SOCIAL JUSTICE

13Aug

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

From Past Movements For Civil Rights – What America’s Social Justice Activists Can Learn

Anthony Siracusa, University of Colorado Boulder With Congress considering legislation to protect voting rights and address police accountability, it’s worth remembering that throughout U.S. history new civil rights laws have been followed by resistance and the stubborn persistence of racial inequity across American life. Still, these discussions in Congress come on the heels of millions of Americans calling for change. The demonstrations that followed George Floyd’s death belonged to a broader effort to reckon with white violence and discrimination in U.S. life. The historical roots of our contemporary racial injustice were documented in the 1619 Project, a New York Times undertaking that reexamined the legacy of slavery in the U.S. This year’s widespread commemoration of the Tulsa Ra...

Organizing And Math Literacy For Black Students – Bob Moses Played Critical Role In Civil Rights

29Jul

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Organizing And Math Literacy For Black Students – Bob Moses Played Critical Role In Civil Rights

Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University As an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s, Bob Moses traveled to the most dangerous parts of Mississippi to help African Americans end segregation and secure the right to vote. But it would be tutoring students in math 20 years later at his daughter’s racially mixed middle school in Massachusetts that would lead to his life’s work – The Algebra Project. The Algebra Project is a nonprofit dedicated to helping students from historically marginalized communities develop math literacy, which is an individual’s ability to formulate, employ and interpret mathematics in a variety of contexts. Moses founded it in 1982. After researching Moses’ role in the civil rights movement for my book – “Bloody Lowndes:...

Sarah Baartman’s Hips Went From A Symbol Of Exploitation To A Source Of Empowerment For Black Women

15Jul

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Sarah Baartman’s Hips Went From A Symbol Of Exploitation To A Source Of Empowerment For Black Women

Rokeshia Renné Ashley, Florida International University In “BLACK EFFECT,” a track from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2018 collaborative album “EVERYTHING IS LOVE,” Beyoncé describes a quintessential Black female form: Stunt with your curls, your lips, Sarah Baartman hips Gotta hop into my jeans like I hop into my whip, yeah The celebration of Sarah Baartman’s features marks a departure from her historical image. Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman was an African woman who, in the early 1800s, was something of an international sensation of objectification. She was paraded around Europe, where spectators jeered at her large buttocks. With celebrities like Beyoncé recognizing Baartman’s contributions to the ideal Black female body – and with the curvaceous posteriors of Black women lauded on TV and celebrat...

Court Cases Alone Don’t Transform Society – But ‘Landmark’ Verdicts Like Chauvin Murder Conviction Make History

6Jul

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Court Cases Alone Don’t Transform Society – But ‘Landmark’ Verdicts Like Chauvin Murder Conviction Make History

Jennifer Reynolds, University of Oregon American courts in 2021 have already handed down several potentially historic rulings, from the Supreme Court’s recent decision restricting voting rights in Arizona and potentially nationwide to a Minnesota jury’s conviction of police officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd last year. Cases like these are often called “landmark” cases, because they set forth ideas and ideals that may bring about significant changes in the political and legal landscape. Many analysts considered the Chauvin trial, in particular, to be a landmark. In it, police officers actually testified against one of their own, which is rare, and the jury held a white police officer criminally accountable for killing a Black man. On June 25, 2021, the judge sentenced Chau...

Activism In Students Sparked By Critical Race Theory

23Jun

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Activism In Students Sparked By Critical Race Theory

Jerusha Osberg Conner, Villanova University Critical race theory – an academic framework that holds that racism is embedded in society – has become the subject of an intense debate about how issues of race should or shouldn’t be taught in schools. Largely missing in the debate is evidence of how exposure to critical race theory actually affects students. As a researcher who specializes in youth activism, I have conducted research on and with youth organizing groups in which critical race theory is a core component of the political education. Eighty-two percent of youth organizing groups regularly offer political education, which involves a critical examination of social issues, usually through workshops and group discussions. My research – along with that of other scholars – points to ...

Heading Back To The Battlefield Is Black Voters Matter

21Jun

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Heading Back To The Battlefield Is Black Voters Matter

Black Voters Matter is leading a coalition of national civil rights and grassroots groups on the Freedom Ride for Voting Rights starting Saturday. Errin Haines Originally published by The 19th Since helping to deliver Democratic victories in November and January, largely on the backs of Black voters, LaTosha Brown has barely had time to catch her breath. Normally after an election, people have the space to decompress, to really get ready for the next fight, explains Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. But Brown and many of her sister Black women organizers say nothing about this moment in American politics is normal. “We haven’t had a break in four years,” she said. “Instead, it intensified. We have been fighting nonstop, because we are in extraordinary circumstances. This isn’t...

Black Writers And Journalists Have Wielded Punctuation In Their Activism – Here’s How

2Apr

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Black Writers And Journalists Have Wielded Punctuation In Their Activism – Here’s How

Eurie Dahn, The College of Saint Rose Using punctuation and capitalization as a form of protest doesn’t exactly scream radicalism. But in debates over racial justice, punctuation can carry a lot of weight. During the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, mainstream news organizations grappled with whether to capitalize the first letter of “black” when referring to Black people. Of course, writing “Black” was already common practice in activist circles. Eventually The Associated Press, The New York Times, USA Today and many other outlets declared that they, too, would capitalize that first letter. It turns out the push to capitalize “black” is only the most recent way Black writers and activists have pushed back against entrenched power through ostensibly bland elements of writing. As I...

Andrew Brown’s Killing Has Protesters In Elizabeth City, N.C., Marching In The Footsteps Of Centuries Of Fighters For Black Rights

2Apr

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Andrew Brown’s Killing Has Protesters In Elizabeth City, N.C., Marching In The Footsteps Of Centuries Of Fighters For Black Rights

Melissa N. Stuckey, Elizabeth City State University Protests have been taking place in a small North Carolina city for the past two months, sparked by the early morning report on April 21, 2021, that Andrew Brown Jr., a local African American man, had been shot and killed by county sheriff’s deputies serving search and arrest warrants. Eleven months after the murder of George Floyd and just one day after former police officer Derek Chauvin’s conviction, Brown’s killing immediately became part of a larger national story about African Americans being killed by law enforcement agents and subsequent demands for accountability and reform. For weeks, protesters have held daily marches along Road, Ehringhaus, Main and Water Streets in Elizabeth City. They have also marched through the Shepard ...

Failure To Pay Fines And Having Driver’s License Suspensions Inflict Particular Harm On Black Drivers

3Jun

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Failure To Pay Fines And Having Driver’s License Suspensions Inflict Particular Harm On Black Drivers

Imagine being unable to pay a US$50 traffic ticket and, as a result, facing mounting fees so high that even after paying hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars toward your debt you still owe money. Imagine being fired from your job because you’ve been forced to use unreliable public transportation instead of your car. And imagine going to jail several times because, even though your license is suspended, you had to drive to work. These are some of the situations facing millions of Americans who were unable to pay fines – and whose lives were turned into a nightmare by overly punitive policies in response. And these policies have an outsize, and damaging, impact on Black Americans, according to our research. Cycles of debt Most cities and states have policies that allow them to suspend...

Beset By Crime Colombian City Declares ‘Black Lives Matter’

2Apr

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Beset By Crime Colombian City Declares ‘Black Lives Matter’

Chaotic and deadly protests have for weeks rocked the Colombian port city of Buenaventura. In mid-May some demonstrators stormed the airport, and riot police responded with force, killing three. Buenaventura’s demonstrations are a part of the massive, violent national wave of protests over increasing poverty and incessant violence in Colombia. But they actually began well before Colombia’s broader upheaval. Since early 2021, people in this majority-Black coastal city have been rising up peacefully but insistently against rampant drug trafficking, political violence and cartel infiltration. Organized crime and illicit economies are both national problems in Colombia. But in Buenaventura, a history of state neglect has allowed both to flourish unchecked, according to my academic research ...