roleplaying fake satire afro pess

future afro pesss

stuoidpol

Wilderson also diminishes the significance of Emancipation and asserts repeatedly, echoing John C. Calhoun, Josiah Nott, and George Fitzhugh, that blacks are a special, non-human species of existence whose inescapable condition is enslavement.

/u/deadlypigletofd00m ?

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

127d

Michaels and Warren point out in discussing the related issue of reparations: “From the replacement of public schools with charters to the replacement of cabbies with Uber drivers, neoliberalism argues that the only solutions to the inequalities created by markets are more efficiently functioning markets. And that the true victims of capitalism are not all the workers impoverished by exploitation but only those workers even more impoverished by discrimination.”

Is a good quote.

I don’t like it very much. He seems to be arguing against three different perspectives and lumping them all together in the process.

I agree with some of his points in the American context, but to write a whole essay about Afro pessimism without once mentioning Africa is insane. Claiming that legal strides against codified racism in America amount to a refutation of Afropessimism’s claims requires ignoring the global perspective presented by Wilderson.

The upward mobility black sphere in America is partially motivated by a pessimist perspective, and that’s how he seems to be connecting them to Wilderson, but I think he’s misrepresenting both in doing so. Wilderson never advocated for doing anything. There is no mainstream afropessimist political force as afropessimism has no goals, it’s just an acknowledgment of an experience we all seem to share. The upward mobility sphere of black American politics is neoliberal and individualist like he describes. The statement that nothing has changed is antithetical to all black American political movements that champion reformism by pointing to past successes. Reed sometimes falls into this camp and seems particularly offended by the notion, as would most black American political activists.

The foundations of America’s racist fervor aren’t just it’s racialized hierarchy due to the availability of African slaves during American colonization. European anti-black racism can be traced back to the Muslim slave trade and the Moorish conquest of Iberia, which we refer to as the dark ages. Europeans weren’t any more charitable to other groups they later claimed as “n’’’o” or “savage”, but the hierarchy that placed “n’’’oes” at the bottom was already present in the European sphere of the old world and laid the basis for these categorizations. I don’t think it’s fair to assert that American anti-black racism, much less global, is the result of American slavery and subsequent political disparities.

I also don’t agree that racism was always a secondary factor in the machinations of history. The discovery of a global spectrum of human pigmentation, apparent disparities in technology, and familiar pigment based caste systems in Asia all bolstered European adherence to racial hierarchies. By the time European powers colonized the African interior, the justification for doing so was presented as entirely racist, secondary to the resource interests of imperialism, and the brutality that resulted is an example of what that leads to. The presence of perverse incentives doesn’t supersede or make irrelevant the social systems that facilitate their pursuit.

Inattentiveness to racial inequality’s embeddedness in capitalist political economy links directly to the fact that antiracist discourse posits “racism”—rather than historically specific political-economic and legal institutions, relations, and practices—as the causal source of (unjust) inequality affecting black people past and present.

Reed doesn’t acknowledge that people are calling those institutions, relations and practices racism. It’s a colloquial difference in word use. He tried to get around this be defining racism as a symbolic idea but that’s not fair to use your own detention when you’re discussing the words of others.

The claims that blacks’ enslavement never ended, that there is a “structural antagonism between Blacks and Humans,” or that “there is no analogy between the suffering of Black people and those others who find themselves subjugated by unethical paradigms (such as patriarchy and capitalism) … in part because, once the subjects of unethical paradigms are liberated from their chains, they will stand in contradistinction to the Slave. They will still be human. Ergo, they will still be the Black’s antagonists,” are preposterous other than as instruments of the contention that black people can have no dependable allies in (an impossible) struggle to make their lives better and the society more egalitarian and just than it currently is (ARA 40–41)

This is obviously a weak statement on its own. I don’t agree with the assertion that there is no analogy between the suffering of black people and others, and I don’t personally like Afropessimism, but this seems like a misrepresentation of what it’s trying to express. Reed handicapped Afropessimism by placing its assertions in the American context and treating them as self explanatory.

We need to end global capitalism to get out of our situation. That alone can’t prevent the violence, interpersonal or structural, that can be justified with racist beliefs and an established racial hierarchy, which is the argument he ultimately fails to address. His misrepresentation of history and adherence to American exceptionalism doesn’t add any credence to his arguments.

In general I like Reed. I don’t see how he wrote this lol. Him completely misrepresenting Afropessimism is surprising. Maybe we have wildly different interpretations. I know he’s much more focused on the US, but the book explicitly talks about Africa so I don’t know.

