All of a Sudden

Reflections from the classroom of Sekou Sundiata

I arrived to class on Monday, November 27th, 2006 anxious and ready to be frustrated once again. I had ambivalent feelings about the course. Of all my courses at Eugene Lang College, this “America Project” class was the most culturally diverse. Where I was usually the lone black male student, ...
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All of a Sudden

Crusader Without Violence 60 Years Later

The first biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is reissued

Lawrence D. Reddick was a history professor at Alabama State College — the state school for blacks — when the Montgomery Bus Boycott brought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to national prominence in 1955-56. They had known each other casually in Atlanta; both had moved to Montgomery to accept jobs only recently. On ...
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Crusader Without Violence 60 Years Later

Remembering the Civil Rights Movement

An interview with poet Cheryl Clarke about the 1963 March on Washington

In August 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, I had the opportunity to interview African-American feminist and lesbian Cheryl Clarke about her participation in the March on Washington. A poet, essayist and literary critic, Cheryl has been an activist, a teacher and an artist for her entire ...
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Remembering the Civil Rights Movement

Confronting the U.S. Census as a Weapon of White Supremacy

The race question has been crucial to civil rights, but it also perpetuates racism

On March 26, 2018, the Trump administration announced that it would add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Since then, many serious objections have been raised, highlighted through multiple lawsuits. Some are concerned that such a question will cause an undercount, others that it will result in further marginalization of immigrants, less ...
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Confronting the U.S. Census as a Weapon of White Supremacy

UNC-Chapel Hill Proposes to Raise Millions to Preserve Silent Sam

This doesn’t solve the problem: and the money could go to pay grad students a living wage

On the night of December 8, after proctoring the final exam for the undergraduate course I teach, I got the phone call that I simultaneously needed and dreaded. “What are your thoughts on participation?” my co-instructor asked. “I have so many overlapping concerns that I don’t know where to begin!” I exclaimed. ...
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UNC-Chapel Hill Proposes to Raise Millions to Preserve Silent Sam

What Shakespeare Can Tell Us About School Shootings

In the film O, a 1999 adaptation of Othello, toxic masculinity is at the root of violence

In 1998, five shootings took place on school campuses in the United States. So far in 2018, there have been more than sixty-five. Over the last few decades, the frequency of violence in schools has increased exponentially. As a society, we have struggled to understand the nature of such violence and ...
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What Shakespeare Can Tell Us About School Shootings

Racism, Thomas Farr, and the Legacies of George H. W. Bush

Bush was no Trump, but he helped pave the way for Trump

Late last week Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina declared that he will vote against President Trump’s nomination of Thomas Farr to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals, effectively killing the nomination in the Senate. Scott is the first African-American from South Carolina to ever serve in the ...
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Racism, Thomas Farr, and the Legacies of George H. W. Bush

A Tale Of Two Communities Dispels Model Minority Myths

Asian Americans as the ‘Model Minority’

The comparative success of Asian Americans on earnings and educational indicators has given rise to the “model minority” myth, which proposes that, through hard work and studiousness, Asians across the board have achieved economic success. One of the troublesome assumptions of this myth is that it overlooks the great diversity of ...
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A Tale Of Two Communities Dispels Model Minority Myths

Heroes but Not Saints

How should we judge reformers and radicals who were also racists?

In 2020, America will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Feminists and others are starting to plan the celebrations, which will include conferences, books, postage stamps, and new monuments honoring the women who fought and won that major battle. In anticipation, New York ...
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Heroes but Not Saints

Explosive Objects

How the murder of Trayvon Martin made everyday items extraordinary

Watching Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story this summer, I was struck by how much our memories of the tragic encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin is shaped by objects. The gun. The hoodie. The Skittles wrapper. There were other objects too, some from that night -- the cell phone ...
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Explosive Objects

A Shared Commitment

Concluding thoughts on, ‘Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention’

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a ...
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A Shared Commitment

What Must Be Done With Sovereignty?

Rejecting Recognition and the Ruse of Participation

Race/isms Book Forum is a new series aimed at bringing established and emerging voices together in conversation around recent work that critically engages our world’s racial scripts, past and present. The structure of the forum is straightforward. We invite three to four thinkers to grapple with a book, highlighting a ...
Read More
What Must Be Done With Sovereignty?