The Black Figure:
Or what I am
cannot be made small by the limited thinking and projections of any man.
I exist outside the confines of the depraved mind;
I Am.
“I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world—no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convince myself of something, then I certainly exist. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case, I undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I think that I am something. So I must finally conclude that this proposition—I am, I exist—is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.”
(Descartes, 1641)
Does it follow that the Black being does not exist? Or does he not exist as an equal citizen in the eyes of society? If the Black Being is deceived about the authenticity of his existence—or the humanity in which that existence is (or isn’t) situated—is he unable to reach the worthy and progressive ideal he deserves?
If the Black figure were not a “thing,”
how has there been so much drawn from its being?
His very essence has been plundered.
The something that has been extracted from the Black being
demonstrates the fallacy in his negation—
his perceived and projected nothingness.
The Black being’s existence has been questioned since the conception of the American ideology: an ideology that is of, or pertaining to, the plantation. It has constructed the self-concept and the thingified nature within which it is forced to exist—a thing or “no-thing” that, in the eyes of collective society, only exists as an ornamentalized being. An aesthetic form with a function that suits the needs of that which ornamentalizes it, by reducing its existence to a product.
“He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Taney of slaves during the colonial period. (Irons, 2006)
The intellectual pillars of American society, as they pertain to Black Americans, were built with a depraved and dysfunctionally abhorrent sensibility about the humanity of those deemed to be an “other.” The conception of this ideology expressly referred to American chattel slaves. This does not deny the existence of other racialized beings, but it underscores that the conception of the American “other”—Native Americans and Black Americans (slaves)—was the foundation; The original "people of color" that American laws were created to subjugate did not include demographics outside of these two categories. I speak primarily about where the barbarism and oppression began, not where it trickled down.
There has been no cleansing of the American ideology; thus, the descendants of American chattel slaves remain under the chains of this depraved and abhorrent sensibility regarding their humanity.
Did the American chattel slave have a denigrated form of existence? Does that form of existence get passed down to their descendants? Does it become the core and foundation of their lineage? Is that the crux of the birthright they are afforded on American soil?
“It is possible he admits to regard a major premise as implicitly presupposed when I arrive at knowledge of my own existence, but the meditator is certainly not explicitly aware of any such premise when I infer my own existence,” says Cottingham’s commentary on Descartes. “I attend only to what I experience inside myself—for example, I am thinking, therefore I exist. I do not pay attention in the same way to the general notion that whatever is thinking exists. The message is clear: as far as the individual meditator is concerned, arriving at knowledge of one’s existence—as a matter of recognizing in particular fact that it is true in one’s own case—there is no need for the meditator to construct any formal syllogism. This, however, does not explain how the certainty of the meditator’s train of thought is guaranteed.” (Cottingham, 1991)
The Black Figure:
or what I am
cannot be made small
by the limited thinking and projections
of any man.
I exist outside the confines
of the depraved mind;
I Am.
For this treatment, the mediator is he who ornamentalizes the Black Being—the person who reduces its existence to an “ordinary article of merchandise and traffic.” The Black being’s existence, in the eyes of the mediator, presupposes a lack of humanity. Its ontology and epistemology are those of a “no-thing.” It doesn’t exist. The Black Being, in the eyes of the mediator, is therefore ontologically and epistemologically dead—a corpse of a being that can then be treated without humanity, and without the formal syllogism that reasons to its humanity.
“You go along for years knowing something is wrong, then suddenly you discover that you’re as transparent as air... That is the real soul sickness... only it’s worse because you continue stupidly to live.” (Ellison, 1995)
The Black Being and its existence are not figments. It is not a hollow thing that moves as an apparition upon the face of the earth—a relatively transparent ghost to be gawked at and amused by. America would not be America had it not been for the blood, sweat, and tears—the souls and the bodies—buried in mass unmarked graves, maintaining the sediment of the ground upon which we continue to build our shifting foundations. The Black Being is not an ornament to be harvested from; it is itself a pillar of the nation we are blessed to inhabit.
It is time to cleanse the concept of American ideology so that the Black Being is no longer seen as a footstool by the morally impotent and depraved. It is time for the appropriators of Black beauty to be held accountable, and for the Black Being to be treated with the respect that has long been denied.
If anyone deserves a worthy and progressive ideal on American soil, it is the Black American with a lineage of slavery.
References
Cottingham, J. G. (1991). Descartes. Wiley-Blackwell.
Ellison, R. (1995). Invisible Man. Vintage.
Irons, P. (2006). A People’s History of the Supreme Court. Penguin.
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