by James Ross | June 2023
As we struggle today with a multiplicity of critical racial justice issues, we cannot afford to engage in whataboutism. Of course, we should be concerned about children’s access to education elsewhere. Yet, that is separate from the urgent reality that state legislatures throughout the United States are working to restrict what teachers can say and the educational outcomes they can seek – and even how students should “feel” – in courses in which race is an essential component of the discussion, such as history, civics, and literature. If we seek justice, we must focus.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Social Justice] [History] [Whataboutism]
Resource Links Tagged with "Social Justice"
Racism and Health: Racism is a Serious Threat to the Public’s Health
CDC Website | Date Unknown
Racism is a system consisting of structures, policies, practices, and norms—that assigns value and determines opportunity based on the way people look or the color of their skin. This results in conditions that unfairly advantage some and disadvantage others throughout society. Racism — both interpersonal and structural – negatively affects the mental and physical health of millions of people preventing them from attaining their highest level of health, and consequently, affecting the health of our nation. A growing body of research shows that centuries of racism in this country has had a profound and negative impact on communities of color. The impact is pervasive and deeply embedded in our society—affecting where one lives, learns, works, worships and plays and creating inequities in access to a range of social and economic benefits—such as housing, education, wealth, and employment. These conditions—often referred to as social determinants of health—are key drivers of health inequities within communities of color, placing those within these populations at greater risk for poor health outcomes.
TAGS: [Strategies] [Health Disparities] [Economics] [Systemic Racism] [Housing] [Employment] [Social Justice] [Politics] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Asian] [Latino/a]
James Forbes’ Ode to Juneteenth Calls on Americans to Embrace the Promise of Freedom
by Yonat Shimron | June 2021
(RNS) — The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. was already an adult when he first began to understand the significance of Juneteenth. It was his wife, Bettye, whom he met in the early ’60s when they were both students at Howard University, who helped him gain an appreciation for the commemoration.
She had grown up in San Antonio, Texas, where each year on June 19, Blacks across the city celebrated their freedom with pageants, parades, performances and other public events in city parks.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [History] [Civil War] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice] [Slavery]
How Textbooks Taught White Supremacy; A Historian Steps Back to the 1700s and Shares What’s Changed and What Needs to Change
by Liz Mineo | September 2020
Yacovone, who co-authored “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” with Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 2013, is now writing “Teaching White Supremacy: The Textbook Battle Over Race in American History.”
The Gazette interviewed Yacovone about the origins of his research, his findings, and why he thinks it’s necessary to teach the difficult story of slavery and white supremacy and their legacies.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [History] [Slavery] [Denial] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice] [Black Lives Matter] [Civil War] [CRT]
‘The Invention of Race’: Documentary Explores How the Concept of Race Developed
by MPR News |June 2021
Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Mobs of white residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has been called the single worst incident of racial violence in American history. Racial incidents make headlines year after year in the United States. We are a society made up of all the races and ethnicities on the planet, and we have a painful history of exploitation and oppression tied to race. What we don’t often consider is where the idea of different races came from. God? Nature? Or was it man-made? — and if so, why? “The Invention of Race,” a documentary produced and hosted by John Biewen, explores how these concepts developed from the ancient world to today. …
One history professor says the invention of race came later, tracing it back to a surge of African slaves being brought to Europe in the 1600s.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [History] [Silencing POC] [Slavery] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice]
James Forbes’ Ode to Juneteenth Calls on Americans to Embrace the Promise of Freedom
by Yonat Shimron | June 2021
The retired pastor’s spoken word is not simply a paean to freedom. It’s a call to all Americans to face the reality of the nation’s history and the unfinished work of Juneteenth. Forbes’ spoken word is not simply a paean to freedom. It’s a call to all Americans to face the reality of the nation’s history and the unfinished work of Juneteenth. “I felt, as a preacher, that this day, in a curious way, has a power not even present in the Fourth of July,” Forbes said. “The Fourth of July set people free from the British Crown. But Juneteenth set people free from the divisions, the dehumanization, the cruelty and bondage of slavery itself.” Recently, he shared his spoken word with another North Carolina religious leader, the Rev. William J. Barber II. Barber liked it so much he had Forbes deliver it on camera. It’s now posted to his Repairers of the Breach YouTube channel.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Slavery] [History] [Civil War] [Racial Terrorism] [Black Lives Matter] [Role Model] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [Policing] [Social Justice]
The Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow’s Hierarchy
by Teju Ravilochan | June 2021
Deeply curious about the reason for the stark difference between Blackfoot culture and his own culture, Maslow sought out positive deviants, or unusually successful individuals. He started with the wealthiest members of the Blackfoot tribe. He discovered that “for the Blackfoot, wealth was not measured by money and property but by generosity. The wealthiest man in their eyes is one who has almost nothing because he has given it all away” (Coon, 2006). Maslow witnessed a Blackfoot “Giveaway” ceremony in his first week at Siksika. During the Giveaway, members of the tribe arranged their tipis in a circle and publicly piled up all they had collected over the last year. Those with the most possessions told stories of how they amassed them and then gave every last one away to those in greater need (Blood & Heavy Head, 2007, (video 7 out of 15, minutes 13:00–14:00). By contrast, as shared by Maslow’s biographer Edward Hoffman, Maslow observed different qualities in members of his own culture.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Social Justice] [Advocacy] [Role Model] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Assumptions] [Economics]
White People’s Fear of Critical Race Theory is Based in Ignorance Separating Fact from Fiction
by Allison Gaines | May 2021
Our nation is in the process of exchanging color-blind ideology with anti-racism. White people will have to take a good, hard look in the mirror and into their family albums. Some are afraid of the skeletons they will find, and others are leery of the theory that will make them take a look in the first place. White people want to focus on selected parts of American history, lionizing their role. Many choose to ignore that the gap between Black and white homeownership is wider than it was 50 years ago. Or that Black families have one-tenth the wealth as white ones. Currently, Black people are 3.25 times more likely to die in police encounters.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [History] [Policing] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [Denial] [Racial Covenants] [Housing] [Health Disparities] [Economics] [Politics] [Social Justice] [Definitions] [Intersectionality] [Colorblindness] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [CRT] [Accountability] [Slavery]
What Really Happened on Juneteenth — and Why It’s Time for Supremacists and Their Sympathizers to Surrender
by Robin Washington | June 2021
If you saw my column about Juneteenth posted here over the last few days, or a previous version on the website of Be’chol Lashon several years ago, or a video version currently presented by Be’chol Lashon, you would know I had bittersweet feelings about the history of the day. I no longer do. I am outraged by it. My change in emotion comes after learning from historian friends that the oft-repeated tale of Union soldiers arriving in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 to inform enslaved African Americans that they were free is pure fiction. Not because they weren’t legally freed 2-½ months earlier when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Or technically freed 2-1/2 years before when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slavery null and void in areas under rebellion, very much including Texas.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [History] [Slavery] [Myths] [Racial Terrorism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice]
‘60 Minutes’ Ran an Episode about Algorithm Bias. Only White Experts Were Given Airtime.
by Julianne McShane | June 2021
The episode renewed calls to #CiteBlackWomen, many of whom have been leading research on AI bias. The 13-minute-long segment, which aired May 16, reported on how facial recognition technologies have led to the wrongful arrests of Black men. It featured interviews with two White experts in facial recognition technologies as well as two Black men who were wrongfully arrested based on faulty facial recognition. Joy Buolamwini, an artificial intelligence bias researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Black woman, was not featured in the episode after spending what she said were between eight and 10 hours working with “60 Minutes” producers over the course of a few months, recommending research to incorporate and even building a custom demo program showing how facial recognition technologies analyze faces, she said.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Justice System] [Prison System] [Social Justice] [Silencing POC] [Implicit Bias] [White Culture] [White Blindness]
Offensive Mascots Take Toll on Indigenous Athletes; Natalie Weeks-O’Neal Hasn’t Forgotten the Attacks She Faced on the Basketball Court from Fans
by Jaden Urban | July 2021
…But on that day in the 1990s, Williams asked Weeks if she could have a private moment with her. Once they were alone, the coach warned her that the team they were about to play had a racially based mascot, the Indians. Williams knew Weeks’ heritage and culture and wanted to let her know before the game, so she wouldn’t be surprised. “Hey, when we go in there, this is something you might potentially see,” Williams told her. “I just want to talk to you about this, warn you, and get you mentally prepared. There are some things you’re going to have to block out.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Systemic Racism] [Social Justice] [History] [Role Model] [Racial Terrorism] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Blindness]
The Battle for Mount Rushmore: ‘It Should be Turned into Something like the Holocaust Museum’
by Annette McGivney | July 2021
The national memorial draws nearly 3 million visitors a year – and Native Americans want the site back with a focus on oppression.
