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ASU News

More than words: Acknowledging Indigenous land

Tempe campus
July 5, 2020

ASU Library crafts land acknowledgement — the beginning of a healing process

Editor's note: Arizona State University has previously acknowledged the ancestral homelands that the Tempe campus sits on and will continue to do so as the ASU community continues this important conversation. Please find the university's statement on its commitment to Native nations, posted in August 2015, here.

“The ASU Library acknowledges the 22 Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries.”

Thus begins the Arizona State University Library’s first Indigenous land acknowledgement – a five-sentence, 116-word statement about the place that the library and the university have inhabited for more than a century.

“The statement represents the ASU Library’s intentions to begin a healing process,” said Lorrie McAllister, associate university librarian for collections and strategy. “We need to acknowledge that ASU is an occupant on Indigenous lands and that we need to take active steps to forge relationships of reciprocity.” 

Alex Soto (Tohono O’odham) and Brave Heart Sanchez (Ndeh and Yaqui), both graduate students in the University of Arizona’s Knowledge River Program, add that the statement also represents a crucial first step toward welcoming Indigenous peoples into the library, recognizing their knowledge systems and their relationships to their land, while opening the door to further opportunities for engagement.  

Alex Soto

“Land acknowledgement is only the first step,” said Soto, who, together with McAllister and Sanchez, currently leads the ASU Library’s Labriola National American Indian Data Center, which encompasses dedicated Native community space within the library and a notable collection of rare books and manuscripts, as well as open stack circulating materials that are by, for and about Native Americans — a library within a library.

Under the direction of McAllister, the statement was crafted by Soto and Sanchez, with input from Jacob Moore, associate vice president of tribal relations at ASU; Joyce Martin, associate librarian and head of the library’s social sciences division who led the Labriola Center for more than 12 years; and other key faculty and staff stakeholders.

Soto, an operations supervisor who manages the Labriola Center on the West campus, says the land statement does a good job of recognizing where we are as a university library, both figuratively and literally, and can serve as a launch pad for deeper conversations about how the ASU Library might integrate and prioritize Indigenous knowledge systems.

“We are on Akimel O’odham land, and that always needs to be at the forefront of our thinking,” he said. “This is the nation whose land we are on, and they’re still here. Today, the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh reside in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which is two miles east of Sun Devil Stadium, and in the Gila River Indian Community, which is south of the Phoenix metro area.”

“Arizona State University's four campuses are located in the Salt River Valley on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today.”

With acknowledgement, comes awareness — but these things take time, says Sanchez, and an abundance of care.

“The amount of care it takes to appropriately communicate heavy subjects, like historical trauma across cultures is significant,” said Sanchez, pointing to both the pains and opportunities inherent in the work of decolonization. “The land statement is a beginning point for the library to set up those structures and have real dialogues. ‘Pima’ is a bridge word, but you need that bridge to begin that conversation.”

A colonial term, “Pima” refers to the O’odham phrase “Pi mach,” which translates to “I don’t know.” 

This phrase was misinterpreted as “Pima” by Spanish colonists, who then took the word to identify the Akimel O’odham (River People), Tohono O’odham (Desert People) and Hia-ced O’odham (Sand People), who were simply using the phrase because they did not understand what the Spanish were saying. 

Because of the historical lack of communication and the need to raise awareness, Soto says in doing this work it’s necessary to involve people from Native communities and community allies who come at it from a different perspective and can open the door for others to hear Indigenous knowledge systems.

Lorrie McAllister

Sanchez and Soto both say they code-switch regularly in their work as librarians with the aim to meaningfully support Indigenous students at ASU and communicate their needs to library leaders. Code-switching, moving competently between two languages or dialects, more broadly refers to the subtle ways we move between cultural and linguistic spaces, expressing different parts of our identity.

“Books can come and go, but having that code-switching voice and having the structures that support those voices, those advocates, that’s where systemic change comes from,” Sanchez said.

“ASU Library acknowledges the sovereignty of these nations and seeks to foster an environment of success and possibility for Native American students and patrons.”

Last year, the ASU Library announced its endorsement and adoption of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials, one in a series of moves to advocate for Native American communities through library policy, including the expansion of the Labriola Center, which now has two locations: Fletcher Library on the West campus and Hayden Library on the Tempe campus.  

“Two Labriola Center spaces is a good sign,” Soto said. “Ideally, we should have one on every campus.”

Last semester, the Labriola Center partnered with the student group IndiGenius to host an open house and open mic night, inviting all ASU students to learn more about Labriola — how it has grown and where it plans to go — and share their creative expressions.

The center has also partnered with the ASU Library’s Community Driven Archives (CDA) Initiative, led by Nancy Godoy, associate archivist, to offer Indigenous communities an opportunity to record their oral histories and learn how to preserve photographs and other historical artifacts. 

“We can’t do this work of addressing systemic racism without looking at all groups, or else we’re just reproducing that same system,” said Alana Varner, the project archivist with the library’s CDA initiative. 

Together with her team, Varner partners with local organizations to create safe spaces for historically marginalized groups with the goal to reclaim authorship over their own history and preserve it for future generations.

Recently, the two library units, Labriola and CDA, have led community workshops focused on the importance of listening to and archiving the voices of Black people, Indigenous people and other people of color during the global pandemic. 

“Memory in the Midst of Pandemic” and “Community Memory and Resiliency Show and Share” are recent workshops that have brought together Native American students and community members. In the latter event, Labriola and CDA partnered with American Indian Student Support Services to share, virtually, their stories, photographs and other historical artifacts.  

Brave Heart Sanchez

In the wake of the pandemic, Soto and Sanchez also created a library guide of COVID-19 resources for Indigenous communities. The page, which has been viewed over 3,600 times, is a starting point for ASU students and the wider community seeking “Indigenous-centric resources and tribal perspectives” on the coronavirus.

Varner says the land acknowledgement statement speaks to what ASU loves to think of as its greater mission — that we actively work to include all groups in our knowledge production.

“Socially, we are moving these conversations forward,” Varner said. “A statement like this is created in conversation and in collaboration with the impacted communities. It means we are willing to hear what they have to say and change our expectations accordingly.”

“We are advocates for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies within contemporary library practice.”

Nothing is static, especially knowledge, Soto said.

“How we set up a space will inform the ways in which we interact in that space,” he said. “We need to be asking, how can we be more inclusive to Native knowledge systems?”

Sanchez says the current climate is ripe for Indigenous knowledge systems, as the challenges we face — climate change, racial and social injustice and gross inequality — grow more urgent by the day.

“There is a lot of potential in how the library thinks about, collects, deals with and distributes knowledge, from an archival perspective and a student success perspective,” Sanchez said. “How can we further empower communities and participate more in consciousness raising?”

The need for a statement acknowledging Indigenous land cannot be understated, particularly in the context we find ourselves discussing it today. It was written before George Floyd was killed at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, sparking global protests for police reform and an end to systemic racism. 

“I feel there are a lot of intersections between the essence of the statement and the need to confront systemic racism, white supremacy and settler colonialism at ASU and beyond,” Soto said. 

Moore, associate vice president of tribal relations at ASU, says the statement is a great start to a deeper engagement with American Indian students and faculty, and tribal nations and communities. 

“ASU Library is a leader in social justice by giving voice to those not commonly heard from, or, in the past, conveniently left out,” Moore said. “The Indigenous land acknowledgement honors the original caretakers of the land that ASU now resides on. Understanding our place and space in this world goes beyond knowing when the first territorial settlers arrived, but begins the process of developing a deeper, richer, collective story of our past, present and future.”

“ASU Library welcomes members of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh, and all Native nations to the library.” 

The term “postcolonial” is controversial among scholars, as it implies that colonization is behind us; however, for Indigenous peoples, colonization continues as a daily part of life.

