Racial Terrorism

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Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome and Intergenerational Trauma: Slavery is like a Curse Passing through the DNA of Black People

by David Lowe | June 2016
In a society in denial, racism is proclaimed dead and an historical phenomenon. Yet it is very much alive, as manifested in the behavior of Black folk. In her book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, Dr. Joy DeGruy discusses the condition that serves as the title of her book in a video.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Slavery] [White Supremacy] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter]

Some of Us Are Complicit in Racism

By Rabbi Shai Held | May 2017
Amidst all the carnage, you may have missed the story of Richard Collins. If so, you missed a story that we must not ignore: Richard Collins III, a young black man and a student at Bowie State University, was murdered after he refused to step aside to let a white student pass by.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Accountability] [-ing While Black] [Black Lives Matter]

To The Guy Flying A Confederate Flag In New England

by Rev. Emily C. Heath | August 2017
In a time when nine African-American churchgoers were massacred at their church by a man wearing that flag, and in a week when seven black churches have been burned with little media attention, those flags tell everyone that you could care less about what is happening. Others can suffer, so long as you get to wear your flag. It’s like showing up at a funeral and dancing on the grave. I think you believe that the flag brands you as a “rebel” or somehow honors your outlook on life. It doesn’t. It brands you as a racist. You may not think you are one, but flying that flag is a racist act.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Confederate Monuments] [History] [2010’s]

White People, The Philando Castile Acquittal Should Make You Mad as Hell

by Zenobia Jeffries Warfield | June 2017
It is a fact that Black and Brown people are herded through the prison system at higher rates, are killed by police officers at higher rates, and are not allowed the same privileges in this country as most of you, especially when it comes to receiving justice. That is the reality the country has been built on. People who are not White are treated as less than human because The System was designed by and for White people. So how does a system designed to benefit Whites also export and fail them?
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Prison System] [Police Shootings] [White Blindness]

Racial Trauma is Real: The Impact of Police Shootings on African Americans

by Administrator | July 2016
The violence witnessed towards people of color from police continues to damage perceptions of law enforcement and further stereotype people of color negatively. Decades of research have noted the impact of discrimination and racism on the psychological health of communities of color (e.g., Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006; Carter & Forsyth, 2009; Comas-Díaz, 2016).
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Police Shootings] [2010’s] [Policing] [Assumptions] [Systemic Racism] [History]

Betty Shelby’s New Job Is Why Cops Won’t Stop Killing Black People

by Michael Harriot | August 2017
OK, there’s a woman cop named Betty Shelby. One day, while on duty, Shelby kills an unarmed black man named Terence Crutcher while he is walking away from her with his hands in the air. It is caught on two different cameras.Betty Shelby, the former Tulsa, Okla., police officer acquitted of killing Terence Crutcher in cold blood—even though there are two videos that show her killing Crutcher in cold blood—has a brand-new job as a reserve deputy with the Rogers County (Okla.) Sheriff’s Office, according to several sources, including the Tulsa World.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Black Lives Matter] [Police Shootings] [2010’s]

Why Do People Believe Myths about the Confederacy? Because Our Textbooks and Monuments are Wrong

by James W. Loewen | July 2015
The Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was all about. We are still digging ourselves out from under the misinformation they spread, which has manifested in our public monuments and our history books. With our monuments lying about secession, our textbooks obfuscating what the Confederacy was about, and our Army honoring Southern generals, no wonder so many Americans supported the Confederacy until recently.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [Myths] [Confederate Monuments] [Civil War] [Slavery] [History] [White Supremacy]

Black Farmer Gets Real in Viral Post About the Type of Subtle Racism He Fears Most

by Kyle Jaeger | May 2017
Chris Newman’s Facebook post called out the counter-protests that were organized after Spencer led a march of torch-bearing white nationalists on May 14. Spencer’s group was protesting the planned removal of a Confederate monument.
While the optics and sentiment of the demonstration were disturbing, Newman said he felt “far less bothered by the flag wavers in this picture than this town’s progressives assuming its race problem has nothing to do with them.” “The former is a visual inconvenience. The latter could leave my daughters without a father.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]

The Secret History of New England’s Sundown Towns

by James Lowen, & The New England Historical Society | February 2020
“Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark” reads the faded road sign, an artifact on display at the Tubman African American Museum in Georgia.
The sign was found in Connecticut outside of a sundown town – a municipality that prevented African-Americans or other minorities from lingering after dark.
TAGS: [Racial Covenants] [History] [Policing] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Racial Terrorism]

U.S. Owes Black People Reparations for a History of ‘Racial Terrorism,’ Says U.N. Panel

by Ishaan Tharoor | September 2016
The history of slavery in the United States justifies reparations for African Americans, argues a recent report by a U.N.-affiliated group based in Geneva. This conclusion was part of a study by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a body that reports to the international organization’s High Commissioner on Human Rights. The group of experts, which includes leading human rights lawyers from around the world, presented its findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, pointing to the continuing link between present injustices and the dark chapters of American history. “In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report stated. “Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Reparations] [Slavery] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Accountability] [White Supremacy]