AUDIO: In the Name of the Motherf**ker: Naming the White Symbolic Father: A Lecture by Omar Ricks at UC Davis

Talk by Omar Ricks, Presented by Tanzeen Doha

September 1st, 2015  I UC DAVIS

How do we name the violence of a paradigm of antiblackness that is still going? Hortense Spillers essay “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” outlines a revolutionary theory of the violence that created and continues to create Blackness through the rape, murder, incarceration, and misnaming of Black people by a central figure in the psychic formation of western society: the Name of the (white) Father. Spillers reading helps us understand Fanon’s notion that African “metaphysics [were]…abolished [by] a new civilization that imposed its own” and calls for a radical renaming of Black people by ourselves.

“Cushi” – Being Black In The Holyland

From Existence is Resistance

To Donate: Cushi – Being Black in the Holyland

The term “Cushi” is the only Israeli word for blacks literally translating to “Nigger”. The fact that this is the only word in Hebrew to describe people of African decent or those with dark skin, denotes the racism prevalent in Israeli society today.

For the past 1.5 years, Existence is Resistance along with filmmakers and activists from the US and UK committed to bringing social justice through the use of cultural mediums have been working together to produce a documentary which would highlight the conditions and treatment of various Black communities within the Holyland. We are planning on taking M1 of the group Dead Prez among others for this journey in order for them to build with the various communities. Additionally, this film seeks to create a platform for these different groups to tell their stories and connect with each other. . The group will spend two to three days in each community, speaking and connecting with people of all ages who will guide us through their daily lives. Once each destination has been visited and documented, the group will bring one person from each community to spend three days together. This would culminate in ten people of African descent in the Holyland connecting together for the first time.