The Joyous Justice Podcast: Recent Episodes

April Baskin

Systemic oppression conditions us to deny others’ and our own humanity. Many justice-seekers unwittingly perpetuate that dehumanization when they assume they must suffer, punish, or martyr themselves to dismantle oppression. At Joyous Justice, we're imagining and embodying a different way. Wholeness, love, and thriving are the antidotes to the brokenness in our world and in our own lives. Each week, April Baskin–with her friend and colleague, Tracie Guy-Decker–delves into theoretical and practical aspects of the pursuit of justice AND wellness.

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

In this more intimate episode, April shares reflections from her living room and unveils exciting updates about the evolution of the Joyous Justice Podcast. From the recent and upcoming introduction of guest speakers to new series focused on social justice leaderships and diverse healing modalities, among other topics, April offers a glimpse into the expansive vision guiding the podcast forward.

She also shares some key insights regarding the power of self-love and self-acceptance, inviting you to consider this specific and important element of your own self-care journey.

Emphasizing the beauty of collaboration and community, April encourages active listener engagement—through questions, feedback, and connection—as an essential part of the show’s future and her relationship and connection to you.

Tune in to hear what’s emerging, what’s evolving, and how you can be part of a growing movement rooted in healing, justice, and joy.

_______________

Interested in hiring April as a consultant? Submit a written inquiryhere or schedule a quick initial consultwith her.

For a limited time, you're invited to join April for a free 5-day 1:1 challenge (30-45min daily, at an optimal time you'll select together with April).
Click here to schedule your free 1:1 Challenge scheduled with April today!

Follow us on Instagram - @joyous.justice Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our services, programs, and to get connected!

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

In this episode, Kohenet April N. Baskin and poet, archivist, and visionary jesi "rocki" taylor dive into a rich and layered conversation about disposability and extraction of black and global majority leaders, power, and the complexities of identity, as inspired by the limited, but potent lore surrounding Vashti.

Together they explore the ways harm is named and weaponized, the nature of joy as a liberatory force, and the systemic patterns of extractive labor in justice work.

This is a conversation that holds nuance, challenge, and depth—an invitation to examine the spaces we navigate and the truths we carry.

To learn more about jesi and connect with faer work, you can find them on Instagram and here's access to the links for their newsletter, website, and so much more!

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

What happens when those who were once celebrated as respected and promising leaders become seen as threats? What happens when institutions benefit from the labor of Black women and and other leaders with marginalized identities, only to discard them once they begin to achieve what they were hired to do?

In this revelatory episode, April N. Baskin explores Vashti’s erasure—not just as a biblical anecdote, but as a recurring pattern in movements, organizations, and professional spaces today, especially for Black women.

With honesty and scholarly depth, April shares her own journey of being embraced, then excluded, from spaces she once poured herself into. She unpacks how the concept of neo-plantationism, a concept April originally coined, can help us better understand how historic domination and control patterns at still at play within contemporary professional and social spaces, and why so many courageous leaders experience systemic and harmful pushback when they are successful at advocating for real change they were hired/asked to advance.

This episode is an offering of truth (including a painful and alarming story not previously shared), solidarity, and hopeful conviction—a declaration that we are not disposable. That we will not be erased. That our labor, wisdom, love, and voices matter and aren't going anywhere, despite efforts to the contrary.

Show Notes

More information and context on Vashti and Purim - access here
When Black Women Go From Office Pet to Office Threat, First your boss loves you, then they dislike you. Here’s how Black women can manage the icy transition, by Erika Stallings - access article here

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

In a powerful comeback episode, April N. Baskin unpacks the roots of her deep, intentional peace amid the chaos of Trump’s 2nd presidential term. Balancing raw emotion with spiritual insight, she shares how various factors and strategies have properly resourced her to fundamentally withstand oppressive forces without sacrificing her inner calm. With a mix of fierce honesty and gentle invitation, April lays out why embracing this peace is an intentional, revolutionary act—and she lets you know how you can join the conversation through Buzzsprout messaging!

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Links:

Blog Post with link to the healing, inspirational, and educational playlist: Adversity Alchemy aka Collective Liberation or bust
Link to beautiful Youtube video of Shungudzo's song, "Already Free" - one of many potent songs on April's custom Adversity Alchemy playlist!
Any other links or references! Shoot us a text and we'll endeavor to oblige. :)

Interested in hiring April as a consultant? Submit a written inquiryhere or schedule a quick initial consultwith her.

For a limited time, you're invited to join April for a free 5-day 1:1 challenge (30-45min daily, at an optimal time you'll select together with April).
Click here to schedule your free 1:1 Challenge scheduled with April today!

Follow us on Instagram - @joyous.justice Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our services, programs, and to get connected!

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

In this captivating episode 139 of the Joyous Justice Podcast, a pivotal moment unfolds as April Baskin and Tracie Guy Decker delve into a heartfelt and transformative discussion: They unveil significant changes that will shape the future of the podcast, marking a new era in their journey of advocacy and growth.

This episode is not just an update; it's a reflection of resilience, the power of collaboration, and the beauty of evolving paths. As April takes a bold step in a new direction, and Tracie explores exciting endeavors, they invite listeners to be part of this momentous transition.

Filled with profound insights, personal revelations, and a glimpse into the future of Joyous Justice, this episode promises to be a compelling listen that will leave you inspired and curious about what lies ahead.

Links:

Tracie & Emily's latest podcast: https://dtass.buzzsprout.com/
For Lucifer fans!: https://lightbringers.buzzsprout.com/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com **to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750 Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!**

Summary
In this episode, Kohenet April Nichole Baskin discusses the concept of on-ramps and piloting in relation to personal growth and transitions.

She explores the idea of using the new year as an opportunity for reflection and experimentation, emphasizing the importance of spacious on-ramps and the value of piloting different practices as needed.

April shares her personal experiences with navigating difficult circumstances and the lessons she has learned from floating and pivoting. She encourages you to embrace or experiments with on-ramps and piloting as tools for personal growth, and creating an ecosystem for success.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Key Takeaways

Take the time to reflect on your life and identify areas where you can create spacious on-ramps for personal growth and transition.
Experiment with piloting different practices and approaches to see what works best for you.
Embrace the new year as an opportunity for reflection and setting intentions, but remember that you can choose your own target date for personal goals.
Create an ecosystem for success by identifying the path of greatest ease and leveraging your strengths and resources.

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join recently-ordained Kohenet April Nichole Baskin in a captivating examination and reconsideration of what often gets classified as "pragmatic" or "practical." April delves into the transformative power of mindfulness about language and advocates for a reframe, or at the least, thoughtful consideration of what we label as "pragmatic" and "practical." She asserts that visionary, strategic thinking and action that challenges conventional mindsets can, in fact, be some of the most pragmatic and practical thinking and actions we can employ.

This episode is a vibrant blend of personal anecdotes and visionary insights, culminating in a powerful call to, when necessary, intervene when brilliant insights and strategies are being shut down or ignored because they were (in)directly labeled as impractical. Instead, as allies and practitioners, we can bridge communication gaps and embrace and pilot innovative, effective, and joyously just strategies.

Key Takeaways:

Redefining Pragmatism: Understand how pragmatic thinking is often misinterpreted, and learn to distinguish it from default or fear-based thought patterns.
Challenges of a Visionary Woman of Color: Hear April's experiences and the distinct challenges she's faced in promoting forward-thinking ideas in organizational settings.
The Limiting Power of Language: Explore how language can both confine and liberate our thinking, impacting our ability to embrace innovative strategies.
The Visionary's Approach: Learn the importance of transcending conventional thinking to adopt more visionary and intentional actions.
Joyous Justice – Pragmatism Meets Vision: Discover how Joyous Justice programming blends practicality with strategic and visionary thinking.
Strategic Thinking vs. Practicality: Understand why it's crucial to prioritize strategic thinking over mere practicality, especially when exploring new possibilities.
Bridging Understanding Gaps: Emphasize the need for improved communication and collaboration to effectively bridge gaps in understanding.

In this episode (recorded as an Instagram Live before April's Kohenet ordination), April unpacks and examines the buzzword term "trauma-informed." Thinking and talking about trauma has become more and more common. While this is, generally speaking, a good thing, it's important--especially with something fraught, fragile, and potentially triggering--for us to be clear about what we mean, what is possible, and what is safe. April offers a new term, "trauma-agile," to help make things clear.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://app.usemotion.com/meet/april-baskin/chat-w-april?d=30

All content © 2023 The Joyous Justice Podcast.

The limits our circumstances can place on us often creep in incrementally until we wake up one day and realize we aren’t allowing our full selves to shine. Originally an Instagram Live, this episode finds April reminding herself she can and has created space for what she wants and who she is. There is room for our whole selves in this big wide world–if we’re courageous enough to claim the space.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://app.usemotion.com/meet/april-baskin/chat-w-april?d=30

All content © 2023 The Joyous Justice Podcast.

In this contemplative episode, April reflects on key insights she gained while on vacation. Rest and fun opened up the truth that despite leaning into heart- and spirit-led living, there is still more room–and even an obligation–to be fully and truly oneself. Movement toward that truth can feel scary, since humans sometimes (often?) compromise who we are in service to belonging. But belonging based on censoring our true selves is not true belonging.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Learn more about Brené Brown’s writing and research: https://brenebrown.com/

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://app.usemotion.com/meet/april-baskin/chat-w-april?d=30

All content © 2023 The Joyous Justice Podcast.

In this reprise of episode 30, April and Tracie reveal the liberatory wisdom in eight practices from Passover observance.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Resources mentioned:

Learn more about the characteristics of White Supremacy Culture: https://www.dismantlingracism.org/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf

Hear the song "All my relations" by Ulali: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swgz8nocENw%20 and read the lyrics: https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/ulali/all-my-relations-27

In this vulnerable episode, April shares recent experiences uncovering and working to heal old wounds including feelings of rage, betrayal, and fear. She shares details of fear she’s been navigating and ways it’s been holding her back and that she’s ready to let go of. For April, transparency around her process of feeling and transmuting suffering toward healing is a strategic move to help counter the perception that to have joy we must deny or ignore suffering.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://usemotion.com/meet/april-baskin/chat-w-april?d=30

All content © 2023 The Joyous Justice Podcast.

Resilience has gotten a bad rap recently. The ability to “bounce back” has been conflated with the requirement to bounce back into oppressive dynamics. But it’s those oppressive dynamics, not the bouncing back, that’s ultimately the problem.

In this episode, April explores the difference between the gift of resilience and the ways in which it has been weaponized by capitalist and neo-colonialist contexts, and previews the work she’ll be leading in the Redefining Resilience workshop next week.

Secure your spot in the workshop: joyousjustice.com/resilience

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://calendly.com/aprilnbaskin/chat-w-april

All content © 2023 The Joyous Justice Podcast.

In this episode of The Joyous Justice Podcast, host April Baskin talks about our relationship with thriving, why so many of us have a bad relationship, and how we can start healing it.

Our relationship with the concept of thriving begins when we are very young and money is one of the core areas where we have the most negative programming. As adults, we must evaluate our beliefs associated with thriving, question them, and do the inner work. Healing your relationship with thriving is the foundation of positioning yourself and our movements for long-term sustainability and success.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feels or is more possible for you now after having listened to this episode?
How do you want to further integrate or apply what you're learning? What's one first step you can take, today even?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://calendly.com/aprilnbaskin/chat-w-april

All content © 2023 The Joyous Justice Podcast.

In today’s conversation, we’re thinking about the difference between making something happen, and making space to see what happens. We explore the transition journeys we are both on, the messaging that April is receiving from her body and the Divine while she navigates being sick, the need to slow down when in the midst of massive transformation.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com **to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750 Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (*www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365*)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://calendly.com/aprilnbaskin/chat-w-april**

In this special conversation, we share some important announcements about transitions that all three members of the Joyous Justice team are embarking upon. In this season of emergence and introspection, all of our transitions are both unique, and sacredly timed and interwoven. April also describes how she’s releasing shame around how her mind works. And, we share our appreciation for Joyous Justice, this podcast, and the potent transformation that we’ve experienced and is to come.

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Want to work with us? If you are considering one of our group or executive coaching packages, but want to talk it through, you can schedule a no-obligation zoom with April: https://calendly.com/aprilnbaskin/chat-w-april

In this episode, we're sharing segments from a live Grounded & Growing class on some key foundational elements of the Success System version of the S.H.E.M.A. Process. April discusses the foundational power of shifting our focus toward what we truly want. And for those of us who may have a hard time knowing what we want, she shares a tool (a Wheel of Well-being. You can make yourself a copy from the link below) and some key questions to help guide you.

Make your own copy of an interactive Wheel of Well-being here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11v7y1pvHKs8BG2DDyiZ2wfpFS5lt9P57rAzLx0KeJzI/edit?usp=sharing

When thinking about what you want (next) in one aspect of your life, consider these questions:

What's going well? What do I appreciate about this area?
What would I love to embody or accomplish next in this area?
How can I weave more joy, fun or justice into this area?
What are resources or how can I get support/help to enhance this area?
What's one thing that I could start or stop doing that would make everything in this area easier?

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Learn more about Grounded & Growing and sign up for the waitlist at joyousjustice.com/apply

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

This week, we put Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year of the trees, in conversation with AI (artificial intelligence) technologies like ChatGPT and Lensa AI. We weigh in on this debate (or socratic seminar, as April calls it) and think about our pacing as AI becomes an increasingly bigger part of our lives.

Explore ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/chat

Find Jo Kent Katz’ website here: https://www.jokentkatz.com/

Learn more about Ricardo Levins Morales: https://www.rlmartstudio.com

Learn more about Aurora Levins Morales: http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/

Listen to our episode titled “Slow, deep, irreversible”: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1146023/11710644

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com **to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750 Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)**

The past week or so have brought an unwelcome reminder that anti-Black racism is alive and well in 21st-century America. With this as backdrop, we’re reprising episode 44. In this conversation, we respond to a common question about racial justice work and explain that because the Jewish community is a global, multi-racial people, racial justice already is and must continue to be a core Jewish value and issue.

