Antiblack Racism: An Analysis on Gordon

What does Gordon mean by an ossified duality of Absence and Presence (of human substance), as represented by the black body versus the white body?

Gordon attempts to examine antiblack racism from the standpoint of Sartrean bad faith. Bad faith is an outlook where the individual engages in self-deception– whether conscious or not– in an attempt to evade agency and responsibility over one’s own freedom. Gordon asserts that antiblack racism is a paragon illustration of bad faith, which is a constant possibility of human existence. Antiblack racism is the view that black people are somehow innately inferior or subhuman to other races, particularly whites. For instance, Gordon laments that “the notion of being colored, being dark, [is] a mark of inferiority” in the white man’s world– where “for the most part, whiteness is pure, and all others are colored down the line to the blackest”. As a result, miscegenation offered people a way to be ‘less colored’ rather than branded as someone fully and completely inferior. Although dominant groups may wish to maximize their liberty, they may also wish to deny their responsibility in the face of such liberty”–  rendering bad faith practiced by both black and white groups. Gordon argues that the concept of bad faith militates against any human science that is built upon a theory of human nature; therefore, antiblack racism challenges the definition of what is considered to be human. 

Gordon’s primary theses proposes that such antiblack racist attitudes are used as a manifestation of bad faith, an instrument of control deriving from the white man’s self-interest, and a means to push aside the responsibility of constructing a just, moral, and humane world. Specifically, Gordon posits that there are three premises to antiblack racism, the first being that in an antiblack world, white people are superior to black people. The first premise suggests that the “white’s existence is justified, whereas the black’s existence needs justification” (131, Gordon). In other words, black people need to prove their worthiness of existence to be seen by white people– which renders feelings of invisibility. This is further reinforced by institutional affirmations toward whiteness coupled with denial of black beingness. In Sartrean terms, “the white’s facticity becomes his transcendence, and the black’s transcendence becomes his facticity” (134, Gordon). Blackness is a projection of racist attitudes contrived by white people. However, the societal meanings that are assigned to specific racial groups eventually become so ingrained that they assume certain affectively charged associations.  Gordon argues that exposure to racist attitudes does not necessarily constitute bad faith, but taking part in the preservation of such an attitude is participating in a form of bad faith.

In examining the language that black people use when engaging in anti blackness, I agree with Gordon that even black usage of the terms such as ‘n*gger” are defamatory (by black people) because it buys into and actively practices a term used to oppress blacks, devised by white people. Gordon argues that “blackness emerges as a consequence of white identity,” where the usage of specific derogatory terms targeted at black people not only keeps such sentiment alive, but also reinforces antiblack racism in bad faith (115, Gordon). The author asserts that the “untruth of a race is a lived reality precisely because many of us have learned to live it, passionately, as true,” illustrating the self delusion of believing in a false ‘perceived’ truth of unequal races (136, Gordon). Furthermore, it suggests that black people subconsciously have adopted the view that white people are inherently superior while black people are inferior. Usage of such terms imply that certain blacks have adopted the white mask and engage in the practice of bad faith, where self-deception of buying into conditioned norms plays a key role. The very attribution of values such as superiority versus inferiority to people suggests that each group engages in a deep ontological denial of human reality– illuminating the practice of bad faith in both groups.

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