Derrida’s self-description as African deliberately resists stable identity

Evidence

Derrida’s word, if it is one, will therefore be complicated, as it is here, complicated by figuration (comme) artd by the lack, precisely, of a precise identity (cette sorte). Derrida will not assert, he will not assert (himself), or identifY (himself), not simply, (comme, as) “I” nor (as) “African.” Derrida-if the “I” in these texts can simply or ever be read as “Derrida” -Derrida, then, and the “I” in the text, will perhaps speak comme (like, as) an “African,” but because of the undecidability of the word comme, we will be unable to say of which kind, by way of which figuration, this ”African” will be, what kind and what uprooting he will be (sera) or what he will follow (suivra) . — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 262

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains how the French word ‘comme’ (like/as) structurally performs the undecidability of identity claims.
• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Wound of the Label: When Knowing Someone Becomes a Way of Erasing Them”; the MOC “The Forge and the Other: How Power, Discourse, and Encounter Cast the Self”