Civic Issues Blog

Can You See the Pattern? The Structure of Systemic Racism in America

For my final civic blog post of the year, I watched a TED Talk given by Baratunde Rafiq Thurston. It was called “How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time”, and if you haven’t watched any of the other TED Talks I’ve posted about this year, do yourself a favor by at least letting…

Running the Race of Privilege

Amidst my exploration of race in this blog, something I have been thinking a lot about lately is how my own privilege affects my perceptions of and contributions to discussions about diversity and inclusion. I am ashamed to admit that many times in the past, I have shied away or drawn back from conversations because…

Saying Her Name — Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality

How many of the following names are you familiar with? Freddie Gray Eric Garner Tamir Rice Mike Brown Chances are, you are familiar with at least one of these names of African American men killed by police brutality. But how many of the next four names ring a bell? Tanisha Anderson Megan Kockaday Aura Rosser…

“Recoloring the Outdoors”

It is no accident that the majority of the credits I am taking this semester are somehow related to the outdoors. In addition to courses in chemistry and soils, am currently enrolled in a Wilderness Literature course (backpacking trip included!), a theory seminar about how to design protected areas to preserve biological and cultural diversity,…

Owning the Systemic Racism Sewn Into Our Past

This week, the TED Talk I watched was entitled “The Symbols of Systemic Racism — And How to Take Away Their Power“. Originally, I was not planning to select this specific talk to analyze for this post, but as I began to watch the first few minutes, I knew it was something that needed to…

Color Blind, not Color Brave

Tasked with choosing a theme for my Civic Issues Blog, I struggled to make a selection about what I wanted to write about. I spent much of CAS 137H discussing the environment or education in some capacity, I don’t find politics particularly interesting, and while discussing gender and sexuality does spark my interest, I felt…