Pessimism is not prescriptive. Winning ontology doesn’t mean you should accept the status quo.

There is a long history of pessimists in African American thought that would today, more than ever, hold that we just need to give up on the idea that whites can be saved. Scholars like Thandeka must then face these skeptical challenges that use history, sociology, and law to support their pessimistic stance in regard to where we go from here. They have claimed that all the historical evidence warrants giving up on waiting for whites to be reformed. From Frederick Douglass to Tommy Curry, there have been pessimistic critics of “the Black philosopher’s obsessive hope in the redemptive character of white innocence.”11 The stronger pessimists’ challenge argues that historically, groups in power are not likely to give up power easily and the lives of black people are at stake; therefore, we cannot wait until whites have some affective transformation as suggested by Thandeka. Only some political radical action has a chance of bringing about genuine change. Thandeka is by no means alone in the hope that whites can change. In fact, there is plenty of new and exciting research in support of her side. In her most recent publication, The Future of Whiteness, Linda Alcoff argues that whiteness is not inextricably tied to white supremacy. There are no fixed social categories and therefore no grounds for fatalism. There is hope that white people will face the truths of who they are and how they got here, and will push back on the seductions of white supremacy.12 I am not going to pretend to solve this long-standing debate but will critique the assumption that proper appeal to facts and reason will settle the issue. Often both sides think their side is empirically grounded and the other is ideological. Because of the predominance of white supremacy in US history, the pessimist’s side is the one that usually feels more secure that the facts are on her [their] side. They thus portray those with some hope, like Thandeka, as committed to some value-ethical commitments that blinds one to [obscures] the facts and what they call for. From the pessimist’s standpoint, someone who brings value considerations is another case of moral rhetoric that ends up masking the reality of exploitation, mass incarceration, poverty, and militarized police murdering unarmed black men. For them, it is obvious that efforts to save the whites or forgive them are not warranted by the evidence. However, as sympathetic as I sometimes am to their side, it is clear to me that none of the pessimist’s postures in regard to whites follow from a mere empirical study of the facts (e.g., history, sociology). The notion that the pessimist is the one who is adopting an objective “valueless” Archimedean standpoint in this debate is false. Any posture or resolution such as revenge, separation, resistance, or killing presupposes a value standpoint that goes beyond the facts. Thandeka and the pessimist may agree about all the historical evidence against whites and still reasonably disagree about where we go from here. If evidence alone does not determine the issue, then what reasons account for the disagreements? Here is my hypothesis: the issue of “Where do we go from here” is one of those “intellectually undecidable” issues presented by William James in The Will to Believe. Even when there is a preponderance of evidence on one side, it cannot be decided on only empirical-theoretical grounds. More importantly, our metaphysical and value-affective commitments play a key role. Let me explain. In a discussion-debate about where we go from here, we must lay out all the facts or evidence that supports our belief, but we rarely lay out all the operative background assumptions or “put all the cards on the table.” For instance, both sides may appeal to historical evidence, but history is after all just that, history. The issue is about what should be done today, where we should put our hopes, or what we should try now. For instance, at this point in history, should we trust “white” people? “Hope” and “trust” presuppose risk, and the issue of whether something is worth the risk or not is not totally decided by adopting some theoretically detached “objective” study of the facts or history. In disagreements about this sort of issue or belief, there is a lot going on in the background that has nothing to do with the empirical evidence or “facts.” The Role of Metaphysical13 Assumptions in “Where Do We Go from Here?” The issue of where we go from here cannot be addressed without assumptions about the reality of the temporal or history. In deciding where we go, one must presuppose a view about the “here” (the present) and how in general it relates to the past and the future. Let me return to debates among black intellectuals to illustrate the profound difference one’s metaphysical beliefs about history make, and in particular black history, in figuring out where we go from here. A good place to start is a statement by James Baldwin that has received much attention since the release of the film I Am Not Your Negro: “History is not the past. History is the present. We carry our history with us. To think otherwise is criminal.”14 Baldwin is raising a criticism of a certain view of history, one in which the past atrocities suffered by blacks can be forgotten because in reality they do not exist anymore. White ignorance or amnesia may be self-serving and have different causes, but Baldwin is correcting a metaphysical assumption about the past and history