As part of my UCC Sacred Conversations to End Racism (SC2ER) class, I collected these resources from online sources. Although I blatantly lifted them, I have cited the source links. It’s a lot~~so keep scrolling for the hot links!

I will start with resources on the UCC Racial Justice website, compiled by Rev. Dr. Velda Love https://www.ucc.org/racial_justice_resources_2020

Lynching Justice in America

The Cross and the Lynching Tree Webinar Video

READING RESOURCES

1. Van Sertima, Ivan, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, (New York, NY: Random House, 1976).
2. Ortiz, Paul. An African American and Latinx History of the United States. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018).
3. Higginbotham, Leon A., Jr., Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process, (New York, NY: Oxford Press, 1996).
4. Morrison, Toni, The Origins of Others, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017).
5. Boesak, Allan Aubrey, Curtiss DeYoung, Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Book, 2012).
6. DiAngelo, Robin, What Does It Mean To Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012).
   ________ White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2018).
7. Resmaa, Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, (Central Recovery Press: Las Vegas, NV, 2017).
8. Mills, Charles, The Racial Contract, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
9. Baptist, Edward E., The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2014).
10. Cerrotti, Dennis Lyle, Hidden Genocide, Hidden People. (Wellesley, MA: Sea Venture Press, 2014).
11. Villanueva, Edgar, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance. (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2018).
12. Newcomb, Steven T., Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2008).
13. Katz, William Loren, Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage. (New York, NY: Atheneum Books, 2012).

VIDEO AND READING RESOURCES BELOW

1. Ibram X. Kendi on the History of Racist Ideas in U.S. Stamped from the Beginning

Online Reading Resources

1. Everyday Racial Microaggressions
   https://world-trust.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/7-Racial-Microagressions-in-Everyday-Life.pdf
2. Coates, Ta-Nehisi, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 2014
   http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/.

THEOLOGIES, CHRISTOLOGIES, AND GOD OF CULTURES

Womanist Documentaries

1. Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology Legacy of Womanist Theology
2. This is My Body: Black Womanist Christology in Perspective Black Womanist Christology in Perspective
3. Eradicating Misogyny, Heterosexism, and Homophobia in Black Churches  Eradicating Misogyn, Heterosexism, and Homophobia in Black Churches
4. Dr. Renita Weems: [Scream] Trayvon Martin Rev. Dr. Renita Weems Sermon “Scream” Trayvon Martin

Womanist Readings

1. Introducing Womanist Theology – Stephanie Y. Mitchem
2. An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation – Nyasha Junior
3. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenges to Womanist God-Talk – Delores S. Williams
4. Enfleshing Freedom, body, race, and being, — M. Shawn Copeland
5. Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation & Transformation – Emile M. Townes
6. Women Race and Class – Angela Davis
   Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement

The James Cone Collection

1. For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church: Black Theology and the Life of the Church (Bishop Henry McNeal Turner Studies in North American Black Book
2. Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian
3. A Black Theology of Liberation – Fourtieth Anniversary Edition
4. Black Theology and Black Power
5. God of the Oppressed

Latinx and Mujerista Resources

1. Mujerista Theology – A Theology for the Twenty-First Century, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz
2. A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice, Maria Pilar Aquino
3. Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins, A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament, Fernando F. Sergovia
4. Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/A Perspective – Ruben Rosario Rodriguez
5. The Ties That Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theologies in Dialogue – Anthony B. Pinn and Benjamin Valentin
6. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America – Juan Gonzalez

Asian and Asian American Resources

1. Heart of the Cross: A Postcolonial Christology, Anne Joh
2. Making Paper Cranes: Toward an Asian American Feminist Theology, Mihee Kim-Kort
3. Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times, Soong Chan Rah
4. Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, Rita Brock
5. Postcolonial Bible (Bible and Postcolonial), R.S. Sugirtharajah
6. Voices from the Margins, R.S Sugirtharajah
7. The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism, Rosalind S. Chou and Joe Feagin

For more Racial Justice Resources and information contact Rev. Dr. Velda Love Lovev@ucc.org

Anti-Racist Reading List from Ibram X. Kendi

By: R Rattusnorvegicus Chicago Public Library Community-created list

“This anti-racist syllabus is for people realizing they were never taught how to be anti-racist. How to treat all the racial groups as equals. How to look at the racial inequity all around and look for the racist policies producing it, and the racist ideas veiling it. This list is for people beginning their anti-racist journey ..” Ibram X. Kendi (author of “How to Be an Antiracist”)

“A Reading List for Ralph Northam”. The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/antiracist-syllabus-governor-ralph-northam/582580/

Fatal Invention How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century by Roberts, Dorothy

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Kendi, Ibram X.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by DiAngelo, Robin J.

Locking up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by Forman, James

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, Maya

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by X, Malcolm

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Mock, Janet

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Cooper, Brittney C.

Heavy: An American Memoir by Laymon, Kiese

The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, James

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Lorde, Audre

Between the World and Me by Coates, Ta-Nehisi

The Fire This Time by Kenan, Randall

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, From Womb to Grave, in the Building of A Nation by Berry, Daina Ramey

Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Foner, Eric

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II by Blackmon, Douglas A.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Alexander, Michelle

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Muhammad, Khalil Gibran

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Rothstein, Richard

The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Sugrue, Thomas J.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Wilkerson, Isabel

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Theoharis, Jeanne

Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy by Dudziak, Mary L.

Too Heavy A Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994 by White, Deborah G.

When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America by Giddings, Paula

From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Hinton, Elizabeth Kai

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Davis, Angela Y.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Stevenson, Bryan

Roots by Haley, Alex

North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 by Litwack, Leon F.

They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and A New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Lowery, Wesley

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta

Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Berman, Ari

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Anderson, Carol

Antiracism: An Introduction by Zamalin, Alex

How To Be An Antiracist by Kendi, Ibram X.

The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism & Engage in Collective Healing by Singh, Anneliese A.

The Wellbeing Handbook for Overcoming Everyday Racism: How to Be Resilient in the Face of Discrimination and Microagressions by Cousins, Susan

The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness by Magee, Rhonda V.

The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement by Horace, Matthew

Chokehold: Policing Black Men by Butler, Paul

Citizen: An American Lyric by Rankine, Claudia

Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Glaude, Eddie S.

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Cooper, Brittney C.

Fire Shut up in My Bones: A Memoir by Blow, Charles M.

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in A World Made for Whiteness by Brown, Austin Channing

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become A Good Ancestor by Saad, Layla F

My Midnight Years: Surviving Jon Burge’s Police Torture Ring and Death Row by Kitchen, Ronald

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by Moore, Darnell L.

On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by Mckesson, DeRay

Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement : My Storory of Transformation and Hope by Woodfox, Albert

So You Want to Talk About Race by Oluo, Ijeoma

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Dyson, Michael Eric

Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Bennett, Michael

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (white) America by Jerkins, Morgan

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays by Young, Damon

When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Khan-Cullors, Patrisse

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Tatum, Beverly Daniel

Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience by Rowe, Sheila Wise

This Book Is Anti-racist by Jewell, Tiffany

I Am Not your Negro: A Major Motion Picture Directed by Raoul Peck by Baldwin, James

Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Glaude, Eddie S.

An Antiracist Reading List NY Times, compiled by Ibram X. Kendi

BIOLOGY

FATAL INVENTION: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century By Dorothy Roberts

No book destabilized my fraught notions of racial distinction and hierarchy — the belief that each race had different genes, diseases and natural abilities — more than this vigorous critique of the “biopolitics of race.” Roberts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, shows unequivocally that all people are indeed created equal, despite political and economic special interests that keep trying to persuade us otherwise. New Press, 2011

ETHNICITY

WEST INDIAN IMMIGRANTS: A Black Success Story? By Suzanne Model

Some of the same forces have led Americans to believe that the recent success of black immigrants from the Caribbean proves either that racism does not exist or that the gap between African-Americans and other groups in income and wealth is their own fault. But Model’s meticulous study, emphasizing the self-selecting nature of the West Indians who emigrate to the United States, argues otherwise, showing me, a native of racially diverse New York City, how such notions — the foundation of ethnic racism — are unsupported by the facts. Russell Sage Foundation, 2008

BODY

THE CONDEMNATION OF BLACKNESS: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America By Khalil Gibran Muhammad

“Black” and “criminal” are as wedded in America as “star” and “spangled.” Muhammad’s book traces these ideas to the late 19th century, when racist policies led to the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of blacks, igniting urban whites’ fears and bequeathing tenaciously racist stereotypes. Harvard University, 2010

CULTURE

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD By Zora Neale Hurston

Of course, the black body exists within a wider black culture — one Hurston portrayed with grace and insight in this seminal novel. She defies racist Americans who would standardize the cultures of white people or sanitize, eroticize, erase or assimilate those of blacks. 1937

BEHAVIOR

THE NEGRO ARTIST AND THE RACIAL MOUNTAIN By Langston Hughes

“We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame,” Hughes wrote nearly 100 years ago. “We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.” We are all imperfectly human, and these imperfections are also markers of human equality. The Nation, June 23, 1926

COLOR

THE BLUEST EYE By Toni Morrison

THE BLACKER THE BERRY By Wallace Thurman

Beautiful and hard-working black people come in all shades. If dark people have less it is not because they are less, a moral eloquently conveyed in these two classic novels, stirring explorations of colorism. 1970 | 1929

WHITENESS

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X By Malcolm X and Alex Haley

DYING OF WHITENESS: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland By Jonathan M. Metzl

Malcolm X began by adoring whiteness, grew to hate white people and, ultimately, despised the false concept of white superiority — a killer of people of color. And not only them: low- and middle-income white people too, as Metzl’s timely book shows, with its look at Trump-era policies that have unraveled the Affordable Care Act and contributed to rising gun suicide rates and lowered life expectancies. 1965 | Basic Books, 2019

BLACKNESS

LOCKING UP OUR OWN: Crime and Punishment in Black America By James Forman Jr.

Just as Metzl explains how seemingly pro-white policies are killing whites, Forman explains how blacks themselves abetted the mass incarceration of other blacks, beginning in the 1970s. Amid rising crime rates, black mayors, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs embraced tough-on-crime policies that they promoted as pro-black with tragic consequences for black America. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017 (Read the review.)

CLASS

BLACK MARXISM: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition By Cedric J. Robinson

Black America has been economically devastated by what Robinson calls racial capitalism. He chastises white Marxists (and black capitalists) for failing to acknowledge capitalism’s racial character, and for embracing as sufficient an interpretation of history founded on a European vision of class struggle. Zed Press, 1983

SPACES

WAITING ’TIL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: A Narrative History of Black Power in America By Peniel E. Joseph

As racial capitalism deprives black communities of resources, assimilationists ignore or gentrify these same spaces in the name of “development” and “integration.” To be antiracist is not only to promote equity among racial groups, but also among their spaces, something the black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s understood well, as Joseph’s chronicle makes clear. Holt, 2006

GENDER

HOW WE GET FREE: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

WELL-READ BLACK GIRL: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves Edited by Glory Edim

I began my career studying, and too often admiring, activists who demanded black (male) power over black communities, including over black women, whom they placed on pedestals and under their feet. Black feminist literature, including these anthologies, helps us recognize black women “as human, levelly human,” as the Combahee River Collective demanded to be seen in 1977.

SEXUALITY

REDEFINING REALNESS: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

I grew up in a Christian household thinking there was something abnormal and immoral about queer blacks. My racialized transphobia made Mock’s memoir an agonizing read — just as my racialized homophobia made Lorde’s essays and speeches a challenge. But pain often precedes healing.

Atria, 2014 | Crossing Press, 1984

By not running from the books that pain us, we can allow them to transform us. I ran from antiracist books most of my life. But now I can’t stop running after them — scrutinizing myself and my society, and in the process changing both. Ibram X. Kendi

Anti-Racism Resources: Educate Yourself https://www.projecthome.org/anti-racism-resources

Trainings & Courses

• Justice in June
• Institutionalized Racism: A syllabus
• Scaffolding for anti-racist resources
• Talking About Race, National Museum of African American History and Culture

Articles and Essays

• 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
• 5 Ways White People Can Take Action in Response to White and State-Sanctioned Violence, by SURJ
• The Case for Reparations, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun
• White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh
• A Brief History of Slavery, NY Times
• I’m not White, I’m Jewish: Standing as Jews in the Fight for Racial Justice, by Paul Kivel
• Relinquishing the Patriarchy, adrienne maree brown 
• Calling In and Calling Out, by Roxy Manning
• Wear Your Voice Magazine

Resources for Parents and People Who Work with Children

• Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism (PBS Kids Resource Roundup))
• Resources for Talking about Race, Racism and Racialized Violence with Kids (Center for Racial Justice Education)
• Your Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup
• Talking to kids about race
• How to talk to kids about race and racism, according to experts
• Talking Race With Young Children
• Are Your Kids Too Young To Talk About Race
• Beyond the Golden Rule: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Responding to Prejudice (Southern Poverty Law Center)
• Preparing Young Children for the Inclusion of Children with Disabilities into the Classroom (National Association for the Education of Young Children)
• Helping Youth After Community Trauma: Tips for Educators
• Understanding Child Trauma
• Age-related Reactions to a Traumatic Event

Videos and Film

• Clint Smith’s How to Raise A Black Son in America TedTalk
• Roots of Justice Front Porch Conversation
• 13th (Netflix Documentary)
• Race: The Power of an Illusion
• I am Not Your Negro
• What Matters: #BLM Documentary series
• The Color of Fear (Documentary by Lee Mun Wah)
• American Son (Netflix)
• Dear White People (Netflix)
• If Beale St Could Talk (Hulu)
• King In The Wilderness (HBO)
• See You Yesterday (Netflix)
• The Hate You Give (Netflix)
• When They See Us (Netflix)
• White Like Me

Podcasts and Audio

• 1619 (NY Times Podcast)
• Code Switch (NPR)
• Show About Race (Panopoly)
• Intersectionality Matters! (Kimberlé Crenshaw)
• Momentum: A Race Forward (Color Lines)
• Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
• Fare of the Free Child (Raising Free People)
• Small Doses (Amanda Seales)
• Therapy for Black Girls (Dr. Bradford)
• Seeing White: Scene on Radio (Podcast series on whiteness)
• Talking about Whiteness (Eula Bliss, On Being)

Social Media

• @theconsciouskid
• @blackhistoryuntold
• @blklivesmatter
• @blmphilly
• @ckyourprivilege

Books

Where to begin (designed for white allies):

• Me and White Supremacy, by Layla Saad
• Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nahesi Coates
• Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi
• How to Be An Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi  
• So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations about Race, by Beverly Daniel Tatum
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarnation in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
• Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, by Paul Kivel
• Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, by Debby Irving
• White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, by Tim Wise
• Witnessing Whiteness, by Shelly Tochluk
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Robin Diangelo
• Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, by Andrea Ritchie

Going Deeper

• killing rage: Ending Racism, by bell hooks
• When They Call You a Terrorist, by Patrisse Cullors
• Eloquent Rage, by Brittany Cooper
• Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, by Charlene A. Carruthers
• Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
• The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
• Learning to Be White: Money, Race and God in America, by Rev. Thandeka
• The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
• They Can’t Kill Us All, by Wesley Lower
• Many here Ibram X. Kendi Antiracist reading List

Mental Health Resources

• Therapy for Black Girls 
• Dear Black Women Project – therapy resources, daily affirmations, and more
• Black Men Heal – free therapy for Black men
• Men’s Resource Center of Philadelphia – individual, group counseling
• Where to find Virtual Therapy & Mental Health Resources in the Philly Area
• Black Philly therapists are raising $15K to provide free mental health resources to people of color – scroll to the bottom of the article for a list
• 44 Mental Health Resources for Black People Trying to Survive in This Country

A Detailed List of Anti-Racism Resources

Book, movie recommendations, and more

By Katie Couric

View at Medium.com

JUNETEENTH RESOURCES

“What is Juneteenth?” by Derrick Bryson Taylor for the New York Times

“Juneteenth Is a Reminder That Freedom Wasn’t Just Handed Over,” by Brianna Holt for the New York Times

“No, Trump did not make Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating slavery’s end, ‘very famous,’” by DeNeen L. Brown for the Washington Post

Miss Juneteenth, a new movie about a former beauty queen and single mom preparing her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant in Texas

“Miss Juneteenth Exclusive with Nicole Beharie,” an interview with the star of Miss Juneteenth by Miles Marshall Lewis for Ebony

“Juneteenth by the Numbers,” by Toby Lyles for CNN

“The Johnsons Celebrate Juneteenth,” an episode of black-ish

“Juneteenth,” an episode of Atlanta

“Juneteenth Jamboree,” a PBS series about the holiday

“An American Spring of Reckoning,” by Jelani Cobb in the New Yorker

The 1619 Project in the New York Times

“9 Books To Celebrate The Spirit of Juneteenth,” by Keyaira Boone for Essence

“The Belated National Embrace of Juneteenth,” an episode of Slate’s “What Next?” podcast

Spotify is celebrating Juneteenth by highlighting Black artists

The 2020 Juneteenth Virtual Music Festival is presenting a full-day of programming

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WHAT TO READ

Articles:

