Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

The former NFL star has a new book on the way with 30 essays, one of which he authored

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick may not ever play in the NFL again, but hes continuing his activism around social justice. The 33-year-old will release a book of essays advocating the abolition of police and prisons, per TMZ.

Read More: Men plead not guilty to hate crimes in Ahmaud Arbery death

The book, entitled Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons, is set for release on October 12 with over 30 essays. Kaepernick is credited as the books editor but will author one of the essays himself.

Kaepernick formed his publishing company in 2019 as part of an outgrowth of his social justice work that started when his peaceful anthem protests became controversial.

Ultimately the QB, who took the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013 in a losing effort, was drummed from the league and settled a collusion case against the NFL in 2019, which alleged that NFL teams agreed to keep him from resigning to the league.

Since then, Kaepernick has sponsored the Know Your Rights Camp, which has provided empowerment training to kids in several cities and made good on his pledge to donate a million dollars of his own money to various social justice organizations. He says he hopes the book will expand the conversation around preventing police violence against Blacks and people of color.

Colin Kaepernick watches a Womens Singles second-round match between Naomi Osaka of Japan and Magda Linette of Poland on August 29, 2019. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

This anthology builds on decades of organizing and writing against policing & prisons & features the work of over 30 contributors plus a readers guide, infographics, & cover art by Emory Douglas, Kaepernick tweeted on Tuesday.

Douglas is the artist who created the historic covers for The Black Panther newspaper.

Kaepernick concluded, Im proud to have edited this collection & hope it adds to the chorus of voices calling for a world without & beyond policing & prisons.

As he noted, Kaepernick is not the first celebrated individual to call for prison and police abolition. The movement has been growing for decades as the United States, which is only 4.25% of the worlds population, incarcerates over 2 million people, mostly of color, who are 24.7% of the worlds prison population.

Story continues

In 2003, activist and scholar Angela Davis released a book Are Prisons Obsolete? which called for the abolition of the prison-industrial complex.

Kaepernick made news before his announcement this week, at least by association. Former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, 33, who hasnt played in the NFL in nine years, is reuniting with his former coach Urban Meyer in Jacksonville. Tebow will not return as the Jaguars quarterback but as a tight end, a position he played for one snap in the NFL.

Photo: theGrio collage / Getty Images/ AP Images

Per theGrio, sports observers and players questioned the move.

Critics have spoken out against the double standard applied to Kaepernick and Tebow, citing that at 33, both players are the same age, and both have spent time away from the league, yet Kaepernick remains ousted. In addition, as a tight end, Tebow will also be playing in a position he hasnt played before.

Read More: Fans call out hypocrisy as Tebow returns to NFL while Kaepernick is still out

Tim Tebow has gotten to fail at being an NFL QB, a minor league baseball player and an NFL TEat age 33 despite never playing the position And YET I dont even gotta say it. said sports writer Tyler Conway.

Football player Dez Bryant, who is a free agent like Kaepernick, also shared his confusion on Twitter.

So Tebow havent played an NFL game in damn near a decade and its that simpleno hate but you got to be kidding me.

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The post Colin Kaepernick to publish book on abolishing the police appeared first on TheGrio.

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Colin Kaepernick to publish book on abolishing the police - Yahoo News

Stockton and I spoke this spring, under a pomegranate tree in the backyard of their home in Los Angeles, about love and work. Stocktons platinum blonde hair was pulled back, and they were wearing a white tank top, denim jacket, black pants and a tiny string of pearls.

You write about the conflict of love and the way capitalism wants us to experience love.

Love can be playful and experimental, healing and activating. It can offer possibilities for growth, reflection, and breaking out of lonely modes of being. Capitalism regulates our experience of romantic love into the couple form envisioned by heteropatriarchy, because this is the form of social life most hospitable to capitalist accumulation. The state tries to control our experience of love through laws against deviant modes of sexuality and gender, in order to make us fit into capitalisms needs. But I believe a politics of care and queer love is in excess of this.

How did you get from writing about work to love?

I was thinking about conversations around the politics of reproductive labor. There is a slogan that came from the Italian Marxist feminisms Wages for Housework movement: They sayit islove.We sayit isunwaged work. There are also traditions of thought articulated by Black Marxist feminists that argue against the wage. Like, we dont want to turn care and love into labor: what else is possible? In one poem I write: Can we love with inadequate politics? I wrote poems to people I care for: friends, lovers, and those who are both. I wanted to fuck with the poetic forms associated with romantic love (like the sonnet!) to actually experience the love that animates my life.

