“Juneteenth is one of the many steps toward freedom that Black people were experiencing in America in the early years,” said Dorsey, the author of To Build Our Lives Together: Community Formation in Black Atlanta, 1875-1906 (University of Georgia, 2004).

Celebrating the holiday is wonderful, she said, as long as everyone is aware of the facts.

“Black people celebrated when New York state ended slavery; they celebrated when Connecticut ended slavery. In each step, there’s a moment of celebration. I want Black people to be happy in whatever way they want to be happy. If you want to have a barbecue or a dance party, celebrate. But to prevent the corporate, ‘Come to the Juneteenth sale,’ you emphasize the history.”

Juneteenth commemorates the June 19, 1865, announcement in Galveston proclaiming African Americans’ freedom from slavery in the state of Texas roughly two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In her talk “Making Freedom Dreams Reality: Black Activism, Constitutional Rights and the Ongoing Struggle for Liberation,” held at Rose Hill, Dorsey described what happened in the years immediately following that announcement. She spoke in conversation with Chief Diversity Officer Rafael Zapata for the event, which was sponsored by his office.

Finding Lost Family

The first thing the former slaves did was set off to travel as far as 800 miles to track down lost spouses, siblings, and children. Dorsey said there is a popular misconception that the unpaid labor that slaves were forced to perform was one of the worst indignities they suffered. But in fact, the first thing they strove to repair were shattered familial bonds.

“I want to be clear that the kind of the sociological arguments that were made by white scholars in the 1960s that slavery destroyed the Black family are nonsensical,” she said.

“Yes, it broke up individual Black families, but the concept of family, the feeling people had for their relatives, their children, their mates—that is a human phenomenon that slavery doesn’t have the ability to disrupt.”

Entering Politics to Help Their Communities

There was also an explosion of interest in learning to read, she said, as well as a push to exercise the political power granted in 1870 by the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave Black men the right to vote.

“What I found sort of breathtaking was the boldness of their determination to use elected office not to benefit themselves, but to benefit their community,” she said.

Much of the progress that the formerly enslaved made after Juneteenth unraveled when United States Federal troops pulled out of Southern states in 1877 and the era of Reconstruction ended, Dorsey said. Understanding the backlash that followed Juneteeth, she said, is important for putting today’s struggles for racial justice into perspective.

“I’m going to celebrate Juneteenth…. but also know that my focus has to be on the next step and the next step.”

“We are so happy that you joined our community, that you brought your blazing talent to Fordham, and that you worked incredibly hard,” Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham, said in a video message to students. “All of it has led to this moment.” 

In total, more than 200 students were recognized at the third annual Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Latine, and Lavender (LGBTQ+) graduations. 

Si Se Puede: Yes You Can

The series of ceremonies began with the Latine graduation, which honored more than 80 students from both campuses. Each student was given an aqua blue stole, a color selected by students because it reminded them of the Caribbean. From a banquet table, they collected colorful patches stitched with the flags of Latin American countries, as well as stickers with slogans like “Si Se Puede,” which translates to “Yes You Can.” At the end of the evening, they ate empanadas, plantains, and rice and beans while listening to an eclectic group of Latinx artists that included Bad Bunny, Celia Cruz, and Rosalía. 

Juan Carlos Matos, assistant vice president for student affairs for diversity and inclusion, set the scene for the Latine graduation. 

“Tonight, let’s take in all of the joy in our ability to celebrate Latinidad in all its forms, from those born in Latin America, to those born in the States,” Matos said. “To those who are native Spanish speakers, to those who get along with their Spanglish … and everyone in between.” 

Finding A ‘Family’ at Fordham

In a heartfelt speech, student Maya Dominguez shared how her life changed after joining the Latine club at Rose Hill, El Grito De Lares, where she found a community of people who understood and embraced her culture. 

“Finding a community where you can share your struggles, laughter, and success is finding a family,” said Dominguez, who earlier that evening won a Sonrisa Award, given to two graduating seniors who demonstrate dedication to Fordham’s Latinx community. 

Arthur Ze An Liu, a senior who won the Lotus Award at the AAPI ceremony, said he found a similar community at Asian Cultural Exchange. He joined the student club during his first year at Fordham and rose in the ranks, from freshman representative, to treasurer, and finally president. He recalled their inaugural lunar year celebration, hosted by their club last year. 

“We were able to bring one of the most significant cultural holidays for the Asian community to Fordham,” said Liu, who was born and raised in Hong Kong and is of Chinese descent. “I’m glad that I represented my heritage and happy to have seen other people interact with my culture.” 

The celebrations, which were held at both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses, were sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, Office of the President, and the 2023 Senior Week committees. 

Below are the award winners for each graduation:

AAPI Graduation:

• Lotus Leadership Award: Naimal Chisti (Lincoln Center) and Arthur Ze An Liu (Rose Hill)
• Most Likely to Sell Out a Lincoln Center Concert (Superlative Award): Liz Shim (Rose Hill)
• Most Likely to Start a Successful Youtube Channel (Superlative Award): Maleiya Lorenzo (Rose Hill)
• Most Likely to Survive the Last of Us (Superlative Award): Jonathan DeFelipe (Rose Hill)
• Most Likely to Open a Michelin-Star Restaurant (Superlative Award): Ishrat Soha (Lincoln Center) 

 

Black Graduation:

• Black Leadership Award: Chanelle Dortch, Kiya Brown, Sophia Henderson (Lincoln Center) and Aminata Konateh, K.D. Spencer Roman, Alvin Feliz Varona (Rose Hill) 

 

Latine Graduation:

• Sonrisa Award: Annabel Filpo (Lincoln Center) and Maya Dominguez (Rose Hill)
• Pa’Lante Award: Daniella Lopez (Lincoln Center) and Alexander Chavez Sanchez (Rose Hill)

 

Lavender Graduation:

• George Takei Arts and Media Award: Adah Unachukwu (Lincoln Center) and Chloe McGee (Rose Hill)
• Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera LGBTQ+ Activism Award: Trystan Edwards (Lincoln Center) and Santiago Plaza (Rose Hill)
• Audre Lorde LGBTQ+ Research Award: Caridad Kinsella (Lincoln Center) and Benedict Reilly, Lillian Gieseke, Ethan Hammett (Rose Hill)
• Fr. Bryan N. Massingale Faculty LGBTQ+ Award: Karina Hogan (Lincoln Center) and Jennifer Moorman, Ph.D. (Rose Hill) 

 

“Inequality is rising in many countries across the world, and finding better policies to act against it is quite urgent. But we can’t just study what the effects of policies are,” said Stefanie Stantcheva, Ph.D. an economics professor at Harvard University and a guest speaker at a Feb. 9 Fordham lecture. “We also need to understand how people think about these policies.”