Read Josefin Dolsten’s op-ed in The Forward, entitled “As Jews, we need to speak out against DeSantis’ efforts to erase Black history:” https://forward.com/opinion/533221/jews-black-history-desantis-speak-out-erase/

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Read more about Rabbi Leora Kaye and her work: https://reformjudaism.org/author/rabbi-leora-kaye

Check out what we mean by Jews of the Global Majority here: https://joyousjustice.com/global-majority-jews

Listen to April on the BBC’s Heart and Soul on Black Jewish Lives Matter to hear more about her thoughts on our global multi-racial Jewish community: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2fnq

Review the Jews of Color Field Building’s research on population demographics: https://jewsofcolorfieldbuilding.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Counting-Inconsistencies-052119.pdf

Check out this article about the importance of cultural competence for teams: http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/cultural-competence-part-2-why-is-it-important/

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-44

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Tracie shares one of the ways she says present throughout the day amidst the immensity of the to-do list or the demands to be productive: saying blessings over daily rituals. She tells us about the blessings she says over things that may seem mundane–like a cup of coffee or a workout–-, and what effect this has had on her life.

Interested in Grounded & Growing? Apply now!https://joyousjustice.com/apply

Learn about Marcia Falk and her book The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festivalhttps://www.marciafalk.com/blessings.html

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Inspired by April’s appearance on a panel entitled, “Religion is…divisive,” and in the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr Day, we dig into the ways religion can be used to defend or to dismantle systemic oppression. Together, we think through what we believe comes after the ellipses (we don’t LOVE ‘Religion is… divisive.’), weaving in our understanding of the role of religion historically and contemporarily.

Register for our upcoming live, interactive 5-day workshop, Roadmap to Resilience: https://joyousjustice.com/roadmap

Interested in Grounded & Growing? Join the waitlist! https://joyousjustice.com/apply

Read more about David Kyuman Kim (Executive Director, Center for the Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University): https://ccsre.stanford.edu/people/david-kyuman-kim

Watch Eboo Patel’s TED Talk, “Building bridges - religions’ role in our societies:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYLesUKHPGc

Learn more about Dr. Gabor Maté: https://drgabormate.com/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

In a follow up to our last episode, today’s conversation focuses on joy in adulthood. We talk about joy as abundance and about the ways we can weave joy into our everyday life and give it structure–not to squelch it, but to help it serve our best interests. April also explains how she has tweaked her habit tracker to weave in joy. And, we share other things that are bringing us joy right now (like stovetop popcorn with butter!).

Register for our upcoming live, interactive 5-day workshop, Roadmap to Resilience:https://joyousjustice.com/roadmap

Interested in Grounded & Growing? Join the waitlist!https://joyousjustice.com/apply

Learn more about Annie-Rose London and their work: http://www.annieroselondon.com/

Read about Brené Brown and her work:https://brenebrown.com/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

We’re on the other side of 2022, and we're thinking about how we can cultivate joy in 2023. April recounts a moment from several years ago when she was struggling to even access joy and reflects on where she is with that journey now. Plus, we harken back to our childhoods and talk about what brought us joy then (and spoiler alert: what brought you joy then might also bring you some joy now!).

Register for our upcoming live, interactive 5-day workshop, Roadmap to Resilience:https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmap

Interested in Grounded & Growing? Join the waitlist!https://joyousjustice.com/apply

Read more about Sonia Choquette and her work:https://soniachoquette.net/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

In this season of short days, the light we do have becomes all the more precious. In today’s conversation, we use the metaphor of light to help us understand and articulate how change happens–both in individuals and in systems. When we stop hiding it, and join our own light with others’, we are so much stronger than the darkness.

Register for our upcoming live, interactive 5-day workshop, Roadmap to Resilience:https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmap

Interested in Grounded & Growing? Join the waitlist!https://joyousjustice.com/apply

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Inspired by the Chanukah themes of rededicating the Temple, April and Tracie explore what it would look like to practice rededication, particularly as an alternative to New Years’ resolutions. While resolutions might feel transactional or center around deficit, rededication recognizes what we’re working for and builds upon it. And, we get into the important role that community and our interconnectedness plays in moving toward the world we want.

Interested in Grounded & Growing? Join the waitlist!https://joyousjustice.com/apply

Learn about James Clear’s book Atomic Habits:https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

Read about Cheshbon HaNefesh, accounting of the soul: https://www.judaismyourway.org/2021/08/20/soul-accounting/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

As we’re hosting our Roadmap to Resilience workshop, we’re feeling reflective and appreciative about where we are and where we’ve been. So, we’re sharing a conversation from last spring inspired by a session of Grounded & Growing, the program on which Roadmap to Resilience is based. April and Tracie recently realized they have different practices in response to injustices. Though their actual behaviors diverge, what they have in common is that they are using intentional and strategic attention as a form of a social and racial justice practice. Because of our many different identities and experiences, our social justice practices are not one-size-fits-all. Some of us need to protect ourselves from re-traumatization. Others need to counter the numbness and dehumanization that has become default reactions to injustice. All of us can contribute to a world of justice, wholeness, and healing.

Register for this live, online workshop and find out more info: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmap

Learn more about the police killing of Stephon Clark:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Stephon_Clark

Support our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

There are MANY amazing people doing change-making work, and there are some chronic challenges playing out. In this week’s conversation, we’re digging into these five core barriers: stress and anxiety, lack of confidence, isolation and loneliness, not knowing the next steps or how to move forward, and the fragmentation and compartmentalization of our living, learning, and leadership.

It is for this reason that we’re offering “Roadmap to Resilience,” starting December 5th.
Register for this live, online workshop and find out more info: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmapThe phrase “white supremacist delusion” comes from Sonya Renee Taylor. Learn more about her and her work: https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com/

Support our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC, our team, and get connected & involved in our community!

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

For the third year in a row, we’re interrogating the American holiday on the fourth Thursday of November, commonly known as Thanksgiving. We think (and grieve) together about Americans talk and think about the holiday and the Indigenous people who Thanksgiving by turn whitewashes or simply ignores. We’re also thinking about ways we might make our own observance with our values.

For the first time ever, we’re releasing this episode early if you want to consider our thoughts as you prepare for your observance.

Find our whose land you’re on: https://native-land.ca/

Register for our live online workshop, Roadmap to Resilience: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmap

Join our online community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to join our mailing list, learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC and our team, or to get involved in our community.

Let us know how this episode is resonating and submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to last year’s Grateful Family Day (Thanksgiving) conversation, Episode 64: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1146023/episodes/9599620

Find our whose land you’re on: https://native-land.ca/

Learn more about Landback: https://landback.org/

Find out more about Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and her work: http://www.rabbilynngottlieb.com/

Read about Jews on Ohlone Land: https://www.jewsonohloneland.org/

Listen to our previous episodes about his holiday:

Ep. 64: Grateful Family Day: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joyous-justice-podcast/id1530726949?i=1000543045694

Ep. 13 Jews Talk Thanksgiving, Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joyous-justice-podcast/id1530726949?i=1000501333206

Ep. 12 Jews Talk Thanksgiving, Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joyous-justice-podcast/id1530726949?i=1000500457117

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What

We dig into a phrase (attributed to Ricardo Levins Morales) that we can and should apply to social justice movements and our lives more broadly: slow, deep, and irreversible.

Mainstream American/Western society often prioritizes speed and urgency. This conversation gets into why that’s often ineffective and can even be harmful. Anchoring in the “slow, deep, and irreversible” is immensely beneficial in our lives and in our movements toward decolonization and collective liberation.

We also want to hear from you: what does slow, deep, and irresistible in your work and in your living look like for you?

Register for our live online workshop, Roadmap to Resilience: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/roadmap

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC and our team, or to get involved in our community.

Reach out to us and submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Learn more about our podcast at https://joyousjustice.com/podcast

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Aurora Levins Morales:

http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/about-me.html

Learn more about Ricardo Levins Morales:

https://www.rlmartstudio.com/about/about-the-artist/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

In our first official episode as the Joyous Justice Podcast, we take a moment to reflect on what the phrase “joyous justice” means–in both our lives and leadership. While the phrase itself might seem oxymoronic in a world where many assume that pursuing justice requires the justice-seeker to suffer, we know that joy and justice must be paired together. We articulate the benefit and beauty of a justice pursuit that aligns our healing with the healing of the world.

Visit https://joyousjustice.com to learn more about Joyous Justice, LLC and our team, or to get involved in our community.

Reach out to us and submit a question, insight, or topic or guest suggestion at https://joyousjustice.com/connect

Learn more about our podcast at https://joyousjustice.com/podcast

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwaNWGLM0c

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

We’re sensing that for many of you, the present moment is filled with overwhelm and despair. In this week's episode, we’re sharing some insights for how to navigate it all. We talk about acknowledging the state we’re in, determining the level of intervention we need based upon the oppression/danger scale, and engaging in the important rituals of emotional honoring and release. Tracie also shares some of her own experiences around her own conditioning and how these lessons have applied to her life.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to Lauryn Hill’s song “Doo Wop (That Thing)”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6QKqFPRZSA

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

As we reflect on the high holidays, we delve into lessons we can glean from this past season and the moment we’re in now (and all the heaviness many of us are feeling). How can we align ourselves with the future we want by being aware of ALL of our vibes and nurturing and holding ourselves in whatever we’re feeling?

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

After Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet about the 2018 California Wildfires being caused by a space laser controlled by the Rothschild family ignited a slew of jokes on social media, April and Tracie take some time to think about different reactions to antisemitism.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.

Toni Morrison said, "The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

Eric Ward's article "Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism" investigates the ways in which antisemitism intersects with racism in White Nationalism.

Lilla Watson is credited with the quote "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Some report she prefers to credit authorship for the phrase to Australian Aboriginal Rights groups.

You can read Bernie Sanders memes and learn about how he leveraged the moment into nearly $2M for worthy causes in this article from the AP.

Check out our discussion and reflection questions for this episode:

https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-s2e2-there-is-no-jewish-space-laser-period

More discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

This week, we’re bringing back last year’s juicy conversation about Simchat Torah (lit. “Joy of Torah”) where Tracie and April discuss some of the holiday’s traditions. The symbolism of the holiday--appreciating the totality of the Torah and starting the cycle anew--illuminates for ways we can do the same with our own life and racial justice curricula.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Simchat Torah here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shemini-atzeretsimchat-torah-101/

Remember Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, and learn more about his work here: https://rabbisacks.org/

Check out, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, by Alan Lew, here: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/alan-lew/this-is-real-and-you-are-completely-unprepared/9780316739085/

Check out more from Yoshi Silverstein here: https://mitsuicollective.org/who-we-are/

Learn more about the history of the Mourner’s Kaddish and Rabbi Akiva here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/282142?lang=bi

Listen to our previous episode about our Life Curricula here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

Read and use our discussion and reflection questions for this episode (from 2021):
https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-56

More discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

This week we’re sharing an oldie but (definitely) a goodie! Sukkot proves a rich holiday for April and Tracie's meaning-making. Together they discuss the importance of gratitude, especially in the wilderness, what Black Panther can teach us about Sukkot, and the holiness and sovereignty of the body.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read about Chadwick Boseman and “Black Panther”:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/

Learn more about Marcia Falk's Book of Blessings:
https://www.marciafalk.com/blessings.html

Find the #BlackMenAreGood hashtag on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23blackmenaregood

Learn more about Brené Brown and "Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart":
https://brenebrown.com/?press=on-being-with-krista-tippett-brene-brown-strong-back-soft-front-wild-heart

Read and use our discussion and reflection questions for this episode (from 2020):
https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-4-sukkot-black-panther-and-gratitude

More discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

A few days into the new Jewish year, we connect to reflect on what we learned in our Elul offerings, and to offer some lessons about the practice of cheshbon hanefesh, or accounting of the soul. Taking cues from the English word accounting, we play with what it means to have an accurate assessment of our liabilities and our strengths. How can we counter the social conditioning that discourages celebrating progress (and why is it important?)?

Share your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute and their offerings: https://kohenet.org/

Reflect with our Elul 5782 prompts:
https://joyousjustice.com/elul

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

“You are not obligated to forgive someone who has offered neither apology nor repair.” This opinion is one both April and Tracie have received at different points in their lives, and which is surfacing now as we approach the high holy days. And though we both needed to hear that message when it was delivered, we’re also realizing that it is not the end of the story. The longing for healing and wholeness after hurt has us looking for a third way–a path toward teshuvah, or return, and wholeness, shalem/sh’lemut–even in the absence of apology.

Share your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com.

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu’s work, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-book-of-forgiving-desmond-tutumpho-tutu?variant=32122225983522

Read about the Japanese art of kintsugi, “golden joinery”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

Tara Brach relays the story of the Golden Buddha in her work Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN: https://www.tarabrach.com/books/radical-compassion/April and Tracie talked about the Golden Buddha in our first-ever Rosh Hashanah episode, Ep 2: Rosh Hashanah, Prince, and Visions, Both Big and Small: https://jewstalkracialjustice.buzzsprout.com/1146023/5430970-ep-2-rosh-hashanah-prince-and-visions-both-big-small

As April sings at the beginning of the episode, “Oh, the world (and Joyous Justice) is changing, and I am changing too.” This week, we’re getting a glimpse into April’s mind and spirit around the multi-year journey she’s been on to shape Joyous Justice as a bold, leading-edge organization in and for the Jewish community. Follow along as April describes how she’s now more fully equipped to step into a larger, broader vision for the scope and impact of her voice and the Joyous Justice team’s work, while remaining true to her and our rootedness in Jewish ways of being. To help manifest the healed and healing, joyously just future, and to reflect individually and collectively about where we are, we are hosting two “Lil’ Elul Conversations” this month. Join us at one or both!