So whats your take? Should all care be paid for?

Domestic labor and care work are exploited by racial capitalism, and have been a historically difficult sector to organize. For those doing this kind of labor, of course it has to be paid, and all workers need labor protections. That said, the wage isnt the ultimate demand that I have around compensating reproductive labor, or practices of care and love. In this book I imagined refusing the wage as the path toward love and liberation. Leftist thinkers like Claudia Jones, Angela Davis, and Rosa Luxemburg are influential to me.

The book is simmering with radicalness. What are some of the politics that inform your work?

These poems are personal, but informed by politics that demand the abolition of police and prisons and the decriminalization of sex work. Im interested in the intersection of labor organizing and abolitionist mutual aid projects that call for better working conditions while dreaming of autonomous systems that get everyones basic needs met.

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Poet Rosie Stockton is Re-writing the Love Poem in a Capitalist Society - Vogue

A lot has happened since 1821. The abolition of slavery, two world wars, the Industrial Revolution not to mention the proliferation of the internet. Through it all, the Guardian has been in print, not just documenting but critiquing the world as it progressed.

We were the original challenger brand, insists Sam Jacobs, creative director at The Guardian's in-house team, a partnership with Oliver. It was born in Manchester, not Fleet Street, from a real need to challenge the status quo, with everything that was going on at the time with the Peterloo Massacre. It was different to the other publications of the time. We still have those similar challenges today, they havent gone away.

200 years for a newspaper is a big deal. The Guardian is older than the New York Times, the Telegraph and the Wall Street Journal. And considering how volatile the media industry has become, survival must be celebrated especially if its trans-centuries.

But the Guardian insists it doesnt want to mark the milestone with a period of reflection. We were adamant that we didnt want it to just be a celebration of the past, says Kate Davies, marketing director at the Guardian. We wanted to talk to our future.

As Jacobs points out, anniversaries can sometimes feel more important to a brand than to the outside world. Theres a fine line between celebration and revelling, he says, which got them to the campaign tagline: A Work in Progress since 1821.

As a news organization, we should be concerned with whats happening now and where were going, Jacobs contends. Learning from the past is important, as it allows us to understand and move forward, but where were going next and the challenges ahead are so important. So we wanted to find a position that talked to that.

Created in-house through a collaboration with Oliver agency, the campaign is devised to highlight the Guardians unique role and voice in the world, with a focus on its independent ownership, reputation for holding the powerful to account and commitment to hopeful ideas and imaginative solutions throughout its 200-year history.

Celebrating the evolution of the Guardians typography and its longstanding challenger voice, the campaign uses clever copywriting that allows the reader to sample its product.

When youre a news organisation that deals with words, words are so important. Every single line we have has so much weight theyre scrutinized so heavily, says Jacobs, pointing to the old AMV BBDO days of the Economist as an example of that. You listen to the stories how they would write 1000s of lines and just the best would be pinned to the wall. You totally understand why this had to happen.

He explains that everyone who works at or reads the Guardian has their own perspective as to what it represents and what makes something very Guardian. And theres positive and negative baggage that comes with that, he says. You have to try hard to get the words right, so we tried to be very critical of what we wrote, self-examining every line. We wrote hundreds if not thousands of lines well, thats what it feels like.

While the Work in Progress campaign will run across multiple touchpoints, including the Guardians digital platforms and apps, with paid activity across its social media channels, its the out-of-home (OOH) work that feels particularly Guardian as it is a firm believer in the epic street takeover.

Last year, the Guardian coated Berlin in 2,000 flyposters as part of an experiential stunt that begged passers-by to break the emergency glass they were housed in and take a complimentary copy of Guardian Weekly. It was a novel approach from the newspaper that it hoped would drive more international readers to the magazine.

The year prior, in a bid to reach two million supporters by 2022, the Guardian flyposted its Hope is Power campaign across the UK to highlight the crucial role that the newspaper plays in giving people information that enables them to challenge the status quo.

So it felt fitting that as part of the big birthday celebrations, 230 outdoor placements would be erected across London and Manchester, including a banner at Manchester Piccadilly, which has been treated with a pollution-absorbing coating Pureti, and a series of special-build work in progress billboards.

