Description
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) has gained worldwide visibility as a grassroots social justice movement distinguished by a decentralized, non-hierarchal mode of organization, and in 2020 Black Lives Matter protests across the country shook America's moral conscience to its core. M4BL rose to prominence in part thanks to its protests against police brutality and misconduct directed at Black Americans. However, its animating concerns are far broader, calling for a wide range of economic, political, legal, and cultural measures to address what it terms a "war against Black people," as well as the "shared struggle with all oppressed people." Yet despite the significance of the social, political, and economic goals of M4BL, as well as the innovative organizational leadership strategies it employs, M4BL has so far received little sustained philosophical attention.The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives brings philosophical analysis to bear on the aims, strategies, policy positions, and intellectual-historical context of M4BL. Leading scholars tackle such themes as: "Black Lives Matter" as a political speech act, M4BL's conception of the value of Black lives, the gender dynamics of the Movement, the relation of M4BL to other Black liberation movements and transitional justice movements, the Movement's new forms of leadership and organization, and the impact of racism on the normative assessment of the criminal justice system.The volume broaches a wide range of pressing issues in the philosophy of language, social and political philosophy, philosophy of race, philosophy of gender, and the philosophy of punishment. It is vital reading for students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences interested in race, inequality, and social justice movements.
Table of Contents
IntroductionPart I - The Value of Black Lives1. What "Black Lives Matter" Should Mean, Brandon Hogan2. "And He Ate Jim Crow": Racist Ideology as False Consciousness, Vanessa Wills3. He Never Mattered: Poor Black Males and the Dark Logic of Intersectional Invisibility, Tommy J. CurryPart II - Theorizing Racial Justice4. Reconsidering Reparations: The Movement for Black Lives and Self-Determination, Olúfemi O. Táíwò5. The Movement for Black Lives and Transitional Justice, Colleen MurphyPart III - The Language of M4BL6. Positive Propaganda and the Pragmatics of Protest, Michael Randall Barnes7. Value-Based Protest Slogans: An Argument for Reorientation, Myisha Cherry8. The Movement for Black Lives and the Language of Liberation, Ian OlasovPart IV -M4BL, Anti-Black Racism, and Punishment9. Can Capital Punishment Survive if Black Lives Matter?, Michael Cholbi and Alex Madva10. Sentencing Leniency for Black Offenders, Benjamin S. YostPart V - Strategy and Solidarity11. The Violence of Leadership in Black Lives Matter, Dana Francisco Miranda12. Speaking For, Speaking With, and Shutting Up: Models of Solidarity and the Pragmatics of Truth Telling, Mark Norris Lance13. Sky's the Limit: A Case-Study in Envisioning Real Anti-Racist Utopias, Keyvan Shafiei
