Day 20 Radical Welcoming

Y’all!  We made it to 20 days! 


I am so proud of all of us.  If you have intentionally cut out time for one anti-racist action everyday for 20 days, that’s amazing! If you have become more aware of your privilege and your whiteness and the racism in this country and are grappling with that you are amazing! If you haven’t gotten to an action everyday but are pacing yourself for the marathon ahead- also amazing!  It’s ok if you haven’t done something everyday, this work is hard and exhausting and good and right.  We are so proud of all of us.  We are honored to share this path with you and look forward to ten more intentional days of anti-racist actions, and then a lifetime beyond.    


Day 20

Over the weekend we will be focusing on Radical Welcoming.  We discussed our version of Radical Welcoming in the Ripples of White Ally-Ship document that was attached to the Day 1 email.  You can find that info here on our blog. 


To really move forward we must practice Radical Welcoming of our African American brothers and sisters.  What does it mean to commit to stand with strangers?  We think it is all about seeing the humanity around us and being true to ourselves and the belief we profess (that we are equals) especially in moments of tension.  Some of us have reflected on this journey being eye opening, as if we have been awakened to seeing the world around us, the racism around us more vividly.  You have shared that in developing a deeper understanding of what racism looks and feels like you see it happening around you and can call it out.   Radical Welcoming is about seeing the people around us- really seeing them and being willing to stand with them in moments of tension as well as being a true friend all around.   This takes practice and work, we can’t just decide that this is how we will live our lives, we must put in the work to put it into practice.  


Today we are reflecting on the people we interact with on the periphery of our lives.  This may look different in the time of COVID than it did before, so we can reflect on both realities.  In COVID that may include the mail carrier, instacart shopper, telemarketer, the cashier at the grocery store or the person you follow on social media, but can’t remember where you met.  In pre-COVID life that might have included: the janitorial staff at your office, the barista that serves you coffee everyday, someone that you work with but don’t know very well.  We will then reflect on how we can be more intentional in our interactions with these folks and what meaning we can ascribe that intentionality.  


How to participate: 

  • Step 1 is to identify who some of those people might be, for the moment we are particularly focusing on black individuals. But know that this work will benefit all the people we come into contact with. 

  • Reflect on ways you can make your brief interaction with this person more intentional.  We don’t have to become besties with everyone.  But we recognize that the black people in our lives feel a consistent sense of unease in this country.  Let’s make that better, let’s be welcoming and inviting and let people know we see them and we want to share space with them. 

  • Practice speaking with an appropriate greeting that goes beyond just “hello” or “hi” or “what’s up” but includes something more as well.  Be sure to make eye contact while you are greeting the person.  See what it feels like to greet everyone you meet instead of just walking by them.   

  • Next we will marinate on how we would respond if a third party made a racist joke or comment while we were sharing space with this individual.  

  • We invite you to devise specific scenarios and practice your response in the mirror.  This might feel silly but we have found ourselves in many situations where we didn’t know what to say, where we froze because we were so taken aback by a remark.  When we practice we are more prepared to stand up and say something, to let the black people in our lives know that they are welcome and don’t have to endure this alone. 

  • Next join us for a Radical Welcoming brainstorming and practice session on Tuesday 6/23 from 6:30-8pm.  Have your practice scenarios from above to share and discuss.   (ZOOM link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83120454923?pwd=QlpxTUt6a0FwNjZubFhuMGY4TVhNZz09) 


We are so excited to hear how some of you celebrated Juneteenth.  If you didn’t today, we’d still love to hear from you tomorrow. 


Peace,

Camerin and Beth


We heard from several of you that you enjoyed Ashley Sherman’s Juneteenth Webinar on Instagram.  I (Camerin) wanted to share that she did another one on cooking- I made the sweet potato pie recipe she highlighted for Juneteenth today and it was AMAZING! https://www.instagram.com/p/CBmFumHAMHB/ 


Word of the Day: Accountability

In the context of racial equity work, accountability refers to the ways in which individuals and communities hold themselves to their goals and actions, and acknowledge the values and groups to which they are responsible. 

