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LFDMC-Literature, Film, Drama and Music Contingent of the Social Justice Council

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The LFDMC (Literature, Film, Drama and Music Contingent) is a program within the Social Justice Council’s “Confronting Racism & Oppression” Initiative. This group now meets quarterly on the first Sunday from 1:30 to 3:00 on Zoom.  Check the uucb.org website under NEWS->THE WEEK AHEAD for the topic and Zoom link.

Please come and be part of terrific, insightful and honest discussions on race, privilege, oppression, and healing. If you ideas for a book, article, film, music, play, dance, movie, or YouTube video that had a profound or just interesting effect upon you and you would like to share it with a group of like-minded people who are open-minded and committed to understanding, please email socialjustice@uucb.org.  You will be contacted and find out how much fun it is to share valuable content with people who will appreciate it.

2024 Discussions (to be updated)

2023 Discussions (to be updated)

2022 Discussions (to be updated)

2021 Discussions

January 3 – Kwanzaa Discussion. The LFDMC discussed the tradition which began in December 1966. (Host: Camille Parker)  PDF

January 17 – Dr. James L. Taylor, “The Last Sermon of Martin Luther King: And How Are We Living It.”  Replay Link

February 7 – CASTE: The Origins of our Discontent, Isabel Wilkerson. (Host: Cordell Sloan)  Replay Link

March 7 – The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, K.M. Richardson.  (Host: Dorothy Herzberg)

April 4 – Time To Talk (and Listen) — How to have constructive conversations about race, class, sexuality, ability & gender in a polarized world, by Anastasia Kim and Alicia del Prado (Host: Joanne Wile)

May 2 – Minor Feelings: An Asian American’s Reckoning, by Rutgers University Professor, Cathy Park Hong (Host: Kathy Rai)

June 13 – The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We can Prosper Together, Heather McGee (Host: Elaine Dockens)  Replay Link

July 11 – The Dali Lama’s Cat, David Michie (Hosts: Rev. Fran Moulton and Lois Atkinson and Susana Raine)

August 1 – Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, Imani Perry, UUA Common Read for 2020-21, (Host:  Beth Jerde)

September 5 – Better Not Bitter, Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice, Yusef Salaam (Exonerated Member of the 5 youth accused falsely of murdering the Central Park Jogger) (Host: Smiley Nelson)

October 3 – Fishbowl Conversation (on Race) Special Guests from The City of the Lord Zion: Pastors Diahann Daniels & Pastor Robert Daniels and Pastor Annie Green (Host: Julia Rogers)

November 7 – Native American Heritage Month Program – a video, slide and discussion presentation (Hosts: UUCB HIP Group – Honoring Indigenous People)

December 5 – So Many Beginnings [A Little Women Remix], by Bethany C. Morrow (Host: Christina Creveling)

2020 Discussions

January 5:–Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens (Hosts: Susan Blair, Smiley Nelson & the LFDC Chorus)

February 2:–The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison (Host: Camille Parker)

March 1:–Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Host: Dorothy Herzberg) “There is a huge difference between being intolerant and tolerating intolerance.”

April 5:–Sticks and Stones: Disabled People’s Stories of Abuse, Defiance and Resilience (Host: Marsha Saxton; Special Guest: Megan Kirshbaum)

June 7:–How Jews Became White Folks: And What That Says About Race in America, Professor Karen Brodkin (Special Guest:  Dr. Karen Brodkin.  Host: Lenore Ralston)

August 2:–Hiroshima, John Hersey (Commemorating the 75th year after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) (Hosts: Don Klose and Beth Jerde)

September 6:–The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Host: Lynne Henderson)

October 4:–Fishbowl Conversation (on Race) (Host: Julia Rogers)

November 1:–UUA 2020 Common Read: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Beacon Press, 2015). (Special Guests: Professor Dunbar-Ortiz and Jean Mendoza.  Hosts: Mimi Bull, Rev. Catherine Boyle, Katie Lipka).  Click HERE for a PDF with more information.

December 6:–Play-Reading of The White Card, by Claudia Rankine.  Five actors from the UUCB community will perform Claudia Rankine’s One Act play, The White Card.  Note the performance will start at 2:00 pm instead of 12:30 pm. This was a one-time performance with no recording as per the contract with the playwright, Claudia Rankine.

