Support equitable historical preservation.

Earlier this month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NHPA) issued more than $3 million in grant funding to preserve forty Black American historic sites across the U.S (Saving Places). This funding is especially significant considering the vast racial disparity in historic sites deemed worth preserving.

TAKE ACTION

Identify a local grassroots organization in your community committed to preserving historical sites. What are they working on now? What have they protected? What have they lost?
Research to find the closest national historic preservation site to your address using this interactive map. What is it, and whose story is being told? Share your findings with a friend.
Learn more about the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, launched by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Earlier this month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NHPA) issued more than $3 million in grant funding to preserve forty Black American historic sites across the U.S (Saving Places). This funding will help everything from capacity building to programming, ensuring these spaces won’t get lost. The sites include the Emmett Till’s funeral home in Chicago, the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh, the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Ohio, and the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center in Denver. You can read a complete list here. This funding is especially significant considering the vast racial disparity in historic sites deemed worth preserving.

Since its founding, the NHPA has identified nearly two million locations worthy of preservation. The work of preservation, as a result, has generated an estimated two million jobs and more than a hundred billion dollars in private investments. However, most of the spaces identified cater to white history, not the stories of people of color. Preservation work by the federal government was started to protect Confederate battlefields, cemeteries, and burial sites after the Civil War (New Yorker). In addition, wealthier white communities disproportionately benefit from these initiatives: the areas tend to be in white neighborhoods, and the majority of the jobs go to white people (EJI). Because one of the criteria for preservation is architectural significance, the process tends to overvalue ornate buildings, not modest structures like slave cabins and tenement houses, or sites that might not have structures, like farms, slave auctions, and burial sites (New Yorker). Related: many of these preservation sites are gatekeeping lands stewarded by Indigenous communities. Learn more in another newsletter.

The civil rights movement of the past decade has accelerated efforts to maintain and preserve historic sites for people of color. Simultaneously, it’s scrutinized the number of Confederate monuments and sites currently under preservation. This is necessary work to both balance the preservation of our nation’s history and reckon with how centering the Confederacy influenced recent racial attacks and dissent. The decision to remove the Robert F. Lee statue in Charlottesville, VA sparked the deadly white nationalist riot in 2017 (Forbes). Dylann Roof named the Confederacy as inspiration for the violence he inflicted in 2015 (AJC). Images of the Confederate flag in the Capitol during the insurrection this January unnerved everyday citizens and historians alike (NYTimes). Preserving our history needs to be not just equitable but aligned with the safety and security our citizens deserve.

Broad and sweeping financial donations often get the credit for preserving historical sites, but in reality, many of the historical landmarks for people of color are preserved because of grassroots organizing by local and everyday people. Without their efforts to protect this land, it’s likely that these sites wouldn’t be here today to receive funding at all. Consider how Preservation Chicago mobilized to gather over thirty thousand signatures to protect the home of Emmett Till’s family for its use as a museum (change.org). Or how local activists have been fighting to preserve one of the nation’s largest slave auction sites from multiple developments in Savannah, GA (Savannah Now). Right now, the Bedford Church African Burial Ground Coalition is trying to protect an enslaved African burial ground from becoming a housing project (PRISM). And the Robert F. Lee statue mentioned above was finally removed earlier this year. But, the conversations were started by Zyahna Bryant, who was just 15-years-old when she started a petition in 2016 (Teen Vogue). In the absence of city, state, or federal support – and often governmental opposition – brave individuals of color have ensured their rich and diverse history won’t be forgotten.

This is especially important when considering the current baseless attack on American history happening in schools and institutions. If children won’t see these stories in their history books, it matters to have them acknowledged physically in their communities. Hopefully, institutional recognition for federal sites isn’t just a trend, but a lasting commitment to our past.

Key Takeaways

The National Trust for Historic Preservation dedicated $3 million to preserve 40 Black historic sites.
It’s often grassroots organizers who preserve historic landmarks for people of color.
As conservatives ban teaching the truth about American history, it’s more important than ever to preserve historic landmarks that highlight our shared past.

Nicole Cardoza 7/27/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/27/21

Reconsider theft.

What has shaped our collective understanding about theft? Who is disproportionately criminalized for stealing? Today’s newsletter compares shoplifting to institutionalized forms of theft.

TAKE ACTION

Encourage leaders to repeal civil forfeiture laws at the state and federal level.
Oppose “tough-on-crime” legislation which penalizes ordinary people instead of those who steal with impunity.
Start conversations around the idea of shoplifting using the information in this post. Consider: what has shaped our perception of theft?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

After a spate of videos depicting brazen shoplifting from San Francisco stores, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law reintroducing the crime of “organized retail theft.” Under the new law, prosecutors are able to felony charges not only against the shoplifters themselves but anyone claimed to have “knowingly participated” in such thefts in any capacity (Long Beach Post).

Shoplifting isn’t ideal. But shoplifting is already heavily disincentivized, with police waiting outside grocery stores in poor neighborhoods and armed security guards stationed in pharmacies. We should question why so much surveillance and violence is aimed at people stealing diapers or candy bars when the largest sources of theft in this country are barely recognized.

There’s one kind of theft that rakes in billions of dollars each year in the United States. It’s not home burglaries, carjackings, or elaborate bank heists. It goes by an innocuous-sounding, legalistic name: civil forfeiture. And it’s not committed by dastardly criminals evading the law, but by American law enforcement itself.

“Civil forfeiture allows police to seize — and then keep or sell — any property they allege is involved in a crime,” say civil liberties defenders. “Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government” (ACLU).

It seems incredulous that your local police department is allowed to take your home or car and sell it for profit without even charging you with a crime. But in 2014, the total value of property lost in burglaries was less than the $4.5 billion of property seized in civil forfeitures by federal law enforcement alone (Washington Post).

Pennsylvania State Police simply take cash from drivers’ cars. In one out of three cases, the driver isn’t even charged with a crime. “Legal experts say the practice is a form of ‘highway robbery,’” one that netted the department over half a million dollars between 2017 and 2020 (Spotlight PA). Police raided one Alabama computer repair shop and seized 130 computers, mostly belonging to customers. Though no criminal charges were ever filed, the police kept the computers (AL). One Indiana man faced a maximum penalty of $10,000 after selling a small amount of drugs to a police officer. But the police also took his Land Rover worth $42,000, though he purchased it with money from a life insurance policy. He took the case to the Supreme Court and won, though the court declined to ban the practice more broadly (MSN).

Street crimes like shoplifting and robbery are also dwarfed by white-collar crimes like embezzlement, stock manipulation, and fraud. According to the FBI, the total cost of all street crime is less than 2% of the cost of white-collar crime (Psychology Today). But the white-collar crimes of the rich are treated much more leniently than the street crimes of everyday people. Paul Manafort was sentenced to four years in prison for cheating the IRS out of millions of dollars. A defendant in a New York court received the same sentence for stealing $100 in quarters (BBC).

When it comes to working-class people and people of color, the American state harshly enforces the rule of law and demands respect for private property. But when the powerful flout the law to rob the poor, stern punishment in defense of high-minded ideals is nowhere to be found.

When politicians demand crackdowns on petty crimes, we might reflect on the wild leniency shown to the most powerful people in our society and the people supposedly there to enforce its laws. The laws of this country favor the rich (Mother Jones). But when the wealthy and powerful violate the rules already tilted in their favor, their punishments are minimal.

Theft from a multinational corporation isn’t like stealing from a neighbor’s pantry. If you steal food from a CVS, their employees often can’t be charged, though businesses steal millions of dollars every year from their own employees through wage theft (Eater). A shoplifted store won’t even see its profits drop, since businesses already buy insurance against theft (Shopify). The consequences of your action would be literally negligible.

Those most marginalized by American society are often those pushed into “survival crimes” like illegal sex work, drug sales, or petty theft to survive (Statesman). Giving such people a criminal record in fact makes it more likely that they will continue to be pushed into such endeavors in the future since they will be cut out of the formal labor market. The clerks and cashiers of pharmacy chains do lose money due to theft. This is not due to shoplifting but the corporate CEOs and investors who don’t pay workers the full value of their labor. We need to denounce punitive measures against marginalized people while the privileged rob and steal with ease.

Key Takeaways

The government of California is cracking down on shoplifting with legislation against “organized retail crime.”
Crimes like theft are dwarfed by both white-collar crimes and civil forfeiture, which allows police to legally steal the possessions of innocent people.
Civil forfeiture is largely legal and white-collar criminals receive lenient punishment while those committing petty theft are overpoliced and criminalized.

Nicole Cardoza 7/26/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/26/21

Record the police.

But if you see police harming or even just detaining another person, staying to record a video could be the difference between life and death. Much police brutality happens because cops think they can get away with it: it is out of the public eye or they know that the victim and witnesses will not be believed. Though the tragic deaths on camera of people like George Floyd show that this is not a silver bullet, the knowledge that they are being filmed can dramatically change police officers’ behavior.

TAKE ACTION

Learn how to copwatch and what rights you have when stopped by the police.
Support copwatching groups like those in Berkeley, L.A., Athens County, Gainesville, San Diego, and New York City or start copwatching patrols in your own community.
Learn how the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense started by copwatching in Oakland, California.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

On the 11th of this month, the Pulitzer Board awarded a special citation alongside its prestigious awards for outstanding journalism. This citation went to Darnella Frazier, the 17-year old outside Minneapolis’s Cup Foods last year who recorded police officers murdering George Floyd. While police were attacking a stranger, she could have turned away. Instead, she took a video that sparked global resistance.

It is appalling that some demand graphic video proof before they acknowledge the existence of police brutality or that others watch and share videos like “digital souvenirs of violence” to consume without thought or responsibility (Anti-Racism Daily). Frazier was not aspiring to become a citizen-journalist the day she had a horrifyingly “traumatic, life-changing experience,” and special citations do not heal trauma or raise the dead (NPR). The goal isn’t to produce more videos of state-sanctioned murder. The goal must be to dismantle a system that enacts such atrocities.

So long as you and the police officer are in public space, and you cannot be construed as obstructing them, filming the police is entirely legal. “Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible is a constitutional right,” according to the ACLU. “And that includes police and other government officials carrying out their duties” (ACLU).

There are groups devoted to filming the police to prevent police brutality – also known as copwatching – all across the nation. If one doesn’t exist in your neighborhood, you can form a copwatch group of your own. These organizations, which are often not nonprofits but instead grassroots collectives, provide training and go on patrols to interrupt police violence by recording.

You also might witness a police interaction while going about your daily life. It’s recommended that you keep your distance, that you have other people with you if possible, and that you keep your camera pointed at the police officers, not the person being detained. You should upload the video as soon as possible so the police can’t delete it off your phone. In the event that the police stop you, you should never answer any questions, as is your constitutional right, and refuse to unlock your phone with them unless they come back with a warrant (The Nation).

