NEW REPORT SERIES!
Bold Policy Idea: Establishing Legal Protections for Formerly Incarcerated People
Whether applying for a job or accessing public services, formerly incarcerated people face tremendous challenges when returning to their communities. In this just-released report, part of our new Bold Policy Ideas series, we discuss pathways to make formerly incarcerated people a legally protected class. This brief explores a mechanism for broadly advancing the rights of formerly incarcerated people as an alternative to incremental approaches that seek to remove barriers in individual domains. Read "Ending Legal Bias Against Formerly Incarcerated People."
Detroit-based collective awarded Artist in Residence
The Haas Institute is thrilled to announce that Complex Movements will be our Artist in Residence for the 2019/20 academic year. The Detroit-based artist collective was chosen out of over 150 applicants for its use of art and culture in communities in the face of systems of othering. Complex Movements explores the connections of complex science and social justice movements through multimedia interactive performance work. As part of the residency, Complex Movements will seek to illuminate community-led spatial justice strategies on equitable city development and prison abolition. Learn more about our new Artist in Residence.
Ending Electoral Sharecropping: How Black Legacy Institutions Win Elections
In a new commissioned paper for our Civic Engagement Narrative Change project, Pastor Michael McBride explains "why progressives need to radically re-think how investments are made in the infrastructure and expertise needed to close the razor-thin margins that characterize our defeats at the polls." McBride argues that organizers should focus on the "rising American electorate" of Black women, young people, religious communities, and people of color, which research finds is the most reliable base of progressive constituencies. Read the article.
#400Years Symposium Kicks off Year of Events
Hundreds of people gathered on Aug. 30 on the Berkeley campus for a full-day symposium held to commemorate the 400th year anniversary of the arrival of the first African slaves in the American colonies. The symposium kicks off a year of events organized around the #400years commemoration, led by Haas Institute Assistant Director Denise Herd. “The legacies of slavery and the post-Reconstruction period are very much alive and continue to influence today’s social, political and economic outlook on race, and need to be confronted,” Herd said in her remarks at the symposium. Read more about the event in Berkeley News and The Daily Cal. Videos from the symposium are posted here.
In the News
Faculty cluster member Taeku Lee co-authored an op-ed in the New York Times about "Why Trump Fears Women of Color," writing that women of color and especially Black women are "potent forces in progressive politics, both in office and as organizers who mobilize voters." "It seems that liberals take this for granted, but conservatives tacitly recognize the political power of women of color when they try to discredit them through ridicule and harassment," Lee and his co-author write.
In a new piece on our blog, former Haas Institute Coblentz law fellow Zainab Ramahi writes about the links and similarities between Kashmir and Palestine's struggle for self-determination and identifies the underpinnings of colonialism as a way to understand both. Read the full piece.
Faculty member G. Cristina Mora was quoted in the New York Times about the mass murder of dozens of people in El Paso last month who were largely from immigrant communities. “This has impact beyond the first generation, the immigrant generation,” Mora is quoted as saying. “It reverberates. It doesn’t have to be you who crossed the border. It just has to be you who are not Anglo.”
Faculty cluster member Rachel Morello-Frosch was quoted in a Press Democrat article about the poor health effects of smoke and toxins from wildfires on California firefighters.
Our Assistant Director Stephen Menendian was quoted in a Local News Matters article entitled "People of Color Living in Low-Resource Neighborhoods."
We're seeking a new communications director. Learn more about this role here.
Upcoming Events
Today! Film Screening - Gina's Journey. A film screening of Gina's Journey at Morrison Library at UC Berkeley. This event is part of our Research to Impact series and the yearlong series of #400years events.
Sept. 12: Belonging in Practice: How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi will speak on his new book, How to Be an Antiracist, and will be joined in conversation with john a. powell and Lateefah Simon of the Akonadi Foundation. This talk is part of our Research to Impact lecture series and the yearlong series of #400years events.
Sept. 12-13:GARE 2019 California Convening. Learn about, align, and strengthen institutional and sectoral racial equity work across the State of California.
Sept. 19:A Conversation with California's First Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris. This talk is part of the 2019 UC Berkeley School of Public Health Dean’s Speaker Series and is co-sponsored with Goldman School of Public Policy and the Haas Institute.
Sept. 21:Black Life, with Michelle M. Wright. Michelle M. Wright, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, offers a lecture entitled “Using Time to Represent Blackness.” She argues that the complexity of Black identities is poorly served by traditional representations of time—including those used by many academics in Black Studies.
Two of our staff, john a. powell and Takiyah Franklin (pictured above), were featured presenters at the recent 2019 Golden Bear Orientation at UC Berkeley attended by all new UC Berkeley students. powell gave a keynote address on the othering & belonging framework while Franklin sang her original song, entitled "My New Song," to the gathered crowd.