There was a lot of different ideas that we played with we wanted each of the pieces of OOH to speak through the messaging but also how it was showing up in the world, says Davies, including the to be continued billboard that highlights how its role in the world will be continued.

But theres also a playful element to it, she says. Its a continuation of that idea that every piece does two things it talks to our readers through messaging, but also through its placement. Thats something we want to always think about with our OOH buys especially when youre buying static. Its important that its interesting that its not just something that sits on the streets for two weeks.

The campaign also features three films created in collaboration with Independent Films. Each explores the idea of progress as it relates to the environment, equality and humanity at large, with voiceovers from the late Ursula K Le Guin, former Observer journalist Alan Ross, and poet and author Salena Godden. It also features the song Immunity written and performed by Jon Hopkins.

We really wanted to get across this sense of history, but also the sense of things being unfinished and us being on a journey, explains Jacobs, on how the films relate to the wider campaign. Along with little bits of snippets of audio speeches that felt timeless, we married that with imagery, which was a really interesting way for us to talk to change over time.

The thing about turning 200 is you have this moment of reflection, because youre evaluating the world as it is and how it was, explains Davies. You have this window into whats going on a moment of pause and reflection. What Oliver achieved through the films was this feeling that youre eavesdropping at this moment in time.

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'To be continued': inside the Guardian's 200th birthday celebrations - The Drum

Greek trade unions are angry with the new labor bill. Credit: Facebook/GSEE

Greece unveiled on Wednesday a new labor bill which the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis says it will increase competitiveness through more flexible working hours.

The bill has been criticized by the left-wing opposition and unions who fear the changes will undermine worker rights.

Labor and Social Affairs Minister Kostis Hatzidakis presented the draft legislation, titled For the Protection of Labor, and said that it was in line with European best practices and groundbreaking labor legislation.

The labor law is antiquated, Hatzidakis told a news conference. The core of the bill goes back to 1982. In 1982 the Internet, let alone teleworking, was a distant dream.

He highlighted the fact that the bill explicitly guarantees the eight-hour work day, and a five-day or 40-hour working week.

The most contentious part introduces flexibility to the eight-hour workday by allowing employees to work up to 10 hours on one day and fewer on another, or take time off.

The bill, Hatzidakis claims, makes it illegal to dismiss an employee for refusing flexible working hours.

Mitsotakis said the bill was intended to protect workers. It strengthens their rights, corrects injustices of the past. In short, it gives power to the employee, he tweeted.

Other innovations include a longer paternity leave, with 14 days paid leave instead of 10, protection of new fathers from dismissal for six months after birth and fewer disincentives for the hiring of women.

It also allows four months parental leave for each parent, with employment agency OAED subsidies for two months.

Other contentious measures contained in the bill are the provisions for the trade unions.

The draft bill has also introduced measures such as a digital labor card, designed to avert social security contribution evasion and unfair competition with businesses that uphold the law.

The government all claims that the card will reduce bureaucracy with abolition of the overtime book and other reports for businesses that adopt the digital card.

The project will be funded by the Recovery Fund and implemented gradually, starting with big businesses.

Issues addressed by the draft legislation include health and safety at work, violence and harassment at work, a work-life balance, remote online work, working hours flexibility, breaks, overtime and work on Sundays, protection from dismissal and digital systems for monitoring the labor market.

The left-wing Syriza opposition has criticized the bill, saying it restricts employee rights at a time when workers risk more job losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Syriza leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras accused the government of moving against a worldwide trend to improve workers rights.

(It) is trying to use the pandemic as an opportunity to impose the most anti-popular (measure) a Greek government has ever brought against the world of work: the abolition of the eight-hour working day.

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Greece Unveils Labor Bill with Emphasis on Working Hours Flexibility - Greek Reporter

BEVERLY HILLS, CA DECEMBER 03: Honoree Colin Kaepernick speaks onstage at ACLU SoCal Hosts Annual Bill of Rights Dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on December 3, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

Colin Kaepernick is stepping into the world of book publishing. The social activist has announced that he is editing and publishing a new book called Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons. Kaepernicks latest work will feature essays from nearly three dozen activists, scholars and organizers. Each literary piece will reimagine a world in which police or prisons have been abolished and what that would mean for marginalized communities across the world.

