A morning with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

In recent years, Black Lives Matter has mobilized thousands of people in the United States and sparked a new generation of activists. Their claims have made it clear that, more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery and the progressive passing of laws guaranteeing—on paper—equality to all citizens, racism and discrimination persist in the United States and are deeply rooted in American institutions and mentalities.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, historian, activist and one of the most lucid voices of the anti-racist movement, has focused her studies on investigating the history of racial inequality in the United States and its far-reaching consequences, especially police violence, disparities in access to housing, school segregation and employment discrimination. According to Taylor, the radical inequality generated by slavery and racist policies in the United States has never been repaired or overcome, and has generated a cumulative effect that continues to operate even when, formally, the structures that foster racial discrimination have been abolished. In the runup to presidential elections in the United States, with Donald Trump as the firm Republican candidate, Taylor defends the history and validity of the anti-racist movement and calls for social movements like Black Lives Matter to stand up as a powerful and necessary response. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s reflections are also extremely useful for addressing the history and structures of racism and discrimination in our most immediate context.

The session has a pedagogical dossier (in Catalan) so that the students can work on the contents beforehand in the classroom and thus make the most out of the lecture.