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05 Hesse Western Hegemony, Black Fugitivity

Introduction

  • The essay examines Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” in the context of Black fugitive thought.
  • Key figures in Black fugitive thought include Aimé Césaire, W. E. B. Du Bois, and David Walker.
  • Argues that Western political theory, particularly liberty, excludes its links to colonialism and slavery.
  • The essay characterizes this exclusion as colonial-racial foreclosure, where certain references become impossible to formulate in discourse.

Colonial-Racial Foreclosure

  • Foreclosure refers to the preemptive exclusion of certain concepts or references from discourse, making them unspeakable.
  • This concept is derived from Lacanian psychoanalysis.
  • Foreclosure plays a role in Western liberal thought by excluding colonialism and racial oppression from discussions about liberty.
  • Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty”:
  • Defines negative liberty as freedom from interference.
  • Defines positive liberty as self-mastery, but argues it can lead to tyranny.
  • Berlin's framing ignores colonial and racial implications, focusing only on Cold War binaries between Western democracy and communism.

Black Political Thought vs. Western Liberalism

  • Black political thought challenges the Western hegemony of liberty.
  • Thinkers like Césaire and Du Bois argue that Western ideas of freedom were built on the exclusion and oppression of non-white peoples.
  • Césaire’s critique:
  • Examines Western liberalism and its links to colonial violence and racism.
  • Highlights how Western freedom was achieved through the domination of colonized peoples.
  • David Walker’s Appeal:
  • Walker critiques both the institution of slavery and the racial limits placed on freedom for Black people in the U.S.
  • His analysis connects liberty to a global, anti-slavery perspective, arguing that the freedom of Black people was inseparable from freedom for all.

The Limits of Berlin’s Liberty

  • Negative liberty in Berlin’s framework is tied to non-interference, but does not account for the systemic interference of colonialism and racism.
  • Berlin’s concept of freedom ignores the realities of anti-colonialism and anti-racism, focusing instead on individualistic notions of liberty.
  • Western political theory’s focus on liberty has consistently avoided addressing the legacies of colonialism.

The Third Concept of Liberty

  • Republican liberty emphasizes non-domination, as opposed to non-interference (negative liberty).
  • This concept is related to Roman legal thought and republicanism, emphasizing the absence of domination, rather than simply avoiding interference.
  • However, even this formulation of liberty fails to fully engage with the racial legacies of slavery and colonialism.

Conclusion

  • Black fugitive thought challenges the foreclosures of Western liberalism.
  • Figures like Du Bois and Césaire use their works to expose the racialized exclusions that underpin Western concepts of freedom.
  • These thinkers engage in a form of escapology, seeking to escape the conceptual confines of Western political thought and offer alternative understandings of liberty.