|
![TMCNet: Race and Politics [Diverse Issues in Higher Education]](https://images.tmcnet.com/siteart/invisible.gif)
Race and Politics [Diverse Issues in Higher Education]
(Diverse Issues in Higher Education Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The Trayvon Martin case takes its place in scholarship on the history of racism.
On August 28, about 40 minutes away from a lecture hall on the suburban campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., thousands retraced the historic route of the 1963 March on Washington, recalling 50 years of civil rights dreams and debating whether the nations stance on race has made gains or setbacks.
The fall semester has just begun at this public university. For longtime sociologist Dr. Rutledge Dennis, August 28 was also the kick-off of a new course he's teaching, titled "Race and Politics, Trayvon Martin." For many, the July 13 verdict in the shooting death of Florida Black teenager Trayvon Martin is still raw and racially charged. Dennis suspects that students enrolled in the three-credit lecture/ seminar course will likely be eager, in the early sessions of class, to unload their emotions and lunge into a discussion of its aftermath. After all, Dennis says, the classroom is the place for such hot topics and issues, even those "that sometimes divide people and races." But according to Dennis's syllabus, students taking the class will have to wait until it nears its end to formally discuss Martin's death at the hands of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman or the place this young Black man may hold in history.
"This class isn't just about Trayvon Martin," says the mildmannered Dennis, who hasn't tired of setting the record straight on the course's content. He's been peppered lately by "subtle email threats that included the N-word." Before the Zimmerman verdict was handed down, Dennis was already collaborating on the course with George Mason's African-American Studies Department and the combined sociology and anthropology department where he works. The messages Dennis received when the course listing made local news "were shallow and dangerous," says Dr. Susan Trencher, who chairs the department of sociology and anthropology. "I thought that we had moved further than this. They were already killing the messenger without first knowing what the course was going to be about." Dennis says the course will begin by looking at a Black man named Homer Plessy. In 1890, Plessy challenged Louisiana law requiring separate accommodations for Whites and Blacks. Dennis will next move to the 1930s and to the Scottsboro Boys, who were accused and later found innocent of "raping a White girl" in Alabama. Then he will analyze the case of Emmett Till, a 14-yearold Black boy murdered in Mississippi for reportedly whistling at a White woman in 1955. Other notable figures will follow - Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Rodney King and O.J. Simpson. The course will conclude with Trayvon Martin.
Drawing parallels Some among this cast from history stepped boldly forward, working to bridge segregations divide and topple injustice while others unwittingly became reminders that racial discord festered in America decades after King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There are scholars and activists already drawing analogies between the plight of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin, but not Dennis, who grew up in segregated Charleston, S.C. He explains that Till was dragged from his home by a White mob "who killed him in cold blood.
"Some would say that Trayvon Martin was also killed in cold blood, but it is a different situation from what happened in Florida to Martin in 2012," says Dennis.
"In segregationist Mississippi in 1955, Whites weren't convicted for killing Blacks," he continues. "The analogies don't hold." But as Dennis sees it, together they tell a story of race that spans more than a century and offers a lens to look at how America responded.
"I hope to teach students about the politics of race and how it plays out within the American culture, particularly in incidents of race that have become a polarizing point for the nation and for individuals," Dennis explains. While he admits that "Trayvon Martin will be just a small part of the course," the killing of the unarmed teen on the streets of a gated Florida community and his killer's ultimate acquittal represent a contemporary look at the power of race to divide Blacks and Whites.
A Pew Research Center Poll of more than 1,400 adults released this summer reflected just how wide the gulf was between Blacks and Whites reacting to the Zimmerman not-guilty verdict - 86 percent of Blacks surveyed were dissatisfied, compared to 30 percent of Whites. For Dennis, the statistics were telling but not surprising.
"Blacks looked at it as a continuation of racist views against Blacks," he says, "and right-wing Whites tended to see it as a vindication that Blacks aren't always the victims." Dennis plans to explore what spawned those divergent views with his students, most of whom are White.
Teaching understanding When Dr. Natasha Pratt-Harris steps back into the classroom at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Md., she says she'll see mostly Black faces and be reminded of Trayvon Martin and how the American criminal justice system has failed young AfricanAmerican males.
Just six years ago when Pratt-Harris began her teaching career, the case of the Jena Six was unfolding. It fueled her research on Black male college graduates and criminal sentencing, and it placed her in the willing role of activist when the six-member group of Black teenagers in Louisiana was accused of attacking a White classmate. This semester, on the heels of the Martin shooting and the Zimmerman verdict, Pratt-Harris has resolved to be a "bleeding heart professor" who cares about her students and acts on the reallife issues that rock her world. Still, she concludes that her "passion isn't enough." For PrattHarris, it's about the research and preparing the next generation of criminal justice professionals. She wants her students to be aware of legal bias and the impact on Black youth who are perceived by some in the criminal justice system as "dangerous." As professionals, says Pratt-Harris, they can help stem the tide of "minority juveniles being arrested, landing in the courts, or who are otherwise coming in contact with the criminal justice system." In her jails and prison course, Pratt-Harris will take students inside Maryland correctional facilities to learn what happens when "a juvenile is sent to an adult prison." On his campus in southern Dallas, Dr. Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, was wrestling with what to offer his students after the protests, marches and debates simmered in the aftermath of the Martin shooting and Zimmerman verdict. Elsewhere in the city, Paul Quinn alum Tonya Veasey, the owner of a public relations company, was also wrestling with the same notion.
"Passion is great, but I think being strategic, tactical and understanding of the law and the parameter of the law is even better," says Sorrell, who often "plays the role of surrogate dad" to many of his students, for whom violence and poverty were an everyday occurrence before they came to college.
Today, Sorrell says, "Trayvon Martin is a reminder of how little their lives are valued in society." But during this academic year, the college and Veasey are looking to award a new $7,500 scholarship to a Paul Quinn student with the potential to bring about change in their community and in the justice system.
(c) 2013 Cox, Matthews & Associates, Inc.
[ Back To Transforming Network Infrastructure's Homepage ]
|
