Tag Archives: Race/racism

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“The Prison-Industrial Complex,” Death Row Interview, Mumia Abu-Jamal,1996

September 20, 2019 7:46 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

To view video click here: Mumia Abu-Jamal “The Prison-Industrial Complex,” 

Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954) is an American convicted murderer, sentenced to death for the December 9, 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He has been described as “perhaps the best known Death-Row prisoner in the world”, and his sentence is one of the most debated today. Before his arrest he was a member of the Black Panther Party, an activist, part-time cab driver, journalist, radio personality, news commentator and broadcaster. Since his conviction, his case has received international attention and he has become a controversial cultural icon. Supporters and opponents disagree on the appropriateness of the death penalty, whether he is guilty, or whether he received a fair trial. During his imprisonment he has published several books and other commentaries, notably Live from Death Row.

The YouTube video was posted by Esoteric Word Views.  Can be used for educational purposes under the Fair Use provision.

Posted in: 1990-1999, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

“Are Prisons Obsolete?” by Angela Davis, 2003

September 20, 2019 7:14 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

To read online, click here: “Are Prisons Obsolete?”

There is abundant evidence that the current system of punishment and imprisonment is out of control and ineffective as a means of rendering more people equal, safe, secure, and otherwise free. Nevertheless, there seems to be a presumption that before replacing any of this outdated, ineffective, destructive, and obsolete system, we must first discover, create, or otherwise imagine an alternative one that is first proven to be effective and all-encompassing. Angela Davis further supports the abolition argument and provides some very clear and tangible reasons to further examine the impact of the prison industrial complex, rather than continuing with prison reform.

This book was retrieved from an organization website: The Collective Liberation. The Catalyst Project helps to build powerful multiracial movements that can win collective liberation. In the service of this vision, we organize, train and mentor white people to take collective action to end racism, war and empire, and to support efforts to build power in working-class communities of color. Use for educational purposes under the Fair Use provision of the Copyright Act. The book states that it is an “open media” book.

Posted in: 2000 - 2010, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , ,

“Structural Racism and Community Building” by Lawrence Keith, et al., 2004

September 20, 2019 5:29 pm /

Submitted by:  Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

To read online, click here: “Structural Racism and Community Building”

This submission is from the Aspen Institute: Lawrence, Keith, Stacey Sutton, Anne Kubisch, Gretchen Susi and Karen Fulbright-Anderson. 2004. “Structural Racism and Community Building.” Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change. Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute.

Since 1997, the Roundtable has been focusing on how the problems associated with race and racism in America affect initiatives aimed at poverty reduction in distressed urban neighborhoods. The Roundtable has explored how race shapes the social, political, economic, and cultural institutions of our society, and how those dynamics produce significant and ongoing racial disparities in the well-being of children, families, and communities. The work also has an applied dimension that describes how to incorporate
racial equity into social and economic development work. The premise behind all of the Roundtable’s work on race is that adopting a more race conscious approach to community building and social justice work.

This resource was found on the Internet at the Aspen Institute organization website. Use for educational purposes under the Fair Use Provision.

Posted in: 2000 - 2010, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , ,

“Geographies of Race and Ethnicity II: Environmental Racism, Racial Capitalism and State-Sanctioned Violence” by Laura Pulido, 2017

August 20, 2019 5:54 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept. of Africana Studies at John Jay College

To read online, click here: Geographies of Race and Ethnicity II: Environmental Racism,Racial Capitalism and State-Sanctioned Violence

“In this report I argue that environmental racism is constituent of racial capitalism. While the environmental justice movement has been a success on many levels, there is compelling evidence that it has not succeeded in actually improving the environments of vulnerable communities. One reason for this is because we are not conceptualizing the problem correctly. I build my argument by first emphasizing the centrality of the production of social difference in creating value. Second, I review how the devaluation of nonwhite bodies has been incorporated into economic processes and advocate for extending such frameworks to include pollution. And lastly, I turn to the state. If, in fact, environmental racism is constituent of racial capitalism, then this suggests that activists and researchers should view the state as a site of contestation, rather than as an ally or neutral force.”

This is a library resource, accessed by using John Jay login to the library.

Posted in: 2011 - Present, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , ,

“Community Policing and Community Justice” The 27th Annual Lloyd George Sealy Lecture, keynote address”, by Kenton Buckner, 2018

August 20, 2019 3:46 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

To view and listen online:  “Community Policing and Community Justice”

This keynote speech was presented by: The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) and the Department of Africana Studies, in partnership with the Lloyd George Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Moving Toward Community Justice in the 21st Century, The 27th Annual Lloyd George Sealy Lecture, Speaker: Kenton Buckner, Chief of Police, Little Rock Police Department. Chief Buckner is a “student of the law profession” who took the time to learn all areas of policing.

This MP3 speech was obtained from a John Jay faculty Dropbox and is open access.

