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The Case for Reparations

The Case for Reparations
And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today. — Deuteronomy 15: 12–15 — John Locke, “Second Treatise” By our unpaid labor and suffering, we have earned the right to the soil, many times over and over, and now we are determined to have it. — Anonymous, 1861 I. Clyde Ross was born in 1923, the seventh of 13 children, near Clarksdale, Mississippi, the home of the blues. In the 1920s, Jim Crow Mississippi was, in all facets of society, a kleptocracy. This was hardly unusual.

Millennials, racism, and MTV poll: Young people are confused about bias, prejudice, and racism. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Shutterstock. When you hear MTV, you don’t think “research.” But, for the last few years, the music television channel has been building a public affairs campaign to address bias called “Look Different.” Aimed at millennials, it seeks to help them deal with prejudice and discrimination in their lives. And as part of the project, MTV has worked with pollsters to survey a nationally representative sample of people ages 14 to 24 to measure how young people are “experiencing, affected by, and responding to issues associated with bias.” Jamelle Bouie is a Slate staff writer covering politics, policy, and race. Overall, MTV confirms the general view of millennials: Compared with previous generations, they’re more tolerant and diverse and profess a deeper commitment to equality and fairness. All of this is apparent in the findings. A Slate Plus Special Feature: Slate Plus members can listen to Jamelle Bouie read this article!

Historian Says Don't 'Sanitize' How Our Government Created Ghettos A helicopter flies over a section of Baltimore affected by riots. Richard Rothstein writes that the recent unrest in Baltimore is the legacy of a century of federal, state, and local policies designed to "quarantine Baltimore's black population in isolated slums." Patrick Smith/Getty Images hide caption itoggle caption Patrick Smith/Getty Images A helicopter flies over a section of Baltimore affected by riots. Richard Rothstein writes that the recent unrest in Baltimore is the legacy of a century of federal, state, and local policies designed to "quarantine Baltimore's black population in isolated slums." Patrick Smith/Getty Images Fifty years after the repeal of Jim Crow, many African-Americans still live in segregated ghettos in the country's metropolitan areas. Interview Highlights On using the word "ghetto" One of the ways in which we forget our history is by sanitizing our language and pretending that these problems don't exist. On realtors' practice of "blockbusting"

From Brooklyn to Bo-Kaap - Rolling Stone South Africa Music Exchange, one of South Africa's premier music, film, and entertainment conferences, was held in Cape Town's City Hall this weekend. The three-day conference, which describes itself as "a catalyst between the artistically anchored worlds of entertainment, film, music, and academia," welcomed critically-acclaimed and commercially successful U.S. Hip Hop recording artist and actor Mos Def (a.k.a. Can you give people in Cape Town a sense of what it was like growing up for you in New York City? I was born in Brooklyn, New York City. [When I was a teenager], New York City was a crazy place. What do you mean it was a different time? I didn't quite fit into the cultural status quo of that day, which is kinda like you know big gold chains and velour suits, and very big tough macho guys—and I wasn't, it just wasn't me. What are some of your earliest Hip Hop or artistic memories? And then, I heard "Planet Rock," by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force. What do you love most about Hip Hop?

Racism in real estate: Landlords, redlining, housing values, and discrimination. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images In 1934, Homer Hoyt wrote a dissertation—“One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago: The Relationship of the Growth of Chicago to the Rise of Its Land Values, 1830–1933”—that ranked various races and nationalities by order of “desirability.” Most desired were the old American stock of Anglo-Saxons and Northern Europeans—English, Germans, Scots, Irish, and Scandinavians—followed by Northern Italians, Czechoslovakians, Polish, Lithuanians, Greeks, “Russian Jews of the lower class,” South Italians, and at the bottom of the list, “Negroes and Mexicans.” Jamelle Bouie is a Slate staff writer covering politics, policy, and race. For whites, there was some flexibility. Journalist Antero Pietila gives a short biography of Hoyt in Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City. This is obviously racist, but it’s also unsurprising. Housing discrimination is illegal, and most Americans express egalitarian beliefs on race.

How The Asians Did Not Become White | Race Files In a May 29, 2014 Washington Post editorial “How the Asians Became White,” UCLA law professor, Eugene Volokh, argues that the claim that “Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world” resulting from a recent report on racial diversity in employment at Google overlooks the fact that 30 percent of Google employees are Asians, and in a manner he thinks is manipulative. To quote Volokh, Google on Wednesday released statistics on the makeup of its work force, providing numbers that offer a stark glance at how Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world. But wait — just a few paragraphs down, the post notes that non-Hispanic whites are 61 percent of the Google work force, slightly below the national average. (That average, according to 2006-10 numbers, is 67 percent.) Good try, Eugene, but there are so many things wrong with this that I can hardly think where to begin. 1) First of all, let’s be clear about Eugene Volokh’s agenda. Talk about manipulative.

