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What 100 Years of History Tells Us About Racism in Policing
In the middle of the 2020 pandemic, America was shaken by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the protests that erupted in the aftermath. But the disturbing trends we see today in police violence are the same patterns we’ve seen over the last 100 years. Again and again, commissions convened to examine why police brutality sparks unrest have come to the same conclusion: We must address the poverty and systemic racism that go hand in hand with policing communities of color.
A brief history of racism in Healthcare
by Harry Kretchmer 23/7/20 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
These patterns are drawing attention to long-standing health inequalities faced by ethnic minority groups. From HIV/AIDS and cancer to prenatal care, and even amputations, research shows Black, indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) in America and elsewhere are more likely to be affected, and less likely to receive the right treatment.
A Brief History Of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways
Planners of the interstate highway system, which began to take shape after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, routed some highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through Black and brown communities. In some instances, the government took homes by eminent domain.
Environmentalism’s Racist History
by Jedediah Purdy 13/8/15 THE NEW YORKER
Madison Grant (Yale College 1887, Columbia Law School) liked to be photographed with a fedora, or just his dauntingly long head, tilted about thirty degrees to the right.
'Not Racist' Is Not Enough: Putting In The Work To Be Anti-Racist
Deggans came to NPR in 2013 from the Tampa Bay Times, where he served as TV/Media Critic and in other roles for nearly 20 years. A journalist for more than 30 years, he is also the author of "Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation," a look at how prejudice, racism and sexism fuels some elements of modern media, published in October 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan.
Is there an uncontroversial way to teach America’s racist history?
A historian on the unavoidable discomfort around anti-racist education.
Trump’s attacks on prosecutors echo long history of racist language
by Ali Swenson 22/8/23 PBS NEWS
The early Republican presidential front-runner has used terms such as “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. He has accused Black prosecutors of being “racist.” He has made unsupported claims about their personal lives. And on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump has deployed terms that rhyme with racial slurs as some of his supporters post racist screeds about the same targets.
Southern Baptist Seminary Confronts History Of Slaveholding And 'Deep Racism'
"The founding fathers of this school — all four of them — were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery," writes school President R. Albert Mohler Jr., in a letter accompanying the report. "Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the 20th century, advocated the inferiority of African-Americans and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery."
Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2020
by German Lopez German Lopez 13/8/20 Vox
Trump has repeatedly claimed he’s “the least racist person.” His history suggests otherwise.
NASCAR: Its History Of Racism And Relations With The Confederate Flag
by All Things Considered 23/6/20 npr
America's reckoning with its racist history has found an unlikely arena - auto racing. On Sunday, reports of a noose found in Bubba Wallace's garage in Talladega turned the racing world on its head.
Hiding Buffalo’s History of Racism Behind a Cloak of Unity
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor 9/6/22 THE NEW YORKER
Tension choked the air when a ten-foot-tall cross, wrapped in gasoline-soaked rags, burned wildly, as if to set the night on fire. The cross burned in the fall of 1980, on Jefferson Avenue, which runs through several Black neighborhoods that constitute the East Side of Buffalo, New York, and it punctuated a wave of terror in and around the city.
It's Not A History Lesson. New Book Tackles Racist Ideas
by Elissa Nadworny 10/3/20 npr
One of the more difficult things to talk with students about is race. A new book from a historian and a children's book author tries to tackle racist ideas in a relatable way for young adults. NPR's Elissa Nadworny has the story.
Black history is often shunned — like the book I wrote
by Martha S. Jones 9/2/21 The Washington Post
“Vanguard” recounts how many suffragists and lawmakers who sought to ratify the 19th Amendment accommodated and, in some cases, embraced anti-Black racism even as they worked to expand access to a fundamental democratic right. Jim Crow laws — poll taxes, literacy tests and more — prevented Black women from casting ballots for decades after the 19th Amendment became law in 1920.
How Portland's Racist History Informs Today's Protests
Oregon has a long history of entrenched racism, dating back to its statehood in 1859, when the state constitution barred Black people from entering or living there. Yet the recent protests in Portland are part of another long history of black and white Oregonians combating that lingering racism, says Lisa Bates, an associate professor of urban studies at Portland State University.
