Day 78, June 2, 2020

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“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” 
― Nelson Mandela

“For many people of color, learning to break the silence is a survival issue. To remain silent would be to disconnect from her own experience, to swallow and internalize her own oppression.The cost of silence is too high.” 
― Beverly Daniel Tatum, "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity

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BY CARL PHILLIPS

There is a difference it used to make,

seeing three swans in this versus four in that

quadrant of sky. I am not imagining. It was very large, as its

effects were. Declarations of war, the timing fixed upon for a sea-

             departure; or,

about love, a sudden decision not to, to pretend instead to a kind

of choice. It was dramatic, as it should be. Without drama,

what is ritual? I look for omens everywhere, because they are everywhere

to be found. They come to me like strays, like the damaged,

something that could know better, and should, therefore—but does not:

a form of faith, you've said. I call it sacrifice—an instinct for it, or a habit

             at first, that

becomes required, the way art can become, eventually, all we have

of what was true. You shouldn't look at me like that. Like one of those

             saints

on whom the birds once settled freely.

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.” 
― Toni Morrison

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” 
― Chinua Achebe

History Lesson

BY NATASHA TRETHEWEY

I am four in this photograph, standing   

on a wide strip of Mississippi beach,   

my hands on the flowered hips

of a bright bikini. My toes dig in,   

curl around wet sand. The sun cuts   

the rippling Gulf in flashes with each   

tidal rush. Minnows dart at my feet

glinting like switchblades. I am alone

except for my grandmother, other side   

of the camera, telling me how to pose.   

It is 1970, two years after they opened   

the rest of this beach to us,   

forty years since the photograph   

where she stood on a narrow plot   

of sand marked colored, smiling,

her hands on the flowered hips   

of a cotton meal-sack dress.

“Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labor-saving device in the face of complexity.” 
― Henry Louis Gates

“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” 
― Zora Neale Hurston

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” 
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.” 
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them—inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men. But race is the child of racism, not the father.”

-Ta Nehisi Coates

“In downtown Greenville, they painted over the WHITE ONLY signs, except on the bathroom doors, they didn’t use a lot of paint so you can still see the words, right there like a ghost standing in front still keeping you out.” 
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

Mighty Pawns

BY MAJOR JACKSON

If I told you Earl, the toughest kid

on my block in North Philadelphia,

bow-legged and ominous, could beat

any man or woman in ten moves playing white,

or that he traveled to Yugoslavia to frustrate the bearded

masters at the Belgrade Chess Association,

you'd think I was given to hyperbole,

and if, at dinnertime, I took you

into the faint light of his Section 8 home

reeking of onions, liver, and gravy,

his six little brothers fighting on a broken love-seat

for room in front of a cracked flat-screen,

one whose diaper sags it's a wonder

it hasn't fallen to his ankles,

the walls behind doors exposing the sheetrock

the perfect O of a handle, and the slats

of stairs missing where Baby-boy gets stuck

trying to ascend to a dominion foreign to you and me

with its loud timbales and drums blasting down

from the closed room of his cousin whose mother

stands on a corner on the other side of town

all times of day and night, except when her relief

check arrives at the beginning of the month,

you'd get a better picture of Earl's ferocity

after-school on the board in Mr. Sherman's class,

but not necessarily when he stands near you

at a downtown bus-stop in a jacket a size too

small, hunching his shoulders around his ears,

as you imagine the checkered squares of his poverty

and anger, and pray he does not turn his precise gaze 

too long in your direction for fear he blames

you and proceeds to take your Queen.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.
― Langston Hughes

From Our Friends:

From Linda Cavanaugh and the AAC&U:

"Higher Ed's Role in Promoting Racial Healing and the Power of Wonder"

From the Korean American Community Foundation of NY:

Here are some actions we can take immediately:

• Actively listen and learn about racial inequities. Here is a reading list recommended by Ibram X. Kendi, Historian and Author of How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

• Vote and raise your voice in confronting racism and calling for accountability and policing changes, as well as justice for George Floyd. Join local efforts to reform systems. 

• Donate to social justice organizations that are fighting against racial inequities, including recommended organizations by Reclaim the Block, Black Lives Matterand NAACP. 

Today's Online Teaching Tips:

From Academic Impressions:

"Responding to Microaggressions in Online Learning Environments During a Pandemic"

More Resources:

• Identifying and Removing Microaggressions | Bundle of 2 Recorded Webcasts
• Creating Safe Spaces for Students by Taking ACTION Against Microaggressions | Recorded Webcast
• Understanding and Addressing Microaggressions | Short Video Lessons - Exclusive to Members
• Resources on Online Teaching Effectiveness | Learning Hub
• Creating a Safe Space in Your Class During a Crisis | Article