Working Towards Ending Racism

  I’ve only read a portion of Dorothy Roberts’ (Twentieth Anniversary Edition) challenging - Killing The Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty .    Many of the things she spoke of prior to the books’ publication in 2017 have been greatly amplified by the multiplicity of murders and aggressions since then which have targeted Black People, particularly women and transgender People. I can’t write a relevant “review” of this book, until I complete my reading of it, and that likely will be delayed.    It is challenging to know where to begin!    The impacts of slavery upon Black People are immense.     Rarely do we - white men - let go of our “personal safety” and really emotionally open up to what has been, and unfortunately continues to be done in the name of “government”,   “society”, or even us as individuals. I can not imagine emotionally what it could have been like to kill one’s young baby, feeling that on...

  ----     BOOKS    ---- The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and The Chicago Police Department Murdered a Black Panther (Updated Edition) - Jeffrey Haas - Well Worth Reading! At the Dark End of the Street  – Danielle McGuire Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom  - Derecka Purnell Being White Today: A Roadmap for a Positive Antiracist Life - Shelly Tochluk and Christine Saxman The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America  - Richard Rothstein - Incredible Incredible book Emotional Justice:   Roadmap for Racial Healing - Esther A Armah https://www.georgemarx.org/2024/06/emotional-justice-esther-armah-amazing.html Florynce "Flor" Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical  - Sherie M Randolph How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don't) Say About Human Difference  - Adam Rutherford The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - James McBrid...

MARSE:  A Psychological Portrait Of The Southern Slavemaster And His Legacy Of White Supremacy  - By: H.D. Kirkpatrick  (Prometheus Books, 2022) This is an amazing book!     It brings in a whole new layer (or way of explaining it) into understanding racism - especially for white people - and even more so for white men.    It is scary reading!     It is a “good” kind of scary!    It helps me open up my heart - more and more to ponder the intersections of the power of elites.   It shows how they play off the “little people” - against each other.   It shows how, by our essential relative silence, we (,who think we are “better” than those “other “ white people,) acquiesce to their power. The book until its concluding chapter focuses historically on the Racist and horrifically pathological, criminal nature of slavery.    It shows how relatively few major slaveowners deeply impacted the U.S. and the ...

  In 1822 the Denmark Vesey slave insurrection was planned in Charleston but was thwarted.   Nearly three dozen people were executed.   Erskine informed us that “thirty-five Blacks were hanged and more than forty sent to the Caribbean or to Africa.” (40)   Historian Lacy K. Ford added that the Vesey insurrection revitalized the “colonization movement” among Southern whites, as a possible means of colonizing free Blacks and troublesome slaves as a way to enhance white security. (41) The net effect of the Vesey revolt changed many white Charlestonians views of management of the enslaved.   As Stampp said “After the Vesey conspiracy, Charlestonians expressed disillusionment with the idea that by generous treatment their enslaved ‘would become more satisfied with their conditions and more attached to whites.”’ (42)   In other words, enslavers ramped up greater repressive actions dropping the paternalistic pretense that slaves were family.    Berlin n...

  Jeffrey Haas’s: The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How The FBI and The Chicago Police MURDERED A BLACK PANTHER (Updated Edition) - is most appropriate today in 2023!   The lies that “ruled” for at least 13 years beginning in 1969 - with a major assassination were significantly concealed and relied upon the biases of white Americans. Strangely, today we live in a world - most similar in significant ways.    In both cases the “bigger truth” - that was put forth was/is total deception intended to continue a Racist System that pushes to build and extend the power of wealthy white men.    “Strangely” - their desires - are selfishly intended to help themselves, not the needs and preferences of those who lack privilege, and power - often BIPOC. Haas effectively shows how Fred Hampton was an amazing individual who cared about others.    He clearly would have become both an incredible leader of Black People working positively to build a non-racist, ...

  George Hrbek — An Amazing Man I Was Lucky to Briefly Meet (on Zoom) George Hrbek — 6/27/31–2/19/23 I’m deeply saddened to learn of the death of George Hrbek yesterday, February 19, 2023. I’m very glad that I moved forward to co-produce a workshop featuring him — November 15, 2022 — which is available to watch on YouTube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxMm4R5Rs8  . One can also learn more of George’s amazing life at: https://crossculturalsolidarity.com/george-hrbek-the-selma-minister-who-built-a-white-antiracist-spiritual-community-in-chicago/  and/or https://voicesforjusticecle.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/background-on-rev-george-hrbek/ Personally — I now need to modify my blog entry: S O M E “ A N C E S T O R S” Anne Braden bell hooks George Hrbek  (very much alive) James Baldwin Howard Zinn Shirley Chisholm with deep sadness! George, at 91, was a role model for me, and perhaps all of us! He spoke of Sexism being important,, along with Racism. He wanted t...

I just finished watching the Netflix movie: You People. This afternoon I completed eight hours of training (following six hours or “white bodies” training the day before) with Resmaa Menakem . My tears erupted late in the movie - when it turned from doom and gloom to “redemption”.    It’s message, in the end, was romantic, and hopeful - after exposing so much about myself George, a cis-gendered, privileged white man in my world of whiteness so incredibly deeply. Resmaa Menakem’s message was deep, and my path, if   I seriously pursue it, is one of circling back, over and over and over again.   I must practice very seriously with two (future) fellow (white) partners - Somatic Abolitionism.   My and our work - relies upon (against the odds greatly) white bodies, like myself, finally seriously rejecting most actively - so, so much - of the core parts of our lives - our white supremacy. It would be so easy, if we could simply - figuratively swear on our bibl...