by Noah A. McGee | December 2021
It took one Black military veteran 45 years to get his benefits. Yes, you read that right. It took four decades to get what was due to him. War veterans have always struggled to get the benefits due to them, especially Black veterans. But now, that could all change. According to The Cullman Times, an initiative was signed that ordered the Government Accountability Office to perform a study “to assess disparities associated with race and ethnicity in veterans receiving benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.” It will be led by Senator Raphael Warnock. Unfortunately, it had to take a measure like this from the federal government for Black veterans who served our country to receive basic benefits that they fought for, but here we are.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Accountability] [Politics] [Black Lives Matter] [Denial] [Silencing POC] [Systemic Racism] [Justice System] [Health Disparities]
by James Mulholland | November 2021
After their successes in the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey, it is obvious the Republican Party intends use inflammatory and false depictions of Critical Race Theory as a strategy to frighten white suburban parents and play on latent racial prejudices. We can expect Critical Race Theory to be the boogeyman of the next election cycle. …The basic tenets of Critical Race Theory can and should be introduced to children in simple terms. For example, elementary children SHOULD be taught that the color of your skin does not make you better or worse than anyone else. High school students SHOULD be taught the history of legal and systemic racial discrimination in America. In addition, Critical Race Theory is vitally important for educators to understand. Teachers SHOULD be taught Critical Race Theory and it should inform their teaching philosophy and classroom content. Understanding Critical Race Theory will make our schools – which are institutions prone to systemic racism – less racist. Ironically, the problem in the United States is not that Critical Race Theory has infiltrated our public-school systems. The issue is that it has not.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Definitions] [Anti-Racism] [History] [Assumptions] [Individual Change] [Systemic Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Teachers]
by Wil Phinney | November 2021
“If it wasn’t for Indians, Lewis and Clark probably wouldn’t have made it,” said Gail Chehak, tribal relations and outreach manager at the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA), which is collaborating with NPS to develop online itineraries to promote the tribes that intersected with Lewis and Clark on their way across what became the United States. The online guides will include tribal events and sites, designed to help attract visitors ranging from families and bicycle tours to international tourism. Importantly, the stories will reflect the expedition from an Indigenous perspective, as told by the descendants of those who encountered the explorers as they made their way west. Cultural and geo-tourism will be highlighted on two websites, LewisAndClark.travel and NativeAmerica.travel.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Assumptions] [Myths] [White Culture]
by J.L. Cook | June 2021
As Juneteenth approaches, Tampa’s local NAACP wants the city to commit to finding the graves that once rested at College Hill Cemetery. Robert Meacham, who became a Florida state senator after being freed from slavery, is one of more than 1,200 people buried at a site that is now believed to be a parking lot for the Italian Club Cemetery in Tampa, Fla. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Meacham’s unmarked grave was located in the College Hill Cemetery for Blacks and Cubans–which has long been erased. In an effort to rectify this, the local NAACP branch in Tampa has challenged the city to commemorate Juneteenth by funding an archaeological survey of the Italian Club Cemetery lot to find out if Meacham’s body and others are there.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Politics] [Silencing POC] [Black Lives Matter] [Social Justice] [Slavery] [Accountability]
by Matthew Lynch | October 2019
Racial biases are not unknown to the history of the U.S. education system. Dating back to the 1800s, Native American children were taken from their homes and forced into boarding schools where they were pushed to abandon their native language and adopt a foreign religion. Education was used to assimilate these Native American children to White culture forcibly. This institutional racism created a belief that White culture was far better than the Native American Way. These racial biases expressed themselves with the Chinese in a different manner. Instead of forcing them to assimilate into the prescribed White educational system, Chinese-American children were barred completely from going to school. Later legislation stated they had a right to public education but segregated them into Chinese-only schools. Latinos faced the same fate as the Chinese in being methodically shut out from education. Latinos were later granted access to education under the ruling of a judge with a particular belief; the judge asserted that Latinos were of White descent and therefore above other minorities. In the American South, laws against African-Americans completely obstructed their ability to get an education. By law, it was illegal for an African-American to learn how to read and write. African-American communities had to turn to schools established by Quakers and Christians in order to get an education. But turmoil and violence would always find their white allies, forcing these schools to close their doors. Fear of uprising was palpable in these plantation states, and illiteracy became a weapon used against African-Americans. If African-Americans remained uneducated, plantation owners and Southern Whites believed, they would not revolt, maintaining the status quo of slavery.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [History] [Implicit Bias] [Indigenous] [White Culture] [Asian] [Black Lives Matter] [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Slavery] [Social Justice] [White Privilege] [Teachers]
by Herb Dyer, Jr. | April 2021
In a recent appearance on Don Lemon’s CNN nightly talk fest, the good professor brought Lemon to tears with his analysis of the Derek Chauvin trial for that killer-cop’s (and his buddies) cold-blooded, public, callous and nonchalant — almost gleeful at times — lynching of George Floyd. Dr. West issued both a demand and a warning to white America and its police forces who do not seem to be able to stop killing black people. The gist of Dr. West’s comments is that black people today are not going to submit to teaching yet another generation of black children how to navigate their way through the white supremacist/white racist maze, its mental, physical (structural/institutional/systemic)and emotional roadblocks and obstacles placed everywhere and every time black people dare to act out their humanity.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Politics] [Economics] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism]
