Social Justice January: New and Noteworthy

When Laura Coates joined the Department of Justice as a prosecutor, she wanted to advocate for the most vulnerable among us. But she quickly realized that even with the best intentions, "the pursuit of justice creates injustice." On the front lines of our legal system, Coates saw how Black communities are policed differently; Black cases are prosecuted differently; Black defendants are judged differently. Through these revelatory and captivating scenes from the courtroom, Coates explores the tension between the idealism of the law and the reality of working within the parameters of our flawed legal system, exposing the chasm between what is right and what is lawful.

For most of American history, our media has reinforced and promoted racism. But with the immediacy of modern technology--the ubiquity of smartphones, social media, and the internet--that long history is now in flux. As broad movements to overhaul policing, housing, and schooling gain new vitality, Seen and Unseen demonstrates that change starts with the raw evidence of those recording history on the front lines. In the vein of The New Jim Crow and Caste, Seen and Unseen incisively explores what connects our moment to the history of race in America but also what makes today different from the civil rights movements of the past and what it will ultimately take to push social justice forward.

From the anti-segregation sit-ins of the 1960s to the protests in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor, the rest of the nation - and often the world - has watched as Kentuckians boldly fought against instances of injustice. In Resistance in the Bluegrass, Farrah Alexander outlines the ways in which Kentucky's citizens have been models in the fight against intersectional issues of racial injustice, economic inequality, education, climate change, immigration, political representation, LGBTQ+ rights, and women's rights, while exploring and celebrating decades of Kentucky's contributions to social justice movements and the names behind them.

In this powerful call to action, New York Times bestselling author Mariame Kaba and attorney and organizer Andrea J. Ritchie detail why policing doesn't stop violence, instead perpetuating widespread harm; outline the many failures of contemporary police reforms; and explore demands to defund police, divest from policing, and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. Part handbook, part road map, No More Police calls on us to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it toward a world where violence is the exception, and safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule.

In Legal Spectatorship Kelli Moore traces the political origins of the concept of domestic violence through visual culture in the United States. Tracing its appearance in Article IV of the Constitution, slave narratives, police notation, cybernetic theories of affect, criminal trials, and the "look" of the battered woman, Moore contends that domestic violence refers to more than violence between intimate partners--it denotes the mechanisms of racial hierarchy and oppression that undergird republican government in the United States.

The tragedies and reckonings around racism that are rocking the country have created a specific crisis for parents, educators, and other caregivers: How do we talk to our children about racism? How do we teach children to be antiracist? How are kids at different ages experiencing race? How are racist structures impacting children? How can we inspire our children to avoid our mistakes, to be better, to make the world better?  Following the accessible genre of his internationally bestselling How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi combines a century of scientific research with a vulnerable and compelling personal narrative of his own journey as a parent and as a child in school.

Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. Civil Rights Queen captures the story of a remarkable American life, a figure who remade law and inspired the imaginations of African Americans across the country. In Civil Rights Queen, she dramatically fills out the picture of some of the most profound judicial and societal change made in twentieth-century America.

The past four hundred years have seen unprecedented growth in virtually every conceivable realm of life, from medicine to the arts, technology to finance. Far too often, however, when we think of the movers, shakers, and innovators behind these transformations, we picture a host of men--and white men, at that. With Trailblazers, Gabrielle David remedies that. The first anthology of black female innovators published in more than fifteen years, Trailblazers introduces us to more than one hundred and fifty American black women who have been instrumental in creating our contemporary life.

Over the course of the last half century, queer history has developed as a collaborative project involving academic researchers, community scholars, and the public. Initially rejected by most colleges and universities, queer history was sustained for many years by community-based contributors and audiences. Academic activism eventually made a place for queer history within higher education, which in turn helped queer historians become more influential in politics, law, and society. Through a collection of essays written over three decades by award-winning historian Marc Stein, Queer Public History charts the evolution of queer historical interventions in the academic sphere and explores the development of publicly oriented queer historical scholarship.

At a time when the North American ruling class went to great lengths to prevent any semblance of continuity between movements, Braden forged direct links between the radical left of the 1930s and 40s, and that of the 1960s. Beginning with her trial for sedition in 1954, she endured constant attacks at the hands of the U.S. government, largely due to her association with Communism. And yet, as deeply as she influenced the development of the early civil rights movement, the scale of Braden's contributions and insights have either been redacted to meet the needs of the official version of civil rights movement history, or been made palatable to the very same power structure she spent her entire life working to overturn. Anne Braden Speaks corrects this distorted narrative. Finally, and for the first time, we have full access to a representative collection of Braden's writings, speeches, and letters, and the full spectrum of their subject matter: from the relationship between race and capitalism, to the role of the South in American society, to the function of anti-communism.

After what could only be described as decades of apathy, more Americans than ever have taken to the streets to protest social and political injustice. Recent protests of note have been the Women's March, which began after Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017, and Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Engagement is important, but can protests actually drive change? Are peaceful demonstrations more effective than violent protests? Can movements make a difference without powerful leaders? And how have the internet and social media changed the game?

