Wednesday, April 22nd

SWBAT identify race as a biological entity or social/political construct

Do now: How many races do you think there are? What are they? How do you decide which race someone belongs to?

Organize yourselves based on your race

•Take a minute to use the sections/corners of the room to organize yourselves based on how you view your racial makeup

Inventory of Traits

•Complete your inventory of traits

• As we call each grouping – stand up and look around to see who else in the class fits the description

Based on Racial Categories

Think about where you might classify the following people:

• Someone from the West Indies

• Someone from Brazil

• Someone with Native American ancestry but who does not belong to any tribe

• An Australian aborigine

• Japanese Peruvian

What are some reasons why the government would want to categorize or track information on certain groups and not others? If the categories were created to remedy discrimination, how well do they serve that purpose? What happens if we redefine them?

Assumptions about Race and Racism

• Structural racism is defined by the People’s Institute and others as racial prejudice + power, sanctioned by the state

Manifestations of Structural Racism

• Disproportionality e.g. over-representation of Black and Latino kids in foster care

• Disparity e.g. unequal access to quality health care

• Unequal outcomes e.g. higher HS dropout rate

• Across systems: Health, Housing, Employment, Education, child welfare, Juvenile Justice, Criminal Justice, Media, Finance

Exercise

Working with your partner:

• How do you identify yourself in terms of race and culture?

• Give one example of what that identity means to you.

• Describe one experience or personal observation of structural racism in your life

Friday, April 24th

SWBAT understand the difference between “de jure” segregation and “de facto” segregation

Do Now: Why is it so hard for America to have an honest discussion about race? List three possibilities.

Segregation, Then and Now

•With your partner take 1-2 minutes to recall what you know about segregation during the Jim Crow era in the U.S.

White Plains Controlled Parent’s

Choice Program• The school district's nationally recognized Controlled Parents' Choice

Program was established by the White Plains Board of Education in May of 1988. A model for parental choice, it governs the placement of students in the system's elementary schools. The Board initiated the choice program because of its belief that balance of the racial and ethnic diversity of the schools' population would promote students' understanding, appreciation, and acceptance of persons of different racial, ethnic, social, and cultural backgrounds. As a result of it, classes in our schools are of comparable size and represent the fine degree of racial and ethnic balance that the Board had in mind when it established the program in 1988. Under the Choice Program, a child's school assignment (in kindergarten - fifth grade) is not determined by where she/he lives but by the rules of the program. Parents of incoming kindergartners indicate their preference for three schools and rank them in order of preference. Assignments are made based on parental choice, space available in each school, and the Board's racial and ethnic balance policy.

• About 10 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making it illegal for a place of public accommodation—an establishment that serves members of the public—to deny service or accommodation to a person on the basis of his race, color, religion, or national origin.

• How can it be, then, that almost 60 years after the Supreme Court found that separate public schools to be unconstitutional and almost 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 making segregation in all public accommodations illegal, can separate proms still take place?

Questions to Answer

1. What is the difference between de jure and de facto segregation?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysohr_Cjufw&list=PLB91D53DA3FDAC4AF&index=1

2. How is de facto segregation related to Prom Night in Mississippi? (Link is above to the documentary)

3. Why does de facto segregation persist? Apart from Mississippi, are there still examples of segregated events, such as proms?

Answers• 1997/2008 Charleston, Mississippi

• 2002 Taylor County, Georgia

• 2004 Toombs County, Georgia

• 2009 Montgomery County, Georgia

• 2013 Wilcox County High School (Georgia)

Tuesday, April 28th

SWBAT review current events issues related to race and the police

Do Now: Name some recent police encounters/shootings that have resulted in the death of African Americans/Blacks

The Police and Race

ProPublica Statistics:

• “Our examination involved detailed accounts of more than 12,000 police homicides stretching from 1980 to 2012 contained in the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report.”

• “Vast numbers of the country’s 17,000 police departments don’t file fatal police shooting reports at all, and many have filed reports for some years but not others. Florida departments haven’t filed reports since 1997 and New York City last reported in 2007. Information contained in the individual reports can also be flawed. Still, lots of the reporting police departments are in larger cities, and at least 1000 police departments filed a report or reports over the 33 years.”

• “The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.”

• “Young black men are 21 times as likely as their white peers to be killed by police.”

• “44 percent of all those killed by police across the 33 years were white.”

• “The average age of blacks killed by police was 30. The average age of whites was 35.”

• “Black officers account for a little more than 10 percent of all fatal police shootings. Of those they kill, though, 78 percent were black.”

• “White officers killed 91 percent of the whites who died at the hands of police. And they were responsible for 68 percent of the people of color killed. Those people of color represented 46 percent of all those killed by white officers.”

Statistics from the Economist:

• According to the FBI, there were 458 “justifiable homicides” by police officers in 2013.

• In the latest available year, there were no fatal police shootings in Japan or Britain, and 8 in Germany.

• The US has “300 million guns and a murder rate six times Germany’s.”

• “This year 46 policemen were shot dead; last year 52,000 were assaulted.”

• “The number of raids by heavily armed SWAT teams has risen from 3,000 a year in 1980 to 50,000 today, by one estimate.”

• “Some 59% of white Americans have confidence in the police, but only 37% of blacks do.”

• “In recent years the New York Police Department (NYPD) was called to an annual average of almost 200,000 incidents involving weapons, shot 28 people and saw six of its officers shot (mostly non-fatally).”

• “The number of shots fired by police in New York has fallen by more than two-thirds since 1995.”

https://issuesnewsstatistics.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/race-and-police-shootings/

Wednesday, April 29th

SWBAT investigate if there are connections between race and the police and justice system in the U.S.

Do Now: Does U.S. history have too much influence on the actions of people today? Provide an example.