Items

• 
  2022-04-27

  Minorities & Covid-19

  This text is about the BLM movement & how I believe Covid-19 aided the movement.
• 
  2022-03-07

  Maternity wards are shuttering across the US during the pandemic

  This is a news story from Vox, written by Dylan Scott. Across the nation, maternity wards have been shutting down, making things more dangerous for new mothers. Due to these closures, there has been an increased number in deaths of both infants and pregnant women. These losses of maternity wards have been harshest on those of low income, as well as Black and Hispanic women. Part of these closures have happened due to shortages of doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff during the pandemic. The closure of more maternity wards also means women having to travel further to get the care they need. The timing makes this even more difficult during labor, as complications can happen during that, increasing chances of death. Overall, this article shows the ways that the ripple effects from COVID not only affect the mortality rates of mothers and babies, but disproportionately hurt poor, Black, and Hispanic women.
• 
  2022-03-31

  COVID-19 and pregnancy: More new mothers dying, increasing women's fears during tense time

  This is a news story from The Columbus Dispatch by Megan Henry. This story is about the rising fears of new mothers as COVID has increased their chances of dying. In 2020, motherhood mortality rate increased by 20% in the United States. There were also large disparities in who died, with Black women dying three times the rate of White women during pregnancy. Dr. Jason Melillo, an OB-GYN for OhioHealth claims that COVID is the main culprit for the rise in pregnancy related deaths. Pregnant women are more prone to complications from COVID, with things such as blood clots, stillbirth, and preeclampsia happening more often. This concern has made some couples only deciding on pregnancy until they have both been vaccinated. Dr. Melillo hopes that over time, mortality rates associated with pregnant women will go down.
• 
  02/22/2021

  Bryan Gilbert Oral HIstory, 2020/10/05

  HIndiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis student Shanda Nicole Gladden interviews Bryan Gilbert for the COVID 19 project in hopes of collecting stories about racial justice movements in the context of COVID 19. In this interview they discuss noticeable changes in his neighborhood and work place. The reputation of the Eastside of Indianapolis and personal concerns surrounding COVID. The interviewee spoke about his personal concerns surrounding COVID as well as politics, the importance of voting and rising racial tensions. They spoke about the Black Lives Matter movements, protests and demonstrations and art installations that have followed that. They also spoke about hopes for the future, predictions on how COVID will impact the future. How COVID might change relationships (family, friends, community and society as a whole). The interviewee also touched topics of the LGBT+ community, getting married during a pandemic and the hopes he has for the progression of the community in the future.
• 
  11/02/2020

  Pamela Ross Oral History, 2020/11/02

  This interview was recorded as part of the COVID-19 Oral History Project, a project of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute and The Cultural Ecologies Project.
• 
  09/28/2020

  Justin Sears-Watson Oral History, 2020/09/28

  C19OH
• 
  2020-12-22

  The Virus Is Showing Black People What They Knew All Along

  In this article, author Patrice Peck discusses how black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at 1.7 times the rate of whites. In her words "19,000 Black people would still be alive if not for systemic racism."
• 
  2020-12-22

  How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men

  This is a fascinating and heartbreaking article about the struggles of young black men and health inequity brought to light by COVID-19. The difficulties of systemic racism are costing young black men their lives.
• 
  2021-03-07

  The COVID Racial Data Tracker

  This data tracker showed how Covid-19 disproportionately affected black, Latinx, and indigenous communities.
• 
  2021-04-15

  Daunte Wright's mom says she 'wants 100% accountability' in wake of officer's arrest

  The mother of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man shot dead by a Minnesota police officer at a traffic stop, said she "wants 100% accountability" in the wake of the officer's arrest. "If that even happens, we're still going to bury our son," Wright's mother, Katie Wright, said at a Thursday news conference. "We're still never going to be able to see our baby boy."
• 
  2021-04-17

  The Crisis in a Crisis

  This news article is about how COVID and homelessness have disproportionately affected families and especially black women. These are the two groups who are most likely to be benefitting from the rent moratorium right now. And as a result, they will be the groups most in danger of losing their housing once the moratorium expires. I wanted to include this story because it provides a perspective on homelessness that goes beyond people currently experiencing homelessness. People who are taking advantage of the moratorium are essentially on the verge of homelessness because they have no way to pay back that rent. This story highlights the fragile housing market and the economic situation that COVID placed many families under and the long-term economic consequences that come from this situation.
• 
  2020-10-28

