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Race and the conversation
“We have to do far more than talk about racism, but the work of transformation must engage conversation. Transformation cannot take place in a vacuum, but it can emerge even from relationships that are complicated and painful. And even situations that are disturbing and appear mostly negative can result in change, sometimes almost without being noticed. This is a good…
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Why still talk about race?
Why still talk about trauma and justice? As a white man I am not free of trauma, but there are areas of trauma where I have choices. I can remove myself. To choose to remain in the issue is a luxury I have as a white man.
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The hard path
“Racism is much like a chronic illness. It must be diligently managed on a daily basis. There are no days off in the management of a chronic illness… Many of us believed that the Voting Rights Act took care (of voter suppression). Now we see that it did not. But we relaxed because we thought that voting was safe, and…
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The way forward is with courage
It is MLK Day. I will see enough softball quotes of Dr. King today to last me awhile. This is my annual invitation for you to read “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Go look it up. I’m not even going to allow the convenience of a link here to help you. If you haven’t read it yet, you’re still not going…
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Freeing ourselves of the confirmation bias
Catherine Meeks in her book, The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning, has a meditation on the “shadow” in our lives. It’s that unseen force in our lives that will fill in the gaps between fact and our perception. We have a way of seeing something, or someone, and it is quickly “confirmed” by this “shadow” if…
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Do we want to be healed?
I was gifted a marvelous book for my birthday: The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning by Catherine Meeks. It is a book of meditations in thinking about racial healing. What a way to begin the new year in my life!
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Elections — the small windows of victory
Alabama still has the nation’s longest constitution. The change will be that now it will be minus racist language. There are small victories. On Election Day, the state ballot measure passed to change the wording in the nation’s longest state constitution to remove racist language. The state constitution has been in place since 1901. To which I say… WELCOME TO…
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Elections
It’s probably been 20 years or more since I voted in a place where my vote had any significance at all. I’ve lived in very blue areas and very red areas. It doesn’t matter which “side” I might “be one” (which is not even a question in my life any more), I was in a place that even if I…
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A progressive racist
The “Presidential” podcast goes through each of our presidents to the present. Each one is interesting and the take in each particular episode is interesting. The podcast will take on the complicated narrative of each president, and Woodrow Wilson is a great example. He was a progressive politically. Teddy Roosevelt was another progressive president preceding Wilson. In his time the…
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We have easily turned aside time after time
We have the white comfort of not wanting to pay attention anymore. George Floyd is SOOOO 2020. We’ve moved on… except we haven’t. Violence is still perpetrated because of skin color. We can just afford to ignore it and call it “moving on.”
Tag: Racism
