Moten, The Undercommons

The work of bla­ck­ness is inse­pa­rable from the vio­lence of bla­ck­ness. Violence is where tech­nique and beau­ty come back, though they had never left. Consider tech­nique as a kind of strain and consi­der the tech­nique that is embed­ded in and cuts tech­niques – the (Fanonian as appo­sed to Artaudian) cruel­ty. The inter­nal dif­fe­rence of bla­ck­ness is a violent and cruel re-rou­ting, by way and out­side of cri­tique, that is pre­di­ca­ted on the notion, which was given to me, at least, by Martin Luther Kilson, Jr., that there’s nothing wrong with us (pre­ci­se­ly inso­far as there is some­thing wrong, some­thing off, some­thing ungo­ver­na­bly, fugi­ti­ve­ly living in us that is constant­ly taken for the patho­gen it ins­tan­tiates). This notion is mani­fest pri­ma­ri­ly in the long, slow motion – the series of tra­gi­cal­ly plea­su­rable detours – of the imme­diate (of impro­vi­sa­tion, which is some­thing not but almost nothing other than the spon­ta­neous), a re-rou­ting that turns away from a tur­ning on or to itself. The appo­si­tion of Fanonian and Artaudian cruel­ty is an iti­ne­ran­cy that bridges life and bla­ck­ness.