Social Justice Calendar of Western Massachusetts

Loading Events

Events for April 15, 2021

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

All Day

Silent Auction for Peace and Justice

April 11 - April 23

About Our Auction
The Resistance Center needs your help! For a small nonprofit, this year hasn't been easy. As The Resistance Center moved to remote organizing, grappling with the uncertainty of the pandemic and its socioeconomic effects, we realized that the only way to keep up with our vital work is by growing - which we can only do with YOUR support. We are raising funds to hire a full-time organizer, continue our youth internship program, anti-war organizing, host informative webinars, and expand our programmatic work. Browse our lots and bid on your favorites in the name of growing peacework throughout the Valley and beyond!

Find out more »

12:00 pm

Book Launch: “African American Political Thought: A Collected History”

April 15 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

African American Political Thought offers an unprecedented philosophical history of thinkers from the African American community and African diaspora who have addressed the central issues of political life: democracy, race, violence, liberation, solidarity, and mass political action. Co-editors Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner have brought together leading scholars to reflect on individual intellectuals from the past four centuries, developing their list with an expansive approach to political expression.

While African American political thought is inextricable from the historical movement of American political thought, this volume stresses the individuality of Black thinkers, the transnational and diasporic consciousness, and how individual speakers and writers draw on various traditions simultaneously to broaden our conception of African American political ideas. This landmark volume gives us the opportunity to tap into the myriad and nuanced political theories central to Black life. In doing so, African American Political Thought: A Collected History transforms how we understand the past and future of political thinking in the West.

Featuring co-editors:
Melvin Rogers, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brown University
Jack Turner, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Washington
And contributors to the volume:
Robert Gooding-Williams, M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies, Professor of Philosophy and of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia University
Naomi Murakawa, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University
Brandon M. Terry, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Social Studies, Harvard University

Find out more »

12:30 pm

Social Work , White Supremacy, and Racial Justice

April 15 @ 12:30 pm - April 16 @ 4:30 pm

Join us LIVE on YouTube and Facebook!
Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice Symposium: Strategies for Achieving Racial Justice in Social Work Education
Social work has a complex history of upholding White supremacy alongside a goal to achieve racial justice. Moreover, our profession simultaneously practices within racist systems and works to dismantle them. In the wake of a fervent #BlackLivesMatter movement and persistent racial disparities in key social welfare institutions, these paradoxes have come to the forefront of discussion in academic and practice circles. This unique moment presents an opportunity to interrogate our profession’s relationship to White supremacy and racial justice in order to reimagine an anti-racist future.

We hope you’ll join us for a four-part series of virtual symposia that will address these themes. Symposium events will occur throughout the academic year and will address different aspects of our past, present, and future. Additional information and specific dates are below.

*You will only need to register for one day. The ticket you receive will allow you to participate in both days of the symposium streaming live via YouTube.

If you would like to SUBMIT A QUESTION for Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice Symposium: Strategies for Achieving Racial Justice in Social Work Education (part 4) please click here. If your question is specific to a current PANEL or SPEAKER please include that in your question.

Part 4: Strategies for Achieving Racial Justice in Social Work Education
April 15 & 16, 2021, 12:30 – 4:30 PM Eastern
Part 4 continues the exploration of our anti-racist future and the role of social work education in helping to achieve this. What is the future of social work education, and what are the strategies we need to employ to achieve racial justice in social work education?

DAILY SCHEDULE
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2021
WELCOME ADDRESS
9:30PST/11:30 CST/12:30 EST - Welcome to the Symposium

Laura S. Abrams, Sandra Crewe, Alan Dettlaff, James Herbert Williams

PANEL 1 - Dismantling Anti-Racist Pedagogies in Social Work Education
10:00-11:30 PST/12:00 - 1:30 CST/1:00-2:30 EST

Resistant Research: A Critical Trauma Theory to Uplift the Language of Those Unheard- Black, Indigenous and Social Work Students of Color

Anna Nelson, MSW, LCSW

Advancing Culturally Disruptive Pedagogies to Dismantle Anti-Black Racism in the Generalist Social Work Curriculum

Vannessa Gharbi, MSW, LCSW; Tiffany D. Baffour, PhD, MSS, MA

Unsettling Indigenous Racism within Social Work: Considerations for Anti-Colonial Social Work Education

Anita Vaillancourt, BSW/H, MSW, PhD; Shirley Chau, BSW, MSW, PhD

PANEL 2 -Envisioning a future for Social Work: Looking Back, Looking Forward
12:00-1:30 PST/2:00 - 3:30 CST/3:00-4:30 EST

Taking a Look in the Mirror to See the Future: Equitable Creative Placemaking and Social Work

Chandra Crudup, PhD, MSW; Chris Fike, MS, LLMSW; Claire McLoone, LMSW

Envisioning an Antiracist Profession: Social work's quest for truth, reconciliation, and social justice

Ebony Perez, PhD, MSW; Anna Nelson, MSW, LCSW

LatCrit and Social Work Epistemology - Dismantling Whiteness in Ways of Knowing

Susan Nakaoka, MA, MSW, PhD; Larry Ortiz, PhD, MSW; Adriana Aldana, MSW, PhD

FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021
PANEL 1 - Whiteness and White Supremacy: Theory, Education, and Practice
9:30-11:00 PST/11:30 - 1:00 CST/12:30-2:00 EST

