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#LivingWhileBlack Project Plan

Our group has decided to dedicate our racial justice project to “Living while Black.” We hope to bring awareness to the way common daily activities are impacted by the color of a person’s skin and how this leads to struggles for African Americans each day, from they day they are born to the day they die. We plan to bring awareness to the issue here at Mason and hopefully beyond by creating an informational video in which we will ask random people in North Plaza questions about our topic to highlight the ignorance about the issues. After compiling their answers we will end the video with an informational portion on ways people can make a difference and become more aware of the subtle racism they witness or may even unknowingly participate in. The video will then be posted on Youtube and spread on other social medias in an attempt to inform a larger group of people.

Our plan is to stand in North Plaza and solicit students to be apart of our project by answering a few questions we have come up with, some examples are:

•What is affirmative action? and why was it put into place?do you think it is racist?

• is racism still a problem in america?

•WHat is WHite privilege? / How does it affect non-white people?

•have you ever been followed in a store or suspected of stealing?

•has a teacher ever questioned if something was your work or if you were in the right class?

•have you ever been singled out by an adult or person of authority while in a group

•Have you ever felt you were targeted by the police?

•has someone ever told you that you’re so *pretty,smart,well-spoken* for a (insert race here)(insert gender here)?

•Is the n word a term of endearment/ do you use it with friends/family?

•growing up did you see a disney princess that looked like you?

•Do you think Black is synonymous with ghetto?

•Have you ever felt out of place because your race wasn’t shown in a place?

•when asked do people assume your parents are divorced/not together?

•do people ask if you and your sibling have the same dad?

•do you feel like you've ever been singled out because of your race?

•growing up did you have teachers that were the same race as you?

•what race do you identify as?

•can you think of a personal event in your life that impacted you that has to do with race?

•what do you think of when you think of race relations in america?

•do you think mason is racially diverse?

•have you ever been mistaken as a worker/server when you were shopping/out to eat?

•Has anyone ever told you that you’re so *insert different race*?

•what are features of classic beauty/ what do you consider beautiful?

•what do you think of when someone says all american guy/girl?

•black lives matter vs. all lives matter?

•what does jungle fever mean to you?

•do you think your parents would be upset if your significant other was of a different race than you?

for women:

when you disagree with someone do they automatically assume you’re angry?

has anyone ever compared your hair to their pets?

do you consider the word cracker as offensive as the “n” word?

for black men:

DO you ever notice people crossing the street to avoid walking next to you on a sidewalk?

guys:

have you ever been pulled over and asked to have your car searched?

when you walk by do people clutch their bags?

#afam200 #livingwhileblack #action

As i said, i'm re-uploading all of the older scenarios slowly so these are all just scenes you may or may not have seen already. In this scenario we witness ...

What Would You Do is a show on ABC where actors are chosen to portray a scenario and hidden cameras are used to show how the public will react to the situation at hand. What I love about this show is it shows true character and the people watching the actors have no idea they are being watched and that the people are actors so it has a genuine feel- you can’t fake the truth. In this video John Quinones, the host of the show, has set up three white teens to vandalize a prop car owned by ABC in a park in broad daylight to see how people in the neighborhood would react. People eyed the boys and went on about their walk or jog or day only a few people stopped to say anything to the boys and only ONE call to 911 was made to report the vandalism. Before ABC switched the White teen actors with the Black teen actors there were two other calls made to 911 about “a future robbery.” Someone called 911 to report of Black teens asleep in a car in that same park and stated that they seemed suspicious like they were going to rob someone…. (they were only sleeping in the car). The teens in that car were simply the family to one of the Black actors and they were waiting for them to start their portion of acting the vandalism in the park. During the scenario with the Black teens so many people not only approached them but also called the police to report the crime. One woman said, “How dare you come to our backyard and do something like this,” as if these young Black boys can’t possibly be from/ live in that neighborhood because they were Black, they’re outsiders because of the color of their skin, they can’t possibly belong. The difference between the Black and White actors in the case was ten 911 calls and one 911 call. What I find most interesting about this video is the fact that TWO calls were made WHILE the White teens were vandalizing the car about the Black teens SLEEPING in a car. If they were White they’d simply be White teens sleeping in a car, but because they’re Black everything they do is criminalizing… sleeping looks like robbery.

