The Emancipator

Criminal Legal System | Yoruba Richen and Rebecca Richman Cohen

The Cognitive Dissonance of Brock Turner

The recall of Judge Aaron Persky over his sentencing of the 2016 sexual assault case resulted in harsher prison sentences for Black and Brown people for any crime, and is the subject of the film “The Recall: Reframed.”

The Recall: Reframed (Full Film)
THE RECALL: REFRAMED examines the 2018 recall of California Judge Aaron Persky, who lost his judgeship after handing down a sentence deemed too lenient by many in the infamous sexual assault case involving Stanford swimmer Brock Turner. The film offers competing perspectives and asks the difficult question: Who actually bears the burden when we demand harsher punishment for a privileged white defendant?

Explainer | Nomi Sofer
Work requirements won’t affect the debt ceiling — but they will stir up racist narratives
Washington’s debt ceiling deal pushes the “lazy welfare recipient” trope. It’s time to disrupt this destructive stereotype and stop trapping workers in a cycle of low-wage jobs with no path to real economic mobility.

The Big Picture | Suja Sawafta
Arab Americans Have Been Without A Census Category for Years. Here’s Why That Matters
People from the Middle East and North Africa have been categorized as White for decades. Is it time to rethink this classification?

Author Q&A | Leon Ford
Leon Ford was shot by police. Now he’s their partner in community healing
In a Q&A with The Emancipator, the author of “An Unspeakable Hope” talks mental health, redefining justice, and how to build a better policing system.

The Big Picture | Katrina Gipson
Overpoliced hospitals are a scary place for the traumatized or undocumented
We can provide a safe work environment without risking illegal searches, interference with treatment, and fear of deportation in patients.

The Big Picture | Daryl A. Carter
The Tennessee GOP has a problem with democracy
From expelling Black members to sabotaging health care, Republicans’ zero-sum politics assault Black, Brown, and poor Tennesseans, but the people are fighting back.

The Big Picture | Ya’Ke Smith
DEI Denial is the modern day lynching
Where lynching was an arbitrary and barbaric act to terrorize Black people, modern attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion threaten the livelihoods of those challenging oppressive systems and keep us all in the dark.

Culture | Phillipe Copeland
How to tell if a film or TV Show is antiracist
While conversations about representation are essential, we also need to talk about the way racism itself is portrayed. The stories we tell can help solve the problem — or can perpetuate it.

The Big Picture | Adam Shamsi, Monica L. Wang, and Hannah McKinney
Who’s going to check them?
Racial equity audits, when done right, can provide the knowledge and data for organizations to make real improvements in racial equity.

Culture | May-lee Chai
We need to talk about Tár’s racist ending
In a time of rising anti-Asian hate, Tár, starring Cate Blanchett as a world-famous conductor, carelessly relies on Asian stereotypes to portray its White protagonist’s fall from grace.

Video | Aya Shabu
Health Equity Tour: Durham’s Hayti Neighborhood
Once one of the most vibrant Black business districts in America, Durham’s Hayti neighborhood was dismantled by urban renewal efforts. Despite challenges, its residents haven’t given up on the promise that Hayti represents.

Health | Khary Rigg, Ph.D.
The Black opioid crisis reveals that barriers to treatment must come down
Urban Black communities are now ground zero for overdose deaths, yet Black people don’t get the same access to life saving medication. Systemic racism in healthcare is making this epidemic deadlier.

The Big Picture | Arionne Nettles
Saving Black homes lost to tax inequity
For decades, the sale of tax debt and unfair property assessments have disproportionately caused Black Americans to lose their homes across the United States.

The Big Picture | Gaurav J. Pathania
Caste should not be part of the ‘American Dream’
Caste could become the newest protected class in Seattle’s anti-discrimination law. More lawmakers need to follow suit to prevent this system of rigid hierarchy from taking root in the U.S. and protect the rights of lower-caste South Asian immigrants.

Author Q&A | Ernest Owens
Why cancel culture scares the rich and powerful so much
The Emancipator sat down with Ernest Owens, author of “The Case for Cancel Culture,” who wants to shift the conversation around canceling and show why it’s a right we should protect.