Mount Rushmore national memorial draws nearly 3 million visitors a year to its remote location in South Dakota. They travel from all corners of the globe just to lay their eyes on what the National Park Service calls America’s “shrine of democracy”. Phil Two Eagle is not opposed to the fact that the giant sculpture of American presidents is a major tourist attraction but he thinks the park should have a different focus: oppression. “It should be turned into something like the United States Holocaust Museum,” he said. “The world needs to know what was done to us.” Two Eagle noted what historians have also documented. Hitler got some of his genocidal ideas for ethnic cleansing from 19th and early 20th century US policies against Native Americans.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Denial] [Silencing POC] [Politics] [Social Justice] [Policing] [Economics]
Battle for the Ballot; The Black Sorority That Faced Racism in the Suffrage Movement but Refused to Walk away
by Sydney Trent | August 2020
The air was chilly, the trees still bare, yet the sky was clear and bright. March 3, 1913, was shaping up to be a perfect day for a grand and purposeful parade. Thousands of showily dressed suffragists had amassed in Washington from across the nation — indeed the world — to march along Pennsylvania Avenue on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2020’s] [Politics] [Role Model] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Employment] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice]
Understanding The Stages Of White Tears
by Hannah Drake628 | July 2021
In yet another episode of White Women Are Always Allowed To Be The Victim, I was scrolling on Twitter and discovered an incident between Abigail Elphick, a White woman that assaulted Ijeoma Ukenta, a Black woman, in a Victoria Secret at Short Hills Mall. Many online have dubbed Abigail “Victoria’s Secret Karen,” however, I won’t be referring to Abigail as Karen. While I have used the term in the past, I realize these women are becoming memes and the butt of jokes, and the harm they have caused historically and currently is secondary. However, women like Abigail are treacherous women. As stated in my blog, Karen Is You, “Just looking at Karen, she seems harmless. She is often very unassuming and is non-threatening in appearance. Still, women like Karen have not only supported racism but have instituted and upheld racism throughout history. While the Karen memes are sweeping across the internet and becoming a part of our lexicon, it is important to note women like Karen are dangerous women.” We have seen the impact on Black lives when a White woman cries wolf.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Fragility/Tears] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Social Justice]
EPA Just Detailed All the Ways Climate Change Will Hit U.S. Racial Minorities the Hardest. It’s A Long List. If the Planet Warms 2 Degrees Celsius, New Report Warns, Black People Are 40 Percent More Likely than Other Groups to Live in Places Where Extreme Temperatures Will Cause More Deaths.
by Darryl Fears and Dino Grandoni | September 2021
Racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming planet, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday, including more deaths from extreme heat and property loss from flooding in the wake of sea level rise.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Environment] [Indigenous] [Health Disparities] [Black Lives Matter] [Latino/a] [Social Justice] [Politics] [Systemic Racism] [POC Climate Action]
The Colonization of Africa
by Ehiedu E. G. Iweriebor – Hunter College | Date Unknown
Between the 1870s and 1900, Africa faced European imperialist aggression, diplomatic pressures, military invasions, and eventual conquest and colonization. At the same time, African societies put up various forms of resistance against the attempt to colonize their countries and impose foreign domination. By the early twentieth century, however, much of Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, had been colonized by European powers. The European imperialist push into Africa was motivated by three main factors, economic, political, and social. It developed in the nineteenth century following the collapse of the profitability of the slave trade, its abolition and suppression, as well as the expansion of the European capitalist Industrial Revolution. The imperatives of capitalist industrialization—including the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets—spurred the European scramble and the partition and eventual conquest of Africa. Thus the primary motivation for European intrusion was economic.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [Economics] [Slavery] [History] [Politics] [Social Justice] [White Supremacy]
“Put the Fangs Back in Feminism”: Author Rafia Zakaria on How Feminism Loses Relevance to Whiteness
by Kylie Cheung| August 2021
“If we want to salvage feminism, you have to remove white racial privilege,” says “Against White Feminism” author
y now you’ve seen the jokes about the “girlboss,” and her depoliticized, so-called “feminism” that can be achieved through climbing the corporate ladder or buying an expensive pair of shoes. You’ve seen the scathing takedowns of women politicians like Hillary Clinton for their parts in U.S.-perpetrated atrocities in the Middle East. And you’ve seen videos of white woman after white woman calling the cops on Black people in their communities, and the lethal power of white women’s tears when called out for racism. What does all of this have in common? According to Rafia Zakaria, an author, lawyer, domestic violence survivor and tireless voice for women of color-led feminism, in her new book “Against White Feminism” (W.W. Norton & Company, Aug. 17) all of this extends from white feminism. White feminism, Zakaria notes on the very first page of her book, isn’t defined by an individual’s race, but their refusal “to consider the role that whiteness and the racial privilege attached to it have played . . . in universalizing white feminist concerns, agendas and beliefs as being those of all feminists.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Systemic Racism] [White Blindness] [White Supremacy] [Collective Action] [Politics] [Social Justice] [Tips-Do’s/Don’ts] [Prison System] [Racial Terrorism] [Assumptions]
California High School Under Fire After Students Post Instagram Video of Themselves Stomping on Black Doll Named ‘Shaniqua’; Parents Say This isn’t the First Time Something Like This Has Happened at Salinas High School.
