CLA and Social Justice: Black Lives Matter

BLACK LIVES MATTER

In light of the recent protests and statements in support of Black Lives Matter and other anti-racist organizing efforts, the College of Liberal Arts is highlighting how its courses incorporate issues related to Black Lives Matter. We will highlight one course each month.  You can view all of our courses here: https://cla.csulb.edu/black-lives-matter/

See the description below detailing how CLA faculty advance the anti-racist messaging of Black Lives Matter through assignments, readings, and pedagogical practices that affirm the lives, history, and culture of Black people across the globe. Descriptions fall into one of three categories—Long-Standing Practices, Recent Changes, and Future Plans—designed to demonstrate the ongoing nature of anti-racist efforts:

Instructor: Emily Berquist Soule
Course: HIST 460: Slavery in Latin America

This course ties the history of slavery and the slave trade in Latin America (ca. 1500-1900) into the broader history of structural oppression and racism in the Western world, linking the beginnings of racialized discourses of discrimination to contemporary phenomena, like the prison-industrial complex in the U.S. and its overwhelming focus on preying on people of color. Students study not only how slavery was justified, operated, and sustained, but also how slaves and free people of color fought against it, both ideologically and with violence.