RESOURCES FOR CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION, JULY 5

Book to read: A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland by DaMaris Hill. Mike Perry recommends it, and points us to this summary: “Hill presents bitter, unflinching history that artfully captures the personas of these captivating, bound yet unbridled African-American women. Hill’s passionate odes to Zora Neale Hurston, Lucille Clifton, Fannie Lou Hamer, Grace Jones, Eartha Kitt, and others also celebrate the modern-day inheritors of their load and light, binding history, author, and reader in an essential legacy of struggle.”

Social media account to follow: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, @NMAAHC. Erin James-Brown says, “Daily photos and stories from our nation’s history you never learned in school delivered right to your Insta feed? Yes, please!”

Podcast to subscribe to: Code Sw!tch by NPR. Katie Hays says, “I wanted to recommend Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period by W. Kamau Bell and friends, but they haven’t made new ones in 2020 and the archives are available by subscription on Stitcher. But Code Sw!tch is also good – not as funny, but hella informative, bringing my white brain and spirit into places I did not know I wanted to go. BIPOC journalists take turns hosting and tell good stories about all kinds of stuff my white privilege keeps me from seeing by myself.” 

Movie or TV to watch: “The Cross and the Lynching Tree: A Requiem for Ahmaud Arbery” by Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III. Remi Shores says, “I watched this video for my Christian ethics class, and damn. A 20-minute sermon.” 

Playlist or artist to listen to: The Many. This racially diverse group of musicians produces progressive Christian worship music for maximal singing. We’re using lots of their songs in worship lately, thanks to Stephanie Hord’s exploration of their extensive catalog. Nathan Shores has played with The Many professionally, and they are friends of Galileo Church. They’ve been producing weekly services of lament on Facebook Live during the pandemic and for anti-racist protests. Find them on Youtube, Apple Music, etc.; and the Plural Guild website (for which The Many is the house band). 

Cause to donate to: The Gathering: a womanist church. Galileo Church is receiving financial gifts for The Gathering (Dallas), a womanist church created by our friend Rev. Dr. Irie Session and her co-pastors. Galileo will match your gifts designated for The Gathering up to a total of $2500 in July 2020.  

Question or topic for white people to discuss IRL with white friends and family members: How do you imagine your life would have been different if you were born in all the same circumstances, except that you were Black? Name three. This thought exercise can help white people get beyond “I’m not racist!” to think about the realities of white privilege, which does not require an individual’s conscious racism to work to that individual’s advantage.

resources for contemplation and action, june 28

Book to read: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Remi Shores says, “The title comes from Tupac’s album THUGLIFE: the hate u give little infants fucks everyone. This is a YA (young adult) book and adults have lots to learn from it. The main character is a Black girl in high school who saw her best friend murdered by police. She goes to a mostly white, private school (because her mom wants her in a safer place) but her Black friends have complicated feelings about that. It’s nuanced and funny and lovely and sad.”

Social media account to follow: Good Black Reads on Instagram, @goodblackreads. Katie Hays says, “Do you read novels, poetry, short stories, biographies, non-fiction, sci-fi, satire, or anything else? This Insta curates all kinds of terrific books by Black authors. It occasionally highlights up-and-coming Black authors for their new work, as well as historic Black authors for their body of work. I’ve learned a ton, and gotten some great recs for my summer reading.”

Podcast to subscribe to: seasons 1 & 2 of “Seeing White” in Scene On Radio. Eleanor Garrett-Grimsley says, “I like this podcast because it explores racism from anthropological and sociological standpoints. It’s hosted by a white guy to help white people understand how we are complicit in sustaining systemic racism (the status quo from which we benefit) even if we can’t see our role in current events.” 

Movie or TV to watch: I Am Not Your Negro on Hulu. Nominated for “Best Documentary Feature” in 2016, and based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, this doc explores Baldwin’s friendships with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers. Baldwin was queer and unafraid to write characters at the intersection of race and sexuality. 

Playlist or artist to listen to: “100 Essential Songs About the Struggle” by Sean & Kieran Yates. These Galileo co-conspirators (father and son) are connoisseurs of many genres, and they put together this list just for us. Warning: explicit language. 

Cause to donate to: Brennan Center for Justice. Mike Perry says, “One major, long-term strategy for achieving social justice is ensuring that we have a real democracy in which all voices can be heard. The non-partisan Brennan Center fights for voting rights, election security, campaign finance reform, electoral college reform, and putting an end to mass incarceration.”

