The False Promises of Citizenship: Youth Anti-Citizenship to Restore the Commons (CRRE Seminar)

Dr Kevin L. Clay, Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Education, Rutgers University 

The second term election of Republican Donald Trump in the U.S. has, like his first election, mainstreamed the political divisions within the United States and re-ignited a wave of fear amongst ostensible enemies of fascism. Beginning in October 2023, under the leadership of a liberal Democratic party, a relentless war on Palestine unfolded with the U.S. sponsoring Isreal’s genocidal campaign against the citizens of Gaza. In Democratic party-controlled cities like Los Angeles California, which in November 2024 passed a ballot measure supporting the legal enforcement of slave labor, the contradictions of a supposed “anti-fascist” Democratic party remain just as prevalent. In the face of these domestic and global realities, common assertions of voting away fascism have prevailed in the U.S., despite the public majority favoring a ceasefire or arms embargo.

At the same time, in higher education, and in high school, middle school, and elementary school classrooms across the country, students are treated to lessons in civic education glorifying the congenial apparatuses of “democratic citizenship” afforded by the constitution. They are told that when the time comes, the system will be receptive to their concerns and open to changing as they participate in its civic institutions. Anti-citizenship is both a rejection of these claims and a validation of political projects aimed at replacing the current system with one that prioritizes human liberation and a return to the commons. This paper offers a brief discussion of Dr. Kevin L. Clay’s recently published co-edited collection, The Promise of Youth Anti-Citizenship: Race & Revolt in Education, expounding on the meaning of youth anti-citizenship and its urgency in light of various organic struggles currently being waged by young people for new social, political, and economic relations.

• This event is free and open to the public, staff and students.
• Registration is essential to receive the link to ZOOM. 
• Please note, this seminar is being recorded.