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Racist Backlash Towards 'Kenobi' Actress Moses Ingram

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Racist Backlash Towards 'Kenobi' Actress Moses Ingram

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The show 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' has been going for a few weeks now, and when it started there was a disturbing amount of backlash towards the casting of Moses Ingram to play the role of one of the Inquisitors/main antagonists in the show. I haven't watched a ton of the show, but I've watched a few videos about this racism issue and it's pretty unpleasant. A number of people were calling her slurs, spreading racist stereotypes towards her, and claiming she was a token diversity hire on social media, and on top of that a number of conservative pundits were then saying that the racism was overblown and that "the Left" was overplaying the racism to obfuscate her mediocre acting ability, even though from what I've seen she isn't a bad actor. So overall, a ton of hateful people lashed out at an actress simply because they didn't like that a person of color was playing a character in a show they wanted to watch. This is a pretty solid example of racist behavior in our society.

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Moses Ingram, ‘Star Wars’ stand up to racist backlash over ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ casting

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Less than a week after appearing in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi,’ actor Moses Ingram and the ‘Star Wars’ franchise are shutting down a flurry of hateful messages.

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I chose this post because it clearly displays the priorities and biases within our federal government. When the Black Lives Matter protests were taking place, there were protesters outside the Capitol trying to make a stand and have a voice but the Capitol was more concerned about security and keeping them out. Yet, another event at the Capitol there was no security to be found which lead to the raid. If there was a raid during the BLM protests there would be numerous injuries.

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Left is the security posture during BLM protests on June 2nd. Cop every few feet, couldn’t get near the Capitol. Right is Jan 6th before the breach but after they’d found the bombs. You could walk unimpeded  right up to the front doors. Insanity.

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Left is the security posture during BLM protests on June 2nd. Cop every few feet, couldn’t get near the Capitol. Right is Jan 6th before the breach but after they’d found the bombs. You could walk unimpeded  right up to the front doors. Insanity. https://t.co/ucaaXm6lso

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Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.

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Left is the security posture during BLM protests on June 2nd. Cop every few feet, couldn’t get near the Capitol. Right is Jan 6th before the breach but after they’d found the bombs. You could walk unimpeded right up to the front doors. Insanity. pic.twitter.com/ucaaXm6lso
— Tom King (@TomKingTK) June 10, 2022

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Left is the security posture during BLM protests on June 2nd. Cop every few feet, couldn’t get near the Capitol. Right is Jan 6th before the breach but after they’d found the bombs. You could walk unimpeded  right up to the front doors. Insanity. https://t.co/ucaaXm6lso

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Left is the security posture during BLM protests on June 2nd. Cop every few feet, couldn’t get near the Capitol. Right is Jan 6th before the breach but after they’d found the bombs. You could walk unimpeded  right up to the front doors. Insanity. https://t.co/ucaaXm6lso

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Left is the security posture during BLM protests on June 2nd. Cop every few feet, couldn’t get near the Capitol. Right is Jan 6th before the breach but after they’d found the bombs. You could walk unimpeded  right up to the front doors. Insanity.

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I chose this news article because it’s about a recent incident that happened because of racism. The news article explained how an 18-year-old male opened fire at an East Buffalo Grocery store. The article stated that the gunman drove 200 miles just to commit his crime. The gunman knew that the city had people that were descendants of great migrants that fled the south because of Jim Crow laws and gainful employment.

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But the fact that he had to travel more than 200 miles from his nearly all-white hometown to find a Black community concentrated enough to kill en masse proves that Blacks aren't "replacing" whites; in fact, Black Americans in Buffalo are still struggling to escape deliberate disinvestment and segregation.

Buffalo is among the most segregated Black communities in America - a legacy of the peculiar, Black-subordinating institution once called the ghetto, until that noun became a pejorative. According to The New York Times, the terrorist shooter selected the Tops Friendly Market as the best spot for a killing spree after researching predominantly Black ZIP codes. The legacy of segregation eased his selection process. In a historically redlined community still suffering from disinvestment, this sole supermarket on the Black side of town had become a treasured community gathering space in what had previously been a food desert.

In his manifesto, the terrorist shooter implied that the mere presence of Black people were a threat to his future and that of other whites. And he fabulized that each Black "replacer" on average cost white taxpayers $700,000 in government largesse.

But the history of segregated Buffalo shows that instead of Blacks replacing whites and taking up too many resources, the truth is the opposite - that many descendants have been cordoned off from the rest of society and systematically denied access to resources and opportunities that whites enjoy.

According to a short history of Buffalo segregation issued in 2018 by the Partnership for Public Good, roughly 85 percent of Buffalo's Black residents live east of Main Street, a major north-south artery that splits the city. White residents in the city overwhelmingly live west of Main Street. How did this stark segregation happen? Government and private actors constructed it with great, anti-Black intention.

In every American city where large numbers of Great Migrants landed, the primary response was to contain them in their own neighborhoods and then cut those neighborhoods off from the public and private investment that rained down on white neighborhoods. Buffalo was no exception. Black residents on the East Side were subjected to the same policy choices that caused cumulative economic and social trauma in Black neighborhoods throughout the country: restrictive covenants, redlining, segregated public housing, displacement by urban redevelopment and interstate highways, and endemic disinvestment.

African American southerners came to Buffalo in droves during World War I to work in steel factories charged with producing war materiel. Black migrants encountered resistance and occasional violence when they tried to move into white working-class neighborhoods. Realtors and private homeowners began to insert racially restrictive covenants in deeds, mandating that properties in white areas never be sold to non-whites.

Segregation into identifiable Black space is the enduring legacy of another white supremacist ideology, the idea that Black people were not worthy of living near or among white people, that they were a threat to whites' property values and to white racial purity. The federal government accelerated both the ideology and its physical manifestations when it insisted on rating neighborhoods in every urban area in the country in the 1930s. Virtually all Black neighborhoods, even relatively prosperous Hamlin Park in Buffalo, were marked with the lowest rating - D - and color coded in red, explicitly deemed "hazardous." Immediately, Black people were cut out of one of the largest wealth-building federal subsidies - the federally-insured 30-year mortgage - and a system of residential caste was born.

Starved of credit to invest in their homes and their neighborhoods marked as unworthy, Blacks' homes and Blackness itself were devalued. Redlined neighborhoods, even quite vital ones, began to decline and government made matters worse by underfunding basic services like roads, sewers and schools in Black areas.

In more highly valued white areas, people lived in a well-resourced land of opportunity where prospering was common. At the other extreme, many descendants of the Great Migrants were relegated to high-poverty Black environs, with systemic disadvantages that required superhuman effort to overcome, including separate and unequal schools and lack of public transportation to job centers.

After redlining, government piled on, creating even more extreme segregation. The Buffalo housing authority intentionally built all-Black public housing on the East Side, concentrating poverty and Blackness and further entrenching white avoidance of Blacks as potential neighbors. Blockbusting realtors encouraged white panic-selling and profited by charging Black buyers more than whites paid for housing.

White people who wished to flee encroaching Blackness could take advantage of federal subsidies like the G.I. Bill and move to all-white suburbs; many white residents of Buffalo fled to new bastions of whiteness in Erie County made possible through exclusionary zoning. Zoning codes that allowed only single-family, large-lot homes and no apartments, not even market-rate rental housing and certainly no subsidized housing, coupled with discrimination against Black homebuyers perfected a city-suburban divide in the Buffalo-Niagara metropolitan region in which opportunity and space was racialized. Even now, according to the Partnership for Public Good report, only 10 percent of Black residents live in above-average opportunity areas in the region compared to over 60 percent of white residents.

Within the city of Buffalo, "Negro Removal" and highway construction added to the architecture of segregation. For example, about 1,600 Black families were displaced by a large-scale "urban renewal" project known as the Ellicott Redevelopment Project and relocated to majority Black neighborhoods. Across the country many descendants who were dislocated from strategic downtown neighborhoods under the urban renewal banner were moved into segregated public housing. In Buffalo, when the Kensington Expressway was built, it tore through Black neighborhoods on the East Side, displacing descendants and destroying Black-owned homes and businesses to create easy access to the city for suburban commuters and a physical barrier that reinforced separation from the West Side.

The legacy of segregation and opportunity hoarding, of overinvesting and excluding in affluent white space and disinvesting in and redlining Black neighborhoods, continues to this day. In recent decades, the East Side was redlined by banks and lenders, denying traditional mortgages. But descendants there, like segregated descendants everywhere, were targeted for usurious predatory loans that robbed Black homeowners of the housing equity and wealth they did have, exploding the Black-white homeownership and wealth gaps. Modern descendants on the East Side have also endured high-poverty schools, disrespectful and excessive policing, health disparities, exposure to industrial pollutants and lack of access to healthy food.

For decades, East Buffalo didn't even have its own supermarket, but after a long campaign, East Side descendants succeeded in getting the Tops Friendly Market.

The fact that a young white terrorist chose the East Side of Buffalo and this Tops grocery store to take out his anger about a fake "great replacement" theory demonstrates the opposite of what he believed. In Buffalo and in most American cities, with the help and encouragement of the federal government, it's been Black people who've been displaced, cordoned off and forced to endure underinvestment and segregation.

Which, tragically, is why so many were in the same supermarket, at the same time, innocently shopping for food for themselves and their families when he went looking for Black people to kill.

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Opinion | How the Buffalo Massacre Proves There's No 'Great Replacement'

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But the fact that he had to travel more than 200 miles from his nearly all-white hometown to find a Black community concentrated enough to kill en masse proves that Blacks aren't "replacing" whites; in fact, Black Americans in Buffalo are still struggling to escape deliberate disinvestment and segregation.

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If i had was asked what is race and racism, in this video this is the best way I can tell someone and myself understand what the difference is and there meaning, without going into depth and only focusing on the black majority on racism.

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This article writes and demonstrates the point of view of students during racism. Over 5.8 million students have received or viewed hate crime at school. Students have had enough and planned a protest. In this article there are stats and more information. It also shows a view of how it effects a students mental health.

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Students are fed up with racist slurs and bullying. Now they're walking out of class | CNN

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Some Black students are being told they stink while others are being called monkeys by their White peers. The n-word has been written on the walls of school restrooms as other students are the targets of racist rants on social media.

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I am usually not up to date with the news because to be honest they scare the guts out of me. However, the other day my coworker sends me a picture of a very brief but powerful news article. It was about the recent shooting in Texas where the shooter was a 18 year old teenager, that absolutely blew my mind. I also heard about the unfair racial shooting in Buffalo where 10 black adults were killed. These constant racial attacks I keep hearing of I don't understand why we can't view other's beliefs and cultures as a beautiful privilege of differences. Because I think if we all looked the same and had the same beliefs and values life would be super boring!

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As the families of those killed in the hate-fueled shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket just days 10 ago continue to mourn, the U.S. witnessed another mass casualty event as 21 people – including 19 kids – were killed at an elementary school in Texas.

On May 14, 10 people were killed and three were injured in a racially motivated attack at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, and when news broke of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, about 85 miles west of San Antonio, on Tuesday, Americans were quick to point out the short time frame between the two mass shootings.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., alluded to the Buffalo shooting when giving an emotional plea on the Senate floor about "doing something," to prevent mass shootings in schools.

"Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands," Murphy said.

On top of the incidents in Buffalo and Uvalde, a May 15 shooting at a church in Laguna Woods, California, left one dead and five others injured, one of more than a dozen other mass shootings in the U.S. since May 14.

"In the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo. We’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California. Now, we have children murdered at school," Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told reporters ahead of their Western Conference Finals matchup against the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday.

"When are we going to do something? I’m tired, I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough," he added.

Bloodshed since Sandy Hook: Uvalde school shooting among deadliest school attacks in past 10 years

Uvalde help: Here's how you can help those affected by the Texas school shooting in Uvalde

'This is on you': Beto O'Rourke confronts Abbott, Cruz at Texas school shooting press conference

There have been 213 mass shootings in the United States in just 145 days this year, 10 of which were mass killings, including the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings, according to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence incidents in the United States. The Uvalde school shooting is the deadliest shooting of 2022, and deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

There are similarities into how the attacks were planned and carried out. Both shooters posted about their plans online beforehand. The gunman in Uvalde legally purchased two assault rifles at a local gun store, Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez told USA TODAY, one of which was reportedly found in the elementary school. The Buffalo shooter was armed with an assault-style rifle, police said.

David Riedman, lead researcher at the K-12 School Shooting Database at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which documents every instance a gun is brandished or fired or a bullet hits school property for any reason, told USA TODAY on Tuesday the Buffalo shooter also wrote online he considered an elementary school as a possible target.

The two mass shootings were also a talking point at a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday for Steven Dettelbach, the nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said assault weapons are found in a "war zone, not a school zone," and there needs to be limited access to purchasing one.

Contributing: Cydney Henderson, Grace Hauck and Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY.

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Two shootings, 10 days apart: Texas school massacre comes on heels of racist killings in Buffalo

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Less than two weeks after 10 people were killed in a racially motivated shooting in Buffalo, the nation grapples with another mass shooting in Texas.

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This article talks about racism in healthcare, and i think that this article is very important because racism in healthcare continues to become a serious issue and not many people are doing anything about it, and racism has been embedded into healthcare for a really long time. The authors hope that this research will motivate healthcare workers into putting an end to racism in healthcare.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named racism as a serious public health threat, and UO philosopher Camisha Russell's latest research examines racism in health care and offers some ideas about how to address such structural injustice.

Russell decided to pursue the project during the summer of 2020, shortly after George Floyd was killed and Black Lives Matter protests were surging all over the country. Many people were reflecting on how to address racism and structural injustices.

When Russell was awarded the 2020-21 Barach A. Brody Lecture in Bioethics, she saw an opportunity to insert her research into the conversation.

The award is given annually to a scholar who has made contributions to the field of bioethics that hold clinical and practical value. It includes both the opportunity to deliver a lecture to large audience of health care researchers and professionals, and the opportunity to publish an article based on the lecture in the American Journal of Bioethics.

"There was a pervasive sense that we all needed to take responsibility and do something to address racial injustice," Russell said. "My hope is that this research can be motivating to health care professionals and can help them think about what they can do from the positions they're in."

Russell said racism is embedded in the health care system in many ways and creates inequities in public health.

"Racism reduces the access to positive influences on health and increases the exposure to negative ones," she said.

Black communities experience higher rates of incarceration, separation of families, and negative relationships with law enforcement, she said. And communities of color experience higher rates of chronic stress due to constant exposure to discrimination.

Health care reform also is an issue exacerbated by racism. Russell points to research that found many poor, white men would rather die, literally, from their own lack of access to health care than reform health care in a way that would benefit Black people or immigrants.

"White resentment keeps fueling these inequities," Russell said. "Race plays a big role in the opposition to making changes to our health care system."

Russell also stresses the need for medical professionals to treat racial health effects and not race itself. For example, infant mortality is a big issue for Black women in the U.S. But it's not a genetic issue; it reflects the toll their environments, including social justice, take on Black women's bodies.

In the United States, the infants of foreign-born Black women have lower mortality rates than the infants of U.S.-born Black women, Russell said. That shows that the issue of infant mortality has a greater correlation to growing up Black in the United States than to simply being a Black woman.

A big component of health disparities in the Black population is related to chronic stress caused by discrimination and racism.

"And not just simply in the discrimination that every Black person is subjected to but also by constantly being exposed to large-scale, racially traumatic events where racism is really obvious, hurtful and often violent," Russell said. "These things impact people's actual physical health."

One of her recommendations for health care professionals is to be aware of this reality and of the structural inequalities that perpetuate it.

She believes health care professionals can help by examining their own role, educating themselves, trying different types of action, and reflecting on the results. And she stresses that learning and trying to improve equity and inclusion is better than doing nothing.

"We don't have to wait for a perfect understanding to act," she said.

- By Emily Halnon, University Communications

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Research looks at racism in health care and how to end it

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named racism as a serious public health threat, and UO philosopher Camisha Russell's latest research examines racism in health care and offers some ideas about how to address such structural injustice.

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https://stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40594-020-00241-4

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23k Accesses

13 Citations

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Metrics

Abstract

Background

Race and gender disparities remain a challenge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. We introduce campus racial climate as a framework for conceptualizing the role of racial microaggressions (RMAs) as a contributing factor to the lack of representation of domestic students of color in STEM programs on college campuses. We analyze the experiences of students of color in STEM majors who have faced RMAs at the campus, academic, and peer levels. We draw from an online survey of more than 4800 students of color attending a large public university in the USA. The STEM major subsample is made up of 1688 students of color. The study estimates a series of Poisson regressions to examine whether one's race, gender, or class year can be used to predict the likelihood of the regular occurrence of microaggressions. We also use interview data to further understand the challenges faced by STEM students of color.

Results

The quantitative and qualitative data suggest that RMAs are not isolated incidents but are ingrained in the campus culture, including interactions with STEM instructors and advisers and with peers. Students of color experience RMAs at all three levels, but Black students in the STEM majors are more likely to experience RMAs than other students of color in the sample.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrates the need for campus officials, academic professionals, faculty members, and students to work together to address racism at the campus, academic, and peer levels. Additionally, STEM departments must address the impacts of the larger racial campus culture on their classrooms, as well as how departmental culture reinforces racial hostility in academic settings. Finally, our findings reveal the continued presence of anti-Black racism in higher education.

Introduction

The USA is rapidly approaching the "majority-minority" tipping point. It is projected that by 2044, non-Hispanic White residents will make up less than half of the US population (Colby & Ortman, 2015). As the USA becomes increasingly diverse, the demographic makeup of the nation's postsecondary institutions is changing as well. Approximately 58% of today's college students identify as White, which stands in stark contrast to the 84% of enrolled students in 1976 (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2018). Despite these demographic changes, White men, in particular, remain overrepresented in engineering and many other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree programs (Yoder, 2015).

Careers in STEM are one of the fastest-growing occupational clusters in the USA-falling second only to health care (Carnevale, Smith, & Melton, 2011). There were roughly 8.6 million STEM-related jobs in the USA in 2015 (Fayer, Lacey, & Watson, 2017), showing growth that outpaced prior projections (Carnevale et al., 2011). Additionally, studies point to the need to address the "low participation, representation, engagement, and inclusion in engineering and related STEM fields among underrepresented students" because to do so will "enrich the intellectual capacity of the U.S. STEM workforce" (Long III & Mejia, 2016, p. 216). With this growth and call for diversifying STEM, in 2015, Change the Equation-a nonprofit partnership among the Obama Administration, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and CEOs from some of the world's most prominent technology companies including Intel and Xerox-called on "businesses, governments, educators, and other STEM advocates to join forces and address the massive unmet need for inspiring and educational STEM experiences" (Change the Equation, 2015, p. 3; Sabochik, 2010).

Although there has been a nationwide call for more diversity in the STEM fields for the past two decades, the results of these efforts have been slow and, in some cases, insignificant. Recruitment and retention in STEM remain pervasive at all levels of the pipeline. Nearly all STEM-related occupations in the USA require some kind of formal training beyond high school (Carnevale et al., 2011). Consequently, postsecondary institutions play a critical role in preparing the nation's STEM workforce. According to a 2019 report by the National Science Foundation that examined graduating college students at 4-year institutions from 1996 to 2016, diversity efforts have been mixed for students of color graduating with engineering degrees. Over almost two decades, Latinx graduates have grown from 5.9 to 10.4% of graduates in this field. However, the proportion of Black students has decreased over this period from 4.7 to 3.86% (Hamrick, 2019).

Purpose

Scholars have made concerted efforts to understand the causes of race and gender disparities in STEM education and to offer solutions. Research has focused on individual-level factors, such as intrinsic interest in STEM (Bonous-Hammarth, 2000; Nicholls, Wolfe, Besterfield-Sacre, Shuman, & Larpkiattaworn, 2007), high school GPA, and college entrance test scores (Bonous-Hammarth, 2000; Nicholls et al., 2007); institutional-level factors, including restrictive admissions policies (Long III & Mejia, 2016); and the relationship of institutional type (e.g., Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions) to undergraduate engineering degree completion (Chubin, May, & Babco, 2005). Sociocultural factors have also been investigated, considering implications of bias and stereotypes within engineering education environments (Long III & Mejia, 2016; Trytten, Lowe, & Walden, 2013) as well as strategies for resistance, persistence, and cultural reframing of engineering education praxis (Samuelson & Litzler, 2016; Secules, Gupta, Elby, & Tanu, 2018; Secules, Gupta, Elby, & Turpen, 2018).

However, few studies examine the racial campus climate as contributing to representational disparities in the STEM profession. When students of color perceive a negative racial campus climate, academic persistence and retention rates fall (Chang, 1999; Reid & Radhakrishnan, 2003; Rodgers & Summers, 2008; Worthington, Navarro, Loewy, & Hart, 2008). Conversely, a positive racial environment contributes to a strong sense of belonging and is associated with higher grades and graduation rates for students of color (Booker, 2007; Brown, 2000; Goodenow, 1993; Hinderlie & Kenny, 2002; Strayhorn, 2008). The present study asserts that the racial climate, as informed by experiences with microaggressions at campus, academic, and peer levels, serves as a significant contributing factor in the low rates of students of color in STEM majors (see Fig. 1).

Campus racial climate and racial microaggressions

Literature and conceptual framing

The vast scholarship on diversity in higher education, racial campus climate, and racial microaggressions (RMAs) on college campuses demonstrates the long-standing problem of both explicit and subtle racial hostility, discrimination, and prejudice (Allen, 1992; Harper et al., 2011; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, 1992; Rankin & Reason, 2005; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009). The racial climate of a campus may be discerned by considering "the current perceptions, attitudes, and expectations that define the institution and its members" (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1999, p. 5). Hurtado et al.'s ( 1999) campus racial climate framework denotes contexts of influence both external and internal to the campus environment.

External factors include the government and policy context, such as state and federal mechanisms for higher education funding as well as desegregation, diversity, and affirmative action policies that may significantly alter the postsecondary landscape at local and national levels. The sociohistorical context, such as the history of injustice within a society, social awareness of individuals and groups within a society, and social justice efforts at national and community levels, shapes the campus racial climate as well.

Internally, the institutional context is concerned with five dimensions (Milem, Chang, & Antonio, 2005). The first is the institution' s legacy of inclusion and exclusion, which examines institutional values, policies, and practices toward historically marginalized groups. For example, some of the largest bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree-granting STEM programs in the USA exist at land-grant institutions (Morse & Tolis, 2013). Land-grant institutions were established as a result of the first Morrill Act, passed in 1862 for the express purpose of advancing applied research in agricultural, technical, mechanical, and natural sciences (Thelin, 2011). However, these same institutions denied admission based on race, gender, and/or religion. In 1890, a second Morrill Act provided funding for institutions that would later come to be known as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, effectively constituting a separate-but-equal doctrine for STEM education (Thelin, 2011).

The second component of campus racial climate is compositional diversity, which takes into account the numerical representation of various racial and ethnic groups on campus or within a campus environment. Racial representation of students in STEM is often attributed to pervasive stereotypes about intelligence and academic preparation based on race (McGee & Martin, 2011; McGee, Thakore, & LaBlance, 2017; Trytten et al., 2013). For Asian/Asian American students, representation in STEM is explained by such stereotypes as superior intelligence, strong work ethic, or excelling in math, all of which are a part of the model minority concept (McGee et al., 2017; Trytten et al., 2013). For Black and Latinx students, their underrepresentation is falsely attributed to personal characteristics such as inferior intelligence, weak work ethic, and deficiencies in mathematics (Long III & Mejia, 2016; Ma & Liu, 2015; Oakes, 1990).

These misconceptions may show up in the lives of students in the form of RMAs. When writing about Black-White relations in the post-civil rights era, Chester Pierce ( 1970, 1978) defined microaggressions as "subtle, stunning, often automatic, and nonverbal exchanges, which are 'put-downs' of Blacks by offenders" (1978, p. 66). Such exchanges in higher education establish an atmosphere in which people of color are assumed to be inferior and are made to feel as if they do not belong. These types of exchanges make up the behavioral dimension of the campus racial climate framework, while the thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and beliefs regarding race, discrimination, and racial tension constitute the psychological dimension (Hurtado et al., 1999).

For instance, Black and Latinx students have reported feeling as though they have to prove that they belong, as they are assumed to be subpar compared with their peers, or are sometimes labeled by peers as "affirmative action" students (Camacho & Lord, 2011; McGee & Martin, 2011). Moreover, in a qualitative study with female students of color in an engineering major, Camacho and Lord ( 2011) found that participants had experienced racist and sexist microaggressions at both the institutional and interpersonal levels.

Since Pierce ( 1970, 1978), many others have documented the regularly occurring and sometimes subtle nature of racism and its effects (Coates, 2011; Dovidio, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002; McConahay, 1986; Sears, 1988; Smith, 1995; Sue, Capodilupo, & Holder, 2008). Perhaps most notably, Sue ( 2010) has brought national attention to the concept of "racial microaggression," which refers to everyday and sometimes subtle mechanics of racism. Building upon Pierce's ( 1970, 1978) work, Sue et al. ( 2007) defined RMAs as "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color" (p. 271). Sue et al. ( 2007) also created a typology of RMAs: microinsults, microinvalidations, and microassaults. Microinsults are "behaviors, verbal remarks or comments that convey rudeness, insensitivity, and demean a person's racial heritage or identity" (p. 278). For example, if a bookstore employee asks to check the bags of a Black student but not a White student entering the building, this behavior, while possibly unconscious, conveys a message of criminality based on race. Microinvalidations are "verbal comments or behaviors that exclude, negate or nullify the psychological thoughts, feeling or experiential reality of a person of color" (p. 278). Like microinsults, microinvalidations may be unconscious. Examples of microinvalidations include seemingly innocuous questions such as "Where are you from?" and "Where were you born?" These questions are sometimes offensive because they assume that a person of color is foreign-born or not a US citizen.

Finally, microassaults are more overt, with purposeful discrimination at their core. Sue et al. ( 2007) state, "Microassaults are explicit racial derogations characterized primarily by a violent verbal or nonverbal attack meant to hurt the intended victim through name-calling, avoidant behavior or purposeful discriminatory actions" (p. 278). Unlike the "old-fashioned" racism that was public yet unchallenged, microassaults often occur anonymously or in a more private setting. An example of this is when non-Asian students speak in a pretend Asian language and laugh as an Asian student walks by the group.

Chronic exposure to such discrimination causes "racial battle fatigue" as well as harmful psychological and physiological effects such as fear, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, isolation, stress, and exhaustion (Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999; Smith, Hung, & Franklin, 2011). Additionally, the culmination of a lifetime of psychological, emotional, and physical exhaustion (Carroll, 1998; Smith, Allen, & Danley, 2007) "can theoretically contribute to diminished mortality, augmented morbidity, and flattened confidence" (Pierce, 1995, p. 281). Such experiences create a hostile learning environment in STEM programs and impact the attraction, persistence, and retention of students of color.

The present study advances the ever-important work of understanding and addressing disparities in STEM education, paying particular attention to the impacts of racial campus climate on students of color in STEM majors. One respondent in the present study discussed changing majors during her time at the university. She stated,

I changed my desired major from Engineering to Latin American Studies because of my race and sadly encountered others like myself within the humanities who had to change their major because of their race. If you aren't White, and you aren't Asian, and you aren't "Indian," you aren't an engineer (Latina, female, changed major from STEM to non-STEM).

If postsecondary institutions want to do their part in preparing a thriving, capable, and creative STEM workforce, they must be willing to acknowledge the role that pervasive racism plays in the weeding out of racially minoritized, underrepresented student populations.

Research questions and hypotheses

This study brings these findings and arguments together to pose the following questions: Do non-White STEM students face RMAs at the campus, academic, and/or peer levels? How do these experiences vary by race, gender, and class year? What are the specific types of RMAs experienced? How do RMAs contribute to the low numbers of underrepresented minorities in STEM majors?

Hypotheses

The study estimates a series of Poisson regressions to examine whether one's race can be used to predict the likelihood of the regular occurrence of microaggressions on the campus, academic, and peer levels. In examining racial climate on three levels for STEM students of color, we expect that those who identify as Black and Latinx will have higher rates of incidents of microaggressions (1) on the campus level, (2) in their academic interactions, and (3) from peers.

Methods

Setting and institutional climate

Data were collected at a predominantly White land-grant university in the USA. Although the institution has no written record of expressly forbidding the admission of students based on race, gender, religion, or nationality, the university did not witness its first non-White graduate until nearly 20 years after its founding. In the civil rights era, a push by student leaders and community advocates resulted in the largest-ever incoming class of African American students in the late 1960s. This degree of African American student enrollment has never been reached on the campus again. Issues of discrimination and marginalization based on race have surfaced throughout the institution's history. In recent years, predominantly White Greek organizations have hosted racially themed parties depicting stereotypical and degrading images of people of color. The campus has taken steps to create a more inclusive environment by implementing several diversity initiatives on campus, including mandatory peer-educator-led diversity training for first year students.

At the time of data collection, campus enrollment totaled over 40,000. Just over half of the student body identified as White, international students were the next-highest enrollment at 19%, Asian American students made up 11%, Latinx and African American students made up 6% and 5%, respectively, and Native American and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students made up less than 1% each.

Sample

During the 2011-2012 academic year, all domestic students of color were invited to complete a web-based survey. Domestic students included US citizens and permanent residents. An original list of possible respondents was gathered from enrollment and admission data that coded race, ethnicity, and citizenship information from all enrolled students at the university. Approximately 4800 students of color completed the online survey for a 45% response rate. This project followed the ethical and legal standards outlined by the Institutional Review Board for research involving human subjects. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants in the study. As no names were collected in the survey, pseudonyms are used throughout the paper.

We restricted the data to cases with valid responses for all measures and limited the sample to students who had been identified as having a STEM major ( n = 1688). We identified a major as STEM based on the university's categorization system. The university has 68 STEM majors, including computer science, agricultural science, animal sciences, biological sciences, engineering, mathematics, material science, physical sciences, physics, statistics, and veterinary medicine. While we wanted to focus solely on engineering, some of the cells were too small when the data were broken down by gender, race, and class level. Combining all the STEM students allowed us to create a more robust model. In our sample, 45% of the STEM students were engineering majors. Of those who identified as STEM majors, approximately 60% responded to the open-ended questions (see Table 1).

Measures and statistical analysis

The web-based survey comprised 36 Likert-scale questions, three open-ended questions, eight place-based questions, and 15 demographic questions. The survey was designed to examine racial experiences in which a student of color felt uncomfortable, insulted, or invalidated because of his or her race, and how students coped with RMAs and feelings of marginalization. The creation of the web-based survey was guided by the literature on RMAs (Sue, 2010) and campus climate assessments (Hurtado, Griffin, Arellano, & Cuellar, 2008), as well as previous research by the authors, including 11 focus groups prior to the survey (Harwood, Huntt, Mendenhall, & Lewis, 2012). The questions were adapted from the Schedule of Racist Events (Landrine & Klonoff, 1996), the Index of Race-related Stress (Utsey, 1999), and the Racial Life Experiences Scale (Harrell, 1997).

The survey asked questions specifically targeted to student life as members of a campus community. We separated these into three indexes to reflect three key parts of the lives of students: experiences on campus in general, experiences in academic settings (for example, exchanges with instructors or academic advisers), and peer interactions. We recognize that these levels overlap and interact. For all of the questions making up the three indices, students were prompted: "Think about your racial experiences as a student of color on this campus. Please read each item and think of how often each event has happened to you during your time here at the university."

The study estimated a series of Poisson regressions to examine whether one's race can be used to predict the likelihood of the regular occurrence of microaggressions on the campus, academic, and peer levels. Poisson regressions are used when the dependent variables are count variables that can appear to be continuous but have a range of under 100 (Liao, 1994). The dependent variables in this study were count variables. While Poisson regression measures the probability that an event will take place, in this study, it was used to predict the probability of higher incident rates of RMAs.

Dependent variable: campus level

To measure RMAs on the campus level, five variables were indexed. The campus-level questions were designed to capture general feelings about being a student of color on campus. The variables were responses to the following statements:

(1) I have felt excluded by others on this campus because of my race.

(2) I have felt invisible on this campus because of my race.

(3) I have felt that the campus is informally segregated based on race.

(4) I have felt unwelcomed on this campus because of my race.

(5) I have experienced feelings of isolation on this campus because of my race.

From the Likert-scale responses, each of the five variables had a possible score from 0 to 5. If a student had never had the feeling, the response was coded as 0; less than once a year, coded as 1; a few times a year, coded as 2; about once a month, coded as 3; a few times a month, coded as 4; or once a week or more, coded as 5. The reliability score of the index was .85. A count variable was then created combining the scores from the five original variables. The range of the count variable was 0 to 25 with a mean score of 5.54.

Dependent variable: academic level

To measure RMAs on the academic level, five variables were indexed. This level attempted to capture experiences in formal academic settings such as in the classroom and other academic interactions with instructors, teaching assistants, and academic advisers. The variables were responses to the following statements:

(1) I have had my contributions minimized in the classroom because of my race.

(2) I have been made to feel like the way I speak is inferior in the classroom because of my race.

(3) I have had stereotypes made about me in the classroom because of my race.

(4) I have experienced not being taken seriously in my classes because of my race.

(5) I have experienced discouragement in pursuing my academic or educational goals because of my race.

The students were given the same possible responses as above. The reliability score of the index was .86. Again, a count variable was then created combining the scores from the five original variables. The range of the count variable was 0 to 25 with a mean score of 2.97.

Dependent variable: peer level

To measure RMAs on the peer level, six variables were indexed. These questions attempted to capture interpersonal interactions, particularly with other students. While the questions did not specifically state "with peers," the qualitative results suggest that these types of experiences often happened between students. The variables were responses to the following statements:

(1) I have experienced negative and insulting comments because of my race.

(2) I have experienced harassment (emotional, verbal, or physical) on campus because of my race.

(3) I have personally experienced racism on campus.

(4) I have experienced someone making offensive jokes to me on this campus because of my race.

(5) People have made me feel intellectually inferior on this campus because of my race.

(6) I feel that people treat me negatively on this campus because of my race.

The students were given the same possible responses as above. The reliability score of the index was .91. A count variable was also created here combining the scores from the six original variables. The range of the count variable was 0 to 30 with a mean score of 5.24.

Independent variable: race

The sample included only students whom the university identified as non-White. Additionally, students were asked how they identified regarding their race. Students were able to choose from a list of categories or write in a response. Dummy variables were created for five racial categories: Black/African American, Asian/Asian American, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American/Indigenous, and Other Race. The "Other Race" variable combined those who indicated that they were biracial or multiracial.

Independent variable: gender

Students were coded as male or female based on the data provided by the university. Unfortunately, our data included only male or female. Students who identified as gender nonconforming or transgender were coded as the gender that was specified at admission. Dummy variables were then created for both males and females.

Independent variable: class year

Dummy variables were created for each class year represented in the sample. This included first year students, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, as well as graduate students. See Fig. 2 for the mean of the frequency of campus, academic, and peer level RMA indices by race and gender.

Experiences of microaggressions by race and gender

Open-ended questions

The open-ended portion of the survey resulted in more than 8000 anecdotes related to racial marginalization on campus. The open-ended questions asked students to describe (a) when they felt uncomfortable, insulted, invalidated, or disrespected by a comment that had racial overtones; (b) when others subtly expressed stereotypical beliefs about race/ethnicity; and (c) when others suggested that they did not belong on campus because of their race or ethnicity.

The study drew from qualitative data to further reveal the RMAs occurring on the campus, academic, and peer levels. The qualitative data were embedded with the quantitative to provide a deeper understanding of RMAs (Creswell & Clark, 2017; Creswell & Creswell, 2017; Morse, 1991). Because RMAs are often subtle and nebulous, the student responses to the qualitative questions helped to account for the complexity of their lived experiences and served as a means to add nuance to the quantitative findings.

Analysis

Quantitative analysis

The first model in each table shows the relationship between the dependent variable and racial identity. Black, Latinx, Asian, Native American, and Other Race are included in the model. The second model includes gender; women are included in the model and men are the reference. The third model includes class level (e.g., sophomore, junior, etc.). See Fig. 2 for a breakdown of RMA mean scores by race and gender.

Qualitative analysis

Using our conceptual model (Fig. 1) as a guide, we employed a deductive analytical approach to identify instances of RMAs experienced by non-White STEM students on campus, in formal academic settings, and between peers. This deductive approach, also known as a template approach (Crabtree & Miller, 1999), included a series of codes developed before the analysis of the open-ended responses.

In the first step of the analysis, we used structural coding (Saldaña, 2015) to distill our initial sample of more than 8000 anecdotes down to those that were most likely to be reported by students of color in STEM. Structural coding "acts as a labeling and indexing device, allowing researchers to quickly access data likely to be relevant from a particular analysis from a larger data set" (Namey, Guest, Thairu, & Johnson, 2008, p. 141). We used 28 keywords, including engineering, engineer, STEM, math, science, statistics, med, lab, and technology, in addition to names of prominent STEM buildings and labs on campus, and formal and colloquial names of STEM degree programs and courses, in this sorting process. We then used nested coding (Saldaña, 2015) to simultaneously examine the types of RMAs experienced (Sue et al., 2007) and the context in which the RMAs occurred (campus, academic, or peer level).

Results

Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics of both the outcome and explanatory variables of the sample. All variables used in the models are included along with their mean, standard deviation, and range. For the dependent variables, the mean references the total score of the scaled variable. The sample of respondents included students of color in STEM majors from a large public university. Asian students made up 48% of the sample, while Black students represented 10%, Latinx students 15%, and Native Americans 3%. All other students in the sample were identified as Other Race. The majority of students were in the later years of their undergraduate studies or were in graduate school when surveyed. Graduate students made up 21% of the sample, those who identified as seniors were 31% of the sample, juniors and sophomores were each 19% of the sample, and first years were 1%. We believe the latter category was so small because the survey was taken early in the school year and first years were just starting to get acclimated to their new surroundings. Additionally, many "first year" students at the university enter with enough credits to be classified as sophomores or juniors.

Campus level-quantitative

There is evidence of an effect of racial identity on experiences of microaggressions for STEM students at the campus level. Table 3 presents the results of a series of Poisson regressions that predict the incidence rate ratios (IRR) of the probability one will face frequent RMAs on campus. Each model progresses from racial identity to gender identity to class year. The results from model 1 indicate that STEM students who identify as Black have a 54% (IRR = 1.539, p < .001) probability of experiencing more frequent microaggressions compared with other students of color. Asian students, Latinx students, and Other Race students are less likely to experience these incidents. Asian students experience RMAs at about a 7% rate (IRR = 0.93, p < .01), Latinx students at a 24% rate (IRR = 0.76, p < .001), and Other Race students at a 15% rate (IRR = 0.853, p < .001) in model 1.

Model 2 builds upon the previous model by adding gender identity. Again, Black students have a higher probability of experiencing frequent RMAs with an increase of over 20% at the same significance level (IRR = 1.802, p < .001). When controlling for gender, the probability is now increased for Asian students and they are more likely to experience microaggressions (IRR = 1.121, p < .001) by 21%. When gender is introduced as a control variable, female students of color experience microaggressions at a 7% higher probability (IRR = 1.071, p < .01)

Finally, model 3 builds upon the previous models by including the class year. When the class year is added, there remains a significant relationship for Black students regarding the frequency of experiencing RMAs (IRR = 1.765, p < .001), and Latinx students still have a decreased probability of experiencing RMAs (IRR = 0.7881, p < .001). Women still have an increased probability of experiencing RMAs, but the rate is slightly decreased from 7.1% to 5.9% (IRR = 1.059, p < .05). In addition, graduate students have a decreased probability of about 20% of experiencing frequent incidents of RMAs on the campus level (IRR = 0.798 p < .001). These findings allow us to better understand how often students of color may be exposed to RMAs.