Growing up black in America: here's my story of everyday racism
by Brian Jones 6/6/18 The Guardian
I am a black man who has grown up in the United States. I know what it is like to feel the sting of discrimination. As a middle-class, light-skinned black man I also know that many others suffered (and continue to suffer) a lot worse than me. I grew up around a lot of white people. In elementary school, I remember being told that I was one of the “good ones” – not like the “bad ones” I was meant to understand; I was different.
Black Americans And The Racist Architecture Of Homeownership
Last summer, DonnaLee Norrington had a dream about owning a home. Not the figurative kind, but a literal dream, as she slept in the rental studio apartment in South Los Angeles that she was sharing with a friend.
A History Book That Isn't: Finding A Way To Teach Racism To A New Generation
by Elissa Nadworny 14/3/20 npr
Which led him to take up the challenge of those people who wished they'd learned these lessons in middle school: Give young people access to this history by collaborating with a writer who could take his facts (the history) and write it for a younger audience.
Racism in the Era of Trump: An Oral History
by Priyanka Boghani 13/1/20 FRONTLINE
A part of the story of America’s political journey from President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump was the rise of racial anger — as seen in the crude, racist stereotypes of Obama that showed up on signs at Tea Party rallies, and in the mainstreaming of the conspiracy that the country’s first African American president was not born in the United States.
America’s long history of anti-Haitian racism, explained
The US has often singled out Haitian immigrants. GOP attacks are the latest example.
The Mysterious History Of 'Marijuana'
Marijuana has been intertwined with race and ethnicity in America since well before the word "marijuana" was coined. The drug, my colleague Gene Demby recently wrote, has a disturbing case of multiple personality disorder: It's a go-to pop culture punch line. It's the foundation of a growing recreational and medicinal industry.
From raised fists at the 1968 Olympics to taking the knee: A history of racial justice protests in sport
by Kate Whiting 23/7/21 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
The black socks and no shoes represented Black-American poverty, while the gloves symbolized Black-American strength and unity.
How a history of ‘medical racism’ may fuel mistrust in COVID-19 vaccines
by John Letzing 9/12/20 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Recent survey results in the US showed that just 42% of Black respondents would want to take a COVID-19 vaccine if it was available, compared with 61% of white respondents. The same survey results showed that Black respondents were far more likely to say they know someone who has been hospitalized or died from having the coronavirus (71%) than white respondents (49%).
History: Racism and Exclusion in the United States
This panel brings together three L.A. Times Book Prize finalists in history for a discussion that connects America’s past treatment of women, and indigenous and enslaved people with the present, taking a look at the people and the policies that have brought us to where we are today. Anna-lisa Grace Cox leads the conversation.
Florida moves to restrict what schools can teach about systemic racism
by Associated Press 8/7/22 PBS NEWS
A new law in Florida has instituted restrictions on how schools and businesses can teach race-related concepts. The law, called the Stop Woke Act, limits instruction on critical race theory. It's the latest part of Republican Gov. Ron Desantis’ extensive efforts to reshape public education and curriculum in the state. The Miami Herald's Ana Ceballos joins Lisa Desjardins to discuss.
Racist History Of American News Media?
This is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. I'm Tony Cox. Michel Martin is away. Coming up, the sound of Cleveland's soul music is rediscovered. We talk about the new box set of songs from the Boddie Recording Company in just a few moments.
An examination of The Times’ failures on race, our apology and a path forward
by The Times Editorial Board 27/9/20 Los Angeles Times
The headline was stripped across the top of the front page, “Marauders From Inner City Prey on L.A.’s Suburbs.” The story, published by The Times on July 12, 1981, described a “permanent underclass” in the city’s “ghettos and barrios,” fueling a crime wave that was spilling over from South Los Angeles into prosperous — and largely white — communities in Pasadena, Palos Verdes, Beverly Hills and elsewhere.
Haitians see history of racist policies in migrant treatment
by Aaron Morrison 24/9/21 PBS NEWS
The Border Patrol’s treatment of Haitian migrants, they say, is just the latest in a long history of discriminatory U.S. policies and of indignities faced by Black people, sparking new anger among Haitian Americans, Black immigrant advocates and civil rights leaders.
