On Frantz Fanon | w/ Lou Turner

Frantz Fanon wrote, you know the famous, often quoted but less applied dictate: “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” What if we are to intentionally engage this thought by asking, are we on the edge of betraying our mission? Have we even discovered it? Moreover, what can we do to fulfill it? How we go about engaging Fanon’s work gives rise to the corresponding need to reflect on what is urgent, usable, and instructive about his work – identifying the reason that his work matters and is of political consequence in the current moment. There is a need to be more intentional and critical in identifying what ideas and/or concepts and frameworks Fanon offers us that are useful [no, necessary] to us, now? In recognition of Fanon's 100th, we speak with Lou Turner. Professor Lou Turner is Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and former Academic Advisor for the Department of African American Studies, 2008-2017. Lou Turner was Research and Public Policy Director for Chicago South Side community organization Developing Communities Project (2000-2014). He is a board member of the African American Leadership & Policy Institute. Turner is the Principal Investigator for Hal Baron Digital Archival, Research, and Publication Project at UIUC. A colleague of the late Hegelian-Marxist philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya, he has written extensively on Fanonian, Marxian and Hegelian dialectics. With Dr. Helen Neville, Lou Turner co-edited Frantz Fanon’s Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Clinical Work: Practicing Internationally with Marginalized Communities (2020). Lou Turner is coauthor of Frantz Fanon, Soweto and American Black Thought (1978; 1986), which circulated in the anti-apartheid underground of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native/indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana; Ayiti; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. listen intently. think critically. act accordingly.