It's going to be a long four years...and they haven't even started yet. Despondency, despair, grief, fear: experiencing and metabolizing these and whatever else comes up is critical to staying healthy, and staying engaged. Many events this month are designed to support, embolden, fortify, or prepare us as we work to keep our world humane.

Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchey are esteemed elders in the world of abolition, who launched an organization called Interrupting Criminalization (IC) about five years ago. Their work has been prolific, including research, reports, zines, podcasts, convenings, webinars, books, and much more. The overall focus: ending criminalization, policing, and punishment. Check out the curriculum they’re offering.

Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchey are esteemed elders in the world of abolition, who launched an organization called Interrupting Criminalization (IC) about five years ago. Their work has been prolific, including research, reports, zines, podcasts, convenings, webinars, books, and much more. The overall focus: ending criminalization, policing, and punishment. Check out the curriculum they’re offering.

Settler colonialism is nothing if not this hoarding, and racism is an integral part of its ecology. This article “The Set-Up’ of Settler Colonialism” by political educator David Dean has given me a deeper understanding of what settler colonialism is, what purpose it serves, and how racism is both a tool and a by-product. I really appreciated how he drew parallels between three versions of settler colonialism: here in the U.S., in Ireland, and in Palestine.

In January, I took an 8-session course with Loretta J. Ross. Being a facilitator myself, I have very high standards for other facilitators—Loretta and her team met them all, even virtually, even with 300 participants. Those of you who've come to a workshop, retreat, caucus, or circle of mine since then have definitely tasted her influence.

I look at Instagram once a day, before bed. I check the stories of people I'm following, then scroll through my feed until something makes me laugh out loud. That's the moment I turn my phone off and go to sleep. It's been hard to keep this routine over the last 4 months, but some comedians are making it easier.

Once again, the resource I'm sharing doesn't focus specifically on anti-racism or racial equity, my purported area of focus for this newsletter. Yet, as I wrote about recently, all oppressions are connected. I have learned so much from the On the Nose podcast produced by Jewish Currents—a magazine I didn't know about before Oct. 7.

Alerted to the fact that I've been exposed to only one narrative, I'm actively seeking to hear the perspective that's been suppressed. The Palestinian perspective.

I recently found Mohammed El-Kurd.

On Sunday, October 12, I listened to an esteemed group of Black feminist writers discuss how they live their mandate for solidarity with Palestine. As I have so often before, I learned so much from these people who have made entire lives of acting on oppression—and who know (deeply, painfully) what it means to fight for the rights of human beings to live fully.

I'm heartened to find so many organizations who focus resources, supports, and personalized attention to women of color experiencing breast cancer. Were there this many twenty years ago? I'm guessing not. But I couldn't see what I wasn't looking for.

I am a long-time outdoor enthusiast. Early on in my whiteness awakening, I realized how limited—and entitled—my conception was about the best (or right) way to experience the natural world. Here’s a small selection from the fabulous and far-reaching world of resources out there now for Black, Indigenous and people of color to enjoy aspects of the out-of-doors previously dominated by able-bodied white folks.

The podcast Louder Than a Riot digs into the culture of hip-hop to reveal the ways systems of supremacy are at play. Season Two “unpacks the unspoken rules of rap that discriminate against a select few and have held the entire culture back.” I learned so much—not just about how patriarchy, misogyny, racism, and capitalism have influenced hip-hop culture, but how the Louder team went about excavating & exposing these influences. I want to apply this kind of analysis to the cultures I’m involved in: the outdoor enthusiast culture, the world of white anti-racist practitioners, more.

In her book Beyond Inclusion, Beyond, Empowerment, I like how Leticia Nieto and her colleagues present that each of us is a combination of “agent” and “target”, all the time. These terms feel more nuanced and approachable to me than “oppressors” and “oppressed”, and I like the self-reflection the terms evoke in workshop and caucus participants.

Whenever I hear about something by Derecka Purnell or Robin D.G. Kelley, I watch/read/listen to it immediately. We all have our favorites.

So I was thrilled when I learned about this new collaboration, not only with these two, but also Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, and others I’m excited to get to know.

I don’t know how I missed Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book in 2021, when it was published and won the National Book Award. I think it’s amazing.

My favorite training from 2022 was offered by the Anti Oppression Resource & Training Alliance (AORTA).