K - Afro-Pessimism - Michigan 7 2023 KLAB

Afro-Pessimism Kritik – Michigan
1NC – Toolbox
Framework – 1NC
FRAMEWORK – The role of the ballot is to vote for the best theoretical lexicon for understanding Black suffering if we demonstrate that the 1AC’s conceptualization of power or material praxis generates a series of contradictions when it approaches the problematic of racial Blackness, that is a sufficient reason to reject them AND comes before weighing the aff.
Jones ’16 (Dalton Anthony Jones, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Bowling Green State University, “Northern Hieroglyphics: Nomadic Blackness and Spatial Literacy”, Rhizomes Issue 29 (2016), [SG])
[19] How, then, does one develop a working genealogy of a conundrum such as Afro-pessimism? Where does one begin? How is it possible to chart the history of something as polymorphous, as generative of and yet so abjectly banished from the life of Western modernity as the phenomenon of blackness-as-negation and negation-as-blackness? How does one narrate a story whose most poignant expressions have never been made with the written word or debated forthrightly in the public transcripts of civil society? How does one develop a functional vocabulary of silence? How does one paint a portrait of the unseen? And, most gravely perhaps, how does one do this crucial work while remaining sane in the face of a million commonplace and pitiless deferrals?
[20] The first challenge one confronts when trying to develop a theory and practice of black study is the problem of scale. That is, accepting the daunting task of conveying the sheer magnitude, the confounding depth and breadth of the topic at hand. Elaborating the slave's capture and subordination, establishing the relationship between the violence entailed by this process and the most essential and seemingly inessential formations of the modern (on the one hand, the nation, the state, civil society, the regime of value and its accumulated surplus and so forth; on the other, the minute protocols that organize our affiliations and disaffiliations with these meta-dispositifs of power), is itself enough to test the most stable psychology and blackness, we must remember, is born just a little bit crazy. But elaborate them we must, for without this effort all subsequent theorizations of blackness fail. Lindon Barrett's posthumous and tragically incomplete masterpiece, Racial Blackness and the (Dis)continuities of Western Modernity, serves as a case-point for the almost maniacal lengths a brilliant mind such as his must go through in order to demonstrate with precision (for anything less than precision will be dismissed outright on a technicality) the emergent circumstances of racial blackness, to show the centrality of trans-Atlantic plantation slavery to this formation, to catalogue the means by which slavery was a constituent element in the development of capitalism and is thus a constituent element of the contemporary global distribution of wealth and European territorial hegemony, of tracing the historical transition away from European feudal and monarchical forms of consolidated power to the more elusive, flexible forms of capitalist authority we live under today, to call attention to the consequent unstable formation of the human as a normative subject, to assemble an encyclopedic catalogue of the philosophers, historians, psychoanalysts, revolutionary anti-colonialists and social scientists of the more tame type who buttress these truths in order to show how and why we can and must see the extraction, consolidation, and distribution of resources in the creation of the Atlantic economies as not just foundational to but an ongoing process in the formation of the modern world, to emphasize, finally, the relation between the materiality of power and the "discursive grammar" by which subjects are composed and imagined, and all of this as prelude to say something else, something as simple as "I am" and "I am here." Reading Barrett's exhaustive résumé one can feel the frenetic energy expended upon the project and the almost perceptible slide into madness as he attempts to elaborate the elaborated, to prove the proven, to speak what has already been spoken, to be heard in a world where blackness lives in and is defined as vacuum: A living black hole pockmarking the face of modernity.[8]
