December 8, 2020
A video poem drawing attention to the disproportionate impact of COVID on people of color.
December 1, 2020
Who, Me? Biased?
Peanut butter and jelly help illustrate implicit bias.
November 24, 2020
Genocide and land grabbing were legitimized with the doctrine of discovery as European Christians disregarded the rights and humanity of indigenous people.
November Is Native American Heritage Month
November 17, 2020
Native American Heritage month can serve to remind those of us who are of European descent that we live on land that was taken from the indigenous people who lived her before us. Estimates vary in the calculated indigenous population of the Americas prior to the Christopher Columbus voyage in 1492. Approximately 50 million is probably a general estimate but some scholars put the number closer to 100 million. Indigenous people were decimated by European diseases and violence which included wars and massacres. Exploitation and displacement also had a major impact on Native Americans.
Reconstruction: American after the Civil War
November 10, 2020
Reconstruction—it is not a well understood period in American history. Post-Civil War America ushered in a new day for Blacks in the South. However, as described by W.E.B DuBois, it was a “brief moment in the sun.” Reconstruction: America after the Civil War is a four-hour PBS series that was first broadcast in the spring of 2019. This week’s feature is a two-minute preview with Henry Louis Gates introducing the series. A closely related resource is the Gates book Stony the Road—Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow.
Preview #3
Eric Deggans offers four tips for putting in the work to become anti-racist. NPR offers this as a 21-minute listen and in text. A journalist for more than 20 years, he is also the author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation, a look at how prejudice, racism and sexism fuels some elements of modern media.
Preview #2
Iowa State Football plays in the only stadium in major college football named after an African-American and Jack Trice's legacy continues to inspire the Cyclones to this day. Learn the tragic story of Jack Trice.
Oregon's Enigmatic Black History
Preview #1
“Progressive” Oregon does not have a spotless record. Racism is a part of our story that cannot be hidden in the shadows. The June 19, 2019, presentation by James Stanley Harrison at the Oregon Historical Society appropriately identifies Oregon’s black history as an enigma.