For our February JEDI Book Club, we will be reading White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao on Mighty Networks.

Below is a summary from Goodreads.

A no-holds-barred guidebook aimed at white women who want to stop being nice and start dismantling white supremacy.

It’s no secret that white women are conditioned to be nice, but did you know that the desire to be perfect and to avoid conflict at all costs are characteristics of white supremacy culture?

As the founders of Race2Dinner, an organization which facilitates conversations between white women about racism and white supremacy, Regina Jackson and Saira Rao have noticed white women’s tendency to maintain a veneer of niceness, and strive for perfection, even at the expense of anti-racism work.

In this book, Jackson and Rao pose these urgent questions: how has being nice helped Black women, Indigenous women and other women of color? How has being nice helped you in your quest to end sexism? Has being nice earned you economic parity with white men? Beginning with freeing white women from this oppressive need to be nice, they deconstruct and analyze nine aspects of traditional white woman behavior–from tone-policing to weaponizing tears–that uphold white supremacy society, and hurt all of us who are trying to live a freer, more equitable life.

White Women is a call to action to those of you who are looking to take the next steps in dismantling white supremacy. Your white supremacy. If you are in fact doing real anti-racism work, you will find few reasons to be nice, as other white people want to limit your membership in the club. If you are not ticking white people off on a regular basis, you are not doing it right.

Register at this link.

Please feel welcome to attend, even if you missed earlier book club meetings. This is an open group, and we understand that our lives are busy and not everyone will be able to attend each month!

The JEDI Book Club is facilitated by Resilient Activists Brenda Bennett-Pike and Anne Melia. We hope you will join us!

The Resilient Activist’s

Climate Café

Support as we Navigate Climate Change

February 28, 2022

Our Simple & Kind Acts for Earth

Fourth Tuesday of each month

6:00-7:30 pm Central

Hosted on our Mighty Networks Online Community via Zoom

Come join our reflective, wintry atmosphere this Climate Café on Mighty Networks to talk about Our Simple & Kind Acts for Earth.

We will be uplifting each other about our positive acts for the Earth and explaining our philosophies behind them. Whether it be living in simplicity, active choices, or creating new habits; we welcome all to share and learn from each other.

This is your best opportunity to connect with a community that gets you, with folks who are experiencing many of the emotions that climate change has brought out in your heart and mind.

There is nothing for you to commit to except to gather your favorite beverage, a journal, find a comfortable spot with your Zoom window open, and just be you.

Each session will include facilitators from The Resilient Activist as well as a Climate-Aware Therapist to guide the conversations in ways that are supportive and nurturing.

Meet your friends. Speak your #ClimateTruth.

For the March JEDI Book Club, we will be reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and discussing it on Mighty Networks.

“I give daily thanks for Robin Wall Kimmerer for being a font of endless knowledge, both mental and spiritual.” —RICHARD POWERS, NEW YORK TIMES

Here is the Goodreads Summary:

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth and learning to give our own gifts in return.

Register at this link.

Please feel welcome to attend, even if you missed earlier book club meetings. This is an open group, and we understand that our lives are busy and not everyone will be able to attend each month!

The JEDI Book Club is facilitated by Resilient Activists Brenda Bennett-Pike and Anne Melia. We hope you will join us!

Also, check out Robin Wall Kimmerer exemplifying what she teaches in her book in this beautiful video made by The Commons KU.

GIFTS OF THE LAND | A Guided Nature Tour with Robin Wall Kimmerer | The Commons KU – YouTube

The Resilient Activist’s

Climate Café

Support as we Navigate Climate Change

March 28, 2022

Imperfect Activism

Fourth Tuesday of each month

6:00-7:30 pm Central

Hosted on our Mighty Networks Online Community via Zoom

At March’s Climate Café on Mighty Networks, there will be time to reflect on our own imperfect activism.

Imperfect activism has many different areas of discussion, including (but not limited to):

• giving up
• forgiving yourself and moving forward
• mistakes of the past
• lack of knowledge
• pushing ourselves past our limit
• self-criticism and guilt
• not appreciating small victories
• picking the lesser of two evils

The sun rises and it sets. The water keeps moving. We too must follow the paths of the current of our life. Let’s talk about those sticks in the mud, the rocks, and the falls that we have had to endure while finding our way past.

This discussion will be guided by a climate-aware therapist, Ashley Radtke, who is on a mission to support change-makers as they pursue ambitious work while honoring their playful, messy, explorative self. Ashley uses the lens she cultivated as a system-focused therapist to find patterns and context that can boost change or maintain stability in the work of environmental stewardship. (https://www.radtkecounseling.com/ )

This is your best opportunity to connect with a community that gets you, with folks who are experiencing many of the emotions that climate change has brought out in your heart and mind.

There is nothing for you to commit to except to gather your favorite beverage, a journal, find a comfortable spot with your Zoom window open, and just be you.

Meet your friends. Speak your #ClimateTruth.

The Resilient Activist’s

Climate Café

Support as we Navigate Climate Change

April 25, 2022

Open Mic for Storytelling, Poetry, and Song

Fourth Tuesday of each month

6:00-8:00 pm Central

Hosted on our Mighty Networks Online Community via Zoom

This joyous meeting will be for the opening of our voices to each other through storytelling, poetry, and song (voice or instruments).

This meeting will last 2 hours instead of the normal hour and a half. Everyone will have time to share at least 1-2 original pieces (or more!), depending on time. You also are welcome to simply come and listen.

We are excited to express our creativity this month and sing joyously for the coming of spring!

Guidelines for Climate Café Open Mic

• Take risks. There is no judgment here.
• We will have time for reflection and conversation after each performance.
• We will popcorn from act to act and once everyone has performed, we will have another chance for more to be shared.
• We are respectful of others’ unique voices.
• We listen and are interested in each other’s views, and we don’t try to impose our own.
• Silence is fine. Performance is not required.
• Tears and all emotions have a place.
• Performances are not recorded.

This is your best opportunity to connect with a community that gets you, with folks who are experiencing many of the emotions that climate change has brought out in your heart and mind.

There is nothing for you to commit to except to gather your prepared piece, find a comfortable spot with your Zoom window open, and just be you. We can’t wait to share and connect with you.