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In the time of coronavirus, and as the nationwide wave of protests has rightly turned our attention toward systemic racism and police violence here in the US, I've held my commemoration of Pride with more humility than in years past - honoring the bravery of all who stand for change.

As a member of the LGBTQI+ community, I know what it is to be part of a marginalized population. But as a white person, I also know what it's like to be a member of the dominant culture. Owning the significance of my social locations, in relation to the dominant culture, supports me in a deepening awareness of how I relate to my various identities and the respective powers they hold in the world.

My mindfulness practice has played a central role in this journey.

At this point in my journey, my acceptance of self is motivated by my love for others; I can't advocate for change in a world in which I am too scared to be myself. I am strengthened in knowing that by living and sharing my truth I am not conceding to pressures to conform to a norm that limits all of us in expressing ourselves. There is a reciprocal relation to me living my truth while simultaneously advocating for others to live theirs.

My gender expression is fluid - meaning I don't feel fixed in how I express myself. In one moment, I may appear to many as being more masculine, or boyish, though my sex is female, yet in another moment I may appear more feminine. My sexual orientation is queered - for me this means that I am attracted to people of multiple genders.

I grew up thinking that I needed to adapt myself to fit into the greater heteronormative culture. (Heteronormativity implies that heterosexuality is the "preferred" or "normal" sexual orientation.) I picked up on the pervasive signals expressed in my family, in school, and through advertisements, movies, television shows and books that informed me of the parameters within which it was acceptable to live, norms which did not reflect my truth. And I so badly wanted to fit in and to be accepted.

I realize now that what I was experiencing then was marginalization.

When I've tried to adapt my truth so that I fit into more culturally acceptable norms I've felt disconnected - like I'm a shell of a person, trying to live an idea. But because I internalized the messages of marginalization, the process of discerning my truth from what was valued by the greater culture has taken a fair amount of work. Living into that truth has required a willingness to turn toward it with acceptance and reclaim it.

The work that I have had to do to move toward a more true expression of myself with regard to my sexuality and my gender has offered me a foundation for the work that I must do as a white person.

In my young adulthood, I was aware of racial differences and I understood that racism was a prevalent force in our culture. I considered myself to be a good white person. Still, I had a difficult time seeing beyond my own marginalization to recognize my place in the dominant culture of whiteness.

It was a very painful moment of awakening to see that my own marginalization did not, in itself, prevent me from participating in the marginalization of others. I realized that I was using my identification with one non-dominant culture (i.e. queerness) as a means of defending myself from having to feel the pain of being white in a racialized world - a world in which whites benefit from the oppression of other races.

And I realized that unless I was actively engaging in practices which supported me in recognizing and dismantling the white supremacist conditioning in my own mind, I was complicit into the harms of the racialized systems from which I was benefitting.

During this journey, meditation has been an invaluable tool. Here are three examples of how my practice aids my engagement with anti-racist work.

First, I've found it essential to turn toward my experience with curiosity and interest, just as I do in meditation when a difficult emotion or sensation is present. Curiosity is an attitude of mind -- an inclination to engage with my experience, without a fixed idea of what I know or don't know. When I am curious, there is a willingness to learn.

I'm incredibly grateful that the practice of meditation has helped me relate to my struggles with curiosity and interest, as opposed to solely feeling burdened by them. These days, when I notice I'm struggling, I know to ask questions, like, " What am I not accepting here?"

Second, I am willing to confront the truth. In order to uphold and perpetuate "otherness", there must be somewhere within myself in which I am experiencing disconnect - and that can be seen in the clear light of meditation. I may feel disconnected from the greater society. Or I may feel disconnected from the experience of others who do not identify with the dominant culture.

This leads me to the third essential tenet of this work that meditation has helped me to do: I am willing to feel discomfort. It's the avoidance of discomfort that creates disconnection, therefore discomfort lives in the gaps we must bridge. To feel discomfort is to be open to and aware of what I am feeling in the body, which is inherently vulnerable. Vulnerability puts me in contact with a tenderness I can't access if I am trying to find a means to stay comfortable.

My willingness to sit in meditation with that discomfort, and allow it to bring tenderness to my heart, holds real power for change. If I approach my experience with only intellectual curiosity then I am not fully engaging with this process and I can evade the discomfort of feeling vulnerable. This is a defensive posturing of the heart as it is trying to protect against having to feel tender. Defensiveness is the seed of all brutality that exists in humanity.

To be an ally in dismantling systems of oppression, we must ourselves be willing to feel tender, to feel vulnerable and to bring this understanding into the world, in our day to day lives. That doesn't happen one month or one week out of the year; this tenderness and humility is the kind of "pride" that we're invited to live every day of the year.

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Taking Pride in Humility - Ten Percent Happier

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My acceptance of self is motivated by my love for others; I can't advocate for change in a world in which I am too scared to be myself. I am strengthened in knowing that by living and sharing my truth I am not conceding to pressures to conform to a norm that limits all of us in expressing ourselves.

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Bearing Witness to Our Own Conditioning — Rae Houseman

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‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech  | NPR

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Native Land Map

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Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack ~ Peggy McIntosh on White Privilege

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Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack ~ Peggy McIntosh on White Privilege

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Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow "them" to be more like "us."

I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

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'White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack' and 'Some Notes for Facilitators' - National SEED Project

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White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack Downloadable PDF © 1989 Peggy McIntosh 'White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack' first appeared in P...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dlrXCYrNYIThis collection of resources is really just scratching the surface. But we need to start somewhere, this is forever work after all.  When I began my journey of Waking Up from White Supremacy in 2015 there we way fewer resources available than there are now. I'm sure more great ones will come into being as soon as I publish this list. Please help keep it up to date as you are inspired. The world is calling for a Collective Awakening.

Reading is good, actions are good, changing policy is vital AND I believe that until we all look inward - toward the racism in our hearts - we will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past.

To heal we must practice.

I am a white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied, educated woman. I grew up in Philadelphia in the middle of the city​, ​ a product of the public school system of the 70s and 80s. ​Born into a time such that ​I didn't know there was segregation or desegregation. ​Simply attending the local public schools (Meredith, Masterman + Central)  I was in diverse environments from childhood. But that isn't enough!

Philadelphia Central High ​still ​ranks as the most, or one of the most diverse, high schools in the country.​  Y​et​,​ after 15 years of living in San Francisco​,​ it came to my attention that, "Yes, I too was racist." I didn't want to admit it​ then​, I don't want to minute now. And, as James Baldwin said “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ​

Thus,  I am doing what I can to face racism, to own it and to transform the delusion of White Supremacy which is the foundation upon which this country is built.

We​.  Yes we.  I am taking ownership, not othering - yes, I know, you weren't there. I wasn't there either​,​ and yet their blood (the blood of ​enslaved Africans, the blood of Indigenous people, the blood of all the ​Black and brown folk in this country killed by the many tentacles of racism​)​ is on our hands.  Shirin Madjzoub said it well, "Racism is a disease. Getting sick was not our fault. Getting well is our responsibility​.​"

So I​ am t​aking some responsibility.

Deep gratitude to Nicole A. Cooke, Ph.D. the creator of Anti-Racism Resources for All Ages, for the inspiration to create this padlet with a focus on Mindfulness Meditation as a Path for awakening from the delusion of White Supremacy.

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Fannie Lou Hamer is an unsung icon.

As our country tries to sort through a crowded presidential candidate field and make it through an already divisive impeachment process, Hamer's legacy becomes evermore important.

Hamer became one of America's greatest civil rights heroes by marrying a deep devotion to social programs for the poor with a highly sophisticated understanding of machine politics. She took on a president, served her community with groundbreaking economic social programs - and ultimately changed Mississippi politics forever.

More than 60 years after the end of slavery, Hamer and her family spent decades picking cotton as sharecroppers on a plantation in Sunflower County, Mississippi, handing most of their earnings over to landowner W. D. Marlow. Hamer, and her 19 siblings were the grandchildren of slaves.

Her desire to get heavily involved in the civil rights movement in her 40s grew organically from a life lived in back-breaking poverty. In books and speeches, she recounted that almost every time her family's farm got big enough to make any money, white farm owners in the area would poison their animals and destroy their crops.

"That poison knocked us right back down flat. We never did get back up again. That white man did it just because we were gettin' somewhere. White people never like to see Negroes get a little success. All of this stuff is no secret in the state of Mississippi," she told The Nation in 1964.

After years of listening to local speeches about Black voting rights, Hamer's first political move came in 1962 when she took a group of 16 people to Indianola, Mississippi to register to vote. White police officers tried to force the group away from the building but Hamer was the first to step inside. The court clerk refused to register any of the Black people that day, using poll taxes and fake literacy tests to deny them their right to vote.

For this attempt alone, the local Klu Klux Klan threatened to murder Hamer and her family. She was shot at multiple times, and was immediately fired from the plantation when she got back from Indianola. Despite all of these open and very present threats, she went back to the courthouse in Indianola three months later to register to vote. After being denied again, Hamer told the clerk she would be back every 30 days until they let her vote.

Part of how she led her groups was with her powerful voice and ability to call up Bible verses at will. Her hymns literally eased groups of protesters as they faced off with violent police officers.

Bob Moses, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretary, sent young activist Charles McLaurin to find Hamer, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two. Hamer and McLaurin went to Fisk University in Nashville in 1962 for a conference, officially kicking off her career as a community organizer.

"One of the big problems with getting African Americans registered to vote in the Mississippi delta in the 1960s was fear. Fannie Lou employed various tactics to help overcome some of the fear. She used her regular mass meetings, her singing and talking from the Bible," McLaurin said in a phone interview with Blavity.

Hamer's political career went from there, graduating quickly into very sophisticated political maneuvering that ended up changing the Democratic Party into one that could choose Barack Obama as its candidate.

The moment that sprung Hamer into national prominence came during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. In a deft move of political activism, Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party tried to serve as the representatives of Mississippi after claiming the official delegation was illegitimate because they had systematically kept Black people from participating.

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which Hamer co-founded with the help of SNCC and other Mississippi activists, was fully integrated and followed the rules of the official national Democratic Party to a T. They brought legal briefs and dozens of documents detailing their work in conducting a true election with the full participation of Mississippi's Black population.

The leaders of the Democratic Party, namely President Lyndon B. Johnson, tried to squash Hamer and ignore her concerns. They were largely successful until the country heard Hamer speak.

YouTube | Pamela Cook

At the Credentials Committee on August 22, 1964, witnesses like Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on behalf of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. But none commanded the room like Hamer, who spoke forcefully about the physical violence she faced as a Black woman fighting for voting rights.

She was sterilized against her will and was later nearly beaten to death by police after an arrest.

"All of this is on account we want to register, to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives are threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?" she told the committee.

YouTube | AmericanExperiencePBS

Her testimony was so powerful, that Johnson called a fake press conference in an attempt to get news cameras off Hamer. The press was preoccupied with Johnson's choice for vice president and switched over to the White House halfway through Hamer's stirring testimony - but his move backfired. The press immediately recognized and understood what Johnson tried to do, and this made it an even bigger story. Hamer's testimony that day played on the nightly news for three straight nights.

The speech also led to a schism in the Democratic Party, with Johnson siding with the segregationists in an attempt to keep his support in the South. However, the delegations from Alabama and other segregated states were outraged that Hamer was allowed to speak at all.

"The president has said he will not let that illiterate woman speak on the floor of the Democratic convention," Senator Hubert H. Humphrey said at the time.

This kind of political action was groundbreaking because Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party knew they probably wouldn't succeed, but understood that the attempt alone would mean almost as much. Her ability to outmatch the seasoned politicians behind the Democratic Party machine was truly a lesson in how political experience can be learned far outside of Washington, DC.

"Her strong desire and struggle to escape the plantation system and mentality for herself and her family made her more determined to help others in the same condition. Her limited education did not stop her from facing those in high places and speaking the truth. Fannie Lou Hamer had the courage and conviction that so many people in her historic circumstances would not attempt," McLaurin said.

Hamer ran for office a number of times, but was always shut down by the local Democratic Party in Mississippi. However, she was able to convert her newfound fame into support for her community and led the Freedom Farm Cooperative. She saw very clearly that Black people needed to be self-sufficient, and used the Farm Cooperative to help Black farmers get their food to Black families, making moves that supported the increase Black land ownership and even creating a pig bank that loaned families piglets. Her efforts enabled dozens of Black families buy land and cultivate farms throughout Sunflower County, Mississippi. Additionally, Hamer created an incubator program for Black farmers and businessmen, as well as financial counseling and scholarships.

While she managed all of these social programs, she still kept up national efforts, giving speeches at events across the country and founding the National Women's Political Caucus.

At a 1971 National Women's Political Caucus event, she gave one of her most famous speeches titled "Nobody's Free Until Everybody's Free."

"Now, we've got to have some changes in this country. And not only changes for the black man, and only changes for the black woman, but the changes we have to have in this country are going to be for liberation of all people - because nobody's free until everybody's free," she told the crowd.

"And this is something that should have been done for a long time because a white mother is no different from a black mother. The only thing is they haven't had as many problems. But we cry the same tears and under the skin, it's the same kind of red blood," she added.

Hamer's political legacy alone would be more than enough to make her a hero. But her numerous efforts to help move her community forward make her unmatched.

Few political leaders these days feel connected to the communities they represent. Furthermore, even less can say they live through the problems their constituents face, and civil rights activists with even acute understandings of how to move issues forward within complicated, lobbyist-laden political systems struggle to enact tangible change. All of this further underscores Hamer's accomplishments as monumental, especially given the sociopolitical climate of the era in which she was most active.

