Grief is the Price We Pay for Love: Mourning, Loss, and Political Action

Abstract

From the No Papers No Fear Freedom Rides to Ethnic Studies Now! to #sayhername to Black Lives Matter to the battles against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline the Black Radical Tradition is being invigorated with the proliferation of hyper-local campaigns with a potent national reach. For the past three summers, national organizing conferences dealing with policing, police brutality, mass incarceration, "policing the crisis" and the incredible violence of environmental destruction have brought the conversation of structural violence against black and brown and Native bodies to light again and again. But those of us who have worked with Cedric Robinson are carrying on these fights while also mourning the loss of our beloved teacher and friend. What are the lessons about organizing in the midst of tragedy, loss, and deadly conditions that to be found in the archive of Cedric Robinson's body of work?

Keywords: Cedric Robinson's Political Thought, mourning, loss, tragedy, deadly conditions, political action

JEL Classification: D63