What Is Seen Cannot Be Unseen

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explicates the functions of “race” after Kant. There is a distinction between race concepts as representations and race concepts as tools or as political ideas serving ideological functions. We examine the legacies of Kant’s raciology in the latter terms. In a racialized world, one cannot unsee race and should not try to address racial injustices in a colorblind way. To illustrate, we consider two novellas published not long after Kant’s death. Both revolve around racial identities in a racially hegemonic world. The first novella, Die Verlobung in St. Domingo by Heinrich von Kleist, highlights the tragic trap of racialization. Kant’s theory of abstraction helps to explain the inescapability of racialization depicted in this novella. The second novella, William der Neger by Caroline Auguste Fischer, follows the growth of a “Negro” who struggled with Du Boisian double consciousness but came to embrace his identity as a black man.