Introduction: Antiblackness of the Social and the Human

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key theoretical concepts, foundational definitions, and critical terminology from the text 'Antiblackness of the Social and the Human' by João H. Costa Vargas and Moon-Kie Jung.

Antiblackness

An antisocial logic that not only dehumanizes Black people but also renders abject all that is associated with Blackness, functioning as a constitutive condition of the modern social world.

The Social

According to William Sewell Jr., the complex and inescapable ontological ground of our common life as humans; the book argues this category is underpinned by constitutive antiblackness.

The Human

The foundational concept of the humanities that defines itself in opposition to Black nonbeing and represents the outer boundary from which Black people are excluded.

Social Death

A concept by Orlando Patterson describing the condition of the enslaved as a social nonperson characterized by permanent, violent domination and natal alienation.

Natal Alienation

One of the constituent elements of slavery identified by Orlando Patterson, referring to the loss of all ties of birth and rights of inheritance.

Afterlife of Slavery

A term by Saidiya Hartman describing how Black lives are still imperiled and devalued by a racial calculus and political arithmetic entrenched centuries ago, despite formal emancipation.

The 'Full Stop'

W. E. B. Du Bois's observation that the widening idea of common Humanity in the nineteenth century excluded the 'Negroes of Africa,' treating them as outside the pale of humanity.

Nonbeing

A status described by Frantz Fanon as the core of the modern collective unconscious, where Black people are perceived as placeless or nonhuman.

Nonevent of Emancipation

Saidiya Hartman's characterization of the end of chattel slavery, suggesting that the fundamental ranking of life and worth established by slavery was never truly undone.

Ontological Resistance

A term from Frantz Fanon referring to the recognized existence of a subject; he argues that in the eyes of the white man, the Black person has none.

Ruse of Analogy

Frank B. Wilderson III's term for the failure of social theories and revolutionary politics when they attempt to use nonblack experiences to understand or represent the unique condition of Blackness.

Epistemology of Ignorance

Charles Mills's concept regarding the structural and historical denial that prevents the recognition of antiblack racism and its benefits to European whites.

Captive Maternal

A theoretical framework by Joy James describing feminized bodies whose survival strategies and experiences of violence reveal the limits of democracy and the endurance of global racial slavery.

Mass Incarceration

A term critiqued by Dylan Rodríguez as having been politically domesticated to fit reformist agendas, failing to address incarceration as an antiblack logic of social management.

The Black Worker

A category used by W. E. B. Du Bois in 'Black Reconstruction in America' to conceptualize the enslaved, which he noted was fundamentally different from factory hands who were 'not real estate.'