by Emily Green • February 3, 2022 It was a mid-December morning when we led the command staff of our local police department through their first “Common Ground Conversations on Race” Facilitation. Something special was unfolding: police officers were leaning forward, listening, sharing their stories – describing why they chose this work, and what they envisioned community policing could look
by Lucretia Berry • February 1, 2021 • original publication: (In)courage.me (2021) When I was in elementary school, one of my teachers told us that Black Americans had not made significant contributions to our country. With this announcement, I was inundated with a sinking sensation of shame and embarrassment. Not because I believed my teacher’s lie, but because I knew how
Dan Berry – January 28, 2021 Over the last several years, thanks to social media, we have discovered that just about everybody has an opinion that they can’t wait to share. Most believe that their opinions have validity — myself included! Ha! 😜 Something that I have learned over my journey is that just because an opinion has validity, or
Laura Marti – January 25, 2022 Feature Image: The Right Hairstyles | Instagram | @LYSSAMARIEXO For most of my life I had never thought about shopping for Black beauty products and had no awareness of the frustration it could cause to Black women — I was clueless. When I first connected with Lucretia Berry around 2015 as she was starting
Niya Dorsey – January 18, 2022 My name is, Niya Dorsey, and I am a wife, a doll designer, book author as well as the mother of a little girl named Malia, and a son named Jaylin. I am also the founder of Brains and Beauty Dolls business. At Brains and Beauty Dolls, we desire to promote education, encouragement, and
Tracey McKee – January 13, 2021 2022 has arrived, and sadly, it arrived on the heels of Omicron, Covid-19’s newest variant. This latest strain of the virus was first detected in the US on November 22nd, and since then, we’ve watched as it has wreaked havoc across the nation and threatened the strides made toward our “returning to normal.” While
Laura Marti – January 11, 2022 It’s the New Year! And it’s that time that people traditionally determine what their New Year’s resolutions will be. I think we’ve all experienced the initial excitement that we were going to do something new in the new year – tackle weight loss, change a bad habit, renovate the kitchen, resolve to be a
Laura Marti – January 6, 2021 In her article, As You Prepare to Celebrate Dr. King – Ideas for Moving Beyond the Dream Lesson, Dr. Tehia Starker Glass reminds us that there is so much more to Dr. King than his popularized ‘I Have A Dream‘ speech. One idea proposed by Dr. Glass, that piqued my interest right away is
Ideas for Moving Beyond the ‘Dream’ Lesson by Dr. Tehia Starker-Glass – January 4, 2022. Dr. Starker-Glass posted this article last year (2021). It was so helpful that we wanted to re-share it as you prepare to celebrate Dr. King this year We honor Dr. King every third Monday in January. But when we move beyond his I Have A Dream speech, what
Micaila-Ayorinde Milbourn-Thomas – December 30, 2021 When I was a kid, in Sunday school, I was taught that “God wants you to show that you love him by praising him and expressing your gratitude… for EVERYthing!” At the time, I thought, “How arrogant — to create stuff and then create people to tell you how great you are for creating
Dan Berry – December 23, 2021 With all the intentional division being perpetuated in our world today, the Lord knows we need to find some people who will not rest until they learn how to build bridges that heal the wounds, until they find solutions! It’s not enough to convince yourself that you are on the side of right and
How to Embrace Wonder & Avoid Overwhelm Lucretia Berry, December 16, 2021. A version of this article was originally published at incourage.me (2018). Typically, this is the time of year that I most dread. As soon as the leaves exchange glorious green for the warmth of red, yellow, orange and brown, I reluctantly peek around fall’s corner to see Christmas
Intentional Gift-Giving for the Holidays Laura Marti – December 14, 2021 ‘Tis the season for giving gifts — and if you have young kids at home, you might be considering a doll. As I was reminiscing recently with my mom about my childhood, I remembered that I had two Black dolls, among my white ones. Was I remembering that right?
