#workplace antiracism programs

[finishinglinepress]

Your book is featured in the upcoming week. This email contains some important information about your book. Please read until the end of the page.

FLP MEMOIR BOOK OF THE DAY: And Then She Persisted by Kenisha Coon, MS

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And Then She Persisted is a #memoir that delves into the author’s journey of overcoming #generational #trauma, #abuse, and #neglect, while also confronting $racism and advocating for change. Through a combination of personal reflections, therapy, spiritual exploration, and education, the author navigates the complexities of their identity as a #biracial woman raised in a white household. The memoir emphasizes the importance of relationships and support in #healing, while also providing insights and guidance for those on their own journey towards anti-racism. Ultimately, it is a testament to resilience, allyship, and the power of persistence in confronting systemic challenges and embracing one’s true purpose.

Kenisha Coon, MS, (she/her) has lived experience of trauma and resilience in the child welfare system. She has her Bachelor's degree and Master’s degree in Psychology. She has a Post-Masters teaching certificate in Psychology and a DEI in the workplace certification. She has 13 years of experience in the sector of child welfare and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work. She is a leader of Antiracism and DEI work throughout the country, such as facilitating conversations, training, creating strategic plans, and consulting. She is a graduate of the Minority Professional Leadership Development Program and has collaborated with AdoptUSKids, National Adoption Association, and Families Rising to bring racial awareness and equitable training and education to the child welfare scene. In her personal life, Kenisha runs a DEI consulting business, Kenisha Coon Consulting as well as a calligraphy business, Lettering by Kenisha. Kenisha volunteers in several communities where the main focus is on expanding and educating of Race Equity and DEI learning to those who may not have had the space to be courageous. By day you will Kenisha working to dismantle the disparities of black and brown youth in the child welfare system and teaching others lessons toward becoming antiracist in everything that they do. By night, she is lettering, doodling, and creating to make folks happy and to nurture her own mental health. She is a consultant, a speaker, an ally, an activist, a writer, a mom, and a wife. Her latest project is as the author of And Then She Persisted. The story of overcoming generational trauma, abuse, and neglect. It is the story of standing up against racism. It's a story of advocacy, passion, allyship, and surrendering to stepping into one's purpose. Kenisha is exploring publishing right now.

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[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

John McWhorter: The Anti-Science Attitude of the Intolerant Orthodoxy

This is Trofim Lysenko.

Following Stalin’s failed efforts to collectivize agricultural production, causing between 7 and 14 million people to starve to death, the geneticist Lysenko claimed he had the answers to mass produce crops to make it work. Lysenko threw out the established science of the West, dismissing it because it allowed too much of a role to individual actors, contrary to the focus of Communist ideology.

Lysenko told Soviet leadership exactly what they wanted to hear; and as a former peasant and member of the Communist Party, he was exactly who they wanted to hear it from. After gaining the personal support of Stalin, scientists critical of Lysenko were purged and imprisoned as Lysenkoism became state-sanctioned doctrine.

But no matter how much the Soviets wanted Lysenko’s pseudoscience to be true, it wasn​​’t. Famines caused by instituting Lysenko’s theories killed tens-of-millions of people across the Soviet Union and Maoist China.

Ideology twisting scholarship with dangerous consequences is a phenomenon hardly limited to the Soviet Union, it’s happening here, right now, in America in an effort to spread an intolerant orthodoxy masquerading as “antiracism.”

Take the orthodoxy that microaggressions are a grinding problem for black Americans, exerting significant psychological damage upon us.

Nevermind that the academic “literature” undergirding microaggressions is full of holes. It’s based on tiny sample sizes, is never replicated, It ignores the legions of black people surveyed who deny that acts labeled as microaggressions actually bother them, and it doesn’t show that supposed microaggressions correlate with racist sentiment of any kind.

Or take the orthodoxy that every workplace needs a diversity, equity, and inclusion program that teaches people to be more aware of racial differences. Nevermind that scientific surveys show such programs neither further diversify the workplace nor foster interethnic harmony, and in fact, if anything, increase interethnic conflict.

And the “implicit bias” testing often used to justify such programs, which purports to measure people’s subconscious racism, has been demonstrated by psychologists to have low reliability and weak predictors of real world discrimination.

And there’s the orthodoxy that all discrepancies between the races must be because of “systemic racism.” This idea with only the vaguest notion of what a “system” even is is presented as if it were “science”, but it’s quite simply anti-science. It flies in the face of how hard people work to master fields like psychology, sociology, anthropology, and history to explain discrepancies in more nuanced ways.

