“The Civil War was about conflict within the Confederacy and within the United States. But statues of Confederate soldiers erase those conflicts by portraying the South as united behind the Confederacy,” writes historian Laura Edwards. “In fact, the South was as conflicted in the Civil War era as it is now. So was the rest of the United States. And that is why the Confederate statues and their portrayals of false unity are so misleading and dangerous.”
Read More in The HillCategory: Social Issues
When Activism Came to My Hometown
“I absolutely want memorials to racism, hate and prejudice removed. They should be either destroyed, or relegated to museums with appropriate historical representation. But, I want their removal through legitimate, law-abiding processes,” writes Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs at Duke.
Read More at Inside Higher Ed
White Identity Politics Isn’t Just About White Supremacy
“Trump’s reaction may have energized some of his key supporters, but the whites marching on Charlottesville were only a small segment of a much larger population for whom the politics of white identity resonates. The vast majority of white Americans who feel threatened by the country’s growing racial and ethnic diversity are not members of the KKK or neo-Nazis. They are much greater in number, and far more mainstream, than the white supremacists who protested in Virginia over the weekend,” writes political scientist Ashley Jardina.
Read More in The Washington Post
CEOs Under Fire to Dump Trump Over Response
Within 24 hours on Monday, the chief executives of Under Armour (UA), Intel and Merck (MRK) quit Trump’s manufacturing council in protest over his initial failure to condemn white supremacists. Corporate leaders who were once eager for a seat at the Trump table are increasingly deciding the costs outweigh the benefits.
“Unquestionably, CEOs would prefer to remain silent. But at what point do they feel the risks of silence outweighs the risk of taking a public stance?” asks Bill Boulding, dean of The Fuqua School of Business.
Read More on CNN
Should Confederate Statues Be Removed From Public Spaces?
Political scientist Kerry Haynie struck a note of caution in removing the Confederate monuments. “I am fearful as an educator that we will forget the past,” says Haynie, director of Duke’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender. “You often see now in textbooks and various places almost a denial of a slavery past or a racist past. One of the purposes those monuments serve is to remind us of that past.”
Read More at WJLA
White Supremacist Groups’ Rally Turns Deadly In Charlottesville
Kerry Haynie, associate professor of political science and African and African-American studies, talks about race and the White House’s response to the weekend’s protests in Virginia. Haynie says it’s hard to see President Trump’s condemnation of white supremacists two days after the protests as genuine. “We’re in some troubling times, I think,” Haynie says.
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Military Bases Named For Confederate Leaders
“Let’s not be in any doubt about what Braxton Bragg represents. He was a slaveholder who fought against the U.S. Army in order to preserve the South’s ‘peculiar institution.’ The time has come for Fort Bragg and the other bases named after Confederate generals to be renamed in honor of individuals who fought to defend the United States and the values that the U.S. Army is pledged to defend,” writes Michael Newcity, a professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies.
Read More in the Detroit Free Press
Charlottesville and The Legacy of Slavery
Mark Anthony Neal, chair of Duke’s Department of African and African-American Studies, talks about the weekend’s deadly protests and what the violence in Charlottesville reveals about America’s struggle to reconcile the country’s legacy of slavery.
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Trump Can Prove His Words on White Supremacy Aren’t Hollow
“After running a highly divisive campaign that emboldened overt racists to advocate for their agenda in the political arena, the president now has an opportunity, with the Charlottesville tragedy, to demonstrate that his words against racism and bigotry are not hollow promises. He has a long way to go,” writes public policy professor David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Read More in The Guardian
School Segregation Is Back, Big Time
Economist Hugh Macartney and a colleague published a paper this month in National Bureau of Economic Research illustrating that local school boards can do quite a bit to fight back against racial segregation. Getting involved with school board elections — voting in them, volunteering in campaigns or even running for office — is an excellent way for those interested in fighting racial inequality to make a difference on a local level, they found.
Read More in Salon
South Carolina Schools are Failing Students Like Me
“The state of South Carolina perpetuates what’s called the ‘Corridor of Shame,’ a string of rural school districts where students receive inferior educational opportunities,” writes Ehime Ohue. “As a rising sophomore at Duke University, I now see what the phrase means. I was educated in one of those districts from Head Start to 12th grade. I know firsthand the issues these students face.”
Read More in The Washington Post
American Exceptionalism and The Making of a Non-Patriot
“It’s not as though other countries are better than ours. Every nation bears the healed scars and the still-open wounds of its history,” writes philosophy professor Alex Rosenberg. He adds that “American exceptionalism is at best an innocent mistake that uninformed patriotism makes difficult to surrender. Once the process of disillusionment is completed, so is the making of the non-patriot.”
Read More in The New York Times
