Civil Rights & Diversity in the Entertainment Industry: Authentic Portrayal of People
The ATSS/UFT and the United Federation of Teachers Committee for Members Who are Capably Disable are sponsoring a free webinar for teachers on Thursday, December 2 on civil rights and diversity in the entertainment industry. Topics include how people with disabilities are portrayed and the employment of actors with disabilities. Speakers include Rebecca Damon, Executive Director, New York Local, Labor Policy and International Affairs for SAG-AFTRA and Christine Bruno (SAG-AFTRA/AEA), an award-winning actor, teaching artist, activist, and disability equity consultant to the entertainment industry. The webinar will be from 4:30 to 5:30 PM EST. You must register in advance to get the zoom link! Click Here To Register! For additional information email carolynbernie@aol.com.
McCarthyism, New and Old: Today’s Culture Wars in Historical Context
This webinar is on Youtube. It was sponsored by Historians for Peace and Democracy, Massachusetts Peace Action, Zinn Education Project and Radical Teacher. State legislatures are prohibiting “anti-American” teaching. Vigilante groups are publishing lists of “unpatriotic teachers.” Committees are investigating who teaches what and where. Books are banned and there are paranoid rumors circulating about brainwashing vulnerable youth. Rightwing politicians and cynical operators are whipping up public sentiment about “Critical Race Theory” as a subversive plot against America. We have been here before. From the 1940s through the 1960s, reactionaries used anti-Communism as a weapon to attack educators at every level. Thousands were investigated, many jobs were lost, and “loyalty oaths” were required for decades. Textbooks were sanitized as patriotic myths took the place of careful analyses of evidence. McCarthyism expert Ellen Schrecker explains how the current assault on teaching the truth reprises the outrages of the Cold War red scare. Jennifer Ruth of the AAUP and Jesse Hagopian of the Zinn Education Project describe what’s happening today and how teachers at every level are combatting it. Historian Van Gosse moderates the discussion.