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Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of EvilVanishing into Limbo: The Moral Dilemma of Identity as Property and Commodity

Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil: Vanishing into Limbo: The Moral Dilemma of... [In this 1955 essay, Baldwin explores Richard Wright’s novel Native Son to illuminate what it means to be a Negro in America. For Baldwin, this is visceral. He is tired of Black folk being treated as mere social agendas rather than as flesh and blood. He notes that dehumanization is never a one-way street, that the loss of identity—be it stolen, borrowed, denied, or annihilated—has consequences far beyond those who are the immediate victims. For Baldwin, our crimes against ourselves echo and haunt and damn and eviscerate us. It is not enough (not in 1955 when the essay was published, not today) to think that we can leave our memories checked at some dismal door of gerrymandered elections or xenophobic nationalism or sycophantic equalities. Indeed for Baldwin, the story of Black folk is the story of Americans, one that is not, in his words, “a very pretty story. ”2 This is a story of shadows, or a series of shadows that are for Baldwin “self-created, intertwining.” And, sadly, Black folk do not exist except in “the darkness of our minds.”] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of EvilVanishing into Limbo: The Moral Dilemma of Identity as Property and Commodity

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References (3)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2006
ISBN
978-1-4039-7273-6
Pages
29 –55
DOI
10.1057/9780230601628_3
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[In this 1955 essay, Baldwin explores Richard Wright’s novel Native Son to illuminate what it means to be a Negro in America. For Baldwin, this is visceral. He is tired of Black folk being treated as mere social agendas rather than as flesh and blood. He notes that dehumanization is never a one-way street, that the loss of identity—be it stolen, borrowed, denied, or annihilated—has consequences far beyond those who are the immediate victims. For Baldwin, our crimes against ourselves echo and haunt and damn and eviscerate us. It is not enough (not in 1955 when the essay was published, not today) to think that we can leave our memories checked at some dismal door of gerrymandered elections or xenophobic nationalism or sycophantic equalities. Indeed for Baldwin, the story of Black folk is the story of Americans, one that is not, in his words, “a very pretty story. ”2 This is a story of shadows, or a series of shadows that are for Baldwin “self-created, intertwining.” And, sadly, Black folk do not exist except in “the darkness of our minds.”]

Published: Oct 11, 2015

Keywords: Black Woman; Ethical Reflection; White Family; Black Culture; Black Identity

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