#afam200 #video #livingwhileblack #sleepingwhileblack

LIVING WHILE BLACK

According to 10 Egregious Cases of White People Falsely Accusing Black People of Committing Crimes, Blacks have always had a higher amount of exonerations; in 1989 Blacks were nearly half of all known exonerates in the system, and in 2012 the percent rose to 57%. Living while Black in terms of the justice system… what does that make you think of? For me, I think about exonerations, arrests resulting in death by police and I think about the lack of fair trials for Blacks in court. I think the only way to understand why there are so many racial injustices in the justice system is to understand how the justice system (including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) was created and who it was created for. America was founded under concepts that keep Blacks oppressed, from being enslaved to being freed, being segregated and being lynched, mass incarceration and Jim Crow all these kept the Black race oppressed. “100 percent of exonerated persons on death row were Black,” as stated in 6 Death Row Inmates Were Exonerated In 2014. All Of Them Were Black. The article also states the following statistics, Black people have the highest rate of exonerations and that Black men serve sentences that are 20 percent longer than Whites who committed similar crimes. How do false convictions occur? Do police officers stop listening to reports after they hear race and height of the perpetrator? The case of Darryl Hunt in Winston Salem, North Carolina convicted him of the rape and murder of a White woman despite the fact there was NO DNA evidence! After 19 years in prison he was finally exonerated in 2004. From the time Blacks arrived in America we have been dehumanized and become victims of a system that was never made to protect us. When the Black race is synonymous to criminality in the American justice system it means Black people can be wrongfully convicted of crimes without any evidence simply because of the color of their skin, it means Blacks are more likely to be subject of police brutality (even if they are unarmed)… one could say these are the consequences of Living While Black.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/01/09/worst-cases-white-people-wrongfully-accusing-black-people-committing-crimes/4/

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/01/27/3615918/black-people-have-the-highest-exoneration-rate-in-the-us/

#afam200 #findings #livngwhileblack

LIVING WHILE BLACK

This scholarly article is entitled, “Making Race Salient: Trayvon Martin and Implicit Bias In a Not Yet Post- Racial Society” by a law professor at George Washington University, Cynthia Lee. Her article focuses on the implicit racial bias in cases involving self-defense claims. If judges and juries do not focus on implicit racial bias which can influence one’s perception of threat, danger, and suspicion, wont that be problematic in cases regarding police brutality and self- defense claims? Living While Black what does that mean? It means everything we do as Black people can be perceived in a completely different way; a Black person shopping might look like a Black person stealing, a Black person walking might look like a Black person loitering, in Trayvon Martin’s case a Black teen walking home from 7/11 looked like a threat to George Zimmerman that he took upon himself to end. What making race salient means is to Samuel Sommers is when race is not a background factor and is known but not highlighted, instead it is evident and nonetheless a concept in the case. “Making race salient or calling attention to the relevance of race in a given situation encourages individuals to suppress what would otherwise be automatic, stereotypic congruent responses in favor of acting in a more egalitarian manner.” Lee’s article also discusses how we live in a country that is NOT in a post racial society despite the election and re-election of our first Black president. “Sumi Cho describes post-racialism as ‘a twenty-first- century ideology that reflects a belief that due to the significant racial progress that had been made, the state need not engage in race-based decision making or adopt race-based remedies, and that civil society should eschew race as a central organizing principle of social action.” Race needs to be made salient in the courtroom, living while Black is not synonymous with living while White; hate crimes are not of the past and racism is an issue in America in 2015; post racialist are in denial of the social injustices in America by believing race is no longer important.

