DARKSTAR Engagement Series
Mainline Mama: A Conversation with Dr. Keeonna Harris
Dr. Keeonna Harris joined us to discuss her memoir Mainline Mama, sharing her journey through the carceral system as a young mother. Her story highlights radical love, resilience, and the strength of Black and brown women rebuilding their lives against systemic injustice.
Intersectionality in Solidarity: A Conversation with Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey
Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey, activist, scholar, and founding member of the Combahee River Collective, joined an interdisciplinary panel to explore the meaning of solidarity today. The event fostered interactive discussion on connection, values, and collective action for transformative futures.
TORN APART: Anti-Blackness and Broken Systems
Professor Dorothy Roberts joined us for an interdisciplinary panel to discuss the impacts of her scholarship across law, public policy, medical ethics, nursing, and sociology.
"And We've Given Them Time" // "How Much Time Do You Need"
Dr. Ryan Petteway led a powerful webinar examining how racialized notions of time influence health equity, drawing on the works of Fannie Lou Hamer and James Baldwin.
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
Drawing from her book "Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want", Dr. Ruha Benjamin explored how small, everyday actions can have exponential effects in promoting justice, well-being, and societal transformation. She emphasized the importance of a "microvision of change"—a perspective that recognizes the potential of seemingly minor decisions and habits to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo.
He Oranga Ngākau: Māori Understandings of Trauma Informed Care
Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith delivered a compelling talk on Māori understandings of trauma-informed care, highlighting the importance of Indigenous knowledge, decolonizing methodologies, and culturally grounded approaches to healing. The event brought together community members and scholars for a rich dialogue on health, trauma, and justice.
Integrating Ancestral Knowledge in Policy & Practice
In a powerful panel discussion, Dr. Leonie Pihama, Dr. Cherryl Waerea i te Rangi Smith, and Ms. Ngaropi Raumati shared Indigenous approaches to integrating ancestral knowledge into policy and practice. Centering Māori perspectives, the panel addressed the enduring impacts of colonial and interpersonal trauma and called for decolonizing, anti-racist strategies to support healing and restoration in Indigenous communities.
Black Liberation Through Action and Resistance
Dr. Frederick V. Engram Jr. discussed his book Black Liberation through Action and Resistance: MOVE, offering a powerful call to action for anti-racism work. The talk explored themes of Black liberation and critiqued past social justice movements.
Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting
Film screening of “Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting” at the UW, Washington State Public Health Association, and Yakama Nation.
This film details the current uprising against the misappropriation of Native culture in a national reckoning about racial injustice that has succeeded in the removal of Confederate imagery, toppling statues of Christopher Columbus and forcing corporate sponsors of Washington’s NFL team to demand it change its most-offensive name. It examines the origin and proliferation of the words, images, and gestures that many Native people and their allies find offensive. Imagining the Indian explores the impact that stereotyping and marginalization of Native history have had on Native people. It chronicles the long social movement to eliminate mascoting.
Winner at 2023 Arizona International Film Festival and 2022 Boston International Film Festival