tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/race-331/articlesRace – The Conversation2024-03-19T12:23:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2238362024-03-19T12:23:06Z2024-03-19T12:23:06ZHow ghost streams and redlining’s legacy lead to unfairness in flood risk, in Detroit and elsewhere<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580202/original/file-20240306-26-nqkhke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Detroit River inundated Detroit's Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HighWaterDetroitFlooding/35df93ae560e4e13912b5f36456d2e8d/photo?Query=detroit%20flood&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=74&currentItemNo=18">AP/Corey Williams</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2021, metro Detroit was hit with a rainstorm so severe that President Joe <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/15/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-michigan-disaster-declaration/">Biden issued a major disaster declaration</a> at state officials’ request. </p>
<p>Nearly 8 inches of rain fell within 24 hours, closing every major freeway and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2YshMbUeo0">causing massive damage to homes and businesses</a>. The storm was of a severity historically seen in Detroit every 500 to 1,000 years. </p>
<p>But over the past decade, the region has experienced <a href="https://grist.org/cities/how-many-500-year-floods-must-detroit-endure-in-a-decade/">several other storms only slightly less destructive</a>, one <a href="https://www.freep.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2023/08/24/storms-bring-metro-detroit-heavy-rains-flooding/70669298007/">in August 2023</a>.</p>
<p>As the planet warms, severe rains – and the flooding that follows – may become even more intense and frequent in cities like Detroit that have aging and undersized stormwater infrastructure. These extreme events put enormous pressure on communities, but <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flooding-disproportionately-harms-black-neighborhoods/">low-income urban neighborhoods tend to suffer the most</a> </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qyHbWY0AAAAJ&hl=en">geomorphologist at the University of Michigan-Dearborn</a> specializing in urban environments, water, historical mapping and flood-risk equity.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cacint.2023.100134">recent research</a>, conducted with graduate students <a href="https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/pain-research/catherine-sulich">Cat Sulich</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RQkzvOQAAAAJ&hl=en">Atreyi Guin</a>, has identified a hidden contributor to flooding in older, low-income neighborhoods that have seen a lack of investment: ghost streams and wetlands.</p>
<p>Although we studied Detroit, our research has implications for cities across the United States.</p>
<h2>Historic decisions have an impact today</h2>
<p>Ghost streams and wetlands are waterways that previously existed but, as urban areas built up, were either buried below the surface or filled in to support development. Detroit has removed more than <a href="https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/A_century_of_stream_burial_in_Michigan_USA_cities/3483827/1">85% of the total length of streams</a> that existed in 1905. Most major cities in the United States and Europe have removed similar numbers of streams. </p>
<p>Detroit is also a city deeply <a href="https://www.canr.msu.edu/redlining/detroit">affected by redlining</a> – <a href="https://metropolitics.org/Before-Redlining-and-Beyond.html">a now-outlawed practice</a> once used by the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144203029004002">Home Owners’ Loan Corporation</a>, a government-sponsored corporation that was created as part of the New Deal, that graded neighborhoods on perceived financial risk.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The 1939 Home Owners' Loan Corporation map of metropolitan Detroit showing redlined areas in the inner city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580178/original/file-20240306-27-ji0i6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1939 Home Owners’ Loan Corporation map of metropolitan Detroit shows formerly redlined areas that now experience disproportionate flooding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwilson1949/50077016761">David Wilson/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People living in communities labeled as “high risk” were disproportionately people of color, immigrants and residents of lower socioeconomic status and were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2024.2321226">systematically denied loans and opportunities to build generational wealth</a>. </p>
<p>These neighborhoods received <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2021.1888702">fewer community investments</a>, including interventions such as stormwater infrastructure and landscape modification, than did higher-wealth neighborhoods. </p>
<p>We looked at whether these decades-old decisions have had any impact on flood risk today and learned that they do.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cacint.2023.100134">this study</a>, we correlated present-day flood risk in metro Detroit with former Home Owner’s Loan Corporation boundaries’ grades. Flood risk was mapped using the <a href="https://firststreet.org/research-library/flood-model-methodology">First Street Foundation’s Flood Factor</a>, which scores every parcel in the U.S. on a scale of minimal (1) to extreme (10). </p>
<p>We then correlated flood risk to the presence of ghost streams and wetlands, which we extracted from old topographic maps from the United States Geological Survey. The goal was to determine whether a history of waterway burial and/or redlining influenced the overall flood risk of communities today.</p>
<p>We found that flood risk was disproportionately distributed, with historically redlined neighborhoods bearing the greatest brunt of flood risk.</p>
<p>Residents living in communities that were graded as “hazardous” (D) or “declining” (C) in the 1940s are today more susceptible to flood risk than the more affluent A and B communities. Over 95% of parcels classified at extreme flooding risk occur in C and D communities, with less than 4% in A and B communities. </p>
<p>Flood risk increases with the presence of ghost streams and wetlands, with C and D communities having a higher risk. In C communities, the presence of a ghost wetland increases flood risk tenfold, while ghost rivers also increase risk, although by a smaller amount. </p>
<p>The percent of properties in D-graded communities that are located adjacent to the 32-mile-long Detroit River and classified at extreme or severe flood risk is 99.9% if they have ghost wetlands or 95% if they have ghost rivers. </p>
<p>In other words, the combined history of redlining and landscape alteration may still contribute to increased flood risk today. When communities received poor grades, banks, lenders and municipalities neglected those areas’ stormwater infrastructure.</p>
<h2>Invest resources where the risk is greatest</h2>
<p>If communities want to protect residents from flooding, it’s crucial for them to map and understand their “hidden hydrology.” Few cities have the data to inform residents that they are at greater flood risk because they are living on a ghost wetland or river. </p>
<p>In Detroit, residents of most of the neighborhoods that show a major to extreme flood risk are not required to purchase flood insurance because they are not near an active river. This means residents are unknowingly at risk.</p>
<p>Another benefit to mapping ghost wetlands and rivers is that stormwater management is most effective if it follows natural pathways and processes. </p>
<p>Stormwater engineers frequently refer to this as “nature-based interventions” or “green stormwater infrastructure.” </p>
<p>During a flood, water occupies the lowest areas of a landscape, such as an abandoned stream valley or filled wetland. Those low areas are a good place to build green stormwater infrastructure, such as rain gardens that absorb water or <a href="https://www.asla.org/bioswales.aspx">bioswales</a> that convey moving water. </p>
<p>Some solutions can reflect culture or embrace art: Detroit’s <a href="https://www.thewright.org/">Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History</a> installed <a href="https://detroitstormwater.org/projects/chw-sankofa-porous-pavers-project">permeable pavers</a> with a unique West African-inspired design to minimize and manage floodwater following major flooding in Detroit in 2014. </p>
<p>In my view, marginalized communities need to have a strong voice in the search for solutions. Discrimination against these communities helped create the current problem. Listening to them now is key to both minimizing flood damage and beginning to right a historical injustice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223836/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob Napieralski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mapping where water once flowed is important for managing flood risk today in Detroit and elsewhere.Jacob Napieralski, Professor of Geology, University of Michigan-DearbornLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2240652024-03-14T17:07:50Z2024-03-14T17:07:50ZNine years after #OscarsSoWhite, a look at what’s changed<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/6e95de91-d1cf-4295-804b-8236faeb66fc?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>On Sunday, nine years after #OscarsSoWhite, millions of us tuned into watch the 96th annual Academy Awards — some to simply take in the spectacle. And some to see how much had changed. </p>
<p>The hashtag <a href="https://www.essence.com/news/nine-years-after-oscars-so-white/">#OscarsSoWhite</a> started after many people noticed that, for a second year in a row, all nominees for four of five major categories were white. The movement called on Hollywood to do better: to better reflect America’s demographic realities and also to expand its depiction of our histories. </p>
<p>The reason: representation in Hollywood matters. What gets put on screens and by whom has reverberating impacts on how all of us see each other and see ourselves. </p>
<p>So …. how did the Oscars do this year?</p>
<p>Let’s take a brief look at the evening, which started with the anti-war protests outside the theatre slowing down traffic and delaying the broadcast by a full five minutes.</p>
<p>Although there were only seven racialized actors up for nominations, there were some notable wins in that arena.</p>
<p>Cord Jefferson accepted his award for best adapted screenplay for <em>American Fiction</em>. When at the podium, he talked about how many people passed over the project — a Black film with a primary Black cast. To the producers out there listening, he made a plea to acknowledge and recognize the many talented Black playwrights out there that deserve similar opportunities. He suggested one way would be that producers fund 10 small projects instead of one $200 million dollar film. </p>
<p>Lily Gladstone, though she didn’t win, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2317306947668">was the first North American Indigenous woman to be nominated for best actress in its 96-year history</a>. </p>
<p>And Da'Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress for her role in <em>The Holdovers</em>, and made a memorable appearance and acceptance speech. </p>
<p>But one night at the Oscars doesn’t paint the full picture.</p>
<p>Just a few months ago, award-winning actor, Taraji P. Henson, broke down in tears <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/taraji-p-henson-cries-quitting-acting-pay-disparity-hollywood-1235847420/">in an interview with journalist Gayle King</a>. She was exhausted from breaking glass ceilings as a Black woman in film. “I’m just tired of working so hard being gracious at what I do getting paid a fraction of the cost,” she said. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over.”</p>
<p>Henson explained that in 2008’s <em>The Curious Case of Benjamin Button</em>, she was paid significantly less than her co-stars despite having third billing on the call sheet. Henson nearly turned down her role in <em>The Colour Purple</em> for similar reasons.</p>
<p>The pay disparity for Black and Indigenous women in comparison to white women in Hollywood is nothing new.</p>
<p>Here in Canada, the problem is just as pervasive.</p>
<p>Despite some recent wins, a report from Telefilm Canada revealed that <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/report-shows-drop-in-number-of-canadian-women-in-film-tv-compared-to-pre-pandemic-times-exclusive/5185452.article">Black women have the least representation in TV and film</a>.</p>
<p>They also lead the fewest projects and receive the least funding overall.</p>
<p>To shed some light on the issue, we spoke to two women well versed on the challenges of Black, Indigenous and other women of colour in film and TV.</p>
<p>Naila Keleta-Mae, a playright, poet and singer as well as the Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance and associate professor of communication arts at the University of Waterloo said that while we need more voices at the table, Black female artists have not been waiting for scraps: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We have been making the work all this time and will continue to regardless. While we insist on eating at the table, we will also simultaneously continue to nourish and feast on what we’ve been doing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also spoke with actor and director Mariah Inger, the chair of ACTRA National’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Committee.</p>
<p>Inger warned us to remember that the Oscars represent only one per cent of those working in the industry. And that while many working actors, writers, directors may look to the Oscars as a dream, the reality is that they show up every day because this is where they feel most called to contribute to the world. And she says, in that everyday world, things are shifting.</p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
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It’s been nine years since #OscarsSoWhite called out a lack of diversity at the Oscars. Has anything changed? Prof. Naila Keleta-Mae and actress Mariah Inger unpack the progress.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientDannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The ConversationAteqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210082024-03-07T14:39:16Z2024-03-07T14:39:16ZDon’t Call Me Resilient podcast: Listen to the new season trailer<p>Today, we launch our trailer for a new season of <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em>,</a> our podcast that takes on the ways racism impacts our biggest news stories and also permeates our everyday lives.</p>
<p>The DCMR team has been busy prepping new episodes and next week, we start releasing episodes for season 7, taking our anti-racist lens to the news unfolding around us and the issues occupying a lot of our minds these days. From big cultural moments, like the Oscars, to the scary spread of AI and the ongoing impacts of climate change, to the devastating war in Gaza: we’ll be on it, in our signature way.</p>
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<p>Thank you for following along with us through all six seasons! And thank you to the audience members who filled out our DCMR audience survey. The results tell us what we already guessed, but now know: our audience is loyal and active and engaged. And many of you say you learn something new with each episode. </p>
<p>Whether you are a loyal listener or have not heard an episode yet, follow us, so you don’t miss our first episode. Find us on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>.</p>
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<h2>Most listened to episodes were about polarization</h2>
<p>You can catch up and listen to last season. Our season 6 most listened to episodes were about the intense polarization within our institutions. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-gaza-conflict-is-so-hard-to-talk-about-216149">One episode</a> featured the conflict in Gaza and we spoke with a historian whose family was taken hostage by Hamas, and a geographer with family in the West Bank. They got together to discuss a way forward. </p>
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<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-brown-and-black-people-supporting-the-far-right-214800">second episode</a> was about political polarization in the United States, and why racialized people are upholding white supremacist ideologies that work against them. Prof. Daniel Martinez HoSang of Yale University joined us to explain the rising popularity of the far right with people of colour – what he calls multicultural white supremacy. </p>
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<h2>Catch up on the past six seasons of DCMR:</h2>
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<h2>Stay in touch</h2>
<p><a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Keep up with our podcast and chat with us on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dontcallmeresilientpodcast/">Instagram</a>. Use the hashtag #DontCallMeResilient or tag us <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dontcallmeresilientpodcast/">@dontcallmeresilientpodcast</a>. Or join <em>The Conversation</em> on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">X</a>, and follow our sister stories on <em>The Conversation</em>’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a>. You can also now follow the podcast on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_mJBLBznANz6ID9rBCUk7gv_ZRC4Og9-">YouTube</a>. </p>
<p><em>Season 7 credits: Vinita Srivastava is the host and producer. Ateqah Khaki and Dannielle Piper are associate producers. Jennifer Moroz is the consulting producer. Krish Dineshkumar is our sound editor. Theme music: Zaki Ibrahim, Something in the Water.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The DCMR team has been busy prepping new episodes and next week, we start releasing episodes for season 7, taking our anti-racist lens to the news and issues occupying a lot of our minds these days.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientDannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The ConversationAteqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientJennifer Moroz, Consulting Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247282024-02-29T23:41:42Z2024-02-29T23:41:42ZDo the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi really give Māori too much power – or not enough?<p>This week parliament acted urgently to disestablish the Māori Health Authority. The hurry was to circumvent an urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing on whether the proposal breached te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) and its principles.</p>
<p>Te Pāti Maori’s co-leader, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350193412/bills-disestablish-maori-health-authority-smokefree-be-passed-under-urgency">Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, said</a>: “The government’s use and abuse of urgency has created a dictatorship in what should be a Tiriti-led democratic state.”</p>
<p>We have heard a lot about the Treaty “principles” since last year’s election.</p>
<p>But just what these principles are, and how they should be interpreted in law, remain open to contest – including by those who argue the principles actually limit some of the political rights that fairly belong to Māori people.</p>
<h2>No rigid rule book</h2>
<p>When parliament established the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975, <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1975/0114/107.0/DLM435368.html">one of its jobs</a> was to “provide for the observance, and confirmation, of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”.</p>
<p>There isn’t a definitive and permanent list of principles. They have evolved as new problems and possibilities arise, and as different ideas develop about what governments should and shouldn’t do. Te Tiriti, in other words, can’t be a rigid rule book.</p>
<p>But the Treaty’s articles are clear: </p>
<ul>
<li>governments should always be allowed to govern (article 1)</li>
<li>the powers of government are qualified by Māori political communities (<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=iwi">iwi</a> and <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=hapu">hapu</a>) exercising authority and responsibility over their own affairs (article 2)</li>
<li>and government is contextualised by Māori people being New Zealand citizens whose political rights and capacities may be expressed with equal <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tikanga">tikanga</a> (custom, values, protocol) (article 3).</li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps the real question, then, is how to bring these articles into effect. The Waitangi Tribunal, parliament and courts developed the principles over time as interpretative guides. They <a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/o-matou-mohiotanga/crownmaori-relations/he-tirohanga-o-kawa-ki-te-tiriti-o-waitangi">include</a> partnership, participation, mutual benefit, good faith, reciprocity, <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=rangatiratanga">rangatiratanga</a> (independent authoity) and <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=kawanatanga">kāwanatanga</a> (government).</p>
<p>In 1992 the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">Court of Appeal said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the principles of the Treaty which are to be applied, not the literal words […] The differences between the [English and Māori] texts and shades of meaning are less important than the spirit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the “spirit” of te Tiriti, too, is vague and open to contest.</p>
<h2>The Māori text prevails</h2>
<p>The English text of te Tiriti says Māori gave away their sovereignty to the British Crown. The Māori text says they only gave away rights of government. But both texts were clear: Māori authority over their own affairs wasn’t surrendered, and government wasn’t an unconstrained power allowing other people to do harm to Māori.</p>
<p>It’s also significant that only <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/making-the-treaty/signing-the-treaty">39 people</a> signed the English-language agreement (they didn’t read English and had it explained to them in Māori). More than 500 signed the Māori text. The former chief justice Sian Elias said, “<a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/he-tohu/korero/interview-with-dame-sian-elias">it can’t be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text</a>”.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-idea-of-sovereignty-is-central-to-the-treaty-debate-why-is-it-so-hard-to-define-220201">The idea of ‘sovereignty’ is central to the Treaty debate – why is it so hard to define?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>The <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nzfirst/pages/4462/attachments/original/1700784896/National___NZF_Coalition_Agreement_signed_-_24_Nov_2023.pdf?1700784896">New Zealand First party argues</a> the principles often appear in legislation without clear explanation of their relevance or what they’re intended to achieve. It says they should be clarified or removed.</p>
<p>The ACT party <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/stopdivision">goes further</a> and says the principles are often interpreted to give Māori greater political voice than other New Zealanders. It says the Treaty promised equality, and this should be enshrined in law – through rewritten principles that would limit Māori influence.</p>
<h2>Equal political voice</h2>
<p>There’s a counterargument, however, that says Māori influence is limited enough already. And it’s the principles that constrain Māori authority over their own affairs and give Māori citizens less than their fair influence over public decisions. </p>
<p>The idea that Māori are the Crown’s partners, rather than shareholders in its authority, seriously weakens Māori influence.</p>
<p>Participation, on the other hand, should strengthen it, and was one of the Treaty principles the Māori Health Authority was established to support. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/02/fears-for-maori-rights-as-new-zealand-government-reviews-waitangi-treaty">Abolishing the authority</a> overrides that principle. But it also takes decision-making about Māori health away from Māori experts. </p>
<p>This may undermine effective health policy. But it also undermines te Tiriti’s articles themselves. These include the idea that government is for everybody and everybody should share decision-making authority; and the idea that Māori people use their own institutions to make decisions about their own wellbeing.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the question is: if some people can’t contribute to policy-making in ways that make sense for them, then do they really have equal opportunities for political voice?</p>
<h2>The problem with ‘race’</h2>
<p>The picture is further confused by reference to “race”. In 1987, the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">Court of Appeal said</a> the “Treaty signified a partnership between races”. It said partnership – a significant Treaty principle – should help the parties find a “true path to progress for both races”.</p>
<p>But te Tiriti doesn’t use the word “race”, or anything similar. It recognised hapu as political communities, and established kawanatanga as a new political body.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-redefining-the-treaty-principles-would-undermine-real-political-equality-in-nz-218511">Why redefining the Treaty principles would undermine real political equality in NZ</a>
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<p>So, whether we just focus on the Treaty articles, or find it useful to have principles to help with interpretation, we need to work out what hapu do and what government does, and how they relate to one another.</p>
<p>We don’t need to know what different “races” should do. Race is simply a “<a href="https://bioanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/">classification system</a>” colonial powers use to place themselves above the colonised in a hierarchy of human worth.</p>
<p>Instead, people are born into cultures formed by place, family and language – what Māori call “<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=whakapapa">whakapapa</a>”. Te Tiriti gave settlers a place and a form of government to secure their belonging. It also said Māori continue to belong on their own terms.</p>
<p>There can’t be equality without acceptance of these ideas of who belongs, and how.</p>