Campus level-qualitative

Many students of color in STEM majors experience racism at the campus level. Model 3 indicates that at a campus level, Black STEM students have a higher likelihood and greater frequency of experiencing RMAs than other students of color in STEM. Female students of color are more likely to experience RMAs than men. STEM undergraduates of color are more likely to experience more RMAs than graduate students in STEM. The student responses from the qualitative data help us understand what these campus-level microaggressions look like for all students of color.

Students in our study described feeling rejected and ignored on and off-campus. They noticed informal segregation on the campus as well. Jay said, "I feel excluded from a lot of social activities that do not include people of my race" (Asian, male, STEM). Many described eagerness to meet new people at the beginning of the school year, but experienced rejection when they tried to make friends. Marco described feeling excluded in the cafeteria:

I once tried to sit down at a random table in the cafeteria with my roommate to make friends during the first week of school last year. I felt like the people we sat down with were not open to us and weren't interested in being our friends. We sat in the next table, and then another random person sat down where we had sat, that person was of the same race as the person that we had left. My roommate and I are the same race, we felt a little discriminated for being different. I did nothing, I have made friends primarily only with people of my own race now. (Latino, male, STEM)

In both of these examples, Jay and Marco felt treated as second-class citizens. Sue et al. ( 2007) describe such experiences as microinsults, where behaviors and comments signal that a person is "less than" and convey the message "You don't belong."

Whether it was subtle or explicit, students of color experienced a hostile climate as soon as they arrived on campus. The respondents provided many examples of microassaults as well as explicit racial verbal assaults. These were purposeful acts, often involving name-calling. The "micro" refers to the everyday and often subtle nature of such aggressions. Amy told us about her experiences with name-calling: "Sometimes when I walk around an area with people that are a majority that are not my race, I would experience being called with derogatory words" (Asian, female, STEM). On the other hand, Jackson, who "passes" as White, did not feel "uncomfortable, insulted, invalidated or disrespected": Because "I'm lighter-skinned, people sometimes don't even realize that I'm Black" (Black, male, STEM). Jackson's experience suggests that appearance matters.

Academic level-quantitative

There is evidence of an effect of racial identity on experiences of microaggression for STEM students at the academic level. Table 4 presents the results of a series of Poisson regressions that predict the incidence rate ratios of the probability that one will face frequent RMAs with instructors, teaching assistants, and advisers. Each model progresses from racial identity to gender identity to class year. The results from model 1 indicate that STEM students who identify as Black have a 57% (IRR = 1.566, p < .001) increased probability of experiencing more frequent RMAs. Asian students, Latinx students, and students who identify as Other Race have a decreased probability of these incidents. Asian students experience RMAs less, at about a 14% rate (IRR = 0.865, p < .001), Latinx students at a 17% rate (IRR = 0.832, p < .001), and those who identify as Other Race at a 37% rate (IRR = 0.631, p < .001) in model 1.

Model 2 builds upon the previous model by gender identity. Again, Black students have an increased probability of experiencing frequent RMAs with a slight increase at the same significance level (IRR = 1.619, p < .001). When controlling for gender, students in the Other Race category have a decreased probability (IRR = 0.644, p < .001). Of the newly introduced control variables, women experience RMAs at a 9% increased probability (IRR = 1.088, p < .01).

Model 3 then builds upon the previous models by including the class year. When these new variables are added, the significant relationship for Black students as well as Other Race students regarding the frequency of experiencing RMAs is unchanged. Women still have an increased probability, but the rate is slightly decreased (IRR = 1.077, p < .05). Of the newly introduced measures of the respondents, graduate students have a decreased probability of about 15% of experiencing frequent RMAs on the campus level (IRR = 0.856, p < .05), while all undergraduate students significantly have an increased probability of experiencing these microaggressions at a more frequent rate.

Academic level-qualitative

Qualitative data indicated that students of color also experienced RMAs in a variety of academic contexts, including meeting with faculty during office hours, talking with teaching assistants before or after class, and meeting with advising personnel. Students were made fun of because they did not know how to do something. Latonya told us about her humiliating experience during office hours:

I was in a [STEM] class. ... I went to office hours that were being held before an exam later on in the day and I asked one of the TA's there a question regarding the material and he laughed in my face about what I was asking him. I felt highly insulted and he made me feel as though I wasn't smart enough to be in the [STEM] program. (Black, female, STEM)

It is ironic that during office hours, a time for students to ask for guidance, they are laughed at. Another STEM student mentioned an instructor who told him that if he had to go to office hours, he should change majors. Similar experiences occurred with academic advisers: "Coming in as a [STEM] student I was not given support by my [STEM] advisor. [This person] frequently discouraged my path to [STEM], and even suggested I try other majors because I may not be able to graduate with a degree in [STEM]" (Latina, female, STEM). Even at high administrative levels, students did not feel supported when reaching out for help:

I met with a dean and told him my situation, and he nonchalantly told me that I should change my major because [STEM] was too hard for me. I was completely shocked ... he didn't try to help me out, he didn't make any suggestions to help me improve my situation or my study habits, he offered NO encouragement AT ALL! ... I felt like he was looking down on me because of my race and socioeconomic background. (Black, male, changed major from STEM to non-STEM)

Someone might suggest that these types of behavior have nothing to do with race, and that faculty say such things to all students, but that is not how students of color experienced these interactions. For the students in our study, these attitudes and comments evoked long-held beliefs about the intelligence of people of color (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002). Valuing raw talent and "untutored genius" over supporting and mentoring students for success works against diversifying the student body in STEM majors (Storage, Horne, Cimpian, & Leslie, 2016).

Additionally, Asian students described being humiliated by instructors when they struggled with course materials. Unlike Black and Latinx students who were stereotyped as unprepared for college, Asian students were expected to excel. John described the pressure to perform and to know all the answers: "People assume that I should understand the math and science better than the rest of the group. They may say things like 'You're Indian, tell us how to do it'" (Asian, male, STEM).

Peer level-quantitative

This study found evidence of a racial identity effect on experiences of RMAs for STEM students at the peer level. Table 5 presents the results of a series of Poisson regressions that predict the incidence rate ratios of the probability one will face frequent microaggressions from peers. Each model progresses from racial identity to gender identity to class year. The results from model 1 indicate that STEM students who identify as Black have a 13% (IRR = 1.134, p < .01) increased probability of experiencing more frequent RMAs, while Latinx students and students who identify as Other Race have a decreased probability of experiencing these incidents. Latinx students experience RMAs less often, at about a 24% rate (IRR = 0.763, p < .001), and those who identify as Other Race at an 8% rate (IRR = 0.924, p < .05) in model 1.

Model 2 builds upon the previous model by gender identity. Similar to campus and academic levels, at the peer level, Black students have an increased probability of experiencing frequent RMAs (IRR = 1.344, p < .001). When controlling for gender, Latinx students have a decreased probability of having these experiences (IRR = 0.881, p < .05). Asian students now have an increased probability (IRR = 1.159, p < .01), by about 16%. Of the newly introduced control variables, interestingly, women experience RMAs at an 18% decreased probability (IRR = 0.822, p < .001).

Again here, model 3 builds upon the previous models by including the class year. When these new variables are added, the significant relationship for Black students and women regarding the frequency of experiencing microaggressions is unchanged. Of the newly introduced measures of the respondents, graduate students have a decreased probability of about 25% of experiencing frequent RMAs on the campus level (IRR = 0.754, p < .001), while first year students have an increased probability, at a rate of 82% (IRR = 1.819, p < .001).

Peer level-qualitative

During their first year, students of color quickly experienced how race became the focal point for explicit and subtle harassment and exclusion around campus, especially in the classroom. Due to the low numbers of Latinx and Black students in the STEM majors, these students' peers assumed they did not belong. This feeling related to the psychological and compositional diversity dimensions of campus racial climate. Students reported that being the "only one" or "one of few" in STEM classrooms contributed to "feeling isolated," "discouraged," and "invalidated." Sue et al. ( 2007) refer to these events, signals, and spaces as "environmental microaggressions." The lack of students of color sends a message that students of color, particularly Black and Latinx students, do not belong and will not succeed in STEM majors. Interactions with peers reinforced the feeling of not belonging. Andre, a first-year student, explained how this played out for him: "A student asked me if '[I] [was] sure I was in the right class' midway through the semester of a [STEM] class I have attended regularly" (Black, male, STEM). There were so few students of color in the STEM classroom that they were often rendered invisible.

Students of color majoring in STEM also describe overhearing conversations in which peers stated that Black or Latinx students get into college only because of their race, not based on intelligence. Students reported that such comments were "disheartening" and "disappointing."

I was in a [STEM] class my freshman year sitting next to a group of Caucasian males when I overheard them say something along the lines of "This school continues to get more and more Mexican." This was a bit offensive to me, considering that they said it not too long after I sat down. (Latino, STEM)

A lot of people automatically assume that since I'm a Black female that I should be a [non-STEM] major. Every time I walk into a lab, I always get looks. I'm not sure if it's because I don't "look" like a [STEM] major in general or if it's because I'm Black. (Black, female, STEM)

Students of color reported expecting a more inclusive environment at a top public university. Racial epithets, put-downs, stares, and other forms of name-calling by their peers contributed to them feeling unwelcome and pushed out of the STEM pipeline.

Black and Latinx students wrote extensively about how White and Asian students did not want to work with them in the lab, during discussion sections, or during group projects because of negative stereotypes about their intelligence and work ethic. A Black female who changed her major from STEM to non-STEM stated, "In lab others never want to be my lab partner because they assumed that as a Black person I did not know how to perform in a lab." We found many other examples of this dynamic in the qualitative results:

Whenever we had to pick lab partners, I would always ask a person if they wanted to be my lab partner. Most of them would look at me and say no or that they already have one and go look for someone else. (Black, female, STEM major)

It's hard sometimes for me to contribute to a problem when I feel they don't take my input seriously. They always ask each other for help when they get stuck. I'm never asked for help ... it makes me feel like college might not be for me. All I can do for now is continue to contribute whether they pay attention or not. (Latino, STEM)

There have been times I've felt uncomfortable in my [STEM] lab sections. No one said anything disrespectful, but I felt inferior because there were only two Black people-me and another person. Somehow, we always seemed to be partners, and no one ever suggested being partners with us. I would always plan to do something about it ... but it never worked out because I didn't feel confident in asking. (Black, male, changed major from STEM to non-STEM)

While not always explicit, such behaviors are microinsults; embedded in the interactions are assumptions about the level of intelligence based on race. Feeling excluded, unsupported, and not valued contributed to leaving the STEM major. Students reported that they left the STEM major as a consequence of feeling marginalized and pushed out, which is consistent with other studies about the importance of a sense of belonging for women and students of color in choosing to stay or leave STEM majors (Rainey, Dancy, Mickelson, Stearns, & Moller, 2018).

Discussion

STEM students of color experience racism, both explicit and subtle, at the campus, academic, and peer levels. The study's analysis by race, gender, and class year revealed important differences and similarities. And while we looked for other explanations, race trumped gender and class year in understanding the occurrence of RMAs for STEM students. By examining both the quantitative and qualitative data, we found that even when the occurrences of RMAs were fewer, they nonetheless made an impact on the emotions, confidence, and retention of students of color in STEM fields.

Most studies look at the racial campus environment at large and do not drill down into particular majors. In the present study, students of color who were STEM majors overheard racist jokes and comments in the classroom and racial slurs while walking to class. STEM students of color described feeling both hypervisible and invisible. Students of color felt excluded from groups or social activities. Even worse, students of color reported comments from faculty and staff in positions of authority who dismissed, discouraged, ignored, and even made fun of them. The low percentage of Black and Latinx students in STEM majors is not about academic preparation, as some argue; rather, our study suggests that the lack of diversity can be explained by a historical, demographic, behavioral, and psychological dimension of a campus culture that is systemically hostile to students of color.

This research also reveals how much more intense that experience is for Black students. Black STEM students are at risk of experiencing RMAs more habitually due to anti-Black racism at all levels. Some Black students reported experiencing this hostility weekly. Our findings are consistent with what others have found about Black students' experiences of RMAs in higher education settings. Studies show that White individuals perceive Black students to be intellectually inferior, second-class citizens, criminals, and of inferior status (Sue et al., 2008). Black students report little interaction with faculty (Allen, 2010), and also report that constant RMAs from their instructors and peers lower their academic motivation (Solórzano et al., 2000).

Additionally, STEM students of color experience RMAs regardless of racial background. The findings for STEM students in this study mirror the findings from other studies that focus on one racial group. We see parallels between research on domestic students of color of different racial backgrounds and international students as well. Yosso et al. ( 2009) found that Latinx students at a predominantly White university campus reported that they were experiencing both interpersonal and institutional microaggressions. Native Americans experienced "academic and social isolation" (Clark, Spanierman, Reed, Soble, & Cabana, 2011, p. 43). Bailey ( 2015) found that Native students experienced having their culture laughed at and viewed as primitive. More studies are coming out on the experiences of RMAs for Asians in higher education, including studies about international Asian students. These students feel ignored, invisible, and unwelcomed by their White peers (Houshmand, Spanierman, & Tafarodi, 2014; Kwan, 2015; Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2009; Trazo & Kim, 2019; Yeo, Mendenhall, Harwood, & Huntt, 2019).

Finally, the quantitative and qualitative data suggest that RMAs are not isolated incidents; rather, RMAs are systematically engrained in the campus culture (Harwood, Mendenhall, Lee, Riopelle, & Huntt, 2018). It is well documented that campuses are racially charged environments, but less is known about how racial campus climate plays out in particular majors. Our findings indicate that Black students majoring in STEM are much more likely to experience RMAs at the campus, academic, and peer levels. With so few Black and Latinx students in STEM majors, our study demonstrates the need for academic departments to address the impacts of the large campus culture on their academic programs as well as how their own departmental culture reinforces the campus level racial hostility.

STEM departments must value diversity beyond the numbers. Students of color must feel that they belong in STEM majors and not as if they have to fit in (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996; Rainey et al., 2018). Campus officials, academic professionals, faculty members, and students must work together to address discrimination at the campus, academic, and peer levels to expand the pipeline of underrepresented populations going into STEM careers. This means that academic departments cannot wait for the larger campus culture to change; they must also examine their histories, structures, and policies to create access to the STEM fields for both male and female students of color, particularly those from the most underrepresented racial identities.

Diversifying who studies in a STEM major requires intentional strategies aimed at transforming the academic culture, including a recognition that race and gender shape the perception and preference of instructional style (Rainey, Dancy, Mickelson, Stearns, & Moller, 2019), as well as the importance of mentoring (Martin-Hansen, 2018; Robnett, Nelson, Zurbriggen, Crosby, & Chemers, 2018; Rodríguez Amaya, Betancourt, Collins, Hinojosa, & Corona, 2018), and supporting faculty to move away from the traditional lecture-based pedagogy and toward instructional practices that improve student learning and help retain majors (Czajka & McConnell, 2016; Zaniewski & Reinholz, 2016). This is possible only if the STEM curriculum also emphasizes the need to work effectively in a diverse society by demonstrating the relationship between the inclusion of diverse perspectives and talents and STEM's ability to innovate and solve society's toughest problems.

Conclusion

Through the examination of students' experiences with RMAs at the campus, academic, and peer levels, the present study considered the role of campus racial climate in contributing to representational disparities in the STEM professions. Future research can continue to build upon our findings in several ways. First, future research can examine additional dimensions of campus racial climate. Our study focused primarily on the behavioral and psychological dimensions of students' experiences and perceptions. It is worth investigating the influence of external factors, such as government funding initiatives and the national sociopolitical context, as well as additional internal factors, such as admissions and coursework policies, on students' racialized experiences in STEM programs. Second, research can more fully examine the nature of RMAs that STEM students face at the campus, academic, and peer levels using specific-group and/or intersectional approaches. Additional research on subpopulations of Asian American, Asian international, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American/Indigenous, and Caribbean American students would be particularly useful given the changing demographics of college campuses in the USA. Moreover, studies that take into account the intersections of race with other identities such as gender, religion, ability status, national origin, and sexual orientation will illuminate student experiences and outcomes that may otherwise be overlooked. Finally, future studies should consider disaggregating the STEM discipline into specific majors or occupational clusters to more fully understand the nature and scope of racial disparities and racial discrimination to provide tailored and targeted educational interventions.

Availability of data and materials

Due to the sensitive nature of our data, we will not publicly share the data set. However, we welcome inquiries.

Abbreviations

RMAs:

Racial microaggressions

IRR:

Incidence rate ratios

STEM:

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Acknowledgements

We thank all the members of the University of Illinois Racial Microaggression Research Team who assisted with recruiting participants as well as collecting, transcribing, and analyzing data.

Funding

The project was supported by grants from the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Campus Research Board (including the Multiracial Democracy Initiative), Graduate College Focal Point, and University Housing at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61820, USA

Meggan J. Lee

2. Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communications, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

Jasmine D. Collins

3. City & Metropolitan Planning Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

Stacy Anne Harwood

4. Department of Sociology and African American Studies, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA

Ruby Mendenhall

5. Cancer Center at Illinois, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

Margaret Browne Huntt

Contributions

All of the authors contributed to the paper conceptualization and writing; ML developed the models and quantitative analysis; JDC and SAH did the qualitative analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stacy Anne Harwood.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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"If you aren't White, Asian or Indian, you aren't an engineer": racial microaggressions in STEM education - International Journal of STEM Education

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Background Race and gender disparities remain a challenge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. We introduce campus racial climate as a framework for conceptualizing the role of racial microaggressions (RMAs) as a contributing factor to the lack of representation of domestic students of color in STEM programs on college campuses.

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Transgender POC face racism and gender discrimination

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Transgender POC face racism and gender discrimination

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https://theconversation.com/transgender-people-of-color-face-unique-challenges-as-gender-discrimination-and-racism-intersect-179515

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Throughout history, transgender people of color have had a place of honor in many indigenous cultures around the world.

This changed in many places, however, as European colonizers began forcing indigenous people to follow white social norms. These include anti-Blackness, Christianity and a gender binary that reduced gender to just man and woman. Colonizers presumed that being cisgender, or having a gender identity that is congruent with gender assigned at birth, was the only acceptable norm.

For trans people who refused or were unable to conform, colonial societies often used racism and cissexism, or behaviors and beliefs that assume the inferiority of trans people, to invalidate their existence, limit their access to resources and threaten their well-being. For example, colonizers in some cases deemed people who expressed their gender outside the binary as sinful and deviant, and punished them with emotional and physical violence.

The reverberations of these colonial beliefs are still felt today. In just the first three months of 2022, there were over 154 anti-trans state bills proposed across the U.S. seeking to limit the rights of trans kids and their parents.

And for trans people of color, the challenges they face because of gender discrimination are exacerbated by struggles they deal with because of racism.

We are researchers who study how LGBTQ people of color build resilience, resist oppression and promote wellness within their communities. We look at how having multiple identities like being trans and a person of color intersect and interact with each other in ways that affect how someone navigates their life.

Trans people of color who have multiple marginalized identities face higher levels of stress from being a minority compared to those with fewer marginalized identities. While there has been a lack of research on the experiences of trans people of color, many studies suggest that many of the challenges they face arise from the intersection of racism, xenophobia and cisnormativity.

Common challenges and barriers

The health care system has historically been a fraught with danger for trans people of color.

Over the years, people of color have been experimented upon without consent, denied ownership over their own test results and bodies and denied access to care. Some have played critical roles in transforming medical research and science without any knowledge of doing so.

Mistrust is magnified for trans people of color, who may get deadnamed (called by the birth name they no longer go by), misgendered and be racially discriminated against all in one medical appointment.

Medical professionals and lawmakers have also mandated gatekeeping measures that require extra steps to qualify for gender-affirming care such as hormones and surgery. Trans people are asked to prove that they have a persistent experience of dysphoria, defined as an incongruence between one's gender assigned at birth and one's gender identity. This treats being transgender as an illness to be cured based on what cisgender people believe bodies should look like. It erases gender euphoria, or a feeling of joy or satisfaction associated with a gender separate from what was assigned at birth, as a reason for pursuing transition.

