Resource Links Tagged with "Politics"

Redlining’s Legacy of Inequality: Low Homeownership Rates, Less Equity for Black Households

*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]

The 1950s: Long Live the Lumbee

by Philip Gerard| July 2019
The Native Americans of Robeson County are strong and proud, but their history is marked by the struggle to overcome bias. In the 1950s, a watershed moment brings national attention to the Lumbee Tribe.
Through the early decades of the 20th century, the Lumbee Indians were not much known outside of Robeson County in the southeastern part of the state — though their forebears settled there by at least 1754, when an agent for colonial Gov. Arthur Dobbs discovered some 50 families living at the headwaters of the Little Pee Dee. His description was less than flattering: “a lawless People [who] possess the Lands without patent or paying quit rents.” Thus began a long history with white settlers during which the Lumbee struggled to gain respect.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Implicit Bias] [Myths] [Politics] [Systemic Racism] [Denial] [White Supremacy] [Health Disparities] [Racial Terrorism] [Justice System]

Are Jews Indigenous People? Here’s What a Native American Jew Thinks

by Hen Mazzig | October 2020
Von Schlegel draws her definition of indigenous peoples from the United Nations, which defines the term as inheritors of unique cultures who have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. She noted how indigenous peoples have sought recognition of their identities, lifestyles and their right to ancestral lands throughout history, but their rights have continuously been violated by empires, nation-states and external colonial powers. … As a member of both communities, von Schlegel has experienced firsthand how Pueblo People and Jews share ritual practices of giving thanks for the food, land, knowledge and other gifts from our Creator. In particular, she believes what Jews do every Friday, as we ritually welcome in the “Angels of Peace” to mark the beginning of Shabbat, resembles customary native rituals of welcoming spirits or ancestors.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [Indigenous] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Advocacy] [Social Justice] [Economics] [Politics] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Denial]

‘An Unbelievable Chain of Oppression’: America’s History of Racism was a Preexisting Condition for COVID-19

by Alan Gomez, Wyatte Grantham-Philips, Trevor Hughes, Rick Jervis, Rebecca Plevin, Kameel Stanley, Dennis Wagner, Marco della Cava, Deborah Barfield Berry, and Mark Nichols | October 2020
As the country cries out for a vaccine and a return to normal, lost in the policy debates is the reality that COVID-19 kills far more people of color than white Americans. This isn’t a matter of coincidence, poor choices or bad luck — it’s by design. A team of USA TODAY reporters explored how the policies of the past and present have made Black, Asian, Hispanic and Indigenous Americans prime targets for COVID-19. They found: America’s education and economic systems are still unequal, disproportionately leaving people of color out of higher-wage jobs. When COVID-19 struck, more people of color were serving as essential workers directly in the path of the virus.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [Health Disparities] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Asian] [Latino/a] [Economics] [Employment] [Systemic Racism] [Denial] [History] [Social Justice] [Politics] [Justice System] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Housing] [Slavery] [Racial Covenants] [Environment] [Silencing POC]

Did You See the Law Enforcement Response to the Rioters Taking Over the Capitol? This Is What White Privilege Looks Like

by Petula Dvorak | January 2021
Everyone — millions of people — saw this coming. President Trump invited his followers to D.C. a month ago, promising them it’s “gonna be wild.” They planned the riots openly on social media for weeks, bragging about how many guns they’d bring and the mayhem they’d set off. They came by the thousands, and outside the White House, Trump rallied them to march on the Capitol on Wednesday, reassuring them that “after this, we’re going to walk down there, and I’ll be there with you.” (He wasn’t.)
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Policing] [-ing While Black] [Civil War] [Accountability]

After Attempted Coup, We Must Fight White Supremacy and Sow Revolutionary Love

by Adrienne Maree Brown | January 2021
The confederacy, whose flag was waved in the Capitol building on Wednesday, was a four-year alignment of 11 states committed, among other things, to the right to own slaves. It emerged toward the end of a centuries-long period during which it was easily assumed that the role of people of African descent was to provide free labor until death. The foundations of U.S. wealth and reach are heavy bricks sunken into the bloody soil of that labor. There are many flags that could be created and waved if the issue at hand were the right of states to self-determine their own destinies, but those who claim the U.S. confederacy are easily aligning with a very specific and racist right, a very specific white supremacy.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [Slavery] [History] [Economics] [Civil War] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Myths] [Denial] [Politics]

