BLACK STUDIES

From page 1 discussions and performances, ranging from Thundercat’s “Them Changes” to Little Simz’s “Point and Kill.”

Political science, sociology and African American Studies Prof. Barnor Hesse, who also served as an emcee, said Black music is part of Black history and studies. He encouraged attendees to “to work through, think through and feel through” the art in the symposium.

Hesse also discussed the relationships between Black studies and the world. While many disciplines exclude or refrain from including Black experiences, ideas and perspectives, Black studies prioritizes these experiences. In turn, Hesse said it “cannot avoid” critically examining Western epistemology, instead of assuming it is the standard.

“Black Studies doesn’t just see democracy. It sees democracy and white supremacy. The only democracy we’ve ever known in Western society is a white democracy,” Hesse said. “Black Studies doesn’t just see Western civilization. It sees as the conditions of Western civilization, Western barbarism. So you see, with that angle of vision, how the world seems to tilt almost on its axis.”

Trinity College Prof. Davarian Baldwin, who teaches American studies and serves as founding director of the Smart Cities Research Lab, was the first keynote speaker. In his talk, “Black Studies and Thoughts on an Abolitionist University,” Baldwin pointed toward the relationship between Black Studies, African American Studies and the education debate in the U.S.

Baldwin argued while the ongoing debate about controlling curricula in higher education revolves around certain controversial topics like AP African American Studies, arguments center on censoring ideas that Black Studies promotes.

“Higher education was never designed to serve at the sight of democratic possibilities, but actually the symbol of exclusion and privilege of inheritance,” he said. “Black Studies always understood the broader campus complex as a site of struggle for liberatory possibility … they understood that the higher education institute — the campus — was the battleground for global hegemony.”

Black studies originated at the intersection between the campus and the broader community, Baldwin said. For example, in 1968, Columbia University students in the Black Panther Party organized a movement known as Gym Crow, which criticized the potential construction of a university gym in nearby Morningside Park.