Charis welcomes authors Too Black and Rasul A. Mowatt in conversation with Ezra McCoy for a discussion of Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits. Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits is a spatial and historical critique of the capitalist State that examines how Black Rage-conceived as a constructive and logical response to the conquest of resources, land, and human beings racialized as Black-is cleaned for the unyielding means of White capital. This event is co-hosted by the Black Alliance for Peace, Atlanta Citywide Alliance.
Interlacing political theory with international histories of Black rebellion, it presents a thoughtful challenge to the counterinsurgent tactics of the State that consistently convert Black Rage into a commodity to be bought, sold, and repressed. Laundering Black Rage investigates how the Rage directed at the police murder of George Floyd could be marshalled to funnel the Black Lives Matter movement into corporate advertising and questionable leadership, while increasing the police budgets inside the laundry cities of capital - largely with our consent.
Essayist/Performer Too Black and Geographer Rasul A. Mowatt assert Black Rage as a threat to the flow of capital and the established order of things, which must therefore be managed by the process of laundering.
Intertwining stories of Black resistance throughout the African diaspora, State building under capitalism, cities as sites of laundering, and the world making of empire, Laundering Black Rage also lays the groundwork for upending the laundering process through an anti-colonial struggle of reverse-laundering conquest. Relevant to studies of race and culture, history, politics, and the built environment, this pathbreaking work is essential reading for scholars and organizers enraged at capitalism and White supremacy laundering their work for nefarious means.
Too Black is a low-wage worker, poet, organizer, and filmmaker. As a poet, Too Black has headlined the historic Nuyorican Poets Café, Princeton University, and Johannesburg Theater in South Africa. His words have appeared in publications such as Black Agenda Report, Left Voice,Indianapolis Recorder, and Hood Communist. He is also the co-director of the award-winning documentary The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up.
Rasul A. Mowatt is a son of Chicago and a subject of empire, while dwelling within notions of statelessness, settler colonial mentality, and anti-capitalism. Rasul also functions in the State as a Department Head in the College of Natural Resources, as an Interim Department Head in the Division of Academic and Student Affairs, and as an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. He is the author of the book The Geographies of Threat and the Production of Violence: The City and State Between Us.
Ezra McCoy is a south Atlanta-based fiction writer, cultural critic, and essayist. His work explores the intersections of labor, love, and liberation in class-based society as found in literature, art, music, history, and politics. His work is featured or forthcoming in Rotary, Moguldom, Bold Culture, Medium.com, and his regular newsletter, Ezra Indited. He enjoys going on photography walks and searching used bookstores for first editions of obscure texts. He loves listening to jazz, blues, and rap. He uses he/they pronouns.
The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person the night of the event.
3 май 2024
