Recognizing the discriminations, hardships and violence people of color have faced in the United States, past and present.
Further Reading with the Charleston Syllabus
With a topic as serious and ancient as US slavery and the resulting power dynamic, it is challenging to address every individual aspect. However, literature addressing every facet of racism and white supremacy does indeed exist, and can be used to arm oneself against the different faces of injustice and discrimination. After the horrific Charleston shooting in 2015, the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) put together a comprehensive syllabus on the topic of racism against Black Americans, with a focus on South Carolina and the confederacy. This page lists resources for anyone looking to immerse themselves intensely on this subject, and can be a starting point for academic research:
The Transatlantic Slave Trade
To better understand the present, one needs to better understand history. Therefore, it is good to understand the structures and the mindsets of the oppression and power system that was the Transatlantic Slave Trade to have a better understanding of systematic racism today. Only through knowing of and understanding history can we avoid the doom of repeating it. Each of these short videos summarize much of the crucial information on this topic in a way that is accessible and easily understandable, and could be used as a starting point to talk to kids about these topics:
- Public Broadcasting Service: Why Did Europeans Enslave Africans?
- TED-ED Video: What Too Few Textbooks Told You
- Public Broadcasting Service: from A Crash Course in World History
African Slavery in the United States
Inseparable from the slave trade is how slavery itself unfolded across the “New World”. Details about how this unfurled in the South, as well as facts about the Civil War that was fought for and against slavery, need to be brought to light. This allows us to understand the inhumanity of Slavery, retrace where ideas of race superiority originated in the US, and seek to eradicate structures of inequality.
Segregation and Jim Crow Laws
Racism and the treatment of Black people as second-class citizens didn’t stop after the Emancipation Proclamation. New laws were created to deny Blacks education opportunities and the right to vote, as well as create barriers, material and immaterial, that reminded them they were not the same as whites. The hope demonstrated in the Civil Rights Movement is as encouraging as the resistance to desegregation is disturbing. PBS has multiple documentaries and pieces on this, which can be seen here:
“But i am Colorblind”
“The election has become a national racism Rorschach test” says Tricia Rose as she demonstrates how color-blindness usually doesn’t disassemble structural racism. She helps us understand the mindset of middle-class Trump supporters who “don’t see color” but feel like “Blacks are getting special treatment”. She also addresses German ideas as part of her presentation:
Race and the Criminal Justice System
Bryan Stevenson tackles the tough topic of the American criminal justice system and mass incarceration in his work. The US has one of the highest incarceration rates of its own citizens in the world, and the majority of these inmates are young black men. He addresses youth being given life sentences without parole, the death penalty, and the structural racism in police and law institutions. But he also calls for the need for hope, love and proximity to end the vicious cycle of the pipeline that escorts many black adolescents from the cradle to the cell. His TED talk addresses these themes, while his lecture at Stanford University goes more in depth, and the panel after the talk addresses structural racism, police institutions, and the placement of memorials, amongst other things.
If this short insight has interested you, you can check out Just Mercy, the book he has written here:
As well as the initiative he leads here:
Another author who powerfully discusses this topic at length is Michelle Alexander, in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. This title was also specifically cited in General Convention Resolution A183 as a "common text" for Episcopalians to use for reflection and engagement. She stresses how the war on drugs and restrictions for people with felonies limit people of color in the same way that Jim Crow laws did in the generation past. She talks about her initiative on the topic in short, or in further detail. If this interests you, her book can be found here:
The Diocese of New York has also prepared a five week book study guide for further discussion at the congregational level: