On AfroPessimism | Philosynoir

I do wanna be pegged on the brain

It's interesting how well Wilderson's analysis of the conditions of blackness as a projection of inhumanity onto the other maps so well onto the conditions of transness, and yet he refuses to even look close enough at the manifold of what he blithely terms "queerness" to make that realization. Trans people are referred to colloquially and publicly as "it" even into the modern era.

"Black people aren't human" vs. "Black people often aren't viewed as human"

I assume the essentialism is coming from the AfroPessimists? That would certainly explain the pessimism… Doesn't your "Black, not African" disclaimer reveal the flaws in essentialist thinking? 🤔

Great vid, but be careful about calling yourself a race realist. ✌😜💜

Can you talk more about the foundation of AfroPessimism? Like, how did they decide that the core belief of white supremacy ("humanity," as they say) is, "We aren't like them," and not, "They aren't like us"? How does the concept of personhood depend on the existence of non-people people? Don't regular animals serve that role adequately? It's certainly easier to draw clearer distinctions there. 🤷‍♂

I needed this video. Thank you for the work. And the effort.

Where is Marx mentioned?

Mexicans having to prove themselves of anything to trespassers on there own land is enraging

Wow I had heard/seen AfroPessimism referenced a few times in the past couple of years but you really broke it down in this video. I'm very grateful for the work you're doing here!

The more I learn about black theory the more its obvious to me the intersection of blackness and disability. Fanon seems to represent a good intersection here but physical disability was neglected in those discussions in the 20th century.

I find that the claim of Black Optimists here to be interesting but I am compelled to question the use of the “masters tools” in this self definition as we use college degrees and whether we’ve been incarcerated more or less as the metrics. It also uses, from my perspective having only engaged with the video at this time, an individualist perspective that hasn’t exactly benefitted Black people. I agree with aspects of both ideologies and disagree with others as I’m sure it’s probably healthy to do and I feel like there are aspects that can and should be worked out through discourse because otherwise a report that points to my Masters degree and not my $100k of student loan debt I can’t afford to pay back isn’t exactly optimistic to me.

Afro Pessimism articulates blackness and anti-blackness ontologically starting through chattel enslavement with the Arab slave trade... fyi

thanks for this video essay. i subscribed.

Calling it “the black scare” is lowkey tuff asf, because it really is the red scare but against black people

Coleman AINT Black...thru life experience...outgroup dysfunction and ALL....

dope, so thorough and on point, I was actually shocked you didn't engage with Lewis R. Gordon's "Critical Reflections on Afropessimism" or A. Shahid Stover's "Slave Revolt and Black Subjectivity as Exceptional Antagonism".

Yeah, the education attainment stat doesn’t do much for me either. It’s just like you said, true progress would look like not needing degrees to ‘possibly’ secure financial stability. Also, while more people may be getting degrees, MOST people still can’t/don’t/won’t think critically, which, again, is what actual progress would look like.

I do like that second definition of Black optimism but it doesn’t do anything regarding explaining the way the world actually functions the way Afropessimism does.

The problem with Afropessimism is that, if anti-blackness is inescapable, what do we do? It presents the problem, but what's the solution? Where do we go from there?

Gotta say Wilderson’s analysis of the indigenous in relation to social death is uh…. not strong.

At first I thought when you said that about people not thinking you're human - I was like: oh exciting! Vampire? Mage? Superhero? ...and then I remembered: oh no, shit, just racism again

This is a wonderful introduction to this topic, thank you. I like your hair too!!

I can't say it is a high quality paper but I can now say that I have citied your work in my college essay. I used my understanding of Afro-pessimism from this video (and the few other sources about it I could find online) to analysis identity in N.K. Jemisin's work . I really must say thank you.

Subscribed. Substantive, legitimately radical thought well presented, deeply moving and enlightening and refocusing. Arm the animals.

