In 2013, George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Black teenager, Trayvon Martin, to many came as a surprise mostly because the civilised believe words and focus on language rather than on actions, praxis, and consequences. Namely, civilised people see the judicial system with its verbose process as a system of justice and in the eyes of those involved in Zimmerman’s trial, there was “no evidence beyond reasonable doubt” that Zimmerman acted outside the confines of the American law. Thus, the question here was not whether killing someone was wrong; the problem to be resolved was whether the killer had the right to kill.

In this lecture, Layla AbdelRahim discusses the civilised premises that construct the human animal as predatory, thus centering murder in anthropology itself and reinforcing the predatory narrative. Furthermore, this predation is structured by the classificatory system of civilised epistemology that categorises groups of living and nonliving beings, whether human or not, as “resources” and “consumers” thereby excluding whole groups and their immense suffering from the public discourse on justice. As discussed in her book, Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education, this predatory narrative is reinforced by both the medical sector and the system of education and is reconfirmed by the legislative system.

A public lecture organised by the Radical Criminology Working Group at the Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, B.C., Canada.

on: Tuesday, October 8, 2013at 5:30pm – 7:00pm in PDT
at: 12666 72 Avenue, Surrey, British Columbia V3W 2M8

View the lecture here: Crime & Reward from an Anarcho-Primitivist Perspective