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Artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones and collector Bernard Lumpkin discuss inclusivity and the evolving relationship between artists and institutions

Fifty years ago, Nina Simone released To Be Young, Gifted and Black, a song written in memory of her dear friend, the playwright Lorraine Hansberry who died in 1965 at the tender age of 34. It became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement that soon found its way into a 1972 episode of Sesame Street. Simone sang, We must begin to tell our young / Theres a world waiting for you / This is a quest thats just begun to Gen X babies, who took the message to heart and paid it forward to the children of Generation Z, who fearlessly stand at the forefront of a brave new world.

With the Black Lives Matter movement centering issues of race in the discourse, the historically exclusionary art world has finally made space for Black Art. A wealth of established, mid-career, and emerging artists are breaking new ground, be it at auction houses, major museum exhibitions, on magazine covers, or with new books. Yet Black Art is far from a trend; it has informed the world for thousands of years in various incarnations in Africa and across the diaspora.

This point is beautifully illustrated in the exhibition Young Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art, which pairs collector Bernard Lumpkin with critic Antwaun Sargent to curate a masterful showcase of some of the most innovative and influential contemporary black artists. The exhibition is a symphony of voices and visions from across generations all around the globe, creating a mellifluous confluence of style, media, and subject matter. Culled from the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection, Young, Gifted and Black features works by David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Henry Taylor, Mickalene Thomas, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Sadie Barnette, Jordan Casteel, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Deana Lawson, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, whose work appears on the cover of the catalog. Here, Lumpkin and Adeniyi-Jones discuss how when the collector and artist work together, they can transform the narrative of identity, politics, education, and art history.

DAngelo Lovell Williams, The Lovers, 2017. Pigment print. 20 x 30 in. DAngelo Lovell Williams, Courtesy of the artist and Higher Pictures.

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones: [Black Art] is an incredible movement to be a part of and see it manifest. It makes me and several of my colleagues and friends feel validated and motivated to keep working. Its almost like weve been chosen for this moment. Its a wonderful thing to watch happen, to take part in, to collaborate with collectors like Bernard. We were introduced in a studio visit during my first year at Yale. From there we had a series of repeat visits and its been a great relationship. It feels like you are working alongside each other towards something when you have that level of familiarity, comfort, learning, mutual interest, and confidence.

Bernard Lumpkin: Its exciting to see a conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how to better represent art history, how to tell a fuller, more inclusive story of contemporary art that has been brewing among curators and museum directors spill out. That conversation has resulted in the hiring of more curators of color, more women curators, the recruitment of more people of color to museum boards where the decisions around exhibitions and acquisitions happen. I always tell collectors that collecting work is the price of admission to something much larger if you want to embrace it. Its a community. There is work to be done that can make a difference to the life of artists now and in the future.

Tunji: Its important for people to understand the breadth and scope of blackness, the black identity, and the black experience. I think the tendency before this incredible, prolific moment has been to broadly categorize all Black Art as being one singular thing. Whats cool when you have a collection like this on display is that it includes such a vast array of artists coming from different backgrounds in that space of blacknessits amazing to see it all together in one place. Thats similar to what I experienced during my residency in Senegal [as part of the inaugural year at Kehinde Wileys Black Rock in Dakar]. Its a fuller understanding of the multiplicity of the experience.

Kara Walker, Untitled, 1995. Paper collage on paper. 52 x 60 3/8 in. Kara Walker.

Bernard:The strongest collections are ones that showcase the vision of the collector. For me, the focus comes from a personal place: my family and stories having to do with my father being African American and my mother being Sephardic Jewish from Morocco, as well as the experience of being mixed race. I had been collecting art but not with the focus on artists of color. Then my father became sick with cancer and I was spending a lot of time with him. He told me stories about his family, growing up in Watts, wanting to be a scientist and make his way in the world. I became interested in bringing that conversation back into my work, especially after my father had passed away.

