This year the regular Second Tuesday Race Forum meeting date falls on the national election day.  Last month there was overwhelming support to reschedule the meeting to be on the third Tuesday, November 15^th.  This will give everyone time to process the results and then come to discuss it.

No matter who wins the Presidential race, there will be a great need for healing.  This election has revealed the depth of the growing divide in our society.  We hope to unpack the significance of this divide and look for strategies to deal with the realities of a world in transition.

Don’t forget: NO Meeting on November 8, but we WILL MEET on November 15, 2016.

America’s Strange Breed

The Long Legacy of White Trash

Generally, class is included in discussions about race and gender. Low-income is synonymous with Black and Brown communities. The Regan Administration defined Black women as welfare queens. Yet, statistically, White women are the welfare majority. In the 20^th century, poverty became both racialized and gendered. Unfortunately, a key facet of poverty is absent in contemporary discussions – the plight of poor White people. We assume that all White people are rich (or at least middle class) and all Black and Brown people are poor (or struggling to get to the middle class).

Our next Tuesday night gathering focuses on “American’s Strange Breed: The Long Legacy of White Trash.” This is the Epilogue from the book White Trash. According to Nancy Isenberg, the book's author, “class separation is and has always been at the center of our political debates, despite every attempt to hide social reality with deceptive rhetoric.”

Please join us for a lively discussion about class, power and democracy.

In case you did not get it or if you lost it, I am attaching here a link to the reading for this meeting -- the epilogue to While Trash:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-lK4EO8vRhVlhRMlNEUlRmNlhQZVlkZzAxa0o5MDQyVmRF/view

 

How Does a Country Inspire Meaningful Patriotism?

The last time we discussed patriotism Barak Obama was running for his first term as President in 2008.  This summer has presented many opportunities for Americans to express their love of country with July 4th celebrations, the Olympics in Rio, a heated campaign, the fifteenth anniversary of 911, as well as ongoing protests by many who want to make America better.  The September discussion will invite us to explore how our personal ideas of patriotism have evolved.  What does leadership look like to sustain a civil society?  To make any country “great”?  Does a deep dive into history help or hurt?  How are we dealing with our cherished delusions?  As an exercise, you are invited to discover where the following words come from:

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave”

 

The connecting theme for Second Tuesday Race Forum discussions this season will be “Radical Inclusion.”  We often talk about creating a more inclusive society.  The term “radical” is used to refer to going to the root or source; to seek fundamental changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions.  We hope to inspire profoundly new ways to think about inclusion.  Our topics will look at a number of ways racism intersects with numerous aspects of our culture.

• Race and Class and Poor Whites
• Race and Women’s Suffrage
• Racism and Native Americans
• Blacks and Jews and Palestine
• Race and LGTBQ rights

To give you a head start on preparing for the October discussion, please read the attached Epilogue excerpt from the recently published book White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, by Nancy Isenberg.

 

Please realize that we will not be having meetings during the three months of Summer --- June, July and August.

Check back in September to see what we have planned for the next season of our meetings.

This year has been a great one for the STRF. We have lots of new members who are working to grow their personal resonses to Racism, using our environment of loving conversation to deepen our understanding of Racism and ourselves. Next year could be even better! Peruse the postings from this year to get some idea of what we are about.

We will be having our annual Celebration for Juneteenth on Tuesday June 14th at 6:30 PM at Park Hill United Methodist Church.

It has long been our tradition of using our TC Race Group monthly meeting in June to celebrate Juneteenth with good food and good company.

Please note that we will start the June pot luck at 6:30 PM, a half hour earlier than usual.

If you are new to the TC Race Group, you may not know that Juneteenth is the annual celebration of how and when folks in Texas found out about the emancipation of the slaves, about their own freedom from slavery. Juneteenth commemorates June 18 and 19, 1865. June 18 is the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. That was three years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in Washington by Lincoln, and over two years after it was supposed to go into effect.

For our celebration, we will have a "sponsored" pot luck. We are arranging to provide generous servings of fried catfish and spareribs. We are asking that each of you who are coming will bring along some complementary dishes to serve.

Alas, we also have to ask that you contribute a donation to cover the costs. Our suggestion is that you donate $10 if you can afford it. Please don't let it stop you from coming if you cannot. Donate what your can; we want you to come!

Won't You Please sign-up by a return email. Tell us how many guests you are bringing, and what dish you are going to bring in one of the categories below:

Veggie Side. Bread, Salad, Drinks (non-alcoholic). Vegetarian main dish (for vegetarian folks), Dessert

We have already signed-up 32 folks at our meeting last week, with promises of a good assortment of things from the catagories. So, if you were one of those, you don't have to sing-up again. This notice is for all our folks who did not sign-up at the May meeting.

We will take care of the extras like ice, cups and plates, napkins, knifes and forks.

One final note: we want you to come! If you somehow forgot about RSVP'ng to this message until the last minute, come anyway.