RACIAL
JUSTICE
BLACK
LIVES
MATTER
Racial Justice Team
About us: In June 2020 the Racial Justice Team was formed to help St John’s identify ways we can support our brothers & sisters of color as they search for equality in all facets of our country.
The Team will work to educate the church and community about our personal and cultural biases that have perpetuated racism. Through understanding, we can make changes to our society. Working with local law enforcement and state representatives, we can work toward equality and equity in the enforcement of laws in our local communities, and monitor changes made. We are already seeing movement in reforms of enforcing laws.
Everyone is welcome to join us.
Questions to Examine Racism in Your Life
How have racist ideas impacted your daily life?
What childhood experiences did you have with friends or adults who were different from you?
How deep is your interest in eradicating racism?
What action are you willing to take to systematically change the inequalities?
How interested are you
- in unifying?
- in being united as human beings, no one inferior?
- to hold Americans accountable for racist behavior?
Black Lives Matter
Why say “black lives matter? Why not just say all lives matter?” …’Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability. Barack Obama
7 Ways You Can Take Action for Racial Justice Right Now
1. Choose to support Racial Justice every day.
“Every day provides us with 1,000 different opportunities to choose racial justice,” Key Jackson, senior director of movement and capacity building at the organization Race Forward, told Global Citizen. “If you are not able to be in the streets, there’s 1,000 different ways you can support it.”
One way to start supporting institutional, structural change could be making a list and examining choices around work. For example, you could evaluate whose emails you tend to respond to fastest, or who to set up one-on-one meetings with. Taking note of these tendencies can ensure you are making a priority to hear and include people of color.
Setting calendar reminders at the beginning of each day to dedicate time to racial justice can help people hold themselves accountable. Maybe that looks like setting up one hour a day for study around racial equality, Jackson explained.
People can also look at the personal decisions they make daily. Which organizations or causes are they donating to? How are they spending their money, and are they shopping at Black-owned businesses?
“By supporting or donating and putting those services specifically toward Black-owned businesses, you’re doing a couple of different things,” Jackson said. “You’re saying that this business is valid, the way that this work is happening is important, this service is necessary and needed, and these are the folks who are able to provide the service. When we do that, we’re making another intervention around what it means to uplift the Black community in this time.”
2. Educate yourself.
Education is an essential part of organizing for change, according to Shakti Butler, president and founder of the social justice and equity movement-building organization World Trust.
“People need to do many things,” Butler told Global Citizen. “They need to educate themselves. They need to be willing to tell the truth to themselves and not deny it. Based upon that education, they need to connect with other people who are doing the same thing and they need to decide: How are we going to make this world a different place? We have to study change and how it happens and gather together and make changes wherever we can make changes, even if they appear to be small,” Butler said.
3. Donate money.
4. Have difficult conversations.
The organization Amnesty International recommends that people call out racism when they see it — and condemn it.
People of color also have to have these conversations and confront how racism shows up in their communities, Jackson said.
“This moment provides us with an opportunity to have the conversations that we haven’t had before to go deeper and be willing to push, push ourselves, and be pushed,” they added.
5. Take political action.
Voting in local and federal elections is essential to reforming policing practices and addressing racial inequities.
6. Safely join a protest
7. Get connected
By Sanchez, E., Rodriguez, L., McCarthy, J. and Sepehr, J. (2020, June 2) 7 Ways You Can Take Action for Racial Justice Right Now. Retrieved from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/how-to-support-racial-justice-black-americans/