Tunji: Being in a collection like this gives me hope. As a first-generation British born Nigerian coming from London, you dont see as many close and invested collector-artist relationships as you do here. Its a special reassuring feeling that is incredibly encouraging, inspiring and very helpful. [I met gallerist Nicelle Beauchene through Bernard]. We all looked at each other like, We trust this other person so it will all work out very well. Things rarely fall into place like that, and the results have been incredible.

Bernard: The art world has many different roles and people, and I always am reassured and gratified when an artist I believe in connects with a dealer, a curator, or another collector who will support the artist. Thats a positive part of the Black Art moment that were in. One of the things I have learned from Thelma Golden, Director of the Studio Museum where Im on the board, is how for many years before museums, gallerists, curators, and auction houses were laying out the welcome mat to black artists, there was a network of collectors who took it upon themselves to steward and preserve the work, telling these artists stories, and setting the stage for the moment were in now. For many people, its a Black Art moment but the reality is artists like Alma Thomas and Howardina Pindell have made work and had collectors for a long time; now the larger art world is coming to the party.

Chiffon Thomas, A mother who had no mother, 2017. Embroidery floss, acrylic paint, and canvas on window screen. 57 x 44 1/2 in. Chiffon Thomas

Tunji: Accessibility is a really important thing to address in the art world. To have that opportunity to see emerging artists in the early stage of their career in conversation with mid- and late-career artiststhat curation and that dialogue has the potential to be life-changing. I would have loved to see a show like this in college.

Bernard: My father was a professor and my mother was a teacher, so education has always been a part of what people do in my family. It wasnt enough for me to be a collector and enjoy it for myself. The collection had to have a larger focus and impact. When it came down to planning this exhibition, I took it upon myself to say, Why dont I use this as an opportunity to bring the art to people in places that might not otherwise get to see it? People can come and see themselves on the wall, whatever your background is.

Young Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art is now on view at Lehman College Art Gallery in the Bronx through May 8, 2020. While the Lehman College Art Gallery is closed until further notice, the showwill travel to Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, CA (07/2012/20 Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA (01/2105/21), Pomona College Museum of Art in Claremont, CA (01/2205/22), and Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC (09/2212/22). A book of the same name will be published by D.A.P. on July 3, 2020.

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'Young, Gifted and Black' spotlights the multitude of black artists defining the contemporary art scene - Document Journal

A former McDonald's worker has been ordered to stand trial on a felony charge of willfully poisoning food after she allegedly spit on a hamburger before serving it to a police officer.

Tatyana Hargrove, then 21 years old, was arrested last November in Bakersfield, California, and is due in court March 23.

She is accused of rubbing a hamburger bun on the floor of the restaurant and then spitting in it while preparing an order for a uniformed police officer using the drive-thru, KGET-TV reported.

Hargrove also allegedly shouted, "Black lives matter" and "f*** the pigs!" during the incident.

The investigating officer, Deputy Carly Snow, testified that Hargrove admitted to yelling the insults because she knew the burger was going to be served to a police officer, according to testimony from a preliminary hearing.

The officer who was served and shouted at reportedly did not become ill from eating the burger.

During the preliminary hearing, Hargrove's attorney, Lexi Blythe argued that there is insufficient evidence to prove her client willfully mingled poison or harmful substances with food, as the felony charge requires.

Blythe said that it's unknown when the last time chemical cleaning products were used on the floor and that Hargrove's back was turned away from the surveillance camera when the alleged crime was committed.

The prosecutor in the case, Gina Pearl, argued that another McDonald's employee heard Hargrove drawing saliva into her mouth while she prepared the order, and that Hargrove can be seen wiping her mouth afterward, according to surveillance video.

When asked if saliva can be considered a harmful substance, Pearl said, "My position is saliva is absolutely a harmful substance. Look [at] what's going on in the world right now with coronavirus," according to Bakersfield.com.

Prior to the November 2019 incident, Hargrove claimed to be the victim of police brutality in a lawsuit filed against the Bakersfield Police Department in 2017. The suit went to a trial but the jury ultimately sided with the police department.

Read more:
McDonalds worker allegedly rubbed a bun on the floor, spat on it, then served it to a police officer. Now she is facing a felony charge. - TheBlaze

Now that we're in the 20th year of the new millennium, Dance Magazine decided it was time to take stock. What are the new dance classics that have been created since the year 2000? We polled contributors from around the country to put together a very subjective and not at all comprehensive list of 20 top works that we love for all kinds of reasons. These are dances that delighted us, that entertained us, that moved us and that made us think and feel more deeply. Put simply, they're dances that made us fall in love with this art form all over again.

It was so honest, so relevant, so real, so uncomfortable. A year before the official founding of the Black Lives Matter movement, Kyle Abraham's Pavement used the familiar setting of a basketball court to expose the reality of living under the constant threat of violence. The repeated motion of dancers being guided to the floor with their hands behind their backs, as though being arrested, hauntingly captured a sense of helplessness. Vignettes of deliciously juicy movement showcased toughness, camaraderie, vulnerabilityand how quickly each one of those things can morph into another. Jennifer Stahl

A.I.M in Pavement

Carrie Schneider, Courtesy A.I.M

The German language has a word for so many circumstances, words like "betroffenheit," which conveys a state of shock and bewilderment. But even German has its limits, and when a word falls short in any language, sometimes movement succeeds. Crystal Pite's Betroffenheit, which debuted in 2015 and has since been presented at 39 tour stops in 15 countries, explores the sparkling highs and humiliating lows of substance abuse. The collaboration between her own troupe, Kidd Pivot, and Vancouver's Electric Company Theatre set a new standard for dance theater with its better-than-Broadway lighting, sound and visual effects. Actor Jonathon Young starred as the wretchedly watchable addict, surrounded by dancers sucking him into "the show," a shiny world of break dance, tap and contorted modern movement. What we see onstage is an epic breakdown. Pite took the ugliest of human experiences and made it beautiful, without ever aggrandizing her subject matter. Until there's a word for exactly that accomplishment, there's Betroffenheit. Rebecca J. Ritzel

Kidd Pivot and Jonathon Young in Betroffenheit

Michael Slobodian, Courtesy Kidd Pivot

Replete with streamers, karaoke, candy and drinks, Monica Bill Barnes & Company's Happy Hour looks like your typical office party. Created by Barnes, Anna Bass and Robbie Saenz de Viteri, this show brilliantly distills the vulnerability behind performed machismo. Barnes' signature comedic style shines through in characters whose wonderful earnestness and awkwardness is deeplyalbeit sometimes painfullyrelatable. Performed in small spaces to small crowds, Happy Hour is uniquely intimate, incorporating audience interaction in a way that pushes the boundaries of concert dance. Chava Lansky

Anna Bass and Monica Bill Barnes in Happy Hour

Grant Halverson, Courtesy MBB & CO

Its premiere just 33 days into Y2K wasn't the only way One Flat Thing, reproduced marked a pivotal moment. The work's original venue, a former tram depot almost exactly a century old, and its 20 metal tables forecast William Forsythe's growing interest in site-specific choreography around obstaclesboth physical and intangible. Then 15 years into his collaboration with electronic-music composer Thom Willems, Forsythe maximized the dynamic range of the short piece, wild enough in some sections to make your seat shake, and quiet enough in others to hear a pin drop. In 2009, One Flat Thing, reproduced became the basis for the still-impressive interactive website Synchronous Objects. Zachary Whittenburg

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in One Flat Thing, reproduced

Todd Rosenberg, Courtesy Hubbard Street

Chunky Move's GLOW premiered in 2006 (basically eons ago in terms of media technology), but it remains the best overall deployment of projection mapping for live dance. The piece used an array of sensors that followed where and how a soloist moved, and seamlessly composed stage lighting responsive to the performer. This digital wizardry revealed the mechanism of the dancer's body, with lighting effects fundamentally indistinguishable from magic. Sydney Skybetter

