black physicality

Black physicality refers to the literal physical and metaphysical existence and being of Black people throughout the diaspora. semoitic Displays of violence being perpetrated against the Black body/BLACK FLESH have always aided the foundation and perpetuation of white supremacy while simultaneously upholding the “state of exception” —just as we experience (as Black people) the bond of social discrimination and marginalization; there is a shared psychological, quasi-transcendental/spiritual connection being cued when Black people witness both their peers being murdered and miscarriages of justice. Our sorrows are unique, multilayered, and amplified by visual signifiers. What Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” means to me is not synonymous with the experiences/interpretations of white listeners. This bond escapes lettered and Western epistemological narratives of logic and selfhood; our connection cannot be mimicked by outsiders. We are mirroring the dead.

This theory was first introduced in my undergraduate capstone project at Case Western Reserve University concerning the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising (“Latasha Harlins and the 1992 L.A. Uprising: How Radical Black Art and Self-Expression Mirrored the Fires of Rebellion”).