United Methodists are responding to Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth ,a statement of faith and urgent call to action from Christians in Palestine. UMKR seeks, through nonviolent means and in partnership with Palestinian Christians, freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis.
🔸= Something New or Recently Updated
VIDEOS & PODCASTS
Don't miss the resources in the right column
Rev. Lenny Duncan speaking at the Metropolitan New York Assembly, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
ARTICLES
Virtual Book Clubs
'How to be An Antiracist' by Dr. Ibran X. Kendi
Hosted by The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Begins in August
Join PPF for our second
Virtual Book Club.
• We will begin this Book Club
in August (be sure to check out
Peace Camp and Coffee Hours
before that)
• Book Club will meet weekly
for 10 weeks to break up the book
into easy-to-read amounts (and
you’re welcome to join if you haven’t completed the reading!)
• Order the book now! Some options:
- E-book or Audiobook available from library apps like Libby (if your library is not open due to Covid-19)
- Bookshop is a great online bookstore that supports independent bookstores
About the book:
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism – and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
TAKE ACTION:Register here
After registering, you’ll receive more details about timing and logistics – and registration helps us plan each each session to have enough space for everyone to connect and engage.
"White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo
Hosted by My Pint Sized POV
7 August 2020
A study of the book
White Fragility by
Robin DiAngelo for the
purpose of providing a
safe place for discussion
and introspection about
race and racism. We will
discuss chapters 1-3 in this
session.
More details to follow in the coming days.
________________________________________________________________________
White Privilege:
Unpacking the Invisible Backpack
by Peggy McIntosh
Associate Director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from WorkingPaper 189. "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies.”
EXCERPTS:
....Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege,which puts me at an advantage.
Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined.
As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
…..
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
…..
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
…..
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
See the full paper: https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf
Unpacking the Invisible Backpack
Activity by Nancy Gallavan
…Our recommendation is to use this as a self-assessment and reflection piece to broaden your own cultural awareness, and we have modified the activity to reflect this use.
Download this Activity Resource
_________________________________________________________________
Me and White Supremacy:
A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
by Layla F. Saad (Foreword by Robin DiAngelo)
When Layla F. Saad ran a free month-long Instagram challenge during the summer of 2018, she had no idea it would become an international cultural movement.
Thousands of people from around the world were galvanized by the #meandwhitesupremacy challenge, examining and owning responsibility for the ways in which they uphold white supremacy. Over 80,000 people downloaded her guide to the movement, Me and White Supremacy Workbook in the space of just six months. And now, that guide is a NYT, USA Today, WSJ and Amazon bestseller.
Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too. The book goes beyond the original workbook by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and includes expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.
See it at Amazon
See more links to buy this book at other websites
____________________________________________________________________
See also: these two outstanding books
have accompanying WORKBOOKS:
How To Be An Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
and
White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
Find them on our page for Books
__________________________________________________________
+
Most of the resources we offer in this section of our website were found in these collections. But there is also a lot more here - many more books, videos, films, podcasts and guides. Some include books and other resources that are made for children and resources to be used by parents and teachers.
Anti-racism Resources for White People
This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues.
See and download it here: bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES
#Charlestonsyllabus
African American Intellectual History Society
A list of readings that educators can use to broach conversations in the classroom about the horrendous events that unfolded in Charleston, South Carolina on the evening of
June 17, 2015. These readings provide valuable information about the history of racial violence in this country and contextualize the history of race relations in South Carolina
and the United States in general. They also offer insights on race, racial identities, global white supremacy and black resistance. Find it here
Find even more in the
Charleston Syllabus Book
Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence
Edited by Chad Williams, Kidada E. Williams and Keisha N. Blain
An essential overview of race relations, racial violence, and civil rights activism in the United States and other parts of the globe.
Black Lives Matter Is Not Just a Hashtag
UNRWA USA
UNRWA USA stands with our black beneficiaries, colleagues, supporters, partners, friends, and loved ones and echoes the call for justice and an end to systemic, institutionalized racism so that all people can live free.
As individuals and as an organization, UNRWA USA commits to anti-racist principles and action so that Black Lives Matter is not just a hashtag. We're starting by reading and discussing Dr. Kendi's "How To Be An Antiracist" as a staff.
To our non-black supporters: we join you in listening, learning, unlearning, engaging, and acting -- just as we have done all these years for Palestine refugees. We cannot and will not remain passive.
Our staff has found the following resources useful...
See UNRWA's collection of resources
Community Safety Guide
Jewish Voice for Peace
There are so many ways to build safety for our communities without using law enforcement. At JVP we produced this guide with the support of leading partner communities, drawing from the research and expertise of progressive Jewish, Black, Muslim and other movement organizations and communities.
