Thinking Differently About Black History

What started as a presentation on the history of racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd has evolved into an Enlight Media project to help augment DEI training by establishing Black history as a connective thread between culture, policy and behavior. Typically, Black History Month is a time to celebrate the accomplishments of Black Americans like George Washington Carver, Dr. Charles Drew, and Harriet Tubman in an effort o shatter the stereotypes adopted by people of all races that set limits on what Black children can accomplish.

But Black history can teach us other lessons. It is important to understand that systemic racism persists, baked into American institutions, morphing and adapting to coexist with contemporary sensibilities. Redlining, gerrymandering, cash bond, and mass incarceration are all tools to disadvantage and discriminate against people of color, deeply embedded in our most enduring institutions.

We envision the module below examining the origins and persistence of mass incarceration as a tool to supplement conventional DEI training. We are currently in pre production on additional modules covering slavery and reconstruction, Jim Crow and lynching, and housing discrimination and education. Our hope is that these kinds of materials help dispel the sense that the truly harmful racism happened long ago, and that what we are seeing now is at worst, the residual effects of an era long gone. If we can disabuse ourselves our exaggerated sense of progress, then there is a much shorter leap to understand the work that lies ahead. I'd love to hear your feedback as to the value of this kind of work to DEI curricula.

DEI Review Draft -The Paradox of Progress