Towards Liberation: Centering Our Communities in Research

A graduate student conference hosted with Geidy Mendez and Reiya Bhat at UCI on May 9th, 2025.

In recent years, we have seen a continued backlash to the study of race and ethnicity in higher education, which has resulted in the targeting of critical race theory and Black Studies across universities. While this research has long been excluded and marginalized in higher education systems and the colonial, anti-black project of American society, we have seen more targeted attacks in the years since the racial reckoning of 2020. 

This conference Towards Liberation: Centering our Communities in Research, focuses on social science research on communities of color, especially encouraging but not limited to research that engages with community partners.

The UCI Podcast

For the UCI Podcast, I speak about the role and impact of women in the Black Lives Matter mass movement.

The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions: Anatomy of an Uprising

I speak about the origins and causes of political uprisings at Baltimore Center Stage, September 2021. Speech begins at 24:16.

Race and Capitalism Defined: A Graduate Student Symposium

I organized the Race & Capitalism Symposium, which comprised a day of discussion and debate among graduate students across the country regarding how we might address issues of racial capitalism and better utilize these concepts in our work. Though the symposium was broadly constituted, it aimed to consider the depth of racial capitalism as a theory, a history, and a device to explicate systems of exploitation, neoliberalism and world-making.

University of Chicago Race & Place: Polarization Conference

I discuss with New School Associate Professor Deva Woodly her book The Politics of Common Sense: How Social Movements Use Public Discourse to Change Politics and Win Acceptance.