Denial Is the Heartbeat of America; When Have Americans Been Willing to Admit Who We Are?

by Ibram X. Kendi | January 2021
“Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are,” President-elect Joe Biden said during Wednesday’s siege. …To say that the attack on the U.S. Capitol is not who we are is to say that this is not part of us, not part of our politics, not part of our history. And to say that this is not part of America, American politics, and American history is a bald-faced denial. But the denial is normal. In the aftermath of catastrophes, when have Americans commonly admitted who we are? The heartbeat of America is denial. It is historic, this denial. Every American generation denies. America is establishing the freest democracy in the world, said the white people who secured their freedom during the 1770s and ’80s. America is the greatest democracy on Earth, said the property owners voting in the early 19th century. America is the beacon of democracy in world history, said the men who voted before the 1920s. America is the leading democracy in the world, said the non-incarcerated people who have voted throughout U.S. history in almost every state. America is the utmost democracy on the face of the Earth, said the primarily older and better-off and able-bodied people who are the likeliest to vote in the 21st century. America is the best democracy around, said the American people when it was harder for Black and Native and Latino people to vote in the 2020 election.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Latino/a] [Denial] [History] [Politics] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Slavery] [Civil War] [Racial Terrorism] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [Economics]

National Congress of American Indians Statement on U.S. Capitol Storming by Trump Supporters

by Native News Online Staff | January 2021
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Administrative Board Officers met in response to the events surrounding the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and released the following statement: “This week, as hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to die on a daily basis and millions more suffer the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the President of the United States chose to incite his supporters to launch a violent and uncivilized attack on our democracy, which led to destruction of public property and unfortunately the death of several American citizens. The actions of those who breached the U.S. Capitol building put the lives and liberties of many in danger. These actions, incited by President Trump and his enablers, are rooted in systemic and acute racism and hate, and represent direct attacks on our democracy. As leaders of our own tribal nations, we understand the sacred duty undertaken by those chosen to serve their people to uphold the rule of law and the will of the people.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Indigenous] [Social Justice] [Accountability] [White Supremacy] [Politics] [Health Disparities] [White Privilege] [White Defensiveness]

The Lies We Tell Ourselves about Race

by Sam Sanders | January 2021
There is a lie some Americans tell themselves when America is on its worst behavior: “This isn’t America!” or “This isn’t who we are!” or “We’re better than this!” You heard versions of this lie again this past week after armed insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on urging from President Trump, attempting to undo the results of last November’s election. Even in the halls of Congress, after the broken glass was cleared and U.S. senators and representatives were allowed back into their chambers from undisclosed locations, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska came back to this refrain: “Our kids need to know that this isn’t what America is.” We are a country built on fabrication, nostalgia and euphemism. And every time America shows the worst of itself, all the contradictions collapse into the lie I’ve heard nonstop for the last several years: “This isn’t who we are.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [Civil War] [White Blindness] [White Defensiveness] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Fragility/Tears] [Economics] [Politics] [Cognitive Dissonance] [Myths]

Black Police Officers Describe the Racist Attacks They Faced as They Protected the Capitol

by Emmanuel Felton | January 2021
The first glimpse of the deadly tragedy that was about to unfold came at 9 a.m. on the morning of the insurrection for one Black veteran of the US Capitol Police. But it didn’t come from his superiors — instead the officer had to rely on a screenshot from Instagram sent to him by a friend. … Management’s inaction left Black police officers especially vulnerable to a mob that had been whipped up by President Donald Trump, a man who has a record of inspiring racist vigilantes to action. One of the most defining videos of that day was of one of their colleagues, another Black officer, trying in vain to hold back the tide of rioters who had broken into the building and were hunting for Congressional members. BuzzFeed News spoke to two Black officers who described a harrowing day in which they were forced to endure racist abuse — including repeatedly being called the n-word — as they tried to do their job of protecting the Capitol building, and by extension the very functioning of American democracy. The officers said they were wrong-footed, fighting off an invading force that their managers had downplayed and not prepared them for. They had all been issued gas masks, for example, but management didn’t tell them to bring them in on the day. Capitol Police did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment about the allegations made by officers.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Politics] [Accountability] [Black Lives Matter] [Social Justice] [Policing] [-ing While Black]

