Both theoretical and pragmatic, this refreshingly savvy book
charts a course for the Black Lives Matter generation.
In the United States, both struggles against oppression and the gains
made by various movements for equality have often been led by Black
people. Still, though progress has regularly been fueled by radical
Black efforts, liberal politics are based on ideas and practices that
impede the continued progress of Black America. Building on their
original essay "The Anarchism of Blackness," Samudzi and
Anderson show the centrality of anti-Blackness to the foundational
violence of the United States and to the racial structures upon which
it is based as a nation. Racism is not, they say, simply a product of
capitalism. Rather, we must understand how anti-Blackness shaped the
contours and logics of European colonialism and its many legacies, to
the extent that "Blackness" and "citizenship" are
exclusive categories.
As Black As Resistance makes the case for a new program of
self-defense and transformative politics for Black Americans, one
rooted in an anarchistic framework that the authors liken to the
Black experience itself. This book argues against compromise and
negotiation with intolerance. It is a manifesto for everyone who is
ready to continue progressing towards liberation.
"As Black as Resistance is an urgently needed book . .
. a call to action through an embrace of the anarchy of blackness as
a recognition and a refusal of the deathly logics of liberalism and
consumption. In the face of the ever expanding carceral state, levels
of inequality, environmental degradation, and resurgent fascism, this
book offers a map to imagining the liberated futures that we can and
must and do make." --Christina Sharpe, author of In
the Wake: On Blackness and Being