• “The Death of George Floyd, In Context,” by Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker
• “Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for the New York Times
• “This Is How Loved Ones Want Us To Remember George Floyd,” by Alisha Ebrahimji for CNN.
• The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning The 1619 Project is as important as ever. Take some time to read (or re-read) the entire thing, particularly this essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones
• “You shouldn’t need a Harvard degree to survive birdwatching while black,” by Samuel Getachew, a 17-year-old and the 2019 Oakland youth poet laureate, for the Washington Post
• “It’s exhausting. How many hashtags will it take for all of America to see Black people as more than their skin color?” by Rita Omokha for Elle
• “The Case for Reparations,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic
• “How to Make This Moment the Turning Point for Real Change,” by Barack Obama in Medium
• “Black Male Writers For Our Time,” by Ayana Mathis in New York Times, T
• “I Was The Mayor Of Minneapolis And I Know Our Cops Have A Problem,” by R.T. Rybak
• “Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge,” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Los Angeles Times
• “I’m Black. My Mom is White. This Is The Talk We Had To Have About George Floyd’s Killing,” by Kimberly J. Miller for the Huffington Post
• A project from Harvard University about implicit bias
• “The Law Isn’t Neutral,” by Boston University School of Law dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig in Slate
• Mitch Landrieu’s Speech on the Removal of Confederate Monuments in New Orleans

Books:

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature by Jacqueline Goldsby
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Biased by Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt
• Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino
• Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children In A Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey
• Waking Up White by Debby Irving
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady
• Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens The Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell
• They Were Her Property by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by
  Austin Channing Brown
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
• Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude M. Steele
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
• Uprooting Racism by Paul Kivel
• Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business by Pamela Newkirk
• The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice by Fania Davis
• Black Food Geographies by Ashanté M. Reese
• Race for Profit by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality by Thomas M. Shapiro
• The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gapby
  Mehrsa Baradaran
• Stamped From the Beginningby Ibram X. Kendi
• The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward (Martin Luther King Jr. called this “the historical bible of the Civil Rights movement.)
• Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond byMarc Lamont Hill
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
• Warriors Don’t CrybyMelba Pattillo Beals
• Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
• The Sweeter the Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and Whiteby Shirlee Taylor Haizlip
• When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

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WHAT TO WATCH

• The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel offering an intimate portrait of race in America
• Just Mercy, a film based on civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s work on death row in Alabama
• The 1965 debatebetween James Baldwin and William F. Buckley
• My hour on the history of Confederate statues in Nat Geo’s America Inside Out
• Becoming,a Netflix documentary following Michelle Obama on her book tour
• Let It Fall, a documentary looking at racial tensions in Los Angeles and the 1992 riots over LAPD officers’ brutal assault on Rodney King
• When They See Us, a Netflix miniseries from Ava DuVernay about the Central Park Five
• 13th, a Netflix documentary exposing racial inequality within the criminal justice system
• I Am Not Your Negro, a documentary envisioning the book James Baldwin was never able to finish
• Selma, a film that chronicles the marches of the Civil Rights Movement
• Whose Streets?, a documentary about the uprising in Ferguson
• Fruitvale Station, a film with Michael B. Jordan about the killing of Oscar Grant
• American Son, a film with Kerry Washington about an estranged interracial couple waiting for their missing son
• The Central Park Five, a documentary from Ken Burns
• A Class Divided, a Frontline documentary

WHAT TO FOLLOW

• Rachel Cargle, a writer and lecturer who explores the intersection between race and womanhood
• Ibram X. Kendi, the author of How To Be An Antiracist and Director of the Antiracism Center
• Nikkolas Smith, the artist behind portraits of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others
• Charlene Carruthers, founder of the Black Youth Project 100
• Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence, and a host of Pod Save The People
• Ally Henny, a Christian commentator on race
• Candace Andrews, a photographer documenting protests

WHAT TO LISTEN TO

• My podcast episode with Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, and Bryan Stevenson about Just Mercy
• Still Processing, a New York Times culture podcast with Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morrison
• Seeing White, a Scene on the Radio podcast
• Code Switch, an NPR podcast tackling race from all angles
• Jemele Hill is Unbothered, a podcast with award-winning journalist Jemele Hill
• Hear To Slay, “the black feminist podcast of your dreams,” with Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom
• Pod Save The People, organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with analysis from fellow activists Brittany Packnett, Sam Sinyangwe, and writer Dr. Clint Smith III
• The Appeal, a podcast on criminal justice reform hosted by Adam Johnson
• Justice In America, a podcast by Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith on criminal justice reform
• Brené Brown with Ibram X. Kendi, a podcast episode on antiracism
• Come Through, a WNYC podcast with Rebecca Carroll
• The Kinswomen, conversations on race, racism, and allyship between women, hosted by Hannah Pechter and Yseult Polfliet

RESOURCES FOR KIDS AND TEENS

Watch

• The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel offering an intimate portrait of race in America
• Becoming,a Netflix documentary following Michelle Obama on her book tour
• Dear White People, a Netflix series about being black at a predominantly white college
• Hidden Figures, a film about the brilliant African American women of NASA
• Remember the Titans, story of a newly-integrated football team
• These 26New York Times mini-films for students

Read

• “Talking About Race.” Helpful resources from the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
• Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams
• Dear Martin by Nic Stone
• Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper
• Anything by Angie Thomas.
• The Colors Of Usby Karen Katz
• Skin Again by bell hooks
• Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester
• All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• Monster by Walter Dean Myers
• This Promise of Change by Jo Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy
• IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for Allby Chelsea Johnson,
  LaToya Council, Carolyn Choi

Anti-Racism Resources

UNC Office of Diversity and Inclusion

Anti-Racism Resources

Resources for parents to raise anti-racist children:

Books

• 31 Children’s books to support conversations on race, racism and resistance
• A Kids Book About by Jelani Memory
• Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners: books for children and young adults

Podcasts

• Fare of the Free Child podcast
• Parenting Forward podcast episode ‘Five Pandemic Parenting Lessons with Cindy Wang Brandt’

Articles

• Additional resources for families (provided by UNC Daycare)
• Do Black Children’s Lives Matter if Nobody Writes About Them? by Daniel Jose Older | The Guardian (November 6, 2015)
• How to Talk to Kids About Racism: An Age-by-Age Guide by Alex Miynek | Todaysparent.com (February 9, 2017)
• PBS’s Teaching Your Child About Black History Month
• Starting to Talk About Race with Kids | Books for Littles
• Your Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk About Race: Resource Roundup from Pretty Good
• What Kids are Really Learning About Slavery by Melinda D. Anderson | The Atlantic (February 1, 2018)
• Where’s the Color in Kids’ Lit? Ask the Girl with 1,000 Books (and Counting) by Meg Anderson | NPR.org (February 26, 2016)

Social Media

• The Conscious Kid: follow them on Instagram and consider signing up for their Patreon

Additional Articles:

• 10 Documentaries to Watch About Race Instead of Asking a Person of Colour to Explain Things for You by Ben Clay | DocPlay.com (June 3, 2020)
• The 1619 Project (all the articles) | The New York Times Magazine
• 29 Movies, Shows, and Documentaries to Watch to Educate yourself on Racial Injustice by Ashley Selleke | Theeverygirl.com (June 4, 2020)
• America’s Racial Contract Is Killing Us by Adam Serwer | Atlantic (May 8, 2020)
• Code of Ethics for White Anti-Racists by Tim Wise | Medium.com (June 16, 2020)
• The Combahee River Collective Statement
• Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement (Mentoring a New Generation of Activists
• For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies by Courtney Ariel | Sojo.net (August 16, 2017)
• How Did We Get Here? by Gillian B. White | The Atlantic (June 16, 2020)
• How to Talk to Relatives Who Care More About Looting Than Black Lives by Rachel Miller | Vice.com (June 3, 2020)
• How to Talk to your Children About Protests and Racism by Sandee LaMotte | CNN.com (June 2, 2020)
• How to Turn White Privilege Into Antiracist Allyship | WGPH.org (June 5, 2020)
• How White People Can Hold Each Other Accountable to Stop Institutional Racism by Elly Belle | teenvogue.com (August 2, 2019)
• How White Women Can Use their Privilege to End Racism by Tikia K. Hamilton, PhD | Zora.medium.com (May 28, 2020)
• The Intersectionality Wars by Jane Coaston | Vox (May 28, 2019)
• Is Your Company Actually Fighting Racism, or Just Talking About It? by Kira Hudson Banks and Richard Harvey | Harvard Business Review (June 11, 2020)
• Message to White Allies from a Black Racial Dialogue Expert: You’re Doing it Wrong by Dr. David Kempt | Medium.com (April 27, 2020)
• My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant by Jose Antonio Vargas | NYT Mag (June 22, 2011)
• Racial Equity at Work Isn’t Rocket Science by Dorianne St. Fleur | Medium.com (June 14, 2020)
• Racial Microaggressions: Examples and Phrases for Productive Dialogue by Kristen Rogers | CNN (June 6, 2020)
• Tips for Creating Effective White Caucus Groupsdeveloped by Craig Elliott PhD
• What Black Scientists Want From Colleagues and their Institutions by Virginia Gewin | Nature (June 22, 2020)
• White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Knapsack Peggy McIntosh
• Who Gets to Be Afraid in America? by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi | Atlantic (May 12, 2020)
• Why You Should Stop Saying, “I Don’t See Color” by Dawn Porter | msn.com (June 7, 2020)

