‘ey Liverpool John Moores University | 4s LEARNING & INFO SERVICES Accession: iNumber AD 2661278 EXISTENCE IN BLACK LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITy Aidham Robarts L.R.C. TEL. 0151 231 3701/3694 BRA till 2 LIVERPOOL JM ini 3° 419i 07178 | ~ U Lot * 7 RGALS 4) SPRRTAS 7 “© | ai \ 7 Routledge New York and London EXISTENCE IN BLACK An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy Edited and with an Introduction by Lewis R. Gordon Published in 1997 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Copyright © 1997 by Routledge Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data Existence in Black: an anthology of Black existential philosophy/ edited, with an introduction by Lewis R. Gordon p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-91451—5 (cl) —ISBN 0—415-91450-7 (pb) 1. Afro American Philosophy 2. Existentialism 3. Liberty—Philosophy I. Gordon, Lewis R. (Lewis Rucardo), 1962— B936.E85 1996 191’.089°96073—dc20 96-24896 CIP All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or repro- duced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or here- after invented, including photo- copying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. CONTENTS part | chapter 1 chapter 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENIT S) occas csvanse tater rans tenet ce ssa sone aeenae Xiil CONERIBWALORS 29 :255. Eth SUSE ee XV NOFE*ON DHE CUESTite ssisseieeeeicaete rotete a poe osasebovaebeanens XIX INTRODUCTION: BLACK EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY TECUAS RCO OTe chee ee OTE oe Ee ae 1 CONTEXTUALIZING BLACK PHILOSOPHIES OF EXISTENCE AFRICAN AND AFRO-CARIBBEAN EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHIES NIGCINECHI Meee cape tteteeneecroraat sant wespieUavaecls ocFoe)dal SELF-TRANSFORMATION IN AMERICAN BLACKS: THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE AND BLACK THEOLOGY BRO VID NAO (ASO ell hese aace niaaet reyes ceed caenMsaprabwiis so cet sveneesOy) CONTENTS chapter 3 chapter 4 part Il chapter 5 chapter 6 chapter 7 chapter 8 chapter 9 chapter 10 chapter 11 chapter 12 part Ill chapter 13 ON THE READING OF RIDDLES: RETHINKING DU BOISIAN “DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS” Ernest Allen, Ji,ov: nccoseteceanes sane ct naacta cease emer eee seer 49 EXISTENTIAL DYNAMICS OF THEORIZING BLACK INVISIBILITY Lewis Ri Gord ottisis rose dties ene seed 69 THE “‘SITUATION”’ RETURN FROM THE UNITED STATES: WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT THE BLACK PROBLEM Jean-Paul Sartre, translated with comparative notes on the problem in 1995 by -T Denean: Sharpley= WHUHHG. «5 ccsxc<<cacsecade sisssnasomavereee 81 WHITE NORMATIVITY AND THE RHETORIC OF EQUAL PROTECTION Robert. St. Martie Westh eysiicsics.<<cusa-ntextycncesenaseasi ae 91 RACE, LIFE, DEATH, IDENTITY, TRAGEDY AND GOOD FAITH NGOrnit Zache seekeds ene Ss Se 99 TONI MORRISON AT THE MOVIES: THEORIZING RACE THROUGH Imitation of Life (for Barbara Siegel) Coariy SCHVare[es o.cssete nev bvacena tas eum ec 111 OF PROPERTY: ON “CAPTIVE” “BODIES,” HIDDEN “FLESH” AND COLONIZATION GWM James: Gonzales sc. ci trcaanaei Rca eens 129 TOTING TECHNOLOGY: TAKING IT TO THE STREETS Bobby Ri DEON i511 ee 137 ON DISAPPOINTMENT IN THE BLACK CONTEXT BILL BAGS OV recess. ccc Ree Ae ee 149 RASTAFARIANISM AND THE REALITY OF DREAD Paget. Plane Tei SiG RAEI UR GR Shee ree erg 157 QUESTIONING THE POSTMODERN, QUESTIONING BLACK EXISTENCE NIETZSCHE ON BLACKS William A. Preston chapter 14 THE CONCEPT OF DOUBLE VISION IN RICHARD WRIGHT’S THE OUTSIDER: FRAGMENTED BLACKNESS IN THE AGE OF NIHILISM FIGVONE Pelayes TL sce once eee ee oe anne re oka chapter 15 FRAGMENTATION, RACE, AND GENDER: BUILDING SOLIDARITY IN THE POSTMODERN ERA PGI UAD TUNER GOLON 2. ate oe eee eens ee eee ene Cees part IV BLACK. EXISTENCE AND BLACK LIBERATION chapter 16 EXISTENCE, IDENTITY, AND LIBERATION ROVEH LED Lerch ee Eo chapter 17 BLACK FEMINISM: LIBERATION LIMBOS AND EXISTENCE IN GRAY SVAN JAMES ores tessan coh ete ao nena eee chapter 18 LIBERALISM AND THE POLITICS OF EMANCIPATION: THE BLACK EXPERIENCE George Carew siivccos Bias, Ose Rea ime eee ee chapter 19 CORNEL WEST AS PRAGMATIST AND EXISTENTIALIST Glarence-Sholé Johnsons 22. ears eae ope fees chapter 20 ON VIOLENCE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION Elowatd MoGaty <..i0-3.