A – Afropessimism [Michigan

Critique Lab]
FRAMEWORK
 Simulation Good
Simulated legal debates are crucial for social transformation---teaching
legal precision is net-better for eliminating oppression even if one-shot
legal solutions don’t work the first time
Karl Klare, George J. & Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor,
Northeastern University School of Law, “Teaching Local 1330—Reflections on Critical Legal
Pedagogy,” (‘11). School of Law Faculty Publications. Paper 167.
http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20002528
By now it has begun to dawn that one of the subjects of this class session is how lawyers translate their moral intuitions and sense
of justice into legal arguments. Most beginning students
have found themselves in the situation of wanting
to express their moral intuitions in the form of legal arguments but of feeling powerless to do
so. A common attitude of Northeastern students is that a lawyer cannot turn moral and political
convictions into legal arguments in the context of case-litigation. If you are interested in directly pursuing
a moral and/or political agenda, at a minimum you need to take up legislative and policy work, and
more likely you need to leave the law altogether and take up grass roots organizing instead. I insist that we keep the focus on
litigation for this class period. After the straw poll, I ask the students to simulate the role of Staughton Lynd‟s legal assistants and to
assume that the court has just definitively rejected the claims based on contract, promissory estoppel, and the notion of a
community property right. However, they should also assume, counter-factually, that Judge Lambros stayed dismissal of the suit for
ten days to give plaintiffs one last opportunity to come up with a theory. I charge the students with the task of making a convincing
common law argument, supported by respectable legal authority, that the plaintiffs were entitled to substantial relief. Put another
way, I ask the students to prove that Judge Lambros was mistaken—that he was legally wrong—when he concluded that there was
no basis in existing law to vindicate the workers‟ and community‟s rights. In some classroom exercises, I permit students to select
All students are asked to simulate the
the side for which they wish to argue, but I do not allow that in this session.
role of plaintiffs‟ counsel and to make the best arguments they can—either because they actually
believe such arguments and/or because in their simulated role they are fulfilling their ethical
duty to provide zealous representation. A recurring, instant reflex is to say: “it‟s simple—the workers‟ human rights
were violated in the Youngstown case.” I remind the class that the challenge I set was to come up with a common law theory. The
great appeal of human rights discourse for today‟s students is that it seems to provide a technical basis upon which their fervent
moral and political commitments appear to be legally required. “What human rights?” I ask. The usual answers are (1) “they had a
right to be treated like human beings” or (2) “surely there is some human right on which they can base their case.” To the first
argument I respond: “well, how they are entitled to be treated is exactly what the court is called upon in this case to decide. Counsel
may not use a re-statement of the conclusion you wish the court to reach as the legal basis supporting that conclusion.” To the
second response I reply: “it would be nice if some recognized human right applied, but we are in the Northern District of Ohio in
1980. Can you cite a pertinent human rights instrument?” (Answer: “no.”) The students then throw other ideas on the table.
Someone always proposes that U.S. Steel‟s actions toward the community were “unconscionable.” I point out that unconscionability
is a defense to contract enforcement whereas the plaintiffs were seeking to enforce a contract (the alleged promise not to close the
plant if it were rendered profitable). In any case, we have assumed that the judge has already ruled that there was no contract.
Another suggestion is that plaintiffs go for restitution. A restitution claim arises when plaintiff gives or entrusts something of value to
the defendant, and the defendant wrongfully refuses to pay for or return it. But here we are assuming that Judge Lambros has
already ruled that the workers did not endow U.S. Steel with any property or value other than their labor power for which they were
already compensated under the applicable collective bargaining agreements. If the community provided U.S. Steel with value in the
nature of tax breaks or infrastructure development, the effect of Judge Lambros‟ ruling on the property claim is to say that these
were not investments by the community but no-strings-attached gifts given in the hope of attracting or retaining the company‟s
business. At this point I usually give a hint by saying, “if we‟ve ruled out contract claims, and we‟ve ruled property claims, what does
that leave?” Aha, torts! A student then usually suggests that U.S. Steel committed the tort of intentional infliction of emotional
distress (IIED).15 I point out that, even if it were successful, this theory would provide plaintiffs relief only for their emotional injuries,
but not their economic or other losses, and most likely would not provide a basis for an injunction to keep the plant open. In any
event, IIED is an intentional tort. What, I ask, is the evidence that U.S. Steel intends the plant shutdown to cause distress? The
response that “they should know that emotional distress will result” is usually not good enough to make out an intentional tort. An
astute student will point out that in some jurisdictions it is enough to prove that the defendant acted with reckless disregard for the
likelihood that severe emotional distress would result. I allow that maybe there‟s something to that, but then shift ground by pointing
out that a prima facie requirement of IIED is that the distress suffered go beyond what an “ordinary person” may be expected to
endure or beyond the bounds of “civilized behavior.”16 Everyone knows that plants close all the time and that the distress
accompanying job-loss is a normal feature of American life. A student halfheartedly throws out negligent infliction of emotional
distress, to which my reply is: “In what way is U.S. Steel‟s proposed conduct negligent? The problem we are up against here is
precisely that the corporation is acting as a rational profit-maximizer.” A student always proposes that plaintiffs should allege that
what U.S. Steel did was “against public policy.” First of all, I say, “public policy” is not a cause of action; it is a backdrop against
which conduct or contract terms are assessed. Moreover, what public policy was violated in this case? The student will respond by
saying “it is against public policy for U.S. Steel to leave the community devastated.” I point out once again that that is the very
conclusion for which we are contending—it is circular argument to assert a statement of our intended conclusion as the rationale for
that conclusion. This dialogue continues for awhile. One ineffective theory after another is put on the table.
Only once or twice in the decades I have taught this exercise have the students gotten close to
a viable legal theory. But this is not wasted time—learning occurs in this phase of the exercise. The
point conveyed is that while law and morals/politics are inextricably intertwined, they are not the
same. For one thing, lawyers have a distinct way of talking about and analyzing problems that is
characteristic of the legal culture of a given time and place. So-called “legal reasoning” is actually a repertoire of
conventional, culturally approved rhetorical moves and counter-moves deployed by
lawyers to create an appearance of the legal necessity of the results for which they contend. In addition, good
lawyers actually possess useful, specialized knowledge not generally absorbed by political
theorists or movement activists. Legal training sensitizes us to the many complexities that
arise whenever general norms and principles are implemented in the form of rules of decision or
case applications. Lawyers know, for example, that large stakes may turn on precisely how a right
is defined, who has standing to vindicate it, what remedies it provides, how the right is
enforced and in what venue(s), and so on. We are not doing our jobs properly if we argue, simply, “what
the defendant did was unjust and the plaintiff deserves relief.” No one needs a lawyer to make the
“what the defendant did was unjust” argument. As Lynd‟s account shows, the workers of Youngstown did make that argument in
If “what the defendant did was
their own, eloquent words and through their collective resistance to the shut-downs.
unjust” is all we have to offer, lawyers bring no added value to the table. Progressive
students sometimes tell themselves that law is basically gobbledygook, but that you can assist movements for
social change if you learn how to spout the right gobbledygook. In this view of legal practice, “creativity” consists in identifying an
appropriate technicality that helps your client. But in the Youngstown situation, we are way past that naïve view. There is no
a social justice lawyer must use the bits and pieces lying
“technicality” that can win the case. In this setting,
around to generate new legal knowledge and new legal theories. And these new theories must
say something more than “my client deserves to win” (although it is fine to commence one‟s research on the
basis of that moral intuition). The class is beginning to get frustrated, and around now someone says “well, what do you expect?
This is capitalism. There‟s no way the workers were going to win.” The “this-is-capitalism” (“TIC”) statement sometimes comes from
the right, sometimes from the left, and usually from both ends of the spectrum but in different ways. The TIC statement precipitates
another teachable moment. I begin by saying that we need to tease out exactly what the student means by TIC, as several
interpretations are possible. For example, TIC might be a prediction of what contemporary courts are most likely to do. That is, TIC
might be equivalent to saying that “it doesn‟t matter what theory you come up with; 999 US judges out of 1,000 would rule for U. S.
Steel.”17 I allow that this is probably true, but not very revealing. The workers knew what the odds were before they launched the
case. Even if doomed to fail, a legal case may still make a contribution to social justice if the
litigation creates a focal point of energy around which a community can mobilize,
articulate moral and political claims, educate the wider public, and conduct political
consciousness-raising. And if there is political value in pursuing a case, we might as well make good legal arguments.
On an alternative reading, the TIC observation is more ambitious than a mere prediction. It might be a claim that a capitalist society
requires a legal structure of a certain kind, and that therefore professionally acceptable legal reasoning within capitalist legal
regimes cannot produce a theory that interrogates the status quo beyond a certain point. Put another way, some outcomes are so
foreign to the bedrock assumptions of private ownership that they cannot be reached by respectable legal reasoning. A good
example of an outcome that is incompatible with capitalism, so the argument goes, is a court order interfering with U.S. Steel‟s
decision to leave Youngstown. This reading of the TIC comment embodies the idea that legal discourse is
encased within a deeper, extra-legal structure given by requirements of the social order (capitalism), so
that within professionally responsible legal argument the best lawyers in the world could not
state a winning theory in Local 1330. Ironically, the left and the right in the class often share this
belief. I take both conservative and progressive students on about this. I insist that the claim that our law is
constrained by a rigid meta-logic of capitalism—which curiously parallels the notion that legal outcomes are tightly
constrained by legal reasoning— is just plain wrong. Capitalist societies recognize all sorts of
limitations on the rights of property owners. Professor Singer‟s classic article catalogues a multitude of them.18
The claim is not only false, it is a dangerous falsehood. To believe TIC in this sense is to
limit in advance our aspirations for what social justice lawyering can accomplish. Now the
class begins to sense that I am not just playing law professor and asking rhetorical questions to which there are no answers. The
students realize that I actually think that I have a theory up my sleeve that shows that Judge Lambros was wrong on the law. If
things are going well, the students begin to feel an emotional stake in the exercise. Many who voted in the straw poll that the
plaintiffs deserved to win are anxious to see whether I can pull it off. Other students probably engage emotionally for a different
reason—the ones who have been skeptical or derisive of my approach all term hope that my “theory,” when I eventually reveal it, is
so implausible that I will fall flat on my face. I begin to feed the students more hints. One year I gave the hint, “What do straying
livestock, leaking reservoirs, dynamite blasting, and unsafe products have in common?”—but that made it too easy. Usually my hints
are more oblique, as in “does anything you learned about accident law ring a bell?” Whatever the form, the students take the hints,
and some start cooking with gas. Over the next few minutes, the pieces usually fall into place. The legal theory toward which I have
been steering the students is that U.S. Steel is strictly liable in tort for the negative social effects of its decision to disinvest in
Youngstown. I contend that that is what the law provided in Ohio in 1980, and therefore a mechanism was available for the District
Court to order substantial relief. A basic, albeit contested theme of modern tort law, which all students learn in first year, is that
society allows numerous risky and predictably harmful activities to proceed because we deem those activities, on balance, to be
worthwhile or necessary. In such cases, the law often imposes liability rules designed to make the activity pay for the injuries or
accidents it inevitably causes. For more than a century, tort rules have been fashioned to force actors to take account of all
consequences proximately attributable to their actions, so that they will internalize the relevant costs and price their products
accordingly. The expectation is that in the ordinary course of business planning, the actor will perform a cost/benefit analysis to
make sure that the positive values generated by the activity justify its costs. Here, I remind the students of the famous Learned
Hand Carroll Towing formula19 comparing B vs. PL, where B represents the costs of accident avoidance (or of refraining from the
activity when avoidance is impossible or too costly); and P x L (probability of the harm multiplied by the gravity of the harm) reflects
foreseeable accident costs.20 The tort theory that evolved from this and similar cost/benefit approaches is called “market
deterrence.” The notion is that liability rules should be designed to induce the actor who is in the best position to conduct this kind of
cost/benefit analysis with respect to a given activity to actually conduct it. Such actors will have incentives to make their products
and activities safer and/or to develop safer substitute products and activities.21 Actors will then pass each activity‟s residual
accident costs on to consumers by “fractionating” and “spreading” such costs through their pricing decisions. As a result, prices will
give consumers an accurate picture of the true social costs of the activity, including its accident costs. Consumers are thus enabled
to make rational decisions about whether to continue purchasing the product or activity in light of its accident as well as its
production costs. In principle, if a particular actor produces an unduly risky product (in the sense that its accident costs are above
“market level”), that actor‟s products will be priced above market, and he/she will be driven out of business.22 Tort rules have long
been crafted with an eye toward compelling risky but socially valuable activities or enterprises to internalize their external costs. My
examples—to which the students were exposed in first year—are the ancient rule imposing strict liability for crop damage caused by
escaping livestock;23 strict liability under the doctrine of Rylands v. Fletcher for the escape of dangerous things brought onto one‟s
property;24 strict liability under Restatement (Second) § 519 for damage caused by “abnormally dangerous activities” such as
dynamite blasting;25 and most recently, strict products liability.26 Of course, there are many exceptions to this approach. For
example, “unavoidably unsafe” or “Comment k products” are deemed non-defective and therefore do not carry strict liability. And of
course the U.S. largely rejected Rylands. Why was that? Because, as was memorably stated in Losee v. Buchanan: “We must have
factories, machinery, dams, canals and railroads. They are demanded by the manifold wants of mankind, and lay at the basis of all
our civilization.”27 In assuming that entrepreneurial capitalism would be stymied if enterprises were obliged to pay for the harms
they cause, the Losee court accepted a strong version of TIC. Time permitting, I touch briefly on the debate about whether the
flourishing of the negligence principle in the U.S. subsidized 19th century entrepreneurial capitalism,28 the possible implications of
the Coase Theorem for our discussion of Local 1330,29 and the debate about whether it is appropriate for courts to fashion common
law rules with an eye toward their distributive as well as efficiency consequences.30 With this as background, I argue that the
District Court should have treated capital mobility—investors‟ circulation of capital in search of the highest rate of return—as a risky
but socially valuable activity warranting the same legal treatment as straying cattle and dynamite blasting. Capital mobility is socially
valuable. It is indispensable for economic growth and flexibility. Capital mobility generates important positive externalities for
“winners,” such as economic development and job-creation at the new site of investment. However, capital mobility also predictably
causes negative external effects on “bystanders” (the ones economists quaintly label “the losers”). We discussed some of these
externalities at the outset of the class—the trauma associated with income interruption and pre-mature retirement, waste or
destruction of human capital, multiplier effects on the local economy, and social pathologies and community decline of the kind
experienced in Youngstown. The plaintiffs should have argued that capital mobility must internalize its social dislocation costs for
reasons of economic efficiency, and that this can be accomplished by making investors strictly liable in tort for the social dislocation
costs proximately caused by their capital mobility decisions. An investor considering shifting capital from one use to another will
compare their respective rates of return. In theory, the investment with the higher return is socially optimal (as well as more
profitable for the individual investor). The higher-return investment enlarges the proverbial pie. But investors must perform accurate
comparisons of competing investment opportunities in order for the magic hand of the market to perform its magic. A rational
investor bases her analysis primarily on price signals reflecting estimated rates of return on alternative investment options. This
comparison will yield an irrational judgment leading to a socially suboptimal investment decision unless the estimated rate of return
on the new investment reflects its external effects, both positive and negative. Investors often have public-relations incentives to tout
the positive economic consequences promised at the new location. To guarantee rational decision making, the law must force
investors contemplating withdrawal of capital from an enterprise to also carefully consider the negative social dislocation costs
properly attributable to the activity of disinvestment. This can be achieved by making capital mobility strictly liable for its proximately
caused social dislocation costs.31 This approach erects no inefficient barriers to capital mobility, nor does it bar all disinvestment
decisions that may cause disruption and loss in the exit community. Other things being equal, if the new investment discounted by
the social dislocation costs of exit will generate a higher rate of return than the current use of the capital, the capital should be
disinvested from the old use and transferred to the new use. However, if investors are not forced by liability rules to take into
account the social dislocation costs of disinvestment, the new investment opportunity will appear more attractive than it really is in a
social sense. The situation involves a classic form of market failure. The market is imperfect because investors are not obliged to
take into account the negative social dislocation costs proximately caused by their decisions. Inaccurate price signals lead to the
overproduction of capital movement and therefore to a suboptimal allocation of resources. Apart from any severance and
unemployment benefits received by workers at the old plant, the social dislocation costs of disinvestment are almost entirely
externalized onto the workers and the surrounding community. Strict tort liability will induce investors and their downstream
customers to fractionate and spread the dislocation costs of capital mobility when pricing the products of the new activity. This will
provide those who use or benefit from the new activity at the destination community more accurate signals as to its true social costs
and oblige them to fractionally share in the misfortunes afflicting the departure community. Suppose, for example, that U.S. Steel
invested the money it took out of Youngstown toward construction of a modern, high-tech steel mill in a Sunbelt state. The price of
steel produced at the new mill should fractionally reflect social dislocation costs in Youngstown. According to legal “common sense”
and mainstream economic theory, the movement of capital from a lesser to a more profitable investment is an unambiguous social
good. Allowing capital to migrate to its highest rate of return guarantees that society‟s resources are devoted to their most
productive uses. Society as a whole is better off if capital is permitted freely to migrate to the new investment and there to grow the
pie. In short, the free mobility of capital maximizes aggregate welfare. We are all “winners” in the long run, even if some unfortunate
“losers” might get hurt along the way. It follows as an article of faith that any legal inhibition on the mobility of capital is inefficient and
socially wasteful. This is why mainstream legal thinking refuses to accord long-term workers or surrounding communities any sort of
“property interest” in the enterprise which a departing investor is obliged to buy out before removal.32 An unwritten, bed-rock
assumption of US law is that capital is not and should not be legally responsible for the social dislocation costs occasioned by its
mobility.33 Such costs are mostly externalized onto employees and the surrounding community, even if the exit community had
subsidized the old investment with tax breaks and similar forms of corporate welfare. The legal common sense about capital mobility
is mistaken. It is not a priori true that the movement of capital toward the greatest rate of return unambiguously enhances aggregate
social welfare. Free capital mobility maximizes aggregate welfare and allocates resources to their most productive uses only in a
perfect market; that is, only in the absence of market failure. The claim that free capital mobility is efficient is sometimes true, and
sometimes it is not. It all depends on the particular facts and circumstances on the ground. Voilà. Judge Lambros was wrong. In
1980, a mechanism did exist in our law to recognize the plaintiffs‟ claims and afford them substantial relief for economic, emotional,
and other losses.34 All that was required was a logical extension of familiar torts thinking. Had Judge Lambros correctly applied
well-known and time-honored torts principles, he would have treated the social dislocation costs of the plant closure as an
externality that must be embedded in U.S. Steel‟s calculations regarding the relative profitability of the old and new uses to which it
might put its capital. This would close the gap between private and social costs, thereby tending to perfect the market. Notice an
important rhetorical advantage of this theory—its core value is economic efficiency. The plaintiffs can get this far along in their
argument without mentioning “fairness,” “equity,” or “justice,” let alone “human rights,” values that are often fatal to legal argument in
U.S. courts today.35 I now brace myself for the “you gotta be kidding me” phase of the discussion. Objections cascade in. The
progressive students want to be convinced that this is really happening. The mainstream students want to poke holes and debunk. A
few of them are grateful at last for an opportunity to show how misguided they always knew my teaching was. Always, students
assert that my summary discussion of the cost/benefit analysis omitted various costs and benefits. For example, one year I omitted
to say that the social dislocation costs in the exit community must be discounted by ameliorative public expenditures such as
unemployment insurance benefits. My response to this type of objection is always the same: “you are absolutely right, that cost or
benefit should be included in the analysis. And here are a few more considerations we would need to address to perfect the
cost/benefit analysis which I left out only in the interest of time.” But I learn from this discussion; not infrequently, students contribute
something I had not previously considered. A frequent objection is that the task of quantifying the social dislocation costs associated
with capital mobility is just too complicated and difficult. I concede that it is a complex task and that conservative estimates might be
required in place of absolute precision. I ask, however, whether it is preferable to allow investors to proceed on the basis of price-
signals we know to be wrong or to induce them to use best efforts to arrive at fair estimates. Separation of powers always comes up,
as it should. I go through the usual riffs. Yes, I concede, these problems cry out for a comprehensive legislative solution rather than
case-by-case adjudication. But standard, well-known counter-arguments suggest that Judge Lambros should nevertheless have
imposed tort liability in this case. For one thing, determining the rules of tort liability has always been within the province of courts.
Deferring to the status quo (that those who move capital are not legally responsible for negative externalities) is every bit as much a
choice, every bit as much “activism” or “social engineering,” as altering the status quo. Legal history is filled with cases in which the
legislature was only prompted to address an important public policy concern by the shock value of a court decision. Particularly is
this so in cases involving the rights and interests of marginalized, insular, and under-represented groups like aging industrial
workers. I note that Congress eventually responded to the plant closing problem with the WARN Act, a modest but not unimportant
effort to internalize to enterprises some of the social dislocation costs of capital disinvestment. The statute liquidates these costs into
a sum equal to sixty days‟ pay after an employer orders a plant closing or mass layoff without giving proper notice.36 I call the
students‟ attention to the provision of WARN barring federal courts from enjoining plant closings37 and ask why Congress might
have included that restriction. Another common objection concerns causation. A student will say: “The closedown of the mills, let
alone the shutdown of any particular plant, could not have caused all of the suicides, heart failures, domestic violence, and so on, in
Youngstown. Surely many such tragedies would have occurred anyway, even if U.S. Steel had remained. It isn‟t fair to impose
liability on U.S. Steel for everything bad that happened in Youngstown during the statute-of-limitations period.” I immediately say
that this is a terrific point, and that I was hoping someone would raise it. I compliment the student by saying that the question shows
that he/she is now tapping legal knowledge. Typically, the class is concerned with causation-in-fact or “but for” causation. Their
question is, how do we know that a plant shutdown caused any particular case of heart failure or suicide in Youngstown? Problems
of causal uncertainty are a familiar issue, and I remind students that they were exposed to several well-known responses in Torts. A
time-honored, if simplistic device is to shift the burden of proof regarding causationinfact to the defendant, when everyone knows full
well that the defendant has no more information than the plaintiff with which to resolve the problem of causal uncertainty.38 In
recent decades, courts have developed more sophisticated responses to problems of causal uncertainty as, for example, in the DES
cases. As the court stated in Sindell:39 In our contemporary complex industrialized society, advances in science and technology
create fungible goods which may harm consumers and which cannot be traced to any specific producer. The response of the courts
can be either to adhere rigidly to prior doctrine, denying recovery to those injured by such products, or to fashion remedies to meet
these changing needs. Just as Justice Traynor in his landmark concurring opinion in Escola . . . recognized that in an era of mass
production and complex marketing methods the traditional standard of negligence was insufficient to govern the obligations of
manufacturer to consumer, so should we acknowledge that some adaptation of the rules of causation and liability may be
appropriate in these recurring circumstances . . . .40 At this point, some of the progressive students are beginning to salivate. They
came to law school with the hope that legal reasoning would provide them a highly refined and politically neutral technology for
speaking truth to power. The first semester disabuses most of them of that crazy idea. They have learned that they will not find
certainty or answers in legal discourse, and that legal texts are minefields of gaps, conflicts, and ambiguities with moral and political
implications. I can tell from the glint in their eyes that they are beginning to ask themselves whether this economics stuff, which they
formerly shunned like the plague, might provide a substitute toolbox of neutral technologies with which to demonstrate that redress
for workers and other subordinated and marginalized groups is legally required. I cannot allow them to think that. Therefore, unless
an alert student has spotted it, I now reveal my Achilles‟ heel. The weak link in my argument is the age-old question of proximate
causation. Assume we solve the causation-in-fact problem. For example, assume that by analogy to the Sindell theory of market-
share liability, the court arrives at a fair method of attributing to the plant shutdown some portion of the social trauma and injuries
occurring in the wake of U.S. Steel‟s departure from Youngstown. How do we know whether the plant closing proximately caused
these harms? What do we mean by “proximate causation” anyway, and why does it matter? These questions present another
exciting, teachable moment. Naturally, the students haven‟t thought about proximate cause since first year. They barely remember
what it is and how it differs from causation-in-fact. Some 3Ls shuffle uncomfortably knowing that the Bar examination looms, and
they are soon going to need to know about this. I provide a quick review of proximate causation which addresses the question, how
far down the chain of causation should liability reach? I illustrate my points by referring to Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R,41 which all
law students remember. Perhaps U.S. Steel might fairly be held accountable for the suicide of steelworkers within ninety days of the
plant closing, but we might draw the line before holding U.S. Steel liable for a stroke suffered by a steelworker‟s spouse five years
later. Now keyed in to what proximate cause doctrine is about, the students eagerly wait for me to tell them what the “answer” is,
that is, where proximate causation doctrine would draw the line in the Youngstown case. That‟s when I give them the bad news. I
explain that proximate causation doctrine does not provide a determinate analytical method for measuring the scope of liability. We
pretend that buzzwords like “reasonable foreseeability” or “scope-of-the-risk” give us answers, but ultimately decisions made under
the rubric of proximate causation are always value judgments.42 The conclusion that “X proximately caused Y” is a statement about
the type of society we want to live in. At this juncture, the 3Ls grumpily realize that I am not going to be much help in preparing them
for their bar review course. I now distribute a one-page hand-out on proximate causation prepared in advance. The handout reprints
Justice Andrews‟ remarkable observation in his Palsgraf dissent: What we . . . mean by the word „proximate‟ is, that because of
convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain
point. This is not logic. It is practical politics . . . . It is all a question of expediency. There are no fixed rules to govern our judgment.
There are simply matters of which we may take account.43 I point out that causation-in-fact analysis, too, always involves
perspective and value judgments.44 Why assume that water escaping the reservoir diminished the value of the neighboring coal
mining company‟s land? Why not assume that the coal company‟s decision to dig close to the border diminished the value of the
manufacturer‟s land (by increasing the cost of using the type of reservoir needed in its production process)? For that matter, why
assume that the cattle trample on the neighbors‟ crops? Why not assume that the crops get in the way of the cattle? My handout
also contains my variation on Robert Keeton‟s famous definition of proximate cause45: When a court states that „the defendant‟s
conduct was the proximate cause of (some portion of) the plaintiff‟s injuries,‟ what the court means is that (1) the defendant‟s
conduct was a cause-in-fact of that portion of plaintiff‟s injuries; and (2) the defendant‟s conduct and the plaintiff‟s specified injuries
are so related that it is appropriate, from the moral and social-policy points of view, to hold the defendant legally responsible for that
portion of the plaintiff‟s injuries. What we mean when we ask whether the social dislocation costs associated with the shutdown of
the steel plant were proximately caused by capital mobility is whether these costs are, in whole or in part, properly attributable from
a moral/political point of view to U.S. Steel‟s decision to disinvest. Economic “science” does not and cannot establish in a value-
neutral manner that the social dislocation costs of the plant shutdown are a negative externality of capital mobility. A conclusion of
that kind requires a value judgment that we disguise under the rubric of “proximate causation,” a value judgment about whom it is
appropriate to ask to bear what costs related to what injuries. The lesson is that in
legal reasoning there is no escape
from moral and political choice. If things have gone according to plan, time conveniently runs out, and the class is
dismissed on that note. What am I trying to accomplish in a class like this? What are the objectives of critical legal pedagogy?
Legal education should empower students. It should put them in touch with their own capacity
to take control over their lives and professional education and development. It should enable
them to experience the possibility of participating, as lawyers, in transformative social movements. But
all too often classroom legal education is deadening. The law student‟s job, mastering doctrine, appears utterly unconnected to any
Classroom legal education
process of learning about oneself or developing one‟s moral, political, or professional identity.
tends to reinforce a sense of powerlessness about our capacity to change social institutions.
Indeed, it often induces students to feel that they are powerless to shape and alter their own legal
education. Much of legal education induces in students a pervasive and exaggerated sense of
the constraint of legal rules and roles and the students‟ inability to do much about it. In capsule form,
the goals of critical legal pedagogy are— • to disrupt the socialization process that occurs during
legal education; • to unfreeze entrenched habits of mind and deconstruct the false claims of
necessity which constitute so-called “legal reasoning”; • to urge students to see their life‟s work ahead as an
opportunity to unearth and challenge law‟s dominant ideas about society, justice, and human
possibility and to infuse legal rules and practices with emancipatory and egalitarian content;
• to persuade students that legal discourses and practices comprise a medium, neither infinitely
plastic nor inalterably rigid, in which they can pursue moral and political projects and
articulate alternative visions of social organization and social justice; • to train them to
argue professionally and respectably for the utopian and the impossible; • to alert them that legal cases
potentially provide a forum for intense public consciousness-raising about issues of social
justice; • to encourage them to view legal representation as an opportunity to challenge, push, and
relocate the boundaries between intra-systemic and extra-systemic activity, that is, an opportunity to work within the
system in a way that reconstitutes it; and • to show that the existing social order is not
immutable but “is merely possible, and that people have the freedom and power to act upon it.”46
The most important point of the class is that social justice lawyers never give up. The appropriate
response when you think you have a hopeless case is to go back and do more work in
the legal medium.
 Policy Edu Good
Our methodology is to utilize the state as a heuristic – only that pedagogy
allows us to understand the analytical tools of government
Zanotti ‘14
Dr. Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching include
critical political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs
in post-conflict governance.“Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global
World” – Alternatives: Global, Local, Political – vol 38(4):p. 288-304,. A little unclear if this is late 2013 or early 2014 –
The Stated “Version of Record” is Feb 20, 2014, but was originally published online on December 30th, 2013.
Obtained via Sage Database.
By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political agency are reframed in a way that focuses on power and subjects’ relational character and the

Options for resistance to governmental scripts are not

contingent processes of their (trans)formation in the context of agonic relations.

limited to ‘‘rejection,’’ ‘‘revolution,’’ or ‘‘dispossession’’ to regain a pristine ‘‘freedom from all constraints’’ or an immanent ideal social order. It is found instead
in multifarious and contingent within struggles that are
government constituted the scripts of al

rationalities and at the same time exceed and transform them This approach .

questions oversimplifications of the complexities of liberal political rationalities and of their interactions with non-liberal
political players and nurtures a radical skepticism about identifying universally good or bad actors or

abstract solutions to political problems. International power interacts in complex ways with
diverse political spaces and within these spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, redescribed, hijacked, and tinkered with. Governmentality as
a heuristic focuses on performing complex diagnostics of events. It invites historically situated explorations and careful differentiations
rather than overarching demonizations of ‘‘power,’’ romanticizations of the ‘‘rebel’’ or the ‘‘the
local.’’ More broadly, theoretical formulations that conceive the subject in non-substantialist terms and focus on processes of subjectification, on the ambiguity of power discourses, and on hybridization as

the terrain for political transformation, open ways for reconsidering political agency beyond the dichotomy of oppression/rebellion. These alternative formulations also foster an ethics of

political engagement, to be continuously taken up through plural and uncertain practices, that demand
continuous attention to ‘‘what happens’’ instead of fixations on ‘‘what ought to be.’’83 Such
ethics of engagement would not await the revolution to come or hope for a pristine ‘‘freedom’’ to be regained. Instead, it
would constantly attempt to twist the working of power by playing with whatever cards are
available and would require intense processes of reflexivity on the consequences of
political choices. To conclude with a famous phrase by Michel Foucault ‘‘my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If
everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and

pessimistic activism.’’84

Political progress happens through institutions---recognizing that doesn’t

produce complacency---building politics is far more valuable than
theorizing about anti-institutional black agency
Reed 15 – professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania
(Adolph, “The James Brown Theory of Black Liberation,”
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/adolph-reed-black-liberation-django-lincoln-selma-glory/)
What approach to political action can follow from the contention that the Thirteenth
Amendment was empty window dressing and that black slaves’ emancipation was like James Brown’s
backward, Nixonian ideal of self-help?∂ The perspective that shrivels the scope of black political
concern to expressing racial “agency” similarly diminishes the significance of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the US Supreme Court’s 1944 Smith v. Allwright
decision that outlawed the infamous “white primary” (and exponentially increased black
voting in the South), the 1954 Brown decision, 1964 Civil Rights law, and 1965 Voting
Rights Act as if all were in some twisted way racially inauthentic because acknowledging
their significance as moments in the struggle for social justice detracts from the James Brown
Theory of Black Liberation.∂ That ideological commitment is what impelled Ava DuVernay to make the seemingly gratuitous
move of falsifying Martin Luther King Jr’s relationship with the Johnson administration around the Selma campaign: “I wasn’t
interested in making a white savior movie,” she replied to critics, “I was interested in making a movie centered on the people of
Selma.”∂ Of course, she doesn’t do the latter either, but her commitment to not “making a white savior movie” also led her to
misconstrue the tension between the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference in Selma, which stemmed precisely from the SNCC activists’ objection that King and his organization maintained secret,
The psychobabbling bromides that elevate
backdoor dealings with the Johnson administration.∂
recognition and celebration of black agency rest on an ideological perspective that in
practical terms rejects effective black political action in favor of expressive display . It is
the worldview of an element of the contemporary black professional stratum anchored in
the academy, blogosphere, and the world of mass media chat whose standing in public life is bound up
with establishing a professional authority in speaking for the race. This is the
occupational niche of the so-called black public intellectuals.∂ The torrent of faddish
chattering-class blather and trivial debate sparked by Michael Eric Dyson’s recent attack on Cornel West in the
New Republic illustrates the utter fatuity of this domain, as if there were any reason to care
about a squabble between two freelance Racial Voices with no constituency or links to radical
institutions between them.∂ In an illustration of what this game is all about, the Nation, sensing space for competing brands,
projected some Alternative Black Voices into this circus of spurious racial representation in a piece entitled “6 Scholars Who Are
‘Reimagining Black Politics.’ ”∂ Twenty years practically to the week before publication of Dyson’s essay, I took stock of what was
then the newly confected category of the Black Public Intellectual and noted that the notion’s definitive
irony was that its avatars were quite specifically not organically rooted in any dynamic political activity
and in fact emerged only after opportunities for real connection to political movements had
disappeared. Nor were the “public intellectuals” connected to any particular strain of scholarship or criticism.∂ Rather,
their status was no more than a posture and a brand. By the early 2000s, it was possible
to see young people entering doctoral programs with their sights on the academy as a
venue for pursuing careers as public intellectuals — i.e. among the free-floating racial commentariat. And that was
before the explosion of the blogosphere and Twitterverse, which have exponentially increased both avenues for realizing such
aspirations and the numbers of people pursuing them.∂ But the politics enacted in those venues is by and
large an ersatz politics, and the controversies that sustain them are by and large
ephemeral, vacant bullshit — the “feud” between Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks, whether
black people were dissed because Selma wasn’t nominated for/didn’t win enough Oscars, and so on.∂
In the context of this sort of non-stop idiotic bread and circuses — and this may be an apt moment to
remind that the blogosphere is open to any fool with a computer and Internet access — it is good to reflect on one of
the crucial moments in American history when the linking of social and political forces
presented a clear choice between egalitarian and inegalitarian interests, and masses of
black people joined with others to strike a consequential blow for social justice and to
wipe the scourge of slavery from the United States.∂ No, it wasn’t a final victory over
inequality — it didn’t usher in a utopian order, and the greatest promises opened by the triumph
were unfulfilled or largely undone. But it was one of the most important victories that
egalitarian forces have won, along with those of the twentieth-century labor, civil rights,
and women’s movements, and it is worth reflecting on it and the ways it changed the
country for the better .∂ That struggle against the slaveholders’ insurrection, along with those latter movements, also
underscores the fact that the
path to winning the kind of just world to which a left should aspire
requires building a politics that seeks, as the old saying goes, to unite the many to defeat the
few. Any other focus is either unserious or retrograde.

Policy debates over education are critical to racial progress---BLM

education activism proves---policy analysis is key
James Ford 16, program director at the Public School Forum of North Carolina, North Carolina
Teacher of the Year, “Education Must Be Part of the Movement for Black Lives and Social
Justice,” 06/01/2016, Education Post //
Over the past few years the nation has become familiar with the phrase Black Lives Matter. This is a
declarative statement. An assertion of humanity that shouldn’t have to be said in the first place.
It is also a grassroots activist movement emerging at least in part as a response to extrajudicial
violence against unarmed Black people by law enforcement and vigilantes. ¶ It has raised the visibility of
abuses of power visited upon Black bodies and exposed the underbelly of institutional racism in our nation. Sadly, the
education sector is not exempt. ¶ Thus far, most of the movement’s energy has understandably been directed at the
criminal justice system and reforming its practices. But this is just one institution within a complex web of several that disadvantages
education must be central to the
Black people. As the movement for Black lives continues to expand its reach,
discussion of racial justice. ¶ Earlier this year the U.N.’s Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
released a preliminary report about the treatment of African-Americans in the U.S. It looked at many forms of structural inequality
¶ While education is marketed as the “great
but directly implicated our education system in perpetuating the problem.
equalizer,” we fail as a nation to equalize educational opportunity for everyone. Race continues
to be a significant factor in determining student outcomes. Breaking this color-coded system of
advantage is going to require adopting a racial equity lens in at least a few areas of education. ¶
As we work towards reforms in education, here are some areas we have to consider. ¶ THE
OPPORTUNITY GAP ¶ While people typically reference the achievement gap when discussing the difference in academic
performance between Black students and their White peers, it’s more reflective of a gap in overall opportunity. Black people tend to
rank at the bottom of most quality of life measures—such as income, health care, housing, food security, etc.—causing a negative
cumulative effect on student achievement. ¶ This proves that it’s not just the “well of education” that is toxic, the groundwater is
contaminated, too. Efforts must be made to combat underlying social problems as a way of closing the opportunity gap for students.
¶ RESEGREGATION ¶ Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board of Education declared that separate is inherently unequal, many of
the nation’s schools are resegregating based on both race and class—this is occurring not only in
traditional public schools, but charters as well—despite the fact that 50-plus years of evidence has shown that integrated schools
help close gaps and improve outcomes over a lifespan. ¶ DISCIPLINE DISPARITIES ¶ Nationally, Black
students are
suspended or expelled from school at a rate three times that of White students (the rate is six times
higher for Black girls). This is especially prevalent in the South. The gaps in discipline are not only disproportionate but disparate
since many of the punishments are for subjective offenses (i.e., insubordination, aggressive behavior, etc.). ¶ These are essentially
judgment calls and relative to a person’s perception. Implicit racial bias likely plays a major role in the differential treatment of Black
¶ SPECIAL EDUCATION ¶ Black
students, as they are routinely disciplined more harshly and fed into a school-to-prison pipeline.
students have been overrepresented in certain categories of special education for some time
now. They are two to three times more likely to be categorized as emotionally disturbed, intellectually disabled and mentally
retarded than their White counterparts. This is significant because it is likely the result of misdiagnoses, rooted in stigmas about the
intellectual ability of certain racial and ethnic groups. ¶ ACCESS TO RIGOR ¶ The belief gap prevents many Black students from
gaining access to the most challenging coursework. ¶ Students of color are underrepresented in rigorous
courses and programs—such as gifted, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate—even when controlling for
the level of readiness or aptitude. Outdated identification systems based on teacher referral leave room for stereotypes to influence
who is and is not seen as capable. ¶ TEACHER DIVERSITY ¶ Since 2014, the majority of students in public education are non-
White. Yet, 82 percent of the teaching workforce remains White, with only 7 percent of all teachers being Black,
and only 2 percent being Black males. ¶ It is important for students of color to see themselves reflected in the profession as it not
only offers tangible role models but helps improve academic performance as well. Greater efforts must be made to recruit and retain
Black teachers and make the teaching force more representative of the students. ¶ CULTURALLY-RESPONSIVE PEDAGOGY ¶
With the rapidly changing demographics of the student body, teachers often find themselves in classrooms with students whose
culture is radically different than their own. Many are often ill-prepared for how to relate to their students and teach in a way that is
both rigorous and relevant to their lives. Making the learning space one that recognizes and dignifies the
backgrounds of students is necessary for content delivery to be effective. Without it, schools
take on a colonial feel where cultural indoctrination is part of the hidden curriculum. ¶ While it’s no
surprise that many of the most visible leaders of Black Lives Matter are themselves educators, the community must
embrace a broader educational platform to ensure this powerful confession rings true. ¶ Contrary to the
ongoing debate that school reform movement has become too focused on social justice,
schools are not divorced from the structural reality of racism. Educators have an ethical
obligation to wrestle with it. It is more a practical matter than a partisan one. Race-
consciousness belongs in the educational space, because color-blind reforms keep
reproducing color-coded outcomes. ¶ Elevating it as a focal point of education and applying
an equity lens when evaluating data, practice and policy is essential for diminishing its
significance.

Black political literacy is uniquely key to racial progress---grassroots

political activism drove successful education movements like Brown v
Board---unaffiliated movements merely fizzled out
Anthony Badger No Date, Professor of American History at Cambridge University, “Different
Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement,” Gilder Lehman Institute of American History,
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/civil-rights-movement/essays/different-
perspectives-civil-rights-movement //
It is important to challenge the rather sanitized and safe image of a Civil Rights Movement that is celebrated in the annual national
holiday to mark Dr. King’s birthday. The
success of the remarkable social movement of the 1950s and
1960s was not simply the story of heroic nonviolent black protest and a responsive white liberal
judiciary and federal government. Nevertheless, the necessary revisions by historians should not be allowed to obscure
the radical achievement of King and the Civil Rights Movement. ¶ In fact, revisionist historians overstate their case. The collapse of
segregation in the South cannot be explained solely as the inevitable result of economic modernization. Until the 1960s,
southern businessmen believed that they could maintain the traditional patterns of race relations
in the South and also secure dynamic economic growth. It was only in the early 1960s, with the
growth of the Civil Rights Movement, that they finally realized that racial tension was deterring
outside investment and that racial change would inevitably be imposed on the region. Then they
took the first steps to mediate the transition away from segregation in their communities. Nor did the Brown decision halt
any significant level of gradual racial change in the South. Before Brown, changes had
occurred only at the edges of segregation, while year after year, the core had remained
intact. Moreover, Brown was not the first impetus to violent white backlash. Even before the decision came down in 1954, such
backlashes had already broken out in response to black attempts to register to vote and to move into white suburbs. ¶ It is true that
McCarthyism helped destroy the left-led unions of the 1940s as well as groups like the Civil Rights Congress and the Southern
The patient
Conference for Human Welfare. But these groups were only part of the Civil Rights Movement of that era.
campaign for voter registration in the southern cities and the NAACP’s legal challenge to
segregation continued. It was when these campaigns failed to bring satisfactory results in the
1950s that African Americans in the South turned to nonviolent direct-action protest in Montgomery
in 1955 and in Greensboro in 1960. ¶ It is also true that grassroots activism was crucial in activating civil
rights campaigns, in sustaining momentum for the movement at critical periods, and, during the late
1960s, in translating legal gains into visible jobs, real school desegregation, police protection, improved public services, and local
African Americans needed the access to national
political power. But grassroots activism was not enough.
political influence and media attention that Martin Luther King Jr. brought. It was King’s campaigns at
Birmingham and Selma that led to the legislative victories of 1964 and 1965 that destroyed
segregation. Despite the heroism of black and white activists during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, by the end of
that summer, fewer than 1,000 African American voters and less than 6 percent of voting-age blacks in the state had been
registered. However, within
three years of the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, over 60 percent
of Mississippi’s blacks were registered to vote.

Social movements for USFG policy changes are key to create

transformation---empirically proven
Mark Warren 14, associate professor of public policy and public affairs at University of
Massachusetts Boston, “Transforming Public Education: The Need for an Educational Justice
Movement,” 09/22/2014, New England Journal of Public Policy, Volume 26, Issue 1 //
Transformational change, especially in situations of power inequalities and oppressive
structures, requires a social movement. By social movement in this context, I mean collective
action by oppressed or marginalized people to build power to win changes in
government policy and public attitudes that advance the cause of social justice.
Movements transform unequal power arrangements in part by demanding recognition, voice,
and participation. Social movements create shifts in cultural attitudes and public discourse and
so are necessary to combat the stereotypes and low expectations facing children of color in
education, on the streets, and in the media. ¶ Successful movements seek out allies and work to build a
larger societal consensus for change. In this way movements build power but also appeal to the
hearts and change the minds of the majority. By putting forward a concrete agenda for
change and a vision for a more just and equitable society, movements shift the dominant
discourse and cultural patterns. Discrete initiatives in program or policy change cannot produce this kind of transformational
change in public education. Rather, a social movement has the potential to galvanize a broad public
consensus for a far-reaching and deep approach to education reform connected to forthright
efforts to address poverty and racism. In other words, a social movement is necessary to
transform public education itself and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement
to combat poverty and racism. ¶ The United States once undertook such a large-scale and
broad effort at improving education as it also made great strides in combating poverty and
racial discrimination. In the sixties and seventies, in large part as the result of the civil rights
movement, the nation invested heavily in public education as it created new social programs and
broke down barriers to education and employment for African Americans, Latinos, and other groups. By the midseventies,
urban schools spent as much as suburban schools, while childhood poverty rates fell
dramatically—to below the levels of today. As Linda Darling-Hammond has recently argued, this comprehensive and well-
resourced approach worked. The “achievement gap” in reading scores between black and white
students was cut in half and was also reduced substantially in math; for a short time black college
attendance rates were comparable to white rates. With the retrenchment in social programs and affirmative action that began in the
1980s, however, progress in educational improvement for black and Latino children largely stalled and the achievement gap actually
grew again in the 1980s. Since then, any progress that has been made on the racial achievement gap has been swamped by the
growth of the socioeconomic class gap discussed earlier.
Simulated legal debates are crucial for social transformation---teaching
legal precision is net-better for eliminating oppression even if one-shot
legal solutions don’t work the first time
Karl Klare, George J. & Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor,
Northeastern University School of Law, “Teaching Local 1330—Reflections on Critical Legal
Pedagogy,” (‘11). School of Law Faculty Publications. Paper 167.
http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20002528
By now it has begun to dawn that one of the subjects of this class session is how lawyers translate their moral intuitions and sense
of justice into legal arguments. Most beginning students
have found themselves in the situation of wanting
to express their moral intuitions in the form of legal arguments but of feeling powerless to do
so. A common attitude of Northeastern students is that a lawyer cannot turn moral and political
convictions into legal arguments in the context of case-litigation. If you are interested in directly pursuing
a moral and/or political agenda, at a minimum you need to take up legislative and policy work, and
more likely you need to leave the law altogether and take up grass roots organizing instead. I insist that we keep the focus on
litigation for this class period. After the straw poll, I ask the students to simulate the role of Staughton Lynd‟s legal assistants and to
assume that the court has just definitively rejected the claims based on contract, promissory estoppel, and the notion of a
community property right. However, they should also assume, counter-factually, that Judge Lambros stayed dismissal of the suit for
ten days to give plaintiffs one last opportunity to come up with a theory. I charge the students with the task of making a convincing
common law argument, supported by respectable legal authority, that the plaintiffs were entitled to substantial relief. Put another
way, I ask the students to prove that Judge Lambros was mistaken—that he was legally wrong—when he concluded that there was
no basis in existing law to vindicate the workers‟ and community‟s rights. In some classroom exercises, I permit students to select
All students are asked to simulate the
the side for which they wish to argue, but I do not allow that in this session.
role of plaintiffs‟ counsel and to make the best arguments they can—either because they actually
believe such arguments and/or because in their simulated role they are fulfilling their ethical
duty to provide zealous representation. A recurring, instant reflex is to say: “it‟s simple—the workers‟ human rights
were violated in the Youngstown case.” I remind the class that the challenge I set was to come up with a common law theory. The
great appeal of human rights discourse for today‟s students is that it seems to provide a technical basis upon which their fervent
moral and political commitments appear to be legally required. “What human rights?” I ask. The usual answers are (1) “they had a
right to be treated like human beings” or (2) “surely there is some human right on which they can base their case.” To the first
argument I respond: “well, how they are entitled to be treated is exactly what the court is called upon in this case to decide. Counsel
may not use a re-statement of the conclusion you wish the court to reach as the legal basis supporting that conclusion.” To the
second response I reply: “it would be nice if some recognized human right applied, but we are in the Northern District of Ohio in
1980. Can you cite a pertinent human rights instrument?” (Answer: “no.”) The students then throw other ideas on the table.
Someone always proposes that U.S. Steel‟s actions toward the community were “unconscionable.” I point out that unconscionability
is a defense to contract enforcement whereas the plaintiffs were seeking to enforce a contract (the alleged promise not to close the
plant if it were rendered profitable). In any case, we have assumed that the judge has already ruled that there was no contract.
Another suggestion is that plaintiffs go for restitution. A restitution claim arises when plaintiff gives or entrusts something of value to
the defendant, and the defendant wrongfully refuses to pay for or return it. But here we are assuming that Judge Lambros has
already ruled that the workers did not endow U.S. Steel with any property or value other than their labor power for which they were
already compensated under the applicable collective bargaining agreements. If the community provided U.S. Steel with value in the
nature of tax breaks or infrastructure development, the effect of Judge Lambros‟ ruling on the property claim is to say that these
were not investments by the community but no-strings-attached gifts given in the hope of attracting or retaining the company‟s
business. At this point I usually give a hint by saying, “if we‟ve ruled out contract claims, and we‟ve ruled property claims, what does
that leave?” Aha, torts! A student then usually suggests that U.S. Steel committed the tort of intentional infliction of emotional
distress (IIED).15 I point out that, even if it were successful, this theory would provide plaintiffs relief only for their emotional injuries,
but not their economic or other losses, and most likely would not provide a basis for an injunction to keep the plant open. In any
event, IIED is an intentional tort. What, I ask, is the evidence that U.S. Steel intends the plant shutdown to cause distress? The
response that “they should know that emotional distress will result” is usually not good enough to make out an intentional tort. An
astute student will point out that in some jurisdictions it is enough to prove that the defendant acted with reckless disregard for the
likelihood that severe emotional distress would result. I allow that maybe there‟s something to that, but then shift ground by pointing
out that a prima facie requirement of IIED is that the distress suffered go beyond what an “ordinary person” may be expected to
endure or beyond the bounds of “civilized behavior.”16 Everyone knows that plants close all the time and that the distress
accompanying job-loss is a normal feature of American life. A student halfheartedly throws out negligent infliction of emotional
distress, to which my reply is: “In what way is U.S. Steel‟s proposed conduct negligent? The problem we are up against here is
precisely that the corporation is acting as a rational profit-maximizer.” A student always proposes that plaintiffs should allege that
what U.S. Steel did was “against public policy.” First of all, I say, “public policy” is not a cause of action; it is a backdrop against
which conduct or contract terms are assessed. Moreover, what public policy was violated in this case? The student will respond by
saying “it is against public policy for U.S. Steel to leave the community devastated.” I point out once again that that is the very
conclusion for which we are contending—it is circular argument to assert a statement of our intended conclusion as the rationale for
that conclusion. This dialogue continues for awhile. One ineffective theory after another is put on the table.
Only once or twice in the decades I have taught this exercise have the students gotten close to
a viable legal theory. But this is not wasted time—learning occurs in this phase of the exercise. The
point conveyed is that while law and morals/politics are inextricably intertwined, they are not the
same. For one thing, lawyers have a distinct way of talking about and analyzing problems that is
characteristic of the legal culture of a given time and place. So-called “legal reasoning” is actually a repertoire of
conventional, culturally approved rhetorical moves and counter-moves deployed by
lawyers to create an appearance of the legal necessity of the results for which they contend. In addition, good
lawyers actually possess useful, specialized knowledge not generally absorbed by political
theorists or movement activists. Legal training sensitizes us to the many complexities that
arise whenever general norms and principles are implemented in the form of rules of decision or
case applications. Lawyers know, for example, that large stakes may turn on precisely how a right
is defined, who has standing to vindicate it, what remedies it provides, how the right is
enforced and in what venue(s), and so on. We are not doing our jobs properly if we argue, simply, “what
the defendant did was unjust and the plaintiff deserves relief.” No one needs a lawyer to make the
“what the defendant did was unjust” argument. As Lynd‟s account shows, the workers of Youngstown did make that argument in
If “what the defendant did was
their own, eloquent words and through their collective resistance to the shut-downs.
unjust” is all we have to offer, lawyers bring no added value to the table. Progressive
students sometimes tell themselves that law is basically gobbledygook, but that you can assist movements for
social change if you learn how to spout the right gobbledygook. In this view of legal practice, “creativity” consists in identifying an
appropriate technicality that helps your client. But in the Youngstown situation, we are way past that naïve view. There is no
a social justice lawyer must use the bits and pieces lying
“technicality” that can win the case. In this setting,
around to generate new legal knowledge and new legal theories. And these new theories must
say something more than “my client deserves to win” (although it is fine to commence one‟s research on the
basis of that moral intuition). The class is beginning to get frustrated, and around now someone says “well, what do you expect?
This is capitalism. There‟s no way the workers were going to win.” The “this-is-capitalism” (“TIC”) statement sometimes comes from
the right, sometimes from the left, and usually from both ends of the spectrum but in different ways. The TIC statement precipitates
another teachable moment. I begin by saying that we need to tease out exactly what the student means by TIC, as several
interpretations are possible. For example, TIC might be a prediction of what contemporary courts are most likely to do. That is, TIC
might be equivalent to saying that “it doesn‟t matter what theory you come up with; 999 US judges out of 1,000 would rule for U. S.
Steel.”17 I allow that this is probably true, but not very revealing. The workers knew what the odds were before they launched the
case. Even if doomed to fail, a legal case may still make a contribution to social justice if the
litigation creates a focal point of energy around which a community can mobilize,
articulate moral and political claims, educate the wider public, and conduct political
consciousness-raising. And if there is political value in pursuing a case, we might as well make good legal arguments.
On an alternative reading, the TIC observation is more ambitious than a mere prediction. It might be a claim that a capitalist society
requires a legal structure of a certain kind, and that therefore professionally acceptable legal reasoning within capitalist legal
regimes cannot produce a theory that interrogates the status quo beyond a certain point. Put another way, some outcomes are so
foreign to the bedrock assumptions of private ownership that they cannot be reached by respectable legal reasoning. A good
example of an outcome that is incompatible with capitalism, so the argument goes, is a court order interfering with U.S. Steel‟s
decision to leave Youngstown. This reading of the TIC comment embodies the idea that legal discourse is
encased within a deeper, extra-legal structure given by requirements of the social order (capitalism), so
that within professionally responsible legal argument the best lawyers in the world could not
state a winning theory in Local 1330. Ironically, the left and the right in the class often share this
belief. I take both conservative and progressive students on about this. I insist that the claim that our law is
constrained by a rigid meta-logic of capitalism—which curiously parallels the notion that legal outcomes are tightly
constrained by legal reasoning— is just plain wrong. Capitalist societies recognize all sorts of
limitations on the rights of property owners. Professor Singer‟s classic article catalogues a multitude of them.18
The claim is not only false, it is a dangerous falsehood. To believe TIC in this sense is to
limit in advance our aspirations for what social justice lawyering can accomplish. Now the
class begins to sense that I am not just playing law professor and asking rhetorical questions to which there are no answers. The
students realize that I actually think that I have a theory up my sleeve that shows that Judge Lambros was wrong on the law. If
things are going well, the students begin to feel an emotional stake in the exercise. Many who voted in the straw poll that the
plaintiffs deserved to win are anxious to see whether I can pull it off. Other students probably engage emotionally for a different
reason—the ones who have been skeptical or derisive of my approach all term hope that my “theory,” when I eventually reveal it, is
so implausible that I will fall flat on my face. I begin to feed the students more hints. One year I gave the hint, “What do straying
livestock, leaking reservoirs, dynamite blasting, and unsafe products have in common?”—but that made it too easy. Usually my hints
are more oblique, as in “does anything you learned about accident law ring a bell?” Whatever the form, the students take the hints,
and some start cooking with gas. Over the next few minutes, the pieces usually fall into place. The legal theory toward which I have
been steering the students is that U.S. Steel is strictly liable in tort for the negative social effects of its decision to disinvest in
Youngstown. I contend that that is what the law provided in Ohio in 1980, and therefore a mechanism was available for the District
Court to order substantial relief. A basic, albeit contested theme of modern tort law, which all students learn in first year, is that
society allows numerous risky and predictably harmful activities to proceed because we deem those activities, on balance, to be
worthwhile or necessary. In such cases, the law often imposes liability rules designed to make the activity pay for the injuries or
accidents it inevitably causes. For more than a century, tort rules have been fashioned to force actors to take account of all
consequences proximately attributable to their actions, so that they will internalize the relevant costs and price their products
accordingly. The expectation is that in the ordinary course of business planning, the actor will perform a cost/benefit analysis to
make sure that the positive values generated by the activity justify its costs. Here, I remind the students of the famous Learned
Hand Carroll Towing formula19 comparing B vs. PL, where B represents the costs of accident avoidance (or of refraining from the
activity when avoidance is impossible or too costly); and P x L (probability of the harm multiplied by the gravity of the harm) reflects
foreseeable accident costs.20 The tort theory that evolved from this and similar cost/benefit approaches is called “market
deterrence.” The notion is that liability rules should be designed to induce the actor who is in the best position to conduct this kind of
cost/benefit analysis with respect to a given activity to actually conduct it. Such actors will have incentives to make their products
and activities safer and/or to develop safer substitute products and activities.21 Actors will then pass each activity‟s residual
accident costs on to consumers by “fractionating” and “spreading” such costs through their pricing decisions. As a result, prices will
give consumers an accurate picture of the true social costs of the activity, including its accident costs. Consumers are thus enabled
to make rational decisions about whether to continue purchasing the product or activity in light of its accident as well as its
production costs. In principle, if a particular actor produces an unduly risky product (in the sense that its accident costs are above
“market level”), that actor‟s products will be priced above market, and he/she will be driven out of business.22 Tort rules have long
been crafted with an eye toward compelling risky but socially valuable activities or enterprises to internalize their external costs. My
examples—to which the students were exposed in first year—are the ancient rule imposing strict liability for crop damage caused by
escaping livestock;23 strict liability under the doctrine of Rylands v. Fletcher for the escape of dangerous things brought onto one‟s
property;24 strict liability under Restatement (Second) § 519 for damage caused by “abnormally dangerous activities” such as
dynamite blasting;25 and most recently, strict products liability.26 Of course, there are many exceptions to this approach. For
example, “unavoidably unsafe” or “Comment k products” are deemed non-defective and therefore do not carry strict liability. And of
course the U.S. largely rejected Rylands. Why was that? Because, as was memorably stated in Losee v. Buchanan: “We must have
factories, machinery, dams, canals and railroads. They are demanded by the manifold wants of mankind, and lay at the basis of all
our civilization.”27 In assuming that entrepreneurial capitalism would be stymied if enterprises were obliged to pay for the harms
they cause, the Losee court accepted a strong version of TIC. Time permitting, I touch briefly on the debate about whether the
flourishing of the negligence principle in the U.S. subsidized 19th century entrepreneurial capitalism,28 the possible implications of
the Coase Theorem for our discussion of Local 1330,29 and the debate about whether it is appropriate for courts to fashion common
law rules with an eye toward their distributive as well as efficiency consequences.30 With this as background, I argue that the
District Court should have treated capital mobility—investors‟ circulation of capital in search of the highest rate of return—as a risky
but socially valuable activity warranting the same legal treatment as straying cattle and dynamite blasting. Capital mobility is socially
valuable. It is indispensable for economic growth and flexibility. Capital mobility generates important positive externalities for
“winners,” such as economic development and job-creation at the new site of investment. However, capital mobility also predictably
causes negative external effects on “bystanders” (the ones economists quaintly label “the losers”). We discussed some of these
externalities at the outset of the class—the trauma associated with income interruption and pre-mature retirement, waste or
destruction of human capital, multiplier effects on the local economy, and social pathologies and community decline of the kind
experienced in Youngstown. The plaintiffs should have argued that capital mobility must internalize its social dislocation costs for
reasons of economic efficiency, and that this can be accomplished by making investors strictly liable in tort for the social dislocation
costs proximately caused by their capital mobility decisions. An investor considering shifting capital from one use to another will
compare their respective rates of return. In theory, the investment with the higher return is socially optimal (as well as more
profitable for the individual investor). The higher-return investment enlarges the proverbial pie. But investors must perform accurate
comparisons of competing investment opportunities in order for the magic hand of the market to perform its magic. A rational
investor bases her analysis primarily on price signals reflecting estimated rates of return on alternative investment options. This
comparison will yield an irrational judgment leading to a socially suboptimal investment decision unless the estimated rate of return
on the new investment reflects its external effects, both positive and negative. Investors often have public-relations incentives to tout
the positive economic consequences promised at the new location. To guarantee rational decision making, the law must force
investors contemplating withdrawal of capital from an enterprise to also carefully consider the negative social dislocation costs
properly attributable to the activity of disinvestment. This can be achieved by making capital mobility strictly liable for its proximately
caused social dislocation costs.31 This approach erects no inefficient barriers to capital mobility, nor does it bar all disinvestment
decisions that may cause disruption and loss in the exit community. Other things being equal, if the new investment discounted by
the social dislocation costs of exit will generate a higher rate of return than the current use of the capital, the capital should be
disinvested from the old use and transferred to the new use. However, if investors are not forced by liability rules to take into
account the social dislocation costs of disinvestment, the new investment opportunity will appear more attractive than it really is in a
social sense. The situation involves a classic form of market failure. The market is imperfect because investors are not obliged to
take into account the negative social dislocation costs proximately caused by their decisions. Inaccurate price signals lead to the
overproduction of capital movement and therefore to a suboptimal allocation of resources. Apart from any severance and
unemployment benefits received by workers at the old plant, the social dislocation costs of disinvestment are almost entirely
externalized onto the workers and the surrounding community. Strict tort liability will induce investors and their downstream
customers to fractionate and spread the dislocation costs of capital mobility when pricing the products of the new activity. This will
provide those who use or benefit from the new activity at the destination community more accurate signals as to its true social costs
and oblige them to fractionally share in the misfortunes afflicting the departure community. Suppose, for example, that U.S. Steel
invested the money it took out of Youngstown toward construction of a modern, high-tech steel mill in a Sunbelt state. The price of
steel produced at the new mill should fractionally reflect social dislocation costs in Youngstown. According to legal “common sense”
and mainstream economic theory, the movement of capital from a lesser to a more profitable investment is an unambiguous social
good. Allowing capital to migrate to its highest rate of return guarantees that society‟s resources are devoted to their most
productive uses. Society as a whole is better off if capital is permitted freely to migrate to the new investment and there to grow the
pie. In short, the free mobility of capital maximizes aggregate welfare. We are all “winners” in the long run, even if some unfortunate
“losers” might get hurt along the way. It follows as an article of faith that any legal inhibition on the mobility of capital is inefficient and
socially wasteful. This is why mainstream legal thinking refuses to accord long-term workers or surrounding communities any sort of
“property interest” in the enterprise which a departing investor is obliged to buy out before removal.32 An unwritten, bed-rock
assumption of US law is that capital is not and should not be legally responsible for the social dislocation costs occasioned by its
mobility.33 Such costs are mostly externalized onto employees and the surrounding community, even if the exit community had
subsidized the old investment with tax breaks and similar forms of corporate welfare. The legal common sense about capital mobility
is mistaken. It is not a priori true that the movement of capital toward the greatest rate of return unambiguously enhances aggregate
social welfare. Free capital mobility maximizes aggregate welfare and allocates resources to their most productive uses only in a
perfect market; that is, only in the absence of market failure. The claim that free capital mobility is efficient is sometimes true, and
sometimes it is not. It all depends on the particular facts and circumstances on the ground. Voilà. Judge Lambros was wrong. In
1980, a mechanism did exist in our law to recognize the plaintiffs‟ claims and afford them substantial relief for economic, emotional,
and other losses.34 All that was required was a logical extension of familiar torts thinking. Had Judge Lambros correctly applied
well-known and time-honored torts principles, he would have treated the social dislocation costs of the plant closure as an
externality that must be embedded in U.S. Steel‟s calculations regarding the relative profitability of the old and new uses to which it
might put its capital. This would close the gap between private and social costs, thereby tending to perfect the market. Notice an
important rhetorical advantage of this theory—its core value is economic efficiency. The plaintiffs can get this far along in their
argument without mentioning “fairness,” “equity,” or “justice,” let alone “human rights,” values that are often fatal to legal argument in
U.S. courts today.35 I now brace myself for the “you gotta be kidding me” phase of the discussion. Objections cascade in. The
progressive students want to be convinced that this is really happening. The mainstream students want to poke holes and debunk. A
few of them are grateful at last for an opportunity to show how misguided they always knew my teaching was. Always, students
assert that my summary discussion of the cost/benefit analysis omitted various costs and benefits. For example, one year I omitted
to say that the social dislocation costs in the exit community must be discounted by ameliorative public expenditures such as
unemployment insurance benefits. My response to this type of objection is always the same: “you are absolutely right, that cost or
benefit should be included in the analysis. And here are a few more considerations we would need to address to perfect the
cost/benefit analysis which I left out only in the interest of time.” But I learn from this discussion; not infrequently, students contribute
something I had not previously considered. A frequent objection is that the task of quantifying the social dislocation costs associated
with capital mobility is just too complicated and difficult. I concede that it is a complex task and that conservative estimates might be
required in place of absolute precision. I ask, however, whether it is preferable to allow investors to proceed on the basis of price-
signals we know to be wrong or to induce them to use best efforts to arrive at fair estimates. Separation of powers always comes up,
as it should. I go through the usual riffs. Yes, I concede, these problems cry out for a comprehensive legislative solution rather than
case-by-case adjudication. But standard, well-known counter-arguments suggest that Judge Lambros should nevertheless have
imposed tort liability in this case. For one thing, determining the rules of tort liability has always been within the province of courts.
Deferring to the status quo (that those who move capital are not legally responsible for negative externalities) is every bit as much a
choice, every bit as much “activism” or “social engineering,” as altering the status quo. Legal history is filled with cases in which the
legislature was only prompted to address an important public policy concern by the shock value of a court decision. Particularly is
this so in cases involving the rights and interests of marginalized, insular, and under-represented groups like aging industrial
workers. I note that Congress eventually responded to the plant closing problem with the WARN Act, a modest but not unimportant
effort to internalize to enterprises some of the social dislocation costs of capital disinvestment. The statute liquidates these costs into
a sum equal to sixty days‟ pay after an employer orders a plant closing or mass layoff without giving proper notice.36 I call the
students‟ attention to the provision of WARN barring federal courts from enjoining plant closings37 and ask why Congress might
have included that restriction. Another common objection concerns causation. A student will say: “The closedown of the mills, let
alone the shutdown of any particular plant, could not have caused all of the suicides, heart failures, domestic violence, and so on, in
Youngstown. Surely many such tragedies would have occurred anyway, even if U.S. Steel had remained. It isn‟t fair to impose
liability on U.S. Steel for everything bad that happened in Youngstown during the statute-of-limitations period.” I immediately say
that this is a terrific point, and that I was hoping someone would raise it. I compliment the student by saying that the question shows
that he/she is now tapping legal knowledge. Typically, the class is concerned with causation-in-fact or “but for” causation. Their
question is, how do we know that a plant shutdown caused any particular case of heart failure or suicide in Youngstown? Problems
of causal uncertainty are a familiar issue, and I remind students that they were exposed to several well-known responses in Torts. A
time-honored, if simplistic device is to shift the burden of proof regarding causationinfact to the defendant, when everyone knows full
well that the defendant has no more information than the plaintiff with which to resolve the problem of causal uncertainty.38 In
recent decades, courts have developed more sophisticated responses to problems of causal uncertainty as, for example, in the DES
cases. As the court stated in Sindell:39 In our contemporary complex industrialized society, advances in science and technology
create fungible goods which may harm consumers and which cannot be traced to any specific producer. The response of the courts
can be either to adhere rigidly to prior doctrine, denying recovery to those injured by such products, or to fashion remedies to meet
these changing needs. Just as Justice Traynor in his landmark concurring opinion in Escola . . . recognized that in an era of mass
production and complex marketing methods the traditional standard of negligence was insufficient to govern the obligations of
manufacturer to consumer, so should we acknowledge that some adaptation of the rules of causation and liability may be
appropriate in these recurring circumstances . . . .40 At this point, some of the progressive students are beginning to salivate. They
came to law school with the hope that legal reasoning would provide them a highly refined and politically neutral technology for
speaking truth to power. The first semester disabuses most of them of that crazy idea. They have learned that they will not find
certainty or answers in legal discourse, and that legal texts are minefields of gaps, conflicts, and ambiguities with moral and political
implications. I can tell from the glint in their eyes that they are beginning to ask themselves whether this economics stuff, which they
formerly shunned like the plague, might provide a substitute toolbox of neutral technologies with which to demonstrate that redress
for workers and other subordinated and marginalized groups is legally required. I cannot allow them to think that. Therefore, unless
an alert student has spotted it, I now reveal my Achilles‟ heel. The weak link in my argument is the age-old question of proximate
causation. Assume we solve the causation-in-fact problem. For example, assume that by analogy to the Sindell theory of market-
share liability, the court arrives at a fair method of attributing to the plant shutdown some portion of the social trauma and injuries
occurring in the wake of U.S. Steel‟s departure from Youngstown. How do we know whether the plant closing proximately caused
these harms? What do we mean by “proximate causation” anyway, and why does it matter? These questions present another
exciting, teachable moment. Naturally, the students haven‟t thought about proximate cause since first year. They barely remember
what it is and how it differs from causation-in-fact. Some 3Ls shuffle uncomfortably knowing that the Bar examination looms, and
they are soon going to need to know about this. I provide a quick review of proximate causation which addresses the question, how
far down the chain of causation should liability reach? I illustrate my points by referring to Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R,41 which all
law students remember. Perhaps U.S. Steel might fairly be held accountable for the suicide of steelworkers within ninety days of the
plant closing, but we might draw the line before holding U.S. Steel liable for a stroke suffered by a steelworker‟s spouse five years
later. Now keyed in to what proximate cause doctrine is about, the students eagerly wait for me to tell them what the “answer” is,
that is, where proximate causation doctrine would draw the line in the Youngstown case. That‟s when I give them the bad news. I
explain that proximate causation doctrine does not provide a determinate analytical method for measuring the scope of liability. We
pretend that buzzwords like “reasonable foreseeability” or “scope-of-the-risk” give us answers, but ultimately decisions made under
the rubric of proximate causation are always value judgments.42 The conclusion that “X proximately caused Y” is a statement about
the type of society we want to live in. At this juncture, the 3Ls grumpily realize that I am not going to be much help in preparing them
for their bar review course. I now distribute a one-page hand-out on proximate causation prepared in advance. The handout reprints
Justice Andrews‟ remarkable observation in his Palsgraf dissent: What we . . . mean by the word „proximate‟ is, that because of
convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain
point. This is not logic. It is practical politics . . . . It is all a question of expediency. There are no fixed rules to govern our judgment.
There are simply matters of which we may take account.43 I point out that causation-in-fact analysis, too, always involves
perspective and value judgments.44 Why assume that water escaping the reservoir diminished the value of the neighboring coal
mining company‟s land? Why not assume that the coal company‟s decision to dig close to the border diminished the value of the
manufacturer‟s land (by increasing the cost of using the type of reservoir needed in its production process)? For that matter, why
assume that the cattle trample on the neighbors‟ crops? Why not assume that the crops get in the way of the cattle? My handout
also contains my variation on Robert Keeton‟s famous definition of proximate cause45: When a court states that „the defendant‟s
conduct was the proximate cause of (some portion of) the plaintiff‟s injuries,‟ what the court means is that (1) the defendant‟s
conduct was a cause-in-fact of that portion of plaintiff‟s injuries; and (2) the defendant‟s conduct and the plaintiff‟s specified injuries
are so related that it is appropriate, from the moral and social-policy points of view, to hold the defendant legally responsible for that
portion of the plaintiff‟s injuries. What we mean when we ask whether the social dislocation costs associated with the shutdown of
the steel plant were proximately caused by capital mobility is whether these costs are, in whole or in part, properly attributable from
a moral/political point of view to U.S. Steel‟s decision to disinvest. Economic “science” does not and cannot establish in a value-
neutral manner that the social dislocation costs of the plant shutdown are a negative externality of capital mobility. A conclusion of
that kind requires a value judgment that we disguise under the rubric of “proximate causation,” a value judgment about whom it is
appropriate to ask to bear what costs related to what injuries. The lesson is that in legal reasoning there is no escape
from moral and political choice. If things have gone according to plan, time conveniently runs out, and the class is
dismissed on that note. What am I trying to accomplish in a class like this? What are the objectives of critical legal pedagogy?
Legal education should empower students. It should put them in touch with their own capacity
to take control over their lives and professional education and development. It should enable
them to experience the possibility of participating, as lawyers, in transformative social movements. But
all too often classroom legal education is deadening. The law student‟s job, mastering doctrine, appears utterly unconnected to any
Classroom legal education
process of learning about oneself or developing one‟s moral, political, or professional identity.
tends to reinforce a sense of powerlessness about our capacity to change social institutions.
Indeed, it often induces students to feel that they are powerless to shape and alter their own legal
education. Much of legal education induces in students a pervasive and exaggerated sense of
the constraint of legal rules and roles and the students‟ inability to do much about it. In capsule form,
the goals of critical legal pedagogy are— • to disrupt the socialization process that occurs during
legal education; • to unfreeze entrenched habits of mind and deconstruct the false claims of
necessity which constitute so-called “legal reasoning”; • to urge students to see their life‟s work ahead as an
opportunity to unearth and challenge law‟s dominant ideas about society, justice, and human
possibility and to infuse legal rules and practices with emancipatory and egalitarian content;
• to persuade students that legal discourses and practices comprise a medium, neither infinitely
plastic nor inalterably rigid, in which they can pursue moral and political projects and
articulate alternative visions of social organization and social justice; • to train them to
argue professionally and respectably for the utopian and the impossible; • to alert them that legal cases
potentially provide a forum for intense public consciousness-raising about issues of social
justice; • to encourage them to view legal representation as an opportunity to challenge, push, and
relocate the boundaries between intra-systemic and extra-systemic activity, that is, an opportunity to work within the
system in a way that reconstitutes it; and • to show that the existing social order is not
immutable but “is merely possible, and that people have the freedom and power to act upon it.”46
The most important point of the class is that social justice lawyers never give up. The appropriate
response when you think you have a hopeless case is to go back and do more work in
the legal medium.

