Black Relativity: On Law, Music, and Spirit in (Anti-)Black Time

Abstract

This paper argues that anti-Blackness is so vast, pervasive, and powerful that it has disfigured the concept and experience of time for Black people, and it argues that, against and within this disfigurement, Black people might yet reclaim this “time” to demonstrate and enact ways of being that help sustain and honor Black life. This paper explores how the distorting effects of anti-Blackness on time can be discerned in what we broadly understand as “the law” in the United States, including its case law, statutes, and prison system. And, alongside this, this paper argues that the Black capacity to refigure time is evident in Black music. Here, this paper analyzes two pieces of music (Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” and Herbie Hancock’s “Ostinato”), how their composers and performers navigate and manipulate rhythm, and what we might glean from these different orientations to and in time.