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dillarhonda's review against another edition
If someone came up to you and insisted that Black people were not human, you’d have a visceral negative reaction (at least I dearly hope you would). And that’s exactly what makes Frank Wilderson III’s Afropessimism such a painfully necessary read. The theory of Afropessimism posits that Black people are sentient but non-Human beings continually othered by Human (non-Black) peoples and that this subjugation and suffering is necessary for the continuation of humanity itself. Go read that last sentence again. If you’re a white person and you’ve recently been spending some time examining things like privilege/bias/structural racism, Wilderson’s book will shake those principles to their core. Interweaving episodes from his life with more theoretical passages, he gathers evidence to support his allegation that all Blacks are always already enslaved and that all Whites are their masters – yes even your neighbor, yes even your friend, yes even your partner. We are, all of us, implicated and we are, all of us, responsible.
neugrowf's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
4.75
poenaestante's review against another edition
5.0
Done! And I woulda finished it sooner if I'd not kept taking it all over the house with me and then losing it under piles of clothes or on the sides of the couch and such.
Bravo, Frank, you've broken my heart again. You've lived such an outrageously incredible life that I'd question it if I didn't already have so much evidence of it being true. And the life is what really got me here. The mishmash of theory -- Hartman and Lacan and Jared's stuff (oh your love for Jared deserves its own book, but I digress) --- have all been well-trod and frankly done better (and with more rigor and care) by those masters. Where you shine is in the living, Frank, the fearful, shameless, courageous, damnfool, bold ass, "that Negro is crazy!" living. These untold stories touched me so. I gasped, I teared up, I laughed, I welled up. Ms. Ida said you had two more books in you, but I so hope you have even more. Be well. Love, C
Bravo, Frank, you've broken my heart again. You've lived such an outrageously incredible life that I'd question it if I didn't already have so much evidence of it being true. And the life is what really got me here. The mishmash of theory -- Hartman and Lacan and Jared's stuff (oh your love for Jared deserves its own book, but I digress) --- have all been well-trod and frankly done better (and with more rigor and care) by those masters. Where you shine is in the living, Frank, the fearful, shameless, courageous, damnfool, bold ass, "that Negro is crazy!" living. These untold stories touched me so. I gasped, I teared up, I laughed, I welled up. Ms. Ida said you had two more books in you, but I so hope you have even more. Be well. Love, C
dani_nzd's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
theresa95's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
lucasmiller's review against another edition
3.0
Don't really know what star rating to give to this. A profound and difficult book to read. I went back and forth several times over the past week trying to determine what was my emotional response to the book versus I thought of the books argument and evidence. I read the 2/3 of the book in just two sittings and then had to measure out the final 75 pages a couple at a time.
The combination of memoir and critical theory is unique. It is truly like nothing I've ever read, but it often strikes an odd tone. Wilderson is an astounding memoirist, but the idea that his highly personal, often wild experiences translate into universal truths can be jarring. He seems to have a built in mechanism throughout the book where people who disagree with his ideas prove that he is right. The section about the academic conference in Berlin seemed ungenerous in a way that didn't advance his thesis.
I first became aware of Afropessimism through reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, especially We Were Eight Years in Power. I think there are stylistic parallels between Wilderson and Coate's style of memoir and personal reflection, though Wilderson is much more stringent and academic.
There is a blurb on the back of the book from Claudia Rankine "There are crucial books that you don't agree with, but one still comes to understand the importance of the thought experiment." One of the central arguments of the book is that Human liberation projects (the author focuses on Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial struggles) are by there very nature premised on anti-black violence, and that there is no solution to this problem. This is difficult, because I feel invested in these liberation movements, even in an aspirational way. I want to live up to the commitment and moral confidence of these liberation movements. It's all tough stuff.
This book is essential. It's a masterpiece in it's own way. Conversations about Black liberation or racial violence, or America that don't include Afropessimism are are incomplete, but there is room for critique, and strident critique at that, but my mind has been so thoroughly melted. I will have to leave it to another time.
The combination of memoir and critical theory is unique. It is truly like nothing I've ever read, but it often strikes an odd tone. Wilderson is an astounding memoirist, but the idea that his highly personal, often wild experiences translate into universal truths can be jarring. He seems to have a built in mechanism throughout the book where people who disagree with his ideas prove that he is right. The section about the academic conference in Berlin seemed ungenerous in a way that didn't advance his thesis.
I first became aware of Afropessimism through reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, especially We Were Eight Years in Power. I think there are stylistic parallels between Wilderson and Coate's style of memoir and personal reflection, though Wilderson is much more stringent and academic.
There is a blurb on the back of the book from Claudia Rankine "There are crucial books that you don't agree with, but one still comes to understand the importance of the thought experiment." One of the central arguments of the book is that Human liberation projects (the author focuses on Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial struggles) are by there very nature premised on anti-black violence, and that there is no solution to this problem. This is difficult, because I feel invested in these liberation movements, even in an aspirational way. I want to live up to the commitment and moral confidence of these liberation movements. It's all tough stuff.
This book is essential. It's a masterpiece in it's own way. Conversations about Black liberation or racial violence, or America that don't include Afropessimism are are incomplete, but there is room for critique, and strident critique at that, but my mind has been so thoroughly melted. I will have to leave it to another time.