Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission Removes Gov. Kevin Stitt - THE ROOT

Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission Removes Gov. Kevin Stitt

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt Booted From Tulsa Race Massacre Commission After Signing Anti-Critical Race Theory Legislation

Last week, The Root reported that Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law yet another Republican white fragility bill prohibiting teachings in K-12 schools that include conservative’s favorite new boogie man Critical Race Theory or any other race-based curriculum that causes “discomfort, guilt, anguish or psychological distress” to (white) students. The bill pushed by people whose salty white tears could fill the Georgia Aquarium was denounced by both the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education—but what the hell do they know? They’re only literal fucking educators—and the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, of which Stitt had the caucasity to be a member of...until now.

The Associated Press reports that the commission—which was formed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the day patriotic Americans decided that hundreds of Black people should die violently rather than be affluent and free—announced Friday that it removed Stitt from his seat on the panel because he doesn’t get to sign legislation than bans teaching about the brutality of whiteness in America while serving on a board that does just that.

I mean, the commission didn’t say all that, but we know that’s why Stitt got the boot.

From AP: CONTINUE READING: Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission Removes Gov. Kevin Stitt

Black Lives Matter Sacramento Buys Land to Use as Safe Space for Black People - THE ROOT #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKHISTORYMONTH

Black Lives Matter Sacramento Buys Land to Use as Safe Space for Black People

No More 'Performative Gestures':BLM Sacramento Purchases Land to Build Community and Resource Center for Black people

The Black Lives Matter movement can’t only be about protests. Anti-racism demonstrations that have erupted across the nation have done a fine job of raising awareness about systemic racism in America and have sent a clear message that there will be no peace without justice, but building a community that supports the betterment of Black people also means—for lack of a more sophisticated way of putting this—having our own shit.

BLM Sacramento has taken its first step towards true Black community building by taking unsolicited donations that it received after the wave of protests that began last summer and using them to purchase a plot of land that it plans to use to build its first-ever home in Sacramento’s Oak Park.

The BLM chapter’s founder, Tanya Faison, spoke to ABC 10 about the organization’s plans and what prompted the move.

From ABC 10:

“We see a lot of performative gestures from the city and the county to where we’re not seeing actual change, it just looks like change, and I’m just sick of seeing that, I’m sick of experiencing that, I want to see actual change,” Faison said.

After the Minnesota police killing of George Floyd, which led to nationwide protests, her chapter received an outpouring of unsolicited donations from across the community. After that, as the year went on, Sacramento homicide numbers started to surge.

“There started being a string of killings throughout Sacramento, intracommunity violence,” Faison said. “So at that point, we want wanted to start impacting the community in a way that provides resources to the community.”

That’s when they came up with the idea to use the donations to buy land and, soon, build a home meant to serve as a bit of a ‘one-stop shop’ resource center and safe space for the black community in the heart of Oak Park.

“Because it’s Oak Park, it’s heavily gentrified, we wanted to bring blackness back into the area,” Faison said. CONTINUE READING: Black Lives Matter Sacramento Buys Land to Use as Safe Space for Black People

California Approves Nation's First Ethnic Statewide Studies Curriculum

California Approves Nation's First Ethnic Statewide Studies Curriculum

California Becomes First State in America to Approve Statewide High School Ethnic Studies Curriculum

While Republican-run states like Florida are proposing statewide educational curricula that will “expressly exclude” critical race theory—because a lot of white people in power are fragile AF and that fragility will undoubtedly extend to the classrooms in their states—California has adopted the nation’s first statewide ethnic studies high school curriculum, and one that doesn’t shy away from discussing things like police brutality and systemic racism in America.

The Associated Press reports that on Thursday, members of the California State Board of Education unanimously approved the curriculum with hopes that it would clear a path for states across the country to follow. But the effort to give high school students access to an education that doesn’t center whiteness above all didn’t come without plenty of hurdles.

From AP:

Crafting the curriculum took three years, drawing more than 100,000 public comments as different groups objected to being left out or misrepresented. Public comment that preceded the board’s vote drew about 150 callers, many of whom asked the board to reject the curriculum and echoed the heated debate that took place throughout its drafting. The loudest criticism came from Jewish and pro-Arab groups who accused each other of trying to silence each other’s histories.

Some callers who identified themselves as Jewish and the descendants of Holocaust survivors said the plan “erased the unique stories of Jews in the Middle East.” Others criticized the curriculum as anti-Arab, saying it white-washed content about Arab Americans and erased earlier content about Palestinians.

The nearly 900-page Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, which has been CONTINUE READING: California Approves Nation's First Ethnic Statewide Studies Curriculum

Celebrating Kwanzaa: Day Six Gives Us Kuumba, Creativity

Celebrating Kwanzaa: Day Six Gives Us Kuumba, Creativity

Creativity and Craftsmanship: Celebrating Kuumba, the Sixth Night of Kwanzaa

Black-owned businesses breathe creativity. The sixth day of Kwanzaa, Kuumba, represents creativity and is a time for celebrating the radical Blackness that comes from multiple countries and cultures across different platforms. The following Black-owned businesses show their creative instincts in their hand-made and hand-picked products that represent the beauty of Blackness and cultural backgrounds.

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Collective Work and Responsibility–7 Gifts For Wellness On The Third Night Of Kwanzaa

Ujima, the celebration of the third night of Kwanzaa, we look towards how we can incorporate collective work and responsibility into our lives. It is imperative that we continue to take care of ourselves and others as this year comes to a close and find a way to do it as an individual and as a group. Wellness can include making changes for the sake of your better health, finding ways to create change within your small community and the idea of dismantling ideas that suppress Blackness.

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Kwanzaa 2020: Celebrating Beautiful and Resilient Blackness

Kwanzaa 2020: Celebrating Beautiful and Resilient Blackness

Habari Gani? This Kwanzaa, We’re Celebrating All the Beautiful and Resilient Blackness We Saw in 2020

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Umoja

Umoja—striving for unity in the family, community, nation, and race—is celebrated on the first day of Kwanzaa and is the holiday’s most foundational principle. But when the COVID-19 pandemic barreled into our lives about nine months ago and forced us into isolation and quarantine, it felt like we were being condemned to experience the exact opposite of unity. Then came Black people and music. First out of the gate was DJ D-Nice, with his “Club Quarantine” series on Instagram Live. The veteran deejay told The Root in March that the cancellation of nightlife events caused by the pandemic, plus his well-honed knowledge of music’s ability to bring people together, prompted him to spin tunes while streaming himself live in order to “help lift spirits.” With sets that ran as long as nine hours, D-Nice made space for the definition of unity by gathering more than 100,000 viewers who came to jam out together—including people like Barack Obama, Quincy Jones, and Oprah.

Timbaland and Swizz Beatz then kept the online party going by launching the Verzuz series of musical battles on Instagram Live. With match-ups between big names like Babyface and Teddy Riley (a two part battle which birthed a CONTINUE READING: Kwanzaa 2020: Celebrating Beautiful and Resilient Blackness