  Indigenous sovereignty and shared solidarity at heart of national art campaign

  Indigenous land stewardship is a relatively new term, forged to compel more people to live in closer relationship with the land. As our world passes through multiple crises of our making, racial justice is the ultimate issue, and goal. As such, across many of the pieces commissioned by Nia Tero is the relationship between Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty. A key message in these posters is the encouragement for people to get out and vote, use their voices to effect change on these critical issues and uplift diversity in leadership. The poster on the back of this newspaper page that you’re currently reading is part of a new series made in collaboration with Nia Tero, IllumiNative, and Amplifier Art, which debuted on Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2020 to elevate the work of Indigenous land stewardship, and to promote support of Indigenous peoples every day. The purpose of this collaboration is to demonstrate how coming together now, in this moment, is critically important for racial justice, climate action and collective liberation.
• 
  2021-03-30

  Racial Equity In Vaccination? Dialysis Centers Can Help With That

  Dialysis patients fall into the high-risk category for COVID-19. Many dialysis patients are also Black or Latino, both have groups that have high COVID-19 rates and low rates of health care access. The Bidan administration has announced plans to have dialysis clinics distribute vaccines to patients, which will help the vaccination rates of the high-risk communities.
• 
  2020-06-01

  High School Students Reflect on JOTPY Archive

  In May 2020, my high school students reflected on the JOTPY archive, noting the submissions that most resonated with them and the least. Some also addressed what they saw as silences in the archive. I put their responses in a document for myself to help guide me as I helped build the JOTPY teaching site. However, a year after beginning to work on the project, I find their responses very insightful, particularly their recognition that the racial prejudice facing the Black and AAPI communities needs to be better highlighted.
• 
  2021-03-23

  "Asian and Black Americans experience racism differently. But we need to unite against hate"

  In this editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Black female staff writer Sandy Banks poses the question "Now the question is: Can we join together and move forward, with white supremacy — not each other — as the enemy?" She reflects on the years of tension in Los Angeles between the Black and Asian American communities. However, she sees a common ground between the two communities in light of the anti-Asian racism and shooting of six Asian women at the hands of a White male, whose crimes were justified by a police spokesperson who was found later to have made anti-Asian social media posts.
• 
  2021-03-21

  "The American Rescue Plan Act – the largest bump in child care funding since World War II."

  The pandemic has created an increasing issue in employment rates, and those with children to care for have continued to struggle. "Black and Brown women have lost the most economically, and women in general have been forced to leave the workforce." These women are forced to sacrifice even more just to have basic child care. Hopefully, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) can help financially support these families and services with "nearly $4Billion in child care funding" headed California's way. These funds are being split into two categories. One is towards the child care industry (including staff salaries, safety practices, and supplies), while the other is towards families and child care providers. The legislators are aiming to provide more equal policies and services to all Californians. It's in no way going to solve everyone's child care problems, but it's a start.
• 
  2020-09-24

  Corona Clothing #2: "Social Distancing Queen"

  This is another COVID-19 inspired shirt from the same Ross in Round Rock TX. It shows an African American woman with an afro wearing a orange, yellow, pink, and purple mask. written on her hair is "Social distancing" and beneath her is written "queen". This is the first example I had seen of Corona themed vocabulary appearing on a clothing item. This shirt states that the woman in the picture, and the wearer of the shirt, are social distancing experts. It also implies by the word "expert" that the person wearing the shirt is very diligent in making sure they follow the proper social distancing requirements because they want to do their best to protect others. The term "queen" according to Lilian Esene is a specific cultural reference to "a collective effort to overwrite the negative connotations [of certain terms] that, historically, have often been associated with" undervaluing and demeaning "black people". "It’s all done to contrast the way that our history and our persons have been portrayed in school curriculums, books and the media" she states in her article on The Gazette website.
• 
  2021-03-20

  If This Ain't the Energy You're Coming At

  Repost from @hownottotravellikeabasicbitch Repost from @hownottotravellikeabasicbitch • If this ain’t the energy you’re coming at: — •Anti-Blackness •Stolen land •Asian hate crime •Deportations •Kids in cages •US imperialism •Islamaphobia •Anti-Semitism — Then I don’t want it. — If you can’t see how all these movements are connected & how every attack on one of us is an attack on us all, then I can’t help you. It’s only unity for me. — Speech by Isabel Kang from @krclaorg, originally posted on @aapiwomenlead.
• 
  2021-03-17

  A Child’s Reflection

  We’ve had my 10 year daughter journal her thoughts during the past year from time to time, and they’ve ranged from mundane (“we made a fort”) to outraged (“Black people are being hurt in this country and not being heard”), so I was curious what her reflection on a year in quarantine would be. Interestingly, her reflection is overall positive. This surprised me a bit, since she is doing online learning through the end of the school year, missed an entire season of competitive gymnastics and has not had a Girl Scout meeting in person in over a year. I’ll admit I’m relieved that her inner thoughts are about Minecraft, playing in our flooded backyard, and continuing to practice gymnastics at home rather than focusing on all that she’s missed. It makes me think that though this year has impacted my kids that to them, their childhood is still pretty normal. Now I just have to break it to her that when she returns to in person instruction next year, she won’t be able to listen to her music during class!
• 
  2020-07-23