<h2>A simpler solution</h2>
<p>Citizenship tells us who “owns” the state. If partnership implies the Crown represents only non-Māori, it puts Māori people on the outside. It says government really belongs to “us”, and “you” don’t participate in “our” affairs.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">liberal democratic argument</a>, however, is that the state is “owned” equally by each and every citizen. Māori citizens are as much shareholders in the authority of the state as anybody else. They should be able to say the powers, authority and responsibilities of the state work equally well for them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/waitangi-2024-how-the-treaty-strengthens-democracy-and-provides-a-check-on-unbridled-power-221723">Waitangi 2024: how the Treaty strengthens democracy and provides a check on unbridled power</a>
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<p>People think and reason through culture. Colonial experiences influence what people expect politics to achieve. This is why it’s fair to insist that Māori citizenship is exercised with equal tikanga.</p>
<p>The Treaty principles can be critiqued from many perspectives. They change because they are only interpretive guides that can be accepted, rejected, challenged and developed.</p>
<p>So, rather than refer to these principles in legislation, and leave them for courts and the Waitangi Tribunal to define, maybe there’s a simpler solution. </p>
<p>Each act of parliament could simply state: “This Act will be interpreted and administered to maintain and develop rangatiratanga, and otherwise work equally well for Māori as for other citizens.”</p>
<p>The principle of equality would be established. And it would be for Māori citizens to determine what “equally well” means for them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than leave the Treaty principles to parliament and the courts to define, why not embed the essence of the Treaty articles themselves in all laws?Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2238312024-02-22T13:44:20Z2024-02-22T13:44:20ZWith Beyoncé’s foray into country music, the genre may finally break free from the stereotypes that have long dogged it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576856/original/file-20240220-24-x8s4qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=461%2C17%2C2850%2C1598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z, at the 66th Grammy Awards on Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/beyoncé-and-jay-z-onstage-during-the-66th-grammy-awards-at-news-photo/1986605934?adppopup=true">Kevin Mazur/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Super Bowl Sunday, Beyoncé released two country songs – “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhKNjTb6U1Y">16 Carriages</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238Z4YaAr1g">Texas Hold ‘Em</a>” – that elicited a mix of admiration and indignation. </p>
<p>This is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11526188/beyonce-country-music-black-roots">not her first foray</a> into the genre, but it is her most successful and controversial entry. As of last week, Beyoncé became the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/beyonce-first-black-woman-number-one-country-song-texas-hold-em-1234970301/">first Black woman to have a No. 1 song on the country charts</a>. At the same time, country music stations like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/arts/music/beyonce-oklahoma-radio-station.html">KYKC in Oklahoma</a> initially refused to play the record because it was “not country.”</p>
<p>Many non-listeners <a href="https://apnews.com/article/country-music-us-news-ap-top-news-lil-nas-x-music-c34fd394a0275f0726cb5bb231f70833#">stereotype country music</a> as being white, politically conservative, militantly patriotic and rural. And you can certainly find <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1229407614/toby-keith-dies-cancer">artists</a> and <a href="https://americansongwriter.com/the-unabashed-meaning-behind-toby-keiths-patriotic-hit-courtesy-of-the-red-white-and-blue-the-angry-american/">songs</a> that fit that bill. </p>
<p>But the story of country has always been more complicated, and debates about race and authenticity in country are nothing new; they’ve plagued country artists, record companies and listeners for over a century.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hhKNjTb6U1Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the official visualizer for ‘16 Carriages,’ Beyoncé dons a bejeweled cowboy hat.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As someone who <a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/college/people/william-nash">researches and teaches Black culture and country music</a>, I hope that Beyoncé’s huge profile will change the terms of this debate.</p>
<p>To me, Beyoncé’s Blackness is not the major bone of contention here.</p>
<p>Instead, the controversy is about her “countryness,” and whether a pop star can authentically cross from one genre to the next. Lucky for Beyoncé, it’s been done plenty of times before. And her songs are arriving at a time when more and more Black musicians are charting country hits.</p>
<h2>Cross-racial collaboration</h2>
<p>Americans have long viewed country music – or, as it was known before World War II, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41446344">hillbilly music</a> – as largely the purview of white musicians. This is partly by design. The “hillbilly” category <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2013/08/23/213852227/race-and-country-music-then-and-now">was initially created as a counterpart</a> to the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-voices-of-race-records-pullman-porters-the-rev-tt-rose-and-the-man-with-a-clarinet-37907">race records</a>” aimed at Black audiences from the 1920s to the 1940s.</p>
<p>But from the start, the genre has been influenced by Black musical styles and performances.</p>
<p>White country music superstars like <a href="https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/carter-family">The Carter Family</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hank-Williams">Hank Williams</a> learned tunes and techniques from Black musicians <a href="https://birthplaceofcountrymusic.org/search-lesley-riddle/">Lesley Riddle</a> and <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15185820/rufus-payne">Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne</a>, respectively. Unfortunately, few recordings of Black country artists from the early 20th century exist, and most of those who did record had their racial identity masked. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/johnny-cash">Johnny Cash’s</a> mentor, <a href="https://www.elderly.com/pages/gus-cannon-celebrating-black-history-month">Gus Cannon</a>, proves a rare exception. Cannon recorded in the 1920s with his jug band, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/locations/lowermsdeltaregion/cannon-s-jug-stompers.htm">Cannon’s Jug Stompers</a>, and he had a second wave of success during <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/american-folk-music/musicians">the folk revival of the 1960s</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph of an older, balding Black man wearing glasses and sitting in a chair while strumming a banjo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576840/original/file-20240220-18-kyp71y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Gus Cannon was an early mentor to Johnny Cash.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-blues-musician-gus-cannon-circa-1940-photo-by-news-photo/74256463?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Similarly, the genre has always included a mix of Anglo-American and Black American musical instruments. The banjo, for instance, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/08/23/139880625/the-banjos-roots-reconsidered">has African roots</a> and was brought to America by enslaved people. </p>
<p>In the case of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which begins with a lively banjo riff, Beyoncé has partnered with Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning MacArthur Fellow <a href="https://rhiannongiddens.com">Rhiannon Giddens</a>, America’s foremost contemporary Black banjoist and banjo scholar. (I would argue that this choice alone undercuts objections about the track’s country bona fides.) </p>
<h2>Different tacks to navigate race</h2>
<p>By releasing these tracks, Beyoncé joins performers like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/arts/music/charley-pride-dead.html">Charley Pride</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/14/mickey-guyton-takes-on-the-overwhelming-whiteness-of-country-music">Mickey Guyton</a> – country stars whose success has forced them to confront questions about the links between their racial and musical identities. </p>
<p>Pride, whose hits include “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” “Just Between You and Me” and “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?,” became, in 1971, the first Black American to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award. In 2000, he was the first Black American <a href="https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/charley-pride">inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame</a>. </p>
<p>But throughout his career, Pride resisted attempts to emphasize his Blackness. From his 1971 hit “I’m Just Me” to his <a href="https://andscape.com/features/charley-pride-wanted-to-be-judged-by-his-work-not-his-race/">2014 refusal to discuss his racial “firsts” with a Canadian talk show host</a>, Pride consistently strove to be seen as a country artist who happened to be Black, rather than as a country musician whose Blackness was central to his public persona and work. </p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum is Guyton, who gained recognition and acclaim for songs like her 2020 hit “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/31/entertainment/mickey-guyton-country-singer/index.html">Black Like Me</a>” – a frank, heartfelt commentary on the challenges she’s faced as a Black woman pursuing a career in Nashville, Tennessee. </p>
<p>Both Pride and Guyton reflect the zeitgeists of their respective decades. In the wake of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Pride’s “colorblind” approach enabled him to circumvent <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/racial-tension-in-the-1970s">existing racial tensions</a>. He chose his material with an eye toward averting controversy – for example, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/16/946727442/theres-only-one-charley-pride">he eschewed love ballads</a>, lest they be understood as promoting interracial relationships. At the start of his career, when his music was released without artist photos, Pride made jokes about his “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/country-music/charley-pride-biography">permanent tan</a>” to put surprised white concertgoers at ease.</p>
<p>Guyton’s work, on the other hand, resonated with the national outrage over the murder of George Floyd and tapped into the celebration of Black empowerment that was part of the ethos of Black Lives Matter. </p>
<p>And yet I cannot think of another Black musical artist with Beyoncé’s cultural cache who has taken up country music. </p>
<p>Some might argue that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ray-Charles">Ray Charles</a>, whose groundbreaking 1962 album, “<a href="https://www.wideopencountry.com/ray-charles-modern-sounds-in-country-and-western-music/">Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music</a>,” brought legions of new listeners to country artists, is a forerunner of Beyoncé’s in this regard. </p>
<p>Without diminishing Charles’ significance, I expect that Beyoncé’s forthcoming <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/beyonce-announced-renaissance-act-ii-at-the-super-bowl-and-yes-its-a-country-album">Renaissance II</a>“ <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/beyonce-knowles/12474">will outshine</a> Charles’ landmark recording.</p>
<h2>Black country in the 21st century</h2>
<p>Over the past five years, in addition to the buzz over <a href="https://variety.com/2019/music/news/old-town-road-billy-ray-cyrus-fendi-sports-bra-lyric-songwriter-1203294198/">Lil Nas X’s "Old Town Road</a>,” a significant number of Black musicians – including <a href="https://dariusrucker.com">Darius Rucker</a>, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/artist/kane-brown/">Kane Brown</a> and <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/celebrities/18228636/who-country-music-singer-jimmie-allen/">Jimmie Allen</a>, to name a few – have charted country hits. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.blackopry.com">Black Opry Revue</a>, founded in 2021 by music journalist Holly G, produces tours that bring together rising Black country musicians, giving each more exposure than performing individually could. </p>
<p>Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” topped the country charts and made Chapman the first Black woman to win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award. Their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEqb6xbeuCo">performance of the song</a> at the 2024 Grammys went viral, demonstrating both the fluidity of genres and the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/tracy-chapman-luke-combs-fast-car-grammy-performance/677361/">power of collaboration</a>.</p>
<p>Beyoncé’s loyal fan base, known colloquially as “the Beyhive,” is already propelling “Texas Hold ‘Em” to the top of the pop and country charts. While there may continue to be pushback from traditionalist country music gatekeepers, country radio executives holding sway over national broadcast networks are calling Beyoncé’s new songs “<a href="https://variety.com/2024/music/news/beyonce-country-format-radio-bullish-texas-hold-em-1235913252/">a gift to country music</a>.” </p>
<p>As more and more listeners hear her directive to “just take it to the dance floor,” perhaps the sonic harmony of the country genre will translate to a new way of thinking about whether socially constructed categories, like race, ought to segregate art. </p>
<p>And what a revolution that would be.</p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/1oZI4BarEecGfZd9oVvjI3?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Nash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Her new songs are arriving at a moment when country music’s reputation as overwhelmingly white is finally starting to crack.William Nash, Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220552024-02-08T21:17:53Z2024-02-08T21:17:53ZThe war in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s education and knowledge systems<p>Gaza’s education system has suffered significantly since Israel’s bombardment and assault on the strip began. Last month, Israel <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68023080">blew up</a> Gaza’s last standing university, Al-Israa University.</p>
<p>In the past four months, all or parts of Gaza’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/24/how-israel-has-destroyed-gazas-schools-and-universities#:%7E:text=Palestinian%20news%20agency%20Wafa%20reported,university%20in%20Gaza%20in%20stages.">12 universities</a> have been bombed and mostly destroyed. </p>
<p>Approximately <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-102-enarhe">378 schools</a> have been destroyed or damaged. The Palestinian Ministry of Education has reported the deaths of over <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/151126/file/State-of-Palestine-Humanitarian-Situation-Report-No.15-(Escalation)-17-January-2024.pdf">4,327 students, 231 teachers</a> and <a href="https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6108/Israel-kills-dozens-of-academics,-destroys-every-university-in-the-Gaza-Strip">94 professors.</a></p>
<p>Numerous <a href="https://librarianswithpalestine.org/gaza-report-2024/?fbclid=IwAR1VqwE8t9HEb46IFQDPJhl8ZFReHyyzgCAXjPfMPIGoThfbSXBEsy-Trog">cultural heritage sites</a>, including libraries, archives and museums, have also been destroyed, damaged and plundered.</p>
<p>But the assault on Palestinian educational and cultural institutions did not begin in response to the Oct. 7 attack. Israel has a long record of <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/430540">targeted attacks</a> on Palestinian institutions that produce knowledge and culture. That history includes targeting and <a href="https://yam.ps/page-11801-en.html">assassinating</a> Palestinian intellectuals, <a href="https://www.aaiusa.org/library/i-knew-ghassan-kanafani">cultural producers</a> and political figures. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A video clip shared by ‘The New Arab,’ showing the destruction at Al-Israa University in the Gaza Strip.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is scholasticide?</h2>
<p>The destruction of education systems and buildings is known as “scholasticide,” a term first coined by Oxford professor Karma Nabulsi during the 2008-2009 Israeli assault on Gaza. Scholasticide describes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/10/gaza-schools">the systemic destruction of Palestinian education</a> within the context of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2021.1909376">Israel’s decades-long settler colonization and occupation of Palestine</a>.</p>
<p>Recently, a group of scholars working under the name <a href="https://scholarsagainstwar.org/toolkit/">Scholars Against the War on Palestine</a> broadened the definition to include a more comprehensive picture of what is happening during the current war. They outline the intimate relationship between <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/how-israels-scholasticide-denies-palestinians-their-past-present-and-future/article_8f52d77a-b648-11ee-863d-f3411121907b.html">scholasticide and genocide</a>.</p>
<p>They say scholasticide includes the intentional <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/14/a-cultural-genocide-which-of-gazas-heritage-sites-have-been-destroyed">destruction of cultural heritage</a>: archives, libraries and museums. Scholasticide includes killing, causing bodily or mental harm, incarcerating, or systematically harassing educators, students and administrators. It includes besieging, closing or obstructing access to educational institutions. It can also include using universities or schools as a military base (as was done with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68023080">Al-Israa University</a>).</p>
<p>The magnitude of destruction has led them <a href="https://scholarsagainstwar.org/toolkit/">to conclude:</a> “Israeli colonial policy in Gaza has now shifted from a focus on systematic destruction to total annihilation of education.”</p>
<p>As genocide scholar Douglas Irvin-Erickson says: the original definition of genocide as first drafted by <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781351214100-2/rapha%C3%ABl-lemkin-douglas-irvin-erickson">Raphael Lemkin in 1943</a> included the idea that “attacking a culture was a way of committing genocide, and not a different type of genocide.” </p>
<h2>The International Court of Justice</h2>
<p>During the recent genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa argued that <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf">Palestinian academics were being intentionally assassinated</a>.</p>
<p>Legal representative for South Africa, Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f_yoal4gx8">told the court</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Almost 90,000 Palestinian university students cannot attend university in Gaza. Over 60 per cent of schools, almost all universities and countless bookshops and libraries have been damaged and destroyed. Hundreds of teachers and academics have been killed, including deans of universities and leading Palestinian scholars. Obliterating the very future prospects of the future education of Gaza’s children and young people.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-sum-01-00-en.pdf">On Jan. 26, in a landmark ruling, the ICJ</a> ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza.</p>
<h2>Attempting to eliminate Palestinian futures</h2>
<p>Scholasticide is not an event. It’s part of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2021.1975478">colonial continuum</a> of attacking and destroying a people’s educational life, knowledge systems and plundering material culture and cultural heritage.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2017.46.4.75">targeted killing of the educated class</a> is intended to make it difficult for Palestinians to restore the political and socio-economic conditions needed to survive and rebuild Gaza.</p>
<p>This systematic destruction is at the core of the settler colonial “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240">logic of elimination</a>.” It has also been applied to Indigenous Peoples in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648833">logic</a> drives a settler population to replace Indigenous peoples in their aim to establish a new society. </p>
<p>For example, this logic was exercised <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/palestine-nakba-9781848139718/">during the 1948 Nakba</a>. Thousands of <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/78440">Palestinian books</a>, manuscripts, libraries, archives, photographs, cultural artifacts and cultural property <a href="https://journal.radicallibrarianship.org/index.php/journal/article/view/54">were looted, destroyed or damaged</a> by Zionist militias. In 1948, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ethnic-Cleansing-of-Palestine/Ilan-Pappe/9781851685554">Palestinian schools were destroyed or damaged</a> or later appropriated for use by the new Israeli state. </p>
<h2>Resistance: Palestinian history and culture</h2>
<p>Despite the ongoing attempts to erase Palestinian history, culture and memory, Palestinians have found ways to resist their erasure. In the 1960s and ‘70s, <a href="https://palestinianstudies.org/workshops/2023/palestinian-revolutionary-tradition-and-global-anti-colonialism">an anti-colonial revolutionary tradition</a>, produced and influenced by intellectual and political thought, was strengthened. </p>
<p>It helped to create <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1650753">infrastructures</a> for the survival, mobilization and development of the Palestinian people and their national movement. It cultivated transnational relationships of solidarity. It helped displaced Palestinians, separated across geographies, to preserve their identity and reorganize themselves politically.</p>
<p>The intellectual and political thought of this period was <a href="https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/28899">passed onto</a> the generations that followed. It influenced educational and political programs, cultural development and practices of resistance. Especially during the First Intifada from 1987-1993. This enabled Palestinians to stay steadfast in their struggle against colonial violence across time and space. Palestinian education and culture form <a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/israels-archaeological-war-palestinian-cultural-heritage">the backbone</a> of the right to self-determination. This is why Israel frequently targets Palestinian education and culture. </p>
<p>Palestinians have endured <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n20/karma-nabulsi/diary">several periods of intense attacks</a> on their cultural and educational life. This includes the June 1967 war, Israel’s 1982 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/06/israel7">invasion of Lebanon during which a number of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s institutions were destroyed</a> and the First and Second Intifadas.</p>
<p>Following Israel’s destruction of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44746845">the Palestine Research Center in Lebanon in 1982</a>, Palestinian poet <a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/palestinian-identity/">Mahmoud Darwish said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“He who steals land does not surprise us by stealing a library. He who kills thousands of innocent civilians does not surprise us by killing paintings.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A man in glasses wears a suit and tie" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574465/original/file-20240208-16-vtx98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote about everyday grief. (Photo is from 1980)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Syrian News Agency/Al Sabah)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2022.2114778">colonial theft</a> continues unabashed. Cultural heritage has been <a href="https://librarianswithpalestine.org/gaza-report-2024/?fbclid=IwAR2QpiHfxSB6939yfyipOLY6zVYTED_rQN7JVxTq33UCinF_-3U1xNuQFzE">annihilated, damaged or plundered</a> in this war. During the bombing of Al-Israa University in January, Israel also targeted the National Museum. Licensed by the Ministry of Antiquities, the museum housed over <a href="https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-obliterates-gazas-last-university-amid-boycott-calls">3,000 rare artifacts, which were looted</a>. </p>
<p>Most academic institutions around the world remain silent about Israel’s scholasticide. But others are speaking out. Globally, this includes <a href="https://lithub.com/israel-has-damaged-or-destroyed-at-least-13-libraries-in-gaza/">Librarians and Archivists with Palestine</a> and some <a href="https://www.brismes.ac.uk/news/destruction-of-palestinian-education-system">academic associations</a> and faculty groups. The ICJ’s recent order to Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza may motivate other scholars and institutions to consider breaking their silence on scholasticide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chandni Desai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scholars say Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s schools, universities and museums are part of an ongoing project to destroy Palestinian people, identity and ideas.Chandni Desai, Assistant professor, Education, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130582024-02-07T13:13:23Z2024-02-07T13:13:23ZGeorge Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a story of jazz, race and the fraught notion of America’s melting pot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573120/original/file-20240202-27-30mlpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C2658%2C1966&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It took George Gershwin just 10 days to pen the American classic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-of-us-composer-and-pianist-george-gershwin-news-photo/102488695?adppopup=true">GAB Archive/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>February 12, 1924, was a frigid day in New York City. But that didn’t stop <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Continuum_Encyclopedia_of_Popular_Music/HZQemZyozqwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=rachmaninov%20%22experiment%20in%20modern%20music%22&pg=PA479&printsec=frontcover">an intrepid group of concertgoers</a> from gathering in midtown Manhattan’s Aeolian Hall for “An Experiment in Modern Music.” The organizer, bandleader <a href="https://www.albany.edu/%7Esw7656/pathfind.htm">Paul Whiteman</a>, wanted to show how jazz and classical music could come together. So he commissioned a new work by a 25-year-old Jewish-American upstart named <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/arts/gershwin-obit.html">George Gershwin</a>. </p>
