In Search of a Black, Indigenous Future Awakening De/Anti-Colonization
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IN SEARCH OF A BLACK, INDIGENOUS FUTURE AWAKENING DE/ANTI-COLONIZATION BY SANDRA MARIE HUDSON A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION ONTARIO INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO © Copyright by Sandra Marie Hudson, 2018 IN SEARCH OF A BLACK, INDIGENOUS FUTURE: AWAKENING DE/ANTI-COLONIZATION Sandra Marie Hudson Master of Arts Department of Social Justice Education University of Toronto 2018 ABSTRACT This thesis demonstrates the need to retheorize ideas of decolonization as they relate to Black people and anti-Blackness. Placing critical texts together in a discursive engagement reveals their theoretical gaps. Numerous texts within discursive literature on decolonization pervasively absent Blackness. Those texts that do address Blackness tend to disregard Black people’s history and relationship to the Land prior to European colonial contact with the African continent. Instead, such works often discuss Blackness solely as it relates to enslavement and the afterlife of slavery (Hartman, 2007), in a stunted manner that belies white supremacist logics (Smith, 2010) and anti-Blackness. This thesis critically analyzes existing works about settler colonialism, anti- Blackness, white supremacy and de/anti-colonization theory. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have many people to thank, without whom this undertaking would not have been possible. First and foremost, I thank my mother, Juliette Marcia Hudson; my father, Donovan Hudson; my sister, Dionne Hudson; and my brother, Michael Hudson. Without their constant love and support, none of my endeavours would be possible. While writing this thesis, I dealt with difficult targeted anti-Black attacks as a semi-public figure and activist. To this next set of people, thank you for being my close friends and confidantes, for pushing me, discussing my ideas with me, and being there for me when it all seemed too much. I am so grateful to my cousins, Matthew Shepherd and Janaya Khan; and to my dear friends Alice Wu, Adnan Najmi, Adam Awad, Walied Khogali, Gilary Massa, Saron Gebresselassi, Rodney Diverlus, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and Leah Stokes. To my teams: Black Lives Matter—Toronto and the Black Liberation Collective, especially Yusra Khogali, Pascale Diverlus, Ravyn Wngz, Syrus Marcus Ware, Leroi Newbold, Brieanne Berry- Crossfied, Sefanit Habtemariam, and Melissa Theodore, thank you for struggling with me, trusting me, and doing the courageous work with me that made everything I have written in this work possible. To the professors at the University of Toronto who supported me, mentored me, and helped me believe that I could engage in serious academic work: Professor George Dei, Professor Rinaldo Walcott, Professor John Portelli, Professor Vannina Sztainbok, Professor Alyssa Trotz, Professor Stan Doyle-Wood, Professor Dickson Eyoh, Professor Melanie Newton, Professor Beverly Bain, and Professor Deborah Cowen, thank you for always having my back and believing in me. iii To the OGs who remain a constant guiding light, and source of love: Professor Idil Abdillahi, Professor Akua Benjamin, Dr. Angela Robertson, Professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Professor Afua Cooper, and Beth Jordan, thank you for giving me something to aspire to. And finally, I give thanks to my grandmothers and ancestors, for making it all possible. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p. iii II. TABLE OF CONTENTS------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p. v 1. INTRODUCTION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p. 1 2. CONTEXT: THE WEATHER-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------p. 26 3. DE/ANTI-COLONIZATION DISCOURSE: WHAT’S HERE? WHAT’S MISSING? CRITIQUES p. 46 4. BLACKNESS: WHERE DO WE APPEAR? HOW DO WE APPEAR? WHAT’S MISSING?----- p. 74 5. UNBORDERABLE: DIASPORIC BLACKNESS------------------------------------------------------------p. 97 6. ANTI-BLACK ANTAGONISMS IN THE ACADEMY---------------------------------------------------p. 121 7. CONCLUSION-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p. 138 8. WORKS CITED------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------p. 141 v 1 1. INTRODUCTION: THEORY, METHOD, AND SOCIAL LOCATION This thesis demonstrates the need to retheorize ideas of decolonization in a settler colonial context as they relate to Black people and anti-Blackness. Placing critical texts together in a discursive engagement reveals their theoretical gaps. It also uncovers the logics of white supremacy and anti-Blackness that currently influence the