Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard (Associate Professor of African American Studies, University of California, Irvine and Professor Extraordinarius in the Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair at University of South Africa) is a Black political scientist who focuses on Black political thought and the material conditions of knowledge production, Black movements, South African historiography
A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people ... more A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people argues that the former are the reason why the latter are not given reparations for being made into permanent chattel. However, if we account for a few key facts we may begin to think more critically. Firstly most non-white immigrants are not actually a post-civil rights era demographic. Secondly, the racialized status of non-white immigrants is contemporaneous with slavery, American expansionism, and the various phases of the second life of slavery and the after-life of slavery. Finally, this argument relies on the premise that black economic development and political autonomy has been met with open arms. In this paper, I explore the stakes of this argument and the cultural work that is being done by it.
... Building on the recent literature on whiteness and the older literature on scientific racism,... more ... Building on the recent literature on whiteness and the older literature on scientific racism, I argue that the scientific language about biology and physiognomy that is usually linked to scientific racism must be brought back into conversation with the literary, historical, legal, and ...
From the No Papers No Fear Freedom Rides to Ethnic Studies Now! to #sayhername to Black Lives Mat... more From the No Papers No Fear Freedom Rides to Ethnic Studies Now! to #sayhername to Black Lives Matter to the battles against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline the Black Radical Tradition is being invigorated with the proliferation of hyper-local campaigns with a potent national reach. For the past three summers, national organizing conferences dealing with policing, police brutality, mass incarceration, "policing the crisis" and the incredible violence of environmental destruction have brought the conversation of structural violence against black and brown and Native bodies to light again and again. But those of us who have worked with Cedric Robinson are carrying on these fights while also mourning the loss of our beloved teacher and friend. What are the lessons about organizing in the midst of tragedy, loss, and deadly conditions that to be found in the archive of Cedric Robinson's body of work?
Collective reflective piece by Paola Bacchetta, Fatima El Tayeb, Jin Haritaworn, Jillian Hernande... more Collective reflective piece by Paola Bacchetta, Fatima El Tayeb, Jin Haritaworn, Jillian Hernandez, SA Smythe, Vanessa E. Thompson and Tiffany Willoughby-Herard
AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE CALLS OF U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FOR greater security measures an... more AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE CALLS OF U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FOR greater security measures and retribution for the lives and resources lost during the attacks elicited a range of responses within the United States. Although many people were angry and fearful of additional attacks, others were frustrated with the retaliatory and often racist rhetoric calling for war and for greater domestic surveillance, and dismayed that the ongoing neoliberal reduction of public space had found a new justification. (1) Many from this latter constituency took to the streets in protest of the invasion of Afghanistan, the dwindling civil liberties at home, the proposed (and later realized) military offensive against Iraq, and the disaster capitalism accompanying these invasions. In the United States and worldwide, the demonstrations reached their peak immediately before and just after the United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Much of the energy of the U.S. antiwar movement dissipated after the 2004 presidential election, which reinstated the administration that led the country into an always contested and increasingly unpopular war. This article considers the antiwar movement in Santa Barbara, California, initiated during the buildup to the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a case study for exploring the use and creation of public spaces by antiwar activists, the different visions of activism and social life within the movement, and the impact of relationships to institutional power on the interactions between individuals and dissenting groups. This analysis occurs at the edges of dominant studies of social movements, as it addresses public space and the geographical dimensions of social activism. (2) Emphasizing space has numerous merits, including the possibility to focus on the interactions among different groups of people during public demonstrations. Although we recognize that most, if not all, public demonstrations, including those discussed in this article, are part of broader social movements, we emphasize spatial and power dynamics rather than political opportunities, collective identities, or resource mobilization in order to address aspects of social movements that are often undertheorized in existing literature. (3) In particular, we discuss the utilization, theorization, and politicization of space by diverse constituencies in Santa Barbara protests against the latest U.S.-Iraq war. Moving beyond the usual state-versus-dissenter binary, this article deconstructs the unitary categories of "citizen" and "dissenter," discussing the ways in which different groups make distinct claims and have diverse imaginaries concerning the use of space. At the same time that public protest has been incorporated into the liberal state and routinized through the permit process, it has also become less effective at accommodating more radical positions against the war and the economic and security crises brought on by corporate globalization (Mitchell and Staeheli, 2005). Additionally, the demographics and history of Santa Barbara, including the presence of a large research university, largely predetermined the level of cross-racial and cross-class political collaboration that took place. Therefore, we use Jesse Mumm's (2008) concept of "intimate segregation" to highlight the ways in which marginalized people (particularly people organizing via queer, racial and ethnic, gender, and feminist identities), through creative organizing strategies and reappropriation of public space, articulate and enact forms of dissident citizenship distinct from more mainstream, and often explicitly patriotic, forms of protest. Mumm emphasizes how people occupy space differently and come to understand their place. In his example of gentrification in a Chicago neighborhood, "white people begin to internalize [segregation] as they learn to police local spaces, social life, and neighborhood narratives in order to maximize their privilege" (Ibid. …
A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people ... more A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people argues that the former are the reason why the latter are not given reparations for being made into permanent chattel. However, if we account for a few key facts we may begin to think more critically. Firstly most non-white immigrants are not actually a post-civil rights era demographic. Secondly, the racialized status of non-white immigrants is contemporaneous with slavery, American expansionism, and the various phases of the second life of slavery and the after-life of slavery. Finally, this argument relies on the premise that black economic development and political autonomy has been met with open arms. In this paper, I explore the stakes of this argument and the cultural work that is being done by it.