TarumK

Garden-Variety Shitlib 🐴😵‍💫

127d

European anti-black racism can be traced back to the Muslim slave trade and the Moorish conquest of Iberia

How so? The moors who conquered Spain weren't black. They were Arabs coming from the middle east and local Berbers who had joined them. Later on there was also mass conversion of local Spanish people. Slavery at the time went in all racial directions, and there's not really a huge racial difference between any of these groups anyway. You can always tell a British person from a West African. People from Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East just kind of blend in to each other and for the most part none of them are really black in the way that sub-saharans are. European fear of expansionist Islam really had nothing to do with blacks or with race at all.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

127d

How so?

Primarily through the exposure to Africans as slaves, the presence of Africans in moorish armies and governments, and the practice of reprisal slavery in Islamic-Christian conflicts.

The moors who conquered Spain weren't black.

Not in 700 AD. There were certainly black moors who occupied Iberia, and many more enslaved that passed through the Mediterranean.

They were Arabs coming from the middle east and local Berbers who had joined them.

Yes primarily, especially at the beginning and the end, although what we refer to as the “Middle East” used to be considered North Africa.

Later on there was also mass conversion of local Spanish people.

Yes. That’s how al-Andalus and Granada had so much longevity.

Slavery at the time went in all racial directions, and there's not really a huge racial difference between any of these groups anyway.

Yes, but it was the introduction of the practice in its more brutal Islamic permutation, the normalization of dark skinned Africans as slaves, and the growing animosity towards those who were considered “moors” and “blackamoors” due to the enslavement of Europeans and extended conquest, that laid the groundwork for what we know as racism.

You can always tell a British person from a West African. People from Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East just kind of blend in to each other and for the most part none of them are really black in the way that sub-saharans are.

Which is why sub-Saharan Africans stood out so much and created such a unique cultural impression.

European fear of expansionist Islam really had nothing to do with blacks or with race at all.

What you’re describing is a very long period in history. To say it has nothing to do with dark-skinned Africans or race is ignoring the way it ended. I would agree that for the vast majority of world history, race did not exist and was irrelevant.

TarumK

Garden-Variety Shitlib 🐴😵‍💫

127d

I guess I don't see the connection to the moors. Europeans always saw small numbers of black people and vice versa. I don't see how this is an ancestor to colonial anti black racism which from what I know was about justifying racial slavery, which didn't exist in the middle ages.

was trying to provide context for my criticism of Reeds focus on the US. Anti black racism precluded other forms as is evidenced by Iberian references to “n””roes” as a class prior to racialized slavery.

That doesn’t mean global anti black racism is best described as being primarily the result of moorish conquest. I understand there is a demarcation between modern notions of race and primitive notions of race. The animosity and dehumanization demonstrated in slavery reprisal conflicts with the expanding Muslim world, interactions with dark Africans disproportionately presenting as slaves and soldiers, notions of cultural superiority and inferiority fostered during exposure to North African cultures, and an extended exposure to the brutal practices of Islamic slavery are all things that contributed to the social and political environment that allowed a racial concept to emerge and become a dominant ideological force in European empires, and subsequently across the globe.

That is my perspective based on the information I’ve encountered. It’s not at all important for most modern understandings, especially rhetorically as you end up arguing over facts. I was just nitpicking.

NorCalifornioAH

Unknown 👽

127d

By the time European powers colonized the African interior, the justification for doing so was presented as entirely racist, secondary to the resource interests of imperialism

Could this not be just that? A justification for imperialism, the publicly presented reason rather than the actual primary motivation?

I realize that the latter 19th century was hardly the Middle Ages, but European monarchs at that time still weren't making Gordon Gekko speeches. The racist justifications ("educating the savages", etc.) frankly would have looked far better to people of the time than openly materialistic explanations. They lent legitimacy to the venture.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

127d

Could this not be just that? A justification for imperialism, the publicly presented reason rather than the actual primary motivation?

Absolutely, there would be no incentive to do so on an imperial scale without material benefit, but it was facilitated by extremely racist beliefs. The workers carrying out the day to day upkeep of that empire felt justified in doing so for the presented reasons, making them an essential component.

That’s where Afro pessimism comes from. Your enemy isn’t just the power structure, it’s this belief in so many people’s minds that you’re flawed, as denoted by the color of your skin, and therefore deserving of worse treatment within whatever system that exists. That belief being fanned and abused by those in power doesn’t preclude it from being a source of suffering and inequality. People won’t magically stop being racist if the world became socialist, but it would drastically lessen its effect hence its intense relevance to all oppressed people. In my opinion, as long as racism stands in the way of solidarity, it should be relevant to everyone.

