Crises Beyond Nationalities

The aim of my presentation titled, Crises Beyond Nationalities, is to discuss the topics of “immigration and racism”, “nationalism and terrorism”, “genocide”, “racial trauma”, “biology, neuroscience, and humanity”, and “empathy, love, and peace” so as not only to theorize about these complex issues but to point to ways forward with some progressive thinking. If the topics of “racism and immigration” are isolated without discussing their broader associations such as with nationalism and violence, or in the most extreme with genocide, then the arguments are not broad enough. As an anthropologist and peace activist, it is important to analyze such issues in a wider format so as to provide less hateful ways of viewing the world, such as through empathy, love, and peace. Moreover, analyzing racism, must not be limited to its social contexts but how recent developments and discoveries in neuroscience explain some of the driving neurochemical coercive forces in “othering” people. Further, recent findings in primatology, especially in regard to “empathy”, help us better understand why humans are not necessarily violent beings. What is more, often theorists of racism, too often discuss this issue in its historical, political, or social context, but rarely do so in regard to cognition and psychology, or the effects of such hate. Racial theory though very often promotes positions of historical and social “structures of violence” but leaves out the cognitive perspective. In sum, I hope to inspire those wishing to better understand the current crises of “immigration” in the United States, or the general “migration” trend of millions of people on the move worldwide, and why people promote “othering” certain groups of people, and how racism is tied to nationalist violence, and even genocide. Lastly, I will make a few comments about these topics associated with Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Black Lives Matter (BLM)