Koritha Mitchell is a firebrand and one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter. She’s Professor of English at Ohio State University and the author of two books: Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship; and From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture.
Among much else in our far reaching conversation, we discuss why she pursued and expanded upon a connection between the lynching of Black people post emancipation and anti-LGBTQ violence now, the ways white people reaffirm their dominance with what she calls “know your place aggression”, how Black women have continually redefined success and citizenship in America and why it can feel so utterly satisfying to point out white mediocrity. As she says, we’ve been surrounded by whiteness our entire lives and we have not been surrounded by excellence.
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