Historical events and milestones towards racial justice.
In November 2009, the South African government and U.N. General Assembly declared July 18th Nelson Mandela International Day.
read moreThe borders of racial categories are malleable, contested, and change over time. But believing that demographic changes will inevitably cause the racial hierarchy to fade away ignores centuries of evidence to the contrary.
read moreInterpreting the Founding Fathers’ wishes is a staple of American political discourse. Constitutional originalism is more of a conservative thing, but really, Founding Father mindreading cuts across the ideological spectrum. The Founding Fathers would have hated partisanship (History) or Trump (Foreign Policy) or gun control (History) or not having gun control (HuffPost). Obama informed us, helpfully, that the Founding Fathers didn’t want presidents to serve three year terms (ABC). The Atlantic told us the Founders would have been especially disgusted by Trump’s pardon of the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers (The Atlantic).
read moreBut race is a social construct, and social constructs have social histories. Our modern understanding of race was created at a specific historical juncture in colonial Virginia. Prior to that, it did not exist.
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COINTELPRO, a series of covert and illegal initiatives by the FBI, and its impact on Black activism in the 1960s.
read moreHistorically, interpretations of classical art are based on preconceived notions of anti-blackness when whiteness is seen as the standard.
read moreBut behind each hashtag is a person. This time, his name was Jonathan Price. He was a 31-year-old from Wolfe City, Texas, a small town outside Dallas. He was a “motivational speaker, a mentor to student-athletes in the area, and a frequent participant in community service activities” (Yahoo News). He was beloved by his community. And on October 3rd, he defused a fight he witnessed between a man and a woman at a convenience store. For his intervention, he was killed. To be more precise: on October 3rd, a police officer, a Texas Ranger, murdered an unarmed Jonathan Price as he walked away from the scene (Washington Post).
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