The Equity Report #3: The Canon of Ethnicity, Race, Class & Nation Formation in the United States
This essay traces the intellectual architecture of Ethnic Studies through the intertwined analyses of race, class, gender, and nation. Beginning with Omi and Winant’s Racial Formation in the United States (2015), it situates race as a social construct shaped through historical struggle and institutional power, then expands outward to encompass the broader canon that defines Ethnic Studies as a field of liberation. Drawing on the decolonial consciousness of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), the pedagogical radicalism of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), and the intersectional analyses of Davis’s Women, Race & Class (1981) and Robinson’s Black Marxism (1983), the essay articulates Ethnic Studies as both a political movement and a knowledge system. It further integrates the cultural theories of Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), Moraga and Anzaldúa’s This Bridge Called My Back (1981), Said’s Orientalism (1978), Lowe’s Immigrant Acts (1996), and Takaki’s A Different Mirror (1993) to demonstrate how the field redefines representation, labor, and belonging across diasporas. Through a reflective synthesis, the essay asks what culture might become if not born in reaction to domination—arguing that Ethnic Studies, at its core, is a discipline of becoming, one that envisions liberation not as reaction but as creation.
— Telisa Nyoka King, M.A.
The Equity Report #2: Rest in Power, Assata Shakur
“I believe in living. I believe in the power of the people.” — Assata Shakur (1987)
This essay, Rest in Power, Assata Shakur, examines the political and intellectual legacy of Assata Shakur (1947–2025), whose life epitomized the convergence of scholarship, struggle, and sacrifice within Black liberation movements. Situating Shakur within the historical emergence of Black Studies, the essay traces her evolution from student activist at Howard University to member of the Black Liberation Army, emphasizing how her lived experience embodied the praxis of revolutionary knowledge. It interrogates the state repression that criminalized her activism, culminating in her 1977 conviction and 1979 prison escape—an act that redefined the parameters of resistance and exile. Shakur’s decades of asylum in Cuba are analyzed as both a political sanctuary and a site of transnational solidarity that linked African-diasporic and Third World liberation struggles. Through her seminal text Assata: An Autobiography (1987), she articulated a pedagogy of survival that continues to inform abolitionist education, feminist thought, and racial-justice movements. Her death in 2025 while still listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists roster underscores the enduring fear of radical Black womanhood in the U.S. national imagination. Ultimately, the essay contends that Shakur’s life and legacy demand a redefinition of freedom—not as peace, but as perpetual vigilance, memory, and collective transformation.
— Telisa Nyoka King, M.A.
Copy Paste Remix #2: The People’s Choice —Zohran Mamdani and the New York We Deserve
This essay, The People’s Choice: Zohran Mamdani and the New York We Deserve, examines the cultural and political significance of Zohran Mamdani’s historic election as New York City’s 111th mayor. Moving beyond conventional political reporting, it interprets Mamdani’s victory as a rupture in the city’s power narrative—one that redefines representation, equity, and belonging for immigrant, working-class, and Muslim communities. Through a lens of identity politics and moral economy, the essay explores how Mamdani’s platform—housing justice, public-transit equity, and NYPD accountability—translates grassroots values into policy ambition. It situates his rise within a broader critique of neoliberal governance, arguing that Mamdani embodies a new political remix that fuses community organizing with institutional leadership. Ultimately, the essay positions his election as both a reflection and a reimagining of New York’s collective self-image, suggesting that the city has not only chosen a mayor but mirrored its most human aspirations back to itself.
— Telisa Nyoka King, M.A.
Copy Paste Remix #1: SNAP Judgment — When the United States Criminalizes Hunger
This essay, “SNAP Judgment: When the United States Criminalizes Hunger,” examines how the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reveals the structural violence embedded in U.S. social policy. Framed through an Ethnic Studies lens, it traces the racialized history of welfare discourse—from Reagan’s “welfare queen” myth to modern debates over work requirements—and exposes how hunger is politicized as a moral failure rather than a policy design. Drawing on recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and equity-focused research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the essay argues that SNAP’s erosion reflects a broader ideology that privileges corporate subsidy over human survival. It also spotlights Bay Area food banks as sites of grassroots resistance, demonstrating how community-led food justice efforts sustain dignity where federal safety nets fail. Ultimately, the piece contends that hunger in America is not accidental but deliberate—a product of systemic inequity disguised as fiscal discipline, and a mirror reflecting who this nation chooses to feed and who it allows to starve.
—Telisa Nyoka King, M.A.
The Equity Report #1: How did Ethnic Studies come to be?
How did Ethnic Studies come to be? traces the historical emergence of Ethnic Studies as both an intellectual and political project rooted in the social upheavals of the late 1960s. It situates the field’s origins within the broader struggle for racial justice that followed the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, when the unfulfilled promises of legal equality gave rise to new forms of resistance and community self-determination. Drawing on key uprisings across U.S. cities—from Watts to Detroit—the essay argues that Ethnic Studies was born from the convergence of grassroots activism, educational inequity, and systemic neglect, culminating in the 1968–69 San Francisco State College Strike led by the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front. That 136-day strike, the longest in U.S. history, established the nation’s first and only independent College of Ethnic Studies, setting a precedent for similar movements at universities nationwide. By linking this history to contemporary frameworks of racial equity, community-based research, and culturally responsive grantmaking, the essay illuminates Ethnic Studies as a living architecture of equity—one that bridges activism, academia, and applied practice. Its enduring legacy demonstrates that the pursuit of justice within education and public institutions is not a single event but a continuous, evolving process grounded in collective struggle and cultural knowledge.
— Telisa Nyoka King, M.A.