Darkening Blackness Race, Gender, Class, and Pessimism in 21st-Century Black Thought

The concept of Afropessimism does not refer to Black people, but rather to the likelihood of white society overcoming its own negrophobia, and to a radical distrust in white narratives of inclusivity. What if the ideas and reforms we regard as progressive were just the new and shiny face of racism? In the time of Black Lives Matter, the unswerving dehumanisation and killing of Black people form the bedrock of our civilization. But a vast anti-Black collective feeling also manifests itself as a more insidious shared unconscious, hidden from view by the doctrines we deem as emancipatory. This book challenges the simplistic and pacifying aspects of current African-American thought. It puts forward alternatives to intersectionality, poststructuralism and radical democracy, which are often prioritized in the Black analysis of race, gender and class.

In the twenty-first century, Black studies and Africana philosophy have witnessed the birth of two new fields, Afropessimism and Black Male Studies. Spearheaded by figures such as Tommy J. Curry and Frank Wilderson, they have emerged as truly autonomous ways of interpreting and analysing the causes and consequences of Black rage against systemic racism. Darkening Blackness offers an original genealogy of the new iconoclasm in Black thought. Accessible, historically informed and politically alert, this book is a critical analysis of the groundbreaking theories and strategies which offer a radical reconception of the future of Black lives throughout the world.

Norman Ajari is a lecturer in Francophone Black Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Introduction



Chapter 1 The Sources of the Afropessimist Paradigm

Chapter 2 Theoretical Origins of Afropessimism

Chapter 3 From the Black Man as Problem to the Study of Black Men

Chapter 4 A Politics of Antagonisms



Postface By Tommy Curry



Notes

Index