Dénégrification of the world and the becoming-black of the world: Two processes of extermination?

Abstract

This article is about racism, its direct relationship with neoliberal capitalism, and the consequences of this relationship. Aiming to question the idea of devenir-nègre, or becoming-black, of the world — a presupposition according to which neoliberalism tends to transform all the world’s subaltern population into black people —, of Achille Mbembe. This study is based on a bibliographic review about the category of race and the use of racism in colonialism, the Négritude movement and, finally, contemporary racism and the genocide of the black population as a political and economic project. Three processes resulting from social relations involving issues of race and class are articulated in the analysis: i) négrification: the transformation of people from the African continent into nègre at the height of the colonial-slavery system; ii) négrification-subversive: struggles that took place in the post-slavery to make positive the term nègre, iii) dénégrification: racist neoliberal political project that aims to exterminate those classified as nègre. This articulation supports the idea, contrary to that of becoming-black, that while nègre is defined epidermally, although its condition may reach non-nègres, these will never be seen as such, since, for that, nègres in the epidermal sense would need to disappear.