The Trouble with Post-Blackness PDF
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the trouble with Post-Blackness t h e t r o u b l e wit h Post-Blackness edited by Houston A. Baker Jr. and K. Merinda Simmons Columbia University Press New York Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2015 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Excerpt from “Gwendolyn Brooks” in Don’t Cry, Scream by Haki R. Madhubuti (Chi- cago: Third World Press, 1969), reprinted by permission of Third World Press © 1969 Haki R. Madhubuti. Excerpt from “What Color Is Lonely” in Songs of a Blackbird by Carolyn Rodgers (Chi- cago: Third World Press, 1973), reprinted by permission of Third World Press © 1969 Carolyn Rodgers Excerpt from “Someone Leans Near” in Five Poems by Toni Morrison (Las Vegas: Rain- maker Editions, 2002), used by permission © Rainmaker Editions. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The trouble with post-Blackness / edited by Houston A. Baker and K. Merinda Simmons. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-231-16934-9 (cloth : acid-freee paper) — isbn 978-0-231-53850-3 (e-book) 1. African Americans—Race identity. 2. African Americans—Intellectual life. 3. Afri- can Americans—Social conditions—1975–. 4. Social change—United States. 5. Identity politics—United States. 6. Post-racialism—United States. 7. African American philoso- phy. 8. United States—Race relations. I. Baker, Houston A., editor. II. Simmons, Mer- inda, 1981– editor. E185.625.T76 2015 305.800973—dc23 0214013811 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Jacket design by Noah Arlow. References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The Dubious Stage of Post-Blackness— Performing Otherness, Conserving Dominance K. Merinda Simmons 1 1. “What Was Is”: The Time and Space of Entanglement Erased by Post-Blackness Margo Natalie Crawford 21 2. Black Literary Writers and Post-Blackness Stephanie Li 44 3. African Diasporic Blackness Out of Line: Trouble for “Post-Black” African Americanism Greg Thomas 60 4. Fear of a Performative Planet: Troubling the Concept of “Post-Blackness” Rone Shavers 81 5. E-Raced: #Touré, Twitter, and Trayvon Riché Richardson 93 vi CONTENTS 6. Post-Blackness and All of the Black Americas Heather D. Russell 110 7. Embodying Africa: Roots-Seekers and the Politics of Blackness Bayo Holsey 144 8. “The world is a ghetto”: Post-Racial America(s) and the Apocalypse Patrice Rankine 162 9. The Long Road Home Erin Aubry Kaplan 188 10. Half as Good John L. Jackson Jr. 194 11. “Whither Now and Why”: Content Mastery and Pedagogy— A Critique and a Challenge Dana A. Williams 209 12. Fallacies of the Post-Race Presidency Ishmael Reed 220 13. Thirteen Ways of Looking at Post-Blackness (after Wallace Stevens) Emily Raboteau 243 Conclusion: Why the Lega Mask Has Many Mouths and Multiple Eyes Houston A. Baker Jr. 247 List of Contributors 257 Index 263 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors wish to thank those who helped make the present collection a reality. We are grateful for the tireless efforts of Natalie Baggett, program coordinator and administrative assistant at Vanderbilt University. Every aspect of the project has benefited from Natalie’s efficiency, communica- tion skills, and indomitable organization. We thank Stephanie Li of the University of Rochester for conceptualizing a symposium bearing the title of the present volume. Professor Li secured travel and accommodation funds and honoraria from the Humanities Project of Rochester for all the volume’s contributors. She then orchestrated an exciting one-day intel- lectual exchange at the university on April 11, 2014. It goes without saying that Stephanie Li and Natalie Baggett worked in tandem on some impor- tant logistics. Vanderbilt University English Department graduate stu- dent Andrew Hines encountered our project at its inception. His archival skill and shrewd analytical competence provided a fine inaugural bibliog- raphy for our work. At a later phase Andy was indispensable in resolving documentation anxieties. Our colleagues at the University of Alabama and at Vanderbilt have been generous and encouraging. We extend spe- cial gratitude to colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, the Culture on the Edge research collaborative, and to those in the departments of English and African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt. Our indebtedness to our editor, Jennifer Crewe, and Columbia University Press is unbounded. Jennifer encour- aged our project from the outset. Her publishing team is a professional assembly to be envied. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While we have been fortunate in all our institutional navigations, we could not have achieved such a fine collection without the individual graciousness, punctuality, and brilliance of our contributors. They repre- sent the best standards and practices of collective intellectual enterprise. We cannot praise or thank them enough for making our job so seamless and rewarding. Finally, we extend sincere and personal thanks to Vanderbilt Univer- sity professor Charlotte Pierce-Baker, who invited us into her home to work. She advised us on the construction and tone of our enterprise. She shared insights and critique that made our collaboration more astute. We also benefited personally from the kind support and company of Nathan Loewen and Arlo Simmons-Loewen. If we have overlooked anyone who helped and inspired us to complete the present project, we apologize. the trouble with Post-Blackness
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