“I Can’t Breathe”: Gender, Sexuality, Nation and #BLM
On the occasion of 10 years #BlackLivesMatter
Location: DAZ, Charlottenplatz 17, 70173 Stuttgart Admission: Free Language: English Registration: Please register until July 18th via anmeldung@daz.org
In her talk, Prof. Dr. Jones will reflect on the 10-year history of the Black Lives Movement through the lenses of gender, class, and nation. Specifically, it discusses the ways in which BLM—began by three cis-gender Black women in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the vigilante killing of Trayvon Martin – “from the start” included an expansive, complex political and social justice agenda that addresses reproductive justice, LGBTQ lives, policing, economic justice, heath care, etc.
Numerous splinter organizations emerged with “Black Lives” in their title and often omitted the broader goal of dismantling racist and oppressive systems, a goal crucial to the BLM founders. Moreover, some of these “Black Lives Matter” groups explicitly focused on the vigilante and police killings of unarmed Black men and boys, ignoring the ways in which state-sanctioned and extralegal violence victimizes Black women and girls, alike. Lastly, Dr. Jones will survey the international reach of BLM, focusing on her encounters with and perception of BLM solidarity in Germany.
is the Carl A. Happold Associate Professor of History and Ethnic Studies. She is a historian of the United States, with expertise in American cultural and intellectual history, transnational history, US and the World, African American Studies, and pre-colonial African history. Her research explores the role of race in shaping American cultural and intellectual discourse and production, focusing on the ways in which “race” as a popular and scientific category operated as a potent signifier of difference—cultural, biological, social, and political—in America during the long . She is currently working on her next book project, America in Africa: U.S. Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1821‐1919, which is under advanced contract with Yale University. She is a collaborator and Project Director on the digital project “To Enter Africa from America: The United States, Africa, and the New Imperialism, 1862-1919.“
