The Comparatist

NOUN. Alibi./ˈaləˌbī/Def. a claim or piece of evidence that one was elsewhere when an act, typically a criminal one, is alleged to have taken place.

Black writers occupy a seemingly paradoxical social position in contemporary American society where certain Black writers receive cultural acclaim while structural anti-Blackness continues to harm Black people as a whole. In 2018, historian Fred L Johnson III wrote, "American race relations are taking two very different paths at the same time. On the one hand, we're seeing growing mainstream acknowledgment of black pride projected through art. […] On the other, racism and xenophobia are exerting tremendous influence in national politics." Black culture remains one of the most popular commodities in America. This is particularly apparent in literature where, as an example, African American writers—Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, Jeffrey C. Stewart, Sarah M. Broom, Les and Tamara Payne, and Tiya Miles—have won 6 of the last 7 National Book Awards for Nonfiction. Black writers have been rightfully lauded for work that often interrogates or celebrates Blackness. Yet, Black people remain widely subjugated by both overt racism and racial microaggressions. Cultural celebration has not brought about universal social change, and, most crucially, all the deserved acclaim bestowed on exceptional African American writers cannot resuscitate George Floyd-Breonna Taylor-Michael Brown-Philando Castile-Eric Garner-and every other Black victim of racial injustice.

In Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports, David J. Leonard and C. Richard King argue, "New racism, although articulating dominant white narrative and stereotypes, is equally defined by the consumption and celebration of commodified Blackness" (8). While Leonard and King focus on how "Black male bodies are increasingly admitted and commodified in rap, hip hop and certain sports," all aspects of Black culture have been consumed as part of this commodification process (8). Bell Hooks defines this process as "eating the other," and Nyambura Njee argues, "[T]he essentialized and simplistic construct of 'Blackness' that is popularly consumed and applauded by whites harms the Black community" (366, 121). While most Black writers are almost certainly not writing for a white gaze, the white consumer's insatiable appetite for Black culture [End Page 134] attempts to subsume Blackness for its own entertainment without enacting widespread social change.

The African American writer's seemingly paradoxical condition of cultural praise alongside social subjugation reoccurs in different literary traditions with different cultural contexts. Take writers from the erstwhile French colonies. In a famous 2007 manifesto, "Pour une 'littérature-monde' en français" ["Toward a 'World Literature' in French" (113)], over forty French-speaking writers demanded that the French literary world drop the label "Francophone literature" when referring to French writers from former French colonies and instead adopt the moniker "littérature-monde en français" ["world literature in French" (113)]. The signatories aptly note how writings from the so-called 'global periphery' are increasingly the most-celebrated writings by the 'center.' They demonstrate how the French literary establishment is bestowing numerous accolades upon texts from the former French colonies. While the signatories of this manifesto are speaking specifically about writers from the former French colonies, the phenomenon of the celebrated minority writer can be seen throughout the world. In 2018, Northern Irish writer Anna Burns won the UK's Booker Prize. In 2019, Black South Africans won ten of the thirteen South African Literary Awards. For seven of the last ten years, Portugal's most prestigious literary honor, the Camões Prize, was awarded to a writer from a former Portuguese colony. However, bias and discrimination against the minority or subjugated population remains in all these countries despite the literary success of a few writers from those same populations. French citizens from the former French colonies are widely discriminated against in contemporary France²; Brexit is said to have led to a re-kindling of Anti-Irish racism in the U.K³; South African race relations are described as "toxic"⁴; and cases of xenophobia against Brazilians in Portugal increased 150 percent in 2018.⁵

This phenomenon is particularly acute in...