“Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights” in Women, Race and Class, 1981

“Race and Criminalization; Black Americans and the Punishment Industry” in The House that Race Built, ed. Wahneema Lubiano, 1997

“Political Prisoners, Prisons and Black Liberation”, originally from If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, ed. Angela Davis & Betty Aptheker, 1971

“Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist” in Women, Race and Class, 1981

“I Used to be Your Sweet Mama: Ideology, Sexuality and Domesticity” in Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, 1999

“From the Prison of Slavery to the Slavery of Prison: Frederick Douglass and the Convict Lease System” in The Angela Y. Davis Reader, ed. Joy James, 1998

Angela Davis: An Autobiography, 1974 [reprinted in 1988]

“Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition” in The Angela Y. Davis Reader, ed. Joy James, 1998

“Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves” in The Massachusetts Review , 1972

“Globalism and the Prison-Industrial Complex: An Interview with Angela Davis”, conducted by Avery F. Gordon, 1999

“Class and Race in the Early Women’s Rights Campaign” in Women, Race and Class, 1981

Are Prisons Obsolete, 2003

FREE EBOOK DOWNLOAD FROM VERSO BOOKS

In light of current events Verso have provided the download of the 2017 ‘The End of Policing’ by Alex S. Vitale as a free download for all. 

From Verso: 

This book attempts to spark public discussion by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control. It shows how the expansion of police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice—even public safety. Drawing on groundbreaking research from across the world, and covering virtually every area in the increasingly broad range of police work, Alex Vitale demonstrates how law enforcement has come to exacerbate the very problems it is supposed to solve.

Here’s the Standing Rock Syllabus: 

https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/

Allyship and Solidarity Guidelines of Unsettling America:

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/allyship/

Towards Decolonization and Settler Responsibility:

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/towards-decolonization-and-settler-responsibility-reflections-on-a-decade-of-indigenous-solidarity-organizing/

Sample Syllabi of the DEcolonization Resource Collection:

https://nationalhistorycenter.org/decolonization-resource-collection-sample-syllabi/

Further Readings:

https://decolonization.wordpress.com/decolonization-readings/

Katherine McKittrick: Yes. I wonder a lot about why the classroom should be safe. It isn’t safe. I am not sure what safe learning looks like because the kinds of questions that need to be (and are) asked, across a range of disciplines and interdisciplines, necessarily attend to violence and sadness and the struggle for life. How could teaching narratives of sadness ever, under any circumstances, be safe?! And doubled onto this: which black or other marginalised faculty is safe in the academy, ever? Who are these safe people? Where are they? But there is also, on top of this all, an underlying discourse, one that emerges out of feminism and other “identity” discourses, that assumes that the classroom should be safe. This kind of “safe space” thinking sometimes includes statements on course outlines about respect for diversity and how the class (faculty? students?) will not tolerate inappropriate behaviour: racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism. This kind of hate-prevention is a fantasy to me. It is a fantasy that replicates, rather than undoes, systems of injustice because it assumes, first, that teaching about anti-colonialism or sexism or homophobia can be safe (which is an injustice to those who have lived and live injustice!), second, that learning about anti-colonialism or sexism or homophobia is safe, easy, comfortable, and, third, that silencing and/or removing ‘bad’ or ‘intolerant’ students dismantles systems of injustice. Privileged students leave these safe spaces with transparently knowable oppressed identities safely tucked in their back pockets and a lesson on how to be aggressively and benevolently silent. The only people harmed in this process are students of colour, faculty of colour, and those who are the victims of potential yet unspoken intolerance. I call this a white fantasy because, at least for me, only someone with racial privilege would assume that the classroom could be a site of safety! This kind of privileged person sees the classroom as, a priori, safe, and a space that has been tainted by dangerous subject matters (race) and unruly (intolerant) students. But the classroom is, as i see it, a colonial site that was, and always has been engendered by and through violent exclusion!…

