Category: Race, Identity, and History

Why I stand – or rather choose to sit – with Colin Kaepernick

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized1 Comment

Kaepernick-Tomsula-benched-09-28-15

By Patrick O’Neill- co-founder of the Fr. Charles Mulholland Catholic Worker House, an intentional, pacifist community that provides hospitality to people in crisis. Reposted from News Observer.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is teaching us all an important civics lesson: Freedom is not free. The term, usually reserved to support war, can also be applied to the price Kaepernick is paying for his decision not to stand and sing the national anthem at NFL games as a protest of police killings of African-Americans. Continue reading “Why I stand – or rather choose to sit – with Colin Kaepernick” →

The Moral Revival

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

william barberBy Will O’Brien

Several of us attended the “Repairers of the Breach” Moral Revival Tour with Rev. William Barber when it rolled into town on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention on July 25. Will O’Brien write the following short reflection (originally published on the Red Letter Christians blog.)

The Friends Central Meeting on Cherry Street in Center City Philadelphia has probably never reeled and rocked like it did on Monday night. Rev. William Barber from the Moral Mondays campaign in North Carolina brought his Moral Revival Tour to our city, slyly scheduling it just as the Democratic National Convention was starting to convene a few miles south at the Wells Fargo Center. Lots of spirited singing, praying, and mighty preaching, all geared toward the prophetic vision of justice. Continue reading “The Moral Revival” →

Guns

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

gunBy Joyce Hollyday

I learned about the power of guns when I was nine years old. I had a red felt cowgirl hat that tightened with a white cord under my chin, a holster made of stamped fake leather, and two toy metal six-shooters. When I waved them around shouting “Bang, bang!” I imagined myself out in The Wild West among the saloon owners and cattle rustlers I saw on TV—someplace like Texas. Continue reading “Guns” →

Silence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized1 Comment
geez black lives matter
“White Silence Kills” Theresa Zettner and Midwest Catholic Workers shut down baseball traffic calling for Justice for Jamar in Minneapolis.

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

An attempt to grasp for words when it feels like there aren’t any.

I’ve never seen
A gun.
never
up close
In my face.
Never seen one drawn
In threat
Or aim
Or play
Or hunt
Never heard the trigger
Or felt the fear.
It is my privilege upon privilege upon privilege. Continue reading “Silence” →

Indigenous solidarity through a Muslim lens: A conversation with frontline defender Anushka Azadi

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized2 Comments

tumblr_inline_o29xpdDMv41twf2ub_500Re-posted from Breaking the Fast

Thanks so much Anushka for taking the time to talk with Breaking the Fast (BTF).

BTF: Let’s start with introductions. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Anushka: My name is Anushka. I am a frontline defender and legal advocate, broadcast journalist, writer, performer, community organizer and all around bad bitch.

BTF: How did you come to doing work with Indigenous land defenders? When did you start? 

Anushka: As an immigrant to so-called Canada, growing up in poverty and fear, in pain and confusion, made me deeply aware of and sensitive to the intersecting oppressions that twisted up, not only my life, but the lives of others as well. I began understanding words like systemic, institutional and I began to understand the horrors that accompanied what was taught to me as the rise of civilization: industrialization, capitalism/free market economies, “democracy”.  Continue reading “Indigenous solidarity through a Muslim lens: A conversation with frontline defender Anushka Azadi” →

The Color of Orange

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment
dee dee
Mural on the side of Benjamin Franklin High School. Photo by Charles Fox

By Dee Dee Risher

 

My son, sixteen, knows her son, eighteen.
My (white) son, sixteen,
knows her (black) son, eighteen.
So we all know that what we are
reading in the paper–
the statement by the school district–
is a lie. I am a poet, so I want to write
something true
even though it is not official and will not be believed.

 

(I am white, and I finished college on a full scholarship from a top university,
so I have been conditioned to expect that what I say
will be listened to.
This is the background of this poem.
This is the foreground of this poem.
This is why the school district spokesman will be believed
and her son (eighteen, black, five feet four, eleventh grade) will not be believed
even though his body carries the evidence.) Continue reading “The Color of Orange” →

UNDRIP, Christians, and Climate Justice

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

book 2.jpgBy Laurel Dykstra. This piece is part of a new anthology- Wrongs to Rights: How Churches can Engage the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

I am the priest of Salal and Cedar a community in the lower Fraser/Salish Sea watershed whose mission is to grow Christian’s capacity to work for environmental justice. In the language of the global Anglican communion, what we do is “strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Continue reading “UNDRIP, Christians, and Climate Justice” →