Black Personhood

This reading discusses Blackness as a technology, something that can be “used” or “harnessed” by nonblack people, and it was a really fascinating concept to think about in depth… viewing Blackness as something that someone can have/use separate from themselves, instead of it being a neutral characteristic that you have no choice but to identify with (depending on one’s appearance and such). Also this week we spoke about the film Get Out, and that also excited me because we also spoke about Get Out in my BIPOC Horror class. That conversation was more focused on Get Out as Black body horror vs. our Blackness as technology, but the two concepts aren’t all that different– having your autonomy taken away from you because of the body you occupy is both Afrofuturist and horrifying. However, thinking about this made me curious about another aspect of body horror that could better be explored through a Black lens. Body horror as a genre serves many purposes in highlighting societal fears around mortality and morality, but it also asks the audience to consider personhood– as in… what is a person? And that is a long and heavy philosophical debate spanning centuries, and there is no one answer… it could be any combination of the body and soul or neither. But, what I’m curious to see is perhaps body horror that ask questions around what is being Black? Like if in Get Out, what was the lore surrounding someone who was half-Black? Would they not be as viable? Is it based on appearance? And of course these questions are posed to a fictional racist society, but I do think there is far more to explore in regards to Blackness as a quality that people are assigned. (Week 10)