“ASU is, inherently, a colonial space that is actively trying to become less colonial,” Sanchez said. “There are spaces that are much more Indigenous than others. There are spaces more decolonized than others. There is no possibility of a full realization of decolonization because of the colonial nature of our country. We’re on Native land, but we’re in Tempe.”

If the ASU community is to truly embody the ASU Charter, we must first lay the groundwork for community healing and intentional place-making — work that Soto, Sanchez and Varner argue is well suited to cultural memory institutions, such as libraries and archives, and universities.

“ASU has the potential to be the leader in the country. We can set the benchmark,” Varner said.

Soto says ASU’s global platform makes the land acknowledgement that much more vital and worthy of revisiting.

“I hope that we rewrite the statement every two years so that it continues to grow better and stronger,” Soto said. 

Sanchez agrees — the conversation is just beginning.

“To advocate means ‘to call,’ or ‘to call into,’ and that is the meat of the statement — the call,” he said. “The big question, then, becomes: How does ASU answer it?” 

This article was written in collaboration with Alex Soto and Brave Heart Sanchez. Top photo credit: Gabe Border / Courtesy of Ayers Saint Gross.

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Britt Lewis

Communications Specialist , ASU Library

 
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Creativity

Questions of place in a time of uncertainty

Tempe campus
June 26, 2020

New ASU center partners with prestigious NYC nonprofit to offer inaugural borderlands fellowships that seek to question the role of Indigeneity in our future society

Having just launched in late January of this year, ASU’s Center for Imagination in the Borderlands was still in its infancy when the world came to a screeching halt as a result of the coronavirus.

But as fortune would have it, a constellation of forces, presciently suited to take on the strange new challenges we have already begun to face — which had been quietly simmering for nearly a year — were finally on the verge of fruition.

On June 26, in partnership with the prestigious Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School in New York City, the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands announced the recipients of the inaugural Borderlands Fellowship: artists Maria Hupfield and Carolina Caycedo.

“I feel like this fellowship was prophetic in a way, because the conversations they’ll be having and the ideas they’ll be raising and catalyzing and creating, I think, are going to be very important to the ways we all move forward together in what is assuredly going to be a new country,” said Natalie Diaz, director of the Center for Imagination in the Bordelands. “There will be certain things that don’t revert back to the way they were before. So it’s exciting for ASU and these fellows to be contributing to those conversations.”

The goal of the Borderlands Fellowship is an extension of the ASU center's values in that it seeks to bring people together for imaginative dialogue with one another and the ASU and New School communities around the relevance of place through the lens of Indigeneity.

Hupfield and Caycedo were selected from a pool of invited applicants that included internationally renowned artists and scholars who were nominated by a small group of experts, including Diaz, a widely lauded poet and a MacArthur Fellow. They will receive an award of $15,000 to support their two-year appointment, beginning in fall 2020 and running through spring 2022. Over the course of four semesters, they will spend time together and independently in Tempe, Arizona, and New York City, where they will create and present a research project at both sites that ignites conversation within, across and about America’s borderlands.

headshots of two women, side by side

Recipients of the inaugural Borderlands Fellowship, Carolina Caycedo (left) and Maria Hupfield. Photo courtesy of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics

A nonprofit research organization and public forum for art, culture and politics founded in 1992, the Vera List Center is the only university-based institution committed exclusively to leading public research at this intersection. In the past, its fellowships have supported the work of such luminaries as the late Maurice Berger, a cultural historian who used his privilege to speak out against racism in the art world; Lorraine O’Grady, a conceptual artist known for her exploration of Black female identity, particularly through photo and video; and Bouchra Khalili, whose “The Mapping Journey Project” recounted the indomitable spirit that led refugees to cross oceans and borders in search of a better life.

The brainchild of Diaz, a woman with many identities rooted in place — associate professor in the Department of English at ASU’s Tempe campus, member of the Mojave and Akimel O’odham tribes, Mexican, Latina — the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands was created with the mission to spark inquiry, action and the reimagining of America’s borderlands.

The center feted its opening in January with a ceremony that included performances by fellow ASU Assistant Professor Solmaz Sharif, whose debut book of poetry, “Look,” subverts the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms to illuminate the killing of innocent civilians in the Iran-Iraq War; White Mountain Apache musician and National Artists Fellow Laura Ortman; and President and CEO of United States Artists Deana Haggag.

The Borderlands Fellowship combines the resources of these two institutions, esteemed for their innovative research endeavors that aim to unite communities across different geographical, cultural and political landscapes.

“We began to wonder what it would look like if instead of pretending that because we’re on two separate sides of the country we’re having totally different conversations, we actually acknowledged that we are asking a lot of same questions, just in different ways,” Diaz said. “We wanted to allow these thinkers and artists the ability and support to migrate their questions.”

Both Hupfield and Caycedo are multidisciplinary artists working in performance and media arts. Hupfield’s project “Breaking Protocol” will look at urban Indigenous peoples as experts at navigating borders and blurring binaries. Caycedo’s project “Fair Energy Transition” will look at the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border as an extension of the prison complex, oil, gas and water industries, considering its effects on the environment and those living near it.

As part of their two-year appointments, they will each consult and collaborate with faculty at ASU and The New School, and they will spend time engaging with students and the local communities in workshops and discussions. It’s the part of the fellowship that thrills Diaz most.

“In the art world, and even in the world of scholarship, we tend to be so focused on what we produce. And the work that both of them create is phenomenal, and I think merits attention and engagement on its own — they’re doing work in Indigenous communities, they’re challenging questions of language, questions of land and environment and sovereignty, and they’re each engaged in very different aspects of what is a border,” Diaz said.

“And yet, both also have an incredibly generous and rigorous practice of community engagement, of being invested in dialogue and asking questions that might not have immediate answers. Questions about being in the borderlands, questions about racial justice. … Part of our value system at ASU is that we’re preparing our students to ask these kinds of difficult questions that will actually change society for the better. So in bringing in these incredible artists and thinkers, we’re helping our students build that lexicon.”

Top photo: (From left) ASU Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands Natalie Diaz; Tohono O’odham Nation Poet and MacArthur Fellow Ofelia Zepeda; President and CEO of United States Artists Deana Haggag; and MacArthur Fellow and author of “Lost Children Archive” Valeria Luiselli at the launch of ASU's Center for Imagination in the Borderlands on Jan. 23, 2020. Photo by Meg Potter/ASU Now

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Emma Greguska

Reporter, ASU Now

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Evacuated Peace Corps volunteers continue learning through online foreign language program

June 25, 2020

When the COVID-19 pandemic first began to unfold, people’s lives were deeply impacted on many levels, and they continue to be. This includes Peace Corps volunteers serving in countries around the world who had to evacuate in March.

After learning about the circumstances many Peace Corps volunteers were facing due to the pandemic, Arizona State University’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies worked to find a way to help. The center’s advisory board and leadership team quickly connected with country directors where five languages — Albanian, Macedonian, Armenian, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian and Ukrainian — were being studied, and offered volunteers the opportunity to enhance their language proficiency through the Critical Language Institute’s summer language programs. Students in a Critical Languages Institute Macedonian summer language class virtually share some of their favorite things to eat, drink and learn about from Macedonian culture. Download Full Image

The center received an overwhelming response and with support from the advisory board and a number of private donors, they were able to offer nine scholarships to Peace Corps volunteers who were serving or were waiting to begin their service. Volunteers enrolled in the Critical Languages Institute are now participating in seven-week long introductory courses in Albanian, Macedonian and Ukrainian.

All 12 of the language programs offered, which are normally in person at ASU or in countries around the world, have shifted to an online format, with many native-speaking instructors providing synchronous instruction based around U.S. time zones from their home institutions.

“At ASU, we hope to support those who have been evacuated from the Peace Corps, including our alumni, in whatever next steps make the most sense for them,” said Julia Tebben, assistant director of service delivery and strategic initiatives at ASU. “The work of Peace Corps volunteers and their host communities is so important, and we hope that those who feel equipped and ready to go back to service reapply. For others, the next step may be graduate school or furthering their career. Regardless of where evacuated volunteers are at, we have a variety of graduate programs and Coverdell Fellowships available.”

