Learning Together So We Can Breathe Together

The past week has left many around the country feeling angry, devastated and weary. 

The staff at Preston Hollow shares those emotions. We are angry for our brothers and sisters of color. We are devastated that for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, a police officer chose suffocation. We are weary of continuing to see brown lives and black lives that struggle to breathe in more ways than one. 

However, in the midst of what might feel like hopelessness, we find hope in the number of people choosing education as a tool for growth and change. 

As we write, the top five books on Amazon are all books around race, with dozens more in the top 50. 

Therefore, as a church, we want to invite you all to join the pastors and staff in eight days of learning. Eight days of deep breaths for the eight minutes that George Floyd was pinned to the ground. For each of these days we invite you to read, listen, or watch one thing a day for eight days, starting Monday the 8th and running through Monday, June 15th. 

Education is not the only work required of us in the fight for racial justice, but it is a start. So may we learn, so that we can breathe together.  

To help our journey, we offer this list of resources. May it prove helpful as we journey together. 

Listen 

• Podcasts: 

• 1619 by The New York Times 
• The Seeing White series from the 2017 Scene On Radio podcast ttps://www.wnyc.org/story/invention-race/
• About Race 
• Code Switch by NPR
• Pod for the Cause from the Leadership Conference On Civil and Human Rights
• Pod Saved the People by Crooked Media 
• All My Relations 
• Lynching in America 
• How Does Racism Affect Your Health by Mary Bassett, Ted Radio Hour
• Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist, by Unlocking Us, Brene Brown

• Sermon Series: Why Can’t We Get Past This? Racism In American Church and The Culture from Village Presbyterian Church 

• I Just See People- Rev. Dr. Rodger Nishioka 
• It’s Not About You, It’s About Us- Rev. Tom Are
• It’s Not About Us, It’s About Me- Rev. Dr. Rodger Nishioka and Rev. Tom Are

Watch 

• Movies: 

• 13th (Netflix)
• The Hate U. Give (Hulu)
• Just Mercy (Prime)
• Selma (Prime)
• Becoming (Netflix) 
• PBS Series: Eye on the Prize
• Time: The Kalief Browder Story (Netflix)

• TED Talks: 

• An Interview With the Founders of Black Lives Matter
• The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda  Ngozi Adichie
• How We Can Make Racism a Solvable Problem and Improve Policing by Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff
• The Urgency of Intersectionality by Kimberle Crenshaw 
• Racism Has A Cost for Everyone by Heather C. McGhee 

• Short Clips: 

• Is Justice Worth It? By Micah Bournes 
• Racism Is Real (3 minutes)
• 50 states, 50 different ways of teaching America's past (5 minutes), CBS News and Ibram X. Kendi
• What Being Hispanic and Latinx Means in the United States (12 minutes)

Read 

• Books: 

• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander 
• Me and White  Supremacy by Layla Saad
• Waking Up White by Debbie Irving
• The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey
• Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson 
• Stakes Is High: Race, Faith, and Hope for America by Michael W. Waters 
• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown 
• How to Be Anti Racist by Ibram X. Kendi 
• Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon 
• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga 
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde 
• The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison 
• Good White Racist by Kerry Connelly
• The Hate U. Give by Angie Thomas (great for youth)
• Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King
• Why We Cannot Wait by Martin Luther King
• Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community by Martin Luther King
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King
• Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life by David Billings
• What Truth Sounds Like by Michael Eric Dyson
• When I was White: A Memoir by Sarah Valentine
• The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• How to be Black by Baratunde Thurston
• Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy
• A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes
• Anxious to Talk About It: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully about Racism by Carolyn Helsel 

• Articles: 

• The Guide to Allyship by Amelie Lamont
• Explaining White Privilege to A Broke White Person by Gina Crosley-Corcoran
• What White Children Need To Know About Race by Ali Michael and Eleonora Bartoli
• 21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On a Daily Basis by Heben Nigatu
• My President Was Black by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Who Gets To Be Afraid In America by Ibram X. Kendi 
• Statement of Solidarity by Grace Presbytery 
• Its Time to be Unified in Our Outrage by Michelle Kinder https://tucson.com/opinion/local/local-opinion-it-s-time-to-be-unified-in-our/article_20d35cb9-aeb5-5331-8ef9-a5197e3f1b91.html
• The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic 
• Michael W. Waters, “On the 400th Anniversary of the Slavery Trade, How Far Have We Come,” Dallas Morning News, https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/08/30/on-the-400th-anniversary-of-the-u-s-slave-trade-how-far-have-we-come/?fbclid=IwAR0683f6DQ60SeQpsOG-1HV5N9ohGYUGQzuo_b80__rMZcrguT_PglKgYXA, August 30, 2019.
• The Accommodation, by Jim Schutze, D Magazine
• A New Community Vision for Dallas: A 2019 Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Report 

Do: 

• Complete the White Privilege Checklist by Peggy McIntosh
• Me and White Supremacy book and workbook by Layla F. Saad 
• The Whiteness Intensive Course through Be the Bridge 

• The course is accessible online in a private Facebook group. Once you or your group pays for entry, you will be able to access 16 pre recorded lessons, each about 60-90 minutes long, and the accompanying resources and discussion questions to go with them. In addition to the lectures, you have 6 months of access to the private group to ask questions, and seek clarification.

• Learn about Implicit Bias and take the Implicit Association Test. 

Resources for Children 

• Whoever You Are by Mem Fox 
• The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael Lopez
• A list of books for infants and toddlers by Social Justice Books Board 

• 31 Books by Embrace Race for preschool and elementary students