On the 12th of April 2023 I presented a talk on "anti-blackness" at the University of California (Santa Barbara). In the talk, I used the Apartheid Studies (AS) approach to problematise the trope of antiblackness in the US context and elsewhere. I argued that persistent antiblackness is a function of two things: i) the unexamined loophole at the heart of the aetiology of black citizenship (e.g., African Americans did not "travel" to the US, and so their experience of oppression is qualitatively uncategorisable compared to that of a naturalised Zimbabwean-American or Nigerian-American etc.), and ii) that there is a fundamentally unresolved conflict of interest in all oppressed peoples everywhere because our conduct of everyday life is strangely ontologically compatible with the persistence of that very same oppression that we hate. I made reference to MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" speech, delivered exactly 1 year before his assassination, to show that a vocation of liberation (what I, subversively, referred to as "stochastically resonant treason") is possible. I’m relieved to report that the talk was exceptionally well received. Heartfelt thanks to Mhoze Chikowero and Xiaowei Zheng for organising the talk and hosting me.
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Hey Nyasha, I'm reading Lewis R Gordon's recent book Fear of Black Consciousness and I see clear parallels but also a different angle with your work. Would love to hear your reflections on each others' approaches to problematizing anti-blackness and the persistence of denying the black person full humanity