The omnipresent threat of premature death at the hands, knees, chokeholds, tasers, and guns of law enforcement has only further engrained its anti-Black foundation into the institutions of policing, Kaepernick told TMZ Sports.

In order to eradicate anti-Blackness, we must also abolish the police. The abolition of one without the other is impossible.

The book will be available in several forms including audio, hardcover and e-book. Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisonsis set to be released on October 12, 2021.

After months of hard work, were excited to announce that well be publishing our first title, ABOLITION FOR THE PEOPLE: THE MOVEMENT FOR A FUTURE WITHOUT POLICING & PRISONS, on 10/12/21. This anthology is edited by @Kaepernick7 & features the contributions of over 30 writers. pic.twitter.com/fj6tuBpYBy

Kaepernick Publishing (@KaepernickPub) May 11, 2021

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Colin Kaepernick To Publish Book Examining Police And Prison Abolition - Def Pen

Lyrics of the week:

I mustve been through about a million girlsId love em and Id leave em aloneI didnt care how much they cried no sirTheir tears left me cold as a stone. But then I fooled around and fell in loveI fooled around and fell in love

Elvin Bishop, Fooled Around and Fell in Love

You think love is just fun and games Trying to be a playboy All you do is run around Using hearts as play toys. Youve been playing daddy with every mama in townWhat you gonna do when you look up one dayAnd see your playhouse tumbling down?Im gonna tear your playhouse down pretty soonIm gonna tear your playhouse down room by room

Ann Peebles, Im Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down

Its a bit awkward and pretentious to link the words nuclear weapons and grand strategy, even for a nation like the United States that possesses thousands of warheads, has far-flung alliances to attend to, and practices extended deterrence. This linkage is manufactured because deterrence is part of grand strategy and nuclear weapons are part of deterrence, But the manufacturing process is defective because the battlefield use of nuclear weapons would make a hash of military campaigns, let alone strategy, let alone grand strategy.

Nuclear strategy, as Lawrence Freedman, Robert Jervis, and others have written, is an oxymoron, a stark contradiction in terms.Both deterrence and military strategy would be among the first casualties with the appearance of mushroom clouds. Seven-plus decades of non-battlefield use suggest recognition of these consequences.

Even so, states addicted to nuclear weapons will continue to pay dearly for them. How dearly? Check out the costs of U.S. and Russian modernization programs. For second-tier possessors, see Great Britains decision to deploy the Dreadnought class submarine to carry Armageddon weapons while hollowing out its ability to defend national interests by conventional means.

Money is no object when states convince themselves that that they cant do without symbols of power, status, and deterrence. To avoid Armageddon, one must be prepared for it. Thats the lesson that has been inculcated for three generations of deterrence strategists and counting.

When an addiction is habit forming but not dangerous, like pulling weeds, theres no harm, no foul. When a personal addiction causes self-harm and harm to others, we humans can address the problem by acknowledgement, intervention, gradual withdrawal or by going cold turkey. Alternatively, we can continue addictive behaviors.

What about national addictions to power, status, nuclear weapons, and deterrence? Power and status are not something that are jettisoned willingly. They do change, however, for better or worse, depending on national circumstances. Nuclear deterrence requirements might change as a result, but is dropping out or going cold turkey an option?

If a nuclear-armed state has no plausible strategic competitors, then the answer is yes: dropping out is conceivable, whether willingly or unwillingly. If a nuclear-armed state has a serious strategic competitor, then dropping out isnt very likely.

National addictions are harder to slough off, especially when they relate to power, status, and long-held concepts of deterrence. Strong cases have been made that nuclear weapons are a dangerous and delusionary addiction. Dropping out can, however, have negative consequences for national security unless a strategic competitor follows suit. Even unilateral reductions can produce domestic political and geopolitical blowback unless a competitor buys into our rational analysis. Just as strategic competitors share addictions to nuclear weapons, withdrawal also has to be shared.

A shared addiction to nuclear deterrence has both fictional and real aspects. Its indisputably true that nuclear deterrence has a history of failing in lesser cases. A belief system in nuclear deterrence is therefore partially based on the fiction of its success. We can also make a convincing case that escalation control is likely to be fictional once the nuclear threshold is crossed. War-fighting strategies premised on control and dominance are most likely to prompt the escalation they are designed to prevent. Passing along the hallmarks of human civilization from one generation to the next depends on this recognition.

