“American life has been suddenly and dramatically upended, and, when things are turned upside down, the bottom is brought to the surface and exposed to the light.”

– Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor, The New Yorker (3/30/2020)

The “Social Reproduction and the Crisis of Housing in Buffalo” panel aims to bring social reproduction theory home to Buffalo in terms of the struggle for affordable housing. As Dr. Taylor notes above, social crisis has a way of exposing the deeply embedded injustices within a society and as the recent litany of crises demonstrates—from COVID-19 to the white supremacist massacre at Tops in Buffalo’s East Side—a host of related concerns about safety, food insecurity, and access to medical care have come to the fore.

The panel will address such questions as:

What are the biggest challenges facing Buffalonians today and how is Buffalo a microcosm of similar challenges nationally?

What are the local social movements working toward housing justice and how do they connect with statewide and national movements?

How is housing a feminist issue? How is housing connected to reproductive justice movements?

Panelists:

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Leon Forrest Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University (and former UB undergraduate), 2021 MacArthur Fellow, and author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (2019), a semi-finalist for a National Book Award and a 2020 finalist for Pulitzer Prize.

India Walton, Director, Roots Action Buffalo/Roots Action Civic Engagement, former Executive Director of Fruit Belt Community Land Trust and 2021 Democratic candidate for Mayor of Buffalo, New York, who ran with a housing advocacy platform plank.

Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Former Executive Director of Buffalo’s People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH Buffalo), a West Side activist and housing advocacy organization.

Moderator: Carrie Tirado Bramen, Director of the UB Gender Institute and Professor of English.

This is a hybrid event and is free and open to the public. This event is funded by The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy and co-sponsored by the UB Departments of Africana and American Studies, English, Philosophy, Arts Management, and History. Register for this event here.