

U.S. Department of State
International Visitor Leadership Program
Reflections on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
AMERICAN SOCIETY & CULTURE BRIEFING
Monday, 6 December 2021
Meeting Resources
December 6 - American Society and Culture Briefing
Dr. Ravi Perry’s writings:
https://ravikperry.weebly.com/author.html
Demographics & Data
US Demographic breakdown (U.S. Census):
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219
Discrimination and protected class:
https://www.eeoc.gov/discrimination-type
Policy, Data & Oversight - Diversity & Inclusion (U.S. Government Office of Personnel Management):
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/diversity-and-inclusion/
Race classification (U.S. Census Bureau):
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html
U.S. national interest groups (U.S. Public Interest Research Group):
Theories & Definitions
John Rawls, Theory of Justice:
​​https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Justice-John-Rawls/dp/0674000781
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Distributed justice:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-distributive/
Types of democracy (Khan Academy):
Four Types of Racism (Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI) & Seattle Office for Civil Rights):
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Equality of outcome v. equality of opportunity (Stanford):
https://edeq.stanford.edu/sections/equality-outcome
Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville:
https://www.history.com/topics/france/alexis-de-tocqueville
Events & Timelines
1619 Project - Nikole Hannah Jones
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-sla
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/
The Freedman’s Bureau:
https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau
The ​Great Compromise of 1850 (Khan Academy):
Seneca Falls Convention
https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/seneca-falls-in-1848.htm
Documentary: American Reconstruction (PBS):
https://www.pbs.org/show/reconstruction-america-after-civil-war/
Plessy v. Ferguson (Harvard Law):
https://today.law.harv rad.edu/plessy-v-ferguson-at-125/
Dred Scott Case:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case
Brown v. Board of Education (U.S. Courts):
Fourteenth Amendment:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fourteenth-amendment
Film: The Birth of a Nation (1915)
https://archive.org/details/dw_griffith_birth_of_a_nation
Trail of Tears (National Museum of the American Indian):
​​​​https://americanindian.si.edu/online-resources/trail-of-tears-removal
Juneteenth:
Farm Labor Movement:
https://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=788
Race & Identity
Association for Ethnic Studies:
​​http://ethnicstudies.org/
Myth of Model Minority (Harvard Business Review):
https://hbr.org/2021/06/why-the-model-minority-myth-is-so-harmful
Tribal sovereignty (Native American Caucus):
https://nativeamericancaucus.org/resources/tribal-sovereignty-history-and-the-law/
Critical Race Theory (Columbia):
​​https://news.columbia.edu/news/what-critical-race-theory-and-why-everyone-talking-about-it-0
Black Codes (National Geographic)
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/black-codes-and-jim-crow-laws/
Article: “Two Faces of Power” (Bachrach & Baratz)
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/sipa/U6800/readings-sm/bachrach.pdf
Films, Books & Resources
James Baldwin - author of plays, poems, books, social commentary
“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/introduction-james-baldwin
Book: “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/067974472X
Film: I am Not Your Negro
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/i-am-not-your-negro
Book: “American Dilemma” by Gunnar Myrdal
https://www.amazon.com/American-Dilemma-Problem-Democracy-African-American/dp/1560008563
Book: “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543
Book: “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander
​​https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431
Film: 13th (about incarceration)
https://youtu.be/In2lNmBuz94 (facts about the film)
https://youtu.be/krfcq5pF8u8. (The film itself)
Book: “Justice and the Politics of Difference” by Iris Marion Young
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152622/justice-and-the-politics-of-difference
Black Reconstruction & “Wages to Whiteness” - W.E.B. DuBois:
http://www.webdubois.org/wdb-BlackReconst.html
Commentary on Democracy in Crisis by Heather Cox Richardson (referencing members of Congress with guns in Christmas photos)
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Dr. Jennifer Hochschild - Symbiosis
Gallup Poll on Congress:
​​https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx
American influence on Nazi Germany (Time):
https://time.com/4703586/nazis-america-race-law/
The etymology of the word “picnic”
https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2004/january.htm

Meeting Details
Please join 10 minutes early
Login: 07:50 Eastern U.S. Time
Meeting: 08:00–09:30 Eastern U.S. Time
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Zoom link: https://meridian-org.zoom.us/j/89842664319?pwd=N29GNVBmaHFuUW9lRXlNdThFVlk1dz09
Meeting ID: 898 4266 4319
Passcode: IVLP
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Meeting organized by: Meridian International Center
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Meeting Topic: Dr. Ravi Perry, Chair of the Political Science Department at Howard University, will provide a briefing on the idiosyncrasies of American culture and society. Among the topics that may be covered: the meaning and mythologies of the “American Dream,” what a multi-cultural society looks like in the American context, gun culture, individualism, and the place of religion in U.S. society.
Meet Your Speaker

Dr. Ravi K. Perry
he/him/his
Chair, Political Science Department
Howard University
Dr. Ravi K. Perry joined the Department of Political Science at Howard University in August 2019 as Chair and Professor. Previously, he was Chair of the Department of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University and was a member of the faculty at Mississippi State University and Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Dr. Perry holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown University, each in political science. An expert on Black politics, minority representation, urban politics, American public policy, and LGBT candidates of color, Dr. Perry is the editor of 21st Century Urban Race Politics: Representing Minorities as Universal Interests, a book that discusses the efforts of African American, Latino, and Asian mayors to represent the interests of minorities in historically White cities in the United States. Currently, he is finishing a book that introduces the lives and campaigns of Black and openly lesbian and gay elected officials in the United States. Dr. Perry is Immediate Past President of the Association for Ethnic Studies and a member of the Executive Council for the Urban Politics Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. He is a former member of the Executive Council for the Sexuality and Politics Organized Section of the American Political Science Association and the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Previously, Dr. Perry served as a member of the Board of Directors and Affiliate Equity Officer for the ACLU of Mississippi and was also one of the first openly gay branch presidents of color in the history of the NAACP in Worcester, Massachusetts. Dr. Perry is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including being recognized as one of the Andrew Goodman Foundation’s 50 “Hero Citizens;” Out Magazine’s “Hidden 105,” and The Advocate’s “193 Reasons to Have Pride,” and “40 under 40.”
About the Organization

Howard University is a private university founded in 1867 by an Act of the United States’ Congress during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War. While it embraces persons of all colors, religions and creeds, its historical mission was the education of newly emancipated slaves and their descendants. Howard offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional curricula in 17 schools and colleges; its current enrollment is 12,000 full-time students. The University is ranked a level one research institution by the Carnegie Foundation, one of only 88 such institutions in the United States designated at this level. Among Howard's distinguished alumni are the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Nobel Laureate novelist Toni Morrison.