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how long will we keep “having conversations”
the having conversations industrial complex is a loose assemblage of professional speakers, nonprofit organizations, panels and board rooms, politicians and lobbyists, whose job is to launch redundant investigations, waylay radical activists, legislate minute reforms, “discuss”
the role of the having conversations industrial complex is to complicate otherwise simple issues and multilateralize otherwise focused resistance; to bring the oppressive structure into the room and normalize it as a “partner” in finding a “solution” to the problems it produces
when I talk about the having conversations industrial complex I’m talking about technocratic “specialists” under the aegis of the security state; professional pundits and editorial figures who traffick in “both sides”-ism even as they actively restrict expressions of radicalism
state-sponsored speaking tours, institutional gatherings, conferences, devoted to “complexity” and “nuance,” all with the implicit and explicit refusal to simply refuse; bemoaning the politics of boycott, solidifying the figure of the terrorist by way of strategic contrast.
look at any public access TV round table, any article about what ought to be a cut and dry political issue, any institutional inclusivity training brochure; everyone is credentialed and polite, able to “overcome our differences” to “have a conversation” about a “complex issue.”
We are constantly “having conversations” about surveillance, policing, access to healthcare, inequitable education, labour violations, climate change, environmental regulation, white supremacy, “conflict in the Middle East,” etc, where the greatest sin one can commit is boycott.
Immigration, transness, queerness, Blackness, Islam, incarceration, poverty, apartheid, or even, god forbid, “security” — all of these things are subjects (objects) of “conversation,” incremental change, liberal gradualism, the fetish of nuance, where refusal is akin to violence.
Ghassan Kanafani, 1970:
“Why won’t your organization engage in peace talks with the Israelis?”
“You don’t mean exactly ‘peace talks,’ you mean capitulation—surrendering.”
“Why won’t your organization engage in peace talks with the Israelis?”
“You don’t mean exactly ‘peace talks,’ you mean capitulation—surrendering.”
“The paradox that we find ourselves in is one in which, even to decenter whiteness and produce a different kind of world, we find ourselves working to pacify whiteness so that other possibilities might emerge.” -Rinaldo Walcott, The End of Diversity (2019) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gACcgGqssT9GathoG1_Y0d83fdaGxSLb/view?usp=drivesdk
“At bottom, the intellectual, in my sense of the word, is neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense...” -Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual, 1994 https://cbs.asu.edu/sites/default/files/PDFS/Said%20Representations%20of%20the%20Intellectual.pdf
“Representation suspends a veil of false community and unity, and it blinds us to the fact that representation won’t solve the majority of our problems.” -Najma Sharif, “Muslim American ‘representation’ is a myth” 2018 https://thetempest.co/2018/06/06/social-justice/muslim-american-representation-is-a-myth/
This fascinating 2017 article by Saied Reza Ameli Ranani and Zohreh Nosrat Kharazmi unpacks two institutional networks of “development” and “education” programs to reveal how they function to advance US security interests and produce native informants https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XGG7uyD8Say8EKH5K7FfMnYY24MxBvMb/view?usp=drivesdk
Here’s a good recent example of this in action https://twitter.com/shariaprelaw/status/1224808427857358849?s=21 https://twitter.com/shariaprelaw/status/1224808427857358849
“Having conversations” re: Toronto police “reform” (the contemporary deployment of “reform” is itself an assemblage mutually contingent upon the having conversations industrial complex!) https://torontolife.com/from-the-archives/toronto-police-service-vs-everybody/
Same shit! “Inquiries” or “investigations,” etc.... Alicia frames it well here https://twitter.com/wordsandguitar/status/1267954249016791041?s=21 https://twitter.com/WordsandGuitar/status/1267954249016791041
“This is a conversation I am eager to have and look forward to having with you” — recommendations upon reviews upon inquiries upon calls for patience and investigation and “rethinking,” when all the evidence is clear https://twitter.com/ihatecogsci/status/1268675287090413570?s=21
Etc etc https://twitter.com/phillymayor/status/1268606491830992904?s=21 https://twitter.com/PhillyMayor/status/1268606491830992904
Once again https://twitter.com/hoodqueer/status/1270580212363751424?s=21 https://twitter.com/hoodqueer/status/1270580212363751424
Having conversations does not work!!! I hope Derrick and his family are safe and sound — he survived, thank god https://thegrio.com/2020/06/10/black-activist-shot-by-police-he-trained/
The headline makes it sound like he was fatally shot, but thankfully Derrick is alive. It seems like he had been doing his best for a long time to build trust and consciousness in the community, and it’s sad to see how the police continued to act. We NEED abolition.
This piece is good and relevant, and illustrations some of the interconnected pieces of this loose assemblage — celebrities as well as celebrity activists! 
https://twitter.com/clairecdowns/status/1271174956064272384?s=21 https://twitter.com/clairecdowns/status/1271174956064272384
https://twitter.com/clairecdowns/status/1271174956064272384?s=21 https://twitter.com/clairecdowns/status/1271174956064272384
Someone sent me this — by Frank Wilderson III, from “Incognegro”
“Everyone was a ‘stakeholder’ which meant nothing was ever at stake.’
“Everyone was a ‘stakeholder’ which meant nothing was ever at stake.’
From “Oppose Book Worship” by Mao Zedong (1930) https://twitter.com/degendering/status/1272964246872219648?s=21
The people united are done with “conversations” https://twitter.com/thewhitepube/status/1273553864944504835?s=21 https://twitter.com/thewhitepube/status/1273553864944504835
https://twitter.com/sandela/status/1277677890675421184?s=21 more “consultations” (Canada/Toronto is especially good at this kind of nonsense) https://twitter.com/sandela/status/1277677890675421184
Another example. What “tremendous social movement” occurred since we switched from civil disobedience to having conversations? What is a specific instance of concrete, material policy change regarding policing that comes close to what protestors demanded? https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1278071875931906090?s=21
This is so maddening. “Having conversations” between brands and on social media, implementing meagre budget cuts, or adding body cams, etc, is all a world away from what people fought for and demanded. But to this liberal idiot it’s “progress”.
Hellooooo https://twitter.com/notcolloquial/status/1276026724376096768?s=21 https://twitter.com/notcolloquial/status/1276026724376096768
Their reply also illustrates how participation in the “official” channels often opens people up to harassment and scrutiny/surveillance. (in my exp this is pretty common for the Palestine movement as well) https://twitter.com/notcolloquial/status/1276034862630264832?s=21 https://twitter.com/notcolloquial/status/1276034862630264832
Literally horrified by the proliferation of “truth and reconciliation” projects like those in South Africa, Canada, and now also US, that give credence to claims of “listening” and “learning” but impose no costs for when governments inevitably ignore them https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1278408936392134656?s=21 https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1278408936392134656
These kinds of conversations exist primarily to exonerate and absolve the individuals and institutions in power https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1278411386364854273?s=21 https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1278411386364854273
“To the privilege-renouncer, there is little need to address an inconvenient fact: the immense economic order that spans the globe has historically needed a black underclass, both domestically and overseas, to survive.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/anti-racism-checking-privilege-anti-blackness
