Recent History Department Events

Dr. Andrew Bellisari is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Purdue University. He specializes in the history of decolonization in North Africa and Southeast Asia and his research addresses questions related to warfare, post-colonial state- and nation-building, and civil society. Previously, he was a founding faculty member at Fulbright University Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City and a Vietnam Program Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Purdue Human Rights Program

What does it mean to conquer a people and then call said conquest a society? How does a fabricated society built upon conquest legitimise its actions? It must launder as a means to make its “grimey” activity appear clean. When opposition inevitably arises within the conquered, their rage must be subsumed by the State to further clean the oppression. Laundering Black Rage chronicles the rise of the capitalist State while examining the historical dillution of Black Rage. It demonstrates how the maintenance of capitalism increasingly requires the manufactured consent of the conquered.  

Much has been made in international headlines about scandals of high-profile Black Lives Matter leaders following the George Floyd protests but what if the scandals were just gross expressions of a much more ingrained process of counterinsurgency? How was the contagious Black Rage provoked by the police officer's knee on a poor Black man's neck converted into a benign commodity that could be massively marketed by Disney? How does the Black Rage embroiled in the global south become justification for death making sanctions and regime change? Laundering Black Rage reaches behind the front to trace the criminal origins. 

The spaces we occupy, the cities we breathe all bribe us with a lifestyle that compels us to carry on the laundering of conquest. For many, survival is dependent upon it. By examining how the state-fabricated formations of labour (race, class, gender) remain organised even when the conquered populations are clearly enraged, we hope to arrive at an analysis to help reverse the process. 

Too Black is a poet, scholar, organizer and filmmaker who blends critical analysis with biting sarcasm. He has headlined various stages and events including the historic Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, Princeton University, and Johannesburg Theater in South Africa. His words have been published in online publications such as Black Agenda Report, Left Voice, Hammer and Hope and Hood Communist. He is currently the host of the Black Myths Podcast, a podcast debunking the BS said about Black people. Lastly, he the co-director of the award-winning documentary film The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up.

Download the event flyer at this link.

Fighting for Freedom Within the U.S. Army