Drawing on the intellectual work of Black and afro- pessimist scholars such as Frank B. Wilderson III, Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman and Denise Ferreira da Silva, I want to elucidate the ways in which blackness and black life have... more
Drawing on the intellectual work of Black and afro- pessimist scholars such as Frank B. Wilderson III, Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman and Denise Ferreira da Silva, I want to elucidate the ways in which blackness and black life have become contested, unfathomable ‘objects’ in Swedish mainstream media debates. I locate my discussion at the interface between those debates, afro- pessimist legacies and my position as a black film and media scholar before, during, and after the release of the animated children’s film Liten Skär och Alla Små Brokiga [Little Pink and The Motley Crew] (Stina Wirsén, Sweden, 2012). My aim is to examine the ways in which the film’s pickaninny figure, Little Heart, and the hurtfulness of this stereotype were discussed and contested in the debate around the film. I argue that the debate ended up producing a sense of white fragility as a priority instead of dealing with anti- black racism, its consequences for black people, and its ongoing maintenance through cultural production and debate.
