a global network to dismantle colorism and anti-Black racism
We are a global network of media makers, scholars, and activists working with our communities identify and dismantle colorism and anti-Black racism.
popular culture as both archive and tool
We turn to local and regional media and popular culture as both archive and tool—an archive in which to trace culturally specific histories of representation; and a tool with which to raise awareness, mobilize, and inform.
transnational, comparative frame
We prioritize perspectives grounded in local languages that are familiar with regional understandings of ethnicity, sect, religion, gender, and class—as well as race. CcRrrC hosts these perspectives in a transnational, comparative frame.
a global phenomenon in specific vernaculars
We do so because we understand that white supremacy is a global phenomenon that is manifest in specific vernaculars. Our work looks to support and sharpen tools available to communities as they combat colorism and anti-Black racism.
Project History
In 2021, Lateral published “Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism in South West Asia and North Africa,” a forum exploring white supremacy and anti-Black racism in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian-speaking contexts. The nine peer-reviewed, open-access essays broke readership records for the journal and introduced Lateral to an other-than academic, global audience. Beeta Baghoolizadeh’s essay about blackface in Haji Firuz, a popular character associated with Nowruz, quickly went viral. Translated into Persian, it was cited by Tehran’s mayor the same year in plans to remove minstrel performances from official Nowruz celebrations.
In 2022, Lateral’s editorial team received a grant, led by Rayya El Zein, from the Social Science Research Council’s Research AMP program to develop the initial idea of the “Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism in the SWANA” into a comparative global platform. CcRrrC (pronounced krick!) now hosts two additional regional fora exploring white supremacy, colorism, and anti-Black racism as it appears in popular culture in East Asia and the Caribbean.
We are seeking support and partnership to continue to develop the CcRrrC platform and the regional content it hosts. Interested funders, institutions, researchers, activists, artists, and journalists can reach us at ccrrrc.lateral@gmail.com.
