I have to be honest: I haven’t felt like writing the last few weeks. There’s certainly a lot that has happened in the world around, and a few things in my smaller world, that are worth talking about. And beyond that, I have other things I’d like to share with you.
However, it feels wrong to just continue with the usual things I fill my newsletter up with, and ignore the world at large. And as for that larger world and the momentous events we’ve found ourselves in, I feel that I am a wholly unqualified voice to really discuss them, at least not within the constraints of a newsletter.
It’s clear that there is something at work right now, something bigger than protests before. What their ultimate outcome will be remains to be seen, and its possible the gains will be limited to little beyond what has already been accomplished. And with the uncertainty caused by the weak economy and the pandemic that shows no end in sight, its uncertain what still awaits us, good or bad.
So what to do? I wish I knew, and although I have my own thoughts, it does little good to harangue or lecture all of you. So instead I’ll leave you with a few recommendations of books and movies. This is nowhere near exhaustive, and I have much more learning myself to do, but these would be good starting points to understand what exactly is at work, and can challenge some of our assumptions.
Books/Letters/Speeches
“What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July” by Frederick Douglass
The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B Du Bois
The Slaves Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha
Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips
”Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Movies / Documentaries
Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee
Selma and 13th by Ava DuVernay
If Beale Street Could Talk by Barry Jenkins
Wikipedia Articles
New York City Draft Riots of 1863