“Record the Noise” - César “che” Rodríguez on Racial Regimes and Blues Epistemology in the Lead-up to the Oscar Grant Moment

In this episode we welcome César “che” Rodríguez to the podcast.

We had a lengthy conversation about Rodríguez’s piece, “‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain’ Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California,” which we will link in the show notes.

César “che” Rodríguez works as a faculty member of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State Univeristy, is a rank-and-file union member of the California Faculty Association, and organized with Change SSF. 

As we got into discussion with che, we had some questions about his own relationships with Clyde Woods and Cedric Robinson and his use of certain methodological concepts. These questions led to in-depth discussion which offered so many insights into Cedric Robinson’s concepts of racial capitalism and racial regimes, and Clyde Woods’ concept of the blues epistemology and academic necrophilia. We decided to release that portion of the discussion as part one of the conversation. In particular che spends a good portion of this discussion laying out how he works with Robinson’s concept of racial regimes dialectically, providing an example of how he uses tools from Cedric Robinson, Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall and others to offer a conjunctural analysis of racial capitalism in Oakland in the lead up to what he calls the Oscar Grant moment. And we get into che’s concept of the hyphy corrido ché's concept linking Woods’ blues epistemology with Robinson’s mandate that ethnic studies scholars “record the noise.”

In part two we will get into a more detailed discussion of the movement that came together and protagonized in the wake of the of state murder of Oscar Grant, including a detailed discussion of the citizen journalism, the organizing and rebellion, and some thoughts on what we should take away from the Oscar Grant moment for movements against police impunity and popular struggles more broadly.

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Links:

“‘Oscar Did Not Die in Vain’ Revelous Citizen Journalism, Righteous/Riotous Work, and the Gains of the Oscar Grant Moment in Oakland, California” (the article from the episode)

Cedric J. Robinson - Critical Ethnic Studies Conference 2013