by Terrell Jermaine Starr | August 2021
A California high school is facing an investigation after white students were captured on a video that went viral over the weekend abusing a Black doll named “Shaniqua,” stomping it, positioning it in sexually suggestive positions and posing with it during a football game Friday. The Instagram account that featured the video has been deactivated, but a Twitter user took screenshots of the old account and downloaded some of the videos, which KION News Channel featured in its reporting of the incident. …One of those parents, Mercedes, told the television station that the social media posts don’t surprise her. “These kids feel comfortable enough to do this on campus at a football game where there’s parents, where there’s staff members and other children,” she said. “And, you’re going to tell me all of the staff being around and even parents, nobody saw this go on, nobody saw that there was something wrong with this.”
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Accountability] [Social Justice] [Teachers]
It Turns Out, All Those ‘Woke’ White Allies Were Lying
by Michael Harriot | May 2021
When the country collectively witnessed the brutal May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd, white people were forever changed. Millions took to the streets, arm-in-arm with their fellow brethren, offering their support for justice and equality. …This multiracial outpouring of sympathy and solidarity transformed the country. And then, white people went home and kept being white. This harsh realization is not an opinion. It is a factual statement based on the research and analyses of multiple organizations. And before we get to the “not all white people,” part of the conversation, let’s be clear, the reports are based on studies that showed that the vast majority of white people didn’t just not do anything. According to stuff like math and science, the levels of white support are lower than they were before demonstrations swept the country last summer. For instance, remember all those corporations who pledged to donate money to social justice organizations? Well, it turns out that the companies employed a very complex loophole called “lying like a motherfucker” to get out of actually doing what they said they would. According to a review of pledges compiled by Creative Investments Research, businesses have donated less than one percent of the money promised.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Social Justice] [Systemic Racism] [Police Shootings] [Black Lives Matter] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Policing] [History] [Politics]
Anti-Racism is about Social Responsibility, Not Racial Guilt; Allyship is a Journey, and Shame Has Never Been the Destination
by Tim Wise | November 2021
Worried that racial justice activism might embolden progressives pushing for meaningful equity initiatives in policing, the workplace, and elsewhere, conservatives latched on to this strategy — attacking classroom discussions of racism as “indoctrination” — so as to limit awareness of racial injustice among youth, energized by last summer’s events. The right claims anti-racist curriculum is about guilt-tripping white students. One of the primary weapons in the rhetorical arsenal of this advancing army has been the claim that anti-racist curriculum seeks to make white children feel guilt and shame because of their skin color.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Anti-Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Social Justice] [Policing] [Employment] [White Fragility/Tears] [History] [Teachers] [Systemic Racism] [Slavery] [Black Lives Matter] [Indigenous] [Advocacy][CRT]
BLACK LIVES MATTER; How White Feminism Failed in the Age of Trayvon Martin
by Rachel Cargle | February 2022
It was the Women’s March on January 21, 2017, that opened my eyes to the racist underbelly of the feminist movement. I was so eager to be a part of what was happening that I partnered with a friend of mine to organize a busload of people to leave from Manhattan’s Lower East Side for our nation’s capital at 4 a.m that day. … Admittedly, it didn’t dawn on me right away. It wasn’t until weeks after the march — after I was called in by a group of Black peers inviting me to question the ways white feminism gave space for my Blackness — that I took a pause to really think it through. At the march, there was an abundance of pink pussy hats but a disturbing lack of Black people among the millions chanting. It was alarming to consider, especially since the country remained in the midst of racial unrest. Audre Lorde once said, “I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable.” Years after she spoke these words, I felt the same tense inseparability of my doubly oppressed identity.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Anti-Racism] [Social Justice] [Racial Terrorism] [Policing] [Intersectionality] [Black Lives Matter] [Advocacy]
America’s Gun Obsession is Rooted in Slavery; A Series of Slave Revolts Terrified White Residents and Helped Fuel the Rationale for Gun Ownership
by Carol Anderson | June 2021
For too long, the second amendment has been portrayed with a founding fathers aura swaddled in the stars and stripes. But “a well-regulated militia” wasn’t, as the story goes, about how valiant and effective the militias were in repelling the British. George Washington was disgusted with their lack of fighting ability and the way the men would just cut and run from battling against a professional army. Nor was the militia reliable as a force to uphold the law. In Shays’ Rebellion, bands of armed white men, who were in the state’s militia, attacked the Massachusetts government because of foreclosures and debt seizures, demonstrating, again, how unreliable the militia were. Boston merchants had to hire mercenaries to put down the rebellion.