<p>Gershwin’s contribution to the program, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIr_WPcVDt8">Rhapsody in Blue</a>,” would go on to exceed anyone’s wildest expectations, becoming one of the best-known works of the 20th century. Beyond the concert hall, it would appear in iconic films such as Woody Allen’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/7mwZYGcbQCo?si=9cCvQHYdTvjcjDEF">Manhattan</a>” and Disney’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/ie-TS-BitnQ?si=m4PdBq-OM3Xit9dP">Fantasia 2000</a>.” It was performed during the opening ceremonies of the <a href="https://youtu.be/ylUF32pwvtI?si=74KSSpvdtXlC-KpB">1984 Los Angeles Olympics</a>, and if you ever fly on United Airlines, you’ll hear it playing during the <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2014/08/united-airlines-gershwin-rhapsody-blue/">preflight safety videos</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve spent nearly two decades <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-society-for-american-music/article/abs/each-man-kills-the-thing-he-loves-bernsteins-formative-relationship-with-rhapsody-in-blue/4D3271F9A4BD972DABD11C2ADB9DDF12">researching</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/arranging-gershwin-9780199978380">and writing</a> <a href="https://www.schott-music.com/en/rhapsody-in-blue-no577145.html">about this piece</a>. To me, “Rhapsody” isn’t some static composition stuck in the past; rather, it’s a continuously evolving piece of music whose meaning has changed over time.</p>
<p>Programming “Rhapsody” for concerts today has become somewhat of a double-edged sword. A century after it premiered, it remains a crowd favorite – and almost always guarantees a sold-out show. But more and more scholars are starting to see the work as a whitewashed version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene. </p>
<h2>A cobbled-together hit</h2>
<p>Whiteman commissioned Gershwin to write “Rhapsody” sometime in late 1923. But as the story goes, the composer forgot about his assignment <a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/RhapsodyInBlue.pdf">until he read about the upcoming concert in a newspaper</a> on Jan. 4, 1924. </p>
<p>Gershwin had to work quickly, writing as time allowed in his busy schedule. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Arranging_Gershwin/3Yw_BAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA25&printsec=frontcover">Manuscript evidence suggests</a> that he only worked on the piece a total of 10 days over the span of several weeks.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Handwritten sheet music." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573109/original/file-20240202-19-djol50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A copy of the first page of George Gershwin’s manuscript for ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/copy-of-the-first-page-of-the-autographed-manuscript-news-photo/500762335?adppopup=true">Gabriel Hackett/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Accordingly, he relied on the familiar melodies, harmonies, rhythms and musical structures that had started to garner him acclaim as a popular composer for the Broadway stage. This music was increasingly influenced by early jazz, as the improvised, syncopated and blues-infused sound of Black musicians such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxBQ2kiQyi8">Louis Armstrong</a> made its way north from New Orleans. Gershwin also mingled with, and was influenced by, some of the great Harlem stride pianists of the day, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ajtCKLTOiM">James P. Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FDUNWm_W0Y">Willie “The Lion” Smith</a>.</p>
<p>Despite being quickly cobbled together, “Rhapsody in Blue” ultimately sold <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Arranging_Gershwin/3Yw_BAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA25&printsec=frontcover">hundreds of thousands of records and copies of sheet music</a>. Gershwin’s own performances of the work on tour also helped boost its popularity. </p>
<p>But success also opened up the piece to criticism – particularly that Gershwin had appropriated Black music.</p>
<h2>Black musicians feel snubbed</h2>
<p>This is not only a 21st-century critique by music historians. Even back then, some Black artists were miffed.</p>
<p>But rather than calling it out in print, they did so through their own art.</p>
<p>In 1929, blues artist Bessie Smith starred in a short film called “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs00063365/">St. Louis Blues</a>,” based on the song of the same name by composer <a href="https://www.alamhof.org/wc-handy">W.C. Handy</a>. It features an all-Black cast, including members of the <a href="https://syncopatedtimes.com/fletcher-henderson-orchestra/">Fletcher Henderson Orchestra</a> and the <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/hall-johnson-1888-1970/">Hall Johnson Choir</a>. Instrumental and vocal versions of Handy’s song provide the sonic backdrop for this 15-minute film – with one very pointed exception. </p>
<p>Smith plays the part of Bessie, an unrequited lover to a duplicitous gambler named Jimmy. In the final scene, after a previous falling out, Jimmy and Bessie reconcile in a club. They embrace on the dance floor to the strains of “St. Louis Blues.” </p>
<p>But unbeknownst to the love-struck Bessie, Jimmy carefully picks her pocket and unmercifully shoves her back to her bar stool. After Jimmy flashes his newly acquired bankroll, the opening clarinet glissando of “Rhapsody in Blue” begins. <a href="https://youtu.be/S1qqB9l7RQM?si=Y5Aoq1sutIipDuMv&t=848">During this brief, 20-second cue</a>, Jimmy boastfully backs out of the club, bowing and tipping his hat like a performer acknowledging his ovation. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S1qqB9l7RQM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The short film ‘St. Louis Blues’ takes a subtle dig at Gershwin 14 minutes in.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s hard not to see the subtext of introducing Gershwin’s famous piece at this moment: Just as Jimmy has robbed Bessie, the film suggests that Gershwin had pilfered jazz from the Black community.</p>
<p>Another musical response to “Rhapsody” emerged in 1927 from Gershwin’s stride pianist friend, James P. Johnson: “<a href="https://youtu.be/Bw2ynNYSvgo?si=AF_Mrk0CDJhipJK8">Yamekraw</a>.” Publisher Perry Bradford <a href="https://news.wosu.org/show/the-american-sound/2018-10-18/echoes-of-the-harlem-renaissance-james-p-johnson-wrote-a-rhapsody-in-black-and-white">billed the work</a> as “not a ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ but a Rhapsody in Black and White (Black notes on White paper).” </p>
<p>Of course, the “black notes” were more than just the score itself. Johnson demonstrates how a Black musician would approach <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhapsody">the rhapsody genre</a>.</p>
<h2>Stuck in the middle with ‘Blue’</h2>
<p>Gershwin once described “Rhapsody” “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/George_Gershwin/RySwdc151ZoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22musical%20kaleidoscope%20of%20America%22&pg=PA297&printsec=frontcover">as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America – of our vast melting pot</a>.” </p>
<p>The problem with the “melting pot” metaphor is that it asks immigrants to leave behind cultural practices and identities in order to assimilate into the majority population. </p>
<p>And that’s just what Whiteman’s musical experiment at Aeolian Hall a century ago was all about: He sought, as he put it, to “<a href="https://syncopatedtimes.com/paul-whiteman-profiles-in-jazz/">make a lady out of jazz</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jazz_Cultures/8aUwDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22the%20tremendous%20strides%20which%20have%20been%20made%20in%20popular%20music%20from%20the%20day%20of%20the%20discordant%20Jazz%22&pg=PA162&printsec=frontcover">As the concert’s program read</a>, “Mr. Whiteman intends to point out, with the assistance of his orchestra and associates, the tremendous strides which have been made in popular music from the day of the discordant Jazz … to the really melodious music of today.” </p>
<p>In other words, he wanted to fold the era’s popular jazz music into classical music – and, in doing so, draw out the inherent beauty in the beast, making it more acceptable to white audiences. </p>
<p>“Rhapsody in Blue” and other classical-jazz hybrid works like it would soon <a href="https://theconversation.com/jane-austen-monet-and-phantom-of-the-opera-middlebrow-culture-today-145176">become known as “middlebrow” music</a>. </p>
<p>This fraught term emerges from the space between the so-called “lowbrow” and “highbrow,” descriptors that locate works of art on a scale from pedestrian to intellectual. These terms originally related to <a href="https://theconversation.com/neuroscientists-put-the-dubious-theory-of-phrenology-through-rigorous-testing-for-the-first-time-88291">the pseudoscience of phrenology</a>, which drew conclusions about intelligence based on skull shape and the location of the ridge of one’s brow line. </p>
<p>Highbrow music, made by and for white people, was considered the most sophisticated.</p>
<p>But highbrow music could also conveniently elevate lowbrow music by borrowing – or rather, appropriating – musical elements such as rhythm and harmony. Merging the two, the low gets to the middle. But it could never get to the top on its own terms.</p>
<p>If Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” is meant to be heard as a “musical kaleidoscope of America,” it is important to remember who’s holding the lens, what music gets added to the mix, and how it has changed once admitted. </p>
<p>But it’s also important to remember that 100 years is a long time. What the culture values, and why, inevitably changes. The same is true for “Rhapsody in Blue.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Raul Bañagale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The work remains a crowd favorite. But more and more scholars are starting to see ‘Rhapsody’ as a whitewashed version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene.Ryan Raul Bañagale, Associate Professor and Chair of Music, Colorado CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136972024-02-06T13:30:01Z2024-02-06T13:30:01ZBlack travelers want authentic engagement, not checkboxes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571338/original/file-20240125-19-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black travelers want to see the travel industry embrace their full identities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/african-woman-with-smartphone-vacationing-in-tokyo-royalty-free-image/1155295723?phrase=black+tourists&adppopup=true">AzmanL/ Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/06/26/travel-brands-rushed-post-blacklivesmatter-are-slow-share-how-theyre-taking-action/">travel brands</a> – including Delta Air Lines, Hilton and Enterprise – pronounced their support for diversity and the Black Lives Matter movement, our research group was motivated to conduct a study that collected data of the travel experiences of more than 5,000 Black people and people of color. </p>
<p>Our work, published in <a href="https://www.afar.com/magazine/black-travel-is-not-a-monolith">Afar magazine</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">Tourism Geographies</a>, found that Black travelers expressed dissatisfaction with how the travel industry promotes itself as inclusive.</p>
<h2>Authenticity matters</h2>
<p>Black travelers want more genuine and authentic engagement and representation, we found, that showcases an investment in the Black community by partnering with Black-owned travel businesses, guides and experiences. </p>
<p>We conducted in-depth interviews with several of the people who provided data to us. Those we interviewed told us plainly that they are weary of being perceived as a single, uniform entity. They want more attention paid to their <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersecting identities</a>. First coined by Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw back in 1989, intersectionality has come to mean that all oppression is linked to people’s complex identities related to their gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability and more.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/urbanistamom/?hl=en">Joshlyn Crystal Adams</a>, CEO of Urbanista Travel, told us, “It’s definitely more than being Black. It’s also as a woman, where do I feel safe going … if you go to this country as a gay person, just be mindful that if you’re caught doing this or that, you can be arrested. So it spins far beyond race. It’s definitely about gender and sexuality.” </p>
<p>We also found that Black travelers notice the small things that add up to an experience of feeling valued and seen – or not.</p>
<p>Some companies support Black-owned businesses by buying their products in limited amounts. For example, <a href="https://travelnoire.com/black-skincare-line-owner-partners-with-marriott-hotels">JW Marriott</a> sells <a href="https://travelnoire.com/black-skincare-line-owner-partners-with-marriott-hotels">Diamond’s Body Care</a> in their spas. But the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">people in our study emphasized</a> the need for brands and destinations to make a greater effort. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theroot.com/is-hotel-shampoo-kind-of-racist-1790876376">What do you know about my hair</a>? Nothing,” travel media personality, pilot and avid adventurer <a href="https://www.kelleesetgo.com/">Kellee Edwards</a> said about hotel shampoo. “Until they go ahead and mix that pot up and sprinkle some salt and pepper in it … this is what we’re going to be dealing with.” </p>
<h2>Diversity is not a box to check</h2>
<p>In the <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/traveling-through-jim-crow-america">Jim Crow era</a>, Black travelers were regularly denied access to crucial services such as gas, food, restrooms and lodging. Stopping in unfamiliar locations posed the threat of humiliation, threats or worse. </p>
<p>While it’s true that race relations and access to travel by Black people have improved in the United States since <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/statutes/civil-rights-act-of-1964">the Civil Rights Act of 1964</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040218-043750">generational trauma</a> has left a mark on Black travelers, affecting how and why <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1630671">they choose to travel</a>. </p>
<p>Edwards shared that identifying as a Black woman in a <a href="https://www.unwto.org/gender-and-tourism">traditionally male-dominated industry</a> is “exhausting.” </p>
<p>“Diversity is a lot of things, but … as women, we are very much underrepresented,” Edwards said. “While we need to focus on inclusion when it comes to race, we also must focus on gender.” </p>
<p>Travel often reinforces entrenched power dynamics, noted Christopher Carr, one of our study participants and an associate dean at George Mason University. </p>
<p>Carr said that destinations often engage in “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/lgbtq-pride-consumerism/">rainbow washing</a>” – superficial LGBTQ-friendly gestures meant to elicit positive feelings about a brand in order to sell something – with no real support going to the community, such as promoting pride flags while passing <a href="https://vogue.sg/rainbow-washing-pride-month/">anti-LGBTQIA corporate policies</a>. </p>
<p>That leaves him to wonder if “the attention that I’m receiving is genuine or is it because I’m somebody’s box to tick?” </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">interviewees</a> called for actions beyond symbolic gestures and real effort to engage the community.</p>
<p>“If companies want to understand how to be appeasing to our communities, they should go directly to us,” study participant and AfroBuenaventura Transformative Travel founder <a href="https://www.afrobuenaventura.com/">Ronnell Perry</a> said.</p>
<h2>Change the industry from within</h2>
<p>Black individuals hold fewer than 1% of top leadership roles – C-suite, director, CEO/president – in the U.S. hospitality industry, according to a <a href="https://www.ahla.com/sites/default/files/2022blackrepresentationinhospitalityindustryleadership_final_0.pdf">report by Castell Project</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, consultancies such as <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters">McKinsey</a> have made it increasingly clear that companies with more diverse workforces perform better financially.</p>
<p>In our recent publication “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">Black Travel Is Not Monolithic</a>,” we proposed a road map to help guide the travel sector toward authentic inclusion. However, change requires taking power from the hands of dominant white, heterosexual, nondisabled and first-world nation groups. </p>
<p>One of our top suggestions is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864043">diversify human resource departments</a> so that individuals from diverse identities and backgrounds can actively participate in the hiring process. From there, they can address culturally sensitive issues on a daily basis. Of course, this is true not just in travel but across industries.</p>
<p>Fostering an inclusive workplace also requires nurturing diverse leaders, inclusive of intersecting marginalized identities. </p>
<p>“Until you get people in who can represent us to say, ‘Hey, this is my community and I know something about this and we can represent this,’” Edwards said, “it’s not going to change.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black travelers want the tourism industry to recognize their full identity. That will require more than procedural checkboxes and targeted advertising.Alana Dillette, Assistant Professor. L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Tourism RESET, San Diego State UniversityStefanie Benjamin, Associate Professor of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management; Co-Founder of CODE, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2123182024-01-29T13:36:22Z2024-01-29T13:36:22ZNonwhite people are drastically underrepresented in local government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571298/original/file-20240124-27-zt9n4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C35%2C5955%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mayors from across the U.S. attended the Conference of Mayors, which included a visit to the White House.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-speaks-while-hosting-a-bipartisan-news-photo/1246390531">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Elected representatives in government don’t always look like the people they serve.</p>
<p>The people who serve in local governments – cities, counties and other entities below the state level – represent the vast majority of elected officials in the U.S. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YT3El7IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">My</a> recent research with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qMesMvAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Diana Da In Lee</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Z777M9UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Yamil Velez</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MbQMZ54AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Chris Warshaw</a> finds that, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/19/opinion/who-is-representing-you/">like in the federal and state governments</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02792-x">nonwhite people are drastically underrepresented in local government</a>.</p>
<p>We gathered <a href="https://osf.io/mv5e6/">elections data</a> on city, county and school district elections over the last three decades from medium and large places – any city with a population of at least 50,000 people and any county with a population of at least 75,000 in 2020. These 877 different cities and 1,005 different counties encompass more than half of the U.S. population. Using that data, we calculated the share of winning candidates who were members of several racial and ethnic groups.</p>
<p>In each place, we compared the percentage of the population from each of those demographic groups with the percentage of elected officials from those same groups. This allowed us to gauge whether each of these demographic groups was proportionally represented, or if they were overrepresented or underrepresented among their local politicians.</p>
<h2>Municipal officials</h2>
<p>Across cities in the U.S., we looked at the offices of mayor and city councilor. One commonality stands out: Nearly universally, the percentage of elected officials who are white is higher than the white share of the population. This overrepresentation persists from the early 1990s – the first time period from which we have data – to more recent years among mayors. Among city councilors, it’s a bit closer to parity with the population.</p>
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<p>For mayors in recent years, there is a particularly large gap: On average, 78% of mayors are white, while only 68% of the population in the cities in our data is white. City councilors, on the other hand, tend to look much more like the population in their cities.</p>
<p>This overrepresentation of white residents comes at the expense of Hispanic and Asian residents. Nearly 17% of residents in cities are Hispanic and 5% are Asian. But only 6% of mayors are Hispanic and only 2% are Asian.</p>
<h2>County officials</h2>
<p>In medium and large counties where we collected elections data, we made similar comparisons for county executives, county legislators, sheriffs and prosecutors. Again, across these local elected offices, there are far more, as a percentage, white elected officials than there are white residents of these counties.</p>
<p>Just under 70% of residents of the counties in our data are white. But over 76% of county executives are white, over 85% of county legislators are white, 83% of sheriffs are white, and nearly 89% of prosecutors are white.</p>
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<p>Again, the overrepresentation of white residents among local elected officials happens as other racial and ethnic groups are underrepresented in their county governments. Black residents make up 11% of the population in counties in our data, but only 9% of county legislators. And Hispanic and Asian residents are more drastically underrepresented in county offices. In our data, 11% of county residents are Hispanic, while 3% are Asian. But 5% or less of politicians holding office in any county elected position are Hispanic. And Asians make up 1% or less of elected county legislators, sheriffs and prosecutors.</p>
<h2>School boards</h2>
<p>Data on school boards’ representation is less clear because our data collection on school boards was less comprehensive than our data on city and county elections. But the apparent trend among the school districts where we gathered data is similar. </p>
<p>School boards have become a <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-school-boards-are-now-experiencing-severe-political-polarization-191102">flashpoint for various political efforts</a>, including teaching about race and racism and requests to ban books. And they are substantially more white than the communities they serve.</p>
<p>Less than half of the constituents in the school districts in our data are white, but more than two-thirds of school board members are white. Of the districts in our study, 22% of the residents were Black and 6% were Asian, but just 10% of board members are Black and just 3% are Asian. Hispanic residents, who made up 24% of the population, were more closely represented, but still not equally, with 20% of board members. </p>
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<p>What does this mean for representation across the U.S.? Local elected officials make important and often contentious decisions governing the lives of millions of city and county residents. Race and other demographic features of both residents and elected officials do not, by any means, offer a conclusive picture of their respective policy preferences. But the fact that local governments look so different from their residents doesn’t paint a sunny picture of representation in local government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin de Benedictis-Kessner has previously received grant funding for his research from the MIT Election Data + Science Lab, Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS), the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and the Boston Area Research Initiative.</span></em></p>As in the federal and state governments, local elected officials are more likely to be white than their constituents. At times, such as with school boards, the differences are particularly stark.Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197042023-12-14T15:54:12Z2023-12-14T15:54:12Z‘American Fiction’ asks who gets to decide Blackness<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/american-fiction-asks-who-gets-to-decide-blackness" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The much-anticipated <em>American Fiction</em> comes to theatres this month. As a long-time scholar of Percival Everett, the author whose 2001 novel, <a href="https://www.ctpublic.org/2023-12-12/advice-from-a-critic-read-erasure-before-seeing-american-fiction"><em>Erasure</em></a>, was adapted for this critically praised film I am curious how the main themes of the book will be explored.</p>
<p>Directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright, the film presents an opportunity to talk about race, power and white supremacy within intellectual and cultural spaces, including higher education. Specifically, what version of Blackness is acceptable or saleable within American culture? </p>