Reflect with our Elul questions and sign up for our 9/20 or 9/22 event: https://joyousjustice.com/elul

Share your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com.

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the Grand Magal of Touba:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Magal_of_Touba

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

As we move through this sacred and deeply reflective Jewish month of Elul, it is the perfect time to look backward at what has been and forward at what can be. We’re inviting you to engage in some meaningful reflection and let us know how you’re doing and what’s been on your mind and heart (we have a form for you! Click the link below.) And, you’re invited to join us for one (or both!) of two conversations we’re having later this month where we’ll share our community’s insights and be together as we engage in cheshbon hanefesh (accounting of the soul).

Take the survey and sign up for our 9/20 or 9/22 event:https://joyousjustice.com/elul

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com

Share your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions.

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read about the Shmita Year: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

In this week’s episode, we’re bringing back some wisdom from last year’s Elul episode and reflecting on the meaning of this month in the Jewish calendar that leads up to Rosh HaShanah and the high holidays. This time of anticipation calls us to prepare ourselves spiritually for the new year. We talk about the symbolic meanings of the holiday and how the ritual of hearing the shofar can be a powerful call to being “awake.”

And, we’re excited to hear from you! Let us know your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions. In the next few weeks we’ll be sending some questions we would love for you to weigh in on. Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about the month of Elul here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-elul/

Read more about the Senegalese holiday, Grand Magal of Touba here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Magal_of_Touba

Learn about the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute here: https://www.kohenet.com/

Read the Song of Songs here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs

Better understand Shekhinah, the Divine Feminine in Judaism, here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-divine-feminine-in-kabbalah-an-example-of-jewish-renewal/

Discussion/Reflection Questions for this episode:

April and Tracie spend the episode discussing Elul. What do you know about Elul? What, if any, traditions and rituals do you have for the month of Elul?
April and Tracie reflect on the Kabbalistic teaching about Elul being an acronym for “Ani l'dodi v'dodi li/I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine” and the idea of intimacy with the divine. What does intimacy with the divine mean for you? What does it look like?
April notes that hearing the shofar is a type of pattern interruption that reverberates within us? What do you feel when you hear the sound of a shofar? What memories or thoughts arise in connection with it?
Tracie connects the daily sound of the shofar to a wake up call, and a daily reminder for us to do the work of fighting oppression. What are the injustices that you have become more attuned and “awoken” to over the course of the last year?
April describes “awake” and “matrix” versions of herself. Do you have a similar view of how you operate in society? What are the daily acts of injustice and oppression that serve as their own kind of shofar for you?
Tracie also reflects on what the sound of the shofar means to her, connecting it to mechayeh HaMetim, and enlivening the dead. Having listened to their discussion, do you have your own thoughts on what the sound of the shofar symbolizes to you?

This week, we’re having this big and exciting conversation in the same room (a first for the podcast!). We’re entering the next iteration for Joyous Justice and the podcast and opening up about our thinking. Reflecting our growth, Jews Talk Racial Justice will soon have a new name: the Joyous Justice Podcast. We also get into how they developed the SHEMA process (from our Grounded & Growing program), April’s broader vision of Joyous Justice, integrating decolonized spiritual practices and living wholeheartedly while bringing forth justice.

And, we’re excited to hear from you! Let us know your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions. And, in the next few week’s we’ll be sending some questions we would love for you to weigh in on. Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com.

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Elizabeth Gilbert writes about ideas as independent entities waiting for the right human to manifest them in her book about writing/creating, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. https://bookshop.org/books/big-magic-creative-living-beyond-fear/9781594634727

Learn more about Miss Cleo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Cleo

Learn more about the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute: https://kohenet.org/

Find out more about Jo Kent Katz: https://www.jokentkatz.com/

Read about the Shmita Year: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

In part inspired by behavior we’ve seen on social media, April and Tracie discuss the importance of recognizing and holding multiple truths, even when some truths are less-than-savory. Western/American society pushes either/or dynamics in many facets of life, including in understanding oppression: we’ve been taught you can be oppressor or oppressed, not both. In truth, nearly all of us are both to different degrees, depending on context, power dynamics, and other factors. Sadly, ignoring this both/and can lead to causing more harm.

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

In a continuation of the conversation started in the last episode, April and Tracie talk about the rupture Tish B’Av marks and the meaning we can glean from the proximity of Tish B’Av and Tu B’Av, the Jewish holiday of love. In an extended conversation about love and healing, we use the Japanese art of kintsugi as a metaphor, resonate (again) with Lauryn Hill’s wisdom, “How you gon’ win when you ain’t right within?”, and meditate on the Jewishness of Groucho Marx’s quip “I don’t want to be a part of any club that would have me.”

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find Alan Lew’s book, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation here: https://bookshop.org/books/this-is-real-and-you-are-completely-unprepared-the-days-of-awe-as-a-journey-of-transformation/9780316830201

Learn more about kintsugi, the Japanese art of "golden joinery": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

In our 100th episode, we dig into the holiday of Tish B’Av, the ninth of Av, and its commemoration of the Jewish people’s collective trauma and grief. April and Tracie interrogate the intellectual and embodied grief processing inherited in Tish B’Av, and talk about what resonates and what just doesn’t. Plus, we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate our 100th episode and all the magic and amazing conversation from the past two years (and more importantly, YOU, our dear listeners!)

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

In today’s conversation, Tracie recounts how the meditation practice that is part of her karate class–and the transcendence that has eventually come with it–is a growing edge for her. It validated something April has known and been teaching for a while – that spiritual work is not divorced from justice work. In fact, spirituality, healing, and well-being are integral to justice work.

Interested in joining our Grounded & Growing, Shift Your Life in 60 Days cohort, or any of our other programs? Fill out this form and check the relevant boxes: https://joyousjustice.com/interest-form

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about Tosha Silver and her books here:
https://toshasilver.com/

Learn more about Kohenet Taya Mâ:
https://taya.ma/

Find Tracie’s #Gratidoodles at her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracieguydecker/

Read more about Alison Bechdel’s book The Secret to Superhuman Strength:
https://bookshop.org/books/the-secret-to-superhuman-strength/9780544387652

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them

In a return to the studio, April and Tracie use a TikTok video as a jumping off point for a conversation about Jewishness and whiteness, solidarity, the effects of trauma, and the ways that all of these change and shift over time.

We’ve extended the registration deadline (and the listener discount!) for BOTH of our summer offerings (Grounded & Growing and Shift Your Life in 60 Days)! Use the code JTRJ22 at checkout. Registration closes this Friday July 22nd!.

Email us at hello@joyousjustice.com if you have any questions or need more customization on the payment plan.

Interested but registration for this cohort has closed? Fill out this form and check the box “I want to cultivate a trauma-informed Jewish social justice practice with Grounded & Growing”: https://joyousjustice.com/interest-form

Sign up for our second cohort of “Grounded & Growing,” our intensive for cultivating a trauma-informed Jewish social justice practice: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Register for Shift Your Life in 60 Days: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/shift

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

This week’s episode is an excerpt of our recent Taste of Grounded & Growing, in advance of the kick-off of the program later this month. This group-coaching, cohort experience is designed to help you develop or deepen your trauma-informed, Jewish social justice practice. You’ll do so through our S.H.E.M.A. Process, a series of practices integrating multi-disciplinary wisdom and knowledge, which provides a practical guide for a trauma-informed racial justice practice. This episode also features the reflections of a member of our first cohort about how this program–and April and Tracie’s teaching–have changed her life.

Our early bird discount officially expired on July 6, but listeners of Jews Talk Racial Justice can still access the lower rate for BOTH of our summer offerings (Grounded & Growing and Shift Your Life in 60 Days)! Use the code JTRJ22 at checkout. Registration closes this Friday July 15th!.

Sign up for our second cohort of “Grounded & Growing,” our intensive for cultivating a trauma-informed Jewish social justice practice: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Email us at hello@joyousjustice.com if you have any questions or need more customization on the payment plan.

Interested but registration for this cohort has closed? Fill out this form and check the box “I want to cultivate a trauma-informed Jewish social justice practice with Grounded & Growing”: https://joyousjustice.com/interest-form

Watch the episode (with the slides!) on Youtube: https://youtu.be/2PBScgTzr6Y

Register for Shift Your Life in 60 Days: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/shift

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Today, we’re giving you a preview of our program, Shift Your Life in 60 Days and sharing our “Taste of” event from this past Sunday. In this call, April gets into some juicy lessons about the importance of micro-movements and the magic that can happen when we clarify what matters most, support our well-being, and create an energetic pathway towards what we want when we’re in an intentional and supportive community (like that of Shift Your Life!). She also tells us about her experience with self-care and the key differences between goals and intentions.

This is a program that has been brewing for a long time, AND we fast-tracked it because of the heaviness of the moment we’re in.

PLUS, we’re extending our early bird discount for listeners of Jews Talk Racial Justice, not just for our Shift Your Life program, but ALSO for Grounded & Growing. Use the code JTRJ22 at checkout. Registration closes on Friday July 15th!.

Register for Shift Your Life in 60 Days: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/shift

Watch the episode (with the slides!) on Youtube: https://youtu.be/gN61Bwf9KGg

Sign up for our second cohort of “Grounded & Growing,” our intensive for cultivating a trauma-informed Jewish social justice practice: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about James Clear and his book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

The Pareto Principle 'on steriods': “What’s the ONE THING you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” - Gary Keller

Learn more about the Pareto Principle here: https://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-pareto-principle-the-8020-rule/

This week, take a sneak peek of a recent session of our program “Grounded & Growing.” After a lesson about accountability, April and Tracie field a participant's question. Navigating accountable relationships in the context of social justice work, especially when we’re in an oppressor group, can be complicated. How can we avoid burdening our under-resourced allies and still seek feedback? How can we decenter ourselves in allyship? How can we be mindful of how from whom and how we are getting the support we need in order to show up more effectively?

Heads-up, we use the f-word in this episode.

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Sign up for our second cohort of “Grounded & Growing,” our 6-week intensive for cultivating a trauma-informed social justice practice: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

In a recent session of our program Grounded & Growing, April and Tracie realized they have different practices in response to injustices. Though their actual behaviors diverge, what they have in common is that they are using intentional and strategic attention as a form of a social and racial justice practice. Because of our many different identities and experiences, our social justice practices are not one-size-fits-all. Some of us need to protect ourselves from re-traumatization. Others need to counter the numbness and dehumanization that has become default reactions to injustice. All of us can contribute to a world of justice, wholeness, and healing.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Find out more about our pilot program “Grounded & Growing,” our 6-week intensive for cultivating a trauma-informed social justice practice: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Learn more about the police killing of Stephon Clark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Stephon_Clark

As we celebrate Juneteenth, enter the summer and welcome the concluding months of the Shmita year, we think about all the lessons we can learn from this season. There are internal and external insights to be gained from the confluence of these holidays and this season. We can work to balance the desire to control different aspects of our lives with the benefits and need for loosening in our lives, as we work to expand and feel into joy and liberation this summer.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to our 2021 Juneteenth episode, “Juneteenth and the Importance of Rest”: https://jewstalkracialjustice.buzzsprout.com/1146023/8744570-ep-42-juneteenth-and-the-importance-of-rest

Listen to our conversation about the shmita year, “The Shmita Year, the Year of Release”: https://jewstalkracialjustice.buzzsprout.com/1146023/10674801-ep-90-the-shmita-year-the-year-of-release-mvp

See Tracie’s Gratidoodles at her Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/tracieguydecker/

Listen to “Loosen Loosen” by Aly Halpert:
https://soundcloud.com/aly-halpert/loosen-loosen

This week, we’re bringing you Tracie and Joyous Justice’s wisdom from a recent presentation at a colloquium entitled “Jewish Responses to the Loneliness Epidemic.” These past few years have seen a layering of multiple pandemics: Covid exacerbated and made plain so many injustices. Grappling with the weight of the world’s sickness, grief, and trauma creates a specific kind of loneliness that compounds both inherited and personal trauma and has many of us believing we can only rely on ourselves. How can we counter isolation and our own scared-active urgency to do the holy, communal work of planting and tending the seeds that we want to grow, even when we’re not physically gathered together?

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read about “scared active” in Cherie Brown’s article “The Intersection of Racism and anti-Semitism: The ‘hook’”: https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-intersection-of-racism-and-anti-semitism-the-hook/

Learn more about Aurora Levins Morales and read her poetry: http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie talk about what it looks like when organizations and communities take on the difficult work of facing the honest truth about racism and oppression within their walls. There is so much shame and fear about problematic dynamics in our communities, it can prevent us from making real progress. Community or organizational change and healing take honesty, courage, and healing for individual members and leaders of those organizations. We dig into what we see in the context of the United States, the role of the good/bad binary in all of this, and why it’s so important to do our own internal healing in a world that has embedded oppression into our existence.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Find out more about our SHEMA process/Grounded & Growing course and join the waitlist:
https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Learn more about Imani Romney-Rose Chapman: https://imanistrategies.com/about/

Learn more about Professor Barbara J. Love: https://www.barbarajlove.com/

We're rounding off this month's MVPs (most valuable podcasts) with a conversation about the Shmita year (if you haven't been commemorating it, don't worry! There's still time!). As we’re In our current pandemic-, racism-, and climate-change-ravaged times, April and Tracie talk about the Shmita Year, or Sabbatical Year, which we just began at Rosh Hashanah. How does one live out the values of the Shmita year when most of us are no longer working as farmers in the fields? They discuss how we can use this particular moment to lean into its themes, reconnect with the Earth, and find greater balance in what we endeavor to control and what we allow to happen organically.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about the Shmita year here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Check out the 5 genders in the Talmud here: https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/gender-diversity-in-jewish-sacred-texts/

Read more about Hayim Nahman Bialik here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hayim-nahman-bialik/

The essay “Halacha and Aggadah” can be found in Revealment and Concealment: Five Essays.

