A Reckoning With Racism

The politics of racism have returned with a vengeance in the wake of widespread outrage over racial violence, yet nothing about the idea of racism is the same because everything has changed in how we see, think, and talk about it.

A history of the first case brought against systemic anti-Black racism in Canada. The Canadian Supreme Court considered a complaint against judicial racial bias for the first time in 1997. The nation's first Black woman justice, Corrine Sparks, heard the initial case: a white Halifax officer arrested a Black teenager, placed him a choke-hold, and charged him with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. In acquitting the teen, Sparks wrote that police often overreacted toward young people of color. A debate ensued about the tradition that the legal system was not racist in its ordinary course. Reckoning with Racism is a thorough study of the case, its debate, and its lasting effects on the Canadian legal system.

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER This edition includes illustrations by Everett Dyson From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption. “Powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening.” -Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist “Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” -Isabel Wilkerson, bestselling author of Caste "Formidable, compelling...has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward." -Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy The night of May 25, 2020 changed America. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a white cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history and the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the sixties. While Floyd’s death was certainly the catalyst, (heightened by the fact that it occurred during a pandemic whose victims were disproportionately of color) it was in truth the fuse that lit an ever-filling powder keg. Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.

This book addresses endemic issues of racism in news media at what is a critical moment in time, as journalists around the world speak out en masse against the prejudice and inequality in the industry. As the events of 2020 – the death of George Floyd, the rise in prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement – have drawn new and focused attention to inequality, white supremacy, and systemic racism, including in the media, this volume chronicles this racial reckoning, revisiting and examining the issues that it has raised. The author analyses media output by racialized and Indigenous journalists, identifying the racial make-up of newsrooms; the dominance of white perspectives in news coverage; interpretations of ethics downplaying systemic racism and bias; ignorance of racist history in editorial decisions and news content; and diversity and inclusion measures. The actions taken by news organizations in response to the reckoning are also detailed and placed in the context of existing race and media scholarship, to offer emerging strategies to address journalism’s longstanding issues with racism in news content and newsrooms. Grounding the interplay between news media and race within this pivotal moment in history, this text will be an important resource for students and scholars of journalism, journalism ethics, sociology, cultural studies, organizational studies, media and communication studies.

"All too many kids of color get 'the talk.' The talk about where to keep their hands, how to wear their clothes, how to speak, how to act around police-an honest talk, a talk about survival in a racist world. The get "the talk" because they must. But white kids don't get this talk. Instead, they're barely spoken to about race at all-and that needs to change. The Other Talk begins this much-needed conversation for white kids. In an accessible, anecdotal, and honest account from his own life, Brendan Kiely introduces young readers to white privilege, unconscious bias, and allyship-because racism isn't just an issue for people of color, it's an issue white people have to deal with, too, and it's time we all start doing our part"--

"Chicago is confronting a racial reckoning that we explain with an exclusion-containment theory of legal cynicism. Mayors RJ and RM Daley used public and private funds to exclude and contain South and West side predominantly Black neighborhoods where police Detective Jon Burge supervised torture of over 100 Black men. A 1982 case involved Andrew Wilson's tortured confession to two police killings. This case coincided with RM Daley's pursuit of White votes in an early and unsuccessful primary campaign for mayor. Suspicions about Daley's connection to Wilson's confession lasted throughout his career. As State's Attorney, Daley mobilized a massive assault on "gangs, guns, and drugs" by tightening law enforcement methods. An example involved the Automatic Transfer Act used to prosecute 15 year-old Joseph White in adult court for shooting a fellow student. The judge thought White should have sought help from police, but he and his family knew the police as brutal occupiers of local neighborhoods. White was sentenced to 45 years in a maximum-security prison. Jon Burge was finally convicted in 2010-of perjury-but he served only three years, while many of his victims remained on death row. In a sidebar in the Burge trial-unheard by jurors-the judge refused to allow evidence about a racialized code of silence that concealed Burge's torture. Our book ends by explaining how Daley and Burge escaped meaningful punishment through the code of silence and out of court settlements. These remain unrelenting sources of the racial reckoning confronting this quintessential American city"--

"Drawing from the lived experiences of Black parents, this book brings a critical race theory (CRT) analysis to family-school partnerships. The author examines persistent racism and white supremacy in K-12 schools, Black parents' resistance, and ways school communities can engage in more authentic partnerships with Black and Brown families"--

Anti-racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices centers anti-racist community-engaged traditions that BIPOC academics and community members have created through more than a century of collaboration across university and community. It demonstrates both the progress and the work that still needs to be done. The book is organized around a set of Anti-racist Community Engagement Principles developed by the editors as part of their shared work and dialogue with colleagues regionally and across the country. The significant number of diverse voices that have informed the creation of the principles reveal the groundswell of work underway to center anti-racist values and to pivot away from the traditional, higher education-centric, and “white savior” ways of doing community engagement teaching, research, and practice. The chapters in this book are organized into four sections, each focused on one of the four Anti-racist Community Engagement Principles. The first section explores the various ways in which reframing our institutional and pedagogical practices can help counteract the persistence and impact of racism on our campuses and in our community engagement work. In the second section, authors share practices that promote critical reflection on individual and systemic/structural racism through examinations of positionality, bias, and historical roots of systemic racism. The third section examines intentional learning and course design through anti-racist learning goals, course content, policies, and assessment. Finally, the fourth section shows how authors have developed compassionate and reflective classrooms by creating a sense of belonging that acknowledges student cultural assets and contributions and meets students where they are to co-create a supportive anti-racist learning environment. Each chapter in the book introduces a specific example of anti-racist community engagement, with authors providing unique, situated insights into the nature and complexity of the factors at play. This is followed by a “Practice” section where authors reflect on their engagement, and the lessons learned through it, thus leaving readers with detailed insights and roadmaps for adapting or replicating the work. Finally, a “Connections” section places the case and its practices into broader contexts of pedagogical, curricular, institutional, and community change. There is an open access digital companion to the volume, where authors have shared materials that will help shed further light on their compelling practices, including syllabi, agendas, handouts, worksheets, and additional resources.