Race Archives - Page 7 of 30

Democracy

Detroit’s Project Green Light and the “New Jim Code”

Why video surveillance and digital technology intensify racism

October 1, 2020 • by Vince Carducci

————— Over the last three and a half years, the City of Detroit has greatly expanded Project Green Light, an initiative of the Detroit Police Department (DPD), along with local businesses and other organizations, to use video surveillance and digital technology to fight crime. Since the first cameras went live in ...

Detroit’s Project Green Light and the “New Jim Code”

Race

Anti Bodies

Two American Pandemics

September 24, 2020 • by Rossen Ventzislavov

------- We now live in a time when the line between being a nobody and a somebody can be drawn by an antibody. Humanity is split. And so is the screen of our double American crisis—one channel nervously tracking a global pandemic, the other crackling with eruptions of civil unrest. But ...

History

Who Owns the Evidence of Slavery’s Violence?

A lawsuit against Harvard University demands the return of an ancestor’s stolen image

September 10, 2020 • by Thomas A. Foster

Imagine that a man takes photos of your loved one, without their consent, and those images are then circulated to others. Now imagine that your loved one is naked in the photos. The man is a famous scholar and the images are given to a library. The library then allows ...

Who Owns the Evidence of Slavery’s Violence?

Race

The Danger of Race Reductionism

Two prominent Black leftists warn that simplistic views about “white supremacy” will undermine the fight for social justice

September 10, 2020 • by Rogers Brubaker

At the end of May, prominent leftist political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. was slated to give an online talk cosponsored by the Philadelphia and New York City chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America. But even though Reed was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter, and happens to be Black, some ...

Literature

James Baldwin and the Fire This Time

Good trouble and the courage to hope

September 9, 2020 • by Justin A. Joyce and Dwight A. McBride

History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, but if faced With courage, need not be lived again. Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning” (1993) As a guide, as a seer, as a prophet – James Baldwin is a writer we need. As Baldwin said about Beauford Delaney, the Black painter who rose to prominence in the ...

Past Present

Lovecraft Country

Past Present, Episode 224

September 2, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Lovecraft Country is attracting attention for its blend of historical drama and horror. Niki discussed this hybrid genre, as explained at Vox. She also mentioned the documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. Neil compared Lovecraft Country to Colson Whitehead’s recent novel, The Underground Railroad. Natalia referred to this ...

Activism

A New Era in America’s Racial Politics

How a racial reparations alliance can prove that Black lives matter

August 27, 2020 • by Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King

Asheville isn’t the first American city to apologize for slavery and enact new policies to repair some of the damage it has done to Black families. For example, in November 2019, Evanston, Illinois, decided to levy a tax on marijuana to expand housing and employment opportunities for the city’s African ...

History

Why We Shouldn’t Try to Erase America’s Racist Past

Twitter’s misguided attempts at censorship

August 25, 2020 • by Karyn Lacy

Some Denny’s restaurants once bore the name “Sambo’s.” Sambo is a character featured in the children’s story Little Black Sambo, set in India, written by Helen Bannerman, a Scottish author, and first published in England in 1898. After it appeared in America a year later, the book inspired an outpouring of ...

Why We Shouldn’t Try to Erase America’s Racist Past

History

Let’s Build a Monument to Anastácia

An enslaved woman’s image that has traveled around the hemisphere can help us rethink slavery and memorialization

July 30, 2020 • by Marc Hertzman and Giovana Xavier

In May 2020, as the social movement to remove racist monuments grew and the COVID-19 pandemic spiraled out of control, two white women protesting against social distancing and masks were photographed with a sign. It read: “Muzzles are for dogs and slaves. I am a free human being.” It featured ...

Race

Asian Americans Suffer From Trump’s Racist Attacks Too

The long history of America’s hostility toward immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

July 23, 2020 • by Nadia Y. Kim

We are all familiar with the racist tactics that vaulted Donald Trump into the Oval Office. He demonized Mexicans, he denounced Muslims, and he cozied up on Twitter to ardent White supremacists. In recent weeks, he’s relentlessly attacked the Black Lives Matter protests. Amid all the vitriol, it’s easy to overlook ...

Asian Americans Suffer From Trump’s Racist Attacks Too

Public Health

The Hidden Structural Racism in the American Response to Public Health Emergencies

Facing a disproportionate death rate among Black people from COVID-19, President Trump shrugs: “What, me, worry?”

July 23, 2020 • by R. Drew Smith

When faced with emerging epidemics related to HIV/AIDS in the 1970s, to crack cocaine in the 1980s, to Ebola in 2014 and 2018, the U.S. government was slow to intervene on behalf of homosexual populations, or urban poor populations, or African populations, who respectively were most-affected by those public health ...

The Hidden Structural Racism in the American Response to Public Health Emergencies

Activism

Trojan Horse

Misusing Greek mythology on a college campus sneaks white supremacy in the back door

July 23, 2020 • by Amelia Jones and Tania Modleski

These cultural forms act as “Trojan horses,” sneaking offensive, even racist and sexist ideas into the fabric of the university where they lie in wait to do harm. In our case, one has to begin, of course, with the hyper-masculine bronze statue of Tommy Trojan (erected in 1930) at the center ...