CRT2: Recent Episodes
Columbia University Libraries
Columbia Race Talks: Critical Race Theory (CRT2) is a project of the Studio for Law and Culture at Columbia Law School. Produced by students in the Critical Race Theory Seminar Workshop, CRT2 uses critical race theory as a lens to look at charged issues, contested histories and contemporary debates about law, culture and the politics of race. See more information at https://crt2.podcasts.library.columbia.edu
What does a society which celebrates, rather than one that alienates, incarcerates and pathologizes disability look like? How do we break free from the chains of ableism and racism, and centre our politics around the idea that all bodies are special, and all bodies have their own specific needs that must be met? What does…
In this episode, we navigate the complex landscape of digital literacy and the systematic surveillance of people of color. We unravel the layers of bias ingrained in our technological systems. Focusing on the #NoTechForICE campaign as a poignant example, we engage with a panel of experts who bring their insights into the realms of data,…
“It takes people knowing about what happened and galvanizing communities and bringing people together to fight for policy change that would allow for land to be returned.” – Kavon Ward This episode of CRT2 takes a look at eminent domain under the Fifth Amendment “Takings Clause,” and the way it has been used to disproportionately…
In 2016, students at five schools in Detroit sued the state government for failing to provide them with even the most basic public education. Their teachers were overworked, their school buildings were falling apart, and students frequently lacked the resources to achieve reading and writing proficiency. Their complaint asserted that they were being denied a basic right: the right to literacy. In this episode, we examine the concept of a right to literacy. Why is it important to democracy, and why is it indispensable for success in the American economy? How does it intersect with race and incarceration? And in the aftermath of the students’ lawsuit, where does the right to literacy go from here? Our guests – including the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit, an attorney on the lawsuit, and educators who have worked both inside and outside of prison – will help us find the answers.
With tens of thousands of Americans dying every year from gun-related violence, firearm regulation is at the center of American political debate. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on this conversation by expanding an individual's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment in New York Rife & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen (2022).In this episode, we use critical race theory as a tool to explore the history of the Second Amendment, firearm ownership, and gun control policies in the United States. How are firearm regulations bound up in the legal and ideological infrastructure of white supremacy? What does the history of the Second Amendment tell us about race and racism in this country?
FCI Danbury in Danbury, Connecticut. Image courtesy of Bloomberg Law. White collar crimes and the federal prison sentences that often accompany them have become mythologized and white-washed in American society. The “country club” myth of federal prisons has proliferated in the wake of prominent financial scandals like those of Bernie Madoff and Martha Stewart. But…
Professor Sylvie Laurent is a historian specializing in American and African-American Studies. She is a Professor at Sciences Po Paris and an Associate Researcher at Harvard University.
Learn More
TRANSCRIPT
Production
Written, edited and produced by Marie-Alice Legrand, Annah Akhoun-Murat and Joe Sullivan.
In November 2021, Josephine Baker became the latest recipient of one of France’s highest honors—induction into the Pantheon. This honor is reserved for those who have made an indelible impact on French culture and history. Baker became the first black woman to be inducted, but the honor was also notable for the fact that she was born American. In a speech at the event, French President Emmanuel Macron praised Baker’s commitment to universalism.
What was the symbolic significance of Baker’s induction into the Pantheon and Macron’s subsequent remarks, and what does it mean that France chose to honor an American-born woman with one of their highest honors? In this episode, we talk to Professor Maboula Soumahoro to uncover some of these answers.
Professor Maboula Soumahoro is an associate professor at the University of Tours and president of the Black History Month Association, dedicated to celebrating Black history and cultures. She is a French scholar and writer whose work focuses on US and African-American studies, the African diaspora (Black Atlantic).
