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History News Network

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The Roundup Top Ten for May 28, 2021

Will We Ever Get Beyond "The Fire Next Time"?

by Elizabeth Hinton

"What we witnessed in 2020 was the latest manifestation of an ongoing crisis that could have been solved if elected officials had properly understood the root causes the first time around."

The Housing Market is Booming but Remains Deeply Unequal

by LaDale Winling

The standards and practices of real estate appraisal were developed in the context of white supremacy in the 1920s and since then have worked to make home ownership a path toward building wealth that has favored white Americans. 

I Am A Veteran History Teacher. Let Me Teach History

by Valencia Ann Abbott

Culture wars and legislative battles over things like the 1619 Project and "critical race theory" have made classrooms "a minefield of political dos and don'ts," where facts and truths are treated as dangerous, says a veteran secondary school history instructor. 

We are Told America is Living Through a ‘Racial Reckoning’. Is it Really?

by Simon Balto

Policing historian Simon Balto argues that White America today seems most intersted in defending a personal sense of innocence over racism rather than working for justice. The new culture war over "critical race theory" is evidence.

The Feminist Past History Can't Give Us

by Paula Findlen

"What it really meant to be a woman of science three centuries ago is not so easily conscripted into contemporary narratives of feminist liberation."

The History the Japanese Government Is Trying to Erase

by Chelsea Szendi Schieder

An academic involved in the recent "comfort women" controversy while teaching in Japan warns "In failing to teach what the wartime state did, the Japanese government only emboldens the forces of misogyny and racism and cultivates new generations of violence."

The Lies Cops Tell and the Lies We Tell About Cops

by Stuart Schrader

"The core of policing is not safety. It is social control. All the other lies obfuscate this function."

Billie Jean King, Foremother

by Robert Lipsyte

Billie Jean King's legacy runs far beyond tennis, and has become even more relevant with the passage of time as challenges to the doctrine of amateurism and the NCAA make clear. 

Why We Should Abolish the Campus Police

by Davarian L. Baldwin

University police forces are a major factor in strained relationships between colleges and their communities. Abolish them, says the author. 

What Scaremongering About Inflation Gets Wrong

by Rebecca L. Spang

Inflation has become a subject of political dread as Americans have shifted from seeing themselves as producers to seeing themselves as consumers. But historical perspective shows that policy picks winners and losers and is dependent on choices about what to measure and how.