I don't want to overstate it because i might be missing something and your piece clearly is so good and so important: but this all connects deeply to my experience in america as a person with a significantly symptomatic neurodivergent disability. Like I started bawling when you were reading out about giving up on humanism. The virtues and values and categories and goals and priorities and material culture and histories and stories and images and laws and schools and workplaces and courts all say over and over, you are never going to qualify. What I believe to be my potential or my right to speak or my place at the table simply does not matter because I am not a person to most people.

Again, my deeply felt apologies if I have stepped wrong or spoken foolishly. I will share your channel.

I love your videos ! Did you ever thought of converting your videos into podcasts ?

Thank you for this video! I learned a lot

Subscribed and liked!

I really disliked philosophical concepts, conversations, language, etc. all throughout my time in high school and college because it felt like when white people tried to put me down. But regardless I’m down with your channel cause at least I know the philosophy is going somewhere that isn’t just white people stroking their egos.

I'm very happy someone brought up the term afro-realism, I'm actually working on a video that involves that concept and how it translates through pessimism and optimism, using examples of artist like Kendrick Lamarr and Vince Staples. I couldn't find anything about afro-realism as it often coincides (at least in the space of art) as surrealism. But I think there's a lot more value in exploring how that art is transformed by experience and how the black experience will always be a surreal so the approach of these artists and what their work is supposed to say and represent outside of just the scope of surrealist art. Thank you so much for "coining"afro-realism it's gonna be a pretty important part to my video, so I appreciate the knowledge

Very, very well done.

Great explanation! You should contact Wilderson and interview him.

I don't have the intelligence, but I get a sense of this. Thanks.

What you define as afropessimism is at best a hermeneutic through which the sociology of life in the United States of America can be understood and or criticized but not anything that rises to the standard of a political philosophy. What is a 'pro-black' understanding of self or their reality removed from the one placed on them by their oppressor, how does the black person conceptionalize what is real and what is truth or falsehood vis-a-vis their oppressor and all of reality, where do they wrestle with understandings of right and wrong or justice and injustice vis-a-vis their oppressor and reality, and get to understand social and economic relations they would prefer or dislike vis-a-vis their reality and their oppressor? All I see and hear is an almost obsessive fixation with white supremacist ideology, its logical fallacies and complete distortion of reality and unjustified dismissal of political philosophies and ideology. And with full disclosure, I am a Marxist socialist pragmatist that observes how ideologies move changes in social realations and economic means of production, exchange, and distribute in reality and happens to be queer and Black American.

This is the second video of yours I have watched and I subscribed. You have a real talent and I look forward to your future projects.

I’m definitely an Afro-realist🙂‍↕️

Brilliant

As a white autistic man you probably have no idea how much this idea you have described speaks to and feels relatable to me. But it does and is.

I’m trying my best to understand this and I know there is some truth to this but as a black Muslim something about frank B wildersons opinions on Palestine rub me the wrong way not because he’s wrong about the anti blackness if every revolutionary movement but because his language is so intentionally provocative in his work “afropesimsn” and I know a lot of people are engaging with it in bad faith because the theory is solid.

Postmodernists need to ditch Postmodernese. Nobody can read that shiet.

So much wrong with this afro-pessimism theory. Never mind that it posits that there are, in fact, inherent differences between races and that race is the primary driver of history (thank you for that brilliant insight, Hitler), it claims to build off of Fanon when he would hate the anti-humanism at the core of Afro-pessimism. You should re-read Black Skin, White Masks (if you ever read it in the first place) and reconsider this video.

Yep just like you i consider myself an afro realist which is something i thought i made up by my self it's interesting to hear it from you too 😂

I’m definitely a black pessimist I thought I was the latter.

learned a lot and you made me laugh too. definitely an afrorealist but leaning way towards moten's afro-optimism. i feel my blackness as an experience that's ancient and far beyond/before colonialism. and something that will exist after "the end of the world" when humans are in right relationship with all of life and not at the top of the man-made "food chain"

This was so interesting and so well documented ! Thank you for your hard work ! I also appreciated your touch of humor here and there 😊 I would love to hear your thoughts on the book becoming human written by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson. I believe its also about afro pessimism.

What is the point of humanity for you ?