Black Romanticism: A Manifesto

• Published in: Studies in romanticism 2017-04, Vol.56 (1), p.3-14
• Main Author: YOUNGQUIST, PAUL
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Afrofuturism; Black studies; Caribbean literature; Colleges & universities; Culture; Institutionalization; Men; Modernity; Oppression; Politics; Racism; Romantic period; Romanticism; Slavery; Voting rights; Wynter, Sylvia
• ISSN: 0039-3762; 2330-118X; 2330-118X
• DOI: 10.1353/srm.2017.0032

When we reflect on the nature of these men, and their dissimilarity to the rest of mankind, must we not conclude, that they are a different species of the same genus? -Edward Long, History of Jamaica, 2:356 PAUL O'NEAL, KORRYN GAINES, PIULANDO CASTILE, ALTON STERLING, Freddy Gray, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Amodou Diallo. "The Counted," a webpage the UK news source The Guardian opened to track these killings, notes that, for 2015, "the rate of death for young black men was five times higher than white men of the same age. How might Romanticists respond, from our positions of relative security and prestige in the academy, to the thread of state sponsored killing that runs through the fabric of our public lives? In From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor calls for more than sympathy or even solidarity with activism that aims to restore or maybe just attribute social value to black lives: "The struggle for Black liberation requires going beyond the standard narrative that Black people have come a long way but have a long way to go-which, of course, says nothing about where it is that we are actually trying to get to. " Perhaps our dislocation from the direct effects of their deadly force offers an opportunity to examine their motivations in longstanding histories of subjection or transnational structures of thought, feeling, and desire. "5 Two qualities characterize Man in Wynter's sense: first, its status as political subject ot the state,...