THE DIASPORA, a special collection Fall 2014 - Winter 2015 edition In print & online at: thediasporablackmattersissue.com THE DIASPORA is a biannual publication of the Depart- ment of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Contributions are welcomed from UC Berkeley’s faculty, staff, and students. We also in- vite submissions from guest columnists and scholars who may not be affiliated with the university. Articles may be edited for length, clarity, and style. EDITOR & DESIGNER Ianna Hawkins Owen EDITING TEAM Na’ilah Suad Nasir Anthony Williams COVER ART “In Memoriam” (2014) Essence Harden Jihaari Terry DEPARTMENT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 660 Barrows Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-2572 Phone: (510) 642-7084 Fax: (510) 642-0318 http://africam.berkeley.edu CHAIR LECTURERS & VISITING FACULTY Na’ilah Suad Nasir Michael Mark Cohen (Senate Lecturer) Aya de León (Director, June Jordan’s Poetry for the People) PROFESSORS Hardy Frye (Professor Emeritus) Robert L. Allen (Emeritus) David Kyeu (Lecturer) William M. Banks (Emeritus) Claudia May (Visiting Scholar) Charles P. Henry (Emeritus) Aparajita Nanda (Lecturer) Percy Hintzen (Emeritus) Kwame Nimako (Lecturer) Michel S. Laguerre Alassane Paap Sow (Lecturer) john a. powell Quamé Patton (Lecturer) Margaret B. Wilkerson (Emerita) Cara Stanley (Lecturer) James L. Taylor (Lecturer) ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS Rickey Vincent (Lecturer) Brandi Wilkins Catanese Doniel Mark Wilson (Lecturer) Nikki Jones Sam A. Mchombo STAFF Na’ilah Suad Nasir Vernessa Parker, (Management Services Officer) Leigh Raiford Stephanie Jackson, (Administrative Assistant) Darieck Scott Lindsey Herbert, (Undergrad/Graduate Advisor) Janelle T. Scott Glenn L. Robertson, (Computer Resource Specialist) Stephen Small Ula Taylor ASSISTANT PROFESSORS DONATE Chiyuma Elliott To donate to the Department of African American Tianna Paschel Studies at the University of California, Berkeley please visit: http://tinyurl.com/give2AAS Insurgency: The Black Matter(s) Issue TABLE OF CONTENTS About the Issue (4) Letter of Solidarity (6) Remembering Emmett Till (8) Uses of Essentialism, or The Space of Black Legibility (9) On Effigies and Elegies (11) G-d Bless the Dead: A Calling of Names (15) In Memoriam (18) The Killable Black Bodies: An International Perspective (20) Ferguson Will Not Allow Me to Rest (23) “General Dissatisfaction” and the Possibilities of Black Student Discontent (26) The Making of a Grassroots Movement Against Anti-black Racism (29) The Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride (33) Movement or Moment in History (37) Law Enforcements’ Deployment of Excessive Force (39) Killing Us Slowly: Slow Death by Educational Neglect (41) Winter Witness (44) Our Paradoxical Breath (47) How Do I Love Thee? (50) “I Can’t Breathe”: T-shirts as Discursive Activism (52) When All Lives Matter (55) Birthing While Black: Reproductive Rights Matter (57) Trying to Find My Spaceship So I Can Fly Far, Far Away (59) The (de)Valuation of Black Lives (62) From Fear to Love (65) From (67) After Ferguson (69) Black Voices Can and Can’t Breathe at Protests in Berkeley (71) 7 Things Black People Should Know (74) Cal Black Student Union Press Release (76) Acknowledgements (78) About the Issue Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Department Chair and Associate Professor; Ianna Hawkins Owen, The Diaspora Editor and PhD Candidate Black lives matter. However, what that actually means of national action. These short-form works respond to to people in different locations, with different expe- both local and national manifestations of radical black- riences and different life chances is decidedly more ness and anti-blackness. Engaging with affectual, ma- complicated. The complexities of mobilizing against terial, memorial, historical and experiential concerns, anti-black racism is reflected in the naming of this is- we intend that these reflections serve as critical acts of sue—aiming to be in conversation with the ongoing witness, reports of participation, and letters of solidar- struggles in the streets and the assertions of black hu- ity. Posing personal and political questions about our manity online, while at the same time reflecting the role as intellectuals, academics, and educators we aim peculiar position of black scholars writing from the here, with you, to wrestle with what we think we know ivory tower. The title and contents of this issue are and remain open to the unknown next step in our tena- meant to engage with the roots of #BlackLivesMat- cious fight for justice and self-determination, strength- ter and to encapsulate the multiple meanings of be- ened by 400 years of insurgency in the kitchens, the ing black, and how and why that matters in this mo- prisons, the battlefields, the illegal spelling