Of course, believers in the intolerant orthodoxy are not exerting the degree of physical violence and assassinations that Stalinists exerted to enforce Lysenkoism. My comparison is of the relevant frames of mind. However, the intolerant orthodoxy is indeed doing great harm to our society.

If we want to heal the racial divisions in our nation, we need real science and scholarship not twisted by ideology. The Soviets couldn’t feed their people simply by wanting Lysenkoism to be true, and their rigid ideology and purging of opponents prevented them from finding answers that didn’t cause more harm than good.

Believing that being more race conscious in all aspects of our lives can cure our ills won’t make it so. But if we’re willing to open our mind beyond the ideas that are presently popular, we might just be able to find what will.

I’m John McWhorter. For more, read my book “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America,” and join me at FairForAll.org.

==

Quack “scholarship,” such as Kendiism, DiAngeloism and the “Microaggressions” paper by Derald Wing Sue are the modern equivalents of phrenology. They do more harm than good because they don’t substantiate their claims and aren’t based on anything empirical, so aren’t aligned with reality.

Their ideologies might be best understood as demands to cure Demon Possession.

You might well ask, “okay, back up a bit - how do you know it’s Demon Possession?” And you would likely be told, “because they’re unwell.” And you might well ask, “that’s it, because they’re unwell? Do you even know what they have?” And you might be told, “we already know what they have, it’s Demon Possession.” You might respond, “but these people obviously have schizophrenia, while these people over here just have the flu.” And you could be told, “no, they’re possessed by Demons.” And you might suggest, “but we should be looking at what each of them has and treating that.” To which you might be told, “that doesn’t solve Demon Possession, what’s wrong with you that you don’t want to get rid of the Demons and have to deflect away from the most important thing, the critical task of exorcising the Demons? We know the Demons are there because they’re unwell. What are you, a Demon Worshiper?”

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

If you look at American workplaces at the moment I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that antiracism was quite easy. The speed at which diversity training programs mushroomed in the aftermath of the anti-police uprisings of the past summer, along with specialist gurus leading them, could easily lead you to think that antiracism was a set of politics best practiced in the bowels of HR departments. No Black bodies left dying on streets, no police stations to burn, just a stack of Robin D’Angelo books and late afternoon management-led sensitivity training sessions.

US companies currently spend $8 billion annually on diversity training. This is despite multiple studies demonstrating that such training neither increases diversity nor stamps out racism. And yet they continue. They continue precisely because these HR exercises are not about dismantling white supremacy; they are about inoculating companies and universities against lawsuits from people who encounter racism and sexism at work.

[isaacsapphire]

"...this administrator decided that because Jews, being a tiny percentage of the US population are overrepresented in higher education generally, and at the college where I worked in particular, antiracism in this instance required that the number of Jewish students be reduced. Moreover, because there were 60 students at Shabbat and only a handful of Muslim students on campus, the Jewish group should not exist...

... Wellness is deemed a suitable substitute for religious practice because progressive administrators find it more “manageable.” After all, questions of equity, in practice, are often questions about the allocation of resources. So budgets are shifted around and monies moved away from programs that are “for” members of a religious group but open to all comers and toward programs “about” a particular cultural celebration—even if the latter tend to be paper thin. 

So, for example, we were treated to a campus-wide celebration of Diwali with an Indian food buffet, but no Hindu spirituality in sight. And there was a celebration of Día de los Muertos that gave students the opportunity to decorate sugar skulls and to see ofrendas in the hallways of the campus art museum, but these ofrendas did not feature any explicitly Christian or Catholic imagery. It’s the Epcot of cultural encounter. Ultimately, the successor ideology benefits academics and administrators who use it to protect themselves from any possible criticism or censure for being insufficiently antiracist, but it provides students with nothing more than an ersatz, feel-good simulacrum of diversity and equity."

[arcticdementor]

An unlikely thing happened to me on my two weeks’ off. I watched an HBO Max miniseries that mocked some aspects of wokeness.

