Part theory, part autobiography, part polemic, its powerful argument, derived in part from Frantz Fanon and Orlando Patterson, is that Blacks always hold, in the eyes of whites, the position of slaves-that is to say, not merely exploited people but beings essentially robbed of their personhood: “Blacks are the sentient beings against which Humanity is defined.” One of the foundational stories Frank tells in Afropessimism is that of a Palestinian friend, Sameer, who describes the horror of being frisked by Israeli soldiers, only to add, “But the shame and humiliation runs even deeper if the Israeli soldier is an Ethiopian Jew.” Whether consciously or not, Sameer, Frank realizes, is positioning himself and his fellow Palestinians as whites vis-à-vis the identity unconsciously felt to be the lowest, the one distinct from all others-the Black. I read Afropessimism when it was published with great fascination. Because of the pandemic and various illnesses, it has been impossible to meet, but Frank suggested that we Zoom, and this past November, I spent a delightful hour online with him and his wife, the poet Anita Wilkins. ![]() I have never met Frank, but we share an editor, who put us in touch last year with one of those emails that say, “You two should get to know each other.” I live in Los Angeles, and Frank in Irvine, where he is Chancellor’s Professor of African American studies at UC Irvine. Wilderson III, the author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid (2008) and Afropessimism (2020). THE BEST NEW POEM I’ve read this past year is not, strictly speaking, a poem at all, but a New Year’s card sent by Frank B.
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