Two Worthy Books on How We Got Here, and One On How To Fix US

    Both of these books have been reviewed here previously, but bear mentioning again.  The first is a book  written based on a report issued over 50 years ago, whose implementation the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King cited as the one action that would have prompted him to immediately call off the Memphis Garbage Workers’ Strike, only a day or two before he was shot.  Unfortunately, that report, by The Kerner Commission, was buried and forgotten for many years.

     The second book, carrying the long title of Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 is one that is very long, and very complex, but very much worth the effort to read, multiple times.    This book, on the history of The Reconstruction after the US Civil War, is a classic.  This work by Du Bois is mentioned as a key support in an interview, linked just below, by professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore as a large part of how we can begin to come to understand how history bears remembering and understanding in order to find ways to solve our current problems and move toward a society that looks more like Phase IV of Project Do Better, linked below the end of this article, in the signature,   

where there is enough, at the very least, for each and every person in this country, and hence no need for the current prison system as we know it today, in the form of the toxic and inhumane prison industrial complex.  Abolition of this prison system, in her interview,  is directly related to a belief in the value of life, as this interview title relating to the preciousness of life, and to the ability for everyone to make a just living, points out.  A just and safe world for all, as professor Wilson Gilmore advocates, would result naturally from following the plan set laid out by Project Do Better, if a sufficient number of communities in our country took it up with willing hands and hearts for the Common Good.   Both of these books, and the Project Do Better book waiting to be molded by community organizers into separate manuals for their communities,  are essential reading for anyone wishing to understand how the United States got to this point, and how we could work toward “a more perfect Union” together.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts on how history can guide us to better solutions for today, while preventing us from making the same old mistakes, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts, and then share with us, here, if you please.

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Click on the ShiraDest site menu, at the top above this post, please for webpages linking to posts on:

Learning through story in writing and in motion via:   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews,

and then, traditionally, in classrooms:

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna serial chapters, and Who By Fire draft scenes…).

And, if you still have a spare moment for reflection:

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This set of book reviews is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to the work of building tools that could help increase both empathy and compassion in this world.  Learning in a variety of ways is important for building that mental flexibility which helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important tool-building is also as part of this project.  Let’s work together to Do Better, please.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest Publications, and Shira Destinie Jones’ work in general, is usually licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  Where not so, it is mentioned explicitly.   This is so far only the case with the Who By Fire rough draft, which can be made, upon request, freely available to a good home intending to bring it to birth for the benefit of Humanity.

Review: Outlander #3, Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon

    Outlander, #3, Voyager, which takes them to the so-called New World, which for them was a new world, via an abominable traffic, asserts that one  must follow the calling of one’s heart, remember that idea, Babylon 5 fans?   She makes that assertion several times, using both Claire and Jamie as the proof, but with those same characters, she also points out that one does pay for the intensity of following one’s calling.  This, I have seen in life, tends to be true, especially if one is part of the out-group.   And, I will also admit that I was just a bit surprised that they left out the racism of Frank from the the televised series, when he says he will not have Brianna dating a black guy.  That, I could see, was a concession to making the TV show version more palatable.  To her credit, Gabaldon has included so much about the slave trade that the TV producers had no choice but to include those scenes, or at least references to much of the theme, in the show.   Likewise, for TV audiences, I suppose, this book has ratcheted up the amount of sex and the number of scenes that mention it, and even more so in the show version, to the point of being almost intolerable.  At least in a paper book , one can skip the page.   I must also admit to being impressed by the cadence and rhythms of this book, as I listened to it in audio format from my local public library, and there was a very interesting mystery about the possible portal with the standing stones, and the idea of the lake,  Loch Ness being an under water portal, as portal, or danger, markers. But the rest of this book just really got to be too irritating for me to put up with.  Well, almost.  Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction did bring her back, for a last review of book four, coming up shortly.

…

Shira Destinie

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Click on the main menu of the ShiraDest web site, above this review, for more reading pages with links to posts about:

Learning in three different kinds of ways !!!

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews,

or

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

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 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including serial historical fiction and also a writing tips series:  Ann & Anna and  Who By Fire…).

And:

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about long term planning for The Common Good, via  #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is part of my  work on Project Do Better. 

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka Shira, or:

ShiraDest Publications, and Shira Destinie Jones’ work here on this site, is normally licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Passing in VA, and Plecker’s Famous List

    The memory of that list suddenly hit me, for what reason, I do not know, when I ought to have recalled it at the time of our discussion, when I was posting my short serial Ann & Anna, about when and where Willow could pass for White.  A certain list drawn up by 1943, based on a law passed in 1924, but of much older social origin, according to the archives of the Commonwealth of Virginia, gives a bit of an idea.  The ‘one drop rule’ and scrutiny of racial background gained lots of attention when the head of VA’s bureau of vital statistics reclassified certain families from White to Colored, because they had previously been identified as “Indian” or Native American on their birth certificates.

“Walter Plecker Asserted that Virginia Indians No Longer Exist, December 1943.”

I wonder what sort of follow up has been done with the families affected by that reclassification.  Some PhD student must surely have done some research involving that list, those families, and the impact on their lives, which would have been hellish, given the segregation of homes and even professions at the time, not to mention social event segregation.  I also wonder if the news of Vassar’s first Colored graduate, Anita Florence Hemmings, shown in the featured image above, had anything to do with that 1924 law, and the viciousness with which it was enforced.  She graduated in 1897, but it was kept secret that she had passed for white in order to do so for quite a few years.  Much of the viciousness of Virginians toward people called ‘yellow’ in varying degrees, like myself, or like any quadroon,    as they used to say in times past,  although what was written on paper, from family documentation such as the work done by Annette Gordon Reed, vs. what people said just by looking at a person, could be quite different, as in the case of Sally Hemings, who was called an Octoroon, but was actually, technically, a quadroon,    yet was even considered white by visiting northerners,  comes from their obvious fear that we would do what Anita F. Hemmings did.  But going to the point of removing the white status of families who had lived as white for years was a new low.  I wonder if anyone has the time or energy to find more about the experiences those families lived through after going from ‘white’ to colored.

Shira

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Click here for  more on:

Learning via free Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  History matters.

Let’s Do Better 

    .

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira Destinie Jones’ work, published as ShiraDest, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Cool New Article For Old Book Review on the Snow Riots

    This book is one that all Americans, especially, ought to read, and I just found a newspaper article from the period about the riots.  To bad I had not found this image back when I reviewed the book earlier.  Remember, by the way, that Republicans were the anti-slavery party, at that time (1835).

Shira

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Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Shira Destinie A. Jones

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Novel as Not Even Thinly Veiled Autobiography??

    Probably not a good idea, at least so all of the writing experts tell us.  But why, or why not?  I’ve heard it quoted that ‘all novels are autobiographical,’ which makes sense given that any and every line one writes tells much about the writer, no matter what that writer’s intention may have been.  Every word you write reveals something about you.  But you never have a chance to explain or give your own interpretation to your writing.  Once it is out in the world, readers will see in your writing what they wish to see.  Even if it is a true event which they would prefer (and you would also have preferred, for that matter) were not true, or a time when you wondered if you yourself might not be some alien artifact merely sent here to record these odd human goings-on, or if you always thought that life might be some gross diabolical experiment, or maybe even just a fun bet, between two or more un-empathetic beings or species.  Every word your write will pass through the filter of each and every person who reads those words, and thus be judged according to someone else’s experiences and ways of thinking.  From a light-skinned Black child being taunted as ‘white’ by other Black kids, painful for that child, but reduced to whining angst by others, to the fear of a woman that she might be seen as dating across races being turned into mere criticism of interracial dating or marriage.  Our experiences and the thoughts and feelings within those events are always subject to interpretation, measurement, being weighed in the balance, and found wanting by others who have not experienced those or similar things.  The feeling of lost opportunities when potential and ought-to-have-been alliances turn out to be physical aggressions of the first order, all downgraded to a mere fight.  The feeling, when told to take care because your skin is just the right color to get you excluded from every group you have ever even heard of, judged to be simple self-pity.  Your desire to explain that not a single human being ever born has a “pure” bloodline, wiped out by those who simply want you to suffer because you are a convenient target, when they are in fact, acting in precise accord with the racists from the other side who also agree that “the races don’t mix.”  The irony and the agony of being a human being, when it is all so clearly an exercise in futility, just as the writer of Kohelet, aka  Ecclesiastes,  said so long ago:  “הבל” /  “emptiness” -it may all really be emptiness, but we must keep trying, anyway.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning through TV or Film story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

or

Learning in the obvious way: Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning via Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

     Thoughtful Reading Writers, please consider reading and then also writing something about #ProjectDoBetter.    Phase I includes freely sharing with others about how consumer debt     related Statutes of Limitations are meant to protect society, if only everyone knew about them.  The work is still heavy, and the workers are still few.   But we human beings  can still seriously Do Better. 

