By KATE PIERCE
News Editor
The Office of Spiritual Life hosted an interfaith panel in the Hubbard sanctuary on the topic of “An American Story: Racism and Reconciliation,” which was free and open to the public, last Thursday night. The main topics of discussion were concepts in language, the housing crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Two of the three panelists were Saint Rose professors: Dr. Laura Weed, professor of philosophy and religious studies, and Dr. Risa Faussette, associate professor of history and political science.
The third panelist was Dr. Francisca Ogoyoa, professor of sociology and African American studies who teaches at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts.
The moderator for the event was Paul Naamon, abbott of the Tendai Buddhist Center in Canaan.
The discussion was part of the Sidney and Beatrice Albert Interfaith Lectureship at at Saint Rose, was founded to preserve and develop the qualities of compassion and religious tolerance embodied by Sidney Albert and his wife Beatrice. The event was also co-sponsored by the Office of Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy.
Each panelist was given time to discuss their respective topics before the floor was opened for audience members to make statements and ask questions.
The first panelist to present was Reed, who spoke on the effects of language on topics of racism with the assistance of a PowerPoint presentation.
“The emancipation proclamation passed, and we moved on and didn’t look back,” said Reed. “It’s time we look back and find where our perception comes from.”
Reed also referenced how Australia celebrates an annual “sorry” day to remember and commemorate the mistreatment of the indigenous population, and how South Africa assembled a court-like restorative justice body called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the abolition of apartheid in 1994.
The United States, on the other hand, does not adequately recognize the genocide of our native population or the people brought to the country against their will, according to Reed.
She also presented the words “housekeeper” and “working person” and discussed how the words are loaded, with the former having an overall more negative connotation than the latter.
A comparison among the Black Lives Matter movement, and the counters Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter was also discussed. According to Reed, looking at the movements as schemas, or cluster concepts, their meanings are very different.
“When you put the statistics together, it’s a completely different discussion,” said Reed.
Reed told the audience that the quotes and information she had up on her PowerPoint slide concerning the Black Lives Matter movement all came from analyses from the Washington Post.
“Moving forward, we have to deal honestly with the past and with its residue,” said Reed. “Stop pretending situations are parallel.”
Following next in the panel presentations was Faussette, who spoke on the housing crisis and how certain races and classes are more likely to experience downward residential mobility.
To begin her presentations, Faussette showed some photographs taken by Jacob Riis from around the turn of the 20th century.
Best known for being a social documentary photographer, Riis published an 18-page article entitled “How the Other Half Lives” which included photography of impoverished New Yorkers and the incredibly unsafe environments they lived in. His “muckraking” journalism attempted to alleviate these living conditions by exposing them to the middle and upper classes.
Faussette spoke of how Riis focused on the children living in these conditions, and quoted him on how children were often ‘killed by the house.’
The next photographs that Faussette showed were ones of children in similar living conditions to those photographed by Riis, but were as recent as the 2002 photograph of Luther Satterfield from Los Santos, California.
“The only difference between these photos are clothing and the demographic,” said Faussette.
She moved on from the photographs to the National Housing Act of 1937, which established the idea that families should spend less than half on their income on housing. This practice was working for most of the twentieth century, according to Faussette.
However, from 1991 to 2013, renters paying half of their income on housing rose from 21 percent to 30, with black people and hispanic people being more heavily affected.
Now almost 25 percent of people living below the poverty line spend 70 percent of their wages on rent, according to Faussette.
Faussette attributes this epidemic to the fact that wages have not kept up with the rise in rent, with rent increasing by seven percent and wages declining by nine percent since 2001.
A comparison Faussette raised and illustrated with a PowerPoint slide showed the difference in percentage between the class structures of African Americans and white people, with both groups represented in each category but a larger number of African Americans below the poverty line.
She apologized for not having a similar graphic to compare the class structure of hispanic people, but mentioned that they are one of the hardest hit groups by the housing crisis.
Substandard housing is associated with higher risks for infectious diseases, lead poisoning and asthma, according to Faussette. Across the nation five million families are trying to survive in these kind of living conditions, with four million people in those families being children.
The final panelist to present was Ogoyoa, who spoke on some of the topics she has been discussing with her class that is focusing specifically on the Black Lives Matter movement.
She encouraged the audience to not think of the movement as simply a response to very specific cases.
“Black Lives Matter is a critique of structural racism that has persisted in our country for centuries,” said Ogoyoa.
To give the conversation some context, Ogoyoa spoke of policing since the 1980s and two important phenomena – one being the “war on drugs” started under the Reagan administration in 1982, and the other being the broken window theory.
Both of these phenomena resulted in an explosion in prison incarceration, according to Ogoyoa. She said that 80 percent of drug arrests are for possession, and that 75 percent of drug arrests are of black or brown people.
As a specific example, Ogoyoa quoted Department of Justice reports from Ferguson and Baltimore which found that blacks are more likely to be targeted in cases where police have discretion, which she explained meant cases in which police have more of a choice.
The explosion in prison incarceration has only increased the opportunity for the “economic distortion of black bodies,” said Ogoyoa. She briefly mentioned the labor that inmates are responsible for, like the making of license plates or Victoria Secret garments, for very little pay.
Ogoyoa said that her passion for the cause was especially flared after her friend was arrested two months ago and is serving 18 months. This friend makes 75 cents per hour working in the laundry room, and that’s before fees are taken from her.
“Black Lives Matter is a critique on dehumanization,” said Ogoyoa.
After Ogoyoa’s presentation, the floor was opened to the audience.
The first audience member to stand up was Morris D’Absolon, a member of the community wearing a “Make America Great Again Hat” and a Trump 2016 pin. He directed his comments at Ogoyoa, and said that some of the men who had been shot by the police had robbed stores before being shot.
“Black officers are shooting black guys too,” said D’Absolon repeatedly.
Naamon, in his role as moderator, gave Ogoyoa a chance to respond to D’Absolon’s comments.
“We’re talking about a structure,” said Ogoyoa, before D’Absolon interrupted her and eventually had to be asked to sit back down by Naamon.
Other audience members who provided comments included Aimee Allaud.
“I thought it was interesting that housing was not addressed by the two major [presidential] candidates in the past six weeks,” said Allaud. “There has to be some leadership in our country to recognize this issue.”
In addressing an audience member’s question as to how society can make reparations, Weed responded that some beginnings would be to acknowledge the exploitation of African American labor.
“We need real investment in education,” said Ogoyoa. “Education at the very minimum.”
“A lack of education threatens democracy,” said Edward Hancock, a member of the audience. Hancock attended college at SUNY Albany starting in 1966, and worked as a physics teacher and also in educational television.
Towards the end of the discussion Hancock received praise and applause for his contribution addressing the panelists.
“This is exactly what our founding fathers were trying to avoid,” said Hancock. “Articulate black people recognizing exploitation.”
