Youth of African descent have been systemically denied an right to an education through the school-to-prison pipeline and their parents have been stripped of their right to self-determine the kind of education given to their children through privatization.1 The Federal government, under No Child Left [...]
The Grand Jury Process—The Judicial Explicitness of Implicit Bias
Betsy L. Angert2016-11-29T17:39:09-05:00Less than two seconds. Let that sink in. It took less than two seconds to make, What a Grand Jury rules is a legally reasonable decision. The patrol car was still rolling onto the scene. And yet, the Officer, Timothy Loehmann, pleads, He shouted four [...]
Open Letter of Demand to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Administrators in Response to Anti-Black Threat and Terror on Campus
standing with heR2016-11-29T17:39:09-05:00Dear Interim Chancellor Wilson, Interim Vice Chancellor Feser, and Vice Chancellor Romano, Today, November 18, 2015, marked the National Day of Action, #StudentBlackOut, in which Black students organized dozens of actions on university and college campuses throughout the US and in Canada. Black University of Illinois [...]
(Y)our N-Word
Robin Boylorn2016-11-29T17:39:09-05:00Nobody called me a nigga to my face But behind backs and closed doors I am sure I have been called every kind of n-word Especially when I excelled in systems designed for me to fail nigga Or called out bigotry and privilege in classrooms [...]
As a Minority Student at Mizzou, The Racial Tensions There Didn’t Surprise Me
Kouichi Shirayanagi2016-11-29T17:39:09-05:00This week’s events at the University of Missouri don’t surprise me one bit. As a graduate student in Mizzou’s journalism school with a Japanese and Jewish background, I know what it’s like to be a minority. There, I am regularly reminded that I am different. Without [...]
My University Studies Haven’t Saved Me From Homelessness and Hunger
Pablo Montes2016-11-29T17:39:09-05:00Food and housing insecurity do not disappear from people’s lives when they go to college. There is this damaging misconception that once you get to college – once you’re on an upwardly mobile, higher-education track – you magically have the same resources and opportunities as everyone [...]
dear (future) school official: my son will be absent
Tiffany Rose Smith2016-11-29T17:39:10-05:00By Tiffany Rose Smith | Originally Published at Rose With Words. October 27, 2015 dear (future) school official: my son will be absent because in our house we teach him to respect others, but also stand up for himself and those in need. we do not want [...]
Welcome Home
Sha Condria iCon Sibley2016-11-29T17:39:10-05:00I grew up in a house where 'I Love you' sounded a lot like broken glass and bodies crashing into one another way too hard. A house where Love was too loud and too angry for pillow talk. Love's beauty was invisible to the eye [...]
Race, Memory, and the World That Made New Orleans
Mark Charles Roudane2016-11-29T17:39:10-05:00My father is listed as white on his birth certificate. His great-grandfather was the founder of America’s first black daily newspaper. But when I tell the story of my family, inextricably linked to the narrative of New Orleans and, in fact, to the country, I [...]