You should err aff—human systems are inherently malleable and metrics of
social death used to describe other groups such as the Moores but even
those seemingly unchangeable antagonisms were reversed.
Gordon 15 --- Lewis, Afro-Jewish philosopher, political thinker, educator, and musician,
Professor at the University of Connecticut in Philosophy and Africana Studies, European Union
Visiting Chair in Philosophy; Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor of Politics and International
Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa; and Chairman of the Frantz Fanon awards
committees of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, transcribed from
https://youtu.be/UABksVE5BTQ, presenting and discussing his book “What Fanon Said”
***Theonaturalism – religion based difference
The first thing to bear in mind you may wonder why in the beginning of the talk I talked about
philosophical anthropology. And many people when they are trying to talk about social change
they never think about what a human being is and this is something Fanon pays attention to.
Many people want to have closed conceptions of human beings because then human beings can
be predicable . In fact, in fanons writing he gave an example. One of the problems is that when
he would walk in reason seems to walk out. One problem we have to bear in mind when we try to
look at the question of human beings in terms of rigid closed systems is that we often are trying to get
as a model of how we work as theorists on issues of social change that are actually based on what we
can call law like generalizations . Now what is a law like generalization? It is when you make sure
that whatever you say has no contradiction down the line. So if you are to say this much
[gestures with hand] the next stage must be consistent with that, and the next stage until you
are maximally consistent. Do you get that? But here is the problem – and I can just put it in a nut
shell- nobody, nobody in this room would like to date, be married to, or be a best friend with a
maximally consistent person. You know what that is. Its hell. And this tells you something,
because if somebody where maximally consistent, you know what you would say that person is
not reasonable. And we have a person here who does work on Hegel that can point out this
insight, that a human being has the ability to evaluate rationality. Now why is that important?
Because you see the mistake many of us make is many of us want to push the human being into
that maximized law like generalization model . So when we think about our philosophical
anthropology, some people, our question about intersectionality for instance, what some people
don’t understand is nowhere is there ever a human being who is one identity. People talk about
race – do you ever really see a race walking? You see a racialized man or woman, or transman or
transwoman. Do you ever see a class walking? Class is embodied in flesh and blood people. And
we can go on and on. So if we enrich our philosophical anthropology we begin to notice certain other
things. And one of the other things we begin to realize is that we commit a serious problem when
we do political work. And the problem is this. The question about Wilderson for instance. There is
this discussion going on (and allot of people build it out of my earlier books). I have a category I
call, as a metaphor, an antiblack world. You notice an indefinite article – an anti-black world . The
reason I say that is because the world is different from an anti-black world . The project of racism
is to create a world that would be completely anti-black or anti-woman. Although that is a project, it
is not a fait accompli . People don’t seem to understand how recent this phenomenon we are talking
about is. A lot of people talk about race they don’t even know the history of how race is connected into
theonaturalism. How, for instance, Andalucia and the pushing out of the Moors. The history of how race
connected to Christianity was formed. A lot of people don’t understand – from the standpoint of a species
whose history is 220,000 years old, what the hell is 500 years? But the one thing that we don’t
understand to is we create a false model for how we study those last 500 years . We study the 500
years as if the people who have been dominated have not been fighting and resisting. Had they not
been fighting and resisting we wouldn’t be here. And then we come into this next point because you
see the problem in the formulation of pessimism and optimism is they are both based on forecasted
knowledge, a prior knowledge. But human beings don’t have prior knowledge. And in fact – what in
the world are we if we need to have guarantees for us to act. You know what you call such people? Cowards. The fact of the matter is our ancestors –
let’s start with enslaved ancestors. The enslaved ancestors who were burning down those plantations, who were finding clever ways to poison their masters, who were organizing meetings for rebellions, none of
them had any clue what the future would be 100 years later. Some had good reason to believe that it may take 1000 years. But you know why they fought? Because they knew it wasn’t for them. One of the
problems we have in the way we think about political issues is we commit what Fanon and others in the existential tradition would call a form of political immaturity. Political immaturity is saying it is not worth it
unless I, me, individually get the payoff. When you are thinking what it is to relate to other generations – remember Fanon said the problem with people in the transition, the pseudo postcolonial bourgeois – is that
they miss the point, you fight for liberation for other generations. And that is why Fanon said other generations they must have their mission. But you see some people fought and said no I want my piece of the
pie. And that means the biggest enemy becomes the other generations. And that is why the postcolonial pseudo-bourgeoisie they are not a bourgeoisie proper because they do not link to the infrastructural
development of the future, it is about themselves. And that’s why, for instance, as they live higher up the hog, as they get their mediating, service oriented, racial mediated wealth, the rest of the populations are in
misery. The very fact that in many African countries there are people whose futures have been mortgaged, the fact that in this country the very example of mortgaging the future of all of you is there. What
happens to people when they have no future? It now collapses the concept of maturation and places people into perpetual childhood. So one of the political things – and this is where a psychiatrist philosopher is

understand that in all political action it’s not about

crucial – is to ask ourselves what does it mean to take on adult responsibility. And that means to

you . It is what you are doing for a world you may not even be able to understand . Now that
becomes tricky, because how do we know this? People have done it before . There were people,
for instance, who fought anti-colonial struggles, there are people (and now I am not talking about
like thirty or forty years ago, I am talking about the people from day one 17th 18th century all the
way through) and we have no idea what we are doing for the 22nd century . And this is where
developing political insight comes in. Because we commit the error of forgetting the systems we
are talking about are human systems . They are not systems in the way we talk about the laws of
physics. A human system can only exist by human actions maintaining them . Which means every
human system is incomplete. Every human being is by definition incomplete . Which means you
can go this way or you can go another way. The system isn’t actually closed.
 Suffering Reps Good
Black cinema shores up the ability to feel empathy that reworks the ability
to influence psychic structures.
Jafa and Campt, 17 [Arthur Jafa and Tina M. Campt, Arthur Jafa is a visual artist,
filmmaker, cinematographer, and TNEG (motion picture studio) cofounder born in Tupelo,
Mississippi and currently residing in Los Angeles. Renowned for his cinematography on Julie
Dash’s pioneering film Daughters of the Dust (1991), Jafa, also the film’s coproducer, put into
practice techniques he had long been theorizing. Tina Campt is Claire Tow and Ann Whitney
Olin Professor of Africana and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Director of the Barnard
Center for Research on Women, and Chair of the Africana Studies Department at Barnard
College “Love is the Message, The Plan is Death,” 2017, e-flux]//Townes
AJ: Well, I think empathy is maybe the single most important thing that’s at issue now in society.
We know that the process of oppressing people requires the one who is oppressing a another to
first dehumanize them. I mean, this is the oldest strategy. We’ve seen it time and time again. We see it in Nazi Germany. They put
people in situations where their humanity is thrown into questions because it’s like … Somebody
said to me recently if you throw a bunch of crabs in a barrel (as if the barrel was the national
habitat of the crabs—you know?), it’s gonna produce and elicit certain kinds of behavior
which, considered ahistorically, will appear to be innate, rather than an adaptation to malevolent
circumstances. Same thing if you throw people into a barrel. The people who are dehumanizing others are trying to
maintain or hold onto the sense of their own humanity. If I step on a bug, I know maybe the American Society for the
Protection of Animals might get mad, but I’m really not stressing it too deeply when I step on
a roach. I’m just not. I don’t think about whether the roach has a family and children or anything like
that. I just step on it. But you can’t do that with human beings unless in some way you convince yourself that they’re bugs. So ultimately it
comes down to the relative presence or absence of empathy. You cannot oppress people
without expending a certain type of psychic energy, unless the whole mechanism, the whole
superstructure is supporting that understanding of the other as being less human, less feeling
than you are. I think you learn empathy. I think it has to be taught. I was cinematographer on the film
Daughters of the Dust years ago, thirty years ago. Daughters, for those who don’t know, is about a black family at the turn of the century in South
Carolina—they’re trying to decide whether they should stay off-land, you know off the mainland, on the island. Or should they go to the mainland and
I remember a talk I gave
become a part of society at large? It’s very much a film about Africans, African-Americans, becoming black.
about the film at the New School. We showed the film and then afterwards we were talking, and
I’ll never forget this older white woman, she stood up and said, “This is an amazing film. When I
see this film I don’t see color. I see my grandmother. I see my grandmother. I don’t see color
when I see this film.” And she was a very nice lady (speaking from what I took to be a
progressive place) but I remember asking her, “Why can’t you see color and see your
grandmother?” Like why is that a split, you know? Why do you have to erase her blackness in
order to see your grandmother in this woman? I think that’s what’s at stake. It comes to
empathy. The classic way in which cinema works is that you identify with the people on the screen. You go to see a movie and you identify with
a person. Generally, you identify with a “good guy.” And there’s a whole battery of things—lighting,
costumes, and everything else—that the filmmaker manipulates to make it clear (implicitly and
explicitly) who’s going to be the good guy and who we’re supposed to identify with. One of the
things that was radical about Daughters, if something was radical about it, was when you went to see that film the only subject positions you could
occupy were those of black women. There were no other subject positions available. You can’t even find white guys as bad guys. It’s just black women,
What it does do is make it harder to
right? Daughters does what it does but I don’t think it’s going to change people’s attitudes.
pretend as if black women are less human. Because for its two hours you’re forced (or
allowed, I would hope) to exist in someone else’s skin. It erodes one of the psychic
mechanisms in place that lets you pretend that that person (a black woman) has less
feelings, less humanity, less whatever than you do, right? So I’m very much preoccupied
with how the work that I do tries to expand narrow notions of who we are. Who is we? You
know, who identifies with what, this whole idea of empathy being learned? We know that
women have better empathy muscles than men. Because they get to go to films where they don’t see themselves and
they project themselves anyway. They get to exercise that muscle. Audiences of color exhibit better
empathy in cinema because they go to cinema all the time where they don’t see figures
that look anything like them and they’ve accordingly developed the capacity to project
themselves into that space and empathetically have that experience. We need more
cinema that constructs more spaces for more types of people to be able to exercise their
empathy muscles. So it’s one of the reasons I’m not generally interested in making films about white folks. I’m really interested in making
work that is always foregrounding black people’s humanity, bad guys or good guys. I like the alien. I’m a big fan of the alien. I’m a big fan of Hannibal
I just want to see black people who are complex. And
Lecter, who I think is black and passing. Fundamentally,
competent at what they do, even if they’re mad geniuses or whatever.

PERMUTATION
 Perm – Wilderson Indict
GOT EM - WILDERSON VOTES AFF
Frank B. Wilderson 16, it’s Wilderson, “‘The Inside-Outside of Civil Society’: An Interview
with Frank B. Wilderson, III”, https://www.academia.edu/26032053/_The_Inside-
Outside_of_Civil_Society_An_Interview_with_Frank_B._Wilderson_III
You know, I’ve been doing political education workshops for
So that’s a hurdle that we have to overcome.
Black Lives Matter in New York and Los Angeles, and probably will do more in Chicago. And
what I hope to have people do workshop exercises around is this concept that I have called
“Two Trains Running (Side by Side).” By that I mean, you can do your political organizing
that will help us get relief from police brutality right now. We need that. We need that. But
that work that we do should be seen as puny in terms of its philosophical and theoretical orientation so that we can educate
ourselves politically to be against the police as an institution and against the United States as a country, even while we are working
to reform police practices, because we do not have the strength right now that we had in the 1960s and 1970s to act in the way the
Black Liberation Army did, or Baader-Meinhof, we do not have the strength to act in the revolutionary mode, but that lack of
We should not feel that we have to accept
strength, that lack of capacity, should not contaminate our orientation.
the existence of police even if we’re working in reformist measures politically. Hopefully this
idea of two trains running will pick up. Black Lives Matter has done a great job in opening up a new
Black political organizing space. That’s great. Now let’s use that space for an educational
project that is soundly anti-American, and soundly anti-police even if tactically, we have
to work for police reforms.
 Perm – Delgado
The aff is effective in the interim and brings revolutionary change closer
rather than pushing it away—this should frame your ballot
Richard Delgado 9, self-appointed Minority scholar, Chair of Law at the University of
Alabama Law School, J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, his books have won eight
national book prizes, including six Gustavus Myers awards for outstanding book on human
rights in North America, the American Library Association’s Outstanding Academic Book, and a
Pulitzer Prize nomination. Professor Delgado’s teaching and writing focus on race, the legal
profession, and social change, 2009, “Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want,
Arguing about Law”, p. 588-590
TheCLS critique of piecemeal reform¶ Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform.
Incremental change, they argue, merely postpones the wholesale reformation that must occur to
create a decent society. Even worse, an unfair social system survives by using piecemeal reform to
disguise and legitimize oppression. Those who control the system weaken resistance by
pointing to the occasional concession to, or periodic court victory of, a black plaintiff or worker as
evidence that the system is fair and¶ just. In fact, Crits believe that teaching the¶ common law or using the case method in law school is a disguised
means of preaching incrementalism and thereby maintaining the current power structure.“ To avoid this, CLS scholars¶ urge law professors to abandon the case method, give

The CLS critique of piecemeal reform

up the effort to find rationality and order¶ in the case law, and teach in an unabashedly political fashion.¶

is familiar, imperialistic and wrong. Minorities know from bitter experience that occasional court victories do not mean the Promised Land is at
hand. The critique is imperialistic in that it tells minorities and other oppressed peoples how they should

interpret events affecting them. A court order directing a housing authority to disburse funds for
heating in subsidized housing may postpone the revolution, or it may not. In the meantime, the
order keeps a number of poor families warm. This may mean more to them than it does to a
comfortable academic working in a warm office. It smacks of paternalism to assert that the
possibility of revolution later outweighs the certainty of heat now,¶ unless there is evidence for that possibility. The Crits
do not offer such evidence. Indeed, some incremental changes may bring revolutionary changes
closer, not push them further away. Not all small reforms induce complacency; some may whet
the appetite for further combat. The welfare family may hold a tenants‘ union meeting in their
heated living room. CLS scholars‘ critique of piecemeal reform often misses these possibilities, and
neglects the question of whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
 Perm – Extinction N/B
Extinction is a prior ethical consideration
Burke et al 16(Associate Professor of International and Political Studies @ UNSW, Australia (Anthony, Stefanie Fishel is
Assistant Professor, Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama, Audra Mitchell is CIGI Chair in Global
Governance and Ethics at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Simon Dalby is CIGI Chair in the Political Economy of Climate
Change at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and, Daniel J. Levine is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the
University of Alabama, “Planet Politics: Manifesto from the End of IR,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies)

8. Global ethics must respond to mass extinction. In late 2014, the Worldwide Fund for Nature reported a startling
for three
statistic: according to their global study, 52% of species had gone extinct between 1970 and 2010.60 This is not news:
decades, conservation biologists have been warning of a ‘sixth mass extinction’, which, by
definition, could eliminate more than three quarters of currently existing life forms in just a few
centuries.61 In other words, it could threaten the practical possibility of the survival of earthly life.
Mass extinction is not simply extinction (or death) writ large: it is a qualitatively different
phenomena that demands its own ethical categories. It cannot be grasped by aggregating
species extinctions, let alone the deaths of individual organisms. Not only does it erase diverse,
irreplaceable life forms, their unique histories and open-ended possibilities, but it threatens
the ontological conditions of Earthly life. IR is one of few disciplines that is explicitly devoted to the pursuit of
survival, yet it has almost nothing to say in the face of a possible mass extinction event.62 It utterly lacks the conceptual and ethical
frameworks necessary to foster diverse, meaningful responses to this phenomenon. As mentioned above, Cold-War era
concepts such as ‘nuclear winter’ and ‘omnicide’ gesture towards harms massive in their scale
and moral horror. However, they are asymptotic: they imagine nightmares of a severely denuded
planet, yet they do not contemplate the comprehensive negation that a mass extinction event
entails. In contemporary IR discourses, where it appears at all, extinction is treated as a problem of scientific management and
biopolitical control aimed at securing existing human lifestyles.63 Once again, this approach fails to recognise the
reality of extinction, which is a matter of being and nonbeing, not one of life and death
processes. Confronting the enormity of a possible mass extinction event requires a total
overhaul of human perceptions of what is at stake in the disruption of the conditions of Earthly
life. The question of what is ‘lost’ in extinction has, since the inception of the concept of ‘conservation’, been
addressed in terms of financial cost and economic liabilities.64 Beyond reducing life to forms to capital, currencies and
financial instruments, the dominant neoliberal political economy of conservation imposes a homogenising, Western secular
worldview on a planetary phenomenon. Yet the enormity, complexity, and scale of mass extinction is so
huge that humans need to draw on every possible resource in order to find ways of
responding. This means that they need to mobilise multiple worldviews and lifeways – including those emerging from
indigenous and marginalised cosmologies. Above all, it is crucial and urgent to realise that extinction is a
matter of global ethics. It is not simply an issue of management or security, or even of
particular visions of the good life. Instead, it is about staking a claim as to the goodness of life
itself. If it does not fit within the existing parameters of global ethics, then it is these boundaries
that need to change.
PROGRESS
 AT: Social Death
Social death is wrong---on an ontological level slaves were never stripped
of their humanity
Mbembe 17 – Research Professor in History and Politics at the Wits Institute for Social and
Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg [Achilles, 2017, Critique of
Black Reason, Chapter Two: The Well of Fantasies, Translated by Laurent Dubois, pg 46, Duke
University Press] AMarb
**gender edited – change denoted by brackets
Through the triple mechanism of capture, removal, and objectification,the slave was forcibly locked within a system
that prevented him [them] from freely making of his [their] life—and from his life—something
true, something with its own consistency that could stand on its own. Everything produced by the slave was taken
from him: the products of his labor, offspring, the work of his mind. He authored nothing that fully belonged to him. Slaves
were considered mere merchandise, objects of luxury or utility to be bought and sold to others.
At the same time, however, they were human beings endowed with the ability to speak,
capable of creating and using tools. Often deprived of family ties, they were deprived as well of inheritance and of
the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor. Those to whom they belonged, and who extracted their unpaid labor, denied them their
full humanity. Yet, on a purely ontological level at least, their humanity was never entirely
erased. They constituted, by the force of things, a supplemental humanity engaged in
constant struggle to escape imprisonment and repetition, and driven by a desire to return to
the place where autonomous creation had once been possible. The suspended humanity of
the slave was defined by the fact that he was [they were] condemned to reconstitute himself
[themselves] perpetually, to announce his [their] radical, unsinkable desire, and to seek liberty
or vengeance. This was especially true when the enslaved refused the radical abdication of the
subject that was demanded of them. Although legally defined as movable property, slaves always remained
human, despite the cruelty, degradation, and dehumanization directed at them. Through their
labor in service of the master, they continued to create a world. Through gesture and speech,
they wove relationships and a universe of meaning, inventing languages, religions,
dances, and rituals and creating “community.”18 Their destitution and the abjection to
which they were subjected never entirely eliminated their capacity to create symbols. By its
very existence, the community of the enslaved constantly tore at the veil of hypocrisy and lies in
which slave-owning societies clothed themselves. The slaves were capable of rebellion and at
times disposed of their own lives through suicide, thus dispossessing their masters of their
so-called property and de facto abolishing the link of servitude. Those who were burdened with
the name “Black” were forcibly placed in a world apart, yet they retained the characteristics
that made them human beyond subjection. Over time they produced ways of thinking and
languages that were truly their own. They invented their own literatures, music, and ways of
celebrating the divine. They were forced to found their own institutions—schools,
newspapers, political organizations, a public sphere different from the official public sphere. To a
large extent, the term “Black” is the sign of minoritization and confinement. It is an island of repose in the
midst of racial oppression and objective dehumanization.
There are 2 types of politics—saying all of it is bad ignores empirical
examples which prove radical black political organizing is effective when it
targets governments pragmatically—this disproves social death.
Spence, Poli Sci Prof @ John Hopkins, 15 (Lester, Knocking the Hustle: Against the
Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics, pp. 140-147)

All four examples have a few things in common. First all occurred at a moment where all
seemed lost. While I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest that these events suggest that neoliberalism is “naturally” contested—just as there
while the neoliberal turn has signifcantly
is no “good teaching gene” there is no “contest neoliberalism gene”—I would say that
altered our ability to argue for public goods, it hasn’t killed that ability. It still exists. It exists in
institutions we have written of thinking they are no longer relevant—like teachers unions. It exists in
populations we’ve written of because we believe they are incapable of radical political action—
black youth. It exists in cities that we don’t think of as having a long history of radical political
struggle —like Jackson, Mississippi. Second all three recognized the fundamental role politics played in their struggles. The
black youth organizers recognized that they had to pressure Maryland state legislators to kill
the prison. The black radicals in the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement made electing Chokwe
Lumumba a component of their organizing. The CTU chose to take the city head on and to hold
a series of town hall meetings designed to inform people of the ways political officials,
philanthropists, and corporations are working together to neoliberalize and kill public
education. The #blacklivesmatter movement recognized that politics was at the center of their
struggle in Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. All campaigns used moral language in making their arguments. In
Jackson they argued that the current way power was allocated in Jackson was immoral because it largely concentrated all of the benefits into a few
(predominantly white) hands. In Baltimore they argued that putting $104 million to the goal of incarcerating youth was immoral given the lack of money
being spent on youth in other areas, and later that Freddie Gray’s (and before him Tyrone West’s) murder was immoral. In Chicago they argued that
closing 50 schools was immoral because it severely impacted the ability of poor black parents and black students to get the same degree of learning
their white counterparts had. However, they
didn’t rely on those arguments. They understood that
seizing power (rather than speaking truth to it), that proposing new alternatives,
would at some level have to involve political struggle. Morality wasn’t enough. Even if we had a common
defnition of morality, a Christian-infuenced morality for example, that sense of morality could still be interpreted in diferent ways based on material
interest. Relying
on morality can make it hard to move against the wealthy charter school
proponent who sincerely believes that privatizing public schools represent the best hope for
increasing positive outcomes among black children. Relying on morality can make it very difficult to argue against the political bureaucrat who says —
as they did in the case of Baltimore —that the conditions of youth currently held in adult prisons is so bad that the moral choice would be to give them
In deciding how we go about
their own facility where they won’t have to face the risks associated with being housed with adults.
making our arguments and how we go about choosing our strategies and tactics we should act
morally—I do believe our politics have to be rooted in a certain sense of ethics. We should never, however, ignore the
fundamental role politics plays and should play in our struggle. Not only did they focus on politics, they all
relied on political organizing. Organizing that included long discussions about political issues that
mattered, but also parties and other events designed to get people working with each other and
trusting one another. In general, people do not come to a common understanding of the structural
dynamics of the problem they face, and to a common understanding of what the solution should
be, through being exposed to a charismatic speaker, or through “loving black people”, without having the space to
talk about the issues in depth over a long period of time. The CTU organized for several years to be able to
get a 90% vote. The infrastructure black youth in Baltimore relied upon was by definition designed to inculcate critical thinking skills as well as a sense
of the way racism worked at structuring black life chances. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement worked for years to build the critical capacity required
to elect Chokwe, first to the City Council, then Mayor, and to put the political platform into action. There is no way to get around the fact that the type of
work we have to do to rebuild a sense of the public interest is going to take a long time and has to start by building connections between people who
may not think of themselves as political, who may not think of the various issues they struggle with as being the product of the neoliberal turn, who may
I’m referring to
not know what neoliberalism is. What I am referring to here is not the same as getting people to attend a rally or a march.
political organizing— building the capacity of people to govern and make important political decisions
for themselves —not political “mobilizing”. Mobilizing people for a protest act of one kind or another
may get people out to engage in a specific act, but unless combined with organizing work, will
not cause those people to organize for themselves. Tird in each case they were not only reactive, they were not only being
critical of the turn and its efects, they proposed a positive alternative. Protest is not enough. Just as the neoliberal

turn did not simply occur when the welfare state was removed, rather it occurred when the
welfare state was removed and then replaced with a new program, we will not be able to build
a sustainable constituency for a new world without articulating as clearly as possible what that new
world will look like, what type of policies would result, what the benefits of those
policies would be. Fourth while each of these instances represent responses against the neoliberal turn broadly considered, they each
began locally. Te Malcolm X Grassroots Movement has several chapters throughout the country and has already held one conference (planned before
Lumumba’s untimely passing) about the Jackson model (which itself is partially based on ideas developed in Spain) and how to export it to other cities.
Te movement against the proposed youth jail in Baltimore relied in part on data accumulated by the ACLU on the schoolto-prison pipeline. And as I
noted above the Chicago Teachers Union have begun organizing events all across the country to get people to understand how the privatization
movement in education afects them. And each of the #blacklivesmatter campaigns began with a specifc local act of police brutality and used that act to
organize locally. With this said though each case represents a local struggle people could experience directly. Mark Purcell (2006) argues that
academics and activists alike run the risk of falling into the “local trap” by arguing that there is something inherently better and anti-neoliberal about
organizing locally. I agree with him a little. Te Civil Rights Movement represented in large part a fght against white supremacy as embedded in local
and state politics —the local was not the site of empowerment but rather the site of profound disempowerment for black people throughout the North
and the South. However at the same time I argue that sustainable organizing is more likely to occur in response to a local issue (a local school closing,
a rise in foreclosures in a local neighborhood, a jail built up the road, a local referendum) that can then be connected to other local issues and made
national rather than the other way around. And again the Civil Rights Movement represents the best example of this —people weren’t interested in
ending Jim Crow as much as they were interested in desegregating the buses they took to work everyday, desegregating the restaurants they passed
on the way to school, desegregating the schools themselves. Fifth they used a variety of black institutions in their struggles. Te Baltimore youth all
attended black public schools in Baltimore. Tey used the public schools to garner support for their work and to build relationships with black adults and
black children. While a number of Baltimore area churches do promote the prosperity gospel, not all do. A few black churches in Baltimore became
critical spaces for organizing against the jail—in fact I ended up fnding out about the movement against the jail in the frst place through hearing a young
progressive black nationalist Baltimore pastor speak about the movement. And they used popular culture. Tey used poetry, they used rap and hip-hop,
they used parties, understanding that while again the national terrain for hip-hop may move with rather than against the neoliberal turn, they
themselves could use it to speak to their local condition. And later they used these same institutions and spaces for their fght against police brutality.
Similarly in Jackson the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement did not operate from a clean slate. Tey relied on professors from nearby Jackson State
University, they used connections with local churches to gain support for their activities. And the CTU was itself located in one of the most important
institutions in black communities, schools. Lastly, they all relied on the fundamental premise that black people had the capacity to be the change they
wanted to see in the world. Tey neither believed that black people’s fundamental condition was bruised and broken, nor did they believe that black
people because of the contemporary condition didn’t love each other. At the same time though they understood explicitly and implicitly that love was
not enough. And while each organization does have a number of leaders they have largely (though not fully) stayed away from the type of prophetic
politics that have often created problematic internal hierarchies. Again there are signifcant diferences between these instances. And even though each
of these instances were victorious ones that helped to change the terrain of political struggle, there is still much more to be done. In the case of
Baltimore they stopped the youth jail but were not able to stop the privatization of Baltimore youth recreation centers, nor have they been able to (as of
yet) redirect the $104 million to more progressive ends. Jackson elected Lumumba mayor but after his untimely passing his son ended up coming in
second. Chicago teachers made substantial gains as a result of the strike but they were not able to prevent the 50 schools from being closed. Te
#blacklivesmatter movement as it stands has not gone without critique. Te most notable one is that even though the project has increased the range of
black lives that people are willing to fght for, it still hasn’t gone far enough. Although it’s reasonable to assume, based on the limited data we have, that
black boys and young men are victimized by police more than other populations (and to the extent the zero-tolerance technology itself generates
broader forms of policing in places like schools), black boys and young men are not the sole target. Black women have been victimized both directly
and indirectly by police, as have black transgender populations. These acts have in many instances been as violent as those perpetrated against their
male counterparts, and they have been videotaped as well. But they haven’t garnered the same degree of support and/or outrage. Extending the
#blacklivesmatter movement to include the lives of black women and transgender populations that are also the victims of police violence would be
more than simply a good thing. However there’s a more systemic problem at work. Te idea behind “black lives matters” represents an opportunity to
organize around and against a certain type of sufering, a uniquely black sufering, made possible by the neoliberal turn. (It bears repeating, this is not
simply the “new Jim Crow” at work. Te odds that someone like me would sufer the type of horrifc death someone like Freddie Gray did is very slim.)
However the politics of the #blacklivesmatter movement do not quite match the phrase. Every single time the #blacklivesmatters movement appears it
does so in the presence of either a horrifc instance of black death or a startling instance of police brutality. One could argue given this that the real
politics of the movement refect the concept that (graphic) black death matters rather than black life. Tis move makes a great deal of sense — one way
to think about this move is to think about the way civil rights movement activists used non-violence. Particularly when news cameras were present,
non-violent tactics of protest tended to really highlight how violent and terroristic white supremacy in the South and other places was. However, by
privileging the graphic black death, the victim shot in his back while running away, the victim who had his back violently broken by police, it ends up
ignoring the many forms of non-graphic black death that occurs not because of police violence per se, but because of economic violence. If Freddie
Gray weren’t murdered by the police but rather experienced a slow death due to lead poisoning it’s unlikely we’d be talking about him right now. It’d be
unlikely that Baltimore would’ve had anything like an uprising. Following up, by privileging black death, graphic black death, we privilege certain types
of tactics, strategies, and institutions. We counter the spectacle of the murder with the spectacle of the mass assembly, in the form of the protest
march, or the spectacle of the mass disruption, in the form of the highway stoppage, or even in the form of the type of violent actvity the uprising hinted
at. Actions in other words that are not only designed to transform the event into a black-and-white catalytic moment where people and the institutions
around them feel forced to make a choice for the status quo or against it. And the organizations and institutions we call into being end up being those
designed to generate these types of activities and to generate support for these activities (in order to grow the organizations and institutions
themselves). As far as solutions go, we also privilege anti-police legislation, and perhaps more broadly, legislation designed to counter the school to
prison pipeline. Te political solution for black life matters is to reduce the likelihood of a graphic singular black death— a kid shot on the way to the
corner store, a young man shot while holding a BB gun he may have planned on purchasing, a black couple driving a car with a tendency to backfre.
Te types of politics that generate change when the deaths come slow, painfully, and in aggregates, or when the issue is an entire legal framework (like
the Maryland Law Enforcement Ofcers Bill of Rights) is a diferent politics. It is not solely or primarily a politics of the spectacle. Spectacle can work here
in instances. It can be used to mobilize support. It can be used to increase awareness and general participation. And sometimes in combination with
other tactics it can be used to disrupt. To generate and prolong crises. Te types of crises that engendered the same type of problems that caused the
neoliberal turn. Certainly in the case of Baltimore a range of institutions and elites had no ready-to-roll-out solutions to the issues that the uprising
called up. But these aren’t enough. It requires a politics attuned to the type of long term institution building that builds the capacity of individuals to
govern and devise alternatives themselves. It also requires a solution set that is more about combating the type of long term institutional violence that
doesn’t necessarily have a Trayvon Martin or a Freddie Gray at the center. Te types of violence that, instead might have Freddie Gray at the center,
but not at the moment of his murder but at the moment he was found to have lead poisoning. I use these examples in order to argue that we aren’t
I use these examples in order to show
starting from scratch necessarily— some of the work is already being done on the ground.

that we already have the seeds for a new institutional framework that re-roots the
economy in politics and in the public interest. To show that we aren’t alone, and that a
number of people recognize another way of life is possible. There aren’t as many of us as we’d
like, but there are far more of us than we think.
 AT: Blackness is Ontological

Anti-blackness is structured politically, not ontologically, their

understanding results in bad faith which serves only to sustain anti-black
power structures
Lewis Gordon 17, professor of philosophy at UCONN-Storr, professor of philosophy at the
University of the West Indies at Mona, “The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race”
*French non-sense was translated by google

Should the analysis remain at white and black, the world would appear more closed than it in fact is.
For one, simply being born black would bar the possibility of any legitimate appearance. This is a
position that has been taken by a growing group of theorists known as “Afro-pessimists”
(Wilderson 2010; Sexton 2011). Black for them is absolute “social death:’ li is outside of
relations. Missing from this view is; however, is at least what I argued in Bad Faith and Antiblack
Racism, which is that no human being is “really” any of these things; the claim itself is a
manifestation of mauvaise foi [bad faith]. The project of making people into such is one thing.
People actually becoming such is another. This is an observation Fanon also makes in his
formulation of the tone of nonbeing and his critique of Self—Other discourses in Peau noir,
masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks). Fanon distinguishes between the zone of nonbeing (nonappearance
as human beings) and those of being. ‘The latter presumes a self-justified reality, which means it does not call itself into question.
The former faces the problem of illegitimate appearance (Fanon 1952, chapters; Gordon 1999; AIcoir 2006; Yancy 2008). Thus,
even the effort “to be” is in conflict as the system in question presumes legitimate absence of certain groups. Yet, paradoxically,
the human being comes to the fore through emerging from being in the first place. Thus, the assertion
of being is also an effort to push the human being out of existence, so to speak. The racial conflict is thus changed to an
existential one in which an existential ontology is posed against an ontology of being. Existential
ontology pertains to human being, whereas ontological being pertains to gods. This is why Fanon concludes that
racism is also an attack against human being, as it creates a world in which one set stands
above others as gods and the rest as below human. Where, in this formulation, stand human
beings? The argument itself gains some clarity with the etymology of “existence” which is from
the Latin expression exsístere (to stand out, to emerge -that is, to appear). Blacks thus face
the paradox of existing (standing out) as nonexistence (not standing out). The system of
racism renders black appearance illicit. This conundrum of racialized existence affects ethics
and morals. Ethical relations are premised on selves relating to another or others. The others must, however, appear as such,
and they too, manifest themselves as selves. Implicit in such others as other selves is the formalization of ethical relations as equal.
as found in the thought of Immanuel Kant and shifted in deference to the other in that of Emmanuel Levinas, Racism, however,
excludes certain groups from being others and selves (if interpreted as being of a kind similar to the presumed legitimate selves).
Thus, the schema of racism is one in which the hegemonic group relates to its members as
selves and others, whereas the nonhegemonic groups are neither selves nor others. They, in effect,
could only be such in relation to each other. It is, in other words, a form of ontological segregation as a condition of ethics and
morals. The fight against racism, then, does not work as a fight against being others or The Other.
Fanon’s insight demands an additional clarification. Racists should
It is a fight against being nonothers.
be distinguished from racism. Racists are people who hold beliefs about the superiority and inferiority of certain
groups of racially designated people. Racism is the system of institutions and social norms that empower
individuals with such beliefs. Without that system, a racist would simply be an obnoxious,
whether overtly deprecating or patronizing, individual. With that system, racist points of view affect the social world as
reality. Without that system, racists ultimately become inconsequential and, in a word, irrelevant beyond personal concerns of
saving their souls from unethical and immoral beliefs and choices. Fanon was concerned with racists in his capacity as a psychiatrist
(therapy, if necessary), but he was also concerned with racism as a philosopher, social thinker, and revolutionary (Fanon
 An objection to
1959/1975). The latter, in other words, is a system, from an antiracism perspective, in need of eradication.
the Afro-pessimistic assertion of blackness as social death could thus be raised from a
Fanonian phenomenological perspective: Why must the social world be premised on the
attitudes and perspectives of antiblack racists? Why don’t blacks among each other and other communities of
color count as a social perspective? And if the question of racism is a function of power, why not offer a
study of power, how it is gained and lost, instead of an assertion of its manifestations as ontological?
An additional problem with the Afro-pessimistic model is that its proponents treat
“blackness” as though it could exist independent of other categories. A quick examination of
double consciousness (Du Bois 1903)—a phenomenological concept if there ever were one by virtue of the focus on
forms of consciousness and, better, that of which one is conscious, that is, intentionality would reveal why this would
not work. Double consciousness involves seeing oneself from the perspective of another that
deems one as negative (for example, the Afro-pessimistic conception of blackness). That there is already
another perspective makes the subject who lives through double consciousness relational. Added is what Paget Henry
(2005) calls polemic, ted double consciousness and Nahum Chandler (2014, 6o—6i) calls the redoubled gesture, which is the
Seeing that
realization that the condemnation of negative meaning means that one must not do what the Afro pessimist does.
that position is false moves one dialectically forward into asking about the system that attempts
to force one into such an identity: This relational matter requires looking beyond blackness
ironically in order to understand blackness. This means moving from the conception of meaning as singular,
substance-based, fixed, and semantical into the grammar of how meaning is produced. Such grammars, such as that of gender,
However, as all human beings are
emerge in interesting ways (Gordon 1999, 124—129; 1997,73—74).
manifestations of different dimensions of meaning, the question of identity requires more than
an intersecting model; otherwise there will simply be one (a priori) normative outcome in every
moment of inquiry: whoever manifests the maximum manifestation of predetermined negative
intersecting terms. That would in effect be an essence before an existence indeed, before an
actual event of harm. This observation emerges as well with the Afro-pessimist model when one thinks of
pessimism as the guiding attitude. The existential phenomenological critique would be that optimism and pessimism are
Human existence is contingent but not
symptomatic of the same attitude: a priori assertions on reality.
accidental, which means that the social world at hand is a manifestation of choices and
relationships in other words, human actions. Because human beings can only build the
future instead of it determining us, the task at hand, as phenomenology—oriented existentialists from
Beauvoir and Sartre to Fanon, William R. Jones, and this author have argued, depends on commitment. This concern also pertains
to the initial concerns about authenticity discourses with which I began. One could only be pessimistic about an outcome, an activity.
It is an act of forecasting what could only be meaningful once actually performed. Similarly, one could only be optimistic about the
same. What however, if there were no way to know either? Here we come to the foi [faith] element in mauvaise foi [bad faith]. Some
actions are deontological, and if not that, they are at least reflections of our commitments, our projects. Thus, the point of some
Taking responsibility for such
actions is not about their success or failure but whether we deem them worth doing.
actions—bringing value to them— is opposed to another manifestation of mauvaise foi [bad
faith]: the spirit of seriousness. The spirit of seriousness involves attributing a form of
materiality to human values that elides the human role in the construction of those
values. Detailed analyses of this form of mauvaise foi [bad faith] in Africana phenomenology
emerges in the thought of George Yancy (2008) and this author (Gordon 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000). The
importance of this concept pertains to the understanding of racism as a social phenomenon but
also as a value. It addresses what Abdul JanMohamed (2011) calls our social investments in such
phenomena. Returning to the distinction between racists and racism, the former are what
existentialists such as Sartre and Beauvoir call “serious” people and the latter is the system that
supports such values as supposedly objective features of reality. In other words, the formers’
values are preserved in the latter as ontological. The turn to social reality raises an important theme of Africana
phenomenology, and, indeed, all phenomenological treatments of oppression: Discussions of race and gender make no sense
without a philosophical anthropology. In Africana philosophy, the answer is straightforward: Euro-modernity denied the humanity of
whole groups of people, which means the question of what it is to be human was crucial. These considerations emerged not only in
colonial and racist terms but also at reflective levels of method as hegemonic models of "science" began to dominate concerns for
legitimacy. Many such models were premised, however, on ideological frameworks in which greater value was placed on "purity" in
which mixture is supposedly "impure." The result is a philosophical anthropology in search of so- called purity as a standard of not
only human value but also identity .
Kimberly Crenshaw (1991) offers a critique through her work on
intersectionality in legal theory. Examples in Africana phenomenology include Michael Monahan's The Creolizing
Subject (2011), Jane Anna Gordon's Creolizing Political Theory (2014), and writings by this author (Gordon 1997, 2006, 2010).
The arguments they advanced reject any philosophical anthropology of converging "purities,"
where separate, pure "races" meet. Instead, the notion of racial purity is rejected from the
outset. The authors, however, go further, as with the discussion of intersectionality, to propose
questions of mixture at methodological levels. It is the appeal to methodological purity that
obscures lived realities of mixture. In other words, the actual human world is not one of purity (being-
in-and-by-itself) but instead relations of living negations of purity (existence, being-and-negations-of-and-for-being, and more).
Monahan and J. Gordon prefer the term creolizing for this reason because it is, they contend, a radical kind of mixture-one that in
effect manifests not only new forms of being but also challenges the stasis of being. Their use of the present participle is to illustrate
From their
that mixing-especially of the licit and the illicit-is not a closed achievement but instead an ongoing activity of reality.
argument, purity, like normativity, is an effort of imposing closure on the openness or, as Fryer
contends (2008), queer dimensions of reality. Put differently, ascribing ontological status to purity
and straightness does not work. It requires, in effect, denying the elements of reality that do not
match up and involves attempting to force reality into a preferred or pleasing falsehood instead
of a (for the purist) displeasing truth. In effect, creolizing militates against disciplinary decadence or, in other words,
mauvaise foi [bad faith]. As the context is human reality, the conclusion of Africana phenomenology
presenting an open anthropology comes to the fore. This openness raises one of the final ingredients, if we
will, for this discussion: the relationships between humanity and freedom. The freedom question is paradoxical: to be free means
also to possess the ability to evade it. This is what critics of this approach, premised on a phenomenological treatment of mauvaise
foi miss. Existential phenomenology collapses into an essentialism, they protest, because of the assertion of human reality as
freedom. Others also read discussions of mauvaise foi as appealing to an essential unavoidability collapsed into futility. What they
fail to ask, however, is what human reality would be if human beings were incapable of acting in mauvaise foi. Could a being
incapable of attempting to evade its freedom truly be free? Would not the absence of that capability mean human beings must
essentially act in good faith? What, then, would happen to freedom? And if there were no freedom, wouldn't human beings simply
have a nature that poses none of the recognizable human problems because human behavior would already be determined? These
considerations occasion what could be called an indirect proof: Human freedom exists by virtue of our efforts to evade it. This kind
of argument is also, by the way, a form of transcendental argument as it points to a condition for the possibility of what is being
studied. This kind of transcendentalism, where existence and conditions of possibility meet, could also be called ironic as it is
premised on what "is" by virtue of what it is not. Peter Caws (1992), in his discussion of Sartre's structuralism in his debate with
Levi-Strauss, reminds us that the aim of bringing human responsibility to human relations is a plea for the realization of the human
role in a human world. It is structure in human terms, which means it requires a philosophical anthropology premised on
metaevaluation, metacritique, metatheory, and incompleteness. I regard all this as a way of saying that Euro-modernity posed
Race,
challenges to what it means to be human, free, and responsible for the conditions by which any practice as such is justified.
gender, class, and sexuality, from this perspective, can be illuminated through these three
considerations, but we should remember that, as illumination, we receive only part of the
story as these categories and their relationship to each other are, from this approach,
still in the making. There could, in other words, be more categories to come as the relationship
across the extant human identities continue to shift and disorient what it means to be human.

Confining black liberation to political rejection delegitimizes progressive

potential--- keeps the current political stationary
Kline 17, David Kline is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University.
His research addresses issues in political theology, biopolitical thought, and critical race theory.
“The Pragmatics of Resistance Framing Anti-Blackness and the Limits of Political Ontology”,
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/645848#back
 such a
Furthermore, arriving at the second analytical expense of Wilderson’s prioritization of political ontology, I suggest that
flattening of the social field of Blackness rigidly delimits what counts as legitimate political
resistance. If the framework for thinking resistance and the possibility of creating another world
is reduced to rigid ontological positions defined by the absolute power of the law, and if Black
existence is understood only as ontologically fixed at the extreme zero point of social death
without recourse to anything within its own position qua Blackness, then there is not much room for
strategizing or even imagining resistance to anti-Blackness that is not wholly limited to
expressions and events of radically apocalyptic political violence: the law is either destroyed entirely, or
there is no freedom. This is not to say that I am necessarily against radical political violence or its use as an effective tactic.
Nor is to say that I think the law should be left unchallenged in its total operation, but rather that there
might be other and more pragmatically oriented practices of resistance that do not necessarily
have the absolute destruction of the law as their immediate aim that should count as genuine
resistance to anti-Blackness. For Wilderson, like Agamben, anything less than an absolute overturning [End Page 59] of
the order of things, the violent destruction and annihilation of the full structure of antagonisms, is deemed as “[having nothing] to do
with Black liberation” (quoted in Zug 2010). Of course, the desire for the absolute overturning of the currently existing world, the
decisive end of the existing world and the arrival of a new world in which “Blacks do not magnetize bullets” should be absolutely
affirmed. Further, the
severity and gratuitous nature of the macropolitics of anti-Blackness in relation
to the possibility of a movement towards freedom should not be bracketed or displaced for the
sake of appealing to any non-Black grammar of exploitation or alienation (Wilderson 2010, 142). The
question I want to pose, however, is how the insistence on the absolute priority of framing this world within a rigid structure of formal
ontological positions can only revert to what amounts to a kind of negative theological and eschatological blank horizon in which
actually existing social sites and modes of resisting praxis are displaced and devalued by notions of whatever it is that might arrive
from beyond. It seems that Wilderson, again, is close to Agamben on this point, whose ontological structure also severely delimits
what might count as genuine resistance to the regime of sovereignty. As Dominick LaCapra points out regarding the possibility of
liberation outside of Agamben’s formal ontological structure of bare life and sovereignty, A further enigmatic conjunction in Agamben
is between pure possibility and the reduction of being to mere or naked life, for it is the emergence of mere naked life in
accomplished nihilism that simultaneously generates, as a kind of miraculous antibody or creation ex nihilo, pure possibility or utterly
blank utopianism not limited by the constraints of the past or by normative structures of any sort. (LaCapra 2009, 168) With life’s
ontological reduction to the abjection of bare life or social death, the only possible way out, it seems, is the impossible possibility of
what Agamben refers to as the “suspension of the suspension,” the laying aside of the distinction between bare life and political life,
the “Shabbat of both animal and man” (Agamben 2003, 92). It is in this sense that Agamben offers, again in the words of LaCapra, a
“negative theology in extremis . . . an empty utopianism of pure, unlimited possibility” (LaCapra 2009, 166). The result is a
With the “all or
discounting and devaluing of other, perhaps more pragmatic and less eschatological, practices of resistance.
nothing” [End Page 60] approach that posits anything less than the absolute suspension of the
current state of things as unable to address the violence and abjection of bare life, there is not
much left in which to appeal than a kind of apocalyptic, messianic, and contentless
eschatological future space defined by whatever this world is not.

Blackness range outside of the idea of ontology

Kline 17, David Kline is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University.
His research addresses issues in political theology, biopolitical thought, and critical race theory.
“The Pragmatics of Resistance Framing Anti-Blackness and the Limits of Political Ontology”,
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/645848#back
Focusing on Wilderson, his absolute prioritization of a political onto-logical structure in which the law
relegates Black being into the singular position of social death happens, I contend, at the expense
of two significant things that I am hesitant to bracket for the sake of prioritizing political ontology as the sole frame of
reference for both analyzing anti-Black racism and thinking resistance within the racialized world. First,
it short-circuits an analysis of power that might reveal not only how the practices, forms, and
apparatuses of anti-Black racism have historically developed, changed, and
reassembled/reterritorialized in relation to state power, national identity, philosophical discourse,
biological discourse, political discourse, and so on—changes that, despite Wilderson’s claim that focusing
on these things only “mystify” the question of ontology (Wilderson 2010, 10), surely have implications for how racial positioning is
To the extent that Blackness equals a
both thought and resisted in differing historical and socio-political contexts.
singular ontological position within a macropolitical structure of antagonism, there is almost no
room to bring in the spectrum and flow of social difference and contingency that no doubt spans
across Black identity as a legitimate issue of analysis and as a site/sight for the possibility of a
range of resisting practices. This bracketing of difference leads him to make some rather sweeping and opaquely abstract
claims. For example, discussing a main character’s abortion in a prison cell in the 1976 film Bush Mama, Wilderson says, “Dorothy
will abort her baby at the clinic or on the floor of her prison cell, not because she fights for—and either wins [End Page 58] or loses
—the right to do so, but because she is one of 35 million accumulated and fungible (owned and exchangeable) objects living among
230 million subjects—which is to say, her will is always already subsumed by the will of civil society” (Wilderson 2010, 128, italics
mine). What I want to press here is how Wilderson’s statement, made in the sole frame of a totalizing political ontology
overshadowing all other levels of sociality, flattens out the social difference within, and even the possibility of, a micropolitical social
Such a flattening reduces the optic of anti-Black
field of 35 million Black people living in the United States.
racism as well as Black sociality to the frame of political ontology where Blackness remains
stuck in a singular position of abjection. The result is a severe analytical limitation in terms of the
way Blackness (as well as other racial positions) exists across an extremely wide field of
sociality that is comprised of differing intensities of forces and relational modes between various
institutional, political, socio-economic, religious, sexual, and other social conjunctures. Within
Wilderson’s political ontological frame, it seems that these conjunctures are excluded—or at least bracketed—as having any bearing
at all on how anti-Black power functions and is resisted across highly differentiated contexts. There is only the binary ontological
distinction of Black and Human being; only a macropolitics of sedimented abjection.

