Black Bloc, White Riot

A.K. Thompson is the first scholar to offer an analysis and investigation of the black bloc (the masked, militant, and decentralized anti-globalization army that is inextricably linked to our memory of the mass protests at the turn of the century) that refuses to shy away from the issue of violence – and the only scholar to suggest the positive and liberatory effects of the black bloc on white middle-class politics. Revisiting the struggles against globalization in Canada and the US at the turn of the century, Black Bloc, White Riot explores the connection between political violence and the white middle class. Arguing that the white middle class was annexed from the field of politics during the 20th century, Thompson considers the dynamics of the anti-globalization movement as an expression of the struggle to reconnect with political being. Drawing on movement literature, contemporary and critical theory, and practical investigations – and jumping off from the unlikely triad of George Sorel, Frantz Fanon, and Clash guitarist Joe Strummer – the book considers why violence must once again become a central category of activist political reckoning. Each chapter in Black Bloc, White Riot engages with a key debate from the period of anti-globalization struggles. Whether considering the tensions between «direct» and «mass» action, «summit hopping» and «local organizing,» or «non-violence» and «diversity of tactics,» the author highlights the ways in which activist tactics and the struggle against globalization itself were qualitatively transformed by the experience of violence.