Important to keep in front of mind that despite trenchant observations about fascism in Europe, Hannah Arendt couldn't recognize apartheid in America owing to her own deep-seated racism against black people. - ThreadSky

thecynicist.bsky.social • 6 days ago

Important to keep in front of mind that despite trenchant observations about fascism in Europe, Hannah Arendt couldn't recognize apartheid in America owing to her own deep-seated racism against black people.

Reposted from Citizen.Coping

It took all my strength to keep reading after she started attacking Fanon, blaming his writings for Black students' "violence".

First, most of what she cited was in Satre's preface. 2nd, she had a penchant for ignoring the colonizer violence eg. that Fanon was observing and reacting to in Algeria.

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annenortonnow.bsky.social•6 days ago

I wrote on this two decades ago in Feminist Readings of Arendt Ed. Bonnie Honig. So has Kathryn Sophia Belle/Kathryn Gines. It’s over much of Arendt’s work, incl. Origins of Totalitarianism

propcazhpm.bsky.social•6 days ago

Thank you.

“Heart of Darkness: Africa and African Americans in the Writing of Hannah Arendt” (1995), published in the volume "Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt".

Book: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01446-6.html?srsltid=AfmBOorTIt2FobnSOx-N6Tg1RnJ0JvIfyQtjcyJk5UE1CeMOv21AfunK

Found your work cited in this article, too.

thecynicist.bsky.social•6 days ago

More proof that bigotry rots the brain, whether transphobia, racism or misogyny

thecynicist.bsky.social•6 days ago

Americans have a hard time wrapping their head around this but this country was formally an apartheid state until the 1960s? Segregation is just another word for apartheid guys.

rebmoti.bsky.social•6 days ago

And the backlash was immediate - 3 years after the civil rights act there was a segregationist presidential candidate

lurkeyloo.bsky.social•6 days ago

My surprise came in the podcast "Landslide" where they stated that Carter considered Wallace as a VP to win that voting bloc.

radiobeartime.com•6 days ago

Doctor Who this week, a UK children’s programme, had an episode which focused on segregation in 1950’s Miami. And that’s a BBC/Disney coproduction so no excuses ! :)

annenortonnow.bsky.social•6 days ago

“Americans” is the wrong category here. There have been abolitionists in America since before the Revolution. A President, JQA, called the Constitution “a menstruous rag” for incl. slavery. This is a long war within for the soul of America.

thecynicist.bsky.social•6 days ago

Time for my favorite meme

propcazhpm.bsky.social•6 days ago

mithos343.bsky.social•6 days ago

And the Jim Crow apartheid never ended formally, I think. Just leaked into policy, waiting...and waiting.

norbizness.bsky.social•6 days ago

Brown vs. Board of Education was decided on when my Mom was 8, ten years later (according to her yearbook) she graduated from an all-white high school. The first black football player for the University of Texas debuted about 2.5 years before I was born, in Fall 1970.

josephfinlay.bsky.social•6 days ago

Lyndsey Stonebridge’s book does a good job of addressing this head on, in detail, critiquing her anti-Black racism whilst bringing out important insights from the rest of Arendt’s work

drspacejunk.bsky.social•6 days ago

Oh. I didn't know any of this.

propcazhpm.bsky.social•6 days ago

…It is arguably the case that Hannah Arendt can no longer be reasonably defended against the charge of being guilty of anti-black racism.

If anyone interested in the subject was not persuaded by @annenortonnow.bsky.social Anne Norton’s “Heart of Darkness"...

Article has looong list of evidence.

thecynicist.bsky.social•6 days ago

Never meet your heroes 💔

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