Black life already precedes the gratuitous violence of an antagonism

Kline 17, David Kline is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University.
His research addresses issues in political theology, biopolitical thought, and critical race theory.
“The Pragmatics of Resistance Framing Anti-Blackness and the Limits of Political Ontology”,
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/645848#back
In terms of Wilderson’s ontology of social positioning, we might say, following Foucault and Deleuze into
Fred Moten’s Black optimism,7 that Black (aleatory) life always already precedes the gratuitous
violence of an antagonism. Blackness, then, is not wholly reducible to a political ontological
position, but rather is the movement prior to and against the imposing force of any violent
constitution—or, as Nathanial Mackey says, that “insistent previousness evading each and every natal occasion” (Mackey 1986,
34). Even though an antagonism functions as the political ontological constitution of a Black
being as socially dead in relation to civil society, there is still an even deeper level that precedes
ontological constitution itself: the movement and resistance of Black life.8 In In the Break: The Aesthetics
of the Black Radical Tradition, Moten makes inseparable Blackness and resistance with this provocative opening sentence: “the
history of blackness is a testament to the fact that objects can and do resist” (Moten 2003, 1). Flowing in the vein of Adorno’s anti-
identitarian negative dialectics and its prioritization of the object, Moten reads the history of Blackness, which for him is nothing other
than a history of certain performativity as improvisation, as a history of the object’s absolute objection to the capture of identity, the
fugitive drive towards freedom where an untraceable, stateless, and ungoverned life of “improvisational immanence” is always
becoming (ibid., 255n1). Not ignoring or bracketing the problem of political ontological antagonism (although he does reject
describing it in terms of social death), he nevertheless opens the frame of analysis and social possibility to the aleatory field of life
itself, or, micropolitics.
Tracing the Black radical tradition through everything from its poetry to its
music to its banal everydayness, Moten shows Blackness as a counter-force sparked into
movement by the imposing and regulating force of anti-Black power. In critical yet sympathetic
opposition to Wilderson and other Afro-pessimists, Moten rejects the notion that a full analysis
of Blackness should be reduced to the imposition of social death. Or, to put it another way,
Moten rejects the notion that Blackness is reduced to a fixed ontological position within a
macropolitics that has no recourse to [End Page 62] forms of life that might resist and evade the
imposition of an antagonism. Rather, Blackness is a counter-force to ontology itself. As he puts it,
blackness [is not (just)] ontologically prior to the logistic and regulative power that is supposed
to have brought it into existence but . . . blackness is prior to ontology; or in a slight variation of
what [Nahum] Chandler would say, blackness is the anoriginal displacement of ontology, that it
is ontology’s anti- and ante-foundation, ontology’s underground, the irreparable disturbance of
ontology’s time and space. (Moten 2014, 739) Here, Moten is riffing on Chandler’s idea of “paraontology,” which is in
specific distinction from political ontology. Paraontology, as Moten describes it, is “the transformative pressure blackness puts on
philosophical concepts, categories, and methods” (Moten 2008, 215n3). Rather than an account of being that seeks to uncover an
essence or totalizing account of a particular social or political position, paraontology describes the mode of being that is always
already resisting the imposing logic of (political) ontology. Chandler articulates this phenomenon through Du Bois’ double
consciousness, honing in on the “in between” of its double identity. As he says, ”between” would delimit any simple notion of its
spatiality or presupposed relationality. It would instead accede to the most general disruption of boundaries. . . . “[B]etween”
dissipates any simple notion of inside and outside, of above and below. . . . Du Bois’s inscription may be understood to name the
opening of the sense of space, of spaciality, rather than confirm it. (Chandler 2014, 6–7) Chandler is describing the way Blackness
—in all of its social scope and complexity—overflows or breaks open the boundaries of any formal imposition, the way Blackness
cannot be reduced to a frame of abjection or the irreconcilable position of an antagonism. From this perspective, Blackness is a
rhizome, a dynamic, creative, and desiring counter-force in which lines of flight present possible modes of freedom and sociality in
excess to political ontological positioning. As a paraontological phenomenon, Chandler and Moten understand Blackness as a
unique and specific exertion within modernity—which might also be called the historical regime of racial political ontology—that
challenges every schema of formalization and [End Page 63] positional fixity. In this way, from this vantage, the history of Blackness
is read as a history of a certain performativity of the drive towards a freedom not determined by the terms or boundaries of ontology,
as a history of the object’s absolute objection to the macropolitical capture of identity. This paraontological movement of Black
fugitivity, as Moten has coined it, calls into question the framing of Blackness wholly within a political ontology that seeks to index
and describe Black life in terms of pure abjection.

Understanding blackness as ontological reinforces whiteness’ power over

black flesh
David Marriott 12, Professor in the History of Consciousness Department, Humanities
Division, “Black Cultural Studies”,
https://academic.oup.com/ywcct/article/20/1/37/1625205/3Black-Cultural-Studies
The problem with Wilderson’s argument, however, is that it remains of a piece with the
manichean imperatives that beset it, and which by definition are structurally uppermost,
which means that he can only confirm those imperatives as absolutes rather than chart a
dialectical path beyond them, insofar as, structurally speaking, there is no ‘outside’ to black
social death and alienation, or no outside to this outside, and all that thought can do is mirror its
own enslavement by race. This is not so much ‘afro-pessimism’—a term coined by Wilderson—as thought wedded to its
own despair. However, this is also not the entire story of Red, White, and Black, as I hope to show. For example, in Chapter One
(‘The Structure of Antagonisms’), written as a theoretical introduction, and which opens explicitly on the Fanonian question of why
ontology cannot understand the being of the Black, Wilderson is prepared to say that black suffering is not only beyond analogy, it
also refigures the whole of being: ‘the essence of being for the White and non-Black position’ is non-niggerness, consequently,
‘[b]eing can thus be thought of, in the first ontological instance, as non-niggerness, and slavery then as niggerness’ (p. 37). It is not
hard when reading such sentences to suspect a kind of absolutism at work here, and one that manages to be peculiarly and
dispiritingly dogmatic: throughout Red, White, and Black, despite variations in tone and emphasis, there is always the desire to have
black lived experience named as the worst, and the politics of such a desire inevitably collapses into a kind of sentimental moralism:
for the claim that ‘Blackness is incapacity in its most pure and unadulterated form’ means merely that the black has to embody this
abjection without reserve (p. 38). This
logic—and the denial of any kind of ‘ontological integrity’ to the
Black/Slave due to its endless traversal by force does seem to reduce ontology to logic, namely,
a logic of non-recuperability—moves through the following points: (1) Black non-being is not
capable of symbolic resistance and, as such, falls outside of any language of authenticity or
reparation; (2) for such a subject, which Wilderson persists in calling ‘death’, the symbolic
remains foreclosed (p. 43); (3) as such, Blackness is the record of an occlusion which remains
ever present: ‘White (Human) capacity, in advance of the event of discrimination or oppression,
is parasitic on Black incapacity’ (p. 45); (4) and, as an example of the institutions or discourses
involving ‘violence’, ‘antagonisms’ and ‘parasitism’, Wilderson describes White (or non-Black)
film theory and cultural studies as incapable of understanding the ‘suffering of the Black—the
Slave’ (they cannot do so because they are erroneously wedded to humanism and to the
psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, which Wilderson takes as two examples of what the Afro-
pessimist should avoid) (p. 56); as a corrective, Wilderson calls for a new language of
abstraction, and one centrally concerned with exposing ‘the structure of antagonisms between
Blacks and Humans’ (p. 68). Reading seems to stop here, at a critique of Lacanian full speech: Wilderson wants to say that
Lacan’s notion of the originary (imaginary) alienation of the subject is still wedded to relationality as implied by the contrast between
‘empty’ and ‘full’ speech, and so apparently cannot grasp the trauma of ‘absolute Otherness’ that is the Black’s relation to Whites,
because psychoanalysis cannot fathom the ‘structural, or absolute, violence’ of Black life (pp. 74; 75). ‘Whereas Lacan was aware of
how language “precedes and exceeds us”, he did not have Fanon’s awareness of how violence also precedes and exceeds Blacks’
(p. 76). The violence of such abjection—or incapacity—is therefore that it cannot be communicated or avowed, and is always
already delimited by desubjectification and dereliction (p. 77). Whence the suspicion of an ontology reduced to a logic (of abjection).
Leaving aside the fact that it is quite mistaken to limit Lacan’s notion of full speech to the search for communication (the
unconscious cannot be confined to parole), it is clear that, according to Wilderson’s own ‘logic’, his description of the Black is
working, via analogy, to Lacan’s notion of the real but, in his insistence on the Black as an absolute outside Wilderson can only duly
reify this void at the heart of universality. The Black is ‘beyond the limit of contingency’—but it is worth saying immediately that this
‘beyond’ is indeed a foreclosure that defines a violence whose traces can only be thought violently (that is, analogically), and whose
The Black is nonbeing
nonbeing returns as the theme for Wilderson’s political thinking of a non-recuperable abjection.
and, as such, is more real and primary than being per se: given how much is at stake, this
insistence on a racial metaphysics of injury implies a fundamental irreconcilability between
Blacks and Humans (there is really no debate to be had here: irreconcilability is the condition
and possibility of what it means to be Black).

Marronage disproves the theses of social death and ontological blackness

Juliet Hooker 17, Associate Professor of Government and African Diaspora Studies at the
University of Texas at Austin “Theorizing Slave Agency: Neil Roberts’s Freedom as Marronage”,
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/646854
Much of this scholarship, under the rubric of Afro-pessimism, has focused on continued forms of
black subjection. Afro-pessimism theorizes blackness as a condition of ontological death or
fungibility; for afro-pessimists the conditions of post-emancipation societies are contiguous to
those of slavery, such that the plantation may have been replaced by the prison but the relation
of a fundamental structural antagonism between blackness and (what is seen as) the human
remains the same. Within this schema the enslaved cannot serve as rich sources for thinking about freedom, because to do
so would be to offer facile solutions to an irreconcilable opposition. When Roberts argues that: “during
marronage, agents struggle psychologically, socially, metaphysically, and politically to
exit slavery, maintain freedom, and assert a lived social space while existing within a
liminal position” he is rejecting the notion of slavery as “social death” in Orlando
Patterson’s famous formulation, which is foundational to Afro-pessimism.4 Roberts’s
theorizing about marronage reframes the debate between Afro-pessimists and Afro-optimists in
African Diaspora Studies by focusing on slave agency and refuting the idea that the slave had
no capacity for action. Freedom as Marronage is instead precisely focused on the capacity for action of the enslaved, or
more precisely on the potentiality for such action (the moment when [End Page 189] the enslaved realize that they can resist and
begin to contemplate doing so). It is the entire span of such actions, not just the physical act of escape, which Roberts seeks to
capture by arguing that we should conceive of freedom as marronage, as a process of flight and movement. One of the principal
achievements of Freedom
as Marronage is thus how it seamlessly brings together these two strands
of contemporary thinking about slavery and freedom, and makes a powerful intervention into
both by introducing the generative idea that it is philosophically productive to focus on the
liminal space between freedom and slavery, thereby centering the agency of the enslaved,
which is under-emphasized in both Afro-pessimism and Western political thought. Roberts
destabilizes the dichotomy between freedom and un-freedom that is central to conceptions of
negative and positive liberty in Western political thought, and shows how the impulse to flight
has been a central feature of the politics of the enslaved, thereby reorienting us to the figure
of the fugitive.

You should refuse a priori orientations towards pessimism or optimism

which place essence before lived existence—judge actions based on their
contingent ethical benefits, not their ultimate ethical efficacy.
Antiblackness is not a closed system; reading it as such ignores the
inherent relationality of the world and is the same bad faith that antiblack
racism requires to establish itself as legitimate and organize populations in
the first place—shifting the orientation of critique to final ethical judgments
on the system uniquely elides analysis of this
Gordon 18—Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, University of Connecticut (Lewis,
“Thoughts on two recent decades of studying race and racism,” Social Identities, 24:1, 29-38,
dml)
The problem with addressing a problem in terms of bad faith is that its exemplars would
immediately seek to defend themselves. Bad faith, as many who have studied the phenomenon know, is
ashamed of itself and thus attempts to hide from itself often through shifting the
orientation of critique (Gordon, 1995/1999; Sartre, 1943). Thus, the defense is on the alert for analyses of bad faith to be
in bad faith. Much of this has to do with the negative associations of the word ‘bad’ and the legalistic meaning of ‘bad faith’ in the
English language. Thus, I prefer simply to use the French term mauvaise-foi. Mauvaise-foi has its negative
connotations in French, but its range is broader in usage than in English, just as Geist in German doesn’t exactly mean ‘spirit’ or
‘mind’ as it is often translated into English.

The aforementioned list of hegemonic theorists of the study of race and gender in the mid-1990s reflects the domination of three
approaches: (1) poststructuralism, (2) Marxism, and (3) liberal political theory primarily in the form of analytical political philosophy.
Existentialism and phenomenology were not only being treated as passé but also as incompatible with each other. There was also
the problem of ‘compartmentalism’ and ‘disciplinary decadence’, two tendencies that continue to be features of not only much race
theory but also most disciplinary practices in the academy. The former offered disciplines under a separate but equal rule, which, if
history has taught us anything about such formulations, is never actually so. The latter sought methodological conquest. These
constrained what one could talk about when it came to human matters and how one is supposed to do it. I eventually developed a
formulation of the second: ‘methodological fetishism’ (Gordon, 2016). Poststructuralism, Marxism, and analytical philosophy in the
form of liberal political philosophy exemplified this tendency. One could add continental philosophy to this, which was in fact another
way of saying ‘Euro-continental philosophy’. It, however, became, and for the most part continues to be, dominated by
A form of cart before the horse was the
poststructualism and, relatedly, hermeneutics or theories of interpretation.
result, where fetishized methods were being imposed on reality instead of constructing
relationships with it. As should be apparent at this point, disciplinary decadence is a form of mauvaise-foi (Gordon, 2006,
2012, 2016). The similarity to Sartre’s famous formulation of the fallacy of placing essence before existence in
the study of human reality also comes to the fore (Sartre, 1943, 1946). This is particularly ironic with regard to
poststructuralism since its approach is patently anti-essentialist (Caws, 1992; Gordon, 2012).

Mauvaise-foi emerged not only at the level of human phenomena in action but also at the ways in which they are studied. For
instance, the
compartmentalist approach of separating race away from other dimensions of
human reality distorts the subject at hand. It could only be done, ultimately, in mauvaise-foi
because of the imposition of non-relationality on a relational subject (Gordon, 2010, 2016). The
old debate of race versus gender, or race versus class, or gender versus class, and any of these versus
sexual orientation is a fine intellectual exercise under laboratory conditions in which the
domain of inquiry is staked out and constrained. That, however, is not human reality. Typically, we
(human beings) don’t ‘see’ race, gender, class, or sexual orientation walking around; we
exemplify, coextensively, all of these, all the time, in different ways. Imagine the hyphenated version
class-gender-race-sexuality (and more) with emphasis on different words at different times. Focus is not identical with elimination.
Race for me, then, was and continues to be studied in relation to what made it, among other
related phenomena, emerge as a reality of human life over the past several hundred years
(Gordon, 1995/1999, 1995, 2006, 2010).

Racism requires denying the humanity of

There is a simple version of my argument from those years:
other groups of human beings through the organization of them, through regimes of power,
under the category of a race and then denying the ascription of human being to them. The
performative contradiction is that they would first have to be identified as human beings in order
to deny their being such. It is thus a form of mauvaise-foi. Since racism is a form of mauvaise-foi, antiblack racism, as a
species of racism, must also be a form of mauvaise-foi.

How did such performative

My seemingly simple argument had complicated theoretical consequences.
contradictions historically emerge? People were not always categorized under races. Gender
and linguistic membership predated many racial concepts (Gordon, 1997). Many other
examples, such as religious membership, location in an economy, and even specialized
skills could be added to the mix.
One approach is to look at the concepts informing dehumanization. They depend on a particular idea of
human beings at work in racist practices. An obvious feature of racism is the rejection of
having relationships with members of certain races. Non-relationality has many implications. For one, the
notion that one could exist without relations with others (a slippery slope leading to being
without relations) requires a model of the self as self-sustaining ‘substance’. That model has
dominated much of market-oriented Euromodern thought, especially those in the Anglophone world. My writings
could be read as a critique of this notion. Consider any act of studying a phenomenon. Such an effort cannot be
done without establishing at least a relationship with something as a focus of study. This
doesn’t involve eliminating one’s relationship to reality but instead reorienting oneself to
relevant acts of knowing, learning, and understanding (Gordon, 1995, 2010, 2012, 2016).
Commitment to the elimination of relations leads to contradictions. Try, for instance, eliminating relations
to oneself. Mauvaise foi returns in many forms as each displeasing truth about relations is denied for the
sake of pleasing falsehoods. In the chain of efforts, other important elements of study such
as communicability, evidence, and sociality come to the fore, each of which raises concerns of the self
as other.

As I focused primarily on antiblack racism, the question of whether all other forms of racism are the same emerged. Blackness
functions, after all, in peculiar ways in societies that have produced antiblack racism. A response to the #BlackLivesMatter
movement, for instance, is often that ‘all lives matter’. That is true the extent to which each group lives under conditions of equal
respect for life. What advocates of #BlackLivesMatter are doing, however, is responding to a world in which some lives matter a lot
more than others, whose lives evidentially matter a lot less. The history of antiblack racism amounts to the conviction that black
people are only valuable the extent to which there is use for their labor or, worse, profiting from their misfortune as we see with the
heavily racialized prison industrial complexes in the United States and similar countries (Alexander, 2010; Davis, 1983, 2005). It
collapses into the expectation of justified existence in a context in which the justification for whoever stands as most valued is
intrinsic. Members of the dominant group could thus seek their justification – if they wish – personally, through mechanisms of love,
that such society renders some groups as
professional recognition, athletic achievement, etc. Moreover,
positive and others as negative leads to notions of legitimate presence (illegitimate absence) and
absence (illegitimate presence). Should the analysis remain at white and black, the world would,
however, appear more closed than it in fact is. For one, simply being born black would bar
the possibility of any legitimate appearance. This is a position that has been taken by a growing
group of theorists known as ‘Afropessimists’, for whom ‘black’ signifies absolute ‘social death’ (Sexton,
2010, 2011; Wilderson, 2007, 2008, 2009). It is, in other words, outside of relations. My objections to this view are many.
For one, no human being is ‘really’ any of these things. Do blacks, for instance, suffer social death
in relation to each other? The project of making people into such is one thing. The
achievement of such is another. This is an observation Fanon also makes in his formulation of the zone of nonbeing
and his critique of otherness in the study of race in Black Skin, White Masks, which I discuss at length my (Gordon, 2015) study,
What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought.

Fanon (1952) is critical of how otherness is interpreted in race theories and the study of race. The rejection of otherness ignores the
fact that others are human beings. Racism emerges in attempts to deny that. Instead, it offers the zone of nonbeing, non-
appearance as human beings. The racially dominant group presumes self-justified reality (license), which
means it doesn’t call itself into question. And the designated racially inferior group? Lacking justification,
their access to being is illegitimate. This means their absence is a mark of the system’s
legitimacy. Such groups face the Catch 22 of illegitimate appearance: To appear is to violate appearance. Put differently, the
violation is one of appearing without a license to do such. To all this, a consideration that should be added is this: The human being
comes to the fore through emerging from being in the first place. Thus, the assertion of Being, as in the thought of Heidegger and
his followers is also an effort to push the human being out of existence, so to speak. Heidegger, fair enough in his ‘Letter on
Humanism’ (1947/1971), saw no problem in this. Fanon (1952), and many others in Africana philosophy, including the South African
philosopher and psychologist Noël Chabani Manganyi (1973, 1977), disagreed through showing how racial conflict is also an
existential one in which an existential ontology is posed against an ontology of being. The latter, we submit, is best suited for gods.
When such becomes the model of being human, humanity dies. Blacks thus face the
paradox of existing (standing out, living – as ex sistere means such) as non-existence (not standing out). Antiblack
racism makes black appearance illicit.

Antiracist struggles will

Licit appearance would mean appearing as selves and others. It would mean the right to appear.
not work, then, as a struggle against otherness. It is, instead, against being non-selves and
non-others.
Returning to the Afropessmistic notion of blackness as social death, I’m compelled to ask: Why must
the social world be premised on the attitudes and perspectives of antiblack racists? Why
don’t blacks among each other and other communities of color count as social perspectives?
If the question of racism is a function of unequal power, which it clearly is, why not offer a
study of power, how it is gained and lost, instead of an assertion of its manifestations as
ontological?
I’m reminded here of Victor Anderson’s (1995) Beyond Ontological Blackness. Anderson would no doubt object that
Afropessimism treats ‘blackness’ as an ontological, which makes it a self-sustaining (non-
relational) concept. The historical emergence of blackness refutes that. But more, there is a
logical paradox that emerges from ontological blackness. To identify blackness, one must be
in a relation to it. This relational matter requires looking beyond blackness ironically in order
to understand blackness. This means moving from the conception of meaning as singular,
substance-based, and fixed into the grammar of how meaning is produced.
Consider the grammar of gender. Women historically occupy the role of absence (de Beauvoir, 1949; Butler, 2011; Gordon, 1995/1999, 1997). Blackness and womanness are thus intimate (Gordon, 1995/1999,
1997). The grammar of presence and absence is peculiarly theodicean (Gordon, 2010, 2013). This is the form of mauvaise-foi in which presence takes on the hubris of the desire to be a (often the) god. Theodicy
defends the integrity of the god (systemic maintenance) through placing its contradictions (for example, evil) outside of it. The result is Being as a form of systemic purity (Monahan, 2011, 2017). This grammar is
also psychoanalytical, in the sense of existential psychoanalysis. Manichean ‘qualities’ (such as ‘hard’ masculinity and ‘soft’ femininity) are evident in these modes of being. This pertains as well to sexual
orientation: A white man’s relation to a black man is not only one of race-to-race but also of race-to-gender where the meaning of being black (as ‘feminine’ and ‘sexual’) could collapse into gendered absence.
And extended to the sexualization of absence – think of the plethora of literature on the feminine as soft, cold, dark, and absence. The relation among males in which one group manifests such qualities
immediately collapses into a homoerotic one (Fanon, 1952; Gordon, 1995/1999, 1997, 2000).

We see here a conception of dealing with racial and gender qualities that are today called ‘intersectional’, though that metaphor doesn’t at first quite work for their existential phenomenological psychoanalytical
manifestations in mauvaise-foi (because purity seeks singularity). The major proponent of intersectionality – Kimberlé Crenshaw – is pretty clear that she is referring to identity collisions as they appear in law
(especially tort and discrimination law); in other words, she is referring to harms that, because of how they are interpreted, don’t appear (supposedly don’t exist) despite their lived-reality. She often illustrates her
point through her famous example of a collision at a four-way intersection (Crenshaw, 1991, 2014). If the fundamental site of harm is property, the concern will be about the cars, and if their status of property
depends on being owned by, say, white men, then harm would pertain to them. If the location of harm expands simply to ‘whites’, then a white woman or man in one of the cars would be sufficient for harm having
occurred. If, however, there were no whites in the cars, then the conclusion would be that no one was harmed. If harm extends to blacks and other people of color, and even further, to non-human animals, then
any of them being in the car or cars would initiate a cause for redress. Notice that Crenshaw’s argument doesn’t deny the possibility of white men being harmed. Her point is that people such as black women
were not historically acknowledged in the legal frameworks of harmed subjects because of a failure to see that human beings do not manifest a single category of identity on which to build a legal response.
Simply referring to ‘man’ as the exemplar of human being fails to acknowledge that human beings are not only men but also women, and simply as ‘women’ fails to address what kind of women such as those of
color and different sexual orientations.
At an existential level, what is also missed is the lived-reality of the convergence of these and their social and legal implications. A black woman in an automobile collision is, for example, not just harmed but also
harmed in ways linked to the wider legal framework of the society. The criminalization of black women and men, for instance, could mean that though harmed in the collision, such people may face the possibility
of entanglement in a legal system that treats them as the cause of harm, which could lead to other dangers such as ensnarement in the criminal justice system. This is one of the reasons why, even when harmed,
many people of color don’t seek the aid of law enforcement and other representatives of that system. Crenshaw’s theory therefore has an existential and phenomenological significance in that it is an argument for
the appearance of what is otherwise treated as either non-existent or not worthy of appearing, of, that is, illicit appearance. Her theory is also about the radicalization of appearance in that the identified subjects
emerge, so to speak, not only in terms of being seen but also through an effort to see what they see or experience – in short, to see or at least understand their point of view in terms of the conditions they face. It
is thus not a subjective theory or a narrowly objective one but instead an intersubjective theory because it requires understanding how different human beings relate to and encounter legal structures – products of
the human world – as simultaneously alienating and enabling.

Crenshaw’s concept of an intersection could, however, be interpreted in problematic ways. The first is the geometric model of an intersection. That version presupposes well-formed or complete lines converging.
A response would be that there was never a complete ‘whole’ or, as the feminist phenomenological communicologist Sara Ahmed (2006) would put it, ‘straight line’ with regard to human subjects in the first place.
The queer phenomenological theorist David Ross Fryer (2008), in stream with Ahmed, offers the logical conclusion of this critique – namely, a fundamental queerness at the heart of race theory and related areas
of study such as gender studies and queer theory. My recent work in philosophy of culture extends such a concern to the human condition as well – that is, the upsurge from being makes human reality a queer
one. This is pretty much the argument articulated earlier with regard to questions raised by Fanon’s analysis of ontology, existential ontology, and the dialectics of selves and others.

The second critical consideration is that as all human beings are manifestations of different dimensions
of meaning, the question of identity requires more than an intersecting model, otherwise there will simply
be one (a priori) normative outcome in every moment of inquiry: Whoever manifests the
maximum manifestation of predetermined negative intersecting terms. That would in effect
be an essence before an existence – indeed, before an actual event of harm. Some race
theorists’ tendency to build their arguments on a particular group as ‘most oppressed’ without
offering evidence for the continued truth of such a claim is an example of this fallacy. This
observation emerges as well where pessimism is the guiding attitude. An existential critique would
be that optimism and pessimism are symptomatic of the same attitude: a priori assertions on
reality. Human existence is contingent but not accidental, which means that the social world
at hand is a manifestation of choices and relationships – in other words, human actions. As
human beings can only build the future instead of it determining us, the task at hand
depends on commitment – what is to be done without guarantees of outcome. This concern also
pertains to the initial concerns about authenticity. One could only be pessimistic about an outcome, an
activity. It’s an act of forecasting what could only be meaningful once actually performed.
Similarly, one could only be optimistic about the same. What, however, if there were no way to know
either? Here we come to the foi element in mauvaise foi. Some actions are deontological, and if not that, they
are at least reflections of our commitments, our projects. Thus, the point of some actions isn’t
about their success or failure but whether we deem them worth doing (Fanon, 1961/ 1991; Gordon,
2015). Taking responsibility for such actions – bringing value to them – is opposed to another manifestation
of mauvaise-foi: the spirit of seriousness.
 AT: Pessimism Good
Afropessimism mistakes “an” anti-black world, characterized by anti-black
instructions that deny Black freedom, for an antiblack world---both
pessimism and optimism fail to take political responsibility for political
actions, a conception of blacks as human reframes “so-called” failures as
actions that alter the possibilities of change
Lewis R. Gordon 17, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, with affiliations in
Judaic Studies and Caribbean, Latino/a, and Latin American Studies, University of Connecticut
at Storrs, Visiting Europhilosophy Professor at Toulouse University, 12-7-17, “Thoughts on
Afropessimism,” Critical Political Theory (2017), p. 1-8
‘‘Afropessimism’’ came out of ‘‘Afro-pessimism.’’ The elimination of the hyphen is an important development, since it dispels
ambiguity and in effect announces a specific mode of thought. Should the hyphen remain, the ambiguity would be between
pessimistic people of African descent and theoretical pessimism. The conjoined, theoretical term is what proponents often have in
The appeal to a black condition is peculiarly
mind in their diagnosis of what I shall call ‘‘the black condition.’’
existential. Existentialists reject notions of human ‘‘nature’’ on the grounds that human beings
live in worlds they also construct; they produce their socalled essence. That does not mean,
however, human beings lack anchorage. Everyone has to start from somewhere.
Existentialists call that somewhere a condition or conditions for these reasons, and the world
human beings produce or through which we live is sometimes called ‘‘human reality.’’
Critics of existentialism often reject its human formulation. Heidegger, for instance, in his ‘‘Letter on
Humanism,’’ lambasted Sartre for supposedly in effect subordinating Being to a philosophical anthropology with dangers of
anthropocentrism (Heidegger, 1971). Yet
a philosophical understanding of culture raises the problem of
the conditions through which philosophical reflections could emerge as meaningful. Although a
human activity, a more radical understanding of culture raises the question of the human being
as the producer of an open reality. If the human being is in the making, then ‘‘human reality’’ is
never complete and is more the relations in which such thought takes place than a claim about
the thought. The etymology of existence already points to these elements. From the Latin ex sistere, ‘‘to stand out,’’ it also
means to appear; against invisibility in the stream of effects through which the human world appears, much appears through the
creative and at times alchemic force of human thought and deed. Quarrels with and against existential thought are many. In more
recent times, they’ve emerged primarily from Marxists, structuralists, and poststructuralists, even though there were, and continue to
be, many existential Marxists and even existentialists with structuralist and poststructuralist leanings.

I begin with this tale of philosophical abstraction to contextualize Afropessimism. Its main
exemplars, such as Jared Sexton and Frank Wilderson III, emerged from academic literary
theory, an area dominated by poststructuralism even in many cases that avow ‘‘Marxism.’’ Sexton
(2010) and Wilderson (2007) divert from a reductive poststructuralism, however, through examining important existential moves
The critical question that
inaugurated, as Daniel McNeil (2011, 2012) observed, by Fanon and his intellectual heirs.
Afropessimism addresses in this fusion is the viability of posed strategies of Black liberation. (I’m
using the capital ‘‘B’’ here to point not only to the racial designation ‘‘black’’ but also to the nationalist one ‘‘Black.’’ Afropessimists
The world that produced
often mean both, since blacks and Blacks have a central and centered role in their thought.)
blacks and in consequence Blacks is, for Afropessimists, a crushing, historical one whose
Manichaean divide is sustained contraries best kept segregated. Worse, any effort of mediation
leads to confirmed black subordination. Overcoming this requires purging the world of
antiblackness. Where cleansing the world is unachievable, an alternative is to disarm the force
of antiblack racism. Where whites lack power over blacks, they lose relevance – at least
politically and at levels of cultural and racial capital or hegemony. Wilderson (2008), for instance,
explores my concept of ‘‘an antiblack world’’ to build similar arguments. Sexton (2011) makes
similar moves in his discussions of ‘‘social death.’’ As this forum doesn’t afford space for a long critique, I’ll offer
several, non-exhaustive criticisms.

The first is that ‘‘an antiblack world’’ is not identical with ‘‘the world is antiblack.’’ My argument is
that such a world is an antiblack racist project. It is not the historical achievement. Its
limitations emerge from a basic fact: Black people and other opponents of such a project fought,
and continue to fight, as we see today in the #BlackLivesMatter movement and many others,
against it. The same argument applies to the argument about social death. Such an
achievement would have rendered even these reflections stillborn. The basic premises of the
Afropessimistic argument are, then, locked in performative contradictions. Yet, they have rhetorical
force. This is evident through the continued growth of its proponents and forums (such as this one) devoted to it.

In Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism, I argued that there are forms of antiblack racism offered under the guise of love, though I was
writing about whites who exoticize blacks while offering themselves as white sources of black value. Analyzed in terms of bad faith,
where one lies to oneself in an attempt to flee displeasing truths for pleasing falsehoods, exoticists romanticize blacks while
performative contradictions are
affirming white normativity, and thus themselves, as principals of reality. These ironic,
features of all forms of racism, where one group is elevated to godlike status and another is
pushed below that of human despite both claiming to be human.
Antiblack racism offers whites self-other relations (necessary for ethics) with each other but not so for
groups forced in a ‘‘zone of nonbeing’’ below them. There is asymmetry where whites stand as others who look
downward to those who are not their others or their analogues. Antiblack racism is thus not a problem of blacks
being ‘‘others.’’ It’s a problem of their not-being-analogical-selves-and-not-evenbeing- others.
Fanon, in Black Skin, White Masks (1952), reminds us that Blacks among each other live in a world of selves
and others. It is in attempted relations with whites that these problems occur. Reason in such contexts
has a bad habit of walking out when Blacks enter. What are Blacks to do? As reason cannot be forced, because that would be
‘‘violence,’’ they must ironically reason reasonably with forms of unreasonable reason. Contradictions loom .
Racism is, given
these arguments, a project of imposing non-relations as the model of dealing with people designated
‘‘black.’’
In Les Damne´ de la terre (‘‘Damned of the Earth’’), Fanon goes further and argues that colonialism is an attempt to impose a
Manichean structure of contraries instead of a dialectical one of ongoing, human negotiation of contradictions. The former
segregates the groups; the latter emerges from interaction. The police, he observes, are the mediator in such a situation, as their
role is force/violence instead of the human, discursive one of politics and civility (Fanon, 1991). Such societies draw legitimacy from
Black non-existence or invisibility. Black appearance, in other words, would be a violation of those systems. Think of the continued
blight of police, extra-judicial killings of Blacks in those countries.

An immediate observation of many postcolonies is that antiblack attitudes, practices, and

institutions aren’t exclusively white. Black antiblack dispositions make this clear. Black
antiblackness entails Black exoticism. Where this exists, Blacks simultaneously receive Black love
alongside Black rejection of agency. Many problems follow. The absence of agency bars
maturation, which would reinforce the racial logic of Blacks as in effect wards of whites. Without
agency, ethics, liberation, maturation, politics, and responsibility could not be possible.
Afropessimism faces the problem of a hidden premise of white agency versus Black incapacity. Proponents of Afropessimism would
no doubt respond that the theory itself is a form of agency reminiscent of Fanon’s famous remark that though whites created le
Whites clearly did not create Afropessimism, which Black
Ne`gre it was les Ne`gres who created Ne´gritude.
liberationists should celebrate. We should avoid the fallacy, however, of confusing source with
outcome. History is not short of bad ideas from good people. If intrinsically good, however, each
person of African descent would become ethically and epistemologically a switching of the
Manichean contraries, which means only changing players instead of the game.
We come, then, to the crux of the matter. If the goal of Afropessimism is Afropessimism, its
achievement would be attitudinal and, in the language of old, stoic – in short, a symptom of
antiblack society. At this point, there are several observations that follow. The first is a diagnosis of
the implications of Afropessimism as symptom. The second examines the epistemological
implications of Afropessimism. The third is whether a disposition counts as a political act and, if
so, is it sufficient for its avowed aims. There are more, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll simply focus on these.
An ironic dimension of pessimism is that it is the other side of optimism. Oddly enough, both are
connected to nihilism, which is, as Nietzsche (1968) showed, a decline of values during periods of social
decay. It emerges when people no longer want to be responsible for their actions. Optimists
expect intervention from beyond. Pessimists declare relief is not forthcoming. Neither takes
responsibility for what is valued. The valuing, however, is what leads to the second, epistemic
point. The presumption that what is at stake is what can be known to determine what can be
done is the problem. If such knowledge were possible, the debate would be about who is
reading the evidence correctly. Such judgment would be a priori – that is, prior to events actually
unfolding. The future, unlike transcendental conditions such as language, signs, and reality, is,
however, ex post facto: It is yet to come. Facing the future, the question isn’t what will be or how
do we know what will be but instead the realization that whatever is done will be that on which
the future will depend. Rejecting optimism and pessimism, there is a supervening alternative:
political commitment.
The appeal to political commitment is not only in stream with what French existentialists call l’intellectuel engage´ (committed
intellectual) but also reaches back through the history and existential situation of enslaved, racialized ancestors. Many were, in truth,
an existential paradox: commitment to action without guarantees. The slave revolts, micro and macro acts of resistance, escapes,
and returns help others do the same; the cultivated instability of plantations and other forms of enslavement, and countless other
actions, were waged against a gauntlet of forces designed to eliminate any hope of success. The claim of colonialists and enslavers
was that the future belonged to them, not to the enslaved and the indigenous. A result of more than 500 years of conquest and 300
years of enslavement was also a (white) rewriting of history in which African and First Nations’ agency was, at least at the level of
scholarship, nearly erased. Yet there was resistance even in that realm, as Africana and First Nation intellectual history and
scholarship attest. Such actions set the course for different kinds of struggle today.

Afropessimism, the existential critique suggests,

Such reflections occasion meditations on the concept of failure.
suffers from a failure to understand failure. Consider Fanon’s notion of constructive failure, where what
doesn’t initially work transforms conditions for something new to emerge. To understand this argument,
one must rethink the philosophical anthropology at the heart of a specific line of Euromodern thought on what it means to be human .
Atomistic and individual substance- based, this model, articulated by Hobbes, Locke, and many
others, is of a non-relational being that thinks, acts, and moves along a course in which
continued movement depends on not colliding with others. Under that model, the human being is a
thing that enters a system that facilitates or obstructs its movement. An alternative model,
shared by many groups across southern Africa, is a relational version of the human being as
part of a larger system of meaning. Actions, from that perspective, are not about whether ‘‘I’’
succeed but instead about ‘‘our’’ story across time. As relational, it means that each human being
is a constant negotiation of ongoing efforts to build relationships with others, which
means no one actually enters a situation without establishing new situations of action and
meaning. Instead of entering a game, their participation requires a different kind of project –
especially where the ‘‘game’’ was premised on their exclusion. Thus, where the system or game
repels initial participation, such repulsion is a shift in the grammar of how the system
functions, especially its dependence on obsequious subjects. Shifted energy affords
emergence of alternatives. Kinds cannot be known before the actions that birthed them.
Abstract as this sounds, it has much historical support. Evelyn Simien (2016), in her insightful political study
Historic Firsts, examines the new set of relations established by Shirley Chisholm’s and Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns.
There could be no Barack Obama without such important predecessors affecting the
demographics of voter participation. Simien intentionally focused on the most mainstream example of political life to
illustrate this point. Although no exemplar of radicalism, Obama’s ‘‘success’’ emerged from Chisholm
and Jackson’s (and many others’) so-called ‘‘failure.’’ Beyond presidential electoral politics,
there are numerous examples of how prior, radical so-called ‘‘failures’’ transformed relationships
that facilitated other kinds of outcome. The trail goes back to the Haitian Revolution and back to
every act of resistance from Nat Turner’s Rebellion in the USA, Sharpe’s in Jamaica, or Tula’s
in Curac¸ao and so many other efforts for social transformation to come.
In existential terms, then, many ancestors of the African diaspora embodied what Søren Kierkegaard
(1983) calls an existential paradox. All the evidence around them suggested failure and the futility of
hope. They first had to make a movement of infinite resignation – that is, resigning themselves
to their situation. Yet they must simultaneously act against that situation. Kierkegaard called this
seemingly contradictory phenomenon ‘‘faith,’’ but that concept relates more to a relationship
with a transcendent, absolute being, which could only be established by a ‘‘leap,’’ as there are no
mediations or bridge. Ironically, if Afropessimism appeals to transcendent intervention, it would
collapse into faith. If, however, the argument rejects transcendent intervention and focuses on
committed political action, of taking responsibility for a future that offers no guarantees, then
the movement from infinite resignation becomes existential political action.
At this point, the crucial meditation would be on politics and political action. An attitude of infinite
resignation to the world without the leap of committed action would simply be pessimistic or
nihilistic. Similarly, an attitude of hope or optimism about the future would lack infinite resignation.
We see here the underlying failure of the two approaches. Yet ironically, there is a form of
failure at failing in the pessimistic turn versus the optimistic one, since if focused exclusively on
resignation as the goal, then the ‘‘act’’ of resignation would have been achieved, which,
paradoxically, would be a success; it would be a successful failing of failure. For politics to
emerge, however, there are two missing elements in inward pessimistic resignation.
The first is that politics is a social phenomenon, which means it requires the expanding
options of a social world. Turning away from the social world, though a statement about
politics, is not, however, in and of itself political. The ancients from whom much western political
theory or philosophy claimed affinity had a disparaging term for individuals who resigned
themselves from political life: idio¯te¯s, a private person, one not concerned with public affairs, in a
word – an idiot. I mention western political theory because that is the hegemonic intellectual
context of Afropessimism. We don’t, however, have to end our etymological journey in ancient Greek. Extending our
linguistic archaeology back a few thousand years, we could examine the Middle Kingdom Egyptian word idi (deaf). The
presumption, later taken on by the ancient Athenians and Macedonians, was that a lack of hearing entailed isolation, at least in
The contemporary inward resignation of seeking a form of purity from the
terms of audio speech.
loathsome historical reality of racial oppression, in this reading, collapses ultimately into a form
of moralism (private, normative satisfaction) instead of public responsibility born of and borne by action.
The second is the importance of power. Politics makes no sense without it. But what is power?
Eurocentric etymology points to the Latin word potis as its source, from which came the word ‘‘potent’’ as in an omnipotent god. If
we again look back further, we will notice the Middle Kingdom (2000 BCE–1700 BCE) KMT/ Egyptian word pHty, which refers to
godlike strength. Yet for those ancient Northeast Africans, even the gods’ abilities came from a source: In the Coffin Texts, HqAw or
this amounts to a
heka activates the ka (sometimes translated as soul, spirit, or, in a word, ‘‘magic’’), which makes reality. All
straightforward thesis on power as the ability with the means to make things happen.
There is an alchemical quality to power. The human world, premised on symbolic
communication, brings many forms of meaning into being, and those new meanings afford
relationships that build institutions through a world of culture, a phenomenon that Freud (1989) rightly
described as ‘‘a prosthetic god.’’ It is godlike because it addresses what humanity historically sought from the gods: protection from
the elements, physical maledictions, and social forms of misery. Such
power clearly can be abused. It is where
those enabling capacities (empowerment) are pushed to the wayside in the hording of social
resources into propping up some people as gods that the legitimating practices of cultural cum
political institutions decline and stimulate pessimism and nihilism. That institutions in the
Americas very rarely attempt establishing positive relations to Blacks is the subtext of
Afropessimism and this entire meditation.
The discussion points, however, to a demand for political commitment. Politics itself emerges
under different names throughout the history of our species, but the one occasioning the word
‘‘politics’’ is from the Greek po´lis, which refers to ancient Hellenic city-states. It identifies specific kinds
of activities conducted inside the city-state, where order necessitated the resolution of conflicts
through rules of discourse the violation of which could lead to (civil) war, a breaking down of
relations appropriate for ‘‘outsiders.’’ Returning to the Fanonian observation of selves and others, it is clear that
imposed limitations on certain groups amounts to impeding or blocking the option of politics. Yet,
as a problem occurring within the polity, the problem short of war becomes a political one.
Returning to Afropessimistic challenges, the question becomes this: If the problem of antiblack
racism is conceded as political, where antiblack institutions of power have, as their project, the
impeding of Black power, which in effect requires barring Black access to political institutions,
then antiblack societies are ultimately threats also to politics defined as the human
negotiation of the expansion of human capabilities or more to the point: freedom.
Anti-politics is one of the reasons why societies in which antiblack racism is hegemonic are also
those in which racial moralizing dominates: moralizing stops at individuals at the expense of
addressing institutions the transformation of which would make immoral individuals irrelevant.
As a political problem, it demands a political solution. It is not accidental that Blacks
continue to be the continued exemplars of unrealized freedom. As so many from Ida B. Wells-Barnett to
Angela Davis (2003) and Michelle Alexander (2010) have shown, the expansion of privatization and incarceration
is squarely placed in a structure of states and civil societies premised on the limitations of
freedom (Blacks) – ironically, as seen in countries such as South Africa and the United States, in
the name of freedom.
That power is a facilitating or enabling phenomenon, a functional element of the human world, a
viable response must be the establishing of relations that reach beyond the singularity of
the body. I bring this up because proponents of Afropessimism might object to this analysis
because of its appeal to a human world. If that world is abrogated, the site of struggle becomes
that which is patently not human. It is not accidental that popular race discourse refers today to ‘‘black bodies,’’ for
instance, instead of ‘‘black people.’’ As the human world is discursive, social, and relational, this
abandonment amounts to an appeal to the non-relational, the incommunicability of singularity,
and appeals to the body and its reach. At that point, it’s perhaps the psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychoanalyst who
would be helpful, as turning radically inward offers the promise of despair, narcissistic delusions of godliness, and, as Fanon also
Even if that slippery slope were rejected, the performative contradiction of
observed, madness.
attempting to communicate such singularity or absence thereof requires, at least for
consistency, the appropriate course of action: silence.
The remaining question for Afropessimism, especially those who are primarily academics, becomes this:
Why write? It’s a question for which, in both existential and political terms, I don’t see how an answer
could be given from an Afropessimistic perspective without the unfortunate revelation of cynicism. The marketability of
Afropessimism is no doubt in the immediate and paradoxical satisfaction in dissatisfaction it
offers. We are at this point on familiar terrain. As with ancient logical paradoxes denying the
viability of time and motion, the best option, after a moment of immobilized reflection, is, eventually,
to move on, even where the pause is itself significant as an encomium of thought.

Reducing anti-blackness to the level of ontology is counter-productive—

cements nihilism and has no alt
Rogers 15, Associate Professor of African American Studies & Political Science University of
California, Los Angeles. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Wounded Attachment: Reflections on Between the
World and Me Fugitive Thoughts, August 2015, http://www.academia.edu/14337627/Ta-
Nehisi_Coatess_Wounded_Attachment_Reflections_on_Between_the_World_and_Me
The Dream seems to run so deep that it eludes those caught by it. Between the World and Me initially seems like a book that will reveal the illusion and in that moment open up

Coates rejects
the possibility for imagining the United States anew. Remember: “Nothing about the world is meant to be.” But the book does not move in that direction.

embraces the certainty of white supremacy and its

the American mythos and the logic of certain progress it necessitates, but

inescapable constraints. White supremacy is not merely a historically emergent feature of

the Western world generally, and the United States particularly; it is an ontology . By this I mean that for Coates white supremacy

does not structure reality; it is reality. There is, in this, a danger . When one
conceptualizes white supremacy at the level of ontology, there is little room for one’s
imagination to soar and one’s sense of agency is inescapably constrained . The meaning of action is tied
fundamentally to what we imagine is possible for us. “The missing thing,” Coates writes, “was related to the plunder of our bodies, the fact that any claim to ourselves, to the
hands that secured us, the spine that braced us, and the head that directed us, was contestable.” The body is one of the unifying themes of the book. It resonates well with our
American ears because the hallmark of freedom is sovereign control over our bodies. This was the site on which slavery did its most destructive work: controlling the body to

The reality of this

enslave the soul. We see the reconstitution of this logic in our present moment—the policing and imprisoning of black men and women.

colonizes not only the past and the present, but also the future . There can be no
affirmative politics when race functions primarily as a wounded attachment —when our
bodies are the visible reminders that we live at the arbitrary whim of another. But what of
those young men and women in the streets of Ferguson , Chicago , New York , and Charleston —
how ought we to read their efforts? We come to understand Coates’s answer to this question in one of the pivotal and tragic moments of the
book—the murder of a college friend, Prince Jones, at the hands of the police. As Coates says: “This entire episode took me from fear to a rage that burned in me then,
animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days.” With his soul on fire, all his senses are directed to the pain white supremacy produces, the wounds it
creates. This murder should not be read as a function of the actions of a police officer or even the logic of policing blacks in the United States. His account of this strikes a
darker chord. What he tells us about the meaning of the death of Prince Jones, what we ought to understand, reveals the operating logic of the “universe”: She [referring to his
mother] knew that the galaxy itself could kill me, that all of me could be shattered and all of her legacy spilled upon the curb like bum wine. And no one would be brought to
account for this destruction, because my death would not be the fault of any human but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of ‘race,’ imposed upon an innocent
country by the inscrutable judgment of invisible gods. The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones

But if we are all just

back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of nature, the helpless agent of our world’s physical laws.

helpless agents of physical laws, the question might emerge again: What does one do?
Coates recommends interrogation and struggle . His love for books and his journey to Howard University, “Mecca,” as he calls
it, serve as sites where he can question the world around him. But interrogation and struggle to what end? His answer
is contained in his incessant preoccupation with natural disasters. We might say, at one time we thought the Gods were
angry with us or that they were moving furniture around, thus causing earthquakes. Now we know earthquakes are the result of

tectonic shifts. Okay, what do we do with that knowledge? Coates seems to say:
Construct an early warning system—don’t misspend your energy trying to stop the
earthquake itself. There is a lesson in this: “Perhaps one person can make a change, but not the kind
of change that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen…And still you are
called to struggle, not because it assures you victory, but because it assures you an
honorable and sane life.” One’s response can be honorable because it emerges from a clear-sightedness that leaves one standing upright in the face of the truth of
the matter—namely, that your white counterparts will never join you in raising your body to equality. “It is truly horrible,” Coates writes in one of the most disturbing sentences of
the book, “to understand yourself as the essential below of your country.” Coates’s sentences are often pitched as frank speech; it is what it is. This produces a kind of sanity, he
suggests, releasing one from a preoccupation with the world being other than what it is. Herein lies the danger : Forget telling his son it will be okay.
Coates cannot even muster a tentative response to his son; he cannot tell him that it may
be okay. “The struggle is really all I have for you,” he tells his son, “because it is the only portion of this world under your control.” What a strange form of control. Black
folks may control their place in the battle, but never with the possibility that they, and in turn the country to which they belong, may win. Releasing the book

at this moment —given all that is going on with black lives under public assault and
black youth in particular attempting to imagine the world anew —seems the oddest
thing to do . For all of the channeling of James Baldwin, Coates seems to have forgotten
that black folks “ can’t afford despair .” As Baldwin went on to say: “I can’t tell my
nephew, my niece; you can’t tell the children there is no hope.” The reason why you can’t
say this is not because you are living in a dream or selling a fantasy, but because there
can be no certain knowledge of the future. Humility, borne out of our lack of knowledge
of the future, justifies hope. Much has been made of the comparison between Baldwin and Coates, owing largely to how the book is structured and
because of Toni Morrison’s endorsement. But what this connection means seems to escape many commentators. In his 1955 non-fiction book titled Notes of a Native Son,
Baldwin reflects on the wounds white supremacy left on his father: “I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now
would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me.” Similar to Coates, Baldwin was wounded and so was

Baldwin knew all too well that the wounded attachment if held on to would
Baldwin’s father. Yet

destroy not the plunderers of black life, but the ones who were plundered. “Hatred, which
could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law.”
Baldwin’s father, as he understood him, was destroyed by hatred. Coates is less like
Baldwin in this respect and, perhaps, more like Baldwin’s father. “I am wounded,” says Coates. “I am marked by
old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” The chains reach out to imprison not only his son, but you and I as well. There is a

profound sense of disappointment here. Disappointment because given the power of the book, Coates
seems unable to linger in the conditions that have given life to the Ta-Neisha Coates that
now occupies the public stage. Coates’s own engagement with the world—his very agency—has received social support. Throughout the book he
often comments on the rich diversity of black beauty and on the power of love. His father, William Paul Coates, is the founder of Black Classic Press—a press with the explicit
focus of revealing the richness of black life. His mother, Cheryl Waters, helped to financially support the family and provided young Coates with direction. And yet he seems to

One ought not to read these moments above

stand at a distance from the condition of possibility suggested by just those examples.

as expressive of the very “Dream” he means to reject. Rather, the point is that black life
is at once informed by, but not reducible to , the pain exacted on our bodies by this
country. This eludes Coates . The wound is so intense he cannot direct his senses
beyond the pain .

2ac –

Afro-pessimism devolves into fatalism which precludes real-world change

Eugene Holley 13, journalist, “Wake Up, People! How to Get Past African-American
Pessimism in the Age of Obama”, http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wake-people-how-
get-past-african-american-pessimism-age-obama
Afro-pessimism is rampant in the hood, but it also lives in academia. Dr. Cornel West, when asked if he would serve in
Obama’s White House, said, “[t]hat’s not my calling. Yeah, brother, you find me in a crackhouse before you find me in the White House." Afro-pessimism

comes from a painful and brutal history of slavery and its aftermath. And statistics tell us that we
still have a lot not to cheer about, like the 14 percent unemployment rate among blacks (nearly double the national average) or the monstrous murder
rate in Chicago, where 80 percent of the 500 homicide victims in 2012 were black. We are depressed when we hear that the gap in high school graduation rates for white and
black males only narrowed by 3 percent in 10 years, and when we learn that, stunningly, 40.2 percent of all prison inmates are black, even though we are only 13.6 percent of

the U.S. population. Those horrors are real. But what is also real is that against unimaginable odds,
we are still here. We forged ourselves, with the full, white weight of the Western world bearing
down us, into what W.E.B. Du Bois called “a small nation of people.” This black nation is united less by any single African, pre-American past than by what Ralph Ellison
termed “an identity of passions.” We are a multicolored branch of humanity that won a centuries-

spanning struggle that liberated master and slave. To say that we all emerged in heroic fashion would be a lie. Being human,
people tend to go inward and internalize the degradation and lack of hope around them. That, of course, is not an exclusively black thing, as evidenced by the sad condition of
Native Americans, Kurds, Roma and many other oppressed people on the planet. While pessimism under unrelenting and brutal conditions is understandable, it ceases to be

The presidency of Barack

useful when we refuse to believe that better conditions are possible because believing it sets us up for disappointment.

Obama becomes too much to process, and we shy away from the work of overhauling negative
thinking. We shift into thinking that any kind of African-American advancement is a sham,
a trick, a hustle; an unforgivable delusion unfit for those who keep it real. Afro-pessimism
is bad enough when it’s just about lack of positive action. But it plays out in our young people in the worst aspects of
popular and hip-hop culture, where a black kid is called “acting white” for speaking in non-accented Standard English, and God forbid, excelling in school. Add those incendiary

you have a recipe for reverse-revolution; where black prison

ingredients to the American-as-apple-pie love for violence and

culture is celebrated and rewarded by the larger white community and by the media’s insatiable appetite for black life on
the mean streets. The good news is that Afro-pessimism is a cultural response, and though it is shaped by

socio-economic forces, it is reversible through the same kind of positive, cultural

engineering that all humans are capable of. For starters, Afro-pessimists should consider our
political history – as black people, and as Americans. Remember that most of our victories don’t happen
overnight. Second, we need to carefully scrutinize the president’s policies and the strategies that underpin them. As the Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson wrote in
the New York Times: “Mr. Obama’s writings, politics and personal relations suggest ... that he prefers a three-pronged strategy. First, he is committed to the universalist position
that the best way to help the black and Latino poor is to help all disadvantaged people, Appalachian whites included. The outrage of black over-incarceration will be remedied by
quietly reforming the justice system … Second, Mr. Obama appears convinced that residential segregation lies at the heart of both black problems and cultural racism. He is a
committed integrationist and seems to favor policies intended to move people out of the inner cities. Third, he clearly considers education to be the major solution and has tried
to lavishly finance our schools, despite the fiscal crisis. More broadly, he will quietly promote policies that celebrate the common culture of America, emphasizing the
extraordinary role of blacks and other minorities in this continuing creation.” Here are two examples that support Patterson’s analysis: 1) the president’s expansion of the Child
Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit in 2010, which benefited about 2.2 million African American families and nearly half of all African American children, while extending
unemployment insurance to benefit over a million African Americans; and 2) the African-American Education Initiative, an executive order created to improve the “… educational
outcomes for African Americans of all ages; and help ensure that African Americans receive a complete and competitive education that prepares them for college, a satisfying
career, and productive citizenship.” Examining evidence of Obama’s positive effect on the black community can help lift the veil of Afro-pessimism, and allow us to view his

we are witnessing an event that was unimaginable less

reelection in a more realistic and positive light. Remember,

than 10 years ago. If a black, mixed-race brother raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, with a
Muslim-sounding name a few years after 9/11 can win the presidency twice – especially after four years of vicious
racist attacks – then simply put, all is possible. We no longer have the option of rising to our lowest

expectations.
 AT: Structural Antagonism
Antiblack antagonisms are not structural—the ability to communicate
about Blackness proves Black positionality can be altered, and utopian
fatalism is more violent than productive engagement
King Watts, 15—Associate Professor, Media and Technology Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
(Eric, “Critical Cosmopolitanism, Antagonism, and Social Suffering”, Quarterly Journal of
Speech Volume 101, Issue 1, 2015, dml)
I have been asked by more than one graduate student at more than one university how I hope to reconcile the
claims of Afro-Pessimism with my insistence that voice is a fundamental human capacity. I
maintain, more or less consistently, that voice is a public occurrence animated by the acknowledgment of
the ethical and affective dimensions of speech.16 The repetition of the inquiry is energized by
the fact and mode of Afro-Pessimism being taken up in debate and argument organizations, programs, and
competitions. I am not going to attempt to complete this reconciliation in this space, in part because I have not quite
accomplished it. But I do have to briefly sketch out the terms of the challenge in order to try to evaluate the strengths and limits of
critical cosmopolitanism as an academic practice that would ask “why and how” Communication Studies might interact with the Afro-
Pessimistic enclave in Black Studies.

