Christopher Paul Harris is Assistant Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of To Build A Black Future: The Radical Politics of Joy, Pain, and Care. We discuss why addressing our society’s hard-wired prejudices must be a substantial part of our endeavors toward a truly multicultural democracy.

Central to building a Black future is reframing and recreating institutions from the perspective of those who have been historically marginalized. The core of the Black movement is a response to Black pain and anti-Black violence. Despite all the violence, Black Joy is evidence that Black communities are thriving and serve as a prefigurative politics of what’s possible on the other side of pain. Care is recognizing that Black people and other marginalized communities carry trauma and need healing.