Download this guide (Word doc)
All Black Lives Matter
CODEPINK's recommendations for reading and watching and organizations to support. Find them here
Resources for Anti-Racism
Faith in Public Life
A resource list to be update regularly.
Find it on Google docs
LISTS OF RESOURCES
Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?
The Atlantic • Ibram X. Kendi, Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research
Author of How To Be an Anti-Racist
EXCERPT:
…I just don’t think Americans fully realize how terrorizing it is to black males when we are falsely suspected as violent criminals. All Americans seem to be thinking about is their fear of us—not our fear of their fear. Black males fear racist fear because we know from experience what happens when the police are called, when the Klan is called, when faces are reddened, when purses or ropes or guns are clutched, when they cross the street away from us, or cross the street toward us clutching their police badges, or their badges of white masculinity.
It is terrifying to produce so much unwanted and unwarranted fear. And then we are harmed. And then we are killed. And then our killers claim self-defense. And then our killers cast us—the unarmed ones, the dead ones—as the aggressors, as Gregory McMichael cast Arbery in the police report, justifying his son pulling the trigger; as George Zimmerman’s lawyers cast Trayvon Martin in a strikingly similar case.
See the full article
The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying
The Atlantic • Adam Serwer
EXCERPT:
…The underlying assumptions of white innocence and black guilt are all part of what the philosopher Charles Mills calls the “racial contract.” If the social contract is the implicit agreement among members of a society to follow the rules—for example, acting lawfully, adhering to the results of elections, and contesting the agreed-upon rules by nonviolent means—then the racial contract is a codicil rendered in invisible ink, one stating that the rules as written do not apply to nonwhite people in the same way. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal; the racial contract limits this to white men with property. The law says murder is illegal; the racial contract says it’s fine for white people to chase and murder black people if they have decided that those black people scare them. “The terms of the Racial Contract,” Mills wrote, “mean that nonwhite subpersonhood is enshrined simultaneously with white personhood.”
The racial contract is not partisan—it guides staunch conservatives and sensitive liberals alike—but it works most effectively when it remains imperceptible to its beneficiaries. As
long as it is invisible, members of society can proceed as though the provisions of the social contract apply equally to everyone. But when an injustice pushes the racial contract into the open, it forces people to choose whether to embrace, contest, or deny its existence.
See the full article
I, Racist
Medium / Those People • John Metta
EXCERPTS:
What follows is the text of a “sermon” that I gave as a “congregational reflection” to an all White audience at the Bethel Congregational United Church of Christ on Sunday, June 28th. The sermon was begun with a reading of The Good Samaritan story, and this wonderful quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah.
…..
You see, I don’t talk about race with White people.
To illustrate why, I'll tell a story:
It was probably about 15 years ago when a conversation took place between my aunt, who is White and lives in New York State, and my sister, who is Black and lives in North Carolina.
This conversation can be distilled to a single sentence, said by my Black sister:
“The only difference between people in the North and people in the South is that down here, at least people are honest about being racist.”
There was a lot more to that conversation, obviously, but I suggest that it can be distilled into that one sentence because it has been, by my White aunt. Over a decade later, this sentence is still what she talks about. It has become the single most important aspect of my aunt’s relationship with my Black family. She is still hurt by the suggestion that people in New York, that she, a northerner, a liberal, a good person who has Black family members, is a racist.
This perfectly illustrates why I don’t talk about race with White people. Even — or rather, especially — my own family.
See the full article
Dear White Allies: Don’t Appropriate Our Anger
Medium • Anoosh Jorjorian
EXCERPT:
Note to white allies: When you beat up on your fellow white people for being ignorant about racism, you are NOT HELPING. Those naïve white people just waking up to racial justice? That want to do the right thing but are saying the wrong thing because they were just born to the struggle yesterday?
They are YOUR JOB #1. YOU are supposed to empathize with their white fragility, get them past their self-centering feels, and bring them over to the right side of history.
Why?
SO PEOPLE OF COLOR DON’T HAVE TO.
Sound exhausting, frustrating, and slow? You bet it is! So is any work for liberation! It’s not all speeches and cookies. This is The Work.
Don’t want to do it alone? Find your nearest Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) chapter and promise to hold your Newly Woke White Ally’s hand at a meeting.
See the full article
A Quick Read for White People Who Don’t Consider Themselves Racist
Medium • Ola Caracola
EXCERPT:
...So what does that make me? The events of the past week have made one thing incredibly clear: It’s not either you’re a racist or you’re not. As Padma Lakshmi explained on Twitter,
“Racism is a spectrum with varying degrees of unconscious and learned behaviours reinforced by society every day. So, the correct question is to what degree are you prejudice, against whom, and why?”