Building on Macedonian language skills to better connect with community

Bre Lombard, a Peace Corps volunteer who was serving in North Macedonia, was eager to take her Macedonian language skills to the next level. Lombard graduated from Kansas State University in 2017, earning a degree in marketing with a minor in nonprofit leadership and a certificate in international business. Before being evacuated in March, she had volunteered in North Macedonia for six months at a high school alongside English teachers.

She said things had just started falling into place for her; students were starting to open up to her, she was making connections with teachers and she started an English club. Just as she was beginning to prepare for summer, she received the news that she had to evacuate and return home to Iowa.

“It was definitely hard. Not being able to say goodbye to really anyone that I've made connections with was very difficult,” Lombard said. “I've stayed in touch with them, but it was just a really hard adjustment from hearing everything, seeing everything and finally being able to set up a community and then having to pack up and leave.”

Although she had completed three months of language training during her Peace Corps training, Lombard said she hadn’t perfected the language, and jumped on the opportunity to apply for the Critical Language Institute’s Macedonian summer language program.

“If it weren’t for the scholarship, I probably would have passed on it just because I couldn't really afford it,” she said. “The scholarship is a huge benefit because it's giving me an opportunity that I really didn't have. It's going to benefit my community because I can connect with them more by knowing this language better. I'm so grateful for it and so glad that I've been given this opportunity.”

So far, Lombard said she has enjoyed delving into Macedonian history as well as becoming more well-versed in Macedonian grammar and writing. She said she looks forward to returning to North Macedonia and resuming her volunteer work with her improved language skills.

Improving Albanian language proficiency to prepare for the future

Hillary Holman earned her undergraduate degrees in communication and comparative history of ideas from the University of Washington and her master’s degree in international community development from Northwest University. She is a second-time Peace Corps volunteer, previously serving in the community development sector in Moldova from 2017 to 2019. She signed on to be a Peace Corps volunteer in Albania for two years, and had been training for several weeks to work in the organizational development sector when she was evacuated. 

After taking three flights over the span of three days to return home to Washington state, Holman said she was looking for something productive to do with her time when she was sent the application for the Albanian summer language program.

“Although this pandemic has disrupted the typical functioning of so many things, I do appreciate that the Critical Language Institute courses are being offered online this year for the first time in the program's history,” Holman said. “This has enabled my classmates and me to participate from all over the country in different time zones. Linda Mëniku is an excellent teacher and makes our class interesting by giving us relevant ways to apply the new skills we are learning.”

Holman said she has enjoyed learning a variety of Albanian language structures and concepts, and appreciates the ability to practice speaking the language with other students. She has also participated in virtual cultural presentations shared by other language classes.

Although she is unsure if she will be able to return to Albania to resume her volunteer work, she plans on pursuing a career in public service and hopes to continue to volunteer her time to make a positive difference in the world through cross-cultural communication.

“This scholarship is incredibly meaningful to me in allowing me to study a language that is valuable both personally and professionally. Although my Peace Corps service in Albania was abruptly cut short, I am grateful to have the opportunity to study Albanian language through the Critical Languages Institute this summer, to develop my skills and prepare for the next step in my career.”

Learning Ukranian grammar and finding new connections

MiKayla Wolf graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University in 2017 with degrees in political science and psychology. In the Peace Corps, she served as a youth development volunteer, working with children with disabilities in Ukraine for over a year. She had just signed on to serve for one more year as a Peace Corps volunteer when she found out she would have to evacuate and return home to Oklahoma.

Wolf said she had a basic understanding of the Ukranian language to get by, but had never learned how to speak the language grammatically. 

“Having a good understanding of the language is really important because you don't always have a translator or internet access,” Wolf said. “I had the basics of the language down; I can get on a train or buy food. But to be able to speak in a way that is grammatically correct will be great and beneficial for when I can return. I give trainings around Ukraine and now I will be able to do that alone without a translator and I will be able to communicate with people better. ”

Through this experience she said she has also had the opportunity to connect with fellow Peace Corps volunteers who were serving in Ukraine that she hadn’t met before and who she looks forward to meeting in person someday.

“The languages the Critical Languages Institute teaches are important languages. These are not languages that are commonly taught. But they're so important to us and they're important to our community,” Wolf said. “Every Peace Corps volunteer goes into their community wanting to better them. So by being able to learn their language, we're going to gain their respect. Even if we don't go back, we're going to be able to talk to them and they're really going to appreciate it.”

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Emily Balli

Communications Specialist and Lead Writer, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 
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Discoveries

Understanding systemic racism and how to combat it

Tempe campus
June 23, 2020

ASU professor says everybody has homework to do when it comes to learning about racism in society

Everybody seems to comprehend the practical use of the term systemic racism, but its real meaning can get lost in translation.

And no wonder.

It's hard to define, hard to see and hard to defend.

Eleanor Seaton, an associate professor in Arizona State University's T. Denny Sanford School of Family and Social Dynamics, studies and teaches about the negative impacts of racism. Seaton descends from generations of civil rights advocates from Mississippi.

Seaton spoke to ASU Now about systemic racism, its historical roots and why it continues to steer the cultural conversation.

Editor's note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Woman in braids smiling

Eleanor Seaton 

Question: “Systemic racism” is a term that is getting a lot of play in the media but seems hard to understand given its catch-all nature. Can you give me your best possible definition?

Answer: Rabbi Abraham Heschel stated that “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” Racism is a system of power and privilege based on perceived race and/or ethnicity that defines one group as dominant to and more deserving than all other groups. In this system, there is a dominant group (e.g., whites) and there are subordinate groups, including Native Americans, Black Americans, Latinx and Asian Americans. Racism is rooted in historical oppression (e.g., genocide of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans) such that subordinate groups were and are defined as “inferior” to the ”superior” dominant white group. The dominant group created and currently maintains societal privilege through values, behaviors and institutions. This privilege results in subordinate groups lacking access to power, status and resources.

One of the most common misconceptions about racism is that it is based solely on individual acts. Many people believe that a few individual “bad apples” are racist or engage in racist behaviors. In fact, racism is baked into our society and in the institutions that make up our society, including schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, banks, health care, the media and policing systems.

What is systemic or institutional racism? Institutional racism is when societal institutions engage in practices that favor the dominant group and practices that are biased against subordinate groups. It is important to acknowledge that institutional racism in one domain reinforces institutional racism in other domains, providing an interconnected system that constantly reinforces each other while reproducing racial disparities across the lifespan. I would argue that institutional racism is more dangerous than individual racism because institutional racism creates environments that dictate every aspect of life for subordinate individuals. Racism dictates where one lives and attends school, what types of jobs one is able to work, whether one has health care, whether one has access to healthy and nutritious food and whether one is treated fairly by the criminal justice system to name a few examples. The cycle repeats itself throughout the lives of individuals and across generations.

Let me discuss institutional racism from a recent societal example. Amy Cooper, a white woman, was walking her dog in Central Park without a leash. Chris Cooper (no relation), a Black American birdwatcher, encountered Amy and asked her to place her dog on a leash, which was consistent with the park’s rules. Amy did not like Chris telling her what to do, and threatened to call the police on Chris. Amy specifically threatened to tell the police that Chris was a Black American man and threatening her. We know that Amy lied because Chris recorded the entire interaction. However, this illustrates the institutional nature of racism in law enforcement such that Amy knew that she could rely on one of society’s institutions – remember these institutions have been baking in racism for a very long time – to sanction an innocent man because he was Black.

Q: How is historic oppression connected to racism in current times?

