Owned

https://rackedanddispatched.noblogs.org/This reader is intended to be an introduction to the theory called Afro-pessimism. Collected in this volume are articles spanning three decades of thought, with topics ranging from police violence, the labor of Black women, & the slave’s transformation following emancipation, to the struggles of the Black Liberation Army & elements of anti-Blackness in Indigenous struggles for sovereignty. Although the authors use differing methods of analysis, they all approach them with a shared theoretical understanding of slavery, race, & the totality of anti-Blackness; it is this shared understanding that has been called Afro-pessimism. Importantly though, rather than a fixed ideology, Afro-pessimism is better thought of as a theoretical lens for situating relations of power, at the level of the political & the libidinal. Afro-pessimism, in many ways, picks up the critiques started by Black revolutionaries in the 1960s & 70s, elaborating their short-comings & addressing their failures. To overcome anti-blackness, there would have to be what Fanon had called a 'program of complete disorder,' an expropriation & affirmation of the very violence perpetuated against black existence & a fundamental reorientation of the social coordinates of the human relation. It would entail a war against the concept of humanity & a war that splits civil society to its core, a civil war that would elaborate itself to the death.Saidiya Hartman is the author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Lose Your Mother, & Scenes of Subjection. She has been a MacArthur Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, Cullman Fellow, & Fulbright Scholar. She is a University Professor at Columbia University & lives in New York. https://rackedanddispatched.noblogs.org/ This reader is intended to be an introduction to the theory called Afro-pessimism. Collected in this volume are articles spanning three decades of thought, with topics ranging from police violence, the labor of Black women, and the slave’s transformation following emancipation, to the struggles of the Black Liberation Army and elements of anti-Blackness in Indigenous struggles for sovereignty. Although the authors use differing methods of analysis, they all approach them with a shared theoretical understanding of slavery, race, and the totality of anti-Blackness; it is this shared understanding that has been called Afro-pessimism. Importantly though, rather than a fixed ideology, Afro-pessimism is better thought of as a theoretical lens for situating relations of power, at the level of the political and the libidinal. Afro-pessimism, in many ways, picks up the critiques started by Black revolutionaries in the 1960s and 70s, elaborating their short-comings and addressing their failures. To overcome anti-blackness, there would have to be what Fanon had called a 'program of complete disorder,' an expropriation and affirmation of the very violence perpetuated against black existence and a fundamental reorientation of the social coordinates of the human relation. It would entail a war against the concept of humanity and a war that splits civil society to its core, a civil war that would elaborate itself to the death. Contents 6 Introduction 8 1. Blacks and the Master/Slave Relation by Frank B. Wilderson, III 16 2. The Burdened Individuality of Freedom by Saidiya Hartman 32 3. The Avant-Garde of White Supremacy by Steve Martinot & Jared Sexton 50 4. The Prison Slave as Hegemony's (Silent) Scandal by Frank B. Wilderson, III 68 5. The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women's Labors by Saidiya Hartman 81 6. Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book by Hortense J. Spillers 92 7. The Vengeance of Vertigo: Aphasia and Abjection in the Political Trials of Black Insurgents by Frank B. Wilderson, III 124 8. The Vel of Slavery: Tracking the Figure of the Unsovereign by Jared Sexton 149 References 171 Further Reading 179 Introduction I. Blacks and the Master/Slave Relation: Frank B. Wilderson, III Interviewed by C. S. Soong II. The Burdened Individuality of Freedom by Saidiya Hartman III. The Avant-Garde of White Supremacy by Steve Martinot & Jared Sexton IV. The Prison Slave as Hegemony’s (Silent) Scandal by Frank B. Wilderson, III V. The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women’s Labors by Saidiya Hartman VI. Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book by Hortense J. Spillers VII. The Vengeance of Vertigo: Aphasia and Abjection in the Political Trials of Black Insurgents by Frank B. Wilderson, III VIII. The Vel of Slavery: Tracking the Figure of the Unsovereign by Jared Sexton