Racism as ontological terror and onticide

Abstract

This paper elucidates the existential and psychological dynamics of onticide: the malicious annihilation of another's existential-emotional being. On any given day, chances are we're going to read a new account of racist violence and injustice that is, simply put, grotesque. This cannot be adequately explained as mere ignorance or prejudice. An existential phenomenology of racism is needed to explain that disgust, malice, and disdain. What arouses such fear, hatred, loathing, and the desire to punish or humiliate? This paper explores the ways in which inner impoverishment and wounds are turned into fantasies of evil in the outer world, and how the ontological dread of annihilation and nonbeing induce the desire to harm, diminish, and annihilate the menacing other.