A: My grandfather fought in World War II, so let’s use an example of two World War II veterans. The GI Bill (Serviceman Readjustment’s Act) was signed in 1944 and provided returning war veterans with funds for college education, unemployment insurance and housing. The white veteran was able to take advantage of these federal policies, and get a free and/or reduced college education, unemployment insurance and secure a mortgage to buy a home through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) because the banking industry favors white individuals over everyone else due to the baked-in nature of racism. These benefits were not available to my grandfather because the GI Bill refused to pay college education for Black American veterans and the FHA refused to provide mortgages to Black American families, given the nature of racism in the banking industry.

So, over time, the white veteran began creating wealth through college education and home ownership. … Thus, all the advantages that the white veteran secured for himself, his family and descendants were not possible for the Black American veteran. Federal programs like the GI Bill and FHA built the white middle class, whereas institutional racism prevented the GI Bill and FHA from building a Black middle class, and the results are evident in the wealth gap. Currently, white families have 10 times the net worth of black families. 

Q: Most people believe that since the civil rights movement of the 1960s and with the election of President Barack Obama, we have moved towards a post-racism world. That’s not the case?

A: It is true that the U.S. elected the first Black American president, Barack Obama, in 2008. Yet, a cursory glance at racial disparities in health outcomes indicates that the U.S. is not post-racist. Post-racist suggests that Black Americans have achieved equity with their white counterparts, and the data don’t support that conclusion. Black Americans have higher death rates due to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, HIV/AIDS and homicide compared to whites. Black American women are more likely to have pre-term births compared to white women, and more likely to die during and after childbirth compared to white women. The infant mortality rate is higher for Black Americans compared to all other ethnic-racial groups. Black Americans are more likely to die from all cancers combined and for most major cancers compared to other ethnic-racial groups. Black American men are six times more likely to die from HIV/AIDS compared to white men, and Black American women are 18 times more likely to die from HIV/AIDS than white women. One can examine educational and criminal justice disparities, and the results are similar. No, we are not post-racist.  

Q: Are the George Floyd protests are a turning/inflection point in our society regarding racism?

A: I believe that the current protest movements related to the killing of George Floyd and other unarmed Black Americans such as Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery are a turning point. In general, I’m a racial pessimist but I’m greatly impressed by the outpouring of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. I am hopeful and inspired by the multiracial and multiethnic attendees at the various protests in this country and around the world. Simply put, this feels different! However, it’s on all of us to determine the results of this inflection point. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Let’s bend the arc toward justice and move forward with a progressive agenda that eliminates racism.

Activist and academic Angela Davis stated, “In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist.” This turning point is also a teaching moment and everyone has homework to do! White people have three homework assignments:

  1. Educate themselves on racism.
  2. Truthfully interrogate their own racial experiences, including white privilege and the fact that they have unearned privilege due to their race or ethnicity while others have unearned disadvantage due to their race or ethnicity.
  3. Become anti-racist and work to eradicate racism in their respective schools, jobs, neighborhoods and networks.

Non-Black individuals of color have two homework assignments:

  1. Work to eradicate anti-Blackness in their respective communities.
  2. Become part of the solidarity movement for Black Lives Matter.

Everyone needs to understand that eradicating racism is in society’s best interest. I strongly believe that when the most marginalized and disadvantaged individuals in society are treated fairly, protected, cared for and loved, everyone in society will be treated fairly, protected, cared for and loved. Becoming an anti-racist society fulfills that goal, and truly demonstrates that black lives matter. I’ll let Fannie Lou Hamer have the last word, who stated “Nobody is free until everybody is free.”

Top photo: Hundreds of protesters gather in the Gaslamp area of San Diego, California, at a May 27, 2016 demonstration. Courtesy of istock/Getty Images.

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Solutions

Native nations are fighting COVID-19 on many levels

June 23, 2020

Town hall discusses solutions as the pandemic exposes systemic issues on tribal lands

COVID-19 has exacerbated infrastructure vulnerabilities in Indian Country and has brought attention to myriad issues that advocacy hasn’t been able to, experts say.

Even though the Navajo Nation’s highest per capita coronavirus infection rate has been getting the lion’s share of attention in the media, the lack of infrastructure — especially broadband — impacts civic engagement, education, energy and health care delivery on U.S. reservations affected by the pandemic.

These were some of the discussions that took place Friday in a virtual town hall hosted by Arizona State University’s Marcus Denetdale, program manager for Construction in Indian Country.

“My condolences to those that are grieving because of the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on our tribal communities,” said Jacob Moore, associate vice president for tribal relations at ASU. “Our role at ASU is to not only help fulfill the immediate needs of these communities, but also to think about, 'What does recovery and renewal look like as we come out of our current state?'”

The goal of the town hall and subsequent panel discussion was to bring together tribal and business leaders to discuss the economic outlook and address the current situation in Indian Country as they continue fight COVID-19.

Moore said ASU’s response to tribal communities in need includes a variety of needs, such as providing COVID-19 test kits, testing research, medical and public health support, PPE supplies, chain supply management and monitoring wastewater.

“It's quite an honor to be affiliated with ASU and a president who recognizes the importance of our tribal nations and communities, not just here in Arizona, but across the country,” Moore said.

People in a Zoom meetingMarcus Denetdale (top right), program manager for ASU's Construction in Indian Country, hosts a virtual town hall on June 19, giving updates on how COVID-19 has impacted Native American communities in Arizona and other states. Construction in Indian Country is an ASU-based committee created with guidance from the adviser to the Office of the President of ASU for American Indian affairs and individuals from Arizona and New Mexico Indian tribes. Screenshot by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

In addition to Moore, the panel also featured Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation; Traci Morris, executive director of ASU’s American Indian Policy Institute; Brian Howard, research and policy analyst, American Indian Policy Institute; James Murphy, chief executive officer, Willmeng Construction; Larry Wright Jr., tribal chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska; and Martin Harvier, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

While ASU’s and others' efforts to help tribal communities have been exhaustive, the response simply isn’t enough. That’s because the needed infrastructure, especially when it comes to broadband and interconnectivity, is sorely lacking, according to Morris.

“The internet is the underpinning of our lives,” Morris said. “Everything depends on it, and we’re very far behind in Indian Country. We need broadband for everything from telehealth to education to energy management. The digital divide is real, and there are multiple divides.”

To illustrate her point, Morris said last year the American Indian Policy Institute released a research paper titled “Tribal Technology Assessment: The State of Internet Service on Tribal Lands.” Morris co-wrote the paper, which showed that many Native Americans on reservations do not have equal access to the internet and that most are using smartphones to go online at slower speed.

Morris said some of the major findings in the paper include:

  • 18% of tribal reservation residents have no access to internet at home.
  • 33% are relying on internet from a smartphone.
  • 31% of tribal reservation residents who do have internet said the service was spotty.

“We have 162,000-plus people living on tribal lands that either are underserved or unserved when it comes to telecommunications infrastructure needs,” Morris said. “It was stunning to me that it took a pandemic to draw attention to the fact ... of the digital divide.” Toward this in April, the American Indian Policy Institute authored two policy briefs on the impacts of the digital divide on higher education on tribal reservations. The digital divide has also caused telecommunication problems with the delivery of online content to Native American students taking courses at ASU, said Howard.

“We’ve been looking at ways that ASU’s University Technology Office could support these issues, including providing Wi-Fi hot spot devices to ensure they can continue with their studies,” Howard said. Additionally, the institute's briefs were used by the  ASU Office of the President in working with Arizona congressional leaders to push for broadband funding in potentially forthcoming infrastructure packages serving tribal lands

Wright said in addition to internet connectivity, infrastructure issues such as the lack of funding for road maintenance and health care facilities have created major headaches for his tribe and others in the Great Plains.

“A lot of our tribal nations are spread out over large areas, and in some cases, it’s two to three hours of drive time to get to a health care facility,” said Wright, whose tribal area covers 15 counties in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. “That gets even more compounded when roads and bridges are closed because of flooding from the past few years, making travel even more difficult.”

Wright said the problem has been amplified because many Indian hospitals have either been shut down or are understaffed, which is why they’ve quarantined their elders and the tribe has declared a state of emergency this year. 