Today's activists and political leaders could benefit from taking one of her most potent messages to heart, "I'm gonna be standing up, I'm gonna be moving forward, and if they shoot me, I'm not going to fall back, I'm going to fall 5'4" inches forward," she once said.

If living by Hamer's example, the key is to always move forward.

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'Nobody's Free Until Everybody's Free': Fannie Lou Hamer's Legacy Is More Important Now Than Ever - Blavity

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Fannie Lou Hamer is an unsung icon. As our country tries to sort through a crowded presidential candidate field and make it through an already divisive impeachment process, Hamer's legacy becomes evermore important. Hamer became one of America's greatest civil rights heroes by marrying a deep devotion to social programs for the poor with a highly sophisticated understanding of machine politics.

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Implicit Association Test (This is the PLACE TO BEGIN)

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Implicit Association Test (This is the PLACE TO BEGIN)

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(to learn) The University of Washington, University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Yale University bring us this test evaluating implicit (on the basis of race, gender, weight and more)  biases.

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Preliminary Information

On the next page you'll be asked to select an Implicit Association Test (IAT) from a list of possible topics . We will also ask you (optionally) to report your attitudes or beliefs about these topics and provide some information about yourself.

We ask these questions because the IAT can be more valuable if you also describe your own self-understanding of the attitude or stereotype that the IAT measures. We would also like to compare differences between people and groups.

On the IAT, you may find it easier to pair certain attributes with one group of people compared to another. Your IAT results may depart from your personal beliefs.

Note: This site is designed for adults, aged 18 or older.

Data Privacy: Data exchanged with this site are protected by SSL encryption. Project Implicit uses the same secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) that banks use to securely transfer credit card information. This provides strong security for data transfer to and from our website. IP addresses are routinely recorded, but are completely confidential. For research purposes, data without directly identifying information is made publicly available. You can find more information on our Data Privacy page.

Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT test that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research done (at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Yale University) with these tests. However, these Universities, as well as the individual researchers who have contributed to this site, make no claim for the validity of these suggested interpretations. If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. You may prefer to examine general information about the IAT before deciding whether or not to proceed.

If you have questions about the study, please contact Project Implicit at questions@projectimplicit.net. To obtain more information about the study, ask questions about the research procedures, express concerns about your participation, or report illness, injury or other problems, please contact:

Tonya R. Moon, Ph.D.
Chair, Institutional Review Board for the Social and Behavioral Sciences
One Morton Dr Suite 500
University of Virginia, P.O. Box 800392
Charlottesville, VA 22908-0392
Email: irbsbshelp@virginia.edu
Website: https://research.virginia.edu/irb-sbs
Website for Research Participants: https://research.virginia.edu/research-participants

I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed using a touchscreen OR using a keyboard.

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On the next page you'll be asked to select an Implicit Association Test (IAT) from a list of possible topics . We will also ask you (optionally) to report your attitudes or beliefs about these topics and provide some information about yourself.

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but don't worry! after 10 full minutes of soaking, he turned the hose onto the other house for another 10 minutes. he timed it so it was completely fair

let me tell you a story about this strip. i had the idea, drew it last week, and was scared to post it because it's political. so i didn't. last night i posted it to my patreon as a behind-the-scenes thing. someone (a little overzealously, but forgivably) shared it on twitter, where within 6 hours it became the most shared piece of work i have ever made.

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Chainsawsuit by Kris Straub - now that's what i call content

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but don't worry! after 10 full minutes of soaking, he turned the hose onto the other house for another 10 minutes. he timed it so it was completely fair let me tell you a story about this strip. i had the idea, drew it last week, and was scared to post it because it's political.

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Opening Heart Mindfulness Community | Washington D.C.

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Anti-Black Racism

Making-Visible:
Anti-Black Racism

Webinar Series - coming in 2020

You are invited to listen to our speakers on the topic of Anti-Black Racism. We are aware how we have been conditioned into anti-black racism and, as a mindfulness practice community, we aim to support the unraveling of this conditioning as well as the growth of inclusive, equitable, and beloved communities. In order to do that, we must first understand the experience of Anti-Black Racism, including understanding how anti-blackness can be as overt as police killings and as subtle as unmindful speech or being passed over for a work promotion.

To quote the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG) "Anti-Black racism is the foundation for the strategies, tactics, tools and cultural worldviews that propagate and maintain racial oppression, repression and exclusion in the U.S. and the world."

Anti-Black racism is the cause of enormous wealth disparities between White and Black individuals. And, anti-Black racism is at the root of high rates of maternal disease and infant mortality rates in Black women. These are just two examples of the ways that anti-black racism affects our country daily.

Please have a look at the past conversations on Anti-Black racism below. Each webinar was led by a different teacher/activist. With your support and presence, we will continue to bring awareness and transformation to these injustices.

We are able to continue offering these webinars at no fee because of your support and generosity. Please make a tax-deductible donation to Making-Visible.

100% of your donation pays for our website and communication costs and allows us to pay our guest speakers.

Scroll below to read about and watch our past webinars.

**As of April 29, real-time captioning will be provided for the Making-Visible webinars.

Webinar 1 - Valerie Brown

February 19, 2020

We are thrilled that Valerie Brown will be sharing her stories and insight with us as our first speaker for Making-Visible: Anti-Black Racism. Valerie is a Dharma Teacher in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh, an international retreat leader, writer, leadership coach, and Principal of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC.

Webinar 2 - David Sempe

March 25, 2020

In 1993, David Sampé was 19 years old and confined at a Correction Corporation of America (now Civic Corps) facility, the first wave of prisons for profit. He was placed in a Youth Act Program that kept him, and others like him, locked in a 6'x9' cell for eight months, 23½ hours a day. A part of him that went into that box never came out. Broken, like Humpty Dumpty, he was left to put himself back together again. Several years later, after multiple arrests and felony convictions, he became mentally unhinged and spiraled out of control.

Over the course of 25 years David has reconstructed his mind piece by piece and, through the practice of mindfulness and meditation, has turned a broken mind into a resilient one. These experiences have equipped him with the tools to guide men and women coming home from prison out of their fractured state and back into balance.

Learn more about David and this webinar.

Webinar 3 - Katie Loncke

April 29, 2020

Anti-black racism is the cause of enormous wealth disparities between White and Black individuals. And, anti-black racism is at the root of high rates of maternal disease and infant mortality rates in Black women, as well as the root cause of the inequity of deaths from COVID-19 today.

Katie Loncke (they, them), is a Harvard University graduate with a focus on Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Katie will share with us their experience with a focus on the following:⁣
⁣
- How anti-Black racism shows up in the COVID-19 pandemic⁣
- Blackness as a social construct, both 'real' and 'not-real,' and relevance to non/duality⁣
- Black is Beautiful: appreciation vs. appropriation among Black & non-Black people⁣

Learn more about Katie and this webinar.

NEXT CALL

Making-Visible: How to Fight Injustice without Hating (Revisiting Anti-Black Racism)

With Valerie Brown

June 24, 2020

7PM - 8:30PM Eastern / 4PM - 5:30PM Pacific

In the Plum Village tradition of mindfulness meditation founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, we learn to notice and become aware when emotions are touched within us, to notice what the emotion feels like in the body, and to bring awareness to the feelings and bodily sensations, taking care of these emotions by calming and soothing the body and mind.

Taking care of the emotions of anger and hate is an ongoing, daily, and moment to moment practice, especially now at this time when Black and Brown people are under attack from unlawful police violence, unconscious bias, and disparate treatment of Blacks during the COVID-19 health crisis. As a Black woman, my daily practice is to notice the sensation of hate in order to gain agency over my feelings, my words, and my actions and to recognize how I can support myself.

So, what skillful action is required at a time of hate, fear, and violence?

Please feel free to download these graphics and text to share with your friends and family on your social media pages.

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Making-Visible: Anti-Black Racism - Opening Heart Mindfulness Community | Washington D.C.

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Anti-Black Racism You are invited to listen to our speakers on the topic of Anti-Black Racism. We are aware how we have been conditioned into anti-black racism and, as a mindfulness practice community, we aim to support the unraveling of this conditioning as well as the growth of inclusive, equitable, and beloved communities.

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Racial Justice: Skillful Action for a Path Forward | Interview with Valerie Brown, 2020 05 04

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John Lewis: Good Trouble - Official Trailer

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Anders Nilsen is an artist and author of nine books, including "Big Questions," "The End" and the forthcoming "Tongues." A native of Minneapolis, he currently lives in Los Angeles.

The Diary Project is a weekly visual assignment series produced by Alicia DeSantis, Jennifer Ledbury, Lorne Manly, Jolie Ruben and Josephine Sedgwick.

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How Do We Wrap Our Heads Around Something This Big?

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Anders Nilsen is an artist and author of nine books, including "Big Questions," "The End" and the forthcoming "Tongues." A native of Minneapolis, he currently lives in Los Angeles. The Diary Project is a weekly visual assignment series produced by Alicia DeSantis, Jennifer Ledbury, Lorne Manly, Jolie Ruben and Josephine Sedgwick.

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The Diary Project

When I learned about the death of Latasha Harlins, I decided to make an appointment with myself.

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Laura Park is a cartoonist and the illustrator of "Unstoppable" by Adam Rex and "Abner & Ian Get Right-Side Up" by Dave Eggers.

The Diary Project is a weekly visual assignment series produced by Alicia DeSantis, Jennifer Ledbury, Lorne Manly, Jolie Ruben and Josephine Sedgwick.

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The Diary Project When I learned about the death of Latasha Harlins, I decided to make an appointment with myself. Laura Park is a cartoonist and the illustrator of "Unstoppable" by Adam Rex and "Abner & Ian Get Right-Side Up" by Dave Eggers.

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Macklemore - White Rapper, White Privilege

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Macklemore - White Rapper, White Privilege

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White rapper Macklemore offers his 2014 reflection marching in response to the acquittal of Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown.

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MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS FEAT. JAMILA WOODS - WHITE PRIVILEGE II

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Lauryn Hill - Black Rage is Founded on These Kind of Things 

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Lauryn Hill - Black Rage is Founded on These Kind of Things 

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(listen / learn)

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(listen/learn/be inspired)

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powerful imagery

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Kendrick Lamar - Alright (Official Music Video)

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Jay Z's hypnotic, fragmented "spiritual" reflects the rapper's disillusionment with police brutality in modern times. "We should be further along," he said in a statement released with the song.  "Just a boy from the hood that got my hands in the air/In despair don't shoot/I just wanna do good"

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Victoria Monet - Better Days (feat. Ariana Grande) [LYRIC VIDEO] #BlackLivesMatter

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Janelle Monáe - Q.U.E.E.N. feat. Erykah Badu [Official Video]

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Beyonce - Freedom feat. Kendrick Lamar (Audio)

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Black Pumas - Colors (Official Music Video)

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Deep Adaptation and Climate Justice 2019: Climate Change and Inequalities

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Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman on race, injustice and protest

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DISMEMBERED + UNARMED

Dismembered and Unarmed is a collaborative album executive produced by Chaka Mkali and Resmaa Menakem. The album was created in conjunction with Menakem's book My Grandmother's Hands as a way to engage a larger audience.

Dismembered + Unarmed features 30+ prominent musicians from the Twin Cities reflecting on intergenerational trauma, healing, and the realities of America's current racialized divide.

The first 3 free single releases April 30-June 14, 2018 and the full digital album and vinyl combo pack on June 15th, 2018.

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The Creation of My Grandmother's Hands and Dismembered + Unarmed

The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze. My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for Americans to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body. My Grandmother's Hands introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

From the start of the writing of this book we had a conceptualization that this needed to be a multi-sensory experience that incorporated sound, vibration, sight, image, and thought.

We wanted to provide people with multiple access points to this work. The first person to get involved was executive producer Chaka Mkali/I Self Devine, because he is a multi talented artist he understood the heart of this project right away and ran with it. He brought in Lioness, Jake Virden, Brother Ali, and many other producers and artists.

This book was written out of love and collaboration. The book could not have been written without the help and challenge of others. For years we have wanted to do some artistic work with Chaka and other musicians. When we shared with them the content of the book, they immediately wanted to do music for it. We are humbled by their time and dedication. May the ancestors be pleased by our work and efforts.

Visit resmaa.com for more information.

released June 15, 2018

Executive Produced by Chaka Mkali /Resmaa Menakem
Produced and Engineered by Medium Zach
Album cover by Andres Guzman

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Dismembered And Unarmed, by Various Artists

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Dismembered and Unarmed PRE-ORDER VINYL PACKAGES HERE AT https://www.resmaa.com/store/ Dismembered And Unarmed by Various Artists, released 15 June 2018 1. Here We Go 2. Heightened Anxiety 3. You Got It (Parts I & II) 4. Nobody Left 5. Breathe 6. Colors 7. Faded / We The People 8. Ten Hut 9.

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When Black leaders demanded equality and World War II demanded more skilled soldiers, the Tuskegee Airmen, or "Red-Tail Angels," became the first African American pilots to train for combat.

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Mindfulness Resources for Waking Up from White Supremacy

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Mindfulness Resources for Waking Up from White Supremacy

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When we, as WHITE FOLKS, clearly see the Delusion of White Supremacy only then can we be free

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The Lotus Institute of Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward and Dr. Larry Ward

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The Lotus Institute of Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward and Dr. Larry Ward

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(To learn / support / practice) "Mindfulness is a practice of non-superficiality where we learn to stop, we learn to rest and we learn to calm and possibly begin the reflection on what it means to live a life that's awake."

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Buddhist practice(s) for change makers on the journey of individual and collective healing, transformation and liberation.

