This month, new learning and my attempts at taking action converged. If you’d like to journey with me, start by reading this article...
April 2021 Newsletter curated by Shelly Tochluk
Author of Witnessing Whiteness and Living in the Tension
Member of AWARE-LA
Hello Everyone! As long-time subscribers will notice, I updated the header on this newsletter because some people didn’t recall how they joined the list, don't know who I am, and they invited me to be more explicit. Thanks for the note!
I appreciate creating this newsletter because it keeps me accountable for staying engaged with new resources and continually expanding my knowledge base. Marrying that learning with action is what creates a praxis, and that is what I strive to do.
This month, my learning and action converged. If you’d like to journey with me, start by reading this article from Patrisse Cullors, called Abolition and Reparations: Histories of Resistance, Transformative Justice, and Accountability. I missed it two years ago when the Harvard Law Review published it. As you read, consider where you feel pulled in and pulled away. Where do the ideas feel too radical? Where do your judgments about the author and the people she describes prompt you to dismiss the ideas?
On March 14th, I had the great honor of presenting a sermon to a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Southern California. The message focused on Solidarity and Racial Justice: Standing Together While We Are Apart. The focus wasn’t on our physical separation due to the pandemic, but ideological separations. How do those of us who are more moderate continue to support those who are more radical for the sake of the larger goal of racial justice? (This link takes you to the entire service. My part begins at 49:30.)
The sermon also served as a promotion for a 4-part workshop series that will run every Thursday evening 7-8:30PM Pacific, April 1, 8, 15, 22. Spaces are likely still available, and you can join any time. The 4th session, April 22nd, focuses on reducing our ego so we can stay open to transformational ideas offered by radical voices.
Stop AAPI Hate National Report
3/19/20 – 2/28/21
You heard the news coming out of Atlanta. You may have heard about the nationwide rise in hate crimes against AAPI people. Have you read the analysis to understand the scope of the problem?
Here is an interview with Amy Goodman and Dr. Connie Wun discussing why it is impossible to disconnect racism from sexism in regards to the Atlanta shootings.
Here is the national report so you can see the data for yourself. The report “covers the 3,795 incidents received by the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center from March 19, 2020 to February 28, 2021. The number of hate incidents reported to [the] center represent only a fraction of the number of hate incidents that actually occur, but it does show how vulnerable Asian Americans are to discrimination, and the types of discrimination they face.
Knowledge Building: Podcasts, Newsletters, and Books
What are you reading or listening to these days? Add these to your list!
Each offers something important and different.
Anti-Racism Daily (from @nicolecardoza) provides analysis of current events, including action steps, key takeaways, and links to related issues. Choose the e-newsletter or podcast version. Get a taste by reading a recent post, written in the wake of the attack against Asian-American women in Atlanta highlighting the need to end the “lone wolf narrative.”
This book by Heather McGhee arrived this week and I can’t wait to read it! The book helps us understand “what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others.” With a deep background in economics, McGhee offers “proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: gains that come when people come together across race, to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own.” This podcast interview with the author is revealing, insightful, and not to be missed! Listen while doing household chores or cooking.
Thanks to Sarah Hershey, who alerted me to this book and website. It’s designed for white parents needing help talking to their children about race.Also check out the author’s website, which is chock full of information, including a free guide for parents on starting conversations about race with kids and workshops parents and kids can attend together.
Don’t miss this interview with one of the pioneers of the study white racial identity development. Dr. Helms tells the story of why she began studying white racial identity, why it’s important, and how we see it playing out today. She offers a great analogy. It’s about the different glasses we put on! Check out the interview to understand more.
Get Inspired – Get Knowledgeable – Get Moving GirlTrek
Created by and for Black girls and women, GirlTrek is on a mission to bring the healing effects of walking to communities. They are over a million strong! Check out their website! They have a 21-Day Black History Bootcamp. Regardless of your background, lace up your sneakers and listen to a podcast a day as a walking meditation to learn about amazing Black women and their contributions.
