Catherine R. Squires, PhD, was named associate dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in August 2020. She is the author of several books, including The Post-Racial Mystique, and over the past decade has collaborated on a variety of civic media and public history projects to expand understanding of Black history in Minnesota. 

What year did you come to the University of Minnesota and what brought you here?

I came in 2007 for the job at the School of Journalism. I did my PhD at Northwestern and my first job was at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. So, I was coming from Ann Arbor to here.

Was there something about the University that surprised you when you got here?

Being in a state with 11 native nations, it's changed my framework for thinking about what a land-grant university is and where that land came from. I don't know if surprise is the right word. One thing that’s been really interesting for me is how much the discussion around native nations is more present here than it was, for example, at the University of Michigan. Being in a state with 11 native nations, it's changed my framework for thinking about what a land-grant university is and where that land came from.

When your appointment to the Humphrey School as associate dean was announced, you referred to “this tumultuous time of change and possibility.” Please say more about how you see this time we’re living through. 

What's interesting to me is that in times of deep crisis and tragedy, we see different sides of each other, and we also have to change really fast. And that adaptation, some of which is done under duress, is awful and stressful in many ways. But it also shows us how much we are capable of. And so, I hope that the capacity we've discovered is used in ways that help us imagine how to do better. Some changes take a lot of time, but the argument that all changes take a lot of time just doesn't hold water.

I would hope that people take heart in that glimpse of our potential, our expansive capacity, and also in the ways that people have put a focus on the value of caring. In feminist research, there's been a long history of people talking about how “care work” has been feminized and therefore devalued—everything from teaching grade school to being a nursing home worker, care work that is essential to the survival of us all.

The capacity-challenging work we've had to do in order to survive a pandemic and  to witness the murder of a man in broad daylight across nine minutes has shown us something about ourselves.The capacity-challenging work we've had to do in order to survive a pandemic and also to witness the murder of a man in broad daylight across nine minutes—that has shown us something about ourselves. And I wonder if we're ready to use that, not to exploit other people or to continue normalizing these imbalances of power, but to actually try to remedy them.

Members of the Retirees Association are old enough to remember the role that TV played in bringing the realities of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement to the attention of millions of Americans. What impact do you think the livestreaming of the trial for the killing of George Floyd might have on America's racial reckoning? 

I was a sophomore in college when the trial of the LAPD officers who beat Rodney King was “the trial of the century,” and the defense used the slow-motion function when replaying the video of the beating as a way to indicate that the brutality was justified. And just like [1919], when there was the Red Summer in the wake of World War I and so many African Americans were lynched by white mobs, and postcards of the lynchings were shared as trophies—were sent to people as souvenirs—what we see depends on who we are and who we think we are, and who we think the other person on the receiving end of that brutality is.

I hope that a greater majority of people who can bring themselves to even watch that video will see what I see.

What can members of the Retirees Association do to make Minnesota a better place for all? 

I think listening to the people who have suffered the most in what folks call the “twin pandemics” of racism and COVID. To remedy the inequalities, we need to acknowledge the wisdom of people who have experienced those inequalities. As Bryan Stevenson [founder of the Equal Justice Initiative] said, “The people closest to the problem are often closest to the solution.” 

I think all of us, whatever our age group, should think about that kind of lived expertise as central to our conversations about making Minnesota a place that feels like home to everybody.
Being willing to listen to those folks at the center instead of always looking to the usual experts, I think that's one thing we could practice. And I think we could also practice just learning people's stories, in ways that are loads deeper than we usually make time for.