Yes. The same way humanitarian, political and national security concerns lend legitimacy to neocolonial ventures today. The presented reason often wasn’t “educating” it was “taming”. Truly dehumanizing language.

pufferfishsh

Where were you, in the great r/stupidpol coup?

127d

there would be no incentive to do so on an imperial scale without material benefit, but it was facilitated by extremely racist beliefs.

So what? The incentive is still there without those beliefs, and as Vivek Chibber argues in his criique of Said "Dominant agents are not impeded by the fact they do not have, ready at hand, a rationalizing ideology. Where it does not exist, they cobble one together." See for instance the invasion of Iraq. Ideologies don't push agents into action; they rationalise it after the decision has been made. Ideologies are not the enemy, ultimately -- they're a mere tool. Capitalism and its "dull compulsions" are.

Your enemy isn’t just the power structure, it’s this belief in so many people’s minds that you’re flawed, as denoted by the color of your skin, and therefore deserving of worse treatment within whatever system that exists.

Neoliberal capitalism quote obviously acknowledges racism as a problem. Its entire left-wing -- the woke movement -- is fanatically obsessed with fighting it, and has made tremendous strides the past 50 or so years. Virtually everyone today acknowledges racism is a bad thing. Secondly, even if that "belief" were overcome, were racism were completely eradicated, we'd still have capitalism -- just a less racist one. There's nothing intrinsically anti-capitalist about anti-racism.

People won’t magically stop being racist if the world became socialis

Why would there be "magic" involved? Race isn't real; it's a historical contingency. Race itself is the far more "magical" belief. And if the state of all things can "wither away" under socialism, there's no reason to think a mere idea like race couldn't either -- unless you are a deep race-realist.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

127d

That’s doesn’t mean every rationalizing ideology is cobbled together by dominant agents. Anti-black racism at this point is global, far independent of whoever originally wielded it as an ideological weapon. Criticisms of orientalism don’t really apply.

See for instance the invasion of Iraq.

Ideologies certainly pushed the US and coalition troops that deployed to participate in a “war on terror” on the behalf of the United States.

The invasion of Iraq needed to be rebranded as the original justification was exposed as grossly negligent at best and criminally deceitful at worst. That seems like a bad example, but I’m sure there are plenty of examples of both ideological motivations and retroactive justifications for violent actions. In all cases, I’d imagine it’s more complex than chicken and egg.

Ideologies don't push agents into action; they rationalise it after the decision has been made. Ideologies are not the enemy, ultimately -- they're a mere tool. Capitalism and its "dull compulsions" are.

The personal lament of afropessimism is not an actionable political platform. I’m sure you can understand how your philosophical enemy could be an ideology someone else holds, in conjunction with a system that enforces oppression, without you actually taking that assertion and arguing with it. It’s a recognition of the perceived futility of working for goals in a system that is so clearly not created for you. It’s a sad and self-congratulatory book from an ivory tower American academic. I don’t like it but this sub is getting me to defend it lol.

Neoliberal capitalism quote obviously acknowledges racism as a problem.

In what way? It acknowledges statistical disparities and certain aspects of colonial history. Neoliberal capitalism’s “solution” is the token economic solutions to those problems rather than a structural change, either domestically or in foreign policy, much less monetary or structural economic changes that would remove opportunities for that discrimination to have material effects.

Its entire left-wing -- the woke movement -- is fanatically obsessed with fighting it, and has made tremendous strides the past 50 or so years.

I assume you’re talking about the US? The civil rights movement was not endorsed by the white majority at the time. Neither were the black Panthers. The Jessie Jackson types that sprang up and filled that niche are exactly the types of leaders that contribute to neoliberal interests while publicly championing anti racism, either by delegitimizing the cause or explicitly steering activists towards ineffectual pursuits and demands for neoliberal policies.

Virtually everyone today acknowledges racism is a bad thing.

Who? Where? To what extent? Reed doesn’t even agree with the people he’s arguing with on the definition of racism. How can we have a meaningful conversation about public opinion on the subject?

Secondly, even if that "belief" were overcome, were racism were completely eradicated, we'd still have capitalism -- just a less racist one.

How do you eradicate a belief? That is a scary prospect. I wasn’t arguing for a primary shift in focus to symbolic representations of racism, just that it’s functionally very difficult to create a cohesive movement based in worker solidarity when sectors of the working population are divided based on superficial traits. Blaming it on capitalists may be useful rhetorically as it gives people an out, but it’s not the full truth and that needs to be understood for realist endeavors.