Learn More
TRANSCRIPT
RESOURCES
(1963) Josephine Baker, “Speech at the March on Washington”, Blackpast, November 3, 2011. Adrian Brettle, Myths & Misunderstandings: The North and Slavery, September 20, 2017. Carl Bialik, Americans Love France, November 19, 2015. Crystal Smith, How to Get Josephine Baker Waves, the Modern Way, The New York Times, October 18, 2016. Definition: Abidjan. Definition: Shero. Eleanor Beardsley, Josephine Baker is the first Black woman to be inducted into France's Pantheon, NPR, November 30, 2021. Empire State Building lights up in French national colors to honor Josephine Baker, RFI, November 30, 2021, . Josephine Baker enters France's Pantheon - Macron celebrates an 'exceptional figure' , FRANCE 24. Josephine Baker: France's adopted black superstar immortalized, France 24, November 27, 2021. Morgan Jenkins, 90 Years Later, the Radical Power of Josephine Baker’s Banana Skirt, Vogue, June 3, 2016. Najja Parker, Josephine Baker: France could claim her, America couldn’t tame her, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 8, 2018. Norimitsu Onishi, A Racial Awakening in France, Where Race is a Taboo Topic, The New York Times, July 14, 2020. Norimitsu Onishi, Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of its Leaders Think So, The New York Times, Feb 9, 2021. Piscine Joséphine Baker, Quai François Mauriac - 75013 Paris. Sarah Elzas, Academics under fire for studying race and racism in colour-blind France, RFI, March 25, 2021.
CREDITS
Production
Written, edited and produced by Marie-Alice Legrand, Annah Akhoun-Murat and Joe Sullivan.
The histories of slavery and segregation have not only left distinctions between the economic and social realities of people of different races in the United States, but have literally shaped the geography and environments we live in. Racial identities of different communities and geographies are as obvious as any other physical attributes of the community. Not only to they shape the character and culture of communities, but continued geographic segregation has resulted in health crises and facilitated mass incarceration, particularly in Black communities.
In this episode of CRT2 (Critical Race Theory / Columbia Race Talks) features two interviews: one with Stephanie Cooper, Vice President of Rise St. James, an environmental justice activist group based in the infamous Cancer Alley region of Louisiana; the other with Flores Forbes, writer, urban planner in New York City for decades, and is currently an associate vice president in the Office of Government and Community Affairs, Columbia University.
They both discuss their experiences with environmental racism, modern day segregation, and efforts by police and other authorities to intimidate and even incarcerate Black community-members.
We will also cover how the commonsense and historical understandings of the racial identity of place are not recognized in the law. The color-blind constitution allows governments and decisionmakers to use geography and space to place society’s pollution burden on Black communities.
Selected Images & Quotes
If you take an aerial view, and begin to talk with anyone who has eyes, it will be obvious to them that race is [what’s] going on.
Stephanie Cooper
White supremacy controls the urban planning process still
Flores Forbes
Image: Maps demonstrating the correlation between the percentage of Black residents, rates of asthma, and incarceration rates in New York City Neighborhoods. Source: Where We Live NYC, City of New York (2020) https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/wwl-plan.pdf
RESOURCES
NAACP and Clean Air Task Force, Fumes Across the Fenceline, (2017).
Mapping Disadvantage: The Geography of Incarceration in New York State, the Prison Policy Initiative (2020).
Philip Rutledge et al., Addressing Community Concerns: How Environmental Justice Relates to Land Use Planning and Zoning, National Academy of Public Administration 192 (2003).
TRANSCRIPT
CREDITS
Production
Written, edited and produced by David Alexander, Keith Geddings, Bridgett McCoy and Eli Turner.
References
Complaint, White Hat v. Landry, 475 F. Supp. 3d 532, No. 3:19-cv-00322 (M.D. La. 2020). Flores Forbes, Invisible Men: A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration, (2016). Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America 53–55 (2017). Oliver Laughland & Jamiles Lartey, First Slavery,Then a Chemical Plant and Cancer Deaths: One Town's Brutal History, The Guardian (May 6, 2019). PEN America, Arresting Dissent: Legislative Restrictions on the Right to Protest 5, (May 2020).
Music
Courtesy of Free Music Archive Additional support from Michelle Wilson
-- Trigger Warning --
This episode and its description contain discussions of gender-based violence, including murder, rape, sexual assault and trauma.
