Black Existentialism Zine

Information about this Zine: 

, created with the aid and support of the New Paltz Zine Community, is a 6-page long zine which fleetingly delves into an examination of existence, identity and meaning from a Black contextual framework in our white supremacist-governed world. 

Why I Made This Zine:

Part of why I made this zine is because I'm a lover of philosophy, specifically Existentialism. Also, I wanted to dispel the Eurocentric idea that no Black / African philosophers exist. I chose 20th century Afro-Caribbean philosopher, Frantz Fanon to be its centerpiece. I was certain that in spite of White supremacist culture, which perpetuates the mythologized belief that European and Greco-Roman men are the originators of philosophy, there are still, however, remnants of evidence that proves that their African predecessors and African contemporaries have explored and disputed philosophical thought long before them.

An excerpt from Black feminist author bell hooks's poignant work, "Black Looks: Race & Representation" implicitly sums up my explanation: 

Within a white supremacist culture, to be without documentation is to be without a legitimate history. In the culture of forgetfulness, memory alone has no meaning.

What's the Zine About:

Though Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard have been noted as being the founders of Existentialism, I knew there had to be Black Existentialist philosophers who existed during their time, if not Black philosophers who preceded them; Interpolating Existentialism in a sociohistorical context, has significant correlation to the ontological position in which Black people have existed, and what it has meant to be Black while living under hegemonic white supremacist capitalist patriarchal domination. How I construe Black Existentialism is that, as Black people, we must first bifurcate our Black subjectivity from how white people have been conditioned to perceive us, to how we have been taught to perceive ourselves. Afterward, we must begin recreating our Blackness in ways that are cathartic, joyous, liberating, anti-policing, and repudiates any image that might feed the colonialism of the white racist imagination. 

Things to keep in mind when viewing this on Adobe Reader or other PDF viewer before downloading/printing:

The 'first' set of pages are page 2.
The 'second' set of pages are page 1.
The 'third' set of pages are page 3.
The 'fourth' set of pages are page 4.