An Invitation from Peace and Social Concerns

In Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to be an Antiracist, he says, “Antiracism is a powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equality and are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” Join the Peace and Social Concerns Committee in an examination of racist ideas and policies with a goal of moving our thinking and actions toward an antiracist future.

Meet with us on Zoom on the following Tuesdays at 7:00:

September 15 – Where are you in your journey toward antiracism? What are you reading and thinking about? Where do you see, through reading or lived experience, racism in our society and our communities? Have you had new insights into the way systemic racism has played out in our country?

Readings: Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic, June 2014. Nikole Hannah-Jones, What Is Owed, NYTimes, June 26, 2020.  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story (TED Talk). Leonard Pitts, The Appraisal of How Little a Black Life Is Worth Begins at Birth

October 6 – Where do we see change happening? What do you understand about making change happen? Can attitudes and beliefs be changed or is policy the route to change? Does changed policy lead to changed attitudes and beliefs?

Readings: Zona Douthit, OK, Boomer, It’s Time To Fund Reparations, Friends Journal, September 1, 2020. Parker Palmer, The Broken Open Heart, Weavings, March/April 2009.  

October 27 – Where are you feeling called to act? What is your leading at this time? Do you feel complicit? How? What would lead you being more antiracist?

Readings: Catherine Besteman and Joseph N. Jackson, Maine Voices: Want to help remedy racial inequity in Maine? Here are places to start, Portland Press Herald, June 13, 2020. Bill Brown, What Do Quakers Owe Blacks? Tools for Racial Justice, July 2002.

November 17 – Hold the date for a possible follow-up discussion

**Please prepare for the first discussion by reading one or both of the double-starred articles on the list below. Both are available on the Durham Meeting website. We recommend other readings in addition (see list below), particularly Ibram X. Kendi’s book.

•  *How to be an Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi
• The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
• So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
• White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
• The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson
• Cast: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson
• Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Me and White Supremacy, by Layla F. Saad
• The Color of Law, by Richard Rothsein
• Waking Up White, Debby Irving
• The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
• The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
• **The Case for Reparations, by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic Monthly 6/2014
• **What is Owed, by Nikole Hannah-Jones in the New York Times Magazine 6/24/2020
• America’s Enduring Cast System, in the New York Times Magazine 7/1/2020

Links to other readings are on the Peace and Social Concerns page of the Durham Friends Meeting website.)