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Episode 6: The Myth of Post-Racial America
From slavery to sharecropping to mass incarceration, American institutions have reproduced cycles of social rupture and exploitation by design. Is it even possible to imagine true equity as long as the current carceral system stands? Carvell Wallace and Jeffery Robinson begin with Bill Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill before turning to the ways in which incarceration ripples through questions of voting, health, wealth, and state violence. With final words from Afro-futurist author Sheree Renee Thomas, we’ll explore how we might dream a new America into being and the possibilities of Black liberation.
Additional Resources
- “Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.” Stanford.edu. April 24, 2017.
- Baptiste, Nathalie. “Study: Black People Are 75 Percent More Likely to Live near Toxic Oil and Gas Facilities.” Mother Jones. November 14, 2017.
- Blackmer, Peter. “Police Used the Myth of Black Snipers to Justify Brutality in the Long Hot Summer of 1967.” Timeline. August 11, 2017.
- Crime Bill Signing Ceremony. C-SPAN. 1994.
- Hopkinson, Nalo, and Uppinder Mehan. So Long Been Dreaming. Arsenal Pulp Press. 2009.
- Lauterbach, Preston. Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis. New York, NY: WW Norton. 2016.
- Lavender, Isiah, III, and Lisa Yaszek, eds. Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century. The Ohio State University Press, 2020.
- Li, Shirley, “The Evolution of Police Militarization in Ferguson and Beyond.” The Atlantic, August 2014.
- Lopez, German. “Nixon Official: Real Reason for the Drug War Was to Criminalize Black People and Hippies.” Vox. March 22, 2016.
- Maraniss, David. “Race ‘war’ in Cairo Reconciliation Grows as Memories Recede.” Washington Post, March 22, 1987.
- PEW Public Safety Performance Project. 2015. “Federal Drug Sentencing Laws Bring High Cost, Low Return.” Federal Sentencing Reporter 28, no. 1: 4–15.
- Pitts, Steven. “Black Workers and the Public Sector.” Berkeley.edu. Accessed October 19, 2020.
- “Redlining Was Banned 50 Years Ago. It’s Still Hurting Minorities Today,” Washington Post. March 28, 2018.
- Rosenau, William. “Bringing It All Back Home: The Roots of Militarized Policing.” Warontherocks.com. August 21, 2014.
- Royce, Eden. 2018. Apex Magazine August 2018. Edited by Sheree Renee Thomas and Jason Sizemore. North Charleston, SC: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
- “The Racial Dot Map.” Demographics Research Group. Coopercenter.org.
- TooleMan87. “Martin Luther King Jr. Shot — CBS Radio News First Report.” Youtube. April 5, 2011.
- “War Comes Home.” American Civil Liberties Union. June 2014.