Tag / Race
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Affirmative Action Is Obsolete
Affirmative action, as practiced in America’s most reputable universities, has outlived its utility. It emerged in U.S. social policy with John F. Kennedy’s 1961 executive order declaring that affirmative action would help ensure federal job applicants “are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”…
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Equality, Education, And The Race Of Life
In a recent viral clip, a man using aggressively charismatic youth-speak instructs a group of high schoolers to line up in a grass field for a race, where the winner gets a $100 bill. It’s made clear that this race also represents the race of life: the winners end up healthy, rich, and happy; the…
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(Con)Tested Identity
Before I even got to the main portion of the SAT, a question stressed me out. “What is your race/ethnicity?” jumped out at me, taunting me with the simplistic responses underneath. Filling out “white” would feel like denying my heritage, claiming that my dad’s side of the family was irrelevant to who I am, but…
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The Cultural Politics Of Mental Health In A Black Family
I have yet to share this part of my life’s story on such a public forum. I ask that you accept that this is my story to share, and bear with me as I continue coming to terms with it. My mother was the kind of woman that very seldom pulled any punches—she had the…
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Collective Memory And Trumpian Politics
Collective memory – the shared memory of a group, often constructed and reconstructed over generations – was crucial to President Trump’s 2016 victory and is currently being used to mobilize his loyal base. His pervasive “Make America Great Again” tagline comes with the implicit assumption that America was once great and is no longer so.…
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Engagement’s Hard. We Still Need It.
“True diversity is diversity of thought, not diversity of color. I don’t see color,” conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren argued during an interview with Trevor Noah in December 2016. Noah, the liberal host of The Daily Show, replied that “there is nothing wrong with seeing color; it’s how you treat color that’s more important.” This…
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The Return of Segregated Schools
There’s nothing like coming home for the holidays to news that your high school is in the midst of being resegregated. Despite what spell check may think, I didn’t mean to type ‘desegregated.’ I say resegregation, and I mean resegregation, because that’s precisely what many teachers, students, and parents at my North Miami Beach, Florida…