Stantcheva spoke at Fordham’s third distinguished lecture in economics, titled “How People Think About the Economy: Evidence from Social Economics Surveys.” She shared her newest research on how people view taxation and other policies that redistribute wealth to the poor. 

People tend to think about redistribution policies in four ways, said Stantcheva. How will they impact economic activity? Who will win or lose? Are people entitled to keep their income or should they redistribute their wealth? And how much can we trust in the government—the institution that puts forth these policies? 

The question that people are most concerned about is who will win or lose, along with the fairness of the policy, said Stantcheva. The problem, she added, is that we have very different ideas about what is fair.

Stantcheva and her colleagues examined four key factors that influence people’s perceptions on policy fairness: social mobility, immigrants, racial attitudes, and self-ranking in comparison to peers. They distributed surveys to thousands of people across several countries, including the U.S., to better understand their beliefs and the reasoning behind them. 

How Negative Experiences Change Views on Inequality 

One survey examined how people ranked their income level in relation to their peers and how their perception of their social position influenced their views on equity policies. The researchers found that people who ranked themselves more highly tended to believe that differences in income were fairer. They largely attributed their high income to their “hard work” rather than luck and believed that high-income earners deserved their income. They were also less supportive of redistribution policies, said Stantcheva. 

But the high earners responded differently when they experienced a negative event. In the survey, they discussed the impact of negative events, including unemployment, disability, and hospitalization. 

“What we can see is that a negative event makes people think that inequality is less fair, and a positive event like a promotion at work makes them think that inequality is more fair,” Stantcheva said. “There is much less effect on [beliefs about inequality when you consider]stickier views, like your political affiliation or your perception of how much of success is due to effort versus luck.” 

Opposing Views on Race and Racial Inequities

Another project explored how attitudes toward race and racial inequities shape support for redistribution policies in the U.S. Stantcheva surveyed non-Hispanic Black and white adults and teenagers across the U.S. They were asked about their stance on the economic conditions and opportunities of Black and white Americans, their views on racial issues and causes of racial inequities, and their level of support for race-targeted and general redistribution policies. 

The most controversial topic was causes of racial inequities and how to remedy them, said Stantcheva. 

“What’s very important is that … it doesn’t depend on how big you think inequities are. It actually really depends on why you think those gaps exist to start with,” she said. 

In the survey results, Democratic respondents from both races pointed to slavery in colonial America, long-standing discrimination, and racism as the causes of ongoing racial gaps. They supported income-targeted redistribution and race-targeted policies. On the other hand, many white Republican respondents said that lack of effort and individual decisions were the culprits of racial inequities. They were less likely to support the policies advocated by their counterparts.

What was incredibly striking was that these partisan gaps were already very prevalent among teenagers, said Stantcheva. 

“Teenagers, who themselves yet don’t have a political affiliation and don’t vote yet, still respond in a manner that’s very aligned with their parents’ political affiliation,” she said. “These youths are already very, very entrenched at a very young age.” 

Don’t Just Show Facts—Explain Their Story

Stantcheva and her colleagues wanted to know if they could change people’s policy views, so they conducted another experiment. First, they showed people facts about earning and opportunity gaps between Black and white Americans. This failed to sway anyone. But when they explained to the same group of people the causes and consequences of systemic racism—redlining, for example—that shifted people’s policy views, Stantcheva said. 

“Simply showing people how unequal circumstances and opportunities are doesn’t change their beliefs on why these are unequal and doesn’t change the narrative that they have in their mind … about why these gaps exist,” Stantcheva said. 

The lecture was organized by the Department of Economics’ Climate Committee and co-sponsored by the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and the Arts and Sciences Council. The inaugural 2019 lecture featured Janet Currie, professor at Princeton University and co-director of Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing. The second and most recent lecture featured Darrick Hamilton, professor and founding director of the Institute on Race and Political Economy at The New School.

Watch a full recording of the lecture below: 

“This talk comes out of having—after a year and a half of lockdown, terror, and isolation—the opportunity to encounter the work of Black artists that I was not familiar with, and to be able to encounter it in ways that made the spaces of their exhibition much clearer and more fraught to me,” Campt said in the Feb. 3 webinar. 

Campt is a professor at Brown University and a Black feminist therorist. She has authored five books, including the newly released A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (The MIT Press, 2021), which explores the work of contemporary Black artists. Her webinar explored the work of three Black artists that were not included in her newest book: Maxwell Alexandre, Troy Monches-Michie, and Jennifer Packer. Through different mediums, their artwork collectively probes different parts of the Black identity—including masculinity, queer desire, and vulnerability—and establishes critical dialogue in the largely white art world, said Campt. 

She recalled her recent visit to Maxwell Alexandre’s New Power exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France, which features paintings of Black and brown people in scenes of everyday life. As museum visitors contemplate the illustrated people, the figures in the paintings also observe their real-life onlookers. While viewing the artwork, Campt arrived at an uncomfortable realization. 

“In their gallery, all the visitors are Black. In mine, I am the only non-white spectator for the two hours I spend in the space. It’s a contrast I’ve internalized as normal—an expectation of being out of place that usually overtakes me as I approach the counter of a museum. It is equally palpable when I pass the threshold of a gallery and am met with stares or a complete lack of acknowledgement from blasé gallery staff who fail to look up from their counters,” Campt said. “New Power upends the dynamics of being out of place by recentering those often neglected and relegated to this position.”

Alexandre’s art revealed something else to Campt. As she walked around the gallery, she saw Black security guards—both the illustrated and real-life versions. When a lively group of young people arrived at the gallery, she noticed a Black security guard who closely monitored them. 

“Watching the guard as he shadowed them while moving through the gallery, I was struck by the fact that the art gallery is one of the few places where Black folks, often armed, are permitted to actively surveil white audiences,” Campt said. “What do the guards think of encountering their painted simulacra in spaces where they are usually overlooked or made invisible? … Sadly, both my French and my nerves failed to let me pose these questions. But it’s nevertheless one of the central questions posed by Alexander and articulated unequivocally in New Power … How might we lay claim to these spaces in ways that refuse not only a white gaze of consumption or exploitation, but instead initiate moans of reclamation and redress?” 

