From the Middle Passage to Elijah McClain: The Persistence Of Anti-Black Bewilderment

Michael Sawyer is the author of The Door of No Return, a sweeping work that challenges conventional ideas about race, history, memory, and modernity. In this conversation, we explore his concept of anti-Blackness as something deeper than prejudice or discrimination—an organizing logic embedded within the modern world itself. Sawyer explains why the Middle Passage remains central to understanding contemporary society, dismantles Hegel's philosophy of history, critiques the limitations of Négritude and Afro-pessimism, and introduces the idea of "rememory" as a radically different way of relating to the past.We also discuss the killing of Elijah McClain, the evolution of Ta-Nehisi Coates' writing after Palestine, and Sawyer's deeply personal reflections on racism, including experiences growing up and playing basketball. Along the way, we examine how Shakespeare's Macbeth, the music of Bob Marley, and the lyrics of The Notorious B.I.G. illuminate questions of violence, identity, power, and survival in ways that philosophy often cannot.This is an expansive conversation connecting literature, history, music, politics, and lived experience. Whether unpacking the legacy of slavery, questioning the assumptions of Western philosophy, or imagining what might exist beyond the structures of anti-Blackness, Michael Sawyer offers a powerful framework for thinking about the past—and what a genuinely different future could look like.00:00 Coming Up...01:27 Intro to Sawyer & Why Bob Marley Is Doing Philosophy08:41 Paralysis & The Anti-Black World After the Middle Passage14:14 The Diagram That Explains the Entire Book21:55 W.E.B Du Bois & What Hegel Got Wrong About History27:17 The Free Throw Line as The Racial Bursting Apart36:44 What Is The Title of This Book... Actually?39:19 Tackling Hegel's Philosophy & Where it Fails To Be About Blackness51:25 The Murder of Elijah McClain1:02:50 Sawyer Illuminates The Words of McClain In The Anti-Black World1:09:10 Slavery's Afterlife and Anti-Blackness as Gravity1:14:00 Whitey On The Moon and Who Gets To Participate in Language Architecture1:23:25 Mick Jagger Couldn't Clap Along to Aretha1:30:38 Your Oppression Will Not Save You and Why Ta-Nehisi Coates Changed1:37:55 Final Thoughts and Upcoming GuestsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com