Becoming Anti-racist

May 29, 2020

Dear Friends:

Our hearts are breaking. 

Once again, the sin of racism and senseless violence has rocked our community. We are angry, frustrated, and deeply grieved by the senseless killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd. We condemn this senseless and cowardly act of violence perpetrated by former police officers of the Minneapolis Police Department, and call for justice and an end to all acts of police brutality. 

As people of faith who are called to love one other and bear each other’s burdens, we pray for George Floyd’s family and our community. May the Spirit comfort us and strengthen us in our grief. May our collective anger and grief lead us to greater courage, awareness, and resolve to end the persistent and systemic racism and oppression that plagues our city and nation.   

Below is a joint statement from the Downtown Interfaith Clergy. Now and always, we stand in solidarity with the marginalized and the oppressed, who are beloved by God, and by our faith communities.

Many of you have expressed feelings of outrage, sadness, horror, and helplessness in your conversations with us. We share those feelings, and we invite you to channel your grief into action. Below are details of three opportunities to do work for racial justice, within ourselves and in community with others. Please commit to doing this work, and to acting on behalf of those who are vulnerable to racism, oppression and violence.

With blessings of strength to you all,

Pastor Judy and Pastor Frenchye

Every Human Being is Our Neighbor
May 29, 2020

May 27, 2020

Ezra Klein interviews Heather McGhee

“The American landscape was once graced with resplendent public swimming pools, some big enough to hold thousands of swimmers at a time,” writes Heather McGhee in her new book, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” These pools were the pride of their communities, monuments to what public investment could do. But they were, in many places, whites-only. Then came the desegregation orders. The pools would need to be open to everyone. But these communities found a loophole. They could close them for everyone. Drain them. Fill them with concrete. Shutter their parks departments entirely. And so they did.

It’s a shocking tale. But it’s too easily dismissed as yet one more story of America’s racist past. McGhee shows otherwise. Drained-pool politics are still with us today and shaping issues of far more consequence than pool access. Drained-pool politics — if “they” can also have it, then no one can — helps explain why America still doesn’t have a truly universal health care system, a child care system, a decent social safety net. McGhee, the former president of the think tank Demos, offers a devastating tour of American public policy, and she shows how drained-pool politics have led to less for everyone, not just their intended targets.

I asked McGhee to join me on my podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show,” for a discussion about drained-pool politics, the zero-sum stories at the heart of American policymaking, how people define and understand their political interests, and the path forward. This is, in my view, a hopeful book, and a hopeful conversation. There are so many issues where the trade-offs are real, and binding. But in this space, there are vast “solidarity dividends” just waiting for us, if we are willing to stand with, rather than against, each other.

You can listen by subscribing to “The Ezra Klein Show” wherever you get your podcasts, or clicking the link below.

Listen to the podcast > > > click here
Download the transcript > > > click here

Subscribe to ‘The Upper Room’ YouTube Channel for weekly updates to the video series ‘The Spiritual Work of Overcoming Racism’

Watch the video series (above) as friends and neighbors of The Upper Room share how they are creating daily life with God in the face of racial injustice and the evils of white supremacy in the United States.

This video is the first in a weekly series of reflections following the death of George Floyd and the renewed call to end racism. In it, Rev. Frenchye Magee, associate pastor at Hennepin Avenue UMC in Minneapolis, talks about how the murder of George Floyd was a seminal moment, what she has seen and learned, and how she’s called to help her congregation work for racial justice.

This video is the second in a weekly series of reflections following the death of George Floyd and the renewed call to end racism. In it, Rev. Rich Zeck, who serves Brooklyn UMC in Brooklyn Center, talks about hearing personal accounts of racism from the men of color in his congregation, his firm belief that God is with us, and feeling called to stand in his discomfort as he ministers to neighbors and helps rebuild.

