It's June 1. It's time.
Go be gay.
Marina Abramovic in conversation with Hugo Huerta Marin
AFRICAN & BLACK PHILOSOPHY: Getting Started
Hello everyone! As many of us who study philosophy in some form are likely aware, people of color, especially black philosophers, are radically underrepresented in the field (composing only 1.32% of all philosophers in the US). In order to combat such marginalization, and in attempt to help amplify black voices within the field of philosophy, I have complied a series of links & information here for learning more about African/black philosophy, especially within the US. Please feel free to add to this post if you feel that anything is missing, esp if ur a black person!
Overview:
According to Wikipedia.org: “African philosophy is the philosophical discourse produced by indigenous Africans and their descendants, including African Americans. African philosophers may be found in the various academic fields of philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. One particular subject that many African philosophers have written about is that on the subject of freedom and what it means to be free or to experience wholeness.”
Articles to start with:
- “What African Philosophy Can Teach You About the Good Life.”
- “A truly African philosophy.”
- “African Philosophy.”
- “Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons.’”
- “Does Western Philosophy Have Egyptian Roots?”
- “What You Should Know About Contemporary African Philosophy.”
- “Philosophy in Africa - A Case of Epistemic Injustice in the Academy.”
- “The African Enlightenment.”
- “The Radical Philosophy of Egypt.”
- “The first God.”
- “African Philosophy Is More Than You Think It Is.”
And some introductory texts:
- Barry Hallen, A Short History of African Philosophy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press (2009).
- Samuel Oluoch Himbo, An Introduction to African Philosophy. Lanham et al.: Rowman and Littlefield (1998).
- Dismas Masolo, African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press (1994).
- Kwasi Wiredu, A Companion to African Philosophy. Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing (2004). (PDF version linked here.)
Key essays:
- “The Struggle for Reason in Africa” by Mogobe Ramose in The African Philosophy Reader eds. P.H. Coestzee & A.P.J. Roux
- “Appeal,” David Walker
- “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”, Frederick Douglass
- “Ain’t I a Woman?”, Sojourner Truth
- “The Black Woman’s role in the
Community of Slaves,” Angela Davis
- The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois (first chapter esp.)
- “A Problem of Biography in African Thought” & “What Does It Mean to Be a Problem?” by Lewis Gordon in Existentia Africana
- “Racism and Feminism,” by bell hooks in the PDF linked here
- “Recognizing Racism in the Era of Neoliberalism,” Angela Davis
- “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm X
- “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” Audre Lorde
- “Whiteness as Property,” Cheryl Harris
Important contemporary black philosophers:
- Cornel West (political philosophy, philosophy of religion, ethics, race, democracy, liberation theology)
- Angela Davis (also a writer and social activist & just a general badass, really worth knowing about regardless of whether or not you have an interest in philosophy)
- bell hooks (race, capitalism, sexuality & gender through a postmodern perspective)
- Lewis Gordon (Africana philosophy, black existentialism, phenomenology)
- Kwame Anthony Appiah (probabilistic semantics, political theory, moral theory, intellectual history, race and identity theory)
- Patricia Hill Collins (sociology of knowledge, race, class, gender studies)
- John H. McWhorter (linguistics)
- George Yancy (Critical philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, African philosophy, philosophy of the body)
- Kwassi Wiredu (African philosophy)
- Franz Fanon (20th century Marxism, psychoanalysis, colonialism)
Online podcasts, blogs, & videos:
- Podcast on Africana philosophy (the website linked here also contains several useful links and resources for further reading)
- Youtube series on African Philosophy
- Award-winning blog run by a Nigerian-Finnish woman which “connects feminism with critical reflections on contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective.”
Other links & resources:
it’s difficult to be a dom with anarchist leanings.
my sub will be like “i have to tell you something… i broke a rule. i’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit.” and i’m like. rise up comrade you have nothing to lose but your padded restraints. no doms no masters. oh you want me to spank you. yeah i can do that.
So I’ve spoken before about how I used to be staff on a fairly popular discord server specifically for kink and specifically specifically for gay man kink.
It was a puppy server. And puppies are largely cis men, though we had a strict “all puppies are good puppies” rule and refused to gender-lock or sex-lock people out of enjoying themselves.
Now. I’m not really into this particular kink. I was hired to do art, and because a good friend of mine was good friends with the server owner/admin. But I still hung out with the users and got to make some mod choices because I was staff.
Do you know how many times I did effectively this? Just immediately start a puppy riot? One of the more toxic doms would be trying to flex or be bugging one of the younger members and I’d post something like ✊ rise up comrades it is time!!! Power to the pups!!! No treats no tail wags!!! ✊ and immediately the server would be an explosion of horny men in dog masks barking in text at the Asshole Dom who Did Not Realize that I was online and would do that.
Anyway the server owner thought it was hysterical and would participate in the Puppy Riots and deliberately kept me on staff because, and I quote, he liked that I would throw the server into literal anarchy mode in order to shut up the assholes and thus all the assholes would be quiet if they knew I was around.
posting this on twitter will get you put into witness protection
The magic of childhood is that you were constantly encountering new things. The best way to feel that way again is to fill your life with new experiences.
never enough time in the day to do fuck all
there's always time in the night to do fuck all
but watch out
One time my dad came to family dinner all excited “you know that show Sherlock? I hear fans are writing whole new stories for it online”
And in perfect unison my sister and I yelled “DAD NO!” So vehemently he stopped in his tracks.
Then a look of dawning comprehension on his face.
“Oh, this is like Kirk and Spock, isn’t it”
And I died right then and there.
My mom was into fanfic back when it was still all in handmade zines passed back and forth in-person. My mother is the one who first told me what fanfic was. My mother used to print her favorite fics out on our home printer and stick them on the shelf to read again later. My mom had an Ao3 account before I'd ever heard of Ao3.
Fanfic is not some new millennial/gen z thing that nobody over 35 knows about. It's really not that weird for middle-aged folks and elders to be into it. The folks who were writing Spirk fic in the 60s are, like. Still around.
“That’s why high school, or a crappy job, or any other restrictive circumstance can be dangerous: They make dreams too painful to bear. To avoid longing, we hunker down, wait, and resolve to just survive. Great art becomes a reminder of the art you want to be making, and of the gigantic world outside of your small, seemingly inescapable one. We hide from great things because they inspire us, and in this state, inspiration hurts.”
— One of the best articles I’ve ever read. Rookie Mag. By Spencer Tweedy. (via wildyork)
