Racial capitalism and the armed branches of the State use the weapons of extraction, suffocation and exhaustion to pacify, neutralize dissent and revolt and to exploit and dispossess. Suffocation is accomplished either through murder by kneeling on a black or brown neck, by hindering or cutting breath, by attacking lungs with tear gas, polluting fumes, bad housing, polluted water and air, and by destroying forests (the “lungs” of the planet) and creating forests for profit. Exhaustion is obtained by fabricating crippling and debilitating conditions of transportation, work, and feeding oneself. Love is impeded. This constitutes an assemblage that states use to control populations. Françoise Vergès will propose a decolonial feminist analysis of this economy and explore what kinds of decolonized praxis are deployed and what planetary practices are imagined to counter a politics of devastation. This talk is part of the Spring 2021 'Thinking Freedom from the Global South' series addressing "the question of human freedom from the perspective of the "the damned of the earth," those on the underside of history. Each speaker, engaged in radical intervention across different emancipatory, anti-colonial struggles, will consider how communities are thinking about and forging alternative futures." Sponsored by AU's Antiracist Research and Policy Center (ARPC), AU Dept of Critical Race, Gender, & Culture Studies (CRGC), and AU Women's Initiative (WI). Register for the series here: https://american.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5sSLCFCe056AGQl ***To receive credit 1) answer the reflection questions on this form: https://forms.gle/a3FuUYZiRYgMEf8T8 and 2) email a screenshot of your registration to president@auapo.net***