In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with activist and educator Jesse Hagopian about his new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education. They talk about the assault on public education that takes the form of criminalizing the truth itself. They note both the powerful corporate forces behind this movement and what they are afraid of, and also discuss the many instances of people fighting back to name, amplify, and mobilize the truth together.
Jesse Hagopian’s African ancestors survived the middle passage and enslavement on plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana. Jesse is a Seattle educator and author of the new book, Teach Truth: The Attack on Critical Race Theory and the Struggle for Antiracist Education. He is editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, a founding steering committee member of Black Lives Matter at School, and is the Director the Teaching for Black Lives Campaign of the Zinn Education Project. Jesse is the editor of of the book, More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing, and the co-editor of the books, Teaching Palestine, Teaching for Black Lives, Black Lives Matter at School, and Teachers Unions and Social Justice.
Jesse’s writing has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Nation, The Progressive, Truthout, and The Washington Post. You can connect with Jesse on IG (@jessehagopian), Bluesky (@jessehagopian.bsky.social) or his website, www.IAmAnEductor.com.
Speaking Out of Place, which carries on the spirit of Palumbo-Liu’s book of the same title, argues against the notion that we are voiceless and powerless, and that we need politicians and pundits and experts to speak for us.
Judith Butler on Speaking Out of Place:
“In this work we see how every critical analysis of homelessness, displacement, internment, violence, and exploitation is countered by emergent and intensifying social movements that move beyond national borders to the ideal of a planetary alliance. As an activist and a scholar, Palumbo-Liu shows us what vigilance means in these times. This book takes us through the wretched landscape of our world to the ideals of social transformation, calling for a place, the planet, where collective passions can bring about a true and radical democracy.”
David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has written widely on issues of literary criticism and theory, culture and society, race, ethnicity and indigeneity, human rights, and environmental justice. His books include The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age, and Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Truthout, and other venues.
Bluesky @palumboliu.bsky.social
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