On Justice #10: Racial (In)Justice in Authoritarian Times

At HAU, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw will engage in a conversation with Alice Hasters, the award-winning author of “Anti-Victim,” and legal scholar Cengiz Barskanmaz.

Journalist Alice Hasters writes and publishes primarily on identity, racism, feminism, and intersectionality.

Cengiz Barskanmaz specializes in law and anti-discrimination and is the author of “Law and Racism: The Human Rights Prohibition of Discrimination Based on Race.” At the center of their discussion is the intensifying attack on intersectional anti-discrimination policies against the backdrop of authoritarian tendencies in the U.S. and Germany. Crenshaw describes how exclusionary nationalism, securitization, the suppression of protests, and anti-immigration policies are exacerbating long-standing racial inequalities. At the same time, the space for academic freedom and civil society is shrinking, restricting precisely those legal frameworks designed to combat racial inequalities. The architecture of this legal and discursive regression will be analyzed and situated within the context of Crenshaw’s recently published memoir, “Backtalker: An American Memoir.”

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw is a pioneering thinker and author on the topics of civil rights, Black feminist legal theory, racism, and law. She is a co-founder and leading figure in the intellectual movement known as Critical Race Theory and is also known for introducing and developing the concept of intersectionality.

She is Distinguished Professor of Law and holds the Promise Institute Chair in Human Rights at the University of California, Los Angeles; she is also the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum. Crenshaw writes regularly for “The New Republic,” “The Nation,” and “Ms.” and hosts the podcast “Intersectionality Matters!”

Alice Hasters is a cultural critic and author of the books “What White People Don’t Want to Hear About Racism, But Should Know” (2019), “Identity Crisis” (2023), and “Anti-Victim: Why We Despise Vulnerability” (2026). As an editor, she worked for “Tagesschau” and “Jetzt mal konkret” (rbb) until 2021, and as host of “Einhundert – Storys mit Alice Hasters” (Dlf Nova) until 2022. Since 2016, she has produced and hosted the podcast “Feuer & Brot” with her friend Maxi Häcke, covering current topics in pop culture, politics, and society.

Prof. Dr. Cengiz Barskanmaz, LL.M., is a professor of social work law at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. His areas of expertise include constitutional law, human rights, anti-discrimination law, critical race theory, racism, postcolonialism, and intersectionality. His current research focuses on racism and structural discrimination in the criminal justice system.

IN ENGLISH