# data[].attributes.headline
Des Justes à l'esclavage, comment se fabriquent les commémorations

# data[].attributes.subject
Des Justes à l'esclavage, comment se fabriquent les commémorations

# data[].attributes.body
France Culture (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Des Justes à l’esclavage, comment se fabriquent les commémorations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plutôt que de partir de l’idée, communément partagée, qu’il faudrait se méfier d’un “usage politique du passé” et du morcellement victimaire de la mémoire à coups de gestes politiques, la sociologue Sarah Gensburger propose d’observer de quoi parlent au fond les journées de commémoration.

# data[].attributes.body
The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end.
Jim Downs, The Atlantic (June 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end.

In the years after the Civil War, smallpox spread throughout the South, mainly infecting Black people. The story of an outbreak of a disease long since eradicated may seem remote from our own times. But the smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics end.

Terms such as pandemic and epidemic are biomedical explanations designed to define suffering and inordinate mortality, but they also have a narrative element embedded within them. They offer a beginning and an ending, characters and settings, rising action and falling action, conflicts and themes. As the Harvard historian of science Charles Rosenberg puts it, an epidemic is "an event" that has a "dramaturgic form."

Epidemics, according to Rosenberg, "proceed on a stage limited in space and duration, follow a plot line of increasing and revelatory tension, move to a crisis of individual and collective character, then drift toward closure." Statistical evidence suggesting that cases are declining gives way to a narrative that an epidemic is ending. But a focus on the overall number of cases may fail to attend to the fact that those who are continuing to get infected are typically the most marginalized.
Jim Downs: The epidemics America got wrong
The smallpox outbreak in the 1860s had an unequal impact. White people had the support of religious communities, municipal relief organizations, charities, friends, and families to protect them from the virus, so their rate of infection was lower. The federal government, focused on the smallpox epidemic's denouement, neglected to address a series of outbreaks mostly among poor Black people that lasted for decades.

From the point when smallpox first appeared among formerly enslaved people in an abandoned lot in Washington, D.C., in 1862, not far from where President Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, the course of the outbreak depended on how those in power decided to narrate it. The refusal of the federal government to acknowledge the smallpox epidemic rendered it virtually nonexistent. The Medical Society of the District of Columbia condemned the government's neglect. "It is generally admitted that small-pox is one of the diseases due to domiciliary circumstances, and is at all times a preventable disease," the physicians argued. "It has been stated over and over again by eminent authorities, that there need not be a single case of small-pox in any city; if the authorities will but take the proper steps to check it."

As more formerly enslaved people liberated themselves from farms, homes, and plantations in Maryland and Virginia and sought refuge in the nation's capital, the infection rate increased.

Smallpox victims burned up with fever, collapsed with fatigue, and became covered with red spots that morphed into pus-filled blisters. Witnessing the arrival of formerly enslaved people to Washington amid these circumstances, Elizabeth Keckley, who served as a seamstress for the first lady, Mary Lincoln, noted, "Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race-the transition from slavery to freedom was too sudden for you! The bright dreams were too rudely dispelled; you were not prepared for the new life that opened before you."

While Keckley observed the impact of the outbreak, Lincoln ignored it. He made no provisions in the Emancipation Proclamation for how formerly enslaved people were to find food, shelter, clothing, or, most urgently, protection from smallpox. He framed the proclamation as an outgrowth of military necessity, to deplete the southern economy and labor force. With no quarantine restrictions, the virus seeped out of Washington and infected the rest of the South. In South Carolina, close to 800 freedpeople succumbed to the virus in one week during the summer of 1865.
Read: The last smallpox patient on earth
When the war ended in April 1865, newspaper headlines roared with the announcement of Union victory. These boasts of triumph dwarfed any references to smallpox. But for many in the postwar South, smallpox was hard to ignore. James E. Yeatman, the president of the Sanitary Commission, a civilian corps that responded to the poor health conditions in Army camps, called for the federal government to acknowledge the epidemic: "Small-pox has had its appearance at several posts and in one of our hospitals; every precaution has been taken to prevent it from spreading, but, in order to arrest and mitigate the horrors of this dreaded disease it is necessary that some obligatory order be issued to colonels of regiments, holding them responsible for the prompt execution of the same."

Congress took notice of smallpox only when military officials began trying to recruit formerly enslaved people to return to the South to replant the profitable cotton crop-and came up short. In 1865, Congress established the first-ever system of federal medical care in the South, known as the Medical Division of the Freedmen's Bureau, to respond to the smallpox outbreak. The Medical Division comprised 40 hospitals and employed 120 physicians.

The bureau's record keeping triggered the press to begin reporting on the disease, signaling the official beginning of the smallpox epidemic. "The mortality of the Negroes in and near large towns and cities still continues to be very great," The New York Times wrote in 1866. "The small-pox rages among them." The New York Herald added that in Savannah, Georgia, although "whites have not entirely escaped, the number of cases yet developed is quite small and of a mild type," among the formerly enslaved population, "the disease travels almost with the speed of an epidemic." The reporting on an outbreak can give the false impression that it is recording the start of a disease's spread, but actually it's just the start of the narrative. And like all stories, it needs to have an ending, even if the biological assault of the virus continues.

In 1866, many in the United States believed that the smallpox epidemic would end with the extinction of the Black population. "There has been considerable speculation as to the effect of freedom upon the physical condition of the former slave. By many it is thought that his ultimate fate will be that of the Indian, and for this opinion there seems to be some ground," a reporter for The Nation posited. "That mortality and disease are largely on the increase cannot be doubted: of this fact I am assured by leading physicians, and the statistics would seem to confirm this statement."

Even before the development of germ theory and virology and epidemiology, statistics gave medical and governmental authorities in the British empire and later in the U.S. a means to make sense of an epidemic. Counting the number of people infected and the number who died was a way of assigning order and logic to the confusion and terror that infectious disease engendered. Once the numbers declined, the statistics signaled the end of the story.

When Freedmen's Bureau medical officials reported a slight decline in the number of smallpox cases in 1867, authorities determined that the epidemic had ended and decided to close the makeshift hospitals that had been used to quarantine the infected patients. Yet the statistics failed to capture the number of people outside the bureau's purview who were still falling ill. Because smallpox is easily spread by human contact, the numbers spiked soon after the hospitals closed; without a hospital to shelter the infected, the epidemic increased. In February 1867, for example, six or seven weeks after federal officials ordered a hospital to be closed in western North Carolina, the virus returned, infecting more people than it had in its first wave.
Elise A. Mitchell: The shortages may be worse than the disease
Despite smallpox's continued biological presence in the South, the federal government shifted its focus to a cholera pandemic that had originated in Asia, spread to Europe, and made its way across the Atlantic Ocean into Canada and the U.S. Unlike smallpox, which many in power believed was primarily a threat to formerly enslaved people, cholera was recognized by the medical authorities as a threat to the entire population. The surgeon general's office called for sanitary measures and collected reports from officials stationed throughout the South, mostly in the military, who described their efforts to control the spread of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, smallpox continued to plague Black communities throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The outbreak never had a definitive end date; the only semblance of an official ending came more than a century after it began, in 1952, when the CDC declared that smallpox had been eradicated in North America.

What ended in 1867 was the narrative about smallpox, not the virus itself. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, officials warned about the epidemic's continuation. In 1898, medical authorities in Kentucky warned physicians, public-health officials, and citizens about the threat of smallpox moving into the state, noting that it was "clearly prevalent amongst the negro population" and "widespread in Eastern Tennessee, North Carolina, Southwestern Virginia and Northern Alabama" as well as in Middlesboro, Kentucky, and Jellico, Tennessee, along the Kentucky border. Five years later, in 1904, Hiram Byrd, a physician who had served in the U.S. Medical Corps and later established the Florida Tuberculosis Sanatorium, photographed an unnamed Black male patient with smallpox, offering evidence of the epidemic miles away in Walton County, Florida.

The smallpox epidemic can help us understand how the coronavirus pandemic will end. The declining infection rate and rising vaccination rate have already set the stage.

From the beginning, the facts and numbers concerning the coronavirus have been fashioned into narratives. Some Americans cast Donald Trump as the villain and Anthony Fauci as the hero; others saw Trump as heroically battling bureaucrats like Fauci. Feuding over masks, shutdowns, and vaccinations further intensified the impulse to see the pandemic as a story of good versus evil. Though there is indeed a biomedical reality to all of these points-leadership matters; prevention protocols matter-an unspoken narrative element has been at work as well.

If we don't recognize this narrative element, we will allow the pandemic's story to end prematurely-and once again, the most vulnerable populations will suffer. The pandemic will be declared over. But in some communities, the infection will rage on, even as the continuing story goes untold.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
medical society of the district of columbia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
harvard historian of science charles rosenberg

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
biological assault of the virus continues.in

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
official beginning of the smallpox epidemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end. In the years after the Civil War, smallpox spread throughout the South, mainly infecting Black people. The story of an outbreak of a disease long since eradicated may seem remote from our own times.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word

# data[].attributes.subject
Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word

# data[].attributes.body
TED Talk by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor: Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Historian Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor leads a thoughtful and history-backed examination of one of the most divisive words in the English language: the N-word. Drawing from personal experience, she explains how reflecting on our points of encounter with the word can help promote productive discussions and, ultimately, create a framework that reshapes education around the complicated history of racism in the US.

# data[].attributes.headline
Éduquer contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme

# data[].attributes.subject
Éduquer contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme

# data[].attributes.body
Canopé & Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale

# data[].attributes.body
Learning for Justice (2016)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I ask a lot of open-ended questions in my history classes, the kinds of questions to which there are no right answers, only good answers (logical, well-supported and so on). A few years ago I started asking myself such a question:

"Am I damaging my students?"

Here's the context. In the past I hesitated to share my own opinions about the questions we addressed in class (despite the fact that my seventh- and eighth-grade students were keenly interested in knowing where I stood). My hesitation came from a desire to maintain some level of objectivity and my understanding that this is what was expected of me as a teacher. But my attempt to strike a neutral pose began to feel like a major ethical and philosophical quandary: Was it ever possible to disentangle my own biased assumptions from my teaching? Is neutrality possible or even desirable?

Students look to their teachers to be the authority on the course material. And even though we may be aware that we are making choices about what content we include and exclude and whose perspectives we endorse and whose we disregard, most of us still like to pretend we are maintaining some level of objectivity. I came to the conclusion that objectivity is practically impossible. What's more, it can hinder our students' moral development. And cultivating morality is uniquely essential to the project of teaching history. Studying the past offers a venue for reflecting on the human condition and developing a sense of right and wrong. We study who we were so that we can figure out who we want to be.

"That's Your Opinion"

Justin P. McBrayer, an assistant professor of philosophy at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, posted a thought-provoking op-ed on The New York Times' "Opinionator" blog in which he argued that today's students "view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture." In other words, he believes that today's students have an overdeveloped sense of relativism. In his view, young people are taught to distinguish between fact and opinion and thus accept as "fact" only that which can be objectively proven. All opinions or perspectives are, then, considered equal. I see similar struggles in my own students who want to tolerate all views while dismissing none.

This analysis has great relevance to me as a history teacher; I often struggle with how to balance moral relativism and absolutism in our class activities-both among my students and with regard to my own contributions. A student once gave me a note on the last day of school that read, much to my alarm, "Thank you for a great course. I learned that if you look at perspectives that are different, then you will see that everyone is right for different reasons." I was dismayed because, of course, everyone is decidedly not right for different reasons. Some people are quite wrong about a lot of things, and many of those people feature heavily in the U.S. and global history classes I teach. After receiving this note, I knew I needed to think more carefully about how I was framing issues of neutrality and relativism in my classes.

Don't Stop at "Multiple Perspectives"

Teachers often diversify and complicate their students' thinking by talking about studying history from "multiple perspectives." This approach can be an effective way to broaden students' thinking and include voices from outside of the dominant narrative.

I have come to see, however, that the inclusion of "multiple perspectives" without sufficient attention to power, intent and privilege makes it challenging for history teachers to honor their moral imperative. History is not just a collection of different perspectives or stories; it is a collection of arguments historians have had about how best to tell these stories. I often differentiate between "history" and "what happened in the past" to get at this important distinction. If we only talk about "multiple perspectives" and locate the various stories of the past on a "continuum of perspective"-without assigning any normative judgments to them-we forestall attempts at determining historical responsibility and causation. We remove the moral judgment implicit in the scholarly study of history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A history teacher leaves the struggle for objectivity behind.

# data[].attributes.headline
Counties with more Confederate monuments also had more lynchings

# data[].attributes.subject
Counties with more Confederate monuments also had more lynchings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This photo from 2018 shows a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, not far from where John Henry James was lynched by a mob in 1898. The statue was removed in July. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

It was 1898, and John Henry James was on a train headed toward certain death. The Black ice cream vendor had been falsely accused of raping a White woman, arrested and taken to a neighboring town to avoid a lynch mob. But the next morning, authorities put him on a train back to Charlottesville, where he was to be indicted at the Albemarle County Courthouse. He never made it; an angry crowd pulled him from the train outside of town and lynched him.

Within a few years, a Confederate monument nicknamed "Johnny Reb" went up at that same courthouse, along with some old Confederate cannons. Then came a statue of Stonewall Jackson next door, and two blocks away, a monument to Robert E. Lee.

The fact thatJames's lynching and the erection of thememorials took placein the same era and the same area is not a coincidence, according to a report from the University of Virginia published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It found that in formerly Confederate states, counties with more Confederate memorials also had more lynchings.

This "provides compelling evidence that these symbols are associated with hate" and racism, and not more innocuous things like "heritage" or "Southern pride," the study's authors concluded.

The study was led by social psychology researcher Kyshia Henderson, alongwith data scientist Samuel Powers and professors Sophie Trawalter, Michele Claibourn and Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi at U-Va.'s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

America's 50,000 monuments: More mermaids than congresswomen, more Confederates than abolitionists

As recently as 2015, 57 percent of Americans saw the Confederate flag as representing "Southern pride" more than racism, according to a CNN poll. Seventy-five percent of White Southerners felt it represented pride, versus only 11 percent of Black Southerners. Those numbers had hardly moved from a similar poll taken 15 years earlier in 2000.

But the debate around Confederate symbols and memorials is not just a matter of opinion; it contains "testable questions," Henderson said. "Specifically, we can test whether Confederate memorials are associated with hate."

The team compared county-level data on lynchings between 1832 and 1950 with data on Confederate memorials. They found that in any given area, and even controlling for population and other demographic variables, the number of lynchings was a "significant predictor" of the number of memorials.

The findings are correlational only; the researchers make no claims that one caused the other.

"We can't pinpoint exactly the cause and effect. But the association is clearly there," Trawalter said. "At a minimum, the data suggests that localities with attitudes and intentions that led to lynchings also had attitudes and intentions associated with the construction of Confederate memorials."

The study did not include Confederate memorials or lynchings in states that were not part of the Confederacy, like Maryland or Kentucky.

Another recent study that looked at nearly 50,000 public monuments throughout the United States found that Confederate Gen. Lee was the sixth most honored historical figure, after Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther King Jr. and St. Francis of Assisi. Of 5,917 monuments in the study that mentioned the Civil War, only 1 percent also mentioned slavery.

"Where inequalities and injustices exist, monuments often perpetuate them," the authors of that report said.

Confederate flags and monuments have been largely ignored or defended by a majority of Americans for decades. Public opinion has shifted somewhat following several major events, including the 2015 racist murders at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., the 2017 white supremacist demonstrationin Charlottesville, and the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd. But in 2021, a majority of Americans - though a smaller one - thought Confederate memorials should stay, according to several polls. Polling expert Ariel Edwards-Levy pointed out in HuffPost that responses depend largely on how the poll questions are worded.

The U-Va. report builds on previous studies, the authors said, that have found that racist lynchings and Confederate memorials broadly rose in parallel across the country during the Jim Crow era, andthat speakers at the dedications of these memorials used white supremacist language half of the time.

In 2018, the exact site of James's lynching outside Charlottesville was identified, and soil from the spot was gathered for the national memorial to lynching victims in Montgomery, Ala.

Charlottesville's memorial to Lee came down in July. At the courthouse, the cannons, "Johnny Reb" and the statue to Jackson are also gone. In their place is a new marker, unveiled in 2019, honoring a local ice cream vendor falsely accused.

MORE ON CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Counties with more Confederate monuments also had more lynchings, study finds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It was 1898, and John Henry James was on a train headed toward certain death. The Black ice cream vendor had been falsely accused of raping a White woman, arrested and taken to a neighboring town to avoid a lynch mob.

# data[].attributes.headline
Correcting History: Confederate Monuments, Rituals and the Lost Cause

# data[].attributes.subject
Correcting History: Confederate Monuments, Rituals and the Lost Cause

# data[].attributes.body
See also this article from the Southern Poverty Law Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Correcting History: Confederate Monuments, Rituals and the Lost Cause

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Episode 5, Season 4 The Lost Cause narrative would have us believe that Confederate monuments have always been celebrated, but people have protested them since they started going up. Historian Karen Cox unpacks how the United Daughters of the Confederacy used propaganda to dominate generations of t…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE IN AMERICA is a series of 16 animated, musical shorts that reveal the history of race in America - from the 17th century to the 21st.
What color are you? Maybe the most important question in American history. When 60 Africans were taken to Jamestown, Virginia aboard a pirate ship in 1619, they were not "black." The English there were not "white" and the indigenous peoples were not "red." Race as we know it had not yet been invented. This is the story of how skin became color, color became race and race became power.

"The story's images crackle with snap and outrage. There's no pussyfooting here-the team's line drawings, partially or fully animated, catch and reflect the fervor and tension of the lyrics. ... What a movie this is going to make."

- Kurt Brokow, The Independent

With the generous support of ITVS, we have produced the first three episodes of The History of White People. The first episode had its world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. The third episode premiered at the 2019 Tribeca festival. .

HOW AMERICA INVENTED RACE

The invention of skin-based racial categories in colonial Jamestown after an uprising of poor Africans and English.

HOW AMERICA OUTLAWED INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE

The story of how "interracial" love was made a crime.

HOW AMERICA MADE SKIN COLOR POWER

The story of Sally Hemings and the man who both owned her and fathered her children, Thomas Jefferson.

"There is seriously no other way to describe this film other than - FIRE! The film masterfully weaves in subtle beats with great lyrics to paint a vivid picture on where "race" first appeared in the US. It's "A" fantastic and will definitely open dialogue."

- Richard Chiriboga, Corriente Latina

The series is a collaboration between filmmakers, animators and musicians. We are directing the series together Additional responsibilities are listed below.

Ed career has covered a lot of ground. He is a filmmaker, director, animation artist, and modern day griot. Prior to joining Maverix, he was a key member of Wild Brain directing team. While there he was a lead commercial director, as well as helped to develop numerous television and film projects for the studio. For Wild Brain's commercial division, Ed's unique hip-hop/ anime style can be seen in inspired commercial campaigns for clients such as Coca-Cola, Sony, Nike, Target and Wrigley's Winterfresh Gum with the acclaimed Urban Hip Hopper spot. Ed was also a contributing director (Tar Beach segment) on HBO's Good Night Moon & Other Sleepytime Tales, which garnered the 1999-2000 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.

JON HALPERIN Producer, writer

Jon is an Emmy Award-winning director, writer and producer. He has produced, directed written and overseen documentaries for Amazon, PBS, National Geographic, Time, Inc., ITVS, TED, TechTV, Discovery, and for digital and theatrical distribution. In 2012, Halperin founded Room 608, with Mark Mannucci, a new media and documentary production company based in New York. Halperin and Mannucci most recently executive producers of the Amazon series Lore, a hybrid fiction/documentary series for Propagate Content and Valhalla Entertainment as well as the HHMI series I Contain Multitudes for PBS Digital. He won an Emmy for Best Science and Technology film in 2017 for A Year in Space and for Best Investigative Documentary in 2009 for Gorilla Murders.

Aaron has been working in the audio industry for nearly 25 years. He started as a musician and recording engineer in the studios of New York City. He has worked with a diverse group of musical artists including, Mos Def, Pharcyde and Shawn Colvin. For the past 13 years, he has been composing music for TV, film and digital media with Trailblazer Studios in North Carolina. Recent credits include music composition for Emmy Award winning PBS series Twice Born and two short films for TED Science and Wonder. Other credits include scores for Discovery, HBO, NatGeo, and Amazon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE IN AMERICA is a series of 16 animated, musical shorts that reveal the history of race in America - from the 17th century to the 21st. What color are you? Maybe the most important question in American history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The National Monument Audit, produced by Monument Lab in partnership with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, assesses the current monument landscape across the United States.

# data[].attributes.headline
This Critical Race Theory Panic Is a Chip Off the Old Block

# data[].attributes.subject
This Critical Race Theory Panic Is a Chip Off the Old Block

# data[].attributes.body
"How 20th-century curriculum controversies foreshadowed this summer’s wave of legislation." Slate (June 2021).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This summer's spate of state-level bills aimed at censoring the content of history teaching in public school classrooms-bills that have made much of the supposed double threat of "critical race theory" and the New York Times' 1619 Project-might seem somewhat random. But in fact, conservative attacks like these on humanities curricula that discuss race and racism in the United States follow a long-established pattern.

First, right-wing fears are always more about a vague idea of the content of such curricula than about classroom realities. (In Indiana, suburban parents have been "angered" by the supposed presence of critical race theory, or CRT-typically a graduate-level elective offered to law students-in their schools, despite the fact that their schools do not teach it.) Second, because activists on the right view the schools as the grease that makes slopes slippery, they tend to use school curricula to talk about a host of related social issues. (Anti-CRT activists lump together everything they don't like, from Marxism to Black Lives Matter to progressive education, and call it CRT.) And third, these battles have always been waged over the stories that get told about the American past, present, and future. In that sense, the angry right wing is correct: The stakes couldn't be higher.

Earlier battles over curriculum provided the template for today's anti-CRT, anti-1619 Project political campaigns. In the late 1930s, for instance, activists in right-leaning patriotic groups such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion warned their fellow Americans about a subversive set of textbooks. The fact that the textbooks written by Columbia professor Harold Rugg were widely popular and had been used for years in schools across America did not matter. The books, conservatives warned, represented an attempt by "radical and communistic textbook writers" to turn American children against America.

In reality, the books intended no such thing. Their lead author, Harold Rugg, an engineer turned professor of pedagogy whose intellectual roots lay in the Progressive education movement of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, took pains to categorically deny his participation in any communist or socialist movement. His vision of a good education, Rugg explained, consisted of "young people confronting social conditions and issues squarely and digging to the very roots of our changing culture." Rugg hoped his books would lead students to think critically about the most difficult questions in American history, including racism and inequality. In his teachers' guides, Rugg encouraged teachers always to ask students, "What do you think?"

Rugg published a series of historical textbooks that encouraged students to confront the country's chronic problems of racism and class conflict-problems that loomed large in the collective consciousness during the Depression years, a time of great national stress. In Culture and Education in America (1931), Rugg denounced the "exploitative tradition" in American society. In a middle school textbook, Citizenship and Civic Affairs, he taught American children about "the question of equality and classes in America." It was a harsh fact of American society and history, according to the book, that some people did not receive a fair reward for their hard work, while others got rich without much work at all. Embedded in those lessons was an idea that terrified conservatives of the 1930s. American children, they feared, would hear that U.S. history was not only a story of greatness but a story of struggle.

However, once the anti-Rugg campaign gained momentum among right-wing parents, what the books actually said mattered less than opponents' stories about them. In Binghamton, New York, for instance, the school superintendent had read the books and liked them. As he told the press in 1940, "it's the kind of book I want my children to have. To say it is subversive is absurd." But the books' reputation eclipsed all chances for reasonable debate. As one opponent declared, "I haven't read the books, but-I have heard of the author, and no good about him." To avoid "controversy," the superintendent pulled them from the district's schools. Elsewhere, school boards did more than just pull the books from their shelves. In towns from New Jersey to Wisconsin, panicked patriots lit bonfires of the books. Perhaps even worse, as historian Charles Dorn has found, other textbook writers censored themselves in order to avoid Rugg's fate. The anti-Rugg crusaders, even if they did not know much about the actual Rugg textbooks, narrowed the curriculum and steered children away from any topic that might cause similar outrage.

The pattern of conservative backlash against progressive education's approach to teaching social issues was well-established by the 1950s. Self-described patriotic groups like the American Legion and National Council for American Education warned of "unpatriotic" teachers and professors and wrung their hands about the "problem of making loyal Americans out of the boys and girls." In a number of cases, these pressure groups managed to get textbooks deemed subversive pulled from schools. These groups were among many right-wing organizations that campaigned to purify American history textbooks of supposedly subversive ideas. Concepts identified as offensive included describing segregation as a problem or, in the words of one Florida legislator, touting the "superiority of the Negro race."

In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, conservative groups predictably raged against school integration. But they also campaigned against curricula that would, in their view, upend white privilege and pride. The California far-right publication American Nationalist was typical when it warned against racially egalitarian ideas polluting white children's minds. One of its pamphlets, which featured a photograph of a young white girl dancing with a Black classmate in Chicago, countered arguments, common among midcentury liberals, that children's supposedly "natural" lack of hierarchical consciousness around race meant that teachers and curricula had the power to intervene to encourage a new way of thinking in the next generation. This youthful absence of prejudice, the writers argued, proved nothing. "It is true, of course," the pamphlet explained, "that young children normally display no race consciousness until so taught by their parents, but it is also true that they have no sense of honesty, modesty, or even hygiene."

By the 1970s, backlash against supposedly progressive curriculums had ossified into predictable outcries about unpatriotic content, which often meant targeting material that dignified Black voices. Even if conservative complaints were rote, their activism was literally explosive. In Kanawha County, West Virginia, in 1974, white parents reacted with violent rage to false rumors about the contents of popular textbooks. In this case, a new series of English language arts textbooks had been approved by the state. One school board member, Alice Moore, warned that the books were full of anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-white propaganda and indoctrination.

These warnings stoked a fire that had been smoldering for decades. For weeks at the start of the 1974-75 school year, outraged parents boycotted the schools and their "dirty books." Protesters shot and vandalized school buses. They threw firebombs into empty school buildings. They exploded a dynamite bomb at the school district headquarters. Their fury, once again, was only loosely connected to reality. In this case, protesters had circulated flyers at the picket lines, warning that the books were sexually graphic. Opponents also objected to the inclusion of excerpts of work by Black authors such as Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson. By doing so, the textbooks-one conservative parent told a school board meeting-reduced the English language to "the language of the ghetto."

Outraged white parents took to the streets to defend their children from exposure to such words and ideas. The supposed excerpts about sex were nowhere to be found in the actual textbooks under review. Still, protest leaders such as Alice Moore defended their opposition to Black authors. They were tired-as Moore said-of being called "racist" merely for "insist[ing] on the traditional teaching of English." When it came to conservative outrage, the actual content of the books did not matter. As one boycott leader explained, "You don't have to read the textbooks. If you've read anything that the radicals have been putting out in the last few years, that was what was in the textbooks."

In addition to the immediate violence and destruction of the boycott, the Kanawha County campaign led to familiar long-term damage. Teachers censored themselves. As one teacher remembered, she and her colleagues were terrified by all the "chaos." Another teacher remembered checking with her principal before she taught a lesson in biology class about the asexual reproduction of mollusks. She did not want to be accused of warping young minds about sex. Teachers stopped teaching books such as 1984 and Brave New World, on the off chance that someone might find them too controversial.

1. How Two Vanished Paperboys Changed the Face of the "Missing Kid" Forever

2. One Year: Slate's New Podcast Starts in 1977

3. The 20th-Century Rise of the Confederate Soybean

4. The Iraqis Who Survived America's Shock and Awe

Today's backlash against the alleged teaching of critical race theory in America's schools, like these earlier flare-ups over humanities curricula, holds the same potential to curb honest reckonings with the American past and present. As with prior reactionary movements, opponents of CRT maintain that American history is not meant to be merely another set of facts for children to learn. Instead, history must be a well of inspiration, a pure source of greatness from the past. From this perspective, CRT is any dangerous drop of doubt that will contaminate comforting white fantasies about America's past, present, and future.

Classes in subjects that include the history of race and racism might be banned or canceled, due to the chilling effect of the backlash;some schools have already gone there. Even worse, teachers and students may resort to a stultifying self-censorship, avoiding topics that are vitally important precisely because they help students understand the true contours of America's troubled history. It's impossible to face history if teachers are always looking over their shoulders. And for those cynically leading the charge against CRT, that's precisely the point.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Past Panics Over Textbooks Set the Stage for the "Critical Race Theory" Freakout

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This summer's spate of state-level bills aimed at censoring the content of history teaching in public school classrooms-bills that have made much of the supposed double threat of "critical race theory" and the New York Times' 1619 Project-might seem somewhat random.

# data[].attributes.headline
How centuries of racist images came down in one year. A visual guide

# data[].attributes.subject
How centuries of racist images came down in one year. A visual guide

# data[].attributes.body
The Guardian (May 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How centuries of racist images came down in one year - a visual guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd's death forced leaders to reexamine the images in our everyday lives - in the US and beyond

# data[].attributes.headline
The fight to whitewash US history: ‘A drop of poison is all you need’ 

# data[].attributes.subject
The fight to whitewash US history: ‘A drop of poison is all you need’ 

# data[].attributes.body
The Guardian (May 2021)
See also this article from Slate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
n 25 May 2020, a man died after a "medical incident during police interaction" in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The man was suspected of forgery and "believed to be in his 40s". He "physically resisted officers" and, after being handcuffed, "appeared to be suffering medical distress". He was taken to the hospital "where he died a short time later".

It is not difficult to imagine a version of reality where this, the first police account of George Floyd's brutal death beneath the knee of an implacable police officer, remained the official narrative of what took place in Minneapolis one year ago. That version of reality unfolds every day. Police lies are accepted and endorsed by the press; press accounts are accepted and believed by the public.

That something else happened - that it is now possible for a news organization to say without caveat or qualification that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd - required herculean effort and extraordinary bravery on the part of millions of people.

The laborious project of establishing truth in the face of official lies is one that Americans embraced during the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, whether it was individuals speaking out about their experiences of racism at work, or institutions acknowledging their own complicity in racial injustice. For a time, it seemed that America was finally ready to tell a more honest, nuanced story of itself, one that acknowledged the blood at the root.

Protesters march after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photograph: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

But alongside this reassessment, another American tradition re-emerged: a reactionary movement bent on reasserting a whitewashed American myth. These reactionary forces have taken aim at efforts to tell an honest version of American history and speak openly about racism by proposing laws in statehouses across the country that would ban the teaching of " critical race theory", the New York Times's 1619 Project, and, euphemistically, " divisive concepts ".

The movement is characterized by a childish insistence that children should be taught a false version of the founding of the United States that better resembles a mythic virgin birth than the bloody, painful reality. It would shred the constitution's first amendment in order to defend the honor of those who drafted its three-fifths clause.

"When you start re-examining the founding myth in light of evidence that's been discovered in the last 20 years by historians, then that starts to make people doubt the founding myth," said Christopher S Parker, a professor of political science at the University of Washington who studies reactionary movements. "There's no room for racism in this myth. Anything that threatens to interrogate the myth is seen as a threat."

Legislation seeking to limit how teachers talk about race has been considered by at least 15 states, according to an analysis by Education Week.

In Idaho, Governor Brad Little signed into law a measure banning public schools from teaching critical race theory, which it claimed will "exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the wellbeing of the state of Idaho and its citizens". The state's lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, also established a taskforce to "examine indoctrination in Idaho education and to protect our young people from the scourge of critical race theory, socialism, communism, and Marxism".

In Tennessee, the legislature has approved a bill that would bar public schools from using instructional materials that promote certain concepts, including the idea that, "This state or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist."

The Texas house of representatives has passed a flurry of legislation related to teaching history, including a bill that would ban any course that would "require an understanding of the 1619 Project" and a bill that would establish an "1836 Project" (a reference to the date of the founding of the Republic of Texas) to "promote patriotic education".

Representative Ted Budd speaks about banning federal funding for the teaching of critical race theory. Photograph: Michael Brochstein/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, in April came out in opposition to a small federal grant program (just $5.25m out of the department of education's $73.5bn budget) supporting American history and civics education projects that, among other criteria, "incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives".

"Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense," McConnell wrote in a letter to the secretary of education, Miguel Cardona. "Voters did not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil."

Unsurprisingly, McConnell left out a few pertinent adjectives.

"Whose children are we talking about?" asked LaGarrett King, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Education who has developed a new framework for teaching Black history. "Black parents talk to their kids about racism. Asian American parents talk to their kids about racism. Just say that you don't want white kids to learn about racism."

"If we understand the systemic nature of racism, then that will help us really understand our society, and hopefully improve it," King added. "Laws like this - it's simply that people do not want to improve society. History is about power, and these people want to continue in a system that they have enjoyed."

While diversity training and the 1619 Project have been major targets, critical race theory has more recently become the watchword of the moral panic. Developed by Black legal scholars at Harvard in the 1980s, critical race theory is a mode of thinking that examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law.

Black parents talk to their kids about racism. Asian American parents talk to their parents about racism. Just say that you don't want white kids to learn about racism.

LaGarrett King

"Its effectiveness created a backlash," said Keffrelyn D Brown, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Education who argues that critical race theory does have a place in classrooms. Brown said that she believes students should learn about racism in school, but that teachers need tools and frameworks to make those discussions productive.

"If we are teaching this, we need to think about racism as just as robust a content area as if we were talking about discrete mathematics or the life cycle," Brown said. "I find that critical race theory provides a really elegant and clear way for students to understand racism from an informed perspective."

Multiple states are trying to ban schools from teaching the 1619 Project. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/The Guardian

But in the hands of the American right, critical race theory has morphed into an existential threat. In early January, just five days after rightwing rioters had stormed the US Capitol, the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing thinktank with close ties to the Trump administration, hosted a panel discussion about the threat of "the new intolerance" and its "grip on America".

"Critical race theory is the complete rejection of the best ideas of the American founding. This is some dangerous, dangerous philosophical poisoning in the blood stream," said Angela Sailor, a VP of the Heritage Foundation's Feulner Institute and the moderator of the event.

"The rigid persistence with which believers apply this theory has made critical race theory a constant daily presence in the lives of hundreds of millions of people," she added, in an assessment that will probably come as a surprise to hundreds of millions of people.

The Heritage Foundation has been one of the top campaigners against critical race theory, alongside the Manhattan Institute, another conservative thinktank known for promoting the "broken windows" theory of policing.

Bridging the two groups is Christopher Rufo, a documentary film-maker who has become the leading spokesperson against critical race theory on television and on Twitter. As a visiting fellow at Heritage, he produced a report arguing that critical race theory makes inequality worse, and in April the Manhattan Institute appointed him the director of a new "Initiative on Critical Race Theory". (Rufo is also affiliated with another rightwing thinktank, the Discovery Institute, which is best known for its repeated attempts to smuggle Christian theology into US public schools under the guise of the pseudoscientific "intelligent design".)

A host of new organizations has also sprung up to spread the fear of critical race theory far and wide. The Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (Fair) launched recently with an advisory board composed of anti-"woke" media figures and academics. The group is so far encouraging opposition to the grant program McConnell opposed and has highlighted a legal challenge to a debt relief program for Black farmers as a " profile in courage ".

Those who take the Fair " pledge " can also join a message board where members discuss their activism against critical race theory in schools and access resources such as the guide, How to Talk to a Critical Theorist, which begins, "In many ways, Critical Theorists (or specifically Critical Race Theorists) are just like anyone."

Demonstrators protest critical race theory in front of the Los Alamitos unified school district in California.

Demonstrators protest critical race theory in front of the Los Alamitos unified school district in California. Photos: EPA/ Étienne Laurent

Parents Defending Education, another new organization, encourages parents to " expose" what's happening in their schools and offers step-by-step instructions for parents to set up " Woke at X " Instagram accounts to document excessive "wokeness" at their children's schools.

A new website, What Are They Learning, was set up by the Daily Caller reporter Luke Rosiak to serve as a "woke-e-leaks" for parents to report incidents of teachers mentioning racism in school. "In deep-red, 78% white Indiana, state department of education tells teachers to Talk about Race in the Classroom, cites Ibram X Kendi," reads one such report. (The actual document submitted is, in fact, titled Talk ing about Race in the Classroom and appears to be a copy of a webinar offering teachers advice on discussing last year's Black Lives Matter protests with their students.)

Such initiatives and others - the Educational Liberty Alliance, Critical Race Training in Education, No Left Turn in Education - have received enthusiastic support from the rightwing media, with the New York Post, Daily Caller, Federalist and Fox News serving up a steady stream of outrage fodder about the threat of critical race theory. Since 5 June, Fox News has mentioned "critical race theory" by name in 150 broadcasts, the Atlantic found.

For some of these groups, critical race theory is just one of many "liberal" ideas they don't want their children to learn. No Left Turn in Education also complains about comprehensive sex education and includes a link on its website to an article suggesting that teaching children about the climate crisis is a form of indoctrination.

It's not enough to be balanced; it's not adequate to say that we balance out criticism of the past with praise of the past. The idea is that a drop of poison is all you need to ruin the well

For others, it seems possible that attacking critical race theory is just a smokescreen for a bog standard conservative agenda. (Toward the end of the Heritage Foundation's January panel, the group's director of its center for education policy told viewers that the "most important" way to fight critical race theory was to support "school choice", a longstanding policy goal of the right.)

Whatever their motives, today's reactionaries are picking up the mantle of generations of Americans who have fought to ensure that white children are taught a version of America's past that is more hagiographic than historic. The echoes are so strong that Adam Laats, a Binghamton University professor who studies the history of education in the US, remarked, "It's confusing which decade we're in."

In the 1920s and 1930s, reactionaries objected to textbooks that gave credence to the progressive historian Charles Beard's argument that the founders' motives were not strictly principled, but instead were influenced by economic self-interest, according to Seth Cotlar, a history professor at Willamette University.

In 1923, an Oregon state government controlled by members of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan enacted a law that banned the use of any textbook in schools that "speaks slightingly of the founders of the republic, or of the men who preserved the union, or which belittles or undervalues their work". And in the 1930s, conservatives waged what Laats called a "frenzied campaign" against the textbooks of Harold Rugg, another progressive historian, that actually resulted in a book burning in Bradner, Ohio.

For those supporting the resurgent Klan, "To speak ill of a founder was akin to a kind of sacrilege," said Cotlar.

Another battle over textbooks flared in the 1990s when Lynne Cheney launched a high-profile campaign against an effort to introduce new standards for teaching US history, which she found insufficiently "celebratory" and lacking "a tone of affirmation". Harriet Tubman, the KKK, and McCarthyism all received too much attention, Cheney complained, and George Washington and Robert E Lee not enough.

The decades change; the fixation on maintaining a false idea of historic figures as pure founts of virtue remains. Today, the single contention in the 1619 Project that has drawn the most vociferous outrage is author Nikole Hannah-Jones's assertion that "one of the primary reasons" colonists fought for independence was to preserve the institution of slavery. Hannah-Jones was denied tenure by the University of North Carolina's board of trustees, which overruled the dean, faculty and university, reportedly due to political pressure from conservative critics of the 1619 Project.

"Underlying this is the never-solved dilemma about what history class is supposed to do," said Laats. "For some people it's supposed to be a pep talk before the game, a well of pure inspiration for young people, and I think that is why the danger seems so intense to conservatives.

"It's not enough to be balanced; it's not adequate to say that we balance out criticism of the past with praise of the past. The idea is that a drop of poison is all you need to ruin the well."

Black Lives Matter protesters march in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Still, the fact that reactionaries are looking to legislate against certain ideas may be a sign of just how weak their own position is.

Laats suspects that the right is using "critical race theory" as a euphemism. "You can't go to a school board and say you want to ban the idea that Black Lives Matter.

"They've given up on arguing in favor of indoctrination and instead say that critical race theory is the actual indoctrination," he said of the conservative movement. "They've given up on arguing in favor of racism to say that critical race theory is the real racism. This campaign against the teaching of critical race theory is scary, and it's a sign of great strength, but it's strength in favor of an idea that's already lost."

Or at least, so we hope.

Last week I called Paweł Machcewicz, a Polish historian who has been at the center of a battle in his own country between those who want to tell the truth about the past, and those who want to weaponize history for political purposes. Machcewicz was one of the historians who uncovered evidence of Polish complicity in Nazi war crimes, and as the founding director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, he attempted to provide an accurate account of Poland's experience in the war. The far-right ruling party, Law and Justice, deemed the museum insufficiently patriotic and fired him. The next year, the government passed legislation to outlaw accusing Poland of complicity in Nazi war crimes.

"Democracy turned out to be very fragile," Machcewicz said. "I knew history was important for Law and Justice, but it became a sort of obsession. I never thought that as a founding director of a museum of the second world war, I would become a public enemy."

"You never know what price you have to pay for independent history," he added. "I don't think it will ever go as far in the US as Poland, but some years ago, I also felt quite secure in my country."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The fight to whitewash US history: 'A drop of poison is all you need'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At least 15 states are trying to ban schools from teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. The reactionary movement stretches back to the 1920s and the KKK

# data[].attributes.headline
Race, islamophobie, intersectionnalité : ces mots qui restent tabous en France

# data[].attributes.subject
Race, islamophobie, intersectionnalité : ces mots qui restent tabous en France

# data[].attributes.body
France Culture (février 2019).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
L'incident a duré quelques jours, mi-février, sur Facebook. Impossible de viraliser le dossier que la revue Mouvements venait de mettre en ligne, consacré à l'intersectionnalité, cette façon de regarder les faits sociaux en combinant notamment le genre et la race aux classes sociales. "Revue des idées et des luttes", Mouvements rassemble depuis vingt ans chercheurs et chercheuses, militants et militantes et aussi des journalistes dans le but de "conjuguer le sérieux et la rigueur à un souci de réactivité aux grands débats et faits du moment" et de "montrer que les sciences sociales peuvent contester ou utilement éclairer les prises de position politique" - c'est ce que dit la profession de foi sur le site de la revue.

Le dossier censuré quelques jours avait été signalé par des usagers du réseau social. Une procédure qui permet de dénoncer un contenu dont la communauté jugerait qu'il fait entorse aux bonnes pratiques (ou à la loi). Dans les faits, qu'un contenu parvienne à être censuré dit quelque chose du nombre de signalements dont il a fait l'objet. Sur le papier, la procédure sert plutôt à empêcher la propagation encore plus virale de contenus qui seraient, par exemple, racistes ou diffamatoires. Pas vraiment à clouer le bec à des chercheurs en sciences sociales même s'ils ont le souci de porter la controverse. Dans le cas de Mouvements, l'accès a été rétabli en quelques jours vers le dossier incriminé que vous pouvez retrouver par ici, et qui consiste en fait en cinq articles et une introduction, signés de onze chercheurs en sciences sociales reconnus pour leur travail académique.

Ces contributions s'intitulent par exemple :

On n'est pas, dans cette histoire, dans le registre du fanzine blasphématoire et iconoclaste, mais dans celui d'un débat intellectuel nourri, quoique sensible. Car cette brève tentative de censure souligne l'intensité de la controverse autour de l'intersectionnalité, et plus particulièrement, de la question de la race dans les sciences sociales.

La classe aveugle et la race amnésique ?

Le mot "intersectionnalité" est lui-même encore assez méconnu en France. Angela Davis, qui en fut un des premiers visages célèbres, reste ainsi bien plus visible, de ce côté-ci de l'Atlantique, pour son activisme afro-américain que pour son engagement marxiste voire son féminisme. Avant la lettre, elle-même articulait pourtant explicitement les trois dimensions dès les années 70, et par exemple dans Les Après-midis de France Culture enregistrés le 16 mai 1975, alors qu'Angela Davis était de passage à Paris :

Une part non négligeable des vieux procès qu'on fait à l'intersectionnalité tient au fond à sa méconnaissance. Parmi ce qui explique aujourd'hui sa charge polémique, lui est reproché de promouvoir une vision du monde communautariste, de figer les trajectoires et les rapports sociaux dans les filets de l'identité.

Le concept a pourtant trente ans maintenant, puisqu'il remonte à un article de 1989 de Kimberley Crenshaw, une juriste américaine, noire, qui s'inscrit dans le mouvement du black feminism aux Etats-Unis. Professeure de droit à UCLA, et à Columbia University, Crenshaw endosse dans cet article de 1989 une approche critique de la lutte traditionnelle contre les discriminations. Elle entend montrer en quoi les femmes noires sont au fond au moins deux fois victimes (en tant que noires, et en tant que femmes), et peinent à faire reconnaître par la justice les multiples discriminations à l'emploi qu'elles subissent, et qui parfois se renforcent (parce que noires et parce que femmes).

A l'origine, c'est ce point aveugle du droit que vise l'intersectionnalité. Aujourd'hui, il recoupe largement l'idée de ce qu'on appelle "la convergence des luttes" dans le champ militant, en vantant une approche plurielle de la domination pour dire que les discriminations sont multiples, et qu'elles peuvent tenir ensemble (mais pas toujours) le genre, la classe sociale, la race, ou encore l'orientation sexuelle, la religion ou le handicap.

Importation à assimilation lente

En France, la réception de ce concept d'intersectionnalité n'a été ni immédiate, ni fluide. Historiquement, ce sont plutôt les chercheurs qui travaillaient sur le genre qui ont poussé cette approche dans la sphère académique. On peut faire remonter cela au milieu des années 2000, alors que le contexte en Europe était plutôt à la sexualisation des questions raciales, et qu'en France on n'avait pas encore fini de métaboliser l'approche néo-féministe d'une Judith Butler.

Il y a onze ans, Elsa Dorlin, maîtresse de conférences en philosophie, publiait (à L'Harmattan) Black feminism : anthologie du féminisme africain-américain, 1975-2000. Puis, moins d'un an plus tard, Sexe, race, classe, pour une épistémologie de la domination (aux Puf), un recueil collectif de textes qui invitaient à repenser la lutte féministe, notamment au prisme de la race. La toute première occurrence du terme "intersectionnalité" dans les archives radiophoniques remonte à cette publication-là, avec Elsa Dorlin, invitée dansLa Suite dans les idées le 26 décembre 2009 sur France Culture :

Si Elsa Dorlin est présentée ce jour-là comme "spécialiste du féminisme et des identités sexuelles", la page consacrée à l'ouvrage collectif sur le site des Puf articule bien le genre à la classe et à la race - et ne fait pas l'impasse sur les dilemmes méthodologiques et intellectuels que cette articulation peut charrier :

La question cruciale de l'articulation du sexisme et du racisme, notamment, a ainsi renouvelé tout autant l'agenda des mouvements féministes que la recherche universitaire. Cet ouvrage a pour but d'interroger les différents outils critiques pour penser l'articulation des rapports de pouvoir. Tout en interrogeant leur mode propre de catégorisation (les catégories de "sexe" et de "race" ont-elles méthodologiquement le même statut que la classe ? À quelles conditions utiliser la catégorie de "race" comme une catégorie d'analyse ? L'analyse en termes de classe a-t-elle été éclipsée par l'analyse croisée du sexisme et du racisme, après les avoir longtemps occultés ?...) cet ouvrage discute les différents modes de conceptualisation de ce que l'on pourrait appeler "l'hydre de la domination" : analogique, arithmétique, géométrique, généalogique.

Dix ans plus tard, le dossier que publie Mouvements sous le titre "Intersectionnalité"s'inscrit dans le prolongement d'une controverse intellectuelle qui n'a cessé d'aller crescendo - au point de fracturer la communauté académique. Car cette tentative de censure de Mouvements sur Facebook ne dit pas rien de la charge taboue de l'intersectionnalité en France. Trente ans après l'article fondateur de Crenshaw, qui était justement de passage à la Sorbonne, à Paris, ce mois de janvier 2019, ce n'est pas tant la question du genre qui est la plus taboue (même si elle mobilise différemment les chercheurs en sciences sociales), mais plutôt celle de la race. Qui s'affronte pour de bon à toute une tradition française, intellectuelle mais aussi politique.

Le dossier "Intersectionnalité" de Mouvements est en réalité une réponse. Il s'inscrit à la suite de plusieurs années d'affrontements plus ou moins mouchetés dans le champ académique - dans des colloques ou en marge de soutenances de thèse, par communications interposées ou dans les arcanes de l'édition. Et l'un des derniers épisodes de cette série de passes d'armes s'incarne dans un texte que l'historien Gérard Noiriel a posté sur le blog qu'il a ouvert à l'automne 2018, et qui jouit déjà d'une belle notoriété sur les réseaux sociaux. "L'accueil enthousiaste de ce texte auprès de certain.e.s chercheur.e.s en sciences sociales nous a étonné.e.s et interpellé.e.s. En tant que chercheur.e.s travaillant sur ces questions, il nous était difficile de rester silencieux/euses", écrivent Abdellali Hajjat et Silyane Larcher dans leur introduction au dossier de Mouvements.

Un malaise qui penche à gauche

Gérard Noiriel est pourtant loin de passer pour l'historien le plus réactionnaire du champ universitaire. Il est l'un des fondateurs de la socio-histoire en France, et son dernier livre Une histoire populaire de la France (jumeau au catalogue Agone du classique d'Howard Zinn de 1980, Histoire populaire des Etats-Unis), a par exemple été largement médiatisé à la faveur de la mobilisation des "gilets jaunes". Notamment parce que Noiriel réinscrit la colère actuelle des classes populaires dans le temps long d'une domination économique, sociale, et politique qui avait été en partie mise sous le tapis.

Mais il a aussi été un pilier en France de l'histoire de l'immigration, figure scientifique centrale au moment de la création du premier Musée de l'histoire de l'immigration dans l'ancien palais colonial de la Porte dorée à Paris... jusqu'à en claquer la porte le 31 mai 2007, pour protester contre la création d'un ministère de " l'immigration et de l'identité nationale ".

Ce jour-là, trois semaines après l'élection de Nicolas Sarkozy, ils sont huit universitaires à démissionner après avoir participé, pendant quatre ans, à la préparation du projet scientifique du musée qui s'élaborait comme "un nouveau lieu de l'histoire de France" depuis 2002 et Jean-Marie Le Pen au second tour de l'élection présidentielle. Parmi les démissionnaires, Gérard Noiriel, Patrick Weil, et aussi Patrick Simon, démographe à l'INED, reconnu pour ses travaux sur les discriminations... et aujourd'hui l'une des figures de la revue Mouvements. Ce n'est pas un détail mondain, une bataille de noms (ou d'égos) encapsulée dans un petit microcosme universitaire : ça raconte dix ans au cours desquels un fossé s'est creusé au sein des sciences sociales, y compris chez des chercheurs qui ont en commun d'être plutôt classés à gauche.

Ce fossé est scientifique, épistémologique, il est sans doute aussi politique et peut en partie témoigner, depuis la communauté universitaire, d'un malaise qui va s'épaississant, à gauche. Et pour lequel le concept d'intersectionnalité fait un peu office de thermomètre - y compris dans ce que dit sa difficulté à s'imposer.

En dénonçant les points aveugles d'un féminisme marxiste à la française tel qu'il s'était installé dans les années 70, les tenants de l'intersectionnalité se sont d'abord heurtés à une partie des réseaux militants féministes - endossant par exemple le slogan du black feminism, " Toutes les femmes sont blanches, tous les Noirs sont hommes, mais nous sommes quelques-unes à être courageuses" .

Ils s'affrontent aujourd'hui à ceux qui se réclament notamment de l'universalisme républicain, ce modèle français dont s'étonnaient deux figures de la pensée intersectionnelle américaine, Laura Frader et Joan Scott, en 2004, date de leur passage à France Culture dans La Fabrique de l'histoire :

1947 : Simone Veil et "la race juive"

Contrairement aux Etats-Unis d'où viennent Scott et Frader, la tradition française républicaine se veut aveugle à la race et à la couleur, et ça explique en partie les résistances à l'intersectionnalité. Qui se doublent souvent d'une réticence très concrète, sur le terrain, chez des militants, à faire cortège commun pour manifester, au nom de la convergence des luttes, aux côtés de féministes musulmanes et voilées, de militantes lesbiennes, gays ou queer, de gardiens du temple marxistes, ou encore avec des collectifs de lutte contre l'islamophobie. Dire "race" fait souvent sursauter dans la France de 2019. Ce n'est pas nouveau mais ça n'a pas été aussi constant qu'on l'entend dire parfois : ainsi, on trouve dans les archives radiophoniques cette émission Réponses à tout de mars 1947 qui s'intitulait "Le racisme". On pouvait y entendre Simone Veil, âgée de 20 ans, raconter devant les députés à l'Assemblée nationale "les différences dans la race juive" suite à son expérience concentrationnaire. Au perchoir, on la présente comme "déportée raciale" et le mot "race" rebondit sans faire frémir tout au long de l'émission :

Dans le champ académique, l'intersectionnalité ne s'oppose pas seulement à cette tradition républicaine universaliste qui s'est imposée avec d'autant plus de souffle que le Troisième Reich avait pratiqué la sélection raciale avec la complicité de l'Etat français à Vichy. L'approche intersectionnelle se heurte aussi aujourd'hui à la question d'une concurrence des objets de recherche. Pour faire court, la question est de savoir si la race ne joue pas contre la classe.

Le 29 octobre 2018, Gérard Noiriel a ainsi repris sur son blog une idée qu'il développait déjà dans son Histoire populaire de la France où il écrivait :

La crise du mouvement ouvrier a considérablement affaibli les luttes sociales au profit des conflits identitaires. Le projet d'écrire une histoire populaire du point de vue des vaincus a été accaparé par les porte-parole des minorités (religieuses, raciales, sexuelles) pour alimenter des histoires féministes, multiculturalistes ou postcoloniales, qui ont contribué à marginaliser l'histoire des classes populaires.

Le gros sel de la domination

Compte tenu de l'ensemble de ses travaux depuis plus de quarante ans, il y aurait quelque chose d'un peu aberrant à résumer au gros sel (dans la plaie) Gérard Noiriel comme un chercheur suprémaciste blanc. Et l'historien est loin d'être le seul à endosser cette lecture critique des travaux au prisme de la race. Il fait partie de ces intellectuels qui déplorent depuis plusieurs années déjà l'affaiblissement du concept de "classe sociale" et cette marginalisation des classes populaires dans les médias, dans les programmes scolaires, et donc, aussi, dans les sciences sociales elles-mêmes. Et finalement, l'effacement progressif de l'idée d'une société divisée par classes, qui porte au fond en elle l'idée que ceux qui ont plus de pouvoir, de richesse, de capacité à se faire entendre, dominent ceux qui sont au bas de l'échelle sociale.

Cet effacement, qui coïncide avec la dévalorisation du marxisme sur la scène politique, a bien une réalité tangible, quantifiable et irréfutable. Ainsi en octobre 2018, un précédent article intitulé "Classes sociales, un concept en voie de disparition", citait sur franceculture.fr les travaux d'Alexis Spire et Emmanuel Pierru, qui datent précisément à 1984 le " déclin très net" des termes " classe sociale" ou " classe ouvrière" si l'on passe au peigne fin l'ensemble des références au catalogue de la Bibliothèque nationale. Trente-cinq ans plus tard, on peut lier ce recul, bien réel, de la lecture en termes de classes sociales au mépris de classe sans filtre et sans vergogne qu'on peut palper un peu partout aujourd'hui.

La question de savoir si c'est la race qui a dévitalisé la lutte des classes (et si, au fond, la classe devrait primer sur la race ou le genre) est loin d'être tranchée, qu'on regarde la controverse depuis l'université ou du côté de la sphère militante. Mais sur son blog comme dans son Histoire populaire de la France, Gérard Noiriel va plus loin - et c'est ce que lui reprochent aujourd'hui ses détracteurs.

Il ne s'en tient pas à déplorer la marginalisation des classes populaires. Il accuse en fait les chercheurs qui travaillent sur le genre ou la race d'avoir raflé la mise. Dans le même texte, l'historien écrit un peu plus loin :

Il suffit de consulter la bibliographie des articles et ouvrages publiés en histoire ces dernières années ou de regarder les recrutements sur des postes universitaires pour être convaincu [que] des histoires féministes, multiculturalistes ou postcoloniales, ont contribué à marginaliser l'histoire des classes populaires.

