Metaracial: Hegel, Antiblackness, and Political Identity

A dazzling critical project on the core of anti-Blackness in contemporary society.

In this dazzling critical project, Rei Terada brings the theoretical and practical together as she takes aim at the metaracial logic that operates within the politics of today’s radical left. She insists that this logic, rooted in a distinction between relation and nonrelation in Hegelian philosophy, creates political projects that are, paradoxically, both anti-racist and anti-Black. Terada begins by considering how liberal strands of Enlightenment philosophy use the notion of relation to express a kind of racism that fits into progressive political identity. Moving through Kant, Hegel, and others, Terada shows how this line of thought terminates in the political superiority of the metaracial, a problematic legacy we live with today. For Terada, only by uncovering the notion of relation across radical enlightenment philosophy can we address the persistence of anti-Blackness.