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Senior Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh

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The Fires of Grief Are Burning: A message from Dr. Larry Ward

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Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is a Dharma heir of Buddha's teachings. She studied with the late Zenkei Blanche Hartman through the San Francisco Zen Center.

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Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is a Zen Buddhist Priest, author, and artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her Buddhist practice is supported by African and Native American traditions.

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Love In Action - Jo Confino & Sr. Peace (interview)

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Opening Heart Mindfulness Community | Washington D.C.

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In the Plum Village tradition of mindfulness meditation founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, we learn to notice and become aware when emotions are touched within us, to notice what the emotion feels like in the body, and to bring awareness to the feelings and bodily sensations, taking care of these emotions by calming and soothing the body and mind.

This month, we are thrilled to have Valerie Brown returning to lead another webinar. This time she will focus on How to Fight Injustice without Hating.

She goes on to share: Taking care of the emotions of anger and hate is an ongoing, daily, and moment to moment practice, especially now at this time when Black and Brown people are under attack from unlawful police violence, unconscious bias, and disparate treatment of Blacks during the COVID-19 health crisis. As a Black woman, my daily practice is to notice the sensation of hate in order to gain agency over my feelings, my words, and my actions and to recognize how I can support myself.

So, what skillful action is required at a time of hate, fear, and violence?

As an individual and as a society, we have been given specific instruction from countless people who sacrificed their lives through the Civil Rights Era and other social movements in how to take compassionate action in the face of violence, anger, and fear. We are instructed to meet police violence with non-violence. We are instructed to meet racist structures and systems with diligence with inner resilience born out of compassionate action. We are instructed to meet hatred with an open heart and to cultivate heartfulness because love, compassion, kindness, and peace are bigger than a heart constricted by hate, discrimination and violence.

In this online event, we will deepen our understanding of systemic racism and inequity and Anti-Black racism, and engage in mindfulness practices to calm the body and mind toward compassionate and skillful action.

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Making-Visible: How to Fight Injustice without Hating (Revisiting Anti-Black Racism) - Opening Heart Mindfulness Community | Washington D.C.

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In the Plum Village tradition of mindfulness meditation founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, we learn to notice and become aware when emotions are touched within us, to notice what the emotion feels like in the body, and to bring awareness to the feelings and bodily sensations, taking care of thes

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I offer secular mindfulness training in the form of classes, workshops or general trainings as well as Buddhist meditation retreats and days of mindfulness in the Engaged Mindfulness tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. I also offer one-on-one mentoring and personalized mindfulness meditation instruction.

Some of the events I offer on particular themes or for specific audiences include:

Contact me to inquire about scheduling a workshop or visit to your group or sangha. Or if you are interested in one-on-one mindfulness instruction.

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I offer secular mindfulness training in the form of classes, workshops or general trainings as well as Buddhist meditation retreats and days of mindfulness in the Engaged Mindfulness tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. I also offer one-on-one mentoring and personalized mindfulness meditation instruction.

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Upcoming: BIPOC Study Retreat led by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel at Tassajara Zen Center

August 23rd - 28th 2020 - Registration open February 14th online or March 14th by phone - For more information click here: https://www.sfzc.org/calendar/events/tassajara/sangha-week-people-color-823-28

Upcoming: Barre Center for Buddhist Studies - Week Long Retreat with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel - April 2nd - April 7th 2021 Contact Barre Center - https://buddhistinquiry.org/

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel will be limiting her appearances to two to three major events a year. She may travel with an assistant so please consider this in your budget.

Her current focus is writing, her own contemplative practice, and discovering more intimate ways of teaching. She invites you and your sangha or community to access information about Sensei's creative and heartfelt offerings through this website zenju.org. She teaches freely on her Facebook. page. Subscribe to the newsletter to keep informed with updates on the home page of the website.

In addition, she is currently not inviting new students at this time in the traditional Zen student/teacher relationship. If your heart moves you to contact us anyway please do.
Photos by Vaschelle André

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Upcoming: BIPOC Study Retreat led by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel at Tassajara Zen Center August 23rd - 28th 2020 - Registration open February 14th online or March 14th by phone - For more information click here: Upcoming: Barre Center for Buddhist Studies - Week Long Retreat with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel - April 2nd - April 7th

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45 Minutes Total Relaxation | Guided Meditation by Sister Jewel

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Insight Dharma Teacher. Offers deep work on helping folks become Mindful of Race

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Ruth King on Transforming Racism from the Inside Out

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Where Spirit and Action Meet Clip - Sister Peace

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Liberate Meditation App for Black Indigenous and People of Color

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Liberate Meditation App for Black Indigenous and People of Color

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Liberate is the #1 meditation app for the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color community.

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powerful Dharma teacher

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angel Kyodo williams (born December 2, 1969) is a writer, activist, ordained Zen priest and the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, published by Viking Press in 2000, and the co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, published by North Atlantic Books. Called "the most vocal and most intriguing African-American Buddhist in America" by Library Journal, Williams is the Spiritual Director of the meditation-based newDharma Community and founder of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley, California and is also credited with developing fearlessMeditation, fearlessYoga and Warrior Spirit Training. As of October 2013, she is the world's 2nd female Zen teacher of African descent. Her given Buddhist name, Kyodo, means "Way of Teaching."

Williams was raised by her father, a firefighter, in Queens and Brooklyn and then by her mother in Tribeca, Manhattan after her parents separated. She attended junior high school in Chinatown, New York, high school in Chelsea and attended Nazareth College in Rochester, NY.

Spiritual History

After reading D. T. Suzuki's Zen and Japanese Culture, Shunryu Suzuki's, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and receiving her first formal meditation instruction at San Francisco Zen Center while visiting California, Williams sought a community and teacher. Originally a formal student of Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara at the Village Zendo in New York City, she was ordained as a priest by Francisco "Paco" Lugoviña, from whom she also received denkai and hoshi empowerments, authorizing her to transmit the precepts to others and making her a dharma holder in the Zen tradition, respectively. As of October 2013, she is the world's second black female Zen teacher.

In 1996, she and Rebecca Walker, daughter of novelist Alice Walker, opened Kokobar, the first cybercafe owned and operated by African-American women, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with financial backing from, among others, rockstar Tracy Chapman, filmmaker Spike Lee and Rita Owens (mother of Dana Owens, aka Queen Latifah.) Walker withdrew from the affairs of the business and left it to Williams shortly after it opened. Sheriffs began to remove the physical property of the cafe, allegedly because of Chapman's unpaid loan. This caused the cafe to close in 1997.

In 2000, Williams wrote Being Black, a nonfiction work published by Putnam/Penguin, to introduce more Black people and people of color to Buddhist principles. She sought to use Buddhism's "profoundly anti-elitist, anti-authoritarian, and antisectarian essence to revitalize" black identity politics and practice in America.

In 2003, Waxploitation Records founder Jeff Antebi approached Williams' publisher to create a musical companion to Being Black. The CD, published by Spun Records, features work by well-known hiphop artists, MCs and producers, including Blackalicious, will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Jurassic 5 and King Britt, among others. The CD includes both original and existing music "inspired by" the book. Poet Ursula Rucker performs vocal interludes that are quotes of Williams taken directly from the book. A Japan-distributed import version was released shortly after the American release.

In 2003, she also received a Spiritual Activism Fellowship, along with seven others considered at the forefront of that field.

Later that year, she moved from New York City to Oakland, CA, and in January 2004, founded the New Dharma Meditation Center, serving as teacher and spiritual director. The center was established specifically to serve the spiritual needs of people of color while developing an approach to training that viewed individual, community and social transformation as a spiritual practice. Williams consistently challenged the established Buddhist communities in America, which are largely white, to make people of color welcome in practice settings, which she regarded as a failure of that population. Beginning in a small sublet, it transitioned to a three-story Victorian home on the border of Emeryville.

Having grown into a residential practice center with a focus on social transformation, the New Dharma Meditation Center moved in 2007 to its current home in Berkeley, California. There, it was renamed the Center for Urban Peace and in 2009 became the Center for Transformative Change (CXC).

Williams has been featured on the Oxygen Channel and CNNfn, and has appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Village Voice, , , and other publications. She now focuses her attention on the emerging field of " transformative social change", an approach to social justice outcomes Williams deems a new social movement and is credited with coining the phrase for with respect to this area and field of work by way of several essays.

Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace, hardcover edition ISBN 0-670-89268-8 (2000)

Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace, paperback edition ISBN 0-14-019630-7 (2002)

Framing Deep Change: Essays on Transformative Social Change, editor, ISBN 978-0-9828845-0-8 (2010)

Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, paperback edition ISBN 978-1-6231709-8-1 (2016)

Being Black: A Musical Companion Inspired By the Angel Kyodo Williams Classic, worldcat.org ASIN B00007KFSG (2003)

Being Black: A Musical Companion Inspired By the Angel Kyodo Williams Classic, Japan Release (2003)

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angel Kyodo williams (born December 2, 1969) is a writer, activist, ordained Zen priest and the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, published by Viking Press in 2000, and the co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, published by North Atlantic Books.

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Contrary to what you might have seen on your feed, #BlackOutTuesday - the social-media initiative started by record-industry executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas - is not just about posting a black square on Instagram and calling it a day. The purpose is to support Black Lives Matter protests, amplify black voices, and educate oneself on the history of the movement. "Take a beat for an honest, reflective and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the Black community," Agyemang and Thomas urged. To that end, you might be in search of books to read and films to watch on the subjects of protests, racial injustice, and police brutality. Below are 12 documentaries worth watching today and always:

Let the Fire Burn (2013)

In May of 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department attempted to evict the members of the black liberation group MOVE from their row house in a residential area. The group resisted, and police unleashed gunfire, tear gas, and explosives on the home, which officials - with the permission of the mayor and district attorney - opted to let burn. Five children and six adults perished in the blaze, which also destroyed over 60 homes in the neighborhood. Jason Osder's incendiary documentary account relies less on present-day interviews and narration, and focuses instead on the events as they happened, presenting a meticulous ticktock of an infuriating abuse of power. (Streaming on Kanopy.)

Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 (2017) / LA 92 (2017)

The April 1992 L.A. uprising wasn't just a rapid response to the acquittals of the officers charged with the beating of Rodney King - an assault captured on videotape and disseminated on television, one of the first of many viral videos of police misconduct. The protests, many activists at the time made clear, addressed the long history of friction between the LAPD and the city's African-American and Latinx communities. John Ridley's documentary painstakingly details that history, providing valuable context for the events of April 1992, as well as the continuing discourse in the city.

Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin's documentary also covers the 1992 L.A. uprising, but takes an approach closer to Let the Fire Burn; it's a present-tense accounting of the events, re-created as they happened via news coverage, home videos, and archival materials. The context provided by Let It Fall is certainly helpful (these two films are best viewed together), but LA 92 brilliantly captures the feelings of inevitability and helplessness that tend to swirl around such protests - a sense that unrest has been brewing for some time, and that there's no end in sight. (Both are streaming on Netflix.)

Whose Streets? (2017)

Directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis took their cameras to the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, for this ground-level account of the protests that rocked the nation in the days and weeks after the murder of Michael Brown Jr. Mixing their footage with videos taken by protesters and activists, Folayan and Davis create a work of stunning immediacy, capturing both the bravery and the fears of participants, who understand they have no more ground to give. ( Streaming on and .)

Copwatch (2017)

The advocacy organization We Copwatch, which trains regular citizens in the laws and rights that allow them to videotape police activity, predated those protests, but it gained particular relevance after the high-profile deaths of Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray. Camilla Hall's documentary follows We Copwatch founder Jacob Crawford from his home in Oakland to the sites of those murders, and the cameramen he recruits along the way. Hall follows those cases through the system (such as it is), and dives deep into the day-to-day work of the organization. Copwatch is an observational documentary, and an intimate one, acquainting viewers with these citizen journalists and listening to the stories they tell. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

16 Shots (2019)

Just a few months after the death of Michael Brown, another midwestern city was rocked by the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot and killed by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. The circumstances of that shooting - and how the officers on the scene and people in power throughout the city attempted to control (and cover up) the narrative in its aftermath - are the subject of this documentary account from director Rick Rowley. (Streaming on Showtime.)

Do Not Resist (2016)

The rapid response of a chillingly militarized police force - riot gear, tear gas, rubber bullets, military vehicles - has rendered the idea of "peaceful protest" all the more oblique. For some insight into that shift in policing, seek out Craig Atkinson's informative documentary, which begins with the Ferguson protests but gradually widens its scope to detail how mind-boggling post-9/11 expenditures for local police forces have resulted in departments more equipped to go to war with the communities they serve than to protect them. (Available for rental or purchase via Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, etc.)

The Force (2017) / Crime + Punishment (2018)

For decades, the Fox series Cops has done much to simplify the relationship between police and the communities they serve, working with departments to flatten daily interactions into black-and-white, good-guy, bad-guy binaries. Peter Nicks's powerful documentary The Force (streaming on Netflix), on the other hand, uses the stylistic tools of Cops and similar shows - handheld photography, observational style, focus on the day-to-day grind - to tell the much more complex story of an Oakland police department that attempts to rebound from decades of scandal and abuse, only to be confronted with even more of its "bad apples."

Similarly difficult attempts at reform abound in Stephen Maing's Crime + Punishment (streaming on Hulu), in which a group of black and Latino NYPD officers attempt to hold their department accountable for policing policies that unfairly discriminate against their communities. Both films are eye-opening accounts of a system that seems, at times, unsalvageable.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)

As more than one social-media historian has reminded us, the Stonewall uprising was a riot - more pointedly, a riot against police brutality, in response to an NYPD raid of Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn, in the early morning of June 29, 1969. One of the participants was Marsha P. Johnson, the transgender activist known to many as the "mayor of Christopher Street," and there was much more to her life than Stonewall. David France's documentary delves into her fascinating life and suspicious death, which remains unsolved and un-investigated by the same police department that Johnson battled at Stonewall. (Streaming on Netflix.)

