The 4 Black Lives Matter working groups:
Group 3 is planning the ongoing education of the congregation regarding racism and inclusion
An Invitation to Learn: As you know, the Cathedral Community has decided to engage the issue of racism in Canada and among ourselves. Part of that work will be deepening our understanding of racism so that we can be better prepared to address it in our own Cathedral community and in the other communities of which we are members. The Black Lives Matter subcommittee which is working on educational initiatives (known on this page as Group 3) is taking a multi-prong approach, setting forth some suggestions for each of us to engage on our own during the remainder of the summer while working to prepare interactive small-group and relational learning for the Fall.
To that end, we would like to suggest that each member of the congregation, as you are able, find time to study at least some of the following resources. They are chosen with two objectives in mind: first, to deepen our understanding of what racism is and how it shapes the world in which each of us moves, and, second, to learn how to resist it. We recognize that it is very tempting to jump right over the first of those pieces and immediately to embrace the label anti-racist; however, as Christians, we are called to conversion from the heart, and that involves understanding how we are implicated in the broken systems around us.
If you are new to this discussion, or you have been taught to think of racism as “being mean to people,” one place to start is Debby Irving’s Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race. While set in a U.S. context, Irving’s book can teach us to ask the right questions in our own context, and her background closely parallels the white settler experience in Canada.
For those more familiar with the idea of systemic racism, Desmond Cole’s The Skin We’re In provides a compelling look at racial realities in Canada today, told by a black journalist and activist.
Ibram Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist is hailed as the best book on this subject.
The Cathedral will offer discussion groups on the Kendi and Cole books in the fall. We will be purchasing a few copies of each book which will be available to borrow if you do not wish to buy your own copies. Contact Deborah Meister to obtain them.
| Title | Author | Comment | Links |
| How to Be an Antiracist | Ibram X. Kendi | Suggested by BLM Group 3 - to be discussed in the fall “The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” —The New York Times | The Word Bookstore may still have copies. |
| The Skin We’re In | Desmond Cole | Suggested by BLM Group 3 - to be discussed in the fall | Kobo - ebook |
| Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race | Debby Irving | Suggested by BLM Group 3 | Kobo - ebook |
| Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America | Ibram X. Kendi | Kendi's first book which details the development of racist ideas in Western culture and the process by which they were imported into the colonies. The first chapter material would be relevant background for Canadian colonists as well. (Deborah's comments) | Kobo - ebook |
| Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates | This is a letter from the author to his young son. | The Cathedral Reading Group is reading this for its August meeting. |
| The Fire Next Time | James Baldwin | This is a letter from the author to his nephew; the pattern for Coate's book. | The Cathedral Reading Group is reading this for its August meeting. |
| White Fragility Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism | Robin DiAngelo | allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine) | Kobo ebook |
| Biased Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do | Jennifer Eberhardt | The author is a black sociologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, who almost missed getting to carry the flag in her commencement procession because she was in jail after a traffic stop. | Kobo ebook |
| Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience | Sheila Wise Rowe | "People of color have endured traumatic histories and almost daily assaults on our dignity. We have prayed about racism, been in denial, or acted out in anger, but we have not known how to individually or collectively pursue healing from the racial trauma." | Kobo ebook |
| We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada | Toula Drimonis | First-person account by a second-generation Quebec immigrant about what it's like to live here when you're from a family whose first language is neither French nor English. |
Westmount Library - suggested reading list, annotated: BLM list
The Guardian - Anti-racist reading list
An excellent short pamphlet explaining systemic racism, suggested by the Cathedral BLM Group 3.
How slavery sowed the seeds of American collapse (Article - June 19, 2020)
Pulitzer-prize-winning The 1619 Project, an ongoing series of articles (also podcasts) of The New York Times which " aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative."
The assumptions of white privilege and what we can do about it (National Catholic Reporter - Article - June 1, 2020)
The Role Publishing Plays in the Commodification of Black Pain (Tor.com - Article - June 17, 2020)
Montreal protesters galvanized by U.S. riots (National Observer Article - June 2, 2020)
Everyone’s an Antiracist. Now What? (NYTimes - Opinion piece - July 6, 2020)
How to Confront a Racist National History (New Yorker Article - July 6, 2020)
Suggested by BLM Group 3: Monsieur Lazhar, a beautiful movie set in Montreal - trailer available on CBC Films. Movie available on CBC Gem
The Creator Of VeggieTales gives A No-Nonsense History Of Race In America In 17 Minutes (Video Link)
A hand-painted animation about Reconstruction (Twitter Link)
How White Fragility Reinforces Racism (YouTube Video)
A look at anti-black racism in Canada (CBC News Video)
Ibram X. Kendi on How to be an Antiracist, at UC Berkeley (YouTube video - long - 2 hours!)