In a Q&A with the audience, Campt explained her creative process every time she encounters new art. In addition to considering the artwork, she observes the actual space surrounding the piece, the sounds of the gallery, and the people within the room, and then records her observations on an iPad. 

What’s most important is not what we literally see in the moment, but how we respond to the artwork, she said. 

“When I say that I’m writing to images, I’m writing from that response that they are soliciting from me. And in doing that, I’m trying to create a dialogue,” she said. 

At the end of the webinar, moderator Brandy Monk-Payton, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, said she observed in Campt’s work “this kind of insistence on the local, the intimate, and the interior as a way to sort of remain vigilant in some respects.”

“I’m wondering how we can sort of remain vigilant in supporting understanding of a Black gaze in this moment, this proliferation of wonderful media makers, creatives,” Monk-Payton said.

Campt said that the key to vigilance is discomfort. 

“What I’m talking about in terms of a ‘Black gaze’ is art that makes us feel uncomfortable. Artwork that makes us work. Not artwork that’s good, per se, but artwork that’s good because it’s hard,” Campt said. “How easy is this? How comfortable do I feel with that? And what does it mean to question that comfort?” 

This event was co-sponsored by the Arts and Sciences Council, the Division of Mission Integration and Ministry, and the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer.

“We’re working on having our students understand that what goes on outside is community. It’s love. It’s history,” said Lisa Preti, an assistant director in student financial services at Fordham and the mural project manager. “We’re having people actually immerse themselves in the community, as opposed to just learning about it in the classroom.”

The initiative was spearheaded by Fordham Bronx Advocates, a grassroots group of 10 to 15 Fordham community members and Bronx residents whose goal is to create a stronger partnership between Fordham and its neighbors. The mural is the first major project for the group, which was founded by Preti and her colleague Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of history and African and African American studies, this past fall semester. The large scale artwork is being painted on a side wall of the John E. Grimm III Clubhouse, a center that offers academic and recreational activities for young people in the community, said Preti. 

“The first building I saw right across the street from Fordham was the clubhouse on 189th Street and Lorillard Place. I went in and asked them if they were interested in creating a mural on site, and they said, ‘Yes, absolutely—we’ve been looking to do something like that for a long time,’” said Preti. “It’s really just taken off from there.” 

The mural was designed by Lovie Pignata, a Bronx artist and community activist, and funded by several Fordham groups and departments including the Bronx African American History Project, the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, the Fordham College Dean’s Office, and the Center for Community Engaged Learning. Project organizers also received free paint, rollers, and supplies from the nearby New Palace Paint & Home Center on 180th Street, said Preti. 

“It was amazing to see the community so quickly say, yes, we’ll help,” said Preti, a Bronx native whose parents still reside in the borough. “It started as a small grassroots movement, and we got lucky along the way.”

In mid-April, the artist behind the mural, Pignata, met with Fordham student volunteers and the clubhouse’s teenagers and staff to transform a plain brick wall into a garden mural bursting with colorful fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The mural includes several symbols, including root vegetables, which represent hidden potential, said Pignata.

After the mural is completed in May, the clubhouse will plant an actual community garden in front of the mural to help combat local food insecurity. Three planter boxes have been donated by the Northeast Bronx Community Farmers Market Project, which will also provide seedlings, said Pignata. 

“The theme of the mural is ‘growing together,’” Pignata said. “I like to make what I call community art, which is more hands-on and has more interaction with the people who will live near it [than public art]. I hope everybody involved in the mural is proud of it and feels like they’re a part of it.” 

Isabella Iazzetta, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who has participated in two painting sessions, said her volunteer experience has introduced her to more members of the Bronx community, including elementary school students who walk by and marvel at the mural. This summer, Iazzetta will be able to walk past the finished mural every day. 

“My roommates and I are actually moving off campus on that same block,” said Iazzetta, who studies humanitarian studies and theology religious studies at Fordham. “It’ll be so cool to look at and know that I had a tiny role in helping this all come to life.”

“It was so lovely to have this moment of true connection with other attendees who were Zooming in from across the country and even the world. Seeing the beautiful words of everyone in the chat fly up across the screen was incredible,” said Shannie Rao, a junior English major at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “As a student, the opportunity to be in a virtual room with so many different attendees—including some who were established poets—and all bring our most authentic selves to the writing prompts felt like such a gift.” 

The festival, held in honor of National Poetry Month and in support of Demos, a think tank that promotes an inclusive and mutiracial democracy, featured six award-winning poets who served as the evening’s “poet guides”: José Felipe Alvergue, Tamiko Beyer, Chen Chen, S. Brook Corfman, Carolyn Forché, and Aracelis Girmay. 

Each poet guide shared their favorite poems and intimate stories from this past year. Girmay recited a poem that helped her heal after father died in August. Alvergue recalled the day he told his neighbors how he felt about their new Trump/Pence 2020 campaign yard sign, standing a few yards away from his own Biden/Harris sign, and how he overheard them say, “Must be one of those illegal immigrants” as he walked away. 

“I was so moved by all the poet guide’s meditations and poems,” said Mason Rowlee, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who studies English and journalism. “It’s so difficult to focus and center yourself in the present with so much going on, and this festival is a great reminder of the importance of slowing down, taking a breath, and opening yourself up to being vulnerable.”

The six poet guides each offered a writing prompt to their virtual audience, who had several minutes to type responses in the Zoom chat. With the guidance of their host, Fordham professor and Director of Creative Writing Sarah Gambito, the audience completed their poems. Then they simultaneously hit the return button on their computers and released a flood of responses.

The Most Challenging Apology

One prompt asked attendees to think about the most challenging apology they could give or receive. The responses were powerful. One person apologized to their half-brother who died before they were able to meet “eye-to-eye, blood-to-blood, as halves.” Another apologized to their “long disabled daughter who has been quarantined for almost 30 years.” Several people apologized on behalf of their white slaveholder ancestors.

Many apologies related to the pandemic. One person demanded an apology from every white friend who had told them they were imagining increased hostility toward them as an Asian American, especially during the early days of the pandemic. Another asked for an apology for all the lives that could have been saved by wearing masks. 

An Accidental Gift from COVID-19

The final poet guide, internationally renowned poet Carolyn Forché, reflected on life in the pandemic and asked the audience to write a poem of gratitude. 

