By Ausra Mussett and Cameron Carver
“In the midst of all things dystopian—a global pandemic, a climate crisis and an ever-amplified outcry for racial justice—what is the use of designing a utopia?”
By Beth Kwiatek and Henry-Louis Taylor, Jr.
Reposted from Buffalo News
“Death, destruction and disease in the interest of power and profits are what built our nation. We cannot substitute mythology for history. Nor should we create an ideology that romanticizes and erases the brutality of that history.”
By Lori Latrice Martin and Kenneth J. Varner
Read the full article in Democracy&Education here.
“Community spaces where segregation occurs, such as housing and schools, will never serve or properly address the interests of the most marginalized and underrepresented of society, but they will do so for those from dominant and overrepresented factions of society.”
By Beth Kwiatek
“George Floyd’s killing by four white police officers, and the nonchalance in which it was enacted, has finally outraged white America. White America can no longer ignore or dismiss the reality of what it means to be black or brown in this country.”
By Henry-Louis Taylor, Jr., Beth Kwiatek, and Ian Stern
“Pundits might need to educate the public about the issues, but it is old news to elected officials, public health experts, and urban planners. Yet, this knowledge was never translated into action, down on the ground, in Black communities to blunt the devastation.”
By Beth Kwiatek
“What does it mean when a group of young Black faces walk into a suburban school and say, “We don’t belong here”? What does it mean when those same kids face judges who are all male and white? What does it mean when those Black kids see white kids build cities in The Congo, Morocco, and Zimbabwe?”
By Dr. Lori L. Martin
“Baton Rouge is a city divided by many fault lines. A single street divides the city’s predominately white and black communities. North Baton Rouge, where Alton Sterling was killed, is under developed relative to south Baton Rouge. Access to emergency rooms, quality schools, healthy food, reliable transportation, and good jobs are limited, while health care complexes, blue ribbon schools, business and industry flow freely to the south.”