It’s best to copwatch with other people and familiarize yourself with your basic legal rights to ensure you’re as safe as possible, ideally as part of an organization. But sometimes we come across situations in less than optimal circumstances. It’s important to reflect that something as simple as stopping and taking your phone out could be the difference between an inconvenience and an atrocity in someone else’s life.

As Portland’s Rosehip Street Medics say in their trainings, “the number one weapon of the police is fear” (Seattle Weekly). In the face of this fear, it takes courage to do something as simple as recording the actions of people who claim to be our public servants. It takes courage to stay and bear witness when a cop tells you to get lost, it takes courage to exercise your Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions, and it is always much easier to walk away. But copwatching is a simple – and legal – act that might stop brutality before it happens. Once we break through this fear, we can keep each other safe.

Key Takeaways

Filming the police, also known as copwatching, can ensure they do not brutalize the people they’ve stopped.
Copwatching is constitutionally protected and therefore legal in all 50 states.
There are copwatching organizations across the country and resources available so people can record the police in as safe a way as possible.

Nicole Cardoza 7/22/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/22/21

Dismantle racial gatekeeping.

Bird-watching isn’t “about” race. A white friend group, book club, or startup probably isn’t “about” race, either. But if a social group or organization is overwhelmingly white, there’s likely to be an element of racial exclusion, even if unconscious or unintended. Bringing conversations about race into majority-white spaces isn’t a distraction because majority-white spaces are already “about” race.

TAKE ACTION

Actively dismantle racial gatekeeping in social networks, organizations, and workplaces through advocacy and tough conversations.
Understand how gatekeeping perpetuates racial inequality.
Consider: What can you do with your privilege/power to foster inclusion in the communities for the hobbies that matter most to you?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

The last year saw widely-publicized police murders, openly white supremacist militias, and widespread protests. The rebellions of 2020 were the largest protest movement in U.S. history (NYTimes). Mass movements compel people to pick sides, even those who never held a picket sign. This means there have been heated conversations about race and racism in unexpected places.

In June 2020, birder Christian Cooper asked a woman to leash her dog in an area of Central Park with songbirds. In response, she told police “there’s an African-American man threatening my life,” all on camera (YouTube). Black birders and ornithologists often feel suspicion from white nature-goers. One graduate student recounted efforts “to appear as least threatening as possible” to each white person he encounters in the field. Now, predominantly white birding organizations are making initial steps towards diversity and renaming birds named after white supremacists. “American birders have their own racial reckoning,” read the news (Washington Post).

Racial reckoning came for the knitters as well. Knitting entrepreneur Karen Templer apologized for comparing an upcoming trip to India to “colonizing Mars” (Fringe Association). The ensuing conversation gave people of color room to address racism in the knitting community, but not everyone was ready. The backlash, said Sukrita Maho, was “usually from white people who don’t understand why we’re ‘making it about race’” (Vox).

Some will object that their groups are exclusively Caucasian by chance. “It’s not their fault that people of color don’t want to knit, bird, work, or hang out with them!”

It’s true: people of color generally aren’t itching to spend time with white people who’d rather not spend time with them. The problem is when majority-white groups function as gatekeepers, cutting off opportunities for others.

For instance, people often learn to bird through birding organizations, and city-dwellers find birds in urban parks. If you’re racially profiled at the park and get weird looks at the meetings of the birding society, your new hobby may become unworkable.

This holds for employment as well. 70% of white people’s jobs are acquired through friends or family members. Informal networks of white people “hoard and distribute advantage among their family and friends, who tend to be mostly white” (The Atlantic). The result? Black college graduate unemployment rates are more than twice that of other graduates. Similarly, white trade school students receive job leads from white instructors, ensuring fewer Black students finding steady employment in their field (Work in Progress).

Three-quarters of white people only have white friends (Washington Post). Since most jobs are acquired through word-of-mouth, all-white social networks reproduce workplace racial exclusion. Fields from firefighting to ornithology to construction are almost entirely colonized and gatekept by white social networks (American Sociological Association).

If you find yourself in such spaces, the solution is not to recruit a token “diverse” member (Health, The Root). Tokenism is just another form of racism, since white supremacy already reduces people of color to our race or ethnicity. If you suspect you’re the token in your friend circle or club, it’s time to make new friends (Madame Noire).

Instead, use your privilege to confront your peers’ racist beliefs or practices, especially when it’s uncomfortable or hard. If you think a hypothetical new member, coworker, or acquaintance of color would be tokenized, excluded, or put under suspicion, you have a responsibility to confront these attitudes now. You can put yourself in spaces where it’s you who are the minority, though only if you are able to do so with humility, self-awareness, and respect. If it makes sense, encourage your workplace to hire through open and actively anti-racist recruitment, not just word-of-mouth (Talent Beyond Boundaries, CNBC, Recruiter).

As an Asian man, I know I will receive some opportunities others will not based purely on my race. I know that other opportunities will be closed off to me for the same reason, whether leads on apartments, favorable mentions to hiring managers, or invitations to social events. I know that this may influence my life outcomes, earnings, living conditions, and health even more than explicitly racist organizations or policies. And I know these represent a key way that racial hierarchies in the United States reproduce themselves generation after generation. Believing in anti-racism is simply not enough. We need to dismantle racial gatekeeping.

Key Takeaways

Mostly white hobbies like birding and knitting have experienced “racial reckonings” in the past year.
Though discussion of racism may be new in certain spaces, racially segregated networks, organizations, workplaces, and social circles are already “about race.”
Predominantly white social and professional networks play a key role in maintaining racial inequality.

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

Stop “wokewashing.”

The CIA and Nike ads are part of a wave of campaigns lining up behind social justice initiatives. We might look at this as evidence of success. If a multinational company speaks out in defense of Black people organizing, and the U.S. foreign intelligence agency promotes diversity in career advancement, maybe it’s a sign that social justice initiatives are winning — or have already won.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. Corporations pledged billions to racial equity initiatives, but most of that money hasn't been seen. But there are many other ways to feign solidarity for the sake of profit. Today's newsletter unpacks the concept of "wokewashing" and how marketing campaigns may cover more insidious actions.

This daily, free, independent newsletter is fully funded by contributions from our readers. Consider making a monthly or annual donation to join in, or give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Don’t accept progressive statements from powerful institutions at face value. Look at their present and historical practices within marginalized communities.
Ask yourself: is social justice language being used to help create the conditions for social justice? Or instead, is it being used as a substitute for real change?
Look beyond the rhetoric to support sweatshop workers and oppose American abuses abroad.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

This spring, one American employer posted a recruitment ad brimming with social justice sentiments narrated over swelling string music. A Latina mother talks of hee pride in having ascended the ranks of her organization. “I am a woman of color. I am a mom. I am a cisgender millennial woman who has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise,” she tells us. We watch her stride the halls of her workplace with a shirt reading “Mija, you are worth it” underneath a feminist icon with a raised fist.

“I am a proud first-generation Latina,” she says, “and an officer at CIA” (YouTube).

A different ad from last year opens with plain white text on a black background. “Don’t pretend there’s not a problem in America. Don’t turn your back on racism,” it reads. “Don’t accept innocent lives being taken from us.” Plaintive piano music plays.

“Don’t think you can’t be part of the change. Let’s all be part of the change.” The video, produced by Nike, ends with its iconic swoosh (YouTube).

We should consider analyzing what’s going on beneath these inspiring words. As more and more institutions proffer social justice-inflected statements, many have been accused of “wokewashing,” or “cynically cashing in on people’s idealism and using progressive-orienting marketing campaigns to deflect questions about their own ethical records” (The Guardian). Read Nicole’s articles about the (mis)use of “woke” and pitfalls of corporate accountability statements.

We need to see if an institution’s actions match their rhetoric. Nike directs us to stand up for racial justice, even offering Colin Kaepernick a platform (Huff Post). But the company is infamous for subcontractors who pay poverty wages for work in horrifying conditions. Women making Nike sneakers in Vietnam regularly coughed up blood and fainted on the factory floor from heat and exhaustion (NY Times). An Indonesian union organizer was hospitalized after paid assailants attacked with machetes (Clean Clothes Campaign). Nike’s domestic support of racial justice is part of an effort to rehabilitate its image and increase its profits. According to one report, “the Nike brand is arguably stronger, thanks in no small part to the company being out in front in supporting Black Lives Matter” (Marketplace).

We should also doubt the CIA’s anti-oppression credentials. A decade after planning the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow the Cuban government (History), the CIA was involved with the horrific bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane that killed all 73 passengers on board (Daily Mail). They trained paramilitary death squads from Vietnam (Counterpunch) to Afghanistan (The Intercept), including one group that blew up dozens of civilians in a Lebanon car bombing (N.Y. Times). In the modern-day, the CIA runs documented torture programs out of secret prisons (N.Y. Times). As part of the ongoing “War on Terror,” CIA agents have sexually violated prisoners, threatened to rape and murder their family members, intimidated them with power drills, and dumped freezing water on them as they were shackled to walls naked (U.S. Senate). These aren’t the actions of an intersectional feminist organization. But by portraying itself as progressive, the CIA can both facilitate recruitment of new hires as well as defuse liberal outrage and opposition to their actions, some of which are truly appalling.

Groups like Nike and the CIA wouldn’t even bother manufacturing “progressive” ads had it not been for decades of struggle from the racial and immigrant justice, feminist, and labor movements. The fact that they make the effort to pander to justice-minded people shows that organizing and advocacy and struggle works. The fact that they continue perpetrating abuses proves that we need to grow these movements even more. Wokewashed hypocrisy isn’t a reason to rest on our laurels. It’s motivation to support people-powered efforts to actually create an equitable world, a world in which liberal ads can’t distract from American sweatshops, secret prisons, and torture chambers because such things no longer exist.

Key Takeaways

In the past year, institutions like Nike and the CIA have put out pro-racial justice ads.
We need to investigate the practices and policies behind lofty rhetoric.
Nike and the CIA both use racial justice language for their own benefit while committing incredible harm to communities of color around the world.

RELATED ISSUES

6/3/2021 | Stop rainbow-washing.

3/26/2021 | Learn the definition of "woke.”

3/3/2021 | Know the difference between canceled and accountability.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

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Nicole Cardoza 7/15/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/15/21

Build language justice.

These days, more than one in four Major League Baseball players hail from outside the United States. Bilingual interpreters facilitate communication between Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, or Korean-speaking players and English-speaking teammates, coaches, and reporters. It’s not that athletes living in the United States and operating in largely English-only environments don’t speak English at all. For example, Ohtani gave a two-minute speech to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America exclusively in English in 2019 (MSN). Interpreters nonetheless help professional athletes to navigate the intricacies of sports terminology and slang as well as public appearances recorded for posterity (Sports Illustrated).