Dans un des articles du dossier de Mouvements, Inès Bouzelmat a cherché à lui répondre à travers une approche sociologique fine et ce qu'on appelle, dans le jargon sociologique, "une analyse des correspondances multiples" (pour faire court, une modélisation cartographique héritée de Pierre Bourdieu, qui croise le quantitatif et le qualitatif). En regardant à la fois les publications, les postes, la visibilité des uns et des autres, ou encore de nombreuses autres variables, et en citant anonymement des entretiens menés auprès de plus de cent de ses collègues à l'approche intersectionnelle, la chercheuse entend montrer que "les travaux sur la question minoritaire, la racialisation ou le postcolonial demeurent des domaines de "niche", largement circonscrits à des revues et des espaces académiques propres, considérés comme des objets scientifiques à la légitimité discutable et bénéficiant d'une faible audience dans le champ académique comme dans l'espace public - à l'exception de quelques productions vulgarisées." Pour elle, "les thématiques de l'intersectionnalité demeurent dominées"... tout comme les chercheurs qui s'en saisissent le sont eux aussi.

"De la question sociale à la question raciale"... et son point d'interrogation

Ce que le dossier révèle, comme du reste le blog de Gérard Noiriel, c'est que la sphère académique s'est fracturée sur la race, et que la fracture est allée s'élargissant. Eric et Didier Fassin, deux chercheurs de renom en sciences sociales, sont parmi ceux qui se sont saisis très tôt d'une approche intersectionnelle. En 2006, ils coordonnaient, à La Découverte, un ouvrage collectif intitulé De la question sociale à la question raciale ? (dont le point d'interrogation fait partie du titre).

Au sommaire de ce livre qu'on peut regarder aujourd'hui comme un moment-charnière, on trouve parmi les contributeurs :

Ce livre collectif voyait le jour quelques mois après le soulèvement de 2005 dans les quartiers populaires (on dira "les émeutes de banlieue"). Il montrait, sous forme chorale et pas monolithique, que les sciences sociales s'interrogeaient sur la manière d'envisager une réalité et une histoire qui articulaient le social, l'économique, le racial, et aussi (moins visible dans l'ouvrage), le genre.

A l'époque, Eric Fassin était venu défendre l'ouvrage sur France Culture dans La Suite dans les idées le 28 novembre 2006 :

L'approche d'Eric Fassin se distinguait déjà de celle d'un Gérard Noiriel à la sortie de De la question sociale à la question raciale ? Mais les archives témoignent encore d'un dialogue nourri sur ces questions controversées. Ainsi, le 5 février 2008, La Suite dans les idées recevait le même jour, Eric Fassin, Gérard Noiriel et Patrick Weil, venus dialoguer sur l'idée d'un modèle républicain aveugle à la couleur ou à la race :

Des programmes de colloques ou de journées d'études à la même époque montrent que l'on débattait encore des termes pour raconter la domination, sans forcément dire qui serait le plus dominé des deux, du noir discriminé ou de la mère célibataire paupérisée.

"Chercheurs minoritaires", porte-paroles et entrepreneurs d'une cause

Aujourd'hui, un livre choral comme De la question sociale à la question raciale ? serait-il possible ? Avec les mêmes chercheurs, poids-lourds de leurs domaines respectifs ? Et conserverait-il son point d'interrogation en bout de titre ? Rien n'est moins sûr.

Treize ans plus tard, plusieurs des chercheurs du livre ont poursuivi leurs travaux dans une visée intersectionnelle et n'ont rien cédé à l'approche par la race. Ils ont, entre-temps, été rejoints par d'autres, parmi lesquels ceux qui signent aujourd'hui le dossier dans Mouvements et entendent répondre spécifiquement à Gérard Noiriel. Pourquoi lui ? Notamment parce qu'il a écrit noir sur blanc que ces chercheurs-là agissent en "porte-paroles des minorités". Gérard Noiriel utilise l'expression dans son texte, mais d'autres aussi disent "chercheurs minoritaires".

Audrey Célestine, Abdellali Hajjat et Lionel Zevounou leur répondent dans l'article "Rôle des intellectuel·les, universitaires 'minoritaires', et des porte-parole des minorités" : ils refusent cette assignation, l'idée qu'ils seraient porte-paroles ou entrepreneurs d'une cause ( "un soupçon de militantisme"), et aussi ce renvoi à des origines ou à des trajectoires personnelles. Pour répondre, les trois chercheurs exhument un article de 2004 (dans la revue Hommes et migrations) dans lequel Gérard Noiriel regardait déjà des travaux comme les leurs depuis des "dispositions à la rébellion" qui seraient le fruit d'une histoire personnelle :

On oublie généralement que les dispositions pour la rébellion que l'on rencontre fréquemment dans les milieux issus de l'immigration s'expliquent par le fait qu'ils cumulent les formes les plus graves de souffrance sociale. Bien souvent ces personnes ne peuvent construire leur identité qu'en cultivant le potentiel de révolte qu'ils ont en eux. L'investissement dans l'écriture, dans la recherche, dans les activités culturelles en rapport avec l'expérience vécue peut être une façon de canaliser ce potentiel dans des formes qui soient compatibles avec le principe de la démocratie, avec le respect des biens et des personnes.

"Emotion" ? Audrey Célestine, Abdellali Hajjat et Lionel Zevounou répondent ceci :

La réduction de la professionnalisation des minoritaires dans le monde académique à une révolte non-violente pose question. Assigner leur travail scientifique à une émotion, la révolte, n'est-ce pas nier le fait que les minoritaires peuvent tout à fait être chercheur.e sans qu'ils.elles soient déterminé.e.s par une improbable disposition à la rébellion ?

Ils écrivent "les minoritaires dans le monde académique" et pas "les racisés" tandis que les mots "racisation" et "racialisation" peinent eux aussi à s'imposer, dans le langage commun comme dans la sphère intellectuelle. La preuve ? Pas la moindre occurrence, dans les archives radiophoniques, du nom de Colette Guillaumin, la chercheuse à l'origine du terme "racisation", en 1972, tandis qu'elle cherchait à affiner le concept de "racialisation", de Franz Fanon, pour décrire les mécanismes concrets, pratiques, de discriminations liées à la race (comme le rappellent Lila Belkacem, Lucia Direnberger, Karim Hammou et Zacharias Zoubir dans"Prendre au sérieux les recherches sur les rapports sociaux de race").

L'OPA des "décolonisés", cinquième colonne académique ?

Ce dossier de Mouvements est aussi à regarder depuis un contexte. L'incrédulité des auteurs à voir des collègues les renvoyer ainsi à leurs origines ou à des trajectoires personnelles, puis à faire d'eux des entrepreneurs d'une cause communautaire sous prétexte qu'ils n'auraient pas rien à voir avec une histoire de l'immigration tout en travaillant sur les discriminations raciales ou religieuses, ne flotte pas dans un air éthéré. Elle s'enracine dans plusieurs saillies de l'automne 2018, qui a vu fleurir dans la presse les accusations de communautarisme à l'université.

Le 28 novembre 2018, Le Point publiait une tribune signée par 80 intellectuels (dont les universitaires Jean-Louis Fabiani, Jean-Claude Michéa, Robert Redeker ou encore Jean-Pierre Le Goff), contre le "décolonialisme" qui, " sous couvert de lutte pour l'émancipation, réactive l'idée de " race" ".

Deux jours plus tard, c'est que Matthieu Aron dénonçait à son tour un communautarisme "décolonial" qui noyauterait la sphère académique - dans un article à charge qui mélange approche intersectionnelle, culture de l'excuse, racisme anti-blanc et chercheuses voilées. D'après l'auteur, plusieurs chercheurs en place dénonceraient (sous le sceau d'un anonymat assez commode en l'espèce) l'OPA en cours à laquelle se livreraient des chercheurs issus de l'immigration. Et plus particulièrement, des universitaires qui travaillent sur l'islam, renvoyés aux "Indigènes de la République", un collectif anti-raciste radical, anti-impérialiste et anti-sioniste, accusé de longue date de racisme ou d'antisémitisme et de collusion avec l'islamisme.

Le lien avec les chercheurs intersectionnels ? Le même vieux procès qu'on leur fait depuis maintenant une dizaine d'années : être des faux-nez de l'islamisme dans le monde académique. Car on est bien obligé de constater qu'une large part des critiques adressées à l'approche par la race tient moins à la couleur qu'à la religion - et, au fond, à l'islam.

Qu'Abdellali Hajjat (qui a soutenu en 2009 une thèse intitulée " Assimilation et naturalisation : socio-histoire d'une injonction d'Etat") soit monté au front dans Mouvements ne tient ainsi pas du hasard : en 2013, il avait déjà essuyé des procès en sorcellerie, lorsqu'il avait sorti, avec le sociologue Marwan Mohammed, le livre Islamophobie (à La Découverte). Sous-titre : "Comment les élites françaises fabriquent le "problème musulman"". A l'époque, 8 actes sur 10 répertoriés comme "islamophobes", visaient des femmes, souvent issues de milieux populaires : l'islamophobie est aussi une intersectionnalité.

Ce terme d' "islamophobie" est un néologisme controversé depuis son origine, et Vincent Geisser, le premier à le réactiver dans la période récente, avecLa Nouvelle islamophobie, paru en 2003 (déjà à La Découverte), avait lui-même été brocardé parce qu'il distinguait une singularité, parmi toutes les discriminations, qui mettait en lumière un rapport spécifique à l'islam. C'est dans la voix de Vincent Geisser, invité de 21 août 2003 sur France Culture, qu'on trouve première occurrence du mot dans l'indexation des archives radiophoniques :

Pourtant, malgré la charge dont il avait fait les frais à l'époque, Vincent Geisser n'avait pas été taxé de "chercheur minoritaire". Aldellali Hajjat et Marwan Mohammed, si.

Invités de La Grande table le 27 septembre 2013 sur France Culture, les deux auteurs répondaient ceci à ceux qui leur reprochaient (déjà) de céder au militantisme... ou (déjà) de négliger les classes sociales au bénéfice de l'islam :

Marwan Mohammed : "L'islamophobie s'articule avec un discours qui se veut progressiste. [...] Il y a toujours eu cette articulation entre le racial et le religieux sauf qu'aujourd'hui, les termes se sont modifiés. Il faut aussi envisager les catégories comme le sexe ou la classe."

Adellali Hajjat : "Nous sommes des transfuges de classes. Nous vivons dans des quartiers populaires. Tout savoir est un savoir situé. Ce n'est pas un essai, ce n'est pas un livre à thèse, nous avons voulu faire un livre à portée scientifique à partir de faits."

Cinq ans plus tard, le même Abdellali Hajjat écrit avec ses co-auteurs dans Mouvements :

Plusieurs travaux britanniques et étasuniens ont documenté l'expérience vécue par les universitaires minoritaires, marquée par les procès d'intention, les micro-agressions et les censures publiques qu'ils subissent au quotidien, leur rappelant qu'ils ne sont pas totalement à leur place ou qu'ils.elles ne sont pas des universitaires à part entière.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Race, islamophobie, intersectionnalité : ces mots qui restent tabous en France

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vénéneux et suspects, la race et le genre ont longtemps été négligés par les sciences sociales: ils subvertissaient à la fois l'universalisme républicain et la critique marxiste des inégalités. Pour mieux penser les discriminations, l'intersectionnalité les réhabilite. Au prix de vives controverses.

# data[].attributes.body
See also this article from Vox.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism

# data[].attributes.subject
A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you are coming here from my Education Week Teacher column on the importance of recruiting and retaining teachers of color, please go to New & Revised: The Best Resources For Understanding Why We Need More Teachers Of Color. I have substantially revised this list. Go to New & Revised: The Best Resources I've Used In Lessons About Race & Racism for a completely updated version. Check out this series at my Education Week Teacher column: 'It is Long Past Time to Meet the Needs of Students of Color' The Value of Diversity is the topic of this topic of my NY Times interactive for ELLs.interactive for ELLs. My latest Education Week Teacher column shares links to all my posts on race and gender challenges in education from the past five years - in one place! 'White Educators Must Sharpen Their Humility' Before They Discuss Race is the headline of the final part of a three-part series in my Ed Week Teacher column.
Issues of race and racism are critical for us to discuss and act on in our classrooms, among the teaching profession, and in society.

I've posted a number of useful related resources over the years, and I thought this would be a good time to bring them all together and to also invite readers to contribute more.

Here are my choices, so far, for inclusion in A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism:

All My "Best" Lists On Race, Racism & The Civil Rights Movement - In One Place
Banning Racism With As Much Enthusiasm As Banning Fidget Spinners The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning About The National Anthem Protests Important Advice For White Educators (& Others) New & Revised: A Collection Of Advice On Talking To Students About Race & Racism New & Revised: Resources To Help Us Predominantly White Teachers To Reflect On How Race Influences Our Work The Best Explanations For Why You Shouldn't Say "All Lives Matter" The Best Resources For Teaching About Confederate Monuments The Best Resources For Examining "Privilege" Useful Resources For Educators On #AltonSterling , #PhilandoCastile & Dallas Shootings
T he Best Posts, Articles & Lesson Plans On The Jordan Davis Tragedy & Verdict: Our "Classrooms Are Full Of Him"
The Best Resources For Lessons On Trayvon Martin The Best Commentaries On The 60th Anniversary Of Brown vs. Board Of Education How Many Of Our Students Feel This Way? (Resources On The Shooting Death of Michael Brown) The Best Resources On Ferguson For Use In The Classroom A Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Fighting Islamophobia In Schools The Best Resources For Learning & Teaching About Malcolm X Useful Resources For Teaching About Eric Garner's Death Useful Resources For Teaching About #FreddieGray Check-out The #CharlottesvilleCurriculum
Resources For Learning About #Charlottesville
Ta-Nehisi Coates On "Elegant Racism"
Quote Of The Day: "Why Are Teachers Of Color Missing In Teacher Of The Year Selection?" "Looting" In Haiti?
I've used these two videos in class:

3 Pitfalls To Avoid When Talking About Race is from NPR.

Why students need more Black and Latino teachers is by José Luis Vilson.

US teachers nowhere as diverse as their students is from The Associated Press.

America's real racism problem doesn't look like Donald Sterling is from Vox.

Text to Text | 'Huckleberry Finn' and 'In Defense of a Loaded Word' is from The New York Times Learning Network.

Race Still Matters: Why class-based affirmative action won't heal our racial disparities is from Slate.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: How To Tell If You're a Racist Like Donald Sterling is from TIME.

Paul Thomas has posted some good Toni Morrison videos on her blog.

Racism 101: Let's Talk About Diversity and Prejudice in America's Public Schoolsis from The Pacific Standard.

The 9 Most Influential Works of Scientific Racism, Ranked is from io9.

The Ultimate, Crystal-Clear Guide to What Racism Is is from GoKicker.

You may have already heard about, or read, Ta-Nehisi Coates' article in The Atlantic titled "The Case for Reparations."

It's an amazing article, and Bill Moyers just aired an interview with him about it, which I've embedded below:

In addition, Moyers posted These Eight Charts Show Why Racial Equality Is a Myth in America on his site.

You might also find The New Republic's piece, Get Ready for a National Debate About Slavery Reparations, useful.

Also, this: How To Tell Who Hasn't Read The New 'Atlantic' Cover Story, from NPR.

Slavery reparations are workable and affordable is from Vox.

Eric Holder wants to talk about 'subtle' discrimination. This is what he means. is from The Washington Post.

Does It Matter if Schools Are Racially Integrated? is from NPR.

You can be a beneficiary of racism even if you're not a racist is from Vox.

Six times victims have received reparations - including four in the US is from Vox.

Why white folks shouldn't fear reparations is from The Week.

For Black Kids in America, a Degree Is No Guarantee is from The Atlantic.

Over at Vox, Ezra Klein interviews Ta-Nehisi Coates about his article, "The Case for Reparations."

I've embedded the video below, but Vox has a nice interactive table of contents that might make it more useful - especially if you don't have an hour to watch the whole thing.

White People Think One Black Person's Success Proves Racism Is Over is from The Huffington Post.

What Is Your Race? For Millions Of Americans, A Shifting Answer is from NPR.

Are Reparations Due to African-Americans? is from The New York Times.

Q&A: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Reparations, Ignorant Journalism, and Whether He Talks to President Obama appeared in The New Republic.

If Affirmative Action Is Doomed, What's Next? is from The New York Times. Here's a commentary on that piece:

It's also not clear to me that those who oppose "race-based affirmative action" won't oppose a proxy for "race-based affirmative action."

- Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) June 17, 2014

In Landmark Decision, U.S. Patent Office Cancels Trademark For Redskins Football Team is from Think Progress.

Advocacy in the Age of Colorblindness is by Stephanie Rivera.
How Race-Studies Scholars Can Respond to Their Haters

How Racism Invented Race in America is from The Atlantic.

Dress Codes For Success is from Latino USA.

The segregation of kindergartners - by the numbers is from The Washington Post.

Why we still need affirmative action for African Americans in college admissions is from The Washington Post.

The Major Disadvantage Facing Black Students, Even In Kindergarten is from The Huffington Post.

Everyone does drugs, but only minorities are punished for it is from Vox.

Most Americans Think Racial Discrimination Doesn't Matter Much Anymore is from Mother Jones.

Here's some good advice for those of us who are not members of an ethnic minority:

The danger in being an ally in a dominant position is that others want to hear someone else's experience from you. Elevate others.

- Jose Vilson (@TheJLV) July 1, 2014

A basic flaw in the argument against affirmative action is from The Washington Post.

The Rise of Respectability Politics is from Dissent.

Why I don't hyphenate Chinese American is from TIME.

The Black and Smart blog is a must-read.

Student: My school district hires too many white teachers is from The Washington Post.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Junot Díaz on the power of culture.

The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts is from PBS.

15 Charts That Prove We're Far From Post-Racial is from The Huffington Post.

10 Quotes That Perfectly Explain Racism To People Who Claim They're Colorblind is from The Atlanta Black Star.

NEA Report: Lack of Teacher Diversity Jeopardizes Student Achievement is from NEA Today.

My son has been suspended five times. He's 3. is from The Washington Post.

On the Importance of Mirrors for Students (and Teachers) appeared in The Huffington Post.

White People Are Fine With Laws That Harm Blacks is from Slate.

Telling white people the criminal justice system is racist makes them like it more is from Vox.

White people are winning the war on whites is from The Washington Post.

War Against Whites? I Think Not is by Charles M. Blow in The NY Times.

How Boston Public Schools Can Recruit and Retain Black Male Teachers is from The Shanker Blog.

What 'War On Whites'? is from The Washington Post.
How Many Of Our Students Feel This Way? (Resources On The Shooting Death of Michael Brown)
Poverty and Race in America, Then and Now is a very useful interactive.

"Please Don't Ask Me That Question Again!" is from Black & Smart.

Why Educators Need to Step Up and Address Racial Injustice is by Melinda Anderson.

The racism of the US criminal justice system in 10 charts is from Vox.

America's Racial Divide, Charted is from The New York Times.

Ferguson, Watts and a Dream Deferred is also from The New York Times.

The black-white gap in life expectancy is narrowing - but it's still too wide is from Vox.

Gordon Parks' 1950s Photo Essay On Civil Rights-Era America Is As Relevant As Ever is from The Huffington Post.

Three quarters of whites don't have any non-white friends is from The Washington Post.

For first time, minority students expected to be majority in U.S. public schools this fall is from The Washington Post.

Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist? is by Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times.

Navajo Kindergartener Told to Cut his Hair, Sent Home on First Day of School is from Color Lines.
Teachers, T-Shirts & The Messages That They Send
When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 2 is by Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times.

White People's Obsession with Reverse Racism Three quarters of whites don't have any non-white friends is from The Washington Post.

Mapping the counties where public-school children still remain segregated is from The Washington Post.

Here's an important video:

And here's some additional information related to the video.

The New Racism is from Slate.

Negrophobia: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and America's Fear of Black People is from TIME.
What The Economist should have read before suggesting that US slavery wasn't always so bad
Racial Profiling Curriculum, Resources & Know Your Rights is from the NAACP. I'm using some of their resources here in my IB Theory of Knowledge class when we examine racial profiling.

Study finds range of skills students taught in school linked to race and class size is from Eureka Alert.

You really can get pulled over for driving while black, federal statistics show is from The Washington Post.

America's Unspoken Education Issue: Black Kids Need Black Teachers is by Melinda Anderson.

Florida Man Is Convicted of Murdering Teenager in Dispute Over Loud Music is from The New York Times. I'm also adding this to The Best Posts, Articles & Lesson Plans On The Jordan Davis Tragedy & Verdict: Our "Classrooms Are Full Of Him."

Teaching In Black and White is a great issue of Rethinking Schools.

Racial Disparity in Imprisonment Inspires White People to Be Even More Tough on Crime is from The Pacific Standard.

Can This Grassroots Movement Change the Way Teachers Think About Race? is from Take Part.

New Federal Guidelines Aim to Rid Schools of Racial Inequality is from The New York Times.

White people are more likely to deal drugs, but black people are more likely to get arrested for it is from The Washington Post.

Race, Trust, and Split-Second Judgments is from The Pacific Standard.

Why early voting is about so much more than convenience is from The Washington Post.

How college ed programs try, fail to recruit teachers of color is from The Hechinger Report.

Why teachers must reflect student diversity is from The Seattle Globalist.

A Super-Simple, Step-by-Step Guide to Determine if Your Team Mascot Is Offensive is from The New York Times.

Why White People's Awareness of Racism Isn't Enough is from The Nation.

When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 3 is by Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times.

Overthinking It: Using Food As A Racial Metaphor is from NPR.

Whites riot over pumpkins in NH and Twitter turns it into epic lesson about Ferguson is from Raw Story.

Don't tell young black males that they are 'endangered' is from The Washington Post.

Whites think discrimination against whites is a bigger problem than bias against blacks is from The Washington Post.

This is what the legacy of 'white privilege' looks like in Bill O'Reilly's hometown is from The Washington Post.

Why We Have So Many Terms For 'People Of Color' is from NPR.

Panic, Shame, and Cuffs: An Account From an Arrested Black Teacher is from Education Week.

The Economic Impact of School Suspensions is from The Atlantic.

Regarding teachers of color: Boston Public Schools system is set to lead once again is from The Hechinger Report.

When whites are guilty of colorism is from The Washington Post.

"It's symbolic annihilation of history, and it's done for a purpose. It really enforces white supremacy": Edward Baptist on the lies we tell about slavery is from Salon.

Millions of black students attend public schools that are highly segregated by race and by income is from The Urban Institute.

The N-Word is an impressive interactive from The Washington Post.

Eschew the Taboo: The pernicious effects of banning words. is an older piece by Christopher Hitchens.

Politics and the African-American Human Language appeared in The Atlantic.

Who Can Use The N-Word? That's The Wrong Question is from NPR.

Banning 'nigger' means exempting black people from a basic rule of communication - that words take on meaning from context and relationship.

- Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) November 11, 2014

Text to Text | 'Little Things Are Big' and 'Students See Many Slights as Racial 'Microaggressions' is from The New York Times Learning Network.

What Happened in Ferguson? is a New York Times interactive.

The Gospel of Rudy Giuliani: Why is no one talking about American-on-American crime? is by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Newspaper 'Erred' In Publishing Cartoon Of Immigrants Crashing Thanksgiving is from Talking Points Memo.

Why whites don't understand black segregation is from The Washington Post.

Five Charts That Show Why a Post-White America Is Already Here is from The New Republic.

High School Powder-Puff Football Team's Blackface Photo Goes Viral is from The Root.

Can White Teachers Be Taught How to Teach Our Children? is by Melinda D. Anderson.

By shifting focus, Whiteness Project aims for deeper discussion of race in America is from Current.

Dear White People: Mayor Betsy Hodges is Not in a Gang is from The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

TV station accuses mayor of 'flashing a known gang sign,' sparks '#pointergate' is from Poynter.

When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 4 is by Nicholas Kristof.

A Majority of Middle-Class Black Children Will Be Poorer as Adults is from The Pacific Standard.

Giuliani should remember America is a very different place for whites and blacks is from The Washington Post.
Very Interesting Feature At USA Today On School Diversity
A Brief History Of Racial Protest In Sports is from NPR.

When Educators Understand Race and Racism is by Melinda D. Anderson.

The Worth of Black Men, From Slavery to Ferguson is from The New York Times.

The National Education Association's statement On grand jury's decision to decline to indict police officer who killed Eric Garner.

Taking the Color Blinders Off is by Valeria Brown.

We Need Teachers of Color is from Education Week.

The White Conversation on Race is from Color Lines.

Montgomery County launches teacher diversity initiative in schools is from The Washington Post.

Teachers undo personal biases to help students of color engage is from Colorado Public Radio.

The Difficult Conversations on Race is by Leo Casey.

Schools' Discipline for Girls Differs by Race and Hue is from The New York Times.

Why White High School Drop Outs Have More Wealth Than Black College Graduates is from Demos.

The Wealth Gap Between Whites And Minorities Is Growing is from Five Thirty Eight.

How to Improve Discussion of Race in the Classroom is from The Chronicle Of Higher Education.

Where have all the black and brown teachers gone? is from The Hechinger Report.

The Perfect Response For Kids With 'Hard-To-Pronounce Ethnic' Names is from Upworthy.

New book cites slavery as cause for US wealth is a video from MSNBC.

Our Teacher Diversity Problem Is Not Just About Recruitment. It's About Retention. is from Slate.

White Kids Will Be Kids is from The Pacific Standard.

Rich countries and the minorities they discriminate against, mapped is from Quartz.

The Birth of a New Civil Rights Movement is from Politico and is very good.

How 'Selma' Diminishes Dr. King is also from Politico.

Segregation Now is from ProPublica.

'Selma' Ignores the Radical Grassroots Politics of the Civil Rights Movement is from The New Republic.

A Brutal Loss, but an Enduring Conviction is from ProPublica.

Why I Am Optimistic About the Future of Race Relations in America is by Jamelle Bouie at Slate.

Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions is from The New York Times.

Chris Rock is right: White Americans are a lot less racist than they used to be. is from The Washington Post.

School districts respond to growing fury over police shootings, black male achievement gap is from The Hechinger Report.

Teach About Mike Brown. But Don't Stop There. is from Rethinking Schools.

The Misremembering of 'I Have a Dream' is from The Nation.

A Revolution of Values: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Poor People's Campaign is from Bill Moyers.

Maureen Dowd's clueless white gaze: What's really behind the "Selma" backlash is from Salon.

Black teens who commit a few crimes go to jail as often as white teens who commit dozens is from The Washington Post.

On Racism and White Privilege is from Teaching Tolerance.

The sources of wealth is a Washington Post interactive.

A People's History of Muslims in the United States is from The Zinn Education Project.

Approaching Racial and Cultural Sensitivity is from Edutopia.

Why so many Americans still deny racism exists when the evidence is everywhere is from Vox.

The Secret History of South Asian & African American Solidarity is from NBC News.

Letter from a Region in My Mind is by James Baldwin.

America's yawning racial wealth gap, explained in 9 charts is from Vox.

Why mentors need to stop trying to fix black and brown students is by Andre Perry.

Middle-age blacks have less in their 401(k)s than young whites is from The Washington Post.

This may be the way to eliminate the biases white students don't even know they have​ is from The Washington Post.

Race and Overreaction: On the Streets and in Schools is from The Atlantic.

School = Jail: Sending the Wrong Message to Black Students is by Renee Moore.

Starbucks Wants To Talk To You About Race.But Does It Want to Talk To You About Racism? is from Medium.

Education Is Not Great Equalizer for Black Americans is from NBC News.

White Privilege, Quantified is from The Atlantic.

How white parents should talk to their young kids about race. is from Slate.

5 ways that blacks and whites are still not equals, 50 years after Selma is from The Washington Post.

"Acting white": The most insidious myth about black kids and achievement is from Vox.

Diversity Explosion: The cultural generation gap mapped is an interactive from The Brookings Institution.

4 charts that show how race makes a difference in the lives of working families is from Vox.

The Economist's chili pepper cover gets Hispanic Americans all wrong is from Vox.

No, DeAndre. It's Not Your Imagination: What the DOJ Report Tells Us about Implicit Bias and Validation is by Zaretta Hammond.

Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants? is from The Guardian.

What Is Your American Flag? is by Monita Bell.

3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive (and it's not what you think!) is by Zaretta Hammond.

Starbucks' critics are making a big mistake is by Van Jones.

What does justice sound like? A personal civil rights playlist is from Fusion.

What Selma Got Right appeared in Medium.

Why racism is not backed by science is from The Guardian.

Study: lighter-skinned black and Hispanic people look smarter to white people is from Vox.

The education-reform movement is too white to do any good is by Andre Perry.

Text to Text | 'What Would Malcolm X Think?' and 'After the Bombing' is from The New York Times Learning Network.

This chart explains why black people fear being killed by the police is from Vox.

Native American Actors Walk Off Set of Adam Sandler Movie Over Racist Jokes is from NBC News.

Teachers more likely to label black students as troublemakers, Stanford research shows is from Stanford.

Students' Race Affects How Teachers Judge Misbehavior, Study Says is from Ed Week.

This insanely detailed map proves race is a social construct is from Vox.

This is what made researchers call a paper on race and the death penalty "#BlackLivesDon'tMatter" is from Vox.
Quote Of The Day: "Nonviolence As Compliance"
Video: "First Lady Michelle Obama Commencement Speech"
Our Biased Brains is by Nicholas Kristoff at The NY Times.

Read This: "Teachers More Likely to Label Black Students as Troublemakers" is by Renee Moore.

A Teacher's Role in Fighting Racism is from Education Week.

Uncomfortable Conversations: Talking About Race In The Classroom is from NPR.

How Western media would cover Baltimore if it happened elsewhere is from The Washington Post.

A Talk To Teachers is by James Baldwin.

The most racist places in America, according to Google is from The Washington Post.

Dear White Teacher... is from Rethinking Schools.

In 10 Years, America's Classrooms Are Going To Be Much More Diverse Than They Are Now is from The Huffington Post.

Racism and Discrimination Kill-Literally is from The Pacific Standard.

The only good news about the McKinney pool party is the white kids' response to racism is from Vox.

Educate to Liberate: Build an Anti-Racist Classroom is from Edutopia.

The Flexibility of Racial Bias is from Scientific American.

Is It An 'Uprising' Or A 'Riot'? Depends On Who's Watching is from NPR.

Teaching While White is from Teaching Tolerance.

The #BlackLivesMatter Movement: Marches And Tweets For Healing is from NPR.

40 Reasons Why Our Jails Are Full of Black and Poor People is from The Huffington Post.
Statistic Of The Day: Half Of Whites See No Racism
Here are some useful stories on the Rachel Dolezal controversy:

Why Rachel Dolezal Needed To Construct Her Own Black Narrative is from BuzzFeed.

And, of course, Jon Stewart:

To understand race in the U.S. today, it's Kalief Browder's story, not Rachel Dolezal's, that really matters. is by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Some #CharlestonSyllabus Highlights Sources For Updated News On Charleston Shooting
How Educators Can Respond to Charleston is from Bright.

Attitudes Toward Racism And Inequality Are Shifting is from Five Thirty Eight.

Confronting Racial Injustice in Schools is from Ed Week.

The Dylann Roofs I Have Known is by Liz Prather at the Center For Teaching Quality.

StoryCorps unveiled a new animated video.

Here's how they describe it:
Alex Landau, an African American man, was raised by his adoptive white parents to believe that skin color didn't matter. But when Alex was pulled over by Denver police officers one night in 2009, he lost his belief in a color-blind world-and nearly lost his life. Alex tells his mother, Patsy Hathaway, what happened that night and how it affects him to this day.
Are Americans More Pessimistic About Race-or More Realistic? is from The Atlantic.

White People 101 is also from The Atlantic.

Half of Black, Latina Scientists Mistaken For Janitors, Assistants is from NBC News.

White Educators: Do You Recognize State Trooper Encinia? is from The Synapse.

Why "All Lives Matter" instead of "Black Lives Matter" is such a stupid thing to say is from Boing Boing.

Americans say racism is a bigger problem today than at any point in the past 20 years is from The Washington Post.

So You Flunked A Racism Test. Now What? is from NPR.

When Schools Are Forced to Practice Race-Based Discipline is from The Atlantic.

What Is Privilege? is from BuzzFeed.

10 Ways Well-Meaning White Teachers Bring Racism Into Our Schools is from Everyday Feminism.

What Happens When Minority Kids Are Taught Not to Talk About Race is from Slate.
Statistic Of The Day: Discrimination In Adolescence Results In Bad Health As An Adult
Color-Blindness Is Counterproductive is from The Atlantic.

Handcuffed for Making Clock, Ahmed Mohamed, 14, Wins Time With Obama is from The New York Times.

'Racial Mismatch' Changes Teacher Expectations for Students, Study Finds is from Ed Week.
Quote Of The Day: More Students Of Color Equals Less Funding For Their Schools Quote & Video Of The Day: Junot Díaz On Seth Meyers' Show
Black Workers Really Do Need to Be Twice as Good is from The Atlantic.

Racial inequality even affects how long we wait for the doctor is from The Washington Post.

This powerful video shows how racism manifests in America today is from Vox.
Video & Articles About South Carolina Policeman Violently Arresting Student - Awful!
The Racial Inequality of Sleep is from The Atlantic.

Here's a new video from The New York Times. If you go to the Times itself, you'll also find links to previous videos in their series on race, many of which are already on my Best list:

Teacher Biases Differ for Low- and High-Achieving Minority Students is from Ed Week.

Asian-American Students Launch 'Open Hands, Open Minds' to Celebrate Identity is from NBC News.

The Objectification of Muslims in America is from The Atlantic.

The Future of Native American Imagery in Sports is from The Atlantic.

The next time someone blames Islam for ISIS, show them this is from The Washington Post.

Racism is so deeply embedded in our psyche is from CNN.

Anti-Muslim Is Anti-American is from The New York Times.

Are you guilty of these 12 microaggressions? is from Mashable.

Quote Of The Day: Attorney Journal Loretta Lynch On Anti-Muslim Bullying In Schools

Growing Up in a Time of Fear: Confronting Stereotypes About Muslims and Countering Xenophobia is from The New York Times Learning Network.

When History Repeats: What Leaders Can Learn from Anti-Asian Laws in U.S. History is from NBC News.

How should schools respond to anti-Muslim actions against students? is from The Washington Post.

Why white people see black boys like Tamir Rice as older, bigger and guiltier than they really are is from The Washington Post.

Race In America: Your Stories is from The New York Times.

Understanding Implicit Bias: What Educators Should Know is from the AFT.

'Racial Mismatch' May Affect Which Students Are in Class is from Ed Week.

Schools, black children, and corporal punishment is from Brookings.

The telling way white Americans react to pictures of dark-skinned immigrants is from The Washington Post.

Morning Video: Controversial Atlanta Teacher-Student Dance Video is from Alexander Russo, who then links to a very interesting post by Christopher Emdin.

'Please-don't-riot' statements are the exact wrong response to the Tamir Rice news is from The Washington Post.

Here's a lesson plan from the Anti-Defamation League: Anti-Muslim Bigotry and Being an Ally

Questioning Payne is a good piece from Teaching Tolerance. I'm adding it to The Best Critiques Of Ruby Payne.
Video & Transcript Of President Obama's Speech At Mosque
This is what white privilege is is from The Washington Post.

An Unknown Latino Tuskegee Airman Has Been Discovered is from The Atlantic.

Creating Reparations: How Might We Nurture the Unreasonable Imagination? is from My Year of Teaching Dangerously.

Resources for Teaching Black History Month and Black History Year Round! is from Boston Public Schools. I'm also adding this to The Best Websites To Teach & Learn About African-American History.

Unpublished Black History is from The New York Times. I'm also adding it to the same list.

Civil Rights: Then and Now is from PBS. That goes to the history list, too.

The history behind Black History Month is from Vox.

3 Ways White Kids Benefit Most From Racially Diverse Schools is from Mother Jones.

This 17-year-old is a rising voice in Baltimore's Black Lives Matter movement is from The Washington Post.

Principals Share Advice on Addressing Racial Bias in Schools is from Education Week.

Here's a video about The Race Card Project:

Teacher perceptions and race is from The Brookings Institution.

The Best MuckReads on America's Troubled History With Race is from ProPublica.

This photo of Obama and a little visitor at a Black History Month celebration is remarkable is from The Washington Post.

The Black History of Housing in America: How the Dream Was Deferred is from Home Matters.

For Preservice Teachers, Lessons on Cultural Sensitivity is from Ed Week.

Threats, harassment, vandalism at mosques reach record high is from CNN.

The television series "Black-ish" had a powerful episode on police brutality and racism.

Here's one clip (you can read a short analysis of it at Vox).

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to work on Chrome, but was fine on Firefox.

Black History Isn't Just About February is from Ed Week.

Poor white kids are less likely to go to prison than rich black kids is from The Washington Post.

The Untold Stories Of Black Girls is from NPR.

Nixon official: real reason for the drug war was to criminalize black people and hippies is from Vox and is connected to the first tweet below.
Depressing Statistic Of The Day: Many White Teachers Have Low Expectations Of Black Students Statistic Of The Day: College Drop-Out Rate Of African Americans
The Lemonade Syllabus is a:
a free syllabus of hundreds of references to works that accompany and help explain Lemonade's meaning has been created and released online. New PBS News Hour Report: "Teaching 'different is okay' to combat Islamophobia in U.S. schools"
What Young Men Of Color Can Teach Us About The Achievement Gap is from NPR.

Film Club | 'A Conversation With Asian-Americans on Race' is from The New York Times Learning Network.

The disturbing racial bias in who we help when they need it most is from The Washington Post.

Text to Text | 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' and 'On the Reservation and Off, Schools See a Changing Tide' is from The New York Times Learning Network.

Can Computer Programs Be Racist And Sexist? is from NPR.

Black and white students score far apart on a new test of technology skills is from Chalkbeat.

Today's teens are more skeptical that racism will go away than teens in 1966 is from Vox.

The 'war on whites' is a myth - and an ugly one is from The Washington Post.

Naming this era of racial contradictions is from The Boston Globe.
Funny, & I Think Effective, Video On Islamophobia: Cure It With Chewing Gum!
This 'Roots Syllabus' Should Be Required Reading For All is from The Huffington Post.
Depressing Statistic Of The Day: Schools With Police Officers But No Guidance Counselors
7 findings that illustrate racial disparities in education is from The Brown Center.

White kids, rap lyrics and the question of racism is from The L.A. Times.

When Black and White Children Grow Apart is from The Atlantic.

You probably heard about actor Jesse Williams speech at the BET Awards. The L.A. Times has the video and an extraordinary annotated text version of his speech at Jesse Williams says black lives matter - we break down why his BET speech matters.

A New Argument for More Diverse Classrooms is from The Atlantic.

Want To Address Teachers' Unconscious Biases? First, Talk About Race is from State Impact Indiana.
The Physical & Psychological Impacts Of Racism
Love Has No Labels is a special project on bias in the U.S.

Want To Address Teachers' Biases? First, Talk About Race is from NPR.

Whiteness and Race, Between the Storms is from The New York Times.

Why #BlackLivesMatter in Your Classroom Too is by Cornelius Minor.

Stop Blaming Black and Brown Kids and Learn From Schools That Get Discipline Right is by Karega Rausch.

Want To Address Teachers' Unconscious Biases? First, Talk About Race is from Indiana Public Broadcasting. Thanks, Rick Wormeli.

How Black Lives Matter Activists Plan to Fix Schools is from The Atlantic.

Why some whites are waking up to racism is from The Washington Post.

Five-Minute Film Festival: Talking About Race and Stereotypes is from Edutopia.

Approaching Race in the Classroom, Actively is from Brown University.

As Nation's Students Become More Diverse, Teaching Corps Hasn't Kept Pace is from Ed Week.

A C-SPAN caller asked a black guest how to stop being prejudiced. Here's how she responded. is from The Washington Post.

Repeated experiences of racism most damaging to mental health is from Science Daily.

Reducing racial bias possible in older children, finds study is from Science Daily.

Again: we need to stop using "minority" (less-than, unspecific, often inaccurate) & "non-white" (an erasure of identity that centers white).

- Django Paris (@django_paris) September 7, 2016

Quote Of The Day: "How Kids Learn Prejudice"
The Root of Discipline Disparities is by James E. Ford.

An interview with the founders of Black Lives Matter is a very interesting new TED-Talk.You can find a transcript (which would be useful in a classroom) here.

In this video, fourth-graders "describe bad stereotypes they've heard about people who look like them."

You can read more about it in The Washington Post article, Ten-year-olds tackle 'The Lie' of demeaning stereotypes in video.

The Lie from Untitled Productions on Vimeo.

The New York Times has published a series of short and very accessible videos helping people understand implicit bias.

You see the entire series here, and I've embedded the first one below.

These are excellent for many classes, and I'll certainly be using it in my IB Theory of Knowledge classes, especially when we study perception.
"The Widening Racial Wealth Divide" Is Such An Important - & Accessible - Article We Should Be Obsessed With Racial Equity
25 Mini-Films for Exploring Race, Bias and Identity With Students is an important collection of videos and accompanying lesson plans from The New York Times Learning Network.
Read, Listen, Watch New Orleans Mayor's Speech On The Removal Of Confederate Monuments
This initial list is just the tip of the iceberg. Please contribute your ideas for additions to this list....
Video: "Ta-Nehisi Coates on words that don't belong to everyone"
How Segregation Impedes Graduation: New Research to Know is from Ed Week.

Teachers' Lower Expectations for Black Students May Become 'Self-Fulfilling Prophecies,' Study Finds is from Ed Week.
Here are links specifically related to recruiting and retaining teachers of color:
As Nation's Students Become More Diverse, Teaching Corps Hasn't Kept Pace is from Ed Week.
Quote Of The Day: "Why Are Teachers Of Color Missing In Teacher Of The Year Selection?"
Why students need more Black and Latino teachers is by José Luis Vilson.

US teachers nowhere as diverse as their students is from The Associated Press.

Student: My school district hires too many white teachers is from The Washington Post.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Junot Díaz on the power of culture.

NEA Report: Lack of Teacher Diversity Jeopardizes Student Achievement is from NEA Today.

On the Importance of Mirrors for Students (and Teachers) appeared in The Huffington Post.

How Boston Public Schools Can Recruit and Retain Black Male Teachers is from The Shanker Blog.

America's Unspoken Education Issue: Black Kids Need Black Teachers is by Melinda Anderson.

How college ed programs try, fail to recruit teachers of color is from The Hechinger Report.

Why teachers must reflect student diversity is from The Seattle Globalist.

Regarding teachers of color: Boston Public Schools system is set to lead once again is from The Hechinger Report.

We Need Teachers of Color is from Education Week.

Montgomery County launches teacher diversity initiative in schools is from The Washington Post.

Where have all the black and brown teachers gone? is from The Hechinger Report.

Our Teacher Diversity Problem Is Not Just About Recruitment. It's About Retention. is from Slate.
The Woodrow Wilson Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowships for Aspiring Teachers of Color
America's Leaky Pipeline for Teachers of Color is from The Center For American Progress.
Quote Of The Day: The Need For More Teachers Of Color
America's Kids Are Getting More Diverse, but Its Teachers Aren't is from Take Part.

The Benefits of Minority Teachers in the Classroom is from Real Clear Education (thanks to Andre Perry for the tip).

Differentiating PD for Male Teachers of Color is by Travis Bristol.

The Classroom Racial Gap Hits an All-Time High is from Governing (thanks to Alexander Russo for the tip).

Recruiting More Minority Teachers Could Do Wonders For Minority Students, Study Says is from The Huffington Post.

Why Our Classrooms Benefit From Minority Teachers is from Ed Week.
Second Statistic Of The Day: "Where Are The Teachers Of Color?"
Why we should diversify the overwhelmingly white U.S. teaching force - and how appeared in The Washington Post.

Black male teachers: There aren't enough of them is by Travis Bristol.

Tough Tests for Teachers, With Question of Bias is from The New York Times.

What Happened After New Orleans Fired All of Its Teachers-and Why It Still Matters to Diversity in the Classroom is from Slate.

Do American Indian Students Perform Better When They Have American Indian Teachers? is from Slate.

Increasing The Diversity Of America's Teachers is the last in a series "guest-hosted" by Travis Bristol and Terrenda White at my Ed Week column.

Report: Minority Teachers Are Quitting at Rapid Rates is from NBC News.

The number of black teachers has dropped in nine U.S. cities is from The Washington Post.

More Minority Students, Fewer Teachers of Color is from The Atlantic.

Male teachers of color take a lesson from each other is by Travis Bristol.

The Role of Teacher Diversity in Reducing Implicit Bias is from The Shanker Blog.

Keeping Black Men In Front Of The Class is an NPR interview with Travis Bristol.

Black Male Teachers a Dwindling Demographic is from Education Week.

What It's Like To Teach While Black appeared in The Huffington Post. (thanks to Alexander Russo for the tip)

There's One Cause in Education That Everyone Supports: America's Teachers Need to Be More Diverse is from Slate.
Where are the male African-American teachers?
Why Is Education Leadership So White? is from Education Week.

Why so many people are worried about teacher diversity, in two charts is from The Washington Post.

The invisible tax on teachers of color is from The Washington Post.

'Added Value' Why Increasing the Number of Latino and Black Public School Teachers Matters is from The Latin Post.

The troubling shortage of Latino and black teachers - and what to do about it is from The Washington Post.
Slate's "Tomorrow's Test" Series Is An Impressive Project On Race & Schools
What did my father mean to his black male students? Everything. is from The Washington Post.

Where Are All the Principals of Color? is also from The Atlantic.

America Needs More Black Men Leading Its Classrooms is from Slate.

How to Get More Men of Color Teaching in the Classroom is from The Atlantic.

Increasing Teacher Diversity Could Be a Game-Changer for Students' Academic Attitudes is from Real Clear Education.

A Teacher Satisfaction Gap? New Study Shows Teachers of Color Less Happy in Their Schools is from The 74.

The Crucial Need to Expand the Non-White Teacher Pipeline is by Marian Wright Edelman.

As Nation's Students Become More Diverse, Teaching Corps Hasn't Kept Pace is from Ed Week.

REPORT: The State of Racial Diversity in the Educator Workforce is from The U.S. Department of Education.

Where Are All the Teachers of Color? is from Harvard Education.

Why Black Men Quit Teaching is by Christopher Emdin.

Black Teachers Matter is from Mother Jones.

The many ways teacher diversity may benefit students is from Brookings.

Report: Teacher Diversity Gap Will Not Close Without Significant Interventions is from Ed Week.

The nation's teacher force lacks diversity, and it might not get much better is from The Washington Post.

The Burden On Black Teachers: 'I Don't Belong At Your Table' is from NPR.
Another Study Highlights Importance Of Teacher Diversity
The Benefits Of Having A Black Teacher is from City Lab.

Efforts to 'raise the bar' for becoming a teacher are running headlong into efforts to diversify the profession. Now what? is by Matt Barnum.

Why are there so few black male teachers? is from American Public Media.

Minority Teacher Recruitment, Employment, and Retention: 1987 to 2013 is from The Learning Policy Institute.

4 ways to measure diversity among public school teachers is from Brookings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism - Help Me Find More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you are coming here from my Education Week Teacher column on the importance of recruiting and retaining teachers of color, please go to New & Revised: The Best Resources For Understanding Why We Need More Teachers Of Color. I have substantially revised this list.

# data[].attributes.headline
Europe has a long way to go on reparations and making amends for colonialism

# data[].attributes.subject
Europe has a long way to go on reparations and making amends for colonialism

# data[].attributes.body
The Washington Post (July 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Visitors look at the Rosetta Stone next to social distancing markers on the floor at the British Museum in August 2020 in London. (Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

In June, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet offered a reminder that "systemic racism needs a systemic response." She called for the immediate dismantling of the systemic racism that Black people face around the world and set out a four-point agenda for this transformation.

Just over a year after the killing of George Floyd, the report was widely discussed. But a key aspect was not as visible in public discourse as it should have been. Among other points, the report recommends the necessity of reparations for colonial injustices.

This poses a significant question for European countries, which have benefited greatly from wealth stolen in the colonial era. While several are taking initial steps to return some of what was seized to their countries of origin, much more has to be done.

Much of the wealth in question has taken the form of stolen art and artifacts. According to a French report drafted by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoye in 2018, more than 90 percent of the most prominent sub-Saharan African pieces of art are currently outside of the continent. Many famed European museums have built their prestige by displaying work acquired during the colonial era from so-called ethnographic expeditions that were in fact a pretext for predation.

To keep such pieces of art on French soil, France incorporated them into the public domain of state's assets, which make them unseizable and untransferable. The Sarr-Savoye report urged the French state to restore the pieces to their countries of origin. With pressure from African countries, France had to acknowledge the unfairness, passing a law in December 2020 giving back cultural goods to Benin and Senegal.

The first piece that was restored was a saber thought to have belonged to the political leader El Hadj Omar Tall, which was granted to Senegal for five years, but still belongs to the French domain. Madagascar was given back the crown of Queen Ranavalona III, which is one of the most precious symbols of Malagasy " national pride," according to Madagascar Minister of Culture Lalatiana Andriatongarivo Rakotondrazafy. Moreover, 26 pieces, which are known as the " Treasure of Béhanzin" and were kept in the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, are to be made accessible to the Beninese people and returned to Benin. But given that the museum possesses at least 45,000 pieces of art stolen during colonial times, according to the Sarr-Savoye report, this does not sound like such a revolution.

Before the release of the report, in 2017, President Emmanuel Macron committed to returning tens of thousands of cultural pieces within five years. Not enough has been done since then. Meanwhile, conversations about reparations in other venues have so far been rare in French political discourse.

Yet this debate is not taking place only in France and is not only over looted treasures. Reparations also come with the recognition of the harm caused by colonial wars and violence. More than a century after the horrendous genocide perpetrated in Namibia that killed 80 percent of the Herero and 50 percent of the Nama population, Germany started a discussion with the Namibian government in 2015 to " heal the wounds " caused by the historical cruelty.

It took six years to come to an agreement, in which Germany not only apologized but also committed to paying 1.1 billion euros (nearly $1.3 billion) of special aid given to Namibia over a 30-year period. Despite the huge step, which happened in large part thanks to years of activism from Namibian and Black German organizations, the declaration failed to mention " reparations" or " compensation," and Germany avoided any direct discussion with the Herero and the Nama. This was an "insult," according to Namibian parliamentarian Inna Hengari.

Britain is also having trouble recognizing the dispossession of stolen artifacts, among other calls to offer amends for historical wrongs. For decades, Egyptian authorities' calls for the return of the Rosetta Stone, one of the most visited objects in the British Museum, have been ignored. Jamaica, a former British colony where 600,000 enslaved people once lived, also plans to file a petition to Queen Elizabeth II seeking billions of pounds in compensation. But the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has publicly apologized for failing to honor soldiers from the former colonies (mostly from Africa and the Middle East) due to "pervasive racism," and finally commemorated their unsung sacrifices - an initial step in the right direction.

Europe has come a long way to acknowledge its violent and destructive role in former colonies and the resulting consequences, which are still ongoing. Yet these small steps are far from offering justice to those who are still deprived of their possessions and of entire chapters of their history. The question for Europe now is: Will it continue on this path to make fuller amends?

Rokhaya Diallo: Why Macron's decision to commemorate Napoleon is an insult to France and its people

Karen Attiah: If U.S. museums say Black Lives Matter, then they should return Africa's stolen art

Rokhaya Diallo: A court case is shining a light on injustices in France's former colonies

Karen Attiah: Is it okay to steal back looted colonial-era treasures?

Patrick Gathara: The Notre Dame fire offers a crucial lesson for Europe - and Africa

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Opinion | Europe has a long way to go on reparations and making amends for colonialism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In June, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet offered a reminder that "systemic racism needs a systemic response." She called for the immediate dismantling of the systemic racism that Black people face around the world and set out a four-point agenda for this transformation.

# data[].attributes.headline
What the founders of critical race theory have to say about the conservative attacks

# data[].attributes.subject
What the founders of critical race theory have to say about the conservative attacks

# data[].attributes.body
Article and video by the Washington Post (July 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
About US is an initiative by The Washington Post to cover issues of identity in the United States. Sign up for the newsletter.

For decades, the founders of critical race theory hashed out their differences at academic conferencesand in journals.

The "crits," as they are known, disagreed over whether their framework for examining systemic racismwas too far removed from activists, and if their approach focused enough on the struggles of the poor.

"This was before the internet, before email. If you wanted exchange of ideas, you met face-to-face," Mari Matsuda, a law professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, said in an email. "This allowed for expressions of difference, questioning, arguing, while forging solidarity."

But in recent months, critical race theory has leaped from the classroom to conservative news networks, where it has been attacked as divisive. Conservative activists and politicians have seized on the issue, often redefining the academic term to encompass nearly any examination of systemic racism. Several state legislatures are considering whether to ban teaching critical race theory in schools.

In interviews, the scholars who helped create this academic framework said they're angry about the way the current debate distorts their ideas. They worry about chilling effect this backlash could have on teaching about race and racism in America.

"This is basically an effort to create a boogeyman and pour everything into that category that they believe will prompt fear, discomfort and repudiation on the part of parents and voters who are primed to respond to this hysteria that they're trying to create," said Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and Columbia Law School.

Teachers across the country are caught in the middle of the latest flash point in America's culture war: critical race theory. Here's what it entails. (Adriana Usero, Drea Cornejo, Brian Monroe/The Washington Post)

As outlined in " Critical Race Theory: An Introduction," CRT was fueled by provocative ideas from its start.

In 1980, Harvard law professor Derrick Bell argued that the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education failed to significantly improve the lives of Black students, and that the decision only came about because the United States needed to improve its image around the world. "The interest of blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of whites," Bell wrote.

His essay would become one of the founding documents of critical race theory.

Opinion: Two voices of resistance to the critical race theory backlash in Oklahoma

Not all critical race theory scholars agree exactly with Bell, or with each other. But they broadly argue that race is a social construct and that the law helps perpetuate racism and existing social hierarchies, said Ian Haney López, a law professor at University of California at Berkeley and a longtime scholar of critical race theory and dog-whistle politics.

"Law cannot stand apart from society. Law must take seriously the extent to which it's enmeshed in and draws upon very often legitimate, unjust social hierarchies," Haney López said.

These ideas exploded into the mainstream in thesummer of 2020, when massive, multiracial protests spread across the country after the murder of George Floyd. Support for the Black Lives Matter movement hit an all-time high, and books related to systemic racism and White privilege soared to the top of bestseller lists.

But as support for Black Lives Matter began to wane among White Americans, conservative activists such as Christopher Rufo began to argue that attacks on critical race theory could be used to turn Americans against efforts to increase awareness of systemic racism more broadly.

"We have successfully frozen their brand - 'critical race theory' - into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions," Rufo, 36, wrote on Twitter.

For generations, children have been spared the reality of slavery. Some schools are trying to change that.

By September, President Donald Trump banned federal agencies from teaching critical race theory in trainings. President Biden has since reversed Trump's order, but conservatives have remained focused on the issue. In May, several GOP lawmakers introduced a bill to ban the teaching of critical race theory in federal institutions because they say it promotes discrimination and stokes division.

"I grew up attending segregated schools in the Jim Crow South during a time when people were treated differently based on the color of their skin," wrote Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) in a statement. "Critical Race Theory preserves this way of thinking and undermines civil rights, constitutionally guaranteed equal protection before the law, and U.S. institutions at large."

Haney López sees these attacks on critical race theory as part of "a well-established theater that is well practiced, well-established, even to some extent demanded by the right wing base."

He believes there are a few things that made CRT attractive to attack. The scholar-driven movement fits into the right's attack on "cultural elites."

"It is part of a larger practice of culture-war politics, an effort by the Republican Party, by the party of big business, to convince working Americans that the elites who threaten them are not economic titans, but instead, cultural elites," Haney López said.

And critical race theory, "has the word 'race' in it so it can be connected to the larger claims that demands for racial justice are really a form of anti-White racism and are rooted in hatred of White people," Haney López said.

"There is a central lie that is being told all the time that is completely independent of CRT and ... it is the lie that says people of color threaten White people," he added.

What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?

Opponents of critical race theory are also pushing legislation that would limit what students can be taught about race and racism. For generations, many U.S. public schools have not taught the true horrors of slavery, a Washington Post series reported last year.

Pushes to revamp curriculums and include scholarship such as the New York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project, essays that examine slavery's ongoing impact on American life, have similarly met resistance. At least 26 states have introduced bills or taken other actions to ban or limit CRT or discussions of race in the classroom, according to an Education Week tally.

"This is one of these moments where ignorance is a never-ending gift, you know, to these right-wing strategies of distraction and denial," Crenshaw said. "Most Americans were not exposed to these histories in their classrooms."

The American Civil Liberties Union is already taking steps to challenge the bans. But that hasn't stopped some schools from prohibiting teachers from discussing race and racism in the classroom. A teacher's course on race and ethnicity at Oklahoma City Community College was canceled for the summer semester, and Kansas is asking public universities to provide a list of courses that include critical race theory as part of the curriculum. A Tennessee schoolteacher was fired after assigning an opinion essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

"We already see the most vulnerable educators - K-12 in red states, adjuncts and lecturers at universities, exploited grad students, small town librarians - losing positions, and facing hard choices and censorship when they are just trying to do their jobs," Matsuda said.

Crenshaw said movements for social change have historically been met with resistance, and critical race theory is just the modern-day example.

"We have had efforts to suppress literacy, writing, advocacy, actual thinking about race from the earliest moments of our history," Crenshaw said. "Abolition material was characterized as seditious and regulated by law. Black people, enslaved people, were not allowed to read by law."

"The ability to turn racist aggression into self-defense is as old as the republic. The problem is that we're unaware of it," Crenshaw said. "And now as a society, we may be paying a cost for our ignorance about our own history."

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What the founders of critical race theory have to say about the conservative attacks

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
About US is an initiative by The Washington Post to cover issues of identity in the United States. Sign up for the newsletter . For decades, the founders of critical race theory hashed out their differences at academic conferencesand in journals.

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (July 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is Critical Race Theory? (Published 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
And how to learn more about the issue dividing school districts across the country.

# data[].attributes.body
by Ibram X. Kendi, The Atlantic (June 2021).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The postracial idea is the most sophisticated racist idea ever produced.

About the author: Ibram X. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is the author of several books, including the National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in Ameri ca and How to Be an Antiracist.

The signposts of racism are staring back at us in big, bold racial inequities. But some Americans are ignoring the signposts, walking on by racial inequity, riding on by the evidence, and proclaiming their belief with religious fervor. "America is not a racist country," Senator Tim Scott said in April.

Black babies die at twice the rate of white babies. Roughly a fifth of Native Americans and Latino Americans are medically uninsured, almost triple the rate of white Americans and Asian Americans (7.8 and 7.2 percent, respectively). Native people (24.2 percent) are nearly three times as likely as white people (9 percent) to be impoverished. The life expectancy of Black Americans (74.5 years) is much lower than that of white Americans (78.6 years). White Americans account for 77 percent of the voting members of the 117th Congress, even though they represent 60 percent of the U.S. population.
From the July/August 2018 issue: Being Black in America can be hazardous to your health
Just as you can recognize an impoverished country by its widespread poverty, you can recognize a racist country by its widespread racial inequity. In the United States, Black college graduates owe an average of $25,000 more in student loans than white college graduates. Native Americans die from police violence at three times the rate of white people; Black people die at 2.6 times the rate; and Latino people die at 1.3 times the rate. In the United States, racial inequity is widespread by any measure.

And yet, some don't want the American people to stop and see. They don't want our kids to learn about the racism causing racial inequity. They are trying to ban teaching it in schools; Florida passed the latest such ban last Thursday.

They can't acknowledge racial inequity because to acknowledge it is to discuss why it exists and persists. To discuss why racial inequity exists and persists is to point to the libraries of nonpartisan studies documenting widespread racism in the United States.

To say that there is widespread racial inequity caused by widespread racism, which makes the United States racist, isn't an opinion, isn't a partisan position, isn't a doctrine, isn't a left-wing construct, isn't anti-white, and isn't anti-American. It is a fact. But in recent years, some have reduced a host of facts to beliefs. "I don't believe that," Donald Trump said in September when a reporter asked him about the existence of systemic racism.

This is a precarious time. There are people tired of quarantining their racist beliefs, anxious about being held accountable by "wokeism" and "cancel culture," yearning to get back to the normality of blaming Black inferiority for racial inequity. The believers are going after these people with disinformation. They are putting words in the mouths of Black Lives Matter activists, critical race theorists, the writers of the 1619 Project, and anti-racist intellectuals-and attacking the words they put in our mouths. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina claims that we believe "people with white skin are inherently racist." Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claims that we believe "all our institutions are bankrupt, and they're illegitimate."

No nation, no person, is inherently or permanently racist. The anti-racist resistance to slavery and Jim Crow is as much a part of American history as those peculiar institutions are. White people have been abolitionists and civil-rights activists, and they are among the people striving to be anti-racist today. Some institutions in the United States have been vehicles of equity and justice. But what we write or say or think doesn't matter to the believers. All that matters to them is ensuring that adults and children continue to walk on by the signposts of racism that implicate them. All the believers want to do is make myths out of reality to keep the American people out of reality.

"It is time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism," former Vice President Mike Pence tweeted on June 3. "America is not a racist Nation-America is the most just, righteous, noble and inclusive Nation that has ever existed on the face of the earth!"

We've heard this before.

"America is not a racist Nation" is the new "America is a postracial nation." We are witnessing the birth of the new postracial project.

I couldn't have directed anyone to my favorite Philadelphia restaurant as a doctoral student in 2008. It had no sign. I don't even remember its name. Most people walking by it on North Broad Street would not have known it was there. Whenever I walked in, searching for a late-night meal, I was greeted by its unappetizing decor.

But I adored this discreet hole-in-the-wall, blocks from my home in North Philadelphia. I adored what I smelled whenever I stepped inside. I adored what I heard-the unseen owner/cook/waitress/hostess greeting me from far back in the steaming kitchen.

Forgive me. I don't remember the elderly Black woman's name. I'm not much of a small talker. Neither was she.

Most nights, I'd walk over to the kitchen. I'd return her greeting. I'd order a platter. I'd sit on down and wait. And wait. And read. And think. And wait. All in perfect peace.

But not on the night of January 3, 2008. A tiny, grainy box television seized my attention as soon as I heard it. I had not been following the presidential campaign season closely. I didn't watch much television or read much news. I had been hibernating in my studies since beginning my doctoral program months earlier.

So on that night, I did not go to the kitchen. I shouted my order as I'd seen other people do. She nodded and kept on cooking.

All the tables were empty. I chose one. The TV was mounted where the grime of the ceiling and discoloration of the wall met. I did not know that Iowa had had its Democratic caucus that day. I sat in silent shock when the network announced that the Black candidate had won that lily-white state.

When he came out to deafening applause from his supporters, the cook turned waitress came out with her food and her smile. She placed both down on my table without a word. Then she turned around and looked up, like me, at the mounted TV.

Almost as if on cue from a director, Senator Barack Obama began to speak.

"Thank you, Iowa," he began. "You know, they said this day would never come."

The crowd applauded. I sat there, still, like my food.

"But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do."

Obama spoke on and the lady stood on, rugged and tender, like our environment.

"We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America."

The message was indeed powerful. If he could win Iowa, he could win America. Change seemed to be coming. The audience started chanting.

"We want change! We want change! We want change! We want change!"

By the next morning, some white Americans had started transfiguring We want change into We have changed. "What was remarkable was the extent to which race was not a factor in this contest," Adam Nagourney wrote in The New York Times.

As Obama won more primaries, the narrative spread. The fact that racial inequity existed and persisted didn't matter. The day after Obama won South Carolina on January 26, Peter J. Boyer identified Obama and Cory Booker, then Newark's mayor, as members of "the post-racial generation" in The New Yorker.
From the July/August 2015 issue: There is no post-racial America
By the end of January, journalists were explaining what "postracial" meant. "The post-racial era, as embodied by Obama, is the era where civil rights veterans of the past century are consigned to history and Americans begin to make race-free judgments on who should lead them," NPR's legendary analyst Daniel Schorr reported, adding that "it may still be too early to speak of a generation of colorblind voters, but maybe color blurred?"

Thereafter, Obama's campaign tunes of racial progress were further remixed as tunes of racial arrival. "So, in answer to the question, 'Is America past racism against black people,' I say the answer is yes," John McWhorter wrote in Forbes weeks after Obama's election.

The postracial myth was embedded so deeply into the American consciousness that when Trump ran a racist campaign and won eight years later, countless people were shocked. The myth of a postracial America died with Trump's election. It has now been resurrected, paving the conceptual way for Trump's return and the ruin of this nation.

The people who promulgated the original postracial project in 2008 aren't necessarily the same people resurrecting it today. The postracial myth was first propagated by liberals who were eager to avoid grappling with persistent inequities. Back then, many liberals were stepping over the reality of inequality to fantasize that the nation had done the impossible-elected a Black president-because it had overcome racism. The denial of racism stymied the battle against it, leading many Americans to underestimate the political appeal of birtherism and Trump, providing a clear runway for his MAGA campaign to take off, and then allowing it to land in the White House.

And now, even though Trump's ghastly presidency and the ghastly murder of George Floyd awoke many liberals to the need to build an anti-racist nation, many conservatives have seized on the postracial myth to fight those efforts. They insist that anti-racism is anti-white. That insistence echoes the mantra coined by the longtime white supremacist Robert Whitaker in 2006: "Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white." GOP politicians want their voters to feel aggrieved and enraged before the 2022 election. They want them to believe the violent lie that teaching critical race theory amounts to attacking and harming white children. Republican politicians want their voters to believe the fantasy that systemic racism is "a bunch of horse manure," as DeSantis called it.

But I'm hardly shocked that this racist idea has been resurrected. The postracial idea is the most sophisticated racist idea ever produced. It keeps resurfacing and mutating and harming in new forms.

Crude popularizers of racist ideas, such as Trump, tell people precisely how other racial groups are inferior; immigrants from Latin America, he said, are criminals, drug dealers, and rapists. That sort of racism is relatively easy to recognize and dismiss.

But the postracial idea is the hardest racist idea to put down. Everyone is inclined to consume it. White people and people of color alike long for racism to end. When we yearn for something to end-and don't know what the end looks like-it is easy to make ourselves believe the end is near. Believing the myth of a postracial America is a cheap way to feel good, like buying the fast food down the block from my favorite restaurant in Philadelphia. We don't realize that to believe the postracial myth is to normalize racial inequity and deny that racism is dividing and devastating our society.

Because although Americans see racial inequity, we don't all agree on its causes. Many Americans search for nonracial explanations for racial inequity, particularly class and its proxy, education. But presenting class as the answer avoids the question of why people of color are unduly poor and white people are disproportionately wealthy. It ignores the racial inequities between classes. It ignores the fact that in New York City, college-educated Black women suffer more severe pregnancy-related complications than do white women who haven't completed high school. It ignores the fact that white Americans who haven't graduated high school have more wealth than Black college graduates.
From the September 2020 issue: Americans are determined to believe in Black progress
The cause of racial inequity is either racist policy or racial hierarchy. The racial problem is the result of bad policies or bad people. Either Asian New Yorkers experienced the highest surge in unemployment during the pandemic because they are lazy and prefer welfare over work-or the inequity is the result of racist policy. Either Black and Latino people are the least likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because there's something wrong with them-or the inequity stems from racist policy. Either Black girls are six times as likely to be expelled from school as white girls because they misbehave more-or the inequity is caused by racist policy. To believe in racial hierarchy, to say that something is wrong with a racial group, is to express racist ideas.

The sophistication of the postracial myth is simple: Eliminating the explanation of racism for racial inequity ensures that the believers willingly consume and cook up their own racist ideas to explain the racial inequity all around them.

I'd often bring a bag of books to my favorite restaurant. I'd read as I waited a long while for my food. I devoured books and essays on Black life, racism, anti-racism, and history. I had studied these topics for years. But nothing prepared me for the intensity of doctoral studies. Nothing prepared me for the precision and collisions of the sharp minds around me. Nothing prepared me for writing practically a book a semester in the form of multiple 30-page research papers. Nothing prepared me for the total life immersion of study.

In fact, I was readying myself to join a guild of intellectuals with expertise on the structures of racism. This guild studies, diagnoses, and strives to eliminate racism. The believers call us "race hustlers," but they would never call oncologists "cancer hustlers." They'll do anything to delegitimize our training and expertise, which veils their absence of training and expertise, which legitimizes their postracial fairy tales.

Fighting racism-in academia, in media, in activism, in art, in education, or in public service-is more than a job for most of us. It's a calling to save nations from their national histories, to save human beings from human beings. Racism is an existential threat to the United States, like climate change, pandemics, and nuclear war. We know that the American people can't handle this truth, but we tell them anyway and brace ourselves for the postracial gales bound to come-such as this one.

Our multiracial, multidisciplinary, multisectoral guild remains as indistinct on the streets of the U.S. as my favorite restaurant was 13 years ago. We don't have a name. We don't hold up signs displaying our expertise. To the American people, our expertise simultaneously exists and doesn't. It exists when people believe us. It doesn't exist when people don't believe us. Our remedies and reparations for racism are rejected when they go "too far."

Because everyone, apparently, is an authority on damn near everything. I can tell an astrophysicist that she is wrong about the existence of extrasolar planets, and she can tell me that I am wrong about the existence of racism. Humility is dead. Expertise is losing out to the world of make-believe, where everyone knows it all, where the climate isn't changing, where vaccines aren't saving lives, where teaching our kids the truth is harmful, where anti-poverty programs aren't better crime fighters than cops, where assault rifles aren't used to commit mass murder, where Nikole Hannah-Jones doesn't deserve tenure, where the 2020 election wasn't legitimate, and where the original postracial project didn't produce the infernal Trump presidency.

To use W. E. B. Du Bois's words, "lies agreed upon" are king. Ignorance preyed upon is king. Patriotism as racism is king. The conspiracy theory is king.
From the January/February 2017 issue: My president was Black
Anyone can diagnose their nation as "not racist." In the world of make-believe, who cares whether they can't define what they mean by that? Who cares about definitions? Who cares about the vulnerability of kids to racist messages? Who cares about education? Who cares whether GOP state legislators are attacking the recognition of racism as they institute racist voting policies to maintain their power? Who cares about democracy? Anyone can be interviewed and listened to and taken seriously when they claim that racism doesn't exist, when they vilify the 1619 Project, when they demonize critical race theory, when they slander anti-racism-when they wholly disregard racial inequity and injustice and violence. Anyone can participate in the new postracial project.

I watched Obama's Iowa victory speech on a tiny mounted television with a stranger as my food cooled. I hardly realized that at that very moment, racial reality was cooling too.

I'll never forget it.

"This was the moment," Obama proclaimed that night.

This was the moment when the eagerness of many Americans to close the book on America's racist past ended up closing the book on America's racist present, which closed the book on America's racist future, which wrote the book on how America ends.

"This was the moment," Obama said again. "Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment."

Indeed, this was the moment when the American people created the original postracial project that is bearing down on Americans yet again, like a knife over a nation's heart.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The postracial idea is the most sophisticated racist idea ever produced. About the author: Ibram X. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research.

# data[].attributes.body
And resources from the Pulitzer Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American slavery began 400 years ago this month. This is referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the country’s true origin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Are you interested in learning about Native American histories? Are you someone with questions or information to share? Are you a teacher looking for curriculum ideas or other resources? Welcome!

We believe that teaching Native American histories in a positive way requires both specific, local knowledge and a broad understanding of how colonization manifests across time and space in the Americas and around the world. This project began with a focus on New England tribes, but we welcome information and resources about Indigenous Peoples in other places. There's a place for you to tell us What's Happening in Your State.

We also believe that facts without context can be misleading or downright harmful. Much of what mainstream American knows about Native Americans is filtered through a lens of non-Native perspectives and biases. We begin to address this with two resources: 10 Tips to Decolonize Your Classroom and Key Concepts for Native American History.

This website is both a resource and a clearing house. People across the country are doing good work to develop curriculum materials, websites, and other resources but often we talk past each other. Let's work together to teach Native American histories in our schools at every grade level and increase awareness among the general public.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are you interested in learning about Native American histories? Are you someone with questions or information to share? Are you a teacher looking for curriculum ideas or other resources? Welcome! We believe that teaching Native American histories in a positive way requires both specific, local knowledge and a broad understanding of how colonization manifests across time and space in the Americas and around the world.

# data[].attributes.headline
The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history

# data[].attributes.subject
The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history

# data[].attributes.body
The Washington Post (July 2021).
See also this article from Slate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(Katty Huertas for The Washington Post)

The nation's summer holiday season was refreshed this year with the addition of Juneteenth National Independence Day a few weeks before the Fourth of July. The day symbolizes the end of enslavement in the United States, and its place on the federal calendar was won in large part thanks to the energy of the broad movement that emerged last year in response to the murder of George Floyd.

The speed and virtual unanimity with which June 19 joined July 4 might seem to foretell a new reckoning with America's brutally racist past, spurred on by 2020's push to confront injustice. Yet instead of a new era of honesty and critical inquiry, the United States is being dragged into a moral panic about anti-racism itself, as agitated parents, right-wing activists and red-state lawmakers rail against their version of critical race theory. Their assault would allow only for a "history" that holds no contemporary consequences; racism ended in the past, according to the developing backlash, and we would all be better off if we didn't try to connect it to the present.

So in the same week when Juneteenth became a national holiday, schoolteachers in Texas, where the commemoration originally marked the end of slavery in that state, could teach about these events only at their peril: Texas now precludes any teacher from exploring the state's own history of enslavement if any student should "feel discomfort, guilt, [or] anguish . . . on account of the individual's race or sex." On the federal level, the same Republican senators who voted for the Juneteenth holiday also demanded that the Education Department end its effort to encourage schools to fully explore the history of enslavement, saying the push involved "divisive, radical, and historically-dubious buzzwords and propaganda."

In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an ill-conceived, overbroad bill that chills the long-overdue reckoning with the Tulsa Race Massacre - a vicious orgy of racist violence carried out in 1921 against one of the nation's most affluent African American communities. This new law, passed under a special emergency provision, bans the teaching of " divisive concepts " implying that "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex."

Texas and Oklahoma join a list of six states that have ratified such legislation, with more than a dozen others considering it. These laws cut off the necessary classroom discussion of racial justice and reconciliation taking shape in Tulsa, Houston, Minneapolis, Louisville, Atlanta, Chicago and other communities across the country inspired by and responsive to #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName.

Banning 'critical race theory' would be bad for conservatives, too

Proponents of such reactionary legislation insist that nothing in the laws bans teaching about historical racism. Technically, that's true: The text of these laws does not necessarily mention particular historical events, critical race theory or the 1619 Project. That would be far too obvious.

Instead, the laws' language - often eerily identical - is even more insidious: It explicitly sets out to sanction certain feelings as part of a disingenuous crackdown on racial division. In closing off room to explore the impact of America's racist history by citing "division" - a subjective condition that turns on any student's (or parent's) claim to feel resentment or guilt - the laws directly threaten any teacher who pursues a sustained, critical understanding of the deeper causes, legacies or contemporary implications of racism in fomenting uncivil discord.

The hysteria about this putatively un-American inquiry is possible in part because Americans are not often taught about the policies and practices through which racism has shaped our nation. Nor do we typically teach that racist aggression against reform has been repeatedly legitimized as self-defense - an embodiment of an enduring claim that anti-racism is racism against White people.

The whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy

This pattern of defending white supremacy by resorting to group interest embodies the very opposite of the individualism so frequently touted in conservative politics. Very few Americans learn that just after the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson vetoed legislation protecting the civil rights of newly freed African Americans, essentially claiming such laws to be preferential treatment for Blacks and reverse discrimination against Whites. Nor is there much candid discussion today about how the wave of White racial terrorism that destabilized Radical Reconstruction in the South was framed as self-defense. This was followed by White segregationist rule for the better part of the 20th century, buttressed by the acquiescence of the Supreme Court and the supposed greatest legal minds of the era.

The reverse-racism trope emerged again after World War II, when segregationists denounced the simple demands for nondiscrimination in public accommodations as assaults on Whites' civil rights. Likewise, the Southern Manifesto against school desegregation, signed by dozens of White lawmakers, framed widespread resistance to the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in terms of defending White heritage and the well-being of vulnerable White schoolchildren. Unsurprisingly, White children are once again the front line in this current war against critical race theory in the classroom - it's a tried-and-true method of racial retrenchment.

But the comfort of a ban on whatever conservatives imagine critical race theory to be will further deny students and scholars the chance to understand the past. The massacre in Tulsa a century ago is just one telling example of how the convergence of law, institutions and individuals enabled diabolical attacks on American citizens. Examining Tulsa through the prism of the real critical race theory, which I've been a leading scholar in developing, would involve unearthing the conditions that allowed White institutions and leaders of the time to mobilize the law to set a massacre of hundreds in motion, and uncovering the long-term consequences. The legal dimensions would include the formal deputizing and arming of White citizens, the rounding up and interning of survivors, and the filing of charges against victims for inciting violence. Oklahoma's new law and the others around the country would apparently forbid a close look at the massacre's legal aftermath - namely, the failure to indict or prosecute anyone. Teachers would be further discouraged from mounting a broader inquiry into the massacre's legal backdrop - the laws that corralled Blacks into certain neighborhoods and that shored up the economic segregation of professions. The prohibition of any discussion suggesting that there are contemporary responsibilities shared by society as a whole precludes consideration of what a long-overdue commitment to justice might entail.

What is critical race theory and why did Oklahoma just ban it?

We know from the history of race in America just where sanitized and whitewashed versions of our past lead - to assumptions that yawning inequalities in health, wealth and a range of other areas are simply inherent features of American life. The fact that the 1921 Tulsa Massacre happened was always knowable - a few survivors are still alive - but without a critical confrontation with our history, the long-term impact of the massacre fades into a bloody mist.

Those who want to expand our nation's literacy about our racial past and those who wish it to remain illegible to all but a determined few do agree on one thing: that examining our history has consequences. The disagreement becomes volatile when those who embrace America's promises ask that we take up the truths of our history, while critics claim it is only patriotic to perpetuate a lie. (Martin Luther King Jr. warned of just this sort of turn more than 50 years ago, in " Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?," his final book before he was murdered: "In the days ahead we must not consider it unpatriotic to raise certain basic questions about our national character.") Theirs is not a debate about ideas but rather an attempt - on behalf of the racially inequitable status quo - to shut down debate altogether.

The impulse to quash discussion of racism comes out of the same political movement that believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election - and that mobs ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 were justified in their bloodthirsty assault on democracy because they contend they were there to save it. Understood in context with parallel efforts to suppress democracy and protest, it should be clear that the stakes couldn't be higher.

Indeed, beyond this incendiary 2022 campaign strategy lies the future of America. We cannot fight to realize our loftiest values if past and present injustices are made unspeakable. This is why anyone who marched for justice for George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery or Breonna Taylor, anyone who can acknowledge that a sanitized history of the Civil War and Reconstruction led to nearly a century of segregation, anyone who does not want their children insulated from our nation's past, anyone who is concerned about a creeping authoritarianism and the myths of the past that abet it, and anyone who believes in a truly multiracial democracy should be relentless in opposing the new efforts to banish anti-racist thought and speech from public institutions.

When it comes to racial reckoning, the future of our country depends not on whether we litigate who among us is guilty but whether we all see ourselves as responsible. Let us together stand up to these cynical attacks - we have seen them too many times before to fall prey to another cycle of race, reform and retrenchment.

Trump's race-based patriotism damages patriotism itself

America can still choose solidarity. The Black experience shows the way.

The Tulsa race massacre is finally becoming known. But where are the bodies?

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Perspective | The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The nation's summer holiday season was refreshed this year with the addition of Juneteenth National Independence Day a few weeks before the Fourth of July. The day symbolizes the end of enslavement in the United States, and its place on the federal calendar was won in large part thanks to the energy of the broad movement that emerged last year in response to the murder of George Floyd.

# data[].attributes.headline
What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?

# data[].attributes.subject
What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?

# data[].attributes.body
EducationWeek (May 2021).
See also this article.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2015, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5433 modifying the original 2005 legislation, now requiring the Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington state or other tribally-developed curriculum be taught in all schools. The use of the Since Time Immemorial curriculum has been endorsed by all 29 federally recognized tribes.

# data[].attributes.headline
A powerful new memorial to U-Va.’s enslaved workers reclaims lost lives and forgotten narratives

# data[].attributes.subject
A powerful new memorial to U-Va.’s enslaved workers reclaims lost lives and forgotten narratives

# data[].attributes.body
The WP (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Visitors at the University of Virginia's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers in Charlottesville this month. The memorial acknowledges the estimated 4,000 enslaved people who lived and worked at the university from 1817 to 1865. (Evelyn Hockstein/for The Washington Post)

If you stand outside the concentric rings of the University of Virginia's new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, there is a curious acoustic phenomenon: The conversations of people inside the gray, granite walls are clearly audible, even from a distance.

Architects Eric Howeler and Meejin Yoon say that's no surprise, given the way curved surfaces reflect sound. "We knew the geometry had [acoustic] qualities, but it wasn't until it was built that it became so evident," says Yoon.

So, this evocative and moving new memorial to the thousands of enslaved people who helped build and then served the university that Thomas Jefferson designed can make private conversations public. And that echoes the larger challenge of this memorial, part of the university's ongoing effort to confront the legacy of slavery and white supremacy: how to memorialize people whose names and stories are mostly lost to history.

Of the roughly 4,000 enslaved people whose lives intersected with the university - as construction workers, craftsmen, domestic servants, gardeners, cooks - the names of only 578 (to date) are known. Another 311 were known by their roles within the campus or their relation to others who lived or worked there: bricklayer, mother, son, niece.

That left more than 3,000 blank places on a wall meant to honor a whole community of people who were an essential part of university life but also subject to explosive violence and sexual abuse from students raised to be masters in a system of racial domination. The design solution is something the architects call "memory marks," small gashes in the stone that stand in for the anonymous laborers, gashes that look a bit like wounds. After a rainstorm, a visitor to the memorial noticed that water was slowly dripping from the memory marks. That visitor, a descendant of the community of enslaved laborers, told the architects this reminded her of "the tears of our ancestors."

For better and worse, Charlottesville is at the center of this country's conversation about race, the legacy of slavery and the persistence of white supremacy. The infamous 2017 Unite the Right march brought neo-Nazis, Klansmen and other extremist groups to Charlottesville for two days of violent protests, including a torchlight march on the university campus in which White men chanted, "Jews will not replace us," and the murder the following day of Heather Heyer, an anti-racist counterprotester.

On Richmond's Monument Avenue, an evolving legacy of ugly ideas

Charlottesville was also the epicenter of the Jeffersonian dream - agrarian, egalitarian, intellectual and racist - one of the most fraught and frustrating chapters of American history. Jefferson founded the university in 1819, designed the campus (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and laid out an ambitious academic agenda for an institution that was meant to train the future leaders of a democracy that paradoxically embraced slavery. Idealism and cynicism were baked into the brick of this neoclassical Piedmont masterpiece, an oblong campus of pavilions connected by a colonnaded loggia around a slowly descending greensward.

The new memorial, which was scheduled to open in April before the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the university, is an effort not just to think about Jefferson but to think beyond him. Its circular form recalls the slave tradition of a ring shout (an African-derived spiritual-dance ritual). But it also serves as an outdoor classroom, small amphitheater or gathering spot. During the design process, the architects had to determine the exact dimensions of the circle. Again by fortuitous discovery, they realized that the diameter of Jefferson's dome for the central Rotunda building was also the right size for a memorial that needed to be both big enough to make a statement and small enough to be intimate.

But they also used a locally quarried granite that stands apart, with funereal reticence, from the mainly classical, red-brick and white-trimmed campus. And while the memorial sits within the UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is set to the side of Jefferson's Academical Village, along a prominent pathway that connects students to the cafes, shops and restaurants along University Avenue. And so it echoes humanist discourse at its best: distinct, independent, always qualified to be precise and general only in its open acknowledgment that little is finished or certain.

The two circular forms include a timeline of slavery at U-Va. along the inner ring and the wall of names and memory marks along the outer one. The exterior of the outer wall also includes a subtle (and sometimes difficult to discern) set of eyes, derived from an image of Isabella Gibbons, an enslaved woman who was owned by professors at the university before emancipation and who went on to become an educator of freed African Americans.

The eyes, visible from certain angles depending on the light, reinforce what the echo suggests: the sense that something hidden or obscure is being made available and present. Images of enslaved people, especially during the early years of the university, are extraordinarily rare. A 2018 report delivered to U-Va.'s President's Commission on Slavery and the University included just one known image of an enslaved person at the school during the antebellum period: a Black woman holding a White baby, standing on the balcony of one of Jefferson's pavilions. Gibbons, who survived slavery and lived during the age of photography, offers a rare, direct encounter with one of the thousands of otherwise anonymous laborers.

The lack of early images of slavery doesn't make slavery invisible, says Louis Nelson, professor of architectural history at U-Va. The campus design, which pushed the domestic life of enslaved labor into ground-level spaces not visible from the center of the lawn, and into gardens obscured by eight-foot-high serpentine walls, continued architectural gestures built into Jefferson's mansion at Monticello. These were "strategies to remove the presence of the Black body and obscure the institution of slavery," says Nelson, who describes Jefferson's campus and Monticello as "White landscapes" in which slavery is tucked into the sides or underneath.

A virus shows us the future of architecture, after pandemics and civil unrest

Unlike elite universities in the North, which were mainly urban and had a ready supply of labor and resources for their daily operation, Jefferson created an ideal village, essentially ex nihilo, into which he incorporated all the necessities of the university's agenda, including its dependence on slavery. Rather like the Enlightenment conception of the cosmos, in which God is often likened to an invisible architect or clock maker, slavery was part of the hidden works of the larger mechanism.

That gives the round form of the memorial, which some have compared to broken shackles, yet more resonance. So, too, the presence, just up the hill, of the 1876 Brooks Hall, originally devoted to natural history, with the names of prominent scientists carved on its exterior, including Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist who helped create the modern taxonomic system. The name of Linnaeus, who played a key role in the origins of scientific racism (the pseudoscience of categorizing humans by racial types and hierarchies), is clearly visible from the memorial.

College campuses are, by their nature, thick with meaning, intentional, accidental, associative and uncanny. In 2007, the university installed a small memorial marker near the central Rotunda, which read: "In honor of the several hundred men and women, both free and enslaved, whose labor between 1817 and 1826 helped realize Thomas Jefferson's design for the University of Virginia." It was inadequate in multiple ways: its seeming equivalence between free and enslaved labor, its limit to the "several hundred" who worked on campus construction rather than the decades-long history of enslaved labor up to the Civil War, and its reflexive inclusion of Jefferson's name, as if it were an honor to be unrightfully bound to fulfilling his vision.

It was also small, and easy to miss, rather like it is easy to overlook Linnaeus's name on Brooks Hall. Both should probably be left where they are, reminders that history, science and the self-image of institutions always involve an admixture of motives, benign and malign and sometimes inscrutable even to the most conscientious observers. The designers of the new memorial, which can't be missed and is already attracting a steady stream of visitors, say they wanted to fulfill the need for a memorial that made an invisible, often whitewashed history visible. They also wanted something open-ended, subject to interpretation, a place of happy accidents like that strange echo.

They succeeded. Here is a space you might sit in for a long time, and wonder: How did we get here? And where are we going?

Is a new Eisenhower memorial the last of the "great man" monuments?

We need libraries, and this one can't open soon enough

Thomas Jefferson, a great scientist, and a mastodon skeleton

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Review | A powerful new memorial to U-Va.'s enslaved workers reclaims lost lives and forgotten narratives

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you stand outside the concentric rings of the University of Virginia's new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, there is a curious acoustic phenomenon: The conversations of people inside the gray, granite walls are clearly audible, even from a distance. Architects Eric Howeler and Meejin Yoon say that's no surprise, given the way curved surfaces reflect sound.

# data[].attributes.body
Learning for Justice (2016)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence.

We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent. We have chosen a profession, which-like parenting-requires that our comforts come second to those of children.

Many black and brown students are educated in school systems and classrooms where they, despite making up the racial majority, are taught how to understand a world by a staff comprised of a powerful minority. When their teachers choose to remain silent about moments of racial tension or violence-violence that may well touch students' own communities or families-these children are overtly reminded of their inferior place in society.

Even as a black teacher, I have to set a tone for my students that signals that it's safe to talk about race. Even with me, students of color are afraid to say the word white or to name the blatant racism of slavery and Jim Crow. If that's the case, imagine how much more difficult it is for them to engage in dialogue about mass incarceration rates; the militarism of police; the killing of innocent black men and women; cycles of poverty; the destruction of our bodies, minds and souls; the lack of access to healthy food and quality schools; and gentrification. These are all symptoms of a type of racism that remains deadly to this day because, despite bodies lying in the street, we refuse to talk about it.

White teachers must also broach these topics with white children attending white schools. These students need to learn about the destructive power of racism and brutality that have plagued our country for centuries. They should also understand that Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Trayvon Martin were preceded in death by Emmett Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson and countless others whose stories and deaths we must also teach. Our lack of instruction becomes deadly when we allow fear and discomfort to indirectly allow white students to labor under false, privileged assumptions.

Moreover, the silence on the part of white teachers who teach black and brown children is insulting. Imagine seeing white people, the perceived dominant race, loving and appreciating black culture when it is pretty-enjoying the music, food, culture and beauty of our people-but remaining silent about our oppression and refusing to see how the beauty of our culture was largely born out of necessity. It hurts students when their teachers only acknowledge what black people have done for this country and not what this country has done to them.

But how encouraging is it to know that we stand in a powerful and political position where we can directly influence and break this silence?

Begin by confronting your own biases-about yourself, your students, your fellow educators, the world. This process is essential; if educators don't do this, think about how much damage we could do to the open, vulnerable minds of our students. In particular, examine your feelings about the police. And, regardless of your personal feelings about law enforcement, it is critical to understand that many black and brown students have incredibly negative perceptions about the police. This difficult understanding on the part of teachers can hopefully lead to dialogue and healing in schools.

Once you've done the inner work of evaluating your own comfort levels and examining your biases, start the conversation. You might begin by admitting to students that-like them-you are scared, frustrated, angry, confused, hurt or uncomfortable. Students at any age understand these feelings and will appreciate your humility, compassion and vulnerability, especially black and brown students. This is how you lay the foundation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence. We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent.

# data[].attributes.body
Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
The racist riots of 1919 happened 100 years ago this summer. Confronting a national epidemic of white mob violence, 1919 was a time when Black people defended themselves, fought back, and demanded full citizenship in thousands of acts of courage and daring, small and large, individual and collective. Neither the defiance of Black communities in 1919 nor the racist violence to which it was a response was anomalous. 1919 is a moment that reaches back to the Stono Rebellion, Nat Turner, and Robert Smalls, and forward to the Ferguson and Baltimore uprisings, Bree Newsome's dramatic removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse, and the fierce backlash to Colin Kaepernick's on-field protest.

But pull a standard U.S. history textbook off the shelf and you're unlikely to find more than a paragraph on the 1919 riots; what you do find downplays both racism and Black resistance, while distorting facts in a dangerous "both sides" framing. These textbooks render students stupid about white supremacy and bereft of examples from those who defied it. At this moment of revived racist backlash, today's students - and all the rest of us - need to learn the lessons of 1919.

White Rage, Black Self-Defense

In 1919, Charleston, South Carolina; Longview, Texas; Bisbee, Arizona; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Knoxville, Tennessee; Omaha, Nebraska; and Elaine, Arkansas experienced a wave of anti-Black collective violence usually and problematically termed "race riots." In addition, white supremacists lynched nearly 100 Black people and initiated dozens of smaller racist clashes throughout 1919. In Pittsburgh, the Klan made clear the goal of this bloody work in the printed notices posted around a Black neighborhood: "The war is over, negroes. Stay in your place. If you don't, we'll put you there."

Historian Carol Anderson, in her 2016 book White Rage, argues, "The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is Black advancement. It is not the mere presence of Black people that is the problem; rather, it is Blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship." Red Summer (so deemed by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson to capture its sheer bloodiness) is a study in white rage. Throughout 1919, the exercise of Black agency - Black veterans wearing their military uniforms in public, Black children swimming in the white section of Lake Michigan, Black sharecroppers in Arkansas organizing for better wages and working conditions - was met with white mob terror broadcasting the message: "Stay in your place."

But in 1919, Black people did not stay in their place.

In Knoxville, armed Black men organized themselves throughout the Black community to successfully repel hundreds of white rioters who had already destroyed the county jail with a battering ram and dynamite. In Chicago, African Americans formed self-defense units after days of white terror in their neighborhoods. Many of these defenders were World War I veterans like Harry Haywood, of the all-Black 370th Infantry Regiment, who explained, "I had been fighting the wrong war. The Germans weren't the enemy - the enemy was right here at home." In Washington, D.C., 17-year-old Carrie Johnson opened fire on men breaking into her home while 1,000 white rioters laid siege to her neighborhood. In Anniston, Alabama, a Black veteran, Sgt. Edgar Caldwell, was ordered out of the white section of a streetcar. He refused. Kicked out of the car and set upon by the white motorman and conductor, Caldwell shot his pistol twice, killing one of his attackers. Though uncoordinated, when looked at together, these hundreds of moments in 1919 read as an awesome display of collective Black agency and self-preservation.

"Dying, but Fighting Back!"

Just as contemporary targets of anti-Black police violence are often blamed for their own victimization - Mike Brown was "no angel" while white supremacists in Charlottesville are deemed "very fine people" - the white media's coverage of the 1919 riots almost always assigned blame for the violence to Black people. But the Black press worked alongside Black leaders and political organizations to establish a powerful counter-narrative. Activist William Monroe Trotter clarified who was at fault for the violence and what was at stake: "There will be no peace until white Americans . . . make up their minds to give the colored Americans equal justice and let them share the democracy at home for which our brave soldiers fought and died abroad." The Chicago Defender, Black America's most influential newspaper, carefully documented the riots while striking a tone of defiance:

America is known the world over as the land of the lyncher and the mobocrat. For years she has been sowing the wind and now she is reaping the whirlwind. The Black worm has turned. A Race that has furnished hundreds of thousands of the best soldiers that the world has ever seen is no longer content to turn the left cheek when smitten upon the right.

Claude McKay 's "If We Must Die," a poem written in July 1919, became a kind of anthem for the summer. It concludes:

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

"Race Riots" in Textbooks

And what do students learn of this early 20th-century episode of sustained, collective self-defense, a crucial moment in the long history of the Black freedom struggle? Both Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's American History and Pearson's American Journey (two U.S. textbooks used in my school, outside of Portland, Oregon) devote only a single paragraph to the riots. By comparison, American Odyssey's (McGraw-Hill) five paragraphs, focusing mostly on the D.C. riot, seems generous. Unfortunately, American Odyssey 's account distorts the history and leaves students mystified about racism's role in the violence:

Southern African Americans who had migrated to Washington, D.C., during the war had been competing for jobs in an atmosphere of mounting racial tension. Newspaper reports of rumored African American violence against whites contributed to the tension.

Following one such newspaper story, 200 sailors and marines marched into the city, beating African American men and women. A group of whites also tried to break through military barriers to attack African Americans in their homes. Determined to fight back, a group of African Americans boarded a streetcar and attacked the motorman and the conductors. African Americans also exchanged gunfire with whites who drove or walked through their neighborhoods.

By opening its analysis of the riots with Black people migrating and seeking work, American Odyssey structurally implies it was the actions of African Americans - rather than the white mobs - that prompted the violence. This is the same kind of backward reasoning that makes note of Trayvon Martin's hoodie or Tamir Rice's airsoft pistol in explaining their murders. In this framing, Black people always "do" something that justifies the violence that follows; white violence and volition is always incidental, never fundamental.

The authors of American Odyssey also pretend that Black resistance amounted to a single example aboard a streetcar, erasing the magnitude and breadth of the self-defense effort. A Black newspaper, the New York Age, celebrated as "splendid" the reach of the resistance, which included "poolroom hangers-on and men from the alleys and side streets, people from the most ordinary walks of life." Neval Thomas, an active member of the Washington branch of the NAACP, counted 2,000 African Americans - many of them armed - patrolling D.C. city blocks with the intention to "die for their race, and defy the white mob." White people were not being targeted because they "walked or drove through" Black neighborhoods, as American Odyssey ludicrously suggests, but because thousands of white people had organized themselves into mobs, and Black people were determined to protect themselves.

These textbooks peddle in the ambiguity of "racial unrest," "racial violence," and the most ubiquitous offender, "race riot," to describe the events of 1919. (It's worth asking: How does race riot?) These phrases give the impression of groups of Blacks and whites in conflict with each other, responsibility shared by "both sides." But there is little doubt about who instigated these riots. As Cameron McWhirter has written, "In almost every case, white mobs - whether sailors on leave, immigrant slaughterhouse workers, or Southern farmers - initiated the violence." African Americans, on the other hand, were not "rioting." They fought back, counterattacked, defended themselves.

To capture the irrefutable fact of white culpability, a more accurate term might be rac ist riot. But "racism" or "racist" are terms these textbooks avoid. Even American Journey, the only book to actually use the word "racism" in its coverage of 1919, is not clear on what it is or how it operates. The authors write, "Housing shortages and job competition interacted with racism in 1919 to produce race riots in 26 towns and cities," a vague formulation that makes racism outside, rather than constitutive of, the history of U.S. labor and housing patterns.

The absence of a full-throated naming of racism's role in these episodes of anti-Black collective violence matters. By downplaying the extent to which violent white supremacy shaped African Americans' 20th-century experiences, textbooks leave students without the knowledge to fully account for racism as a key force in modern social relations. No wonder the question of reparations is so seldom seriously entertained in mainstream U.S. political discourse. You cannot repair a pattern of harm that you have been taught to neither acknowledge nor understand. When students are given access to the real history, as they are, for example, in Linda Christensen's powerful lesson on the Tulsa Massacre, which shares many of the hallmarks of the riots of 1919, reparations no longer seem outlandish, but simply fair.

One hundred years ago, Black people across the United States met white mob violence with countless defiant acts of self-defense. Today's Black Lives Matter activists fit seamlessly into this centuries-long pattern of Black militant resistance to white supremacy, as they mobilize against the violent policies and militarized police that threaten their neighborhoods, as they challenge the corporate media's habit of framing victims of white racist violence as the authors of their own destruction, as they demand we confront the damage the history of white supremacy has wrought. Our students deserve the opportunity to identify this through line of Black agency, rebellion, and resistance. It is a powerful call to action for all of us: Red Summer is now.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Remembering Red Summer - Which Textbooks Seem Eager to Forget - Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca The racist riots of 1919 happened 100 years ago this summer. Confronting a national epidemic of white mob violence, 1919 was a time when Black people defended themselves, fought back, and demanded full citizenship in thousands of acts of courage and daring, small and large, individual and collective.

# data[].attributes.headline
Burned Out of Homes and History: Unearthing the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Massacre

# data[].attributes.subject
Burned Out of Homes and History: Unearthing the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Massacre

# data[].attributes.body
Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Burned Out of Homes and History: Unearthing the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Massacre - Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this article, Rethinking Schools editor and language arts teacher Linda Christensen describes a section of "Stealing Home," a unit she created about ways the homes of people of color have been stolen through massacres and "urban renewal" in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Los Angeles' Chávez Ravine; and Portland, Oregon's Albina neighborhood.

# data[].attributes.body
By Kevin Levin in The New Republic (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On April 19, 2019, a man-who, in his profile picture, wears a hat emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag-posted in a Facebook group called "Black Confederates and Other Minorities in the War of Northern Aggression," which has more than 2,000 members. "Heads up y'all there's gonna be a book coming out in sept saying black confederates are a myth," he wrote. "Be prepared to give a negative review on amazon when it's released." "I damned sure will," another man immediately replied.

The University of North Carolina Press 240 pp., $30.00

Within this online community, the publication of Kevin M. Levin's excellent book, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth, is nothing less than a declaration of war. In the last several decades, Levin writes, a growing number of people have begun to accept as fact claims that between 500 and 100,000 black soldiers fought in racially integrated units in the Confederate Army. There are hundreds of web sites, legions of online communities, and whole books devoted to perpetuating these claims. Billboards reading "75,000 Confederates of color?" have recently appeared in Missouri, and one fourth-grade Virginia history textbook asserted that "thousands of Southern blacks fought in Confederate ranks." Although it is difficult to measure the pervasiveness of this narrative, one study from 2013 found that 16 percent of students at a Virginia university believed that "blacks fought for the Confederacy."

Yet, as Levin patiently explains, this is totally untrue-predicated on a misreading and misunderstanding of historical documents, as well as outright lies and manipulations. The myth of black Confederates enables white supremacists to portray the Civil War inaccurately as a struggle over states' rights, not slavery; as a fight for Southern liberty, not for oppression. This in turn justifies their retrograde and racist politics in the present. To those who have embraced this myth, Levin's book is a terrifying prospect, and for good reason. Searching for Black Confederates is a bracing corrective, a slender yet vital volume in the growing library of texts dedicated to dispelling white supremacist talking points.

There were plenty of black men present in Confederate Army camps, and even on the gray side of Civil War battlefields. The Confederate Army pressed tens of thousands of slaves into work as teamsters, butchers, blacksmiths, ditchdiggers, and hospital attendants; thousands more were brought to war by their masters, for whom they performed less desirable labor and assisted with washing, sewing, and food preparation. Countless slaves used the excitement of war and the confusion of battle to flee. Many others stayed, some for years, sometimes even saving their masters' lives and nursing their wounds; they may have felt some sense of kinship with their masters, with whom they were now sharing close quarters and the intimacy of the trenches, but many undoubtedly remained because they had family still on their masters' homesteads, and they feared reprisals against their loved ones or the loss of the chance to reunite. As the war continued, the increasing flood of escapes led the Confederate Army to employ free blacks-"who, it was believed, had fewer reasons to flee"-though only in "support roles."

It is true that some black men did occasionally "man artillery and perform as sharpshooters," likely when they themselves feared Northern shells or after their masters had fallen. But these black men were not soldiers. Indeed, they could not have been. The Confederacy did not allow black men-free or enslaved-to serve in its military. As the Confederate Army began racking up defeats, there were increasing calls to dragoon slaves or pay free blacks to serve as soldiers, and Jefferson Davis eventually voiced his support for this-but it never came to pass. Lee surrendered before a single black Confederate soldier ever marched into battle.

Observers at the time vehemently denied scattered reports in Northern newspapers that the Confederacy had recruited black soldiers. "This is utterly untrue," wrote John B. Jones of the Confederate War Department. Even the few black men who tried to fight for the Confederacy were ultimately blocked from doing so. Though free men of color formed the 1st Louisiana Native Guard in 1861, the law limited membership in the state militia to "free white males," and the unit "was never accepted into Confederate service." By September 1862, many of its former members were fighting for the Union.

In the years immediately following the war, no reports or memoirs emerged of black Confederates. Such accounts would have struck former Confederates as bizarre or absurd-and certainly demeaning to white supremacy. As the so-called Lost Cause narrative began to take shape, stories of camp slaves being rebellious or lazy were forgotten, replaced by magnolia-scented tales of loyal slaves who were only too happy to serve the Confederacy (in noncombatant roles). Statues and monuments were erected to celebrate Dixie, some of them depicting adoring blacks-though none of them in uniform.

It was only in the 1970s that the myth of black Confederate soldiers emerged. This was an era in which scholars reevaluated slavery and its role in causing the Civil War, teachers challenged the Lost Cause hagiography so predominant in museums and textbooks, and civil rights activists battled white supremacy in the streets and in the courts. In popular culture, the role that black people themselves, especially black Union soldiers, had taken in destroying slavery became increasingly visible. Alex Haley's wildly popular Roots television series, released in 1977, enraged the neo-Confederate community, as it portrayed the long genealogy of black resistance to slavery; the 1989 movie Glory, depicting the heroic black men of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and Ken Burns's 1990 Civil War PBS miniseries angered them, too.

A group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans began pushing back, fighting for the Lost Cause legend-and, in so doing, they created the myth of black Confederate soldiers. First through articles in Confederate Veteran magazine, SCV leaders began arguing that Confederates had been fighting for the freedom of the South and against Yankee interlopers, not for slavery or white supremacy. To lend credence to this pretense, they began claiming the existence of "black veterans," digging up photos of slaves in Confederate regalia and records of black people receiving Confederate military pensions as evidence that black men had served as Southern soldiers. Levin devotes an entire chapter to showing that the "exceedingly small" number of black men who received such pensions received them as former slaves or servants, never as soldiers.

More recently, the SCV has begun placing "Black Confederate" markers on the graves of black men, in an effort to "literally inscribe its preferred interpretation of the role of African Americans in the Confederacy at their final resting places." These ceremonies are often elaborate and well-publicized events, designed to make a statement rather than quietly show respect. With the advent of the internet, neo-Confederates also created thousands of web sites "to spread their understanding of the war beyond the confines of their narrow community." Many of the sites feature primary sources, lending them a sheen of credibility, but the materials have "either been misinterpreted or even manipulated."

A small number of black people have embraced the myth, speaking at reenactments and other Confederate heritage events. Their presence is a conundrum that Levin could have devoted more time to plumbing. He proposes that "a small number of African Americans have embraced the black Confederate narrative as a means to identify and to celebrate stories of ancestors who they believe have been long forgotten or intentionally ignored." He also speculates that the myth may have "offered conservative black Americans an outlet to voice their political agenda." Interviews could have rounded out these observations, and could have proved worthwhile, too, in Levin's discussion of SCV activities, though he has gotten his hands on some internal SCV reports.

Levin seems more in his element when challenging prominent academics, such as John Stauffer and Henry Louis Gates Jr., who, he writes, have misinterpreted evidence and spread "unsubstantiated claims about the existence of loyal black soldiers," despite never having "conducted any serious research on this subject." Stauffer has discussed it in his university lectures for years, and in an essay in The Root (which has been gleefully cited by neo-Confederates), while Gates has spread the myth on his PBS show Finding Your Roots, among other places. Gates has also publicly claimed that scholars' refusal to embrace the black Confederate narrative is evidence of "left-of-center" academics censoring themselves and ignoring the "complexity of the African American community."

The myth of black Confederate soldiers is important because it allows neo-Confederates to manipulate the popular understanding of white supremacy; to claim that flying the Stars and Bars is a matter of heritage, not hate. Levin notes that during the campaign to remove the Confederate battle flag from state grounds across the South following the murders at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, the SCV objected. Its argument for keeping the flag cited the existence of black Southern soldiers. Happily, the neo-Confederates lost that fight. With this important book, Levin is determined to rout them once and for all.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On April 19, 2019, a man-who, in his profile picture, wears a hat emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag-posted in a Facebook group called "Black Confederates and Other Minorities in the War of Northern Aggression," which has more than 2,000 members.

# data[].attributes.body
By Clint Smith in The Atlantic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For some Americans, history isn't the story of what actually happened; it's the story they want to believe.

Paul Spella

This article was published online on May 10, 2021.
Most of the people who come to Blandford Cemetery, in Petersburg, Virginia, come for the windows-masterpieces of Tiffany glass in the cemetery's deconsecrated church. One morning before the pandemic, I took a tour of the church along with two other visitors and our tour guide, Ken. When my eyes adjusted to the hazy darkness inside, I could see that in each window stood a saint, surrounded by dazzling bursts of blues and greens and violets. Below these explosions of color were words that I couldn't quite make out. I stepped closer to one of the windows, and the language became clearer. Beneath the saint was an inscription honoring the men "who died for the Confederacy."

Outside, lawn mowers buzzed as Black men steered them between tombstones draped in Confederate flags. The oldest marked grave at Blandford dates back to 1702; new funerals are held there every week. Within the cemetery's 150 acres are the bodies of roughly 30,000 Confederate soldiers, one of the largest mass graves of Confederate servicemen in the country.

From 1866 into the 1880s, Ken told us, a group of local women organized the tracking-down and exhuming of those bodies from nearby battlegrounds. "They felt that the southern soldier had not been treated with the same dignity and honor that the northern soldiers had," and they wanted to do something about it. Most of the bodies were not identifiable; sometimes all that was left was a leg or an arm. Nonetheless, the remains were dug up and brought here, and the ladies refurbished the old church as a memorial to their fallen husbands, sons, and brothers.

Tiffany Studios cut them a deal on the stained glass: $350 apiece instead of the usual price of about $1,700 ($51,000 today). Thirteen southern states donated funds. Ken outlined the aesthetic history of each window in meticulous detail, giving each color and engraving his thorough and intimate attention. But he said almost nothing about why the windows were there-that the soldiers memorialized in stained glass had fought a war to keep my ancestors in chains.

Almost all of the people who come to Blandford Cemetery are white. "It's not that a Black population doesn't appreciate the windows," Ken, who is white, told me. "But sometimes in the context of what it represents, they're not as comfortable." He went on: "In most cases we try and fall back on the beauty of the windows, the Tiffany-glass kind of thing."

But I couldn't revel in the windows' beauty without reckoning with what those windows represented. I looked around the church again. How many of the visitors to the cemetery today, I asked Ken, are Confederate sympathizers?

"I think there's a Confederate empathy," he replied. "People will tell you, 'My great-great-grandmother, my great-great-grandfather are buried out here.' So they've got long southern roots."

We left the church, and a breeze slid across my face. Many people go to places like Blandford to see a piece of history, but history is not what is reflected in that glass. A few years ago, I decided to travel around America visiting sites that are grappling-or refusing to grapple-with America's history of slavery. I went to plantations, prisons, cemeteries, museums, memorials, houses, and historical landmarks. As I traveled, I was moved by the people who have committed their lives to telling the story of slavery in all its fullness and humanity. And I was struck by the many people I met who believe a version of history that rests on well-documented falsehoods.

For so many of them, history isn't the story of what actually happened; it is just the story they want to believe. It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom, that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history, history as eulogy, in which loyalty takes precedence over truth. This is especially true at Blandford, where the ancestors aren't just hovering in the background-they are literally buried underfoot.

We went over to the visitors' center, where Ken introduced me to his boss, Martha, a kind-looking woman with tortoiseshell glasses.

She said her interest in women's history had drawn her to Blandford. "This is how they helped to get through their grief," she told me. "And this is what their result was, this beautiful chapel." She added, "I think you could take the Civil War aspect totally out of it and enjoy the beauty."

I asked her whether Blandford was concerned that, by presenting itself in such a positive light, it might be distorting its connection to a racist and treasonous cause.

She told me that a lot of people ask why the war was fought. "I say, 'Well, you get five different historians who have written five different books; I'm going to have five different answers.' It's a lot of stuff. But I think from the perspective of my ancestors, it was not slavery. My ancestors were not slaveholders. But my great-great-grandfather fought. He had federal troops coming into Norfolk. He said, 'Nuh-uh, I've got to join the army and defend my home state.' "

As we spoke, I looked down at the counter and reached for one of the flyers stacked there. Martha's gaze followed my hand. Her face turned red and she thrust her hand down to flip the paper over, attempting to cover the rest of the leaflets. "Don't even look at this. I'm sorry," she said. "I will tell you, from a personal standpoint, I'm kind of bothered."

I looked at the flyer again, trying to read between her fingers. It was a handout for a Memorial Day event at Blandford hosted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Paul C. Gramling Jr., then the commander in chief of the group, would be speaking. It was May 2019, and the event was just a few weeks away.

Illustration by Paul Spella; images from Library of Congress / Corbis / Getty

"I don't mind that they come on Memorial Day and put Confederate flags on Confederate graves. That's okay," she said. "But as far as I'm concerned, you don't need a Confederate flag on-" She stumbled over a series of sentences I couldn't follow. Then she collected herself and took a deep breath. "If you're just talking about history, it's great, but these folks are like, 'The South shall rise again.' It's very bothersome."

She told me that she'd attended a Sons of Confederate Veterans event once but wouldn't again. "These folks can't let things go. I mean, it's not like they want people enslaved again, but they can't get over the fact that history is history."

Related Stories

More people were coming into the visitors' center, and I didn't want to keep Ken and Martha from their work. We shook hands, and I made my way out the door. Before getting back in my car, I walked across the street, to another burial ground, this one much smaller. The People's Memorial Cemetery was founded in 1840 by 28 members of Petersburg's free Black community. Buried on this land are people who were enslaved; a prominent antislavery writer; Black veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II; and hundreds of other Black residents.

There are far fewer tombstones than at Blandford. There are no flags on the graves. And there are no hourly tours for people to remember the dead. There is history, but also silence.

After my visit to Blandford, I kept thinking about the way Martha had flipped over the Memorial Day flyer, the way her face had turned red. If she hadn't responded like that, I don't know that I would have felt so curious about what she was trying to hide. But my interest had been piqued. I wanted to find out what Martha was so ashamed of.

Founded in 1896, the Sons of Confederate Veterans describes itself as an organization of about 30,000 that aims to preserve "the history and legacy of these heroes, so future generations can understand the motives that animated the Southern Cause." It is the oldest hereditary organization for men who are descendants of Confederate soldiers. I was wary of going to the celebration alone, so I asked my friend William, who is white, to come with me.

The entrance to the cemetery was marked by a large stone archway with the words our confederate heroes on it. Maybe a couple hundred people were sitting in folding chairs around a large white gazebo. Children played tag among the trees; people hugged and slapped one another on the back. I felt like I was walking in on someone else's family reunion. Dixie flags bloomed from the soil like milkweeds. There were baseball caps emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag, biker vests ornamented with the seals of seceding states, and lawn chairs bearing the letters UDC, for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. In front of the gazebo were two flags, one Confederate, one American, standing side by side, as if 700,000 people hadn't been killed in the epic conflagration between them.

William and I stood in the back and watched. The event began with an honor guard-a dozen men dressed in Confederate regalia, carrying rifles with long bayonets. Their uniforms were the color of smoke; their caps looked as if they had been bathed in ash. Everyone in the crowd stood up as they marched by. The crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance, then sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." After a pause came "Dixie," the unofficial Confederate anthem. The crowd sang along with a boisterous passion: "Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton / Old times there are not forgotten / Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land."

I glanced around as everyone sang in tribute to a fallen ancestral home. A home never meant for me. Speakers came to the podium, each praising the soldiers buried under our feet. "While those who hate seek to remove the memory of these heroes," one said, "these men paid the ultimate price for freedom, and they deserve to be remembered."

Related Issue

More than a few people turned around in their seat and looked with puzzlement, and likely suspicion, at the Black man they had never seen before standing in the back of a Sons of Confederate Veterans crowd. A man to my right took out his phone and began recording me. The stares began to crawl over my skin. I had been taking notes; now I slowly closed my notebook and stuck it under my arm, doing my best to act unfazed. Without moving my head, I scanned the crowd again. The man in front of me had a gun in a holster.

A man in a tan suit and a straw boater approached the podium. His dark-blond hair fell to his shoulders, and a thick mustache and goatee covered his lips. I recognized him as Paul C. Gramling Jr. from the flyer. He began by sharing a story about the origins of Memorial Day. "I don't know if it's true or not, but I like it," he said, before reading aloud the account of a ceremony that took place on April 25, 1866, in Columbus, Mississippi, when a group of women "decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers." Those soldiers, he continued, had "earned their rightful place to be included as American veterans. We should embrace our heritage as Americans, North and South, Black and white, rich and poor. Our American heritage is the one thing we have in common."

Gramling's speech was strikingly similar to those at Memorial Day celebrations after the end of Reconstruction, when orators stressed reconciliation, paying tribute to the sacrifices on both sides of the Civil War without accounting for what the war had actually been fought over.

Gramling then turned his attention to the present-day controversy about Confederate monuments-to the people who are "trying to take away our symbols." In 2019, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were nearly 2,000 Confederate monuments, place names, and other symbols in public spaces across the country. A follow-up report after last summer's racial-justice protests found that more than 160 of those symbols had been removed or renamed in 2020.

Gramling said that this was the work of "the American ISIS." He looked delighted as the crowd murmured its affirmation. "They are nothing better than ISIS in the Middle East. They are trying to destroy history they don't like."

I thought about friends of mine who have spent years fighting to have Confederate monuments removed. Many of them are teachers committed to showing their students that we don't have to accept the status quo. Others are parents who don't want their kids to grow up in a world where enslavers loom on pedestals. And many are veterans of the civil-rights movement who laid their bodies on the line, fighting against what these statues represented. None of them, I thought as I looked at the smile on Gramling's face, is a terrorist.

Gramling urged all who were present to understand the true meaning of the Confederacy and to "take back the narrative." When his speech ended, two men in front of William and me started swinging large Confederate flags with unsettling fervor. Another speech was given. Another song was sung. Wreaths were laid. The honor guard then lifted its rifles and fired into the sky three times. The first shot took me by surprise, and my knees buckled. I shut my eyes for the second shot, and again for the third. I felt a tightening of muscles inside my mouth, muscles I hadn't known were there.

"I don't know if it's true or not, but I like it"-I kept coming back to Gramling's words. That comment was revealing. Many places in the South claim to be the originator of Memorial Day, and the story is at least as much a matter of interpretation as of fact. According to the historian David Blight, the first Memorial Day ceremony was held in Charleston, South Carolina, in May 1865, when Black workmen, most of them formerly enslaved, buried and commemorated fallen Union soldiers.

Confederates had converted Charleston's Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison for captured Union soldiers. The conditions were so terrible that nearly 260 men died and were buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. After the Confederates retreated, Black men reburied the dead in proper graves and erected an archway bearing the words martyrs of the race course. An enormous parade was held on the track, with 3,000 Black children singing "John Brown's Body," the Union marching song. The first Memorial Day, as Blight describes it, received significant press coverage. But it faded from public consciousness after the defeat of Reconstruction.

It was then, in the late 1800s, that the myth of the Lost Cause began to take hold. The myth was an attempt to recast the Confederacy as something predicated on family and heritage rather than what it was: a traitorous effort to extend the bondage of millions of Black people. The myth asserts that the Civil War was fought by honorable men protecting their communities, and not about slavery at all.
Read: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Confederate cause in the words of its leaders
We know this is a lie, because the people who fought in the Civil War told us so. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-the greatest material interest of the world," Mississippi lawmakers declared during their 1861 secession convention. Slavery was "the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution," the Confederate vice president, Alexander Stephens, said, adding that the Confederacy was founded on "the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man."

The Lost Cause asks us to ignore this evidence. Besides, it argues, slavery wasn't even that bad.

The early 1900s saw a boom in Confederate-monument building. The monuments were meant to reinforce white supremacy in an era when Black communities were being terrorized and Black social and political mobility impeded. They were also intended to teach new generations of white southerners that the cause their ancestors had fought for was just.

That myth tried to rewrite U.S. history, and my visit to Blandford showed how, in so many ways, it had succeeded.
Read: Five books to make you less stupid about the Civil War
After the speeches, I began talking with a man named Jeff, who had a long salt-and-pepper ponytail and wore a denim vest adorned with Confederate badges. He told me that several of his ancestors had fought for the Confederacy. I asked what he thought of the event. "Well," he said, "I think if anyone never knew the truth, they heard it today."

He spoke about the importance of the Confederate flag and monuments, contending that they were essential pieces of history. "They need to be there for generations in the future, because they need to know the truth. They can't learn the truth if you do away with history. You'll never learn. And once you do away with that type of thing, you become a slave."

I was startled by his choice of words but couldn't tell whether it was intentionally provocative or rhetorical coincidence.

"I think everybody should learn the truth," Jeff said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"What is that truth?" I asked.

"Everybody always hears the same things: 'It's all about slavery.' And it wasn't," he said. "It was about the fact that each state had the right to govern itself."

He pointed to a tombstone about 20 yards away, telling me it belonged to a "Black gentleman" named Richard Poplar. Jeff said Poplar was a Confederate officer who was captured by the Union and told he would be freed if he admitted that he'd been forced to fight for the South. But he refused.

Poplar, I would learn, is central to the story many people in Petersburg tell about the war. The commemoration of Poplar seems to have begun in 2003, when the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans pushed for an annual "Richard Poplar Day." In 2004, the mayor signed a proclamation establishing the holiday; she called Poplar a "veteran" of the Confederate Army. The tombstone with his name on it was erected at Blandford.

But the reality is that Black men couldn't serve in the Confederate Army. And an 1886 obituary suggests that Poplar was a cook for the soldiers, not someone engaged in combat.

Some people say that up to 100,000 Black soldiers fought for the Confederate Army, in racially integrated regiments. No evidence supports these claims, as the historian Kevin M. Levin has pointed out, but appropriating the stories of men like Poplar is a way to protect the Confederacy's legacy. If Black soldiers fought for the South, how could the war have been about slavery? How could it be considered racist now to fly the Dixie flag?

One Confederate general, Patrick Cleburne, actually did float the idea of using enslaved people as soldiers, but he was scoffed at. A senator from Virginia is reported to have asked, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?" General Howell Cobb was even more explicit: "If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong." In a desperate move just weeks before General Robert E. Lee's surrender, the Confederacy approved legislation that would allow Black people to be used in battle. But by then it was too late.

Read: The myth of the kindly General Lee
I asked Jeff whether he thought slavery had played a role in the start of the Civil War. "Oh, just a very small part. I mean, we can't deny it was there. We know slave blocks existed." But only a small number of plantations even had slaves, he said.

It was a remarkable contortion of history, reflecting a century of Lost Cause propaganda.

Two children ran behind me, chasing a ball. Jeff smiled. He told me that he doesn't call it the "Civil War," because that distorts the truth. "We call it the 'War Between the States' or 'of Northern Aggression' against us," he said. "Southern people don't call it the Civil War, because they know it was an invasion ... If you stayed up north, ain't nothing would've happened."

When Jeff said "nothing would've happened," I wondered if he had forgotten the millions of Black people who would have remained enslaved, those for whom the status quo would have meant ongoing bondage. Or did he remember but not care?

A mosquito buzzed by Jeff's ear, and he swatted it away. He told me that 78 of his family members were buried in the cemetery, dating back to 1802, and he had been coming here since he was 4 years old.

"Some nights I just sit there and just watch the deer come out," he said, pointing to the gazebo, his voice becoming soft. "I just enjoy the feeling. I reminisce ... I want to preserve history and save what I can for my granddaughters.

"This is a place of peace," he said. "The dead don't bother me. It's the living that bother me."

A little later, I was speaking with a mother and son about how often they came to events like these when a man in a Confederate uniform, carrying a saber in his left hand, approached us and stood a few feet away. I watched him from the corner of my eye, unsure whether he was trying to intimidate me or join the conversation.

I turned toward him, introducing myself and getting his name: Jason. He had a thick black beard and a mop of hair underneath his gray cap. He told me that "Civil War reenactor" had sounded like a cool job. "I didn't realize it's all volunteer," he said with a laugh.

I asked him what he believed the cause of the Civil War had been. "How do I put this gently?" he said. "People are not as educated as they should be." They're taught that "these men were fighting to keep slavery legal, and if that's what you grow up believing, you're looking at people like me wearing this uniform: 'Oh, he's a racist.' " He said he'd done a lot of research and decided the war was much more complicated.

"We used to be able to stand on the monuments on Monument Avenue [in Richmond, Virginia]-those Lee and Jackson monuments. We can't do it anymore, 'cause it ain't safe. Someone's gonna drive by and shoot me. You know, that's what I'm afraid of."

I thought that scenario was unlikely; cities have spent millions of dollars on police protection for white nationalists and neo-Nazis, people far more extreme than the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I found it a little ironic that these monuments had been erected in part to instill fear in Black communities, and now Jason was the one who felt scared.

The typical Confederate soldier hadn't been fighting for slavery, he argued. "The average age was 17 to 22 for a Civil War soldier. Many of them had never even seen a Black man. The rich were the ones who had slaves. They didn't have to fight. They were draft-exempt. So these men are going to be out here and they're going to be laying down their lives and fighting and going through the hell of camp life-the lice, the rats, and everything else-just so this rich dude in Richmond, Virginia, or Atlanta, Georgia, or Memphis, Tennessee, can have some slaves? That doesn't make sense ... No man would do that."
Read: Why "most Confederate soldiers never owned a slave" is misleading
But the historian Joseph T. Glatthaar has challenged that argument. He analyzed the makeup of the unit that would become Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and pointed out that "the vast majority of the volunteers of 1861 had a direct connection to slavery." Almost half either owned enslaved people or lived with a head of household who did, and many more worked for slaveholders, rented land from them, or had business relationships with them.

Illustration by Paul Spella; image from Peregrine / Alamy

Many white southerners who did not own enslaved people were deeply committed to preserving the institution. The historian James Oliver Horton wrote about how the press inundated white southerners with warnings that, without slavery, they would be forced to live, work, and inevitably procreate with their free Black neighbors.

The Louisville Daily Courier, for example, warned nonslaveholding white southerners about the slippery slope of abolition: "Do they wish to send their children to schools in which the negro children of the vicinity are taught? Do they wish to give the negro the right to appear in the witness box to testify against them?" The paper threatened that Black men would sleep with white women and "amalgamate together the two races in violation of God's will."

These messages worked, Horton's research found. One southern prisoner of war told a Union soldier standing watch, "You Yanks want us to marry our daughters to niggers"; a Confederate artilleryman from Louisiana said that his army had to fight against even the most difficult odds, because he would "never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person."

The proposition of equality with Black people was one that millions of southern white people were unwilling to accept. The existence of slavery meant that, no matter your socioeconomic status, there were always millions of people beneath you. As the historian Charles Dew put it, "You don't have to be actively involved in the system to derive at least the psychological benefits of the system."

Jason and I were finishing our conversation when another man, with a thick gray beard and a balding head, walked up to us. We shook hands as he and Jason greeted each other warmly. "He's a treasure trove of information," Jason said. I mentioned that I had seen him talking with my friend William. "I been in his ear good," the man said, telling me that he'd even given him his phone number. I said that was very generous. He looked at me, his eyes searching. His face shifted. "I told him, if you write about my ancestors"-the air trembled between us-"I want it to be correct. I'm concerned about the truth, not mythology."

Like Blandford Cemetery, the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana has a church. It is large and white and flaked with a thin coat of dirt. The door whistles as it opens, and the wooden floor moans under your feet as you step inside. There are no stained-glass windows here.

Instead, scattered throughout the church's interior-standing next to the pews, sitting on the floor, hiding in the corners-are statues. There are more than two dozen of them, life-size sculptures of children with eyes like small, empty planets. The boys wear shorts or overalls; the girls, simple dresses. When I saw them I was startled because, at first glance, I thought they were real. Each one was so alive despite its inanimateness, intricately detailed from the contours of the lips to the bridge of the nose. They look like they're listening, or waiting. They are The Children of Whitney, designed for the plantation by the artist Woodrow Nash.

Once one of the most successful sugarcane enterprises in all of Louisiana, the Whitney is surrounded by a constellation of former plantations that host lavish events-bridal parties dancing the night away on land where people were tortured, taking selfies in front of the homes where enslavers lived. Visitors bask in nostalgia, enjoying the antiques and the scenery. But the Whitney is different. It is the only plantation museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on enslaved people. The old plantation house still stands-alluring in its decadence-but it's not there to be admired. The house is a reminder of what slavery built, and the grounds are a reminder of what slavery really meant for the men, women, and children held in its grip.

On a plot of earth tucked into a corner of the property, between a white wooden fence and a redbrick path, are the dark heads of 55 Black men, impaled on silver stakes. Their eyes are shut, their faces peaceful or anguished. They're ceramic, but so lifelike that the gleam of the sun could as easily be the sheen of blood and sweat. These heads represent the rebels in the largest slave revolt in American history, which took place not far from here in 1811. Within 48 hours, local militia and federal troops had suppressed the uprising. Many rebels were slaughtered, their heads cut off and posted on stakes lining the Mississippi River.

Like Blandford, the Whitney also has a cemetery, of a kind. A small courtyard called the Field of Angels memorializes the 2,200 enslaved children who died in St. John the Baptist Parish from 1823 to 1863. Their names are carved into granite slabs that encircle the space. My tour guide, Yvonne, the site's director of operations, explained that most had died of malnutrition or disease. Yvonne, who is Black, added that there were stories of some enslaved mothers killing their own babies, rather than sentencing them to a life of slavery.

At the center of the courtyard is a statue of an angel down on one knee. Her chest is bare and a pair of wings juts from her back. Her hair is pulled into thick rows of braids and her head is bent, eyes cast downward at the limp body of the small child in her hands.

My own son was almost 2 at the time, and his baby sister was a couple of weeks from making her way into the world. This child, cradled in the angel's hands, evoked in me a surge of grief I had not expected. I felt the blood leave my fingers. I had to push out of my head the image of my own child in those hands. I had to remind myself to breathe.

"There's so many misconceptions about slavery," Yvonne said. "People don't really consider the children who were brought over, and the children who were born into this system, and the way to get people to let their guard down when they come here is being confronted with the reality of slavery-and the reality of slavery is child enslavement."

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the Whitney was getting more than 100,000 visitors a year. I asked Yvonne if they were different from the people who might typically visit a plantation. She looked down at the names of the dead inscribed in stone. "No one is coming to the Whitney thinking they're only coming to admire the architecture," she said.

Did the white visitors, I asked her, experience the space differently from the Black visitors? She told me that the most common question she gets from white visitors is "I know slavery was bad ... I don't mean it this way, but ... Were there any good slave owners?"

She took a deep breath, her frustration visible. She had the look of someone professionally committed to patience but personally exhausted by the toll it takes.

"I really give a short but nuanced answer to that," she said. "Regardless of how these individuals fed the people that they owned, regardless of how they clothed them, regardless of if they never laid a hand on them, they were still sanctioning the system ... You can't say, 'Hey, this person kidnapped your child, but they fed them well. They were a good person.' How absurd does that sound?"

But so many Americans simply don't want to hear this, and if they do hear it, they refuse to accept it. After the 2015 massacre of Black churchgoers in Charleston led to renewed questions about the memory and iconography of the Confederacy, Greg Stewart, another member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told The New York Times, "You're asking me to agree that my great-grandparent and great-great-grandparents were monsters."

So much of the story we tell about history is really the story we tell about ourselves. It is the story of our mothers and fathers and their mothers and fathers, as far back as our lineages will take us. They are the stories Jeff tells as he sits watching the deer scamper among the Blandford tombstones at dusk. The stories he wants to tell his granddaughters when he holds their hands as they walk over the land. But just because someone tells you a story doesn't make that story true.

Would Jeff's story change, I wonder, if he went to the Whitney? Would his sense of what slavery was, and what his ancestors fought for, survive his coming face-to-face with the Whitney's murdered rebels and lost children? Would he still be proud?
This article has been adapted from Clint Smith's new book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. It appears in the June 2021 print edition with the headline "The War on Nostalgia."

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent and the forthcoming nonfiction book How the Word Is Passed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For some Americans, history isn't the story of what actually happened; it's the story they want to believe. This article was published online on May 10, 2021. Most of the people who come to Blandford Cemetery, in Petersburg, Virginia, come for the windows-masterpieces of Tiffany glass in the cemetery's deconsecrated church.

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One spring evening in the early 1980s, Maria Brown, a Black nursing assistant in a Tulsa retirement home, visited the room of one of her favorite residents. He was a well-traveled white man in his 70s and she often sat and listened to his stories. That day, she asked about growing up in Tulsa.

Ms. Brown, now 80, remembers how he began. "You know about that riot?" he asked. She'd lived in Tulsa for years by then, but she had no idea what he was talking about.

"He said, 'I'll tell you what happened.'"

For decades, this was how the memory of one of the deadliest race massacres in U.S. history was preserved: through personal recollections and hushed conversations. Schools did not teach about what happened on June 1, 1921, when thousands of white men and women, enraged that armed Black Tulsans had come downtown to prevent a lynching, attacked what had been one of the most prosperous Black communities in the country.

The white mobs looted scores of businesses, burned over a thousand homes and killed an untold number of residents of the Greenwood district. Estimates of the death toll range from 36 to 300, with long-told stories of bodies stacked like cordwood, tossed into pits or dumped into the Arkansas River.

When it came to the official history of Tulsa, for much of the 20th century it was as if the massacre had never happened.

This has slowly begun to change over the past quarter-century, with a state-commissioned report on the massacre in 2001, a growing interest by historians and a greater willingness to talk about the massacre among the descendants of its survivors.

But until this week, the city had not been committed to searching for the most visceral evidence of the slaughter, the bones of the dead. On Monday, the first test excavation began at a potential site detected by archaeologists on the grounds of Oaklawn Cemetery, the oldest graveyard in Tulsa.

The mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who is white, announced the planned excavations in 2018, nearly two decades after a similar attempt was halted before it began. Uncovering the truth, the mayor wrote at the time of his announcement, was "a matter of basic human decency."

Locating possible mass graves has required the use of forensic science, along with sparse records and "stories that have been handed down through generations," as a state-commissioned report put it in 2001. In one case, they were the boyhood recollections of an 88-year-old man who remembered seeing Black bodies in wooden crates.

The part of town that was invaded had been nicknamed "Black Wall Street" because of the once-thriving community there. Today, the Greenwood district is testimony to official disregard. The district was steadily rebuilt only to be slowly strangled by an expressway overpass and the kind of "urban renewal" projects that devastated Black working-class neighborhoods across the country. Parts of Greenwood, once a byword for Black prosperity, now sit mostly empty, strikingly so for a neighborhood just next to a thriving downtown.

"You would hear stories about what it was," said Chief Egunwale Amusan, president of the African Ancestral Society in Tulsa. His grandfather fled Greenwood during the massacre and returned to Tulsa, only to have his home taken under eminent domain decades later. When he would ask his grandfather where all these businesses went, the answer was terse: "They just don't exist anymore."

After plans for an excavation at Oaklawn were dropped in 2000, the city mostly stopped discussing the search for the mass graves.

But a few people kept the idea alive, including Vanessa Hall-Harper, a Black member of the City Council whose ancestors witnessed the massacre and who has long been pushing for the excavations. At the end of a routine community meeting in 2018, the Rev. Dr. Robert Turner, who had recently moved to Tulsa, stood up and asked the mayor about restarting the search.

Mr. Bynum said he would.

Dr. Turner was a student of America's historical sins, having been born in a Tuskegee, Ala., hospital where scientists had performed syphilis experiments on Black men years earlier. He had moved to Tulsa to take over the pulpit at the Vernon A.M.E. Church in Greenwood. The church basement, he would learn after arriving, is the only structure in the neighborhood that survived the massacre.

The thought of the mass graves "touched me on a visceral level," Dr. Turner said. The white people who participated in the slaughter were never held accountable, he said. They were most likely laid to rest decades later in funeral ceremonies, their graves visited by family members. For Black victims dumped into pits, "their family thought they just went missing."

Dr. Turner joined the small group in Tulsa who had been pressing for a public accounting, including Ms. Hall-Harper and J. Kavin Ross, a local historian whose father Don Ross, a former state legislator, had for decades been one of the only figures in Tulsa to talk openly about what happened in 1921.

They pushed for excavations to begin, for reparations for the descendants of victims and survivors, and for consequences for the perpetrators, potentially including the local authorities who had deputized hundreds of white men before the attack and helped march thousands of Black residents into internment camps afterward. Dr. Turner began making solo pilgrimages to City Hall, where he would read passages from the book of Isaiah over a bullhorn, about healing the broken-hearted and repairing ruined cities.

On Wednesday, Dr. Turner arrived at his usual spot to find a group of white people already gathered to protest an ordinance requiring masks to combat the coronavirus. As he spoke, the protesters mocked him, threw water at him and flashed cash in his face when he talked of reparations. "They started chanting 'U.S.A.' in my face, like I'm not an American," said Dr. Turner, clearly shaken. "I'm just as American as they are. My ancestors built this country."

The city had planned the test excavation for April, but the pandemic forced a delay. So the descendants of Black Wall Street, having waited 99 years, waited a little more - through the spring and into a June that was among the most tumultuous months in American memory. The day after Juneteenth, with a pandemic raging and amid a national wave of protests over police brutality, President Trump came to the city. At an arena less than a mile from Greenwood, the president referred to the Black Lives Matter protests as an "unhinged left-wing mob" that was trying to erase the country's history.

The irony was not lost on Black Tulsa.

"To be Black and to be Tulsan," said Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, whose brother was killed by a Tulsa police officer in 2016, "is to have your history erased."

On that afternoon some 40 years ago in the retirement home, Ms. Brown listened to the man as he described the day Greenwood burned. He told of being stranded on the outskirts of a city billowing smoke, of how a Black man rushing by took pity on him, pulling him onto his wagon and dropping him off at the house of a white family up the road.

Back in her neighborhood, about a mile from Greenwood, no one wanted to talk about it; years would go by before Ms. Brown learned the full story. Her daughter Mechelle now works at the Greenwood Cultural Center, which documents the neighborhood's history. Ms. Brown is heartened by the excavation, which she thinks of as a good start at unraveling years of concealment. But it is also depressing, she said. This has taken almost a century.

"They're just now digging for graves," Ms. Brown said. "They're talking about going to Mars now and I don't know how deep in the oceans they've gone. And this is as far as we've gotten. My God."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nearly a Century After a Tulsa Massacre, the Search for Burial Sites Finally Breaks Ground

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One spring evening in the early 1980s, Maria Brown, a Black nursing assistant in a Tulsa retirement home, visited the room of one of her favorite residents. He was a well-traveled white man in his 70s and she often sat and listened to his stories. That day, she asked about growing up in Tulsa.

# data[].attributes.headline
What to Know About the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre

# data[].attributes.subject
What to Know About the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2021)
Book review
Documentary review

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As many as 300 people were killed in 1921 when a white mob attacked the Greenwood district of Tulsa, a thriving Black community, and burned it to the ground.

Smoke billowed over Tulsa, Okla., after a white mob massacred hundreds of black people and laid siege to a prosperous black business district in 1921. Credit... Alvin C. Krupnick Co./Library of Congress, via Associated Press

On May 30, 1921, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla., was a thriving Black community: a rarity in an era of lynchings, segregation and a rapidly growing Ku Klux Klan.

By sunrise on June 2, Greenwood lay in ruins: burned to the ground by a mob of white people, aided and abetted by the National Guard, in one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history. The death toll may have been as high as 300, with hundreds more injured and an estimated 8,000 or more left homeless.

Local officials, seeing a public-relations nightmare, expressed contrition and said they would rebuild the community. Instead, they destroyed documentation and spent the next 50 years pretending nothing had happened. Those who were there went silent, generations of children grew up oblivious, and anyone who dared raise the subject was told in no uncertain terms: We don't speak of that here.

And on Saturday, the day after the Juneteenth holiday that celebrates the abolition of slavery in the United States, Tulsa will play host to a rally for a president who uses racist language and has defended white nationalists.

Here is a brief history of Greenwood, the racist killings, and what happened afterward, drawn from interviews with researchers and local officials, public records, and a commission's 2001 report on the massacre.

Image

Entrance to refugee camp on the fair grounds in Tulsa after the race riot of June 1st, 1921. Credit... Library of Congress

At the time of the massacre, the Greenwood neighborhood had a population of nearly 10,000, including descendants of slaves as well as people who, according to the 2001 report of a commission that investigated the massacre, had come because Oklahoma seemed to offer "a chance to escape the harsher racial realities of life" in the Deep South.

Black Tulsans, segregated into Greenwood, had built a thriving business district known as Black Wall Street after O. W. Gurley, a wealthy Black landowner from Arkansas, moved there and started opening businesses for Black residents. He named the main street after Greenwood, Miss., and the name was later extended to the whole neighborhood.

Thirty residents owned grocery stores there in 1921, said State Senator Kevin Matthews, a Democrat who represents Tulsa. There were restaurants, hotels, theaters and transportation services run by Black entrepreneurs.

"That's what people don't know," Mr. Matthews said. "We had that kind of prosperity in 1921. This was Black Wall Street for a reason, and it was burned down and destroyed for a reason."

Debris, furniture and homes razed to the foundations after the mob passed through. Credit... Library Of Congress/Via Reuters

It began, like so much racial violence, with a false allegation that a Black man had raped a white woman.

The man was Dick Rowland, and he was accused of assaulting Sarah Page, an elevator operator, on May 30, 1921. Nobody knows for sure what happened, but a common suggestion is that Rowland may have tripped and, to catch his fall, grabbed Page's arm. She screamed and he, knowing the danger he was in, ran from the building.

Rowland was arrested the next morning and jailed in the Tulsa County Courthouse, where the sheriff had allowed a lynch mob to kidnap another Black man the year before. So when The Tulsa Tribune ran an inflammatory article and editorial on May 31, Black Tulsans had every reason to fear that Rowland would be lynched, and no reason to believe the authorities would protect him.

That evening, as hundreds of white Tulsans shouted for the sheriff to turn Rowland over, groups of armed Black men showed up at the courthouse and told officials they were there to help defend it. Many white people went off to get their own weapons, and the crowd grew to more than 2,000.

Finally, according to the 2001 commission report, a white man tried to grab a Black man's gun, the gun went off, and the white mob spread out through the streets of downtown Tulsa, shooting Black people on sight.

The morning of June 1, the mob rushed into Greenwood and opened fire, including with machine guns; led Black people out of their homes and businesses at gunpoint; looted valuables and set the buildings on fire. Black residents tried to defend themselves but were overpowered.

The mob stopped firefighters from reaching much of the burning neighborhood, while the police and National Guard arrested Black people instead of the white rioters. In some cases, members of the Guard joined the rioters.

In November 1921, patients were still recovering from the violence in Tulsa. Credit... Library of Congress

After the massacre, officials set about erasing it from the city's historical record. Victims were buried in unmarked graves. Police records vanished. The inflammatory Tulsa Tribune articles were cut out before the newspapers were transferred to microfilm.

"What happens fairly rapidly is this culture of silence descends, and the story of the riot becomes actively suppressed," said Scott Ellsworth, a lecturer at the University of Michigan who is from Tulsa and contributed to the 2001 report, and whose 1982 book "Death in a Promised Land" was the first full history of the massacre.

City officials cleansed the history books so thoroughly that when Nancy Feldman, a lawyer from Illinois, started teaching her students at the University of Tulsa about the massacre in the late 1940s, they didn't believe her.

Mr. Matthews, the state senator, said that even as a Black person raised in Tulsa, and even as the grandson of a woman who survived the massacre, he did not learn about it until he was in his 20s.

In the late 1960s, Don Ross, a reporter who later became a Democratic state legislator, began investigating the history of the massacre. As the dam began to crack, a researcher, Ed Wheeler, interviewed survivors in 1971 and found a message on his windshield: "Best look under your hood from now on."

Another quarter-century passed before the breaking point: In 1995, when journalists flooded in to cover the terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Mr. Ross managed to get the attention of national outlets, Dr. Ellsworth said. That led to television coverage in 1996, a burst of publicity and, ultimately, the creation of the investigating commission.

A truck carries soldiers and African-Americans near the Litan Hotel during the massacre. Credit... Library Of Congress/Via Reuters

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the Ku Klux Klan used it as a recruiting tool, and within months, its Tulsa chapter became one of the nation's largest, according to the 2001 report. At the same time, numerous Black communities marshaled their money and resources to help Greenwood rebuild, said Phil Armstrong, the director of the centennial commission.

Since the 2001 report came out, Tulsa has grappled publicly with its history and called for "racial reconciliation."

But the city remains deeply segregated, and longstanding problems have come to the surface amid the national protests for racial justice and police accountability.

Just this month, Tulsans pressured their mayor, G. T. Bynum, to end the city's contract with the now-defunct television show "Live PD"; the Tulsa police announced an inquiry into the arrest of a Black teenager who was accused of jaywalking and forced to the ground; and a police officer said in a radio interview that officers were "shooting African-Americans about 24 percent less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed."

Amid it all, Mr. Bynum, a Republican, apologized for playing down the role of race in the 2016 police killing of an unarmed Black man, Terence Crutcher.

With President Trump on his way, some Tulsans worry that his rally will set off more unrest. At least 240 members of the National Guard have been deployed for the weekend, officials said.

"There's a lot of fear on both sides about what's going to happen," said Charity Marcus, a Tulsa entrepreneur and political strategist who co-founded Black Women Business Owners of America. "And then the people in the middle who are like, 'I just don't want our city to be burned down.'"

Astead W. Herndon and Sarah Mervosh contributed reporting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What to Know About the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As many as 300 people were killed in 1921 when a white mob attacked the Greenwood district of Tulsa, a thriving Black community, and burned it to the ground. On May 30, 1921, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla., was a thriving Black community: a rarity in an era of lynchings, segregation and a rapidly growing Ku Klux Klan.

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship.

Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.

In May 1921, the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood of Greenwood was a fully realized antidote to the racial oppression of the time. Built in the early part of the century in a northern pocket of the city, it was a thriving community of commerce and family life to its roughly 10,000 residents.

Brick and wood-frame homes dotted the landscape, along with blocks lined with grocery stores, hotels, nightclubs, billiard halls, theaters, doctor's offices and churches.

Greenwood was so promising, so vibrant that it became home to what was known as America's Black Wall Street. But what took years to build was erased in less than 24 hours by racial violence - sending the dead into mass graves and forever altering family trees.

Hundreds of Greenwood residents were brutally killed, their homes and businesses wiped out. They were casualties of a furious and heavily armed white mob of looters and arsonists. One factor that drove the violence: resentment toward the Black prosperity found in block after block of Greenwood.

The financial toll of the massacre is evident in the $1.8 million in property loss claims - $27 million in today's dollars - detailed in a 2001 state commission report. For two decades, the report has been one of the most comprehensive accounts to reveal the horrific details of the massacre - among the worst racial terror attacks in the nation's history - as well as the government's culpability.

The destruction of property is only one piece of the financial devastation that the massacre wrought. Much bigger is a sobering kind of inheritance: the incalculable and enduring loss of what could have been, and the generational wealth that might have shaped and secured the fortunes of Black children and grandchildren.

"What if we had been allowed to maintain our family business?" asked Brenda Nails-Alford, who is in her early 60s. The Greenwood Avenue shoe shop of her grandfather and his brother was destroyed. "If they had been allowed to carry on that legacy," she said, "there's no telling where we could be now."

For decades, what happened in Greenwood was willfully buried in history. Piecing together archival maps and photographs, with guidance from historians, The New York Times constructed a 3-D model of the Greenwood neighborhood as it was before the destruction. The Times also analyzed census data, city directories, newspaper articles, and survivor tapes and testimonies from that time to show the types of people who made up the neighborhood and contributed to its vibrancy.

The marquee block

Perhaps no other collection of businesses tells the story of Greenwood and Black entrepreneurship better than the 100 block of Greenwood Avenue, rising near the southern tip of the neighborhood. This marquee block was the pulse of the Black business community.

"My grandfather often talked about how you could enjoy a full life in Greenwood, that everything you needed or wanted was in Greenwood. You never had to go anywhere," said Star Williams, 40, the granddaughter of Otis Grandville Clark, who was 18 during the massacre. "He talked about seeing Black success and how his sense of identity and pride came from Greenwood."

The businesses on Greenwood Avenue were owned by people who were among Tulsa's most prominent Black citizens.

A city within a city

Mr. Stradford and Mr. Gurley - who purchased large tracts of land in the early 1900s - were among the founders of Greenwood. They began building on the northern side of Tulsa beyond the railroad tracks, forming the bones of the city's predominantly Black neighborhood that was separate from the white side of town.

Greenwood was one of the few places in the country offering Black citizens - less than six decades out of enslavement - a three-dimensional life.

In the evenings, residents had their choice of entertainment. Survivor accounts that were relayed to relatives recall neighbors getting "gussied up" to gather in Greenwood, with Thursdays being big because of "Maids' Night Out." Black domestics, many of them live-in workers who cleaned the homes of white residents across town, were off that day.

Many African-Americans migrated to Tulsa after the Civil War, carrying dreams of new chapters and the kind of freedom found in owning businesses. Others made a living working as maids, waiters, chauffeurs, shoe shiners and cooks for Tulsa's new oil class.

In Greenwood, residents held more than 200 different types of jobs. About 40 percent of the community's residents were professionals or skilled craftspeople, like doctors, pharmacists, carpenters and hairdressers, according to a Times analysis of the 1920 census. While a vast majority of the neighborhood rented, many residents owned their homes.

Professionals

Skilled craftspeople

Service workers

Segregation kept African-Americans from patronizing white-owned shops, and Greenwood thrived from community support of Black-owned businesses.

"Black folks faced an economic detour," said Hannibal B. Johnson, an author and the education chair for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission. "When they approached the gates to the wider Tulsa economy, they were turned away, so they ended up creating their own largely insular community."

The massacre that ended it all

The assaults on Greenwood raged over two days. The morning of June 2, 1921 revealed emptiness and ruin in every direction.

Plumes of smoke hovered over the neighborhood. Ash coated the ground. Brick buildings had been reduced to bombed-out husks. And soon, the bodies of those killed would be stacked and discarded in mass graves and a river.

It all began on May 30 with two teenagers in an elevator in the Drexel building in downtown Tulsa and morphed into a sexual assault accusation.

Accounts vary about what happened between Dick Rowland, 19, a young Black shoe shiner, and Sarah Page, 17, a white elevator operator. One common theory suggests Mr. Rowland tripped and grabbed onto the arm of Ms. Page while trying to catch his fall. She screamed, and he ran away, according to the commission report.

The next day, Mr. Rowland was arrested and jailed in the Tulsa County Courthouse. By that afternoon, The Tulsa Tribune published a front-page news story with the headline "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator," which essentially mobilized a lynch mob that showed up at the courthouse.

Twice, a group of armed Black Tulsans, many of them World War I veterans, offered to help protect Mr. Rowland but were turned away by the sheriff.

As the Black men were leaving the second time, a white man attempted to disarm a Black veteran, and a gun went off in the scuffle. That clash and others that day marked the beginning of what would become Greenwood's armed destruction. Some white rioters were even deputized and given weapons by civil officials.

Near dawn, the white mob descended on Greenwood. Black Tulsans fought back, valiantly defending their families and property. But they were woefully outnumbered.

The mob indiscriminately shot Black people in the streets. Members of the mob ransacked homes and stole money and jewelry. They set fires, "house by house, block by block," according to the commission report.

Terror came from the sky, too. White pilots flew airplanes that dropped dynamite over the neighborhood, the report stated, making the Tulsa aerial attack what historians call among the first of an American city.

The numbers presented a staggering portrait of loss: 35 blocks burned to the ground; as many as 300 dead; hundreds injured; 8,000 to 10,000 left homeless; more than 1,470 homes burned or looted; and eventually, 6,000 detained in internment camps.

The neighborhood economy was destroyed. Two dozen grocery stores. Thirty-one restaurants. Four drug stores.

Greenwood, where Black success embodied the American dream, was no more, suddenly, dreadfully wiped out.

What was lost

Greenwood would be rebuilt, and for a few decades, it would again thrive before falling to urban renewal and other forces. But that spring of 1921 unmoored and unrooted the neighborhood with lasting effects.

Not long after the attack, shell-shocked survivors - who were blamed for the violence - returned home to ruin. Amid the charred remnants, they were forced to make an excruciating decision that would change family histories forever: leave and start over again somewhere else, or rebuild.

They also faced another kind of white resistance: a fire ordinance intended to prevent Black property owners from rebuilding on their own and insurance companies that refused to pay damage claims.

"Greenwood wasn't a gift from anyone, it was created by the citizens of Greenwood who withstood the tragedy of 1921 and rebuilt it again," said Scott Ellsworth, the author of the recently released book, "The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice." "Greenwood is the story of resilience. It is the story of courage."

Those who stayed began stitching their lives back together almost immediately. They joined forces and began rebuilding homes and businesses. Within a day, C.L. Netherland, a massacre survivor and minister whose barber shop at 110 Greenwood Avenue was destroyed, purchased a folding chair, a strop and razor, and set up shop on a sidewalk.

The massacre also claimed the Mount Zion Baptist Church, whose first service in its new building had been held less than two months earlier. The congregation's hundreds of members had financed and built the $92,000 church over several years, according to "Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District," a book by Mr. Johnson, education chair for the centennial commission. It would have been easier to declare bankruptcy. Instead, church members rebuilt and dug in. It took an additional 21 years before the initial debt was repaid.

The final insult of the massacre came in the silence. For decades, Tulsa deliberately ignored and covered up what had happened in Greenwood. Many descendants said they learned about the mob and the killings only as adults - and even then, some of the recounting was told in whispers.

"You could see the pain in my grandmother's eyes when she talked about what happened," said LeRoy Gibbs II, 52, the grandson of Ernestine Gibbs, a massacre survivor who was 17 when the violence unfolded. "Before she would get too far, before it became too painful, she would shift and start talking about where we are today."

Some surviving business owners who built the 100 block of Greenwood Avenue had remarkable second chapters. Others, who struggled in the aftermath, had heartbreaking stories. The Williams family, among the most successful before the massacre, stayed and rebuilt.

Mr. Smitherman, the civil rights activist who ran The Tulsa Star, eventually landed in Buffalo, where he became the publisher of The Buffalo Star (later named The Empire Star). He was among several Black Tulsans indicted for "inciting a riot," and was exonerated posthumously.

Ms. Parrish, the journalist who ran a typing school, stayed to chronicle the massacre. The two wealthy men who helped found Greenwood were hit hard financially. Mr. Stradford, who was indicted, escaped to Kansas and then Chicago. He never recovered his fortune. Mr. Gurley reportedly lost nearly $158,000 in 1921, or $2.3 million in today's dollars.

James Nails, who had opened a shoe shop with his brother Henry, rebuilt but never really recovered. He eventually left Tulsa.

"He was really unable to carry on emotionally, psychologically," Ms. Nails-Alford said. "You get your education, you work hard, you start businesses, you're able to employ your family members and community members, and then you lose it all within hours. It takes away a man's dignity."

There is a pending lawsuit and ongoing discussions about how and whether to compensate the families of the Tulsa Massacre victims. No compensation has ever been paid under court order or by legislation.

To this day, not one person has been prosecuted or punished for the devastation and ruin of the original Greenwood.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship. Now imagine it being ravaged by flames. In May 1921, the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood of Greenwood was a fully realized antidote to the racial oppression of the time.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Timeline of What Has Happened in the Year Since George Floyd’s Death

# data[].attributes.subject
A Timeline of What Has Happened in the Year Since George Floyd’s Death

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
May 25

George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, is killed on a street corner in Minneapolis after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin and other officers responding to a forgery call. Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old, turns on her cellphone to capture video of Mr. Chauvin, who is white, using his knee to pin Mr. Floyd by his neck. Mr. Floyd is heard repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe."

Ms. Frazier's video contradicted the initial police account, which said Mr. Floyd had died after a "medical incident" as he was restrained by officers.

May 26

The Minneapolis police chief, Medaria Arradondo, fires the four officers involved in the arrest of Mr. Floyd. Hundreds of protesters against police violence flood the streets of the city in the evening.

May 27

Demonstrations and marches are mounted in a number of cities to protest killings of Black people, including Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., and Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Ga.

May 28

The Minneapolis police station where the officers involved in Mr. Floyd's death worked is set on fire during protests.

Gov. Tim Walz activates the Minnesota National Guard as hundreds of buildings are burned during protests over several nights. "Let's be very clear," Mr. Walz said. "The situation in Minneapolis is no longer, in any way, about the murder of George Floyd. It is about attacking civil society, instilling fear and disrupting our great cities."

May 29

The officer who pinned Mr. Floyd's neck to the ground with his knee, Mr. Chauvin, is arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

President Trump threatens to use military force to suppress riots. On Twitter, he calls protesters "thugs" and says, " When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

May 30

When a crowd of protesters gathers outside the White House, the Secret Service temporarily locks down the building and Mr. Trump is moved to an underground bunker for safety.

In Atlanta, hundreds of demonstrators pour into the streets near Centennial Olympic Park, leaving behind smashed windows. Two college students leaving the demonstrations after the city's curfew are dragged from their car by police officers who fire stun guns at them.

In New York, the police and protesters clash across Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, leaving demonstrators and officers injured.

May 31

Hundreds of thousands of people join largely peaceful demonstrations across the country, but some cities report hundreds of arrests after protesters clashed with the police and some areas are looted. National Guard troops are deployed in more than two dozen states.

The police fire tear gas near the White House to dissuade protesters who had smashed the windows of prominent buildings, overturned cars and set fires, with smoke seen rising from near the Washington Monument.

It is the sixth day of nationwide unrest since the death of Mr. Floyd. Mayors have imposed curfews and several governors have mobilized the National Guard, but that has not quelled the widespread protests.

June 1

Demonstrators who gathered outside the White House to protest police brutality are cleared from Lafayette Square in Washington by police officers and National Guard troops using flash-bang explosions, tear gas and other munitions. The area is cleared so that President Trump can have his picture taken holding a Bible outside St. John's Church.

Demonstrators marching peacefully in Philadelphia enter a major highway and are trapped by police SWAT teams at the front and rear of the march. The authorities start using pepper spray and tear gas on the trapped protesters, who say they cannot breathe.

A nightly curfew is put in place in New York City.

June 2

A 131-year-old statue commemorating Confederate soldiers is taken down from public display in Alexandria, Va., one of more than 160 public symbols of the Confederacy that are removed or renamed in 2020 after the death of Mr. Floyd - more in the previous four years combined, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

June 3

Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota announces new charges in the death of Mr. Floyd: Second-degree murder for Mr. Chauvin, and aiding and abetting second-degree murder for the three other Minneapolis police officers who were present and failed to intervene.

June 4

Two Buffalo police officers are suspended without pay after a video shows them shoving a 75-year-old protester, who was hospitalized with a head injury. Several other officers are seen walking by the man, motionless on the ground, without checking on him.

Hundreds of people gather at a Minneapolis chapel for a public memorial for Mr. Floyd, who is remembered as a friend and father and uncle to those closest to him, and also as a victim of racial injustice whose death in police custody drew legions of people into the streets.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam orders the removal of a towering statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond.

June 5

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington has city workers paint "Black Lives Matter" in giant yellow letters down a street near the White House that had been at the center of the confrontations between law enforcement and protesters.

The Marine Corps issues detailed directives about removing and banning public displays of the Confederate battle flag at Marine installations - an order that extends to mugs, posters and bumper stickers.

One of the founders of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, announces his resignation from the company's board and encourages the company to find a Black candidate to replace him.

More than a dozen Black professional football players release a video calling on the N.F.L. to condemn the oppression of Black people and to apologize for not supporting players who protested peacefully.

June 6

Tens of thousands of protesters turn out in Australia, Britain, France, Germany and other nations in support of U.S. protests against the death of Mr. Floyd, while denouncing racism in their own countries.

June 7

A majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council stand on a stage in a park above large block letters that read, "Defund Police," as they pledge to dismantle the city's Police Department. They promise to create a new system of public safety in a city where law enforcement has long been accused of brutal treatment toward Black residents.

June 8

On the streets next to a police station in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, protesters and officers have spent a week locked in a nightly cycle of standoffs.

But facing a growing backlash over its dispersal tactics in the aftermath of Mr. Floyd's death, the Seattle Police Department offers a concession: Officers would abandon their building, board up the windows and let the protesters have free rein outside. Protesters reverse the barricades to shield the liberated streets and lay claim to several city blocks, known at first as the " Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. "

Thousands of people line up for hours to view the body of Mr. Floyd in Houston, the city where he spent most of his life. The public viewing stretches for more than six hours and becomes not so much a rally or a protest, but an open-air memorial for a city's fallen son.

June 9

At Mr. Floyd's funeral at a southwest Houston church, he is remembered as the son, brother, uncle and father that he was in life. Mr. Floyd, who grew up in a public housing complex in Houston's predominantly Black Third Ward, was considered a native son.

Speaker after speaker invokes the political moment born out of what happened in Minneapolis, and the Rev. Al Sharpton delivers the eulogy.

On the same day, HBO Max removes from its catalog "Gone With the Wind," the 1939 movie long considered a triumph of American cinema but one that romanticizes the Civil War-era South while glossing over its racial sins.

And Greg Glassman, the founder and chief executive of CrossFit, announces he will step down after posting a tweet that made light of both the coronavirus pandemic and the killing of Mr. Floyd.

June 10

NASCAR says it will ban the Confederate battle flag from its events and properties, becoming the latest organization to reconsider the emblem's place in American society.

Walmart commits to ending its practice of locking up African-American beauty care products in glass cases after a fresh round of criticism that the policy was a form of racial discrimination.

June 12

After Atlanta officers were called to the parking lot of a Wendy's restaurant, an officer fatally shoots Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-through lane. Mr. Brooks had struggled with the officers after they tried to arrest him for driving while intoxicated, and he took and fired one of the officers' Tasers before an officer shot him in the back.

June 12

New York becomes one of the first states to take meaningful action to restrict police forces after Mr. Floyd's death, banning the use of chokeholds and repealing a half-century-old law that has kept police disciplinary records secret.

June 17

Quaker Oats announces it will drop the Aunt Jemima name and change the packaging from the pancake mix and syrup brand, which was founded in 1889, with the company acknowledging that Aunt Jemima's origins were "based on a racial stereotype."

June 19

Many celebrate Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the emancipation of slaves in the United States that has been embraced by African-Americans since the late 1800s. Major companies like Twitter, Nike and Allstate make it a paid holiday.

The Associated Press changes its writing style guide to capitalize the "b" in the term "Black" when referring to people in a racial, ethnic or cultural context. The news organization says it wants to make more clear that those who identify as Black have a shared sense of history, identity and community.

Colorado limits the ability of police officers to use qualified immunity as a defense against liability in state courts. The bill won the support of the state's police chiefs and county sheriffs' organizations. The state also bans the use of deadly force to apprehend or arrest a person suspected only of minor or nonviolent offenses.

June 23

About 100 protesters begin occupying City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan - with some spending the night - in an effort to draw more focus to their demand for deep budget cuts to the Police Department.

June 24

In a unanimous vote, members of Seattle's school board suspend the stationing of five police officers in public schools. Black students make up 14 percent of enrollment but represent nearly half of the students referred to the police, according to The Seattle Times. The decision comes six days after Milwaukee school board members unanimously voted to cancel all contracts with the police.

June 25

Disney says it will remake one of its most popular theme park rides, Splash Mountain, which depicts characters and songs from " Song of the South," the racist 1946 film. The 31-year-old flume ride will instead be modeled on "The Princess and the Frog," the 2009 movie that introduced Disney's first Black princess, Tiana.

June 26

Gov. Brian Kemp signs a hate crimes law in Georgia, one of the few states without one, after it passed with bipartisan support. The bill had been stalled for years but gained steam after the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was fatally shot near Brunswick, Ga., in February 2020. The law allows for extra penalties to be applied for crimes motivated by a victim's race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender or disability.

In response to the toppling of statues and monuments, President Trump issues an executive order that instructs federal law enforcement authorities to prosecute people who damage federal monuments or statues. It also threatens to withhold funding from local governments that fail to protect their own statues from vandals.

June 30

Gov. Tate Reeves signs into law a measure that removes the flag that had flown over Mississippi for 126 years. The legislation mandates the "prompt, dignified and respectful" removal of the flag, which featured the blue bars and white stars of the Confederate battle flag, within 15 days.

July 1

The Los Angeles City Council cuts its police budget with plans to reinvest the funds in marginalized communities, but activists note that the $150 million was a small fraction of the department's $1.8 billion budget.

July 9

New York City paints "Black Lives Matter" in large yellow letters on the street outside Trump Tower.

July 10

A coalition of theater artists, known by the title of its first statement, "We See You, White American Theater," posts a 29-page set of demands online, calling for renaming half of all Broadway theaters, imposing term limits on theater industry leaders and requiring that at least half the members of casts and creative teams be made up of people of color. It was part of a groundswell of calls for change at arts organizations.

July 13

Yielding to pressure from sponsors and activists, the N.F.L. team in Washington announces that it will soon drop its logo and the 87-year-old name that had long been considered a racial slur.

July 15

Federal agents dressed in camouflage and tactical gear take to the streets of Portland and pull some people into unmarked vans, among other militarized crackdown tactics, in what Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon calls "a blatant abuse of power."

July 17

Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial equality, and who then carried a mantle of moral authority into Congress, dies at 80 years old.

July 18

Federal officers beat Christopher J. David, a Navy veteran who joined the protests in Portland, with a baton and douse him with pepper spray, according to video footage of the encounter. Mr. David approached officers to ask whether they felt their actions - the use of violent tactics of protesters - violated the Constitution.

July 25

The W.N.B.A. begins a season dedicated to Breonna Taylor and charged with social justice initiatives. Symbols and logos declaring "Black Lives Matter" and "Say Her Name" are prominent, and players wear jerseys with the name of Ms. Taylor, who was killed in her apartment by Louisville, Ky., police officers.

July 29

Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon announces that the federal law enforcement agents guarding the federal courthouse in downtown Portland would begin withdrawing.

Federal officials confirm an agreement but caution that they would withdraw only when they were confident that the federal courthouse, which has been at the center of protests, is secured.

Aug. 11

The family of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old man who died in 2019 after the police in Aurora, Colo., restrained him with a chokehold that has since been banned, files a lawsuit against the city of Aurora.The same day, the Colorado attorney general announces a sweeping investigation into whether the Aurora Police Department employed "patterns and practices" that may deprive people of their constitutional rights.

Aug. 13

The Austin City Council approves $21.5 million in immediate budget cuts to its Police Department, and a redistribution of current police functions that, if fully put into place, would shift away an additional $130 million.

Aug. 23

The country is again rocked by horrific cellphone footage, this one showing 29-year-old Jacob Blake getting shot multiple times in the back by a Kenosha, Wis., police officer. The shooting, which happened in front of Mr. Blake's three children as he tried to enter his car while holding a knife, left him partly paralyzed.

Aug. 25

As demonstrators protesting the shooting of Mr. Blake fill the streets of Kenosha, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, is captured on video appearing to shoot three people while carrying a military-style rifle. He was later charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide.

Aug. 26

The Milwaukee Bucks walk out of a playoff game with the Orlando Magic to protest the police shooting of Mr. Blake. They are soon joined by the Magic and other teams in the N.B.A., W.N.B.A. and other major sports leagues. The moves dramatically escalate a season of athletes demonstrating for social justice.

Aug. 28

Thousands gather at the Lincoln Memorial for a protest aiming to recall the March on Washington in 1963. The march was devised in part to build on the passion for racial justice that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. summoned when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" address on that same spot.

Sept. 2

The family of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died after having a psychotic episode, releases raw videos of Rochester, N.Y., police officers placed a mesh hood over his head in March 2020. The footage that they obtained through an open records request sets off protests in the city.

Sept. 23

A grand jury decides to not charge the two officers who shot Breonna Taylor, indicting one former detective for recklessly firing into another apartment during the raid of her apartment. Two Louisville police officers are shot during the demonstrations that follow.

The decision comes after more than 100 days of protests and a monthslong investigation into the death of Ms. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician who was shot six times by officers executing a search. Her boyfriend had fired a shot at the officers when they burst into the apartment, saying later that he thought they were intruders.

Sept. 24

A major retrospective of the modernist painter Philip Guston - a white painter whose work grappled with racism and included white hooded Ku Klux Klan figures - is postponed until 2024 by museums including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In a joint statement, the museum directors said they were "postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston's work can be more clearly interpreted." After a backlash, the National Gallery said it would instead host the retrospective in 2022.

Sept. 29

Asked by the moderator of the first presidential debate whether he was willing to condemn white supremacists and call on militia groups to "stand down," President Trump instead told the Proud Boys - an all-male far-right group known for brawling at protests - to "stand back and stand by." Though Mr. Trump also said that he wanted "to see peace," he quickly added: "Somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left."

OCT. 12

A 33-foot-high monument that had stood for more than 150 years is toppled at a rally on Indigenous Peoples' Day. Protesters used ropes and chains to pull down the obelisk, which was dedicated to Union soldiers who fought Civil War battles in New Mexico. It featured an inscription that honored the "heroes" who had fought against "savage Indians."

Oct. 26

Two Philadelphia police officers fatally shoot Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old Black man who was armed with a knife.

In a video that circulates on social media, someone yells repeatedly at Mr. Wallace to "put the knife down." The camera points toward the ground as about a dozen shots are heard. After Mr. Wallace falls to the ground, his mother screams and rushes to his body.

Nov. 3

After winning the Democratic primary because of overwhelming strength from the party's Black voters, Joseph R. Biden Jr. wins a decisive victory over President Trump, capturing the White House along with Kamala Harris, the first woman, first Black person and first Asian-American to serve as vice president. (The race, however, is not called by the news media for several days.)

Mr. Trump's defeat, the rare ouster of an incumbent president after one term, comes after four chaotic years in which he fostered stark divisions among Americans, including his relentless scapegoating of migrants and people of color. Still, in an election that draws a surge in turnout among every American voting demographic, Mr. Trump wins larger percentages of voters of color in 2020 than he did in 2016.

Mississippi voters approve a new state flag with a magnolia flower and red, yellow and blue stripes, replacing the one from 1894 that featured the Confederate battle emblem. Rhode Island voters approve the removal of "and Providence Plantations" from the state's official name.

Dec. 22

Andre Hill, a 47-year-old Black man, is killed by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio, weeks after a Franklin County sheriff's deputy killed Casey Goodson, a Black man, setting off a round of protests against police brutality.

Dec. 30

A Minneapolis police officer fatally shoots a man who fired at officers after they approached his car during a gun investigation, the first killing by a member of the department since George Floyd's death in May.

Jan. 6

Immediately following a rally by President Trump in Washington during which he urges his supporters to "fight like hell," hundreds of them overrun police officers and breach the U.S. Capitol, forcing lawmakers to flee just as they are about to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory.

Four people, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, die of medical emergencies during the clashes, and a fifth - Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed supporter of Mr. Trump - is shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she moves toward the House chamber.

About 140 police officers from the Capitol Police and the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department are injured, but many activists who participated in Black Lives Matter protests say the fact that the police did not use more force to stop the supporters of Mr. Trump, who were mostly white, is a sign of a double standard.

Jan. 20

The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States and Kamala Harris as vice president takes place in Washington. In his inauguration speech, the president pledges to defeat "white supremacy," and uses a burst of executive orders on Day 1 to declare that "advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our government."

Feb. 3

A Columbus police officer who was fired after fatally shooting Mr. Hill in December is arrested and charged with felony murder, Attorney General Dave Yost of Ohio announces.

Feb. 17

Charles L. Venable, the president of Newfields, the 152-acre campus that is home to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, resigns amid an uproar over a job posting which said the museum was seeking a director who would work not only to attract a more diverse audience but also to maintain what it described as its "traditional, core, white art audience."

Feb. 18

The family of Angelo Quinto, 30, files a wrongful-death claim against the city of Antioch, Calif., after footage shows two of the city's police officers detaining him in December. The suit said that the two officers, who had responded to a call from Mr. Quinto's sister, knelt on his back for nearly five minutes to subdue him.

Feb. 23

The City Council in Berkeley, Calif., prohibits police officers from conducting traffic stops for minor offenses, shifting that responsibility to trained unarmed civilians. Experts have long said that traffic stops, the most common interaction Americans have with the police, disproportionately affect Black drivers.

March 4

House Democrats passed a sweeping federal policing overhaul that would combat racial discrimination and excessive use of force in law enforcement, as lawmakers seek to rekindle bipartisan negotiations on the issue. The bill has not passed the Senate.

Mr. Biden had hoped lawmakers would broker a deal before May 25, the anniversary of Mr. Floyd's death. But a breakthrough has remained elusive despite continued closed-door negotiations between Representative Karen Bass, Democrat of California, and Senators Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, and Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina.

March 11

President Biden signs a $1.9 trillion economic relief package, which includes $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers. The debt relief is intended to make amends for the discrimination that Black and other nonwhite farmers have faced from lenders and the Agriculture Department over the years.

The Weeknd, the Canadian pop star who played the Super Bowl halftime show, announces he will boycott the Grammys over its use of secret committees to help choose nominees; he was not nominated for any awards this year, and the Grammys have a poor record of recognizing Black artists when it comes to the top awards.

March 12

Minneapolis agrees to pay $27 million to the family of Mr. Floyd, whose death set off months of protests. As the settlement was announced by city officials and lawyers for Mr. Floyd's family, Mr. Chauvin sat in a courtroom less than a mile away, where jurors were being selected for his trial.

MARCH 25

The New York City Council passes legislation that makes it far easier to sue officers for conducting illegal searches or using excessive force.

March 29

One of the most closely watched court cases in decades begins with opening statements in Mr. Chauvin's murder trial. Jerry W. Blackwell, a prosecutor, aimed to focus the jurors' attention on the video of Mr. Floyd's arrest, saying, "You can believe your eyes, that it's homicide - it's murder." Eric J. Nelson, the lawyer for Mr. Chauvin, told jurors to look at other evidence, saying the case "is clearly more than about 9 minutes and 29 seconds," referring to how long Mr. Chauvin knelt on Mr. Floyd.

April 11

During a traffic stop, a police officer fatally shoots Daunte Wright, a Black man, in Brooklyn Center, Minn., about 10 miles from where Mr. Chauvin is on trial. Hundreds of demonstrators pour into the streets.

April 16

Officials in Chicago released body camera footage of a police officer fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy in March, setting off protests over the use of deadly force by police officers in a city that has been beleaguered by violence.

The boy, Adam Toledo, who was Latino, was one of the youngest people killed by the police in Illinois in years. The videos showed that he appeared to toss a handgun behind a fence and was raising his empty hands when he was shot.

April 20

Mr. Chauvin is found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Mr. Floyd. The jury deliberated for about 10 hours.

Mr. Chauvin faces up to 40 years in prison when he is sentenced in the coming weeks but is likely to receive far less time. The presumptive sentence for second-degree murder is 12.5 years, according to Minnesota's sentencing guidelines, although the state has asked for a higher sentence.

Minutes before the verdict, a police officer in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed Ma'Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old girl in foster care who appeared about to stab a woman with a steak knife in the driveway of her foster home.

April 21

The police fatally shot Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man, while he was driving away from county sheriff's deputies who were trying to execute a drug-related search and arrest warrant at his house in Elizabeth City, N.C.

May 10

NBCUniversal announces that it will not broadcast the 2022 Golden Globes after the group that puts the show on, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, came under fire for having no Black members.

MAY 18

Washington adopts 12 new laws that ban chokeholds, require officers to announce their presence before raiding a home, and call for the use of exhaustive de-escalation techniques before resorting to force.

May 19

The death of Ronald Greene after a police chase in Louisiana attracts new scrutiny after body camera footage obtained and published by The Associated Press shows Mr. Greene screaming "I'm sorry" and "I'm scared" after troopers jolted him with a stun gun after a high-speed chase.

Relatives of Mr. Greene, 49, were initially told that he had died from injuries he sustained in a crash after he failed to stop for a traffic violation outside Monroe, La., in May 2019, according to a lawyer for the family.

MAY 20

Los Angeles City Council members unanimously vote to increase the Police Department's budget by 3 percent, to $1.76 billion, months after activists called for defunding the force and reallocating money to social services.

May 25

On the first anniversary of Mr. Floyd's murder, President Biden is expected to host the Floyd family at the White House.

People across Minneapolis are planning to gather to mark the anniversary, including at George Floyd Square, the several blocks around Cup Foods, where Mr. Floyd was killed.

And throughout the country, from Chicago to Seattle to Washington, Americans will be remembering Mr. Floyd and the impact his death had on the country.

Image

Credit... Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Timeline of What Has Happened in the Year Since George Floyd's Death

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
May 25 George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, is killed on a street corner in Minneapolis after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin and other officers responding to a forgery call. Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old, turns on her cellphone to capture video of Mr. Chauvin, who is white, using his knee to pin Mr. Floyd by his neck.

# data[].attributes.headline
What to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death

# data[].attributes.subject
What to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fury over her killing by the police in Louisville, Ky., fueled protests, and questions persist about how the botched raid unfolded.

# data[].attributes.headline
How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody

# data[].attributes.subject
How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Times has reconstructed the death of George Floyd on May 25. Security footage, witness videos and official documents show how a series of actions by officers turned fatal.

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2015)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Happened in Ferguson? (Published 2014)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here’s what you need to know about events in Ferguson, Mo.

# data[].attributes.headline
Some representations of Native Americans erase their history

# data[].attributes.subject
Some representations of Native Americans erase their history

# data[].attributes.body
The Washington Post (May 2021).

# data[].attributes.body
With lesson plans and reading guides

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Celebrating Diverse Books for PreK-12 Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore this new and innovative collection of free lesson plans, resources, and tools for incorporating diverse reading in your K-12 curriculum.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit

# data[].attributes.subject
The Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This toolkit reflects our analysis of the interconnectedness of issues and constituencies within the structures of white supremacy. In addition to workshop modules, we offer some of our experiences and lessons learned in working to dismantle structural racism. We know that this is long-term work and…

# data[].attributes.headline
People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. The Sources Are Everywhere

# data[].attributes.subject
People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. The Sources Are Everywhere

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Researchers uncovered stark disparities between whites and minorities across thousands of categories of pollution, including trucks, industry, agriculture and even restaurants.

A home near the Marathon Petroleum Company refinery in River Rouge, near Detroit. Credit... Emily Rose Bennett for The New York Times

Over the years, a mountain of evidence has brought to light a stark injustice: Compared with white Americans, people of color in the United States suffer disproportionately from exposure to pollution.

Now, a new study on a particularly harmful type of air pollution shows just how broadly those disparities hold true. Black Americans are exposed to more pollution from every type of source, including industry, agriculture, all manner of vehicles, construction, residential sources and even emissions from restaurants. People of color more broadly, including Black and Hispanic people and Asian-Americans, are exposed to more pollution from nearly every source.

The findings came as a surprise to the study's researchers, who had not anticipated that the inequalities spanned so many types of pollution.

"We expected to find that just a couple of different sources were important for the disparate exposure among racial ethnic groups," said Christopher W. Tessum, an assistant professor in environmental engineering and science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the study. "But what we found instead was that almost all of the source types that we looked at contributed to this disparity."

The study builds on a wealth of research that has shown that people of color in America live with more pollution than their white neighbors. Fine particulate matter air pollution, known as PM 2.5, is harmful to human health and is responsible for 85,000 to 200,000 excess deaths a year in the United States.

Racial and socioeconomic disparities in exposure to PM 2.5 have been well documented and have persisted despite an overall decline in particulate pollution. But the researchers sought to get a better grasp of whether these disparities came from just a handful of sources, or whether the inequalities could be seen more widely.

They used an air quality model to analyze data from the Environmental Protection Agency on more than 5,000 emission sources collected as part of a 2014 nationwide emissions survey. Then they identified differences in exposure to each by broad race-ethnicity and income groups, based on United States census data.

They found that nearly all emissions sources caused disproportionate exposures for people of color, on average, as well as separately for Black, Hispanic and Asian people. Black people were exposed to higher-than-average concentrations from all major emissions groups, while white people were exposed to lower-than-average concentrations from almost all categories. The disparities were seen nationally, as well as at the state level, across income levels and across the urban-rural divide.

Image

The Motiva oil refinery in Texas. The Houston Ship Channel is a petrochemical hub adjoining neighborhoods with sizable numbers of Black and Hispanic residents. Credit... Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

These findings were consistent with the experiences of communities on the ground, said Robert D. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University who has written for more than 30 years about the need to redress environmental racism, and who was not involved in the study.

"If you go to communities of color across this country and ask them, 'What's the source of the environmental problems?' they can point you to every one: the highway, the chemical plants, the refineries, the legacy pollution left over from decades ago, in the houses, in the air, in the water, in the playgrounds," he said. "Empirical research is now catching up with the reality: that America is segregated and so is pollution."

On Wednesday, the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit group founded by former officials from the E.P.A., released a separate report that found that 13 refineries across the United States had released elevated levels of benzene, another harmful pollutant, into mostly minority and lower income neighborhoods in 2020.

These disparities have roots in historical practices, like redlining, under which the federal government marked certain neighborhoods as risky for real estate investments because their residents were Black. For decades, residents n redlined areas were denied access to federally backed mortgages and other credit, fueling a cycle of disinvestment and environmental problems in those neighborhoods.

"Communities of color, especially Black communities, have been concentrated in areas adjacent to industrial facilities and industrial zones, and that goes back decades and decades, to redlining," said Justin Onwenu, a Detroit-based organizer for the Sierra Club. "And a lot of our current infrastructure, our highways, were built on - built through - Black communities, so we're breathing in diesel emissions and other pollution just because we're located right next to these highways," Mr. Onwenu said.

The latest research, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, shows how that legacy continues to cast a shadow. Emissions from industry, construction and both light- and heavy-duty vehicles were among the sources that caused the largest absolute disparities for Black, Hispanic and Asian-Americans.

Particulate pollution from coal-fired power plants, meanwhile, was one of the only sources that substantially affected white Americans more than average. That was explained, Dr. Tessum said, by the predominantly white demographics of many coal towns. Coal power plants also tend to have smoke stacks that are many hundreds of feet high, scattering fine particles more evenly across larger areas.

Likely for the same geographic reason, white Americans were slightly more exposed to particulate pollution from agriculture, including from soil tilling and wind erosion. But in California, which produces more than a third of the country's vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts, Hispanic people were disproportionately exposed.

Vandee Lakthanasuk helped her father, Sieng Lakthanasuk, who has asthma, don a face mask outside their home in Richmond, Calif., near a Chevron refinery. Credit... Preston Gannaway for The New York Times

Newer industries can perpetuate these inequalities. A large Latino population in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, for example, near one of the nation's largest concentration of Amazon warehouses, has suffered from the heavy diesel traffic that feeds the sprawling e-commerce hub.

"These warehouses are being built within feet of existing homes, within feet of schools," said Cesunica E. Ivey, an assistant professor in chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the study. "Local voices in those neighborhoods are often drowned out," she said. "And they can't just move. You need resources to relocate."

The coronavirus pandemic, which has taken a disproportionate toll on Black, Latino and other communities, added to the burdens.

"A lot of families have kids with asthma. There's high rates of respiratory illness. Many people have died from cancer and other types of diseases," said Vivian Huang, a director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which works with communities that live at the fence line of refineries and other polluting facilities in California. "The Covid pandemic has just exacerbated these immense inequalities."

One surprising source of pollution that disproportionately affects communities of color, though a smaller source of emissions overall, were restaurants. A recent study that looked at Oakland, Calif., and Pittsburgh found that emissions from commercial kitchens - mostly from their use of cooking oils - were a surprisingly large fraction of particulate air pollution in those cities. More people of color tended to live nearby, and so were more exposed.

Getting a clearer picture of how different sources of air pollution affect different groups of people is important, because history has shown that simply reducing overall emissions does not address racial and other disparities, said Joshua Apte, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of both the PM 2.5 and commercial kitchen studies.

"When nearly every major source category in the U.S. disparately impacts people of color, reducing sources alone is really insufficient to solve this problem," he said. "We have to think about where the sources are as well."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. The Sources Are Everywhere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Researchers uncovered stark disparities between whites and minorities across thousands of categories of pollution, including trucks, industry, agriculture and even restaurants. Over the years, a mountain of evidence has brought to light a stark injustice: Compared with white Americans, people of color in the United States suffer disproportionately from exposure to pollution.

# data[].attributes.body
"White women were colonisers too"

"How White Feminists Oppress Black Women"

"When White Women Cry"
"Can black women and white women be true friends?"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
hat the voices of "women of colour" are getting louder and more influential is a testament less to the accommodations made by the dominant white culture and more to their own grit in a society that implicitly - and sometimes explicitly - wants them to fail.

At the Sydney writers' festival on Sunday, editor of Djed Press, Hella Ibrahim, relayed the final minutes of a panel on diversity featuring writers from the western Sydney Sweatshop collective. One of the panellists, Winnie Dunn, in answering a question about the harm caused by good intentions, had used the words "white people" and "shit" in the same sentence. This raised the ire of a self-identified white woman in the audience who interrogated the panellists as to "what they think they have to gain" by insulting people who "want to read their stories."

In other words, the woman saw a personal attack where there wasn't one and decided to remind the panellists that as a member of the white majority she ultimately has their fate in her hands.

"I walked out of that panel frustrated," Ibrahim wrote. "Because yet again, a good convo was derailed, white people centred themselves, and a POC panel was told to police it's [sic] tone to make their message palatable to a white audience."
Sign up to receive the latest Australian opinion pieces every weekday
Trauma assails brown and black women from all directions. There is the initial pain of being subjected to gendered racism and discrimination, there is the additional distress of not being believed or supported, and of having your words and your bravery seemingly credited to others.

And then there is a type of trauma inflicted on women of colour that many of us find among the hardest to disclose, the one that few seem willing to admit really happens because it is so thoroughly normalised most people refuse to see it.

It is what that writers' festival audience member was demonstrating, and what blogger and author Luvvie Ajayi called the "weary weaponising of white women's tears".

To put it less poetically, it is the trauma caused by the tactic many white women employ to muster sympathy and avoid accountability, by turning the tables and accusing their accuser.

Almost every BW (black woman) I know has a story about a time in a professional setting in which she attempted to have a talk with a WW about her behavior & it has ended with the WW (white woman) crying," one black woman wrote on Twitter. "The WW wasn't crying because she felt sorry and was deeply remorseful. The WW was crying because she felt "bullied" and/or that the BW was being too harsh with her."

When I shared these tweets on my Facebook page asking brown and black women if this had ever happened to them, I was taken by how deeply this resonated, prompting one Arab woman to share this story:

A WW kept touching my hair. Pulling my curls to watch them bounce back. Rubbing the top. Smelling it. So when I told her to stop and complained to HR and my supervisor, she complained that I wasn't a people person or team member and I had to leave that position for being 'threatening' to a coworker."

For the doubters, here is a mild version of this sleight-of-hand in action:

Notice it is the white woman - Jeanne Beker - who first interrupts the black woman - Jully Black - who takes the interruption in her stride. Black continues to speak passionately and confidently, which Beker interprets as a personal attack on her even though Black is clearly talking in general terms (just as Winnie Dunn was). Beker then attempts to shut Black down by essentially branding her a bully.

Had Jully Black not stopped and repeated Jeanne Beker's words back at her - "Why are you attacking me?" - they would have passed largely unnoticed, just another woman of colour smeared as an aggressor for daring to continue speaking when a white woman wanted her to stop.

It doesn't usually end this way. "White women tears are especially potent ... because they are attached to the symbol of femininity," Ajayi explains. "These tears are pouring out from the eyes of the one chosen to be the prototype of womanhood; the woman who has been painted as helpless against the whims of the world. The one who gets the most protection in a world that does a shitty job overall of cherishing women."

As I look back over my adult life a pattern emerges. Often, when I have attempted to speak to or confront a white woman about something she has said or done that has impacted me adversely, I am met with tearful denials and indignant accusations that I am hurting her. My confidence diminished and second-guessing myself, I either flare up in frustration at not being heard (which only seems to prove her point) or I back down immediately, apologising and consoling the very person causing me harm.

It is not weakness or guilt that compels me to capitulate. Rather, as I recently wrote, it is the manufactured reputation Arabs have for being threatening and aggressive that follows us everywhere. In a society that routinely places imaginary " wide-eyed, angry and Middle Eastern " people at the scenes of violent crimes they did not commit, having a legitimate grievance is no match for the strategic tears of a white damsel in distress whose innocence is taken for granted.

"We talk about toxic masculinity," Ajayi warns, "but there is (also) toxicity in wielding femininity in this way." Brown and black women know we are, as musician Miss Blanks writes, "imperfect victims". That doesn't mean we are always in the right but it does mean we know that against a white woman's accusations, our perspectives will almost always go unheard either way.

Whether angry or calm, shouting or pleading, we are still perceived as the aggressors.

Likewise, white women are equally aware their race privileges them as surely as ours condemns us. In this context, their tearful displays are a form of emotional and psychological violence that reinforce the very system of white dominance that many white women claim to oppose.

Ruby Hamad is a journalist and PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales

The headline of this article was amended on 11 May 2018 to better reflect the content of the piece

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How white women use strategic tears to silence women of colour | Ruby Hamad

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The legitimate grievances of brown and black women are no match for the accusations of a white damsel in distress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Everything you need to engage in antiracism as an educator including resources by content area, grade level, and topic. Find the best antiracism conferences, workshops, degree and certificate programs. Find a speaker or consultant. Find resources to help your school respond to national incidents. Fi…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Conscious Kid is an education, research and policy organization that supports families and educators in taking action to disrupt racism, inequity and bias

# data[].attributes.headline
Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Reading List

# data[].attributes.subject
Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Reading List

# data[].attributes.body
The NYT (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Reading List (Published 2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ibram X. Kendi on books to help America transcend its racist heritage.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People

# data[].attributes.subject
Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People

# data[].attributes.body
The Arrow (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'm breathing deeply as I write this. What I'm writing about is charged. I feel this energy in my body. It's a heat in my throat and a rumbling in my belly. It's an intensity that's frustrated that these words must even be written. It propels me through my fears of backlash and worry about not getting it exactly right. What I say may anger you. You may disagree. You may feel more confused, and this, I would say, is good. It means the work can begin.

Breathing.

People of color need their own spaces. Black people need their own spaces. We need places in which we can gather and be free from the mainstream stereotypes and marginalization that permeate every other societal space we occupy. We need spaces where we can be our authentic selves without white people's judgment and insecurity muzzling that expression. We need spaces where we can simply be-where we can get off the treadmill of making white people comfortable and finally realize just how tired we are.

Valuing and protecting spaces for people of color (PoC) is not just a kind thing that white people can do to help us feel better; supporting these spaces is crucial to the resistance of oppression. When people of color are together, there can be healing. We can reclaim parts of ourselves that have been repressed. We can redefine ourselves and support one another in embracing who we are. The necessity of these spaces is obvious to me as a woman of color learning to embrace layers of my own identity by being in community with other Black and brown bodies. This has been especially important in my spiritual community, Shambhala Buddhism, where we are taught that surfacing vulnerability is the path to creating a more fair and just society. Yet, in my own organizing of a PoC meditation in Oakland and in conversations with other people of color in my sangha across the United States, I have been angered and baffled by the responses of white people to these spaces.

Though people of color are creating and envisioning spaces in which we may be together, our efforts are continually questioned, attacked, and made invisible within our communities. Spaces for people of color are ignored, even when they attract large numbers. They are marginalized from other community events and programming. Community leaders find reasons to question the legitimacy of PoC groups and may interrogate organizers about what exactly we're doing when we get together. Some white people insert themselves into PoC spaces with reasons why they believe they should be included such as, "I identify more with people of color than with white people." There are people who accuse PoC spaces as being racist and segregationist.

Even if white people can't access an embodied understanding of why PoC spaces are needed, they can still cultivate genuine compassion for our experience of needing them, and they can trust our voices enough to support these spaces. If the presence of spaces for people of color engenders discomfort, insecurity, or anger, I hope those emotions will be seen as an opportunity to look deeper within oneself to ask why.

This article is being written in service of helping to clarify confusion about the value of PoC spaces. I do this by answering some of the questions that I and other PoC have received when organizing these spaces.
Why do PoC need their own spaces?
In integrated spaces, patterns of white dominance are inevitable. These patterns include things like being legitimized for using academic language, an expectation of "getting it right" (i.e., perfectionism), fear of open conflict, scapegoating those who cause discomfort, and a sense of urgency that takes precedence over inclusion.

These patterns happen even when white people are doing the work of examining their privilege. They can happen even when facilitators design and model more inclusive ways of being together. Why?

The values of whiteness are the water in which we all swim. No one is immune. Those values dictate who speaks, how loud, when, the words we use, what we don't say, what is ignored, who is validated and who is not. Unless we are actively and persistently dismantling these constructs, we are abiding by them. In integrated spaces (where we are less likely to be ourselves given the divisions that white dominance has created), we fall into the roles society has assigned us. As a person of color, and perhaps the only one in the room, it's exhausting to always be swimming upstream. To survive in this society, we learn to hold our tongue, to "code switch" to fit in. This is about survival and the basic human need to feel that we belong.

People of color are often so familiar with navigating white spaces that even when there's a possibility of bringing more of ourselves into a room, we simply don't know how. We've assimilated to white cultural conditioning, and that assimilation has become part of our identity. While this can help us "get ahead," the compromise is that we forget what it feels like to be our whole selves.
"It wasn't until I was in PoC-only spaces that I realized how much of myself I had cut off to fit into white culture," one person of color in Shambhala recently told me. "So being in PoC spaces allows me to reclaim those forgotten parts of myself."
For other people of color, an unfamiliarity with the unwritten rules of engaging in white spaces means we simply don't know how to show up. We've received feedback verbally and nonverbally that we just don't fit in. We're too loud. We're too quiet. We're too direct. We're too verbose. We're too passionate. We're too restrained. Label after label- difficult or emotional or meek -are put on us to fit the social order.

I value the efforts of those consciously working to challenge the dynamics of our social conditioning by considering the conversational architecture in groups, inviting myriad forms of knowing and creating opportunities for PoC leaders. I believe these efforts are essential for addressing the inequities in our society and necessary before inviting people of color in the door, but they do not replace the need for PoC-only spaces.

As a person of color in integrated spaces, my radar is constantly scanning for insensitivities and the potential for harm-not just the standard warding off of pain that we all seek to avoid, but racialized harm that essentializes me as different or serves to re-exert oppression. When something is detected, I reflexively reassemble the scraps of armor that were tentatively put down. There is good reason for this caution: To be a person of color means to experience discrimination regularly. If you're Black, that experience is often daily-being feared simply for being, the objectification of difference such as the texture of your hair, people who use performative blackness and a "blaccent" when relating to you, etc.

If you're white, you have a choice about whether or not you engage in uncomfortable conversations about race, and you have a choice about how much you feel the racial inequities of our society. If you're a person of color, however, conversations about race are unavoidable-we're pulled into them whether we've invited such discourse or not. White people often interpret our mere presence in a room as an opportunity to talk about race, and these are not conversations we always want to have. If you're a person of color, the reality of racism is neither optional nor conceptual; it is deeply and painfully felt. This is known as "embodied inequality," which describes how discrimination raises the risk of many emotional and physical illnesses among people of color.

Imagine that discrimination is like plaque that covered your being at birth-in its stickiness are challenges to your worth, intelligence, and humanity. Over time, as you try to make your way through the school system, find a job, and look for a partner, it gets thicker and stickier. An important way to begin chipping away at this buildup is to be in a space where we can, temporarily, leave that sticky inheritance at the door. This is the point of PoC spaces.

In these spaces, we can share stories about the discrimination we've faced, and find understanding and support. We can define ourselves on our own terms. When white people are present, this crucial examining usually doesn't happen. Sharing our experiences in integrated spaces often means preparing to defend our anger and frustration, or taking care of white individuals who find what is being said hurtful. This means that when PoC do take the leap to share painful experiences, white listeners often shift the focus back onto themselves and their own grievances; thus attention and power implicitly shift back to white individuals, reinforcing the status quo. There can also arise a need to "translate" our experiences into terms that white listeners will be more sympathetic to in order to be heard. Genuine allyship requires genuine listening-especially when that listening is hard to be with.
"When I speak to many white people of my experience [as a person of color] they are stunned and start crying or freeze-neither solves anything," one person of color in the sangha told me. "It feels like I have to make them feel better-it's that unspoken burden. So if we want change, we have to get past all that. PoC don't need to constantly be part of that. It's not safe at this point in the [sangha] to say whatever you feel. Some healing needs to be done with PoC bodies who have experienced that pain."
In our day-to-day, many people of color have jobs where we're not able to show up as our authentic selves. Showing sadness about the latest killing of a Black person is rarely invited; sometimes the event is not even on the radar of our colleagues. When we do express sadness, it often goes ignored. Our spiritual community should be the place where we can touch into these painful places, but my own community often is not such a place. Indeed, many Western Buddhist communities are reflections of the students who helped established them, the majority of whom were white. Like the society in which we live, it is shaped by white, patriarchal values. This is not a judgment, but a fact. It is what has governed who feels comfortable in our meditation halls and who does not. How we engage with each other and how we do not. How free we feel in our celebrations or not. In my work in my community, I'm seeing a hunger to explore this pattern and to design new, more inclusive, more alive ways of being, yet it's difficult to see the water in which we are swimming. Our hope lies in an empowered collection of voices that can help guide us toward being the community we long to be. This requires that white people step aside to support spaces in which PoC members of the community are invited to feel, to be, and to touch our humanity on our terms, in a way that feels not like colonization but like coming home.
But isn't this just segregation?
It's important to remember that segregation as an institution was part of a system of oppression designed and maintained by white people. Today, white people may experience occasional prejudice, but not racism. White people do not experience the systemic racism that makes it hard for them to find jobs, housing, healthcare, and justice in the legal system.

Though it may feel like creating PoC spaces is a regression to the pre-Civil Rights era, that feeling affirms a disconnection with the reality of racism in America today. Regression would mean that we've solved the pain of racial inequality since that time. It would mean that in integrated spaces everyone has equal access to being felt, seen, and heard.

Yes, when people of color create space to be with only each other, it is a form of temporary physical segregation in the literal sense of the word, but that is not akin to the institution of segregation. We are not proclaiming "separate but equal" with the creation of PoC spaces.

These spaces aren't acts of oppression, but rather responses to it. They are our opportunity to be with each other away from the abuses of racism and patterns of white dominance. Given that space to breathe, there's a possibility of healing. Being together can offer resiliency for bringing our fullness into integrated spaces where it will inevitably be challenged.
How is inclusiveness cultivated by practices that exclude?
How is inclusiveness cultivated by "caucusing"-i.e., by inviting PoC groups to hold their own spaces and also encouraging white people to hold spaces to examine the illusion of "whiteness"?

The question here is what is meant by "inclusive?" How "inclusive" are integrated spaces for PoC? For white people, "inclusive" spaces typically feel similar to the spaces they normally operate in, but maybe have a few more brown people.

For anyone who has tried to "invite in" more diversity, you may wonder: Why is it so difficult to get Black and brown people to show up? The reason is that merely inviting more people of color into a space does not in and of itself make that space inclusive. Patterns of white dominance suffuse the space just like other spaces we occupy, only this time, we're calling it "inclusive." That's more painful and frustrating than being in spaces that are blind. Staying in that "inclusive" room actually involves PoC putting aside our own needs and taking care of white people as we've been conditioned to do. Then we go home and tell our brown friends how uncomfortable it was and all the things that were said or done that we can't believe. We do not go back. Many "inclusive" spiritual communities remain predominantly white.

It may be argued that to build an inclusive community, caucusing is actually necessary. In an article published by the American Political Science Association, citing her examination of intersectionality within women's movements, professor Laurel Weldon argues that inviting marginalized subgroups to hold their own spaces tends to strengthen broader movements. She writes,

"The movement against gender violence has achieved cooperation through the development of norms of inclusivity," she writes. "Such norms include a commitment to descriptive representation, the facilitation of separate organization for disadvantaged social groups, and a commitment to building consensus with institutionalized dissent. Developing such norms is not the only possible path to cooperation, but it is an important and overlooked one. It illuminates a way of maintaining solidarity and improving policy influence without denying or sublimating the differences and conflicts among activists." (Emphasis added.)

Though Weldon's analysis aims to establish links to the policy relevance of activist movements, its applicability to spiritual communities is significant. The article suggests that pursuing collective liberation (a humane and inclusive society) means fully acknowledging difference and empowering its respectful expressions within a collective.
But when can we be together?
I recently listened to a Meditation in the City Podcast in which Rev. angel Kyodo williams answered a question from a participant on this topic. Here's what she said:
"People who have always been entitled to space and to place have no idea what it's like to have never been entitled to space. I'm entitled to gather to determine the way and the path to my freedom. You will let me do that and not obstruct it. You will not put your needs and your desire for some kind of picture above my necessity. Doing so obstructs my ability to understand what it is to first be with myself. To be with people that I have not been allowed to be with just as I am. Put aside your urgency-we've been separated for 400 years, kept from one another-for this to just be over."
Without the full context, these words may sound sharp, but in her reference of "you" Rev. angel wasn't speaking just to the participant who asked the question, but the collection of "yous" who are waiting and wondering when caucusing will no longer be necessary-when we can harmoniously be together in community. This question often comes from people who do not have an experience of what it feels like not to be able to take up space. For people of color, there are hundreds of years of oppression and segregation carried in our DNA. For so long we've been unable to occupy space together in the ways we want. We need time to determine how to reconcile that debt, to determine what the path forward may be. It is work without a deadline.

Personally, I'm not interested in being in an "inclusive space." Every space I'm in is ostensibly inclusive. I want to be with Black femme people. When that's not available, I want to be with Black and brown people. That is hard to find, yet it is something my body craves-space where I can be just as I am.

I challenge this idea that "inclusive spaces" can be made without serious reflection, exertion, and patience. To be a truly inclusive space, it must be created by causes and conditions that allow it to happen organically-the internal work has been done so that the fullness of many different bodies can coexist. While efforts to engineer such a space are admirable, they often feel like just that-"engineered." Everyone is uncomfortable, and then we all fall into our white social conditioning. I'm reminded that it is through practicing the pāramitās-transcendental virtues-that auspicious coincidence can arise. "When you express gentleness and precision in your environment, then real brilliance and power can descend onto that situation," says Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. "If you try to manufacture that presence out of your own ego, it will never happen. You cannot own the power and magic of this world. It is always available, but it does not belong to anyone."

What are the causes and conditions that allow for organically populated integrated spaces? With gentleness and precision, white people must do the work of looking at the delusions of ego (a shared social conditioning) that encourages them to succeed at the expense of everyone else.

When the question "when can we be together?" is asked, it is a glaring indication that we are not ready to be together.
But how are we supposed to learn if people of color aren't present?
Expecting people of color to be in the room to help white people learn about race is yet another example of privilege. Being in a space where white people are starting to wake up to their white cultural conditioning is heartbreaking for me. It is a pain that is felt deeply. I ache for my ancestors and my ancestors' ancestors. A sadness comes welling up, and it feels like drowning. While there are some people of color who are up for being in conversations with white people about race, this is a gift offered in the service of collective liberation, and it requires tremendous energy, patience, bravery, and effort. Deep love for others might also bring us to this work. I love you enough to be on the front lines weathering your arrows of confusion. I love you enough to hold the pain you've buried deep, deep down until you're ready to claim it. It is not every person of color's work to do the work of liberation in this way. Please don't expect it.

I also don't believe that the presence of PoC is helpful to white people doing this work. Dictated social niceties make it hard to get into these dark places even among those who share your race. Having a person of color present for this means meeting a fairly solid social barrier (that you're going to say something that will hurt someone else or make you look bad) that's hard for anyone to confront, let alone someone just beginning this work. It's generally best if we're out of the room.

I believe that in most circumstances, doing race work in an integrated setting is harmful. This is not a popular belief, especially among white people. I have been challenged on this time and again, and I keep showing up for these conversations in mixed-race settings and breaking down from the pain of it all. I open myself up to stories about racist family members, or admissions from former white supremacists. Why do I need to hear this? The fact that racism exists is not a surprise to me. That it infiltrates my very own community is obvious. I do not need to hear more stories about it. Are these admonitions made in hopes of atonement? It is not mine to give.

The only thing I want to hear from white people about race is, I'm sorry. I didn't see. I didn't listen. I'm working to see and listen now.

If you want support on this journey, there are white people who have worked hard and are further down this path who you can talk to. You don't need people of color in the room for every conversation about race in order to come to realizations about racism. You can do this work yourself and be liberated by it.
The society I envision does not include race- or gender-based quotas.
We live in a world where if we are unconscious about who is not in the room, we will inevitably create a society that privileges white, affluent men and disadvantages everyone else. This is the society we have now.

If we want to move forward towards collective liberation, we first have to acknowledge fully and completely our collective confusion as it is, now. There may be instances in which we realize how little we know. Our constructs must come crumbling down. We will be confused. Emotions will arise. This is good-it means there's an opening for surrender, to let go of how things should be or how they appear to be, to come into contact with what is happening right now, what is happening in the body. This is what must happen for transformation.

Because of the inequities woven into the fabric of our society, we must make a conscious and concerted effort to encourage oppressed voices to come forward. And when those efforts fail, we have to turn deeper into ourselves and ask, what is it that we're still missing? We have to ask the questions we're afraid to ask. We have to be with the things we're afraid to allow. This is precisely what the teachings of the Shambhala tradition train us to do. This is the purpose of the practice of spiritual warriorship. We meet fear with gentleness, and in doing so practice fearlessness. Let us not avoid the sharp edges of reality or the thorough application of our teachings for a cozier cocoon of sleepiness.
How do I have more relationships with people of color?
I don't get this question directly, but I feel it. I feel it in the overly friendly welcoming of my presence by someone with whom I share no obvious connection. I feel it in the over-sharing of race work that white people often feel compelled to tell me about. I feel it every time white people's actions or words show me that they've immediately labeled me as a brown woman. When someone feels the compulsion to show me that they're on "the good side," or when they wonder if the big brown person who just came into the Center is lost, I wonder if noticing and pausing might be possible. Can this energy be harnessed as an opportunity to examine what is going on internally? Can this vulnerability to be surfaced in conversation? "I'm feeling a desire to tell you about the work I'm doing at the Boys and Girls Club, but I'm also sensitive to how this may land for you." This is the on-the-ground practice of race work in an integrated setting. There are countless opportunities for white people to express this kind of vulnerability. Extending out in this way creates space for people of color to share their own experience and authenticity. It may not go perfectly every time. We all have things to learn. But it is a necessary place to start.

If your community is mostly white, it is not by accident. Do your work, get real, look at the places you've been avoiding. Ask another white person the question you've been unsure about asking. See how you're perpetuating the system of institutional racism; we all are. Become intimately familiar with your role. Explore the places within yourself that you hold back. Can you be yourself a little more? You do this work and people of color will naturally want to engage with you. Why? Because through feeling and exploring your ignorance you've created a genuine opening for my reality. Stepping into this unknown means carving out space for my existence.

...

Breathing.

These words are shared not to shock or offend but in kindness-as an offering of my own fullness and genuine aspirations for my community. I hope to create an opening for honest conversation. I hope to bring more understanding and support through the sangha for the importance of these spaces. I hope in hearing me other people of color will be heard.

What happens in PoC spaces? Anything we want-and this is the beauty of them. We can be sources for our own nourishment and resilience. Why wouldn't an ally be in support of this? My friend recently said, "We don't need allies (i.e., friends); we need accomplices (i.e., partners in crime)." I couldn't agree more. The act of supporting people of color is one of subversion. We are subverting white cultural conditioning. These are the values that fuel our institutions and organizations; they fuel our social hierarchy and how we self-identify. Undermining this conditioning requires fierceness and bravery. Anyone doing this will be challenged. Will you be an accomplice in supporting PoC spaces?
Kelsey Blackwell is a somatic coach, writer and facilitator committed to fearlessly creating spaces for women and PoC to trust and follow the wisdom of their own bodies so they may powerfully shine their lights in a world that sorely needs this brilliance. Follow her at kelseyblackwell.com.
Illustration by Alicia Brown

Before you go...

Notes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'm breathing deeply as I write this. What I'm writing about is charged. I feel this energy in my body. It's a heat in my throat and a rumbling in my belly. It's an intensity that's frustrated that...

# data[].attributes.headline
Talking About Racism and Violence: Resources for Educators and Families

# data[].attributes.subject
Talking About Racism and Violence: Resources for Educators and Families

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What's on This Page

This resource page includes the following topics:

Discussion of the following topics may be traumatic for students. Educators are encouraged to seek guidance in trauma-informed practices in preparation for discussions related to these topics. Learn more from these resources and those below.

The following resources and updates address the events and aftermath following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.

Lesson plans

PBS NewsHour Extra / Share My Lesson

See additional lessons related to Social Issues from NewsHour Extra.

Other recommended lesson plans

Video

Communication and conversation

Multimedia / social media
Kojo For Kids: Jason Reynolds Talks About Racism And The Protests
Best-selling YA author Jason Reynolds has grappled with racism personally and in his writing. The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature also recently co-authored a book for young people on fighting racism: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Public radio host Kojo Nnamdi, based at WAMU in Washington, DC, asked Jason Reynolds to join this edition of Kojo For Kids to help listenders understand what has led to the tensions we've seen over the last week, and to talk about why racism persists and what we can do to build a less racist society.

Authors Organize Kit Lit Rally for Black Lives on Facebook ( School Library Journal)

Kwame Alexander, Jason Reynolds, and Jacqueline Woodson organized a Kit Lit Rally for Black Lives on Rally featured inspiring words, music, and numerous calls to action in support of equity and justice. A list of recommended The Brown Bookshelf. The anti-racist materials has also been compiled as part of the rally.

Understanding the impact of racism and violence on mental health

Tips for talking about violence

Talking about tough topics in the news

See more parent resources on talking race and racism below.

Note: If you are connecting with your students remotely, this resource guide for virtual circles of concern offers tips for managing conversations about difficult topics in distance learning settings.

Teaching about racism and violence

Resources: Racism and violence
Lesson plans Articles and blogs
Resources: More about race and racism

Talking About Race (National Museum of African American History and Culture)

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture has just launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture. The online portal provides digital tools, online exercises, video instructions, scholarly articles and more than 100 multi-media resources tailored for educators, parents and caregivers-and individuals committed to racial equality. The museum moved up the launch date due to the number of racially charged incidents in recent weeks.

Articles and multimedia

Reflecting on perspective
Teaching Tolerance Resources Video
Culturally responsive practice

This collection of culturally responsive resources include a wide range of topics related to honoring students' identities and experiences, addressing bias in schools and classrooms, and digging into the hard work of personal reflection and action.

Teaching Tolerance

Edutopia

National Education Association

More recommended resources

Guides and tips

Bilingual resources

Talking about current events

Books for students

Talking about race
Booklists Books for Young People Guidance on Choosing and Using Books
Racial injustice and violence

These books can serve as powerful mirrors and windows alike. While the majority of these books are written for a young adult audience, the first book is written for children. These books can also provide valuable perspectives for adults.

Read more in the following:

Finding diverse books: Mirrors and windows

Books and resources for adults

Race and education

See more titles in this Race and Education booklist from Social Justice Books.

Race and racism
Books
See more in:
Additional resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Talking About Racism and Violence: Resources for Educators and Families

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This resource page includes the following topics: Discussion of the following topics may be traumatic for students. Educators are encouraged to seek guidance in trauma-informed practices in preparation for discussions related to these topics. Learn more from these resources and those below.

# data[].attributes.body
A collection of resources curated by Dr. Nicole A. Cooke

# data[].attributes.headline
Honoring Indigenous Cultures and Histories

# data[].attributes.subject
Honoring Indigenous Cultures and Histories

# data[].attributes.body
TED Talk by Jill Fish (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Honoring Indigenous Cultures and Histories | Jill Fish | TEDxMinneapolis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Center for Racial Justice in Education offers trainings, consultation, and in-depth partnerships to educators who want to dismantle racism in their classrooms, homes, and communities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Center for Racial Justice in Education offers trainings, consultation, and in-depth partnerships to educators who want to dismantle racism in their classrooms, homes, and communities.

# data[].attributes.headline
How Did We Get There? Policing and the Legacy of Racial Injustice

# data[].attributes.subject
How Did We Get There? Policing and the Legacy of Racial Injustice

# data[].attributes.body
Facing History and Ourselves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Policing and the Legacy of Racial Injustice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This series of mini-lessons is designed to help students think critically about the long and troubling history between law enforcement and Black Americans.

# data[].attributes.body
Campaign Zero is an activist organization. Their website curates a collection of data and articles.

# data[].attributes.body
Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker (2016)
Also, on NPR.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A new kind of movement found its moment. What will its future be?

On February 18th, as part of the official recognition of Black History Month, President Obama met with a group of African-American leaders at the White House to discuss civil-rights issues. The guests-who included Representative John Lewis, of Georgia; Sherrilyn Ifill, the director-counsel of the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and Wade Henderson, who heads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights-were intent on pressing the President to act decisively on criminal-justice issues during his last year in office. Their urgency, though, was tempered by a degree of sentimentality, verging on nostalgia. As Ifill later told me, "We were very much aware that this was the last Black History Month of this Presidency."

But the meeting was also billed as the "first of its kind," in that it would bring together different generations of activists. To that end, the White House had invited DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, and Aislinn Pulley, all of whom are prominent figures in Black Lives Matter, which had come into existence-amid the flash points of the George Zimmerman trial; Michael Brown's death, in Ferguson, Missouri; and the massacre at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church, in Charleston, South Carolina-during Obama's second term.

Black Lives Matter has been described as "not your grandfather's civil-rights movement," to distinguish its tactics and its philosophy from those of nineteen-sixties-style activism. Like the Occupy movement, it eschews hierarchy and centralized leadership, and its members have not infrequently been at odds with older civil-rights leaders and with the Obama Administration-as well as with one another. So it wasn't entirely surprising when Pulley, a community organizer in Chicago, declined the White House invitation, on the ground that the meeting was nothing more than a "photo opportunity" for the President. She posted a statement online in which she said that she "could not, with any integrity, participate in such a sham that would only serve to legitimize the false narrative that the government is working to end police brutality and the institutional racism that fuels it." Her skepticism was attributable, in part, to the fact that she lives and works in a city whose mayor, Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, is embroiled in a controversy stemming from a yearlong coverup of the fatal shooting by police of an African-American teen-ager.

Mckesson, a full-time activist, and Packnett, the executive director of Teach for America in St. Louis, did accept the invitation, and they later described the meeting as constructive. Mckesson tweeted: "Why did I go to the mtg w/ @ potus today? B/c there are things we can do now to make folks' lives better today, tomorrow, & the day after." Two weeks earlier, Mckesson had announced that he would be a candidate in the Baltimore mayoral race, and Obama's praise, after the meeting, for his "outstanding work mobilizing in Baltimore" was, if not an endorsement, certainly politically valuable.

That split in the response to the White House, however, reflected a larger conflict: while Black Lives Matter's insistent outsider status has allowed it to shape the dialogue surrounding race and criminal justice in this country, it has also sparked a debate about the limits of protest, particularly of online activism. Meanwhile, internal disputes have raised questions about what the movement hopes to achieve, and about its prospects for success.

The phrase "black lives matter" was born in July of 2013, in a Facebook post by Alicia Garza, called "a love letter to black people." The post was intended as an affirmation for a community distraught over George Zimmerman's acquittal in the shooting death of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida. Garza, now thirty-five, is the special-projects director in the Oakland office of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which represents twenty thousand caregivers and housekeepers, and lobbies for labor legislation on their behalf. She is also an advocate for queer and transgender rights and for anti-police-brutality campaigns.

Garza has a prodigious social-media presence, and on the day that the Zimmerman verdict was handed down she posted, "the sad part is, there's a section of America who is cheering and celebrating right now. and that makes me sick to my stomach. we gotta get it together y'all." Later, she added, "btw stop saying we are not surprised. that's a damn shame in itself. I continue to be surprised at how little Black lives matter. And I will continue that. stop giving up on black life." She ended with "black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter."

Garza's friend Patrisse Cullors amended the last three words to create a hashtag: #BlackLivesMatter. Garza sometimes writes haiku-she admires the economy of the form-and in those four syllables she recognized a distillation not only of the anger that attended Zimmerman's acquittal but also of the animating principle at the core of black social movements dating back more than a century.

Garza grew up as Alicia Schwartz, in Marin County, where she was raised by her African-American mother and her Jewish stepfather, who run an antiques store. Her brother Joey, who works for the family business, is almost young enough to have been Trayvon Martin's peer. That is one reason, she says, that the Zimmerman verdict affected her so deeply. The family was not particularly political, but Garza showed an interest in activism in middle school, when she worked to have information about contraception made available to students in Bay Area schools.

She went on to study anthropology and sociology at the University of California, San Diego. When she was twenty-three, she told her family that she was queer. They reacted to the news with equanimity. "I think it helped that my parents are an interracial couple," she told me. "Even if they didn't fully understand what it meant, they were supportive." For a few years, Garza held various jobs in the social-justice sector. She found the work fulfilling, but, she said, "San Francisco broke my heart over and over. White progressives would actually argue with us about their right to determine what was best for communities they never had to live in."

In 2003, she met Malachi Garza, a gregarious, twenty-four-year-old trans male activist, who ran training sessions for organizers. They married five years later. In 2009, early on the morning of New Year's Day, a transit-police officer named Johannes Mehserle fatally shot Oscar Grant, a twenty-two-year-old African-American man, in the Fruitvale BART station, in Oakland, three blocks from where the Garzas live. Alicia was involved in a fight for fair housing in San Francisco at the time, but Malachi, who was by then the director of the Community Justice Network for Youth, immersed himself in a campaign to have Mehserle brought up on murder charges. (He was eventually convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and served one year of a two-year sentence.)

Grant died nineteen days before Barack Obama's first Inauguration. (The film "Fruitvale Station," a dramatic recounting of the last day of Grant's life, contrasts his death with the national exuberance following the election.) His killing was widely seen as a kind of political counterpoint-a reminder that the grip of history would not be easily broken.

Garza had met Patrisse Cullors in 2005, on a dance floor in Providence, Rhode Island, where they were both attending an organizers' conference. Cullors, a native of Los Angeles, had been organizing in the L.G.B.T.Q. community since she was a teen-ager-she came out as queer when she was sixteen and was forced to leave home-and she had earned a degree in religion and philosophy at U.C.L.A. She is now a special-projects director at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, in Oakland, which focusses on social justice in inner cities. Garza calls Cullors her "twin." After Cullors created the Black Lives Matter hashtag, the two women began promoting it. Opal Tometi, a writer and an immigration-rights organizer in Brooklyn, whom Garza had met at a conference in 2012, offered to build a social-media platform, on Facebook and Twitter, where activists could connect with one another. The women also began thinking about how to turn the phrase into a movement.

Black Lives Matter didn't reach a wider public until the following summer, when a police officer named Darren Wilson shot and killed eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson. Darnell Moore, a writer and an activist based in Brooklyn, who knew Cullors, coördinated "freedom rides" to Missouri from New York, Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Boston. Within a few weeks of Brown's death, hundreds of people who had never participated in organized protests took to the streets, and that campaign eventually exposed Ferguson as a case study of structural racism in America and a metaphor for all that had gone wrong since the end of the civil-rights movement.

DeRay Mckesson, who was twenty-nine at the time and working as an administrator in the Minneapolis public-school system, watched as responses to Brown's death rolled through his Twitter feed, and decided to drive the six hundred miles to Ferguson to witness the scene himself. Before he left, he posted a request for housing on Facebook. Teach for America's Brittany Packnett helped him find a place; before moving to Minneapolis, he had taught sixth-grade math as a T.F.A. employee in Brooklyn. Soon after his arrival, he attended a street-medic training session, where he met Johnetta Elzie, a twenty-five-year-old St. Louis native. With Packnett, they began sharing information about events and tweeting updates from demonstrations, and they quickly became the most recognizable figures associated with the movement in Ferguson. For their efforts, he and Elzie received the Howard Zinn Freedom to Write Award, in 2015, and Packnett was appointed to the President's Commission on Twenty-first Century Policing.

Yet, although the three of them are among the most identifiable names associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, none of them officially belong to a chapter of the organization. Elzie, in fact, takes issue with people referring to Garza, Cullors, and Tometi as founders. As she sees it, Ferguson is the cradle of the movement, and no chapter of the organization exists there or anywhere in the greater St. Louis area. That contentious distinction between the organization and the movement is part of the debate about what Black Lives Matter is and where it will go next.

The central contradiction of the civil-rights movement was that it was a quest for democracy led by organizations that frequently failed to function democratically. W. E. B. Du Bois, in his 1903 essay "The Talented Tenth," wrote that "the Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men," and the traditional narrative of the battle for the rights of African-Americans has tended to read like a great-black-man theory of history. But, starting a generation ago, civil-rights historians concluded that their field had focussed too heavily on the movement's leaders. New scholarship began charting the contributions of women, local activists, and small organizations-the lesser-known elements that enabled the grand moments we associate with the civil-rights era. In particular, the career of Ella Baker, who was a director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and who oversaw the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, came to be seen as a counter-model to the careers of leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. Baker was emphatically averse to the spotlight. Barbara Ransby, a professor of history and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who wrote a biography of Baker, told me that, during the nineteen-forties, when Baker was a director of branches for the N.A.A.C.P., "she would go into small towns and say, 'Whom are you reaching out to?' And she'd tell them that if you're not reaching out to the town drunk you're not really working for the rights of black people. The folk who were getting rounded up and thrown in jail had to be included."

Cullors says, "The consequence of focussing on a leader is that you develop a necessity for that leader to be the one who's the spokesperson and the organizer, who tells the masses where to go, rather than the masses understanding that we can catalyze a movement in our own community." Or, as Garza put it, "The model of the black preacher leading people to the promised land isn't working right now." Jesse Jackson-a former aide to King and a two-time Presidential candidate, who won seven primaries and four caucuses in 1988-was booed when he tried to address young protesters in Ferguson, who saw him as an interloper. That response was seen as indicative of a generational divide. But the divide was as much philosophical as it was generational, and one that was visible half a century earlier.

Garza, Cullors, and Tometi advocate a horizontal ethic of organizing, which favors democratic inclusion at the grassroots level. Black Lives Matter emerged as a modern extension of Ella Baker's thinking-a preference for ten thousand candles rather than a single spotlight. In a way, they created the context and the movement created itself. "Really, the genesis of the organization was the people who organized in their cities for the ride to Ferguson," Garza told me in her office. Those people, she said, "pushed us to create a chapter structure. They wanted to continue to do this work together, and be connected to activists and organizers from across the country." There are now more than thirty Black Lives Matter chapters in the United States, and one in Toronto. They vary in structure and emphasis, and operate with a great deal of latitude, particularly when it comes to choosing what "actions" to stage. But prospective chapters must submit to a rigorous assessment, by a coördinator, of the kinds of activism that members have previously engaged in, and they must commit to the organization's guiding principles. These are laid out in a thirteen-point statement written by the women and Darnell Moore, which calls for, in part, an ideal of unapologetic blackness. "In affirming that black lives matter, we need not qualify our position," the statement reads.

Yet, although the movement initially addressed the killing of unarmed young black men, the women were equally committed to the rights of working people and to gender and sexual equality. So the statement also espouses inclusivity, because "to love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a necessary prerequisite for wanting the same for others." Garza's argument for inclusivity is informed by the fact that she-a black queer female married to a trans male-would likely have found herself marginalized not only in the society she hopes to change but also in many of the organizations that are dedicated to changing it. She also dismisses the kind of liberalism that finds honor in nonchalance. "We want to make sure that people are not saying, 'Well, whatever you are, I don't care,' " she said. "No, I want you to care. I want you to see all of me."

Black activists have organized in response to police brutality for decades, but part of the reason for the visibility of the current movement is the fact that such problems have persisted-and, from the public's perspective, at least, have seemed to escalate-during the first African-American Presidency. Obama's election was seen as the culmination of years of grassroots activism that built the political power of black Americans, but the naïve dream of a post-racial nation foundered even before he was sworn into office. As Garza put it, "Conditions have shifted, so our institutions have shifted to meet those conditions. Barack Obama comes out after Trayvon is murdered and does this weird, half-ass thing where he's, like, 'That could've been my son,' and at the same time he starts scolding young black men." In short, all this would seem to suggest, until there was a black Presidency it was impossible to conceive of the limitations of one. Obama, as a young community organizer in Chicago, determined that he could bring about change more effectively through electoral politics; Garza is of a generation of activists who have surveyed the circumstances of his Presidency and drawn the opposite conclusion.

I met up with Garza in downtown San Francisco last August, on an afternoon when the icy winds felt like a rebuke to summer. A lively crowd of several hundred people had gathered in United Nations Plaza for Trans Liberation Tuesday, an event that was being held in twenty cities across the country. A transgender opera singer sang "Amazing Grace." Then Janetta Johnson, a black trans activist, said, "We've been in the street for Oscar Grant, for Trayvon Martin, for Eric Garner. It's time for our community to show up for trans women."

The names of Grant, Martin, and Garner-who died in 2014, after being put in a choke hold by police on Staten Island-are now part of the canon of the wrongfully dead. The point of Trans Liberation Tuesday was to draw attention to the fact that there are others, such as Ashton O'Hara and Amber Monroe, black trans people who were killed just weeks apart in Detroit last year, whose names may not be known to the public but who are no less emblematic of a broader social concern. According to a report by the Human Rights Campaign, between 2013 and 2015 there were fifty-three known murders of transgender people; thirty-nine of the victims were African-American.

Garza addressed the crowd for just four minutes; she is not given to soaring rhetoric, but speaks with clarity and confidence. She began with a roll call of the underrepresented: "We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk-we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative." Yet, over all, her comments were more concerned with the internal dynamics of race. For Garza, the assurance that black lives matter is as much a reminder directed at black people as it is a revelation aimed at whites. The message of Trans Liberation Tuesday was that, as society at large has devalued black lives, the African-American community is guilty of devaluing lives based on gender and sexuality.

The kind of ecumenical activism that Garza espouses has deep roots in the Bay Area. In 1966, in Oakland, Huey P. Newton co-founded the Black Panther Party, which was practically defined by hyperbolic masculinity. Four years later, he made a statement whose message was, at the time, rare for the left, not to mention the broader culture. In a Party newsletter, he wrote:

We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations, that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society.

The movement remained steadfastly masculinist, but by the nineteen-eighties Newton's words had begun to appear prescient. When I asked Garza about the most common misperception of Black Lives Matter, she pointed to a frequent social-media dig that it is "a gay movement masquerading as a black one." But the organization's fundamental point has been to challenge the assumption that those two things are mutually exclusive. In 1989, the race-theory and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the principle of "intersectionality," by which multiple identities coexist and complicate the ways in which we typically think of class, race, gender, and sexuality as social problems. "Our work is heavily influenced by Crenshaw's theory," Garza told me. "People think that we're engaged with identity politics. The truth is that we're doing what the labor movement has always done-organizing people who are at the bottom."

As was the case during the civil-rights movement, there are no neat distinctions between the activities of formal organizations and those incited by an atmosphere of social unrest. That ambiguity can be an asset when it inspires entry-level activism among people who had never attended a protest, as happened in Ferguson. But it can be a serious liability when actions contrary to the principles of the movement are associated with it. In December, 2014, video surfaced of a march in New York City, called in response to the deaths of Eric Garner and others, where some protesters chanted that they wanted to see "dead cops." The event was part of the Millions March, which was led by a coalition of organizations, but the chant was attributed to Black Lives Matter. Several months later, the footage provoked controversy. "For four weeks, Bill O'Reilly was flashing my picture on the screen and saying we're a hate group," Garza said.

A week after the march, a troubled drifter named Ismaaiyl Brinsley fatally shot two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, as they sat in their patrol car, before killing himself. Some observers argued that, although Brinsley had not identified with any group, his actions were the result of an anti-police climate created by Black Lives Matter. Last summer, not long after Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church, South Carolina's governor, Nikki Haley, implied that the movement had so intimidated police officers that they were unable to do their jobs, thereby putting more black lives at risk. All of this was accompanied by an increasing skepticism, across the political spectrum, about whether Black Lives Matter could move beyond reacting to outrages and begin proactively shaping public policy.

The current Presidential campaign has presented the movement with a crucial opportunity to address that question. Last summer, at the annual Netroots Nation conference of progressive activists, in Phoenix, Martin O'Malley made his candidacy a slightly longer shot when he responded to a comment about Black Lives Matter by asserting that all lives matter-an evasion of the specificity of black concerns, which elicited a chorus of boos. At the same event, activists interrupted Bernie Sanders. The Sanders campaign made overtures to the movement following the incident, but three weeks later, on the eve of the first anniversary of Michael Brown's death, two protesters identifying themselves as Black Lives Matter activists-Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford-disrupted a Sanders rally in Seattle, preventing the Senator from addressing several thousand people who had gathered to hear him. The women were booed by the largely white crowd, but the dissent wasn't limited to whites. This was the kind of freestyle disruption that caused even some African-Americans to wonder how the movement was choosing its targets. At the time, it did seem odd to have gone after Sanders twice, given that he is the most progressive candidate in the race, and that none of the Republican candidates had been disrupted in their campaigns.

Garza argues that the strategy has been to leverage influence among the Democrats, since ninety per cent of African-Americans vote Democratic. She says that it will be uncomfortable for voters if "the person that you are supporting hasn't actually done what they need to be doing, in terms of addressing the real concern of people under this broad banner." She defended the Seattle action, saying that it was "part of a very localized dynamic, but an important one," and added that "without being disrupted Sanders wouldn't have released a platform on racial justice." Afterward, Sanders hired Symone Sanders, an African-American woman, to be his national press secretary. He also released a statement on civil rights that prominently featured the names of African-American victims of police violence, and he began frequently referring to Black Lives Matter on the campaign trail. He subsequently won the support of many younger black activists, including Eric Garner's daughter.

An attempt to disrupt a Hillary Clinton rally early in the campaign, in New Hampshire, failed when the protesters arrived too late to get into the hall. But Clinton met with them privately afterward, and engaged in a debate about mass incarceration. She has met with members of the movement on other occasions, too. Clinton has the support of older generations of black leaders and activists-including Eric Garner's mother-and she decisively carried the black vote in Super Tuesday primaries across the South. But she has been repeatedly criticized by other activists for her support of President Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill, and, particularly, for comments that she made, in the nineties, about "superpredators" and the need "to bring them to heel." Two weeks ago, Ashley Williams, a twenty-three-year-old who describes herself as an "independent organizer for the movement for black lives," interrupted a private fund-raising event in Charleston, where Clinton was speaking, to demand an apology. The next day, Clinton told the Washington Post, "Looking back, I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today."

If Black Lives Matter has been an object lesson in the power of social media, it has also revealed the medium's pitfalls. Just as the movement was enjoying newfound influence among the Democratic Presidential contenders, it was also gaining attention for a series of febrile Twitter exchanges. In one, DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie got into a dispute with Shaun King, a writer for the Daily News, over fund-raising for a social-justice group. The conservative Web site Breitbart ran a picture of Mckesson and King with the headline " Black Lives Matter leaders Just Excommunicated Shaun King."

Last month, it was announced that Garza would speak at Webster University, in St. Louis, which prompted an acrimonious social-media response from people in the area who are caught up in the debate over the movement's origins. Elzie tweeted, "Thousands of ppl without platforms who have no clue who the 'three' are, and their work/sacrifice gets erased," and said that the idea that Garza is a founder of the movement is a "lie." Garza released a statement saying that she had cancelled the event "due to threats and online attacks on our organization and us as individuals from local activists with whom we have made an effort to have meaningful dialogue." She continued, "We all lose when bullying and personal attacks become a substitute for genuine conversation and principled disagreement."

There's nothing novel about personality conflicts arising among activists, but to older organizers, who had watched as federal surveillance and infiltration programs sowed discord that all but wrecked the Black Power movement, the public airing of grievances seemed particularly amateurish. "Movements are destroyed by conflicts over money, power, and credit," Garza said, a week after the cancellation. "We have to take seriously the impact of not being able to have principled disagreement, or we're not going to be around very long."

Almost from the outset, Black Lives Matter has been compared to the Occupy movement. Occupy was similarly associated with a single issue-income inequality-which it transformed into a movement through social media. Its focus on the one per cent played a key role in the 2012 election, and it likely contributed to the unexpected support for Bernie Sanders's campaign. To the movement's critics, however, its achievements fell short of its promise. Its dissipation seemed to prove that, while the Internet can foster the creation of a new movement, it can just as easily threaten its survival.

Black Lives Matter would appear to face similar concerns, though in recent months the movement has tacked in new directions. In November, the Ella Baker Center received a five-hundred-thousand-dollar grant from Google, for Patrisse Cullors to further develop a program to help California residents monitor and respond to acts of police violence. Last year, Mckesson, with Elzie, Brittany Packnett, and Samuel Sinyangwe, a twenty-five-year-old data analyst with a degree from Stanford, launched Campaign Zero, a list of policing-policy recommendations that calls for, among other things, curtailing arrests for low-level crimes, reducing quotas for summonses and arrests, and demilitarizing police departments. To date, neither Clinton nor Sanders has endorsed the platform, but both have met with the activists to discuss it.

The announcement of Mckesson's mayoral candidacy, which he made on Twitter-he has more than three hundred thousand followers-is the most dramatic break from the movement's previous actions. (Beyoncé has more than fourteen million followers, but she follows only ten people. Mckesson is one of them.) Mckesson is a native of Baltimore and he grew up on the same side of town as Freddie Gray, whose death last year in police custody sparked protests and riots in the city-at which Mckesson was a frequent presence. His family struggled with poverty and drug addiction, but he excelled academically and went on to attend Bowdoin College, in Maine. He will be running against twenty-eight other candidates. One of them, the city councilman Nick Mosby, is married to Marilyn Mosby, the Maryland state's attorney, who is handling the prosecution of the six police officers indicted in connection with Gray's death.

In Baltimore, Mckesson told me that he is using his savings to fund his activist work. "It's totally possible to have Beyoncé follow you on Twitter and still be broke," he said. (BuzzFeed reported that a former Citibank executive would host an event at his New York City home to raise funds for Mckesson's campaign.) He wouldn't discuss his candidacy's implications for the movement, but he is very serious about running. Two weeks ago, he released a twenty-six-page report detailing his platform for reforming the city's schools, police department, and economic infrastructure. He has already been attacked for his connection to Teach for America; after he released his plan for improving Baltimore's schools, it was dismissed as a corporatist undertaking along the lines of Michael Bloomberg's and Rahm Emanuel's reforms. He rejects the idea that his lack of experience in elected office should be an obstacle. When I asked how he thought he would be able to get members of the city council and the state legislature to support his ideas, he said, "I think we build relationships. That question seems to come from a place of traditional reading of politics. That says, 'If you don't know people already, then you cannot be successful.' Politics as usual actually hasn't turned into a change in outcomes here."

Garza is tactful when she talks about Mckesson's campaign. "I'm in favor of people getting in where they fit in. Wherever you feel you can make the greatest contribution, you should," she said. But she doesn't see it as her role to define the future of the movement. She told me an anecdote that illustrates the non-centrality of her role. Last month, on Martin Luther King Day, she and Malachi were driving into San Francisco, where she was scheduled to appear at a community forum, when they heard on the radio that the Bay Bridge had been shut down. Members of a coalition of organizations, including the Bay Area chapter of Black Lives Matter, had driven onto the bridge, laced chains through their car windows, and locked them to the girders, shutting down entry to the city from Oakland. Garza had known that there were plans to mark the holiday with a protest-marches and other events were called across the nation-but she was not informed of this specific activity planned in her own city. "It's not like there's a red button I push to make people turn up," she said. It would have been inconceivable for, say, the S.C.L.C. to have carried out such an ambitious action without the leadership's being aware of every detail.

In January, Garza travelled to Washington, to attend President Obama's final State of the Union address; she had been invited by Barbara Lee, her congressional representative. (Lee, who was the sole member of Congress to vote against the authorization of military force after 9/11, has a high standing among activists who are normally skeptical of elected officials.) After the speech, as Garza stood outside in the cold, trying to hail a cab, she said that she was disappointed. The President had not driven home the need for police reform. He had spoken of economic inequality and a political system rigged to benefit the few, but had scarcely touched upon the implications of that system for African-Americans specifically. From the vantage point of black progressives, his words were a kind of all-lives-matter statement of public policy.

A year from now, Barack Obama will leave office, and with him will go a particular set of expectations of racial rapprochement. So will the sense that what happened in Sanford, Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston, and Staten Island represents a paradox. Black Lives Matter may never have more influence than it has now. The future is not knowable, but it isn't likely to be unfamiliar. ♦

An earlier version of this article misstated Mckesson's age at the time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On February 18th, as part of the official recognition of Black History Month, President Obama met with a group of African-American leaders at the White House to discuss civil-rights issues. The guests-who included Representative John Lewis, of Georgia; Sherrilyn Ifill, the director-counsel of the N.A.A.C.P.

# data[].attributes.body
Professor Frank Leon Roberts, New York University

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Black Lives Matter Syllabus is the intellectual property of instructor Frank Leon Roberts. This means that material compiled in this syllabus should not be duplicated without proper citation and attribution. Duplicating this syllabus verbatim or nearly-verbatim (i.e. its description, subject headings, weekly topics, or configuration of reading material) without proper attribution is an act of intellectual dishonestly. If you are planning on adopting this syllabus for a course of your own:

1. Be sure to include the following disclaimer statement at the top of your syllabus: "This syllabus is an adoption of the course, "Black Lives Matter" designed by Frank Leon Roberts (frankroberts@nyu.edu) at BlackLivesMatterSyllabus.com."

2. At the top of each of the pages in the syllabus, include the link: BlackLivesMatterSyllabus.com.

3. Send a courtesy email to frankroberts@nyu.edu, notifying us of your intention to adopt this syllabus.

University instructors who attempt to adopt this course without proper attribution should expect to be contacted and reported to their Provost and/or the Department Chair at their home institution. MLA Citation: Roberts, Frank Leon Roberts. Black Lives Matter: Race, Resistance, and Populist Protest. 2016. Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, New York, NY. Microsoft Word File. APA Citation: Roberts, Frank Leon Roberts. (2016). Black Lives Matter: Race, Resistance, and Populist Protest. [Syllabus]. New York, NY: Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University. Fall 2016 Downloadable Syllabus.
From the killings of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; to the suspicious death of activist Sandra Bland in Waller Texas; to the choke-hold death of Eric Garner in New York, to the killing of 17 year old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida and 7 year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in Detroit, Michigan--#blacklivesmatter has emerged in recent years as a movement committed to resisting, unveiling, and undoing histories of state sanctioned violence against black and brown bodies.

This Gallatin seminar links the #blacklivesmatter" movement to four broader phenomena: 1) the rise of the U.S. prison industrial complex and its relationship to the increasing militarization of inner city communities 2) the role of the media industry in influencing national conversations about race and racism and 3) the state of racial justice activism in the context of a neoliberal Obama Presidency and 4) the increasingly populist nature of decentralized protest movements in the contemporary United States. In this course we will be mindful of an important distinction between #blacklivesmatter (as an emergent movement that has come into existence within roughly the past three years) vs. a much older and broader U.S. movement for black lives that has been in existence for several centuries (which can be traced back to at least the first slave uprisings in the antebellum south). Part of our goal then, we be to think about how the former has been influenced by the latter and to what ends. Among the many topics of discussion that we will debate and engage this semester will include: the moral ethics of black rage and riotous forms of protest; violent vs. nonviolent civil disobedience; the hyberbolic media myth of "black on black" crime; coalitional politics and the black feminist and LGBTQ underpinnings of the #blacklivesmatter movement; the similarities and differences between the blacklivesmatter movement and the U.S. civil rights movement; and the dynamics of political protest among the millennial and post-millennial generations.

Our reading material will often be supplemented with live, in-person dialogues with contemporary grassroots activists who are currently involved in the movement. Through our readings and direct engagements with activists on the frontlines, we will ask: How, when, and in what ways is it possible for us to stand in formation against the treacherous legacies of capitalist patriarchal white supremacy?

Required Texts

1. Marc Lamont Hill, Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond (Simon & Schuster, 2016)
2. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2012)
3. Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (7 Stories Press, 2003)
4. African American Policy Forum, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (African American Policy Forum Report, 2015)
5. Movement for Black Lives, A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice (Movement for Black Lives Policy Platform, 2016)
6. Assorted essays by Cornel West, Alicia Garza, Audre Lorde, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Shaun King, and more available at BlackLivesMatterSyllabus.com
Required Films:

1. Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement, (Director, Lauren Grant; Producer, Jesse Williams, 2016)

2. 2 Fists Up: We Gon ' Be Alright (Director, Spike Lee, 2016)

3. , (Director, Ava Duvernay, 2016) *Optional/Strongly Recommended, Week 11/17

4. Birth of A Nation (Director, Nate Parker, 2016) *Optional, Week 10/27

5. NO! (Director, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, 2006) *Optional/Strongly Recommended, Week 10/27

III. Weekly Topics
9/8 Introduction
9/15 Who Are They? Black Lives Matter and the Remaking of American Democracy
9/22 What Do They Want? The Policy Demands of BLM
9/29 Shut It Down: Black Lives Matter and the Ethics of Disruptive Protest
10/6 Black Lives Matter and America's Voices from the Bottom of the Well: Lessons from Ferguson, Baltimore, Flint, and New York
10/13 #SayHerName: Black Women, Intersectionality, and the Poetics of Black Feminist Organizing
10/20 Black Lives Matter's Role in Election 2016
10/27 Black Lives Rising: Legacies of Black Rebellion
11/3 Black Lives Matter and The New Jim Crow: Rethinking Prisons and Police Violence in America (Part 1 of 3)
11.10 Black Lives Matter and The New Jim Crow: Rethinking Prisons and Police Violence in America (Part 2 of 3)
11/17 Black Lives Matter and The New Jim Crow: Rethinking Prisons and Police Violence in America (Part 3 of 3)
12/1 Ok, Now Lets Get In Formation: BLM's Protest Populism
12/8 #SayTheirName: Black Lives Matter's LGBTQ Underpinnings
12/15 The Futures of Black Lives Matter

IV. Meeting Schedule
Note: An * indicates that the reading material is available online at BlackLivesMatterSyllabus.com

In-Class Screening, "Stay Woke" (Dir. Laurens Grant, Produced by Jesse Williams, 2016)

In this session we cover some essential questions: What is the history of the Black Lives Matter movement? What are the guiding principles of the movement? What are some of the major public misconceptions of the movement? How do we distinguish between BLM the organization and BLM the movement? Who have some of the movements key organizational players been? What conceptual differences are there between "the black lives matter movement" vs. "the movement for black lives." What does any and all of this have to do with the remaking of Arnerican democracy?

*Reflection Paper Due 9/14

Writing Prompt: In our opening session we covered the documentary "Stay Woke," and the TedTalk "5 Ways of Understanding Black Lives Matter." We also discussed the social construction of race. Write an 800 word reflection on any of the material covered in our first session and/or in this week's reading material. Has your understanding of BLM shifted in any way? Has the material covered in these first two weeks being clarifying, or has it led to a greater lack of clarity? Be sure to include two specific discussion questions/talking points that you would like to raise in your small groups.

This week's session focuses on what has become a hallmark strategy for the black lives matter movement: disruptive protest. Whether it be in the form of protestors shutting down highways; activists staging "Die Ins" on the steps of capital buildings; or community organizers interrupting the stump-speeches of presidential candidates-disruption continues to be a viable political strategy for BLM. As such, this week we will study some of the fundamentals of nonviolent civil disobedience and explore the central role that disruptive protest plays in contemporary black social justice movements. Our conversation will be anchored to two case studies: The University of Missouri-Missou's Concerned Student 1950 movement (which resulted in the resignation of the University of Missouri's President) and the recent protest of the national anthem by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepaernick Particular attention will be paid to the vital role that two constituencies have historically played in the black freedom struggle: college students and athletes. This session will also serve as a practical introduction to the art of direct action civil disobedience. We will screen director Spike Lee's 2016 documentary about the Mizzou movement, "2 Fists Up: We Gon' Be Alright."

Contrary to what mainstream media would have us believe, black lives matter has always been a movement organized around specific sets of demands. Though it is true that these demands have been varied and shifting, the fact remains that BLM has always had concrete demands (whether it be the early demand that Police Officer Darren Wilson be indicted for the killing of teenager Michael Brown or the more recent demand that police departments across the nation be defunded and demilitarized). This week, we will focus on the history of the movement's shifting demands. In an attempt to respond to the often-asked question "What do they want?" - we will closely examine the 2016 platform statement of the Movement for Black Lives. Finally, we will also seek to put pressure on the assumption that policy/legislative reform is the most valuable way to measure the "success" of a social justice movement.

Read:
*The Movement for Black Lives, "A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice"

*Reflection Paper Due 9/28

In this week's session we will be joined by VHI Host and Distinguished Professor of African American Studies at Morehouse College, Marc Lamont Hill, to discuss his manuscript Nobody: Casualities of America's War on the Vulnerable from Ferguson and Flint and Beyond. Students are strongly encouraged to review the 2016 U.S. Department of Justice Report on the Ferguson Police Department.

Read:
Marc Lamont Hill,Nobody: Causalities of America's War on the Vulnerable from Ferguson to Flint

Special Guest: Marc Lamont Hill, Distinguished Professor, Morehouse College

*Reflection Paper Due 10/6

10/13 #SayHerName: Black Women, Intersectionality, and the Poetics of Black Feminist Organizing

Black Lives Matter is a movement grounded in the creative labor and organizing genius of black women. In this session we explore the feminist underpinmngs of BLM, and connect to a broader history of black feminist thought and practice. Special attention will be paid to #SayHerName, a national organizing campaign created by the African American Policy Forum under the leadership of black feminist legal theorist Kimberle Williams Crenshaw.

*Reflection Paper Due 10/12

In this session we discuss how race has shaped presidential politics, from the election of America's first black president to the current contest for the Oval Office. Particular attention will be paid to the role that the black lives matter movement has played in shaping Election 2016. We will also examine the (often coded) role that race played in the candidacies of Senator Bernie Sanders; Democratic Nominee Hilary Clinton, and Republican Nominee Donald Trump.

Watch:
*Eddie Glaude and Michael Eric Dyson Debate, Democracy Now
*PBS Roundtable, "The Race for the Whitehouse"

*Reflection Paper Due 10/21

Reflection paper : Compare and contrast Eddie Glaude and Michael Eric Dyson's positions on the presidential choices for 2016. Which perspective resonates most with you, and why? Also: reflect on the PBS roundtable. Which of the panelist's perspective did you agree with most? Why? Was there anything you felt was missing from the conversation? Your 'paper" can also take the form of a video vlog cast, if you like.

Field Trip Screening: Nate Parker, Birth of a Nation

In this session we will screen Nate Parker's 2016 film Birth of a Nation and have a critical discussion about the controversy surrounding it. A licensed professional will be present as we discuss issues related to sexual violence and sexual assault-and critically interrogate how and why these issues are important to BLM. Note: all students reserve the right to refuse to view the film. For those students, alternative arrangements will be made.

Read:

Roxanne Gay, "Nate Parker and the Limits of Empathy," New York Times

Gabrielle Union, Op-Ed "1 cannot take Nate Parker rape allegations lightly" LA Times

Reflection Paper Writing Prompt: On the one hand, Nate Parker's film points us in the direction of a long legacy that has paved the way for the contemporary #BlackLivesMatter movement: a legacy of black resistance to white supremacy. On the other hand, the controversy surrounding Nate Parker the man points us in the direction of another long legacy: a legacy of male misogyny and sexual violence. Rather than attempt to render these conversations as mutually exclusive, Instead, we will seek to engage them side by side. Is it possible to separate an artist's personal life from the artistic work that he or she produces? Students are strongly encouraged to independently view Aisha Shahidah Simmons documentary, "No."

11/3 Black Lives Matter and The New Jim Crow: Rethinking Prisons and Police Violence in America (Part 1 of 3)

In this session we discuss the history of the prison industrial complex in the United States and its deleterious effect on the lives of black and brown communities, Our guiding text will be Michelle Alexander's foundational work, The New Jim: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Students are also encouraged to independently review director Ava DuVernay's 2013 documentary The 13 th.

Read: Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow

Reflection Paper Due 11/2

11/10 Black Lives Matter and The New Jim Crow: Rethinking Prisons and Police Violence in America

In this session we will be joined by community organizer, activist, and senior justice writer for The Daily News, Shaun King. Our reading material will be King's robust and extensive 25-part series on ending police brutality in Arnerica. Our focus this week will be assessing concrete legislative and policy solutions for ending police violence and misconduct.

Read:

Shaun King, 25 Part Series on Police Brutality in America, The Daily News

Reflection Paper on Shaun King's essays Due 11/9

Special Guest: Shaun King, Senior Justice Writer, The Daily News

11/17 Black Lives Matter and The New Jim Crow: Rethinking Prisons and Police Violence in America

This session focuses on the abolitionist underpinnings of the black lives matter movement. We will wrestle with an internal debate that BLM activists across the country are currently engaging: are the institutions of the police and prisons beyond the point of "reform"? In other words, should our focus be on "reforming" broken institutions (such as the prison system or the police) or is now time for us to consider dismantling these institutions altogether? Moreover, we will define "abolitionism" as not simply the dismantling of broken institutions-but also a commitment to creating and building new worlds.

Read:

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?

Reflection Paper Due 11/16

12/2 "Ok Ladies, Now Lets Get In Formation": Black Lives Matter's Protest Populism

In this session we examine BLM's populist appeal. More specifically, we pay attention to the vital role that commercial artists have historically played in amplifying the concerns of black freedom movements. Whether it be Nina Simone and Billie Holiday or Harry Belafonte and James Brown, historically black artists have played important roles in using their platforms as a means of amplifying the struggle for black communal liberation. From Kendrick Lamar's "We Gon' Be Alright" and J. Cole's "We Just Want to Be Free," to Jesse William's BET award speech and Ava DuVernay's Selma-the age of BLM has given birth to a resurgence of commercial black popular culture as a site of sociopolitical critique. Our discussion this session will focus on Beyonce Knowles's visual album Lemonade.

Read:

Select 5 of the following short reviews of your choosing:

*Zandria Robinson, "We Slay. Part I." NewSouthNegress.com

*Zandria Robinson "How Beyonce's Lemonade Exposes the Inner Lives of Black Women." Rolling Stone, April 28, 2016.

*Candace Benbow, "Beyoncé's "Lemonade" and Black Christian Women's Spirituality." Religion and Politics, June 28, 2016.

*Wendy Syfret, "the storv of messy mva. the tragic voice on beyoncé's new track" Vice com, 9 February, 2016.

*Syreeta McFadden, "Beyoncé's Lemonade is #blackgirlmagic at its most potent." The Guardian, April 24, 2016.

*Omise'eke Natasha Tinsle, "Bevoncé's Lemonade Is Black Woman Magic". Time, April 25, 2016.

*Cynthia Okoroafor, "The african influences in Bevonce 's Lemonade album. explained." com, April 26, 2016

*Miriam Bale, "Bevonce's 'Lemonade' Is a Revolutionarv Work of Black Feminism: Critic's Notebook." Billboard, April 25, 2016

Watch in Class:

Beyonce, Lemonade

*Reflection Paper Due 12/1

12/9 #SayTheirName: BLM's LGBTQ Underpinnings

In this course-and in this movement-all black lives matter. To speak of "all" black lives means refusing to exclusively privilege the lives of cisgendered heterosexual black men. As a movement that has been grounded in the labor of queer black women, Black Lives Matter has remained committed to amplifying voices within that have been historically devalued within the black community: particularly the voices of black women and queer folk. This week's reading material helps us approach an internal question within BLM that activists continue to debate: why must the struggle for black liberation always also be a struggle for women's liberation (including an expansion of the very definition of womanhood) and LGBTQ liberation?

Special Guest: Michael Roberson Garcon, Founder of the forthcoming House Ballroom Freedom School

12/15 The Futures of Black Lives Matter

In our final session, we will be joined (via Skype) by 2008 Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Rosa Clemente. Read: TBA later.

Special Guest: Rosa Clemente, 2008 Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Black Lives Matter Syllabus is the intellectual property of instructor Frank Leon Roberts. This means that material compiled in this syllabus should not be duplicated without proper citation and attribution. Duplicating this syllabus verbatim or nearly-verbatim (i.e. its description, subject headings, weekly topics, or configuration of reading material) without proper attribution is an act of intellectual dishonestly.

# data[].attributes.headline
Talking About Racism and Violence: Resources for Educators and Families

# data[].attributes.subject
Talking About Racism and Violence: Resources for Educators and Families

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What's on This Page

This resource page includes the following topics:

Discussion of the following topics may be traumatic for students. Educators are encouraged to seek guidance in trauma-informed practices in preparation for discussions related to these topics. Learn more from these resources and those below.

The following resources and updates address the events and aftermath following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.

Lesson plans

PBS NewsHour Extra / Share My Lesson

See additional lessons related to Social Issues from NewsHour Extra.

Other recommended lesson plans

Video

Communication and conversation

Multimedia / social media
Kojo For Kids: Jason Reynolds Talks About Racism And The Protests
Best-selling YA author Jason Reynolds has grappled with racism personally and in his writing. The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature also recently co-authored a book for young people on fighting racism: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Public radio host Kojo Nnamdi, based at WAMU in Washington, DC, asked Jason Reynolds to join this edition of Kojo For Kids to help listenders understand what has led to the tensions we've seen over the last week, and to talk about why racism persists and what we can do to build a less racist society.

Authors Organize Kit Lit Rally for Black Lives on Facebook ( School Library Journal)

Kwame Alexander, Jason Reynolds, and Jacqueline Woodson organized a Kit Lit Rally for Black Lives on Rally featured inspiring words, music, and numerous calls to action in support of equity and justice. A list of recommended The Brown Bookshelf. The anti-racist materials has also been compiled as part of the rally.

Understanding the impact of racism and violence on mental health

Tips for talking about violence

Talking about tough topics in the news

See more parent resources on talking race and racism below.

Note: If you are connecting with your students remotely, this resource guide for virtual circles of concern offers tips for managing conversations about difficult topics in distance learning settings.

Teaching about racism and violence

Resources: Racism and violence
Lesson plans Articles and blogs
Resources: More about race and racism

Talking About Race (National Museum of African American History and Culture)

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture has just launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture. The online portal provides digital tools, online exercises, video instructions, scholarly articles and more than 100 multi-media resources tailored for educators, parents and caregivers-and individuals committed to racial equality. The museum moved up the launch date due to the number of racially charged incidents in recent weeks.

Articles and multimedia

Reflecting on perspective
Teaching Tolerance Resources Video
Culturally responsive practice

This collection of culturally responsive resources include a wide range of topics related to honoring students' identities and experiences, addressing bias in schools and classrooms, and digging into the hard work of personal reflection and action.

Teaching Tolerance

Edutopia

National Education Association

More recommended resources

Guides and tips

Bilingual resources

Talking about current events

Books for students

Talking about race
Booklists Books for Young People Guidance on Choosing and Using Books
Racial injustice and violence

These books can serve as powerful mirrors and windows alike. While the majority of these books are written for a young adult audience, the first book is written for children. These books can also provide valuable perspectives for adults.

Read more in the following:

Finding diverse books: Mirrors and windows

Books and resources for adults

Race and education

See more titles in this Race and Education booklist from Social Justice Books.

Race and racism
Books
See more in:
Additional resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Talking About Racism and Violence: Resources for Educators and Families

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This resource page includes the following topics: Discussion of the following topics may be traumatic for students. Educators are encouraged to seek guidance in trauma-informed practices in preparation for discussions related to these topics. Learn more from these resources and those below.

# data[].attributes.body
France 24 (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
France in focus - History of racism: A French taboo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As protests against racial prejudice continue across the world, we look at how discrimination and xenophobia materialise in specific ways in France. We begin with a look back at the history of this F...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A Resource Guide for Teachers Readings, Activities and Sources for Grades 9 - 12

In the summer of 1991, seventy representatives of thirteen Native American communities participated in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival program Land in Native American Cultures. The program was a celebration of the diversity and persistence of America's First People, featuring art, music, dance, storytelling, healing traditions, and foodways.

Following the program, an education kit was developed using much of the research and documentation from the Festival as well as new research. The kit introduces students to the use of land in Native American communities through three case studies: the Hopi of Arizona; the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian of Alaska; and the Aymara and Quechua of Bolivia and Peru. Units address subsistence, crafts, mythology, and ritual. The kit includes an extensive teacher/student guide with narrative, photographs, resource listing, and activity questions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the summer of 1991, seventy representatives of thirteen Native American communities participated in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival program Land in Native American Cultures. The program was a celebration of the diversity and persistence of America's First People, featuring art, music, dance, ...

# data[].attributes.body
PBS (2020)
See also this fact sheet by the APA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in many parts of the United States, a stark pattern has emerged. Increasing data from cities and states nationwide show that coronavirus cases are both more frequent and more severe in populations of color. Native Americans are being hospitalized for extreme coronavirus symptoms more than five times as often as white people, with hospitalization rates among Latino and Black Americans similarly high, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And Black Americans represent nearly a quarter of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., despite making up only about 13% of the population.

Against this grim backdrop, the country has also erupted with protests against systemic racism, following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others by police. The disease burden born by Black people and the struggle for racial justice may seem unrelated. And yet, many experts point to racism as a public health issue. So what does that mean?

Many of the factors believed to contribute to high rates of infection in communities of color-and Black communities in particular-can be traced back to structural inequalities. A long history of discrimination in education, housing, and the workplace means Black Americans are more likely to live in more densely populated areas and work in the lower-paying jobs that are now deemed "essential." This may mean both higher daily exposure to the virus and lower possibility for social distancing at home and at work.

But on top of the situational factors that increase health risks is the stress of experiencing racism itself.

Researchers have been investigating mechanisms that connect the emotional world of stress with the physiological world of disease for more than 25 years. "Health is social," says Zinobia Bennefield, a medical sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. "It's about where you are, whether it's your physical, social, cultural, or economic environment."

This "biopsychosocial" realm can help explain why Black communities in the United States are being hit so hard by COVID-19. Two key concepts show how systemic and individual racism can make people physically vulnerable: "allostatic load" and "weathering."

Prolonged stress, also known as "toxic stress" in reference to childhood development, can lead to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. Image Credit: Maheen Fatima, Flickr

The power to adapt

You may be familiar with the concept of homeostasis. It's an old idea that posits that every person's body has set points that stay more or less constant. For example, our internal pH always stays within a certain range, and we maintain a temperature close to 98.6 F. Straying too far from either is a sign of trouble.

But our bodies also have a profound capacity to adapt to changing environments. Our blood pressure, for example, is constantly adjusting to our situation, says neuroscientist Robert-Paul Juster, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Montreal. That's a skill humans evolved to allow us to survive in different environments. Our ancestors' pulses, blood sugar levels, and organ functions varied while they hunted and then later while they ate; millennia later, our levels are very different when we're having sex versus sleeping. "Allostasis" refers to the work our bodies do to adjust to these new challenges. "It's a good thing," Juster says. "It's how we adapt to change."

Allostasis includes the so-called fight-or-flight response-the way your body reacts to a perceived threat. A stressful situation involves more than just abstract emotion; your body also prepares for conflict. Your blood pressure increases, along with your heart rate. Blood is diverted to your extremities to allow for easier movement. And your system is flooded with hormones like adrenaline and norepinephrine, which give you access to lots of energy quickly-key for either fighting or fleeing.

The catch is that these systems have evolved to be used for a few minutes at a time, then returned to baseline once the threat has passed. The problems arrive when stress becomes chronic. "Your body then remains in this hypervigilant mode, where you're constantly anxious, constantly worried," explains Tyan Parker Dominguez, a clinical professor of social work at the University of Southern California. "If you have your foot on the gas pedal of your car, and you're just constantly revving your engine with no let up, that's going to wear down the engine of your car much faster."

The term "allostatic load," was coined by Bruce McEwen and Elliott Stellar in 1993. It refers to damage wrought by persistent stress, which overtaxes the body's delicate, overlapping regulatory mechanisms-including the immune, endocrine, and circulatory systems, and those regulating blood sugar and mood. As a person's allostatic load grows, that wear and tear can create runaway dysregulation, with those systems thrown catastrophically out of whack.

One in 1,450 Black Americans has died of COVID-19, representing the highest overall mortality rate of any racial group in the country, according to a report updated by the APM Research Lab on July 8, 2020. Image Credit: raymondclarkeimages, Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Your body under chronic stress

Over time, allostatic load can affect nearly every facet of a person's health. As stress hormones like cortisol circulate in the body, they turn fat into sugar that the body can use to fight or flee. Unused sugars are often then re-stored as fat in the midsection; this makes them accessible for future stress responses but can damage the kidneys, heart, and other organs. Because cortisol is made from cholesterol, many people who are chronically stressed crave fatty foods as a way to replenish their levels, Juster says, which can then lead to other health problems. And the elevated blood pressure and heart rate that prepare a person for conflict can also lead to hypertension and an enlarged heart.

Both of these heart conditions-as well as the diabetes that's linked to chronic stress-can put people at a higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19.

Chronic flooding of the circulatory system with stress hormones also creates an overtaxed, overexcited immune system, which is less effective at recognizing a real foe and is prone to attacking the body instead. In the short-term, stress hormones inhibit damaging inflammatory reactions. But over time the body becomes cortisol resistant, instead promoting the production of proteins from the immune system called "pro-inflammatory cytokines." People with especially high allostatic load (for example, people from chronically underserved communities who experience severe trauma and racism), can be prone to producing too many of these pro-inflammatory cytokines, which can begin attacking other cells or tissues that aren't a threat-the "cytokine storms" that have come to characterize some of the most severe COVID-19 cases.

Stress hormones also affect our production of glutamate, a neurotransmitter used for brain function. People who are chronically stressed can experience shrinking of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that works on memory and contextualization, as well as the stress response itself. This is true even for fetuses in utero whose mothers experience high stress during pregnancy. Studies indicate that this stress can affect brain development, decreasing the number of stress hormone receptors in the baby's hippocampus and increasing the receptors in the amygdala, which mediates feelings of anxiety and fear-a dynamic that sets some people up for stress and emotional regulation problems from birth. And high allostatic load has also been linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety.

This widespread damage from chronic stress also leads to a broad premature aging of cells, which have had to divide more often in order to repair damaged tissue. Each one of our cells is built to divide a limited number of times, explains Arline Geronimus, a professor of public health at the University of Michigan. And each time it divides, the caps at the ends of its chromosomes (called telomeres) shorten a little. Once a cell reaches the end of its telomeres, it can no longer divide. This process happens in every body as we age-but not at the same rate. People with chronic stress "have, in effect, an older biological age than other people at their same chronological age," she says.

Developmental psychologist Virginia Huynh brings this dynamic back to the pandemic, pointing out that "Black people were already at a higher risk for health problems because of racism" and that structural and workplace inequalities have intensified during this time. "It makes sense they're disproportionately affected by COVID-19," she says.

Racism at the cellular level

"Just being in this society, as a Black person or a brown person means the recognition that you are potentially at risk for some sort of negative encounter," Parker Dominguez says, "whether it's with the police or elsewhere. Your level of threat perception in the environment is higher." That threat perception leads to hypervigilance, which leads to heightened allostatic load.

It's that "pervasive, persistent" experience of stress that can be so damaging to the health of Black Americans and other marginalized communities, Bennefield says. "It's integrated into our housing, our education, our criminal justice system."

That idea-that certain populations experience structural inequities on a cellular level-is what "weathering" is all about. Geronimus originated the term in a 1992 paper. "It happens with individual bodies, but it's about lived experience in specific socioeconomic contexts," she says. The concept began as a way to explain why young Black American women tend to get their periods and begin puberty earlier in life but has evolved to become a paradigm for understanding how structural inequality and public health intersect.

Huynh contributes to that paradigm in her lab at California State University, Northridge. Her research indicates that young people don't need to be on the receiving end of racist behavior to be affected physiologically, nor does the behavior need to be overt or extreme for it to do damage. In one study, Huynh and her colleagues collected saliva from 300 teenagers over the course of a day to measure cortisol levels. Teenagers who reported experiencing discrimination had higher levels of cortisol that did not decline normally over the course of the day-suggesting that they were not only experiencing more stress but that they weren't recovering from it fully. In a second study, a cohort of college students experienced increased levels of cortisol after simply witnessing or overhearing a racist comment, indicating that even vicarious discrimination can create a physiological response.

Huynh emphasizes that these daily experiences of discrimination are often less overt and more insidious, the offhand comments or small interactions sometimes known as microaggressions. "Years of being followed around in a grocery store or liquor market-subtle everyday slight insults-convey to people of color and marginalized communities that they don't belong, don't fit in," she says. When it comes to allostatic load, "it's often cumulative, a lifetime of experiences that affect multiple regulatory systems."

In this way, subjectivity and individual perception can deeply affect health, she says. The stress of microaggressions reverberates painfully, regardless of original intent. "There's often a number of explanations [for a microaggression], but ultimately the impact is that you felt it was offensive, racist, or discriminatory," she says. "If you're vigilant against someone being rude to you, and trying to figure out if it's because of your race or gender, then your body is constantly feeling like it needs to prepare."

"It's amazing to genuinely feel afraid all of the time"

Not long ago, Bennefield, who is Black, got locked out of her house after dark in what she calls a "really nice neighborhood" in North Carolina. She was terrified at the prospect of having to call the police for help. "Thank God one of my white neighbors was like, 'I'll sit with you the whole time,'" she says. Living among her community's Confederate flags, there's a "very real sensation that we are in danger; we are not safe here."

Even as a successful professor at a respected academic institution, she marvels, "It's amazing to genuinely feel afraid all of the time. How do you encounter horrors every day and not allow that to slowly erode your chemical, neural, immune, muscular systems?"

Parker Dominguez, who studies birth outcomes across race and class, points to data that support Bennefield's personal experience. Even accounting for differences in class (which, to some extent, overlap with race) doesn't explain the differences in maternal health between white and Black Americans. "Even highly educated, high-earning Black women are at higher risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes than a white woman with a high school education," she says.

In addition, Black professional women are more likely to have achieved status through education, she points out, having worked through challenging circumstances. "They've done all the right things, so to speak, and reached this level of economic success, but at what cost?" They may, like Bennefield, end up the only Black person in their neighborhoods or their workplaces. "That sense of solo experience-being the only one-that can be a very stressful situation."

Still, in discussing her experience from both a personal and professional perspective, Bennefield emphasizes that Black Americans are not the only people whose allostatic load is affected by racism. It's too simplistic to only talk about Black people living in fear, she argues, without also talking about their white counterparts. "Clearly these are people who are in fear of something, and it's in a visceral, palpable way that makes them act the way they do," she says. "They are afraid of something, of losing something they're clinging to."

In a very basic way "everyone is under the same stress. There has to be a conversation about how racism is harming us all," Bennefield says. But, she adds, it's the rest of systemic racism-access to good education, quality healthcare, safe housing and neighborhoods-that creates the inequality that results in weathering.

Black Lives Matter protestors march in New York City in June 2020. Image Credit: Felton Davis, Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The risks and rewards of 'resilience'

Along with helping to explain disease disparities, weathering and allostatic load can also help shed light on solutions. Research on resilience shows that social support, a sense of meaning, and feelings of control are "extremely beneficial in lowering allostatic load," Juster says.

To this end, Hunyh points to research showing that kids who feel a stronger sense of ethnic identity-whose parents have talked to them about what it means to be Black or Mexican or taught them Indigenous traditions-have lower allostatic load. Parker Dominguez points to California's Black Infant Health Program, a program that provides social support and connection to resources during pregnancy to women across 20 regions of California and has made significant strides in closing gaps in pregnancy outcomes.

Juster connects this resilience research to the recent Black Lives Matter protests. "A common denominator with stress is the feeling that we don't have control," he says. "Now, with these protests, there's a sense that people are taking control of the situation and expressing their frustration." That sense of purpose has been shown to be protective against allostatic load.

Still, Parker Dominguez and Bennefield caution against focusing on an individual's capacity for resilience at the expense of discussing larger context. "The term 'resilience' is really good; it's also really dangerous," Bennefield says. "When you say a group is resilient, it sometimes also lets other groups off the hook."

The key isn't in individual habits or choices; it's structural change, she argues. "I don't think it's too much to require our government to give equal funding to all schools, to ban redlining, to make sure Flint and other rural areas have access to water. Systemic racism is not just police-sanctioned violence."

Geronimus splits the difference between individual coping skills and major structural change, advocating as well for local policy that is community-informed, involving members of affected groups in the conversation. The strength of weathering (and allostatic load) as tools for understanding how psychology, health, and policy interact is that "it's both micro and macro," she says. "It accounts for all these structural and historical and ongoing processes. The molecular part just tells us how that happens."
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the California Black Women's Health Project has supported women in 17 regions across the state. Tyan Parker Dominguez was referring to California's Black Infant Health Program, which works with women in 20 regions across the state.
Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the stress of racism can harm your health-and what that has to do with Covid-19

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in many parts of the United States, a stark pattern has emerged. Increasing data from cities and states nationwide show that coronavirus cases are both more frequent and more severe in populations of color.

# data[].attributes.headline
Identité et race : le débat peut-il être autre chose qu'un champ de mines ?

# data[].attributes.subject
Identité et race : le débat peut-il être autre chose qu'un champ de mines ?

# data[].attributes.body
France Culture (février 2021).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Le livre que co-signent le sociologue Stéphane Beaud et l'historien Gérard Noiriel, et qui sort ce 5 février chez Agone, s'intitule finalement : Race et sciences sociales. Sous-titre : "Essai sur les usages publics d'une catégorie". La " race", plutôt que " l'identité " ? Le mot est polysémique et spectaculaire, il ramasse à la fois l'histoire de la pensée raciste et racialiste (qui table sur l'inégalité des races, contrairement à ce qui peut parfois circuler dans les médias) et les travaux de ceux qui l'envisagent désormais comme un outil pour mettre au jour des discriminations ou un sort spécifique. Sujet au grand écart, le terme est inflammable, et justement propice à bien des procès parce qu'il charrie cette histoire paradoxale et pas mal de culs-de-sac interprétatifs.

Bien qu'il figure en titre, nulle part dans le livre, on ne trouve de définition précise et explicite du concept de race tel que Stéphane Beaud et Gérard Noiriel annoncent en réfuter l'usage en sciences sociales. Cette absence interpelle. Interrogés dans le cadre d'un séminaire universitaire à deux jours de la sortie de leur livre, ils convenaient qu'il s'agissait d'abord d'un titre parce qu'il en fallait bien un ; et arguaient, surtout, qu'ils n'entendaient pas nécessairement proposer de définition bien léchée du concept - évoquant même le spectre des procès en tectonique lexicale des années où le marxisme régnait en maître sur leurs disciplines. Hasardeux ? En fait, Gérard Noiriel et Stéphane Beaud répondent qu'ils entendent travailler depuis la façon dont les gens peuvent se décrire eux-mêmes. Et se méfier des étiquettes que des chercheurs pourraient distribuer vu du dessus. Expéditif ?

Que le mot race ne soit pas davantage défini conceptuellement a aussi à voir avec l'ambition du livre, et son statut. On y accède un peu mieux quand on a en tête que, longtemps, l'ouvrage des deux chercheurs s'est préparé sous le titre " Socio-histoire de la raison identitaire". Puis c'est avec ce sous-titre qu'une couverture a circulé, par exemple pour pré-commander le livre en ligne. Attendu et guetté, il a aussi été annoncé sous le titre "La Raison identitaire" tout court - voire " Le Gêne identitaire". Précédé par ces titres piquants qui donnaient le ton, le livre tel qu'il paraît en librairie comme on sortirait du bois à découvert est déjà devancé par une vive polémique et une rare litanie d'invectives. Un climat avec lequel le mot " identitaire " n'a pas rien à voir - notamment parce qu'on peut lui faire dire beaucoup, et qu'il embarque quelque chose d'un peu indigne, et surtout d'assez peu scientifique.

Un extrait, qui correspond en fait à un collage du début et de la fin du livre, a paru dans l'édition de janvier 2021 du Monde diplomatique, rehaussé du titre "Impasses des politiques identitaires". Comme dans le reste du livre, les auteurs y ciblent l'américanisation du débat, l'instrumentalisation de la variable raciale dans le débat public, et le rôle délétère des réseaux sociaux et des médias. Mais pour eux, c'est aussi l'occasion de talocher la focale " identitaire " de certains chercheurs en sciences sociales qui, selon eux, dérogent à leur rôle (le dévoilement du réel par des travaux propres à étoffer la connaissance qu'on en a) pour s'aventurer sur des terres militantes. Et, parfois, tirer un profit personnel de filons juteux à la faveur d'un écho médiatique à la trajectoire boiteuse.

Bulldozer identitaire

Ils écrivent que c'est par exemple parce que les " polémiques identitaires" ont pris cette place prépondérante dans le débat public que " des jeunes", qui se trouvent privés de l'espoir d'émancipation porté jadis par le communisme, finissent par privilégier "les éléments de leur identité personnelle que sont la religion, l'origine ou la race (définie par la couleur de peau)" - et rejeter " la société". Revisitant la place allouée à l'identité individuelle et à l'identité collective selon les époques, les deux chercheurs écrivent que _"malheureusement, les plus démunis d'entre eux sont privés, pour des raisons socio-économiques, des ressources qui leur permettraient de diversifier leurs appartenances et leurs affiliations. C'est ce qui explique qu'ils puissent se représenter le monde social de manière binaire et ethnicisée : le " nous" (de la cité, des jeunes Noirs ou Arabes, des exclus, mais aussi de plus en plus, semble-t-il, le " nous" musulman) versus le " eux" (des bourgeois, des " céfrans", des " gaulois", des Blancs, ou des athées, etc.)."_ Un " enfermement identitaire ", écrivent Stéphane Beaud et Gérard Noiriel dès les premières pages de leur livre. Mais un enfermement dont les deux auteurs laissent entendre qu'il a directement lien avec l'activité scientifique de certains de leurs collègues qui assignent et qui essentialisent. Là où Gérard Noiriel rappelle qu'un des axes majeurs de son travail en socio-histoire a toujours consisté à déconstruire des catégories.

A charge et parfois ad hominem, leur livre s'avance comme une entreprise destinée à mettre au jour comment les sciences sociales ont pu se laisser aller à une forme d'errance épistémologique. Comment ? En laissant la variable raciale ou " identitaire" écraser, telle " un bulldozer", la classe, un niveau de vie, la valeur d'un diplôme, la fluidité d'une scolarité ou de meilleures chances... Au point d'imposer des grilles de lecture qui forcent le réel et contraignent tout un chacun à se définir comme malgré soi. Ils écrivent ainsi :

Nous ne cherchons évidemment pas à montrer, dans ce livre, que ceux qui préfèrent combattre au nom de leur " race" plutôt que de leur " classe " se trompent sur leur propre identité. Nous insistons sur le fait que nous ne nous prononçons pas sur la légitimité de ce type de combat politique car c'est aux militants, et pas aux chercheurs, d'en décider. Mais nous affirmons en revanche qu'il s'agit là de questions d'ordre civique, qu'il ne faut pas confondre avec les problèmes scientifiques.

Invité des Matins sur France culture le 2 février 2021, Gérard Noiriel revenait sur cette part d'assignation et le risque d'imposer aux intéressés des cases qu'ils ne convoquent pas eux mêmes :

Les questions autour de l'identité prennent une importance capitale et contribuent aussi au sentiment de stigmatisation que peuvent ressentir beaucoup de gens aujourd'hui. Sans arrêt, on met en avant leur couleur de peau, leur religion, etc. Alors que la majorité des gens voudrait qu'on leur fiche la paix et qu'on les laisse vivre normalement comme d'autres citoyens.

Pour les deux auteurs, le fait de prendre comme focale la race et, au-delà, tout ce qui devrait au contraire rester de l'ordre d'une identité privée, n'est pas seulement simpliste. C'est aussi abusif parce qu'à cet endroit-là, le ou la scientifique sortira de son rôle. En devenant un militant, un porte-parole, un agitateur, un bon client des médias... La position du chercheur dans la société, est au fond un vieux débat, que les deux auteurs revisitent à nouveaux frais : Pierre Bourdieu et quelques autres, ont déjà beaucoup écrit sur la place de l'intellectuel (à quoi Gérard Noiriel a d'ailleurs consacré récemment des billets sur son blog). Mais ça reste ici un débat un peu sinueux : leur position pourra paraître sibylline quand, au paragraphe suivant, les deux auteurs annoncent justement se considérer eux-mêmes comme des "chercheurs engagés" depuis des dizaines d'années à travailler notamment sur les discriminations. Ou quand ils s'abstiennent de définir la race, et n'engagent pas toujours une discussion scientifique avec les travaux qu'ils entendent étriller. Mais c'est surtout un débat à charge, où le mot " identitaire " peut être regardé à la fois comme un carburant polémique, et le marqueur qui nous renseigne sur le registre dans lequel se déploie ce livre signé par deux chercheurs qui ont beaucoup fait pour leurs disciplines respectives - mais qui, jusqu'alors, publiaient des travaux qui relevaient plutôt d'un autre registre.

Stigmate

Car ce mot " identitaire" a quelque chose de déshonorant pour l'adversaire. Au mieux, c'est le scotch du capitaine Haddock. Au pire, c'est la marque au fer rouge qui vient en fait sceller l'absence de scientificité de travaux malhonnêtes, et des alliances politiques suspectes. Le mot " race", dont le titre définitif est réhaussé, vous semble à la fois plus fort, et aussi plus incendiaire, que le mot " identitaire" ? C'est possible qu'il fasse davantage sursauter. Pourtant, " race" est un mot utilisé par des universitaires qui l'ont en fait revisité, revitalisé, et redessiné. Ces chercheurs et ces chercheuses-là ne sont pas majoritaires, et l'usage de cette catégorie ne fait pas consensus. Mais c'est celui qu'ils mettent en circulation eux-mêmes. Qu'ils écrivent pour explorer un cadre théorique, qu'ils interrogent et dont ils fixent les contours. Et duquel ils entendent souvent tirer un usage pédagogique, comme par exemple Sarah Mazouz avec le livre Race paru chez Anamosa en 2020 dans la collection "Le Mot est faible" , et que vous pouvez réécouter le 22 septembre 2020 dans Le Temps du débat :

A l'inverse, depuis des années, le mot " identitaire" est d'abord celui qu'utilisent la droite et l'extrême-droite françaises pour disqualifier les sciences sociales et, en particulier, la sociologie. Il a une connotation militante et obscurantiste, et embarque avec lui l'idée que les chercheurs manipuleraient grosso modo leurs positions académiques pour nourrir des croisades. Et parfois, des offensives communautaires arrimées aussi bien au genre qu'à l'origine ethnique. Or le livre de Stéphane Beaud et Gérard Noiriel paraît justement dans un double timing qui voit à la fois l'université brocardée tous azimuts et comme jamais ; et, en parallèle, un texte de loi sur les "séparatismes" faire son chemin. Dans ce contexte de discrédit qui affleure jusqu'au sommet de l'Etat et dans de très nombreux médias, les mots " indigéniste", " identitaire", " racialiste", " communautaire" sont souvent interchangeables. Il suffit de voir, parmi de nombreux autres, un article du Point fin janvier 2021, titré "Quand la fièvre identitaire frappe l'université" (sous-titre : " Indigénistes, déboulonneurs de statues, gauche racialiste, écriture inclusive... Comment ces militants étendent leur emprise et verrouillent les débats"). Dans un contexte de baisse des crédits à la recherche et de dévalorisation de l'université, tous ces mots contribuent à déstabiliser des pans entiers du monde universitaire - sans d'ailleurs que le plus grand nombre ne s'y retrouve nulle part. Ils charrient aussi un goût amer chez tous ceux qu'on accuse soudain de porter d'abord une cause plutôt que de contribuer à la recherche. Ou qu'on soupçonne carrément de faire justice à une histoire personnelle. Même s'ils hissent le terme " identitaire " bien haut sans toujours trier son usage militant de son usage académique, les deux auteurs écrivent cependant, sans ambiguïté :

On ne voit pas au nom de quel principe ce genre de recherches devrait être banni de l'université française.

Le mot " identitaire" est aussi un truc collant sous la chaussure parce qu'il croise le registre politique et polémique et l'idée d'identité. Or l'identité est une notion tardive dans les sciences sociales, et elle n'a pas toujours fait l'objet d'un ancrage théorique et conceptuel à même de le légitimer. Avant les années 80, en France, on ne parlait guère d'identité en histoire ou en sociologie (mais beaucoup plus, en Allemagne ou aux Etats-Unis, et notamment en psychologie sociale). Or dans le journal Le Monde, le 28 janvier 1994, Alfred Grosser écrira :

Peu de mots sont autant galvaudés ces temps-ci que celui d'identité.

"Capituler devant le mot identité"

Entre les deux, le terme voyage, se cherche, s'installe sans toujours convaincre : en 2001, un article de la revue Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales signé Rogers Brubaker, cingle et cite George Orwell :

La pire chose qu'on puisse faire avec les mots, c'est de capituler devant eux.

Si la langue doit être "un instrument pour exprimer, et non pour dissimuler ou faire obstacle à la pensée", poursuivait-il, _"[on doit] laisser le sens choisir le mot, et non l'inverse. L'objet de cet article est de dire que les sciences sociales et humaines ont capitulé devant le mot " identité " ; que cela a un coût, à la fois intellectuel et politique ; et que nous pouvons mieux faire._"

Brubaker (qui dit " nous ") développe :

Le terme "identité", pensons-nous, a tendance à signifier trop (quand on l'entend au sens fort), trop peu (quand on l'entend au sens faible), ou à ne rien signifier du tout (à cause de son ambiguïté intrinsèque). Nous ferons le point sur le travail conceptuel et théorique que le mot "identité" est censé accomplir, et suggérons que d'autres termes, moins ambigus, et désencombrés des connotations réifiantes que comporte le terme "identité" seraient mieux à même de remplir cette tâche.

A l'époque, déjà, le mot " identité" est un chantier qui doit se justifier. Ceux qui le mobilisent alors l'approchent déjà davantage comme une construction, un objet d'histoire fluide. Pas comme une case figée, une étiquette qui enferme : dans les années 1980, quand l'histoire des représentations s'attèle à l'identité masculine ou féminine, il s'agit d'abord de regarder comment s'est construite l'idée qu'on s'en fait. En fait, les chercheurs qui utilisent l'idée d'identité dans les années 80 cherchent -déjà- à échapper aux accusations d'essentialisme, alors que la toute première thèse consacrée à un groupe social en tant que tel (en l'occurrence, la bourgeoisie parisienne au XIXe siècle) date tout juste de 1963 - elle est signée Adeline Daumard. Mais ils sont à la peine avec un terme qui souvent, dans le monde intellectuel, fleurait davantage le patrimoine que l'éclairage de réalités complexes. En 1988, Gérard Noiriel avait déjà entrepris de déconstruire l'usage que faisait Fernand Braudel de "l'identité de la France" deux ans plus tôt. A peu près à la même époque, un autre chercheur, le sociologue Jean-Claude Chamboredon (à qui le livre est dédié), essayait de remplacer l'idée d'identité, trop folklorique en substance, par celle " d'image sociale " - sans vraiment gagner.

Historiquement, surtout, l'identité est plutôt de droite : avant même d'être happée par l'extrême-droite dans le "Bloc identitaire" (en 2002) puis "Génération identitaire" (en 2012), elle se construit un peu comme une réponse à ce que la classe peut représenter à gauche. A contrario, dans les années 50 et 60, le camp progressiste et le monde universitaire sont plutôt assimilationnistes. A partir de la fin des années 70, la gauche reprendra à son compte l'idée d'identité, et même la construction d'une " identité nationale". Mais plutôt pour vanter ce que le chercheur Vincent Martigny décrit comme une France mosaïque. C'est-à-dire, un récit, accolé à ce qui restera comme " le droit à la différence", mais qui entre en friction avec l'idée d'une France homogène qui charpentait l'imaginaire collectif. C'est quand l'extrême-droite s'emparera de l'identité nationale que l'on verra naître les accusations de communautarisme. A l'époque, il s'agit déjà, essentiellement, de saisir (et disqualifier) l'expression d'un sentiment d'appartenance qui a directement prise dans l'histoire coloniale - et pas d'une identité provençale ou berrichonne. Depuis cette date, dire à quelqu'un qu'il verse dans " l'identitaire " n'a jamais été un hommage.

Sauf erreur, on ne trouve ainsi personne à se définir soi-même de cette étiquette bizarre de " chercheur identitaire". Ni d'ailleurs des travaux que leurs auteurs désigneraient comme des recherches " identitaires". Quand des textes académiques mobilisent le mot " identité ", leurs auteurs sont bien plus souvent du côté de ceux qui veulent s'en défier. Même à des chercheurs intersectionnels qui croisent, selon leurs objets et leurs terrains de recherche, le genre, la classe et la race, l'identité apparaît parfois trop artificielle ou, tout simplement, trop vague. Elle reste aussi un terrain miné qui ouvre à toute une foule de critiques qui émanent de ceux qui estiment que mobiliser l'identité, c'est essentialiser un groupe, le figer dans une appartenance prédéfinie, le couper de toute une histoire en tensions dans laquelle les trajectoires s'enracinent, prennent corps, et parfois divergent.

Aujourd'hui, l'identité est, pour beaucoup, un terme extérieur au champ scientifique. Si on trouve des travaux qui mobilisent, évaluent, interrogent ou remodèlent la notion d'identité (qui, elle non plus, ne fait pas consensus), c'est souvent un mot à la fois trop lâche et trop élastique pour voyager tel quel. C'est d'ailleurs en partie pour ça que la race a davantage sédimenté : elle est devenue cet outil lexical et conceptuel pour exprimer l'idée d'une stigmatisation. Mais d'abord un mot pour parler de celui qui regarde, plutôt qu'un mot pour dire la revendication identitaire de celui qui est regardé - comme Sartre disait hier que c'est l'antisémitisme qui fait le Juif.

"Gauche identitaire" vs "gauche minoritaire"

A défaut de " chercheurs identitaires", il existe dans le débat public l'idée d'une " gauche identitaire", à laquelle on renvoie plus particulièrement certains universitaires. Mais l'expression surgit toujours dans les mots de la partie adverse. En 2018, lorsqu'un violent débat avait opposé Mark Lilla et Eric Fassin, le mot " identitaire" fonctionnait déjà comme un blâme, et pas comme une étiquette qu'on prendrait pour soi. Dans un entretien croisé que Le Monde avait proposé aux deux chercheurs, Eric Fassin avait d'ailleurs répondu qu'il parlerait " plutôt d'une gauche minoritaire ". Le cœur du débat était déjà là quand le sociologue argumentait :

A la différence des communautés, les minorités n'ont pas forcément une culture commune ; mais elles ont en partage une expérience de discrimination.

En disant " identitaire" aussi bien pour des polémiques médiatiques, des affrontements à hauteur de réseaux sociaux que pour des travaux universitaires, on contribue en fait à oxyder le débat intellectuel en floutant ses frontières. On corrode aussi, au passage, quantité de travaux qui à la fois sont bien plus précis sur les mots et les catégories qu'ils mobilisent, et qui souvent les mettent en tension et les problématisent. Mais ce qui frappe en lisant le livre de Stéphane Beaud et de Gérard Noiriel, c'est que pour quelques pages consacrées à moins d'une demie-douzaine de chercheurs en sciences sociales qu'ils estiment responsables de cette offensive " identitaire" sur le champ académique et qu'ils nomment (Colette Guillaumin, la seule femme parmi les références évoquées, qui soutenait en 1969 la première thèse sur le racisme et l'altérité et revisitait le concept de " race ", puis Eric et Didier Fassin, Pap Ndiaye, Patrick Simon et Pascal Blanchard), on ne trouve guère d'analyses des travaux qui, depuis quinze ans, mettent vraiment au travail les concepts et les grilles de lecture que les auteurs brocardent.

Dénonçant le " business postcolonial" de ces auteurs dont on pourrait objecter qu'ils sont loin de parler d'une même voix, ils brocardent un filon aussi juteux que conceptuellement pauvre. Mais ils ne mobilisent guère de travaux récents produits depuis moins de dix ans, et ne discutent par exemple ni Sarah Mazouz, ni Silyane Larcher, et citent à peine (hormis une note de bas de page) Abdellali Hajjat dont Stéphane Beaud fut pourtant le directeur de thèse (en 2009) et qui a justement montré que, dans les revues académiques françaises, les concepts de genre et de race n'ont pas occulté le concept de classe. Ils n'évoquent pas non plus l'historienne Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, dont on ne peut pas dire que le travail depuis quarante ans évacue la classe. Bon nombre de chercheurs et de chercheuses qui furent pourtant formés par Beaud et Noiriel sont aussi éclipsés à présent qu'ils en renouvellent l'approche ; et quant à elle Elsa Dorlin, à qui on doit la première occurrence du mot "intersectionnalité" à la radio française et qui croise le genre et la race dans ses travaux depuis pas loin de vingt ans, disparaît pratiquement : elle apparaît une fois, dans un comptage en note de bas de page, pour un passage dans un séminaire universitaire en 2007 - mais pas pour une lecture critique de ses travaux. L'intersectionnalité, quant à elle, est toujours mentionnée entre guillemets - mais Gérard Noiriel dit explicitement que, pour lui, la polémique sur l'intersectionnalité est " un faux problème".

L'ampleur de cette absence tranche avec l'usage massif du terme " identitaire" (125 occurrences pour " identitaire" dans le livre, plus 81 du mot " identité", parfois chevillé à l'expression " identité nationale" toutefois). Le contraste pousse lui aussi à se poser la question du registre de la discussion, et à s'interroger sur le statut du livre. Avant que les deux auteurs ne discutent, ensemble, de la pertinence de la variable raciale qui encombrerait la recherche et génèrerait des erreurs d'aiguillage, Gérard Noiriel consacre les trois premiers chapitres à une socio-histoire de la question raciale dans l'espace public. Mais il n'est pas sûr que Race et sciences sociales ne soit pas, d'abord, un texte polémique et politique. Un livre qui vise à répliquer à une poignée de collègues mais pas forcément à objecter à l'usage, ou au mésusage, d'un concept, d'une variable, et aux travaux qui s'en réclament. Un livre qui, finalement, porte avant tout sur ce qu'ils pensent de l'état du débat public - trêve de suspens : les auteurs le trouvent déplorable. On peut se le dire en voyant que les auteurs n'envisagent pas vraiment qu'on puisse tenir ensemble question sociale et question raciale comme pourtant bien des recherches le font (et même certains mouvements antiracistes plus récents). On le perçoit mieux en lisant la troisième et dernière partie d'un livre à la construction très disparate. On doit cette dernière partie à Stéphane Beaud, et elle est consacrée aux quotas dans le football français (surgis en 2011 dans les médias après que Médiapart avait annoncé "moins de Noirs et d'Arabes" en sélection nationale). C'est-à-dire, en fait, à la construction de problèmes médiatiques comme autant d'" affaires", réductrices et mal ficelées. Le sociologue y décrit la lourdeur médiatique et l'incapacité des journalistes à penser les questions raciales autrement qu'en se faisant intoxiquer par ce qui relèverait d'une entreprise décoloniale à la fois démagogique et hors sol. Une entreprise à laquelle contribuent des chercheurs et qui sature l'espace public.

Venu le 2 février 2021 sur France Culture défendre le livre à paraître, Gérard Noiriel affirmait par exemple dans Les Matins que " les partisans de l'intersectionnalité considèrent qu'il faut combiner trois critères : la race, le genre et la classe". A l'antenne, l'historien déplorait :

Dans certaines recherches, c'est pertinent, mais on ne peut pas en faire la clé qui ouvrirait toutes les serrures. Le chercheur, en fonction de l'objet qu'il veut étudier, doit mobiliser sa boîte à outils, doit combiner les choses.

Or, à la lecture de nombreux travaux récents, on peut aussi se dire que bien des chercheuses et des chercheurs qui mobilisent l'intersectionnalité pour appréhender l'idée d'un sort spécifique fait à certains groupes plutôt qu'à d'autres ne seraient pas loin d'y retrouver leurs petits - même si elles et eux n'écriraient jamais "théorie du genre". Mais ça reste difficile à confronter dès lors que tous ces travaux demeurent les grands absents du débat - ou de la polémique. Dans leur livre, Stéphane Beaud et Noiriel écrivent que " l'histoire de la France a montré que la lutte contre le racisme (au sens large du terme) avait connu des succès significatifs sur le plan politique lorsqu'elle avait été reliée au combat social, de façon à unifier les différentes composantes du peuple français." A l'heure où s'empilent les procès en sorcellerie contre les sciences sociales, on pourrait aussi penser qu'éviter de s'agonir entre chercheurs en fagotant les autres en épouvantails est une bonne base stratégique.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Identité et race : le débat peut-il être autre chose qu'un champ de mines ?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Le livre que co-signent le sociologue Stéphane Beaud et l'historien Gérard Noiriel, et qui sort ce 5 février chez Agone, s'intitule finalement : Race et sciences sociales. Sous-titre : "Essai sur les usages publics d'une catégorie". La " race", plutôt que " l'identité " ?

# data[].attributes.body
Glad You Asked series (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
YouTube Originals presents Vox's Glad You Asked, an ensemble-led exploration of topics driven by our curiosity about the world around us. Hosts Cleo Abram, J...

# data[].attributes.body
Aurélia Michel (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
un monde en nègre et blanc - enquête historique sur l'ordre racial (points essais) (french edition)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Un monde en nègre et blanc - Enquête historique sur l'ordre racial (Points essais) (French Edition)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Un monde en nègre et blanc - Enquête historique sur l'ordre racial (Points essais) (French Edition) on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Un monde en nègre et blanc - Enquête historique sur l'ordre racial (Points essais) (French Edition)

# data[].attributes.headline
Inception and Evolution of the word "racism"

# data[].attributes.subject
Inception and Evolution of the word "racism"

# data[].attributes.body
The Atlantic (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A look at how the word, a surprisingly recent addition to the English lexicon, made its way into the dictionary

Peter Sokolowski / Merriam-Webster inc.; Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged / The Atlantic

In June, as Black Lives Matter protests were in full swing after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, a dictionary definition made headlines. The definition that drew so much attention was the one that Merriam-Webster gave for the word racism. The news was that the dictionary publisher was going to be revising its entry for the term after hearing from a young Black activist from Missouri, Kennedy Mitchum.

Mitchum had contacted Merriam-Webster because she was dissatisfied with what she found when she looked up racism in the dictionary's online portal. The first definition given for racism was "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." As she told CNN at the time, "The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice. It's the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of Black Americans."

The idea that racism could be systemic, and not just a matter of personal prejudice, was actually conveyed in the second definition given by Merriam-Webster: "a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles" or "a political or social system founded on racism." Nonetheless, as Merriam-Webster 's editor at large, Peter Sokolowski, explained, "the idea of an asymmetrical power structure" could be expressed more clearly, so the entry was revisited to bring that sense to the fore.

Recommended Reading

Now the revised entry for racism has finally arrived, included in the online update Merriam-Webster published yesterday. As promised, the entry underscores some nuances, though the revision is not a complete rewrite. As before, the first definition given relates to personal belief and attitudes. But the revised second definition-"the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another; specifically: white supremacy"-better highlights what Mitchum was looking for. Additionally, the entry is now enriched by illustrative quotations from such writers as Angela Y. Davis, bell hooks, Mariana Calvo, and Imani Perry, and the activist Bree Newsome.

When Mitchum's appeal to Merriam-Webster attracted news coverage in June, many commentators portrayed the story in broad strokes as "the dictionary gets woke." Depending on one's political perspective, that might be seen as either a laudable step in the path to progressive enlightenment or as a capitulation to the forces of political correctness. But a closer look at how Merriam-Webster's definition of racism has evolved over time reveals a much more complex narrative.

Racism and racist are surprisingly recent additions to the English lexicon. You won't find those words in the writings of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Abraham Lincoln. While the Oxford English Dictionary currently dates racism in English to 1903 and racist to 1919, the terms were still rarely used in the early decades of the 20th century. The pioneering civil-rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells, for instance, instead used phrases like race hatred and race prejudice in her memoir, Crusade for Justice, which she began writing in 1928 but left unfinished when she died three years later.

When Merriam-Webster published the second edition of its unabridged New International Dictionary, in 1934, racism was nowhere to be found. The editors did include another, related term, which was more popular at the time: racialism, defined as "racial characteristics, tendencies, prejudices, or the like; spec., race hatred." But racism was not yet on the radar of the lexicographers diligently at work at Merriam-Webster 's Springfield, Massachusetts, office.
Read: The dictionary definition of 'racism' has to change
That all changed thanks to a perceptive observation by one member of the editorial staff named Rose Frances Egan. Egan, a graduate of Syracuse and Columbia who studied the history of aesthetics, came on board as an assistant editor for the second edition of the New International Dictionary. She was also tasked with writing entries for Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms, which she worked on for several years before its first edition was published in 1942.

A handwritten slip tucked away in Merriam-Webster's archive tells the story. (Before the advent of email, interoffice communication among the editors in Springfield would typically be carried out by exchanging notes on pink slips of paper, still known affectionately as "the pinks.") This particular slip, dated November 1, 1938, was written by Egan, who asked a fellow editor, John P. Bethel, about the status of the word racism. "Has this term been entered in the addenda?" Egan asked Bethel. "I wanted to use it in a ds. and find that it is not in W. '34."

John Morse, a former president and publisher at Merriam-Webster, guided me through the obscure in-house notations on the slip with the eagerness of an Egyptologist deciphering the Rosetta Stone. Egan knew that there was no racism entry in the 1934 Webster's New International but was inquiring whether it was slated for future printings as part of the Addenda, the section in the front of the dictionary for new words that came to the editors' attention too late for inclusion in the main text. When Egan said she wanted to use it in a "ds.," that was short for discriminated synonym, the term of art for the items considered in the entries of the Dictionary of Synonyms that Egan was hard at work drafting. Any word used in a secondary work like the synonym dictionary, according to Merriam-Webster policy, should also be found in the flagship unabridged dictionary.

Sure enough, when the Dictionary of Synonyms was first published a few years later, it included an entry with the word racism in it. A paragraph teasing apart the differences between the words citizen, subject, and national included this sentence: "There is also a tendency to prefer national to subject or citizen in some countries where the sovereign power is not clearly vested in a monarch or ruler or in the people, or where theories of racism prevail."

Egan likely had in mind Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws, passed in 1935, which stripped Jews of their citizenship while they remained subjects of the Reich. Indeed, when the word racism appeared in print in the late 1930s (still vying with racialism as the preferred term), it was most frequently in the context of European fascism under Hitler and Mussolini, with one definition drafted by the Merriam-Webster editors referring to "totalitarian ideology" and another to "the Nazi assumption of Teutonic superiority and attendant anti-Semitism." Just a week after Egan made her inquiry about racism in 1938, German Jews were viciously attacked in the Nazi pogrom known as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.

A few weeks later, the activist Jesuit priest Father John LaFarge Jr. spoke out against racism (newspaper accounts at the time gave the still-novel term scare quotes), warning that the destructive forces of racism were gaining ground not just in Europe but in the United States as well. Speaking at a dinner sponsored by the Catholic Interracial Council, LaFarge explicitly called out American racism against "Negroes, foreigners, and Jews." Even if most Americans were unfamiliar with the word racism being applied to American life, doctrines of white supremacy in the country were, of course, widespread and pernicious at the time. Racist tracts such as Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916) provided cover for segregation and anti-immigration laws in the U.S., and indeed served as inspiration to Hitler for the Nazis' own racist policies.

When the entry was finally printed in the unabridged dictionary's 1939 Addenda, the Nazi references were removed; the definition instead spoke more broadly of an "assumption of inherent racial superiority or the purity and superiority of certain races, and consequent discrimination against other races." Still, American readers consulting that dictionary entry would have immediately thought of the Nazi regime, and not necessarily homegrown racism of the kind Father LaFarge was warning about. But over time, Merriam-Webster's definition of racism was further de-Nazified, as postwar Americans became cognizant of racial injustices against Black people and other marginalized groups on the home front.

Egan's realization in 1938 that racism was missing from Merriam-Webster 's dictionaries was, as Morse puts it, proof of her keen "lexicographical self-awareness." "This was at a time when the word was becoming natural to use, but a flag went up: Is it in the dictionary?" Morse told me. "It's a great 'aha' moment in the history of the English language, and we should celebrate Rose Egan for it."

And while Merriam-Webster's entry for racism was no doubt in need of a change when Kennedy Mitchum appropriately called it out earlier this summer, the dictionary's efforts to grapple with the term, ever since Egan first noticed it was in need of defining, are worth considering. When the racism entry came due for an overhaul in the third edition of the New International in 1961, for instance, Editor in Chief Philip B. Gove and his staff determined that racism, by then no longer so associated with Nazi ideology, primarily referred to personal beliefs about racial superiority. But they made room for a second sense allowing that racism could also relate to institutional forces embedding implicit bigotry more broadly in society. And a third numbered sense defined it more succinctly as "racial prejudice or discrimination." In fact, it was this 1961 definition that Mitchum would have seen when she consulted Merriam-Webster's online dictionary in June.

The legacy of past editions meant that the entry was so broadly construed that it did not seem particularly applicable to systemic racism as experienced by Black Americans. Laying out the semantics of the word has always been a balancing act between what scholars on race like Camara Phyllis Jones have identified as "institutionalized" racism on the one hand and "personally mediated" or "internalized" racism on the other. With the institutionalized side of racism coming to the fore in the current discourse, dictionaries need to reflect that change of emphasis. Definitions are never set in stone, and the twists and turns of how racism has been defined illustrate how the meanings of such contentious terms are always subject to reevaluation and contestation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
inherent superiority of a particular race

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
second edition of the new international dictionary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A look at how the word, a surprisingly recent addition to the English lexicon, made its way into the dictionary In June, as Black Lives Matter protests were in full swing after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, a dictionary definition made headlines.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ibram X Kendi: Stamped from the Beginning

# data[].attributes.subject
Ibram X Kendi: Stamped from the Beginning

# data[].attributes.body
2018
See also this presentation for the American Historical Association

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
frank gathering & Cntr Public Interest Comms

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ibram X Kendi: Stamped from the Beginning

# data[].attributes.body
Ted Talk John Biewen (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Transcript of "The lie that invented racism"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: To understand and eradicate racist thinking, start at the beginning. That's what journalist and documentarian John Biewen did, leading to a trove of surprising and thought-provoking information on the "origins" of race. He shares his findings, supplying answers to fundamental questions about racism -- and lays out an exemplary path for practicing effective allyship.

# data[].attributes.body
Stanford University

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How does race shape how people perceive, understand, and relate to others? How does race shape how we see ourselves? People's biases, frameworks, and stereotypes about race have significant consequences for who is seen as good, right, normal, and valuable and who is seen as bad, deviant, abnormal, and less valuable. This short film investigates how racial perception matters for how people "do race" in law enforcement, education, and literature.

8 - Racial Perception | Doing Race

How people perceive race is not fixed or static-it can be contested and changed. This short film explores research-driven insights, recommendations, and solutions for how people can undo racism in racial perception.

9 - Racial Perception | Undoing Racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How does race shape how people perceive, understand, and relate to others? How does race shape how we see ourselves? People's biases, frameworks, and stereotypes about race have significant consequences for who is seen as good, right, normal, and valuable and who is seen as bad, deviant, abnormal, and less valuable.

# data[].attributes.headline
19 Books About White Supremacy in the US & How To Combat It

# data[].attributes.subject
19 Books About White Supremacy in the US & How To Combat It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The United States is in the midst of a domestic terrorism crisis. I've picked out 19 must-read books about white supremacy and white nationalism, which should help you understand why racist violence is such a huge domestic threat, and how to combat it.

Although the U.S. was founded upon, and has been governed by, the ideals of white supremacy, white nationalists are a threat to life in this country. In the aftermath of the weekend mass shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, Ohio, white nationalists took to social media to laud the El Paso terrorist as a "saint," and to promote his ideas and actions. On its Hatewatch blog, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that some were praising the El Paso attack as an act of "accelerationism" - or "the belief among some far-right extremists that committing acts of terrorism will cause society to collapse," providing the "opportunit[y] to build a country for only white, non-Jews."

Hate crimes rose nine percent over the last year, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, and researchers at the University of North Texas found that "counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally." The rise of the so-called Trump Effect has been charted by numerous groups, including America's Voice. Popular opinion holds the White House's rhetoric responsible for white supremacist attacks like the one in El Paso. It's time to get educated and take action.

'Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism' by Michelle Goldberg

Christian nationalism is intrinsically linked to white nationalism, largely through the Christian Identity Movement. Michelle Goldberg teases out these connections, and identifies the threats to democracy posed by Christian nationalism, in Kingdom Coming.
Click here to buy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
19 Books About White Supremacy & How To Combat It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The United States is in the midst of a domestic terrorism crisis. I've picked out 19 must-read books about white supremacy and white nationalism, which should help you understand why racist violence is such a huge domestic threat, and how to combat...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
EmbraceRace fights systemic racism by supporting parents to raise children who are brave, informed and thoughtful about race. Join the movement!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
More than 80% of teachers in the U.S. are white. But most don't know that their whiteness matters. Teaching While White (TWW) seeks to move the conversation forward on how to be consciously, intentionally, anti-racist in the classroom. Because "white" does not mean a blank slate. It is a set of assumptions that is the baseline from which everything is judged; it is what passes for normal. TWW wants to have conversations about those assumptions: what they are, how they impact our students, and how we can confront our bias to promote racial literacy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than 80% of teachers in the U.S. are white. But most don't know that their whiteness matters. Teaching While White (TWW) seeks to move the conversation forward on how to be consciously, intentionally, anti-racist in the classroom. Because "white" does not mean a blank slate.

# data[].attributes.headline
What Can We Learn from the Germans About Confronting Our History?

# data[].attributes.subject
What Can We Learn from the Germans About Confronting Our History?

# data[].attributes.body
The New Yorker (2019)
Also, this article in the New Republic (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When Donald Trump recently tweeted a dark warning of a "Civil War like fracture in this Nation" were he to be impeached, it was further evidence of his Administration's troubled relationship with that period in American history. The President has also suggested that the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was still alive; asked, "Why was there the Civil War?"; and described white supremacists rallying around a Robert E. Lee memorial as "very fine people." His former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, compared California's immigration laws to Confederate secession; Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, referred to Lee as an "honorable man" and said that the Civil War was caused by a "lack of ability to compromise."

But the philosopher Susan Neiman argues that it's not just Trump or his Administration. Most white Americans are fuzzy on the cause of the Civil War-slavery-and even more are unaware of the decades of racial terror and oppression that followed Reconstruction: lynching, convict leasing, mass incarceration, racist labor practices. "For many people, and I'm including myself until recently, the period between 1865 and the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott is just a blank," Neiman told me the other day. This is not incidental. If Americans were more familiar with the darkest parts of the country's past, she argued, "it's hard to imagine that Trump would have been elected."

Neiman, an American who directs the Einstein Forum, a public think tank outside of Berlin, has recently published a book, " Learning from the Germans," that makes the case for an American version of Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, a word that she translates as "working off the past," which refers to the decades-long process through which Germany has come to terms with Nazism and the Holocaust. Today, the country isn't free from racism and anti-Semitism, as the recent attack on a synagogue in Halle showed, but its culture and politics remain deeply informed by its history. All of the arts, including TV and film, regularly refer to and treat Nazi history. And the country pauses to perform what Neiman calls "public rites of repentance" around events such as the liberation of Auschwitz, Kristallnacht, and the end of the war. Then there's the iconography: the Holocaust Memorial sits at the center of a reunified Berlin. There are also the famous "stumbling stones"-small brass plaques placed throughout the city to mark where Jews and other victims of the Nazis last lived, before they were deported. By comparison, she writes, "Imagine a monument to the Middle Passage or the genocide of Native Americans at the center of the Washington Mall. Suppose you could walk down a New York street and step on a reminder that this building was constructed with slave labor."

Neiman was in town recently, and she visited the exhibit "Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away," at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. In her book, she points out that the Nazi era is, ironically, quite prominent in American culture. There are more Holocaust museums in the U.S. than in Germany, Israel, and Poland combined-and almost none devoted to slavery. This isn't an accident, either. Imagining Nazis as "monsters who are not like us" allows us to "outsource evil," she said at the museum. In the book, she calls our fixation on the Holocaust "a form of displacement for what we don't want to know about our own national crimes." She talked about the backlash when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to migrant detention camps at the U.S. border as concentration camps. It made people think of Auschwitz. "But that's not a concentration camp," she said. "It's a death camp." We tend to focus on the very worse, and forget everything else-the many smaller camps, and lesser crimes, that the Nazis also committed. Were those not evil, too? "People talk about never forgetting, and learning the lessons of Auschwitz," she said. "As long as you're not putting people in boxcars and gassing them on arrival, then you're not evil. Unfortunately, that is the lesson that way too many people have learned."

Neiman's interest in such comparisons comes from her life experience: she grew up in Atlanta, during the nineteen-fifties and sixties, witnessing both segregation and the civil-rights movement. Her mother, a Jewish housewife from Chicago, took part in a campaign to desegregate Atlanta's schools. And she has spent much of her adult life in Berlin, as an American Jew. She first moved there, in 1982, to study German philosophy, and was shocked by "how present the war was in everybody's mind." The people she hung out with-politically progressive people, including artists and academics-seemed to talk about it constantly. "I thought, 'Why are they so focussed on this, when Americans seem to do their best to forget history?' In a certain sense, that question, the ways in which the Germans have faced their national crimes and catastrophe, has been on my mind ever since."

She decided to write about it four years ago, after watching President Obama's eulogy for victims of the Charleston shooting. Dylann Roof, a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist, had murdered nine African-American churchgoers during a prayer service. Nikki Haley, then the governor of South Carolina, signed a bill removing the Confederate flag from the state's capitol. Walmart stopped carrying Confederate-themed merchandise. "It really did seem like a turning point," Neiman said. America was starting to confront its past. "I thought, I've been thinking about this stuff for the past thirty years. Maybe I have something to contribute." Then came 2016 and the election of Donald Trump; also a turning point-just not the one Neiman had expected. "Trump's racism has been so out front, and so horrifying, that I think a lot of white Americans are recognizing for the first time just how deep it goes," she said. "Three years ago, the term 'white supremacy' was not being used outside of departments of post-colonial studies. And now it's the New York Times and the Washington Post."

To research her book, Neiman read a variety of German writings from the postwar period: philosophy books, prisoner-of-war memoirs, best-selling novels. She learned something that she'd never realized before: for a long time, everyday Germans didn't feel bad about the Holocaust, or their country's descent into Nazism. Instead, they made excuses for it and thought of themselves as innocent victims. She paraphrased the arguments: "Terrible things happen in war. It was bad for us, too. Our cities were destroyed. Our young men were murdered. We were occupied by foreign troops." A Nazi brother or uncle was "just defending his homeland." To a Southern reader, this sounded familiar. "They started sounding like defenders of the Lost Cause," Neiman said. This German denial came as a shock. "When I first came to Berlin, I would meet people who would tell me, 'My parents were Nazis,' and they were ashamed and upset," she said. "But they would never say, 'My parents were Nazis, and they thought they were the worst victims of the war.' "

The lesson for Americans-particularly those involved in racial-justice work-is that " Nobody wants to look at the dark sides of their history," she said. "It's like finding out that your parents did something really horrible. There's always going to be resistance. It's normal, and it's something we should expect." So what made the Germans change? Neiman writes about a number of historical factors, but the most important, in her opinion, was "civil engagement" by the German public, beginning in the nineteen-sixties. A new generation came of age. "They realized that their parents and teachers had been Nazis, or at least complicit in Nazi atrocities, and were outraged," she said. A small and often controversial vanguard insisted on digging up history that older generations had refused to discuss. People called them Nestbeschmützer, or "nest-foulers." But the process they set in motion-a process of uncovering the past and talking about it-eventually reverberated throughout German society.

For argument's sake, let's imagine that Trump's tweet was wrong, and the "Civil War like fracture in this Nation" doesn't come to pass. Instead, he and his allies lose the 2020 election. A new Administration comes in, dedicated to helping the nation "work off" its historical crimes, to avoid the coming of a Trump 2.0. What can we learn from the Germans? A few things, Neiman said. First of all, any attempt at Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung must be "multifaceted." It can't be confined to schools or museums. "Otherwise it's boring, and it takes on the character of propaganda," she said. Germans don't learn about the Holocaust in just one way. "You really can't escape it," she said. "It's in art works, in literature, in movies, in television, done in different keys and in different registers. There's no one message."

Similarly, government initiatives can't just be a top-down, federal effort. "It needs to be local, spurred by citizen engagement," she said. She talked about the Stumbling Stones project, which a German artist began in 1996, and which is now the largest decentralized monument in the world, with plaques all over Germany. "In many, many parts of the country, it's citizen-financed," Neiman said. "So if you want to put a stumbling stone in your house or in front of your building, you have to research the history of the people who lived there, you have to come up with the fee, a hundred and twenty euros, and get permission from the city. It's quite interactive. And thousands of people do this." Meanwhile, white Americans are still getting married at plantations-a practice that Neiman said Germans would probably view with horror. "After all, plantations were concentration camps for black people," Neiman said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Can We Learn from the Germans About Confronting Our History?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When Donald Trump recently tweeted a dark warning of a "Civil War like fracture in this Nation" were he to be impeached, it was further evidence of his Administration's troubled relationship with that period in American history.

# data[].attributes.headline
Where America First Went Wrong on Confederate Monuments

# data[].attributes.subject
Where America First Went Wrong on Confederate Monuments

# data[].attributes.body
By Jalane Schmidt (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Charlottesville, Virginia, has finally received the green light to remove our spurned Confederate statues. After enduring years of legal delay and violent white supremacist attacks, on April 1 the Supreme Court of Virginia decided in favor of the city's effort to rid its downtown parks of Jim Crow-era propaganda art. It is a fitting time for this ruling: April is Confederate History Month in many Southern states, although increasingly progressive Virginia ended the observance some years ago.

Early April also marks the anniversaries of two pivotal wartime events that spelled the end of inhumane practices: the Union Army's 1865 victory at Appomattox, Virginia, which catalyzed the end of the U.S. Civil War and the abolition of the institution of chattel slavery; and American forces' 1945 liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, which revealed the evils of the Holocaust. After both wars, these societies faced a crucial question: How was the brutality of the past to be remembered? The descendants of defeated Confederates and those of defeated Nazis took very different approaches to that question, corresponding with their obstinacy or contrition about the war. These postwar nations' varying levels of empathy for and democratic inclusion of persecuted groups-African Americans, Jews-who had had the most at stake in the outcome of these respective wars are reflected in the dissimilarity between American and German commemorative practices. In this country, we can learn from the path taken by Germany.

Days after the liberation of Buchenwald on April 11, 1945, American soldiers in Weimar righteously marched 1,200 German civilians 16 miles round-trip for a compulsory tour of the concentration camp. The townspeople's initial smiles were punctured by their shock and revulsion upon seeing its horrors. The following week, American troops detonated the massive Nazi swastika that had perched on the grandstand above Adolf Hitler's rallies at Nuremberg stadium. Captured on triumphant newsreel, this dramatic act of iconoclasm took place at the former site of massive political spectacles where National Socialists generated dangerous propaganda that fueled their murder of millions.

Reconstruction ended without a Potsdam-like treaty. There was no directive to destroy or restrict the metastasizing of insidious Lost Cause propaganda.

As they occupied Germany, U.S. troops destroyed or removed other Nazi monuments and seized thousands of works of Nazi art, including paintings of a heroic Hitler styled as a Teutonic knight mounted atop a white horse and of the stalwart Führer surrounded by an admiring throng of Wehrmacht soldiers. At the Potsdam Conference in August 1945, the Allies discussed where all this confiscated art should go. As Dexter Filkins has recently written, the U.S. agreed to store it safely under lock and key so that these ingratiating images couldn't be put to use by potential resurgent fascists.

The U.S. government continues to uphold its Potsdam Agreement obligation. The propaganda art is kept in a giant warehouse at the Fort Belvoir Army base in northern Virginia. Aside from occasional loans for museum exhibits and scheduled appointments by researchers and journalists, no one sees the shameful trove. The German government has shown little interest in reclaiming this collection from its American custodians and has instead focused on memorializing the victims of the Third Reich.

Susan Neiman, director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany, and author of Learning From the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, argues that the U.S. could learn something important from the way Germans have confronted their past. A born-and-raised American Southerner, Neiman notes that Germany has no nostalgic Nazi memorials. "Germany has no monuments that celebrate the Nazi armed forces, however many grandfathers fought or fell for them. ... The idea that tourists would visit [Buchenwald] seeking smiling women in dirndls-much as some visit American plantations looking for ladies in hoop skirts-is obscene."

America's post-Civil War Reconstruction period ended without a Potsdam-like treaty. There was no directive to destroy or restrict the metastasizing of insidious Lost Cause propaganda. Instead, bronze and marble tributes to the leaders and defenders of a short-lived renegade slaveholding republic litter the public landscapes of the American South. Coupled with commemorative spectacles convened around them, Confederate statues warp the dominant memory of the Civil War into a perverse celebration of a sanitized "heritage" of the Old South and its repressive, anti-democratic values. The Big Lie that the Civil War was not waged over slavery but was rather a gallant defense of the Southern homeland from "Northern Aggression," and that slaves were happy, faithful servants to kind masters, was repeated ad nauseam in the novels, films, history curricula, and monuments of the Lost Cause civil religion. Black Americans knew better, and cultivated a countermemory of the Civil War that emphasized narratives of resistance and emancipation.

Detractors who argue that propaganda art must remain because "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" should learn from theGermans.

Most professional historians have long since rejected Lost Cause interpretations. But magnolia fantasies propel the plantation pilgrimages of many smiling white American tourists' misguided quests for romantic opulence. They arrive at an increasing number of antebellum sites where exhibits and guides depart from the Gone With the Wind script and expose the truth: that plantations were despotic forced-labor camps where the vast majority of residents suffered as enslaved laborers, and the notion of a "good" slaveholder is a contradiction in terms. The challenge of elevating this countermemory is that it has been quashed, for over a century, under misleading historical narratives as heavy as the marble and bronze monuments that we also strive to remove. All memory is selective. When memory's frame is inclusive, prioritizing accounts of Black agency and emancipation, it allows us to interpret the Civil War as part of the ongoing freedom struggle to expand multiracial democracy. This should be an unobjectionable vision.

Far from being chastened, however, a vocal portion of these white American tourists persist in their preference for comforting (to them) Lost Cause propaganda. They whine that the historical presentation is biased and that it kills the vacation vibe. Their lack of empathy seems to stem from a visceral preoccupation with preserving, in contradiction to fact, a self-reinforcing set of perspectives and feelings that vindicate the "just men of their times" of history, absolving or minimizing violent deeds. They should be confronted with the words of Isabella Gibbons, formerly an enslaved cook at the University of Virginia, who wrote after the Civil War about her recollection of slavery:

Can we forget the crack of the whip, cowhide, whipping-post, the auction-block, the hand-cuffs, the spaniels, the iron collar, the negro-trader tearing the young child from its mother's breast as a whelp from the lioness? Have we forgotten that by those horrible cruelties, hundreds of our race have been killed? No, we have not, nor ever will.

Others insist that the problematic figures honored by such monuments can be "held in tension" with "how far we've come," recommending that the landscape be "balanced" with the addition of statues recognizing history's victims. But there is no "both sides" when one side is genocide. The suggestion that offensive statues should be left in place so that "we" can learn from them and "not forget" this difficult history disregards the fact that people of color neither need nor want to be subjected to propaganda art that underscores our subordinate status. It's not "erasing history" to call for the removal of the sculptural analogs of "whites only" signs in public places. As Erin Thompson, professor of art crime at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, has said: "Not a single child deserves to grow up looking at a piece of stone or metal that tries to convince them they are not equal to other Americans."

1. The Weird Florida Roots of the Matt Gaetz Scandal

2. Why Republicans Are Pretending to Hate Corporate America Now

3. Epidemiologist Warns U.S. Is "at the Beginning" of Fourth COVID-19 Surge

4. What Progressives Can Learn From California Eliminating Cash Bail

The weak solution of placing a plaque laden with caveats printed in tiny font beside such a monument to "contextualize" it provides insufficient visual interruption and dodges the necessary moral intervention. Postwar Germans did not maintain fascist monuments in their town squares and affix equivocating placards in the name of "preserving history." They (and Allied occupiers) removed or destroyed such monuments, or transformed them into places that empathetically remember the past by honoring its victims: One can ride a bus to the Buchenwald Memorial outside Weimar, or encounter the brass stumbling stones embedded in city streets. Detractors who argue that propaganda art must remain because "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" should learn from the Germans-and do as the U.S. Army did: lock it up or blow it up.

Storing or shattering propaganda can literally and figuratively clear the ground for deliberate consideration and creative envisioning. What kind of memories should be prioritized for display that can sustain our work toward a future based upon empathy and equity? Americans have an opportunity to do the work that Germans have done using all the tools for true education-museum exhibits, the arts, documentaries, commemorative events, and better history education in schools-to empathetically engage with the history of slavery and the Civil War in a truthful manner that promotes a truly inclusive democracy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Where America First Went Wrong on Confederate Monuments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Charlottesville, Virginia, has finally received the green light to remove our spurned Confederate statues. After enduring years of legal delay and violent white supremacist attacks, on April 1 the Supreme Court of Virginia decided in favor of the city's effort to rid its downtown parks of Jim Crow-era propaganda art.

# data[].attributes.headline
Seller beware — The moral risks of hazardous statue disposal

# data[].attributes.subject
Seller beware — The moral risks of hazardous statue disposal

# data[].attributes.body
By Jalane Schmidt (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Charlottesville is rejoicing at the recent removal of "Johnny Reb," a mass-produced cast bronze life-size Confederate soldier statue that guarded Virginia's Albemarle County courthouse for 111 years. A gleeful crowd of more than 100 COVID-masked townspeople, some wearing Union soldier kepi hats for the occasion, cheered from the sidewalk.

But for some Charlottesville residents, satisfaction and relief about the departure of this Confederate icon are tempered by a concern that faces many communities where statues are slated for removal: Where and how should we ethically dispose of our racist toxic waste?

A commonly suggested solution - "Put them in a museum" - collides with a practical obstacle: Few reputable museums want these century-old emblems of exclusion, or have the space and resources to responsibly curate them. Measures such as Budapest's Memento Park, a graveyard for Soviet-era monuments, require a lot of land. Removing monuments from public view - in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, the deposed rulers of Monument Avenue have been exiled to the city's sewage treatment plant - relegates them to moral stasis. Some newly "woke" civic leaders, however, are committing moral blunders, as their recently embraced conviction outpaces their ethical consideration. (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill approved the release of that campus' "Silent Sam" Confederate soldier statue to a "heritage" organization that had devolved into a biker gang.) As supply outstrips demand, some irresponsible sellers are washing their hands of toxic statuary by dumping them on reactionary provinces.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jalane Schmidt column: Seller beware - The moral risks of hazardous statue disposal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Charlottesville is rejoicing at the recent removal of "Johnny Reb," a mass-produced cast bronze life-size Confederate soldier statue that guarded Virginia's Albemarle County courthouse for 111 years. A gleeful crowd of more than 100 COVID-masked townspeople, some wearing Union soldier kepi hats for the occasion, cheered from the sidewalk.

# data[].attributes.body
Éducation contre le racisme

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fondation Lilian Thuram | Education contre le racisme

# data[].attributes.headline
Vers la guerre des identités ?De la fracture coloniale à la révolution ultranationale

# data[].attributes.subject
Vers la guerre des identités ?De la fracture coloniale à la révolution ultranationale

# data[].attributes.body
Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Dominic Thomas (2016)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Choisir vos préférences en matière de cookies

Nous utilisons des cookies et des outils similaires pour faciliter vos achats, fournir nos services, pour comprendre comment les clients utilisent nos services afin de pouvoir apporter des améliorations, et pour présenter des publicités, y compris des publicités basées sur les centres d'intérêt. Des tiers approuvés ont également recours à ces outils dans le cadre de notre affichage de publicités. Si vous ne souhaitez pas accepter tous les cookies ou si vous souhaitez en savoir plus sur comment nous utilisons les cookies, cliquer sur " Personnaliser les cookies ".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Noté /5. Retrouvez Vers la guerre des identités ? et des millions de livres en stock sur Amazon.fr. Achetez neuf ou d'occasion

# data[].attributes.body
Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Standing Together Against Hate
March 24, 2021
Even as we try to take in and understand the tragic news of the March 23, 2021 shooting in Boulder, Colorado, the Smithsonian Institution mourns the loss of eight people-seven of them women, six of whom were of Asian descent-who were killed when a gunman opened fire inside three spas located in Georgia. We extend our condolences and stand in compassion with the families and friends of Daoyou Feng, Delaina Ashley Yaun González, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue; and we share in the sorrow and outrage expressed by Asian American community members nationwide. It is clear that this is a tragedy at the confluence of misogyny and racism directed toward Asian and Asian American women.

History is replete with examples of heritage and gender being used as an excuse to dehumanize and isolate people. Asian and Asian American women have long been the victims of objectifying and degrading stereotypes, based on notions of dominance over people, places, and bodies. Such objectification denies them their dignity, their agency, and their humanity, making them particularly vulnerable to acts of violence.

At the Smithsonian, we condemn xenophobia, misogyny, and racial and gendered violence. Reaching for real systemic change, however, requires an unpacking of the entangled systems that perpetuate oppression. To these ends, the Smithsonian collaborates with communities and acknowledges the work of colleagues who are counteracting exploitative narratives and practices, uplifting marginalized voices, and sharing in the work of community care.

Organizations such as the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum , Red Canary Song, Georgia NAACP , and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta are among the many in Georgia grappling very directly with this tragedy. In support of critical work happening at the local level and in keeping with our mission to diffuse and increase knowledge, the Smithsonian offers educational resources and direct learning opportunities that we hope can contribute to deconstructing systemic oppression and affirm the dignity of all people. Through our scholarship, collecting, educational programming, training, and exhibitions, we will continue working to bridge communities and foster understanding and respect.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution,
and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

In solidarity with:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Standing Together | Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
March 24, 2021 Even as we try to take in and understand the tragic news of the March 23, 2021 shooting in Boulder, Colorado, the Smithsonian Institution mourns the loss of eight people-seven of them women, six of whom were of Asian descent-who were killed when a gunman opened fire inside three spas located in Georgia.

# data[].attributes.body
Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Sandrine Lemaire (2006)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Pascal Blanchard, historien, chercheur associé au CNRS à Marseille (GDR 2322), est notamment l'auteur de la trilogie Le Paris noir ( Hazan, 2001) ; Le Paris arabe (La Découverte, 2003) et Le Paris Asie (avec Éric Deroo ; La Découverte, 2004). Nicolas Bancel, historien, professeur à l'Université de Strasbourg-II Marc Bloch, est notamment l'auteur de, avec Pascal Blanchard et Françoise Vergès, La République coloniale (Albin Michel, 2003) ; avec Daniel Denis et Youssef Fates, De l'Indochine à l'Algérie (La Découverte, 2003) et, avec Pascal Blanchard, De l'indigène à l'immigré (Gallimard/" Découvertes ", 1998). Sandrine Lemaire, agrégée en histoire, enseignante, est notamment l'auteur de, avec Pascal Blanchard, Culture impériale (Autrement, 2004) ; Culture coloniale (Autrement, 2003) et, avec Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boetsch et Éric Deroo, Zoos humains. (La Découverte/" Poches ", 2004). Avec les contributions de : Olivier Barlet, Ahmed Boubeker, Anna Bozzo, Rony Brauman, Sarah Delporte, Thomas Deltombe, François Gèze, Nacira Guénif-Souilamas, Arnauld Le Brusq, Didier Lapeyronnie, Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Philippe Liotard, Achille Mbembe, Mathieu Rigouste, Patrick Simon, Benjanin Stora, Françoise Vergès, Michel Wieviorka.

--Ce texte fait référence à l'édition pocket_book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
la fracture coloniale (poches essais t. 232)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
La fracture coloniale (POCHES ESSAIS t. 232)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Achetez et téléchargez ebook La fracture coloniale (POCHES ESSAIS t. 232): Boutique Kindle - Colonisation : Amazon.fr

# data[].attributes.body
Nell Irvin Painter (2011)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The History of White People - Kindle edition by Painter, Nell Irvin. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The History of White People.

# data[].attributes.body
Scene on Radio, Season 2 (2017)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it's an old story.

Why? Where did the notion of "whiteness" come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for?

Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017. The series editor is Loretta Williams.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels ne

# data[].attributes.body
Podcast "Seeing White", Scene on Radio Season 2, Part 2 (2017)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
March 1, 2017
For much of human history, people viewed themselves as members of tribes or nations but had no notion of "race." Today, science deems race biologically meaningless. Who invented race as we know it, and why? By John Biewen, with guest Chenjerai Kumanyika.
Photo: The Monument to the Discoveries, Lisbon, Portugal. The highlighted figure in the center is an effigy of Gomes Eanes de Zurara. The figure at the top right is Prince Henry the Navigator. Photo by Harvey Barrison. Download a transcript of the episode.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Episode 32: How Race Was Made (Seeing White, Part 2)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For much of human history, people viewed themselves as members of tribes or nations but had no notion of "race." Today, science deems race biologically meaningless. Who invented race as we know it, and why? By John Biewen, with guest Chenjerai Kumanyika. Photo: The Monument to the Discoveries, L

# data[].attributes.body
A collection of resources curated by Dr. Nicole A. Cooke

# data[].attributes.body
USA Today (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Headline after headline, the same story: a black American dead.

George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck. Ahmaud Arbery, while on a jog in Georgia. Breonna Taylor, while police raided her Louisville, Kentucky, home.

And the ones before: Eric Garner, who couldn't breathe. Philando Castile, in the car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter. Trayvon Martin, only a boy.

Scores of killings answered with acquittals. Now, as a pandemic rages, African Americans in communities across the country disproportionally devastated by COVID-19 are forced to bear witness to more deaths of black Americans.

The costs of these deaths ripple. When people of color experience racism, when they repeatedly witness racism, there is a profound emotional toll.

"The persistent pandemic is racism. That's the pandemic. Recent deaths of individuals of color and the deleterious impact of COVID-19 on communities of color stems all the way from 1776," said Alisha Moreland-Capuia, executive director of Oregon Health & Science University's Avel Gordly Center for Healing, which focuses on culturally sensitive care for the African American community.

"The emotional and psychological impact of racism means acutely, every day, being reminded that you are not enough, being reminded that you are not seen, being reminded that you are not valued, being reminded that you are not a citizen, being reminded that humanity is not something that applies to you."
'Stop killing black people':Column: Video of George Floyd is shocking but not surprising George Floyd's death sparks protests
Research shows racism has harmful mental and physical effects. They can result from a person experiencing racism directly - as a bird-watcher did when a white woman in New York's Central Park told police he was threatening her life when he asked her to leash her dog - or vicariously, such as someone watching the video of Floyd's suffering.

Racism is associated with a host of psychological consequences, including depression, anxiety, and other serious, sometimes debilitating mental conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders, mental health experts say.

High-profile incidents of racism and police brutality, especially when accompanied by viral videos, are triggering for people of color who see how little changes in their aftermath.

"Racism is traumatic for people of color," said Monnica Williams, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who studies African American mental health. "Everything that you have to carry around anyway as a black person in America, to add onto it having to watch people in your community who've done nothing killed at the hands of people in power who will probably suffer few, if any, consequences. I think there's no better word to describe it than traumatizing."

Four Minneapolis police officers were fired after Floyd's death, but no criminal charges have been filed.

Williams' niece, who is in Germany, tried to reach her this week after watching the footage of Floyd.

"She was so upset she couldn't sleep," Williams said.

Racial violence is 'repetitive trauma'

The video that spread on social media this week shows officer Derek Chauvin driving his knee into Floyd's neck as he repeatedly says, "I can't breathe."

This isn't the first time those words reverberated through this nation's conscience.

In 2014, Eric Garner was placed in a chokehold by white New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo after being arrested on suspicion of illegally selling loose cigarettes. His dying words were, "I can't breathe."

Pantaleo was fired in 2019, five years after Garner's death.

These incidents influence the experience of being black in America - how dangerous it is to drive, jog, stand on a corner, or even sit at home. They underscore no space is safe.

"I can only describe the continued viewing of racial violence, torture, murder and disregard for the humanity of black bodies as repetitive trauma," said Danielle Jackson, a psychiatry resident and board member of the American Psychiatric Association's Caucus of Black Psychiatrists. "Perpetrators of racial violence may have changed uniforms, speech, and coded message, but the message remains the same, 'you - black person - are other, you are less than.'"

Police kill more than 300 black Americans - at least a quarter unarmed - each year in the U.S., according to a 2018 study in The Lancet, which found these killings have spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans not directly affected.

Research shows black Americans are 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than non-Hispanic white Americans. In a study on black youth suicide, researchers found suicide attempts rose by 73% between 1991-2017 for black adolescents and listed exposure to racism as a factor.

Roberto Montenegro, an assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Washington School of Medicine who studies the biological effects of discrimination, says living in a world where your body is a threat is painful and taxing.

People of color, he said, must engage in extra processing demands to try and assure safety. This leads to states of hypervigilance, arousal and avoidance, which can manifest physically as hypertension and insomnia.

It's called "racial battle fatigue," a term used to explain the psychological stress responses - frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear - experienced by people of color in historically white spaces.

Montenegro says he has been frustrated and hurt by repeated racial blows, especially at work.

"I have had nurses, doctors, and other staff tell me that I was intimidating, too assertive, and didn't smile enough, and that this made them - white women - feel unsafe to approach me," he said. "They would not say this to a white doctor."

Video footage shocks. At what cost?

Videos of police brutality fuel outrage and galvanize movements. They also linger, long after the protests quiet.

Some mental health experts argue the explosive footage that accompanies many of these violent deaths are vital to raising public consciousness, even if they are disturbing.

"It powerfully shapes our discourse, much like the images of African American youth in the South who were being sprayed with powerful water hoses and bitten by police dogs when they protested during the Civil Rights Movement," said Brian Smedley, chief of psychology in the public interest at the American Psychological Association. "As disturbing as these images are, as tragic as it is for individuals who've lost their lives, or who have been abused in these circumstances, the reality is that their victimization is not in vain."

Others worry social media's amplification is a step too far, treading into gratuity.

Williams says she would rather not see videos l‪ike Floyd's propagated to such a degree. It can be re-traumatizing for people of color, she argues, and in some ways, its viral spread is yet another act of dehumanization.

"These are human beings and they deserve dignity, and the fact that you can just go online and ... watch a black person be killed - when is the last time you saw a white person killed online?"
'People are really suffering':Black and Latino communities help their own amid coronavirus crisis
Deaths upon deaths

People of color are witnessing these brutal deaths amid a global pandemic that is hitting African American and Latino communities especially hard. Many front-line jobs are disproportionately held by people of color. Also, people of color are more likely than white adults to report significant stressors in their life as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, including getting coronavirus (71% vs. 59%, respectively), basic needs (61% vs. 47%), and access to health care services (59% vs. 46%), according to the American Psychological Association's "Stress in America" report published in May.

"People of color already carry the burden of structural racism in our history and in our bodies," Montenegro said. "COVID has highlighted how power, privilege, and access to means and resources are distributed disproportionately."

Arline Geronimus, a professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan, uses the term "weathering" to describe the way chronic stressors - which can include interpersonal microaggressions and institutionalized racism - erode bodies. These erosions can lead to chronic conditions among people of color which, Smedley said, make them more vulnerable to COVID-19.

No one should have to 'cope' with racism. So how do you?

Approximately 30% of African American adults with mental illness get treatment each year, below the U.S. average of 43%, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Many African Americans mistrust the health system, and socioeconomic factors can limit access to treatment.

But even mental health professionals recognize there are limits to what the system can do in the face of institutionalized racism. Williams said she's tired of talking about how to cope.
You may also be interested in: Alia E. Dastagir is a recipient of a Rosalynn Carter fellowship for mental health journalism. Follow her on Twitter: @alia_e
"So many people of color have to sit on their anger and stuff it down, and we know that that's taking a horrible physical and emotional toll on our communities," she said. "The most constructive thing that we can do is take that anger and rage and demand social change. Because going to get your nails done, or taking seven deep breaths, or what have you, that's not going to be enough."

Moreland-Capuia is exhausted by the outrage cycle: the performative responses, the social media flurries, the mainstream media, especially. A lot of well-meaning people post about these deaths, she said, but when it's time to do the work to save black lives, she often feels alone.

"Who is going to be with us to do the real work that's going to be required to help us adhere to that promise ... which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" she asked. "If we do not treat, manage, and effectively contain the disease of racism, the emotional and psychological toll will not only continue to kill black people, it will consume us all."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
George Floyd video adds to trauma: 'When is the last time you saw a white person killed online?'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Headline after headline, the same story: a black American dead. George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck. Ahmaud Arbery, while on a jog in Georgia. Breonna Taylor, while police raided her Louisville, Kentucky, home. And the ones before: Eric Garner, who couldn't breathe.

# data[].attributes.body
TED Talk by Clint Smith (2015)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Clint Smith: How to raise a Black son in America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of his father's furious and fearful response.

# data[].attributes.headline
How Can Parents Make Their Kids Understand How To Be Anti-Racist?

# data[].attributes.subject
How Can Parents Make Their Kids Understand How To Be Anti-Racist?

# data[].attributes.body
Noel King with Renee Watson and Ibram X. Kendi on NRP (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
NOEL KING, HOST:

At this point, given what's happening in our country, a lot of parents want to talk to their kids about racism. Some admit they don't know how. For thoughts on where to start, I talked to anti-racism scholar Ibram Kendi and children's author Renee Watson. I started by asking Ibram about a distinction that he often makes. Should parents teach their kids to be not racist or to be anti-racist?

IBRAM KENDI: From my understanding, when parents desire for their kids to be not racist, they typically do not talk to their kids about race. They avoid conversations about race or even explaining the racial inequities and dynamics in their community. As a result, typically, those kids are taught to be racist by society.

And so by contrast, when you're essentially raising a kid to be anti-racist, you're deliberately encouraging them to talk about race and Racism. You're deliberately teaching them that all the racial groups are equals. You're deliberately showing them, yes, there are different colors and there are different cultures. And we should value them all equally.

KING: Renee, Ibram is saying that if parents don't talk openly to their kids about racism, they will go out into the world and society will make them racist. Do you agree with that?

RENEE WATSON: Absolutely. I think that it's important for parents and for educators to be intentional about preparing our young people for the world that they are inheriting and living in. To not talk about it is a disservice to all young people. So not just black students who need to learn about their blackness and their history, but white students as well and nonblack people of color need to know our country's history and talk explicitly about it.

KING: There's research now that shows kids can internalize racial bias between the ages of 2 and 4. How should adults talk to such young children about racism?

KENDI: You can use books as a conversation-starter. What I find with my 4-year-old daughter is when I'm reading her books, she asks questions about those books. And so use tools like books. And then the child will potentially guide the conversation. I also think you can turn on the demonstrations on TV or go to the demonstrations. And I suspect even the 3 year olds will ask, what is going on? Again, it gives you the opportunity to talk about race and racism.

KING: May I ask - 4-year-olds often will ask you to read the same book over and over and over again.

KENDI: (Laughter).

KING: Is there a particular book that you read to your daughter where you think, OK, as I read this to her, I see her young mind getting it?

KENDI: Oh, well, she loved "Hair Love" and I think partly because I have locks. And she just saw me in the book and certainly saw herself.

KING: Renee, how do you talk to the young people in your life?

WATSON: Especially for the little ones, bringing them books that give historical context, like biographies. There's so many picture books that are biographies of black activists, artists, people who paved the way for us to be here. And then, I also think - I want to go back to "Hair Love." I think it's important to bring in books that allow readers to see black people living their everyday lives.

We don't want to teach children that black pain and struggle is the only part of black life. But I also think it's important to just let young people see that black people live lives. And they do their hair. And they play outside. And they have fun and that that is an important part of the conversation, too.

KING: Ibram, when you talk to your daughter about how to talk to other kids - if they hear something racist or something racist is said to them, these are young kids we're dealing with, what should their response be?

KENDI: If it's a black child, if it's a child of color, it's critically important for the parents of black children to, even long before they go and experience another child telling them their hair is ugly, to be constantly sharing with them and telling them that their hair is beautiful because when they receive that type of racist idea from another young child, they may not internalize it. They may not see themselves as the problem. They may see what the child said as the problem.

And then, simultaneously, I always encourage Imani (ph), who is - our daughter's name, to, if something happens to her, for her to have the ability to speak up about it. One thing I want to emphasize, though, is parents, caretakers, you know, anyone who loves young children, are typically teaching them how to be kind - why? - because we recognize that we should raise kind children.

It's the same thing when it comes to being anti-racist. We can teach these concepts before the children can fully understand them just as we teach many different values. And as they grow, they're going to understand it more just as we're growing, hopefully, we're understanding it more.

KING: In this country and around the world, we're seeing a period of immense turmoil and unrest with racial injustice at the center of it. What are you each telling the children in your lives about this particular moment?

WATSON: I've been having conversations about the historical context of it all. This isn't just happening. You know what I mean? We can go back just a few years. And then we can go back and encourage them to learn about activists who fought for our civil rights, who fought for our freedom. People have stood up before and that you've inherited that, too.

It's not just the pain that's been passed down, but it's also the resilience and the wherewithal to fight back and to stand up. So what are you going to do? How are you going to raise your voice? And I particularly talk about poets and artists a lot because I think that that's a way young people, especially, can lend their voices to the cause.

KING: And, Ibram, how about you?

KENDI: When George Floyd's daughter was on television and expressed, of course, how sad she was that he was no longer there and Imani saw that. And so she asked us, you know, about it. And ultimately, where we sort of landed on was me explaining that there was nothing wrong with black people.

If one day she is rejected because of the color of her skin and she doesn't have awareness of racism, who is she going to blame? Herself. And there's nothing worse for a very young child to be struggling with their own sense of self and their own confidence in themselves. And so I actually see this literature and these conversations as protective.

KING: Renee Watson and Ibram Kendi, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

WATSON: Thank you.

KENDI: You're welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEEM THE CIPHER'S "TRANSCEND.")

Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Can Parents Make Their Kids Understand How To Be Anti-Racist?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NOEL KING, HOST: At this point, given what's happening in our country, a lot of parents want to talk to their kids about racism. Some admit they don't know how. For thoughts on where to start, I talked to anti-racism scholar Ibram Kendi and children's author Renee Watson.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Even babies notice differences like skin color, eye shape and hair texture. Here's how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children.
A few things to remember:

Don't shush or shut them down if they mention race.

Don't wait for kids to bring it up.

Be proactive, helping them build a positive awareness of diversity.

When a child experiences prejudice, grown-ups need to both address the feelings and fight the prejudices.

You don't have to avoid topics like slavery or the Holocaust. Instead, give the facts and focus on resistance and allies.

In addition to Jeanette Betancourt, senior vice president for Social Impact at Sesame Workshop, we spoke to Beverly Daniel Tatum: We recommend her TEDx talk as well as her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race.
Additional Resources:

Babies begin to notice race at 6 months old - in fact, according to this pair of studies by Professor Kang Lee at the University of Toronto, they actually show signs of racial bias by this age.

One in 10 children is multiracial - according to Pew Research Center. This includes children with parents of two different races, plus those with at least one multiracial parent.

Watch the whole "I Love My Hair!" video from Sesame Street.

Thanks to Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton. Derrick Gay, and Jinnie Spiegler of the Anti-Defamation League, which has a wide range of resources for anti-bias education.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even babies notice differences like skin color, eye shape and hair texture. Here's how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children.

# data[].attributes.headline
The difference between being ‘not racist’ and antiracist

# data[].attributes.subject
The difference between being ‘not racist’ and antiracist

# data[].attributes.body
TED Talk by Ibram X. Kendi (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ibram X. Kendi: The difference between being "not racist" and antiracist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There is no such thing as being "not racist," says author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. In this vital conversation, he defines the transformative concept of antiracism to help us more clearly recognize, take responsibility for and reject prejudices in our public policies, workplaces and personal beliefs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Representation: Culture & Perception

Media, entertainment, and other forms of popular culture play a significant role in shaping our perceptions of others. For many of us, popular culture is the primary way we learn about people who are different from us. The problem, though, is that many representations are based on cultural stereotypes, which tend to marginalize and caricature members of nondominant groups. Through these representations, we see a limited, and distorted, view of others.

Learn More ›

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Media, entertainment, and other forms of popular culture play a significant role in shaping our perceptions of others. For many of us, popular culture is the primary way we learn about people who are different from us. The problem, though, is that many representations are based on cultural stereotypes, which tend to marginalize and caricature members of nondominant groups.

# data[].attributes.body
By Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee

# data[].attributes.body
From Samantha Fletcher

# data[].attributes.body
By Samantha Fletcher
See also this version.

# data[].attributes.body
New York Times (2015)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On Racial Violence

Demonstrators at a march in Charleston, S.C., on June 21. Credit... David Goldman/Associated Press

Our screens and feeds are filled with news and images of black Americans dying or being brutalized. A brief and yet still-too-long list: Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Renisha McBride. The image of a white police officer straddling a black teenager on a lawn in McKinney, Tex., had barely faded before we were forced to grapple with the racially motivated shooting in Charleston, S.C.

I've had numerous conversations with friends and colleagues who are stressed out by the recent string of events; our anxiety and fear is palpable. A few days ago, a friend sent a text message that read, "I'm honestly terrified this will happen to us or someone we know." Twitter and Facebook are teeming with anguish, and within my own social network (which admittedly consists largely of writers, academics and activists), I've seen several ad hoc databases of clinics and counselors crop up to help those struggling to cope. Instagram and Twitter have become a means to circulate information about yoga, meditation and holistic treatment services for African-Americans worn down by the barrage of reports about black deaths and police brutality, and I've been invited to several small gatherings dedicated to discussing these events. A handful of friends recently took off for Morocco for a few months with the explicit goal of escaping the psychic weight of life in America.

It was against this backdrop that I first encountered the research of Monnica Williams, a psychologist, professor and the director of the University of Louisville's Center for Mental Health Disparities. Several years ago, Williams treated a "high-functioning patient, with two master's degrees and a job at a company that anyone would recognize." The woman, who was African-American, had been devastated by racial harassment by a director within her company. Williams recalls being stunned by how drastically her patient's condition deteriorated as a result of the treatment. "She completely withdrew and was suffering from extreme emotional anxiety," she told me. "And that's what made me say, 'Wow, we have to focus on this.' "

In a 2013 Psychology Today article, Williams wrote that "much research has been conducted on the social, economic and political effects of racism, but little research recognizes the psychological effects of racism on people of color." Williams now studies the link between racism and post-traumatic stress disorder, which is known as race-based traumatic stress injury, or the emotional distress a person may feel after encountering racial harassment or hostility. Although much of Williams's work focuses on individuals who have been directly targeted by racial discrimination or aggression, she says race-based stress reactions can be triggered by events that are experienced vicariously, or externally, through a third party - like social media or national news events. She argues that racism should be included as a cause of PTSD in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M.).

Williams is in the process of opening a clinical program that will exclusively treat race-based stress and trauma, in a predominantly black neighborhood in Louisville. Shortly after the Charleston shooting, I called Williams to discuss her work; what follows is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.
What is race-based stress and trauma?
It's a natural byproduct of the types of experiences that minorities have to deal with on a regular basis. I would argue that it is pathological, which means it is a disorder that we can assess and treat. To me, that means these are symptoms that are a diagnosable disorder that require a clinical intervention. It goes largely unrecognized in most people, and that's based on my experience as a clinician.
What are the symptoms?
Depression, intrusion (the inability to get the thoughts about what happened out of one's mind), vigilance (an inability to sleep, out of fear of danger), anger, loss of appetite, apathy and avoidance symptoms and emotional numbing. My training and study has been on post-traumatic stress disorder for a long time, and the two look very much alike.
Over the weekend, I received several distressing emails and texts from friends who were suffering from feelings of anxiety and depression. Do you think we should all be in treatment?
I think everyone could benefit from psychotherapy, but I think just talking to someone and processing the feelings can be very effective. It doesn't have to be with a therapist; it could be with a pastor, family, friends and people who understand it and aren't going to make it worse by telling you to stop complaining.

What do you think about the #selfcare hashtags on social media and the role of "Black Twitter" as resources for people who may not have the resources they need to help process this? Are online interactions like that more meaningful than they initially might seem?
Online communities can be a great source of support, of course - with the caveat that even just one hater can be stressful for everyone, and that's the danger of it. But if you don't have a friend or a family member, just find someone who is sensitive and understanding and can deal with racial issues.
In our initial email about the ripple effects of the murders in Charleston, you used the phrase "vicarious trauma." What does that mean?
Because the African-American community has such a long history of pervasive discrimination, something that impacts someone many miles away can sometimes impact all of us. That's what I mean by vicarious traumatization.
Is racial trauma widely recognized as a legitimate disorder?
The trauma of events like this is not formally recognized in the D.S.M. It talks about different types of trauma and stress-related ailments, but it doesn't say that race trauma can be a factor or a trigger for these problems. Psychiatrists, unless they've had some training or personal experience with this, are not going to know to look for it and aren't going to understand it when they see it. In order for it to be recognized, we have to get a good body of scientific research, a lot of publications in reputable peer-reviewed journals. Right now, there's only been a few. And we need to produce more.
On your blog, you chronicled the experience of a woman who encounters a therapist who dismisses her fears about racism. Is one barrier to treatment getting the medical community to acknowledge that racism exists?
Yes. A lot of people in the medical community live very privileged lives, so racism isn't a reality to them. When someone comes in and talks to them, it might sound like a fairy tale, rather than a real daily struggle that people are dealing with. Research shows that African-Americans, for example, are optimistic when they start therapy, but within a few sessions feel less optimistic and have high early dropout rates. It could be that clinicians don't know how to address their problems, or they may even be saying things that are subtly racist that may drive their clients away. If the patient feels misunderstood or even insulted by the therapist and they don't go back and get help, they end up suffering for years or even the rest of their lives for something that is very treatable.

Is there a recommended model for treatment?
We have great treatments that are empirically supported for trauma, but the racial piece hasn't really been studied very well. That's no easy task, because when we write these articles, they go to journals, where an editor looks at it and decides if it's worthy and applicable to go in the journal. And then it goes to reviewers who decide if it's a worthy and applicable topic.
Why has it taken so long to get momentum?
If you think about it, they weren't even letting black people get Ph.D.s 30 years ago in a lot of places. Ethnic minority researchers are the ones who are carrying the torch, by and large. We're only to the place now where we have enough researchers to do the work. And there's so much work that needs to be done.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On Racial Violence Our screens and feeds are filled with news and images of black Americans dying or being brutalized. A brief and yet still-too-long list: Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Renisha McBride.

# data[].attributes.headline
You are a teacher: Take the Common Beliefs Survey

# data[].attributes.subject
You are a teacher: Take the Common Beliefs Survey

# data[].attributes.body
And then see this guide to reflect on your responses.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abolitionist Teaching Network's mission is simple: develop and support educators to fight injustice within their schools and communities. Utilizing the intellectual work and direct action of Abolitionists in many forms, including community organizers, educators, parents, social workers, counselors, lawyers, therapists, artists, health care providers, and incarcerated folx, we will organize and take action for educational freedom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abolitionist Teaching Network's mission is simple: develop and support educators to fight injustice within their schools and communities. Utilizing the intellectual work and direct action of Abolitionists in many forms, including community organizers, educators, parents, social workers, counselors, lawyers, therapists, artists, health care providers, and incarcerated folx, we will organize and take action for educational freedom.

# data[].attributes.headline
Le Black History Month. Réhabilitation historique, reconnaissance politique

# data[].attributes.subject
Le Black History Month. Réhabilitation historique, reconnaissance politique

# data[].attributes.body
Nicolas Martin-Breteau pour La Vie des idées (février 2015)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aux États-Unis, chaque mois de février depuis 1976 se tient le Black History Month célébrant les contributions des Afro-Américains à l'histoire du pays. Créé en 1926 sous le nom de par l'historien afro-américain Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), l'événement avait originellement pour objectif de faire connaître et reconnaître l'histoire afro-américaine, alors exclue du récit national. Contrer les stéréotypes négatifs attachés au passé des anciens esclaves et leurs descendants devait permettre d'affermir la fierté de la "race noire" dans son héritage et stimuler le respect des blancs pour leurs compatriotes de couleur. En 1976, à la suite du Mouvement pour les droits civiques, la Negro History Week est devenue le Black History Month - un événement officiel faisant désormais figure d'institution civique nationale.

Malgré son dynamisme aux États-Unis, son exportation à l'étranger ainsi que la mise en place d'autres Mois de commémoration comme le Women's History Month, le Native Americans' History Month et le LGBT History Month, le Mois de l'histoire noire reste la cible de critiques, précisément à cause de son institutionnalisation emphatique permettant d'apaiser à moindre frais une partie des revendications politiques de la communauté noire américaine. La solennité quasi religieuse de la célébration - on parle parfois à son égard d'une "période d'observance" - ne peut faire oublier la faible prise en compte des apports de l'histoire afro-américaine dans le débat public à un moment où celle-ci permettrait pourtant de comprendre et combattre la persistance des profondes inégalités et tensions raciales dans le pays.

La création d'une tradition civique noire

En février 1926, l'historien Carter G. Woodson et son Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) inauguraient aux États-Unis la première Negro History Week. L'objectif de ses promoteurs était de célébrer et de populariser l'histoire des Afro-Américains dans la société américaine.

Pour sa Negro History Week, Woodson choisit la deuxième semaine de février afin qu'elle coïncide avec les dates anniversaires de plusieurs grandes figures de l'histoire noire : Abraham Lincoln, le président responsable de l'abolition de l'esclavage en 1865 (12 février), George Washington, le défenseur de la liberté de la nouvelle nation américaine (22 février) et, entre les deux, Frederick Douglass, l'ancien esclave devenu brillant abolitionniste qui, ne connaissant pas sa date de naissance, opta pour la Saint-Valentin (14 février). "Tous les trois", disait Woodson en 1942, "furent des soldats de la liberté et pensaient que les Noirs devaient être libérés". En ce sens, l'historien Henry Louis Gates a raison de noter que Woodson souhaitait sculpter un nouveau Mont Rushmore dans le cœur des Américains - un nouveau lieu de mémoire national aux visages noirs et blancs.

En 1926, ces anniversaires étaient déjà célébrés dans la communauté noire américaine - en particulier celui de Lincoln, "the Great Emancipator", depuis son assassinat en martyr le 15 avril 1865, tout comme celui de Douglass, "the Lion of Anacostia", depuis son décès en 1895. Conscient de ces traditions politiques, Woodson construisit sa Semaine de l'histoire noire à partir de pratiques commémoratives existantes, tout en les renouvelant. Historien d'inspiration marxiste, attentif au rôle du peuple dans l'histoire, Woodson insistait en effet moins sur la célébration des "grands hommes" que sur l'étude de la masse des anonymes qui, comme les soldats noirs de l'armée du Nord pendant la guerre de Sécession, avaient au moins autant que Lincoln été à l'origine de l'abolition de l'esclavage.

Peu à peu, dans les communautés noires du pays, la Negro History Week se mit en place par l'intermédiaire d'un certain nombre d'initiatives éducatives. Pour faire connaître sa Semaine, Woodson envoyait le " Negro History Week Pamphlet", à la fois brochure promotionnelle et livret de vulgarisation, aux Bureaux scolaires, aux écoles primaires et secondaires, aux églises noires, aux journaux blancs et noirs, aux revues spécialisées, aux bibliothèques et aux clubs de lecture, aux stations de radio et à toutes les institutions susceptibles d'y prendre part. Entre la fin des années 1920 et 1950, la Semaine de l'histoire noire se développa rapidement dans les écoles noires et dans quelques rares écoles blanches jusqu'à adopter une forme standardisée. Au milieu du siècle, des "Negro History Kits" très complets étaient désormais préparés par l'Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASALH) afin de faciliter l'organisation de la célébration. En 1948, par exemple, le kit contenait une brochure de trente-deux pages vendue au prix de deux dollars contenant des poèmes, des oraisons, une liste de jeux, un programme pour chacun des cinq jours de classe de la Negro History Week, des informations bibliographiques pour divers projets de recherche à donner aux élèves, ainsi que dix-sept photographies d'Africains-Américains célèbres à exposer. À l'aide de ce matériel, toujours vendu aujourd'hui par l'ASALH sous le nom d' Annual Black History Kits, chacun pouvait créer sa propre célébration de l'histoire noire. Du vivant de Woodson, la Semaine de l'histoire noire se répandit dans tous les États de l'Union et dans certains pays étrangers.

Aujourd'hui encore, des petits-déjeuners et des banquets, des pièces de théâtre et des parades déguisées, des conférences et des discours - souvent prononcés par une personnalité noire locale -, des concerts et des chorales, des compétitions oratoires, des concours artistiques, des lectures de poèmes, des expositions, des circuits touristiques, des programmes radiophoniques et télévisés spéciaux ponctuent ce rendez-vous civique devenu commun aux blancs et noirs.

Carter G. Woodson, le "Père de l'histoire noire"

Sa biographie explique en grande partie l'intérêt de Carter G. Woodson pour l'histoire des siens. Fils d'anciens esclaves ayant combattu dans les rangs nordistes pendant la guerre de Sécession, Woodson est né en Virginie en 1875, c'est-à-dire dans le Sud, dix ans après la fin de la Guerre de Sécession et l'abolition de l'esclavage. Le jeune Carter vécut sa jeunesse au moment même où la période dite de Reconstruction touchait à sa fin pour laisser place à un siècle de ségrégation raciale soutenue par la violence terroriste des suprémacistes blancs - un contexte justement appelé le "nadir des relations raciales" dans les États-Unis de l'après-1865 par un futur étudiant de Woodson, l'historien afro-américain Rayford Logan.

Carter G. Woodson posant devant sa bibliothèque en 1948 (Addison N. Scurlock, Portraits of a City : The Scurlock Photographic Studio's Legacy to Washington, D.C., Smithonian Institution)

À cause de sa pauvreté et de son travail aux champs en Virginie puis dans les mines de charbon en Virginie occidentale, le jeune Carter poursuivit une scolarisation très intermittente et ne dut sa maîtrise des éléments fondamentaux du cursus scolaire qu'à sa pugnacité d'autodidacte. En 1895, à 20 ans, il décida de suivre des études secondaires, puis des études supérieures, tout en exerçant des fonctions d'enseignant. En 1908, Woodson reçut un Master en histoire européenne de l'université de Chicago pour lequel il étudia pendant un semestre à la Sorbonne. Inscrit en doctorat d'histoire à l'université Harvard, Woodson déménagea en 1909 à Washington, la capitale intellectuelle de l'Amérique noire à l'époque, afin de travailler à sa thèse dans les archives de la Bibliothèque du Congrès et enseigner dans le système scolaire ségrégué de la ville. En 1912, Woodson soutint finalement son doctorat d'histoire - le deuxième Afro-Américain après W. E. B. Du Bois à le soutenir à Harvard et le premier né de parents affranchis.

Trois ans plus tard, le 9 septembre 1915, à la Wabash YMCA de Chicago, Woodson participa à la fondation de l'ASNLH (aujourd'hui l'Association for the Study of African American Life and History), qui fête son centenaire cette année en même temps que les 150 ans de l'abolition de l'esclavage (1865) et les 50 ans de l'adoption du Voting Rights Act (1965). Dès le mois de janvier de l'année suivante, il publiait le premier numéro du Journal of Negro History (aujourd'hui Journal of African American History) grâce à l'argent de sa police d'assurance-vie. Dans un champ académique ne faisant littéralement aucune place à l'histoire des Afro-Américains, le Journal of Negro History proposait un forum sans précédent destiné aux recherches sur l'histoire et la culture noires ainsi qu'à la publication de compte rendus de lecture et de sources archivistiques inédites ou peu connues.

À partir du lancement de l'ASNLH et du Journal of Negro History, Woodson s'imposa peu à peu comme la figure centrale de l'historiographie noire américaine. Nommé professeur d'histoire à l'université Howard en 1919, il y introduisit des cours - jusque-là inexistants - d'histoire afro-américaine permettant d'organiser un nouveau cursus de Master. Sa vision politiquement révolutionnaire de l'histoire noire se donnait par exemple à lire dans son ouvrage très populaire, The Negro in Our History (1922) : mettre en valeur non seulement "l'histoire des États-Unis telle qu'elle a été influencée par la présence du Noir" mais aussi ce que celui-ci "a apporté à la civilisation". En vingt chapitres et des dizaines d'illustrations, Woodson parvenait de façon claire et succincte à présenter l'histoire des Afro-Américains depuis les anciens royaumes d'Afrique jusqu'au rôle des Afro-Américains dans la Première Guerre mondiale et aux luttes contemporaines pour l'égalité civique. Pendant plus d'un quart de siècle, jusqu'à la publication en 1947 de cet autre monument de l'historiographie afro-américaine que fut From Slavery to Freedom de John Hope Franklin, l'ouvrage de Woodson resterait le manuel de référence sur l'histoire des noirs américains.

Par ailleurs, Woodson trouva le temps, malgré ses multiples responsabilités, de publier des études majeures toujours lues aujourd'hui, comme The History of the Negro Church (1922), caractérisées par l'insistance sur le rôle actif des Afro-Américains dans leur histoire, loin des représentations historiographiques alors dominantes faisant au mieux des noirs les victimes de l'oppression blanche. Ses études furent également novatrices dans l'utilisation de sources archivistiques jusque-là inexplorées comme les témoignages d'esclaves et l'histoire orale. Dans cet esprit, Woodson participa à la formation d'une nouvelle génération d'historiens spécialistes d'histoire afro-américaine, comme Rayford W. Logan le futur directeur de l'ASNLH, en dirigeant leurs recherches et en publiant leurs travaux.

Pour l'ensemble de son travail, quelques semaines après après avoir lancé la Negro History Week, Carter G. Woodson recevait en juin 1926 la Spingarn Medal, la plus haute distinction décernée par la National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), la grande association de défense des droits des noirs et des minorités. Aujourd'hui, parce qu'il créa quasiment de toutes pièces un champ historiographique nouveau, Woodson est communément présenté comme "le père de l'histoire noire".

Black pride : faire connaître l'histoire noire

En lançant la Negro History Week, Carter G. Woodson avait des objectifs au moins autant politiques que scientifiques. Il s'agissait d'abord pour lui de faire connaître l'histoire noire aux noirs eux-mêmes, puisqu'elle n'était quasiment jamais enseignée à l'école ni évoquée dans les médias.

L'ouvrage de Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) entendait donner les clés de la libération spirituelle noire. Il a été vendu à des centaines de milliers d'exemplaires. (Africa World Press)

La Negro History Week cherchait en effet à sensibiliser les Afro-Américains à leur propre histoire afin de développer chez chacun sa fierté raciale, c'est-à-dire à la fois son estime de soi et sa confiance en soi. Par cette véritable (re)création de soi-même, il s'agissait d'affermir un rapport nouveau au monde se traduisant par une résolution nouvelle dans la bataille pour l'égalité symbolique et civique. Woodson pouvait ainsi déclarer : "Nous avons une histoire magnifique derrière nous". "Elle se lit", continuait-il, "comme l'histoire d'un peuple dans un âge héroïque". Il fallait donc d'après lui "étudier cette histoire, et l'étudier avec la certitude que nous ne sommes pas, après tout, un peuple inférieur, mais simplement un peuple qui a été retenu en arrière, un peuple dont le progrès a été entravé. Nous allons revenir à cette histoire magnifique et cela nous inspirera de nouveaux accomplissements". En ce sens, son initiative s'inscrivait dans la tactique politique d'"élévation de la race" ( racial uplift), privilégiée par l'élite noire depuis la fin de la guerre de Sécession.

Pour diffuser l'histoire noire auprès d'un large public n'appartenant pas seulement aux classes moyennes noires, Woodson publia de nombreux livres de vulgarisation scientifique, comme Negro Makers of History (1928), African Myths Together with Proverbs (1928), The Story of the Negro Retold (1935), The African Background Outlined (1936), African Heroes and Heroines (1939). Il créa également en 1937 le Negro History Bulletin, un périodique moins spécialisé et plus accessible que le Journal of Negro History. En particulier, le Bulletin se donnait pour tâche d'expliquer en détail aux lecteurs le thème annuel choisi pour la Semaine de l'histoire noire.

Woodson présentait cette effervescence éditoriale comme un contre-feu à ce qu'il nommait "l'éducation sous contrôle extérieur" reçue par les jeunes Afro-Américains. En 1933, dans un ouvrage-manifeste intitulé The Mis-Education of the Negro, Woodson avait en effet brillamment et fermement dénoncé la teneur de cet enseignement, ou plutôt de cette "propagande" disait-il, entièrement fondée sur la glorification de la culture de l'Amérique blanche et le mépris des autres menant le noir à la honte de lui-même et à l'acceptation de sa propre domination. "Si vous faites sentir à un homme qu'il est inférieur", affirmait Woodson, "vous n'avez pas à le forcer à accepter un statut inférieur, car il le recherchera de lui-même". Pour Woodson, les lynchages commençaient donc sur les bancs de l'école car "Pourquoi ne pas exploiter, asservir, ou exterminer un groupe que tout le monde apprend à considérer comme inférieur?". Au sens propre, la Negro History Week consistait donc en une rééducation des noirs américains, en particulier des enfants, afin de leur faire connaître la grandeur de leur héritage - un objectif toujours d'actualité aujourd'hui.

L'idée d'une telle rééducation spirituelle fut accueillie avec engouement dans l'Amérique noire des années 1920. La Negro History Week s'intégrait alors à ce vaste mouvement d'effervescence culturelle connue sous le nom de Negro Renaissance ou New Negro Movement ou encore Harlem Renaissance. Que ce soit dans la musique, la littérature, la peinture ou bien encore le sport et la vie nocturne, cette renaissance fut caractérisée par la promotion d'une posture politique de fierté raciale fondée sur une conscience nouvelle de soi en tant que noir élargie à tous les "peuples de couleur" de la planète alors sous le joug du colonialisme européen. Woodson fut une incarnation de ce "New Negro" de l'après Première Guerre mondiale adoptant un militantisme audacieux en faveur de l'égalité. En 1925, un an avant la création de la Negro History Week, le philosophe noir Alain Locke, ancien collègue de Woodson à l'université Howard, publiait un recueil d'essais, véritable manifeste de la Renaissance noire, intitulé The New Negro. Dans ces pages, un chapitre rendait hommage à Woodson en expliquant comment "The Negro Digs Up His Past" ("Le Noir perce au jour son passé"). Rétrospectivement, en 1940, Du Bois déclarerait que la création de la Negro History Week fut, sans aucun doute, "le plus grand accomplissement" de la Renaissance noire.

White respect : faire reconnaître l'histoire noire

La Negro History Week n'eut pas que des objectifs politiques à usage interne à la communauté afro-américaine. En créant cet événement, Carter G. Woodson s'adressait également à la communauté blanche américaine. Il s'agissait pour lui de faire reconnaître la grandeur de l'histoire noire afin de faire la preuve de la respectabilité noire, s'attirer le respect des blancs et ainsi obtenir l'égalité symbolique et civique.

À l'époque, cette stratégie politique d'"élévation de la race" cherchait à dissoudre le "préjugé racial", un fait psychologique alors considéré comme la cause de l'hostilité entre les races. La bataille en faveur de droits égaux visait donc la destruction des stéréotypes dévalorisants attachés aux noirs. Pour Woodson, il s'agissait en particulier de s'attaquer à l'interprétation du passé très hostile aux Afro-Américains diffusée par l'historiographie dominante blanche. Pour y parvenir, Woodson, comme ses contemporains, voyait dans l'éducation, c'est-à-dire dans la révélation de la vérité sur les noirs, le meilleur moyen de combattre les préjugés raciaux et faire advenir l'égalité. Des faits objectifs, exposés par une recherche méthodique devaient prouver à quel point les noirs avaient activement participé "au progrès de l'humanité". Une telle épiphanie de la dignité noire avait pour objectif ultime l'intercompréhension entre les races. Aussi, à une époque où l'égale dignité des êtres humains ne faisait en aucun cas l'objet d'une évidence partagée chez les blancs, les noirs devaient-ils organiser leurs luttes pour l'égalité autour d'une politique de la reconnaissance. La Semaine de histoire noire représenta l'un des axes de ce vaste mouvement.

Ce mouvement se déploya dans un contexte particulièrement défavorable. En 1915, au moment où Woodson lançait l'ASNLH, les communautés afro-américaines commémoraient le cinquantième anniversaire de l'adoption du 13 e Amendement abolissant l'esclavage tout en constatant le peu d'avancées, et à certains égards les multiples régressions en matière d'égalité raciale depuis cet événement fondateur. La création de l'ASNLH avait en effet pris place au beau milieu de la virulente controverse - et des violentes émeutes - entourant la sortie en mars 1915 du film de David W. Griffith, La Naissance d'une nation, portant à l'écran les stéréotypes racistes les plus éculés sur les noirs et la glorification du Ku Klux Klan. Ce type de stéréotypes étaient par exemple relayés par des best-sellers utilisant à l'époque le racisme scientifique pour appeler à la sauvegarde d'une suprématie blanche menacée : The Passing of the Great Race de Madison Grant (1916) et The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy de Lothrop Stoddard (1921). Une telle "suprématie" prit les traits des centaines de victimes noires pendant les émeutes raciales de East St. Louis en 1917, puis du "Red Summer" en 1919 à travers tout le pays. Elle se concrétisa également dans ces statistiques : sur la décennie qui sépara la fondation du Journal of Negro History (1916) de celle de la Negro History Week (1926), près d'un Afro-Américain avait été lynché chaque semaine. La célébration de la première Negro History Week prenait finalement place à un moment où la ségrégation raciale s'était étendue à l'ensemble du pays et que des millions d'Afro-Américains avaient été privés de leurs droits de citoyens.

Multiculturel avant la lettre, le message de Carter G. Woodson insistait sur la reconnaissance de la pluralité des acteurs dans l'histoire. Une fresque de la 9 e Rue à Washington le rappelle. (Wikipedia Commons)

Face à cette situation, Woodson ne défendait pas un nationalisme culturel noir, mais avant la lettre une forme de multiculturalisme encourageant la reconnaissance mutuelle de la pluralité et de l'égalité des cultures. Par l'intermédiaire de sa Semaine de l'histoire noire, Woodson cherchait à enrichir et compléter plutôt que détruire et remplacer l'identité et la culture blanches. D'après lui, la Negro History Week "n'est pas tant une Semaine de l'histoire noire qu'une Semaine de l'histoire. Nous devrions insister non pas sur l'Histoire noire, mais sur le Noir dans l'histoire. Ce dont nous avons besoin n'est pas une histoire de races ou de nations sélectionnées, mais l'histoire du monde dépourvue de biais national, de haine raciale et de préjugé religieux".

Le Black History Month : une institution civique américaine

Jusqu'à la mort de son créateur en 1950, la Negro History Week ne cessa de prendre de l'importance dans la communauté noire américaine. Mais ce ne fut qu'en 1976, au lendemain du Mouvement pour les droits civiques des années 1950 et 1960, que la Negro History Week devint une institution civique nationale sous le nom de Black History Month.

Les efforts de Carter G. Woodson fournirent aux enseignants afro-américains les ressources nécessaires pour introduire l'histoire noire dans leurs pratiques pédagogiques. Dans les années 1930 et 1940, lorsqu'elle était abordée, cette histoire n'était le plus souvent présentée que comme une annexe, rapidement survolée et caricaturée, de l'histoire (blanche) des États-Unis. Le jeune Malcolm Little, futur Malcolm X, s'en souviendrait avec douleur et amertume, avant de réinterpréter radicalement l'ensemble de l'histoire du monde depuis le point de vue noir. Enseigner l'histoire noire, y compris dans les écoles noires, demeurait à l'époque un acte militant et donc subversif. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les luttes pour l'indépendance en Afrique, le développement du Black Power, du pan-africanisme puis de l'afro-centrisme favorisèrent l'émergence d'un Black Studies Movement militant pour l'établissement de départements d'études noires dans les universités américaines ainsi qu'une révision des programmes scolaires. Parmi les ouvrages-phares des promoteurs des Black Studies, trônait le maître-livre de Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro. Il est d'ailleurs significatif que les premiers travaux universitaires consacrés à Woodson - notamment par de jeunes historiennes et historiens blancs - aient été publiés au tournant des années 1960 et 1970, dans l'effervescence de la révolution noire américaine.

Reflétant les évolutions politiques et donc aussi taxonomiques de l'époque, la Negro History Week devint la Black History Week puis le Black History Month. Dès les années 1960, la Semaine avait été réaménagée par une génération nouvelle d'intellectuels noirs, et parfois allongée à un mois entier de célébrations. Pourtant, sous l'effet conjugué des revendications politiques du Civil Rights Movement et du Black Power Movement, le radicalisme révolutionnaire de la Semaine de l'histoire noire s'était peu à peu dissipé pour faire apparaître ses objectifs originels - faire connaître et reconnaître l'histoire noire - comme doués d'une indiscutable évidence.

Une évidence reconnue comme telle par le président Gerald Ford en 1975 qui, pour la première fois, exhortait officiellement tous les Américains à participer à la Black History Week afin de "reconnaître l'importante contribution de nos citoyens noirs à la vie et à la culture de notre nation". "Avec l'expansion du Mouvement pour les droits civiques", poursuivait Ford, "est advenue pour chacun d'entre nous une saine prise de conscience des accomplissements trop longtemps restés obscurs et passés sous silence" ( "Message on the Observance of Black History Week", 3 février 1975). L'année suivante, pour le bicentenaire de l'Indépendance du pays et les cinquante ans de la Negro History Week, l'ASALH lança officiellement le Black History Month. Quelques semaines plus tard, Gerald Ford publia le premier "Message on the Observance of Black History Month", une tradition reprise depuis lors par tous les présidents du pays. Ford y rendait un hommage appuyé à Woodson et aux "contributions impressionnantes" des Afro-Américains à l'histoire du pays, concrétisant les idéaux des Pères fondateurs et de la Révolution américaine.

Dix ans plus tard, le Congrès des États-Unis fit du mois de février 1986 le National Black (Afro-American) History Month, tandis que le président Ronald Reagan déclarait que "L'histoire noire aux États-Unis a été un champ d'expérimentation des idéaux de l'Amérique". Reagan affirmait ainsi que "L'expérience et le caractère américains ne pourront jamais être entièrement saisis tant que la connaissance de l'histoire noire ne reçoit pas la place qu'elle mérite dans nos écoles et nos enseignements". Quelques jours après la première célébration du Martin Luther King Day le 20 janvier 1986, l'histoire noire pouvait désormais être célébrée comme essentiellement américaine par des présidents républicains blancs. La réussite posthume de Carter G. Woodson semblait absolue.

Des préoccupations secondaires et mercantiles?

En réalité, à cause de sa notoriété aux accents politiquement corrects, le Mois de l'histoire noire est resté la cible de critiques lui reprochant notamment d'avoir perdu de vue la visée politique radicale qui animait son fondateur en 1926.

Pour Woodson, la Semaine de l'histoire noire devait s'étaler sur l'année entière. En février 1995, le magazine noir Ebony en donnait une illustration avec notamment Martin Luther King (janvier), Frederick Douglass (février), Sojourner Truth (mars), Duke Ellington (avril), Jackie Robinson (mai), Malcolm X (juin). ( Ebony, février 1995, p. 62)

Parmi les critiques les plus couramment avancées à l'encontre du Black History Month se trouve le fait que cette célébration de l'histoire noire soit cantonnée à un seul mois de l'année - le plus court de surcroît. De mars à janvier, l'histoire noire serait-elle remisée au placard des préoccupations secondaires? Mettre en valeur l'histoire noire pendant un mois spécifique ne renforcerait-il pas les préjugés des blancs sur son caractère anecdotique? D'ailleurs, existe-t-il un Mois de l'histoire blanche? En 2005, l'acteur afro-américain Morgan Freeman avait ainsi fait polémique en qualifiant de "ridicule" le Mois de l'histoire noire, considérant que son histoire n'avait pas à être "reléguée" à un seul mois dans la mesure où "l'histoire noire est l'histoire américaine". Pour se débarrasser du racisme, affirmait Freeman, il faudrait "arrêter d'en parler". De leur côté, les critiques conservateurs du Mois de l'histoire noire soulignent que l'insistance exagérée sur les réussites noires ne ferait qu'aggraver le retard des élèves afro-américains dans la maîtrise des éléments fondamentaux du cursus scolaire.

Carter G. Woodson avait déjà répondu à ce type d'objections. En 1933, il déclarait ainsi que "Celui qui regarde la célébration de la Semaine de l'histoire noire comme un effort pour caser en sept jours d'étude intensive tout ce qui devrait être appris par le Noir pendant l'année est ou bien mal informé sur ce que signifie la célébration ou bien trop partial pour dire la vérité". Woodson ne comprenait pas la Negro History Week comme une célébration ne durant qu'une semaine, mais au contraire comme l'orchestration d'une année d'enseignements et d'apprentissages. En ce sens, la Semaine devait se préparer tous les jours de l'année, et équivalait dans son esprit à une véritable "Negro History Year". Mais parce que les Afro-Américains restaient dominés dans la société américaine, un temps particulier dédié à la reconnaissance de l'histoire noire restait indispensable sous peine de laisser intactes les structures objectives et subjectives de l'oppression raciale.

Produits de basket-ball des marques Nike (en haut) et Adidas (en bas) sortis pour le Black History Month 2015.

L'autre grande critique portée à l'encontre du Black History Month est fondée sur la marchandisation débridée qui lui est associée. Le Mois de l'histoire noire ne serait-il finalement qu'une vaste opération commerciale destinée à vendre livres, chaussures, sodas, et autres colifichets mémoriels - stylos, T-shirts, porte-clés, tasses, posters, etc.? La culture noire serait-elle une simple accroche marketing? Le Mois ne serait-il pas l'occasion d'une consommation de masse agrémentée de bonne conscience collective? Effectivement, un certain nombre de grandes entreprises américaines profitent de l'occasion pour promouvoir leurs produits auprès des Afro-Américains tout en affichant leur "conscience civique" à bon compte. En 1997, l'historien John Hope Franklin voyait dans le Mois une véritable foire de "charlatanerie" ( hucksterism) - raison pour laquelle, disait-il, "j'ai mis un point d'honneur à faire des conférences sur l'histoire afro-américaine pendant les onze autres mois. Cela a été ma petite croisade personnelle pour hâter la réalisation du rêve de Woodson".

Là encore, Woodson avait répondu à ces critiques de son vivant. Dès les années 1930, la popularité de la Negro History Week ne permit pas à l'ASNHL d'en contrôler entièrement le déroulement. Aussi Woodson mettait-il en garde les enseignants noirs contre les spécialistes auto-proclamés d'histoire noire américaine cherchant à vendre diverses prestations commémoratives. En 1941, il s'adressait en ces termes aux enseignants : "Ne faites pas appel à ces quelques beaux parleurs pour discuter dans votre école de l'histoire du Noir. L'orateur n'en a en général pas beaucoup dans le crâne. Sa compétence première vient de poumons puissants - d'un bon soufflet. Sur le Noir il ne connaît que très peu de choses en général et rien en particulier, sauf comment exploiter la race. Laissez les enfants étudier l'histoire de la race, et ce seront eux les conférenciers qui feront honte au bonimenteur". Pour Woodson, le cœur de la célébration ne devait jamais être perdu de vue : l'éducation sans cesse recommencée des générations.

Inflation commémorative ou pluralisme démocratique?

En dépit de ces critiques, le Black History Month est aujourd'hui une institution civique dynamique dont la vitalité se donne à voir dans son internationalisation et dans la création de nombreux autres Mois de commémoration aux États-Unis.

Affiche du LGBT History Month pour octobre 2014

Depuis les années 1970, le Black History Month a été la matrice de nombreuses autres commémorations aux États-Unis. Parmi les Mois consacrés à l'histoire ou à l'héritage d'un groupe ethnique ou sexuel aux États-Unis, se trouvent le Women's History Month et l'Irish American Heritage Month en mars; le Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month et le Jewish American Heritage Month en mai; le Hispanic Heritage Month du 15 septembre au 15 octobre; le LGBT History Month et l'Italian American Month en octobre; le Native American Heritage Month en novembre.

Cet accroissement commémoratif a provoqué de vives critiques, venant aussi bien de droite que de gauche. Tandis que certains conservateurs considèrent ces initiatives comme un danger planant sur l'unité de la mémoire nationale et donc de la nation elle-même, certains progressistes y voient au contraire la preuve de l'hégémonie de la culture dominante qui persiste à l'arrière-scène. Pour leur part, les défenseurs de ces Mois font valoir leur utilité dans une nation pluraliste ouverte à des traditions et des cultures multiples qui recomposent le modèle "anglo-saxon" dominant. Pour eux, le mouvement lancé par Woodson était précurseur d'une véritable démocratie multiculturelle - ce que le thème du Black History Month en 2007 cherchait à rappeler : "Carter G. Woodson et les origines du multiculturalisme".

Affiche du "Mois de l'histoire des Noirs" éditée par le gouvernement canadien pour février 2015. ( Gouvernement du Canada)

C'est pour cette raison que le Black History Month est aujourd'hui officiellement célébré au Royaume-Uni et au Canada, deux pays abritant des minorités afro-caribéennes nombreuses et anciennes. Depuis 1987, la célébration a lieu en octobre outre-Manche, et depuis 1995 en février au Canada. Dans ces deux pays, comme aux États-Unis, la célébration a pour objectif de donner davantage de visibilité aux accomplissements des populations noires à l'intérieur de l'histoire nationale.

Il n'existe pas en France de Mois de l'histoire noire ni d'autres Mois de ce type, mais les débats qui agitent les sociétés américaine, canadienne et britannique à leur propos y existent néanmoins. Par exemple, la lente édification et l'inauguration tardive, en décembre 2014, du Musée de l'histoire de l'immigration à Paris dit bien la difficile reconnaissance officielle du rôle des groupes minoritaires dans la construction nationale. Le thème des dangers mortifères de la supposée "concurrence des mémoires" exprime les angoisses liées à la crise identitaire que traverserait la France - une crise devant être résolue, selon certains, par un "retour" au roman national, c'est-à-dire le plus souvent à la patrimonialisation fantasmée d'une France éternelle.

Pourtant, Carter G. Woodson avait bien montré la nécessaire diversité du récit national dans les démocraties sûres d'elles-mêmes. Encore aujourd'hui, Woodson nous aide à comprendre que la pluralité des voix dans ce récit est consubstantielle au pluralisme d'institutions vraiment démocratiques. En ce sens, sa Negro History Week n'était pas une initiative particulariste, mais bien universaliste : atteindre l'universel par le particulier afin de construire une société plus juste. Toute sa vie a montré la difficulté d'un tel processus : offrir un contre-récit à l'histoire nationale dominante n'est jamais indolore puisqu'il ne s'agit pas tant de donner la parole à chacun que de la prendre à certains afin que des voix nouvelles remplacent celles qui délimitaient jusqu'alors ce qu'il était possible de penser, et donc de faire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Faut-il instituer, à l'image de ce qui s'est fait pour les Noirs aux États-Unis, un temps annuel de commémoration de l'histoire des groupes minoritaires ? La réhabilitation d'une histoire négligée est-elle la condition de la fierté du groupe et de sa reconnaissance politique ?

# data[].attributes.headline
The Black women who launched the original anti-racist reading list

# data[].attributes.subject
The Black women who launched the original anti-racist reading list

# data[].attributes.body
Washington Post (June 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Books are seen on a table on June 5 at Oakland's Marcus Books, an independent bookstore that has served the black community in the Bay Area with books by and about African Americans for the past 60 years (Nathan Frandino/Reuters)

Book recommendations about race and racism in America have rapidly circulated on social media and news outlets as protests against anti-black violence continue for the third week. Robin DiAngelo's " White Fragility," Ijeoma Oluo's " So You Want to Talk About Race," and Ibram X. Kendi's " How To Be An Antiracist" have soared to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and Brittany Smith's book recommendations for children - including " Sulwe" by Lupita Nyong'o and Vashti Harris, and " Schomburg " by Carole Weatherford and Eric Velasquez - went viral on Twitter.

The turn to books to combat racism is not new. During World War II, black women librarians created lists of anti-racist books as an explicitly political act. While their work transformed the nature of education, the limitations of their work remind us that change only happens when people act on the ideas in books.

The racist ideology advanced by Nazi Germany inspired a new interest in "intercultural education" in America. Books, national teaching journals and curriculums, among other educational resources and programs, emphasized tolerance toward others. These resources informed students about the political, social and cultural contributions of different ethnic and racial groups.

Black people at home agreed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt that "books are weapons." As they worked to expose the hypocrisy of a war for democracy abroad while they were routinely denied their democratic rights in America, they, too, turned to education as an important front in the war against racism. Recognizing that ideas about race developed in childhood, white and black parents, teachers and librarians sought out non-racist books about black life for children. Several black women librarians emerged to meet the high demand, turning reading and book publishing into an anti-racist campaign, long before the term itself was coined.

Charlemae Rollins, the children's librarian at the George Cleveland Hall Branch of the Chicago Public Library, was one of them. 1941 saw the publication of her pamphlet of 72 books about black life entitled "We Build Together: A Reader's Guide to Negro Life" and "Literature for Elementary and High School Use." One of the first of its kind, the pamphlet listed books that depicted black life truthfully, called out books that contained stereotypes and established criteria for evaluating children's books about black people.

Rollins argued that stories should not encourage readers to feel superior or inferior to other racial groups, nor should they promote nostalgia for the antebellum South. Rollins also insisted books avoid offensive language in reference to black people and avoid inauthentic dialect, which children had difficulty reading and understanding. The illustrations should not dehumanize black characters by exaggerating their features or playing into any stereotype.

In Rollins's view, books that met these standards would boost black children's self-esteem and foster respect for black people among white children. She argued books had the power to reverse the dehumanization of racial minorities, and so she recommended books like Jane Schakelford 's "My Happy Days," Stella Sharpe's "Tobe," and Langston Hughes's " Not Without Laughter."

The book list was well received, in Rollins's opinion, and there was enough interest and demand that she launched a second edition in 1948. The sociopolitical context was essential to its success. According to Rollins, World War II opened the doors for "the colored peoples of the world" to demand "equal partnership with the white minority of humankind" and "back up their demands with appropriate action." Rollins believed that reading books about black people's contributions to all areas of American life would change racial attitudes and lead to the fulfillment of the country's democratic principles.

She wasn't the only one. Augusta Baker, the children's librarian at the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL), also created booklists to guide anxious Americans seeking anti-racist book recommendations during World War II. In 1943, the NYPL published her "Books About the Negro for Children," a list of books housed in her branch's James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection. This special collection sought to "acquaint Negro boys and girls with their own heritage as well as racial achievements" and "help white children gain a truer, more sympathetic picture of their fellow Americans." In 1946, the Bureau for Intercultural Education published Baker's bibliography with a slightly different title, "Books About Negro Life for Children," and the NYPL reissued it in 1949, 1957, 1961 and 1963.

In Baker's view, this list of 140 children's books "[gave] an unbiased, accurate, well-rounded picture of Negro life in all parts of the world." Baker's emphasis on children's books that represented life in Africa and the African diaspora was unique. Using similar criteria to Rollins, Baker included books set in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Oceania and Europe such as Rudolf Voorhoeve 's "Tilio, A Boy of Papua," Margaret Baumann's " A Book of Nigerian Fairy Tales " and Hellen Follett's "Islands on Guard."

In addition to writing bibliographies, Rollins and Baker wrote protest letters to publishers, illustrators and authors to influence their contemporary literary environment. They pressured them to create anti-racist books about black life for children and urged libraries to acquire more of them when they became available. Rollins and Baker also lectured and published journal articles on the topic. To fill the void in books that accurately portrayed black life, they wrote their own children's books as well.

Their activism helped reform the field of children's literature. Rollins and Baker's bibliographies led to a dramatic increase in the number of anti-racist children's books about black life. For example, Rollins encouraged Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks to write poetry for children and advised Langston Hughes on "The First Book of Negroes." Rollins said "the crowning delight of [her] whole career" was Ezra Jack Keats's " The Snowy Day." Rollins and Baker also discredited classics such as "The Story of Little Black Sambo" and persuaded at least one publishing company to cease its publication.

Yet, the fact we are still a nation marked by rampant racial inequality and widespread injustice forces us to face a sobering reality: Reading is not enough. Baker and Rollins believed books and education would transform the hearts and minds of Americans. They were wrong. The work of dismantling systemic racism does not end with making bibliographies or even reading all of the books on them. Americans must act on what they know. We must demand actual racial justice and equality in education, jobs, health care and housing, now, amid mass protests, and more importantly, we must continue to do so after the protests have subsided.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Perspective | The black women who launched the original anti-racist reading list

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Book recommendations about race and racism in America have rapidly circulated on social media and news outlets as protests against anti-black violence continue for the third week. Robin DiAngelo's " White Fragility," Ijeoma Oluo's " So You Want to Talk About Race," and Ibram X.

# data[].attributes.headline
COVID-19 has already cut U.S. life expectancy by a year. For Black Americans, it’s worse

# data[].attributes.subject
COVID-19 has already cut U.S. life expectancy by a year. For Black Americans, it’s worse

# data[].attributes.body
PBS (Feb. 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the first six months of 2020, life expectancy in the United States dropped by a full year, according to new federal data. Released Thursday, these latest figures offer a staggering glimpse at the cost of the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Elizabeth Arias, a demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics who served as the report's lead author.

Even the loss or gain of two months of life expectancy in a single year is enough to get the attention of health statisticians who study how Americans live and die.

"This one-year decline in the total population is quite large," Arias said.

Researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the finding by analyzing 99 percent of all U.S. deaths, as well as provisional birth records, between January and June 2020, the time period available by late October. Demographers had to dig through decades of data to find the last time the U.S. life expectancy dropped by a year or more.

Amid the devastation caused by the coronavirus, Black men are experiencing a drop in life expectancy comparable to the years 1942 and 1943, when World War II was worsening. Back then, the average American's lifespan dropped by 2.9 years, Arias said (CDC did not start tracking racial disparities in life expectancy until 2006). During the 1918 influenza pandemic, U.S. life expectancy sank by 11 years, she added.

In the last decade, demographers and health statisticians were concerned when they saw a spike in fatal drug overdoses linked to opioid use. Those deaths typically claimed much younger people and eroded life expectancy multiple times between 2015 and 2017, alarming researchers at the time.

The most recent numbers are just the beginning of what could be a more dramatic trend. Data for the nation's second and third virus surges, which infected and killed far more Americans than the first, are still being collected and analyzed. Arias said her agency plans to release preliminary data later in the spring that accounts more fully for how the pandemic altered U.S. life expectancy.

Evidence suggests that not all U.S. COVID-19 deaths in 2020 were correctly tied to their cause, said Samuel Preston, a demographer and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Health experts have said for months that the pandemic's official death toll is an undercount. And a substantial portion of deaths in 2020 may also have been linked to people delaying medical treatment or forgoing care for non-coronavirus illness because they were afraid of becoming infected with the virus, he said.

"The epidemic is having a lot of impacts over and above" the deaths that are being counted as COVID-related, he said.

These latest CDC data support projections published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using provisional CDC data on COVID-19 deaths and projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations, that study estimated that U.S. life expectancy had dropped by 1.1 years. Noreen Goldman, a professor of demography and public affairs at Princeton University's Office of Population Research and co-author on that paper, said she is "fairly convinced" the estimates put forth by both reports "are too low."

Worsening disparities

Communities of color have suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic, and these latest numbers further illustrate the magnitude of those disparities. Reflecting the many ways racial inequality in the U.S. has been highlighted over the past year, the life expectancy gap between Black and white people has also widened.

As one example, while the life expectancy of a white man dipped by eight-tenths of a year during the first six months of 2020, three years were shaved off the life of a Black man.

For decades, Black people had been gaining in life expectancy, edging closer to that of white people, thanks in part to long-running trends in increased access to health care, improved social mobility and greater economic stability, Arias said.

It takes a long time for progress in health equity to prolong people's lives, she said. In 1900, less than a half-century after the end of slavery, Black Americans were dying an average of 14 years sooner than white Americans. By 2019, that gap shrank to 4.1 years.

That gap has expanded again - to six years - six months into the coronavirus pandemic. Significantly higher rates of COVID-19 mortality within the Black community are driving the decrease for that demographic, Arias said.

Such a stark contrast is no blip in the data and exposes long-standing issues in the U.S., Goldman said. People of color are more likely to be essential workers and are, often in industries that experienced deep job cuts or those that could not be performed remotely during the pandemic, Goldman said. They are also more likely to lack access to health care than white people, she said. Goldman added that communities of color have been diagnosed at higher rates than white people with chronic health conditions that are tied to worse outcomes among those infected with COVID-19, such as asthma and diabetes.

"This kind of excess mortality is representing structural inequalities that have existed for a long time that increase both the risk of exposure to virus and the risk of dying from the virus," Goldman said.

As the nation continues to combat the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Carlos Del Rio, a professor at Emory University, said it is critical that the U.S. focus on building health equity. These latest data underscore that the pandemic has been "bad for the United States, bad for the population and bad for the economy," he said.

For the country to recover, Del Rio said the Biden administration must continue to build its COVID-19 response upon a foundation of improving equitable access to health care and expanding distribution of coronavirus testing, treatment, facilities and vaccines, particularly to communities of color that have been disproportionately cratered by the pandemic. Improving these numbers "is not just a matter of giving out a vaccine and be done," he said.

"What we're seeing here is we have to focus more than ever on health equity," Del Rio said. "These disparities are unacceptable."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COVID-19 has already cut U.S. life expectancy by a year. For Black Americans, it's worse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the first six months of 2020, life expectancy in the United States dropped by a full year, according to new federal data. Released Thursday, these latest figures offer a staggering glimpse at the cost of the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Elizabeth Arias, a demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics who served as the report's lead author.

# data[].attributes.headline
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

# data[].attributes.subject
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

# data[].attributes.body
Layla F. Saad (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor [Saad, Layla, DiAngelo, Robin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

# data[].attributes.body
Here’s a link to the 1619 podcasts on everything from economy to the evolution and birth of American music (I recommend the music one!)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Listen to ‘1619,’ a Podcast From The New York Times (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An audio series on how slavery has transformed America, connecting past and present through the oldest form of storytelling.

# data[].attributes.headline
Webinars -- Facing History and Ourselves

# data[].attributes.subject
Webinars -- Facing History and Ourselves

# data[].attributes.body
A few are listed in other columns of this Padlet. Here is for accessing their on-demand webinars (free account needed).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brought to you by the Hammer Family Foundation

Get a glimpse inside real classrooms in our classroom videos to see our teaching strategies in action, learn from our on-demand webinars, and engage with our self-paced workshops to further your professional learning. Gather with colleagues or view on your own!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
On-Demand Learning Center - Professional Learning on Your Schedule

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get a glimpse inside real classrooms in our classroom videos to see our teaching strategies in action, learn from our on-demand webinars, and engage with our self-paced workshops to further your professional learning. Gather with colleagues or view on your own!

# data[].attributes.body
(Formerly Teaching Tolerance)
A few are listed in other columns of this Padlet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learning for Justice webinars offer helpful guidance and great ideas from our experienced teaching and learning specialists and from innovative educators in the Learning for Justice community. Watch these FREE on-demand webinars at your own pace and share them with colleagues!