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What We Learned: New Orleans, LA Equity in School Cohort 20-21
In July of 2020, amidst dual pandemics in this country: both COVID 19 and systemic racism, Beloved Community launched our New Orleans Equity in Schools Cohort. This cohort marked our first all-virtual series in which we led eight synchronous sessions on Zoom.
Interrogating Inaccuracies: Hate Crime Data and APIDA Communities.
Anti-Asian violence is rarely categorized as a hate crime by law enforcement. In fact, it is worth noting that the very process of determining what constitutes a hate crime is deeply flawed, revealing how various legal institutions play crucial roles in reinforcing identity hierarchies and dismissing the intersectionality that shapes people’s lives.
Multiple Truths
People often don’t make space for the existence of others’ experiences due to a real fear of a false assumption: that doing so will erase the existence of their own experiences.
APIDA Complexities: Learning, Unlearning, Relearning
Domestic (to the United States) and global APIDA communities are complex and diasporic. In order to dismantle anti-Asian violence, we must start by disaggregating and differentiating Asian identities, experiences, and cultures that typically get lumped together and create dangerous monoliths. The mythology of the model minority is one of those monoliths. The model minority myth asserts that the “Asian community” is high achieving and successful, positioning them as an exemplar for other BIPOC to emulate.
Global History of White Supremacy and Anti-Blackness.
Dr. Isabel Wilkerson calls the U.S. a caste system because of the racial hierarchy people in power invented. In this hierarchy, Black people and people close to Blackness are positioned at the bottom, white people and those in proximity to whiteness at the top, and all other racial groups are categorized according to this dichotomy.
Xenophobia and Racism Are Nothing New to the United States: a Critical Lens on Anti-Asian Hate.
Beloved Community stands in solidarity with our Asian, Pacific Islander & Desi American (APIDA) community. We are united against racism and hate crimes that kill communities of color. Full stop. Period. Xenophobia and racism are American pastimes.
Why Beloved Community: Alisha S. Keig
Unfortunately, I found out later, as we all eventually do, that I wasn’t told the whole truth about racism-which isn’t fair. I found out people misuse and decontextualize Dr. King’s speeches to silence people like me (young people, Black people, women, and others at the margin fighting for change) and discourage our involvement in civics.
Why Beloved Community.
I was drawn to Beloved and I remain at Beloved because I believe that this organization is a manifestation of Baldwin’s sentiment: “The place that I fit will not exist until I make it.”
Why Our Team is Going on Sabbatical This Month.
Our team at Beloved Community is going on sabbatical together. Not a retreat, not an internal strategy reflection, but a collective rest for the month of February.
What the Royal Team is Reading on Sabbatical
As we mindfully prepare to enter a period of rest and recharge, we here at Beloved have posed to ourselves, “How will I know when I am resting? When I am truly taking a break to recharge?” In response, a number of us on the Royal Team named “reading” as a way we know rest. As such, we joyfully share with you the books we look forward to diving into during our sabbatical as well as books with which we’ve had an ongoing love affair. We also share with you the names of a few Black-owned bookstores that we know, love, and seek to support in our communities.