In this personal and thought-provoking book, Henry explores how the historical divides between Black people and non-Black people are expressed through our most mundane interactions, and why this struggle won't be resolved through civil discourse, diversity hires, interracial relationships, or education. Sharing stories from his own path to activism-from studying at seminary to becoming a student of nonviolent social change, from working as a praise leader to singing about social justice-and connecting those experiences to lessons from successful nonviolent struggles in America and around the world, Andre Henry calls on Black people and people of color to divest from whiteness and its false promises, trust what their lived experiences tell them, and practice hope as a discipline as they work for lasting change.

From John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Institute of Politics, Fight is an exploration of Gen Z, the issues that matter most to them, and how they will shape the future. In Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Passion and Fear to Save America, Della Volpe draws on his vast experience to show the largest forces shaping zoomers' lives, the issues they care most about, and how they are--despite older Americans' efforts to label Gen Z as overly sensitive, lazy, and entitled--rising to the unprecedented challenges of their time to take control of their country and our future.

In this remarkable collaborative work, leading scholar-activists Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie surface the often unrecognized genealogies of queer, anti-capitalist, internationalist, grassroots, and women-of-color-led feminist movements, struggles, and organizations that have helped to define abolition and feminism in the twenty-first century. Amplifying the analysis and the theories of change generated out of vibrant community based organizing, Abolition. Feminism. Now. highlights necessary historical linkages, key internationalist learnings, and everyday practices to imagine a future where we can all thrive.

In Feminism in Coalition Liza Taylor examines how US women of color feminists' coalitional politics provides an indispensable resource to contemporary political theory, feminist studies, and intersectional social justice activism. Taylor charts the theorization of coalition in the work of Bernice Johnson Reagon, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, the Combahee River Collective, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and others. Taylor shows how their coalitional understandings of group politics, identity, consciousness, and scholarship have transformed how activists and theorists build alliances across race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, and ethnicity to tackle systems of domination.

In Rise for Racial Justice: How to Talk About Race With Schools and Communities, the authors draw on the experiences of antiracism facilitators as they teach about race, racism, and racial justice. This book shares curricula, pedagogical strategies, tools, and practices that support the learning and engagement of educators and youth learners. Book Features: Examples of curricula and suggested pedagogy for antiracism training geared toward teachers and other adults in leadership and/or parenting roles. Tools to help school communities talk about race and racism, as well as practices for pursuing racial justice. Practical, narrative-based advice about the opportunities and challenges of engaging in antiracism training.

The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System features Black voices across economics, education, health, climate, and technology, speaking to the question "What's next?" as it pertains to centering Black people in policy matters in our country. Essayists including Dr. Sandy Darity, Dr. Hedwig Lee, Mary Heglar, and Janelle Jones present groundbreaking ideas ranging from Black maternal health to reparations to AI bias to inclusive economic policy, with the potential to uplift and heal not only Black America, but the entire country.

Teaching as Protest explores how K-12 teachers can expand the boundaries of their profession with anti-oppressive, community-building pedagogies. Now more than ever, students are looking to their schools to make meaning of our nation's complicated and compounded traumas, namely those at the intersection of race, class, gender, and power. This book provides historical and philosophical perspectives into liberatory instructional work, while offering planning, preparation, and practice tools whose modalities recognize identity and mindsets, emphasizing schools that predominantly serve Black students.

In The Streets Belong to Us, Anne Gray Fischer narrates how sexual policing fueled a dramatic expansion of police power. The enormous discretionary power that police officers wield to surveil, target, and arrest anyone they deem suspicious was tested, legitimized, and legalized through the policing of women's sexuality and their right to move freely through city streets. By illuminating both the racial dimension of sexual liberalism and the gender dimension of policing in Black neighborhoods, The Streets Belong to Us illustrates the decisive role that race, gender, and sexuality played in the construction of urban police regimes.

The Black Lives Matter movement has shined a light on the frequently unequal treatment of African Americans by the U.S. justice system. This has led to some adverse reactions, including the protest slogans All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. The viewpoints in this volume examine the truths regarding the justice system and people of color in the United States. Do the police have a problem when it comes to racial discrimination? Is the court system biased against people of color? Can gang violence be curbed without racial profiling? Experts from the field offer very different perspectives on this important topic.

A powerful account of violence against Black women and girls in the United States and their fight for liberation. Echoing the energy of Nina Simone's searing protest song that inspired the title, this book is a call to action in our collective journey toward just futures. America, Goddam explores the combined force of anti-Blackness, misogyny, patriarchy, and capitalism in the lives of Black women and girls in the United States today. Through personal accounts and hard-hitting analysis, Black feminist historian Treva B. Lindsey starkly assesses the forms and legacies of violence against Black women and girls, as well as their demands for justice for themselves and their communities.

