In this conversation, Caitlin chats with Jen Harvey about possibilities for repairing harm caused by historic and current white supremacy, resource redistribution, parenting and more.
Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey is a writer, educator and activist whose passion for just social change means she constantly returns to questions racial justice and white anti-racism. She teaches at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa where she is the Faculty Director for the Crew Scholars Program. Dr. Harvey's books include Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in Racially Unjust America and Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation, she has published in a variety of public venues (including CNN.com and the New York Times), is active her local chapter of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), and is a widely sought after public speaker who is ordained in the American Baptist Churches (USA). You can follow her on twitter @drjenharvey.
referenced in this episode
Iowa City Showing up for Racial Justice
Drake University Crew Scholars
We were able to speak with Krystal Two Bulls and Matt Howard in Spring 2019 about their work, leadership and movement with About Face: Veterans Against the War.
Krystal is an Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne woman who reminds us that what matters is what we fight for, not what we fight against. Krystal is a new member to About Face: Veterans Against the War, having joined in August 2018. She served in the US Army Reserves for 8 years and was deployed to Kuwait in 2009. Krystal is new to the anti-militarism conversation, but has significant knowledge and experience in environmental justice, Indigenous Sovereignty and social justice campaigns. She works to decolonize the approaches and methods that we utilize within movement spaces.
Matt has worked with About Face: Veterans Against the War in various capacities since 2011 including as Chapter president in the Bay area, local organizer in Texas with the Operation Recovery campaign, as Communications Director and currently as Co-Director. He served in the Marine Corps as a helicopter mechanic from 2001 to 2006 and deployed twice to Iraq where he became deeply opposed to the occupations and discovered a commitment to social change work.
In this conversation between Amita Swadhin and Caitlin Breedlove, we dive into choosing relationships and interdependence, building community and healing networks and the frequent failure of organizations to deal with and support folks who have experienced trauma and violence nor commit to building systemic solutions. This important conversation includes details about childhood sexual assault.
Amita Swadhin is a queer, non-binary, femme South Asian American. They are an alchemist, storyteller, educator, organizer and strategist who channels their experience of surviving childhood rape and family violence into efforts to end rape culture and other forms of oppression. In 2016, they founded the National Mirror Memoirs project, centering LGBTQI+ people of color who survived child sexual abuse. There are 60 storytellers across 15 states in the initial audio archive.
Learn more about, support and share Mirror Memoirs fundraising page to support this crucial work.
referenced in this episode
Mirror Memoirs Oral History Project
How you can support Mirror Memoirs
Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Queering Sexual Violence: An anthology edited by Jennifer Patterson and with a foreword by Reina Gossett
We had the opportunity to connect with Kiyomi Fujikawa in Winter 2019 and it was such a treat. Check out this conversation with Caitlin Breedlove.
Kiyomi Fujikawa is a Seattle-based, mixed-race queer trans femme who has been involved with movements to end gender- and state-based violence since 2001. Her political home is with queer and trans communities of color and organizing to prevent and respond to intimate partner violence.
Kiyomi is currently on the board of Groundswell Fund and is a Grantmakers United for Trans Communities (GUTC) Leadership Development Fellow. She was most recently a Senior Program Associate at the Fund for Trans Generations at Borealis Philanthropy, and the Queer Network Program Coordinator at API Chaya.
She is also an avid lover of speculative fiction, noodles, astrology (Saj Sun, Cancer-rising, Libra Moon), feelings, and do-it-yourself scavenger hunts.
referenced in this episode:
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
Kiyomi's book recommendations:
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin (5th Season, Obelisk Gate, Stone Sky)
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
intro music by Abhimanyu Janamanchi. production by Nora Rasman.