An Ecology of Free Blackness

• In Event: Black radical politics, spirituality and environment

Description for Program

An ecology of Black life and Resistance calls for a Marroning or Fugitivity necessary to secure a world of respect and embrace, that celebrates Blackness, and all communities perceived through the historical imbalances of power, as “Other.” This implies humanity has freed itself from its basic human instinct drive, of the insidious and prevailing fear of losing power, that praises competition over collaboration and partnership, or the patriarchal over the feminine.
Thanks to African Diaspora Studies, a few of us understand the ills and traumas that the Trans-Atlantic Trade of captive Africans and their consequent enslavement unleashed, as well as the social pathologies we still endure worldwide. Undoubtedly, Black movements, across the Americas and beyond, from all ranges and scopes have nurtured this learning process. As Black struggles pushed the United Nations to dedicate a decade (or two) in recognition of peoples of African descent, to establish a permanent forum, and as they continue pushing for reparations, we have yet to begin embracing the Black Republic of Haiti as our epicenter of free Blackness. This theoretical-historical presentation on Fugitivity will conclude with a call for a strategy conducive to recognizing and claiming Haiti’s sovereignty as ours.

Keywords: Fugitivity, Haiti, Blackness, Marooning, Reparations,

Author

• Evelyne Laurent-Perrault