With only a limited number of providers who can competently and respectfully help them navigate these life-changing services, trans people of color are often left to fend for themselves. With ongoing legislation that outlaws gender-affirming treatment for trans kids, they and their families are forced to travel long distances to obtain care, or not have access to care at all.

Continuous exposure to stressors resulting from this discrimination have negative physical and mental health consequences for trans people of color. And these challenges are compounded by other common barriers, including homelessness, employment discrimination and restricted access to legal documentation, among others.

Targets of violence

Trans people of color face disproportionate rates of violence as a result of racism and transphobia. Compared to their cis peers, trans people are four times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime.

And trans people of color have been the overwhelming targets of this violence. The Human Rights Campaign has recorded over 256 cases of fatal violence against trans people since 2013 in the U.S., 84% of whom were people of color. In 2021 alone, 57 trans people were killed, and over half were Black trans women. Black trans women continue to have the highest risk for violence due to how their experiences of anti-Black racism, cissexism and sexism intersect (also known as transmisogynoir).

The true numbers are likely to be much higher. Many hate crimes go unreported, due to both fear that one's identity will be questioned and lack of trust in law enforcement.

Additionally, trans people of color often experience violence from police and other law enforcement officials. A 2015 report by the National Center for Transgender Equality in the U.S. found that 58% of trans people reported being harassed, abused or mistreated during their interactions with police. It also noted that police frequently assume that trans women of color are sex workers. A 2021 study showed that trans Latinx immigrants and asylum-seekers who enter the U.S. often experience torture and are denied basic medical care in detention facilities.

Resilience and strength

Trans people of color have found many different strategies to help them navigate and overcome these challenges.

One is to build resilience, or coping with and adapting to stressors and adversities. Many trans people of color draw strength from supportive role models and members of their community. Being a positive role model themselves and having a strong sense of their own self-worth are also key factors to building resilience.

For example, one trans person of color who survived a traumatic event shared in a study that resilience for them meant having pride in their gender and racial and ethnic identity, while also recognizing and negotiating the challenges they face because of systemic oppression. They also built resilience by engaging in activism, advocating for themselves and connecting with trans communities of color.

Trans people of color continue to find strength in collective action. Trans women of color have been at the forefront of social justice movements, and Black trans women have been a central driving force in the fight for LGBTQ rights.

Toward liberation

There are countless ways to support trans people of color working toward liberation.

One way is self-education. This includes learning about privilege and how it gives select groups power over others in ways that range from microaggressions to physical violence. It is important to note that self-education is a continuous journey that requires humility.

Another way is to keep up with attacks against marginalized communities and be a co-conspirator. Instead of just being a passive ally, ask how you can leverage your privilege to support trans people of color. This could be working to provide inclusive and safe work environments, schools and medical systems, among others. It could also be fairly and equitably compensating trans people of color for their labor.

Finally, call in and call out. Speak up when someone is being harmful to a trans person of color. Listen and take responsibility if you are called out.

[ Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]

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Transgender people of color face unique challenges as gender discrimination and racism intersect

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Being both trans and a person of color comes with a unique set of challenges. Collectively working toward overcoming these barriers is one way this community fights for survival.

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The reason I chose this article is because the content is somehing that has affected my family and my life growing up in America following 9/11. Sikh people wear turbans, which is a logical reason for confusing us with Muslim people, however the enemy was not Muslim people, it was religous extremists and insurgents accross the world. Despite this fact, the hatred following 9/11 was felt by all the brown people in America no doubt. My brother, sister, and I can all attest to being excused from classrooms in order to, "make the rest of the class feel comfortable." This article is a fact sheet attained from interveiwing Sikhs in the San Fracisco bay area. It is simply a fact sheet so I don't feel the need to summarize the data, it's just one page so I highly encourage you to check out the statistics.

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Much like the speaker in this podcast, I set out to find a new, fresh story and instead stumbled onto something a bit older; a bombshell of a story that went under my radar. This 8-part podcast tells the story of the Trojan Horse letter - a mysterious document in a big brown envelope received by a city counselor in Birmingham, England in 2013. Its contents sparked a national panic.

The podcast, released in February of 2022, details the shocking and compelling aftermath of a racially-fueled hoax and promises to deliver a series of plot-twists as two reporters, one of the Brian Reed (Serial, S-Town, This American Life), start digging:

"Who wrote the Trojan Horse letter? They quickly discover that it’s a question people in power do not want them asking. From Serial Productions and The New York Times comes The Trojan Horse Affair: a mystery in eight parts."

I've only listened to the first one so far but WOW get into it!

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An unlikely duo chases down the origins of a mysterious letter that caused a national scandal.

Illustration by Lucy Jones

A strange letter appears on a city councillor's desk in Birmingham, England, laying out an elaborate plot by Islamic extremists to infiltrate the city's schools. The plot has a code name: Operation Trojan Horse. The story soon explodes in the news and kicks off a national panic. By the time it all dies down, the government has launched multiple investigations, beefed up the country's counterterrorism policy, revamped schools and banned people from education for the rest of their lives.

To Hamza Syed, who is watching the scandal unfold in his city, the whole thing seemed ... off. Because through all the official inquiries and heated speeches in Parliament, no one has ever bothered to answer a basic question: Who wrote the letter? And why? The night before Hamza is to start journalism school, he has a chance meeting in Birmingham with the reporter Brian Reed, the host of the hit podcast S-Town. Together they team up to investigate: Who wrote the Trojan Horse letter? They quickly discover that it's a question people in power do not want them asking.

From Serial Productions and The New York Times comes The Trojan Horse Affair: a mystery in eight parts.

Brian Reed is the host and co-creator of the podcast S-Town, a production of Serial and This American Life, which won a Peabody Award for being "a pioneering classic of the form."

Hamza Syed, a doctor turned reporter, joined Serial Productions in 2018 to report The Trojan Horse Affair.

Serial Productions are the makers of the hit podcasts Serial, S-Town, Nice White Parents and The Improvement Association. Serial Productions joined The Times in 2020 to make more groundbreaking longform podcasts.

Tune in, and tell us what you think at trojanhorse@nytimes.com.

Listen and follow The Trojan Horse Affair:

Part 5

A Study in Scarlett

Hamza and Brian learn that the Trojan Horse letter wasn't the only unsigned letter alleging an extremist operation was afoot in Birmingham. An interview with a couple who lodged complaints against their school starts out cordially, but six hours later, the atmosphere is so tense that not even an offer of tea can smooth things over. And Hamza stops pretending he's not angry about what he's hearing.

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An unlikely duo chases down the origins of a mysterious letter that caused a national scandal. A strange letter appears on a city councillor's desk in Birmingham, England, laying out an elaborate plot by Islamic extremists to infiltrate the city's schools. The plot has a code name: Operation Trojan Horse.

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Asian American Experience's of Racism during Covid-19. 

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Asian American Experience's of Racism during Covid-19. 

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During the past few months, there has been an alarming increase of racial harassment and violence against the Asian-American community. Many Americans are convinced China was at fault for the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Some government leaders and senior officials have even directly and indirectly encouraged hate crimes and racism. Xenophobic fear caused many businesses in Asian enclaves and Chinatowns to shut down. Social Media instantly became an outlet for this Sinophobia, spreading hate and racism. Many Asian-American families and students experience bullying, discrimination, and other racial attacks because they have been scapegoated as the primary cause of the Covid-19 pandemic. A recent study of Korean American and Filipino American adolescents found that these experiences with racial discrimination have caused an increase in mental health struggles. On May 8, 2020 United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that "the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering" and argued governments to "act now to strengthen the immunity of our societies against the virus of hate". This pandemic has revealed the ongoing racism against Asian-Americans and change has to come.

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Asian American Experiences of Racism during COVID-19

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Dr. Sumie Okazaki, NYU Steinhardt professor of Applied Psychology, discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the racism that Asian Americans face, as well as resources for how parents and other adults can help Asian American children and youth.

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I chose this article because it highlights, how common racism is in our everyday life. In the article it talks about multiple instances in which people were made to feel less than and were forced to change a part of themselves simply because of their race. Diamond Campbell was forced to remove beads from her hair in order to complete her power lifting competition. In 2018 Andrew Johnson was forced to cut off his dread locks in the middle of the competition, if he wanted to participate in his match. And last month a 12 year old boy had his Afro cut off by his teacher without permission. Hair discrimination is demeaning and racist and there needs to be a law passed against it.

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Campbell's experience has drawn comparisons to a December 2018 incident in which Andrew Johnson, a Black varsity high school wrestler in New Jersey with dreadlocks, was forced to choose between cutting his hair or forfeiting his match. Johnson, then 16, went on to win the match. His experience sparked a state civil rights probe.

In Minnesota last month, a mother said her 12-year-old son's teacher cut his Afro without her permission. Tadow McReynolds posted a video of her son's botched haircut to TikTok that she said was viewed more than 1 million times. In a series of Facebook posts, she said her son "was really violated" and that the school had acknowledged no fault.

McReynolds declined a request for an interview, saying she wanted her and her son's lives "to be back as normal as possible." The school's principal, Matthew Kasowicz, who is white, declined to comment on McReynolds' allegations, saying he was prohibited under state and federal law from discussing individual students or employees.

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., the lead sponsor of the Crown Act, said hair discrimination disproportionately affects Black people, and how a person wears their hair has no impact on their ability to do a job, obtain an education or compete in sports.

"As a student, this is an insidious form of discrimination," Watson Coleman said in an interview. "It needs to be eliminated. There needs to be consequences for those who violate that law."

She said the bill would amend civil rights laws to extend the definition of illegal discrimination to include natural hair or hairstyles that people wear to communicate or emulate the African or Black culture, such as Afros, braids, Bantu knots, locs and twists.

"We shouldn't have to deal with this at this time, in 2022, in the most diverse country in the world," Watson Coleman said. "And to see these events continue to take place suggests the very urgent need to pass this legislation in the Senate."

When Desiree Bullock moved from Cincinnati to East Bernard, Texas, in February, she said she was prevented from enrolling her son, Dyree Williams, in East Bernard High School because of his hair. She said a guidance counselor told her his hair went against the school district's dress code policy for male students, a copy of which she provided to NBC News. It states that "braided hair or twisted rows/strands will not be allowed" and that boys'hair may not extend below the eyebrows, tops of the ears or a "conventional standup shirt collar." The majority of students at the school are white, according to data from the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics.

Bullock said she told the counselor that her son has locs, and she said the counselor replied, "Well, he's going to have to cut those." Bullock said she then contacted Courtney Hudgins, the superintendent of the East Bernard Independent School District, to seek an exemption for her son but she was shot down. In an email shared with NBC News, Hudgins told Bullock: "Assuming the children can meet the dress code requirements, as well as all necessary paperwork for enrollment, they are welcome to enroll with our district registrar."

Reached via email, Hudgins did not answer specific questions regarding Bullock's allegations, including whether Williams' locs would prevent him from enrolling in the high school. In a statement, Hudgins said the school district "has not denied enrollment to the individual involved in this situation, as no enrollment or registration documents have been filed. East Bernard ISD intends to comply with state law regarding enrollment and attendance if and when an enrollment application is completed."

Bullock, who provides home care for students and adults with developmental disabilities, said she is now home-schooling her son and two of her other children, ages 12 and 14. Williams said he feels like he is being discriminated against and that being home-schooled has prevented him from competing in high school sports, something he looked forward to.

"It really impacted me hard," he said.

Bullock said the episode has also taken a toll on his self-esteem, but she has assured him he doesn't have to change his hair for anyone.

"The type of parent I am, I talk to my child all the time and I let him know, whatever they think about you, that's something within them, not you," she said.

Bullock is hopeful the Crown Act will become a national law.

"I do plan on staying in Texas," she said. "I actually plan for that law to pass and for things to change."

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'It made me feel low': Black students urge passage of Crown Act to end hair discrimination

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Campbell's experience has drawn comparisons to a December 2018 incident in which Andrew Johnson, a Black varsity high school wrestler in New Jersey with dreadlocks, was forced to choose between cutting his hair or forfeiting his match. Johnson, then 16, went on to win the match. His experience sparked a state civil rights probe.

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I chose this article because it talks about two recent mass shootings in the United States, the shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, NY and the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, TX. Both of these horrific events occurred by two young white men in minority dominant areas (per the article, the population of Uvalde is 80% Hispanic or Latino and in Buffalo the majority of individuals that were shot were Black).

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A man places flowers on crosses with the names of children killed outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Thursday. Dario Lopez-Mills/AP hide caption

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Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

A man places flowers on crosses with the names of children killed outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Thursday.

Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

In the span of less than two weeks, an elementary school and a grocery store more than 1,700 miles apart were shattered by gun violence. Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., now both share the tragic loss of friends and family.

These two tragedies happened on separate ends of the country and yet, both share similarities: how the violence was carried out, certain aspects of the suspects, and the ease in which the weapons were accessed.

It's unclear as of now what the specific motive was in the Uvalde, Texas, shooter's mind. But the gunman responsible for the attack that killed 10 members of the Black community of Buffalo apparently chose the location specifically and that he was motivated by white supremacist ideology.

Though the motivations in these particular cases likely differ, the suspects of these shootings, and others like it, have a lot in common, according to James Densley and Jillian Peterson, co-founders of The Violence Project. Their research organization studies gun violence, mass shootings and violent extremism.

"Usually what's motivating these shootings is a element of self-hatred, hopelessness, despair, anger, that's turned outward to the world," said Densley, who is also a sociologist.

Connecting the two shootings is important, said Peterson, a psychologist.

"I think we're too quick to write things off because the motive is slightly different," she said. "It's the same trajectory over and over and over again. Just people get radicalized in slightly different directions, their anger points in different directions, but its roots are the same."

Children walk hand in hand in a street near the scene of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 15. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption

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Matt Rourke/AP

Children walk hand in hand in a street near the scene of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 15.

Matt Rourke/AP

The shooters were both 18 and male

Salvador Ramos was 18 years old and a high school dropout, according to officials.

Payton Gendron, is also 18, and white. He turned to various websites during the pandemic, according to a document allegedly written by him, and said he was radicalized that way.

He threatened his high school last year, prompting a visit from the New York State Police.

Densley and Peterson said they see two kinds of age clusters of mass shooters: Men in their mid-40s for those who are workplace shooters and school shooters or those involved in other types of mass shootings between the ages of 15 and 24.

Of the 180 instances of mass shootings in the U.S. they've studied, they found that there are only two cases where women acted alone.

It's always men otherwise, Peterson said.

"We know that 18 is this kind of fragile age, this kind of coming of age where people tend to have mental health crises, or they may feel suicidal," she said.

These shootings are emblematic of that.

The shooters have "the desire to have that pain, and that anger be known to the world, to have us all watch and witness it, to hear their names, to see their pictures, to read what they've left behind for us to read. These are public performances meant for us to watch," she said.

Notably, in many places in the U.S., it's also the age they can legally buy their weapons of choice.

The weapons are AR-15-style and bought legally

A rifle hangs on display in the window of the West Endicott & Susquehanna Arms Co., where Payton Gendron purchased firearms in Endicott, N.Y. Michael Hill/AP hide caption

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Michael Hill/AP

A rifle hangs on display in the window of the West Endicott & Susquehanna Arms Co., where Payton Gendron purchased firearms in Endicott, N.Y.

Michael Hill/AP

Like many mass shootings before them, the gunmen in these two cases used an AR-15-style rifle both bought legally.

In everyday instances of gun violence, assault rifles are used less than 1% of the time, according to Densley.

"In mass, public shootings, like the ones we're talking about here, it's over 25%," he said.

This happens so often because mass shooters copy each other and these guns have become the weapon of choice, he noted.

"One way you can guarantee that people will talk about your crime is if you use the props that others have used in their own performances," Densley said.

Additionally, the Buffalo shooter wore body armor as he went into the Buffalo grocery store.

According to The Washington Post, Ramos in Uvalde "wore a vest used to store extra magazines — often used by tactical police units — without the armor plates that law enforcement officers typically wear."

The Violence Project found that at least 21 mass shooters over the last 40 years have worn body armor – the majority in the last decade.

A person holds a program for the funeral service for Aaron Salter Jr. at The Chapel on Crosspoint on Wednesday, May 25, in Getzville, N.Y. Joshua Bessex/AP hide caption

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Joshua Bessex/AP

A person holds a program for the funeral service for Aaron Salter Jr. at The Chapel on Crosspoint on Wednesday, May 25, in Getzville, N.Y.

Joshua Bessex/AP

Communities of color were targeted

It's unclear yet what was the motive in the Uvalde shooting. The town has a population of about 15,000 people, more than 80% of whom identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. And about 1 in 5 lives below the poverty line.

The majority of those shot at a grocery store in the East Side of the Buffalo were Black.

Residents of both areas say they are a tight-knit community.

"Gun violence, in general, tends to affect our most disadvantaged communities. Our communities of color," Densley said. "It's often the most vulnerable members of our society who are the ones dealing with these problems."

Did you know we tell audio stories, too? Listen to our podcasts like No Compromise, our Pulitzer-prize winning investigation into the gun rights debate, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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2 mass shootings — 1,700 miles apart but bound by startling similarities

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These two tragedies share similarities, including certain aspects of the suspects and how the weapons were accessed.

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This article talks about the struggle Nazem Kadri has with not only racism but religious intolerance and Xenophobia. It's sad that often all of these go hand in hand, not all the time but too often they do.

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Always say the right thing. Even if you want to say something else. Make sure your tone gives people comfort. Never mind how you feel. No one is saying you need to smile the entire time. But don't show the sort of emotion that can be viewed as negative or threatening. You just need to be the bigger person even when the reason you feel this way is because of small-minded people.

People of color know some version of this speech all too well. Our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles say these things to prepare us for the inevitable. Not for the day but the days - as in plural - when we are going to be placed on display for simply being different. That talk serves as a roadmap for how to handle the duality that comes with being a person of color. You are made aware that there is a balance you must strike: one between being human and not showing your full humanity. You can never let everyone see the real you because it could be too much for them to handle.

Nazem Kadri, who has faced an onslaught of racist attacks after a collision with St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington during Game 3 on Saturday, has likely had some version of this talk with his parents. And as a parent, the Colorado Avalanche forward will eventually have this same discussion with his daughter because racism, racists and religious intolerance are generationally unavoidable in our society.

We know Kadri will always be on display. What we don't know is what part of him will be on display. Is it the part of him that is a hockey player? Or will it be the part of him that is a Muslim of Lebanese descent? The collision with Binnington happened because he is a hockey player. The fact Kadri is a Muslim and a person of color who is the son of Lebanese immigrants should not have a damn thing to do with this. But it clearly matters to the racists who threatened him and to those who claim not to be racist but who still find ways to craft those not-so-carefully worded coded statements.

This conversation is happening because of Kadri's involvement in the collision. Fine, let's have that conversation. No rational person wants to see injuries. Especially the kind that leave a team without one of their best players for the remainder of the playoffs. Kadri was not penalized in the game or by the NHL in the aftermath when they reviewed what happened in Game 3. In essence, the system worked. But some people are angry at a system not working the way they would have liked, which is why the actual incident itself is in the background and ignorance has taken center stage.

Huh. People being angry about a system not working the way they would prefer? Let's save that conversation for another time.

Kadri made a point Monday when he spoke to TNT after the Avalanche came away with a 6-3 win in Game 4 against the Blues. He said that he has been dealing with racism for a long time. That he is "getting real good at putting it in the rearview mirror," while also noting that the hateful messages he received do not reflect every single Blues fan.

Everything about what he said encapsulates the POC experience. It is acknowledging how confronting racism is nothing new. How you must learn to develop different ways to work beyond these problems and not let it become too much. Above all, it is about having the nuance to understand how the actions of a few do not represent how the rest of the group feels.

So, how is it that a man who continues to be attacked can offer perspective, rationale and reason? Why is he able to separate all the moving parts? Why does he have to be on display to talk about problems like Islamophobia and racism - problems that he did not create just by simply existing?

Many people have commended Kadri for how he handles Islamophobia and racism. Those who respected him found a new level of that respect Tuesday morning when his wife, Ashley, shared some of the threats her husband received on social media. Some of those same people who respect Kadri have asked questions like: "What is wrong with people?" or "Who would ever do such a thing?"