Videos to watch:

• Bryan Stevenson: Bear Witness, Take Action (video)
• Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers (50:48)
• Diversity Training Isn’t Enough: Racism, Trauma and Justice w/Dr. Joy Degruy (2:02:46)
• How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion | Peggy McIntosh at TEDxTimberlaneSchools (18:26)
• CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall: How to Explain Racism to Kids (21:28)
• CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall: Elmo and his dad Louie Talk About Racism and Protesting (2:31)

Podcasts to subscribe to:

• 1619 (New York Times)
• About Race
• CEO Action Time to Act
• Code Switch (NPR)
• Intersectionality Matters! hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
• Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
• Pod For The Cause (from The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights)
• Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
• Seeing White

Books to read:

• Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt
• Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
• Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Dr. Brittney Cooper
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
• How To Be An Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
• Raising Our Hands by Jenna Arnold
• Redefining Realness by Janet Mock 
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga
• When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson
• Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude Steele
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, PhD

Websites to Visit:

• InCultureParent.com
• Overhaulofadvocacy.com
• Raceconscious.org

Films and TV series to watch:

• 13th (Ava DuVernay) — Netflix
• American Son (Kenny Leon) — Netflix
• The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution — Available to rent
• Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 — Available to rent
• Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu) — Available to rent
• Dear White People (Justin Simien) — Netflix
• Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler) — Available to rent
• I Am Not Your Negro (James Baldwin doc) — Available to rent or on Kanopy
• If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) — Hulu
• Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton) — Available to rent
• King In The Wilderness  — HBO
• See You Yesterday (Stefon Bristol) — Netflix
• Selma (Ava DuVernay) — Available to rent
• The Hate U Give (George Tillman Jr.) — Hulu with Cinemax
• When They See Us (Ava DuVernay) — Netflix

Organizations to follow on social media:

• Antiracism Center: Twitter
• Audre Lorde Project: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 
• Black Women’s Blueprint: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Color Of Change: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Colorlines: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• The Conscious Kid: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Equal Justice Initiative (EJI): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Families Belong Together: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• MPowerChange: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 
• Muslim Girl: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• NAACP: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 
• National Domestic Workers Alliance: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• RAICES: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook 
• Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ): Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• SisterSong: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• United We Dream: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

More anti-racism resources to check out:

• 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
• Accountability Statement | Robin DiAngelo, PhD
• The AntiRacist Table (30 day challenge)
• Anti-Racism Project
• Beyond This Moment virtual series: Doing Our Work: White Folks Engaged in the Movement for Racial Equity (Zoom recording)
• Jenna Arnold’s resources (books and people to follow)
• Keep It Real-Diverse2 (games/cards to be used as tools for difficult conversations)
• Medium.com
• Mindfulness Project (EP of meditations about allyship, racism and lovingkindness)
• NYTimes.com Race/Related
• Race Matters: Eradicating Racism in the Corporate World: A webinar series | Korn Ferry
• Race Matters: What Can I Do Infographic | Korn Ferry
• Rachel Ricketts’ anti-racism resources
• Resources for White Allies | UNC Athletics’ Heels at Home
• Resources for White People to Learn and Talk About Race and Racism
• Save the Tears: White Woman’s Guide by Tatiana Mac
• Showing Up For Racial Justice’s educational toolkits
• Talking About Race (National Museum of African American History & Culture)
• TED Talks
• Women of Color Need Courageous Allies in the Academy: An Open Dialogue with White and Black Women | Insight Into Diversity
• Why is this happening? — an introduction to police brutality from 100 Year Hoodie
• Zinn Education Project’s teaching materials

Care for Black People:

• 11 Black People Share Big and Small Ways They’re Caring for Themselves by Tonya Russell | SELF (June 5, 2020)
• 13 Black Women in Wellness Share what Wellness & Self-Care Means to them by Leah Thomas | The Good Trade
• For Colored Girls in Academia Who Have Burned Out/When Rest is Enough by Jasmine Abukar | Medium.com (June 9, 2020)
• How Black Americans can practice self-care during these trying times. And how everyone else can help them by Elizabeth Wellington | The Philadelphia Inquirer (June 4, 2020)
• Self-Care Tips for Black People Who Are Struggling with this Very Painful Week by Rachel Miller | Vice.com (May 28, 2020)
• Talking About Race: Self-Care | National Museum of African American History & Culture/Smithsonian

It’s time for white people to check our thinking. Right now.

What are we thinking? I don’t mean, as in, What are we THINKING?? No, I mean, as in, what are we as white people actually thinking right now as the U.S. moves into week two of protests and month three of social distancing? What are we thinking about race, the president, Covid-19, about anything?

As a teacher, I often found that my white college students, who were studying to become teachers in public schools, were uncomfortable talking about race. They did not want to say the “wrong” thing and get called out or challenged. That’s the trade off, though, for talking openly and honestly about race. We get to talk, but we will get things wrong, and we might–will no doubt–have that pointed out. Dont worry, this is a judgement free zone–the point is to think about what we are thinking.

Here is an important point: we must think about what we are thinking so that we can know who we are, and what we support or oppose. To start with, I have a lot of faith in people. I give us credit for generally wanting to do the right thing, to get along with each other, to help each other, and to be able to see injustice and be offended by it.

So I’m going to throw some random thoughts that some of us may or may not be having these days, as we watch FOX or CNN or MSNBC, or even Lifetime. I’m wondering if we’re thinking some of the same things.

• Covid-19 is easing up, so we can go out to eat. Or to church. Or to a ballgame.
• Football should start on time in the fall. Especially college football.
• The cities are on fire. What we need is some law and order. It was necessary for the military to be called up to protect….(fill in the blank).
• There do seem to be quite a few cops killing Black people, but….(fill in blank with your reason).
• Covid-19 was spread from a Chinese laboratory. Or a Chinese bat. Either way, it was Chinese.
• Sure black lives matter. All lives matter.
• These protesters are all radicals.
• Since Martin Luther King, Blacks have equal rights.
• It’s embarrassing to wear a mask. People will look me strange, maybe even smirk.
• If people don’t wear masks, we will build up herd immunity to Covid-19.
• I feel guilty about race issues. Sometimes this turns to anger.
• It feels like the U.S. is split right now on just about any and every issue.
• Cops would not kill if they weren’t provoked by thugs and criminals.
• President Trump….(fill in the blank with what you think about the president).
• I’m worried this country won’t be the same as it was six months ago, but I hope it does.
• Why aren’t Black people more grateful and appreciative that that I am not a racist?
• I do not have white privilege because I’ve worked hard for anything I have.
• I want to do something to support the protesters, but what?

Again, no judgement or moralizing here. I just think we ought to be clear about where we stand and how we feel about events going on around us. Maybe you are open to new ways of thinking. Maybe you are trying hard to empathize with others. Maybe not. For myself, I feel as though I come up short with being informed and being an ally to people….what do I think I should write here….people fighting for their rights?….fighting to breathe?…people whose cause I agree with? I am weighing out which group of people I want to offend least by speaking my own truth. Maybe you also think these things.

So, IF you are like me, wondering what you can do, wondering how you can be an ally, wondering how you can find out more information on Covid–trying to figure out anything at all, I have some links to share. And finally, if you find yourself feeling a certain way that I have the audacity to write this kind of thing at all, see if you can figure out what is prompting those feelings.

First: Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies, adapted from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Social Justice by Paul Kivel. https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/kivel3.pdf

Here is an excerpt:

Here is another link, White Anti-Racism: Living the Legacy, from Teaching Tolerance.org https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/white-antiracism-living-the-legacy Here’s an excerpt from that site on guilt: Guilt allows white people to maintain the status quo. Guilt creates paralysis. Guilt transfers the responsibility to people of color. Guilt continues the aspect of racism wherein white people put people of color in a situation of taking care of us.

Here’s a list of 17 Books On Racism Every White Person Needs To Read from a cite called WhiteAllyToolkit.com

https://www.whiteallytoolkit.com/resources/2017/8/10/17-books-on-racism-every-white-person-needs-to-read

And finally, Here’s a Covid-19 link from Cedars-Sinai, Reliable Sources for Covid-19 Info https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reliable-sources-for-coronavirus-info/. You can also look at your local and state health departments, but in my opinion if you really want to get a good read on the situation, dig into how your local nursing homes are doing and scan your local newspapers.

