From the Border to the Core: A Thickening Military-Police Assemblage

Abstract

Militarization on the US–Mexico border has intensified in America’s post-9/11 War on Terror, while America’s War on Drugs has escalated militarization in America’s urban core. This infusion of military weapons and tactics along the border and within America’s urban core produces devastating effects on communities of color. Yet, to date, few critical race scholars attend to the Wars on Terror and on Drugs as two sides of the same coin. This article serves as a bridge between US–Mexico border studies and critical race studies vis-à-vis a theorization of a thickening military-police assemblage birthed by the War on Drugs, and intensified by the War on Terror. To delineate this assemblage, we respond to two key questions: how and to what degree has the US–Mexico border served as a staging ground for US (para)military and surveillance strategies at home and abroad? and how do discourses on America’s urban core compare and contrast with those on its southern border? We draw upon the cases of Esequiel Hernández, Jr. and Michael Brown, two teenagers whose lives were taken by this assemblage, to frame these questions. Our analysis reveals material, symbolic, and affective links between America’s militarization on the southwest border and within its urban core.