top of page

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):

https://uspirg.org/

 

Theories & Definitions

 

John Rawls, Theory of Justice:

​​https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Justice-John-Rawls/dp/0674000781

​

Distributed justice:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-distributive/

 

Types of democracy (Khan Academy):

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics/us-gov-foundations/us-gov-types-of-democracy/a/types-of-democracy

 

Four Types of Racism (Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI) & Seattle Office for Civil Rights):

https://www.masslegalservices.org/system/files/library/RSJI-4-Types-of-Racism-August-2021-City-of-Seattle-Office-for-Civil-Rights.pdf

​

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

very.html

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):

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/sectional-tension-1850s/a/compromise-of-1850

 

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):

https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactment

 

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:

https://www.juneteenth.com/

 

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://ta-nehisicoates.com/

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)

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-5-2021?r=mhek&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy 

​

Dr. Jennifer Hochschild - Symbiosis

https://scholar.harvard.edu/jlhochschild/publications/lumpers-and-splitters-individuals-and-structures

 

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

12.6 Team A_American Society and Culture Briefing_ONLY consenting participants.png
Meeting Details

Please join 10 minutes early

Login: 07:50 Eastern U.S. Time

Meeting: 08:00–09:30 Eastern U.S. Time

Time Zone Converter

​

Zoom link: https://meridian-org.zoom.us/j/89842664319?pwd=N29GNVBmaHFuUW9lRXlNdThFVlk1dz09 

Meeting ID: 898 4266 4319 

Passcode: IVLP 

​

Meeting organized by: Meridian International Center

​

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
Ravi Perry.jpeg

Dr. Ravi K. Perry 

he/him/his 

Chair, Political Science Department 

Howard University 

ravi.perry@howard.edu 

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 logo.png

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. 

bottom of page