This is my first blog post since everything has changed. Everything. So where to start? To begin with, today I am not going to talk about the politics of it all. I wanted to lay out the sequence of events so that I can remember them–where I was, what I was doing. Reflections will come later.

In February, we heard the word Wuhan for the first time. I recall Sarah mentioned it in passing, and I remember replying, “Oh, ok, uh-huh,” without stopping what I was doing. Throughout that month and into March, I may or may not have clicked on updates from China that came across my news feed, but since it was not a topic yet related to U.S. politics (my preferred topic), I likely kept scrolling. Then came March.

On March 1, there were 75 confirmed cases in the U.S. On March 9, the day Sarah was to drive to South Florida for a math conference, there were 704. On March 10, we cancelled a cruise we had booked with Sarah’s family and church pals. Then on March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By March 12, the day she decided to come home early, the number was 1,697 (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ ). By the way, COVID-19 is the specific strain of coronavirus (a general group of viruses); to call it the Chinese coronavirus is not only inaccurate, it’s racist. Yep. You may not care for the Chinese government, but those folks over there got sick like us folks over here. See? 

By mid-March–which sounds and feels like a decade ago as I write it–online news sources had special COVID-19 pages/links, where you could see all news updates related to the virus in one place. The 2020 Democratic primary was affected. Super Tuesday was pretty much overshadowed. Candidates and other politicians–including the president, who thrives on rallys–began cancelling. The last Democratic debate–like all late night shows–were held without live audiences. I must admit I approve of the format for debates–for Stephen Colbert, not so much. As early as Saturday, March 7th, Kennesaw State University had begun to develop a “continuity plan” in the event face-to-face classes were suspended. It was essentially a plan for all courses to go online.

Unexpected issues started cropping up, too. For example, what would students do if dorms and dining halls were closed? What about homeless students (and all universities have them)? What about students who did not have computers or notebooks, but only their smartphones? The news channels began to have question and answer programming where viewers sent in questions for experts to answer. We submitted our plan to the university president by March 10th, and then we waited. It truly felt like a calm before the storm, eerie silence and all. By the evening of Friday the 13th, announcements came that public schools and universities would go online the following week. Church services across the country scrambled to find ways to make virtual worship meaningful. This was also the day that everyone in America went to the grocery stores for toilet paper.

Monday, March 16, was the day the stock market had its worst day since 1987. It was also the day we started setting up our home offices. Sarah had worked all weekend preparing to teach three in-person classes completely online–and have office hours virtually. I brought home monitors and books from the office after having one virtual meeting on my laptop. Honestly, I need the 2 monitors so I can do other things during the meeting, like look for social distancing staples online. You know you do it too, which is why it is on one of the 10,000 blog posts called, “Good Virtual Meeting Etiquette.” I have so far had five virtual meetings this week. It got so bad, one group had trouble finding a time–from home during social distancing!–to schedule our next meeting. A well-meaning colleague suggested meeting early–8:30 or 9:00 am–so that people would be free. I told him it was obscene to start that early. Because we are at home does not mean we are always “on,” which he was NOT suggesting. But it’s something to think about.

So, it is Friday, March 20, and we are caught up with the basics. I have learned how to change my Zoom background and so far have been at the Grassy Knoll, the White House, Graceland, and inside the Tardis. We have cooked more this week. Sarah has started an outdoor garden–so far with mainly carrot tops from our increased vegetable consumption. My office is a thing of beauty, and I am about to run out of diversionary tactics related to rearranging it. I have so far ventured out twice–both times to the office and thrift shop. I took wipes and sanitizer. I have taken a walk. We are ahead of the laundry. I have read Scripture and Sister Joan Chittister’s take on The Rule of Benedict every morning.

The other pandemic task I worked on this week was connecting. I realized that part of my own continuity plan should include staying in contact with people. As an introvert, it’s saying a lot that I should have that as my concern, but I am aware that I self-isolate enough anyway–imagine when it is mandatory! So, I hit the Facebook and made “Friends” with people from all parts of my life: colleagues, church folks, family, old classmates, scholar friends. I paid attention as people started setting up “Hangouts” and various groups and web meet ups. There have also been plenty of news and blogs encouraging people to take precautions to avoid loneliness, which will be very real as this thing goes along. Speaking of blogging, it’s another way I feel connected, and I’m planning on doing it more. There should be plenty to write about. One thought I had this week, during my containment prep, was how aptly named the blog is, Just Keep Swimming. If it was appropriate up to now, it sure is as we move forward. It is, for me, a hope-full idea: hang on, keep going, do the best you can. That’s the plan, anyway. 

 

I am gaining my weight back. Again. Like just about every person who has ever battled their weight, I have tried every diet plan imaginable. I’ve taken diet pills–over the counter and prescription–and for awhile I took Alli fat blocking pills, which was the grossest diet plan ever. Google that one. I’ve done Weight Watchers, now WW so you will feel like a winner, thank you, Oprah. It’s still Weight Watchers. I’ve exercised for a solid year; that, along with WW, which works if you work it, resulted in my losing the most weight I ever had in my adult life: 70 pounds. It felt so good! I got a complete new wardrobe and felt young again. I was so encouraged this time when I read that if I could keep it off for 3 years, I could keep it off for good. When it started creeping back after about year two–those crisp white shirts and modern-cut pants started feeling snug (a word of terror for fat people)–I looked that factoid up again. It had said five years, not three. I had weighted 168 for exactly 2 days, and as I creeped back up in the 170s, I told myself that my body wanted me to be in that range. Again, if you’ve ever been a weight warrior, you know the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched myself outgrow my clothes. Again.

My size 10 Levis were the first item to go, then my pants for going out. I donated my cute pinstripe suit after church one Sunday when a guy jokingly–it’s always jokingly, you know, but there’s truth behind it and it hurts like a sucker punch–said “Hey girl, you trying to show off those biceps?” I looked down at curved stripes on too-tight sleeves. Last year, I bought size 16 Levis, telling myself I still had not reached my highest weight–253, so 16 was okay. I was still under 200 pounds. Then came another holiday season.

I don’t even bother making New Year’s resolutions any more. What is the point? It’s always the same: lose some weight. Weight warriors, familiar? Knowing most people gain a few pounds over the holidays, and also knowing I didn’t have any to gain, I was determined to practice portion control. I didn’t gain during the month-long eat fest, but I began to feel my body change beyond the feel of my clothes. I put out of my mind that the size 16 roomy L.L.Bean pants’ waistband was getting snug. (oh no!). I was out of breath in the shower. I developed a candida fungus under my belly fat. Yes, that is so far the most embarrassing thing that I’ve ever felt about my body. Fat can be fluffy if you tell yourself enough. But a seepy, smelly rash made me feel nothing but shame.

This weekend an interview with Molly Carmel popped up on my newsfeed, and led me to her new book, Breaking Up With Sugar: Divorce the Diets, Drop the Pounds, and Live Your Best Life. I had do decide whether to add another weight loss book to my Kindle. I have books on insulin resistance, carbs, and the keto diet, for example. I know the science, and I know the “secrets” of weight loss. If knowledge were enough, wouldn’t we all be thinner and healthy? That, precisely, is Carmel’s point. I ‘m going to call her Molly, since the tone of her book is friendly and encouraging. I’m reading Breaking Up now, and I’m glad I bought it.

Here’s Molly’s About the Author on Amazon: Molly Carmel has made it her life’s mission to help people find a sustainable solution to the battle of obesity and related eating disorders. After battling her own eating disorder for over 20 years and finding no solution in available treatment, she created The Beacon, where she helps clients recover from similar addictions. Carmel received her Bachelor’s in Social Work from Cornell University and her Master’s from Columbia University’s School of Social Work. She has extensive training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, addiction, and nutrition.

The chapters support the breakup/divorce/find a healthy relationship theme of the book. I’m on Chapter 3, “The Truth About Your Sweetest Love,” where Molly gives a summary of how sugar is in reality “Suicide on the Installment Plan.” I wanted to include her list of sugar’s lethal capacity here: But Sugar also negatively affects every single part of your body. Some of these harmful effects are more well known than others. Eating sugar has been linked to: inflammation, migraine headaches, anxiety, brain fog, trouble sleeping, weakened eyesight, gum disease, heart disease, increased cholesterol, asthma, suppressed immunity, kidney damage, nonalcoholic fatty liver, overworked pancreas, arthritis, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, and leptin resistance. There’s even terrifying research showing that Sugar increases the risk of developing certain cancers. And of course, let us not forget Sugar’s piece de resistance, glucose intolerance and diabetis…

And yet, knowing all of this and having encountered many of the effects on Molly’s list, I keep right on eating sugar and its evil twin flour anyway. I’m going to keep reading, but I’m open to the idea that I think and behave like an addict when it comes to sugar–and I suspect toward food in general. I looked ahead to see whether Molly had made me a shopping list and a suggested meal plan? She had? Ah ha, I thought, but are they easy or complicated? Maybe they were like keto, a list of foods and meals of stuff I really don’t like (how much butter can I eat?). Nah, Molly included good, whole foods. I felt healthier just reading the foods and plans, which are easy and sustainable. I went through her lists of proteins, fats, carbs and made a grocery list.