Tracey McKee – December 9, 2021 Over the past several months, I have been reading the works of Black authors and poets. Part of my reading has included Langston Hughes’ poetry. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is a well-known figure in American literature and poetry. Accomplished as a playwright, novelist, poet, and more, Huges was a key figure during the Harlem Renaissance,
Land Setting or Land Acknowledgement Erin Phelps, November 25, 2021 A common phrase when meeting another Lumbee is to ask “Who’s ya peoples?”– as a way to reinforce a bond that goes beyond federal decrees and permissions about who is Native and who is not. This question reinforces a bond known as kinship — a common practice when considering who
How Indigenous Peoples Can Heal the Land Laura Marti – November 23, 2021 There is a growing movement to return culturally and ecologically important lands back to their original occupants—the Indigenous people and local communities who had once lived there. In many cases, this means co-management in order to include Indigenous people’s direct involvement in the stewardship of the land,
Your Antiracism Education Journey Dan Berry – November 18, 2021 Hey Friends, In our curriculum, What Lies Between Us we are all expected to do a little homework. As information is shared, as knowledge comes, and I like to say truth is revealed, it can be unsettling. When our world has settled into our limited understanding of things and new
An Indigenous American on How to Avoid or Recover from Social Injustice Fatigue Kimberly Owen – November 16, 2021 Stress and mental health issues are on a rise from the effects of Covid. Also, we are colliding with overwhelming exhaustion from people who are working so hard on the front lines of social injustice and systemic racism. As an American
Four Ways I Address My Implicit Bias Tracey McKee – November 11, 2021 We are all biased; it is in our nature. “A bias is a personal tendency, inclination, or prejudice toward or against something or someone” (Bias). Early in our lives, we begin to develop these inclinations, and parents, teachers, the media, Hollywood, our environments, experiences, and the like
An American Story Laura Marti – November 10, 2021 Racial Injustice: The Devastation of the Dawes Act on Native Americans Native American history is American history. If you’re like me, you may know more today than you had learned in school about the genocide of Native Americans throughout US history; but how much do you know about the land displacement
Mekdes Haddis – October 28 2021 Mother Ethiopia is a phrase I grew up hearing while living in a place that to me is the most beautiful. Ethiopia is the home of 80 plus tribes and languages and truly unique as she holds a history of three thousand years. She is also a mother to one of the world’s most
Laura Marti – October 26 2021 Feature image: The women who created #BlackBirdersWeek and the #BlackAFinSTEM collective in 2020. Source: NOVA / Illustration by Nina Chhita Most would agree that 2020 was not a year we ever want to repeat. Between the disproportional devastation of the pandemic and the killings of unarmed Black people, it was an especially difficult year
Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray We are celebrating! Over the weekend, Sweet Like Jasmine hit #1 for New Release in Christian Biographies! This is the only Asian American story of faith listed in the Top 100 Christian Biographies!! And with your help, it can find its wings to touch more lives and defuse anti-Asian hate! As a storyteller, I believe
What LIES Between Us Tracey McKee – October 15, 2021 Starting in 2014, national media outlets covered a series of disturbing shootings from cities across the nation. All of these shootings had one thing in common: unarmed black men killed at the hands of police officers. As a white, forty-something woman living in the suburbs, sadly these stories did not
Prioritizing Native Peoples Everyday Laura Marti – October 13, 2021 📸 Feature Image: www.fws.gov. A participant in the Miccosukee Indian Festival. Photo by Matthew Hoelscher, CC BY-SA 2.0. This week, I’ve been challenged to think in a new way about the Native experience of colonialism. I’ve been reading Dr. Willie Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at
Valuing a Diverse History and Humanity Laura Marti – October 5, 2021 How much do you know about Hispanic/Latino history in the U.S.? I realized I didn’t know much, so I did what I always do, which is to dig in and learn. I was surprised at what I found out. Here are just a few of the things I
Honoring Gospel Music Heritage Month LaTishia Corley – September 28, 2021 One of the best learning experiences that I have ever had in my life was travelling and touring with one of the world’s most famous gospel singers. I was in my early twenties when I first started this journey so I was seeing the world through the eyes of
HUES OF YOU: An Activity Book for Learning About the Skin You Are In by Lucretia Carter Berry We live in a vibrant, colorful world, and though we enthusiastically teach our children the hues we find in nature and in the objects around us, we often find it difficult to teach them about the beauty of different skin tones. Dr.
