STAMPED

..RACISM, ANTI RACISM, AND YOU..

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JASON REYNOLDS and IBRAM X. KENDI

...SLIDE DECK NAVIGATION...

Why we created this resource

What is a lit circle?

Lit Circle Protocol

Slide Key

...WHY WE CREATED THIS RESOURCE...

We created this resource as a way to facilitate literature circles and delve into Stamped as a companion text to Unit 2’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

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Stamped provides a modern historical lens on the experience of Black Americans that is essential in understanding the complicated history of racism and the importance of addressing its lasting repercussions with an antiracist perspective.

...WHAT IS A LIT CIRCLE?...

A literature circle is “a small group of students that gathers to discuss a book”

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In addition to reading the text, the purpose of a literature circle is to discuss the ideas and connections generated by the text with fellow students. It’s also “gives them a reference point and a shared vocabulary to talk about really important things.”

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The role of the teacher is “to create a space and structure for a [student-led] discussion to be successful” as opposed to leading the discussion.

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For Stamped, we hope that lit circles will encourage students to engage in discourse around the key understandings of the text and develop the learning pursuit of criticality as they consider this text in tandem with The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

...LIT CIRCLE PROTOCOL*..

1. Teacher organizes small groups of 3-5 students.
2. Norms are established as a class.
3. Teacher assigns small groups a passage or entire chapter, depending on the text.
1. Students will read the text for understanding
1. Students can read independently or in small groups
2. Teacher provides accommodations to students who require additional support to access the text
4. Students will discuss the text in their small groups
• Ask clarifying questions amongst each other
• Share a word or phrase that stands out/made an impression
• Go through a few or all of the questions assigned by the teacher
5. Everyone comes together as a whole class; teacher facilitates closing discussion

*These are general guidelines; feel free to adjust as needed.

...SLIDE KEY...

Connection Questions

Questions from Stamped

Main Ideas

Key Terms

INTRODUCTION

(pages IX-XVI)

• America has a history of racist ideas that are responsible for tragedy and the loss of innocent lives.
• Racist policies preceded racist ideas and people.

Main Ideas

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• Segregationist: someone who thinks people of different races should be kept apart. Segregationists believe that certain minority groups should be kept separate from the larger society.
• Assimilationist: a person who favors and promotes the incorporation and mixing of different groups in society. Assimilationists believe that the minority group should change to confirm to larger society.
• Antiracist: someone who challenges the beliefs of segregationists and assimilationists by confronting the roots of racism that drive both kinds of people to develop their thoughts on Black people and other historically marginalized groups.

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Key Terms

1. Why is it important to examine the history of racism?
2. Paraphrase how Ibram Kendi defines a racist idea.
3. Racist policies → racist ideas → hate → tragedy and loss. Unpack this sequence based on Kendi’s explanation on page XIV.
4. Describe the three groups that have been involved in the argument around racial inequities.
5. How would you describe an “antiracist America”?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Questions

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

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What are the racist policies that impacted Douglass and other enslaved people?

CHAPTER 1

• Enslaving people based on race was first conceived by Gomez Eanes de Zurara, who wrote a book about the Portuguese “enslaving people as missionary work.”
• He “was the first person to write about and defend Black human ownership, and this single document began the recorded history of anti-Black racist ideas.”

Main Ideas

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Four Types of Racism

Individual racism​ refers to the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism in conscious and unconscious ways. Examples include believing in the superiority of white people, not hiring a person of color because “something doesn’t feel right,” or telling a racist joke.

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Interpersonal racism​ occurs between individuals. These are public expressions of racism, often involving slurs, biases, or hateful words or actions.

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Institutional racism​ occurs in an organization. These are discriminatory treatments, unfair policies, or biased practices based on race that result in inequitable outcomes for whites over people of color and extend considerably beyond prejudice.

Example: A school system where students of color are more frequently distributed into the most crowded classrooms and underfunded schools and out of the higher-resourced schools.

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Structural racism​ is the overarching system of racial bias across institutions and society. These systems give privileges to white people resulting in disadvantages to people of color.

Example: Stereotypes of people of color as criminals in mainstream movies and media.

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Key Terms

• Why does the author make it a point to say that “this is not a history book”?
• “Race is like an alligator” (2). Explain this simile.
• What makes Zurara the first racist and not King Henry? What was his idea that spread?
• Think about the sequence from the Introduction: Racist policies → racist ideas → hate → tragedy and loss. How does this hold true in relation to this chapter?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

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The author of Stamped makes it clear that “this is not a history book”.

Do you think Douglass would also say the same about his autobiography? Why or why not?

CHAPTER 2

• Europeans came up with “race theories” to justify the enslavement of Africans. The two most influential theories were the Climate Theory and the Curse Theory.
• The Curse Theory evolved into the idea that because Africans “were cursed,” they needed to be enslaved and be “mentored” by their “loving” enslavers.
• John Cotton and Richard Mather were influential Puritan ministers who believed that Puritans were better than other people groups. Their ideas were shaped by the teachings of Aristotle, an Ancient Greek philosopher.
• White settlers relied on the labor of enslaved people to increase their agricultural profits.

Main Ideas

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• Climate Theory: Aristotle came up with the idea that the heat of the African continent made them inferior.
• Curse Theory: George Best came up with the idea that Africans were darker because they were cursed. He used a story in the Bible to back up his theory.
• Human hierarchy: The belief that certain people groups are better than others.

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Key Terms

• Who was George Best and why did he come up with the Curse Theory?
• John Cotton and Richard Mather – who were they and whose ideas influenced their racism?
• What were some of the ideas and financial motives that drove White planters and missionaries to enslave Black Americans?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

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What racist policies and ideas are found in The Narrative of Frederick Douglass that explain why the practice of enslaving people continued for such a long time?

CHAPTER 3

• Even 100 years after the Climate Theory and the Curse Theory were introduced, White people continued to publish racist ideas that White people had “perfect minds” while Africans were “savages” who needed to be enslaved in order to be saved.
• The Mennonites in Germantown, PA protested slavery and wrote the “first piece of writing that was anti racist” — the 1688 Germantown Petition.
• In order to prevent poor White people and poor Black people from joining forces against the White elites, William Berkeley (the governor of Virginia) created policies where the poor Whites rebels were pardoned and all Whites were given “absolute power to abuse any African person” — this was when White Privilege was created.

Main Ideas

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• White Privilege: having greater access to power and resources than people of color [in the same situation] do

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Key Terms

• Why is this chapter called “A Different Adam”? Use the word polygenesis in your response.
• What was the first antiracist piece of literature and who created it?
• What is White privilege and how did it originate?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

In chapter 10 of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass is returned to Baltimore and sent to work in the shipyard. Initially, Black people and White people work side by side, but eventually White workmen refuse to work alongside Black carpenters. Douglass is beaten up by White apprentices but has no recourse. He is then sent to work as a caulker but all his wages are turned over to Hugh.

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How does this moment relate to the earlier policies created by William Berkeley, the governor of Virginia, in the late 17th century after Bacon’s Rebellion?

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CHAPTER 4

• Cotton Mather was the grandson of Richard Mather and John Cotton, the two Puritan ministers from chapter 2. He also became a Puritan minister, and he was an ardent defender of the Salem witch trials, which perpetuated the idea that witches and the devil were “described as Black.”
• The need for more enslaved people to “till the land and grow the tobacco for free” prompted White people to create racist codes that ensured that Black people would be kept from rising up and revolting against their enslavement.

Main Ideas

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• Racist Codes (also referred to as Slave Codes): any set of rules based on the concept that enslaved persons were property, not persons. These codes were enforced by White enslavers to socially control enslaved people and make sure that they would continue to receive free labor from Black people. The slave codes were forerunners of the Black codes of the mid-19th century.

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Key Terms

1. What kind of guy was Cotton Mather? What kind of book did he write and why did he write it?
2. How did Cotton Mather’s book ultimately influence a growing racism against Black people?
3. Why did slaveholders and politicians create racist codes?
4. “Your body goes, but your ideas don’t” (36) – what does this mean to you in light of the chapters we’ve read so far?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

Consider the third racist code on page 34 of Stamped; how does Douglass highlight this dehumanization through his writing? (Hint: Think about his references to horses in his autobiography)

CHAPTER 5

• The Enlightenment era highlighted intelligence, but only as defined by White people.
• Benjamin Franklin started a club during this time called the American Philosophical Society, and only White people were invited to join.
• Thomas Jefferson might have supported antiracist thought in his studies, but he still decided to own a plantation and have enslaved people work his fields.
• Phillis Wheatley was a Black woman and poet whom the British “used as a way to condemn American slavery.”

