by Christoph Strobel | February 2022
The essay explores the often-ignored histories of the indigenous people who resided on the confluence of the Merrimack and the Concord rivers up to the 1650s. This place is characterized by a significant bend in the Merrimack River as it changes its southerly flow into an easterly direction. Today, the area includes the modern city of Lowell, Massachusetts, and its surroundings. While the 1650s saw the creation of a Native American “praying town” and the incorporation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s towns of Chelmsford and Billerica, it is the diverse and complex indigenous past before this decade which North American and global historians tend to neglect. The pre-colonial and early colonial eras, and how observers have described these periods, have shaped the way we understand history today. This essay problematizes terminology, looks at how amateur historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries have shaped popular perceptions of Native Americans, and explores how researchers have told the history before the 1650s. The materials available to reconstruct the history of the region’s Native Americans are often hard to find, a common issue for researchers who attempt to study the history of indigenous peoples before 1500. Thus, the essay pays special attention to how incomplete primary sources as well as archeological and ethnohistorical evidence have shaped interpretations of this history and how these intellectual processes have aided in the construction of this past.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Implicit Bias] [Myths] [Politics] [Slavery] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Silencing POC] [Health Disparities] [Economics]
by Wendell Griffen | January 2022
This year, the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, an agency of the Arkansas Department of Education, has invited an un-reconstructed Southern Baptist preacher, right wing politician, and Fox News pundit named Mike Huckabee to deliver a “keynote address” during what it terms an “inter-faith prayer breakfast” on the King holiday (January 17). Attendance will be by invitation only. The event will be held at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice] [Role Model] [Politics] [Racial Terrorism] [Civil War] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Economics] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Intersectionality]
by From the Collection: Native Americans | Date Unknown
The creation of Mount Rushmore is a story of struggle — and to some, desecration. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux, the original occupants of the area when white settlers arrived. For some, the four presidents carved in the hill are not without negative symbolism. The Sioux have never had much luck dealing with white men. In the Treaty of 1868, the U.S. government promised the Sioux territory that included the Black Hills in perpetuity. Perpetuity lasted only until gold was found in the mountains and prospectors migrated there in the 1870s. The federal government then forced the Sioux to relinquish the Black Hills portion of their reservation.These events fit the pattern of the late 19th century, a time of nearly constant conflict between the American government and Plains Indians. At his second presidential inauguration in 1873, Ulysses S. Grant reflected the attitudes of many whites when he said he favored a humane course to bring Native Americans “under the benign influences of education and civilization. It is either this or war of extermination.” Many of the land’s original occupants did not choose to assimilate; for them war, was the only option.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [Indigenous] [Racial Terrorism] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Politics] [Social Justice] [History] [White Privilege] [Prison System] [Art & Culture]
by Andrew L. Yarrow | November 2021
At this time of year, Norman Rockwell is best remembered for his iconic 1943 painting “Freedom From Want,” depicting a smiling White family gathered around a Thanksgiving turkey. But it is less well known that he decisively turned a corner just a few decades later, choosing to reject the airbrushed image of a nation implicitly populated with only happy, White, middle-class families.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Prison System] [Policing] [Black Lives Matter] [Art & Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [History] [Politics] [Social Justice]
by Richard V. Reeves | June 2021
In white families, poverty is almost never passed down “like a disease”. Our just-published paper shows that just 1.3% of whites are experiencing third-generation poverty. By comparison, more than one in five Black Americans (21.3%) are in the third generation of their family to be poor. (The full paper, co-authored with Scott Winship and Santiago Deambrosi of AEI as well as Christopher Pulliam and Ariel Gelrud Shiro from our own team, is “Long Shadows: The Black-white gap in multigenerational poverty”). Our paper represents the first attempt to analyze income mobility patterns across three generations, back to the Civil Rights era, and it is an empirical challenge. But the overall pattern is starkly clear. Black Americans are sixteen times more likely to be in the third generation of poverty, defined as the bottom fifth of the income distribution (i.e. less than around $48,000 a year for a family of four in today’s money).
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Economics] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [History] [Social Justice] [Reparations] [Housing] [Indigenous] [Justice System]
by Jordan Simon | February 2020
“Every time there’s an interracial romance, it feels like it centers on whiteness, and it doesn’t have to,” the Insecure star said to Variety. “Just so you know, there are people who don’t procreate with just white people.” In the wake of Joaquin Phoenix’s speech at the BAFTAs calling out institutional racism and discrimination in Hollywood, Rae said it’s about time discussions on inclusion be asked of the white people make major decisions in the film and television industry. “I don’t feel like it’s up to me to answer those questions. Like, I’m doing the work. I’m out here. I’m employing who I need to employ, I’m telling the stories that I need to tell,” she said. “Those questions need to be asked to the powers-that-be. It needs to be asked to the white people who run this industry.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Art & Culture] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege] [Employment]