Laura Marti – September 21, 2021 When I first became part of Brownicity in 2016, Lucretia Berry talked a lot about racial healing. It was the first time I’d heard the term. I’m not sure I fully understood what it meant, but I knew it was important and that developing What LIES Between Us reflected her own journey of racial
Dan Berry – September 16, 2021 All of us at Brownicity would like to congratulate our newest Certified Instructors for What Lies Between Us! As we celebrate five years of the course that has given a fundamental understanding to so many, we are pleased to announce that our reach has expanded. Please welcome and congratulate our newest certified instructors: Tony
What Does It Mean to be White? Laura Marti – September 13, 2021 A friend once told me, “Racism hurts all of us, not just Black people.” So when I first heard that Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte would be doing a “whiteness” course, I was excited. I’ve been on a journey to understand race and racism since the
Worship Across the Racial Divide Dr. Gerardo Marti – September 9, 2021. In his series, Race, Religion, Politics – What We’re Not Supposed to Talk About, Dr. Marti shares scholarly resources that are helping to expand his understanding. At an outdoor café on Los Angeles’s Westside, a Caucasian worship leader and I met to talk about his congregation. We drank
A History of Gospel Music Laura Marti – September 7, 2021 The history of Gospel music is a very broad topic, one that is complicated. There are different opinions about the origins of gospel music and how to define it. The dominant type of gospel is Black Gospel Music, which was traditionally believed to develop out of slavery and Negro
by Fia Cronin – September 2, 2021 As we celebrate the What Lies Between Us (WLBU) curriculum’s 5-year anniversary, it amazes me to think that it all started in someone’s living room. At that point, the curriculum didn’t even have a name! But it was a beginning — a starting point. We all have a starting point in all things,
Racial Healing through Dance and Song Laura Marti – September 1, 2021 This is Reverend Mia McClain. She is Associate Minister of Faith Formation at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC. Mia is the first African-American in the history of Myers Park Baptist Church to be called to serve on Senior Staff in its 78-year history (founded in 1943).
Back to school with antiracism education Lucretia Berry, August 26, 2021 A few years ago, I got the opportunity to design and teach a high school elective to offer students an analytical framework for examining race and racism in the United States. Through the course content, assignments and projects, students are equipped with a historical, political and social context for
Laura Marti – August 24, 2021 Mehrsa Baradaran is the best-selling author of The Color Of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap and is currently associate dean and Professor of Law specializing in banking law at the University of California, Irvine. She has advised US senators and representatives on policy and spoken at national and international forums including
The Four R’s of a Racial Reckoning Dan Berry – August 19, 2021 Hey friends, As we continue our journey laying out a simple strategy for our first steps into antiracism, let’s talk about what a “Racial Reckoning” is. “Reckoning” is defined as the action or process of evaluating something. As we have struggled with the racial division we continue
Covid-19 Impact Through a Social Justice Lens Laura Marti – August 17 2021 Early in the pandemic, Black businesses were hit hardest by Covid-19. In a study published in May 2020 by Robert Fairlie from the University of California Santa Cruz, the number of Black business owners actively working fell 41% from February to April, in comparison with active white
Designed to Foster Shared Understanding Lucretia Berry, August 15, 2021 I believe that shining a light on history can help us create a brighter future. Once upon a time, my yearning for racial healing solely centered Black people. I longed for us to be free of racism’s legacy, to be liberated from the lies it told us about ourselves, to