Afterword The Black/White Binary and Antiblack Racism

[Extract] Living in these times of ongoing, persistent, and extreme antiblack racism, from police violence to voter suppression to crushing unemployment and poverty, it feels a harsh task to criticize the hegemony of the black/white binary in antiracist discourses. The difficult challenge of this critical project has always been the question of how to critique the binary without deflating our commitment to address antiblack racism or implicitly denying the value and importance of work that is centered on this virulent form of racism. The presidency of Barack Obama in the United States has only underscored the fact that even in the twenty-first century the hysteria of what some have called “negrophobia” continues to thrive and even to grow. And what is also persistently obvious is that antiblack racism is a kind of equal-opportunity phenomenon, infecting all communities of color in both overt and subtle ways.