Abstract

For Steve Biko, ‘Black Consciousness’ has to do with remedying the ‘lack’ and ‘failure’ which emanate from the colonial encounter. It describes the existential and ontological shift whereby the black moves towards the assumption of her humanity. Beginning on the margins of Continental European philosophy with Jacques Derrida and Frantz Fanon, I examine the pathogenesis of the situation of the black, and point to a road to recovery. In the process, I centre the lived experience of black folk: our yearning to dance with the past; our need for air; our struggle to keep madness at bay.