Speaking [selected]
Book Presentation - Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua
I had a wonderful conversation with Rocío Zambrana and Jorell Meléndez-Badillo celebrating the publication of Marisol LeBrón’s book Against Muerto Rico, available for purchase here.
CPA Book Friday - Filosofía del cimarronaje
I spent some time talking with Mayra Santos-Febres and Nelson Maldonado-Torres about Filosofía del cimarronaje, moderated by Rosario Torres Guevara, as part of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s “Book Friday!” program.
Afro-Knowledges/Afro-Saberes and Decolonization: The Work of Corredor Afro
From Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies:
This is a bilingual conversation about afro-knowledges/afro-saberes and the decolonization of knowledge, including music, philosophy, the humanities, pedagogy, and spirituality.
Dr. Marta Moreno Vega is the author of When the Spirits Dance Mambo: Growing Up Nuyorican in El Barrio, and The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santeria. She is also co-editor of Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora, and Director of the Creative Justice Initiative. She was recently awarded the 2020 Latina Trailblazer Pionera Honoree prize by LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
Maricruz Rivera Clemente is a community leader, intellectual, and founder of Corporación Piñones se Integra, a community organization with more than ten years located in the majority Afro Puerto Rican community of Piñones, Loíza. She is also a doctoral candidate in the Beatriz Lasalle Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Puerto Rico.
Other participants include Carter Mathes, Amanda González Izquierdo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and RAICCS’ inaugural Thought Leader Pedro Lebrón.
¡A la fuga! Tejiendo el feminismo cimarrón en el Caribe
From la Colectiva Feminista en Construcción [in Spanish]:
Este mes de noviembre, de mal llamados 'descubrimientos', procesos democráticos, y narrativas sobre elecciones, decisiones y participación ciudadana, nosotras tiramos pal monte. Optamos por subvertir las lógicas coloniales y apostar a la formación política popular y colectiva, a tender puentes entre el mar caribeño que nos rodea, a mirar la lucha de quienes nos antecedieron.
Les invitamos a esta jornada de feminismo cimarrón, de discusiones y encuentros como tácticas de resistencia y quiebres al sistema. Comenzamos la jornada con nuestra Escuela Feminista Radical, en donde trabajaremos el tema del cimarronaje y activismo feminista negro. Dedicaremos una sesión especial a conversar con activistas y académicas feministas negras junto a aliadxs sobre las praxis cimarrona y las posibilidades que esta nos ofrece para un horizonte decolonial.
Estarán con nosotras Yuderkys Espinosa, de Junta de Prietas; Shariana Ferrer-Nuñez de la Colectiva Feminista en Construcción; Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, escritora feminista antirracista; Pedro Lebrón Ortiz, de Teorizando el Giro Decolonial; y Nelson Maldonado-Torres, de la Fundación Frantz Fanon.
Decolonialidad en el Caribe y acción/teoría cimarrona
A conversation between Shariana Ferrer-Núñez from la Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and myself on decoloniality in the Caribbean and marronage as theory and praxis.
Reconstructing Locality through Marronage
Invited presentation as part of the celebration of the conference series “Fanon at 95”.
Summary:
For Fanon, decolonization requires violence because altering one’s subjectivity from that of the damnés to that of the human proper is legible as a transgression against the colonial order. I suggest that part of the process of altering one’s subjectivity requires an affirmation of alterity through a reconnection to ancestral ways, which allows for a re-construction of locality, while simultaneously one must work to fracture the colonial logics constitutive of European modernity. Marronage, when understood phenomenologically, is a vehicle for this double process.
Linchados y castrados: notas sobre la violencia racista
As part of el Corredor Afro’s “Afro Saberes” program, I was invited to give a talk on white supremacist violence. This talk focused on the sexual aspect of racist violence against non-white men and boys, Black men and boys in particular.
Summary [in Spanish]:
Los hombres y niños racializados, en particular los hombres y niños negros, sufren de un tipo de violencia particular dentro de la supremacía blanca debido a su raza y su género, cosa que ha quedado desapercibido por la interseccionalidad. El cuerpo del hombre negro constituye una amenaza a la endogamia supremacista blanca. Se concibe al hombre negro como un falo andante con un deseo sexual insaciable, siempre dispuesto a violar. Por lo tanto, para proteger la santidad y pureza de la feminidad blanca, reproductora del proyecto imperial supremacista blanco, los hombres y niños negros sufren una tasa mayor de vigilancia, encarcelamiento, y muerte a manos de policías y vigilantes blancos.