AAAS Departmentalization
AAAS Departmentalization
By Kristin McFadden and Jameelah Morris Black Studies is forged out of a set of brutal realities. Black Studies reminds us of the premature death and gratuitous violence Black communities are subjected to, and the ways Black communities have historically and continuously fought back and imagined possibilities beyond this anti-Black state violence. Between 2020 and 2021, the domestic terrorism of white vigilantes and police officers has only escalated: Ma’Khia Bryant, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Monika Diamond, and so many more Black lives were prematurely taken, some of whose names and others whose names we do not. Their murders are only the latest reminders of the ongoing atrocities of the criminal policing system and the reverberating effects of anti-Blackness in the United States. Black Studies scholarship has examined how genocidal assemblages of anti-Blackness and white supremacist violence extend across time and space, and has studied how Black communities, who have engaged in continuous political struggle, have demanded a reckoning with these assemblages as they take shape in every realm of social life. And yet the call to action that is “Black Lives Matter” demands more from allies and supporters than using a hashtag, writing statements, or expressing guilt. It demands concrete measures for redress and restitution. Especially crucial for the discipline of anthropology is to acknowledge the ways that the discipline has been and continues to be implicated in the project of anti-Blackness and white supremacy. 35