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka:

ShiraDest  (and by the way, I have written several narratives about these incidents mentioned above, if anyone wants me to link in to them either by editing this post, or in the comments to this post later…  Just let me know in a comment here.)

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A Decent Start By The US Navy To Do Better: The USS Smalls

     This is why Project Do Better works, especially in Phase II, toward the telling of all of our stories, even starting now, in Phase I:  Education must include all of our voices, and work to right the wrongs done in the past, as the renaming of this ship from that of a victory by slave-holding states working to tear the Union apart, to that of a brilliant and exceptionally brave man working to end an insidious institution.

(from NPR  …)

And it’s a decent start, but only a start…

       While not all of our problems can be fixed immediately, education is the common denominator for solving them, which is why independent and learner-led education forms the bedrock of Project Do Better’s public educational  advocacy:

starting in Phase I, particularly via the free Holistic High School and college algebra lesson plans linked below, and then becoming even more personalized during Phase II.  Lifting all of our voices and telling all of our stories, like that of Robert Smalls, is a crucial part of working together to tie in each part of this work, from public health care, to public transportation, to public education, and the library systems.

     We really can Do Better

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on long term societal solutions, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

S. Destinie

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Not Everyone Got the GI Bill, But We CAN Repair Past Wrongs By Repaying Old Debts

     The GI Bill essentially created a large middle class in the US, by paying for both college and family housing, through the VA mortgage programs.  But the Double V campaign to defeat  racism abroad and at home was not completed, as shown by the shutting out of Black veterans from the very programs that gave white families those boats to be lifted by that rising tide later mentioned so famously.

     We can still fix this.

     Project Do Better calls, particularly during Phases II and III,  for strong Service Adult advocacy for higher education, although communities may opt to edit their editions of the Do Better manual, freely available in editable form from me, to start that phase of the Project sooner.  Any community may decide to update their own Project Do Better community manual,  as distinct and derived from the current generic #ProjectDoBetter manual, which  starts by emphasizing free forms of intensive community and self-education, in Phase I, before emphasizing greater housing, reparations, and land-related advocacy in Phase II.  Serving Adults will especially be expected to give help in every way possible, from advocacy to delivering groceries, to people like these vets, who were denied their blood-earned right to the GI Bill:

“It planted a seed for longstanding economic inequality that persists today…”

(from NPR …)

         Those Black vets who were denied college and housing loans are owed a debt by a nation that they helped to save in more ways than one.  Reparations, either in-kind, as with housing, scholarships, etc, or monetary for those who did not get the GI Bill are still possible, and certainly to their children and grandchildren.

 

     We really can Do Better

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Thoughtful Readers, share your ideas for long term education and housing related solutions, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment here, that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning in various ways:

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Library Book Review: Crossings: A White Man’s Journey Into Black America , By Walt Harrington

    I read this book so long ago that I’d entirely forgotten about it, but I’m glad to have fished it out of my list:

The idea of “the decents” providing continuing hope for humanity moved me to tears of hope. That came toward the end of this, one of the few books I’d warrant as worth owning (and for which I interrupted my reading of Cook’s A Brief History of the Human Race). In a slightly different context, but still salient to my point that each person is an individual, nearer the start of this book, one of the telling questions he asks (on page 102) is “Isn’t the result the same?” To see that context, you’ll have to read the book, please, please, please.

Much of what struck me in this work, for which the author, a white man, left his family, a black wife and their kids in the DC area, was just how difficult it is to understand life from the perspective of another. I think that as a writer, whose job it is to get across the perspective of others, he did admirably well. Both from my perspective as a Black American, and from my perspective as someone who has lived in five countries and tried but failed to both understand and convey the perspectives of others.

Specifically, some of the things that struck me as I read include a very sharp agreement with one black man’s comment (page 19) of sometimes being “angry and you don’t know what you’re angry about.” But it comes from that permeating sense of not being taken seriously, of low expectations (as when I am asked “why do you know all of this” in the tone of surprise that says I should not…) and of always being underestimated, because of who you were born.
I also very much identified with another comment (page 21) that black folks “must act as if they can control their lives, whether or not they can” but still feel the rage and helplessness of losing a house just a few years short of paying off the mortgage when myself and all of my renters lost our jobs all at the same time, and I had nowhere to go but out of the country to take the only job on offer at the time. Control?

Few people ever understand why I identify so completely with the cries (page 23) of “I hate this hair!” That is how I grew up feeling about my own so-called “good” hair, and for the very same reasons. Yet I wonder if I would have made the cut to play the part of one of the house slaves in Williamsburg? I remember the controversy (page 25) over the reenactment of a slave auction a few years ago. All this, particularly page 28, reminds me of Johanna’s comments regarding thee dignity and strength she saw in the faces of my adoptive Great Grandparents , who also recall the time on the plantation, again, their survival and love being “all the more remarkable.”

I agree heartily (page 29) and happily that we black folks certainly do tend to be far more vocal and animated in a natural (not for effect) way, at least what feels more natural to me, and to comment more freely when watching films or TV, etc (and we know how to do so AROUND, not during, the dialogue!). Part of the louder and more lively interaction may be the fact that we come from a culture that is used to walking long distances, but I wonder (page 30) how long a slave, presumably barefooted on dirt roads, would take to talk the 75 miles down to Richmond, and whether than would be during the day or night (with permission, presumably, so day?)

My note on Kingsmill, from page 31 is Yup: and thank you. Yet again, someone (as in Cornell West’s Race Matters) has given voice to my feelings that “I wanted to be served once in a while, rather than always doing the serving.” Yet, very nicely put, in the end (page 32) “The harsh truth has set her free.”

This is a point that could not be made by a person of color: (page 33) “…we whites rarely comprehend: it is we who create…” please just read the entire preceding page in order to comprehend Page 33. Partly (page 40) it also explains that famous “Crab Mentality” among black folks (I guess it’s not only in DC…). 😦

But Pages 33-42 sum up nicely the fact that many are “telling different sides to the same truth.” (This reminds me of a famous Babylon 5 theme, that “The truth is a three-edged sword.”) Just as (thank you for recognizing this!) it is uplifting to have the author explain his experience, which is what I experience, but in reverse, when those around me discuss their vacations growing up, their going to parties, their boy/girlfriends in high school, none of which I had at that same time. Just night-shift work at People’s drug store and Gr. Marie worrying about me taking the Dupont Circle metro so late at night, when I had no choice.

Crucially, on page 53, at the bottom, it is gratifying to see that having the hard conversations, gently, does indeed help. He, and perhaps we, start to understand…

Ha!! 🙂 (Page 62) Someone fairly recently complained that I often fail to finish my sentences: I am waiting for the other person to do so, just as the author describes here! (See, I am maybe normal, somewhere!)

Regarding Charleston, I’d like to see some of the documentation he has not cited (page 66), but I do agree that it does explain the high number of skilled slaves and freedmen, like my 5xs Gr. Grandmother, a dressmaker, who purchased her freedom before having my 4xGr. Grandfather James Ward Porter, a colored GA state Rep. during the Reconstruction.

Excellent A Jewish police chief in the deep South having white prisoners clean sidewalks in black neighborhoods!! (page 68)

On page 125 he credits Richard Wright’s Black Boy, in particular and also Native Son with helping him to begin seeing one black perspective, and the reason for so much distrust. On page 151 he again points out that bastions of privilege in particular need the voices of other perspectives, like scholarship students from less well-off backgrounds.

Wow!! (page 310) “searches for only the ‘decents‘ … and never let ’em go.” Which can be people in any corner or walk of life, just as a movie (p 357) can indeed lead to “major social change” -which is why we write.

Finally, I love how he points to both film and literature (on pages 364 and 365) to show that James Alan McPherson’s earlier point is the same, which is to say that one must measure a person by “the best in all of us” and that duty” of art “is to write about” the relevant for humankind, to help build “… the pillars to help him endure and prevail” whether or not people listen.

Excellent work.

   Continuing Education is crucial to our republic, and to our future.  Reading and critical thinking on the work like this is crucial to how we vote, as well, in the immediate term.  Over the long term, empathy, built through tools like free adult education, probono legal aid, and #languagelearning, is crucial.

We really can Do Better.

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/Protector & Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  Guest post writers welcome.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Libri Library Review: Adventure of The Yellow Face, By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This was an amazing listen over Librivox, though I had to make an effort to find a reader that I liked.   This was actually part of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, but the story of Adventure of The Yellow Face was the one that impressed me enough to remember this set of stories.  I’m still shocked that I have never heard of this one before (ok, or not so shocked, come to think of it…).  This story, imho, is why he merits his knighthood and title of ‘Sir’ Arthur.

And then, there is the famous codeword: Norbury…

(Quick comment on the Featured Image:  it is faithful to the scene as described in the story, but a child described as ‘Yellow’ would be much lighter-skinned than this drawing…)

Who would have imagined that Sir Arthur was, in his own way via these Sherlock Holmes stories, an anti-slavery activist, as well as anti-classist?

I am so glad that I found a better reading of these short stories, as the story The Adventure of The Yellow Face was absolutely worth purchasing the entire volume in order to have at hand and read again and again, although I think I’ve already memorized those last minutes of the story from listening to it over and over, tears streaming down my face each time.
I wonder if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was aware of the epithet “High Yellow” for those of us with very light complexions in the Black community?

At first reading, I thought that these short disconnected stories tend to lose my interest, especially with so many bad readers each for different story. LibriVox does have a few different versions of this anthology, but I don’t find it worth trying to find a third version.

My second favorite quote from this set of stories is:

‘“Watson,’ said he, ‘if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.” ‘

And my favorite is at 31.15% of the way through…

:

“I think I  am a better man than you give me credit for…”  -But how could she have known how differently he would react than the ordinary man?

–

Musgrave ritual: it’s the “mom always cut the ends of the meat off, because that’s what grandma did…” Story. All over again…

–

The Greek interpreter: Mycroft introduced!!

–

 #racism confronted: Second story: Yellow Face, listening to version 3 of the LibreVox recording by far better reader.

–

An interracial marriage from Reconstruction era Atlanta?! Wow! Why have I never heard of this aspect of the Sherlock Holmes stories??!!

November 4, 2020 –31.15% Wow!! End of #interracial story The Yellow Face:

“He lifted the little child, kissed her, and… I think I am a better man than you give me credit for.”

Yes, Sir,
You are.

–

Story, The Gloria Scot: how children pay for the sins of the parents…”

–

Mr. Musgrave is an idiot: the family Ritual is obviously a memorized treasure map. So many steps with sun and shadow as landmarks…”

–

Henry Ward Beecher, as in Harriet Beecher Stowe? Amazing criticism of the US #CivilWar, makes it seem as if the British kept very much more abreast of events and issues in the US than we of theirs…

We can Do Better.

Shira

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest site menu, above this review, for pages leading to more posts to read, if you like to learn in various different ways (through story, or through direct lesson planning and study, or through reading history whether as nonfiction or as fiction…):

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/Protector & Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

or,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing.

And also,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  Guest post writers welcome.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Parashat Lech Lecha 5783, And Why We Must Vote

This parashah, as I noted in 5781 ( Sacred Study Saturdays and Hallowe’en as a former slave might have seen it ), has a way of looking at slavery that can inform our need for cultural change today, in the United States.    Here in the US, generations of us have been cut off from our roots, pulled into a system that taught us to hate ourselves, and to compete for the favor of those who control us.  This generational trauma that began with The Middle Passage continued into the Jim Crow era, as segregation based on the One Drop Rule perpetuated a system that created recurring community and family level trauma.  This rootlessness left, as we commented last year, lasting marks on both descendants of American slaves, and on American society as a whole.  Only by continuing to use the right that we have so long struggled for, and purchased in blood, can we help to heal this country, and make this world a better place for every human being. 

The task is tiring, and cannot be done all at once, but with careful planning, education, and greater cooperation between the generations, it can be done. 

Let’s Do Better.

–

Last week was Parashat Noach 5783, A short short Still emerging from song, and transportation …

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

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Shira

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