The tricky thing about reading up on the issues of the moment is that the struggle does not begin nor end with police brutality, or street protests, or even with what we immediately think of as systemic racism. To that end, police brutality and mass incarceration go hand in hand - the "before" and "after" of biases in the criminal-justice system. The definitive exploration of that issue remains Ava DuVernay's 13th (streaming on Netflix), a wide-ranging documentary in which scholars and historians detail how the relatively recent emphasis on imprisonment has reverberated through American culture. (DuVerany's docuseries When They See Us, also on Netflix, is a helpful companion.)

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

Raoul Peck's stunning essay film is centered on James Baldwin's notes from his unfinished book, Remember This House, a meditation on the key figures of the civil-rights movement. But Baldwin's magnificent prose on those issues (used as narration for the film, spoken by Samuel L. Jackson) felt like a balm for frustrated audiences when the film was first released, just after the election of Donald Trump - a reminder that the guidance and wisdom of the past remains applicable in the present, a point further underlined by Peck's use of contemporary footage to illustrate these words, written decades ago. Baldwin's essays and interviews have made the rounds on social media quite a bit over the past few days; they continue, sadly, to apply to our current culture with little alteration. (Streaming on Prime Video.)

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12 Documentaries You Should Watch About Racism and Police Brutality in America

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Contrary to what you might have seen on your feed, #BlackOutTuesday - the social-media initiative started by record-industry executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas - is not just about posting a black square on Instagram and calling it a day.

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Meeting suffering where it is - a path to freedom.

Centering the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in our practices meets the suffering where it is and offers a path to freedom. A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic" is an offering by Marisela Gomez and Valerie Brown. We encourage all Order members to read and practice these Contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings.

A New Paradigm For Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic

By Marisela Gomez and Valerie Brown

Let us open to a new and deeper way of understanding the Five Mindfulness Trainings, guiding principles for mindful and ethical living, which call us toward individual and collective awakening, compassion, and peace. We are aware that we are interconnected. What happens in Wuhan, China affects people in New York City. What happens to the Black body affects all bodies. We are called forward.

The global pandemic is a gateway to suffering worldwide, disproportionately impacting Black people, indigenous, and people of color, who face poverty, sickness, displacement, and death. They, we are not alone. Our lives and livelihood are interconnected. We are called forward.

We cannot exist independent of low wage workers, health care workers, un-housed people, single mothers, undocumented people, the unemployed and underemployed. If one such person lives on the knife edge of racial, ethnic, social, structural, and systemic oppression and discrimination we are all affected. We are called forward.

The practitioner dwells in the now, recognizing equanimity and instability, discrimination and non-discrimination, ill-being and well-being, practicing right view and engaged through compassionate action. Aware of the cycle of racial, ethnic, and social inequities and discrimination, we courageously turn to practice wholeheartedly. We are called forward.

Lighting a stick of incense, listening to the sutras, sitting upright and solid, palms joined, the practitioner looks within and in concentration the path and fruit of skillful action is revealed. We are called forward.

Speak aloud these words with the sangha voice, a true river of understanding:

Acknowledging Beauty as Reverence for Life

Aware of the suffering caused by oppression and generational harm based on racial, cultural, social, and ethnic inferiority and superiority and its resultant structures of injustices and harm, I acknowledge the beauty and violence inherent in life. I vow to resist being complicit in systems and structures that continue to perpetuate violence and hatred instead of reverence of life for marginalized groups. I recognize that each person contributes to my individual and our collective awakening, and the co-creation of a world that celebrates and affirms differences and similarities. All living beings can teach me something, when I remember to pause, breathe, listen deeply with a calm and open mind and heart, and ask myself: 'is there more' or ' what else is here with me''?' I honor and respect all life guided by Right View and Right Energy.

Belonging and Connecting as True Happiness

Aware of the suffering caused by ignorance and aversion of my own and other's racial, ethnic, cultural, and social history, its legacy and how this affects me whether I am aware of it or not, I am committed to connecting to these histories. I know that turning toward these histories with an open heart is my journey of awakening to true belonging. I will take the time to learn the history of the racial and ethnic group with which I identify as well as for other socially constructed racial and ethnic groups. Aware that there is no genetic or biological difference between different racial and ethnic groups, and that these identities were constructed by one group to establish dominance over others, I will turn toward racial and other forms of othering with an open heart and compassionate action. I know that this history has led to fragmentation inside and outside body and mind and brought much suffering to all beings. I vow to transform this suffering through the practice of connecting with an open heart. I will notice when emotions of belonging and othering arise and I will ask myself 'why'? Whatever feelings, perceptions, or mental formations arise, I will embrace and when needed engage with love in action. I am committed to practicing Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood so I can help relieve this legacy of racial and social suffering. I will practice looking deeply to see that true happiness is not possible without true connecting leading to belonging and understanding.

Cherishment as True Love

Aware of the suffering caused by discrimination and oppression, I vow to understand its roots within my consciousness and my body and the collective body of the sangha and larger society. I vow to recognize the ways in which I have benefitted or not-benefitted explicitly or implicitly from systems and structures that foster discrimination and injustice. I am aware of the legacy of violence, especially unlawful police violence, perpetrated against Black people, indigenous people, people of color, differently abled people, people of various gender identities and expressions and sexual orientation, and others who are marginalized. I acknowledge the lived experience of all people to deepen my capacity for understanding and for greater compassionate action. I am aware that narrowly constructed, prevalent interpretations of intimate relationships constrain how we cherish each other in our expression of love, leaving many further isolated and alienated. I am committed to looking tenderly at my suffering, knowing that I am not separate from others and that the seeds of suffering contain the seeds of joy. I am not afraid of bold love that fosters justice and belonging and tender love that seeks peace and connection. I cherish myself and my suffering without discrimination. I cherish this body and mind as an act of healing for myself and for others. I cherish this breath. I cherish this moment. I cherish the liberation of all beings guided by the wisdom and solidity of the sangha. This is my path of true love.

Vulnerability as Loving Speech and Deep Listening

Aware that vulnerability is the essence of our true nature, our humanness, I vow to risk listening and speaking non-judgmentally with understanding and compassion to alleviate suffering and support peace in myself and others. I vow to live with empathy, compassion, and awareness and to listen for understanding rather than disagreement. When I've hurt others through my unskillful action or speech, I vow to practice making a good apology that acknowledges what I have done and offers sincere regret, knowing that this supports the other person and me. I am committed to speaking that aligns with my highest aspiration and encourages honesty and truthfulness. I am committed to generous and courageous listening that bridges differences and supports understanding of others who may be different from me. I am committed to taking meaningful steps to become a true instrument of peace and to help others to be the same. When I am not able to understand the experiences of others, I vow to come back to my breath and my body, and to offer myself gentle patience while learning to support myself in developing greater awareness and skill. I vow to practice awareness of my beliefs, perceptions, and feelings, aversions, and desires and to take refuge in mindful breathing and in the sangha to support greater stability, peace, and understanding. Through my practices of vulnerability, patience, forgiveness, and deeply listening, I know that my speech will be guided by love and understanding. Practicing in this way supports Right Speech and Right Action and guides me to Right Insight.

Welcoming as True Nourishing and Healing

Aware of the suffering caused by the consumption of an inadequate history of racial and ethnic forms of social segregation, I am committed to healing myself and the world by welcoming, and practicing with this awareness. I will notice how my thoughts, perceptions, feelings, words, and actions may have been influenced by this inaccurate history. I will look deeply to understand how both physical and mental health, for myself, my family, and my society have been influenced by embracing and denying this racial, social, and ethnic history of inferiority and superiority and its legacy of inequities and injustices. I will cultivate joy to support me toward individual and collective wholeness. I will practice mindfulness of the Four Kinds of Nutriments to become aware of how edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness are all influenced by this history. Practicing with Right Energy and Right Resolve, my Right Action of consumption will include awareness of certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations and how they continue to foster wrong perceptions of racial, ethnic, and social injustices. My understanding of interbeing supports my conscious consumption that sustains a healthy understanding of differences, one that does not oppress or discriminate. This Right Insight will preserve peace, joy, and bring healing in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth. To assure that my descendants do not live in a racially, ethnically, and socially unjust world, I commit to diligently practicing with true welcoming on this path to nourish and heal myself, the sangha, and society.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings keeps us centered in life's storms and joys and reminds us that life is a precious gift. The Trainings are a path to liberation and transformation. Practicing these Trainings supports us toward racial and ethnic reconciliation and social change and heals deep suffering. The Five Mindfulness Trainings helps us cross this shore of suffering and brings us to the side of true awakening and love

We are called forward.

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A New Paradigm For Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic

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Meeting suffering where it is - a path to freedom. Centering the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in our practices meets the suffering where it is and offers a path to freedom. A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic" is an offering by Marisela Gomez and Valerie Brown.

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Based on four retreats that Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh led specifically for people of color, this book is for people of all colors, backgrounds, and experiences who have ever felt excluded or alienated, or anyone concerned with issues of social justice. Although Together We Are One is based on teachings given to Buddhist practitioners of color, readers of all backgrounds and walks of life will find it an inspirational and practical guide.

In chapters focusing on honoring our ancestors, developing understanding and compassion, and seeing the world in terms of interbeing, Nhat Hanh shows how meditation and the practice of looking deeply can help create a sense of wholeness and connectedness with others. Chapters are interspersed with mindfulness practice exercises and the personal stories of skilled writers, such as Larry Ward (author of Love's Garden), Sr. Chan Khong (author of Learning True Love), and Rev. Hilda Ryumon Gutierrez Baldoquin (editor of Dharma Color and Culture), about their discovery of a spiritual path, their experience of finding balance, overcoming obstacles in an unpredictable world, and maintaining and sharing insights. Together We Are One is a valuable addition to the unique expression of Buddhism in the West.

As in all his writings, Thich Nhat Hanh does not suggest we replace traditional beliefs and customs with Buddhism, but rather emphasizes that a mindful approach to daily life and interactions can help overcome misperception and separation so that we might honor and transcend our differences. Nhat Hanh's primary focus highlights the basic how-to's of Buddhist practice, such as mindful walking and eating, the practice of Looking Deeply, and a never before published multicultural version of the Touching the Earth Ceremony, making them accessible possibilities for a better everyday life.

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Based on four retreats that Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh led specifically for people of color, this book is for people of all colors, backgrounds, and experiences who have ever felt excluded or alienated, or anyone concerned with issues of social justice. Although Together We Are One is based on teachings given to Buddhist practitioners...

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"We can't help ourselves begin to heal racialized trauma if don't even acknowledge that it exists."

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Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, has appeared on both The Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence.

He has served as director of counseling services for the Tubman Family Alliance; as behavioral health director for African American Family Services in Minneapolis; as a domestic violence counselor for Wilder Foundation; as a certified Military and Family Life Consultant for the U.S. Armed Forces; as a trauma consultant for the Minneapolis Public Schools; and as a Cultural Somatics consultant for the Minneapolis Police Department.

As a Community Care Counselor, he managed the wellness and counseling services for civilians on fifty-three US military bases in Afghanistan.

Resmaa studied and trained at Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, as well as with Dr. David Schnarch (author of the bestselling Passionate Marriage).

He currently teaches workshops on Cultural Somatics for audiences of African Americans, European Americans, and police officers. He is also a therapist in private practice.

Free Racialized Trauma 5-Day eCourse

Day 1: Welcome to the Racialized Trauma E-course and Trauma Basics

Define racialized trauma in clear, understandable language, and explore how it impacts the body.

Day 2: Black Body Trauma

Explore the how trauma impacts the black body, the history of enslavement, and the Hipp Theory.

Day 3: White Body Trauma

Explore the trauma of white body supremacy, its creation, and its impact on white and BIPOC bodies.

Day 4: Police Body Trauma

Explore the system of policing and how stress impacts policing organizations and communal relations.

Day 5: Communal Body Trauma

Explore how stress impacts police/community relations and what we can do as individuals to heal our communities.

Are you a justice leader on the front lines of change? You still believe in justice for all people and want to take your current organization to the next level-all while building a more balanced life, and creating a legacy you can be proud of.

Justice Leadership coaching partners with you find your own answers. No cookie cutter blueprint to follow; instead, Resmaa Menakem partners with you so that you discover your own unique justice vision and intelligence through structure, accountability and guidance.

MY GRANDMOTHER'S HANDS

The first self-discovery book to examine white body supremacy in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.
More about My Grandmother's Hands

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Free Racialized Trauma 5-Day eCourse Define racialized trauma in clear, understandable language, and explore how it impacts the body. Explore the how trauma impacts the black body, the history of enslavement, and the Hipp Theory. Explore the trauma of white body supremacy, its creation, and its impact on white and BIPOC bodies.

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#BLM How Can We Win? Kimberly Jones Powerful Speech Video Full Length Black Lives Matter #BLM 2020

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This is a working list of resources for addressing racial justice and implicit bias as a path of practice. If you have resources you would like to share, please Connect with us.

Resources From the Plum Village Community

Parallax Press - Books

Together We Are One by Thich Nhat Hanh (order from Parallax)

Dharma, Color and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism edited by Ryumon Hilda Gutierrez; includes an article by Kaira Jewel Lingo (order from Amazon)

Videos

"Where Spirit and Action Meet: Continuing the Legacy of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." event in NYC about the inter-being of spirituality and action in the struggle for racial justice, ABC Home, September 2015 (click to view)

Sacred Justice Retreat Question and Answer Panel at Blue Cliff Monastery, January 2016 (click to view)

Introduction to Racial Justice, Blue Cliff Wake Up Retreat, June 2016 (click to view)

ARISE presentation at Order of Interbeing Retreat, Blue Cliff Monastery, April 2017 (click to view)

"Mindful Resistance" three sessions of teachings and Dharma discussion led by teachers from the Thich Nhat Hanh community and other spiritual traditions, launched May 2017 (click to view)

Transcripts

Racial Equity Session at Deer Park's English Retreat, 2015 (download pdf)

Racial Justice Talk at Sangha Facilitators Gathering in Northern California, by Victoria Mausisa, July 2015 (download pdf)

Mindfulness Bell Articles

Autumn 2015 - "The Path of Racial and Social Equity" by Valerie Brown and Marisela Gomez (download pdf)

Autumn 2015 - "Turning Durians into True Love" by Sister Hai An (Sister Ocean) (download pdf)

Autumn 2015 - Beloved Community by Larry Ward (download pdf)

Autumn 2015 - Deep Listening by Joanne Friday (download pdf)

Articles by Marisela Gomez

"Listening is Sacred Activism," November 10, 2016 (click to view)

"Sacred Activism: Mindfulness and Racial Justice," September 10, 2016 (click to view)

"Recognizing and Healing Racism in Society and in Our Bodies: A Radical Act of Sacred Justice," January 5, 2017 (click to view)

"Staying woke: The courage to make change manifest in Baltimore," September 23, 2017 (click to view)

Resources From Other Communities

Websites

Books/Articles

Blackwell, Kelsey - Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People

McIntosh, Peggy - Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (pdf)

Yang, Larry - Awakening Together in Inquiring Mind, Vol 31/#2/Spring 2015 (pdf)

Alexander, Michelle - The New Jim Crow

Coates, Ta-Nehisi - Between the World and Me

DeGruy, Joy - Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

DiAngelo, Robin - What Does It Mean To Be White?

Feagin, Joe - The White Racial Frame

Kendall, Frances E. - Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to

Authentic Relationships Across Race

Kivel, Paul - Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work For Racial Justice

Lane, Alycee J. - Nonviolence Now

Manuel, Zenju Earthlyn - The Way of Tenderness: Awakening through Race, Sexuality,

Okun, Tema - The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teachings about Race and Racism to People Who Don't Want to Know

Powell, John - A Racing Towards Justice

Stevenson, Bryan -

Wilkerson, Isabel - The Warmth of Other Suns

Williams, Angel Kyodo - Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace

Vera A. Myers - Moving Diversity Forward published by the American Bar Association

Charts and Training Resources

Videos/DVDs

Podcasts

The Lotus Institute

On Being with Krista Tippett

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This is a working list of resources for addressing racial justice and implicit bias as a path of practice. If you have resources you would like to share, please Connect with us.

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You can't give me the right to be a human being

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You can't give me the right to be a human being

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Words from a formerly enslaved Black Elder, to a White man, John Henry Faulk,  "You know you still got the disease honey. I know you think you're cured  but you're not cured. You can't give me the right to be a human being. I born was with that right. Now, you can keep me from having that. If you got all the policemen, and all the jobs on your side, you can deprive me of it. But you can't give it to me, because I was born with it, just like you was."

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Dear Friends,

(The Dharma talk is posted below.... scroll down to skip to it)

We love you. We are here for you. We are crying with you. The world feels like it's on fire. As one of our newest board members, Samantha Rise, said, "I love you and I'm so sorry the world can't keep us safe. Things aren't getting worse, they're getting uncovered, and that is really ouchy stuff." We couldn't have said it better.
(Sam credits Adrienne Marie Brown, author of Emergent Strategy, with saying, "Things aren't getting worse, they're getting uncovered")
We are also practicing the revolutionary acts of self-care, cultivating joy, and slowing down. In a world that encourages us to speed up, be productive and consume constant trauma in the media, these are radical acts. We are reminded that the path is the destination; how we get to individual and collective liberation is what that liberation will look like.

I'm writing this post for Peggy and Larry because they just got back from the Remembering, Honoring and Celebrating with our Ancestors retreat in Mexico. They touched down into the loving arms of the Mexican sanghas after a whirlwind of teaching in Japan, followed by Peggy going to NM to settle on and unpack their new house while Larry went to NY to attend a gathering of Buddhist teachers of Black-African descent, then to Philadelphia to work on Lotus stuff, then to give a public talk. We wanted to give you some updates and share a new dharma talk sooner rather than later and they gave me the a oh k before publishing. Thanks for your patience!

Larry and I spent a week in Philadelphia with another board member and deep practitioner, Victoria Mausisa, working on new online course content for the Virtual Academy, podcast possibilities, 2019 POC retreat planning and preparing for the public talk. We discussed ways in which this uncovering of deeper layers of racism, sexism, misogyny, transphobia, colonialism and the patriarchy are revealing themselves as deeply entrenched patterns in self and society world-wide. We imagined ways to offer more teachings and practices to address these patterns in ourselves, our sanghas, and our local communities as the work of awakening. We balanced our talks with nourishing food, deep rest and visits to inspiring places like Amalagam Comics, one of the first African American female-owned comic book stores in the US. The week was deep and rich.

We were able to record Larry's talk in Philadelphia on America's Racial Karma (Pt 1 of a series). It was given to an audience of about 65 practitioners and organizers/activists and it's posted on our Soundcloud page (made possible by our awesome patrons!). The Soundcloud page is also the new home where private links to audio recordings of retreats will be posted for retreat participants. If you've attended a retreat with Lotus in the past 2 years you should get an email soon (if you haven't already) from your retreat coordinators with links to your recordings!

The America's Racial Karma talk is approximately 1hr 5min long and includes a guided meditation. Very relevant to what's happening in the world. Have a listen:

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America's Racial Karma Part 1 - The Lotus Institute

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Dear Friends, (The Dharma talk is posted below.... scroll down to skip to it) We love you. We are here for you. We are crying with you. The world feels like it's on fire. As one of our newest board members, Samantha Rise, said, "I love you and I'm so sorry the world can't keep us safe.

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Gatha for Healing Racial, Systemic and Social Inequity

Aware of the suffering caused by racial, systemic, and social inequities, we commit ourselves, individually and as a community, to understanding the roots of these inequities, and to transforming this suffering into compassion, understanding and love in action. As a global community of practitioners, we are aware of the disproportionate racial violence and oppression committed by institutions and by individuals, whether consciously or unconsciously, against African Americans, Indigenous peoples and people of color across the United States and beyond. We know that by looking deeply as individuals and as a community, we can engage the collective wisdom and energy of the Sangha to be our foundation for Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Mindfulness, and Right Insight. These are the practices leading to nondiscrimination, non-harming, and non-self which heal ourselves and the world.

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Aware of the suffering caused by racial, systemic, and social inequities, we commit ourselves, individually and as a community, to understanding the roots of these inequities, and to transforming this suffering into compassion, understanding and love in action.

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ARISE
June 20, 2020

As we acknowledge Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, the day that commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States, we return to the roots of our ancestors in celebration of the legacy and wholehearted work for liberation for all Black people. And, as we have seen by recent events and the growing movement for racial justice, there is more to do in order to bring peace and justice to our world. ARISE offers a Call to Love In Action, a Call to the Living and Engaged Dharma.
A Call to Love in Action
With a deep bow of gratitude to our Beloved teacher, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, to our ancestors and teachers, to the Vietnamese people, holding the roots of the Plum Village practice, and to practitioners worldwide, we offer this Call to Action: A Call to Love in Action, this Call to the Living and Engaged Dharma.

We 'say their names.' We mourn the brutal and shocking murder of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the death of countless other Black and Brown people whose lives have been taken by unlawful police violence.
We say their names. We say, Black Lives Matter.
In light of historical and recent police violence on Black communities, we are called forward as individuals in our practice and collectively in our mahasangha. The global pandemic and the shockingly high rates of mortality from COVID-19 among Black and Brown people have served to unmask the racial disparities that have long been documented. Marginalized people and Black people, in particular, have been systematically subjected to racist laws, policies, patterns of discrimination in education, housing, health care, employment, law enforcement, and a complex array of racialized impacts. These conditions compound suffering not only for Black people but for all people. The suffering of others is also the suffering of our own; no one is separate from Black and other marginalized communities: their suffering is our suffering.

As practitioners, we vow to alleviate the suffering of all beings. We hear the call of justice to lift up the beauty of Black lives, of Indigenous lives, of Latinx lives, of Asian lives, of immigrant lives, of differently abled lives, of economically fragile lives, of people of all gender expresssions, of those who live in fear of violence, hatred, and discrimination. We extend our hand and our heart in compassionate action. Let us infuse the energy of compassion with the energy of love in action toward engagement as part of our great vow to all beings.
We say justice and peace inter-are. If we want peace; we must take action for justice.
We are reminded of our teacher, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh's words: "Contemplative reflection on the suffering of living beings is not enough; we must help diminish suffering through compassionate involvement."
Frederick Douglass: "If there is no struggle there can be no progress."
We are reminded that our Plum Village tradition has roots in both great turmoil and compassionate action. During the war in Vietnam, in the 1960s-70s, our teacher, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, and early Order of Interbeing members helped war victims, organized demonstrations, printed books and leaflets, established the School of Youth for Social Service, developed self-help villages, and continued to rebuild villages after they were bombed. Thay wrote that this was dangerous work, where one could lose their life at any moment from a bomb or firefight, "but our hearts compelled us to go to the victims in these forbidden zones." As the continuation of our beloved Thay, our mahasangha must carry this legacy of compassionate action forward, by listening to the needs and guidance of those most harmed by this violence, and responding from a heart of love.

Like the cedar tree that grows straight and tall, that offers shade and life to all, we take refuge in the sangha's wisdom and energy of action in service of racial and social justice for all beings.

Today, we ARISE, call forward our multi-fold mahasangha to pause and act in the Living and Engaged Dharma. Let our outward actions be guided by a heart and mind that has looked inwardly at our own assumptions, fear, complicity; and developed openness, forgiveness, tenderness, and understanding. As we recognize the structures and systems of racial injustice and social oppression and take action to dismantle them, we begin with ourselves, our Sanghas, our communities. Join us in this Call to Love in Action grounded in the Dharma of love, Interbeing, compassion, and understanding.

As individuals and as a sangha, let us 'go as a river' together toward greater justice and peace. This is our path:
As Individuals
A. Turning inward to pause and take good care of our body, heart and mind

1. Regular, restful sleep

2. Daily exercise, mindful movement

3. Healthy eating

4. Dancing, listening to music, creating art, being in nature etc

5. Nourishing sharing with loved ones and strangers

B. Renewing and gladdening our minds with the deep, healing, and powerful teachings of our practice

1. Daily sitting and walking meditation

2. Touching the Earth Practices

3. Deep Relaxation

4. Gratitude Practice

5. Reciting the 5 Mindfulness Trainings (5 MTs) and the new "Contemplations on the 5 MTs: A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic"

6. Fourteen Verses on Meditation

C. Deepening our understanding of the historical roots of our collective and individual relationship with each other

D. Looking deeply with courage into the pain of racial injustice and social oppression for transformation and liberation

E. Embracing our Second Body practice, in pairs or small groups, and with guidance from ARISE training and materials and the sangha's wisdom, to support one another in uncovering and healing the white racist conditioning that we have all internalized. Recognizing that understanding racial socialization and conditioning is a lifelong process of inquiry, reflection, and engagement that requires accountability and cannot be done in a vacuum. Beginning this process, not waiting for 'perfect conditions,' while seeking support within the sangha is critical.
As a Community, Our Sanghas
A. ARISE Racial and Equity Training (in process) is supported by Plum Village

Training, for lay and monastic sangha facilitators, and the mahasangha generally, in understanding white supremacy and racial justice, etc.

B. Annual Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)/Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME)/the Global Majority retreats at all US monasteries

In the larger mahasangha, Black and Brown people report not feeling 'seen' and feeling 'excluded,' further deepening isolation and alienation. Due to the lack of Black and Brown people in our multi-foldmahasangha, retreats that offer a safer place for BIPOC to reconnect with each other and invite in vulnerability for racial healing is necessary

C. Change to the Order of interbeing (OI) aspirant and Dharma Teacher (DT) selection process

Due to the gross underrepresentation of Black and Brown people in the Order of Interbeing (OI) and among Dharma Teachers (DTs) and monastics, a renewed and re-imagined process to address the structural disadvantages, policies, and practices that inhibit Black and Brown people from these roles. [Refer to Appendices]

D. ARISE is included among the Plum Village (PV) officially recognized groups

1. Black and Brown people turning toward/or questioning whether to remain with PV as a spiritual practice tradition will feel that our tradition understands their history and legacy of racism

2. With the support of PV, our 85% majority white lay community will come to understand that PV is intentional about looking into and addressing the lack of Black and Brown people in our sanghas

E. Resources, spaces for BIPOC/BAME sanghas, teachers and monastics.

1. Support for monastics of African-American, Indigenous, Latinx, minority-ethnic ancestry to heal the cultural and generational trauma from racism, colonialism and other forms of marginalizations.

2. Support for BIPOC/BAME lay practitioners and sanghas to heal the cultural and generational trauma from racism and colonialism, and other forms of marginalizations.

F. Resources, spaces for White sanghas, teachers and monastics, and for the Vietnamese monastic community

1. Support for White monastics and lay friends to heal the cultural and generational trauma from White privilege and White fragility within a history and legacy of racism and colonialism, and other forms of marginalizations.

