Friday, August 21, 2020

Racism Resources - Podcasts

From Arlette: 

Bert & I just started listening to this podcast. Really thought provoking.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-parents-serial.amp.html

The website for the above podcast says: "From Serial and The New York Times: “Nice White Parents” looks at the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block."


From Beth:

I also listen to integrated schools podcast. (Aimed at white privileged parents). There's a local chapter for integrated schools as well.  

Racism Resources - Books for all ages, Movies, Articles for parents

Tesha passed along the following list:

Speaking of resources, here is a book list to talk about racism with kids. It's compiled by a white woman:

Here's a book list of books with diverse characters from the same woman, Read Aloud Revival's Sarah Mackenzie:

St. Paul Public Library has put together some great book lists, as well:
Graphic Novels about race:

Black Lives Matter: 25 books for teens

Picture Books To Celebrate Blackness

Junteenth Resources for the Whole Family

100 Best Black Movies

Books about Hope and Resilience

Talking with Children and Teens about Racism

Teen Books on Racism

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Racism Resources - Reconstruction Era & Forgiveness

Arlette sent the following links related to our Be the Bridge discussions over the past few weeks: 

 
 
Keep learning!

Monday, August 10, 2020

Racism Resources

As Morning Blend has been reading through Be the Bridge this summer, we've been compiling a list of additional things to read and learn. 

Pat Clark wanted to share this article about racism in Minneapolis housing: https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2019/02/with-covenants-racism-was-written-into-minneapolis-housing-the-scars-are-still-visible/

Beth sent us all this review of the book Jesus and John Wayne

Hey all my historian prof friend wrote a review of Kirsten DuMez's Jesus and John Wayne:

I finished Kristin DuMez' _Jesus and John Wayne_. It's accessible to a general audience and I *highly* recommend it as a way to understand evangelicals' multi-decade love affair with John Wayne characters--portraits of domineering and pugnacious manhood, coupled with demure femininity. I wrote a short review below.

The book is both a history of this love affair with "complementarianism" (the idea that men and women should be different and complementary, and men should be in charge), and a history of how evangelicals have actualized these prescriptive gender roles through foreign policy and narratives about foreign policy. I've honestly read a very large fraction of the books published on the topic of the Religious Right, and the role of gender in empire-building. But, this book is original in a lot of key ways. It does so much vital work to illustrate how the War in Iraq actualized the rhetoric of pugnacious manhood that had been stirring among evangelical men for decades. She shows how this prescriptive literature of manhood and womanhood had consequences: it really hurt a lot of innocent people, especially Muslims in the period after 9/11. DuMez painfully illustrates, as she puts it in the subtitle, "How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation." From the start, she defines evangelicals by the cultural products (books, decor, leisure, etc) that they consume. In the end, she reminds us that evangelicals have been deeply entrapped by cultural prescriptions that are not at all indigeous to the Christian faith.

The book left me really upset at the ways evangelicals have contributed toward the suffering of Muslim Americans, and a whole lot of innocent people, especially Muslims, abroad. This wasn't new to me, of course. But, I never quite contemplated how evangelical gender complementarianism could provide the springboard for such real expressions of violence (not only, but especially through the American military). DuMez argues that Ronald Reagan and George W Bush were fore-runners to Trump in their "Big and Strong!" foreign policy initiatives and ability to get evangelicals to vote as a block. Trump, she argues, carries on this tradition of rebelling against both gender equality/sameness and the historic foreign policy initiatives that emphasize the "feminine" virtues of peace, alliances, and diplomacy.

 Tesha sent the following links: 

Here are the resources from the United Methodist Church site - they have quite a bit on racism right now, with a conversation guide and tips for talking with kids. There is also the Town Hall video link from July 1 that included a bunch of great leaders.



Here’s the direct link to the town hall:
Also - Here is the link to Denise Pike's stuff on Mapping Prejudice. She put together an art/history display for the Hennepin History Museum at one point, called Owning Up. It may be at Sabathani now.

Here's her own site:

The Mapping Prejudice site:

Arlette sent this out: 

Here is an interview that Kerri Miller did yesterday on MPR with Kristin Kobes Du Mez, the author of "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation."
https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2020/07/28/the-impact-of-white-evangelicals-on-us-politics

If I missed anything that you all would like to share, feel free to share in the comments or send me an email. I'll make another post as we add more things. 

 

 

 

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Be the Bridge

This summer, Morning Blend is reading through Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison. Morrison founded the organization Be the Bridge in 2016, with a mission to promote racial reconciliation and unity in America, and especially in the church. She is also a Certified Trainer in Cultural Intelligence and Unconscious Bias. 

Be the Bridge's website is packed with resources, and is an excellent place for those who are getting started on a journey toward racial reconciliation or those who have been on that journey for a while: https://bethebridge.com/. Through the organization's Facebook page, our group also found a quick 5-day study by Latasha Morrison, which our group completed before our Be the Bridge books arrived. That study can be found here: https://my.bible.com/reading-plans/16910-the-bridge-a-5-day-youversion-by-latasha-morrison

From the website about the book, Be the Bridge

This power-packed guide helps readers deepen their understanding of historical factors and present realities, equipping them to participate in the ongoing dialogue and to serve as catalysts for righteousness, justice, healing, transformation, and reconciliation.