Blackness of Black

William David Hart is the Margaret W. Harmon Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College.

• Preliminary RemarksPart 1: Discursive IntimationsChapter 1: Phobogenic BlacknessChapter 2: Social DeathChapter 3: Racial Capitalism and the Black Radical TraditionChapter 4: FleshPart 2: Inaugural Gesture and Three Trajectories in the Discourse of the Blackness of BlackChapter 5: The Afterlife of SlaveryChapter 6: AfropessimismChapter 7: Generative BlacknessChapter 8: Black NihilismConcluding Remarks

The discourse on Blackness and Black death and dying has become the substance of Black critical theory, and Hart provides an insightful elucidation and analysis of that discourse. Beginning with Frantz Fanon’s phobogenic Blackness, Hart explores themes such as the afterlife of slavery, social death, flesh, the wake, paraontology, Afropessimism, Black nihilism, and Blackness as generativity. The book is rich with historical insights into origins—the African slave trade, where slaves were thrown overboard without regard, sundered from roots and family, and seen as without "being." In the afterlife of slavery, the Black man was rendered burdened, though free; encumbered but deprived of land and capital, labeled deficient in manliness and without substantial being. Blackness was seen by the white gaze as criminal, as something to be removed from social space. Hart calls attention to W. E. B. Du Bois’s exploration of the lived experience of Black people and the notion of double consciousness, a trope for all considered other—on the other side of the color line. This overview is a rich foundation for understanding why Black lives are viewed as of no matter, without worth, and yet why they must matter. Recommended.