On the Anniversary of His Death, Theodore W. Allen’s Analysis Still Resonates

by Jeffrey B. Perry |January 2021
“White supremacy” wrote Allen, is “both the keystone and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy.” “White identity had to be carefully taught.”Theodore W. “Ted” Allen (August 23, 1919-January 19, 2005) was an anti-white supremacist, working class intellectual and activist. He developed his pioneering class struggle-based analysis of “white skin privilege” beginning in the mid-1960s; authored the seminal two-volume “The Invention of the White Race” in the 1990s; and consistently maintained that the struggle against white supremacy was central to efforts at radical social change in the United States. Born on August 23, 1919, in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up in Paintsville, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia (where he graduated from high school), and then went into the mines and became a United Mine Workers Local President. After hurting his back in the mines he moved to New York City and lived his last fifty-plus years in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn where he worked various jobs including as a postal worker at the Bulk Mail Center in Jersey City, NJ and as a librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Social Justice] [History] [Slavery] [Economics] [Civil War] [Systemic Racism] [Politics]

Martin Luther King Jr Was a Radical. We Must Not Sterilize His Legacy

by Cornel West | April 2018
In this brief celebratory moment of King’s life and death we should be highly suspicious of those who sing his praises yet refuse to pay the cost of embodying King’s strong indictment of the US empire, capitalism and racism in their own lives. We now expect the depressing spectacle every January of King’s “fans” giving us the sanitized versions of his life. We now come to the 50th anniversary of his assassination, and we once again are met with sterilized versions of his legacy. A radical man deeply hated and held in contempt is recast as if he was a universally loved moderate.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Economics] [Systemic Racism] [History] [White Blindness] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Social Justice] [Policing] [Politics] [Denial]

How to Be a Black Ally

by Michael Harriot | January 2021
The most prominent member of White Twitter has been kicked off the internet. Parler (also known as Caucasian Clubhouse) has been dismantled. And, because the TSA put them on the no-fly list, our beloved Brads and Beckys are literally forced to sit on the back of the bus. Sure, they control 95 percent of the Fortune 500 corporations, legislatures, courts, media outlets, financial institutions and police departments in America. But white privilege also means that, when times get hard, they need someone to speak up for them. Our silence has to stop. For years, the Black community has ignored economic anxiety, racial resentment and white fragility. Very few African Americans attended the March on Wypipo-ing in Charlottesville or the Coup Klutz Klan cookout on the Capitol. We make excuses like: “There were too many Nazis there.” But, if we are being honest, it is because Black America loves to engage in this selfish practice called “minding our damn business.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Politics] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Economics] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [“Reverse Racism”] [Microaggressions] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability]

The Pre-Civil War Fight Against White Supremacy; In a Country Driven by Racial Politics, Three Women Strove for a Just Society

by Dorothy Wickenden | January 2021
Two years into the cataclysmic war, Lincoln found a way to justify emancipation, as a “military necessity.” Frances greeted the proclamation with relief, but not euphoria. She was equally subdued when the Thirteenth Amendment eventually passed, on January 31, 1865, inscribing into the Constitution the eradication of slavery. Back in Auburn, she read the Herald Tribune’s report about the giddy scene in Washington. The visitors’ galleries were full, and senators and Supreme Court Justices squeezed onto the House floor. Finally, Speaker Schuyler Colfax stood and gavelled the room to order, announcing in a quavering voice that the ayes had a hundred and nineteen votes, the nays fifty-six. As Democrats looked on stonily, Republicans threw their hats in the air, cheering and roaring. Women in the gallery waved their handkerchiefs. Artillery at the Capitol fired a hundred-gun salute. The Tribune’s headline declared, “freedom triumphant. commencement of a new era. death of slavery.” It was a historic victory, but it had been won as much by political horse-trading as by deep principle. Henry and Lincoln, in a months-long backroom campaign, had lobbied wavering representatives with bribes and offers of jobs. And, Frances thought, it was too soon to celebrate. The amendment still had to be ratified by three-quarters of the states. Half a million men had died in the war, and it was not over. General William Tecumseh Sherman was moving through the Carolinas, and Ulysses S. Grant was eight months into his siege of Petersburg. There were rumors that rebels would attempt to assassinate the President. After reading about the joyous outpouring in the House, Frances wrote Henry a bracingly solemn note: “I congratulate you on the passage of the Constitutional amendment which I know you had much at heart. The prospect of abolishing slavery throughout the United States is indeed cheering.” The battle for equality had barely begun.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Slavery] [Justice System] [Civil War] [History] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Racial Terrorism] [Prison System] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Quaker]

