"essentially Black": Legal Theory and the Morality of Conscious Racial Identity

• Publication year: 2021
• Citation: Vol. 97

97 Nebraska L. Rev. 287. "Essentially Black": Legal Theory and the Morality of Conscious Racial Identity

"Essentially Black": Legal Theory and the Morality of Conscious Racial Identity

Kenneth B. Nunn(fn*)

ABSTRACT

In philosophy, essentialism involves the claim that everything that exists has a fundamental character or core set of features that makes it what it is. Although this idea developed out of Platonic notions of ideal forms, it has spread beyond philosophy into the social sciences and hard scientific disciplines like mathematics and biology. Since the advent of postmodernism, discussions around essentialism have become controversial. Adherents of postmodern theory argue that social categories, such as gender, race, and sexuality are socially constructed and that essentialist notions of identity, which suggest that identity is static, natural, and unchanging, are theoretically wrong. This postmodern perspective has engendered a significant and often contentious debate on the value of essentialist thought in contemporary identity movements focused on gender, sexuality, and race.

In the context of these debates, essentialism has taken on a pejorative character and a negative moral connotation, especially among progressives and left-leaning social activists. The consequences of this moral condemnation are far-reaching. It makes it difficult for identity groups to organize around any social category deemed to be essentialist. This morally-grounded prohibition is especially problematic for Black nationalists and African-centered activists.

In this Article, I examine the anti-essentialism critique that has developed in Critical Race and LatCrit legal theory. I argue that the anti-

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essentialism critique offered by critical theorists is misguided insofar as it claims that the assertion of a conscious racial identity is morally wrong. In reaching this conclusion, I first point out some contradictions and failings in the reasoning underlying the critique. Next, I detail some of the difficulties that adherence to anti-essentialism creates for Black communities and activists. Finally, I link normative approaches to essentialism to culture and worldview. I argue that anti-essentialism is Eurocentric and its claim to a universal moral prohibition against race-consciousness is false.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction .......................................... 289

II. The Anti-Essentialism Critique in Critical Race and LatCrit Scholarship ................................... 296

III. "Critiquing the Critique": Some Theoretical Problems with the Critical Race Anti-Essentialism Argument . . . . 303
A. Missing the "Postmodern Turn" .................... 304
B. The Limits of Anti-Essentialism ................... 309
C. Aligning CRT Theory and Praxis .................. 311

IV. Anti-Essentialism and the Destruction of Black Community ........................................... 313
A. A Practical Problem: Anti-Essentialism and Urban Realities .......................................... 313
B. Anti-Essentialism, a New Form of Colorblindness? . 315
C. Black Consciousness and African-Centered Thought as an Intellectual Counter to Anti-Essentialism . . . . 316

V. Worldview and the Perception of Essence .............. 321
A. Axiological Position and the Question of Values . . . . 321
B. Ontological Position and the Question of "Truth" . . . 327

VI. Conclusion ............................................ 331

"In other words, to say that I am an African, that I can participate in a society as an African, I don't have to become - I don't have to adopt European values, European esthetics, European ways of doing things in order to live in the world."

-August Wilson(fn1)

"BaKongo think of every human being as a vessel for an empowering soul or spirit . . . Minkisi are constituted in the same way, although the containers are not human bodies but figurines, clay pots,

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gourds, or bundles, among others. The empowering spirits of minkisi come from the land of the dead . . . ."

-Wyatt MacGaffey(fn2)

"Eventually, the fetish came to stand as a category of thought, belief and practice against which the West understood itself. At a time when the Western Enlightenment proclaimed the necessity of reason and rationality, the fetish stood as an example of the horrors of superstition and bestial irrationality, 'the very image of the truth of unenlightenment.' The fetish was all the West was not."

-Jason R. Young(fn3)

I. INTRODUCTION

Generally speaking, "essentialism" is the idea that all things have a fundamental character-an "essence"-that is permanent and unalterable.(fn4) Applying essentialist thought to groups results in the belief that group members share essential qualities that confer group membership.(fn5) They may also possess unessential or accidental qualities that are not needed to affirm group membership, but do not preclude membership either.(fn6) For example, as an African-American I could assert that my phenotypic appearance is an essential part of my Blackness,(fn7) but the fact that I am a lawyer is not.

When it comes to social categories, such as gender, race, sexuality, or identity, essentialism is highly controversial.(fn8) Adherents of

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postmodern theory argue that social categories are socially constructed and that essentialist notions of identity, which suggest that identity is static, natural, and unchanging, are theoretically wrong and suggestive of biological determinism.(fn9)

Consequently, "essentialism" is a bad thing. It is an epithet, a pejorative and derogatory adjective. This is especially true in newer versions of critical theory,(fn10) postmodernism itself,(fn11) and among social groups that identify themselves as politically "progressive."(fn12) In these circles, essentialist thinking is decidedly looked down upon and an indication that the proponent of the idea is in need of correction.(fn13) As one writer summarizes it, essentialism is "a term of abuse which silences or short-circuits arguments, being irredeemably tainted by association with racism and sexism."(fn14)

As a Black nationalist and an African-centered scholar,(fn15) I am particularly interested in the essentialism debate. Black nationalism is a broad and diffuse ideology that centers on the importance of creating

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and maintaining Black political, economic, and cultural unity.(fn16) For the Black nationalist project to be viable, it is necessary for African-descendant peoples to organize and act collectively.(fn17) And it is important for African-descendant peoples to defend this collective association politically, ethically, and morally. In this regard, the position that Black nationalists occupy vis-?-vis essentialism is similar in some respects to that occupied by feminists who seek to organize themselves as women.(fn18) Consequently, there is a rich literature about essential-ism in feminist circles, as well as a contentious debate about its applicability, that can be instructive for African-centered scholars.(fn19)

Debates over essentialism have been a part of legal analysis since the foundation of the critical legal studies movement in the late 1970s and have only intensified since then.(fn20) The origin of Critical Race Theory (CRT) can be traced to differences over race essentialism or "racialism" within the critical legal studies movement(fn21) and staking out a non-essentialist position vis-?-vis race has been an important goal for both critical race scholars(fn22) and scholars in the related area of Latina/Latino critical studies (LatCrit).(fn23) Virtually all of this radical legal scholarship takes a negative view of race essentialism and thus

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disfavors efforts to organize African-Americans along the lines of race or analyze their condition using racial categories.(fn24)

Within this condemnation of essentialism is a normative claim. The anti-essentialist argument is not simply an objection that essentialism does not comport with postmodern theory. Anti-essentialists also contend that essentialism infringes a prescriptive code of conduct that makes essentialism immoral.(fn25) The moral claim raised here assumes that to conceive of a person or group of persons in essentialist terms is hurtful. It is hurtful because to make an essentialist claim about a person is to deprive the person of agency in selecting the aspects of their identity that are important to them and that they desire to perform or foreground at any given moment.(fn26)

Under this reasoning, to assert that a thing, individual, or collective has an essential characteristic is wrong both factually (there are no essential qualities) and ethically. If we are talking, then, about the conscious choice to express racial identity, to organize politically around this identity, and to use this identity as an intellectual and ideological foundation for interpreting the world-if this is "essentialist," it is morally wrong. Anti-essentialism, then, presents a stark barrier to African-centered thought. As I explain in this Article, African-centeredness celebrates the conscious choice of racial identity and uses African identity as a wellspring for political organizing and ideological theorizing.(fn27)

Essentialism concerns are often offered as a reason why Africans should not organize collectively or why they should be cautious doing

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so.(fn28) Black nationalistic political arguments are seen as particularly problematic in critical legal scholarship, even within...