Reparations: The Fight of Our Times
Ta-Nehisi Coates and other leading experts will explore the topic in a three-part webinar series open to the university community and the public.
Reparations are at the forefront of public debate from California to Washington, D.C., and the San Diego State University community and the general public have the opportunity to explore the issue with the nation’s top reparations scholars and thinkers in a free, three-part webinar series titled Generation Reparations?
Award-winning author and professor Ta-Nehisi Coates, who resurrected the national reparations discussion with his 2014 article, “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic, will participate on Wednesday, April 7. He will be in conversation with Nola Butler-Byrd, associate professor in the SDSU College of Education and director of the Community-Based Block Multicultural Counseling and Social Justice Education Program.
Coates is a best-selling writer who won the National Book award for “Between the World and Me;” he also received a MacArthur Fellowship and is a screenwriter, executive producer and professor. He is both the current author of Marvel’s “Captain America” comic and a distinguished writer in residence at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
In discussing SDSU’s virtual webinar series, Coates said of reparations: “I think it’s the right fight; I think it’s the fight of our times.”
Speaking April 14 on “The Social, Emotional and Psychic Cost of Reparations” will be Frank B. Wilderson III, chair of African American Studies at University of California Irvine and an award-winning writer whose books include "Afropessimism."
Cheryl Grills, who researches community psychology, anti-Black racism within systems and its impact on public policy, will speak during the April 21 webinar “Moving Forward: Reparations and the Intersection of Action and Healing.” She is professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University and director of its Psychology Applied Research Center.
Among other participants in the three webinars are William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, co-authors of "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century," California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, and university and local community leaders.
To register for one or more sessions and for a full schedule of speakers and panels, visit sacd.sdsu.edu/reparations.
"Generation Reparations?" is sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs and Campus Diversity in support of the university’s strategic plan goal to be a global leader in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in research, teaching, professional development, student experiences and community engagement.