While criticizing the work of Black film theory, Frank Wilderson embarks upon an ambitious and provocative campaign meant to
foster an understanding of the conditions of impossibility for Black subjectivity within the contemporary ontological paradigm. The
term “Afro-Pessimism” signals the work of scholars who are “theorists of structural positionality.”17 As such, Blackness and
Whiteness18 are interrogated as emerging through a conjuncture with brutal modern technologies of organization and domination,
and the birth of the very idea of race. Put simply, it took the modern invention of slavery and colonialism to bring about the racial
ideologies that make Blackness and Whiteness intelligible. The Slave/Black, then, should not be considered exploited labor or
simply oppressed. “Rather, the gratuitous violence of the Black's first ontological instance, the Middle Passage, ‘wiped out [his or
her] metaphysics … his or her customs and sources on which they are based.’”19 The Black occupies a coordinate that marks a
fundamental structural antagonism with the West, with Whiteness and, indeed, with the Human. It is quite easy to see why the term
“Pessimism” is apt. The Black names the condition of state violence, a flesh-object brought into the world for “accumulation and
fungibility.”20 The Black is essential to the production of Western subjectivity and to notions of what it means to be human. “In short,
White (Human) capacity, in advance of the event of discrimination or oppression, is parasitic on Black incapacity: Without the Negro,
Not only is the Black incapacitated as a structural
capacity itself is incoherent, uncertain at best.”
determinate, the Black is “a structural position of noncommunicability.”21 But there is a
form of communication here nevertheless because the Black paradoxically signifies the
“outside” that allows for the articulation of “anti-Black solidarity.”22 There is theoretical
and historical support for such an analysis. For example, the early twentieth-century
Americanization projects used Blackness as an exclusionary trope meant to help spur non-
White immigrants from Europe and Asia toward Whiteness.23 And here is where the term “Pessimism”
seems inadequate. As a structurally overdetermined body-image in the Western imaginary and
symbolic field, Blackness registers near-nothingness:
In perceiving Black folk as being alive, or at least having the potential to live in the world, the same potential that any
subaltern might have, the politics of Black film theorists' aesthetic methodology and desire disavowed the fact that
“[Black folk] are always already dead wherever you find them.”24
Given this dire diagnosis, why and how might we interact with Afro-Pessimism? Speaking from
the point of view of a Black rhetorical scholar (and a scholar of Blackness), the answer to why is
virtually self-evident: thinking through Blackness as a condition of possibility for rhetorical
action and social justice is a life-long pursuit that, given the tragic killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson,
Missouri in August 2014, feels especially burning.25 Given the affective intensity of the charge of
Black noncommunicability, a failure to meaningfully interact would engender a different kind
of “violence”; in this case a structural injunction sponsored by a lingering and recurring anxiety
regarding the authority of Communication Studies. And so how might we interact? If I take up the
orientation of critical cosmopolitanism, I need to recognize immediately that my efforts can be dismissed by
the Afro-Pessimist as colonial; that is, as a reiteration of the sort of practices that presume that
one's epistemologies can translate other's bodies of knowledge into comprehensible and useful
concepts and constructs. And yet, we must begin where we are, not where we hope to
be. Hence, I want to make two modest and one not-so-modest suggestions for how Communication Studies in general and
Wilderson calls for “a new language of abstraction” to
Rhetorical Studies in particular might interact: first,
elaborate “Blackness's grammar of suffering.”26 But in my reading, Afro-Pessimism is already too
reliant on a language of abstraction. Lois McNay, in The Misguided Search for the Political, recently contends that
theories of political power are overwrought owing to a social weightlessness brought about
through high abstraction. She recommends the reinvigoration of the concept of “social suffering”—not as an entrenched category of
victimage but, rather, as the habitus of lived experience that must be articulated to analyses of structural positionality.27

Second, I agree with McNay (who says nothing about Afro-Pessimism, by the way) that structural antagonisms are
not static, but are movable and moving configurations. The Afro-Pessimist in Wilderson's account
must agree that when a non-Black person is thrust toward the horrible condition approximating
(but not identical to) the Black's structural position, that adjustment can rightfully be called a
“Blackening.” As a happening—and not an event that has simply always already happened—this racialized
procedure makes itself felt and knowable in the dense social fabric of the everyday. If the Black
is in a structural position that delimits the impossibility of capacity, might we enjoin an analysis
of the vocabulary of that impossibility itself? And since a “Blackening” receives intelligibility from the
structural position of the Black, might we gain some productive understanding from a scrutiny
of key discursive and material forms of “Blackening”? Was not Michael Brown “Blackened” in
and through (and not only a priori to) his bodily encounter with state violence? Given my
ongoing scholarly interest in the Zombie, I am willing to concede that an Afro-Pessimist might claim that Brown
was, at the moment he was shot to death, “the dead but sentient thing, the Black” struggling “to articulate in a
world of living subjects.”28 This concession functions as an assertion: the Zombie is not wholly
outside Western intelligibility; it haunts the nether regions between Human and Black. Its undead
existence is material and social, and supplies some vital resources for inventing a new language—a grammar of (Black) suffering.
Perhaps “there is no way to Africa through the Black,”29 but maybe there is a route through the Zombie. I have argued for such a
project using the terminology of reanimating Zombie voices.30

Lastly, we might think of this gloomy predicament as a tenuous point of contact with Afro-Pessimism. Wilson's intellectual history
provides the basis for such a conception. Communication Studies has been (and continues to anguish over the extent that it
still is) in the structural position of inferior and alienated. There should be no shame in admitting that the discipline, in relation to both
the Social Sciences and the Humanities, has been and is subject to being “Blackened.” Indeed, its originary moment, as I alluded to
above, meant the rejection of a set of nationalistic proprietary politics that treated Speech teachers
like disposable labor. By any reasonable measure, that structural positioning—despite the fact that the people involved were
White—was a racialization, a “Blackening.” Let's be perfectly clear: there is no identification being made here
with the fundamental antagonism associated with the Black. However, this racialized politics (among other
political registers) might provide a new critical vocabulary for Communication scholars if we do the
painful work of coming to grips with the discursive and material practices of “Blackening.”
There are structures of different scales. Academic structural dynamics are not dissociated
from the identity ideologies implicated in nationalism and cosmopolitanism, citizenship and exile, privilege
and destitution, Whiteness and Blackness. Indeed, Wilderson's critique is launched from and
resides within those very same structural dynamics. It seems to me then that, at the very least, our
shared social suffering with Afro-Pessimism—although of vastly different magnitudes and
qualities—should be asserted as a mode of transnational fidelity.
 AT: Fatalism Good
Fatalism Destroys Agency — racism is not structurally inevitable.
Omi and Winant 13 — Michael Omi, Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department
at the University of California-Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California-Santa Cruz, and Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of
California-Santa Barbara, Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies,
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2013 (“Resistance is
futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 36, Number 6,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor & Francis Online, p. 961-962)
We were at first surprised by the extensive critique of our 1994 book by Joe Feagin and Sean
Elias. Although we do not know Elias, we have great respect and friendship for Joe Feagin and
have learned from his insightful work on race and racism over the years. We have shared
conference panels with him and endorsed his books (and he ours). In 2009, we published a
somewhat critical but also appreciative review of Feagin’s Systemic Racism: A Theory of
Oppression (Routledge 2006) in Contemporary Sociology (March 2009). Elias subsequently
wrote a critical response to our review (September 2009). Maybe this is payback?
After surprise came intrigue and excitement: we realized that this was a great opportunity to
examine racial politics, race theory and the dynamics of racism in the USA today. In their
criticism of our work, Feagin and Elias have posed numerous crucial issues for that discussion.
Let us have that debate.
Their essay has an overly tendentious tone and sometimes misreads and misinterprets our
book. Still there are many points of agreement between the racial formation and systemic
racism theories. Where we disagree most strongly is over our respective understanding of racial
politics. Feagin and Elias focus so intensely on racism that they lose sight of the complexities
of race and the variations that exist among and within racially defined groups. In their
‘systemic racism’ account white racist rule is so comprehensive and absolute that the political
power and agency of people of colour virtually disappear. Indeed, the ‘white racial frame’
(Feagin 2009) is so omnipotent that white racism seems to usurp and monopolize all political
space in the USA. Yes, ‘counter framing’ is present, but it appears marginal at best, unable
effectively to challenge the pervasiveness, persistence and power of white racism. Since Feagin
and Elias dismiss ideas of ‘racial democracy’ tout court, their perspective makes it difficult to
understand [end page 961] how anti-racist mobilization or political reform could ever have
occurred in the past or could ever take place in the future. They see racism as so
exclusively white that any notion of white anti-racism is virtually ignored and completely
unexplained.
Despite Feagin and Elias’s good intentions of linking their analysis to anti-racist practice, we
believe their views have quite the opposite effect: without intending to do so, they dismiss
the political agency of people of colour and of anti-racist whites. In Feagin/Elias’s view,
‘systemic racism’ is like the Borg in the Star Trek series: a hive-mind phenomenon that
assimilates all it touches. As the Borg announce in their collective audio message to intended
targets, ‘Resistance is futile’.
Fatalism forecloses political agency and cements white supremacy.
Rogers 15 — Melvin L. Rogers, Scott Waugh Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences and
Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of
California-Los Angeles, former Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Faculty
Associate in the Department of Political Science at Emory University, holds a Ph.D. in Political
Science from Yale University, 2015 (“Between Pain and Despair: What Ta-Nehisi Coates Is
Missing,” Dissent, July 31st, Available Online at
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/between-world-me-ta-nehisi-coates-review-
despair-hope, Accessed 07-26-2016)
Coates rejects the hubris of the idea that racial progress is a necessary feature of American life.
As he writes, “one cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error.”
American exceptionalism does not allow for the confession of fallibility. That myth serves as a
blinding light for those caught within it; Americans spin out “dreams” of their greatness, of their
moral purity, or more modestly of their long journey to redeem the past.
One is reminded of William Bennett’s response to CNN’s Anderson Cooper during Obama’s
triumphant campaign in 2008. “Does anyone know,” asked Anderson, “what this means in terms
of change of race relations in the United States?” Bennett responded: “I will tell you one thing it
means as the former Secretary of Education: You don’t take any excuses anymore from
anybody.” His point was clear: Obama’s rise to the presidency settled the problem of race
relations and racial discrimination. Obama was the fulfillment of the American promise,
effectively allowing one to deny the residue of racial discrimination that otherwise continues to
determine the life chances of black folk.
The Dream seems to run so deep that it eludes those caught by it. Between the World and Me
initially seems like a book that will reveal the illusion and, in that moment, might open up the
possibility for imagining the United States anew. Remember: “Nothing about the world is meant
to be.”
But the book does not move in that direction. Coates rejects the myth of American
exceptionalism and its logic of certain progress. Yet he embraces the certainty of white
supremacy and its inescapable constraints. For him, white supremacy is not merely a
historically emergent feature of the Western world generally, and the United States in particular.
For Coates, white supremacy does not merely structure reality; it is reality.
There is a danger in this. After all, the meaning of action is tied fundamentally to what we
imagine is possible for us. But when one views white supremacy as impregnable, there is little
room for one’s imagination to soar and one’s sense of agency is inescapably constrained.
“The missing thing,” Coates writes, “was related to the plunder of our bodies, the fact that any
claim to ourselves, to the hands that secured us, the spine that braced us, and the head that
directed us, was contestable.”
The black body is one of the unifying themes of the book. It resonates well in our American ears
because the hallmark of freedom is sovereign control over one’s body. This was the site on
which slavery did its most destructive work: controlling the body to enslave the soul. We see the
reconstitution of this logic in the unjust policing and imprisonment of black men and women.
There can be no redemptive politics when race functions primarily as a wounded attachment—
when our bodies are the visible reminders that we live at the arbitrary whim of another. But
what of those young protestors in the streets of Ferguson, Chicago, New York, and
Charleston?
Coates’s implicit answer to this question appears in one of the pivotal and most tragic moments
of the book—the murder of a college friend, Prince Jones, at the hands of the police. As Coates
says: “This entire episode took me from fear to a rage that burned in me then, animates me
now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days.” With his soul on fire, all his senses
are directed to the pain white supremacy produces, the wounds it creates. This murder should
not be read as a function of the actions of a police officer or even the logic of policing blacks in
the United States. His account of this strikes a darker chord. What he tells us about the meaning
of the death of Prince Jones, what we ought to understand, reveals the operating logic of the
“universe”:
She [Coates’s mother] knew that the galaxy itself could kill me, that all of me could be
shattered and all of her legacy spilled upon the curb like bum wine. And no one would be
brought to account for this destruction, because my death would not be the fault of any
human but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of ‘race,’ imposed upon an
innocent country by the inscrutable judgment of invisible gods. The earthquake cannot
be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of
Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of
nature, the helpless agent of our world’s physical laws.
But if we are all just helpless agents of physical laws, the question again emerges: what should
one do? Coates recommends interrogation and struggle—investigation of the myths by which
we seemingly live and struggle against the tendency to be seduced by those myths. His love for
books and his years at Howard University, “Mecca,” as he calls it, allowed him to question the
world around him. But interrogation and struggle to what end? His answer is contained in his
preoccupation with using natural disasters as metaphors for discussing black life in the United
States. In response, one might say, at one time we thought the Gods were angry with us or that
they were moving furniture around, thus causing earthquakes. Now we know earthquakes are
the result of tectonic shifts. Okay, what do we do with that knowledge? Coates seems to say:
construct an early warning system—don’t waste energy trying to stop the earthquake itself.
There is a lesson in this: “Perhaps one person can make a change, but not the kind of change
that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen. . . . And still you are called to
struggle, not because it assures you victory, but because it assures you an honorable and sane
life.”
One might respect this judgment because it emerges from a clear-sightedness that leaves one
standing upright in the face of the truth of the matter—namely, that white people will never
enable black bodies to be treated the same as theirs. “It is truly horrible,” Coates writes in one of
the most disturbing sentences of the book, “to understand yourself as the essential below of
your country.” Coates’s sentences are often pitched as frank speech; it is what it is.
Herein lies the danger. Forget telling his son it will be okay. Coates cannot even tell him that it
may be okay. “The struggle is really all I have for you,” he tells his son, “because it is the only
portion of this world under your control.” What a strange form of control. Black folks may control
their place in the battle, but never with the possibility that they, and in turn the country to which
they belong, may win.
Producing the book at this moment—as black lives are under public assault and black youths, in
particular, are attempting to imagine the world anew—seems an odd thing to do. For all his
channeling of James Baldwin, Coates seems to have forgotten that black folks “can’t afford
despair.” As Baldwin went on to say: “I can’t tell my nephew, my niece; you can’t tell the
children there is no hope.” The reason why you can’t say this is not because you are living in
a dream or selling a fantasy, but because there can be no certain knowledge of the future.
Humility, borne out of our lack of knowledge of the future, justifies hope.

Racial pessimism is fatalistic and wrong.

Kennedy 14 — Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, Fellow
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member of the American Philosophical
Association, served as a Law Clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme
Court, holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, 2014 (“Black America's Promised Land: Why I Am
Still a Racial Optimist,” American Prospect, November 10th, Available Online at
http://prospect.org/article/black-americas-promised-land-why-i-am-still-racial-optimist, Accessed
07-26-2016)
Today, at a moment when progress has stalled, we need to recall how dramatically and
unexpectedly conditions sometimes change. Until recently who’d-a thunk it possible for the
president to be an African American? In the 1980s, I used to ask law students how long
affirmative action programs ought to last. Champions of such programs, seeking to ensure their
longevity, would say that affirmative action would be needed until the country elected a black
president. That reply would elicit appreciative laughter as listeners supposed that that formula
would preserve affirmative action for at least a century. But then along came Barack Obama
and with him the remark that soon became a cliché: “I never thought that I’d live to see a black
president.”
Obama’s election is much more than a monument to one politician’s talent and good fortune.
Changes in public attitudes, law, and custom have clearly elevated the fortunes of African
Americans as individuals and black America as a collectivity. Hard facts may give plausibility to
the pessimistic tradition, but they make the optimistic tradition compelling. Despite the many
wrongs that remain to be righted, blacks in America confront fewer racist impediments now
than ever before in the history of the United States. The courage, intelligence, persistence,
idealism, and sacrifice of Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks, Julian Bond and Bob Moses,
Medgar Evers and Bayard Rustin, Viola Liuzzo and Vernon Dahmer—and countless other
tribunes for racial justice—have not been expended for naught. The facts of day-to-day life
allow blacks to sing more confidently than ever before James Weldon Johnson’s magnificent
hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black National Anthem:
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past
has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present
has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.
My optimism involves more than a sociological prediction. I am also swayed by my intuition
regarding which of these hypotheses—the pessimistic or the optimistic—will do the most good.
Hope is a vital nutrient for effort; without it, there is no prospect for achievement. The belief that
we can overcome makes more realistic the possibility that we shall overcome. Optimism gives
buoyancy to thinking that might otherwise degenerate into nihilism, encourages solidarity in
those who might otherwise be satisfied by purely selfish indulgence, invites strategic planning
that can usefully harness what might otherwise be impotent indignation, and inspires efforts that
might otherwise be avoided due to fatalism.
On Election Day 1996, exit polling showed General Colin Powell beating President Bill Clinton
by a comfortable margin. But Powell was not Clinton’s opponent. Senator Bob Dole was. Powell
had considered seeking the Republican Party nomination but declined in the end to do so.
Before he made that decision, polls suggested that he could win the nomination and the general
election, but friends were skeptical. Powell recalls that Earl Graves, the publisher of Black
Enterprise magazine, told him, “Look, man … [w]hen [white voters] go in that booth, they ain’t
going to vote for you.” Maybe Graves was correct. Real voting might have produced different
results from the polls. Furthermore, whereas the actual candidates had suffered a year of
merciless scrutiny on the campaign trail, Powell on Election Day was a mere hypothetical
candidate who suffered from none of the wear and tear that a presidential contest exacts. At the
end of a campaign, the general might not have remained so attractive. Still, Powell’s apparent
popularity does provide a basis for conjecturing that America’s readiness to elect a black
president had been an unrecognized part of the political landscape for longer than many had
appreciated. Powell may well have denied himself the opportunity to make a successful historic
leap by being self-defeatingly pessimistic.
A major fear of many blacks is that acknowledging progress will prompt underestimation of
racial obstacles that blacks at every socioeconomic level continue to face. When Americans are
polled about their perceptions of racial affairs, whites are typically more upbeat than blacks. The
more affluent they are, the more upbeat white observers tend to be. Inordinately impressed by
progress, they all too often prematurely declare victory over racism.
Although complacency nourished by an overly rosy view of racial affairs is a real danger, I stand
by my conviction that a clear-eyed assessment favors black optimism. Who, after all, have
been the figures most beneficial to blacks? Was it the Martin Delany who decamped for Africa,
thinking America to be irremediably racist? Or was it the Martin Delany who returned, recruited
blacks for the Union, and participated significantly in Southern politics during Reconstruction?
Was it the pre-1966 Stokely Carmichael who sang “We Shall Overcome” in the splendid early
days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)? Or was it the post-1966
Stokely Carmichael (later renamed Kwame Ture) whose impatient bitterness helped to
destroy the SNCC and rationalize an indulgent exile to Guinea that squandered a substantial
talent? Was it my long-time colleague of blessed memory, Derrick Bell, who posited the
permanence of racist white dominance? Or was it a student who rightly admired Professor Bell
but eschewed his pessimism and followed a different path, a black student who, years later,
put Bell’s hypothesis to a test by seeking the highest elected office in the land under the slogan
“Yes We Can!”?
That student, of course, was Barack Obama, and his presidency has been the setting for much
debate between pessimists and optimists. Some detractors, perhaps the angriest, started from a
position of raised expectations. They thought that Obama embodied the “audacity of hope” and
that he would somehow bring about sweeping changes. Disappointed, they have expressed
themselves in the angry, accusatory rhetoric of betrayal. Obama, Cornel West charges, “posed
as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.” Others condemn Obama but without
disappointment. They see their low expectations as having been validated.
Certain pessimists have maintained that Obama’s election indicated little in terms of “real” racial
progress. They even discount the symbolic significance of his ascendancy, stressing his
exceptionality. Although he calls himself black, Obama is the offspring of a black African father
and a white American mother and is thus distinguished genealogically from most African
Americans. Much was made of his Muslim-sounding name. But some observers maintain that
popular acceptance of that, too, should be viewed skeptically. It would have signaled more, they
argue, had America elected a black person raised in, say, Detroit with a name such as Tyrone
Washington or Jamal Jefferson. Pessimists argue that, substantively, the Obama presidency
has delivered no more to blacks than would have been delivered by any other centrist-liberal
Democrat (say, Hillary Clinton), and that in certain respects the Obama presidency delivered
less because Obama sought excessively to prove that he was a president for all Americans and
not merely black Americans. They contend that Obama’s blackness was an asset that he used
for personal marketing and that the white establishment seized upon for advertising, “The
United States cannot sensibly be accused of practicing or condoning racism! It just elected a
black president!” Pessimists will now also enlist the horrifying events in Ferguson, Missouri, to
reinforce their claim that despite the civil rights movement, antidiscrimination legislation,
affirmative action, and the election of Obama, the narrative of race relations in America is a
doleful tale—not a march upward from slavery to freedom, but a trek sideways from plantation
to ghetto.
What is an optimist in the waning years of the Obama presidency to say in the face of this
challenge?
Obama’s election signaled a dramatic, substantive change in racial beliefs and attitudes. In
1960, his victory would have been impossible: Too many whites would have been unwilling to
vote for a black candidate—any black candidate—because of doubts about the capacities of
anyone of black African ancestry. Recall that there were no black cabinet officers until Johnson
appointed Robert Weaver as secretary of housing and urban development in 1966, and no
black Supreme Court justices until Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall in 1967. The specter
of black intellectual and characterological deficiency stunted the careers of many talented
blacks, and still does. That Obama was able to win the presidency—twice—is a sign that rumors
of racial inferiority, while still extant, are much diminished in influence.
In thinking about the meaning of Obama, it is important, too, to focus on the special status of the
presidency. The person who occupies that office is not only the head of the executive branch of
the federal government, the person who nominates all federal judges, the commander-in-chief
of the armed forces, and thus a person with the wherewithal to destroy most, if not all, of
humankind. The president is also the nation’s mourner-in-chief, booster-in-chief, spouse-in-
chief, and parent-in-chief. That a black man has been the master of the White House for the
past six years does indeed reflect and reinforce a remarkable socio-psychological
transformation in the American racial scene. If that is “tokenism,” give us more of it.
I have emphasized progress that blacks have made in absolute terms: where they stood 50
years ago and where they stand today. But what about the position of blacks relative to whites—
those yawning gaps in wealth, income, educational attainment, and risk of imprisonment that
have remained unclosed and that have, in some ways, widened even further during Obama’s
tenure? There is no use denying that reality. America remains racially stratified and will continue
to be long after the Obama presidency.
There is also no use, however, in denying other facets of the American racial reality. One is a
comparative view. In considering the appropriate attitude to adopt toward America—allegiance,
for example, or dis-affiliation—it is sensible to compare the United States to other divided
societies. Negrophobia in America is, alas, all too present. But it pales in comparison with the
prejudice against racial, ethnic, religious, and national minorities in many countries around the
globe. As bad as the American racial problem is, as urgently as it calls for concentrated
attention, its condition is less dire and more encouraging than might be gleaned from an
analysis that views the American situation in isolation, divorced from international comparisons.
There is also no good purpose served by ignoring manifestations of progress that display
themselves even in heartrending crises. Consider the events in Ferguson. The killing of the
unarmed teenager, the callous inattentiveness to his body, the militarized police response to
protest, and the dubious investigation by local authorities of this tragic death display much of
what is terrible in American race relations: an atavistic fear of young black men; quick resort to
excessive force against African Americans; racial residential separation; black powerlessness
that foments resentment; white dominance that encourages contempt; an utter lack of mutual
trust. But the events in Ferguson have also revealed other responses. The federal government
took note of what happened and actively involved itself via the president, attorney general, and
the director of the FBI. The Ferguson tragedy became the leading news story all over the
country. Blacks have not been the only ones calling the police to account and demanding
reform. Whites from various walks of life, including right-wing politicians like Rand Paul, have
also been doing so. Never in American history, in analogous circumstances, has there been a
higher level of interracial empathy.
Overcoming the racial burdens—individual, communal, institutional—that encumber us will take
unremitting effort, major deployments of intelligence and imagination, daunting amounts of time,
huge expenditures of money, and the resolute conviction that America’s racial affairs can and
will improve. Is the uncertain prospect of a better future worth that investment? The lessons of
American history and a comparison of our society with others around the world impel me to say
yes. I am a racial optimist. Only time will tell whether my faith is wise.

Civil society can be changed, but only if we treat it as an ongoing project

and not an irredeemable fact.
Chandhoke 10 — Neera Chandhoke, Professor of Political Science and Director of the
Developing Countries Research Centre at the University of Delhi, 2010 (“Civil Society,”
Deconstructing Development Discourse: Buzzwords and Fuzzwords, Edited by Andrea Cornwall
and Deborah Eade, Published by Practical Action Publishing, ISBN 9781853397066, p. 182-
183)
Civil society as a project
The moment we perceive civil society from the vantage point of marginalised groups, we may
be forced to accept that there is a deep and perhaps irresolvable tension between the
acknowledged virtues of the sphere and its actual functioning. Yet social movements can,
through struggle, expand and even transform the sphere of civil society. They can do this
by demanding that civil society deliver what it promises in theory: freedom from domination,
freedom to achieve self-realisation, freedom to assert selfhood. Far from being a given, civil
society is a project whereby individuals can realise their self through engagement,
contestation, and affirmation.
Civil society is a project in another sense. Theorists as eminent as Adam Smith (1776) and
Georg Hegel (1821), who were to conceptualise civil society in the first instance, saw it as a
deeply troublesome sphere. They were perfectly aware of the many incivilities that civil society
was capable of; and for neither could the sphere reproduce itself without deliberate intervention
to tame it. We only need to look at post-‘velvet revolution’ Eastern Europe in order to insert a
word of caution into the celebratory notes on civil society: for, once civil society had been
resurrected in this context, people found that they really did not want it.
The dismantling of state institutions and the opening out of markets has inevitably led to
uncompromising austerity, massive unemployment, discrimination against ethnic minorities, and
resultant ethnic explosions. The rolling back of the state from any kind of responsibility for the
people has left those who cannot fend for themselves at the mercy of those who are in a
position to profit from new arrangements. People in this part of the world, it is obvious, have
been as quickly disenchanted with civil society as they had been enchanted by the invocation of
the concept.
Yet for all the hubris associated with civil society, it remains a valuable term. This is not because
it is a precondition for democracy, or ‘democratisation’ as political conditionalities would have it,
but because it is a site where various groups can engage with each other in projects of all
kinds. Its absence would mean the absence of democracy, and of the freedom that is necessary
for democratic engagement. By asserting civil society, people demand that regimes
recognise the competence of the political public to chart out a discourse on the content and
the limits of what is politically desirable and democratically permissible . In the heady days when
theorists brought ‘Civil Society Back In’, the domain came to be increasingly conceptualised
without reference to the state. Now any self-respecting scholar knows that civil society can be
conceptualised only in relation to the state, and vice versa.
The de-linking of the state and civil society has greatly impoverished our understanding of both
concepts. Those theorists who waxed eloquent on the need for people to connect were to stray
away from the shadowy peripheries of actually existing civil societies and underplay the
ambiguous relationship of this sphere with democracy. Such formulations obfuscate the conflict
within, [end page 182] and the general incivility of much of civil society, because they are
completely indifferent to the notion of power.
Taking a long hard look within civil society itself focuses our attention on power equations of all
kinds: on material deprivation, unevenly shared conceptual understanding, dominant and
marginal languages, and the many oppressions, the many incivilities, the many banishments of
civil society. Some groups possess overlapping political, material, symbolic, and social power;
others possess nothing, not even access to the means of life. The former find a space in civil
society, and civil society finds a place for them; the latter are banished to the dark periphery of
the sphere. The irony is that even though most countries of the developing world are primarily
rural, it is the urban middle-class agenda that is best secured by the invocation of civil society.
The agenda of oppressed and marginal peasants, or of the tribals who are struggling for
freedom, remain unrepresented either in the theory or in the practice of civil society. Therefore,
in order to find a voice, marginal groups may well have to storm the ramparts of civil society,
to break down the gates, and make a forcible entry into the sphere.

Racism is relative, not structural. Policies matter a lot.

Omi and Winant 13 — Michael Omi, Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department
at the University of California-Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California-Santa Cruz, and Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of
California-Santa Barbara, Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies,
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2013 (“Resistance is
futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 36, Number 6,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor & Francis Online, p. 964-965)
We think that race is so profoundly a lived-in and lived-out part of both social structure and
identity that it exceeds and transcends racism — thereby allowing for resistance to racism.
Race, therefore, is more than ‘racism’; it is a fully fledged ‘social fact’ like sex/gender or class.
From this perspective, race shapes racism as much as racism shapes race. Racial identities
(individual and group), and other race-oriented concepts as well, are unstable. They are not
uniforms; races are not teams; they are not defined solely by antagonism to one another. They
vary internally and ideologically; they overlap and mix; their positions in the social structure shift;
in other words they are shaped by political conflict.
In Feagin and Elias’s account, white racist rule in the USA appears unalterable and
permanent. There is little sense that the ‘white racial frame’ evoked by systemic racism theory
changes in significant ways over historical time. They dismiss important rearrangements and
reforms as merely ‘a distraction from more ingrained structural oppressions and deep lying
inequalities that continue to define US society’ (Feagin and Elias 2012, p. 21). Feagin and Elias
use a concept they call ‘surface flexibility’ to argue that white elites frame racial realities in ways
that suggest change, but are merely engineered to reinforce the underlying structure of racial
oppression.
Feagin and Elias say the phrase ‘racial democracy’ is an oxymoron — a word defined in the
dictionary as a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. If they mean the USA is a
contradictory and incomplete democracy in respect to race and racism issues, we agree. If
they mean that people of colour have no democratic rights or political power in the USA, we
disagree. The USA is a racially despotic country [end page 964] in many ways, but in our view it
is also in many respects a racial democracy, capable of being influenced towards more or less
inclusive and redistributive economic policies, social policies, or for that matter, imperial
policies.
 AT: Fixed Analytic
Contingency’s true for anti-blackness. Neg authors ignore history and
argue from premise-to-conclusion.
Thomas ‘18
Dr. Greg Thomas is an Associate Professor and teaches global Black Studies texts out of the English Department at
Tufts University. The author holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from The University of California, Berkeley – Thomas is the
author of three published books – including The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power: Pan-African Embodiment and
Erotic Schemes of Empire; Hip-Hop Revolution in the Flesh: Power, Knowledge & Pleasure in Lil' Kim's Lyricism; and
Word Hustle: Critical Essays and Reflections on the Work of Donald Goines, a collection co-edited with L.H. Stallings.
From the Article: “Afro-Blue Notes: The Death of Afro-pessimism (2.0) ?” – From the Journal: Theory & Event,
Volume 21, Number 1, January 2018 – p. 282-317 - Published by Johns Hopkins University Press- obtained via the
Project MUSE - #CutWithRJ - Premium Collection Database.

There is here a general critical erasure of the massive tradition of Black anti-colonialism —or anti-colonial Black resistance to
“anti-Black-ness” and anti-Black colonialism , which transcends nationalization. Wilderson’s “Afro-pessimist” rejects the anti-
colonialist paradigms of supposedly “other” peoples, and yet in a manner that reinstates US or Western coloniality nonetheless—a white colonialism
can thus make a virtue out of
that oppresses “the Black” inside and outside the United States’s official geopolitical limits. This position
automatic and abso-lute anti-alliance postures with no further, actual political action then required for Black people, “the
Black critic,” or any Black liberation struggle on this view. Such chauvinism without political commitment or engagement
beyond critique is logically consistent, for pessimism, where mere resentment or ressentiment can masquerade as
resistance or “pro-Black” “radicalism.” After all, Afro-pessimism ( 2.0 ) begins with a proud suspicion of
Black liberation or Black liberation move- ment, itself, no less than of its potentially “anti-racist” or “anti-Black” political alliances. This provincial
“American” pessimism reveals more affinities with Créolite in the Caribbean than Césaire’s anti-colonialist eruption of Pan-African Négritude , in reality,
As if this too is a
its narrowly and nega- tively delimited rhetoric of the “Blackness” of “the Black” (as “Slave,” of course) notwithstanding.
virtue, pessimism is not just suspicious of power but possibility—while, upholding dystopia, it is casually
dismissive of all historical actuality that does not support a pessimist paradigm, orientation or
sensibility. Analytically, moreover, there is somehow no white colonialism for Blacks to fight in Africa or Black countries of Black people anywhere and
no terrible landlessness that afflicts the African diasporas of Blackness captive within white settler and/or imperial state formations, for Wilderson and
Afro- pessimism ( 2.0 )

The pessimist rejection of anti-colonialism goes particularly awry with Fanon. The institution of academia came to Fanon late with great selectivity. It
isolates him from the whole tradition of Black anti-colonialism (or anti-colonialist Blackness) so that he becomes a cipher, a sort of color-blinding
Rorschach test even. In fact, Fanon is isolated from himself. The Fanon taken up like a weapon by the Black liberation movement of the 1960s and
'70s with the "African Revolution" at large was a militant practitioner and is the author of an extant four-volume body of work recently even collected in
the form of a hefty oeuvre complète by French as well as Arabic world publishers(i.e., La Découverte and Al Hibr). The Fanon examined in academia
got reduced to a very few pages of Black Skin, White Masks, which was written when Fanon still thought he could be "French" and faithful to French
colonial empire while opposing physiognomic but not cultural or "civilizational" racism. That text of the middle-class assimilé is of two minds—
ambivalent with its currents of brilliance. Yet this [End Page 295] Fanon becomes "post-colonialist" for US academia when truthfully he becomes "anti-
colonialist" and only later both in battle and in the related texts likewise disregarded by Afro-pessimism (2.0): Wilderson privileges the colonized Fanon
rather than A Dying Colonialism and Toward the African Revolution as well as The Wretched of the Earth.

The standard suppression of The Wretched of the Earth cannot succeed in Red, White & Black. Wilderson tries to dichotomize Fanon so that Black
Skin, White Masks (1952) is cast as a text about "race" and "slavery," and thereby "Blackness": The Wretched of the Earth is by contrast cast as a
"post-colonial's" text primarily about "land restoration," or "settler colonialism," as if they can be cast apart from "Blackness" and Black struggles.32
This is a false dichotomy. Fanon's corpus does not yield this schism. It should go without saying that Black Skin, White Masks is itself a text of
colonialism. It is often and falsely read as an exclusively "Caribbean" text, inapplicable to Afro-North America or even non-French colonies in the
Caribbean, despite its central references to Chester Himes and Richard Wright as well as "Brer Rabbit" folklore; and even though this Fanon had
written, "I come back to one fact: Wherever he goes, the Negro remains a Negro."33 The Wretched of the Earth is often and falsely read as an
exclusively "Algerian" text, inapplicable to North America, despite its numerous references to "niggers" as well as Négritude or "Negro-African" culture
—Blackness, especially for the Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Rome; despite its global "Third World" politics; and despite Fanon's
aggressively militant Pan-Africanism. It remains easy for some to ignore Fanon's insistent categorization of the Algerian revolution as an African
revolution as well as how "anti-Black racism" along with anti-Black slavery has lived on the African continent, not exclusively in Africa's Black diaspora.
Curiously, Wilderson's Incognegro would expose the counter-insurgent canonization of Black Skin, White Masks in certain quarters, thanks to his
youthful contact with the Black Panther Party, which did not dichotomize Blackness or anti-Blackness and colonialism or anti-colonialism in its own
revolutionary Fanonism. It trafficked mostly in Les damnés de la terre: "…my father had caught me with it last night and beat the living daylights out of
me—so I knew it must be good. That had never happened with Invisible Man. Then, using one of my old cocktail party gimmicks, I quoted a passage of
Fanon from memory: 'From birth, I began,' it is clear to him that this narrow world, strewn with prohibition, can only be called into question by absolute
violence.' I told Darnell that for some strange reason that had made me think about Kenwood, but why, I didn't know; nor did I know why my father had
beaten me when Fanon's other book, Black Skin, White Masks, was nestled on his bookshelf beside the works of Sigmund Freud" (Wilderson 2008,
247).34 While Sexton counts the sum total of references to "Fanon" in Red, White & Black, as if this datum [End Page 296] alone should impress
critical audiences, his tabulation begs the question of which Fanon is referenced and how in a manner all too faithful to the white academic
management of Fanon and Fanonism as a crisis to be contained by whatever means:35 Red, White & Black seeks to quarantine The Wretched of the
Earth from Kenwood or Minnesota, and all settler sites of US colonialism, conceding it away from "Blackness" in an ongoing quarrel with Native
American, post-colonialist, and sometimes Palestinian "analogy," even though Wilderson needs to mine its rhetoric at key moments—to speak of
putting the enemy "out of the picture" and bringing about "the end of the world" via "absolute violence," for example, when narratively these words then
become the words of "Fanon" rather than those of The Wretched of the Earth specifically, given Wilderson's conventional academic preference for a
colonially decontextualized Black Skin, White Masks.

No antithesis of "slavery," colonialism becomes unrecognizable as colonialism in Wilderson in ways sacrificial of the Blacks and Blackness subject to it
—on and off official plantations. Firstly, colonialism cannot be granted as an object of study to "postcolonial" theory in US or Western academia. It can
only appropriate the matter or study of colonialism—from the long history of anti-colonialist theory and praxes preceding it and persisting in spite of it—
as a colonizing political act itself, an arrogant critical appropriation that Wilderson routinely accepts without question. What's more, slavery in
"Plantation America" is colonial slavery, just as colonialism is a slaveocratic mode of colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. Walter Rodney was sure
to note as much explicitly in articles such as "Slavery and Underdevelopment" (1979) as well as "Plantation Society in Guyana" (1981). There is no
system of slavery in any part of these Americas that is not still settler colonial slavery; no settler colonialism without chattel slavery or racial slavery and
their neo-slaveries. Finally in this regard, colonialism is not reducible to a simple matter of cartography—or "the postcolonial's capacity for cartographic
restoration."36 The likes of C.A. Diop and Césaire aside, this is why Amilcar Cabral could write Our People Are Our Mountains (1972); and why Sylvia
Wynter would engage Anibal Quijano's "coloniality of power" framework with "Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom" (2003); and
why one apparently disappeared Black radical tradition would theorize "internal colonialism" or "domestic colonialism" along with "eternal colonialism"
and "neo-colonialism," from within the US imperial colony, long before the commercialization of "postcolonialism" or "postcolonial theory" in Western
academia. This is further why Fanon himself would write in A Dying Colonialism: "It is not the soil that is occupied. It is not the ports or the airdromes.
French colonialism has settled itself in the very center of the Algerian individual and has undertaken a sustained work of cleanup, of expulsion of self,
of rationally pursued mutilation" (Fanon 1965, 65).37 This [End Page 297] is why Fanon himself would write for an El Moujahid article now in Toward
the African Revolution: "True liberation is not that pseudo-independence in which ministers having a limited responsibility hobnob with an economy
dominated by the colonial pact. Liberation is the total destruction of the colonial system, from the pre-eminence of the language of the oppressor and
'departmentalization,' to the customs union that in reality maintains the former colonized in the meshes of the culture, of the fashion, and of the images
of the colonialist."38 This is also why it is important to recall that it was never a strictly cartographic colonialism bereft of slavery and Blackness that led
Fanon to promulgate his vision of "new humanity" so fully and graphically in The Wretched of the Earth after A Dying Colonialism beyond Black Skin,
White Masks.

Fanon's "Worlds," Revisited

Thus there
is the serious problem of elliptical truncation in Wilderson's repeated quotation of the "end of
the world" line taken from Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks. The "world" is never so generic and singular as
pessimism would have it, whether in or outside this or that Fanon—whether it is the critical but "French" colonial Fanon or the radically
decolonizing Fanon who wages pan-African revolt against the French and all colonialism. The younger Fanon wrote, "The Martinican is a man
crucified. …[M]y friend had fulfilled in a dream his wish to become white—that is, to be man. …I will tell him, 'The environment, society are responsible
for your delusion.' Once that has been said, the rest will follow of itself, and what that is we know. The end of the world."39 The "world" in question is
quite a specific one. It is not the only world that is, or ever was, before another must be created into being out of necessity. It is the white world that
represents itself "as if" (to borrow a turn of phrase from Wynter here) it were the only world in truth.
 AT: Humanism Bad

humanism isn’t always bad --- context is always key and narratives of
humanity are contingent
Lester 12 – (January 2012, Alan, Director of Interdisciplinary Research, Professor of Historical
Geography, and Co-Director of the Colonial and Postcolonial Studies Network, University of
Sussex, “Humanism, race and the colonial frontier,” Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, Volume 37, Issue 1, pages 132–148)
Anderson argues that it is not an issue of extending humanity to … negatively racialised people, but of
putting into question that from which such people have been excluded – that which, for liberal discourse, remains unproblematised. (2007, 199) I fear, however,
that if we direct attention away from histories of humanism’s failure to deal with difference and to render
that difference compatible with its fundamental universalism, and if we overlook its proponents’ failed attempts to combat dispossession,

murder and oppression; if our history of race is instead understood through a critique of humanity’s conceptual separation
from nature, we dilute the political potency of universalism . Historically, it was not humanism that gave

rise to racial innatism, it was the specifically anti-humanist politics of settlers forging new social assemblages

through relations of violence on colonial frontiers. Settler communities became established social
assemblages in their own right specifically through the rejection of humanist interventions. Perhaps,
as Edward Said suggested, we can learn from the implementation of humanist universalism in
practice, and insist on its potential to combat racism, and perhaps we can insist on the contemporary conceptual hybridisation of human–non-
human entities too, without necessarily abandoning all the precepts of humanism (Said 2004; Todorov 2002). We do not necessarily need to accord a specific

value to the human, separate from and above nature, in order to make a moral and political case for a fundamental human universalism that can be wielded

strategically against racial violence. Nineteenth century humanitarians’ universalism was fundamentally
conditioned by their belief that British culture stood at the apex of a hierarchical order of
civilisations. From the mid-nineteenth century through to the mid-twentieth century, this ethnocentrism produced what Lyotard describes as ‘the
flattening of differences, or the demand for a norm (“human nature”)’, that ‘carries with it its own forms of terror’ (cited Braun 2004, 1352). The intervention of Aboriginal Protection
demonstrates that humanist universalism has the potential to inflict such terror (it was the Protectorate of Aborigines Office reincarnated that was responsible, later in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for

But we must not

Aboriginal Australia’s Stolen Generation, and it was the assimilationist vision of the Protectors’ equivalents in Canada that led to the abuses of the Residential Schools system).

forget that humanism’s alternatives, founded upon principles of difference rather than
commonality, have the potential to do the same and even worse. In the nineteenth century,
Caribbean planters and then emigrant British settlers emphasised the multiplicity of the human
species, the absence of any universal ‘human nature’, the incorrigibility of difference, in
their upholding of biological determinism. Their assault on any notion of a fundamental
commonality among human beings has disconcerting points of intersection with the radical
critique of humanism today. The scientific argument of the nineteenth century that came closest to post-humanism’s insistence on the hybridity of
humanity, promising to ‘close the ontological gap between human and non-human animals’ (Day 2008, 49), was the evolutionary theory of biological descent associated with Darwin, and yet this theory was

adopted in Aotearoa New Zealand and other colonial sites precisely to legitimate the potential extinction of other,
‘weaker’ races in the face of British colonisation on the grounds of the natural law of a struggle for survival (Stenhouse 1999). Both the
upholding and the rejection of human–nature binaries can thus result in racially oppressive actions,
depending on the contingent politics of specific social assemblages. Nineteenth century colonial humanitarians, inspired as they
were by an irredeemably ethnocentric and religiously exclusive form of universalism, at least combatted exterminatory settler discourses and practices at multiple sites of empire, and provided spaces on mission and protectorate stations in which indigenous peoples
could be shielded to a very limited extent from dispossession and murder. They also, unintentionally, reproduced discourses of a civilising mission and of a universal humanity that could be deployed by anticolonial nationalists in other sites of empire that were never
invaded to the same extent by settlers, in independence struggles from the mid-twentieth century. Finally, as Whatmore’s (2002) analysis of the Select Committee on Aborigines reveals, they provided juridical narratives that are part of the arsenal of weapons that

The politics of humanism in practice, then, was riddled with

indigenous peoples can wield in attempts to claim redress and recompense in a postcolonial world.

contradiction, fraught with particularity and latent with varying possibilities. It could be relatively
progressive and liberatory; it could be dispossessive and culturally genocidal. Within its repertoire lay potential to combat
environmental and biological determinism and innatism, however, and this should not be forgotten in a rush to condemn

humanism’s universalism as well as its anthropocentrism. It is in the tensions within universalism that the
ongoing potential of an always provisional, self-conscious, flexible and strategic humanism –
one that now recognises the continuity between the human and the non-human as well as the power-

laden particularities of the male, middle class, Western human subject – resides.
 AT: Middle Passage

Totalized narratives of progress reinscribe the linearity that they critique

while locking in a view of blackness that effaces diversity
Michelle Wright 15, professor of African American studies, Northwestern University, The
Physics of Blackness, University of Minnesota Press, 2015, p.6 //rc
Most discourses on Blackness in the United States and the Caribbean locate themselves in the
history of the Middle Passage, linking our cultural practices and expressions, our politics and social sensibilities,
to the historical experience of slavery in the Americas and the struggle to achieve full human
suffrage in the West. These histories are both constructed and phenomenological: they are a chosen
arrangement of historical events (spaces and times) perceived to be the defining moments of collective
Blackness. At the same time, for the purposes of this theoretical analysis of Blackness, it is important to underscore that
these are not so much histories as epistemologies: narratives of knowledge that are taught,
learned, relayed, exchanged, and debated in discussions on the “facts” of Blackness. These
historical-cum-epistemological events are usually linked by or narrated under the theme of
overcoming obstacles through struggle (or “uplift”), with the defining aspect of contemporary
Black collective histories focusing primarily on slavery (Middle Passage histories), European
colonization (postcolonial histories), or the dominance of ancient African civilizations (Afrocentric
histories). These themes create either a linear progress narrative or, when reversed (as in
Afropessimism), a reverse linear narrative indicating that no Black progress has been made
because of the continual oppression by white Western hegemonies that began with slavery,
moved through colonialism, and now deploy an array of cultural, political, economic, and military power through
social and governmental technologies to keep Blacks not only as subalterns—those who are subordinated by power—but
also as the (white) Western Other. The question of defining Blackness has become more urgent
as the collectives that perceive themselves through these multiple histories find themselves
encountering each other more frequently. As recent anthologies such as The Other African
Americans show, many Western nations are now (and in many cases have been since the
postwar era) receiving Black African immigrants whose histories, while certainly tied to Atlantic
slavery, more often narrate themselves through colonialism or postwar socioeconomic changes
than through the Middle Passage. These two collectives of historical and ancestral Blackness,
while most certainly intertwined (and at times also often facing the same kinds of racist violence)
nonetheless understand themselves differently. Denoted simply as “Black” almost anywhere
outside of Africa, their encounters must negotiate their differences even as Blackness enjoins
them to work together toward the common goal of racial uplift. In short, they have experienced
differences that these linear progress narratives of Blackness strongly encourage them not to
discuss, perhaps not even to see, much less acknowledge. However, in many of these moments, experienced or
expressed, the phenomenological aspects of Blackness subvert even the most eloquent construct of
collective unity. In other words, perceived differences will be expressed, but because most dominant
constructs of Blackness cannot understand differences within, difference is often expressed as
a dichotomy between “Black” and “not Black.” In “Colorblind,” her 2007 opinion piece from Salon.com, conservative Black
columnist Debra Dickerson produces a cartoonishly distorted imagining of those differences that nonetheless reflect some of the greatest reservations
some Black collectives harbor about others. Obama isn’t Black. “Black,” in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African
slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent
At a minimum, it can’t be assumed that a
with mark- edly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and politics.
Nigerian cab driver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop
won’t bother to make the distinction. They’re both “Black” as a matter of skin color and DNA, but
only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally Black, as we use the term.8
Like most arguments seeking to separate some Blacks from Blackness, Dickerson’s plays fast
and loose with history and in doing so also reveals (unwittingly) temporal and spatial gaps that
belie the notion of the linear progress narrative. While most scholars of contemporary African
immigration would take issue with her qualifier of “voluntary”9 (when one’s family is faced with
death by starvation, violence, etc., is emigration truly born of free will?), it is her focus on the
differing “outlooks” of the Harlemite and Obama/Nigerian cabdriver that bear the greatest
scrutiny. Under this logic, histories not only uniformly shape collectives in the “now”; they are
also unbroken, passed perfectly from one generation to the next.10
 AT: State = Antiblack

The state isn’t universally anti-black, even if reforms are imperfect they
materially improve the condition of black lives
Randall L. Kennedy 14, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, "Black
America's Promised Land: Why I Am Still a Racial Optimist", American Prospect,
http://prospect.org/article/black-americas-promised-land-why-i-am-still-racial-optimis
I am hopeful first and
Beneath the malaise is a deep current of racial pessimism that has a long history in American and African American thought

foremost because of the predominant trajectory of African Americans—a history that John Hope Franklin framed
with the apt title From Slavery to Freedom. In 1860, four million African Americans were enslaved while another half-million were free but devoid of fundamental rights in many
of the jurisdictions where they lived. In 1860, the very term “African American” was something of an oxymoron because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford

But within a decade, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865)

that no black, free or enslaved, could be a citizen of the United States.

abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) established birthright citizenship and
required all states to accord all persons due process and equal protection of the laws, and the
Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited states from withholding the right to vote on account of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude. People who had been sold on the auction block as youngsters helped to govern their locales
as public officials when they were adults. In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi resigned from the United States Senate to join the Confederate States of America, which he led

. In 1870, Hiram Revels, the first black member of Congress, occupied the seat that Davis abandoned. The First Reconstruction was overwhelmed by a
as president

But the most fundamental reforms it established proved resilient,

devastating white supremacist reaction.

providing the basis for a Second Reconstruction from the 1950s to the 1970s. During that
period, too, the distance traveled by blacks was astonishing. In 1950, segregation was deemed to be consistent with federal
constitutional equal protection. No federal law prevented proprietors of hotels, restaurants, and other privately owned public accommodations from engaging in racial
discrimination. No federal law prohibited private employers from discriminating on a racial basis against applicants for jobs or current employees. No federal law effectively
counteracted racial disenfranchisement. No federal law outlawed racial discrimination in private housing transactions. In contrast, by 1970 federal constitutional law thoroughly

The 1964 Civil Rights Act forbade racial discrimination in privately owned
repudiated the lie of separate but equal.

places of public accommodation and many areas of private employment. The 1965 Voting
Rights Act provided the basis for strong prophylactic action against racial exclusion at the ballot
box. The 1968 Fair Housing Act addressed racial exclusion in a market that had been zealously
insulated against federal regulation. None of these interventions were wholly successful. All
were compromised. All occasioned backlash. But the racial situation in 1970 and afterwards
was dramatically better than what it had been in 1950 and before. Today, at a moment when progress has stalled, we
need to recall how dramatically and unexpectedly conditions sometimes change. Until recently who’d-a thunk it possible for the president to be an African American? In the
1980s, I used to ask law students how long affirmative action programs ought to last. Champions of such programs, seeking to ensure their longevity, would say that affirmative
action would be needed until the country elected a black president. That reply would elicit appreciative laughter as listeners supposed that that formula would preserve
affirmative action for at least a century. But then along came Barack Obama and with him the remark that soon became a cliché: “I never thought that I’d live to see a black

Changes in public attitudes, law,

president.” Obama’s election is much more than a monument to one politician’s talent and good fortune.

and custom have clearly elevated the fortunes of African Americans as individuals and
black America as a collectivity. Hard facts may give plausibility to the pessimistic tradition, but
they make the optimistic tradition compelling. Despite the many wrongs that remain to be righted, blacks in America confront fewer
racist impediments now than ever before in the history of the United States. The courage, intelligence, persistence, idealism, and sacrifice of Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa
Parks, Julian Bond and Bob Moses, Medgar Evers and Bayard Rustin, Viola Liuzzo and Vernon Dahmer—and countless other tribunes for racial justice—have not been
expended for naught. The facts of day-to-day life allow blacks to sing more confidently than ever before James Weldon Johnson’s magnificent hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,”
often referred to as the Black National Anthem: Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us Facing
the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on till victory is won. My optimism involves more than a sociological prediction. I am also swayed by my intuition regarding
which of these hypotheses—the pessimistic or the optimistic—will do the most good. Hope is a vital nutrient for effort; without it, there is no prospect for achievement. The belief

Optimism gives buoyancy to thinking that

that we can overcome makes more realistic the possibility that we shall overcome.

might otherwise degenerate into nihilism, encourages solidarity in those who might
otherwise be satisfied by purely selfish indulgence, invites strategic planning that can usefully
harness what might otherwise be impotent indignation, and inspires efforts that might
otherwise be avoided due to fatalism.
 AT: No Black Political Activism
There are multiple examples of black activist movements that worked
within the political
SPENCE 16, Lester K. Spence is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Africana
studies at Johns Hopkins University known for his academic critiques of neoliberalism and his
media commentary on race, urban politics, and police violence. Feb 24, 2016 “KNOCKING THE
HUSTLE against the neoliberal turn in black politics” Pages 140-147
First all occurred at a moment where all seemed lost. While I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest that these events suggest that
neoliberalism is “naturally” contested—just as there is no “good teaching gene” there is no “contest neoliberalism gene”—I would
say that while the neoliberal turn has signifcantly altered our ability to argue for public goods, it hasn’t killed that ability. It still exists.
It exists in institutions we have written of thinking they are no longer relevant—like teachers unions. It exists in populations we’ve
written of because we believe they are incapable of radical political action— black youth. It exists in cities that we don’t think of as
having a long history of radical political struggle —like Jackson, Mississippi. Second all three recognized the fundamental role
The black youth organizers recognized that they had to pressure
politics played in their struggles.
Maryland state legislators to kill the prison. The black radicals in the Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement made electing Chokwe Lumumba a component of their organizing. The CTU chose
to take the city head on and to hold a series of town hall meetings designed to inform people of
the ways political officials, philanthropists, and corporations are working together to
neoliberalize and kill public education. The #blacklivesmatter movement recognized that politics
was at the center of their struggle in Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. All campaigns used
moral language in making their arguments. In Jackson they argued that the current way power was allocated in
Jackson was immoral because it largely concentrated all of the benefts into a few (predominantly white) hands. In Baltimore they
argued that putting $104 million to the goal of incarcerating youth was immoral given the lack of money being spent on youth in
other areas, and later that life chances. Te Malcolm X Grassroots Movement worked for years to build the critical capacity required
There is no way to get
to elect Chokwe, frst to the City Council, then Mayor, and to put the political platform into action.
around the fact that the type of work we have to do to rebuild a sense of the public interest is
going to take a long time and has to start by building connections between people who may not
think of themselves as political, who may not think of the various issues they struggle with as
being the product of the neoliberal turn, who may not know what neoliberalism is. What I am referring
to here is not the same as getting people to attend a rally or a march. I’m referring to political organizing— building
the capacity of people to govern and make important political decisions for themselves —not
political “mobilizing”. Mobilizing people for a protest act of one kind or another may get people out to engage in a specifc act,
but unless combined with organizing work, will not cause those people to organize for themselves.
 AT: Reform Impossible
Reformism key to check anti-blackness – society is always in flux and
policy helps shapes societal norms
Eddie Glaude 16, Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton,
“Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves”
But Goldwater failed to realize that governmental indifference can harden hearts, and
government action can create conditions that soften them. People's attitudes aren't static
or untouchable. They are molded by the quality of interactions with others, and one of
the great powers of government involves shaping those interactions-not determining
them in any concrete sense, but defining the parameters within which people come to
know each other and live together. Today, for example, most Americans don't believe women should be confined to
the home raising children, or subjected to crude advances and sexist remarks by men. The women's-rights movement put pressure
on the government, which in turn passed laws that helped change some of our beliefs about women. Similarly, the relative progress
of the 1960s did not happen merely by using the blunt instruments of the law. Change
emerged from the ways those
laws, with grassroots pressure, created new patterns of interactions, and ultimately new habits.
Neither Obama's election to the presidency nor my appointment as a Princeton professor would have happened were it not for these
new patterns and habits. None of this happens overnight. It takes time and increasing vigilance to protect and
secure change. I was talking with a dose friend and he mentioned a basic fact: that we were only fifteen years removed from
the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when Ronald Reagan was elected president and Republicans began to dismantle the
gains of the black freedom struggle. Civil
rights legislation and the policies of the Great Society had just
started to reshape our interactions when they started to be rolled back. We barely had a chance
to imagine America anew-to pursue what full employment might look like, to let the abolition of
the death penalty settle in, to question seriously the morality of putting people in prison cells,
and to enact policies that would undo what the 1968 Kerner Commission described as "two
Americas"¬ before the attack on "big government" or, more precisely, the attack on racial
equality was launched. The objective was to shrink the size of government ("to starve the beast") and to limit its domestic
responsibilities to ensuring economic efficiency and national defense. Democrats eventually buckled, and this is the view of
government, no matter who is in office, that we have today. It has become a kind of touchstone of faith among most Americans that
government is wasteful and should be limited in its role-that it shouldn't intrude on our lives. Politicians aren't the only ones who hold
this view. Many Americans do, too. Now we can't even imagine serious talk of things like full employment or the abolition of prisons.
We have to change our view of government, especially when it comes to racial matters.
Government policy ensured the vote for African Americans and dismantled legal segregation.
Policy established a social safety net for the poor and elderly; it put in place the conditions for
the growth of our cities. All of this didn't happen simply because of individual will or thanks to
some abstract idea of America. It was tied up with our demands and expectations. Goldwater was
wrong. So was Reagan. And, in many ways, so is Obama. Our racial habits are shaped by the kind of
society in which we live, and our government plays a big role in shaping that society. As
young children, our community offers us a way of seeing the world; it lets us know what is valuable and sacred, and what stands as
virtuous behavior and what does not. When Michael Brown's body was left in the street for more than four hours, it sent a dear
message about the value of black lives. When
everything in our society says that we should be less
concerned about black folk, that they are dangerous, that no specific policies can address their
misery, we say to our children and to everyone else that these people are "less than"-that they
fall outside of our moral concern. We say, without using the word, that they are niggers. One way to change
that view is to enact policies that suggest otherwise. Or, to put it another way, to change our
view of government, we must change our demands of government. For example, for the past fifty years
African American unemployment has been twice that of white unemployment. The 2013 unemployment rate for African Americans
stood at 13.1 percent, the highest annual black unemployment rate in more than seventy years. Social scientists do not generally
agree on the causes of this trend. Some attribute it to the fact that African Americans are typically the "last hired and first fired."
Others point to changes in the nature of the economy; still others point to overt racial discrimination in the labor market. No matter
how we account for the numbers, the fact remains that most Americans see double-digit black unemployment as "normal." However,
a large-scale, comprehensive jobs agenda with a living wage designed to put Americans, and explicitly African Americans, to work
would go a long way toward uprooting the racial habits that inform such a view. It would counter the nonsense that currently stands
If we hold the
as a reason for long-term black unemployment in public debate: black folk are lazy and don't want to work.
view that government plays a crucial role in ensuring the public good-if we believe that all
Americans, no matter their race or class, can be vital contributors to our beloved community-
then we reject the idea that some populations are disposable, that some people can languish in
the shadows while the rest of us dance in the light. The question ''Am I my brother's or my sister's keeper?" is not
just a question for the individual or a mantra to motivate the private sector. It is a question answered in the social arrangements that
aim to secure the goods and values we most cherish as a community. In other words, we need an idea of government that reflects
We need government seriously
the value of all Americans, not just white Americans or a few people with a lot of money.
committed to racial justice. As a nation, we can never pat ourselves on the back about racial
matters. We have too much blood on our hands. Remembering that fact-our inheritance, as Wendell Berry said-does not amount
to beating ourselves over the head, or wallowing in guilt, or trading in race cards. Remembering our national sins serves as a check
and balance against national hubris. We're reminded of what we are capable of, and our eyes are trained to see that ugliness when
it rears its head. But when we disremember-when we forget about the horrors of lynching, lose sight of how African Americans were
locked into a dual labor market because of explicit racism, or ignore how we exported our racism around the world-we free
ourselves from any sense of accountability. Concern for others and a sense of responsibility for the whole no longer matter. Cruelty
and indifference become our calling cards. We have to isolate those areas in which long-standing trends of racial inequality short-
circuit the life chances of African Americans. In
addition to a jobs agenda, we need a comprehensive
government response to the problems of public education and mass incarceration. And I
do mean a government response. Private interests have overrun both areas, as privatization
drives school reform (and the education of our children is lost in the boisterous battles between
teachers' unions and private interests) and as big business makes enormous profits from the
warehousing of black and brown people in prisons. Let's be clear: private interests or market-
based strategies will not solve the problems we face as a country or bring about the kind of
society we need. We have to push for massive government investment in early childhood
education and in shifting the center of gravity of our society from punishment to
restorative justice. We can begin to enact the latter reform by putting an end to the practice of jailing children. Full stop. We
didn't jail children in the past. We don't need to now. In sum, government can help us go a long way toward uprooting racial habits
with policies that support jobs with a living wage, which would help wipe out the historic double-digit gap between white and black
unemployment; take an expansive approach to early childhood education, which social science research consistently says
profoundly affects the life chances of black children; and dismantle the prison-industrial complex. We can no longer believe that
disproportionately locking up black men and women constitutes an answer to social ills. This
view of government cannot
be dismissed as a naive pipe dream, because political considerations relentlessly attack our
political imaginations and limit us to the status quo. We are told before we even open our mouths that this
particular view won't work or that it will never see the light of day. We've heard enough of that around single payer health care
reform and other progressive policies over the Obama years. Such defeatist attitudes conspire to limit our imaginations and make
sure that the world stays as it is. But
those of us who don't give a damn about the rules of the
current political game must courageously organize, advocate, and insist on the moral
and political significance of a more robust role for government. We have to change the
terms of political debate. Something dramatic has to happen. American democracy has
to be remade. John Dewey, the American philosopher, understood this: The very idea of democracy, the meaning of
democracy, must be continually explored afresh; it has to be constantly discovered and rediscovered, remade and reorganized;
while the political and economic and social institutions in which it is embodied have to be remade and reorganized to meet the
changes that are going on in the development of new needs on the part of human beings and new resources for satisfying these
needs. Dewey saw American democracy as an unfinished project. He knew that the aims and purposes of this country were not
fixed forever in the founding documents, but the particular challenges of our moment required imaginative leaps on behalf of
democracy itself.
Otherwise, undemocratic forces might prevail; tyranny in the form of the almighty
dollar and the relentless pursuit of it might overtake any commitment to the idea of the public
good; and bad habits might diminish our moral imaginations.
Reforms are possible and desirable- tangible change outweighs the risk of
cooption
Omi and Winant 13 Resistance is futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias, Michael Omi,
Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Howard Winant, Professor of
Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Director of the University of
California Center for New Racial Studies, 2013, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36:6, 961-973, DOI:
10.1080/01419870.2012.715177
In Feagin and Elias’s account, white racist rule in the USA appears unalterable and permanent.
There is little sense that the ‘white racial frame’ evoked by systemic racism theory changes in significant ways over historical time. They dismiss
important rearrangements and reforms as merely ‘a distraction from more ingrained structural oppressions and deep lying
inequalities that continue to define US society’ (Feagin and Elias 2012, p. 21). Feagin and Elias use a concept they call ‘surface flexibility’ to argue that
white elites frame racial realities in ways that suggest change, but are merely engineered to reinforce the underlying structure of racial oppression.
Feagin and Elias say the phrase ‘racial democracy’ is an oxymoron 􏰀 a word defined in the dictionary as a figure of speech that combines contradictory
terms. If
they mean the USA is a contradictory and incomplete democracy in respect to race and
racism issues, we agree. If they mean that people of colour have no democratic rights or
political power in the USA, we disagree. The USA is a racially despotic country in many ways, but in our view it is
also in many respects a racial democracy, capable of being influenced towards more or less
inclusive and redistributive economic policies, social policies, or for that matter, imperial policies.
What is distinctive about our own epoch in the USA (post-Second World War to the present) with respect to race and racism? Over the past decades
there has been a steady drumbeat of efforts to contain and neutralize civil rights, to restrict racial democracy, and to maintain or even increase racial
inequality. Racial disparities in different institutional sites 􏰀 employment, health, education 􏰀 persist and in many cases have increased. Indeed, the
post-2008 period has seen a dramatic increase in racial inequality. The subprime home mortgage crisis, for example, was a major racial event. Black
and brown people were disproportionately affected by predatory lending practices; many lost their homes as a result; race-based wealth disparities
widened tremendously. It
would be easy to conclude, as Feagin and Elias do, that white racial dominance has
been continuous and unchanging throughout US history. But such a perspective misses the
dramatic twists and turns in racial politics that have occurred since the Second World War and
the civil rights era. Feagin and Elias claim that we overly inflate the significance of the changes wrought by the civil rights movement, and
that we ‘overlook the serious reversals of racial justice and persistence of huge racial inequalities’ (Feagin and Elias 2012, p. 21) that followed in its
wake. We do not. In Racial Formation we wrote about ‘racial reaction’ in a chapter of that name, and elsewhere in the book as well. Feagin and Elias
we argue that the right
devote little attention to our arguments there; perhaps because they are in substantial agreement with us. While
wing was able to ‘rearticulate’ race and racism issues to roll back some of the gains of the civil rights
movement, we also believe that there are limits to what the right could achieve in the post-civil
rights political landscape. So we agree that the present prospects for racial justice are
demoralizing at best. But we do not think that is the whole story. US racial conditions have
changed over the post-Second World War period, in ways that Feagin and Elias tend to
downplay or neglect. Some of the major reforms of the 1960s have proved irreversible; they
have set powerful democratic forces in motion. These racial (trans)formations were the results of
unprecedented political mobiliza- tions, led by the black movement, but not confined to blacks
alone. Consider the desegregation of the armed forces, as well as key civil rights movement
victories of the 1960s: the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Act (Hart- Celler), as well
as important court decisions like Loving v. Virginia that declared anti- miscegenation laws
unconstitutional. While we have the greatest respect for the late Derrick Bell, we do not believe that his ‘interest convergence hypothesis’
effectively explains all these developments. How does Lyndon Johnson’s famous (and possibly apocryphal) lament upon signing the Civil Rights Act on
2 July 1964 􏰀 ‘We have lost the South for a generation’ 􏰀 count as ‘convergence’? The US racial regime has been transformed in significant ways. As
Antonio Gramsci argues, hegemony proceeds through the incorpora- tion of opposition (Gramsci 1971, p. 182). The civil rights reforms can be seen as
a classic example of this process; here the US racial regime 􏰀 under movement pressure 􏰀 was exercising its hegemony. But Gramsci insists that
such reforms 􏰀 which he calls ‘passive revolutions’ 􏰀 cannot
be merely symbolic if they are to be effective:
oppositions must win real gains in the process. Once again, we are in the realm of politics,
not absolute rule. So yes, we think there were important if partial victories that shifted the racial
state and transformed the significance of race in everyday life. And yes, we think that further
victories can take place both on the broad terrain of the state and on the more immediate level of social interaction:
in daily interaction, in the human psyche and across civil society. Indeed we have argued that in many ways the most important accomplishment of the
anti-racist movement of the 1960s in the USA was the politicization of the social. In the USA and indeed around the globe, race-
based movements demanded not only the inclusion of racially defined ‘others’ and the democratization of structurally racist societies, but also the
broadened and
recognition and validation by both the state and civil society of racially-defined experience and identity. These demands
deepened democracy itself. They facilitated not only the democratic gains made in the USA by the black movement and its
allies, but also the political advances towards equality, social justice and inclusion accomplished by
other ‘new social movements’: second- wave feminism, gay liberation, and the environmentalist and
anti-war movements among others. By no means do we think that the post-war movement upsurge was an unmitigated success. Far from
it: all the new social movements were subject to the same ‘rearticulation’ (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, p. xii) that
produced the racial ideology of ‘colourblindness’ and its variants; indeed all these movements confronted their mirror images in the mobilizations that
Yet even their incorporation and containment, even their
arose from the political right to counter them.
confrontations with the various ‘backlash’ phenomena of the past few decades, even the need to develop the highly contradictory
ideology of ‘colour- blindness’, reveal the transformative character of the ‘politicization of the social’. While it
is not possible here to explore so extensive a subject, it is worth noting that it was the long-delayed eruption of racial subjectivity and self-awareness
into the mainstream political arena that set off this transformation, shaping both the democratic and anti- democratic social movements that are evident
in US politics today.

