Who We Are
"Our world is not divided by race,
Color, gender, or religion.
Our world is divided into
Wise people and fools.
And fools divide themselves by
Race, color, gender or religion."
- Nelson Mandela
When First Plymouth voted to declare itself a Racial Equity Congregation in 2019, there was no way to predict that 2020 would present the double challenge of COVID-19 and the full exposure of systemic racism at the same time. We view this as an opportunity to increase our efforts for action toward the goal of true equity among all peoples.
In the words of Ibram X. Kendi, this translates to outcome advocacy.
“What if, instead of a feelings advocacy, we had an outcome advocacy that put equitable outcomes before our guilt and anguish? What if we focused our human and fiscal resources on changing power and policy to actually make society, not just our feelings, better?”
How You Can Participate
In October 2020, the Racial Equity Team hosted two Adult Forums on the subject of racial justice: “Difficult Conversations About Racial Justice” and “Reparations.” You can watch those here. You can find additional resources about Reparations here.
For more information about the Racial Equity Team, please contact Deborah Arca at RET@firstplymouthchurch.org.
Resources
TO READ
- A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations by Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer, August 13, 2020
- A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations 2 by Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer, September 17, 2020
- Being Brown While Black Lives Matter by Rev. Dr. Miguel De La Torre, August 29, 2015
- Black Women’s Faith, Black Women’s Flourishing by Eboni Marshall Turman, February 28, 2019
- Blackface Is Just One Part of the Problem by Jamil Smith, February 4, 2019
- Confronting #WhiteSupremacy With #RevolutionaryLove by Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D., August 13, 2017
- DACA, Harvey, and Charlottesville: This Is An Emergency by Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D., September 8, 2017
- Freedom Day, 1963: A Lost Interview with James Baldwin by Fern Marja Eckman, September 22, 2020
- I Am Black, and Black Lives Matter by Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D., August 10, 2015
- Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr., April 16, 1963
- Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations by David Brooks, New York Times, November 19, 2020
- Profiling Act by Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D., August 10, 2015
- Race, Money and Politics: Connecting Some Dots by Rev. John Janka, April 6, 2016
- Reckoning With Violence by Michelle Alexander, March 3, 2019
- Stop Blaming History for Your All-White, All-Male Movie by Aisha Harris, February 6, 2020
- The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones (NYT), August 2019
- The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates, June 2014
- The Day I Learned I was White by Lee Habeeb, Newsweek, November 10, 2020
- The Fight Over the 1619 Project is Not About Facts by Adam Serwer, December 23, 2019
- The Fight to Redefine Racism by Kelefa Sanneh, August 12, 2019
- The Heresy of White Christianity by Chris Hedges, December 10, 2018
- What America owes: How reparations would look and who would pay, by Samara Lynn and Catherine Thorbecke, September 27, 2020
- Why Jews Should Support Reparations for Slavery by Rabbi Sharon Brous, March 7, 2018
- America's Original Sin, Jim Wallis
-
Anxious to Talk about It: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully about Race, Carolyn B. Helsel
- Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley
- Beloved, Toni Morrison
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Borderlands, by Gloria Anzaldúa
- Can We Talk About Race?, Beverly Tatum
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson
- Citizen, Claudia Rankine
- Coming Together in the 21st Century, Curtiss DeYoung
- Dismantling Racism, Joseph Barnett
- How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, Austin Channing Brown
- Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
- Race Matters, Cornel West
- Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
- Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, Kelly Brown Douglas
- The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone
- The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
- The Loving Story, Nancy Buirski
- The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
- The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
- White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo
- White Rage, Carol Anderson
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
- Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama
- AGES 0-3:
-
- The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
- Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o
- Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi
- AGES 3-5:
- Saturday by Oge Mora
- Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry
- I Am Enough by Grace Byers
- AGES 5-8:
- Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
- The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson
- Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
- The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
- AGES 9-12:
- Resist: 35 Profiles of Ordinary People Who Rose Up Against Tyranny and Injustice by Veronica Chambers
- Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham
- Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Brian Pinkney and Andrea Davis Pinkney
- The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore
- AGES 12+:
- All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
- Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults) by Bryan Stevenson
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene A Carruthers
- No Ashes in the Fire by Darnell L Moore
- No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies by E. Patrick Johnson
- Black On Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
TO WATCH
- Sunday, October 25, 2020 Adult Forum: Reparations
-
Sunday, October 11, 2020 Adult Forum: Difficult Conversations about Racial Justice
- 13th, directed by Ava Duvernay (Youtube or Netflix)
- Driving While Black: Space and Mobility in America, airing on PBS through November 10, 2020
- Love Wins Over Hate, airing on Rocky Mountain PBS October 29 through November 4: see the schedule here.
- Traces of the Trade on Vimeo
- Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee (Amazon Prime Video)
- Fruitvale Station, directed by Ryan Coogler (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix)
- Loving, directed by Jeff Nichols (Amazon Prime Video)
- Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins
- BlackKklansman, directed by Spike Lee (Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play)
- Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele
- If Beale Street Could Talk, directed by Barry Jenkins (Amazon Prime Video)
- Just Mercy, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Youtube, or Amazon Prime Video)
- Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay (Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, iTunes)
- The Hate U Give, directed by George Tillman Jr. (Hulu)
- An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter
- The Symbols of Systemic Racism - and How to Take Away Their Power
- Dear White People (Netflix)
- When They See Us (Netflix)
- Atlanta (on FX or Hulu)
- Watchmen (HBO)
- Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, YouTube series by Emmanual Acho
TO LISTEN TO
- 1619 Podcast, New York Times
- Hope and Hard Pills
- Learning How to See, with Brian McLaren, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Richard Rohr.
- Nice White Parents, New York Times
- Seeing White, Scene On Radio
- The Nod
- The Stoop
- Women. Talk. God.
- #StayWoke by Otis Moss III
- 400 Years: A Reflection on Liberty by Jacqui Lewis
- A Conversation on Race by Traci Blackmon
- Holy Blackness: The Matrix of Creation by Wil Gafney
- What’s Love Got to Do with It? by Jacqui Lewis
TO GET INVOLVED!
- Denver Foundation Reparations Affinity Group
- Denver Black Reparations Council
- Reparations4slavery.com – note: this site has links to national Black-led reparations groups plus interviews with people involved in the reparations movement, trending reparations news, a bi-monthly newsletter, and steps white people can take to get involved in the reparations movement.
- Kellogg Foundation report, “The Business Case for Racial Equity”
- A September 2020 study by Citi GPS shows that not addressing the racial gaps between Blacks and whites has cost the U.S. economy up to $16 trillion just in the last 20 years. This is not only a historical problem, but one that limits everyone still.
- https://www.citivelocity.com/citigps/closing-the-racial-inequality-gaps/