Fear of Black Consciousness by Lewis R. Gordon

Gordon is an Afro-Jewish philosopher, political thinker, educator, and musician. Informed by his life growing up in Jamaica and the Bronx, as well as by the ongoing pandemic and uprisings against police violence, Gordon positions Black consciousness as a political commitment and creative practice that’s richly layered through art, love, and revolutionary action. Gordon discusses how these lies offer many white people an inherited sense of being extraordinary but for many, if not most Blacks, to live an ordinary life in a white-dominated society is an extraordinary achievement. Through colonial and aboriginal histories, African popular culture, and contemporary films and stories, he walks through the history and philosophy of racialized Blackness to expose how white narcissism reveals the bad faith at the heart of many discussions about race and racism across the globe. Gordon contends that claiming to be “color-blind” is a lie that offers many white people a license to do as they please without acknowledging the Black experience. Gordon describes the problems this kind of thinking produces and the many creative responses from Black and non-Black communities in the struggle for dignity and freedom. In his newest book, The Fear of Black Consciousness, leading scholar Lewis R.

Failure to see race or insistence that one “doesn’t see color” adds an insidious layer to social, economic, and political dynamics and can deny people of their identities. Issues of race and racialization - the act of being seen as someone belonging to a particular race - are undeniably complex.

Fear of Black Consciousness by Lewis R. Gordon