Teaching (toward) the Beloved Community

Overlooked

Today, by the time my class started, students were already aware of the decision handed down from the grand jury in Lousiville as related to the shooting death of Breonna Taylor. One of my students, who is a young woman of color, said she was in a despair pit. She said she wasn’t sure that she could feel hope, specifically about about our country and the injustice that she can see everywhere she turns. She said she feels like nothing she could do, that any of us could do, could make a difference.

I didn’t know what to say to her. I still don’t. But I hear her. Once again, justice has not been served.

This did make me remember a series in the New York Times obituary section: Overlooked No More. This section of the newspaper features posthumous obituaries of people whose contributions are now considered remarkable, but whose deaths were overlooked by the editors of the paper. A couple of years go I read the obituary for Georgia Gilmore, who was active in the work of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in some creative ways: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/obituaries/georgia-gilmore-overlooked.html

She and a group of friends sold food they had made (first sandwiches, then whole meals) out of their homes, out of beauty parlors, laundromats, and other establishments. The friends turned all their money over to Georgia, who in turn gave all the money they earned (hundreds of dollars each week) to the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). This money allowed the MIA to sustain the boycott as long as possible (381 days in total). Ms. Gilmore referred to her friends as the “Club from Nowhere” which allowed the women and their supporters, some of whom were white, to remain anonymous. In later years, she said she hoped the work had encouraged ordinary people to do similar kinds of work. The story of her work is also featured in this NPR segment: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/01/15/577675950/meet-the-fearless-cook-who-secretly-fed-and-funded-the-civil-rights-movement and there is also a children’s picture book called Pies From Nowhere. I loved learning about all of this a couple of years ago, and I value teaching students about the role that “regular” people can play in justice work.

And I say all of this to say: The reason there is a feature called Overlooked is because some people at the New York Times finally realized the systemic bias that had been shaping this section of the paper, and they took steps to correct it. Overlooked no more.

Justice was overlooked today, and has been for the 100 plus days since Breonna Taylor’s death. We have to take steps to correct the systemic racism in our country, in whatever our lane is. Voting. Advocacy. Caring for people who are on the frontlines of this work. Continuing to teach nonviolence…so that justice will not continue to be overlooked.

RBG and the Voting Rights Act, and renewing our resolve in the next 45 days

Like many people I know, when I heard of Justice Ginsberg’s passing on Friday, I was grieved. She has been such a leader on the Supreme Court, such a voice for justice, and I was hoping she would just hang on for awhile longer.

Reverend Dr. William Barber, in his post on the Repairers of the Breach Facebook page, said “How do you mourn the loss of a great champion for justice like Ruth Bader Ginsburg? You mourn deeply & you vow to continue her work with even greater resolve. Her death must bring us to life. No one who loved her work on voting rights, women’s rights, or corporate responsibility can stay home & not vote. We must renew our resolve to fight as she fought.”

In 2015 RBG told a group of young women “Fight for the things you care about”, and in her honor and memory, I will keep working in whatever ways are open to me to seek justice and to love mercy and to keep reaching and teaching toward the dream of the beloved community. Today, that means thinking about voting and teaching others about voting.

It is 45 days until the next US election, which means that the window for people to register to vote is closing. (This post has a lot of resources for how to check your registration status, where to vote, how to vote absentee, etc. https://teachingbeloved.com/2020/07/22/someone-struggled-for-your-right-to-vote-use-it/)

This week I am preparing my policy course for a review of the Voting Rights Act, and a look at voter suppression issues. Below are some of the resources I am sharing with them.

If you are reading this and are a social worker, or are involved with social work education, you may be interested in these pieces on elections and social work values (¡https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/ethics-articles/elections-social-work-values/) and voter empowerment https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/practice/voting-is-social-work-voter-empowerment-national-social-work-voter-mobilization-campaign/

I also have students read about and listen to an excerpt from testimony by Fanny Lou Hamer, about some of the events of Freedom Summer in 1964 before the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Note: She talks about the violence she experienced and there is intense language. Know this before you listen:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html

In addition to discussing the basics of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with my students, I also talk about the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the 2013 Supreme Court decision in the case of Shelby Co vs Holder, which ruled Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Here’s a good review of the Voting Rights Act if you need it https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/voting-rights-act and here’s some good basic info on the impact of the NVRA of 1993 https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/automatic-voter-registration.aspx and the impact of the 2013 Supreme Court decision https://www.thoughtco.com/shelby-county-v-holder-4685954

It is also a good exercise, for students and citizens, to look for information in their own area about voting access, registration, closure of polling places, and other issues related to voting rights. I love to see students get fired up about voting, and see them committed to “getting out the vote” in whatever manner they can participate.

