Ungrateful: A Manifesto for Black Freedom in the Face of White Generosity

This manifesto builds on my 2020 article, “White Generosity: Black Freedom Faced with Good Intentions,” which identified the ways in which expectations of Black gratitude uphold white supremacist structures. In a world in which “anti-black violence and black death are underpinned by the construction of black freedom as a token of exchange within a racist system” (Wall 136), I seek to offer a framework for researchers and practitioners alike to engage with this phenomenon in order to undermine it and reject the narrative that Black freedom is something that white supremacy can give to us. Here, I apply my framework of white generosity to Black women’s theatre in Canada, to outline the quest for Black freedom today and the need for creative intervention in the form of artivism for thinking through a world outside of white generosity. From historical accounts of the transatlantic slave trade, like d’bi.young anitafrika’s esu crossing the middle passage, to ironic stories of modern slavery, like Andrea Scott’s Better Angels: A Parable, Canadian theatre is inventing new languages and metaphors to confront Black unfreedom.