Afro-pessimism: A Grassroots View - In Search of Black Power
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2022
- Few concepts have been more mischaracterized and caricatured than the academic theory of Afro-pessimism.
Born of material struggle against Mandela aligned neoliberal wing of the ANC, the work of Frank Wilderson, Jared Sexton and other theorists has been framed in many way. Many have described it as fatalist, hetero-patriarchal, too Black nationalist, not Black nationalist enough, and now - with the publishing of a widely panned piece in the social magazine Jacobin - pro-zionist.
Dayvon Love and Lawrence Grandpre from Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), a grassroots think tank in Baltimore, are folks with years of experience reading, teaching, and applying lessons from Afro-pessimism to concrete political work. In this conversation, they explore the value of the theory from the perspective of grassroots activism. They correct mischaracterizations of Afro-pessimism as a prescriptive call for academic nihilism. They explain it as a political lens to understand how Blackness functionally historically as fuel for people's fears and fantasies, and how this knowledge has helped LBS navigate the political terrain and achieve on the ground victories.
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Very measured and thoughtful conversation. A good model right now.
💡💡💡💡 The conclusion that Afropessism makes confirms the analysis I've had a for a while but didn't have the language to articulate.
I respect this so much. though I, as an afropessimist, disagree on some interpretative things as it pertains to the theory, I really appreciate this level of good faith engagement, deep theoretical historicization, and critique of bad analysis. keep it up!
Heads should check out Black Nihilism by Calvin Warren as well. Takes Afro-pessimism to another level.
Thank you, will do. Currently using Afropessimism as a lens, framework, analysis tool for interrogating archival praxis and vice versa... archival praxis lending itself as evidence of conclusions drawn through Afropessimist theory.
I fux wit afropessimism tuff! Thanks!
The way that you both demonstrated how yall were thinking with theory needs to be studied. Brilliant conversation, this ought to quiet the white labor aristocracy. And hopefully the Black Marxists after watching this can begin to rethink Wilderson's scholarship.
Until then, peace if you are willing to fight for it...To the end of the world. 💫
Great, PRINCIPLED discourse!
I came in timid and suspicious into this community but since I dropped my guard and kept coming back … now I see. I love the Guerilla University and the Academia meeting the grassroots. Malcolm would have been so pleased with us. Keep it pushing mi gente❤
My God this was refreshing to hear
This was a great post. Deserves another listening. Fyi...ms Davis seems to have been co-opted.
I was thinking that samething. She almost sounded like an all lives matter person.
@@jonblaze4244 Great observation!
MUCH of our intelligencia have bought (read “sold out”to) into the legitimacy of Western hegemony and see our subjugation as “the course of human events” - something “natural” that we should accept as moving humanity forward
Angela Davis supported the creation of the term "oppression Olympics" by her white Latina friend Elizabeth Martinez. Martinez created the term to gaslight the Black Descendants of USA slavery according to her book. She has indeed been co-opted.
Sadly she has. That can happen to our great leaders. Its intentional. We all are flawed. We need the brave and true not the sycophants. The biopic is in turnaround because Hollywierd insists on pornographic depictions of Black women. In media, we are never simply principled. Watch your so called fans and followers leadership. No doubt there’s a snake in the grass!
thank y'all for saying what some folx been sayin' but some folks act like they can't hear us, see us... but they us? (!) appreciate it.
It’s an interpretative and analytical lens , not necessarily a tactical one
This was a great conversation gentleman. It’s great seeing the Black grassroots have a honest take on this, rather than these lame white talking heads
Excellent conversation. My basic position (from within the academy) has always been that Afro Pessimism is not about what Black people think about themselves, but what the world/structure believes about us. I do not know if I would go into the weeds of Afro Pessimism, however, my question is usually, what in your critique is important for doing the work where Black people are self-determined?
Thank you for explaining Afro-Pesimissm in what I see as an eloquent, insightful, and relevant manner.
I appreciated this broadcast. At times, it's feels as if black political imagination has been eliminated ....yall demonstrate its alive and well!
yeah, eliminated by Black people, we have to learn to independent thought and not to to just follow the herd
Great conversation. Gave me a fuller view if what Afro Pessimism is and is not! Thanks 😊
Valuable discussion here for governance structure
Davis's conflation of nationalism with the nation state really throws because, at this point, even anarchists have more or less reached a consensus that nationalism as national self-determination is vital and absolutely necessary. Like nearly every Black Anarchist that I've studied is also a revolutionary nationalist. Kurdish Nationalism in North East Syria has result in one of the most long lasting and liberatory non-state revolutionary societies in modern history. It's genuinely confusing because it feels like such a basic mistake of analysis.
