Fear of Black Consciousness

Philosopher Gordon (Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism) draws in this probing and accessible study a distinction between the kind of “racialized black consciousness” shaped by white supremacy and a “liberatory Black consciousness” that refuses “to apologize for Black lives having value.” Interweaving autobiographical details about his childhood in Jamaica and the Bronx in the 1960s and ’70s with historical sketches of Black liberation movements and incisive discussions of the links between neoliberalism, racism, and the coronavirus pandemic, Gordon argues that the U.S. and other societies “devoted to blocking black people’s access to citizenship” are “fundamentally antipolitical and antidemocratic,” and argues that the fight against racism is “ultimately a fight for democracy.” He delves into the history of racialized thought in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, and the U.S., and shows how anti-Black views get perpetuated even within the Black community, where “the opportunities available to lighter-skinned blacks are greater than those for darker-skinned blacks.” The contrast between his lack of racial awareness as a child in Jamaica, where the leading public figures were all Black, and his Bronx elementary school, where he learned the meaning of the n-word, is enlightening, as is his discussion of Black Panther, which analyzes how the film “distinguishes legitimate force from violence” and “rais[es] the question of what Africa could offer the world if it were seen with open eyes.” The result is an essential, up-to-the-minute reckoning with racism. (Jan.)