Scene on the Radio | Seeing White Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it’s an old story. Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017. See the trailer below and listen to the entire series HERE
APM Research Lab | MN’s Diverse Communities: Perceptions of Policing On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin while in police custody. His death was a catalyst for large-scale protests throughout Minnesota and far beyond that lead to renewed scrutiny of how the state’s police interact with people of color and calls for broad transformation to policing and the criminal justice system. But it was a moment that made clear, too, that not all Minnesotans experience the same Minnesota. This report is the first of several APM Research Lab will issue in coming weeks from the Minnesota’s Diverse Communities Survey, conducted from April 26 to June 14, 2021, in close proximity to the much-publicized trial of Derek Chauvin, which concluded on April 20th. Among other topics, the survey asked Minnesotans about their attitudes toward and experiences with the state’s police force and criminal justice system. Findings from this part of the survey are summarized below with additional detail available in a longer report on the subject. Click here to access the report, graphics drawn from the survey, key findings, and to leave a comment.
BLM | #Talk about Trayvon Toolkit Read the entire Toolkit here Five years ago today, a teenage boy went out for a snack but never made it home to his loving family. A grown man took it upon himself to patrol his neighborhood and to shoot dead an unarmed, unassuming boy. Not only did a mother have to bury her young son, but she now watches his killer walk the streets free— free to brag about killing Trayvon, and free to commit more acts of violence. We need to #TalkAboutTrayvon because, five years later, there are still no consequences when adults wave their guns around at Black and Brown kids. Police continue to mistreat, terrorize, and even murder boys and girls of color, and then walk free. We need to #TalkAboutTrayvon, share pictures of his sweet face, and remind each other what we continue to lose when we uphold a system that won’t punish people who kill Black children and adults. We are not only losing wonderful people—we are losing our humanity. White communities are used to consciously and unconsciously maintaining the racist policies and practices that led to Trayvon’s death—and, as white people, we must speak out against those policies and practices. When we remain silent and on the sidelines, we are complicit in maintaining these unjust systems. Our work is to get more white people who support us to take action toward racial justice—and to change the hearts and minds of those white people who are not yet with us. When we #TalkAboutTrayvon, we tell grieving parents that we see them and acknowledge their pain. When we #TalkAboutTrayvon, we tell Black children that we are not afraid of them—we are only afraid they won’t get the bright future they deserve.