Afro-Indigenous – Black Futures

Breaking Down Harmful Structures Through Ecological Relationships

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 Erica Richardson

By Alexandra Acevedo

The foundations of Brazilian society are racist, anti-LGBTQ, patriarchal, and capitalistic. The same could be said about all the Americas and the United States. The colonizer European powers built these societal structures in Latin America. As a result, many indigenous and enslaved people (and their descendants) lost their relationship with the land and their ancestral communities. They partially lost the knowledge they held and their culture. Now, these belief systems of racism and so on are embedded in the way we view the world. However, we can repair these relationships through reconnection between people and the land. Through both the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil and Khalil Haywood’s essay “Paraíso Negro” we can see how reconnection to the land is crucial for the Afro-Latinx diaspora. We must unlearn these harmful belief systems and gain new knowledge to deconstruct these systems through reconnection to nature; in doing so, we can become closer to ourselves, our culture, and our families and communities.

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Alexis Pauline Gumbs UNDROWNED: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 Erica Richardson

Afro-Indigenous Lives, Water, and the Histories of Colonization

By Emily Pacheco

Nature was there to witness the tragedies that came along with colonization. Ocean creatures, plants, ecosystems, and even the rain from the sky can teach us about our history, as poet and independent scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs proposes. In Dub: Finding Ceremony, Gumbs gives insight into how colonization has affected natives and nature alike and how they are the same in many ways. She recently sat down with students from Baruch College’s Department of Black and Latinx Studies and Black Futures Student Scholars to further discuss nature and its connection to Indigenous and Black history.

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An Indestructible Life: Reflections on Marronage Pedro Lebrón Ortiz

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 Erica Richardson

Afro-Indigenous Past Lives and Futures

By Jacquelyn Ortiz

The following is an overview of some of the topics I addressed in my podcast series “Afro-Indigenous Past Lives and Futures.” In these episodes, I reflect on readings and audiovisual works discussed in the course LTS 3110 Debates in Latin American Social Theory taught by Professor Rojo Robles. I also incorporated ideas presented by the Black Studies Colloquium and guests in the ongoing project “Black Futures.”

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A Select Screening of Quilombo (1984) & A Discussion of Racial Capitalism, Radical Black Feminism, & Imaging the Archive

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 Erica Richardson

A Haven in Nature: Indigenous and Maroon Communities in South America

By Diego Gonzalez

The movie Quilombo (Carlos Diegues, 1984) and the discussion of the movie on the topics of “Racial Capitalism, Radical Black Feminism, and Imagining the Archive” by Black Studies Colloquium (BSC) members Dr. Erica Richardson, Dr. Tshombe Miles, and Dr. Rojo Robles raises conversations on how the maroon communities in Brazil during the 17 and 18 centuries prepared for the constant threat of colonizers. The BSC also looked at how the film builds historical fiction based on methods of speculations. They highlighted the significance of the silences in the archive. This panel was part of their ongoing series Black Futures that looks to answer questions like what kind of Black futures might we imagine through cultivating conversation and producing scholarship across sites of Black studies in North America, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa?

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