Month: May 2021

Black History Matters

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by Elizabeth M. Gillespie

Nikole Hannah-Jones sparked a ripple effect of social change. It cannot be stopped now. She took her boulder of knowledge that is the 1619 Project and dropped it on the world. Tenured or not, the impact and influence of her work and the ripple effect of change it creates will be felt forevermore. Her contributions to consciousness-raising and creating a more just and equal society warrant her own place in the annuals of history. Still, Nikole Hannah-Jones challenged the status quo and, thus, she was subjected to what all great and brave challengers face – push back

Power never bends willingly, especially when it comes to demands for change to the status quo. Hannah-Jones’ tenure denial reflects this age-old fact, but it also brings up other bigger issues that we must address as a country. Firstly, what are the dangers of continuing to marginalize Black history in our education system, and secondly, what can we do to set a new precedent, one where Black history is taught as American history? At a time when more students are demanding an inclusive and fuller history be taught and greater efforts are being made at the state level to integrate Black history into schools, the time is now to embrace and adopt the 1619 Project.

Some of the consequences of marginalizing Black history to one short month a year are obvious. The Johns Hopkins University Institute for Education Policy found that few schools “teach Black history well.” In fact, the average American has a “spotty” knowledge of slavery and may only know a bit more about the Civil Rights Movement. A 2015 study found only 8 -9% of total class time (1 to 2 lessons) is devoted to Black history. Perhaps one reason for the lack of Black history in the American classroom is because teachers report feeling uncomfortable teaching about slavery and having a lack of resources to do so properly (not to mention 79% of K-12 teachers are white). There is also the issue that despite some states seeking to do more to teach Black history, other states are actively signing bills into law banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory.

We remain woefully uneducated about Black history and Black contributions to our country, which indicates a missed opportunity to foster a more understanding and sympathetic society. According to some, the reasons for failing to teach more Black history are twofold: it forces us to address our “ugly” past and it demands changes to our current American narrative. The failure to accurately and fully teach Black history in the U.S. impedes all progress and efforts to be better as a society. It heavily implies we are not as educated of a citizenry as we think. The continued denial and marginalization of Black history is both absurd, considering the truth about Black history in America is out there, and dangerous. It’s dangerous because teaching history only from the perspective of the “victors” or of the “powers that be” promotes and perpetuates racism through institutions and systems of power. This approach to history also precariously encourages a sense of white tribalism. The bottom line is that history is important and how it is told matters.

One might argue at the collegiate level, students are able to take electives that incorporate or focus entirely on Black history and are exposed to different cultures and ways of thinking, all of which lead to greater contact with diversity and new knowledge. Is this enough? What must we do to fully incorporate and teach Black history as American history? First, we start by doing just that. We must update and adapt our ways of thinking and doing by amalgamating Black history into all of American history. This means teaching the myriad of ways systems, institutions, and people have worked to oppress Black people in this country. It also means teaching about the many triumphs and achievements of Black individuals, groups, organizations, and cultures too. As Jania Hoover explained it, “the Black experience is not one dimensional” and, yet, it’s taught as such. To teach of their accomplishments, including the work of Hannah-Jones, we teach equality.

Crucially, we also have to train and develop our educators on Black history and provide the necessary tools and voices needed to give justice to the telling of Black history as American history. When it comes to teaching Black history at colleges and universities, we must not sugarcoat the truth. It’s a history that deserves to be told factually and with care to ensure Black voices and experiences are heard and validated. Sometimes, though, it takes enough people to want a change for a change to happen. Hannah-Jones did her part. It’s the rest of us that must demand change in our educational system and institutions.

Elizabeth M. Gillespie is a Benjamin L. Hooks Institute Academic Research Fellow and assistant professor in the Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration at the University of Memphis.

When Police Lie: The Initial Police Statement vs. Video Evidence

Posted on by Andre Johnson

Many in the media took note of how many police officers took the stand against Derek Chauvin in his trial. We watched as former and current police officers testified against Chauvin, thereby breaking the infamous blue wall of silence. However, what many activists remember was the original statement from the police after the murder of Floyd. In the original statement, the headline from the department read, “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.” Further, it read: “Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car.  He was ordered to step from his car.  After he got out, he physically resisted officers.  Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress.  Officers called for an ambulance.  He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.” As the AP noted, it attributed Floyd’s death to “medical distress” and did not mention that Floyd had been “pinned to the ground at the neck by Chauvin, or that he’d cried out that he couldn’t breathe.”

As we remember the murder of George Floyd, we should also remember that the initial police reports are not always truthful. As the AP reports, “criminal justice experts and police accountability advocates say the problem of inaccurate initial reports — especially in fatal police encounters — is widespread. For so long, reporters just ran with the initial report from the police that, of course, comes from the officers on the scene. Whatever the police department said became the factual narrative. However, this has not always the case, as the deaths of Eric Garner, Walter Scott, LaQuan McDonald, and countless others have shown. As I mentioned when one of the reporters interviewed me after the Chauvin verdict, “If it wasn’t for this 17-year-old (Darnella Frazier) who took the video, Derek Chauvin would in all likelihood still be on the police force training officers. Sadly, this has been going on for a while, and it’s just now coming to light for a lot of Americans because of video evidence.”

Video evidence is bringing attention to another case where the police were not truthful in their initial statements. In 2019, Louisiana State Police said that they tried to pull over Ronald Greene for an unspecified traffic violation, but he led them on a high-speed chase. State police officers initially told his family that he died on impact after crashing into a tree during the chase. Still, according to the AP, “State Police released a one-page statement acknowledging only that Greene struggled with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.”

