Automated Anti-Blackness

“Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and KENNEDY SCHOOLHARVARD JOURNAL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POLICY HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational JOURNAL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POLICY A Harvard Kennedy School Student Publication structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.” - NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity The Institutional Anti-Racism & Accountability (IARA) Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy works at the intersection of community programs, academia, and policy to address intellectual and practical questions related to anti-racist institutional change. Our vision is to achieve industry-wide certification standards for all forms of diversity/bias/ antiracism consulting and implementation. 2019 - 20 VOLUME20 Anti-Blackness in Policy Making: Learn more at Learning from the Past to Create a Better Future shorensteincenter.org/iara 2019-20 Volume HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL JOURNAL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN POLICY “Anti-Blackness in Policy Making: Learning from the Past to Create a Better Future” 2019-20 Volume Support the Journal Te Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy (ISSN# 1081- 0463) is the second-oldest student-run review published annually by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. An annual subscription is $20 for individuals and $40 for libraries and institutions. Additional copies of past volumes may be available for $20 each from the Subscriptions Department, Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy, 79 JFK Street #16, Cambridge, MA 02138. Donations provided in support of the Harvard the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy are tax-deductible as a nonproft gift under the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University’s IRS 501(c) (3) status. Please specify intent. Send address changes to: Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy 79 JFK Street #16 Cambridge, MA 02138 Or by e-mail to [email protected]. Copyright Te Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy does not ac- cept responsibility for the views expressed by individual authors. No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the expressed written consent of the editors of the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy. © 2020 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise specifed, no article or portion herein is to be reproduced or adapted to other works without the expressed written consent of the editors of the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy. ii Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy Journal Staff CHIDI AGU, Co-Editor-in-Chief DANIELLE SIMMS, Co-Editor-in-Chief SANDRA OKONOFUA, Communications Director SOPHIE DOVER, Editor HILLARY ANDERSON, Editor Acknowledgements MARTHA FOLEY, Publisher RICHARD PARKER, Faculty Advisor TANNER JENSEN, Copy Editor DOUGLAS ELMENDORF, Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government DEBRA ISAACSON, Senior Associate Dean for Degree Programs and Student Afairs AMANDA F. GUTIERREZ, Graphic & Layout Designer 2019—20 Volume iii Table of Contents 1 Editor’s Note 37 Advancing Racial Danielle Simms Justice Through Local Governments 4 Institutional Racism Lives Zoe Bulger at HKS, Compromising Its Effectiveness as a 44 D.C.: The Nation’s Plurality Public Institution African American Capital Yohana Beyene, Karl Kumodzi, and Disenfranchisement and Danielle Simms in the U.S. Congress 11 Segregated Healthcare: Miriam Edelman Past and Present 52 “With All Deliberate James Blum Speed’: Closing the Black and Kamini Doobay Educator Gap 18 Villify Them Night Michael Johnson After Night: Anti-Black 57 Discriminatory Death: An Drug Policies, Mass Analysis of the Legislative Incarceration, and Advocacy Against Pathways Forward Victor J. St. John the North Carolina Racial and Vanessa Lewis Justice Act Mara Roth 30 Automated Anti- Blackness: Facial Recognition in Brooklyn, New York Mutale Nkonde iv Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy Editor's Note Danielle Simms Anti-Blackness in Policy Making: Learning from the Past to Create a Better Future Danielle Simms is a joint degree student at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law After an event at Harvard Law School, School. Prior to graduate school, Danielle a White male student shared with me that worked as an engineer in a manufacturing the further we get from segregation, the less plant for two years and as a consultant for non- Black people can blame segregation for cur- profts for one year. Danielle has spent signif- rent disparities. Tis future attorney, who cant time volunteering and organizing around undoubtedly will be in a position of power issues related to racial justice. during his career, lacked an understanding of the complex history of race in this country. He did not understand that the systemic anti-Blackness that