RESOURCES
For more information on any of the topics covered in the episode, please see the following materials:
Protests of Violence Against Women in Mexico
R. Kelly and Black Women's Movement Leadership and Resistance
Intersectionality and its Application
https://youtu.be/-1Y6Xir1un0
https://youtu.be/49iKs-yvMtE
https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o
TRANSCRIPT
CREDITS
Production
Written, edited and produced by Alice Chan, Marica Wright and Maria de la Cruz Rodriguez Martinez
References
Alex Samuels, Dhrumil Mehta & Anna Wiederkehr, Why Black Women Are Often Missing From Conversations About Police Violence, FiveThirtyEight (May 6, 2021). Brittney Cooper, Why are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage Over Police Violence?, Time(Jun. 4, 2020). Claudia Castro Luna, Killing Marias, A poem for multiple voices (Two Sylvias Press, 2017). Corinne Chin and Erika Schultz, Disappearing Daughters, The Seattle Times (Mar. 8, 2020). Danielle McGuire, Opinion: Black women led the charge against R. Kelly. They’re part of a long tradition, The Washington Post (Feb. 26, 2019). dream hampton, Opinion: R. Kelly’s been convicted. Now it’s time to focus on the safety and future of survivors, The Washington Post (Sept. 28, 2021). Ed Vulliamy, Why did she have to die? Mexico's war on women claims young artist, The Guardian (Feb. 11, 2020). Jane Coaston, The Intersectionality Wars, Vox (May 28, 2019). Kate Linthicum, Patrick J. McDonnell, In Mexico, seething anger over violence against women spills into the streets, L.A. Times (Mar. 8, 2020). Maria Abi-Habib and Oscar Lopez, A Women's March in Mexico City Turns Violent, with at least 81 injured, N.Y. Times (Mar. 8, 2021). Marisa Iati, Jennifer Jenkins, & Sommer Brugal, Nearly 250 women have been fatally shot by police since 2015, The Washington Post (Sept. 4, 2020). Mónica Ortiz Uribe, Activist Decry Feminicides after Another Woman is Killed in Juarez, Mexico, NPR,(Jan. 26, 2020). Paul Butler, Opinion: Why didn’t Black men support Black women against R. Kelly the way Black women support us, The Washington Post (Oct. 6, 2021).
SayHerName, African American Policy Forum.
Shearon Roberts, Black Women & The Labor of Racial Justice Movements, U. Southern Cal. Public Diplomacy Blog (Mar. 30, 2021). Treva Lindsey, Black Women Have Consistently Been Trailblazers for Social Change. Why Are They So Often Relegated to the Margins?, Time (Jul. 22, 2020).
- Update as of June 2022-
Since the recording of this episode, an unknown individual leaked the Supreme Court's draft in the Dobbs v. Jackson case. Written by Justice Alito, it appears to overturn Roe v. Wade. The leak of this draft has caused ample movement from reproductive rights and reproductive justice organizations. It has also emboldened anti-abortion states.
As a Supreme Court press release clearly affirms, while the document is authentic, “it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.” It is important to note that abortion is still legal in the United States and that the final Supreme Court opinion has not been released.
For more information, please see: Press Release, Supreme Court of the United States, (May 3, 2022); and Josh Gerstein & Alexander Ward, Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows, Politico (May 3, 2022).
Reproductive rights in the United States are being threatened more than ever. The enactment of state legislation curtailing the right to abortion – by imposing time limits, dictating mandatory waiting times, obligatory sonograms, and ever-stringent requirements for abortion clinics – is at an all-time high. Two of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon have been Texas and Mississippi.
Texas’ SB-8 prohibits abortions when the physician can detect a heartbeat, which can occur as early as six weeks. To implement this prohibition, rather than depending on state enforcement, SB-8 provides for the general public to police abortions. That is to say, any person can bring a civil action against any individual that performs an abortion, aids in the process of obtaining the procedure, or intends to engage in the aforementioned actions. Mississippi, on the other hand, has – since 2018 – outlawed any abortion after fifteen weeks of pregnancy. The statute provides no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, a characteristic that is shared by its Texan counterpart.
These statutes have set the scene for critical legal challenges, which will have far-reaching consequences. The Supreme Court, having addressed some of the issues posed by SB-8 in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, has yet to emit a final decision on Dodd v. Jackson, which tackles the constitutionality of Mississippi’s fifteen week cutoff for abortions.
These statutes, and the legal challenges that have followed, bring forth important questions regarding how these laws came to be, who are the individuals most affected by these provisions, how race factors into this equation, what the future holds for reproductive rights in the United States, and what we can do to better assist in the efforts to support the right to abortion.
On today’s episode, we will address some of these questions through a Critical Race Theory lens, giving special consideration to which communities are bearing the brunt of the impact of Texas and Mississippi’s efforts at limiting access to abortions. Join us to discuss these issues with Prof. Carol Sanger, Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and author of About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in the 21st Century. Also joining us is Anna Rupani, Executive Director of Fund Texas Choice, an organization dedicated to providing equitable access to abortion through transportation and accommodation assistance.
