Black America and Existential Incompatibility: Phenomenology, Ethics and the Problem That Is Race (Neighborhoods, Communities, and Urban Marginality)

By: Avery Merriel Smith

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Synopsis: Within the context of W.E.B. Du Bois’ question “How does it feel to be a problem?”, this volume examines the “problem” using a phenomenological approach, that is to say, in terms of one’s experience of such. More specifically, the author explores three points: the Black person’s experience of being a problem for White America; her experience of White America as a problem or obstacle for their survival and ability to thrive; and her experience of navigating, negotiating and surviving a world that is presented as a duality. This book deconstructs the world(s) that the Black person experiences by first understanding her as a “Dasein” (the Heideggerian concept of a being that is aware of its being in the world and aware of other beings that are in the world it experiences). In considering the Black person as a Dasein, the author affirms the intrinsic value of her being and, therefore, validates the experience she has of the world in which she finds herself. Finally, this volume incorporates Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of the face and Paul Ricoeur’s study of the self to help craft an understanding of the ontology of human relationship to support the advocacy for an ethical encounter between the Black person and those whom she encounters in both the Black world and the White world in which she must navigate and concurrently exist.