Introduction to African American Studies: Baltimore Riots
AAS 100 Fall 2015
Math Science Center N306
Emory University Atlanta, GA
Clearly both in the instance of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, these are manifestation of Broken Windows policing. And what they made clear is that we are the broken windows. We constitute this threat to already existing normative order. The police have this regulatory function that’s designed to destroy broken windows, even in a weird way to fix them by destroying them…In the history of English poetry the window has often been conceived of as a figure for the imagination, as a kind of lens through which we see, through which we envision. To fix a broken window is to fix another way of imagining the world. To literally fix it, to destroy it, to regulate it, to exclude it, to incarcerate it, but also at the same time to incorporate it, to capitalize upon it, to exploit it, to accumulate it…Emancipation produced two problems or extended a problem, deepened it. The enslaved persons were protected property and at the same time they constituted a threat in their conscious activity every minute of the day to the very idea of property. In the aftermath of emancipation when that property was no longer protected a new set of interventions and regulations had to emerge, again under the rubric of policing. That’s Lynch Law. Broken Windows is an extension of that.
–Fred Moten Oakland, CA December 2014
Professor Lawrence Jackson Tues & Thurs 2:30-3:45pm
Office Hours: Weds 10am-Noon and by appointment lpjacks [at] emory [dot] edu
Callaway N 319A 404-727-7982
Teaching Assistant: Jermaine Pearson 708-228-9989 jermaine [dot] pearson [at] emory [dot] edu
Introduction to African American Studies (AAS 100), the gateway course to the major, will take as its point of departure the unrest (Uprising? Riot? Civil Disobedience?) in Baltimore City in April and May 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray. Using the exceptionally rich heuristic device of the African American Studies discipline, an investigative tool that places at its center Africa, black people, and the black experience in the Western hemisphere, with unprecedented scope we will conduct an examination of a contemporary explosion in an American city. Drawing from the methods and resources of history, legal theory, sociology, political science, journalism, creative writing and digital media, the course gives a broad overview to the topics and debates of disciplinary import. However, our course departs significantly from the “container” model of student as passive recipient of research. Students will participate fully as researchers and analysts in four broad areas as they investigate the causes and solutions to the widespread civil unrest: education, healthcare, residential segregation and mass incarceration.
The course also asks the question: What is the modern intellectual role played by American students at a premier research institution? What is the relationship between academic research and active social movements, particularly one that has exploded into mass violence and civil unrest? “Introduction to African American Studies, Baltimore Riots” begins with a deep investigation of the black experience that sets the ground floor of much of contemporary black life, including enslavement, racial segregation, urban migration, deindustrialization, urban spatial restructuring, political representation, healthcare disparity, mass incarceration, urban violence, and grass roots political organization. Students will then develop projects in conjunction with groups active in reforming “inner city” education, housing, healthcare and incarceration patterns in West and East Baltimore.
Module One is the traditional classroom experience, with an emphasis on team teaching and collaborative presentations. Module Two is a series of collective forums with peers at Morehouse College at the A3C Hip Hop Festival in October and the Hammonds House Museum in November. Module Three is active researching and writing with the grassroots organizations in Baltimore. Module Four is an active learning component and critical assessment during a 72 hour student visit to Baltimore in December that includes meetings with elected officials, city bureau commissioners, and community activists.
Required books & materials:
Patricia Fernandez-Kelly Hero’s Fight: African Americans in West Baltimore and the Shadow of the State
Naomi Klein “Shock Doctrine”; Stephanie Black “Life and Debt”
Ta Nehesi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” Atlantic May 2014
Matt Taibbi, “Why Baltimore Blew Up,” Rolling Stone 26 May 2015
Required materials for working groups
Mass Incarceration
Khalil Gibran Muhammad The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Douglas A. Blackmon Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
Activist Group
Leaders for a Beautiful Struggle Dayvon Love
Health Care
Samuel Kelton Roberts Jr. Infectious Fear Politics, Disease, and the Health Effects of Segregation
Rebecca Skloot The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Activist Group
Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform Drs. Edjah Nduom & Nzinga Harris
Housing
Antero Pietila Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City
Douglass Massey&Nancy A. Denton American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
Activist Group
Stoke Cannady C [dot] stokey10 [at] gmail [dot] com
Jessica Lewis Right to Housing Alliance jessica [at] rthabaltimore [dot] org
Education
Marion Orr Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore, 1986-1999
Jonathan Kozol The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
Activist Group
Charles Dugger
Ms. Nikkia Rowe, Principal Renaissance Academy High School
Evaluation:
Attendance/Participation: 10% You are allowed one unexcused absence.
