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A Night Market Creating Opportunity for Black Communities

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

A Night Market Creating Opportunity for Black Communities

It’s Friday night, and the Nashville Farmers’ Market is bustling. It’s not the usual vendors, though—gone are the baskets of tomatoes and piles of squash. Instead, folks are selling a wide range of products, including cocktails-to-go, beauty products, apparel, and more. Food trucks line the edges of the market, and a saxophone player sets a soundtrack of smooth hip-hop and jazz. On the first Friday of each month, the market’s physical space transforms into the Nashville Black Market—a marketplace composed entirely of Black-owned businesses. Carlos Partee’s tall frame rises above the milling customers. Partee is one of the co-founders of the Market and the owner of Cashville Etc., a clothing brand that sells apparel highlighting Nashville’s forgotten history. Together with Javvon Jones, wh...

By Listening To Other Black Mothers, As A Black Sociologist, And A Mom – I’ve Learned About Their Pandemic Struggles And Strengths

2May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, Journalism

By Listening To Other Black Mothers, As A Black Sociologist, And A Mom – I’ve Learned About Their Pandemic Struggles And Strengths

I spent the 2020 spring break week setting up to teach my college courses online while helping to care for my 14-month-old grandchild, whose daycare had closed. At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking, being the sociologist I am, of the devastating consequences of COVID-19 I saw for women like me, Black mothers, whom I have studied for over a decade. Social science research can influence policy. Sharing Black mothers’ stories in their own voices may ultimately lead to more compassionate policies. My work is part of a small body of descriptive research, mostly by researchers of color, countering negativity and victim-blaming in earlier studies of Black families. My research partner, sociologist BarBara Scott, lives in Chicago, where I grew up. In our studies of Black mothers there, we’...

Unlearning Racism As A Non-Black Person Of Color

20Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Unlearning Racism As A Non-Black Person Of Color

The first time I learned about the history of race and racism in America was during my first year of college, when I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me. Before then, I had plenty of lessons on race, only none of them had ever happened in the classroom. Growing up as a mixed-race Iranian American girl in the suburban Midwest, being the target of racism was as integral to my education as learning how to read. As a kid, my skin was much darker than it is today, and in my mostly White classroom, I was usually one of the brownest kids and undoubtedly the most hirsute. My race has always been ambiguous, but my hairiness earned me the name “Bigfoot” from some of my classmates. Some who knew my racial background opted for more targeted insults, such as “terrorist” and “Muslim f...

20Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Black Girl Magic On Bikes

Cycling has struggled to rid itself of the racism and sexism that makes it a tragically exclusive mode of transportation, but Black Girls Do Bike is riding to change that one pedal stroke at a time. Founded nearly a decade ago in Pittsburgh, Black Girls Do Bike has grown to over 100 chapters across the U.S. by connecting women, and Black women in particular, interested in biking as a form of transportation, recreation, and competition. “As I was biking, I realized that no one really looked like me in those groups I was going out biking with; there were not very many women, there were not many women of color,” Chyri McLain-Jackson, founder of the BGDB Indianapolis Chapter told the Indy Star. Myriad levels of systemic racism have combined to put Black people at increased risk for numerous ...

Ketanji Brown Jackson – Black Women Have Faced Intense Scrutiny During Confirmations

19Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Ketanji Brown Jackson – Black Women Have Faced Intense Scrutiny During Confirmations

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation process, watched this month by many Americans, particularly stung for Black women who identified her treatment, despite her credentials, as demeaning and disrespectful. But before Jackson, there were Marcia Fudge and Lisa Cook, sitting in Senate committee hearings, impeccably dressed, eminently qualified, and facing questions about their capability to serve in the roles for which they were nominated as their loved ones looked on. Far fewer people watched as similar scenes that were less high profile but no less painful played out for other Black women nominees over the course of President Joe Biden’s administration. Among the record number of Black women Biden has nominated to serve in the last two years, some, such as Ambassad...

Hire A Black Principal To Improve Student Achievement

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

Hire A Black Principal To Improve Student Achievement

Tamara Littlejohn has been a Chicago Public Schools principal for a decade. As a Black woman in that role, she’s part of a small minority. “I really do this work because I want to make sure that, No. 1, the children have somebody who looks like them,” she said. As a child, Littlejohn’s mother was her role model, having served as both a Chicago Public Schools teacher and an assistant principal. “I saw just, like, the dedication and love that she had for her school community,” Littlejohn said. Fifteen years ago, Littlejohn received an opportunity from the national nonprofit New Leaders to train to become a school administrator like her mother. Since 2001, the organization has developed teachers into administrators through its principal preparation program, Aspiring Principals. Littlejoh...

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed As The First Black Woman To Sit On The Supreme Court

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed As The First Black Woman To Sit On The Supreme Court

The phrase “in a historic vote” gets thrown around a lot in journalism – and it isn’t always warranted. But shortly after 2 p.m. EDT on April 7, 2022, a Senate roll call confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice – the first Black woman to sit on the bench. The elevation of Jackson to the Supreme Court will not change the ideological setup of the bench – which would continue to be split 6-3 in favor of conservative justices. Nonetheless, it is an important landmark in the history of the court – of the 115 justices on the Supreme Court since it was established in 1789, 108 have been white men. Race featured in Jackson’s confirmation process; so too did attempts to define her “judicial philosophy.” The Conversation has turned to legal scholars to explain the me...

Even If It Happened To Someone Who Is White – People Are More Likely To React To A Black Person’s Story Of Injustice

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Even If It Happened To Someone Who Is White – People Are More Likely To React To A Black Person’s Story Of Injustice

People appear more willing to boycott a retailer in response to a video message about a consumer’s experience of injustice while shopping when the narrator is Black, even when the source of the actual information is from a white person, according to research I conducted with several colleagues that’s currently under peer review. We wanted to observe whether and how the race of the person telling a story of racial injustice affects the reaction of their audience. So we conducted three studies that manipulated details about the race of the storyteller and victim to isolate the role the storyteller’s race plays. In the first study, we recruited 370 white male participants using a crowdsourced academic research panel. We asked them to watch a video in which a professional male actor portrayi...

How People Understand Racial Inequality Shaped By Black Lives Matter Protests

2Apr

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

How People Understand Racial Inequality Shaped By Black Lives Matter Protests

Considered to be the largest social justice movement since the civil rights era of the 1960s, Black Lives Matter is more than the scores of street protests organized by the social justice group that attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across the world. From its early days in 2014 after Officer Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown, Jr. to the protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Black Lives Matter has opened the door for social change by expanding the way we think about the complicated issues that involve race. As sociologists who study how protests lay the groundwork for social change, we understand their necessity as a tactic to draw attention toward a movement’s broader agenda. In our study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...

During The Civil Rights Era Black College Presidents Had A Tough Balancing Act

30Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

During The Civil Rights Era Black College Presidents Had A Tough Balancing Act

Historians have documented again and again how college students contributed to the civil rights movement. Less attention has been paid to the role college presidents played in the fight for equality. Here, Eddie R. Cole, author of the book “The Campus Color Line,” discusses various ways these leaders contributed. 1. What pressures did college leaders face in the civil rights era? College presidents between 1948 to 1968 had to deal with different segments of society that were at complete odds with one another. On the one hand, they oversaw schools where students were increasingly protesting segregation. But they also had to deal with segregationist politicians who controlled state funding for their institutions. Some of those politicians were not shy about their opposition to the civil rig...