The long history of anti-Asian hate in America, explained
Anti-Asian racism is nothing new in America. The pandemic, and Trump, just made it worse.
A 'Showdown' That Changed Football's Racial History
by All Things Considered 4/9/11 npr
As Thomas G. Smith writes in his new book, Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall was quite happy running the last segregated team. "He loved being a holdout because he loved the attention," Smith told weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan.
N-word: The troubled history of the racial slur
The BBC received more than 18,600 complaints for using the word in full in a report about a racially aggravated attack in July.
Pain and terror: America's history of racism
America's first memorial to victims of lynching opens in Alabama – live updates
The filibuster’s racist history, explained
“It’s been a tool used overwhelmingly by racists,” says Kevin Kruse, a historian of race and American politics at Princeton University.
This is why blackface is offensive
Among the recent controversies to erupt over blackface is a photo on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s personal page in his medical school yearbook. It depicts one person in blackface and another dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. After initially apologizing for appearing in the photo, the Democratic governor now says he is neither the person in blackface nor the person dressed as a Klansman.
How The Battle Against D.C. Statehood Is Rooted In Racism
by All Things Considered 24/4/21 npr
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would eventually, if approved by the Senate and signed by the president, make Washington, D.C., the 51st state. That vote was along party lines, with Republicans insisting that the move is merely a power grab by Democrats to enlarge their numbers in the Congress, particularly the Senate.
‘A very old political trope’: the racist US history behind Trump’s Haitian pet eater claim
by Claire Wang 14/9/24 The Guardian
Less than half an hour into Tuesday’s presidential debate, former president Donald Trump deployed an updated version of a century-old slur against immigrant communities: that newcomers are eating other people’s pets and vermin.
To tackle racism in football Spain needs to face its history
by Gabriel Leão 21/6/23 ALJAZEERA
It has been a month now since Black Brazilian forward Vinícius Jr suffered yet another disgusting episode of racist abuse during a match in Spain. While playing for Real Madrid against Valencia on May 21, he was heckled by fans and called a “monkey”.
America’s long, rich history of pretending systemic racism doesn’t exist
Even in the face of undeniable evidence.
As Coronavirus Spreads, Racism And Xenophobia Are Too
Our colleague Gene Demby, co-host of NPR's Code Switch podcast, explains that this is part of a longer history in the United States of camouflaging xenophobia and racism as public health and hygiene concerns. Featuring the work of historian Erika Lee, author of "America For Americans: A History Of Xenophobia In The United States."
Philosophy’s systemic racism
It is by now well known that some of the greatest modern philosophers held racist views. John Locke (1632-1704), David Hume (1711-76), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), G W F Hegel (1770-1831) and many others believed that Black and Indigenous peoples the world over were savage, inferior and in need of correction by European enlightenment. No serious philosopher today defends these explicitly racist views but, with good reason, they continue to study the writings of these authors.
It's More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America's 'Caste' System
Wilkerson describes caste an artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets benefit of the doubt and access to resources.
White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity
When a young Southern Baptist pastor named Alan Cross arrived in Montgomery, Ala., in January 2000, he knew it was where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had his first church and where Rosa Parks helped launched the famous bus boycott, but he didn't know some other details of the city's role in civil rights history.
The history of tensions — and solidarity — between Black and Asian American communities, explained
by Jerusalem Demsas and Rachel Ramirez 16/3/21 Vox
How white supremacy tried to divide Black and Asian Americans — and how communities worked to find common ground.
Prairie View, Texas, Reflects On History Of Racism After Police Incidents
We're going to visit a place now that has become a big part of the debate over race and policing. That's Waller County, Texas. It's where Sandra Bland was stopped for a traffic violation. Bland was black. She was pulled from her car by a white officer and handcuffed for resisting an order. She later died in custody. Authorities say she committed suicide. Waller County is also where a black city councilman was recently Tased by a white police officer outside his apartment complex. NPR's Wade Goodwyn has our report.