Happy Thursday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Language barriers only exacerbate the racial inequities many communities face in the U.S. The recent news around baseball legend Shohei Ohtani only emphasizes how far we need to go to embrace the multilingual population of the U.S.

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is fully funded by contributions from our readers. Make a monthly or annual donation to join in.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Defend the use of languages other than English in any context.
Sign up to be a volunteer language translator if you speak a language other than English.
Use this toolkit to build language justice in your community.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

On Monday, ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith questioned whether baseball’s “box office appeal” was harmed by the fact that star player Shohei Ohtani — a “once-in-a-century” player “better than Babe Ruth” (Sports Illustrated) — uses a translator for English-language interviews. Ohtani, who currently plays for the Los Angeles Angels, is Japanese and speaks Japanese as his first language. “The fact that you got a foreign player that doesn’t speak English, believe it or not, I think contributes to harming the game to some degree,” Smith said. “It needs to be someone like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, those guys. And unfortunately at this point in time, that’s not the case.”

These remarks suggest that the most talented player of his generation may be a liability to his sport purely because English isn’t his first language, causing a firestorm of criticism. That night, Smith offered a written apology describing his comments as “insensitive and regrettable” (USA Today).

This issue is larger than one athlete and one commentator. Discrimination based on language is pervasive in American society, and language justice is a crucial component of racial justice.

Alongside the legacy of British imperialism, contemporary American power ensures that U.S. movies, soldiers, tourists, and corporations now circle the globe. Accordingly, is English the now most commonly studied foreign language in the world (Babbel, Washington Post).

This overreach and wealth hoarding forced others to learn English.It also discouraged English-speaking Americans from any pressures to pick up a second language. Three out of four Americans only speak English (YouGov). Though the United States has no official language, immigrants are pressured to adopt fluent, unaccented American English as a token of assimilation and belonging. A Philly cheesesteak shop proudly displayed a sign reading “This is AMERICA. Speak English when ordering” sign for a decade (Billy Penn). Department store shoppers (NBC), pedestrians (KIRO 7), and high school students (NBC) have all been accosted for having the audacity to speak Spanish in public. People attacked for speaking a second language may very well speak conversational or fluent English with English-speaking friends, coworkers, managers, and neighbors. They may speak English when talking to family members inside their own homes. But when confronted for speaking a non-English language in public, their bilingualism is a liability.

Though Smith’s comment was thoughtlessly worded, his underlying point may have actually been correct. There are almost certainly baseball fans less enthused with the sport now that its leading player’s primary language is different than their own.

The cruel irony is that for privileged white families, bilingualism is only ever an asset. As the well-off compete to ensure their children’s place in selective universities, many have latched on to multilingualism as a way to make sure their kids get ahead. To convince admissions officers that their children are competitive aspiring “global citizens,” parents now apply for private Mandarin immersion programs for toddlers of 18 months (LePort). A Chinese person speaking Mandarin and accented English is a failure of assimilation. A white child speaking English and shoddy Mandarin is a prodigy.

The elite appetite for bilingualism even pushes English learners (ELs) out of multilingual schools designed for their benefit. “Left unchecked, demand from privileged, English-dominant families can push ELs and their families out of multilingual schools,” read one report, “and convert two-way dual-immersion programs into one-way programs that exclusively serve English-speaking children” (The Atlantic).

This issue further exacerbates inequities Even in progressive spaces, language is often an afterthought. Many organizations make all of their decisions in English. Though a flier might be translated into another language, there is often no real plan to incorporate non-English speakers into the organizational structure.

The alternative to English-only ignorance and linguistic tokenization is language justice. Trained interpreters should translate between languages so that all can participate in collective spaces. Translation should not be a one-way street; spaces should be truly multilingual. Organizations and workplaces need to recognize that translation is a highly technical skill: materials should not be translated by any bilingual speaker at hand or, even worse, by translation software (NESFP). Ensuring that everyone is able to communicate with their language or dialect is a way to “disrupt privilege and colonization” and “challenging English dominance” (Move to End Violence). To refuse to prioritize language justice, on the other hand, perpetuates all of those things.

We need to build language justice.

Key Takeaways

Non-English speakers are attacked for publicly speaking another language. Some are bi- or multilingual.
When white Americans become bilingual, it can boost their academic and career profiles. When others are bilingual, it’s seen as a liability.
Language justice means creating spaces where we can all speak in the language we’re most comfortable with.

RELATED ISSUES

Respect AAVE.

An analysis on the origins of AAVE and its role in education and pop culture. Read >

Learn the key terminology.

A helpful overview of phrases often heard when discussing race. Read >

Respect the relationship between name and identity.

Unpacking the "Anglicization" of names and erasure from minimizing names from diverse cultures. Read >

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 7/14/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/14/21

Support anti-racism curriculum in schools.

We previously discussed how conservatives are rallying against “critical race theory” to prohibit educators from teaching about American systemic racism. Although critical race theory, an academic theory often only seen in law schools, isn’t being taught directly in most schools in the country, parents, administrators and legislators are using the term to hinder conversations on racism, systemic oppression, even socio-emotional learning and restorative justice (The74).

We asked educators to check in and let us know how they’re doing. Here’s some of the ways bans on critical race theory are affecting our communities.

Good morning and welcome back! Yesterday we received a ton of feedback from our educator readers on how critical race theory discourse is affecting them. Today, we're unpacking the issue further and highlighting their perspectives. Thank you all for sharing!

Every time we cover this issue, I can't help but reflecting on my own educational journey. History isn't something we just learn, but experience. And as a child, I only learned of the racism that's embedded in this nation as it was inflicted upon me each day. I wonder how I would have felt if I had the words and history to contextualize the pain and isolation I experienced. I think, at minimum, our children deserve the same. But, more urgently, they deserve to live in a world that's committed to minimizing that harm for generations to come.

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is fully funded by contributions from our readers. Make a monthly or annual donation to join in.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Encourage educators in your community to sign the #TeachtheTruth pledge at the Zinn Education Project. As part, they’ll receive diverse and culturally-responsive resources for their classrooms.
Use this map to learn more about the legislation pending or passed in your state.
Attend school and district board meetings to advocate for diverse and truthful curriculum.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her) and Andrew Lee (he/him)

When we released our last newsletter on the topic, Idaho and Tennessee had already banned instruction that acknowledged white privilege. Now, twenty-six states have introduced or passed legislation in an attempt to limit discourse on racism and sexism (Newsweek).

The effects of these retrograde policies are already playing out. A white Florida teacher was fired for putting a Black Lives Matter flag in her classroom. A Tennessee instructor was terminated after showing a video of a poem about white privilege. A Missouri school district’s sole Black administrator resigned after receiving threats so severe she hired private security guards. Educators, especially Black educators, are being pushed out of schools. Experts warn of a “brain drain” in an already understaffed field (Yahoo). In response, activists and educators are preparing to fight this legislation in court (Axios).

We asked educators to check in and let us know how they’re doing. Here’s some of the ways bans on critical race theory are affecting our communities:

1. 42% of our respondents stated that the discourse related to critical race theory is impacting what they can teach in the classroom.

“I am a D&I analyst (newly created position for an online school). I'm not even done with my first year and have gotten push back on sharing articles on AAPI discrimination, having pronouns utilized in signatures, and speaking on how the rhetoric of Trump has increased discrimination against minorities. Just recently a school in the area was dealing with parent pushback on CRT, which has in turned made parents and staff in my own district/school question our approach or stance on CRT/DEI. They often conflate the two and threaten to pull their children from our school if the material is covered.”

"I am not a teacher, but I work as a support staff member for all schools in my District. Our District had a new goal which included anti-racist language, but it caused such a backlash with the white community, that they were forced to remove the language "white advantage". Our state (FL) has also proposed a rule to ban CRT."

"It is unreal to watch how quickly groups of parents in my district mobilized to monitor and brigade any teacher whose lessons explicitly mention terms such as 'equity, inclusion, white supremacy, systemic racism,' and anything else they deem out of the teacher’s jurisdiction as an educator. In a district that already struggles to practice what it preaches regarding equity, this does nothing but stifle the important conversations that need to happen because central office now feels the need to play it 'safe' to avoid drawing unwanted attention."

2. Others mentioned that the mere *perception* of pushback from parents and administrators is affecting the classroom.

“I teach 4th grade. We have a very outdated curriculum, however, my district has been doing work training teachers on cultural proficiency for a few years. My principal is supportive on teaching based around current events and social justice (I teach 4th grade). However, this is not a mandate and many teachers feel uncomfortable doing this as they are afraid of the backlash they may get from families and they feel there is no curriculum.”

"I teach an entire senior elective centered on CRT. So far, I haven't heard anything directed at my school or my class, but I did drive by a group of people protesting CRT two towns away last week. I am worried."

“Hard to say if this is true or false just yet, but I believe the impact is strong around the FEAR of what teachers/district leaders might get in "trouble" for, which leads to a scaling back of these important topics. Funding by private organizations will also impact what resources/partnerships schools have access to.”

3. This discourse is causing specific lessons and curriculum to be banned from the classroom.

“I teach African American History. I have to remove The 1619 Project from my curriculum due to a new state law [...] I don't know how to teach any class on history without discussing the role of race. Racism is embedded in US history and it can't be removed.”

"I am concerned that I won't be able to teach persuasive writing specifically focused on elected officials, which is something I had hoped to do this year. I'm in Texas, and the bill that was passed during our regular session states that you can't give credit or extra credit for political activism, including writing to elected officials."

4. However, many educators note that their schools and communities are more intent on diversifying their curriculum. These educators, though, were mainly at charter or private schools.

"I work in a Charter School with a principal, superintendent and board that is very supportive of making sure our students get an education that recognizes their identities. We are able to rewrite our curriculum to focus on anti-bias and anti-racism as we teach Social Studies and ELA. The only impact from the CRT is that we are trying to do better about what our students are learning."

"I am a 5th grade teacher in a Catholic school. I teach 4th and 5th grade Social Studies. I try to teach history as honestly as I can---I wouldn't call it "critical race theory" because that is way too complicated for elementary students. But I am pretty much allowed to teach what I want and have received no pushback so far for teaching students that the Founding Fathers were racist, indigenous genocide, etc. It probably helps that my school is majority Mexican; I think white parents would react differently."

What can we expect as the school year unfolds? It's unclear – nearly half of respondents that haven't run into an issue mentioned that it might be too soon to tell. But it's clear that this coordinated attack will have lasting implications for students in the years ahead.

This recap highlights a sample of 90 survey respondents from the U.S. 55% represent K-8 educators, and 45% represent 9-12th grade educators. All responses are anonymous.

