Blog 2

     Each of the authors’ arguments about Blackness are similar in they agree that the common Black experience created a unifying identity that transcended ethnic and cultural divides.  Where the arguments of Hooks, Hall, and West seem to differ from that of Asante, however, is that they discuss the impact of postmodernism on the Black experience.  For example, Hooks argues that this period was witness to increasing class division and differentiation which, on the one hand, created a Black middle class and, on the other, a growing Black underclass.  As a result of this and other similar developments, Hall suggests that, “the Black subject cannot be represented without references to the dimensions of class, gender, and sexuality.”  Similarly, West argues that although all Blacks are “in the same boat" because of their shared experiences of subjugation to White supremacist abuse, such a depiction is incomplete because it "overlooks how racist treatment vastly differs according to class, gender, sexual orientation, nation, region, hue, and age.”  Thus, while Asante promotes the transcending spirit of Afrocentricity, Hooks, Bell, and West seem to go beyond this and also advocate coming to terms with the diversifying impact of postmodernism on the Black experience.