[21] Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Civilization and Its Discontents, Madness and Civilization: all of the classic exegeses on mental illness and modernity express the dementia of blackness in its stable form. To be black, is to be mad. To be sane in a world of repetitive violence against one's body and soul is to be mad. Blackness is an unstable delirium that sucks the very light out of Enlightenment.[9] If Afro-pessimist thought forces us to make an accounting of the past, its imperative, its impetus for being, the persistence of its assertion as a destabilizing injunction, is driven by decidedly contemporary concerns. It is the effort to make an honest accounting of the question, "where does my body stand in relation to my flesh and how can they both, one without sacrificing the other, find a stable place to stand in this world or, in the meantime, how can I at least find a way to speak the contradiction and violence of that displacement?" It assumes the task of answering this question by delving into the past not for the sake of melancholy, the right to sing the blues or wallow in self-pity, but in order to elaborate the mechanics of a wound that still festers. It is an exhaustive project that demands willpower and invites sanction at every step. It entails not cutting a truce between the past and the present, not accepting a plea-bargain that leaves our accumulated grievances and the perpetual expendability of our lives off of the negotiating table in exchange for the dubious right to join the legions of alienated and exploited citizens struggling to find coherence in an insane and abusive new world order that has evolved, seamlessly and coercively, from the old. To hazard the consequences of not raising the white flag is an act of courage. But one look out of the window at the America I am traversing across tells me that I do not want to join the rank and file I see. And with that decision, for better or worse, begins a struggle that cannot rely on the power of affirmation alone. It demands that one produce a string of negations as persistent and unrelenting as the steady repetition of deportations that promote one's exile, and it requires one to challenge, ruthlessly, the unethical stability and indefensible centrism that has been the operational status quo of modernity since its inception.
[22] For this reason, Jared Sexton, who provides a concise overview of the objections mounted against Afro-pessimism, asserts, following Wilderson, that Afro-pessimism is as much a structural position as a school of thought or collection of ideological dogmas. (Sexton, Afro-Pessimism: The Unclear Word, 9) Rather, it is a (dis)position of embodiment that is deployed and asserted at key junctures. While the encounter may not always be willful, it inevitably emerges of its own accord with a predictable yet spontaneous regularity. It disrupts the flow of social discourse, particularly at those moments of convergence between the black body and its "institutional inscription."[10] More than a unified polemic, although it can be this too, Afro-pessimism is an extended meditation upon a set of accumulated negations growing out of the contradictions of Western thought and practice. Sometimes these can be moments of catharsis, appearing as a productive intervention, creating levity and release in unexpected places at unexpected times, but their (re)appearance and (re)iteration occur with such frequency, and always in a mode that replicates the grievance of blackness, that even such affective solidarities become a structural disposition bound by a relation of violence and a posture of negation.
Framework – Education
Social death and ontology must be challenged in academia and education
Lopez and Jean-Marie 21 (Dr. Ann Lopez is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Gaëtane Jean-Marie is the Dean and Professor of Educational Leadership at Rowan University, “Challenging Anti-Black Racism in Everyday Teaching, Learning, and Leading: From Theory to Practice”, Sage Journals, Vol 31, 16 February 2021, https://doi.org/10.1177/1052684621993115)//ameya
In society at large as well as institutions, Black people are subject to oppression in the form of anti-Black racism, perpetuated through antiblackness within spaces. Dumas (2016) argues that antiblackness does not signify a mere racial conflict that might be resolved through organized political struggle and appeals to the state and to the citizenry for redress. Instead, antiblackness marks an irreconcilability between the Black and any sense of social or cultural regard. The aim of theorizing antiblackness is not to offer solutions to racial inequality, but to come to a deeper understanding of the Black condition within a context of utter contempt for, and acceptance of violence against the Black. (p. 13) Wilderson (2010) suggests that the question of being Black revolves around two fundamental questions: “What does it mean to suffer?” and “How does one become free of suffering?” (p. 126). As Black scholars who embrace the embodiment of Blackness, claim to the fullest of our African ancestry, walk in the spirit and light of our ancestors as descendants of the enslaved, live and work in spaces that continue to harm and traumatize Black people, we understand what it means to suffer. In this article however, we focus on ways to become free and more specifically ways for Black students to become free in the spaces that they learn. In the ontological polarity of the West, antiblackness draws its energy from the positioning of Blackness situated at the bottom of the polarity (Kline, 2017). In many ways, Black people are positioned as having no history prior to slavery and this myth is perpetuated through pedagogy and curriculum, thereby cutting off Black students from the rich history and knowledge which they come from. Kline (2017) argues further that antiblackness is also about power and is revealed through practices, forms, and apparatuses; and ways that “antiBlack racism have historically developed, changed, and reassembled/reterritorialized in relation to state power, national identity, philosophical discourse, biological discourse, political discourse, and so on” (p. 66). Some scholars argue that as discourses of equity, inclusion, and diversity abound in the United States and other Western countries trying to grapple with their racist histories and current demographic shifts, there is a strain against the dark (Busey & Coleman-King, 2020; Sexton, 2008; Wilderson, 2010). In this social and political contexts, Black youth, families, and communities struggle to make sense of what are widely regarded in Black cultural spaces as cases of (anti-)Black suffering and death are on the rise (Dumas, 2016). The killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 in the United States, as well as the killings of Black people in Canada and other countries is furtherance of the fear that Black people experience in these spaces. Over 400years of injustice in the United States, Canada, and other Western countries there is a collective rage about social injustices that continue to plague society. The world has been transfixed by the unrest in the United States amid video footage of brutal clashes between the police and protesters during marches and vigils in Mr. Floyd’s memory. Dumas (2016) argues that while most educational researchers and practitioners acknowledge and lament the killing of and violence against Black people as examples of racism or (multi)cultural insensitivity, or the enactment of white supremacy, there has been little theorizing in education on the specificity of anti-Black racism, or the broader terrain of antiblackness. Tackling antiblackness is about challenging the position of Black person as socially dead, in other words, denied humanity thus ineligible for full citizenship and regard within the polity (Patterson, 1982). Anti-Black racism is a form of racism that is directed against Black people and their resistance to such oppressions (Benjamin, 2011). The legacy of anti-Black racism and the ongoing denial of Black people of their basic humanity reflects the “afterlife of slavery” that continually situates Black peoples as objects of fetish and force (Sexton, 2010, 2015). Dumas (2016) argues that analyses of racial(ized) discourses and policy processes in education must grapple with cultural disregard for and disgust with blackness. Doret and Gordon (2018) suggest that the fear of Blackness is implicated in the day-to-day practices of education and schooling. Dumas (2016) notes: theorization of antiblackness allows one to more precisely identify and respond to racism in education discourse and in the formation and implementation of education policy…. I contend that deeply and inextricably embedded within racialized policy discourses is not merely a general and generalizable concern about disproportionality or inequality, but also, fundamentally and quite specifically, a concern with the bodies of Black people, the signification of (their) blackness, and the threat posed by the Black to the educational wellbeing of other students. (p. 12) The continued fear of Black youth reveals the persistence of anti-Black racism that continues in the new millennium to plague the socio-political body (Doret & Gordon, 2018). Anti-Black racism is not limited to particular time periods or projects. AntiBlack racism is systemic, pervasive, and productive (Feagin, 2013). As we examine the impact of anti-Black racism Sexton (2010) calls for the disruption of the Black/White binary and suggests that anti-Black racism is not just about White on Black racial oppression, but also includes the relationship that other groups have to Black people. Education and schooling continues to be site of antiblackness and anti-Black racism. Black students and families are often constructed as the problem, pathologized, students bear the brunt of harsh school discipline, and families are not perceived as resourceful and knowledgeable. In the United States, some fought against integration of schools; and most recently we have witnessed the under-resourcing of schools in predominantly Black communities.