How the Dawes Act Stole 90 Million Acres of Native American Land

by Dave Roos | January 2021
In the long, dark history of the United States government’s mistreatment of Native Americans, most people are familiar with the Trail of Tears, in which approximately 15,000 Native American men, women and children died during forced relocation from their tribal homelands in the American Southeast to Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma. But the theft of Native American tribal land didn’t stop with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that authorized the Trail of Tears. Over the next century, Congress passed a series of laws that systematically stripped tribes of their lands, selling them to white settlers and corporations.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Slavery] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Economics] [Implicit Bias] [Justice System] [Assumptions]

Episcopal Church Established by Baltimore Slave Owners Creates $500,000 Reparations Fund

by Jonathan M. Pitts | January 2021
A Baltimore Episcopal church founded by slaveholders in the 1860s says it will spend $500,000 over the next five years to establish a fund intended as reparations for slavery.
Members of Memorial Episcopal Church in Bolton Hill voted Sunday to set aside $100,000 to donate in the next year to community organizations doing “justice-centered work.” The fund aims to address race-based inequalities that took root during slavery and proliferated for generations in the church and in the community at large.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Reparations] [Social Justice] [Systemic Racism] [Role Model] [Housing] [Environment] [Politics] [Racial Covenants] [History] [Civil War] [Collective Action] [Confederate Monuments] [Advocacy]

Embracing Reparations for Slavery

by Cabaretic Community | January 2021
Quakers have historically taken unpopular stances throughout history. We favored abolition and freed our slaves before most others did. We allowed women the right to participate in Worship, providing them the agency to contribute vocal ministry from the very beginning. Many women helped establish the Religious Society of Friends (our official name) as well. We revere our First Wave feminist foremothers who were suffragettes and indeed, many Second Wave feminists called themselves Friends as well. In recent times, Pendle Hill, a Quaker resource and learning center based outside of Philadelphia, has made tentative strides towards a potentially greater embrace of white wealth being transferred to black hands. The details of the proposal are below.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Quaker] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [History] [Slavery] [Politics] [Economics] [Reparations] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice]

The Whiteness Within Me

by Ami Worthen | January 2021
Like you, I watched with horror as a violent mob stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday. Inflamed by white supremacy, misogyny, antisemitism, and homophobia, the rioters erupted like pus oozing from the infection that has been raging on this continent since Europeans arrived. Looking at the disturbing images of the hate-filled insurrectionists, who were almost all white, I forced myself to acknowledge that they are, figuratively and likely literally, my distant cousins. It was an urgent reminder that my commitment to collective liberation hinges on addressing the whiteness within me, the anti-Blackness in my blood. We anti-racist white folks can take note that, as Crystal Good (@cgoodwoman) put it, “This is a DANGEROUS moment because the illusion of a sliding scale of white supremacy — allows so many to point to whiteness over there not in the mirror.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [History] [Individual Change] [Policing] [Politics] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [Justice System] [Social Justice] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [White Privilege] [Economics]

Anti-Black Racism in Indian Country: Jim Crowfeather Lives

by Cedric Sunray | August 2020
Of 55 continuous, identifiable, cohesive Indian communities in the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States (of whom I have intimate knowledge of) were found that of the 29 federally-recognized entities, all but six have been listed in historical records as having mixed-white ancestry, as well as some of course being listed as of primarily Indian ancestry. In the remaining six (all of who battled the BIA more so than the other 23), as well as 26 more that were not federally recognized, it was found that all had some perceived or real association in historical accounts to have some measure of mixed-black ancestry. As the Bureau of Indian Affairs is run by whites, mixed-white Indians, and a smaller number of racially identifiable Indians, with few black employees or employees of mixed-black and Indian descent, it is clear that recognition is not about one’s racial proximity to Indian, but rather one’s racial distance from black. This is entrenched racism and the most obvious double standard one can imagine rearing its head in the Indian political spectrum. While tribes who are perceived or do have some black ancestry, as well as significant Indian ancestry, are being denied, tribes with large amounts of white ancestry and less significant Indian heritage have been acknowledged.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Denial] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Assumptions] [Silencing POC]

The Violent Defense of White Male Supremacy; Trump and His Supporters Are Defending an America Where White Men Can Rule and Brutalize Without Consequence.