Mike White’s “The White Lotus” is a tragicomic exposé of our current moneyed elites and the psychological dysfunction they labor so mightily under. There’s a blithe, unthinking finance jock, with a worked-out bod, an uneasy new wife, and a shitload of money, who can muster misery at the slightest ruffle in perfection. There’s the beta male, married to the mega-rich corporate CEO wife, worried about the condition his balls. There’s the super-uptight gay manager, hanging on to sobriety, as he performs for his clients; the mega-wealthy, overweight lost soul, played by Jennifer Coolidge, whose life is a pampered abyss of emotional desolation; and an aspiring young journalist who reconciles herself to money and indolence over a mindless career of clickbait snark.

…

And the most repellent characters are two elite-college sophomores, Olivia and Paula, packed to the gills with the fathomlessly entitled smugness that is beginning to typify the first generation re-programmed by critical theory fanatics. You watch as they casually abuse and denigrate their brother — a young man consumed by living online; you see how they mock anyone who doesn’t meet their exacting standards of youth or beauty; you watch them betray and lie to each other; you see them condescend to someone still struggling to pay back student loans (see the clip above); and you witness the co-ed of color, Paula, act out her antiracist principles, with disastrous real world results for a Hawaiian she thinks she is saving from oppression. She leaves her wreckage behind, gliding away, with impunity, to another semester of battling racism.

At one point, in a memorable scene, as the white daughter expounds about the evil of white straight men, her mother points out that she is actually talking about her brother, sitting at the same table. An individual person. Right next to her. Someone she might even love, if such a thing were within her capacity. Someone who cannot be reduced to a demonized version of his unchosen race and heterosexuality. And the only character one can bond with, and root for, is indeed this young white American male, awkward but genuine, whose story ends with a new bond with his dad, an escape from online addiction, and a newly revitalized human life.

“The White Lotus” is not an anti-woke jeremiad. It’s much subtler than that. Even the sophomores seem more naïve and callow than actively sexist and racist. The miniseries doesn’t look away from the staggering social inequality we now live in; and gives us a classic white, straight, male, rich narcissist in the finance jock. But it’s humane. It sees the unique drama of the individual and how that can never be reduced to categories or classes or identities.

And this step toward humaneness is what interests me. Because if we can’t intellectually engage people on how critical theory is palpably wrong in its view of the world, we can sure show how brutal and callous it is — and must definitionally be — toward individual human beings in the pursuit of utopia. “The White Lotus” is thereby a liberal work of complexity and art.

…

Applebaum’s Atlantic piece is a good sign from a magazine that hired and quickly purged a writer for wrong think, and once held a town meeting auto-da-fé to decide which writers they would permanently anathematize as moral lepers.

Similarly, it was quite a shock to read in The New Yorker a fair and empathetic profile of an academic geneticist, Kathryn Paige Harden, who acknowledges a role for genetics in social outcomes. It helps that Harden is, like Freddie DeBoer, on the left; and the piece is strewn with insinuations that other writers on genetics, like Charles Murray, deny that the environment plays a part in outcomes as well (when it is clear to anyone who can read that this is grotesquely untrue). But if the readers of The New Yorker need to be fed distortions about some on the right in order for them to consider the unavoidable emergence of “polygenic scores” for humans, with their vast political and ethical implications, then that’s a step forward.

…

And then, in the better-late-than-never category, The Economist, the bible for the corporate elite, has just come out unapologetically against the Successor Ideology, and in favor of liberalism. This matters, it seems to me, because among the most zealous of the new Puritans are the boards and HR departments of major corporations, which are dedicated right now to enforcing the largest intentional program of systemic race and sex discrimination in living memory. Money quote: “Progressives replace the liberal emphasis on tolerance and choice with a focus on compulsion and power. Classical liberals conceded that your freedom to swing your fist stops where my nose begins. Today’s progressives argue that your freedom to express your opinions stops where my feelings begin.”

The Economist also pinpoints the core tenets of CRT in language easy to understand: “a belief that any disparities between racial groups are evidence of structural racism; that the norms of free speech, individualism and universalism which pretend to be progressive are really camouflage for this discrimination; and that injustice will persist until systems of language and privilege are dismantled.” These “systems of language and privilege” are — surprise! — freedom of speech and economic liberty. If major corporations begin to understand that, they may reconsider their adoption of a half-baked racialized Marxism as good management. Maybe that might persuade Google not to mandate indoctrination in ideas such as the notion being silent on questions of race is “covert white supremacy,” a few notches below lynching.