There's nothing intrinsically anti-capitalist about anti-racism.

How can racism be both a capitalist tool yet irrelevant in anti-capitalism? Racism stands in the way of worker solidarity.

Why would there be "magic" involved? Race isn't real; it's a historical contingency.

It is very real for the majority of people. Even if you are fully aware of race’s origins as a social construct, it is still a very real force in your life.

Race itself is the far more "magical" belief.

To whom? I can tell you I personally learned about race far before anyone explained it to me. There was no magical belief required it was just reality.

And if the state of all things can "wither away" under socialism, there's no reason to think a mere idea like race couldn't either

I don’t think the state would wither away under socialism lol. I’m not that utopian.

Social mores, institutions, and beliefs are not mediated primarily by individual reasoning. Cultures don’t just exist by necessity they exist as a byproduct of our complex social interactions. Isolated groups of humans will develop complex social structures to occupy time, with an evolutionary benefit being greater in-group communication and cohesion. The conditions that originally motivated a practice don’t need to be present forever for it to become a permanent aspect of a culture. If humans were rational actors there would be no useful study of politics or economics as decisions and their motivations would be obvious with enough information. That is not usually the case with real people.

unless you are a deep race-realist.

What have I said that implies I’m a race realist?

pufferfishsh

Where were you, in the great r/stupidpol coup?

127d

You:

What have I said that implies I’m a race realist?

Also you:

It is very real for the majority of people. Even if you are fully aware of race’s origins as a social construct, it is still a very real force in your life.

I can tell you I personally learned about race far before anyone explained it to me. There was no magical belief required it was just reality.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

127d

Race realism is not the recognition of race as functionally real in a social context, it’s the assertion that racism is a biological fact and that hierarchy can be based on genetic differences in clinal populations.

See replies

TheDandyGiraffe

Left Com 🥳

127d

Reed handicapped Afropessimism by placing its assertions in the American context

It's Afropessimists who put Afropessimism in the strictly American context. One of Wilderson's main (and more egregious) claims is that the historical legacy of specifically American slavery is ontologically unique to the point of creating a condition of oppression/domination that cannot be meaningfully compared to anything else.

Any form of political domination can be "justified with" racist beliefs. Ideology has a solely retroactive function - this is the orthodox Marxist view, and also Reed's. There's little point in fighting ideologies - rather, the task of socialist politics is to change the underlying material conditions.

And the fact is that the modern conception of race was invented as a capitalist tool, and its purpose has been to maintain the capitalist class relations (see Racecraft). There is little reason to think that the racial ideology will magically persist after the reason for its existence - capitalism - falls.

That is, unless you think racism is ahistorical (i.e. people are racist by nature), but then I think you should reject Reed wholesale.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

127d

The book is not solely focused on the US to the point where Africa is irrelevant to its discussion, and the conversation of anti black racism doesn’t make sense without Africa. It’s myopic to frame racism against Africans as a uniquely American problem. Perhaps Reed shares that view, but he didn’t say as much.

Any form of political domination can be "justified with" racist beliefs.

Yes.

Ideology has a solely retroactive function - this is the orthodox Marxist view, and also Reed's. There's little point in fighting ideologies - rather, the task of socialist politics is to change the underlying material conditions.

Afropessimists would argue that material conditions for Africans will not improve so long as Europeans feel justified in exploiting them within a global system of Western political apparatuses. Stepping away from the utopian “the world becomes socialist tomorrow” the implementation of socialism varies widely, and there is a clear need for solidarity to avoid the exclusion and exploitation of minority groups, as can be observed in some past socialist and communist societies.

And the fact is that the modern conception of race was invented as a capitalist tool, and its purpose has been to maintain the capitalist class relations

It was not just “invented” at one time or by capitalists. The dehumanization of Africans was a natural result of African’s only presence in Europe for 800 years being either a result of enslavement, or as an occupying force. The biblical and biological interpretations that followed were a validation of the dehumanization that fostered. The formalization of those beliefs into policy and media is most of what we can observe, and it’s easy to create a narrative that excludes those darker parts of history and frames those codifications as the driver rather than the result of those beliefs, when in reality they were mutually reinforcing and intertwined. It’s safe to say that early racism was very different from what was later molded by capitalists in the Jim Crow south, and that seems to be enough for some American scholars to disregard it, but the two are not independent or any less intertwined for the intentional shaping of those social forces.

