*Share with POC you might know that might be of some help in keeping them safe
by Ennica Jacob | February 2021
Arizona resident Robert Petersen used this update to create his own third-party shortcut, initially known as “Police” and now known as “I’m Getting Pulled Over.” It aims to assist users during traffic stops by automatically recording their interactions with police officers. First developed in 2018, the shortcut activates the Do Not Disturb feature, turning off all incoming calls, messages, and notifications. This is to reduce the chance that a police officer will be startled by your phone ringing or flashing, and act aggressively. Next, it’ll send a text message with your current location to all the contacts that you’ve selected beforehand. At the same time, your phone will start recording a video with the front camera (i.e. the one above the phone’s screen).
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Accountability] [Policing] [-ing While Black] [Bystander Intervention] [Racial Terrorism]
by Alexis Clark | February 2019
Blackface began in the US after the Civil War as white performers played characters that demeaned and dehumanized African Americans. The portrayal of blackface–when people darken their skin with shoe polish, greasepaint or burnt cork and paint on enlarged lips and other exaggerated features, is steeped in centuries of racism. It peaked in popularity during an era in the United States when demands for civil rights by recently emancipated slaves triggered racial hostility. And today, because of blackface’s historic use to denigrate people of African descent, its continued use is still considered racist. “It’s an assertion of power and control,” says David Leonard , a professor of comparative ethnic studies and American studies at Washington State University. “It allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and Jim Crow segregation.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Civil War] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Art & Culture] [Assumptions] [Myths] [White Blindness] [Social Justice] [Economics]
*Paywall Alert
by Brenda Richardson | June 2020
A decades-old housing policy known as redlining has had a long-lasting effect on American society and the economic health of Black households in particular, according to a new report by Redfin real estate brokerage. The racist 1930s-era policy that was outlawed in the 1960s effectively blocked Black families from obtaining home loans and remains a major factor in the country’s already substantial wealth gap between Black and white families. The typical homeowner in a neighborhood that was redlined for mortgage lending by the federal government has gained 52% less—or $212,023 less—in personal wealth generated by property value increases than one in a greenlined neighborhood over the last 40 years. Black homeowners are nearly five times more likely to own in a formerly redlined neighborhood than in a greenlined neighborhood, resulting in diminished home equity and overall economic inequality for Black families.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Racial Covenants] [Systemic Racism] [Economics] [Housing] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [History] [Denial] [Politics] [Justice System] [Policing] [Reparations] [Employment] [Social Justice]
by Ishena Robinson | December 2020
Dr. Susan Moore died days before Christmas at 52, after a protracted battle to get racially equitable treatment at Indiana University Health North Hospital (IU), according to videos she posted on social media about her experience. In a press release from Indiana University Health, Murphy claimed that the nursing staff who cared for Dr. Moore—who she said left her unattended for hours without the pain medication she had to fight to receive—were likely “intimidated” by Moore as a patient.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Health Disparities] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Advocacy] [Implicit Bias] [White Privilege] [Individual Change] [Accountability]
*Paywall Alert
by Joe Heim | August 2019
For generations, children have been spared the whole, terrible reality about slavery’s place in U.S. history, but some schools are beginning to strip away the deception and evasions. “Think about this. For 246 years, slavery was legal in America. It wasn’t made illegal until 154 years ago,” the 26-year-old teacher told the 23 students sitting before him at Fort Dodge Middle School. “So, what does that mean? It means slavery has been a part of America much longer than it hasn’t been a part of America.” It is a simple observation, but it is also a revelatory way to think about slavery in America and its inextricable role in the country’s founding, evolution and present.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Slavery] [History] [Collective Action] [Myths] [White Culture]
by Cassandra Profita | December 2020
The Nez Perce Tribe is reclaiming an ancestral village site in the Eastern Oregon town of Joseph more than a century after being pushed out the area. This month, the tribe purchased 148 acres of an area known as “the place of boulders,” or Am’sáaxpa. Chief Joseph held council on the ridge above, before a sweeping view of the Wallowa Mountains. Hundreds of tribal members would camp there at the peak of the fishing season and catch sockeye salmon along the Wallowa River. “There’s a lot of excitement buzzing around,” Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee Chairman Shannon Wheeler said. “We feel fortunate to be at this juncture in time to be able to say that we are on our way home. We feel the landscape misses us, and we miss the landscape.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Environment] [Systemic Racism] [Myths] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Advocacy]
