For peoples of African descent living in majority-white nations in the West, the harmful and the healing potential of Black self-consciousness, or subjectivity, are quite clear and quite real. Seeking to determine Black subjectivity in the African diaspora means constantly negotiating between two extremes. On one end stands the “blackness that swallows” (to adapt Kincaid), the hypercollective, essentialist identity, which provides the comfort of absolutist assertions in exchange for the total annihilation of the self. On the other end stands the hyperindividual identity, most commonly found in poststructuralist critiques of racism and colonialism, which grants a wholly individualized (and somewhat fragmented) self in exchange for the annihilation of “Blackness” as a collective term. Any truly accurate definition of an African diasporic identity then, must somehow simultaneously incorporate the diversity of Black identities to show that they indeed constitute a diaspora rather than an unconnected aggregate of different peoples linked only in name - Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora by Michelle M. Wright
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 00:14:33 +0000
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