Anna Rupani
Anna is a lawyer and Executive Director at Fund Texas Choice.
Learn More
Carol Sanger
Carol is the Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at Columbia Law School where she teaches Reproductive Rights and the Meaning of Motherhood.
Learn More
RESOURCES
If you have the means, please consider supporting the work of the following organizations:
Fund Texas Choice Lilith Fund The Afiya Center Avow Texas
TRANSCRIPT
CREDITS
Production
Written, edited and produced by Sol A. Vásquez Ortiz, Lise Mitsinga and Sruthi Bopanna.
References
Amy Hagstrom Miller, What it’s like operating a Texas abortion clinic under state’s new ban, LA Times (Sep. 29, 2021, 10:55 am), https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-09-29/texas-abortion-clinic-state-new-ban. Black Women’s Maternal Health: A Multifaceted Approach to Addressing Persistent and Dire Health Disparities, National Partnership for Women & Families, https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/health/reports/black-womens-maternal-health.html. Becky Sullivan, 21 states poised to ban or severely restrict abortion if 'Roe v. Wade' is overturned, NPR (Dec. 2, 2021, 6:18pm), https://www.npr.org/2021/12/02/1061015753/abortion-roe-v-wade-trigger-laws-mississippi-jacksons-womens-health-organization. Cady Lang, President Trump Has Attacked Critical Race Theory. Here’s What to Know About the Intellectual Movement, Time (Sep. 29, 2020, 10:53 pm), https://time.com/5891138/critical-race-theory-explained/. Candice Norwood, Policing and surveillance: How Texas’ abortion law could add to systemic racism, The 19th (Sep. 14, 2021, 11:13am), https://19thnews.org/2021/09/texas-abortion-law-people-of-color/. Carol Sanger, About Abortion: The Complications of the Category, 54 Ariz. L. Rev. 849 (2012). Carol Sanger, About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in Twenty-First-Century America (2017). Induced Termination of Pregnancy, Texas Health and Human Services, https://www.hhs.texas.gov/about-hhs/records-statistics/data-statistics/itop-statistics. Infant and Maternal Mortality Surveillance, Mississippi State Department of Health, https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/8127.pdf. ITOP Statistics, Texas Health and Human Services, https://www.hhs.texas.gov/about/records-statistics/data-statistics/itop-statistics. Lani Guinier & Gerald Torres, The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (2003). Melissa Murray, Race-ing Roe: Reproductive Justice, Racial Justice, and the Battle of Roe v. Wade, 134 Harv. L. Rev. 2025 (2021). Michele Goodwin, Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood (2020).Oral Argument – Audio, Supreme Court of the United States, https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2021/19-1392. Paul J. Weber, Texas abortion law strains clinics: ‘Exactly what we feared’, AP News (Sep. 15, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/texas-courts-laws-e456aeea9fcd2dd86723cf915429e594. Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity, KFF, https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity. Quickening and Fetal Development, Illinois Department of Human Services, https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=48890. Rachel K. Jones et al., New Evidence: Texas Residents Have Obtained Abortions in at Least 12 States That Do Not Border Texas, Guttmacher Institute (Nov. 9, 2021), https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/11/new-evidence-texas-residents-have-obtained-abortions-least-12-states-do-not-border. Rachel Scott, Following one Texas woman’s abortion journey over state lines: Reporter’s Notebook, ABC News (Oct. 10, 2021, 12:39pm), https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-womans-abortion-journey-state-lines-reporters-notebook/story?id=80485727. Regulating Insurance Coverage of Abortion, Guttmacher Institute, https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/regulating-insurance-coverage-abortion. Sema Sgaier & Jordan Downey, What We See in the Shameful Trends on U.S. Maternal Health, NYT (Nov. 17, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/17/opinion/maternal-pregnancy-health.html. Susan A. Cohen, Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture, Guttmancher Institute,https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2008/08/abortion-and-women-color-bigger-picture. Texas QuickFacts, U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/TX. Transcript of Oral Argument, Dodd v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization et al., (2021)(No. 19-1392). Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, No. 21-463, 2021 WL 5855551 (Dec. 10, 2021). Yelena Dzhanova, Clinics in states neighboring Texas are seeing drastic increases Business Insider (Sep. 22, 2021, 8:05pm), https://www.businessinsider.com/texans-are-flocking-to-neighboring-states-to-get-an-abortion-2021-9. Zoila Acevedo, Abortion in Early America, 4 Women & Health 159 (1979).
