Racial Justice | Penn Today

Maps, pandemics, and reckoning with history

Geospatial data has long been an important tool for scientists and scholars, but now, as society grapples with both coronavirus and a history of systemic racism, can maps help chart a path toward a brighter future?

Pregnant person looks out the window with a hand on their stomach.

Pregnant Black and Hispanic women more likely to be exposed to coronavirus

Penn researchers found the rate of virus exposure among pregnant Black and Hispanic women to be five times higher than among white and Asian women.

Gridded image with "flatten the hate" written across the front and the translation in various languages around the border

Anti-discrimination task force aims to ‘flatten the hate’

Launched in April, the new Task Force on Supporting Asian and Asian American students and scholars at Penn is offering events, seminars, and resources for countering and reporting stigma and anti-Asian behavior.

Professor in front of a bookshelf filled with books

Q&A

Cancel culture on the silver screen

Iconic films like the 1939 blockbuster “Gone With the Wind” are being scrutinized in light of the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice. Cinema studies’ Meta Mazaj says framing films within context is more valuable than erasure and disclaimers.

Screenshot of four people in a grid form, top left is Mary Frances Berry, top right is Margo Natalie Crawford, bottom left is Guthrie Ramsey, bottom right is Dagmawi Woubshet

What happens to a dream deferred? 60-Second Lectures on racial injustice

In an effort to amplify the messages of the recent protests against racist violence, Penn Arts & Sciences created a special series: What Happens to a Dream Deferred? 60-Second Lectures on Racial Injustice.

African American person in a crowd at a demonstration confronts a line of state police with riot gear.

Police violence, structural racism, and the science of reform

Co-sponsored by LDI and the Penn Injury Science Center, a virtual seminar on Policing, Race and Health: Prospects for Reform kicks off what will be a continuing series of conversations on the topic over the next year.

Children’s literature as ‘seed work’

Penn GSE’s Ebony Elizabeth Thomas discusses the importance of more diverse books for kids and the challenges that continue to stifle early anti-racist learning. She also shares a curated list of recommended books for youth catered to this particular moment.

Michael Hanchard on continuing injustice and the fight for equal protections

The chair and Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor of Africana Studies, discusses the recent wave of protests following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other unarmed Black women and men across the country.

Jelani Williams holds up a fist of solidarity while seated next to a painting of singer, actor, athlete, and political activist Paul Robeson.

Jelani Williams is seizing the moment to protest systemic racism

Penn basketball guard Jelani Williams has been going to protests, making his voice heard on campus, and promoting messages of “love and respect.”

Historic image of police storming a storefront in 1967 during a riot in Detroit.

Q&A

What the 1968 Kerner Commission can teach us

Criminologist and statistician Richard Berk, who worked on the report as a graduate student, explains the systemic racism and poverty found to underlie violent unrest in the 1960s and where COVID-19 and the economy fit today.

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