While teaching about the history of white people exploiting and dehumanizing Black people in America is critical to understanding and dismantling ongoing, violent legacies, a singular focus on stories of Black trauma and pain constructs a one-dimensional idea of Blackness as suffering. To resist the omnipresent, intrusive and pervasive nature of white supremacy, Black Americans must also allow themselves to be rebelliously joyous. Where society has told them to “be quiet”, and that they are “too loud” and “too different. Erin Burke will present on the definition and importance of making space for narratives of Black Joy.
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