The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks have stoked strong denunciations and calls for justice and change, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, professor and chair of the Africana Studies and Research Center, in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
"But to date, there has been very little interest in real change from the highest levels of political leadership," he writes in the piece. "Through executive order, the president has issued modest police reforms, and congressional legislation has already stalled. To create lasting change in the United States, we must do more than reform the police. We must reconcile with our history — with race and with racism. And to do that, there is no better model to guide us than South Africa’s."
Joseph Lubeck '78, right, meets with students and Professor Ross Brann during a recent campus visit, where they spoke about Lubeck's grandfather, Morris Escoll '1916, and an essay he wrote about life as a Jewish student at Cornell.
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Photo illustration by Ashley Osburn/Cornell University
A student chronicled her life in the ’50s and ’60s—then shared those memories with her daughter and granddaughter