“All of these things get exacerbated in a time like this when our health care crisis is magnified,” Wright said. “We have been grossly underfunded, and that impacts how we move forward.”

Harvier said because many of his community are susceptible to diabetes and other underlying health issues, he has stressed taking extreme precautions. He added that his tribe is in an urban setting and borders cities such Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa.

“With the rise of numbers in the surrounding cities and in Arizona, ours (numbers of COVID-19 cases) have gone up also,” Harvier said. “And if it starts getting into the community, it can really affect a large portion of our membership.

Harvier said COVID-19 has impacted the community’s financial health as well. The tribe has had to shut down its two casinos, which employs hundreds of community members, Harvier said.

“Without any income being generated and coming in, a lot of tribes are looking at the CARES Act to fill some of those gaps to make sure everything is moving forward,” Harvier said. “But now we’re starting to see all the strings that are tied to it. There’s some confusion how we can actually use those funds.”

Things are quite serious for the Navajo Nation, said Nez, who piped into the meeting from his car as he was conducting a food and supply distribution in Tuba City. He said they recently instituted another weekend curfew, their ninth consecutive.

“Our numbers are going down, but we’ll see what happens,” Nez said, who also mandated wearing masks among tribal residents and has instituted “aggressive testing.”

Nez said most construction and infrastructure projects on the Navajo Nation have been delayed, businesses have been forced to close and tourism has been completely halted due to the pandemic.

“There is not even a gas pump that is open (during the curfew hours),” Nez said. “We’re losing a lot of revenue, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to protect your citizens.”

Nez added the pandemic has underscored the need for Native doctors, nurses, police officers and law enforcement, which is why he said he has set aside $50 million in scholarships for professional development and building capacity.

“I think many of us tribal leaders want to grow our own,” Nez said. “We want our own Navajo to be in these professions.”

Morris said the role of ASU is not only to support tribal communities, but to be partners in creating the pipeline of youth going into a range of professions.

“We strive to be part of the solution,” Morris said.

Top photo: A Navajo teenager uses hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo by iStock/Getty Images

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Global Engagement

Making the future of space exploration a more inclusive one

Off campus
June 22, 2020

Convergence Lab hosts event with ASU astronaut, Mexican writer on incorporating new perspectives into shared idea of universe

When you’re an astronaut, whom do you represent? Do you represent the citizens of the country whose flag is emblazoned on your suit? Or do you represent a larger group of people, all those billions of humans whose lives light up the planet below you?

That was Juan Villoro’s first question for Cady Coleman, ASU’s Global Explorer in Residence and a former NASA astronaut, in Wednesday’s virtual Convergence Lab event. ASU’s Convergence Lab, a series of events usually held in person in Mexico City, brings together communities across borders to learn from each other — with the ultimate goal of building a better, shared North American future.

Villoro, a renowned Mexican journalist, novelist and playwright, spoke with Coleman about her experiences in space, and together the two discussed ways to make the future of space exploration a more inclusive one.

“I have my U.S. patch on my sleeve,” Coleman said, pointing to the American flag on her uniform. “It's hard to say this without sounding like you don't appreciate your home, or the fact that we all come from somewhere. But looking back at the Earth, we're all from the same place … we’re all from there.”

Though Mexico doesn’t have a national space program equivalent to NASA (the Mexican Space Agency is focused principally on research and education and doesn’t send humans to space), the country has a long history of looking toward the stars, Villoro said — from Mayan astronomers to present-day visionaries like Alfonso Cuarón, director of the film “Gravity,” which Coleman consulted on.

Villoro and Coleman

Cady Coleman, ASU's Global Explorer in Residence and former NASA astronaut, and Juan Villoro, award-winning writer and journalist, discuss international collaboration and our shared future in space in a virtual Convergence Lab event June 17. Screenshot courtesy of Mia Armstrong

When Cuarón won an Oscar for “Gravity,” “many people thought, 'Well, how come a Mexican is so deeply interested in outer space and is so accurate in his redemption of what's going on out there?' ” Villoro said.

The answer, he said, is “because this adventure has been important for the whole human race.”

Villoro was 12 when Apollo 11 reached the moon, he remembered, “and for my generation that changed the whole idea of the universe.”

This shared idea of the universe is a constantly shifting one, Coleman said, especially as we push existing barriers and discover new limits to our knowledge of space, and also incorporate new perspectives into our exploration of it.

“What I discovered when I got to go to space was I used to think that we're here on Earth, and then space is somewhere else, and some people go,” she said. “But actually, Earth and the place that we call home is just bigger than we thought, and just not enough people have been to these edges yet.”

Through its School of Earth and Space Exploration and Interplanetary Initiative, ASU is trying to bring more people toward those edges. The ASU-led NASA Psyche Mission, set to launch in summer 2022, for example, offers free online classes that allow people from around the world to participate in the mission. 

Villoro and Coleman discussed private-sector participation in space exploration: “I would go with whatever vehicle is leaving … I really love these additional collaborations,” Coleman said; human rights in space: “It’s a totally new turf,” Villoro said, which needs to be “solved by the whole community of the Earth”; and experiments on the International Space Station: “We’re learning things in space that really we can’t learn down here,” Coleman said.

One audience member, a psychology student from Mexico, asked Coleman for her advice to endure the social and physical isolation many of us have found ourselves in over the last several months. Coleman’s response? “Focus on the mission.”

READ MORE: Bringing astronaut skills down to Earth to handle isolation

Right now, there are many different important individual and societal missions, Coleman said. One is trying to keep ourselves, our families and our communities safe in the face of a global pandemic. Another is educating ourselves about our roles in systems that perpetuate racial inequality and injustice, and working to change that.

When asked by audience members whether they would jump on the opportunity to go to space again for an important mission, or accept a one-way ticket to Mars, Coleman and Villoro had different answers.

“Yes and yes,” Coleman said immediately.

“I will write about going to Mars, and I will write about somebody who has a single ticket to Mars, but I will never go there,” Villoro said, laughing.

The truth is, Villoro, the storyteller, and Coleman, the astronaut, both have equally important roles to fill. Art and storytelling, Coleman said, are crucial to building our future in space. 

“When people see themselves in a story, in problem solving, then they think, ‘Oh, maybe this could be me,” she said.

So whether you’re writing a book or directing a commercial or illustrating a cartoon, Coleman urged, “Please, please, please include other people that really don't look or feel like you, because they're part of the equation. And by them seeing themselves in your story, it makes all the difference.”

In space, said Coleman, the thing that links everyone to each other, despite different government positions or priorities, is “the passion for exploration.” That passion is what spurred collaboration on the International Space Station, she remembered.

“It's always the people between each other that build those bridges,” Coleman said.

Those are bridges we can build from anywhere in the universe.

Watch the full event.

Written by Mia Armstrong. 

Top image: Cady Coleman, ASU's Global Explorer in Residence and former NASA astronaut, shares a photo from the International Space Station and talks about the time she spent there during a binational Convergence Lab event June 17. Through two Space Shuttle missions and an almost six-month stint on the ISS, Coleman has logged a cumulative 180 days in space. Images courtesy of Cady Coleman and Mia Armstrong.

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Discoveries

How 2020 is similar to 1968 — and how it isn't

Tempe campus Polytechnic campus
June 19, 2020

ASU historian says capturing protest on film and other forms of digital media is essential for mobilizing public support for civil rights

Explosive imagery from the George Floyd protests has evoked inevitable comparisons to the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Digital media is bringing images of these incidents of civil unrest into the devices in our hands the same way that television brought it into living rooms more than five decades ago.

Only time will tell if 2020 will have the same impact as those meaningful protests of yesteryear, but one Arizona State University historian believes it just might.

Brooks D. Simpson, an ASU Foundation Professor of history in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, studies American political and military history as well as the American presidency, specializing in the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

ASU Now spoke to Simpson about what’s happening on America’s streets, how it compares to the 1960s and what history teaches us about the importance of media coverage of protests.