2019 Discussions

January 6:–Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell (Lonnie Moseley)
February 3:–Black History Month Mélange: (1) Julia Rogers, “The Origins of Whiteness”; (2) Helen Tinsley-Jones, shares family’s quilt depicting the Underground Railroad; (3) Lonnie Moseley and Cordell Sloan, “The Hidden Messages within the Negro Spiritual.”
March 3:–Women’s History Month: History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, Deborah Lipstadt (Nan Yarbrough). And Julie Ann Winkelstein will talk about “Celebrating the History of Contra Costa County’s Jewish Community,” special events going on through June at the Richmond Museum of History.
April 7:–Learning to Be White: Money Race and God in America, UU Minister Rev. Thandeka (Christina Creveling)
May 12:–There There, Tommy Orange (Mimi Bull)
June 2:–Survivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, Elizabeth Rosner (Ms. Rosner will join us!) (Lenore Ralston)
July 7:–Don’t Label Me: An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times, Irshad Manji (Beth Jerde)
August 4:–We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, TaNehisi Coates (Lee Olivier & Jonathan Hofeld)
September 1:–UUA Common Read: Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, and the Environment (Andrea and Bill Brown)
October 6:–Fishbowl Conversation: “The Impact of Gender.” (Julia Rogers)
November 3:–Lucky Boy, Shanti Sekeran — What really happens to the kids who are separated from their parents by ICE. (Natalie Campbell)
December 1:–The Help, Kathryn Stockett (Julia Rogers)

Previous Years’ Discussions

Books

The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (Nation Book Award winner)
Defying the Nazis: The Sharp’s Story, Artemis Joukowsky, III (We also viewed the Ken Burns’ documentary.)
Whistling Past the Graveyard, Susan Crandall
Margaret Mead and James Baldwin: A Rap on Race (We also listened to a recording of this dialog, enhancing our appreciation of their discussion!)
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Nikki Jones, “The Gender of Police Violence”
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Movies/Films

Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, http://world-trust.org/mirrors-of-privilege-making-whiteness-visible/
The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker
Loving, Jeff Nichols
Daughters of the Dust, Julie Dash
Film, Cracking the Codes: the System of Racial Inequity

Plays

It Can’t Happen Here, Tony Taccone and Bennett Cohen (But, it did, alas….)
The Last Tiger in Haiti, Jeff Augustin
Ayad Akhtar’s play at Berkeley Rep, Disgraced

Articles

There are too many articles to list, but there was a particularly lively discussion of: It’s Not About Race!, John Metta
https://thsppl.com/its-not-about-race-fb140bac8f1#.5zc6tfor3

Other

We created Moments of Awareness of Unconscious Bias (MAUBs): As a way to help us get in touch with biases we don’t own, let alone talk about, we share those times we catch ourselves thinking or acting in ways that can be considered racist, biased, or self-hating — in the safe space we have created within our meetings. We believe that awareness is key, because: “Individual ignorance sustains institutional racism,” (Jennell Benson, for the Black Lives Matter movement).

Confronting Racism & Oppression

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No Nonsense or Fragility about Racism and Oppression

The congregants of UUCB approved the Confronting Racism and Oppression Project to make deep dives into books, films, discussions, plays, poems, events, history and protests to identify the root causes of systemic racism, indigenous disenfranchisement, immigrant inhumanness, climate justice, oppression, religious intolerance in our United States.  As a participant you are within a loving and safe environment to talk about and come to grips with the realities that many people face. Email socialjustice@uucb.org to get information and notifications of the activities within the Confronting Racism and Oppression Project.

