<p>Since there have been few, if any, signs of the demise of anti-Black racism in America—indeed, the cold-blooded police murder of unarmed George Floyd clearly demonstrates the opposite—what would happen if Black Americans gave up on the so-called American dream? During the Civil Rights Movement of the late-1950s and early 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. feared the growing Black Power Movement, which he called nihilism. However, many critics of King have argued over the years that Black people have become increasingly disenchanted with the unrelenting, pervasive, and increasing presence of white supremacy and antiblack racism in the existential life experiences of Black people. In Black Nihilism and Antiblack Racism, Devon Johnson presents a thoughtful and welcomed philosophical explanation, analysis, and argument of Black existential thought in response to the contemporary situation. This book demands our attention.</p>

- Floyd W. Hayes, III, Johns Hopkins University,

<p>What is the Black (Hu) Man? Rarely are the values that affirmatively assert this position into the world fully presented and engaged as material for philosophical thought. Devon Johnson’s Black Nihilism and Anti-Black Racism provides an invaluable philosophical resource that indicts the quotidian proclamations of Blackness as nonbeing by reclaiming deliberate and positive construction of the Black self. Rather than fatalism, Johnson’s strong Black Nihilism posits a world of creation, liberation, and revolt despite the decadence of the white supremacist reality Black people face. This is an accomplished text and a reading that will generate that momentary pause before the declaration that Blackness is slave far too many scholars have come to embrace. </p>

- Tommy Curry, Distinguished Professor of Africana philosophy & black male studies, School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh,