The Curiously Brief Life of Integrated America At its core, integration was a social policy designed to end the brutal racial caste system that locked Black people into the bottom rungs of American society. The policy was codified into law 53 years ago (yes, integration is that young) in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That law banned race and other forms of discrimination in … [Read more...]
White Supremacy: What it is and How it Operates
“If you don’t understand white supremacy, what it is and how it operates, everything you think you understand will only confuse you.” Neely Fuller, Jr. I’ve heard the words “White supremacy” more in the past week than at any point in my life. Which is saying a lot, since I majored in Africana Studies in college. Most people have no real idea what the phrase means or how it … [Read more...]
Teaching Nat Turner
Birth of a Nation: Imagining Black Resistance I’m taking my students to see Birth of a Nation and I’m excited to use this film as a tool in my curriculum. At a time when #BlackLivesMatter has become a unifying rallying cry, I’m eager to use the film to show an example of Black resistance, something most of our students rarely, if ever, get to see. And our inability to see … [Read more...]
Why Racial Profiling is Here to Stay
When we see an example of police brutality in action, racially disparate policing becomes part of the conversation. Though we know racism plays a huge role, rarely do we make the necessary connections between the racist ways that policing in America began and how Black/Brown communities are policed today. That is repeatedly proving to be a fatal mistake. The History of … [Read more...]
4 Tips for Black Employees: Melissa Harris Perry & Roland Martin
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There's a lot we can learn from watching the careers of prominent Black people. Icons like Melissa Harris Perry & Roland S. Martin provide at least 4 key lessons for Black employees and as Black professionals working in White spaces, we would be wise to pay attention. To help us do that, let's start with a quick analogy: one that compares the power of house guests and … [Read more...]