Main Ideas

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• Enlightenment era: that great age of intellectual inquiry and discovery that stretched from roughly 1680 to 1820, drew fundamentally from the European colonization of the Americas. The discovery of the New World prompted a flurry of new questions about society, government, art, religion, and nature

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Key Terms

• What is ironic about the Enlightenment Era and the American Philosophical Society?
• “Thomas Jefferson might have been the world’s first White person to say ‘I have Black friends.’” – What hypocrisy does this statement highlight?
• Society treated Phillis Wheatley respectfully. How is this statement false?
• What made Benjamin Rush an assimilationist and not an antiracist? What racist idea did he perpetuate?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

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Compare and contrast Benjamin Franklin’s American Philosophical Society (which started in 1743) with Frederick Douglass’s Sabbath school (which occurred in the 1830s).

CHAPTERS 6 & 7

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• Savage: Someone or something that is savage is extremely cruel, violent, and uncontrolled.

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Key Terms

• What does the use of the word “savage” (used by White people to refer to Black people) imply about White people?
• “Black is beautiful and ugly, intelligent and unintelligent, law-binding and law-breaking, industrious and lazy—and it is those imperfections that make Black people human, and Black people equal to all other imperfectly human groups.” How does this quote by Ibram Kendi refute the use of the word “savage” when referring to an entire group of people?
• Why is Chapter 7 so short?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

How might Douglass have responded to the racist ideas delineated in Chapter 6?

CHAPTER 8

• One of the main reasons why America declared independence from the British was to maintain the practice of slavery.
• In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included a line that said slavery was cruel, but this line got removed in the final version.
• Thomas Jefferson stated that he was against slavery, yet he penned racist beliefs and enslaved over 200 to work in his tobacco fields.
• The Three-Fifths Compromise was written into the Constitution in order to strike a balance between states needing more representation and not wanting to pay more taxes (which was based on population). (See Key Terms)

Main Ideas

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• The Three-Fifths Compromise: that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives

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Key Terms

• Among several factors that led to the Revolutionary War against the British, which one relates to the enslavement of Black people in America?
• Describe the problematic elements in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
• How did the Three-Fifths Compromise develop and why did assimilationists and segregationists agree with this racist agreement?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

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Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

Frederick Douglass gave a speech on July 5, 1852. Here is an excerpt:

The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.

Paraphrase what Douglass said in your own words. How does this impact your understanding of the Declaration of Independence?

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CHAPTER 9

• As Black people started to get free, abolitionists encouraged them to “behave and speak like White people” in order to prove to society that they deserved to be free.

Main Ideas

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• Uplift suasion: the racist belief that Black people had to do certain things to fit into a “White mold” in order to deserve their freedom

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Key Terms

• Describe uplift suasion.
• What racist belief fueled this strategy?
• What is the traditional definition of an abolitionist? How would you define an abolitionist after reading this chapter?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

• Use your reading of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to refute the idea of uplift suasion.

CHAPTER 10

• In order to prevent enslaved people in American from revolutionizing against slavery like what happened in the Haitian Revolution, White enslavers came up with the idea to “colonize” Black people by sending them back to Africa.
• Thomas Jefferson also supported the idea of sending Black people to the Louisiana Territory, “banishing them to the basement of the house they’d built”.
• Congress argued back and forth about Missouri (part of the Louisiana Territory) becoming a slave state or a free state. Eventually, they decided that Missouri would be a slave state.
• Thomas Jefferson was against slavery ethically, but his actions proved that he was pro slavery economically. Even to his dying day, he enslaved Black people.

Main Ideas

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• Colonization: If people colonize a foreign country, they go to live there and take control of it.
• Transatlantic Slave Trade Act of 1807: an act that made it illegal to bring enslaved people from overseas. White people imported enslaved people anyway and also started forcing Black men and women to have children to increase the population of enslaved people.

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Key Terms

1. What was racist about the idea to send Black people back to Africa? What’s really behind that thinking?

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• Kendi says that Jefferson “had been a segregationist at times, an assimilationist at other times… but he never quite made it to being antiracist.” Why do you believe Jefferson, despite having grown up with “Black friends,” was not willing to free enslaved people?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

1. In Chapter 7 of Douglass’s narrative, he talks about discovering the term “abolitionist.” How would a true abolitionist have responded to the idea of sending Black Americans to “colonize” Africa?
2. How did Thomas Jefferson’s contradictory views on slavery personally impact the life of Frederick Douglass and his family?

