Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

[illustrations and photos of people from minoritized groups]

Graphic of group of black men and women in office, from Black Illustrations.com


Minoritized groups are often under-represented in images, whether advertising, magazine articles, or generic images used in reports and brochures.

BlackIllustrations.com is one site that offers illustrations of Black people in different contexts, including office, medical, STEM, education and more. Some sets are free; others have a cost.

https://www.BlackIllustrations.com


Education Pack promo image, from BlackIllustrations.com, showing Black people in a variety of educational contexts and activities

(Above: some education-related images from BlackIllustrations.com)


Picture of seated Black man holding his child, and holding a children's book. Photo from nappy.co
nappy.co is a site that has excellent photos of Black and Brown people, free, for commercial and personal use. 

Collections include Tiny Humans, "Breathe, Stretch, Shake, All Hands, Black in Green Spaces, Food for the Soul, Women at Work, The Perfect Holiday, All Black Lives Matter, I's Married Now, and Good Hair.

https://nappy.co


The Gender Spectrum Collection

A non-binary femme with blue hair, on the phone, in a gender neutral bathroom with blue tiles and a sign indicating Gender Neutral Washroom. From Vice Gender Spectrum Collection. CC BY-NC-ND4.0
Vice Gender Photos Collection
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

"The Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés. This collection aims to help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities—people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives."

https://genderphotos.vice.com/

Friday, July 17, 2020

[allegories on race and racism]


Camara Jones in this video does an amazing job of explaining the dimensions of racism, and presents four helpful allegories:



Direct link to video

Friday, June 12, 2020

[brilliant critique of Vogue's whitewashed covers]


"Being black is not a crime" - Vogue critique by Salma Noor, showing black person in white dress photoshopped onto a Vogue cover, with the words "Being black is not a crime".

"Oslo-based student Salma Noor posted her own version of a Vogue cover on June 2, with the cover line “Being black is not a crime” in support of Black Lives Matter. Noor modeled for the alternative cover herself, with the help of photographer @calvin. Little did she know that the trend would go insanely viral days later—thanks in part to a June 6 internal memo from Vogue‘s editor-in-chief herself, Anna Wintour." (source)

Salma's action started a trend where people of colour did the same, tagging their images with #VogueChallenge. 

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

[social justice books]


Screenshot of Social Justice Books' Booklists page, showing 2 rows of the 10 rows of curated booklists

Social Justice Books calls itself "the best selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, YA and educators," and looking at their site makes it obvious that their claim is true.

The site includes curated booklists, an excellent Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books, and more! The booklists (the above picture 14 of the over 60 booklists available) include almost every culture imaginable as well as broader topics like culture/language, hair, holidays, etc.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

[Black Madonna of Czestochowa celebrates Pride...]


Black Madonna of Czestochowa with pride colours in the halos added by Elzbieta Podlesna


... but not everyone is happy.

Elzbieta Podlesna, a human rights activist in Poland who made this poster of the famous Black Madonna of Czestochowa with pride colours in the halos, has been arrested on charges of "offending religious beliefs".

(Read more about it here.)

Personally, I think it's quite beautiful - black and queer together - though I wonder why the Madonna was so sad to begin with...

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

[on the importance of representation...]


Jamal Jordan writes about growing up in a world where he saw no examples of queer people of colour, and how he began taking portraits as part of changing this.

Pat Martin and Paulette Thomas-Martin are both 66 and have 13 grand children between them from the lives they lived before they met. Photo by Jamal Jordan.
"As a child, I thought all gay people were white.

By the time I was 18 and living in Detroit, being gay was no longer a “problem” for me. I was out of the closet, and my family and friends were supportive, even encouraging. Yet, as I set off for college, and grew more comfortable calling myself an adult, a man — a gay black man — I was convinced that no one would ever date or love me.

Growing up, I had rarely seen queer characters of color in the gay young adult books I read, in episodes of “Queer as Folk” I watched or issues of “XY” or “Out” magazines I stealthily bought at Barnes & Noble."

Jamal Jordan, photographer, in Queer Love in Color
Read the rest of the article and see more portraits at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/queer-love-in-color.html

See also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/insider/brown-black-queer-and-invisible.html

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

declared spaces inside declared spaces


cartoon about declared spaces inside declared spaces, with three people. By rob goetze

This site has extensive discussion of uncertain spaces and declared spaces. Much of it has focused on the big declaring that a church can do in terms of how welcoming and embracing it is. The outward signs, and the many inward ways which make the declaration more than just words and empty gestures.

