ONLINE: White Folx Decentering Whiteness — formerly Folks with White Privilege –Affinity Group Meeting

Please email Susan Schulman for the Zoom link:  susanschulman60@gmail.com.

Any Kehilla connected folks who identify as white, we’d love to have you, whether you’ve ever been to these meetings before or not! We work on de-centering whiteness at Kehilla — so that Kehilla is a more welcoming synagogue for people of color — and on becoming more aware of our own racism in order to dismantle it. At our meetings, we share feelings, build skills through experiential exercises and discuss actions. We also discuss homework articles and videos, which are encouraged-but-not-mandatory, to sharpen our understanding and analysis. These activities help us learn, grow, and build community together, in our work to uproot white supremacy. Homework for June 22 is posted below.

Why did our group vote to change our name? People of Color on Kehilla’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Team brought to our attention that our previous name — “Folks with White Privilege” – doesn’t fully define what our group is doing: that we are working towards dismantling white privilege and decentering whiteness, so our name needs to reflect what our group actually represents. Please welcome our new name: White Folx Decentering Whiteness!

HOMEWORK FOR JUNE 22 MEETING. This should take you about 60 minutes. A reminder that this is highly encouraged but not mandatory.

1. Despite 10 years of promises, Jewish leaders have failed to make  space for Jews of color, by Ilana Kaufman, Jews of Color Initiative, 4/11/22, ( 6 min.)
2. Video: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, by Joy DeGruy, 2005 (5 min.), 
3. “The Fall of ‘Roe’ was driven by our Country’s Original Sin: Anti-Blackness” by Renee Bracey Sherman & Tracey Weitz, 9/21, (7 min.)
4. Buffalo Massacre: An Act of White Nationalist Political Violence by Political Research Associates, 5/16/22, (15 min.) Note: if you can only read one thing, please read this one!
5. White Power, White Violence: A manifesto is not something to be ignored, it’s a playbook for the next attac, by Kathleen Belew, 5/16/22, The Atlantic (5 min.)
6. What is the ‘great replacement’ and how is it tied to the Buffalo shooting suspect? by Dustin Jones, 5/16/22, NPR (4 min.)
7. Some are calling the Buffalo suspect a ‘teenager.’ Is that  a privilege of his race?by Anastasia Tsioulcas, 5/16/22, (2 min.)
8. What you need to know about the antisemitic ideology behind the Buffalo shooting, by Philissa Cramer & Ron Kampeas, 5/16/11, Jewish Telegraph Agency (3 min.)

Optional for now — At our last meeting many folks expressed interest in reading this specific article by James Baldwin because part of our May homework included a different article that referred to this one.  We are therefore including it here as optional — but this  excellent article will be part of ‘official’ homework for July, as a powerful accompaniment to the next segment of Marc Dollinger’s lecture.

Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White, by James Baldwin