here. However, Baldwin’s assertion is ambiguous or can be subjected to different views of history. In a recent article in Slate, 15 Ismail Muhammad notices this ambiguity and argues that we have misunderstood the importance of James Baldwin for today’s black writers. The statement that “we carry history with us” can be interpreted in different ways depending on our views of the past and history (our metaphysics of time). What is the alternative to the sort of presentism where the past just drops from existence as we move forward in time? What does “we carry our history with us” mean, and what weight does this have for blacks in deciding where we go from here? Muhammad is critical of interpretations of Baldwin and black history that assume that “[b]lack people are merely living through endless repetitions of slavery and Jim Crow, which white supremacists massaged into subtler forms of control. According to this thesis, black Americans exist in a moment of foundational violence—slavery—that repeats ad infinitum.”16 Hence, distinct historical moments can be collapsed into one; Jesmyn Ward, among other African American intellectuals, sees “Trayvon Martin’s death as the latest episode of a recurrent nightmare. Replace ropes with bullets. . . . Nothing is new. . . . [E]very aspect of contemporary life has a corollary in the Jim Crow past. . . . White supremacy might have swapped guises, but its power remains interminable and total.”17 This take on black history cannot help but result in the more pessimistic answers to “Where do we go from here?,” but for Muhammad, this is not Baldwin. On the contrary, Baldwin should be used today to challenge this “logic of perpetual trauma.”18 It is true that “we carry history with us” implies “history’s inescapable purchase upon black life,” but “history is not immutable; . . . it is a practice we always conduct in the present tense, reshaping the past in order to imagine desired futures.”19 This way of understanding black history acknowledges that black history has been traumatic, but also acknowledges “the long shadows that slavery and Jim Crow cast on our present without standing in them.”20 According to this metaphysics or history, racist violence persists, regularity exists, but it is not cyclical. There are no historical necessities and immutable truths. White supremacy continues to generate anxiety, fear, and anger (i.e., it persists), but it makes little sense to claim it is perpetual or has such a grip that there are no felt possibilities beyond it. Muhammad is pointing to important assumptions that have received little attention in discussions about white supremacy. Scholars like Charles W. Mills have alerted us about not being blind to the legacy of white supremacy in our present society.21 The way he understands the phrase “We carry our history with us” presupposes a historical perspective in which the injustices of today are part of a larger historical narrative about the development of modern societies that goes back to how Europeans have progressively dehumanized or subordinated others. There is nothing problematic about this historical perspective, but is it one that is adopted in the present (as the locus of reality) or from an Archimedean or God’s-eye view of history (in which the past and the present can be gazed upon)? Muhammad interprets Baldwin as assuming the former; when Baldwin says “History is the present” and “We carry our history with us,” he means that to be in history is to be in a present and open situation that is continuous with previous ones and where structures that have persisted weigh heavily in our present memories, bodies, habits, and communities. We can say that the reality of exploitation, mass incarceration, poverty, and militarized police murdering unarmed black men is continuous with previous forms of, or is the legacy of, “white supremacy,” but there is really no white supremacy as a single and fixed evil across history. This is basic to understanding why there is some hope in Baldwin. Whether Muhammad is correct about Baldwin is secondary to my main point: the role of metaphysical assumptions in debates about where we go from here. Pessimists and optimists have these assumptions, and making them explicit in debates may advance communal inquiry more than pretending that the issue can be decided by being “empirical” and objective about black history. Many blacks would agree that “history is the present” and “we carry our history with us,” but exactly how the horrendous past of whites bears on the present depends in part on the extent to which we believe that what anchors all historical accounts of the past is the present, or if we see the present as just the effect of the past. How open-endedly we conceive the universe bears on having some hope. The Role of Affective-Value Reasons in “Where Do We Go from Here?” There is no sense in denying that personal-idiosyncratic reasons may play a role in deciding where to take a stand on where we go from here, whether we are aware of them or not. What I have in mind are personal experiences or the possible slant or bias as a result of being a member of some social group (class, gender, etc.). However, here, I wish to highlight the role of the affectivevalue dimension in the sense that is emphasized by Thandeka. The fact is that a value slant seems unavoidable since people come from different moral sensitivities and value commitments. James calls some of these hidden reasons “the passional.” This is important in understanding disagreements among thinkers in the black intellectual