ABOUT US

This manifesto arose from conversations in a Fall 2019 Writing the Essay I course at Eugene Lang College at The New School that was themed around The Racial Imaginary anthology, edited by Claudia Rankine, Beth Loffreda, and Max King Cap. Beginning from the premise that race is a story with consequence, we began to ask how writers can write against racism, producing texts that not only refuse to reinscribe racist narratives, but also weaken and dismantle them. In addition to the works in The Racial Imaginary, we were inspired by works by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, James Baldwin, Eula Biss, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Ross Gay, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Daisy Hernandez, bell hooks, Kiese Laymon, Heather R. Lee, Layli Long Soldier, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tommy Orange, Tommy Pico, Morgan Parker, Dorothy Roberts, Zoë Samudzi, Martine Syms and the works in The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto film,  Lee A. Tonouchi, "Basquiat's Defacement: The Untold Story" (at the Guggenheim), and "An Opening" (at the Brooklyn Historical Society).

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—Charley Baker, Sam Bruder, Isabella Combs, Yasmina Khartami, Eva Lab, Alexis-Rai Mangett, Ian Powers, Yasmine Qadada, Nazli Saatcioglu, Ivory Terrell, Dylan Young, and instructor Helen Betya Rubinstein, Dec. 2019