FEM 101: What is Afropessimism?

“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes.” – Zora Neale Hurston

What is Afropessimism?

The term “Afropessimism,” pioneered by writer, scholar and theorist Frank B. Wilderson III, describes a theoretical framework which understands the legacy of slavery as an ongoing relational dynamic rather than an eradicated condition of the past. Afropessimism argues that Black people today exist in a permanent state of slavery — “​​our flesh and energies are instrumentalized for postcolonial, immigrant, feminist, LGBT, and workers’ agendas” — and that the functioning of modern society is contingent on pervasive anti-Blackness. As Wilderson explains, this framework understands Black people as occupying a position of “social death” in which “Blackness is coterminous with slaveness,” rendering the laws, customs and protections of society inaccessible to Black people. This social death means rather than being autonomous actors on the world, Black people are non-subjects, invisible and insignificant to White society except as instruments manipulable for White interests. Put simply, Afropessimism views the relationship between Black and non-Black people as an antagonism with no possible avenue for redemption. 

The perspective maintained by Afropessimists is built around the idea that Blackness itself is an invention of slavery. In his book Ontological Terror, Calvin Warren explains this phenomenon by stating plainly, “Blackness does not come from Africa.” Instead, Warren and other arbiters of Afropessimism argue, enslavers constructed the idea of Blackness to other and dehumanize African people. Wilderson describes this metaphysical invention in his book Red, White, and Black: “Africans went into the ships and came out as Blacks.” It is through this understanding that Afropessimists conflate Blackness with social death — the idea of Blackness does not exist without enslavement. 

From this vantage point, Afropessimism builds its core argument: the modern world, shaped by racial capitalism and anti-Blackness, cannot function without continued anti-Black violence. Afropessimism describes the violence initiated through slavery as gratuitous, impossible to trace back to a specific event of transgression or conflict. Professor Orlando Hawkins at University of Oregon builds on this idea by citing the way anti-Black violence has repeated throughout history. The inexplicable and unjustifiable continuity of anti-Black violence leads to the Afropessimistic understanding of this violence as ontological. Our society is built around structures of anti-Black oppression which therefore cannot be resolved without its dismantling. The evolution of these structures is simple enough to track — the plantation to the prison, the strategically zoned Black neighborhood to the modern ghetto, the lynching postcard to videos of police violence reshared on social media. 

The persistence of this violence provides justification for another central principle of Afropessimist thought: the “ruse of analogy.” Analogy is inherently imperfect, but Wilderson and other Afropessimists argue this is especially true when attempting to analogize anti-Black oppression with other repressive relations (based on gender, class, sexual orientation, etc.). If slavery created the idea of Blackness as a form of social death, Black suffering is singular. It exists to an extent which is irredeemable and therefore impossible to explain through the lens of any other movement. The intersectionality of Black identities is co-opted for the sake of other movements, and yet the complexities of this intersectionality are often left unacknowledged by leaders of movements like Feminism, LGBTQ+ rights and workers’ rights. For many, the experience of Blackness underlies the experience of queerness, the experience of womanhood, the forces of economic oppression — the marginalizations these identities face are inseparable. It is for this reason that Wilderson claims, “analogy mystifies, rather than clarifies, Black suffering.”

The Combahee River Collective Statement, a foundational document of Black Feminism, makes the same assertion:“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” 

What are Afropessimism’s real-world implications?

Afropessimism offers an important understanding of how deeply anti-Blackness is ingrained into the pores of our society. It exists as a kind of answer for a people that has grappled with centuries of grotesque, inexplicable violence. This understanding is essential, but without the context of resistance an Afropessimistic philosophy drifts dangerously close to nihilism. This makes it imperative that, when viewing the world through the lens of Afropessimism, we ground our perspective in affirmations of life and the necessity of resistance. Dr. Jacqueline Scott argues that the “racial realism” of the Afropessimistic approach, rather than fostering despondency, allows for healthier racial identities. However, she also draws attention to the tendency to endlessly theorize about racism instead of actively combatting it. 

If, as Afropessimism suggests, we cannot cure our society of racism, we must instead focus our efforts on empowering the disempowered. Scott reframes Blackness as not only the target of oppression, but a site of resistance. She promotes forms of resistance grounded in an understanding of the permanence of oppressive regimes, exemplified by theory-centered movements such as Black Feminism. As society’s relationship to intersectionality, race and resistance evolves, examples of theory-based movements such as this one have the power to inspire heightened conscientiousness in movements of the future. When considered alongside these movements, acknowledging repressive social relationships through Afropessimism can result in revolutionary forms of resistance rather than despair. 

“It is in revolutionary struggle that one finds all that is left—affirmation of life and the love of one’s Blackness.” – Orlando Hawkins