How human actions exist with moral valence

Like a Fading Shadow and Citizen have much in common—including an investment in the affective, in forcing the reader into an emotionally charged, often profoundly uncomfortable, perspective, for a purpose. I want to focus on what I take to be a shared sense of purpose: the ethical, and, more specifically, the way that both of these authors is invested in an ethical project of making the reader feel complicit in racist structures of thought and desire, in revealing the ubiquity of racism and highlighting how “racism” is inextricable from the concept of “race” itself. To this end, however, these are very different books, from (importantly) two very different authors. I want you, in this essay, to reflect on the use, in particular, of the use of the first and second person (the “I” and the “you”) as means to jolt the reader into a new ethical awareness (with “ethics” here defined, rather broadly, as a commitment to the idea that human actions exist with moral valence, as “good” or “bad,” and often as “complicit” or “enabling” bad actions rather than somehow “neutral,” especially on such a charged concept of “race.”). This is a complicated prompt, but these are complicate—and painstakingly crafted—books, books that are scaffolded, with layers upon layers, and designed to be emotional experiences for the reader far more than anything like “stories.” Make use of the texts in a fitting amount of detail, citing passages and referencing themes and events. Essays should be well-edited and reflect revision and rewriting, approximately 1500 words in length, due Friday, November 6th by the end of the day (midnight).