#afro pessimism

[blackstarlineage]

And don’t forget the pandering Black men enabling this mess.

[wander3000]

the people ( leftists ) arent ready to face the truth of the world bc they cant accept they were born being cheated 😭😭 thats why we dont have progress bc of the white mans fucking ego. its always that. i promise u have so much more than the system that isnt even DOING anything. u wanna do something soooo bad. ur psyching yourself out and no one can help you but yourself..:..:.... the worst part of this is im saying this knowing im speaking into a void LMFAOO. notice how im still doing it? anyways! dont worry ( cause im nto worried ) yall gon hear me one way or another! go outside and do something stop wondering what because the answer is deadass anything, u just have to do SOMETHING.

[afropessimistantinatalist]

I wish folks would let me sit in The Despair. There is information there.

[tshepiso-rebaone]

"pain(t) on paper", September 2021

This one forced itself out of me.

I've often strayed away from embracing darkness and adversity in what I create, it's been the same with my photography. This painting came to me in the early hours of the 11th, when I couldn't stop crying and reeling from the emotional trauma I have experienced in the past year.

I kept weeping and remembered what gifts painting brings me, I also remembered a dream I had guiding me to paint more. So, this image of agony is what I felt and therefore, it is what I express. I know it is dark, but to be an alchemist is to convert energy into something that heals you, releasing this onto a page is my vehicle into healing.

I shall return to stability and joy once again. With one confronting image after another, I shall rediscover my smile. 😌🧘🏾‍♀️🌻

[the-merricatherine]

Anyone who is interested in abolishing structures of oppression should know the difference between a metaphysics of presence and a metaphysics of absence. When we talk about structural positions, we tend to think in positive terms: the presence of an oppressor group, and the presence of an oppressed group. It seldom occurs to folks that anti-black violence does not orient around the principle of presence - it orients around absence. Social systems are often likened to architecture. Many people think that the entirety of a building is supported by its foundation. This view is embodied in the words of Jesus Christ (and later, Abraham Lincoln) when He declared that "a house divided against itself will not stand." From this perspective, two antagonistic groups or agendas cannot be present at the same time. While this view makes sense at first pass, it completely misses the fact that a hole had to be excavated in the ground BEFORE the foundation of the house could be laid. That primary absence or lack is a precondition for the foundation of the house - because it makes room for the entire structure. That hole is what makes the whole of the house possible. Assuming that the foundation is what supports the house is a metaphysics of presence. Realizing that the absence is what supports the foundation is a metaphysics of absence. Blackness is the hole that makes the whole of humanity coherent. The questions become: how and why is blackness positioned as the hole? The question of 'how' is answered straight-forwardly by the phenomena of VIOLENCE - physical and metaphysical. The violence is physical insofar as bodies are reduced to commodities, to mere flesh. A metaphysics of presence cannot account for the fact that our bodies have been stolen, and we are positioned as fugitives, as runaways. The violence is metaphysical insofar as we are robbed of our names, language, family, culture, etc. It is also important to note that blackness is a consequence of racialized slavery. Blackness did not exist before the Transatlantic Slave Trade. As Frank Wilderson argues "Africans went into the ships and came out as blacks." For this reason, there is no untainted version of blackness (like the Garden of Eden before The Fall) that can be restored or returned to. Blackness is always-already the outcome of violence; and it exists within the context of violence. Any analysis of racism that does not center on violence has missed the point entirely. The question of 'why' is answered with a discussion of coherence. Anti-blackness is what gives the system its semblance of order. Anti-blackness has always been America's favorite pastime. No matter how downtrodden and disenfranchised a non-black group is, they can always say "well, at least I'm not black." This is part of the reason Malcolm X argued that the first thing immigrants learn when they come to America is the N-word. Simply not being black is the glue that binds non-blacks as a collective people. Since blackness is positioned as an absence or lack, it can be used in any way imaginable by anyone who is not black. The uses of blackness are both physical and psychological. Black suffering gives non-blacks an opportunity to reflect upon how fortunate they really are (Hartmann, 1997). Blackness functions as what Toni Morrison calls a "surrogate self" : a ready-to-use standpoint and persona from where non-blacks can safely think/fantasize about the world and themselves. In other words, blackness is an "empty vessel" - which means we cannot tackle anti-blackness with a metaphysics of presence. We have to assume an absence. Private property is the cornerstone of global capitalism - and its abolition is the foundation for many revolutionaries. But unbeknownst to many devout communists and others on the Left who want to socialize the means of production is the fact that blackness is a form of public property already. This is why black culture is continuously appropriated; and this is why black movements are routinely co-opted. Collectivizing private property in public hands does not address the vested interest of non-blacks in maintaining blackness as their community possession. Switching to a metaphysics of absence will rid our minds of this error - because it shifts away from assuming the presence of the proleteriat toward realizing the absence of the slave.

Darryl Walker Jr.

[youthunknown]

Peer into B (2017)

[canebrake--blog]

Rather than celebrate Blackness as a cultural identity, Afro-Pessimism theorizes it as a position of accumulation and fungibility (Saidiya Hartman); that is, as condition—or relation—of ontological death. One of the guiding questions of Dr. Wilderson’s engagement with Afro-Pessimism asks, How are the political stakes of analysis and aesthetics raised and altered if we theorize the structural relation between Blacks and Humanity as an antagonism (an irreconcilable encounter) as opposed to a (reconcilable) conflict?

Frank Wilderson, “Afro-Pessimism”

[magneticsympathy]