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Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian. 2020. This collection of writings offers lessons from successful challenges to institutional racism that have been won through the grassroots Black Lives Matter at School movement. Black Lives Matter at School offers the wisdom of lessons learned through the Black Lives Matter at School movement, which began at one school in 2016 and has since spread to hundreds of schools across the country. This book will inspire many hundreds...

1. Restorative Justice We are committed to collectively, lovingly and courageously working vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension all people. As we forge our path, we intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting. 2. Empathy We are committed to practicing empathy; we engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts. 3. Loving Engagement We...

Virgie Hoban November 19, 2020 It was a racist policy enacted over 80 years ago, but its aftermath dribbles on — all the way to the babies born today, new research shows. Using historical maps and modern birth data, UC Berkeley researchers have found that babies born in California neighborhoods historically redlined — denied federal investments based on the discriminatory lending practices of the 1930s — are now more likely to have poorer health outcomes. The study was published open access...

1. Kwanzaa is less than 60 years old. Maulana Karenga, a Black nationalist who later became a college professor, created Kwanzaa as a way of uniting and empowering the African African community in the aftermath of the deadly Watts Rebellion . Having modeled his holiday on traditional African harvest festivals, he took the name “Kwanzaa” from the Swahili phrase, “matunda ya kwanza,” which means “first fruits.” The extra “a” was added, Karenga has said, simply to accommodate seven children at...

This year, as we honor the World's 100 Most Powerful Women , we also honor the women—the Black women—who have been instrumental in exposing racial inequity and are some of the most influential drivers for societal change. Kamala Harris, no. 3 on this year’s Power Women list, paid tribute to Black women in her first speech as Vice president elect. The group, she said, is “too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.” Stacey Abrams, who earned the 100th...

SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. — Fall is cane syrup season in pockets of the Deep South, where people still gather to grind sugar cane and boil its juice into dark, sweet syrup in iron kettles big enough to bathe in. This autumn, no cane syrup has been more significant than the batches Maurice Bailey and his friends made from the first purple ribbon sugar cane grown here on Sapelo Island since the 1800s. The 11-mile-long barrier island is home to the Salt Water Geechees , who can trace an unbroken line...

By Roy S. Johnson, December 4, 2020, AL.com. Danielle Lacey Chavers rolled the dice. Though she didn’t fully grasp the depth of the consequences. Not even as she rounded the corner inside a gated Trace Crossings community in Hoover and saw a fire truck leaving the cul-de-sac where her family lived. Or as she saw an ambulance and a phalanx of police cars in front of their home. Or realized it was a drug raid. The oldest of Chavers’s two sons, Jeremy, a teenager who had picked his younger...

By Nathan McCall, The New York Times, November 23, 2020 Decades ago, when I was a teenager growing up in Portsmouth, Va., my buddies and I constantly railed against the evils of “the system.” We viewed the system as a vast, amorphous establishment that worked to preserve White privilege and control Black folks’ lives. It was the 1970s, and as proof that our hatred of the White mainstream was justified, we had to look no further than our homes. We saw that our parents were beaten down,...

By La Quandra S. Nesbitt, Journal of Public Health Management & Practice (January/February 2021), December 2020 As the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States increased, and public reporting of demographic characteristics improved, the stark disparities in COVID-19–related incidence and mortality became evident. 1 While these disparities were alarming to many, for others, they illuminated the unfortunate inequities in health and health care that exist and persist in the United...

By Virgie Hoban, November 19, 2020, Berkeley News. It was a racist policy enacted over 80 years ago, but its aftermath dribbles on — all the way to the babies born today, new research shows. Using historical maps and modern birth data, UC Berkeley researchers have found that babies born in California neighborhoods historically redlined — denied federal investments based on the discriminatory lending practices of the 1930s — are now more likely to have poorer health outcomes. The study was...

NOVEMBER 17, 2020 5:08 AM AEDT Women with lower levels of choline delivered prematurely by 2 weeks, increasing risk of later mental health problems for their offspring. Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campu s have found that many pregnant Black Americans have low levels of choline, an essential nutrient that aids in prenatal brain development. Stress caused by institutional racism may play a role. The study, out now in Schizophrenia Bulletin , also found that these...

The exclusion of Indigenous people and other non-White communities in environmental and conservation work is, unfortunately, nothing new. For centuries, conservation has been driven by Eurocentric, Judeo-Christian belief structures that emphasize a distinct separation of “Man” and “Nature”—an ideology that does not mesh well with many belief structures, including those belonging to Indigenous communities. Before the onset of such religion through colonialist conquests, the overwhelming...