Not all white people are bigots.
But all white people consciously or unconsciously benefit from a system, which oppresses people of color. Our indoctrination with underlying racist ideals begins at birth and is so engrained in our culture that we may not even be aware of the biases we hold. Often our perception of people who look different than us is based on incomplete or all-together inaccurate stereotypes. We need to do better.
See the full article
3 Ways White People Can Start
Learning to Follow
An assertive White person’s guide to supporting, not leading
Forge • Shya Scanlon
EXCERPT:
…Real advocacy and comfort rarely go hand in hand
Get comfortable with discomfort
White people are not used to joining movements in which our needs are not at the center, so it follows that many don’t even know how to do it. Even the anticipation of feeling embarrassed or out of place — wondering “What if I do it wrong or my presence isn’t welcome?” — can be enough to deter people from joining a cause.
And yes, we might get it wrong, and we might feel uncomfortable. But we’re supposed to feel uncomfortable sometimes. That’s how we know we’re learning.
We might also feel uncomfortable with being passive. But following is not about surrendering your voice. Ira Chaleff, author of The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to
and for Our Leaders, saysgood “followship” is a crucial part of any organization or cause, as integral as good leadership. He writes that “followers and leaders both orbit around the purpose.”
See the full article
\
A Reverend Left Colorado This Summer After Her Family’sExperiences With Racism Here
Colorado Public Radio News • Hayley Sanchez
About Rev. Akilah Bixler who served at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Highlands Ranch
EXCERPT:
Last August, Rev. Akilah Bixler optimistically moved with her two kids and husband from New York for their next adventure in Colorado. Bixler was appointed to a Denver-area church. But less than a year later, they were fed up, packed their belongings and moved back.
Bixler is African American and said she learned pretty quickly that Colorado is nothing like New York.
“My experience here in Colorado with there being so much less diversity, I feel it and I feel racism,” she said. “It’s in the air that we breathe and it’s in the water that we drink.”
The United Methodist Church appointed her to St. Andrew in Highlands Ranch. It’s a predominantly affluent, white Denver suburb. Bixler felt like it was her calling from God. So she eagerly packed up her family and trekked across the country.
On their second day in Colorado, the family went shopping for a car. That experience foreshadowed what the next year would be like for the family as people of color in the suburbs south of Denver.
See the full article
Note to self: White people taking part in #BlackLivesMatter protests
AFSC • Vonn New
[A white author’s advice for participating in black-led protests]
I am a white person who recently participated in #millionsmarchnyc as part of #BlackLivesMatter. As a queer, gender-queer person, I know about some forms of
oppression, but I didn’t want my own unconscious racism, entitlement, and unexamined privilege to perpetuate the pathology and systems we were there to protest. So I came up
with some guidelines for myself while participating in public demonstrations against racism and police violence.
One thing I’m figuring out is that it is important for me as a white person showing up in support to engage in anti-racism work with other white people. Racism is a white person
problem, not a Black person problem. We as white people need to be talking to each other about it. So with that in mind, I feel led to share my personal guidelines and am open to any feedback. See the full article
For Our White Friends Desiring
to Be Allies
Sojourners • Courtney Ariel
EXCERPT:
1. Listen more; talk less. You don’t have to have something to say all of the time. You don’t have to post something on social media that points to how liberal/how aware/how cool/how good you are. You are lovely, human, and amazing. You have also had the microphone for most of the time, for a very long time, and it will be good to give the microphone to someone else who is living a different experience than your own.
2. For one out of every three opinions/insights shared by a person of color in your life, try to resist the need to respond with a better or different insight about something that you read or listened to as it relates to their shared opinion. Try just to listen and sit with someone else’s experience. When you do share in response to what someone has shared with you, it can sometimes (not always) feel like “whitesplaining” — meaning to explain or comment on something in an over-confident or condescending way. This adds to the silencing of the voices of people of color.
See the full article
How Black Lives Matter Changed
My Theology
Sojourners • Ryan Herring
AUG. 9, 2014, is a day I’ll never forget. It was the day that Michael Brown was killed by Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson.
For many young people in the United States, especially those of us involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, this was our Sept. 11. We all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the news broke of another police-involved killing of an unarmed black citizen.
I was in the final days of a yearlong internship with Sojourners. My fellow interns and I were on our closing retreat in West Virginia. I was on my phone checking my Twitter timeline when I began to see retweets of images: Michael Brown laid out on Canfield Drive with blood still leaking from his bullet wounds. I remember the anger that instantly came over me. “Not another one!” was all I could think.
