Segregated Time

When Martin Luther King Jr. argued on behalf of civil rights he was told that he was "too soon." Today, those demanding reparations for slavery are told they are "too late." What time is it? Or perhaps the appropriate question is: whose time is it? These questions point to a phenomenon of segregated time: how a range of political subjects are viewed as occupants of different time zones, how experiences of time diverge across peoples, and how these divergent temporal spheres are mutually entwined in ways that serve the interests of white supremacy. In Segregated Time, P.J. Brendese takes a time-sensitive approach to race as it pertains to the acceleration of human disposability, dynamic identity formation, and the production and allocation of social and economic goods. Although typically conceived in terms of space, Brendese argues that racial segregation and inequality are also sustained through impositions on human time. Drawing on a range of Africana, Latinx, and Indigenous political thought, Brendese demonstrates the way in which time is weaponized against people of color and advances a theory of "white time" as a possessive, acquisitive, colonizing force. The chapters explore how migration politics involves temporal borders, how the extended lifetimes of some are built on the foreshortened lives of others, how racial stigma conveys debt and "subprime time," and how whiteness functions as a store of credit through time. In this innovative inquiry into contemporary orders of time and race, Segregated Time examines who is regarded as behind the times, who is cast out of time through racial violence, who "does time" in the prison system, and the racial divides of lives on borrowed time in an epoch of climate catastrophe.

About the Author :
P.J. Brendese is Associate Professor of Political Theory in Johns Hopkins University's Department of Political Science. His research interests include critical race theory, decolonial and comparative political thought, and the politics of memory and temporality. In addition to his articles and essays, he is the author of The Power of Memory in Democratic Politics.

Review :
"P.J. Brendese's Segregated Time reveals novel insights in the examination of an understudied dimension of racial segregation and inequality more generally: the temporal disjunctions of power. Liberal as well as authoritarian states often deploy different temporal standards as a form of political power, evidenced in activities ranging from prison sentencing to addressing demands for equal rights. The cornucopia of examples in this wide-ranging book should appeal to a wide audience." -- Michael Hanchard, Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania "Like radical thinkers before him, P.J. Brendese makes 'What time is it?' a key political question. In a bold and original way, he joins to it the less common, 'Whose time is it?' His response is both broad and deep, meticulously scholarly, and formally inventive. Casting a fresh light on the workings of white supremacy and settler colonialism, Segregated Time should inform debates over democracy, power, the history of the present, and the futures worth fighting for." -- Mark Reinhardt, Class of 1956 Professor of American Civilization, Williams College