Black existentialism or Africana critical theory is a school of thought that "critiques domination and affirms the empowerment of Black people in the world".
[Magnus O. Bassey]
"What Is Africana Critical Theory or Black Existential Philosophy?"
in: ''Journal of Black Studies'', July 2007, vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 914-935. Although it shares a word with
existentialism
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
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
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
writers such as
W. E. B. Du Bois,
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...
, and
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...
in an existentialist frame.
Lewis Gordon
Lewis Ricardo Gordon (born May 12, 1962) is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of ...
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 subset of
Africana philosophy
Africana philosophy is the work of philosophers of African descent and others whose work deals with the subject matter of the African diaspora. The name does not refer to a particular philosophy, philosophical system, method, or tradition. Rather ...
and Black philosophical thought. Africana philosophy is a form of philosophy emerging out of the critical thought of the
African diaspora
The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...
. Black philosophical thought pertains to the ideas emerging from Black-designated peoples. Such people include, for example,
Australian Aboriginal people
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
, who often refer to themselves as "black." There is thus also work in Black existential philosophy from
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, such as those organized through forums and articles by Danielle Davis in the Oodgeroo Unit of
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...
in
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
, Australia.
The first African American to earn a doctorate from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
earned his degree in
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
, however the work of
W. E. B. Du Bois has been honored in the canon of
African-American philosophy. Du Bois' notion of
double consciousness
Double consciousness is the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. The term and the idea were first published in W. E. B. Du Bois's autoethnographic work, ''The Souls of Black Folk'' in 1903 ...
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
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
,
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, and racial
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
. This double standard led, he argued, to "twoness" and "
double consciousness
Double consciousness is the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. The term and the idea were first published in W. E. B. Du Bois's autoethnographic work, ''The Souls of Black Folk'' in 1903 ...
." 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 or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
and anti-black
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
. 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
Injustice is a quality relating to unfairness or undeserved outcomes. The term may be applied in reference to a particular event or situation, or to a larger status quo. In Western philosophy and jurisprudence, injustice is very commonly—but n ...
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 (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
,
Anna Julia Cooper
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, 1858February 27, 1964) was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African-American scholars in United States history.
Born into slavery ...
, and other earlier 19th-century black critical thinkers contended. Du Bois also theorized the importance of
black music
Black music is a sound created, produced, or inspired by black people, people of African descent, including African music traditions and African popular music as well as the music genres of the African diaspora, including Caribbean music, Lati ...
, especially the spirituals, and through them raised the question of the inner-life of Black people, which he referred to as their "
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
," which in his discussion of double consciousness became "souls". 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 is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
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 Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and ...
has addressed the problem of black
nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
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 ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...
philosopher and psychiatrist
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have be ...
(1925–1961). In his book ''
Black Skin, White Masks
''Black Skin, White Masks'' (french: Peau noire, masques blancs) is a 1952 book by philosopher Frantz Fanon. The book is written in the style of autoethnography, in which Fanon shares his own experiences while presenting a historical critique of ...
'' (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
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...
. 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 is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
and its relation to emotions by considering whether a flight into
Négritude
''Négritude'' (from French "Nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African ...
, the intellectual movement coined by
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He founded the Par ...
, could enable Blacks to love themselves by rejecting white reason. But
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...
's criticism in his essay "Orphée Noir" ("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
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
. Fanon's response was that he needed not to know that, and later on in ''
A Dying Colonialism
''A Dying Colonialism'' (french: L'An V de la Révolution Algérienne) is a 1959 book by the psychiatrist Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psyc ...
'' (Grove Press, 1967; original French 1959), he pointed out that although whites created the Negro, it was the Negro who created Négritude. His point was that it was still an act of
agency
Agency may refer to:
Organizations
* Institution, governmental or others
** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients
** Employment agency, a business that ...
, 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'' (french: Les Damnés de la Terre) is a 1961 book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychoanalysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and dis ...
'' (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, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
n
anti-apartheid movement through the thought of
Steve Bantu Biko. In ''
I Write What I Like
''I Write What I Like'' (full name ''I Write What I Like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko'') is a compilation of writings from anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.
''I Write What I Like'' contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, whe ...
'', Biko continues Fanon's project of thinking through alternative conceptions of
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
ity and offers his theory of Black Consciousness. Black consciousness applies to anyone who is involved in
anti-racist
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
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 Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...
'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 is a British activist, a scholar specialising in philosophy and author whose work has focussed, in particular, on Frantz Fanon. Edward Said described Gibson's work as "rigorous and subtle". He has been described as a leading figure ...
(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 ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...
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, or black liberation theology, refers to a theological perspective which originated among African-American seminarians and scholars, and in some black churches in the United States and later in other parts of the world. It context ...
, where history is presented as
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
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 Ricardo Gordon (born May 12, 1962) is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of ...
, 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 the 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
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
'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". 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, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person.
History
Ancient Christian writers: Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo wa ...
,
liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
, 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 is the denial of full humanness in others and the cruelty and suffering that accompanies it. A practical definition refers to it as the viewing and treatment of other persons as though they lack the mental capacities that are c ...
