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Be the Bridge

Explore how you can be part of God’s healing work.

 

To answer God’s call for justice, and to fully love our neighbors as ourselves, it’s important to examine how we engage with people of other races, genders, nationalities, and backgrounds to see if we carry inherent biases or live with unholy prejudices.

Resources to Engage in Meaningful Conversations.

Be the Bridge: A Justice Course for Conversation and Discovery
Saturdays, September 12-October 17 at 10:00am

 

FUMC is hosting a ‘Be the Bridge’ course based on the book by Latasha Morrison.  The course will held outside under the portico at the church and will be facilitated by Charlie Brown, a FUMC church member with a background in facilitating justice and reconciliation conversations in churches. Participants are invited to register in advance, to bring their chairs and to wear their masks (required for participation). We look forward to engaging in this thought provoking time of discovery as a church family.  For more information, contact Pastor Pamela Kipps at pkipps@fairfaxumc.org.

CLASS REGISTRATION

 

A Daily Prayer for Racial Justice and Reconciliation

O Loving God,

We give you thanks for creating the world which is full of diversity and for making one human family of all the peoples of the earth.
You reign over all the nations and are seated on your holy throne.
You rule over all the peoples without partiality in respect to nations or races because righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.
Forgive us for the times when we put walls around us with false pride and racial prejudice.
Forgive us for the times when we were silent in the face of racism, private or institutional.
Open our eyes to see Christ who is in people of every nation and every culture.
Break down the walls that separate us. Set us free from fear, hatred, and racism.
Bind us together with the unity of God’s love. Restore oneness to the family of God.
We pray in the name of Jesus who came, lived, and died for all humanity.
Amen.

 

(This prayer was written by the Bishop’s “Call to Action” Work Group on Racial Justice and Reconciliation. You are encouraged to pray the prayer daily.)

Letter from Bishop Sharma Lewis

https://vaumc.org/bishop-lewis-calls-for-action-against-systemic-racism/

Social Principles of the United Methodist Church

http://doc.vaumc.org/Justice/SocialPrinciplesQA.pdf

Online Self Directed Courses
What We Don’t Think We Think

https://www.gcorr.org/online-course-implicit-bias/

Race and Racism from a Biblical Perspective

You Are Here: First Steps for White Christians on Race and Racism 

UMC Virginia Annual Conference justice website link. 

https://vaumc.org/reconciliation/

Jane Elliott “Blue Eyes – Brown Eyes” Experiment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLAi78hluFc 

16 Bridge Building Tips for White People

https://bethebridge.com/docs/16Tips.pdf

Book Recommendations
  • Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation by Latasha Morrison
  • Waking Up White & Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving
  • Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
  • The Christian Case for Reparations by Theo Hill (also Holy Post Podcast Ep. 360)
  • White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
  • Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County by Kristen Green
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  • How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
Recommended Movies Related to Racial and Social Justice

Educational:

  1. Eyes on the Prize. Start with a classic award-winning multi-part doc by PBS from about 35 years ago on the Civil Rights Movement. Value is of hearing from folks who were there–many of whom are no longer with us.
  2. Selma. Ada Duvernay’s excellent treatment of the seminal event. Value is showing how MLK picked his battles and how difficult this particular one was.
  3. 13th. Duvernay again, with a doc on the legacy of slavery and how it relates to mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline. It is a filmed version of Michelle Alexander’s excellent book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2010).
  4. When They See Us. Duvernay yet again. A four-episode miniseries produced for Netflix on the “Central Park Five” about five black/brown teens who were convicted and sent to prison for a crime they did not commit that displayed the naked racism of 1989 NYC.
  5. I Am Not Your Negro. Documentary based on James Baldwin’s unfinished memoir Remember This House. 
  6. Fruitvale Station. Drama about an unarmed black man gunned down by police in California in 2009.
  7. Just Mercy. Adaptation of Bryan Stevenson’s memoir of the same name, about his fight to represent falsely accused black men in Alabama from 1989 onwards.
  8. Loving. About Richard and Mildred Loving’s journey to the US Supreme Court in 1967 to successfully argue that interracial marriage should no longer be a crime.
  9. The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson. Documentary about Johnson’s murder–shows how race intersects with LGBT issues and how people of color were at the forefront of the events that kicked off the LGBT civil rights movement.
  10. Malcolm X. Classic Spike Lee adaptation of Malcolm X’s autobiography from 1992

Centering Black/Brown perspectives. 

  1. Black Panther. Not just a superhero flick. All characters save one are people of color, and it gives a broad sense of the role of colonialism in shaping perspective.
  2. The Hate U Give. Based on the novel. One of the best depictions of police brutality against communities of color on film.
  3. If Beale Street Could Talk. Based on the 1974 James Baldwin novel about a young woman trying to clear the name of her falsely accused lover before their child is born.
  4. Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee 1989 classic about race in NYC (would have been released around same time as events in When They See Us were happening in real life.)
  5. Dear White People. Netflix series following a group of black students at a mostly white university.
  6. Belle. A really rare period drama (set in late 1700s) about a biracial women in the UK (a real person) and events she may have witnessed that contributed to the end of the UK’s participation in the slave trade. Period dramas set in this era almost always center white women as the characters.
  7. Self-Made. Netflix biopic series about C.J. Walker, America’s first self-made millionaire, who happened to be a black woman. Black-centered storytelling does not have to dwell on slavery/oppression–seeing the successes is important too.
  8. The Blackkklansmen. Spike Lee film about the real-life story of a black detective who infiltrated the Klan in the 1970s. Mainly played for laughs, with good commentary.
  9. Moonlight. Follows a black gay man from childhood through adulthood as he struggles to find acceptance. Best Picture Oscar in 2017.
  10. Daughters of the Dust. Follows a family through slavery to emancipation set in early-1900s South Carolina, centers black women characters.