However, video evidence from one of the officer’s body cams disputes these initial reports. Not only did Ronald Greene not crash into a tree that night, but it also shows that he did not resist arrest. What the 46-minute clip does show, however, is a trooper wrestling Greene to the ground putting him in a chokehold and punching him in the face while another can be heard calling him a “stupid motherf——.” What it does show is Greene saying, “I’m sorry,” as another trooper delivers yet another stun gun shock throughout his body. What it does show is a trooper taunting Greene by yelling, “Look, you’re going to get it again if you don’t put your f——- hands behind your back!” What it does show is another trooper, after Greene had been handcuffed with his hands behind his back and legs in shackles, dragging him facedown.

What it does show is that no one thought enough about this man to render any aid to him as they left him unattended, facedown, and moaning for more than nine minutes. What it does show is Greene wailing as he is face down on the ground while one trooper sits on top of him, pressing his hand onto the back of Greene’s neck and punching him in the face. What it does show is another trooper punching him in his lower back. What it does show is another trooper once he got back into his patrol car, talking on the phone with someone saying, “And I beat the ever-living f*** out of him, choked him and everything else trying to get him under control and we finally got him in handcuffs when a third man got there and the son of a bitch was still fighting and we was still wrestling with him trying to hold him down because he was spitting blood everywhere. And then all of a sudden he just went limp.”

As this case gains more attention, we are also discovering more evidence of an attempted coverup. According to the AP, Lt. John Clary, “the ranking Louisiana State Police officer at the scene falsely told internal investigators that (Greene) was still a threat to flee after he was shackled, and he denied the existence of his own body camera video for nearly two years until it emerged just last month.” The internal investigation determined that the “video evidence, in this case, does not show Greene screaming, resisting, or trying to get away. The only screams revealed by the video were when Greene responded to force applied to him.”

As people continue to fight for police reform, the initial police statement has come under scrutiny. Long believed to be an accurate description of events, it is no longer the case. The truth of the matter is that some police officers do lie on their reports, and, as the case in Louisiana demonstrates, they have systems in place to cover up their lies. It took 474 days before Louisiana opened an investigation on the abuse and eventual death Ronald Greene suffered at the hands of state troopers. One could only guess what would have happened if there were no video. A recent survey showed that confidence in law enforcement fell under 50% for the first time in 27 years. When we go inside the numbers, we discover that while 56% of white adults have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence with law enforcement, only 19% of Black adults do. As Gallup writes, “This 37-percentage-point racial gap is the largest found for any of 16 major U.S. institutions rated in Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions poll.” So, if we are serious about police reform, we can start by holding police officers accountable when they give false police reports.

Andre E Johnson

Andre E. Johnson is the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute Scholar in Residence and Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Memphis. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Hooks Fellows Publish Essays in Listening Journal

Posted on by Andre Johnson

We are pleased to announce that the following Hooks Fellows have essays in the latest issue of the Listening: A Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture. Hooks Scholar in Residence, Andre E. Johnson guest-edited the special issue on Listening to African American Call Narratives and also has an essay in the issue titled, “Taking the Inward Journey: Prophetic Rhetoric’s Listening Function.”

In the essay, I examine what he calls “prophetic rhetoric’s listening function.” I ask, “how does the prophet know what the prophet declares? How does the prophet know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it? How does the prophet know when a rebirthing moment is taking place? How does the prophet get this revelation and thereby become empowered to share this “new” vision with society? I, therefore, maintains that before the prophet speaks or offers a prophetic witness, the one adopting a prophetic persona must engage in prophetic listening by way of taking the inward journey.

In “Must Thee Take the Man Exclusively”: Jarena Lee and Claiming the Right to Preach,” Kimberly P. Johnson analyzes the feminist and womanist characteristics embedded in Jarena Lee’s autobiography and in her 1807 sermon in order to show how the two holistically work together to combat racism and sexism. More specifically, she examines Lee’s innate use of feminist and womanist discourse, which confronted the divisive structures of her religious denomination and the dominant power structures of social oppression, and the ways in which she broke down, resisted, and transcended religious patriarchy and social oppression.

In “A Wounded Healer: The HIV/AIDS Rhetoric of Rev. James L. Cherry,” Christopher A. House uses oral history methodology through an in-depth interview conducted with Rev.James Cherry, to examine the religiosity of the church leader in the vanguard of HIV/AIDS ministry within the Rochester, New York area. He does this by “exploring the rhetorical practices of Cherry, a national board member of the oldest and largest not-for-profit organization of its kind in the United States, the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (BLCA). In so doing, House examines the ways in which Cherry deployed efforts to fulfill BLCA’s mission of educating, organizing, and empowering “Black leadership, including clergy, elected officials, medical practitioners, business professionals, social policy experts, and the media to meet the challenge of fighting HIV/AIDS in their local communities.”

In “Listening for the Call: Did I Get It Right,” Annette Madlock Gatison reflects on the role of call in her academic career. She writes, “Our ability to hear and discern and to not be influenced by how others see our call and role, or other life challenges can be difficult and at times conflicting. Well-meaning folk will quietly or loudly share their opinions. Our own voice with societal rules that are at times contrary to what God is saying or that are designed to fit the way we think it ought to be can be disheartening and confusing. It is my experience that clarity only
comes when you step out on faith.”

You can read these essays and others in the special issue here.