One final note: listening to Dr. King’s speech “Give us the Ballot” (from 1957) is powerful, and still relevant today.

Birmingham Sunday

This is the closest Sunday to the date of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. Members of a local KKK group bombed the building on Sunday, September 15th, 1963, which had been designated by the congregation as Youth Sunday. The explosion at the church killed 4 young girls and injured others.

The names of the four young women who were killed are Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, who were all 14, and Denise McNair, who was 11.

*The ‘Four Spirits statue’, designed by Elizabeth MacQueen, at Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama, depicting the four victims of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Fair use*. This picture was retrieved from https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/four-little-girls-promises-still-unmet/

In my experience of teaching mostly traditional aged college students, very few of them are aware of the events of that day and how they are contextualized in the broader civil rights issues. This excerpt from a Democracy Now episode on the 50th anniversary of the bombing is an in depth interview with civil rights activist, professor and scholar Dr. Angela Davis. https://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/16/terrorism_is_part_of_our_history

Angela Davis grew up in Birmingham during this time and knew two of the girls who were killed in the church bombing. In this interview, she talks about the fact that violence, in particular violence rooted in racism, was very much the norm in Birmingham at the time. She also talks about the role of people in power in condoning the violence, which I think provides useful discussion for students, faith community members, and others to think about today. This interview was in 2013. A broad area of discussion could be comparing and contrasting the social environment between 1963, 2013, and now today. What is different in terms of the manifestations of violence rooted in racism? What is the same? What were the initial responses to the bombing of the church building from the federal government? Local government? White Christians? Other faith groups? What should have been the response? What do we see in the responses from each of these groups today? What should we see and expect from our leaders and ourselves?

The day after that bombing, a white Birmingham lawyer stood up at a lunch meeting of a local businessman’s club and asked “who is guilty of setting the bomb?” and then he responded “all of us” (meaning every white person in Birmingham). This speech led to death threats against him and his family, and they ended up having to leave Birmingham…but it was just the beginning of civil rights work for Charles Morgan, Jr. You can see excerpts from the speech, as well as more about the community’s response to it, in this piece from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/09/the-speech-that-shocked-birmingham-the-day-after-the-church-bombing/279565/ It would be a good lead in to a discussion of the costs of speaking, compared to the greater costs of staying silent.

Finally, Birmingham Sunday, sung by Joan Baez, is a good representation of the power of music in storytelling. This youtube video includes historical pictures to provide some additional context https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciMFp6ySJ-Y. I always ask students what is on their “social justice” playlist currently, and I share with them some of the songs I love that are related to social movements and social justice. Sometimes I play these songs on breaks throughout the semester (especially when I teach the class in a 3 hour block). I have found that using the music as part of our discussions supports our learning, gives us a bit of a mental break from having to be “on”, and it gives us a shared experience, even if a small one, to build on as we learn more about history and see it played out before us.

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” ~James Baldwin

This land is your land

Though I have always loved and appreciated American folk songs, I have listened to them even more on repeat during the pandemic. One of my favorites is Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land”. As a young girl I knew the first couple of verses but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I learned the rest of them, and it was the last three that struck me as especially powerful.

This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway;
I saw below me that golden valley;
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding;
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Last week, I read an email that was posted to a professional list serv, So, I don’t know the person who wrote the email (beyond the name), but for some reason I happen to look at their email signature and it included a simple land acknowledgement, recognizing the Indigenous people who had lived on the land that eventually became the university. I was intrigued by this because I had never noticed anything like this on email. It made me desire to know more about the Indigenous people on the land I call my home and to think about how I can acknowledge their original presence and their forced removal, as well as how to show gratitude. I am still working through that for myself.

