Posts

UCLA Department of African American Studies Remembers the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre on Its Website and in Upcoming Events

, , ,

Please join the Department of African American Studies at UCLA as it commemorates the Tulsa Massacre Centennial beginning TODAY throughout the Memorial Day weekend.  To learn more, click HERE to visit a special edition of their website.

Events

Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial

On the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, this series, co-presented by the UCLA Department of African American Studies and the UCLA Hammer Museum, unpacks the history and legacy of an under-examined chapter of racial violence in the United States. These five online panels will cover the history of the massacre and its on-screen representations, as well other instances of domestic terrorism against communities of color in the United States, the renewed urgency and viability of reparations, and the economic empowerment of Black Americans.

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Historical Context

Tuesday, June 1, 2021, 5:00 PM PDT

RSVP HERE

Professor Brenda E. Stevenson moderates an online conversation with Karlos K. Hill and Hannibal Johnson, both authors and experts on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob assaulted residents, looted, and destroyed their homes, churches, schools, and businesses in the predominantly Black neighborhood and business district of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The panel discusses the history of Black migration to Oklahoma, the Jim Crow realities of the early 20th century, the facts surrounding the Tulsa massacre, and the immediate aftermath in which hundreds of Black Americans were dead, homeless, or imprisoned, their families and financial lives devastated.

An Associate Professor and Chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, Hill is the founder and chair of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Commission. His most recent book is The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History. An attorney, author, and highly regarded public historian, Johnson is the author of Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with its Historical Racial Trauma.

 

Tulsa on Screen: Watchmen with Damon Lindelof & Cord Jefferson

Thursday, June 3, 2021, 5:00 PM PDT

RSVP HERE

In this online program, professor Brenda E. Stevenson joins writer and producer Damon Lindelof, creator of HBO’s Watchmen series, and Watchmen writer Cord Jefferson to discuss how they crafted the series’ remarkable representation of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The series explores the generational trauma of the massacre within the context of an alternative U.S. history. Lindelof and Jefferson discuss why they centered Watchmen on this largely ignored event in American history, as well as how and why popular culture can continue to confront history, racism, and structural violence.

/by

LA Social Science Presents “Conversations with Changemakers” Featuring Dr. Paul Ong Discussing AAPI Community Challenges

, , , , ,

Dr. Paul Ong, Center for Neighborhood Knowledge Director and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Professor, speaks with LA Social Science about the challenges the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, big data research, and the xenophobic racism the AAPI community face here in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Interview Chapters:

0:39 – Welcome Professor Ong

0:45 – Professor Ong Research Introduction

1:42 – COVID-19 Pandemic effort on the AAPI Community

4:33 – Work being done on the ground

7:35 – Big Data connection to Professor Ong research

10:20 – Information about CNK (Center for Neighborhood Knowledge).

13:30 – Goals for your research and your center

Learn more about Dr. Ong and the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge team by visiting their website at https://knowledge.luskin.ucla.edu.

 

Subscribe to LA Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

/by

UCLA Professor Eric Avila Discusses How U.S. Infrastructure Historically Fostered Racial Inequality

, , ,

Recently U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, “There is racism physically built into some of our highways.” It is this recognition that has shaped President Joe Biden’s plan to improve U.S. infrastructure. Dr. Eric Avila, Professor of History, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, and Urban Planning, was recently interviewed by PBS SoCal and NPR where he discussed the history of how communities of color were uprooted by highway construction.

In the PBS SoCal piece, Dr. Avila says, “I think that the conversation we’re having now about race, inequality and infrastructure at this level is new, and to me that’s encouraging.” To read the full article, “How infrastructure has historically promoted inequality,” click HERE.

To read and/or listen to the NPR segment “Beneath The Santa Monica Freeway Lies The Erasure Of Sugar Hill,” click HERE.

/by

Special Issue of American Indian Studies Culture and Research Journal Focuses on COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples

, , , ,

Pictured here (from left to right): Dr. Randall Akee, Dr. Stephanie Russo Carroll, and Dr. Chandra Ford

Dr. Randall Akee along with Dr. Stephanie Russo Carroll, and Dr. Chandra Ford, guest-edited a special issue of the American Indian Culture and Research Journal (AICRJ), entitled, “COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples: Impact of and Response to the Pandemic.” This is notable given that the special issue is led by American Indian scholars and researchers on COVID-19 and racism, and the AICRJ is published by the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA. Please access the special issue HERE. This is the first issue of a two-special issue companion.

 

/by

UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute Supports the #JustSayHello Campaign and Challenge

, , ,

The UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute (BKI) is supporting the “Just Say Hello” campaign to help bridge the racial divide. This is a small gesture with a big message. The #JustSayHelloChallenge encourages people to Just Say Hello to somebody who doesn’t look like you, and share the videos and photos on social media with the hashtag #JustSayHelloChallenge.

