Antiracism Inc. traces the ways people along the political spectrum appropriate, incorporate, and... more Antiracism Inc. traces the ways people along the political spectrum appropriate, incorporate, and neutralize antiracist discourses to perpetuate injustice. It also examines the ways organizers continue to struggle for racial justice in the context of such appropriations. Antiracism Inc. reveals how antiracist claims can be used to propagate racism, and what we can do about it.
While related to colorblind, multicultural, and diversity discourses, the appropriation of antiracist rhetoric as a strategy for advancing neoliberal and neoconservative agendas is a unique phenomenon that requires careful interrogation and analysis. Those who co-opt antiracist language and practice do not necessarily deny racial difference, biases, or inequalities. Instead, by performing themselves conservatively as non-racists or liberally as ‘authentic’ antiracists, they purport to be aligned with racial justice even while advancing the logics and practices of systemic racism.
Antiracism Inc. considers new ways of struggling toward racial justice in a world that constantly steals and misuses radical ideas and practices. The critical essays, interviews, and poetry collected here focus on people and methods that do not seek inclusion in the hierarchical order of gendered racial capitalism. Rather, they focus on aggrieved peoples who have always had to negotiate state violence and cultural erasure, but who also work to build the worlds they envision. These collectivities seek to transform social structures and establish a new social warrant guided by what W.E.B. Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” a way of being and thinking that privileges people, mutual interdependence, and ecological harmony over individualist self-aggrandizement and profits. Further, these aggrieved collectivities reshape social relations away from the violence and alienation inherent to gendered racial capitalism, and towards the well-being of the commons. Antiracism Inc. articulates methodologies that strive toward freedom dreams without imposing monolithic or authoritative definitions of resistance. Because power seeks to neutralize revolutionary action through incorporation as much as through elimination, these freedom dreams, as well as the language used to articulate them, are constantly transformed through the critical and creative interventions stemming from the active engagement in liberation struggles.
This chapter explores the transnational circulation of notions of black hypersexuality in Brazil ... more This chapter explores the transnational circulation of notions of black hypersexuality in Brazil and beyond. It focuses on three sites of analysis that explore how cross-cultural perceptions of sexual difference are produced and perpetuated in the tourism industry. First, it examines Oswaldo Sargentelli’s Oba-Oba mulata shows, which situated the mulata on stage as an eroticized spectacle for the consumption of white male foreigners. Second, it analyzes a YouTube video that depicts a young Arnold Schwarzenegger on stage dancing with a woman of African descent who is dancing samba. Seeing her scantily clad, he takes the opportunity to grab her behind. Finally, the presentation reflects on the Marcha das Vadias (Slut Walk) that occurred in Salvador for the three years (2011-2013). In these three sites of analysis, women of African descent, like “sluts” and sex workers, are seen as having no bodily rights worth protecting. This presentation draws upon often overlooked scholarship on bla...
Our colleague and ancestor Clyde Woods always reminded me to write something that the community n... more Our colleague and ancestor Clyde Woods always reminded me to write something that the community needs and can use. I hope that this project contributes to that important work. I am forever thankful to the students who enthusiastically volunteered to participate in UCSB's Faculty Research Program (FRAP) with me and in connection to this project. I am grateful for the learning and memories developed with Julia Olson, Cristina Roman, and Simrun Bhagat. I am also grateful to the students of Feminist Studies 185 (2008) and English 197 (2011) for their courageous exploration of Black sexual politics and depictions of intraracial intimacy. Victor Rios and Rebeca Mireles are friends and colleagues who have helped me to hold it down in the most important way. There's no number of pages that could contain my gratitude to you, Maya, viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1. Cited parenthetically throughout.
I introduce the concept of “intimate antagonisms” to examine literary representations of intrarac... more I introduce the concept of “intimate antagonisms” to examine literary representations of intraracial conflict. The radical unity of Black politics exacerbates the painful injuries inflicted by intraracial abuses in the microsocial sphere. At the same time, however, the radical disunity enunciated in critiques of intracommunal rejection and repudiation serve as key sites for redefining racial resistance and augmenting understanding of racial justice for the entire group by calling attention to the ways that intraracial acts of aggression and abandonment reproduce rather than resist the injustices of racism. I explore these questions in Gayl Jones’s neoslave narrative Corregidora. Emboldened by Civil Rights and Black Power struggles, the neoslave narrative questions the relationships between literacy and liberation and between liberation and freedom. Addressing intimate conflict in Black life is central to the meaning of resistance and struggle in these narratives. Because the exercise of racism positions Black people as the witnesses and symbols of each other’s oppression, I demonstrate how the depictions of “intimate antagonisms” create the opportunity to examine how intraracial conflicts impact Black political consciousness. I argue that depictions of intra-group relations represent critical sites where the realities of racist subordination are negotiated, arbitrated, inculcated, and resisted.