So, whats real about nuclear deterrence besides its costs and dangers? Its primary value rests, at least so far, in helping to prevent worst cases. There are other reasons for the absence of major conventional warfare and nuclear exchanges reasons that have little or nothing to do with the bells and whistles that deterrence strengtheners advocate. Nonetheless, concepts of national security among nuclear-armed states have become inextricably linked to nuclear deterrence equations.

We can argue until the cows come home that such thinking is illusionary, dangerous, and misplaced, but its a contemporary reality. Going cold turkey isnt an option unless strategic competitors also take the plunge, and we can verify their abstinence.

How, then, do we make progress to arrive at collective assessments among possessor states that these weapons are too deadly to actually use in warfare?One essential way is by continuing to argue this case. The Prohibition Treaty serves this purpose. What distinguishes we humans from other creatures, besides our thumbs, is our power to reason. But reason is insufficient, as are hortatory injunctions.

We cant solve the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose intellectually; like all other existential threats, it has to be solved politically and geopolitically. And because this is a very hard problem to solve, it has to be managed until political and geopolitical conditions point toward solutions.

One form of management is the avoidance of dangerous military practices and harrowing crises. Success on both fronts facilitates the reduction of nuclear excess. Another form of management is by means of threat reduction treaties. A successful track record exists for bilateral nuclear arms reduction, but further reductions from New START will be challenging, given the state of U.S.-Russian relations and the current level of partisanship in Washington, which makes it very hard for a Democrat in the White House to secure treaty ratification. Multilateral nuclear arms reduction treaties will be far more difficult to negotiate.

Numbers still matter greatly. When they increase, someones sense of security decreases, prompting compensatory actions. If arms reduction treaties are out of reach, we can still bring the numbers down, as I have argued elsewhere, by championing and extending norms and codes of conduct.

The most essential form of management is no use. The norm of no battlefield use is reinforced by the norm of not conducting nuclear tests. The norm of nonproliferation is another essential management tool. The longer we can extend these norms, the more we clarify nuclear excess. Since these norms are the hardest to break, they are the easiest for us to defend and extend.

Easiest does not mean easy. Far from it. But success has been possible in the past during hard times and intense crises. Through hard work, it remains possible today. And tomorrow.

If we focus on the end state of abolition, we are likely to be disappointed every day. If we focus on extending norms critical to human wellbeing, we can succeed every day.The implications of success may seem imperceptible on a daily basis, but they can be profound as time passes.

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Nuclear Grand Strategy (sic) and Abolition - ArmsControlWonk.com

Written by: Pilar Jefferson

Spoiler Alert: Minor spoilers for the first season of Rutherford Falls

What does it mean for a Black woman to be the mayor of a town that refuses to recognize Native sovereignty? This is the question I was left with after watching the first season of Rutherford Falls, a new show from Sierra Teller Ornelas (Navajo), about the fight for the history and future of the titular Rutherford Falls, a small fictional town somewhere in the Northeast founded in the early colonial period and next to/on the land of the also fictional Minishonka Nation.

Over the shows ten episodes we see the various powers that try to out-scheme each other with hilarious, and poignant, results. The cast is stellar including Ed Helms as Nathan Rutherford, the towns manic protector of white colonial history. Then there is Michael Greyeyes as Terry Thomas, the savvy council member and casino director of the Minishonka Nation, and, of course, the incomparable Jana Schmielding as Reagan Wells, bright but beleaguered upholder of Minishoka cultural history. Next to this lineup, we learn next to nothing about Mayor Deirdre Chisenhall, the Black woman in question played by Dana L. Wilson that really fleshes out her motivations in the story, which leads her to fall a little flat.

While network television is slowly realizing that Black women have nuance and depth, the TV mythos of the strong Black woman still wins the day. This archetypal woman is undoubtedly badass and usually in a position of power, but does not get the emotional backstory that her fellow characters do. Though some of the worst strong Black woman stereotypes are avoided here, there arent quite enough good points to keep Deirdre out of two-dimensional territory. And, her motivations really matter because her character on the show can also help us start a conversation about the relationship between Black and Native people in the United States today and why Black people have to name decolonization, with an emphasis on land back, while were fighting for abolition. We cant have one without the other.

