Race, Fear, and the American Way

Speaker: Lisa L. Moore, PhD, LICSW

The deployment of racialized fear as a political strategy has a profound impact on the individuals and communities who are targeted as objects of fear. In our current climate the use of fear as a tool of racialization is an important site for practitioners to consider in their work not solely with clients who are targets, but also when considering the work of clinical practice.

This presentation will consider the framework of fear and racialization as conceived in the historic work of Frantz Fanon through the work of Afro Futurists who offer language and framing for holding sites of possibility in the Black imaginary in the midst of oppressive conditions of the present. While Blackness is an origin site of this discussion of fear, understanding the application of these concepts may be of significant utility in our current climate to individuals, practices, and spaces who may be targeted as objects of fear.

This presentation will center the significance of understanding what fear can do to people, while identifying the necessity of holding autonomous sites of possibility for both the client, practitioner, and communities in which people reside.