As the day wore on, I felt frustrated that I was stuck in a retreat house, forced to sit idly by while the grieving community in Ferguson was antagonized by officers in riot gear with police dogs. I knew then that I had to do whatever it would take to join the people in this fight for justice. I never imagined how this movement would change the way I—and many others—actually do theology.
See the full article
The 1619 Project
Collection of essays, photos and audio recordings
The New York times
In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.
The 1619 Project The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
The 1619 Project’s excellent interactive page takes you through thought-provoking essays and award winning photography.
Essays in the project:
Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.
• If you want to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation.
• Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today.
• America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others.
• For centuries, black music has been the sound of artistic freedom. No wonder everybody’s always stealing it.
• What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.
• Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer begins with policies enacted after the Civil War.
• Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our prison system.
• The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery.
• A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white America.
• Most Americans still don’t know the full story of slavery. his is the history you didn’t learn in school.
• We are committing educational malpractice’: Why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in American schools.
See these essays plus the excellent photo collections
in the 1619 Project
Why We Published The 1619 Project
1619 is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth. What if, however, we were to tell you that the moment that the country’s defining contradictions first came into the world was in late August of 1619? That was when a ship arrived at Point Comfort in the British colony of Virginia, bearing a cargo of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans. Their arrival inaugurated a barbaric system of chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the country’s very origin.
Out of slavery — and the anti-black racism it required — grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, its diet and popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the example it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang, its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that continue to plague it to this day. The seeds of all that were planted long before our official birth date, in 1776, when the men known as our founders formally declared independence from Britain.
See the full article
You will find links for the audio series in the column on the left, in VIDEOS & PODCASTS
Jesus Was Divisive: A Black Pastor's Message To White Christians
NPR • Isabella Rosario
More than 90% of U.S. churches were closed at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. But since mid-April, mostly white faith leaders have pushed to fill their pews again, suing
governors over bans on large gatherings and joining "reopen" protests at state capitols. President Trump threatened to override governors who did not allow "essential places of
faith to open right now," flying in the face of black pastors urging caution. African American deaths from COVID-19 are nearly twice as high as would be expected based on their share of the population.
The Rev. Lenny Duncan is a black preacher in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, one of the nation's whitest Christian denominations. As nationwide protests have forced
white Americans to talk about race, Duncan's longtime advocacy within the church has become all the more relevant.
See the full article
The Doctrine of Discovery- A Buried Apology and an Empty Chair
Mark Charles
Picture a chair, an empty chair. There are dozens, even hundreds, of them sitting on the stage behind the podium. At the microphone is a Native American elder. Hurting, trembling, shaking, but standing. Full of resolve. Sharing a story of the horrors of the abuse, neglect and trauma, experienced as a young child at an Indian boarding school. In front of this elder are hundreds, even thousands, of people. Native Americans, with their heads bowed in grief, sorrow, even panic, as their own memories of similar stories are triggered. African Americans, sitting silently, staring at the ground, as they recall stories of
the trauma their ancestors endured as slaves, the free labor force of an emerging nations.
Americans of European descent, sitting uncomfortably, even squirming. Their eyes are wide open and their hearts are pounding as they hear stories of a history they had spent a
lifetime denying existed.
See this article
11 Easy Mistakes to Make When Thinking About Racial Inequality
in the U.S.
Sojourners • Dudarev Mikhail
A movement for greater understanding around racial bias and racial injustice is moving across our country. The success of this movement will require lots of hard work and very clear thinking. The following are 11 easy but serious mistakes well-intentioned people may make when thinking and talking about racial justice.
1. Don’t assume racial inequality is normal
This shouldn’t be an easy mistake, but it is one of the most common and most consequential mistakes when thinking about racial inequality. The largely absent social and political urgency over racial injustices makes it clear that many have concluded deep and persistent racial inequality is normal, unsurprising, and not a social emergency.
See the full article
'Change Can Happen': Black Families
on Racism, Hope And Parenting
NPR • Patti Neighmond
The Jernigan-Noesi family, the Roper Nedd family, and the Ford family talk about the conversations they're having with their kids about racism, social justice, and having hope for the future.
The Black Lives Matter movement has changed the country and shifted conversations about police, social justice and structural racism. Nowhere is the impact as great as it is for Black families, especially those with children.
NPR spoke with five couples about how their family conversations have changed and how they try to support and inform their children in the face of police violence and racism.
The parents spoke about how painful it is to have these issues rupture the innocence of childhood, and the importance of having these discussion proactively. They say they try to model a measured optimism about the future, teaching their kids "to stand up and speak out", as one mother, Dr. Rhea Roper Nedd puts it.
See the full article
for Learning & Action Solidarity & Intersectionality
Don't miss the resources on the right side ▶︎▶︎▶︎
SEE ALSO:
Antiracism - ACTION: click here
Solidarity Following the Death of George Floyd - STATEMENTS:
By UMKR: click here
From Palestinians: click here
From Palestine Advocacy Groups: click here
From United Methodist leaders and bodies: click here
Black-Palestinian solidarity,
historic and current: click here
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Dismantling Racism: Resources
SINGLE VIDEOS
Now, We Transform
Black Lives Matter / 90 seconds
Our fight for liberty, justice, and freedom continues. Together, we can — and will — transform.
This is the revolution. Change is coming.
Thank you to everyone who contributed footage and photos to this film. You helped document history.
See it here
When I see them, I see us
The Black-Palestinian Solidarity Campaign released this video in October 2015.
Excerpt from their statement:
“We choose to join one another in resistance not because our struggles are the same but because we each struggle against the formidable forces of structural racism and the carceral and lethal technologies deployed to maintain them. This video intends to interrupt that process – to assert our humanity – and to stand together in an affirmation of life and a commitment to resistance. From Ferguson to Gaza, from Baltimore to Jerusalem, from Charleston to Bethlehem, we will be free.”
See it on our website
How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion
Peggy McIntosh, TEDx Timberlane Schools / 18 minutes
See it here
Dr. Robin DiAngelo discusses 'White Fragility'
1 hour, 23 minutes
University of Washington professor Dr. Robin DiAngelo reads from her book "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism," explains the phenomenon, and discusses how white people can develop their capacity to engage more constructively across race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45ey4jgoxeU&feature=youtu.be
Want something shorter?
See a 20-minute video with Robin DiAngelo, in the Vital Conversations series, from the General Commission on Religion and Race, United Methodist Church. See that and many more videos, inUnited Methodist Resources
Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, and
Charlene Carruthers
National LGBTQ Task Force / 50 minutes
Black Feminism remains a foundational theory and practice guiding social justice movements for Black lives. Black Feminism challenges us to act on the inextricable connections of sexism, class oppression, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia. As the contemporary Movement for Black Lives has invigorated resistance to racism and structural violence, this panel reflects on ways that Black Feminism shapes and informs the current struggles and successes.
Barbara Smith, beginning in the 1970s, has broken new ground as a black feminist, lesbian, activist, author, publisher, and elected official.
Reina Gossett is an activist, writer, and artist and the 2014-2016 Activist-In-Residence at Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women.
Charlene Carruthers is a Black, queer, feminist community organizer and writer with over ten years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work.
She currently serves as the national director of the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), an activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people.
See it here
Black Lives and COVID-19
Pod for the Cause: Season 2, Episode 7 (32 mins)
The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights
Speakers include Dr. Ibran Kendi, author of How To Be An Antiracist
Listen to the podcast and see the transcript
___________________________________________________________________________
SERIES & PODCASTS
Codeswitch
National Public Radio (NPR)
What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story.
See below some selected episodes of this series - with each one, you will also find an article on the same page, with the conversation edited and condensed.
Jesus Was Divisive: A Black Pastor's Message To White Christians
Article only (no video or audio)
The Rev. Lenny Duncan is a black preacher in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, one of the nation's whitest Christian denominations. As nationwide protests have forced white Americans to talk about race, Duncan's longtime advocacy within the church has become all the more relevant. See it here
A Bittersweet Moment for Black Bookstore Owners
Article only (no video or audio)
As protests and conversations about race have gripped the country, two phenomena have accompanied it: widespread sharing of anti-racist reading lists and a renewed call to support Black businesses. Black-owned bookstores have found themselves in the middle of that zeitgeist. Local bookstores are being asked to keep up with national and even international demand. And businesses that were in danger of shutting down because of the coronavirus are suddenly selling more books than ever. See it here
How Running's White Origins Led To The Dangers Of 'Running While Black'
Video / 8 minutes
Since two white men killed Ahmaud Arbery while he was out for a jog, there has been a lot more conversation about "running while black." What's strange is that — for a few years, in fact — there has actually been increasing discussion within the running community about runners' safety. The catch? It's focused primarily on (white) women. So why, until recently, has it been easier to talk about runners' safety for white women than for runners of color? The answer involves World War II, the founder of Nike, yuppies and the Central Park Five case. Watch it here
An Immune System
Audio / 21 minutes
While it's technically possible to win a civil lawsuit against police officers for wrongdoing, there's a reason it almost never happens: a legal technicality called qualified immunity. On this episode, we look at how a law meant to protect Black people from racist violence gave way to a legal doctrine that many people see as the biggest obstacle to police reform. Hear this episode
We Aren't Who We Think We Are
Audio / 41 minutes
Every family has a myth about who they are and where they came from. And there are a lot of reasons people tell these stories. Sometimes it's to make your family seem like they were part of an important historical event. Other times, it's to hide something that is too painful to talk about. That last point can be especially true for African American families. Hear this episode
Why Now, White People?