Epistemic injustice in the academy: an analysis of the Saida Grundy witch-hunt Guest blogger Arianne Shahvisi is an assistant professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut, and has recently written commentary for the New Statesman, Jacobin, Open Democracy, and Truthout, centered on issues surrounding race, class, gender, and borders. Last month, Saida Grundy, an incoming sociology faculty member at Boston University, tweeted a set of remarks and rhetorical questions regarding white supremacy, slavery, and misogyny in the US. In other words, a trained sociologist of race made some observations centered on race that were perfunctory and impassioned (as tweets invariably are), but nonetheless cogent. And that really should have been the end of that. Instead, her comments were met with a barrage of hate from ostensibly offended right-wing campus groups, and a subsequent outpouring of solidarity from Twitter users citing #IstandwithSaida. Boston University, where Martin Luther King studied for his PhD, has a race problem. Like this: Like Loading...

Voices from the Days of Slavery - Faces and Voices from the Presentation (American Memory from the Library of Congress) Approximately four million Americans enslaved in the United States were freed at the conclusion of the American Civil War. The stories of a few thousand have been passed on to future generations through word of mouth, diaries, letters, records, or written transcripts of interviews. Only twenty-six audio-recorded interviews of ex-slaves have been found. This collection captures the stories of former slaves in their own words and voices. Little biographical information about them is available. Fountain Hughes, Age 101 "You wasn't no more than a dog to some of them in them days. Read or listen to the rest of the narrative... Fountain Hughes, circa 1952. Top George Johnson, Age Unknown "I got my name from President Jeff Davis. Read or listen to the rest of the narrative... George Johnson, circa 1935. Uncle Bob Ledbetter, Age 72 or 73 "Yes sir, I know what's right and I tried my best to do what's right in everything I do." Read or listen to the rest of the narrative... Isom Moseley, Age 88

untitled Angela Davis & Toni Morrison / How do we become whole ... after traumas that threaten to splinter our souls?: On literacy, libraries, & liberation » onlineJournal | The Liberator Magazine “Write it down, girl. Tell everyone how much it hurts. Sharing will make it easier to bear.” -Terri L. How do we become whole -- again, or perhaps for the first time -- after experiencing traumas that threaten to splinter our souls? The road to recovery is meandering. The connective tissue here is the idea that each of us is, in varying degrees, caged by the wreckage of our past, and sometimes, our present. LIVE from the NYPL: Angela Davis and Toni Morrison: Literacy, Libraries, and Liberation Toni Morrison: We’re just talking, ooh. Angela Davis: We’re talking about [Frederick] Douglass, libraries -- Toni Morrison: Literacy -- Angela Davis: Literacy and liberation. Toni Morrison: Yes, absolutely. And my documentation for this, Angela. Angela Davis: I actually wanted to begin on that theme by talking a bit about the inaccessibility of libraries, and I’m thinking about my own childhood, when I saw this incredible building in Birmingham, Alabama, made out of Indiana limestone.

Study: Stereotypes Drive Perceptions Of Race : Code Switch Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. Governments, schools and companies all keep track of your race. SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve. INSKEEP: What's the problem? VEDANTAM: Well, there's an assumption that's built into all those tracking systems that you mentioned, Steve, and that assumption is that a person's race is fixed. INSKEEP: Mm-hmm. VEDANTAM: I spoke with Aliya Saperstein. INSKEEP: Longitudinal, meaning that they're tracking people over a very long period of time. VEDANTAM: Exactly. ALIYA SAPERSTEIN: What our research challenges is the idea that the race of an individual is fixed. INSKEEP: Are we talking here about mixed-race people who might have a strong genetic reason to be multiple races? VEDANTAM: Now, that's a possibility, Steve. INSKEEP: Right. VEDANTAM: That one year you might say someone is white, one year you might say someone is black. INSKEEP: Wait a minute.

Judith Butler. A Politics of the Street EGS can still offer graduate applicants the opportunity to be begin their MA or Ph.D. studies with us this August 2014. Ours is one of the strongest transdisciplinary programs you will encounter anywhere. We are fortunate to have attracted high quality faculty and students for 16 years. Among the exceptional professors with whom you can study in our August session are: Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, Mike Figgis, Werner Hamacher, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, Graham Harman, Sylvere Lotringer, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Ranciere, Larry Rickels, Avital Ronell. These are the thinkers and artists whose visions have influenced your own creative works. US citizens and legal residents are eligible for student loans, but the deadline is fast approaching: June 30 - Please read our Financial Aid Manual and use the proper 2013 - 2014 loan application form. For students paying all tuition and accommodation costs with private funds, the deadline for applying to EGS is August 1, 2014.

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