Brad and Dan discuss Trump's decision to hold a rally in Tulsa on June 19. They dig into the historical significance of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and Juneteenth. They also discuss the difference between history and collective memory in the Confederate flag/statue debate. Finally, they touch on Trump's conspiracy theories about protesters, the first QAnon congressperson, and the ways protests have worked so far.
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AXIS MUNDY AXIS MUNDY Welcome to Straight Wide American Jesus.
My name is Brad Arnishi, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Skidmore College, and I'm here today with my co-host, I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Well, it is good to see you, Dan.
Again, it feels like it's been a year since we lasted a weekly roundup, but it's been a week and a lot of things have happened.
There's no way we can sort of... I'm sure that there will be historians in 10 years who specialize in June of 2020.
That would just be their whole scholarly career, just June 2020.
But I want to start today just by highlighting the work of some black women who are historians and scholars who are really leading the way.
And as we've said on the show, I think, you know, if you are a white person listening to this, if you're a non-black person listening to this, if you are somebody who is just trying to sort of learn and grow, I think that Dan and I agree that that is not, The responsibility of your black friends or colleagues or acquaintances, and it really is on us as non-black people, I'm going to just put myself in there, to do the work of being anti-racist.
Last week we talked, Dan, about some Twitter threads from our friends Blake Chastain and Professor Megan Goodwin, who both said that being an anti-racist is a lifelong endeavor.
It is one you continually train for.
It is not something you accomplish.
And so anyway, I wanted to start today.
There's a great piece at the Atlantic by Keisha N. Blaine, who is a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
And she says, the article is titled, The Black Women Who Paved the Way for This Moment.
She goes through just some great examples from mainly the last century.
And she says this, in the 20th century, U.S.
Black nationalist women, individuals who advocated for Black liberation, economic self-sufficiency, racial pride, unity, and political self-determination, emerged as key political leaders on the local, national, and even international levels.
When most Black women in the U.S.
did not have access to the vote, these women boldly confronted the hypocrisy of white America, often drawing upon their knowledge of history.
And they did so in public spaces, in mass community meetings, local parks, and on sidewalks.
These women harnessed the power of their voices, passion, and the raw authenticity of their political message to rally Black people across the nation and the globe.
I would encourage you to give this article a read.
She provides just great examples of how this has played out over the last century in places like Harlem, places like Chicago, and in the South.
And so anyway, I can't encourage you enough to read that.
I want to point you also to a new podcast over at the Religion News Service.
This is by a scholar and activist named Simran Jeet Singh.
Simran is a Sikh scholar, somebody who has just done incredible work on fighting racism structurally, and he has a podcast that he hosts, but he started this new series, and his first guest was Anthea Butler, who we've mentioned on the show before.
And Thea Butler has some powerful words, an article that she wrote a couple years ago but then has revised for this moment.
She says this in response to the question of what will happen this summer.
She says, Preachers will ignore or call on people to pray but not to act.
The rest of us will drink, fornicate and forget.
I'm done saving you, good white folks.
You want black people like me, who like you, to say the prophetic thing and bail your ass out for not speaking up, for remaining quiet, while you get your work, vacations, and scholarship done this summer.
Meanwhile, I try to hold it together to write an 800-word piece without crying and wanting to tear my hair out about the pain of my people.
I'm not writing prophetic words to you anymore.
This is in an article called The Fire This Time, and it is at Religion News Service and that was originally published at Religion Dispatches.
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