“We endured this as an entire species, all at once, all over the world. We came through this as human beings together. Not in living memory has this happened to the whole of humanity,” Forché said. “May we never lose sight of what we have been shown, that we share our Earth, sapphire and pulsing and alive.” 

Guests said they were grateful for freshly planted lavender, for a pet who lived longer than doctors had expected, for a lover found on Tinder, for the COVID-19 vaccines and the scientists who developed them, and hundreds of other things. 

“For lungs that work; for good bagels baked fresh; for fresh flowers from the bodega around the corner; for the guy at the bodega who always remembers me even with my mask on; for my dog; for poetry; for poets; for the little dust particles floating in a shaft of sunlight; for sunshine on my face; for the sharp bite of winter air when i breathe in; for museums; for chewy noodles; for my mother’s laughter; for life,” typed one guest. 

At the end of the evening, the guests thanked their poet guides and hosts. “I am so grateful for all of you—for the vulnerability, for the hope,” typed one person. “A gift of Covid for sure—such an event could not have existed otherwise,” wrote another. They left the event with a unique souvenir: 89 pages of their collective poetry from the saved Zoom chat.

“I’ve always known that poems are alive, but it’s moments like this when we can see the poem materialize … I’m just in awe of you and of this,” Gambito said. “It’s your poem. It’s our poem.” 

The festival was co-sponsored by Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s dean’s office, the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, and several organizations outside Fordham. 

“I think that part was the most painful for her. When I think about it, it’s really painful for me to think that something had happened to somebody I love, and nobody would stand up,” said Park-Taylor, an associate professor of counseling psychology and a director of training in the Graduate School of Education.

Park-Taylor shared this story as a part of a virtual community convening on anti-Asian violence and racism on March 24, which brought together more than 200 members of the Fordham community. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian bias, attacks, and harassment have been on the rise. Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit, documented almost 3,800 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from March 2020 to February 2021. Most recently, six Asian American women were murdered in Atlanta.

Members of the Fordham community, including Park-Taylor; Mary Balingit, associate director for diversity initiatives in the Office of Admissions; Arthur Liu, a Fordham College at Rose Hill sophomore and president of Fordham’s Asian Cultural Exchange; and Stephen Hong Sohn, Ph.D., professor and Thomas F.X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature, along with moderator Rafael Zapata, chief diversity officer and special assistant to the president for diversity, reflected on the impact of anti-Asian violence. They discussed ways to build community and heal, and talked about possibilities for interracial solidarity.

“I think what’s a little bit different about this moment is just the level of fear that I’ve heard communicated,” Sohn said. “It’s been higher than I’ve ever anecdotally seen before, and the circumstances coming out of COVID make the experience slightly unique as well.. But I think it’s important for us to realize this is part of a longer historical genealogy of anti-Asian sentiments that has reemerged in light of these circumstances.”

Liu, who is originally from Hong Kong, said that he “thinks fondly of the United States,” but that he had to convince his friends back home that many Americans weren’t like the political leaders who were making anti-Asian remarks.

“The political rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 and what Donald Trump has said—what he said was incredibly hurtful,” Liu said.

He also said he had friends ask him if he was considering taking martial arts classes to learn how to defend himself in case he was attacked.

“You shouldn’t have to feel the need to know how to defend yourself in a civil society,” he said. “And so I was taken aback by that initially, but honestly, I’m kind of buying into the idea, because I just feel a heightened sense of awareness and being scared.”

That sense of awareness is something that Park-Taylor said she has personally grappled with.

“When I think about the experiences of racism I’ve gone through throughout my life, I can think of it as this duality—sometimes I feel really invisible. I feel like I’m not seen at all, I’m not heard and silenced,” she said. “But then there are times when I feel hyper visible. There were (times when) I’m the only Asian person in a classroom. Or instances where I’m particularly targeted because I’m an Asian woman and [because of]the stereotypes about Asian women.”

Balingit said those negative stereotypes, which have been perpetuated throughout history, were on display when the Asian women were killed in Atlanta.

“That shared experience of being an Asian woman—the negative stereotypes that say that we’re docile, and that we’re quiet, we’re apolitical, and that we are weak—I think that played into that, and to what happened last week in Atlanta,” she said.

Park-Taylor said that she hoped people now have a better understanding of microaggressions and intersectionality.

“There’s a unique positionality that an Asian woman occupies in this place and space,” she said.

Balingit said that solidarity between minority communities is essential to combating these acts and other types of racism and white supremacy.

“I think what’s important is look at the history—we have to look at the history of our solidarity first, and to Rafael (Zapata’s) point is how everything is rooted mainly in white supremacy and how this perpetuates the pitting of minorities against each other,” she said. “Let’s not let this divide us even more, especially at a time like now where we’re also very isolated already.”

Zapata also stressed the importance of bystander intervention, and noted there are trainings on the topic, such as the one offered through Hollaback!, a global movement to end harassment.

“We had been working on a panel on this issue just as the murders in Atlanta took place, which was especially devastating, and made clear for all to see what far too many AAPI people in the U.S. had been experiencing at higher rates since the beginning of the pandemic,” Zapata said. “It also made participating in the panel more of a challenge, because of the emotional toll it could take on participants. I’m so grateful to the panelists for all they shared.”

For students, staff, and faculty, who might be struggling to handle anti-Asian hate and violence, Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services put together a resource sheet.

Jeffrey Ng, Psy. D, director of Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services and a licensed clinical psychologist, encouraged those in attendance to be there for their friends, families, and colleagues who might be dealing with acts of discrimination and racism.

“The immediate thought that comes to my mind is just to take the time to listen is so important, to try to be present and to be attuned to what your POC students or colleagues or peers might be sharing with you,” said Ng, who will be moderating a second community convening on March 29. “The validation and the affirmation is so critical for the healing process.”

“We wanted to get into quality education, the ability to move around the city in our communities, the ability to get jobs, get paid, live in the community, get married, have children. And I think … we realized we could make a difference if we did it ourselves.”

These words come from Judith “Judy” Heumann, a 72-year-old pioneer of the disability rights movement recently featured in TIME’s list of the most influential women of the past century. Heumann reflected on her life of activism at Fordham’s fifth annual Distinguished Lecture on Disability, “The Disability Rights Movement: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Need to Go,” in a Zoom webinar on Oct. 14. 

