Juneteenth Tomorrow
And Crochet. Compassion. Action! Book Club options.
Happy Juneteenth, caffeinated resisters!
Just wanted to send a last minute reminder that we’ll be out on the bridge all day just off Dorothy Court. It’s been established that the best parking is two blocks down on Lindy Ave on street.
Can’t wait to see you there!
If you’re looking for other ways to celebrate Juneteenth, Voice of Black Cincinnati has put together this amazing calendar for the weekend! Just as a reminder: The Freedom Center is free admission on Juneteenth and there’s an entire jubilee going on!
Just to give you the full scope of what’s going on, I screenshot this very helpful calendar put together by Voice of Black Cincinnati.
MONDAY JUNE 22
Crochet. Compassion. Action is back on Monday, which is coming up! We’ll be finishing up The Culting of America and deciding what to read next. Here’s what we’re mulling over:
In The Quiet Damage, celebrated reporter Jesselyn Cook paints a harrowing portrait of the vulnerabilities that have left so many of us susceptible to outrageous falsehoods promising order, purpose, and control. Braided throughout are the stories of five American families: an elderly couple whose fifty-year romance takes a heartbreaking turn; millennial sisters of color who grew up in dire poverty—one to become a BLM activist, the other, a hardcore conspiracy theorist pulling her little boy down the rabbit hole with her; a Bay Area hippie-type and her business-executive fiancé, who must decide whether to stay with her as she turns into a stranger before his eyes; evangelical parents whose simple life in a sleepy suburb spirals into delusion-fueled chaos; and a rural mother-son duo who, after carrying each other through unspeakable tragedy, stop speaking at all as ludicrous untruths shatter a bond long thought unbreakable.
Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question:
How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three women converge, with potentially explosive results. Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by that of Aunt Lydia, whose complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is and how far she will go for what she believes.
For 250 years, we have debated what it means to be American. This question shaped the compromises in our Constitution and the arguments we’ve been having ever since—spawning abolitionism, secession, and civil war; populism, mass migration, and global leadership; movements for reform and the backlashes to them. In All We Say, Ben Rhodes tells the story of fifteen speeches—some iconic, others long forgotten—which have both shaped and reflected the argument Americans have been having from our founding to the intense divisions of our time.
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?
McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.
But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance.
“What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts.
Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.
How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? • Why do women live longer than men? • Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? • Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? • Is sexism useful for evolution? • And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause?
These questions are producing some truly exciting science – and in Eve, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: “We need a kind of user’s manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story. We have to put the female body in the picture. If we don’t, it’s not just feminism that’s compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts. So it’s time we talk about breasts. Breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs—all of it. How they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is.”
LOOKING AHEAD...
Dates to Earmark
june
June 22 - Crochet Compassion Action! Deer Park Library 6pm
June 24 - CCA Postcard Party, North Central Library 6pm
June 24 - BCDP Social Night at Grainworks West Chester, 6pm
June 25 - Russo n Hambley at Braxton Brewing, 6pm
June 25 - Black Politico 101 featuring Dr. Vanessa Enoch for District 8 at Wise Owl Wine Bar, 6pm
June 27 - Tend Your Garden Meeting, Colerain First Watch 8am
June 27 - Cincinnati PRIDE - Downtown and Sawyer Point
June 27 - CCA PRIDE Picnic in the Woods, Sharon Woods
June 27 - Dearborn County All of Us Across the Divide Demonstration, 12 - 1:30pm Dearborn County Courthouse
June 30 - CCA Sign Summit, Sharonville Library 6pm
july
July 1 - Ignite Peace Strategic NonViolence 6:30 - 8:30
July 2 - Coffee. Compassion. Action Summer Organizational at Walnut Hills Library Auditorium, 6pm
July 11 - BCDP SE Region Day of Action
July 12 - Reds Game Demonstration Against ICE - 12:30 Main & 2nd.
July 12 - BCDP Brews & BBQ
July 17 - Good Trouble Lives On Weekend of Action - save the date
Non Violent Trainings:
June 16 - Part 1 - St Bernard Library 5:30pm
June 22 - Part 2 - St Bernard Library 5:30pm
July 11 - Full Sesh Mt Healthy Library 1pm
August 8 - Full Sesh Groesbeck Library 1pm
September 5 - Deer Park Library 1pm
November 7 - Sharonville Library 1pm