The presentation examined the political and social strategies and the ethical percepts, which the... more The presentation examined the political and social strategies and the ethical percepts, which the African women had to go through. They survived migration and intervened in the shape and structure of the forces of involuntary migration and the construction of rural and urban spaces
Abstract:This essay provides a robust introduction to the vexed and generative terrains of Afro-p... more Abstract:This essay provides a robust introduction to the vexed and generative terrains of Afro-pessimisms and black feminisms. Taken together, the essays reviewed address what each tendency says about the nature of black positionality and the significance of the meanings and histories attached to black female flesh and the slave polity—the "arbiters of blackness itself"—via considerations of deep literacy, psychoanalysis, sound theory, black m/othering, drama, ethnography, material conditions of knowledge production, canon formation, intellectual appropriation, coalition politics, state and vigilante murder and sexualized violence, and the risk of repeating Euro-American Enlightenment through mischaracterizing the relationship between colonialism and slavery.
A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people ... more A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people argues that the former are the reason why the latter are not given reparations for being made into permanent chattel. However, if we account for a few key facts we may begin to think more critically. Firstly most non-white immigrants are not actually a post-civil rights era demographic. Secondly, the racialized status of non-white immigrants is contemporaneous with slavery, American expansionism, and the various phases of the second life of slavery and the after-life of slavery. Finally, this argument relies on the premise that black economic development and political autonomy has been met with open arms. In this paper, I explore the stakes of this argument and the cultural work that is being done by it.
... Building on the recent literature on whiteness and the older literature on scientific racism,... more ... Building on the recent literature on whiteness and the older literature on scientific racism, I argue that the scientific language about biology and physiognomy that is usually linked to scientific racism must be brought back into conversation with the literary, historical, legal, and ...
From the No Papers No Fear Freedom Rides to Ethnic Studies Now! to #sayhername to Black Lives Mat... more From the No Papers No Fear Freedom Rides to Ethnic Studies Now! to #sayhername to Black Lives Matter to the battles against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline the Black Radical Tradition is being invigorated with the proliferation of hyper-local campaigns with a potent national reach. For the past three summers, national organizing conferences dealing with policing, police brutality, mass incarceration, "policing the crisis" and the incredible violence of environmental destruction have brought the conversation of structural violence against black and brown and Native bodies to light again and again. But those of us who have worked with Cedric Robinson are carrying on these fights while also mourning the loss of our beloved teacher and friend. What are the lessons about organizing in the midst of tragedy, loss, and deadly conditions that to be found in the archive of Cedric Robinson's body of work?