CHAPTER 11

• William Lloyd Garrison was an American abolitionist who spoke out against colonization. He shifted from believing that freedom should be incremental to the belief that freedom should be instant.
• That said, he also believed in uplift suasion.
• Garrison was influenced by a Black abolitionist, David Walker, who wrote a pamphlet that argued against the idea that Black people were meant to serve White people.
• Nat Turner was a Black preacher and enslaved person who believed it was a holy mission to fight for freedom and led a massive uprising. He was eventually caught and hanged.

Main Ideas

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• Nat Turner’s Rebellion: Nathanial “Nat” Turner (1800-1831) was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people on August 21, 1831. His action set off a massacre of up to 200 Black people and a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of enslaved people. The rebellion also stiffened pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War (1861–65).

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Key Terms

• What is the fundamental difference between the American Colonization Society (ACS) and abolitionism?
• Which idea is connected to uplift suasion - immediate abolition or gradual equality? Explain.
• Nat Turner and William Lloyd Garrison were both abolitionists, but what made Garrison an assimilationist and Nat Turner an antiracist?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

• How were Frederick Douglass and Nat Turner similar? How were they different?

CHAPTER 12

• White people who were pro-slavery introduced racist ideas in the name of “science” in order to protect the practice of slavery and perpetuate the idea that White people were biologically superior to Black people.
• William Lloyd Garrison supported Frederick Douglass in publishing his narrative in order to promote abolitionist ideas effectively. Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist and assimilationist.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an extremely popular novel that was problematic because while it drew more people to the abolitionist movement, it also promoted racist ideas like colonization and depicted Black people as weak and docile.

Main Ideas

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• Propaganda: information, often inaccurate information, that a political organization publishes or broadcasts in order to influence people.

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Key Terms

• How has “science” been weaponized to perpetuate racism? How was this a form of propaganda?
• Who was William Lloyd Garrison’s “secret weapon”?
• Why is Douglass described as an abolitionist and assimilationist?
• Explain why Uncle Tom’s Cabin was significant and problematic.

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

Frederick Douglass was an important figure in the abolitionist movement, and he showed the resilience of the human spirit in the face of severe adversity. But the way the abolitionists used him and his story to combat slavery ironically pivoted towards racism. What do you think happened?

CHAPTER 13

• Lincoln was against slavery, but initially it was more for political reasons (to hold the opposite view of his political opponent). He argued that if slavery continued, poor White people would not be able to make money, since slavery yielded free labor for rich White people.
• During his presidential campaign, Lincoln was against Black voting/racial equality in order to get more votes.
• When Lincoln won, many Southern states seceded from the rest of the country (the Union) in order to protect slavery. This is how the American Civil War started. 400,000 Black Americans fought for the Union.
• Lincoln eventually changed his mind and said that Black people should have the right to vote. He was shot three days later.

Main Ideas

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• Secession: The secession of a region or group from the country or larger group to which it belongs is the action of formally becoming separate.

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Key Terms

• What makes the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the president under whom enslaved Black people were emancipated, so complicated?
• “The biggest change agent in the war was that enslaved people wanted to fight against their enslavers, and therefore join the Northern soldiers in battle” (103). What does this underscore?
• “Lincoln was labeled as the Great Emancipator, but really, Black people were emancipating themselves” (104). Explain this line.

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

Read this article on the relationship between between Douglass and Lincoln. Why was their relationship complicated?

CHAPTER 14

• Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Jackson, reversed a lot of progress that was made for Black Americans, resulting in the creation of Black Codes (later evolving into Jim Crow laws) and the Ku Klux Klan.
• After the 15th Amendment was made official, the anti-slavery people like Garrison let their guard down, and racist people found loopholes around the amendments.
• Immediate emancipation and immediate equality did not happen during the Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Main Ideas

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• 14th Amendment: granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,”
• 15th Amendment: guaranteed African-American men the right to vote
• Reconstruction: refers to the period immediately after the Civil War from 1865 to 1877 when several United States administrations sought to reconstruct society in the former Confederate states in particular by establishing and protecting the legal rights of the newly freed black population

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Key Terms

• Was the historic momentum, prompted by the emancipation of enslaved people, allowed to continue after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? Why or why not?
• “...freedom in America was like quicksand” (108). What does this line mean to you in light of this chapter?
• How was the Fifteenth Amendment a big deal but not a “done deal”?

Questions from Stamped

Connection Question(s)

Connections to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

Read this article and consider the role that Douglass played during Reconstruction.