<p>Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the protagonist of <em>American Fiction</em>, is a novelist and an English professor. He struggles with the power that determines which versions of Blackness “count” and who makes these determinations. </p>
<p>In <em>Erasure</em>, Monk is constantly told that his work is not “Black enough.” But the determination of his Blackness is most often decided by people who are not themselves racialized within American society. </p>
<p>He finally gets so fed-up by the lack of sales for his literary novels, that he decides to write a satirical novel as a joke. </p>
<p>To his complete surprise, his ghetto novel, <em>My Pafology</em>, becomes a bestselling, award-winning novel. The film rights eventually sell for millions. But Monk’s ambivalence is unavoidable, since his work’s “success” is based entirely on terms set by other people. </p>
<p>And now, a novel satirizing how stereotypical versions of Blackness are often preferred by and sold to American culture has been made into <em>American Fiction</em>, a major motion picture, with wide cinematic release. It’s difficult not to feel ambivalent.</p>
<p>As a scholar who has written two books and given numerous interviews and talks on Black identity and race in Canada and as a longtime university English professor and now a university administrator, I am not Monk. But I get Monk. Like him, I have been frustrated and confused by the disjunctions between theory and practice so characteristic of life in the academy, especially in those moments when race — and particularly Blackness — is being discussed. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/american-fiction-is-a-scathing-satire-that-challenges-pop-culture-stereotypes-of-blackness-217988">'American Fiction' is a scathing satire that challenges pop-culture stereotypes of Blackness</a>
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<h2>Questions of power</h2>
<p>In my own setting, as a Black man born in Canada, working and teaching at an American college, I too am asking which versions of diversity matter and who decides how and when it matters.</p>
<p>Everett’s novel highlights racist mechanisms within society, many of which appear so natural that we no longer think of them as mechanisms at all.</p>
<p>In her 2019 book, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook"><em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</em></a>, American philosopher and scholar Shoshana Zuboff analyzes power through the role that giant tech companies play in our lives, often without our noticing them. Her book asks a question crucial to the understanding of how power works: “Who knows? Who decides? Who decides who decides?” </p>
<p>I find Zuboff’s questions useful in thinking about how power in relation to race works in colleges and universities, especially as institutions emphasize their commitment to “diversity,” on the one hand, while maintaining a glacial pace of change, on the other. </p>
<h2>Diversity needs a wholesale renovation</h2>
<p>Recently, someone at the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences <a href="https://www.ccas.net/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3940&pageid=1">(CCAS)</a> conference said the most effective way to diversify university faculties is through hiring. But the idea of hiring for diversity has led to a backlash in some quarters. </p>
<p>Recent attacks against <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/the-diversity-backlash-here-s-how-to-resist-it/">“diversity, equity and inclusion” policies</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/what-critical-race-theory-means-why-its-igniting-debate-2021-09-21/">misunderstandings of critical race theory</a> have pitted historical holders of power against those usually only spoken about. Controversies like these do not promise speedy progress where race is concerned.</p>
<p>I’m often equally perplexed by those who purport to be on my side. </p>
<p>Like Monk, the sources of much misunderstanding among my academic peers are people who say they want to help members of underrepresented groups on their campuses. </p>
<p>The expression “underrepresented groups” is another of these natural-looking expressions, now quite prominent in diversity policies. It actually obscures the important questions about the mechanisms and decisions that have resulted in these particular groups becoming underrepresented in universities in the first place. </p>
<p>The way that progress within a culture looks depends on who is doing the looking. At the CCAS conference, sociologist Nicole Stokes, interim vice-chancellor of student affairs at Pennsylvania State University (Abington), put all of this very well. She said a lot of the diversity work she sees looks a lot like surface remodelling, like putting new doors on old kitchen cabinets for example. But diversity work needs to be a wholesale renovation: when you take your kitchen down to the studs and start again.</p>
<p>In a way similar to who decides what is a saleable artifact from a minority culture, those deciding whether to remodel or to renovate are usually not those most directly affected by the history that has brought the need for such policies into being.</p>
<p>I’ve been a college professor for 28 years, and I’m currently an associate dean. If I feel this way, then how do you suppose junior colleagues of colour, or, more importantly, students of colour might feel? </p>
<p>For diversity policies to be taken seriously, we need to come clean on who has always decided their direction and value, and then work from there.</p>
<p>In the end, power dynamics don’t change in <em>American Fiction</em>, but at least Monk gets a bestseller and a movie deal.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The release of ‘American Fiction’ presents an opportunity to talk about race, power and white supremacy: What version of Blackness is acceptable or saleable within American culture?Anthony Stewart, Associate Dean (Arts and Humanities), Bucknell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179882023-12-14T15:54:09Z2023-12-14T15:54:09Z‘American Fiction’ is a scathing satire that challenges pop-culture stereotypes of Blackness<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563028/original/file-20231201-27-tecr8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=134%2C0%2C4250%2C2910&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Erika Alexander is Coraline and Jeffrey Wright is Monk in 'American Fiction.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Claire Folger/Orion)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this episode, Vinita sits down with two experts to break down the many layers — and Black stereotypes — in the much anticipated new film, American Fiction.</em></p>
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<p>The lead character of the new movie <em>American Fiction</em> is Monk. He’s a Black man but never feels ‘Black’ enough: he graduated from Harvard, his siblings are doctors, he doesn’t play basketball and he writes literary novels. </p>
<p>Directed and written by former journalist Cord Jefferson, <em>American Fiction</em> won this year’s People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it has its much anticipated North American release in theatres this month. It’s been called an “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/sep/10/american-fiction-review-cord-jefferson-jeffrey-wright">incisive literary satire</a>” by the <em>Guardian</em>. </p>
<p>The film, starring Jeffrey Wright, is an adaption of the 2001 novel <em>Erasure</em> by Percival Everett. The book and the film are centred on Monk, a novelist who’s fed up with a white-led publishing industry that profits from Black entertainment and tired tropes. As a Black man who thinks about race but also rages against having to talk about it, Monk gets so frustrated that he decides to poke fun of those who uncritically consume what they are sold as “Black culture.”</p>
<p>He uses a pen name to write an outlandish “Black” book of his own. It’s about “thug life” and is called “My Pafology.” But plot twist: his attempt at satire is lost on his audience and the book ends up becoming wildly successful. Suddenly, Monk is among those profiting off the stereotypes he so despises. The rest of the story explores “<a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/american-fiction-review-jeffrey-wright-1235718392/">the unfairness of asking individual artists to represent the entire Black experience</a>.”</p>
<p>In this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em>, Prof. Vershawn Ashanti Young of University of Waterloo and Prof. Anthony Stewart of Bucknell University join forces to break down the many layers of Monk’s story and why Black stereotypes remain so persistent in pop culture.</p>
<h2>Read more in The Conversation</h2>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-7-165933">How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future: Don't Call Me Resilient EP 7</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cultural-appropriation-and-the-whiteness-of-book-publishing-79095">Cultural appropriation and the whiteness of book publishing</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blackkklansman-a-deadly-serious-comedy-101432">'BlacKkKlansman' -- a deadly serious comedy</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harriet-tubman-film-does-not-deserve-the-twitter-hate-127493">Harriet Tubman film does not deserve the Twitter hate</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/american-fiction-asks-who-gets-to-decide-blackness-219704">'American Fiction' asks who gets to decide Blackness</a>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
<p><a href="https://lsupress.org/9780807172643/"><em>Approximate Gestures: Infinite Spaces in the Fiction of Percival Everett</em></a> by Anthony Stewart</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/08/awards-insider-first-look-american-fiction">First Look: American Fiction Challenges Hollywood’s “Poverty of Imagination” About Black People </a> (<em>Vanity Fair</em>)</p>
<p>“<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2016/09/how-amos-n-andy-paved-the-way-for-black-stars-on-tv.html">How Amos ’n’ Andy paved the way for Black Stars on TV</a>” (<em>Slate</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/native-son-richard-wright?variant=41224345419810"><em>Native Son</em></a> by Richard Wright</p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_mJBLBznANz6ID9rBCUk7gv_ZRC4Og9-">YouTube</a> or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. </p>
<p><a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dontcallmeresilientpodcast/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘American Fiction’ (Orion)</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In this episode, Vinita sits down with two experts to break down the many layers — and Black stereotypes — in the much anticipated new film, ‘American Fiction.’Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientDannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175152023-12-03T13:27:38Z2023-12-03T13:27:38ZEquitable sentencing can mitigate anti-Black racism in Canada’s justice system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562230/original/file-20231128-17-aahe7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C233%2C5955%2C3754&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black people have long faced systemic inequalities in Canada's justice system. But more equitable sentencing practices could make the process fairer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/equitable-sentencing-can-mitigate-anti-black-racism-in-canadas-justice-system" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/obpccjs-spnsjpc/pdf/RSD_JF2022_Black_Overrepresentation_in_CJS_EN.pdf">Black people continue to be overrepresented</a> at all levels of the Canadian justice system. <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/obpccjs-spnsjpc/pdf/RSD_JF2022_Black_Overrepresentation_in_CJS_EN.pdf">According to the Correctional Service of Canada</a>, nine per cent of offenders in custody were Black in 2020-2021, despite only representing about four per cent of Canada’s population.</p>
<p>As community activists, we delve into the pressing issue of <a href="https://educationactiontoronto.com/articles/systemic-violence-institutional-apathy-and-the-death-of-222-school-aged-students/">anti-Black racism in the Canadian justice system</a> and how the implementation of <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fund-fina/gov-gouv/supporting-soutien.html">Impact of Race and Culture Assessments (IRCAs)</a> can reduce the <a href="https://www.prisonfreepress.org/Facts.htm">over-representation of Black people in the justice system</a>. This is significant as it goes beyond a <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/research/005008-r426-en.shtml#2">one-size-fits-all punitive approach that has shown to be ineffective</a>.</p>
<h2>Anti-Black racism within institutions</h2>
<p>Anti-Black racism is not unique to the criminal system. According to the 2019 General Social Survey, 46 per cent of Black people aged 15 and older <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00002-eng.htm">reported experiencing at least one form of discrimination</a>. That is compared to 16 per cent of non-racialized people. </p>
<p>The intersection of anti-Black racism, <a href="https://www.the-crib.org/uploads/1/2/9/6/129649149/social_determinants_of_homicide_011022.pdf">systemic barriers in education</a>, and <a href="https://youthrex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-Roots-of-Youth-Violence-vol.-1-Findings-Analysis-and-Conclusions-2008.pdf">over-policing of racialized communities</a> all play a role in perpetuating the problem. </p>
<p>Black youth continue to be <a href="https://edu.yorku.ca/files/2017/04/Towards-Race-Equity-in-Education-April-2017.pdf">disproportionately streamed into lower education tracks</a>. <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-education-is-steeped-in-anti-black-racism/">Invisibility in curricula, stereotypical thinking about Black cultures, and the predominantly white demographic makeup of educators</a> contribute to the perpetuation of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3mD7Dyf6bY&t=1194s">school to prison pipeline</a> which funnels Black youth into the criminal justice system.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph showing the overrepresentation of Black adults in prison in four Canadian provinces." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562219/original/file-20231128-24-nyf1gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Data shows that Black people continue to be incarcerated at a disproportionately high rate across Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Statistics Canada)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The need for IRCAs</h2>
<p>The 1999 landmark Supreme Court of Canada case, <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1695/index.do">R. v. Gladue</a>, established that as part of sentencing Indigenous offenders, the judge must consider: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>The unique systemic or background factors which may have played a part in bringing the particular Indigenous offender before the courts; and </p></li>
<li><p>The types of sentencing procedures and sanctions which may be appropriate given the circumstances for the offender because of their particular Indigenous heritage.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/gladue/p3.html">Gladue report</a> emerged from the case acknowledging the need to consider the unique circumstances of Indigenous individuals as part of equitable sentencing. It highlighted how historical injustices, systemic discrimination and cultural factors play a significant role in shaping the lives of Indigenous offenders.</p>
<p>Currently, IRCAs can be used for Black offenders facing jail time of two years or more or a youth facing a custodial sentence. By recognizing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687211006461">the racial systemic injustices Black people face</a>, <a href="https://www.legalaid.on.ca/irca/">IRCAs enable judges to make more informed decisions that can lead to more equitable consequences</a>. IRCAs provide context for the disadvantages and systemic racism faced by Black offenders and offers recommendations for alternatives to incarceration. </p>
<p>However, IRCAs are inconsistently implemented across provinces and used occasionally in <a href="https://sentencingproject.ca/cases">Ontario</a> and <a href="https://www.ansji.ca/">Nova Scotia</a>. IRCAs must be done by clinical social workers to provide judges and parole boards with a more complete picture of an individual’s personal background, specifically their past traumas and impact of such experiences in engaging in criminality. </p>
<p>In 2021, the federal government <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fund-fina/gov-gouv/supporting-soutien.html">provided funding to legal aid to implement IRCAs</a>. By acknowledging historical and systemic biases and tailoring interventions to individual identities and life experiences, IRCAs have the potential to transform the criminal justice system. </p>
<h2>Support from community organizations</h2>
<p>The Gladue process must be adapted to provide IRCAs more comprehensively for Black offenders. This would promote equitable justice <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/https-theconversationcom-how-can-we-slow-down-youth-gun-violence-194145-u2f_EZHZ">giving consideration for Black offenders’ backgrounds, traumas, and the intergenerational impacts of discrimination and marginalization</a>.</p>
<p>The involvement of <a href="https://yaaace.com/">Black community organizations</a> is crucial in guiding the implementation of IRCAs. <a href="https://www.ansji.ca/">Black community organizations</a> hold a wealth of knowledge and lived experiences that are indispensable in crafting effective IRCAs. Their leadership can ensure that the process is respectful, culturally reflective, and responsive to the unique challenges faced by Black individuals within the justice system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black boy sitting in a class room" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562228/original/file-20231128-17-nulvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-Black racism is not unique to the criminal system and many Black youth continue to face systemic barriers in education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://yaaace.com/">Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education</a> (YAAACE) is a Black-led non-profit organization housed in Toronto’s Jane and Finch community that is advocating for the implementation of IRCAs and exploring alternatives to custody in community settings. A co-author of this story, Ardavan Eizadirad, is the executive director of YAAACE.</p>
<p>Such community organizations can serve as <a href="https://yaaace.com/initiatives">bridges between incarceration facilities and institutions fostering trust and cooperation</a>. This is critical to shift away from a narrative that blames racialized communities for violence to one that works collaboratively with them <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/riskprotectivefactors.html#Risk%20Factors">to mitigate the risk factors that gravitate people towards violence</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2020/aug01.html#:%7E:text=According%20to%20a%202019%20CSC,of%20non%2DIndigenous%20male%20offenders.">Recidivism rates remain high for Canada</a> showing that <a href="https://www.intersectionalanalyst.com/intersectional-analyst/2017/7/20/everything-you-were-never-taught-about-canadas-prison-systems">the current justice system is not very efficient</a> in promoting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687211006461">rehabilitation and reintegration back into community</a>. </p>
<p>Co-author <a href="https://www.educaress.com/">Greg Leslie</a> is a Black social worker and psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience. Unaddressed race-based traumas <a href="https://www.socialconnectedness.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/HL-A-Public-Health-Approach-to-Gun-Violence-in-Toronto-Report-VERSION5.docx.pdf">contribute to severe mental health problems</a>. Culturally reflective services that address traumas experienced by Black individuals and families, particularly due to gun violence, are vitally important. Trauma-focused therapy and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy can provide compassionate support and acknowledge the unique cultural complexities of a person’s experiences. </p>
<h2>Investing in more equitable justice</h2>
<p>To ensure effective implementation of IRCAs, some key investments are required:</p>
<p><strong>Training and education:</strong> Legal professionals, judges, police officers, and correctional staff must undergo comprehensive training on cultural competence and learning about the historical context of systemic anti-Black racism in Canada. </p>
<p><strong>Data collection and government support:</strong> Accurate and consistent data collection is crucial to measure the impact of IRCAs and address potential disparities in implementation. Collaboration between government agencies, academic institutions, and community organizations are necessary. All levels of government must provide adequate resources and funding to support implementation of IRCAs.</p>
<p>IRCAs hold the key to creating a more just and equitable Canadian justice system. By recognizing how racism and injustice impact people’s lives, IRCAs can transform Canada’s justice system through equitable sentencing, contributing to reduced recidivism, community healing, and overall safer communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217515/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ardavan Eizadirad receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and is the Executive Director of the non-profit organization Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education (YAAACE) in the Jane and Finch community.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Leslie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Impact of Race and Culture Assessments can reduce the overrepresentation of Black people in the justice system.Ardavan Eizadirad, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityGregory Leslie, Master's student, School of Social Work, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182332023-11-23T16:32:58Z2023-11-23T16:32:58ZThe potential of psychedelics to heal our racial traumas<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/f2e5423c-d81f-41aa-a3c8-e7a6bb396a7b?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><em>Clinical psychologist and professor Monnica Williams is on a mission to bring psychedelics to therapists’ offices to help people heal from their racial traumas. To do this, she’s jumping over some big hurdles.</em></p>
<p>Judging from the colourful signs advertising mushrooms that we are seeing on our streets and the presence of psychedelics in pop culture, we are in the middle of a psychedelic renaissance. For example, in the TV program <em>Transplant</em>, a Syrian Canadian doctor experiencing trauma is treated by his psychiatrist with psilocybin therapy. </p>
<p>On a more official front, this month, the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10079020/psychedelics-veteran-ptsd/">Canadian Senate recommended the federal government fast-track a research program</a> into how psychedelics can help veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD covers a range of issues, including racial trauma. </p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/the-potential-of-psychedelics-to-heal-our-racial-traumas">On this week’s episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, we explore how psychedelics — including psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) and MDMA — can help heal racial trauma. Racial trauma, Williams explains, is not necessarily something that happens through one event. It’s usually ongoing experiences of stress, including “daily insults to your person.” </p>
<p>With racial trauma, therapists are also looking at events beyond an individual’s lifetime. “We’re looking at historical trauma, that may have happened decades or even centuries ago, that is still associated with the person’s cultural group. These could be catastrophes that happened to a whole group of people, like ethnic cleansing or genocide, the Holocaust, or it could be a natural disaster.”</p>
<p>Intergenerational trauma is something Williams has experienced personally. Her parents grew up in the Deep South in the United States during the Jim Crow era. As African Americans, they were subject to segregation and extreme oppression. She says that affected the whole African American community.</p>
<p>People with racial trauma can have symptoms like depression or anxiety or may be despondent or angry. </p>
<h2>Research studies show results for psychedelics</h2>
<p>Once Williams saw the research studies coming out of <a href="https://maps.org/about-maps/">MAPS, a multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies</a>, she was convinced that psychedelics can work: “The medicine does its thing and the brain starts to heal itself.”</p>
<p>But there are some big hurdles before we get there, including the fact that many mental health professionals don’t have any “training or knowledge in working with people across race, ethnicity and culture,” according to Williams. </p>
<p>And we don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to communities of colour and drugs. There is a long and ugly history of institutions using Black, Indigenous and racialized bodies without consent for medical experimentation, including drug testing. We also can’t forget the racial roots of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/war-on-drugs-75e61c224de3a394235df80de7d70b70">war on drugs</a> and the devastating impact it had — and continues to have — on Black and other racialized communities. </p>
<p>All this begs the question: As psychedelics appear to be entering the mainstream, how can we open up their healing properties to people in need in an inclusive way? </p>
<p>To find out more, listen to this week’s podcast with Monnica Williams, clinical psychologist and professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, where she is the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Connecticut.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People heal through connecting with other people. That’s how we get through traumas. Our society suffers from a mental illness called racism, and we as a society need to heal from this disease where you have one part of the body attacking another part of the body. It’s like an autoimmune disorder, right? Doesn’t make any sense: makes the whole body sick. And we’re on a planet that we all share and we’re all human beings, we’re all connected, even in ways we don’t realize or understand. We could think of it as a single organism and we all need to heal so that we can all function in a way that’s in the best interest of the whole entity.
