With over 500 mass shootings in the U.S. last year alone, these tragedies are no longer shocking—they’re expected. While the country remains stagnant in addressing one of its most urgent public health and social crises, media narratives, shaped by racial bias, fixate on the identity of the person who committed the shooting rather than the victims or the systemic issues fueling the violence. This study explores three key questions: (a) What sociological and psychological factors contribute to the radicalization and deviant behavior of individuals who commit mass shootings? (b) What factors do the media focus on in their coverage of mass shootings? (c) How do these media portrayals vary based on the race or ethnicity of the shooter? In answering these questions, this research draws from racial formation theory, framing theory, and general strain theory, while also considering adverse childhood experiences. Through an in-depth review of motives by the shooter and media narratives, this study seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of mass shootings. It critiques how the media portrays the intentions behind the shooting as well as the identity of the shooter, and shapes public perceptions of criminality. This study contributes to discussions on racial bias, policy reform, and the need for equitable approaches to crime prevention and public safety.

Allensworth was founded in 1908, making it one of the first Black freedom colonies in California. Founders envisioned it as the Tuskegee of the West, most known for its self-governing nature, utopian ideals, and focus on African American self determination and progress. This paper answers the question: How does California’s history of liberalism and colonial violence lead to our understanding of Black resistance and efforts of repair, such as reparations? This paper looks at the logics of settlerism through analysis of historical newspapers, public pamphlets, oral histories, community memory, and biographies of the founding colonel. At the same time, I also argue that the destabilization of Allensworth is due to California statecraft that facilitates dispossession and coercion under the guise of moral liberalism. The final section will look at the contradictions within the black colonization project and settlerist ideology, suggesting that state aligned practices of memorialization and reparation merely mediate the demands requested from the current and descendant community.

This research study examines the historical and systemic conditions that led to the overrepresentation of African American girls and women in the sex trade in Los Angeles during the “era of the” Great Migration. Throughout my research, I use the terms Black and African American interchangeably to describe American descendants of Africa. The Great migration was the largest movement of people in U.S. history lasting from 1910-1970. During this time, millions of African Americans moved from the South to Northern, Western and Midwestern cities. Hundreds of thousands moved to Los Angeles with the hope, not only of escaping the violent repression of the South, but of finding greater social, political and economic opportunities. African Americans initially found Los Angeles to be a kind of paradise. They faced comparatively less physical violence, could vote, were able to buy homes, and their children received a better quality of education. However, when their numbers began to increase so did discriminatory practices and policies aimed at impeding their progress. I posit that despite having greater prospects for things like schooling, housing, political participation and jobs, the Black communities in Los Angeles, particularly the women, faced the intersectional barriers of racism, classism, sexism, and economic oppression. These conditions forced many into sex work and left them susceptible to disproportionate criminalization by a corrupt LAPD. The questions guiding this study, therefore are, what economic & racial factors influenced sex work for Black women in LA (1910–1940), how were Black sex workers treated by law enforcement and the justice system, and what stereotypes or ideologies justified their criminalization? This social historical study is grounded in Critical Race Feminism and relies on archival research, in the form of historical documents, newspaper archives, police records, and academic literature, to uncover the racialized and gendered dynamics of sex work in early Los Angeles. This study is significant because it centers the lived experiences of marginalized Black women giving voice to a population often left out of mainstream consciousness, while offering historical context to contemporary forms of Black criminalization and community stigmatization.

This presentation examines the characterization of Magdalene, the Black domestic worker in Jean Stafford’s The Mountain Lion, through the lenses of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and bell hooks’ concept of the oppositional gaze. The novel primarily follows Molly and Ralph’s coming-of-age journey within a white frontier setting, but Magdalene’s presence exposes the racial and labor hierarchies that sustain this setting. Her labor is essential to the household’s function and the children’s experiences of the West. Using CRT, the presentation argues that Magdalene’s dehumanized portrayal reflects the systemic nature of racism in literature, where Black characters are visually othered and rendered invisible in terms of agency. However, through hooks’ theory of the oppositional gaze, Magdalene’s silence and “watchful” presence become a site of resistance that challenges the white gaze. By analyzing Stafford’s racialized imagery, particularly through Molly’s fearful and grotesque descriptions of Magdalene, the presentation also connects to Katie Collins’ work on defacement in Stafford’s fiction. This study highlights how a character like Magdalene can reveal racial ideologies embedded in Western American literature.