…

And then there’s a purely anecdotal reflection, to be taken for no more than that: all summer, I’ve been struck by how many people, mostly complete strangers, have come up to me and told me some horror story of an unjust firing, a workplace they’re afraid to speak in, a colleague who has used antiracism for purely vindictive or careerist purposes, or a hiring policy so crudely racist it beggars belief. The toll is mounting. And the anger is growing. The fury at CRT in high schools continues to roil school board meetings across the country. Some Americans are not taking this new illiberalism on the chin.

This isn’t much, I know. Read Peter Boghossian’s resignation letter from Portland State University to see how deep the rot has gotten. But it’s something. It’s a sign that there is now some distance from the moral panic of mid-2020 and the start of reflection upon the most zealous aspects of this new illiberalism.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 22

Students at George Mason University spent days protesting the hiring of Brett Kavanaugh as a visiting law professor at GMU’s Law School. Some students complained to campus leaders, telling them students’ mental health is threatened by the Kavanaugh hire, despite the Law School being located 3,500 miles away from the university. “This decision has really impacted me negatively. It is affecting my mental health knowing that an abuser will be part of our faculty.” Another female student gave similar comments to the board, “As someone who has survived sexual assault three times I do not feel comfortable with someone who has sexual assault allegations like walking on campus.” A third female student told the board, “we are fighting to eradicate sexual violence on this campus. But the hiring of Kavanaugh threatens the mental well being of all survivors on this campus.” The next day, students marched around campus chanting “kick Kavanaugh off campus” and holding “cancel Kavanaugh” signs while some stuck blue tape over their mouths.

University of Colorado Denver brought back a 2016 course, “Problematizing Whiteness: Educating for Racial Justice.” Students will learn “the plight of people of color and how white people are complicit.” The course details explains, “The study of whiteness has always sought to challenge racism, racial privilege, white supremacy, and colorblind racism. However, to overindulge in the spectacle of ‘white racial epiphanies’ overlooks the ongoing work whites must do to participate in racial justice. Beyond the feel-good of momentary White racial awareness lurk enormous concerns about how to continually examine Whiteness in order to uphold antiracism, moreover the fruition of a more racially just society.” It also, understandably, tells students that recording any of the lecture is forbidden.

A State University of New York College at Old Westbury professor wrote an article which he states it makes him happy when he sees poor white people on the street begging for food and often wonders how hard he should kick them in the head. “White people begging us for food feels like justice. It feels like Afro-Futurism after America falls. It feels like a Black Nationalist wet dream. It has the feels I rarely feel, a hunger for historical vengeance satisfied so well I rub my belly.” White people, he says, are a Rorschach test: “I see in them the history of colonization, slavery and mass incarceration that makes their begging Black people for money ironic - if not insulting. You wasted your whiteness! Why should we give to you?” The professor admits that this isn’t a “good look,” however, when he thinks about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “be thy best self” and “show compassion to those who spite you,” he retorts “go f**k another secretary Martin!” 

A University of Utah student reported her business professor to campus administrators for assigning too many books written by male economists and philosophers. “Many of these figures are of great importance. But at what cost do we continue to plant the seed of sexism in the minds of individuals? But especially in a course and college that is already deemed to be a ‘boys club,’ continuing those teachings, and those teachings being delivered by a professor of his character is dangerous.” The student also took issue in her bias report about a joke the professor made about how, “while all our jobs will be taken by robots,” he will be “retired living in Tahiti surrounded by 40-45 beautiful women feeding him grapes.” The student complained, “Not only did the professor willingly and openly objectify women, but he also objectified women of color. Women of another culture.”

University of Texas at Austin freshmen were threatened to be doxed if they considered joining the Young Conservatives of Texas or Turning Point USA. “Hey #UT23! Do you wanna be famous? If you join YCT or Turning Point USA, you just might be. Your name and more could end up on an article like one of these,” the tweet said, linking to previous doxing posts of conservative students at the school. “So be sure to make smart choices at #UTOrientation.” They went on to encourage other students, “if you begin to spot the young racists trying to join YCT or TPUSA, send us a tip so we can keep our reports up to date.” The anarchist student network have already released extensive personal information of pro-Brett Kavanaugh demonstrators at UT Austin, including their names, photos and contact information. It went so far as to post some of the phone numbers of the employers of students and urged them to be fired.

