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  “America, do not despair at the rising tide of elitism, incivility, racial, national and religious intolerance, and good old-fashioned racism and white supremacist thinking that has taken hold of our country at this political moment. We’ve endured worse and still we rose. America, do not despair, because for my 2017 New Year’s Resolution, I

Updated from Original post in Medium: Jun 2, 2020 4 min read; featured image of Beyoncé courtesy of  freepngimg.com “But perhaps most potent is one of Beyoncé’s shortest reflections: ‘I researched my ancestry recently and learned that I come from a slave owner who fell in love with and married a slave.’ “ Why Beyoncé

As people head to the polls to vote, it is important that we do not lose hope. This column was written after Donald Trump’s election four years ago.  It seems timely to repost it as people contemplate who to vote for.     January 1 is the day for resolutions with which to begin this new

Vote Original post, September 14, 2020, Anthropology News    By Irma McClaurin Irma McClaurin is a Black feminist anthropologist and consultant who conducts research on the social construction of inequality and its impact on African diaspora communities through an intersectional lens. She is founder of the “Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive” at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Irma McClaurin.  Originally published in Medium. Jun 5 · 2 min read Dear White people.  We get it.  You’re mad.  However, your new level of indignation is no equal to our anger. Black people have been this mad for 400 years. You have been this mad for a month. Your White Guilt Is Taking a Toll on

Irma McClaurin,Originally published in Medium, Jun 1, 2020 · 6 min read Around the country, beginning on May 30, 2020, and in the days to follow, people marched, most peacefully protesting, and rising up in solidarity across the lines of race, class, gender, age, and religion that usually divide us about the police murder of #GeorgeFloyd. Some are people

Original post: Anthropology News Pandemic Insights, June 3, 2020 Irma McClaurin  Recent articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Scientist both highlight the fact that graduate students are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Graduate students at Duke University have given their institution a list of demands that include dispensing with fees, standardized work conditions that don’t put them

Published in Medium, May 30, 2020 Irma McClaurin, PhD When white people in Michigan defied state & city regulations to protest COVID-19 shutdowns, without face masks and carrying automatic weapons, the police stood quietly and idly by. No arrests, no confrontations — yet these people were armed. When unarmed Black people protest their outrage over

  How do I know about the need for decisive leadership? I’ve been that leader at the helm of more than one crisis situation. The one I will discuss happened almost 10 years ago. On April 10, 2011, Raleigh, N.C. was flattened by tornadoes. Like COVID-19, it was an act out of our control and

Irma McClaurin, PhD The Afripedia virtual event occurred on Thursday, May 21, 2020. https://bit.ly/afripediancma. Want something exciting to do in the midst of a pandemic, while practicing #socialdistancing and following the advice to stay home? How about taking a trip to Africa to learn about African art? That’s what North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA)’s African Art

I have been actively engaged in community engagement as an anthropologist and also as an administrator for decades.  The opportunity to put into real practice what I had learned over time came in late 2007, during my role as the Associate Vice President and Founding Executive Director of the University of Minnesota’s (UMN) first Urban

Do you need a mentor or a coach?
After reading an article on graduate students’ dissatisfaction with mentoring, I say “Hire a Coach!”

May the blessings of the Seven African Powers be with you always.           —-Denise Alvarado An Invocation to the African Orishas Yemayá, Mother of the Seven Seas, guide her over the waters of our salted tears. Oshun, Goddess of Love, wrap her in your warm embrace so that she will know she was loved. Chàngó, Orisha

In February, 2019, following her keynote for the 199th Susan B. Anthony Birthday Celebration, Dr. Irma McClaurin, Black Feminist and Community Engagement Specialist, spoke at the University of Rochester. Her topic was “Innovative’ and ‘Authentic’ University-Community Outreach and Engagement: A Case Study of University of Minnesota’s Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center.” A crowd of about

You see Jussie, racism is never just about you personally. It acts upon your personhood and constrains your individual achievements, but systemic racism is structural violence against a group of people.

February 13, 2019 was the designated date for the 199th Annual Susan B. Anthony Birthday Celebration at the Convention Center in Rochester, NY. Hosted by the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House, the event attracted a capacity audience of 1200 people. Below is an excerpt from Tracie Issac’s article published in the Minority Reporter.

