Before establishing Senghor’s position on Negritude as a universal ethic, it is necessary to situate negritude in itself, that is, as an alternative. Although it is historically contextualized within a certain framework of Black identity, it may be useful to read it simply as another way of being. It offers a different vantage point from which to imagine the human, not the black, but the human. A distinct point of origin, it is the re imagination of oneself in terms of their own authentic being and traces itself back to a beginning.

Negritude is an acknowledgement by the individual to find within themselves the possibility of moving beyond the state of object-hood. And in the case of the African, to embody an ontological resistance. It is a sense then, reactionary. Senghor’s vision speaks largely to Cesaire’s; a resurgence of black existence before the white man. They hearken to an African rhythm, one that roots nature to man, and man to God. A synthesis between the spirit and body, it enables a transcendent connection to the source of ‘life forces’ as he puts it. Senghor sees the African as sensitive to the external world, to the material aspect of beings and things. Beyond this there is also a deliberate emphasis placed on myth, magic and folktale. Art becomes a method through which to assert this rhythm, this uniqueness of blackness. It embodies a conception of ‘self affirmation’, of a previous model which needs to be reinstated, it is therefore tied to a past.

But whose past? This becomes a point of contention for the modern negro. Where does this past exist and who is it now for? This quality of Senghor’s and even Cesaire’s vision places Negritude on a relatively more particularistic plane, whereby it becomes slightly difficult to access. The past they are trying to reawaken is no longer in existence. It has fallen into the recesses of time, pushed out of the collective black conscience. However, one can argue that this is precisely the point. Senghor’s description of Negritude speaks to Cesaire’s because he is trying to rebirth the elements that made the past their own. His attempt in establishing the African as more wholesome than the white man, being able to pass from ‘existing to being’, is rooted in a concept that is inherently linked to the mystic past. One that although difficult to remember can be re imagined and instilled in the contemporary memory of the African.

He speaks of re creating the universe and contemporary world in a more harmonious way by making use of African humor, to adopt a different aesthetic, a new standard of beauty. Such a conception of negritude is what establishes it as universal. The African rhythm expressed through the harmony of color, movement and shape within art, incorporates a new face of the universe, extending beyond the continent and reaching the diaspora. This new face carries new meaning, instilling a common spirit within the children of Africa, wherever they may be, bringing them back home to the life forces embedded within the land. Thus, it is through Senghor that Africa is discovered, brought into the black conscience and forced through.

However, it is also important to respond to the criticism against Senghor, of Negritude being built solely as a response to Western humanism. Reducing the invocation and celebration of African art as a source of the white man’s pleasure, as if the black man has to prove himself and will never measure up to the intellectual freedom, is ignorant. To follow such a pattern of thought is to overlook the nuance in black reality, and the nature of the violence that took place. By labeling Senghor as nativist and narcissistic, one risks reducing other such decolonizing attempts of creating new humanisms as futile. Of course to a great extent this is a response to the other, but it is solely the other in question which has inherently been the nativist.

Negritude in Senghor’s mind adopts the universal through the particular. He shows how this magical African rhythm sets into motion a process whereby art is able to culminate a sense of harmony; connecting man to god, nature to man, and nature with itself. It seeks to make the world whole again, showing another way out. This takes Negritude beyond just being a reaction to the white man, the other. It sets for itself a place in the universe, it becomes recognizable for those that yearn for some African identity, it invokes pride in blackness. It ensures that in the end … there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory.

Senghor’s version of The African is one essentialism in opposition to another. The word of the Colonized Intellectual against the word of the White Man. Both claim to represent an entire people, clearly confident in their qualification to undertake this mammoth task. And indeed, Senghor’s perception of Negritude, though as essentialist as the White Man’s, warrants the right to clemency because it is the word of an African aboutAfricans and is therefore more likely to be met with compassion. However, this does not, in my opinion, justify the essentialism employed by Senghor as a reaction towards the White Man’s essentialism. 

Essentialism as a concept is rooted in the negation of intersectionality; in order for an entire people to be perceived of as a singular entity, their differences must be erased so  that oneaspect of their identity becomes the only aspect.

