the memorable phrase, "All men are created equal...," is a case in point, and the subsequent criticism of whether "men" meant "women too" pushes this point further, as Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
, Anna Julia Cooper, and other earlier 19th century black critical thinkers contended. Du Bois also theorized the importance of black music
Black music
Black music is a term encompassing music produced or inspired by black people. In the 20th century, this term has come to usually refer to the many music genres of African American music, especially in the United States and Brazil.-See also:* African music...
, especially the spirituals, and through them raised the question of the inner-life of black people, which he referred to as their "soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
," which in his discussion of double consciousness became "souls" (see, e.g., the work of Terence Johnson, for example, Terence Johnson, “‘My Soul Wants Something New’: Reclaiming the Souls Behind the Veil of Blackness,” in The Souls of W.E.B. Du Bois: New Essays and Reflections, eds. Jason R. Young and Edward J. Blum [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009], pp. 110–133). And Du Bois also raised the problem of history in the study of black existence. He noticed that double standards affected how history is told, and that the misrepresentation of history as an apology for white supremacy and colonialism led to the degradation of black people as passive objects of history instead of makers of history. This occlusion depended on denying the struggles for freedom
Freedom
-Philosophy:* Free will, the ability to make choices* Political freedom, in the context of the relationship of the individual to the state* Economic freedom-Computing:...
waged by black people in the effort to expand the reach of freedom in the modern world.
A danger of black suffering is that it could lead to a sense of pointlessness of black existence and a lack of self worth. Cornel West
Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America....
has addressed the problem of Black Nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
and its effect on the African-American community.
The proper starting point for the crucial debate about the prospects for black America is an examination of the nihilism that increasingly pervades black communities. Nihilism is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine that there are no rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority; it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness. The frightening result is a numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition toward the world. Life without meaning, hope, and love breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others.
Black suffering is also examined by the Martinican
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
(1925–1961). In his book Black Skin, White Masks
Black Skin, White Masks
Black Skin, White Masks is a 1952 book written by Frantz Fanon originally published in French as Peau noire, masques blancs.In this study, Fanon uses psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical theory to explain the feelings of dependency and inadequacy that Black people experience in a White world...
(Grove Press, 1967; original French 1952), he argued that the modern world afforded no model of a normal black adult. Instead, there are the pathologies of the black soul, which he calls a white construction. This problem placed black people in an alienated
Alienation
Alienation may refer to:*Alienation , the legal transfer of title of ownership to another party*"Alienation", the medical term for splitting apart of the faculties of the mind...
relationship with language, love, and even their inner dream life. Although he was careful to claim that there are exceptions to these claims, the general situation is as follows. Blacks who master the dominant language are treated either as not really black or receive much suspicion. Worse, they find themselves seeking white recognition, which affirms the role of whites as the standard by which they are judged. The matter repeats itself with love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
. Black women and black men seeking white recognition do so, he argued, through asking for recognition from white male symbols of authority. That effort is self-deceiving. It makes such black women ask to be loved as white instead of as women, and it makes such black males fail to be men. Fanon also brings out the philosophical problem of reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
and its relation to emotions by considering whether a flight into Negritude, the intellectual movement coined by Aime Cesaire, could enable blacks to love themselves by rejecting white reason. But Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's criticism in "Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during the Carnaval...
" led Fanon into "changing his tune" by realizing that such a path was still relative to a white one and faced being overcome in expectations of a "universal" humanity, which for Sartre was a revolutionary working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. Fanon's response was that he needed not to know that, and later on in A Dying Colonialism
A Dying Colonialism
A Dying Colonialism, published in 1959, is an account of the Algerian War written by Frantz Fanon. The book details cultural and political changes that emerge due to the rejection of Algerian colonial oppression by the French....