This episode examines Columbia Law School's history and legacy of slavery and the extent to which the remnants of that legacy reverberate throughout our campus today. With a specific lens on the experiences of Black men on campus and in the wider society, we draw parallels between the hyper surveillance and vilification experienced by Frederick Wells on the law school's campus in 1924 and the experiences of Black male students on and off campus in recent years.
With the assistance of our esteemed panelists, Professor Katherine Franke (Columbia University), Professor Darren Hutchinson (Emory University), and Professor Athena Mutua (University at Buffalo), we explore a number of critical race theories in an attempt to grapple with the unique experiences and perspectives of Black men and our responsibilities to the past.
We discuss the evolution of the theory of intersectionality and its ability to adequately account for the Black male experience and how the related theories of multidimensionality and progressive Black masculinities provide the tools to analyze and address the systemic challenges faced by Black men. For instance, we discuss the gendered differences that arise among Black men and women today, the internal and external hierarchal layers of masculinity and why it's harder for Black men to organize around gender. Ultimately, we recognize the importance of acknowledging and addressing the past while actively working against systems of domination that continue to subordinate and marginalize Black men.
The Gothic Revival Law Library on Columbia's Madison Avenue Campus. Source: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol22/vol22_iss5/record2205.32.html
Columbia Law School's History of Slavery : Highlighting Frederick Wells (1924)
The Remnants of Slavery at Columbia University and the Black Male Experience: Highlighting Alexander McNab (2019)
The Panelists
RESOURCES
Columbia University and Slavery Project Columbia Law School and the Legacies of Slavery
TRANSCRIPT
CREDITS
Production
Written, edited and produced by Stephanie Abrahams, Paul Riley and Koko Zhang.
Music
Darkened Treeline by Blue Dot Sessions Morning Glare by Blue Dot Sessions Slider by Blue Dot Sessions Illway by Blue Dot Sessions Lumber Down by Blue Dot Sessions
In this episode of CRT2, we discuss movement lawyering and how its principles can be incorporated in legal education. Movement lawyering, also known as community lawyering, is a non-traditional approach to social justice lawyering that recognizes the limitations of relying on the law to bring about social change. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, movement lawyers acknowledge the role law has played in creating and perpetuating conditions of oppression. Considering this, movement lawyers learn from and work with communities and individuals impacted by these oppressive systems, instead of deciding the agenda for reform.
"Movement lawyering means taking direction from directly impacted communities and from organizers, as opposed to imposing our leadership or expertise as legal advocates. It means building the power of the people, not the power of the law."
Movement Lawyering in Moments of Crisis, Law For Black Lives, American Bar Association Human Rights Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 2, January, 2021
Alejo Rodrigues
Alejo is Project Director of Breakthrough in Abolition Through Transformative Legal Empowerment (BATTLE), an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, and Chief of Curriculum & Storytelling at Zealous, an organization that trains and supports public defenders in partnership with local organizations and the people and communities they serve.
Learn More
Susan Sturm
Susanis the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility and the founding director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. Her work focuses on inequality, discrimination, remedying racial and gender bias, criminal justice reform, lawyer-leadership, and the role education can play in creating social change and a more inclusive world.
Learn More The Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School puts these principles in practice in its project BATTLE, ‘Breakthrough in Abolition Through Transformative Legal Empowerment’. BATTLE is conceptualized and run by Professor Alejo Rodriguez, an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, who has direct experience with the criminal legal system.
In BATTLE, law students from the Black Law StudentsAssociation work with formerly incarcerated community leaders to design and work on projects relating to abolishing the prison industrial complex. In this podcast, we speak with Prof. Alejo Rodriguez and Prof. Susan Sturm, to discuss BATTLE, the prison industrial complex, the importance of lawyers and law students to learn from community leaders and directly impacted individuals, and how learning differently maybe the first step for law students to become agents of change.
RESOURCES
Black Law Student Association at Columbia Law School The Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School Zealous
TRANSCRIPT
CREDITS
Production
Written, edited and produced by Joo-Hee Kim, Gavin Coyle and Maneka Khanna.
