African American Studies’ Dr. Alyssa P. Cole and Dr. Kevin C. Winstead were awarded honorable mention in the Critical Ethnic Studies paper award from the American Studies Association during their 2024 Annual Conference for their paper “The Unveiling Shadows: Afroskepticism & the Unpacking of War in the Black Paranoid Tradition.” Their abstract is below.
During the podcast era, we have seen a rise in intersection among white conservative conspiracy theorists and segments of the African American community. There is a growing conflation between 1) conspiracies and claims rooted in black exploitation and 2) claims against the state rooted in maintaining white heteronormative neo-Christian hegemonic power. This essay uncouples these two knowledge projects, arguing that the modern Black paranoid tradition is rooted in the framework of Afro-skepticism, a position poised between receptivity and refusal, acknowledging the reality of totalizing systems while at the same time recognizing existing capacities for joy, hope, play, and freedom. Originating in Black veterans’ responses to their experiences in the Vietnam War, we employ a content analysis of veteran narratives and long-form interviews of Black intellectuals of the late 1960s to argue that the Black paranoid tradition is rooted in emancipatory knowledge. While sharing similar rhetoric, the Black paranoid tradition hosts different aims and histories contrasted with modern extremist conservative practices. Following America’s withdrawal from the war, Black veterans documented their experiences in various mediums, including Black newspapers, magazines, and interviews. Black veterans bore witness to the American empire in Vietnam, noting parallels between themselves and the Vietnamese people. These experiences enhanced a positionality of skepticism among Black veterans, forming a collective identity. Paranoia as a political consciousness emerged from Black veterans’ experiences in the military during the Vietnam War Era. We posit that what is seen as Black paranoia is a form of Afroskepticism rooted in historical truths. This work is significant in decolonizing discursive formations of Black being disrupting Afro-Pessimism & Optimism/Futurism.