As a member of the National Council of Black Studies International Committee, I invite you to participate in a special session at #NCBS2018. It is Panel #105, that takes place Sat., March 17, 8:00 to 9:15am, at The Westin Buckhead Atlanta Mezzanine. Discuss with a gender diverse, intergenerational and international group of leading scholars some of the major political questions of the day that face all of us in Africana Studies on a global level.

A New Black International? Contemporary Black Radicalism across the Americas

The current global crisis that includes not only economic malaise but also a rise in political authoritarianism and increased policing by states had widened social and racial inequalities and hence racial and sexual violence. A deepening world crisis of neoliberal capitalism and the rise of a new right in national, regional and global contexts, imply reconfigurations of racial projects that involved the emergence of overtly violent racist ideologies and practices as dramatically exemplified by ultra-conservative, racist regimes such as Trump in the U.S. and Temer in Brazil wherein it is clear that Black Lives are devalued and disposable. In Colombia, at the same time that the national government declared itself a champion of anti-racist policies, paramilitaries constantly murder Black activists, thus further jeopardizing an already failing peace process. In this world-historical context there has been an emergence of Black movements across the Americas that are convened with the slogan that Black Lives Matter. These movements tend to articulate an intersectional critique of racial capitalism in terms of the entanglements of class, gender, sexual, and racial oppressions that corresponds to anti-racist politics aiming for systemic change and liberation. This panel will present and analyze this new wave and webs of Black radicalism in the Americas, situating it in larger historical landscapes of radical Pan-Africanism, Black Marxism, and Afro-feminism. The presentations will address this problematic from particular movements and locations, analyzing the patterning of transnational/translocal networks of Black radical activism in order to map their practices, projects and perspectives.

Chair:
Amilcar Shabazz, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Afro-American Studies.

Presenters:

1. Jesus Chucho Garcia. Venezuelan Consul to New Orleans (Afro-Venezuelan)
2. Juliana Goes. University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Afro-Brazilian)
3. Agustín Laó-Montes. University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Afro-Puerto Rican)

Discussants:
John Bracey, Jr. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Afro-American Studies.
Charisse Burden-Stelly, Carleton College.

Presentations:

The Bolivarian Process and Afro-Venezuelan Revolutionary Politics
Jesus Chucho Garcia.

Since the first electoral triumph of Hugo Chavez Frías in 1998 Venezuela began a process baptized as a Bolivarian Revolution that championed changes in the political, economic and cultural landscape of Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond. This presentation will expose a panoramic view of the importance of Afro-Venezuelan activism both demanding and designing the Bolivarian revolution´s positions and policies against racism and for racial justice in Venezuela, and also in providing leadership for the organization of Black Left networks across the Americas, linking and organizing Black radicals in the U.S. and throhghout Latin America and the Caribbean. It will also analyze the leading role of Afro-Venezuelans in developing a politics of solidarity with the African continent.

“Geração Tombamento”: reflections about the political strategies of the Black Brazilian youth
Juliana Goes.

In the past years, colorful hair, clothes and lipsticks have become common among the Brazilian Black youth. They have used the aesthetics as a form of political resistance and created spaces of empowerment and articulation of the young black people. However, this way of making politics has suffered several critiques, especially related to the hyper-individualization of the black struggle. In addition, this political strategy has been appropriated by the capitalist system. Considering this, the paper consists of an analysis of the “Geração Tombamento” through the lens of the black radicalism and reflections about its potentialities and challenges. Furthermore, this analysis will relate to two major paradigms faced by Brazilian black movements: how to overcome the whitening ideology and the struggle between emancipation vs. inclusion. Then, the final goal of the paper is to promote the debate and improvement of contemporary political strategies in the black movements.

Black Lives Matter from Ferguson to Buenaventura: An Africana Renaissance
Agustín Laó-Montes

This presentation will discuss the emergence of a new wave of Black antisystemic movements in the Americas by looking into two key loci of activism: the Black Lives Matter Movement in Ferguson, Missouri, and the Civic Strike in the city of Buenaventura, Colombia. The analysis will focus on two dimensions: on the one hand, the rise of a neoliberal racial necropolitics in both cities; and, on the other hand, the rise of a new common sense wherein claim for racial justice are make in terms of an intersectional politics of liberation that clealy link racial, gender, sexual, and class opressions from local to global scales, thus constuting a new wave of Pan-African radicalism wherein there is a renaissance of a now queered Black feminism and marxism.

 

Afrodescendants International Fora and Conferences

The issue of racial discrimination has been discussed at different international fora and conferences, in particular the following:

1978, First World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, Geneva

1983, Second World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, Geneva

2000, Experts Seminar, Santiago, Chile, October 25 to 27, 2000

2000, Regional Conference of the Americas (Proposal of Santiago). Preparatory meeting for the Third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Santiago, Chile, December 5 to 7, 2000.

2001, NGO Forum of the Americas for Diversity and Pluralism

2001, Third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance

2002, Latin America-Caribbean Regional Seminar of Experts on implementation of the Durban Programme of Action

2002, Declaration of La Ceiba

2003, Regional Workshop for the Adoption and Implementation of Affirmative-Action Policies for People of African Descent in Latin America and the Caribbean

2004, Comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (E/CN.4/2004/L.2)

2004, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

2005, Comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action

2005, Pre Santiago +5

2008, Report of the Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean Preparatory to the Durban Review Conference (Brasilia, 17–19 June 2008)

2009, Declaration of the Second Inter-American Forum of Afro-descendants

2009, Final document of the Durban Review Conference.

2011, First World Summit of Afro-descendants held August 18-21,  in La Ceiba, on the occasion of the International Year for People of African Descent, which brought together more than 1,400 people from 44 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, producing the La Ceiba Declaration and Plan of Action.

2014, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; Distr.: General, 13 March, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination with concluding observations on the combined initial & 2nd to 5th periodic reports of Honduras *