To be accountable, one must be visible, with a transparent agenda and process. Invisibility defies examination; it is, in fact, employed in order to avoid detection and examination. Accountability demands commitment. It might be defined as “what kicks in when convenience runs out.” Accountability requires some sense of urgency and becoming a true stakeholder in the outcome. Accountability can be externally imposed (legal or organizational requirements), or internally applied (moral, relational, faith-based, or recognized as some combination of the two) on a continuum from the institutional and organizational level to the individual level. From a relational point of view, accountability is not always doing it right. Sometimes it’s really about what happens after it’s done wrong.

SOURCE:

Accountability and White Anti-Racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work, Bonnie Berman Cushing with Lila Cabbil, Margery Freeman, Jeff Hitchcock and Kimberly Richards



Upcoming Virtual Events: 


Reading/ Watch/Listen List: 

Resources: 

 

Yesterday's Actions and Reflections from the group: 


  • I watched Alvin Aailey's Greenwood today. I, like many other white people, learned about the Greenwood Massacre from the show the Watchman. My education in this country kept a lot of black history and the ugliness whites perpetrated on blacks out of the curriculum. Though my 6th grade graduation paper was on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. I fell in love with her commitment and bravery! Thankfully artists are telling the tales and making us aware!

  •  The best thing that happened so far is that I had an amazing talk with my dad about his changing views on race and equality. We've had raging debates on reparations and blaming the victim. My dad is a first generation American who didn't speak English until he went to primary school. He grew up poor in Chicago. He came from an uneducated family but he is a man of letters. He is one of the few kids of his generation in our family who went to college. He has a PhD and is a scientist. He's a man who listens and learns.

He gave me an article when I was in Dayton, OH a summer ago about how the black community needed to get their act together and help themselves (Dayton focused). I grew up in Dayton, a city that is almost 40% African American. I told him the article was racist and the debate began. We like to debate in our family. He really couldn't think about the black experience being different than his own growing up as an immigrant in poverty. We've debated about reparations, me being for them and he being against. I shared Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay, the case for reparations with him and yet he didn't fully understand.

This weekend he told me that he had a very visceral realization that former slaves had nothing to hold on to. They didn't have the same experience as him. They had no security, no cohesive family, no education, no support. He said he was imagining what the world would look like if that was your base of understanding. Your foundation. He said he was horrified about how the black community had been treated. He said he felt their pain. He started to understand, have empathy. That's real cultural progress right there! White Chicago kid, gets it! 

  • I watched Camerin’s sorority sister Ashley Sherman’s Instagram Live in which she explained the history of Juneteenth. It started in 1865 when Union Army General Gordon Granger announced federal orders in Galveston, Texas, proclaiming that all enslaved Africans in Texas were free (Texas was the last state to free them).

  • Yesterday I participated in the “Reimagining Policing in America” Zoom discussion. More than 200 people participated. Good speakers and a 20 minute breakout into small groups to envision a difference in our lives. Back together to share and document. Was a good experience and I thank you. I would not have know without the resources you are providing each day. 

  • Today I’m honoring Juneteenth by having difficult conversations with family members. 

  • I called my state representatives to express my opposition of stand your ground and my support of a comprehensive hate crimes bill: https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/hate-crimes-bill-gets-hearing-after-year-georgia-senate-committee/N4kKNsQo0cJQSfv1M6nJ6O/

  • ordered some books from brave+kind, a black-owned bookstore in Decatur Ga. 

  • watched videos from Yewande Komolafe, a Nigerian American chef: https://www.yewandekomolafe.com/ Didn't get around to actually cooking any of her recipes yet, because, life. 

  • started researching unpaid prison labor to try to learn more about work being done to abolish it and how to support those efforts. Need to do more research

  • We have signed up as a family for the brownicity course, I am reading Native, a book by a Potawatomi woman, and have several anti-racism books in my audible queue. I have ordered a new yard sign that includes the line black lives matter. I am having hard conversations with my coworkers and I pushed to include a list of kids books about diversity, inclusion, and anti racism in our monthly newsletter. I also recommend to my dad that he read white fragility. 

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