We possess the very documents, legal and consular representation, connection to domestic constituencies, and—lets face it—phenotypical characteristics—which guarantee protection from the more brutal forms of immigration enforcement processes and which our unauthorized colleagues lack. So why don’t we refuse to hand over our passport to an official on arrival?

The activist roots of safer spaces reveal an important tension between their political language and that of many of their critics. Where mainstream attacks on safer spaces repeat the liberal notion of free speech as a transcendental good, safe(r) spaces—particularly in the context of radical political organizing—often stem from the failures of such politics to account for structural inequality and protect against racialized and gendered violence.

How did a New York real estate magnate mired in scandals, including a lawsuit for fraudulent advertising by his university, the refusal to reveal his tax returns on the pretext that “Americans don’t care at all” (it turns out many do), a federal investigation into anti-black bias on his properties, and the confessed misuse of funds by his charitable foundation—not to mention personal sexual misconduct—manage to make anti-corruption a centerpiece of his campaign?

The message is adamant: nations decide for themselves and if international ruling is not what the nation likes, then…. “jolly well fxxx off.” So goes the world today. And to be clear, it is a very different world from the one many scholars envisioned only a couple of decades ago.

The majority of Americans who did not vote for the new president relished in the irony that stars were refusing to fete someone who rose to power by hosting a reality show in which celebrities had to ingratiate themselves to him, in order to become his “apprentice.” Donald J. Trump, a man with his name brandished atop tall buildings, and seared into vacuum-sealed steaks, couldn’t even secure his personal friend, Paul Anka to sing “My Way” for his inaugural dance, settling for Tony Orlando, sans Dawn, instead.

Racists will always look to purify democracy by redrawing and fortifying its borders against those deemed foreign to "the people." The choice is not between individuality and community, but what both of those terms mean in their materiality.

If indeed what we confront is an apartheid state, then what is our responsibility as scholars and educators? Put bluntly, what is the role of the university in the age of (American) white supremacy? What are the critiques, actions, and pedagogies we must produce to challenge the normalization of violence?

I am interested in what this rise says about the state of “British tolerance,” or rather, how it has contributed to the sense that Brexit has marked a “purge of inclusive values.” In this context, what does tolerance look like and is it really a lost ideal?

This particular form of nationalism is nostalgic for Britain’s “greatness,” melancholic for a “purer” British society (Gilroy, 2004), and defensive about the privileges that it enjoys and the extent to which it might share those with others. However, it can’t be mapped directly onto “England”: it’s a part of all the countries that make up the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), and London is not immune to it.

This essay attempts to articulate the historical significance of those defending racialized police violence. It asks: how has a phrase like “black lives matter,” so patently banal, become so politically explosive? How can the same factions revitalized by the mantra of “small government” defend the most extreme form of government intervention possible—killing its citizens?