Audio / 29 minutes
The video is horrific, and the brutality is stark. But that was the case in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 and Minnesota in 2016. This time, though, white people are out in the streets in big numbers, and books such as "So You Want to Talk About Race" and "How to Be an Antiracist" top the bestseller lists. So we asked some white people: What's different this time? Hear this episode
Bonus Episode: 'Not Just Another Protest'
Audio recording / 42 minutes
Suffice it to say, the past few weeks have been a lot to unpack. So today, we're bringing you a special bonus episode from our friends at It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. The podcast explores how protests have changed over time, and how certain people's thoughts about race are evolving. Hear this episode
Unmasking The 'Outside Agitator'
Audio recording / 29 minutes
Whenever a protest boils up, it's a safe bet that public officials will quickly blame any violence or disruption on "outside agitators." But what, exactly, does it mean to be an agitator? And can these mysterious outsiders be a force for good? Hear this episode
________________________________________________________
What Matters
VIDEO SERIES with Black Lives Matter
What Matters combines documentary narrative with interviews to illuminate specific, timely issues, aiming to create safe dialogue to promote freedom, justice, and collective liberation.
What Matters is a salve and a safe place where we can connect, learn, think freely, and transform the world. New and upcoming episodes include interviews with Rep. Karen Bass, BLM South Bend, Donna Brazile, Dr. Cedric Dark, Jane Fonda, and Marc Lamont Hill.
Ep. 1: Exploring the Media’s Role in COVID-19 with Marc Lamont Hill
Activist and acclaimed author Marc Lamont Hill and Black Lives Matter Global Network, Managing Director, Kailee Scales discuss the media’s responsibility in COVID-19 reporting, and how the Coronavirus media coverage aided in the misinformation circulated within Black communities. Scales and Hill discuss the inequities in the American Health System, preparedness, and the impact on our social, judicial, and financial systems. See this episode
Ep. 2: Say Her Name — Breonna Taylor, a Conversation with Tamika Mallory and Taylor Family Attorney Lonita Baker
Black Lives Matter Managing Director, Kailee Scales is joined by Activist Tamika Mallory, Co-founder of Until Freedom, and Taylor Family Attorney Lonita Baker to discuss the brutal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT who was killed by police officers in her own home, and the ongoing marginalization of police violence against Black lives.
See this episode
Ep. 3: Coronavirus — Answering Public Health Concern with
Dr. Cedric Dark
Black Lives Matter Managing Director, Kailee Scales is joined by Dr. Cedric Dark, Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas to answer public health questions and concerns about the novel virus, COVID-19, and its disproportionate effects on Black communities. Dr. Dark and Scales explore racial health disparities across our nation, with Black people having less access to healthcare and statistically higher rates of diabetes and heart disease.See this episode
Ep. 4: Black Lives Matter’s South Bend Members — Community Organizers
Black Lives Matter Managing Director, Kailee Scales is joined by South Bend Black Lives Matter members to discuss the role of community organizers on the ground. BLM South Bend organizers discuss the police killing of Eric Logan, its impact on their community, and calling for the resignation of Mayor Pete Buttigieg. See this episode
Ep. 5: Talking Activism with Bubba Wallace
Black Lives Matter Global Network Managing Director, Kailee Scales is joined by NASCAR race car driver Bubba Wallace to discuss how he got into race car driving and what it’s been like being the only full-time Black NASCAR driver. Kailee and Bubba discuss how NASCAR banning the Confederate flag has impacted the Black community and how the murder of George Floyd impacted him, and increased Bubba’s own activism.
See this episode
Ep. 6: A Conversation with Artist and Activist Mysonne “The General” Black Lives Matter Global Network Managing Director, Kailee Scales is joined by rapper/activist/author Mysonne Linen to discuss his liberation work and how the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks, among others, have traumatized the global community and led Mysonne and so many others around the world to take to
the streets in peaceful protest. Mysonne also answers questions from our listening audience and talks about his book I Know My Rights: Bill of Rights – a children’s guide to the Bill of Rights. See this episode
Find the whole Series here:
https://blacklivesmatter.com/whatmatters/
_________________________________________________________
Intersectionality Matters!