I’ve already started the self-doubt talk in my mind. I’ve done this before–so many times. What is different about this time? How long will I be able to eat this food, which I’ll get tired of, won’t I? It’ll take too long to lose this much weight, so what’s the point? But Friday is pizza night! You work so hard, don’t you deserve a reward?  Molly, though, has already thought of this–she describes how she herself heard those same voices. Of everything I’ve read so far, this passage has hit me most profoundly was about how rats respond to excessive Sugar–which Molly capitalizes to remind us that we really are in a relationship. After describing sugar DTs, she writes, What’s more, when the rats withdrawing from Sugar were placed in water, they were less likely to swim or climb out, and more likely to passively float. They had lost their will to survive. I’m going to keep reading, Chapter 4 is “Defining Your Relationship: How Bad Is It Really?” There’s even a quiz. I know already; it’s pretty bad. I have a food addiction. I’ll start from there.

 

I call this last post The Promise Forgiveness & Reconciliation because I want to end on a hopeful note.

The Mystery of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 1

The Limits of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 2

I believe it is justifiably hopeful given the theory, theology, and practical parts of the topics. If I were going to teach a Sunday School class, or even present a lesson in a college education class, I would begin by scouring literature and web sites. I would, in the style of Worthington and Lederach, turn to case studies and current events. Much like these blog posts, the organization of a brief curriculum would be somewhat as follows:

1. Introduction, Definition of Terms, Participant Questions
2. Deeper Understandings: Contexts, Benefits, Limits
3. The Scope of Forgiving and Reconciling: Interpersonal, Local, Global
4. Putting It All Together, Where Do We Go From Here, Revisit Initial Questions

I have included below Revisiting the 10 Practices of Just Peacemaking Theory by David P. Gushee (2019) from EthicsDaily.com. Developed by the late ethicist Glen Stassen. Although the practices reference peacemaking (which I use interchangeably with reconciliation, knowing there are differences) at the global setting, I believe they can be modified to allow us to act upon them locally.

1. Support nonviolent direct action.
   Nonviolent direct action occurs when citizens confront injustice through peaceful public protests and other resistance strategies, including boycotts and strategic noncooperation. Practiced effectively by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
2. Take independent initiatives to reduce threat. 
3. Use cooperative conflict resolution. These skills train adversaries to see each other as human beings with dignity and legitimate needs rather than as sub-humans whose every negotiating demand is illegitimate just because of how evil they are.
4. Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice; seek repentance and forgiveness.
5. Promote democracy, human rights and religious liberty.
6. Foster just and sustainable economic development. Hungry people easily become desperate and violent, and, when they rebel, their need is at least temporarily exacerbated.
7. Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system.It stands to reason that the more nations are involved in these webs of interaction, the less likely they are to make war.
8. Strengthen the United Nations and international organizations.
9. Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade.
10. Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations. Everybody needs somebody looking over their shoulders to keep them in check. See the full article here

Peace, justice, dignity, equity, voice, and the resolution of conflict are the basis of reconciliation. What about forgiveness? Psychology Today states, “Forgiveness is the release of resentment or anger.” It does not mean reconciliation–no person or entity has to return to a harmful relationship. “Forgiveness is vitally important for the mental health of those who have been victimized. It propels people forward rather than keeping them emotionally engaged in an injustice or trauma.” It has physical, emotional, and psychological benefits, and has been shown to “elevate mood, enhance optimism, and guard against anger, stress, anxiety, and depression.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation are like a suit: you can wear the jacket and pants separately, but they also go together. Maintaining the distinction acknowledges the offended party (I am avoiding the word victim here). If this complicated process is worked prayerfully and diligently, there are situations where both are possible outcomes. Link to Psychology Today: Forgiveness

The following is the beginnings of a collection of resources that I will add to over time.

1. Duke Divinity School: Center for Reconciliation Resources https://divinity.duke.edu/initiatives/cfr/resources
2. Peace Center for Forgiveness & Reconciliation http://www.choosetoforgive.org/
3. The Forgiveness Project https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/
4. Racial Equity Resource Guide http://www.racialequityresourceguide.org/organizations/organizations/sectionFilter/Racial%20Healing
5. Racial Equity Institute https://www.racialequityinstitute.com/partner-organizations
6. Reconciliation Ministry (Disciples of Christ) https://reconciliationministry.org/
7. Conciliation Resources http://www.c-r.org/
8. Truth and Reconciliation, Commission of Canada http://www.trc.ca/resources.html
9. Community Tool Box https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/spirituality-and-community-building/forgiveness-and-reconciliation/main
10. Center for Justice & Reconciliation http://restorativejustice.org/#sthash.i2cZEw7o.dpb
11. Lederach, J.P. (2014) Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians. Virginia: Herald Press.
12. Jones, G. (1995). Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
13. Worthington, E.L. (2001). Forgiving and Reconciling: Bridges to Wholeness and Hope. Illinois: InterVarsity Press.
14. Walker-Barnes, C. (2019). I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

 

I have heard horror stories of people in abusive relationships who have sought spiritual advise from their church leaders, only to be told that they should forgive their partners–forgive the verbal, psychological, physical abuse and/or infidelity, for example. They are told to forgive as God forgives (remember the theological model I mentioned in my last post?) The Mystery of Forgiveness & Reconciliation, part 1   People who have escaped relationships of abuse are even sometimes counseled to reconcile. Many years ago, I was divorced, and for years I had recurring nightmares that I was being forced to reconcile with my husband.

Forgiving and reconciling have limits that are dependent upon circumstances and injustice. I learned from my own experience that I forgive so that I can move forward, but nobody–not in dreams or consciousness–can make me reconcile.

Every kind of relationship includes relations of power, privilege, and politics–and these must be acknowledged. In The Politics of Apology and Forgiveness,  Joretta Marshall identifies five connections between power and forgiveness that I think are important. 1. The misuse of power invites power into a relationship. 2. The person who has the power to cause harm does not have equal power to require forgiveness—only to apologize and ask for forgiveness. 3. The giving or receiving of forgiveness, like an apology, cannot be coerced. 4. There is a dance between power and vulnerability in the forgiveness process. 5. Forgiveness emerges through the shifting of power in relationship. Forgiveness has its own subversive power in its potential for transformation.

In The Limits of Forgiveness, Norlock and Rumsey unpack the costs and limits of forgiveness, which are to be found in situations where “radical evil” exists. They argue that social and political recognition, including punishment of offenders and provisions for the economic and physical safety of victims, are requisite conditions” (p. 119). The authors demand that we critically analyze what we ask of those we expect to forgive offenders. What is that about? Forgiveness is fraught with complexity, and the existence of radical evil does not allow us the luxury of taking the process for granted.

I also discovered the book, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, by Susan Neiman. This text, which is the kind of reading I do for fun (me = nerd), examines the intentional efforts at “working through the past” by the German people—individually and collectively—in the wake of the Nazi Reich. She argues that the United States—White Southerners, in particular—can learn and take cues from the Germans, although the evil of slavery and Jim Crow is a different kind of evil than Nazism. She explicitly states that this is not a suggestion of comparative suffering or oppression, but one of comparative reconciliation. Thomas Jefferson, the embodiment of questions Americans must ask of ourselves, said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his mercy cannot last forever.” When I think about forgiveness and reconciliation, radical evil and sin, power and privilege—and how these fit in the Kingdom of God, I tremble too.

So whether we are talking about relationships at the personal or global level–or anything in between–power relations are maintained and reproduced that are paramount to the nature of the relationship. They also affect the approach, expectations, and limitations in the process of forgiveness and reconciliation. Social categories such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, and cultural background also have great bearing on the process, particularly since these categories are socially constructed, fluid, and flexible.

 

On our last day together, our F&R class organized our thinking around F&R on the board (see below). These are our findings:

Forgiveness is…

• an ongoing process, as illustrated by Jesus’s metaphor of 70 X 7
• an array of both positive and negative emotions
• effective in an “I/Thou” relationship, such as that believers have with God
• Jesus like
• difficult and takes time
• requires faith
• a gift of mercy–to self, God, others
• an aspiration (most of the time)
• good for us
• Note: “unforgiveness” has psychological and biological consequences

Forgiveness is not…

• the same as reconciliation
• requiring of an apology or repentance
• enmeshment or codependency
• cheap or therapeutic
• just saying “I’m sorry”
• explicitly Christian
• always equitable
• a denial of hurt
• earned
• excusing abuse or the perpetrator
• performative
• an option
• transactional
• a feel good fix

Reconciliation is…

• contextual
• requiring of repentance
• requiring of truth telling
• requiring of solidarity, space, and safety
• interpersonal and intrapersonal
• often mediated by a third party
• a process that requires something of the parties
• an aspirational
• messy
• often confrontational
• dependent upon justice
• not always possible

Reconciliation is not…

• the same as forgiveness
• mandatory
• the same on individual and systemic levels
• always fast
• happiness-inducing
• solidifying
• without risk
• agreement
• a social contract
• accompanied by compensation or reparation
• always possible

I will add that reconciliation is part of the peacemaking process. In my next post, I will share 10 Practices of Just Peacemaking Theory from EthicsDaily.com.

