Understand whiteness.

But race is a social construct, and social constructs have social histories. Our modern understanding of race was created at a specific historical juncture in colonial Virginia. Prior to that, it did not exist.

It's Friday! Welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of "Between the World and Me," says that "race is the child of racism, not the father." Put simply, racism created the social construct of race that perpetuates racial bias and discrimination to this date. Andrew shares a bit more about the history of race in the U.S. and more resources to learn about the formation of whiteness.

Thank you to everyone that supports our independent publishing! If you can, consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. I'm grateful for your support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Learn about the social and historical construction of whiteness.
Educate yourself about the benefits of whiteness, provided by the National Musuem of African American History and Culture.
Take steps to disrupt and abolish race and whiteness.
Consider: How does being white grant certain privileges? How might white people experience oppression through other social identities, e.g., class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, etc.?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

There’s a general conception of racism that goes something like this: just as some people are naturally short or tall, we are all born into one race or another. Racism is unfair discrimination, but the racial categories themselves are natural and universal. Just as we might imagine someone in Shakespeare’s England or the 16th century Mali Empire being short or tall, we would imagine that person fitting into one of the modern U.S. census’s racial categories.

This doesn’t mean that everyone previously looked the same. If those subjects of the Mali Empire and Elizabethan England met, they would have recognized differences in skin pigmentation or eye color or any number of other things.

Similarly, I notice people’s heights. But I do not have a mental map that divides people into either The Talls or The Shorts. I do not think of The Talls and The Shorts as two different sorts of human beings. I do not immediately make a subconscious decision on whether someone I am talking to sight unseen is either A Tall or A Short person. And our society isn’t designed to universally provide one of these groups of people more power, privilege and opportunity than the other. This is an absurd example, but we all make instant judgments of this sort concerning race. Not necessarily because we are racist, but because race is a fundamental feature of social life in ways the fictitious Tall/Short division is not.

In colonial Virginia, landowners brought workers from England, Ireland, and countries across Africa to cultivate tobacco. These enslaved or forced laborers were poorly treated, and none had many rights, but African and European laborers were treated largely the same. African laborers able to acquire their freedom could exercise voting rights in the colonial legislature, accumulate wealth, and hire European laborers. People of African and European ancestry intermingled and intermarried without penalty and there is no evidence that they thought of themselves as members of two great camps of Black and white people (Understanding Race).

But after African and European servants joined forces in 1676’s Bacon’s Rebellion, the colonial legislature began passing laws to make such solidarity impossible in the future. The rights of African people were reduced until African descent was synonymous with slavery. On the other hand, a new category appeared: white. For the first time, people who might have been referred to as Christian, or English, or Scottish, or Swedish were all lumped together under this new name. Even the poorest white person now had greater rights than any enslaved African.

“What colony leaders were doing was establishing unequal groups and imposing different social meanings on them,” said Audrey Smedley. “As they were creating the institutional and behavioral aspects of slavery, the colonists were simultaneously structuring the ideological components of race” (Understanding Race).

Much later, when mass Irish immigration began in the 19th century, Irish people were not yet considered properly white. Racial stereotypes about Irish people abounded in popular media. For Anglo-Americans, the Irish were thought of as being much closer to Black people than to whites. Black people were even referred to as “smoked Irish.”

Irish Americans today are a nationality firmly within the universe of whiteness. What changed wasn’t any physical characteristic of Irish people but rather their political position within American white supremacy. Irish Americans largely rejected calls by nationalist leaders like Daniel O’Connell to join forces with Black people, instead of opposing abolition and acting “unabashedly American in the way they dealt with the slavery controversy” (Irish Times).

“Essentially what happened was the Irish became white,” said scholar Noel Ignatiev. “To the extent to which they could prove themselves worthy of being white Americans–that is, by joining in gleefully in the subjugation of Black people–they showed that they belonged… Having fair skin made the Irish eligible to be white, but it didn’t guarantee their admission. They had to earn it” (Z Magazine).