- Monnica T. Williams</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Read more in The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-promise-of-lsd-mdma-and-mushrooms-for-medical-science-100579">The real promise of LSD, MDMA and mushrooms for medical science</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albertas-new-policy-on-psychedelic-drug-treatment-for-mental-illness-will-canada-lead-the-psychedelic-renaissance-195061">Alberta’s new policy on psychedelic drug treatment for mental illness: Will Canada lead the psychedelic renaissance?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mdma-assisted-couples-therapy-how-a-psychedelic-is-enhancing-intimacy-and-healing-ptsd-127609">MDMA-assisted couples therapy: How a psychedelic is enhancing intimacy and healing PTSD</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/psychedelic-medicine-is-on-its-way-but-its-not-doing-shrooms-with-your-shrink-heres-what-you-need-to-know-208568">Psychedelic medicine is on its way. But it's not 'doing shrooms with your shrink'. Here's what you need to know</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Resources</h2>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-023-01160-5?sv1=affiliate&sv_campaign_id=922583&awc=26429_1700596296_e8eeb80cdaec76f40d0015d156200eef&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=awin&utm_campaign=CONR_BOOKS_ECOM_DE_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK&utm_content=textlink&utm_term=922583">“Psychedelics and Racial Justice”</a> by Monnica T. Williams</p>
<p><em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/truth-be-told/id1462216572">Truth be Told</a></em> Season 5 (American Public Media/Tonya Mosley)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/us/oregon-psychedelic-mushrooms.html">“A New Era of Psychedelics in Oregon”</a> by Mike Baker</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8811257/">“The Need for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy in the Black Community and the Burdens of Its Provision”</a> by Darron T. Smith, Sonya C. Faber, NiCole T. Buchanan, Dale Foster and Lilith Green</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/529343/how-to-change-your-mind-by-michael-pollan/9780735224155"><em>How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics</em> by Michael Pollan
</a></p>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.76.2.208">“Anger and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder symptoms in Crime Victims: A Longitudinal Analysis”</a>. <em>Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology</em>. by Orth, U., Cahill, S.P., Foa, E.B., & Maercker, A.</p>
<h2>Listen and follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_mJBLBznANz6ID9rBCUk7gv_ZRC4Og9-">YouTube</a> or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts. </p>
<p><a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dontcallmeresilientpodcast/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Clinical psychologist and professor Monnica Williams is on a mission to bring psychedelics to therapists’ offices to help people heal from their racial traumas. To do this, she’s jumping over some big hurdles.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173442023-11-14T21:35:48Z2023-11-14T21:35:48ZCanadian cities continue to over-invest in policing<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canadian-cities-continue-to-over-invest-in-policing" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Year-end debates about 2024 budgets have already begun across Canada, with cities <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/waterloo-regional-police-service-mark-crowell-1.7000460">like Waterloo</a> <a href="https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2023/11/08/ottawa-police-propose-13-4m-spending-increase-for-2024/">and Ottawa</a> proposing spikes in police budgets.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/defund-police-2023-budgets-grow-1.6741711#:%7E:text=Following%20the%20murder%20of%20George,of%20Canadians%20supported%20the%20idea.">public calls to “defund the police” in 2020</a>, the budgets of Canadian police departments have continued to rise. In fact, when it comes to public safety budgets in Canada, the last five years have seen increasing investments in policing and under-investment in the social services and programs that contribute to safer cities. </p>
<p>The continued over-investment in policing is a limited and contradictory approach to safety. For one thing, police forces don’t address the root causes of violence and other harms. </p>
<p>Research has shown the “deterrence effect” of policing <a href="https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/276">to be weak</a>, while aggressive policing often impairs the social relations and institutions that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/want-to-reduce-violence-invest-in-place/">normally keep violence and conflict in check</a>. </p>
<p>It should be obvious that preventing violence and other harms is better than punishing perpetrators after the fact. However, as <a href="https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/s/Cops-Dont-Stop-Violence">numerous studies have shown</a>, this requires an investment in a range of non-police services and programs. It means recognizing the inherent limitations of policing and adopting a broader approach to public safety. </p>
<p>Too often, however, city leaders equate safety with policing, and throw public money at an institution that actually creates unsafety for many people while failing to prevent violence and other harms.</p>
<h2>Contradictions in policing</h2>
<p>Policing is also a contradictory approach to safety. </p>
<p>While promising safety to some, policing is a source of “unsafety” for many communities. This is evident in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/m_features/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-carding">police carding</a> <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives">and violence</a> against Black people, the brutal repression of <a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/07/15/police-brutality-in-canada-a-symptom-of-structural-racism-and-colonial-violence/">Indigenous people</a> and especially <a href="https://indiginews.com/first-person/in-the-aftermath-of-latest-raid-wetsuweten-decry-rcmp-harassment">land defenders</a>, the harassment of <a href="https://rapsim.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/VF2_Judiciarisation-de-litine%CC%81rance-a%CC%80-Montre%CC%81al.pdf">unhoused people</a> and the <a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/Overview%20of%20Encampments%20Across%20Canada_EN_1.pdf">destruction of their property</a>, the killing of people experiencing <a href="https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-custom/deadly-force/">mental health crises</a>, the criminalization of <a href="https://sexworklawreform.com/infosheets-impacts-of-c-36/">sex work</a> and much more. </p>
<p>This is nothing new. Police forces were created specifically to enforce <a href="https://trackinginjustice.ca/analysis-policing-colonialism-and-discrimination/">a particular, white and bourgeois sense of order and safety</a>, and police “reforms” like multicultural training and hiring more racialized police officers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.11.003">do not alter that core mission</a>. </p>
<p>Various studies and reports since 2020 have provided further evidence of anti-Black racism in <a href="https://spvm.qc.ca/upload/Rapport_Armony-Hassaoui-Mulone.pdf">police stops</a> and <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/Use%20of%20force%20by%20the%20Toronto%20Police%20Service%20Final%20report.pdf">use of force</a>, but none of this has stopped city leaders from further investing in the institution that causes these harms.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-georgia-using-extreme-legal-measures-to-quell-cop-city-dissenters-216482">State of Georgia using extreme legal measures to quell ‘Cop City’ dissenters</a>
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<p>If we view the police only as a source of safety, we are occupying a particular social position: a position of racial and class privilege.</p>
<h2>Policing spending: Before and after 2020</h2>
<p>In the spring of 2020, when the police killed <a href="https://justiceforbreonna.org/">Breonna Taylor</a> in Louisville, Ky., <a href="https://www.vera.org/news/what-justice-for-george-floyd-looks-like">George Floyd</a> in Minneapolis and <a href="https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2023/06/06/Three-Years-No-Justice-Chantel-Moore/">Chantel Moore</a> in Edmundston, N.B., new attention was brought to the contradictions and limitations of policing. </p>
<p>Historic protests filled the streets in the United States and around the world. <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/disarm-defund-dismantle">The phrases “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” became synonymous</a>. </p>
<p>The rhetoric of defunding the police may have been new, but the core demand was consistent with longstanding critiques of policing and racial injustice. The core demand, as <a href="https://breachmedia.ca/toward-a-police-free-future-in-canada/">Black feminist scholar and organizer Robyn Maynard explains</a>, is to reallocate funding, power, equipment and force “away from agents of state violence and repression, and committing to invest instead in community-centred forms of safety.”</p>
<p>However, police budgets have continued to increase by an average of three per cent per year, adding to an almost 20 per cent increase over five years. Budgets for 2023 saw an especially large increase: an average of six per cent, with increases of more than eight per cent in Montréal, Vancouver and Peel Region. </p>
<p>Therefore, the 2020 protests had little impact on police budgets in Canada. In fact, police spending actually increased at a greater rate in the three years after 2020 than in the three years before it. In some cities, the change was especially significant. Montréal’s budget, for example, increased by 19 per cent after 2020.</p>
<p>As always, police spending is determined not just by what cities decide to provide, but what police forces themselves decide to spend. Police forces generally adhere to their budgets, but there are exceptions. </p>
<p>Between 2018 and 2022, Ottawa and Vancouver exceeded their budgets by $8.7 million and $12.2 million, respectively. The glaring outlier is the Montréal police, which exceeded its budget by $35.7 million per year and $178.6 million overall. </p>
<h2>Choosing safety, not policing</h2>
<p>The political message these budget choices sends is clear. Whatever <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/after-the-2020-protests-we-were-told-things-would-be-different-so-why-are-police/article_07d8c81c-ffa4-5dbb-bb67-972a0f8fe138.html">statements city leaders might have made in 2020</a>, Black lives do not matter to them in practice. </p>
<p>More broadly, cities have failed to incorporate the key argument that progressives have always made, reinforced in 2020: services and programs other than policing are required to prevent violence and other harms. </p>
<p>There have been some moves in this direction. Both <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-community-crisis-service-report-expansion-city-council-committee-1.7007108">Toronto</a> and <a href="https://reachedmonton.ca/initiatives/24-7-crisis-diversion/">Edmonton</a> have introduced crisis response teams that see health workers, rather than police, respond to calls related to mental health. <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-will-be-getting-a-new-emergency-number-for-mental-health-crises-1.6477699">Ottawa</a> will follow suit next year. </p>
<p>The amount invested in these teams, however, is much less than the new money provided to police.</p>
<p>As the end of 2023 approaches, Canadian urban leaders need to recognize that the safety of their cities means investing in safety, not police.</p>
<p>There is no shortage of guidance for this shift, from Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie’s book <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/no-more-police"><em>No More Police</em></a> to the excellent <a href="https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/220117bopc1021.pdf">report by Halifax Board of the Police Commissioner’s Subcommittee</a> and the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ee804787469504a54387fd9/t/62d9a5671916485cdc753921/1658430826746/La+vision+des+communaute%CC%81s+-+finale+%28FR%29.pdf">alternative city budget from the Montréal Defund the Police Coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The broad imperative is to significantly reduce police budgets for 2024, while reallocating funding to some of the many services and programs that give people more safety and police less work to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Rutland receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p>Despite public calls to defund the police in 2020, the budgets of Canadian police forces have continued to rise.Ted Rutland, Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2153722023-11-06T15:16:12Z2023-11-06T15:16:12ZMy parents are from two different African countries: study shows how this shapes identity<p>More than a <a href="https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/062/2016/009/article-A001-en.xml">third of migration</a> in sub-Saharan Africa happens within the continent. This mixing of people means that some children have parents of different national origins. Yet not enough is known about the lives of these children: how they form their identity and what impact migration has on them. </p>
<p>The majority of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kassahun-Kebede/publication/329950963_The_African_second_generation_in_the_United_States_-_identity_and_transnationalism_an_introduction/links/5c76fdca92851c69504669e9/The-African-second-generation-in-the-United-States-identity-and-transnationalism-an-introduction.pdf">research</a> on second generation African immigrants focuses on understanding their experiences in the global north. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2018.1484503">research</a> looked at the less studied African context, where the majority of African migration occurs.</p>
<p>We are <a href="https://www.ug.edu.gh/sociology/staff/geraldine-asiwome-ampah">sociologists</a> who study <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-97322-3_7">migration</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/imig.12644">identity</a> and we have seen that studies tend to take the <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d93fe8bf-5987-40ea-98d2-e9c6cbbe61f0/download_file?safe_filename=TDI%2Brevised%2Bsubmission%2Bto%2BERS%2BAugust%2B2015.pdf&file_format=application%2Fpdf&type_of_work=Journal+article">perspective</a> of the <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253000828/migrants-and-strangers-in-an-african-city/">parents</a> in the African context. The voices of the children are missing. </p>
<p>To fill this gap we <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630.2023.2222670">asked</a> children who have two African-born parents – but from different countries on the continent – about their experiences. </p>
<p>Our aim was to understand how children with binational parentage formed their identity. We wanted to know if they aligned with either or both of their parents’ identities and which individual or structural factors shaped that. This could be useful to know in contexts where ethnic, religious, political and national identities are salient markers of difference and influence people’s lives and opportunities.</p>
<h2>Questions of identity</h2>
<p>We conducted 54 interviews but drew on the experiences of 32 of the research participants for our paper. Their ages ranged from the lower 20s to the lower 60s. Participants came from Ghana, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. Our sample was middle class and therefore our findings are limited to binational identity among middle class Africans. </p>
<p>A key criterion for participation was that participants should have lived in the African country of one of their parents’ birth or both during their formative years. This is because formative years (from birth up to the end of secondary education) shape who you are. And the experiences you have in a place leave an indelible impression and influence your sense of who you are.</p>
<p>We asked them questions such as: Who are you? What is your identity? Where are you from? How do others perceive you? What relationship do you have with your parents’ home country or home town? To what extent has your identity created opportunities for you and to what extent has it created challenges for you? </p>
<h2>Primary and secondary identities</h2>
<p>A person’s primary identity is how they see themselves principally. Their secondary identity comes after those core or foundational aspects.</p>
<p>We learnt that the participants’ primary identity was shaped predominantly by the closeness of family ties during their formative years. Family ties were evident in communication, visits and presence at rites of passage.</p>
<p>The case of three sisters whose mother was from Botswana and father from Ghana highlighted the importance of the closeness of family ties for identity formation even among siblings.</p>
<p>Maru, the eldest, was born when her parents were settling into adult life. She was raised by her maternal grandmother in rural Botswana because her parents were trying to find jobs in Gaborone, the capital. She felt a close bond with her maternal grandmother and thought of herself as Kalanga (an ethnic group) with a very weak link to Ghana. </p>
<p>Her two sisters were born almost a decade later in Gaborone and raised by their parents, who had settled into their lives in the capital. They described themselves differently. Seliwe described herself as Ghanaian. When she was growing up, the family spent holidays (sometimes several months) in Ghana and she thoroughly enjoyed those visits. She was close to the Ghanaian side of her family and spent much time during our interview talking about her paternal uncle, who lived in her father’s home town, and the jollof rice at a popular fast-food restaurant in Accra. She identified chiefly as Ghanaian and insisted that identity be recognised, for example by ensuring that her name, which is Ghanaian, be pronounced correctly.</p>
<p>The family plays a crucial role in identity formation. If parents want their children to identify with both sides of the family, they need to ensure that the children spend time with both sides of the family. </p>
<p>Another influence is the extent to which children are accepted by the extended family members. Meghan, who had a Ghanaian father and a Nigerian mother, noted that her mother’s family embraced her far more than the Ghanaian side of the family. Although she was living in Ghana, she barely had any contact with them. She explained, “I find that I relate more to my Nigerian side than the Ghanaian side.” </p>
<p>Fluency in a particular African language was not an important marker of identity for the study participants.</p>
<p>Our study also found that binational individuals drew upon their secondary identity either explicitly to achieve some purpose or implicitly for its intrinsic value.</p>
<p>About half of the sample had drawn on their secondary identity to access something practical, like tertiary education or employment. In simple terms, even if they didn’t feel strongly Nigerian (for example) they might use that identity to get a place at a university. </p>
<p>The other half of the sample drew on their secondary identity for non-essential – more cultural – purposes. Usually this was in making choices about things like food, clothing and music. Another purpose was more personal – such as the name the individual chose to use.</p>
<h2>Why the insights are useful</h2>
<p>Identities are fluid and people weave in and out of them. If you feel Nigerian at your core then you embrace all aspects of “Nigerianness”, including music, food and so on. If being Nigerian is your secondary identity, you see value in claiming it sometimes even if it is for instrumental reasons.</p>
<p>We found individuals with binational identity were able to shift between their primary and secondary identity quite frequently, sometimes daily. </p>
<p>A society’s culture informs identity – but so do individuals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Primary identities are foundational and serve as the core part of an individual’s identity.Akosua Keseboa Darkwah, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of GhanaGeraldine Asiwome Ampah, Senior Lecturer of Sociology, University of GhanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155082023-11-03T12:43:53Z2023-11-03T12:43:53ZWhat is intersectionality? A scholar of organizational behavior explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556869/original/file-20231031-21-gebvyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=413%2C62%2C2582%2C1782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Civil rights advocate and legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw speaks in New York City on Feb. 7, 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kimberle-crenshaw-speaks-onstage-at-the-3rd-annual-one-news-photo/463097436?adppopup=true">Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In modern conversations on race and politics, a popular buzzword has emerged to describe the impact of belonging to multiple social categories. </p>
<p>Known as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/19/us/intersectionality-feminism-explainer-cec/index.html">intersectionality</a>, the social theory has a complex history and refers to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/intersectionality-how-gender-interacts-with-other-social-identities-to-shape-bias-53724">intertwining of different identities</a>, such as class, gender and age. It is often applied as a way to understand how individuals may experience multiple forms of prejudice simultaneously. </p>
<p>The theory assumes that meanings associated with one identity are insufficient to explain the experiences associated with multiple, coexisting identities.</p>
<h2>The origins of intersectionality</h2>
<p>The term has its roots in feminist, racial and legal academic literature. </p>
<p>In 1977, the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black feminists, issued the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0028151/">Combahee River Collective Statement</a>. The statement introduced the idea that one’s race, sex, sexual orientation and class were subject to different forms of oppression but ought to be examined simultaneously.</p>
<p>The term was formally coined a dozen years later by Columbia Law Professor <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a>, one of the scholars behind <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/the-man-behind-critical-race-theory">critical race theory</a>. </p>
<p>That theory comprises a <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">set of concepts</a> that frame racism as structural, rather than simply expressed through personal discrimination. Scholars <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2021-05-22/segment/04">such as Crenshaw</a> point to racial discrepancies in educational achievement, economic and employment opportunities and in the criminal justice system as evidence of how racism is embedded in U.S. institutions.</p>
<p>In her <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8/">1989 paper</a> “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” Crenshaw drew upon several legal cases to describe how Black women experience discrimination “greater than the sum of racism and sexism.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw defines and discusses ‘intersectionality’ – a term she coined in the late 1980s to describe how individuals may experience multiple forms of prejudice simultaneously.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In a speech two years later at the the Center for American Women and Politics Forum for Women State Legislators, Crenshaw <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/scal65&div=70&id=&page=">further explained</a> that in order to address “sexual harassment of African American women,” policymakers needed to understand the “intersections of race and gender.”</p>
<p>Today, Crenshaw hosts a podcast titled “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intersectionality-matters/id1441348908">Intersectionality Matters!</a>” where she discusses the relevance of intersectionality in the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic and other modern topics. She has also <a href="https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/">expressed concern</a> over ways that the term has been distorted amid its politicization. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Intersectionality explores how people experience life through multiple coexisting identities. </p>
<p>Outside of intersectionality’s academic origins, there are many debates today over whether it is important for understanding workplace and policy issues.</p>
<p>Organizations are increasingly promoting intersectionality as part of their human resource strategies. For instance, <a href="https://us.pg.com/gender-equality/">Procter & Gamble Co.</a>, a large organization with common household brands such as Tide and Pampers, is one of them. “We’re creating an inclusive, gender-equal environment within P&G, while advocating for gender and intersectional equality in workplaces everywhere,” the company says on its website.</p>
<p>Two large consulting firms, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/bem/our-insights/race-in-the-uk-workplace-the-intersectional-experience">McKinsey & Company</a> and <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/dei/intersections-of-identity.html">Deloitte</a>, have also urged corporate clients to gather and analyze data related to their employees’ intersectionality. They argue that further understanding of intersectionality allows for more tailored firm strategies and equitable workplaces. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hundreds of women are carrying signs during a march in New York City." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Demonstrators hold signs during the Women’s March in New York City on Jan. 19, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marcher-with-a-sign-that-says-vote-with-intersectionality-news-photo/1199544932?adppopup=true">Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Applying this guidance, Google created <a href="https://about.google/belonging/at-work/">Self-ID</a> “to build a workforce that’s representative of our users.” Self-ID allows Google employees the option to share identities beyond their race, ethnicity and binary gender with Google management. </p>
<p>In its <a href="https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/methodology/">2022 Annual Diversity Report</a>, Google described how Self-ID further “helps to make everyone at Google more visible” and encourages a more inclusive workplace.</p>
<p>Yet, these efforts do not come without controversy. </p>
<p>Shortly after the 2020 <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/racial-bias-trainings-surged-after-george-floyds-death-a-year-later-experts-are-still-waiting-for-bold-change">George Floyd murder</a>, the FBI offered an employee training session on intersectionality. Training materials were obtained by Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, through a <a href="https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-federal-bureau-of-intersectionality">Freedom of Information Act request</a>. The training encouraged employees to reflect on their intersectionality and the role of intersectionality at work. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-intersectionality-training">Conservative critics</a> question the role of such training in creating equitable workplaces and argue instead that it encourages claims of racial discrimination and oppression in America. </p>
<h2>The politics of intersectionality</h2>
<p>Some elected officials have voiced support for policies that account for individuals’ intersectionality. In early 2022, for instance, U.S. Rep. <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/news-features/news/2022/02/25/03/13/ayanna-pressley-speaks-at-ram-inclusion-week">Ayanna Pressley</a>, a Democrat from Massachusetts, explained during a talk at Suffolk University, “We live in intersectionality … and our policies have to reflect that.” </p>
<p>To that end, Pressley introduced in 2023 the <a href="https://pressley.house.gov/2023/06/22/ahead-of-dobbs-anniversary-pressley-colleagues-advocates-unveil-abortion-justice-act/">Abortion Justice Act</a> to provide abortion access to all individuals “regardless of zip code, immigration status, income, or background.” <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4061259-pressley-decriminalize-abortion-new-legislation/">She described the act</a> as “inclusive and intersectional.”</p>