lessons. ment of virulent suppression of black bodies and the Robert Allen, Professor Emeritus, contributes spectacular and mundane executions of black people. “Remembering Emmett Till,” a work reflecting on his If blackness is a multiple and contingent category childhood memories of the lynching of Till in 1955 of being, both dominated and defiant, simultaneously ex- in order to draw connections to our present historical cessive and inadequate, paradoxically profited from yet moment. Vernessa Parker, staff member, contributes to treated as socially dead, then the “black” of “Black Lives conversations that connect #BlackLivesMatter to re- Matter” cannot be contained by 140-characters. Yet, the productive rights with her recollections of being pro- audacity of reducing blackness to an accessible hashtag filed as a young mother in “Birthing While Black.” has enabled new and successful forms of solidarity that, Kimberly McNair, doctoral candidate, has contribut- perhaps, we have yet to fully understand. Gesturing ed “G-d Bless the Dead: A Calling of Names” on the both to condition and response, functioning as both the spiritual practice of naming and insists on holding celebration of black life and the indictment of a system space for cis and trans women. Candidate Jarvis Giv- built to obstruct our celebration, The Black Matter(s) ens’ ““General Dissatisfaction” and the Possibilities Issue also positions itself along a continuum of black of Black Student Discontent” situates our understand- radical dreaming, in which our “black matter” is likened ing on #BlackLivesMatter mobilizations alongside the to dark matter: powerful, mysterious, not of this world. black activist oral history of Hardy Frye, a Mississip- This special issue of The Diaspora contains pi Freedom Rider and Professor Emeritus in the de- both work produced over the course of the Fall 2014 partment. Michael McGee, Jr., candidate, contributes semester and rapid reflections generated in the window another approach to memory work through historical of December 13 to 23, 2014 as part of the acceleration and contemporary acts of witnessing and imagining in 4 his “Winter Witness.” Tianna Paschel offers an analysis of the emergence, or- Leigh Raiford, Associate Professor, offers a ganization and demographics of the #BlackLivesMatter critical approach to understanding art installations protests. Gabriel Regalado, doctoral student, reports on of effigies on the Cal campus that draws together the his experiences on the ground in Ferguson, MO in his history of lynching, visuality, and the enduring trau- “The Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride: From Ferguson ma of blackness in her “On Effigies and Elegies.” Aya to UC Berkeley to National Advocacy.” Kenly Brown, de Leon, Director of Poetry To The People, and Fay- doctoral student, shares her experience of being among ia Sellu, doctoral student, respectively employ poetry those teargassed by the Berkeley Police Department to intervene in the withheld grievability of black life during a peaceful protest in “Law Enforcement’s De- in “How Do I Love Thee?” and “The (de)valuation of ployment of Excessive Force Against Peaceful Demon- Black Lives.” Essence Harden, doctoral student, and strators.” Ameer Loggins, candidate, analyzes the phe- her collaborator Jihaari Terry, have produced a large- nomenon of hashtagging, viral circulation and citizen scale work of visual art that melds the words of James journalism in transforming activist practices in the Unit- Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time with the names of victims ed States. Selina Makana, candidate, gives us a window of police and hate violence. A portion of the work is into the ways the circulation of stories from Ferguson featured on the cover of this print issue of The Diaspora and Staten Island have gripped the international com- and visually structures the online version of the issue. munity at UC Berkeley in her “Killable Black Bodies: Charisse Burden, candidate, meditates on the An International Perspective.” Associate Professor Ula direct action practice of blackness in “The Uses of Es- Taylor, approaching #BlackLivesMatter as a historian, sentialism, or the Space of Black Legibility.” Kimberly advises us to loosen our grip on Civil Rights Move- McNair’s second piece, “T-shirts as Discursive Activ- ment nostalgia in order to fully contend with the orga- ism,” situates the wearable, material culture activism nizational possibilities and formations of our particu- of “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirts in a critical tradition. Ian- lar moment in her “Movement or Moment in History.” na Hawkins Owen, candidate, offers a Fanonian and This print edition of Insurgency features supple- queer black feminist critique of the inclusive possibil- mental poetry and essays by Assistant Professor