Disaster racism: using Black sociology, critical race theory and history to understand racial disparity to disaster in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Breen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sociology Of Disaster ◽  
Black Sociology

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a call to action to use a new theoretical framework for disaster researchers that focuses on using a critical approach to understanding differential disaster impacts due to systemic racism.Design/methodology/approachUsing critical race theory (CRT) and Black Sociology, theoretical and disciplinary frameworks that center Black people and NBPOC as well as a focus in dismantling systemic racism and other oppressive systems, this article calls for a new approach – “disaster racism” – that builds on past discussions for a more nuanced theoretical approach to disaster studies.FindingsAlongside CRT and Black Sociology, this study identifies two examples of the oppressive systems that create disparate impacts to disaster including slavery and the legacy of slavery and mass incarceration.Originality/value“Disaster racism” – a critically focused approach – should be used in the future rather than social vulnerability to further dismantle oppressive systems and institutions, which not only provides strong theoretical backing to research but also creates an actively anti-racist research agenda in the discipline of sociology of disaster.

“I’m Not going to the f***ing White House”: Twitter Users React to Donald Trump and Megan Rapinoe

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952095077
Author(s):  
Evan L. Frederick ◽  
Ann Pegoraro ◽  
Samuel Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Inductive Analysis

When asked if she would go to the White House if invited, Megan Rapinoe stated, “I’m not going to the fucking White House.” The next morning, President Donald Trump posted a series of tweets in which he criticized Rapinoe’s statements. In his tweets, Trump introduced issues around race in the United States and brought forth his own notion of nationalism. The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of users’ tweets to determine how individuals employed Twitter to craft a narrative and discuss the ongoing Rapinoe and Trump feud within and outside the bounds of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and nationalism. An inductive analysis of 16,137 users’ tweets revealed three primary themes: a) Refuse, Refute, & Redirect Racist Rhetoric b) Stand Up vs. Know your Rights, and c) #ShutUpAndBeALeader. Based on the findings of this study, it appears that the dialogue regarding racism in the United States is quickly evolving. Instead of reciting the same refrain (i.e., racism no longer exists and systematic racism is constructed by Black people) seen in previous works, individuals in the current dataset refuted those talking points and clearly labeled the President as a racist. Additionally, though discussions of nationalism were evident in this dataset, the Stand Up vs. Know Your Rights theme was on the periphery in comparison to discussions of race. Perhaps, this indicates that some have grown tired of Trump utilizing nationalism as a means to stoke racism.

All Around the World Same Song: Transnational Anti-Black Racism and New (and Old) Directions for Critical Race Theory in Educational Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 004208592092777
Author(s):  
Christopher L. Busey ◽  
Chonika Coleman-King
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Diaspora ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Collective Resistance

As demonstrated through the disregard for Black humanity and respondent Black social movements throughout Latin America, anti-Black systemic racism is a transnational phenomenon birthed from global White supremacy. Across the Americas, the hemispheric parallels undergirding collective resistance to anti-Black racism and state-sanctioned violence lend themselves to multifaceted interdisciplinary scholarly examinations. Using transnational anti-Black racism in Latin America as a point of departure, we advance a theorization of critical race theory in education capable of interrogating racist structures of coloniality, modernity, and White supremacy that operate globally to suppress Black humanity and humanness in general. To that extent, we draw from and reposition critical race theory (CRT) from its sociohistoric heritage in the United States and instead conceptualize transnational anti-Black racism vis-à-vis a Black Diaspora reading of CRT. Finally, we return to education as a key site of contestation for transnational anti-Black racism and draw implications for the meaning of this global theorization of CRT in urban education, praxis, and educational research. We end by charting new and old directions for CRT in educational research.

scholarly journals Achieving Health Equity by Addressing Legacies of Racial Violence in Public Health Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 694 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Darrell Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Health Equity ◽  
Black People ◽  
Public Health Practice ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Health Inequities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Optimal Level ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Historical Factors

Health equity means that everyone, regardless of their abilities, economic status, or race/ethnicity, has the opportunity to reach their optimal level of health. However, the inequitable distribution of resources, power, and privilege in the United States means that historically marginalized communities bear a disproportionate burden of poor health and disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the problem for Black Americans: already bearing an unequal burden of social, economic, and health inequities and experiencing systemic racism in various sectors of American life, Black Americans have been at even greater risk of COVID-19 transmission and severity of the disease. I use critical race theory (CRT) to show how key social and historical factors fuel racial health inequities. Further, I use key tenets of CRT to argue that redressing historical legacies of racism cannot be done without using a critical, race conscious lens and lifting up the voices of Black people.

scholarly journals Toward a Critical Race Theory of Prison Order in the Wake of COVID-19 and Its Afterlives: When Disaster Collides with Institutional Death by Design

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142110054
Author(s):  
Brittany Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Prison Life ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Penal Institutions ◽  
Sociology Of Disaster ◽  
Implementing Strategies

In this article, I bridge critical sociological perspectives on penal institutions with insights from the sociology of disaster to advance a critical race theory of prison order in the wake of COVID-19 and its afterlives. Penal institutions officially categorize people as detainees, inmates, or prisoners in order to deliberately relegate human beings to a degraded social status, ultimately in service of an intentionally racist system. I theorize why prisons are natural epicenters for COVID-19, identifying the following institutional parameters as social factors: (1) death is by institutional design, where prison order is arranged so that people categorized as prisoners die socially, psychically, and physically; (2) promoting institutional survival rather than human survival is second nature during a disaster because the preexisting social organization of prison life serves this purpose; and (3) when a disaster strikes causing severe loss to people and resources, uncertainty is managed by implementing strategies that magnify the death(s) of incarcerated people in exchange for the life of the institution.

