Slave Codes: Defining Women and Black People as Enemies of the State
Barbara Becnel
Free and open to the Public (registration required)
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Time: 16:00-17:30
This talk explores two strands of a certain historical tool of racism: the infamous slave codes of 1661, originally created by representatives from England and adopted by colonial America. Those slave codes, concocted to control to control the behaviour of black slaves, and govern the slave relationship with plantation owners, have always been entangled, I argue, in other types of biases, such as gender bias. On the one hand, I contend that there is a current United States phenomenon of reimagining those slave codes to impose health-threatening legal bias against women of all ethnicities. On the other hand, there are regions of the United States that continue to embrace and act on the precise meaning of those slave codes that targeted black people for harm. This talk also claims that education, particularly through the use of public pedagogy, has always played a significant role in the rendering of national bias in the USA, including national gender bias.
PhD candidate, social justice activist, and author Barbara Becnel has more than twenty years of experience working for prison reform in the state of California, while writing nine award-winning non-fiction books on street gang culture, as well as over one-hundred journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.
From leading an international media campaign aimed at preventing the judicial execution of reformed Crips gang co-founder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley Tookie Williams, to organizing an ‘Occupy San Quentin’ rally attended by hundreds in front of the state prison that houses California’s death chamber, she has often shown inspiring leadership and tenacity. Recently, she was appointed to an Expert Steering Group for tackling racial harassment in Scottish education. She also participated in a Steering Group focusing on the development of anti-racist curriculum for Scotland’s universities and colleges.
Building on her MSc in Social Justice and Community Action (With Distinction) earned from the University of Edinburgh, Barbara returned there to pursue a PhD. Her thesis explores how death row became a symbol of heroism for America’s street-gang generation. Integral to this is her collaboration with three former-though-imprisoned South Central Los Angeles gang members who are co-researchers on the project.
Organised by: Dr Andrea English, University of Edinburgh
Sponsored by: The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Edinburgh Branch, The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Edinburgh, The University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education and Sport Philosophy of Education Research Group and the MHSES Race Equality Subgroup