(Grove Press, 1967; original French 1959), he pointed out that although whites created the Negro, it was the Negro who created Negritude. His point was that it was still an act of agency, and that theme of being what he called "actional" continued in his writings. At the end of Black Skin, White Masks, he asked his body to make of him a man who questions. Fanon's point was that racism and colonialism attempted to over-determine black existence, but as a question, black existence faced possibility and could thus reach beyond what is imposed upon it. In The Wretched of the Earth
The Wretched of the Earth
The Wretched of the Earth is Frantz Fanon's most famous work, written during and regarding the Algerian struggle for independence from colonial rule...
(Grove Press, 1963; original French 1961), he returned to this question at the historical level by demanding the transformation of material circumstances and the development of new symbols with which to set afoot a new humanity.
Black existential philosophical thought was also influential in the South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n anti-apartheid
Anti-apartheid
Anti-apartheid may refer to any opposition to the former South African apartheid policy. More specifically, it may refer to:* Anti-Apartheid Movement, British organisation* The internal resistance to South African apartheid within South Africa...
movement through the thought of Steve Bantu Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
. In I Write What I Like
I Write What I Like
I Write What I Like is a compilation of writings from anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko....
, Biko continues Fanon's project of thinking through alternative conceptions of humanity
Humanity
Humanity may refer to:* The human species**The total world population* Human nature, psychological characteristics that all normal humans have in common**Compassion**Empathy**Altruism**Aggression**Fear...
and offers his theory of Black Consciousness. Black consciousness applies to anyone who is involved in anti-racist
Anti-racism
Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined...
struggle and is marked as the enemy of an anti-black, racist state. Thus for Biko, all people of color—indigenous Africans, Asians, mixed peoples, and whites who are "blackened" by their allegiance to anti-racism—are black. Biko presents here a political view of identity that resists a prior essence of black identity. One becomes black, reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
's observation that one becomes a woman. South African philosophers influenced by Biko's existentialism include Noël Chabani Manganyi. The influence of Biko's thought is also discussed in Andile, Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel Gibson
Nigel Gibson
Nigel Gibson is an activist, a scholar specializing in philosophy and a noted author. He was born in London and was an active militant in the 1984 -1985 Miners' Strike. While in London he also met South African exiles from the Black Consciousness Movement and, in conversation with the exiles,...
(eds), Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Black existential philosophy came to the academy in the 1970s in the work of William R. Jones, who argued for a humanistic response to black suffering through facing the absurd as found in the thought of Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
and dealing with the contradictions of theological beliefs pointed out by Jean-Paul Sartre. Jones drew upon existential philosophy to reject non-verifiable claims posed by black theology
Black theology
Black theology refers to a variety of Black theologies which have as their base the liberation of the marginalized, especially the injustice done towards Blacks in American and South African contexts...
, where history is presented as God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
trying to liberate black people. Historical evidence, Jones suggests, says otherwise. Instead of relying on God, black people should take their lives and history into their own hands and build a better future for human kind. This is not to say that Jones took the position that blacks who believe in God should not love God. His point is that they should not rely on God for the elimination of injustice on earth.
A philosopher heavily influenced by Du Bois, Fanon, and Jones is Lewis Gordon
Lewis Gordon
Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, philosophy of human and life sciences, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics,...
, who argues that black existential philosophy "is marked by a centering of what is often known as the 'situation' of questioning or inquiry itself. Another term for situation is he lived- or meaning-context of concern. Implicit in the existential demand for recognizing the situation or lived-context of Africana people's being-in-the-world is the question of value raised by people who live that situation. A slave's situation can only be understood, for instance, through recognizing the fact that a slave experiences it. It is to regard the slave as a value-laden perspective in the world" (Existence in Black [Routledge, 1997], pp. 3–4). Gordon later argues in Existentia Africana that such a concern leads to a focus in black existential philosophy on problems of philosophical anthropology
Philosophical anthropology
Philosophical anthropology is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person, and interpersonal relationships. It is the attempt to unify disparate ways of understanding behaviour of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of...
, liberation
Liberation
-Publications:* Libération, French newspaper* Libération , a Moroccan newspaper* Liberation , monthly pacifist magazine founded, published, and edited by A.J...
