Social Justice Saturday: Guidance From Howard Thurman

A voice of wisdom as we struggle to find our own best way of responding to the multiple needs and challenges before us:

 

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs;

Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

                 -Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman was an African-American philosopher, theologian, and educator.  He served as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953-1965, where he was a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr.   His theology of nonviolence influenced a generation of civil rights activists.

 

Social Justice Saturday: Racism and Climate Change

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy advisor, and Brooklyn native. She founded the non-profit think tank Urban Ocean Lab, and is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology "All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis."

In a recent Washington Post article, Johnson, a black climate scientist, warns us that addressing racial injustice in the U.S. is a “central and inextricable component of addressing the climate crisis.” This is not only because people of color are more impacted by climate disasters, but also because polling shows black people are more concerned about climate change. “We can more effectively lead our communities toward climate solutions if unburdened by the many manifestations of racism.”

We recommend her Post article “I’m a black climate expert. Racism derails our efforts to save the planet." and another article that appeared in Time magazine: We Can't Solve the Climate Crisis Unless Black Lives Matter.

There Johnson explains further:

“Let’s include ever more expansive understandings of justice in environmental work. Let’s integrate an understanding of interdependence. Let’s take a holistic approach inspired by ecosystems. Let’s value human diversity as much as we do biodiversity. Let’s think about the world we want to live in, and how we can build it, together.”

97 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

 

97 things White People Can Do for Racial Justice by Corinne Shutack (originally published Aug 13, 2017, but updated continually).

 

This may seem like a daunting number of actions, and it is! Taken a couple at a time, there are important ways white people can educate themselves and take action for racial justice.  Here are three items from the list showing ways to connect. The full list gives a wide range of immediate and long-term actions—check it out!

 

1. Check out the Black Lives Matter chapter in your area, on their website (Boston website:  https://blacklivesmatterboston.org/) where you can sign up for their newsletter and sign up to volunteer.  And check out their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/BlmBoston/) where you can find a calendar of events, videos of past events, and links to other activist organizations.

See also https://time.com/5848318/black-lives-matter-activists-tactics/.

2. Discover what indigenous land you’re living on by looking that this map and research the groups that occupied that land before you did. Find out what local activism those groups are doing and give your money and time to those efforts.

3. Understand and share what “defund the police” really means. It’s about a new, smarter approach to public safety, wherein we demilitarize the police and allocate resources into education, social services, and other root causes of crimes. What we’re doing now isn’t working — There are so many innocent people who have been harassed or killed by the police unjustly, and nearly every Black American has experienced some form of harassment by the police. Some good resources for this are this video by BLM , this Washington Post article and this Facebook post.

Food for Your Soul Friday - "Did you know movies are prayers?" podcast episode

From the Living Church website:

Film critic Josh Larsen, co-host of the podcast Filmspotting and author of Movies Are Prayers, focuses on the intersection of faith and pop culture. In the latest podcast, he talks with TLC’s Amber Noel about how to be a better movie-watcher, the vocation of a film critic, and a “Top 4” list of films to engage the spiritual life.

Josh Larsen

Josh Larsen

A Story by John Lewis "Walking with the Wind"

As we mourn the death and celebrate the life of John Lewis, civil rights champion and “Conscience of the Congress,” we share his well-loved story, told with his characteristic wisdom and call to action.

***

On this particular afternoon—it was a Saturday, I’m almost certain--about fifteen of us children were outside my aunt Seneva’s house, playing in her dirt yard. The sky began clouding over, the wind started picking up, lightning flashed far off in the distance, and suddenly I wasn’t thinking about playing anymore; I was terrified…

Aunt Seneva was the only adult around, and as the sky blackened and the wind grew stronger, she herded us all inside.

Her house was not the biggest place around, and it seemed even smaller with so many children squeezed inside. Small and surprisingly quiet. All of the shouting and laughter that had been going on earlier, outside, had stopped. The wind was howling now, and the house was starting to shake. We were scared. Even Aunt Seneva was scared.

And then it got worse. Now the house was beginning to sway. The wood plank flooring beneath us began to bend. And then, a corner of the room started lifting up.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. None of us could. This storm was actually pulling the house toward the sky. With us inside it.

That was when Aunt Seneva told us to clasp hands. Line up and hold hands, she said, and we did as we were told. Then she had us walk as a group toward the corner of the room that was rising. From the kitchen to the front of the house we walked, the wind screaming outside, sheets of rain beating on the tin roof. Then we walked back in the other direction, as another end of the house began to lift.

And so it went, back and forth, fifteen children walking with the wind, holding that trembling house down with the weight of our small bodies.

More than half a century has passed since that day, and it has struck me more than once over those many years that our society is not unlike the children in that house, rocked again and again by the winds of one storm or another, the walls around us seeming at times as if they might fly apart.

It seemed that way in the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, when America itself felt as if it might burst at the seams—so much tension, so many storms. But the people of conscience never left the house. They never ran away. They stayed, they came together and they did the best they could, clasping hands and moving toward the corner of the house that was the weakest.

And then another corner would lift, and we would go there.

And eventually, inevitably, the storm would settle, and the house would still stand.