This article examines three instances of mass violence for what they tell us about the inadequaci... more This article examines three instances of mass violence for what they tell us about the inadequacies of post-racial and colourblind discourses in the US and Europe. I apply an intersectional analysis of the manifestoes that Anders Behring Breivik, Elliot Rodger and Dylann Roof leave in the wake of their horrific acts. These manifestoes, in their appropriation of rights discourses and desire for a white racial order, expose the ambivalent commitments to persons of colour evident in the current retreat of many Western states from multiculturalist ideals in favour of post-racial integration. These states now advocate policies of integration over previous emphases on multiculturalism and diversity, a move that reflects the growing popular promotion of national identity and nativist culture. I argue that such incidents of mass violence should be understood in relation to the political, social and cultural contexts that perpetuate and often legitimate xenophobia and gendered racism.
My dissertation examines how the economic, political, and social transformations of the post Civi... more My dissertation examines how the economic, political, and social transformations of the post Civil Rights era are reflected in contemporary Black literature. I discuss how the current exercise of racism shapes experiences of isolation, fracture, and alienation that manifest intraracially. Rather than exclusive focus on the political, ideological, and cultural forces that organize racial subjectivity from the dominant gaze, my analysis centers how the exercise of racial domination impacts how raced subjects perceive each other. The dissertation posits ...
Antiracism Inc. traces the ways people along the political spectrum appropriate, incorporate, and... more Antiracism Inc. traces the ways people along the political spectrum appropriate, incorporate, and neutralize antiracist discourses to perpetuate injustice. It also examines the ways organizers continue to struggle for racial justice in the context of such appropriations. Antiracism Inc. reveals how antiracist claims can be used to propagate racism, and what we can do about it.
While related to colorblind, multicultural, and diversity discourses, the appropriation of antiracist rhetoric as a strategy for advancing neoliberal and neoconservative agendas is a unique phenomenon that requires careful interrogation and analysis. Those who co-opt antiracist language and practice do not necessarily deny racial difference, biases, or inequalities. Instead, by performing themselves conservatively as non-racists or liberally as ‘authentic’ antiracists, they purport to be aligned with racial justice even while advancing the logics and practices of systemic racism.
Antiracism Inc. considers new ways of struggling toward racial justice in a world that constantly steals and misuses radical ideas and practices. The critical essays, interviews, and poetry collected here focus on people and methods that do not seek inclusion in the hierarchical order of gendered racial capitalism. Rather, they focus on aggrieved peoples who have always had to negotiate state violence and cultural erasure, but who also work to build the worlds they envision. These collectivities seek to transform social structures and establish a new social warrant guided by what W.E.B. Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” a way of being and thinking that privileges people, mutual interdependence, and ecological harmony over individualist self-aggrandizement and profits. Further, these aggrieved collectivities reshape social relations away from the violence and alienation inherent to gendered racial capitalism, and towards the well-being of the commons. Antiracism Inc. articulates methodologies that strive toward freedom dreams without imposing monolithic or authoritative definitions of resistance. Because power seeks to neutralize revolutionary action through incorporation as much as through elimination, these freedom dreams, as well as the language used to articulate them, are constantly transformed through the critical and creative interventions stemming from the active engagement in liberation struggles.
This chapter explores the transnational circulation of notions of black hypersexuality in Brazil ... more This chapter explores the transnational circulation of notions of black hypersexuality in Brazil and beyond. It focuses on three sites of analysis that explore how cross-cultural perceptions of sexual difference are produced and perpetuated in the tourism industry. First, it examines Oswaldo Sargentelli’s Oba-Oba mulata shows, which situated the mulata on stage as an eroticized spectacle for the consumption of white male foreigners. Second, it analyzes a YouTube video that depicts a young Arnold Schwarzenegger on stage dancing with a woman of African descent who is dancing samba. Seeing her scantily clad, he takes the opportunity to grab her behind. Finally, the presentation reflects on the Marcha das Vadias (Slut Walk) that occurred in Salvador for the three years (2011-2013). In these three sites of analysis, women of African descent, like “sluts” and sex workers, are seen as having no bodily rights worth protecting. This presentation draws upon often overlooked scholarship on bla...
Our colleague and ancestor Clyde Woods always reminded me to write something that the community n... more Our colleague and ancestor Clyde Woods always reminded me to write something that the community needs and can use. I hope that this project contributes to that important work. I am forever thankful to the students who enthusiastically volunteered to participate in UCSB's Faculty Research Program (FRAP) with me and in connection to this project. I am grateful for the learning and memories developed with Julia Olson, Cristina Roman, and Simrun Bhagat. I am also grateful to the students of Feminist Studies 185 (2008) and English 197 (2011) for their courageous exploration of Black sexual politics and depictions of intraracial intimacy. Victor Rios and Rebeca Mireles are friends and colleagues who have helped me to hold it down in the most important way. There's no number of pages that could contain my gratitude to you, Maya, viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1. Cited parenthetically throughout.