A Five-Year-Old ‘Fire Hazard’ Girl

Heumann became New York City public schools’ first teacher in a wheelchair after winning a landmark court case. She helped spearhead the passage and implementation of federal civil rights legislation for disabled people, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504, a federal law that prevents discrimination against individuals with disabilities. She also served in various leadership roles, including the World Bank’s first adviser on disability and development and the first special adviser for international disability rights under the Obama administration. In recent years, she has been working to change the portrayals of disabled people in the media as a senior fellow for the Ford Foundation. 

At the beginning of the webinar, she recalled that when she was a five-year-old girl with polio, the principal of a local school told her she couldn’t attend classes because she was a “fire hazard.”

“As I was getting older and meeting other disabled people, in my special ed classes and then at camp, it was becoming very apparent that we were facing discrimination without any real group of people speaking up against discrimination,” said Heumann, who had joined students earlier that day for a Q&A about the recent film Crip Camp, which featured the stories of disabled teens—including Heumann—at camp in the 1970s and their role in igniting the disabilities civil rights movement.

In that same period, she said, she also saw scores of people on TV standing up for civil and women’s rights across the country. They inspired her to lead demonstrations, start new organizations, and use legislation to fight discrimination directed toward the disability community, all while working closely with the community, religious leaders, and labor unions.

“All [these]types of activities were what enabled congressional representatives and U.S. senators to understand that the discrimination that disabled people were facing was not something that happened once in a while,” Heumann said. “It happened in every community, in every state—and it happened regularly.” 

Ongoing Obstacles for the Disability Community

In the wake of much progress, the disability community continues to struggle, said Heumann. Many Americans don’t realize they have a disability protected by law; others face stigmas and repercussions related to their disability, she said. There is a disproportionate number of disabled individuals in juvenile and adult facilities—people who may not have ended up in prison if they’d received “appropriate services along the way.” There isn’t enough money being dedicated to education for both nondisabled children and disabled children on local, state, and countrywide levels, she said, and many teachers-in-training at colleges and universities are not taught how to teach students in inclusive settings. 

Toward the end of the evening, the moderator of the event, Navena Chaitoo, FCRH ’13, a research manager at New York City mayor’s office of criminal justice, asked Heumann how people could take specific steps to help the disability community. 

“We’re talking about stronger parent training programs. We’re talking about better programs in universities for teachers, principals, and superintendents,” Heumann said. “We’re talking about our local school boards. Who are the people that you’re electing? … Are they fighting for you and your kids with disabilities?” 

“It all gets, to me, back to voting and knowing the people who are running for office and being more demanding and working collaboratively together.”

‘We Need to Normalize This’

In a Q&A, an audience member asked Heumann how society could lower stigmas around “invisible disabilities” like mental illness. 

“You look at Covid right now, and we’re talking about people having increased anxiety, increased depression, other mental health disabilities, and our inability to speak about this is both harmful to the individual person, to the family, and to the community at large. And so I think like with each category of disabled people, we need to normalize this,” Heumann said. She added that that specific movement needs to be led by people who have psychosocial disabilities themselves, like Andrew Imparato, executive director at Disability Rights California, who has openly spoken about his experience with bipolar disorder. She emphasized that we need to listen to people’s experiences and try our best to understand them. Lastly, she noted the importance of advocacy across generations and for youths, including students, to stand up for themselves. 

“Most importantly is allowing people the space and giving people the protections that they need,” Heumann said. “We have 61 million disabled people in the United States. If 5 million of us on a regular basis were speaking up and speaking out, it would have an amazing impact.” 

The live Zoom lecture, which featured two American Sign Language interpreters and live captioning, comes under two key initiatives on disability at Fordham: the disability studies minor and the research consortium on disability. The event was organized by the Faculty Working Group on Disability and co-sponsored by the offices of the provost and chief diversity officer, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Law, the Gabelli School of Business, the Graduate School of Social Service, and the departments of economics and English. 

Watch the full webinar in the video below: 

Below you will find the annual report of the Chief Diversity Officer. You will find here that the University is moving forward on multiple fronts in pursuit of greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. That said, it is not everything we can do, nor is it everything we intend to do. This work—dismantling racism, especially structural racism—is neither linear nor ever finished. This is why I refer to the action plan for confronting racism and educating for justice as iterative and ongoing.

I want to speak directly to the Black people and other people of color in the Fordham community. I know this has been a difficult year for you in many ways. The killing of Black people by police, the disproportionate harm that communities of color have suffered during the pandemic, and the upswelling of racism across the country have burdened you uniquely. I know this, as does every member of the Board of Trustees, every member of the administration, and every member of the faculty and staff. While no single institution is capable of curing these social ills, I promise you that Fordham is committed to doing its part to combat racism and anti-Blackness.

We will not be able to address every issue before us in the 2020-2021 school year: there is simply too much to accomplish in a single academic year. But we will devote all the resources we can—both in funding and staff time—to this very important work.

I hope you will take heart at the progress laid out in the annual report from the Chief Diversity Officer, and trust that we are committed to doing more, always.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

—————————————————————

To the Members of the University Community:

This has been a year like no other. It is with great humility that I share with you an overview of the work of our office during the past academic year while providing a vision and preliminary update regarding the critical work to come. 

The work of any office concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion is, at its core, focused on the identification and disruption of patterns of exclusion and marginalization, and the norms, systems, and structures that produce and perpetuate them. This work also involves identifying and promoting new and existing norms, policies, and practices that foster justice, success, and belonging, consistent with our mission and most deeply held values. This is what we have striven to do since my arrival as Fordham’s inaugural Special Assistant to the President, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Chief Diversity Officer in January 2018. 

Building on the work of the previous three semesters, last year we made important strides in a number of strategic DEI areas: 

Students and Student/Community Programs 

• We supported a range of outstanding events and programs organized by and for students and student organizations, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL), the Fordham Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP), and numerous academic departments. 
• In January 2020, with the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Center for Community Engaged Learning, we launched Martin Luther King, Jr. Week, featuring events on the theme: The Radical King. 
• We launched a prototype version of a non-credit first-year experience course, New York is My Campus, at both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses. 
• We continued to build a strong partnership with #TheBronxIsReading and the Bronx Book Festival. 

Faculty and Staff Diversity 

• Forty Five percent of all new tenured and tenure-track hires this year are persons of color, with particular success in the Arts & Sciences and the Graduate School of Education. This is the result of our continuing work in conducting active, engaged faculty searches, working closely with academic departments, and partnering with a range of disciplinary- and area-specific organizations. 
• We continued to collaborate with Human Resources to build a more robust infrastructure for administrative search and selection processes, and to partner with colleagues from Mission Integration and Planning to conduct diversity and mission-focused search committee training. 