Webster University offered its white faculty and staff a chance to “witness their whiteness” in a program that seeks to eliminate racism. According to the event description, Witnessing Whiteness is about “white people voluntarily coming together to do work around racism in a supportive, non-threatening setting.” It’s also about “learning to speak about race and racism, exploring white privilege, and practicing allying with sisters and brothers of color.” White attendees also were taught how to commit to positive change in their lives, workplace and region and understand and practice interrupting racism and developing skills to act as agents of change.

University of North Georgia hosted several "safe zone trainings" to make the school a “safer, more inclusive environment for members of the LGBTQ+ community.” Students were given handouts which featured a ‘gender unicorn’ cartoon and encouraged attendees to use “LGBTQ-Inclusive Language” by giving them a list of “Dos and Don'ts.” They asked students to not use words such as “mailman” and “ladies and gentlemen” or phrases such as “both genders” and “opposite sexes,” instead suggesting that they use “all genders.” Attendees were also shown a YouTube video from Franchesca Ramsey called “5 Tips For Being An Ally,” which instructed them to understand their privilege.

Middlebury College were forced to soothe upset and angry students after Polish conservative scholar and politician Ryszard Legutko was invited to speak on campus about totalitarian temptations within liberal democracies. Ironically, the school canceled the lecture just hours beforehand after some students complained, then later held a reflection meeting with the student protestors, where administrators told them, “I hear you, and you should be outraged, and we should acknowledge that and apologize, because that’s the least we can do right now, because we can’t make it right in the moment. But in the future we will do everything we can to make it right.” As the safe space meeting was going on, unbeknown to the protesters, a political science professor allowed Legutko to be ushered into his classroom and address students in secrecy. 

At University of Texas at Austin, a pro-life speaker’s event was disrupted after someone set off a smoke bomb, triggering the building’s fire alarm and forcing attendees to be evacuated. The event went forward in another building.

A Canadian University of New Brunswick professor said he is in favor of taking a variety of actions against “white supremacists” who speak on campus, including publicly shaming them, firing them from their jobs and driving them from restaurants. What’s concerning about this is the professor’s definition of white supremacists. He said the "Make America Great Again" hats will carry the same shame as the uniforms worn by the Ku Klux Klan. “Every time I watch a documentary about the civil rights movement and all the hateful violence they faced, I wonder what the white people who were doing those horrible things were thinking... We are living in an era with Donald Trump and the Republican Party and the right-wing movement in America where things of similar gravity are happening. The entire sentiment of 'Make America Great Again' implies that there was a time when America was great and it's not any longer... America for Trump and his supporters is no longer great because black people have too many rights or there are too many women in the workplace."

A City University of New York professor was interviewed on radio where she stated the “ideology of racialized terrorism” is the responsibility of every white person in the United States. She criticized America for building "mental health hospital beds for white home-grown terrorists, but concentration camps and high-level security prisons for Black, and Black and Brown immigrants.” She goes on to wonder why we pay tribute every September 11 to “the pillars of American capitalism,” but never to “the young Black and Brown” victims. She also claims she's suffered in capitalist America after being designated a “other, non-white" on her arrival into the country and "white America has damned this democracy into the hands of white terrorists.” 

A University of Arizona student live-streamed herself on Facebook harassing two Border Patrol agents who were giving a lecture to Criminal Justice students. The female student stood near the door of the room, zooming in on the officers repeatedly while calling them murderers and saying they were an extension of the KKK on campus. “They allow murderers to be on campus where I pay to be here. Murderers!” In the second part of the video, the student follows the Border Patrol agents to their vehicle, repeating the phrase “Murder Patrol!” and also yelling at them in Spanish. At the end of the video, she films a protest apparently against the appearance of the officers. The student also launched into a rant about the “white woman” who attempted to talk to her. 

Gonzaga University’s Women and Gender Studies and Native American Studies departments hosted a screening and discussion about Disney’s film, Moana, titled, "Is Moana about rape?" According to the flyer, the professor behind the lesson discussed how Western patriarchy and masculinity attack “the feminine,” indigenous cultures, and the environment and nature. “Layne will ultimately also suggest that the film is Neocolonialist. It excuses Western culture from oppressing women, degrading the environment and erasing/murdering indigenous people,” the flyer says. It also came with a trigger warning, stating that racism, sexual assault, genocide and colonialism will be addressed.

