Difficult diasporas: the transnational feminist aesthetic of the black Atlantic
critique of misogyny and patriarchy to be consistent with all men, when white supremacy, through an intersectional framework, differentiates how patriarchy is produced by white men and men of color. in concluding the first section, wright contends that blackness needs to be thought of as a seemingly infinite perspective with a multitude of viewpoints. The second half of Physics of Blackness is where wright demonstrates that both linear space time and epiphenomenal time is needed to understand how multidimensional blackness is. wright does this through the work of James Baldwin, who in her opinion 'is an exemplar of multidimensional Blackness that defies any attempt to make it follow a straight line' (109) Through Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, readers find that Baldwin's multidimensional approach allows him to critique the archetypical linear space time portrayals of Black men in Richard wright's Native Son, while illuminating the complexities of what it means to be Black, American, and Black American for Black people in the United States. Through Michelle wright, the reader sees how Baldwin depicts 'the individual in the 'now' [as] the site of interaction for an understanding of blackness' (111) However, as much praise as wright has for Baldwin, she is quick to remind the reader that his use of blackness was often vertical or hierarchal in scope. For Baldwin, the subject of his stories rarely engaged women. Although wright's intervention is steeped within literary discourse, it's important to place blackness within the material conditions that Black people or African Americans experience. This is especially important given our current post racial society that seeks to dismiss blackness as counterproductive to multiculturalism. For geographers, and others, who are not familiar with African American studies, they will find Physics of Blackness theoretically rich with concepts that can be applied to scholarship around race and gender.