Ok... But *how* do you talk about race?
Hello Community!
How are you? We are super excited to be truly launching the community space aspect of this initiative THIS WEEK! As you hopefully saw in Tuesday’s email, we are having a kick-off call this Sunday!! Again, as we start meeting for book clubs we will have a range of days and times available, but Sunday is a one time meeting that we hope will work across the *very* wide range of time zones y’all come from (which is really cool by the way). Please consider joining us to put faces to names, introduce yourself, and get to know each other a bit before we start this journey together.
Also, please don’t forget to sign up for a book club meeting next week, as we begin our discussions of our reading the week of the 13th. You can find everything you need related to our schedule here.
Our newsletter theme this week comes from the title of our first book: So you want to talk about race.
For folks who might be new to talking about race it can be truly intimidating, and with reason. As Jess said last week, we are socialized in a world that profits off of us staying silent, off of us maintaining the status quo. Many of you expressed this fear, and we want to say we hear you, we understand, and we are here to help.
This week I have compiled some of my favorite mini-resources (via Instagram) on the “how” of talking about race. We encourage you to look through them to help prepare for discussions to come. No dense articles here, just thought provoking posts!
10 anti-racism terms to learn. What’s the difference between oppression, racism, and prejudice? Personal and Structural racism? Click through for a breakdown of the basic terminology. (via @monki)
Debate vs. dialogue. What is the difference? (via @holidayphillips - love her)
Phrases to get comfortable saying. How do we admit we are wrong with humility and grace? (via @the.foreword)
Uncomfortable chats with your loved ones. How do I take these conversations from a context where everyone actively wants to participate and into my *real* life? (via @ronnie_lee)
So you want to talk about… Racist rebuttals. What do you say when someone says something you just don’t know how to respond to? (via @soyouwanttotalkabout - I love this page)
Seven harmful racial discourse practices to avoid. What can I avoid doing in order to avoid causing harm within those well-meaning conversations? (via @labfourseven)
How to talk to kids about race. (Ok, this one isn’t on Instagram, but…) How do we have powerful conversations about challenging topics with the next generations? (via @theconsciouskid - one of my faves as an educator)
I keep coming back to this quote (it’s even in our community guidelines) by the author of So you want to talk about race?, Ijeoma Oluo:
“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward.”
Part of how I interpret this quote is that action is thousands of times more important than perfection. We were all raised in a system that does not want these conversations to happen. We cannot let our fear win. So, browse through these instagram posts, start journaling (it’s the first week of prompts in Me and White Supremacy), come join us on Sunday, and let’s do this thing, together.
In community,
Lori
This week we are…
Taking action by…
Sending the final donation for Survived and Punished!! We raised $270, y’all!
I also sent a few bucks* to this amazing initiative: The Black Schoolhouse. Their mission is to create a physical space to expand their Black radical art programming in New Orleans.
*A note about donations: We will frequently be encouraging donations because we believe adamantly in the redistribution of wealth (I recommend watching the Racial Wealth Gap episode of Explained for a bit more on this). However, this must also be sustainable. If you can donate $1, $5, $10 a week for the rest of the year, that is so much better than wringing yourself dry one time and not being able to support new initiatives in the future.
Signing up for Anti-racism Daily.
Listening to…
1619 from The New York Times. This podcast about how slavery shaped the US, culturally, musically, politically, demographically, and more, has been on many Anti-racism education lists recently and the only thing I regret is not listening sooner.
It wouldn’t be my week without some Code Switch. This week I listened to
Puerto Rico, Island of Racial Harmony? As someone living in Latin America and navigating two sets of racial/racist realities this was really illuminating for me.
What Does “Hood Feminism” Mean for a Pandemic? Aka what does White Feminism leave behind? (A note from Jess: One of my favorite anti-racist readers, Black woman leaders, and 305 fitness instructors, Cierra Kaler-Jones, recommended this book to me. It was the last book I purchased at Kramerbooks in DC before my move! I can’t wait to get into it. You can follow her reading account for more amazing book recommendations at @readawaywithci on Instagram)
All podcasts linked have transcripts for those who may need or want them!
Reading…
Books I’m currently stuck into…
Book Club Schedule: Chapters 4-5 of So you want to talk about race
Book Club Schedule: Beginning our journaling with Days 1 and 2 of Me and White Supremacy
Talking about…
For those who don’t know, I live in Chile. This past week I was talking with various Chileans about the 4th of July and Juneteenth and the concept of freedom, as well as how the United States socializes nationalism into our children. So naturally, I started thinking about all those things we did as kids, like saying the pledge of allegiance (which when you watch it from the outside definitely looks like something out of your favorite dystopian novel), “Columbus Day,” and Thanksgiving pageants where little white kids dress up as Native Americans. Naturally I was telling Jess about all this, and we came to the slightly alarming question of… What does accountability look like for the adults who put us in those costumes? Why was it considered okay for us to dress up as Indigenous folks just because we are children? And how do we do things differently moving forward?