Vivaldi Jean-Marie is Adjunct Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies Department (AAADS) at Colombia University. In his most recent book, An Ethos of Blackness: Rastafari Cosmology, Culture, and Consciousness, Jean-Marie examines Rastafari’s core beliefs and practices, arguing that they constitute a distinctively Black system of norms and values—an ethos and a cosmology. He traces Rastafari’s origins and considers Rastafari’s theology, demonstrating that Rastafari cosmology is remedial in promoting an alternative system of norms, culture, and religious practices to those established by colonial and postcolonial institutions to define Blackness for people of African descent. In this Recently Published Book Spotlight, Jean-Marie discusses his motivation for writing the book, its connection to his larger research project, and the research discovery he found most exciting.
Why did you feel the need to write this work?
An Ethos of Blackness was inspired by my ruminations about how the Rastafari movement illustrates one of the axioms of political philosophy, specifically that a nation-state and a people are concomitant to the elaboration of a system of socio-cultural norms, values, and religious beliefs. This axiom was the unifying thread in my textual reading and empirical observations of the rituals and the social and communal practices of Rastafari. I slowly derived the conclusion that Rastafari is striving to elaborate an alternative system of socio-cultural norms, values, and religious beliefs to those that people of African descent in the Diaspora inherited from slavery and colonialism. An Ethos of Blackness articulates this alternative system by means of which Rastafari delineates an Afrocentric conception of people of African descent.
What is the biggest thing you would like readers to take away from this work?
I would like readers to take away that the Rastas were in tune with the need to supply an Afrocentric system of norms, values, and religious beliefs for people of African descent to embrace as an alternative to the Eurocentrism that they were forced to imbibe on the slave plantations and in post-colonial institutions. The Rastas understood that Eurocentric institutions were created to promote the interests of Europeans and are thus inherently oppressive towards people of African descent. The uniqueness of Rastafari cosmology is that it is Rastas’ ethos to redress the marginal status of people of African descent, as a displaced people, in the various Eurocentric institutions. Hence, Rastafari cosmology is remedial because it addresses the massive displacement of Black people that has led to their being misplaced within the Eurocentric institutions that rule their lives. It is in order to invent a religious, social, and cultural home for people of African descent that Rastafari cosmology elaborated an ethos of Blackness, namely the religious, social, and cultural values that are in unison with the Afrocentric origin and interests of Black people.
How does it fit with your larger research project?
An Ethos of Blackness fits with my research and teaching interests, namely: philosophical perspectives on the African Diaspora and the Enlightenment philosophers’ positions on the Transatlantic slave trade. There are two chapters of the book that capture these aspects of my larger research project best:
In the fourth chapter, “Rastafari’s Theology of Blackness: A Eurocentric God Cannot Love Africans and People of African Descent,” the argument is that Rastafari cosmology is in tune with the alienating component of orthodox Christianity toward Africans and people of African descent—namely, the theological conundrum that a Eurocentric God is unfit to love and guide Africans and people of African descent. And further, that Rastafari cosmology recognizes this theological conundrum and elaborates a Black theology as a solution. Then, on the premise of the discussion of Rastafari Black theology and hermeneutic, the chapter delineates how a messianic model is inherent in Rastas’ reception and interpretation of biblical scriptures as it draws continuity between religiosity and the social amelioration of people of African descent’s circumstances. Finally, it shows that Rastafari Black theology, on the basis of its advancement of the messianic model, frames Rastas’ attitudes toward both their present and future by conditioning them to view the present and future as temporal media for the redemption of the Black Messiah.
Chapter five, “Rastafari I-Talk and Black Consciousness” takes up the Rasta vernacular, I-talk, which is a pivotal dimension of Rastafari cosmology. The chapter begins by elaborating the intricacies and details of Rasta I-talk to contextualize it vis-à-vis the context of Jamaican institutions. The elaboration of the intricacies of Rasta I-talk sets up the platform for the argument of this chapter— namely, that Rasta I-talk articulates Rasta Black consciousness. The account of Rasta Black consciousness complements the elaboration of Rastas’ ethos of Blackness by showing that I-talk is the cultural mechanism that Rastas use to attune the constituents of their ethos of Blackness with their objective and inner realities. Given that consciousness is polysemous, in the context of Rasta Black consciousness, it means the coordination of Rastas’ realities with their Afrocentricity. The goal is to show that Rasta Black consciousness, via I-talk, stands as the cognitive and spiritual synthesis of Rastas’ realities with their Afrocentricity.
Which of your insights or conclusions do you find most exciting?
It was rewarding to discover that Martin Luther created a pictorial illustration of God, Adam, and Eve as Europeans to accompany his 1534 Bible (Also known as Weimar Bible of 1534). I reached the conclusion that Martin Luther played a key role in framing Christian theology in Eurocentrism by depicting the biblical figures as white Europeans. In addition, it undermined God as a sheer spiritual entity and broadcast the popular imaginaries of God as a white patriarch and established the original humans as white people. This fact was, further, promoted by the paintings of the Renaissance. Finally, an important ambition of Rastafari is to supply an alternative to Martin Luther’s Eurocentric framing and undermining of God as a spiritual entity for people of African descent. Rastas adopted the European emperor Haile Selassie as their Godhead and argued that the original humans were Ethiopians.
What directions would you like to take your work in the future?
I’ve been musing for some time about how social agency and beauty are articulated in Black aesthetic. I would like to write a book to argue that beauty and social agency are inseparable in Black aesthetic expressions, and that Black aesthetic expressions expand the traditional conception of beauty by promoting social agency as an inherent aesthetic standard.
Vivaldi Jean-Marie
Vivaldi Jean-Marie is Adjunct Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies Department (AAADS) at Columbia University since 2010. He is also Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York and the author of five books including Fanon: Collective Ethics and Humanism; Kierkegaard: History and Eternal Happiness; and Reflections on Jean Améry: Torture, Resentment and Homelessness as the Mind’s Limits.
Maryellen Stohlman-Vanderveen is the APA Blog's Diversity and Inclusion Editor and Research Editor. She graduated from the London School of Economics with an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy in 2023 and currently works in strategic communications. Her philosophical interests include conceptual engineering, normative ethics, philosophy of technology, and how to live a good life.
