The concept of Afropessimism does not refer to Black people but rather to the likelihood of
white society overcoming its own negrophobia and to a radical distrust in white narratives of
inclusivity. What if the ideas and reforms we regard as progressive were just the new and shiny
face of racism? In the time of Black Lives Matter the unswerving dehumanisation and killing of
Black people form the bedrock of our civilization. But a vast anti-Black collective feeling
also manifests itself as a more insidious shared unconscious hidden from view by the doctrines
we deem as emancipatory. This book challenges the simplistic and pacifying aspects of current
African-American thought. It puts forward alternatives to intersectionality poststructuralism
and radical democracy which are often prioritized in the Black analysis of race gender and
class. In the twenty-first century Black studies and Africana philosophy have witnessed the
birth of two new fields Afropessimism and Black Male Studies. Spearheaded by figures such as
Tommy J. Curry and Frank Wilderson they have emerged as truly autonomous ways of interpreting
and analysing the causes and consequences of Black rage against systemic racism. Darkening
Blackness offers an original genealogy of the new iconoclasm in Black thought. Accessible
historically informed and politically alert this book is a critical analysis of the
groundbreaking theories and strategies which offer a radical reconception of the future of
Black lives throughout the world.