The two big things we do learn about Deirdre are, first, that shes ambitious and cares about her personal image as mayor and second, that her family has been in Rutherford Falls for nearly as long as the Rutherfords. Both of these points leave plenty of room for the writers to explore the deep relationship between anti-Black racism and the colonization of Native land, but they never quite get there.

Here are the things they missed that could greatly improve our understanding of Deirdres position in Rutherford Falls:

My third critique ties into what I think is actually really important about Deirdre Chisenhalls character and why she matters to how we think about Black and Native solidarity today. As of the end of Season 1, all weve seen is her paying attention to her personal image, which doesnt sit quite right in this case because Black people, even when in positions of power, are well aware of their own history and dreams for the future. Perhaps the Minishonka Council are happy that Deidre keeps the non-Native weirdos in town on a leash. Thats fine. Her ambition isnt a problem in and of itself, and her cut-throat candor is one of the most fun parts of her character. But when we see Black excellence as only climbing the ladder and achieving roles that our ancestors could never have dreamed of, we need to pay attention to when those roles place us in positions of power within a settler colonial state. If representation matters, sovereignty matters more. Abolition matters more. And, like I said before, its a package deal.

The Black community has embraced the concept of Black ambition, Black excellence, and rightly so. We have so much stacked against us that seeing fictional Black excellence can remind us that there are Black people in the future and that we deserve to thrive not just survive. But we as Black people cannot win by the rules of todays state. Even if every diversity, equity, access, and inclusion committee at every business in America sticks with their 2020 commitments to anti-racism and Black people are finally able to call the shots, we will still be living on stolen land. Capitalism and racism go hand in hand. While I dont begrudge Black peoples financial means or career success, it does not mean the work is over. We will not have truly dismantled the colonial system that brought our ancestors to this land until we return that land to the people it came from.

This past year has been full of interracial reckoning and movement toward solidarity. One conversation that I see starting to happen is where interracial solidarity lies between Black and Native people and what we as Black people need to consider about Native rights as we fight for our own liberty, and vice versa.

So, as much as I want Deidre Chisenhall to be so much more in her name-taking, pantsuit-wearing, Black woman ferocity, I also see that she is a reminder that there is solidarity work with Native folks we desperately need to do. Hopefully, NBC renews Rutherford Falls so we can see the light of that solidarity, and Deirdre in her full glory, blossom on the small screen.

Originally posted here:

Black Women and Native Sovereignty in 'Rutherford Falls' - Black Girl Nerds

It's part of the US Mint's "American Women Quarters Program," which will stamp circulating quarters with the faces of women who have made "significant contributions to the US." (George Washington's face will remain on the quarter's front, albeit with a new design.)

The first two honorees have already been chosen: esteemed poet Maya Angelou and gender-barrier-breaking astronaut Sally Ride.

The rest of the lineup will be decided by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen -- with input from the American public.

The museum welcomes entries of women known for their work in civil rights, science, the arts and abolition, among other areas, with an emphasis on women from "ethnically, racially and geographically diverse backgrounds," according to the US Mint.

Ultimately, Yellen will choose the women who will appear on the coins after consulting the Smithsonian Institution American Women's History Initiative, National Women's History Museum and the Bipartisan Women's Caucus, as per the Mint.

The first batch of coins, featuring Ride and Angelou, will start circulating in January 2022. The Mint will create up to five designs for the tails side of the quarters in the program, which will run through 2025.

The women chosen by Yellen and the public will join a highly accomplished duo. Angelou, also a civil rights activist, is best known for books including "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," considered one of the 20th century's seminal works. Ride, a former NASA astronaut, was the first American woman to go to space.

Ride's partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, said the astronaut would have been "so moved" to appear on American currency.

"This tribute reflects Sally's legacy not only as a trailblazing astronaut but also as a champion of diversity and inclusion in STEM fields," she said in a statement through the nonprofit Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego.

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The US Mint wants you to help choose the pioneering women that will appear on its new quarters - The Philadelphia Tribune

David Cassady and Laura R. Levens, Opinion contributors Published 7:58 a.m. ET May 13, 2021

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler recently panned the ordination of three women at Saddleback Church in California, the second largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention. To Mohler, the Southern Baptist Convention is approaching a test. Should women be ordained and hired as pastors, preachers and leaders in the SBC?

Hes right, it is a test, but his approach is failing.

We each left the SBC fold years agoand now work at the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky. Supporting women in ministry is one of our central commitments. We are happy to help our Southern Baptist friends pass this test.

