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At the center of contemporary struggles over aggressive policing practices is an assumed association in U.S. culture of blackness with criminality. Rima L. Vesely-Flad examines the religious and philosophical constructs of the black body in U.S. society, examining racialized ideas about purity and pollution as they have developed historically and as they are institutionalized today in racially disproportionate policing and mass incarceration. These systems work, she argues, to keeps threatening elements of society in a constant state of harassment and tension so that they are unable to pollute the morals of mainstream society. Policing establishes racialized boundaries between communities de...
Explores how Black Buddhist Teachers and Practitioners interpret Western Buddhism in unique spiritual and communal ways In Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition, Rima Vesely-Flad examines the distinctive features of Black-identifying Buddhist practitioners, arguing that Black Buddhists interpret Buddhist teachings in ways that are congruent with Black radical thought. Indeed, the volume makes the case that given their experiences with racism—both in the larger society and also within largely white-oriented Buddhist organizations—Black cultural frameworks are necessary for illuminating the Buddha’s wisdom. Drawing on interviews with forty Black Buddhist teachers and practition...
Gold Nautilus Book Award Winner Leading African American Buddhist teachers offer lessons on racism, resilience, spiritual freedom, and the possibility of a truly representative American Buddhism. With contributions by Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, Cheryl A. Giles, Gyōzan Royce Andrew Johnson, Ruth King, Kamilah Majied, Lama Rod Owens, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Sebene Selassie, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde. What does it mean to be Black and Buddhist? In this powerful collection of writings, African American teachers from all the major Buddhist traditions tell their stories of how race and Buddhist practice have intersected in their lives. The resulting explorations display not only the promise of Buddhist teachings to empower those facing racial discrimination but also the way that Black Buddhist voices are enriching the Dharma for all practitioners. As the first anthology comprised solely of writings by African-descended Buddhist practitioners, this book is an important contribution to the development of the Dharma in the West.
In this unprecedented book, contributors use Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions, both ancient and modern, and deploy critical philosophy of race, and critical whiteness studies, to address the proverbial elephant in the room - whiteness.
"The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African-American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?" This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God. But Kelly Brown Douglas also brings another significant interpretative lens to this text: that of a mother. "There has been no story in the news that has troubled me more than that of Trayvon Martin's slaying. President Obama said that if he had a son his son would look like Trayvon. I do have a son and he does look like Trayvon." Her book will also affirm the "truth" of a black mother's faith in these times of stand your ground."--
A manifesto from one of America's most influential activists which disrupts political, economic, and social norms by reimagining the Black Radical Tradition. Drawing on Black intellectual and grassroots organizing traditions, including the Haitian Revolution, the US civil rights movement, and LGBTQ rights and feminist movements, Unapologetic challenges all of us engaged in the social justice struggle to make the movement for Black liberation more radical, more queer, and more feminist. This book provides a vision for how social justice movements can become sharper and more effective through principled struggle, healing justice, and leadership development. It also offers a flexible model of what deeply effective organizing can be, anchored in the Chicago model of activism, which features long-term commitment, cultural sensitivity, creative strategizing, and multiple cross-group alliances. And Unapologetic provides a clear framework for activists committed to building transformative power, encouraging young people to see themselves as visionaries and leaders.
Winner of the 2021 CLA Book Award presented by the College Language Association Black Cultural Mythology retrieves the concept of "mythology" from its Black Arts Movement origins and broadens its scope to illuminate the relationship between legacies of heroic survival, cultural memory, and creative production in the African diaspora. Christel N. Temple comprehensively surveys more than two hundred years of figures, moments, ideas, and canonical works by such visionaries as Maria Stewart, Richard Wright, Colson Whitehead, and Edwidge Danticat to map an expansive yet broadly overlooked intellectual tradition of Black cultural mythology and to provide a new conceptual framework for analyzing this tradition. In so doing, she at once reorients and stabilizes the emergent field of Africana cultural memory studies, while also staging a much broader intervention by challenging scholars across disciplines—from literary and cultural studies, history, sociology, and beyond—to embrace a more organic vocabulary to articulate the vitality of the inheritance of survival.
Radical Mindfulness examines the root causes of injustice, asking why inequalities along the lines of race, class, gender, and species continue to exist. Specifically, James K. Rowe examines fear of death as a root cause of systemic inequalities and proposes a more embodied approach to social change as a solution. Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions—including Black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists— Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. On their own, these strategies are not enough, but integrated into social movements that are combating structural injustices, mind–body practices can begin transforming the embodied fears that feed endless fuel to supremacist ideologies and yet are not targeted by most political actors. Radical Mindfulness is for academics, activists, and individuals who want to overcome supremacy of all kinds but are struggling to understand and develop methods for attacking it at the roots.
A spiritual, political, and interdisciplinary anthology of wisdom stories from Black liberation leaders and teachers. Afrikan Wisdom represents an intersectional, cross-pollinated exploration of Black life--past, present, and future. Award-winning author and editor Valerie Mason-John (Vimalasara)'s collection of 34 essays--written by an eclectic and inspirational group of Black thought leaders and teachers--reflects on the unique and multilayered experience of being Black in the world today. This anthology instills in readers the knowledge, awareness, validation, and spiritual tools necessary to nurture both individual and collective liberation. It is both an inspiration and a motivation for...
Despite the command from Christ to love your neighbour, Western Christianity has continued to be afflicted by the evil of racism and the acts of violence that accompany it. Through a systems theoretical and deconstructive account of religion and the political theology of St. Paul, this book traces how the racism and violence of modern Western Christianity is a symptom of its failure to secure its own myth of sovereignty within a complex world of plurality. Divided into three sections, the book begins with a philosophical and critical account of what it calls the immune system of Christian identity. Focusing on Pauline political theology as reflective of an inherent religious "autoimmunity" b...