Toxic Train Wreck, from Pro-Life to Election Denial, the Underground Railroad to Mexico
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hey everyone!
The release of Faith Unleavened is still rolling, and we are grateful to all of you who bought copies, took pictures, and left reviews. Great news: you can now order Faith Unleavened to your local independent book store through IndieBound! Also, Tamice has a couple of IG Lives tomorrow, so make sure to follow her on IG so you can tune in! We also have our full podcast interview with Tamice coming tomorrow!
Our newsletter returns this week with resources to help you leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God because so much of the church has for too long derided and dismissed marginalized people and perspectives. We hope this helps you elevate and center those the Bible says Jesus holds close.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
The underground railroad didn’t just go North to Canada; it also went south to Mexico. This article by Russell Contreras from Axios is chock-full of resources and links that challenge preconceived notions of the struggle for liberation. For instance, he links to his other article from the Associated Press that examines biracial couples using their homes as stops on the route to Mexico, as well as Black and white Mexicans arming themselves to fight white slave catchers who traveled south of the border. The stories are rich and worthy of our time and attention. It counters narratives that oppress, marginalize, and divide to read about armed Black resistance to slavery, Mexico standing as a beacon of freedom and opportunity for people in America, and so many other through lines in these stories.
The Episode “The Dark Side of Silicon Valley” from The Gray Area podcast features an interview with author Malcolm Harris whose new book is Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. The critically-acclaimed writer ushers us into the underbelly of a place that purports to produce many of the shiny objects we use every day, like the laptop I’m using to type this newsletter. While the first Mac and the first iPhone may have been designed in California, the next billion would come from elsewhere under exploitative conditions. Moreover, California thrived for thousands of years before European capitalism, but it’s now on the economic brink only a couple hundred years after that ideology took hold. Harris says his research landed him in an unexpected place when he was finished writing the book: he makes a call for the radical act of returning land to Native people to restore what has been lost.
The train derailment and consequent release of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals in East Palestine, OH is a tragedy and a disturbing picture of how deregulation, labor exploitation, and “forever chemicals” collided to make something terrible truly catastrophic. But right-wing media outlets have polarized this environmental disaster, casting the “woke” as uncaring about the plight of “forgotten” working-class, White Americans. This article from The Guardian gives an overview of what’s happening in East Palestine; explains how race and class play a part; and, importantly, puts the racialized realities of climate justice, capitalism, and politics into a contextualized perspective. Because as you may have guessed, Black and Brown people in urban areas also suffer from toxic pollution while most people look away, just like their rural, White siblings, only more often and in higher numbers. God help us not to give into fear and tribalism. Help us to hold all of our suffering before you and ask how we might strive together toward love and justice.
Sy’s recommendations:
You have probably seen a number of articles recently on the one-year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine. In a newsletter last year, we highlighted the story of Ukraine’s roughly 76,000 international students, most of them African, who faced racism as they fled the violence. The Independent recently followed up on that story, interviewing 3 of those students in this news clip. Because they were not from the Ukraine and mostly returned to their home countries, these students are not legally refugees, and are therefore not receiving aid. But many are now struggling, forced to abandon their educational and career paths while dealing with the psychological aftermath of both war and the racism that rendered them particularly vulnerable. Some of these students are calling for help from the same countries and policy makers who are supporting everyone else who left Ukraine, and we should be listening to their call.
This week, ProPublica published an investigative piece on Christian pro-life advocates who have pivoted to fighting election integrity. Led by a Chicago legal non-profit and the disbarred former Attorney General of Kansas, these activists are attempting to apply the same long-term legal and political strategies they did to abortion laws before the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They may not win their suits, but some jurisdictions will cave to their demands just to avoid legal proceedings, and they will sew more and more doubt about election processes in the minds of voters an legislators as time goes on. These groups and their tactics are worth knowing about since they have largely flown under the radar in election reporting thus far. And they are finding success in lobbying Republican elected officials. Being sober-minded and clear about how much work is happening to undermine democracy in the US is important for Christians, who should speak prophetically about the lengths to which many are going in order to protect idols of power and control.
I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a disabled parent, since I now have a baby (who’s sleeping in the next room as I type this). So I was fascinated to read this recent article interviewing a number of disabled parents about their experiences of joy, transformation, and also discrimination. One woman describes how people used to infantilize her, but now they praise her as a superhuman for being both disabled and a mother. Her husband explains how his already superhuman status as an amputee—who everyone assumes is a war hero—has rocketed into the stratosphere because of how low the bar is for even non-disabled fathers caring for children. You will also read about the all-too-common experience of a disabled mother being asked if she wants an abortion because her child will be like her, and the shock many people feel when they learn that people with dwarfism or spina bifida have romance and sex lives. It’s a privilege when people center marginalized stories like this, and helps me process through a lot of my own thoughts (which I may have to write down here one day) as well.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team