Tufts University decided to remove a historical mural after students complained that the paintings depicting only white people eroded the school’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. The Alumnae Lounge mural, which depicts “the great names of men” of the school’s history, does not include “a single image of a person of color" which has lead students to complain that “they don’t want to receive awards in Alumnae Lounge because they feel excluded.” Tufts Senior Vice President said. “We want to attract a diversity of people to the university. But no less important, when they arrive, we want them to feel they belong here.” Tufts Africana Center Director applauded the decision, saying “the murals create an unwelcoming space for current students of color.”

Also at Gozaga University, an assistant professor wrote an op-ed where he blasted one of his white law students and accused him of deliberate “racial antagonism” because the student wore a MAGA hat to class. Without naming the student, the assistant professor wrote, “From my perspective as a black man living in the increasingly polarized political climate that is America, MAGA is an undeniable symbol of white supremacy and hatred toward certain nonwhite groups. I was unsure whether the student was directing a hateful message toward me or if he merely lacked decorum and was oblivious to how his hat might be interpreted by his black law professor. I presumed it was the former. As the student sat there directly in front of me, his shiny red MAGA hat was like a siren spewing derogatory racial obscenities at me for the duration of the one hour and fifteen-minute class. As my blood boiled inwardly, I jokingly told the student, ‘I like your hat.’ Without missing a beat, the student mockingly grinned from ear to ear and said, ‘Thank you.’” The professor concluded by arguing that “‘making America great again’ suggests a return to the days when women and people of color were denied access to these very institutions.”

A George Mason University assistant professor took to Twitter to ask white parents across America: “Why are you producing so many young white male terrorists?” “What is going on in your households? How involved are you with your sons? Are you missing signs their racism is filtering out of commonplace household racism into ‘I want to murder strangers’ racism?” She followed up with a reply to the white parents declaring their devotion to making sure their child isn’t a white terrorist, “I appreciate the testimonials of white parents doing the work of raising anti racist children. You give me a bit of hope.” 

The University of Michigan revamped its already transgender-friendly student health plan to include more services on top of sex-change operations. The school already covers mastectomies, genital surgeries, hormone therapy and counseling for transgender students. These plans now also accommodate “facial feminization surgeries,” as well as facial hair removal and “Adam’s apple reduction.” Another addition is “fertility preservation” for transgender students whose transition efforts result in infertility.

A Massachusetts school superintendent told a community audience that white people in our “systematically corrupt system that oppresses black individuals” need to “rewire their brains” in order to overcome their biases. The Pittsfield Public Schools chief (who is white) also blasted Trump, blaming the president's “daily hate” for the rise in racism and hatred on a national level. The event was planned to announce the implementation of African American history courses in local high schools. The course will delve into African American oppression and plans on stopping the normalization of seeing “black people being beaten on TV.” A teacher who worked on the curricula design at the schools said her eyes had been opened after participating in implicit bias training and reading the book "Waking Up White." 

Hofstra University students protested a statue of Thomas Jefferson at an annual event, titled “Jefferson Has Gotta Go!” which was co-organized by local Planned Parenthood staff. For the past few years, students have defaced the statue with “DECOLONIZE” and “Black Lives Matter” in an attempt to pressure the university president to join the long list of schools removing or covering up “traumatizing” statues and artwork. So far, the statue remains. 

An academic conference in Toronto focused on “Critical Becky Studies,” with multiple professors and faculty from American universities participating. “This session aims to characterize ‘Becky,’ a term specific to white women who engage whiteness, often in gendered ways,” the session description states. “Explorations of Becky and implications of educational practice from a variety of perspectives and contexts will illuminate the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression tied to the gendered and raced mechanisms of whiteness enacted by Becky,” says the session description. Another paper discussed in the panel was titled “Border Becky: Exploring White Women's Emotionality, Ignorance, and Investment in Whiteness.” According to the description, the paper focuses on white women who must undergo a battle in order to extract themselves “from the white supremacist alliance.” 

At University of South Dakota, a planned ‘Hawaiian Day’ themed event had to be changed to ‘Beach Day,’ due to a cultural appropriation complaint from a single student. The student group planning the party were told to make the name change and to ban handing out leis as it violates the school's policy on inclusiveness. The group posted, “It was determined that these (leis) are culturally insensitive by the administration after doing research based off of the essay written by the initial complainant.” 