The current projects are:

  • The Literature, Film, Drama and Music Contingent (LFDMC) meets quarterly on Zoom to read and discuss books, attend or create relevant plays, watch films, and share personal moments of awareness of unconscious bias. This is a courageous group that talks openly about race, culture, genderism and oppression and its solutions.
  • People of Color Caucus (POCC) meets monthly on Zoom to provide a safe space for racial and ethnic minority members to name, heal and reconcile past and current personal and group racial wounds. Members, who come from and reflect the richness of the cultural, racial and ethnic traditions of people of color, act to build partnerships with the congregation and wider community.
  • Working to Overcome White Supremacy (WOWS) meets the fourth Sunday of each month on Zoom from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. and is a group at UUCB whose open dialogues increase awareness of the “preference for whiteness” and the systemic nature of racism in society.  Everyone is welcome.
  • Building Community with Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church and Richmond Muslim Mission Center
  • Honoring Indigenous Peoples Group (HIP) meets monthly to engage in deep learning of Indigenous peoples’ history, acknowledging the harms, including genocide and land theft, done by settler colonialism and to take action. We plan and offer educational and cultural experiences to the congregation and wider community, provide consultation to the minister and congregation, and partner with Indigenous communities and local groups supporting those communities.
    Click here to visit the HIP blog.

Confronting Racism Workshop (History)

On June 3, 2015, UUCB’s Social Justice Council was proud to hold the Confronting Racism Workshop.  96 people attended!  Ferguson killings of African Americans had just happened and the Reverends Ben McBride and Donnell Jones facilitated interactive exercises through which participants were able to speak about their personal racial biases and systemic racism.  From attendees’ evaluations:  “Made it really—tactile—observable.” “Made me more aware of them.”  “I looked deeper.”  “I’ve had a lot of experience in education in this. It comes better from a Black reverend who knows love.” “I was already aware [of personal biases], but the workshop heightened what was there: the internalized feelings of being ‘less than’ in America.”

Evaluations also informed the organizers that the workshop was missing the Female Voice, was missing youth and more people of color, and that too much was packed into two hours (and we did run over).

The purpose of the workshop was not just to build on self-awareness of one’s own biases and systemic racism, but to energize people and set a foundation for the work the Confronting Racism Project will do in the Fall and into next year.  Forty attendees want to actively participate either in creating the next dialogs or actions, inform and invite others to participate, or lead or participate in a book group or film series.  Organizers are thrilled to have this support in moving the confronting racism agenda forward!

Confronting Racism Project Approved by Congregation

At the May 17, 2015 Congregational Meeting the Social Justice Council recommended that the congregation approve the Confronting Racism Project as a sponsored project.  The motion was unanimously approved.

Now is the time to Confront Racism.  “Black Lives Matter” has found that every 28 hours a black person is killed by a police officer, vigilante, or a security guard.  African American Deacon Reggie Lyles from Oakland has said this is like returning to the lynchings of the 1920s.

We can’t let this go on.  We have had enough.  Now is the time to act!  We can thank social media for helping us get to this point of being ready—35 states supported the people of Ferguson.

Over the next year, the Confronting Racism Project invited our congregation to begin to understand systemic racism and implicit bias. We engage in actions that lift up these issues. We participate in dialog, workshops, activities and community actions. We do work that will transform each of us as well as those in nearby communities as we build bridges.

It is now almost ten years later and we are still seeing the killing of African Americans who are jogging, walking away unarmed, pumping gas, just being human. We have watched the murder of George Floyd, wept at the slaughter of Breonna Taylor in her own apartment, and so many more since Ferguson in 2014. So many of us are taking to the streets and won’t stop until the police are reformed and the killings stop.

The Confronting Racism Project was originally coordinated by our beloved and fearless Nancy “Kelly” Kelly, who died in 2018.  The Project has been carried on by other members of the Social Justice Council.  We have learned much and are doing the work of anti-racism.

Two other groups formed under the Confronting Racism & Oppression Project (renamed in 2019), “Whites Opposed to White Supremacy (WOWS), renamed in 2021 to “Working to Oppose White Supremacy (WOWS),” whose work involves meeting monthly and learning about, tearing through and tearing down the biases of supremacy thinking. The other group formed is “The People of Color Caucus (POCC).”  Their work is to help and inform the congregation and minister in choices of music, readings, quotes and homilies that are intentionally inclusive of People of Color.  This group includes African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Haitian, Native Americans, East Indian, and mixed race.  The POCC and WOWS collaborate in scheduled events to share their experiences and next steps in their anti-racism work.

The Honoring Indigenous Peoples Group started in 2020.