Afropessimism: A Review

To be entirely transparent, and in the spirit of journalistic integrity something which we here at the Review hold sacred, I should state, before beginning my review, that I did not, at least initially, volunteer for this assignment. Having been lost in the spirit of that great Romantic country of the western United States, living out of the back of my 2006 Jeep Liberty, constantly groaning for a break, occasionally forsaking it in favor of a tent, which did much less to muffle the howling of coyotes in the canyons outside Amarillo, I missed much of the preliminary discussion surrounding our annual Book Review Issue. Being as highly publicized and critically lauded as it was, it was inevitable that Frank B. Wilderson III’s Afropessimism would make the list, Wilderson being a graduate of the College and highly respected academic. Yet many of those on staff preferred titles more in line with their own interests, understandably; although this made it difficult to find a place for obscure works of critical race theory. Partly as a joke, and partly as a gift to me, my colleagues posted my name next to this title in the Excel sheet, long since deciding I had tumbled too far down the rabbit hole of literary criticism to be rescued (see our tweet regarding my coverage of the Dartmouth Libertarian’s event featuring the director of the Ayn Rand Institute and the accompanying comments on the digital article) decided I would be the perfect fit, and, I like to think, their saving grace, for Wilderson’s work. I have no complaints about this “coercive” act of proactive volunteerism; I would have signed on for the book anyway.

This is a book review, I understand that perfectly clear, though I feel strongly that any self-respecting review of this book not targeted to a group of pretentious scholars of theory such as myself would dare attempt to publicly judge Wilderson’s depiction of the theory without spending a bit of time and page-space discussing the theory itself. After all, the strength of a published theoretical argument is predicated upon its successful conveyance of that argument, and if I spend sufficient time rambling about the details of the theory, I was promised my very own Affropessimist-exclusive issue. Oh, how my ego rejoices.

Central to Wilderson’s, and the greater Afropessimist community’s, position is a rejection of one of the fundamental tenets of the contemporary all-encompassing framework that is intersectionality: implicitly stated or otherwise, the intersectionalist believes in the collective experience of suffering of the oppressed classes at the hand of the oppressor-class. regardless of the specific instance, category, or degree of Oppression, all should recognize their place beneath the boot, and thus their duty to stand together in opposition to said boot. Wilderson retorts: as a consequence of the Black social and historical status, Black suffering is fundamentally and irreconcilably different from that of other subjugated classes. He even goes so far as to name non-Black minority groups the “junior partners” of the White. The struggle for liberation amongst other groups is legitimate, yet it is still predicated upon Black sadistic subjugation. The Black body inhabits the dialectical space of Other for all non-Black groups, drawing the fundamental distinction: Black and Human.

Needless to say, this position has drawn the criticism and ire of other social theorists, who view Wilderson’s position needlessly divisive in a place where the exact opposite is required if change is to be made. This utilitarian objection, however, does not dismiss Wilderson’s critique, nor does it excuse us from examining the consequences of his twist on the traditional Hegelian dichotomy. To the colonized, the ostracized, or the exploited, their position in the Master-Slave dialectic is clearly visible and narratable: they have been alienated from their land, their resources, their labor. But for the Black who has been transplanted in a new continent, denied ethnic or familial heritage, denied a place in the historical epic of humanity after becoming simply Black, what have they been alienated from? What is there to reclaim?

The root for the inalienable Otherness of Black bodies stems from, as Wilderson puts it, social death, a term that refers to the paradoxical place of being both sentient human subjects and yet mere objects divorced from the narrative elements that define the humanity of other groups. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and earlier enslavement by Arabs, a point Wilderson uses to reinforce his “junior partner” statement, effectively murdered the Black in history, there is no longer any Black person, even with alienated labor; there is only the Black Object, which has no labor or heritage which can be stolen for the simple fact that objects are not entitled to such luxuries. Whites and non-White “junior partners” alike find a sense of self in the sado-masochistic relationship between themselves and the Black Object, just as the craftsman finds himself in his carvings. Of course, the reality that Black people are just that, people, prevents the unimpeded integration of this relationship into contemporary and historical social dynamics, as the sentience of the object poses a threat to the user (importantly, this should be distinguished from the combative relationship between the traditional Hegelian Master and Slave, as the Master requires the Slave’s sentience to produce, whereas the Human requires merely the Black’s existence, preferably non-sentient). This enables oppressor and oppressed classes alike to find a sense of Human dignity in anti-Black violence: the Human is not Black, therefore the Human is something.