Williams College student activists demanded the Board of Trustees "commit to a complete process of reparation and reconciliation to indigenous peoples." The open letter states, “Many junior faculty of color are considering medical leave due to the unmitigating stress of living in an unsupportive and callous environment and to avoid the emotional detriment of existing here.” The students then demanded a “complete process of reparation and reconciliation” to the indigenous peoples, “approve a request of $34,000 as well as the increase of $15,000 additional funding for incoming Minority Coalition groups.” ”Offer free weekend shuttles for faculty and staff" and provide separate housing for black and queer students, as well as for all other marginalized groups. Lastly, “hire more therapists, especially trans and racial minority therapists.”

Dominican University in California has added a new major, wholly focused on social justice. The school created the major after a “growing number” of students became interested in social justice “careers,” according to the university news release. Students who major in social justice will have the chance to “examine the links between well-being, social justice, and diverse worldviews.” Additionally, students will “analyze social injustices and work toward positive social change.”

The State University of New York-Plattsburgh offered students the chance to de-stress with therapy donkeys during their Wellness Fair. 

[nypaenergy]

NYPA First Utility to Team With American Association of Blacks in Energy

At the NYPA Board of Trustees committee meeting this week, Authority CEO & President Gil Quiniones outlined the commitment to further its culture of diversity, equity and inclusion. New plans include working with the Energy Equity Initiative of the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE), implementing a ten-point diversity, equity and inclusion action strategy, and doubling investment from $5m to $10m on antiracism training throughout the organization. NYPA is the first utility in the U.S. to join the AABE Energy Equity campaign.

“We are embracing an opportunity today to lead -- to lead our industry and our sector – by pursuing a multi-faceted, action plan to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace at NYPA,” said Gil Quiniones. “By partnering with the American Association of Blacks in Energy to achieve its essential campaign’s far-reaching goals, we will together achieve greater African American representation at NYPA, and in the broader energy, renewable energy and electrification fields.”  

The plan’s internal & external measures include the following points: 

Internal Commitments

1. Reaffirm NYPA’s commitment to building and maintaining a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture.

2. Ensure that NYPA processes, policies and procedures are transparent and free from bias.

3. Expand ongoing training to NYPA employees on antiracism, unconscious bias, microaggression, and cultural competency.

4. Create a Chief Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Officer position, reporting to the President and CEO and to the Chief Human Resources and Administration Officer – and increase investment in the office of Civil Rights and Inclusion. 

5. Invest in NYPA’s black employees and create pathways for career development and upward mobility.

6. Cast a wider net and secure a diverse slate of applicants for vacancies by partnering with professional organizations such as the American Association of Blacks in Energy, Historically Black Colleges and Universities and local and national colleges and universities.    

7. Partner and support our employee unions at the national, regional and local levels and invest in their diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives.

External Commitments

8. Leverage NYPA’s experience, resources and purchasing power to build capacity and access to MWBE firms.

9. Broaden NYPA’s community-based STEM, student internship and mentorship programs to increase the pipeline of utility and clean energy workers of tomorrow – including the creation of a targeted college scholarship program.

10. Create an enterprise wide employee service program dedicated to understanding racial justice through our clean energy business, such as community solar for example, and energy sustainability work in environmental justice communities. 

Paula R. Glover, President & CEO, The American Association of Blacks in Energy, said, “The American Association of Blacks in Energy is pleased to team with NYPA in its work on racial equity. Like NYPA, we believe that working together we can be a better industry when we embrace opportunities to improve the representation of African Americans in the energy industry. With its 10-point plan, NYPA is the first energy company to join our Energy Equity Initiative. NYPA has long demonstrated support for communities during times of great need. We are thrilled to work with NYPA and at their commitment. AABE is committed to addressing the issues of equity and bias, and we invite others to join with us. We look forward to working with NYPA and other partners to make a difference in our business for African Americans.”

Further details can be found in the NYPA press release here.

[accesstomuseums]

Museums & Digital Black Lives Matter Activism

Any institution with a platform has a responsibility to be anti-racist. In these increasingly digital times, hashtags are an important tool in showing support. Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa open their article “#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media and the US” by explaining the significance of hashtags in any modern social justice movement.1 Hashtags reflect a digital arm of a movement that has body parts in both the virtual and physical realms. Many of the observations Bonilla and Rosa made about #Ferguson on Twitter are applicable to #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackoutTuesday on Instagram. These tags link posts together, regardless of the poster’s viewpoint or intent, and allow easy access to these posts by removing them from their original context and lumping them together. 2 The inclusion or omission of #BlackLivesMatter is taken as a political statement by many and has become a criterion for holding institutions, celebrities, and content creators accountable in standing up to racism. In the same vein, a poster’s use of #BlackLivesMatter on an image of a black square shows their lack of awareness, as the millions of black squares rendered nearly all the information on the #BlackLivesMatter tag impossible to find. It is widely recognized among activists that simply posting a black square is not sufficient in using one’s platform, regardless of their follower count. As citizens, we have a responsibility to use our voice and elevate others’ by sharing their posts to our stories and feeds. Digital activism is not the be-all end-all, it is only the beginning. In the case of institutions, their Instagram activity represents the first steps they are taking towards a more equitable future.

