September 11-17, 2020
In honor of Juneteenth 2020, I've committed to educating myself on
systemic racism, discrimination, and bias. Every day from June 19, 2020
to June 18, 2021, I will read an article or book chapter, listen to a
podcast, watch a movie or documentary, view a webinar, or do something
substantive to educate myself in these areas. As part of that
commitment, I will post to this blog each Friday with a list of what
I've done over the past week as well as any pertinent thoughts or
reflections.
Today's post covers the week of September 11-17, 2020.
On this episode of Origins of Everything, PBS host Danielle Bainbridge looks at the history of US law from colonialism and slavery to Jim Crow and mass incarceration. Careful attention is paid to distinguish the difference between crime and punishment, and how these two things operate somewhat independently of each other in the US. This 13 minute episode moves fast and is packed with information, so you may need to watch it twice!
UCLA Law Professor Kimberle Crenshaw wrote this article for the Harvard Law Review in 1988, but her arguments still resonate today. She reviews the position of both the Neoconservative scholars on the right and the Critical Legal Studies-based New Left arguments on the pros and cons of using antidiscrimination law to achieve Black equality. She claims that neither view adequately addresses racism as the root cause of discrimination, and that while the Civil Rights movement largely alleviated symbolic subordination of Black people, material subordination still exists. This article is foundational, in my opinion, to understanding racism in the US today ... but be prepared - the material is dense and took me about 90 minutes to read.
Novelist Chimamanda Adichie discusses her upbringing in Nigeria and move to the United States in this 20 minute TED Talk. Adichie recounts her experiences with Americans who have a single story of African immigrants and her own single-story perspective during a trip to Mexico. Adichie argues that we put at risk the possibility of forming real human connections when we reduce complex people to a single, stereotypical story.
Sports and Social Justice
This webinar, hosted by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, discussed the current climate of sports and demonstrations against social injustice. Pro athletes Justin Tuck, Caron Butler, Martina Navratilova and coaches Pete Carroll and David Shaw, among others, offered their perspectives. Great quote from Coach Shaw - "I'm not going to lead you, I'm going to teach you to be a leader." The webinar was not recorded, so unfortunately I cannot offer a link.
Allison Briscoe-Smith pens this article on the best practices for parents to discuss race with their children. Research shows kids as young as six-months old notice racial differences, which suggests having discussions with them at an early age can help reduce racial prejudice. Briscoe-Smith offers a handful of suggestions for how to engage in those conversations.
This 38 minute episode of the Code Switch podcast examines how the killing of George Floyd led protesters in Bristol, England to pull down the statue of city philanthropist and slave trader Edward Colston. The similarities, connections, and differences between Britain and America in policing and attitudes and approaches to anti-Black racism are explored.
Lauren Michele Jackson, assistant professor of English at Northwestern, writes this opinion piece for The New Yorker focused on a George Washington professor who claimed various racial identities as her own before finally acknowledging her whiteness. She claims that Krug was able to forge different identities in part because of society's lack of curiousity about the difference between race and ethnicity. Jackson even faults Krug's peers, who she says failed to recognize her deception by not knowing the difference "between something thrown-on and something lived-in."
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