While I was doing this reflection, I also thought it would be a good exercise for students or other community members to engage in, to stop and remember the people who inhabited the land originally and also reflect on the events that happened that forced their nations elsewhere. This website https://native-land.ca/ is the home of Native Land Digital, an Indigenous led non profit organization. This site will help you get an understanding of the Indigenous people who were the native inhabitants of the land you dwell in today, and their blog site (https://native-land.ca/category/community-blog/) is useful as well for learning more about the maps, the process of reconciliation, and other related topics.

Here’s an example of a land acknowledgement for my current hometown of Nashville, TN that was developed by a professional organization as part of planning for their large conference to be held here: https://www.placonference.org/land_acknowledgment.cfm

Finally, here are some resources for learning more about land acknowledgements (https://nativegov.org/our-story/the-land-we-are-on/) and for going beyond acknowledgement into more active solidarity and allyship (http://www.lspirg.org/knowtheland)

Placemaking toward the beloved community

I first heard the term “placemaking” at a professional conference a few years ago. I started with learning about the relationship between community attachment and positive economic impact and also about one of the core principles of placemaking, which is putting the voices of people in the community front and center in any discussion about development or re-design. From this little bit of knowledge alone I decided to integrate discussion of the concept into my macro practice class. It gave me some new and different tangible examples of community work for my students, which is helpful since sometimes community work can seem as airy as this cotton candy, bought in what happens to be one of my favorite places, Chicago.

This Ted-Talk on “Placemaking and Community” is a great introduction to the concept and the model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfk1ZW9NRDY and here is an overview from the Project for Public Spaces https://www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking. There is a diagram in that link called “What makes a great place?” that is useful for a discussion starter with students or community groups in starting to think about some of the variables in community assessment.

And, here is a more recent piece from the Brookings Institute on transformative placemaking https://www.brookings.edu/research/transformative-placemaking-a-framework-to-create-connected-vibrant-and-inclusive-communities/

Finally, here is a really Upstream podcast interview (https://soundcloud.com/upstreampodcast/mark-lakeman with Mark Lakeman, who is the founder of the City Repair Project, which has a focus on ecological justice placemaking (https://cityrepair.org/)

Placemaking at its basic is about collective vision, and people working together to make the collective vision of their shared values a reality. That makes us all place-makers. I think about some of the shared values espoused in Dr. King’s vision of the beloved community: that poverty, hunger and homelessness would not be tolerated, that racism would be replaced by an all inclusive spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood, that peace with justice will prevail over military conflict and war.

What am I doing to create the place of the beloved community?

The concept of placemaking also makes me think of one of my favorite Old Testament prophecies, from Isaiah 58:12: Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

“Ain’t I a Woman?”

A couple of weeks ago I came across this piece on the origin of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs while searching for resources on the role of Black women in suffrage work https://womensmuseum.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/lifting-as-we-climb-the-story-of-americas-first-black-womens-club/ This picture, which I found on the museum website, is fierce and I can feel the strength of these women reaching through time.

In my same search, I also found this review from the New York Times on a book called Finish the Fight , portraying other diverse voices who fought for women’s right to vote: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/books/finish-the-fight-excerpt.html

I love history, and I think of myself as a fairly well rounded reader, but there were so many names and details in each of these brief reads that I didn’t know. When I learned about women’s suffrage, I mostly learned about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, sprinkled with a little Alice Paul and Dorothy Day. I had never heard of Zitkala-Sa or Mabel Ping-Hua Lee and others. And the women whose names were familiar to me (Ida B. Wells Barnett and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Sojourner Truth) created more impact than I knew. The resources I came across were a good and necessary reminder that it took the work of many women to gain the right to vote. Bigger than the issue of suffrage, it also makes me wonder how many other names I need to learn as I work to recognize with gratitude all people who have worked and are working toward the beloved community.

One last resource to share, from The Sojourner Truth Project: a selection of video recordings of her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” in contemporary Afro-Dutch dialects https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/the-readings. I love hearing her truth in other voices.

