Critical Race Theory holds that racism is endemic to US society, while Afropessimism and Social Death “suggests that, regardless of what Black bodies do, [they] will experience gratuitous violence,” said Shameka Powell, co-director of Educational Studies at Tufts University. Powell is co-author of a paper titled, “Kissing Cousins: Critical Race Theory’s Racial Realism and Afropessimism’s Social Death.”