A look at the history of racism in America and its role in today’s divisions
by Judy Woodruff 3/5/23 PBS NEWS
The fact that our country is divided isn’t new. In many respects, it can be traced back to the founding of a nation on the promise of freedom while dependent on slavery, a time when many couldn’t participate in the democracy being created. Judy Woodruff examines how that founding contradiction has evolved and what it means for our challenges today. It's part of her series, America at a Crossroads.
More than 4-in-10 Republicans don't want schools teaching the history of racism whatsoever: new poll
by John Haltiwanger 10/11/21 BUSINESS INSIDER AFRICA
Republican critics of critical race theory have misleadingly suggested it teaches children to hate one another based on the color of their skin. In reality, critical race theorists look at how the country's long history of slavery, segregation and discrimination impacts people today. Moreover, schools are typically not explicitly teaching students critical race theory, despite the Republican outcry over it. But lessons on how racism has shaped the US effectively align with what the theory aims to shine a light on.
Outdoor recreation has historically excluded people of color. That’s beginning to change
Dubbed the “adventure gap” or “nature gap,” the lack of diversity in outdoor recreation has become a hot topic in the White-dominated space. (In 2019, more than 50 CEOs of outdoor retailers signed a pledge to work toward diversity and inclusion in the outdoors). Conversation about the disparity picked up among industry leaders and enthusiasts alike after the racial justice protests of 2020.
Opinion: Why I’m going to keep teaching the truth about racism in America
by Khalil Gibran Muhammad 1/2/24 CNN
Take race and racism out of the American story and very little about the country is comprehensible. The way we elect our presidents. The civil rights enshrined in the 14th Amendment that gives birthright citizenship to formerly excluded Asian immigrants and grants marriage equality to same-sex couples.
I am Native American and a former football player. Our history is much darker than racist mascots.
An NFL team changing its name does nothing to address the role of Indigenous people in the game’s legacy.
How America's history of racism connects to divisions today
The fact that our country is divided isn’t new. In many respects, it can be traced back to the founding of a nation on the promise of freedom while dependent on slavery, a time when many couldn’t participate in the democracy being created. In a conversation with retired naval Commander Theodore Johnson, Judy Woodruff examines how that founding contradiction has evolved and what it means for our challenges today.
'Long Time Coming' Explores Birth, Uninterrupted History Of Systemic Racism In U.S.
by Gabino Iglesias 3/12/20 npr
From the abused, stolen bodies pressed together inside slave ships to the lynching of Emmett Till to the battered body of George Floyd pressed against the ground under a police officer's knee, Dyson uses the history of anti-blackness and violence against Black people to map out the way systemic racism was created and how it has operated, uninterrupted, since America's birth.
History of Racism Leaves Black Californians Most at Risk from Oil and Gas Drilling, New Research Shows
by Liza Gross 5/4/23 Inside Climate News
Even as fossil fuel extraction declined in the state, low-income, Black and Hispanic residents continued to face disproportionate risks from living near wells, and Black residents were exposed to the most intensive operations.
Next time someone questions America’s history of racism, show them this video
America has a long history of systemic racism: From the dehumanization of black people to justify slavery to the policies of segregation and mass incarceration that followed emancipation, the country has always made it difficult for many minorities to rise out of their literal and figurative shackles.
This is how systemic racism is hampering progress around the world
by IMF Blog 16/9/20 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
As protests spread worldwide, many began to shift focus from solidarity with Black Americans to racial injustice within their own countries. Adama Traoré. João Pedro Matos Pinto. David Dungay, Jr. Different names from different countries, but still victims whose deaths have forced reexamination of the global presence of systemic racism and sent demonstrators into the streets to demand better.
Maud Newton couldn't ignore her family's racist history. So she published it
by Ari Shapiro, Lauren Hodges, Justine Kenin 29/3/22 npr
Everyone's family tree has some gnarled branches. In the author Maud Newton's past, there are ancestors who committed violence, extremism, racism and worse. Rather than shove that inheritance under the bed in a locked box, she excavates it in her new memoir, "Ancestor Trouble."
