Ahmaud Arbery Archives - Public Seminar

Race

There’s a Black Man Running Down My Street

When nice white neighbors criminalize a man for being Black and kill him it’s not just murder—it’s a lynching.

December 1, 2021 • by Mark Allan Williams

When is a murder not a murder? When it’s a lynching. On November 24, 2021—the day before Thanksgiving—many Americans let out a collective breath of relief. In Brunswick, Georgia, a jury convicted Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan of murder for hunting down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an ...

There’s a Black Man Running Down My Street

Activism

Statement about Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

A letter from the president of The New School

November 22, 2021 • by Dwight A. McBride

Dear New School students and colleagues, I want to take a moment to respond to the verdict that was delivered last Friday afternoon in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, wherein Mr. Rittenhouse was found to be not guilty on all counts. I have heard from many individuals in The New School community ...

Statement about Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

Activism

Saying Goodbye to Aunt Jemima Is Not Enough

What we really need to do to address the economic impact of systemic racism in the United States

July 9, 2020 • by Elwood Watson

When Dinah Washington recorded “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” in 1959, the blues diva managed to imbue the Tin Pan Alley lyrics with a kind of haunted hopefulness, the same kind of soulful yearning that would reappear a few years later in Sam Cooke’s monumental ode to the civil ...

Saying Goodbye to Aunt Jemima Is Not Enough

Theory & Practice

Field Notes on “Sentencing the Present”

Diagnosing what is false without ceding what is beautiful

June 18, 2020 • by Jonathon Catlin and Benjamin P. Davis

This is a final reflection by the curators of the seminar series “Sentencing the Present,” which was republished in full last week as “An Archive of a Crisis.” Because readers have asked us about the process and production of “Sentencing the Present,” when Public Seminar asked us to write a “post-mortem” ...

Theory & Practice

Sentencing the Present: Part Five

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

June 4, 2020 • by Benjamin Bernard, Jonathon Catlin, Benjamin P. Davis, Jodi Dean, Shannon Hoff, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Zein Murib, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Rocío Zambrana

This is the final seminar of the "Sentencing the Present" series. For previous seminars, see part one, part two, part three and part four. A sentence is protean: It can describe, question, or cry out. A sentence is critical: In passing judgment, it names wrongs, makes decisions, and declares publicly. In ...

Past Present

Ahmaud Arbery

Past Present Podcast, Episode 228

May 12, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Twenty-five-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while running in Satilla Shores, Georgia. Natalia cited this piece at The Conversation by sociologist Rashawn Ray and tweeted this thread about the racialized history of running. Neil referenced the history of Stand Your Ground ...