Black feminist transcendence framework: Mabogo P. More’s politics of being and intersectionality

Abstract

This article suggests a convergence of three areas of scholarship, namely black feminism, black existentialism, and the concept of intersectionality, towards a “Black Feminist Transcendence Framework” that addresses antiblack-sexism or antiblack-racist-sexism. South African philosopher, Mabogo Percy More, throughout his work, interrogates the facticity and situation of “being-black-in-an-antiblack-world”, in order to challenge antiblack-racism. One of the concepts that he employs to this end, is the “Politics of Being”, which proposes a symbiosis of ontology and politics, and captures a progression from “what-is” to “what-ought-to-be” – a movement from ontology to teleology, and from alienation to transcendence. When one studies his entire oeuvre, one finds that the resources he suggests for his existential-phenomenological progression are rooted predominantly in the themes of alienation, consciousness, identity, and freedom/liberation. Together, these themes capture the components of his politics of being concept. However, it also becomes apparent that he focuses on a homogenous, or universalist account of blackness, and male-biased lived experience with antiblackness, that does not sufficiently engage the gendered nature of black embodied existence. Thus, I draw from his rich and generative account of antiblack-racism, and extend it into the domain of antiblack-racist-sexism, by employing a black feminist lens – particularly the concept of intersectionality. To describe the unique situation of the woman, I employ phenomenological concepts from existential feminist Simone de Beauvoir; and to specifically offer a black female lived experience account, I engage the work of black/African feminist scholar Pumla Dineo Gqola. More’s transcendence framework is set out in detail and underpins my own novel black feminist transcendence framework.