Check out Judaism Unbound’s episode on the Shmita year here: https://www.judaismunbound.com/podcast/episode-287-shmita-project

Listen to our episode on T'shuvah here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

Listen to our episode about Elul here:https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-49

Learn more about Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife here: https://www.keshirahalev.com/about

Learn more about Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen here: https://www.jewishtimes.com/tag/rabbi-elissa-sachs-kohen/

This week, we’re airing an earlier MVP (most valuable podcast) where April and Tracie dig into and challenge the oft-repeated notion that proximity across a line of difference immunizes against bigotry or racism. In other words, the assertion “I can’t be racist, my (fill-in-the-blank) is Black." We discuss how the good/bad binary plays into this misconception about proximity and clarify the fact that power and privilege remain intact even in proximate relationships. Ultimately, we offer listeners thoughts on how to counter these normal impulses and ultimately move toward greater liberatory consciousness.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-63

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch Bryan Stevenson’s talk about the power of proximity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RyAwZIHo4Y

Find our definition of “Jews of the Global Majority” here: https://joyousjustice.com/global-majority-jews

Get on our waitlist for Racial Justice Launch Pad: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist

Learn more about the Intercultural Development Inventory: https://idiinventory.com/

We’re bringing back an oldie but a VERY important goodie! In this week’s episode (or MVP, “most valuable podcast,”) April and Tracie discuss Eric Ward’s Skin in the Game point about the conditional whiteness of Ashkenazi Jews, unpacking (with both/and thinking) the reaction some Jews have regarding their whiteness. April uses her experiences as a United States citizen living in Senegal to explain how conditional privilege operates.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:
www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-45

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read Eric Ward’s Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism here: https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism

Eric Ward’s appearance with the Jewish Museum of Maryland: https://jewishmuseummd.org/events/the-root-of-white-supremacy/

Check more about Robin DiAngelo’s work here: https://www.robindiangelo.com/

Listen to our episode on the importance of affinity spaces here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-43

Read about the philosophy of The Good Place (careful, spoilers for the entire show): https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/26/20874217/the-good-place-series-finale-season-4-moral-philosophy#:~:text=The%20Good%20Place%20has%20laid,do%20good%20front%20and%20center.

This week, we’re re-releasing an MVP --one of our Most Valuable Podcasts. Way back in episode 2, April and Tracie spoke about better alternatives to some of the micro-aggressive things white-identified Jews often say to Jews of Color. So what happens if you overhear someone else saying a micro-aggressive question or comment? What can you do? What should you do? How can you interrupt the oppression without falling into saviorism? April and Tracie dig into this question and offer some strategies for both disrupting the oppression and supporting the person on the receiving end of it.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about what not to say to a Jew of Color in this Kveller article: https://www.kveller.com/what-not-to-say-to-jews-of-color-and-what-to-say-instead/

Go back and listen to April and Tracie’s conversation in episode 2 wherever you get your podcasts: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1146023/5430970

Find this episode’s discussion/reflection guide here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-s2e19-when-you-overhear-microaggressions

As we commemorate Yom HaShoah, the Jewish-community-designated Holocaust Memorial Day, we talk about balancing the incomprehensible nature of the Shoah with the need to continue to work to process and heal (comrehend?) the collective trauma of the Shoah and its intergenerational effects. What more would be possible if we were able to access capacity-expanding healing? We also explore differences and commonalities between post-WWII German reparations and truth-telling and post-emancipation U.S. responses to the collective trauma of the centuries of forced enslavement of Black folks.

Apply to our 6-week intensive for Cultivating a Trauma-Informed Jewish Social Justice Practice here (We only have a few spots left! Applications now due Friday April 29th): https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read Ta Nehisi-Coates’ “The Case for Reparations”: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

Learn more about Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Memorial Day: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-hashoah-holocaust-memorial-day/

Find out more about Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem: https://www.yadvashem.org/

Read more about the reparations agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany and Menachem Begin’s protest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany

Watch or find more information about the show “Russian Doll” on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80211627

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

This Passover, there was an ongoing–sometimes heated–conversation on social media about singing the Negro spiritual “Let My People Go” during the Passover seder. In our conversation this week, April explains why she will continue to sing this song at her Seder table and we get into the nuance and the nitty-gritty of the debate around appropriation vs. appreciation (and we add in a few more steps that folks often miss). When we become aware something we’re doing is appropriative, how can we navigate acknowledging the impact of appropriation when we feel deeply invested in the practice in question? How can we open ourselves to the opportunity to invite in greater complexity, nuance, and compassion and avoid either shutting down or defensively protecting the way things have always been?

Apply to our Grounded & Growing intensive here (We have a few spots left! Applications accepted until April 29 or until all spots are filled): https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read Shekhiynah Larks’ op-ed, “Rethinking ‘Go Down Moses’ at the Passover Seder”: https://globaljews.org/jewishand/its-time-to-retire-go-down-moses-at-passover-seder/?fbclid=IwAR1y2Wc-NX4nwcG6enaFn5ctTzoZ3Yy7SgBKBQb9rPRkQwurL79y8AiBh3U

Watch Titus’s Geisha song from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238Lcjbecb4

Read more about cultural appropriation in yoga: https://yogainternational.com/article/view/how-we-can-work-together-to-avoid-cultural-appropriation-in-yoga

Read more about the Passover Song Acknowledgement Project (PDF): https://templeisraelgreenfield.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Song-Acknowledgement-Handout_Temple-Israel.pdf

Follow Rabbi Becky Silverstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabbibecky

Listen to our episode about intellectual intimacy: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1146023/9993052-ep-74-intellectual-intimacy-and-interdependent-intellectual-independence

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?

This Passover, we’re noticing that folks are quick to identify with the Israelites, but what about the circumstances where we’re in the role of the Egyptians? How can we work to dismantle the binary of good and bad, victim and villain and move toward greater wholeness? Can we invite the intervention that will alter the circumstances and lead to freedom? Can we do it without drowning in the proverbial sea? A first step is to build courageous reflection into our Passover practice that acknowledges enslavement or enslavement-like conditions are present in our world right now.

CW: Mentions of sexual assault, enslavement, violence, and dehumanization.

Apply to our Grounded & Growing intensive here (deadline extended to fill the final few slots): https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to our episode about the oppression scale and the emotional thermometer: https://jewstalkracialjustice.buzzsprout.com/1146023/10037771-ep-75-whoopi-goldberg-the-oppression-scale-and-the-emotional-thermometer

Learn more about Shifra and Puah: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/birthings-and-beginnings/

Read more about restorative justice: https://www.edutopia.org/article/what-heck-restorative-justice-heather-wolpert-gawron

Discussion and reflection questions:

What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
What feelings and sensations are arising, and where in your body do you feel them?

As we approach Passover 5782, we’re thinking about the tension inherent in commemorating a moment of acute urgency with practices that require a lot of time, intention, and planning. The Passover story contains multiple moments when our ancestors and predecessors displayed both faith and radical imagination, but when ritual becomes rigid, it can limit beliefs and imagination. April and Tracie investigate how we can use the Passover holiday, ritual, and greater awareness, to nurture and apply our own radical imagination toward liberation.

Learn more about Grounded & Growing or apply for the intensive here: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/grounded-and-growing

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-82

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about the Midrash about Nachshon: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2199147/jewish/Nachshon-ben-Aminadav-The-Man-Who-Jumped-Into-the-Sea.htm

Read more about the history of the four-minute mile: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-four-minute-mile

Learn about the Ko’ach Fellowship: https://joyousjustice.com/koach-fellowship

This week, we’re bringing you our conversation from our live event on March 23. If we’re being real here (which we ALWAYS are), we know that many of us (especially in the Jewish community) are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and hurt by the state of the world. April and Tracie (and a couple of amazing community members!) give us some helpful framings and tips for processing and moving through our hurt, process our emotions, and get through to the other side. And spoiler alert: you don’t have to suffer in order to powerfully show up for justice!

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-82

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the book Conscious Community: A Guide to Inner Work by Kalonymus Kalman Shapira and translated by Andrea Cohen-Kiener: https://bookshop.org/books/conscious-community-a-guide-to-inner-work/9781568218977

Learn more about the Inside and Out Wisdom and Action Project: https://www.insideoutwisdomandaction.org/who-we-are

We cover a LOT of ground in today’s conversation, where we get curious about what prevents some folks and groups from accessing joy. We talk about Black joy, the whiteness of white Jews and what often makes embracing joy difficult (and the impact of the historical middle agent role), individual and collective safety, and imagining our liberated selves and living into that. What would it look like for white Jews choose the side of liberation over whiteness?

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-81

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to this year’s Purim episode here: https://www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-80

Learn more about NCJW, the National Council of Jewish Women: https://www.ncjw.org/

Learn more about Black joy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQlEpjZXfRU

Read more about Thich Nhat Hanh: https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/

Inspired by the holiday of Purim, April and Tracie use the practice of giving mishloach manot or Purim baskets, to unpack the difference between intention and impact. (Who knew you could learn so much from fruit-filled cookies?) They also interrogate the relationship between Vashti and Esther, and use them as a metaphor for differently-positioned Jewish Leaders of Color today. The megillah (Scroll of Esther) positions them as competitors, but we imagine what it would look like if they recognized they have more to gain by working together and rejecting the externally-imposed division between them.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-80

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the practice of giving mishloach manot: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/purim-gifts/

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Get your tickets for the LIVE Jews Talk Racial Justice event on 3/23: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/live-podcast-tickets

April and Tracie think about some of the lessons of Purim: hidden identities, the power of 'no,' the power of being in the right place, the importance of joy, and the links between joy and liberation.

Find discussion questions for this episode: joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-79

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Resources and notes:

In the Talmud, Megillah 7b:7, it says "Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai." (William Davidson English edition, courtesy sefaria.org)

Peninei Halakhah, Zemanim Chapter 14:1: "When Adar arrives, joy increases."

Learn about Arthur Waskow’s book, Seasons of Our Joy: https://jps.org/books/seasons-of-our-joy/

With all that’s going on in the world right now (and since we’re in the middle of two (2!) months of Adar, we thought it would be good to reprise Episode 10 from the conclusion of election season. Tracie asks April for advice on working through the negative emotions that sometimes accompany justice work. They unpack the ways we've been taught to associate anger or rage with justice work (and anxiety with intelligence), and April shares suggestions for achieving the positive effects of BOTH feeling your feelings AND cultivating joy and presence.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-78

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch our free masterclass to learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad: bit.ly/RJLPMC53min

Watch Thich Nhat Hanh’s video “How to deal with strong emotions”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJX8WkKbPf8

Read more about Rabbi David Jaffe and his book, Changing the World from the Inside Out: https://www.rabbidavidjaffe.com/davids-book/

A couple of weeks ago, we did a Facebook Live where we used popular tv shows to help us playfully make a point about how folks sometimes overestimate their skills when it comes to DEI work–or really anything. In this episode, we revisit that conversation and add some additional commentary. If you tuned in the first time around, stick around for a whole lot more. And, fair warning, there are some definite spoilers of the tv show the Good Place in our follow up conversation.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-77

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch our free masterclass to learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad: bit.ly/RJLPMC53min

Learn more about the series TV “The Good Place”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place

Learn more about the TV series “Schitt’s Creek”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek

Learn more about the series “Lucifer” and the character of Dr. Linda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_(TV_series)

Learn more about the TV series “Pose” and the character of Blanca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pose_(TV_series)

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Read more about prison and police abolition: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-movement-for-police-and-prison-abolition

Learn more about Mussar: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-musar-movement/

Read Michael Schur’s book, How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781982159313

In today’s conversation, April and Tracie unpack white Jews’ whiteness, the history of race and Jewish racialized identities, and the benefits of getting clear about who is actually in the ingroup. Using metaphors from physics to sanctuaries, we talk about historic and contemporary intersections of the social construct of race and lived identities of Jews.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-76

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and attend our free masterclass:

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice

Learn more about how race is a social construct in the NY Times, YouTube, The Atlantic, and Scientific American.

Listen to our episode about conditional whiteness: https://www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-45

Tune into our episode about Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments: https://www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-75

In this edited version of a Facebook live that April recorded after Whoopi Goldberg’s comments and the controversy that followed, April digs deep into her analysis of the reactions many in the Jewish community expressed. Internalized terror and persisting unhealed trauma–elicited by the Holocaust and centuries of persecution–among white Ashkenazi Jews has caused an understandable misalignment between those folks’ emotional thermometer and the actual thread of danger on the oppression scale. Despite the elevated blood pressures the situation has caused, it seems clear to April that compassion (for ourselves and others!), healing, and solidarity across lines of difference will lead us toward the future we want.

