Derrida’s je suis suspends identity claims between being and following

Evidence

When Derrida says that he writes “like” an Mrican, he writes “comme cette sorte d’Mricain deracine que je suis.” This is a phrase written in a language that one could call “suspended” regarding its meaning. ]e suis can be translated as both “I am” and “I follow,” so the phrase complicates the possibility of deciding conclusively whether or not Derrida is “this Mrican” (je suis, il est) or whether he follows him (je suis, il suit) and yet others, following (by) the trace of a number of so-called identities (Mrican, Algerian, Arab Jew, Hispano-Moor, and more recently, Franco-Maghrebian, and later “animal” in ”!‘animal que je suis”). In the final analysis, the je suis of Derrida is more destabilizing than his use of the word “like,” comme. In other words, to say “I am African” or “l’Mricain que je suis,” for Derrida, is ever more distant from the assertion of identity that would appear to take place in “like an Mrican.” — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 264

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the double valence of je suis (am/follow) that makes Derridean identity claims more destabilizing than mere ‘like’ assertions.
• XREF: Connects to Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other and the ‘Oumma inoublie’ passage cited across the antisemitism-Islamophobia batch.