Negotiating Indo-Caribbean ethnoracial identities, coalition-building, and anti-Blackness during the 2020 Black Lives Matter Movement

• In Event: The Problematics of Racial and Ethnic Coalition-Building in an Era of Explicit Threat

Abstract

This article examines how Black activist traditions impact the ways that immigrant communities engage in racial politics across generations, especially in the aftermath of the Movement for Black Lives (BLM). In particular, it illustrates how second-generation Indo-Caribbean community leaders in New York City invoked the traditions of Black activism during the uprisings of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd to negotiate their own histories and ethnoracial identities in relation to anti-Blackness. Subsequently, this moment influenced transnational movements in diasporic communities online and in cities with large Indo-Caribbean populations like Toronto. In unveiling these dynamics, I illustrate that, unlike the first generation, the second generation constructs Indo-Caribbean identity while grappling with the histories of anti-Blackness in the Caribbean and navigating racial hierarchies in North America. Ultimately, this article contends that racialized legacies of anti-Black racism amongst Indo-Caribbeans are being challenged by the second generation, which uses Black racial solidarity and resistance to advocate for their own political representation.

Author

• Cristine Sabrina Khan, Stony Brook University