Georgia’s runoff elections have segregationist roots
by Nicole Ellis 3/12/22 PBS NEWS
Georgia’s Dec. 6 runoff election pitting Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock against Republican Herschel Walker is historic for having two Black candidates representing major parties on that state’s ballot. But the voting law that mandated a runoff when neither candidate won a majority in November’s election is actually a vestige of racist legislation.
Lesson plan: How America's history of racism continues to shape us today
In this lesson, students will watch a video in which Judy Woodruff examines how that founding contradiction has evolved and what it means for us today. They will then examine a primary source chosen by the teacher and connect it to the themes of the NewsHour story.
< A Brief History Of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways
INSKEEP: An interstate running through his front yard - when the U.S. built highways in the 20th century, many ran through Black neighborhoods. Read of Robert Moses in New York or Richard Daley in Chicago, and you learn this story. President Biden's infrastructure plan includes money to repair the damage.
Racial History of American Swimming Pools
by The Bryant Park Project 6/5/08 npr
So there was a study released last week that caught my eye. According to USA Swimming, over 58 percent of African-American children can't swim. That's almost double the rate of white children. And African-American children drown at nearly three times the overall rate. That got us here at the BPP asking questions about, well, race and swimming. And it turns out there's a lot to say about the topic.
Titus Kaphar: How Can We Address Centuries of Racism In Art?
Western art contains countless paintings and sculptures that reveal a painful history of racism. We can't erase that history, but artist Titus Kaphar has begun the long and hard work of amending it.
Ketanji Brown Jackson urges teaching of US history of racism
by Andrew Chung 15/9/23 Reuters
Sept 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday called for a commitment to remember and teach the history of racism and violence in the United States as she commemorated the deaths of four Black girls killed by white supremacists in a Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing.
Racism is a public health issue. Here's why
EMILY KWONG: One quick note before we begin, Short Wavers. This episode talks about racial violence and references a lynching. You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, Short Wavers. It's Emily Kwong. And today I am joined by one of KFF Health News's Midwest correspondents, Cara Anthony. Cara, it is really good to have you here.
I investigated my own family for their history of lynching
by Karen Branan 26/4/18 The Guardian
“The hanging,” she replied without pause. She told me of a woman and some men “hanged” in the open, downtown, “for a murder”. She was 17 at the time, living in Hamilton, Georgia. I thought she was talking about white people found guilty under law, so I let it be. Something in me was not yet ready to descend that deep staircase into my grandparents’ and the nation’s bloody basement.
The ugly history of racist policing in America
Critical race theory hysteria overshadows the importance of teaching kids about racism
I teach high school. My students are mature and smart enough to handle these kinds of topics.
Teaching bans on 'divisive concepts' including systemic racism and Critical Race Theory
by Frederick Joseph 2/7/21 PBS
On Wednesday, June 23, 2001, guest Frederick Joseph, author of the New York Times best-selling book "The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person," joined host Sari Beth Rosenberg, a high school history teacher, and educators from across the country to discuss new laws passed on teaching divisive concepts or so-called "critical race theory" education in classrooms.
Texas city haunted by 'no blacks after dark' past
by Keith Oppenheim 13/12/06 CNN
VIDOR, Texas (CNN) -- As a reporter for CNN, I've spent a lot of time travelling around the United States. And along the way, I've developed some impressions of who we are, and where we are, as a society.
Examining the American Medical Association’s racist history and its overdue reckoning
by Yamiche Alcindor 18/5/21 PBS NEWS
he national calls to action over racial justice have brought new awareness of past injustices in many parts of our society, including the fields of science and medicine. Yamiche Alcindor speaks to Dr. Aletha Maybank, the American Medical Association's chief health equity officer, about the organization's racist history, how it plans to reckon with it, and the intersection of race and medicine.
Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism
This report on the history of the Ku Klux Klan, America’s first terrorist organization, was prepared by the Klanwatch Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Klanwatch was formed in 1981 to help curb Klan and racist violence through litigation, education and monitoring.
People’s History Lessons for Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
by ZINN EDUCATION PROJECT 26/7/20
We are thrilled that teachers across the country are meeting, collaborating, and building curriculum based on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. This YA book is based on Kendi’s 2016 Stamped from the Beginning.
