Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology

by Michelle M. Wright

What does it mean to be Black? If Blackness is not biological in origin but socially and discursively constructed, does the meaning of Blackness change over time and space? In Physics of Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology , Michelle M. Wright argues that although we often explicitly define Blackness as a “what,” it in fact always operates as a “when” and a “where.” By putting lay discourses on spacetime from physics into conversation with works on identity from the African Diaspora, Physics of Blackness explores how Middle Passage epistemology subverts racist assumptions about Blackness, yet its linear structure inhibits the kind of inclusive epistemology of Blackness needed in the twenty-first century. Wright then engages with bodies frequently excluded from contemporary mainstream Black feminists, Black queers, recent Black African immigrants to the West, and Blacks whose histories may weave in and out of the Middle Passage epistemology but do not cohere to it. Physics of Blackness takes the reader on a journey both known and unfamiliar—from Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravity to the contemporary politics of diasporic Blackness in the academy, from James Baldwin’s postwar trope of the Eiffel Tower as the site for diasporic encounters to theoretical particle physics’ theory of multiverses and superpositioning, to the almost erased lives of Black African women during World War II. Accessible in its style, global in its perspective, and rigorous in its logic, Physics of Blackness will change the way you look at Blackness.

Genres: Race, Theory, Sociology, Nonfiction, Academic

216 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2015

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm torn on what to think of this book. I largely agree with the argument, but it's not clear that it's doing different work than intersectionality (except maybe adding a temporal dimension to it?). Part of my frustration with the book is that while it is dealing with dense concepts, the prose leaves something to be desired. This isn't a nitpick but rather there are fundamental ideas to the book that are unnecessarily difficult to decipher because of the author's grammatical and syntactical choices.

I'm also not sure whether the physics concepts are just useful metaphors or if the author intends them to be interpreted literally (i.e., Blackness behaves as a real physical particle). I think the former, but it's not always made as explicit as it could be. In either case. I wish the author had thought a bit more about how by either comparing Blackness to a physical particle or by suggesting it is one, both presume that Blackness is a coherent thing, which is otherwise precisely what the book argues against. I won't go as far as to say the book contradicts itself in this way, but I wish the author had addressed that.

Overall though I appreciate that the book takes a unique approach to critical race theory and I think it's on point with the basic premise that any attempt to define Blackness as one thing is going to exclude people at the margins of that definition. I do wish though that the author had more radical political commitments, as she assumes all definitions are inherently bad, even in the context of defining a Black politics. She implies that attempts to define Black politics in a way that could exclude Black conservatives is bad, but doesn't really explain why this is bad, other than this appeal to the general apoliticism of Blackness which I disagree with. It's certainly a complex topic and I just wish the author was willing to dig a little deeper on at least that particular facet.

[Ayanna Dozier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology doesn't quite deliver on the promises of its exceptional title. Michelle Wright introduces a convincing critique around Black studies discourse that privileges the Middle Passage but fails to analyze different accounts of fugitivity that relate to Blackness in the world. Wright asserts that such an analysis enables readers to overlook the complex terrain of identity and nationality that, at times, often run counter to hegemonic pre-discursive discourse of "the Black experience," and that to open up our ways of knowing in the world, it is crucial to look at these Black lives that often fall into the gap. While I agree with much of Wright's critique, her execution and analyzes that she foregrounds make for, what I thought, a confusing road to support her original analysis.

[Rebecca Gross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very useful stuff in here on Black diasporic spacetime, which I think might be extended to diasporic spacetime more generally in my own project. However, there's also some kind of wack tendencies in this book toward centering the individual rather than the collective. Major disagree that centering collectivity requires centering spatiotemporal continuity. But Wright's argument about epiphenomenal spacetime as an opening into a politics of the 'now' is really compelling. Definitely going to have to use this one in the diss.

[aerialxav]

Intro