But we knew another storm would come, and we would have to do it all over again.

And we did.

And we still do, all of us. You and I.

Children holding hands, walking with the wind.  That is America to me—not just the movement for civil rights but the endless struggle to respond with decency, dignity, and a sense of brotherhood to all the challenges that face us as a nation, as a whole.

That is the story, in essence, of my life, of the path to which I’ve been committed since I turned from a boy to a man, and to which I remain committed today.  It is a path that extends beyond the issue of race alone, and beyond class as well.  And gender.  And age.  And every other distinction that tends to separate us as human beings rather than bring us together.

That path involves nothing less than the pursuit of the most precious and pure concept I have that has guided me like a beacon ever since, a concept called the Beloved Community.  That concept ushered me into the heart of the most meaningful and monumental movement of this past American century.  We need this concept to steer us all where we deserve to go in the next.

—John Lewis, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), xvi–xvii

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Social Justice Saturdays - Racism and Early Birth

 “Black women are almost three times more likely than white women to give birth before 32 weeks.” --Sarah DiGregorio, Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What it Teaches us about Being Human

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The author of Early continues to explain that this is true, no matter the income level, health care, or education of the black woman. The research further suggests this troubling outcome is the result of the “stress for black women of living in America.” The stark consequence of this is that black children are more than twice as likely to die before they turn one than white children, mainly because of prematurity.

We are hearing the term “structural racism,” often in responses to the murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests. For white people, the term invites us to look more closely at the racism embedded in our institutions-- the often unacknowledged racist practices and assumptions within our economic and cultural institutions.

We witness structural racism within a police culture that protects officers who kill black men, women, and children with impunity, and we see it’s effect on black women who birth earlier than white women, with dire consequences.

Choosing to act for anti-racism, we need to continually seek out and undo the structural racism in the places we work, live, and attend church!

This post, by Sharlene Cochrane, first appeared on Merson Neisner’s blog: Life After Losing A  Mother.

Social Justice Saturday: Prayer for a Pandemic

Prayer for a Pandemic
By Cameron Bellm

May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose between preserving their health or making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close
Remember those who have no options.
May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those that have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market
Remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.As fear grips our country,let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other,
Let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors. Amen.

Food for Your Soul Friday - Song "What We Need Is Here"

For the month of July, our song during our Wednesday Evening Prayer service is “What We Need Is Here,” an affirmation of trust and hope in a time of fear and anxiety. You may find yourself humming it throughout your week! Click the screenshot to view and listen on YouTube. And join our Evening Prayer Wednesdays at 6:30 PM on Google Meet - St. John’s Online Wednesday Evening Prayer.

Social Justice Saturdays - What Can A White Person Do? and Social Justice Lending Library

This website is so good for the question about "What can a white person do?"  to take anti-racist action.  

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https://www.whiteaccomplices.org/confronting-violence-harassment

 
AND

 

The St. John's Social Justice Library has a number of relevant books.  While we can't borrow them from the Library right now, you can use the links below to see an image of the book and a bit about them.

 

Anxious to Talk About It: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully about Racism. Carolyn B. Helsel. 2018

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race. Beverly Daniel Tatum.  2017

Can We Talk about Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation (Race, Education, and Democracy). Beverly Tatum.  2008.

Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates. 2015

Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and their Paths to Action. Eileen O’Brien. 2001

White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism. Paula S Rothenberg. 2004

Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories. Eddie Moore Jr. 2014

Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race.  Debby Irving. 2014.

Racism Explained to My Daughter. Tahar Ben Jelloun. 1999

Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice. David Pilgrim. 2015

We Can't Teach What We Don't Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools (Multicultural Education Series). Gary R. Howard. 2016

Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race. Debby Irving. 2014

America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Jim Wallis. 2017.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.. Michelle Alexander. 2012

The Fire Next Time.  James Baldwin.  1985

Throwback Thursday - A Little Told Story of the Declaration of Independence

Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull

Signing of the United States Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull

The Fourth of July is an American holiday because of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in 1776 on July 4. Written by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration set out core principles of American civic life: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”

How could these words be written and affirmed but withheld from just application to thousands of African people enslaved in North America at the time? Learn some the story in this History.com article:

Why Thomas Jefferson’s Anti-Slavery Passage Was Removed from the Declaration of Independence

Social Justice Saturday: Our First Post

Today is our first Social Justice Saturday post.

Given the wide range of materials, stories, articles, and other resources currently available on racism, anti-racism, and the realities of Black lives in the U.S., the Social Justice Working Group is happy to offer suggestions of resources we have found valuable for deepening our commitment to racial justice and meaningful action.

We begin with a short interview of Ibram X. Kendri and Robin DeAngelo, who's books, "How to be an Anti-Racist" and "White Fragility" are currently best sellers:

“The events in Minneapolis and the protests that followed have sparked some very difficult conversations about race. We turned to two leading scholars and best-selling authors who have written extensively about race in America: Ibram X. Kendi, of Boston University, and Robin DiAngelo, from the University of Washington in Seattle. Correction: Robin DiAngelo is an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.”