In this interview, Frank Wilderson talks about the current state of the discipline of Black Studies in the United States of America and beyond and the ways in which Afro-pessimism takes part in shaping this discipline. He also discusses their stakes in current social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and the relevance he ascribes to Black lived experience and structural positionalities. Commenting on the role that gratuitous violence and the concept of social death play in his work, Wilderson also addresses the challenges Afro-pessimism poses especially to non-Black scholars who want to think through and with this theoretical stream of thought.