Black Animality from Kant to Fanon*

This essay examines the animalization of Black human beings in the texts of Immanuel Kant and Frantz Fanon. The two thinkers are positioned as key markers in a broader stream of modern theorizing surrounding race, colonialism, and the manifestation of human animality at different poles of the racial-colonial spectrum. Approaching them side by side generates insight that consideration of either in isolation would not allow: Kant's place in the history of racist and colonialist thought is further substantiated, while a new dimension of Fanon's still-unfolding contribution to the exposure and dismantling of this enterprise is revealed.