Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing the Trope of the Angry Black Woman

Black women in the United States are the frequent targets of bias-filled interactions in which aggressors: (1) denigrate Black women; and (2) blame those women who elect to challenge the aggressor’s acts and the bias that fuels them. This Article seeks to raise awareness of these “aggressive encounters” and to challenge a prevailing narrative about Black women and anger. It examines the myriad circumstances (both professional and social) in which aggressive encounters occur and the ways in which these encounters expose gender and racial hierarchies. It then explores how the intersectional nature of Black women’s identities triggers a particularized stereotype or trope of the “Angry Black Woman” and explains how this trope is often invoked in aggressive encounters to deflect attention from the aggressor and to project blame onto the target. After discussing the harmful effects of aggressive encounters and the absence of effective legal mechanisms to address them, the Article sets forth tangible steps that individuals can take to minimize their incidence

Gender Bias as the Norm in the Legal Profession: It\u27s Still a [White] Man\u27s Game

Women consistently represent over fifty percent of entering law school classes, and one-third of all lawyers in the United States. As more women go to law school and practice as attorneys, two major impediments prevent women from climbing hierarchical ladders in the legal profession. This article examines gender and racially gendered bias in the legal profession, including law schools. It argues that until the existing structure is dismantled, women will continue to face gender and racially gendered bias in the legal profession

Minnie Liddell\u27s Forty-Year Quest for Quality Public Education Remains a Dream Deferred

This Article is a historic account of the hopes and dreams that a mother had for her children and her efforts to make those hopes and dreams come true. The mother, Minnie Liddell, never imagined, when she first became a mom in 1959, or years later after the birth of her fifth child, or even after she filed a lawsuit against a city school district, that she would become a pioneer and icon in the school desegregation history of St. Louis, Missouri. She really only wanted a quality public education for her children, for black children, for all children. This Article will tell the story of Mrs. Liddell‘s quest for a quality education for her children, and it will take a look at where that journey stands today

If You Is White, You’s Alright. . . .” Stories About Colorism in America

Colorism, a term believed to be first coined in 1982 by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, was defined by her to mean the “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.” It is not racism although there is a clear relationship. A clear example of racism would involve a business that refuses to hire black people. Colorism would not preclude the hiring of a black person, but there would be a preference for a black person with a lighter skin tone than a darker skinned person. From this example one can see too that colorism can not only occur within same-raced peoples but also across races. Colorism also is often gendered. Because of its unique relationship to who and what is beautiful, it has a tendency, although not exclusively, to affect and infect women more than men. Although my first experience with colorism occurred very early in life, it never went away or otherwise resolved itself. Rather, it grew with me. And in many ways, I grew to understand that the color hierarchy was simply the way of the world. I would eventually marry and have children of my own. And through those children, I would again see colorism grow and sting. I knew that, some day, one day when I had time, I would spend time discussing, highlighting and helping to eradicate colorism. This paper offers some of my experiences with colorism and my continued growth in understanding its complexities

The Root and Branches of Structural School Racism in Missouri: A Story of Failure by Design and the Illusion and Hypocrisy of School Choice

Since Missouri was first admitted into the Union as a slave state, it has been hostile to the education of its Black residents. This article examines the evolution of that hostility from 1821 through 2021 (from the most overt and blatant in the early years, to the subtler and covert in the modern era). Starting with the original total ban on the education of Black slaves to the reluctant allowance of separate but equal education for Black Missouri residents in 1865 after the Civil War and continuing with the separate but unequal policies that have thrived in the state from 1865 to 2021, Black students continue to be subjected to under-resourced educational opportunities vis-à-vis their White counterparts at both the K through 12 levels as well as in the state’s two HBCUs. The significant damage caused by this under-resourcing is now being compounded by public school privatization in the form of the false promises of “school choice,” comprised of charter schools and voucher programs that cannibalize those limited public school resources. For the vast majority of Black, low-income students and their school districts, these school choice programs do far more harm than good. And when the State was presented with an opportunity to facilitate real choice for one struggling Black school district in St. Louis County, the State manipulated that district for more than two decades in a manner that denied choice to the students in that district. This article reveals various permutations of this dual, unequal system and suggests that intentional decisions by Missouri lawmakers for over a century are some of the key reasons Black students in the State struggle in public school systems that both historically and currently appear designed not for the success of majority Black learning institutions, but for their failure

Recalibrating the Scales of Municipal Court Justice in Missouri: A Dissenter’s View

This Article examines the inefficiencies of Missouri municipal courts that came into sharp focus following the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Norwood details and expands on her lone dissent in the Final Report of the Municipal Division Work Group—a group created by the Missouri Supreme Court to address the alleged abuses of black and poor residents in Missouri. Norwood argues for consolidating failing municipal courts to create larger, more functional, and just courts