, and critical reflection on the justification of thought itself. The first asks the question, What is a human being? The second asks how can one become free. And the third is critical even of the methods used to justify the first two. Gordon argues that these questions make sense because enslaved, colonized, and dehumanized
Dehumanization
Dehumanization is to make somebody less human by taking away his or her individuality, the creative and interesting aspects of his or her personality, or his or her compassion and sensitivity towards others. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization or may be the composite of individual...
people are forced to question their humanity. That leads to questioning the meaning of being human. He argues that concerns with liberation make sense for people who have been enslaved, colonized, and racially oppressed. Because these questions are posed as objects of inquiry and demand the transformation of consciousness such as the transition from Du Bois's first form of double consciousness to the second, critical one, Gordon advocates a black existential phenomenological approach, which he sometimes call a postcolonial phenomenology
Phenomenology
Phenomenology is a broad philosophical movement emphasizing the study of conscious experience...
or a decolonial one.
A philosopher influenced by Gordon is Nelson Maldonado-Torres, whose Against War (Duke UP, 2008) offers a "decolonial reduction" of the forms of knowledge used to rationalize slavery, colonialism, and racism. Drawing upon ideas from Aime Cesaire, the Lithuanian Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Lévinas
Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...
, Frantz Fanon, and the Argentinian philosopher Enrique Dussel
Enrique Dussel
Enrique Domingo Dussel Ambrosini is an Argentine-Mexican writer and philosopher.-Biography:...
, Maldonado-Torres calls the practices of dehumanization in the modern world "Hitlerism" and advocates the "decolonial sciences" (race and ethnic studies, Africana studies, women's studies) as critical forms of knowledge to articulate the humanistic project demanded by Fanon.
There is also the growing area of black
Black feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
feminist existential philosophy. Foundations of this area of thought are in the 19th century and early 20th century thought of Anna Julia Cooper, who explored problems of human worth through challenging the double standards imposed upon black populations in general and black women in particular. She argued, in response to the racist claims of black worthlessness (that the world would be better off without black people), that the measure of worth should be based on the difference between contribution and investment. Since very little was actually invested in black people but so much was produced by them, she argued that black worth exceeds that of many whites. She used the same argument to defend the worth of black women. More recently in the academy, black feminist existential philosophy is taken up by Kathryn Gines, founder of the Collegium of Black Feminist Philosophers. Gines's work brings together ideas from Cooper, Sartre, Fanon, Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, bell hooks
Bell hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....
, and recent work in Africana phenomenology and black popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
in such articles as: "Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary Hip-Hop" in Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason—A Series in Pop Culture and Philosophy, eds. Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby
Tommie Shelby
Tommie Shelby is a philosopher and writer. Shelby is currently Professor of African and African American Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the second black scholar to be tenured in the Philosophy Department at Harvard...
(Chicago: Open Court, 2005) and "The Black Atlantic, Afrocentricity, and Existential Phenomenology: Theoretical Tools for Black European Studies," Black European Studies, on line at Synlabor.de.
Black existential literature
The archetype of black existentialist literature is one of the most revered and reviewed novels written by an African-American writer. Ralph EllisonRalph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
's Invisible Man
Invisible Man
Invisible Man is a novel written by Ralph Ellison, and the only one that he published during his lifetime . It won him the National Book Award in 1953...
presents examples of absurdism
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
, anxiety and alienation
Alienation
Alienation may refer to:*Alienation , the legal transfer of title of ownership to another party*"Alienation", the medical term for splitting apart of the faculties of the mind...
. The novel also addresses alienation and invisibility through its portrait of a nameless protagonist. This namelessness points to the trauma of black people receiving names that were forced on them from the violence of slavery. That re-naming was meant to inaugurate a loss of memory, and that process of dismemberment is explored in the novel as the protagonist moves from one abusive father figure
Father Figure
"Father Figure" is the U.S. number-one song written and performed by George Michael and released on Columbia Records in 1988 as the third single from the album Faith.-History:...
to another—white and black—to a culminating reflection on living as an invisible leech off of the system that produces light. In Ellison's novel, the only black characters who seemed somewhat free were those designated insane, as in the famous scene at the Golden Day bar where a group from an insane asylum became the critical voice early in the novel.