Powerful build.
Where is the documentary film and other evidence of starvation Neglect and abuse that is currently happening to black people.
AP is weak on the position of social death indigenous peoples occupy and advocates a state of exception for black bodies that arguably can’t be justified across all places & times.
Talk of settler/colonialism that doesn’t have anything to say about the active and ongoing erasure of native peoples upheld by genocidal violence and the active erasure from every sphere of public life is uh… not strong.
it's typical to tell people who crticize afro-pessimism that 'they do not understand' it, actually you're saying that afropessimism is "really about how those who have power those who create systems in the world how they interpret blackness" ... afropessimism is clearly not that at all, in fact it is completely ignoring power structures, and focusing on 'ridiculing' palestinians as Wilderson says, in interviews, it is focusing, on an 'oppression olympics' that is counterproductive, and pits groups of opressed people against each other, it is a critique of intersectionality, and damaging for all forms of solidarity between people, as it reinforces a divide... it ignores the fact that the people who are creating books and discussing this, are at a very priviliged point, using colonial tools, and language that most people they discuss do not even understand... the amount of focus on Palestinians in this philosophy lacks analysis of those there... the analysis would work better if it took power structures into consideration, and didn't try to prove and compare which oppressions are the worse ones in history...
it's insane, how you completely ignore the biggest critiques, of afropessimism, and are able to make the philosophy, while there's no hiding of Frank Wilderson's quotes, way more logical, rational, than what it actually is! what you're saying afropessimism is, is actually not, and you keep telling people that they don't understand it.... in reality, afropessimism's flaws, are that it is literal oppression olympics, focusing on those next in line in oppression and focused on how they are equivalent to their own colonizers, and are not as oppressed as blacks! its based on people in the US, of a specific class's personal lived experiences, and then is used to generalize and split the entire globe across all time and space, as black and non-black! the main issue that it uses a very us-centric experience and life and applies it to the world, you say that Sanchez,, thinks that 'the US is redeemable " or so..." he never said that, the point is the GLOBE, the WORLD is! please people actually READ the article they refer to and other critiques to Afropessimism, and debate it, sincerely, the critiques are mainly regarding how Wilderson ignores that he and other people who live in America who are of a specific class, also have a privilige compared to other people around the world especially those south of the globe, the idea that palestinians are 'junior partners' is complete bs... the fact anti-blackness exists amongst the whole entire world, doesn't mean the whole world is not as oppressed. I wonder if Frank Wilderson could go to Gaza and talk to them about how he and all you living in the united states, have it worse off than them.. I want to see these talks and aruguments away from colonial and white audiences in the west, and see you guys translate works to the languages of the people that you speak of, and tell it to their faces direct.
you mention Wilderson experience in SouthAfrica and his book, but you fail to mention that he was treated differently and better than the local community there by the whites! which is literally where the main critique of Afro-pessimism lies!
I've been reading Red, White and Black by Wilderson and he very explicitly states that he not says that Black folks are empirically or experientially the most oppressed or experiential the most violence but that at the level of paradigm, the way that society as such is structured, Black social death is the pre-condintion for social life. He is very clear that he dealing structures of oppression at an intentional abstract scale and is very much not talking about lived experience
@@willowjavery4652 Wilderson’s dismissal of ‘the red’ as a category marked for social death in my view disqualifies the entire framework. It’s very much written from the perspective of someone who has no proximity to or curiosity to how the dynamics he identifies will be applied differently i.e. to different groups across cultures and places. Wilderson’s work has a characteristically non self reflective strain of USian narcissism at the core.
It was hard for me to accept. But people like Nelson Mandela, MLK, and Malcolm X were counter revolutionaries we need to learn that.
Malcolm X?
@@Taylordessalines when Malcolm X was saying the white man is your enemy and black people need isolationism. He was working for the Man. When he came back from Mecca, said color doesn't matter to God, and we need to come together to build a just world outside of this civilization. He was no longer a counter revolutionary. When MLK said we need to end the Vietnam war and labor rights, he was no longer a counter revolutionary. When Mandela went against neoliberalism and NATO expansion he was no longer a counter revolutionary.
Nelson Mandela, yes. MLK, maybe. But definitely NOT Malcolm X!
@@jonblaze4244 I refer you to my previous comment.
Hetero-patriarchy is not a thing and never has been. Women and the LGBTQIA+ community have always been represented in the highest echelons of power.
Especially of the mayosapian type of power