Archive for Race/Ethnicity

San Francisco’s history of racist displacement

Article about the history of systemic racism in San Francisco, and particularly about one man’s racist redevelopment efforts. “For San Francisco, the architect of [the tear-down-and-displace process] was Justin Herman, head of the SF Redevelopment Agency from 1959 until his death in 1971. During his time in the role, he oversaw the demolition of almost […]

Racial covenants

Two 2021 articles about racial covenants and attempts to remove them. Background: In many places across the US, many many homes still have racial covenants, specifying that (for example) they can be sold only to white people. Those covenants are unenforceable, and have been since 1948. But they’re still listed on deeds and CC&Rs, and […]

Canadian residential schools, and donation suggestions

Content warning for discussion of the Canadian residential schools and other horrific anti-Indigenous behavior by governments. Background: For over 100 years, the Canadian government funded boarding schools that it forced 150,000 Indigenous children to go to. The schools were administered by various Christian churches. At least 2%, and possibly as many as 20%, of those […]

The N-word incident at ACES 2019, part 2

I’m disappointed in the ACES Executive Board’s statement about the incident in which a presenter said the N-word during a presentation at ACES 2019. My post here is a long discussion of the Board’s statement—first my responses to what they wrote, then a description of some things I wish they had said, then a couple […]

The N-word incident at ACES 2019

Content warning for discussion of a white presenter’s use of a racial epithet. (In this post, I’m writing the standard euphemisms in place of the epithets that the presenter spoke aloud.) Last week, I attended the annual conference of ACES, an organization for editors. (Copyeditors, developmental editors, etc.) On the last day of the conference, […]

Defiance

Am reading Defiance #2: a paperback magazine of the US revolutionary left, published in 1971, edited by Dotson Rader. Pretty interesting stuff. Articles include: Rader’s introduction, which recommends abandoning electoral politics in favor of joining the imminent revolution. A piece by two young white men who were part of the NYC branch of Weatherman (aka […]