African American Policy Forum / Apple Podcast
22. COVID, White Power, and the Unseeing of Race Again
As the vicious spike in COVID’s case count rocks the nation, this installment of “Under the Blacklight” focuses on the off-staging of race after weeks of protests about racial injustice. We ask: What has become of the supposed reckoning with white supremacy since George Floyd’s death? After weeks of uncovering the legacies of racism, are we at the bottom of a Sisyphusian hill again in insisting that race is as newsworthy in the disproportionate deaths of African Americans to COVID as it has been in the weeks of protest over police violence? And why has it been so difficult to connect the two? Hear this episode
21. Under the Blacklight: Telling Stories of State Violence & Public Silence
On this installment of "Under the Blacklight," the mothers and sisters of the #SayHerName Movement -- Fran Garrett, Rhanda Dormeus, Maria Moore, Sharon Cooper, Gina Best, and Sharon Wilkerson -- join Kimberlé Crenshaw for a very special episode. Through telling the stories of their loved ones, the women weave together the experiences that bring them together in a sisterhood of both sorrow and strength. Hear this episode
20. India Kager: A Mother's Story of Loss & Erasure
On September 5, 2015, India Kager and Angelo Perry drove to Virginia Beach to introduce their 4-month-old baby Roman, to Angelo’s family. Unbeknownst to them, Virginia Beach police were tailing their car and while India, Angelo, and Roman were parked at 7/11, a SWAT team threw a flash bang grenade and opened fire on their car. Four officers fired over 51 rifle rounds into India’s car, while baby Roman sat in the back seat, killing Angelo and India within seconds. Virginia Beach police Chief Jim Cervera would later say India’s killing was an accident.
In this episode of Intersectionality Matters!host Kimberlé Crenshaw speaks with India Kager’s mother, Gina Best, about her memories of India, a “beautiful, softspoken poet.” She describes the anguish of never hearing from the police except to receive a bill for the destruction of the car her daughter was murdered in. While she waited for a call that would never come, officers pulled her daughter’s body out of the car and left it on the cold ground overnight. As India’s family desperately sought out
information on his whereabouts, police handed India’s baby, Roman, over to foster parents. Hear this episode
19. Under the Blacklight: The Fire This Time
Alicia Garza, Robin D.G. Kelley, Devon Carbado, Maria Moore, and special guest AG Keith Ellison join Kimberlé Crenshaw for an emergency episode of “Under the Blacklight”, the 10th in the series, to address this historic moment of social and political mobilization ignited by George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police just two weeks ago.
Hear this episode
__________________________________________________________
The 1619 Project
The New York Times
In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.
The 1619 Project The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. See the 1619 Project
See Essays in the 1619 Project in the column on the right: ARTICLES
The 1619 Audio Series
Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. “1619,” a New York Times audio series hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, examines the long shadow of that fateful moment.
Episode 1: The Fight for a True Democracy
American was founded on the ideal of democracy. Black people fought to make it one. Hear this episode
Episode 2: The Economy the Slavery Built
In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation. The institution of slavery turned a poor, fledgling nation into a financial powerhouse, and the cotton plantation was America’s first big business. Behind the system, and built into it, was the whip. Hear this episode
Episode 3: The Birth of American Music
Black music, forged in captivity, became the sound of complete artistic freedom. It also became the sound of America. Hear this episode
Episode 4: How the Bad Blood Started
In America, racial health disparities have been as foundational as democracy itself. Black Americans were denied access to doctors and hospitals for decades. From the shadows of this exclusion, they pushed to create the nation’s first federal health care programs.
Hear this episode
Episode 5: The Land of Our Fathers, Part I
More than a century after the promise of 40 acres and a mule, the story of black land ownership in America remains one of loss and dispossession. Hear this episode
Episode 6: The Land of Our Fathers: Part II
In the finale of the series, we hear the rest of June and Angie Provost’s story and its echoes in a past case that led to the largest civil rights settlement in American history. Hear this episode
__________________________________________________________
Scene on Radio: Seeing White
Scene on Radio is a podcast that tells stories exploring human experience and American society, from the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University, distributed by PRX.
In Season 2, John Biewen and Chenjerai Kumanyika explore the history and meaning of whiteness. Season 3 delves into sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny.
On one level, it seems Americans talk about race and ethnicity all the time. The news media always seem to be reacting to the latest racial “incident,” while pundits ponder “race relations” year in and year out. And yet. The premise of this series is that the American conversation about race, and the stories we tell ourselves about race and ethnicity, are deeply incomplete and often misleading. We need new stories and new understandings, about our history and our current racial and ethnic reality.
Seeing White host and producer John Biewen set out to take a different kind of look at race and ethnicity, by looking directly at the elephant in the room: white people, and whiteness. White supremacy was encoded in the DNA of the United States, and white people dominate American life and its institutions to this day, and yet whiteness too often remains invisible, unmarked, and unnamed. In embarking on this journey into whiteness, past and present, Biewen sought guidance from an array of leading scholars, and from professor, journalist, artist, and organizer Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika. Download the 7-page STUDY GUIDE for Seeing White
Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it’s an old story.
Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Seeing White takes a deep dive into these questions in a fourteen-part series, released between February and August 2017.
See the 14 episodes below, each with a link to listen online.
Find TRANSCRIPTS for all of the episodes here.
Download the BIBLIOGRAPHY for Seeing White.
S2 E1: Turning the Lens
Events of the past few years have turned a challenging spotlight on White people, and Whiteness, in the United States. An introduction to our series exploring what it means to be White. Hear this episode
S2 E2: How Race Was Made
For much of human history, people viewed themselves as members of tribes or nations but had no notion of “race.” Today, science deems race biologically meaningless. Who invented race as we know it, and why?
Hear this episode
S2 E3: Made in America
Chattel slavery in the United States, with its distinctive – and strikingly cruel – laws and structures, took shape over many decades in colonial America. The innovations that built American slavery are inseparable from the construction of Whiteness as we know it today. Hear this episode
S2 E4: On Crazy We Built a Nation
“All men are created equal.” Those words, from the Declaration of Independence, are central to the story that Americans tell about ourselves and our history. But what did those words mean to the man who actually wrote them? Hear this episode
S2 E5: Little War on the Prairie
Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen heard next to nothing about the town’s most important historical event. In 1862, Mankato was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history – the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors – following one of the major wars between Plains Indians and settlers. Hear this episode
S2 E6: That’s Not Us, So We’re Clean
When it comes to America’s racial sins, past and present, a lot of us see people in one region of the country as guiltier than the rest. Host John Biewen spoke with some white Southern friends about that tendency.
Hear this episode
S2 E7: Chenjerai’s Challenge
“How attached are you to the idea of being white?” Chenjerai Kumanyika puts that question to host John Biewen, as they revisit an unfinished conversation from a previous episode. Hear this episode
S2 E8: Skulls and Skin
Scientists weren’t the first to divide humanity along racial – and racist – lines. But for hundreds of years, racial scientists claimed to provide proof for those racist hierarchies – and some still do. Hear this episode
S2 E9: A Racial Cleansing in America
In 1919, a white mob forced the entire black population of Corbin, Kentucky, to leave, at gunpoint. It was one of many racial expulsions in the United States. What happened, and how such racial cleansings became “America’s family secret.” Hear this episode
S2 E10: Citizen Thind
The story of Bhagat Singh Thind, and also of Takao Ozawa – Asian immigrants who, in the 1920s, sought to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that they were white in order to gain American citizenship. Thind’s “bargain with white supremacy,” and the deeply revealing results.
Hear this episode
S2 E11: Danger
For hundreds of years, the white-dominated American culture has raised the specter of the dangerous, violent black man. Host John Biewen tells the story of a confrontation with an African American teenager. Then he and recurring guest Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss that longstanding image – and its neglected flipside: white-on-black violence. Hear this episode
S2 E12: My White Friends
For years, Myra Greene had explored blackness through her photography, often in self-portraits. She wondered, what would it mean to take pictures of whiteness? For her friends, what was it like to be photographed because you’re white? Hear this episode
S2 E13: White Affirmative Action
When it comes to U.S. government programs and support earmarked for the benefit of particular racial groups, history is clear. White folks have received most of the goodies. Hear this episode
S2 E14: Transformation
The concluding episode in our series, Seeing White. An exploration of solutions and responses to America’s deep history of white supremacy by host John Biewen, with Chenjerai Kumanyika, Robin DiAngelo, and William “Sandy” Darity, Jr. Hear this episode
_____________________________________________________________________________
On this page, left side:
• Learning Activities
• Videos & Podcasts
On this page, right side:
• Articles
• Lists of Resources (our sources)
See our book lists: • For Learning
about Racism • By Black American
Literary Giants Find them here
United Methodist Resources:
The UMC has a lot to offer in the work
of dismantling systemic racism.
Don't miss: Get resources about specific
topics, such as Defunding the Policeand
Reparations for African Americans - find them
with those campaigns on this page:Dismantling Racism: Actions & Campaigns