One of the ways a church or organization can declare itself further, which has not been discussed here yet, is by having specific declared spaces within a broader declared space. As will be seen in the following examples, some of these specific spaces are physical spaces; others are "spaces in time". As well, there are also ways for people within a church or organization to declare themselves...


declared "spaces in time" within declared spaces


These are defined declared spaces that happen at certain times, within a broader declared space. Here are some examples.

example 1: standing stones services

Several churches in our parish hold Standing Stones services once a month, in some cases during the regular Sunday morning service time.
"Standing Stones is a gathering of Aboriginal and Non-aboriginal People to explore God in an Aboriginal Context.  We come to worship Jesus, infusing Cree symbols into Christian ceremony.  We smudge to purify our minds, hearts and spirits in order to come to a clearer understanding of God; we seek wisdom in Aboriginal story and scripture, we ask for God’s healing water and prayer on ourselves and our community and we celebrate God’s activities in our lives though the sharing of bannock and berries.  Standing Stones is a fresh expression of Jesus to the Aboriginal Community and to the diocese.  The hope is that this gathering is a means of Christ’s reconciling Love to heal ancient wounds and enlighten the next generation of all Canadians."(source)
stained glass windows at the chapel, all saints cathedral, edmonton. photo by rob goetze. windows, from left to right: medicine wheel, buffalo, bear, eagle


Friday, October 28, 2016

[gender-based analysis plus]



Though Gender-Based Analysis Plus has been in use by the Government of Canada since 1995, many people might not have heard of it.

Here’s how they describe it:

GBA+ is an analytical tool used to assess the potential impacts of policies, programs, services, and other initiatives on diverse groups of women and men, taking into account gender and other identity factors. The "plus" in the name highlights that GBA+ goes beyond gender, and includes the examination of a range of other intersecting identity factors (such as age, education, language, geography, culture and income).
Part of the goal of using GBA+ is to ensure that programs and services which are intended to produce positive results do not inadvertently have a negative effect on one subset of the population.

Read more here.

Educate and equip yourself! Take a short, free course on GBA+

Thursday, October 13, 2016

not so white after all?


I love Angélica Dass’ photographic project Humanae!  (see previous post)

So I decided to see how white I am…
… and clearly, I am not so white after all.


Picture of rob goetze done in the style of Angelica Dass' Humanae project; I am Pantone 7618 U. Photo by A.G.; edits by rob g.


Ms. Dass’ method is a bit complicated, so I did this the simple way:
I had one of my daughters take my picture.
I resized a copy of the photo to be really small, so that the colours would consolidate into an average colour.
I opened the photo in Paint (yes, good old fashioned Paint) and used the eyedropper to sample that colour.
I painted the entire background in that colour.
I looked at the RGB value for that colour, and used an online service to convert it to Pantone. That’s so I know what Pantone colour I am, to put under my picture.
In my case, I am Pantone 7618 U.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

[what colour are you?]

Brazilian photographer Angélica Dass is working on a large project which she calls "humanae". She takes portraits of people and then matches their skin tone to a Pantone colour, The portrait is then printed with that Pantone colour as the background. This challenges how we consider skin colour and ethnic identity,..

Watch her TED talk:


Alternate video link.

Check out Angélica Dass' website:
http://www.angelicadass.com/humanae-work-in-progress/


Sunday, June 05, 2016

plantations...


I came across a fascinating article which in part said this:
White Christians without multi-ethnic experiences often have a white cultural vision for what it means to be a multi-ethnic church. Their mono-ethnic, predominantly white, and non-multi ethnic experiences will inevitably force them to see multi-ethnic church through the lens of their socially constructed whiteness.

Consequently, it will be easy for these Christians, lacking the necessary multi-ethnic and multi-cultural competence, to import their limited cultural vision onto ethnic minorities in the name of a multi-ethnic church, while genuinely thinking they’re pursuing racial reconciliation with their ethnic minority brothers and sisters in Christ.

How to avoid becoming an unhealthy, multi-ethnic church plantation
Jarvis Williams May 5, 2016
This makes a lot of sense to me.

And then I wondered, how might this apply to our lgbtq+ siblings? Is there a similar dynamic? So I rewrote the paragraphs with that in mind:
Straight Christians without experiences of multiple gender and sexual realities often have a straight cisgender cultural vision for what it means to be a diverse and welcoming church. Their mono-sexual, predominantly heterosexual, and solely cisgender and gender binary experiences will inevitably result in them seeing a sexually-diverse and gender-diverse church through the lens of their socially constructed cisgender straightness.

Consequently, it will be easy for these Christians, lacking the necessary multi-sexuality and multi-gender identification competence, to import their limited cultural vision onto sexual and gender minorities in the name of a diverse and welcoming church, while genuinely thinking they’re pursuing reconciliation with their sexual and gender minority siblings in Christ.

The result will be predominantly straight cisgender churches with predominantly straight cisgender leadership seeking to conform sexual and gender minorities into the cultural idea of straightness and cisgenderedness instead of Spirit-empowered, multi-sexual, multi-gender, gospel-centered churches whose members are seeking to pursue reconciliation with one another regardless of sexual and gender differences, as the members put one another’s needs before their own and as they seek to listen to, learn from, and serve one another in love.

Is this what's happening in some progressive parishes and churches? Are they plantations where lgbtq+ people are welcome to fully be part of the existing order, but not embraced and celebrated for who they are?

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

[forensic jesus]


"Back in 2002 a forensic artist used Semite skulls found in Israel to reconstruct the face and head of what a first-century male from Palestine would most probably have looked like."

Paul Alexander from Evangelicals for Social Action challenges us to put a picture of this Jesus up in our churches:

Picture of Jesus as recreated by forensic artist based on Semite skulls. Photo from http://www.evangelicalsforsocialaction.org/church/put-this-jesus-in-your-church/

Their goal is to have one million churches with this picture on display.

What do you think? How would people at your church respond? Personally, I'd like to see a slightly friendlier looking version of the forensic Jesus instead of the slightly stunned version that the scientists drew up.

How do you feel about referring to the typical pictures of Jesus as the "European Jesus"?

Forward this post or the link to the full article to your pastor, and ask them to consider adding forensic Jesus to the church walls...

Read the whole article here. They also have a higher resolution version of the picture available there.

Tuesday, March 01, 2016

[asset mapping for straight white folks and others with privilege]


"I think white people who want to take positive action should start to asset map. Rather than being frozen in guilt and thinking about what you "can't do" or how daunting actions might seem, think of all the skills you have and all the communities and spaces you have access to. How can you utilize your assets to create real impact for black liberation?" Jamila Woods. #BlackLivesMatter

What Jamila says here is also true for any sort of privileged people who want to take positive action -- asset map and then utilize your assets to create real impact for the liberation of others...


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

an apology from Senior Deputy Ben Fields of the Richland County Sheriff's Department


To the unnamed black female high school student at Spring Valley High School who was violently assaulted by Deputy Ben Fields for refusing to get up and leave after being written up for not putting away her phone. Columbia, South Carolina. October 26, 2015.

Deputy Ben Fields of Richland County Sheriff's Dept. assaulting black female student at Spring Valley High School, Columbia, SC. Photo from AP.




i just want to say

Sitting at your desk
you wanted to use your phone
teacher said no
but you didn't listen

your parents didn't teach you right
so I taught you a lesson
about learning
while black

Forgive me
for teaching you the back flip
in math class
I should have dragged you down to the gym first

poem by rob g




This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

uncertain spaces

introduction

uncertain spaces image, by robg
Your colleague tells you that Human Resources wants to see you right away. If you have no idea as to why, there is uncertainty ahead - perhaps combined with some anxiety or fear -- until you find out whether they are going to fire you, promote you to a special project, or just need a form signed.

You are in an uncertain space, even if just for a few moments until you find out what they really want.

Now what if you're new in town, or perhaps what's new is that you've decided you want to be part of a church. You drive by a church in your neighbourhood, and the sign out in front says "Everyone Welcome".

what does that mean - “everyone welcome”?

Did you know that a study done in the U.S. found that three of the top words non-Christians ages 16 to 29 associate with Christians are judgmental, hypocritical and anti-homosexual? (source: unChristian and article)

Which means that there’s a good chance the person driving past your church and wondering about it, is already doubting the truthfulness and reality of the “Everyone Welcome” sign. Add to that any past negative experience they've had with the church or with Christians, and the uncertainty is even stronger.
The church you drive past is most likely an uncertain space. Will it be hostile or indifferent to you? Or will it be welcoming and embracing? Most times you just don't know.

