Day 16: Plan to Party!

Dear Friends and Fam! 


It’s day 16, day 19 will be a holiday: Juneteenth.  Our task for today is to find out more about Juneteenth, and its significance in the black community.  We invite you to find a way to join in the celebration.  Then we plan to share what we’ve learned with a friend or loved one and invite them to join us in celebrating.  We’ve included a couple of ideas below and attached an invitation to volunteer at a Charlotte celebration as well as the flyer a Juneteenth March/Celebration (also in Charlotte).   We’ve also listed several Atlanta area events and virtual events. A quick google search will probably reveal some Juneteenth Celebrations near you.  


We can’t wait to hear about the celebrations you are creating and finding to celebrate Juneteenth. 

 

Peace,
Beth and Camerin


Juneteenth Events


Word of the Day: 

Cultural Appropriation: Theft of cultural elements for one’s own use, commodification, or profit — including symbols, art, language, customs, etc. — often without understanding, acknowledgement, or respect for its value in the original culture. Results from the assumption of a dominant (i.e. white) culture’s right to take other cultural elements.

SOURCE:

“Colors of Resistance Archive” 

Accessed June 28 2013.

 

Upcoming Virtual Events: 



Reading/ Watch/Listen List: 

Resources: 

 

Yesterday’s Actions and Reflections from the group: 

  • I watched the videos (“The First Time I Realized I Was Black”) that Camerin and Beth suggested.  I noticed the surprise and innocence of most stories...and realized that each person had to process this “first encounter” plus then likely extrapolate what this realization might mean for the rest of their lives.  I particularly appreciated   Elliot Jones’ story (from when he was 12 or 13) as he was introduced to the notion of black community via collegiate Greek life...and the sense of the black community’s deep kinship that he felt from that encounter.  I interpreted his story as the only one framed in a positive light, among the 21 stories shared.

  • Today I signed a petition to White American Theater to stop the unjust treatment and lack of leadership opportunities for black theater artists.  I wasn’t sure signing it was for me- like perhaps it was only for black people to sign?  But I decided I believe in equity, I can see the frustration of these Theater Makers and I will stand with them.  I felt uncomfortable but I did it.  http://chng.it/5WnG8jd75R 

  • I’ve been diligently doing something everyday since I joined on day 3.  It is exhausting to hold this in your heart all the time.  Makes me ever more aware of the challenges of living with so much knowledge and fear must have on my black friends.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 1: Ongoing Practice

Dear Friends and Family,  Here we are again at the beginning, because for us as white people, we have to recommit every day to being anti-racist.  Our priviledge affords us the opportunity to forget, to get caught up in our daily lives and once again overlook the injustice being enacted on our Black and brown sisters and brothers. We hope these weekly emails will serve as a friendly reminder that there is still work to do and we can and must be engaged on a regular basis in the work of anti-racism.  It must be part of our on-going, regular thought processes, of awareness and action.  In some ways it feels like it’s been longer than a week and in others it feels like just yesterday we were exchanging daily emails, ideas and resources.  In the last week, we have slept more and regained a little balance in our lives but we also miss you.  We miss this community of supportive white folks dedicated to equality and equity and we are excited to create this weekly ...
Read more

Day 27: Hate vs. Heritage

Dear Friends, Family and Neighbors! Four days left! That’s nothing, we got this! We’re excited to start marinating on how we can keep the momentum going in our own lives and hope you are too.  We hope these 30 days are a habit building first or next step in our journeys to become anti-racist.  But we recognize that this will be a lifelong journey.   Today we are looking into the monuments of the confederacy in our own neighborhoods and cities.  This could include physical statues, road names, park names and building names.  We will identify two or three named after confederate soldiers, slave owners or white supremeists.  Then we will do some independent research on the individual after whom the monument is named.  We are also interested in when the monument was erected or the building was named.  We then plan to look into what was going on in terms of race relations in the country at the time the monument was created or the building was name...
Read more

Day 25: To reform or reimagine

Dear Friends and Family.   What if racism is so built into the fabric of what we identify as America, that in undoing racism we have to reimagine who we are as Americans and what we stand for as a country?  As we continue on our journey to understanding the depth of institutionalized racism, this is a question that has popped up for us.  Will it be enough to reform the systems in place or do we need to dismantle them and create something new.  Per Angie’s video (also see addendum below) from yesterday: What if all the vessels are built for only one kind of coffee mug, what do we need to do to make sure all the mugs can fit?  These ideas are challenging, but so is the prospect of living in a world that undermines our most basic value: that all people are created equally.   This Ted Talk by Bettina Love illustrates the learning she saw in elementary school children when their cultures were valued and not stifled.  She posits that Hip Hop cult...
Read more