Racial Literacy: Students Reflect

Moderator: Tracy Robinson-Wood and Ellen Cushman
Panelists: TBA

ASL interpreting will be provided. We recommend attendees make sure they are using the most current version of Zoom before logging into the event. Instructions on updating Zoom can be found here. 

Racial Literacy: Introduction and Reflections

This opening event gathers the Northeastern community to discuss the meaning and relevance of racial literacy for all of our lives. The capacity to read, rethink, resist, and replace racism informs how we relate to one another as global citizens. Speakers will address the emotions, beliefs, and actions for excavating race from an intersectional lens and through psychosocial narration.

Moderator:  Tracy Robinson-Wood
Panelists: Tracy Robinson-Wood, Nicole Aljoe, Kylie Bemis, Rod Brunson, Patricia Davis, Matt Lee, and Uta Poiger

ASL interpreting will be provided.

Racial Literacy: History

Boston—the “cradle of liberty” and a city with a seemingly paradoxical image as a place of racial progress and virulent racism—reveals the complexities that have undergirded race relations and the African American experience in the past and the present. We will discuss policies of segregation as well as historical and contemporary movements for change.

Moderator: Patricia Davis
Panelists: Patricia Davis, Ted Landsmark, Ángel Nieves, and Simon Rabinovitch

ASL interpreting will be provided. We recommend attendees make sure they are using the most current version of Zoom before logging into the event. Instructions on updating Zoom can be found here. 

Racial Literacy: Culture

Culture is central to racial literacy, to historical and contemporary understandings of race and racism. New laws and policies focused on equity cannot be effective if cultural narratives replicate unthoughtful, racist, or elitist ideas. We will explore how culture, including art and fiction, shapes notions of race and racial hierarchies and also creates possibilities for change.

Moderator: Nicole Aljoe
Panelists: Nicole Aljoe, Eunsong Kim, Gloria Sutton, and Melissa Pearson

ASL interpreting will be provided. We recommend attendees make sure they are using the most current version of Zoom before logging into the event. Instructions on updating Zoom can be found here. 

Racial Literacy: Community and Policing

The history of policing in the United States is intertwined with the histories of slavery, voter suppression, and racial profiling, and yet effective policing strategies should and can contribute to the safety of communities. Against such a complicated back-drop, we discuss unsettling police violence beyond simplistic “bad apple” explanations, offering nuanced analysis how shortsighted, aggressive policing practices have produced profound negative effects on Black citizens’ perceptions of, and experiences with, the police.

Moderator: Rod Brunson
Panelists: Rod Brunson, Margaret Burnham, Lisa Bailey-Laguerre, and Rebecca Riccio

ASL interpreting will be provided. We recommend attendees make sure they are using the most current version of Zoom before logging into the event. Instructions on updating Zoom can be found here.