2. Support for our Vietnamese monastic and lay communities to heal cultural and generational trauma

As a Society
A. Engaging mindfully in peaceful protest that challenges the systems and structures of racial injustice and colonialism locally, nationally, globally

B. Engaging mindfully in letter writing campaigns, petitions, and testimony that challenge policies, laws, and institutionalization of systems and structures of racial injustice and colonialism locally, nationally, globally

C. Engaging mindfully in letter writing campaigns, petitions, and testimony that offer alternative ways (e.g. redistribution of income such as Basic Income Guaranteed) for us to bring about racial equity, justice, and reconciliation in our communities (workplace, schools, housing, healthcare, transportation, recreation)

D. Propose solutions for alternatives leading away from local and national undue forceful policing including, for example:

1. Demilitarize domestic policing - the United States has increased its use of war-zone tactics and equipment in police departments over the years (which is unconstitutional)

2. Redesign police departments, dismantle those departments with officers charged with undue police force

3. Establish Civilian Review boards empowered to stop undue, forceful policing

4. Systematic re-training of policing in regard to racial justice and equity, community relations, trauma-informed policing

5. Divest police departments/reinvest funds in health and social services that address issues of behavioral health, truancy, homelessness, addiction, domestic violence, mental health (which have fallen into the domain of 'policing' due to underfunding)

6. Create a database of all undue police force leading to injury and death accessible to legal and public health departments

7. Stronger laws against immunity from liability, offer other legal standards to bring lawsuits against unlawful police conduct, and laws to address security checks and clearance of police officers

8. Fund education, affordable housing, health, recreation, transportation, vocational training in historically redlined and marginalized communities.

9. Reframe racial violence and its constellation of issues as a public health crisis.

10. Cultivate awareness of the School to Prison pipeline

We are called forward to lift up Black lives and Black voices, knowing that we are lifting up all lives and all voices. Our grief is a Dharma door. Our compassionate action is the raft to the shore of liberation. Our spiritual practice and deep listening invites the compassionate energy of Avalokiteshvara, the clear seeing of Manjushri, the fearless action of Kshitigarbha, to ourselves and others. This means creating and yielding spaces for people of color in Sangha and in affinity groups. This means centering people of color and those at the intersections of marginalized groups.

Not until we begin and continue this internal and external work can we reach individual and collective understanding, compassion, and liberation. This is the mud in the lotus. This is a true manifestation of Love in Action and the Living and Engaged Dharma.

A deep bow,

ARISE Sangha
Awakening Through Race, Intersectionality and Social Equity

Albert Karcher
Anne Woods
Antoinette González
Sr. Clear Grace
Sr. Hai An
Kat Liu
Mairsela Gomez
Renita Wong
Valerie Brown
Victoria Mausisa

Resources:
How to Fight Without Hating: Lessons and Power in Love
How to Practice when the Fires of Grief are Burning
ARISE Resources
Appendices:
ARISE 2017 POC OI/Dharma Teacher Proposal
ARISE 2018 Letter to North America Dharma Teachers Council (NADTC) on Creating Inclusive Community
ARISE recommendations to NADTC for OI aspirancy process 2020
Valerie Brown's recommendations to NADTC for OI aspirancy process 2020

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ARISEJune 20, 2020 As we acknowledge Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, the day that commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States, we return to the roots of our ancestors in celebration of the legacy and wholehearted work for liberation for all Black people.

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Expanded Version by the Plum Village Fourfold Sangha

In gratitude I bow to this land and to all of the ancestors who made it available. (Bell, all touch the earth).

I see that I am whole, protected, and nourished by this land and all of the living beings that have been here and made life easy and possible for me through all their efforts. I see all those known and unknown who have made this country a refuge for people of so many origins and colors, by their talent, perseverance, and love-those who have worked hard to build schools, hospitals, bridges, and roads; to protect human rights; to develop science and technology; and to fight for freedom and social justice. (Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)

I touch my African American and descendant ancestors, you who were enslaved and brought to this land, who poured your blood, sweat, and tears on this land, whose unrewarded labor helped make this country an economic world power. (Bell, all touch the earth).

I am in touch with the crippling violence and inhumanity that my African American ancestors faced every day, the loss of your land, language, culture, family, and freedom, and how you al- ways found ways to resist, to subvert oppression, to maintain your humanity, through soulful singing, prayer, humor, slave revolts, communities of escaped slaves, as well as through political struggle, a strong commitment to education, and economic empowerment. I aspire to pre- serve, nourish, and pass on your strength, patience, perseverance, love, forgiveness, humility, your creativity and innovation in agriculture, inventions, history, music, dance, art, the sciences, sports, oratory, literature, religion, civil and human rights activism, and community spirit. (Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)

I touch my Asian American and Pacific Islander ancestors of this land, those of you from the Philippines, China, Japan, Korea, India, Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. (Bell, all touch the earth).

I am in touch with you who courageously survived the devastation of war, colonialism, and dis- placement from our ancestral homelands and who carved a graceful new path amidst the turmoil of dislocation and discrimination. I touch your experiences of Chinese and South Indian indentured servitude, Japanese-American internment camps, anti-Asian exclusion laws, labor exploitation, land dispossession and contamination, refugee camps, family separation, hate crimes, and assimilation. I touch your sacrifice and contribution to the economic success of this land through your underpaid labor in gold mines, farms, and canneries along the Pacific Coast, your work in the dangerous construction oftranscontinental railroads, and your many innovations in agriculture, textiles, manufacturing, and technology throughout this land. I honor the ways that you preserved your body, mind, and spirit through music, poetry, literature, food, culture, com- munity, and interracial solidarity. I aspire to preserve, nourish, and pass on your patience, perseverance, determination, respect for ancestors and elders, commitment to youth and family, education, arts, and your painstaking care to maintain culture, language, and religion for future generations. (Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)

I touch my European American ancestors, you who came to this land to find freedom from political and religious oppression and poverty, who came seeking a new vision of society. (Bell, all touch the earth).

I touch the deep insight and compassion of these ancestors: the Quakers, Abolitionists, peace activists, and the great conservationists. I am aware that many of you European American ancestors lost your fortunes and even your lives to resist the oppression of people of color. At the same time, I touch the great suffering experienced by some of you in my ancestry who were misguided in their views, whose belief in your superiority led to the decimation of Native peoples, the horrors of slavery, and the exclusion of people of color. I pour all this suffering on the earth and ask the earth to help me transform it into wisdom and compassion. I aspire to pre- serve, nourish, and pass on your courage in coming to an unfamiliar land, your strong faith and commitment to democracy, your perseverance, respect for the arts and ingenuity. (Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)
I touch my Latina and Latino ancestors of this land, you who are the children of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the Spanish colonizers, some who for centuries lived on and built up roughly half of the present day U.S., and some who immigrated from Central and South America more recently. (Bell, all touch the earth).
I touch the blood, sweat, and tears you have poured on to this land as farm laborers, skilled artisans, teachers, politicians, architects, and activists. I am in touch with the suffering of my Latina/o ancestors due to war and racist policies, like the deportation of two million Mexican American U.S. citizens during the Depression, and the continued targeting and deportation of immigrants south of the US border, as well as loss of land and culture. I am in touch with the United Farm Workers movement to end dehumanizing conditions for migrant workers, and I feel this collective energy, courage, intelligence, and dedication nourishing and supporting me to also do my part. I aspire to preserve, nourish, and pass on your strength, patience, perseverance, love, forgiveness, humility, humor, your creativity and innovation in the arts, your tradition of nourishing food and taking care of family. (Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)

I touch my Native American ancestors, you who have lived on this land for such a long time and known the ways to live in peace and harmony with nature, protecting the mountains, forests, animals, plants, and minerals. (Bell, all touch the earth).

I am grateful for all the foods that you, our ancestors have cultivated to nourish us today, and for the Iroquois contribution to our system of government. I am in touch with the pro-found suffering of my Native American ancestors: genocide, displacement, racism, and separation from homeland, culture, religion, food, dance, and songs. I deeply honor the bravery and leadership that has al-lowed our people to survive and thrive, and I am humbled by the brilliance of our cultural renewal, the resilience of our traditions, and our deep generosity over the past five hundred years. I release our suffering to the earth and ask the earth, sky, water, and fire to help me transform it into wisdom and compassion. I aspire to preserve, nourish, and pass your medicine, ingenuity, humor, courage, dignity, clarity, compassion, art, culture, traditions of cooperation, and selfless service to the community. (Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)

I touch my Middle Eastern, Arab, and Northern African ancestors, including those from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan. (Bell, all touch the earth).

I am in touch with you who came as slaves in the 16th century, you who sought refuge from war and injustice and you who migrated for a better life. I am grateful for you who joined other immigrants in providing much-needed labor that helped transform the United States from a semi-agricultural society into one of the world's most advanced industrial powers. I deeply honor my ancestors who enriched the economic, political and cultural landscape of American life and the scientists, engineers, and doctors who contributed to the making of a great America. I am grateful for all the foods that you, our ancestors have shared with America from a generous spirit, the beautiful tapestry and art, and your priority of education, entrepreneurship, family and extended family support, and respect for our elders. I am in touch with the pro-found suffering of my Northern African, Middle Eastern and Arab ancestors from wars in their homelands and the current day suffering of their descendants. I am in touch with the way this historic and current day suffering may at times manifest in unskillful actions leading to wrong perceptions and persecution of our beautiful culture and religions. I release our suffering to the earth and ask the earth, sky, water, and fire to help me transform it into wisdom and compassion. I aspire to preserve, nourish, and pass your bravery, your perseverance, generosity, your religions and languages, your ingenuity, clarity, art, culture, foods, traditions of cooperation and family loyalty

(Bell, all stand up. Take three breaths.)

I feel the energy of this land penetrating my body, mind, and soul, supporting and accepting me. I vow to cultivate and maintain this energy and to transmit it to future generations. I vow to contribute my part in transforming the violence, hatred and delusion that still lie deep in the collective consciousness of this society-in all ethnic groups-so that future generations will have more safety, joy, and peace. I ask this land for its protection and support.

(End with three sounds of the bell.)

Revisions: August 2019
Aug2019.Touching the Earth to Our Ancestors - ShortV PDF

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Expanded Version by the Plum Village Fourfold Sangha In gratitude I bow to this land and to all of the ancestors who made it available. (Bell, all touch the earth). I see that I am whole, protected, and nourished by this land and all of the living beings that have been here and made life easy and possible for me through all their efforts.

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When an excerpt from Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love & Liberation first appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of Buddhadharma Magazine in the special issue titled "Free the Dharma: Race, Power and White Privilege in American Buddhism," it couldn't have come at a more critical moment

The summer before the national elections set the tone and content that the final contenders would focus on. Racial justice, compassion and bridging the false divisions stirred by rhetoric of anger and hatred would be high on the agenda of what people, especially Buddhist, yoga, faith and spirit-centered communities were talking about.
Radical Dharma is a powerful and vulnerable circle held by three Dharma practitioners who are people of color. It is a beautiful and rare invitation to listen to how each transformed their pain. Some of this is familiar...and some of this, for white people, will be new: What does it look like to truly sit with the pain caused by racism in your body? Radical Dharma demands that we step into the circle and ask: How do we restore our humanity? How do we transform ourselves and the world? - Marianne Manilov, Co-founder, Engage Network
http://mariannemanilov.co

Radical Dharma is about igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening. Radical Dharma was born for the awareness of people of color and everyone for putting light on the injustice because of racism.

Radical Dharma is a clear, honest testimony of the heart from three leaders of our time. You may not always see things just as they do (I didn't) or even feel like you fully understand it all (again, I didn't) but that makes it even more important to read. -Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness
http://sharonsalzberg.com

We are at a critical moment in the history of the nation as well as within the Buddhist teaching and tradition in America. This is the "back of the bus" moment of our time. Fifty years after civil rights laws were laid down, it is clear that these laws were enshrined within a structure that continues to profit from anti-Black racism. The necessary bias that the system requires in order to perpetuate itself has permeated our sanghas, and in this very moment, Buddhists are called upon to put aside business as usual. If you have ever wondered how you would have shown up in the face of the challenge put before white America when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, upending the accepted social order, now is when you will find out. Will we actually embody our practice and teachings-or not? It is a clarifying moment about who we are as individuals and who we have been thus far as a collective of people laying claim to the teachings of the Buddha, waving the flag of wisdom and compassion all the while.

Radical Dharma is both radical ... and courageous. The authors build upon the growing understanding of the connection between personal and societal liberation. Radical Dharma unflinchingly turns this lens to this most challenging and critical nexus of racism and white supremacy...Take the invitation!-Robert Gass, EdD, Co-founder, Rockwood Leadership Institute and Social Transformation Project
http://sacredunion.com/

White folks' particular reluctance to acknowledge their impact as a collective, while continuing to benefit from the construct of the collective, leaves a wound intact without a dressing. The air needed to breathe through forgiveness is smothered. Healing is suspended for all. Truth is necessary for reconciliation....Will we as Buddhists express the promise of, and commitment to, liberation for all beings, or will we instead continue a hyper-individualized salvation model--the myth of meritocracy-that is also the foundation of this country's untruth?

The work of dharma communities is the same work of the America that wants to live up to its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is to kick the habit of racism, cultural dominance, and upholding oppressive systems. More poignantly, our challenge, our responsibility, our deep resounding call is to be at the forefront of this overdue evolutionary thrust forward. Why? Because we chose to position ourselves as the standard-bearers of an ethical high ground. And we have the tools and teachings to do so.