The Big Picture | Nicholas Turner
Long prison sentences are cruel and ineffective: here’s the proof
The United States incarcerates nearly 2 million people. More than half are serving sentences of 10 or more years. Long sentences were promoted with weak evidence, and the evidence of the harm they do is clear — so how did we end up here?

Throughline | Margaret Littman
Jefferson Street jams
The history of Nashville’s historic Club Baron is being saved by an unlikely multiracial collaboration. Located in what is now an Elks Lodge, the stage hosted iconic performers like Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix, but had fallen into disrepair.

Throughline | Margaret Littman
Nashville’s historic Woolworth building is in trouble
The history of this site, where Rep. John Lewis’ first arrest in student-led sit-ins that helped lead to desegregation of restaurants across the country, is being erased by its new owners. These stories need to be preserved.

Culture | Shay Stewart-Bouley
Go South, young (wo)man: A Black woman’s quest to manifest her own destiny
The author of ‘Black Girl in Maine’ blog reveals the struggles of being a ‘Professional Black Person’ in New England and looks South for her next chapter.

Culture | Monica Russel y Rodriguez
Lessons learned as a DEI plumber
The hope of a diversity, equity, and inclusion office is to build something better, but often staff are stuck patching constant leaks in old, flawed institutions. And it’s draining work.

Video | Shermann “Dilla” Thomas
Community Health Equity Tour
Family, heritage, and community all play a powerful role in maintaining the health and wellness of a city’s residents. Our health equity tour of Chicago’s Little Village shows a neighborhood emblematic of these ideas. Next up: Durham, North Carolina.

Video | Ibram X. Kendi
Talking to your kids about race
What are we saying to our kids about race even when we don’t say anything? Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, explains how it is a false choice whether or not to teach your young child about race, because, either way, they’re picking up on your attitude about race.

Education | Jaclyn Friedman
‘Parents’ rights’ as a red herring
The common thread through grievances around masking, vaccines, CRT, and trans kids in sports is clear: this astroturf movement wants to “defund government education.”

VIDEO | William Horne
We’ve Been Here Before: Insurrections and White Supremacy
As we remember and assess the damage of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on America today, it’s valuable to take a hard look at the impact and consequences that white conservative election denialism played in our shared history.

Culture | Phillipe Copeland
The art of the denial
Racism denial is a political strategy and a coping tool, used by those who benefit from racism and those unwilling to confront the dire contradictions in our society. Phillipe Copeland walks us through its different forms so we can recognize and counter them.

Video | Deborah D. Douglas
What’s next for the White Lives Matter trademark?
Now that podcasters Ramses Ja and Q Ward own the White Lives Matter trademark, what do these long-time social justice supporters plan to do with the power that comes with ownership?

Throughline | Jeffrey Boutwell
Time for a New Emancipation Proclamation
The dynamics of how best to maximize Black voting power remain the same as they were on Great Emancipation Day 1903 when William Monroe Trotter and former Massachusetts Gov. George S. Boutwell, an architect of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th and 15th amendments, called for a New Emancipation Proclamation.

Year-in-review
Justice Dictionary 2022
To tackle pressing social problems, we first need the language to describe them. Here are concepts and takeaways amplified this year by contributors to The Emancipator.

Throughline | Jeff Inglis
U.S. military to stop honoring Confederate history — finally
The Naming Commission's goal is to remove all official commemorations of the Confederacy, which Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley has called “an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason.”

Throughline | Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Jan. 6 committee leaves crucial lessons about race unspoken
The most striking thing about Monday’s final public meeting of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol was what wasn’t said.

The Big Picture | Spencer Piston
Reimagining the police
Jacqueline Kung joined Cambridge HEART after witnessing a neighbor handcuffed and detained after his mother died. The Massachusetts-based mutual aid group is a kind of citizen-driven alternative to traditional policing, though activists worry these approaches will be watered down by government officials.

The Big Picture | Neda Khoshkhoo and Jasmine Gonzales Rose
Yes, filling out race on forms is tiresome. Here’s why it matters.
Completing a race questionnaire can be tiring, intrusive, or even inaccurate, but the data they collect are necessary for understanding how racism operates, how resources are distributed, and how different racial and ethnic groups experience benefits or harms.

Video | Monica Wang
Why racism is a public health crisis
Dr. Monica Wang breaks down a U.C. Berkeley study linking racism in a community to higher risk of heart disease deaths among both Black and White members of the community.