Key Takeaways

Discourse around critical race theory is making it difficult for educators to teach content related to racism and systemic oppression in their classrooms.
Twenty-six states have introduced or passed legislation in an attempt to limit discourse on racism and sexism (Newsweek).
In our survey with educators, we found that 42% are being impacted by these conversations today.

Learn about critical race theory and the conservative efforts to mislabel it.

Repeal the Trump Equity Gag Order.

The Trump administration kickstarted the latest attack on racial discourse. Read more about those efforts and their implications.

Stop white centering.

The harm of centering whiteness and white privilege in curriculum.

Support the 1619 Project.

Analyzing the lack of truthfulness in history books and the importance of resources like the 1619 Project.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 7/13/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/13/21

Decolonize the parks.

In his article “Return the National Parks to the Tribes” David Treuer reminds us that national parks are the result of Indigenous dispossession. Everglades National Park is Seminole land. Olympic National Park was created by a violation of a treaty with the Quinault tribe. The first white people to ever see what is now Yosemite National Park were members of a California militia, intent on slaughtering and driving Miwok people off the land and into reservations. “Native people need permanent, unencumbered access to our homelands,” wrote Treuer, an Ojibwe author and historian. “All 85 million acres of national-park sites should be turned over to a consortium of federally recognized tribes in the United States" (The Atlantic).

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. There are over 85 million acres of land designated to the National Parks System across the U.S. But the conservation of this land came at a cost to the Indigenous communities that were displaced as a result. In today's newsletter, Andrew reflects on what should be done to account for this harm.

Are you a K-12 educator in the U.S.? We'd love to hear how conversations re: critical race theory are affecting your classroom. If you have a moment, please complete this survey (and yes, you can share this with your educator friends)!

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is fully funded by contributions from our readers. Make a monthly or annual donation to join in.

TAKE ACTION

Use the Native Land app to identify the Indigenous communities native to the national park nearest you.
Understand the violent history behind the American park system.
Oppose colonialism in the name of conservation.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

There are around 7 million Native Americans in the U.S. today. Native Americans have the lowest average educational attainment and the highest poverty rate of any racial or ethnic group (NCRC). This follows an institutionalized practice of genocide dating back to the Declaration of Independence, which cites the Crown’s support of “merciless Indian savages” as a reason for independence. In 1824, all Native Americans were declared wards of the state under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a part of the Department of War (Indian Country Today). In 1851, the governor of California called for a “war of extermination… until the Indian race becomes extinct.” And in 1864, the Colorado Third Cavalry murdered unarmed, sleeping Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women, and children and mutilated their bodies – carrying out explicit orders to “kill and destroy, as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians” (University of Nebraska). In 1973, federal agents laid siege to an American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee in protest of racial discrimination and conditions at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (History).

In the present day, Standing Rock Sioux tribe members were instrumental in opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, a massive oil infrastructure project currently paused for an environmental review (MSN). Protestors convened to physically prevent pipeline construction and were met with pepper spray and attack dogs from the pipeline guards (Democracy Now). Police threw a grenade that nearly took off a woman’s arm (NBC). Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people are currently spearheading resistance to the Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota (MSP Mag). Some tribal nations and Native American organizations are already leading the fight for sovereignty and against extractive industries. Giving the land of the National Parks back would undo part of the harm of settler-colonialism and be beneficial to all of us. Nobody would have to figure out individual land titles since their territory is already directly owned by the Federal government.

To give back the National Parks would also put an end to some of the racism baked into American conservation from the beginning. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Madison Grant was inventing the concept of a wilderness park as we now know it. He made sure the last California redwoods weren’t logged. He advocated for the creation of Denali, Olympic, and Glacier National Parks. He was also a raving white supremacist whose 1916 The Passing of the Great Race warned of the “racial abyss” awaiting America thanks to Black people, Irish, Syrians, Italians, “Slovaks,” and “Polish Jews” (Mother Jones). His Bronx River Parkway project was specially planned to displace Black and immigrant communities. And “his model of uninhabited national parks” of course required “forced removals of indigenous populations.”

There is precedent for settler-colonial states executing mass transfers of land they have stolen. In Australia, over half the Northern Territory has been returned to Aboriginal peoples, including Uluru, previously known as Ayers Rock (The Atlantic). In the U.S., there was already a proposal to make the South Unit of Badlands National Park the country’s first Tribal National Park, administered directly by the Oglala Sioux tribe (NY Times).

It’s time to decolonize this nation’s parks.

Key Takeaways

The U.S. park system was created through indigenous dispossession and inspired by an active white supremacist.
Some advocate that all national park sites are turned over to Indigenous communities.
There is precedent for mass land transfers back to indigenous people, as in Australia’s Northern Territory.

11/26/2020 | Support the land back movement.

1/25/2021 | Unpack "This Land is Your Land".

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 7/8/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/8/21

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

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 6/29/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/29/21

Support immigrant vendors.

The rapidly gentrifying Silicon Valley city of San José, California, is home to one of the largest flea markets in the country (Yahoo). Since 1960, generations of largely immigrant vendors have set up stalls on its 30 acres. The flea market and the 700 vendors who depend on it are threatened today by the construction of a “transit village” around a new light-rail station.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back. In today's issue, we're highlighting an issue in San Jose, CA, that's not specifically unique to just this community. Learn more about the role of gentrification and corporate developments in fostering inequities, and what you can do to help.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Take action today by telling San José city council members to vote no on flea market redevelopment. Sample script: “I’m calling/emailing to oppose the Berryessa redevelopment. There’s no excuse to displace hundreds of vendors. We are watching and demand you do the right thing today.”
Contact the San José Flea Market and say you support the vendors by calling (408) 453 1110 and emailing hope@sjfm.com and pat@sjfm.com. Sample script: “I’m calling/emailing in support of the Flea Market Vendors Association. We demand each vendor receive adequate compensation and a permanent spot. What has been offered is not nearly enough. Do the right thing!”
Follow the Vendor Association and sign their petition for a community benefits agreement from the city.
Support immigrants in your community beyond the headlines.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Though the new train station is a public investment, it’s explicitly “meant to serve a new Google campus with up to 25,000 employees” (SF Chronicle). Community activists already opposed the development, which they fear will raise housing costs enough to displace tens of thousands of people. In the words of one resident, “A San José Google campus will erase my existence” (Silicon Valley De-Bug).

In May, Google announced they’re “rallying support for immigrant rights” (Google). Google Doodles have celebrated Chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldúa, union leader Cesar Chavez, and Tejana music icon Selena Quintanilla (Google). And the cafeterias at Google’s current headquarters offer employees a urbane selection of global foods from chicken enchiladas to charred pork belly with shaved jicama salad (Business Insider). But this public infrastructure development created specifically for the company’s benefit may directly displace hundreds of immigrant vendors. Moreover, its new campus could economically displace thousands more.

And while it’s largely first- and second-generation immigrants working as San José flea market vendors, the flea market itself is owned by the white Bumb family. Though the Bumbs have made “millions” from the flea market (Metro Active), they refuse to negotiate in good faith with vendors seeking to preserve their livelihoods.

“I’m a second-generation vendor. I was raised in the flea market. My dad has been selling there for years,” community leader Kaled Escobedo told Anti-Racism Daily. Fresh off a hunger strike against the destruction of the flea market, she shared that her family’s blanket stand helped her pay her way through college. “That’s the only source of income my dad gets,” she said.

The city and Bumb family plan to shrink the flea market to 5 acres, offering only $4,000 to each vendor as compensation. This amount covers less than two months of rent for a one-bedroom San José apartment at market price (Zumper). The vendor association is demanding that San José city council vote against the redevelopment plan today, Tuesday, June 29, and that the Bumb family agree to reasonable demands that include fair compensation and vendor security. They are asking for wide support to achieve both of these goals. Ultimately, said Escobedo, “We want to be in charge of the market.” She envisions a future where the market is controlled by the immigrant families who make it work. Spaces like the San José Flea Market provide a space for communities to only make a living.

As someone born outside the U.S. and married to a first-generation immigrant, I’m interested in what we understand as “supporting immigrants” now that we have a new administration. The Trump administration’s baldly racist, nativist immigration policies sparked wide and justified opposition. Hundreds of cities rallied against “zero-tolerance” immigration policies in June 2018 alone (CNN). Liberal Americans developed what was, for some, a new-found respect for immigrants, one seemingly absent when then-Senator Obama declared, “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked” (AP). Some tried to oppose Trump by calling America “a nation of immigrants,” an objectively false and harmful idea (Colorlines). Do we only fight for immigrants when Republicans are in power and invent excuses for Democratic administrations continuing the same inhumane policies (NPR)? Do those born in the U.S. actually support real-life immigrants in their communities or view them as political tokens and providers of interesting culture to consume and discard at will?

The answer is important because immigrant communities remain under threat, not only by deportation but police brutality, economic exploitation, and gentrification, as well (Urban Institute, The Atlantic). To support oppressed and marginalized communities means showing up even if there’s no immediate reward. It means showing up in the years where there’s no election. It means showing up though you may never set foot in a certain market or low-income neighborhood in your life. It means supporting immigrant businesses and workers of color even when they aren’t selling anything you might wish to consume. That’s what it means to be in solidarity, and it’s what is necessary for us to build communities where all of us can thrive.

Key Takeaways

Some outsiders think about immigrant communities as political tokens or only consider them in relation to the food, music, or other products they produce.
Corporations might support immigrants or other oppressed communities rhetorically while harming them in practice.
Solidarity must be a constant practice.

10/5/2020 | Protect undocumented Americans.

8/10/2020 | Respect the relationship between name and identity.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/25/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/25/21

End the “lunchbox moment”.

The fun of this segment is based on disgust: we see our famous celebrities shriek, gag, and embarrass themselves confronted with revolting foods. Some of the items featured were clearly specially created to evoke just such revulsion: hot dog juice, hot sauce and olive jello, the aforementioned ant pickle.

Happy Friday, and welcome back! Food is central to many cultural traditions across the world and throughout history. How we relate to one another is often evident in how we respect each other's cuisines. Today's topic is just one of many ways we can ostracize people without thinking. Andrew shares more.

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is made possible by your support. If you can, consider making a donation to support our team. 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

Demand actively anti-racist policies in schools.
Vigorously oppose racism from teachers and school administrators.
Support the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing, New York Collective of Radical Educators, Abolitionist Teaching Network, Teachers 4 Social Justice, and the Institute for Teachers of Color so teachers and students of color can thrive.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Earlier this month, Kim Saira started a petition that now boasts over 40,000 signatures (change.org). Saira’s petition wants to fight anti-Asian racism through an unusual venue: by opposing one of the sections on The Late Late Show with James Corden, “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts.”