Videos
Marbre Stahley Butts, Lawyering for Liberation: Movement Lawyering and Black Lives Matter, UCLA School of Law, Lecture Webcast (March 8, 2021). Jeena Shah, Social Justice Lawyering Teach In, Rutgers Law School, Webcast (June 24, 2020).
Articles
Marbre Stahly-Butts ’13 on Movement Lawyering for Black Lives, YLS Today (February 7, 2020). Community Justice Project, Purvi and Chuck: Community Lawyering, Community Justice Project (June 15, 2010). Crissy Holdman. Professor Jeena Shah on Movement Lawyering and Building Power Through Organizing, CUNY School of Law (February 17, 2021).
Academic Literature
Amna Akbar, Sameer M. Ashar, and Jocelyn Simonson, Movement Law, 73 Stanford Law Review 821 (2021). Betty Hung, Movement Lawyering as Rebellious Lawyering: Advocating with Humility, Love and Courage, 23 NYU Clinic Law Review 663 (2017). Amna Akbar, Radical Remagination of the Law, 93 NYU Law Review 405 (2018).
Child Welfare System – the term itself implies that the system’s purpose is to protect the welfare and best interests of children. But the reality of how the child welfare system functions – a system of surveillance, regulation, and family separation – makes this name a misnomer. As Professor Dorothy Roberts explains, a more apt description would be the “family regulation” or “family policing” system. In her seminal book, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, Professor Roberts points out, “If you came with no preconceptions about the purpose of the child welfare system, you would have to conclude that it is an institution designed to monitor, regulate, and punish poor Black families.”1
Today, the family regulation system disproportionately affects families of color – particularly Black and Indigenous communities. According to the 2018 data from Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center, Black children made up close to 23% of all kids in foster care, but only 13.7% of the child population, while Indigenous children made up more than 2% of the foster care population, but less than 1% of the overall child population.2
These numbers are hardly surprising considering the fact that the roots of the family regulation system can be traced back to the forced separation of enslaved African American families as well as genocide against Indigenous communities.3 Moreover, family policing and the foster care industrial complex are closely linked with the mass incarceration system. They both “regulate millions of marginalized people through intrusive investigations, monitoring and forcible removal of children from their homes to be placed in foster care, group homes and “therapeutic” detention facilities.”4 The similarities of these systems have spurred a movement toward abolishing the family regulation system along with other punitive and oppressive systems.
In this episode of Columbia Race Talks / Critical Race Theory, guest Professor Anna Arons from NYU Law School speaks on her experiences as a public defender working in the family regulation system. We chat with her not only about the need for abolition, but also on how we can work toward a society that actually keeps children and families safe without relying on systematic violence. She shares insights from her recent COVID-19 related research which found that the withdrawal of New York City’s vast family regulation system during the pandemic did not lead to an increase in child abuse. Families found support elsewhere through community-based mutual aid and new government entitlements. In this way, as Professor Arons explains, the city’s shutdown became an unplanned experiment in abolition, “demonstrating a possible future absent the massive, oppressive apparatus of the family regulation system.”5
The episode also includes the voices of Joyce McMillan (below left) and Professor Dorothy Roberts (below right). Joyce McMillan is a thought leader, advocate, activist, community organizer, and educator. Her mission is to remove systemic barriers in communities of color by bringing awareness to the racial disparities in systems where people of color are disproportionately affected.6
Professor Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her path breaking work in law and public policy focuses on urgent social justice issues in policing, family regulation, science, medicine, and bioethics.7
RESOURCES
Joyce McMillan Child Welfare Organizing Project JMacForFamilies
TRANSCRIPT
Credits
Production
Produced, written, and edited by Abie Green, Angela Yu and Manny Zhang.
References
Sound Clips
Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, Abolition Democracy 10/13: Abolishing Family Policing, YouTube (Feb. 25, 2021). Coma-Media The Moth, The Moth Presents: Joyce McMillan, YouTube (Jun. 29, 2017). Shriver Center on Poverty Law, Moving from Why to How: Parent Leaders’ Perspectives on the Movement for Child Welfare Justice, YouTube (Oct. 6, 2020).
Women are the fastest growing prison population worldwide and there are over 1.9 million individuals leaving women’s prisons and jails every year in the United States. This process of going back into the community—of reuniting with family, finding housing, securing a job—is known as “re-entry.”