Collective reflective piece by Paola Bacchetta, Fatima El Tayeb, Jin Haritaworn, Jillian Hernande... more Collective reflective piece by Paola Bacchetta, Fatima El Tayeb, Jin Haritaworn, Jillian Hernandez, SA Smythe, Vanessa E. Thompson and Tiffany Willoughby-Herard
AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE CALLS OF U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FOR greater security measures an... more AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE CALLS OF U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FOR greater security measures and retribution for the lives and resources lost during the attacks elicited a range of responses within the United States. Although many people were angry and fearful of additional attacks, others were frustrated with the retaliatory and often racist rhetoric calling for war and for greater domestic surveillance, and dismayed that the ongoing neoliberal reduction of public space had found a new justification. (1) Many from this latter constituency took to the streets in protest of the invasion of Afghanistan, the dwindling civil liberties at home, the proposed (and later realized) military offensive against Iraq, and the disaster capitalism accompanying these invasions. In the United States and worldwide, the demonstrations reached their peak immediately before and just after the United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Much of the energy of the U.S. antiwar movement dissipated after the 2004 presidential election, which reinstated the administration that led the country into an always contested and increasingly unpopular war. This article considers the antiwar movement in Santa Barbara, California, initiated during the buildup to the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a case study for exploring the use and creation of public spaces by antiwar activists, the different visions of activism and social life within the movement, and the impact of relationships to institutional power on the interactions between individuals and dissenting groups. This analysis occurs at the edges of dominant studies of social movements, as it addresses public space and the geographical dimensions of social activism. (2) Emphasizing space has numerous merits, including the possibility to focus on the interactions among different groups of people during public demonstrations. Although we recognize that most, if not all, public demonstrations, including those discussed in this article, are part of broader social movements, we emphasize spatial and power dynamics rather than political opportunities, collective identities, or resource mobilization in order to address aspects of social movements that are often undertheorized in existing literature. (3) In particular, we discuss the utilization, theorization, and politicization of space by diverse constituencies in Santa Barbara protests against the latest U.S.-Iraq war. Moving beyond the usual state-versus-dissenter binary, this article deconstructs the unitary categories of "citizen" and "dissenter," discussing the ways in which different groups make distinct claims and have diverse imaginaries concerning the use of space. At the same time that public protest has been incorporated into the liberal state and routinized through the permit process, it has also become less effective at accommodating more radical positions against the war and the economic and security crises brought on by corporate globalization (Mitchell and Staeheli, 2005). Additionally, the demographics and history of Santa Barbara, including the presence of a large research university, largely predetermined the level of cross-racial and cross-class political collaboration that took place. Therefore, we use Jesse Mumm's (2008) concept of "intimate segregation" to highlight the ways in which marginalized people (particularly people organizing via queer, racial and ethnic, gender, and feminist identities), through creative organizing strategies and reappropriation of public space, articulate and enact forms of dissident citizenship distinct from more mainstream, and often explicitly patriotic, forms of protest. Mumm emphasizes how people occupy space differently and come to understand their place. In his example of gentrification in a Chicago neighborhood, "white people begin to internalize [segregation] as they learn to police local spaces, social life, and neighborhood narratives in order to maximize their privilege" (Ibid. …
A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people ... more A prominent straw man in arguments about the impact of non-white immigrants on poor black people argues that the former are the reason why the latter are not given reparations for being made into permanent chattel. However, if we account for a few key facts we may begin to think more critically. Firstly most non-white immigrants are not actually a post-civil rights era demographic. Secondly, the racialized status of non-white immigrants is contemporaneous with slavery, American expansionism, and the various phases of the second life of slavery and the after-life of slavery. Finally, this argument relies on the premise that black economic development and political autonomy has been met with open arms. In this paper, I explore the stakes of this argument and the cultural work that is being done by it.
The presentation examined the political and social strategies and the ethical percepts, which the... more The presentation examined the political and social strategies and the ethical percepts, which the African women had to go through. They survived migration and intervened in the shape and structure of the forces of involuntary migration and the construction of rural and urban spaces
Abstract:This essay provides a robust introduction to the vexed and generative terrains of Afro-p... more Abstract:This essay provides a robust introduction to the vexed and generative terrains of Afro-pessimisms and black feminisms. Taken together, the essays reviewed address what each tendency says about the nature of black positionality and the significance of the meanings and histories attached to black female flesh and the slave polity—the "arbiters of blackness itself"—via considerations of deep literacy, psychoanalysis, sound theory, black m/othering, drama, ethnography, material conditions of knowledge production, canon formation, intellectual appropriation, coalition politics, state and vigilante murder and sexualized violence, and the risk of repeating Euro-American Enlightenment through mischaracterizing the relationship between colonialism and slavery.
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