Princeton University students attending the school this fall will be able to take a class titled “#BlackLivesMatter,” which will discuss how the social movement has grown. The course will feature readings from an avowed Marxist and former Black Panther.
The course description reads:
This seminar traces the historical roots and growth of the Black Lives Matter social movement in the United States and comparative global contexts. The movement and course are committed to resisting, unveiling, and undoing histories of state sanctioned violence against Black and Brown bodies. The course seeks to document the forms of dispossession that Black Americans face, and offers a critical examination of the prison industrial complex, police brutality, urban poverty, and white supremacy in the US.
The College Fix noted that the course includes readings from “Freedom is a Constant Struggle,” written by Angela Davis. Davis, the Fix recalled, is “a former Black Panther whose weapons were used in the kidnapping of a federal judge. She was acquitted of a kidnapping charge. Davis is also the 1979 ‘Lenin Peace Prize’ winner, granted to her by the Communist country of East Germany.”
The Fix also reported that the course is aligned with an organization whose stated mission is to end the “nuclear family structure.” It is also aligned with the official Black Lives Matter organization, which was started by unabashed Marxists. The Fix did not receive responses to inquiries from those associated with the course, including Professor Hanna Garth, who is set to teach.
More from the Fix:
One book students might read could be Garth’s own book about “black food.”
Last October, Garth wrote a book titled “Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice” which gives an in-depth account of “Black food and the challenges it faces today.”
“For Black Americans, the food system is broken. When it comes to nutrition, Black consumers experience an unjust and inequitable distribution of resources,” a summary of the book said.
The book is a “comprehensive look at Black food culture and the various forms of violence that threaten the future of this cuisine, Black Food Matters centers Blackness in a field that has too often framed Black issues through a white-centric lens, offering new ways to think about access, privilege, equity, and justice,” the summary said.
Garth’s personal website describes her as “a sociocultural and medical anthropologist I am most broadly interested in the ways in which people struggle to overcome structural violence.”
She says her most “recent work is focused on the connections between food systems, structural inequalities, health, and wellbeing.” More from Garth:
This work has looked at the ways in which macro-level changes and shifts in local food distribution systems impact communities, families, and individuals. I have studied how food scarcity and reduced access to affordable food influence individual distress, and household and community dynamics. I have also studied the ways in which food justice organizations attempt to improve access to healthy food for low income communities.
She adds that all of her “research, teaching, and mentoring is designed around my commitment to feminist methodologies and critical race theory.”