<p>Yet, other politicians have limited public discussions on intersectionality, especially within schools. </p>
<p>In May 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/266">Florida Senate Bill 266</a> in his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176210007/florida-ron-desantis-dei-ban-diversity">ongoing effort</a> to eliminate state funding for diversity training programs in public schools and universities.</p>
<p>Although the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-is-stripped-out-of-floridas-higher-ed-reform-bill">term intersectionality was ultimately removed</a> during revisions of the bill, the new law prohibits teachers from using theories that suggest “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent … and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequalities.” </p>
<p>For Crenshaw, the problem with such anti-woke laws is deeper than a question of censorship, but instead an attack on those “who value a multiracial democracy.”</p>
<p>“The whole point of anti-wokeness is to fundamentally change the story of the continuing relevance of enslavement and segregation,” <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-07-31/laws-banning-critical-race-theory-in-schools-will-persist-one-of-its-originators-says-its-time-to-address-the-deeper-issue">Crenshaw said</a> on Boston Public Radio in July 2023. “It chills teachers not to teach this material.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Hymer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>First used in the 1970s, the social theory known as intersectionality triggered widespread debate on racial identifications and the interplay among categories.Christina Hymer, Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134392023-11-01T12:34:43Z2023-11-01T12:34:43ZA century ago, a Black-owned team ruled basketball − today, no Black majority owners remain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556712/original/file-20231030-15-31tku3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C1%2C1194%2C955&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The New York Rens played from 1923 to 1948.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAq0dD0VAAAeSwU?format=jpg&name=medium">Black History Heroes/Twitter</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first time in 20 years, the NBA began its season with no Black-owned franchises.</p>
<p>In fact, there’s been only one Black majority-owned team in league history.</p>
<p>In late 2002, the NBA awarded an expansion team, the Charlotte Bobcats, to Black Entertainment Television co-founder Bob Johnson. Four years later, former NBA star Michael Jordan bought a minority stake in the franchise, and in 2010, he bought Johnson’s stake. However, <a href="https://andscape.com/features/michael-jordans-hornets-sale-leaves-nba-with-no-black-majority-team-ownership/">Jordan sold his majority stake</a> in the franchise in July 2023.</p>
<p>This lack of diversity in basketball team ownership is especially disappointing considering the rich history of Black ownership in sports, which began when the top leagues in the U.S. were still segregated.</p>
<p>A century ago, one of the top pre-NBA professional franchises began play in Harlem thanks to the efforts of a Black business owner named <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/robert-douglas">Bob Douglas</a>. </p>
<h2>A challenge to the dominance of white sports</h2>
<p>My students are often surprised that the history of professional team sports in the U.S. goes far beyond the NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB. But the media’s focus on the “big four” leagues can cause fans to overlook the incredible accomplishments and leadership of many pioneers in athletics, including those from marginalized groups whose <a href="https://store.cognella.com/84292-1a-001">participation in mainstream leagues were limited or banned</a>.</p>
<p>The first 50 years of professional basketball was an amalgam of regional leagues and barnstorming teams. As with baseball and football, basketball teams from this era were segregated. But white teams and Black teams would square off against one another in exhibitions as they toured the country. </p>
<p>On the business side, many white businessmen were profiting from – if not exploiting – this Black talent pool, arranging tournaments and competitions and taking a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/illinois-scholarship-online/book/30355/chapter-abstract/257397248?redirectedFrom=fulltext">disproportionate cut of the earnings</a>. But Black entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to support Black communities through sports by keeping the talent – and money – from exclusively <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2023/02/04/negro-league-baseballs-demise-assured-once-mlb-integrated-1947/11082330002/">lining the pockets of white owners</a>.</p>
<p>Douglas helped found the Spartan Field Club in 1908 to support his and other Black New Yorkers’ interest in playing sports. These clubs provided facilities and organized amateur teams across a number of sports, with <a href="https://www.historicstkitts.kn/people/robert-douglas">cricket and basketball being among the most popular</a>.</p>
<p>Douglas had fallen in love with basketball after first playing in 1905, only a few years after he had immigrated to New York from St. Kitts. Despite encountering discrimination as a Black man and immigrant, he founded and played for an adult amateur basketball team within the club named the Spartan Braves. He transitioned to managing the club in 1918.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black bald man wearing sunglasses and a suit poses while folding his arms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556713/original/file-20231030-26-jlbs88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bob Douglas was nicknamed the ‘Father of Black Professional Basketball.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://djn2oq6v2lacp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/bob-douglas-rens-owner-harlem-2.jpg">Harlem World Magazine</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Douglas was searching for a permanent home for his team and offered to rename the Spartan Braves the Harlem Renaissance in exchange for the use of the Black-owned <a href="https://onetwentyfifth.commons.gc.cuny.edu/non-fiction/the-historical-renaissance-ballroom/">Renaissance Ballroom & Casino</a> on Seventh Avenue between 137th and 138th streets. The team played its first game as the Renaissance on Nov. 3, 1923, with Douglas signing his players to <a href="https://www.blackfives.org/new-york-rens/">full-season contracts</a>.</p>
<p>Two years later, the “Rens,” as they came to be called, were declared the World Colored Basketball Champions. The squad went on to establish itself as a national powerhouse and competed in some of the first professional basketball games between <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/7032039">white teams and Black teams</a>. In 1925, <a href="https://archive.org/details/hotpotato00bobk">the Rens bested the Original Celtics</a>, a white team from <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/original-celtics/">Manhattan’s West Side</a> that many viewed as the top team in the nation.</p>
<p>The next year, another all-Black team claiming Harlem as its home was founded. Unlike the Rens, however, the Harlem Globetrotters had no connection to the New York City neighborhood. They were based out of Illinois and had a white owner, <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/abe-saperstein/">Abe Saperstein</a>, who sought to profit from the connection between Black Americans and the place that served as the epicenter of Black culture. </p>
<h2>A stretch of dominance</h2>
<p>During the 1932-33 season, the Rens won 120 of the 128 games they played, including 88 in a row. Six of the losses came at the hands of the Original Celtics, although the Rens did end up winning the season series, beating their all-white rivals eight times. </p>
<p>Basketball’s influence on Black culture continued to grow throughout the interwar period. During Duke Ellington concerts, basketball stars like <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/clarence-jenkins/">Fats Jenkins</a> would entertain the crowd between sets, facilitating the deep cultural connection between <a href="https://www.blackfives.org/spin-magazine-mentions-harlem-rens-basketball-music-connection/">basketball and Black music that continues today</a>.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1930s, the Rens and Globetrotters were not just looking to prove themselves as the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-fives-basketball/">best Black teams</a> but also establish themselves as the best basketball teams in the nation. </p>
<p>In 1936, the New York Rens played a two-game series against the formidable <a href="https://www.nba.com/bucks/features/history-of-basketball-in-oshkosh">Oshkosh All-Stars</a>, who played out of Wisconsin. The popularity of the games led to Douglas and Oshkosh founder <a href="https://www.blackfives.org/early-racial-inclusion-puts-wisconsin-on-pro-basketball-map/">Lon Darling</a> to agree to a longer series, with the Rens winning three of the five games. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Old program for the first Basketball World's Championship features two players jumping for a ball above a map of the United States, wtih Chicago's skyline emerging from the center of the map." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1192&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556710/original/file-20231030-25-zgcuj4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rens won the first World Professional Basketball Tournament in 1939.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.blackfives.org/museum/world-pro-tournament-programs/#foogallery-23466/i:1">Black Fives Foundation</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Douglas agreed to extend the competition another two games to create a “world series.” Oshkosh ended up winning them both to take the series. The victories led Darling and the All-Stars to join what would become the National Basketball League, a predecessor to the NBA. The NBL signed its <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/first-black-african-american-nba-players-history">first Black player in 1942</a>, five years before Jackie Robinson made his MLB debut.</p>
<p>As the NBL grew in popularity, the World Professional Basketball Tournament was created. In the 10 years the tournament was played, NBL teams won all but three championships, with all-Black teams claiming the other three. But only one of those teams – <a href="https://www.blackfives.org/new-york-rens-won-first-world-pro-basketball-tournament-on-todays-date/">the Rens</a> – had a Black owner.</p>
<h2>War, competition and integration</h2>
<p>The Rens struggled to maintain their dominance after the newly established Washington Bears, another all-Black team, <a href="https://www.blackfives.org/washington-bears/">poached a number of Ren players in 1941</a>. The Bears were founded by legendary Black broadcaster <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/nyregion/hal-jackson-pioneer-in-radio-and-racial-progress-dies-at-96.html">Hal Jackson</a> and backed by theater owner Abe Lichtman, who lured players with higher pay and a lighter schedule. </p>
<p>After the war, a number of NBL franchises struggled, including the Detroit Vagabond Kings, <a href="https://nbahoopsonline.com/History/Leagues/NBL/Teams/DetroitVB/index.html">who dropped out of the league</a> in December 1948. Since the league needed a replacement, the Rens moved to Dayton, Ohio, and finished the season with the NBL, becoming the first Black-owned team in a primarily white league. </p>
<p>The NBL shuttered following the season, and several teams joined the newly formed NBA, leaving the Rens behind. The NBA was segregated during its first season after the merger was completed. But in 1950, several Black players – including former Rens player <a href="https://www.nba.com/news/how-chuck-cooper-nat-clifton-earl-lloyd-changed-nba-racial-integration">Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton</a> – integrated the league.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young Black man in white basketball jersey palming a basketball in each hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555637/original/file-20231024-29-vu17bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nat ‘Sweetwater’ Clifton played for the New York Rens and went on to become one of the first Black players in the NBA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nat-sweetwater-clifton-of-the-new-york-knickerbockers-news-photo/517727432?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As professional sports grew and continued to integrate over the course of the 20th century, all-Black teams lost much of their top talent to white-owned teams. Despite <a href="https://www.nba.com/news/how-chuck-cooper-nat-clifton-earl-lloyd-changed-nba-racial-integration">quotas that limited the number of Black players on white-owned teams</a>, the loss of top talent led to the end of teams like the Rens.</p>
<p>The unique community and fan experiences fostered by these all-Black franchises <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-negro-leagues-a-look-back-at-what-was-lost-129678">was forever lost</a>.</p>
<h2>The Rens legacy</h2>
<p>In 1963, the 1932-33 Rens squad was enshrined in the <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/new-york-renaissance">Basketball Hall of Fame</a>. Several individual players, along with Douglas, would enter the Hall in later years.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black man wearing suit jacket and orange shirt seated courtside during a basketball game." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556705/original/file-20231030-19-k2soqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">BET co-founder Bob Johnson owned the Charlotte Bobcats from 2002 to 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/charlotte-bobcats-team-owner-bob-johnson-watches-his-team-news-photo/577765474?adppopup=true">Chris Keane/Icon Sport Media via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Today there are no Black majority owners in any of the four major North American professional leagues. There are a handful of Black Americans who are <a href="https://andscape.com/features/michael-jordans-hornets-sale-leaves-nba-with-no-black-majority-team-ownership/">minority owners of teams</a> – former NBA stars Dwyane Wade and Grant Hill have minority stakes in the Utah Jazz and Atlanta Hawks, respectively – but it isn’t clear how much influence they wield.</p>
<p>It’s an especially discouraging situation for the NBA. In a league <a href="https://43530132-36e9-4f52-811a-182c7a91933b.filesusr.com/ugd/403016_901e54ed015c44fb83df939d2070dc17.pdf">that is over 70% Black</a>, the dearth of Black owners and executives can lead to a disconnect between <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-racial-politics-of-the-nba-have-always-been-ugly">the players and the people running the league</a>. </p>
<p>In recent years, players have clashed with owners <a href="https://www.complex.com/style/a/jackson-connor/stylish-nba-players-who-were-affected-by-leagues-dress-code">over dress codes</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ja-morant-shows-how-a-good-guy-with-a-gun-can-never-be-black-206161">discipline</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2017/09/27/kareem-abdul-jabbar-protest-pushback/710808001/">political protests</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-has-surpassed-us-10-billion-in-revenue-increasingly-disruptive-valuation-reached-us-86-billion/">As league revenue continues to soar</a>, and the NBA serves as an example for <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/38156961/nba-grade-racial-gender-hiring-practices">inclusive hiring practices</a>, the lack of Black ownership is harder to ignore 100 years after the Rens first stepped on the court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jared Bahir Browsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Led by a Black businessman named Bob Douglas, the New York Rens, who played their first game on Nov. 3, 1923, became one of the best basketball teams in the country.Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2126052023-10-30T12:29:58Z2023-10-30T12:29:58ZThis course uses big data to examine how American newspapers covered lynchings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556441/original/file-20231029-19-izwm8n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=99%2C9%2C5897%2C2966&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 5,000 Black people have been lynched in the US.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hangmans-noose-on-black-background-royalty-free-image/132062934?adppopup=true">Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>Lynching and the Press</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>One of my students was reviewing a spreadsheet that listed total lynchings by state. She exhaled, and then, with a bit of weariness, said, “Mississippi, goddamn.”</p>
<p>She was trying to comprehend the enormity of violence against the Black population of Mississippi: 823 lynchings from 1865 to 2011, <a href="https://sites.uw.edu/lynching/#/home">according to the Tolnay-Beck and Seguin lynching inventories</a>, two of the main academic resources in this field. She is one of 13 University of Maryland journalism students digging through <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95073194/1901-08-28/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=08%2F28%2F1901&index=0&date2=08%2F28%2F1901&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn95073194&words=CRIME&proxdistance=5&state=Nebraska&rows=20&ortext=crime&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1">historic newspaper articles</a> and data tables this semester to learn about how U.S. newspapers covered lynching. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C4%2C1019%2C823&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of a large crowd of white people looking up, many of them grinning, at tree branches where two men have been hanged, their bodies dangling from the branches." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C4%2C1019%2C823&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555440/original/file-20231023-21-ger90y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, both of whom were African American, were lynched by a mob in Marion, Ind., in 1930.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-lynching-of-african-americans-thomas-shipp-and-abram-news-photo/871633440?adppopup=true">Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The class is an extension of an <a href="https://www.ire.org/announcing-the-2021-ire-award-winners/">award-winning 2021 student journalism project</a> called “<a href="https://lynching.cnsmaryland.org/">Printing Hate</a>,” published by the <a href="https://merrill.umd.edu/howard-center-for-investigative-journalism">Howard Center for Investigative Journalism</a> at the University of Maryland, which examined various case studies of lynching coverage.</p>
<p>My class is taking a much longer view of this kind of journalism, using big data tools to examine newspaper coverage of lynchings from 1789 through 1963. In the process, students will gain important insights about our country’s history. They are learning about the societal context that allowed more than <a href="https://sites.uw.edu/lynching/">5,000 mob-driven murders</a> of Black citizens to happen and how some mainstream news coverage reinforced the violent white supremacy of these events. Newspapers, for example, frequently used dehumanizing language to describe the lynching victims as “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063034/1890-10-19/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=10%2F19%2F1890&index=0&date2=10%2F19%2F1890&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn86063034&words=Fiend&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=Fiend&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1">fiends</a>” or “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015137/1881-08-23/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=08%2F23%2F1881&index=0&date2=08%2F23%2F1881&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn82015137&words=Brute&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=brute&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1">black brutes</a>.”</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>The core of the class involves analyzing data from 60,000 news pages captured from the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/">Library of Congress’ Chronicling America</a> database of historic newspapers. This project began as an academic study with my colleague <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=koSIcJ0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Sean Mussenden</a>, the data editor at the Howard Center and senior lecturer at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism. A prominent journalism historian, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TwNX-ucAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Kathy Roberts Forde</a>, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst later joined our team. </p>
<p>After working with this large dataset, I decided to offer a class so students could learn research skills, such as data and content analysis, while also learning more about history and the history of U.S. journalism.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1099574431">Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases</a>,” by journalist <a href="https://theconversation.com/ida-b-wells-how-grassroots-support-and-social-media-made-a-monumental-difference-in-honoring-her-legacy-100866">Ida B. Wells</a>.</p>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1252735793">Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America</a>,” by Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield.</p>
<p>• “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/they-left-great-marks-on-me-african-american-testimonies-of-racial-violence-from-emancipation-to-world-war-i/oclc/778459402">They Left Great Marks On Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I</a>,” by Kidada Williams. </p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>Working with a sample of this data from newspaper lynching articles, students compared the lynching location with the location of the newspaper. It took about three weeks for the class to classify some 3,000 news articles on a Google form and sheet that I had prepared. Students’ preliminary research is exploring why some Southern newspapers would cover lynching outside the state but not in their own backyards. Students are wondering if this was a form of erasure of local history.</p>
<p>Later this semester, my students will research the tone of newspaper narratives about lynching, such as how the news coverage portrayed the mob. The one graduate student in the class, who is pursuing her Ph.D. in history, is examining lynching in the antebellum era, a period for which there is very little research on this topic available.</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>My students write weekly reflections about the readings and coursework. This course has opened their eyes to how the news media’s negative portrayals of African Americans can support systems of white supremacy. <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/778459402">Few mainstream newspaper articles reflected Black voices</a>, except, of course, the Black press.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>These students will leave this class with in-depth data and content analysis skills. They will acquire a keen sensitivity to portrayals of Black Americans and other people of color in news coverage. Ultimately, we hope the course will lead to better journalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Wells receives funding from the Social Data Science Center Seed Grant program for this research into media coverage of lynching.</span></em></p>Student journalists are using spreadsheets and databases to examine one of the darkest chapters in American history.Rob Wells, Associate Professor, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2152692023-10-24T13:16:03Z2023-10-24T13:16:03ZThe thorny issue of ‘race’ in South African politics: why it endures almost 30 years after apartheid ended<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/race-human">“Race”</a> continues to have much political salience in South Africa, a country where, in the past, perceived differences of skin colour were used to construct a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">hierarchy of “races”</a>, with whites at the top, to justify their political economic domination. </p>
<p>The move to constitutional democracy in 1994 committed the country to <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf#page=7">non-racialism</a>. However, almost three decades after the end of apartheid, politicians of different stripes continue to use “race” <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/files/case-study-competition/20130322-The-Emergence-of-Racial-Politics-in-South-Africa.pdf">as a wedge issue</a> to mobilise support.</p>
<p>The question is why. Two answers stand out.</p>
<p>The first is that racial oppression has been entrenched by the country’s brutal history. The second is that the 1994 political settlement has failed to significantly improve the conditions of the mass of South Africans. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roger-Southall">sociologist</a> and long-term observer of South African affairs, I suggest that these arguments are not easily dismissed, despite counter suggestions that life for most South Africans <a href="https://irr.org.za/reports/occasional-reports/files/life-in-south-africa-reasons-for-hope.pdf">has improved since 1994</a>. Both arguments suggest that, after nearly three decades, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-apartheid-end">democracy of 1994</a> has become a form of neo-apartheid. Only a small black elite and middle class has been admitted to the old order of white economic prosperity and privilege while the majority of the population remains poor and black.</p>
<p>As long as this is the case, “race” will continue to have salience in the country’s politics, contrary to the non-racial consensus to which the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a> aspires.</p>
<h2>A fault of history</h2>
<p>The first argument says that “race”, as an explanatory feature of the continuing inequalities in South Africa, is hard-wired into the country’s politics by the long history of racial oppression. <a href="https://www.ufs.ac.za/docs/default-source/all-documents/biography-mr-moletsi-mbeki.pdf?sfvrsn=38b96d20_0">Moeletsi Mbeki</a>, a provocative commentator, <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2020-09-21-moeletsi-mbeki-how-a-history-of-conflict-made-sa-the-most-unequal-country-in-the-world/">writes that</a> the country’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africa-1900s-1900-1917#:%7E:text=Increased%20European%20encroachment%20ultimately%20led,South%20Africa%20by%20the%20Dutch.&text=The%20Cape%20Colony%20remained%20under,to%20British%20occupation%20in%201806.">conquest</a> by the Dutch and the British, and the reaction of its native peoples to their conquest, is the only context in which the issues of “race” and “race relations” are understandable.</p>
<p>Having decimated a prosperous African peasantry to produce a massive supply of cheap labour to the mines, the British enlisted a class of Afrikaner collaborators who managed the country between 1910 and 1994.</p>
<p>The implication is that even if South Africa’s politics officially subscribe to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42705231?typeAccessWorkflow=login">non-racialism</a>, the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-02-27-the-business-of-unfinished-busines/">physical and psychological violence</a> inflicted upon the African majority cannot be wished away. It is easily exploited as a resource by unscrupulous politicians. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-white-liberals-dodge-honest-debates-about-race-127846">How South Africa's white liberals dodge honest debates about race</a>
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<p>Some see elections as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00471.x?typeAccessWorkflow=login">“racial census”</a>, spurred on by a shift away from non-racialism within the ruling African National Congress (ANC), to prioritising black African interests. The ANC characterises its principal rival, the Democratic Alliance, as the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/05/04/magashule-da-is-a-white-party-despite-black-faces-leading-it">political vehicle of white people</a>.</p>
<h2>Failure of the 1994 settlement</h2>
