Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology

Michelle Wright introduces The Physics of Blackness by presenting a problem: “even knowing that there is no one gene, history, nationality, language, politics, society, culture, or any other factor that can serve as the basis for the identity category of Black, we nonetheless continue to deploy it as a category and are thus still bedeviled by the question of exactly what constitutes Blackness (Kindle Loc 64). Wright attempts to answer this problem by making the argument that Blackness acts as both a construct and as phenomenological (Loc 93). In considering the way that the history of blackness hovers over the present of blackness, Wright suggests that “constructs of Blackness are largely historical and more specifically based on a notion of [linear] spacetime” whereas phenomenological blackness is constituted in “Epiphenomenal time, or the “now,” through which the past, present, and future are always interpreted” (98). Most importantly, Wright suggests that an inclusive definition of Blackness could be rendered (for a given moment) through Epiphenomenal time (108). In this way, she hopes to avoid “the problem of seeking to define Blackness in a way that reflects its diversity yet does not deprive it of its historical materiality” (157). She grapples with different narratives of progress and reversion, conceptions of performativity, and equality throughout the end of her Introduction. In chapter 1 she turns to the epistemology of the Middle Passage, focusing upon how it bot “operates and ‘stalls’” (712). Then, in chapter two, she takes up the idea of deceptive linear progress again in its relation to notions of returning to Africa, ultimately arguing that “Blackness need not limit itself to linear interpellations” (2130).Admittedly this will probably be a dense read for anyone not familiar with race & diaspora theories on an intimate level. I read it during a graduate seminar and it was still rather difficult for me. However, the book is an important intervention in the field and offers a truly breathtaking new method for considering race as constituted in non-linear time.

Incredibly smart and innovative take on the meaning of blackness in the twenty first century. Must read for anyone interested in temporality or the tensions between Middle Passage and diasporic blackness or theoretical trends in African American Studies

Incredibly brilliant work!I think this book will be referenced for generations the same as Gilroy, Wynter, Glissant, and Hartman.

Powerful intellectual analysis on the structural meaning of Blackness. Very good book.

I haven't finished reading it yet but I have to say so far it is clear, thoughtful, interesting and makes some new claims about understanding blackness in ways that shift the debates. It's already helping me visualize a more productive conversation in critical race theory.