Honor Nelson Mandela.

In November 2009, the South African government and U.N. General Assembly declared July 18th Nelson Mandela International Day. This celebration recognizes the former president’s remarkable commitment to human rights, conflict resolution, and reconciliation in the face of unimaginable racist oppression. The annual celebration is a global call to action (SAGOV).

Good morning and happy Friday! This Sunday is Nelson Mandela Day. Take time to reflect on his commitment to revolution, service and community, and learn how he transformed South Africa (which is currently grappling with its worst unrest in decades).

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– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Read Nelson Mandela’s memoir, Long Walk to Freedom.
Celebrate Nelson Mandela International Day every July 18th by giving back to your community. Here are some suggestions.

GET EDUCATED

By Kholiswa Mendes-Pepani (she/her)

Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918 on the eastern coast of South Africa. Under different circumstances, Rolihlahla Mandela, son of a chief, would have been groomed to steward the land of his people. But under colonial rule, he watched his family, country, and identity be stripped of dignity and self-ownership for the benefit of white supremacist ideals (Long Walk To Freedom). From his first day of school, Mandela was given an English name and taught to regard his African heritage as inferior to British culture and education. Baptized into white supremacy as Nelson, Mandela strode forth bound by a mercilessly oppressive state and answering to someone else’s name (Long Walk To Freedom).

When the white National Party institutionalized the system of segregation known as apartheid in 1948, Black South Africans had already been living under oppression for centuries. Apartheid segregated geographic living spaces, required people of color to carry an identification pass, banned interracial marriages and friendships, allowed the government to declare stringent states of emergency, and increased penalties for protesting against apartheid or supporting the repeal of the law (Nations Online, SUNY).

Black opposition groups grew in response. As a human rights lawyer and a senior member of the African National Congress (ANC), Mr. Mandela led mass noncompliance movements against the racist laws, including co-founding the armed resistance group known as uMkhonto we Sizwe after the ANC was banned in 1960 (Nobel Prize). Members of resistance groups were tracked down, arrested, tortured, and charged with treason, the punishment for which was hanging or life imprisonment. During one of these raids, Nelson Mandela was captured and put on trial. He was convicted of sabotage and treason and sentenced to life in prison (Nations Online).

During his 27-year incarceration, Mr. Mandela became a symbol for the anti-apartheid movement. As tensions within the country grew increasingly violent and bloody, the white government consistently attempted to use Mr. Mandela to suppress the resistance. He refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom (Nobel Prize).

As Black liberation movements defeated colonial oppression across Africa, international support for the anti-apartheid movement took the shape of boycotts, sanctions, and mass protests against the government of South Africa. In the U.S., Martin Luther King had encouraged action against the regime before his murder, and through the 80s, student activists across the country pressured Congress to sanction apartheid South Africa (Michigan U). Against the backdrop of the Cold War, progress was slow. Western countries feared that Black liberation movements with communist ideals would work against American interests. In 1986, President Reagan denounced “calculated terror by elements of the African National Congress… creating the conditions for racial war” and in 1988, the U.S. put the ANC and Nelson Mandela on a terrorist watchlist where they remained until 2008. Congress would only sanction the apartheid state in 1986 after decades of pressure (TIME).

With a declining economy, fierce internal dissent, and international pressure, the apartheid government began to fall. When Mr. Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he was tasked with negotiating equality. The outlook for peace and stability within South Africa was grim as pain and loathing from years of oppression threatened to swallow the nation in violence (NPR). Mr. Mandela’s push for peace and reconciliation allowed South Africa to usher in the first democratic elections in 1994, where he was elected the nation's first Black president.

Together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mr. Mandela set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to recompense the human rights violations that took place during the struggle (Truth and Reconciliation Commission). Mr. Mandela understood how white supremacy divides human nature with hate, suspicion, and domination. He chose unity and peace in their place.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela exemplifies the best of human potential. For this reason, we should all celebrate Nelson Mandela Day. In South Africa, the holiday is celebrated with community service. This uplifts the African spirit of Ubuntu, a philosophical principle that translates to mean, “I am because we are.” Ubuntu recognizes the interconnectedness of humanity and reminds us that we are only as strong as our weakest link. This year, make every day, Nelson Mandela Day as a reminder that the ultimate step toward change is empathy and service in a world sharply divided by difference (United Nations).

Kholiswa Mendes Pepani is a Freelance Writer and Book Seller from Johannesburg, South Africa. She is currently based in Portland, Maine where she lives with her husband and their pup. She is passionate about social justice and works with Tender Table, an organization bringing together food, storytelling, and a reclamation of narratives within the BIPOC community. Check out her published work on Hobart.

Key Takeaways

Nelson Mandela International Day is a global call to action stressing the importance of individual empathy, community, and service to make wide-scale change.
Nelson Mandela gave his life to the service of humanity—as a human rights lawyer, political prisoner, peacemaker, and the first democratically-elected president of a free South Africa.
Nelson Mandela Day recognizes the former president’s remarkable commitment to human rights, conflict resolution, and reconciliation.

6/25/2020 | Capitalize B in Black and I in Indigenous.

2/26/2021 | Honor the legacy of Malcolm X.

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Nicole Cardoza 3/30/21 Nicole Cardoza 3/30/21

Support the mental health of students of color.

Everyday, millions of minority students suffer in silence, struggling to cope with the formidable hurdles they face on their path to receiving a higher education. Combating direct and indirect racial discrimination is an all-encompassing battle that continually dares people of color to survive. Carrying this weight while balancing a rigorous curriculum can often come at a serious cost to the mental health and well-being of students of color. In addition to this, the pandemic and the rise in white extremist violence and police brutality has added more strain to the life of students of color. This college mental health crisis is only exacerbated by the lack of support students of color receive from their institutions who fail to provide sustained efforts for equity, and the tangible resources needed to thrive (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).

Happy Tuesday! Today is publication day for my first book, which offers accessible mindfulness resources for kids. I've spent the past decade working in schools to help mitigate the impact of what we're discussing today: the difficult emotions that students are processing while trying to get an education. I'm grateful that Kholiswa shared her perspective based on her experience.

This newsletter is a free resource made possible by our supporters. We'd love you to consider making a monthly recurring donation on our website or Patreon. You can also give one-time on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Thank you for all your support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

If you need mental health care, visit findtreatment.samhsa.gov or call 800-622-HELP (4357).
Petition local school boards to hire more counselors and advisors of color to help support students of color who have mental health needs related to exposure to racism. 14 million kids go to school that has cops, but no counselors.
Donate to Active Minds, a nonprofit that partners with students on campus to address mental health.
Visit the Equity in Mental Health website and support by donating to The Steve Fund and The Jed Foundation—partners in the Equity in Mental Health Framework—to support the advancement of programs and services dedicated to supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health of young people of color nationwide.

GET EDUCATED

By Kholiswa Mendes Pepani (she/her)

While transitioning to college is a challenging time for all who are privileged enough to experience it, the adjustment is even tougher for students of color, particularly those who arrive from low-income backgrounds and are first-generation college students. Most college campuses that are not historically Black carry legacies and traditions indicative of white supremacy. From buildings named after racist figures to the white students who go unpunished for racist acts, the message being sent to students of color reverberates clearly, you do not belong here (The Hechinger Report).

The alienation of entering a space inherently designed for white students is only worsened by incidents of racial discrimination from peers and the institutions themselves. Students of color have, for years, been reporting incidents of racial hostility both subtle and blatant that includes microaggressions, racist vandalism, verbal slurs, and physical assaults (Inside Higher Ed). Such incidents are compounded by a lack of intervention from institutions that fail to condemn or address racism on their campuses. Take Colbie Lofton—a Black student at the Appalachian State University—for instance, in 2018 on the first week of class, Lofton sat in her macroeconomics class and proceeded to ask her professor a question. Behind her, she heard some of her white classmates make the racist comment, “I guess n*****s don’t understand.”

Lofton was unaware of the process of reporting the comment to her university and kept the disturbing insults to herself and neither did her college professor have the heart to take up for her. This left Lofton with the heightened awareness that there are deep prejudices that some people hold against Black people and therefore left her feeling unwelcome and ‘out of place’ in a predominately white school. More often than not, students who are struggling with racism on campus are left feeling invalidated, ignored, and undervalued by administrators who minimize the experiences or redirect injured parties to seek reparation through bureaucratic and time-consuming processes, especially those campuses that cater mostly to white students (Inside Higher Ed).

Many students have stories of being called a racial slur directly or seeing it through racist posts by students on social media. But these types of incidents don’t only happen on college campuses. It also exists in high schools as well. In April 2020, two Georgia high school students posted a disturbing, racist video on TikTok that implies the contents that Black people are made up of. Some of the words and phrases used include ‘Black,’ ‘don’t have a dad,’ ‘rob people,’ ‘go to jail,’ and the last comment implies that Black people always make bad choices (New York Times). Though the students were expelled, there were no evident steps taken to ensure the mental wellness of their black schoolmates was taken care of. It is people who think and act like this who helped ignite the national racial movement, Black Lives Matter.

The outrage over the police killings of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people has given the students’ cause momentum and has forced school administrators to act with urgency and speak out against racism and implement diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. But the efforts of these students have come with a heavy price. During the 2020 protests, two Black college students were repeatedly stunned by tasers and arrested for being in traffic past the nine o’clock mandated curfew. The students were tased because officers felt like they might have had a gun. Turns out the two students were unarmed and were simply driving by the chaotic protests near downtown Atlanta. Later in an interview after the students were released from jail, they said that they felt like they were going to die and that, “it was a blessing that they are still alive.”

The mental healthcare problem in universities has been further exposed by the global pandemic as COVID-19 has cast light on the deeply ingrained racial inequalities that exist in American society. In a recent study done by the United Negro College Fund, one student described their experience saying, “Dealing with COVID-19, the police brutality, and trying to come up with money to pay for fall semester is [causing] me a lot of stress and anxiety because either way, it’s the stress of trying not to get sick, not getting killed by police or finding a way to pay for school that has me on edge (UNCF Student Pulse Survey).”

Thriving under these conditions is not just exhausting, but also psychologically destructive. These adverse conditions mean that Black and brown students experience depression, anxiety disorders, burnout, and other mental illnesses at a rate higher than their white peers (The Harvard Gazette). Studies show that students of color are more likely to feel overwhelmed at college and keep their struggles to themselves. Before the pandemic began, twenty-three percent of Asian-American students, twenty-six percent of Black students, and thirty-three percent of Latino students with mental health problems sought treatment versus the forty-six percent of white students (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).

The rejection and lack of trust and belonging felt by students of color create huge barriers in their ability to seek help from their institutions. In addition to this, the cost, lack of access to counselors of color, and the stigmas associated with therapy prevent minority students from getting the life-saving care they need (The Atlantic). John Silvanus Wilson, former president of Morehouse College, describes how this student health crisis puts an emphasis on getting colleges to foster an environment that allows students of color to feel safe.

“This really brings into focus the institutional responsibility,” Wilson says “If I don’t believe you want me here, I’m not inclined to come in and use your services. So trust is how this is going to change.” (The Harvard Gazette)

To close the divide between students of color and wellness, organizations like The Steve Fund are committed to working with universities to promote programs that build understanding and assistance for the mental and emotional health of young people of color. This task force recommends that institutions take a ‘trauma-informed response’ to decision-making to show empathy and build trust with students of color (The Steve Fund Crisis Report).

The subtle and often seamless ways illnesses like depression and anxiety work their way into the mind leaves people feeling dangerously isolated within the mental anguish they experience. One bad day quickly becomes a bad week that begins to feel like a bad life. Seeking help when struggling with feelings of depression and anxiety is the only remedy to an illness that wants to swallow you in a quicksand of grief, panic, self-loathing and suicidal ideation. If you are currently struggling with mental illness, please know that it is nothing to be ashamed of. Mental illness is a disease and one that you can survive. If you or anyone you know is struggling to cope with feelings of depression and anxiety, please reach out for help. You are not weak and you are certainly not alone.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Students of color are at a higher risk for developing mental health issues due to systemic racism and intergenerational trauma.
The systemic inequalities and racism on college campuses leave minority students feeling alienated and mentally overwhelmed.
Students of color are less likely to seek help from academic institutions due to a lack of trust and belonging.

RELATED ISSUES

3/17/2021 | End standardized testing.

10/19/2020 | Support restorative justice in schools.

8/17/2020 | Fight for equity in remote learning.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 3/17/21 Nicole Cardoza 3/17/21

End standardized testing.

Education is a fundamental human right. But when racial and socioeconomic fences sequester millions of Black and Brown students from the resources and privileges that are required to succeed, who protects their rights?

For decades, the racial stratification within the United States’ educational system has been a powerful tool to uphold intergenerational privilege and white supremacy. Standardized testing is used across the nation as a proxy for intellectual merit, even though results always correlated with race and socioeconomic background rather than academic achievement (Teachers College Press).

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Over the past few weeks, teachers have been advocating for canceling standardized testing this spring after a tumultuous year. These conversations only emphasized the inequities of the process. Kholiswa joins us today to educate more on the history of standardized testing.

This newsletter is a free resource made possible by our paying subscribers. We'd love you to consider making a monthly recurring donation on our website. You can also give one-time on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Thank you for all your support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open testing to help support efforts to eliminate the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests, and prevent their damage to the quality of education.
Contact your local state legislators and representatives and urge them to act on banning standardized testing. Demand an equal distribution of resources in schools.
Follow the latest news about Spring 2021 standardized testing at #CancelTheTests.

GET EDUCATED

By Kholiswa Mendes Pepani (she/her)

“Since the beginning of standardized testing, students of color, particularly those from low-income families, have suffered the most from high-stakes testing in U.S. public schools,” writes senior editor and writer John Rosales in his article, “The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing (National Education Association).”

Race and wealth play significant factors in standardized testing for a number of critical reasons. Schools are funded by property taxes which, in turn, determines the economic and racial makeup of a neighborhood—two factors that have been further stratified by segregation and white flight. Students from affluent, white neighborhoods get access to better funded schools that put them on the path to success. In contrast, Black and Brown students from lower income schools are forced to struggle within a system that does not provide them with the resources needed to compete (Other Words). This system of separate and unequal education is a direct product of enduring racism and discrimination toward people of color.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the damaging social theory, known as eugenics, made its way to the U.S. This dogmatic pseudoscience, which was regarded as scientific inquiry, became a popular prescription for ranking and ordering human worth (Pencils Down). During that time, psychologist Carl Brigham, a supporter of these racist notions wrote that African-Americans were on the low end of the racial, ethnic, and/or cultural spectrum. These deeply oppressive views made their way into the educational system as Brigham contributed to developing aptitude tests for the United States Army during World War I, as well as helping create the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (National Education Association). Decades of research found that assessments like the SAT and IQ tests are not an accurate measurement of a student's success in college or life. Instead, they present a clear bias toward Black and Brown students from early childhood.

“According to FairTest research, On average, students of color score lower on college admissions tests, thus many capable youth are denied entrance or access to so-called “merit” scholarships, contributing to the huge racial gap in college enrollments and completion,” Rosales writes (National Education Association).

Students of color who come from low income backgrounds are disproportionately placed or misplaced in special education that are frequently based on test results. They recieve a “dumbed down” curriculum that ensures that they will fall further behind from their peers. In contrast, white students from middle and upper class backgrounds are generally placed in gifted, talented, and advanced programs that challenge them to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly. In effect, the use of high-stakes testing perpetuates racial inequality through deliberate marginalization (FairTest). The dangerously flawed standardized tests are not only discriminatory but they are easily corruptible. Affluent students already benefiting are able to cheat and pay their way out of the oppressive system and into the nation's best institutions thus, securing a path toward an immensely privileged life (NBC News).

In recent years, a push to finally bring an end to this legacy of racism in education began. On May 26, 2020, the University of California’s Board of Regents voted to discontinue using SAT and ACT scores (Teachers College Press). UC Berkeley’s Chancellor, Carol T. Christ, and UC Provost Michael Brown stated at a conference in November 2019, that research had convinced them that performance on the SAT and ACT was so strongly influenced by family income, parents’ education, and race and using them for high-stakes admissions decisions was simply wrong (Teachers College Press).

Earlier this month, democratic U.S. representative from New York’s sixteenth district, Jamaal Bowmen called out standardized testing as being “a pillar of systemic racism.” This comes as President Biden’s administration refused to grant waivers for standardized testing in the wake of the global pandemic ( target="_blank"New York Post). On March 9, Rep. Ilhan Omar joined Rep. Bowmen in an effort to provide students with waivers for the test this academic year, writing to newly appointed Secretary of Education Cardona, and urging for suspension of testing. Rep Ilhan Omar wrote that they should be prioritizing the students’ academic and emotional well-being, not arbitrary standardized testing goals (Twitter). The Biden administration has yet to respond.

Years of racial stratification in higher education comes at a serious cost to Black and Brown students. Without the fountain of resources that are needed to succeed, students of color and low-income families face tremendous challenges in gaining entry to top colleges. These separate higher education pathways are critical because having access to quality resources—those typically available at top universities—are vital to securing path-dependent occupational destinations. More often than not, those occupational destinations determine how easy or difficult it will be to escape cycles of generational racism and poverty (Separate & Unequal).

While the school system cannot single handedly dismantle generations of inequality and white supremacy, it plays a key role in creating an equal and equitable environment that guarantees all students an opportunity to thrive. We must ask ourselves, if standardized testing does not accurately measure intelligence or determine college success then, what are they really for and why do we keep them around? Standardized testing at its core is a pillar of white supremacy and it’s time for it to fall.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Standardized testing represents a legacy of racial inequality toward Black and Brown students and perpetuates intergenerational privilege and white supremacy.
In recent years, the call to dismantle standardized testing has gained more traction and is currently being pushed for suspension by Democrat representatives due to the global pandemic and its deep-rooted racism.
Schools must adopt better curriculum and assessment practices that more accurately demonstrate a student’s academic abilities.

2/9/2021 | Decolonize sustainable + ethical fashion.

12/17/2020 | Respect Hawaii’s sacred land.

ARCHIVES

Honor Nelson Mandela.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

Key Takeaways

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Support the mental health of students of color.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

KEY TAKEAWAYS

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

End standardized testing.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

KEY TAKEAWAYS

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT