Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought

241 Pages·2000·0.98 MB·English

by  Lewis R. Gordon

Existentia Africana
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Books in the Africana Thought series:
Caliban’s Reason:Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy
Paget Henry
Series Editors:Lewis R.Gordon and Paget Henry
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Existentia
Africana
Understanding Africana
Existential Thought
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Lewis R. Gordon
Routledge
New York and London
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Published in 2000 by
Routledge
29 West 35th Street
New York,NY 10001
Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
Copyright © 2000 by Routledge
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library,2002.
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter in-
vented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system,without permission
in writing from the publisher.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gordon,Lewis R.(Lewis Ricardo),1962–
Existentia Africana :understanding Africana
existential thought / Lewis R.Gordon.
p. cm.— (Africana thought)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-92643-2 (hardcover :alk.paper)
ISBN 0-415-92644-0 (pbk.:alk.paper)
1.Afro-American philosophy. 2.Existentialism.
I.Title. II.Series.
B944.A37 G67 2000
142'.78'08996—DC21 99-047909
ISBN 0-203-90075-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-90079-0 (Glassbook Format)
To William R. Jones

i Contents I
Preface, with Acknowledgments ix
1 Africana Philosophy of Existence 1
2 A Problem of Biography in Africana Thought 22
3 Frederick Douglass as an Existentialist 41
4 What Does It Mean to Be a Problem? 62
W.E.B.Du Bois on the Study of Black Folk
5 Mixed Race in Light of Whiteness 96
and Shadows of Blackness
Naomi Zack on Mixed Race
6 Can Men Worship? 118
An Existential Portrait in Black and White
7 Recent Africana Religious Thought 135
Existential Anxieties of Pan-Africanism
and Postmodernism at the End
of the Twentieth Century
8 Existential Borders of Anonymity 153
and Superfluous Invisibility
9 Words and Incantations 164
Invocations and Evocations of a Wayward Traveler
Notes 181
Works Consulted 187
Index 217
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What indeed could be more grotesque than an educated
man,a man with a diploma,having in consequence un-
derstood a good many things,among others that “it was
unfortunate to be a Negro,” proclaiming that his skin
was beautiful and that the “big black hole”was a source of
truth. Neither the mulattoes nor the Negroes under-
stood this delirium.The mulattoes because they had es-
caped from the night,the Negroes because they aspired
to get away from it.Two centuries of white truth proved
this man to be wrong.He must be mad,for it was un-
thinkable that he could be right.
—Frantz Fanon,“West Indians and Africans”
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Because it is a systematic negation of the other person
and a furious determination to deny the other person at-
tributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it
dominates to ask themselves the question constantly:“In
reality,who am I?”
—Frantz Fanon,The Wretched of the Earth
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Your own Truth Commission.Lights.Cameras.Notoriety.
Days upon days of probing our insides.We show our in-
sides gladly.All we ask is that you not eat them.
—Monifa Love,Freedom in the Dismal
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Preface, with
Acknowledgments
T
his book is dedicated to William R. Jones,professor emeri-
tus of African American Studies and Religious Studies at
Florida State University at Tallahassee. Prior to his work at
Florida State,Jones taught philosophy of religion at the Yale Divin-
ity School. It was during that period that the first edition of his
classic work in Africana religious thought,Is God a White Racist? A Pre-
amble to Black Theology, appeared. The work challenged black libera-
tion thinkers to take seriously the possibility that the signs and
symbols of the Western religions upon which they depended may
harbor the seeds of their destruction. Instead, Jones counseled, a
liberation project stands a good chance of meeting its goals
through an appreciation of human agency in the formation of rad-
ical, historical change. Old-time religion may have helped black
people survive;liberation,however,requires a more radical path.
Jones took his own counsel seriously. For him, there was, and
continues to be, no point in intellectual work if there is no com-
mitment to the values it represents. It is the intellectual’s task to
take on the struggle over ideas. The importance of that task is evi-
ix