Making decisions about pastoring and ordination of anyone as a church leader, regardless of gender, requires time and effort to understand Gods calling. The process involves a mix of elements Christians have described in various ways: interpreting Scripture, listening to the Spirit, praying, talking with trusted advisers, sensing a direction, recognizing giftsand enjoying the work. It is described with such variety because it involves sensing the work of God, whom Christians believe is greater than human understanding. After all, Gods activities have often mystified and confounded humanity since creation. It is arrogant for anyone to think, like Mohler, that Gods work in this world or a womans testimony of Gods call must fit one limited interpretation of Scripture.

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God has and does call women to preach, to pastor, to teach, and to lead churches and seminaries. It is arrogant and insulting to the women God has called to ministry to say they cannot be called. It is insulting to Phoebe, for example, who was likely entrusted to write down and deliver Pauls letter to the Romans. According to Paul, Phoebe was a deacon and a patron, highlighting her leadership position of financial support and oversight of her house church. Paul also included Priscilla, a teacher, and Junia, an apostle. The evidence of women acting as pastors, preachersand teachers in the New Testament is overwhelming, if one looks for it.

The Rev. Laura R. Levens is assistant professor of Christian Mission at Baptist Seminary of Kentucky.(Photo: provided)

Mohler claims ordination and employment of women in ministry only became an issue for the Southern Baptists in the 1970s, but this is historically false. The truth is, women have been doing this work for centuries, and that includes the SBC too. Catholic leaders like St. Hildegard of Bingen founded religious orders and traveled Europe, preaching and counseling spiritual reform and renewal of the church. Sojourner Truth began preaching in 1843 and traveled the abolition circuit with Frederick Douglass. Julia Foote preached and traveled for 50 years before she was ordained a deacon (1894) and then an elder (1900) in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Even Lottie Moon, the most cherished Southern Baptist missionary, taught Scripture and evangelized to both men and women in Pingtu, Chinain the late 1800s.

The Rev. David Cassady is president of Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, which has campuses in Louisville and Georgetown.(Photo: provided)

How do we know God calls women to ministry? They say so, and we believe them. The graduates of our school, Baptist Seminary of Kentucky (BSK), are called by God. They are chaplains, counselors, ministers, and yes, pastors. They are ministering today in Louisville, across Kentucky, and elsewhere. These leaders are doing Gods work.

Bridging the gap: Can this Louisville Institute for Black Church Studies close America's religious divide?

If the SBC wants to pass this test, and it is a test, they will open up to the reality that God is well ahead of us, calling us to humbly love, healand bring peace. God has been and is calling women to lead. Were eager to follow.

The Rev. David Cassady is president and the Rev. Laura R. Levens is assistant professor of Christian Mission at BSK: Baptist Seminary of Kentucky (bsk.edu), which has campuses in Louisville and Georgetown, Kentucky.

Read or Share this story: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2021/05/13/al-mohler-and-southern-baptist-convention-face-test-women-pastors/5047228001/

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Should women be pastors? It's a test Southern Baptists face, and Al Mohler is failing - Courier Journal

The ongoing national discussion about systemic racism holds both challenges and opportunities for people of faith of all racial backgrounds, according to a Washington archdiocesan priest and a Georgetown University law professor, who are both African Americans, and both working to help people understand the issues.

Father Patrick Smith, pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Washington, and Anthony Cook, professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, each pointed to the need to understand unvarnished history as the starting point for people of faith to begin to help root out and move beyond systemic racism.

Following the April 20 conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder charges in the death of George Floyd last May, Father Smith and Cook were asked to discuss how people of faith and church leaders could help the nations reckoning with race-based inequality. They spoke to the Catholic Standard in separate phone interviews.

Cook, author of The Least of These: Race, Law and Religion in American Culture, advocated for small faith groups to start by learning about the longstanding tradition of the faith-based community of being complicit with some of the most horrific racism in American history. That includes slavery, the Jim Crow laws that followed abolition of slavery and ongoing entrenched, intractable poverty, he said.

People of faith certainly played roles in ending slavery, segregation and in working to end poverty and other injustices, he noted. But there also is a legacy of complicity to be faced, he said. Church leaders too often have looked the other way or enabled race-based bias to be built into the way churches and society function, Cook said.