Racial progress is possible—the historical record errs our way despite

widespread discrimination—political rejection is the worst option
Kennedy 14—Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University (Randall, “Black
America's Promised Land: Why I Am Still a Racial Optimist”, http://prospect.org/article/black-
americas-promised-land-why-i-am-still-racial-optimist, dml)
Beneath the malaise is a deep current of racial pessimism that has a long history in American and African American
thought. Pessimists believe that racial harmony predicated on fairness is not part of the American future. They posit that the
United States will not overcome its tragic racial past. They maintain that blacks are not and
cannot become members of the American family (even with a black family occupying the White House). They
believe that the United States is a white nation that will always be governed on behalf of white
folk. For pessimists, the Obama presidency is no sign of racial transcendence; to the contrary, it is a demonstration of the intractability of American pigmentocracy. For them, the Obama ascendancy shows
that in order to rise to the top of American politics, a black politician must be willing to forgo substantively challenging the racial status quo (though he is allowed to cavil about it rhetorically). For them, the Obama
administration simply mirrors the racial diversification of an existing order in which a relatively small sector of upper-crust blacks prosper while the condition of the black masses stagnates or deteriorates—the
consequence of a misbegotten theory of racial trickle-down. For them, the Obama era is littered with bitter incongruity: While a black man is commander-in-chief, Michael Brown and thousands like him are
stalked, harassed, brutalized, and occasionally killed in Ferguson-like locales across America. The pedigree of black racial pessimism is impressive. In its ranks one finds such figures as Henry McNeal Turner,
Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Randall Robinson, and the extraordinary W.E.B. Du Bois. One encounters Frederick Douglass declaring in 1847, “I cannot have any love for
this country … or for its Constitution. I desire to see its overthrow as speedily as possible, and its Constitution shriveled in a thousand fragments.” In that tradition, one also finds Derrick Bell, professor of law at
Harvard, teaching in the 1990s that the United States is irredeemably imprisoned by its past, that “racism is an integral, permanent, and indestructible component of this society,” and that “black people will never
gain full equality in this country.” The tradition of black racial pessimism has its white counterpart. According to Thomas Jefferson, “The two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.” Alexis de
Tocqueville doubted that “the white and black races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing,” but believed “the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than elsewhere.” According to Abraham
Lincoln, differences between blacks and whites “will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” But the pessimists, black and white, have not been the only influence on
American thought about the prospects for racial progress. Arrayed against them are optimists who contend that blacks are (or can become) members of the American family and insist that racial harmony
bottomed on fairness is attainable. This, in fact, has been the predominant tradition among blacks. Its adherents include Booker T. Washington, Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse
Jackson, and John Lewis (joined by whites such as the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton). The most memorable
spokesman for the optimistic tradition was Martin Luther King Jr. On April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, he told his followers to take heart because he knew that, eventually, they would overcome
the obstacles they faced. He knew this because he had “been to the mountaintop” and glimpsed the Promised Land, though he might not make it there himself. King was vague, however, about the Promised
Land’s boundaries and topography. He had famously spoken of a nation where individuals will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Yet that formulation is popular partly
because it is open to contending interpretations. Is it a condemnation of all racial distinctions? Or is it a condemnation only of invidious racial distinctions? Is it meant to posit a rule of non-discrimination that
should go into effect immediately even at the cost of barring efforts to rectify past racial wrongdoing? Or is it meant to posit a rule of nondiscrimination that should go into effect only after the consequences of past
wrongdoings have been ameliorated? These questions underlie the debate that has been raging for decades over competing conceptions of the racial Promised Land. In one conception, the Promised Land is a
society henceforth substantially free of intentional racial discrimination in major domains of the public sphere. In this society, no effort is made to rectify the oppressive consequences of past racial misconduct
because, it is argued, trying to do so is futile, unfair to those innocent of past wrongdoing, and conducive to the perpetuation of race-mindedness. This view has been propounded vigorously in the legal writings of
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, mainly in critiques of affirmative action. Chief Justice John Roberts, also a champion of this view, expressed it epigrammatically when, abjuring a race-conscious
plan for school integration, he quipped that the best way to stop racial discrimination is to stop racially discriminating—no matter whether the aim is to assist or oppress a vulnerable group. Under this conception,
we enter the racial Promised Land when racial discrimination is a negligible feature of social life, even if the vestiges of racial subordination in the past are evident and consequential. Let’s call this model of racial
justice the conservative conception of the racial Promised Land. The progressive conception of the racial Promised Land is more ambitious. It envisions two essential landmarks. The first is the requirement of the
conservatives that invidious racial discrimination be reduced to a negligible influence. The second condition is that the vestiges of past discrimination—the racial gaps that so dramatically scar the social landscape
—be erased. Pursuant to the progressive perspective, we will reach the racial Promised Land when blackness is no longer a uniform that, holding other variables steady, signals that its wearer bears a notably
higher risk than whites of premature death, impoverishment, unemployment, incarceration, victimization by criminality, homelessness, police harassment, and similar afflictions. Today, one can go into a hospital,
visit the ward for newborns, and make accurate estimates about the babies’ varying life trajectories on the basis of their racial identities. When accurate estimates of this sort are no longer possible, progressives
contend, we will have reached the racial Promised Land. Some observers insist that what I have dubbed the conservative model of the racial Promised Land is at hand or at least nearby. They maintain that, for
the most part, we have overcome. They proclaim “Mission Accomplished” or at least mission near-accomplished. This is mistaken. Intentional invidious racial discrimination constitutes a force in American life that
is far from negligible. It is a substantial headwind that blacks and other racial minorities face in many key areas, including housing, finance, employment, criminal justice, electoral politics, and markets for romance
and marriage. There is a library of empirical literature establishing this fact beyond sensible controversy—studies based on similarly situated but racially disparate testers who meet different fates when they seek
to buy automobiles, rent housing, get jobs, or obtain loans. And then there are the lessons of everyday life that suggest forcefully that in crucial interactions with police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other
authorities armed with discretion, outcomes differ, all too often, depending on the race of the person being assessed. It is difficult to imagine that the dismal train of events surrounding the deaths of Trayvon
Martin or Michael Brown would have been identical had they been white. Even more distant is the progressive conception of the racial Promised Land. In practically every key index of well-being, a chasm
separates the circumstances in which whites and blacks typically find themselves. The income gap separating blacks and whites widened from about $19,000 in the late 1960s to about $27,000 in 2011. The
wealth gap increased from $75,000 in 1984 to $85,000 in 2011. Blacks are nearly three times more likely to live in deep poverty than whites. Black men are six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. And
on. And on. And on. We have failed to reach the racial Promised Land in either its conservative or its progressive definition. With respect to both of these destinations, our society remains far afield. Still, I put

myself in the optimistic camp. Why? I am hopeful first and foremost because of the predominant trajectory of African
Americans—a history that John Hope Franklin framed with the apt title From Slavery to Freedom. In 1860, four million African
Americans were enslaved while another half-million were free but devoid of fundamental rights in many of the jurisdictions where
In 1860, the very term “African American” was something of an oxymoron because the Supreme
they lived.
within a
Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no black, free or enslaved, could be a citizen of the United States. But
decade, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
established birthright citizenship and required all states to accord all persons due process and equal
protection of the laws, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited states from withholding the
right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. People who had been sold on the auction block as
youngsters helped to govern their locales as public officials when they were adults. In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi resigned
from the United States Senate to join the Confederate States of America, which he led as president. In 1870, Hiram Revels, the first
The First Reconstruction was overwhelmed
black member of Congress, occupied the seat that Davis abandoned.
by a devastating white supremacist reaction. But the most fundamental reforms it established
proved resilient, providing the basis for a Second Reconstruction from the 1950s to the 1970s. During
that period, too, the distance traveled by blacks was astonishing. In 1950, segregation was deemed to be
consistent with federal constitutional equal protection. No federal law prevented proprietors of hotels, restaurants, and other
privately owned public accommodations from engaging in racial discrimination. No federal law prohibited private employers from
discriminating on a racial basis against applicants for jobs or current employees. No federal law effectively counteracted racial
disenfranchisement. No federal law outlawed racial discrimination in private housing transactions. In contrast, by 1970 federal
constitutional law thoroughly repudiated the lie of separate but equal. The 1964 Civil Rights Act forbade
racial discrimination in privately owned places of public accommodation and many areas of private employment. The 1965 Voting
Rights Act provided the basis for strong prophylactic action against racial exclusion at the ballot box. The 1968 Fair Housing Act
None of these
addressed racial exclusion in a market that had been zealously insulated against federal regulation.
interventions were wholly successful. All were compromised. All occasioned backlash. But
the racial situation in 1970 and afterwards was dramatically better than what it had been in
1950 and before. Today, at a moment when progress has stalled, we need to recall how dramatically and
unexpectedly conditions sometimes change. Until recently who’d-a thunk it possible for the president to be an
African American? In the 1980s, I used to ask law students how long affirmative action programs ought to last. Champions of such
programs, seeking to ensure their longevity, would say that affirmative action would be needed until the country elected a black
president. That reply would elicit appreciative laughter as listeners supposed that that formula would preserve affirmative action for
at least a century. But then along came Barack Obama and with him the remark that soon became a cliché: “I never thought that I’d
live to see a black president.” Obama’s election is much more than a monument to one politician’s talent and good fortune.
Changes in public attitudes, law, and custom have clearly elevated the fortunes of African
Americans as individuals and black America as a collectivity. Hard facts may give plausibility to
the pessimistic tradition, but they make the optimistic tradition compelling. Despite the many wrongs
that remain to be righted, blacks in America confront fewer racist impediments now than ever before in
the history of the United States. The courage, intelligence, persistence, idealism, and sacrifice of Fannie Lou Hamer
and Rosa Parks, Julian Bond and Bob Moses, Medgar Evers and Bayard Rustin, Viola Liuzzo and Vernon Dahmer—and countless
other tribunes for racial justice—have not been expended for naught. The facts of day-to-day life allow blacks to sing more
confidently than ever before James Weldon Johnson’s magnificent hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black
National Anthem: Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Sing a song full of the hope that the present has
My optimism involves more
brought us Facing the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on till victory is won.
than a sociological prediction. I am also swayed by my intuition regarding which of these hypotheses—the pessimistic or
the optimistic—will do the most good. Hope is a vital nutrient for effort; without it, there is no prospect
for achievement. The belief that we can overcome makes more realistic the possibility that
we shall overcome. Optimism gives buoyancy to thinking that might otherwise degenerate
into nihilism, encourages solidarity in those who might otherwise be satisfied by purely
selfish indulgence, invites strategic planning that can usefully harness what might
otherwise be impotent indignation, and inspires efforts that might otherwise be avoided due
to fatalism. On Election Day 1996, exit polling showed General Colin Powell beating President Bill Clinton by a comfortable
margin. But Powell was not Clinton’s opponent. Senator Bob Dole was. Powell had considered seeking the Republican Party
nomination but declined in the end to do so. Before he made that decision, polls suggested that he could win the nomination and the
general election, but friends were skeptical. Powell recalls that Earl Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, told him,
“Look, man … [w]hen [white voters] go in that booth, they ain’t going to vote for you.” Maybe Graves was correct. Real voting might
have produced different results from the polls. Furthermore, whereas the actual candidates had suffered a year of merciless scrutiny
on the campaign trail, Powell on Election Day was a mere hypothetical candidate who suffered from none of the wear and tear that a
presidential contest exacts. At the end of a campaign, the general might not have remained so attractive. Still, Powell’s apparent
popularity does provide a basis for conjecturing that America’s readiness to elect a black president had been an unrecognized part
of the political landscape for longer than many had appreciated. Powell may well have denied himself the opportunity to make a
A major fear of many blacks is that acknowledging
successful historic leap by being self-defeatingly pessimistic.
progress will prompt underestimation of racial obstacles that blacks at every socioeconomic
level continue to face. When Americans are polled about their perceptions of racial affairs, whites are typically more upbeat
than blacks. The more affluent they are, the more upbeat white observers tend to be. Inordinately impressed by progress, they all
too often prematurely declare victory over racism. Although
complacency nourished by an overly rosy view of racial affairs
is a real danger, I stand by my conviction that a clear-eyed assessment favors black optimism.
Who, after all, have been the figures most beneficial to blacks? Was it the Martin Delany who
decamped for Africa, thinking America to be irremediably racist? Or was it the Martin Delany
who returned, recruited blacks for the Union, and participated significantly in Southern politics
during Reconstruction? Was it the pre-1966 Stokely Carmichael who sang “We Shall Overcome” in the splendid early days
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)? Or was it the post-1966 Stokely Carmichael (later renamed Kwame
Ture) whose impatient bitterness helped to destroy the SNCC and rationalize an indulgent exile to Guinea that squandered a
substantial talent? Was it my long-time colleague of blessed memory, Derrick Bell, who posited the permanence of racist white
dominance? Or was it a student who rightly admired Professor Bell but eschewed his pessimism and followed a different path, a
black student who, years later, put Bell’s hypothesis to a test by seeking the highest elected office in the land under the slogan “Yes
We Can!”? That student, of course, was Barack Obama, and his presidency has been the setting for much debate between pessimists and optimists. Some detractors, perhaps the angriest, started from a
position of raised expectations. They thought that Obama embodied the “audacity of hope” and that he would somehow bring about sweeping changes. Disappointed, they have expressed themselves in the
angry, accusatory rhetoric of betrayal. Obama, Cornel West charges, “posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.” Others condemn Obama but without disappointment. They see their low
expectations as having been validated. Certain pessimists have maintained that Obama’s election indicated little in terms of “real” racial progress. They even discount the symbolic significance of his ascendancy,
stressing his exceptionality. Although he calls himself black, Obama is the offspring of a black African father and a white American mother and is thus distinguished genealogically from most African Americans.
Much was made of his Muslim-sounding name. But some observers maintain that popular acceptance of that, too, should be viewed skeptically. It would have signaled more, they argue, had America elected a
black person raised in, say, Detroit with a name such as Tyrone Washington or Jamal Jefferson. Pessimists argue that, substantively, the Obama presidency has delivered no more to blacks than would have
been delivered by any other centrist-liberal Democrat (say, Hillary Clinton), and that in certain respects the Obama presidency delivered less because Obama sought excessively to prove that he was a president
for all Americans and not merely black Americans. They contend that Obama’s blackness was an asset that he used for personal marketing and that the white establishment seized upon for advertising, “The
United States cannot sensibly be accused of practicing or condoning racism! It just elected a black president!” Pessimists will now also enlist the horrifying events in Ferguson, Missouri, to reinforce their claim that
despite the civil rights movement, antidiscrimination legislation, affirmative action, and the election of Obama, the narrative of race relations in America is a doleful tale—not a march upward from slavery to
freedom, but a trek sideways from plantation to ghetto. What is an optimist in the waning years of the Obama presidency to say in the face of this challenge? Obama’s election signaled a dramatic, substantive
change in racial beliefs and attitudes. In 1960, his victory would have been impossible: Too many whites would have been unwilling to vote for a black candidate—any black candidate—because of doubts about
the capacities of anyone of black African ancestry. Recall that there were no black cabinet officers until Johnson appointed Robert Weaver as secretary of housing and urban development in 1966, and no black
Supreme Court justices until Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall in 1967. The specter of black intellectual and characterological deficiency stunted the careers of many talented blacks, and still does. That
Obama was able to win the presidency—twice—is a sign that rumors of racial inferiority, while still extant, are much diminished in influence. In thinking about the meaning of Obama, it is important, too, to focus on
the special status of the presidency. The person who occupies that office is not only the head of the executive branch of the federal government, the person who nominates all federal judges, the commander-in-
chief of the armed forces, and thus a person with the wherewithal to destroy most, if not all, of humankind. The president is also the nation’s mourner-in-chief, booster-in-chief, spouse-in-chief, and parent-in-chief.
That a black man has been the master of the White House for the past six years does indeed reflect and reinforce a remarkable socio-psychological transformation in the American racial scene. If that is
“tokenism,” give us more of it. I have emphasized progress that blacks have made in absolute terms: where they stood 50 years ago and where they stand today. But what about the position of blacks relative to
whites—those yawning gaps in wealth, income, educational attainment, and risk of imprisonment that have remained unclosed and that have, in some ways, widened even further during Obama’s tenure? There
is no use denying that reality. America remains racially stratified and will continue to be long after the Obama presidency. There is also no use, however, in denying other facets of the American racial reality. One
is a comparative view. In considering the appropriate attitude to adopt toward America—allegiance, for example, or dis-affiliation—it is sensible to compare the United States to other divided societies.
Negrophobia in America is, alas, all too present. But it pales in comparison with the prejudice against racial, ethnic, religious, and national minorities in many countries around the globe. As bad as the American
racial problem is, as urgently as it calls for concentrated attention, its condition is less dire and more encouraging than might be gleaned from an analysis that views the American situation in isolation, divorced

There is also no good purpose served by ignoring manifestations of progress that

from international comparisons.

display themselves even in heartrending crises. Consider the events in Ferguson. The killing of the unarmed
teenager, the callous inattentiveness to his body, the militarized police response to protest, and the dubious investigation by local
authorities of this tragic death display much of what is terrible in American race relations: an atavistic fear of young black men; quick
resort to excessive force against African Americans; racial residential separation; black powerlessness that foments resentment;
white dominance that encourages contempt; an utter lack of mutual trust. But the events in Ferguson have also revealed
other responses. The federal government took note of what happened and actively involved
itself via the president, attorney general, and the director of the FBI. The Ferguson tragedy became the leading news story all
over the country. Blacks have not been the only ones calling the police to account and demanding
reform. Whites from various walks of life, including right-wing politicians like Rand Paul, have also been doing so. Never in
American history, in analogous circumstances, has there been a higher level of interracial empathy.
Overcoming the racial burdens—individual, communal, institutional—that encumber us will take
unremitting effort, major deployments of intelligence and imagination, daunting amounts of
time, huge expenditures of money, and the resolute conviction that America’s racial affairs can and
will improve. Is the uncertain prospect of a better future worth that investment? The lessons of
American history and a comparison of our society with others around the world impel me to say yes. I am a racial
optimist. Only time will tell whether my faith is wise.
Discussing the process of achieving reforms is valuable – we know that
we’ll never be allowed to occupy positions of federal legislative power but
creating movements from our subject position is valuable
Alexander 10 (Michelle Alexander, associate professor of law at Ohio State University, a civil
rights advocate and a writer. “New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”
ProQuest ebrary, pp. 213-215) RR Jr
A bit of civil rights history may be helpful here. Civil rights advocacy has not always looked the way it does today.
Throughout most of our nation’s history— from the days of the abolitionist movement through the Civil Rights
Movement— racial justice advocacy has generally revolved around grassroots organizing
and the strategic mobilization of public opinion. In recent years, however, a bit of mythology has sprung up regarding the
centrality of litigation to racial justice struggles. The success of the brilliant legal crusade that led to Brown v. Board of

Education has created a widespread perception that civil rights lawyers are the most important
players in racial justice advocacy. This image was enhanced following the passage of the Civil
Rights Acts of 1965, when civil rights lawyers became embroiled in highly visible and controversial efforts to end hiring discrimination, create affirmative action
plans, and enforce school desegregation orders. As public attention shifted from the streets to the courtroom, the

extraordinary grassroots movement that made civil rights legislation possible faded from public
view. The lawyers took over. With all deliberate speed, civil rights organizations became “professionalized” and increasingly disconnected from the communities they
claimed to represent. Legal scholar and former NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Derrick Bell was among the first to critique this

phenomenon, arguing in a 1976 Yale Law Journal article that civil rights lawyers were pursuing
their own agendas in school desegregation cases even when they conflicted with their clients’ expressed desires. 3 Two decades later,
former NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer and current Harvard Law School professor Lani Guinier published a memoir

in which she acknowledged that, “by the early 1990s, [civil rights] litigators like me had become
like the Washington insiders we were so suspicious of. . . . We reflexively distanced
ourselves from the very people on whose behalf we brought the cases in the first place.” 4
This shift, she noted, had profound consequences for the future of racial justice advocacy; in fact, it was
debilitating to the movement. Instead of a moral crusade, the movement became an almost purely legal

crusade. Civil rights advocates pursued their own agendas as unelected representatives of communities defined by race and displayed considerable skill navigating
courtrooms and halls of power across America. The law became what the lawyers and lobbyists said it was, with little

or no input from the people whose fate hung in the balance. Guinier continued: In charge, we channeled a passion for change
into legal negotiations and lawsuits. We defined the issues in terms of developing legal doctrine and establishing legal precedent; our clients became important, but secondary,

We then disembodied plaintiffs’ claims in

players in a formal arena that required lawyers to translate lay claims into technical speech.

judicially manageable or judicially enforceable terms, unenforceable without more lawyers.

Simultaneously, the movement’s center of gravity shifted to Washington, D.C. As lawyers and national pundits became more

prominent than clients and citizens, we isolated ourselves from the people who were our anchor
and on whose behalf we had labored. We not only left people behind; of the movement itself. 5
Not surprisingly, as civil rights advocates converted a grassroots movement into a legal
campaign, and as civil rights leaders became political insiders, many civil rights organizations
became top-heavy with lawyers. This development enhanced their ability to wage legal battles
but impeded their ability to acknowledge or respond to the emergence of a new caste system.
Lawyers have a tendency to identify and concentrate on problems they know how to solve— i.e., problems that can be solved through litigation. The mass incarceration of
people of color is not that kind of problem. Widespread preoccupation with litigation, however, is not the only— or even the main— reason civil rights groups have shied away

Challenging mass incarceration requires something civil rights advocates

from challenging the new caste system.

have long been reluctant to do: advocacy on behalf of criminals. Even at the height of Jim Crow
segregation— when black men were more likely to be lynched than to receive a fair trial in the
South— NAACP lawyers were reluctant to advocate on behalf of blacks accused of crimes
unless the lawyers were convinced of the men’s innocence. 6 The major exception was anti– death penalty advocacy. Over the
years, civil rights lawyers have made heroic efforts to save the lives of condemned criminals. But outside of the death penalty arena, civil rights advocates have long been

reluctant to leap to the defense of accused criminals. Advocates have found they are most successful when they draw
attention to certain types of black people (those who are easily understood by mainstream whites as “good” and “respectable”) and tell certain
types of stories about them. Since the days when abolitionists struggled to eradicate slavery, racial justice advocates have gone to great

lengths to identify black people who defy racial stereotypes, and they have exercised
considerable message discipline, telling only those stories of racial injustice that will evoke
sympathy among whites.

Examples of how certain reforms have failed are not a useful metric of
evaluating progress – their denial of the material progress created for
black people by black people is a disavowal of the strength and
resilience of blackness
Raynor and Romans 16, Alethea Frazier Raynor co-directs, with Angela Romans, the
District & Systems Transformation team at AISR. She has led teams that have documented,
supported, and evaluated district reform efforts in Nashville, Tennessee, for the last five years.
Currently she leads AISR's project on discipline disparities funded by The Atlantic
Philanthrophies and is a member of the research team for the case study of Black and Latino
male achievement in Boston Public Schools. They are both professors at Brown University,
2/29/16, “When We Get Weary: Persistence in the Journey to Equity and Excellence,”
http://annenberginstitute.org/blog/commentary/when-we-get-weary-persistence-journey-equity-
and-excellence NN
As this Black History Month comes to end, we recognize much progress from the eras of our
childhoods, but in our work toward education and social justice, we are also sometimes weary. In the unending quest to provide
liberty and justice for all, we are reminded that the rights for which we pledge allegiance to the
American flag are still not accessible to many public school children across the nation. We can
become disillusioned in the current political context, knowing that the hard-fought battles for
access to quality education, voting rights, and other civil liberties were fragile victories at best,
as we now witness states taking two steps backward from the giant steps that helped to move
our country toward a more just and fair society. In Texas and Florida, for example, thousands of voters in recent
elections have been disenfranchised by voter ID laws, limited early voting, and mishandling of ballots, all of which disproportionately
affect communities of color. In Louisiana and New Jersey, state-run school authorities with limited capacity and no clear track record
of success have closed or taken over schools in primarily low-income urban communities of color without replacing them with high-
Yet when we become weary, we need only
quality options that are local and accessible for all children and families.
remember how long civil rights activists like Rosanell Eaton have been engaged in the struggle
for equity and justice and let her ninety-four years be a gauge for the persistence we will need in
the face of inequities that deny whole communities of children the right to a quality education.
Seventy-three years ago at age twenty-one, Rosanell Eaton refused to be denied her right to vote, and
she met every challenge handed her by White voter registrars. She recited by memory the preamble to the Constitution, passed the
literacy test contrived by the voter registration office, and became a registered voter in the state of North
Carolina – a right that she has continued to exercise and has fought for on behalf of others ever
since. Sadly, at age ninety-four she is still fighting in the trenches against voter ID laws passed in her home state that threaten to
disenfranchise her along with countless others from communities that are already marginalized, communities where the right to a
what we can learn from
quality education has been as elusive as retaining the right to vote. This is disheartening, but
Rosanell Eaton is that while we may become weary in the face of inequity, like her we
must remain vigilant and relentless in the pursuit of justice and encourage current and
future generations of young people to exercise their right to vote and to fight for their
right to a quality education. Eaton and many like her have sustained their vigilance over decades. While education has
been called the “civil rights issue of our time,” the education of Black people has always been a civil rights issue. The fight for
access to equitable educational opportunities has been a part of not only Black history, but U.S. history, starting with enslaved
Africans who practiced civil disobedience against Southern laws prohibiting them to read. College students in the 1960s held sit-ins
at lunch counters, led Freedom Rides, and marched in acts of civil disobedience. In the 1980s, they protested university investments
benefitting the apartheid government in South Africa, furthering the principle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that “injustice anywhere is
today’s youth find it unacceptable that their country has failed
a threat to justice everywhere.” As in the past,
to provide them with a quality education, and continue to push adults in the system to provide
the education they deserve. They demand an end to the school-to-prison pipeline and harsh discipline
practices that disproportionately suspend Black and Brown students and they help lead the fight for a rigorous curriculum and
qualified teachers in their classrooms. College
students across the country, including on our own campus
at Brown University, protest racial bias, marginalization of students of color, and the lack of
faculty diversity. Here in Providence, a coalition of youth organizers through a four year campaign
successfully lobbied the Providence Public School District and City of Providence to provide
funding for 1,000 more students to receive free transportation to school, reducing the mandatory
living distance for high school students to receive free bus passes from three miles to two. In a district with majority
Latino/a or African American students and 84 percent of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, many parents could not
Local youth
afford a car or public transportation costs, requiring students to walk more than three miles to school every day.
engaged elected officials and other leaders to “walk in our shoes” through the cold and snow to
experience what they go through to attend school, and recently demanded that elected officials
#KeepYourPromise after budget cuts threatened transportation funding. In 1857, the great orator and
statesman Frederick Douglass made clear the ongoing nature of our work when he stated, “If there is no struggle
there is no progress.” Thus if there is to be progress in public education, we can expect a
struggle when we – citizens both young and old – challenge the systemic inequities that
are deeply embedded in the institutional fabric of our society. We must use our collective voices to
address even more explicitly how inequities in voting rights, school discipline, teacher quality, and even transportation are
intertwined and can operate in tandem to perpetuate segregation in our schools and challenge our voting rights at the polls. As
when we get weary in our work and question the
African American women fighting for social justice,
ability of systems to change for the better, we draw inspiration from civil rights
champions past and present, and we continue to work across districts and communities
to advance educational equity and excellence. We may get weary, but we continue in the
struggle as a reminder to young people in generations that follow that their efforts
matter, that they matter, and to let them know what Frederick Douglass knew well back in 1857: “Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
 AT: Political Hope Parasitic
Despite police brutality and gratuitous violence, the only way to create
change is through remaining positive and believe in black hope
Anderson 16 (SaVonne, black female, New Media & Digital Design Student @ Fordham
University Social Good editorial intern with an interest in race and feminism; Radical Imagination
is a Necessary Sustaining Force of Black Activism; MASHABLE.com, February 28,
http://mashable.com/2016/02/28/black-activism-radical-imagination/#NtD2yRx_nZqS) RR Jr
I believe we need to be more steadfast in looking toward the future —envisioning the world we want
to see, and taking concrete steps to create it. We need to rekindle the spirit of radical
imagination that fueled so many black activists before us. We can trace radical imagination back
to historical movements, like the Civil Rights Movement, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the best examples. His celebrated "I Have A Dream" speech
is the epitome of finding a dream in the midst of weariness, as both an activist and black person living

through injustice: Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still
have a dream ... This is our hope. The revolutionary and even idealist nature of King’s speech cannot — and should not — be understated. Although we celebrate
his words without hesitation today, many of King's peers "deemed it hackneyed to the point of cliché" at the time. Even the most “radical student activists were dismayed to hear
a black leader dreaming of a far-off future." King's dream was too big and too distant for a lot of people to understand and accept. But he didn't allow their lack of imagination,
nor the dark conditions of the present, to prevent him from envisioning a brighter future. Robin D.G. Kelley, a professor of American history at UCLA and author of Freedom
Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, emphasizes the power in our collective dreams. "Oftentimes dreaming gets reduced to the individual process of envisioning something
different," Kelley tells Mashable. "Dreams can have transformative impact, though, if we put in the work." In the preface to his book, Kelley writes: Without new visions, we don’t
know what to build, only what to knock down. We not only end up confused, rudderless and cynical, but we forget that making a revolution is not a series of clever maneuvers

I exhausted all
and tactics, but a process that can and must transform us. I fell victim to the very mindset Kelley writes about — knocking down but never building. 

my energy fighting, but never took the time to remind myself what I was fighting for. Protesting,
organizing and educating are all essential to activism, but they're not the entire story. To be
most effective, Kelley argues, we must also create spaces to cultivate collective "freedom dreams." "It's
in those sorts of spaces — protected spaces, enclosed spaces — not so much in the streets
themselves, that people are able to articulate why they’re in it," he said in a 2008 interview. This isn't a new
or necessarily innovative idea in the black community at large. In fact, black artists seem to
have embraced it more than anyone. Artists have long used Afrofuturism in science fiction, comics, music and art
as a way to make their radical imaginations tangible. Take Octavia Butler, who dreamed of and created worlds in her
books Kindred and Fledgling, where black girls and women were centered and could be multidimensional, complex characters. Today, there's Janelle Monáe,

who's revolutionizing  the future of music, art and culture with black artists and "androids," with protest lyrics to accompany them along the way. In
contemporary activism, this kind of radical dreaming hasn't exactly taken root. We're more
easily crushed by the realities of oppression, and often find it difficult to move past them.   "We
live in a society where destruction has become the dominant culture," Kelley tells Mashable. "To be truly
revolutionary, we need to create spaces built on love and solidarity." Kelley has observed that a strength in
the modern movement is the recognition that "when we talk about structural change, we're not
tweaking a system, but completely destroying it and replacing it with something new." We've
mastered the art of destruction; now we need to decide what we're replacing the system with. As
Kelley wrote in his book, progressive social movements "transport us to another place, compel us to relive

horrors and, more importantly, enable us to imagine a new society." In the fight for social justice
in the 21st century, it's crucial to refocus on these ideas of transportation and imagination.
Radical negativity and strategies apathetic to hope recreates white
supremacy and annihilates any attempts at equality – engaging the law
through and recognizing the ghosts of the past invites optimistic
resistance
Sciullo 15, Nick J. Sciullo is an ABD, Department of Communication (Rhetoric and Politics), Georgia
State University; M.S., Troy University; J.D., West Virginia University College of Law; B.A., University of
Richmond, nearest date given is 2015, “THE GHOSTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY: TRAYVON MARTIN,
MICHAEL BROWN, AND THE SPECTERS OF BLACK CRIMINALITY” NN

iii. Black Letter Law's Photographic Negative Black letter law should be read as the photographic negative, for it
is black letter law that imposes white supremacy in black script. It is this oppressive rescripting of white supremacy as neutral that
students of the law should read the
allows white supremacy to flourish in the neutral arena of black letter law. Careful
photographic negative though, instead of assuming the neutrality of law's scripting. What I mean here
is that there is a tendency to read law as it is, under the pressure of bar passage, job prospects, project deadlines, and efficiency -
in opposition to the liberal reading of law as it is
all the logics of late-stage capitalism. As op-posed to this,
with perhaps a modest critique here and there, students of the law should radically
critique law through the oppositional strategy of reading the photographic negative. This
play with vision harkens back to the centrality of the photographic image in the Civil Rights Movement. The negative
dialectic n39 of reading the law in reverse demands a realization that law is constructed by its
absolute non-neutrality. Calling on Theodor Adorno, n40 I see the negative dialectic of producing not some affirming
synthesis, but some deformed crisis, a necessary step in grasping law's structural racism. n41 It is, in essence, law's lack of
By opening up
objectiv-ity that makes law's supposed objectivity the profession's closest-held and best-protected secret.
the field of play through negative dialectics, legal scholars may better understand racism
as contingent, ephemeral, spec-tral, free-forming, and open to re-writing both by the
agents of white supremacy, and those subject to its spectral influ-ence. One of the dangers of doing
race work, thinking about race, engaging race in one's social justice activism is the
tendency to think about race in relatively rigid ways. This becomes a traditional dialectical
move that assumes a bat-tling of static forces to produce a static synthesis. Opposed to that, I see a
world of negative dialectics as offering a more nuanced view of race and justice, one that
neither rests on outdated notions of blackness and whiteness nor to-tally obscures itself
with relativism. The photographic negative metaphor is another way to think about acknowledging white supremacy through
looking awry. [*1406] iv. Hope, Not Pessimism, and Surely Not Optimism In order to better understand the ramifications of this
spectral account of law, one must understand that my political project is hope. Attempting to see the
unseeable, speak the unspeakable, and think the unthinkable is a logic designed to confront. In
desperate times, where white supremacy slips through our fingers save for a few tugs at the ghost's tat-tered
rags, what legal scholars must do is engage in politics of hope, because hope sustains a
critical orientation to the world. Even if civil society is anti-black, and anti-blackness
would seem to prevent black political engagement, the answer is hope and not radical
negativity, which can only reproduce the character of negativity attributed to blacks by whites.
This is to say, the more radical disjuncture is to confront white negativity with black hope . Keep
in mind Ernst Bloch's famous statement, "We must believe in the Principle of Hope. A Marxist does not
have the right to be a pessi-mist." n42 But, it is not just a Marxist that cannot be a pessimist, it is
also a critical race theorist, a black radical, a labor organizer, a student protestor. Bloch
wrote at a time when hope might seem preposterous, when hope was in short sup-ply, yet his vision for
hope motivated the Frankfort School to care deeply about ethics and well-being throughout the World
Wars and later. n43 While our hauntings may be cause for concern, while they may inspire in us anything but hope, a
consistent critical stance against white supremacy requires just the hope Bloch described. In order
to do that, we must do more lawyering, more speaking, more writing, more marching, and
more learning. White supremacy's proponents are busy at this work. Challenging anti-
blackness requires the same. Negativity or disengagement cannot sustain struggle. Far from
Nie-tzsche's positive politics of negation, which have their place, what we need now is an orientation toward hope. Let that be
the strategy, even if we may quibble about tactics. v. Conclusion Nat Turner haunts us. n44 Gabriel Prosser
haunts us. n45 Medgar Evers n46 and Emmett Till n47 haunt us. Trayvon Martin haunts us. n48 Michael Brown haunts [*1407] us.
n49 Eric Garner haunts us. n50 What haunts us more is the specter of white supremacy that enabled these tragic events. In order to
engage a world structured by anti-blackness, to engage a legal system that seems determined through many of its most important
actors to attack, disempower, and disenfran-chise people of color, to engage a political system built on a foundation of dead black
bodies, we must, with nary a bat of the eye, ask what
are we to do with the ghosts of white supremacy? n51
We must ask this question not because there is one answer, not because the solution is easy,
not because the end is near, but instead precisely because the end is far. We are a long way
from justice. We are a long way from peace. We are a long way from recognizing our connections to each other, to
our role in the struggle for equality and the ways in which we hinder that struggle's success. n52 The ghosts [*1408] of white
supremacy must be addressed, must be confronted, no matter how fleeting and ineffectual such psychic engagement may be. n53
Trying is the redress to pessimism's affront to an ethic of hope.

Political hope is key even if it fails – collective mobilization is key to

individual spiritual survival
Davis 16 (Angela, We Have to Talk about Systemic Change, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle:
Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, Kindle Edition) RR Jr

Well, I don’t think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute
necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect. What has kept me going has been the development of new modes of
community. I don’t know whether I would have survived had not movements survived, had not communities of

resistance, communities of struggle. So whatever I’m doing I always feel myself directly connected to those communities and I think that this is an era where

we have to encourage that sense of community particularly at a time when neoliberalism

attempts to force people to think of themselves only in individual terms and not in collective terms. It is in
collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.

Pessimism is ahistorical and hope is good

Kennedy 14 (Randall L. Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at the Harvard
Law School. Kennedy focuses research on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions
in American life. Kennedy attended Princeton University (A.B., 1977) and the University of
Oxford, (Rhodes Scholar) and Yale Law School (J.D., 1982). "Black America's Promised Land:
Why I Am Still a Racial Optimist" – American Prospect – Fall http://prospect.org/article/black-
americas-promised-land-why-i-am-still-racial-optimist)//rc//gene
Beneath the malaise is a deep current of racial pessimism that has a long history in American
and African American thought. Pessimists believe that racial harmony predicated on fairness is
not part of the American future. They posit that the United States will not overcome its tragic racial
past. They maintain that blacks are not and cannot become members of the American family (even with a black family occupying the White House).
They believe that the United States is a white nation that will always be governed on behalf of white folk. For pessimists, the Obama
presidency is no sign of racial transcendence; to the contrary, it is a demonstration of the
intractability of American pigmentocracy. For them, the Obama ascendancy shows that in order to rise to the top of American
politics, a black politician must be willing to forgo substantively challenging the racial status quo (though he is allowed to cavil about it rhetorically). For
them, the Obama administration simply mirrors the racial diversification of an existing order in which a relatively small sector of upper-crust blacks
prosper while the condition of the black masses stagnates or deteriorates—the consequence of a misbegotten theory of racial trickle-down. For them,
the Obama era is littered with bitter incongruity: While a black man is commander-in-chief, Michael Brown and thousands like him are stalked,
harassed, brutalized, and occasionally killed in Ferguson-like locales across America. The pedigree of black racial pessimism is impressive. In its ranks
one finds such figures as Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Randall Robinson, and the
extraordinary W.E.B. Du Bois. One encounters Frederick Douglass declaring in 1847, “I cannot have any love for this country … or for its Constitution. I
desire to see its overthrow as speedily as possible, and its Constitution shriveled in a thousand fragments.” In that tradition, one also finds Derrick Bell,
professor of law at Harvard, teaching in the 1990s that the United States is irredeemably imprisoned by its past, that “racism is an integral, permanent,
and indestructible component of this society,” and that “black people will never gain full equality in this country.” The tradition of black racial pessimism
has its white counterpart. According to Thomas Jefferson, “The two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.” Alexis de Tocqueville
doubted that “the white and black races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing,” but believed “the difficulty to be still greater in the United
States than elsewhere.” According to Abraham Lincoln, differences between blacks and whites “will forever forbid the two races living together on terms
pessimists, black and white, have not been the only influence on American
of social and political equality.” But the
thought about the prospects for racial progress. Arrayed against them are optimists who contend
that blacks are (or can become) members of the American family and insist that racial harmony
bottomed on fairness is attainable. This, in fact, has been the predominant tradition among blacks.
Its adherents include Booker T. Washington, Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Jackson, and John Lewis (joined by
whites such as the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton).
The most memorable spokesman for the optimistic tradition was Martin Luther King Jr. On April
3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, he told his followers to take heart because he knew that,
eventually, they would overcome the obstacles they faced. He knew this because he had “been
to the mountaintop” and glimpsed the Promised Land, though he might not make it there himself. King was vague, however, about the
Promised Land’s boundaries and topography. He had famously spoken of a nation where individuals will be
judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Yet that formulation is popular partly
because it is open to contending interpretations. Is it a condemnation of all racial distinctions? Or is it a condemnation only of invidious racial
distinctions? Is it meant to posit a rule of non-discrimination that should go into effect immediately even at the cost of barring efforts to rectify past racial
wrongdoing? Or is it meant to posit a rule of nondiscrimination that should go into effect only after the consequences of past wrongdoings have been
ameliorated? These questions
underlie the debate that has been raging for decades over competing
conceptions of the racial Promised Land. In one conception, the Promised Land is a society henceforth substantially free of
intentional racial discrimination in major domains of the public sphere. In this society, no effort is made to rectify the oppressive consequences of past
racial misconduct because, it is argued, trying to do so is futile, unfair to those innocent of past wrongdoing, and conducive to the perpetuation of race-
mindedness. This view has been propounded vigorously in the legal writings of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, mainly in critiques of
affirmative action. Chief Justice John Roberts, also a champion of this view, expressed it epigrammatically when, abjuring a race-conscious plan for
school integration, he quipped that the best way to stop racial discrimination is to stop racially discriminating—no matter whether the aim is to assist or
oppress a vulnerable group. Under this conception, we enter the racial Promised Land when racial discrimination is a negligible feature of social life,
even if the vestiges of racial subordination in the past are evident and consequential. Let’s call this model of racial justice the conservative conception
of the racial Promised Land. The progressive conception of the racial Promised Land is more ambitious. It
envisions two essential landmarks. The first is the requirement of the conservatives that
invidious racial discrimination be reduced to a negligible influence. The second condition is that
the vestiges of past discrimination—the racial gaps that so dramatically scar the social
landscape—be erased. Pursuant to the progressive perspective, we will reach the racial Promised Land when
blackness is no longer a uniform that, holding other variables steady, signals that its wearer
bears a notably higher risk than whites of premature death, impoverishment, unemployment,
incarceration, victimization by criminality, homelessness, police harassment, and similar
afflictions. Today, one can go into a hospital, visit the ward for newborns, and make accurate
estimates about the babies’ varying life trajectories on the basis of their racial identities. When
accurate estimates of this sort are no longer possible, progressives contend, we will have
reached the racial Promised Land. Some observers insist that what I have dubbed the conservative model of the racial
Promised Land is at hand or at least nearby. They maintain that, for the most part, we have overcome. They proclaim “Mission
Accomplished” or at least mission near-accomplished. This is mistaken. Intentional invidious racial
discrimination constitutes a force in American life that is far from negligible . It is a substantial headwind that
blacks and other racial minorities face in many key areas, including housing, finance, employment, criminal justice, electoral politics, and markets for
romance and marriage. There is a library of empirical literature establishing this fact beyond sensible controversy—studies based on similarly situated
but racially disparate testers who meet different fates when they seek to buy automobiles, rent housing, get jobs, or obtain loans. And then there are
the lessons of everyday life that suggest forcefully that in crucial interactions with police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other authorities armed with
discretion, outcomes differ, all too often, depending on the race of the person being assessed. It is difficult to imagine that the dismal train of events
surrounding the deaths of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown would have been identical had they been white. Even more distant is the progressive
conception of the racial Promised Land. In practically every key index of well-being, a chasm separates the circumstances in which whites and blacks
typically find themselves. The income gap separating blacks and whites widened from about $19,000 in the late 1960s to about $27,000 in 2011. The
wealth gap increased from $75,000 in 1984 to $85,000 in 2011. Blacks are nearly three times more likely to live in deep poverty than whites. Black men
We have failed to reach the racial Promised
are six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. And on. And on. And on.
Land in either its conservative or its progressive definition. With respect to both of these destinations, our society
remains far afield. Still, I put myself in the optimistic camp. Why? I am hopeful first and foremost
because of the predominant trajectory of African Americans—a history that John Hope
Franklin framed with the apt title From Slavery to Freedom. In 1860, four million African Americans were
enslaved while another half-million were free but devoid of fundamental rights in many of the jurisdictions where they lived. In 1860, the very
term “African American” was something of an oxymoron because the Supreme Court had ruled
in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no black, free or enslaved, could be a citizen of the United States.
But within a decade, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment
(1868) established birthright citizenship and required all states to accord all persons due process and equal protection
of the laws, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited states from withholding the right to vote on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. People who had been sold on the
auction block as youngsters helped to govern their locales as public officials when they were
adults. In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi resigned from the United States Senate to join the Confederate States of America, which he led as
president. In 1870, Hiram Revels, the first black member of Congress, occupied the seat that Davis
abandoned. The First Reconstruction was overwhelmed by a devastating white supremacist
reaction. But the most fundamental reforms it established proved resilient, providing the
basis for a Second Reconstruction from the 1950s to the 1970s. During that period, too,
the distance traveled by blacks was astonishing. In 1950, segregation was deemed to be consistent with federal
constitutional equal protection. No federal law prevented proprietors of hotels, restaurants, and other privately owned public accommodations from
engaging in racial discrimination. No federal law prohibited private employers from discriminating on a racial basis against applicants for jobs or current
employees. No federal law effectively counteracted racial disenfranchisement. No federal law outlawed racial discrimination in private housing
The 1964 Civil Rights Act
transactions. In contrast, by 1970 federal constitutional law thoroughly repudiated the lie of separate but equal.
forbade racial discrimination in privately owned places of public accommodation and many
areas of private employment. The 1965 Voting Rights Act provided the basis for strong
prophylactic action against racial exclusion at the ballot box. The 1968 Fair Housing Act addressed
racial exclusion in a market that had been zealously insulated against federal regulation. None
of these interventions were wholly successful. All were compromised. All occasioned
backlash. But the racial situation in 1970 and afterwards was dramatically better than
what it had been in 1950 and before. Today, at a moment when progress has stalled, we need
to recall how dramatically and unexpectedly conditions sometimes change. Until recently who’d-
a thunk it possible for the president to be an African American? In the 1980s, I used to ask law students how long
affirmative action programs ought to last. Champions of such programs, seeking to ensure their longevity, would say that affirmative action would be
needed until the country elected a black president. That reply would elicit appreciative laughter as listeners supposed that that formula would preserve
along came Barack Obama and with him the remark that soon
affirmative action for at least a century. But then
became a cliché: “I never thought that I’d live to see a black president.” Obama’s election is much more than a
monument to one politician’s talent and good fortune. Changes in public attitudes, law, and custom have clearly
elevated the fortunes of African Americans as individuals and black America as a collectivity.
Hard facts may give plausibility to the pessimistic tradition, but they make the optimistic tradition
compelling. Despite the many wrongs that remain to be righted, blacks in America confront
fewer racist impediments now than ever before in the history of the United States. The courage,
intelligence, persistence, idealism, and sacrifice of Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks, Julian
Bond and Bob Moses, Medgar Evers and Bayard Rustin, Viola Liuzzo and Vernon Dahmer—
and countless other tribunes for racial justice—have not been expended for naught. The facts of day-to-
day life allow blacks to sing more confidently than ever before James Weldon Johnson’s magnificent hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to
as the Black National Anthem: Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
optimism involves more than a sociological
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on till victory is won. My
prediction. I am also swayed by my intuition regarding which of these hypotheses—the
pessimistic or the optimistic—will do the most good. Hope is a vital nutrient for effort; without it,
there is no prospect for achievement. The belief that we can overcome makes more realistic the
possibility that we shall overcome. Optimism gives buoyancy to thinking that might
otherwise degenerate into nihilism, encourages solidarity in those who might otherwise
be satisfied by purely selfish indulgence, invites strategic planning that can usefully
harness what might otherwise be impotent indignation, and inspires efforts that might
otherwise be avoided due to fatalism.
 AT: Political Already Ceded
Political progress happens through institutions---recognizing that doesn’t
produce complacency---building politics is far more valuable than
theorizing about anti-institutional black agency
Reed 15 – professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania
(Adolph, “The James Brown Theory of Black Liberation,”
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/adolph-reed-black-liberation-django-lincoln-selma-glory/)
What approach to political action can follow from the contention that the Thirteenth
Amendment was empty window dressing and that black slaves’ emancipation was like James Brown’s
backward, Nixonian ideal of self-help?∂ The perspective that shrivels the scope of black political
concern to expressing racial “agency” similarly diminishes the significance of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the US Supreme Court’s 1944 Smith v. Allwright
decision that outlawed the infamous “white primary” (and exponentially increased black
voting in the South), the 1954 Brown decision, 1964 Civil Rights law, and 1965 Voting
Rights Act as if all were in some twisted way racially inauthentic because acknowledging
their significance as moments in the struggle for social justice detracts from the James Brown
Theory of Black Liberation.∂ That ideological commitment is what impelled Ava DuVernay to make the seemingly gratuitous
move of falsifying Martin Luther King Jr’s relationship with the Johnson administration around the Selma campaign: “I wasn’t
interested in making a white savior movie,” she replied to critics, “I was interested in making a movie centered on the people of
Selma.”∂ Of course, she doesn’t do the latter either, but her commitment to not “making a white savior movie” also led her to
misconstrue the tension between the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference in Selma, which stemmed precisely from the SNCC activists’ objection that King and his organization maintained secret,
The psychobabbling bromides that elevate
backdoor dealings with the Johnson administration.∂
recognition and celebration of black agency rest on an ideological perspective that in
practical terms rejects effective black political action in favor of expressive display . It is
the worldview of an element of the contemporary black professional stratum anchored in
the academy, blogosphere, and the world of mass media chat whose standing in public life is bound up
with establishing a professional authority in speaking for the race. This is the
occupational niche of the so-called black public intellectuals.∂ The torrent of faddish
chattering-class blather and trivial debate sparked by Michael Eric Dyson’s recent attack on Cornel West in the
New Republic illustrates the utter fatuity of this domain, as if there were any reason to care
about a squabble between two freelance Racial Voices with no constituency or links to radical
institutions between them.∂ In an illustration of what this game is all about, the Nation, sensing space for competing brands,
projected some Alternative Black Voices into this circus of spurious racial representation in a piece entitled “6 Scholars Who Are
‘Reimagining Black Politics.’ ”∂ Twenty years practically to the week before publication of Dyson’s essay, I took stock of what was
then the newly confected category of the Black Public Intellectual and noted that the notion’s definitive
irony was that its avatars were quite specifically not
organically rooted in any dynamic political activity
and in fact emerged only after opportunities for real connection to political movements had
disappeared. Nor were the “public intellectuals” connected to any particular strain of scholarship or criticism.∂ Rather,
their status was no more than a posture and a brand. By the early 2000s, it was possible
to see young people entering doctoral programs with their sights on the academy as a
venue for pursuing careers as public intellectuals — i.e. among the free-floating racial commentariat. And that was
before the explosion of the blogosphere and Twitterverse, which have exponentially increased both avenues for realizing such
But the politics enacted in those venues is by and
aspirations and the numbers of people pursuing them.∂
large an ersatz politics, and the controversies that sustain them are by and large
ephemeral, vacant bullshit — the “feud” between Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks, whether
black people were dissed because Selma wasn’t nominated for/didn’t win enough Oscars, and so on.∂
In the context of this sort of non-stop idiotic bread and circuses — and this may be an apt moment to
remind that the blogosphere is open to any fool with a computer and Internet access — it is good to reflect on one of
the crucial moments in American history when the linking of social and political forces
presented a clear choice between egalitarian and inegalitarian interests, and masses of
black people joined with others to strike a consequential blow for social justice and to
wipe the scourge of slavery from the United States.∂ No, it wasn’t a final victory over
inequality — it didn’t usher in a utopian order, and the greatest promises opened by the triumph
were unfulfilled or largely undone. But it was one of the most important victories that
egalitarian forces have won, along with those of the twentieth-century labor, civil rights,
and women’s movements, and it is worth reflecting on it and the ways it changed the
country for the better .∂ That struggle against the slaveholders’ insurrection, along with those latter movements, also
underscores the fact that the path to winning the kind of just world to which a left should aspire
requires building a politics that seeks, as the old saying goes, to unite the many to defeat the
few. Any other focus is either unserious or retrograde.
 AT: Realism Bad
Realism is true---that takes out any root cause claims, external impacts,
and justifies our epistemology
de Araujo, 14 (professor for Ethics at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo, “Moral Enhancement and
Political Realism,” Journal of Evolution and Technology  24(2): 29-43))

moral enhancement theorists argue  a society of morally enhanced individuals would be in

Some  that   

a better position to cope with important problems that humankind is likely to face in  the future such as, for instance, the

climate change
threats posed by  terrorist attacks catastrophic wars. The assumption here is
, grand scale  , or the risk of     quite

our inability to cope successfully with these problems stems mainly from a sort of deficit in
simple: 

human beings’ moral motivation If human beings were morally better there .   – if we had enhanced moral dispositions – 

would be fewer wars, less terrorism, and more willingness to save our environment.  Although simple

this assumption is
and attractive,  false At the root of threats to the survival of humankind in the
, as I intend to show,  . 

future is not a deficit in our moral dispositions but the endurance of an old political , 

arrangement that prevents the pursuit of shared goals on a collective basis.  The political arrangement I have in mind here is the

international system of states. In my analysis of the political implications of moral enhancement, I intend to concentrate my attention only on the supposition that we could avoid major wars in the future by making individuals morally better. I do not intend to discuss

the threats posed by climate change, or by terrorism, although some human enhancement theorists also seek to cover these topics. I will explain, in the course of my analysis, a conceptual distinction between “human nature realism” and “structural realism,” well-

known in the field of international relations theory. Thomas Douglas seems to have been among the first to explore the idea of “moral enhancement” as a new form of human enhancement. He certainly helped to kick off the current phase of the debate. In a paper

published in 2008, Douglas suggests that in the “future people might use biomedical technology to morally enhance themselves.” Douglas characterizes moral enhancement in terms of the acquisition of “morally better motives” (Douglas 2008, 229). Mark Walker, in

a paper published in 2009, suggests a similar idea. He characterizes moral enhancement in terms of improved moral dispositions or “genetic virtues”: The Genetic Virtue Program (GVP) is a proposal for influencing our moral nature through biology, that is, it is an

alternate yet complementary means by which ethics and ethicists might contribute to the task of making our lives and world a better place. The basic idea is simple enough: genes influence human behavior, so altering the genes of individuals may alter the influence

genes exert on behavior. (Walker 2009, 27–28) Walker does not argue in favor of any specific moral theory, such as, for instance, virtue ethics. Whether one endorses a deontological or a utilitarian approach to ethics, he argues, the concept of virtue is relevant to

the extent that virtues motivate us either to do the right thing or to maximize the good (Walker 2009, 35). Moral enhancement theory, however, does not reduce the ethical debate to the problem of moral dispositions. Morality also concerns, to a large extent,

questions about reasons for action. And moral enhancement, most certainly, will not improve our moral beliefs; neither could it be used to settle moral disagreements. This seems to have led some authors to criticize the moral enhancement idea on the ground that it

neglects the cognitive side of our moral behavior. Robert Sparrow, for instance, argues that, from a Kantian point of view, moral enhancement would have to provide us with better moral beliefs rather than enhanced moral motivation (Sparrow 2014, 25; see also

Many people, across different countries, already share

Agar 2010, 74). Yet, it seems to me that this objection misses the point of the moral enhancement idea.

moral beliefs relating to the wrongness of harming or killing other people arbitrarily,
, for instance,   or to the moral

requirement to help people in need. They may share moral beliefs while not sharing the same reasons for these beliefs, or perhaps even not being able to articulate the beliefs in the conceptual framework of a moral theory (Blackford 2010, 83). But although they

share some moral beliefs, in some circumstances they may lack the appropriate motivation to act accordingly. Moral enhancement, thus, aims at improving moral motivation, and leaves open the question as to how to improve our moral judgments. In a recent paper,

published in The Journal of Medical Ethics, neuroscientist Molly Crockett reports the state of the art in the still very embryonic field of moral enhancement. She points out, for example, that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) citalopram seems to

increase harm aversion. There is, moreover, some evidence that this substance may be effective in the treatment of specific types of aggressive behavior. Like Douglas, Crockett emphasizes that moral enhancement should aim at individuals’ moral motives

studies suggest that willingness to

(Crockett 2014; see also Spence 2008; Terbeck et al. 2013). Another substance that is frequently mentioned in the moral enhancement literature is oxytocin. Some 

cooperate with other people may be enhanced by an increase in the levels of

,and to trust unknown prospective cooperators, 

oxytoci n in the organism (Zak 2008, 2011; Zak and Kugler 2011; Persson and Savulescu 2012, 118–119). Oxytocin has also been reported to be “associated with the subjective experience of empathy” (Zak 2011, 55; Zak and Kugler 2011, 144). The

question I would like to examine now concerns the supposition that moral enhancement – comprehended in these terms and assuming for the sake of argument that, some day, it might become effective and safe – may also help us in coping with the threat of

The assumption that there is a relationship between,

devastating wars in the future.  threats to the survival of  on the one hand, 

humankind and a sort of “deficit” in our moral dispositions is c made by moral

, on the other,  learly   some 

enhancements theorists . Douglas, for instance, argues that “according to many plausible theories, some of the world’s most important problems — such as developing world poverty, climate change and war — can be

attributed to these moral deficits” (2008, 230). Walker, in a similar vein, writes argued, instead, for the re-engineering of world politics. Both positions, as I intend to show, are wrong in assuming that the “dilemma” results from the weakness of our spontaneous moral

both positions are correct in recognizing the real

dispositions in the face of the unprecedented technological achievements of our time. On the other hand, 

possibility of global catastrophes resulting from the malevolent use of, for

instance, biotechnology or nuclear capabilities.  The supposition that individuals’ unwillingness to cooperate with each other, even when they would be better-off by choosing

to cooperate, results from a sort of deficit of dispositions such as altruism, empathy, and benevolence has been at the core of some important political theories. This idea is an important assumption in the works of early modern political realists such as Machiavelli

and Thomas Hobbes. It was also later endorsed by some well-known authors writing about the origins of war in the first half of the twentieth century. It was then believed, as Sigmund Freud suggested in a text from 1932, that the main cause of wars is a human

Freud went as far as to suggest that human beings have an

tendency to “hatred and destruction” (in German: ein Trieb zum Hassen und Vernichtung). 

ingrained “inclination” to “aggression” and “destruction”  (Aggressionstrieb, Aggressionsneigung, and Destruktionstrieb), and that this inclination has a “good biological

attempt to employ Freud’s conception of human

basis” (biologisch wohl begründet) (Freud 1999, 20–24; see also Freud 1950; Forbes 1984; Pick 1993, 211–227; Medoff 2009). The 

nature in understanding international relations has recently been resumed , for instance by Kurt Jacobsen in a paper entitled “Why

Freud Matters: Psychoanalysis and International Relations Revisited,” published in 2013. Morgenthau himself was deeply influenced by Freud’s speculations on the origins of war.1 Early in the 1930s, Morgenthau wrote an essay called “On the Origin of the Political

from the Nature of Human Beings” (Über die Herkunft des Politischen aus dem Wesen des Menschen), which contains several references to Freud’s theory about the human propensity to aggression.2 Morgenthau’s most influential book, Politics among Nations:

The Struggle for Power and Peace, first published in 1948 and then successively revised and edited, is still considered a landmark work in the tradition of political realism. According to Morgenthau, politics is governed by laws that have their origin in human nature:
“Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature” (Morgenthau 2006, 4). Just like human enhancement theorists, Morgenthau also takes for granted that human nature has not changed

over recent millennia: “Human nature, in which the laws of politics have their roots, has not changed since the classical philosophies of China, India, and Greece endeavored to discover these laws” (Morgenthau 2006, 4). And since, for Morgenthau, human nature

prompts human beings to act selfishly, rather than cooperatively, political leaders will sometimes favor conflict over cooperation, unless some superior power compels them to act otherwise. Now, this is exactly what happens in the domain of international relations.

For in the international sphere there is not a supranational institution with the real power to prevent states from pursuing means of self-defense. The acquisition of means of self-defense, however, is frequently perceived by other states as a threat to their own

security. This leads to the security dilemma and the possibility of war. As Morgenthau put the problem in an article published in 1967: “The actions of states are determined not by moral principles and legal commitments but by considerations of interest and power”

(1967, 3). Because Morgenthau and early modern political philosophers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes defended political realism on the grounds provided by a specific conception human nature, their version of political realism has been frequently called “human

nature realism.” The literature on human nature realism has become quite extensive (Speer 1968; Booth 1991; Freyberg-Inan 2003; Kaufman 2006; Molloy 2006, 82–85; Craig 2007; Scheuerman 2007, 2010, 2012; Schuett 2007; Neascu 2009; Behr 2010, 210–225;

Brown 2011; Jütersonke 2012). It is not my intention here to present a fully-fledged account of the tradition of human nature realism, but rather to emphasize the extent to which some moral enhancement theorists, in their description of some of the gloomy scenarios

humankind is likely to face in the future, implicitly endorse this kind of political realism. Indeed, like human nature realists, moral enhancement theorists assume that human nature has not changed over the last millennia, and that violence and lack of cooperation in

the international sphere result chiefly from human nature’s limited inclination to pursue morally desirable goals. One may, of course, criticize the human enhancement project by rejecting the assumption that conflict and violence in the international domain should be

Sparrow correctly argues that “structural issues,” rather

explained by means of a theory about human nature. In a reply to Savulescu and Persson, 

than human nature, constitute the main factor underlying political conflicts  (Sparrow 2014, 29). But he does not explain what exactly

these “structural issues” are, as I intend to do later. Sparrow is right in rejecting the human nature theory underlying the human enhancement project. But this underlying assumption, in my view, is not trivially false or simply “ludicrous,” as he suggests. Human nature

realism has been implicitly or explicitly endorsed by leading political philosophers ever since Thucydides speculated on the origins of war in antiquity (Freyberg-Inan 2003, 23–36). True, it might be objected that “human nature realism,” as it was defended by

Morgenthau and earlier political philosophers, relied upon a metaphysical or psychoanalytical conception of human nature, a conception that, actually, did not have the support of any serious scientific investigation (Smith 1983, 167). Yet, over the last few years

there has been much empirical research in fields such as developmental psychology and evolutionary biology that apparently gives some support to the realist claim. Some of these studies suggest that an inclination to aggression and conflict has its origins in our

evolutionary history. This idea, then, has recently led some authors to resume “human nature realism” on new foundations, devoid of the metaphysical assumptions of the early realists, and entirely grounded in empirical research. Indeed, some recent works in the

field of international relations theory already seek to call attention to evolutionary biology as a possible new start for political realism. This point is clearly made, for instance, by Bradley Thayer, who published in 2004 a book called Darwin and International Relations:

On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict. And in a paper published in 2000, he affirms the following: Evolutionary theory provides a stronger foundation for realism because it is based on science, not on theology or metaphysics. I use the theory to

explain two human traits: egoism and domination. I submit that the egoistic and dominating behavior of individuals, which is commonly described as “realist,” is a product of the evolutionary process. I focus on these two traits because they are critical components of

any realist argument in explaining international politics. (Thayer 2000, 125; see also Thayer 2004) Thayer basically argues that a tendency to egoism and domination stems from human evolutionary history. The predominance of conflict and competition in the

domain of international politics, he argues, is a reflex of dispositions that can now be proved to be part of our evolved human nature in a way that Morgenthau and other earlier political philosophers could not have established in their own time. Now, what some

moral enhancement theorists propose is a direct intervention in our “evolved limited moral psychology” as a means to make us “fit” to cope with some possible devastating consequences from the predominance of conflict and competition in the domain of

international politics (Persson and Savulescu 2010, 664). Moral enhancement theorists comprehend the nature of war and conflicts, especially those conflicts that humankind is likely to face in the future, as the result of human beings’ limited moral motivations.