Book Review: (2) 20% You will write a two page, 600 word book review, one on either the film “Shock Doctrine” or “Life and Debt” and the other on the book Heroes Fight. The reviews will include one paragraph toward the beginning succinctly summarizing and explaining the main argument, and another towards the end expressing your opinion on the overall value of the work. In the middle you will provide textual evidence that supports your conclusion.
Group Presentation: 25% Each student will participate in a research group in one of the four topic areas: education, housing, healthcare, or mass incarceration. The groups will make two scholarly presentations to the class based on their reading of the two works for each group on the syllabus. For their individual weeks, the groups will also provide a reading list to their classmates of individual chapters or outside articles and web pages totaling not more than 100 pages. The groups will post 1000-1200 word reviews of the books they presented on the classroom webpage “Baltimore Up Rising.”
Individual Journal Reviews: 10% Every student has to write a two-page journal entry on the readings circulated by the other three groups, for a total of six pages. The journal entries are reflections on the reading, important quotes that capture major points of the argument, and questions. Due November 10.
Group Reports: 35% Each group will submit a joint written report that: (A) chronicles their work with Baltimore activist groups, including all of the written work that they collected, shared, and submitted; and (B) includes the annotated bibliography (includes scholarly works, websites, wikis, video blog and archives) shared with the group. All of the materials should be loaded up on the “Baltimore Up Rising” website.
August
27 Introduction
Module I.
September
- Coates, “The Case for Reparations”; Taibbi, “Why Baltimore Blew Up”
3 Erica Bruchko, AAS librarian; Wilderson, “Introduction” & “The Ruse of Analogy” Red, White and Black; Ira Berlin Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves; Patterson, “The Constituent Elements of Slavery”
8 Naomi Klein, “Shock Doctrine”
10 Stephanie Black, “Life and Debt”; Group Assignments
11 Paper Due
15 Patricia Fernandez-Kelly Hero’s Fight: African Americans in West Baltimore and the Shadow of the State pp.1-113
17 Patricia Fernandez-Kelly Hero’s Fight: African Americans in West Baltimore and the Shadow of the State pp.113-212
22 Patricia Fernandez-Kelly Hero’s Fight: African Americans in West Baltimore and the Shadow of the State pp.213-314
24 Preparation Day for Module II; Patricia Fernandez-Kelly Hero’s Fight: African Americans in West Baltimore and the Shadow of the State pp.314-end
25 Paper Due ASALAH Conference
Module II.
29 Dr. Nzinga Harrison, Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform; Jermaine Pearson, Preparation Day for Module II
October
1 Mass Incarceration (Malcolm X “Message to the Grass Roots”, Manning Marable
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America Ch. 4, 8; Loic Waqcuant “From
Slavery to Mass Incarceration”)
6 Nzinga Harrison
8 Special guest David Miller Dare to Be King founder
8 A3C Hip Hop Conference Panel 5pm-6pm Loudermilk Conference Center
40 Courtland St Atlanta GA 30303
13 Fall Break
15 Classroom Group Workday: presentations and bibliographies
20 Education Presentation Marion Orr Black Social Kozol, The Shame of the Nation
22 Health Care Presentation Roberts Jr. Infectious Fear Politics, Disease, and the
Health Effects of Segregation; Skloot The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
27 Special guest Jessica Lewis Right to Housing Alliance, Baltimore
29 Residential Segregation Presentation Pietila Not in My Neighborhood;
Massey& Denton American Apartheid
November
3 Special guest Professor Brittney Cooper, Rutgers University
5 Mass Incarceration Presentation Muhammad The Condemnation of Blackness;
Alexander The New Jim Crow; Blackmon Slavery by Another Name
7 Hammonds House Library Conference with Morehouse College 10am-1pm Morris Gardner
Module III.
10 Classroom Group Workday; Collective Contact with Advocacy Groups Journals Due.
12 Presentation of Proposed Deliverables Health Care
Presentation of Proposed Deliverables Residential Segregation
17 Dayvon Love co-founder Leaders for a Beautiful Struggle
Classroom Group Workday; Collective Contact with Advocacy Groups
19 Presentation of Proposed Deliverables Education
Presentation of Proposed Deliverables Mass Incarceration
24 Group consultations
26 Thanksgiving
December
1 Final Projects
Module IV.
3 Baltimore Trip Departing Midnite Thursday AM return Sunday Dec.6 11pm
4 Renaissance Academy High School, 1301 McCulloh Street; Enoch Pratt Public Library Pennsylvania Avenue Branch Group Presentation 10a-1pm, Baltimore, MD
15 Final Reports due.