Whiteness is a social construct, but that doesn’t mean we can just wish it away. Police officers and Lutheranism and Thursdays are also social constructs, but we can’t snap our fingers and make any of them disappear, either. Your non-belief in police officers won’t help you when you get pulled over; if you choose to ignore Thursdays you’ll always have the wrong day of the week. To say something is a social construct implies it has not always existed and could exist otherwise or not at all. Nonetheless, there are practices, policies, and institutions that make social constructs real, powerful, and potentially deadly while they exist.

Ignatiev’s suggestion was to instead work collectively towards the abolition of whiteness, meaning the destruction of those privileges associated with being part of the “club” of whiteness. “The white race is like a private club based on one huge assumption: that all those who look white are, whatever their complaints or reservations, fundamentally loyal to the race. We want to dissolve the club, to explode it” (LA Times).

It is not just that some white people or institutions are racist but rather that the category of whiteness in the United States has always had racial oppression as its function. To “explode the club of whiteness” does not require self-pity and hand-wringing by self-proclaimed white allies. If the fundamental assumption of whiteness is that all white people–neighbors, bosses and employees, police officers and civilians, family members or strangers on the street–have some basic loyalty to each other, a more powerful response would be to break the color line, practicing disloyalty to whiteness in favor of loyalty to humanity.

Understand, unpack, and abolish whiteness.

Key Takeaways

We often think of racism as unjust discrimination between objective racial categories.
In fact, categories like “white” didn’t always exist. Whiteness was created as a legal category in colonial Virginia to prevent lower-class solidarity.
Racial categories have always been part of a racial hierarchy.
To interrupt racism, we need to disrupt whiteness, including white intra-racial solidarity at the expense of people of color.

RELATED ISSUES

3/19/2021 | Divest from whiteness.

12/21/2020 | Have tough conversations.

10/9/2020 | Learn about slavery and the White House.

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 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 10/9/20 Nicole Cardoza 10/9/20

Learn about slavery and the White House.

There are endless reports on the senior staffers who have contracted COVID-19 from the September 26 Rose Garden event. But there’s a lot less about the staff – particularly the residence staff – that have potentially been exposed to the virus. These essential workers, nearly all identifying as people of color, deserve to be represented in this narrative and protected at all costs. Unfortunately, stories of communities of color in the White House are often overlooked and forgotten – a practice consistent with its dark history.

Happy Friday. I firmly believe that in order to get to where we're going, we have to look back and learn from our past. Today's newsletter aims to offer a historical lens to the current conversations about the White House. It directly correlates the relationship between enslaved and essential workers, and demonstrates how far our nation has to grow to redefine the world we want to live in.

Tomorrow is our weekly Study Hall where we unpack key questions and inquiries from the community. If you haven't already (I'm a bit behind on the inbox), reply to this email with your thoughts.

Thank you for supporting our work. If you can, make a contribution to our website, PayPal, Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe monthly on Patreon. I appreciate you!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Read the names and stories of the known enslaved people associated with the White House, provided by the White House Historical Association >
Vote for a candidate that’s more likely to protect essential workers – starting with those in the White House.
Research: Find three historical buildings of note in your community and/or that have personal significance, and research how they were constructed.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

There are endless reports on the senior staffers who have contracted COVID-19 from the September 26 Rose Garden event. But there’s a lot less about the staff – particularly the residence staff – that have potentially been exposed to the virus. We do know that two housekeepers have tested positive for COVID-19 and were told to discuss their diagnosis with “discretion” (Forbes). But what else don’t we know? These essential workers, nearly all identifying as people of color, deserve to be represented in this narrative and protected at all costs. Unfortunately, stories of communities of color in the White House are often overlooked and forgotten – a practice consistent with its dark history.

The White House starts with Black people – in fact, they built it. Known as the President’s House during this time, the founders were keen on a building to house the country’s leader within the newly established federal city, Washington, D.C. President George Washington initially planned to import workers from Europe to complete the ambitious project but had trouble recruiting staff. Instead, they decided to “contract” enslaved laborers from neighboring communities. The government paid the owners – not the enslaved people themselves – for their labor (White House Historical Association).

