Overview
Please remember that to get a “complete” on your discussion board assignments, all instructions must be followed (especially including evidence from the course materials for the unit), and each portion of the rubric must be marked as “complete.” This also includes responding to a peer's posts following my guidelines (listed below). This discussion board post is due on Friday, May 8th, before 11:59 PM. You should post on the discussion board only after you have read all the required materials for the week, watched the relevant YouTube videos, and watched my lecture video(s).
- (The State of Human Caging: Incarceration, Policing, and State-Sanctioned Violence): Using evidence from the course texts and videos, describe how the current prison industrial complex can be seen as a continuation of the systems of control and labor exploitation established during slavery, and discuss how this connection impacts racial and economic inequalities today.
- Consider the following quote from the chapter we read for this week, “The Impact of the so-called 'War on Drugs’”: “Alexander (2020) writes that most Americans have a serious misunderstanding of how racial oppression works, assuming it’s about attitudes, never focusing on how systemic oppression can enforce a type of ‘racial caste system’ through seemingly colorblind methods.” (Acevedo & Fischer). Define systemic racism, and analyze evidence from the course texts and videos that describe how systemic oppression enforces racial inequities, violence, and attitudes.
- (Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror): How did lynching function as a tool of racial terror and social control in the United States, and what are the lasting impacts of this history on contemporary issues of racial violence and justice? Include specific evidence from the Lynching in America report in your response.
- (The Sterilization and Abuse of Black Women): Using evidence from the video, analyze how the history of forced sterilization and abuse of Black women reveals the intersection of racism, sexism, and classism within U.S. institutions. In your response, discuss how this legacy continues to influence the experiences of Black women in healthcare today.
- Kat’s video question response (question prompted by Kat in one of her lecture videos - you must watch/listen to the lectures to respond to this question):
- Respond to a peer addressing the following: Agree, disagree, or elaborate on a peer’s definition of systemic racism and describe why you have this stance (Question 2). Then, include a specific example from the course texts and/or videos that illustrates your peer’s definition.