In this bold and provocative new book, Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming ""I am Malcolm X,"" expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color.
By:
Damani J. Partridge
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 363g
ISBN: 9780520382213
ISBN 10: 0520382218
Pages: 238
Publication Date: 06 December 2022
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I OCCUPYING BLACKNESS 1. After Diaspora, Beyond Citizenship 2. Exploding Hitler and Americanizing Germany: Occupying Black Bodies and Postwar Desire 3. Occupying American Blackness and Reconfiguring European Spaces: Noncitizen Articulations in Berlin and Beyond PART II HOLOCAUST MEMORY AND EXCLUSIONARY DEMOCRACY 4. Holocaust Mahnmal (Memorial): Monumental Memory amid Contemporary Race 5. Democratization as Exclusion: Noncitizen Futures, Holocaust Heritage, and the Defunding of Refugee Participation PART III NONCITIZEN FUTURES 6. The Rehearsal Is the Revolution: “Insurrectionary Imagination” 7. Articulating a Noncitizen Politics: Nation-State Pity versus Black Possibility Conclusion: From Claiming Blackness to Black Liberation Key Terms and Sites Notes Bibliography Index
Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.
Reviews for Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin
""[The book] succeeds in demonstrating the need for Blackness as a mode of seeing across the totality of human existence."" * Ethnic and Racial Studies * ""By focusing on how the rhetoric about Blackness shifted and was impacted by external events like the Civil Rights Movement within the context of the occupation and democratization period in Germany, this discussion sets the stage for linking the emerging historical contradictions with Holocaust memory and processes of democratization."" * CHOICE * “[The book] provides a stimulating take on how Blackness—having experienced many hard-won successes tied to rights, agency, and recognition on the international stage—has enabled opportunities for minoritized groups in Berlin to make calculated and confident steps toward liberation and justice in a biased and discriminatory system. Featuring elements of Critical Race Theory, such as antiracism, which holds people and institutions accountable, and the significance of testimony, the book examines how People of Color in Germany have fought for liberation through a crafted and deliberate engagement with Blackness.” * Project Muse *
