We examine and compare the relationship between minimum wage increases and youth homicide rates in three groups: all youth, White youth only, and Black youth only. Using 2001-2019 mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) for all 50 states and Washington DC, we apply a difference in differences (DD) design to compare the…

Ryan Gainer, a 15-year-old African-American youth on the Autism-spectrum, was shot and killed by police officers in March 2024. The authors reflect on the tragedy of this incident and the harms that such police actions inflict on people living with disabilities and/or mental illnesses, as well as on their families, loved ones, and communities.…

Amid the escalating death tolls and the unknowns about the COVID-19 virus, the nation witnessed an endemic of publicized violence against Black people by vigilantes and police officers. Current literature fails to adequately explore the lived experiences of community college leaders as they serve students, sustain programs, or teach while…

When the verdict was announced in the case of "State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin," the university at which the author is employed made an announcement, probably much like those emitted at other colleges and universities around the country. The campus was informed that the verdict was an indication not of the sound state of…

This study examines a group of four English educators, two women of color and two white women, who self-identified as teachers for social justice as they formed a teacher inquiry group, called a teacher inquiry circle, as they attempt to become antiracist. The purpose of the inquiry circle was to answer the call to action for more equitable…

This paper is a critical discourse analysis of the responses by Harvard and Oxford to the murder of George Floyd. Findings point to how the two institutions visually separate stated commitments to equity and their identities as world-class institutions. The official university response is compared and contrasted to student media, The New York…

Since March of 2020, two pandemics have hit the United States of America like a bag of bricks. The health pandemic as a result of COVID-19 that has killed over 180,000 Americans and the racially-charged genocides that continues to murder our Black brothers and sisters. As a result of constant disregard for Black lives, in part 1, we analyze the…

In this essay, I use the singing caged bird as a mental model for addressing carceral logics generally and carcerality in K-12 and higher education, specifically. First, I offer a high-level overview of carceral logics to complement and extend what is offered in other sections of this volume by participating authors. Then, I segue into deeper…

The extrajudicial killing of Black people, particularly unarmed Black boys and men, at the hands of police is one of the most pressing social and racial justice issues in the USA. The awareness of, and indirect exposure to, police killings of Black people has a detrimental impact on the academic achievement, school attendance, mental health, and…

Despite the contemporary public's discourse regarding the embrace of human diversity within the United States, Black males still are perennially brutalized, killed, and negatively stereotyped. Recent events regarding police killings underscore the reality that even though Black males have the same constitutional and civil rights as all other…

In this essay the author addresses the struggles of teaching a special topics course, Black Freedom Movement Education, in the midst of a global pandemic and Donald Trump's proposed ban on anti-racist training and critical race theory. The educator framed the course under the conceptual lens of stealin' the meetin'--a Black Antebellum practice of…

Background: The United States has more than 90% of all youth firearm deaths that occur in high-income countries. Purpose: We summarize the epidemiological literature on the prevalence, risk factors, and protective factors associated with adolescent homicides and suicides and the role of firearms in the loss of these lives. Methods: A systematic…

Black people all over the world have historically endured slavery, colonialism, racism, prejudice, and discriminatory actions; and they continue to be disenfranchised, disadvantaged, disillusioned, and demeaned by institutions and systems. Of late, Black people in the United States, especially Black males have been encountering blatant police…

At stake in contemporary US racial tensions is a struggle over the meaning of being "human." By drawing on black feminist theories of being human as verb, and minority discourse critiques of humanism, the paper links "racialization" to apparatuses of humanization that emerge in early modernity including slavery, colonization,…

Pre-service history teachers are exposed from schooling to a familiar canon: a story of American exceptionalism, linear social progression, and cultural homogeneity--referred to as a "freedom-quest narrative." Myopic and Eurocentric, this story follows students into their teaching careers; perpetuating a lack of critical understanding…