Editor's note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Man in glasses and suit

Brooks D. Simpson

Question: Does the recent wave of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody compare to what happened in Watts, Detroit and Harlem in the 1960s?

Answer: At first glance, yes, because those events in the 1960s, along with explosions in the Bronx, New York, in 1977, Los Angeles in 1992, and Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, to highlight a few select instances, seemed to follow a predictable narrative in a popular memory that tends to overlook or forget critical differences and details. People, especially those who experience these events through television, anticipated a predictable pattern: peaceful protest due to an act of violence, the appearance of state agents prepared to use force to maintain order, nonviolence giving way to violence, and then rioting and looting, each of which presents vivid images that captures an audience’s imagination. In these constructed narratives, protests — and opposition to them — lead to looting: Since most people generally disapprove of looting, the protests come under critical scrutiny by vaguely associating them with looting, which is used to discredit the protests. Initially media outlets framed and fed that narrative, so the comparisons are understandable. Whether they were meaningful in helping people understand what was actually happening is another question altogether.

In this case, what ignited the recent wave of protests and the ensuing tsunami of calls for reform were several instances of the excessive use of force by law enforcement authorities against Black victims, the most famous of which is George Floyd. Floyd’s death proved to be the tipping point because it was videotaped, and because it presented rather clearly the excessive use of force by a white police officer against a Black man. A dispassionate viewer could not be but shocked at what they saw.

It’s noteworthy that most observers looked first to the explosions of the late 1960s instead of remembering the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 or Bull Connor and his dogs in Birmingham. The similarities seem simple to comprehend, even if they were superficial at best. Yet the images of fire hoses and vicious dogs, of burning churches and Confederate flags, did much to mobilize public support for civil rights.

Q: How is media coverage affecting how this movement is perceived?

A: The protestors persisted. They regained control of their narrative. They distinguished themselves from the looters. Some even challenged the looters. The looting subsided while the protests continued, increasing in passion and commitment while attracting broader support. Their audience, already grappling with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, including quarantines, unemployment, illness and death, were already approaching a breaking point, in part because of the controversies surrounding how the president of the United States had addressed those challenges. Many Americans, used to seeing news reports about the pandemic, now watched as the protests unfolded, violence erupted, and looting exploded … and then subsided, leaving the protesters not only as resilient as ever, but also attracting broader support. Most of the media finally got the story right. More white people understand white privilege and are moved by fundamental injustice to march and raise their voices for change. This time, thoughts and prayers won’t be enough.   

This time, people get it. A decade ago, for example, one would have been hard pressed to imagine the removal of Confederate monuments from southern cities, for example. Now, in the culminative wake of Charleston, Charlottesville and George Floyd’s murder, that process accelerates, with the monuments along Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue disappearing from the former capital of the Confederacy just as they went into storage in Baltimore and New Orleans. And people get it in part because they now have seen what they had once only heard about, making oppression and violence real and inescapable.  

Q: How vital is capturing these incidents on film/tape/digital media in moving the needle on any movement?

A: In 1971, Gil Scott Heron released “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Nearly 50 years later, it is being televised. The ubiquitous presence of digital recording devices ensured that if someone could record it, someone would. The killing of George Floyd invited viewers to see for themselves what for decades Black people had told the rest of America was happening. There was no escaping those brutal facts, especially when the murder was replayed time and time again. More than that, the video cultivated the emergence of empathy … the same sort of empathy against Black oppression that Harriet Beecher Stowe elicited in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” back in 1851 or network coverage that the civil rights movement in the American South fostered in the 1960s. Coverage over the next several weeks (of the Floyd protests) revealed more instances of police forces out of control, with memories of Chicago in 1968 replacing those of the burning cities of the '60s and '70s.

Viewers saw protestors persisting in peaceful remonstrances, with prominent people joining them, and with some law enforcement displaying their support of protests against unwarranted police behavior. With many people just emerging from their homes in the age of pandemics and quarantines, there was an audience, already unnerved by recent events, ready to view and be shocked by such behavior, in large part because most white people knew that George Floyd suffered and died as he did because of the color of his skin. You didn’t have to take to the streets, because the all-encompassing world of visual media brought the streets to your television screen. 

Top photo: African American demonstrators outside the White House on March 12, 1965, with signs "We demand the right to vote, everywhere" and signs protesting police brutality against civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. Photo by Warren K. Leffler/U.S. News & World Report courtesy of the Library of Congress. 

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Solutions

ASU center hosts two-part lecture series on 'Race, Crisis and the Future of Democracy'

June 18, 2020

Part 2 of the series discussing issues of race and change will be held June 20

Last Saturday, about halfway through Part 1 of the ASU Center for the Study of Race and Democracy’s two-part Impact Arizona lecture series titled “Race, Crisis and the Future of Democracy,” which was organized in the aftermath of the May 25 police-involved killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, the New York Times sent its subscribers a news alert that yet another black man, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta, had died at the hands of law enforcement.

“It’s exhausting,” said Lauren Quinlan, an undergraduate at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a panelist at Saturday’s lecture. “And I’ve been feeling this exhaustion since 2015 with Sandra BlandSandra Bland was a 28-year-old African American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Her death was ruled a suicide..”

Other panelists included Stanlie James, professor of African and African American studies at ASU’s School of Social Transformation and vice provost for inclusion and community engagement; Kevin Robinson, an instructor at ASU’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a retired Phoenix assistant police chief; Fernanda Santos, Southwest Borderlands Initiative professor of practice at ASU’s Cronkite School; Martin Quezada, Arizona state senator; and Jeffrey Glover, retired police commander for the city of Tempe who now serves on the Arizona Commission of African American Affairs.

Throughout the course of their virtual discussion, led by Center for the Study of Race and Democracy Director Lois Brown, they covered, among other things: the growing fear and distrust of police, the inevitability of exhaustion and the need to keep forging ahead, the loss of a middle ground on issues of race, the kinds of systemic changes needed and how to be an agent of change, and the role and responsibilities of the public and journalists in documenting police brutality.

Now available to view on the center’s Facebook page, the lecture followed a two-part Q&A format, with Brown asking questions of the panelists in Part 1 and panelists taking questions from the audience in Part 2. She began by welcoming roughly 700 participants who had joined via Zoom from countries around the world, including Ghana, England and Russia. From there, Brown detailed a macabre list of the known victims of police-involved deaths in the U.S. in recent months: Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, on Feb. 23; Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13; Dion Johnson in Phoenix, on May 25 — the same day as George Floyd.

“This is not normal, nor should it be normal. There is collateral violence from all of these … unnecessary deaths,” Brown said before inviting James to give her take on the nature of the crisis we are grappling with today.

“We are reeling from a dual pandemic,” James said. “One of racism and one of COVID-19. But they are also intertwined in ways we have not thought about … (ways that do not) recognize the socioeconomic aspect of this pandemic that people of color are … drowning in.”

Privilege, the panelists agreed, has a lot to do with that inability to recognize injustices. However, some argued that the erosion of a middle ground when it comes to racial issues is helping to force people out of their places of privilege to truly consider where they stand.

“All these policies and false justifications behind them are showing that right now, you’re either for equality or you’re not,” Quezada said. “You either believe that black lives matter or you don’t.”

Troubling to James was a report she said she'd read recently that the police union in Minneaopolis intended to fight for the jobs of the cops involved in Floyd's death, which she cited as an example of how blanket policies can serve to protect those who have done wrong.

“I get very concerned when we talk about things from an individual perspective, i.e., ‘There are a few bad apples in the police department, and that if we just let the good ones be in charge, it would be better all around,’” James said. “I think these problems are much more embedded than that. It isn’t a matter of a few bad apples. What it is, is a matter of policies.”

Quezada pointed out that unions are not inherently a bad thing, but that the lack of officer accountability that some unions allow is the real issue. Glover, who has over two decades of experience in law enforcement, proposed a couple potential solutions for this: requiring police officers to be licensed, meaning bad behavior could cause them to lose certification, and changing who’s in charge.

