5 Things Friday
Take a breath, be cool, and keep trying. Here are your antiracism action steps for July 16.
Sam Jay, photogrpahed by Jingyu Lin for The New York Times
Quick story: About 11 months ago, we had a little altercation with a neighbor. See, we have a commercial space in the Outer Richmond and our front window is filled with signs: "Black Lives Matter" "End Police Brutality" "Be An Antiracist"....you get the picture. One day we came home to a piece of cardboard shoved under our door. On it was written "We support the SFPD." Whatevs. We tossed it. The next day we found someone had scrawled the same message on our sidewalk in black Sharpie. We have security cameras, so we were easily able to see and identify the guy who did it—an older white man from around the corner, whom we had never met but recognized from his daily walks to Safeway. My husband Danny was itching to confront him, so the next time he saw him head to the store, he waited out front of the shop to catch him on his way back. The conversation started as you would assume...Danny pissed and had assumptions. He was shocked at being caught, defensive, and came with a lot of assumptions himself. But here's how it's going: by the end of that first convo Danny had asked enough questions to realize where this man was coming from (had relatives in the force, and had a really ill wife he was taking care of, which made him extra emotional), and tried to break our views down to him in ways he might relate to (turns out he had also had some bad experiences with the police himself). By the end, the man had apologized for what he did, and thanked my husband for taking the time to talk to him. They even exchanged numbers and have kept in touch via text and in-person chats since then.
Fast forward to today. Our signs are still up, albeit faded from the (occasional) Outer Richmond sunlight. Our coffee shop is open and attracting loads of friendly neighbors. Today the man came back right after we had closed for the day and we were cleaning up. Danny went outside to chat and offer him something to eat or drink. He declined, but insisted we take his credit card and charge $15 on it. He wanted to pay for the first few customers who came in the next morning— "To do something nice for the neighborhood," he said. "To pay it forward."
So, that uncle who grumbles about everything being too "PC"? That Karen of a mother-in-law? Take a breath, be cool, and keep trying. You never know what might happen. And if you're in the Outer Richmond at 7 am today, come by—coffee is on our formerly grumpy neighbor.
Here are your 5 Things.
READ THIS. We started REP CO because our eyes were opened to the way white supremacy has and continues to shape American media. And our learning on the topic is never ending. This piece by Brent Staples, a member of the the New York Times Editorial board, goes deep into exactly how newspapers throughout history have played a major role in establishing and upholding white supremacy—from printing blatantly racist news coverage to directly engineering acts of racial terror and violence. Read his full essay: "How The White Press Wrote Off Black America" right here.
AND THIS. Rodney Pierce is a social studies teacher in North Carolina. He sets the stage for his 8th graders by sharing a quote from James Baldwin: “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” Pierce told the students they were going to learn about both the “beautiful and the horrifying parts” of the state and country’s past. “We need to talk about all of it,” he explained “because that is American history.” For years, Pierce has spoken openly about racism in the concrete and the local: the town names, the monuments to Confederates, the horrific lynchings. He won social studies teacher of the year in 2019, and has been tasked with helping write the new standards for the state to make sure others follow his lead. But recently the backlash has come for him hard—this profile of Pierce is illuminating and another much-needed look at what the drama around CRT is really about.
WATCH THIS. According the bland HBO landing page: "Pause With Sam Jay" is another "new, half-hour, late night talk series...that takes a new approach to late-night conversations and plunges into the cultural issues that divide us from a fresh lens." According to our REP CO co-founder Jessa WIllliams, it's one of the few shows that "doesn't consider the white gaze," and for that, it's extraordinary. Watch it, enjoy it...then keep it to yourself. Your Black friends don't need to hear what you think about it, bc honestly, it's not for you or about you. But that doesn't mean it's not a damn good show.
SIGN THIS. Lee Merritt — a civil rights attorney and organizer is running against Ken Paxton to be the next Attorney General of Texas. It won’t be an easy race. Ken Paxton — the Republican incumbent who infamously met with the organizers of the Capitol Riots on January 6th — has an army of right-wing mega donors and super PACs at his disposal. Sign here to show your support for Lee Meritt's campaign and to find out how to get involved in next steps.
KNOW THIS. It's disability pride month! Our own CCO, Dr. Akilah Cadet is disabled and proud, and has plenty to say on the subject—"Hear me out: disabled is not a bad word, in fact we wear it with pride. Hence #disabilitypridemonth 🏽 Now, if you are nondisabled we need your support....As some of you prepare to head back into the office advocate for us. Advocate for disabled people. The pandemic (we're still in) has shown how companies can thrive, hire new people, and how we are all able to get shit done at home. Now's the time to be an advocate to assure that people like myself with disability don't have to live between starting their own company (me) or living on unfair, unrealistic, unethical, underfunded, biased, discriminatory government support (Google it). Hire us! Keep us! Support us! In fact, check out @blackdisabledcreative and @chronicallycapable. Be uncomfortable. Do the work!"