This video is the third in a weekly series of reflections following the death of George Floyd and the renewed call to end racism. In it, Rev. Tyler Sit, who serves New City Church in Minneapolis, talks about how we follow Jesus best when we are anti-racist. He calls on United Methodists to make anti-racism part of their faith practice and to attend to it weekly in order to build the kingdom of God.

This video is the fourth in a series of reflections following the death of George Floyd and the renewed call to end racism. In it, Rev. Dr. Shawn Moore, who serves Living Spirit UMC in Minneapolis, talks about the skin he’s in, the heaviness that our community is experiencing, and how he’s called to show up, listen, be the hands and feet of Christ, and work for racial reconciliation.

This video is the fifth in a series of reflections following the death of George Floyd and the renewed call to end racism. In it, Rev. Dana Neuhauser, a deacon who serves New City Church in Minneapolis, talks about how she’s called to equip congregations to engage in long-term racial justice work and dismantle white supremacy—how it lives in our bodies as well as our institutions and systems.

his video is the sixth in a series of reflections following the death of George Floyd and the renewed call to end racism. In it, Rev. Jesús Purisaca Ruiz, who serves Iglesia Piedra Viva in Minneapolis, talks about how the kingdom of God is justice and we must not be silent when we witness discrimination.

A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota
edited by Sun Yung Shin

Minnesota communities struggle with some of the nation’s worst racial disparities. In this provocative collection, sixteen of Minnesota’s best writers provide a range of perspectives on what it is like to live as a person of color in Minnesota.

A very important book, especially now, this collection of essays by writers of color living in Minnesota published by the Minnesota Historical Society reflects the diversity of voices that has long been neglected in telling the story of contemporary Minnesota. Often seen as a “white” state (among the whitest), Minnesota is also seen as being among the most progressive. As the visibility of the persistence of racism in our culture continues, now is definitely a time for the truth regarding race and racism in Minnesota. Like everywhere in the United States, racism and white supremacy is a legacy that Minnesota needs to face, and the authors in this collection present a great, and sobering, introduction.

eBook

How to Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.

At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves.

In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

eBook
Audiobook

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
by Layla Saad

Based on the viral Instagram challenge that captivated participants worldwide, Me and White Supremacy takes readers on a 28-day journey of how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

When Layla Saad began an Instagram challenge called #meandwhitesupremacy, she never predicted it would spread as widely as it did. She encouraged people to own up and share their racist behaviors, big and small. She was looking for truth, and she got it. Thousands of people participated in the challenge, and nearly 100,000 people downloaded the Me and White Supremacy Workbook.

Updated and expanded from the original workbook, Me and White Supremacy, takes the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.

Awareness leads to action, and action leads to change. The numbers show that readers are ready to do this work—let’s give it to them.

e-Book
Audio Book

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
by Resmaa Menakem

Community Care Counselor Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, posits that racism is embedded in the hearts, souls, and reflexes of both blacks and whites in American society, and that the trauma (as he describes in depth) inflicted on many as a result of this fact is harmful to all.

Menakem then helps readers get inside the black experience to encounter everyday threats and the responses of fighting, fleeing, or freezing in order to begin the healing process.

The guided exercises and social commentary help to pave the way for understanding one another and building a stronger community that benefits everyone. VERDICT An exceptionally thought-provoking and important account that looks at race in a radical new way. For all readers.

eBook
Audio Book

The Hate You Give
by Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor black neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Khalil, at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, Khalil’s death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Starr’s best friend at school suggests he may have had it coming. When it becomes clear the police have little interest in investigating the incident, protesters take to the streets and Starr’s neighborhood becomes a war zone.

.

What everyone wants to know is: What really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does–or does not–say could destroy her community. It could also endanger her life.

eBook
Audio Book

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
by Robin J. DiAngelo

A groundbreaking book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when discussing racism that serve to protect their positions and maintain racial inequality.

In this groundbreaking and timely book, antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility. Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue.