Talking College shows that language is fundamental to Black and African American culture and that linguistic justice is crucial to advancing racial justice, both on college campuses and throughout society. Writing from a linguistics-informed, Black-centered educational framework, the authors draw extensively on Black college students' lived experiences to present key ideas about African American English and Black language practices. The text presents a model of how Black students navigate the linguistic expectations of college. and outlines concrete steps toward racial and linguistic justice that students and faculty can take today. Accessible to students and faculty without a background in linguistics, while also engaging and informative for linguistics scholars.

The Dark Side of Reform contains nine chapters on the development of social policies with the potential to advance racial equity. In addition to studying these policies and their implications, the chapters in this volume demonstrate how lessons from the past can be used to inform the direction of current discussions. At the heart of these conversations are concerns about whether Black people, in particular, will receive the full benefit of transformative laws that may emerge in the coming years. The volume also offers recommendations on implementing policies that address the unique concerns of structurally disadvantaged communities with particular emphasis on Black and Latinx people.

Black Lives Matter in US Schools critically examines the relationship between schooling and sociocultural abolitionist movements like #BlackLivesMatter. Aligning with a long history of education scholars who have insisted on the enmeshed nature of schools and society, the book addresses the role of various forms of curricula that perpetuate anti-Blackness while simultaneously shaping Black ways of being, knowing, and doing. While its focus tends toward issues of normalized violence, Black Lives Matter in US Schools is equally concerned with possibilities for justice stemming from curricular change and effects like hope and love that are central to radical acts of resistance to oppression.

What should teachers do on the days after major events, tragedies, and traumas, especially when injustice is involved? This beautifully written book features teacher narratives and youth-authored student spotlights that reveal what classrooms do and can look like in the wake of these critical moments. Teaching on Days After can be used to support current classroom teachers and to better structure teacher education to help pre-service teachers think ahead to their future classrooms. Book Features: Narratives from teachers and students that represent a diverse range of identities, locations, grade levels, and content areas. Examples of days after that teachers remember, including 9/11, elections, natural disasters, gun violence, police brutality, social uprisings, Supreme Court decisions, immigration policies, and more.

In this assiduously researched work of journalism, Teen Vogue columnist and independent labor reporter Kim Kelly excavates that history and shows how the rights the American worker has today--the forty-hour workweek, workplace-safety standards, restrictions on child labor, protection from harassment and discrimination on the job--were earned with literal blood, sweat, and tears. Fight Like Hell comes at a time of economic reckoning in America. From Amazon's warehouses to Starbucks cafes, Appalachian coal mines to the sex workers of Portland's Stripper Strike, interest in organized labor is at a fever pitch not seen since the early 1960s. Inspirational, intersectional, and full of crucial lessons from the past, Fight Like Hell shows what is possible when the working class demands the dignity it has always deserved.

Given that students are increasingly arriving on campus with limited civic knowledge, and the fragile state of our democracy, there is an urgent need to incorporate civic learning into courses, programs, systems, and processes throughout our institutions. This book provides administrators, student affairs educators, and faculty with frameworks and examples for developing initiatives and programs to promote students' civic learning and democratic engagement; set sustainable, campus-wide goals; track student learning outcomes; and make data-driven decisions that impact the campus climate for civic engagement.

In The Third Reconstruction, distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol. America's first and second Reconstructions fell tragically short of their grand aims. Our Third Reconstruction offers a new chance to achieve Black dignity and citizenship at last--an opportunity to choose hope over fear.

The science on race is clear. Common categories like "Black," "white," and "Asian" do not represent genetic differences among groups. But if race is a pernicious fiction according to natural science, it is all too significant in the day-to-day lives of racialized people across the globe. Inequities in health, wealth, and an array of other life outcomes cannot be explained without referring to "race"-but their true source is racism. What do we need to know about the pseudoscience of race in order to fight racism and fulfill human potential? In this book, two distinguished scientists tackle common misconceptions about race, human biology, and racism.

How essential workers' fight for better jobs during the pandemic revolutionized US labor politics  Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, essential workers lashed out against low wages, long hours, and safety risks, attracting a level of support unseen in decades. This explosion of labor unrest seemed sudden to many. But Essential reveals that American workers had simmered in discontent long before their anger boiled over.   Decades of austerity, sociologist Jamie K. McCallum shows, have left frontline workers vulnerable to employer abuse, lacking government protections, and increasingly furious.

The rights of victims to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition when businesses are involved in past and present abuses are seldom guaranteed. A legacy of impunity has prevailed globally in which economic actors have incurred few legal or financial (indemnity) costs forviolating behaviour. Examining cases in Nazi Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Peru, the Philippines and South Africa, this edited volume traces business accountability efforts. It identifies the tools applicable to different country contexts that have facilitated corporateaccountability for human rights violations, while also flagging the barriers that persist. This volume presents the past and the present of accountability for corporations complicit in gross human rights violations, and also considers what the future may hold.

Rethinking the Color Line is a collection of  theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded readings on race and race relations that illustrate how race and ethnicity influence aspects of social life in ways that are often made invisible by culture, politics and economics.