<.s1.25-00 ee ee ee ee chapter 21 THE FIGHT WITH COVEY Bernard: wBONtU eee ke oe BIBULO GRA PED Gee ee eres aetiat rach a caeaae ns nce enemeee ie tereatce si rare CONTENTS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2024 https://archive.org/details/existenceinblackO000unse_v5r5 DEDICATION In Memory of Ellene C. Jones-Lightfoot (1942-1995), Roy D. Morrison, I! (1926-1995), and our former enslaved ancestors who have given us a special gift through their determination both to survive and to be remembered. te yg, ut — (dait-Qiry 180 a-eomele aries “ty ATRT- ARN eho sgnlly any partie i : [W]e have had to fight, and still do, for that very visibility which also renders us most vulnerable, our Blackness. For to survive in the mouth of this drag- on we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson—that we were never meant to survive. —Audre Lorde The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. —Karl Marx Was my freedom not given to me then to build the world of the You? —Frantz Fanon a : iS =~ i aan = : oe =. See Sha ' —s — 7 a — = pb a Sy Si ih th pag i Alin yeu Apna ee ae ofl ids Pett ea nes Moet ai a elle o~<e Vest, Ssh 'ivivol, OF Miah emma gh cbiaivande Mae ie sey , ft o SY Afb iy Paints wat 90 Titles Waals Time his se Se ~ Wei: ? et Hijo qd S4 e —_— ~ Bair \) corral en yy ear eh, wi — _~ to ool aap gyi gesarge li owl best a =. =x ¥ wg —< Ss ane \ gol iy) cya ge ; eed, trie — ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THIS WORK was a difficult project. It would have been an uncompleted pro- ject but for the support of the following people. First, Ms. Christina Boyd, Ms. Pamela Connelly, Ms. Elizabeth Smith, and Ms. Beth Turner provided nearly all of the clerical support needed for its completion. T. Denean Sharpley- Whiting provided much-needed dialogue on its early structure and she proof- read a version of the entire manuscript. Lisa Anderson, M. Shawn Copeland, Paget Henry, Joy James, William Jones, Maurice Natanson, and Gary Schwartz provided support, both intellectually and spiritually, in more ways than they may have imagined. So, too, in many ways, did most of the contributors to this volume. I would like to thank Leonard Harris and Robert Bertolet, chairpersons of, respectively, African-American Studies and Philosophy at Purdue University for their support over the past few years. In addition, I would like ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS to thank my Purdue colleagues Floyd Hayes III, Carolyn Johnson, William McBride, Jacqueline Martinez, Martin Matu8tik, Calvin O. Schrag, Renée T. White, and Charlene Zeigfried for the ongoing, stimulating discussions of existential issues. At Routledge, Maureen McGrogan, her former assistant Alison Shonkwiler, and her subsequent assistant Meghan Dailey deserve spe- cial thanks for the care they added to the project and the patience with which they encouraged each of its steps. I would also like to thank some of the individuals and organizations who have provided places and support for the presentation of black existential thought over the past few decades: the Black Caucus of the American Philosophical Association, the Sartre Societies of North America and Europe, the Radical Philosophy Association, the Society of Feminist Philosophers, the Society of Africana Philosophy, and the African Studies Association. Individuals to whom special thanks are in order are William R. Jones, Bob Stone, Betsy Bowman, Iris Marion Young, Sandra Bartky, Karsten Struhl, Linda Bell, Debra Bergoffen, and Robert Bernasconi. Among historical figures with- out whom there would not be the set of ideas that comprise this volume are David Walker, Maria Stewart, Frederick Douglass, Edward Blyden, Anna Julia Cooper, Alexander Crummell, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jose Marti, Alain Locke, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Ella Baker, Paul Robeson, Claudette Jones, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, Martin Luther King, Jr.,Malcolm X, Walter Rodney, C. L.R. James, and many, many more. I would also like to extend a special thanks to Angela Davis for the encouragement and support she has given me over the past year. She helped put more into focus than she may have realized. Three of the articles have appeared elsewhere but either copyright or right of reprint is the authors’: A short version of “Existential Dynamics of Theorizing Black Invisibility” appeared in The Proceedings of the National Association of African-American Studies (1994). I thank NAAS for permis- sion to reprint that material. Sartre’s contribution is a translation of his essay, “Retour des Etats Unis: Ce qui j’ai appris du probléme noir,” which original- ly appeared in Le Figaro (16 June 1945). I thank Arlette Elkaim-Sartre, execu- tor to Sartre’s estate, and Editions Gallimard for permission of translation and reprint. “Nietzsche on Blacks” appears by courtesy of William Preston, who holds the 1995 copyright for that essay. Finally, there are Lisa, Mathieu, and Jenny, as well as Pat, Sylvia, Gertrude, and Lola, whose love is reason enough always to go on. Lewis R. Gordon Providence, Rhode Island July 1996 CONTRIBUTORS Ernest Allen, Jr., teaches in the WE.B. Du Bois Department of Afro- American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is author of numerous articles on African-American nationalism. Robert Birt teaches Philosophy at Morgan State University. He is author of a number of articles on Africana Philosophy and Existentialism. Bernard R. Boxill is Pardue Professor of Philosophy at the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is well known for his work on blacks and social justice. He is author of Blacks and Social Justice (Rowman and Littlefield). George Carew teaches Philosophy at Spelman College, where he specializes in Political Philosophy and Africana Philosophy. CONTRIBUTORS Bobby R. Dixon taught Philosophy at Kent State University, where he spe- cialized in Continental Philosophy, Critical Theory, and Africana Philosophy. G.M. James Gonzalez is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at the State University of New York at Binghampton. Her specializations are aesthetics, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory. Lewis R. Gordon teaches Africana Philosophy and Contemporary Religious Thought at Brown University where he is also a member of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. He is the author of Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (Humanities Press), Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Routledge), and Her Majesty’s Other Children (Rowman & Littlefield). He is also co-editor of Fanon: A Critical Reader (Blackwell) and Black Texts and Textuality: Constructing and De-Constructing Blackness (Rowman & Littlefield). Floyd W. Hayes III teaches Political Science and African-American Studies at Purdue University. He is author of numerous articles on public policy and political theory. He has published in numerous journals of politics and African-American studies, and he is editor of the anthology, A Turbulent Voyage: Readings in African American Studies (Collegiate Press). He is currently working on a book, tentatively titled African-American Cynicism: Cultural Crosscurrents in a Postindustrial-Managerial Polity. Paget Henry is Director of Afro-American Studies and Professor of Sociology at Brown University. He is also a member of Brown’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and former president of the C.L.R. James Society. He has written numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean and African and Afro-Caribbean philosophy, and he is the author of Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua (Transactions) and co- editor of C.L.R. James’ Caribbean (Duke UP). Patricia Huntington teaches Philosophy at American University in Washington, DC. Her work focuses on feminist theory, philosophy of exis- tence, and