http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications/728/

#living while black #afam200 #scholarly

“Barneys busted student for ‘shopping while Black’” article was posted in 2013 about a college student at NYC College of Technology who was arrested AFTER purchasing a Salvatore Ferragamo belt in Barneys. The article states that as Trayon Christian exited the department store undercover officers grabbed him and asked, “How a young black man such as himself could afford to purchase such an expensive belt.” When he purchased the belt the clerk asked for identification and then called the police claiming that the purchase was fraud. When the police took him into custody he was continuously told his identification was fake and he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase. When the police called Chase Credit Cards they confirmed that the card belonged to Christian and they released him. He later returned the belt and said he’ll never shop at Barneys again, “I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.” This college student was a target from the time he walked into the store only because of his race. I personally have felt like store associates were overly “helpful” to me in a store, “Can I help you find something?” might be asked to me every few minutes or if the store is really expensive you might get some stares and confused looks because you can’t possibly afford anything in the store. Shopping while Black, what does that mean to you? Do you feel racially profiled when shopping? Shopping while Black refers to the racial profiling of Black shoppers; because they’re Black they might be followed, questioned, searched, or escorted out of a store etc.

http://nypost.com/2013/10/22/barneys-busted-student-for-being-black-suit/

#livingwhileblack #shopping while black #afam200 #newspaper

afam200-blog

Do you use these phrases?

Class quiz!

#afam200

My group has decided to use the hashtag “#livingwhileblack” for our racial justice issue. It will be used to describe the injustices Black people deal with simply because of the color of their skin. We plan to focus on the everyday activities the average Black person encounters over a lifetime and the obstacles, judgment and stereotypes they’re faced with. What we hope to achieve is to bring attention to the overlooked White privilege/ Black “anti-privilege” and racial profiling. Living while Black doesn’t only affect Black people, Black Lives Matter isn’t a movement that is attacking or separating the two races, the social injustices that come along with being Black is A WOLRDWIDE ISSUE. The oppression Blacks went through 75 years ago hasn’t dissolved- it’s only been reincarnated into a modern social injustice that people can turn a blind eye to. To attain our project goal we are going to make a video featuring Mason students (of multiple races) and ask them questions about living while Black and how it affects them and then, we will give them the facts, the truth on what it means to be Living While Black.

#statement #afam200

LIVING WHILE BLACK

My group has decided to use the hashtag “#livingwhileBlack” for our racial justice issue. The hashtag will be used to describe the injustices Black people deal with simply because they are Black. We are going to focus on everyday activities the average person encounters over a lifetime the obstacles and judgment they go through because they’re Black. Some of our subtopics in the “living While Black” series will include DRIVING while Black, EDUCATION while Black, and SHOPPING while Black. We will include a sub-hashtag for these themes to go with that particular week’s subtopic. Our aim is to bring attention to the white privilege that is often overlooked and the social issues many people are oblivious to. Our hashtag can be interpreted as an umbrella for many social issues found within the Black community, the “anti-privilege” Blacks are “born into” vs. the white privilege Whites are “born into,” or the modern slave mentality that has evolved instead of dissolving (between both Blacks and Whites and Blacks and Blacks).

#afam200 #livingwhileblack

LIVING WHILE BLACK

My group and I have decided to dedicate our racial justice project to “Living while Black”- the everyday things black people do that create conflict and issues in this racially motivated country. We came to this subject after discussing a lot of different ideas and then we realized they all fell under a larger umbrella… “Living while Black.” Black people can do the same exact thing as a non-Black person, yet have a completely different experience; and two Black people living in completely different places may very well have encountered similar experiences/ discrimination/ attitudes all because of ONE common factor… their race. Why is this happening in 2015? Because not much has changed. Yes, slavery is over. Yes, schools and restaurants are integrated. Yes, our president is Black. Yet America still struggles to acknowledge Blacks as equals to non-Black people. Over the course of this semester my group and I will cover some of the issues and stereotypes Blacks encounter while doing everyday things such as; driving (Driving While Black), shopping (Shopping While Black), Being Educated While Black and many other themes.

#afam200 #livingwhileblack #whileblack #why

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