<p>The second argument about “race” is that the foundation of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-wrong-to-blame-south-africas-woes-on-mandelas-compromises-96062">1994 settlement </a> was built on the premise of a non-racial South Africa. But this has failed to significantly improve the conditions of the mass of South Africans.</p>
<p>In its most conspiratorial form, this presents <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-good-politics-bad-sociology-worse-economics-77338">“white monopoly capital”</a> as having concocted a deal with an incoming black political elite. This helps white people to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/the-unfettered-power-of-white-monopoly-capital-8680007">maintain their economic dominance</a> over the black African majority.</p>
<p>More convincing are suggestions that the social democracy constructed in 1994 produced only a few winners. From this perspective, South Africa’s democracy was built on the simple proposition that the rising black elite and middle class could bargain and compromise with whomsoever it liked so long as each generation of black South Africans did better than the last.</p>
<p>For the first 15 years or so, this held. Although inequality remained vast, the bottom quarter of the population was enabled to rise through the <a href="https://www.gcis.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/gcis/16.%20Social%20Development.pdf">expansion of a welfare state</a>. However, following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/inequality-troubling-trends-and-why-economic-growth-in-africa-is-key-to-reducing-global-disparities-215266">global crisis of 2008</a>, the <a href="http://www.saccps.org/pdf/5-1/5-1_DRMartin_DrSolomon_2.pdf">state capture era</a> under former president Jacob Zuma and <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">COVID</a>, this “foundational covenant” has been broken. </p>
<p>The lives of the younger generations are likely to become worse than those that preceded them. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-cant-crack-the-inequality-curse-why-and-what-can-be-done-213132">levels of inequality</a> are not only intolerably high, but racially skewed. As a result, South Africa has, according to academic and commentator <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonny-steinberg-1438581">Jonny Steinberg</a>, become </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2019-06-14-jonny-steinberg-the-centre-held-in-may-poll-thanks-to-fear-not-hope/">a perfect cocktail for populist mobilisation</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The liberal <a href="https://irr.org.za/reports/occasional-reports/reasons-for-hope-2019-unite-the-middle">Institute of Race Relations</a> has argued that South Africans are far more concerned about material improvement (more houses, more jobs, improved schools, and better services) than they are about “race” and that public perception is that <a href="https://irr.org.za/reports/occasional-reports/files/reasons-for-hope-report-final.pdf">“race relations” have improved since 1994</a>. </p>
<p>They may well be right, yet this rather misses the point that social change could well have been faster than it has been. As many black (and other) commentators <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-undo-mandelas-economic-deals-52767">point out</a>, there is as much continuity with apartheid as there has been change. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-in-south-africa-why-the-anc-has-failed-to-dismantle-patterns-of-white-privilege-187660">Racism in South Africa: why the ANC has failed to dismantle patterns of white privilege</a>
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<p>Not least the fact that <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-in-south-africa-why-the-anc-has-failed-to-dismantle-patterns-of-white-privilege-187660">whites continue</a> to be disproportionately advantaged in terms of income, wealth, housing, and opportunity relative to other South Africans. Yet, there is an unwillingness among white people to recognise that to be white in South Africa continues to be a primary marker of socio-economic advantage.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.amazon.com/StayWoke-Africa-survive-Americas-culture/dp/B093RZJGSX">counter view</a> to this is that continuing inequalities are falsely ascribed to white racial privilege rather than to the broader political and economic dynamics of post-1994 South Africa. Central to such claims is that the non-racialism to which the 1994 settlement aspires has been perverted by the ANC’s policies of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056240701340365?casa_token=vcnLCrNvWCAAAAAA%3Aof20qYMBRBvHgmsttlZe12dgLK6HodItdYkRai6ZsnYDJaO-V-58gttAXFXsxQP12ldMa9P0QLg5a28">black economic empowerment</a> and <a href="https://www.labour.gov.za/DocumentCenter/Publications/Employment%20Equity/What%20employers%20and%20workers%20need%20to%20know%20about%20Employment%20Equity/EE%20pamphlet%20opt%20red.pdf">employment equity</a>.</p>
<p>Although those policies are officially pitched as levelling the playing fields to render society “demographically representative”, critics decry how they have become instruments for the dishing out of state contracts to those with connections to the ANC. </p>
<p>The debate continues with a remorseless circularity. </p>
<h2>White versus black fragility</h2>
<p>“Race” remains central to politics in South Africa and cannot simply be wished away, even if whites have conceded political power and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv24tr7sh?typeAccessWorkflow=login">offer no major threat to democracy</a>. This does not suggest that white privilege has evaporated. Nor does it mean that there has been no significant change in racial dynamics since 1994. </p>
<p>We also need to understand the dynamics of class as much as those of “race” to understand why “race” remains so central to contemporary political debate.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-people-in-south-africa-still-hold-the-lions-share-of-all-forms-of-capital-75510">White people in South Africa still hold the lion's share of all forms of capital</a>
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<p>To state the obvious, whites have lost control of the state, enabling ANC policies such as <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-act">black economic empowerment</a> and the widening of access to higher education to promote upward mobility and the growth of the black middle class. Indeed, South Africa’s middle class is today <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/the-new-black-middle-class-in-south-africa/">as much black as it is white</a>. This, even though the black middle class is on aggregate less well-off than the white middle class.</p>
<p>The critics of the political settlement of 1994 largely hail from the black middle class, even though it is the black middle class that has been one of the principal beneficiaries of South Africa’s social democracy. Despite their gains, it is they who are most likely to encounter what they perceive as “white privilege”, most notably in the workplace, as the primary obstacle to material advancement and upward social mobility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215269/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Critics of the 1994 political settlement largely hail from the black middle class, even though it has been one the principal beneficiaries of South Africa’s social democracy.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155592023-10-18T12:31:19Z2023-10-18T12:31:19ZWhat do a Black scientist, nonprofit executive and filmmaker have in common? They all face racism in the ‘gray areas’ of workplace culture<p>American workplaces talk a lot about diversity these days. In fact, you’d have a hard time finding a company that says it doesn’t value the principle. But despite this – and despite the <a href="https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5519706/diversity-and-inclusion-dandi-global-strategic">multibillion-dollar diversity industry</a> – Black workers continue to face significant hiring <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175102/making-the-cut">discrimination</a>, stall out at middle management levels and remain <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/black-workers-face-promotion-and-wage-gaps-that-cost-the-economy-trillions.html">underrepresented in leadership roles</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://sociology.wustl.edu/people/adia-harvey-wingfield">As a sociologist</a>, I wanted to understand why this is. So I spent more than 10 years interviewing over 200 Black workers in a variety of roles – from the gig economy to the C-suite. I found that many of the problems they face come down to organizational culture. Too often, companies elevate diversity as a concept but overlook the internal processes that disadvantage Black workers.</p>
<p>I tell several of these individuals’ stories in my new book, “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/gray-areas-adia-harvey-wingfield?variant=41006208876578">Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It</a>.” While racial disparities were once the result of law and explicit policy – think of “Whites Only Need Apply” signs – today, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Systemic-Racism-A-Theory-of-Oppression/Feagin/p/book/9780415952781">subtle cultural processes lead to unequal racial outcomes</a>. It’s in these “gray areas” that racism lurks.</p>
<h2>Three professionals, one frustrating reality</h2>
<p>Take “Constance,” for example – not her real name – who is a Black female chemical engineering professor at a major research university. Her university proclaims its commitment to diversity and inclusion, with several offices and initiatives dedicated to this goal.</p>
<p>Yet she told me that most leaders at her school are uncomfortable trying to achieve racial diversity. They’d rather be “colorblind” – that is, they’d rather not acknowledge or address racial disparities or the institutional rules and norms that perpetuate them. So their attempts to pursue diversity translate into attempts to hire more women faculty but not more Black faculty. </p>
<p>This isn’t surprising, as women generally <a href="https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/report/the-stem-workforce">are underrepresented in STEM fields</a>. But the emphasis on gender means that the racial issues Constance <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15295726/does-anyone-see-us-disposability-of-black-women-faculty-in-the-academy">encounters as a Black woman</a> – openly racist teaching evaluations, colleagues’ casual stereotyping, additional barriers to mentorship – go ignored.</p>
<p>“Kevin” offers another instructive example. He’s a Black man who works at an education nonprofit that <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school#:%7E:text=For%2520decades%252C%2520black%2520students%2520in,the%2520rate%2520was%252073%2520percent.">aims to help kids</a> – a laudable goal. His workplace touts its culture of collaboration and says that it demonstrates its commitment to diversity by supporting children from all backgrounds.</p>
<p>But in practice, Kevin found that the organization often shunned and patronized Black parents, treating them disrespectfully. And despite his employer’s stated support for diversity, Kevin says his efforts to highlight these problems usually went ignored.</p>
<p>And then there’s “Brian.” A film producer with extensive Hollywood experience, Brian was excited about taking a job with a major studio. He thought it would give him an opportunity to bring more films about the variety of Black experience to audiences. And since studio leaders talked a big game about innovation, creativity and original thinking, this seemed like a reasonable assumption.</p>
<p>But once he started in this role, Brian learned that the studio was dominated by a market-driven culture, which leaders <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479847877/the-hollywood-jim-crow/">used to justify</a> not investing in films by and about Black people. Importantly, the same logic around Black filmmakers rarely seemed to apply to white ones, Brian said – those who directed flops were still given multiple chances to keep working. Pointing out this hypocrisy failed to change minds or practices, Brian found.</p>
<h2>When a DEI statement isn’t enough</h2>
<p>What do these three people, working in very different industries, have in common? They all work for employers that have a stated commitment to diversity – and an organizational culture that belies and even undermines it.</p>
<p>When these companies commit to diversity but fail to tackle racial diversity specifically, it becomes easy for workers like Constance, Kevin and Brian to find that the issues they experience get overlooked and that there’s no effective way to bring them forward. They get stuck in the gray areas.</p>
<p>However, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674276611">practical steps</a> companies can take to address racial diversity: creating <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2022/12/02/four-ways-mentorship-programs-can-meaningfully-promote-workplace-diversity-and-inclusion/?sh=581f7cbc98db">mentoring programs</a> for everyone, setting goals and <a href="https://libguides.stanford.edu/library/business-diversity">collecting data to measure progress</a>, and investing in <a href="https://hbr.org/2004/09/diversity-as-strategy">diversity task forces</a>, for example. </p>
<p>My research suggests smart organizations will do just that – moving toward a culture where “diversity” is a driver of solutions, not just a buzzword.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adia Harvey Wingfield is the President-elect of the American Sociological Association. </span></em></p>A sociologist interviewed more than 200 Black workers about their experiences. Here’s what she found.Adia Harvey Wingfield, Professor of Sociology, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2128152023-10-03T19:35:52Z2023-10-03T19:35:52ZBook review: African thinkers analyse some of the big issues of our time - race, belonging and identity<p>The subjects of race, identity and belonging are often fraught with contention and uneasiness. Who are you? Who belongs? Who is native, or indigenous to a place? These perennial questions arise around the world.</p>
<p>They are the subject of the book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/9783031387968">The Paradox(es) of Diasporic Identity, Race and Belonging</a>, edited by <a href="https://scholar.google.co.jp/citations?user=EEyB8sMAAAAJ&hl=en">Benjamin Maiangwa</a>, a political scientist at Lakehead University in Canada. </p>
<p>The contributors are academics, mostly early career scholars and doctoral candidates in African and North American universities. They study genocide, peace and conflict, gender, decolonial practices, identity, race and war. </p>
<p>Unavoidably, questions that defy convenient answers pervade the reflections and analyses in the book. </p>
<p>In my own work as <a href="https://www.mtroyal.ca/ProgramsCourses/FacultiesSchoolsCentres/Arts/Departments/EnglishLanguagesCultures/FacultyStaff/Ademola-Adesola.htm">a scholar</a> of African literature with an interest in the subjects of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10402659.2017.1344526">conflict</a>, childhood and identity, I underscore the relevance of these questions. </p>
<p>The Paradox(es) of Diasporic Identity, Race and Belonging assembles voices that urge us to think more critically about how the politics of race and identity hampers healthy interrelations among people.</p>
<p>In a world increasingly divided by supremacist ideologies, the insights in this collection of essays are highly relevant. </p>
<h2>What the book’s about</h2>
<p>The contributors to the book use a variety of forms of writing. Some of the essays are autobiograpical; some are literary criticism; others scholarly analyses. They re-examine familiar but controversial concepts. </p>
<p>Among them are ideas about naming, indigeneity, land, citizenship, identitarian disparity, diasporic (un)being, immigration and migration, and the political economy of (un)belonging. These are topical ideas that predominate in discourses on nationalism, ethnicity and nation states. Their engagement in this collection helps us to further appreciate how unfixed and complex they are; they are never amenable to any easy analysis. </p>
<p>The volume is structured into three parts: Identity, Coloniality, and Home; Diaspora, Race, and Immigration; and Belonging: Cross-Cutting Issues. Each section has an introduction, a conversation among four of the contributors, an epilogue and an afterword.</p>
<p>This layout attests to the careful editing of the whole. There is an organic flow of engagement with ideas from one chapter to the next. Yet no chapter’s unique argument is overshadowed by another’s. </p>
<h2>Critical probing and analysis</h2>
<p>The chapters inspired by personal experiences do as much critical probing as those framed by hardcore analyses. </p>
<p>The contributions don’t sound jointly rehearsed, but represent a form of dialogue. Readers will find a kaleidoscope of interrelated but distinct compelling arguments on matters of race, identity and belonging, and the violent and paradoxical patterns they take in the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520204355/on-the-postcolony">postcolony</a>. This is a notion that is concerned with a particular historical course involving societies that have latterly experienced colonialism, as theorised by the Cameroonian historian and political theorist <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/people/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a>. </p>
<p>As is customary in volumes of this kind, the opening chapter comes from the editor. He welcomes readers with questions that invite them to ruminate on place and identity construction and the way it determines relations. </p>
<p>Such questions, which reverberate throughout the volume, are “What is home? What creates the feeling of belonging or (dis)connection to a place/space or other people? Is home a place, a feeling, other people, or an idea? Is it a destination or a spiritual entity or experience? Who am I in this political space?” </p>
<p>For the reader who has taken their identity for granted thus far, such questions can be jarring and unnerving. They can also provoke deep thoughts. </p>
<h2>The construction of race</h2>
<p>The chapter underlines the fact that identity is constructed and is fluid. It stresses racial signifiers – indigenous, native, white, black – as markers which mask, confuse, distress and misrepresent. </p>
<p>In some people they produce false triumphalism and superiority and in others they activate demeaning nervousness. As the chapter maintains, cultural essentialism, the product of these markers, distorts cultural facts. It also abjures a cultivation of interest in history and critical mindedness. And it is this matter of invented racial/cultural identity that the conversation in chapter 12 of the book foregrounds. </p>
<p>In that conversation, such constructs as “Black”, “African”, “White” and “immigrant” ricochet from one discussant to another. The conversation makes it clear that there is a kind of under-appreciation of the violence that minoritised people within national boundaries and diasporic spaces experience when designated in certain senses. </p>
<h2>Interconnected humanity</h2>
<p>With its other chapters, the volume broadens the frontiers of research in the intersecting areas of race, ethnicity, peace, home(lessness), gender and other forms of identity and diasporic formations. It calls for a spiritual reawakening of our identities. </p>
<p>This volume is a force in the promotion and celebration of the dignity of human differences. One can hear again and again the refrain in Maya Angelou’s timeless poem, Human Family:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://allpoetry.com/Human-Family">We are more alike, my friends,/than we are unalike</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The humanistic ring in this book results from a conviction that the human or spiritual identity trumps all other ones, including institutionalised discriminatory ways of being and exclusionary policies and regulations, all of which enable the questioning of other people’s humanity. </p>
<p>The contributors’ insistence is on interconnected human relations and, to borrow from the Canadian novelist and essayist, Dionne Brand, on life – </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Map-Door-No-Return-Belonging/dp/0385258925">It is life you must insist on</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Scholars, students and general readers interested in migration studies, peace and conflict studies, political science, literary studies, African studies, international relations, gender studies, sociology and history will find this work an enlightening resource.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ademola Adesola does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The book makes invaluable contributions to subjects of race, identity and belonging and how they shape human interrelations.Ademola Adesola, Assistant Professor, Mount Royal UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138562023-09-26T20:06:50Z2023-09-26T20:06:50ZWhy the Voice could be a bulwark against Trumpism gaining a stronger foothold in Australia<p>As former Labor minister <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2023/09/16/the-voice-our-brexit-moment#mtr">Barry Jones</a> has wisely noted, the Voice referendum feels like 2016 all over again. </p>
<p>The shock from the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom in June of that year set the stage for what came next: the off-the-charts upheaval of the Donald Trump earthquake in the US presidential election. The only consolation was that Trump did not win a majority of votes in the United States. He won the presidency through the arcane, undemocratic workings of the Electoral College.</p>
<p>Maybe the Voice will prevail, as Senator <a href="https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=f20fba06-4ba8-441a-93e1-b73722700251">Pat Dodson</a> says: </p>
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<p>I believe Australians are better than this. I believe Australians will look at this on the day and say, ‘Well this is a decent, honourable, good thing for us to do’. </p>
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<p>But given current projections, the best outcome on the referendum may well be a majority vote for “yes” nationally, but constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples and establishment of the Voice denied by the requirement that the measure be approved by a majority of the states. That can be a moral victory – that Australia’s heart did not go cold on its Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>But we may not even get there. As with the Trump shock, it is hard to process how support for a benign, straightforward measure that opens the Constitution to Indigenous Australians and establishes an advisory committee on issues and policies crucial to their welfare could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/ng-interactive/2023/sep/25/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-referendum-2023-poll-results-polling-latest-opinion-polls-yes-no-campaign-newspoll-essential-yougov-news-by-state-australia">dissipate</a> from 65% a year ago to just 43% today. </p>
<p>And how a proposal that enjoys unprecedented backing from the most powerful and influential institutions in the country, including those in business, labour, sport and culture, could be devoid of uplift and land with a thud.</p>
<h2>A campaign defined by fear-mongering</h2>
<p>US President Franklin D Roosevelt famously said when he first took office 90 years ago, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. Which is exactly how the prime minister has framed the Voice. Anthony Albanese has <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/don-t-be-distracted-by-controversy-bombs-pearson-urges-yes-campaign-20230915-p5e4wo.html">said</a> there is “nothing scary, nothing to be fearful of here”. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can’t change a country for the better through fear. You can only change it for the better through hope and optimism and being positive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it is fear that is prevailing at this moment. The Advance Australia and Fair Australia telephone banks and their TikTok algorithms are infused with it. <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-campaign-s-fear-doubt-strategy-revealed-20230910-p5e3fu.html">Fair Australia callers</a> are telling undecided voters they have “heard” the Voice will mean monetary compensation to Aboriginal people, that the Voice will lead to the abolition of Australia Day, and that Voice proponents will push for a treaty. </p>
<p>The poison is spreading across the political landscape. Liberal Party politicians have been warned that those who support the Voice will lose their pre-selection for seats in parliament. Former ACT Chief Minister <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2023/09/09/liberal-yes-supporters-threatened-with-losing-preselection?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=read_shared_article&utm_campaign=social_share_icons&utm_content=sidebar_share&s=03#mtr">Kate Carnell</a> has said</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This has been politicised to the point that people aren’t comfortable to campaign for what they believe in because of the politics. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps this is baked in for the Liberal Party from its opposition to the Voice from the last three prime ministers: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. (Turnbull has since fully <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/why-my-government-didn-t-back-the-voice-but-i-m-now-voting-yes-20230829-p5e0a0.html">converted</a>.) They never presented a referendum even on just constitutional recognition.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-shut-down-far-right-extremism-in-australia-we-must-confront-the-ecosystem-of-hate-154269">To shut down far-right extremism in Australia, we must confront the ecosystem of hate</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>How Trump’s messages seep into Australia</h2>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Bruce-Wolpe-Trump's-Australia-9781761068096">Trump’s Australia</a>”, my study of what could happen to Australia’s democracy and society if Trump returns to the presidency in 2024, I argue that approval of the Voice would help insulate Australia’s political culture from the corrosive effects of Trumpist messages from the news and social media.</p>
<p>Trump was the most divisive president America has ever had. In addition to his core values of “America First” nationalism, protectionism and isolationism, he also promoted nativism – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-fear/498116/">fear</a> of “the other.”</p>
<p>Australia, with its historically pervasive atmosphere of fear around Indigenous aspirations, is fertile territory for Trump and his rhetoric on race. </p>
<p>Trump knows how to push the fear buttons on race. He does not dog whistle. Take, for instance, his public demand in 1989 that New York reinstate the death penalty to punish the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york">Central Park Five</a>” – the Black and Latino youths wrongly convicted of raping a woman in Central Park. Trump shouts his views from the podium. And we hear it here.</p>
<p>What could Australia’s democracy and society look like if Trump wins? What we are already hearing today from those leading the “no” campaign is an echo chamber of Trumpist sentiments for his supporters and acolytes here. </p>
<p>If he returns to power, Australia will undoubtedly see a steady flood of these messages via his social media posts and pronouncements from the Oval Office. His racially tinged views will only further harden the divisive sentiments on issues of racial equity here. </p>
<p>Trump is especially vocal in siding with police when <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/01/trump-police-brutality-golfers-406802">acts of brutality have occured</a> and when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/politics/trump-federal-agents-cities.html">violent crime</a> has broken out in major cities. “Law and order” will be a recurrent theme in the 2024 presidential election, should Trump be the Republican candidate again. Trump supporters in Australia, including some who hold or aspire to public office, will pick up those messages and propagate them here. </p>
<p>We have already seen a dry run of these themes by his Australian allies at the <a href="https://twitter.com/cpacaustralia?lang=en">Conservative Political Action Conference</a> in Sydney in August – an offshoot of Trump’s CPAC base in the US. </p>
<p>The core message from the Sydney event: the Voice is <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/inside-the-conservative-forum-rallying-troops-against-the-voice-20230819-p5dxsx.html">racially divisive</a> and is being foisted on the country by “the elites”. </p>
