by Katherine Whitfield<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n R3 Contributor \u201cThe black experience is existence in a system of white racism.\u201d<\/i>\u2013 James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As with any philosophical quandary, the notion of the tangible and concrete can seem quite fleeting. Philosophy is, by definition, a study of abstractions \u2013 subjective ideas that pertain to that which we think, feel and believe, rather than that which we can lay our hands on. But Anderson quickly grounds the reader in the concrete with a simple study of opposites. He reminds us that the actuality of black suffering is constantly pitted against \u201cthe impinging threat of nothingness, of nonbeing\u201d (392). According to Gordon, this threat of nonbeing poses the danger of exposing \u201ca world that will ultimately be better off without blacks. Blacks from such a standpoint \u2018must\u2019 provide justification for their continued presence\u201d (Anderson 392). Such an argument might seem extreme until Gordon\u2019s words are used to illuminate the existential experience of the Jews during and after the time of the Holocaust \u2013 a time when people became so convinced that the world would ultimately be better off without Jews that an entire population became complicit in their systematic extermination. Similarly, American slavery constitutes a time when an entire population advocated for the existence of the black body \u00adonly \u2013 using blackness in its most basic, ontological sense to signify \u201cneither a person nor a place but a \u2018thing\u2019: situated flesh\u201d (Anderson 392). Anderson identifies parallels for his notion of an economy of black existential hope in the writings and teachings of numerous count And what of an economy of black existential hope in Ferguson? Certainly, Michael Brown\u2019s death is a specific, situated moment within the black struggle for liberation in a society of white privilege. In his writings on the quest for complex subjectivity, Anthony Pinn admits that said quest \u201cmay not result in sustained sociopolitical and cultural transformation, (but) it does involve a new life meaning that encourages continued struggle for a more liberated existence\u201d (Anderson 395). As demonstrators continue to take to the streets in Ferguson, and as people of all races, genders and classes continue to travel to this community to join the protest, that \u201cnew life meaning\u201d that lends credence and validation to the struggle for a better, more egalitarian existence takes shape.<\/p>\n Michael Brown was a casualty of a broken system; his death is a tragedy. But those who speak up and advocate for justice in his name \u2013 and in the name of countless others \u2013 tap into that tragic soul-life; the quest for subjectivity; the black soul; the struggle of continued resistance; the economy of black existential hope. Every such death brings us one step closer to the tipping point \u2013 the moment when the inexcusable loss of a black being will no longer be met with tacit social acceptance. In the meantime, Brian Curtis, a 24-year-old Ferguson resident, offers a glimpse into his community\u2019s mindset: \u201cIf we don\u2019t get no justice, we got to start taking matters into our own hands; something got to be done to make our voices heard. Me being a young black brother\u2026that could have been me out there\u201d (Eligon).<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cFor manifestly, you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression \u2018being.\u2019 We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.\u201d<\/i>\u2013 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time<\/span><\/p>\n
\nVictor Anderson poses a similar existential question \u2013 specifically, the origin of the black being and its existence as an agent of free will \u2013 in his essay, \u201cBlack Ontology and Theology.\u201d Anderson argues that because of the longstanding social adherence to certain hierarchical dualisms \u2013 such as soul over body, human over animal, mind over matter, and white over black \u2013 the very question of black Being \u201creconstitutes itself as the existential question of the meaning of black existence\u201d (391). African American theology rejects these traditional Western dualisms \u201cin favor of the multidimensionality of subjectivity\u201d (Anderson 394), which is evidenced in the emphasis on the black lived experience over being. Anderson invokes the writing of philosopher Lewis Gordon when presenting a framework for this theory of existentialism (essentially, how we exist as free beings) versus ontology (the notion of being itself), stating that to adequately reflect upon the existential meaning of blackness, one must consider the tangible, concrete moments of suffering in the lived, black human experience (391).<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nOntologically speaking, Michael Brown was simply a black body, standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing in at nearly 300 pounds. It\u2019s likely that with his hands raised, Mike Brown stood even taller. When viewed through the abstract and hypersimplified lens of \u201cblack male body,\u201d one man\u2019s sign of surrender could even wrongly function as another man\u2019s heightened perception of threat. As a body, Brown almost certainly fell victim to the condition known as negrophobia, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as \u201cdislike or fear of black people.\u201d In an op-ed piece written for Time magazine<\/a>, Brandon Hill more aptly defines the term as an unjustified fear of black people, further positing negrophobia as that which \u201cfuels the triangular system of oppression that keeps people of color pinned into hapless ghettos between the pillars of militarized police, starved inner-city schools, and voracious prisons.\u201d Brown\u2019s death is the quintessential example of how white America\u2019s intrinsic fear of the black body, or being, sets the stage for an endless cycle of unjust treatment, disproportionate distribution of resources and stymied opportunities for meaningful growth. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nerparts. For example, he draws a connection between black existential hope and what political theologian Terrence L. Johnson identifies as the black tragic soul-life. In the schema of ontological significance, this tragic soul-life situates a moral philosophy within black culture that \u201ccenters blacks\u2019 struggle for liberation and \u2018human fulfillment\u2019 within a democratic society fractured by antiblack racism, homophobia, sexism, and class alienation\u201d (Anderson 393). Humanist Anthony Pinn describes a similar ideology but defines it as \u201cthe quest for \u2018complex subjectivity\u2019\u201d (Anderson 394). Black theologian James Cone places similar emphasis on the black soul, which he defines as emerging from the lived experience of existing boldly within a society that threatens your place and your very right to being, and a series of womanist theologians speak of the carefully constructed ethical values that shepherd their economy of \u201cstruggle, survival, resistance, and quality of life\u201d (Anderson 398). Anderson highlights variations on a similar theme \u2013 his economy of black existential hope \u2013 in a number of theologies, all of which are effectively construed as religious pursuits because each \u201caddresses the search for ultimate meaning\u201d (394).<\/p>\n