Black Lives Matter in Italy and the Legacy of Colonialism
Join the Department of Italian and special guest Fred Kudjo Kuwornu for a multi-media lecture addressing the nature of American systemic racism, which is structurally different from the Italian one, offering the audience a cultural and semantic framework to interpret the current situation in Italy within the contest of its colonial past. When was racism born in Italy? Who are the Afro-Italian activists? What is the history of Black Italy? Is there any collective memory of the Italian colonial past? What battle is Italian black activism engaged in?
Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Italian-Ghanaian filmmaker, activist, educator, producer, born and raised in Italy and based in New York. He is best known as the director of critically acclaimed documentaries such as Blaxploitalian, Inside Buffalo and 18 IUS SOLI. His documentaries deal with political and social themes, such as racism, interracial relations, diversity, Afro-Italians and Black diasporic identity in Italy and the African diaspora in the world. His mother is an Italian Jew, and his father is a Ghanaian surgeon who lived in Italy since the early 60’s. He holds a Master of Arts in Political Science at the University of Bologna, Italy with a focus on sociology and mass communication studies.