New Documentary Tackles Impact of Racism on Public Housing
[https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/new-documentary-tackles-impact-of-racism-on-public-housing/ by pbs publicity
Pasadena, CA – January 10, 2020 – East Lake Meadows, the public housing project opened by the Atlanta Housing Authority in 1970 and demolished a generation later, is the subject of a new documentary by Sarah Burns and David McMahon (THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, JACKIE ROBINSON) that tackles the impact of racism on housing while also exploring the daily lives of those who called East Lake Meadows home. EAST LAKE MEADOWS: A PUBLIC HOUSING STORY, which is executive produced by Ken Burns, will air on PBS on Tuesday, March 24, 2020 (8:00 p.m. ET; check local listings). The film trailer is available on PBS’s YouTube page here.
Sierra Club calls out founder John Muir for racist views
by Brian Melley 22/7/20 PBS NEWS
Executive Director Michael Brune said Wednesday that it was “time to take down some of our own monuments” as statues of Confederate officers and colonists are toppled in a reckoning with the nation’s racist history following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Illegal Discrimination in Jury Selection
In too many communities, the fairness, reliability, and integrity of the legal system have been compromised by clear evidence of racial bias in the selection of juries.1 Unrepresentative juries not only exclude and marginalize communities of color, they also produce wrongful convictions and unfair sentences that disproportionately burden Black people and people of color. Our failure to remedy this longstanding problem of racial bias imperils the legitimacy of the U.S. legal system.
How National Geographic is facing its racist history
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault 27/3/18 PBS NEWS
National Geographic has long provided a unique lens to view the world -- one that has sometimes distorted the lives of people of color. Now the 130-year-old magazine turns the lens on itself, with an issue devoted to the topic of race and an apology for past portrayals by editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg. Special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault sits down with Goldberg to discuss that reckoning.
Under pressure, undeterred
Black men were lynched for “standing around”, for “annoying white girls”, for failing to call a policeman “mister”. Those are just a few of the horrific stories on display at a new national memorial to lynching victims in Montgomery, Alabama.
The racist history of voter suppression laws
by Julissa Arce 16/9/21 UNIDOS US Blog
These voter suppression tactics continue a long legacy of efforts to silence us at the polls. Let’s expose the structurally racist roots of voting policies. As far back as 1909, the Arizona territory enacted a law that made speaking English a prerequisite to register to vote and run for office. The Arizona Rangers were then created to enforce this law and terrorize Latinos in the region. Today, Arizona’s Constitution still has a provision that mandates one’s ability to “read, write, speak, and understand the English language sufficiently well” in order to hold public office.
ACLU History: Uprooting Racism in the South
In the 1960s, the fight for racial justice took on new life as the battleground moved to the Deep South. The emerging leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. focused national attention on the segregation and suppression of blacks in the South, while the ACLU and other advocates became increasingly energized to help the growing civil rights movement. Sit-ins protesting segregation at lunch counters and other public accommodations abounded.
Harvard hired a researcher to uncover its ties to slavery. He says the results cost him his job: ‘We found too many slaves’
by Michela Moscufo 21/6/25 The Guardian
Jordan Lloyd had been praying for something big to happen. The 35-year-old screenwriter was quarantining in her apartment in North Hollywood in June 2020. Without any work projects to fill her days, she picked up the novel Roots, by Alex Haley, to reread.
Supreme Court History-The Dred Scott Decision
Taney, in his decision for the court, wrote, “for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” The full court ruled for the enslaver in a 7-2 vote.
Ishi, a Yahi Indian of California who was the last of his tribe, died 102 years ago this Sunday
Native American Net Roots November 25, 2019
That “painful regret” didn’t stop future governors from supporting volunteer militias to hunt and kill Indians. Between 1851 and 1859, the state spent more than $1.3 million for this purpose. The federal government reimbursed California for some of this spending. The state offered scalp bounties of 25 cents each in 1856, raised to $5 in 1860. Some towns also offered their own bounties.