Racism and religious intolerance. That's what's wrong with people. Islamophobes and racists. That is who would do such a thing.

One of the most challenging parts about a person of color being on display is that society only cares when there is a tragedy. We care about the East Side of Buffalo right now, but will we still care in two months? We care about how Kadri is a Muslim and a person of color facing hatred at the moment. But will we actually give a damn later in a way that is productive?

Denver and suburbs like Aurora have what continues to be a thriving Muslim population. It's been that way for some time considering the Colorado Muslim Society has been around since 1964. Yet we never want to talk about how having someone like Kadri starring prominently in the NHL might make Muslims feel like they want to give hockey a chance. We never want to get into what it must mean for Muslim children to see someone who looks like them playing a game they thought was not for them. We never want to explore how seeing a Muslim be one of the best players on a potential Stanley Cup champion might make at least one set of parents believe their child could be the next Nazem Kadri.

The NHLPA strongly condemns the hateful and offensive comments directed toward Nazem Kadri and his family. pic.twitter.com/E3eNGRKWqK

- NHLPA (@NHLPA) May 24, 2022

All we want to talk about is the pain. Because that is what society cares about. Not people of color and the details that make them human. But the pain they feel robs them of that humanity. It's saying you went to Aurora and someone quipping, "You mean Saudi Aurora?" The person making that comment could just claim they are talking about how Aurora is like a desert when you know exactly what they mean. It is about Googling the terms "Denver Muslim" to see the results of different organizations that have served and continue to serve thousands.

But you also see the results of two news stories about how Muslims in Denver continue to face hate crimes in the 20 years since Sept. 11, knowing full well there is so much more to being Islamic than that.

This is what comes with always being on display. It is accepting that for better or worse, knowing it will likely be for the worst.

Many of the people consuming what is happening with Kadri can move on from this. That is not the experience Muslims and/or people of color have. You can say you have moved on. But you never really do because these present incidents are a reminder of the past that also prepare you for the future.

Now you know why our relatives tell us to say the right thing. Especially if we want to say something else. This is why certain people must be shown comfort despite the fact that it comes at your expense. It is why we know our emotions must be kept in check even when others can be as emotional or irrational as they want.

It is all about the choices you make.

Or rather, the ones that are made for you.
(Photo: Aaron Ontiveroz / MediaNews Group / The Denver Post via Getty Images)

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Clark: Nazem Kadri has handled racism and Islamophobia with grace - but he shouldn't have to

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Always say the right thing. Even if you want to say something else. Make sure your tone gives people comfort. Never mind how you feel. No one is saying you need to smile the entire time. But don't show the sort of emotion that can be viewed as negative or threatening.

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Unfortunately, there was a mass shooting that came as a result of a hate crime/racially motivated occurrence. The 18-year-old male shooter had written a whole manifesto on why white people were superior and he killed 10 people and injured a few others.

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Photos: Buffalo Mourns Mass Shooting Victims

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The FBI is investigating the shooting as both a hate crime and racially motivated violent extremism.

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There was a shooting in Buffalo where the shooter targeted people of color. The shooter had written an entire manifesto basically how he believes how whites are superior and how he needed to lower the number of people of color in this world. This is purely sickening, and I'll never understand why people think this way. He also livestreamed the entire shooting and was seen targeting people of color.

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international relations and national security

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What we know about Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect Payton Gendron | CNN

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The 18-year-old man who allegedly shot and killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday afternoon was motivated by hate, authorities said, targeting a supermarket in the heart of a predominantly Black community.

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Mass Shooting: New Zealand and Buffalo- similarities

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Mass Shooting: New Zealand and Buffalo- similarities

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As we talk about Racism in this class, I chose this article as it depicts how mass shooting took place in two different countries but with very similar motive and fashion. It is truly heartbreaking to see innocent lives taken at the hands of extreme beliefs towards racism. I New Zealand the gunman geared up, attached a camera to his helmet to livestream this rampage and went from one mosque to the other with the motive of killing members of that religion/race. Likewise the gunman from Buffalo shooting had seen the video from this event and decided to do the same with live-streaming this Buffalo massacre. Racism surely exists in many different forms and different countries, all around us. Differences should be celebrated, respected and excepted. But here, differences have become a plague amongst us called Racism.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand - If the Buffalo supermarket shooter had learned anything from the massacre in New Zealand that apparently inspired him, it should have been that the violence didn't achieve any of the gunman's aims, a survivor said Tuesday.

Temel Atacocugu was shot nine times when a white supremacist opened fire during Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch three years ago, killing 51 worshippers and severely injuring dozens more.

Atacocugu continues to recover from the gunshot wounds in his mouth, left arm and both legs.

One of the stated aims of the Christchurch gunman was to sow discord between racial and ethnic groups, eventually forcing nonwhite people to leave. But if anything, the opposite happened as Muslims and non-Muslims embraced each other in a shared and enduring grief.

Atacocugu said the news about the shooting in Buffalo, New York, and its connections to the Christchurch massacre was scary, triggering flashbacks for him.

"Violence does not solve the problem. They should see that. People, including the extremists, should see that violence does not fix anything," he said. "Peace will fix it. They have to learn to talk with people around them, too."

Atacocugu said he was heartbroken for the families of the Buffalo victims and wished governments around the world would do more to stop extremism.

"They went to do their shopping and they had no idea what's going to happen," he said. "They were just thinking to buy their food, maybe they're feeding their young kids at home."

The 18-year-old gunman accused of killing 10 Black people in the Buffalo attack had watched a copy of the livestream video the New Zealand mosque shooter had taken, according to a document attributed to him.

In a 180-page diatribe, Payton Gendron said he subscribed to the same racist "great replacement" theory that the New Zealand gunman Brenton Tarrant wrote about in a similar 74-page screed.

And like Tarrant, Gendron allegedly painted slogans on his gun and used a helmet-mounted camera to livestream his attack on the internet.

Gendron, who surrendered inside the supermarket, has pleaded not guilty and was jailed under a suicide watch.

After eventually pleading guilty, Tarrant, an Australian citizen, in 2020 became the first person in New Zealand to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the toughest sentence available.

The Christchurch attack was livestreamed for 17 minutes and viewed by hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook before it was taken down. The video and Tarrant's screed were quickly banned in New Zealand but can still be found in dark corners of the internet.

Since Christchurch, social platforms have learned to remove videos of extremist shootings faster. The Buffalo shooter allegedly livestreamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. Twitch said it removed the video in less than two minutes.

The Christchurch attacks also prompted the New Zealand government within weeks to pass new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. Police paid owners to hand over their guns and destroyed more than 50,000 of them.

"We saw in New Zealand the gun control thing," said Muti Bari, another survivor from the Christchurch attacks. "We saw some measures taken by the government immediately after. We are still waiting to see what the U.S.A. government does. But unfortunately, we haven't seen anything like that."

Bari, who hid in a bathroom at the Linwood mosque as the shooter killed people just feet away, said he tries not to think about that day too much but is reminded when he meets his friends, including one family that lost both a father and a son.

He said the easy access to guns in the U.S. coupled with constitutionally protected free speech - and the seeming prevalence of hate speech - was a potent mix that the U.S. government needed to consider more seriously.

The Christchurch attack has also inspired other white supremacist shootings, including a shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that left 23 people dead.

Atacocugu, the survivor who was shot nine times, this year retraced the route the gunman drove from Dunedin to Christchurch on the morning of the attacks.

Despite his lingering injuries, Atacocugu walked and biked for two weeks along the entire 360-kilometer (224-mile) route. He wanted to bless the route, spread peace and change a journey that began with hate.

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New Zealand shooting survivor says violence achieved nothing

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand - If the Buffalo supermarket shooter had learned anything from the massacre in New Zealand that apparently inspired him, it should have been that the violence didn't achieve any of the gunman's aims, a survivor said Tuesday.

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This article discusses how there has been ongoing problems with racial profiling of people from African descent, on a daily basis, by the police. From what I uncovered about this issue, is that it has gotten worse in recent times. Increasing the amount of misconduct, police brutality, and total discrimination. A contributing factor could be Switzerland's connection/history of "colonialism and the African slave trade, which it says is directly connected to the country’s modern wealth" (SWI). The identity a country had can have lasting affects and cause many people to take it on as the only identity and still embrace its ideas.

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Black people in Switzerland face everyday discrimination as well serious racial profiling by the police, a United Nations working group has said.
This content was published on January 26, 2022 - 19:08

Other languages: 3 (en original)

After a 10-day fact-finding mission, the group said in a statementExternal link on Wednesday that it was "concerned about the prevalence of racial discrimination and the human rights situation of people of African descent in Switzerland".

A 59-point document outlined the various problems faced by black people in the country, including what it called "shocking reports of police brutality and the expectation of impunity for police misconduct, extending over decades".

They mentioned specifically the case of Nzoy Roger Wilhelm, shot dead by police in Morges last year, as well as several other cases representing what they called racial profiling, and for which centralised data and an independent review mechanism is lacking.

The group also said that the case of Brian K - a highly mediatised violent repeat offender held in solitary confinement in Zurich - was a "stark example of systemic racism in Switzerland".

It also criticised an "insufficient recognition" of Swiss ties to colonialism and the African slave trade, which it says is directly connected to the country's modern wealth, notably through the profits made by banks and industries linked to slavery in the past.

From January 17-26, the members of the group travelled across Switzerland and met with people of African descent, as well as with politicians, police representatives, and civil society groups.

And despite the majority of the statement being negative, the group listed several "good practices and positive steps" taken to combat racism, including moves to create an operational national human rights institution.

Their final report will be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in September 2022.

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

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Expert group criticises systemic racism in Switzerland

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Black people in Switzerland face everyday discrimination as well serious racial profiling by the police, a United Nations working group has said. This content was published on January 26, 2022 - 19:08 Other languages: 3 (en original) After a 10-day fact-finding mission, the group said in a statementExternal link on Wednesday that it was "concerned about the prevalence of racial discrimination and the human rights situation of people of African descent in Switzerland".

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This article discusses the story of an immigrant by the name of Joseph Edghill. A 65 year old man born in Tobago that has lived in America since he was 17. He mentions how he had heard of America being a land of opportunity and dreams. But realized quickly that racism was always there. He also talks about George Floyd and the movement of Black Lives Matters. He knows how important it is to voice the injustice of what was happening and that making a difference was going to take time. Having seen George Floyd murdered by a cop in front of so many individuals made him realize that, that could have very well been him. That is something extremely scary to even think about. Your life being taken from you so sudden and with no remorse. There needs to be change for people of color, they need to feel safe and know that they can walk freely and should be able to express themselves as they wish. Just like any other person in America.

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The 2020 murder of a black man, George Floyd, by police in Minneapolis shone a spotlight on racism in America. It also made black immigrants wonder if America's ideals of freedom and opportunity could be realised.

Joseph Edghill, 65, has lived in the US for nearly half a century, but the past few years have felt very different to him.

Hailing from Trinidad & Tobago, he followed his mother to America at age 17 to attend college and make a living in a place he thought of as a land of prosperity.

He remembers his homeland as a mixture of races, where school and other aspects of daily life were well integrated.

But in America, it seemed, "it was quite a difference. The whole idea of race was in the news and you'd hear about it so frequently".

Early on, he consciously avoided engaging in it.

"I wanted to succeed in spite of race," he told the BBC. "If somebody else had issues with my race, that was their problem."

Then, on 25 May 2020, George Floyd - an unarmed African American - was murdered by police in Minnesota.

Footage from the incident, in which an officer knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, stunned the world and drew millions of protesters - including Mr Edghill - onto the streets.

"That was the first time I ever went out and protested anything," he said. "Floyd was the first time I felt like that could be me."

Joseph is part of a growing population of black immigrants in America.

Although the majority of black Americans are the descendants of enslaved people brought to the US, one in 10 - close to five million in total - were not born in the US but came here to find a better life, according to the latest data from Pew Research Center.

US Census Bureau projections suggest the black immigrant population will more than double by 2060.

And while many are happy with their adoptive home, Floyd's death and other incidents of violence against black people have shaken the faith of some in the ideals that America represents.

The death of Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old who escaped to the US from the Democratic Republic of Congo with his family nearly eight years ago, is another recent case that has struck a chord.

Lyoya was fatally shot in the back of the head by a police officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during a routine traffic stop last month.

Footage released from the incident showed Lyoya and a police officer wrestling on the ground. Police said the officer fired his Taser twice, but failed to hit Lyoya. Footage showed the officer demanding Lyoya "let go of the Taser" several times before firing the fatal shot.

Reacting to video of the encounter, his parents expressed shock that their first-born had been "killed like an animal" in their adopted home, which was supposed to have been a"safe haven".

Peter Lyoya added that he "didn't know" law enforcement could commit an "execution". Representatives for the police department have rejected the characterisation, saying the officer "has the legal right to protect themselves and community in a volatile dangerous situation such as this".

But to some, Lyoya's death is a worst-case scenario in how black- and brown-skinned immigrants experience life in America.

Silvia Holt said she understood what it was like to be in a new country and afraid of the police.

Her migrant worker parents left impoverished conditions in Guadalajara, Mexico, and smuggled her across the border into California at nine months old. She became a citizen at age 12.

Settling in rural Oroville, Ms Holt, now 43, would accompany her parents through gruelling agricultural work.

"Working in the fields, my mum would always advise me never to run - because then you become suspicious," she said.

"The people that ran away were the ones that would get deported, caught, bruised up."

The father of Ms Holt's son, Timothy, is African American, and she sees his fear, like hers, of the police, she told BBC.

When they were stopped over a traffic issue when he was five years old, he asked: "Is the policeman going to hurt me?"

Lyoya was a refugee with an obvious language barrier who might not have known any better in the moment than to run away, Ms Holt said.

"It's mind blowing that a traffic stop ends in a person dying."

The police officer who shot Lyoya is currently on paid administrative leave, and local prosecutors are set to soon issue a ruling on whether he should be fired and charged with a crime.

Some black immigrants are feeling especially targeted in the wake of a mass shooting this month in Buffalo, New York.

The gunman - a white teenager radicalised over the internet - travelled some 200 miles from his home and targeted a supermarket in a predominantly black area. Ten of his victims were black.

Ahead of his rampage, the gunman referenced "white replacement" conspiracy theories and expressed resentment for immigrants and minority groups in online posts.

For Benjamin Anom, a military veteran who has been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, the events in Buffalo were "a new PTSD".

"It scared me," he said. "It could have been anywhere. A group of people looking at another group like they were aliens to society... It goes beyond hate".

Mr Anom moved to the US from Ghana in 2000 with his wife Lily.

Enlisting in the US Army shortly after his arrival, he served in Iraq and that led to a fast-tracked citizenship process under the Bush administration.

The 51-year-old now has three children, four graduate degrees in various disciplines and a doctorate in biomedical ethics.

That makes him grateful to the country, for him, the "American dream" - working hard and finding success regardless of one's background - remains intact.

"It would not have been easy doing all that in Ghana, with a family and a job," he said. "In most parts of Africa, you inherit the successes of your parents."

But for people like him who pursue their dreams here, there is a need to be hyper-vigilant to "avoid the scenarios we see on TV".

No matter whether he is going on a short walk or an hours-long road trip, he filters through a daily mental checklist.

He rehearses with his kids how they should behave during any given police interaction.

"It's almost a full-time job," he said. "But the precautions are not always enough."

Some years ago, Mr Anom got lost driving alone at night from Texas to Kansas, and pulled over to ask for help. Leaving the high beams of his jeep switched on, he honked at a nearby house from what he believed to be an unthreatening distance and then stood by his vehicle.

The homeowner aimed a gun at him and ordered his hands up - until he mentioned he was a lost soldier in need of directions.

"If you had not mentioned that you were a soldier, I was going to pop you," he claims the man said.

Mr Anom said he typically avoids labelling people as "racist" and gives people the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.

But, from Floyd to Lyoya to Buffalo, he said he is not naïve about the level of distrust and hate festering in American society.

"This is how this place has been for a long time," he said.

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America's struggle with racism, as told by immigrants

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The 2020 murder of a black man, George Floyd, by police in Minneapolis shone a spotlight on racism in America. It also made black immigrants wonder if America's ideals of freedom and opportunity could be realised. Joseph Edghill, 65, has lived in the US for nearly half a century, but the past few years have felt very different to him.

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I had thought that there was no discrimination in Japan because, unlike the U.S. and other countries, there were many different races in Japan. However, I was wrong. Through this assignment, I was curious to find out if discrimination exists in Japan. I discovered that there is some discrimination in Japan. I was shocked to learn this fact, and at the same time, I felt ashamed of myself for not knowing anything about it.

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What You Need To Know About Racism in Japan

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A quick overview of race issues in Japan for visitors.

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I shared this post because this is a terrifying thing that has recently happened. A gunman live streamed on twitch a (streaming site for video games) mass shooting targeting african americans grocery shopping. He also had racial slurs written on his guns.

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Buffalo Supermarket Shooting: Gunman Kills 10 at Buffalo Supermarket in Racist Attack (Published 2022)

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President Biden called for a thorough investigation, and said there was no harbor for “hate-filled domestic terrorism.” The 18-year-old white gunman, who pleaded not guilty, left behind a manifesto.

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I share a post on international students facing the discrimination when they choose to learn and pursue their dream at different countries to vary their knowledge but...

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Racism, one of the many types of discrimination, is the belief that different races have unique abilities or qualities that make them superior to another. Racism can be overt or covert, expressed through words, beliefs and/or actions.

International students face many types of discrimination when studying abroad. This includes comments such as being told to go back to their home country or even derogatory comments about where they’re from.

So, what are the types of discrimination international students may face when abroad and how can it be handled?

Bullying and racism against Asians were reportedly on the rise during the pandemic. Source: Patrick Hamilton/AFP

Linguistic racism

First on our list of different types of discrimination is linguistic discrimination, or ethnic-accent bullying. This happens when a person is treated differently based on his or her accent. For example, a foreign student may often be “‘heard,’ ‘seen,’ or ‘imagined’ speaking ‘bad’ or ‘low proficient’ English irrespective of their actual high-level in English”.

More about

Joy Nath, a sophomore at Oklahoma University from India, shares his experience: “People will be like, ‘Oh my God, your English is so good’, and I’m like, ‘Did you expect it to be bad?,” Nath told OU Daily.

Students can play a role in combatting linguistic racism by acknowledging that international students come from different backgrounds and thus, have different accents; actively stand up for those who are singled out because of their accents, use the power of social media to raise awareness and call bullies out, and to be aware that any action, however small, helps.

What can professors do? Get to know their students’ different language backgrounds, assess them on what they’re actually being taught, provide those students with the chance to write in their own voice, work harder to understand multilingual students, encourage this behaviour to other students and raise awareness on campus when needed.

More about

Since the pandemic, there have been countless reports and media accounts of assaults, verbal harassment and bullying in countries like France, Russia, the UK and the US. Source: Arun Sankar/AFP

Racial microaggressions

Second on our list of the different types of discrimination faced by international students are racial microaggressions.

Racial microaggressions can be described as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of colour”.

Marissa Naclerio, a senior at the University of Connecticut, experienced this first-hand. Naclerio claimed that her professor suggested that the only way to pass environmental legislation was to have a benevolent dictatorship, according to the Hartford Courant.

Naclerio, whose mother is Nicaraguan — a country that has an actual dictatorship — raised her hand and asked him not to use this term so lightly. Racial microaggressions tend to reinforce white privilege or systemic racism, and the best solution is to increase awareness of it.

There are several ways to deal with racial microaggressions: l et it go, respond immediately or respond later. Harvard Business Review notes that the decision to respond immediately can be risky.

“Immediacy is an important component of correcting bad behaviour. But this approach can be risky. The perpetrator might get defensive, leaving the target feeling like they somehow ‘lost control,'” it said.

The decision to respond later is “A more tempered response is to address the perpetrator privately at a later point to explain why the microaggression was offensive,” said HBR.

Students can consider assessing their situation before choosing how to respond using “an effective dialogue”.