I am not suggesting that the classroom be a location that welcomes violence and hatefulness and racism; I am suggesting that learning and teaching and classrooms are, already, sites of pain. We cannot protect or save ourselves or our students by demanding silence or shaming ignorance or ‘warning’ the class that difficult knowledge is around the corner … All of this, too, also recalls the long history of silencing – subalterns not speaking and all of that. Why is silencing, now, something that protects or enables safety. Who does silence protect and who does silence make safe and who does silence erase? Who has the privilege to demand tolerance? In my teaching, although this is a day-to-day skirmish because the site where we begin to teach is already white supremacist, I try very hard to create classroom conversations that work out how knowledge is linked to an ongoing struggle to end violence and that, while racist or homophobic practices are certainly not encouraged or welcome, when they do emerge (because they always do!) we need to situate these practices within the wider context of colonialism and anti-blackness. This is a pedagogy wherein the brutalities of racial violence are not descriptively rehearsed, but always already demand practical activities of resistance, encounter, and anti-colonial thinking.

Heyo, so school is fast approaching, and seeing as Tumblr is made up of a lot of younger users who will soon be shipping off to college or university soon, I thought I would take it upon myself to help spread my knowledge of essay-writing. Essay-writing is my thing. I love it. I live for it. It’s how I make up for my shitty test marks, and still get by with an 85 average+ in University classes. I’m a historian by trade, so perhaps this information will seem a bit off from what you’re used to, but hopefully, It’ll help you out. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask.

1. Consider your question and find your thesis.

      I know, I know. People always say, no! Never start with your thesis/intro paragraph! Go to the body!! Well i’m here to say forget everything you’ve been told. Forget that, forget the stupid hamburger shit they teach you, forget it all and start reading. 

I ALWAYS start with my thesis. Why? Because you cannot make good paragraphs without knowing what you’re researching. You need direction, and a thesis is your map.

So, the question we’ll use shall be: What is one way in which the Union won the American Civil War?

Now remember, your thesis is your map. It shows you where to go, what to look for. The thesis is the heart and soul of all your work. You want a good, solid thesis. What does that include, you ask?

An idea

A reason for said idea

Evidence to support said reason, and thus validate the        idea.

So, lets do an example. Let’s say I’m writing on the use of media during the American Civil War. I like photography, and wrote a paper on this in my second year, but im gonna be doing this example freehand(idk where I put that essay lol) so lets work with how I got an A+ on that paper. This will be my idea:

                “Photography during the American Civil War influenced the war’s outcome in the Norths favour.”

This is VERY vague. This is an example of a thesis in bloom! Let’s take it further. Look at the above. What questions would you have from this thesis?

-Who was taking photos at that time?

-Why did it influence the outcome?

-How did it influence the outcome?

-Who consumed photography as a media at that time?

This is where you STOP, and start the next step.

2. Research

                Start your basic research with your idea, and the above questions in mind. Look at libraries, ask your professor or TA or librarian, or just do some basic google searches to get to know the subject(but for the love of god if you include a google link in your citation I will personally hunt you down and castrate you.)

I like to start with the basics of any inquiry: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, HOW. Who was taking photos? Where were they displayed that caused influence? ect…These, in relation to your beginner thesis, will help guide you in what form your thesis will take.

Once you’ve finished that, and have a general feel for the time period, go back to your thesis.

3. THESIS 2.0

Go back to your original question: What is one way in which the Union won the American Civil War? Now look at your thesis again. It’s too vague, isn’t it?

As you can see, our original thesis was too vague to be a real thesis. So, we NARROW IT DOWN using our WWWWWH progress we focused on during early research!

                “Photography during the American Civil war influenced the war’s outcome by providing a visual for ordinary citizens about the horrors of war, and thus helping to increase donations and awareness to the cause.”

Great! But once again, too vague! Questions that may arise include:

Who was taking the photos

Evidence for donations?

Evidence for social awareness?

So, we NARROW IT DOWN again. I’m going to use Andrew Gardner’s photography during the Civil war, as he was one of the most famous and influential at the time.