This hyper-concentration of identity does, undoubtedly, serve the purpose it is geared towards. With regard to Negritude, the “confirmation of one’s being” as an African is certainly not harmful in itself; if anything, it might just urge the people to hold their head a little higher, to take conscious pride in the colour of their skin with every step they take. The romanticism associated with Negritude grants ample room for individual interpretation; every person has the right of “speaking, singing and dancing” in ways they see fit- “conceiving life” as they see fit. Any act with cultural connotations is then granted legitimacy as long as it is performed by an African individual. This legitimacy of existence and the liberty it affords is an ethic in itself. Furthermore, the spiritual cohesion of the “heart and the mind” is an ethic put forth by Negritude that must be lauded in its efforts to ease the rupture, the compartmentalization, created by colonial conquest.

The paradox, however, lies in the negation of the fact that “peoples differ”. Senghor’s claim is not carried to fruition because his understanding of Negritude does not acknowledge elements of identity that are not black-ness; elements that cannot and should not be negated in favour of one overarching identity; elements that must be sidelined because Negritude takes “priority over the individual” and ends up “crushing” her despite Senghor’s claims that this does not happen in the “harmony of African civilization”. What can be said for the marginalized groups that exist in Africa? Groups whose difference exists outside the dimensions of culture that Senghor speaks of. Why should their existence be simplified- or erased, rather- to serve the purpose of an ‘African ontology’ that is reductionist, exclusive and most importantly, imaginative in its construction. This is where Senghor’s ethic is compromised: in emphasizing unity he neglects diversity.

In speaking of these groups, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and the largest minority of them all- women- come to mind. While art, literature and spirituality are beautiful concepts indeed, and while they may be a source of comfort for marginalized individuals in a personal capacity, these concepts do not secure the kind of recognition that is necessary in order for these minorities to integrate into mainstream society. 

The fault with Negritude remains, therefore, the imposition of homogeneity and the denial of identities that diverge from the essentialist African ideal. Senghor perhaps in his fervor, loses sight of the fact that Africa is a continent home to various peoples that simply cannot, and should not, for ethical reasons, be condensed into a singular African identity. That is not to say that Negritude is without its merits; by inverting the terms of essentialism it empowers many to embrace their cultural and spiritual identity in opposition to the White Man’s emphasis on “material”. Yet the point of contention remains that one essentialism cannot compensate for another when it refutes the existence of those who are already at the margins of society.

Senghor’s idea of negritude is “the sum of the cultural values of the black world” and a “way of relating oneself to the world and to the others.” He explains how “the African has always and everywhere presented a concept of the world which is diametrically opposed to the traditional philosophy of Europe.” What becomes apparent at the beginning of Senghor’s analysis is that he uses this notion of negritude in retaliation, in an attempt to separate and somehow—through this separation—elevate the Africans. In doing so, Senghor ends up creating the African identity in contrast and in relation to the European. In doing so, he manages to create an African identity which is different from the rest but does not account for the differences within. What ends up happening is a form of homogenization of African values and culture, something the colonizer too had already tried to do. Thus the same issue of generalization exists here. The purpose of creating an identity, from the colonizer’s point of view, was to associate unpleasant characteristics with the colonized and to have these associations fixed in time. When Senghor tries to establish the essence of being African, he too makes the mistake of not taking time into consideration. He also creates the African in contrast with the European in the way that the African identity becomes a performance put up for the European to see and validate. In this way, there is no universalism in Senghor’s notion of negritude.

The first issue is that affixing an African identity for all time. This mirrors the European mission of categorizing. The only difference is that in Senghor’s version, the African identity is associated with relatively positive attributes. Regardless, homogenizing a culture of different people with different histories and associations with different tribes becomes problematic. Some culture and history is lost while other is mixed in a way that becomes unrecognizable. Such mixed up and homogenized identity is not representative of a real people, but an imagined community. With such a conception of self that they do not recognize, when Africans try to decolonize, they are likely to be confused and angry. The unity, togetherness, and pride in self that negritude wanted to achieve becomes redundant and counterproductive. This affixation in time, that Fanon too rejected, is what diminishes the possibility of universalism in this negritude.

The second problem is the African identity being built in response to the European identity. In doing so, the European again becomes the center and the standard according to which others define themselves. African art and African culture becomes entertainment for the European. Its difference only makes it more exotic and fascinating for the European. Again, a stereotype emerges which only does a disservice to the African people. This kind of recognition takes away from the identity of the African and cannot be considered as an example of universalism. There is thus no space of universalism in Senghor’s negritude.

“For it is rhythm- the main virtue, in fact, of negritude- that gives the work of art its beauty.”

