Recommended Viewing
Let's Replace Cancel Culture with Accountability
Sonya Renee Taylor explores the impact of calling out and calling in people who have caused harm. She offers us a third alternative - “calling on”. We often think that discerning someone’s intent is instinctual when it is just not the case. Sonya proposes that those who are the source of suffering, in any given interaction, should bear the responsibility for managing their own change and transformation. Taylor offers "calling on" as a method for naming harm and allowing each of us to carve our own pathway toward ACCOUNTABILITY and RESPONSIBILITY for our education and change.
What Is Accountability?
Accountability is self-reflecting, apologizing, making amends, and changing your behavior so the harm you caused doesn’t happen again. It is a process and not a destination. Over the years, accountability has been at the heart of transformative justice work. In this video, transformative and restorative justice practitioners discuss how accountability is enacted and some challenges in the journey. Created by Project Nia and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Video produced by Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, and Hope Dector.
Featuring: Mia Mingus, Priya Rai, RJ Maccani, Esteban Kelly, Sonya Shah, Shira Hassan, Elliott Fukui, adrienne marie brown, Stas Schmiedt, Lea Roth, kai lumumba barrow, Martina Kartman, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, nuri nusrat, and Mimi Kim. Created by Project Nia and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Video produced by Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, and Hope Dector.
What are Obstacles Accountability?
Because human beings will inevitably harm each other, we need to develop responses that address the needs engendered by these harms. Often, we rely on punishment as the consequence to harms. However, as criminalization has expanded, many are rethinking punishment and calling instead for accountability. What does that mean? Accountability is, as Connie Burk of the Northwest Network explains it, “an internal resource for recognizing and redressing the harms we have caused to ourselves and others.” It is a practice rather than an end. It is a continuous process rather than just an individual act. In this video, people with years of experience facilitating transformative, restorative, and community accountability processes between survivors of harm and people who have done harm talk frankly about what gets in the way of accountability.
Created by Project Nia and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Video produced by Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, and Hope Dector.
Shame is Not Accountability: How JJ ’88 Learned Self-Love over Gang-Love | StyleLikeU
At the age of 15, JJ ‘88 found a sense of belonging in gang life, mistook its reverence for violence as a badge of glory, and committed murder. He was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison but it wasn’t until much later that he began to understand how the toxic masculine values ingrained in his childhood had failed him. After many dark years, saturated with profound feelings of unworthiness, ‘88 found true accountability by releasing shame, restoring self-love and facing the irreversible truth of what he had done with radical self-forgiveness. Having traded in his hard exterior for his authentic soft one, ‘88 now enters every room with the awareness that he can never fully repay the debt of his past. However, he honors it by sharing his story, aiming to contribute to the betterment of others and even of himself.
What is Self-Accountability?
Accountability is a familiar buzz-word in contemporary social movements, but what does it mean? How do we work toward it? In this series of four short videos, anti-violence activists Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby ask and explore: What does it look like to be accountable to survivors without exiling or disposing those who do harm? On October 26, 2018, Kiyomi and Shannon will join us for an online discussion exploring models of building accountable communities. This conversation will be framed by audience questions and moderated by Mariame Kaba
Higher Consciousness
"Higher consciousness' sounds mystical and possibly irritating. It shouldn't. It just captures how we see things when we go beyond our own egos."
While I support the concepts in this video, I suggest that in order to live deliberately we try to live in the in between of our higher and everyday self rather than in an either/or state of being.
What is Neuroplasticity?
This video explains how our most complex organ is capable of changing throughout our lives. This inspiring animation demonstrates how we all have the ability to learn and change by rewiring our brains.
Re-Humanizing with James Baldwin
Baldwin poses the question in what way does oppressing others support that oppressor's self-image.
Who Is Allowed to Be a Victim?
A powerful and poetic story of survival as a black, trans, gender non conforming person. Travis Alabanza is a London-based performance artist, writer and general sh*t talker that uses poetry, words, soundscapes and performance to scream about their survival as a black, trans, gender non conforming person in the UK. Alabanza also released a successful debut book 'Before I step Outside [You love me]', and has had their work been noted by Dazed, ID, MOBO, Apple and Snakes, Black Girl Dangerous and The Independent.
The Danger of a Single Story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding."
The Urgency of Intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw
"Now more than ever, it's important to look boldly at the reality of race and gender bias -- and understand how the two can combine to create even more harm. Kimberlé Crenshaw uses the term "intersectionality" to describe this phenomenon; as she says, if you're standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you're likely to get hit by both. In this moving talk, she calls on us to bear witness to this reality and speak up for victims of prejudice."
Interlocking Systems of Domination | bell hooks
bell hooks explains how white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy are interlocking systems of domination that define our reality.
Allegories on Racism | Camara Jones
Dr. Camara Jones shares four allegories on “race” and racism. She hopes that these "telling stories" empower you to do something different, and that you will remember them and pass them on. Dr. Jones is a family physician and epidemiologist whose work focuses on the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation. She seeks to broaden the national health debate to include not only universal access to high quality health care, but also attention to the social determinants of health (including poverty) and the social determinants of equity (including racism).
