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Summary - Black Consciousness (Pols2021)
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- University Of The Witwatersrand (wits)
Summary - Black Consciousness (Pols2021)
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Black Consciousness Exam Notes,Week 2:
Rollo Reading:
Summary:
The text delves into the intricate interplay between the concept of childhood and racial
identity. It primarily emphasises how childhood is constructed and how it has differential
implications for various racial groups. There are several salient arguments and recurring
themes that emerge throughout the reading.Firstly, the texts shed light on the historical
exclusion of Black youth from the privileges associated with childhood. The child welfare
system, upon which many children came to depend after being freed from slavery, was
originally designed with a deliberate exclusion of young Black boys at its core. Frederick
Douglass's keen observations underscore the fundamental disparities between White and
Black children in this context.
Additionally, the texts underscore how Black youth were systematically designated as
perpetual children. They were consistently denied the same privileges as their White
counterparts and were more likely to be abandoned by the system, often labeled as juvenile
"delinquents" rather than deserving dependents. The historical reforms and policies, as
outlined in the text, illustrate how White youth were intentionally separated from
institutions associated with servitude or slavery, while Black youth remained excluded.
These disparities extended into various aspects of life, perpetuating racial inequalities.
Furthermore, the presumption of innocence, a concept closely tied to childhood, was largely
limited to White children. In contrast, Black children were consistently judged through a lens
of criminal immaturity, deepening the racial divide.
Rollo argues that childhood, often perceived as a protected and innocent phase of life, was
unequally distributed along racial lines. They contend that addressing the issues of racial
inequality and exclusion demands a critical examination of the misopedic order that
underlies modern society, encouraging a broader perspective beyond simply framing Black
youth as excluded from a traditional, idealized notion of protected childhood. In doing so,
they call for a fundamental reorientation in approaches to emancipatory and abolitionist
research, highlighting the urgency of understanding how childhood and racial identity
intersect in the context of discrimination and injustice.
Main arguments:
1. The historical association of Blackness with childhood: The text argues that anti-Black
racism is rooted in the historical framework that associates Black people, especially Black
youth, with childhood. Black individuals are exposed to violence because they are viewed as
children. The text cites how enslaved Black children were deemed to inherit the condition of
their mothers, guaranteeing a perpetual slave population, following European practices of
viewing children as lacking ontological status.
,2. The concept of "social death": The text emphasizes the idea of "social death" for enslaved
Black people, which continues to deny their basic humanity and plays a foundational role in
contemporary conceptions of boundaries to both humanity and political order. This is
illustrated by the ongoing exposure of Black individuals, particularly youth, to violence in
education, policing, and carceral systems, reflecting a legacy of anti-Black racism.
3. Misopedic paradigm: The text introduces the concept of "misopedy," viewing childhood as
a site of naturalized discipline, violence, and criminality. It argues that challenging anti-Black
racism requires addressing this paradigm. The paradigm of misopedic views manifests when
marginalized peoples' equality is predicated on their possession of mature intelligence and
self-control, preserving hierarchical divisions of humanity.
4. Historical constructs of race and childhood: The text highlights that the historical binary
opposition between the fully human adult and the sub-human child was an essential
framework in early-modern philosophical and scientific constructions of Whiteness and
White superiority. This is exemplified through the practice of racial slavery in America, where
children of slave women inherited their mothers' condition, echoing pre-Christian practices
of infanticide and Roman doctrines.
5. Protection and privileges of childhood: The text argues that White youth are partially
removed from the category of childhood and granted privileges normally reserved for adults,
such as the juridical presumption of legal innocence. White youth are spared from the same
exposure to violence that Black youth face because they have been removed, even partially,
from the category of childhood.
6. The need for deconstruction: To challenge the modern racial order, the text asserts that it
is vital to deconstruct not only the surface discourses of biological racialization but also the
underlying misopedic grammar of race. Hierarchical divisions of humanity are maintained
when the equality of marginalized peoples is based on their adult capacities for reason,
speech, and claim-making. This cultural structure of racialization is not effectively
challenged.
Origins of Misopedic Racialization:
1. Ancient Greek Ethno-Astronomy: The origins of misopedic racialization are traced back to
ancient Greek practices of ethno-astronomy, as noted by Sylvia Wynter. In this context,
"ethno-astronomy" refers to the mapping of moral and political laws of the Greek city-state
(polis) onto the physical cosmos. The Greeks projected their parochial "master governing
codes" onto the heavens, essentially associating their specific criteria for being human with
the authority of cosmological order and certainty.
2. Rationalizing Slavery and Patriarchy: Like many intellectual cultures, the Greeks used this
practice to rationalize their customary systems of slavery and patriarchy. By aligning their
social hierarchies with celestial order, they sought to legitimize and perpetuate these social
structures. The Greeks used ethno-astronomy to justify the subjugation of certain groups
and the dominance of others within their society.
, 3. Influence on Judeo-Christian Cosmologies: The misopedic racialization framework
inherited from the Greeks had a significant impact on subsequent Judeo-Christian
cosmologies. These belief systems, which emerged later, also incorporated and perpetuated
the association between cosmic order and human hierarchies. Judeo-Christian cosmologies
continued to reinforce notions of dominance and subjugation based on perceived moral and
cosmological hierarchies.
In summary, misopedic racialization has its roots in ancient Greek practices of ethno-
astronomy, where societal norms were projected onto the cosmos to legitimize and enforce
social hierarchies. This framework influenced later religious and cultural belief systems,
perpetuating the link between cosmic order and human hierarchies.
Main Arguments from the Text:
1. Misopedic Racialization Origin: The text argues that the origins of misopedic racialization
can be traced to ancient Greek practices of ethno-astronomy. The Greeks projected their
moral and political laws onto the cosmos to legitimize their social hierarchies, including
slavery and patriarchy.
2. Transformation from Foreign Barbarian to Child Figure: While the figure of the foreign
barbarian has often been analyzed in the context of racialized slavery, the text contends that
the subordination of children was considered more natural, necessary, and morally
incontrovertible. The unambiguous state of childhood inferiority positioned the child as a
central model of Othering.
3. Role of Children in Greek and Roman Societies: The text highlights that in classical Greece
and Rome, children were commonly bought, sold, or loaned out as slaves for labor and
sexual exploitation. The prevailing norm of childhood fungibility continued into the Roman
era, emphasizing the child's natural dependency on and subordination to a father.
4. Christian Adoption of Child Subordination: Early Christian thinkers adopted Greco-Roman
legal understandings of childhood, contributing to the establishment of a hierarchical social
order. God was viewed as the paterfamilia or dominus, and this familial model mapped onto
societal hierarchies.
5. Enlightenment Vision and Exclusion of Children: The text points out that the
Enlightenment introduced a vision of civilizational progress based on education in reason,
precluding children and those categorized as children from participating in political and
economic life as full agents. This new "Age of Reason" was conceptualized in opposition to
the figure of the child.
6. Emergence of "Child Races": The text argues that the practice of African slavery in colonial
societies transitioned from justifications rooted in conquest to norms of authority and
subordination derived from the household or domestic sphere. This process was facilitated
by Christian notions of inherent childhood subordination, which provided a scaffold for racial
hierarchies.
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