Since COVID-19, there has been an uptick in racist behaviours towards individuals of Asian descent. Source: Isaac Lawrence/AFP

COVID-19-related racism

Since COVID-19, there have been reports of an uptick in racism towards individuals of Asian descent.

Why? COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan, China back in 2019. Since then, there have been countless reports and media accounts of assaults, verbal harassment and bullying towards individuals of Chinese descent in countries such as France, Russia, the UK and the US.

Zacky, an Indonesian student in Germany, experienced this first-hand when someone said, “Hey Chinese, Asian, why are you here?” while he was walking down the street in Berlin.

Puspa, an Indonesian student at the University of Bonn, claimed that she was walking home from a friend’s house on New Year’s eve when “someone threw a firework at me”. She was “pretty sure” it happened because she was wearing the hijab, reported DW.

If you’re faced with verbal abuse, try to stay calm. A verbal assault can escalate to physical violence, so if you feel your physical safety is threatened, find a safer place to be, such as a public place or even a police station. Sometimes, calling out on a verbal abusers’ inappropriateness can help.

Steve Whitehead notes on EMS1.com: “Try a response like, ‘That’s a very hurtful thing for you to say,’ or ‘Those remarks are highly inappropriate,’ or ‘I’m not going to engage in a conversation that’s profane or hateful’”.

If you witness a threat of violence, get a teacher or a person of authority to step in immediately.

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International students and the types of discrimination they face

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International students face many types of discrimination when studying abroad, but how should it be handled?

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This article is about the NFL and the coaching. The majority of Nfl teams coaching are white men and there are only 5 black coaches that remain in the league today. The person pictured above is former Dolphins head Coach Flores. He led the Dolphins to their first back-to-back winning seasons since 2002 and 2003, and had restored hope to one of the league’s most success-starved franchises. Regardless of these achievements, he was fired the next season which shocked many people. Flores is currently in the process of sueing the NFL for racial discrimination.

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Jack Roshco is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at jroshco@umich.edu. The views expressed in this column are well supported by facts and rigorous analysis; this column is opinion journalism and was not produced by any of The Michigan Daily’s fact finding sections, such as the Sports or News sections.

Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores announced Feb. 1 that he had filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and three of its teams. He alleged racial discrimination in league hiring practices as well as tanking — a practice by which teams intentionally lose to amass greater draft capital, among other charges. Flores’s lawsuit calls into question the legitimacy of the “Rooney Rule,” which requires all NFL teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for coaching and general manager vacancies.

Flores, however, is essentially calling the rule a sham. He claims that multiple teams engaged him in sham interviews meant only to satisfy the Rooney Rule, and he was not a serious candidate for those jobs. He brought receipts; the lawsuit contained screenshots of a text exchange between Flores and Patriots coach Bill Belichick, whom Flores worked for in New England before taking the Dolphins’ job. Belichick evidently believed he was texting Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll (his longtime former tight ends coach in New England) to congratulate him on being hired as coach of the New York Giants. But the text went to Flores, who was set to interview for the Giants’ job himself three days later. Flores did have his interview as scheduled, and shortly thereafter the Giants introduced their new coach: Brian Daboll.

Flores’s claims come with instant credibility, both because of the state of racial representation in the league and because of Flores’s stature as a coach. There are only three active black coaches in the NFL — Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin; the Dolphins’ new coach, Mike McDaniel; and Lovie Smith with the Houston Texans — after Flores and Texans coach David Culley were fired after this season. That alone is a pretty bad look for the league, but context makes it worse. The Texans have a longstanding reputation of institutional racism and those allegations have been repeatedly substantiated.

Late Texans owner Bob McNair even faced severe backlash from his own players for racist comments he made in 2017. Racism seems to be hereditary in the McNair family. Bob McNair’s son Cal, current owner of the team, is no stranger to racially charged controversy himself, and recent rumors have been swirling that Houston was dead-set on hiring former NFL quarterback Josh McCown as coach. They didn’t, but the fact that they were considering a white man in his early 40s with no coaching experience with people like Flores out there is indicative of the larger problem, even if McCown wasn’t ultimately hired.

Flores’s lawyers, justifiably, accused McNair of only hiring Smith to thwart allegations of institutional racism in light of the class-action suit. ESPN’s NFL Insider Adam Schefter chimed in as well, saying “I think (Flores’s lawsuit) changed this (NFL coach-hiring) cycle,” on the network’s Super Bowl LVI “SportsCenter” special on Feb 9. “I think the Texans were tracking — tracking — to hire Josh McCown, and the environment and atmosphere changed once that lawsuit was filed. And I think it would’ve been very difficult for them to hire a guy they, I think, were very interested in, and they ended up hiring Lovie Smith instead.” Given the way the McNair family has spoken — publicly — about minorities, it’s hard to disagree with Flores’s lawyers here. From the outside, it looks like they’re racists using Culley and now Smith as pawns to try to throw fans off the scent.

Tomlin is the league’s longest-tenured coach, and he coaches the franchise owned by the Rooney family, the namesake of the Rooney Rule. None of that is to say Tomlin’s continued presence in Pittsburgh is due to his race. He has long been an elite NFL coach, and the Steelers would be universally ridiculed for firing him. Having said that, Flores had begun to establish himself as an elite coach as well, and his firing by the Dolphins this offseason came as a massive shock both within the league and in the media. He was known as one of the league’s most popular coaches within his own locker room, and is often spoken of as the epitome of a “player’s coach.” Flores led the Dolphins to their first back-to-back winning seasons since 2002 and 2003, and had restored hope to one of the league’s most success-starved franchises.

Flores’s status as a rising star — one who was already producing winning seasons after taking over a franchise mired in two decades of complete and utter irrelevance — is significant. If Flores was a first-time coach who was fired with a record 7-10 games under .500, you could argue that he was just a sore loser seeking to capitalize on America’s racial tensions. But Flores led one of the league’s most perennially embarrassing franchises to a 24-25 record in three seasons, including 19-13 the last two seasons. Whether Flores’s firing and/or his interview experiences were racially influenced remains to be seen, but firing him was so objectively stupid that you almost have to wonder whether the decision may not have been entirely football-related. With the league’s record on race, from blackballing Colin Kaepernick to the conspicuous snubbing of qualified black candidates, all of this is enough to raise an eyebrow or two.

That last point isn’t some kind of abstract conjecture. There are multiple well-known African-American coordinators who should be coaches right now, and their lack of opportunities is glaring. Schefter noted later in the “SportsCenter” special that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ new defensive coordinator has interviewed for 10 coaching jobs, and hasn’t gotten one of them. Teryl Austin is a respected and experienced coach who is clearly worthy of a chance to lead an organization. Is it that much of a reach to say anybody who’s been asked to interview 10 times for a coaching job is probably qualified for one? Eric Bieniemy, the offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs, has overseen one of the most prolific offenses of all time, with two Super Bowl appearances and one championship to his name. He has interviewed for multiple vacancies over multiple years. He’s still a coordinator. Bieniemy and Flores were passed over for the New Orleans Saints job, too. New Orleans chose to promote from within earlier this month, going with their defensive coordinator, Dennis Allen.

That seems sensible on its face — to maintain stability in an organization which just lost its legendary longtime coach in Sean Payton. After all, Allen had been with the organization since 2015; has coaching experience, like Flores but unlike Bieniemy; and was seen as Payton’s right-hand man in recent years. That sounds great on paper, but Allen was 8-28 with zero playoff appearances in three years as coach of the Raiders. He gets another chance in the big chair before Flores, who’s had more recent (and far more successful) coaching experience? He gets the nod over Bieniemy, the architect of Patrick Mahomes’s development into an all-time great quarterback? Bieniemy and Flores were passed over for a job that they were both more qualified for than the coach who got it.

Kliff Kingsbury, though? He’s still the coach of the Arizona Cardinals, despite having no business even interviewing for that job in the first place. If there were such a thing as irrefutable anecdotal evidence for Flores’s case, the dichotomy between Kingsbury and these up-and-coming Black coaches would be it. When he was hired by the Cardinals, Kingsbury had only one career coaching job: at Texas Tech University. One would think that a first-time NFL coach — under age 40 and hired straight out of the college game — would have a résumé of sustained dominance at the college level. At this point, you probably know where I’m going with this: Kingsbury was 35-40 at Texas Tech, but … he coached Patrick Mahomes there, and Johnny Manziel and Case Keenum before Mahomes, as an assistant coach. So the Cardinals took a flier on him. Success developing quarterbacks is one thing; winning football games as a coach is another. 35-40 in college, and 24-25-1 in the NFL, and safely entering his fourth season in Arizona; yet Bieniemy sits tight in Kansas City, while Flores will probably never see an NFL sideline again.

Whether you agree with Flores’s case or not, it’s undeniable: The NFL has a race problem pervading its coaching hiring practices that it has gotten away with for decades. Ultimately, winning the battle of public opinion may have just as big of an impact as winning the case in court. Flores would be wise not to let anyone forget that there are some seriously mediocre white guys coaching with completely unwarranted job security (we’re all looking at you, Mike McCarthy and Matt Rhule), while bona fide studs like Flores, Austin, Bieniemy and so many more are shut out entirely.

Jack Roshco is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at jroshco@umich.edu.

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The NFL has a big race problem, and it is showing

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Brian Flores is an extremely competent NFL coach, turning the loser Miami Dolphins into a good team, but racism has put an end to that.

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https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-05-24/report-finds-racism-prevalent-in-the-workplace

I am sharing this article because it is something I can relate to. People in the workplace may feel superior to you in many ways, and underestimate you because of your physical appearance. Which I have experienced.. The article reports, "42% for Black workers over a longer time period of five years, the Cost of Racial Injustice Report found, The percentages for Asian workers was 26%, while 21% of Hispanic or Latino workers said they were unfairly treated during the five-year period." Many people till this day are treated unfairly in the workplace because of their race or ethnicity.

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More than a third of Black workers report being treated unfairly in the workplace in the past year because of their race or ethnicity, a new survey released Monday by the Society for Human Resource Management found.

That number rises to 42% for Black workers over a longer time period of five years, the Cost of Racial Injustice report found. The percentages for Asian workers was 26%, while 21% of Hispanic or Latino workers said they were unfairly treated during the five-year period. For white workers, the number was 12%.

The coronavirus has disproportionately affected workers of color, as the economic lockdowns that resulted from it most directly affected the lower-income service sector, in which Black and Hispanic workers are clustered. The past year has also seen a spike in anti-Asian crimes and abuse, stoked in part by the false characterization of COVID-19 as the "China flu."

The Week in Cartoons: May 24-28

The report put a price tag of $172 billion as the cost of turnover due to racism in the workplace over the past five years. Many workers reported feeling angry at the treatment they suffered, often suffering anxiety or stress that reduced their productivity.

In the past year, the survey found racism may have cost American businesses $54 billion in absenteeism and $59 billion in lost productivity.

Over the past year, businesses and other institutions have made commitments to tackle systemic racism but the pandemic also has exposed the economic vulnerability of workers of color.

The report comes one day before the one-year mark since the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis when former police Officer Derek Chauvin placed his knees on Floyd's neck and back for more than nine minutes while he was handcuffed, face down, on the street. Chauvin was convicted on April 20 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's killing. Chauvin is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16.

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Report Finds Racism Prevalent in the Workplace

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More than a third of Black workers report being treated unfairly in the workplace in the past year because of their race or ethnicity, a new survey released Monday by the Society for Human Resource Management found. That number rises to 42% for Black workers over a longer time period of five years, the Cost of Racial Injustice report found.

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I picked this because the movement that George Floyd sparked was memorable and he should not be forgotten as the fight against racism continues.

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T he murder of George Floyd two years ago prompted a global awakening about the pervasiveness of racism, as millions of people, from Toronto to Tokyo to Tottenham, joined together to take to the streets in the summer of 2020.

After nearly two years of reporting on Floyd’s life and legacy, and writing a book, His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice, we are often asked if anything has actually changed since his murder.

When we posed the question to Reverend Al Sharpton, the US civil rights leader, he described “Newton’s law of civil rights”.

“For every action, there’s going to be a reaction,” said Sharpton, who had advised members of Floyd’s family to prepare for the outcry in their brother’s name to be followed by a pernicious pushback by detractors set on maintaining the social order. “So brace yourself. But keep going.”

In the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s demise, there was palpable hope that the world might defy history’s physics. As the video of his dying cries of “I can’t breathe” circulated around the world – during a deadly pandemic that had highlighted how interconnected our global fates have become – Floyd’s name began to be uttered by presidents, prime ministers and the pope. His face was painted in Syria, Pakistan and the West Bank. In Bristol, crowds toppled the bronze statue of Edward Colston, a trader of enslaved people, and tossed it into the harbour. Colston’s descent, captured live on global news channels, seemed to symbolise a forceful absolution for past sins, a national baptism into a more equitable future.

With Floyd’s experience with police brutality as a catalyst, activists from London to Berlin began to call into question the disproportionate use of stop-and-search measures against Black Europeans.

For a moment at least, it seemed that people of all political stripes were willing to acknowledge the reality that racism continued to play a major role in society and that it remained a force that needed to be proactively eliminated. And despite the resistance that ultimately emerged, there have been some lasting changes from the initial burst of activism sparked by Floyd’s death.

In the US and beyond, several local governments and police departments have banned the use of chokeholds and other aggressive policing tactics. The US’s 50 biggest companies pledged at least $49.5 bn to address racial inequality, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. The US government declared a new federal holiday to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people, and officials worldwide took symbolic steps to show a renewed commitment to eliminating racism and the vestiges of past wrongs. The European parliament voted to proclaim “Black lives matter”. European leaders formally adopted an “anti-racism action plan”. And after activists across Europe called on their governments to address the legacy of colonialism, Germany agreed to return looted treasures to Nigeria, for example.

But it did not take long for momentum to be lost. While the summer of 2020 showed record high support for the Black Lives Matter movement, as the memory of Floyd’s death faded, so, too, did the willingness to grapple with the injustice that he faced both in life and as he died. By September 2020, a study from the Pew Research Center found that support for the Black Lives Matter movement had decreased from 67% to 55% overall, where it would remain into the following year. The fascination with the phrase appeared to be a ceremonial, summertime fling. The US federal police reform bill that was to bear Floyd’s name fell victim to partisan politics and was never passed.

In 2022, a new counterattack has emerged against diversity or even discussing the concept of systemic racism. Today, rightwing politicians in the US are winning elections by promising to outlaw the teaching of “critical race theory” in schools, and books about racism are being banned in some communities. The moves reflect a reactionary agitation about whether the amplified focus on race has gone too far.

Remembering Floyd’s story hopefully reminds us what can happen to an individual when a society ignores the residue of historically racist policies, while teaching us about having persistence in the face of challenges.

“Sis, I don’t want to rule the world,” a 13-year-old Floyd told his older sister, Zsa Zsa, in a scene we report in the book. “I don’t want to run the world. I just want to touch the world.”

As we researched Floyd’s life, conducting more than 400 interviews to craft a portrait of his unique American experience, it was easy to envision a much different outcome for him, had his journey not so often run headlong into the brutal force of institutional racism.

Instead of being born impoverished, Floyd could have come into the world as a wealthy scion of an industrious great-great-grandfather, if racism had not stripped his hardworking ancestors of their landholdings in North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. He could have been able to pursue his second-grade dream of ascending to the supreme court, if underfunded public schools and dilapidated public housing had not defined his adolescence in a segregated slum. His lyricism and poetic nature could have elevated him to prominence in the world of arts, if his struggles with addiction and mental illness had been met with treatment rather than the unforgiving cruelty of the US’s mass incarceration complex. His less ambitious goals later in life – to become a truck driver or to open a small restaurant and provide jobs for the downtrodden – could have been achievable if Derek Chauvin had not ignored his pleas for mercy on that fateful day two years ago.

Instead, we remember Floyd as a man who lived and died under the crushing weight of American racism, a man whose dying cries for his deceased mother struck the hearts of hundreds of millions of people, a man who would end every conversation with the words “I love you” – words he uttered in parting declarations to his family and friends, even as his final breaths were being snuffed out of him.

George Floyd was a man who simply wanted to breathe but ended up touching the world.

Robert Samuels is a reporter for the Washington Post. Toluse Olorunnipa is a political enterprise reporter for the Washington Post. His Name is George Floyd by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa is published by Bantam Press

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What would George Floyd’s life have looked like without the crushing weight of racism? | Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

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Two years on from his death, it’s worth considering the success he might have had in a different world, say writers Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

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Women of color feel the need to "hide their heritage" in the workplace to avoid racism

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Women of color feel the need to "hide their heritage" in the workplace to avoid racism

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This article is based off a study of women in the UK workforce. The survey-study found that over 60% of women feel pressured/threatened into changing their name, clothes, or other elements of their heritage in fear of facing racism in their workplace. They assimilate to the standard Western ways of speaking, dressing, and behaving to fit into their work atmosphere.

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Women of colour feel forced to change their behaviour, and in many cases their names, because of widespread, structural racism in the workplace, new research has found.

Three-quarters of women of colour have experienced some form of racism at work, while just over a quarter have faced racial slurs, according to a significant report by the gender equality organisation the Fawcett Society, and the race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust.

The organisations surveyed 2,000 women of black and Asian heritage and more than 1,000 white women across the UK, highlighting the problem of workplace culture.

A majority of women of colour felt they needed to hide their identity at work in some way, with more than 60% modifying their language, hairstyle, clothes or diet in order to fit in.

More than half of Muslim and black African women said they had changed the clothes they wore at work, while a quarter of those with Indian heritage said they had changed their name.

The research also found persistent obstacles to career progression, with more than half of women of colour reporting discrimination in the application or interview process and 42% saying they were passed over for promotion.

"Women of colour face a double jeopardy," said Halima Begum, the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust. "From school to the workplace, there are structural barriers standing between them and the opportunities they deserve.

"They know first hand the myth of meritocracy, from the mental gymnastics of constantly code switching to being repeatedly passed up for promotion."

About a third of respondents from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian heritage said a manager had actively blocked their progression at work. This compared with 20% of white British women.

The report calls on the government to force companies with more than 50 employees to publish ethnicity pay gap data, which it has resisted, leading to accusations that it lacks the "will or care" to create a fairer and more equal society.

In 2018, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy launched a consultation that stated: "The government believes it is time to move to mandatory ethnicity pay reporting."

The consultation closed in January 2019, but the government is yet to publish a response.

The report also calls for all employers to put anti-racism plans into action, including publishing salaries on all job advertisements and to stop asking candidates their past salaries.

Jemima Olchawksi, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said women of colour were being held back and forced to hide their identities.

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"What a waste of those women's time and energy," she said. "We need workplaces that respect and celebrate everyone's individuality and allow women to focus on bringing their talents into the workforce. Given skills and labour shortages, this is a waste of potential we can ill afford."

Responding to the findings, Caroline Nokes,the Conservative chair of the women and equalities committee, called for "positive action from the government".

"It's really shocking when you hear about women feeling obliged to change their name just to get on at work and when you hear about the level of racist abuse that still exists in the workplace," she said.

"It requires positive action from the government. It's not enough to say that we're creating more opportunities for everybody. We have to target those opportunities to make sure that levelling up is not just about geography or the north and the south."

A government spokesperson said: "Our inclusive Britain action plan sets out plans to build a fairer and more inclusive society, including promoting fairness in the workplace and action to tackle the ethnicity pay gap."

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Most women of colour 'hide' their heritage due to UK workplace racism

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Women of colour feel forced to change their behaviour, and in many cases their names, because of widespread, structural racism in the workplace, new research has found. Three-quarters of women of colour have experienced some form of racism at work, while just over a quarter have faced racial slurs, according to a significant report by the gender equality organisation the Fawcett Society, and the race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust.

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This article came out in early 2019 to recap all the racism in sports that took place in 2018. in this article, it talks about Colin Kaepernick being the Face of Nike after not being signed to a team since Kneel-gate. It also brings up the famous protest during the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, of Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos during the medals ceremony. There is a history of racism in all sports.