When it comes to systemic change, James argued that it needs to go further than the criminal justice system.

“That’s true for all institutions in this country,” she said, including education. James praised ASU for its School of Social Transformation and School of Transborder Studies — which teach courses on everything from African and African American studies, to women and gender studies, to Asian Pacific American studies, to Chicano and Latino studies — but added that because these areas of study are also American history, they should be interwoven into other disciplines as well. Brown called it “a decolonizing of curriculum.”

screenshot of people meeting on Zoom

Top row, from left to right: Center for the Study of Race and Democracy Director Lois Brown; Stanlie James, professor of African and African American studies at ASU’s School of Social Transformation and vice provost for inclusion and community engagement; Jeffrey Glover, retired police commander for the city of Tempe who now serves on the Arizona Commission of African American Affairs. Second row, from left to right: Fernanda Santos, Southwest Borderlands Initiative professor of practice at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Lauren Quinlan, an undergrad at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Kevin Robinson, an instructor at ASU’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a retired Phoenix assistant police chief. Bottom row: Martin Quezada, Arizona state senator.

On the topic of how to be an agent of change, panelists were in complete agreement: In order to change the system, you need to be a part of the system.

Both Robinson and Glover reported there were several times throughout their careers in law enforcement when they were the only black man in the room.

“I am a strong believer that the more diverse an organization is, the more capable it is to deal with issues,” Robinson said. “There’s a statement my wife says: One is a token, two is a support group and three is a consensus. When we talk about being the only one, you can only do so much as the only one. But as you get more folks like you … when you add more diversity to the room, you can get so much more done.”

Glover felt the same way, saying he took conscious steps as he moved up the ranks to make sure he was assisting in the recruitment of people of color and creating opportunities for their future success.

“We bring a unique perspective of our own when we get into law enforcement,” he said. “I was black before I got here, I’ll be black when I leave. That will never change. And that perspective needs to be in the room. … If you’re’ not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

Santos took that sentiment a step further. The first Brazilian to join the staff of the New York Times, she said it can be easy for an organization to get comfortable once they have hired one or two people of color. So instead of joining their table, she said, “More and more what I’ve been thinking is maybe we should create our own table and have white people come and join our table and hear our diverse perspectives.”

Quezada encouraged those who want to be good allies to take the lessons they learn in those kinds of exchanges and be courageous enough to incorporate them into their personal lives.

“Sit down and talk with your family and friends at dinner about this,” he said, while also acknowledging the burnout factor (a burden that weighs decidedly more on people of color already). “You don’t have to be physically present at every protest in order to support it. You can spread that information on social media, to your colleagues, co-workers, family. A lot of time, that’s the most powerful way to spread the message.”

And James cautioned about expecting people of color to do the work of educating others.

“A question I often hear from white people is what is it they can do?” she said. “I think they have to be very careful about asking that question. Because the assumption is the person who is experiencing the oppression has to educate you so that you can do the right thing. It’s bad enough to have to experience it, but then to have to turn around and teach someone what to do; it’s a bit much.”

But it’s really not that hard to educate yourself. James suggested reading books like Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” or Ibram Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist.” And of course, pay attention to the news — but be sure to vet your sources.

The lecture concluded with Brown asking each panelist to pose a final question for the audience to consider:

James implored the audience to continue looking for more information and asking what else they could learn.

Robinson wants people to get comfortable asking people in positions of power to help them understand why things are the way they are.

Santos said that instead of focusing on our differences, we should be focusing on what we have in common, and asking how we can go from there to a place where we can find solutions.

Quezada had two questions: Citing calls to defund the police, his first question was do things really need to be the way they are right now and are we having an open mind about what they could be? The second question he suggested people ask themselves is whether they are satisfied with just having a race-neutral perspective or whether they feel they should work on being actively antiracist.

Glover echoed both Robinson and Quezada, asking the audience to ponder the kind of police department they want for the future.

And like Quezada, Quinlan had two questions: Are you willing to continue to fight for those who are disenfranchised because of the color of their skin for as long as it takes? If you are a person in a position of power, how can you use your privilege to make a difference?

“I think we’ve come out of this conversation with an understanding that it’s a long conversation, that this is not an instant fix and the call to action is one that will just continue to reverberate,” Brown said. “Part of what we are hoping is that we will carry the momentum from this conversation into Part 2.”

Part 2 of the series takes place at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 20. Brown will be back to moderate a brand new panel of guests that includes Ashley Hare, co-founder of Re:Frame Youth Arts Center; Roy Janisch, associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at Simpson College in Iowa; Khalil Rushdan, community partnerships coordinator for ACLU Arizona; Raquel Teran, Arizona House of Representatives, District 30; Ed Zuercher, Phoenix city manager; and Makayla Higgs, president of the ASU Black Student Union for the Downtown Phoenix campus.

The event will take place via Zoom and is free and open to the public. Register here.

Top photo courtesy of Pixabay

Solutions Social Justice Community involvement Black / African American Diversity Center for the Study of Race and Democracy College of Integrative Sciences and Arts The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences School of Social Transformation School of Transborder Studies School of Criminology and Criminal Justice Department of English Faculty Staff Student Community
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Juneteenth reasserts role of Black freedom in U.S. historical narrative

West campus
June 18, 2020

Millions will celebrate annual observance known as America's second Independence Day on June 19

Juneteenth, a portmanteau of the words “June” and “nineteenth,” was born out of what was once referred to as the “peculiar institution” of the United States.

It references the day 155 years ago this year when a quarter of a million people — still held captive in the years after the Emancipation ProclamationIssued on Jan. 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared free all people living in slavery in Confederate States that were still in rebellion. — walked away from the fields in which they were forced to toil; out of the houses in which they served under duress; and onto the roads they constructed to begin a new but uncertain future as free men, women and children.

It has been called America’s “second Independence Day." But for many, particularly those whose ancestry and lineage have been all but scrubbed from the annals of American history due to 250 years of that peculiar institution, Juneteenth has come to represent a true day of independence from slaveholding rule.

Duku AnokyeDuku Anokye 

Growing in observances and recognition, Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or observance in 46 states. But it has been a slow journey to awareness — due in part to active efforts by some to keep Juneteenth out of the history books, said Duku Anokye, an associate professor of Africana language, literature and culture in the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University's New College.

AnokyeA sociolinguist, Anokye's research focuses on African diaspora orality and literacy practices, folklore, discourse analysis and oral history with a specialization in Ghanaian culture, religion, storytelling and dance. — in collaboration with her sister Rebecca Hankins, a librarian and curator of Africana resources at Texas A&M University — recently shared more about the history and significance of Juneteenth with ASU Now:

Question: What is Juneteenth, and what is the tradition behind the observance of the day?

Answer: Juneteenth, also called Freedom Day, is the combining of June and the 19th day to commemorate the day enslaved Africans were freed in Texas in 1865. Texas was the last Confederate state to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. It is celebrated as the day the last enslaved Africans were freed, two years and six months after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all enslaved Africans in the 10 remaining Confederate states on Jan. 1, 1863.

Q: Why was the Emancipation Proclamation not enforced in Texas?

A: At the time of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation, there were no Union soldiers in Texas to enforce the order. Many of the white slave owners fled to Texas in the hopes of using it as a sanctuary and garrison against the Union, a place where they could maintain their status. On June 18, Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the federal government. June 19 is the day the enslaved Africans were finally informed of their free status. Here is the proclamation, titled General Order No. 3, read by General Granger: "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."

Q: What happened to the belatedly freed men and women of Texas after they received the news of their emancipation?