Compared to supporters of human nature realism, however, moral enhancement theorists are less skeptical about the prospect of our taming human beings’ proclivity to do evil. For our knowledge in fields such as neurology and pharmacology does already enable

the question
us to enhance people’s performance in a variety of activities, and there seems to be no reason to assume it will not enable us to enhance people morally in the future. But  whether moral
, of course, is 

enhancement will  improve the prospect of our coping successfully with

also    survival of
 some major threats to the

humankind to reduce evil in the world

, as Savulescu and Persson propose, or  , as proposed by Walker. V. The point to which I would next like to call attention is that “human nature realism” –

which is implicitly presupposed by some moral enhancement theorists – has been much criticized over the last decades within the tradition of political realism itself. “Structural realism,” unlike “human nature realism,” does not seek to derive a theory about conflicts

and violence in the context of international relations from a theory of the moral shortcomings of human nature. Structural realism was originally proposed by Kenneth Waltz in Man, the State and War, published in 1959, and then later in another book called Theory of

International Politics, published in 1979. In both works, Waltz seeks to avoid committing himself to any specific conception of human nature (Waltz 2001, x–xi). Waltz’s thesis is that the thrust of the political realism doctrine can be retained without our having to

commit ourselves to any theory about the shortcomings of human nature. What is relevant for our understanding of international politics is, instead, our understanding of the “structure” of the international system of states (Waltz 1986). John Mearsheimer, too, is an

important contemporary advocate of political realism. Although he seeks to distance himself from some ideas defended by Waltz, he also rejects human nature realism and, like Waltz, refers to himself as a supporter of “structural realism” (Mearsheimer 2001, 20).

states are the only relevant actors 

One of the basic tenets of political realism (whether “human nature realism” or “structural realism”) is, first, that the   main, if not the  ,  in the context of international

and
relations;  compete for power 
 second, that states  Moral considerations in the international arena.   in international affairs, according to

are secondary when set against the state’s primary goal namely its own security and
realists,    , 

survival . But while human nature realists such as Morgenthau explain the struggle for power as a result of human beings’ natural inclinations, structural realists like Waltz and Mearsheimer argue that conflicts in the international arena do not stem

it is this structure that compels

from human nature, but from the very “structure” of the international system of states (Mearsheimer 2001, 18). According to Waltz and Mearsheimer, 

individuals to act as they do in the domain of international affairs.  its And one distinguishing feature of the international system of states is 

“anarchical structure,” It means that each individual

 i.e. the lack of a central government analogous to the central governments that exist in the context of domestic politics. 

state is responsible for its own integrity and survival In the absence of a superior authority .  , over and above

political leaders  feel compelled to favor security over morality

the power of each sovereign state,  often  , even if, all other things being considered, they

would naturally be more inclined to trust and to cooperate with political leaders of other states. On the other hand, when political leaders do trust and cooperate with other states, it is not necessarily their benevolent nature that motivates them to be cooperative and

trustworthy, but, again, it is the structure of the system of states that compels them. The concept of human nature, as we can see, does not play a decisive role here. Because Waltz and Mearsheimer depart from “human nature realism,” their version of political

even if human beings turn out to become morally enhanced 

realism has also sometimes been called “neo-realism” (Booth 1991, 533). Thus,    in the

humankind may still have to face the same scary scenarios 

future,  This is likely described by some moral enhancement theorists. 

to happen if, indeed human beings remain compelled to cooperate 

,  within the present structure of the system of states. Consider, for instance, the

incident with a Norwegian weather rocket in January 1995. Russian radars detected a missile that was initially suspected of being on its way to reach Moscow in five minutes. All levels of Russian military defense were immediately put on alert for a possible

imminent attack and massive retaliation. It is reported that for the first time in history a Russian president had before him, ready to be used, the “nuclear briefcase” from which the permission to launch nuclear weapons is issued. And that happened when the Cold

War was already supposed to be over! In the event, it was realized that the rocket was leaving Russian territory and Boris Yeltsin did not have to enter the history books as the man who started the third world war by mistake (Cirincione 2008, 382).3

under the crushing pressure of having to decide in such a short time, and on the basis of
But 

unreliable information, whether or not to retaliate, even a morally enhanced Yeltsin might have
given orders to launch a devastating nuclear response in spite of strong moral  – and that 
dispositions to the contrary.  Writing for The Guardian on the basis of recently declassified documents, Rupert Myers reports further incidents similar to the one of 1995. He suggests that as more states strive

What has to be changed is not human moral

to acquire nuclear capability, the danger of a major nuclear accident is likely to increase (Myers 2014).  , therefore, 

dispositions but the very structure of the political international system of states
,   within which we currently live.

moral
As far as major threats to the survival of humankind are concerned, moral enhancement might play an important role in the future only to the extent that it will help humankind to change the structure of the system of states. While 

enhancement will not

 may possibly have desirable results in some areas of human cooperation that do not badly threaten our security – such as donating food, medicine, and money to poorer countries – it 

motivate political leaders to dismantle their nuclear weapons Neither will it deter other . 

political leaders from pursuing nuclear capability at any rate not as long as the structure , 

of international politics compels them to see prospective cooperators in the present as

possible enemies in the future.  The idea of a “structure” should not be understood here in metaphysical terms, as though it mysteriously existed in a transcendent world and had the magical power of

in the absence of the kind of

determining leaders’ decisions in this world. The word “structure” denotes merely a political arrangement in which there are no powerful law-enforcing institutions. And 

security that law-enforcing institutions have the force to create political leaders will fail to ,  often 

cooperate, and engage in   wars in those areas that are critical to their 
 occasionally  survival
 conflicts and  ,  security and  . Given the

this is likely to continue to happen even if,

structure of international politics and the basic goal of survival,  leaders become less ,   in the future, political 

egoistic and power-seeking  through moral enhancement. On the other hand, since the structure of the international system of states is itself another human institution, there is no reason to suppose that it

cannot ever be changed. If people become morally enhanced in the future they may possibly feel more strongly motivated to change the structure of the system of states, or perhaps even feel inclined to abolish it altogether. In my view,

addressing major threats to the survival of humankind in the future by means

however, 

of bioengineering is unlikely to yield the expected results, so long as moral enhancement is

 

pursued within the present framework of the international system of states.

 AT: Optimism Bad
Optimism is good for black health – stats prove generational
advancements which takes out their time is non-linear arguments
Graham 18 (Carol Graham; Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a
College Park Professor at the University of Maryland, and a Senior Scientist at Gallup, served
as Vice President and Director of Governance Studies at Brookings, A.B. from Princeton
University, an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a
Ph.D. from Oxford University; 1/30/18; “Why are black poor Americans more optimistic than
white ones?”; https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-are-black-poor-americans-more-
optimistic-than-white-ones/; accessed 2/20/19)
America has seen a dramatic increase in the number of so-called “deaths of despair”. Caused by opioid addiction, alcohol or drug
overdose and suicide, these deaths have hit middle-aged white people without a college education particularly hard. The trend is
extensive enough to have driven up the overall mortality rate, with the U.S. in the unusual position of being a rich country where life
expectancy is falling rather than going up. Amid
all this is a perhaps unexpected reality—the people who
are most optimistic about their future are the most disadvantaged: poor black Americans, who
are even slightly more optimistic than rich black people. And by poor, we mean a household of four earning less than $24,000
(£16,800) per year, which is effectively the official U.S. poverty line. Very different outlooks are revealed when black and white
people are asked about their wellbeing. To measure the differences, we use an 11-point scale, where 0 is desperate and 10 is very
optimistic.On this scale, black
people are, on average, 1.1 points higher on the optimism scale than white
people are. Black people on average score above 8, while the average for white people is 7. The gap across poor
black people and poor white people is even larger, at 1.4 points. That is a significant gulf—greater than the difference between rich
The starkest
and poor people, which is 0.6 points. The average score for rich people is 7.5, while for poor people it is 6.9.
disparity is found in the detail that poor black people are almost three times as likely to be a
point higher on the optimism scale than poor white people. And poor black people are half as
likely to report experiencing stress the previous day than poor white people. Desperation,
stress, and worry are closely linked to a greater risk of premature death, regardless of income or race.
People with low levels of optimism and high levels of stress and worry are more likely to die
from deaths of despair, or to live in areas with high levels of such deaths. The link is strongest for poor
white people without a college education, especially those who live in rural areas. Of course, this relationship can run both ways.
Desperation can lead to premature death,but living in an area where many such deaths occur can itself be a potential cause of lack
of hope, stress, and worry. The
link between optimism and longevity is strong. Among Americans
born between 1935 and 1945, those who reported higher levels of optimism as young adults
were much more likely to be alive in 2015 than less optimistic people. We found that 86 percent of
pessimists died by 2015, while only 77 percent of the optimists did. The explanations for these trends are
complex, but economics and ambition play a part. For many years, blue-collar white people had some advantages over minorities,
but they are now among the most disaffected parts of society and the most vulnerable to deaths of despair. Crucially, they are much
more likely to report that their lives are worse than those of their parents and, in terms of stable employment and status, that is often
the case. In contrast, black
and Hispanic people are more likely to report that their lives are better
than their parents’ lives. While disadvantage and discrimination still exist, minorities have been
making gradual progress in narrowing gaps with white people in terms of their education, wages, and
life expectancy. Some of this is because of concrete gains made by those communities. But much
of the improvement is due to the relative decline in the incomes and status of poor white people—a trend associated with the
hollowing-out of blue-collar jobs, which are decreasing in both number and stability at the same time as the market for high-skilled
labor continues to prosper and grow.
 AT: Libidinal Economy
Neurological, racial bias is flexible and determined by coalitional habit
forming in the brain---orienting groups around institutional change best
breaks down bias. This is offense because their theory rejects these
solutions.
Cikara and Van Bavel 15. (Mina Cikara is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and
Director of the Intergroup Neuroscience Lab at Harvard University. Her research examines the
conditions under which groups and individuals are denied social value, agency, and empathy.
Jay Van Bavel is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of the Social Perception
and Evaluation Laboratory at New York University. The Flexibility of Racial Bias: Research
suggests that racism is not hard wired, offering hope on one of America’s enduring problems.
June 2, 2015. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-flexibility-of-racial-bias/)
The city of Baltimore was rocked by protests and riots over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American man who died in police custody. Tragically, Gray’s death
was only one of a recent in a series of racially-charged, often violent, incidents. On April 4th, Walter Scott was fatally shot by a police officer after fleeing from a routine traffic
stop. On March 8th, Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members were caught on camera gleefully chanting, “There Will Never Be A N***** In SAE.” On March 1st, a homeless Black

Institutional and systemic racism

man was shot in broad daylight by a Los Angeles police officer. And these are not isolated incidents, of course.

reinforce discrimination in countless situations, including hiring, sentencing, housing, and even
mortgage lending. It would be easy to see in all this powerful evidence that racism is a
permanent fixture in America’s social fabric and even, perhaps, an inevitable aspect of human
nature. Indeed, the mere act of labeling others according to their age, gender, or race is a reflexive habit of the human mind. Social categories, like race, impact our
thinking quickly, often outside of our awareness. Extensive research has found that these implicit racial biases—

negative thoughts and feelings about people from other races—are automatic, pervasive, and
difficult to suppress. Neuroscientists have also explored racial prejudice by exposing people to images of faces while scanning their brains in fMRI machines.
Early studies found that when people viewed faces of another race, the amount of activity in the
amygdala—a small brain structure associated with experiencing emotions, including fear—was
associated with individual differences on implicit measures of racial bias. This work has led many to conclude that
racial biases might be part of a primitive—and possibly hard-wired—neural fear response to racial out-groups. There is little question that categories such

as race, gender, and age play a major role in shaping the biases and stereotypes that people bring to

bear in their judgments of others. However, research has shown that how people categorize
themselves may be just as fundamental to understanding prejudice as how they categorize
others. When people categorize themselves as part of a group, their self-concept shifts from the individual (“I”) to the collective level (“us”). People form groups rapidly and
favor members of their own group even when groups are formed on arbitrary grounds, such as the simple flip of a coin. These findings highlight the

remarkable ease with which humans form coalitions. Recent research confirms that coalition-
based preferences trump race-based preferences. For example, both Democrats and Republicans
favor the resumes of those affiliated with their political party much more than they favor those
who share their race. These coalition-based preferences remain powerful even in the absence of
the animosity present in electoral politics. Our research has shown that the simple act of placing
people on a mixed-race team can diminish their automatic racial bias. In a series of experiments, White
participants who were randomly placed on a mixed-race team—the Tigers or Lions—showed
little evidence of implicit racial bias. Merely belonging to a mixed-race team trigged positive
automatic associations with all of the members of their own group, irrespective of race. Being a
part of one of these seemingly trivial mixed-race groups produced similar effects on brain
activity—the amygdala responded to team membership rather than race. Taken together, these
studies indicate that momentary changes in group membership can override the influence of
race on the way we see, think about, and feel toward people who are different from ourselves.
Although these coalition-based distinctions might be the most basic building block of bias, they say little about the other factors that cause group conflict. Why do some groups
get ignored while others get attacked? Whenever we encounter a new person or group we are motivated to answer two questions as quickly as possible: “is this person a friend
or foe?” and “are they capable of enacting their intentions toward me?” In other words, once we have determined that someone is a member of an out-group, we need to
determine what kind? The nature of the relations between groups—are we cooperative, competitive, or neither?—and their relative status—do you have access to resources?—
largely determine the course of intergroup interactions. Groups that are seen as competitive with one’s interests, and capable of enacting their nasty intentions, are much more
likely to be targets of hostility than more benevolent (e.g., elderly) or powerless (e.g., homeless) groups. This is one reason why sports rivalries have such psychological
potency. For instance, fans of the Boston Red Sox are more likely to feel pleasure, and exhibit reward-related neural responses, at the misfortunes of the archrival New York
Yankees than other baseball teams (and vice versa)—especially in the midst of a tight playoff race. (How much fans take pleasure in the misfortunes of their rivals is also linked

Just as a particular person’s group membership can be

to how likely they would be to harm fans from the other team.)

flexible, so too are the relations between groups. Groups that have previously had cordial
relations may become rivals (and vice versa). Indeed, psychological and biological responses to
out-group members can change, depending on whether or not that out-group is perceived as threatening. For example, people exhibit greater
pleasure—they smile—in response to the misfortunes of stereotypically competitive groups (e.g., investment bankers); however, this malicious pleasure is reduced when you
provide participants with counter-stereotypic information (e.g., “investment bankers are working with small companies to help them weather the economic downturn).
Competition between “us” and “them” can even distort our judgments of distance, making threatening out-groups seem much closer than they really are. These distorted

all out-
perceptions can serve to amplify intergroup discrimination: the more different and distant “they” are, the easier it is to disrespect and harm them. Thus, not

groups are treated the same: some elicit indifference whereas others become targets of
antipathy. Stereotypically threatening groups are especially likely to be targeted with violence,
but those stereotypes can be tempered with other information. If perceptions of intergroup
relations can be changed, individuals may overcome hostility toward perceived foes and
become more responsive to one another’s grievances. The flexible nature of both group
membership and intergroup relations offers reason to be cautiously optimistic about the potential for
greater cooperation among groups in conflict (be they black versus white or citizens versus police). One strategy is to
bring multiple groups together around a common goal. For example, during the fiercely contested 2008 Democratic
presidential primary process, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters gave more money to strangers who supported the same primary candidate (compared to the rival
candidate). Two months later, after the Democratic National Convention, the supporters of both candidates coalesced around the party nominee—Barack Obama—and this bias

creating a sense of cohesion between two competitive groups can increase

disappeared. In fact, merely

empathy for the suffering of our rivals. These sorts of strategies can help reduce aggression toward
hostile out-groups, which is critical for creating more opportunities for constructive
dialogue addressing greater social injustices. Of course, instilling a sense of common identity and cooperation is extremely difficult
in entrenched intergroup conflicts, but when it happens, the benefits are obvious. Consider how the community leaders in New York City and Ferguson responded differently to
protests against police brutality—in NYC political leaders expressed grief and concern over police brutality and moved quickly to make policy changes in policing, whereas the
leaders and police in Ferguson responded with high-tech military vehicles and riot gear. In the first case, multiple groups came together with a common goal—to increase the
safety of everyone in the community; in the latter case, the actions of the police likely reinforced the “us” and “them” distinctions. Tragically, these types of conflicts continue to
roil the country. Understanding the psychology and neuroscience of social identity and intergroup relations cannot undo the effects of systemic racism and discriminatory

Even in
practices; however, it can offer insights into the psychological processes responsible for escalating the tension between, for example, civilians and police officers.

cases where it isn’t possible to create a common identity among groups in conflict, it may be
possible to blur the boundaries between groups. In one recent experiment, we sorted participants into groups—red versus blue team—
competing for a cash prize. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to see a picture of a segregated social network of all the players, in which red dots clustered
together, blue dots clustered together, and the two clusters were separated by white space. The other half of the participants saw an integrated social network in which the red
and blue dots were mixed together in one large cluster. Participants who thought the two teams were interconnected with one another reported greater empathy for the out-
group players compared to those who had seen the segregated network. Thus, reminding people that individuals could be connected to one another despite being from different
groups may be another way to build trust and understanding among them. A mere month before Freddie Gray died in police custody, President Obama addressed the nation on
the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma: “We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, or that racial division is
inherent to America. To deny…progress – our progress – would be to rob us of our own agency; our responsibility to do what we can to make America better." The president

was saying that we, as a society, have a responsibility to reduce prejudice and discrimination. These recent findings
from psychology and neuroscience indicate that we, as individuals, possess this
capacity. Of course this capacity is not sufficient to usher in racial equality or peace. Even when the level of prejudice against particular out-groups decreases, it does
not imply that the level of institutional discrimination against these or other groups will necessarily improve. Ultimately, only collective action

and institutional evolution can address systemic racism. The science is clear on one thing,
though: individual bias and discrimination are changeable. Race-based prejudice and
discrimination, in particular, are created and reinforced by many social factors, but they are
not inevitable consequences of our biology. Perhaps understanding how coalitional thinking impacts
Their account of hope overgeneralizes – they are right about the problem
with absolute faith in the government, but that’s not our argument – a
pragmatic understanding of hope as inseparable from political life is key to
build personal identity
Stitzlein ’18 – Professor, University of Cincinnati School of Education and Affiliate,
Philosophy, citing Warren (Sarah M., “Hoping and Democracy,” Contemporary Pragmatism 15
(2018), doi 10.1163/18758185-01502004, date accessed: 8.20.18, pgs. 228-250)
What ought I hope for? This question guides our pursuit of the good life and its answer is often
shaped by our social, political, and educational experiences. We aren’t born with ready-made
hopes; rather, we shape them through our interactions with others, our growing sense of what is possible as
we learn about our environment, and our experiments with the world to see what we can do
within it and to change it. Other people play an important role in this process, especially through
institutions like schools, social arrangements like families, and political practices like democracy. They
shape the traditions and expectations we inherit, as well as the ways in which we test,
challenge, and revise what has been passed on to us. Despite this, hope is too often described
in individualist terms that fail to encapsulate the full process of hoping and its potential
impact on shared living. Many theologians link hope with an individual’s faith in a deity who will act on his or her behalf,1
some philosophers employ a narrow understanding of hope as an individual’s desire for an outcome in the face of uncertainty,2
while many more psychologists describe hope as an individual’s use of willpower and “waypower” to achieve clear goals.3 Instead, I
will offer a pragmatist account of hope, which is firmly rooted in the experiences of individuals
and grows out of real life circumstances, yet cannot be disconnected from social and
political life.4 I extend my account to show how a pragmatist view of hope is necessarily connected to other people and can
be used to enrich our experiences in communities. Moreover, such hope can help us to better face current
political struggles and social problems, all the while building a democratic identity together.5 In
this article, I will explain how pragmatism offers an enhanced understanding of hope and its role in
our lives together. To examine the ways in which shared hoping and the shared content of our
hopes shape our identity and our work together in democracy, I consider both how and what we
hope. Unlike other accounts of hope that are largely divorced from life’s circumstances, such as theological accounts that direct
our attention to deities and psychological accounts that tell us we must hope for our goals regardless of real world constraints,
pragmatist hope is noteworthy because it is firmly rooted in reality.6 Moreover, a
pragmatist account addresses some of the current obstacles we face in American democracy
and is capable of transforming or improving them. Perhaps more importantly, such hope can be directly
and indirectly cultivated within citizens, thereby offering a feasible way that democratic life can
be strengthened.

Libidinal explanations of racism are wrong – they confuse habit with

instinct
Hudis 15 (Peter Hudis – Professor of English and History @ Queens College, 2015, “Frantz
Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades,” Pg. 35-37)
Fanon’s vantage point upon the world is his situated experience. He is trying to understand the inner psychic life of racism, not
Racism is not, of course, an integral part of the
provide an account of the structure of human existence as a whole.
human psyche; it is a Social construct that has a psychic impact. Any effort to comprehend
social distress that accompanies racism by reference to some a priori structure- be it the
Oedipal Complex or the Collective Unconscious- is doomed to failure. Carl Jung sought to deepen and
go beyond Freud's approach by arguing that the subconscious is grounded in a universal layer of the psyche- which he called "the
collective unconscious:' This refers to inherited patterns of thought that exist in all human minds,
regardless of specific culture or upbringing, and which manifest themselves in dreams, fairy tales, and myths. Jung
referred to these universal patterns as "archetypes:' It may seem, on a superficial reading, that 1 Fanon is drawing from Jung, since
he discusses how white people tend to unconsciously assimilate views of blacks that are based on negative stereotypes. Even the
most "progressive" white tends to think of blacks a certain way (such as "emotional;' "physical," or / "aggressive"), even as they
disavow any racist animus on their part. However, Fanon
denies that such collective delusions are part of a
psychic structure; they are not permanent features of the mind. They are habits acquired from a
series of social and cultural impositions. While they constitute a kind a collective unconscious on
the part of many white people, they are not grounded in any universal "archetype." The unconscious
prejudices of whites do not derive from genes or nature, nor do they derive from some form independent of culture or upbringing.
Fanon contends that Jung "confuses habit with instinct." Fanon objects to Jung's "collective unconscious" for the
same reason that he rejects the notion of a black ontology. His phenomenological approach brackets out ontological claims on both
a social and psychological level insofar as the examination of race and racism is concerned. He writes, "Neither Freud nor Adler nor
even the cosmic Jung took the black man into consideration in the course of his research.” This does not mean that Fanon rejects
their contributions tout court. He does not deny the existence of the unconscious. He only denies that the inferiority complex of
blacks operates on an unconscious level. He
does not reject the Oedipal Complex. He only denies that it
explains (especially in the West Indies) the proclivity of the black "slave" to mimic the values of
the white "master." And as seen from his positive remarks on Lacan's theory of the mirror stage, he does not reject the idea
of psychic structure. He only denies that it can substitute for an historical understanding of the origin of neuroses .23 Fanon adopts
it is
a socio-genetic approach to a study of the psyche because that is what is adequate for the object of his analysis. For Fanon,
the relationship between the socio-economic and psychological that is of critical import. He
makes it clear, insofar as the subject matter of his study is concerned, that the socio-economic
is first of all responsible for affective disorders: "First, economic. Then, internalization or rather
epidermalization of this inferiority."24 Fanon never misses an opportunity to remind us that racism owes its origin to specific
economic relations of domination- such as slavery, colonialism, and the effort to coopt sections of the working class into serving the
needs of capital. It is hard to mistake the Marxist influence here. It does not follow, however, that what comes first in the order of
time has conceptual or strategic priority. The inferiority complex is originally born from economic subjugation, but it takes on a life of
its own and expresses itself in terms that surpass the economic. Both sides of the problem-the socio-economic and psychological-
must be combatted in tandem: "The black man must wage the struggle on two levels; whereas historically these levels are mutually
dependent, any unilateral liberation is flawed, and the worst mistake would be to believe their mutual dependence
automatic:''5 On these grounds he argues that the problem of racism
cannot be solved on a psychological level.
It is not an "individual" problem; it is a social one. But neither can it be solved on a social level that ores the
psychological. It is small wonder that although his name never appears in the book, Fanon was enamored of the work of Wilhelm
"Genuine disalienation will
Reich. This important Freudian-Marxist would no doubt feel affinity with Fanon's comment,
have been achieved only when things, in the most materialist sense, have resumed their
rightful place:'27

Anti-Blackness is not ontological –

First – political ontology is a contradiction, prefer a phenomenological
reading. Radical humanism disproves general dishonor and policies and
aren’t a result of libidinal forces.
Gordon, 18 – (Lewis, Professor @ UConn, and Scott Phillips, runs the HSImpact Podcast,
“HSI Podcast 81 – Dr. Lewis Gordon” HSImpact, 4-24-18, transcribed 1:35-62:28,
https://hsimpact.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/hsi-podcast-81-dr-lewis-gordon/)
What do you think about to use a lose term the structural
SP: So, you kind of started talking about bad faith and then moved into the idea of a license.

critiques that within, let’s say liberalism, there has to be a group that is not human? If they are
afropessimists or settler colonialism theorists, that it’s not possible to expand the notion of white
freedom and privilege to these other groups of people – that they are just fundamentally not
recognized as a human being. Those are bad and circular
Coming from an existentialist tradition, how would you respond to that argument? LG:

arguments they throw in a sneaky premise. Once you put forward the question of
. The first thing to bear in mind is

“white freedom,” of course, but if you deal the question of freedom, the question of freedom
doesn’t have to be white. The other part that’s strange about their arguments is that they’re
dealing with concepts that are what we call “bad structuralism.” Bad structuralism is Let me explain what that is.

when you treat the social world as ontologically complete Its as if the social world is all there is .

and there’s nothing outside of it. The problem with that sort of argument is it fails to take
into account that its humans who built a social world, and so if you’re the person who
builds social worlds, you can by definition tear it down they don’t , with a toenail outside of it. The other part of it is

understand what liberalism is. Liberalism is a particular form of conception of the human being
that emerged, though a particular kind of political philosophy that questions the ability to have
objectivity outside of the self. In other words, it collapses into form of subjectivity that prioritizes
the category for opinion . That’s why in liberalism there is this obsession with individuals. If you look at the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes for example, he started from the premise of one atomistic individual in motion
colliding with other atomistic individuals in motion which is why he made an argument for there to be a supervening stronger force to keep them form collisions, or what he called war. Most forms of liberalism have some form of appeal like that. The problem with that
is that most theories of liberalism doesn’t have a conception of freedom, and that is because most liberalisms confuse freedom with liberty and the crucial distinction between liberty an freedom is liberty is about the absence of a constraint. Freedom, however,

Freedom is about the responsibility one can take for one’s liberties, and so within the
requires something more.

framework of freedom, freedom tends to have ethical implications, it tends to have questions of
accountability, and meaning – all sorts of categories that need not be encapsulated by liberty.
So, the problem with those accounts is they are based on profound misunderstandings, in some
cases even at the level of incompetence of the concepts being articulated . If we think to the question of what a structure is, all structures
are systems that are governed by rules that are produced by human beings, and once we understand that we begin to understand the paradox of structures because it’s not only that they are created by human beings, but also that in creating them the human being

the human being is not a thing like a bowling ball or a glass of water that has a
is also being created, in other words

causal effect on other things, it’s in the very process of producing meaning that conceptions of
the human being are born. This means that human beings are an always opening and
evolving understanding of relationships, and that is also why when we talk about many of these
issues we may notice that different kinds of human beings may emerge as things change. A
great example the meaning of what it is to be African has shifted to the rules
relating to the racial category black or afro is that

and relationships we have about not only the continent of Africa and the peoples there but the
very idea because in the ancient African formulations of what Africa was particularly in the eastern and north eastern parts of the continent from roughly Ethiopia up to modern day Egypt, the word Africa emerges from a very specific language Metu

if one
neter, which simply means originating from the womb, because in that world the origins of all life was from the south, in other words, the southern African area which interestingly enough matches onto a lot of continental anthropology. But

transforms Africa into something derogatory, then its meaning is going to shift as well . Sorry for the buzz my

even if we get to the question of black, there is no reason for black to be

neighbors are mowing their lawn. And so

intrinsically negative There’s many parts of the world where black is something
. Its just something I don’t understand.

very positive. I There are many expressions of the word black that are good from
t’s not ugly, it’s not wrong.

financial expressions of “being in the black” we could talk about black beauty, the beauty of the
night, But if you have a society that’s invested in negating blackness they impose upon
whatever.

blackness a negative meaning. if we come back to this idea of systems what we begin to And so,

understand is that there’s no such thing as being able to affect the world without in that
effect, that act of affecting it, the effect is being affected – in short everything human
beings do that has an impact on the world is having an effect on human beings and
transforming us. SP: So does this idea seem to imply that antiblack racism is only a conscious choice. I guess I’m thinking more about theories of implicit bias, or in the context of afropessimist they might raise an argument about a

some people choose

libidinal investment. So, does this existentialist frame emphasize that there is an individual responsibility and choice element Well this is where we get to false dilemmas. The simple answer is that

deliberately to be racist while others don’t. One thing to bear in mind about bad faith is that bad faith is not necessarily about a moral prescription. Like there are instances where it can be
good to be in bad faith such as if one is afraid, to convince yourself you have superpowers or in situations where one is being tortured, one may want to convince themselves that what’s being done to their body isn’t being done to their personhood – but in other

with the libidinal stuff that’s in psychoanalysis

words we create this false dichotomy of a separated self from the body. Now there are – now the thing to bear in mind is

varieties of ways in which we live in a society and have impositions placed upon us and many of
us respond to impositions in different ways Those aren’t – some of us resist them, some of us are afraid of resisting them and rationalize our incapacity to resist them.

necessarily libidinal forces, they are just different ways people come with reality. Now the question about
choices you see some groups do willfully lie. For example, if you look at a history of something like the national review, the right wing magazine, they were really lying – these were individuals who were committed to the idea that they will use any argument to defend
the white race, and for that reason a fundamental deterrent to it was blacks. Now under that framework, they would espouse certain things as if they were rational or reasonable arguments, but the truth is if you look at the history of that magazine, and there’s a
fellow named Steve Dertzel who did a wonderful dissertation on this, they would argue completely opposite things. And with these people who argue opposite things, that shows it’s not really about the evidence of the arguments it’s about the position they want to

. A lot of people confuse argumentation with positions. Positions is where people

hold. And that’s the crucial part

decide they are going to stay in a particular place no matter of the evidence that’s brought forth.
positions and positions, those are connected to a variety of other things they could be
And dis
anything from clear. They could be based in ignorance, or they can just be based in a willful
desire to manipulate the problem with some of these accounts is they are reductionist,
. In other words,

they don’t really look at the particular cases in full, and they want to have a one-size-fits-
all model when it comes to discussing human phenomena and what every human being learns from childhood onward is that one of the fundamental

the human world is that the world is saturated with contingency.

things about SP: In that context then, about talking about contingency. A lot of

I really hate that notion of political

the arguments that students have a hard time dealing with is what you mentioned before as the move to ontologize or talk about political ontology… LG:

ontology it’s a – part of the commodification of theory and

contradiction of terms – it’s one of the stupidest notions that’s being pushed out there. It’s

intelligence There is no political

. People could always cobble together things that don’t work but they put them together because they sound intelligent and sexy but in truth they’re nonsense.

ontology. For something to be ontological it has to be absolutely complete. The

And let me explain why.

problem with political is that political by definition is that which comes out of human action .

Human action is fundamentally incomplete. So, the notion that there could be a political
ontology is a contradiction of terms What one can have in a human action is a project – the .

aim – of trying to create an ontology . All an ontology means is being, so in other words here’s an ontological statement: “there is no more nor less reality than there is at any given moment of time.”

if a pig drops in a river and there’s some starving human around. To

That’s an ontological statement and its tautologically true, but the question

make the claim that the humans will eat the pig and it’s just based on human nature and
ontology just won’t work. Some might, but some wont – and some wont for the most bizarre
reasons this is where
– some may not because they are kosher; some may not because they are vegans; some might not because they’d rather die than kill a living thing; and then some might because they just don’t care. And

existentialism comes in in a very important way. Existentialism rejects the notion of human
nature because nature, human nature, is an ontological imposition on the human being .

Political ontology is just nonsense human negotiation of power is . What the political is about is also the human negotiation of power, and

fluid But it sounds like something theoretically sound because it has the word ontology in it.
. But

there’s a lot of nonsense people do in theory . that I could list off For instance, people think they’re doing political analysis if they put the phrase “politics of” before any noun. But the truth
of the matter is that some things aren’t political. You could have the politics of clams, the politics of earwax, the politics of dirt. Now if you’re taking about the political negotiation in a social system of how you manage dirt or organizations of how people relate to it
though rituals or as resources, that is political, but a lot of these expressions are used when they are ultimately meaningless or ambiguous or unclear.

Second – gratuitous violence is ahistorical.

Carter Biester Deane 18, college of social studies student at Wesleyan, “Prison Necropolitics”,
https://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3047&context=etd_hon_theses
accounts of flight from
Historian Neil Roberts’ criticism of social death raises similar concerns about agency. According to Roberts,
slavery demonstrate the shortcomings of using social death to understand history. In defining social death, he curiously
replaces one of Patterson’s three elements, the susceptibility to gratuitous violence, with “powerlessness.”72
Powerlessness here implies a one-sided understanding of the relationship between the slave and master. For
Roberts, social death “denies the significance of psychology to freedom, rendering it unable to explain
how slaves are able to become free physically outside the actions and intentions of enslaving agents.”73 Accord to
Roberts, social death is inadequate to explain slave resistance, then, because it either denies the
power of the enslaved or fails to account for their experiences. Using the concept risks describing reality as “an inert state of social
death.”74

Third – black culture can fashion power – disproves natal alienation.

Terrell Anderson Taylor 13, BA, “OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM IN TWENTIETH CENTURY
AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE”,
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/558275/Taylor_georgetown_0
076M_12322.pdf
against
Unlike Wilderson and Patterson, West argues that black culture exists, and that it has served vital purposes. He argues
the thesis of natal alienation by explaining that African Americans have maintained certain African cultural
features, specifically "kinetic orality, passionate physicality, improvisational intellectuality,
and combative spirituality" ("Black Strivings" 80). While the ur-text of black culture may not be a tangible
text but a guttural cry (a reference possibly drawn from the work Aime Cesaire), West argues that black culture, at its
best, transfigures
and transforms that cry into an "existential arsenal" that simultaneously
expresses "the profoundly tragicomic character of black life" and generates "creative ways of
fashioning power and strength..." ("Black Strivings" 81-82). West contends that black culture generates
community, agency, and identity in a society that would deny African Americans these anchors of humanity. West
finds examples of these cultural moments and practices within the arts, music, and especially literature.

Fourth – ontologizing blackness destroys alt solvency and homogenizes

black bodies.
David KLINE, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University, 17 [“The
Pragmatics of Resistance: Framing Anti-Blackness and the Limits of Political Ontology,” Critical
Philosophy of Race, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2017, p. 51-69, Accessed Online through Emory Libraries]
Focusing on Wilderson, his absolute prioritization of a political onto-logical structure in which the law
relegates Black being into the singular position of social death happens, I contend, at the expense of two significant things that I am
hesitant to bracket for the sake of prioritizing political ontology as the sole frame of reference for both analyzing anti-Black racism
and thinking resistance within the racialized world. First, it short-circuits
an analysis of power that might
reveal not only how the practices, forms, and apparatuses of anti-Black racism have
historically developed, changed, and reassembled/reterritorialized in relation to state power,
national identity, philosophical discourse, biological discourse, political discourse, and so on—
changes that, despite Wilderson’s claim that focusing on these things only “mystify” the question
of ontology (Wilderson 2010, 10), surely have implications for how racial positioning is both thought and resisted in differing
historical and socio-political contexts. To the extent that Blackness equals a singular ontological position within a macropolitical
structure of antagonism, there is almost no room to bring in the spectrum and flow of social difference and contingency that no doubt
spans across Black identity as a legitimate issue of analysis and as a site/sight for the possibility of a range of resisting practices.
This bracketing of difference leads him to make some rather sweeping and opaquely abstract claims. For example, discussing a
main character’s abortion in a prison cell in the 1976 film Bush Mama, Wilderson says, “Dorothy will abort her baby at the clinic or
on the floor of her prison cell, not because she fights for—and either wins [End Page 58] or loses—the right to do so, but because
she is one of 35 million accumulated and fungible (owned and exchangeable) objects living among 230 million subjects—which is to
say, her will is always already subsumed by the will of civil society” (Wilderson 2010, 128, italics mine). What I want to press here is
totalizing political ontology overshadowing all other
how Wilderson’s statement, made in the sole frame of a
levels of sociality, flattens out the social difference within, and even the possibility of, a
micropolitical social field of 35 million Black people living in the United States. Such a
flattening reduces the optic of anti-Black racism as well as Black sociality to the frame of political
ontology where Blackness remains stuck in a singular position of abjection. The result is a
severe analytical limitation in terms of the way Blackness (as well as other racial positions) exists
across an extremely wide field of sociality that is comprised of differing intensities of
forces and relational modes between various institutional, political, socio-economic,
religious, sexual, and other social conjunctures. Within Wilderson’s political ontological frame, it seems
that these conjunctures are excluded—or at least bracketed—as having any bearing at all on
how anti-Black power functions and is resisted across highly differentiated contexts. There is
only the binary ontological distinction of Black and Human being; only a macropolitics of
sedimented abjection.
 AT: Maximum Captivity
Maximum Captivity is a bad frame and time is linear – it prevents valuable
optimism and ignores past successes .
Kennedy 14 (Randall L. Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at the Harvard Law
School. Kennedy focuses research on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in
American life. Kennedy attended Princeton University (A.B., 1977) and the University of Oxford,
(Rhodes Scholar) and Yale Law School (J.D., 1982). "Black America's Promised Land: Why I
Am Still a Racial Optimist" – American Prospect – Fall http://prospect.org/article/black-americas-
promised-land-why-i-am-still-racial-optimist)
Pessimists believe that racial harmony predicated
Beneath the malaise is a deep current of racial pessimism that has a long history in American and African American thought.

on fairness is not part of the American future that blacks are not . They posit that the United States will not overcome its tragic racial past. They maintain

and cannot become members of the America family n (even with a black family occupying the White House). They believe that the United States is a white nation that will
always be governed on behalf of white folk. For pessimists, the Obama presidency is no sign of racial transcendence; to the contrary, it is a demonstration of the intractability of American pigmentocracy. F or them, the Obama ascendancy shows that in order to rise
to the top of American politics, a black politician must be willing to forgo substantively challenging the racial status quo (though he is allowed to cavil about it rhetorically). For them, the Obama administration simply mirrors the racial diversification of an existing order
in which a relatively small sector of upper-crust blacks prosper while the condition of the black masses stagnates or deteriorates—the consequence of a misbegotten theory of racial trickle-down. For them, the Obama era is littered with bitter incongruity: While a
black man is commander-in-chief, Michael Brown and thousands like him are stalked, harassed, brutalized, and occasionally killed in Ferguson-like locales across America. The pedigree of black racial pessimism is impressive. In its ranks one finds such figures as
Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Randall Robinson, and the extraordinary W.E.B. Du Bois. One encounters Frederick Douglass declaring in 1847, “I cannot have any love for this country … or for its
Constitution. I desire to see its overthrow as speedily as possible, and its Constitution shriveled in a thousand fragments.” In that tradition, one also finds Derrick Bell, professor of law at Harvard, teaching in the 1990s that the United States is irredeemably
imprisoned by its past, that “racism is an integral, permanent, and indestructible component of this society,” and that “black people will never gain full equality in this country.” The tradition of black racial pessimism has its white counterpart. According to Thomas
Jefferson, “The two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.” Alexis de Tocqueville doubted that “the white and black races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing,” but believed “the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than
elsewhere.” According to Abraham Lincoln, differences between blacks and whites “will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” But the pessimists, black and white, have not been the only influence on American thought
about the prospects for racial progress. Arrayed against them are optimists who contend that blacks are (or can become) members of the American family and insist that racial harmony bottomed on fairness is attainable. This, in fact, has been the predominant
tradition among blacks. Its adherents include Booker T. Washington, Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Jackson, and John Lewis (joined by whites such as the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People and Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton). The most memorable spokesman for the optimistic tradition was Martin Luther King Jr. On April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, he told his followers to take heart because he knew that,
eventually, they would overcome the obstacles they faced. He knew this because he had “been to the mountaintop” and glimpsed the Promised Land, though he might not make it there himself. King was vague, however, about the Promised Land’s boundaries and
topography. He had famously spoken of a nation where individuals will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Yet that formulation is popular partly because it is open to contending interpretations. Is it a condemnation of all racial
distinctions? Or is it a condemnation only of invidious racial distinctions? Is it meant to posit a rule of non-discrimination that should go into effect immediately even at the cost of barring efforts to rectify past racial wrongdoing? Or is it meant to posit a rule of
nondiscrimination that should go into effect only after the consequences of past wrongdoings have been ameliorated? These questions underlie the debate that has been raging for decades over competing conceptions of the racial Promised Land. In one
conception, the Promised Land is a society henceforth substantially free of intentional racial discrimination in major domains of the public sphere. In this society, no effort is made to rectify the oppressive consequences of past racial misconduct because, it is argued,
trying to do so is futile, unfair to those innocent of past wrongdoing, and conducive to the perpetuation of race-mindedness. This view has been propounded vigorously in the legal writings of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, mainly in critiques of
affirmative action. Chief Justice John Roberts, also a champion of this view, expressed it epigrammatically when, abjuring a race-conscious plan for school integration, he quipped that the best way to stop racial discrimination is to stop racially discriminating—no
matter whether the aim is to assist or oppress a vulnerable group. Under this conception, we enter the racial Promised Land when racial discrimination is a negligible feature of social life, even if the vestiges of racial subordination in the past are evident and
consequential. Let’s call this model of racial justice the conservative conception of the racial Promised Land. The progressive conception of the racial Promised Land is more ambitious. It envisions two essential landmarks. The first is the requirement of the
conservatives that invidious racial discrimination be reduced to a negligible influence. The second condition is that the vestiges of past discrimination—the racial gaps that so dramatically scar the social landscape—be erased. Pursuant to the progressive
perspective, we will reach the racial Promised Land when blackness is no longer a uniform that, holding other variables steady, signals that its wearer bears a notably higher risk than whites of premature death, impoverishment, unemployment, incarceration,
victimization by criminality, homelessness, police harassment, and similar afflictions. Today, one can go into a hospital, visit the ward for newborns, and make accurate estimates about the babies’ varying life trajectories on the basis of their racial identities. When
accurate estimates of this sort are no longer possible, progressives contend, we will have reached the racial Promised Land. Some observers insist that what I have dubbed the conservative model of the racial Promised Land is at hand or at least nearby. They
maintain that, for the most part, we have overcome. They proclaim “Mission Accomplished” or at least mission near-accomplished. This is mistaken. Intentional invidious racial discrimination constitutes a force in American life that is far from negligible. It is a
substantial headwind that blacks and other racial minorities face in many key areas, including housing, finance, employment, criminal justice, electoral politics, and markets for romance and marriage. There is a library of empirical literature establishing this fact
beyond sensible controversy—studies based on similarly situated but racially disparate testers who meet different fates when they seek to buy automobiles, rent housing, get jobs, or obtain loans. And then there are the lessons of everyday life that suggest forcefully
that in crucial interactions with police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other authorities armed with discretion, outcomes differ, all too often, depending on the race of the person being assessed. It is difficult to imagine that the dismal train of events surrounding the
deaths of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown would have been identical had they been white. Even more distant is the progressive conception of the racial Promised Land. In practically every key index of well-being, a chasm separates the circumstances in which
whites and blacks typically find themselves. The income gap separating blacks and whites widened from about $19,000 in the late 1960s to about $27,000 in 2011. The wealth gap increased from $75,000 in 1984 to $85,000 in 2011. Blacks are nearly three times
more likely to live in deep poverty than whites. Black men are six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. And on. And on. And on. We have failed to reach the racial Promised Land in either its conservative or its progressive definition. With respect to both of

these destinations, our society remains far afield. Still, I put myself in the optimistic camp. Why ? I am hopeful first and foremost because of the predominant
trajectory of African Americans —a history that John Hope Franklin framed with the apt title From Slavery to Freedom. In 1860, four million African Americans were enslaved while another half-million were free
but devoid of fundamental rights in many of the jurisdictions where they lived. In 1860, the very term “African American” was something of an oxymoron because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no black, free or enslaved, could be a

the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the Fourteenth

citizen of the United States. But within a decade,

Amendment (1868) established birthright citizenship and required all states to accord all
persons due process and equal protection of the laws, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
prohibited states from withholding the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude . People who had been sold on the auction block as youngsters helped to govern their locales as public officials when they were adults. In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi resigned from the United

. Reconstruction was
States Senate to join the Confederate States of America, which he led as president In 1870, Hiram Revels, the first black member of Congress, occupied the seat that Davis abandoned. The First

But the most fundamental reforms

overwhelmed by a devastating white supremacist reaction. proved resilient, providing the it established

basis for a Second Reconstruction In 1950, segregation from the 1950s to the 1970s. During that period, too, the distance traveled by blacks was astonishing.

was deemed to be equal protection. No federal law prevented proprietors hotels

consistent with federal constitutional of ,

restaurants, and other privately owned public accommodations from engaging in racial
discrimination. No federal law prohibited private employers from discriminating on a
racial basis against applicants for jobs or current employees. No federal law effectively counteracted racial disenfranchisement. No federal law outlawed racial discrimination in private

The Civil Rights Act

housing transactions. In contrast, by 1970 federal constitutional law thoroughly repudiated the lie of separate but equal. 1964 forbade racial discrimination in privately owned places of public accommodation

1968 Fair Housing Act

and many areas of private employment. The 1965 Voting Rights Act provided the basis for strong prophylactic action against racial exclusion at the ballot box. The addressed racial exclusion in a

racial situation afterwards

market that had been zealously insulated against federal regulation. None of these interventions were wholly successful. All were compromised. All occasioned backlash. But the in 1970 and

was dramatically better than what it had been in 1950 and before. Today, at a moment when progress has stalled, we need to recall how dramatically and unexpectedly conditions sometimes change. Until recently
who’d-a thunk it possible for the president to be an African American? In the 1980s, I used to ask law students how long affirmative action programs ought to last. Champions of such programs, seeking to ensure their longevity, would say that affirmative action
would be needed until the country elected a black president. That reply would elicit appreciative laughter as listeners supposed that that formula would preserve affirmative action for at least a century. But then along came Barack Obama and with him the remark

Changes in public attitudes, law,

that soon became a cliché: “I never thought that I’d live to see a black president.” Obama’s election is much more than a monument to one politician’s talent and good fortune.

and custom have clearly elevated the fortunes of African Americans as individuals and black
America as a collectivity. Hard facts may give make the optimistic tradition plausibility to the pessimistic tradition, but they
compelling blacks in America confront fewer racist impediments now
. Despite the many wrongs that remain to be righted,

than ever before in the history of the United States. The courage, intelligence, persistence, idealism, and sacrifice of Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks, Julian
Bond and Bob Moses, Medgar Evers and Bayard Rustin, Viola Liuzzo and Vernon Dahmer—and countless other tribunes for racial justice—have not been expended for naught. The facts of day-to-day life allow blacks to sing more confidently than ever before
James Weldon Johnson’s magnificent hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black National Anthem: Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us Facing the rising sun of

am also swayed by my intuition regarding which of

our new day begun Let us march on till victory is won. My optimism involves more than a sociological prediction. I

these hypotheses Hope is a vital nutrient for effort without it, there is no
—the pessimistic or the optimistic—will do the most good. ;

prospect for achievement The belief that we can overcome makes more realistic the possibility
.

that we shall overcome Optimism gives buoyancy to thinking that might otherwise
.

degenerate into nihilism, encourages solidarity in those who might otherwise be satisfied
by purely selfish indulgence, invites strategic planning that can usefully harness what
might otherwise be impotent indignation, and inspires efforts that might otherwise be
avoided due to fatalism On Election Day 1996, exit polling showed .Powell beating General Colin President Bill

Clinton by a comfortable margin. But Powell was not Clinton’s opponent. Senator Bob Dole was. Powell had considered seeking the Republican Party nomination but declined in the end to do so. Before he made that decision, polls suggested that he
could win the nomination and the general election, but friends were skeptical. Powell recalls that Earl Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, told him, “Look, man … [w]hen [white voters] go in that booth, they ain’t going to vote for you.” Maybe Graves
was correct. Real voting might have produced different results from the polls. Furthermore, whereas the actual candidates had suffered a year of merciless scrutiny on the campaign trail, Powell on Election Day was a mere hypothetical candidate who suffered from
none of the wear and tear that a presidential contest exacts. At the end of a campaign, the general might not have remained so attractive. Still, Powell’s apparent popularity does provide a basis for conjecturing that America’s readiness to elect a black president had
been an unrecognized part of the political landscape for longer than many had appreciated. Powell may well have denied himself the opportunity to make a successful historic leap by being self-defeatingly pessimistic. A major fear of many blacks is that
acknowledging progress will prompt underestimation of racial obstacles that blacks at every socioeconomic level continue to face. When Americans are polled about their perceptions of racial affairs, whites are typically more upbeat than blacks. The more affluent
they are, the more upbeat white observers tend to be. Inordinately impressed by progress, they all too often prematurely declare victory over racism. Although complacency nourished by an overly rosy view of racial affairs is a real danger, I stand by my conviction
that a clear-eyed assessment favors black optimism. Who, after all, have been the figures most beneficial to blacks? Was it the Martin Delany who decamped for Africa, thinking America to be irremediably racist? Or was it the Martin Delany who returned, recruited
blacks for the Union, and participated significantly in Southern politics during Reconstruction? Was it the pre-1966 Stokely Carmichael who sang “We Shall Overcome” in the splendid early days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)? Or was it
the post-1966 Stokely Carmichael (later renamed Kwame Ture) whose impatient bitterness helped to destroy the SNCC and rationalize an indulgent exile to Guinea that squandered a substantial talent? Was it my long-time colleague of blessed memory, Derrick
Bell, who posited the permanence of racist white dominance? Or was it a student who rightly admired Professor Bell but eschewed his pessimism and followed a different path, a black student who, years later, put Bell’s hypothesis to a test by seeking the highest
elected office in the land under the slogan “Yes We Can!”? That student, of course, was Barack Obama, and his presidency has been the setting for much debate between pessimists and optimists. Some detractors, perhaps the angriest, started from a position of
raised expectations. They thought that Obama embodied the “audacity of hope” and that he would somehow bring about sweeping changes. Disappointed, they have expressed themselves in the angry, accusatory rhetoric of betrayal. Obama, Cornel West charges,
“posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.” Others condemn Obama but without disappointment. They see their low expectations as having been validated. Certain pessimists have maintained that Obama’s election indicated little in terms of “real”
racial progress. They even discount the symbolic significance of his ascendancy, stressing his exceptionality. Although he calls himself black, Obama is the offspring of a black African father and a white American mother and is thus distinguished genealogically from
most African Americans. Much was made of his Muslim-sounding name. But some observers maintain that popular acceptance of that, too, should be viewed skeptically. It would have signaled more, they argue, had America elected a black person raised in, say,
Detroit with a name such as Tyrone Washington or Jamal Jefferson. Pessimists argue that, substantively, the Obama presidency has delivered no more to blacks than would have been delivered by any other centrist-liberal Democrat (say, Hillary Clinton), and that in
certain respects the Obama presidency delivered less because Obama sought excessively to prove that he was a president for all Americans and not merely black Americans. They contend that Obama’s blackness was an asset that he used for personal marketing
and that the white establishment seized upon for advertising, “The United States cannot sensibly be accused of practicing or condoning racism! It just elected a black president!” Pessimists will now also enlist the horrifying events in Ferguson, Missouri, to reinforce
their claim that despite the civil rights movement, antidiscrimination legislation, affirmative action, and the election of Obama, the narrative of race relations in America is a doleful tale—not a march upward from slavery to freedom, but a trek sideways from plantation
to ghetto. What is an optimist in the waning years of the Obama presidency to say in the face of this challenge? Obama’s election signaled a dramatic, substantive change in racial beliefs and attitudes. In 1960, his victory would have been impossible: Too many
whites would have been unwilling to vote for a black candidate—any black candidate—because of doubts about the capacities of anyone of black African ancestry. Recall that there were no black cabinet officers until Johnson appointed Robert Weaver as secretary
of housing and urban development in 1966, and no black Supreme Court justices until Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall in 1967. The specter of black intellectual and characterological deficiency stunted the careers of many talented blacks, and still does. That
Obama was able to win the presidency—twice—is a sign that rumors of racial inferiority, while still extant, are much diminished in influence. n thinking about the meaning of Obama, it is important, too, to focus on the special status of the presidency. The person who
occupies that office is not only the head of the executive branch of the federal government, the person who nominates all federal judges, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and thus a person with the wherewithal to destroy most, if not all, of humankind.
The president is also the nation’s mourner-in-chief, booster-in-chief, spouse-in-chief, and parent-in-chief. That a black man has been the master of the White House for the past six years does indeed reflect and reinforce a remarkable socio-psychological
transformation in the American racial scene. If that is “tokenism,” give us more of it. I have emphasized progress that blacks have made in absolute terms: where they stood 50 years ago and where they stand today. But what about the position of blacks relative to
whites—those yawning gaps in wealth, income, educational attainment, and risk of imprisonment that have remained unclosed and that have, in some ways, widened even further during Obama’s tenure? There is no use denying that reality. America remains racially
stratified and will continue to be long after the Obama presidency. There is also no use, however, in denying other facets of the American racial reality. One is a comparative view. In considering the appropriate attitude to adopt toward America—allegiance, for
example, or dis-affiliation—it is sensible to compare the United States to other divided societies. Negrophobia in America is, alas, all too present. But it pales in comparison with the prejudice against racial, ethnic, religious, and national minorities in many countries
around the globe. As bad as the American racial problem is, as urgently as it calls for concentrated attention, its condition is less dire and more encouraging than might be gleaned from an analysis that views the American situation in isolation, divorced from
international comparisons. There is also no good purpose served by ignoring manifestations of progress that display themselves even in heartrending crises. Consider the events in Ferguson. The killing of the unarmed teenager, the callous inattentiveness to his
body, the militarized police response to protest, and the dubious investigation by local authorities of this tragic death display much of what is terrible in American race relations: an atavistic fear of young black men; quick resort to excessive force against African
Americans; racial residential separation; black powerlessness that foments resentment; white dominance that encourages contempt; an utter lack of mutual trust. But the events in Ferguson have also revealed other responses. The federal government took note of
what happened and actively involved itself via the president, attorney general, and the director of the FBI. The Ferguson tragedy became the leading news story all over the country. Blacks have not been the only ones calling the police to account and demanding
reform. Whites from various walks of life, including right-wing politicians like Rand Paul, have also been doing so. Never in American history, in analogous circumstances, has there been a higher level of interracial empathy. Overcoming the racial burdens—
individual, communal, institutional—that encumber us will take unremitting effort, major deployments of intelligence and imagination, daunting amounts of time, huge expenditures of money, and the resolute conviction that America’s racial affairs can and will
improve. Is the uncertain prospect of a better future worth that investment? The lessons of American history and a comparison of our society with others around the world impel me to say yes. I am a racial optimist. Only time will tell whether my faith is wise.
 AT: No Racial Progress
Yes, Racial Progress — incremental reforms have empirically improved
Black living and working conditions.
Johnson 16 — Cedric Johnson, Associate Professor of African American Studies and
Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, former Associate Professor in the
Department of Political Science at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, former Post-Doctoral
Fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the
University of Rochester, holds a Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of
Maryland-College Park, 2016 (“An Open Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Liberals Who Love
Him,” Jacobin, February 3rd, Available Online at https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/ta-nehisi-
coates-case-for-reparations-bernie-sanders-racism/, Accessed 04-04-2016)
Ta-Nehisi Coates recently criticized the Bernie Sanders campaign for Sanders’s pessimism
regarding black reparations for slavery and Jim Crow segregation. When asked during a
campaign event whether he would support reparations, Sanders responded with characteristic
bluntness, saying that “its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil,” before adding that a
push for formal reparations for slavery would be politically divisive.
Instead of reparations, Sanders argued,
what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities,
in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities
tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the
most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African
American and Latino.
Sanders’s plan is part of his long-held political vision that sees a revitalized public sector as a
lever to address the needs of the most submerged segments of the population through universal
social policy. But Coates was not impressed. As the foremost proponent of reparations in recent
memory, he viewed Sanders’s response as a fundamental weakness in the senator’s “political
revolution.”
According to Coates, “Sanders’s radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white
supremacy.” Moreover, Coates contended that Sanders’s class-based remedy is rooted in “the
myth that racism and socialism are necessarily incompatible,” and argued that
raising the minimum wage doesn’t really address the fact that black men without criminal
records have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor can
making college free address the wage gap between black and white graduates. Housing
discrimination, historical and present, may well be the fulcrum of white supremacy.
Affirmative action is one of the most disputed issues of the day. Neither are addressed in
the “racial justice” section of Sanders [sic] platform.
In a follow-up to his initial criticism of Sanders, Coates highlighted the limits of social democracy
in achieving racial justice in Europe. “There is no need to be theoretical about this,” he declared.
Across Europe, the kind of robust welfare states Sanders supports — higher minimum wage,
single payer health care, low-cost higher education — has been embraced. Have these polices
vanquished racism? Or has race become another rubric for asserting who should benefit from
the state’s largesse and who should not? And if class-based policy alone is insufficient to banish
racism in Europe, why would it prove to be sufficient in a country founded on white supremacy?
We actually do need to be theoretical about this. Coates’s sweeping mischaracterization
diminishes the actual impact that social-democratic and socialist governments have historically
had in improving the labor conditions and daily lives of working people, in Europe, the United
States, and for a time, across parts of the Third World.
Coates also ignores the legions of blacks who have fought for generations to advance
egalitarian state interventions — in the US and abroad — and seems to forget how the
neoliberal assault on progressive left politics domestically and globally has worsened living
and working conditions across different social layers, creating widespread precarity for the
middle and working classes, professionals and low-skilled workers, and immigrants and
minorities alike.
Coates’s disagreement with Sanders isn’t new; he riffs on a standing criticism of Sanders, and
updates the Cold War, anti-socialist canard that any attempt to build social democracy on US
soil will inevitably be hobbled by racism. Sanders faced similar criticisms last summer, when a
handful of Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted the Netroots Nation conference and a rally
for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in Seattle.
But I’ve grown weary of this position — repeated with startling unanimity by students, activists,
academic colleagues, social media commentators, and career pundits, who frequently reject
any talk of a universal, broad-based leftist project — which fails to hold up against the weight of
historical fact.
Arguments concerning the racist limits of left universalism often rest on the historical failures of
progressive state policies. Whenever the subject of the New Deal is broached, many, including
Coates, are quick to point to the discriminatory Social Security Act, which denied benefits to
sharecroppers and domestic laborers and excluded thousands of black workers.
The New Deal was certainly flawed. It reflected the balance of class forces during the 1930s
and was a combination of policies that favored particular capitalist blocs and other more
progressive measures that resulted from worker and popular movement demands to constrain
the market.
But the tendency to focus on the limitations of the Social Security provisions overlooks the
broader, diverse policies that made up this social-democratic project — programs that directly
benefitted the black unemployed like the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC), and during the Second World War, the executive order to
desegregate the defense industry.
These efforts were not perfect, and although blacks were employed across the nation through
state-funded and state-directed public works projects, the CCC camps were racially segregated.
The racial and gender integration of the shipyards and munitions factories was also short-lived,
with peacetime demobilization marked by a return to previous patterns of exclusion and
segmentation in various industries, as returning veterans reentered the domestic workforce.
Yet each of these measures demonstrated the possibility of an integrated society, and the
power of the public sector in providing direct, concrete benefits to African Americans against
the private discrimination of the market.
Indeed, towering mid-twentieth-century liberal and radical left intellectuals and activists such as
A. Philip Randolph, John P. Davis, Esther Cooper Jackson, John Jackson, Bayard Rustin, and
scores of others would have found themselves quite at odds with Coates’s liberal antiracist
viewpoint that working-class-centered, anticapitalist political projects are patently inadequate for
addressing the concerns of black voters.
The claim that social democracy and socialism are always and everywhere at odds with racial
progress is simply false. It is not supported by the actual history of progressive struggles and
the substantive ways they transformed black life.
Ultimately, Coates’s views about class and race — and this nation’s complex and tortured
historical development — are well-meaning and at times poetic, but wrongheaded. The
reparations argument is rooted in black nationalist politics, which traditionally elides class and
neglects the way that race-first politics are often the means for advancing discrete, bourgeois
class interests.
In its present incarnation, the reparations argument is better understood as a more reactionary,
civil society version of the “rising tide lifts all boats” sensibility — a sensibility that Coates
rejects. This version of race uplift supposes a black businessman who competes for government
contracts and keeps a summer home and a single mother of three who relies on the Section 8
voucher program and itinerant minimum-wage employment to make ends meet share the same
political interests by virtue of their common heritage and the experience of living in a racist
society.
Most of all, Coates is wrong about how we have achieved black political and social progress in
the past, and what we should do going forward. From the antebellum anti-slavery struggles to
the postwar southern desegregation campaigns to contemporary battles against
austerity, interracialism and popular social struggle have been central to improving the civic
and material circumstances of African Americans, and at the level of daily life, such movements
have confronted racist habits and perceptions, sweeping aside old boundaries to create new
notions of communion and solidarity.

Their dismissal of racial progress is wrong and disempowering.

Hrabowski 15 — Freeman Hrabowski III, President of the University of Maryland at
Baltimore County, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American
Philosophical Society, serves as Consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National
Institutes of Health, and the National Academies, was named one of “America’s Best Leaders”
by U.S. News & World Report, one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by Time
Magazine, and one of seven “Top American Leaders” by The Washington Post and the
Kennedy Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education
Administration and Statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and honorary
degrees from more than 20 institutions including Harvard University, Princeton University, Duke
University, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Johns
Hopkins University, and Georgetown University, 2015 (“Need a reason to believe there’s hope
for racial progress? Look to Baltimore.,” Washington Post, July 10th, Available Online at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/half-empty-half-full/2015/07/10/a6b9ed6a-25bd-11e5-
b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html, Accessed 07-26-2016)
More than 50 years ago, inspired by words that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in a
Birmingham church, I joined hundreds of other children in a civil rights march through the streets
of my home town. I was not a brave child, and I knew, as the others did, the risk of going to jail.
We marched, though, because his words gave us hope that the world could be different.
I am often asked how much society has changed since the 1960s and how the challenges we
faced then compare with those of today.
My response reflects my ambivalence about our progress. As a child, I could not have imagined
that I would one day become the president of a predominantly white research university, and I
would not have guessed how many more people would have the opportunity to become
educated. In 1960, less than 10 percent of Americans had earned bachelor’s degrees. Today,
we’re up to nearly a third. In the same period, African Americans have gone from a college
completion rate of about 3 percent to almost 20 percent, contributing to the growth of a thriving
black middle class.
However, far too many families remain stuck in poverty. For them, conditions now are as bad as
they were in the ’60s — if not worse. Drugs and guns, combined with damaging public policies,
fuel a cycle of violence and mass incarceration. Many young people feel hopeless and betrayed.
Postsecondary education has become a requirement for many, if not most, of our society’s well-
paying jobs. However, the recent gains in college completion are spread unevenly. For
example, since 1975, the percentage of the wealthiest quarter of Americans earning four-year
degrees has jumped from 38 percent to 79 percent, while the percentage for those at the bottom
has barely moved, from 7 to 11 percent.
I am stunned and saddened by the growth of inequality in our society and the fact that many
children have simply stopped dreaming about the future. Yet I also remind myself how far
we’ve come. If we don’t count our progress, we lose sight of the lessons we’ve learned, and we
run the risk of losing hope.
Public policies adopted in the 1960s and 1970s have helped so many of us. Landmark
legislation, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act, strengthened schools, expanded
civil rights and helped many more people graduate from college.
These changes were possible because Americans during that period truly believed that the
world could be different than it was.
To address the stubborn challenges facing our society today, we again need reasons to
believe that the world can change. We need hope.
I’d suggest we can find hope in a place that’s received considerable attention in recent weeks:
Baltimore. I’ve lived and worked here the past 40 years, and I see the many ways this region
reflects the country’s progress and its challenges.
In the ’60s, we had not yet seen a woman of any race as mayor of Baltimore (or almost any
other major U.S. city) or African Americans in such leadership roles as chief executive of
Baltimore Gas & Electric, or dean of the University of Maryland Medical School, or president of
the University of Baltimore. Now we see all of these, among many other African American
leaders.
The Baltimore region is also prosperous. A recent Brookings Institution analysis notes that it
ranks seventh among the country’s 35 largest metropolitan areas in per capita income. It is
second only to the District in median income for black households. Black professionals are
doing well here.
Nevertheless, the region’s challenges are significant. About 11 percent of Baltimore City’s black
residents are unemployed, compared with about 5 percent of white residents, according to the
Brookings analysis. The city’s black poverty rate is just under 27 percent. While this is lower
than the rate in three-quarters of large U.S. cities, such high poverty rates should be troubling to
all of us.
The challenge now is to reflect on how we can extend the gains of the past 50 years to even
more Americans. We have asked hard questions like this before. That alone should give us
hope as we move forward in an effort to bring the benefits of our nation’s prosperity to all. We
now have the opportunity — indeed, the responsibility — to look again at public policies in
such areas as education and job training, housing and transportation, drug enforcement and
incarceration.
I often think about the other children who marched in 1963. While we shared hopes and
dreams, many of them never had the opportunities I did. Ultimately, they marched so that others
could live their dreams.
Our challenge now is holding on to that legacy — and helping many more children turn
possibilities into reality.

Major progress has occurred despite continuing structural racism. “No

progress” is a misinterpretation of history.
Winant 15 — Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Santa
Barbara, Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, holds a Ph.D. in
Sociology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2015 (“The Dark Matter: Race and
Racism in the 21st Century,” Critical Sociology, Volume 41, Issue 2, Available Online to
Subscribing Institutions via Sage Publications Online, p. 319-320)
The World-Historical Shitpile of Race
Structural racism – an odious stinkpile of shit left over from the past and still being augmented in
the present – has been accumulated by ‘slavery unwilling to die’,4 by empire, and indeed by the
entire racialized modern world system. The immense waste (Feagin et al., 2001, drawing on
Bataille) of human life and labor by these historically entrenched social structures and practices
still confronts us today, in the aftermath of the post-Second World War racial ‘break’. Our
antiracist accomplishments have reduced the size of the pile; we have lessened the stink.
But a massive amount of waste still remains. So much racial waste is left over from the practice
of racial domination in the early days of empire and conquest, to the present combination of
police state and liberalism! Indeed it often seems that this enormous and odious waste pinions
the social system under an immovable burden. How often have despair and hopelessness
overcome those who bore this sorrow? How often have slave and native, peon and
maquiladora, servant and ghetto-dweller, felt just plain ‘sick and tired’ (Nappy Roots, 2003),
encumbered by this deadening inertia composed of a racial injustice that could seemingly never
be budged? How often, too, have whites felt weighed down by the waste, the guilt and self-
destruction built into racism and the ‘psychological wage’?
Yet racial politics is always unstable and contradictory. Racial despotism can never be fully
stabilized or consolidated. Thus at key historical moments, perhaps rare but also inevitable, the
sheer weight of racial oppression – qua social structure – becomes insupportable. The built-up
rage and inequity, the irrationality and inutility, and the explosive force of dreams denied, are
mobilized politically in ways that would have seemed almost unimaginable earlier.
Racism remains formidable, entrenched as a structuring feature of both US and global society
and politics. Indeed it often seems impossible to overcome.
Yet That’s Not the Whole Story
We are so used to losing! We can’t see that the racial system is in crisis both in the US and
globally. Large-scale demographic and political shifts have overtaken the modern world (racial)
system, undermining and rearticulating it. During and after the Second World War a
tremendous racial ‘break’ occurred, a seismic shift that swept much of the world (Winant,
2001). The US was but one national ‘case’ of this rupture, which was experienced very
profoundly: racial transformations occurred that were unparalleled since at least the changes
brought about by the US Civil War. Omi and I (1994) – and many, many others – have proposed
that the terrain of racial politics was tremendously broadened and deepened after the War.
The increased importance of race in larger political life not only grounded the modern civil rights
movement but shaped a whole range of ‘new social movements’ that we take for granted today
as central axes of political conflict. In earlier stages of US history it had not been so evident that
‘the personal is political’ – at least not since the end of Reconstruction. From the explicit racial
despotism of the Jim Crow era to the ‘racial democracy’ (of course still very partial and
truncated) of the present period…: that is a big leap, people.
In the modern world there were always black movements, always movements for racial justice
and racial freedom. The experience of injustice, concrete grievances, lived oppression, and
resistance, both large and small, always exists. It can be articulated or not, politicized or not.
These movements, these demands, were largely excluded from mainstream politics before
the rise of the civil rights movement after the War. Indeed, after the Second World War, in a
huge ‘break’ that was [end page 319] racially framed in crucial ways, this ‘politicization of the
social’ swept over the world. It ignited (or reignited) major democratic upsurges. This included
the explicitly anti-racist movements: the modern civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid
movement, and the anti-colonial movement (India, Algeria, Vietnam, etc.). It also included
parallel, and more-or-less allied, movements like ‘secondwave’ feminism, LGBTQ (née gay
liberation) movements, and others.
In short, the world-historical upheaval of the Second World War and its aftermath were racial
upheavals in significant ways: the periphery against the center, the colored ‘others’ against ‘The
Lords of Human Kind’ (Kiernan, 1995). These movements produced:
* Demographic, economic, political, and cultural shifts across the planet
* The destruction of the old European empires
* The coming and going of the Cold War
* The rise of the ‘new social movements’, led by the black movement in the US
And this is only the start of what could be a much bigger list.

Racial progress is possible — empirical evidence.

Omi and Winant 13 — Michael Omi, Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department
at the University of California-Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California-Santa Cruz, and Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of
California-Santa Barbara, Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies,
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2013 (“Resistance is
futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 36, Number 6,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor & Francis Online, p. 970-971)
In conclusion, do Feagin and Elias really believe that white power is so complete, so extensive,
so ‘sutured’ (as Laclau and Mouffe might say) as they suggest here? Do they mean to suggest,
in Borg-fashion, that [end page 970] ‘resistance is futile?’ This seems to be the underlying
political logic of the ‘systemic racism’ approach, perhaps unintentionally so. Is white racism so
ubiquitous that no meaningful political challenge can be mounted against it? Are black and
brown folk (yellow and red people, and also others unclassifiable under the always-absurd
colour categories) utterly supine, duped, abject, unable to exert any political pressure? Is such a
view of race and racism even recognizable in the USA of 2012? And is that a responsible
political position to be advocating? Is this what we want to teach our students of colour? Or our
white students for that matter?
We suspect that if pressed, Feagin and Elias would concur with our judgement that racial
conflict, both within (and against) the state and in everyday life, is a fundamentally political
process. We think that they would also accept our claim that the ongoing political realities of
race provide extensive evidence that people of colour in the USA are not so powerless, and
that whites are not so omnipotent, as Feagin and Elias’s analysis suggests them to be.
Racial formation theory allows us to see that there are contradictions in racial oppression. The
racial formation approach reveals that white racism is unstable and constantly challenged,
from the national and indeed global level down to the personal and intra-psychic conflicts that
we all experience, no matter what our racial identity might be. While racism — largely white —
continues to flourish, it is not monolithic. Yes, there have been enormous increases in racial
inequality in recent years. But movement-based anti-racist opposition continues, and
sometimes scores victories. Challenges to white racism continue both within the state and
in civil society. Although largely and properly led by people of colour, anti-racist movements
also incorporate whites such as Feagin and Elias themselves. Movements may experience
setbacks, the reforms for which they fought may be revealed as inadequate, and indeed their
leaders may be co-opted or even eliminated, but racial subjectivity and self-awareness,
unresolved and conflictual both within the individual psyche and the body politic, abides.
Resistance is not futile.
Civil rights-era racial progress was real and meaningful.
Kennedy 14 — Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, Fellow
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member of the American Philosophical
Association, served as a Law Clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme
Court, holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, 2014 (“Black America's Promised Land: Why I Am
Still a Racial Optimist,” American Prospect, November 10th, Available Online at
http://prospect.org/article/black-americas-promised-land-why-i-am-still-racial-optimist, Accessed
07-26-2016)
We have failed to reach the racial Promised Land in either its conservative or its progressive
definition. With respect to both of these destinations, our society remains far afield. Still, I put
myself in the optimistic camp.
Why?
I am hopeful first and foremost because of the predominant trajectory of African Americans—a
history that John Hope Franklin framed with the apt title From Slavery to Freedom. In 1860, four
million African Americans were enslaved while another half-million were free but devoid of
fundamental rights in many of the jurisdictions where they lived. In 1860, the very term “African
American” was something of an oxymoron because the Supreme Court had ruled in Dred Scott
v. Sandford that no black, free or enslaved, could be a citizen of the United States. But within a
decade, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment
(1868) established birthright citizenship and required all states to accord all persons due
process and equal protection of the laws, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibited states
from withholding the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
People who had been sold on the auction block as youngsters helped to govern their locales as
public officials when they were adults. In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi resigned from the
United States Senate to join the Confederate States of America, which he led as president. In
1870, Hiram Revels, the first black member of Congress, occupied the seat that Davis
abandoned.
The First Reconstruction was overwhelmed by a devastating white supremacist reaction. But
the most fundamental reforms it established proved resilient, providing the basis for a Second
Reconstruction from the 1950s to the 1970s. During that period, too, the distance traveled by
blacks was astonishing. In 1950, segregation was deemed to be consistent with federal
constitutional equal protection. No federal law prevented proprietors of hotels, restaurants, and
other privately owned public accommodations from engaging in racial discrimination. No federal
law prohibited private employers from discriminating on a racial basis against applicants for jobs
or current employees. No federal law effectively counteracted racial disenfranchisement. No
federal law outlawed racial discrimination in private housing transactions. In contrast, by 1970
federal constitutional law thoroughly repudiated the lie of separate but equal. The 1964 Civil
Rights Act forbade racial discrimination in privately owned places of public accommodation and
many areas of private employment. The 1965 Voting Rights Act provided the basis for strong
prophylactic action against racial exclusion at the ballot box. The 1968 Fair Housing Act
addressed racial exclusion in a market that had been zealously insulated against federal
regulation. None of these interventions were wholly successful. All were compromised. All
occasioned backlash. But the racial situation in 1970 and afterwards was dramatically better
than what it had been in 1950 and before.
Don’t dismiss civil rights era gains even though they were incomplete.
Omi and Winant 13 — Michael Omi, Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department
at the University of California-Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California-Santa Cruz, and Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of
California-Santa Barbara, Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies,
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2013 (“Resistance is
futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 36, Number 6,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor & Francis Online, p. 965-966)
What is distinctive about our own epoch in the USA (post-Second World War to the present)
with respect to race and racism?
Over the past decades there has been a steady drumbeat of efforts to contain and neutralize
civil rights, to restrict racial democracy, and to maintain or even increase racial inequality. Racial
disparities in different institutional sites — employment, health, education — persist and in many
cases have increased. Indeed, the post-2008 period has seen a dramatic increase in racial
inequality. The subprime home mortgage crisis, for example, was a major racial event. Black
and brown people were disproportionately affected by predatory lending practices; many lost
their homes as a result; race-based wealth disparities widened tremendously. It would be easy
to conclude, as Feagin and Elias do, that white racial dominance has been continuous and
unchanging throughout US history. But such a perspective misses the dramatic twists and turns
in racial politics that have occurred since the Second World War and the civil rights era.
Feagin and Elias claim that we overly inflate the significance of the changes wrought by the civil
rights movement, and that we ‘overlook the serious reversals of racial justice and persistence of
huge racial inequalities’ (Feagin and Elias 2012, p. 21) that followed in its wake. We do not. In
Racial Formation we wrote about ‘racial reaction’ in a chapter of that name, and elsewhere in
the book as well. Feagin and Elias devote little attention to our arguments there; perhaps
because they are in substantial agreement with us. While we argue that the right wing was able
to ‘rearticulate’ race and racism issues to roll back some of the gains of the civil rights
movement, we also believe that there are limits to what the right could achieve in the post-civil
rights political landscape.
So we agree that the present prospects for racial justice are demoralizing at best. But we do not
think that is the whole story. US racial conditions have changed over the post-Second World
War period, in ways that Feagin and Elias tend to downplay or neglect. Some of the major
reforms of the 1960s have proved irreversible; they have set powerful democratic forces in
motion. These racial (trans)formations were the results of unprecedented political
mobilizations, led by the black movement, but not confined to blacks alone. Consider the
desegregation of the armed forces, as well as key civil rights movement victories of the 1960s:
the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Act (Hart-Celler), as well [end page
965] as important court decisions like Loving v. Virginia that declared anti-miscegenation laws
unconstitutional. While we have the greatest respect for the late Derrick Bell, we do not believe
that his ‘interest convergence hypothesis’ effectively explains all these developments. How does
Lyndon Johnson’s famous (and possibly apocryphal) lament upon signing the Civil Rights Act
on 2 July 1964 — ‘We have lost the South for a generation’ — count as ‘convergence’?
The US racial regime has been transformed in significant ways. As Antonio Gramsci argues,
hegemony proceeds through the incorporation of opposition (Gramsci 1971, p. 182). The civil
rights reforms can be seen as a classic example of this process; here the US racial regime —
under movement pressure — was exercising its hegemony. But Gramsci insists that such
reforms — which he calls ‘passive revolutions’ — cannot be merely symbolic if they are to be
effective: oppositions must win real gains in the process. Once again, we are in the realm of
politics, not absolute rule.
So yes, we think there were important if partial victories that shifted the racial state and
transformed the significance of race in everyday life. And yes, we think that further victories can
take place both on the broad terrain of the state and on the more immediate level of social
interaction: in daily interaction, in the human psyche and across civil society. Indeed we have
argued that in many ways the most important accomplishment of the anti-racist movement of
the 1960s in the USA was the politicization of the social. In the USA and indeed around the
globe, race-based movements demanded not only the inclusion of racially defined ‘others’ and
the democratization of structurally racist societies, but also the recognition and validation by
both the state and civil society of racially-defined experience and identity. These demands
broadened and deepened democracy itself. They facilitated not only the democratic gains made
in the USA by the black movement and its allies, but also the political advances towards
equality, social justice and inclusion accomplished by other ‘new social movements’: second-
wave feminism, gay liberation, and the environmentalist and anti-war movements among others.
By no means do we think that the post-war movement upsurge was an unmitigated success.
Far from it: all the new social movements were subject to the same ‘rearticulation’ (Laclau and
Mouffe 2001, p. xii) that produced the racial ideology of ‘colourblindness’ and its variants;
indeed all these movements confronted their mirror images in the mobilizations that arose from
the political right to counter them. Yet even their incorporation and containment, even their
confrontations with the various ‘backlash’ phenomena of the past few decades, even the need
to develop the highly contradictory ideology of ‘colour- blindness’, reveal the transformative
character of the ‘politicization of the social’. While it is not possible here to explore so extensive
a subject, [end page 966] it is worth noting that it was the long-delayed eruption of racial
subjectivity and self-awareness into the mainstream political arena that set off this
transformation, shaping both the democratic and anti- democratic social movements that are
evident in US politics today.

The negative trends they identify are politically contingent. Reforms have
and can transform racial realities. Resistance is not futile.
Omi and Winant 13 — Michael Omi, Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department
at the University of California-Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California-Santa Cruz, and Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of
California-Santa Barbara, Director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies,
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, 2013 (“Resistance is
futile?: a response to Feagin and Elias,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 36, Number 6,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor & Francis Online, p. 968-969)
We still want to acknowledge that blacks have been catching hell and have borne the brunt of
the racist reaction of the past several [end page 968] decades. For example, we agree with
Feagin and Elias’s critique of the reactionary politics of incarceration in the USA. The ‘new Jim
Crow’ (Alexander 2012) or even the ‘new slavery’ that the present system practises is
something that was just in its beginning stages when we were writing Racial Formation. It is now
recognized as a national and indeed global scandal. How is it to be understood? Of course
there are substantial debates on this topic, notably about the nature of the ‘prison-industrial
complex’ (Davis 2003, p. 3) and the social and cultural effects of mass incarceration along racial
lines. But beyond Feagin and Elias’s denunciation of the ferocious white racism that is operating
here, deeper political implications are worth considering. As Alexander (2012), Mauer (2006),
Manza and Uggen (2008) and movement groups like Critical Resistance and the Ella Baker
Center argue, the upsurge over recent decades in incarceration rates for black (and brown) men
expresses the fear-based, law-and-order appeals that have shaped US racial politics since
the rise of Nixonland (Perlstein 2008) and the ‘Southern strategy’. Perhaps even more central,
racial repression aims at restricting the increasing impact of voters of colour in a
demographically shifting electorate.
There is a lot more to say about this, but for the present two key points stand out: first, it is not
an area where Feagin and Elias and we have any sharp disagreement, and second, for all the
horrors and injustices that the ‘new Jim Crow’ represents, incarceration, profiling and similar
practices remain political issues. These practices and policies are not ineluctable and
unalterable dimensions of the US racial regime. There have been previous waves of reform
in these areas. They can be transformed again by mass mobilization, electoral shifts and so
on. In other words, resistance is not futile.

ALT LEVEL
 Alt – Pessimism Bad
Reducing black people to fungible bodies and reading their experiences
through pain creates the worst form of depoliticization – not only do they
disregard black agency and resistance, they further perpetuate a narrative
of white domination
Kelley 16, Robin D.G. Kelley is one of the most distinguished experts on African American studies
and a celebrated professor who has lectured at some of America’s highest learning institutions. He is
currently Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. 3/22/16,
“Black Study, Black Struggle,” http://www.blackagendareport.com/black_study_black_struggle, NN
Second only to a desire for increased diversity, better mental health services were a chief priority for student protesters. Activists framed their concerns and grievances in the
language of personal trauma. We shouldn’t be surprised. While every generation of black Americans has experienced unrelenting violence, this is the first one compelled to

We are also
witness virtually all of it, to endure the snuffing out of black lives in real time, looped over and over again, until the next murder knocks it off the news.

talking about a generation that has lived through two of the longest wars in U.S. history, raised
on a culture of spectacle where horrific acts of violence are readily available on their smartphones. What Henry
Giroux insightfully identifies as an addiction does nothing to inure or desensitize young people
to violence. On the contrary, it anchors violence in their collective consciousness, produces fear and paranoia – wrapped elegantly in thrill – and shrouds the many
ways capitalism, militarism, and racism are killing black and brown people. So one can easily see why the language of trauma might

appeal to black students. Trauma is real; it is no joke. Mental health services and counseling are urgently needed. But
reading black experience through trauma can easily slip into thinking of ourselves as
victims and objects rather than agents, subjected to centuries of gratuitous violence that
have structured and overdetermined our very being. In the argot of our day, “bodies” – vulnerable and
threatening bodies – increasingly stand in for actual people with names, experiences,
dreams, and desires. I suspect that the popularity of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me (2015), especially among black college students, rests
on his singular emphasis on fear, trauma, and the black body. He writes: “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the
antiseptic borrowing of labor—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and
random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. It must be rape so regular as to be industrial. . . . The spirit and soul
are the body and brain, which are destructible—that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings.”

Coates implies that the person is the brain, and the brain just another organ to be crushed with the rest of the body’s parts. Earlier in the book, he makes the
startling declaration that enslaved people “knew nothing but chains.” I do not deny the violence
Coates so eloquently describes here, and I am sympathetic to his atheistic skepticism. But what sustained enslaved
African people was a memory of freedom, dreams of seizing it, and conspiracies to enact
it – fugitive planning, if you will. If we reduce the enslaved to mere fungible bodies, we cannot possibly
understand how they created families, communities, sociality; how they fled and loved
and worshiped and defended themselves; how they created the world’s first social
democracy. “Trauma is real. But reading black experience through trauma can lead to
thinking of ourselves as victims rather than agents.” Moreover, to identify anti-black violence as
heritage may be true in a general sense, but it obscures the dialectic that produced and
reproduced the violence of a regime dependent on black life for its profitability. It was, after all,
the resisting black body that needed “correction.” Violence was used not only to break bodies but to discipline people who
refused enslavement. And the impulse to resist is neither involuntary nor solitary. It is a choice made in community, made possible by

community, and informed by memory, tradition, and witness. If Africans were entirely compliant
and docile, there would have been no need for vast expenditures on corrections, security, and
violence. Resistance is our heritage. And resistance is our healing. Through collective struggle, we alter our
circumstances; contain, escape, or possibly eviscerate the source of trauma; recover our
bodies; reclaim and redeem our dead; and make ourselves whole. It is difficult to see this in a world where words such as
trauma, PTSD, micro-aggression, and triggers have virtually replaced oppression, repression, and subjugation. Naomi Wallace, a brilliant playwright whose work explores
trauma in the context of race, sexuality, class, war, and empire, muses: “Mainstream America is less threatened by the ‘trauma’ theory because it doesn’t place economic justice
at its core and takes the focus out of the realm of justice and into psychology; out of the streets, communities, into the singular experience (even if experienced in common) of

the individual.” Similarly, George Lipsitz observes that emphasizing “interiority,” personal pain, and feeling elevates “the
cultivation of sympathy over the creation of social justice.” This is partly why demands for
reparations to address historical and ongoing racism are so antithetical to modern liberalism.
“Through collective struggle, we alter our circumstances; contain, escape, or possibly eviscerate

the source of trauma.” Managing trauma does not require dismantling structural racism, which is why
university administrators focus on avoiding triggers rather than implementing zero-tolerance policies for racism or sexual assault. Buildings will be renamed and safe spaces for
people of color will be created out of a sliver of university real estate, but proposals to eliminate tuition and forgive student debt for the descendants of the dispossessed and the
enslaved will be derided as absurd. This is also why diversity and cultural-competency training are the most popular strategies for addressing campus racism. As if racism were
a manifestation of our “incompetent” handling of “difference.” If we cannot love the other, we can at least learn to hear, respect, understand, and “tolerate” her. Cultural
competency also means reckoning with white privilege, coming to terms with unconscious bias and the myriad ways white folks benefit from current racial arrangements.
Powerful as this might be, the solution to racism still is shifted to the realm of self-help and human resources, resting on self-improvement or the hiring of a consultant or trainer
to help us reach our goal. Cultural-competency training, greater diversity, and demands for multicultural curricula represent both a resistance to and manifestation of our current
“postracial” moment. In Are We All Postracial Yet? (2015), David Theo Goldberg correctly sees postracialism as a neoliberal revision of multicultural discourse, whose proposed
remedies to address racism would in fact resuscitate late-century multiculturalism. But why hold on to the policies and promises of multiculturalism and diversity, especially since
they have done nothing to dislodge white supremacy? Indeed I want to suggest that the triumph of multiculturalism marked a defeat for a radical anti-racist vision. True,
multiculturalism emerged in response to struggles waged by the Black Freedom movement and other oppressed groups in the 1960s and ’70s. But the programmatic adoption
of diversity, inclusion, and multiculturalism vampirized the energy of a radical movement that began by demanding the complete transformation of the social order and the
eradication of all forms of racial, gender, sexual, and class hierarchy. The point of liberal multiculturalism was not to address the historical legacies of racism, dispossession, and
injustice but rather to bring some people into the fold of a “society no longer seen as racially unjust.” What did it bring us? Black elected officials and black CEOs who helped
manage the greatest transfer of wealth to the rich and oversee the continued erosion of the welfare state; the displacement, deportation, and deterioration of black and brown
communities; mass incarceration; and planetary war. We talk about breaking glass ceilings in corporate America while building more jail cells for the rest. The triumph of liberal
multiculturalism also meant a shift from a radical anti-capitalist critique to a politics of recognition. This means, for example, that we now embrace the right of same-sex couples
to marry so long as they do not challenge the institution itself, which is still modeled upon the exchanging of property; likewise we accept the right of people of color, women, and
queer people to serve in the military, killing and torturing around the world. “I want to suggest that the triumph of multiculturalism marked a defeat for a radical anti-racist vision.”
At the same time, contemporary calls for cultural competence and tolerance reflect neoliberal logic by emphasizing individual responsibility and suffering, shifting race from the
public sphere to the psyche. The postracial, Goldberg writes, “renders individuals solely accountable for their own actions and expressions, not for their group’s.” Tolerance in its
multicultural guise, as Wendy Brown taught us, is the liberal answer to managing difference but with no corresponding transformation in the conditions that, in the first place,

Depoliticization
marked certain bodies as suspicious, deviant, abject, or illegible. Tolerance, therefore, depoliticizes genuine struggles for justice and power:

involves construing inequality, subordination, marginalization, and social conflict, which

all require political analysis and political solutions, as personal and individual, on the
one hand, or as natural, religious, or cultural on the other. Tolerance works along both vectors of depoliticization – it
personalizes and it naturalizes or culturalizes – and sometimes it intertwines them. But how can we embrace our students and

acknowledge their pain while remaining wary of a culture that reduces structural oppression to
misunderstanding and psychology? Love, Study, Struggle Taped inside the top drawer of my desk is a small scrap of paper with three words
scrawled across it: “Love, Study, Struggle.” It serves as a daily reminder of what I am supposed to be doing. Black study and resistance

must begin with love. James Baldwin understood love-as-agency probably better than anyone. For him it meant to love ourselves as black people; it meant
making love the motivation for making revolution; it meant envisioning a society where everyone is embraced, where

there is no oppression, where every life is valued – even those who may once have been
our oppressors. It did not mean seeking white people’s love and acceptance or seeking belonging in the world created by our oppressor. In The Fire Next Time
(1963), he is unequivocal: “I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be ‘accepted’ by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be
beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet.” But here is the catch: if we are committed to genuine freedom, we have no choice but to
love all. To love all is to fight relentlessly to end exploitation and oppression everywhere, even on behalf of those who think they hate us. This was Baldwin’s point – perhaps his

most misunderstood and reviled point. To love this way requires relentless struggle, deep study, and critique.
Limiting our ambit to suffering, resistance, and achievement is not enough . We must go to
the root – the historical, political, social, cultural, ideological, material, economic root – of
oppression in order to understand its negation, the prospect of our liberation. Going to the root illuminates what is
hidden from us, largely because most structures of oppression and all of their various entanglements are simply not visible and not felt. For example, if we argue

that state violence is merely a manifestation of anti-blackness because that is what we

see and feel, we are left with no theory of the state and have no way of understanding
racialized police violence in places such as Atlanta and Detroit, where most cops are
black, unless we turn to some metaphysical explanation. For my generation, the formal classroom was never the space
for deep critique precisely because it was not a place of love. The classroom was – and still is – a performative space, where faculty and students compete with each other.
Through study groups, we created our own intellectual communities held together by principle and love, though the specters of sectarianism, ego, and just-plain childishness
blurred our vision and threatened our camaraderie. Still, the political study group was our lifeblood – both on and off campus. We lived by Karl Marx’s pithy 1844 statement: “But
if the designing of the future and the proclamation of ready-made solutions for all time is not our affair, then we realize all the more clearly what we have to accomplish in the
present – I am speaking of a ruthless criticism of everything existing, ruthless in two senses: The criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the
powers that be.” “If we argue that state violence is merely a manifestation of anti-blackness because that is what we see and feel, we are left with no theory of the state and
have no way of understanding racialized police violence.” Study groups introduced me to C. L. R. James, Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, Barbara Smith, Angela Davis, Karl
Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Chancellor Williams, George E. M. James, Shulamith Firestone, Kwame Nkrumah, Kwame Turé, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci,
Chinweizu Ibekwe, Amílcar Cabral, and others. These texts were our sources of social critique and weapons in our class war on the bourgeois canon. As self-styled activist-
intellectuals, it never occurred to us to refuse to read a text simply because it validated the racism, sexism, free-market ideology, and bourgeois liberalism against which we
railed. Nothing was off limits. On the contrary, delving into these works only sharpened our critical faculties. Love and study cannot exist without struggle, and struggle cannot
occur solely inside the refuge we call the university. Being grounded in the world we wish to make is fundamental. As I argued in Freedom Dreams nearly fifteen years ago,

The most radical ideas often grow out of a concrete

“Social movements generate new knowledge, new theories, new questions.

intellectual engagement with the problems of aggrieved populations confronting systems of

oppression.” Ironically I wrote these words with my students in mind, many of whom were involved in campus struggles, feeling a bit rudderless but believing that the
only way to make themselves into authentic activists was to leave the books and radical theories at home or in their dorms. The undercommons offers students a valuable
model of study that takes for granted the indivisibility of thought and struggle, not unlike its antecedent, the Mississippi Freedom Schools.

Afro-pessimism bad
Holley Jr 13, “Eugene Holley, Jr. is a Delaware-based writer/essayist. He has written for the New
York Times Book Review, Amazon.com, Ebony.com and Vibe,” 1/18/13, “Wake Up, People! How to Get
Past African-American Pessimism in the Age of Obama,” http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wake-
people-how-get-past-african-american-pessimism-age-obama NN

Afro-pessimism is rampant in the hood, but it also lives in academia. Dr. Cornel West, when asked if he
would serve in Obama’s White House, said, “[t]hat’s not my calling. Yeah, brother, you find me in a crackhouse before you find me
Afro-pessimism comes from a painful and brutal history of slavery and its
in the White House."
aftermath. And statistics tell us that we still have a lot not to cheer about, like the 14 percent
unemployment rate among blacks (nearly double the national average) or the monstrous murder rate in Chicago, where 80 percent
of the 500 homicide victims in 2012 were black. We are depressed when we hear that the gap in high school graduation rates for
white and black males only narrowed by 3 percent in 10 years, and when we learn that, stunningly, 40.2 percent of all prison
Those horrors are real. But what is
inmates are black, even though we are only 13.6 percent of the U.S. population.
also real is that against unimaginable odds, we are still here. We forged ourselves, with the
full, white weight of the Western world bearing down us, into what W.E.B. Du Bois called “a small nation of
people.” This black nation is united less by any single African, pre-American past than by what Ralph Ellison termed “an identity of
passions.” We
are a multicolored branch of humanity that won a centuries-spanning struggle
that liberated master and slave. To say that we all emerged in heroic fashion would be a lie. Being human, people
tend to go inward and internalize the degradation and lack of hope around them. That, of course, is not an exclusively black thing,
While
as evidenced by the sad condition of Native Americans, Kurds, Roma and many other oppressed people on the planet.
pessimism under unrelenting and brutal conditions is understandable, it ceases to be
useful when we refuse to believe that better conditions are possible because believing it
sets us up for disappointment. The presidency of Barack Obama becomes too much to
process, and we shy away from the work of overhauling negative thinking. We shift into
thinking that any kind of African-American advancement is a sham, a trick, a hustle; an
unforgivable delusion unfit for those who keep it real. Afro-pessimism is bad enough
when it’s just about lack of positive action. But it plays out in our young people in the
worst aspects of popular and hip-hop culture, where a black kid is called “acting white”
for speaking in non-accented Standard English, and God forbid, excelling in school. Add
those incendiary ingredients to the American-as-apple-pie love for violence and you have a recipe for reverse-
revolution; where black prison culture is celebrated and rewarded by the larger white community
and by the media’s insatiable appetite for black life on the mean streets. The good news is that Afro-pessimism is a
cultural response, and though it is shaped by socio-economic forces, it is reversible
through the same kind of positive, cultural engineering that all humans are capable of. For
starters, Afro-pessimists should consider our political history – as black people, and as Americans.
Remember that most of our victories don’t happen overnight. Second, we need to carefully scrutinize the
president’s policies and the strategies that underpin them. As the Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson wrote in the New York
Times: “Mr. Obama’s writings, politics and personal relations suggest ... that he prefers a three-pronged strategy. First, he is
committed to the universalist position that the best way to help the black and Latino poor is to help all disadvantaged people,
Appalachian whites included. The outrage of black over-incarceration will be remedied by quietly reforming the justice system …
Second, Mr. Obama appears convinced that residential segregation lies at the heart of both black problems and cultural racism. He
is a committed integrationist and seems to favor policies intended to move people out of the inner cities. Third, he clearly considers
education to be the major solution and has tried to lavishly finance our schools, despite the fiscal crisis. More broadly, he will quietly
promote policies that celebrate the common culture of America, emphasizing the extraordinary role of blacks and other minorities in
this continuing creation.” Here are two examples that support Patterson’s analysis: 1) the president’s expansion of the Child Tax
Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit in 2010, which benefited about 2.2 million African American families and nearly half of all
African American children, while extending unemployment insurance to benefit over a million African Americans; and 2) the African-
American Education Initiative, an executive order created to improve the “… educational outcomes for African Americans of all ages;
and help ensure that African Americans receive a complete and competitive education that prepares them for college, a satisfying
career, and productive citizenship.”Examining evidence of Obama’s positive effect on the black
community can help lift the veil of Afro-pessimism, and allow us to view his reelection in a more
realistic and positive light. Remember, we are witnessing an event that was unimaginable less
than 10 years ago. If a black, mixed-race brother raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, with a
Muslim-sounding name a few years after 9/11 can win the presidency twice – especially after four years
of vicious racist attacks – then simply put, all is possible. We no longer have the option of rising to
our lowest expectations.

Afropessimism is theoretically incoherent

Thomas, 18 [Greg Thomas, “Afro Blue Notes: The Death of Afro-Pessimism (2.0)?” 2018,
John Hopkins University Press]//Townes
Reading what some are today calling “Afro-pessimism” invites no small amount of amnesia,
myopia, as well as illiteracy. There is little if any Africa to this discourse at all, its nominal Afro-
hyphenation notwithstanding. Armah sits atop the lengthy bibliography on the
“AfroPessimism” page at Incognegro.org for alphabetical reasons alone. The selection of The
Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is as symptomatic as this list’s addition of an Achille Mbembe
book in due course. There is Frantz Fanon but only his Black Skin, White Masks (1952) is
included to the exclusion of A Dying Colonialism (1959), The Wretched of the Earth (1961), and
Toward the African Revolution (1964). The rest of the bibliography tends to dovetail with “race”
and “critical theory” canons of US-centered academic classrooms, graduate if not
undergraduate, across North America—with key duty-free imports from Western Europe. In
any case, what is the significance of this term as a term, its rather bizarre adoption by Black
academic advocates who have come to promote it today without any apparent sense of
the history of its ravaging the African continent and without any reference whatsoever to
the history of insistent Black political-intellectual resistance to its application to Africans
on the continent and in the diaspora? Crucially, neither pessimism nor optimism is just a
word in a dictionary. Fred Moten made a certain call for “optimism” in an earlier, and terribly
“friendly,” response to this “Afro-pessimism” which could be deflected by Jared Sexton as if
optimism and pessimism were now virtually transposable conceptual terminology or as if
pessimism could suddenly be posed as a strange mode of optimism itself—something like a
philosophical detour to it, after all, when all is said and done.11 That’s a specious revision to
be sure. Yet what goes ignored here is how this lexical couplet makes its meaning in context,
politically, in time and space, particularly in European languages and colonial-imperial lexicons,
most notably perhaps in English as well as French, just for example. It carries baggage too big
to check in current games of academic branding. What’s more, optimism and pessimism do
not ever confront each other on equal ground here, any façade of even-handed as opposed to
hierarchical dichotomy aside. The pessimist intellectual empire of the West has systematically
crowded optimism out of serious contemplation and come to pin pessimist condemnation to all
“things” Black-African in the interests of white racist imperialism, for various and sundry
periods of this empire. Who would overlook this issue rather than address it frontally—in and
beyond books of all kinds? A history or genealogy of optimism and pessimism as “ideologies” is
hardly unavailable to us. The old Black radicalism of Cheikh Anta Diop wrote famously and at
length about this subject. The Cultural Unity of Black Africa (1959) concluded in the late 1950s,
no less: “the Meridional Cradle, confined to the African continent in particular, is characterized
by the matriarchal family, the creation of the territorial state, in contrast to the Aryan city-state,
the emancipation of woman in domestic life, xenophilia, cosmopolitanism, a sort of social
collectivism having as a corollary a tranquility going as far as unconcern for tomorrow, a
material solidarity of right for each individual….” “In the moral domain,” he continues, “it shows
an ideal of peace, of justice, of goodness and an optimism which eliminates all notion of guilt or
original sin in religious and metaphysical institutions.”12 Looking at literature in a long world
history, Diop analyzed novels, tales, fables, and comedies to advance this core proposition,
along with the material and economic structures of human social development. His Pan-African
critique of European imperialism indicted not only its culture of “war, violence, crime, and
conquests,” but also its signature “metaphysical systems” of pessimism.13 One could thus
combat “anti-Black” racism, “anti-Black” colonialism, and “anti-Black” imperialism, so to speak,
286 Theory & Event by confronting or challenging the pessimism of Occidentalism—or one
could reproduce this “anti-Black” empire of slavery and colonialism by adopting, reifying, and
endorsing it. The final words of The Cultural Unity of Black Africa would proclaim in the spirit of
revolutionary decolonization and bona fide independence: “The universe of tomorrow will in
all probability be imbued with African optimism.”14 How then does a current trend in
academia proceed to dub itself “Afro-pessimism,” simultaneously deeming itself a
school of Black radical thinking, with no awareness of a critique of this stature; no
engagement with it at all; and no critical explanation of how “Afropessimism” could not
as a consequence signify an elemental contradiction in terms? The late Diop remains the
most monumental historian of the Black world. His intellectual biography is as a legendary as
his academic and extra-academic scholarship. It is almost cliché now to recall that he was
named the most influential thinker of the 20th century—with W.E.B. DuBois—at the First World
Festival of Black Arts convened in Dakar of the 1960s. Even if Anglophone political and
intellectual circles show little awareness of his radical political practice and related political
imprisonment as opposition under Leopold Senghor in neo-colonial Senegal—thinking too
exclusively of his counter to Egyptology or his anti-Hellenomania—Diop was and is no less a
giant for the historic Black Studies movement of the African diaspora across the Americas.
 Alt – White Supremacy DA
Wilderson locks black agency into a state of non-becoming by positing the
world as innately anti-black and eliminates the potential for coalitions –
radical separatisms’ rejection of material progress through reform cements
white supremacy
Haider 15, Asad Haider is Ph.D. student in history of consciousness at the University of California at
Santa Cruz, and a member of the Executive Board of UAW 2865, nearest date provided is 2015, “Unity:
Amiri Baraka and the Black Lives Matter Movements,” http://lanaturnerjournal.com/contents/unity-amiri-
baraka-and-the-black-lives-matter-movements NN

With ideologies of racial unity functioning as a clear block to the development of mass,
antagonistic politics, it is no wonder that the seemingly extremist languages of blackness and
anti-blackness seduce intellectuals into reconciliation with the status quo. Of course, in the
occasional moments that Afro-Pessimist discourse does discuss the black political class, its
tone is one of severe criticism. But this criticism reproduces the political dynamics that led
to its rise in the first place: black leaders are castigated for their coalitionism, thus
reinforcing the ideology of racial unity that obscures their class positions; and their
reformist program of bringing black people greater citizenship rights is rejected in
language reminiscent of earlier critiques of integration, obscuring the political
incorporation of the black elite that has been taking place since the end of segregation .
The ideology of blackness in Wilderson’s Afro-Pessimism functions as a disavowal of
the real integration of black elites into “civil society,” now hardly a “white” thing. When the lethal effects of
white supremacy are exerted by a racially integrated ruling class, blackness as an anti-political void becomes a convenient subject-
position for the performance of marginality. Separatistideology prevents the construction of unity
among the marginalized, the kind of unity which could actually overcome their
marginality. In a 2014 radio interview, Wilderson attacked the view that the experience of black people in Ferguson was in any
way comparable to that of Palestinians. Attributing this view to “right reactionary white civil society and so-called progressive colored
civil society,” he proclaimed: “That’s just bullshit. First, there’s no time period in which black policing and slave domination have ever
ended. Second, the Arabs and the Jews are as much a part of the black slave trade – the creation of blackness as social death – as
anyone else… anti-blackness is as important and necessary to the formation of Arab psychic life as it is to the formation of Jewish
psychic life.” You
wouldn’t know from listening to Wilderson that activists in Ferguson had been in
close contact with Palestinians, who pointed out that the same tear gas canisters were being
fired at them and shared street-fighting tactics learned from bitter experience. A solidarity statement
signed by a range of Palestinian activists and organizations declared: “With a Black Power fist in the air, we salute the people of
Ferguson and join in your demands for justice.” This solidarity was returned in January when a group of Ferguson activists visited
Palestine. Internationalist commitments had helped Baraka to recognize the limits of the strategy of the black united front. In 2008
he had militated in favor of Obama, going as far as to lambast the “anti-Obama rascals” who failed to see his campaign as an
opportunity for “drawing the excited masses to the left.” But holding out against the evidence couldn’t last; the 2011 military
intervention in Libya confronted Baraka with the internal contradictions between his anti-imperialism and the black united front, even
The ruthless
if he did not have the opportunity to travel much further down an alternative theoretical road before his 2014 death.
political teaching of a poem called “The New Invasion of Africa” turned harshly against Obama,
and exposed the historical antagonisms obscured by Wilderson: But that’s how Africa got
enslaved by the white A negro selling his own folk, delivering us to slavery In the middle of the night. When will
you learn poet And remember it so you know it Imperialism can look like anything Can be quiet and intelligent and even have A
pretty wife. But in the end, it is insatiable And if it needs to, it will take your life. “That brother’s meant to cool us out,” he said in “I
Liked Us Better.” It
was a kind of repetition of the lessons learned from the 1970s, with a marked
note of despair at the decline of mass mobilizations and revolutionary ideologies. “I liked us better
when we were quick to throw our fists in the air.” Where does it leave us? Wilderson claims that Afro-Pessimism
seeks to “destroy the world” rather than build a better one, since the world is irredeemably
founded on “anti-blackness.” In reality, this separatist ideology may turn out to provide a
new worldview for the emergent bureaucracies in Ferguson and beyond. During the peak
of the Black Lives Matter movement, Afro-Pessimist language spread rapidly on Twitter and Tumblr,
encouraging a wide range of activists to describe police violence in terms of the suffering
imposed upon “black bodies,” and to try to monopolize the very category of death. It was a
somewhat stupefying choice of words at a time when black people in Ferguson were
constituting part of a global struggle to refuse to accept suffering, to refuse to die . But what
should draw our attention is that the “representatives” of the movement who got the most media play included the executive director
of the St. Louis Teach for America, an organization that has played a driving role in the privatization of education and the assault on
teachers’ unions. In fact, a group of these “representatives” enthusiastically met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan during his
If such tendencies continue unchecked, the only world that
visit to Ferguson – white civil society or not.
will be destroyed is the one in which poor black students can attend public school, or
expect someday to get a job with benefits.
 Alt – Fails
Fails to produce emancipatory political change and reifies the squo.
Bevernage 15 – (October 2015, Berber, Assistant Professor of History at the University of
Ghent, “The Past is Evil/Evil is Past: On Retrospective Politics, Philosophy of History, and
Temporal Manichaeism,” History and Theory Volume 54, Issue 3, pages 333–352)

Torpey is certainly not the only intellectual expressing these worries. According to historian Pieter Lagrou ,
“our contemporary
societies, for lack of future projects, shrink into a ‘passeist’ culture.”12 In European public discourse, he argues,
the focus on crimes of the distant past has become so strong that it tends to marginalize claims of victims of
contemporary crimes and human rights violations. Therefore, Lagrou argues, “a commemorative discourse of victimhood is very much the
opposite of a constructive and dynamic engagement with the present, but rather a paralyzing regression of democratic debate.”13 Lagrou's argument
closely resembles many others that turn against retrospective politics and “victim culture” such as Ian Buruma's warning about the peril of minorities
defining themselves exclusively as historical victims and engaging in an “Olympics of suffering”14 and Charles Maier's claims about a “surfeit of
memory.”15

These warnings about the perils of a retrospective politics outweighing or even banning politics directed at contemporary injustices or striving for a
more just future should be taken seriously. Yet the alternative of an exclusively present- or future-oriented politics disregarding all
historical injustice is not desirable either. Contemporary injustice often manifests itself in the form of structural repetition or continuity of injustices with a
long history. Moreover, totalitarian versions of progressivist politics have frequently abused the idea of a struggle for a more just future in order to justify
past and present suffering. It could even be argued that the rise of dominant restrospective politics has been initiated partly on the basis of
disillusionment with the exculpatory mechanisms of progressivist ideology.16 Some indeed claim that much of present-day retrospective politics and
the “setting straight” of historical injustices would be unnecessary had totalitarian progressivist politics focused less exclusively on the bright future and
shown more sensitivity to the contemporary suffering of its day. This claim certainly makes sense if one thinks of extreme examples such as Stalin's
five-year plans and Mao's Great Leap Forward. Yet, as Matthias Frisch rightly argues, the risk of the justification of past and present suffering lurks
around the corner wherever progressive logics of history or promises of bright and just futures are not counterbalanced by reflective forms of
remembrance.17

Therefore,we should resist dualist thinking that forces us to choose between restitution for
historical injustices and struggle for justice in the present or the future . Rather, we should
look for types of retrospective politics that do not oppose but complement or reinforce the
emancipatory and utopian elements in present- and future-directed politics—and the other way
around: present- and future-oriented politics that do not forget about historical injustices .

In this paper I want to contribute to this goal by focusing on the issue of retrospective politics and by analyzing how one can differentiate emancipatory
currently
or even utopian types of retrospective politics from retrospective politics that I classify here as anti-utopian. I argue that the
dominant strands of retrospective politics indeed do tend to be anti-utopian and have a very limited
emancipatory potential. Moreover, I claim that currently dominant retrospective politics do not radically break with
several of the exculpatory intellectual mechanisms that are typically associated with progressivist politics
but actually modify and sometimes even radicalize them. In that restricted sense, and only in this sense, it can be
argued that currently dominant retrospective politics do not represent a fundamentally new way of
dealing with historical evil and the ethics of responsibility.
My perspective is not a pessimistic one, however. Besides the currently dominant retrospective politics, there exist other strands of
retrospective politics that do have emancipatory or even utopian features and that do not force us to choose between
restitution for historical injustices and struggle for justice in the present or the future. Anti-utopianism and ethical “passeism,” I argue, are
not inherent or necessary features of all retrospective politics but rather result from a specific, underlying type of historical thought
or philosophy of history18 that treats the relation between past, present, and future in antinomic terms and prevents us from understanding
“transtemporal” injustices and responsibilities. Sometimes this type of historical thought indeed stimulates a moralistic stance in which the past is
charged with the worst of all evil, while the present becomes morally discharged by simple comparison. The latter type of “temporal
Manichaeism” can be highly problematic, I argue, because it not only posits that the “past is evil” but also tends to turn this
reasoning around and stimulates the wishful thought that “evil is past.”
 Alt – Nihilism DA
The alternative results in nihilism and reproduces its impacts
Lloyd 16 (Vincent, Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies Villanova
University, Black Natural Law, Oxford University Press, p. ebook)
What does the black natural law tradition have to say to such systemic injustice? It can name this
injustice, as Douglass does. It can explain how a perverse legal system degrades and dehumanizes.
But at this point, the resources of the tradition would seem to be exhausted. With no specific
unjust laws to target, the only hope for political change would be apocalypticism. The entire
system of laws would need to be overturned and God’s law implemented n its place. This radical impulse toward
revolution or eschaion is at odds with the measured, politically strategic instincts of the
tradition. When too much is demanded too quickly, without practical wisdom and political calculus, we tend to deviate from
natural law. This apparent impasse between the scope of the problem and the deliberateness of the strategy for remediation may
very well explain the collapse of the black natural law tradition. After slavery, ¡t quickly became clear that a host of racist laws
persisted and that these could be targeted. The deep problems with the legal system itself that Douglass identified could wait until
the lower-hanging fruit had been picked. After the end of legal segregation, there were no longer specific laws to target that
indisputably ran against natural law. One response was to set aside substantial engagement with natural law in favor of either a
literary realm disconnected from the political (Baldwin, Lorde) or the crude pragmatism of electoral politics (Obama). Tithe natural
law tradition were to persist, it would be forced to confront pervasive injustice in the legal system—and that, it would seem, beckons
apocalypse. Recently, this last option has gained traction in
the scholarly community under the name of Afro-
pessimism.3 Theorists under this banner have investigated the persistence, through many shifting forms, of
anti-black racism throughout the history of the West. They claim that Western metaphysics or theology has
rooted deep within it a commitment to the dehumanization of black bodies. The very
concept of the human has been defined in such a way as to exclude blacks. Black life is a life
foreclosed, at every moment present but ignored, counted only to be condemned. Slavery and segregation were, in this view,
symptoms of a deeper problem, just as the racism of the legal system is a symptom. Within this totalizing rubric, the
disease of anti- blackness is so intransigent that there is no hope.4 Or, in a theological register, the
only hope is for apocalypse: for a time when all worldly laws will be struck down, when the law of God will be
implemented, and when black bodies will be resurrected. Although Afro-pessimist theorists may be committed
in principle to resisting racism—given the intense foreclosure of black humanity, black life itself comes to be
coterminous with resistance— there is neither a sense that practical wisdom is needed to engage with
the social and political world nor a sense that normative conclusions can he drawn from any
form of reflection on human nature. Practical wisdom buys into the logic of white supremacy when what is needed is for that
logic to be upended. Reflection on human nature ¡s impossible because the foreclosure of black
humanity has been so thorough. We are left waiting for the apocalypse. Afro-pessimism
results in a solipsistic retreat into the supposedly foreclosed self. White supremacy cuts off or perverts all
possibilities for black sociality on this theory. It similarly cuts off or perverts all possibilities for
intergenerational transmission; What is left is the individual, black and alone, facing the
indestructible behemoth of white supremacy. The individual will try to resist, will try to take up David’s slingshot. But with no
criteria by which to know justice, with his or her own sense of self always mangled by the crushing force of white
supremacy, there are few pebbles to throw and no one with whom to consult to learn how to fashion a slingshot. All that
is left is to pray or retreat into memories—or memoirs. Must the black natural law tradition really collapse
when faced with the challenge of a racist legal system? I see no reason why this must be so.
Consider again what black natural law most centrally entails: ideology critique and social movement organizing.
These are the responses that necessarily follow from proper reflection on human nature and its
distortions. Both of these are called for and are very possible responses to a racist legal
system. Upon seeing a chain gang outside her train window, Anna Julia Cooper responds by calling for the
creation of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans. That is to say, she calls for organizing,
and she does it in a text that performs ideology critique, calling into question the wisdom of the world. The black natural law tradition
embraces the need for robust institutions in the black community to cultivate right perception of natural law, and it puts front and
What, then, of the worry that the
center the role of intergenerational transmission in cultivating such right perception.
systemic violence of the American legal system leaves black natural law flummoxed because
it presents no point of attack, no single law that can be compared unfavorably with natural
law? Such points of attack could serve two purposes. On the one hand, they could motivate calls
for justice. The canonical formulations of black natural law do not begin by attacking specific laws, however. They begin by
reflecting on how human nature is distorted by institutions, laws, and social norms. The second purpose that an attack on
specific laws might serve is to offer a way of implementing natural law. But the black natural law tradition
emphasizes the need for practical wisdom and patience in the implementation of natural law. The Montgomery bus boycott initially
did not demand integration: it demanded first-come, first-served seating on buses, whites from the front and blacks from the back.
Douglass remained a slave, patiently waiting for the right opportunity to escape all the while building community with his fellows,
even after triumphing in his fight with Covey and thus confirming his right to freedom. Specific laws may be attacked, but
only at the proper moment. The challenge of Americas racist legal system offers an opportunity to confirm and refine the
black natural law tradition. Focusing on one or another law to be fixed tempts us to forget what is most basic in that tradition:
Confronting the racist legal system teaches blacks to look
ideology critique and social movement organizing.
suspiciously on the wisdom of the world, to work together to build power, and to patiently wait until
the right moment to rise up and destroy the demonic forces that hold more than a million of our black brothers and sisters in cages.

Warren’s nihilism locks in antiblackness and destroys the possibilities of

life that posthumanism could offer
Lillvis, 17 (Kristen, Associate Professor and Director of Digital Humanities at Marshall
University, “Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination,” 2017, University of
Georgia Press] rc//Townes
Theories of black identity provide concrete examples of the paradoxical opposition to and
support of white power structures cultivated by constructions of blackness since the
Middle Passage. Du Bois’s double consciousness describes the internalization of both black
and white-determined ideas of blackness. He explains that the black subject inhabits “a world
which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation
of the other world” (Du Bois 38). The “other world”—the white world—views the black subject
with “amused contempt and pity,” which Du Bois argues compels the black subject to observe
himself similarly (38). Du Bois’s black subject, though situated in opposition to the “other world”
of the white subject, supports white power structures with his “longing to attain self-conscious
manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self ” (39)—a self determined by or at
least incorporating white-authored notions of humanity.
Du Bois describes a system of signifcation in which whiteness shapes the cultural signifcance of
blackness. Although his assertion of a double consciousness suggests the existence of a
“Negro” consciousness distinct from a white “American” consciousness (Du Bois 38), white
supremacy shapes both entities. Rejecting the mutual exclusivity of blackness and whiteness in
Du Boisian double consciousness, Paul Gilroy argues that Du Bois’s theory acknowledges the
“transformation and fragmentation of the integral racial self,” indicating that although ideas
of blackness vary across black communities, “constricting or absolutist understandings of
ethnicity” driven by white power structures limit the expression of black humanity (Black
138). As Gilroy asserts, Du Bois’s “two warring ideals” have “democratic potential disfgured by
white supremacy” (Du Bois 38; Gilroy, Black 113); in other words, whiteness, by cultivating
meaning through the opposition of blackness, distorts blackness for blacks and whites.
Fanon similarly addresses the supremacy of white power structures in shaping ideas about
blackness. However, whereas Du Bois posits a double consciousness, Fanon contends that
blacks possess a “triple” personhood or consciousness. Like Du Bois, Fanon argues that the
black individual exists as a subject and also in relation to the white other. Fanon then adds a
third element: via the relation to the white other, the black individual loses subjectivity and
occupies object status (84). Fanon expresses his desire to “be a man among other men,” but he
concludes that he has “made [himself] an object”—the third aspect of his triple consciousness—
because “his inferiority comes into being through the other” (85, 83). Fanon’s triple
consciousness thus offers blacks not only a vision of black and white notions of blackness, as
Du Bois’s double consciousness does, but also a glimpse of the “other,” the larger white power
structure that shapes rhetorical concepts of race.
Despite labeling white supremacist systems as “other,” neither Du Bois nor Fanon argues that
blackness influences whiteness in the same way whiteness distorts blackness. Rejecting the
equal reflexivity of blackness and whiteness, Fanon assigns triple consciousness specifically to
black men and women:
Ontology—once it is finally admitted as leaving existence by the wayside—does not permit us to
understand the being of the black man. For not only must the black man be black; he must be
black in relation to the white man. Some critics will take it on themselves to remind us that this
proposition has a converse. I say that this is false. The black man has no ontological resistance
in the eyes of the white man. Overnight the Negro has been given two frames of reference
within which he has had to place himself. His metaphysics, or, less pretentiously, his customs
and the sources on which they were based, were wiped out because they were in conflict with a
civilization that did not know and that imposed itself on him. (82–83)
Diana Fuss explains that for Fanon, whiteness operates as a “transcendental signifer,” a
“self-identical, self-reproducing term” that proclaims freedom from blackness as well as “the very
category of ‘race’” (22). Fuss follows Fanon in asserting that whiteness, in mandating
independence from racial categories, colonizes blackness and reserves subjectivity for whites
alone (Fuss 23).
If white power structures regulate the rhetoric of race and the assignation of subjectivity,
then blackness—even in its opposition to whiteness— supports white supremacy.
Semiotics—what Warren calls the “very structure of meaning in the modern world”—depends
upon the existence of blackness and, specifically, the othering of blackness, which takes the
concrete form of “anti-black violence” during and following the Middle Passage (226). While Du
Bois and Fanon explain through their theories of double and triple consciousness that antiblack
violence exists as a byproduct of white supremacist systems, Warren positions black
suffering as foundational to semiotics and Western metaphysics (237–38): “If literal black
bodies sustain modernity and metaphysics—though various forms of captivity, terror, and
subjection,” he asks, “then what would emancipation entail for blacks? How do we allow
metaphysics to self-consume and weaken when blackness nourishes metaphysics?” (Warren
239). Warren follows Morrison in interweaving the origins of modernity and black oppression,
though he extends her premise by arguing that historical and contemporary American culture
depends on antiblack violence.
Warren’s black nihilist philosophy provides no answer to the problem of black suffering within
white power structures; however, his argument that blackness contributes to the perpetuation of
these structures indicates the need for a new type of consciousness: one that not only
recognizes the impact of whiteness on black subjectivity (like Du Bois’s double consciousness)
and black metaphysics (like Fanon’s triple consciousness) but also acknowledges the reflexive
relationship of blackness and whiteness within white supremacist systems. Posthuman
multiple consciousness affords this perspective. Posthuman multiple consciousness
perceives black identities as contributing to but also potentially independent of white, Western
metaphysics. In particular, considering identity within the temporal liminality of posthumanism
allows the black subject to conceive of a future in which blackness destroys rather than
facilitates black objectifcation. While Warren argues that this type of “‘blackened’ world”
would put an “end to metaphysics” and “the world itself ” (244), posthumanism projects
nonapocalyptic possibilities for the future as well as the past and present.
 Alt – Disembodiment DA
DISEMBODIMENT – ITS NOT WHAT YOU DO, ITS WHAT YOU
JUSTIFY. THE AFFIRMATIVE SHOULD HAVE TO DEFEND THE
TRADITION AND STYLE OF DEBATE THEY CHOOSE TO
PARTICIPATE IN. THIS MEANS THAT THEY HAVE TO DEFEND
OTHER FORMS OF EDUCATION THAT EXIST IN THE STYLE OF
DEBATE THEY ARE ENGAGING IN. THEIR MODEL OF DEBATE IS A
FORM OD DISEMBODIED PERFORMANCE THAT ALLOWS
WHITENESS TO MAINTAIN HEGEMONIC POWER
Campbell ‘97 [Fiona, members.tripod.com/FionaCampbell/speech_acts_on_problematising_empowerment.htm, 12-04-07]
So who am I - to speak, to be listened to? And why is it important to identify my speaking position? The ‗word‘ in spoken or written
form (sometimes referred to as Discourse), is the site that both power and knowledge meet. Which is why speech acts can be
inherently dangerous. Furthermore, a person in
a Privileged speaking position, such as myself, has a
political/ethical responsibility to interrogate his/her relationship” to subordinated and
disadvantaged peoples and declare their „interest‟. On this point, La Trobe University, Professor Margaret
Thornton states ―assumed objectivity of knowledge itself camouflage not only the fact that it always has a
standpoint, but that it also serves an ideological purpose‖ (Thornton 1989: 125). Refusing to declare one‟s
speaking position, I argue constitutes not only a flagrant denial of the privileging effect of speech, but must be
considered as an act of complicity to systematically mislead. I speak tonight from what I would term, a privileged
speaking position. As someone who has been exposed to tertiary education, had an opportunity to read and reflect on many books
and ideas, with a job and more particularly, as a teacher. Indeed, for some I act as a mentor - the one who ‗knows something about
knowledge‘. On the other hand, I am deeply ambivalent about my ‗expertise‘ to engage in the act of public speech talk. For am from
the margins, the client, patient, the ‗riff raff‘, flotsam and jetsam of society and might say - somewhat ‗deviant‘. It is important to
come clean about my speaking position, my knowledge standpoint and declare my interests:  I speak for myself as
a woman who has experienced youth homelessness, childhood violence and later ‗disability‘. Before
I speak I am
required to undertake a process of self-examination, to scrutinise my representational politics, to
immerse myself in a self-reflexive interrogation and discern “what [my] representational politics
authorises and who it erases … ―(Howe 1994: 217). Do I speak for myself or others? Am I making gross
generalisations about groups in the community? Does my speech contain unacknowledged assumptions and values? More
specifically, within this process of reflection, I am required to examine the context and location from which I speak, in order to
ascertain whether it is ―allied with structures of oppression … [or] … allied with resistance to oppression.
 Alt – Cede the Political
The state is inevitable—denouncing us as “liberal reformism” ignores that
even if we don’t engage the state, it will engage us—any method which is
mutually exclusive with ours devolves politics into a dogmatic void that the
right is all too willing to fill
Choat, 16—PhD in Political Science at Queen Mary University of London, member of the
Political Studies Association, Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics, Politics, and History
(Simon, “Marxism and anarchism in an age of neoliberal crisis,”
http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/32233/1/Choat-S-3223-AAM.pdf, dml)
The anarchist critique of Marxist organisational forms is unconvincing, then, because it does not acknowledge the diversity of
Marxist approaches and it tends towards a theoreticism that sees a linear, causal, and continuous line from theory to practice.
Nonetheless, there are significant differences of strategy between anarchism and Marxism: it is just that these are less to do with
organisation as such, and are much more broadly to do with differing attitudes toward politics and the state. Although some
(though by no means all) anarchists have supported formal political organisations, with rules, membership criteria, and even
have traditionally rejected any engagement with
internal discipline (Schmidt and van der Walt 2009: 247-263), they
the state – whether it be voting, demanding legal rights or protections, forming political
parties, or attempting the revolutionary seizure of government – on the basis that such
engagement can only end up replicating the oppressive hierarchies that they are fighting:
either it will lead to new forms of dictatorship and bureaucracy (such as developed in the Soviet Union);
or it will lead to parliamentary reformism and hence merely reinforce existing structures and relations
of power.
If Marxists support (qualified) engagement with the state and even the formation of political parties,
however, it is not because they think that centralised hierarchies are desirable or inevitable, but
because they begin from a different understanding of politics. They argue that the anarchist
abstention from state politics denies us the most effective means of political action: we
disempower ourselves rather than the state when we refuse to engage with it. Making
demands on the state does not necessarily entail an endorsement of the state, any more
than the demands that are made by employees during a strike are an endorsement of the
employer or of the system of wage-labour (Marx 1988). Anarchists themselves have at least implicitly recognised the
efficacy of political engagement by occasionally supporting the policies of certain governments and even participating in elections
(Engels 1988; Franks 2012: 216).

