Ep 50: It's In Our Bones: Liberation and Grief

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

Transcript

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- [Tracie] What effect does grief have on us individually, collectively if we never let it out?- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- There's this case in Baltimore, Keith Davis Jr. and I gotta be honest, I actually don't know all the details of Mr. Davis's situation, but I know that he's been tried multiple times for the same crime, which is supposed to be... that's like double jeopardy, it's specifically outlawed in our legal code, but they keep like somehow finding excuses to retry him and there's a big campaign here that's been going on for years, free Keith Davis Jr. And his case in particular is one of the reasons that our state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby has been getting a lot of flack from activists. And last night I came home from a friend's house and my husband was...- Am I correct to assume that this person is black?- He is indeed. Yes. So is Marilyn Mosby, I should say, our, our state's attorney.- Oh, what a comfort. That doesn't mean...- It doesn't mean anything. It means nothing. It means nothing.- Well it actually does mean something, but I don't know if it's good, bad or unlikely, neutral, depending upon where she is, where her analysis is, where her commitments are.- Yeah. Yeah. So I came home from a friend's house last night and my husband was like our list serve, people on our neighborhood list serve, like, they're like somebody's knocking on doors. Like I don't, what is their problem? Like just calm down. And so I looked at the email and somebody was like, a man, he's like 6 feet and he's like knocking on doors and talking about free somebody. Did anybody else get this? I'm like, they're like, Baaahh! you know? A black man's knocking on the door. I assume actually she didn't say black. I'm just assuming, because she named his height and, and then somebody else was like, yes, they left this door knocker. And it's a doorknocker about Keith Davis Jr. And I was like, like clearly not paying attention because like I have, there, there are Baltimore activists in my Twitter feed whose like Twitter handle is free Keith. Like this is like a big campaign in the city. And so I just wrote back and I was like, you know,- Clearly not paying attention. You mean the neighbors are clearly not paying attention- The neighbors. The neighbors are clearly not paying attention to politics in the city. And so I, I wrote back to the board,- 'Cause they can afford not to apparently.- Right, right. So I wrote back to the listserv and I was like, this case is like a big deal. And it's been a travesty of justice, from what I understand. Which is admittedly is not much, but it's, there's an active campaign that's been going on for years. And so, you may or may not be swayed by what this gentleman has to say about the Keith Davis Jr. case, but there's nothing nefarious about it. Like he's just trying, you know, he's like, he's an activist, he's an advocate. That's it. Like, calm down. Like, just tell him to be on his way. But like, you don't need to be sending stuff to listserv about it.- And, and generating fear and fear, you know? fear and hysteria.- Yeah. Yeah. It was just one of those moments that I was shaking my head. I don't know what else to say about it, but it was somehow remarkable to me. But then later my husband came back and he said, I saw your answer. Thank you for doing that. I'm glad, like he didn't know Keith Davis Jr. either. He didn't know the story, but like he thought that I, he was glad that I did it in that way. That was just like, you know,- Grounded and clarifying.- There's, it's like people come through all the time in the neighborhood with different advocacy things, you know, like save the bees, save the pollinators, like knock on the doors or specific candidates.- Yeah.- It's a little in between a campaign season, but it's, it's starting to ramp up again. I mean like door knocking is a thing still. It's just,- And thank God for that. Lest we become completely isolated. (laughs)- Well. Right. Yeah, Anyway, I don't have anything further. I just, it was on my mind from last night. And in part, I think, because I think I told you on, on, even on the show that I'm reading, I'm almost finished with, we do this 'till we free us and Kaba talks about campaigns like this for individual people who are imprisoned and, and talks about the, sort of the balance between working to change the system while also working to improve the lives of specific individuals and, and like finding that balance. And so, that when I read her, so she, in, in the book, she talks about a couple of specific campaigns she's been involved with. And as I was reading it, I was like, oh, this is like what some Baltimoreans do, are doing, are working on for, for Davis, for Keith Davis Jr. So that also kind of resonated. And we've talked about that book on the, on the show before that I was reading it, anyway.- So thank you for your clarity and insight, informing, validating, those who listen, who care and are in the know and, and informing those who care. And we're not in the know about these things. So, thank you for that. You know, I remember toward the end, toward the final stretch, I was informed of the impending wrongful execution of Troy Davis. And I'm reminded of that since the, since they share a last name, and I'm just filled with sorrow.- Yeah.- Also, I'll say, I just, I just attended a, a healing weekend workshop that focused on black liberation. And so I've just come out of a weekend of taking time to enjoy each other's company and also really take a long, hard look at racism and specifically focus on a core oppressor divide and conquer strategy. And that such that it's incredibly liberatory and healing for us to do the necessary healing work we need to do to continue to reach for each other through the dissonance and have, get increasing healing as well as accountability and capacity and capacity to lead effectively. And specifically at this workshop, we zeroed in around the myriad of ways that oppression shows up in and among black folk and between each other and within ourselves. Some of the quotes, and I would get into that specifically, but I actually think I wanna save that for specifically black affinity spaces.- You mean the internalized stuff?- Yeah.- I, I, I support that. That feels like a wise thing.- Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of our listeners are amazing and I would both love to be in conversation with them and especially our black listeners. But I'll save that for an affinity space because there may be also people who aren't friends who listen, and I don't want to share that. I had something that was said that really resonated for me, both with my black identity, as well as with my Jewish identity, was when the leader of this workshop said,"Self-hatred is our biggest obstacle to our freedom." He was speaking about it being a little over a year since the death of George Floyd, not to mention many, many others, but, but specifically lifting up his memory and what, what his, the loss of his life, the tragedy of that, and the way it galvanized a movement and it shouldn't have had to. And she was taking time to talk with us about how we collectively together need to support each other and proactively making space to grieve, to grieve George Floyd's death, to grieve the deaths of others as black people, to grieve losses in our own families in our own, with our own loved ones, losing our own loved ones. And she said, and it's just a quote I'm going to carry with me,"Not grieving your losses, or not grieving losses, makes you weak." Right?"So we have to grieve our losses. And we have had many." Like for me as a black Jewish woman, let alone as a black native Jewish woman. you know, I could just start crying. I could just have a session right now and, I'm gonna say that again."Not grieving one's losses makes them weak. Not grieving your losses makes you weak. So we have to grieve our losses and we have had many."- Wow- I was talking about this with my mom the other day. I forget the exact context, which maybe it will come to me because I think it's relevant. And I think we've mentioned this before, but it just can't be mentioned enough. Oh, I remember. My mother was in a conversation. She's a change agent and leader. She doesn't think of herself that way, but she is. She's like resistant to, She just does work in earnest. She likes to do it and fly under the radar. So, sorry that I'm talking about you on my podcast mom, love you. And you know, she was talking with a Muslim. I can't remember if he was Palestinian, American or Muslim, or just a Muslim leader in an Arab heritage. Muslim leader in, in Northern California who asked her, you know, can you explain to me, I'd like to, I'd like to get a better sense of what's happening in Israel from a Jewish perspective from somebody I respect and trust. That was the context for it, which is a whole other conversation, which I'm not gonna fully dive into, but, well, it was fascinating. But, one of the things that she noticed in her conversation with this respected leader was that, and colleague with whom she works was that she took time in the conversation to explain a Jewish terror that exists, not for every Jew, but the, but explaining what a small number, what a small, teeny, less than zero percentage, like less than 1%, less than 1% of human population and that combined with the extensive anti-Semitism that I may reach out to my friends who facilitated a session on this that was really quite beautiful a couple of years ago. And I think it's worth, It's worth mentioning again. I think I might've mentioned it on the podcast before, where, I think it was for the Jewish social justice round table. And a group of leaders were using the large meeting room at the Pearlstone retreat center. And they put placards on the wall of incidents of antisemitism over history, and then starting in around the time that racism in the Americas picked up. They also would put either, I think it was above it, above it or below it placards about moments of racism and asked the predominantly white Jewish room to practice going around and being present with these things. And then as the points of racism began to come up, to practice holding both, to see both, to not engage in competition, but to see it collectively and to not allow themselves to engage in a process of separation in their mind or mind or distancing, but to remain proximate with both things. And, you know, for me as a Jew of color that, I live that, like that's my whole life. So that, that wasn't the agitation, productive agitation for me of that exercise. What it was for me is that it's always been like footnoted the, around the narrative around all the different countries that Jews have been banished from. But I had never let alone in a room and walking it, I had, there were countries I didn't, and I'm someone who is mildly, maybe not so mildly obsessed with global jewelry, okay? There were countries, I didn't even know Jews had lived in where Jews had been expelled and or murdered, right? And so, I'm getting way off track into a different thing. And I wanna bring it back to this black liberation piece, but all of that to say, Jews have, as a global people, have an immense amount to grieve and different people from different parts of the world, depending upon their specific national origin or regional origin may have more or less, but from a perspective of people hood of being a part of a people over the globe worldwide, I, like the thoughts that stayed in my mind, or that came out of looking at that. It's like, no wonder this is in our bones was my thought like, like this identity as a human would have been very different if I knew just how many places my people had been hurt or hated, worldwide. Like anytime I'd had a geography lesson, anytime I learned about international, like, you know, and, and so this is an endless well, and I think I'm just flagging this as something for us as a pair and as a partnership to continue to return to, because I'd never heard that said before, and I believe there's a lot of truth in what this black liberation teacher was teaching. Who I think I can say her name, but I want to check in. The teacher, often from whom I learned in this healing space, she has a public persona. And so I wanna be mindful about that. But if later, if we're, if I, if I verify that it's okay for me to cite her, we'll add her name in the show notes, but, just for me, for every facet of my identity. And I think for us collectively, and even if, we think about this, like I just, I just, we kind of stumbled upon this. And so maybe we can revisit it later, but even for the country, like, I just wanna read it again and think about this in the context of the United States and what our country has been through around the wars, around genocide, attempted genocide of indigenous peoples, around enslavement and the holistic dehumanization that did for everyone involved."Not grieving your losses makes you weak. We have to grieve our losses and we have had many." Any final thoughts before we join our team in a team meeting, Tracie?- I am looking forward to coming back to it because I think that some of the insights that you were just lifting up and making feel really relevant to some of the public arguments about how we talk about American history. They're happening right now in great legislatures and in the Twitterverse and whatever, it just, it just feels really, really resonant to me with the ways in which we're so, we're so unsure of how to and troubled by our history that we're actually afraid to teach it. And that,- Right- Feels really relevant to the, to what you just said about not grieving losses, making us weak.- So stay tuned, beloved friend for part two of this conversation with Tracie and me.- [April] Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram, @elliothammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.