Explicitly naming it: Looking through a racial equity lens (and a 21 day challenge to help you get in the habit)

In a late night class prep session for my Policy I course, I came across this article on “Applying a Racial Equity Lens to Housing Policy Analysis”. If you are interested in affordable housing, racial equity, connections of both to our public school systems and developing targeted solutions to problems, you should read this: https://housingmatters.urban.org/articles/applying-racial-equity-lens-housing-policy-analysis

If you are not a policy wonk (yet), however, I propose there is a part of this article that is worth thinking about, and that is the importance of explicitly naming something. These authors discuss the importance of naming the inequity that has resulted from structural racism embedded in policies. Being explicit and honest about the way that racism has been embedded in policy (whether housing policy, education policy, welfare policy, etc) is a first step toward identifying thoughtful, anti-racist solutions. And it is a necessary step, because we can’t address something we aren’t honest about naming in the first place.

This is true in policies, in our family life, in our congregate life of faith. It is true in our individual relationships at work and in other community spaces. I have to be honest, unflinchingly so, about the ways racism has permeated my actions and about the ways I have benefited from racist structures even if I didn’t take an active role in it.

Along these lines, I came across this 21 day challenge: https://www.eddiemoorejr.com/21daychallenge/ For 21 days you are challenged to do one action (Read, Listen, Watch, Notice, Connect, etc). I started it recently and there are so many wonderful resources and suggestions for actions there, just waiting for you. This seems like it would be a great challenge for students, friend groups, work groups, faith community groups and others to do together.

Challenge yourself!

Uncomfortable conversations

I have heard a number of calls this summer for the need to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” in terms of talking about racism, effects of racism, police violence, polarizing politics, and more. I agree that it is important to have these, and I also think it is important to prepare for them. Fortunately, there are many resources available to help with having those conversations.

This is a good Ted Talk to set the foundation: 3 Steps to Having Difficult Conversations: https://ideas.ted.com/3-steps-to-having-difficult-but-necessary-conversations

I have shown this before in class with college students, but it would also be appropriate for community settings and high school students as well. From this Ted Talk you can go into establishing some boundaries and expectations for your own uncomfortable conversation. The Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan has some great guidelines for discussing difficult and “high stakes” topics that I have also used a number of times, and they are also relevant to helping people prepare for leading these kinds of conversations in multiple settings (faith communities, classrooms, K-12 school meetings): http://crlt.umich.edu/publinks/generalguidelines Teaching Tolerance has a curriculum for having difficult conversations that is built for K-12 settings, but can also be adapted easily for use in higher education and community settings http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/TT%20Difficult%20Conversations%20web.pdf

As an added bonus, Emmanuel Acho has developed a collection of videos called Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man. These are videos that can be useful for families to watch together, they could be used in classrooms, they are a tool for you to watch and reflect on personally and then discuss with someone. You can learn more about this work, his upcoming book, and see the videos here: https://uncomfortableconvos.com/ I especially have valued the one addressing race and religion (episode 7), as well as the one about helping parents to raise children to see color (episode 3). The videos are one way to start your own conversation in your own community, whether that is your family, your faith community, or your community of learners.

Colorism and The Vanishing Half

Yesterday I was at the dentist and at the mercy of what they had on the television. It happened to be Good Morning America which is not something I would normally tune into, but I am so glad it was on during my cleaning because I got to see their discussion of colorism. Here is the link to the segment and the transcript: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/style/story/colorism-people-color-overcome-insecurities-biases-71875856

Earlier this summer I heard an interview on NPR with Brit Bennet, author of The Vanishing Half. The link to this interview is here:https://www.npr.org/2020/06/05/870303515/brit-bennett-set-her-novel-50-years-ago-she-didnt-expect-it-to-be-timely

Last week I had the chance to read the book and it was AMAZING. Great character development, a book that spans generations, deals with racism, family stories, family secrets, identity struggles, and….colorism.

This would be a fun book selection and interview/segment review for a group of friends wanting to learn and enjoy the story. It would be a great book critique assignment and mini lesson for a diversity class in any discipline, and it would be a useful component of an Employee Resource Group examining issue such of diversity and inclusion and equity. In short, this collection of resources on colorism is good learning for a variety of contexts.

“Her death hit in waves. Not a flood, but water lapping steadily at her ankles. You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same.”
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half