Friends,

In commemoration of and in tribute to Black History month, my clerk support committee and I would like to share this list of educational resources. (Thanks to Sheila for pulling this list together.) We invite you to read, watch, and/or listen to some of these materials as you are led. We also invite you to use the AFM Discuss listserv to let us know what you’ve read/watched/listened to, what you learned, and what questions it raised. Please also use Discuss to share any additional resources you have found useful. My own intention is to read/watch/listen to one new resource each week of February.

Our plan is to spend February learning about antiracism and Black history and then hold a Discussion and Reflection Workshop in the second half of March. More details on that event coming soon!

Karen C. on behalf of the Clerk Support Committee (Martha B., Sheila M., and Ellen M.)

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Commemoration of and Tribute to 

American Black History Month: 2023

Reflection PALOOZA: How We Got Here

This is an invitation for each of us at Annapolis Friends Meeting to deepen our understanding and expand our learning as a critical step toward ultimately 

Realizing the American Dream for all of its citizens via Racial Healing 

These resources are offered to help us explore:

• The blueprint of our joint discontent;
• Historical framing; 
• Reflecting, respecting, and removing the veil;
• Following the money and the science; 
• Reframing our national identity…or not; 
• Safely facing deep-seated emotional demons and traumas.

 

• Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Resources on Antiracism

1) List of resources modified from June 17, 2020 Abington Friends document 

• Articles for a basic understanding of Critical Race Theory:  

• https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/so-much-buzz-but-what-is-critical-race-theory/
• https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

• 9 Phrases Allies Can Say When Called Out Instead of Getting Defensive by Sam Dylan Smith. Originally written for LGBTQIA, this applies to race as well and is a good way to fight against white fragility on a person-to-person basis.  https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/05/allies-say-this-instead-defensive/
• What is Anti-Racism? The Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre has a section on antiracism that’s a good primer with plenty of definitions for understanding a focus on antiracism. https://www.aclrc.com/antiracism
• 106 Things White People Can Do for (sic) Racial Injustice. https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice
• Opportunities for White People in the Fight for Racial Justice from White Accomplices, which provides ideas and resources mostly from people of color. https://www.whiteaccomplices.org/
• All Our Griefs: What Do We Do Now? by Sharon Browning  https://justlistening.net/all-our-griefs-what-do-we-do-now/.
• Raising Our Hands: How White Women Can Stop Avoiding Hard Conversations, Start Accepting Responsibility, and Find Our Place on the New Frontlines by Jenna Arnold. https://www.jennaarnold.com/book.
• A Conversation About Growing Up Black
  https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003670178/a-conversation-about-growing-up-black.html
• A Conversation With Police on Race
  https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/opinion/a-conversation-with-police-on-race.html 
• Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System of Taxation is a scholarly journal article that looks at wealth by race. https://scholarlycommons.law. northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1200&context=njlsp    

• No Where Else to Go, a 20-minute film from The Marshall Project and Frontline on an undocumented family dealing with detention, homelessness, and Covid-19. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/08/11/nowhere-else-to-go  
• 5 Tips for being an Ally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dg86g-QlM0
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. From Britain, this is a quick discussion of her book by the same name, originally started with a post to her blog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJZdeSqfFY
• Three videos from Abington Friends Antiracism Workshop, 7/20/20:

• • Verna Myers: How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYyvbgINZkQ  
  • Cracking the Codes: Joy DeGruy: A Trip to the Grocery Store. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf9QBnPK6Yg  

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiKtZgImdlY  Clint Smith: The Danger of Silence