Managing White Fragility: Teaching While Black

Yolanda Spears, LMSW

Presentation (2) TBD

Imagining the End of Racism through Ending White Supremacy: Implications for Social Work Education and Practice

Martell Teasley, PhD, MSW; Melissa Smith Haley, MSW, LMSW

PANEL 2 - Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive Social Work Education and Practice
11:30-1:00 PST/1:30 - 3:00 CST/ 2:30-4:00 EST

Resisting curriculum violence and developing anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, culturally sustaining approaches for social work education and practice

Caroline Sharkey, LCSW; Christopher Strickland, MSW; Jennifer Elkins, MSSW, PhD

Building the Skills of Imagination for an Anti-Racist Future

Charla Cannon Yearwood, MSSW, LSW; Chey Davis MA, MSW Candidate

Developing an Anti-Racist Social Work Curriculum

Braveheart Gillani, MSW; Flora Cohen, LMSW

CLOSING REMARKS
1:00-1:30 PST /3:00 - 3:30 CST/ 4:00-4:30 EST

Find out more »

6:00 pm

Power to Persevere: Rising Together!

April 15 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Please join us for NELCWIT's annual celebration of survivors: The Power to Persevere: Rising Together! This online event will take place on April 15, 6-7pm. You must complete free registration to receive the event link. REGISTER AT: charityauction.bid/NELCWIT Please direct any questions to info@nelcwit.org Thank you for supporting survivors in Franklin County and the North Quabbin!

Find out more »

7:00 pm

A Tax Day Like No Other: Teach-in

April 15 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Pressing for our budget priorities amid pandemic, economic and climate crises and new Cold Wars As we move into the post-pandemic, Biden era, it’s time to change what we buy with our tax dollars. The pandemic and the resulting economic crisis illuminated glaring inequalities and the human costs of budget priorities that enrich the wealthy and left […]

Find out more »

LGBTQ Migration and Immigration from the 1950s to Today

April 15 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

A panel discussion featuring perspectives of scholars, lawyers, asylum seekers, and historians.
About this Event
The History Project invites the public to attend a panel and discussion on the history of LGBTQ migration in the 20th and 21st centuries. This program is supported by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities.

Panelists include Eithne Luibhed, Ph.D. (Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Arizona), Karma R. Chavez, Ph.D. (Associate Professor and Department Chair, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, University of Texas at Austin), Richard Iandoli, Esq. (Iandoli, Desai & Cronin P.C.), and Al Green (Ministry Director, LGBT Asylum Task Force). Panelists will contextualize the long history of LGBTQ migration, immigration, and asylum from academic, legal, and community standpoints, with a particular focus on the histories of LGBTQ migrants to Massachusetts.

RSVP on Eventbrite, link to the Zoom will be sent out the day of the event. Email info@historyproject.org with any questions. For security purposes, Zoom meetings require an authenticated Zoom account, so please be sure to register with Zoom prior to the event.

This event is free and open to the public, any donations made will be split between The History Project and the LGBT Asylum Task Force. Thank you for your support!

About the Speakers

Eithne Luibhéid is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona (UA) and the former Director of the Institute for LGBT Studies at UA. She is the author of Pregnant on Arrival: Making the ‘Illegal’ Immigrant (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) and Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (University of Minnesota Press 2002); the co-editor with Karma Chávez of Queer and Trans Migrations: Dynamics of Illegalization, Detention and Deportation (University of Illinois Press 2020) and two other volumes; and the editor of a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies on “Lives that Resist Telling: Migrant and Refugee Lesbians” (2020) and a special issue of GLQ on “Queer Migrations” (2008).

Karma R. Chávez is a rhetorical critic who utilizes textual and field-based methods and studies the rhetorical practices of people marginalized within existing power structures. She has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities, as well as co-founding the Queer Migration Research Network. She works with social justice organizations and her scholarship is informed by queer of color theory, women of color feminism, poststructuralism, and cultural studies.

Chávez is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latino Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She previously worked at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the Department of Communication Arts. For four years in Madison, she hosted a radio show on 89.9 FM WORT called "A Public Affair."

Attorney Richard Iandoli has practiced U.S. immigration law since 1977. Among his many accomplishments, he has served as Past Chair of the New England Chapter, American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), a member of AILA Executive Committee from 1992- 1997, and he is a past member of AILA National Board of Governors. Richard is a frequent lecturer on U.S. immigration matters, and has led presentations for the Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations, the National Lawyers Guild, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (nationally and locally), Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), Northeastern University, Boston University, Boston College and Harvard University Schools of Law, the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and the National Association of Foreign Student Advisors (NAFSA). Throughout his career, Richard has served as a mentor for other attorneys through AILA and the Political Asylum Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project. He is also the author of numerous articles on U.S. immigration matters for AILA, MCLE and others.

Richard’s current bar admissions include the Massachusetts Bar, the Federal District Court of Massachusetts and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. He holds a Bachelor’s in Philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts (1969) and a Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts (1976).

Al Green is the Ministry Director of the LGBT Asylum Task Force. As a gay asylum seeker from Jamaica and a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA), he has a unique perspective on the differences and similarities between the LGBTQ communities in both countries. He is also an avid swimmer and a lover of all things food.

Find out more »
+ Export Events

To submit an event via email, email
If you have any suggestions, questions, or problems with this calendar, please email us or call us at (413) 584-8975