Chunky Move's Kristy Ayre in Glow

Rom Anthonis, Courtesy Chunky Move

Justin Peck's choreography has become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget just how unexpected Year of the Rabbit was. Only his second work for New York City Ballet, the piece contained the seeds of everything he's done since. Complex architectural structures were crafted and then deconstructed piecemeal before our eyes. The corps stopped halfway through an exit to lie on their backs, halfway in the wings, as a pas de deux unfolded upstage. The composition was serious, its execution playful (except when it needed to be poignant), and the musican orchestration of Sufjan Stevens' "Enjoy Your Rabbit"marked the beginning of one of the coolest collaborations of the decade. Rabbit proved that ballet, despite reports to the contrary, was alive and well, and reminded us that it could be fresh, surprising and, yes, fun. Courtney Escoyne

NYCB in Year of the Rabbit

Paul Kolnik, Courtesy NYCB

One decade before his death, Paul Taylor made a masterpiecehis last, as it turned out. Beloved Renegade, set to Francis Poulenc's Gloria and inspired by the life of Walt Whitman, had an elegiac tone. A man in white, danced at the premiere by the Apollonian Michael Trusnovec, seemed to conjure up images from his past: men and women entwined in ecstatic love; young men falling to the ground, as if injured in war; children frolicking. And then an angelic figure prepared the man for death and led him into the unknown. It felt very much as if Taylor, then 78, was somehow taking stock of his own life and perhaps preparing us for his future absence. The tears flowed. Marina Harss

Michael Trusnovec and Laura Halzack in Beloved Renegade

Paul B. Goode, Courtesy PTDC

If the MO of Hamilton's main character was not throwing away his shot, the same rang true for Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler. Upping the ante for dance in musical theater, he crafted drastically different tracks for each dancer with a vocabulary that pulled from hip hop, contemporary, Fosse and stepping. Working with Lin-Manuel Miranda's complex rhythms to accentuate prominent lyrics, the choreography puts this retelling of early American history further into hyperdrive. There's the emotional nuance of "Satisfied," as the cast retraces choreography from the previous scene, but in reverse. The Battle of Yorktown unfolds with soldiers executing tightly synchronized phrases in shape-shifting formations. Even the bullet that kills Hamilton is embodied through dance. Madeline Schrock

Daveed Diggs and the ensemble of Hamilton

Joan Marcus, Courtesy Hamilton

As the audience trickled into Bronx Gothic, Okwui Okpokwasili was already deep inside the work, violently shaking as sweat pooled on her body. It was an accurate introduction to what would come: a powerful magnum opus that fearlessly investigated what it means to have a black body in America today. What was remarkable, though, was that as Okpokwasili trekked further into the complexities of her own identity, she simultaneously drew the audience (which, during her national tour captured in a documentary of the same name, was largely white) closer, forcing them to confront uncomfortable realities while also offering them points of access. Lauren Wingenroth

Okwui Okpokwasili in Bronx Gothic

Ian Douglas, Courtesy Okpokwasili

The Odissi company Nrityagram is known for the highly innovative and well-crafted choreography of artistic director Surupa Sen. And for the extraordinary dancing of Sen and her star dancer Bijayini Satpathy. The duets Sen has created for the two of them have taken the art of Odissi to a pinnacle of the form. In "Vibhakta," which the two performed as part of an unforgettable evening of duets in front of the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you weren't always sure what you were seeing: one dancer or two, man or woman, moving sculpture or simply music in physical form. It was dance as transformation and deep emotional and spiritual connection. Marina Harss

Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy in "Vibhakta"

Nan Melville, Courtesy Met Museum

In 2011, Royal Ballet audiences might have known of Edward Watson's uncommonly hypermobile facility, and they might have known of his penchant for portraying dark, neurotic characters. But there was a peculiar alchemy at work in The Metamorphosis, Arthur Pita's dance-theater reimagining of the Kafka novella in which a man is transformed overnight into an insect. It marked the first time Watson utilized the fullest extent of his incredible physicality in service of his unnerving dramatic ability, forging a singular, riveting vehicle from the many facets of his talent. Surreal, strange and startling, Watson's unceasing movement stuck in the mind long after leaving the theater. Courtney Escoyne

Nina Goldmand and Edward Watson in Metamorphosis

Tristram Kenton, Courtesy ROH

While many of Michelle Dorrance's works aim to move tap into the future, The Blues Project, co-choreographed with Derick K. Grant and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, pays a beautiful homage to the past. The piece was created in collaboration with musician Toshi Reagon, who performs live with her band, BIGLovely; the sublime conversation between music and dance could convert any nonbeliever into a tap fan. While the ensemble numbers are an ode to the form's social dance lineage, improvisatory solos by the three creators reveal their deep understanding of tap's complex history, proving them to be true visionaries in the field. Chava Lansky

Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and Derick K. Grant in The Blues Project

Christopher Duggan, Courtesy Dorrance Dance

In 2003, Alexei Ratmansky was still a dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet, albeit one with a burgeoning choreographic career. Then he made The Bright Stream for the Bolshoi Ballet. This tongue-in-cheek remake of an early Soviet work, set on a collective farm, to a score by Shostakovich, was an instant sensation in Russia. In 2005 the Bolshoi brought it to the U.S.; people were surprised by the vividness of the characterizations, the fluency and playfulness of the storytelling, and the musicality of the choreography. After years of plotless ballets, we were reminded that it was okay to tell stories, even light ones, and that it could be done with sophistication and ease. Marina Harss

American Ballet Theatre in The Bright Stream

Rosalie O'Connor, Courtesy ABT

A startling amplification of his choreographic voice, Polyphonia was Christopher Wheeldon's first major collaboration with Wendy Whelan, a seminal partnership that showcased her sleek, musical style. The ballet opens and closes with eight dancers boldly etching out machine-efficient phrases, a sort of neo-Futuristic ceremony. But the choreography dynamically journeys forward with an achingly lyrical duet and a touching solo, among its 10 sections danced to the hauntingly dissonant piano music of Gyrgy Ligeti. In a Royal Ballet rehearsal shared on YouTube, Wheeldon said, "We hear disorder but what we actually see is order." Polyphonia is a grandchild of Balanchine's Agon. Wheeldon expanded on that neoclassical lineage for a new era. Joseph Carman

NYCB in Polyphonia

Paul Kolnik, Courtesy NYCB

Centuries after Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Rennie Harris translated the timeless tale for a new generation by bringing the streets to the stage with his evening-length Rome & Jewels.Rodney Mason, as Rome, calls out, "Yo, Rome, thou art a villain, so what's up?" to begin Harris' "hip-hopera" blending Ebonics with Elizabethan text, DJs, an MC and star-crossed homeys vying for street cred though dance battles. With Rome & Jewels, hip hop gained respect, and its raw and ruthless stance was amplified. "Thou art more lovely than a summer's dayWord," says Rome to his imaginary Jewels. Who does that? Harris does. Charmaine Patricia Warren

Rennie Harris Puremovement in Rome & Jewels

Courtesy Rennie Harris American Street Dance Theater

With DESH, Akram Khan delivered just about everything you could ask for from a work of dance: It inspired awe, it made you laugh, it transported you to another side of the world, it made you question the big stufflike the very idea of "home." And somehow, Khan accomplished this all as the sole performer, playing himself as a teenager, bringing to life an invisible niece, brilliantly using the top of his bald head to transform into his father. The shape-shifting eloquence of his crisp, specific body language was the ultimate storytelling tool. Jennifer Stahl

Akram Khan in DESH

Richard Haughton, Courtesy Akram Khan Company

Donald Byrd's Petruchska offered little reliefanything slow and sweet was merely a prelude to more abuse in this vision of horrors. Although Byrd's singularly bold ballet was melodramatic and unsettling, he did not glorify violence but rather exposed it, calling out all of us who would be complicit. Petruchska followed much the same story as the earlier Fokine. Yet Byrd revealed in it the hate-mongering of an all-too-brutal society like few others can. Gigi Berardi

Spectrum Dance Theater in Petruchska

Chris Bennion

Did you know that Arthur Mitchell and others hypothesized that George Balanchine's Agon choreography was influenced by observing black staff members rehab patients at the whites-only polio facility where Balanchine's then-wife Tanaquil Le Clercq was treated? This is just one of many arresting insights illuminated in Netta Yerushalmy's ambitious Paramodernities. The four-hour interdisciplinary show, equal parts dance and scholarship, surveyed works by six canonical choreographersBalanchine's Agon; Vaslav Nijinsky's Le Sacre du printemps; Martha Graham's Night Journey; Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity; Merce Cunningham's Rainforest, Sounddance, Points In Space, Beach Birds and Ocean; and Alvin Ailey's Revelationsusing movement and words to deconstruct, rebuild and interpret the pieces. The distinguished group of dancers and scholar-performers revealed new ways to see some of our foundational dances. Caroline Shadle

Paramodernities

Paula Lobo, Courtesy Yerushalmy

With Pina Bausch's choreography literally popping off the screen in 3-D, director Wim Wenders brought us right inside her surreal (and sometimes all-too-real) dances. The Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers were shot performing her iconic phrases everywhere from the stage to the sidewalk; an epic sequence dancing up into the mountains effectively made an anthem out of her Nelken line. Although Pina initially began with Bausch as a collaborator, it was completed after her unexpected death, and ended up as a masterful love letter to her work. Jennifer Stahl

Leave it to Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to create a dance inspired by the longtime MIT linguist and cultural critic Noam Chomsky. Using dancers of different lineages established the stage space as a global meeting place where physical language was amplified and reframed. Cherkaoui mixed his own movement with that of French circus dancer Dimitri Jourde, American Lindy hopper Johnny Lloyd, Spanish dancer Fabian Thom Duten and hip-hop dancer Patrick Williams Seebacher. The democratically shifting boundaries between bodies and movement not only made for a timely statement of shared power, but the use of gesture, multiples and sequence packed one potent kinetic cocktail. Nancy Wozny

Fractus V.

Christopher Duggan, Courtesy Jacob's Pillow

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20 Top Works of the Last 20 Years - Dance Magazine

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders once admitted that his 2016 campaign was too white. But despite his attempts to build a diverse coalition of supporters in 2020, it was clear on Tuesday that he hasnt been able to bring black voters, a core constituency for the Democratic party, into the fold.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won big with black voters in Michigan, the state with the largest delegate trove on Tuesday, and in Missouri and Mississippi, according to CNN exit polls. Black voters supported Biden at rates of 66 percent in Michigan and 72 percent in Missouri states where he reaped double-digit victories over Sanders. And in Mississippi, where black voters made up 69 percent of the electorate, they backed Biden over Sanders nearly 9 to 1.

Sanders has relied on young voters and Latinos of all age groups for his strong performances in states like Nevada and California. And on Wednesday afternoon, he announced he was staying in the race.

But the South Carolina primary on February 29 served as a wake-up call that Sanderss outreach to the black community was failing: Biden won 61 percent of black Democratic primary voters there, who made up more than half of the state electorate, propelling his unexpected comeback. And on Super Tuesday, Biden won eight states where black voters made up a large share of the electorate.

The Sanders campaign has since scrambled to make a last-minute push among black voters. He began airing TV ads touting instances in which former President Barack Obama praised the senator and paid for spots on radio stations primarily catering to black communities in states that were set to vote on Tuesday. He also picked up an endorsement from the civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson.

But his campaign openly admitted that he wasnt performing as well as he needed to among black voters.

We need to redouble our outreach effort, Rep. Ro Khanna, co-chair of the campaign, told Politico. We need to sit down with as many Congressional Black Caucus members as we can, whether they endorsed us or not. We need to be sitting down with the NAACP, with civil rights organizations.

Its not clear whether the Sanders campaign actually went through with that plan. (A spokesperson for the campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) He was slated to deliver a speech in Flint, Michigan, on Sunday that would have made the case to black voters on why they should elect him over Biden, but he changed course at the last minute and just delivered a stump speech. The New York Times reported that his surrogates, many of whom are people of color, determined that it would be better for them to address the black community instead.

Given Sanderss performance among black voters on Tuesday night, its clear that strategy didnt work. And given that no Democrat has won the nomination without the support of a majority of black voters in three decades, this lack of support could well have cost him the election for the second time.

Sanders also struggled to connect with black voters in 2016. He lost South Carolina that year, as well, when 86 percent of black voters chose Hillary Clinton over him. He consistently came under fire from black activists, in particular from Black Lives Matter, who criticized his lack of attention to criminal justice and racial issues. Even internally in his campaign, black staffers told Fusion at the time they werent prioritized.

Sanders has made efforts to hire more people of color this time around and integrate them across the campaign, beyond the community outreach typically seen in Democratic campaigns. He has, for example, brought in Nina Turner, a former state senator from Ohio, as a campaign co-chair, and she has proved a powerful surrogate for Sanders among black voters.

Some in his campaign have attributed Sanderss lack of support among black voters overall to his difficulty connecting with older voters more generally. Its true that Sanders narrowly won black voters under 30 in 2016, but they just didnt vote in the kinds of large numbers he needed.

The same trend has held true this election cycle as young, black voters have again backed him overwhelmingly. But it appears that just wasnt enough to insulate him from Bidens sweeping wins on Tuesday.

Read more:
Bernie Sanderss failure to win over black voters on Tuesday could doom his campaign - Vox.com

Im writing this because I feel like I have to. I think this needs to be heard. I think more people need to hear others personal stories. Constantly feeling misunderstood, misrepresented, unappreciated, and having to explain myself and why I fight for social justice is something I am tired of doing.

I am a person of color (POC). I always have been and will be. Being a POC has been an identity that I have struggled with my whole life. I grew up with a white family, always pretending that I could be a white person. I didnt know it, but I was ashamed of who I was, where I was from, and the color of my skin.

I thought that being seen as white was better than embracing who I was. Its not that I was explicitly told that white was better, but what I later found out is that society was and is already set up to embrace the white agenda. What I mean by this is that the system, yes the system think as broadly as you can about the society and the government and set social rules that exist was created to benefit people with white skin or present as white.

Im not saying its the present-day white peoples fault, but it is white peoples responsibility to be aware of this. I mean really aware of this. It has only been more recently since I was able to identify the concept of systemic oppression. Id heard of privilege and white privilege and knew what oppression was, but I was never aware or taught how ingrained the oppression is in our formal and informal society.

A formal example being that the death penalty was created by the government as a legal way to murder African Americans. Once lynching became more looked down upon, the government came up with a way (a system) to push certain people in the direction of the death penalty which truly was made to be the legal excuse for executing African Americans. We can also look at the statistics. Lets talk about the demographics of prisons. Lets compare sentences for crimes of POC vs. white presenting folx for committing the same crime.

What about less formal examples of systemic oppression? I think of things like pipeline schools, colorism, and racial profiling. I recently had a friend of mine, who is and identifies as white, tell me that they speed going home from college all the time. Once they passed a cop and were lucky enough to not get caught. It immediately reminded me of other stories Id heard from other college students who identified as black males.

They shared multiple experiences of themselves and friends being pulled over and even taken into a station for the same or similar small crimes. You may think; well, they were breaking the law, but so was my white friend. But my white friend doesnt have to worry about getting not just caught, but PICKED because of the color of their skin. Its not just a problem that its happening; the bigger problem is that people arent even aware that this is some peoples everyday lives. Can you imagine living in fear every day because of the color of your skin?

Another thing I like to mention when I try to express the importance of social justice is the topic of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Blue Lives Matter. The biggest thing I want to be taken away is that being a cop and putting on that uniform is a choice. Being a POC is not a choice. Not only is the uniform a choice, but the uniform can also be taken off. Your skin color cannot be taken off. You dont get to choose when youll be judged by what is presented on the outside. It is an identity that follows you every second of your life.

In my opinion, the problem is two things. Most importantly, the police force was built off of an oppressive system. Period. That cant be changed, the past cant be changed, but it can be acknowledged. People arent inherently bad, I dont believe, but we were all born into a human societal system built to support some and hold back others. Going off that point that people arent inherently bad, I do not and believe, and I think other folx would back me up on this, that all cops are bad, and that is not the message that is trying to be portrayed when people feel upset about BLM being confronted with Blue Lives Matter.

I think the last message I want to address is one of the biggest reasons Im writing this. It ties into a lot of what I have already said. But listen here I think most people would agree with me that most people believe we should live in an equitable world or at least, thats what people will say they believe in. I commend the folx who have these conversations. It is super important.

But, it is also important to know that after recognition, talking about social justice is just the beginning. Simply put, there is a difference between not being racist/oppressive and being anti-racist/anti-oppressive. Just because you have the conversation from time to time, doesnt mean youre helping solve the issues, especially if these conversations only exist in spaces created specifically for social justice conversations.

The frustrating part for myself and from what Ive heard from other people that identify as POC is that while this conversation exists in a designated space, once the conversation is over, white folx can go back to their normal lives that are inherently built and systemically supported for white presenting folx.

POC have to take that conversation out of the room with them and live it 24/7. POC dont get to choose when these conversations happen and when they are important because one, its important all the time, and two, it affects them all the time. This is my biggest critique to folx who think they are doing good Social Justice work. Its not that its not good, its just not enough.

I also want to note that there are a lot of minority and/or marginalized identities that I did not include in my thoughts here. As far as the multiple marginalized identities that I, myself, hold, I believe that this message applies to those identities as well. I hope this helps anyone to better understand why I think social justice is such an important topic to think about.

There is one last thing I want to address. Ive spent a lot of my life thinking about how I can help others before I realized that being an educator is about supporting students to be able to help themselves. I think helping is great, but the questions are what causes are you helping and are you really helping. If you truly believe in change, then we need to attack systemic oppression.

I see the steps as recognizing systemic oppression, vocalizing, not perpetuating it, and fighting it at its root. My go-to example of this is some cities solutions to homelessness. There has been something created that is recognized as anti-homelessness architecture. What this really means is creating spaces where homeless people cannot stay, like spikes under sheltered areas and benches with divides or other manners of preventing sleeping on them.

The problem with this is that it may prevent homeless people from staying in that location, but it drives homeless people elsewhere and more importantly, doesnt help to eradicate the problem of homelessness. So to connect these ideas, one can donate clothes/items to the less fortunate or participate in volunteer activities, but if youre not helping to break and change the system, youre only helping to deal with the consequences of systemic oppression, not the root of these problems. This means that systemic oppression will persist and continue on. So I leave you with a few quotes that resonate deeply with me.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -MLK

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and no nothing. -Albert Einstein

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. Benjamin Franklin

Last and certainly not least, thank you to everyone in my life that has helped me to be able to understand myself more, dive into the work, and supported me through my lifelong journey.

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Letters to the Editor do not reflect the beliefs or values of The Racquet Press. The author of this letter chose to remain anonymous.

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Letter to the Editor: Why social justice is important to me - The Racquet