Trigger Warning: This episode is not for you in this moment if as a result of this controversy, you are feeling terror or are in a panic mode.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-75

Watch the original conversation from “The View” that stirred this controversy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhITfM4bqO8

Watch the full, unedited Facebook Live video: https://www.facebook.com/1706639/videos/4889145714509771/

Learn more about Brené Brown and her book “Braving the Wilderness”: https://brenebrown.com/book/braving-the-wilderness/

Find our more about Annie-Rose London and their work: https://www.annieroselondon.com/

April mentions her Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw heritage. Find out whose land you reside on here: https://native-land.ca/

Learn more about Joy DeGruy and her work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_DeGruy

Read more about Dr. Lewis Gordon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Gordon

Learn more about rapper Mos Def: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_Def

Listen to Aly Halpert’s song “Loosen Loosen”: https://soundcloud.com/aly-halpert/loosen-loosen

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Send us a question, idea, insight, or thought: https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Like our Facebook page to tune into our Facebook lives: https://www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365

Request to join our Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice (Beta) (and don’t forget to answer all the questions and agree to the group rules!):https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750/

Many of us are learning about racial justice and trying to implement DEI in our lives and workplaces, but sometimes we become so stuck in our questions that it keeps us distanced and prevents us from going–and staying–in the deep end. In this conversation, April and Tracie challenge us to get intellectually intimate with the learning and to use our systems of accountability and partnership to stay in this close relationship while also taking ownership of ourselves.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-74

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Send us a question, idea, insight, or thought: https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Join Awareness Accelerator: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/awareness-enrollment

Listen to our MLK and Tu B’Shva Episodet: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-71

Listen to our episode “Q&A or Q&Stay”: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-69

Like our Facebook page to tune into our Facebook lives: https://www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365

Request to join our Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice (Beta) (and don’t forget to answer all the questions and agree to the group rules!): https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750/

It’s been almost two weeks since the Colleyville synagogue hostage situation, an antisemitic event that was incredibly scary for Jewish communities. During this conversation from just a few days after, we dive into the feelings of isolation that many of us are experiencing, the all-encompassing nature of grief, our internalized terror and communal need for healing, and what it looks likes when we show up and support one another across lines of difference.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-73

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Send us a question, idea, insight, or thought: https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Read more about the Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleyville_synagogue_hostage_crisis

Learn more about Baltimore Ceasefire 365: https://baltimoreceasefire.com/

Learn more about what mutual aid is and how to get involved: https://www.thecut.com/2020/09/what-exactly-is-mutual-aid-how-to-get-involved.html

Read more about Cherie Brown and her thought leadership: https://www.tikkun.org/author/a_brownc/

A few weeks into 2022, April and Tracie share with us what they’ve learned about how to set intentions and their best practices for succeeding. Referencing the conversation they had in Episode 70, they chat about achieving goals versus implementing systems. They unpack some of the patterns around setting intentions and assumptions of our own enoughness. Tracie shares her personal 10 commandments for the upcoming year.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-72

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Learn more about James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/

Learn more about Demir and Carey Bentley’s process of setting personal commandments here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTKbvcaNGU

And learn how Gretchen Rubin talks about personal commandments here.

Find out more about the Lumen device here: https://lumen.me/

Learn more about Stacey Boehman here: https://staceyboehman.com/

As MLK Day and Tu B'Shvat overlap this coming week, April and Tracie unpack the lessons we can learn from trees and their growth in our racial justice journeys. They get into the nuances and differences between treating the symptoms of oppression and injustice – often addressed through “service” – and diagnosing and healing the root causes. And, they think about what we can do to genuinely honor Dr. King’s legacy.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-71

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyousjustice.com/racial-justice-launch-pad

Learn more about Tu B’Shvat https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tu-bishvat-ideas-beliefs/

Read Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” here: https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf

Learn more about or register for the MLK event Tracie is moderating: https://jufj.org/event/mlk-22/

Learn more about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abraham-joshua-heschel-a-prophets-prophet/

It’s the first week of January and April and Tracie are thinking about resolutions. We delve into willpower, habits, and mindset, and discuss the role of American individualism in the culture of New Year’s Resolutions. Ultimately, we look for a better way to change our habits–and stop beating ourselves up with flawed systems.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-70

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyousjustice.com/racial-justice-launch-pad

Read more about James Clear and his book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

Learn more about Cheshbon Hanefesh (Soul Accounting) here: https://www.judaismyourway.org/2021/08/20/soul-accounting/

Read more about the Heath Brothers and their book Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard: https://heathbrothers.com/books/switch/

Learn more about a growth mindset vs. fixed mindset here: https://positivepsychology.com/growth-mindset-vs-fixed-mindset/

Read more about Thich Nat Hanh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh

Find out more about Mussar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musar_movement#:~:text=The%20Musar%20movement%20

Learn more about Sonia Choquette here: https://soniachoquette.net/

Read more about the book Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels by Loretta Graziano Breuning: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781440590504

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie talk about how questions around racial justice often come from a place of “stuckness,” keeping us from making real progress on racial justice. They discuss ways in which you can work through your questions to get past this stuckness.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-69

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyousjustice.com/racial-justice-launch-pad

Read more about Black and white children's reactions to “The Doll Test” here:https://www.naacpldf.org/ldf-celebrates-60th-anniversary-brown-v-board-education/significance-doll-test/

Listen to our episode on urgency here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-s2e3-flip-the-script-on-urgent-action

Listen to our episode on “staying humble and keep going” here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-68

Read about learned helplessness here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/learned-helplessness

Learn more about land acknowledgements here: https://nativegov.org/news/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/

Learn more about the “5 Whys” here: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_5W.htm

Check out Emily Guy Birken’s book, End Financial Stress Now here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/End-Financial-Stress-Now/Emily-Guy-Birken/9781440599132

In this week’s episode, Tracie and April discuss the phrase, “stay humble and keep going,” the final words of the podcast every week. They explore why they chose this simple phrase and what it means to them.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-67

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyousjustice.com/racial-justice-launch-pad

Read more about bell hook’s life here https://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/

Listen to Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble” (Explicit language warning): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvTRZJ-4EyI&ab_channel=KendrickLamarVEVO

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is when people with little skill overestimate their capacity in that field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

Learn more about the middot of Humility / Anavah here: https://www.rabbidavidjaffe.com/anava-humility/

Learn about Dr. Alan Morinis here: https://mussarinstitute.org/

Learn more about Rabbi Lauren Tuchman’s work here: https://rabbituchman.com/

Remind yourself about asymptotes here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote

This week, we’re sharing an excerpt from one of our “Shared Agreements” videos of Racial Justice Launch Pad, a recently-released Joyous Justice program. April and Tracie discuss the dynamics of power and privilege baked into the well-known phrase “the customer is always right.” They also unpack the pattern of being “helpful” by giving (critical) feedback. They teach us what it can look like when we give feedback that is mindful and relational.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-67

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at
www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyousjustice.com/racial-justice-launch-pad

Read more about the history of “The customer is always right”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right

Learn more about Martin Buber’s book and philosophy I and Thou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou

Read more about the cultural history of “mansplaining”: https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/a-cultural-history-of-mansplaining/264380/

In this week’s episode, Tracie and April reflect on the concept of Shleimut, Wholeness, and how it was a driving force for April when she created the Ko’ach Fellowship, supported by Rise Up. April shares more about the Ko’ach Fellowship and together with Tracie, they discuss how healing, wholeness, and peace are all interconnected.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-66

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Rise Up: Nurturing the Soul of Jewish Justice here: https://www.riseupinitiative.org/

Read Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s. Letter from a Birmingham Jail here: https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf

Learn more about the Ko’ach Fellowship here: https://joyousjustice.com/koach-fellowship

Read more about W. E. B. DuBois’ concept of Double Consciousness here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/strivings-of-the-negro-people/305446/

Read Tracie’s Op-Ed from eJewishPhilanthropy here: https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-leadership-of-jews-of-color-the-future-is-now/

Learn more about The Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project here: https://www.insideoutwisdomandaction.org/

Learn more about Musar here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-musar-movement/

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie use the Talmudic debate on how to light the Chanukah menorah to reflect on light, darkness, and what this holiday can teach us about navigating the difficult times in our lives.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-65

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about the debate in the Talmud about how to light the candles here: https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/3144687/jewish/How-to-Change-Your-Life-A-Talmudic-Chanukah-Debate.htm

Learn more about Viktor Frankl here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl

Learn more about A Wrinkle In Time here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhZ56rcWwRQ&ab_channel=WaltDisneyStudios

In this week’s episode April and Tracie continue to explore their thoughts around Thanksgiving and the tension between a holiday about gratitude and family and its racist, genocidal origins.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-64

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Get on our waitlist for Racial Justice Launch Pad: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist

Listen to last year’s episode on Thanksgiving here: Part 1: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-12-jews-talk-thanksgiving-part-1

and Part 2: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-12-jews-talk-thanksgiving-part-2

Learn more about Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community here: http://bowlingalone.com/

Read more about Turtle Island, the Indigenous name of this land: http://www.native-languages.org/legends-turtle.htm

Read Thich Nhat Hanh’s mealtime blessing here: https://view-pacific.com/2008/10/06/a-mealtime-blessing-from-thich-nhat-hanh/

The Talmudic story Tracie referenced can be found in Talmud Chagiga 15b, where there is discussion around how to think about teachings of Acher, the rabbi turned apostate. Here it says “Rabbi Meir [Acher’s friend and former student] found a pomegranate; he ate the inside and threw away the peel!” You can read the whole passage here. Or read more about the man who became known as "the other one" here.

April and Tracie dig into and challenge the oft-repeated notion that proximity across a line of difference immunizes against bigotry or racism. In other words, the assertion “I can’t be racist, my (fill-in-the-blank) is Black." We discuss how the good/bad binary plays into this misconception about proximity and clarify the fact that power and privilege remain intact even in proximate relationships. Ultimately, we offer listeners thoughts on how to counter these normal impulses and ultimately move toward greater liberatory consciousness.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-63

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch Bryan Stevenson’s talk about the power of proximity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RyAwZIHo4Y

Find our definition of “Jews of the Global Majority” here: https://joyousjustice.com/global-majority-jews

Get on our waitlist for Racial Justice Launch Pad: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist

Learn more about the Intercultural Development Inventory: https://idiinventory.com/

April and Tracie spend Veterans’ Day reflecting on their family connections to veterans and the ways in which our country has treated veterans throughout our history. The political conversations that happen around war and policy often employ either/or thinking that leads us to forget the human beings and all those connected to them, who are forever changed by these military policies.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:
https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-62

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Veterans Day here: https://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp

Listen to the oral history of Black GI’s here: http://www.aacvr-germany.org/oral-histories/:

Learn more about the racist treatment of Black Vietnam veterans here: https://time.com/5852476/da-5-bloods-black-vietnam-veterans/

Read how to support veterans here: https://nvf.org/support-veterans-make-difference/

Learn more about how to support those with PTSD: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/publications/print/understandingptsd_family_booklet.pdf

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie unpack the false assumption that some folks have expressed--that April “hates America” since she has chosen to relocate out of the States, and to West Africa, no less. This question leads April and Tracie to think about the hierarchies and racism built into conventional assessments of different cultures both within and outside of America.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-61

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read Tracie’s initial reflections on D. Watkins: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/post/2017/03/14/stoop-stories-too-poor-for-pop-culture

And a return to his work more recently: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/post/representation-matters-what-d-watkins-helped-me-understand-about-museums

D. Watkins’ memoir identifies Sister Souljah’s book The Coldest Winter Ever as what set him on his path as a writer and teacher. Learn more about the book: https://bookshop.org/books/the-coldest-winter-ever/9780743270106

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie discuss the dangers of making that “diversity hire” when the organization hasn’t done the necessary work of deconstructing dynamics of oppression, so that “diversity hire” needs to endure unhealthy and unsustainable microaggressions and worse. They discuss strategies for how to avoid this and set up new colleagues for success.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-60

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about the concept of Tokenism here: https://www.racialequitytools.org/glossary

Learn more about Racial Justice Launchpad here: https://joyousjustice.com/racial-justice-launch-pad

Learn more about Barbara Love here: https://www.barbarajlove.com/about-us

On this week’s episode, Tracie and April discuss the recent discussion on the concept of “Jewface” that followed a recent podcast by Sarah Silverman on the topic. They discuss a few different perspectives on the topic and reflect on the patterns within the portrayal of Jewish characters in media.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-59

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Check out the original Sarah Silverman podcast on Jewface here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jewface-iron-dome-mr-mom/id1533130572?i=1000537086147

Read the Forward article by Benjamin Ivry about Sarah Silverman here: https://forward.com/culture/476527/does-sarah-silverman-actually-have-a-point-about-jewface/

Check out Manishtana’s response to Sarah Silverman here: https://www.jta.org/2021/10/13/opinion/the-jewface-debate-about-casting-non-jews-as-jews-betrays-an-ashkenazi-bias

Read more about what spawned Sarah Silverman’s critique, here: https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/kathryn-hahn-jo an-rivers-showtime-1235069552/

Learn more about the cast of Black-ish here: https://abc.com/shows/blackish/cast

Learn more about Suits and Jewish identity here: https://forward.com/life/169757/the-jews-in-suits/

Learn more about the history of Blackface here: https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/blackface-birth-american-stereotype

In this week’s episode, April shares more about her ongoing exploration around her Indigenous, Cherokee heritage and the impact a healing workshop had on her desire to live and embody this aspect of her identity. Tracie and April use this exploration to reflect on the ways in which we are the products of our ancestors’ choices to survive the oppressions they faced.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-58

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Listen to our Thanksgiving episode, part 1 here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-12-jews-talk-thanksgiving-part-1

Listen to our Thanksgiving episode, part 2 here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-12-jews-talk-thanksgiving-part-2

Learn more about the Cherokee Nation here: https://www.cherokee.org/

In our current pandemic-, racism-, and climate-change-ravaged times, April and Tracie talk about the Shmita Year, or Sabbatical Year, which we just began at Rosh Hashanah. How does one live out the values of the Shmita year when most of us are no longer working as farmers in the fields? They discuss how we can use this particular moment to lean into its themes, reconnect with the Earth, and find greater balance in what we endeavor to control and what we allow to happen organically.

Learn more about the Shmita year here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Check out the 5 genders in the Talmud here: https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/gender-diversity-in-jewish-sacred-texts/

Read more about Hayim Nahman Bialik here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hayim-nahman-bialik/
The essay “Halacha and Aggadah” can be found in Revealment and Concealment: Five Essays.