Growing up, when I thought about forgiveness–which is ever present in a practicing Fundamentalist Christian’s life–I thought first about God so loving the world that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. For our forgiveness. When I thought of forgiveness apart from the Cross, I thought about Jesus’s quip to Peter about forgiving an offender 70 times 7 (Matt 18:22). I remember calculating it in my mind, which Peter probably also did.

This semester I took a class with Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, whose new book, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision of Racial Reconciliation, brings Womanist Wisdom “to describe how race and racism work, what reconciliation really looks like, and how faith can help us work toward it” (https://drchanequa.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/my-book-is-coming/). When you stop and think about it, each of those concepts–forgiveness and reconciliation–are huge. So full of meaning and implications that it was and continues to be daunting to me. My classmates and I spent 15 weeks grappling with texts and ideas; now I find it less daunting than profound. What I mean is that it is important to put forgiveness and reconciliation in practice and help others to do so, too. I know it was a good class because we are leaving it with more questions than when we began. Success is often measured by knowing enough to know what you don’t know. Our final project was to create a curriculum on forgiveness and/or reconciliation.

From the time the project was assigned, I began to have trouble with it. I had writer’s block for curriculum development. I realize I still have some sorting out to do with the two-in-one concept, since, as Flannery O’Connor wrote, “I don’t know what I think until I red what I say.” In this post, I will briefly sketch an overview of an introductory segment on the concepts Forgiveness & Reconciliation. Should spaces for dialogue ever come up, here is where I would start.

First, it is important to note that Forgiveness & Reconciliation is a whole field of study with a growing body of literature. Typing in the words, “Forgiveness & Reconciliation” on Amazon, for example, yields 437 results. Type in those same words in Google, and more than twelve million results pop up. To be fair, “forgiveness” and “reconciliation” by themselves are intermingled with results for the pair. I found this to be the case in our class, too. The topics overlap, bleeding into each other, as it were, to the point where it is hard to see where one stops and the other begins. Entangled, jumbled. This is not inappropriate.

Dr. Walker-Barnes organized the course into engaging topics, and you can see the intricate threading throughout: Theologies of Forgiveness; Theologies of Reconciliation; Remembrance & Repentance; Power, Apology, & The Limits of Forgiveness; Trauma, Anger & the Failure of Reconciliation; Reconciliation or Liberation?; Reconciliation as a Spiritual Journey; and Psychological Perspectives on Forgiveness. We read texts by Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis; John Paul Lederach, Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians, and Everett Worthington, Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application. There was a lot to read and talk about. If I were guiding a book talk on the subject, I would use some of the helpful strategies and models from these texts, developed by peace workers who walk the walk. Dr. Walker-Barnes’ book was published after our class had begun, so we only had a teaser chapter from it. It’s now on my Christmas break reading list!

The semester was spent painstakingly unraveling meanings. Here are some key points.

1. Christians not only have an obligation to practice forgiveness, we also have a model. God forgives us.
2. There are distinctions between forgiveness and reconciliation, even though they are a good matched set.
3. Both forgiveness and reconciliation have important and often frustrating limits. If we know them going in, we will not have our expectations dashed.
4.  Historically–both within Christianity and without–forgiveness and reconciliation have been abused, misused, oppressive, and suppressive. Survivors of interpersonal and/or systemic trauma/conflict narrate the journey to forgiveness and reconciliation. Survivors remind us of the high stakes involved in forgiveness and reconciliation; their voices are critical  to how we practice.

To further muddle my thinking, you have to consider forgiveness according to its various levels. Are we talking about forgiving another person? Groups of people? A whole country? What about reconciling? Couples reconcile (or don’t). Friends can too. Different cultures can reconcile–like in South Africa. People can be reconciled to God. I have to reconcile within myself. The scope is incredible.

I will end my overview with this: our participation in the divine life, that is, how believers exist in the world, is wrapped up in the tremendous Mystery. The gift and responsibility of forgiveness–and yes, reconciliation, too–are part of that mystery. And it is part of most believers’ theology. For example, while there are many subjects Jesus never mentioned, he was explicit about forgiveness: do it. So, as complicated and perplexing as forgiveness and reconciliation can be, it helps to approach them as sacred process.

Below is a picture of our white board from the last day of class, where we summed up what we had learned. In my next post, I will summarize them in talking points.

 

I really love my seminary, the McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University. Faculty and staff there are committed to issues of justice and spiritual growth. It is also a place where only about 45% of the students are white. I want to support a place like that and more important, learn from the variety of perspectives and experiences of my classmates. It is a place where I can focus on issues important to me, like being a good ally by attending to my white privilege. I am convinced that my anti-racist work as a white Southern academic should also include theological and religious frameworks. I needed to get in touch with my Jesus.

Part of the institution’s commitment to spiritual formation is the annual faculty, staff, and student weekend retreat, which the founding faculty built into the design of the programs. We just recently had one at the Pinnacle Center in the North Georgia mountains, where we spend two days worshiping together and getting to know one another. We build deeper relationships as classmates at a setting like this, where we pray and take communion together. This year, the dean announced he had been working with friends in Union Point, Georgia, to plan a work day at a historic cemetery near the original location of Mercer University. Here’s what he said:

This summer I learned of a neglected African American cemetery located nearby the Penfield cemetery. I have partnered with African American activists and other leaders to help them with a clean-up effort on October 26. I would very much appreciate it if you would join me as we honor this sacred space and practice remembrance.

He noted that enslaved persons were buried there.

Here is what I wish I had thought: Does it make a difference that the dean is a straight, white, cis-male? Were faculty invited to discuss this topic, welcoming voices from faculty of color? Could groundwork have been laid so that the announcement would have had context for the benefit of the students, most of whom were African American? What is motivating me to want to participate?

What I actually did, though, was volunteer to clean up the cemetery.

A few days later, the dean sent a reminder and included additional information that a filmmaker friend and seminary grad would be filming for a documentary. A few days after that, I learned that a group of African American students had submitted a letter to the dean to express concerns about the project. I have not seen this letter, but the seminary grapevine is real. That was the day I discovered the “Savior Barbie” Instagram account. If you haven’t heard about it, below is a Huff Post article, along with 2 examples of Barbie’s posts.

White Savior Barbie Huff Post

White Savior Barbie pokes fun at people who suffer from “White Savior Complex,” the term used to describe the white Westerners who travel to third world countries and make the entire affair an exercise in self-congratulatory sacrifice. (Huff Post). The account owners, who remain anonymous, point out, “We have both struggled with our own realizations and are definitely not claiming innocence here.” “Barbie Savior, we hope, is an entertaining jumping off point for some very real discussions, debates, and resolves.” It isn’t that there is anything inherently wrong with doing volunteer work to help people. WSB targets the idea that Africa needs saving from itself and white people are the ones who can do it. Barbie Savior is there for a photo op, the ultimate selfie. This kind of thinking supported colonialism, conquest, and slavery. It is white supremacy.

Barbie Savior (@barbiesavior)

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting for a minute that the McAfee dean is in error. I have no idea until and unless he discusses it what the process was for bringing this opportunity to the students. For all I know, he brought it to the faculty first for them to unpack together. The letter from students is said to contain references to a diversity strategic plan, which I imagine calls for voice and conversation and inclusion in initiative planning. I have no doubt he is prayerfully and profoundly considering what they have written and will respond appropriately. This is not about him; it is about my own complicity in maintaining racist systems in which the White Savior Complex operates.

So just what was I thinking? My first thought was what a great service project! As a Southern Christian who knows what “Decoration Day” is, I have cleaned old cemeteries for as long as I can remember. My second thought was about the historical significance of the place, for yes, I was in part motivated by it being a very, very old African American cemetery that was the final resting place of former enslaved persons.