Posted in: 2011 - Present, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , ,

“Race and Criminalization: Black Americans and the Punishment Industry” by Angela Y. Davis, 1997

August 16, 2019 5:09 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

The citation for where this reading is found: Davis, Angela Y. 1997. “Race and Criminalization: Black Americans and the Punishment Industry.” In The House that Race Built, edited by Wahneema Lubiano, pp. 264-279. New York: Pantheon Books. This book is not available digitally. To check out the book, go to the John Jay Library at Stacks E 185.615 .H68 1997 

“The House That Race Built is the response by some of this country’s most admired intellectuals to the crisis of democracy represented by the recent, ominous shift toward a renewed white racial nationalism. It is unified by a central argument that deserves to be at the heart of the national debate: that “race” and “racism” must be understood not just as referring to the relations between black and white Americans, but as constituting the central American dynamic by which a pervasive, antidemocratic social inequality is re-created, maintained, and justified to the detriment of all. In a post-civil rights era of rapidly increasing economic and social apartheid, The House That Race Built makes us see how Americans’ continuing delusory investments in the privileges of whiteness and the pathology of blackness uphold a social hierarchy that is destructive of democratic possibility. This book’s analysis of race and racism extends to the complexities of within-the-group dynamics of black Americans. How race is defined, and who gets to talk about it, determine how race and American whiteness will be understood and used: either to reconsolidate racial domination or to establish racial democracy.”
This is a library resource available with John Jay credentials.
Posted in: 1990-1999, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , ,

“Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community”, Essay by Martin Luther King, Jr., 1986

August 16, 2019 3:51 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

King, Jr., Martin Luther. 1986. “Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community” [essay not speech] (1967), In A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. edited by James M. Washington, pp. 555-633. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

The above suggested resource is not available online at John Jay, but is available to be checked out of the library at “Stacks E 185.97 .K5 A25 1991″
MLK’S 1967 essay “Where Do We Go from Here?” refers to the turmoil in the late 1960s around intense poverty, racism, the War in Vietnam, inflation, violence, and urban decay. The urban rebellions in Black communities forced the nation to confront the problems of racism and poverty, and attempt to resolve them.  Dr. King was optimistic about the future, if we were willing to make changes.  A sharing of power was required, but mostly we need a “transformation of values” and economic justice. MLK’s essay is extremely persuasive about the kinds of transformation we need to become a caring society and develop a beloved community. He also gave a speech with the same title that is not as focused on economic justice.  He based his book “Where do we go from here: Chaos or community: on that essay.
This is a library resource available using a John Jay login.
Posted in: 1980-1989, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”, Speech by Audre Lorde, 1984

August 15, 2019 7:17 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

To read online: “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.

Author says: “Much of western european history conditions us to see human differences in simplistic opposition to each other: dominant/subordinate, good/bad, up/down, superior/inferior. In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus, to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior. Within this society, that group is made up of Black and Third World people, working-class people, older people, and women. As a forty-nine-year-old Black lesbian feminist socialist mother of two, including one boy, and a member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself a part of some group defined as other, deviant, inferior, or just plain wrong. Traditionally, in american society, it is the members of oppressed, objectified groups who are expected to stretch out and bridge the gap between the actualities of our lives and the consciousness of our oppressor. For in order to survive, those of us for whom oppression is as american as apple pie have always had to be watchers, to become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor, even sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection. Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes.”

This is a library resource, accessed using the John Jay login. It is from the database Black Thought and Culture and was published in the “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, Trumansburg, NY, pp 114-123, 1984,

Posted in: 1980-1989, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

“The Impact of Neoliberalism on the Psychological Development of Low-Income Black Youth” by C. Jama Adams, 2014

August 15, 2019 3:48 pm /

Submitted by: Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Professor, Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Dept of Africana Studies at John Jay College

Read online at: “The Impact of Neoliberalism on the Psychological Development of Low-Income Black Youth”

“This paper is a brief, psychoanalytically informed exploration of youth development, with a focus on the often-negative psychosocial impact of neoliberal ideologies on low-income Black youth. Neoliberal policies have influenced the psychological development of low-income Black youths, who are embedded in psychosocial contexts that are often under-resourced and negatively racialized. This substantially constrains their attempts to love and work. There is often a paucity of safe places, identity capital and caring tutors of the imagination that might facilitate good outcomes for these young people. As a consequence of being embedded in such emotionally austere and unsafe places, they often adopt postures that lead to their under-development and, too often, their early demise. The paper also discusses some strategies of resistance to neoliberal ideology and policy.”

Article published in Culture & Society (2014) 19, 39–46.  The library does not have access to this article. However, the author, C. Jama Adams, is faculty at John Jay and posted the article (author copy) at Research Gate. Free to use for educational purposes under the Fair Use provision of the Copyright Act.

Posted in: 2011 - Present, Chronology, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

I Am Your Sister : Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, 2011

August 13, 2019 6:15 pm /

Submitted by:  Crystal Endsley, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Africana Studies, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

To view online:  I Am Your Sister : Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde.

“Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life.  Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, and the exploration of black female identity.

In relation to non-intersectional feminism in the United States, Lorde famously said, “those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”

Not available in the Library. It is unpublished. Found on Internet at the MWASI website. MWASI is an afro-feminist collective that falls within the revolutionary liberation struggle movement. Our group is open only to black women and people assigned female at birth. Use for educational purposes under the Fair Use provision. Give credit.

Posted in: 2011 - Present, Part 2: Subjects and Topics in Justice (Part 1 & Part 2), US / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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