Social Identity

Chapter 3 looks at social identity, its organizing function and the problematic usage to which it is sometimes put by power regimes. Since “blackness” is an identity reality that was instrumental to the slave and the colonial regimes, the chapter addresses what a social identity is to allow the reader to position “blackness” instrumentally within that identitarian dynamic. The chapter is therefore divided into identity and its controlling functions (historical and contemporary), how emotions and morality play into identity utilization. The chapter then highlights examples where identity has been used to drive decision-making in morally important events. For instance, Edmund Morel was instrumental in highlighting the atrocities committed by King Leopold in his “Congo Free State” and the handing over of Congo to the Belgian State. His work here was morally commendable. He was also instrumental in the racist campaign against the African soldiers stationed in Germany after the Second World War. When identitarian realities hit close to home for Morel, he resorted to pseudo-scientific colonial anthropology that considered African hyper-sexuality to be a biological fact.