Post-Blackness

The term post-blackness is a philosophical movement with origins in the art world that attempts to reconcile the American understanding of race with the lived experiences of African Americans in the late-20th and early-21st century.

Post-blackness as term was coined by Thelma Golden, director of Studio Museum in Harlem, and conceptual artist Glenn Ligon to describe “the liberating value in tossing off the immense burden of race-wide representation, the idea that everything they do must speak to or for or about the entire race.” In the catalogue for "Freestyle", a show curated by Golden at the Studio Museum in Harlem, she defined post-black art as that which includes artists who are “adamant about not being labeled ‘black’ artists, though their work was steeped, in fact deeply interested, in redefining complex notions of blackness.”

In his book, Who's Afraid of Post Blackness? What it Means to be Black Now, Touré (journalist), uses this term to describe Black Identity in the 21st century. According to Touré it is nowadays difficult to find a clear definition of what is black in terms of African American Culture. The post-black generation differentiates itself by the former one in the way they grew up. Their parents grew up in segregation, having to fight for equal rights. Touré claims that Blackness became a constructed identity, to defend themselves efficiently as a group. He calls it “boxed into niggerdom”.(21) The attempt to define it results most often in the mixing up of definitions to find an identity in culture or in biological terms. This results often in racial patriotism, racial fundamentalism or racial policing. Additionally, post-blackness has not only to deal with the definition of being black, but with the Authenticity of Blackness. Touré comes to the point that Blackness is too difficult and is too wide-ranging to have a simple definition. However, he does not say that post-blackness signifies the end of Blackness, but allows for variation in what Blackness means and can mean to be accepted as the truth. He differentiates between post-blackness and post-racial: in his opinion race still does exist, and he warns to compare it to post racial: post-racial would suggest colorblindness, and the claim that race does not exist or that society would be beyond the concept of race; in his opinion, this would be a naïve understanding of race in America. Touré sees post-blackness as such: “We are like Obama: rooted in but not restricted by Blackness”.

...
Wikipedia