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LTT: S. Smith
February 23 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Subrena Smith, University of New Hampshire
Turning Race Inside Out
This will be an online lecture held via Zoom, and pre-registration is required. Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-pAsFsJ6QI62VKdTFx3o5w
ABSTRACT: Suppose you were to look at me and say of me that I am a Black person. Suppose, further, that you proceed to treat me as a Black person. Suppose that I respond to your saying that I am Black, that I am not Black. I might not be able to prevent you from thinking of me as Black, but I can and do object to you saying that I am Black. In this case, you might be inclined to say to me that I am wrong, that I do not understand the meaning of the term “Black.” You might further say that I am guilty of an act of epistemic or semantic violence. If this is so, I am going to try to dissuade you. Drawing on my experience of being racialized, I will try to persuade you that racialization involves not merely racial ascription, but also racial subscription, and therefore that social constructionist accounts of race do not succeed.