This post will examine the ways two very different museums (the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Poster House) engage with Black Lives Matter activism on their Instagram accounts. I will evaluate their activism based on their genuity versus performativity, the #blackouttuesday debacle, and duration of their support.

In a post from May 31, the Met (@metmuseum) posted a picture of Freedom of Speech by Faith Ringgold and was continuously called out in the comments for beating around the bush. One commenter said “Say what you NEED to say [with] your chest. Not these loose allusions or references”.3 The Museum responded with “Thank you, you’re right. We’ve amended our post”, but the caption still does not say Black Lives Matter.4 The Met did include #BlackLivesMatter in a caption on June 1, but the post was a black square that took up space on the hashtag during a critical period of organizing. This is not activism.

In the caption of their black square post, the Met pats itself on the back for the letter it sent to its employees. Regarding social media, the letter says: “We have been using our social media channels to highlight works from our collection that invite reflection on our nation's complicated past and present...We will continue to use social media to contribute to the national conversation, and we hope to respond to these issues thoughtfully in our blogs and other online programming in the coming weeks”.5 Since then, the account has included the work of Black artists in their posts more than they previously had, but not exclusively. On a search of the Met’s website for “Black Lives Matter”, the only relevant result is their Racial Justice Resource Library which contains links to third-party sites and a paragraph long disclaimer, which states that “The Met's inclusion of these websites does not constitute an endorsement or an approval by The Met of any of the services or opinions of the third-party content provider”.6 They have yet to explicitly say Black Lives Matter outside of their unfortunate hashtag situation.

The Poster House (@posterhousenyc) provides a much more responsible example of what institutions can be doing. Keeping in mind that the Poster House (physical location) is currently celebrating its first birthday (compared to the Met’s 133 year history), we see a commitment to justice that is reflective of the period the Poster House was developed.

If the Poster House did engage with #blackouttuesday, they have since deleted the post. Many organizers asked social media users not to engage with this trend at all, even if the #blacklivesmatter hashtag was not used, because it still crowded people’s feeds and led to censorship. The Poster House has a permanent highlight on their page, posted three weeks ago, titled “BLM Resources”. The first slide states “Poster House will continue highlighting posters that speak to the worldwide fight against: -Racial Injustice -Police Brutality -Oppressive Government Systems, As well as amplifying content from BIPOC creators”.7 The second announces a forthcoming program from their Education Department that will provide “a deeper understanding of the history of Civil Rights protests in the USA leading up to the Black Lives Matter Movement”. Comprehensive histories that place the Black Lives Matter movement within the context of racial justice efforts is a worthy and much-needed endeavor.

@posterhousenyc’s engagement with the current Black Lives Matter effort began on May 30, when they posted an Amos Kennedy poster that reads “If there is no struggle, there is no progress -Frederick Douglass”. The Poster House continued to engage exclusively with racial justice posters from then until June 9. After June 9, they began to integrate gay rights posters into their Instagram feed, but have continued to discuss antiracism.

Digital activism is only valid if one’s activism continues offline. The composition of museums’ leadership, their treatment of nonwestern and nonwhite artists, and their workplace politics all contribute to the authenticity of their Black Lives Matter statements.

Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa, "#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media and the US," American Ethnologist, 2015, accessed July 3, 2020. ↩︎

Ibid. ↩︎

@thatgirlyoh on @metmuseum Instagram post. May 31, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/p/CA3OhwVFSKZ/. ↩︎

Ibid. ↩︎

Daniel Weiss and Max Hollein, "Standing in Solidarity, Committing to the Work Ahead," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, last modified June 1, 2020, accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/2020/standing-in-solidarity-president-director. ↩︎

"Racial Justice Resource Library," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/learn/adults/racial-justice-resources. ↩︎

@posterhousenyc. Instagram post. https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17903462683467377/. ↩︎