Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book by Hortense Spillers
Hortense Spillers’ groundbreaking 1987 essay “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” is a foundational text in Black feminist theory and literary criticism. In it, Spillers critiques how the legacy of slavery in the United States has shaped Western understandings of gender, kinship, and identity. She argues that the violent system of slavery fundamentally disrupted African familial structures, replacing them with what she calls an “American grammar”—a cultural and linguistic framework that distorts how Black bodies, especially Black women’s bodies, are represented and understood. One of her most powerful claims is that enslaved Black women were reduced to flesh—stripped of identity, gendered assumptions, and subjectivity—making them vulnerable to both physical and symbolic violence.Spillers challenges traditional gender categories by showing that the enslaved Black woman was neither fully woman nor fully human within the white patriarchal imagination. She asserts that Black people have inherited the burden of this distorted grammar, which continues to shape how they are seen and understood.At the same time, she also argues that this violent disruption opens up the possibility for imagining Blackness and Black subjectivity outside of the dominant structures of gender and kinship—outside the norms that white Western society deems “natural.” In this way, the essay is both a powerful critique of historical dehumanization and a radical reimagining of Black life beyond the inherited scripts of domination.
The Pornotrope of Decolonial Feminism by Selamawit D. Terrefe
Selamawit D. Terrefe's article, "The Pornotrope of Decolonial Feminism," critiques María Lugones's articulation of decolonial feminism, arguing that it "disappears Blackness and subjugates African American women—their scholarship, their language, and the materiality of their Black 'flesh'". Terrefe expands on Hortense Spillers's concept of "pornotroping," which refers to the ideological and rhetorical deployment of the Black woman figure to establish an argument about gender, only to then erase this figure from the political and affective registers of the theorization.The article argues that Lugones's decolonial feminism, particularly in works like Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions, misrepresents and dismisses Black feminist theorizing, including intersectionality. Terrefe contends that Lugones's framework, while aiming for "ontological pluralism" and "fusion" as modes of resistance, inadvertently reifies the very libidinal dynamics and colonial violence it denounces, turning "Africans into captives, into commodities for use and abuse".Terrefe specifically criticizes Lugones's mischaracterization of intersectionality as a "categorical thinking" that "flattens all racial distinction, antiblackness specifically". Instead, Terrefe emphasizes Spillers's distinction between "body" and "flesh" to highlight the unique ontological violence experienced by enslaved Africans, a rupture that Lugones's theory of decoloniality fails to adequately address by either omitting or analogizing slavery to other forms of colonial domination.The article posits that Lugones's "pornotroping" is evident in her "rhetorical use of Black American women" and Black feminist thinkers like Sojourner Truth and Audre Lorde to buttress arguments that ultimately reject or sideline their contributions. Terrefe concludes that Lugones's decolonial feminism, by failing to fully engage with the singularity of anti-Black violence and the concept of rupture, becomes a "theoretical framework [that] depends upon, argues against, and yet still omits the figure of African American and Black diasporic women". This, Terrefe argues, undermines the possibility of a truly comprehensive and inclusive theory and praxis of liberation.
Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
The article argues that "whiteness," initially a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property that has been historically and continues to be acknowledged and protected in American law. Harris traces the origins of this concept to the systems of domination over Black and Native American peoples, which created racially contingent forms of property and property rights.The author explains that after slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege, providing a foundation for allocating societal benefits. Even after legal segregation was overturned, "whiteness as property" continued to hinder effective change by protecting entrenched power through racial classification.
People-of-Color-Blindness Notes on the Afterlife of Slavery by Jared Sexton
In the article "People-of-Color-Blindness: Notes on the Afterlife of Slavery," Jared Sexton critiques the concept of "people of color," arguing that it overlooks the unique nature of racial slavery and its lasting impact. He examines the work of Saidiya Hartman, Hortense Spillers, Frank B. Wilderson, and Haile Gerima, contrasting their insights with theories from scholars like Giorgio Agamben and Achille Mbembe, whom he suggests misinterpret modern slavery.Sexton argues that Mbembe, in his concept of "necropolitics," prematurely moves away from the specific terrors of racial slavery by subsuming it under broader ideas of colonial sovereignty or generalized instrumentalization of human existence. Sexton emphasizes Hartman's point that the violence of slavery, particularly the sexual subjection of Black captive women, is foundational and predates colonial rule's unique terror formations. He also criticizes Mbembe's reliance on sources like Frederick Douglass's narrative of Aunt Hester's torture and Roger Abrahams's work on "corn shucking," which Hartman explicitly rejects for reinforcing a spectacularized view of Black suffering rather than revealing its routine violence.The article highlights the concept of "natal alienation" from Orlando Patterson, describing slavery as a total deracination where the slave is denied kinship and reduced to a disposable tool. This absolute submission renders any resistance by the slave as illegitimate and illegible. Sexton argues that the "afterlife of slavery" (Hartman) continues to shape racial dynamics, meaning that racial blackness functions as a "political ontology" (Wilderson) that permanently destabilizes the position of nominally free Black populations.Sexton also critiques the "people-of-color-blindness" prevalent in contemporary political and intellectual circles, which he sees as a refusal to acknowledge the structural differences between Black experiences and those of other non-Black people of color under white supremacy. He asserts that attempts to address racial inequality without centering the unique position of Black existence are bound to fail, advocating for a relational analysis that recognizes the singularity of anti-Blackness. The article concludes by suggesting that true Black liberation necessitates a complete transformation of society, envisioning the creation of an entirely new world.
Fallen: Generation, Postlapsarian Verticality + the Black Chthonic by Cecilio Cooper
In the article "Fallen: Generation, Postlapsarian Verticality + the Black Chthonic," Cecilio M. Cooper explores how Judeo-Christian theology and demonology have shaped the understanding and territorialization of space in the Atlantic World, particularly focusing on the racialization of subterranean realms. "The antiblack order that currently envelopes us persists as a hindrance for Black wellbeing, so I propose that we regard anything able to throw it into flux—like the demonological—as an untapped resource for its revelatory overthrow. Inaccurate understandings of antiblackness’ scope will endure should we neglect to investigate territorialization’s cosmological role in antiblackness’ proliferation. Towards theorizing what I term the black chthonic and black disscensus, I’ve endeavored to show how Atlantic World territory—spanning celestial coelum to diabolical inferos—can be better ascertained through demonological and afropessimist analytics. Together they help me ascertain how dark diabolical forces are portrayed as compromising matter’s integrity, perverting normative kinship, dissolving sex-gender coherence, and disrupting space-time continuums. This essay addressed issues ranging from early modern alchemy to Judeo-Christian exegesis to property law to cosmic horror in order to further demystify the racialized facets of territoriality. Postlapsarian worldmaking is indeed vertically oriented and inflected by an antiblack symbology; it is one that incessantly ensnares Black diasporic peoples within annihilative predicaments. But, it does not have to stay this way forever. Leaning into the demonic could hasten its disintegration in ways we have yet to risk ideating."
Black Feminist Theory for the Dead and Dying by Patrice Douglass
Patrice D. Douglass's essay, "Black Feminist Theory for the Dead and Dying," uses the 2016 police shooting of Korryn Gaines to critically examine how common understandings of gender violence often overlook the specific ways Black people die at the hands of the state.The essay argues that focusing on gender as a single category isn't enough to fully explain the suffering of Black gendered individuals. Douglass highlights how narratives like those from the 2017 Women's March, which attempted to frame police violence as a gender concern, tend to obscure the unique aspects of Blackness in favor of a broader, collective political agenda.Douglass introduces "Black death" as a Black feminist theoretical concept to challenge these limited frameworks. The essay also critiques the concept of "women of color" as a collective category, arguing that it can erase the specific antagonistic relationship Black genders have with the dominant understanding of gender. Instead, Douglass proposes that Blackness itself should be the central lens through which to understand gender and violence, especially in the context of anti-Blackness.The essay also engages with Afro-pessimism, a theoretical framework that Douglass argues provides the necessary tools for an unwavering analysis of Blackness, particularly in questioning whether traditional gender categories are applicable to the condition of the captive. Douglass emphasizes that both Black feminism and Afro-pessimism offer crucial pessimistic perspectives on the ability of gender alone to confront the deep-seated violence experienced by Black gendered individuals.
On Plantations Prisons and a Black Sense of Space by Katherine McKittrick
This academic article by Katherine McKittrick, "On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place," explores the interconnectedness of race, place, and violence in black geographies. Black Sense of Place: The article argues that a "black sense of place" is shaped by histories of colonialism, transatlantic slavery, contemporary racism, and resistance to white supremacy. It emphasizes that black histories and communities are central to the production of space, rather than just being defined by suffering or opposition to racism. Plantation as Prototype: McKittrick posits the slave plantation as a foundational geographic prototype that normalized racial violence and placelessness, creating a "plantation logic" that continues to influence contemporary black geographies.Urbicide and Racial Violence: The concept of "urbicide" (the deliberate death of the city or place annihilation) is introduced as a tool to understand the ongoing destruction of black places in the Americas, linking it to issues like environmental decay, increased incarceration, and displacement.
ONLINE ESSAYS:
The Question of Ethics in the Semiotics of Brownness by Ren Ellis Neyra
Mestizaje: When the Shades Dissimulate Whiteness by Monica Moreno Figueroa
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOKS FOR ADDITIONAL LEARNING:
Afrodescendant Resistance to Deracination in Colombia: Massacre at Bellavista-Bojayá-Chocó by Aurora Vergara-Figueroa
This book provides a socio-historical analysis of the 2002 massacre at Bellavista-Bojayá-Chocó, Colombia. The author examines how the concepts of forced displacement and migration could be formulas for historical erasure. These concepts are used to name populations, such as the survivors of this massacre, and are limited in their ability to contribute to the demands for reparation of the affected populations. Instead, based on an ethnographic study of the pain and suffering generated in the survivors, the book proposes the concept of deracination as a tool to study land dispossession. It captures both the complex local specificities, the global linkages of this phenomenon and the strategies of resistance used by the people of this community to channel what seems as an impossible mourning.
Engendering Blackness: Slavery and the Ontology of Sexual Violence by Patrice D. Douglass
In this incisive new book, Patrice D. Douglass interrogates the relationship between sexual violence and modern racial slavery and finds it not only inseverable but also fundamental to the structural predicaments facing Blackness in the present. Douglass contends that the sexual violability of slaves is often misappropriated by frameworks on sexual violence that privilege its occurrences as a question of ethics, sexual agency, and feminine orders of gendering. Rather, this book foregrounds Blackness as engendered by sexual violence, which forcefully (re)produces Blackness, corporeally and conceptually, as a condition that lacks the capacity to ontologically distinguish its suffering from what it means to be human. By employing and critically revising Black feminist theory and Afro-pessimism, Douglass reveals that engaging primarily with the sexualization of the slave forces theories of sexual violence to interrogate why this violence—one of the most prevalent under slavery—continues to lack a grammar of fundamental redress. There are no reparations struggles for the generational transfer of sexual violation and the inability of present frameworks to rectify the sexual stains of slavery lies precisely in the fact that what made this history possible continues to haunt arrangements of life today. Engendering Blackness urgently articulates the way our present understandings of Blackness and humanness are bound by this vexed sexual history.
This Will Not Be Generative by Dixa Ramirez D'Oleo
This Will Not Be Generative attends to the semiotics of ecological writings via Caribbean literary studies and black critical theory. Closely reading texts by Donna Haraway, Monique Allewaert, and Lisa Wells, it exposes how the language of tentacles and tendrils, an assumptive 'we,' and redemptive sympathy or 'care' disguises extraction from black people and blackness. This often speculative rhetoric, abetted by fantasies of white communion with indigenous groups, contrasts with the horror semiotics of the films Get Out (2017) and Midsommar (2019), which unmask the antagonistic relationship between white survival 'at the end of the world' and blackness as compost.