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My Prior Experience With Ethnic Studies in CA

Four years ago, I was still a budding student at Cleveland Charter High School in Los Angeles, California. As a graduate of the distinguished CORE magnet program in humanities, I was a proud student of interdisciplinary courses, ranging from ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, philosophy, sociology, and more. My high school education was certainly unique for its time, which Im both grateful for and concerned by. If I knew then what I know now, I would have been steadfast to reform my ethnic studies curriculum to be more inclusive of my Jewish identity. In fact, many more minority students may have difficulty reforming theirs, if they arent equipped to shape state proposals for CA Ethnic Studies curriculum as it is being standardized right now.

Not only did my high school education significantly shape my views about the world, but they also informed my relationship with myself, my people, and my culture. As an Israeli-American Jew and Zionist, learning about terms and methods of social justice in academia forced me to dive into the complex history of various minorities in America. Furthermore, with my many identities, it forced me to look inward and question my place within the fabric of America and the world at large. Lets explore some of the controversial experiences I faced that could have been prevented had my education been more transparent and inclusive.

Imposing Whiteness and Downplaying Antisemitism, Past & Present

Hefty readings, lectures, and conversations on the systematic oppression of Black Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and South Asian/Middle Eastern/Arab/North African (SAMEAN) Americans dominated discourse particularly in my junior years race unit. I cherished learning about it. Curriculum on the gradual integration of Irish, German, Italian, and other Euro-Americans into white society also was part of the program, but this is where my identity was often left between.

Jewish representation was frequently discussed under the lens held to Euro-American integration into the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority. It was confined to an Ashkenormative approach, where the diasporic European Jewish (Ashkenazi) history of my dads family was told yet reduced to a story of gradual assimilation and a success of almost no hurdles. The Sephardi Moroccan-Israeli story of my mothers family was simply not discussed, nor was that of any other Jew of color. This was a convenient structure which was encouraged and exacerbated by a retired faculty member who returned to volunteer teaching periodically, declaring that antisemitism is no longer an issue, decades after the Holocaust. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have been able to respond to this teacher with confidence.

Contrary to her bias, we know today in 2020 that nearly 60 percent of Californian students my age and younger have no knowledge that 6,000,000 Jews were murdered at the hands of Nazi Germany (nonetheless, for not being white natives of Europe) directly contributing to the preservation of antisemitic tropes and notions that Jews comprise the peak of the privileged. Im sure that these students were just as ignorant on the diversity of the Jewish people and the genealogical and cultural Levantine ties we share with each other. As ignorance about Jewish people prevails and white supremacists continue to terrorize our Jewish communities at synagogues, rallies, cultural centers, universities, and so forth, our story of continued struggle for acceptance must also be included in ethnic studies and taught to future generations of Americans.

In the same breath, while discounting the lasting role of violent antisemitism, disproportionate antisemitic hate crimes, and institutionalized Jew-hatred via biased education, this faculty member would also vent about Jewish financial success amid the generational trauma and systemic racism against other marginalized minorities. It instinctively felt like a reductionist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed imposing both whiteness where it was conditionally granted to us and revoked at seconds-notice. This was clearly antisemitism to me, amid due representation for others, but because of that phenomenon of emphasizing justice (without Jews) the very idea of accountability was squarely ignored by this teacher and her colleagues in the classroom.

Erasing the Ethnic Dimension of Jewish Identity

In another significant instance, I can vividly recall one of my ninth grade teachers proclaiming during a sudden discussion of antisemitism that Honey, Jews are not a race. She proceeded, Jews are a religion. I have Jewish friends. At the time, I knew deep inside that were not a separate race, but looking around the room at other speechless Jewish peers, I had a hard time mustering up the courage to explain that we are an ethnic and religious people, similar to Armenian and Hindu Americans. She may have had good intentions, but like a colorblind optimist, this instructor stifled conversation surrounding how to combat the way Jews are treated, and even how we manifest our peoplehood.

While this error was later acknowledged by another teacher in class two years later, one can imagine how stumped Jews like myself felt seeking solidarity, as peers racialized us and simultaneously stripped us of any claim to ethnicity. If you cant name it, you cant shame it and if I had known then what I know now, I could have empowered Jews of my generation to speak for ourselves before an authority figure could distort the narrative.

