Social Text: User Profile: Michael Ralph

Michael Ralph

"Will I Die Before They Get To Know Me?"

July 29, 2010 10:30AM

"Will I Die Before They Get To Know Me?" From J. Cole to Oscar Grant III "Will I live or will I die before they get to know me? If I go, I know the ones that's pourin' liquor for...»

Killing Time

December 28, 2009 9:39PM

This article explores a key trope of economic stagnation and chronic joblessness in postcolonial Senegal: the image of "lazy" young men in the public sphere. This civic and moral discourse is critical of young men who allegedly drink tea "all day." But this attitude elides the long history of youth protest against injustice, and excuses a state that has displaced the most strident critics of Senegalese neoliberalism by bribing them with overseas scholarships and government positions. This suggests that what some see as political and economic inactivity is manufactured through state-sponsored encadrement: techniques of trapping, quartering, and containing youth.»

CFP: Movement Politics

November 13, 2009 6:36AM

This special issue of Social Text will examine discourses of physical debility and social mobility in concert with social movement politics, broadly construed. The broader rubric of disability is an especially apt lens through which to launch a political agenda,...»

The Forensics of Capital

November 11, 2009 10:50AM

A Review of "Capitalism: A Love Story," directed by Michael Moore

Crimes have been committed in this building. I am here to make a citizen's arrest.

In the final scene of "Capitalism: A Love Story," Michael Moore drags police tape around city blocks that house the corporate offices of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Wachovia, and J.P. Morgan Chase--all recipients of taxpayer money used by the federal government as part of a "bailout" package. Moore's stated purpose is to make a "citizen's arrest" of the criminals who, when faced with the ramifications of their own financial faux-pas, "backed an armored car up to the US treasury" only to leave with 700 billion dollars of "our money." Moore figures each corporate building as the scene of a crime, leaving us to ponder the implications of what William Pietz once called the "forensics of capital..."

Commodity

October 30, 2009 8:10AM

If commodification is endemic to the logic of capitalism, it is perhaps because the space of the sacred--that which cannot have a market value affixed to it--has apparently receded. Still the idea that commodities are born from secular revelations suggests that there is plenty more to be said about the "metaphysical subtleties" and "theological niceties" that occasion their arrival.»

Diaspora

October 30, 2009 7:40AM

How does using the French term for jet lag, dÃ©calage, to theorize the gap in time and space that structures diasporic articulation encourage us to think of the period between the dawn of formal decolonization and the present as not merely a structure but an atmosphere of disenchantment: a reminder that diasporic bodies inhabit tactile economies, data streams, born of emotional and financial trajectories that make it impossible to anticipate the ingenious forms of belonging--and exquisite strategies of exclusion--they will ultimately help to erect, however unwittingly?»

Hip-Hop

October 30, 2009 6:10AM

The tendency for hip-hop enthusiasts to measure the genre against an imaginary golden age evidences a curious brand of nostalgia: a mixture of homesickness, loss, and longing that coheres in the angst of a generation. Meanwhile rappers and politicians blame each other for the demise of disadvantaged communities, as they overlook how each discourse harkens back to a time of prosperity that never existed.»

Co-authored by Michael Ralph:

Michael Ralph has not co-authored any entries.

Comments

Michael Ralph commented on "Will I Die Before They Get To Know Me?"
Ryan: I naturally appreciate the link you draw between different kinds of structural violence (police brutality, the Hurricane and Flood that was Katrina). One can only wonder if rappers will soon start rhyming about the BP oil spill -- and what they would say if they did. I am even more intrigued by your reference to "violence with no identifiable agent" since I have been thinking about the relationship between errors/accidents and legal liability. The same day I posted this, I discovered a brief commentary on the Freakonomics blog which celebrates this nation's unique appreciation for "mistakes," "errors," and "accidents"...
Michael Ralph commented on Old Wounds and New Pain
I really like the geography of police violence that you sketch in this piece. Instead of limiting it to the Jim Crow South or police abuses by the NYPD or LAPD, specifically, you chart a critical course from post-emancipation extralegal violence in the South into the West, Midwest, and Northeast ... I also like the fact that you don't rely too heavily on pre- and post-civil rights movement advances for your periodization ... It leaves plenty for us to think about -- and get to work on -- which I appreciate....
Michael Ralph commented on The Decision
Like you, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the Lebron James decision and the Oscar Grant verdict -- awkward in all kinds of ways. Still, I really like the way you tied these two events together. The only thing worse than Lebron not being concerned with the verdict is the fact he might even have been oblivious to it ......
Michael Ralph commented on Justice for Oscar Grant
The challenge to help make people critical of police brutality without making them so skeptical that they defy law enforcement officials and potentially endanger themselves is real for teachers, parents, and concerned bystanders, alike ... Thanks for your frank and candid assessment of the predicament....

Responses to Comments

Ashley Dawson commented on "Will I Die Before They Get To Know Me?"
Powerful post on a topic all too often ignored by most mainstream media. A question: where are intellectuals (West Coast and otherwise) in all of this? One of my first introductions to Black British cultural studies was attending a people's tribunal following the killing of Stephen Lawrence in London. Lawrence was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus in 1993. Five (white) suspects were arrested after the killing of Lawrence (who was black), but none were convicted. The people's tribunal I attended received a great deal of media attention and certainly played a role in bringing allegations of racial...
Tavia Nyong'o commented on The Decision
A very thought-provoking contrast, in particular in regards to the lure that celebreality can hold even for a serious figure like Jesse Jackson....
Alondra Nelson commented on Justice for Oscar Grant
Thanks for sharing this honest, passionate response to the verdict in the Oscar Grant case, L'Heureux. Reading your post helps me to begin to make sense of my own complex feelings about Grant's murder and the legal, cultural and political reactions to them. I too was struck by the many registers of "justice" in your piece. So tough to seek justice in the courts--a domain where precedent reigns supreme in a context in which racial injustice is a longstanding norm (or, dare I say it, a precedent)....

Social Text

Social Text Collective Member

Michael Ralph

Recent Entries

Authored by Michael Ralph:

"Will I Die Before They Get To Know Me?"

Killing Time

CFP: Movement Politics

The Forensics of Capital

Commodity

Diaspora

Hip-Hop

Co-authored by Michael Ralph:

Comments

Responses to Comments

Sign In

Social Text Collective Member

Michael Ralph

Recent Entries

Authored by Michael Ralph:

Co-authored by Michael Ralph:

Comments

Responses to Comments