Through a more robust framing of the “Citizen Architect” who is positioned as an innately egalitarian force in democratic space, the discipline of architecture can engage in democratizing cultural production and revitalizing subaltern thought. Race and Blackness, as theoretical vehicles, are essential towards rethinking the democratic present in the face of an apocalyptic and autocratic future. How does a racialized subject come to know themselves – physically, socially, psychically?

The American postcolonial subject is operating amongst the vexed forces of intellectual and social history, the forces of the “humane horizon” (unattainable ideals of meritocracy, egalitarianism, freedom, liberty and equality), and the forces of lived experience (living under constant threat and precarity). In addition to laws and codified norms, democracy is organized around concepts of space and sociality that cohere polities to one another. The discipline of architecture has a significant role to play in reclaiming our ideals, actualizing change and performing transformative repair.

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