Capacity Building 

• The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council finalized the Fordham DEI Strategic Framework to inform DEI planning across the university. 
• The Office of Admissions hired their inaugural Associate Director of Diversity Initiatives, Mary Balingit, who joined Fordham in early March 2020. 

Faculty Development and Pedagogy 

• We continued to work closely with Dr. Anne Fernald, Professor and Special Advisor to the Provost for Faculty Development, in hosting inclusive pedagogy workshops, including one at the beginning of the academic year on Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Practice. 
• Graduate students are creating and participating in anti-racist pedagogy workshops. 
• There are currently 421 Fordham faculty, graduate students, post-docs, and administrators who have taken advantage of our institutional membership in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, providing access to a range of faculty development resources. We also supported an additional 18 Fordham faculty to participate in the Faculty Success Program, bringing the total number of participants to 45 since Spring 2018. Learn about member resources. 

Policy

• In May, Fordham adopted a Test-Optional Admissions Policy for undergraduate students starting with the Fall 2021 entering class. 
• More recently, Fordham announced the adoption of a Chosen Name Policy. 

AND THEN CAME COVID-19 

In early March, the COVID-19 pandemic had an abrupt and devastating impact on our institution, city, and region. We suffered the loss of countless family and friends, as well as frayed bonds with our loved ones that make us truly human – all in order to beat back this dreadful disease. The pandemic shed light on what is both beautiful and deeply troubling about our human relations. On the one hand, there was profound compassion, courage, and collective action to care for one another in a time of crisis. On the other was xenophobia directed against Asians and Asian Americans, and the disease’s disproportionate impact on already vulnerable populations: the aged, people of color, the poor, the lonely, essential workers, caretakers, persons with disabilities, and those with already compromised immune systems. 

THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD 

On May 25, our country was further rocked by the video recorded murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of Minneapolis Police, sparking nation-wide protests against contemporary and historic police and vigilante violence against Black people in the United States. As difficult as 2020 has been, the events of the year have allowed more and more people and institutions to witness – many for the first time – the debasing and deadly nature of systems of racial and economic inequality in the United States. As a result, they have begun to take more serious steps to address long-standing, deeply-rooted challenges at the individual and systemic level. 

THE WORK AHEAD 

While this work is certainly not new at Fordham, as evidenced by Father McShane’s November 2016 Diversity Action Plan, it has taken on a new urgency among students, faculty and staff, as well as alumni and members of the communities surrounding our campuses. 

Father McShane’s June 29th Action Plan, Addressing Racism/Educating for Justice, highlighted both ongoing priorities, as well as a bolder set of initiatives, to help us more fully live out our mission. Several initiatives are already underway, including: 

• A series of outstanding summer and fall events hosted by the Fordham Law School Center on Race, Law and Justice. 
• ASILI, in collaboration with other student organizations, offered programming over the summer via Instagram Live and other social media platforms. 
• Numerous schools, divisions, and departments are developing and implementing plans to conduct anti-racism training for their students, staff, and faculty. 
• The Office of Human Resources is currently working on developing University-wide training on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 
• Fordham will be co-sponsoring a series of events this fall on issues of race, identity, and community in partnership with the Bronx Book Festival. 
• Advanced conversations with students, faculty, and deans from various academic departments are taking place regarding curriculum, with many potentially supported by Teaching Race Across the Curriculum (TRAC) grants. That program will be officially announced within the next two weeks. 
• The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council convened on Friday, September 4th, to begin to map out challenges, opportunities, and strategies in support of Father McShane’s June 29 Action Plan, and for on-going outreach and discussion throughout the Fordham community. 

With the fall semester officially underway, planning and strategy meetings with key stakeholders across the University are taking place with greater frequency, helping to move us from aspiration, to prioritization, to action and eventual implementation. There will be more specifics to report in the coming weeks and months, and we promise to share news of progress and relevant developments as they unfold. Importantly, we also invite your ideas to help our community heal, continue to learn and grow, and work collaboratively toward sustainable, systemic change, and racial justice. 

Yet, this will continue to be a year like no other. While we in the state, region, and city of New York have – for the time being – beaten the disease back, COVID is still among us, and must continue to be navigated with the utmost care. Moreover, the recent shooting of Jacob Blake, unarmed and in front of his children, by a Kenosha, WI, police officer, is yet another reminder of the urgency of this moment in the struggle for racial justice. Let us go forward, together, in love and solidarity, affirming in all that we do that BLACK LIVES MATTER, moved by the words and example of a previous generation of New York City youth fighting for justice: Pa’lante, Siempre Pa’lante. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Rafael A. Zapata 

Special Assistant to the President for Diversity, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs & Chief Diversity Officer 

After decades and centuries, we have still not created a nation and a culture in which all citizens are truly equal, a nation in which each citizen is treated with dignity.

The Black community has never enjoyed the kind of respect, and has never had access to the range of opportunities, that other communities in our country have had. The protests that have occurred across the country and that have brought together people from every race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and age group in the aftermath of the brutal killing of George Floyd are both a cry of the heart coming from a community that has been the victim of systemic racism for our entire history, and a call to a national examination of conscience on race relations and on racism itself. And a call to action for Fordham.

In the course of the past few weeks, the members of the Board of Trustees, the administration, and I have watched and listened. We have read the many emails, petitions, and Instagram posts that have come from the University community. We have all been moved and dismayed by these statements and testimonials, and deeply saddened by the trauma that prompted them. Therefore, it is clear that the national awakening has come to Fordham. To be sure, we have in the past made strides in our efforts to create a more diverse, inclusive, and affirming community. But this moment has made it clear that we can and must do more. We all know this in our bones and in our hearts.

In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, the chair of our Board of Trustees convened a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board devoted to addressing the scourge of racism. During the meeting (which was attended by a majority of the board’s members), our conversations were led by the Black members of the board. That meeting was followed by a meeting of the Board Strategy Committee. The board came away from both of those meetings with a firm belief that the question of racism was of such great mission-importance that they have both recast the charge of the Mission and Identity Committee to include Social Justice (and hence that committee has become the Mission and Social Justice Committee, which will be co-chaired by Anthony Carter and Thomas Regan, S.J.) and asked us to make the confrontation of racism in all its forms an important part of our strategic planning.

