In November 2020, Professor Joseph Richardson shared a lecture titled “Life After the Gunshot: A Digital Storytelling Project.” This project chronicles the lives of 10 black men who were victims of gun violence and treated at UMDs Prince George’s hospital center, where they participated in the Capital Region Violence Intervention Project.

In his 2014 Annual Lecture, “The Problem of Racism in “Post-Racial” America,” Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva discusses how discourse around race and racism had changed in the preceding years. Looking back at this lecture from our current vantage point, given the Trump presidency and his continued influence over the country, we can see new perspectives and fallacies in the idea that racism is an issue that exists only in the past.

We are so excited to be taking a look back at some of our past annual lectures as we gear up for the Chair’s 30th anniversary.

We are starting this series with the address from 2018, “Deconstructing Race / Reconstructing Difference,” delivered by Dr. Jabari Mahiri. He centered his talk on ways to move and change so future generations won’t have to face the same inequities brought about by race. His argument centers around the social construction and performance of race. Despite the lack of scientific proof, race is a social fact, and the implications of the social perceptions of race are very real.

The next chapter by Dr. Odis Johnson Jr. is titled “Why did the Convergence of the Achievement Gap Stop? Macroeconomic Change, Policy, and Racial Avoidance.” It discusses the seemingly contradictory phenomena of the brief period in the 1970s and 80s of reduced educational inequality and increased spatial disequilibrium. He argues that we must look beyond the most popular explanation, which lies solely in economic change. While macroeconomic transformation did play a significant role in shaping education during this period, the analysis must include desegregation measures and reactions by the population to and against these policies.

Beginning Part II, the section titled “Systemic Racism and Education Inequality,” author Prudence L. Carter discusses the many challenges in addressing educational inequality. Her chapter called “Systemic Racism in Education Requires Multidimensional Solutions” analyses the multitude of sources of the “achievement gap” as well as offering a global approach to considering solutions. 

Students of color across the country do not have the same access to the same opportunities, resources, or securities. Interventions, therefore, cannot exist in only one area of their lives. Steps towards equity need to be taken in their school and extra-school environments, addressing everything from housing, community, wages, and healthcare, to underfunded schools, disproportionate suspensions and expulsions, and student and teacher discrimination. 

“Make America White Again: The Racial Reasoning of American Nationalism” by Matthew W. Hughey and Michael L. Rosino explores why white people are so enamored with Trump and his racial reasoning. In 2016 he received 58 percent of the white vote. Despite this, there are many who deny the relationship between Trump’s election and racially based backlash against the Obama presidency.

Dr. Aldon Morris highlights W.E.B. Du Bois’s often overlooked contributions to the foundations of scientific sociology in his chapter “W.E.B. Du Bois at the Center: From Science, Civil Rights Movement, to Black Lives Matter.” He argues that it was Du Bois who founded the first school of American Scientific Sociology at Atlanta University. Morris demonstrates the ways that denying Du Bois’s work and influence in favor of a white narrative has impoverished the practice and teaching of sociology from the beginning. 

The next chapter in the edited volume is titled “The Problem of Racism in “Post-Racial” America” and is written by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Liann Yamashita. They address the current systemic nature of racism and how it differs both from past forms of racism and from white people’s current false perceptions of racism. 

Section I: Systemic Racism and Sociological Theory begins with a chapter by Hoda Mahmoudi titled “The Past in the Present: Slavery’s Long Shadow.” It has been over 150 years since slavery was outlawed in the United States, yet we still deal with racism as a society. Discrimination against non-white populations is extremely prevalent, yet each group faces prejudice that takes on nuanced differences and forms. The discrimination against African American people in America is unique, and a major factor is the long history of race-based chattel slavery and its deep-rooted integration into the foundational documents, ideals, and structure of this country.