Overlooking the Antisemitism of Anti-Racist Authors & Speakers

Getting into the particular content of my ethnic studies curriculum, it was not even an afterthought that various authors of assigned readings and book titles had an avid track-record of antisemitism, including anti-Israel expression. So often, we just had no idea until we read the content ourselves. Sparsely was it acknowledged by my teachers that Karl Marx, St. Augustine of Hippo, and F. Scott Fitzgerald authors of Western ideological canons or modern literature expressed antisemitism in their writings.

However, never was it spoken that Alice Walker, African American acclaimed author of our assigned book, The Color Purple, had endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theorists and even propelled her own anti-Jewish poetry. The contribution of this distinguished author to our understanding of the African American experience, including the bitter legacy of slavery is critical. However, Walkers antisemitic conspiracy theories must also be addressed. Her narrow-minded bashing of Israels existence and stripping of Palestinian agency (amid intransigence and bigoted incitement of Palestinian leaders to anti-Jewish violence), affirmed the moral failure of my school programs unquestioning endorsement.

Nor was it shared in classroom activities that some of the civil rights leaders we were taught to glorify and follow had conflated the Jewish people with their deepest enemies. It took some news headlines, years after graduation, for me to understand how these figures felt about people like me. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the most prolific anti-apartheid activists who I campaigned for in a class South African mock election, had uttered support for terrorist organization Hamas to the detriment of Jewish (and Arab) civilian life.

Not a single word of comfort or nuance was provided by my teachers when Tim Wise, author of White Like Me and anti-racist speaker entrepreneur, spoke to my entire program class (an annual program expense) ultimately to invoke his paternal Jewish ancestry, tokenize himself, and virtue-signal about how Israel is (unilaterally) oppressing the Palestinians. Wises support for the B-D-S movement also proved concerning much later than I would realize. BDS is a hate campaign that has established itself globally for the past two decades in tandem with organizations responsible for international Jewish civilian murder, like Hamas and the PFLP, under the false brand of non-violence and social justice.

Likewise, it was completely out of hand for my 12th grade teacher in digital humanities to randomly assert before my class that the worlds only Jewish state composed a lingering form of colonialism and apartheid, during a lecture on Algerian literary reflections of French colonialism and existentialism all while staring me (a proud Israeli-American) dead in the eye and silencing any response. Amid clear historical distinctions between Israeli democracy and South African apartheid, this inappropriate and slanderous comment created a moment of discriminatory intimidation I will never forget.

The connection between my curriculum and the air of anti-Jewish hostility produced on campus was remarkable. Microagressions cut deep over time, undetected or even peddled by non-Jewish peers. However, the antisemitic dogwhistles and even overt antisemitism patched together throughout our studies as an example of what American society has historically been, was often there to see for all. Jewish students shrugged and became desensitized. Our non-Jewish friends took note at our complacency, and likewise, just moved on.

Abusing Intersectionality to Homogenize Diverse Experiences & Alienate

The deliberate and irredeemable criminalization of Israel in each of the aforementioned settings of authoritative education was no less than the criminalization of my identity etched in stone and the minds of my peers. This is just my impressionable high school experience not my college experience at UCLA, where in a friends ethnic studies lecture, the Jewish community was conflated with our white supremacist killers for our majority support of Jewish self-determination. We were lucky to have acted then, urging our Jewish peers to snap out of complacency, organizing more effectively to make a broad-reaching difference with a series of demands to our administration and Title VI cases, of which I have been a proud part of.

Across the board, many instructors in my home state have taken the legal philosophy of intersectionality originally intended to address the nexus of bigotry that people with multiple oppressed identities face and abused the concept to create a politicized discourse of uniformity among different struggles that oppressed communities face. They have homogenized diverse experiences ranging from Native American genocide, to Japanese internment, and the making of Palestinian refugees as a pretense for selectively alienating or excluding entire communities of color that do not fit their paradigm including Mizrahi Jewish refugees and their descendants (like myself). This disparity has been noted by scores of coalitions for comprehensive ethnic studies curriculum, namely JIMENA, the AJC, Amcha Initiative, JCRC, Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies, and many more organizations.

This gap includes a lack of education as well on other indigenous MENA minorities, such as Kurds, Copts, Assyrians, Armenians, Imazighen, and more, who, in their homelands, embody oppressed minorities under a non-white (and non-Western), Arab regional hegemony. These facts transcend simplistic formulas of power propelled by an inequitable ethnic studies curriculum, which omits the experiences of minorities in other parts of the world (and in diaspora in CA) for which representation and nuance is so crucial for sustainability.

Taking Action Today For A Better Tomorrow

My experience with California ethnic studies prior to its current mandate (AB-1460) is just a drop in the ocean of what institutional marginalization Jewish minority students have encountered on campuses nationally in the past several years. Its not about what I knew then anymore, its about now.As the California Department of Education (CDE) finalizes its official required ethnic studies curriculum with skewed and problematic sources, modeled for dozens of states to come, its no longer an option to grieve over the past we have to mobilize our community and demand that our voices, histories, contributions, and representation be included for our future.

Sign the petition now to ensure that the Jewish and Israeli-American voice is heard and that no bias or discrimination against our community is included by the CDE.Share the voices of Jewish students with Include Our Voices on Instagram to spread the conversation. Email the CA Dept. of Education to secure our future inclusion in the fabric of America and build relationships with your local school board members. Leave a thank-you messageto the office of CA Governor Newsom for withholding his signature from AB-331s hasty and biased ethnic studies proposal and for ensuring more time and inclusivity.Lastly, share this article to keep this momentum going and educate others to positively shape years to come.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this blog are the authors own and do not reflect that of his employer, the IAC.

Originally posted here:
If I Knew Then What I Know Now: A Demand for Ethnic Studies Representation - The Times of Israel

on July 27, 2020 at 10:04 am

In light of the civil unrest that is going on in this country, I want to focus on the unique experience of many African immigrants, like myself, who had no prior understanding of the history of racism and the seriousness of the issue in this nation. Many African immigrants have had to face some kind of discrimination to realize the complex nature of race relations in the United States, and to identify themselves as Black. African immigrants, like myself, go through a series of identity crises as we make the shift from being proudly African to a stage where the only way to navigate the system is by embracing blackness from the American point of view and accepting all of the negative consequences that come with it. This strategy requires being extremely cautious while also trying to prove the negative stereotypes wrong. There is a constant struggle not to avoid being judged by the way we look, because we cant escape from being judged any way but to prove that such misconceptions are wrong, and it is exhausting.

Race is a purely social construction, meaning that there is nothing biological or genetic to the social categories that have been created. We know this because the categories and what they mean change over time, and they are different in different places. In Brazil, for instance, they have dozens of racial categories, and sometimes I wish there were intermediate categories in the US, that would take into consideration the diversity of what it is to be Black. Being Black in America, regardless of where you are from, means all of the stress ascribed to race, all of the stereotypes, stigma, and experiences that are related to what it is to be seen as Black by others, including the legacy of racism, even when my ancestors (who were never enslaved nor colonized) never experienced them. Aster Osburn, an Ethiopian immigrant like myself, recently talked about a painful and confusing transition of her identity in a public Facebook post (2020 June 7 https://www.facebook.com/aster.osburn). She says that The raw truth is, I went through a phase where I denied my blackness and uttered the words Im not black, Im Ethiopian A few years of living here quickly taught me that being black was going to be a struggle. It meant now I would have to live a life not celebrating it but defending it. Oh, the identity after identity crisis Ive gone through to tear down my mindset from celebrating blackness to learning its new meaning for my life.

Such encounters might seem petty, but it has a big psychological impact when you have to deal with it daily.

My first encounter with this stigma was while I was still in my proud African phase, before I embraced my blackness. My 4-year-old daughter was told by a neighbor girl that she could not play with her due to her skin color. I didnt take it seriously. I just told my daughter, maybe the little girl has never seen Queen of Sheba, a beautiful African queen who looks like you before. My daughter will never forget what this little girl told her, though. Such encounters might seem petty, but it has a big psychological impact when you have to deal with it daily. I am very glad that other mothers, who do not have Black children, will not have to go through this painful reality and I regret that my children will.

As a Black person, I experience racially insensitive encounters every single day. From being asked at a grocery store recently if I am using an EBT card, simply because I look like people who presumably rely on government welfare, to a coworker who once asked me to hook him up with drugs, for no other reason than an assumption he clearly had about Black people. A woman told my son once that he should be very grateful that he is in the greatest country on earth not in a village in Africa, and that now he could be anything he wants to be. This seems to be a positive, empowering remark, but I know in my heart that it is not going to be easy for my Black son who also struggles with ADHD. One day I will have to sit down with him and deal with the painful and uncomfortable talk about what people who look like him experience, and guide him in how to navigate a system that is not really designed to treat him equally. But he is learning on his own, as well.

In 2017, my son worked on a history fair project focused on historically significant Americans. My son chose Jessie Owens and was very proud to represent the first Black man in the Olympics, who because of extreme racism had to fight against immeasurable odds despite being a highly skilled athlete. At this history fair, I saw the unresponsive and undisturbed reaction of the many parents, grandparents, and teachers when a grandfather of a student was literally parading around in front of my son holding the Confederate flag. I was disgusted and offended by the mans action of proudly holding a symbol that celebrates the enslavement of people who look like my son inside a public school. What made me especially angry was the silence and ignorance of how racially insensitive this was by the school and those in attendance. This might be because most people in my sons school have never experienced racial profiling, systemic racism, mass incarceration, or any other offense, just because of the color of their skin. People who have not had that flag flown to terrorize them, can simply pretend it is just about Southern pride. But it is terrifying to a Black person, because you dont know the intent behind it, only the history of the Confederacy that wanted to continue to enslave and dehumanize Black people.

A few weeks ago, I could not believe my eyes when my coworker (a very devoted LDS man who has served a mission) started wearing a Confederate flag bandana as a mask to work every single day. I was disgusted, but I did not speak up. I thought someone will stand up against this racially insensitive symbol at a time of social unrest like this and report this disturbing and offensive symbol to HR. I also tried to remind myself of the fact that my ancestors were never enslaved, not even colonized. But my new Black identity keeps telling me that it doesnt matter, this is a symbol of oppression that stood for the enslavement of people who look like me and it was painful. Finally, a coworker who had been on vacation, and happens to be an openly gay Mexican American, saw the symbol from far away and it didnt take him one minute to report it. I started asking myself why it somehow had to be another minority, who might have experienced some sort of discrimination, to notice, understand, and stand against racial insensitivity? I think this resonates with what Tim Wise, in White Like Me, has said white privilege is. It involves a lack of understanding of the complicated structural and systemic racism that Blacks experience daily. That privilege kind of covers many peoples eyes.

The irony is, many of my white friends claim to be color blind, which really just makes them blind to the daily life experiences of Black people like me, which is too often full of unconscious racial stereotyping with grave social, economic, and psychological impact.

Last year my mother in-law invited me to her church for a womens training session where a high-profile, respected Logan city police officer was teaching parents about internet safety. I loved most of his message, but I found the officers approach very insensitive, inconsiderate, and completely color blind to the fact that I am Black and the words he was using were disturbingly racist to me. For instance, at one point he was telling the women in the meeting not to be so nice to people who look strange, who maybe have dreadlocks, etc. and then says, dont be afraid of being called racist to protect yourself from strangers. Intentionally or unintentionally, this officer was using a Black persons profile as a symbol of threat to teach these women about safety. I wonder what kinds of perceptions these women will have about dreadlocks who are mostly worn by black men. The women in the meeting were mostly my neighbors and I keep wondering how this session will impact the way they see my own husband, his siblings and my children. What bothered me so much was that this respected officer might be the law enforcement agent whom my children, who perfectly fit into the very profile and symbol of what he labeled as strange, may encounter. Will they not be seen as normal and nonthreatening? I felt certain that just like this (implicitly-biased) police officer, others will definitely view my children as a threat and their actions will not matter at all. And what bothers me most was that these loving, caring and compassionate white mothers did not even bother to question his approach, let alone to confront his racially insensitive description. They were in fact applauding and cheering. I know my mother in-law felt awful, but she didnt speak up at the time. This is one of the moments that I felt that this is not the community where I want to raise my kids.

After the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota, I asked my mother-in-law to write about her experiences of raising six (adopted) Ethiopian children after she and her husband raised their six (white) children here in Cache Valley. She remembers that when they first moved here to Utah they werent expecting the prejudices that they faced on a daily basis. As she remembers at the childrens school, Some students would ask them if they could touch their hair. Many students would ask them if they grew up in a jungle in Africa, or if they had ever seen a TV before. They grew up in Addis Ababa, the capitol city of Ethiopia, which is a modern city. These comments were innocent, but hurtful at the same time, she points out. As my children learned to drive and got their drivers licenses, she writes, they began to have more serious problems than hurtful innocent comments at school. Since I am white I didnt even have a clue that I was supposed to talk to them about how to act when you are stopped by the police because it might be dangerous for them because of the color of their skin. None of my white children had ever been pulled over on a regular basis for petty things while they were driving. My Ethiopian family members many times have been tailed for fifteen minutes by police officers before they finally pull them over to say that the light over their license plate is out, just so they can check out their car. (You cant legally pull someone over unless there is something wrong). When they would get home and check the light there would be nothing wrong with it.

She goes on to recall, One experience was for driving too slow, and they were pulled from their car, searched and frisked, put in the back of the police car to wait while the officers called in the drug sniffing dogs to check out their car for possible drugs. Of course the police cars lights were going while they waited for backup to bring the drug dogs, so everyone passing by would look to see what was going on. No drugs were found, and no ticket was issued, but what a devastating dehumanizing experience. I do believe people of color are often profiled because of the color of their skin, none of my white children have ever had any experiences while driving like their Ethiopian siblings have had. These are examples of white privilege, which gives white people immunity from certain kinds of negative experiences. It allows white people to avoid what my mother-in-law sees as the deep and soulful hurt of being dehumanized.

Tim Wise points out that white folks racial fears, resentments, and anxiety are also used to undermine their own wellbeing, making them numb to the pain and experience of others. The irony is, many of my white friends claim to be color blind, which really just makes them blind to the daily life experiences of Black people like me, which is too often full of unconscious racial stereotyping with grave social, economic, and psychological impact. Colorblindness is neglecting the truth of white privilege and keeping matters of racism under the rug, closing ones eyes to the reality of institutional racism and shifting the focus to less urgent issues. I think awareness about how race affects everybody is key. It is important to be color conscious in order to help racial minorities, walk with them in the journey for equality. Instead of color-blindness, we need to work on anti-racism, instead of avoiding discussing race and racism or claiming you are not racist while doing nothing to change a system that unfairly disadvantages people of color.

But I also want to say how being a student of anthropology and sociology has helped me in this painful journey. Where would I be without a sociological imagination and cultural relativism to help me to look at historical and cultural contexts and see the big picture?

Ta-Nehisi-Coates wrote in Between the World and Me, that black boys and girls are always told to work twice as hard, to be twice as good, but to be happy with half as much. In the 1937 essay Ethics of Living Jim Crow, Richard Wright talks about the numerous yes sirs and no sirs in his conversation with white people in his quest to please white folks at all times. I always ask myself why certain words are commonly used by African Americans in their day to day interaction with non-blacks. There are times I get mad at my African husband for overusing these extremely polite and seemingly subordinate words in his interactions with white people. What makes me mad is the fact that whether my husband uses such polite words or not, it is not going to prevent the presumed judgment and implicit biases he will encounter regardless in a racially divided country like the U.S. He still has to work extra hard to prove peoples misconceptions about him. To this day, he takes his (white) parents to the bank if he is making a big transaction just to avoid possible problems. And it always works, but it is infuriating. It is tragic to watch some of these videos of young black boys assaulted by police officers, while they responded to orders in an extremely polite way. It seems to me such kind of Jim Crow wisdom does not guarantee a black person the right to simply live a regular life.

I could go on and on talking about my experience as an African immigrant. But I also want to say how being a student of anthropology and sociology has helped me in this painful journey. Where would I be without a sociological imagination and cultural relativism to help me to look at historical and cultural contexts and see the big picture? But I am not going to lie, it is tiring to justify every petty ignorance and racial insensitivity when you face it on a daily basis and know that your children are more likely to pass through the same painful journey because we definitely have a long way to go to be a post-racial country. I do not want to pass on what Wright calls the Jim Crow wisdom to help my children navigate and survive a racist system. I want them to change the system! I do not want them to waste every single moment of their life trying to strategize their own mechanism to defend their blackness and prove peoples misconceptions wrong. Because I know it is not going to change until we all work together, and especially until white people choose to speak up against racism and racial insensitivity.

As my mother-in-law points out: Of course not all of my Ethiopian childrens experiences here have been negative. Many people have been kind and have helped them, but it would go a long way if white people around them would have the courage to speak up if they see someone doing something racist, and try to stop it. We can all make a difference to help our country change so that everyone is treated equally and fairly. I have hope that the country I love will be able to find the courage to face the things that need to be changed and go forward to make it a better place to live, no matter what color your skin is.

Referenced Sources:

Coates, T. (2015).Between the world and me(First edition.). New York: Spiegel & Grau.

Wise, T. J. (2005).White like me. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press.

Wright, R. (1993 [1937]) The Ethics of living Jim Crow, An Autobiographic sketch. Harper-perennial Publishers page 1-18.

Recommended resources:

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be anantiracist. First Edition. New York: One World.

An Antiracist Reading List curated by Ibram X. Kendi: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/books/review/antiracist-reading-list-ibram-x-kendi.html

About the Author:

Trhas Tafere graduated in Spring 2020 from Utah State University with a degree in both anthropology and sociology and was the Anthropology Programs Undergraduate of the Year. She was born in Eritrea and moved to the U.S. from Ethiopia in 2013.

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Featured Guest Column: An African Immigrants Experiences Learning What It Means to be Black in America - Utahstatesman

A little more than a week has passed since current ESPN and former NESN anchor Elle Duncan detailed her personal encounters with racism during her two years in Boston.

In that short time, as the Black Lives Matter movement finally appears to be sparking genuine progress in the sports world, her perspective and candor have proven beyond valuable in the conversation about what Black people sometimes encounter in the city.

Duncan said during a conversation Friday that the response to her revelations has been overwhelmingly positive, with a few loud exceptions, and that it has only further confirmed that speaking up was the right thing to do.

The vocal minority of Bostonians that are the skeptics tend to dominate the headlines, said Duncan. They tend to be the loudest on Twitter.

But people should see what my DMs look like. Theyre so positive. My emails that Im getting from people that I knew briefly in Boston or the former colleagues that I really dont talk to anymore are like, Thank you, and either, A, Youre opening my eyes to some of these things in particular because of how vocal some of those detractors are. How theyre responding proves your point and how theyre trying to dismantle the message. Or, B, people telling me theyve never felt comfortable describing their time in Boston and saying, It was very difficult for me too. And that runs across color lines.

I dont want to focus on the people that were never going to listen or receive that message. Im more interested in focusing on the people right that I knew were good Bostonians who have remained quiet and who really want to reclaim the reputation of their city.

Duncan will bring that perspective to a special evening of programming Wednesday on ESPN, which will explore the issues of racism and social justice in sports. She will join fellow SportsCenter anchors Michael Eaves and Jay Harris and reporter Maria Taylor on Time for Change: We Wont Be Defeated, a one-hour program airing at 8 p.m. on ESPN and at 11 p.m. on ESPN2 that will examine Black athletes experiences with injustice and sports role in bridging the racial divides in America.

This is the centerpiece of 5 hours of programming that will air across ESPN and ESPN2 that night, beginning with the re-air of the 30 for 30 documentary The 16th Man, which features the South African Springbok national rugby team and its impact on South Africas transition from apartheid.

Time for a Change is broken up into four segments. Taylors focuses on why this time feels different, including a conversation with Chris Fowler on why white voices are speaking up more about issues Black people have been raising for a long time.

Duncans segment delves into white privilege, and includes a conversation with Ibram X. Kendi, director of the new Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, and anti-racist activist and writer Tim Wise.

Harriss segment digs into the expression stick to sports and includes a conversation with former major league outfielder Torii Hunter, who recently detailed his experiences with racism at Fenway Park, spurring the Red Sox to acknowledge the issue.

In his segment, Eaves drives a discussion on how to create legislation that can actually change policy and help eradicate racism.

I asked Duncan if she believes that there is genuine change happening now and that powerful people who have averted their eyes from racism in the past are authentic in wanting to make the country a better place for minorities.

I do. I am very hopeful, she said. I know that theres a lot of people that are skeptical. But heres what Im doing. Im leaning on my parents who are in their 60s, who marched in the civil rights protests, who integrated schools when they were young in Denver.

I lean on them because they have seen so much, and I have to be honest. When the George Floyd situation happened, the anxiety, the grief, the anger, the trauma was all there in their voices. The idea that 40 years later their children are still marching and battling and fighting for the same things they used to as teenagers was very disheartening.

But as this has continued, as the protests have gone on, I have seen their whole attitudes change. They are so hopeful, so inspired by these young people, theyre inspired at the makeup and the composition of the protests. Theyre inspired that it has become a global movement.

They are hopeful, and I am incredibly hopeful right now, too, because there are all these things happening that lead you to believe that this is different.

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Elle Duncan to be part of an ESPN night of examining racism and social justice - Boston.com

(BPRW) Court TV Announces Original News Special Exploring the Relationship Between the Criminal Justice System and African Americans

Black and Blue A Court TV Special Premieres Mon. June 22 at 8pm ET, To be Simulcast Across All Katz Networks

(Black PR Wire) ATLANTA Court TV, the multi-platform network devoted to live, gavel-to-gavel coverage, in-depth legal reporting and expert analysis of the nations most important and compelling trials, announced today an original news special that will take a deep dive into the criminal justice systems history and relationship with African Americans.

Black and Blue A Court TV Specialwill air at 8:00 p.m. (ET) on Monday, June 22, and will also be simulcast across the entire portfolio of Katz networks Bounce, Court TV Mystery, Laff,and Grit.

Topics the hour-long special will explore include: An encompassing look at our current justice system that has seemingly empowered civilians to weaponize the police against African Americans; the rise in deadly interactions with unarmed black men and women in custody and what may be ingrained in the police psyche from a legal perspective that often leads them to wrongly target specific groups; how past segregation-era thinking gave way to controversial present-day laws such as the Stand Your Ground concept and more. High-profile cases involving Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Drejka, George Floyd, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and others will be discussed.

Black and Blue A Court TV Specialwill feature an insightful and thought-provoking discussion withLawyer and former professional WWE wrestler and personality David Otunga; Marissa Alexander, the Florida mother-turned-activist whose Stand Your Ground warning shot case became a rallying cry for anti-racism movements and survivors of domestic violence; former federal prosecutor and author of Chokehold: Policing of Black MenDavid Paul Butler, who recently testified at the House Judiciary Committee hearing along with George Floyds brother and others on issues of racial profiling, police brutality and lost trust; the Dean and Chancellors Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine L. Song Richardson and Tim Wise, an activist, and writer on the topic of race who has trained law enforcement officers, teachers, corporate and non-profit organizations in methods for addressing and dismantling racism in their institutions.

Court TV Crime and Justice Reporter Julia Jenae will host Black and Blue A Court TV Special, with contributions by members of the networks diverse team of anchors and correspondents that are both seasoned journalists and lawyers.

About Court TV

Court TV is available to be seen on cable, over-the-air, and over-the-top. Court TV is also live-streamed on CourtTV.com, YouTube TV, and SiriusXM as well as the Court TV app for Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android and Apple devices. All feature robust and exclusive content from the massive Court TV library, including the nations most compelling, high-profile cases over the past 20 years available on demand. Court TV is part of Katz Networks, a division of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP).

The content and opinions expressed within this press release are those of the author(s) and/or represented companies, and are not necessarily shared by Black PR Wire. The author(s) and/or represented companies are solely responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the content of this Press release. Black PR Wire reserves the right to reject a press release if, in the view of Black PR Wire, the content of the release is unsuitable for distribution.

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(BPRW) Court TV Announces Original News Special Exploring the Relationship Between the Criminal Justice System and African Americans | Press releases...

As nationwide observance of Juneteenth begins, Americans from all over the country may be looking for movies to stream that can help them better understand the many years of systemic racism that the Black community has faced in the years since.

Juneteenth is commemorated annually on June 19, in observance of the end of slavery. On this date in 1865, Union army general Gordon Granger spoke in Galveston, Texas and read the federal orders proclaiming that everyone who had been enslaved in Texas were now free. The Emancipation Proclamation had officially freed slaves nearly two and a half years prior to this after the Union States defeated the Confederate States in the Civil war. Texas, however, had a low presence of Union troops, which caused delayed enforcement of the proclamation.

Over the next 100 years, Black Americans had to fight for legal equal rights, which was achieved with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. However, even since these equal rights acts were made law, the black community has continued to face systemic racism. The first film that can offer a better understanding of how America reached this point is Selma, a historical drama that depicts the 1965 civil rights march that Martin Luther King Jr. led from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. This movie is currently free to rent on Amazon Prime Video. Scroll down to see more suggestions.

13th is another project from DuVernayand is quite possibly the most detailed-yet-consolidated documentary on racial inequality in the United States. The main focus is the film is the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, except in the case of those convicted of a crime and imprisoned.

With a number of historical facts and expert opinions, 13th offers incredible insight into what the black community has faced from law enforcement and the judicial system over the past 155 years since slavery was abolished, as well as the past 56 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was made law.

Just Mercy is a 2019 biopic about the true story of Walter McMillian played by Jamie Foxx a black man convicted of the 1986 murder of a White woman, and placed on death row, based entirely on the witness testimony of a convicted felon. Attorney Bryan Stevenson played by Michael B. Jordan takes McMillian's case and files an appeal in 1989, hoping to get justice for this man who very clearly did not commit the crime he'd been convicted of.

Stevenson would later go on to found the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that focuses on ending mass incarceration and racial inequality. Just Mercy is currently free to rent on Amazon Prime Video

If Just Mercy strikes a chord, then the next thing you check stream is True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight for Equality. This is a 2015 HBO documentary about Stevenson's life and career.

Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and "has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned, seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system." The documentary is available to stream through HBO or for free on YouTube.

I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 documentary based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House. It explores the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, through the eyes of Baldwin, who lived it and worked alongside men like Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X.

The film is directed by Raoul Peck, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2017 Academy Awards. Is it available for Amazon Prime subscribers to stream anytime.

In 1992, Spike Lee's Malcolm X biopic starring Denzel Washington as the late human rights activist opened in theaters, giving audiences a deeper look at the controversial figure. The film used Alex Haley's 1965 book The Autobiography of Malcolm X as the basis for its story, which was co-written by Lee with Arnold Perl. It is currently streaming on Netflix, along with a brilliant documentary titled Who Killed Malcolm X?

Whose Streets? is a 2017 documentary about the death of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson, Missouri police, and the subsequent uprising that followed. The film focuses on a handful of main characters including Hands Up United's co-founder Tory Russell and David Whitt, a recruiter for civilian organization Cop Watch. Whose Streets? is available to stream on Hulu, for subscribers.

In 2019, Netflix released Hello, Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea, a documentary from comedian and TV host Chelsea Handler. The film follows Handler exploring the reality of White privilege, and features her having a conversation with an ex-boyfriends who is Black.

Additionally, it also features Black comedians Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, and W. Kamau Bell, as well as activists and educators such as Tim Wise, Ruby Sales, Rashad Robinson, and Carol Anderson. It is currently streaming on Netflix.

16 Shots is a 2014 Showtime documentary about the shooting of Laquan McDonald. The 17-year-old was killed by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, and the film documents the incident, as well as the cover-up that ensued. It is streaming on Showtime Anytime, for subscribers. It is also currently available for free on YouTube.

Another Spike Lee project, BlacKkKlansman is based on the true story of Ron Stallworth, a Black police officer who infiltrated and exposed the Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. The film stars John David Washington the son of Denzel Washington as well as Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser, and Corey Hawkins. It is currently streaming on HBO.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco is not a story about police brutality, but rather one about the tragic reality of gentrification in major U.S. cities. The story is loosely based on the real-life experience of co-writer/star Jimmie Fails, and follows one man's struggle to retain the Bay Area home of his deceased father.

In addition to fails, it co-stars Jonathan Majors, Tichina Arnold, Rob Morgan, Mike Epps, Finn Wittrock, and Danny Glover. The Last Black Man in San Francisco is available for Amazon Prime subscribers to stream anytime.

The film project on our list is not a film, but a limited biopic series about the Central Park Five. Created by Ava DuVernay, When They See Us tells the story of Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise five teens who were coerced into giving false confessions about their involvement with the 1989 assault and rape of a jogger in Central Park.

The series is broken up into four parts and follows the boys from the night of the incident, all the way to their convictions being vacated, due to new evidence, more than a decade after their trial. When They See Us is now streaming on Netflix.

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Juneteenth: 12 Films to Watch and Better Understand Systemic Racism in the US - PopCulture.com