by Farida Dawkins | February 2018
… there was a time when black women weren’t allowed to display their hair in public. Keep reading to learn about the Tignon Laws and how it was used to fuel racial tensions in the United States. A tignon (tiyon) is a headdress used to conceal hair. It was adorned by free and slave Creole women of African ancestry in Louisiana in 1786. The sumptuary law was enacted under Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró. The regulation was meant as a means to regulate the style of dress and appearance for people of color. Black women’s features often attracted male white, French, and Spanish suitors and their beauty was a perceived threat to white women. The tignon law was a tactic used to combat the men pursuing and engaging in affairs with Creole women. Simply put, black women competed too openly with white women by dressing elegantly and possessing note-worth beauty.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Black Lives Matter] [Definitions] [Denial] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Slavery] [History]
by Taharee Jackson | January 2021
Hi. My name is Taharee Jackson, and I am suffering from HYPOTHETICAL RACISM.
I have not slept in two nights due to hypothetical racism-induced insomnia.
Allow me to explain. … Last night, on January 6, 2021, I was glued to the television, trying to see with my own eyes if the invasion of the United States Capitol by angry, White, gun-toting terrorists was actually happening. I kept waiting to see if throngs of police officers, special forces for insurrections, and National Guard members would show up in riot gear, handle them violently, spray rubber bullets, arrest them, shoot them, or even execute them on the spot. It happened. They did not. What truly kept me awake last night was my inability to identify the emotion I was feeling as a multiracial-mixed-with-Black woman watching the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfold WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE. Or, I should say, without the SAME consequences as the Antiracism and Black Lives Matter protests we just witnessed in all 50 states and the world over.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Definitions] [Policing] [Indigenous] [Social Justice] [Politics] [Silencing POC] [Economics] [Denial] [Justice System] [Police Shootings] [Racial Terrorism] [History] [Anti-Racism]
by Jeffrey R. Young | February 2021
Dena Simmons, a prominent researcher of social-emotional learning, resigned from Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence last month due to what she calls a pattern of behavior by some colleagues that left her feeling “tokenized, undermined and bullied.” The final straw for Simmons happened in June, during an antiracism town hall sponsored by Yale’s Child Study Center. Several people Zoombombed the event, yelling and typing racial slurs into the chat directed at Simmons. She quickly logged out of the forum, but colleagues encouraged her to return, and after she did, more unidentified participants attacked her with further racist comments.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Silencing POC] [Systemic Racism] [-ing While Black] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [Advocacy] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Indigenous]
by Reina Sultan | January 2020
White women love saying some variation of, “We are the granddaughters of the witches you could not burn”—even though no “witches” were actually burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials. It would be more accurate for them to say, “We are the granddaughters of the Suffragettes who sold out Black and brown women for their own political gain.” Because white women have been choosing whiteness since they fought for the right to vote.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Politics] [Indigenous] [Myths] [Silencing POC] [White Fragility/Tears] [Collective Action]
by Stephen A. Crockett Jr. | February 2021
Nothing says discrimination like booing a Black person trying to talk about discrimination. Such is life during a floor debate inside the Indiana Statehouse on Thursday in which Black lawmakers claimed that a bill would allow students in the largely white St. Joseph County township to leave the racially diverse South Bend Community Schools to join a smaller, rural school made up of mostly white students.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [Politics] [Silencing POC]
*Paywall Alert
by Gilliam Graham | February Year Unknown
In July of 1750, a short notice appeared in a Boston newspaper calling for help finding an enslaved man who had run away from Ichabod Goodwin of Berwick in the province of Maine. Pompey was described as a short man of about 40 who spoke good English, wore a homespun jacket and checked shirt and had a cut ear. Fitted around his neck was an iron slave collar, a brutal device used by enslavers to identify and discipline the people they claimed as property. Goodwin, a blacksmith who offered a reward for Pompey’s return, likely made the collar himself. Notices like these of runaway slaves are among the few written documents that describe the reality and brutality of slavery in the early days of the Massachusetts Province of Maine. Largely left out of history books or minimized as an insignificant footnote, slavery remains a nearly hidden aspect of the history of Maine, a state better known as the home of abolitionists than enslavers or profiteers. However, reminders of Maine’s slavery connections linger in the coves, streets and other landmarks named for slaveholders who have been remembered instead for their contributions to shipbuilding, trade and establishing coastal towns.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Slavery] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Black Lives Matter] [History] [Social Justice]
