There is a famous Maoist debate about the nature of the dialectic where, on the one hand, the primary law of the dialectic is a synthesis of two contradictory terms, formulated as the “two unites into one,” now commonly thought of as the resolution of the conflict between a thesis and its anti-thesis. On the other hand, the principle of the dialectic is...
Lucy Burns had a one-room schoolhouse in Raymond, Mississippi, where she was the head teacher, principal, janitor, cook, and bus driver. As Lucy’s great, great, great-granddaughter, Black education has always felt like my inheritance—a weighty, heavy legacy to hold. After being introduced to the figure of the Captive Maternal, this inheritance takes on new...
I came into the project of care ethics, reproductive justice, and Black women’s inner workings as a daughter of a Black teenage mother. Teen mom is a political category, born from deviant narratives used to pathologize Black adolescent girls. My teen mom was a mother who—against all the social pressure, misogyny, and antiblackness—pursued motherhood and her...
Part II: Abolition is The End John Lewis’ funeral indeed served as the site from which the state launched a decisive defense strategy in its effort to contain an escalating rebellion. The state’s defensive action leveraged the legacy and co-sign of a dutiful Negroliberal caretaker whose endorsement of the state’s (violent) action effectively...
I am grateful for the analyses, theories, and musings offered here about the Captive Maternal. I have no critiques of the gifts offered. My thanks to Scalawag for sharing its maroon site. Marronage is an essential part of the evolutionary trek of the Captive Maternal towards transformations that alter the world as we know it through our fear, loathing, and love...
[…] black poets cannot convince ourselves / cannot forgive ourselves / for what we are about to do — Momtaza Mehri, “A TABLEAU OF ASPIRATION OR FRANKLIN SITTING ON THE SOLITARY GARDEN DECK CHAIR IN 1973’s A CHARLIE BROWN THANKSGIVING” Like Momtaza Mehri’s incredible poem previewed above, I am thinking about...
“I see the expansion of heart and compassion. I don’t see a counter to organized terror.” — Joy James, “The Architects of Abolitionism: George Jackson, Angela Davis, and the Deradicalization of Prison Struggles” “[A]ny desire to save oneself from social death is already proof that the sacrificer is socially dead.” — David...