Check out Judaism Unbound’s episode on the Shmita year here: https://www.judaismunbound.com/podcast/episode-287-shmita-project

Listen to our episode on Teshuvah here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

Listen to our episode about Elul here:
https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-49

Learn more about Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife here: https://www.keshirahalev.com/about

Learn more about Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen here: https://www.jewishtimes.com/tag/rabbi-elissa-sachs-kohen/

In this week’s episode Tracie and April discuss some of the traditions related to the holiday of Simchat Torah (lit. “Joy of Torah”). The symbolism of the holiday--appreciating the totality of the Torah and starting the cycle anew--illuminates for ways we can do the same with our own life and racial justice curricula.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-56

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about Simchat Torah here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shemini-atzeretsimchat-torah-101/

Remember Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, and learn more about his work here: https://rabbisacks.org/

Check out, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, by Alan Lew, here: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/alan-lew/this-is-real-and-you-are-completely-unprepared/9780316739085/

Check out more from Yoshi Silverstein here: https://mitsuicollective.org/who-we-are/

Learn more about the history of the Mourner’s Kaddish and Rabbi Akiva here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/282142?lang=bi

Listen to our previous episode about our Life Curricula here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie mark Sukkot and discuss themes around shelter, safety and security, and sacrifice, and the trade-offs that exist which this holiday helps to illuminate for us.

Content warning: descriptions of animal slaughter/sacrifice

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-55

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about Sukkot here:https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/sukkot-101/

Check out, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, by Alan Lew, here: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/alan-lew/this-is-real-and-you-are-completely-unprepared/9780316739085/

Learn more about the Shmita year here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Learn more about MaNishtana (Rabbi Shais Rishon) here: https://manishtana.net/

Check out Brené Brown’s work on fragility here: https://brenebrown.com/

April and Tracie talk about Aurora Levins Morales’ forthcoming poem “Do Not Rise,” in which the poet unpacks the idea of “please rise” during worship and offers an alternate, earth-based, downward-striving spirituality. Learn more about Aurora Levins Morales here: http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/

In this week’s episode, as we mark Yom Kippur, April and Tracie discuss the big concepts and ideas that can frame Yom Kippur and give some practical tips for how to work through our collective and individual yearly accounting of our souls by finding the joy in the process.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-54

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about Yom Kippur and its meaning here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-kippur-101/

Listen to last week’s episode here: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

Reflect on the Al Chet here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/255454?lang=bi

Learn more about the “4 I’s of Oppression (Love, Change, Power, etc)”: https://www.grcc.edu/sites/default/files/docs/diversity/the_four_is_of_oppression.pdf

Read more about Alan Morinis and the book Everyday Holiness here: https://mussarinstitute.org/books-by-alan-morinis-faculty/

Learn more about Ronnie Coleman here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Coleman

Learn more about Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, the Alter of Novardok here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Yozel_Horwitz

Watch Verna Myers’s TedTalk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/verna_myers_how_to_overcome_our_biases_walk_boldly_toward_them

Check out the book No Sweat by Michelle Segar here: https://michellesegar.com/book/

Learn more about Wolof here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolof_language

Check out Atomic Habits by James Clear here: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

As Yom Kippur approaches, April and Tracie reflect on T'shuvah. We specifically dig into what Jewish tradition teaches us about what to do when “return” requires us to ask how much of ourselves we are willing to dismantle, especially when it comes to perpetuating white supremacy and racism.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about what T'shuvah means here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/repentance/

Read from the Talmud (Gittin 55a) about an exchange regarding what to do with a stolen Load-Bearing Beam of a house here: https://www.sefaria.org/Gittin.55a.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

Read more about Alan Morinis and the book Everyday Holiness here: https://mussarinstitute.org/books-by-alan-morinis-faculty/

Learn more about Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, the Alter of Novardok here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Yozel_Horwitz

Check out more from Yavilah McCoy here: https://twitter.com/yavilah?lang=en

The leprosy that can affect the stones of houses is mainly mentioned in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14. It is discussed in the Talmud in Sanhedrin 71a:20 (among other places):
https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.71a.20?ven=William_Davidson_Edition_-_English⟨=en

Listen to our past discussion about DARVO here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-6-white-fragility-darvo-and-accepting-feedback

Listen to last week’s episode and learn more about our “life curriculum” here:
www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-52

As the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, approaches, we think about the year that was, and reflect on ways to improve while still holding ourselves tenderly.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-52

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Check out our first ever episode of Jews Talk Racial Justice here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-1-join-the-conversation-from-the-beginning

Learn more about Rosh HaShanah and its traditions here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rosh-hashanah-101/

Read more about Alan Morinis and the book Everyday Holiness here: https://mussarinstitute.org/books-by-alan-morinis-faculty/

Learn more about the origins of the phrase “gamzu l’tovah” here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachum_Ish_Gamzu

Preview what a Shemita year is here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

In this week’s episode, we talk about how we often forget that Jewish leaders in the civil rights movement who are lauded today were not universally supported in their time. We often pretend their detractors did not exist, and yet, they are in fact still here in our communities pushing back against our current reckoning with racial justice.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:
www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-51

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about Rabbi Morris Leiberman and the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park Protest here: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hundreds-protest-gwynn-oak-segregation/

Check out the Joyous Justice Program, Whiteness Havruta here:https://joyousjustice.com/whiteness-havruta

Share your thoughts with us here: https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Rabbi Heschel's legacy and popularity here: https://momentmag.com/susannah-heschel-on-the-legacy-of-her-father-rabbi-abraham-joshua-heschel-and-the-civil-rights-movement/

Revisit Colin Kaepernick’s journey here: https://apnews.com/article/colin-kaepernick-american-protests-police-san-francisco-49ers-sports-general-f9bbe38b748072531b07713736409181

In this week’s episode, Tracie and April both react to recent experiences they have had which have deepened their consciousness or understanding around racial justice and healing. For Tracie it was a neighbor’s reaction to an activist campaign to Free Keith Davis, Jr., and for April, a weekend at a virtual Black liberation retreat. This leads them to a conversation on the need to balance the work of liberating individuals and communities from oppressive systems with also grieving the collective trauma that is caused from generations of being targeted by and struggling against these same systems. For it is only by grieving that we can become better change agents for our collective liberation.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-episode-50

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about Keith Davis Jr., and the campaign to free him: https://keithdavisjr.com/

Learn more about Troy Davis’s case and his execution: https://innocenceproject.org/troy-davis-pervis-payne-race-death-penalty/

Check out out our episode on the importance of affinity spaces here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-43

Read about the impact of the murder of George Floyd on the movement for racial justice one year out: https://www.npr.org/series/1000988747/george-floyds-murder-one-year-later

In this week’s episode, we reflect on the meaning of Elul, the month in the Jewish calendar that leads up to Rosh HaShanah and the high holidays. This time of anticipation calls us to prepare ourselves spiritually for the new year. We talk about the symbolic meanings of the holiday and how the ritual of hearing the shofar can be a powerful call to being “awake.”

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:

www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-episode-49

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about the month of Elul here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-elul/

Read more about the Senegalese holiday, Grand Magal of Touba here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Magal_of_Touba

Learn about the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute here: https://www.kohenet.com/

Read the Song of Songs here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs

Better understand Shekhinah, the Divine Feminine in Judaism, here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-divine-feminine-in-kabbalah-an-example-of-jewish-renewal/

Ep 48: Thinking Outside of the Box, part 2

In this week's episode, part 2 of 2, we continue our discussion about the need for outside-the-box thinking by asking what gets in the way. Our conversation leads us to the realization that the resistance to facing and confronting fear and other difficult emotions can keep us in unjust and inequitable systems.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:

www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-episode-48

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about why people don’t evacuate in the face of impending disasters, such as hurricanes, here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/05/why-do-some-people-refuse-evacuate-during-hurricane-same-reasons-people-dont-listen-warnings-they-should-save/

Check out Emily Guy Birken, Tracie’s sister, and her work on the psychology of money here: https://www.emilyguybirken.com/

Read more about Social Learning theory here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html

Learn more about The Checklist Manifesto and Atul Gawande here: http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/

In this week’s episode, part 1 of 2, April and Tracie think about new paradigms for the future. Inspired by a song, we use the prison abolition movement & criminal legal system as well as Western medicine as points of reference, investigating the ways inherited systems, received as “natural,” are in fact human constructions which can be deconstructed (and reconstructed!) for a future that is more equitable, sustainable, and just.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Check out We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1664-we-do-this-til-we-free-us

Learn more about The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein here: https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/chanda-prescod-weinstein/the-disordered-cosmos/9781541724709/

Read more about the implications of a racist medical system and the higher mortality rates of Black mothers here: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/maternal-health-in-bipoc

Listen to our episode on Either/Or thinking here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-9-digital-skin-color-eitheror-thinking-and-pizza-in-dakar

Read more about the Allegory of the Long Spoons, attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshisok here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_long_spoons

Explore the phrase, “if it’s hysterical, it is historical” here: https://www.inclusivetherapists.com/blog/if-it-s-hysterical-it-s-historical

Tracie brings up a recent NFL announcement that they will change a racist policy, just another example of the systematic, racist oppression that permeates US society. This leads to a discussion between April and Tracie about the racism found within the United States medical system and why developing an effective racial justice analysis is so important.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:

https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-46

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about how the NFL used racist assumptions about Black players’ cognition here: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002627309/nfl-says-it-will-halt-race-norming-and-review-brain-injury-claims

Understand why Black infants are less likely to die when they have Black doctors here: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-newborn-baby-survival-doctor-race-mortality-rate-disparity

Learn more about the opioid addiction crisis and racism here: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-opioid-addiction-crisis-and-racism-a-long-troubled-history

Learn more about The Checklist Manifesto and Atul Gawande here: http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/

In this week's episode, April and Tracie discuss Eric Ward’s Skin in the Game point about the conditional whiteness of Ashkenazi Jews, unpacking (with both/and thinking) the reaction some Jews have regarding their whiteness. April uses her experiences as a United States citizen living in Senegal to explain how conditional privilege operates.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:

www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-45

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read Eric Ward’s Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism here: https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism

Eric Ward’s appearance with the Jewish Museum of Maryland: https://jewishmuseummd.org/events/the-root-of-white-supremacy/

Check more about Robin DiAngelo’s work here: https://www.robindiangelo.com/

For more about Jews and Whiteness, read _The Price of Whiteness_ by Eric Goldstein: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691136318/the-price-of-whiteness

Listen to our episode on the importance of affinity spaces here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-43

Read about the philosophy of The Good Place (careful, spoilers for the entire show): https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/26/20874217/the-good-place-series-finale-season-4-moral-philosophy#:~:text=The%20Good%20Place%20has%20laid,do%20good%20front%20and%20center.

In this week's episode, we respond to a common question about racial justice work and explain that because the Jewish community is a global, multi-racial people, racial justice already is and must continue to be a core Jewish value and issue.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about Rabbi Leora Kaye and her work: https://reformjudaism.org/author/rabbi-leora-kaye

Check out what we mean by Jews of the Global Majority here: https://joyousjustice.com/global-majority-jews

Listen to April on the BBC’s Heart and Soul on Black Jewish Lives Matter to hear more about her thoughts on our global multi-racial Jewish community: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2fnq

Review the Jews of Color Field Building’s research on population demographics: https://jewsofcolorfieldbuilding.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Counting-Inconsistencies-052119.pdf

Check out this article about the importance of cultural competence for teams: http://www.theinclusionsolution.me/cultural-competence-part-2-why-is-it-important/

In this week’s episode, we talk about the importance of affinity groups, which are spaces for people with shared identity to safely unpack dynamics around oppression. Though it may feel counter-intuitive, affinity spaces are actually important tools as we develop our liberatory consciousness.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about the Jews of Color Mishpacha Project at https://www.jocmishpacha.org/

Reflections/Discussion Questions:

Tracie and April begin discussing affinity spaces, particularly white affinity spaces to discuss dynamics around whiteness and racism. Have you been in these types, or other types, of affinity spaces? How was that experience? If these are new for you, what are your initial reactions?
April notes that affinity spaces are different from segregation, pointing out that we engage in affinity spaces all the time, for example, being in an all Jewish space. What affinity spaces do you find yourself in without realizing it?
April explains the differences between a segregated space and an affinity space, hinging on oppressive dynamics and how they manifest or not. Segregation is inherently oppressive, while affinity spaces help to unpack oppressive dynamics. Do you understand the difference? Explain it in your own words.
Tracie uses the example of discussion antisemitic microaggressions at work and how Jewish and non-Jewish employees need specific spaces to discuss this. This is because affinity spaces help to prevent marginalized groups from being re-traumatized, like in explaining why antisemitism is harmful. How does this example illuminate the importance of these spaces?
April reminds us that the oppressor group still may have been wounded somehow and affinity spaces allow dominant group members to be vulnerable. Why is this important?
April talks about the evolution of interfaith affinity spaces and how they were originally created to discuss certain dynamics but then they were dissolved once they were no longer needed. How can this example serve as a model for the future? How is the experience of interfaith folks different from navigating racism (and it very much is)?
April invites us to think about what other questions come up from this initial overview of affinity spaces. What other questions do you have? Submit them here!

In this week’s episode April and Tracie reflect on Juneteenth and continue to think about how liberation from enslavement looked different for Jews and Black people. April also shares the ways in which the importance of rest from labour is an important lesson that resonated with her this Juneteenth.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about April’s reflections on the sea never parting at Joyous Justice’s blog.

Listen to Season 2 episode 9: “The Sea Never Parted.”

Listen to Season 2, Episode 7: “Exhaustion.”

Read Vice’s report “Black People in the US Were Enslaved Well into the 1960s”

Learn more about Watch Night.

See the Nap Ministry’s Juneteenth tweet about rest.