By way of words similar to the ones above, Senghor in his text makes multiple references to this concept of an African ‘rhythm,’ as he calls it, or an African essence, that apparently characterizes all African art and expression, and forms the basis of African ontological philosophy. In the process of this, he sets up the image of the African man, taken to represent all Africans, against that of the European- using the dichotomy between rhythm and order, and consequently between black and white, to define African identity. While it is certain that the text is motivated by a desire to reclaim a lost pride, or a search for self-affirmation for the black race, the unintended duality of the text seems to suggest that it is almost an attempt to justify the black man’s existence in the eyes of the European. It is precisely this approach to negritude that Fanon critiques in Black Skins, White Masks;the idea that everything the black man does- whether expressed in poetry or art- is ultimately and unintendedly for the white man. In this justification, Senghor makes yet another misstep. In putting forth the notion of an ‘African essence,’ he is compartmentalizing the black race in much the same way that the white man has done. The difference lies in whether the connotation of this compartmentalization is positive or negative. Relevant again are Fanon’s words: “To us, the man who adores the negro is as sick as the man who abominates him.” Ultimately, the problem is this: Can the black man not exist independently of this two-way compartmentalization? Can he ever break free from the impositions that tether him to being either ‘this’ or ‘that’? To answer these questions, one can look to the ideas expressed in Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks to understand the consequence of African essentialism in Senghor’s negritude.

At a point in the text, Senghor writes that negritude, by its ontology, its moral law and its aesthetic, is ‘a response to the modern humanism that European philosophers and scientists have been preparing since the end of the nineteenth century.’ One can infer from this that Senghor’s argument is a defense mechanism of sorts, in response to European compartmentalization and rationalism. It is known that colonial discourse is dominated by the ideas of white men, often alluding to the ‘savagery’ and ‘uncivilized’ nature of colonized peoples- of which Africans form a large part. By speaking of African moral law, ethics, African entwinement with nature, and of conceptions of African unity and peace, Senghor is attempting to redeem the black race from the falsities and racist tendencies of European colonial discourse. Though this defense is justifiable, it only reinforces Fanon’s statement about how the colonized are ‘still performing for the white man’. The added consequence is that Senghor’s appreciation of African self-expression, such as expression through art, is nativist in nature by the way that it streamlines the interpretations that one might have of the art. It limits perspective, and tends to exoticize a specific manifestation of African culture, for example Dogon culture, while not acknowledging the several existing variations of African cultural expression.

Returning to Fanon’s quote about ‘the man who adores the negro…’ it is apparent that Fanon here is referring to the exoticization of the black race, which is something that Senghor’s talk of ‘rhythm’ and ‘harmony’ in African art unintendedly implies. Senghor, one could argue, is engaging in a kind of ‘self-exoticization’ if one interprets his ideas as being about African people as a whole, or rather just exoticization of a particular segment of African people, i.e. a particular nation or tribe. Senghor’s emphasis on shapes, colors, the harmony of forms and movements has a tendency to reduce African identity to ‘appearances,’ which he himself defines as ‘those attributes of matter that strike our senses.’ One would not be mistaken here to ask the question: is the value and worth of the African man or woman dependent on appearances and aesthetics alone? Rather than ridding African people of the European-imposed attitudes of race, Senghor has simply tilted the scale to the other end, giving way to a new form of compartmentalization and reductionism.

To quote Fanon again in Black Skins, White Masks, “I am being dissected under white eyes… I am fixed.” This feeling of fixation is clearly a significant concern and a shared experience among black men and women. The inescapability of their skin and the claustrophobia that accompanies it, is an aspect that Senghor’s Negritude fails to erase. The dichotomies which rest on the fundamental question of race are ever-present in all of these discourses, regardless of whether they are portrayed in a negative or a positive light. While this is of course, not the intent with which Senghor writes, it is a mere consequence of it.

With all things considered, a question that repeatedly comes to mind is: is it justifiable to accuse Senghor of reductionism and collectivism when he speaks of African culture as a singular phenomenon shared across all African people? We have already understood Senghor to be writing from a defensive perspective, employing the concept of negritude as a ‘weapon of emancipation.’ For Senghor, the way to combat racially charged European thought is through the collectivization of the African people into a singular body. Doing so harbors the ultimate consequence of nativism and a failure to recognize African diversity and the richness of the varying African cultures and identities, but one could argue that Senghor’s negritude is at least successful in its intended purpose, i.e. a weapon for human emancipation. The problem is thus the fact of dichotomies: rhythm and order, black and white, emotion and reason. To quote Senghor himself, “Emotion is Negro, as reason is Hellenic.” These contrasting ideas are necessary for one group to define itself against. As long as the concept of race exists, the concept of racial dichotomies will stay.