<p>Right on cue, neo-Nazis then marched in the streets of Melbourne last weekend under a banner that read “Voice = Anti White.” It had the same look and feel as the infamous <a href="https://time.com/4902129/president-donald-trump-both-sides-charlottesville/">white supremacist rally</a> in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, which Trump said included some “very fine people”.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/alt-right-white-extremism-or-conservative-mobilising-what-are-cpacs-aims-in-australia-121495">'Alt-right white extremism' or conservative mobilising: what are CPAC's aims in Australia?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why the Voice could insulate Australia from Trumpism</h2>
<p>These messages are designed to kill the hope and buttress the fear <a href="https://twitter.com/SatPaper/status/1700600811439431787">expressed</a> by Professor Marcia Langton, co-chair of the senior design group on the Voice: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A ‘yes’ vote delivers recognition through a voice and all the hope and healing it represents […] or a ‘no’ vote which binds us all closely – all of us – to a broken status quo.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the Voice is approved, it will be able to call out policies that are not truly responsive to the needs of Indigenous Australians, including programs that do not get to the heart of, or try to resolve, the disparity between First Nations people and their fellow Australians. This can help shape more effective responses to issues where no progress has been made for decades. </p>
<p>The existence of the Voice will mean that Trumpism is unlikely to derail what the body is intended to achieve. If the Voice is defeated, however, change for the better is severely compromised.</p>
<p>If most Australians vote “no” the country will be reeling. The victorious opponents of the Voice, with their echoes of Trumpism, will be poised to keep advancing their agenda. The default position of the political culture on race, reconciliation and equity will have gone backwards, making it harder to redress historical issues of racial disparities.</p>
<p>The world is watching. As George Megalogenis recently <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/why-peter-dutton-might-have-wrecker-s-remorse-20230906-p5e2ij.html">concluded</a>, “A ‘no’ vote would revive both the colonial ghost of dispossession and the federation ghost of the White Australia policy.” </p>
<p>That would be a victory for Trumpism in Australia, even before Trump’s fate is decided next year by voters in America.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Wolpe is a non resident Senior Fellow at the United States Studes Centre at the University of Sydney. He has worked with the Democrats in the US Congress and served on the staff of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He is not a member of any political party.</span></em></p>What we are already hearing today from those leading the “no” campaign is an echo chamber of Trumpist sentiments for his supporters and acolytes in Australia.Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114722023-09-21T20:21:14Z2023-09-21T20:21:14ZWhy we should stop using acronyms like BIPOC<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547900/original/file-20230912-19-wvnut7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=45%2C7%2C5060%2C3092&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The term BIPOC amalgamates distinct experiences of racism and colonialism and misses those that do not fit within one category, like individuals of mixed ancestry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/why-we-should-stop-using-acronyms-like-bipoc" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When I first heard the acronym <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bipoc-meaning-where-does-it-come-from-2020-04-02/">BIPOC</a>, my stomach tightened and I immediately felt resistance. It was a gut reaction at having my identities seemingly collapsed into an acronym. </p>
<p>Exploring this discomfort, I read <a href="https://chatelaine.com/opinion/what-is-bipoc/">an article</a> by American author Kearie Daniel. She shared similar unease from her perspective as a Black woman. Reading Daniel’s words, I knew I was not alone in my reaction to the abbreviation.</p>
<p>BIPOC is an acronym for “Black, Indigenous and People of Colour,” and has become increasingly popular in recent years. The acronym came about as a way to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-bipoc.html">address the erasure of Black and Indigenous Peoples</a> and centre their unique struggles while promoting solidarity. </p>
<p>However, the problem is BIPOC amalgamates distinct experiences of racism and colonialism and misses those that do not fit within one category, like individuals of mixed ancestry.</p>
<h2>What’s in an acronym?</h2>
<p>Acronyms like <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/poc">POC</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/bipoc-or-ibpoc-lgbtq-or-lgbtq2s-who-decides-which-terms-we-should-use-159188">BIPOC, IBPOC</a>, <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bame">BAME</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/us/asian-american-aapi-terms-history-cec/index.html">AAPI</a> and others can highlight the similar ways racism, colonialism and inequality impact different communities. However, they can also undermine and gloss over the distinct experiences of those who do not easily fit into one of those letters.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1140793">Observed race</a> can shift based on context, clothing and appearance. For instance, if I show my tattoos or wear clothing with Haida designs, I am more likely to be seen as broadly Indigenous. Based on my appearance, I might be vaguely classified as a person of colour, however, I am also white. Instead of being Haida, Irish, Ojibwe and British, my identities are collapsed into an acronym for ease of reference.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uBPexIYw0H4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An explainer on the term BIPOC. Acronyms for racialized people have become more common over the years.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Indigenous identity: contestation and self-determination</h2>
<p>Indigenous Peoples have long been subject to <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/44188">identity control</a> through <a href="https://doi.org/10.5663/aps.v3i3.22225">legislated elimination</a> in the Indian Act and categorized as non-status versus status Indian, Inuit or Métis. </p>
<p>Our Nations have been identified as one group (Aboriginal, Native, First Nations, First Peoples, Indian, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429454776-14">Indigenous</a>) to facilitate colonial control, and the BIPOC acronym contributes to the further <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2005.00166.x">grouping of distinct identities</a>. </p>
<p>Being Indigenous in Canada involves continually pushing for our self-determination and inherent rights to be recognized while ensuring <a href="http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/product/bonita-lawrence-and-enakshi-dua-2/">our survival as distinct nations</a>. Acronyms like BIPOC represent a step back in the struggle to assert and sustain nationhood. </p>
<h2>Oppression Olympics</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/675719/rehearsals-for-living-by-robyn-maynard-and-leanne-betasamosake-simpson/9781039000650">Scholars have argued</a> that Indigenous and Black liberation movements are interconnected, and the possibility of coalition-building increases the chances for racial justice. </p>
<p>However, despite the intentions of those who use BIPOC, the combination of these experiences can have the opposite effect and contribute to a sort of oppression Olympics. </p>
<p>For example, some organizations and news outlets have more recently switched the order of the acronym to IBPOC (Indigenous, Black and people of colour) to recognize Indigenous Peoples as First Peoples. This Indigenous first acronym is an inadequate solution. It still results in racialized people being broadly categorized and essentialized. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of random scrabble letters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547898/original/file-20230912-15-yyy0qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Acronyms can highlight the similar struggles of different racialized groups, but they can also undermine and gloss over their distinct experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, these kinds of debates over the order of letters can also disrupt coalition-building among racialized people. American activists <a href="https://culturalstudies.ucsc.edu/inscriptions/volume-7/angela-y-davis-elizabeth-martinez/">Angela Davis and Elizabeth Martinez</a> suggest that competition between racialized peoples, or the oppression Olympics, perpetuates harm and division. </p>
<p>This kind of debate further reinforces white supremacy and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132515613166">settler colonialism</a> that rely on the continued marginalization of racialized peoples.</p>
<p>Indigenous Peoples are in a place of contestation over lands, rights, self-determination and reparation. Being amalgamated further into acronyms distracts attention from our work towards self-determination. Rather than accepting the convenient terminology of BIPOC, IBPOC, First Nations, Indigenous or Aboriginal, we need to assert our Nationhood and unique identities.</p>
<h2>So, what should we call people?</h2>
<p>When discussing individuals, use the terms they use to identify themselves where possible and do not assume someone fits within a predetermined category. Many people occupy the space in between racialized categorizations. If a broad term is required, “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racialization">racialized</a>” is much more appropriate. It includes recognition of the socially constructed nature of race and allows room for further specificity.</p>
<p>The terminology that we use has real-world impacts. Racial justice requires recognizing the distinct and socially situated identities of racialized people and providing space for those with diverse identities.</p>
<p>The right of Indigenous self-determination is asserted and affirmed in the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>. To protect our identities as distinct Nations, we must be cautious of the language we use to describe ourselves and others use to describe us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michaela M. McGuire receives research funding from the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. </span></em></p>Acronyms like BIPOC can highlight the similar ways racism impacts different people. However, they can also gloss over the distinct experiences of communities.Michaela M. McGuire, PhD Candidate, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114272023-09-10T20:05:45Z2023-09-10T20:05:45ZGirlhood misery, bullying and beauty combine for Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s ‘unlikeable’ west-coast girls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546783/original/file-20230907-27-45npar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mart Production/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the post-menopausal generation reappraising what it means to be <a href="https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/">an older woman</a>, the sheen of youth has become exposed. Women are told to fear the ageing process, but the truth is, I would not return to my teenage years, nor would any of the women I know. The worst part of growing older is watching the next generation go through it all again. </p>
<p>Female bullying is central to Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s fourth book, <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/west-girls-9781922585905">West Girls</a>, which aligns the misery of girlhood with the tyranny of conventional beauty. Weaving interconnected stories around a revolving cast of characters growing up in Western Australia, the novel cracks open the toxic power dynamics between a privileged huddle of “Blondes” and the culturally diverse girls they seek to marginalise. </p>
<p>Divided by wealth and ethnic discrimination, the two socially disparate groups are united in one respect: their alignment of prettiness with success.</p>
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<p><em>Review: West Girls – Laura Elizabeth Woollett (Scribe)</em></p>
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<p>Not all the Blondes are pretty, “but there are a lot of them, and the prettiest ones have a way of boosting the average, like shiny tens added to a sequence of sixes”. Luna Lewis is in their thrall, but her Maltese heritage and Indonesian stepmother mean she blends in with the Asian girls instead. </p>
<p>As she grows up and sheds her childhood weight, she begins to realise the potential of her racially ambiguous looks after new student Makoto, an American who has appeared in Teen Vogue, mistakes her as “Eurasian” and advises her to audition for a modelling agency; Luna doesn’t correct the mistake.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546812/original/file-20230907-23-gleayw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Female bullying is central to Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s fourth novel, West Girls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leah Jing</span></span>
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<h2>Harmful ideals of high school</h2>
<p>The vicious judgements and harmful ideals of high school feed into the adult world. Luna exploits the orientalism of the fashion industry and establishes a modelling career as Luna Lu. Chief Blonde, Caitlyn, represses her sexual desire for women to stay in a socially advantageous relationship with a controlling footballer prone to angry outbursts. Geli’s mental health declines as she struggles to work within the depersonalising environment of the cosmetic beauty industry. </p>
<p>Shifting between first- and third-person perspectives, these intersecting vignettes situate notions of femininity within equally precarious ideas about race and sexuality. </p>
<p>Woollett’s storytelling is stylish and sophisticated, and enquires into a range of urgent social and cultural issues. But the novel’s unerring insistence on a universal enslavement to beauty restricts the narrative scope and limits the depth of its characters. </p>
<p>When Luna flunks school after neglecting her studies to spend time with Blonde Caitlyn, she proclaims: “I chose the jagged rocks, the broken bones, the spattered brains. I chose beauty. I’d choose it again.” </p>
<p>The poetic drama of her statement is bold and impressive, though the sentiment rings hollow. In many ways, that’s the point of this clever, elegantly composed novel. But as a woman who actively resented “prettiness” when I was younger, I’m not buying it.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-19th-century-ideas-influenced-todays-attitudes-to-womens-beauty-111529">Friday essay: how 19th century ideas influenced today's attitudes to women’s beauty</a>
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<h2>Too pretty for words</h2>
<p>During my twenties, I was a music journalist in London who fought hard to be taken seriously. Despite publishing <a href="https://www.lizevanswrites.com/books-2">two books</a>, I was deemed too “pretty” for words. </p>
<p>Musicians expressed surprise at my intelligence, one male journalist offered to enhance a piece I did on <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-exhibitionism-riot-grrrl-and-climate-change-activism-30-years-of-raging-by-peaches-bikini-kill-and-bjork-still-going-strong-201388">Riot Grrl</a> and a senior editor butchered my exclusive interview with a vulnerable singer. The biggest shock came when a leading frontwoman, renowned for her baby-doll frocks, rock-star husband, and feminist lyrics, told me she’d assumed I wouldn’t be able to “give good interview”, because I was “pretty”. </p>
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<p>An American who made headlines in the 1990s, my interviewee would make a perfect fit for Woollett’s book. Obsessed with her appearance, desperate for celebrity status, she was intelligent, charismatic and fascinating. She was also unstable and full of scorn for other women. Beneath the dazzle and shine, the outrageous lyrics and the sexy stage antics, there wasn’t a whole lot of intrigue. And that’s the trouble with West Girls. </p>
<p>The cleverest section of the book follows mining heiress Rikki, as she navigates relative poverty. Kicked out of her palatial family home for falling in love with an Indigenous boy who barely registers her existence, she ends up working in the print factory alongside the mothers of some of the Asian girls who make appearances elsewhere in the novel. “If you want your dad’s money, date someone white. It’s not hard,” says Caitlyn, or “the Goddess” as Rikki calls her. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-beyond-girl-gone-mad-melodrama-reframing-female-anger-in-psychological-thrillers-161583">Friday essay: beyond 'girl gone mad melodrama' — reframing female anger in psychological thrillers</a>
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<h2>Unlikeable girls</h2>
<p>The novel’s only resistance to the towering myth of beauty comes from Katie. Blowing in from Europe on the run from personal trauma, she stumbles across the underbelly of Australia’s richest state in a remote mining town that simmers with violence. Her character offers a break from the ruthless, glamour-hungry west-coast girls, but it’s not enough to form a counterpoint. </p>
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<p>Almost all the West Girls are unlikeable, which adds to the frustration. Unlikeable female characters offer some of the best potential for explorations of complex psychology, as shown by Nina in Harriet Lane’s <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/harriet-lane/her-a-fabulously-creepy-thriller">Her</a>, Laura in Paula Hawkins’ <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-slow-fire-burning-9781529176759">A Slow Fire Burning</a>, and Jasmine in R.F. Kuang’s <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780063250840/yellowface/">Yellowface</a>. Gleefully unfettered by what Irish academic Eva Burke calls “the social obligation of female likeability”, these are compelling women who refuse the complicity of niceness.</p>
<p>What sets these women apart from Woollett’s is a level of complication that makes the reader care: not necessarily about them, but about what they do. It’s not enough to feel invested in a character’s circumstances or situation, no matter how fascinating or significant. For a novel to have impact, ambitious themes need to be balanced by psychological and emotional depth. And in West Girls, that’s simply not the case.</p>
<p>Woollett is a self-assured and supremely talented writer, and the social and cultural subject matter of her novel sets it apart. But the beauty theme is too insistent, and the characters’ lack of interior complexity means they’re not as interesting as they could be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s fourth novel cracks open the toxic power dynamics between a privileged huddle of ‘Blondes’ and the culturally diverse girls they seek to marginalise.Liz Evans, Writer, Author, Journalist, Associate Lecturer in English & Writing:, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2125942023-09-07T20:21:53Z2023-09-07T20:21:53ZA moral argument to search the landfill in Winnipeg for murdered Indigenous women<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/a-moral-argument-to-search-the-landfill-in-winnipeg-for-murdered-indigenous-women" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In May 2022, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8922166/winnipeg-police-landfill-body-found/">Winnipeg resident Jeremy Skibicki was arrested and charged with the murder of 24-year-old Rebecca Contois.</a></p>
<p>By the end of that year, Skibicki would be <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/jeremy-skibicki-winnipeg-alleged-serial-killer-timeline-1.6681433">charged with the murder of three other women</a>: Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified woman who has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe by the Indigenous community.</p>
<p>Harris, Myran and Contois were First Nations women. It is believed that Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe was also Indigenous. Their deaths are tragic additions to the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls crisis in our country. Statistics consistently show that <a href="https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Executive_Summary.pdf">rates of violence against Métis, Inuit and First Nations women and girls are much higher than for non-Indigenous women and girls in Canada</a>. </p>
<p>In June 2022, Winnipeg police investigators <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/rebecca-contois-investigation-brady-landfill-1.6496569">recovered the remains of Contois, of the Crane River First Nation, at the Brady Road landfill</a>. They believe the remains of Harris and Myran, of the Long Plain First Nation, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/morgan-harris-marcedes-myran-rebecca-contois-homicide-winnipeg-landfill-1.6675937">are also in a landfill in a section of the Prairie Green site, just outside Winnipeg.</a> However, Winnipeg police have stated they won’t search the landfill, <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/canada/cbc-edition/20221207/281874417440353">citing feasibility and a low possibility of recovery</a>.</p>
<p>Soon after police announced their decision, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs initiated a feasibility study for the search. The report, which involved many experts, estimated the search would take three years and cost $184 million. Most importantly, <a href="https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/it-can-be-done-safely-experts-say-method-for-landfill-search-has-been-successful-in-the-past-1.6483156">experts indicated that a search would be viable.</a> </p>
<p>But Manitoba’s provincial government, led by Premier Heather Stefanson, declined to support a search. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/church-leaders-landfill-search-1.6950423">She cited health and safety risks for those involved.</a> </p>
<p>However, many in the public <a href="https://winnipegsun.com/news/provincial/we-have-to-try-kinew-supports-landfill-search-says-there-are-other-options">strongly suspect</a> the provincial government’s reasons have more to do with budgets than safety and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/landfill-search-calls-movement-momentum-1.6919046">they are increasingly voicing their opposition</a> to the refusal to support a search of the Prairie Green landfill. </p>
<p>As an Onkwehonwe (Native) scholar who studies morality and ethics in communal and societal contexts, the callous and immoral position of the Stefanson government is alarmingly familiar. I experienced the <a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/kanehsatake_270_years_of_resistance/">Oka crisis</a> in the summer of 1990 in my home community of Kahnawake and witnessed first-hand the trauma our community experienced as a result of immoral government action.</p>
<h2>Moral responsibilities</h2>
<p>Most arguments in favour of searching the landfill for Harris, Myran and Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe focus on the well-being of their families and their communities. </p>
<p>One of the results of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been a more expansive view of human well-being, <a href="https://www.cpha.ca/review-canadas-initial-response-covid-19-pandemic">including mental health and the impact of structural inequalities.</a> This has heightened public awareness of <a href="https://www.uregina.ca/arts/research/research-news/easing-disruption-covid19.html">government responsibilities to the population’s holistic health</a>. From this, new questions about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494821990250%22%22">the moral responsibilities of government have emerged.</a></p>
<p>In this context, what moral principles should guide the Manitoba government in its decision to search the Prairie Green Landfill for these Indigenous women? </p>
<p>A fundamental principle in democratic governance in Canada is <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/responsible-government">the expectation that those elected to public office will exercise economic, political and administrative authority in a manner that is responsive to those who are governed.</a> </p>
<p>It is in the exercise of such authority that moral questions must be considered.</p>
<h2>A moral responsibility to help</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/prairie-green-landfill-search-province-1.6898205">Given the prevailing doubt around the provincial government’s refusal to search the landfill</a>, let’s consider a classic allegory offered by renowned moral philosopher <a href="https://petersinger.info/">Peter Singer</a> at Princeton University.</p>
<p>In this story, you are walking home when you encounter <a href="https://newint.org/features/1997/04/05/peter-singer-drowning-child-new-internationalist">a young person drowning in a muddy pond</a>. To help this individual, you would have to jump in and get your clothing wet and dirty. A decision must be made. </p>
<p>The cost to you to help this person are your expensive clothes and maybe being late for work. Do you help? </p>
<p>Ideally, you would agree that the state of your clothing would be an insignificant issue and that the death of the young person through drowning would be a terrible thing. Acknowledgement of these two issues and the option associated with them ought to govern your decision.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/manitobas-reasons-for-refusing-to-search-for-indigenous-womens-remains-in-landfill-are-a-smokescreen-209930">Manitoba's reasons for refusing to search for Indigenous women's remains in landfill are a smokescreen</a>
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<p>It should be easy to see the parallels between Singer’s allegory and our very real situation with the Indigenous families and communities who have been traumatized by these young women’s murders and, now, retraumatized by the lack of will to recover their remains. </p>
<p>The expense associated with a search is not insignificant and not to be trivialized. However, the current trauma being experienced by the families and the community is significant. Searching the landfill would help bring emotional closure to a very traumatic situation.</p>
<p>That alone <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8926715/we-need-closure-landfill-remains-discovery-triggers-trauma-for-winnipeg-family/">should make the decision to search rather straightforward.</a> It is in the public interest and in the interest of the well-being of the families of these murdered Indigenous women to address this problem through, among other things, a search of the landfill.</p>
<h2>Repeated government failures</h2>
<p>The failures by government to be responsive to Indigenous communities is a serious issue and one that has continued to cause long-term harm.</p>
<p>The trauma experienced by Indigenous families and communities emerging from <a href="https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/manitoba-premier-defends-decision-to-not-search-landfill-for-bodies-of-homicide-victims-1.6489253">the refusal by the Stefanson government to search the Prairie Green landfill for their murdered loved ones</a> is undoubtedly a form of harm that is unnecessary and avoidable. </p>
<p>There should be no moral struggle with the decision to initiate the search of the landfill. Singer wrote this about his famous allegory: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/videos-books-and-essays/famine-affluence-and-morality-peter-singer">If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it</a>.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/for-50-days-she-stood-vigil-at-a-winnipeg-landfill-an-alleged-serial-killer-is/article_a4b2eb21-e46c-58bd-a418-0b44a899a7fe.html">The ongoing trauma experienced by these families and the community is indeed a “very bad thing</a>.” And the resources necessary to search the landfill do not represent a morally significant sacrifice.</p>
<p>Search the landfill.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Deer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Manitoba’s provincial government has declined to support a search for three murdered Indigenous women, citing health and safety concerns. An ethicist explains why this decision needs to be rethought.Frank Deer, Professor, Associate Dean, and Canada Research Chair, Faculty of Education, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.