Danae Martinez joined us to discuss an essay she shared recently titled, Why I Am (Not) an Afropessimist, at least in part to address what has been an uproarious response to the emergence of Afro-pessimism as theory or ideology and, in particular, the work of Dr. Frank Wilderson

 

7 Replies

  1. What the hell is this “anti-patriarchy” stuff? I’m sick of these fashionably feminist gals (femigals) spewing self-indulgent crap.There have been female euro monarchs and prime ministers and female u.s. honchos who’ve endorsed oppression, imperialism, and carnage, but trendy femigals won’t say a mumbling word about this or vilify scumbags like queen victoria, golda mier, maggie thatcher, maddie albright, & hilly clinton. Instead, and even more irritating, these trendy #metoo gals revere & admire pro-capitalist, pro-u.s. (the u.s. of course being the epitome of all that is blood-thirsty, greedy, psychopathic, & supremacist) tools like glor steinem, hilly clinton, and suzy rice. And femigals go all groupie goofy at the sight or even mention of barack “drone-striker” obama. Femigals have & will always be led by bourgeois white gals who’ve always enjoyed the spotlight and immunity from sanctioned state violence afforded by the proverbial pedestal. What dues have femigals paid?! When has a sufferagette or modern-day white gal march been laid to bloody waste by murderous rampaging Pinkertons/private security forces, police, the natl guard, & u.s. army troops? These same vile appendages of white/u.s./american supremacy have killed and maimed with savage abandon many a labor, Black, Native american/Indian, and anti-war march/protest. But when white gals march/protest en masse, all the various attack dogs of the state & Big Corpa and mainstream media stand down and say warm fuzzy supportive things about these white gals’ “immense bravery & courage.” And now, not surprisingly, colored people are all dewey-eyed over self-absorbed narcissistic bourgeois white gals who won’t denounce american supremacy as long as they have that wondrous equal opportunity to bomb, sanction, drone-strike, & otherwise oppress the masses of ignored voiceless poor, black, red, & brown peoples of this world.

      1. If this critique upsets you to where you can’t see its relevance to issue of co-optation, then take it down. It would be good if you parse & dissect inane trendy terms like “anti-patriachy” and “evil patriarchy.” It’s just puerile that these days anything that means men/masculinity (regardless of color, class, economic status) is blithely derided. Shouldn’t same be done to the term “white”?

        1. Again, please be specific, and connect the dots for me/us. Are you reducing this specific conversation to a reference of “patriarchy?” i dont want to just delete because you seem hostile and rude. i want to make sure i am deleting because you arent talking about this conversation. Maybe you mean this for our conversation with Dr. Tommy Curry which you can look up and post to. again, even rude comments (to a point) that are relevant are “welcome” here. i dont mean to shut down disagreement but im not (we are not) here just to be a sounding board for random complaints. So i am, on the one hand, requesting you ease up and show some respect or, if thats not possible for you, to at least clarify what in this conversation you are referring to and how your argument is relevant here.

          1. Jared. My initial response is a reaction to the term anti-patriarchy (& the like). I’m tired of hearing otherwise informed cogent speakers use such phrases without defining exactly what they mean & don’t mean. I’ll look for the Dr. T. Curry piece. Remove my comment, but please keep in mind that trendy phrases bandied about without properly defining them can lead to misunderstanding.

          2. Id so much rather you just explain why you bring this up here in a discussion about clarifying or properly defining Afropessimism. Danae runs through a bunch of theories making her point about AP, we cant stop and define every passing reference to “patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, race, class, gender…” at some point we have to just deal with what we came to talk about. i cant stop every conversation every time someone passingly refers to something, we will never get anywhere.

  2. How much is the ‘pessimism’ aspect of Mr Wilderson’s thought an outgrowth of the South African experience in which he may have sensed or foresaw the Movement’s shortcomings and betrayals once ‘political’ apartheid would be and had come to be seemingly addressed?

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