Use the Birt reading and the Baldwin video on antiblack racism to deepen your understanding of bad faith as a social phenomenon and as a modification of one′s entire ″system of reality″ (as Baldwin intones in the video). More than a personal attitude or set of beliefs, bad faith refers to an entire way of perceiving and experiencing ″reality.″ ″Whiteness″ denotes this system of reality (perception, experience, desire, expectation, a sense of normalcy, a presumed sense of humanity) and its institutionalization. In terms of desire, ponder why these materials suggest that negrophilia does not overturn that system of negrophobia (the Othering or nihiliation of the Black Other). In terms of social change, ponder whether the belief of ″enlightened anti-racist whites . . . in ′a universal subjectivity (we are all just people)′″ may also fail to surmount racial bad faith among whites (Birt 78, quoting bell hooks). Consult the text on the assumption that ″we are all just people.″ In a Sartrea
