On August 17, Professor Marcia Chatelain started the hashtag #FergusonSyllabus. Chatelain was moving beyond simply presenting current news articles on what was developing, and instead prompted people to consider a broader body of texts and writings that might relate to Michael Brown and Ferguson.
[Related: Coverage of Mike Brown]
One of Chatelain's earliest tweets in the series was a recommendation to check out Black in Blue: African-American Police Officers and Racism. Next, she recommended taking a look at Black Liberation in the Midwest: The Struggle in St. Louis, Missouri, 1964-1970. And then there was Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, and so forth.
Eventually, others got involved and people have begun sharing and discussing pedagogical resources for addressing issues with anti-black racism, freedom struggles, black people in the Midwest, and a range of other topics. The hashtag is a useful way of considering approaches of educators in a number of different contexts.
In the coming week, I plan to discuss Chatelain's efforts as an example of black studies digital activism or afrofuturist organizing or consciousness building2.0 or something I haven't thought up a term for yet. Mostly, I'm making the folks in our circle aware of some of the useful creative approaches active thinkers in the field are taking.
Related:
Notebook on Mike Brown and Ferguson
No comments:
Post a Comment