Watch this interview to get the overview, and then order the book if you want the details. I did! Although this interview occurred prior to the November 2020 election, it remains extremely relevant. Particularly jarring is the research revealing that over 50% of Americans’ would fall into the categories that either align with, or would accommodate for, Christian Nationalist thinking. Thankfully, of these, a good percentage may be open to reason and dialogue. This book helps us develop the reasons we can use in dialogue.
If you want to access academic research related to current events, but are unaffiliated with a school or university, subscribe to JSTOR Daily. Here are a couple recent offerings:
A new study about engagement with misinformation via Facebook has important implications. Essentially, it demonstrates empirically that “far-right purveyors of misinformation have by far the highest levels of engagement per follower compared to any other category of news source. Indeed, the researchers found that while left-leaning and centrist publications get much less engagement if they publish misinformation, the relationship is reversed on the far right, where news organizations that regularly publish false material get up to 65 percent more engagement than ones that don’t.”
What does this mean? The upshot is that right wing folks do not follow the source to find out the truth in the way that more people on the left do, which means right-wing misinformation goes viral more than happens on the left.
As our country suffers the consequences of rampant misinformation, this study provides increased evidence that Facebook must reckon with how it amplifies whatever is most “engaging,” as that is often material meant to deceive, and the far-right spreads it like wildfire.
We knew it was coming, and now it’s here. This article comes from my local paper, the Los Angeles Times, and highlights that Southern California is quite a hot spot for the manifestation of the convergence of conspiracies that I’ve been shouting about for a while now. This article provides important updates so you’ll understand how/why the conversation is shifting as it is.
In related news: Fallen Into the Clutches of Q - This article tells the story of individuals who have lost family members to this conspiracy theory, and reports that QAnon Casualties (a webite/group supporting family members who are struggling to stay connected to those fallen prey) has grown to over 144,000 people AND that the FBI estimates around 20 million people believe in some version of Q-inspired beliefs.
Here is one example that hasn’t made national news yet. From the Western States Center: “State legislatures continue to be a key hub for anti-democratic activity pushed by elected officials in 2021. Anti-trans legislation and bills that attempt to gut voting rights remain high on the agenda, but in Missouri, residents are alarmed at a “minutemen” bill introduced in the legislature that includes, “requirements that the identities of the minutemen remain hidden from the public and that the state cannot be held liable for the actions of the minutemen.”
Do you want to keep up with the trend, the money, the ideology --- the verbiage to watch out for? This article about how “A suicide and a strange bitcoin bequest have opened a window on to the new frontier of extremist online media” and it provides an interesting look into how technology, ideology, and money are moving things forward and supporting far-right, extremist voices.
Excerpt:“The technical details are perhaps less important than the practical effect: no one has authority over these platforms: no one owns them. While governments and users can place pressure on the big social media companies to ban problematic users or communities, for better or worse, no one can stop anyone creating their own servers or peer-to-peer networks.”
“These technologies, then, are effectively uncensorable. According to a report by Emmi Bevensee, the co-founder of research consultancy Rebellious Data and the social media monitoring tool SMAT, extremists have been advocating, and even developing them, for years.”
“You know who really doesn’t understand it? The FBI,” Bevensee adds: “we’re talking about a technology that can’t be subpoenaed. It can’t be surveiled” and, in order to carry out remote surveillance of private chats, “you would have to back door every single device in the world”.
This opens the way for extremists to propagandize and organize on platforms that are beyond the reach of legal authorities and tech giants alike.”
Yep, read the whole thing to understand why I continue to sound the alarm bells.
We have a lot of work to do! Stay engaged and energized by joining an ongoing, monthly support dialogue for white anti-racists. AWARE’s monthly Sunday Dialogue (SD) occurs on the 3rd Sunday of every month, 3-5PM Pacific via the Zoom online platform. We focus on connecting, sharing, and learning from one another. If you have not signed up for the interest list (required to receive the registration link), please subscribe here: Sunday Dialogues Interest List Sign Up
