#5SmartReads - December 8 , 2020

Today’s #5SmartReads are curated by Kate Slater. She is an Assistant Dean of Graduate Students Affairs at Brandeis University, where she facilitates anti-racism trainings. Katie talks to white people about white supremacy, you can connect with here here! She spends her time chasing her “wrecking ball of a toddler” around the house and perfecting her "business-on-the-top, giving-up-on-the-bottom" workwear/loungewear combo for Zoom meetings. Follow her on Instagram.

Affirmative Actions Shouldn’t Be About Diversity (The Atlantic)

A few years old, but critical and insightful. This article takes the traditional arguments in favor of affirmative action (BY THE WAY, VERY NECESSARY) and turns them on their head. Affirmative action should not be about "benevolent equity"; it should make amends for centuries of systematic racial oppression and disenfranchisement.

Trump Lost, But My Brother’s Still In A Far-Right Militia (The Cut) 

A chilling, personal account of the militant radicalization of the far right.

“Why Isn’t Quawan Charles Trending?” :Another Grave Injustice In The Handling Of Black Bodies (Ms. Magazine)

"On Nov. 3rd, Quawan “Bobby” Charles, a Black 15-year-old, was found dead with his body mutilated in a sugar cane near the village of Loreauville, La.". This article not only examines the police's gross negligence in locating Charles' body, but also points to how systemic racism influences the (mis)handling of these cases.

Youth Voter Turnout Was High In 2020, But Youth Organizing Is The Big Story (Teen Vogue)

The narrative isn't quite as simple as "the kids are alright".

Stauffer talks about how youth organizers are often tokenized - they're trotted out and spotlighted by the media when it's convenient, and ignored the rest of the time. Yet, they're one of the most powerful voting constituencies in this country.

There Is Nothin Fragile About Racism (Education Week) 

The concept of 'white fragility' denotes passivity and powerlessness; by contrast, abolitionist educator Bettina Love describes how racism is anything but.

Love calls for White people to reckon with the destructive nature of their own privilege. In the same vein, anti-racism is also "anything but fragile"; it requires the "tearing down [of] racist policies and replacing those policies with ones that value the lives of BIPOC".