On the other hand, where the militia had been steadfast was in controlling the enslaved Black population. Access to guns for white people was essential for this function.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Economics] [Justice System] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [Politics] [White Blindness] [White Defensiveness] [History] [Black Lives Matter] [Social Justice] [Systemic Racism] [Slavery] [Policing] [Silencing POC]
The Re-Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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]
10 pieces of Art to Help You Engage with Truth and Reconciliation; Recommendations from Indigenous Artists and Curators for Films, Books, Theatre and Visual Art
by CBC Arts | September 2021
To mark the first formally recognized National Day For Truth and Reconciliation, CBC Arts reached out to Indigenous curators and artists with one important question: what pieces of art should Canadians engage with to better under the ideas behind truth and reconciliation? The answers we got ranged from films to books to works of theatre to specific pieces of visual art. We invite you to spend some time with these works today.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Art & Culture] [Social Justice]
Native Americans and Mount Rushmore
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]
Opinion: Why Norman Rockwell Left Thanksgiving Americana behind
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]
Five Ideas to Change Teaching about Thanksgiving, in Classrooms and at Home
by Renée Gokey | November 2021
Between Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage and Month, November is go-time for teaching and learning about Native America. Here, parent and museum educator Renée Gokey shares simple ways to make the responsibility less daunting. In addition to briefly describing strategies for learners K–12, Renée links to teaching resources from the museum and other organizations. And she notes that students can use Thanksgiving and their new tools for thinking about culture to learn and share more about their own family’s history and traditions. This article has many great tips and teaching links.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2020’s] [Teachers] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Indigenous] [History] [Social Justice]
Penobscot Nation Members Do Not Want Ancestors’ Scalping Whitewashed; A new educational film produced by the tribe explains how settlers were encouraged to scalp natives for cash bounties.
by David Sharp | December 2021
Most Americans know about atrocities endured by Native Americans after the arrival of European settlers: wars, disease, stolen land. But they aren’t always taught the extent of the indiscriminate killings. Members of the Penobscot Nation in Maine have produced an educational film addressing how European settlers scalped — killed — Indigenous people during the British colonial era, spurred for decades by cash bounties and with the government’s blessing. “It was genocide,” said Dawn Neptune Adams, one of the three Penobscot Nation members featured in the film, called “Bounty.” She said the point of the effort isn’t to make any Americans feel defensive or blamed. The filmmakers say they simply want to ensure this history isn’t whitewashed by promoting a fuller understanding of the nation’s past. At the heart of the project is a chilling declaration by Spencer Phips, lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Systemic Racism] [History] [Social Justice] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Politics] [Economics] [Teachers] [White Blindness]
Time Will Not Heal: 5 Ways to Address the Inheritance of Black Poverty, Starting Now
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]
The Grave of a Former Slave Turned Florida State Senator May Be Buried Under What’s Now A Tampa Parking Lot
by J.L. Cook | June 2021
As Juneteenth approaches, Tampa’s local NAACP wants the city to commit to finding the graves that once rested at College Hill Cemetery. Robert Meacham, who became a Florida state senator after being freed from slavery, is one of more than 1,200 people buried at a site that is now believed to be a parking lot for the Italian Club Cemetery in Tampa, Fla. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Meacham’s unmarked grave was located in the College Hill Cemetery for Blacks and Cubans–which has long been erased. In an effort to rectify this, the local NAACP branch in Tampa has challenged the city to commemorate Juneteenth by funding an archaeological survey of the Italian Club Cemetery lot to find out if Meacham’s body and others are there.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2020’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Politics] [Silencing POC] [Black Lives Matter] [Social Justice] [Slavery] [Accountability]
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Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts
Maps
Dear White People
Being Allies
Reparations
Spiritual Foundations
Public Displays
Performance Art
Workshops
Activist Resources
Assessment Tools
History
Appropriation / Aggression
White Privilege / Supremacy
Introduction
Definitions
Facts