via TGC:

Justin Giboney—co-founder and president of the AND Campaign—addresses the self-serving lies conservative and progressives tell themselves about issues like justice, identity politics, and critical race theory.

Here are some recent articles on the Tulsa Race Massacre, as people reflect upon the 100th anniversary:

What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed by NY Times: “    Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship. Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.”

Tulsa isn’t the only race massacre you were never taught in school. Here are others. by Gillian Brockell: “With President Biden commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre Tuesday, many Americans are learning for the first time about the nation’s long history of racist rampages, particularly during (but not limited to) the period from the 1870s to the 1920s — considered by many a nadir in the fight for Black civil rights.”

What I’ve Learned Teaching the Tulsa Race Massacre for Two Decades by Hannibal B. Johnson: “Learning this history is necessary if we are to advance toward racial reconciliation, but it is not sufficient. We also must build trust across racial groups. In Tulsa, trust was among the casualties of the massacre, and restoring it remains difficult and is ongoing. But it is possible.”

5 Lessons the Tulsa Race Massacre Teaches Us about Racism Today by Jemar Tisby: “Against those who believe that if Black people simply acquire enough wealth then they will be able to escape the worst impacts of racism, the Tulsa Race Massacre cries out in protest.”

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Millennial Catholic Chris Crawford writes:

Earlier that day, we had excitedly discussed announcing our pregnancy in Mother’s Day cards. She was now inside the hospital undergoing her first ultrasound, while I was in the car, unable to enter the hospital due to COVID-19 precautions.

When the appointment ended, she rushed out, tears streaming down her face. “There’s nothing there,” she said as she grabbed hold of me. “There’s nothing there.”

Her words knocked the wind out of me. This was the start of a difficult journey that has tested our marriage and faith, but ultimately strengthened us in both. I’ve dealt with grief, numbness, guilt and loneliness. There are millions of men who travel this road with me, but there are surprisingly few resources for us.

In such situations, men have a patron to turn to for help. St. Joseph knew difficult journeys. He knew great hardship and wrestled with how best to follow God’s will. In this Year of St. Joseph, I’ve been reflecting on the ways that he is the perfect saint to accompany men who have lost a child in utero.

The lack of certainty regarding the future is one of the greatest challenges for fathers of children lost to miscarriage — especially those of us who have no other children. The loss of a child is devastating in its own right; it also reminds us of the uncertainty about our life’s direction. We wonder now if we will ever have children. If our wives take a positive pregnancy test in the future, we know that celebration may be subdued by uncertainty that claws at our joy.

While we can’t expect clarity, we aren’t left alone. In the silence of prayer and adoration, in conversations with those close to us, we allow God to guide us to holiness and show us the way. We pray for a faith like St. Joseph — the ability to say “yes” as challenges appear, and the grace to respond wholeheartedly to God’s call.

You can read the full essay here.

Photo by Kalle Schmitz on Unsplash

via Vatican News:

The Holy Father also underscored the relationship between the Church and the world of sport, which has been cultivated with the awareness that “both, in different ways, are at the service of the integral growth of the person and can offer a valuable contribution to our society.”…

“Two things are important: being united and having a goal,” the Pope said, adding that in this sense, sports become “a medicine for the individualism of our societies,” which sometimes creates isolated, sad individuals incapable of being “team players” and of “cultivating a passion for good ideals.”

Commitment to sports, the Pope continued, reminds us of “the value of fraternity, which is also at the heart of the Gospel.”…

Speaking further, he noted that discipline is not only physical, but also internal, as it requires “physical exercise, constancy, attention to an orderly life in schedules and nutrition, as well as rest alternated with the fatigue of training.”

This discipline, the Pope continued, “is a school of formation and education,” especially for young people, as, in the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, it helps “put one’s life in order”.

At the same time, it “is not meant to make us rigid, but to make us responsible: for ourselves, for the things entrusted to us, for others, for life in general.”

Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

via Forbes:

A statement signed by more than 100 scholars on Tuesday warns that as a result of Republican-led states proposing or implementing “radical changes” to election laws, the voting procedures in several states are being transformed into “political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.” The statement includes this dire prediction: “our entire democracy is now at risk”

Appearing on the website of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America, the statement, entitled Statement of Concern: The Threats to American Democracy and the Need for National Voting and Election Administration Standards, can be read in its entirety here.

Referring to themselves as “scholars of democracy,” the signatories include leading professors of political science, government, communications and history at many of the nation’s most prominent universities and colleges. As of mid-afternoon today, more than 100 individuals had signed onto the statement, but additional signatures were expected to be added….

After condemning “these actions in the strongest possible terms as a betrayal of our precious democratic heritage, the statement calls for “federal action to protect equal access of all citizens to the ballot and to guarantee free and fair elections.” And it argues that a voting rights law like the proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Act “is essential but alone is not enough.”

Therefore, the statement concludes, what is needed is “a comprehensive set of national standards that ensure the sanctity and independence of election administration, guarantee that all voters can freely exercise their right to vote, prevent partisan gerrymandering from giving dominant parties in the states an unfair advantage in the process of drawing congressional districts, and regulate ethics and money in politics.”

via Yair Rosenberg and Unpacked’s upcoming series, ‘Antisemitism, Explained’:

Why does antisemitism continue to flourish across the spectrum? The answer is simple: people only tend to police anti-Jewish bigotry when it comes from the other side, not their own….

Because the truth is: casting anti-Jewish prejudice as a specifically left-wing problem… or right-wing problem… or Christian problem… or Muslim problem… is really just a way of saying that it’s someone else’s problem.

The only people who win this argument over who’s the bigger bigot are the antisemites, who continue to spread their hate while their supposed opponents point fingers at each other.

To truly combat antisemitism, we need to stop thinking of it as other people’s problem, and start confronting it as our problem.

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