ABH Study Group - [pre-read] Sambos & Minstrels (1979) by Sylvia Wynter

The ABH Study group welcomes you to our monthly discussion club.

Taking place on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, we will read African, Diasporic African, and Decolonial thinkers who take a philosophical view on the Human experience.

The ABH Study Group offers us a collective space to read, study and discuss the form Humanism takes in our everyday lives, with our focus on how Humamism affects us as members of the diaspora.

You can donate to our ongoing efforts to expand Humanism for all here.

After registering for the event, a Zoom link will be provided to all registered members on the day of our discussion.

For the month of September, we will be reading:
"Sambos & Minstrels" (1979) by Sylvia Wynter.

Sylvia Wynter examines the internalization of the master model by poor whites who owned no slaves and who had no material relation to the ownership of slaves. It gives insight into the power that the bourgeois [wealthy white elites] had over the means of socialization in fashioning the attitudes and responses of the narrowing classes. It is here, perhaps, that we glimpse the mechanisms of the constitution of white racism, a pathology so deeply rooted and pervasive, that Richard Wright defined the problem of the U.S.A. not as a Negro but as a White problem.

Sylvia Wynter is a Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and of African and Afro-American Studies, Emerita at Stanford University. She is a playwright, novelist, public intellectual and celebrated scholar of Black Studies and the colonial and postcolonial condition.

A copy of this article is available here in the PDF.

Led by Ewere Owaka (current ABH Philosopher in residence), we will cover a range of topics from Philosophical enquiry to Political agency in the modern landscape.

NOTE: This will be a safe space to learn and make mistakes with those who can better understand your situation. No racist, sexist, or homophobic acts will be tolerated, and those who disturb our discussion will be removed and banned immediately. Please be advised.

Cover photo provided by Pusha T from the album cover for The Story of Adidon (2018)