In this episode of Columbia Race Talks we ask: what does the reentry experience actually look like? Three formerly incarcerated women share their stories. We hear from Harmony Hope from WBAI Radio’s On the Count; DeAnna Hoskins, former Department of Justice Senior Policy Advisor and CEO of JustLeadershipUSA; and Vivian Nixon, Writer in Residence at the Square One Project at Columbia Justice Lab.
All three women have personally experienced coming home, rebuilding, and ultimately thriving professionally. Today, they are leaders in the re-entry field, but behind their success are quiet stories of pain and perseverance and stories of life after incarceration that often go untold.
In this episode, we learn what it means to re-enter society and to reclaim freedom even decades after the bars are gone.
Vivian Nixon
Writer in Residence at the Square One Project and former Executive Director of the College and Community Fellowship
Learn More
DeAnna Hoskins
CEO of JustLeadershipUSA and former Department of Justice Senior Policy Advisor
Learn More
Harmony Hope
Advocate and Senior Producer and Host of WBAI Radio's On the Count
Learn More "There is an internal Journey. There is an emotional journey. One has to release the shame of having been incarcerated. There is still a tremendous amount of stigma attached to being incarcerated, in particular for women."
"I don't feel that you're ever done with re-entry."
-- SPECIAL FEATURE --
CRT can easily be presented as a practice of conflict. Contextualizing issues of race, law and policy can be very challenging for some and bring people to feel defensive, confused or upset.
However, today’s Mini Feature guests continue the conversation on re-entry into community and family reunification, and help us learn how CRT can play out in our everyday relationships, between lawyers and clients and especially between mom and daughter. We speak with Shameeka and her 11 year-old daughter, Empress, two powerful voices for resilience, healing and racial justice.
SHAMEEKA FRANCE
Advocate and founder of Success After Prison Shameeka is joined by her daughter Empress
"I just tried to do everything possible to let her know that I'm never going back. But it's a healing process. It's a forever healing process."
RESOURCES
Resources for Justice Impacted Individuals:
College and Community Fellowship Just Leadership USA Women’s Community Justice Association Women's Prison Association Success After Prison (TBA)
More Stories:
New Way of Life Testif-i Storytelling
Ankle Monitors Juvenile-in-justice.com Creator: Richard Ross
TRANSCRIPT
Scarlet Letter of Incarceration Main Feature
Scarlet Letter of Incarceration Mini Feature
CREDITS
Production
Main Feature written, edited and produced by Shira Flugelman, Jessica Gadea Hawkins and Ailee Katz. Mini Feature written, edited and produced by Shira Flugelman, Jessica Gadea Hawkins.
Sound Clips
President Barack Obama, “President Obama Addresses the NAACP’s 106th National Convention” (2015). President Joe Biden, “The Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Comitment to Justice”, (2019). Protest, “No Justice No Peace”, Internet Archive (2020).
References
Derecka Purnell, “Making the Argument for Abolishing the Police” The Daily Show (2021). Correctional Association of New York, “It Reminds Us How We Got Here: (Re)Producing Abuse, Neglect, and Trauma in New York’s Prisons for Women”, (2020)(See report for qualitative research on trauma and incarceration in women’s prisons). Vivian Nixon, Yolanda Johnson Peterkin, et al, “Life Capacity Beyond Reentry: A Critical Examination of Racism and Prisoner Reentry Reform in the U.S.”, 2 R./E. Mult. Glob. Cont. 1, 21-43 (2008) (Referencing the term “Reetry Mania”). Wendy Sawyer, “Who’s helping the 1.9 million women released from prisons and jails each year?” Prison Policy Initiative (2019) (Based on 2016 Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1.9 million women leave prisons and jails every year, 81,000 from state prisons).
CRT2 is a project of the Studio for Law and Culture at Columbia University. Each podcastepisode is conceived, written, hosted and produced by students in the CriticalRace Theory Seminar Workshop at Columbia Law School. CRT2 will take our listeners from New York to Louisiana, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to Paris, France, on a journey that shows the global reach and relevance of Critical Race Theory.
Our CRT2 production teams will use concepts or CRT to bring you stories about environmental justice, gender based violence, the child welfare system, legal education, the legacies of slavery, social justice lawyering and reproductive rights.
Each episode of Columbia Race Talks/Critical Race Theory will cut through the fog of myth and misinformation surrounding the CRT culture wars, to take a deep dive into issues of race, racism and racial justice.