(see Racecraft).

Racecraft misrepresents world history to make its point, that I think could be made better within the full context.

There is little reason to think that the racial ideology will magically persist after the reason for its existence - capitalism - falls.

There is little reason to think it will magically disappear. Ideology is retroactive in its formation but it is self perpetuating in it’s continuation. Social systems require the participation of the majority, they’re not orders handed down from capitalists.

Even if you believe that capitalists are solely responsibly for the pervasiveness of these beliefs, how do you build a socialist movement between a disenfranchised group and one that believes they should be disenfranchised? If that’s not possible, how do you take that situation and bring about popular socialism?

That is, unless you think racism is ahistorical (i.e. people are racist by nature), but then I think you should reject Reed wholesale.

Racism is not ahistorical by itself. Creating out-groups and optimizing material gains for in-groups are natural and should be treated as such when creating policy. The dehumanization of the out-group is most likely a survival strategy that was necessary in damping complex human social faculties that would have prevented violence when competing for scarce resources. Understanding that socialist policies would alleviate the economic pressures that often underly discriminatory beliefs is not the same as having a way to convince everyone of this without somehow undermining the ideologies that are set up in opposition.

-4

pufferfishsh

Where were you, in the great r/stupidpol coup?

127d

Creating out-groups and optimizing material gains for in-groups are natural and should be treated as such when creating policy.

jacobin

pparently Afro-pessimism means something new now. In the past it was being aware of the compromising position Africans have been placed in by European colonization and enslavement. I’ve never heard it used to in a way that implies African people are inherently slaves, like this article says.

kafka_quixote

I read Capital Vol. 1 and all I got was this t shirt 👕

203d

His definition is a little off (always slaves is a bit of a strange reading) but Wilderson, a prominent afro pessimist, has an idea of social death whereby black people are excluded entirely from society on some level

I'm probably butchering his idea a bit but "Frank Wilderson III" is the name you want to look up for afropessimism

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

203d

I have read incognegro but I only read 2/3 of afropessimism. I’m not an expert. I’m just confused how this book from 2020 is redefining a word in a way that makes it unusable lol. Wilderson applies a lot of American racial concepts to the entire world, and uses anecdotal experiences to justify placing the struggles of Africans at odds with the struggles of every other people. He grew up as an academic and I think it shows.

I agree with him in some ways. I do think that anti-African racism is uniquely widespread, and that African people are still excluded from non-African society in ways that represent direct continuations of the colonial hierarchies that came before. I agree that African struggles are coopted by other groups without adding benefit to Africans. The way he reaches those conclusion is anecdotal and therefore easy to criticize. Implying an inherent slavery or a lack of humanity, even philosophically, seems like a useless and somewhat harmful activity. Implying that African people will be enslaved as long as we’re complicit and contributing to other people’s societies seems like a call to action so it’s a fine line. It’s all academic jargon idk. If he’d never wrote that book his legacy would still be working with Nelson Mandela so I respect him regardless.

SoulOnDice

Sex Work Advocate (John) 👔

202d

Welcome to Whose Politics is it Anyway

where the words mean nothing and the goals are constantly moving

turbofckr

203d

Do he is saying black people are excluded from certain parts of society, even when adjusting for class?

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

203d

He’s saying that African people are excluded from the shared notion of humanity, regardless of social station, affiliation or proficiency.

asdu

203d

Wilderson narrates stories from his life, especially episodes between him and his coworkers, partners, friends, and others, in which his blackness is made to be painfully visible and repelled. His conclusion is that “at every scale of abstraction, violence saturates black life,” consigning blacks to perpetual enslavement.

I don't think the notion of "adjusting for [variable]" applies to this guy's methodology even in a metaphorical sense.

turbofckr

203d

Ok. Thanks.

DrkvnKavod

Letting off steam from batshit intelligentsia

203d

José Sanchez is a PhD student in history at Duke University.

lmao.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

203d

We’re doomed 😂

Impossible_Pass_2933

Marxism 😎 Leninism

203d

All modern uses I've seen of the term have been in relation to Frank B. Willerson's book and it's mostly used to try analyse US society from what I can tell. Here's a critique of it.

deadlypigletofd00m

Afrocentric 🌍

203d

Thank you will read the critique. I haven’t been paying enough attention to the modern interpretation because it seems like such a compromising ideology but I guess I should be.

Impossible_Pass_2933

https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/8knbo7/intersectionality_is_a_hole_afropessimism_is_a/

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