APRIL 2019 REDLINING and the MANY EFFECTS of SLAVERY: Are You Willing to Act to Heal This Moral Injury?

forsooth: (adverb, archaic) in truth, in fact, indeed. Volume 30, No. 3 A publication of the Louisville Chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation www.LouisvilleFOR.org APRIL 2019 REDLINING AND THE MANY EFFECTS OF SLAVERY: Are You Willing to Act to Heal This Moral Injury? By David Ragland like Germany and Japan to create new con- Reprinted from the FOR National website stitutions including provisions on peace and (February 26, 2019) human dignity, as well as education in those principles to insure their implementation. Recent headlines reinforce how little The U.S. has done nothing similar for itself. progress has been made in terms of economic Our continuing American state of denial justice for African Americans. An exhaus- has brought us to constant war both abroad tive report by the Center for Investigative and at home. War abroad is perpetuated by Journalism examined current redlining exorbitant military spending. War at home is practices that fuel gentrification. Combing maintained by excessive policing budgets, through over 31 million mortgages, investi- racist immigration policies, and neo-Jim gators found that bankers regularly sidestep Crow era policies that allow banks to skirt the Fair Housing Act. They are more likely the law. All this undermines fairness and to provide loans to whites than to black and human decency. A hard reset is needed. What brown people. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ influen- actions might generate accountability for the tial 2014 article in The Atlantic, “How to unearned privileges in immigration policy, Steal Things, Exploit People, and Avoid bank policy, and policing that the (current) all Responsibility,” immediately comes to white majority of Americans receive? mind. In it he recounted the redlining and predatory lending of banks and the scummy Calls for reparations for the slavery of practices of landlords toward black tenants African Americans continue to grow. In immediately after the end of the formal Jim The Hermitage Plantation, Slave quarters, Savannah, Georgia, about 1907. 2016 a U.N. panel’s study, emerging from Crow era. Little or nothing has changed. US Library of Congress. the United Nations Decade on People of African Descent, found that reparations Considering the countless stories of bias, majority communities permitted to succeed sion in South Africa, however problematic, are indeed owed to African Americans. The I question what exactly is needed to reverse while poor communities are engineered to was a hard reset for that nation to begin University of Pennsylvania Law School or at least halt the economic devastation of fail. We need white accountability. What grappling with the effects of its apartheid recently hosted a conference on reparations, communities, a devastation that often stops costs are white people willing to bear to system under white minority rule. The and New York University’s Institute for temporarily in one locale and then morphs heal this moral injury? Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II Public Knowledge has a series of ongoing into something worse. We need more than addressed the Jewish Holocaust. At that conversations around the subject. tears over injustice that sees middle class The Truth and Reconciliation Commis- time, the U.S. and its allies required nations (see REDLINING, page 5) BDS COALITION PAID IN LOUISVILLE Louisville, KY By Matt Bewley U.S. Postage nated coalition of groups and individuals— Permit No. 962 Non-Profit Org. Non-Profit have long performed good work organizing I have a proposition for the readers of educational events, cultural displays, dem- FORsooth. onstrations and direct appeals to politicians. This history goes way back, and I am sure It is time to rally together to form a that we are always building on the great locally organized movement to campaign efforts of past local justice-seekers and for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions peace-lovers. (BDS) of Israel. Let’s do it, right here in the Louisville area. A city-wide organiza- However, let us come together as a tion focused on Palestinian human rights larger, secular coalition to focus on BDS and BDS is needed urgently. I also believe actions and to continue to support other local the conditions have finally materialized to activism for Palestinian human rights. As of make this a possibility. yet, the groups and individuals who support Palestinian human rights have been frag- Local Louisville Palestinian-rights mented, too often, into groups by creed or groups—at times forming a loose, coordi- (see BDS COALITION page 7 Call F.O.R. at (502) 609-7985 Fellowship of Reconciliation Louisville Chapter 2146 Lakeside Drive 40205 Louisville, KY ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED CONTENTS | APRIL 2019 REDLINING AND THE MANY EFFECTS OF SLAVERY | David Ragland .... 