Day 1: Ripples of White Ally-Ship

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...

Dear White Family, Thanks again for opening this email and engaging in this work.  We are five days away from our goal of 30 days of anti-racist actions and we’re so glad you’re still with us.  Today we're taking a page out of Hardin Minor’s Book.  Hardin suggested the “Portal of Appreciation”.  “Instead of beginning with GUILT (which has to come at some point) one begins with something (a song is easiest) that you found significant that comes from Black culture….like "My Girl” by the Temptations, that was the song that you most remember falling in love to.   Use this as the Portal of Appreciation and step through….coordinate the timeline of the creation of that song with the actual history that Black folks were going through at that same moment/time and then due diligence and get ready for the realizations. Same with your favorite ’soul food’ dish, Black influenced fashion,; literature, music, sport, sports hero or dance style (and the list goes on). Find what ...

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...

Hi folks,   Big shout out to Pamela, Hardin, Caroline, Marty, Lisa H, Nelli, Adam and Cheryl for joining us on ZOOM.   We had  a great gathering of journeyers and some nice take-aways.  We talked about how to respond when folks who are knowingly or unknowingly using inappropriate racially charged language and comments.   One idea was to ask the person a question.  “What do you mean by that?”  Or to call out the inappropriate comment with humor. Or simply to genuinely state that the comment makes you uncomfortable and is hurtful.  We discussed the need to respond.  That while the commenters mind may not be changed by the brief interaction we never know what ripple effect such a comment might have on others in the space.  And finally and perhaps most importantly we discussed allowing ourselves to be tuned into the humanity around us.  To really see and welcome the people we come into contact with.  To get out of our own head...