Wilderson does not buttress his argument with statistics, something which will no doubt confound and frustrate conservative readers, for the simple fact that his argument requires a departure from mere statistical analysis. The concrete evidence of systemic oppression which can be found in statistics does nothing to distinguish, fundamentally, Black Otherness from mere oppression. The story of Afropessimism is rooted inextricably and wholly to narrative and history, which is where Wilderson’s format truly shines.

I entered the book expecting to find myself troweling through dense theoretical and academic argumentative prose. However, the book is almost entirely comprised of memoirs from Wilderson’s immensely colorful life: his upbringing on what he describes as the antebellum and postbellum stayed that was Milwaukee, his attendance and subsequent suspension from Dartmouth College following his participation in disruptive political demonstration, his tumultuous life in hiding from federal intelligence agencies while his first partner pursued a lawsuit against the national government, his time in South Africa as a member of the revolutionary ANC, his academic lectures given at varied European centers of intellect, his cerebral experience of existential dread and anxiety. All are expertly woven together to create an entertaining and thrilling read; this book is perhaps among the top five least likely of our choices to be considered a page-turner, and yet it manages to be just that, without sacrificing its intellectual credibility.

The use of memoir, thrilling and heartbreaking and ultimately memorable, leads the reader to draw on their own the conclusion that narrative is itself is the key to understanding Afropessimism, undeniably the hardest pill to swallow for a contemporary audience hooked on the daily American news cycle, without Wilderson having to force the bitter tablet down our throats. These bodies of narrative are interrupted by brief bursts of analysis of a piece of film or literature, or a passage of Wilderson doing the dirty work of theory, which is to say, actually theorizing. At times, one feels disappointed at the first signs of an oncoming digression, as the plot of Wilderson’s life is so engaging it leads one to want to constantly devour more. Yet, inevitably, at the close of one of these more high-brow passages, I found I understood both the significance of the narrative thus far and the details of Afropessimism as a theory much better. The two work remarkably well together to make a quite dense and initially intimidating concept much more concrete and immediately viable.

As a result of the narrative approach to explaining the theory, it becomes difficult to argue with Wilderson’s conclusions. We just experienced for ourselves the world through the eyes of the Black Other, what can we do to deny it? There are, of course, a few approaches. One could, upon finishing the book, simply deny their own senses, as a stubborn skeptic might. However, Wilderson’s imagistic and oftentimes frightening prose makes this difficult to do without conscious mental effort (I expect to find myself unwillingly being subjected to scenes from the book leaping from my subconscious throughout the near future, which, I imagine, is exactly Wilderson’s goal). One could accuse Wilderson of being a liar and leave it at that. Fair enough, although if that is your approach, you likely weren’t included amongst the book’s targeted audience in the first place. Finally, one could fall back on the utilitarian objection of most activists and academics who reject Wilderson’s school of thought, though, as we have already briefly explored, this is not in itself an objection so much as an excuse to put the problem off for another time (perhaps when Utopia is achieved?).

This is the path of pragmatism, and it even finds its way into Wilderson’s own conclusion. As with many Afropessimists and Black existentialists, he accepts that he is asking the world to do the impossible: to define life outside of life’s current underlying definition (at least in regards to social struggles). He admits in the closing pages that “there is no denouement to social death” and that Afropessimism is “a problem that has no solution.” Of course, it brings discomfort when contemplated; all paradoxes, just like the sentient Object, trigger a confrontation with the uncanny in the psyches of those whose security in their material conditions lies in the continued ignorance of the paradox. Yet this is no reason to refuse to confront the problem. Problems such as these, those with no solution, are precisely those most worthy of contemplation.