This is a book to grow on, to deepen over, to partner with. We are on a magnificent journey of liberation, every moment we are alive in this odd place that has yet to awaken to itself. And we are always, generation to generation, ready to travel. How cool is this?-Alice Walker, American Novelist & Poet
http://alicewalkersgarden.com
From Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love & Liberation
"Once you are aware of how you are being policed, you can begin the process of self-liberating-this time from a place that recognizes the mutuality of our liberation rather than suffering under the delusion that you are doing something for me. There's an intimacy in that realization. And because dharma is ultimately about accepting what is, it can undermine the need for control that keeps you invested in the policing of my body-thus freeing yours...

White dharma practitioners who are unable to acknowledge the pain caused by decades of resistance to addressing this misalignment will be exposed-they will no longer be able to use a veneer of dharma as window dressing while milking the benefits of the system. Their veil of mindfulness will be seen through as thin, and their once-wise words, henceforth, will land with a thud.

No one group, community, or institution has the answer, but each of us can call forth the willingness to offer our best, claim responsibility for our worst, and fold it all into the continuous moment-to-moment practice of simply being present to what is."

This is a moving and crucial book for anyone interested in the flourishing of the dharma in the West. Read it, sit with it and then get off the cushion and do something radical to make a difference. -Cheryl A. Giles, Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling at Harvard Divinity School
http://hds.harvard.edu/people/cheryl-a-giles

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Radical Dharma: Talking Race Love and Liberation | angel Kyodo williams

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Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening.

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Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," depicting Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend an all white elementary school in the South.

Artwork approved by The Norman Rockwell Family Agency.

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We spent five months at a high school in Chicago where in the last year 29 current and recent students were shot.

Ira speaks with New York Times Magazine Reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones about her years reporting on education and the various kinds of school reforms administrators have tried to close the achievement gap that never seem to work. Nikole says there's one reform that people have pretty much given up on, despite a lot of evidence that it works - school integration. (11 minutes)

Nikole Hannah-Jones reports on a school district that accidentally stumbled on an integration program in recent years. It's the Normandy School District in Normandy, Missouri. Normandy is on the border of Ferguson, Missouri, and the district includes the high school that Michael Brown attended. (30 minutes)

Nikole Hannah-Jones' story on the Normandy school district from the first part of the show continues. (14 minutes)

Nikole also wrote about Normandy for ProPublica, and she wrote an incredibly memorable story about choosing a school for her own daughter for The New York Times.

And Elisa Crouch's article in St Louis Dispatch that documented the day in the life of one Normandy senior is here.

Favorite stories by our longtime contributor and friend David Rakoff.

We spent five months at a high school in Chicago where in the last year 29 current and recent students were shot.

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The Problem We All Live With - Part One - This American Life

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There's one thing that has been proven to cut the achievement gap between black and white students by half: integration.

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Showing up for Racial Justice

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Awakening through Race, Intersectionality, and Social Equity

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It is time for the United States of America to pay its debt.

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In 2017, Race Forward united with the Center for Social Inclusion. Founded in 1981, Race Forward brings systemic analysis and an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity. Founded in 2002, the Center for Social Inclusion catalyzed community, government, and other institutions to dismantle structural racial inequity and create equitable outcomes for all. Race Forward is home to the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a national network of local government working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all. Race Forward publishes the daily news site Colorlines and presents Facing Race, the country's largest multiracial conference on racial justice.

OUR MISSION

Race Forward catalyzes movement building for racial justice. In partnership with communities, organizations, and sectors, we build strategies to advance racial justice in our policies, institutions, and culture.

OUR VISION

Race Forward imagines a just, multiracial, democratic society, free from oppression and exploitation, in which people of color thrive with power and purpose.

CORE VALUES

Organizational values play a very important role in social justice organizations as they clarify the core beliefs of the organization and help support the vision and shape the culture. Race Forward has adopted the following organizational values:

People of Color.
We value the voices, experiences, cultures, intellect, talent, and multi-dimensionality of people of color.

Racial Justice.
We value movements that build towards a society that is free of racial hierarchy; a society where all people, including people of color, have the dignity, resources, power, and self-determination to fully thrive.

Multiracial Democracy.
We value the process of centering those most impacted by systemic racism to define and determine the policies and institutions that impact us all.

Liberation.
We value the freedom of all people from oppression.

Solidarity.
We value bridge-building amongst a variety of people, organizations, sectors, and movements to multiply our efforts towards racial justice.

Emergence.
We value the adaptability of local communities who are developing transformative solutions for racial justice in the face of changing environments.

Expression.
We value authentic personal, community, cultural, and artistic expression, especially when it is difficult, uncomfortable, unpopular, or risky.

Joy.
We value making space for laughter, beauty, and celebration in the work of social change.

WHAT WE DO

Research: Race Forward Research conducts cutting edge, original and broadly accessible research on pressing racial justice issues focused on the significance of race to social and economic outcomes in our society. Race Forward Research seeks to provide evidence of the entrenched and systemic barriers to racial justice. While our research acknowledges the impact that individual acts of racism have on people of color, we primarily seek to contextualize them within a deeper, structural analysis of racial injustice. Underpinning our rigorous research is the belief that a true understanding of racial justice issues requires an explicit, though not exclusive, examination of race and ethnicity. Race Forward's Research agenda is built around understanding how race compounds and intersects with other societal issues. At Race Forward, we refer to this intersectional approach as "race and ..." In addition to developing original research and data on pressing race issues, Race Forward Research also highlights ways to nurture and strengthen social change.

Media: Race Forward Media encompasses the various ways we push forward the conversation on race in the media. Race Forward's primary media product is Colorlines, an award-winning, daily news site where race matters. Colorlines brings a critical racial lens to its journalism, as it covers breaking news, offers context and analysis for fast-moving stories and digs deeper with investigative reporting. Race Forward Media's work is guided by the importance of storytelling, whether it's a story that shows the personal impact on a specific person or family or a story of the broader societal impact of unjust policies. Through Colorlines and broader initiatives, Race Forward leverages the robust power of multimedia through the creation of original videos, infographics, and other visual platforms to amplify its work. Finally, given that Race Forward's leaders and staff are widely regarded as experts on race, Race Forward Media promotes racial justice through appearances and interviews in broadcast, print, and online media.

Practice: Race Forward Practice supports advocacy and action on complex racial justice issues in several ways. Our work includes mobilization, skill-building, leadership development, organization- and alliance-building, issue-framing, messaging, and advancing solutions. Through the Race Forward Racial Justice Leadership Action Network, we provide targeted online and in-person training and consulting services in these areas. We also provide a team of seasoned speakers who can address public audiences on a range of racial justice issues. Race Forward also organizes the Facing Race National Conference, the largest national, multiracial gathering on racial justice. This biennial conference features talks, panels, workshops, films, and performances by established and rising leaders in the racial justice arena and brings together advocates, students, academics, journalists, community organizers and leaders, and artists. From time to time, Race Forward spearheads and engages in action-oriented campaigns. A key example is our Drop the I-Word Campaign, which seeks to eliminate the widespread usage of the inhumane and derogatory word "illegal" in reference to immigrants, demonstrating the links between racially charged language and racially unjust policies.

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In 2017, Race Forward united with the Center for Social Inclusion. Founded in 1981, Race Forward brings systemic analysis and an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity. Founded in 2002, the Center for Social Inclusion catalyzed community, government, and other institutions to dismantle structural racial inequity and create equitable outcomes for all.

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We acknowledge that we are on Duwamish / Coast Salish Tribal land. The peoples and cultures of these tribes are still here, surviving and thriving in spite of hundreds of years of colonization and attempted genocide. We honor their strength and resilience.
Visit DuwamishTribe.org to Learn More

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We acknowledge that we are on Duwamish / Coast Salish Tribal land. The peoples and cultures of these tribes are still here, surviving and thriving in spite of hundreds of years of colonization and attempted genocide. We honor their strength and resilience. Visit DuwamishTribe.org to Learn More

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Ava DuVernay: Writer, Producer, Director and Distributor of Independent Film.

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The secret to changing the world | Lee Mun Wah | TEDxExpressionCollege

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"The Color of Fear:  Part Two" by Documentary Film Director, Lee Mun Wah:  Movie Trailer

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I'm Not Racist... Am I? - Host a Workshop

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In the early 2000's Krista Tippet interviewed Larry, Cheri Maples and Thich Nhat Hanh at a retreat attended by police officers and other members of the criminal justice system. She released the interviews as an episode of the OnBeing podcast entitled Mindfulness, Suffering, and Engaged Buddhism. The following is Larry's interview:

For the full interview with Thich Nhat Hanh, Larry and Cheri Maples listen here:

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Being Peace In A World of Trauma: Krista Tippet (Onbeing) interview with Larry Ward - The Lotus Institute

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In the early 2000's Krista Tippet interviewed Larry, Cheri Maples and Thich Nhat Hanh at a retreat attended by police officers and other members of the criminal justice system. She released the interviews as an episode of the OnBeing podcast entitled Mindfulness, Suffering, and Engaged Buddhism.

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André Robert Lee and his sister grew up in the ghettos of Philadelphia. Their mother struggled to support them by putting strings in the waistbands of track pants and swimsuits in a local factory. When André was 14 years old, he received what his family believed to be a golden ticket - a full scholarship to attend one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country. Elite education was André's way up and out, but at what price? Yes, the exorbitant tuition was covered, but this new world cost him and his family much more than anyone could have anticipated.

In The Prep School Negro, André takes a journey back in time to revisit the events of his adolescence while also spending time with present-day prep school students of color and their classmates to see how much has really changed inside the ivory tower. What he discovers along the way is the poignant and unapologetic truth about who really pays the consequences for yesterday's accelerated desegregation and today's racial naiveté.

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André Robert Lee and his sister grew up in the ghettos of Philadelphia. Their mother struggled to support them by putting strings in the waistbands of track pants and swimsuits in a local factory.

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"Coates balances the horrors of slavery against the fantastical. He extends the idea of the gifts of the disenfranchised to include a kind of superpower. But The Water Dancer is very much its own book, and its gestures toward otherworldliness remain grounded. In the end, it is a novel interested in the psychological effects of slavery, a grief that Coates is especially adept at parsing. . . . In Coates's world, an embrace can be a revelation, rare and astonishing." -Esi Edugyan, The New York Times Book Review

"The most surprising thing about The Water Dancer may be its unambiguous narrative ambition. This isn't a typical first novel. . . . The Water Dancer is a jeroboam of a book, a crowd-pleasing exercise in breakneck and often occult storytelling that tonally resembles the work of Stephen King as much as it does the work of Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead and the touchstone African-American science-fiction writer Octavia Butler. . . . It is flecked with forms of wonder-working that push at the boundaries of what we still seem to be calling magical realism." -Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"While neither polemical nor wholly fantastical, the story draws on skills [Coates] developed in those other genres. . . . The story's bracing realism is periodically overcome by the mist of fantasy. The result is a budding superhero discovering the dimensions of his power within the confines of a historical novel that critiques the function of racial oppression. . . . Coates isn't dropping supernatural garnish onto The Water Dancer any more than Toni Morrison sends a ghost whooshing through Beloved for cheap thrills. Instead, Coates's fantastical elements are deeply integral to his novel, a way of representing something larger and more profound than the confines of realism could contain." -The Washington Post

"Mythic language pervades the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates. . . . With The Water Dancer . . . we pay witness to a writer unchained . . . a writer finally able to marry novelistic tendencies to the form. . . . The fistfuls of firmament Coates is able to bring back to us are a wonder to behold. . . . The horrors depicted never felt rote or part of any genre rulebook. In highlighting families, Coates made his characters individuals. . . . Elements of the adventure novel, of the heist novel, of the romance are all there. But Coates expertly subverts the expectations each of those labels carries. . . . The book does not lack for scene-stealers. . . . Who is he talking to when he demands remembering? He's talking to us. All of us." -Tochi Onyebuchi, Tordotcom

"Studied and meticulous, the novel is a slave narrative that depicts the quotidian horrors of family separation. Even so, it's remarkably tender: The Water Dancer is also a romance." -The Atlantic

"An experience in taking [Toni] Morrison's 'chances for liberation' literally: What if memory had the power to transport enslaved people to freedom?' . . . The most moving part of The Water Dancer [is] the possibility it offers of an alternate history. . . . The book's most poignant and painful gift is the temporary fantasy that all the people who leaped off slave ships and into the Atlantic were not drowning themselves in terror and anguish, but going home." -NPR

"An electrifying, inventive novel . . . [Coates] loses none of his mastery for conveying complex ideas and blending a deep knowledge of American history with scintillating wordsmanship. . . . His craft shows on every page. He gives this story-and these men and women-the care and space they demand and deserve. . . . A haunting adventure story told through the tough lens of history, The Water Dancer is a quintessentially American story of self-creation, doubt, and elevation." -The Boston Globe

"The best writers-the best storytellers, in particular-possess the enchanting, irresistible power to take the reader somewhere else. Ta-Nehisi Coates imagines the furthest reach of that power as a means to transcend borders and bondage in The Water Dancer, a spellbinding look at the impact of slavery that uses meticulously researched history and hard-won magic to further illuminate this country's original sin. . . . Exploring the loaded issues of race and slavery has become yet more fuel for today's culture wars, but an underlying message of liberation through the embrace of history forms the true subject of The Water Dancer. . . . Coates envisions the transcendent potential in acknowledging and retelling stories of trauma from the past as a means out of darkness. With recent family separations at the U.S. border, this message feels all the more timely." -Los Angeles Times

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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates: 9780399590597 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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"Coates balances the horrors of slavery against the fantastical. He extends the idea of the gifts of the disenfranchised to include a kind of superpower. But The Water Dancer is very much its own book, and its gestures toward otherworldliness remain grounded.

