Black “Matter” Lives

Abstract

Since its inception, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has opened space for three interrelated discourses on the polysemic nature of matter, but so far two have dominated Black and communication studies. First, the BLM organization promotes the thought that Black lives, as human lives, should matter enough to convict White people of the murder of unarmed Black people. Second, some argue that while BLM is an important organization, historically, the lives of Black people in the West have not mattered. The third discourse, one suggested in the growing work of Black feminist new materialism, is more complicated, as it inherently calls into question the human: Why do Black lives equal matter? This article interrogates the relationship between blackness, matter, and communication to argue that racial violence situates Black bodies as matter/“elemental media” necessary for the materialization of Western (White) man as the dominant raced, gendered genre of humanity.