Let's Get to the Root of Racial Injustice | Megan Ming Francis
In this powerful talk, Megan Francis traces the root causes of our current racial climate to their core causes, debunking common misconceptions and calling out "fix-all" cures to a complex social problem Megan Ming Francis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington where she specializes in the study of American politics, race, and the development of constitutional law. She is particularly interested in the construction of rights and citizenship, black political activism, and the post-civil war South. Born and raised in Seattle, WA, she was educated at Garfield High School, Rice University in Houston, and Princeton University where she received her M.A. and her Ph.D. in Politics. In her award winning book, Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State, shows that the battle against lynching and mob violence in the first quarter of the 20th century were pivotal to the development of civil rights and the growth of federal court power. She is inspired by people who fight for justice–even when the end appears nowhere in sight.
Can Art Amend History? | Titus Kaphar
"In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way. I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history." -Titus Kaphar
Museum in Progress: Decolonizing Museums | Hannah Mason-Macklin
"From museum-insiders to blockbuster films to grassroots activism, many people are questioning the colonial foundation of museums, and what role museums should play in our society today. In this talk, Hannah Mason-Macklin shares a new initiative used to decenter whiteness and western values in a recent exhibition of West African objects from the 19th and 20th centuries. Through honest acknowledgement and genuine collaboration, museums can become spaces of healing, connection, and progress."
Why You Think You're Right, Even When You're Wrong | Julia Galef
"Perspective is everything, especially when it comes to examining your beliefs. Are you a soldier, prone to defending your viewpoint at all costs -- or a scout, spurred by curiosity? Julia Galef examines the motivations behind these two mindsets and how they shape the way we interpret information, interweaved with a compelling history lesson from 19th-century France. When your steadfast opinions are tested, Galef asks: "What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"
3 Kinds of Bias that Shape Your Worldview | J. Marshall Shepherd
"What shapes our perceptions (and misperceptions) about science? In an eye-opening talk, meteorologist J. Marshall Shepherd explains how confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect and cognitive dissonance impact what we think we know -- and shares ideas for how we can replace them with something much more powerful: knowledge."
Becoming Systemically Aware | Race Forward
This video from Race Forward unpacks the 4 levels of racism and how focusing on internalized and interpersonal racism often prevent making impactful and lasting change for racial justice.
Angela Davis Criticizes "Mainstream Feminism" / Bourgeois Feminism"
"If we stand up against racism, we want much more than inclusion. Inclusion is not enough. Diversity is not enough. And as a matter of fact, we do not wish to be included in a racist society. If we say no to hetero-patriarchy then we do not want to be assimilated into a misogynist and hetero-patriarchal society. If we so no to poverty, we do not want to be contained by a capitalist structure that values profits more than human beings. And so I want to include by suggesting that our notions of revolution need to be far more capacious than they have been in the past....We have to be prepared to continually challenge that which we see as normal. Revolution upsets normative processes."
Liberating the Black Female Body | Eugene Lang College
The New School presents a conversation with bell hooks, scholar-in-residence at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and other leading voices in black feminism and the LGBTQ community: author Marci Blackman (Tradition), film director Shola Lynch (Free Angela and All Political Prisoners), and author and activist Janet Mock (Redefining Realness), about liberating the black female body. For more than three decades, bell hooks has been recognized internationally as a scholar, poet, author, and radical thinker. The dozens of books and articles she has published span several genres, including cultural and political analyses and critiques, personal memoirs, poetry collections, and children's books. Her writings cover topics of gender, race, class, spirituality, teaching, and the significance of media in contemporary culture. According to Dr. hooks, these topics must be understood as interconnected in the production of systems of oppression and class domination.
Cracking the Codes | Joy DeGruy
"In this story from Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, a film from World Trust, author and educator Joy DeGruy shares how her sister-in-law uses her white privilege to stand up to systemic inequity.
Film available here: http://crackingthecodes.org."
De-Centering Whiteness: Toni Morrison
Interview Excerpt 1
In 1998, Charlie asked Toni Morrison about a question a journalist had once posed to her: "Can you imagine writing a novel not centered around race?"
De-Centering Whiteness: Toni Morrison
Interview Excerpt 2
In this interview she is asked by PBS's Charlie Rose what it is like for her to encounter racism. Morrison's response is explores the dehumanizing implications for racism within the white community.
Deconstructing White Privilege | Robin DiAngelo
Dr. Robin DiAngelo is the author of "What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy" and has been an anti-racist educator, and has heard justifications of racism by white men and women in her workshops for over two decades. This justification, which she calls “white fragility,” is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.
What is Unconscious Bias?
This video explains how unconscious bias functions and its connection to larger systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism, colorism etc.
Who, Me? Biased?: PBS Learning Media Video Series
What is implicit bias? NYT/POV's Saleem Reshamwala unscrews the lid on the unfair effects of our subconscious.
Disclaimer: This is a useful series; however, in video one explaining bias, the narrator draws a strong distinction between Implicit Bias and Racism as entirely separate concepts. My perspective differs strongly. Racial implicit bias is an outgrowth of racism, a leaf on the tree, rather than an independent phenomenon adjacent but unconnected to it.
Race Relations through a Child's Eyes, an updated Doll Experiment, CNN Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper details a study that seeks to gain insight into the way black and white children perceive each other as an update to the 1950s doll experiment.