Abstract

BEYERS, Jaco. Reconstructing black identity: The Black Panther, Frantz Fanon and Achilles Mbembe in conversation. Herv. teol. stud. [online]. 2019, vol.75, n.4, pp.1-7. ISSN 2072-8050.  https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v75i4.5469.

It is dehumanising to identify people in terms of colour. Stereotyping and discrimination come with racial identification. Black identity has been expressed in different forms over the centuries. For a long period black identity was a constructed identity assigned to black people through a white-dominated matrix. After the end of slavery, efforts were made to reconstruct black identity. This developed into two divergent lines: one resulting in an illusionary identity as identified by Frantz Fanon and a second line of thought of a continued search for a true authentic black identity as explicated by the Cameroon-born philosopher Achilles Mbembe. This process of creating a new authentic black identity is still ongoing and viewed by some as a pessimistic futile attempt. An example of the ongoing attempt for establishing an authentic black identity is illustrated by the movie Black Panther, which attempts to portray a different side of being black.

Keywords : black identity; culture; race; religion; Mbembe; Fanon; Black Panther; postcolonialism.

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