User Profile

Du coup, dire de quelqu’un qu’il est un « homme noir », c’est dire qu’il est un être prédéterminé biologiquement, intellectuellement et culturellement par son irréductible différence. Il appartiendrait à une espèce distincte. Et c’est en tant qu’espèce distincte qu’il devrait être décrit et catalogué. Pour la même raison, il devrait faire l’objet d’une classification morale elle aussi distincte. Dans le discours proto-raciste européen dont il est ici question, dire l’« homme noir », c’est donc évoquer les disparités de l’espèce humaine et renvoyer au statut d’être inférieur auquel est consigné le Nègre, à une période de l’histoire au cours de laquelle tous les Africains ont un statut potentiel de marchandise ou, comme on le disait à l’époque, de pièce d’Inde.

— Critique de la raison nègre by Achille Mbembe (Page 112)

À l'origine, le vocable « homme noir » sert d'abord à décrire et à imaginer la différence africaine. Peu importe que le « Nègre » désigne l'esclave tandis que le « Noir » désigne l'Africain qui n'a pas encore subi l'esclavage. À partir de l'époque de la traite des esclaves en particulier, c'est son vide présumé d'humanité qui caractérise cette différence. La couleur n'est, de ce point de vue, que le signe extérieur d'une indignité foncière, d'un avilissement premier.

— Critique de la raison nègre by Achille Mbembe (Page 111)

Crime tends to find Black people; or, to put it another way, the police find Black people and in doing so find crime. Black people are always out of place, always suspect, always potentially up to no good. It is the job of police to be on the lookout for trouble, and because of the ideas and stereotypes many police have about Black people, we tend to be the trouble they are looking for. I am not suggesting that Black people don't transgress or break the law; I am rather pointing out a deeper problem. Black transgression is assumed and sought out and expected. What constitutes crime, and how criminality is assessed by those "trained" to find it, is most often centered on Black people. These assumptions lead Black people to have encounters with police thar lead to further entanglements with the carceral system. Sometimes those encounters result in death at the hands of the police, and Black communities respond with protests, resulting in further entanglements. It's an impossible grim-go-round, and abolition is increasingly understood by many in the Black community as the only way we can ever get off of it.

— On Property by Rinaldo Walcott (Page 81)

Dénuée d'empirisme, donc, la sociologie refuse, à juste titre, le concept de racisme anti-Blanc. Celui-ci constitue, à moins d'être dupe, une fallacieuse stratégie visant à mettre deux trucs parfaitement inégaux sur un pied d'égalité. À opposer anecdotes et systèmes. À jouer à « oui, mais c'est lui qui a commencé! ». A s'autovictimiser. À sortir l'épouvantail du Grand remplacement. À galvaniser les craintes xénos et à offrir fausses solutions à faux problèmes: la réduction de l'immigration et autres manœuvres... discriminatoires, notamment. Cercle vicieux. Et vogue la galère.

— L’homme de paille by Frédéric Bérard (Page 62)

The history that underwrites practices like carding springs from slavery and its afterlife. And while these practices are now often recast as being about safety and security, the fact that they target the same groups of people as the earlier laws makes the truth abundantly clear to anyone who really cares to consider the matter. In a city like Toronto, 27 percent of all carding documented in 2013 involved Black people, a vastly higher proportion than their 8.9 percent share of the municipality's population. Indeed, it is the awareness that this dreadful history and its most brutal practices continues that motivates Black peoples' demands for abolition. Carding and similar practices create continuity between plantation slavery and the present moment, reminding Black people of their struggle for agency, autonomy, and, ultimately, to own their own bodies.

— On Property by Rinaldo Walcott (Page 34)

The issue of property sits at the centre of Black people's relationship with policing both past and present, and it is central to making sense of why more and more Black people, alongside others who support our communities, called for the defunding of the police, prisons, and the entire judicial system in the wake of George Floyd's murder. An abolitionist future is not possible without the abolition of police. And it is my contention that this is not possible without the abolition of property.

— On Property by Rinaldo Walcott (Page 12)

I often reflect on who I was as a little boy, before I internalized the belief that my sensitivity and vulnerability were legitimate sources of shame. Back then, I instinctively knew to follow my joy and be present in my feelings. I knew to honor what I felt, and I knew that I felt a lot. I knew that I was never too much. That what I felt wasn't too much. I'm trying to know that again.

I imagine a world where everyone has the kind of space they need to know their joy. A world where they can safely share their hearts. A world where their emotional needs can be met. And my freedom dreams are tied up with the project of dismantling any vision of manhood that limits or shames us. As long as we are not living in our full humanity, we cannot create a world for humanity.

— You Are Your Best Thing by Tarana Burke, Brené Brown (Page 77)