Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. This course connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns.

This course explores the collective historical and contemporary experiences of the African Diaspora. It examines the social, cultural and political relationships between Black communities, knowledge, and movements across the Diaspora. It examines the interwoven concepts of memory, culture and resistance, and span themes such as consciousness of Africa; the Haitian Revolution and resistance to slavery; African cultural transformation in the Americas; maroonage; Garvey and the UNIA; pan-African movements and global liberation struggles; women and resistance; Black Power, and issues of identity and race. 

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework. It offers sound interdisciplinary analysis of selected historical and contemporary issues surrounding the origins and manifestations of White supremacy in the United States. By placing race at the center of the work, the book offers significant lessons for understanding the institutional marginalization of Blacks in contemporary America and their historical resistance and perseverance.

In “Puerto Rico Obituary,” poet and activist Pedro Pietri calls upon colonized folks to “kill, kill, kill the landlord of their cracked skull” by celebrating their identities, using “…their white supremacy bibles for toilet paper…”

Meditation is a practice that can teach us how to “see what is” beyond the messages we receive and, in that way, can be a pathway to internal decolonization and liberation. A radically accessible care praxis, mindfulness pushes us to question if we are unruly, unworthy, or if that is a message we have been sent by capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacy.

In this audio short, Caitlin invites us to fake it ‘til we make it, breathe into bell hooks’ teacher-healer ideal, and to kill, kill, kill the landlord that tells us we are less worthy of peace and joy; that ease is not our birthright.

Or, as Caitlin so charmingly says, call bullshit and step away.

If it sounds fun or supportive, start or deepen your meditation practice for free with Caitlin on Insight Timer.

Special thanks to Caitlin’s big brother Jon Wubbena (jonthefunkymonk.com) for creating the intro song and sound support.

Thanks, also, to the Smithsonian. "Puerto Rico Obituary" by Pedro Pietri from the recording entitled Loose Joints: Poetry by Pedro Pietri, FW09722, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. (p) 1979. Used by permission.