"bring out your dead": Understanding the historical persistence of the criminalization of black bodies

Bryant Keith Alexander; Marquis Bey

doi:10.1177/1532708616634773

"bring out your dead": Understanding the historical persistence of the criminalization of black bodies

Bryant Keith Alexander, Marquis Bey^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

African American Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

This essay speaks to the criminalization of Black bodies via the purported "confession" of wrongdoing that Blackness makes through the interpretive White gaze. Blackness operates as a site of always imminently actualized criminality or pathology that must be quelled or eradicated. Using James Baldwin's meditation on the function of Wayne Williams's body as a historical anchor, this essay seks to articulate the contemporary ways in which Black bodies are positioned via the White gaze, as well as demonstrate the continuity of anti-Black violence, itself predicated on what Charles Mills calls an "epistemology of ignorance."

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	271-277
Number of pages	7
Journal	Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies
Volume	16
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616634773
State	Published - Jun 2016

Keywords

Black bodies
Epistemology of ignorance
James Baldwin

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cultural Studies
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1177/1532708616634773

Cite this

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AB - This essay speaks to the criminalization of Black bodies via the purported "confession" of wrongdoing that Blackness makes through the interpretive White gaze. Blackness operates as a site of always imminently actualized criminality or pathology that must be quelled or eradicated. Using James Baldwin's meditation on the function of Wayne Williams's body as a historical anchor, this essay seks to articulate the contemporary ways in which Black bodies are positioned via the White gaze, as well as demonstrate the continuity of anti-Black violence, itself predicated on what Charles Mills calls an "epistemology of ignorance."

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"bring out your dead": Understanding the historical persistence of the criminalization of black bodies

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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