Posts Tagged ‘Flint’

Readings for September/October + New Fliers

Wednesday, August 16th, 2017

For September and October we will be trying something new. Up to now, each text we read would not have any connection to the text before or previous. They were nominated and chosen with no theme in mind, and were simply individual texts that we wanted to read and discuss.

What will be different about these upcoming two months is that we have a theme that unites all the readings. The idea is that the conversations we have can build over the course of four readings, since each text is related by theme. We will try this out and see if it works before committing to doing the same thing for November and December.

The theme for September and October is anti-blackness. We will be discussing where it fits in to perpetuating this society, what it does to both those who suffer from it and those privileged by it, and resistance both historically and in present day.

By sharpening our ideas, we hope to better fight against racism and this monstrous society that it is deeply woven into.

As always, we meet the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Here is the schedule for September and October, with a description of what each text is about:

9/5 – “Democracy, Disposability, and the Flint Water Crisis” by Third Coast Conspiracy – Analysis from anti-state, anti-capitalist blogs in Michigan about the
water crisis in Flint, and what it says about how this society treats the lives of the mostly black people who live in Flint (and similarly in Detroit).”

9/19 – “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” by bell hooks – The second chapter of Black Looks: Race and Representation. This chapter analyzes how blackness is viewed by white people as being more intense, authentic, and therefore threatening. A commodified form of blackness is sought after because it is seen as more pleasurable.

10/3 – “A Very Short Introduction to Afro-Pessimism” by Isidore – This was written to be the preface of the book “Afro-Pessimism: An Introduction.” Afro-pessimism is a theoretical tendency that centers anti-blackness as opposed to white supremacy itself, and explores how the concept of the human is made in antithesis of that of the slave. These theorists re-examine the definition of slavery and the social death that accompanies it in order to demonstrate that this society is structured by the social death of black people, that blackness is defined in this way, and it is impossible to eliminate this social death without destroying the foundations of this society.

10/17 – “The Dragon and the Hydra” by Russell Maroon Shoatz – A historical overview of decentralized organizational methods of resistance, including that of maroon societies.

As always, you can find free printouts of these texts two weeks prior to our discussion of them. Here is the flyer and quarter-sheet.