The African-American writer who was the closest to the Sartrean existentialist movement was Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, although Wright saw himself as working through the thought of Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
with a focus on themes of dread and despair, especially in his novel The Outsider
The Outsider (Richard Wright)
The Outsider is a novel by American author Richard Wright, first published in 1953. The Outsider is Richard Wright's second installment in a story of epic proportions, a complex master narrative to show American racism in raw and ugly terms...
. Dismayed with his experience of American racism in the south, Wright sought refuge in a Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian life. In France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, he was heavily influenced by Les Temps modernes
Les Temps modernes
The first issue of Les Temps modernes , the most important cultural review of the period after World War II, appeared in October 1945. It was known as the review of Jean-Paul Sartre. It was named for a film by Charlie Chaplin...
members Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty. The existential novels that he wrote after leaving the United States, such as The Outsider, never received the high critical acclaim of Native Son
Native Son
Native Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
. In his famous introduction to Native Son, Wright made concrete some of the themes raised by Du Bois. He pointed to the injustice of a system in which police officers randomly arrested
Racial profiling
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
young black men for crimes they did not commit and prosecutors who were able to secure convictions in such cases. He also argued that Bigger Thomas, the anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
of the novel, was produced by such a system and is often envied by many as a form of resistance to it. Wright's insight portended the emergence, for example, of the contemporary black "gangsta," as portrayed in gangsta rap
Gangsta rap
Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...
.
In retrospect, James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
has been considered by others as a Black existentialist writer; however he was quite critical of Richard Wright and suspicious of his relationship with French intellectuals.
Baldwin also brought questions of interracial and bisexual relationships
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
into consideration and looked at the question of suffering as a struggle to defend the possibility of genuine human relationships in his novel Another Country
Another Country (novel)
Another Country is a 1962 novel by James Baldwin. The novel tells of the bohemian lifestyle of musicians, writers and other artists living in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s. It portrayed many taboo themes such as bisexuality, interracial couples and extramarital affairs.-Plot summary:The first...
.
The writings of Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
are also contributions to black existentialism. Her novel The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by American author Toni Morrison. It is Morrison's first novel, written while Morrison was teaching at Howard University and was raising her two sons on her own. The story is about a year in the life of a young black girl in Lorain, Ohio, named Pecola...
examines how "ugliness" and "beauty" dominate black women's lives as imitations of white women as the standard of beauty. Her famous novel Beloved
Beloved (novel)
Beloved is a novel by the American writer Toni Morrison, published in 1987. Set in 1873 just after the American Civil War , it is based on the story of the African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, a free state...
raises the question of the trauma
Trauma
Trauma can refer to:-In psychology and medicine:* Trauma , an often serious and body-altering physical injury, such as the removal of a limb...
that haunts black existence from slavery. (See, for example, the discussion of that novel in Marilyn Nissim-Sabat, Neither Victim Nor Survivor [Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009], chapter 8.)
Further reading
- Lewis R. Gordon, Existentia Africana [New York: Routledge, 2000]
- Lewis R. Gordon, An Introduction to Africana Philosophy [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2008]
- Reiland Rabaka, Africana Critical Theory [Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009]).
- "Africana Phenomenology: Its Philosophical Implications," The C.L.R. James Journal 11, no. 1 [Summer 2005]: 79–112
- Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings, ed. with a personal memoir by Aeired Stubbs, preface by Desmond Tutu, an intro. by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, with a new foreword by Lewis R. Gordon [Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002])
- N. C. Manganyi, Being-Black-in-the-World [Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1973]
- N. C. Manganyi, Alienation and the Body in Racist Society: A Study of the Society that Invented Soweto [New York: NOK Publishers, 1977]) * Percy Samuel Mabogo More, "Philosophy in South Africa Under and After Apartheid," in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Wiredu [Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004], pp. 149–160