  Photos from March for Summer Taylor

  Summer Taylor was 24 years old and lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. They died in the early hours of July 4th after marching and dancing with the nightly Black Femme March for Black Lives Matter. As it had for weeks, the protest entered the freeway and brought traffic to a stop. A driver in a white car sped toward the crowd, running into Summer and another activist, Diaz Love. Summer should be remembered as a hero who put their life on the line to make a difference, to stand with BLM, show solidarity with their community, and to disrupt an unjust system.⁣ ⁣ When Summer's mother, Dalia, was asked about being concerned about children's safety attending protests, she responded, "I knew no matter how much I might want to ask them to stay safe during protests they would just say mom, if you are Black in this country it isn't even safe to be alive, and they were right."⁣ ⁣ Photos from March for Summer Taylor, July 9, 2020
• 
  2021-02-28

  Kimberly Anyadike

  This is an instagram post made in dedication to black history month. This instagram posts just talks briefly about a woman named Kimberly Anyadike. Kimberly was the youngest female black pilot to fly across the United States. She went from California to Virgina and is now speaking across the country about her adventure to inspire others.
• 
  2020-10-07

  COVID-19: A Barometer for Social Justice in New York City

  From the article: A recent study by researchers at Harvard University found that mortality ratios for Black and Latinx communities in the United States were 3.6 and 2.6 times higher, respectively, than the mortality ratio for non-Hispanic Whites,1 a stark gap also reported in New York City (NYC).2 Other similar patterns have been found in NYC over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mortality rates for the Latinx and Black populations are 242 per 100 000 and 226 per 100 000, respectively, both more than twice those for White and Asian American residents.3 Surveys conducted by the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy and others tell an even more alarming story. The gaps in mortality rates are just the tip of an iceberg of long-standing public health–related inequities among people of color in the United States. These discrepancies threaten all US citizens—wealthy and poor alike—and they have been exacerbated by the coronavirus.
• 2021-02-11

  Thoughts on vaccine hesitancy

  It feels like we are entering a new phase of the pandemic, one in which getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible in now the most important -- though not the only -- public health priority. Perhaps the biggest problem in getting people vaccinated is the on-going issue of vaccine hesitancy. One issue is that a significant portion of people in certain non-white communities seem hesitant to get the vaccine. On the one hand, this is understandable given the ugly history of scientific experiments being conducted on people of color. On the other hand, many of these communities have been hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic, and gaining herd immunity via vaccine is really the only viable way out. So I think it's imperative that a great effort is made to get these communities vaccinated. This should start with President Biden -- who won the presidency in large part because of support from the Black community -- and Vice-President Harris -- the first African American vice-president. Because both of them have a significant amount of credibility in this community, they really should prioritize a public campaign to convince people that the vaccine is both safe and absolutely necessary, and also that time is of the essence.
• 
  2020-12-07

  History Repeating Itself

  I wrote this exam for my History 103 class at Niagara University as my final project. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/learning-slavery-legacy-slave-trade-modern-society https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5323/jafriamerhist.97.1-2.0110?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://digpodcast.org/2020/01/26/slave-contraband-refugee-the-end-of-slavery-in-the-united-states/
• 
  2020-11-08

  Independent booksellers write a new chapter during COVID-19

  Small businesses have been hit hard by restrictions during COVID-19. Many are struggling to stay afloat and have come up with creative ways to bring in business. Some have even turned to GoFundMe's to raise money and bring attention to their business, such as these two booksellers.
• 
  2020-09-06

  Just like Mom

  In 2020 I was extremely excited to see VP candidate Kamala Harris on the ballot. It was revitalizing to see that in 2020 while all the protest were occurring, racial disparities were brought to light, and the urging to pass social reform in our major cities. When Kamala went on an interview to discuss her early life this picture came across the screen. My mom had an identical pose and hair style she wore as a teenager. This was the first time it really hit home that I could possibly have someone who looks like my mom and other black mothers that looked like mine. That as an African American we had the opportunity to see someone like us hold such a high office was very impactful and motivated me.
• 
  2020-06-02

  Picking up the pieces

  The coronavirus and the Black Lives Matter movement are two of the most important things in the US right now. This photo represents both of those things and it's important to me because I'm a young black kid who wants to live safely in a community where I feel comfortable. I, just like many others, have learned a lot about the history of injustice in America towards black people.