theories of liberation. She is currently writing a book on Heidegger, Irigaray, and Poststructuralism (SUNY UP). Joy Ann James teaches in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is author of numerous articles on the intersection of gender, race, and class and state violence. She is co-editor of Spirit, Space, and Survival: Black Women in (White) Academe (Routledge) and author of Resisting State Violence in US Culture (U. Minnesota Press) and Transcending the Talented Tenth (Routledge). She is currently editing an Angela Davis Critical Reader and an Angela Davis Primary Reader for Blackwell Publishers. CONTRIBUTORS Clarence Sholé Johnson teaches Philosophy at Spelman College. He has also taught at Marianapolis College in Montreal, Canada, and Fourah Bay College, the University of Sierra Leone in West Africa, specializing in the phi- losophy of David Hume; his publications have appeared in major scholarly journals such as The Journal of Philosophical Research, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, The Southwest Philosophy Review and Metaphilosophy. Bill E. Lawson teaches Philosophy at the University of Delaware. He spe- cializes in Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Africana Philosophy (particularly in the 19th century). He is editor of The Underclass Question (Temple UP) and coauthor of Between Slavery and Freedom (Indiana UP). He is currently editing a volume of philosophical essays on Frederick Douglass. Howard McGary teaches Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has also taught at the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Oxford University. He specializes in Africana Philosophy, Ethics, and Political Philosophy. He is coauthor of Between Slavery and Freedom, and he serves on the editorial boards of the Philosophical Forum, Encyclopedia of Ethics, and Social Identities. Roy D. Morrison II taught Philosophy at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He specialized in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. He is the author of Science, Theology and the Transcendental Horizon (Scholars Press). William A. Preston is a Political Theorist with specializations in Marxism, Nietzsche, and French Political Thought. He is author of a forthcoming book, Nietzsche as Anti-Socialist: Prophet of Bourgeois Ennoblement. Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the major European twentieth-century philoso- phers of existence and arguably the most influential philosopher of the 20th century. His work as a philosopher and activist are well known. He is the author of many books, including Being and Nothingness, Critique of Dialectical Reason, Nausea, and The Family Idiot. He was offered and turned down the Nobel Prize for Literature.Gary Schwartz teaches classics at Lehman College of the City University of New York and he is Director of the Lehman Scholars Program. He also teaches courses on African-American, Brazilian, and Australian literatures. He is currently composing a collection of critical essays on film. Robert St. Martin Westley is Associate Professor of Law and Jurisprudence at Tulane Law School. He has just completed his first book, White Normativity: Race and the Rights of Groups. CONTRIBUTORS T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting teaches French and African-American stud- ies at Purdue University. She is co-editor of Fanon; A Critical Reader (Blackwell), Spoils of War: Women, Cultures, Revolutions (forthcoming) and author of two forthcoming books, Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears and Primitive Narratives (Duke UP), and Fanon and Feminisms: Theory, Thought, Praxis (Rowman & Littlefield). Naomi Zack teaches Philosophy at the State University of New York at Albany. She specializes in Epistemology, Existentialism, and Critical Race Theory. She is author of Race and Mixed Race (Temple UP) and Bachelors of Science: 17th Century Identity, Then and Now (Temple UP), and editor of American Mixed Race (Rowman and Littlefield) and Race/Sex: Their Sameness, Difference, and Interplay (Routledge).