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On January 20, 2009, America made history by inaugurating its first black President, President Barack Obama. The fact that a person of color achieved the highest office in the country demonstrates that the U.S. has come a long way in its journey towards racial equality since the civil rights era. However, America has yet to complete this journey. In fact, Obama's presidency has … [Read more...] about Getting Out of the Sunken Place: How Get Out Addresses the Newest Form of American Racism

Abstract In North Carolina, the institutionalized nature of the modern and historical disenfranchisement of people of color means that the only way to comprehensively defeat the issue of racial gerrymandering is to perform a complete systemic overhaul. A practice which patently reflects these racial biases is racial gerrymandering which has reinforced a majoritarian … [Read more...] about Mixed-Member Proportional Representation in North Carolina

Introduction In her 1999 play Purapurawhetū, Briar Grace-Smith weaves her audience a story of simultaneously ordinary and epic proportions. Much like the audience, the play’s protagonist Tyler, a Māori teenager, finds himself immersed in a world where the logical and the extraordinary commingle boundlessly. The past and the present, the living and the dead, and the animate … [Read more...] about Aesthetic Decolonization: Magic Realism and Rewriting Postcolonial Trauma in Briar Grace-Smith’s Purapurawhetū

It would cause outrage if a polluting battery manufacturer opened a plant in the affluent neighborhood of Beverly Hills. Yet, this hypothetical was a dark reality faced by Vernon, a lower-income neighborhood only a 30-minute drive away. Indeed, it is an environmental injustice that hazardous waste centers are frequently placed near lower-income, minority communities. This … [Read more...] about Environmental Injustice: The Invisible Dystopia We Have Ignored Till Now

The alarming incarceration rates in the U.S. are far greater than any other country’s.In the next five years, these rates are only projected to increase. In addition, the nefarious origins of these high incarceration rates that emerged during the war on drugs proliferate the racial divide in the U.S. and place minorities at a clear disadvantage. This seems like a justified … [Read more...] about How to Find Hope in a Post-War on Drugs Nation