More than this, abstention from state politics is not a genuine option: whether we like it or not,
we are all already involved in state politics, because we are all always already submitted to
state power, control, and oppression. Anarchists are concerned that participation in
conventional politics will lead to parliamentary reformism. But this concern is itself ultimately
premised on a tacit acceptance of the liberal-parliamentary understanding of politics: to
claim that we can safely repudiate state politics simply by refusing ever to enter a polling booth
is to assume that ‘the state’ stops at the door of Parliament. Marxists, in contrast, have argued that the
state apparatus includes educational institutions, the media, churches, the family, and so on (e.g. Althusser 1971): simply in
going about our daily lives we are all therefore implicated in state politics. Given our
necessary involvement within politics, the question is not whether we engage with it, but how
we do so; even libertarian Marxists like Holloway argue that engagement with the state is inevitable (Holloway 2005: 40). In
contrast, the anarchist recommendation of disengagement from the state risks a politics of
withdrawal and isolation.
There are two related reasons why under our current conditions in particularthe Marxist willingness to engage in state
politics is preferable to an anarchist position. The first is the dominance of neoliberalism today. Given the strength of
neoliberalism since the crisis that it created, there is a strong case for a certain pragmatism in
our response. A danger of the prefigurative politics favoured by anarchists is that it dogmatically dictates an
a priori exclusion of certain forms of political action. For Marxists, on the other hand, political strategies
must be decided according to particular conditions and within a certain context. In a context in
which private companies are increasingly undertaking tasks previously performed by the state, the active defence of state
services and institutions can be viewed as a radical position to adopt: defending welfare provision, public pensions,
universal healthcare, and free higher education should be seen not as a reformist compromise with the
existing order but as safeguarding the gains of class struggle against capitalist processes of
accumulation by dispossession.
This leads to the second reason for doubting the refusal of state politics as a viable tactic under current conditions, which concerns
the specific role of the state under neoliberalism. The
anti-state politics of anarchism may have made sense
during eras in which the state could plausibly be presented as the main threat to freedom and
equality: during the period of nation-building and imperialistic expansion in the mid- to late-19th century, of the rise of fascism in the
it has far less purchase in an era
early-20th century, or even of the development of welfare capitalism after WWII. But
in which neoliberalism, as both the official ideology and a form of everyday common sense, is
anti-statist. Put simply, the attack on state power too easily echoes the rhetoric of neoliberalism
itself (Taylor 2013: 735). When government actors themselves are explicitly endorsing the retreat
of the state, then anarchist attacks on state power have limited efficacy either as a tactical call to
arms or as a convincing analysis of our present conjuncture. In practice, of course, it is true that neoliberalism
has not dissolved state power. But nor has the relation between state and capital remained the same under neoliberalism, such that
our analyses, strategies, or rhetoric need not alter. The nature of this relationship between state and capital will be examined in the
next section.

The alt fails absent a material blueprint of what to come next – prefer
reform
Celeste M. Condit 15. Communication studies Distinguished Research Professor @ UGA.
01/02/2015. “Multi-Layered Trajectories for Academic Contributions to Social Change.”
Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 101, no. 1, pp. 258–270.
The theories of social change that dominated American Communication Studies at the close of the twentieth century echoed those
of the Western humanities. These theories spurred extensive thought about the performances of individual identity and the
relationship of identity to mass media and culture, and they probably had some laudable influence on the broader culture. They are,
however, inadequate to the evolving contexts I have described. One can sum up the most widely circulating
theories of social change among “critical social theorists” of the twentieth century in the
following, admittedly simplified, statement: There is an (evil) Totality (fill in the blank with one or more:
patriarchy, whites, the West, the U.S., neo-liberalism, global capitalism) that must be overturned by a Radical
Revolution. We don't know the shape of what will come after the Revolution, but The Evil is a construction of the
Totality, so anything that comes after will be better. All you need is … (fill in the blank: Love,
Courage, Violence, etc.). For an example, read Slavoj Žižek's attack on the evil Totality (“capitalism,”5 pp. 41/49), which requires the
“excess” of violence named as “courage”6 (pp. 75, 78, 79), via “a leap”7 (p. 81), to eliminate “democracy” for a yet-to-be-imagined
“new collectivity” (p. 85).8 The resilience of this social theory identifies it as a rhetorical attractor; a
predispositional symbolic set that readily transmits emotive potency. To appropriate Kenneth
Burke's terms, the bio-symbolics of human political relationships readily create a “grammar” and
“rhetoric” in the form of a unified enemy that can be imagined as defeated in a singular battle,
after which, things in “our” tribe may be harmonious. To identify this fantasy theme in this way is
to suggest that it may not merely be the product of “Western” or “capitalist” imaginations, but
rather that it arises from an intersection of the structural characteristics of language systems
and the nature of human biologies (which readily adopt both tribal social cooperation and inter-tribal competition).
Because neither biology nor symbolics are deterministic systems, this fantasy theme is
avoidable, even if it is powerfully attractive. Because both biology and symbolics are material,
however, specific kinds of work are necessary in order to avoid the lure of that predisposition. This
point is crucial, because it invalidates the twentieth century (idealist) approaches to social
change, which envisioned a single (violent) leap away from the social as sufficient to create and
maintain better worlds. Thus, when Žižek and others urge us to “Act” with violence to destroy the
current Reality, without a vision of an alternative, on the grounds that the links between actions
and consequences are never certain, we can call his appeal both a failure of imagination and a
failure of reality. As for reality, we have dozens of revolutions as models, and the historical record indicates quite
clearly that they generally lead not to harmonious cooperation (what I call “AnarchoNiceness” to gently mock
the romanticism of Hardt and Negri) but instead to the production of totalitarian states and/or violent
factional strife. A materialist constructivist epistemology accounts for this by predicting that it is
not possible for symbol-using animals to exist in a symbolic void. All symbolic movement has a trajectory,
and if you have not imagined a potentially realizable alternative for that trajectory to take, then what people will leap into is biological
predispositions—the first iteration of which is the rule of the strongest primate. Indeed, this is what experience with revolutions has
shown to be the most probable outcome of a revolution that is merely against an Evil. The failure of imagination in such
rhetorics thereby reveals itself to be critical, so it is worth pondering sources of that failure. The
rhetoric of “the kill” in social theory in the past half century has repeatedly reduced to the leap
into a void because the symbolized alternative that the context of the twentieth century
otherwise predispositionally offers is to the binary opposite of capitalism, i.e., communism. That rhetorical
option, however, has been foreclosed by the historical discrediting of the readily imagined forms of communism (e.g., Žižek9). The
hard work to invent better alternatives is not as dramatically enticing as the story of the kill: such
labor is piecemeal, intellectually difficult, requires multi-disciplinary understandings, and perhaps
requires more creativity than the typical academic theorist can muster. In the absence of a
viable alternative, the appeals to Radical Revolution seem to have been sustained by the
emotional zing of the kill, in many cases amped up by the appeal of autonomy and manliness (Žižek uses the former term
and deploys the ethos of the latter). But if one does not provide a viable vision that offers a
reasonable chance of leaving most people better off than they are now, then Fox News
has a better offering (you'll be free and you'll get rich!). A revolution posited as a void cannot
succeed as a horizon of history, other than as constant local scale violent actions, perhaps
connected by shifting networks we call “terrorists.” This analysis of the geo-political situation, of
the onto-epistemological character of language, and of the limitations of the dominant horizon of
social change indicates that the focal project for progressive Left Academics should now include
the hard labor to produce alternative visions that appear materially feasible.

The alt cedes the political which increases institutional power and
corruption
David Chandler 07, Westminster IR professor, “Deconstructing Sovereignty: Constructing
Global Civil Society,” in Politics Without Sovereignty: A Critique of Contemporary International
Relations, pg 164-5
Global civil society theorists focus their ire on what they understand to be the narrow,
exclusionary bias of the sovereign state. In turn, they view a wide constellation of transnational
actors, from the global mega-NGOs to local farming cooperatives, as representing a radical alternative that opens up
the space for new kinds of political organization and activity. In fact, what the celebration of ‘bottom-up’
politics and the critique of the state really express is a deep disenchantment with mass society
and the demands of formal accountability that go along with representative democracy.72 A
consequence of rejecting the political sphere is that it leaves political struggles isolated
from any shared framework of meaning or from any formal processes of democratic
accountability. The quest for individual autonomy and the claim for the recognition of separate
‘political spaces’ and the ‘incommunicability’ of political causes, each demonstrate the limits of
these radical claims for the normative project of global civil society [END PAGE 164] ‘from below’. Far
from reflecting the emergence of new global political forces, the global civil society, by virtue of
its social isolation, is marked by political weakness. As such, the only strategy left to it is a retreat into elite lobbying and
individualized ethical postures. It is important to stress that I am not claiming that the key problem with radical global civil society approaches is their
the rejection
rejection of formal engagement per se in existing political institutions and established parties. The point I am making here is that
of state-based politics, which forces the individual to engage with and account for the views of
other members of society, reflects a deeper problem – an unwillingness to engage in political
contestation per se. Proponents of global civil society ‘from below’ therefore seek to legitimize their views as the prior moral claims of
others. This has the effect of transforming global civic actors into the advocates of those unable to
make moral claims themselves. Alternatively, they put themselves in harm’s way and would lead
by inarticulate example. What they avoid doing is pursuing their own interests or seeking to
build political solidarity around shared interests. What can actually be achieved through their chosen methods is limited.
Radical lobbying and calls for recognition may in some cases precipitate a generational turnover in the establishment. However, the rejection of social
engagement is more likely to lead to a further shrinking of the political sphere, reducing it to a small circle of increasingly unaccountable elites .
If the
only alternative to the political ‘game’ is to threaten to ‘take our ball home’ – the anti-politics of
rejectionism – the powers that be can sleep peacefully in their beds.
 Alt – Timeframe DA
Totalizing resistance fails for those who cant wait for the alternative
Woan 11 (Tansy, M.A., State University of New York at Binghamton, “The value of resistance
in a permanently white, civil society,” http://gradworks.umi.com/14/96/1496586.html,
ProQuest)rc//gene
criticisms of reformist strategies, they are what I find to be the most legitimate concerns and will thus be
While these are not the only
can be simplified into four major categories. The first criticism is that of
my primary focus. To summarize, these criticisms
“legitimating the system,” arguing that reformist strategies that attempt to work with the government and supremacist institutions
legitimates the system of power relations between those supremacist institutions (read: white) and the minorities whom it subjugates. The second
criticism is that of Omi and Winant, who criticize reformist strategies fornot targeting the main support of racism, that being the
racial state itself. The third criticism comes from revolutionaries and separatists such as Malcolm X, who argue that reform is no longer an
option since the United States federal government cannot be trusted. Lastly, there is the criticism of
promoting illusions of racial equality, which argues that many ingenuously engage in reformist strategies under the guise of caring about
the cause, when the real (though sometimes unconscious) motivation is to obtain the moral credentials to shield them from accusations of racism and
to indicate they have done their part to work toward change.30 While I find each one of these criticisms to be well warranted, there are three reasons
three reasons represent what I
why one might accept these criticisms and yet continue to pursue reform politics anyway. These
view to be legitimate benefits of reformist strategies, even in face of the concerns listed above.
They consist of (1) the symbolic value in what these strategies accomplish, (2) the
material change they produce, even if minimal, and (3) their ability to avoid the limitations of ideal
theory. A. Symbolic Value First, there is a symbolic value to reformist strategies. For example, while Brown v. Board was
unable to end segregation in all schools, it was able to achieve a legal declaration of
segregation as unconstitutional, thus creating a normative statement that segregation was a
racial injustice that ought not be tolerated. Although this promise of desegregation was not
entirely fulfilled, as can be shown with many schools that remained segregated even after the
Supreme Court ruling, the promise in and of itself held symbolic value. It indicated to the public that conditions
in the status-quo were unacceptable and that change was necessary. Bell criticizes those who look positively upon this symbolic value.31 In one of
Bell’s stories, a character named Semple, who is a black cab driver arguing against a client of his who is a wealthy black attorney, describes these
He argues that many of the
symbolic changes as nothing more than empty promises that represent a false hope in change.
“victories” of the Civil Rights era were not really “victories” at all. The changes in legislation achieved by the
movement were motivated not by a desire for justice but by a desire to achieve order. They only had representative value since the government
created these rights for individuals, but as time would soon prove, created them with no intention of protecting them. Bell warns that whites granted
These piecemeal reforms
them only when they realized 31 that they would not “cost them much” and would keep “blacks pacified.”32
are often characterized as attempts made by white civil society to create the maximum level of
order with a minimum level of change.33 While this may be true in some instances, there is indeed a
symbolic value to these reforms. Appeals to the government are important because the
function of the law is primarily pedagogical.34 It is not important merely for the material
change it may cause, but because it serves as an important source of the values that bind
a society together; the law teaches society right from wrong through the normative expectations declared in legal rulings.35 This legal
message, or public promise, even if not always entirely fulfilled, is crucial in the fight against racism since it is not uncommon for the public to look to
the law for moral guidance. Thus,
the Court ruling in Brown v. Board was necessary to unteach the institution of
segregated education, since absent this declaration, the law would implicitly be permitting
educational segregation, without expressing regret for the social injustices committed against
students forced to attend separate, and often inferior, schools.36 Therefore, we must continue to engage in these
piecemeal reforms. However, we must do so with an awareness of their shortcomings. To accept these criticisms as reasons to reject these strategies
Rather, we can continue to
wholesale would neglect our responsibility to work toward changing oppressive conditions of the status-quo.
engage in these strategies but change the way we interpret the racial victories they may result
in to avoid the dangers Bell warns of. How might this work? To return to the example of stereotyping AsianAmericans
as politically apathetic, we can interpret the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as an admission by the government of
previous injustices to recognize the need for equal access to the right to vote, but understand that other
political obstacles enacted by the government and society (such as disproportionate placing of polling booths and scare tactics) continue to prevent
By doing so, we can find value in the legal message of
Asian-Americans from being able to exercise this right to vote.
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, without invoking the cultural differences rationale by making clear
that other obstacles to voting still exist. 37 We can engage in reformist strategies that help
produce material change, while still recognizing that other injustices continue to exist
and thus there is still a need to continue engaging in racial resistance. B. Material Effects Secondly,
while reformist strategies often fail to entirely eliminate racial injustice, they do result in positive effects for at least
some segments of the population. To return to the Brown v. Board example, although the decision did not
result in the desegregation of all schools, it did achieve de jure desegregation, the effects of
which could be seen in at least a few schools, and thus granting the opportunity for at
least some minority students to attend integrated schools. Such an opportunity, while not perfect,
is at least an improvement from attending deteriorating segregated schools with
inadequate resources. For example, while some schools in Detroit and Baltimore may have remained segregated due to
noncompliance, white flight, and residential segregation, the Little Rock School Board did indeed agree to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling and
registered nine black students who were formerly denied entrance for admission to Little Rock Central High. While earlier I noted the pitfalls of
attacking individual policies rather than the entire system itself, this cannot serve as an excuse to do nothing in face of racial discrimination. Rather,
we must continue rejecting these individual policies and doing all that we can to ensure they do
not persist, since while we may not be able to eradicate all instances of injustice, we can
certainly try to eradicate at least some. Thus, there are times in which we must be willing to take small steps and engage in these
piecemeal reforms to pursue an unending attack on white supremacy. C. Hopeless Realism A third reason for continuing
to pursue “achievable reforms” can be found in the problem of hopeless realism.38 In his discussion of
voting behavior, David Estlund describes hopeless realism as holding “ individuals and institutions to standards that it is
within their ability to meet, but which there is good reason to believe they will never meet.”39
Working to abolish the “racial state” and to replace it with one in which racialization does
not take place might be considered by some to fall under this theory, since the
probability of its happening is quite low. It is arguably unrealistic to believe one can ever
abolish the racial state or put an end to all racial injustice. Accepting this to be true, two
problems arise with pursuing such unrealizable goals. First, all resistance comes at a cost. For
example, money raised to support an organization seeking to undermine the “racial state” comes with a direct tradeoff: one forfeits
campaigning to repeal individual policies of the “racial state,” like discriminatory voter
identification requirements. Money and time are both finite, and thus it would seem reasonable
to ensure both are well spent and that goals are prioritized. If one knows that a goal is
unrealizable, then what utility is there in pursuing that goal if it prevents you from achieving
something that is achievable? Even if one argues that the elimination of the racial state is more important than the elimination of voter
identification requirements, how can one plausibly use that as an argument for pursuing the former if its failure is inevitable, or more optimistically
speaking, if
pursuing the former would require a much longer time-frame that others, living in
more dire and urgent circumstances, cannot afford to wait for? Second, rejecting reformist
strategies in favor of more revolutionary goals, such as overhauling the government, would
drain the energies of those engaged in the movement since it would clearly involve a great deal
of effort to fight for something that is possible to achieve, but not expected to be achieved.
Continuing to persist in efforts to work toward such lofty goals will inevitably cause one to accept a number of losses. Fighting tirelessly without any
hope of success in sight may cause advocates to eventually give up the fight entirely. Further, failing to take cost-benefit analysis seriously can rob
society of enormously valuable resources that can be utilized elsewhere, and runs the risk of causing advocates to lose hope in the cause altogether.
Thus, while reformist and radical approaches may at times become mutually exclusive, one
ought not dispense of reformist strategies entirely. They are necessary for any resistance
movement to be successful, and I will thus term them the pragmatic component of resistance.40
 Alt – Blackness N/ Ontological
Blackness exists as nullification not contradiction -- the indeterminate
function of another world is the escape of the Kantian subject.
da Silva, 17 [Denise Ferreira da Silva is an Associate Professor and Director of The Social
Justice Institute (the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice) at the University
of British Columbia. Her academic writings and artistic practice address the ethical questions of
the global present and target the metaphysical and onto-epistemological dimensions of modern
thought. “1 (life) ÷ 0 (blackness) = ∞ − ∞ or ∞ / ∞: On Matter Beyond the Equation of Value,”
2017, e-flux]//Townes
I will now tackle the unquestioned question reiterated by the
To explore this potential of blackness to unsettle ethics,
disregard for lives lost in the streets of the US and in the Mediterranean Sea: Why don’t black
lives matter? To do this, I use that which grounds the modern knowledge program—mathematical
reasoning—to devise a procedure that unleashes blackness to confront life. Using what I call the
Equation of Value, I describe blackness’s capacity to unravel modern thought without
reproducing the violence housed in knowledge and in the scene of value. My proof of this
equation is designed to sidestep the hegemony of the Kantian subject and to make it possible to
expose the disruptive/creative capacity that blackness hosts/holds. In the modern Western imagination,
For
blackness has no value; it is nothing. As such, it marks an opposition that signals a negation, which does not refer to contradiction.

blackness refers to matter—as The Thing; it refers to that without

form—it functions as a nullification of the whole signifying order that
sustains value in both its economic and ethical scenes. The crux of this
exercise is to provide an account of opposition that figures nullification instead of
contradiction. This is crucial for distinguishing a radical engagement from a critical one—
because the latter cannot but assume the Kantian forms when it seeks to expose their
conditions of possibility. Let us first see how the figuring of opposition as contradiction would work in relation to black life. Life is the form;
the positive position vis-à-vis life is figured as “1,” and the negative position is figured as “-1”: i. positive life = 1 ii. negative life = -1 If blackness
occupies the place of negative life—that is, life that has negative value, that does not matter—then iii. blackness = -1 Let me now figure the relationship
between life (1) and blackness (-1) using basic mathematical procedures: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Addition in this case
When simply combined with life,
becomes subtraction because of blackness’s negative value: a) 1 (life) + -1 (blackness) = 0
blackness brings about nullification (0); when added to the positive form of life, blackness
obliterates it. As discussed previously, value, because it is both an effect of determinacy (Kant’s account of knowledge) and is equated with
determinacy (Kantian and Hegelian ethical scenes), it is (a) determinate, resulting in relations marked by
effectivity (efficient causation), that is, relations marked by power differences insofar as one
element effectively acts upon another; and it is (b) determinant insofar as it is the effective
element—that is, it is the form which is applied to matter (content). To express the relation between
blackness (0) and life (1) in terms of effectivity, I use multiplication (×) and division (÷): b) 1 (life) × -1 (blackness) = -1 c) 1 (life) ÷ -1 (blackness) = -1
When blackness multiplies or divides life, it remains in its negative expression, as blackness (-1)
—that is, as lack, as a symbol of an absence (of life). My next move is to take blackness’s
power to annihilate life (a) and deploy it to multiply (×) life. If iv. life = 1 v. blackness = 0 then we find that d) 1
(life) × -1 (blackness) = -1 e) 1 (life) × 0 (blackness) = 0 The movement in both cases is unmistakably violent; it
refigures dialectics. In (d), negativity (blackness) engulfs value, and in (e) it destroys it. Put differently, in (d), life
without value—that is, blackness (-1)—disappears with life, and in (e), blackness as a figuring of
the absence of form (blackness = 0) disappears with the form (life = 1) and releases
matter itself (0). Taking this a step further, it might be possible to move away from dialectics
and its deployment of effectivity, which cannot but reproduce violence, by dividing life by
blackness: f) 1 (life) ÷ 0 (blackness) = ∞ − ∞ or ∞ / ∞ Instead of the sublation (d) or obliteration (e) of the form, this
procedure has no result because it is impossible to divide something by zero. I have
chosen ∞ − ∞ (infinity minus infinity) or ∞ / ∞ (infinity divided by infinity) to picture the result
because it is undeterminable, it has no form: it is ∞ minus itself or ∞ divided by itself. It is neither life nor nonlife; it
is content without form, or materia prima—that which has no value because it exists (as ∞)
without form. In equating blackness with ∞ and capturing the rare (“of which something consists”) and the obsolete (“substance without form”)
meanings of matter, I claim a radical praxis of refusal to contain blackness in the dialectical form.

Though Frantz Fanon’s refusal of dialectics is the most celebrated, I find this
refusal also in Cedric Robinson’s tracing of the black radical tradition; in
Hortense Spillers’s figuring of the flesh as zero degree of signification; in Saidiya
Hartman’s refusal to rehearse racial violence as the moment of black
subjectification; and in Fred Moten’s descriptions of blackness in the scene of
violence which refuse a simple reconciliation with the categories and premises of
modern thought. When blackness’s oppositional power refers to matter—or, in
Fanon’s words, in the “night of the absolute”— it is possible to avoid the principle
of contradiction and the accounts of self-determination it sustains ; it is possible
to avoid, that is, a return to Hegel (or Marx) via the shortcut of racial eschatology .
What I hope this move against determinacy—the very notion presupposed in the question that
Black Lives Matter sets out to challenge—makes possible is an appreciation of the urgency of
bringing about its dissolution. For the work of blackness as a category of difference fits the
Hegelian movement but has no emancipatory power because it functions as a signifier of
violence which, when deployed successfully, justifies the otherwise unacceptable, such as
the deaths of black persons due to state violence (in the US and in Europe) and capitalist
expropriation (in Africa). That is, the category of blackness serves the ordered universe of
determinacy and the violence and violations it authorizes. A guide to thinking, a method for
study and unbounded sociality—blackness as matter signals ∞, another world: namely,
that which exists without time and out of space, in the plenum.

Prefer black existentialism – afropessimist ontology relies upon double-

consciousness, which forces it into requiring and denying relationality.
Gordon ’20 (Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher at the University of
Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology,
social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of
liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. The Sartrean Mind, p.
504 - 508) /NoWa
More, there
is the question of whether lying to oneself is possible in models of human
subjects placed—secretly perhaps in the inner recesses of the mind—outside of social reality. There is a
performative contradiction involved in the denial of social reality as the effort is done through a social practice—namely,
communication. The condition for the possibility of meaning must be rejected to support a
nonrelational legitimacy of such assertions. La mauvaise foi, in other words, requires an attitude to evidence,
and evidence is that which appears for others, including the self as other. That antiblack racism is a form of la
mauvaise foi raises some additional pressing questions. Is it the same as all other forms of racism? Blackness functions, after
all, in peculiar ways in societies that have produced antiblack racism. A response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the United
States, for instance, is often an appeal to the notion that all lives matter. That is true to the extent that each group lives under
in an antiblack society
conditions of equal respect and value. What advocates of #BlackLivesMatter reveal is that
some lives matter a lot more than others. The history of antiblack racism in the Americas
amounts to the conviction that black people are only valuable to the extent that there is
use for their labor. It collapses into the expectation of demonstration of a justified existence in a context in which the
justification for whomever stands as most valued is intrinsic. Members of the dominant group could thus
seek their justification—if they wish—personally, through mechanisms of love, professional recognition, athletic
achievement, or wealth. That is why some white philosophers, such as Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor, focus on recognition. They
regard this social phenomenon as something the dominant group has that the dominated ones lack through having defined the
dominant group as the source of its legitimacy. #BlackLivesMatter, first tweeted by Alycia Garza, an African American
challenges that thesis by offering internal recognition while appealing to a
queer woman,
value that transcends white recognition. That antiblack societies render some groups as positive and others as
negative leads to notions of legitimate presence (illegitimate absence) and legitimate absence (illegitimate presence). Should the
analysis remain at white and black, the world would appear more closed than it in fact is. For one, simply being born black would bar
the possibility of any legitimate appearance. This is a position that has been taken by a growing group of theorists known as
“Afropessimists.” Black for them is absolute social death. It is outside of relations, especially
those pertaining to being human. Members of this group, most of whose thought exemplifies a form of
black existentialism (lower case “b” because of its affirmation of abject blackness), read existentialists such as
Fanon and Sartre as architects of closed ontologies. Although drawing upon resources from existential
thinkers, this form of thought is more about Being than it is about existence. To exist, after all, is to
stand out, to emerge, to appear, to question, to have a point of view, and as most existentialists from antiquity to the present have
observed, to be requires a form of submergence that, although often sought, is one of those wishes one should be careful not to
achieve. Ironically, Afropessimists’ attraction to social death is psychoanalytically rich,
since death is a form of being posed as nonbeing from which one is relieved of
responsibility. In Judaism,it is described as being abdicated of Mitzvoth, the Hebrew term for responsibility often understood
as a commandment. The Afropessimist appeal to ontology diverges from Beauvoir’s, Biko’s, Fanon’s,
Sartre’s, and the list of Black existentialists’ argument that no human being is “really” any of
these abject things without being in la mauvaise foi. The project of making people into
such in an antiblack society is one thing; people actually becoming such is another. Much
of this misunderstanding emerges from at least three observations from Fanon’s Black Skin,White Masks. The first is Fanon’s
pointing out that, from the perspective of the white antiblack racist, the black has no
ontological resistance. Fanon’s formulation was succinct and poetic: “the black has no ontological resistance in the eyes
of the white.” Here, he was not talking about black people’s perspective. He repeatedly wrote
about a healthy world of blacks among blacks, and he describes blacks who become neurotic from the
slightest contact with the white world as just that: neurotic. To understand this, we should bear in mind that that work was a critique
of many of the presuppositions about nonwhite peoples in the Euromodern human sciences, especially psychiatry and psychology.
Fanon posed scenarios of clients reaching out for help in addressing sources of dissatisfaction in their lives. The therapeutic
situation in particular is narcissistic. It is, after all, an individual consulting the physician on the premise of the relationship
legitimately being “all about me.” Fanon
noticed, however, that while some people may be neurotic or
psychotic, others might actually suffer dissatisfaction because they are psychologically
healthy. It would be strange to be happy or satisfied with being degraded, dehumanized,
exploited, and humiliated. The antidote for that, Fanon argued, was to become actional. This involves
being involved in practices of social transformation or becoming political. This brings us to one of Fanon’s other observations.
Racism, he argued, is not a problem of being the Other. Drawing upon the phenomenological distinction
between an analogical other and the Other—where the first is simply a projection of the self and the second is an encounter with
that which is free and not identical to oneself—Fanon observed that a racist society attempts to produce those who are Selves and
Others and those who are neither. Where there are Selves and Others, there are ethical relations and moral possibility. Where there
Violation only occurs where those beneath the relations of Selves and
are neither, there is license.
Others reach beyond their supposed “place.” In effect, theirs would be acts of illicit appearance. The
struggle against racism, then, is not against being the Other; it is for the construction of
a world in which one can at least be the Other, where there are de facto selves and
others, a social world of expanding possibilities or options for flourishing. For those who
consider the racist system just, this struggle is nothing short of violence. For those who attempt to show such people that actions of
social transformation are moral or just, they must do so in terms intelligible to those who have accepted the status quo. The best
way they could do that is through not changing it. It would be the failed attempt to address a political matter in purely moral terms
under the presupposition of moral independence of what the revolutionaries experience each day as the ongoing violence of an
unjust system. The unfortunate fact is that liberation is, from the point of view of the conquering settlers and governors, unjust
 colonialism, enslavement, and racism
justice. This seeming dilemma raises a third observation, which is that
produce the zone of nonbeing in antiblack societies. The zone of nonbeing is not
ontological, however, from the fact that it is socially produced. It is, in Fanon’s language,
sociogenic. That means, as he reminds us, that, unlike biological processes, it requires human
action for it to come into and out of being. We have come to a point of much contention in black thought.
Afropessimism emerges from discussing “blackness” as though it could exist
independently of other categories. Aside from the absurdity of creating a society entirely devoted to antiblackness,
a quick examination of double consciousness would reveal why this wouldn’t work. Double consciousness involves
seeing oneself from the perspective of others who deem one as negative. That there is
already another perspective makes the subject who lives through double consciousness
relational. It is, in short, a phenomenological concept. As phenomenological, it is intentional or
directed. It requires movements of consciousness from its initial naïveté to critical reflection. Along such a path is what Paget
Henry calls potentiated second sight and Jane Anna Gordon calls potentiated double consciousness, which is the realization that
negative identification is imposed but need not be accepted. Seeing that that position is false moves
one dialectically forward into asking about the system that attempts to force one into such an identity. This relational matter requires
This means moving from the conception
looking beyond blackness ironically in order to understand blackness.
of meaning as singular, substance-based, fixed, and semantic into the grammar of how
meaning is produced. Such grammars emerge in interesting ways. The grammar of gender in the genealogical sources of
Euromodernity historically had women occupying the role of absence. Euromodern colonialism and exploitation, wedded to
capitalism, then produced a philosophical anthropology of absence in which blackness and womanness were at first linked and,
then, shifted to practices of semantic separation amid grammatical maintenance. The grammar of presence and absence is
peculiarly theodicean. Theodicy involves demonstrating the integrity of an absolute deity in the face of evil and injustice. If the deity
is all-powerful and good, then such infelicities must come from elsewhere. Classical solutions involve erasing them through showing
they are ultimately part of a stream of resolved contradictions or that free will functions as a kind of deus ex machina. At heart is a
model of consistency in which there is an infinite series without contradiction—in other words, maximum consistency. In effect, this
solution is Manichean; it creates a minimum of two absolute worlds of contraries. Recall Fanon’s observations of different zones in
which Selves and Others relate in one and neither emerge beyond. This is the stuff of apartheid, colonialism, racism, and sexism.
That the separations are unsustainable because of the dialectical features of social reality, where communicative capacity
contradicts the posed contraries, means that all the efforts of produced contraries in effect haunt the others. Race is engendered;
gender is raced; class is raced; class is engendered; the practices and list goes on with no doubt more to come, so long as the
theodicean efforts continue. A secular theodicy, though seeming contradictory, is theodicean through the idolatrous practice of
whatever plays the grammatical role of a god or, singularly, the deity. In Sartre’s thought, this is the form of la mauvaise foi in which
presence takes on the hubris of the desire to be everything or absolute. The grammar is also psychoanalytical, in the sense of
existential psychoanalysis. Manichean “qualities” are, as we have seen, given to these modes of being. This pertains as well to
a white man’s relation to a black man is not only one of race-to-race but also
sexual orientation:
of race- to-gender where the meaning of being black could collapse into gendered
absence. And extended to the sexualization of absence (think of Being and Nothingness, in which Sartre wrote of the feminine
as soft, dark, cold, absence), the relation immediately collapses into a homoerotic one. For women, if we follow the critical line of
fluid meaning raises the question of what
reasoning that challenged the ontological status of blackness,
socially produced relations could affect what is at first presumed to be a woman relating
to a woman or a woman relating to a man. Whiteness, after all, could shift a woman’s location to another woman
who is primarily governed by not being white. The implications here suggest that heteronormative associations could apply in same-
sex female relations. The possibilities are many, as Judith Butler, who began her career with a dissertation that included a sustained
critical examination of Sartre’s thought alongside Hegel’s and Lacan’s, shows. Hortense Spillers, the famed African American
Black existence, in other words, is not about who
theorist, explores similar dynamics with much poignancy.
counts as a man but instead the complicated question of how who counts at all
constitutes what appears and what is lived. We come to a conception of dealing with racial and gender
qualities, among others, which are today called “intersectional.” Intersectionality is unfortunately often interpreted as a theory of
identity. However, Kimberlé Crenshaw, the major proponent of intersectionality, is pretty clear that she is referring to identity
collisions as they appear in tort law, i.e., to harms that, because of how they are interpreted, don’t appear (exist) despite their lived-
reality. From an existential phenomenological perspective, there are some crucial differences to consider between what Crenshaw
meant and what results from treating her argument as a theory about identity. The first is that the geometric model of an intersection
presupposes complete lines crossing. The criticism would be that there was never a complete “whole” in the first place. The second
is that as all
human beings are manifestations of different dimensions of meaning, the
question of identity requires more than an intersecting model, otherwise there will simply
be one normative outcome—a priori—in every moment of inquiry: whoever manifests the
maximum manifestation of negative or abject terms. That would be an essence before an
existence.We have already seen this problem in our discussion of Afropessimism. This observation of invested abjection
emerges as well with the Afropessimist model when one thinks of pessimism as the guiding theme. An avowed
ontological claim would be governed by an epistemological presupposition. This concern also
pertains to the initial concerns about authenticity discourses. One could only be pessimistic about an
outcome, an activity. It’s an act of forecasting. Similarly, one could only be optimistic
about the same. What, however, if there were no way to know either? Like other intersectional and
proto-intersectional theorists before her, Crenshaw argues for transforming the conditions of possibility for the appearance of harm
in systems of restitution and social justice. In other words, it’s
about making sure that harms are
acknowledged and addressed, which means who is harmed cannot be determined before
injury occurs. Here we come to the foi element in la mauvaise foi. Some actions are deontological, and if not that, they are
reflections of our commitments, our projects. Thus, the point of some actions isn’t about their success or failure but whether we
deem them worth doing. Taking responsibility for such actions—bringing value to them—is opposed to another manifestation of la
mauvaise foi: the spirit of seriousness.

We must refuse society’s attempts to quell resistance and silence our

voices – pessimism is nothing new and is just the reinvention of right-wing
criticism used to fracture grassroots organizing. Only reinventing the terms
of our discussion can provide the capacity to articulate our radical actions
Dawson 15 (Michael C., John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor of Poly Sci @ U
Chicago, “Blacks In and Out of the Left” pp. 185-186) RR Jr
Individually and as a society, we are suffering from “cruel optimism,” to use Berlant’s phrase-a state of being marked by
“the condition of maintaining an attachment to a problematic object .” She continued: “But if the cruelty of an attachment is
experienced by someone/some group, even in disavowed fashion, the fear is that the object/scene of promising itself will defeat the capacity to have any hope about anything.

This
Often this fear of loss of a sense of optimism as such is unstated and only experienced in a sudden incapacity to manage startling situations” (Berlant 2008, 33).

phenomenon describes our often irrational refusal to abandon aspects of a political, economic,
and social system that has badly served the majority of Americans over the past several
decades. America is supposed to be great; its highest aspirations are the stuff out of which the
American dream is fabricated. For many Americans this dream has not been fulfilled . But we have
not been able to break our attachment to this system. One reason, Berlant suggested, is fear of losing an
optimistic sense of America, a sense that at one time was at least partially grounded in reality. If the American dream is broken and turning into Malcolm
X’s “American nightmare” for more than just poor black Americans, what is to replace it as the source of hope for a better future, if not for us, then at least for our progeny? The

There is no source of hope to replace the broken dream

answer we hear whispered in our ear in the depths of night is “nothing.”

we have now. A second problem is that we cannot accurately name either the problem or
the solution. Many of the solutions that the twentieth century held on to have been either
justifiably disgraced or so perverted in American discourse that an honest, down-to-earth discussion of
concepts such as social democracy is nigh impossible outside semiprotected spaces such as
the academy. French philosopher Alain Badiou sternly argued that we must reclaim the language of struggle and
resistance and resist the tendency toward self-silencing: “We have to try to retain the words of our language, even though we no
longer dare to say them out loud. In ’68, these were the words that were used by everyone. Now they tell us: “the world has changed, so you can no longer use those words,
and you know that it was the language of illusion and terror.’ ‘Oh yes we can! And we must!’ The problem is still there, and that means that we must be able to pronounce those
words. It is up to us to criticse them, and to give them new meaning” (Badiou 2010, 64). Even as late as the 1970s, both the left and the right were able to imagine alternatives to
the current economic and political order. As Erik Olin Wright has argued, “While the right condemned socialism as violating individual rights to private property and unleashing
monstrous new forms of state oppression, and the left saw socialism as opening up new vistas of social equality, genuine freedom and the development of human potentials,

it is hard to either name the problem or imagine the

both believed that a fundamental alternative to capitalism was possible.” Yet,

alternative to what we have today as “the natural order of things and pessimism has replaced
the optimism of the will that Gramsci said would be essential if the world is to be transformed”
(Wright 2010, 1). On the other hand, many of the problems have names attached to them that have the protected status of sacred relics, such as “capitalism.” And when it
comes to solutions, names such as “democracy” have had their meanings narrowed to such
slim, technocratic dimensions that they no longer can provide the basis for discussions of the good life
without a massive battle to reclaim their original contentious, radical, and political meanings. Here political science, as Lisa Wedeen has argued, has

played a particularly damaging role, as policy makers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),

and those influential inside the Beltway and in international institutions such as the World Bank have adopted the move by
some political scientists to limit the meaning of democracy to merely to the act of voting-
ruling out all the other components of democratic life, such as active civic participation,
accountability, or a vigorous democratic discourse as either meaningless or
unmeasurable (and for far too many social scientists, “unmeasurable” is the functional equivalent of “meaningless”) (Wedeen 2008).

Pessimisms ontology flattens blackness

Kline 17(David KLINE, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University, 17
[“The Pragmatics of Resistance: Framing Anti-Blackness and the Limits of Political Ontology,”
Critical Philosophy of Race, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2017rc//gene
Focusing on Wilderson, his absolute prioritization of a political onto-logical structure in which the law
relegates Black being into the singular position of social death happens, I contend, at the expense
of two significant things that I am hesitant to bracket for the sake of prioritizing political ontology
as the sole frame of reference for both analyzing anti-Black racism and thinking resistance
within the racialized world. First, it short-circuits an analysis of power that might reveal not only
how the practices, forms, and apparatuses of anti-Black racism have historically developed,
changed, and reassembled/reterritorialized in relation to state power, national identity,
philosophical discourse, biological discourse, political discourse, and so on—changes that,
despite Wilderson’s claim that focusing on these things only “mystify” the question of ontology
(Wilderson 2010, 10), surely have implications for how racial positioning is both thought and resisted
in differing historical and socio-political contexts. To the extent that Blackness equals a singular
ontological position within a macropolitical structure of antagonism, there is almost no room to
bring in the spectrum and flow of social difference and contingency that no doubt spans across
Black identity as a legitimate issue of analysis and as a site/sight for the possibility of a range of
resisting practices. This bracketing of difference leads him to make some rather sweeping and
opaquely abstract claims. For example, discussing a main character’s abortion in a prison cell in the 1976 film Bush Mama,
Wilderson says, “Dorothy will abort her baby at the clinic or on the floor of her prison cell, not because she fights for—and either
wins [End Page 58] or loses—the right to do so, but because she is one of 35 million accumulated and fungible (owned and
exchangeable) objects living among 230 million subjects—which is to say, her will is always already subsumed by the will of civil
society” (Wilderson 2010, 128, italics mine). What I want to press here is how Wilderson’s statement, made in the sole
frame of a totalizing political ontology overshadowing all other levels of sociality, flattens out the social difference
within, and even the possibility of, a micropolitical social field of 35 million Black people living in
the United States. Such a flattening reduces the optic of anti-Black racism as well as Black
sociality to the frame of political ontology where Blackness remains stuck in a singular position
of abjection. The result is a severe analytical limitation in terms of the way Blackness (as well as
other racial positions) exists across an extremely wide field of sociality that is comprised of
differing intensities of forces and relational modes between various institutional, political, socio-
economic, religious, sexual, and other social conjunctures. Within Wilderson’s political ontological frame, it
seems that these conjunctures are excluded—or at least bracketed—as having any bearing at
all on how anti-Black power functions and is resisted across highly differentiated contexts. There is
only the binary ontological distinction of Black and Human being; only a macropolitics of sedimented abjection.
INDICTS
 A/T: Moten
Motens reading of blackness misunderstands the magnitude of anti-
black violence
Marriott, David. "Judging Fanon." Rhizomes 29 (2016).
http://www.rhizomes.net/issue29/marriott.html (Professor at USC Santa Barbara in Humanities
Cultural Consciousness, Ph.D. in literature from the University of Sussex)
[10] In Sexton’s reading, which is my second powerful example of how to read Fanon, the
oddness of this disavowal is that it must take into account the necessity of black social life as
lived fugitivity (in the form of the case, the aesthetic-political): he goes on to elaborate this
question in terms of an essential ‘affirmation’ inhabiting blackness in its constitutively
pathological drive to be the case, the movement of escape, which cannot be lived as such.
Blackness has an essential relation to social death even when read optimistically, and this
consecution is neither to be simply celebrated nor simply deplored. And, more crucially, at some
point blackness must attempt to take itself as a case without naively compromising its defense
or execution, stating the law of blackness as law (as case), but knowing that this ‘law’ is caused
in the first instance by the kinds of social death at work in black social life. In the case of Moten,
blackness’s relation to law cannot act as a case, in that it precedes or is not reducible to a
‘simple interdiction nor bare transgression’ of law: whether this be figured in terms of pathology
or not, it is clearly a situation of theft, if only in that it is stolen from the law as the very possibility
of its jurisdiction. In the paradoxical terms which Moten finds in any attempt to derive or
legitimate black pathology (see section 1), his disavowal can only, as Sexton suggests, produce
simultaneously a denial or a refusal of the very institution of blackness (as socially dead), which
allows that disavowal to be made. To do so he has to absolve the violence which presides over
the anti-black world, and in so doing do violence to the freedom made possible by that violence:
this is Moten’s command to avow the social life of blackness and its aesthetic affirmation. This
violent secondary attempt to erase primary anti-black violence can be presumably repeated
indefinitely as anti-blackness continues to rule the world. (As such, writes Sexton, this is a theft
‘that creates the crime and its alibi at once’[21]).
 A/T: Wilderson
Wilderson votes for the perm
(Frank B. Wilderson 16, it’s Wilderson, “‘The Inside-Outside of Civil Society’: An Interview
with Frank B. Wilderson, III”, https://www.academia.edu/26032053/_The_Inside-
Outside_of_Civil_Society_An_Interview_with_Frank_B._Wilderson_III)//Xain//recut-gene
So that’s a hurdle that we have to overcome. You know, I’ve been doing political education
workshops for Black Lives Matter in New York and Los Angeles, and probably will do more in
Chicago. And what I hope to have people do workshop exercises around is this concept that I
have called “Two Trains Running (Side by Side).” By that I mean, you can do your political
organizing that will help us get relief from police brutality right now. We need that. We
need that. But that work that we do should be seen as puny in terms of its philosophical and
theoretical orientation so that we can educate ourselves politically to be against the police as an
institution and against the United States as a country, even while we are working to reform
police practices, because we do not have the strength right now that we had in the 1960s
and 1970s to act in the way the Black Liberation Army did, or Baader-Meinhof, we do not have
the strength to act in the revolutionary mode, but that lack of strength, that lack of capacity,
should not contaminate our orientation. We should not feel that we have to accept the existence
of police even if we’re working in reformist measures politically. Hopefully this idea of two trains
running will pick up. Black Lives Matter has done a great job in opening up a new Black political
organizing space. That’s great. Now let’s use that space for an educational project that is
soundly anti-American, and soundly anti-police even if tactically, we have to work for police
reforms.
 AT: Narrative---1NC
Personal narratives trade off with contingent change solutions and create
an echo chamber that effaces political change
Friedrich Kratochwil 18. Professor of International Relations @ EUI. 08/16/2018. “11 - Judging
and Communicating.” Praxis: On Acting and Knowing, 1st ed., Cambridge University Press.
Crossref, doi:10.1017/9781108557979.
How little these narcissistic preoccupations with the presentation of the self are able to create
an engagement with others or a meaningful exchange wrestling with problems is amply
demonstrated by the slew of sitcoms where the “lonely” individuals “kvetch” about their
unhappiness, the lack of available women (or men), or their boredom, which they try to self-analyze by a vocabulary picked up from self-help
books or sessions with a “therapist.” The captive audience is treated to the silliest hurts of their childhood, such
as when mother did not let them make mud pies, or took away a toy from them to give it to their brother. While this might come across in a comedy as
The point here is not
funny if it is well presented, as a “self-advertisement” or an offer for genuine communication it is just silly and boring.
so much that the “themes” which are offered for conversations are mundane but that the form of
the communication does not lend itself to establishing a genuine exchange. As one of the first reports on
Facebook noted, taking issue with the official version of “bringing people together”: While Thefacebook.com [the original name of the platform created
at Harvard in 2004] isn’t explicitly about bringing people together in romantic unions, there are plenty of other primal instincts evident at work here: an
element of wanting to belong, a dash of vanity, and more than a little voyeurism.56 In a way these observations seem to
corroborate some of the earlier criticism made by the historian Christopher Lash57 and the sociologist
Richard Sennett, who both noticed a growing narcissism in modern culture and saw in this
change one of the reasons for the decline of the public. As Sennett avers with regard to codes which privilege private
experiences as templates for understanding social and political life: We see society itself as meaningful only in converting
it into a grand psychic system. We may understand that a politician’s job is to draft or execute legislation but that work does not
interest ... us until we perceive the play of personality in political struggles. A political leader running for office is spoken of
as “credible” or “legitimate” in terms of what kind of man he is, rather than in terms of the actions
or programs he espouses. The obsession with persons at the expense of more impersonal
relations is like a filter which discolors our rational understanding of society; ... it leads us to
believe community is an act of mutual self-disclosure, and to undervalue the community
relations of strangers ... Ironically, this psychological vision also inhibits the development of
personality strengths, like respect for the privacy of others, or the comprehension that, because
every self is in some measure a cabinet of horrors, civilized relations between selves can only
proceed to the extent that nasty little secrets of desire, greed or envy are kept locked up ... As a
result, confusion has arisen between public and intimate life; people are working out in terms of personal feelings public matters, which properly can be
dealt with only through codes of impersonal meaning.58 This becomes particularly obvious when the narcissistic display is “answered” by the members
Here the offer and
of the audience with a “shit-storm,” victimizing the original sender, particularly if s/he displayed some weakness or flaws.
the response seem more to be a sign of dovetailing neuroses rather than the transmission of
actual information that establishes a common concern with the potential of leading to a
communicative engagement. Meaningful communication needs not only give-and-take among
different positions, it also requires the ability to listen and reflect and thus presupposes a
distancing from one’s own notions and prejudices. Here the notion of “interest” becomes crucial
in the two meanings of the term. First, in the sense of mihi interest, i.e. I communicate that I am committed to
something and want to send a signal as I find myself in a situation that creates some unease or
puzzlement; this is why I address others. But such a stance also entails that I have to be willing to be led by
my own reflections and those of others in order to “go on” by correcting my original “hunch” 59 or
fears, and tackle a genuine problem rather than persist in my vague mood. This is why Hume pointed out the importance of “commerce and
conversation” with others, as it opens a new space between the interlocutors which is constituted
by that which is “in-between” them (interesse). It not only implies the imaginative taking of
different positions in the interaction, but, above all, the presence of other, different perspectives,
as suggested by Aristotle. In short the intimacy which the virtual availability of everybody “out
there” conjures up – and which narcissistic preoccupations reinforce – is not just a pious hope
but counter-productive to developing good judgment and finding viable solutions for one’s
individual or social projects. As in the case of “confirmatory research,” looking right away for
approval rather than criticism and help, is choosing the wrong tools and strategies for orienting
ourselves in this world. The point here is that finding those who are in sync with our feelings and moods is not only difficult practically –
which explains why we are so easily seduced by our own “projections” – there is also the conceptual impossibility of bringing everybody and everything
under one tent. After all, we cannot
but notice that every inclusion requires exclusion, since concepts have
meaning only when they relate to other concepts and that means that boundaries – even if not
fixed once and for all, as the old ontology suggested – need to be drawn. This realization cuts
against the rationality of trusting a solution which relies on the undifferentiated feeling of
“togetherness,” but also against the “privatism” (idiocy) of opting for simple value-maximizing
strategies, which are bound to have unintended consequences. Thus a moment’s reflection
discloses that e.g. not all actors can maximize e.g. their security at the same time, as the
security dilemma indicates. Attempts to do so will court disaster in virtually all cases, so that we
have to learn to live with certain insecurities and we must rather find a common, intersubjective
understanding that can mediate those tensions.60
 Brown -- Patterson Wrong
The social death thesis is ahistorical
Brown 9, (Vincent Brown, Professor of African and African-American Studies , Harvard - “Social
Death and Political Life in the Study of Slavery,”)//gene

THE PREMISE OF ORLANDO PATTERSON'S MAJOR WORK, that enslaved Africans were
natally alienated and culturally isolated, was challenged even before he published his influential
thesis, primarily by scholars concerned with “survivals” or “retentions” of African culture and by
historians of slave resistance. In the early to mid-twentieth century, when Robert Park's view of “the Negro” predominated
among scholars, it was generally assumed that the slave trade and slavery had denuded black
people of any ancestral heritage from Africa. The historians Carter G. Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois and
the anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits argued the opposite. Their research supported the
conclusion that while enslaved Africans could not have brought intact social, political,
and religious institutions with them to the Americas, they did maintain significant
aspects of their cultural backgrounds.32 Herskovits examined “Africanisms”—any practices that
seemed to be identifiably African—as useful symbols of cultural survival that would help him to
analyze change and continuity in African American culture.33 He engaged in one of his most
heated scholarly disputes with the sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, a student of Park's, who
emphasized the damage wrought by slavery on black families and folkways.34 More recently, a
number of scholars have built on Herskovits's line of thought, enhancing our understanding of
African history during the era of the slave trade. Their studies have evolved productively from
assertions about general cultural heritage into more precise demonstrations of the continuity of
worldviews, categories of belonging, and social practices from Africa to America. For these
scholars, the preservation of distinctive cultural forms has served as an index both of a resilient
social personhood, or identity, and of resistance to slavery itself.35 Scholars of slave resistance
have never had much use for the concept of social death. The early efforts of writers such as Herbert
Aptheker aimed to derail the popular notion that American slavery had been a civilizing institution
threatened by “slave crime.”36 Soon after, studies of slave revolts and conspiracies advocated the idea that resistance
demonstrated the basic humanity and intractable will of the enslaved—indeed, they often equated acts of will with humanity itself. As
slave revolts in the context of
these writers turned toward more detailed analyses of the causes, strategies, and tactics of
the social relations of slavery, they had trouble squaring abstract characterizations of “the slave”
with what they were learning about the enslaved.37 Michael Craton, who authored Testing the Chains:
Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies, was an early critic of Slavery and Social Death, protesting that what was known
about chattel bondage in the Americas did not confirm Patterson's definition of slavery. “If
slaves were in fact ‘generally
dishonored,’” Craton asked, “how does he explain the degrees of rank found among all groups
of slaves—that is, the scale of ‘reputation’ and authority accorded, or at least acknowledged, by
slave and master alike?” How could they have formed the fragile families documented by social
historians if they had been “natally alienated” by definition? Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, if
slaves had been uniformly subjected to “permanent violent domination,” they could not have
revolted a s often as they did or shown the “varied manifestations of their resistance” that so
frustrated masters and compromised their power, sometimes “fatally.”38 The dynamics of social
control and slave resistance falsified Patterson's description of slavery even as the tenacity of
African culture showed that enslaved men, women, and children had arrived in the Americas
bearing much more than their “tropical temperament.” The cultural continuity and resistance schools of thought
come together powerfully in an important book by Walter C. Rucker, The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity
Formation in Early America. In Rucker's analysis of slave revolts, conspiracies, and daily recalcitrance, African concepts, values,
and cultural metaphors play the central role. Unlike Smallwood and Hartman, for whom “the rupture was the story” of slavery,
Rucker aims to reveal the “perseverance of African culture even among second, third, and fourth generation creoles.”39 He looks
again at some familiar events in North America—New York City's 1712 Coromantee revolt and 1741 conspiracy, the 1739 Stono
rebellion in South Carolina, as well as the plots, schemes, and insurgencies of Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner—
deftly teasing out the African origins of many of the attitudes and actions of the black rebels. Rucker outlines how the transformation
of a “shared cultural heritage” that shaped collective action against slavery corresponded to the “various steps Africans made in the
Like scholars of resistance before him,
process of becoming ‘African American’ in culture, orientation, and identity.”40
Rucker effectively refutes any contention that the enslaved were socially dead. At the same
time, his focus on the making of African American culture obscures a crucial dimension of the
politics of slavery. In The River Flows On, resistance is the expression of culture, and
peoplehood is the outcome of resistance, but Rucker places much less emphasis on the kinds
of existential problems highlighted by Hartman and Smallwood. He does not ignore the violence
of slavery, but he invokes bondage and its depredations as the antithesis of black self-making,
rather than as a constitutive part of it. If for Hartman dispossession “had made us an us,” Rucker
believes that resistance was the crucible in which black people forged identity from a vital
inheritance.41 How might his approach account for the dislocations, physical violations, and
cosmic crises that preoccupy Hartman and Smallwood? Here is where scholars of retention and resistance may
yet have something to learn from the concept of social death, viewed properly as a compelling metaphysical threat. African
American history has grown from the kinds of people's histories that emphasize a progressive struggle toward an ultimate victory
over the tyranny of the powerful. Consequently, studies that privilege the perspectives of the enslaved depend in some measure on
the chronicling of heroic achievement, and historians of slave culture and resistance have recently been accused of romanticizing
their subject of study.42 Because these scholars have done so much to enhance our understanding of slave life beyond what was
imaginable a scant few generations ago, the allegation may seem unfair. Nevertheless, some of the criticisms are helpful. As the
historian Walter Johnson has argued, studies of slavery conducted within the terms of social history have often taken “agency,” or
the self-willed activity of choice-making subjects, to be their starting point.43 Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that many historians
would find themselves charged with depicting slave communities and cultures that were so resistant and so vibrant that the social
relations of slavery must not have done much damage at all. Even if this particular accusation is a form of caricature, it contains an
important insight, that the agency of the weak and the power of the strong have too often been viewed as simple opposites. The
anthropologist David Scott is probably correct to suggest that for most scholars, the power of slaveholders and the damage wrought
by slavery have been “pictured principally as a negative or limiting force” that “restricted, blocked, paralyzed, or deformed the
transformative agency of the slave.”44 In this sense, scholars who have emphasized slavery's corrosive power and those who
stress resistance and resilience share the same assumption. However, the violent domination of slavery generated political action; it
was not antithetical to it. If one sees power as productive and the fear of social death not as incapacity but as a generative force—a
peril that motivated enslaved activity—a different image of slavery slides into view, one in which the object of slave politics is not
simply the power of slaveholders, but the very terms and conditions of social existence.

The social death thesis isnt just wrong – its actively harmful
Brown 9, (Vincent Brown, Professor of African and African-American Studies , Harvard - “Social
Death and Political Life in the Study of Slavery,”)//gene

Slavery and Social Death was widely reviewed and lavishly praised for its erudition and
conceptual rigor. As a result of its success, social death has become a handy general definition
of slavery, for many historians and non-historians alike. But it is often forgotten that the concept
of social death is a distillation from Patterson’s breathtaking survey—a theoretical abstraction
that is meant not to describe the lived experiences of the enslaved so much as to reduce
them to a least common denominator that could reveal the essence of slavery in an ideal-
type slave, shorn of meaningful heritage.6 As a concept, it is what Frederick Cooper has
called an “agentless abstraction” that provides a neat cultural logic but ultimately does little
to illuminate the social and political experience of enslavement and the struggles that
produce historic transformations.7 Indeed, it is difficult to use such a distillation to explain the
actual behavior of slaves, and yet in much of the scholarship that followed in the wake of
Slavery and Social Death, Patterson’s abstract distillates have been used to explain the
existential condition of the enslaved. Having emerged from the discipline of sociology, “social
death” fit comfortably within a scholarly tradition that had generally been more alert to deviations
in patterns of black life from prevailing social norms than to the worldviews, strategies, and
social tactics of people in black communities. Together with Patterson’s work on the distortions
wrought by slavery on black families, “social death” reflected sociology’s abiding concern with
“social pathology”; the “pathological condition” of twentieth-century black life could be seen as
an outcome of the damage that black people had suffered during slavery. University of Chicago
professor Robert Park, the grand-pe`re of the social pathologists, set the terms in 1919: “the
Negro, when he landed in the United States, left behind almost everything but his dark
complexion and his tropical temperament.”8 Patterson’s distillation also conformed to the
nomothetic imperative of social science, which has traditionally aimed to discover universal laws
of operation that would be true regardless of time and place, making the synchronic study of
social phenomena more tempting than more descriptive studies of historical transformation.
Slavery and Social Death took shape during a period when largely synchronic studies of
antebellum slavery in the United States dominated the scholarship on human bondage, and
Patterson’s expansive view was meant to situate U.S. slavery in a broad context rather than to
discuss changes as the institution developed through time. Thus one might see “social
death” as an obsolete product of its time and tradition, an academic artifact with limited
purchase for contemporary scholarship, were it not for the concept’s reemergence in
some important new studies of slavery.9 WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED AS AMONG the most
onerous of social institutions, slavery has much to tell us about the way human beings react to
oppression. At the same time, the extreme nature of the institution naturally encourages a
pessimistic view of the capacity for collective agency among subjugated people. As a
result, trends in the study of slavery, as with the study of dominance more generally,
often divide between works that emphasize the overwhelming power of the institution
and scholarship that focuses on the resistant efforts of the enslaved. In turn, this
division frames a problem in the general understanding of political life, especially for the
descendants of the powerless. It might even be said that these kinds of studies form
different and opposing genres—hopeful stories of heroic subalterns versus anatomies of
doom—that compete for ascendance. In recent years, if the invocation of Patterson’s
“social death” is any indication, the pendulum seems to have swung decidedly toward
despair.