Abstract

Many anticipated that the formal demise of public apartheid would free black citizens of South Africa from systematic racial oppression; but apartheid was privatized and carries on, with the aid of ‘Black governmentality’. The brutality of the apartheid regime gave rise to a common misunderstanding of White settler coloniality as a public, sovereign, and repressive mode of power imposed on and against Black subjects and African culture. But power is not just repressive. It is complex and productive. Public apartheid was formally signed off, but its features are reproduced by citizens in private lives, often without our knowing it. Our account of Black governmentality explains such self-defeating subjective agency in the post-apartheid context with reference to Biko’s writing on Black shame, wherein Black South African subjects are secondary agents of apartheid. We demonstrate how and why apartheid is perpetuated in private by Black governmentality, as cultivated in subject-formation, drawing on Biko’s insights into the structure of this relationship. In so doing we correct a misunderstanding of freedom from apartheid, common in scholarly receptions of Biko’s writing, as a negation of the White face of public representation. With reference to Foucault’s theory of power, we offer an alternative account of Biko’s insights into subjective and national liberation, to explain how he sees colonial power as a facticity-inducing force for Black subjectivity. Where these misreadings miss this critical point of traction, our productive reading of the power of Black governmentality and freedom in Black consciousness better informs effective public resistance against private modes of apartheid.

摘要

许多人预计，公共种族隔离的正式结束将使南非的黑人公民摆脱系统性的种族压迫。但在“黑人政府”的帮助下，种族隔离被私有化并继续进行。种族隔离政权的残暴导致人们普遍误解白人定居者的殖民统治是一种公共的、主权的和压制性的权力模式，强加给黑人臣民和非洲文化。但权力不仅仅是压制性的。它是复杂且富有成效的。公共种族隔离已正式签署，但其特征被公民在私生活中复制，而我们通常不知道。我们对黑人治理术的解释参考了比科关于黑人羞耻的著作，解释了在种族隔离后的背景下这种自欺欺人的主观能动性，其中南非黑人受试者是种族隔离的次要因素。我们利用 Biko 对这种关系结构的见解，展示了黑人政府如何以及为何在私下里延续种族隔离，正如在主体形成中培养的那样。通过这样做，我们纠正了对摆脱种族隔离的自由的误解，这种误解在学术接受比科的著作中很常见，因为它否定了公众代表的白人面孔。参考福柯的权力理论，我们对比科对主观解放和民族解放的见解提供了另一种解释，以解释他如何将殖民权力视为黑人主体性的事实性诱导力量。这些误读错过了这个关键的牵引点，