                “Andrew Gardner’s photography during the American Civil war influenced the war’s outcome by providing a visual for ordinary citizens about the horrors of war, and thus helping to increase donations and enlistment in the Union through awareness to the cause…”

The above then gives us the following(why and how are sometimes grouped together):

Who: Andrew Gardner

What: Photography helped the north win the war.

Where: Union-aka northern states

When: American Civil War

Why/How: Because Andrew Gardner’s photography raised social awareness through this new and budding medium

Use this sort of outline to guide you in the next step!

4. Now that we have a thesis, you need to do some more research and evidence gathering.

The way I like to do this is to go check out a few books from the library(look for text books in particular), and leaf through the index for matching terms. Our matching terms would be:

                Photography, civil war, Andrew Gardner, media

From there, you read over the pages, and see if any of the info relates to your subjects. Copy down quotes, page numbers, book title, author, publishing date and publisher. You need these for your bibliography. Pick and choose relevant information. The filter for relevant information relies entirely on your thesis, because it decides what you need to be looking for—this is why I hate when people tell me to start writing paragraphs before I write a thesis! It’s simply impossible and counter productive, and will cost you hours in revision.

So, gather your information from the library, and cross-reference with peer-reviewed articles and data. For our thesis, we would need data on enlistment numbers in an area after a date of Andrew Gardner’s photography exhibit showcases. No matter what type of essay you’re writing, you can always back up your evidence with data, and it won’t hurt one bit. Don’t be afraid of the numbers, kids!

So, if we were to go back to our thesis, we could now expand on it like this:

             “Andrew Gardner’s photography during the American Civil war influenced the war’s outcome by providing a visual for ordinary citizens about the horrors of war, and thus helping to increase donations and enlistment in the Union through awareness to the cause. An increase in  donations and enlistment in relation to exposure to Gardners work is seen in data/evidence point A, as well as in data/evidence point B, which will be fully outlined in the points below.”

This gives you an example of how to lead from a thesis, to your opening paragraph.

5. Data and Evidence Justifications–Paragraph making

This is the section where you can branch your essay into your data and evidence points you gathered in steps 2 and 4. You can have as many paragraphs as you like, just make sure your evidence and data is strong and supported. I personally like to work with my thesis copied and pasted onto the top of every page I write on. This keeps you on track, with your clear goal in mind, and will help you from straying. I will give you an example of how a paragraph might sound.

                Andrew Gardner’s photography during the American Civil War became heavily influential upon the American population at the time, particularly the north, wherein which his work was showcased. The influence of Gardner’s photographic works is seen in the _____, which shows us that without the influence of Gardner’s media influence, war efforts and awareness may not have been as successful as they had been.

This is an alright opener for you to work with. The ___ is where you could put in your data point or evidence piece. The point of the paragraph is to show your support for your thesis by confirming it with evidence.

Your paragraphs should take this form:

Present, Confirm, Conclude, Lead.

You present your evidence, confirm its relation to the thesis and confirm the validity of the thesis, conclude by brief revision of evidence, and then lead into your next paragraph. 

6. Conclusion

        Your conclusionary paragraph should be a look-over of the above paragraphs. Restate your thesis, present a summarized version of your paragraphs(one or two sentences only), and perhaps take the time to look at your own views on the subject. An example might look like this:

        “Taking a moment to step away from the above mentioned evidence, I believe it to be scholarly acceptable and even necessary to state my own views on the subject presented. In drawing conclusions, I felt that the above information was correct in that it presented a reality of the time period, in which photography was becoming a medium to be embraced by popular society. People were not only astounded by Gardner’s photographs on a social level, but also a technical level. The astonishment people held at seeing the war-torn battle fields spurred them into action, and even today can still present feelings of dread, fear and loss when looking at his photos…blah blah blah”

Why is it scholarly acceptable and perhaps necessary to state your views? Oftentimes, it is to reassure the reader of your own personal bias’, which exist whether you like them or not, to the subject at hand. Having a small tidbit on your own thoughts about your research ect, breaking away from the third-person droning of an essay can be refreshing and welcoming for a prof at the end of his stack of essay reading. 

7. In summary

Thesis

WWWWWH

NARROW IT DOWN

Data and Evidence

Present, Confirm, Conclude, Lead

Self opinions/Conclude

Trans Reads is an ambitious project created by and for transgender people to openly access writing related to our community. Education should be free and writing shouldn’t be behind a paywall…

… Trans Reads was formed through the work, consulting, and creativity of an anonymous group of trans people of various genders and races around the U.S. involved in organizing, academia, and trans liberation efforts. Trans Reads was launched in 2019 following increasing violence against trans people alongside the lack of accessible resources for trans people to learn about our own community….

… Trans people on average have less disposable income, time to read and purchase literature, and knowledge of the available texts. This shows up in our lives through not knowing our own history…

and from their ethics section:

How to Conduct a Close Read by academiix

I know I haven’t posted here in a while, but I’m working on something really cool that’ll hopefully go live on my website this summer. For now, here’s a taste of my new content!

This is my new Habit Builder.

If you want to write a novel, your first task is turning writing into a habit. You can’t count on “the Muse” to appear once a day, or week, or even month, so you need to turn writing into something you do consistently, whether you feel inspired or not. Like brushing your teeth. The best way to do this is to make your writing routine comfortably fit into your schedule. Don’t tell yourself you’ll write every day at 6 A.M. if you hate waking up early, or write at home when you know you always get distracted there.

On the first page, I’ve listed a few things to consider when building your writing habit. Put a check next to what works for you or  cross out what doesn’t. Experiment. Test out different options. Figure out what you can manage most consistently, and turn that into a definable routine.

The second page is full of tips and tricks, such as: 

If researching and revising keep distracting you from moving forward in your story,  keep a notebook next to you while writing, and track your research/revision ideas there. Continue with your writing and return to the bits that don’t move the story forward in a later writing session, after you’re finished with a chapter or even after you’ve completed an entire draft.

If you’re writing at home, try to designate one particular place your “writing space.” It can be a desk in an office, or a specific chair at the kitchen table, but try not to do anything other than writing there. Sitting at your writing-only place will tell your brain “it’s writing time” as opposed to writing on the sofa, which might also tell your brain “maybe it’s Netflix time???”

Try ending your writing session in a place where you know exactly what you’ll say next. Stop in the middle of a joke or a sentence, or right before that scene you’ve been dying to finally get to. A first task that is easy to complete will make picking up the computer again for your next session less daunting. 

(different reasons that i might not be able to focus, how to tell them apart, and [maybe] how to solve them. work in progress.)

low energy - feeling tired and sleepy - yawning a lot  - working feels like it takes way too much energy; I’d rather just sleep - feels effortful even to think - seek low-mental-effort activities like tumblr solutions: stimulants (incl. caffeine), listening to energetic music, getting up and going for a 20+ minute walk

lack of self-monitoring - feel like i’m running on autopilot - can’t easily recall the last 3 things I did - get up and walk around a lot; get lost in daydreams and thoughts - difficulty verbalizing thoughts - can respond to prompts, but hard to generate new plans/thoughts - often goes along with low energy solutions: not getting up and going for a walk, sitting at my desk and listening to happy-energetic music while looking at the task. talking through the problem with someone else – it’ll be hard at first but having to converse will bring my self-monitoring system back online.

restlessness - feeling bored, wanting stimulation - feeling frustrated - changing sitting position often, feeling uncomfortable, fidgeting a lot - seek tasty food but almost all food is not tasty enough solutions: try working with loud energetic music and a fidget toy. if this doesn’t work, go outside and run around for a bit until you’re breathing hard, then try again. let yourself have sugar after the run if you still want it. compulsion for something else - pulled towards other, more interesting thoughts/activities - if i start working, i get sidetracked by the more interesting things without noticing - easy to enter flow state on other tasks, just not this one solutions: this one is hard. write down the more exciting thoughts and promise yourself you’ll come back to them? (you may not come back to them.)