The same passion for confronting racism has been clear in all of the conversations that I and the other members of the administration and faculty leadership have had in the course of the past month. Indeed, the Board of Trustees feels so strongly about this that they have mandated annual anti-racism training for all faculty, administrators, staff, and students—including the president’s cabinet and the Board of Trustees.

Therefore, with the backing of the whole Fordham community (from the board to the faculty to the staff to the students), the administration, the provost, the vice presidents, the deans, the chief diversity officer, and I have drawn up the action plan that is outlined below. As the board, the administration, and I share it with you, I assure you that this should be seen as the first in a series of steps in what we now recognize must be an iterative process: as we listen more attentively and as we do more, we will learn more and adjust our plans and actions accordingly. Therefore, let us begin.

Goal: Develop Robust Admissions Strategies for Effective Recruitment of Students of Color to Fordham

Recruitment and Pipeline Development

The University will launch an aggressive recruitment program for Black and Latinx students, with a focus on talent identification, pipeline development, and enhanced financial aid aimed at substantially increasing our undergraduate Black and Latinx student populations. We are committed to dedicating significant resources to achieve this goal.

Actions

Create an overnight Multicultural Admitted Students’ Yield Program designed specifically for historically underrepresented students and their families.

Continue to co-sponsor (with the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities) and host the only college open house for Black and Latinx students in New York state.

To promote the University’s interest in furthering diversity, Fordham will increase the amount of financial aid available to our Black (and Latinx) students by prioritizing the creation of endowed scholarships in our new capital campaign.

Launch the Urban Justice Scholars Program to bring to Fordham each year a cohort of 15 high-achieving, low- to moderate-income students from across the country whose academic, cocurricular, and vocational goals focus on understanding and addressing social and economic inequality from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.

The University has already adopted a test-optional admissions policy. In Fordham’s undergraduate admission process, each application will continue to be reviewed holistically as we look for students who will be academically successful and bring personal qualities of integrity, perseverance, and leadership to our campus communities.

Actions Supporting the Building of a Better Admissions Pipeline

Create the Bronx Bothered Excellence Scholars Summer Program to serve historically underrepresented high school students in grades 10 through 12 who are committed to the Catholic and Jesuit mission of justice and cura personalis.

Drawing on the success of our outreach efforts at local Catholic high schools in the Bronx and Manhattan (such as Cardinal Hayes High School, Cristo Rey New York High School, and the Academy of Mount Saint Ursula), we will expand our efforts to include other neighborhood high schools, both public and private.

Goal: Recruiting and Retaining a More Diverse Faculty, Administration and Staff

Actions

Fordham will continue to prioritize the diversification of the ranks of the entire staff of the University: administrators, faculty, and staff.

Building on the success that we have had in the past few hiring cycles, the chief diversity officer will continue to conduct annual workshops for deans, chairs, vice presidents, and search committees to familiarize them with the University’s expectations for hiring practices.

Launch the John LaFarge, S.J., Visiting Scholars and Fellows Program, which will bring doctoral candidates to Fordham to facilitate the career growth and success of degree candidates who are underrepresented in their proposed fields of study to work with Fordham faculty mentors in their fields.

Launch the Joseph Fitzpatrick, S.J., Postdoctoral Fellowship and Cluster Hire Program, a postdoctoral scholars program designed to attract young scholar-teachers whose work takes an interdisciplinary, praxis-oriented approach to examining the structures, policies, and practices that produce racial and gender inequality in American society.

Goal: Develop Curricular and Cocurricular Initiatives That Support the Imperative of Confronting Racism and Educating for Justice

Actions

Increase support for the work of the special assistant to the provost for faculty development to enhance initiatives focused on anti-racist pedagogy and practice.

The Office of the Chief Diversity Officer will offer Teaching Race Across the Curriculum Grants to assist the faculty’s efforts to develop ways to integrate questions of race, racism, inequality, and justice into their introductory courses as well as in Values Seminar and Interdisciplinary Capstone Core courses.

The deans of all of the schools will work with their faculty members to ensure that courses include content-appropriate discussions or treatment of issues of racism, inequality, and diversity as often and as richly as possible.

Use faculty resources to create a library of print, audio, and audiovisual resources on racism, race, and diversity. This library will make it possible for faculty to use these resources as asynchronous elements to achieve the goal of providing all first-year students with the course that contains a strong introduction to anti-racism called for in the University’s Diversity Action Plan during the 2020–2021 academic year, and to embed discussion of issues associated with diversity, inclusion, and racism in their existing courses.

Strengthen and expand our Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), as well as our Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP).

The University will increase its support of and work to raise the visibility of the Department of African and African American Studies, as well as the Bronx African American History Project.

The University will co-sponsor and significantly increase its support of the Law School’s Center on Race, Law and Justice in order to convene scholars across the University working on issues of racial justice. The center aims to be a hub of scholarship on issues relating to race that strengthens the University internally and helps to build its reputation in the wider community.

Goal: Create a More Welcoming and Affirming Campus

Actions

The University has made provision in the plans for the new campus center at Rose Hill for the creation of a much-needed dedicated Multicultural Center. A similar center will be established on the Lincoln Center campus.

Supplement the goal of supporting diversity in all University policies with the goal of confronting racism in all we do.

Institute annual, mandatory anti-racism training for all faculty, administrators, staff, and students—including the president’s cabinet and the Board of Trustees.

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, which collects suggestions and feedback from all constituencies at Fordham, shall make twice-annual recommendations to the president on necessary actions and policies.

Building on the work of the Diversity Leadership Team, led by Rafael Zapata (chief diversity officer), Kay Turner (vice president for human resources) and Juan Carlos Matos (assistant vice president for student affairs for diversity and inclusion), redouble our efforts to create and sustain a campus culture that supports and cherishes our students, faculty, and staff of color.

Drawing from input we have received from our students, the counseling office, the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs will continue to refine the following offerings: Black Healing and Empowerment Circle, Ally Solidarity and Support Space, Non-Black Students of Color Support Group, and Navigating Police Brutality and Racial Trauma Workshop.

Establish a peer mentoring program for students of color.

As was the case this year, the University will henceforth observe Juneteenth as a paid University holiday.

Goal: Build Lasting Partnerships With Our Neighbors

Actions

Launch the first Bronx Youth Summit on the Rose Hill campus during calendar year 2021, convening high school students from across the borough to study and actively address issues affecting their communities.

