AAPF EXPANDS INTO NEW MEDIA
PART 1: Radio
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| Radio host Michael Eric Dyson |
Starting on October 24, for two exciting the weeks the Affirmative Action Research and Policy Consortium (an AAPF project) produced an unprecedented radio series aimed at bringing information about affirmative action to a wide audience. During the two weeks leading to the November 7th elections, listeners from all over the country tuned in every weekday morning to the Michael Eric Dyson show to hear this special project entitled "13 Myths About Affirmative Action: A Special Series on a Public Policy Under Siege". Today, the series remains available at www.aapf.org/focus, and continues to be a valuable and easily accessible educational tool.
This 13- part series provides listeners with a guided tour of the current controversy about affirmative action. Each installment in this sequential series is structured to explore a widely held belief or assertion about affirmative action. Upon closer inspection, each belief is shown to be false, distorted, or unsupported by the evidence. As each belief is revealed to be a myth and debunked, the ensuing discussion re-analyzes the issue by offering information, research, and personal accounts from a range of commentators, including academics, activists and every day citizens.
The series took Detroit listeners by storm, and many of the chief actors in the area (e.g. the NAACP) told us that their entire offices would listen to the broadcasts together. Reaction to the broadcasts was overwhelmingly positive, and the partnership between AAPF and The Michael Eric Dyson Show was a great success. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson enthused that he was "thrilled to join with the nation's leading expert on questions of affirmative action and their legal and political implications, Kimberlé Crenshaw, in analyzing the crucial issues at hand in Michigan."
Joining AAPF Executive Director Crenshaw and Dr. Dyson were many of the nation's leading experts on affirmative action-related issues, a number of whom are Consortium members themselves. The guests ranged from litigators to academics, from directors of organizations to students at law students, from authors and playwrights to clergy. Appearing on the series, in alphabetical order were Reverend Wendell Anthony, Scot Brown, Devon Carbado, Sumi Cho, George Curry, Eve Ensler, Mark Fancher, Kevin Gaines, Cheryl Harris, Luke Harris, Janine Jackson, Robin D.G. Kelley, Marianne Lado, George Lipsitz, Gay MacDougall, Mari Matsuda, Priscilla Ocen, Dennis Parker, Thomas Shapiro, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Jory Steele, Rashida Tlaib, George A. Turner, Jr., Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Heaster Wheeler, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rafael Yaquian, Reverend Wendell Anthony, Scot Brown, Devon Carbado, Sumi Cho, George Curry, Eve Ensler, Mark Fancher, Kevin Gaines, Cheryl Harris, Luke Harris, Janine Jackson, Robin D.G. Kelley, Marianne Lado, George Lipsitz, Gay MacDougall, Mari Matsuda, Priscilla Ocen, Dennis Parker, Thomas Shapiro, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Jory Steele, Rashida Tlaib, George A. Turner, Jr., Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Heaster Wheeler, Betsy Leondar-Wright, and Rafael Yaquian.
PART 2: Web
During the entire run of the radio show, the AAPF team posted a chapter of
our Affirmative Action Mythbusters workbook to accompany the myth discussed
on the Michael Eric Dyson show that day. The workbook, which is now viewable
in its entirety online, benefited greatly from being moved to the internet,
as we were able to enrich it hyper-textually so that relevant sections reference
each other, and also lead to other documents and links.
The web-based workbook received and continues to receive visits from parties
looking to learn more about affirmative action. During the weeks prior to the
election, it was linked prominently from the ACLU Racial Justice website, and
its address has been circulated across a number of non-profit and academic email
lists.
Today, the workbook (viewable at www.aapf.org/focus) forms the cornerstone for our web development effort over the next year. We firmly believe that the internet represents one of the most exciting developments for social justice organizing and education, and we view our workbook as a vital contribution to the information available on racial justice. Indeed, the work we produce has never been more accessible. Keep checking our website for updates, as we plan an extensive overhaul to ready our site for relaunching later this year.
PART 3: Print
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Workbook cover image |
To make our work accessible even to those who cannot attend our workshops, and to enhance the learning of those workshop attendees looking to deepen their understandings of affirmative action, AAPF created a workbook entitled "Affirmative Action Mythbusters: Because what most people know about affirmative action isn’t right, and what’s right about affirmative action most people don’t know." The workbook is a long, comprehensive document featuring explanations and counter-arguments the 13 most common myths about affirmative action. As it is an educational tool, the document also features numerous extra sidebars and sections for each myth, much in the style of a fun textbook. It includes thinking exercises, “Did you know?” trivia sidebars, and a great deal of supplemental material. The scope of the research, writing, and editing was so great that we recruited additional members to the AAPF team, including Nikki Brown and Priscilla Ocen, two third-year law students at UCLA.
At a certain point, it became clear that the full “Mythbusters” workbook was simply to large for general audiences. For general audiences who want to know how to counter common affirmative action myths, but do not have the time or inclination to read a long work on the subject, we set to producing a short “primer” on Mythbusting. This primer, which weighs in at a light 2,726 words, is printed as a saddle-stapled booklet on three double-side sheets of 8x12 paper. The format of the short primer proved just right for general Michigan audiences, and we printed and distributed hundreds of them. They were picked up in bulk by other organizations as well, and distributed at events ranging from our workshops, to Reverend Al Sharpton’s rally for affirmative action. Demand for the primers was so great that AAPF began shipping the primers to Detroit to be distributed by Khaled, our fieldwork coordinator. In spite of our multiple shipments, there was always enough demand for the primers to ensure that none were left unclaimed.
PART 4: Video
2006 also saw AAPF's first forays into video. Partnering with a local videographer, Kimberlé, Luke, and Dror conducted a series of videotaped interviews about affirmative action with a diverse group of Michiganders. Interviewees spanned a broad range of ethnicities, professions, ages, and sexual orientations -- ranging from Black clergy to Arab American law students. The collected footage we captured tells the story of affirmative action's effect on Michigan as much as it tells the individual stories of the interviewees. The stories we gathered paint a picture of what will be lost with the MCRI's passing, and some of the footage we captured is quite moving. Excerpts from the interviews will soon enrich our on-line workbook, available at www.aapf.org/focus.
Founded in 1996 as a media-monitoring think-tank and information clearinghouse, the African American Policy Forum works to bridge the gap between scholarly research and public discourse related to inequality, discrimination and injustice. The AAPF seeks to build bridges between academic, activist and policy-making sectors in order to advance a more inclusive and robust public discourse on the challenge of achieving equity within and across diverse communities.
Please visit us at aapf.org