A: Many of the freed enslaved men and women claimed land left after owners abandoned them to the Union Army. The newly freed celebrated by dragging their former slave cabins away from the slave quarters and into their own fields. Women reduced their labor in the fields and could now devote more time to childcare and their own homes. Now families could work for their own prosperity and livelihoods. This ended when President Andrew Johnson, himself a former slave owner, restored many of the liberated lands to the former slave owners. This led many freed people to enter into sharecropping — that became another way of forcing them to work for former masters that inevitably caused them to lose their land and independence.

Q: How was Juneteenth first celebrated?

A: Stories are told of freed people wearing their best clothes and walking everywhere so they could be seen as free. Many left their plantations as a symbol of their freedom. Others traveled to nearby states attempting to find family members sold away. It was a time of celebration and uncertainty. For years, African Americans celebrated Juneteenth by returning to Galveston, Texas, as an annual pilgrimage to the place where they first learned of their freedom. They went to share prayer, food and celebration.

Q:  It feels like we are at a point in time culturally where Americans are taking a deeper look at history and some of the narratives that have been left out of history books. Where does Juneteenth fall in with those “lost” narratives?  

A: Juneteenth is viewed as a Texas-centered event; it is not taught in history textbooks around the U.S. The United Daughters of the Confederacy — founded in 1894, and whose stated mission was to commemorate the Confederacy and erect memorials to them — and also the Ku Klux Klan are directly responsible for ensuring that the stories in K–12 textbooks were changed and excluded any mention of Juneteenth history. They worked strategically with legislatures and school committees to change the narrative of the Confederacy to that of “states’ rights,” “the Lost Cause mythology,” and “heroism” rather than one of traitors and enslavers. They pushed to erect statues to Confederate symbols and generals all throughout the country and pushed to change textbook portrayals of enslaved Africans to happy and docile in plantation life, but savage and immoral as freed people. This perception has continued, as evidenced by the massive social protests that we are witnessing today in response to this brutalization of people of color and particularly people of African descent. It is worth noting that there has been a growth in Juneteenth observances around the country in the past few decades, including here in Arizona. 

For more on the history of Juneteenth: Read our Q&A with Professor Calvin Schermerhorn of the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies.

Top photo: Participants march over Market Street near Independence Mall during the annual Juneteenth parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 2018. Juneteenth, or Freedom Day, commemorates the announcement of the overdue abolition of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865. Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers/Getty Images

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ASU writing center wins prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing to present over 25 events showcasing indigenous arts and culture programming as part of NEA Big Read in spring 2021

June 16, 2020

The Virginia G. Piper CenterThe Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University is nonacademic university center dedicated to offering classes, talks, readings, workshops and other literary events and programs for the larger community. for Creative Writing at Arizona State University has been awarded a prestigious Big Read Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to present a month of talks, readings, book clubs and other dynamic events and programs around indigenous culture and the literary arts in spring 2021.

"For over 16 years, the Piper Center has been a catalyst for connecting area arts and culture organizations and serving communities through innovative, inspiring and accessible collaborative programs," said Alberto Ríos, inaugural Arizona Poet Laureate and center director. "With an extensive network of valued partners within Arizona State University and throughout the state, the Piper Center has the structure and community investments needed to deliver a deeply meaningful and transformative experience through the NEA Big Read." person reading book Photo courtesy of Pixabay. Download Full Image

A page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction

The NEA Big ReadThe Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University is one of 78 not-for-profit organizations to receive a grant to host an NEA Big Read project between September 2019 and June 2020.: Phoenix is centered around "The Round House" by Louise Erdrich (Anishinaabe). Winner of the National Book Award in fiction for 2012, the novel is a classic coming-of age story blended with elements of memoir, detective novels and oral history that, according to the NEA, "tells the suspenseful tale of a 13-year-old boy's investigation and desire for revenge following a brutal attack on his mother that leaves his father, a tribal judge, helpless in his pursuit to bring the perpetrator to justice.”

Exploring justice, family and personal history through an indigenous lens, the Piper Center is organizing a dynamic and extensive lineup of interconnected performances, workshops and conversations with university partners and other organizations from the larger community.

New work from acclaimed poet 

For the keynote event, acclaimed poet Layli Long Soldier (Ogala Lakota) will develop and present new work commissioned by the grant in a reading and conversation moderated by poet, MacArthur Fellow and ASU Professor Natalie Diaz.

Long Soldier has a deep history of social activism and has received numerous recognitions and awards for her work, including a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Whiting Award and a National Book Critics Circle award. Her debut collection, "Whereas," uses the language and occasion of President Obama's 2009 congressional apology to Native Americans to challenge, as described by Diaz, "the making and maintenance of an empire ... transforming the page to withstand the tension of an occupied body, country and, specifically, an occupied language."

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Over 25 panels, workshops and performances

Beyond the keynote, the NEA Big Read: Phoenix will feature a variety of programs spanning poetry, storytelling, library science, the humanities and more, including:

  • Diné poetry reading: A reading and panel of Diné poets curated by poet and Diné College Professor Jake Skeets (Diné), winner of the 2020 Whiting Award and the 2019 National Poetry Series.
  • Oral history and family archive workshops: A series of oral history and family archive workshops with the Labriola National American Indian Data Center and local poet Amber McCrary (Diné).
  • Storytelling event: A storytelling event curated by Liz Warren of South Mountain Community College.
  • Political action: A panel reconvening members of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Committee (HB 2570) with Arizona House representative Jennifer Jermaine.
  • Land recognition: A panel on the ethics, politics and craft of land recognitions with ASU professors and staff, with David Martinez (Akimel O'odham/Hia Ced O'odham), Felicia Mitchell (Chickasaw) and Alex Soto (Tohono O'odham).
  • Literary salons: A literary salon on decolonization with Associate Professor Amanda Tachine (Diné).
  • Book clubs: Numerous book clubs and reading groups with Burton Barr Central Library.

While many events focus on or are intended for indigenous individuals, all events are open to the public. With a few exceptions, the majority are free.

To share "The Round House" throughout the community, the Piper Center will be distributing over 750 books to the public for free. Community members will also be able to check out unlimited copies of the e-book for three months through the Phoenix Public Library.

Addressing a critical national and local issue

Within "The Round House's" larger themes, the Piper Center will place a particular focus on the issues that form the central conflict of the novel: missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).

"Violence against Native women and girls exceeds that of any other group in the United States," said Traci Morris, who directs the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University. "While Native women make up less than 2% of the national population, nearly 40% of all women involved in sex trafficking cases are indigenous."

Several efforts have taken steps to address this problem over the last year. The Arizona Legislature formed a local task force to study MMIWG through HB2570 in May 2019. A similar committee was established by an executive order from Donald Trump that November.

Unfortunately, a lack of reliable data and standardized collection practices among local, state, federal and tribal governments make it virtually impossible to assess the extent of the issue, let alone address it.

"Native women in Arizona disappear three times when they go missing: they disappear in real life, they disappear in the data and they disappear in the media," said state representative Jennifer Jermaine. "With HB2570 we are examining the systematic gaps in data collection and resource allocation from the state level. We are also partnering with tribal leaders and federal agencies to begin to solve communication and coordination problems that have complicated search, rescue and recovery efforts."

Similarly, the American Indian Policy Institute recently received a grant from the Media Democracy Fund to analyze crime reporting flows, algorithmic bias and other complex systems around collecting information. With improved data sets and reporting practices, governments will be able to create more effective policies and legislation.

At the same time, statistics alone can't provide the political, social and historical context in which these crimes take place, nor can they capture the experiences of individuals, families and communities who are forced to live through it. Most importantly of all, these issues risk reducing their identities to that of mere victims, simplifying a rich and dynamic humanity.

Through this grant, the center aims to extend and deepen the discourse around indigenous perspectives, raise awareness and activism surrounding missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and honor the lives and stories of Native American storytellers, artists and community members.

“With its NEA Big Read programs structured around the work of indigenous women and social justice, the Piper Center has once again demonstrated its commitment to embodying the mission of The College," said Jeffrey Cohen, dean of humanities at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. "The future of the humanities is here.” 

More information about the NEA Big Read: Phoenix

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