Let's Talk About Racism: Race Education and Awareness
We know how many resources there are educating you on racial injustice right now. As you navigate through those, we hope we can help to provide you resources for where you are in your knowledge and conversations with racism specifically from the Nebraska Synod and the ELCA, as well as resources that you can use to talk to your children about race.
Anti-Racism Resources
Starting the conversation, continuing the conversation and taking theconversation deeper.
Just Beginning The Conversation
Books:
One: Unity in a Divided World by Deidra Riggs
· Accompanying 5-session video series and downloadable study guide
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
· YouTube interview with Ibram Kendi
Videos and Films:
“The Danger of a Single Story” – Ted Talk by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Emanuel– A documentary about the 2015 murders by a white supremacist of nine African-Americans attending a Bible study at Emanuel African Episcopal Methodist Church in Charleston.
Articles:
“Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh
“My White Friend Asked Me to Explain White Privilege, so I Decided to Be Honest,” by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
Taking It Further
Books:
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
· YouTube interview with Robin DiAngelo
· Free reader’s guide and discussion questions
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
· Podcast interview with Austin Channing Brown and Brene Brown
Films and Videos:
I am Not Your Negro (documentary): Based on James Baldwin’s unfinished book, this visual essay explores racism through the stories of Medgar Evans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Just Mercy: The true story of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson’s battle for justice as he defends an innocent black man on death row (based on the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson).
Articles:
“Jesus Was Divisive: A Black Pastor’s Message to White Christians,” NPR interview with ELCA pastor and author Rev. Lenny Duncan
“What the Bible Has to Say about Black Anger,” by Esau McCaulley, assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College (The New York Times)
Podcasts:
“Black and White: Racism in America,” The Liturgists podcast
Digging Deeper
Books:
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
· Reader’s guides (some free, some for purchase)
Jesus and the Disinherited, by Howard Thurman
· Discussion guide (technically this discussion guide accompanies the biographical film Backs Against the Wall, about Howard Thurman's life, but there are a lot of good, relevant questions related to the book.
Videos and Films:
13th (documentary): Scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
Articles:
“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehesi Coates for The Atlantic
“Ta-Nehesi Coates Revisits ‘The Case for Reparations’” – interview with The New Yorker
“How Do We Change America?” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for The New Yorker
Podcasts:
1619: A six-part New York Times Magazine podcast series launched in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
A Message from ELCA Nebraska Synod Bishop Brian Maas
R.A.R.E. (Racial Awareness, Reconciliation, and Engagement)
R.A.R.E. (Racial Awareness, Reconciliation, and Engagement) is a committee of the Nebraska Synod ELCA dedicated to energizing the church to combat the sin of racism. By increasing awareness about the history and nature of racism, creating opportunities for reconciliation, and promoting engagement among diverse people, we can better live out the command to love God and love our neighbors. Through grace we commit to the task of shedding our prejudices and participating in the rich blessing of human difference.