“Freedom is not an activity pursued by an entity that, apart from and previous to such pursuit, is already possessed of a fixed being. To be free means to be lacking in constitutive identity, not to be able to be other than what one was, to be unable to install oneself once and for all in any given being.” — Ortega
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“Freedom is not an activity pursued by an entity that, apart from and previous to such pursuit, is already possessed of a fixed being. To be free means to be lacking in constitutive identity, not to be able to be other than what one was, to be unable to install oneself once and for all in any given being.” — Ortega
What is freedom to that which has no being? To that which is defined as a “not?” Does the non-being have the ability to pursue freedom if it is already possessed of a fixed being? Does constitutive identity prevent it from accessing its freedom if it is a projection from a society that has chosen to determine its being — presupposing its identity and classifying it as an ontological aberration, incapable of determining the nature of its own existence?
“Even those white Southerners who had no direct stake in slavery shared with planters a deep commitment to white supremacy. Indeed, racism — which took as a given the idea that Blacks were innately inferior to whites and unsuited for life in any condition other than slavery — was a pillar of the proslavery ideology that came to dominate the South’s public life, even as Northern criticism of the institution deepened.”
The Contemporary Black Figure
A sight of disbelief to the eyes
Of society.
How does it shine so bright?
What is the source of its blinding light?
For centuries, the nature of its existence has been determined from the outside. It (the Black Being) has attempted to define itself and thereby construct a nature that is outside the confines of the limited thinking that deemed it a non-being since the conception of the American plantation. Its identity has never been fully viewed through the lens of the cleansed self-concept, without the reticence of those who see him as an “it” obscuring the sense by which he is viewed.
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“When the Negro was a slave and stood outside the government, nobody but a few so-called abolition fanatics thought him worthy of the smallest attention. He was almost completely outside the nation’s law and the nation’s religion. Now, this has all changed. His freedom makes him discussed at every hand. The platform, the pulpit, the press, and the legislative hall regard him and struggle with him as a great and difficult problem — one thing that requires almost divine wisdom to solve. Men are praying over it. It is always a dangerous symptom when men pray to know what is their duty.”
— Frederick Douglass, 1889
How does the “non-being” achieve freedom? If the nature, identity, and existence of the Black figure is classified as a non-being, how then does “it” obtain its freedom? It can only be achieved when it sees itself as a he. Through the lens of the cleansed self-concept. When he sees himself as worthy of his freedom… when he begins to place value on his existence.
“It is often said that the fastest way to learn a skill is to watch someone do it well and model yourself after them. Modeling is the chief way humans learn, especially when we are young. It is likely the most powerful educational tool we have.” — Dr. Joy DeGruy
How does one model existence in a way that embodies selfhood — as an autonomous being who is fully aware of their personhood, their humanity? Dr. Joy DeGruy posits that we watch someone do it well and model ourselves after them. So, who then shall we model ourselves after? There are many examples of men and women throughout the storied history of the American struggle for freedom to model oneself after… to juxtapose one’s identity against in the process of creating one viewed through the cleansed self-concept. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis… the list goes on. The annals of American history are full of both men and women who became the embodiment of that which society said they weren’t meant to be.
Born in bondage
Scapegoated to death
Forced to the point of
Social unrest
Unjustifiably blamed,
Demonized, shamed.
Traumatized,
Brutalized, demoralized,
Defamed.
Given the history of its existence, the contemporary Black figure exists in a perpetual state of potentiation. It manifests the redefined and refined stereotypes into the cultural subjectivities they were before they became stereotypes.
The Afrofuturistic concept of the contemporary Black figure becomes actualized reality when the metamorphosis from concept to praxis takes place. It, as a potentiated concept, becomes He, She, They, Them when the indigenized person — or inanimate object of society — assumes and works toward the difficult but necessary process of accepting the inherent humanity of its unrealized personhood, and undergoes transplantation into a terraformed landscape conducive to its survival.
Foner, E., & Mahoney, O. (1990). A house divided: America in the Age of Lincoln. W. W. Norton & Company.
DeGruy, J., & Leary, J. D. (2005). Post traumatic slave syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Joy Degruy Publications Incorporated.
Montmarquet, J. A., & Hardy, W. H. (2000). Reflections An Anthology of African American Philosophy. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA65356223
Kaufmann, W. A. (1957). Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre.
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