I just sent out an e-mail to the 2009 Sankofa team.  The e-mail included recourses for them to continue to think about race in North America.  I hope that you also find this info helpful:

 http://www.newsweek.com/id/198853

This is an article about a Portuguese slave castle.

“The Portuguese built
Elmina Castle in 1482 as a trading post for goods bartered for local gold and gems. As demand for slaves increased in America and the Caribbean, the castle began to store a more precious and perishable trade.”

“That feeling was complicated by the fact that because the history of slavery isn’t taught in the Ghanaian schools, many of the children and adults I met simply thought of me as a foreigner, and what they call “ye vu”—white visitor.”

How are we doing to teach and educate about these realities?  How is our lack of education affecting us?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24prom-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=Segregated%20Proms&st=cse&scp=1

This is an article from the New York Times called “A Prom Divided”

(The effort is the subject of a documentary, “Prom Night in Mississippi,” which will be shown on HBO in July.)

To hear a local radio personality talk about this issue go to http://www.kfan.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=KFAN_Barreiro.xml

It is under Dan Barreiro “Segregated Prom” 5-27-09.  I think he as some good things to say but he also shows that he needs some serious education around these issues.

The last thing that I want to leave you with is a documentary that I watched last night from American Masters called “Hollywood Chinese”- From the sexed-up Suzie Wong to the kung fu fighting Bruce Lee, THIRTEEN’s American Masters tackles issues of race and representation in Hollywood Chinese.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/hollywood-chinese/introduction/1146/

I hope that these resources help you on the journey, because we need to be on this journey in a serious way.

In Christ,

Tanden

This is video that one of the students who sent on the trip put together for us.  I hope that this gives you courage to face who we really are.  It is only once we know who we are, that we can start to change and become who we should be.

In Christ,
Tanden

Last night at Catalyst (a monthly gathering of Neighbors learning and doing “ACTIVE-NEIGHBORING” to transform the Community), we had Professor Zalanga give a presentation on economics.  Here is a link to his talk click here and below is some info about Professor Zalanga.

I believe that we are at a time in history, where we really need to rethink economics.  I know that for some, they just think that we just need to ”slightly change” things a little, but there are others of us who think that system has excluded us too long and the whole system needs to be overthrown.  I say that because I currently live in a neighborhood that has been excluded (we have an unemployment rate of 3x the rest of the city), I grew up in rural Iowa where the winners are a few corporate farmers and the losers where farmers like my Mother and Father, and I have a Brother and Sister from Guatemala, a county that has been under attack from “Consumer Capitalism” for decades.  So I am speaking from my experience and for the people that I know - the system is messed up, and we are tired of it.

Here are a few things that Professor Zalanga said that we could do:  Look inside yourself; reinvigorate community; consumerism is not sustainable and healthy for human well being; form discussion groups on civic issues and exploration of common values (if are interested, i would share with you about what we are doing with Catalyst), engage in social action; examine the inextricable interconnection between global and local.

Samuel Zalanga’s broad area of specialization is development studies and social change. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Sociology. The title of his dissertation was: “The Postcolonial State and the Development Agenda: A Comparative Study of the Role of Ruling Elites in Development Policy Formulation and Implementation in Malaysia and Nigeria.”  In doing this research, he lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a period of time. Before moving to the United States in 1993 to pursue graduate studies, he lived and taught in Bauchi State, Northeastern Nigeria. He completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Sociology at Bayero University, Kano, and University of Jos, respectively in Northern Nigeria.

He currently teaches the following courses in the department: Social Inequality, Religion in Society, Urbanization: Growth and Development of the Modern City, Peoples and Cultures of the United States, and Sociology of Development. He also teaches one course each in the following Graduate Programs: Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership and Master of Arts in Gerontology. His scholarly interests, however, extend beyond the courses he currently teaches.

