Ana Aparicio

Reconstituting Political Genealogies

Contemporary youth activism—particularly activism that works toward social and racial justice—has begun to receive long-overdue attention in scholarly inquiries. Research on the prison-industrial complex is a prime example of such inquiries; in recent years, scholar-activists such as Angela Davis have turned their lenses to youth—incarcerated and not incarcerated—to document these youth’s perspectives and critiques of the prison industry and of its effects on black and brown populations.1 Organizations of youth activists, such as the Blackout Arts Collective in New York City, have developed multilayered projects meant to confront this industry. In workshops and projects with college youth and with incarcerated youth, those activists are attempting to build a critical mass of young people organized against state-sponsored racism. Black and brown youth activists in the United States are creating new forms of politics and establishing new communities and networks; some of the most creative antiracist projects are those in which youth activists use the black radical past to address racial issues of the present.

Reconstituting Political Genealogies: Reflections on Youth, Racial Justice, and the Uses of History

Black and Brown youth activists in the United States are creating new forms of politics and establishing new communities and networks; some of the most creative anti-racist projects are those in which youth activists use the Black radical past. Their work is not simply an exercise in acquiring historical facts, but of creating new understandings of histories and of the relationships between Black and Brown activists over time and space. For many Black and Brown Afro-diasporic youth, reimagining and resurrecting the Black radical past is an essential aspect of contemporary organizing. As such, their attempts to build coalitions are based in a sense of a shared past, a common network of “fictive kin.” This article will explore the ways in which some Black and Brown youth activists have used history in developing new coalitions and political ideologies.