I introduce the concept of “intimate antagonisms” to examine literary representations of intrarac... more I introduce the concept of “intimate antagonisms” to examine literary representations of intraracial conflict. The radical unity of Black politics exacerbates the painful injuries inflicted by intraracial abuses in the microsocial sphere. At the same time, however, the radical disunity enunciated in critiques of intracommunal rejection and repudiation serve as key sites for redefining racial resistance and augmenting understanding of racial justice for the entire group by calling attention to the ways that intraracial acts of aggression and abandonment reproduce rather than resist the injustices of racism. I explore these questions in Gayl Jones’s neoslave narrative Corregidora. Emboldened by Civil Rights and Black Power struggles, the neoslave narrative questions the relationships between literacy and liberation and between liberation and freedom. Addressing intimate conflict in Black life is central to the meaning of resistance and struggle in these narratives. Because the exercise of racism positions Black people as the witnesses and symbols of each other’s oppression, I demonstrate how the depictions of “intimate antagonisms” create the opportunity to examine how intraracial conflicts impact Black political consciousness. I argue that depictions of intra-group relations represent critical sites where the realities of racist subordination are negotiated, arbitrated, inculcated, and resisted.
This article examines three instances of mass violence for what they tell us about the inadequaci... more This article examines three instances of mass violence for what they tell us about the inadequacies of post-racial and colourblind discourses in the US and Europe. I apply an intersectional analysis of the manifestoes that Anders Behring Breivik, Elliot Rodger and Dylann Roof leave in the wake of their horrific acts. These manifestoes, in their appropriation of rights discourses and desire for a white racial order, expose the ambivalent commitments to persons of colour evident in the current retreat of many Western states from multiculturalist ideals in favour of post-racial integration. These states now advocate policies of integration over previous emphases on multiculturalism and diversity, a move that reflects the growing popular promotion of national identity and nativist culture. I argue that such incidents of mass violence should be understood in relation to the political, social and cultural contexts that perpetuate and often legitimate xenophobia and gendered racism.
My dissertation examines how the economic, political, and social transformations of the post Civi... more My dissertation examines how the economic, political, and social transformations of the post Civil Rights era are reflected in contemporary Black literature. I discuss how the current exercise of racism shapes experiences of isolation, fracture, and alienation that manifest intraracially. Rather than exclusive focus on the political, ideological, and cultural forces that organize racial subjectivity from the dominant gaze, my analysis centers how the exercise of racial domination impacts how raced subjects perceive each other. The dissertation posits ...
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Books by Felice Blake
While related to colorblind, multicultural, and diversity discourses, the appropriation of antiracist rhetoric as a strategy for advancing neoliberal and neoconservative agendas is a unique phenomenon that requires careful interrogation and analysis. Those who co-opt antiracist language and practice do not necessarily deny racial difference, biases, or inequalities. Instead, by performing themselves conservatively as non-racists or liberally as ‘authentic’ antiracists, they purport to be aligned with racial justice even while advancing the logics and practices of systemic racism.
Antiracism Inc. considers new ways of struggling toward racial justice in a world that constantly steals and misuses radical ideas and practices. The critical essays, interviews, and poetry collected here focus on people and methods that do not seek inclusion in the hierarchical order of gendered racial capitalism. Rather, they focus on aggrieved peoples who have always had to negotiate state violence and cultural erasure, but who also work to build the worlds they envision. These collectivities seek to transform social structures and establish a new social warrant guided by what W.E.B. Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” a way of being and thinking that privileges people, mutual interdependence, and ecological harmony over individualist self-aggrandizement and profits. Further, these aggrieved collectivities reshape social relations away from the violence and alienation inherent to gendered racial capitalism, and towards the well-being of the commons. Antiracism Inc. articulates methodologies that strive toward freedom dreams without imposing monolithic or authoritative definitions of resistance. Because power seeks to neutralize revolutionary action through incorporation as much as through elimination, these freedom dreams, as well as the language used to articulate them, are constantly transformed through the critical and creative interventions stemming from the active engagement in liberation struggles.
Papers by Felice Blake
While related to colorblind, multicultural, and diversity discourses, the appropriation of antiracist rhetoric as a strategy for advancing neoliberal and neoconservative agendas is a unique phenomenon that requires careful interrogation and analysis. Those who co-opt antiracist language and practice do not necessarily deny racial difference, biases, or inequalities. Instead, by performing themselves conservatively as non-racists or liberally as ‘authentic’ antiracists, they purport to be aligned with racial justice even while advancing the logics and practices of systemic racism.
Antiracism Inc. considers new ways of struggling toward racial justice in a world that constantly steals and misuses radical ideas and practices. The critical essays, interviews, and poetry collected here focus on people and methods that do not seek inclusion in the hierarchical order of gendered racial capitalism. Rather, they focus on aggrieved peoples who have always had to negotiate state violence and cultural erasure, but who also work to build the worlds they envision. These collectivities seek to transform social structures and establish a new social warrant guided by what W.E.B. Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” a way of being and thinking that privileges people, mutual interdependence, and ecological harmony over individualist self-aggrandizement and profits. Further, these aggrieved collectivities reshape social relations away from the violence and alienation inherent to gendered racial capitalism, and towards the well-being of the commons. Antiracism Inc. articulates methodologies that strive toward freedom dreams without imposing monolithic or authoritative definitions of resistance. Because power seeks to neutralize revolutionary action through incorporation as much as through elimination, these freedom dreams, as well as the language used to articulate them, are constantly transformed through the critical and creative interventions stemming from the active engagement in liberation struggles.