scholarly journals Color Crit: Critical Race Theory and the History and Future of Colorism in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Reece
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
American Society

Critical race theory teaches that racism and racial inequality are constants in American society that stand outside of the prejudices of individuals. It argues that structures and institutions are primarily responsible for the maintenance of racial inequality. However, critical race theorists have neglected to formally examine and theorize colorism, a primary offshoot of racial domination. Although studies of colorism have become increasingly common, they lack a unifying theoretical framework, opting to lean on ideas about prejudice and preference to explain the advantages lighter skinned, Black Americans are afforded relative to darker skinned Black Americans. In this study, I deploy a critical race framework to push back against preference as the only, or primary, mechanism facilitating skin tone stratification. Instead, I use historical Census data and regression analysis to explore the historical role of color-based marriage selection on concentrating economic advantage among lighter skinned Black Americans. I then discuss the policy and legal implications of developing a structural view of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States and the broader implications for how we conceptualize race in this country.

scholarly journals Studying and Challenging Racism in Higher Education: Naming Bad Faith to Understand the “Logic” of Racism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 602
Author(s):  
Antar A. Tichavakunda
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Bad Faith ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Disconfirming Evidence

In this conceptual essay, the author argues that bad faith is a valuable concept in understanding and challenging racism in higher education. The philosopher Lewis Gordon argues that racism is a manifestation of bad faith. For the actor who sees Black people as less than human, for example, no evidence will allow the actor to see otherwise. Bad faith is the disavowal of any disconfirming evidence which allows actors to maintain their worldviews. The author draws from high profile examples of racism in higher education as conceptual cases to make his argument. Specifically, the author demonstrates how attacks upon Critical Race Theory in education, the currency of critiques of microaggressions research, and the perennial difficulty to name racist violence on campus as hate crimes operate upon a logic of racism through bad faith.

In the End, There Is No Such Thing as Unconscious Racism: CRT/Asian American Crit Counterstories by Undergraduate Students During the Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110540
Author(s):  
Jeremy Hau Lam ◽  
Katrina Le ◽  
Laurence Parker
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Spring Semester ◽  
Honors College

This article emerged from undergraduate students in an Honors College class on critical race theory at the University of Utah during the spring semester 2020 during the pandemic. The counterstories evolve around critical race theory/Asian American Crit and the historical and current violence against the Asian American community in the United States. Given the recent anti-Asian American backlash which has emerged through the COVID-19 crisis, to the March 2021 murders of the Asian American women and others in Atlanta, we present these counterstories with the imperative of their importance for critical social justice to combat White supremacy.

The Every Student Succeeds Act and Multicultural Education: A Critical Race Theory Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (13) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Floyd D. Beachum
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is now the educational law of the land. It replaced and revised what was known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). ESSA represents a movement from more federal oversight to more state and local control. Although this transitional time period is one of great potential and excitement, educators and policy makers might also want to remain cautious. This next educational era of ESSA is still plagued by the problems of the past era. Teachers and administrators are still struggling to turn around low-performing schools in many U.S. urban areas; many urban educational issues, like high-dropout rates, gang influence, and low student engagement, are still inextricably linked to the socioeconomic problems that exist in local communities. This analysis first seeks to explain the purpose of ESSA. It then outlines the current plight of many students of color in the United States. Next, critical race theory is used to contextualize and categorize persistent problems that face the implementation of ESSA for these students of color. Finally, the author proposes ways to address the stated problems for school leaders and policy makers.

scholarly journals Sunera Thobani: A Very Public Intellectual

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. Carroll
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities

<p>Sunera Thobani is a formidable activist and scholar. Through decades of activism and scholarship, spanning the globe from East Africa to Canada, via England and the United States, she has developed and applied a critical race feminist and anti-imperialist analysis of world capitalism and colonialism. As an activist, she is probably best known as the former President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Woman, Canada&rsquo;s then largest feminist organization. During her tenure she sought to make anti-racism central to feminist struggles. In her academic work, she has developed critical race theory to cast new light on the dynamics around globalization, violence against women, reproductive technologies, social programmes, immigration and nation-building, and colonialism and war. In her research and teaching, she consistently combines her scholarship with community activism, including through her work at the Centre for Race, Autobiography, Gender and Age (RAGA), which she directs and which features active collaboration among community activists and university scholars and students. She is a founding member of the Canada-wide alliance, Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equity.</p><p>Sunera Thobani was educated at universities in England, the United States and received her PhD from Simon Fraser University in Canada. She is the author of numerous articles, both scholarly and for a more general public. Arguably her most well-known intervention is &ldquo;War Frenzy,&rdquo; a 2001 speech calling on women across Canada to oppose the Canadian support of the American-led invasion into Afghanistan. This intervention is now reproduced in a book of Great Canadian Speeches (2004). A frequently invited speaker in both her academic and activist capacities, she has addressed audiences across Canada, as well as in Austria, China, Denmark, England, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the Palestine Occupied Territories, the Philippines, and the United States. Sunera Thobani has co-edited several books on critical race theory and feminism and is the author of the widely-read Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada (2007). Her forthcoming Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) supported book is tentatively titled <em>Media Representations of Gender and the War on Terror</em>.</p><p><br />This interview was conducted by William K. Carroll in Vancouver, British Columbia in February 2012.</p>

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