Education | Olivia Poulin
It’s time to end catch-up culture in American schools
The COVID-19 pandemic gave us an opportunity to reimagine learning. The late bell hooks, author of “Teaching to Transgress,” laid the groundwork for an education system that fully supports student growth and teacher well-being.

Health | V. Jo Hsu
We might be over the pandemic, but it’s not over us
We cannot abandon millions plagued by long COVID, whose symptoms can include difficulty breathing, cognitive dysfunction, and fatigue that interferes with everyday activity — disproportionately hurting marginalized people.

Culture | Audra Simpson
Indigenous identity theft must stop
Once again, a scholar vaulted to a position of power and influence through a claimed Indigenous descent has been revealed to be a White woman. The overdue embrace of Native voices is being co-opted while real Native women still suffer, facing a disproportionate number of murders and disappearances.

The Big Picture | Phillipe Copeland
Call ‘tough on crime’ what it is: a tool of racial oligarchy
Conservatives and liberals alike embrace a “law and order” framework, which blames reformers, the poor, and the unhoused for concerns about crime, and enforces rule based on wealth and racism. We need to build a better future.

THE TALK | VIDEO
A letter to my White sons
Joanna Schroeder on the talk she has with her White sons breaking down the red flags of White nationalism.

Comics | Joel Christian Gill
Everything’s Racist Comic: Guns
Artist Joel Christian Gill reveals the difficult history behind everything.

Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Affirmative action in college admissions is at risk
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority is poised to close doors to access, equity, and diversity, but there are others that can be opened.

The Big Picture | Lina Saleh and Adaeze Okorie
Enter the Other Swing Voter: the mighty 8%
Two young Black voters at Boston University share their message for the “Other Swing Voter” – those who swing between voting Democratic or not at all, most likely to be young and Black or young and Latino.

The Big Picture | Lora-Ellen McKinney
My first abortion occurred at age 11. Then there were the others.
Lora-Ellen McKinney has never been pregnant. With an extremely rare genetic connective tissue disorder, her life was saved by abortion care.

The Big Picture | Xavier de Souza Briggs, Andre Perry, Darrick Hamilton, and Rick McGahey
To keep promises of achieving racial equity, let’s start keeping score
We already score proposed legislation for its cost to taxpayers, and we require environmental impact assessments for many major projects. If we value racial inclusion and equity, then we should measure it, score it, and hold leaders accountable for how well it is achieved through government action.

Black Progress Index | Andre M. Perry
What’s going right about Black life? The Black Progress Index tells us what, where, and how
We assembled data from as many U.S. counties as possible to identify the strongest predictors of well-being, with life expectancy as the primary measure. The index analyzes these places and more.

HEALTH | Katherine Standish and Afi Semenya
Paying attention: Boston hospital helps breastfeeding Black moms, babies thrive
Many healthcare interventions can help families successfully breastfeed and address compelling evidence of racist structures that perpetuate the vicious cycle of health inequities.

The Talk | Kristen Pope
Lily’s big hair day
For the last year of pre-kindergarten, my daughter, Lily, has thrived as the only Black child in her entire school, where her teachers and school administrators love her, care for her, and support her. But there have been some bumps that mostly involved race; one instance was related to her hair.

The Talk | Amber Payne and Deborah D. Douglas
The Talk: How identity shapes the way we keep our children safe
Depending on who you are and how you live, this conversation can go a lot of ways.

Education | Kimi Waite
The great resisters of Japanese American history have a powerful story to tell
History shows us Asian Americans have consistently engaged in resistance against injustices by challenging systemic racism as far back as 1879, but ongoing anti-critical race theory campaigns and backlash from the far right demonstrate the struggle for an antiracist education continues.

Education | Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Biden’s student loan debt relief isn’t just fair, it’s a good first start
There is a reason White parents pay much more tuition or student loans as Black parents: Because they can.

Changemakers
These voting rights heroes are fighting for your rights
Across the country, people are mobilizing to stop these attacks on our democracy. Meet some of the changemakers working to protect our vote.

Changemakers
How new voting laws may affect you
The Emancipator is here to help you understand what voting laws mean and how to prepare. From registration deadlines to requesting mail-in ballots to voting in-person, VoteChat has the answers.