Episode 19 - The Boundaries of Blackness - a podcast by The Lit Review

The central question addressed in The Boundaries of Blackness is: Why, when faced with a disease that was threatening significant numbers of Black people, did Black leaders and dominant institutions fail to take action? In her book, Cathy Cohen systematically examines the roles that politics, racism, and marginalization played in limiting the resources allocated to fighting AIDS in Black communities. This week, we got the chance to talk directly with Cathy about her research. Tune in to learn more about this history and what it means for our movements. During this time of global insistence that "Black lives matter" it is critical we study the historic "boundaries of Blackness" if we truly desire to transform the world for ALL Black lives to be valued and supported.

Key Questions:
1. What is the power held in Black communities? How and why did those power structures and dominant institutions fail those impacted by the HIV/AIDS crisis?
2. Why must we center our movements around those at the margins of society?
3. How is science constructed through race, class, and sexuality?
4. What does it mean to have a Black, queer, feminist politic and what does that have to do with Mike Brown?
5. What is assimilation and what are it's limits?
6. What is deviance and how might it be at the center of our liberation?

Guest: Cathy Cohen (author)
Hosts: Page May
Date: July 24, 2017

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