The campaign hopes everyone will participate. Please share this content across your social media platforms and tag their account:

Instagram: @JustSayHelloUS

Twitter: @JustSayHelloUS

Facebook: @JustSayHelloUS

TikTok: @JustSayHelloUS

Website: www.JustSayHello.org

Watch a segment that aired on LA This Week about the campaign HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/by

E. Victor Wolfenstein Memorial Lecture “Reckoning with Global Racism” Presented by VC Anna Spain Bradley on March 16

, , ,

Michael Chwe

Chair and Professor

UCLA Department of Political Science

invites you to attend the

E. VICTOR WOLFENSTEIN MEMORIAL LECTURE

Reckoning with Global Racism

presented by

Anna Spain Bradley

UCLA Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Professor of Law

followed by a conversation with

Lorrie Frasure

Acting Director, Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies

Associate Professor, UCLA Departments of Political Science and African American Studies

***

Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. PST

Live streaming via Zoom

RSVP HERE

To see the invitation, click HERE

Please submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to:

hnadworny@support.ucla.edu by Thursday, March 4 at 3:00 p.m.

Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.

About the discussion: Drawing upon her scholarship and experience as a Legal Expert

to the UN Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Contemporary Standards, Vice

Chancellor Spain Bradley will discuss the need for a global effort in combating racism,

the lack of a definition of racism under international law, and how human rights systems

both frustrates and advances this cause.

/by

Challenging the Problematic Description of Being “Articulate While Black”

, , , ,

Dr. H. Samy Alim, UCLA Professor of Anthropology and David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Division of Social Sciences, and Dr. Geneva Smitherman, Michigan State University Distinguished Professor Emerita, recently released an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “Of Course Kamala Harris Is Articulate.” They challenge the often used description that high-achieving Black people are “articulate.” They assert that these types of descriptions are highly problematic and offensive, because the exceptional descriptions imply that the opposite is true of other Black people. As co-authors of the book Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S., Drs. Alim and Smitherman further explain why comments like these denigrate Black Americans, even if done unintentionally.

To read the full op-ed, please click HERE.

/by

Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley Provides Historical Context for the Current Abolitionist Movement

, , ,

Photographer: Madelene Cronjé

Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley, UCLA Professor of African American Studies and Distinguished Professor of History & Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, was recently interviewed for Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill. In the podcast episode, Dr. Kelley provides historical context for the current abolitionist movement by discussing numerous key moments and issues, including the Tulsa race massacre, criminalization of community, racial capitalism, a third Reconstruction era, and social justice movements. To listen to the full interview and to read the transcript, click HERE.

/by

The COVID-19 Crisis and the Importance of Data Sovereignty in Indigenous Communities

, , , ,

grandriver/Getty Images

“Indigenous Peoples across the country continue to be disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. As of May 18, 2020, the Navajo Nation has the highest Covid-19 case rates surpassing New York, the pandemic’s epicenter in the United States. As the virus spreads, Indigenous Peoples and nations in the United States face stark disparities in accessing resources to protect their communities—not the least of which relate to data.”

In this recent Items article, Dr. Randall Akee, UCLA Associate Professor of Public Policy and American Indian Studies, and Dr. Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, UCLA Assistant Professor in Sociology and American Indian Studies, along with Dr. Stephanie Russo Carroll, Annita Lucchesi, and Dr. Jennifer Rai Richards come to the conclusion that Indigenous communities need more data that advance Indigenous rights and interests, and they need action to hold the federal government accountable to its treaty obligations and advance systemic change that dismantles racism.

To read the complete article titled, “Indigenous Data in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Straddling Erasure, Terrorism, and Sovereignty,” click HERE.

 

/by

L.A. Times Features Professor Hunter and Prominent L.A. Writers Discussing the City’s Racial Past and Present

, , , ,

Demonstrators march through the streets of Hollywood, California, on June 2, 2020, to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. – Anti-racism protests have put several US cities under curfew to suppress rioting, following the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

In this important piece featured in the Los Angeles Times, UCLA’s Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter, Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences, professor of sociology, and chair of the department of African American Studies, presents a conversation he recently had with some of the nation’s foremost writers on Los Angeles to discuss how the city’s racial history informs the present moment and the continued fight against racism and injustice.

Dr. Hunter writes:

“Black people’s lives have remained vulnerable and unprotected by the very government that abolished the institution of slavery. As the planter class took its last sips of power and blood, they managed to bequeath us a century and a half of debt and devastation. Racism is their lasting hex on a country that would dare to try and outlive them, an institutionally effective death spell killing black people every day.”

To read the full article, “How Does L.A.’s Racial Past Resonate Now? #Blacklivesmatter’s Originator and 5 Writers Discuss,” click HERE.

/by