Black existentialism

Black existentialism or Africana critical theory is a school of thought that "critiques domination and affirms the empowerment of Black people in the world". Although it shares a word with existentialism and that philosophy's concerns with existence and meaning in life, it "is predicated on the liberation of all black people in the world from oppression". It may also be seen as method, which allows one to read works by African-American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison in an existentialist frame.Lewis Gordon argues that black existentialism is not only existential philosophy produced by black philosophers but is also thought that addresses the intersection of problems of existence in black contexts.

Black existential philosophy is a species of Africana philosophy and black philosophical thought. Africana philosophy is a form of philosophy emerging out of the critical thought of the African diaspora. Black philosophical thought pertains to the ideas emerging from black-designated peoples. Such people include, for example, Australian Aboriginal people, who often refer to themselves as "black." There is thus also work in black existential philosophy from Australia, such as those organized through forums and articles by Danielle Davis in the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.

The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University earned his degree in sociology, however the work of W. E. B. Du Bois have been honored in the canon of African-American philosophy. Du Bois' notion of double consciousness has been revisited by many scholars as a notion doused in existentialism. Du Bois addressed several problems germane to black existential philosophy. He raised the question of black suffering as a philosophical problem. Was there meaning behind such suffering? He also observed that black people were often studied and addressed in public discussions as problems of the modern world instead of as people facing problems raised by modern life. Black people, he argued, often faced double standards in their efforts to achieve equality in the wake of enslavement, colonialism, and racial apartheid. This double standard led, he argued, to "twoness" and "double consciousness." The twoness was the experience of being "black" and "American," where the two were treated as contradictory. Double consciousness followed in two forms. The first was of the experience of being seen from the perspective of white supremacy and anti-black racism. It was from the perspective of seeing themselves as lowly and inferior. The second, however, as Paget Henry argues, involves seeing the contradictions of a system that in effect blames the victim. That form of double consciousness involves seeing the injustice of a social system that limits possibilities for some groups and creates advantages for others while expecting both to perform equally. That black people were imprisoned for challenging the injustices of a social system born on the memorable phrase, "All men are created equal...," is a case in point, and the subsequent criticism of whether "men" meant "women too" pushes this point further, as Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, and other earlier 19th-century black critical thinkers contended. Du Bois also theorized the importance of black music, especially the spirituals, and through them raised the question of the inner-life of black people, which he referred to as their "soul," which in his discussion of double consciousness became "souls". Du Bois also raised the problem of history in the study of black existence. He noticed that double standards affected how history is told, and that the misrepresentation of history as an apology for white supremacy and colonialism led to the degradation of black people as passive objects of history instead of makers of history. This occlusion depended on denying the struggles for freedom waged by black people in the effort to expand the reach of freedom in the modern world.

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