On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and “Black Orpheus” (1948).

How can we best understand the psychology of racism and reactions to it? Sartre not only condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition (the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other), he also thinks that the victims of oppression can be inauthentic by denying their situation or otherwise being reactive to the racist’s attitude. “Black Orpheus” further explores this idea in characterizing the “negritude” of black poetry and how uncovering one’s negritude leads to solidarity and hence political and psychological change.

End song: “Punch Bag” by Godley & Creme as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #3.