This was common. Often, owners would rent out the people they enslaved for extra money. The enslaved person would provide the labor, while the contract holder would pay a wage directly to the owner. The White House Historical Association (WHHA) was able to piece together some of the names of enslaved people who contributed to the project based on whether the owners included it on the payroll information (WHHA).

Note: This information is provided by the White House Historical Association, a private nonprofit which acts independently from the government. Although information on the construction is available on the official whitehouse.gov, there’s no mention of the enslaved people that brought it to life.

Enslaved people did the bulk of the construction work, from creating the raw materials needed for the project, to leveling the ground and building it. Many other government buildings in DC, including the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol, were also made by enslaved people (Curbed). The National Museum of African American History and Culture has a block of Aquia Creek sandstone removed from the East Front of U.S. Capitol in their collection:

“Enslaved African Americans, leased out by their slave owners, mined sandstone from local quarries and built the United States Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Castle. Congress, the institution that guarded the peoples’ freedom, held sessions in a building constructed by forced labor, and the legislators would have witnessed lines of shackled slaves marching by daily en route to the Deep South” (NMAAHC).

And enslaved people were also exploited inside the White House once complete. Back then, each President was required to pay for all White House expenses, including staff, out of pocket. It was “too costly” to hire fair waged laborers, so enslaved people were instead forced into a wide range of roles like chefs, gardeners, stable hands, maids, butlers, lady’s maids, and valet (WHHA).

At least nine presidents either brought enslaved people with them to the White House or used the same “contract” agreement mentioned earlier for staffing. Some even purchased enslaved people directly; President Andrew Jackson bought a young eight-year-old enslaved girl named Emeline to work at the White House (Washington Post). And speaking of children, the first child born at the White House was born to Ursula Granger Hughes, a fourteen-year-old enslaved cook, enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. The child died a few months later (WHHA).

“The Female I have none, but those I brought with me, except a Negro woman who is wholy with the Cook in the kitchin, and I am happy in not having any occasion for any others for a very sad set of creatures they are.”
First Lady Abigail Adams, 1793

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

Nowadays, much of the staff is “composed of African American, Latino or Filipino employees” (Washington Post). In contrast to other staffing roles at the White House, which had a 36% turnover rate before the Trump administration (Forbes), residence staffers often stay in these roles for life. Some positions at the White House have been held exclusively by Black people, like the butler corps. Wilson Jerman, a longtime White House butler, started his career with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957 and retired in 2012 after serving Barack Obama. He passed away from COVID-19 in May (NYTimes). And many of these workers are also older, which makes them especially vulnerable to COVID-19 (Washington Post). According to a former staffer, residence staff decided on their own to start wearing masks and following CDC guidelines, even though the White House itself had no protocol (Washington Post).

Like all the others keeping our country operating right now, these essential workers deserve safety and security. The Trump administration chooses to support the White House’s essential workers with the same disregard as they face across the U.S. It’s a disappointing depiction of who is seen and centered in times of crisis – and adds to a long history of exploitation and abuse of communities of color within the White House.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The White House was built, and tended to, by enslaved people in its early history
The majority of residence staffers now are people of color, and most are older – which exacerbates health concerns
The lack of protection for essential workers inside the White House mirrors the same disregard we've seen during Trump's entire campaign

RELATED ISSUES

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

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

6/24/2020 | Fight voter suppression.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 9/26/20 Nicole Cardoza 9/26/20

Study Hall! How we learned about slavery.

Welcome to our weekly Study Hall. Each week I answer questions and share insights from each of you in our community. This week I dove deeper on some pressing topics from our community.

I focused on sharing our collective experiences learning about slavery in school. I think it's a good reminder of how necessary our commitment to anti-racism work is, and how so many people are coming to this place with an insufficient foundation. I hope it's both encouraging and motivating to keep going.

