Hands Up, Don't Shoot, Exposing Hate and Notes from the Field

Some members of our faculty and administration are in the midst of reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo this summer. Here are comments regarding a few other related texts.

HANDS UP, DON’T SHOOT by Jennifer E. Cobbina will be published by New York University Press on July 30th which is extremely timely considering its subtitle (Why the Protests in Ferguson and Baltimore Matter, and How They Changed America) and the way that Baltimore has been in the news in the last several days. Cobbina is Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University and she worked with other academics to interview participants at protests following the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. In a half dozen chapters, she describes findings on race and policing, writes about Black police officers, and explores why protestors marched. In addition to providing some historical context, she offers a suggestion that “the issue is not exclusively about the race of police officers but about the nature of police organizations and how they systematically police poor communities of color.” In addition, Cobbina was able to conduct and review interviews from almost 200 people and to look for patterns, concluding in part that “the most involved and committed protestors vowed to engage in future activist efforts …. while, for those who were less committed, oppressive tactics by police appeared to serve as a deterrent.” She goes further and provides a look at some of the complex factors involved (e.g., unemployment rates, poverty levels, single parent households, social media influence). Roughly a fourth of this well-researched text is devoted to appendices (on demographics of the protestors and research methods), notes, references, and a helpful index. HANDS UP, DON’T SHOOT received a starred review from Library Journal and will be an invaluable resource for our students, especially those in Civics and/or Psychology classes (perhaps investigating the flashpoint model, culture of resistance, implicit bias, etc.) as well as others interested in this multi-faceted topic for Junior Theme research.

EXPOSING HATE by Michael Miller explores “Prejudice, Hatred, and Violence in Action” and Booklist calls it “a necessary book on a hot-button social issue.” Geared to high school students, this non-fiction text is only 144 pages long. A possible starting point for research, it simply defines a hate group as “an organization that attacks or harms an entire group of people for characteristics they cannot change.” In addition, Miller notes statistics from the Southern Poverty Law Center which officially recognized 457 hate groups in 1999 as opposed to the increased number of 954 active hate groups in 2017. He writes about hate crimes both against people and against property, noting that hate groups “promote extremist views,” and discusses racially motivated events in Charlottesville and Charleston.  Although, Miller provides examples of anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semite actions, other groups (e.g., indigenous peoples) are largely overlooked. He does acknowledge that “research shows that when a person meets and gets to know something about someone who is different from them, they gain a better understanding of the other person.  They begin to rethink existing prejudices.” EXPOSING HATE has a glossary, well-documented source notes (often from media outlets), a selected bibliography and a very helpful list of relevant books, films, and websites. Students could pair parts of this with the “go back” stories recently published by the New York Times.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD by Anna Deavere Smith, a native of Baltimore, focuses mostly on the school-to-prison-pipeline. This work was originally performed as a one person play and is the most recent installment in what Smith, an award-winning actress and activist, considers her “life’s work:” a series of plays titled “On the Road: A Search for American Character.” Smith says “central to my creative process is active listening” and she therefore interviewed about 250 people from around the country (Maryland, South Carolina, Northern California, and Pennsylvania).  The monologues that she performs represent about seventeen voices selected to “reflect the variety of people caught up in the school-to-prison-pipeline: students, parents, counselors, administrators, prisoners, preachers and politicians.”  The first features Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Others are meant to voice views about the death of Freddie Gray or comments from James Baldwin, Bryan Stevenson and Congressman John Lewis, all of which are incorporated later in the work. First performed in 2015, NOTES FROM THE FIELD was subsequently made into a movie for television by HBO. Since this work can actually be performed with any number of actors, I have already spoken with faculty members about possible projects for our students. Anna Deavere Smith herself hopes that her work "can usefully contribute to an ongoing debate;" she makes a call for "a reimagining that requires courage, empathy and action."

Biased by Jennifer L. Eberhardt

BIASED by Jennifer L. Eberhardt is subtitled “Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do.” The book itself is split into three parts: What Meets the Eye; Where We Find Ourselves; and The Way Out.  Eberhardt, a recipient of a 2014 MacArthur "genius" grant and a professor of psychology at Stanford, defines implicit bias as “a kind of distorting lens that’s a product of both the architecture of our brain and the disparities in our society.”  Eberhardt makes this issue truly relatable by sharing stories and experiences from her own life.  One early example revolves around her move during middle school and the ensuing difficulty of distinguishing between her new - and mostly white - classmates. In addition, she discusses several cases of shootings by police, complete with bystander and family reactions, and the marches in Charlottesville.  Other examples involve bias in hiring decisions and the workplace or in relation to social media. Throughout the text, Eberhardt explains further in sections dealing with the science of recognition or the scientific lens in order to “pull back from the isolated case[s] and examine larger forces at work.” In all, Eberhardt includes roughly twenty pages of notes and links to other scholarly work.

I am looking forward to sharing this important and engaging title with teachers and students, especially since our school is continuing to offer professional development activities related to implicit bias and confirmation bias. BIASED would be a helpful guide in exploring Eberhardt’s fundamental question: “How does race shape who we are and how we experience the world?” As she says, “there is hope in the sheer act of reflection. This is where the power lies and how the process starts.” BIASED received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist (“Accessible and eye-opening, this should be required reading in high-school social-issue classes.”).

Invisible Women and Juliet's School of Possibilities

INVISIBLE WOMEN by Caroline Criado Perez offers an intriguing, if sometimes dense, look at “Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.”  Perez, a feminist advocate, explores workplace and medical issues in addition to numerous other examples from daily life where the use of data perpetuates bias and discriminates against women.   Her examples fit nicely with recent press coverage like “A Fix for Gender Bias in Health Care? Check” from The New York Times. Perez provides nearly seventy pages of references and relevant links which have already been of great benefit to our student researchers.  Her work raises so many subtle decisions favoring men (e.g., calorie count on treadmills based on average male weight).  However, (perhaps because of living in London?) she does not include much discussion of the impact of data and discrimination in sports; that is a bit surprising given the disparities in media coverage and recent lawsuit by the US National Women’s Soccer Team.  Perez does include fairly lengthy sections on parental leave and unpaid work, which again could tie to recent media coverage (“Women Did Everything Right. Then Work Got ‘Greedy’”). Overall, INVISIBLE WOMEN offers an important look at systemic bias that merits further discussion and research. 

JULIET'S SCHOOL OF POSSIBILITIES by Laura Vanderkam is subtitled “A Little Story About the Power of Priorities” and is reminiscent of business fables like Who Moved My Cheese? Or Fish! Vanderkam also has a popular TED Talk about work/life balance and she has produced several podcasts on related topics. Her new text introduces Riley Jenkins, a twenty-something who has always excelled through hard work and yet receives a poor performance review as well as concerned feedback from friends and family.  Riley heads to a weekend women’s retreat where she meets Juliet, a working Mom who finds time to mentor Riley and others, offering advice like: “We always have time for what matters to us.” And “You cannot do everything. The choice to meet one expectation is always a choice to not meet another.”  Using the power of story, JULIET'S SCHOOL OF POSSIBILITIES is an inspiring and relatively quick read which concludes with several introspective exercises to help readers contemplate how they would like to spend their time.