2020 was supposed to be a year of clear vision, of plans plotted and goals achieved. There was optimism. There was renewed creative energy and political movement. And then…

Since the arrival and prolonged sojourning of COVID-19 in America, we’ve been through a series of challenges: contagion and containment; restricted movement; business closures; adaptation to home working environments and for many balancing other household members; pivoting work plans, coping with furloughs and firings and frozen futures; and working to get that curve flattened by wearing masks, ordering delivery and wiping down surfaces, and keeping our distance from friends and even loved ones. That was bad. It was frustrating and depressing and isolating. And then…

Here we are. Isolated. Depressed. Frustrated. Angry. In deep pain. Fractured and fragmented, as individuals and society. Uncertain. Untrusting. Off-kilter. Frightened. Feeling the pull between staying safe and taking action. And now?

I have come to realize how little I know about how deeply enmeshed racism is in America. And I want to learn more so that I can do more.

I’ve asked trusted friends to recommend resources–online content, books, people to follow on social media–and will share them and relevant/interesting quotes here on an ongoing basis as I read/watch/listen/consume them, even if they raise some complicated issues. (And many of these sources may have a Jewish element to them, as that’s the community from which I hail.) My hope is to keep myself centered on this issue in the days ahead, and track things that have been helpful to me and may be helpful for others.

June 2, 2020

READ: “Believe Us”: Black Jews Respond to the George Floyd Protests, in Their Own Words (JTA.org)

  • White Jews who are reaching out to black Jews asking what can be done is “a step forward and it’s good, but it’s asking more of us as Jews of color to not only figure out how to maintain our jobs and do additional leadership and activism in this moment, but then also being asked to support and manage white Jews’ work during a time in which many of us are traumatized and heartbroken.”
  • “We need more from our white Jewish siblings, and more from our Jewish institutions — we need support, allyship, resources, and strategies to confront racism in our community, and in our world.”

SUBSCRIBED: The Tribe Herald, Multicultural Media

June 3, 2020

FOLLOWED: 13 Jews of Color to follow on Twitter (via Kveller)

June 4, 2020

WATCHED: John Boyega George Floyd protest London speech in full: Star Wars actor’s powerful Hyde Park message

READ: KC Ifeanyi commentary on what’s missing from the speech: an emphasis on protecting black women and black transmen (Fast Company)

  • “Uplifting and supporting black women, especially within our own community, is paramount. And Boyega was wise to give such a reminder in front of a rapt and mostly black audience. However, I’d like to put a finer point on what Boyega said: Black women, cis and trans, need to be protected and honored in the community—and also within the scope of the larger movement.”
  • “It’s a hard-to-ignore fact: The death of cis black men tends to garner more media coverage and attention on social media than the deaths of cis, and especially trans, black women and men. To some, it may seem like a grimmest splitting of hairs, but the erasure of black women and black trans-men within the larger push for black equality has to be checked.”

READ & STILL PUZZLING OVER: Anti-racist Reading Lists: Who are they for? (Vulture)

  • “I suppose the anti-racism reading list is exactly for that person, the person who asks for it. And yet the person who has to ask can hardly be trusted in a self-directed course of study, not if their yearning for gentle education also happens to coincide with their earliest exposure to books written by people who are not white. Anti-racism reading lists fail such a person, for they are already predisposed to read black art zoologically. Whether the stories are fact or fiction is irrelevant — no one either knows or cares why certain writers express themselves in certain forms at certain times.”

READ & STILL THINKING ABOUT: Stories from the Tribe Herald

June 5, 2020

WATCHED: Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein’s takeover of Mayim Bialik’s social channels, an amplification of his conversation about being an “undercover brother,” a mixed-race person, and how we can help to fight for racial equity.

More resources–and posts related to and unrelated to racism in America–to come.