1 BDS COALITION IN LOUISVILLE | Matt Bewley .......................................... 1 ON THE ORIGIN OF DENIAL (PART 3) |Adam Khayat .............................. 2 BEYOND THE WALL | Gracie Lewis ........................................................... 3 FORward Radio Schedule .......................................................................... 6 At a South Florida BDS event in February, three people stand with Angela Davis’ book Third Thursday Luncheon ............................................................................ 7 “Freedom is a Constant Struggle.” In this book, Davis talks about her support for BDS. The event celebrated Angela Davis’ activism and educated folks on Black-Palestinian solidarity. Photo by Matt Bewley Regular Meeting Times for Area Organizations ....................................... 7 Like this newspaper? Help keep it alive by donating Calendar for Peacemakers ....................................................................... 8 See details on page 3 >> 2 | APRIL 2019 - FORsooth ON THE ORIGIN OF DENIAL: AMERICA’S TURBULENT RELATIONSHIP WITH DARWINIAN EVOLUTION (PART 3) By Adam Khayat logical reduction of evolution in education thought; fifty-five percent of the general evolution lies in improving how evolution (Moore, 2001). The residual effects of these public believe that there exists a conflict is taught. A multitude of studies have This is Part 3 of a 3-part article. The first two actions are best shown by the results of a between religion and science, whereas 38% suggested that replacing lecture-based installments were published in February and recent survey of 33 European countries, the do not and 7% “don’t know” (Masci 2009). pedagogy with active learning systems March 2019. United States, and Japan that asked whether It can be inferred that the primary reason catalyzes a shift that augments student individuals agreed with, disagreed with, for this incongruity revolves around percep- understanding of the material (Frasier and Ironically, this national pattern of system- or were unsure of the statement, “Human tions of evolution. Nevertheless, conflict Roderick, 2011). This requires the collective atically obscuring and removing the notion beings, as we know them today, developed between science and religion also exists organization and cohesion of the scientific of evolution from the public education was from an earlier species of animals.” Accord- beyond the confines of evolution. Data community in maintaining a systematic and not successfully challenged and mitigated ingly, Americans ranked next to lowest: 40% from the National Opinion Research center holistic approach to teaching evolution. The by genuine and authentic evidence provided agreement, 39% disagreement, and 21% indicated that religiosity was strongly asso- 2011 Thinking Evolutionarily Convocation by proponents of Darwinism; rather, uncertainty (Miller, 2006). Other developed ciated with lower science literacy (Sherkat, is a prime example of communal effort; in this change was attributed to an entirely nations reported more than 70% agreement. 2011). Moreover, it must be noted that it, critical issues in the correct instruction different stimulus: most Americans of evolution – along with resource and competition with the are theologically professional development and communica- Soviet Union in the illiterate. A 2010 tions and dissemination strategies – were Cold War. Concerned survey conducted discussed (Wei, Beardsley, and Labov, by the launch of Sputnik by the Pew Research 2012). This congregation also offered a I and the inadequate Center found that mechanism for networking and consolidat- technological and sci- large number of ing around the issue of improving evolution entific abilities of the Americans are education. The main impetus for the meeting United States, President uneducated in the was to develop teaching techniques that Dwight Eisenhower principles, beliefs, would integrate evolutionary biology into requested the National practices, and all life science fields. Defense Education history of their act of 1958, which respective faith Certainly, as the prominent Russian- ultimately led to the traditions (Pew, American geneticist once claimed, biology creation of the Biologi- 2010). Thus, it can does not make sense except in “the light of cal Sciences Curriculum be deduced that evolution.” In order to effectively promote Study (BSCS) by the general ignorance the acceptance of evolution in American National Science Foun- of both science public discourse, a comprehensive and dation (NSF). Tasked and religion plays methodical educational system must be with the publication an integral role in installed for future generations. Only then of impeccable biology general American will the origin of this

Load more