The Quotidian Racism of Dylann Roof: Mariame Kaba Interview

Image is by Emory Douglas, who was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party.

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This episode, we are thrilled to interview Mariame Kaba (@PrisonCulture), an educator and organizer based in Chicago. We discuss the “absolutely quotidian and mundane way” that white supremacy manifests in our society, how we arbitrate terror in the wake of Charleston, how Afro-pessimism describes our current predicament, and how the homes of black Americans have always been fair game for the state—from Batterrams in L.A., to warrantless raids in NYC, to raids that persist in Chicago today.

We also discuss why, even though Chuck Todd should TOTALLY quit his job, unless we shift the media’s allegiances, someone else will just pop in to take his place and replicate the same conversation.

In addition, Alexis discusses one example of how racial prejudice makes its way into policy. We’ll dig into the GOP’s hatred of “disparate impact” theory, and how conservatives have long been fighting, both in the Supreme Court and in Congress, to make racial discrimination in housing even harder to prove than it already is. Here is a good summary of Rep. Scott Garrett’s two amendments, to two different appropriations bills, to try and block disparate impact theory from being used to enforce Fair Housing cases. The vote breakdown of Rep. Garrett’s amendments can be found here and here.

Further Reading

Mariame Kaba’s piece for The New Inquiry, “Summer Heat.”

Alexis quoted a Ta-Nehisi Coates piece from last May called “This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist“:

“Housing affects your chances of being robbed and shot as well as your chances of being stopped and frisked. And housing discrimination is as quiet as it is deadly. It can be pursued through violence and terrorism, but it doesn’t need it. Housing discrimination is hard to detect, hard to prove, and hard to prosecute. Even today most people believe that Chicago is the work of organic sorting, as opposed segregationist social engineering. Housing segregation is the weapon that mortally injures, but does not bruise.The historic fumbling of such a formidable weapon could only ever be accomplished by a graceless halfwit—such as the present owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.”

Alexis mentioned the essay by academic Robin DiAngelo “White Fragility,” which states that white people “often confuse comfort with safety and state that we don’t feel safe when what we really mean is that we don’t feel comfortable. ”

Mariame mentioned that “we can’t leave it at those arguments about white fragility. White fragility has as its counterpart black un-humanness. We cannot see black people as human beings that that sentence [Chuck Todd wrote, in response to criticism of the segment, “Meet the Press should make all viewers uncomfortable at some point or we are not doing our job”] could be uttered by Chuck Todd.”  And she discussed a number of Afro-pessimists, who discuss this black un-humanness at greater length, including:

Frank Wilderson

Jared Sexton

Sylvia Wynter

Saidiya Hartman

Mariame mentioned the paper “Waking Nightmares” by Zakiyyah Jackson that talks about blackness as a structural position.

Mariame mentioned the Toddy Tee 1981 song “The Batteram”

And Alexis mentioned a clip of Ronald Reagan that was featured in the Stanley Nelson documentary “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,” which is on the festival circuit now but hits theaters in September.

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Credit Where Due

The theme for this show is the song “Missing You” by Jahzzar, also know as Javier Suarez. You can find his work at betterwithmusi[...]