The Matter of All Black Lives

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-97
Author(s):  
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz ◽  
Shamari Reid
Keyword(s):  
Toni Morrison ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Artists ◽  
Black Experience ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Timely Issue

Evoking the spirit of Toni Morrison, we were moved to view the work of the scholars in this special issue through the lens we used to frame a class we taught last spring— Black Lives Matter: A Multimodal Journey. The course was centered around Morrison’s notion of the Black Gaze and was designed to specifically ask the question: What becomes possible with regard to Black liberation when we center the Black Gaze? Our approach to the course purposely centered the beauty and brilliance of the Black experience through the work of Black artists, scholars, writers, entrepreneurs, and media producers. Furthermore, we organized our course by what one of our students, Sharina Gordon, called the “pillars” of Blackness (Gordon, 2021): Black Gaze, Black Genius, Black Joy, Black Healing, and Black Love. We found the Pillars of Blackness to be a useful construct as we read the articles in this special issue. In doing so, we highlight how the authors featured in such a timely issue center these pillars and offer them as a guide as we think about where we go next in our collective journey toward Black liberation.

scholarly journals Sport, race and ethnicity in the wake of black lives matter: introduction to the special issue

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-191
Author(s):  
Adam B. Evans ◽  
Sine Agergaard ◽  
Paul Ian Campbell ◽  
Kevin Hylton ◽  
Verena Lenneis
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter and the Struggle for Freedom

2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Brian P. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
Black Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Incremental Change ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Black President ◽  
Black Movement ◽  
New Phase

In late April 2016, at a town hall-style event in London, President Obama complained about the rising movement against the state-sanctioned murder of black people often referred to as Black Lives Matter. Activists, he admonished, should "stop yelling" and instead push for incremental change through the official "process."… The spectacle of the first black president scolding black activists in the context of a rising rate of police murder (as of this writing, the police have killed 630 individuals, at least 155 of them black, nationwide in 2016) speaks volumes about the state of black politics today.… For those trying to understand the emergence of a new black movement—or, perhaps more accurately, a new phase of a longer, older movement—on the watch of the first black president, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's new book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is an essential starting point.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

scholarly journals The view from the streets

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Vahisha Hasan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Southern United States ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The Impact

This article offers a view of the impact of Dr. James Cone’s Black liberation theology on faith-based social action from an orientation of front-line activism of people of faith. The significance of the southern United States and the founding/founders of the Black Lives Matter movement are two examples through which the article explores this impact. Six questions posited by theologian Diana Hayes, as well as the liberatory possibilities in their answers, are crucial for the front-line activism of tomorrow.

The Violence of Leadership in Black Lives Matter

2021 ◽  
pp. 243-262
Author(s):  
Dana Francisco Miranda
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Full Model ◽  
Black Leadership ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Decentralized Leadership ◽  
Racialized Violence

Since the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012, the United States has seen the coalescing of black protestors and activists along with their multiracial collaborators under the banner of Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). This struggle against racialized violence, police brutality, and white supremacy has been witnessed in myriad ways, with two of its most prominent “reactions” occurring in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland. Within this struggle, the organization Black Lives Matter (BLM) has chosen to follow a “leader-full” model that replaces traditional hierarchical forms of leadership for that of collaboration and decentralization. This chapter thus seeks to highlight the competing notions of centralized and decentralized leadership within black liberation movements to better understand this model. Using the works of Barbara Ransby, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Frantz Fanon, this work will explore forms of black leadership that articulate alternative modes of accountability, service, and well-being within the struggle for black livability.

