Critical Social Inquiry 0209 - Black Natives: Anti-Blackness, Indigeneity, and Decolonization

Crispus Attucks, the first martyr of the U.S. War for Independence, was a working-class New Englander of both African American and Indigenous descent. In the five hundred years since Europeans first brought Africans to the shores of North America, they forged shared histories, communities, and families alongside, and often together with, Native peoples. Racism, legal frameworks, and historical particularities have often divided the two communities. This course considers examples of Black-Native unity, Blood quantum, historical and contemporary anti-Blackness in the U.S., communities of Black Indians including Louisiana Creoles, and the enslavement of African Americans by "civilized tribes" and resulting Freedmen. (keywords: racism, anti-racism, settler-colonialism, organizing, afro-indigenous)

In/Justice Students in this course can expect to spend 6 to 9 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time.