Dear SEEN Community,
We are quickly approaching the first panel in our “Critical Conversations” series, this one on “Demystifying Critical Race Theory.” If you haven’t yet signed up to attend, please register to join us on Zoom next Tuesday, October 5th at 7 p.m. We would also appreciate you sharing information about this event with your family and friends!
Dr. Renata Williams (SSCSD ’98) will moderate a discussion with Dr. Winston Grady-Willis (Skidmore College), Dr. Anthony Paul Farley (Albany Law School), and Dr. A. Tina Wagle (Empire State College) about critical race theory – what it is, what it isn’t, and how it can be used to understand law, education, and more. This series is presented by a community collaboration between Saratoga Educational Equity Network (SEEN), MLK Saratoga, Skidmore’s Black Studies Program, and SUNY Empire’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
As a reminder, we are committed to paying people for sharing their time, expertise, education, and experience. To make a contribution to support this work, please visit SEEN on GiveButter.
Calendar
- Women’s March. The Saratoga Women’s March is scheduled for tomorrow, October 2 at noon in Congress Park. The Albany Women’s March will take place at West Capital Park, starting tomorrow at 1 p.m.
- American Politics and Community Today: Ellison. Our reading, discussion, and art-making group in collaboration with C.R.E.A.T.E. Community Studios will meet again on Monday, October 11, at 5 p.m. at the C.R.E.A.T.E. Saratoga Studio (70 Beekman). We’ll be discussing issues raised by “Some Questions and Some Answers,” and “The Shadow and the Act,” pages 291-309 in the Ellison text. Copies are still available at the Saratoga Springs Public Library and Northshire Bookstore, but the copies from the Little Free Libraries have (so far) all been claimed.
- Board of Education. The next Board of Education meeting will take place on Tuesday, October 12 at 7 p.m. at Division Street Elementary.
- Black Lives Matter. Attendance is an action. Please consider attending public court hearings as an expression of support for local activists. Lexis Figuereo will be before the City Court on Tuesday, October 5 at 9 a.m. Activist Molly Dunn’s next hearing before the Court will take place on Tuesday, October 12 at 10 a.m.
Resources
- Reclaim Pride Seeking Vendors. Capital District Reclaim Pride is organizing a Halloween art event, Resurrect Pride, to take place at Townsend Park in Albany on Saturday, October 23 (rain date on the 24th). They have space for 20+ vendors on site, and are soliciting local artists and creators to table. The deadline is very soon -tomorrow. If you would like to table and Capital Pride has been too expensive or otherwise inaccessible, this is the place for you. Apply by October 2 on Reclaim Pride.
- Code Switch. NPR’s Code Switch addressed the current debate around critical race theory for its 300th episode, “The Folk Devil Made Me Do It,” on September 1, 2021. Framing it within the history of moral panics, the podcasters compare the current panic around critical race theory to other panics with which we are all already familiar – video games and crime, textbooks and the Red Scare, sex education, and other curricular debates. Equally important in these histories of moral panics centered around children, is the discussion of what worked to reverse them and what didn’t, because the panics are fueled by emotion more than discourse itself. In an interesting twist, there’s also information about school integration and how CRT poked at celebratory histories of integration. Does that mean that CRT champions segregation? Absolutely not, that’s a reductionist account. Dig in for the listen.
- Kimberlé Crenshaw on Critical Race Theory (ACLU). As a leading scholar and key figure behind the development of critical race theory, first within legal scholarship and then more broadly, Crenshaw is an important voice. We’ve shared a primer of her work on intersectionality previously. In this piece put out by the ACLU’s At Liberty, Crenshaw discusses the reality of critical race theory, and why it is so important to teach the truth about race.
~ The SEEN Team
SEEN 