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The Color of Fear (Part One)
PAY PER VIEW Streaming Option
(see various rental periods below)

The Color of Fear (Part One) is an insightful, groundbreaking film about the state of race relations in America as seen through the eyes of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino and African descent. In a series of intelligent, emotional and dramatic confrontations the men reveal the pain and scars that racism has caused them. What emerges is a deeper sense of understanding and trust. This is the dialogue most of us fear, but hope will happen sometime in our lifetime. (1994, 90 minutes, closed captioned) To purchase this film in DVD format, please visit the StirFry Seminars Store.

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The Color of Fear (Part One) PAY PER VIEW Streaming Option (see various rental periods below) The Color of Fear (Part One) is an insightful, groundbreaking film about the state of race relations in America as seen through the eyes of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino and African descent.

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Trailer

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"The Color of Fear:  Part One" by Documentary Film Director, Lee Mun Wah:  Movie Trailer

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I've Been Meaning to Tell You by David Chariandy | Penguin Random House Canada

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In the tradition of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, acclaimed novelist David Chariandy's latest is an intimate and profoundly beautiful meditation on the politics of race today.

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"A soul-nourishing pleasure . . . an enormous gift."

"By turns alarming, sad and funny . . . not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author's remarkable mother." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a comic's origin story better than the one Trevor Noah serves up in Born a Crime. . . . Witty truth-telling . . . brilliant comedy." -O: The Oprah Magazine
"Remarkable . . . smart . . . extraordinary . . . essential reading on every level."
"[Noah] thrives with the help of his astonishingly fearless mother. . . . Their fierce bond makes this story soar."

"When I think of Trevor Noah, the first image I see is from his brilliant memoir, Born a Crime, of Trevor's mother throwing him out of a moving vehicle while he's asleep in order to save his life. Through other eyes this could be remembered as traumatic and harrowing. Through Trevor's it is bonding and hilarious, a testament to the love of someone who truly had to think on their feet. That is how Trevor sees the world. A fantastic storyteller, he has always been a defier of rules, which he broke simply by being born in his native country."
"Noah's not the main character in his own story-his mother is the constant . . . and by the end, Noah lovingly makes clear that the book belongs to her. . . . Noah proves to be a gifted storyteller, able to deftly lace his poignant tales with amusing irony." -Entertainment Weekly

"[An] unforgettable memoir."

"This isn't your average comic-writes-a-memoir: It's a unique look at a man who is a product of his culture-and a nuanced look at a part of the world whose people have known dark times easily pushed aside." -Refinery29

"[Noah's] electrifying memoir sparkles with funny stories . . . and his candid and compassionate essays deepen our perception of the complexities of race, gender, and class." -Booklist (starred review)

"Powerful prose . . . told through stories and vignettes that are sharply observed, deftly conveyed and consistently candid. Growing organically from them is an affecting investigation of identity, ethnicity, language, masculinity, nationality and, most of all, humanity." -Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

"[Noah's] story of surviving-and thriving-is mind-blowing." -Cosmopolitan

"Noah has a real tale to tell, and he tells it well. . . . Among the many virtues of Born a Crime is a frank and telling portrait of life in South Africa during the 1980s and '90s."

"An affecting memoir, Born a Crime [is] a love letter to his mother."

"Witty and revealing . . . Noah's story is the story of modern South Africa." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Born a Crime by Trevor Noah: 9780399588198 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * More than one million copies sold! A "brilliant" (Lupita Nyong'o, Time), "poignant" (Entertainment Weekly), "soul-nourishing"...

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The Warmth of Other Suns - The Great Migration of Blacks who fled the horrors of the South

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The Warmth of Other Suns - The Great Migration of Blacks who fled the horrors of the South

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Powerful combination of narrative - follows the lives of three migrants of the Great Migration from the South to the Harlem, Chicago, and L.A - .and historical documentation of folks like Jesse Owens whose name was altered by the Whites from J.C. because they couldn't understand him.

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The Tiny Chef by Rachel Larsen, Adam Reid, Ozi Akturk: 9780593115053 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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The Tiny Chef, a small herbivore with an enormous heart, goes on a quest to find his missing recipe book in this irresistible debut from the creators of @TheTinyChefShow. Our debut book adventure finds...

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"Alexander puts the entire criminal justice system on trial, exposing racial discrimination from lawmaking to policing to the denial of voting rights to ex-prisoners. This bestseller struck the spark that would eventually light the fire of Black Lives Matter." ~ Ibram X. Kendi, The New York Times

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"I've been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, like Coates's journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory. This is required reading." -Toni Morrison

"Powerful and passionate . . . profoundly moving . . . a searing meditation on what it means to be black in America today." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Really powerful and emotional." -John Legend, The Wall Street Journal

"Extraordinary . . . [Coates] writes an impassioned letter to his teenage son-a letter both loving and full of a parent's dread-counseling him on the history of American violence against the black body, the young African-American's extreme vulnerability to wrongful arrest, police violence, and disproportionate incarceration." -David Remnick, The New Yorker

"Brilliant . . . a riveting meditation on the state of race in America . . . [Coates] is firing on all cylinders, and it is something to behold: a mature writer entirely consumed by a momentous subject and working at the extreme of his considerable powers at the very moment national events most conform to his vision." -The Washington Post

"An eloquent blend of history, reportage, and memoir written in the tradition of James Baldwin with echoes of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man . . . It is less a typical memoir of a particular time and place than an autobiography of the black body in America. . . . Coates writes with tenderness, especially of his wife, child, and extended family, and with frankness. . . . Coates's success, in this book and elsewhere, is due to his lucidity and innate dignity, his respect for himself and for others. He refuses to preach or talk down to white readers or to plead for acceptance: He never wonders why we just can't all get along. He knows government policies make getting along near impossible." -The Boston Globe

"For someone who proudly calls himself an atheist, Coates gives us a whole lot of 'Can I get an amen?' in this slim and essential volume of familial joy and rigorous struggle. . . . [He] has become the most sought-after public intellectual on the issue of race in America, with good reason. Between the World and Me . . . is at once a magnification and a distillation of our existence as black people in a country we were not meant to survive. It is a straight tribute to our strength, endurance and grace. . . . [Coates] speaks resolutely and vividly to all of black America." -Los Angeles Times

"A crucial book during this moment of generational awakening." -The New Yorker

"A work that's both titanic and timely, Between the World and Me is the latest essential reading in America's social canon." -Entertainment Weekly

"Coates delivers a beautiful lyrical call for consciousness in the face of racial discrimination in America. . . . Between the World and Me is in the same mode of The Fire Next Time; it is a book designed to wake you up. . . . An exhortation against blindness." -The Guardian

"Coates has crafted a deeply moving and poignant letter to his own son. . . . [His] book is a compelling mix of history, analysis and memoir. Between the World and Me is a much-needed artifact to document the times we are living in [from] one of the leading public intellectuals of our generation. . . . The experience of having a sage elder speak directly to you in such lyrical, gorgeous prose-language bursting with the revelatory thought and love of black life-is a beautiful thing."

"Rife with love, sadness, anger and struggle, Between the World and Me charts a path through the American gauntlet for both the black child who will inevitably walk the world alone and for the black parent who must let that child walk away."

"Poignant, revelatory and exceedingly wise, Between the World and Me is an essential clarion call to our collective conscience. We ignore it at our own peril." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Masterfully written . . . powerful storytelling." -New York Post

"One of the most riveting and heartfelt books to appear in some time . . . The book achieves a level of clarity and eloquence reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's classic Invisible Man. . . . The perspective [Coates] brings to American life is one that no responsible citizen or serious scholar can safely ignore." -Foreign Affairs

"Urgent, lyrical, and devastating in its precision, Coates has penned a new classic of our time."

"Powerful." -The Economist

"A work of rare beauty and revelatory honesty . . . Between the World and Me is a love letter written in a moral emergency, one that Coates exposes with the precision of an autopsy and the force of an exorcism. . . . Coates is frequently lauded as one of America's most important writers on the subject of race today, but this in fact undersells him: Coates is one of America's most important writers on the subject of America today. . . . [He's] a polymath whose breadth of knowledge on matters ranging from literature to pop culture to French philosophy to the Civil War bleeds through every page of his book, distilled into profound moments of discovery, immensely erudite but never showy."

"The most important book I've read in years . . . an illuminating, edifying, educational, inspiring experience." -Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

"It's an indescribably enlightening, enraging, important document about being black in America today. Coates is perhaps the best we have, and this book is perhaps the best he's ever been."

"Vital reading at this moment in America." -U.S. News & World Report

"[Coates] has crafted a highly provocative, thoughtfully presented, and beautifully written narrative. . . . Much of what Coates writes may be difficult for a majority of Americans to process, but that's the incisive wisdom of it. Read it, think about it, take a deep breath and read it again. The spirit of James Baldwin lives within its pages." -The Christian Science Monitor

"Part memoir, part diary, and wholly necessary, it is precisely the document this country needs right now." -New Republic

"A moving testament to what it means to be black and an American in our troubled age . . . Between the World and Me feels of-the-moment, but like James Baldwin's celebrated 1963 treatise The Fire Next Time, it stands to become a classic on the subject of race in America." -The Seattle Times

"Riveting . . . Coates delivers a fiery soliloquy dissecting the tradition of the erasure of African-Americans beginning with the deeply personal." -Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[ Between the World and Me] is not a Pollyanna, coming-of-age memoir about how idyllic life was growing up in America. It is raw. It is searing. . . . [It's] a book that should be read and shared by everyone, as it is a story that painfully and honestly explores the age-old question of what it means to grow up black and male in America." -The Baltimore Sun

"A searing indictment of America's legacy of violence, institutional and otherwise, against blacks." -Chicago Tribune

"I know that this book is addressed to the author's son, and by obvious analogy to all boys and young men of color as they pass, inexorably, into harm's way. I hope that I will be forgiven, then, for feeling that Ta-Nehisi Coates was speaking to me, too, one father to another, teaching me that real courage is the courage to be vulnerable, to admit having fallen short of the mark, to stay open-hearted and curious in the face of hate and lies, to remain skeptical when there is so much comfort in easy belief, to acknowledge the limits of our power to protect our children from harm and, hardest of all, to see how the burden of our need to protect becomes a burden on them, one that we must, sooner or later, have the wisdom and the awful courage to surrender." -Michael Chabon

"Ta-Nehisi Coates is the James Baldwin of our era, and this is his cri de coeur. A brilliant thinker at the top of his powers, he has distilled four hundred years of history and his own anguish and wisdom into a prayer for his beloved son and an invocation to the conscience of his country. Between the World and Me is an instant classic and a gift to us all." -Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: 9780812993547 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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"I've been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, like Coates's journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory.

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The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this provocative, new three-hour series by California Newsreel claims. Race - The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth. 

Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn't exist in biology doesn't mean it isn't very

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RACE - The Power of an Illusion | Race Literacy Quiz

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RACE LITERACY QUIZ What differences make a difference? The Race Literacy Quiz was developed by California Newsreel, in association with the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The myths and misconceptions it raises are explored in the documentary series RACE - The Power of an Illusion, available on video from California Newsreel at www.newsreel.org or 1-877-811-7495.

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Liberate Meditation App for Black Indigenous and People of Color

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Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons is an award winning psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, where she studies sex, social justice, and leadership - all with a love ethic. She is the founding director of the Center for Healing Racial Trauma. You can connect with her at drcandicenicole.com or www.centerforhealingracialtrauma.com.

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Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons - Liberate Meditation App for Black Indigenous and People of Color

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Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons is an award winning psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, where she studies sex, social justice, and leadership - all with a love ethic. She is the founding director of the Center for Healing Racial Trauma.

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Liberate Meditation App for Black Indigenous and People of Color

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Bhantes Buddharakkhita

Bhante Buddharakkhita, one of the first Buddhist monks in Africa, was born and raised in Uganda. Meditating since 1993, he was ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk in 2002. Now residing at Bhavana Society in WV, he teaches worldwide and in 2005 founded the Uganda Buddhist Centre. He is also the spiritual advisor of Flowering Lotus in Mississippi and author of Planting Dhamma Seeds: The Emergence of Buddhism in Africa.

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Bhantes Buddharakkhita - Liberate Meditation App for Black Indigenous and People of Color

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Bhantes Buddharakkhita Bhante Buddharakkhita, one of the first Buddhist monks in Africa, was born and raised in Uganda. Meditating since 1993, he was ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk in 2002. Now residing at Bhavana Society in WV, he teaches worldwide and in 2005 founded the Uganda Buddhist Centre.

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People of Color and Allies Sitting and Discussion Group

First Sunday of Every Month, 11-12:30

1001 N. Main St. Downtown Los Angeles
**We are still meeting by holding virtual classes. Please see button below to join virtually at appropriate time.
This is a meditation group for people of color and their allies interested in using the Buddhist principles of mindfulness and compassion to help work with and understand better the many painful issues that people of color encounter in America.

This group, led by JoAnna Hardy, invites guest speakers to share their wisdom and experience on topics that are pertinent and immediate in the country today.

This is open to all who care about the future of racial issues in America, not just Buddhist practitioners.

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First Sunday of Every Month, 11-12:30 1001 N. Main St. Downtown Los Angeles **We are still meeting by holding virtual classes. Please see button below to join virtually at appropriate time.

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(learn) In this recorded Dharma talk, Professor and Founder and Abbot of the Uganda Buddhist Center Bhante Buddarakkhita provides guidance for making wise decisions.

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Bhante Buddharakkhita - More Dhamma Less Drama