In this recurring segment, a celebrity sits opposite Corden around a spread of apparently revolting foods. Each takes turns selecting one that their opposite will have to consume should they decline to answer an embarrassing question. Justin Bieber swigs a shrimp-and-chili-pepper smoothie in lieu of admitting which country is home to his least favorite fans (YouTube). Instead of eating bull penis, Kim Kardashian discloses that her then-husband Kanye West’s most annoying habit is falling asleep in public (YouTube). Alicia Keys chooses to take a bite of an ant-covered pickle instead of saying which city she most dislikes performing in (YouTube).

The trouble is that other dishes are just normal, non-Anglo food: cow tongue, which appears in Korean BBQ and in tacos as lengua; chicken feet, a dim sum staple; or durian, a popular Southeast Asian fruit with a strong aroma. Some of these are presented in the least appetizing way possible such as the cow tongue, which appears unseasoned and whole. Others, like Chinese century eggs, are evidently grotesque enough as they are for Corden and guests to theatrically dry heave in disgust (Inkstone News).

Nobody is obligated to enjoy every food and there are some that each of us might emphatically refuse to taste. But dramatizing the “grossness” of Asian foods for popular entertainment is a low blow, especially given that so many immigrants in the United States are mocked for the food they eat. It’s repugnant coming from a celebrity with a large audience and influence, since that media plays a key role in giving permission to react with disgust to “exotic” dishes.

“The story of being bullied in the cafeteria for one’s lunch is so ubiquitous that it’s attained a gloss of fictionality,” writes Jaya Saxena. “It’s become metonymy for the entire diaspora experience; to be a young immigrant or child of immigrants is to be bullied for your lunch, and vice versa.” In my case, I got to hear about how disgusting all of my fourth grade classmates thought it was that I brought kimbap instead of a sandwich for lunch one day. That this is a common and widely recounted experience makes Corden’s display of Asian foods for shock, disgust, and amusement especially repulsive.

But no food is inherently disgusting, even if it’s a new dish from an unfamiliar culture. The “lunchbox moment” – that experience that many children of color have when they're shamed by their peers for what they brought for lunch – doesn't just happen, it's learned and perpetuated through pop culture. Although it exists for many, it’s anything but universal. One Indian girl growing up in South Dakota, for instance, found her white classmates reacted to Indian food “with either genuine curiosity or ‘at worst boredom’” (Eater).

That’s because disgust – especially the over-the-top enactments of it that are the bread and butter of the “Spill Your Guts” segments – is something we’re taught and something we teach each other. That’s not to say if, when left to our own devices, we’d find each and every new food wonderfully appealing. But we are taught that expressing public revulsion at some things is permissible and even encouraged (immigrant lunches, cow tongues), but that being disgusted at other things is a sign you have no class or taste (French haute cuisine, your mother-in-law’s signature dish). Public disgust at things that seem foreign isn’t just a matter of taste but a political act, and not a very good one at that.

That’s why 40,000+ people have signed onto the Change.org petition against “Spill Your Guts.” “In the wake of the constant Asian hate crimes that have continuously been occurring, not only is this segment incredibly culturally offensive and insensitive, but it also encourages anti-Asian racism,” it reads. “So many Asian Americans are consistently bullied and mocked for their native foods, and this segment amplifies and encourages it” (Change.org). On Instagram, @intersectional.abc is making videos showing how delicious some of the show’s “gross” foods actually are (Instagram). And we can all rethink the instinct to reject or disrespect new or unexpected foods or cultural practices.

Key Takeaways

In “Spill Your Guts” segments, James Corden and guests have to eat “gross” foods or answer uncomfortable questions.
Many of these dishes are just non-Anglo foods that Corden and guests react to with horror and disgust.
We can choose to react to unfamiliar foods or practices with respect instead of revulsion.

7/22/2020 | Don't Americanize other cultures.

11/25/2020 | Question your understanding of "authentic" food.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/24/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/24/21

Unpack the history of IQ testing.

The 19th-century pseudoscience of phrenology used skull measurements to “prove” that Indigenous people were less capable of developing knowledge, justifying a genocidal westward expansion. The phrenologists “proved” African people were more suited to being enslaved, thereby making chattel slavery seem a natural outcome of innate biological differences in mental capacity (Vassar).

Happy Thursday! What does it mean to be intelligent? Academically-inclined? Emotionally resourced? Multilingual? Today, Andrew shares ways that racism has perpetuated our perception of intelligence – and how the field of measuring intelligence has been influenced by racial bias.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Demand actively anti-racist policies in schools.
Vigorously oppose racism from teachers and school administrators.
Support the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing, New York Collective of Radical Educators, Abolitionist Teaching Network, Teachers 4 Social Justice, and the Institute for Teachers of Color so teachers and students of color can thrive.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

The NFL just stopped requiring Black football players to exhibit worse cognitive function than white players to receive compensation for brain injuries – under the assumption that Black players had lower cognitive function to begin with.

Last month, the ARD explained how “racial correction factors” in the diagnosis of kidney and respiratory diseases lead to Black patients missing life-saving treatments. The NFL used race-norming when measuring intelligence, as well. “That’s literally the definition of systemic racism,” said Najeh Davenport, a former Packers running back suing the league (Yahoo News).

The NFL using race-norming to limit payouts to the 70% of its players who are Black (Yahoo) follows a long American tradition of using ”intelligence” to justify structural racism.

After phrenology fell out of favor, the science of eugenics arrived, which sought to improve populations by ensuring individuals with desirable qualities reproduced and those with undesirable characteristics did not. Though today associated with Nazi mass sterilization and extermination campaigns against Jewish, Roma, and disabled people, eugenics was wildly popular in the United States in its day, with President Theodore Roosevelt among its enthusiastic supporters. Nazi eugenics policies were in fact based on mass sterilization campaigns in California state hospitals. The idea of ensuring racial hygiene by killing undesirables in gas chambers was proposed by a U.S. Army disease specialist in 1918 (SF Gate).

One Stanford University psychologist wrote, “High-grade or border-line deficiency … is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among Negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial. They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made into efficient workers. From a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding.” This man, Dr. Lewis Terman, popularized a test he believed would make these racial differences clear: the IQ test (Business Insider, Stanford Daily).

In 1994, The Bell Curve argued that aggregate IQ differences between Black and white people were due in part to genetic causes. If we follow this reasoning, the fact that Black people die sooner (US News), have higher unemployment, work worse jobs, and have an order of magnitude less wealth than white people (Brookings) might not be due to structural racism. America could be entirely fair meritocratic and produce these exact outcomes if it’s true that Black people, as the NFL believed, have “lower cognitive functions” than whites. IQ is here being used for its original purpose: to justify racial oppression.

The “model minority myth” holds that some combination of Asian genetics and culture explain why Asian Americans have higher IQs and annual income than white people, “proving” that other minority groups have only themselves or their genes to blame. This myth was popularized explicitly to attack Black people. It ignores the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism (NPR) and labor market pressures that encourage East and South Asian immigrants with higher educational attainment (Pew, Pew). There is more economic inequality among Asian people than any other racial group in America (NBC). Laotian and Bhutanese Americans are only half as likely to get a bachelor’s degree as the average American, while the poverty rate for Mongolian and Burmese Americans is double that of the national average (Pew). Asian students from these nationalities also suffer from race-norming when held to unreasonable academic standards because “all Asians are smart.”

IQ and standardized tests depend on the idea that intelligence is a single, objective numerical variable. IQ tests weren’t developed because intelligence was discovered one day but because eugenicists wanted to justify ethnic cleansing. And thinking of intelligence based on classroom performance demands we believe educators are objective when dealing with students of different races. We have hard evidence that this is not the case (Forbes).

What IQ tests actually measure, rather than innate intelligence, seems to be largely how motivated students are when taking the test (Science). Though there is no measurable correlation between intelligence and future wealth (Scientific American), people thinking about financial stress perform significantly worse on intelligence tests (PBS).

In the aggregate, IQ tests largely measure not intelligence but oppression. The results are then turned around to justify poverty, injustice, and even reduced compensation for athletes suffering from brain trauma. There’s a long history of pseudoscientific racism lurking behind the purported objectivity of numerical scores.

Key Takeaways

The NFL held that Black athletes started with lower cognitive abilities than white athletes to avoid compensating players for brain injuries.
IQ tests were popularized by advocates of eugenics, whose wide popularity in the U.S. served as a model for Nazi Germany.
Though it’s unclear what IQ tests actually measure, student motivation and poverty have significant effects on scores.
The model minority myth was developed to combat the Black freedom movement and ignores wide disparities among Asian communities.

9/18/2020 | Reject racial gaslighting.

5/18/2021 | End “race norming” in healthcare.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/15/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/15/21

End cash bail.

In the U.S., it’s legal to be kidnapped and incarcerated without being convicted of any crime. You haven’t confessed. You aren’t considered dangerous or liable to flee before your court date. You have not been proven guilty so you must, by this country’s legal code, be considered innocent. You are nonetheless told you will be incarcerated indefinitely. Your trial date may be scheduled for a few weeks from now – – or, it may not arrive for years.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back. This time last year, bail funds across the country were receiving unprecedented levels of donations as protests surged in support of racial equity. But how does cash bail work, and why were those donations so urgently needed at that time? Today, Andrew explains the role of cash bail in our criminal justice system and how we must work to abolish cash bail.

Have a great day!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to bail funds to ensure nobody is incarcerated solely for their inability to pay.
Oppose any expansion of the carceral state like increased police funding, jail construction, or mandatory minimum laws.
Support District Attorneys committed to ending cash bail. Once elected, work to ensure that bail is set for as few people as possible.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

The racial reckoning last summer sparked a resurgence of efforts to address the injustice of cash bail.

In the U.S., it’s legal to be kidnapped and incarcerated without being convicted of any crime. You haven’t confessed. (Read about the injustice of plea deals.) You aren’t considered dangerous or liable to flee before your court date. You have not been proven guilty so you must, by this country’s legal code, be considered innocent. You are nonetheless told you will be incarcerated indefinitely. Your trial date may be scheduled for a few weeks from now – – or, it may not arrive for years.

Your jailers have told you that if you pay a hefty bribe, they will let you walk out the door, free until called for your trial. But perhaps you and your family can’t afford the arbitrary number set for your release. You might consult a bail loan shark (The Appeal), or try to get support from a local bail fund. But otherwise, you wait. And in the process, many lose their job, house, and reputation – all while suffering the physical and emotional toll.

The scenario described above is the reality for 460,000 Americans right now (GQ). It’s the numerical equivalent of a supervillain holding every resident of both Reno and Madison, WI for ransom – except the supervillain is the American government.

“95% of the people in this jail are waiting on a trial,” said a Chicago sheriff. “On any given day we have probably two to three hundred people that, if they came up with $500, they would leave” (CBS News).

In 2010, 16-year old Kalief Browder was stopped by the police for robbery. The police found nothing. The supposed victim then changed his story and accused Browder of stealing a backpack weeks earlier. This was enough for the police to arrest him.

A judge set Browder’s bail at $3,000. He could not pay, so he was sent to Rikers Island. Shortly after arriving, he was sent to solitary confinement for the first of many times. His final stretch in solitary lasted 17 months. After three years the D.A. dropped the charges and at 20, Khalief Browder went home a free man (New Yorker). Rikers, he said, robbed him of his happiness. Two years later, he died by suicide (Vibe).

In 2011, the Supreme Court said California’s jails were “incompatible with the concept of human dignity”; one catatonic man was caged for 24 hours in a pool of his own urine (Human Rights Watch). Incarcerated people in Philadelphia wake up and go to sleep surrounded by mouse feces (Marshall Project). Arizona jails live-streamed video of suspects being strip-searched and using the toilet on the internet (Human Rights Watch). When women report sexual assault in this country’s jails, they are placed in solitary (Truthout). Almost 2,000 people in an Orange County jail contracted COVID after the sheriff refused a court order to reduce the jail population (Time).

A majority of those in jail are awaiting trial. An overwhelming majority of those in pretrial detention are incarcerated just because they can’t pay bail (Prison Policy Initiative).

Incarceration can’t reduce harm when jails and prisons have systematic sexual violence, assault, and abuse. We know they don’t keep us safe since we have hard data that being incarcerated makes people more likely to “reoffend” (Daily Dot). America’s jails and prisons are in flagrant violation of international norms and any reasonable moral code: no human should endure such conditions, including, yes, those convicted of serious and terrible crimes (Medium).

But it is especially appalling that those considered innocent spend months or years in such institutions solely because they lack the money to ransom themselves from the state. There is a movement around the country to end the practice of cash bail. Residents of San Francisco and Philadelphia elected district attorneys who committed to ending it (Huff Post, NBC). Algorithmic “risk assessment tools” in place of cash bail can still import racial biases, and even anti-cash bail D.A.’s like Philly’s Larry Krasner unjustifiably over-incarcerate those awaiting trial (Philadelphia Bail Fund). Ending cash bail is still a necessity.

We should only allow district attorneys who oppose the practice to take office, we need to stand with communities to hold them accountable once they do, and those with financial means should give generously to community bail funds to ensure nobody in this country is locked for poverty alone. We have a responsibility to dismantle a historically large, systematically racist, and monumentally unjust system in any way we can.

Key Takeaways

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are incarcerated solely because they can’t post bail.

American jails are rife with violence, assault, abuse, and inhumane conditions.
Ending cash bail is an important step in ending incarceration, a practice we know does not prevent interpersonal harm.

RELATED ISSUES

1/12/2021 | Abolish the death penalty.

5/27/2021 | Advocate for our right to trial.

10/16/2020 | Abolish the grand jury.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/11/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/11/21

Question private security forces.

Citizen is a privately-owned “public safety” app that reports neighborhood crime to residents. It has 5 million active users, more App Store downloads than Twitter (Forbes), and is backed by venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital, which is also investing in heavyweights like Cisco, Instagram, and YouTube (Sequoia). It’s a rebrand of an app called Vigilante, which actually encouraged users to go after suspected criminals (Tech Crunch). After the Pacific Palisades fire last month, Citizen sent the full name and photo of a suspected arsonist to 860,000 users. Citizen put a $30,000 bounty on this man, who was unhoused (Oaklandside), and, as in its days as Vigilante, encouraged its users to “get out there and bring this guy to justice” (Vox). As it turns out, he was innocent.

It's Friday and we're back with another Anti-Racism Daily. Our nation's history of policing isn't just seen in law enforcement, but privatized security, too. The Citizen app is purportedly releasing their own private security system that users can deploy at will. Andrew shares more in today's newsletter.

Thank you for keeping this independent platform going. In honor of our one year anniversary, become a monthly subscriber on our website or Patreon this week and we'll send you some swag! You can also give one-time on Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), PayPal or our website.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

#DeleteCitizen and encourage others to do the same.
Follow and support efforts to disrupt white supremacist vigilantism.
Engage with efforts to disarm and regulate private security. Invest instead in community-led public safety initiatives.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Days later, the news broke that a black Citizen SUV was prowling Los Angeles. Citizen said the vehicle, connected to a local “subscription law enforcement” firm, is part of a “pilot project.” It seems Citizen plans to augment its surveillance and vigilantism network with private police (Vice). Many have expressed concerns that this could lead to harassment and violence based on racial profiling.

The past year has thrown light on two pillars of American white supremacy. On one hand, the police commit atrocities against Black and Brown people with few consequences. On the other, neo-Nazis and militant nativists commit “lone wolf” attacks in an attempt to provoke a race war. (For why we don’t refer to such zealots as terrorists, see this previous article.)

Citizen exemplifies a third pillar: the vigilantes, civic groups, and private companies that enforce white supremacy. Unlike the police or National Guard, they aren’t an arm of the state. And unlike neo-Nazi mass shooters, they aren’t right-wing revolutionaries seeking to replace the political order with something even worse. This third pillar is composed of organizations that operate, with the tacit or official support of the authorities, to maintain the current economic, political, and racial order. That is, they are private enforcers of what supporters of a deeply unequal society might deem “public order.”

In the past, the government empowered citizens to kill Indigenous people and kidnap people who escaped from slavery. The 20th century Ku Klux Klan recruited white Protestants who felt threatened by immigration and the Bolshevik revolution (Britannica). Though the Klan wasn’t the government, “in Muncie, Indiana—the ‘Middletown’ that sociologists Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd studied as the embodiment of 1920s America—the mayor was a loyal Klansman, as were the president of the local school board and the secretary of the YMCA.” “Sundown town” legislation that barred people of color after dark was enforced not only by local police but also by the threat of lynchings from local residents (The Atlantic). Last year, New Mexican law enforcement saw an ally in the New Mexico Civil Guard, a militia organization that shot an antifascist counterprotester (History News Network).

In 1892, thousands of Southern and Eastern European immigrant mill workers went on strike. The owners, Carnegie Steel, brought in 300 heavily-armed private soldiers from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who murdered 7 striking workers as they attempted to clear the mill (Britannica). At this time, the Pinkertons were larger than the U.S. Army (History).

In the present day, private security firm G4S was paid $1.7 million to run Guantánamo Bay. Israeli government-contracted G4S to run prisons in the occupied West Bank where children are kept in solitary confinement (Guardian); in Australia, an Aboriginal elder was “cooked to death” in a G4S prison van (Guardian). A G4S subsidiary was acquired by another security firm, Allied Universal, making it the third-largest employer in North America (Yahoo).

Section 8 residents are patrolled by private security with automatic rifles and mauled by their guard dogs (Chicago Reporter). Though not law enforcement, campus police are able to harass and abuse non-students residing close to campus. In one case, University of Chicago police stopped, stripped, and beat a man with a malfunctioning car horn (Leagle). See the interview with Alecia from the Cops Off Campus coalition. Mall security killed a Black man in Detroit who died crying out “I can’t breathe” (Huff Post). Private security stabbed a man in the chest after confronting him for theft (Fox 5). When Luis Quintero tried to explain a parking dispute to an Allied Universal security officer at a Texas mall, she pulled a gun with her finger on the trigger (ABC 13).

When fighting for racial justice, we need to keep violent non-state actors like vigilantes and security firms front and center. Citizen is both: a massive business that both inspires vigilantism and aspires to become privatized law enforcement. As Hari Ziyad wrote in a piece on abolition, “Safety is not a universally recognized phenomenon, as much as it is pretended to be. The meaning of safety depends on what exactly you find worthy of protection” (Salon).

Key Takeaways

The app Citizen has 5 million users. It has encouraged vigilantism and unjustified arrest and is taking steps to become private law enforcement.
Private security firms have committed numerous killings and abuses with little oversight.
White vigilante groups have long collaborated with law enforcement to enact racist laws and commit extrajudicial murders.
We need to interrogate “public safety” in a racist, classist society.

2/15/2021 | Advocate for Black immigrants.

12/9/2020 | Amplify mental health resources for immigrants.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/10/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/10/21

Support immigrants beyond food.

It’s hypocritical to consume Asian or Asian-American cultural products and then refuse to defend Asian communities in the U.S. – or worse, exhibit open hostility against them. At the same time, we shouldn’t predicate supporting immigrant communities on enjoying their food, especially since the reason why so many Asian immigrants work in restaurants is itself a product of American racism.

Happy Thursday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. June is Immigrant Heritage Month. In its honor, today Andrew takes us through the history of Asian immigration and the relationship between food and belonging that persists today.

Thank you for keeping this independent platform going. In honor of our anniversary, become a monthly subscriber on our website or Patreon this week and we'll send you some swag! You can also give one-time on Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), PayPal or our website.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Learn how the “lo mein loophole” in racist immigration laws led to the creation of Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
Read about the history of Asian-American radical organizing.
Support organizations that advocate for Asian immigrant wellbeing, like Asian Defense Fund, Sisters in Self-Defense, Soar Over Hate, and PALMS.
Donate to mutual aid funds that support immigrant communities near you, like Oakland Workers Fund, Restaurant Worker Mutual Aid Boston, and Pittsburgh Restaurant Workers Aid.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

After a publicized wave of anti-Asian attacks, a catchy phrase popped up on protest signs and social media accounts: “Love us like you love our food.” From anime to K-dramas and from sushi to sesame chicken, non-Asian Americans now love the culture from various East Asian countries – or what they imagine it to be, at least. Many of those who enjoy consuming East Asian food, music, and movies are nowhere to be found when Asian people’s lives are on the line. If you love a certain kind of food you should love the people who make it.

1882’s Chinese Exclusion Act banned almost all Chinese people from entering the United States; it was repealed only in 1943, when the U.S. began allowing a whopping 105 Chinese immigrants per year. The American Federation of Labor, today one half of the AFL-CIO union coalition, was headed in the 19th century by Samuel Gompers, a raging racist who once asked, “Can we hope to close the flood-gates of immigration from the hordes of Chinese and the semi-savage races?” (NPR). San Francisco forced Japanese students to use segregated schools. A Japanese and Korean Exclusion League had members nationwide (History) President Theodore Roosevelt used a State of the Union address to disparage “undesirable immigrants” from China. With Chinese immigrants already banned, the 1917 Immigration Act banned immigration from almost the entirety of the rest of Asia (Al Jazeera).

But from 1915, Chinese people were able to secure a visa to work as restaurant employees. Chinese people previously worked largely in laundries, since racist attitudes prevented their employment at white businesses. After this change to immigration law, the number of Chinese restaurants quadrupled. That’s not to say it became easy for Chinese restaurant workers to immigrate: they had to find a way to convince immigration authorities they were major investors in a “high grade” eatery. Upon arrival, Chinese restaurant workers were legally prohibited from residing in all-white neighborhoods (Menuism). Regardless, Chinese people pooled money and used family and community ties to acquire merchant visas and began forming the Chinatowns of today. Wealthy white people began taking “slumming tours” of growing Chinatowns to gawk at their “depravity” and eat Chinese food (NPR).

Today, restaurants are the most common immigrant-owned business in the U.S. (CNBC). Facing “discrimination in hiring because they often speak limited English or because of their immigration status” are factors that contribute to the fact that today, “immigrants are for more likely to start their own businesses than U.S.-born residents” (NJ, AP).

Many respond to anti-immigrant sentiment by listing all of the good things immigrants give to the United States: “railroads,” “beef,” “perspectives, ideas, and sweat” (Huff Post), or “ethnic” restaurants, food trucks, and buffets. This frames immigration as an instrumental good, valuable only insofar as it provides benefits to the American-born. In this narrative, American citizens are full-fledged human beings while immigrants are just a potential American asset, like highways natural gas, or fighter jets.

But you should be active in the movement against Asian people getting stabbed (ABC) and spit on (Yahoo) and killed (CBS) whether you like General Tso’s chicken or not. We don’t think Polish people should have civil rights because of the quality of pierogies or that the wellbeing of Swedish-Americans depends on our passion for the IKEA food court. Anglo-Americans don’t get safety in the United States because we all love their pot roasts. Anglo-Americans’ rights and liberties aren’t contingent on the rest of us being pot roast aficionados because the United States was created to secure the rights and liberties of English colonists. In a way, this is fortunate, because, in my opinion, pot roast just isn’t that good.

LeRon Barton wrote, “I have come to the unfortunate realization that Blacks aren’t meant to be people, just vessels of entertainment in our society. We are looked at as hollow and only possessing culture that is meant to be enjoyed, eventually poached, and finally discarded” (Good Men Project). Similarly, immigrant communities and communities of color in general have been forced into precarious or menial jobs by racist and xenophobic attitudes and practices. Many immigrants’ salaries depend on serving white Americans. Their wellbeing as people should not be based on their ability to serve the enjoyment of white America, as well.

Key Takeaways

Non-Asian people who consume Asian products should support Asian communities under attack in the U.S.
Non-Asian people who don’t use Asian products should also be in solidarity. Support for an immigrant community shouldn’t depend on them serving you things you enjoy.
Many immigrants work in the restaurant industry because of our racist history.

2/15/2021 | Advocate for Black immigrants.

12/9/2020 | Amplify mental health resources for immigrants.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/7/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/7/21

Demand global vaccine justice.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would share 75% of its unused COVID-19 vaccine supply, releasing 80 million doses to other countries by the end of the month. “These are doses that are being given, donated free and clear to these countries, for the sole purpose of improving the public health situation and helping end the pandemic,” said U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, though he clarified that the U.S. government “will retain the say” on where exactly they go (MSN). As the State Department’s Twitter account declared, “No country is safe until all countries are safe” (Twitter).

Happy Monday and welcome back! The inequities of vaccine access, both domestically and abroad, deserve more scrutiny. Today, Andrew shares more about the role the U.S. plays in global vaccine distribution and how we can support.

– Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Read about U.S. vaccine hoarding and its fatal results.
Support the Progressive International (Instagram) and the Summit for Vaccine Internationalism.
Donate to CODEPINK and Global Health Partners’ campaign to provide syringes for people in Cuba.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

The United States will immediately give 25 million doses to the United Nations’ COVAX vaccine sharing program (AP). It seems like an incredible number, but only until you do the math. Africa, which saw a 20% increase in cases over the last two weeks, will receive 5 million vaccines, enough for less than 4% of the continent’s residents (AP). 6 million doses will go to Latin America, fewer doses than people in El Salvador, the region’s 17th most populous country. 7 million will go to South and Southeast Asia, a quantity less than 3% of the population of Indonesia alone.

This development comes after months of vaccine hoarding by the United States and other rich nations. In February, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced that, while 75% of all vaccines had been administered by just 10 countries, 130 nations had not received a single vaccine at all (MSN). In the words of Georgetown Law’s Lawrence Gostin, “Rich countries have signed pre-purchase agreements with vaccine manufacturers. So [they] have bought up most of the world’s vaccine supplies.”

The United States government bought 1.2 billion vaccine doses, despite having a population of only 330 million (Salon). If everyone in the U.S. received two doses, a half billion shots would be left over, property of the U.S. government. In fact, the U.S. bought purchase options on enough vaccines to vaccinate the entire U.S. population five times (NBC).

American vaccine “charity” comes too late for thousands of people who died because the United States blocked their countries from importing vaccines.

Aside from appearing benevolent with its “gift” of hoarded vaccines, the U.S. government also gets to use vaccine donations as a political weapon, rewarding “friends like the Republic of Korea, where our military shares a command” (White House) while maintaining an embargo that prevents Cuba from importing syringes necessary for full vaccination (Code Pink).

That fact that the U.S. government prevented life-saving vaccines from reaching desperate people for weeks on end is not the only reason for its complicity. Despite racist paranoias about immigrants and Asian people as disease vectors, American business travelers and tourists have played a crucial role in spreading coronavirus around the world.

Last March, 44 University of Texas students tested positive for COVID after returning from Cabo San Lucas (KXAN). Four months later, Today published a list of countries still open to American tourism “for those trying to capitalize on less expensive plane tickets” (Today). In November, an American teen in the Cayman Islands escaped from mandatory quarantine to attend her boyfriend’s jet ski event maskless (People). One of the hardest-hit areas in Mexico is Cancún, which has actually seen more tourists this year than last (USA Today). One Pittsburgh police officer whined “we’re being held hostage down here” after he and his wife were forced to stay in their luxury resort room after testing positive for COVID during a mid-pandemic trip to Cancún last month (WPXI). Mexico ranks fourth in total deaths from COVID (CNN).

Many countries and regions are reluctant to impose stricter entry controls since their economies are almost entirely dependent on tourism, “mainly as a result of their history under Western imperialism” (Skift). American tourists felt entitled to go on vacations that turned their destinations as petri dishes. Their government hoarded vaccines to save for them upon their return home. Thousands of people, mostly working-class people of color in poor nations, have lost their lives as a result. The Biden administration’s “charity” is too little, too late.

Fortunately, community organizations around the world are coming together to demand more. The Progressive International is organizing a global Summit for Vaccine Internationalism (Progressive International) while groups like CODEPINK are providing medical supplies internationally (CODEPINK). When the American government positions itself as a compassionate donor of its hoarded goods, we should remember Dr. King’s words: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring” (American Rhetoric).

Key Takeaways

The Biden administration's vaccine sharing announcement comes after the U.S. blocked poor countries from vaccine access for months, costing untold numbers of lives.
The U.S. government bought over half a billion more vaccine doses than would be necessary to vaccinate the entire population.
American citizens played an outsized role in spreading COVID to countries dependent on U.S. tourism.

9/16/2020 | Fight for paid sick leave.

8/23/2020 | Support those incarcerated and impacted by COVID-19.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/4/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/4/21

Build solidarity across differences.

But white supremacy is a system, not a collection of individuals acts of white violence. This system depends on settler-colonialism and the continued theft of indigenous land, on the enslavement and incarceration of Black people, and on xenophobia and neocolonialism against those identified as foreign, like Asian people. That it may be non-white people who uphold racism against other communities of color doesn’t mean it isn’t white supremacy. It means that white supremacy is a strong social system that structures our beliefs and lives, whether we are white or not.

Happy Friday! Throughout history, communities of color have recognized that, despite the fact that we experience racism uniquely from one another, our individual liberation is tied to our collective liberation. Yet, conservative outlets try to position violence by BIPOC people against other BIPOC people to negate, or minimize the role that white supremacy plays in society. Today, Andrew outlines examples of solidarity despite differences, and emphasizes how white supremacy is nearly always at fault.

TAKE ACTION

Read about solidarity and transformative justice in the face of anti-Asian attacks.
Watch “Korean Ajumma for Black Lives” , where Isabel Kang explains the necessity of Asian-Black solidarity.
Look into the Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities project.
Listen to our recent podcast episode on practicing solidarity.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In the past year, Asian people across the US have been attacked, harassed, and murdered. We have been yelled at, beaten, stabbed, and shot. There are thousands of reported cases (Stop AAPI Hate).

Non-Asian people of all races participated in these assaults. The majority of assailants were white (NPR). But when activists correctly identified the attacks’ white supremacist origins, conservatives cried foul. If a Black person attacks an Asian elder, they asked, how could white racism possibly be to blame? “Describing this sort of thing as white supremacy,” said one far-right political scientist, “is stupid” (Commentary).

The 1992 LA Uprising was precipitated by two events. One was the police beating of Rodney King (NPR). It was also influenced by the murder of Latasha Harlins, a Black girl incorrectly thought to be stealing a single bottle of juice, who was killed by Korean liquor store owner Soon Ja Du (LA Times). In the uprising, protestors set fire to LAPD headquarters and looted businesses that extracted wealth from working-class Black communities, with LA’s Koreatown as a particular target. When some armed Korean people defended their businesses, gun battles broke out. It took thousands of soldiers for the government to subdue the rebellion (Curbed).

Korean people in the United States own small businesses in communities of color because they could succeed in these industries in the face of racism from white suppliers and employers (NextShark). White America turns around and use Korean small businesses to “prove” white supremacy doesn’t exist. They also use them to and critique Black and Latinx communities that have less access to capital for not owning such businesses themselves. White supremacy’s “divide and control” strategy pits immigrant small business owners against working-class Black people (HuffPost).

This lesson became clear for many Korean people in Los Angeles during the uprising. The military and LAPD were let loose during the rebellion, killing at least 10 civilians in the streets. But when Koreatown went up in flames, the police stood by and did nothing.

“

Nothing in my life indicated I was a secondary citizen until the LA riots…They left us to burn. We learned a lesson in what the lack of political power and cultural misunderstandings between minority groups can do.

Business owner Chang Lee (CNN)

In the years since the uprising, there have been intentional efforts between Black and Korean groups in the United States to build solidarity. After decades of such organizing work, there is of course still much more today. But today, nine out of ten Korean-Americans recognize that Black Americans face discrimination, while Black people are the non-Asian group most likely to recognize that anti-Asian racism exists (Brookings). At a march last year, David Bryant of the Latasha Harlins Justice Committee said, “Our Korean brothers and sisters, we would like you to know: history doesn’t have to repeat itself. We can come together in unity” (Yahoo News).

The lesson here is that solidarity isn’t a given. It doesn’t appear from the simple fact of sharing a race, gender, employer, or country of origin with anyone else. And when we speak about solidarity across differences in a country that pits us against each other, it is important to remember that solidarity isn’t just something we claim. It isn’t a demographic fact and it isn’t a nice belief, no matter the words or letters in our Twitter bios.

Solidarity is a practice. It’s not something we are or something we believe: it’s something we do. We can choose to stand with others to dismantle the political and economic institutions that harm them and us, or we can choose to look away. We can choose to appeal to whiteness for safety and resources or we can choose to build safety through struggling alongside one another to see whiteness and white supremacy abolished.

“We can’t just say, ‘I’m in solidarity with you.’ Those are empty words unless we back it up with action… Because structurally, only the few at the top have all the power, money, and resources,” says Isabel Kang of LA’s Korean Resource Center (Faithfully Magazine). “Those who give out empty words of solidarity: will you be around when they start pointing guns at you?”

Key Takeaways

Though white people committed most recent anti-Asian attacks, the existence of Black assailants was used to deny the role of white supremacy.
People of color can hold anti-indigenous, anti-Black, and xenophobic views, but the root remains white supremacy.
Building solidarity across differences requires education, organizing, and work, such as how Black and Korean communities came together after the LA Uprising.

RELATED ISSUES

1/5/2021 | (Re)commit to your role.

9/18/2020 | Reject racial gaslighting.

7/9/2020 | Acknowledge the harm of microaggressions.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/2/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/2/21

Unpack corporate political contributions.

Though the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th failed, they motivated plenty of Republicans to keep pushing unsubstantiated claims. That same day, 147 Republicans voted against certifying the election results, alleging fraud (NYTimes). After pushback from community groups, some corporations decided they would stop contributing to these candidates. However, businesses like AT&T, Intel, and Cigna have since betrayed those promises with quiet donations to Republican fundraising committees, ensuring their money will in part be distributed to those who voted in lockstep with an attempted coup.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Lots of you readers asked how corporate commitments to racial equity compared to campaign contributions over the past four years. Today, we're highlighting an initiative that's tracking corporate funding to those that supported the insurrection earlier this year. Read more and take action.

Our free, daily newsletter is made possible by our passionate team of readers that give one time or monthly to help sustain the work. If you want to support, give monthly on Patreon. Or, you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Tell corporations to stop funding insurrectionists in Congress using the resources on the Insurrection Incorporated website.
Educate yourself about corporate lobbying and reasons for corporate political donations.
Learn how campaigns have forced powerful corporations to change their behavior.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Color of Change PAC’s Insurrection Incorporated is a campaign to pressure companies to permanently stop supporting those who voted against certifying last year’s election. Their website tracks companies who supported such politicians and notes whether any donations were given after January 6th. Readers can contact corporate leaders directly to demand such support stop (Insurrection Incorporated).

Several of those who voted against the election results had received contributions from computer firm Intel. Though Intel insisted such support would cease, on February 26th, the company gave $15,000 to the National Republican Campaign Committee (Insurrection Incorporated). Why would Intel want to overthrow American democracy?

The American political system has been exceptionally good to Intel Corporation, which earned $77.9 billion in revenue last year alone (Intel). Intel was founded in the United States and its headquarters are in California to this day. It’s hard to believe that anybody inside those buildings, from the cafeteria dishwashers to the CEO, thought that shredding the Constitution would help Intel make more money than it already does.

And when we’re thinking about corporate political donations, the bottom line is all that matters. Investors buy stocks in publicly-traded companies hoping to profit as the value of those companies, and their stocks, rises. Publicly-traded companies have a responsibility to become more valuable so that their investors are enriched as well, whether over the short term or long (Forbes). The point of any corporation is to make money for itself and for those who gamble on its success. The decisions taken by any rationally-managed company will be towards this one objective.

Last year, Intel gave over $500,000 to federal candidates. The majority were Republicans, but almost half were Democrats (Open Secrets). When you’re a multinational corporation whose profits can be influenced by innumerable governmental policies, it helps to have as many politicians on the payroll as you can. And even if you think one party might help more than the other, with that much cash, it can’t hurt to hedge your bets.

“Companies donate millions to political causes,” says Business Insider, “to have a say in government” (Business Insider). It’s not like Intel’s CEO decided to continue giving money to Republicans because he sincerely hoped Trump would be President-for-Life. But he knew that both Democrats and Republicans will continue voting on numerous issues that could affect Intel’s profit margin.

What’s true for political donations is true for other kinds of corporate giving as well. After the protests last summer, Target announced that it “stands with Black families, communities, and team members,” since improving its public image with the socially conscious might help it make more money. Target simultaneously donated over $3 million to the National Museum of Law Enforcement and continued to run a Minneapolis forensics lab to assist police officers, since these actions might help it make money as well (Business Insider). The issue isn’t that corporations are hypocritical or have divided loyalties. They only have loyalty to their bottom line, and every political contribution or public statement or charitable fund is a means to that end.

This means we have some leverage to change corporate behavior. If a company expects its donation to a right-wing politician will net it a certain amount of money, we only need to demonstrate that a negative public campaign will cost them an even greater amount of money should they follow through. This could take the shape of a direct action to hamper business operation, a boycott to reduce sales, or a public relations campaign that makes their products and brand less appealing. The objective of the Insurrection Incorporated campaign isn’t to make corporations grow a heart, but to convince them that supporting certain politicians can be extremely costly if enough people come together.

These actions can’t make companies moral or righteous or maybe even decent places to work. And they certainly can’t erase all the bad effects of a system where the most powerful actors are sprawling conglomerates maneuvering to enrich themselves at the expense of people and the planet. But even when our adversaries are powerful and wealthy beyond comprehension, and the action each of us takes might be very small, with enough of us we can make a real change.

We can take action once we really understand corporate donations.

Key Takeaways

Companies have continued to support Republican politicians even after the attempted coup.
Many of these companies also support Democrats, since corporate contributions are designed for profit maximization, not ideals.
This includes donations or statements in support of progressive causes, like Black Lives Matter.
We can stop bad corporate practices or contributions by making them more costly for companies than not.

5/4/2021 | Fight anti-protest legislation.

9/27/2020 | Protect the polls.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/31/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/31/21

Learn about safe haven communities.

The Freedom Georgia Initiative springs from a “desire to create generational wealth for our families” in a place where “restoration, recreation, and reformation” are possible. The ability to conserve family resources and enjoy ample rest and recreation has been denied to generations of Black families. As an explicitly pro-Black city in an anti-Black nation, Freedom, Georgia hopes to be a new start (Complex).

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! A special thanks to our members of the military reading this right now.

Friday's email outlined the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the importance of paying reparations to acknowledge and account for the devastation and loss that its victims and descendants experienced.

Today is a story about what restoring and rebuilding can look like, highlighting a Black community in Georgia. As you read, consider: what does a safe haven mean for you? What does safety mean for you? And how can we become active members of our community for its growth and development?

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give monthly on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

ps – some of the Take Action resources we provided in Friday's newsletter didn't work for some of our readers. If you want to take more direct action to support Tulsa, you can sign this petition or make a donation that directly supports survivors and descendants of the massacre.

TAKE ACTION

Read Ashley Scott’s op-ed about the Freedom Georgia Initiative’s goals.
Follow or support the Freedom Georgia Initiative (Instagram).
Learn about New Communities, an earlier effort to build community for Black people in Georgia.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In December, the site of a soon-to-be-built Georgia city quintupled. Earlier that year, jogger Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by white men whose arrests would take two months of protests and public pressure (USA Today). More than a dozen families purchased land to create a new city free of white supremacy in the aftermath of this atrocity. With the December addition, the site of Freedom, Georgia now comprises over 500 acres (Fox 5).

Ever since Emancipation, Black land and property have been seized, looted, attacked, and, in the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street, firebombed from airplanes (American Prospect) (CNBC). In part, because it’s so hard to build intergenerational wealth without land, the average Black family has only 10% of the wealth of the average white family (USA Today). These practices have inspired generations of resistance. Freedom, Georgia, isn’t the first effort of its kind in the United States. It isn’t even the first initiative of its sort in Georgia.

In 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) started organizing against the disenfranchisement of Black people under Jim Crow laws in the South. But Black farmers who registered to vote in SNCC voting drives faced eviction by white landowners. For many people, homelessness was the price of political participation (New Communities). To learn more about how Black people have been pushed out of farming, see our piece on Agricultural Education.

SNCC co-founder Charles Sherrod and his wife Shirley realized that control of land was an essential part of Black liberation. In 1969, the Sherrods started a collective farm in Lee County, Georgia, where Black people could live and work on community-controlled land without fear of retribution from white landlords. This farm, called New Communities, was the first example of a model of collective land ownership for community benefit called a community land trust.

“It really gave me a sense that I can do anything,” said Bummi Anderson of her childhood growing up in New Communities. “It was a group of people coming together really with the same ideals, the same hopes, and dreams for their children. We were a product of that, and so we grew up having the same sense of pride on who we were as African-Americans” (NPR).

Today, community land trusts preserve collectively-controlled, truly affordable housing across the country (Schumacher Center). New Communities understood that we need control of our homes and neighborhoods to struggle for justice. Today, the Freedom Georgia Initiative is walking a similar road as they plan utility infrastructure before moving onto the design and construction of the new city (Insider).

Co-founder Ashley Scott says that today’s Freedom Georgia Initiative was inspired by the realization that Black life was threatened even in cities with Black mayors and police chiefs, such as Atlanta. Scott says, “It was clear that developing new cities was necessary because these old ones, even with strong Black leadership, have too many deep-rooted problems…We figured we could try to fix a broken system or we could start fresh. Start a city that could be a shining example of being the change you want to see” (Blavity).

Those involved in the Initiative are the first to acknowledge that the road ahead will not be easy. “It is a long game,” Scott told the Insider. “Nothing is changed overnight.” Fighting racism by leaving existing American communities behind entirely to attempt to create a new one from scratch may seem a drastic move. But it’s nothing compared to the ways America has enforced anti-Black racism, exploitation, and death for centuries. From the horrors of chattel slavery to the violence of Jim Crow, from the assassination of civil rights leaders to the police murders and mass incarceration of today, generations of efforts to reform American white supremacy have failed to put it to an end. In the words of scholars Darrick Hamilton and Trevon Logan, “The most just approach would be a comprehensive reparation program that acknowledges these grievances and offers compensatory restitution, including ownership of land and other means of production” (The Conversation). Reforming a society so constitutionally incapable of reckoning with its nature and history may well be more far-fetched than creating a brand-new city from the ground up.

Key Takeaways

Families are planning a new, pro-Black city called Freedom, GA.
The ability to build intergenerational wealth and safety has long been denied to Black families.
There is a rich history of Black liberation movements encompassing housing justice and land sovereignty.

RELATED ISSUES

2/22/2021 | Advocate for reparations.

1/17/2021 | Support Black farmers.

5/12/2021 | Reverse racist land grabs.

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