Ep 41 (S3E1): When You Overhear Microaggressions, Pt 2: Responding to a Question

One of our listeners posed an interesting question in response to a previous episode (39/Season 2, Episode 19: When You Overhear Microaggressions) asking, “What are good ways to respond when you hear racist microaggressions in general, not directed at anyone in particular or maybe the target is not around in that moment. I encounter this at work and don’t know how to respond.” April and Tracie share their own experiences and discuss strategies on how to respond.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Additional Resources:

Listen to Ep 39 (S2:E19): How Overhear Microaggressions here or watch the video version.

Learn more about Imani Chapman.

Read “Changing the World with Light AND Heat” by Itamar Goldminz.

Learn more about Prof. Dolly Chung who created the model for the light and heat approaches to social change.

The feeling of being an outsider is an all too familiar one for most human beings. The experience of a Jewish person being made to feel an outsider in Jewish spaces is eloquently investigated by the Eli Talk by Rabbi Shais Rishon who goes by the moniker MaNishtana.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Additional Resources:

Watch: MaNishtana’s Eli Talk: What Makes This Jew Different Than All Other Jews? Race, Difference, and Safety in Jewish Spaces

Reflection/Discussion Questions:

April and Tracie focus their conversation on MaNishtana’s Eli Talk which you can view at the link above. Watch it yourself, what were your initial reactions and takeaways.
Tracie shares about her own experiences with being shut out or didn’t feel a full sense of belonging within their own Jewish community. When have you felt this similar feeling in reaction to gate-keeping? What are the microsoms of this similar to what Tracie describes in Baltimore between German and Russian Jews.
April speaks to the root causes of this gatekeeping, including it as a reaction to intergenerational trauma around antisemitism. What do you think about this? How could this have served us in the past but not in our current moment?
Another potential root that April and Tracie discuss is that we may have some internalized antisemitism and that we can’t love our neighbor as ourselves if we truly don’t love ourselves in the context of White Supremacy Capitalism. What are the ways in which you may have internalized antisemitism?
April asks what would it feel like if we got the healing we need and just enjoy and savory the diversity of our religion and our community? What would it feel like to you? What would that look like?
April brings up MaNishtana’s point that we are a global people were originally 12 tribes that originated from Africa and West Asia, and now with globalization, we are a diasporic people made up of new types of tribes. April invites you to practice this thinking and framework to help bring ease to the antiracism work you are doing. How can you practice with this framework? How can you build this lens in a deeper way?

Way back in episode 2, April and Tracie spoke about better alternatives to some of the micro-aggressive things white-identified Jews often say to Jews of Color. So what happens if you overhear someone else trot out a micro-aggressive question or comment? What can you do? What should you do? How can you interrupt the oppression without falling into saviorism? April and Tracie dig in to this question and offer some strategies for both disrupting the oppression and supporting the person on the receiving end of it.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Additional resources:
You can read more about what not to say to a Jew of Color in this Kveller article.
Go back and listen to April and Tracie’s conversation in episode 2

QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEWApril and Tracie take the time to unpack a phrase that often comes up when Jews Talk Racial Justice: "white supremacy." The phrase has entered the lexicon of individual antiracists and movements alike, but what exactly does it mean? April and Tracie define the term, investigate the discomfort it can generate, and riff on the ways in which discussing "white supremacy culture" may be a way to reclaim agency and power.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Resources:
Baratunde Thurston's TED Talk
Tracie's 18 Days Exploring Racial Justice
More about Critical Race Theory
Read more about bell hooks from the bell hooks institute
Explore the life and impact of Audre Lorde
Racial Equity Tools
Jane Elliot's famous question to white folks
Characteristics of white supremacy culture as defined by Jewish scholar Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones (again, in a more visual presentation).
Another clear explanation of white supremacy and its history of violence, by Betita Martinez.
Robin DiAngelo unpacks the good/bad binary in this article
Amadou Diallo was an unarmed 23-year-old Black man who was shot over 40 times (19 bullets struck him) by New York City police officers in February 1999.
Learn more about Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist who has spent 40 years in jail after a trial that supporters claim was shoddy at best and unconstitutional at worst.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

April notes that different folks have different relationships to the term “white supremacy.” What’s your relationship to it? When did you first hear or learn about this term?
Tracie notes that for many white folks in particular, the use of the phrase seems fairly recent when referring to anything other than the KKK. Why do you think that is? Has this been your experience?
As April says when referencing broader scholarship and critical race theory, naming white supremacy is “scary because it's naming the elephant in the room, it's naming the wallpaper, it's naming the infrastructure of the building that you're in.” But doing so is also a “powerful contradiction” to racism. How does naming it make a difference and advance racial justice? Why is it, in general, important to name larger patterns, and where else might you have noticed this in your experiences?
April explains the relationship between white supremacy and patriarchy, saying that “white supremacy is a corolla

QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEWAs the election season concludes, Tracie asks April for advice on working through the negative emotions that sometimes accompany justice work. The two friends unpack the ways we've been taught to associate anger or rage with justice work (and anxiety with intelligence), and April shares suggestions for achieving the positive effects of BOTH feeling your feelings AND cultivating joy and presence.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources for further learning:
Thich Naht Hanh on Dealing with Strong Emotions
Rabbi David Jaffe's book Changing the World from the Inside Out

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

How have you been emotionally during this intense election season? How have you been balancing rage and anger with joy?

April shares some of the healing modalities that she has cultivated. What healing modalities have you developed to get you to the other side of tough emotions and to move you towards what you want in the world?
We learn from April that anger and other “negative” emotions can help us clarify what we want. How might tough emotions and experiences pave a path forward towards your goals and a better world? Can you think of an instance when you’ve had this mindset?
In April’s practice, her anger is always honored and sacred. How do you honor your anger and hold it sacred? What do you do or tell yourself in these moments?
When do you find it easier to cultivate joy or relaxation while experiencing tense emotions? When do you find it more difficult?
April and Tracie bring up relaxation, curiosity, wonder, comfort, release, and relief among positive emotions like joy. Which ones resonate most with you and in which situations? Why?
Tracie pointed out that the phrase “It shouldn’t have happened” is not useful in tough moments. How does the language you use to shape how you navigate tough realities? How might it better shape the direction you’re going in?

QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEWEven more than other episodes, you'll find yourself eavesdropping on this conversation. April and Tracie unpack the deep and intergenerational effects of shared trauma and oppression, and the ways either/or and hierarchical thinking can get in the way of healing.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
adrienne maree brown: http://adriennemareebrown.net/
Deray McKesson: https://deray.com/
Joy DeGruy: https://www.joydegruy.com/

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

All of our episodes have closed captioning.
Click here to access the audio version and transcript on Buzzsprout.

Tracie kicks off the episode by talking about the “Oppression Olympics” where different experiences of oppression are compared hierarchically. How does this idea of the “Oppression Olympics” sit with you? When are times you’ve played along or seen it happen and how does this make you feel?
Tracie and April continuously are mindful of the times in which they perpetuate “either/or” thinking, which white supremacy culture requires and instead switch to a both/and mindset, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of a complex world. What are the ways in which “either/or'' thinking manifest in my life and impact my decisions?
April reflects on the different reactions to antisemtic and racist attacks in each community respectively and what gets lifted up in that reaction. Keeping April’s thoughts in mind, when acts of anti-semitism and racism arise, how do I react? How do I process it?
Tracie and April discuss the ways in which antisemitism and racism are linked and interconnected within white supremacy. Think about how you would express this in your own words? How would you explain this to someone else? What do you need to learn more about to better articulate this link?
What are the gaps in my knowledge as it relates to the history of chattel slvery in the United States, the history of the global Jewish diaspora, and other marginalized groups?
April imagines if social workers had stepped in and pointed out the behaviors that a targeted group (ex Jewish people) developed in an oppressive, traumatic environment in order to survive, but in our present, no longer serve to protect us. What are some of those behaviors, both for your community (Jewish, Black, and/or otherwise)?
The podcast closes with a discussion on holding both the perspective needed to see and honor both our own pain and someone else’s, which isn’t always easy. What work do I need to do to be able to hold these truths together?

QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEWApril and Tracie discuss Robin DiAngelo's book, White Fragility. They unpack some of the courage and vulnerability it takes to both give and receive feedback around racism, and imagine a world in which it is safe to do both.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

RESOURCES MENTIONED ON THE SHOW
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo: https://www.robindiangelo.com/publications/

DARVO as a pattern of gaslighting in response to allegations of abuse was originally introduced by Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D.: https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html

Brené Brown's podcast, Unlocking Us explores the importance of vulnerability: https://brenebrown.com/podcast/introducing-unlocking-us/

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Tracie begins the episode describing what white fragility is. If you are White, can you think of a time when you’ve reacted in this way? Moving forward, what do you intend to do differently if in a similar situation? If you are a person of color who has witnessed white fragility, how was it similar and different to what Tracie is describing?
Tracie shared a story offered by Robin DiAngelo in which Robin received feedback from a Black colleague. In reflecting on this story, Tracie and April reflect on how vulnerable it is to both give and receive feedback. How do I react when I receive feedback? How do I give it? What power dynamics may be at play that I don’t realize in that interaction?
Tracie mentions that Robin DiAngelo no longer has a Twitter presence and has faced criticism for her book, about which you can read here. Linguist John McWhorter, while he finds DiAngelo is well-intentioned, describes how he feels that her proscriptions she offers are actually racist themselves and do not respect the resilience of Black people. How does his analysis land with you? How can we both be aware of white fragility and take concrete, anti-racist actions in our institution to advance equity and justice?
April describes in depth the internal questioning that she, as a Black woman, goes through when engaging in conversations with White folks and what their reaction might be to her. How can White folks do better at creating environments that alleviate these fears?
April and Tracie mention a binary that has developed in White community where “bad people” are oppositional from the “good people”; it is these “bad people” who are racist. When April and Tracie say that this isn’t helpful, why do you think that is so?
Tracie asks you to identify an accountability partner for this work. Who is that in your life?

Why do we sometimes find ourselves arguing over whose pain is the worst? What effect does that competition, also known as Oppression Olympics, have on us? How can we find an alternative to the very real impulse to argue? April and Tracie dig into these questions and more.

Heads Up! We are taking some time off in the month of May 2021. You'll be able to enjoy reprises of our favorite episodes every Thursday in May. New content will resume in June.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
April's blog post for Lilith Magazine, When Jewish Space Laser Jokes Help the EnemyJews for Economic and Racial Justice (JFREJ)
HowToFightAntisemitism.com
IfNotNow
Bend The Arc

Cherie Brown on the intersection of racism and antisemitism.

Our previous conversation about Oppression Olympics.

April and Tracie unpack the idea that "publicly addressing an organization's mistakes does more harm than good." Though there are some who would advise against drawing attention to past mistakes, April and Tracie argue that accountability and honesty are the only way to create and maintain trust.

Heads Up! We are taking some time off in the month of May 2021. You'll be able to enjoy reprises of our favorite episodes every Thursday in May. New content will resume in June.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, along with USAFA leadership, addressed the entire Cadet Wing and USAFA Preparatory School on 9/28/17.

In another episode tied to their "Flip the Script" resource, April and Tracie investigate the notion that the presence of antisemitism in progressive movements disqualifies those movements from Jewish involvement. Recognizing that, like all systemic oppressions, antisemitism is everywhere, Jews Talk Racial Justice wonders why engagement in progressive spaces feels optional to some when engagement in other spaces where antisemitism is equally present is not.

Content warning: April makes passing reference to past sexual assault.

Heads Up! We are taking some time off in the month of May 2021. You'll be able to enjoy reprises of our favorite episodes every Thursday in May. New content will resume in June.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources:
Get your own copy of our Flip the Script resource by completing this form.

Read about the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa

Find more about Cherie Brown's Anti-Semitism: Why is it everyone's concern? here.

April and Tracie explore the ways the messiness of spring contributes to its beauty and potential. The also notice how structure--whether the practice of counting the Omer, a vine's trellis or their online course Awareness Accelerator--can support the important and messy work of growth.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Read more about the mystical practices associated with the Omer.

Mycelium were mentioned in S2E1: Tu B'shvat and the Wisdom of Trees. You can find a list of highlights and discussion questions for that episode on our blog.

Learn more about Awareness Accelerator.

In the second of two Passover episodes, April and Tracie reveal the liberatory wisdom in eight practices from Passover observance.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Learn more about the characteristics of White Supremacy Culture
Hear the song "All my relations" by Ulali and read the lyrics.
Learn more about Joyous Justice's program, Whiteness Havruta.

In the first of two Passover-themed shows, April shares her epiphany that despite a resonance between the story of the Israelites leaving mitzrayim (Egypt, the narrow place) and the emancipation of enslaved Africans in the U.S., the two stories diverge in important and significant ways.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of slavery, enslavement, and violence against Black people and passing reference to sexual assault.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
The film about Tamar Mannaseh is They Ain't Ready for Me.You can read documentation of enslavement in the U.S. into the 20th century in this article in VICE

Dig into Professor Joy DeGruy's thinking and research at her website.

Michele Alexander's groundbreaking work The New Jim Crow makes the case that slavery adapted to emancipation in Jim Crow and then mass incarceration.

Amy Cooper, a white woman, called the police on Christian Cooper (no relation), a Black man, when he asked her to leash her dog in Central Park in the summer of 2020. You can read about the encounter in the NY Times.

Learn more about artist Dori Midnight at her website.

April and Tracie continue to flesh out some of the key obstacles from their flip the script resource with the help of a question from a listener. One of the limiting beliefs that shows up in racial justice work is the sense that you've learned a lot, but not enough to take action. April and Tracie dig into this notion and give some suggestions for ways to productively hold the both / and of having a lot to learn AND having being able to humbly and meaningfully contribute.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
April and Tracie's "Flip the Script" Resource is available here.

Find Episode S2E3 here and some reflection questions about it here.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson is the inaugural director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for Reconstructing Judaism.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel sent a telegram to President Kennedy asking him to declare a "state of moral emergency" because of racism and its effects in the U.S.

