Have a Safe Weekend.

Thank you Cup of Jo team for leaning into this important topic, being in the arena and not being afraid to join so many on this journey of learning and seeing.

CoJ,

On this post, I had a weird pic/ad pop up on my screen of a scary-looking white dude smoking a cigarette… and then it disappeared.
I know you’ve recently asked people to tell you about the ads that are problematic.

Thanks- you can delete this comment after you read it.

Hey, here’ s a super great open letter from some wise folks re: the SS/CNN Town Hall and the deep and honest (AND accessible to kids when explained well) systemic/white supremacy component that was glaringly missing from the event: https://medium.com/@maharani428/an-open-letter-regarding-the-cnn-sesame-street-town-hall-on-racism-2d5602716fc0

xo

Of course there are so many excellent documentaries surfacing now but this one is essential for everyone particularly if you have children!!

A Class Divided (full film) | FRONTLINE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcCLm_LwpE&feature=emb_title

I went on a deep dive watching every related video and interview about the amazing Jane Elliot. How could the US Dept of Edu have missed this huge key??

Here are two other video’s featuring her project:

How Racist Are You? – Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqv9k3jbtYU

brown eye blue eye, Jane Elliott
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPZEJHJPwIw

Great resources. thank you for all the work you are putting into this.
I would like to recommend Krista Tippett’s On Being interview with Resmaa Menakem, “Notice the Rage, Notice the Silence”. I’ve never heard anybody else talk about racial trauma this way and I found it profound.

Through all of this, I think it’s important to look at all sides. Someone sent me the YouTube video below and I was not expecting it. This shouldn’t change your plans for inclusivity, education, support, etc. It’s just another perspective to share — whether you agree or not, it’s still thought provoking.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-2N2w4d0N0w&feature=youtu.be

There’s now an addendum to the DC street mural done by protestors – https://twitter.com/treeaston/status/1269631462351032322?s=20

Again, just saying it is great to see COJ using its platform for the greater good. Resource sharing is a wonderful first step, and I can’t wait to see what steps / action items COJ staff are taking. One tangible way to bring your readers into the action would be hiring a trained POC facilitator to lead a reading group on something like White Fragility. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for being the best, always listening and doing the research, and standing up for justice, Cup of Jo. <3

I typically only ever read comments on Cup of Jo (as opposed to other blogs) because I always get new insights and information. This is no exception. The point about the DC mural and art washing is something I may never have come to know had it not been for these comments. So thank you everyone that pointed that out. Again proving the comments are always worthwhile on CoJ. ❤️

Just watched “13th”, it is powerful. Every body must watch it! 25% of the people incarcerated, in the world, are in the USA. It’s very interesting to understand that there is a business going on around jails. Also, that the vast majority of accused people accept a deal instead of a trial. That was so eye-opening. Thank you for the reference.

Saw 13th come up on my Netflix yesterday, will have to watch!

Your content this week has been really bolstering to see, and really thoughtful. Please keep it up! Also, the donation-matching you did was so inspiring I decided to do that with my friends and family. We donated $2000 to black-led organizations supporting black communities in 3 days. And it doesn’t stop here.

Joanna and team, thank you so much for all that you’ve done this past week to show solidarity and also educate yourselves and your readers. I’m one of your black readers, and this place is such a haven on the internet.

This has been such a hard few weeks. And seeing the unrest has given me hope, but it’s also all so triggering. My boyfriend (a beautiful black man) has had insomnia, and I’ve been struggling to eat. We both see therapists for the race related weight we carry, so we are fortunate enough to be taken care of. But my gosh, this has just been so much harder than we thought it would be. We’ve been staying inside because we don’t feel safe outside, ordering our groceries in, sewing a lot (we are working on a clothing line together), and loving each other lots.

Thank you for being a big voice in advocating on our behalf. You’re doing your best and I can see it.

It means a lot.

I listened to an interview with DeRay McKesson this week, and want to share his platform #8cantwait from Campaign Zero, which researches ways to end police brutality: https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision. And thank you everyone for your comments. I hadn’t thought about the mural in that way.

I also want to highly recommend the documentary “Say Her Name” The Life and Death of Sandra Bland. Tragic, so frightening and so unbelievably wrong what happened to her, her family and loved ones and all POC and their interactions with our justice system or better said lack of a justice system.

I appreciate you using your platform for this.

I do also hope in sharing that comment, CoJ has been paying for their Instagram education.

Well done on providing a week’s focus on such an important issue.

I appreciate that you have long lifted up the voices of people of color. I recommend you take a look at the thoughtful commentary of my friend, the artist Jen Hewett, who has had a large and faithful Instagram following for some years. She saw an uptick in followers over the past couple weeks, and has some nuanced, complex thoughts about why it makes her uneasy to be on the receiving end of “positive” social activism through Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CBDxxv_JJwh/

I just appreciate this blog so much. Thank you for embracing these really heartbreaking times with so much care.

In regards to cookbooks: I LOVE “Vegan Soul Kitchen” by Bryant Terry and had been waiting for “Vegetable Kingdom” to be released, I’m excited that it’s now available! Terry’s recipes are delicious and unique and his writing style is so comforting. On top of that, he’s just an all around awesome human being who is an active advocate for food justice and sustainability. I highly recommend!

This Beautiful Mural reminds me of “The Floating Piers” by Christo & Jean Claude. The bold yellow color, over-sized scale and clear destination. And also the message. “Like all our projects,The Floating Piers was absolutely free and open to the public,” said Christo. “There were no tickets, no openings, no reservations and no owners.The Floating Piers were an extension of the street and belonged to everyone.” (From their website)
I’ve written about it in my latest post: https://www.brokendesign.com/post/black-lives-matter
Art is a powerful way to convey a message!

The systemic racism video is helpful, but limited. It could lead one to believe that education spending alone is the solution when, for example in Georgia, per pupil spending is not correlated to test scores. Instead, we must start to think about whole neighborhoods being the unit of change. Neighborhoods are the very places where the racists policies and other public and private actions of the last 100+ years have resulted in concentrations of poverty, disinvestment, and sources of toxic stress that affect the developing brains of young children (yes, all this racism shows up in the genetic expression of children). (For an exhaustive list of these policies, see Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law.) Long-term affordability must be preserved (and there are ways to do this), but if you change the conditions in a neighborhood, you can change the life trajectory for the children who are born into it.

Furthering the annotation on the “13th” documentary: the film’s value has more to do with its content on social inequities perpetuated by the American prison system rather than its production value. Also, it’s directed by Ava DuVernay, a critically acclaimed, Black, female director. Let’s make sure we check to see who is producing the information we are hungrily digesting in this space!

Cup of Jo, thank you choosing to disseminate this information.

This is a great roundup! I hope we hear more from other BIPOC voices in the coming weeks. It would be wonderful to see Ashley Ford around these parts again, but also to hear from other new voices.