Question or topic for white people to discuss IRL with white friends and family members: Overt (socially unacceptable) vs. covert (socially acceptable) white supremacy. The Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence developed a graphic that looks like an iceberg, where the part you can see above the water line names overt forms of racism that none of us would ever do (we wouldn’t, right?); but the far larger piece of the iceberg is under the water’s surface, invisible (covert white supremacy) and all the more dangerous. Take a look, and talk about it at the dinner table.

RESOURCES FOR CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION, JUNE 21

Book to read: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Jeana Owens says, “This book is about the prison system, but it shows that racism never ended; it just changed forms to cloak itself and make it more socially acceptable. This book showed me the difference between personal racism and systemic racism--and why we can never end it unless we address both.” 

Social media account to follow: Wil Gafney on Twitter, @wilgafney. This professor of Hebrew Bible (at Brite Div. School, at TCU), womanist scholar, and Episcopal priest is “Exhausted and Enraged” (as her Twitter handle declares). She’s not gentle in her assessments of white supremacy and white fragility – she will hurt your white feelings, Katie Hays assures you – and she is a generous re-tweeter who opens up the wide world of Black Twitter to all who care to listen and learn.

Podcast to subscribe to: “1619 Project” by Nikole Hannah-Jones. Mike Perry says, “Only six episodes but packs a powerful punch. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its exploration of racism from the very beginning in America at the arrival of the first transport ship of enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619.” 

Movie or TV to watch: “13th,” Netflix documentary. Jenna Del Cristo recommends this 2016 doc by Ava DuVernay, which is titled for the 13th amendment to the U.S. constitution. The 13th amendment ended slavery “except as a punishment for conviction of a crime” – thus leading to the continued enslavement of Black lives by the U.S. criminal justice system and the school-to-prison pipeline. It’s available on YouTube for free, for now.

Cause to donate to: Equal Justice Initiative. Paul Demer says, “This organization is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S., to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. You can learn more by reading Just Mercy by EJI founder Bryan Stevenson, or watching the movie (free this month on Netflix).”

Playlist or artist to listen to: Gary Clark Jr’s 2019 album This Land. DJ Boatright recommended the video for the title song first, confessing his own “ugly tears” while watching. The Austin musician fuses blues, rock, soul, and hip-hop. Here’s his NPR Tiny Desk concert.

Question or topic for white people to discuss IRL with white friends and family members: For white relations who lived through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, what was their experience like? Cameron Spivey has been having conversations with his grandmother about her experience of living through the 1960s. Does she remember the desegregation of water fountains, restaurants, schools, etc.? How were the protests shown in the media then? Did her church talk about it? What were her own interactions with Black people like? How does she think about that time now, 60 years later? Is there anything she wishes she had done differently? 

Resources for contemplation & action: June 14

Book to read: Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad. Michelle Morr Krabill says, “I highly recommend this book. The information is broken up into small chunks that are easy to understand and apply.” 

Social media account to follow: Franchesca Ramsey on YouTube, @chescaleigh. Erin James-Brown says, “Around five years ago Franchesca’s videos started directly addressing race and racism. They’re short, educational, often funny, often important.” 

Podcast to subscribe to: “Pod Save the People” by DeRay Mckesson. So many G-people love this podcast it’s hard to choose just one reviewer. DeRay, a gay black activist, interviews guests on social justice, culture, and politics. He urges LGBTQ+ people to “come out of the quiet” around race and racism.

Movie or TV to watch: “Dear White People,” a Netflix original series. Remi Shores says, “Very funny and entertaining; also very informative and heart-wrenching. Presents multiple Black perspectives, including opposing ones – like, not all the Black characters think the same thing about everything.” 

Cause to donate to: New City Church’s Solidarity Fund. Katie Hays says, “Rev. Tyler Sit (who is gay, btw) is a friend, a church planter, and a human rights activist on the ground in George Floyd’s Minneapolis. This extremely local fund will be shared in Jesus’s name in a city that has been rocked by grief and has suffered serious economic consequences of injustice.”

Playlist or artist to listen to: Todrick Hall’s 2018 visual concept album Forbidden. We were recommended the single “Ordinary Day” from this album about a distant future in which black LGBT people rule a city and treat white/straight people the way black/queer people are treated in reality. Justin says, “His other works are potent, too. His Wizard of Oz album posits the munchkins as the ‘Black’ people in Oz.”

Question or topic for white people to discuss IRL with white friends and family members: Have you ever taken an implicit bias test? Would you do it if I do it, and we can talk about the results? Amy Walker reminded us that Project Implicit at Harvard University has developed an online test for uncovering deep-down racial prejudices many of us don’t know we have. It’s like a game, simple to play on a computer and many handheld devices, but with very serious results for self-knowledge and reflection.