The black soul is (still) a white man’s artefact? Postcoloniality, post-Fanonism and the tenacity of race(ism) in A. Igoni Barrett’s Blackass

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the complexity of postcolonial manifestations of race, alongside class, colonialism and nationality in Igoni Barrett’s Blackass. I adopt a (post-)Fanonian approach in investigating how the novel depicts the psychopolitics of race in the aftermath of the empire. I analyse the ways in which the novel draws attention to white supremacy as a global phenomenon not only restricted to the conceptual West or settler colonies but also in settings where the colonisers are no longer present. This feeds into the critique of neoliberal democracy that, apparently, is still heavily yoked in the whims and caprices of racialism.