• Birth of a White Nation by Dr. Jacqueline Battalora. This 36-minute video is a comprehensive history of when and why the term “white” was invented. https://youtu.be/TM6ehzu3p4c  
• NPR NEXT Morgan Springer interview an activist who advocates calling-in instead of calling-out. https://www.wnpr.org/post/listen-longtime-activist-loretta-ross-speaks-out-against-call-out-culture  
• The Color of Wealth in Boston https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/one-time-pubs/color-of-wealth.aspx
• A Conversation with White People on Race
  https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003773643/a-conversation-with-white-people-on-race.html
• Davidson College Apologizes for Role in Perpetuating Slavery, Systemic Racism https://youtu.be/M854i7Ck5a4
• Whitey on the Moon (1970) a song written and performed by Gil Scott Heron. Think about where we are now as a country compared to then. https://youtu.be/3nzoPopQ7V0.
• Stranger Fruit, a powerful Photo Essay entitled that puts visual images to the fear of loss and trauma that is constant for America’s Black mothers. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/jon-henrys-stranger-fruit-shows-black-mothers-constant-fear-of-loss-and-trauma?
• Anti-Racism Reading Recommendations from Friends Journal: https://www.friendsjournal.org/quaker-antiracist-reading-list/
• The National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian, has a useful page of tools and resources to think and talk about race. https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race 
• Measure your behavior to see where you are in your goal to being an ally using this checklist created by Dr. John Raible: https://johnraible.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/revised-2009-checklist-for-allies.pdf   
• Take the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge created by Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. (creator of the White Privilege Conference), Debby Irving, and Dr. Marguerite Penick-Parks. https://www.eddiemoorejr.com/21daychallenge
• Play the Race Game. Thandeka, an African American Unitarian Universalist minister invented the Race Game, described in her 1999 book Learning to Be White: Money, Race and God in America. For a week, use a racial/ethnic descriptor whenever you mention someone. For instance, “my Latinx boss,” “my white husband,” “my Black son-in-law,” “my Arab neighbor.”  Observe any feelings that come up as you step outside of the norms for describing people and then talk to someone about your experience.
  

2) Additional resources

The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones. https://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/full_issue_of_the_1619_project.pdf

Chapters 6 & 7 IF the entire book is not available to you  

A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansbury (format, book & film)

The Sum of Us, by Heather McGhee

Fit for Freedom Not for Friendship, by Donna McDaniel & Vanessa Julye

Five Days, by Wes Moore

White Privilege, by Robin Di Angelo      

Anything about Sarah Mapps Douglas and her life as a Quaker 

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, Isabel Wilkerson

The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin

Women, Race, and Class, by Angela Davis

So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo 

The Choice – The Issue of Black Survival in America, by Samuel Yette 

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

How to be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide, by Crystal Fleming 

Emergent Strategy, by Adrienne Maree Brown

Black Feminist Thought, by Patricia Hill Collins

Everyone’s Son, by Thrity Umriga

Becoming, by Michelle Obama 

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Finding Me. by Viola Davis (Marcia’s 1/29/23 recommendation)

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander

Citizen, by Claudia Rankine

Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde

Emergent Strategy, by Adrienne Maree Brown

Black Feminist Thought, by Patricia Hill Collins

Everyone’s Son, by Trinity Umrigar

Biased, by Jennifer Eberhardt

Everything Inside, by Edwidge Danticat

Black Is the Body, by Emily Bernard

White Rage, by Carol Anderson, Ph.D. 

Why Are All the Black Kids Siting Together in The Cafeteria? by Beverly D Tatum, Ph, D. 

My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem

A Black Women’s History of the U.S., by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross

Well Read Black Girl, by Glory Edim

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula Giddings (about Ida B. Wells)

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical, by Sherie M Randolph

Hillbilly Elegy, by JD Vance (offered as a demographic likeness to a counter stratified outcome)

What the Eyes Can’t See, by Mona Hanna Attisha

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

When They Call You a Terrorist – A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors

Homecoming, by Yaa Gyasi

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, by Monique Morris https://pushoutfilm.com/watchparty 

• White Lies, Ijeoma Oluo On Privilege, Power, And Race. https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/516/white-lies  

46 Books By Women of Color to Read in 2018. https://electricliterature.com/46-books-by-women-of-color-to-read-in-2018-70a0bf5bf4f2