Right now, I am one of three diversity consultants for the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s upcoming exhibition entitled “The Changemakers: Rochester Women Who Changed the World.”  We began work for this project over a year ago. Since then, much has happened, and the world is now filled with people who can lay claim to

Irma McClaurin, PhD Culture and Education Editor Originally published in Insightnews.com, Dec 11, 2018 This is Part II of a two-part article on Racism, Health, and the high incidents of maternal and infant deaths and premature births among Black women in America. The stress of being a Black woman in America Although she is the

Irma McClaurin, PhD Culture and Education Editor Originally published  in Insightnews.com, Dec 4, 2018 This is Part I of a two-part article on racism, health, and the high incidents of maternal and infant deaths and premature births among Black women in America.  The evidence is irrefutable. Racism is getting away with murder as the leading

Photo by Titus Brooks Heagins “Fred and Ned” by Titus Brooks Heagins Titus Brooks Heagins: Songs of the South!     Through Nov. 25 Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill (originally posted in Indyweek, Oct. 11, 2018) Coming face to face with the images of Durham photographer Titus Brooks Heagins is not for the faint of heart. “My duty as a

A glimpse of the recent 50th Yale Summer High School Reunion YSHS 1968 Reunion   held Sept 7-8, 2018 in New Haven, Connecticut. Thank you Yale Divinity School for allowing us visit the campus, see the changes, and reminisce in a space we came to call home 50 years ago. We are the “hidden figures” of Yale University & the Yale Divinity

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By Dr. Irma McClaurin  Aug 16, 2018 “Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, is dead.” That line plays in my mind like a badly scratched record, hiccupping at one point – “is dead, is dead, is dead” – over and over again. Aretha’s death marks the passing of a generation of Boomers who grew up singing

These are trying times for Black activists, for feminists, for Black feminist activists–hell for anyone who has a modicum of awareness.  In this era of Black Lives Matter (#BlackLivesMatter), what is needed are safe spaces to express authentic feelings without consequences, and mentoring as a form of shelter–where folk can retreat to for solstice and

  Nothing boosts a woman’s morale at the movies than to see BadAss women owning their power and kicking butt as they complete their mission, which is usually to save the world—because that’s what we do. However, until recently, such BadAss women all have been white, in the movies and in real life—whether “Lean In”-type

This year, 2018, marks the Bicentennial of Frederick Douglass. Upon hearing about this recognition, I revisit one of Douglass’ famous speeches, and wonder what h.e might say about the state of things today. Though published in 2015, the observations still ring true

If you seek a dynamic speaker or workshop presenter for Women’s History month or anytime, I’m available. I am an activist anthropologist, writer, seasoned leader, and educator. Passion and a deep commitment to social justice inform my actions as a speaker and workshop facilitator on current issues. I’ve appeared on the Sandra Bookman show “Here

The reinvigorated fight against sexual harassment and exploitation has reached Congress, where some of the country’s most powerful lawmakers are now under fire for sexual misconduct allegations. Lawmakers are now being tasked with shattering the silence around sexual abuse—but it is not a “culture of secrecy” that must end in our legislative sectors. What must

  How people bury their dead tells you something about who and what they valued in life. African American cemeteries are few and far between because often, after Reconstruction and during the era of Jim Crow and segregation, black property was confiscated or destroyed, and sometimes Black cemeteries were covered over to make room for

Award-winning Column, Original Publication: Insight News, June 30, 2015 [Editor’s note: McFarlane Media and Insight News salute Dr. Irma McClaurin, Insight’s Culture and Education Editor. McClaurin’s column entitled “A Black mother weeps for America: Stop killing our Black sons!” won highest honors for Insight News, 1st Place – Best in Nation for Column Writing –

Artspeak: Anthropology Honors the Mentoring Legacy of Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole This presentation was delivered at the annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association on November 15, 2012 in San Francisco, where several sessions and panels were held to honor Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole. She is best known as the only woman to have served as

When Ruth Behar wrote her seminal collection, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart (1996), she spoke about what it meant to write “vulnerable” scholarship—the kind that “breaks your heart” and makes you want to cry. Tears were in strong evidence last month at the May 19, 2012 panel on “The Poetics, Politics and

December 28, 2011 For the last few months, we have been inundated by scandals at universities that range from allegations of child abuse and molestation to deadly hazing rituals.  In each case, the president of the institution has come under tremendous criticism and fire for failing to act, even when it’s not clear that they