In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo explores how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

eBook
Audio Book

Fearless Dialogues
by Gregory C. Ellison II

Drawing on all the community’s collective voices–from “doctors to drug dealers”–Fearless Dialogues is a groundbreaking program that seeks real solutions to problems of chronic unemployment, violence, and hopelessness. In cities around the United States and now the world, the program’s founder, Gregory C. Ellison, and his team create conversations among community members who have never spoken to one another, the goal of which are real, implementable, and lasting changes to the life of the community.

These community transformations are based on both face-to-face encounters and substantive analysis of the problems the community faces. In Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice, Ellison makes this same kind of analysis available to readers, walking them through the steps that must be taken to find common ground in our divided communities and then to implement genuine and lasting change.

About the Author:
Gregory C. Ellison II is assistant professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Candler School of Theology. He is the author of Cut Dead but Still Alive and the cofounder of Fearless Dialogues, a grassroots community initiative that draws unlikely partners together to create positive change in self and others.

Paperback Book
eBook

From Lament to Advocacy: Black Religious Education and Pubic Ministry
Contributors: Joseph V. Crockett, Sarah F. Farmer, Annie Lockhart-Gilroy, Cynthia P. Stewart, Nathaniel D. West, Nancy Lynne Westfield, Richelle B. White, Anne E. Streaty Wimberly, Mary H. Young

This resource sets forth the cultural imperatives of ministry and the contextual nature of a public theology of religious education that connects faith formation and action in addressing profoundly difficult, unjust, and wounding experiences of Black people in society.

The book begins with the often neglected practice of lament as a necessary first step in vital public theological reflection and action.

The book proceeds with meanings and ways of equipping persons within and beyond church settings to critically reflect on life and leadership in the throes of present-day social and political realities.

It further provides practices for forming skills and shows how to partner with the spiritual guides needed to shape a just public arena and fruitful individual lives.

Book

The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir
by Michele Norris

A profoundly moving and deeply personal memoir by the co-host of National Public Radio’s flagship program All Things Considered.
 
While exploring the hidden conversation on race unfolding throughout America in the wake of President Obama’s election, Michele Norris discovered that there were painful secrets within her own family that had been willfully withheld. These revelations—from her father’s shooting by a Birmingham police officer to her maternal grandmother’s job as an itinerant Aunt Jemima in the Midwest—inspired a bracing journey into her family’s past, from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots in the Deep South.
 
The result is a rich and extraordinary family memoir—filled with stories that elegantly explore the power of silence and secrets—that boldly examines racial legacy and what it means to be an American.

Paperback Book
Hardcover Book
eBook
Audiobook

How to Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.

At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves.

In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

eBook
Hardcover Book

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
by Layla Saad

Based on the viral Instagram challenge that captivated participants worldwide, Me and White Supremacy takes readers on a 28-day journey of how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

When Layla Saad began an Instagram challenge called #meandwhitesupremacy, she never predicted it would spread as widely as it did. She encouraged people to own up and share their racist behaviors, big and small. She was looking for truth, and she got it. Thousands of people participated in the challenge, and nearly 100,000 people downloaded the Me and White Supremacy Workbook.

Updated and expanded from the original workbook, Me and White Supremacy, takes the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.

Awareness leads to action, and action leads to change. The numbers show that readers are ready to do this work—let’s give it to them.

Hardcover Book
Audio Book

Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God
by Kaitlin B. Curtice

Native is about identity, soul-searching, and the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her Potawatomi identity both informs and challenges her faith.

Curtice draws on her personal journey, poetry, imagery, and stories of the Potawatomi people to address themes at the forefront of today’s discussions of faith and culture in a positive and constructive way. She encourages us to embrace our own origins and to share and listen to each other’s stories so we can build a more inclusive and diverse future. Each of our stories matters for the church to be truly whole. As Curtice shares what it means to experience her faith through the lens of her Indigenous heritage, she reveals that a vibrant spirituality has its origins in identity, belonging, and a sense of place.

Paperback Book
Hardcover Book

Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy
by Chris Crass

Organized into four sections, this collection of essays is geared toward activists engaging with the dynamic questions of how to create and support effective movements for visionary systemic change. These essays and interviews present powerful lessons for transformative organizing.

It offers a firsthand look at the challenges and the opportunities of antiracist work in white communities, feminist work with men, and bringing women of color feminism into the heart of social movements. Drawing on two decades of personal activist experience and case studies within these areas, Crass’s essays insightfully explore ways of transforming divisions of race, class, and gender into catalysts for powerful vision, strategy, and building movements in the United States today.

This collection will inspire and empower anyone who is interested in implementing change through organizing.

Paperback Book
eBook

United Against Racism
by National Council of  Churches of Christ

The time is NOW, as signaled by the United Nations’ decade-long commitment to people of African descent. In proclaiming this decade, the international community is recognizing that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected.

Authentic Christianity requires the loving inclusion of all God’s creation. An inclusive, beloved community is a community free from racism.

United Against Racism is a call to an authentic Christianity, a religion that strives to become God’s inclusive, beloved community. It summons Christians to pray, think, and act to end racism. This resource aims to support churches, communions, and those who endeavor to share the journey of the Christian faith in the pursuit of an unfinished agenda to embody a more excellent way of racial equity.

Book Units:
• Mourning the Trauma
• Broken Trust: Racism, White Privilege, and Misunderstanding
• When Your Justice Doesn’t Look or Feel Like My Justice
• Testimonies of Faith – Dr. Rex M. Ellis, National Museum on African American History and Culture
• The Bible: It’s Use and Misuse
• The Search for Justice
• The Price of Justice and Its Cost to Us
• Forgiveness: Whose Burden Is It?
• What Is the Church to Do?
• Justice and Spiritual Practices
• What Will You Do?
• Learning Practices For People Of Faith

eBook

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
by Isabel Wilkerson

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.

From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work.

Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

Paperback Book
Hardcover Book
CD

White Savior: Racism in the American Church
by Sparkhouse

The 2008 election of Barack Obama led many to believe we had entered a post-racial America, one in which the nation’s traumatic and painful history of racism had finally been erased. In the years since, it’s become increasingly clear that the deep roots of racism and white supremacy continue to run through our political, cultural, and religious institutions.

Based on interviews and current research, the documentary film White Savior explores the historic relationship between racism and American Christianity, the ongoing segregation of the church in the US, and the complexities of racial reconciliation.

Featuring interviews with Lenny Duncan, Soong Chan Rah, Jacqueline Woodson, Jim Bear Jacobs, Dominique Gilliard, and more.

DVD

2/14 You-Tube Video
(The Case for Loving)

2/21 You-Tube Video
(A Kids Book About Racism)

2/28 You-Tube Video
“Transformation and ‘Amazing Grace'”

Searching for Tom Sawyer: How Parents and Congregations Can Stop the Exodus of Boys from Church
by Tim Wright

The Story of Boys—Lost in the Twenty-first Century:

• 70% of all Ds and Fs go to boys
• 85% of stimulant-addressing medications prescribed in the world are prescribed to US boys
• Boys are falling behind girls in virtually every area of life
• 70 -90% of boys will leave the church in their teens and early twenties

Searching for Tom Sawyer offers parents and church leaders a compelling vision and practical principles for how, together, they can change that storyline by forging boys into heroic men.

Paperback Book
eBook

Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice
by Marianne Celano, PhD, Marietta Collins, PhD, Ann Hazzard, PhD

Emma and Josh heard that something happened in their town. A black man was shot by the police. “Why did the police shoot that man?” “Can police go to jail?”

Something Happened in Our Town follows two families–one white, one black–as they discuss a police shooting of a black man in their community. The story aims to answer children’s questions about such traumatic events, and to help children identify and counter racial injustice in their own lives.

Includes an extensive Note to Parents and Caregivers with guidelines for discussing race and racism with children, child-friendly definitions, and sample dialogues.

Hardcover Book