Laundering Black Rage: Place, Space & Race in State Institutions

media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to partner with the Havens Wright Center for Social Justice at UW-Madison.

This is an in-person event at The School of Education-Wisconsin Idea Room.

About the Book

Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits is a spatial and historical critique of the capitalist State that examines how Black Rage—conceived as a constructive and logical response to the conquest of resources, land, and human beings racialized as Black—is cleaned for the unyielding means of White capital. Interlacing political theory with international histories of Black rebellion, it presents a thoughtful challenge to the counterinsurgent tactics of the State that consistently convert Black Rage into a commodity to be bought, sold, and repressed. Laundering Black Rage investigates how the Rage directed at the police murder of George Floyd could be marshalled to funnel the Black Lives Matter movement into corporate advertising and questionable leadership, while increasing the police budgets inside the laundry cities of capital - largely with our consent.

Rasul A. Mowatt is a department head and professor at North Carolina State University as well as formerly serving as a department chair and professor at the Indiana University. Areas of focus are the geographies of race, the geographies of violence, the animation and production of public space, and the application of critical theory. Alongside various academic articles, book chapters, textbooks, and presentations, The Geographies of Threat and the Production of Violence: The City and State Between Us (2021) and Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits (2024) as well as The City of Hip-Hop (expected release in early 2025) are examples of more public-facing scholarship from Rasul. Also, Rasul’s non-academic work has been in the areas of city management, human rights, and incarceration. Lastly, beyond the scope of academia and community organizing, Rasul has moonlighted as a DJ for over 30 years.

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. He is the co-author of the book Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits. 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 is the co-director of the award winning documentary film The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up –highlighting the story of Indiana political prisoners John “Balagoon” Cole and Christopher “Naeem” Trotter.