Punitive Inertia: The Mechanics of Policing Race, Space, and the Category of Human

Korey Tillman, PhD, examines how the imbricated histories of racial slavery and colonialism shape contemporary policing. He will discuss how anti-Blackness shapes the formal and informal ways that Black individuals are policed in their everyday lives. Data were collected through three years of ethnographic observations between a homeless service provider and a grassroots abolitionist organization, and 23 interviews with Black individuals across the U.S. on their experiences with racism and policing. The findings reveal that Black spatial trajectories are altered by mundane forms of policing that extend beyond the criminal legal system. Tillman coins the term punitive inertia to describe how Black bodies moving through an anti-Black modernity generate incessant moments of policing and resistance that call into question our very notions of Human and the Social as coherent categories. Insights from this research urge scholars and activist alike to contend with the demands of abolition and the new forms of human relationality that would ensue.