Most critiques of Afropessimism I have read have been bad faith
This does not mean there can be no valid criticism, and that even bad faith critics dont have some kernel of truth in what they are saying
Afropessimism is popular because it is resonating with what I find to be a valid tendency within Black thought to critiques of (orthodox) humanism, which ultimately heightens as the weaponization of ‘human’ impacts Black queer and disabled folks and the planet violently
My issue personally is that that critical tendency precedes and lives outside of and finds its conscious articulation in a range of projects—not just Afropessimism. And I maintain that these other projects build on it in better ways. And that it is unfair for them to be erased
In my Black Radical Ecology journey I did spend several years reading alot of Afropessimism and Black Optimism and their critiques so I dont like when people tell me that it’s because of not understanding that I say what I say. This is patently false and a cop out.
I landed on the position “Beyond Humanism but Not Without It” which is a riff on Ashanti Alston’s “Beyond Nationalism, but Not Without It.” And Im ultimately inspired by women like Sylvia Wynter the more I dive into that position, and the more I read her work.
The essay “Beyond Humanism, But Not Without It” is also titled “Reflections on the Matter of Black Life.” It juxtaposes the popularity of AP and Black Optimism with the rise of the Black Lives Matter age, seeing all three as touching on questions of Black ontological value.
It walks through my early journey as an organizer during that time: in the liberal advocacy circuit, then Black cultural nationalist circuits, and then revolutionary Pan African/Third World circuits. I touch on these as emblematic of diverse approaches to Black ontological value
Aka different attempts to make sure Black life mattered. I speak to the role of “humanism” in each of these projects. I speak to the different kinds of humanism that exists—something I dont think Afropessimism provides enough consciousness raising about. I speak to their strength
But I also speak to their weaknesses: implications on Black queer and disabled lives and on how we understand environmental justice. Here is where I summon why i find what AP and Black optimism raise important or perhaps resonate for many. But I also speak to what I think they...
... both get wrong about the materialist/dialectical premise for understanding social change. This is a metatheoretical disjuncture that cannot be said to have no effect on praxis (as some APs imply).
I then argue that none of the popular humanisms as I understand them really fully make the basis for materialist commitment in radicalism clear—precisely because “human” as a construct is so entangled in hierarchical oppressions. This is where a concept of being ‘beyond it’ lies
I only share this because I often end up discussing Afropessimism especially because Anarkata Thought has a complicated relationship to it, that recognizes some of its value and some of its weaknesses, and affirms adjacent yet discordant spaces of thought as also important here
I wrote my piece so that we can hold all of that multiplicity in its tensions and come to a conversation rather them folk talking past each other like I keep witnessing. It cannot stop at just actual straw men and then unfair accusations of straw men where there are not any.
At some point the “materialists” gotta stop acting like coloniality doesn’t show up in or is upheld by their propositions via humanismS; but at some point these ontocentrists need to stop framing social struggle as primarily an affective problem resolved by contrivance.
It cannot be that somehow either side is either completely wrong or completely correct and i am not saying this to sound “centrist” or “unbiased.” At the end of the day as an Anarkata I have materialist commitments.
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