Sign up for access to our free three-video offering here.

The work of fighting racism can be exhausting. This is especially true for Black folks and other people of color who have to work to dismantle systems that are actively oppressing them. Today April and Tracie talk a bit about strategies and frames to help counter the isolation and the internalized not-good-enough that comes along with the exhaustion and burn out for people of color and the ways in which white allies can provide support.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
Jonathan Metzl, Dying of Whiteness
Mary Winters Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body and SpiritApril and Tracie's "Flip the Script" resource can be accessed here.
Read more about and from Julius Lester.
Find Megan Madison at her website.
Learn more about Re-evaluation counseling.Load = Work / Resources * Time * Efficiency
Dr. Harriette Wimms is a leader in the JOC Mishpacha project, which is convening a national Shabbaton for JOCs and their allies this May.
Sign up to access the free three-video series, (Joyously!) Moving Toward Racial Justice.

Sometimes people, especially white folks, choose not to engage with racial justice work, for fear of making a mistake. April and Tracie dig in to those fears, what's behind them, how they show up, and some strategies for addressing them so that you can keep going.

Access a free discussion guide for this episode here: http://bit.ly/2MTR3ec

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:

Read more from adrienne maree brown
See some of Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer)'s techniques on his YouTube channel

April N. Baskin's KAVOD Conflict Navigation Model

K - Keep calm
A - Acknowledge how you're feeling and the situation
V - Validate the other person's feelings
O - Offer next steps (this can be "I need time to process, may I circle back with you next week")
D - Debrief and Do: talk about it with a trusted confidante and follow through on what you said you'd do.

©2021 April N. Baskin, Joyous Justice. All rights reserved.

April and Tracie think about some of the lessons of Purim: hidden identities, the power of 'no,' the power of being in the right place, the importance of joy, and the links between joy and liberation.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
In the Talmud, Megillah 7b:7, it says "Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai." (William Davidson English edition, courtesy sefaria.org)

Peninei Halakhah, Zemanim Chapter 14:1: "When Adar arrives, joy increases."

Arthur Waskow's Seasons of Our Joy.

Continuing their work in "flipping the script," April and Tracie offer some nuance and context for when white people can and should lead racial justice work. That conversation leads to contemplation on giving and receiving comfort and feedback, both within affinity spaces (with people with a shared identity) and across lines of difference.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
The Facing Race conference
The Movement for Black Lives' gathering
More on co-counseling/re-evaluation counseling

April and Tracie address the impulse to act NOW when (white) people begin their racial justice journey.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:
Beshallach is Exodus 13:17–17:16. In the midrash Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael (Exodus 13:18) we read:
"And G d led the peoplecircuitously by way of the desert to the RedSea": in order to perform miracles and mightyacts with the manna and the quail and the well.R. Eliezer says: "way" — in order to wearythem, viz. (Psalms 102:24) "He drained mystrength on the way; He shortened my days."

Learn more about Yavilah McCoy's work here.

If you're interested in learning more about the Awareness Accelerator, please let us know with this form.

After Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet about the 2018 California Wildfires being caused by a space laser controlled by the Rothschild family ignited a slew of jokes on social media, April and Tracie take some time to think about different reactions to antisemitism.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources and notes:

Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.

Toni Morrison said, "The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

Eric Ward's article "Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism" investigates the ways in which antisemitism intersects with racism in White Nationalism.

Lilla Watson is credited with the quote "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Some report she prefers to credit authorship for the phrase to Australian Aboriginal Rights groups.

You can read Bernie Sanders memes and learn abut how he leveraged the moment into nearly $2M for worthy causes in this article from the AP.

In honor of the New Year of Trees, April and Tracie take some time to think about what we have to learn from trees. From rootedness to developmental stages in a life cycle to the capacity to be kind, trees model some key lessons for humans.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources around topics mentioned:
Read more about Tu B'shevat
Read about the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute through which April is training for ordination.
This article talks about how mycelium can serve as a communications mechanism for trees underground.

Though the full impact and effect of the Insurrection that occurred that day won't be known for weeks, months, and years to come, April and Tracie take the time to reflect on the events of January 6, 2021.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources:
Hear more from Sonya Renee Taylor on the Delusion of White Supremacy on her YouTube Channel.

Listen to the playlist April created after the Insurrection. It's called Medicine: This is Our America.

April and Tracie investigate the ways arguing against the adopted slogans of justice movements, for instance #BlackLivesMatter or #DefundThePolice, distracts us from the work of advancing justice, and often contains implicit or explicit racism.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources:

It was Toni Morrison (not Maya Angelou) who described distraction as a function of racism: "The very serious function of racism … is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says that you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says that you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary." Read the full transcript of the 1975 speech in which she said these words.

Read more about "Defund the Police" and the arguments about the phrase here as well as from the Brookings Institution.

Listen to Tracie's appearance on On the Record with Sheilah Kast from July, 2019.

Michael Che on Black Lives Matter

Robin DiAngelo's book White Fragility According to a nationwide 2020 survey of Millennials and GenZ, conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), 11 percent of respondents believe that Jews caused the Holocaust.

Starting with reflections on the musical Hamilton, April and Tracie dig into some of the nuance around comfort, right to comfort, and the tension between what we might appreciate about art even when the artist or the art's impact isn't what we might like.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources:

More about The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda from the New Yorker.
Lin-Manuel Miranda's response to the criticism of Hamilton is outlined in an article from Men's Health.

As 2020 comes to a close, April and Tracie talk about the importance of everyone taking ownership over their own journeys, even as we work in community. With some tips and insights to think about, we invite everyone to make a commitment to pursue greater racial justice in the new year.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Learn more about Dr. Barbara Love and her work on healing internalized oppression.

April and Tracie discuss different ways we process our experiences and knowledge: intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual. We notice the way, especially when those modes are out of balance, we sometimes make things harder than they need to be.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
April's program (with Catherine Bell) Whiteness Havruta
Mirabai Starr's book Wild MercyInstitute for Jewish Spirituality and more on HitbodedutTara Brach talks about her RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) method in many of her resources (including her book Radical Compassion, referenced in our Rosh Hashanah episode) and on her website.

April and Tracie mark the end of the Festival of Lights with a drash (interpretation) of some of the lessons of the Hanukkah story. When one day's worth of oil lasts eight days--exactly as long as is needed to press more oil--we learn that we already possess what we need to move forward. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be pressing more oil! It means we shouldn't allow a feeling of lack to keep us from doing what we can right now.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice.
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources:
So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
RacialEquityTools.org is a great place for fundamental definitions and other resources.

April and Tracie take the time to unpack a phrase that often comes up when Jews Talk Racial Justice: "white supremacy." The phrase has entered the lexicon of individual antiracists and movements alike, but what exactly does it mean? April and Tracie define the term, investigate the discomfort it can generate, and riff on the ways in which discussing "white supremacy culture" may be a way to reclaim agency and power.

Resources:
Baratunde Thurston's TED Talk
Tracie's 18 Days Exploring Racial Justice
More about Critical Race Theory
Read more about bell hooks from the bell hooks institute
Explore the life and impact of Audre Lorde
Racial Equity Tools
Jane Elliot's famous question to white folks
Characteristics of white supremacy culture as defined by Jewish scholar Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones (again, in a more visual presentation).
Another clear explanation of white supremacy and its history of violence, by Betita Martinez.
Robin DiAngelo unpacks the good/bad binary in this article
Amadou Diallo was an unarmed 23-year-old Black man who was shot over 40 times (19 bullets struck him) by New York City police officers in February 1999.
Learn more about Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist who has spent 40 years in jail after a trial that supporters claim was shoddy at best and unconstitutional at worst.

In this second Thanksgiving episode, April and Tracie dig in to the unpleasant truths behind the myths of Thanksgiving. April recounts some of the deep sadness and loss she feels around missing knowledge and culture from her Native ancestors, while Tracie reflects on the holes in her education around the oppression of Native people.

Content warning: we discuss the genocide and oppression of Native American people, as well as rape and sex slavery in the context of American history.

Resources mentioned or recommended:
More on Leonard Peltier
The Native people at the first Thanksgiving were Wampanoag. Read more from historian David J. Silverman about other details your elementary school left out or got wrong.
Learn more about native land acknowledgement.
To find the names of the peoples whose ancestral land you inhabit, check out Native-land.ca.
Tracie inhabits Susquehannock land.

For Thanksgiving, April and Tracie talk a little about the holiday: the role it's played in Jewish American identity, those who work to make the day special for others, and the joys and pitfalls of getting together with extended family. (Stay tuned next week for more about the racial justice implications of a holiday that celebrates the relationship between European settlers and Native Americans without acknowledging the systemic violence and oppression that characterized much of that relationship.)

Content Warning: In this episode we talk in general terms about emotional and psychological abuse.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Tamar Manesseh and the MASK project in Chicago
Barry Levinson's 1990 film Avalon(reviewed by Roger Ebert)

April and Tracie continue their conversation about bringing more joy into everyday life and into the work for justice. From dance and music (and a little bit of singing!) to relationship to celebration, the two friends share strategies and examples of intentional, mindful, joyful practices.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
Sonia Choquette
The Buddha said "I am awake"

As the election season concludes, Tracie asks April for advice on working through the negative emotions that sometimes accompany justice work. The two friends unpack the ways we've been taught to associate anger or rage with justice work (and anxiety with intelligence), and April shares suggestions for achieving the positive effects of BOTH feeling your feelings AND cultivating joy and presence.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources for further learning:
Thich Naht Hanh on Dealing with Strong Emotions
Rabbi David Jaffe's book Changing the World from the Inside Out

April and Tracie riff on a seemingly small manifestation of white dominance in our everyday lives: the skin color of emojis. The discussion of digital skin tone leads into a conversation about racial implications of the Simpsons' yellow hue, and on to a focused training about the ways that seemingly benign binaries turn up in malignant ways.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice: https://joyousjustice.com/
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
"Why White People Don't Use White Emoji" by Andrew McGill in The Atlantic May 9, 2016
On the Simpsons Character Apu: a documentary The Problem with Apu(2017)
April's 10 Jewish Principles for Advancing Racial Justice
An article on the characteristics of White Supremacy Culture.
Sao Brazil in Dakar, Senegal

Even more than other episodes, you'll find yourself eavesdropping on this conversation. April and Tracie unpack the deep and intergenerational effects of shared trauma and oppression, and the ways either/or and hierarchical thinking can get in the way of healing.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice.
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned:
adrienne maree brown
Deray McKesson
Joy DeGruy

April and Tracie unpack the notion that everyone is racist, naming the trauma and the cost of racism. Their conversation delves deep into the American investment in systemic racism and the human and environmental effects of systems of oppression.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at B’more Incremental

Resources mentioned:
• Joy DeGruy's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
• Vernā Myers on biases
• James Baldwin's actual quote was "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
• Langston Hughes' poem Let America Be America Again• More on the concept of Restorative Justice
• For more on teshuvah (return) listen to our Yom Kippur episode (S1 E3)!
• Movement for Black Lives Policy Platforms
• More about environmental racism and the disproportionate negative effects of climate change on communities of color from the Atlantic.

April and Tracie discuss Robin DiAngelo's book, White Fragility. They unpack some of the courage and vulnerability it takes to both give and receive feedback around racism, and imagine a world in which it is safe to do both.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at joyousjustice.com
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com.

Resources mentioned in the show:
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
DARVO as a pattern of gaslighting in response to allegations of abuse was originally introduced by Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D.
Brené Brown's podcast, Unlocking Us explores the importance of vulnerability.

In a live launch for the podcast, April and Tracie interact with nearly 200 supporters. After participants talk in small groups (not recorded), April and Tracie dig deep into a question from Morgan, a Jewish community member and Mom from Savannah, Georgia. Morgan is looking to deepen the connection between the Jewish community and the larger Savanah community while advancing justice.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at joyousjustice.com
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources mentioned in the show:
March of the living
No Place for Hate
Facing History and Ourselves

Sukkot proves a rich holiday for April and Tracie's meaning-making. Together they discuss the importance of gratitude, especially in the wilderness, what Black Panther can teach us about Sukkot, and the holiness and sovereignty of the body.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at joyousjustice.com
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Show notes:
Chadwick Boseman and Black PantherMarcia Falk's Book of Blessings#BlackMenAreGood
Brené Brown "Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart"

April and Tracie consider the meaning of the Yom Kippur fast and its relation to racial justice work. Drawing on resources and stories from their own lives, Brene Brown's work, and the rabbis of the Talmud, they delve into the ways that perfectionism, hanger, individualism, and white fragility can sometimes get in the way of our sacred opportunities.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at B’more Incremental

Show notes links:
Chabad.org on teshuvah as recovery
Avi Killip, "How Studying Talmud Helped Me Understand Racism in America"
Robin DiAngelo's article "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People about Racism"
Tracie's reflections on Avi Killip and Robin Diangelo, "The Talmud and White Fragility"
A NY Times article exploring cultures that use only cardinal directions
Brené Brown The Gifts of Imperfection

As they prepare for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, April and Tracie explore their thoughts about the holiday, kavanot or intentions and racial justice visions for the new year, and even ideas about discussion topics when meeting someone new at shul.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at B’more Incremental

Tara Brach, Radical Compassion
The value of intercultural competencies over monoculture
Keshet: For LGBTQ Equality in Jewish Life
The Jewish Multiracial Network

The week when it all started (sort of). April and Tracie introduce themselves, share more about how they connected, and their vision for sharing and modeling conversations about race for the Jewish community and our neighbors.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice
Learn about Tracie at TracieGuyDecker.com and read more of her thoughts at B’more Incremental

Walking Meditation (2006) by Thich Nhat Hanh and Nguyen Anh-Huong

Our theme song: Elliot Hammer -- Observing my Thoughts

Editing and production help from Sam Sittenfield