Radical Testimony

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 5 examines protest acts as forms of group testimony in anti-racist activism from abolitionism to Black Lives Matter, in feminist activism (e.g., #MeToo), and in the queer activism of ACT UP. The chapter explains how testimonial protest acts can be used to break social silences, to disrupt complicity and insensitivity, and to work toward new forms of social sensibility and a more inclusive political imagination. The author defends a victim-centered view of protest that gives special normative weight to the testimonial protest acts of the victims of injustice. Through case studies, the chapter offers an analysis of radical group testimony, that is, the kind of group testimony that has the potential to transform the public sphere and is established through testimonial protest acts that break hardened social and institutional silences.