AAPF Presents Under the Blacklight Series in Oak Bluffs on Anti-Blackness and the Assault on DEI

August 11th – The New Nadir: Anti-Blackness and the Assault on DEI

Join  the African American Policy Forum for a new episode of our signature Under The Blacklight series held in Martha’s Vineyard and live streamed online. From the assaults on Black knowledge, the dismantling of affirmative action, the proliferation of racially targeted voter suppression and the deterioration of DEI there is a broad scale campaign to undermine and circumscribe Black progress. This coordinated campaign has already begun to adversely impact the wealth, health and rights of Black communities across the country. This project is undergirded by an old but powerful ideology: that Black advancement comes at the expense of white America. History reminds us that Black achievement is not guaranteed in a society that chooses autocracy over democracy, greed over equity and lying over the truth. In the face of this anti-democratic attack, institutions are choosing to ignore these historical lessons by compromising and appeasing these forces rather than resisting them to defend the aspiration of a truly inclusive multiracial democracy. This keynote panel will bring together Kimberle Crenshaw, Shavon Arline-Bradley, Tanya Kateri Hernández, Marc Morial, and Janai Nelson to not only make sense of the threat posed to Black America, but to begin to chart out the urgent work to save our freedom dreams.