While the word ‘negritude’ may imply a restriction towards only the African people, it transcends racial/ethnic/cultural/what-have-you boundaries. The ontological connotations associated with negritude or rather defining negritude alone should stand as a testament against the charges of it being racist and ‘nativist’ for it is not only the ontology of the African people but rather of all beings. Lest it be forgotten, it originated thousands of miles west of Alkebulan. In Senghor’s negritude the transcendental elements are dove into blatantly, leaving no room for the aforementioned charges to stand.

The constant referral to the African people in the work is an attempt to rally the people among whom the idea of negritude originated in the first place. That never meant that it was only for the African people. Certainly not. The probing into the shaky foundations of the principles of the natural sciences is another way to look at the universalism of Senghor’s negritude. The focal areas are things which cannot be limited to a certain race or people but something that holds for the entire universe. If negritude, in Senghor’s perspective, had been essentially nativist, he would have delved instead into the science of the much-heard-of African witch doctors. The constant debunking, upheaval and replacement in the realm of the natural sciences leads him to conclude the presence of severe instability in the universe. It is here that he brings Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to the fray and his idea which breaks past the traditional long-established dichotomies to pitch a single united universe with a single reality.

When Senghor and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin discuss the ‘universe’ they mean the entire universe and all that it contains. Which means the entire planet as well. From Cape Horn to Baffin Bay, from Kerala to Severnaya Zemlya, from Midway Atoll to Dakar in Africa, all places and all people dwelling in those places are the subjects of Senghor’s discourse, of Senghor’s negritude. The Europeans being thrown into focus is from direct interaction rather than a ‘retort’ to their Renaissance and all that it entailed. Rather it is, as Senghor puts it, “it is rooting oneself in oneself and self-confirmation: confirmation of one’s being”.

In other words, there is no space for universalism in Senghor’s negritude. It is universal from the get go.  

Negritude for Senghor, at first glance and through a basic understanding may seem to show itself as one which limits diversity and is always bogged down in the identity and uniqueness of the ‘African Personality’ that is inherently superior to the ‘White Personality’. It even seems as though Senghor is establishing a Dysonian victory over the Apollonian logic of the European world. His talk about the dichotomy of order and rhythm elevates the importance of ‘essence’ over ‘existence’ thereby, being in a stark contrast of Sartre’s concept of existentialism that ‘existence precedes essence,’ hence, the charge against Negritude of being ‘narcissistic’ and ‘an anti-racist racialism.’

However, approaching Senghor through Fanon and applying Fanon’s frustration of either typified as being this or that, of his race preceding him in how the world perceives him, Senghor has found his salvation in Negritude. Senghor is using the tools allowed to him by the European world in their talk of racial pride and logic and realism and is forced to immerse himself in the glory of being African and Black, even if it comes at the cost of dividing the world again in binaries, as that is one of the few options left available for him.

Nevertheless, Senghor does not negate Universalism; he time and again mentions ‘contribution to the humanism of the twentieth century.’ He mentions, ‘the living, throbbing unity of the universe…’ which showcases that he does not exactly see a world which is compartmentalised or one that needs to be, he goes to the extreme of particularism in order to showcase the reality of racism, but he comes back to the universal in the end.

Under the section of dialogue, Senghor discusses reciprocity, a reciprocity which is again understandable more effectively through Fanon where he says, “There is no Negro mission, no white burden,” there is only “demanding human behaviour from the other.” Hence, this reciprocity and dialogue displays itself in Senghor as well when he uses words such as ‘harmony’ in explaining a ‘Civilisation of the Universal’ one which is rooted in interdependence. Thus, delving deeper into Senghor’s conception of Negritude, one comes across universalism numerous times, even the smallest details in his choice of words such as single reality, life forces and wanting to knit a society together.

In the end, Negritude for Senghor is a conception of life whereby man, “transcends the contradictions of the elements and works towards making the life forces complementary to one another, in himself first of all, as Man, but also in the whole of human society.”