What if Justice is Getting in the Way? with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Bayo Akomolafe

Bayo Akomolafe's most recent essay on the limits of Black excellence and the risks of recognition forces strange considerations: what does a politics based on the rehabilitation of Black bodies and their subsequent inclusion leave out of focus? In what ways might Blackness exceed the conditions of its violent formulation? What if justice gets in the way of the transformations we yearn for?
Join us Wednesday, March 29, 2023 (8:00 AM - 9:00 AM PST / 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM CET) for our next event in the ongoing series The Edges in the Middle, where scholar and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Global Senior Fellow Bayo Akomolafe will explore Black identity, Black excellence, and the limits of seeking inclusion.

[@andreajadusingh9142]

Professor Yemattah Taylor is situating the various premises within the context of the United States which is easier to understand. Not all particulars are applicabe especially when the argument leans on the verbose. Thank you both for your various perspectives i have learnt a lot. Justice in the Caribbean seems to be riding the same 19th century horse only difference is the horse has new shoes

[@ronniecnv8579]

I part of the dominant class. When I think about justice and freedom, I imagine a world in which all of us (human) see the humanity of all of us (humans). From my place of privilege, I want all humans to have their basic needs met regardless of their place in society. Clean air, clean water, food, shelter. But that is not enough. Access to education. Access to power. Access to possibility, hope. And also a letting go of fear, a letting go of our divisive separateness and yet holding onto our traditions (uniqueness).

[@thenubianspeaks4329]

II think there is a danger of overthinking some of these concepts, which is a danger of intellectualism. Using unfamiliar words, complicates the understanding of the average person, who is capable of being a part of the conversation and making a contribution, but who finds the language exclusionary. The gentleman need to find words and language that represents an intelligent analysis but at the same reaches people who are not necessarily on an advanced formal educational level, but have a desire and capability to understand complicated concepts. Only then, can we create or attract people to an organization that can be effective in moving us toward goals that represent a change that ia beneficial to the largest group of people possible. In the long run organization is the key to accomplishing what we eventually determine as what it means to be free in the first place

[@relish07]

I agree

[@r.michaelfisher7930]

On a symbolic level (perhaps), there is this summative point raised and troubling, by one listener's comments, which grabs my attention as to what I want to say here in the comment: "The sister is much easier to follow...". Indeed, I heard throughout this dialogue a "struggle" with talking about 'struggle' from such two very different (yet overlapping) intersections--which are black American imaginaries and black African imaginaries, and respectively a black socialism/materialism that really is not able, willing, or is (?) with regard to the relations of the poetic (this latter, which is the platform of Akomolafe). I'm keeping my comment brief, not that I enjoy doing so. Good for you both for 'trying' this rather 'impossible' conversation and I can only watch, again, the missing and passages around and 'not quite landing' --but then, maybe we just have to let these kinds of conversations go back to the earth for composting. But what if one partner in the dialogue doesn't want to do that? And one wants to do that? Is this going to interrupt and delay 'justice' --I think it probably will. Yet, I know not what Taylor and Akomolafe did with this conversation...I'm only getting this surface and I'm getting these comments below and all of it rings of the 'missing each other' that I experienced in this conversation.

[@thenubianspeaks4329]

The sister is much easier to follow, and brings up more concrete concepts that are universally relatable.

[@tamikojohnson5399]

Thank you for posting this. Unfortunately, the closed captions aren't showing for those of us who are hard of hearing/deaf. It would be wonderful if they could be added so the recording could be accessible. Thank you much.

[@debrawilliams1693]

Very hard to understand… please slow down

[@thenubianspeaks4329]

"Post Humanist" ????? or Co-inact?? what dode that mean, Are these even words. You can't make up a vocabulary without a definition.