IL BIANCO E IL NERO – LE PAROLE PER DIRLO, Conference Milan Sept. 7

Saturday September 7, from 10 AM  to 6,00 PM

at La Casa della Memoria, via Confalonieri 14, Milan

 

 

At a time when the  right wing government in Italy has amplified existing racism and colonial thinking, 10 scholars, writers and activists converge in Milan to open up a debate at the grassroots level about the need for new terminologies and action in a country like Italy that has done its outmost to deny  its colonial past and present, the responsibility of its intellectuals in elaborating racist justifications and theories (il razzismo scientifico, see Lombroso and Niceforo) that have had great international impact well in advance of fascism, and a country that  continues to this day to ignore the meaning and consequences of eurocentrism, white privilege even in the anti-racism movement. Indeed it lacks words for these very real phenomena and the goal of this conference is to undertake a grassroots effort to deeply analyze and debate the terms, brainstorm with the audience on how to move the antiracism struggle and the struggle for rights forward in these dire times.

With Reginaldo Cerolini, Camilla Hawthorne, Filippo Menozzi, Valentina Migliarini,  Kiasi Sandrine Mputu, Andi Nganso, Francesco Ohazuruike, Mari Pagani, Angelica Pesarini, Pina Piccolo

 

PROGRAM

 

10:00 – 11:00

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

with the participation of special guests

Introductory video with Camilla Hawthorne (Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz)

 

 

11:10 – 17:30

THE WORDS TO SAY IT

4 workshops, each lasting one and a half hour conducted by experts with the mission of finding new words and new meanings 

Each workshop  consists of a brief presentation to frame each term  and a longer section devoted, to dialogue, debate and brainstorming together with the audience

 

The Origin of the Others: Race and Racialization

with Angelica Pesarini (New York University, Social and Cultural Analysis Department), Francesco Ohazuruike (writer).  

 

Racisms Old and New: Afrophobia, Discrimination e Xenophobia

with  Kiasi Sandrine Mputu (translator and interpreter), Pina Piccolo (coordinator for la Macchina Sognante).  

 

LUNCH BREAK

 

The lie of identity:  Whiteness, Blackness, Inclusion

with  Valentina Migliarini (research fellow of Education, University of Bologna), Andi Nganso (GOes DiverCity Festival).  

 

Humanity Rebelling: Memory, Decolonizing, Future

with Filippo Menozzi Liverpool, John Moore’s university) , Reginaldo Cerolini (anthropologist and writer), Mari Pagani (Aned- association of former deportees to nazi concentration camps)

 

17:30 – 18:00

Conclusions with Andi Nganso (FESTIVAL) and  Mari Pagani (ANED) 

 

REFRESHMENTS AND OPEN MIC