Their education offense is non unique – the academy is not a neutral space for deliberation but is always structurally oriented in antagonism with blackness where “without intentional efforts to disrupt these systems, they will undoubtedly continue”
Lopez-Littleton et al 22 (Vanessa Lopez-Littleton is Department Chair of Health, Human Services, and Public Policy at California State University, Monterey Bay, Carla Jackie Sampson, PhD, is a clinical associate professor of healthcare management and public service in the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, Brian is a Corpening Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence and Chief Diversity Officer at California State University, Monterey Bay, “ADORE: A Framework for Community Building to Dismantleanti-Black Racism in Academia’, Taylor & Francis Online, Vol. 25, No. 3, 29 August 2022)//ameya
Anti-Black racism is a form of systemic racism that methodically marginalizes Black people, devalues Blackness, and dehumanizes those who are Black (University of California San Francisco,n.d.). According to the Council for Democratizing Education, anti-Black racism voids the value of Blackness (including Black culture and identity), and marginalizes Black people and their concerns (Portland Means Progress,n.d.). Anti-Black racism encapsulates both overt and covert forms of structural racism and is carried out by individuals who fail to act and respond in ways that disrupt policies, practices, and ideologies that disregard or objectify Blackness (Heckler,2017). In a society gripped with nervousness, apathy, and ignorance surrounding racial realities, campuses are often ill-equipped to address anti-Black racism (Zambrano,2018). Faculty often fail to teach culturally responsive curricula and administrators lack the skill and will to make substan-tive changes to meet the needs of diverse learners (Hammond,2015).There is a culture endemic in higher education that centers on whiteness. These power struc-tures continually elevate white individuals to senior leadership positions and allow white students to outperform students from historically underrepresented backgrounds and divested commun-ities (Hammond,2015; Zambrano,2018). The result of anti-Black racism in higher education translates into Black people not being hired into the academy, not being selected for tenure or tenure-earning positions, hired as temporary lecturers, and experiencing various forms of oppres-sion and retaliation (Niemann et al.,2020; Zambrano,2018). Anti-Black racism appears among the faculty ranks in student evaluations and during tenure and promotion processes (Zambrano,2018). Studies have shown that students rate white faculty higher than Black faculty (Drake et al.,2019; Smith & Hawkins,2011). Poor performance by white faculty is explained away, while simi-lar performances by Black faculty are equated with poor teaching skills (Bridgeman,2020). Black students learn in classrooms led by teachers who purport color-blind pedagogical approaches(Hammond,2015). These faculty design and deliver course content through a white racial frame(Zambrano,2018) using approaches where Black students fail to see themselves reflected in the material, fail to develop connections with the faculty, and fail to perform well in the course(Douglas et al.,2008; Love,2019). The burden for Black faculty shows up as cultural taxation, devalued research, heavier teaching and service loads, and suffering under the burden of per-ceived “affirmative action”work (Zambrano,2018). This burden culminates in Black academics experiencing difficulty achieving tenure and promotion (Bridgeman,2020; U.S. Department ofEducation,2020) In the classroom, the experiences of students of color are influenced by the pedagogical approaches combined with the context in which the education occurs (Hammond,2015). Studies have shown that “students of color routinely receive less instruction in higher order skills devel-opment than other students...Their curriculum less challenging and more repetitive. Their instruction is more focused on skills low on Bloom’s taxonomy”(Hammond,2015, p. 12).Students of color must also contend with the existence of the hidden curriculum (i.e., aspects of the learning environment—lessons, norms, attitudes, values, and perspectives—that are transmit-ted to students through actions, interactions and social norms created by academic personnel;Small,2020). The lack of connections and sense of belonging in these environments contribute to negative self-image and poor interactions with teachers and peers and resultantly affects their learning outcomes (Hammond,2015). Combined, the structure and experiences associated with the learning environment are a manifestation of the perpetuation of anti-Black racism that con-tributes to differential outcomes. While the K-12 system is critical to socialization and establishing the foundation for learning, it is the collegiate experience where Black students grow their capacity for building agency to become well-informed citizens. It is the college experience that far too often hampers that pro-gress. Black college students across the US report having negative educational experiences in com-parison to other racial and ethnic groups (Harper et al.,2009). Black students r

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