The Edges in the Middle, IV: Báyò Akómoláfé and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Illustration by Denis Williams from “Mbari Publications,” 1963
Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share Báyò Akómoláfé in conversation with scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
Speaking on the theme "What if justice gets in the way?,” Báyò and Keeanga engage in a lively conversation that considers how our quest for justice shapes us and is simultaneously shaped by systems of power and control. Together, they ask: how can we move justice out of the existing political paradigm and move beyond a normative sense of justice and reform?
Recognizing that concepts like justice and liberation are not static, Báyò and Keeanga meditate on the meaning of Black liberation and freedom, wondering what possibilities lie beyond inclusion. Through this conversation, Keeanga inquires as to what mechanisms propel us into new realities, and considers the ways ordinary life and existence may be a portal to creating new contexts. As we trace how we are imbricated with specific social systems, we may simultaneously also come to find the cracks within the systems, the places to push, and the spaces to commune and question together. Holding space for the complexity of struggle and refusal, this conversation offers guided insight into dialogues of change and the potential for paradigm shift.
“Without the outward signs of being shackled, we are still tethered to systems and ways of being and ways of seeing. How are we part and parcel of algorithms, systems, and ways of thinking that are sticky to get out of?”
“The Edges in the Middle” is a series of conversations between Báyò Akómoláfé and thought companions like john a. powell, V, Naomi Klein, and more. These limited episodes have been adapted from Báyò’s work as the Global Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute. In this role, Báyò has been holding a series of public conversations on issues of justice and belonging for the Institute's Democracy & Belonging Forum, which connects and resources civic leaders in Europe and the US who are committed to bridging across difference to strengthen democracy and advance belonging in both regions and around the world. Báyò's conversations encourage us to rethink justice, hope, and belonging by sitting amidst the noise, not trying to cover it up with pleasant rhythms. To learn more about the Democracy & Belonging Forum, visit democracyandbelongingforum.org.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University and a 2021 MacArthur Foundation fellow. She's a thought leader on black politics, social movements and racial inequality in the United States.
Describing The Edges in the Middle, Báyò Akómoláfé writes, “These explorations are not ‘safe’. These encounters will probably be offensive (we hope they are). This is not a preaching to the choir. This is a jumping-off-from-tightropes into potentially risky and emancipatory waters. This is a material inquiry of the unsayable, a leaning into the places we are not supposed to go to, a reconsideration of the ordinary, and a refusal to reify anything touched as finished, declared, transmitted, or final. As a ritual of inquiry at the end of the world, this is a material-discursive-pedagogic attempt at breaking through the sensory monoculture of compliance and cyclicity. Most importantly, this is a call for you to create-destroy with us, to with-ness, to greet more-than-human entities, to be pierced through, to be undone.” With this, we encourage you to listen to these conversations with curiosity and open exploration. How might we grow from challenge, from inquiry? What might the trickster bring to the table?
♫ The music featured in this episode is "Desert" and "Who Wears The Watch" by Sitka Sun, generously provided by The Long Road Society Record Label.
Photo of Báyò Akómoláfé
Photo of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Episode References
Black lives matter, But to whom? by Báyò Akómoláfé, Othering & Belonging Institute
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
To view the originally recorded conversation, visit https://belonging.berkeley.edu/video-what-if-justice-getting-way
The Edges in the Middle Series:
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