*Paywall Alert

by Ibram X. Kendi | September 2020
The violence of Chauvin and Rittenhouse bookended the summer of Trumpism. The three long, hot months from May 25 to August 25 compressed 413 years of American history into a cellphone video in which anyone could easily see the history for what it has always been: the violent “self-defense” of white male supremacy. Colonialism, capitalism, slavery and slave trading, Indian removal, manifest destiny, colonization, the Ku Klux Klan, Chinese exclusion, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow, eugenics, massive resistance, “law and order,” Islamophobia, family separation—all were done in the name of defending life or civilization or freedom.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Politics] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [History] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [White Defensiveness] [White Blindness] [Health Disparities] [Justice System] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [Accountability] [Indigenous] [Intersectionality]

For White Men Who Have Considered Genocide When Patriarchy and Privilege Are Not Enuf

by Mikol L. Clarke | November 2020
The cacophony of celebratory sounds that rang out last week in reaction to Joe Biden’s win was based on a sundry of emotions—ranging from relief at ending a racist regime dominated by white men who were fanatical about protecting their own wealth and privilege to jubilance over a historic win for Kamala Harris, the first woman and African American to be elected vice president. We were all celebrating our new white savior with a side of sister and new hopes that a brighter day was on the horizon. That day has not come just yet. The celebration only fueled the anger and resentment of a cadre of white men who’ve made it their dual mission in life to be both sycophants to a man in orange and to hinder any semblance of progress in this country. The days that followed Biden’s victory speech were riddled with egregious examples of toxic white masculinity.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [History] [Silencing POC] [Justice System] [Health Disparities]

The Hurdles Ahead in 2021 for Maine’s Stalled Tribal Sovereignty Bid

by Caitlin Andrews | November 2020
Tribes are reviving a push to overhaul their relationships with the state, but they lost champions in the election and the complicated effort may face obstacles in a skeptical Gov. Janet Mills and special-interest opponents. … The complex issue of sovereignty would be revived in what promises to be one of the more high-stakes legislative sessions in state history in early 2021. Lawmakers will be facing an estimated $1.4 billion shortfall over the next three years. Racial disparities around the coronavirus, health and incarceration are also likely to drive policy conversations.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Politics] [Justice System] [Systemic Racism] [Health Disparities] [Prison System] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Economics] [Denial]

“This is Where Our People Are”: Reflections on Plymouth 400

by Charles Thomas Lai FitzGibbon | November 2020
This month, in addition to being National Native American Heritage Month, marks 400 years since the Mayflower landed in Plymouth. Here in Massachusetts—a state named after the indigenous people of the “Great Blue Hill”—many of us are settlers on stolen land. I spoke with Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, Chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah based on Martha’s Vineyard, to hear her perspective on this moment, and what we can learn from reflecting on the anniversary. CF: This year marks 400 years since European settlers landed in Plymouth. How are your communities reflecting on and/or acting around this moment? …CAM: We wanted to really have our truth be told, not the whitewashed, watered down version [from] the history books that our children have to endure around fifth grade. Not the version to make the story sound good. As we say in Indian Country which is where we live and work: the truth is the truth is the truth.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [White Supremacy] [Racial Covenants] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Systemic Racism] [Advocacy] [Justice System] [Politics] [White Privilege]

The White Anti-Racist’s Guide to Dealing With Black Conservatives; Y’all be Out of Pocket Sometimes (Playing Right into Theirs)

by Johnny Silvercloud | November 2020
Please understand that Black conservatives within the American conservative atmosphere serve, in warfare terms, as decoys and traps. When you, as a white liberal person, approach a Black conservative at a public demonstration, you need to understand that they are racial landmines explicitly placed for two purposes: Validate white supremacist conservative causes (because colonialism can never work without the consent of some of the colonized) and; Trap the less critically thinking, reactive white people like you into a “you heard what she called me? White liberals are the real racists” trap.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Definitions]