We will strive to become the primary sponsor and host of the annual Bronx Book Festival, as well as co-sponsor events with the organization throughout the academic year.

Led by the finance division and the Office of Government Relations and Urban Affairs, we will develop a plan to increase our university-wide contracting and purchasing with and from minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs), with a particular focus on those in the Bronx and Manhattan.

We will launch the Annual Fordham University Arts, Community, and Social Justice Banquet to honor local artists, youth, community organizations, as well as Fordham students, faculty, and staff whose work, service, teaching, and scholarship embody lives dedicated to justice for others.

Through the Fordham Foundry and Social Innovation Collaboratory, we will create a consulting service/office (staffed by undergraduate and graduate students from the Gabelli School of Business) to assist minority-owned neighborhood businesses in applying for funding, including loans from the Small Business Administration, and to help them draw up business plans that will enable them to achieve greater stability and success in the future.

Building on the work of the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL), double or triple CCEL’s investment of time, energy, and attention in sustainable partnerships in areas around the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses.

Use the expertise and services of the Graduate School of Social Service, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Law, and the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education to create clinics or outreach to serve the members of our Bronx and Manhattan neighborhoods.

Goal: Amplify our Voice in Educating for Justice Beyond the Campus

Actions

Create an ongoing WFUV series on The Black Experience in America that will be aired on the station, ensuring that conversations on racism, race, and the richness of Black culture are shared broadly with the WFUV audience.

Seek a partnership with the recently established Museum of Civil Rights that will enable us to broaden the University’s involvement in the study of the Black experience in America.

Build collaborative relationships with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, PEN America, and other prominent academic and cultural institutions in New York City.

Implementation

The divisions and departments responsible for the various initiatives outlined above will develop implementation plans. The Board of Trustees and the cabinet will be deeply involved in the process, reviewing those plans and follow-up reports with an eye to effectiveness and sustainability.

Concluding Reflections

To those of you who have shared painful memories via email and on social media, let me say I am deeply grateful for your forthrightness, something from which I learned more than I can say about the way in which systemic, structural racism inflicts pain on those who suffer from its power. You have my solemn word that we will do better.

I invite the whole Fordham community to see this inflection moment in our nation’s history and in Fordham’s history as an opportunity to work for the creation of a more just world.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

The articles, films, academic papers, podcasts, and interviews listed below are for anyone interested in learning about the Black Lives Matter Movement, racial inequality and racialized violence, and communal responses toward action and healing.

Self-Care

How Black Americans can practice self-care… And how everyone else can help, Elizabeth Wellington, 2020
4 Self-Care Resources for Days When the World is Terrible, Miriam Zoila Pérez, 2020

Demonstrating Care for Black People

Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They’re Okay — Chances Are They’re Not, Danielle Cadet, Refinery 29, 2020
Before You Check In On Your Black Friend, Read This, Elizabeth Gulino, Refinery 29, 2020

Articles

Around the world, the U.S. has long been a symbol of anti-Black racism, Nana Osei-Opare, The Washington Post, 2020
NYPD at the Crossroads: Some Background History, Mark Naison, The Gotham Center for New York City History, 2020
Racism Won’t be Solved by Yet Another Blue Ribbon-Report, Adam Harris, The Atlantic, 2020
The assumptions of white privilege and what we can do about it, Bryan N. Massingale, National Catholic Reporter, 2020
The NFL Is Suddenly Worried About Black Lives, Jemele Hill, The Atlantic, 2020
Performative Allyship is Deadly (Here’s What to Do Instead), Holiday Phillips, Forge – Medium, 2020
A Look Back At Trayvon Martin’s Death, And the Movement it Inspired, Karen Grigsby Bates, Code Switch – NPR, 2018
Blackness as Disability? Kimani Paul-Emile, Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History, 2018
The Intersection of Policing and Race, Danyelle Soloman, American Progress, 2016
The Cost of Balancing Academia and Racism, Adrienne Green, The Atlantic, 2016
The Politics of ‘Looting’ and ‘Violence’, Eric Draitser, CounterPunch, 2015
“The White Space,” Elijah Anderson, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(1), 10-21

Books

How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, (One World/Ballantine, 2019)
Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination, Tanya K Hernández, (NYU Press, 2018)
So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo, (Seal Press, 2018)
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, (Canongate Books, 2018)
The Sin of White Supremacy: Christianity, Racism, & Religious Diversity in America, Jeannine Hill-Fletcher, (Orbis Books, 2017)
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, Andrea Ritchie, (Beacon Press, 2017)
Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond, Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster, (Simon and Schuster, 2016)
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates, (Spiegel & Grau, 2015)
Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, Bryan Massingale, (Orbis Books, 2014)
Citizen: an American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, (Graywolf Press, 2014)
Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story, Natalie Byfield, (Temple University Press, 2014)
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, Claude Steele, (WW Norton & Company, 2011)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander, (The New Press, 2010)
Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School, Mika Pollock, (The New Press, 2008)
Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)

Multimedia: Documentaries and Conversations

The Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project Fordham University. Carlos Rico, Veronica Quiroga, and Bethany Fernandez.
13th (2016) [Film]. Netflix. Duvernay, A. (Streaming for free)
Just Mercy (2019) [Film]. Warner Bros. Cretton, D. D. (Streaming for free)
Black vs. White: Protesting & Riots (2020) [Interview] Christina Greer & Jason Johnson
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on How Racism & Racial Terrorism Fueled Nationwide Anger (2020)[Interview] DemocracyNow!
Decade of Fire (2019) [Film]. GoodDocs. Hilderbran, G., Vazquez, V.
When They See Us (2019) [TV Mini-series]. Netflix. Duvernay, A.
Angela Davis – “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” (2019) [Lecture] The University of New England
Dr. Robin DiAngelo discusses ‘White Fragility’ (2018) [Book Talk] Seattle Central Library
The Urgency of Intersectionality (2016) Kimberlé Crenshaw, TED
The Black Power Mixtape (2011) [Film] PBS Independent Lens. Göran Olsson
Color Blind or Color Brave (2014) Mellody Hobson, TED.
The Power of Vulnerability (2010) Brené Brown, TED.
Intersectionality Matters [Podcast] Kimberlé Crenshaw
Code Switch [Podcast] NPR
Pod Save the People [Podcast] Deray McKesson

Get Involved

The Bronx Freedom Fund
#8cantwait
8toAbolition

Additional Resources

Jesuit Resources on Racism: Ignatian Solidarity Network – Racial Justice