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Richard Lapchick, Contributing Writer, ESPN.comJan 3, 2019, 10:09 AM ET

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American leader of the sports boycott of South Africa from 1975 until the end of apartheid

Chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida

Author of 16 books and the annual Racial and Gender Report Card

Directs UCF's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport

Director of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport

In 2018 we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Tommie Smith and John Carlos protesting on the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, one of the first global instances of athlete activism. However, despite being a half-century removed from that watershed moment in Mexico, we still saw many racist incidents worldwide.

The positive legacy of 2018 was the continued rise of athlete activism. Colin Kaepernick became the face of Nike's newest "Just Do It" advertisement, despite not being signed by an NFL team. Fellow activist Eric Reid was signed by the Panthers in September but claimed he became the subject of an inordinate amount of drugs tests, which he considered harassment. LeBron James used his platform to speak out against rhetoric and policies coming out of Washington. James also opened his I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, to help encourage young people to get an education. In addition, many athletes spoke up during the midterm elections, and several former professional athletes were elected to office in November.

There were small battles won and lost in the fight against racism. The Cleveland Indians announced they would remove the Chief Wahoo image from all uniforms, despite the organization continuing to sell merchandise with the logo. And the NFL team in Washington stood pat and continues to use its highly controversial nickname that I, like many others, consider racist.

For every battle won, it seems like 10 more instances of racism occurred around the world this past year. The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport recorded 52 acts of racism in sports in the United States in 2018, up from 41 in 2017. Internationally, there were 137 instances of racism in sports in 2018, a sharp increase from the 79 acts of racism in 2017.

Russia, the host of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, was charged with fan racism nearly two months prior to the tournament starting, as fans directed "monkey chants" at players on the French national team. In a separate incident in a league game, fans chanted Nazi slogans.

Racial abuse by Russian soccer fans increased in anticipation of the World Cup to the point where players, such as England's Danny Rose, told their families not to attend the tournament because of the risk of being subject to racial slurs and abuse.

In order to combat racism at World Cup games, FIFA gave referees the authority to pause play and ask for racist chants or actions to stop, suspend the match if racist chanting persisted, and finally, as a last resort, abandon the match. To more closely monitor the fans in attendance, all matches had three anti-discrimination observers in the crowds. Despite these steps, FIFA added that a yellow card would be assessed to any players who left the pitch because of racist chants, risking ejection for the entire team from the competition. It's a policy that seemed to echo Fox News host Laura Ingraham when she told James to "shut up and dribble."

More recently, Raheem Sterling of Manchester City was the target of racist remarks from fans during a match against Chelsea. Sterling went on to speak out against these acts of racism and against the treatment of young black soccer players, which Nike applauded with this tweet:

Speaking up doesn't always make life easier. But easy never changed anything. @sterling7 pic.twitter.com/sFZHeMo5s4
- Nike Football (@nikefootball) December 15, 2018

Chelsea F.C. has been in the news several times during the year, as two former coaches were investigated at the beginning of 2018 for allegations of racism from the 1990s against black players.

To combat the rise in racism experienced by football players in England, the FA adopted its own version of the NFL's "Rooney Rule," requiring at least "one candidate from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background" to be interviewed for open positions. These rules, although created with good intentions, are unlikely to prevent further racist comments and actions by spectators and fellow competitors as they do not require teams to hire diverse individuals, just to interview them.

One potential reason we have seen racist incidents in sports increase over the past several years is that those in high political office in the U.S. and throughout the world are not reprimanded for making offensive statements regarding minority groups. A lack of accountability while holding our leaders to the highest standards has emboldened many people to lash out with hateful speech and actions. This pattern has been amplified and well documented since the 2016 presidential election.

In January, the predominately black men's and women's basketball teams from Labette Community College in Parsons, Kansas, visited North Arkansas College. They were met with "monkey noises and crow caws." Harrison, Arkansas -- where North Arkansas College is located -- is, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the national headquarters of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was profiled as the "most racist town in America."

After Florida State's loss to in-state rival Florida in November, a man posted an image of FSU coach Willie Taggart being lynched in the Facebook group Florida State Football. Taggart is the first black head football coach in FSU's history. The image was later condemned by the school's president and the man who posted the image was fired from his job. The Florida State Attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit announced there would be further investigation into the incident.

Several incidents point to the sobering conclusion that our children are learning how to hate. It frightens me to see our next generation of leaders participating in and instigating acts of racism against their fellow students. In October, bananas were left in the locker room of an Ohio high school football team and were thrown at players during the game. A month earlier in Louisville, students at a football game passed around and smashed a watermelon in the stands while their high school played a predominately black team. In both these situations, school administrations said the acts were common practices at these events and not instances of racial abuse. The NAACP investigated the incident in Louisville and were surprised to learn that students of color participated and played a key role, which "highlights the need for more cultural understanding."

At the beginning of the year, the Cincinnati Premier Youth Basketball League ejected a team from Kings Mill from the league after finding sexist and racist names on the back of the children's jerseys, including "coon" and "knee grow." Unfortunately, it took the league three weeks to discipline the team, which had played with those jerseys for the first four weeks of the season.

Closing out 2018, Andrew Johnson, a high school wrestler from Buena, New Jersey, was subject to what was widely perceived as racial abuse from a referee who told him to either cut off his dreadlocks or forfeit his match. This incident went viral, with many people calling the young man a "team player," not recognizing the torment he was put through. Hair is a large component of the black identity, and to be stripped of that identity in front of coaches, teammates and parents who did nothing but sit back and watch is reminiscent of the indifference by everyone present to the inspection black men and women who were purchased at slave auctions.

In 2019, we need to see more athletes using their voice and platform to speak out against racism, sexism and the current political state of our country. I am grateful that so many are now. However, it is sobering to realize that athlete activists are speaking out, at least partially, in reaction to things they and others have experienced regarding their gender, ethnicity, race or religion. Although instances of racism increased across the world last year, I am hopeful that we can continue to learn about and support those who are different from us, and try to erase bigotry and hate in our world. If our children are learning how to hate, we can teach them how to love again.
Meaghan Coleman made significant contributions to this column. Richard E. Lapchick is the chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida. Lapchick also directs UCF's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, is the author of 17 books and the annual Racial and Gender Report Card, and is the president of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice. He has been a regular commentator for ESPN.com on issues of diversity in sport. Follow him on Twitter @richardlapchick and on Facebook.

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While athlete activism was on the rise in 2018, it was out of necessity in another year filled with incidents of racism in sports.

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In this article, it talks about the NFL having the alarming number of only 5 head coaches of color within leadership. It brings up the issue of how many people of color don't hold as many leadership positions, especially within sports leagues. Nonetheless, it is concerning that the NFL isn't doing more to increase these numbers and take a stand against discrimination. Within the reading it also talks about a lawsuit filed by an old coach that felt he wasn't receiving any further jobs or positions because of his race. The NFL also has a long standing history of racism within coaching and player positions as well.

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The N.F.L. has five head coaches of color in the 32-team league. What should be done about the lack of diversity among the N.F.L.’s leadership?

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Hate filled shooting in California Church

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Hate filled shooting in California Church

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This article shows that racism is still ongoing in today's society even now in 2022. This was a horrific hate crime that took place in southern California. A Las Vegas man opened fire in this church wounding 5 people and killing one in the shooting. I am now feeling more infuriated than sad when these things occur because of illegal weapons and how hard it is to have control over guns. At this point, something more needs to be done by us as a society to stop or at least slow down these crimes rather than just offer our condolences when they occur.

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Shooting at Taiwanese church in California that killed 1, wounded 5 investigated as hate crime, FBI says

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David Chou, 68, of Las Vegas, was motived by political tensions between China and Taiwan, authorities say.

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High school cheer team pose with a black mannequin head on social media post. They thought it would be funny to pose with the head and later referred to it as their mascot which they named "Kareem".

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An Instagram account titled "Black Bay Area" re-posted two troubling photos on their page this weekend, accusing the initial post of racism.

The pictures show what appear to be members of the California High School varsity cheer team posing with a Black mannequin head and they refer to it as their mascot -- which they named Kareem.

"That is not something that we can accept, nor will we tolerate," said San Ramon Valley Unified School District Superintendent Dr. John Malloy.

He said he's deeply concerned as the district has been expanding its on-campus sensitivity training and was shocked to see the team share something that seems so obviously insensitive.

"We don't accept this. We understand that it's wrong, and we also understand that it's harming some members of our community more than others - especially those who may identify as Black or African American," said Malloy.

A senior said it has been a hot and divisive topic on campus Monday.

"They think it's like a joke, or it's funny or something like that, and they don't realize that it actually has implications," said Aditya Sathyanarayanan.

A sentiment shared by a mom who lives in the neighborhood.

"If they meant it as a statement, they should have clarified that. If they meant it as a joke, it's not funny," said Angelica Tucker.

She has two young daughters who she believes might want to try out for the cheer team at California High someday and hopes this can be a teachable moment.

"It can open up their eyes to the fact that there's no representation that looks like them on the cheerleading squad, and maybe they will be the first ones to do it," said Tucker.

She said she hopes the team becomes diverse more immediately so kids like her daughters feel like it's a goal they too can achieve in a few years.

The superintendent says the district may need to expand its sensitivity training to make sure another incident like this doesn't happen again.

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san ramon valley unified school district

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East Bay High School Cheer Team Accused of Racist Instagram Post

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An Instagram account titled "Black Bay Area" re-posted two troubling photos on their page this weekend, accusing the initial post of racism. The pictures show what appear to be members of the California High School varsity cheer team posing with a Black mannequin head and they refer to it as their mascot -- which they named Kareem.

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I chose this TikTok because it helps to show how there are people that are showing racism that try to call it “preference” and don’t notice that they are displaying racism and adding to the pandemic of racism. Not being able to find something beautiful in everyone is pretty racist and especially judging someone based on their appearance rather than their character. For someone to instantly say that they couldn't find someone attractive because of their hair or skin, without ever speaking to them is not a preference, it is racism. Making assumptions about people based on the way they look is definitely racism.

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The Conversationalist · Creator
For anyone who wants to have more conversations like this one, you can join our Gen Z community! Just check out the link in our bio on Instagram🔥

3-24

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Sauziro

Preference is not always racist but it can be

3-13

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Amss

I hope this queen has the best life possible

3-10

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tj<3

ppl constantly misuse the word preference and it’s tiring. to prefer means you like multiple things, but you PREFER one of those things more

3-7

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Master

It's not racist to have a preference. It's racist if your preference is what was described. Big difference needs to be learned.

3-14

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lanaeya

preference means preferring someone over another but not EXCLUDING the other thing

3-7

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Jonenvy

“Because of their hair and skin” yea no that’s beyond preference, that right there is RACISM 💀💀💀

3-10

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Casey Contreras

People don’t know what preference means they just use it to try and hide their racism

3-14

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keemas97

how can anyone say they don't find anyone from a single race attractive? that's when it's basically just about skin tone and racism period

3-9

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Moments

That’s subconscious racist many ppl don’t even realize.

3-7

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Marcel Williams

I honestly don’t understand judging attractiveness by ethnic group and not the individual? Literally everyone’s so beautiful

3-7

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Everett Shaw171

not racist. you can be attracted to whatever you're attracted to.

3-10

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myaisaweird0

woah such a new and cool hot take. slay white queen u go girl #shescomingtothecookout slay yes

3-10

Reply

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1.9M Likes, 39.3K Comments. TikTok video from The Conversationalist (@theconversationalist): "Is racial preference racist? #racism #racist #racismawareness #racismneedstostop #racialprofiling #racialinjustice #preference #datingstorytime #date". Ginseng Strip 2002.

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I chose this tiktok because as awful as her situation is, I have had a personal experience alike. In the video, young woman is visibly distressed as she shares simply that her parents are racist, her boyfriend of five years is Filipino, and that until recently, she had avoided them meeting. She goes on to express her fears concerning the situation.
I think every day racism at the hands of stranger or peers is one thing, but experiencing it at the hands of your own parents is another.

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they shunned me at my undergrad graduation bc of this

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@tiffanysamiam
they shunned me at my undergrad graduation bc of this
♬ original sound - Tiffany Sam

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This article represents how racism is still in our every day lives even after the Black Lives Matter movement. I believe the Black Lives Matter movement should be represented and taught to people around the world everyday and be taught in every single school (elementary, middle, high school and college). I also think going to the extent of making it a priority to talk about it every year in your classes. It amazes me how people are filled with hate and violence. It also makes me think that these people are being taught at a very young age of this racism factor and looking at different cultures with something to look down upon a lot even as young as a toddler.

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Buffalo Supermarket Shooting: Gunman Kills 10 at Buffalo Supermarket in Racist Attack (Published 2022)

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President Biden called for a thorough investigation, and said there was no harbor for “hate-filled domestic terrorism.” The 18-year-old white gunman, who pleaded not guilty, left behind a manifesto.

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While I think most people can agree that the invasion of Ukraine is deeply saddening (and frightening), I think that the coverage it has received has really exposed the bias that western media has. Many countries like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Cuba, Brazil, etc. do not get even half of the amount of the support that Ukraine has gotten. Those countries are left to fend for themselves which makes sense, seeing as U.S. intervention and colonialism has a big role in those countries' economic and social collapse. The article also quotes a news reporter saying that basically, it's unimaginable to think that their is a war in Ukraine seeing as they are "not like other countries" they are a "civilized European country."

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The war in Ukraine has resulted in nonstop coverage by the majority of Western media outlets. On one hand, this isn't surprising: The invasion is a terrible event causing massive human tragedy with both immediate global consequences as well as unpredictable and potentially disastrous long-term implications.

"This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America."

Yet the manner and degree of mainstream, Western coverage has been criticized for displaying racist undertones on two levels. First, the language often used by Western journalists, such as the frequent refrain of the phrase "Europe's first major land war in decades," often indicates a sense of shock that something like this could happen in Europe, while implicitly suggesting that wars normally happen in other countries "of a different sort." Second, there is the level of coverage when compared to other large and deadly conflicts, such as the civil war in Ethiopia, which has been going on since November 2020 and has involved innumerable atrocities, war crimes, famine, and displacement-all while garnering far less consistent media attention. (This is an issue I have written about recently for Al Jazeera, albeit remotely, though having formerly worked in Ethiopia.)

In response to what it labeled as the media's "implicit and explicit bias" in its coverage of Ukraine, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) released a statement calling on news organizations to be wary of ascribing "more importance to some victims of war over others." The statement notes a CBS correspondent commenting on Ukraine and Kiev that "this isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan . . . this is a relatively civilized, relatively European [city]."

"They seem so like us," remarked a writer in the Daily Telegraph, one of the United Kingdom's most prominent newspapers. "This is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations." Even an Al Jazeera anchor commented: "These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any European family that you would live next door to."

"This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America," the AMEJA statement says. "It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected."

Western media's tendency to succumb to this sort of bias was critiqued in the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent, co-authored by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. They argued that U.S. mainstream media advanced stories and news reports-in the authors' terms, "propaganda"-that drew the approval of government and elite interests. Hence the victims of groups or places that showed interest in Westernizing or at least would not challenge U.S. interests would get coverage, whereas the victims of groups or places that undermined Western governmental hegemony and the neoliberal status quo were largely ignored.

"[W]orthy victims will be featured prominently and dramatically . . . they will be humanized [and] their victimization will receive the detail and context in story construction that will generate reader interest and sympathetic emotion," the authors wrote. "In contrast, unworthy victims will merit only slight detail, minimal humanization, and little context that will excite and enrage."

There are obvious reasons Ukraine has received more media coverage than other conflicts around the world, including the one in Ethiopia. Russia is a nuclear-armed superpower, for one. The invasion also threatens to draw in neighboring European countries that could escalate it into a global conflict. And, beyond the war itself, it has exacerbated the economic fallout of the pandemic through spiraling gas prices and U.S. inflation rates, now running at a forty-year high.

Nevertheless, when it comes to women victims, for example, it is hard not to conclude that we in the West are nowhere near shaking off some of our previous habits of perception that have characterized conflict throughout the years, whereby a Black life lost or violated isn't as terrible as a white life lost or violated. In Ethiopia's conflict, there have been reports of rape being used as a weapon of war. This has garnered some media coverage but gained little traction-certainly in terms of impact on the public mood-compared to coverage of Ukrainian women forced to leave their homes clutching their children's hands. (There have also been multiple reports of Russian soldiers raping women in Ukraine.)

"The 'unthinkable things' that happen in places like Africa are typically reported in terms of issues, numbers, and trends-rather than the people, the emotions, and the lives destroyed," Moky Makura of Africa No Filter, a group that works to dispel stereotypes about the continent, writes in a recent opinion essay for CNN. Makura notes how at the same time "poverty, conflict, corruption, disease, and poor leadership were the five frames through which most stories are told about Africa."

I can relate to that from my time freelancing in Ethiopia. It was very difficult to get through to editors-especially those at big-name media outlets-if pitching a story that didn't conform to those frames of narrative. Non-mainstream and smaller media usually proved more willing for nuanced stories that went beyond established predispositions. Recognizing such double standards in the media-whether steeped in implicit or subconscious racism or not-is crucial if we are to better nourish our empathy and abilities to parse the war in Ukraine and in conflicts occurring elsewhere.

"The biases that are often present in Western coverage of war and the biases that are making the coverage of this war different both ultimately reflect ingrained assumptions about global power dynamics that are not only morally indefensible, but factually untenable," argues Jon Allsop in Columbia Journalism Review.

"The war in Ukraine," he writes, "is a tragic opportunity for the Western press to interrogate and shed these assumptions, an act that, done properly, should not distract from the immense suffering of the Ukrainian people but help us see it even more clearly, in a universal context."

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Coverage of Ukraine Reveals the Racist Biases of Western Media

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The war in Ukraine has resulted in nonstop coverage by the majority of Western media outlets. On one hand, this isn't surprising: The invasion is a terrible event causing massive human tragedy with both immediate global consequences as well as unpredictable and potentially disastrous long-term implications.

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Sports Teams Changing Franchise Names Due to Racist Mascots/Names

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Sports Teams Changing Franchise Names Due to Racist Mascots/Names

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Up until recent years there were a few sports teams with arguably racist team names. Most popular ones including the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins. Due to those names being recognized as racist, those teams have now changed their names to the Cleveland Guardians, and the Washington Commanders. There are many other sports teams listed in the article that have changed their names in recent years and there still might be some teams out there today with questionable names.

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Washington Commanders and 14 Other Sports Teams That Dumped Racist Names and Mascots (Photos)

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Cleveland's baseball team is the latest to bow to public pressure over offensive names and logos

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In this article it talks about how accurate memes are that compares Tamir Rice (12 year old black child) and Kyle Rittenhouse (17 year old white teen) fatal shooting. When reading this article I wasn't focused on the meme aspect because I wanted to focus on the outcome of the two participants because comparing their two stories is a prime example of racism in our society.

Tamir Rice was a 12 year old black kid who was shot by white police men because he was holding a toy gun. After the shooting Tamir's mother like any mourning black mother asked the Ohio Supreme Court to reject the police officer's attempt to get his job back. While the verdict was that the officer didn't get his job back, his lawyers from the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association argued he was wrongfully terminated.

On the flip side Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenage boy (who's almost an adult) walked past a police officer after "allegedly" shooting and killing 2 people but was not apprehended despite bystanders alerting the police. After the shooting he drove home and the next day was arrested. Kyle had to go into trial and the verdict was that all charges were acquitted (found not guilty).

These two horrific stories are a great example of racism and how messed up our criminal legal system is.

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On Aug. 24, 2020, a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was captured on cellphone video shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man, multiple times as he tried to enter his vehicle. Demonstrations against police brutality erupted in Kenosha on Aug. 25, in reaction to Blake's shooting. These protests spiraled into chaos when white, armed agitators appeared on the streets. Some, like teenager Kyle Rittenhouse, were accused of shootings.

Memes emerged online comparing law enforcement's treatment of Rittenhouse - who is white - to that of Tamir Rice - a Black boy shot and killed by police in 2014 after his toy gun was mistaken for a real one.

Snopes readers shared versions of these posts with us and asked us to look into their accuracy. While the two scenarios are glaringly different, especially in their outcomes, most of the claims aligned with the facts in each case.

