The recent student-recorded video of a White male police officer slamming a Black female adolescent sitting in her school desk to the floor while her classmates and teachers looked on grabbed the nation’s attention about the unproductive presence of police in schools. This past July Mother Jones magazine documented how police in schools (or by…
Tag: race
The Master Narrative: No “Slaves,” Only “Workers” in Texas Schoolbooks
An attentive 15-year old let his mother know that a required Texas social studies book claimed that people of African descent brought forcible to the Americas to labor for Whites were identified as “workers” rather than “slaves” in a section devoted to “immigration.” Mom took to social media, Black Lives Matter…
Time for a U.S. Truth and Reconciliation Commission
A fitting recognition for the first anniversary of the killing of an unarmed African American adolescent by a white Ferguson police officer would be the convening of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It may be the time that we – the people and our public officials – face the sordid history of the nation that has allowed the continuation of racial oppression in support of various forms of White nationalism. The first step to radically change continuing forms of…
Note to Cincinnati Prosecutor: Murders by Police Do Happen in the U.S.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the death of unarmed Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer, a slow but discernable shift is occurring among some public officials in response to the heightened public awareness brought on by the Black Lives Matter social justice movement. This shift is seen in the legal response of…
Sandra Bland and Smoking While Black
Reflecting on Sandra Bland’s arrest and eventual death while incarcerated in a Texas county jail with its own legacy of White supremacy is an important reminder that historical patterns continue to inform 21st century racial disparities. What was her “crime”? Apparently not giving a White police officer the deference required by White custom for Black people since…