Recent Accomplishments:
a) Received Edgren Scholars funding from Bethel University to conduct the following research: “The Global and the Local in Santa Maria de Jesus, Guatemala: Using Micro-Case Study to Interrogate the Structure and Consequences of Social Marginality in the Third World” (Summer 2005);

b) “Indigenous Capitalists: The Development of Indigenous Investment Companies in Relation to Class, Ethnicity, and the State in Malaysia and Fiji,” (with Erik Larson) in Political Power and Social Theory Volume 16, 75-101 (2004);

c) “Teaching and Learning Social Theory to Advance Social Transformation: Some Insights, Implications, and Practical Suggestions from Paulo Freire,” in The Discourse of Sociological Practice (DSP), University of Massachusetts, Boston, Department of Sociology (Fall 2004);

d) “Islam and National Development: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Role of Religion in the Process of Economic Development and Cultural Change,” in Geographies of Muslim Identities: Representations of Diaspora, Gender, and Belonging, edited by Cara Aitchison, Peter Hopkins and Mei-Po Kwan (forthcoming).

During these chaotic economic times American Consumer Capitalism is under a great microscope.  For many of us this is a great time to really get to come conversation around things that we have been feeling for quite sometime.  One of those who is using the Christian tradition and Christian Scriptures to give us a different view of economics is Ched Myers.

I am personally so worn out from Churches, who don’t talk about economics or churches that can only talk about “cheap charity”.  Charity is not what those who are being killed by an economic system need.  What they need are people of faith to ask some real question, and use faith to bring about liberation for a system that is killing them.  May we please start asking questions about who is really benefiting and what are the human costs.  I think that Ched’s work does that. 

In addition, to be truthful his work is in a long line of others who have done this kind of work and others who are doing it today around the world.  For those of us in the United States this might seem new, but it is not.  I was talking to Curtis DeYoung the other day, who leads the Reconciliation Studies Program at Bethel, and who is very well networked throughout the world, and he told me that Ched’s reading of scripture is in line with what many of our Brothers and Sisters are saying around the world.

There are the lectures that Ched gave at bethel:
http://www.archive.org/details/ChedMyersSocialInequalityClass
http://www.archive.org/details/ChedMyersLunchQAndA
http://www.archive.org/details/ChedMyersTopicsInTheology

To hear his chapel sermon go to ITunes and type in Bethel University.
To learn more about Ched Myers check out : http://bcm-net.org/

It is hard to believe that it is time to start the garden.  Last Saturday we had our first garden workday where we spread out the compost, got the plots marked off, planted some squash, and planted some flowers.  On the 16th we will plant the rest of the garden.

On the lot across from our house we have 9 households, and it is really cool that every household on our street is part of the garden.  The other lot, 1 block north of Broadway, has 7 households, all about a block from that garden.  Total between the two gardens we have 16 households.  Also each garden will have a community plot where anyone for the community can harvest food.

Most of us are first time gardeners, but we do have a few experienced farmers among us, who show us what to do.

To check out some pictures from the day click here

On Saturday night we drove to
Birmingham and spent the night there.  We woke up on Sunday morning and went to 16^th Street Baptist Church.  On Sunday morning, September 16, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the church killing four girls.  Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Denise McNair (aged 11), Carole Robertson (aged 14), and Cynthia Wesley (aged 14) where all killed while they where in Sunday School.

The deaths of the children followed by the killing of President Kennedy two months later gave birth to a tide of grief and anger- a surge of emotional momentum that helped ensure the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

From there we had lunch down the street at Ms B’s., a great little local place to grab some of the best fried chicken, mac and cheese, greens, meat loaf, black eye peas and all kinds of good soul food.  We got your food to go and talked back to Kelly Ingram Park to eat lunch and view of the violence that took place in that park.  It was here, during the first week of May 1963, that Birmingham police and firemen, under orders from Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, confronted demonstrators, many of them children, first with mass arrests and then with police dogs and firehoses. Images from those confrontations, broadcast nationwide, spurred a public outcry which turned the nation’s attention to the struggle for racial equality. The demonstrations in Birmingham brought city leaders to agree to an end of public segregation. In addition, they helped ensure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Civil Rights laws.

After spending some time in the park we went across the street to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institution.  It was filled with some much great info but my mind and heart where still back at the church and the park.  Walking in a place where such great violence had taken place messes with you.  I also was finding it hard at this time to be fully engaged with the content of the trip and still be the team leader with all those details.

Looking back now this day mostly leaves me with questions.  Questions like…

What makes a grown man turn a firehose on a child?

What makes a grown man plant a bomb to kill children while they are in Sunday school?

What makes people set off so many bombs that their city becomes known as bombingham?

What makes a “safety commissioner” drive around their town in a tank?

What kind of hate is in a person’s heart that they would tell a pastor they had better leave town or their family would end up like the 4 girls that where killed?

What kind of pathology leads a person to say that African-Americans who lived in Birmingham at that time where happy with the way things where?

Every time I go to Birmingham I ask some soul searching questions, questions that we have to ask if we are going to be a people who redeem our past and live a different future.  If we don’t ask these questions I believe that our past will continue to haunt us and negatively influence the way we live.

Sankofa day 1

We left
Bethel and drove straight through to Memphis.  That night on the bus was very interesting.  I tried sleeping in every position in my seat but none of them worked all that well.  I must have got a few hours of sleep but it felt like I didn’t get any.  The next morning I learned that some of the smart students just sleep on the floor and got a good nights rest.  That was the one position that I did not try.

When we got to Memphis we went to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.  The Lorraine Motel was the place that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.  The Museum was the first to record the full history of African- Americans in the United States.  The story began with 1619 and went to 1968 the year King was killed.

One of the things that always gets me at this museum is just how complex the story is.  There are so many names, dates, events, and places.  Some of them show great strength, courage, and wisdom, and others show the evilest parts of the human heart. 

The stories of W.E.D. Dubois, A Philip Randolph, Jim Peck, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, all make me proud to be called an American.  Their stories give me an imagination to try to live as they lived, full of courage.  Their wisdom is so rich I think that I will spend the rest of my life diving into its depth.

On the other hand in this museum I see and hear the story of how slavery evolved into a system that came to view African – Americans as not being human, but like animals.  I see them being treated worse then livestock.  I hear the story of how after the Civil war Slavery evolved into Segregation through court rulings like “Plessy  V Ferguson (1896).  This segregation led to a brutal, dehumanizing existence and continued to enslave African-Americans.

The other thing that gets to me is the death of Martin Luther King.  If he would have lived what kind of world would we be living in?  How could he have lead us into a better world, how could he have shown us what it means to live as one? 

James Earl Ray was convicted for the crime but I believe that he did not act alone.  For one he was connected internationally, which leads me to believe that he was not just your average criminal.  Also the Official committee said that he was not a racist that wanted to kill King, the committee said that his motivate was the promise of financial reward.  (Select Committee on Assassinations HSC Vol 13 page 242)  I wonder who promised him money?  By that time King was being followed daily by the FBI, he was talking about issues of poverty, and he was coming out against the war.  I believe that the US government had many reason to take him out.  If you read Howard Zinn’s Book “People’s History of the United States”, the idea of the US government taking out someone like King is very easy to believe.

After the museum we went to Neely’s and got some of the best soul food on the earth, and then headed to Birmingham.

A couple things we need to know more about are the current hate groups.  check out http://www.splcenter.org/ for more info.
the history of voting rights.  it is a crazy history of how starting in the 1900s we took away the right to vote from african americans.

today we also went through a reenactment of the slave trade.  I have a lot of feelings to work through so i will blog about that next week.

here are a few pictures of the day click here and here

the three things that he said we need to be fighting for today are:
against poverty
against religious foundamentalism
and for homosexual sex rights.

i have to go to supper see you later.