For example, he said, churches developed a theology thats more about individual salvation to get into heaven, without attention to what is needed to bring the kingdom of God to Earth.

Cook noted that Jesus came to the world as a poor man and chose to spend his life among those who were shunned and downtrodden. He even turned down temptations to become powerful.

Jesus decided at every stage of development to be with the marginalized, the outcast, Cook said. He chose to be with the least of these, and preached about how difficult it was for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

A Christian witness would be to truly walk in the steps of Christ, which is so different from what we see in some churches today, Cook continued. We as a church have done a very poor job of conforming to his witness and lifestyle. Instead we have conformed to the status quo that pursues money, status and power.

Father Smith is pastor of the oldest Black Catholic parish in Washington, which was founded in 1858 by free men and women of color, including some who had been emancipated from slavery. He said people should learn history that includes how the Catholic Church has played a role in perpetuating inequality. The priest pointed out that often the Churchs attempts to address systemic racism have come in the form of institutional statements that, as theologian Father Bryan Massingale has said, seem calculated not to make White people uncomfortable.

Father Smith cited the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter from Birmingham Jail, which observed that in the early days of Christianity, the faith was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

We have many statements, many documents, but what are we doing to educate people on the history? Father Smith asked. How do we become a thermostat, not a thermometer that simply reflects societys trends?

He noted that for the first time in his 30-plus years as a priest, he was invited in January to address a Theological College seminary audience in Washington on the topic of race. Father Smith is a renowned speaker, preacher, revival leader and retreat presenter. While he had addressed seminarians on other topics over the years, racism had never previously been the subject, he said.

Father Smith said the appointment of Cardinal Wilton Gregory as the first African American to head the Archdiocese of Washington in 2019 was a huge breakthrough for an archdiocese that has long had a significant Black Catholic presence.

He recalled thinking: heres someone who knows our story. Father Smith said hes seen changes toward addressing systemic racism since then-Archbishop Gregory came to Washington. For example, he applauded the appointment of a priest chaplain, Father Robert Boxie, to Howard University last summer. We had asked for years, but it wasnt seen as a priority, he said.

In August 2020 at a Mass at St. Matthews Cathedral marking the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, then-Archbishop Gregory announced that the Archdiocese of Washington was launching an initiative called Made in Gods Image: Pray and Work to End the Sin of Racism that includes a wide range of pastoral activities and outreach, prayer, listening sessions, faith formation opportunities and social justice work.

Father Smith said people of faith who want to address systemic racism should first consider the history of how racism has played out within the Church. For instance, he noted that although the Archdiocese of Washington was ahead of the Supreme Court in desegregating Catholic schools in the early 1950s, its more recent legacy has included closing more than a dozen Catholic schools that primarily served Black communities. Father Smith said that from his perspective, there wasnt enough collaboration with those schools communities.

In his own familys history in Washington, his parents were not allowed to attend Catholic schools. By the time he and his siblings were born, Catholic schools had been desegregated and his parents made sure their children attended them. Now he laments the closure of so many Catholic schools that served Black families and wonders what effect that will have on vocations.

I wonder sometimes, whos following me? he said. ...When it comes to spreading the faith, Catholic schools are one of the most important tools.

Father Smith sees the history of segregation in churches and Catholic schools as a strategic choice, made by Church leaders in keeping with then-contemporary thinking in society. The Church was initially strategically denied to the Black community, he said, and that must be understood for todays people to be able to try to make things better.

Ignorance is not bliss, he said, adding that throughout the American church, bishops, clergy, seminary rectors and key church staff members havent made an effort to understand the history of slavery and its ongoing repercussions.

As to where to start honest conversations about racism, Cook said hes part of plans for two new centers being created at Georgetown that will address racial equity from the lenses of faith and opportunity. One goal is to design a set of materials that can be used by people in the pews or small working groups to consider what White privilege means and the role of religion in perpetuating it, he said.

Change has to be rooted in deconstructing the roots of how people treat each other, Cook said.

See related stories:

Black Catholic Voices: The legacy inspiring St. Augustine pastor's support of Catholic education and racial justice

Black Catholic Voices: Priest chaplain at Howard University says drawing on faith and learning history can foster racial understanding and healing

Addressing lingering effects of slavery calls for looking ahead more than looking back, Georgetown panelists say

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People of faith should study history of racism as they work for racial justice, priest and professor say - My catholic standard