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 may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
or a decolonial one.
A philosopher influenced by Gordon is
Nelson Maldonado-Torres
Nelson Maldonado-Torres is a Puerto Rican philosopher and professor in Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Comparative Literature Program at Rutgers University. He received his PhD from Brown University in Religious Studies. His work has been ...
, whose ''Against War'' (Duke University Press, 2008) offers a "decolonial reduction" of the forms of knowledge used to rationalize slavery, colonialism, and racism. Drawing upon ideas from Aimé Césaire, the Lithuanian Jewish philosopher
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to me ...
, Frantz Fanon, and the Argentinian philosopher
Enrique Dussel
Enrique Domingo Dussel (born 24 December 1934) is an Argentine academic, philosopher, historian and theologian. He served as the interim rector of the Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México from 2013 to 2014.
Life and career
Enrique Duss ...
, Maldonado-Torres calls the practices of dehumanization in the modern world "
Hitlerism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
" 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 is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
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 (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
,
bell hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author and social activist who was Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She is best known for her writings on ...
, and recent work in Africana phenomenology and black
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
in such articles as: "Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary Hip-Hop" in Derrick Darby and
Tommie Shelby
Tommie Shelby (born 1967) is an American philosopher. Since 2013, he has served as the Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University, where he is the current chair of the Department of ...
(eds), ''Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason—A Series in Pop Culture and Philosophy'' (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
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...
's ''
Invisible Man
''Invisible Man'' is a novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship b ...
'', the archetype of black existentialist literature, is one of the most revered and reviewed novels written by an African-American writer. It presents examples of
absurdism
Absurdism is the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd. This implies that the world lacks Meaning of life, meaning or a higher purpose and is not fully intelligible by reason. The term "absurd" also has a more specific sense ...
, anxiety and alienation in relation to the experience of the black male in mid-1900s America. The namelessness of the main character of the novel, a figure based on Ellison's own life , points to the trauma of black people receiving names that were forced on them from the violence of slavery. That renaming 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
A father figure is usually an older man, normally one with power, authority, or strength, with whom one can identify on a deeply psychological level and who generates emotions generally felt towards one's father. Despite the literal term "father ...
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
The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...
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
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , , ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on ...
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
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
ian life. In
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, he was heavily influenced by
Les Temps modernes
''Les Temps Modernes'' (''Modern Times'') is a French journal, founded by Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It first issue was published in October 1945. It was named after the 1936 film by Charlie Chaplin.
''L ...
members
Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...
,
de Beauvoir,
Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...
. 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'' (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s.
While not apologizing ...
''. 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
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions ...
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 or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, emerged in the mid- to late 1980s as a controversial hip-hop subgenre whose lyrics assert the culture and values typical of American street gangs and street hustlers. Many gangsta rappe ...
.
In retrospect,
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...
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
Interracial topics include:
* Interracial marriage, marriage between two people of different races
** Interracial marriage in the United States
*** 2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident
* Interracial adoption, placing a child of one raci ...
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
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...
are also contributions to black existentialism. Her 1970 novel ''
The Bluest Eye
''The Bluest Eye,'' published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great De ...
'' 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 may refer to:
Books
* ''Beloved'' (novel), a 1987 novel by Toni Morrison
* ''The Beloved'' (Faulkner novel), a 2012 novel by Australian author Annah Faulkner
*''Beloved'', a 1993 historical romance about Zenobia, by Bertrice Small
Film
...
'' (1987) raises the question of the
trauma
Trauma most often refers to:
* Major trauma, in physical medicine, severe physical injury caused by an external source
* Psychological trauma, a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event
*Traumatic i ...
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.]
See also
*
Achille Mbembe
Joseph-Achille Mbembe, known as Achille Mbembe (; born 1957), is a Cameroonian historian, political theorist, and public intellectual who is a research professor in history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economy Research at the ...
*
Lewis Gordon
Lewis Ricardo Gordon (born May 12, 1962) is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of ...
*
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have be ...
*
Whiteness theory
Whiteness theory is a field under Whiteness studies, that studies what White identity means in terms of social, political, racial, economic, culture, etc. Whiteness Theory also looks at how Whiteness is centric in society and culture, and in crea ...
References
{{reflist
Further reading
* Lewis R. Gordon, ''Existentia Africana'' (New York: Routledge, 2000)
* Lewis R. Gordon, ''An Introduction to Africana Philosophy'' (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
* Reiland Rabaka, ''Africana Critical Theory'' (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009)
* "Africana Phenomenology: Its Philosophical Implications," ''The C.L.R. James Journal'' 11, no. (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
* George Yancy, "Black Bodies, White Gazes" (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017)
* Anthony Sean Neal, https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/02/16/african-american-existentialism/ African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King
* Anthony Sean Neal, ''Philosophy and the Modern Era of the African American Freedom Struggle: A Freedom Gaze'' (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2022)
External links
Lewis Gordon's ''Existentia Africana''Lewis Gordon's ''Existence in Black''
Types of existentialism
Social philosophy
Black studies
Africana philosophy