What Happened to Tamir Rice?

On Nov. 22, 2014, 12-year-old Rice was fatally shot by a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio. Rice had been playing in a park and posing with a toy gun that fired plastic pellets, according to The New York Times.

Police received a 911 call that day that there was a "guy in here with a pistol." But the caller's complete message that the gun was "probably fake" and the person holding the gun was "probably a juvenile" was never conveyed to the officer involved in the shooting.

Within seconds of arriving at the park, the police officer shot Rice in the abdomen at point-blank range. The officer later said that he warned the boy three times to raise his hands, a claim many have doubted.

What Happened to Kyle Rittenhouse?

On Aug. 25, 2020, footage showed 17-year-old Rittenhouse firing at protesters with an AR-15-style firearm after being chased in Kenosha. He was not legally old enough to wield an assault rifle in that state.

Video footage showed police tossing bottles of water to Rittenhouse and other armed white people, telling them: "We appreciate you guys." This occurred shortly before the shootings he was later implicated in.

After Rittenhouse allegedly shot three people (two fatally), The New York Times reported that "police vehicles remained stationary during the gunfire." Rittenhouse then walked with his hands up towards the police, while bystanders called out to them that he had just shot people. But the police drove by without stopping in order to assist victims.

Rittenhouse then drove to his home town of Antioch in Lake County, Illinois, about 20 miles from Kenosha. We can't confirm if Rittenhouse went home to sleep, but according to reports, he was arrested the next day - on Aug. 26 - at his mother's house.

He was charged with two counts of reckless intentional homicide and one count of attempted reckless intentional homicide. He was also charged with reckless endangerment and possession of a deadly weapon by a person under the age of 18, according to a criminal complaint. At the time of writing this, Rittenhouse was being held in a juvenile facility in Illinois, while authorities planned to extradite him to Wisconsin.

Conclusion

While the majority of the statements presented in the meme are accurate, the contexts are very different. We also could not prove what Rittenhouse did when he returned to his home town before getting arrested. We thus rate this claim as "Mostly True."

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How Accurate Are Memes Comparing Tamir Rice and Kyle Rittenhouse?

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On Aug. 24, 2020, a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was captured on cellphone video shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man, multiple times as he tried to enter his vehicle. Demonstrations against police brutality erupted in Kenosha on Aug. 25, in reaction to Blake's shooting.

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This video is a little explicit, but it is the most recent piece of media I've seen which applies to this assignment. In it, a Lyft driver's dash camera records two would-be passengers making startling racist remarks.

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This man wants everyone to know, we should certainly help him. 
This Lyft driver kicks out a local bar owner for being racist, they react by being even more racist.

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This man wants everyone to know, we should certainly help him. 
This Lyft driver kicks out a local bar owner for being racist, they react by being even more racist. https://t.co/ZPrGtF4Her

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This man wants everyone to know, we should certainly help him.
This Lyft driver kicks out a local bar owner for being racist, they react by being even more racist. pic.twitter.com/ZPrGtF4Her
— 🥀_Imposter_🕸️ (@Imposter_Edits) May 14, 2022

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This man wants everyone to know, we should certainly help him. 
This Lyft driver kicks out a local bar owner for being racist, they react by being even more racist. https://t.co/ZPrGtF4Her

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This man wants everyone to know, we should certainly help him. 
This Lyft driver kicks out a local bar owner for being racist, they react by being even more racist. https://t.co/ZPrGtF4Her

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This man wants everyone to know, we should certainly help him. 
This Lyft driver kicks out a local bar owner for being racist, they react by being even more racist.

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Clinical algorithms that factor in race when assessing a patient's risk for a host of health conditions are under scrutiny. They may result in patients of color receiving less access to and poorer quality of care than their white counterparts, fueling long-standing racial disparities. New York City health hospitals announced its removal of a patient's race from calculations used to assess kidney function. Last year, the health system's broader also saw the removal of race as part of an effort to improve access to care.

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Seminal events during the pandemic - such as the protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color - have brought the issues of systemic racism and injustice to the forefront of the public's consciousness.

For some health care providers, the moment also has presented an opportunity to leverage the national conversation into new efforts to examine how existing policies and practices in medicine may be perpetuating racial health inequities.

"We're at a pivotal time," says Dr. Nichola Davis, chief population health officer for NYC Health + Hospitals, New York City's public hospital and health care system. "People's ears are open and they are willing to hear and have these courageous conversations that they maybe weren't able to have in 2019."

At issue are clinical algorithms that factor in race when assessing a patient's risk for a host of health conditions, ranging from death in connection with heart surgery to urinary tract infections in children. Critics of such calculations contend they may result in patients of color receiving less access to and poorer quality of care than their white counterparts, fueling long-standing racial health disparities.

"Race was never necessary or needed" in these algorithms, says Dr. Milda Saunders, an ethicist and health equity researcher and associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "I think a lot of times when we're measuring race we're measuring racism, both structural and interpersonal racism."

Race-based adjustments within algorithms that help make clinical assessments have been around for decades. But while there is widespread acceptance within the scientific and medical communities that the concept of race is not based on biology and is instead a social construct, race correction continues to influence patient diagnoses and treatments.

And despite growing acknowledgment of the potential harms caused by race correction in medicine, so ingrained are these calculations in clinical assessments that the effort to overhaul them is often complicated with questions over what factors can be an adequate replacement.

"These are conversations that have been happening among certain subsets of people for years," Davis says. "This isn't new work for some people."

There has been notable movement of late, however: Last May, for example, NYC Health+Hospitals announced its removal of a patient's race from calculations used to assess kidney function - part of the launch of the health system's broader " Medical Eracism" initiative.

Race was first introduced in the late 1990s to calculate estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR, which is commonly used by clinicians to measure the kidneys' ability to filter waste from the blood. A higher eGFR score normally suggests better kidney function.

Black patients, though, are typically assigned a race adjustment that raises their eGFR by approximately 16% or more than non-Black patients, depending on the equation used. The adjustment is tied to past findings showing higher levels of the waste product creatinine among Black people.

"Explanations that have been given for this finding include the notion that Black people release more creatinine into their blood at baseline, in part because they are reportedly more muscular," a 2020 article in The New England Journal of Medicine states. "Analyses have cast doubt on this claim, but the 'race-corrected' eGFR remains the standard."

Davis says this adjustment can negatively impact the quality of health care Black patients receive, causing delays in receiving medical interventions such as referrals to a nephrologist or dialysis. One such potential consequence was outlined in a November piece published by STAT, in which Glenda V. Roberts - a woman with kidney disease who identified as Black - wrote of how the equation delayed her evaluation for a kidney transplant.

"Unfortunately, when you look at the clinical algorithms, what many of them do is they may downplay the severity of some illnesses when you do that race correction," Davis says.

"The big change is that more institutions like the hospital system, hospital leadership and administrators are more on board with efforts toward equity than they were in prior years," says Dr. Monica Maalouf, associate program director of internal medicine for Loyola Medicine, a health system based in the Chicago area.

Maalouf says Loyola is in the process of determining how to remove race as a variable within the health system's eGFR calculations. That process has involved talks with physicians and laboratory coordinators and directors, as well as working with information technology specialists on how to remove the racial designation from the risk score's automated reporting system.

National Kidney Foundation President Dr. Paul Palevsky says the new equation marks an important step toward efforts to achieve equity in health care by providing a more accurate, race-free approach to assessing kidney function.

"It was the most common equation used in medicine that incorporated race that was reported to be used in clinical care," Palevsky says, estimating a race-inclusive equation for kidney function is used approximately 240 million times a year.

But while the change in the eGFR calculation signifies a substantial step forward, eliminating race correction in calculations for other health conditions has been more challenging, despite increased recognition about the potential harms and health disparities that can come from their continued use.

"The field has realized that when we are using race as a factor in our clinical assessments that we're actually not using a precise measure like we would do for measuring sex, or age, or other things that we use to make our clinical decisions," says Saunders, with the University of Chicago. "But we want to find the best answer, so that may involve sort of reexamining the questions and not just saying, 'Let's just drop race,' but asking what was race measuring, and then substituting that measure."

Saunders says University of Chicago Medicine recently removed race in calculating eGFR in patients, opting to adopt the algorithm endorsed by the National Kidney Foundation. She notes there also has been a broader push among clinicians in recent years to consider the impact of social drivers like income, access to food, housing status and access to transportation on patients of color when making clinical assessments.

Much of the recent attention toward removing race in clinical assessments began with the 2020 article published in the The New England Journal of Medicine, which listed about a dozen tools that included race in assessing clinical areas such as patients' lung function, risk of in-hospital death from heart failure and survival from cardiac surgery. Such tools hold the potential for harmful consequences, the article noted, and could lead to issues such as nonwhite patients not getting health care interventions as early as white patients.

"Many of these race-adjusted algorithms guide decisions in ways that may direct more attention or resources to white patients than to members of racial and ethnic minorities," wrote the authors, from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and NYU Langone Health. "If doctors and clinical educators rigorously analyze algorithms that include race correction, they can judge, with fresh eyes, whether the use of race or ethnicity is appropriate."

Last May, a study published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology introduced an updated model that does not factor in patient race for use in estimating the chance of a successful vaginal birth for women who previously had a cesarean section. By lowering the estimated chance of success for women of color, a previous version of the VBAC calculator - a tool singled out in the NEJM piece - could push them toward a C-section, which is a major surgical procedure many maternal health experts believe is performed too often.

At the same time, adjusting for race in some cases may raise the question of whether doing so is useful if it results in minority groups potentially receiving more consideration.

For example, race adjustment within an atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk estimator - which estimates the risk of having an event like a stroke and helps clinicians determine when to start patients on cholesterol-lowering medication - can put patients who identify as Black at higher risk than white patients. Having race correction within the tool could make it more likely clinicians will intervene earlier for Black patients.

"Using race in these clinical algorithms hasn't been all bad," says Dr. Malika Fair, senior director of equity and social accountability for the Association of American Medical Colleges. "Their intent when they were being used sometimes was to identify health inequities."

Fair says unilaterally removing race from every algorithm is a feasible approach, but fails to answer whether doing so would make things better or worse for patients. "We have to take the time to figure that out so that we don't end up inadvertently creating more racial health inequities when we remove race from the equation," Fair says.

Notably, a study published last year in The Lancet Oncology found that removing race from an eGFR equation could undercut cancer treatment in Black patients.

Dr. Megan Mahoney, chief of staff for Stanford Health Care and a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University, says professional medical societies can play a huge part in providing and promoting guidance on alternatives that clinicians can use to assess disease risk without factoring race. Yet much of the action taken thus far aimed at eliminating race-based clinical assessment has been led by individual hospitals and health systems, which have made policy decisions after deliberation and consideration from their own experts.

Mahoney says medical societies can streamline the decision process for hospitals by serving as a trusted arbiter to review the evidence and provide guidance that most will accept.

"A particular health care system can do it, it's just that it's going to be harder to get buy-in from those who are actually implementing the change - the physicians on the front line - without the professional societies backing them," Mahoney says.

Mahoney agrees it's important to identify the root causes of health disparities for patients of color that have led to differences in risk outcomes. But she fears leaving race-based algorithms in place could reinforce concepts that tie race to biology, and could have long-term social and clinical ramifications.

"Even if there are going to be downstream changes that might put African Americans at a disadvantage, the perpetuation of race as a biological factor both in medical education and in medicine in general, the risk of that far outweighs that minor benefit some racial groups might be getting from the current state," Mahoney says. "We are really putting our medical students and a whole generation of trainees at a disadvantage when the concept of biological race is reinforced in their training."

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Seminal events during the pandemic - such as the protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color - have brought the issues of systemic racism and injustice to the forefront of the public's consciousness.

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the shooter posted a 180 word manifesto on a white supremacist theory called "the great replacement theory" . In which the world elites are allowing the minority population to grow and replace the majority. Not only was he a white supremacist who wrote a a racist manifesto but he was shouting racial slurs while the incident took place

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Buffalo mass shooter wrote racist manifesto: Police

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Racism in Santa Barbara education system

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Racism in Santa Barbara education system

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This article talks about a recent incident of racism that happened at Santa Barbara junior high. A student was bullied by a group of other male students, where he was called racial slurs, then assaulted.

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Education

Incident Occurred During Class, Mother of Student Speaks Out at S.B. Unified Board Meeting

A parent in the Santa Barbara Unified School District said during public comment Tuesday that her son was called the "n-word" by other students during class at Santa Barbara Junior High. The students also allegedly kneeled on his head and neck while saying, "George Floyd."

Santa Barbara Unified responded with a ParentSquare message Tuesday night: "We stand with [the parent] in condemnation of any act of violence on our campuses, in this case hate violence related to a student's race."

The assault occurred on February 16, and though Principal Arielle Curry sent a message out to all SBJH families on February 18, a district-wide acknowledgement of the hate crime was not sent out until February 22.

"I feel very unsupported at school right now, and I demand a change take place in schools immediately," the boy's mother said.

The boy's mother (whose name is being withheld at this time to protect the identity of the student) said there have been several incidents of racism against her son by other students, but the most recent incident occurred in the classroom, with students taunting her son with racist name-calling. Then, she said during a class break, the students began wrestling, which escalated to the other students pinning her son down, kneeling on his neck, and saying, "George Floyd." The mother contacted the administration, but the only response she got was from the school's principal, Arielle Curry.

Curry, speaking through district spokesperson Nick Masuda, said the teacher overseeing the children was in the classroom attending to another student when the assault occurred. Masuda also said there had been no prior incidents with the students involved. The district would not confirm if the students were suspended for their actions, only saying "corrective action was taken."

Community members rallied behind the mother during public comment, lambasting the district for not taking action earlier, or providing more resources to the family of the student who continues to be harassed on campus. Connie Alexander, a co-founder and co-executive director of Gateway Educational Services who has also worked with the student for many years, questioned the district procedure, criticizing the lack of mental-health and safety resources being provided.

"When you do this investigation, you're going to find you have some work to do," Alexander said. "We have to get past things that make us feel uncomfortable, and might feel performative. Procedure is important."
Editor's Note: This story was updated on 2/25/22 to include additional information. Support the Santa Barbara Independent through a long-term or a single contribution.
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Santa Barbara Junior High Student Allegedly Called Racial Slurs, Assaulted by Other Students - The Santa Barbara Independent

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Education Incident Occurred During Class, Mother of Student Speaks Out at S.B. Unified Board Meeting A parent in the Santa Barbara Unified School District said during public comment Tuesday that her son was called the "n-word" by other students during class at Santa Barbara Junior High.

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In Georgia, Black educators are disheartened. They are insulted. Most of all, they are mad.

A new law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, restricts teachers from teaching students about race and racism. According to the text of HB 1084, this includes any discussions that "the United States of America is fundamentally racist," "any other form of race scapegoating or race stereotyping," or "espousing personal political beliefs." The law "prevents divisive concepts and ideologies from invading the classroom" and removes "obscene materials" from school libraries.

It does not address, however, how violations would be enforced or what the ramifications would be.

"School is a ground for growth for students, growth of the minds of kids," said Michael Howard, a social studies teacher at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta. "This threatens that."

Many Black educators said the new law could not only threaten their jobs, but that it also impacts their ability to teach and connect with students.

Howard and other Black teachers also called the law "short-sighted," "disingenuous" and a "political ploy," accusing Kemp of currying favor with conservative voters ahead of his bid for re-election this year.

"I don't think he truly understands the importance and the impact of passing the law," Howard said. "The majority of parents want their children to be critical thinkers, and for teachers to at least give students the opportunity to form their own opinions and ask tough questions. The majority of parents do not want a closed view of history."

The law is part of a growing nationwide campaign to remove books and curricula about race, racism or the contributions of people of color from classrooms. Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire and Tennessee are among the states that have passed similar bills, with more than a dozen others with bills or policies moving through state legislatures. As Phyllis Graham, a retired teacher in Augusta, put it, the laws are designed to "not have white kids feel bad about what their great-grandparents did."

"They are thinking nothing of what Black children need to know about history - or even what's happening now in America," she said. "And with the racial divide in America now, they want teachers to be mum in the classroom? To say this bill is about helping is disingenuous."

The governor's office said in a statement to NBC News that Kemp "worked with parents and students, education leaders, members of the General Assembly, and state and local elected officials, to pass a legislative package that empowers students and parents when it comes to the education of their children, as well as Georgia's hardworking teachers. HB 1084 is a measure that bans the teaching of divisive concepts while also protecting academic freedom and instruction."

Chris Stewart, the CEO of Brightbeam, a nonprofit network of education influencers, said the Georgia bill indicates that the momentum for this kind of legislation is surging.

"We're in real trouble if we continue to allow the restriction of educators ... and turn a blind eye to it," he said. "You will literally have educators who we entrust to teach kids every day ... There are going to be things that they can't teach. There are going to be books that they can't use. There are going to be movies that they can't show ... They're not just the laws that don't have any real impact. They will have a literal impact on how educated our children - Black, white and brown - will become, from what their teachers can teach them in classrooms."

Keene Walker, a veteran educator who teaches at South Atlanta High School, said that students depend on teachers to elevate conversations about current events.

"How would a student feel sitting in a classroom now, where last year the same instructor would enlighten, bring the class the truth and put it into historical context," he said, "but now someone could possibly come in and threaten that teacher's livelihood over teaching the truth?"

"It would be utterly irresponsible to ignore significant events that happen because it could be about race," he went on. "That would be setting up kids for academic suicide, for social suicide. If we can't keep it real, raw and relevant with our students, we are going to lose a whole generation of future scholars."

In 2020, students at Washington High led a Black Lives Matter rally in front of the school. About 300 people from the community also came out, Howard said. "The kids are very aware and they know how to mobilize within their community. And the idea of not being able to talk to them about what they just did is unrealistic."

Stewart stressed the importance of relevance.

"Educators everywhere try to make their lesson plans relevant to the lives of the children that they have in their classroom, because that's part of teaching," he said. "Our teaching is getting kids to understand how some of these very important lessons in life around them ... are relevant to their lives, but they need to see the connections. And educators can't do a really good job if they can't make the connections."

Jeri Byrom, who taught in Georgia for eight years before working as an educator in Prague, India, London, Malaysia and South Africa, said the issue comes down to racism.

"[America] was founded on the backs of people who were oppressed. So, we're just going to write that out of the history books now? Not teach that truth?" she said. "There's no way to silence people and there's no way to hide history. And it's really misguided and short sighted to try to do it in the schools, where learning is supposed to take place. Trust me, it will cause more problems."

Black educators said they are not looking for trouble - some refused to publicly discuss the bill. But many said not discussing the day's issues would be difficult to do in a society where race factors into much of life. Some said they will have to be "creative" to stay within the framework of the spirit of the bill.

"And they should," Byrom said. "You can take something that is controversial or potentially explosive, and build a curriculum around it and create a way to teach it, so students can say what they feel respectfully, they can have discourse around it and learn from it. And they will learn how to speak with people who might not feel the same way they feel and understand each other. So, it's a huge mistake to try to take that way. It won't work. There is no way now you can silence students."

Other educators wonder how the state will enforce the law, since it wasn't explained in the bill. Stewart said the language in the bill is intentionally "vague," opening the way for parents in some areas to find issue with a subject matter discussion when it may not be considered controversial in others.

"So maybe in some districts, this won't be as much of a problem," he said. " But this law can be applied in many different ways.

"And what it's really going to do, because it's so vague and it can be used so powerfully by parents, is make districts gun-shy about doing anything controversial, which will make them proactively remove things from the classroom, from the curriculum that is good for kids to read and learn and understand. They'll proactively remove those things just so that they don't run afoul of this very vague law."

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'There's no way to hide history': Teachers react to Georgia law limiting discussion of race

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In Georgia, Black educators are disheartened. They are insulted. Most of all, they are mad. A new law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, restricts teachers from teaching students about race and racism. According to the text of HB 1084, this includes any discussions that "the United States of America is fundamentally racist," "any other form of race scapegoating or race stereotyping," or "espousing personal political beliefs."