If you subscribe to just the weekly digest, this is the email you will receive. You can click through to read all original pieces via the archives, and get the recap in one place. Change your email preferences by updating your profile information here.

As always, your support is greatly appreciated. You can give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe for $5/mo on our Patreon.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

1. Reflect on the questions prompted by our community.

2. Discuss with a friend: how did you learn about slavery growing up? How does that inform your perception on the civil rights movement of today?

GET EDUCATED

In review: The newsletters we published this week.

9/25/2020 | Decriminalize sex work.

9/24/2020 | Demand justice for Breonna Taylor.

9/23/2020 | Reject the modern-day poll tax.

9/22/2020 | Learn about sundown towns.

9/21/2020 | Support the 1619 Project.

9/20/2020 | Make the justice system more diverse.

FROM THE COMMUNITY

How did you learn about slavery growing up?

From 9/21/2020 | Support the 1619 Project.

Monday's newsletter emphasizes the importance of teaching the truth of our history. In the original newsletter, I asked you to respond with your own stories on how you learned about slavery. I read through hundreds of responses and compared them to the seven key themes that the Teaching Tolerance study found in their research. Unsurprisingly, our collective experience matches – almost exactly. I've summarized their key themes and added anonymized examples from our experiences below.

1. We teach about slavery without context, preferring to present the good news before the bad.

"What I learned about slavery was a sanitized version. I learned nothing about how the South and others who did not agree with emancipation undermined the declaration and then in concert with Northern politicians permitted the birth of the Jim Crow era. I did not learn that the freed [enslaved people] were promised land upon their freedom and that promise was never fulfilled. I did not learn of that southern plantation owners grew rich on the back of [those enslaved]."

2. We tend to subscribe to a progressive view of American history that's "growing perfect".

"I am appalled by my own lack of knowledge or connection to the fact that my own grandparents lived in segregated times and that my parents were born before the Civil Rights era ended. I did not make this connection as a young child, when history seemed so far away. Why was none of this discussed in our history lessons? Why did we get the "America is the Greatest Country" story, glossing over the facts, and failing to connect history to the actual present we can experience and make an impact on now?"

3. We teach about the American enslavement of Africans as an exclusively southern institution.

"We didn’t learn that the northern states were still allowed to enslave people...We just knew that the southern states were bad and slavery was bad...Slavery was always presented as a southern problem as well, I grew up in Michigan so I am not sure if that has anything to do with it but I remember thinking it wasn't something anyone I knew or was related to could have been involved in."

4. We rarely connect slavery to the ideology that grew up to sustain and protect it: white supremacy.

"When I was in school, I learned as a general idea that slavery happened, and was over. There wasn't any detailed info about the horrors that followed such as segregation, Jim Crow laws, or the thousands of lynchings. I didn't know about Juneteenth, or the Black Wall St until I had children of my own."

5. We often rely on pedagogy poorly suited to the topic.

"I went to public school in California, and when I took AP US History in 2012-13, we read “A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Reading that book was pretty much as in depth into the history of slavery in the United States that we went. We also watched the first episode of the TV show “Roots”, but that is all that I remember of any other representations/resources about slavery that we studied as a class.

I also just wanted to say that the year prior, when I was in a World History class, we went very in depth into the Holocaust and studied that for quite a few weeks. I also don’t remember studying anything about any history pertaining to the African continent in that class, either."

6. We rarely make connections to the present.

"So learning about slavery in school - our school did “teach” it, but that is was a very American problem. It was the Americans that owned [enslaved people] and shipped Africans over. There wasn’t any mention of our involvement. It was also plain facts so to be fair we did learn about some of the terrible conditions but we were never taught to empathize (“how would you feel”, “what do you think about this”..) or to form our own opinion. It was just something that happened. But also exactly that, happened, past tense, there was also no conversation or discussion on how it still impacts lives today

By no means did we ever learn that the colonies’ success, and eventually the U.S. economy, was almost entirely propped up by slavery, and if that system had been disrupted earlier this country would have never prospered. Nor did we go on to learn about what life for Black people was like during the nearly 100 year period between abolition and the modern civil rights movement."