My third thought was about my friend Edeltress in Baton Rouge, who had taken me on a detour to her ancestral cemetery one day while we were on a school visit for work. “Do you mind?” she asked me. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here. I was a little girl and my parents brought me.” So we drove to a countryside in Louisiana that I couldn’t find today if I had to. “Here it is,” she said. But looking around, I couldn’t see a graveyard. Just what looked like woods, undergrowth, weeds–way back, about a hundred feet off the side of the road. Edeltress laughed. “Oh, you’re looking for a white cemetery. This is how our cemeteries look.” We tramped around the site, being careful not to step on the graves, and on the way home, she told me stories about her father, who had driven an old broken-down truck so that his white neighbors would not recognize him for a landowner and successful farmer. My people were dangerous. So that is the image I got in my head when the dean asked for volunteers. I thought of paying tribute, in this small way, to my friend.

That is why I am going to acknowledge my white privilege, acknowledge the concerns of my classmates–for they hold us accountable for thinking of and processing these issues before complying–and then go clean up a grave yard. But you won’t see it on Facebook or Twitter. I will not take a selfie with a tombstone. Does this make me admirable? Is this sufficient acknowledgement, or am I assuaging my conscience? Am I asking the right questions? I don’t know, but it gives me something to ponder as I pull weeds.

White supremacy can look like skin heads carrying swastikas; it can look like angry white people wearing red hats. It can be masked by well intentioned white people who secretly voted for Trump. And it can be a white seminary student who fails to do the work of problematizing a workday over the graves of enslaved persons. There is another White Savior resource I find relevant here. White Savior: Racism in the American Church (2019). The film “explores the historic relationship between racism and American Christianity, the ongoing segregation of the church in the US, and the complexities of racial reconciliation” (imdb). I recommend it. The film closes with an African American minister from the Bronx discussing being an ally. “Being an ally,” he said, “means asking ‘What do you need? and sometimes that means just shut up and listen.”

At the end of the day, I believe in a place like McAfee. It exemplifies the complexity of racial reconciling and justice. The messiness of it. It is a place where we can make all the mistakes–and there are many–and learn that the sky doesn’t fall when we make them. It is a place where, sometimes, we can just shut up and listen.

This week I had to check my whiteness two times, first at the ONA Coalition National Gathering and then at the UCC General Synod. The lesson was reinforced for me that, even though I have more than one historically marginalized marker with which I identify (gender and sexuality), that does not mean I am enlightened or evolved in relation to other marginalized populations. It is no fun having to face this in real world situations, but it’s crucial to remember. It also teaches me that in discerning for the ministry, I have a lot to learn. It is God saying, “You’re not there yet.”

The first was during a talk given by a candidate on the slate for a UCC national office. Right after the UMC vote, I had been a little indignant about African delegates being the conservative votes that put the resolution against LGBTQ ordination over the top. Reverend Karen Georgia Thompson pointed out that the African delegates had been heavily lobbied and probably manipulated by conservative (probably Southern) delegates. Of course they had; it created the narrative that benefitted U.S. delegates while reinforcing the stereotype that Black bodies and Black churches were by nature “essentially” conservative. 

The second instance was personal. I had a roommate for Synod, a gifted African American chaplain I’ll call Susan. One night, we went to a late evening reception for Members in Discernment for ordination. It was late, so there weren’t many people in the large Hilton hotel suite. In the corner, engaged in conversation with a conference delegate, sat Reverend Traci Blackmon, a rock star minister, prophet, activist in the UCC. She came on the national scene in helping people from Ferguson, Missouri, respond to the Michael Brown murder in 2014. Naturally, we were both star struck. While helping ourselves to the snacks and wine, Rev. Blackmon walked over and began heating up her leftovers from Maggiano’s. The three of us struck up a conversation about a contentious topic in the last session. She was very gracious and seemed to me to be in the mood to talk. It seemed like she needed to unwind before calling the very long day a night. So the three of us sat down in the living room area of the spacious suite while she ate. Even though it was late, I was energized. Like those cop shows where they have to keep the caller on the line so they can trace the call,  I just wanted her to keep talking. She is a public theological intellectual, and like bell hooks, a treasure.

When we got back our room, I was revved up from the experience. “Traci Blackmon had a conversation with us,” I said. “Well,” said Susan, “she had a conversation with you. I think I may have made one statement.” Screeching halt. She was right. I, in my white academic privilege, had manipulated the conversation so that I could “own” an engagement with this person I admired. I knew how to guide conversation, to interview a subject, and that’s what I had done. My new friend was gracious, and to her great credit, she didn’t excuse or deny it to make me feel better. The irony is that throughout the conversation with Rev. Blackmon I kept telling myself that I was humbled to be in her presence. No I wasn’t; I was proud. Humility is what Susan exhibited, yet I was so blinded by my privilege I did not see it.

I am not suggesting Susan did not have voice–she did, and she could have called me out severely as we debriefed. What I realized was that in this space where justice and covenant were sacred ideals to be put into practice by all Christians, I had performed a microaggression from a place of privilege, so I am glad the space is also one of grace and mercy. Although, like the tools of privilege in my invisible backpack, I do not deserve them.

Today is June 19th, Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when news of Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier finally reached enslaved persons in Texas. It coincides with the National Gathering of the UCC Open & Affirming National Gathering and a Race and Religion course assignment on whether the Lost Cause still exists in the South today. All things work together, and it is fitting.

When I was a kid my parents took my little brother and me to Shiloh National Military Park. This began and strengthened my fascination with the Civil War. Other Southern writers have written about how prominently Civil War lore figured into their childhoods, how it shape their psyches as Southern men. No major battles took place in Alabama like in Virginia and Tennessee, so my parents—who took exactly one vacation in their lives and it was NOT to the beach—hauled us on a day trip to Shiloh. We saw the exhibits with artifacts from the battlefield: bullets, bayonets, buttons. We saw a film that mapped out the two-day fight from April 6-7, 1862, the bloodiest battle until Antietam five months later. It remains the sixth on the top ten list. We walked around sites so horrific they had been named: Hornets Nest and Bloody Pond, water colored red by soldiers’ blood. At the end of the day, my parents took us to the gift shop, where we were each allowed one souvenir. My brother and I  got the same memento—a confederate private’s cap. We did not even consider the Union blue cap of the yankees.

I think perhaps the Lost Cause takes on a different meaning for working class Southerners than it had for the old plantation class that evolved into wealth obtained from industry and later, investment. For us, the Lost Cause equated with the tragic romanticism of the lost war. The South is a contested place; it is a place looked down upon by those outside—and sometimes inside—of it. During the tour, my brother and I cheered for the Shiloh story of Day 1, that went to the confederates. On the second day, Grant’s reinforcements arrived, Albert Sidney Johnston was shot, and the battle went to the Union. The feeling I had then is similar to the physical and emotional drain I feel after the University of Alabama loses a big game to Auburn. It is real disappointment that I feel for the rest of the day. Our land had been invaded and we had lost. That was my lost cause, and its symbols took on religious meanings—the Stars and Bars battle flag, the gallant General Lee upon his steed Traveler (yes, I know the horse’s name), and of course, Dixie, our hymn.

Constructing the Lost Cause narrative so strong that is part of the psyche of Southerners who have no discernable connection to the Old South other than geographic location required a national comprehensive campaign. So the question to consider is, in whose interest was it to create the Lost Cause as an organizing theme? The white plantation class, supported by southern newspapers convinced poor whites that they were whiter than they were poor; thus, they allied with the people who looked like them. We continue to do this today, voting and allying against our economic interests because they are white. Northern and Southern Protestants turned defeated confederates into defeated Christians as the Lost Cause became a vehicle for Southern Redemption—redemption that was religious, social, and political.

Yesterday, I attended a session at the UCC Open and Affirming (ONA) National Gathering in Milwaukee, called Offensive Faith: Queering the Playbook for Religious Engagement. Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, of the National LGBTQ Task Force stressed the intersectionality present in dismantling systems of gender and sexuality oppression. People of color are disproportionately affected by violence in this country; the same is true for gender violence. One of the pictures she shared prompted my reflections here, connecting religion, the Lost Cause, and racial (and gendered) violence. I look at it now and am offended, yes, but I see it and know that the stirrings of nostalgia I also feel seeing the old black and white photo that could have been taken at Littleville Elementary School, where I grew up a confederate child. My nostalgia is a fruit of white privilege, and so too is offensive.

The second photo Rev. Leapheart shared will likely offend Lost Causers—not only them, it will offend many other white people. I think when we as a people can be offended by both images because they stand for a history of racial violence in which religion has been complicit—then we might hope for redemption.

Please also take time to visit the National LGBTQ Task Force web site and read about their All of Me. All the Time campaign for the Equality Act. They have this description:

The National LGBTQ Task Force educates federal policymakers about the need for non-discrimination protections that ensure the whole person is able to advocate for themselves when discriminated against, wherever that discrimination takes place. We work with a wide range of progressive partner organizations across the country both at the state and federal level, like the National Black Justice Coalition. The Task Force shifts the conversation from a political and technical one to a national and inclusive conversation based on morals and values.

National LGBTQ Task Force