White America’s Age-Old, Misguided Obsession With Civility

by Thomas J. Sugrue | June 2018
But in fact, civil rights leaders, while they did believe in the power of nonviolence, knew that their success depended on disruption and coercion as much — sometimes more — than on dialogue and persuasion. They knew that the vast majority of whites who were indifferent or openly hostile to the demands of civil rights would not be moved by appeals to the American creed or to bromides about liberty and justice for all. Polite words would not change their behavior. … That history is a reminder that civility is in the eye of the beholder. And when the beholder wants to maintain an unequal status quo, it’s easy to accuse picketers, protesters, and preachers alike of incivility, as much because of their message as their methods. For those upset by disruptive protests, the history of civil rights offers an unsettling reminder that the path to change is seldom polite.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [Justice System]

Black Farmers Have Been Robbed of Land. A New Bill Would Give Them a “Quantum Leap” Toward Justice. “This is the Black Farmers Civil Rights Act of 2020, and it’s Long Overdue.”

by Tom Philpott | November 2020
A new Senate bill, called the Justice for Black Farmers Act, set to be released November 30, would mount a long-delayed federal effort to reverse the “destructive forces that were unleashed upon Black farmers over the past century—one of the dark corners of shame in American history,” lead sponsor Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told Mother Jones. …The Justice for Black Farmers Act’s much more modest proposal would amount to an “equitable balancing of the scales after decades of systemic racism within the USDA that disadvantaged Black farmers, excluded them from loans, and other programs, [and] prevented them from holding on to their land,” Booker said.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Civil War] [Slavery] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Reparations] [Advocacy] [History] [Collective Action] [Racial Covenants]

Why Did Racial Progress Stall in America? The Answer May Show Us the Path out of Our Fractured and Polarized Present

by Shaylyn Romney Garrett and Robert D. Putnam | December 2020
In measure after measure, positive change for Black Americans was actually faster in the decades before the civil rights revolution than in the decades after. For example, —- The life expectancy gap between Black and white Americans narrowed most rapidly between about 1905 and 1947, after which the rate of improvement was much more modest. And by 1995 the life expectancy ratio was the same as it had been in 1961. There has been some progress in the ensuing two decades, but this is due in part to an increase in premature deaths among working-class whites.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Collective Action] [Assumptions] [2020’s] [History] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Civil War] [Economics] [Politics] [Myths]

Audio Reveals Heated Exchange Between Biden And Black Leaders Over Cabinet, Police Reform

*Paywall Alert

by Andrew Solender | December 2020
President-elect Joe Biden had a contentious discussion about executive power, police reform and his cabinet appointments in a call with civil rights leaders on Tuesday, according to leaked audio excerpts of the call published by The Intercept. The civil rights leaders on the call, including Rev. Al Sharpton and the NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifill, pressed Biden to use executive orders to institute sweeping reforms, create commissions and launch investigations to further the cause of civil rights. But Biden said he would not test the legal bounds of executive action and use it in lieu of legislation, stating “I am not going to violate the constitution,” and arguing unfettered use of executive orders can set a dangerous precedent for future administrations.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Politics] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Denial] [Policing] [Justice System] [Social Justice]

When White Women Practice the Politics of Polite, the Violence of Nice We Must Admit That, When We’re Moderate, We’re Complicit.

by Real Talk: WOC & Allies | August 2019
It turns out, not so much. Our extreme discomfort with discord and our inability to sustain even the mildest of stress fractures when our tools fail us, is why we are not moving the needle on the meaningful dismantling of systems and institutions that intentionally uphold white supremacy. We recoil from the concepts of subversion and disruption like vampires from the hot sun. Because subversion is not polite and disruption is not nice. We need to embrace the discomfort, the edges and the messiness of overturning that which has kept us in the number two slot of the power and privilege pyramid for over 500 years.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Politics] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Supremacy] [Bystander Intervention] [Policing] [Anti-Racism] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Microaggressions] [Assumptions]

How the Long Fight for Slavery Reparations is Slowly Being Won

by Kris Manjapra | April 2020
In a suburb of Chicago, the world’s first government-funded slavery reparations programme is beginning. Robin Rue Simmons helped make it happen – but her victory has been more than 200 years in the making. It began with an email. On an especially cold day in Evanston, Illinois, in February 2019, Robin Rue Simmons, 43 years old and two years into her first term as alderman for the city’s historically Black 5th ward, sent an email whose effects would eventually make US history. The message to the nine-member equity and empowerment commission of the Evanston city council started with a disarmingly matter-of-fact heading: “Because ‘reparations’ makes people uncomfortable.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Slavery] [Reparations] [Advocacy] [History] [Racial Covenants] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [Denial] [Accountability] [Economics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege]