Learn about the “one-drop rule”.

Coming from a biracial family, I think it’s really important to understand mixed-race people’s experiences. As the National Museum of African American History and Culture puts it, “creating one’s racial identity is a fluid and nonlinear process that varies for every person and group” (NMAAHC). But the Museum’s website correctly adds, “In a racialized society like the United States, everyone is assigned a racial identity whether they are aware of it or not.” We should question The Atlantic’s claim that mixed-race people will cause the categories of whiteness and non-whiteness to become less significant over time.

Happy Thursday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. Our collective perception of race evolves over time. But racism won't evolve itself into extinction. That's going to take persistent action, not passively waiting for change. Today, Andrew reflects on the history of the "one-drop rule" and how mixed-race identities aren't the benchmark for change.

Two new things!

Our next Anti-Racism at Work email goes out this Monday! Subscribe to get a recap on how companies responded to Juneteenth and employees' hesitations to share their social justice efforts at work. Click this link (no need to enter your email again).
Our latest podcast with Lamar Shambley at Teens of Color Abroad highlights the role travel plays to bring us closer. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is made possible by your support. Make a monthly donation to support our team.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Understand white supremacy as an evolving but ongoing system of oppression.
Reject arguments that whiteness and racism will naturally fade over time.
Take action alongside communities of color to dismantle racism in all forms.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Earlier this month, The Atlantic published “The Myth of a Majority-Minority America,” which critiqued the idea that most Americans will soon be people of color. According to the article, America will only become a majority-minority country if we count mixed-race individuals as exclusively non-white. This binary thinking draws on the legacy of the Jim Crow-era “one-drop rule,” say the authors, and is a repetition of historic fears about non-Anglo European immigration which, of course, proved to be unfounded.

“Speculating about whether America will have a white majority by the mid-21st century makes little sense, because the social meanings of white and nonwhite are rapidly shifting,” they write. “The sharp distinction between these categories will apply to many fewer Americans” (The Atlantic).

According to the one-drop rule, people were Black if they had any Black ancestry. This meant people whose ancestors were mostly white were still enslaved and, later, subject to Jim Crow discrimination. The legacy of the one-drop rule is why some people are Black despite being light-skinned enough to pass as white (PBS). Acknowledging that people with mixed ancestry can still be identified as white or as people of color doesn’t endorse this way of thinking, but rather acknowledges its continuing effect on contemporary views of race.

White Americans resisted Irish and Italian mass immigration on both racial and religious grounds. Irish and Italian people were at first thought of as non-white, racially inferior peoples. Mobs burned Catholic churches and immigrant neighborhoods because Catholics were thought to practice cannibalism and other barbarities (History). Sicilians were thought to be inherently criminal because of racial defects (NY Times). Of course, both Irish and Italian Americans are now easily identified as white people. What changed wasn’t their physical characteristics but their position within the construct of whiteness.

But this didn’t mean that the distinction between white and non-white was erased in the early twentieth century. On the contrary, the price of admission to whiteness was for Irish and Italian immigrant communities to join in the oppression of their Black neighbors. As Protestant mobs attacked Irish neighborhoods, Irish immigrants took part in attacking Black neighborhoods (Irish Times).

The borders of racial categories are malleable, contested, and change over time. But believing that demographic changes will inevitably cause the racial hierarchy to fade away ignores centuries of evidence to the contrary. It veers dangerously close to endorsing the view that all we need to do to combat racism is wait.

We need to understand the history and present of American racism to fight its devastating effects on communities of color. This doesn’t mean racism is inevitable or will persist forever, but we need to take action to interrogate anti-Blackness, xenophobia, and anti-Indigeneity and the beliefs, institutions, and practices that enable them instead of waiting for racism to disappear.

Key Takeaways

Some experts believe increasing numbers of mixed-race Americans will cause racial distinctions to fade away.
This ignores the fact that racial categories are evolving social constructs while racism is an enduring social structure.
Demographic changes won’t end racism, only concerted individual and collective action to increase the power of dispossessed people and communities of color.

2/25/2021 | Reject racial fetishization.

12/8/2020 | Learn how to apologize.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Nicole Cardoza 7/2/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/2/21

Rethink the Founding Fathers.

Interpreting the Founding Fathers’ wishes is a staple of American political discourse. Constitutional originalism is more of a conservative thing, but really, Founding Father mindreading cuts across the ideological spectrum. The Founding Fathers would have hated partisanship (History) or Trump (Foreign Policy) or gun control (History) or not having gun control (HuffPost). Obama informed us, helpfully, that the Founding Fathers didn’t want presidents to serve three year terms (ABC). The Atlantic told us the Founders would have been especially disgusted by Trump’s pardon of the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers (The Atlantic).

Happy Friday and welcome back. The Founding Fathers are often used as justification for maintaining the status quo in political discourse. But why are our Founding Fathers held in such high regard, and how does memorializing their legacies affect our efforts towards racial justice? Andrew shares more in today's newsletter. If you're celebrating the Fourth of July this holiday weekend in the U.S., add some time to reflect on the resources in today's take action section – it's stocked with lots of good reading from diverse perspectives.

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is made possible by your support. Consider making a donation to support our work. You can start a monthly subscription on Patreon or our website, or give one-time using our website, PayPal, or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Read how the wealthiest members of the “colonial ruling class” led the American Revolution and authored the Constitution.
Learn how the Declaration of Independence was motivated by slavery and attacks on Indigenous communities.
Learn from perspectives on Independence day from Black, Indigenous, and immigrants in the U.S.
Read about leaders critical to the Revolutionary War often left from history books.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

This spring, House Democrats voted to make Washington, D.C. the 51st state and give its 700,000 residents Congressional representation (CNN). South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds objected, tweeting “The Founding Fathers never intended for Washington D.C. to be a state” (Twitter). Many quickly objected that they never intended for Senator Rounds’ home state of South Dakota to exist, either (MSN).

If Washington and Madison and Jefferson et al. time warped into the contemporary U.S., they'd be shocked by many things. Maybe the particulars of gun control or presidential pardons, but definitely by the idea of women and Black people having voting rights. They would be shocked at the abolition of slavery. They would be shocked at the 50th state being a Polynesian archipelago. They would be shocked at highways and laundromats and TikTok. The list goes on.

So why do we keep appealing to the framers’ intentions? Two big ideas keep dragging us back to 1787. The first is that many believe the Constitution is an enlightened document, despite the fact that its authors weren’t exactly saint-like. By this way of thinking, George Washington was a historic hero and genius who helped invent democracy and freedom. But he didn’t extend these beliefs to the enslaved men, women, and children he owned as property and whose labor made him the richest man in Colonial America (Mount Vernon). In order to keep the ideals of Washington and Jefferson eternal, we’re asked to disregard the crimes against humanity that they executed in their pursuit of the nation (Smithsonian).

Our nation is also quick to protect our Constitution to maintain superiority over other nations. But no cartoon villain portrait of America’s enemies can whitewash the horror of a continental Indigenous genocide (The Nation) or the barbarity of a forced-labor empire of cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations sprawled across the South (The Advocate). When Nazi jurists looked for a precedent for the kind of racial laws that led to the Holocaust, they found the American Jim Crow system a shining example (History). Today, “there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height” (New Yorker). Enslavement, genocide, the elimination of 100,000 Japanese civilians, a modern prison system that dwarfs any other in human history: all constitutional in their time.

We should know by now that racism is systematic, not just individual acts of hatred (NPR). The system of government and power created by a slave-owning or slavery-adjacent colonial elite never served the enslaved Africans they owned or the Indigenous people they murdered (Howard Zinn). If we are looking to uncover systemic racism, we need to take a hard look at the systems that make up this very country.

Perhaps D.C. statehood is unconstitutional. Maybe it’s not, and D.C. should get the 51st star on the flag and Congressional representatives of its own. In either case, the modern-day American colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands won’t be so lucky (The Guardian). D.C. residents might get to vote for their senator, but prisoners and felons won’t (MSN). Those killed by American chemical weapons in Fallujah won’t, either (The Guardian). A great deal of human suffering, exploitation, and death falls squarely within what the American constitution allows.

Don’t ask what the Founder Fathers intended. Ask what the oppressed communities on whose backs the Founders’ vision was constructed need. If there is anything to celebrate on Independence Day, it’s those whose resistance, courage, and care actually brought us closer to a world with liberty and justice for all.

Key Takeaways

Many Americans make appeals to the real intention of the Constitution.
The American Revolution wasn’t fought to create justice for all those living in the colonies because the Founders advocated for slavery and genocide.
A great deal of atrocities were entirely constitutional when committed, including those committed today.
Independence Day doesn’t celebrate the freedom of all.

7/3/2020 | Share these words by Frederick Douglass.

6/24/2020 | Fight voter suppression.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/28/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/28/21

Demand the repatriation of human remains.

Last week, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad published an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer outlining some disturbing news: Penn Museum and Princeton University has been holding the remains of two children killed in the MOVE bombing of 1985 hostage for 36 years – without the consent or consideration of their family.

Happy Thursday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Today's story still haunts me since I first read it last week. But it's a dialogue we must continue to have – not just for the remains of our ancestors long gone, but establishing a precedent for the sanctity of our remains today and in the future. The desecration of our remains after death mirror the same violence we experience as marginalized communities in life.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Sign the petition to demand the immediate return of the remains of Delisha Africa and Tree Africa to The MOVE Family.
Watch the press conference, held by the family of the victims, hosted on April 26th.
Support the global movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist, and former Black Panther.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

The MOVE bombing occurred in 1985 when the Philadelphia Police Department bombed a residential home belonging to a member of MOVE, a Black radical group. The attack started with an armed standoff, where police officers spent over ten thousand rounds of ammunition. When the residents did not exit the home, police dropped a bomb on the premises. The resulting fire killed six MOVE members and five of their children and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood - fires that were left to spread intentionally by law enforcement (Blackpast).

The sheer lack of respect for the victims of this bombing was evident 36 years ago. Abdul-Aliy Muhammad notes that many of the bodies decomposed in a city morgue for six months after the incident, instead of being returned to family members. And Penn Museum and Princeton University are both guilty of the same carelessness and lack of accountability. The remains that passed between the two institutions are of Tree Africa and Delisha Africa, who were 14 and 13 years old, respectively, when they died. These remains were even featured in a Princeton University’s online course, where a professor can be seen handling and examining a badly burned femur and pelvic bone.

In a public press conference held by the victims’ families, the pain and heartbreak that they’ve experienced is visceral. They discuss not just the state-sanctioned violence they’ve experienced since the bombing in 1985, but the horror of learning about their remains.

“

Those remains are not my sister, Tree Tree. My sister Tree Tree was flesh and blood. I’ll never have her back...They can’t give me back my sisters, my brothers. They can’t repair what they have done. There are no demands that they can meet to rectify this situation. Nothing.

Janine Africa, at the MOVE Family Press Conference

This wasn’t even the first time that Penn has been careless with remains. In 2020, the museum announced that it would remove its Morton Cranial Collection from view (Penn Museum). The collection included hundreds of skulls, many proven to be from enslaved Africans, Native Americans, and Cubans (The Daily Pennsylvanian). The skulls were collected by Samuel George Morton, a 19th-century, University of Pennsylvania-educated man who believed in the pseudoscience of phrenology – that some races are inferior to others based on the size of their brains (Hyperallergic). Phrenology is not just scientifically inaccurate. It offered a “scientific” rationale for the systemic oppression of people from marginalized races and ethnicities (Vassar) and laid the foundation for 20th-century eugenics.

Advocates demand that Penn Museum begin the process of repatriation of all its contents. Although a committee has been created, these steps have yet to be taken as of April 2021 (Penn Museum). But when you read much of the press surrounding the latest allegations, many articles center their apology and intentions rather than the demands of the family harmed.

These issues aren’t unique to Penn, though. Museums worldwide hold human remains, including skulls, skeletons, bone fragments, and even preserved heads – both on display and in storage. The practice is rooted in colonization; throughout the 19th century, European settlers would “collect” body parts of non-European communities, either as keepsakes or for “scientific purposes,” akin to the phrenological purposes noted above. These remains were often taken forcefully, without consent, and disregarding the cultural and spiritual practices of honoring the remains of the dead. The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa estimates that the preserved tattooed heads of at least 600 known Māori and Moriori ancestors are located in European museums. Over the past decade, they’ve been able to repatriate at least 500 other remains back – a time-intensive and costly process that the source communities are responsible for (Artnet).

Although museums in the U.S. have human remains of Indigenous communities from around the world, they hold far more remains of Indigenous communities who stewarded the lands now referred to as North America. They also host remains of enslaved African American people. Earlier this year, Harvard University announced that amidst its collection of 22,000 human remains, at least 15 were the remains of enslaved African people. They issued an apology and committed to creating a committee for properly addressing these remains (Harvard). The Smithsonian Institution houses the nation’s most extensive collection of human remains, many of which are located at the National Museum of Natural History. They, too, are expected to make a statement on their role of holding African American remains (NYTimes).

Although repatriation is a clear path to address these wrongdoings, it’s not straightforward for African American remains. Many remains were collected without information about where they came from and who those people were. In addition, it can be challenging to trace lineage to present-day descendants. Beyond that – where do the remains belong? Laid to rest here in the United States or sent back to their country of origin? And who has the power to make that decision if no descendants can be identified? But practices can follow the process of The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Enacted in 1990, the law requires institutions that receive federal funding to consult with the Indigenous communities where the remains are from to repatriate them publicly (NPS). No similar law exists for African American enslaved people – yet.

But there is a clear and direct way to address the harm inflicted on the Africa family. Today, take a moment to complete the action items above. And, more broadly, stay engaged in the unfolding conversations on remains housed in public institutions. Notice how artifacts were gathered and whether or not they’re displayed in partnership with the Indigenous communities they represent. And rally for the repatriation of those remains whenever called for by their families.

Key Takeaways

Penn Museum and Princeton University has been holding the remains of two children killed in the MOVE bombing of 1985 hostage for 36 years – without the consent or consideration of their family.
Across the world, museums hold the remains of marginalized communities, often without the consent or consideration of the communities they come from.
Public institutions deserve to be held responsible for the harm they inflict with storing and/or displaying the remains of people without consent.

9/4/2020 | Tell museums to replace stolen artifacts.

8/25/2020 | Rally against racism in America’s art museums.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/8/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/8/21

Learn about COINTELPRO.

COINTELPRO, a shortening of “Counter Intelligence Program,” was a series of covert and illegal initiatives by the FBI designed to disrupt and discredit significant movements in the 1960s. Although it was initially focused on Communism in the U.S., it quickly began to target any movement related to equity and social justice. But one of its main goals was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of the Black nationalists" (PBS). Under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s direction, this group either directly or indirectly caused the death and incarceration of major civil rights leaders.

Happy Thursday! As we’ve written previously, the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been whitewashed and sanitized to fit into the image that society wants us to believe, one that is repackaged and resold each year on Martin Luther King Day in the U.S. But another danger of this narrative is the lack of awareness and accountability on his assassination. However, if we fully understand the circumstances surrounding his death – and the fates of other civil rights leaders – we have a more accurate depiction of the true impact of his life. Today’s email is a VERY basic overview, and I highly recommend digging into the articles provided to learn more.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Protect protesters. Watch this video to learn how to identify surveillance technologies at protests, and learn how to protect your identity.
Black activists targeted and surveilled under COINTELPRO are still imprisoned. Support efforts to release Dr. Mutulu Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal, activists that advocates emphasize were falsely imprisoned.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Most of its focus was on dismantling the Black Panther Party, which Hoover saw as “the greatest threat to the country’” (Berkeley). Some of their actions were direct: they often organized raids with local law enforcement to kill or displace members. One of these resulted in Fred Hampton’s death, the 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. In 1969, Fourteen plainclothes police officers raided the apartment building where Black Panther members and their families lay sleeping, firing over 90 times from pistols, shotguns, and a machine gun (History). Hampton and chapter member Mark Clark were killed, and four others were physically injured during the raid.

But they also created lies and deceit to influence the actions of leaders and those around them. To disarm the Black Panther Party, they seeded false information to create rifts between BPP leaders (most notably, Eldridge Cleaver and Huey P. Newton) and create dissent between the BPP and Black nationalist groups. They also drove the actress Jean Seberg, who financially supported the BPP, to die by suicide. They leaked a fake letter to the press insinuating that she was pregnant not by her husband but a high-ranking official of the Black Panther Party (NYTimes). The stress of this controversy caused Seberg to go into labor early, ultimately losing her child. She ultimately died by suicide.

COINTELPRO targeted many other notable civil rights leaders. Their actions led to the assassination of Malcolm X and drove Assata Shakur out of the country. It spied on famed boxer Muhammad Ali and his relationship with the Nation of Islam for years. Through COINTELPRO, the FBI collected a 1,884-page file about the author and activist James Baldwin.

The COINTELPRO program was disbanded after a group of activists exposed them – with proof. On March 8, 1971, four people broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole classified documents outlining the program. The group chose this night specifically; it was the night of the “Fight of the Century,” the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, and they knew people would likely be out of office. They seized over 1,000 documents and promptly mailed them anonymously to newspapers across the country (Zinn Education Project). Betty Medsger is reportedly the first person to break teh story at the Washington Post, and you can read more about her experience here. The burglars’ identities remained a secret until 2014 when three of them joined Medsger in an interview with Democracy Now!

This exposure helped to contextualize the loss of great figures, and, in some cases, encourage the families of victims to speak out. One case was after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, shot while standing on his hotel room’s balcony. The suspect, James Earl Ray, was arrested a couple of months later. Ray confessed and pled guilty to the murder. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison (Stanford).

But days later, he recanted his confession and said he was coerced by law enforcement (Washington Post). This information, paired with the exposure of COINTELPRO in the early ’70s, led the family of Dr. King to be suspicious of the circumstances of his death. Because COINTELPRO had, of course, been actively surveilling Dr. King, too. Since 1963, the bureau regularly wiretapped King’s home, offices, and hotel rooms. They also sent him a tape of a recording of his sex life, along with a blackmail note threatening to expose him publicly unless he killed himself (NYTimes). Other civil rights leaders who surrounded Dr. King, like Bayard Rustin. More extensive records of surveillance of Dr. King, including FBI investigations of his death, will be released to the public in 2027.

In 1993, another man admitted he was part of a conspiracy to kill Dr. King (History). These claims led the King family to sue for wrongful death for a symbolic $100, as the case was solely about seeking justice. The case, Coretta Scott King v. Loyd Jowers, found that Dr. King was the victim of a conspiracy involving the Memphis police and federal agencies. This was a civil, not criminal case, so no one was charged, nor was the federal government on trial. The Department of Justice subsequently rejected the trial results, and the allegations included (DOJ). Regardless, the family is still adamant about the conspiracy (The Grio).

“

There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury, and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations.

Coretta Scott King, The Transcription of the King Family Press Conference on the MLK Assassination Trial Verdict, The King Center

It’s important to remember that COINTELPRO wasn’t the start of violence against civil rights leaders but a more formalized approach to a long history of these kinds of tactics. Much of this work also happened under the War on Drugs led by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (established by Hoover, led by Harry Anslinger). The famed artist Billie Holiday was hounded by law enforcement throughout her life, which ultimately led to her death (28 Days of Black History).

And surveillance continues on civil rights movements to this day. In 2015, it was revealed that the Oregon Department of Justice was conducting digital surveillance on state residents that used the Black Lives Matter hashtag online (Oregon Live). And as protests unfolded across the U.S. last summer, there were a series of reports of law enforcement agencies deploying advanced surveillance technology, including facial recognition, aerial surveillance, and cellular phone exploitation (EFF). More gravely, six activists in the Ferguson, Missouri, community have been found dead in the four years since Michael Brown was killed (CBS News).

Many educational textbooks skip COINTELPRO altogether, which means that many people don’t have this context when they read about the importance of securing our identity in this technologically advanced, connected age. But we can’t forget about the past as we fight to protect our future. COINTELPRO might seem long in the past, but its influence is still causing harm today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal initiatives by the FBI designed to disrupt and discredit significant movements in the 1960s
It is directly responsible for the death, exile, deportation, etc of prominent civil rights leaders of the 1960s
The family of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are adamant that the FBI conspired in his death
Surveillance still continues of the current Black Lives Matter movement

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 10/18/20 Nicole Cardoza 10/18/20

Respect the Black Panther Party.

I went to a predominantly white high school, and one thing I’ve noticed is that Black history is typically represented in the background. The Civil Rights Movement was condensed into one chapter in my American history textbook, only including the names of “peaceful” leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. In fact, in 2015, statistics showed that “1 to 2 lessons or 8–9 percent of total class time is devoted to Black history in U.S. history classrooms” (SocialStudies.org). But these narratives tend to leave out important parts of history like the Black Panther Party.

Happy Sunday! As I've watched conversations on the Michigan domestic terrorism plot, and the armed groups showing up at protests, I'm reminded of how different the narrative of the Black Panther Party was in the 1960s. Olivia joins us today to share her perspective on how race influences how our country responds to movements for liberation, and its impact on the perception of the BPP.

You can help our work thrive! Make a one-time or monthly contribution:

Give on our website, PayPal or Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Subscribe monthly or annually on Patreon

ps – the Anti-Racism Daily Podcast is here! I'll be hosting conversations on the most impactful ways to take action around critical current events, and interviewing inspiring changemakers. Listen to the trailer on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

TAKE ACTION

Watch the PBS documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution for a more robust picture.
Write letters to incarcerated Black Panthers and donate directly to them. Find ways to support Black Panther Party members still serving time in prison.
Demand diversity in the curriculum for history courses with a more comprehensive look at Black history.

GET EDUCATED

By Olivia Harden (she/her)

The BPP, no doubt, has a complicated and violent history. The story of its growth includes shootouts with police officers, political imprisonment, and insidious government surveillance (San Francisco Chronicle). But the United States government vilified the organization from its conception, informing the narrative that we have today. As our world attunes itself to addressing police brutality and murders, the history of the organization’s ideology and its legacy can inform current cries for change and revolution.

In 1966, Matthew Johnson, an unarmed Black teenager, was shot down by a police officer – sparking outrage in the same way George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s killings have this year (History). That October, Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Oakland, CA (History). They used the advantage of the Second Amendment and the open-carry law in California at the time to patrol the police, watching from a safe distance while carrying rifles to intimidate officers into following the law. In response to this, Ronald Regan and the statehouse passed the Mulford Act in 1967, prohibiting the open carry of loaded firearms (History).

This image tends to define the BPP – Black militants with huge afros, black leather jackets, and berets carrying huge rifles and other guns openly in the street. But what more people need to know is that the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was created to be an organization in service to the Black community. They made a Ten-Point Program to stop racism and protect and liberate Black Americans (BLM Syllabus). The Ten-Point Program denounces capitalism and demands things like guaranteed employment, housing, expansive education, healthcare, and the end of police brutality. Many of these asks are the same calls-to-action that activists are fighting for today.

The Black Panther Party also created many of its own social programs. A big hit was the free breakfast program for Black children (History). Studies have shown that kids who eat breakfast are generally healthier and do better in schools (No Kid Hungry). The Panthers would feed children before school for free. At its peak, it reached thousands of children daily. Other programs included free clinics, sickle cell anemia research, and free ambulance services (Insider).

Parallels exist between the present-day Black Lives Matter movement and the Black Panther movement’s goal of liberation. The treatment of the Black Lives Matter movement in the media and by the government is tightly intertwined too. At the time, J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI's COINTELPRO to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize using tactics like tapping party members phones and infiltration" (fbi.gov). Present-day, police forces track activists’ movements, both online (CNN) and by using facial recognition technology (The Verge). Ninety-three percent of protests were peaceful this summer, but violent ones received more media attention (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project). A question that continues to pop up for me – should the state have a monopoly on violence? I challenge you to ask yourself, are buildings more important than Black lives?

Race often informs the way the United States responds to an issue. For example, the NRA supported the Mulford Act decision in 1967 (History). But today, the organization is adamant for loose restrictions related to gun ownership, despite the rise of school shootings and gun-related violence across the U.S. (Forbes). The organization’s actions indicate how society views which citizens are allowed to wield power and protest in modern-day times.

Point 5 of the BPP’s Ten-Point Plan is as follows:

“WE WANT DECENT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of the self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in society and in the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.”

Education about Black people in American history is not just for Black people. It’s crucial for all of us. A comprehensive approach is key to moving forward towards a just future.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Black Panther Party does have a violent past, but its goals laid out a plan to support and uplift Black people.
The Black Panther Party for Self Defense’s complex past can inform our future.
The U.S. must be held accountable for its racist past.

RELATED ISSUES

9/11/2020 | Protect Black women.

7/26/2020 | Pay attention to the Portland protests.

10/1/2020 | Vote Trump out of office.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 7/23/20 Nicole Cardoza 7/23/20

Know our racist presidential history.

Get daily actions in your inbox. Subscribe Now ›

TAKE ACTION

Choose one U.S. President and research their lives, using the following guidelines:

How did this president support the livelihood of non-white people in America?

Which laws / policies did they establish (or rescind) that affected the rights of non-white people?

How did they demonstrate racism on an interpersonal level?

What actions did they take that created or upheld systems of advantage based on skin color?

Share what you learned on Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #antiracismdaily so we can all learn from each other.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza

In a virtual town hall with the Service Employees International Union yesterday, Biden bluntly said that Trump is the country’s first racist president, admonishing his racist statements against the Asian community when referencing COVID-19 (Washington Post).

“No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has”.

Joe Biden

Trump has been wielding racism for political gain (which we covered in a previous newsletter) for his entire presidency, so I can see the strategic value of Biden doing the same. And since polarizing statements grab headlines (another tactic Trump uses), big statements like this get people talking about Trump’s impact as a president. I also appreciate that Biden’s statement says what many other political leaders and media have been afraid to – that President Trump is racist (especially because, as the Washington Post notes, Biden has tiptoed around naming this in the past).

And although I can see the strategic value, I don’t condone it. Because here’s the thing. Racism is not just a political tactic. Racism is a global pandemic. Racism is a public health crisis. Racism murders innocent people, incarcerates vulnerable youth, and displaces entire communities. It robs us of our right to breathe and leaves us with trauma that lasts generations. So as we watch racism unfold during election season, don’t let its effect on the polls come before its impact on those most marginalized. Yes, we need to vote. And we need to keep doing the work to dismantle systemic oppression each and every day.

Also, Biden’s statement isn’t true. Trump is absolutely racist, to be clear (and has not “done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln”). But so are many other presidents from our history. For starters, 12 of our nation’s presidents — over 25% — enslaved people during their lifetimes. Of these, eight held enslaved people while in office (History). Aside from John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, every president from George Washington to Ulysses Grant owned enslaved people (History). Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the U.S., once offered $50 for the return of a runaway enslaved person and $10 extra “for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of 300” (Associated Press). He also focused on forcibly removing Indigenous communities from their tribal lands towards the west, creating the “Trail of Tears,” a treacherous 5,000-mile route that Indigenous communities were forced to use (Business Insider).

But it doesn’t end there. Woodrow Wilson used his time in office to re-segregate multiple agencies of the federal government, creating “separate but equal” facilities at the Department of Treasury, Post Office Department, and Railway Mail Service. He personally fired 15 out of 17 black supervisors in his own service and replaced them with white people. The head of the Internal Revenue division in Georgia fired all his black employees, saying, "there are no government positions for Negroes in the South. A Negro's place in the cornfield." And by 1914, all job applications for the federal government required a photo to be considered (Vox).

FDR supported the internment of Japanese-Americans in California during World War I (NYMag). Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos, which influenced his policy decisions on welfare reform in 1971 (The Atlantic). George H.W. Bush’s “War on Drugs” disproportionately, and intentionally, targeted people of color (Harvard).

And while we’re here, let’s take a quick look at the White House real quick, which was also built by enslaved people. At least nine presidents brought their existing enslaved people to live at the White House as "chefs, gardeners, stable hands, maids, butlers, lady’s maids, valets, and more" and lived in uncomfortable, damp, rodent-infested spaces (White House History).

“I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves”.
First Lady Michelle Obama, 2016 DNC Speech

There are so many more instances we can add to this list, but I think you get the point. And remember that the goal isn’t to create some type of competition to choose the “most racist president”. That’s the wrong line of thinking. Any type of racism, no matter how nuanced, still creates and perpetuates systemic racism. Instead of trying to minimize or maximize harm on a scale, we must acknowledge all of the instances of racism our presidents have contributed to the foundation of our nation.

Some people will argue that because things back in the day “weren’t consider racist,” they don’t count as we look at history with a modern-day lens. But racism is not up for interpretation. Racism, by its standard definition, means “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” and “a political or social system founded on racism” (Merriam-Webster). And there’s evidence of this weaved into every example mentioned above – both the individual prejudice our nation’s presidents had, and how they used them to create and reinforce systems. Regardless of how many people felt during this time period, or what these actions were called, racism was still very much happening, lying the foundation for the inequities we experience today.

And this definition of racism doesn’t paint the full picture. The definitions Merriam-Webster offer demonstrates how racism perpetuates, but not the imbalance of power that comes with it. And as we know after reading the Anti-Racism Daily for the past 50 days (🙃) it’s the disparities that stem from racism that disproportionately affect non-white people in our society.

That’s why Kennedy Mitchum, 22 years old at the time, emailed Merriam-Webster to ask them to expand the definition to further define racism as “a system of advantage based on skin color” (The Atlantic). From her perspective, “there is a system, and then there is individual bias. There are structures that perpetuate racism and then people who give in to that system. These two things should go hand in hand” (NYTimes). Her insight may be why more people have been using the term “white supremacy” when discussing racism to emphasize the imbalance. The dictionary company agreed with Mitchum’s definition and should have an updated entry shortly (NYTimes). So re-read the examples above and consider – how did these presidents contribute to the systems of advantage people experience based on skin color today?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Biden called Trump our "first" racist president, which doesn't acknowledge the long line of racism in our nation's leadership
Even if we didn't call actions from past presidents racist back then, they're still a part of the racism in our society today
Any type of racism, no matter how nuanced, still creates and perpetuates systemic racism.
Our definition of racism is evolving to account for the power that some benefit from as a result of racism
Trump is still racist and we're still not voting for him this November

Related Issues

June 29 | Don't vote for Trump.

ARCHIVES

Learn about the “one-drop rule”.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

Key Takeaways

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Rethink the Founding Fathers.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

Key Takeaways

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Demand the repatriation of human remains.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

Key Takeaways

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Learn about COINTELPRO.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

KEY TAKEAWAYS

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Respect the Black Panther Party.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

KEY TAKEAWAYS

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Know our racist presidential history.

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Related Issues

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT