ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a short resume of the United States’ “color complex”, rooted in English natural philosophy and history. Within this complex, black is “flat black”—a one-sided idea of blackness epitomized by opposition, projection, oppression, and trauma. This historical view of black is then connected to its archetypal base, showing that black contains the opposites characteristic of an archetypal structure within itself and demonstrating the richness of the color in various symbol systems. The chapter ends by asking, ‘Can this enriched idea of blackness help to heal the racial trauma of the United States and its black and white citizens?’