Thursday, October 01, 2015

whose names do you not mention?


a list of people whom we cannot name as our brothers and sisters. drawing by rob goetze

Whose names are not mentioned in your church? Of whom have you never heard it said, "they are our brothers and sisters?"


Consider this from Brian McLaren:
The vestiges of Imperial Christianity are not always as obvious as this inscription in stone. But they are no less present in most of our churches. Racism, colonialism, exclusivism, elitism, and other members of the hostility family often hide camouflaged in songs and hymns, devotionals and prayers, sermons and Sunday School lessons. And it’s not only what is said that aids and abets hostility: it’s what is left unsaid. For example, I remember preaching in a predominantly Tutsi church in Burundi. After I made an appeal for the Twa people, the nation’s oppressed minority, someone came up to me and said, “The word Twa has never been spoken before in this church. It is as if the Twa didn’t exist. Thank you for reminding us that the Twa are God’s children.” I thought of how many real-world hostilities around the world are similarly protected through avoidance and silence in churches today.

Brian D. McLaren, p.168, in Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World


I spoke up at a church meeting a few years ago, and talked about wanting the church to be a place that is welcoming of our gay brothers and sisters in Christ. Later I realized that I had never heard anyone use the expression "our gay brothers and sisters in Christ" at our church, ever. Perhaps that was the first time it was even said there....

Perhaps it reminded some that this isn't an issue to be debated and ideas to be objected to, but that there are real people involved....

 Hopefully, some who never thought about it might begin to consider the breadth and width and depth of God's love and of the body of Christ.

Friday, September 04, 2015

[mc1r photo project challenges how we see race]


Thom Dunn, in a recent Upworthy article, asks:
Despite making up such a small percentage of the population, most of us have the same stereotypical image in our heads when we think of redheads: light-skinned, freckled white people with curls of flaming hair and a fiery temper to match.

Aside from the obvious issue of assigning a temperament to someone based on hair color, there's one other weird conclusion here: Why do we think that all redheads are white?
(source, emphasis added)

three portraits from Michelle Marshall's MC1R project. Portraits by Marshall.


Michelle Marshall, a photographer based in London, has been taking portraits of redheaded people who are black or biracial. Dunn's article features some of her portraits interspersed with some of Marshall's thoughts.

Read the whole article -- easy (and beautiful) to read and thought-provoking at the same time.

Visit Michelle Marshall's website for more photos.

Friday, August 28, 2015

an apology from the Portsmouth Police and the Hampton Roads Jail

In memory of Jamycheal Mitchell, age 24, found dead in his jail cell at Hampton Roads Regional Jail on August 19, 2015, four months after being arrested for allegedly stealing $5 of food.

Jamycheal Mitchell. Photo from Facebook



we just want to say

Hungry?
bad choice that
taking a mountain dew snickers
and zebra cake

jailed in april
you wasted away
taking up space
waiting for a hospital bed

Forgive us
for wasting tax dollars
we should have executed you
at the scene of the crime

poem by rob g



This poem seems more harsh than some of the others. I think I'm feeling particularly  angry today. Don't know how our black brothers and sisters cope with it, and especially as they know that  any given day might be their last, just because they're black.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

an apology from NJ State Troopers and the Mercer County Sheriff's Office


For Radazz Hearn, age 14.  Shot seven times on Friday, August 7, 2015, by New Jersey state troopers and Mercer County Sheriff's officer for running away. In stable condition in hospital.

Radaaz Hearns. Photo from the Hearns family.






we just want to say

You went off at a run
in your sweatpants
red as blood
and reached for a ?

our instinct said gun
we shot seven times
to protect the neighbourhood
from thugs like you

Forgive us
for not liking you black and red fashion
it clashes with white folks'
sense of decorum
poem by rob g



Read an apology from the Waller County Sheriff's Office.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
Read an explanation of false apology poems.

Sunday, August 09, 2015

an apology from St. Louis Police Department Officer Darren Wilson


In memory of Michael Brown, killed August 9, 2014 by SLPD Officer Darren Wilson.

Michael Brown. Photo by AP
(Photo by AP)



i just want to say

Newly graduated from high school
you stole from a convenience store
walked down the street
with your friend

I shot you twelve times in the front
now you are dead and I am hated
how inconvenient for me
that I came by and did my duty

Forgive me
those cigarillos
would have killed you in the end
anyway

poem by rob g




Read more.

This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.