TheConversation, Author at Milwaukee Independent

Coronavirus and the Surge: Developing resilience is an important tool for coping with stressful times

Posted by TheConversation | Jul 6, 2020 |

By Keith M. Bellizzi, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Connecticut We are all exhausted and pushed to the limit by months of social distancing, and the recent news that cases are climbing in many states is especially scary. While you may feel like ripping off your mask and heading for a bar, there are more productive ways to deal with the challenges we face. And in fact, staying home may be the best course of action in the next couple of weeks, some experts have said. It’s also a good time to learn and practice...

Truth Commissions: A nationwide healing process is needed to overturn systemic racism

Posted by TheConversation | Jul 4, 2020 |

By Benjamin Appel, Associate Professor of International Relations, Michigan State University; and Cyanne E. Loyle, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Pennsylvania State University As the U.S. prepares to celebrate another year of its independence, the country is paying renewed attention to the founders, and how their legacy of slavery is linked to systemic racism. Calls for reform to policing across the nation can help to directly reduce police violence against civilians but don’t address the centuries-old underlying problems in American society. Our research indicates that the country is not likely to escape its historic cycles of...

Peonage Explained: The system of convict labor was Slavery by another name

Posted by TheConversation | Jul 3, 2020

By Kathy Roberts Forde, Chair, Associate Professor, Journalism Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Bryan Bowman, Undergraduate journalism major, University of Massachusetts Amherst The U.S. criminal justice system is riven by racial disparity. The Obama administration pursued a plan to reform it. An entire news organization, The Marshall Project, was launched in late 2014 to cover it. Organizations like Black Lives Matter and The Sentencing Project are dedicated to unmaking a system that unjustly targets people of color. But how did we get this system in the first place? Our ongoing historical research project investigates the relationship between the...

A Black Lives Matter Anthem: Hip-hop is the latest soundtrack in the history of racial equality protests

Posted by TheConversation | Jul 3, 2020 |

By Tyina Steptoe, Associate Professor of History, University of Arizona The sound of Public Enemy’s 1989 song “Fight the Power” blared as face-masked protesters in Washington DC broke into a spontaneous rendition of the electric slide dance near the White House. It was the morning of June 14, and an Instagram user captured the moment, commenting: “If Trump is in the White House this morning he’s being woken up by … a Public Enemy dance party.” Coming amid widespread protests over police brutality and structural racism in the United States, the song is an apt musical backdrop. It opens...

A False Immunity: Rural communities are showing their vulnerability to COVID-19

Posted by TheConversation | Jul 2, 2020 |

By David J. Peters, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, Iowa State University Rural areas seemed immune as the coronavirus spread through cities earlier this year. Few rural cases were reported, and attention focused on the surge of illnesses and deaths in the big metro areas. But that false sense of safety is now falling apart as infection rates explode in rural areas across the country. Of the top 25 COVID-19 hot spots that popped up in the last two weeks, 18 were in non-metropolitan counties. Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas all set records in mid-June for the number of...

Black Americans have always been essential workers but continue to see little economic reward

Posted by TheConversation | Jun 30, 2020 |

By Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State University On June 19, 1865 – 155 years ago – Black Americans celebrating the day of Jubilee, later known as Juneteenth, may have expected a shot at real opportunity. Freedom from slavery should have been freedom to climb up the economic ladder, helped – or at least not hindered – by a nation newly rededicated to human equality. Black Americans had served in the war, too, making up more than 10% of the Union Army, a quarter of the Union Navy and untold numbers aiding the Union effort. In many national...