
Lessie Branch
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About Lessie
Dr. Branch is a Racial Policy Scholar, Fulbright Specialist in Race, Ethnicity & Religion in Politics, Director Programs Community Relations at Citizens Committee for New York City & Director of The Think Tank at The Thinkubator. Her work examines the gulf between Black optimism about group progress and the actual data on continuing disparities, questions of social knowledge, social beliefs and relative group position through the transformative application of rhetorical criticism to interrogate narratives that structure social practices in ways that privilege some and marginalize others. She has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from The New School.
Contributions
Social Knowledge, the Rhetoric of Public Policy, and Black Progress in America
In the News
Publications
Examines the paradox between increased optimism among Black Americans and continued socioeconomic stagnation among the same group.
Discusses colorblindness as an epidemic in America.
Explains the paradox of Obama era black optimism despite continued black socioeconomic stagnation. Engages in clarification of an evolution from a "linked-fate" political discourse to a "post-racial/bootstrap" frame that focuses on individualism to achieve racial parity.
Discusses Black Lives Matter and Hasselbeck's question for why the group was not labeled a hate group.