Being and Blackness: The Significance of Black Lived Experience in Ferguson

Last updated on: April 29, 2015 at 8:07 pm by Guest Contributor

Being and Blackness: The Significance of Black Lived Experience in Ferguson 2015-04-29T20:07:47-05:00 Guest Contributor

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by Katherine Whitfield

R3 Contributor

“For manifestly, you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression ‘being.’ We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.”– Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

“The black experience is existence in a system of white racism.”– James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation

Within a matter of hours, a grand jury convened to deliberate on the police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown earlier this year in Ferguson, Mo., will release its difficult – and possibly history-altering – decision. The country’s eyes are fixed squarely on Ferguson as thousands of individuals in and around that community await the verdict with bated breath. Engaged citizens, students, activists and members of the faith community have gathered throughout the city to hold their own deliberations and plan organized responses to the grand jury verdict. “They have made it clear that they plan to again take to Ferguson’s streets, no matter what the grand jury concludes,” wrote John Eligon, reporter for The New York Times. As the Ferguson community steels itself for the impending announcement, its citizens – and, indeed, many throughout the country – may find themselves asking, “How did we get here?”

Victor Anderson poses a similar existential question – specifically, the origin of the black being and its existence as an agent of free will – in his essay, “Black Ontology and Theology.” Anderson argues that because of the longstanding social adherence to certain hierarchical dualisms – such as soul over body, human over animal, mind over matter, and white over black – the very question of black Being “reconstitutes itself as the existential question of the meaning of black existence” (391). African American theology rejects these traditional Western dualisms “in favor of the multidimensionality of subjectivity” (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).

As with any philosophical quandary, the notion of the tangible and concrete can seem quite fleeting. Philosophy is, by definition, a study of abstractions – 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 “the impinging threat of nothingness, of nonbeing” (392). According to Gordon, this threat of nonbeing poses the danger of exposing “a world that will ultimately be better off without blacks. Blacks from such a standpoint ‘must’ provide justification for their continued presence” (Anderson 392). Such an argument might seem extreme until Gordon’s words are used to illuminate the existential experience of the Jews during and after the time of the Holocaust – 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 only – using blackness in its most basic, ontological sense to signify “neither a person nor a place but a ‘thing’: situated flesh” (Anderson 392).

Ontologically speaking, Michael Brown was simply a black body, standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing in at nearly 300 pounds. It’s likely that with his hands raised, Mike Brown stood even taller. When viewed through the abstract and hypersimplified lens of “black male body,” one man’s sign of surrender could even wrongly function as another man’s heightened perception of threat. As a body, Brown almost certainly fell victim to the condition known as negrophobia, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “dislike or fear of black people.” In an op-ed piece written for Time magazine, Brandon Hill more aptly defines the term as an unjustified fear of black people, further positing negrophobia as that which “fuels 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.” Brown’s death is the quintessential example of how white America’s 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.

But shifting beyond being to the myriad moments that comprised Brown’s lived experience as a young, black man, we may arrive at what Anderson describes as “an economy of black existential hope” (392). Anderson cites a multitude of African American forms of expression – including sermons, autobiographies, blues, literature and theological discourse – as means of imbuing the black lived experience with value. Simply put, these artistic expressions and recorded moments in time qualify blackness as a “consciously lived experience” (Anderson 393). According to reports from Michael Brown’s family and friends, the elements that serve as a testament to his consciously lived experience include a sense of humor, a penchant for problem solving, a desire to serve as a role model for his younger siblings, a commitment to higher education, appreciation for Kanye West’s music and the St. Louis Rams, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a reputation as a loyal friend and a “gentle giant.” While the nature of Brown’s personal character should have no bearing on the shooting itself, an awareness and deeper understanding of Brown beyond his ontological being and into the realm of his existential self helps to further situate his life with meaning, and, by extension, with value. As Anderson puts it, each of these situated moments is “infinitely possible, that is, potentially repeatable, even as the conditions for its possibilities persist in situated moments of black suffering, oppression, anguish, closure, freedom, responsibility, community, liberation, and more” (393). Honoring Brown’s essence in the wake of his existence gives his being a continued voice.

Anderson identifies parallels for his notion of an economy of black existential hope in the writings and teachings of numerous count
erparts. 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 “centers blacks’ struggle for liberation and ‘human fulfillment’ within a democratic society fractured by antiblack racism, homophobia, sexism, and class alienation” (Anderson 393). Humanist Anthony Pinn describes a similar ideology but defines it as “the quest for ‘complex subjectivity’” (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 “struggle, survival, resistance, and quality of life” (Anderson 398). Anderson highlights variations on a similar theme – his economy of black existential hope – in a number of theologies, all of which are effectively construed as religious pursuits because each “addresses the search for ultimate meaning” (394).

And what of an economy of black existential hope in Ferguson? Certainly, Michael Brown’s 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 “may 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” (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 “new life meaning” that lends credence and validation to the struggle for a better, more egalitarian existence takes shape.

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 – and in the name of countless others – 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 – 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’s mindset: “If we don’t 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…that could have been me out there” (Eligon).

Works Referenced

Anderson, Victor. “Black Ontology and Theology.” The Oxford Handbook of African American Theology. Ed. Katie G. Cannon and Anthony B. Pinn. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. 390-401. Print.

Eligon, John. “This Time, theDemonstrators in Ferguson May Decide to Pass.” New York Times 22 Nov. 2014: A1. Print.

Hill, Brandon. “Negrophobia: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, andAmerica’s Fear of Black People.” Time 29 Aug. 2014: n. pag. Web. 3 Sept. 2014.

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