tradition. The disagreement between Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X cannot be understood unless we consider, for example, the religious-moral background and values that informed each side. Thandeka shares the same Christian value-laden slant of Martin Luther King, Jr., when she proposes to “save” whites. There is nothing inherently problematic about this value commitment, but it needs to be made explicit. Again, not even the most rigorous empirical-scientific pessimist can avoid taking a value standpoint on where we go from here. I can easily imagine someone being in total agreement with Thandeka’s diagnosis of whites in America and still disagree that whites are capable of being saved or that we should try to do something about it. How Should We Approach “Where Do We Go from Here?”: A Proposal If I am correct, does it mean that discussion on this issue is a waste of time since at the end of the day, it is undecidable, and all a matter of people’s subjectivevalue commitments?22 Does it mean there is just no way to determine better from worse positions in regard to where we go from here? Not at all. Not all views are equally supported or reasonable. Moreover, the lesson of James in regard to genuine options that are “intellectually undecidable” is not to stop serious inquiry about facts and history or the appeal to them as the basis for justification from our stance.23 We should continue to aim at engaging in an open and inclusive communal inquiry about this issue, but ideally all parties must make an honest effort to put all the cards on the table in the discussion. The acknowledgment that there are “affective” commitments that guide our most factual-empirical inquiries is an important step; the alternative is a repression that does not work. This last proposal is not easy. Our intellectual arrogance often gets in the way, and even under ideal conditions, most of us are not even aware of our deepest affective-value reasons that guide our inquiries. In other words, we resist or are incapable of putting all the cards on the table. However, this is not a good reason to not try, and it points to the importance of trying to have the most inclusive community of inquiry. Finding out what “our cards” are is not a matter of self-introspection of our beliefs or in our minds; it is a matter of social interaction, of being confronted by others. The best way to find out our slant, bias, and blindness is via communication, especially with those we disagree with. There is no Archimedean standpoint that we can appeal to in deciding who is right in the disagreements about where we go from here. The lack of such a standpoint should not be a source of despair. There are better and worse understandings of others and the possibility of learning from them. More importantly, especially in regard to issues such as where we go from here, all the options on the table have their own risk; there is no certainty or way of really knowing beforehand which is correct. This requires a lot of epistemic humility. All parties should be fully committed to taking a stand, but should be aware of their fallibility. This demands adopting an experimental attitude that is nowhere to be found today in public discourse. The source of this proposal is the shared insights of the American melioristic democratic philosophical tradition—James, Du Bois, Baldwin, Addams, Dewey, Locke. There are important differences between these thinkers, and they do not share a particular answer to the question “Where do we go from here?” that we can recover for today. In fact, if there is one, it is that different times (and contexts) call for us to revisit the question in light of all of the best present intellectual resources we can muster. An intelligent stance requires a serious inquiry into the diagnosis about the proper means relative to the present context. Even if we come to agree that a revolution is called for today, there is still the issue of what particular sort of revolution and what means are needed. To be sure, some of these thinkers defended prima facie reasons for preferring democratic means, but in principle, they are open to any particular means, even killing. I would not be honest or be putting all the cards on the table if I did not disclose the common metaphysical beliefs and the melioristic affective backbone that animate this tradition. This is consistent with my previous analysis on what is operative in the background of “Where do we go from here?” Let me elaborate. In regard to “Where do we go from here?,” this philosophical tradition resists or is critical of both the optimism of white denial and the pessimism of black despair. Insofar as both assume we live in a “block universe,” there is no basis for such determinism in reality. This philosophical tradition assumes an open nature of a pluralistic cosmos, and this makes a difference in how American philosophers think about and confront evils-injustices as events in life as a present process. For them, the comfort from the certainty of both optimism and pessimism seem shallow and usually lead to total passivity in the form of either waiting for the unavoidable progress to come or pessimistic resignation, despair, and cynism. Injustices are usually events with a history, but in an open and unfinished horizon of a world still in the making; therefore, where we have been does not determine where we should go. More importantly, even our best-grounded optimistic or pessimistic stances are likely to be mistaken and corrected by unexpected events.