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“The differentiation between conspiracy and conspiracy theory is particularly important to the study of Black American conspiracy theorizing. First and foremost, this differentiation allows us to understand the construction of race as a conspiratorial framework which facilitates and justifies the enactment of real conspiracies. The construct of race, in terms of its most fundamental social and political function, exists to create two distinct classes of (white) persons with full rights and privileges, and (non-white) sub-persons who can then be colonized, exploited, abused, oppressed, etc. based on this status (Mills 1997; Roberts 2011; Zuberi 2001). It is one fabricated hegemonic system amongst many which serves to justify the subjugation of various peoples; a global “political system that governs people by sorting them into social groupings based on invented [context-specific] biological demarcations” (Roberts 2011, 4). Though all manner of “scientific” study has sought to biologically justify this social construct, As Roberts (2011) points out, “human beings do not fit the zoological definition of race, which describes a population of organisms that can be distinguished from other populations in the same species based on differences in inherited traits” (Roberts 2011, p. 4). Based on this definition, no human population contains such a high degree of genetic differentiation that they can be considered a different “race,” in the ways we use the term to classify subspecies of animals (Roberts 2011).”

Chapter 1 Subverting the Western Episteme: Alternative Knowledges & Black Cultural Production