Book Alert – Black Scholarly Activism between the Academy and Grassroots: A Bridge for Identities and Social Justice, 22.7.18 (28.9.18)

Update

Published 26.9.18

“This is a timely and important book that expertly combines personal narrative with nuanced theoretical analysis. Black Scholarly Activism between the Academy and Grassroots is a deeply engaging work that urges the reader to consider the possibilities and challenges facing academics who work towards social justice. Once picked up, this is a difficult book to put down: a must read” – Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Leeds Beckett University, UK

“The book is insightful and provides a different scope on racialized discourse from a praxis perspective and its appeal to community workers provides an inclusive attempt to engage audiences outside of academia. The book also offers a very interesting point of departure particularly regarding the exploration of Community resistance in a neoliberal post-truth era. The situating of this chapter within a post-truth context and why activism is needed to disrupt this is powerful” – Dr Jason Arday – University of Roehampton, UK

What is whiteness? In tracing the development of his black scholarly activism and its impact on his grassroots fight for social justice, Ornette D Clennon meditates on the ‘invisible’ impact whiteness has on the lived ‘black’ experience in the UK. Using Education as a philosophical and ethical framework, Clennon interrogates Kehinde Andrews’ vision of Black Radicalism and explores its potential applicability to grassroots activism. By applying an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that dialogues with a version of historical sociology, as advocated by Gurminder Bhambra, namely, “connected histories”, Freirean critical pedagogy and a critique of Cedric J Robinson’s concept of Racial Capitalism, Clennon also reconciles his previous writings about ‘blackness’ by crystallising the links between commercial (urban) blackness, the pathological structures of whiteness and institutional control.

Clennon also finds inspiration from Robbie Shilliam’s exploration of cosmologically related ‘hinterlands’ as an antidote to the atomising nature of colonial (Eurocentric) epistemologies and as such, uses a series of polemical writings written for his community partners, to act as gateways to a hinterland of theoretical discussion about the material effects of whiteness felt on the ground.

Published by Palgrave Macmillan