literature. This thesis critically analyzes existing works about settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, white supremacy and de/anti- colonization theory. Numerous texts within discursive literature on decolonization pervasively absent Blackness. Those texts that do address Blackness tend to disregard Black people’s history and relationship to the Land prior to European colonial contact with the African continent. (Here, I use the term Land as more than simply geography: it is a “social, cultural and political [construct] with far reaching consequences for decolonial and anti-racist politics…The Land is not simply a fixed physical space/place” [Dei, 2017, p.116].) Instead, such works often discuss Blackness solely as it relates to enslavement and the afterlife of slavery (Hartman, 2007), in a stunted manner that belies white supremacist logics (Smith, 2010) and anti-Blackness. Additionally, too much academic space delineates differences between Black and Indigenous people. Such work highlights instances when either community has aided the settler-master in projects of colonization and enslavement. It does not properly situate enslavement as a tool of settler and classic colonialism. These hegemonic obstacles obscure discursive de/anti-colonial theorizing about responsibilities owed to Black people worldwide as continued victims and survivors of colonialism and enslavement. This school of thought also fails to connect hundreds of years of brutality with the history of ancestors of formerly enslaved Africans: they had a relationship to the Land, irreparably severed 2 by colonialism. Such academic discourse thus prevents de/anti-colonization theorists from engaging with Black people as dispossessed people. It also fails to adequately address the politics of colonialism—and a contemporaneous neo-colonial, imperialist economic structure— on the African continent. These lacunae prevent discursive theorizing of Black people as dispossessed from their Lands in varying degrees. They preclude discussion of how an anti-colonial futurity could and should manifest. Simultaneously, this literature engages incompletely with enslavement—and therefore cannot show how a liberated Black futurity could and should manifest. These gaps in the literature produce a highly problematic, anti-Black, incomplete engagement with settler colonialisms. Prior to locating myself within the work that I am embarking on, I wish to comment on discourse and the purpose of this project. This thesis is a racial project, in the sense that Omi and Winant (2014) describe. It is a work of political scholarship that reorganizes the ways we think and act with respect to de/anti-colonization projects and race. In particular, it interrupts and shift the discourse with which we discuss de/anti-colonization—and in tandem, colonization—in a North American context. My experiences and identity as a social activist particularly inform my approach to this topic. I founded Black Lives Matter–Toronto in 2014. A social movement against anti-Blackness, Black Lives Matter–Toronto is the Toronto-based chapter of an international movement dedicated to Black liberation. In many ways, the Toronto chapter’s involvement has forced the movement for Black lives to critically reflect on its American-centric frame and investment in American imperialism. 3 I recall a meeting of the Black Lives Matter network in which Black Lives Matter–UK and Black Lives Matter–Toronto were the only international chapters present. It became clear that a global understanding of Blackness was not a given for many. Some attendees did not understand why there would be movements against anti-Blackness in Canada and the United Kingdom. Some asked us to explain our existence outside of the United States—how did we come to be in Canada? How did we come to be in the UK? I was only accustomed to hearing these questions from non-Black people. Some Black American attendees suggested initiating campaigns to move to Canada to escape anti-Blackness. There was barely any mention of Indigeneity, colonialism or land issues. This surprised me; I had not expected the differing political geographies to shroud the experiences of Black people so effectively between locations. I realized that this contemporaneous movement for Black liberation required an interruption of (at worst) an imperialist mindset. It might make gains for Black people within the American empire, but would not effectively challenge the ways that the empire itself manifests anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and colonialism globally. Black Lives Matter–UK, Black Lives Matter–Toronto, and individual first- and second-generation migrants to the United States, all insisted on including