Groups like the Humboldt Home Guard, the Eel River Minutemen, and the Placer Blades terrorized and murdered local Indians. The 19th century historian Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote: “The California valley cannot grace her annals with a single Indian war bordering on respectability. It can, however, boast a hundred or two of them as brutal butchering on the part of our honest miners and brave pioneers, as any area of equal extent in our republic.”
Among them were Ishi, his mother and his sister, survivors of the Three Knolls Massacre of 1865. That is when an impromptu militia of white settlers had killed some 40 Yahi on Mill Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River near Mt. Lassen in today’s Tehama County. The survivors, including 3-year-old Ishi, had fled. Half of them were killed in 1867 or ’68 by another ad hoc militia. Its leader, Norman Kingsley, later said that during the slaughter, he had exchanged his .56 caliber Spencer rifle for a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver because the rifle “tore them up so bad,” particularly the babies. The few remaining Yahi fled into the wilderness where they effectively hid out for the next 40 years. In 1908, a survey team ran across Ishi’s camp. He fled with his sister and another man, but his mother was too frail to run. The surveyors looted the camp, taking everything of value. Soon afterward, the rest of Ishi’s tiny band died. For the next three years, he lived alone. But in 1911, starving, he stole into a slaughterhouse where he was caught by the butchers and briefly jailed.
The Austerity Politics of White Supremacy
Dissent magazine Vanessa Williamson ▪ Winter 2021
From the Southern strategy of the 1960s to Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the presidential election, it is easy to trace the Republican Party’s decades-long descent into racial authoritarianism. Despite the president’s unhinged response to the election results, the real locus of power is the Senate, where Republican legislators have been striking sober-sounding notes about the need for smaller government, an end to relief spending, and the danger of higher taxes. Those desperate to see a return to normalcy may hail this born-again fiscal conservatism as a departure from Trump’s racist, antidemocratic politics. Historically speaking, this is a false distinction.
There has been one successful coup in the United States. It foreshadowed the rise of Donald Trump
DailyKos Dartagnan November 24, 2020
Out of the many acts of terroristic violence perpetrated against African Americans since active hostilities concluded in the Civil War, what occurred in Wilmington over a few days in November 1898 was not unique in its lethal character. Some 60 (probably more) Black citizens were massacred at the hands of an angry mob of white supremacists. Similar incidents of racist violence had peppered the South for decades, fueling the inception of such domestic terrorist groups as the Ku Klux Klan. But the parallels with the modern goals of the Republican Party—specifically the political reasons for the massacre, coupled with what sparked the event itself—echo today in the strategy and motives underlying the Trump campaign’s efforts to delegitimize the 2020 election.
What motivated that 1898 Wilmington coup, known as the Wilmington Insurrection—or its longtime white-washed historical descriptor, the “Wilmington Race Riot”—were the same things that motivate Trump and the GOP today: white power, white insecurity and white fear. All of those put together led to a sustained campaign of voter intimidation that directly prefigures the GOP’s modern-day voter suppression script.
Indian Training Schools
John N Mare Washco Day 3 of American Indian Heritage Month. Today we're going to look back at the wonderful experience of "Residential Boarding Schools". Won't hear about this on TV. Between 1869 and the 1960s, (YES 1960s) hundreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their homes and families and placed in boarding schools operated by the federal government and the churches. Though we don't know how many children were taken in total, by 1900 there were 20,000 children in Indian boarding schools, and by 1925 that number had more than tripled. The U.S. Native children that were voluntarily or forcibly removed from their homes, families, and communities during this time were taken to schools far away where they were punished for speaking their native language, banned from acting in any way that might be seen to represent traditional or cultural practices, stripped of traditional clothing, hair and personal belongings and behaviors reflective of their native culture. They suffered physical, sexual, cultural and spiritual abuse and neglect, and experienced treatment that in many cases constituted torture for speaking their Native languages. Many children never returned home and their fates have yet to be accounted for by the U.S. government.
The Other Madisons review: an astonishing story of a president's black family
<embed> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/19/the-other-madisons-review-president-black-family </embed> the Guardian Michael Henry Adams Sun 19 Jul 2020 02.00 EDT
Bettye Kearse’s powerful book acts to memorably illuminate the poet Caroline Randall Williams’ vivid idea of the “rape-colored skin”. By infinite degrees, African Americans’ skins are lighter than our unknown west African ancestors. This is due to our haunted legacy of imposition. Black women submitted to predatory masters. Their husbands accepted and loved white men’s children.
The Black Descendants of President Madison
<embed> https://lithub.com/the-black-descendants-of-president-madison </embed> The Literary Hub By Bettye Kearse March 25, 2020
Bettye Kearse on the Complicated Lineage of Her Ancestors My earliest recollection of hearing this story was as a five-year-old attempting to stand still while my mother worked on the dress she was creating for me. Every time I had a piano recital, she sewed me a new dress, and every time she sewed for me, I became bored and fidgety. I dreaded the fittings more than the performance itself. The performance lasted little more than two minutes; the fittings took forever. Mom pinned a seam; I tried on the dress. Mom sewed a seam; I tried on the dress. Mom pinned a hem; I tried on the dress . . . It was torture. My mother designed my outfits, but I did not care about ruffles, lace, and satin trim, and I did not want to play the piano. I wanted to dance. The closer the dress came to its final shape, the closer I came to driving my mother to her wits’ end. At every opportunity, I’d slip away and dance to the music in my head. I loved the Nutcracker Suite. I was the Sugar Plum Fairy. I arabesqued, twirled, pliéed, then twirled again, careful not to let the pins stick me. But my reprieves were brief.
Confederate Statues Were Never Really About Preserving History
<embed> https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/confederate-statues/ </embed>
The biggest spike in Confederate memorials came during the early 1900s, soon after Southern states enacted a number of sweeping laws to disenfranchise Black Americans and segregate society. During this period, more than 400 monuments were built as part of an organized strategy to reshape Civil War history. And this effort was largely spearheaded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who sponsored hundreds of statues, predominantly in the South in the early 20th century — and as recently as 2011.
The Frenzy at David Duke’s Campaign Rallies
<embed> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/david-duke-1990-senate-race-rallies.html </embed>
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, I look around at this country. I love this country deeply. And I believe we’re losing it,” he told them. “And I know what we once were, and I want to make us great again, ladies and gentlemen. We gotta stand up for this country!” see Trump 2016 As a Senate candidate, he used the “welfare queen” myth to rile up his white supporters.See Reagan 1976
Civil Rights History Project
<embed> https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/about-this-collection/ </embed>
On May 12, 2009, the U. S. Congress authorized a national initiative by passing The Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-19). The law directed the Library of Congress (LOC) and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to conduct a national survey of existing oral history collections with relevance to the Civil Rights movement to obtain justice, freedom and equality for African Americans and to record and make widely accessible new interviews with people who participated in the struggle. The project was initiated in 2010 with the survey and with interviews beginning in 2011.
Junípero Serra's road to sainthood is controversial for Native Americans
<embed> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/pope-francis-junipero-serra-sainthood-native-american-controversy </embed>
As Pope Francis plans to canonize ‘the evangeliser of the west’, descendants of those who first encountered the missionary recall a culture lost to violence
Ulysses S. Grant Launched an Illegal War Against the Plains Indians, Then Lied About It
<embed> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ulysses-grant-launched-illegal-war-plains-indians-180960787/ </embed>
The president promised peace with Indians — and covertly hatched the plot that provoked one of the bloodiest conflicts in the West
The Politic use of Law and Order and its racist origins
Southern Strategy, Silent Majority, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan: "Monkeys from those African countries uncomfortable wearing shoes", Lee Atwater: "Nigger, nigger, nigger", Barry Goldwater You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
Ruby Bridges Daisy Gabriel integrating School 1960
Short Clip of Ruby Bridges integrated school in New Orleans 1960 <embed> https://www.criterionchannel.com/the-children-were-watching </embed>
The Aunt Jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retired
<embed> https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/business/aunt-jemima-logo-change/index.html </embed>
RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA: Racial Violence after the Civil War, 1865-1876 EJI 6/2020
<embed> https://eji.org/reports/reconstruction-in-america-overview/ </embed>
