Angel Adams Parham’s book American Routes: Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race (Oxford, 2017, available in hardcover and as an ebook from many vendors) is an exciting work that makes a novel and important contribution to our understanding of race in the US. The “racial palimpsest” idea is that
Read moreWhen Republicans Opposed the Free Speech of David Duke
In 1996, the College Republicans thought it was an unfair attack on their opposition to affirmative action to associate it with a known White racist.
Read moreThe Top Social Justice Stories of 2017 that will Define 2018
2017 was a tumultuous year. In many ways, the country moved backwards on some issues of social justice that many believed had begun to move forward. The Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, which President Obama had previously put the kibosh on due to environmental concerns and the protests of
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Student backgrounds
In a pre-class survey, I asked my students questions about their own racial/ethnic backgrounds and the types of places they have lived in. Race first, where I grouped the “mixed” race answers for people who combined White with Latinx or Black into the minority group for this table. This course
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The Illegalization of Undocumented Immigrants
With the Trump administration announcing the end of DACA, which protected undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, the issue of undocumented immigrants is a topic of intense debate, with some favoring increased efforts to locate and expel all undocumented immigrants and others viewing this as part of a larger context
Read moreRace Names
When we teach race, we must have a vocabulary so we can talk about race. Students need to know which words are preferred, which are contested, which are now likely to offend but were never used as insults in their time, and which are unambiguous insults that should not be
Read moreThe Harmful Effects of Implicit Racial Bias in the Police
In a study of police body camera footage recently undergone by researchers at Stanford University, it was found that police officers on average spoke less respectfully to black residents than their white counterparts. This meant that black community members were less likely to be addressed with a formal greeting, titles
Read morePreparing to Teach About Race
For nearly 30 years, I’ve taught “Ethnic Movements in the US,” which takes a social movements approach to comparing the history and politics of American Indians, African Americans, Latinx Americans, and Asian Americans. This course meets the ethnic studies requirement and attracts both students who are actually interested in the
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What the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Actually Says
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred the northern half of Mexico to US control.* It is a central document in US history, as well as in Mexican history. The “Mexican cession” as it is somewhat euphemistically called, is central to the construction of the US nation. Forgetting the cession is
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Whitewashing the South (and elsewhere)
The past is always with us. How we talk about our personal biography and how we talk about our city’s or nation’s history are part of how we function today. Kristen Lavelle’s Whitewashing the South: White Memories of Segregation and Civil Rights is based on interviews with older 44 White residents
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