7. We tend to center on the white experience when we teach about slavery.

"I took AP everything in high school and could count on one hand the kids of color that were in that track. At any rate, I recall in AP History skipping the Slavery chapter of the history book. I thought surely, we wouldn’t. It was AP after all – given the heightened reading requirements, I thought we would be able to squeeze it in. In fact, me and the only Black girl in the class discussed what we would do if we skipped the chapter. And sure enough, our white cis-male teacher did. So I raised my hand and asked him why we weren’t doing the slavery chapter. And he bumbled through a response about a lack of time and the content on the AP exam and then carried forward. He did look startled though. I would like to think he reflected on it later."

"I don't remember being given many facts and true histories of slavery, and now that I think back, most of those historical fiction narratives focused a great deal on hope and redemption: "Look at these people, freeing themselves and finding liberty up north" or "Look at this nice white lady letting this freed [enslaved person] work for her." The full picture of the horror wasn't adequately captured, and I only became aware of, say, the Tulsa race massacre because of watching Watchmen. Which was a huge red flag for me."

Q+A

What is SESTA/FOSTA?

9/25/2020 | Decriminalize sex work.
A few people asked for more information on SESTA/FOSTA referenced in the article, two laws passed in 2018 that aimed to curb sex trafficking in the U.S. FOSTA, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and SESTA, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, aimed to hold personals sites accountable for their participation in sex trafficking — in particular, Backpage.com.

But research shows that providing sex workers with digital spaces to find and vet clients is much safer than the alternative – meeting people in person and finding new clients on the street. Much of the violence between sex workers and law enforcement referenced in our newsletter is because of that.

The acts also don't distinguish between consensual sex work and nonconsensual sex work, which are vastly different practices and require much different forms of government intervention. And unfortunately, these regulations make both communities less safe. (Read more on Vox). It's also unclear whether these acts have effectively curbed sex trafficking (Meaww).

On a side note, these rules also had broader implications, including many sites severely limiting any sex-related content on their site. Many users expressed that, beyond sex work, it also greatly limited sites' abilities to post educational content about sex or feature more diverse, inclusive porn (Wired).

Clarifications

9/20/2020 | Make the justice system more diverse.
In my intro for this newsletter, I mention the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and said "rest in peace," not knowing that this term references the Christian afterlife, which is not inclusive and inappropriate considering her Jewish background. I apologize for the error and have updated the language in the archives.

9/5/2020 | Study Hall! Defund the police or add more training?

8/29/2020 | Study Hall! The trauma of police brutality videos, active bystander trainings.

8/15/2020 | Study Hall! Affirmative action, sliding scale pricing, and the right intentions.

8/8/2020 | Study Hall! Emoji blackface, the "family card," and starting conversations.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 9/21/20 Nicole Cardoza 9/21/20

Support the 1619 Project.

Happy Monday!

The attacks on the 1619 Project are nothing new. And these moves are more political than anything, and ties back to the administration's broader goals to use race as a political tactic for the upcoming election. Nevertheless, it offers an opportunity to reflect on the history of how slavery has been taught in schools, and the impact of the 1619 Project on education today.

Supporting the 1619 Project means more than supporting its content (which is well-deserved in itself). By doing so, you'll be supporting the right for more truthful depictions of our nation's history to be taught in schools – regardless of how any political leaders feel.

I'd love to hear if you learned about slavery growing up in school – reply to this email with your experience.

And thank you for your contributions! If you enjoy this newsletter, you can give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe for $5/mo on our Patreon.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

1. Read and/or review the 1619 Project and discuss one of the articles with a friend or colleague this week.

2. Check to see what your local school's policies are on educating students about slavery.

3. Don't vote for Trump.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Since its publication in 2019, the 1619 Project published by the NYTimes has been hotly contested by conservative leaders, particularly in our government. But as its popularity has grown against our country’s racial reckoning, it has come under particular fire. In July, Sen. Tom Cotton proposed a bill seeking to ban schools from adopting the project as a part of their curriculum, calling slavery a “necessary evil” and that the notion that America is a “systemically racist country” is false (Washington Post).

These attacks came to a head this month when President Trump threatened to investigate and pull federal funding from schools that teach the curriculum. On Thursday, he said he’d sign an executive order "establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education," called the "1776 Commission" (NPR). According to Trump, the 1619 Project “rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom" (CBS News). Technically, this is true. And it’s necessary. Because the U.S. history perpetuated by society discredits the horror of slavery and its impact to modern-day.

The 1619 Project, spearheaded by Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative journalist and staff writer at the NYTimes, aims to change that. Instead of looking at America based on its founding in 1776, it analyzes its history based on a historic date in 1619. This was the year that the first group of enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia. It marks the beginning of slavery in U.S. and the start of African-American history. The 1619 Project, published on the 400th anniversary of this event, reframes the nation’s history around this historic date. Instead of traditional education that starts U.S. history on its founding, it centers the impact of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans in its narrative (New York Times Magazine).

Since its publication last year, the 1619 Project has become a vital part of education. According to an interview with Hannah-Jones, the project is being taught in at least one school in every state in the country and deemed mandatory in several, including Chicago Public Schools (74 Million). The curriculum is free and supported by the Pulitzer Center; you can explore it here.

This is historic because, for most of our nation’s founding, the education system has inadequately taught about slavery in America – and its lasting implications. Part of this is because of focus: unlike math and reading, states are not required to meet any academic standards for teaching U.S. history (NYTimes). Some states explicitly call for lessons on slavery, while others don't even mention it (Washington Post).

But it's also because of how our education is designed to teach us how we should think, not to think critically. Much of our perspective on U.S. history is influenced by the “Lost Cause” ideology, a form of revisionist history that gained popularity in the 1890s. This aimed to reframe the goals of the Confederacy after their defeat in the Civil War, rebranding their “campaign” as an “embodiment of the Framers’ true vision for America,” not the right to maintain slavery, and a means to protect “the southern way of life” (The Atlantic). Under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, the first American president to hail from the South since the Civil War, this idea gained popularity.

This kind of thinking informed the textbooks created to educate our country on its history. The American Pageant, an AP high school textbook used by at least 5 million students annually (CBS News), shows evidence of this to this day. In the text of its 15th edition, Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, who was enslaved by him, is described as “intimacy” and an “affair” (NYTimes). The 17th (current) edition includes a map of “immigrants” to America in 1775. It includes Africans at the top of the list alongside Dutch, German, and Scottish people, insinuating that African people came to the U.S. willingly, not in chains. The book also has no mention of the N-word and its history of derogatory use against African Americans throughout history. But, it does include a thorough list of racial terms used against poor, non-land owning white people (CBS News).

This isn’t the only textbook with factual errors. The Southern Poverty Law Center reviewed dozens of history textbooks and graded them based on what they deemed a comprehensive education of slavery. The best textbook achieved a score of 70% against their rubric. The American Pageant received a 60% (Southern Poverty Law Center).

Unsurprisingly, The American Pageant does little to represent other communities of color. The book also says that disease was the cause for the genocide of Indigenous people and that "this depopulation was surely not intended by the Spanish” (Independent).

“I don’t remember ever going into any depth about slavery other than that there was slavery. The textbooks were pretty whitewashed. We never talked about the conditions of slavery or why it persisted.”
Philip Jackson, an American history teacher in Montgomery County, Md., for the Washington Post

And how history is shaped in textbooks can also depend on where the reader lives. The New York Times analyzed eight commonly used American history textbooks in California and Texas, two of the nation’s largest markets, and found striking differences. For example, on a page of the annotated Bill of Rights, a California textbook explains that the Second Amendment’s rulings have allowed for some gun regulations. But this note isn’t included in the textbooks for Texas. Both books include information on the Harlem Renaissance, but the one for Texas says that some critics “dismissed the quality of literature produced” during this period. Read more on the NYTimes, and the responses from readers.

As a result, many teachers feel unprepared to teach this in their classrooms. Because the vast majority (84% in 2016) of educators are white, many also feel uncomfortable directly addressing slavery and its impact (Southern Poverty Law Center). And, without a comprehensive curriculum or guidance, some teachers will take efforts into their own hands – for better or worse. A substitute teacher in New Jersey let the white students sell the Black students as a mock slave auction (Washington Post). On a worksheet entitled “The Life of Slaves: A Balanced View,” a teacher in Texas asked her eighth-grade students in American history class to list some of the positive and negative of slavery (AP News). And middle-schoolers in North Carolina were prompted to write down “four reasons why Africans made good slaves” (WBTV).

Further research indicates how this lack of education has impacted our perception of the country’s founding. Just under half of Americans know that slavery existed in all 13 colonies. 52% of Americans know slavery was the leading cause of the Civil War, as opposed to 41 percent who blame “another reason.” And more Americans (46% of respondents) believe that the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery. In reality, that was the 13th Amendment, which only 36% of respondents chose accurately (Washington Post).

Politicizing the textbooks that shape our nation isn’t new – in fact, using education to promote political ideals is a part of American history. Specific examples via Time. But as our country faces unprecedented challenges, it’s clear that many of its inhabitants are ill-equipped to fully understand the historical influences that got us here. We need to protect comprehensive curriculum that educators can implement in their classrooms. But it has to be willing to tell the truth. Because if we do, we all be more inspired to create the future that we deserve and collectively ensure that these injustices will never happen again. By protecting a whitewashed history, the current administration protects white supremacy and moves us further away from the country that truly supports us all.

Key Takeaways

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has made the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice a critical component of the upcoming election
Efforts to increase representation in the federal judiciary have been dismantled by the Trump administration
Diversity of the federal judiciary influences public perception of the political system
Increasing the diversity pipeline can help ensure more diverse candidates are nominated and confirmed
We must vote for a president that will nominate a diverse Supreme Court justice candidate, and ensure a Senate that's more likely to confirm one

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Nicole Cardoza 8/21/20 Nicole Cardoza 8/21/20

Let Black girls be girls.

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It's Friday, and we're closing this week with a heavier topic.

We've spent the past few weeks discussing various cultural tropes and stereotypes, and how our society uses them to perpetuate systemic oppression against marginalized groups. Today's article centers on trending news about a film poster, which might sound trivial. But this conversation – and how swiftly our community is responding – speaks volumes to how specific stereotypes against marginalized youth rob them of their childhood.

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Read three stories on how adultification bias affects Black girls collected by the Georgetown Law Initiative on Gender Justice & Opportunity

Pay attention to how the systems in your community – including schools, policing, local media, etc – support or harm Black youth

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit online.rainn.org.

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Yesterday, controversy brewed around Cuties, a French-language film that centers an 11-year-old Senegalese Muslim immigrant navigating girlhood in middle school who joins a dance team. The film is set to be released on Netflix in September, so the platform started promoting it earlier this week. But instead of using the film’s original release poster, Netflix chose a highly sexualized photo. They also decided to center the film’s description on the lead character’s “fascination” with “twerking” (screenshot for reference). This is quite different than how the film was presented at Sundance, where it took home the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award (Sundance).

Screen Shot 2020-08-21 at 3.37.12 PM.png

Left: The Cuties French film poster that depicts four girls, from a distance, walking down the street wearing bras and underwear over their casual clothing and carrying shopping bags. Right: The Cuties film poster created by Netflix that shows four girls in revealing dance clothing. Three girls, all girls of color, are in sexually suggestive poses.

This marketing decision prompted outrage, with many people accusing Netflix of promoting child pornography (Vulture). Criticism over sexualizing young women isn’t new, especially in the dance industry (NYTimes). But many note that this particularly hypersexualizes young girls of color. And in the midst of a national reckoning on racial justice, it feels especially insidious that Netflix would choose a cover that strips the characters of the youthful rebellion in the original poster.

The hypersexualization of Black women stems from a broader term called “adultification,” how society perceives the maturity and responsibility of marginalized youth. Both have roots in slavery. Black boys and girls were imagined as chattel and were often put to work as young as two and three years old (Georgetown). In particular, black girls were usually depicted as promiscuous, even predatory when it came to sex. This stereotype, often referred to as the “Jezebel” stereotype, was a way to rationalize the sexual assault of enslaved Black women by their captor (Ferris). This was reinforced by how frequently Black women were pregnant, forced to reproduce by their captors, and displayed without clothing during the slavery transactions (Ferris). Since then, the sexualization of Black women and girls, along with other girls of color, has been reinforced in the media and marketing until present day.

As a result, Black girls are perceived to be more mature and responsible for how others see them, even as society consistently strips them of their autonomy. Black girls are disciplined and reprimanded more than their white peers, particularly in school. Generally, Black girls are more likely to be suspended, physically reprimanded by the police, and sent to juvenile detention than white students (Anti-Racism Daily). This happens particularly with dress code: Black students, especially curvier students, are more likely to be disciplined than other girls for wearing the same type of clothing because their bodies are often sexualized by teachers and school authority figures (National Women’s Law Center). More anecdotal examples in the Washington Post.

And this hypersexualization has a devastating impact. One in four Black girls will be sexually abused before the age of 18, and one in five Black women are survivors of rape (American Psychological Association). The notions that Black girls are "fast" and "asking for it" help encourage and discredit the true harm they experience each and everyday (Bustle). Because of significant campaigns like the #MeToo movement and documentaries like Surviving R. Kelly and On The Record, more conversations are growing around the importance of protecting Black women.

“Only by recognizing the phenomenon of adultification can we overcome the perception that 'innocence, like freedom, is a privilege'.”

Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood, via Georgetown

Netflix offered an apology and changed both the promo image and the description, but the damage is done. Nearly 400,000 people have signed one of two petitions advocating for Netflix to remove the upcoming film from their platform. The film has garnered dozens of negative reviews on popular movie review sites.

Since the film isn’t available for Netflix users until September, very few of these critics have actually seen it. But reviews from those that have made one thing clear: Cuties doesn’t promote hypersexualization of Black girls. It condemns it. The film navigates this conversation all on its own by painting a compelling and cautionary tale on how social media and middle school social cliques influence the path to womanhood. More urgently, it emphasizes that it’s up to the grownups in the room – including parents, guardians, and broader society – to protect Black girls from it (Shadow and Act).

And through all of this, we’ve minimized the voice behind the film itself. Cuties was made by Maïmouna Doucouré, a French screenwriter and filmmaker of Senegalese origin. This is her feature film directorial debut, and she brings a new perspective and story to a film circuit historically dominated by white men. In an interview from January 2020, Doucouré shares that she drew from experiences from her upbringing and spent over a year researching to craft an accurate narrative of the girls’ experiences in her community (Screen Daily). Since the backlash, Doucouré’s social media profiles have gone silent. It disheartens me that an insensitive marketing choice threatens our community’s exposure to films like these that are still rare: a coming-of-age film about a young Black girl created by a Black woman.

We need a new narrative that lets Black girls be girls. And in some ways, the backlash to Netflix’s marketing decisions proves that we are prepared to use our voices to create change. Hopefully, as we continue to rally against injustices, we don’t erase the voices we need so desperately.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Netflix opted for a hypersexualized image and description for an upcoming movie on an 11-year-old Black girl and her dance team, rousing calls of criticism
This instance represents a long history of media and society hypersexualizing Black girls
The backlash may silence a diverse voice in film, silencing voices from people that represent communities harmed
It is up to us to protect the right for Black girls to be Black girls

7/31/2020 | Keep fighting for Breonna Taylor.

7/17/2020 | Analyze representation in media.

7/16/2020 | Respect AAVE.

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