34 Comments

How about a collection of stories of ordinary people taking steps to fight injustice? How are people doing things in their own way to build bridges, talk to others, write articles, start groups, stand up and change the world? Each of us in our own way needs to use our influence to fight inequality and it’s not just particating in a demonstrations or writing a letter. We must each fight apathy and complacency. I think these stories could be inspiring !

Dr Tisby- thanks so much for hosting the zoom call for your newsletter subscribers yesterday. Sorry I couldn’t stay for the whole thing. But I was interested to meet some of the other people and hear who they are and what they’re doing to fight injustice. I hope you’ll do it again! Thank you!

Expand full comment

Love this idea, would be inspiring and helpful

Expand full comment

I really like your idea of ordinary people’s stories.

Expand full comment

Interview co-authors, Mark Charles and Soong Cha Rah about the Doctrine of Discovery. They wrote, Unsettling Truths: the Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. Or better yet, interview them on a specific aspect of their book or interview one of my them about a particular topic close to your heart.

Mark Charles is working on another book, but Soong Cha Rah has several. He is currently at Fuller in Pasadena.

I haven't been keeping up with podcasts. Did you already do any of the above? Did you already do one on the rise of Christian Nationalism

My feeble excuse: (I took on a new job this year. Teaching in a high school keeps me busy, so I take little time for keeping up with anything else).

Expand full comment

I would appreciate a series on how to deal with people who deny the existence of structural and systemic racism especially when those people claim to love Jesus.

Expand full comment

Ann, this would be most helpful. For me, there are many dimensions to this resistance:

o Separation of church and state; avoiding politics in the church

o Social silo's that make it so we don't empathize with (or even see) the marginalized

o Church's focus on "charity" rather than changing the structure

o Overall faith in our economic/social system ("freedoms," unconstrained capitalism, ...)

Expand full comment

Decolonizing Mental Health (and the church's role in that)

The impact of white evangelical church on sexuality/purity culture (and the role racism plays in purity culture)

Expand full comment

1) Race and disability... as an (Asian) special needs mom I've realized black kids are overrepresented and underserved in the special needs community. 2) Allyship... when it's done badly, and when it changes the world.

Expand full comment

I would love to have you review or interview the curator of key museums that deal with the slavery/racism of our country. I recently visited the Harriet Beecher Stowe house in Hartford. Very good. And I recently lessened about the International African American Museum in Charleston SC. I’d love to learn about these place, what they hope to communicate etc.

Expand full comment

Jemar, Thank you for all the important efforts you make to bring people to a better understanding of our nation's deeper and broader history than has been authored for so long. I am deeply concerned too many people believe silencing the voices of the past and present are the answer.

I am a Literacy Tutor (I wrote to you months ago about your concerns that your son did not value reading as much as you.), K-3rd grade levels, for Reading Corps, an AmeriCorps program. I try to find appropriate books for each of my children as a gift. Last week I read several early elementary level books as possible gifts, but I found too much of the literature re-lived traumatic history for my Black students. This is rarely the case in early lit for white children. My daughter, who is an Speech Language Pathologist has found the same problem when searching for middle school students.

Would you consider examining the various issues surrounding children's literature that attempts to reach Black children and invites white students to read these as everyday stories yet too often includes storylines of experiences that were traumatizing? Kim🌠

Expand full comment

I would love a series on what warning signs to look out for in a church sermon or during fellowship time. Subtle references that a Pastor might say, talking points from far-right media, and so on.

I think many church goers who are not exposed to far-right, white-nationalist dog-whistles and ideology don't pick up on subtle things that are mentioned on a Sunday morning.

I left my small church (that I had been with for 20 years and considered family) because the pulpit was becoming an echo of Fox News. When I heard things that I, as a white, middle class suburban woman, found offensive to my Black brothers and sisters in Christ, I made the painful choice to leave. The exit interview I had to have with the elders confirmed my decision. I fear that many people of all races could be staying with a church that is becoming toxic, just because they are comfortable there, they have "good teaching" or that's where all their friends go. We need to face this issue.

Expand full comment

My pastor launched a Diversity committee specifically celebrating "Openness, Transparency, and Accountability" which she said are not standard in all-white congregations. She argued that much church decision-making/leadership is closed and hidden, and thus not welcoming to "others." What practices/policies in our churches impede realizing our vision of a "Beloved Community"?

Expand full comment

Classical Christian education and the role it plays in reinforcing the white washing of history as well as its connection to churches and how it affects the culture created in those spaces esp if that is not how you choose to educate. Or how it keeps minority voices and stories from being included.

Expand full comment

The podcast has been active in my rotation for years. Tyler Burns was sort of getting into preacher mode and said “do not give them your dignity” it has stuck with me for years and helped me out of the closet. It would be nice to see how the gospel is liberative for all folx. Love your work and podcast, and I have noticed some movement to include women, but the podcast seems to focus on straight black men’s experiences. Would love to see series with womanist and queer folx. They are asking why should we give up are dignity?

Expand full comment

The intersection of race, faith, and poverty. This is the space I work in and I would love to see you apply your intellect to this arena.

Expand full comment

Have you done a podcast on your book How to Fight Racism?

Expand full comment

Contact Ijeoma Nnodim Opara, MD and/ or her father Dr. Joseph Nnodim to discuss any of several topics including Dr. Opara’s work in anti-racist action; Dr. Nnodim’s recent book, Toward Understanding the Nigeria-Biafra war; primary care in Detroit; and why evangelical Christians should pay attention to colonial overtones in the use of “mission” and similar ideas.

Dr. Opara hosts a videoconference called AIMART and I learned a lot while participating a few months back in a chat about responses to the death of the Queen of England.

Expand full comment

Dive into the history and nuance of Justice Takes Sides, especially compared to the idea of Blind Justice and Equal Justice. How is it even a serious idea that Lady Justice wears a blindfold? The Declaration of Independence talks about “native justice and magnanimity” but what did that really mean? The first sentence of the U.S. Constitution seeks to “establish Justice” but reality shows us that if you have enough money and know the right people it is possible to establish “unequal justice under the law.”

Expand full comment

Wow! So many fabulous suggestions.

Thank you, Dr. jamar, for asking for our input.

The injustice that has been weighing me down is the mass incarceration of young black men in our country. Wondering about the idea of interviewing people like Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander.

First, God used the book the New Jim Crow to get my husband and me, we're both white, to admit that systemic racism exists. As much grief is that brought upon us we are so thankful to see truth.

I'm thinking an angle for this could be what we can do, at different levels of commitment, to help dismantle mass incarceration. I hear more in the news about other efforts and not much about the injustice of mass incarceration.

Thank you for courageously speaking out with truth, persistence, just enough stubbornness, and the light of God.

Expand full comment