Criminal anthroposcenes 2.0: Race, racism, and breath-taking violence in the time of COVID

Abstract

While media attention has focused on the visceral brutality of police chokeholds, less noticed are the breath-taking effects of air pollution caused by the (in)actions of state agencies dedicated to environmental protection. To think through how race and racism are embedded in the processes that underlie the Anthropocene, I reframe three key terms of engagement to analyze with greater rigor contemporary criminal anthroposcenes (i.e. scenes constituted by the inextricable enmeshing of crime and anthropogenic climate change): (1) climate and weather, (2) bodies and environments, and (3) anestheticization. Shaping a racial geography of dirty air, a climate of anti-Blackness in the US has been quietly impacting the health and lives of African Americans for centuries, so that the deadly impact of viral outbreaks can merge with existing modes of spectacular and slow violence. From the murder of George Floyd to the establishment of sacrifice zones, the complexity and messiness of recent breath-taking scenes of injustice are formed and maintained by a dangerous mixture of racial apathy and racially-charged violence.