If “Black Lives Matter in Literacy Research,” Then Take This Racial Turn: Developing Racial Literacies

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 530-552
Author(s):  
Marcus Croom
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Literacy Research

When I look back before 2020, before the murder of Mr. George Floyd in particular, and think about this special issue, “Black Lives Matter in Literacy Research,” a question comes to my mind: Are we, the field of literacy research, sure that we want to include literacy research among the incalculable responses (already in progress) to racist killings, anti-Blackness, Black living and dying, and ongoing injustices in the United States of America? In other words, will Black human beings matter to our field? With the hope that our field of literacy research is finally taking this racial turn as an institution, I introduce the post-White orientation as well as practice of race theory (PRT) and argue for the lifelong development of racial literacies among fellow literacy researchers. In short, this article is designed to support the development of racial literacies in the field of literacy research with the aim of affecting research, practice, and policy.

scholarly journals Race as a Carceral Terrain: Black Lives Matter Meets Reentry

2019 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason M. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Women Of Color ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated ◽  
Community Reentry ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Critical Issues

In the United States, racialized people are disproportionately selected for punishment. Examining punishment discourses intersectionally unearths profound, unequal distinctions when controlling for the variety of victims’ identities within the punishment regime. For example, trans women of color are likely to face the harshest of realties when confronted with the prospect of punishment. However, missing from much of the academic carceral literature is a critical perspective situated in racialized epistemic frameworks. If racialized individuals are more likely to be affected by punishment systems, then, certainly, they are the foremost experts on what those realities are like. The Black Lives Matter hashtag came about during the aftermath of the George Zimmerman non-verdict in the killing of Trayvon Martin, and it helped to cultivate the organization which turned into a multiracial international movement in defense of Black dignity and humanity. While Black Lives Matter was initially inspired by police violence, it has expanded its reach to include causes beyond police malpractice and brutality. This special issue of The Prison Journal seeks to merge principles associated with Black Lives Matter (as noted on their website) with critical issues endemic to community reentry after incarceration and the racialized and gendered impediments it produces. The empirical pieces included are qualitative to reflect the epistemologies of the affected, as we believe that narratives more powerfully capture these hard-to-reach (or deviant in comparison to the norm) perspectives. This special issue includes articles that critically foreground the voices of formerly incarcerated citizens (including some who are mothers and fathers) and reentry service providers. Importantly, it provides suggestions for new directions in reimagining a more democratic and racially equitable society without current punishment regimes.

scholarly journals Teaching Celia in the Age of Black Lives Matter

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon R. Byrd
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
Black Life ◽  
New Generation

The emergence of Black Lives Matter has introduced a language of black liberation to a new generation of students. In doing so, it has provided an opportunity for historical study. Teacher-scholars can and should take advantage of the renewed interest in systemic threats to black life in the United States when teaching about past victims of state-sanctioned violence including Celia, an enslaved teenager executed for killing her master after years of sexual abuse. In doing so, they can not only draw useful connections between the past and present but also lay the foundations for a more meaningful study of black radicalism and black resistance in the United States.

scholarly journals Review of Adrian Dunn's The Black Messiah

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kennedi A. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Black Artists ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Timely Response ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Powerful Group ◽  
The U.S

The Black Messiah album is a sonic meditation on Black life that confronts the histories of anti-Black racism in the U.S. Showcasing a powerful group of Black artists, the album combines multiple genres including gospel, rap, jazz and opera. The Black Messiah offers a counter to George Handel’s Messiah and a timely response to the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020.

scholarly journals The Impact of Slavery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: From the Communal to the Individual

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Mahameed Mohammed
Keyword(s):  
Toni Morrison ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
American People ◽  
African American People ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
Black Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Slavery is a condition of extreme physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual deprivation, a kind of hellish life. This paper aims at exploring how the culture of white racism sanctioned not only official systems of discrimination but a complex code of speech, behavior, and social practices designed to make white supremacy not only legitimate but natural and inevitable. In her masterpiece, Beloved (1987), Toni Morrison portrays the dehumanizing effects of slavery on the past and memory of her heroine. Morrison has dedicated her literary career to ensuring that black experience under, and as a result of, slavery would not be left to interpretations solely at the dictates of whites. This study shows how Toni Morrison has succeeded in revealing the physical and psychological damage inflicted on African American people by the brutal inhumanity that constituted American slavery. The paper, in this context, investigates how the memory and the past of the heroine act as destroyers of her motherly existence.

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