Course Description
Summary
The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police forces of Minneapolis (MN), late May of this year sparked weeks-long mobilizations unprecedented in U.S. history. Those marches, protests, and unrest were unprecedented in their geographic scope, the numbers of people involved, the age and multicultural/racial/ethnic demographics they encompassed.
Almost immediately following the events related to George Floyd, on the other side of the Atlantic – in France – another case of police brutality involving Adama Traoré, a young black man of Malian origin and French birth, life and citizenship, managed to gather, to some unexpectedly, large numbers of people in French cities in a way that had not occurred since 1983 and the first large-scale march against Racism and for Equality in Hexagonal France.
By looking at this particular moment of anti-racism activism as it unfolds, how can one reflect on the history, nature and specificities of the global questions of racism and anti-racism as they take root and are both understood and managed in France and the United States, two Western powers with highly distinct and differing approached to these issues. But despite the differences in management, in each country, black lives remain precarious and fragile. What are the many and complex forms of racism? How does racism morph according to the territory where it is cultivated? Through observations of the past and present, what can we learn to make sense of the present and imagine a future in which full humanity – that is to say the justice- is shared equally, accessible to all?
Terms