Image by Eric
1. Signs of Justice, “Visual Displays of Solidarity.” This is where our yard sign came from, and they offer lots of great yard signs, clothing, bumper stickers, and prints. Added bonus: the co-owner is a Black woman.
2. Rawness of Remembering with Esmé Weijun Wang, “Use the power of restorative journaling to survive, heal, and grow through difficult times.”
3. Marketing Without Social Media, free class led by Alexandra Franzen, “If you’re self-employed (freelancer, consultant, entrepreneur) and you want to use social media waaaa-aaaay less (or maybe not at all), you’ll gain a lot from this class. I’m excited to share some refreshing ideas with you. Less digital noise. Less scrolling. Less stress. More simplicity and calm.” Also from Alexandra, Do you need that?, which seems to be a really good question to be asking ourselves right now, as we enter a new normal or if it’s the end of the world.
4. No, We Can’t Agree To Disagree About Fat-Shaming (Or Any Kind Of Oppression) from Dances with Fat. Because this:
…when used in contexts of oppression “agree to disagree” is often a tool of oppression that gives power to the privileged, and makes those they are oppressing seem unreasonable.
When it comes to equality, oppression, and human rights, when someone in an unaffected group suggests that we need to “agree to disagree,” what they are actually doing is asking oppressed people to agree to continued oppression and also stop talking about it. Fuck that.
5. Uncertainty Soup from Laurie Wagner.
6. The Not Knowing of This Moment of Confronting Racism on Zen Habits, because of the inclusion of wisdom from Rev. angel Kyodo williams and this:
Many of us want a simple solution to the systemic racism we’ve allowed to happen — but there isn’t one. When we don’t have a simple solution, our first reaction is to get discouraged and frustrated and give up.
But we can’t just give up. We have to let ourselves stay in the place of not knowing. We have to stay with the questions, and explore with curiosity.
We have to listen. Listen to those who are most impacted, listen to their stories, listen to their anger and exhaustion and pain. Listen as if we don’t know anything, because we really don’t.
7. Dynamic Chair Yoga Practice: Using a Chair as a Yoga Prop (video) with Dianne Bondy. “Chair yoga doesn’t have to mean gentle or easy poses! Today we are using a chair to enhance a more vigorous seated practice. In today’s challenging chair yoga practice, we will move through seated and standing poses, using our chair as a yoga prop as we go. Get ready to move through seated prayer twists, downward dog, camel pose, high lunge and half moon.”
8. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: A Conversation on Love and Rage: Lama Rod Owens and Kate Johnson, (“In this conversation featured in Lama Rod Owens’ new book Love and Rage, he and Buddhist teacher Kate Johnson discuss how the dharma can help us hold our anger and work with our rage”), and Toward a Worldwide Culture of Love by bell hooks, (“The practice of love, says bell hooks, is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination. She traces her thirty-year meditation on love, power, and Buddhism, and concludes it is only love that transforms our personal relationships and heals the wounds of oppression”).
9. White Supremacy Culture (pdf) by Tema Okun.
This is a list of characteristics of white supremacy culture that show up in our organizations. Culture is powerful precisely because it is so present and at the same time so very difficult to name or identify. The characteristics listed below are damaging because they are used as norms and standards without being pro-actively named or chosen by the group. They are damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking. Because we all live in a white supremacy culture, these characteristics show up in the attitudes and behaviors of all of us –people of color and white people. Therefore, these attitudes and behaviors can show up in any group or organization, whether it is white-led or predominantly white orpeople of color-led or predominantly people of color.
10. White urgency to end racism: why now? “How can whites work against racism while also ensuring that we don’t re-center white supremacy in the process?”
11. Go Brave from Karen Walrond on Chookooloonks.
12. Wisdom from Rachel Naomi Remen: “Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.”
13. Hand Embroidered Portraits by Nneka Jones.
14. All good things must begin from Austin Kleon. “I always take comfort in the fact that even the great writers needed to pump themselves up to get to work…Even if you don’t believe it or feel it 100%, it can be of great help to write down the things you want to be true about your life and work. (If you believe otherwise, why write?).”
15. Resource Guide: Prisons, Policing, and Punishment.
16. The Black Lives Matter Protests Have Taught Us More About The Coronavirus. “Even though hundreds of thousands of protesters and police crowded onto the streets, overall social distancing actually strengthened in big cities with major protests.”
17. The Lost Art of True Rest on Zen Habits.
18. These 7 courses will teach you how to be anti-racist. “These courses were developed by Black women, and will teach you to recognize and work against racism.”
19. Protest news: Meet Ken & Karen: The Couple That Pointed An AR-15 At Protestors In St. Louis, and Cops in Aurora, CO pepper spray peaceful protesters who were watching a violin performance to honor Elijah McClain, (“It’s unclear why cops just didn’t stand back … this was almost entirely a peaceful protest and especially given what police did to Elijah, they could have just watched from a distance.”), and St. Louis Mayor Says Sorry for Doxxing Protesters During Livestreamed Q&A, and Vistaprint Put “All Lives Matter” Posters In An Order For A Black Lives Matter Fundraiser, and Parties — Not Protests — Are Causing Spikes In Coronavirus, and Woman Who Praised KKK Apologizes, Vows To Never Wave Confederate Flag Again, and Elderly neighbor calls cops on 9-year-old for chalking ‘Black Lives Matter’ outside her own house, and Fans Are Canceling Erin Condren for Exploiting the Black Lives Matter Movement, and Revisiting the story of a man arrested at his job for “trespassing”—and the cops who paid no price for wrongly detaining him dozens of times.
20. COVID-19 news: COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the United States, and California Man Has Total Racist Meltdown After Black Store Manager Asks Him To Wear A Mask, and Justice Department Issues Warning About Fake Mask Exempt Cards, and Unhinged Karen Escorted Out Of Trader Joe’s For Not Wearing A Mask, and Woman Who Shamed Starbucks Barista for Refusing to Serve Her Without Face Mask Speaks Out as Barista’s GoFundMe Grows, and U.S. Must Release Children From Family Detention Centers, Judge Rules on The New York Times, and These Are The Most Common Symptoms Of COVID-19 Right Now, and COVID-19 Memorial Project, and Austria Has 90% Drop in Coronavirus Cases After Requiring People to Wear Face Masks, and Covid-19 Has Sparked An “Anthropause” Revealing The Impacts Of Humans On Wildlife, and Remembering Front-Line Workers Lost To COVID-19, and How Exactly Do You Catch Covid-19? There Is a Growing Consensus, and Comedian Laurie Kilmartin live-tweets her mom dying of COVID-19 with humor and grace, and Anti-maskers in Florida are warning of satanism, pedophilia, and even death if public health policies are enforced (video).
21. Trump admits it: He’s losing. In related news, Trump Retweets Video Of Apparent Supporter Saying ‘White Power’, and Twitter User Creates Account to Tweet Exactly What Trump Does to See If He’ll Get Suspended, and It Only Took 3 Days, and Trump’s reality TV presidency is being crushed by reality, and Lest We Forget the Horrors: A Catalog of Trump’s Worst Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes.
22. Wellness Fanatics Are Butt-chugging Sunlight In Order To Acquire Energy. In related news, How Whiteness Killed the Body Positive Movement.
23. Helpful Rebuttals For Racist Talking Points (Google doc), a reference guide for having hard conversations.
24. An Overdue Debt — Why It’s Finally Time To Pay Reparations To Black Americans. In related news,
25. Street art: Jim Bachor’s pothole mosaics. “Chicago artist Jim Bachor is on a mission: patching up his city’s broken pavement by filling potholes with colorful works of art — mosaics that turn eyesores and traffic hazards into things of beauty. And with his mosaics now being laid in other cities, Bachor is taking his artwork on the road.”
26. Watch Tourmaline’s Film About About the Life of a Black Trans Woman in 1800s New York.
27. Book news: 38 Great Books To Read This Summer, Recommended By Our Favorite Indie Booksellers, and The need to read black literature that’s not just about black struggle, and 11 Books by Black Authors That You Can Preorder, and Overwhelmed With Orders, Some Black-Owned Bookstores Ask for Patience on The New York Times.
28. Rich people, please stop killing the planet.
29. Vegan Influencer Tabitha Brown Gets Own Show on Ellen’s Network.
30. Colorado Gov. Appoints Special Prosecutor To Reopen Probe Of Elijah McClain Death. In related news, Suspects in Ahmaud Arbery’s Killing Are Indicted on Murder Charges, and Elijah McClain died after a police encounter a year ago. Why are we only hearing about it now?, and Louisville Police Fire Brett Hankison, Officer in Breonna Taylor Shooting.
31. I’m A History Teacher, And I Didn’t Learn About The Tulsa Massacre Or Juneteenth In College.
32. Bill Cosby’s Wife “Very Pleased” With Her Husband’s Appeal And She Accuses #MeToo Of Being Racist.
33. We Condemn All Institutional Racism Except Our Own on McSweeney’s.
34. Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams star as Icelandic Eurovision hopefuls in the comedy of the summer.
35. John Lewis, congressman and civil-rights legend, will never lose hope. I love this man so dearly, respect him so deeply.
36. It’s a Wonderful Time to Be Leslie Jordan on The New York Times. “The sitcom actor, known for roles in ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘Murphy Brown,’ wanted attention his whole life. Naturally, he discovered Instagram.”
37. Kathryn Dungy: Dear white friends.
38. Now is the Time for the Washington NFL Team to Drop Its Racist Name.
39. 9 dog breeds at higher risk of heatstroke, “Plus, here’s what you can do to cool your pup down.” 80+ degrees is too hot for most dogs to exercise and the pavement is too hot to walk on. Please go out early or leave them home.
40. Seattle Black man films hysterical ‘Karen’ who falsely claims she is being attacked. In related white fragility news, New video shows a racist white California man REFUSING to let a Hispanic man into his OWN HOME before punching an innocent bystander.
41. She woke up from a surgery with her hair perfectly braided. Her black male doctor had done it. “The experience drove home the importance of having black doctors.”
42. 40 Times People Did Exactly What They Were Asked To But The Results Were Hilarious.
43. Wife Documents Husband’s Hilarious Attempts To Make The Bed After Doing It Herself For 45 Years.
44. Woman Hilariously Documents Her Attempt To Take Care Of The Cat Who Wouldn’t Stop Visiting Her.
45. What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others on The New York Times. “The very earliest days of our lives, and our closest relationships, can offer clues about how we cope with adversity.”
46. The Radical Quilting of Rosie Lee Tompkins on The New York Times. “A triumphal retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum confirms her standing as one of the great American artists — transcending craft, challenging painting and reshaping the canon.”
47. Video Of Dancing Baby Named Brave Will Make Your Day.
48. March, March, a new song from The Chicks, (video). “‘If your voice held no power, they wouldn’t try to silence you.’ – unknown. Use your VOICE. Use your VOTE.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 