originated with the enslavement of African people did not cease to exist simply because explicit, legally sanctioned racism “ended” in the 1960s. He did not understand that the people who held racist beliefs and upheld segregation in the past are the same people who taught their children, their grandchildren, and the students in their classrooms who are alive today to hate. Tat this enabled not only systemic racism, but also interpersonal racism. Tough this was a student at HLS, many policymakers around the country hold similar beliefs. For instance, Senator Mitch McConnell told reporters that “he does not favor reparations ‘for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsi- ble.’”1 2019 marked four-hundred years that Black people have been in this country. Te United States subjected Black people to 250 years of slavery, 100 years of 2019—20 Volume 1 de jure racial segregation—legal separation Te op-ed highlights the need to teach of racial groups based on the law—and ffty public policy students about race and his- years where signifcant racial disparities con- tory to ensure their work after school does tinued to persist. In response to McConnell’s not create further harm by perpetuating comments, author Ta-Nehisi Coates “ticked anti-Black policies. of a list of government-sponsored discrim- In “Segregated Healthcare: Past and inatory policies—including those in Mr. Present,” James Blum and Kamini Doobay McConnell’s birthplace of Alabama —such draw parallels between the United States’ as redlining and poll taxes” that occurred history of segregated healthcare based on well after the 150-year marker that McCo- race and the segregated healthcare that exists nnell identifed.2 By not understanding race today based on class that disproportion- and history, we ensure the systems of oppres- ately impacts Black people. Blum and Doo- sion that have been in place for the past 400 bay ofer ways that we can learn from our years will not be challenged, and as a result, past to better understand how we can cre- will continue. By not understanding race ate an equitable healthcare system moving and history, the natural answer to the ques- forward. tions “why are African-Americans overrepre- In “Vilify Tem Night After Night: sented in the criminal punishment system” Anti-Black Drug Policies, Mass Incarcer- and “why are African-Americans dispropor- ation, and Pathways Forward,” Victor J. tionately low-income” will not be systemic St. John and Vanessa Lewis discuss the oppression, but racial inferiority. long-lasting impacts of anti-Black policies Te dominant narrative that the major- through the lens of the “War on Drugs.” St. ity of us have been taught to believe is that John and Lewis also propose ways in which institutions, like the courts and police of- current anti-Black policies can be addressed cers, are fair, good, and constantly in pursuit and how future anti-Black policies can be of justice. With the twenty-sixth volume of prevented. the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of Afri- Mutale Nkonde describes the way tech- can American Policy, we hope to challenge nology can be used to promote anti-Black this belief by highlighting how a diverse policies in “Automated Anti-Blackness: set of institutions and policies have histor- Facial Recognition in Brooklyn, New York.” ically worked to further marginalize Black Te article explores the introduction of people while drawing connections to how facial recognition technology to a residential similar practices exist today. Te majority of building in the Brownsville neighborhood in the works in this volume also contain rec- New York City. ommendations for how we can prevent the In "Advancing Racial Justice Trough creation of anti-Black policies in the future. Local Governments," Zoe Bulger introduces Te frst article in this volume, “Institu- a framework for city and county ofcials to tional Racism Lives at HKS, Compromising contemplate while they seek to address racial Its Efectiveness as a Public Institution,” was justice issues. She takes leaders through fve written by Yohana Beyene, Karl Kumodzi, main stages of racial justice work within local and Danielle Simms, three Harvard Ken- government and communities, provides nedy School students who sought to bring clear action steps for city and county ofcials to light the institution’s structural racism to take while embarking on the work, and in hopes that the exposure would cause reiterates the importance of centering racial change to occur within the institution. justice work within cities. 2 Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy Miriam Edelman showcases an intimate Endnotes and masterful knowledge of the voting his- 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/politics/ tory of the District of Columbia and its par- slavery-reparations-hearing.html ticular modern-day implications for Black 2. Ibid. residents in “D.C.: Te Nation’s Plurality African American Capital and Disenfran- chisement in the U.S.

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