KTF Weekly Newsletter: Undercover Klansman, Congo and Your Computer, the COVID Quitters
Hi everyone!
We hope you are all having a joyous and rejuvenating Christmas break! There is some Christmas goodness coming your way tomorrow in the form of our monthly bonus Shake the Dust episode (preview below as always).
Before we get started, could we ask you a quick favor? If you’re a fan of Shake the Dust, and you have a Spotify account, could you click here and give us a five-star rating? Spotify just introduced the ability to rate podcasts, and it will help us get discovered by more listeners if we get more good ratings on what is quickly becoming the world’s largest podcast listening platform. And if, like many people, you use Apple podcasts and have never rated us, we would also appreciate you clicking here and giving us five stars! Thank you so much in advance!
Now, let’s get to it: here are this week’s highlights.
Sy’s recommendations:
If you’re anything like me, your background in Christianity included no shortage of praise from pulpits and parachurch organizations for political conservatives and moderates. You probably heard someone explain why unregulated free markets, privatization, or climate change denial were precisely in sync with everything Jesus taught us. Having uncovered many of the idols behind this worldview, I’m now far more interested in learning about people whose faith took them in other directions, and one of them is running for state office to represent Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Chinatown. His name is Illapa Sairitupac. He comes from a family of indigenous Peruvian immigrants, and his dedication to Jesus led him to socialism. This interview gives readers a good look at his fascinating journey and perspective. He also speaks quite proudly about his faith and how it fuels his work as a social worker and political organizer.
The story of Joseph Moore is complicated. An ex-Army sniper, he spent almost a decade undercover in the Ku Klux Klan for the FBI, investigating the Klan’s attempts to infiltrate the ranks of law enforcement and prison guards. He lied to his family for years about what he did for a living, dealt with significant mental health concerns, and now lives with his wife and children under assumed names in an undisclosed location. This AP article from yesterday explains his successes, like thwarting multiple murder plots against Black people, as well as his failure to convince the government agencies that white supremacists in law enforcement are a significantly larger problem than they are willing to acknowledge. He thinks telling the story of how widespread the problem is will help protect his family as the vengeful people he put in jail get closer to the end of their prison sentences. Like white nationalist terrorism, institutional racism within law enforcement is something many (particularly white) Americans have trouble imagining as something that needs serious, consistent confrontation. Fortunately, Jesus does not lead us to believe in the inherent goodness of any man-made institution, and we can read stories like this to help us identify where to direct our efforts in prayer and advocacy.
A lesser-known aspect of slavery in US history is that of the illegal but prevalent nineteenth century trade in indigenous people throughout the west and southwest of the country. One artist is trying to bring more of this history to light with an exhibition highlighting a survey from 1865 that detailed 149 mostly Navajo individuals taken into slavery in southern Colorado. This article gives a few haunting details of the exhibition, as well as some information about the surrounding history, with links to other sources for more reading. It also discusses the artist, Chip Thomas, a Black doctor who has worked on a Navajo reservation for 34 years, and has found a way to express the history and beauty of the culture around him through photography and other media. Moreover, with this new exhibition, he exposes the fruit of a truly rotten faith, as the slave owners at this time put a heavy emphasis on Christianizing their captives. His dedication to service and truth telling should be both something we admire and something to which we aspire.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
Everything comes from somewhere. That includes the components that make up the phone and computer that I use to read and redistribute the resources you are reading right now. Nicolas Niarchos, reporter for the New Yorker, shed light on the corruption, abuse, and slavery surrounding the gathering of one material essential to these devices in his article, “The Dark Side of Congo’s Cobalt Rush”. Cobalt is essential to the green economy that is slowing climate change and replacing fossil fuels in the world’s energy supply. The article comes to life in this podcast interview with Niarchos. Followers of Jesus must prioritize the integration of local populations into the prosperity wealthier nations extract from them instead of their continued exploitation and abuse. “O Holy Night’s” often-skipped verse calls for an end to oppression, and followers of Jesus should be wholly involved in bringing a slavery-free society to fruition.
One quarter of Americans have left their jobs in the past year. The question is, “why?” And the answer is complicated. Maggie Penman and Heather Long on The Washington Post podcast, Post Reports, created a layered, informative, well-crafted three-part series called, “Quitters.” They follow the many facets of a restaurant closure in Arkansas, a McDonald’s walkout in Pennsylvania, and talk with an economist about whether or not this is a trend, a flash in the pan, or the seeds of a labor movement. This series invites us to consider those who deliver food to our doors or to our tables. So as followers of Jesus, it is imperative to accept that invitation and resist interactions that perpetuate dehumanization, refuse dignity and crush the image of God in our neighbors.
Land of the Giants is a podcast series that analyzes companies that have changed the world. Apple is certainly one of those companies. Their products transformed the way we listen to music, use the Internet, and communicate with one another. The third episode of the show’s current season, “Apple’s China Problem” examines the geopolitical realities of an American company doing business in a country with an authoritarian government and a substantial record of human rights abuses. Engaging with the complex entanglement of our two countries is important because rarely are things as cut and dried as they appear. The US and China are economically interdependent. Yet, the silencing of tennis star Peng Shuai, the subsequent exit of the Women’s Tennis Association from China, and Congress’ passing of a bill to ban the import of goods from Xinjiang strain those ties. White Christianity in the United States often forces multifaceted issues into false binaries. This podcast makes listeners lean into complexity, unlearn unhelpful patterns, and engage in thoughtful discussion. Hopefully, it starts us on our way toward more potent advocacy for those upstream in the supply chain of our lives.
Shake the Dust Preview
This month’s bonus episode, dropping tomorrow, is a Christmas Eve special! Sy and Jonathan sat down to talk about how the incarnation relates to a lot of the themes we talk about at KTF. Christmas celebrates God coming close to the oppressed, enacting anti-imperial liberation, refusing to use worldly power as a foundation for his kingdom, and a lot more. Oh, and Jonathan does an Advent poem at the end, which is incredible as always.
Thanks so much for reading. We’ll see you next week, and have a Merry Christmas!
The KTF team