B'more I N C R E M E N T A L

REFLECTIONS FROM BALTIMORE ON RACE, JUSTICE, & CHANGE

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The Talmud and White Fragility

Mar 19, 2018
4 min

The Talmud and White Fragility

I first read How Studying Talmud Helped Me Understand Racism in America at a legislative kick-off for Jews United for Justice in January. On initial reading I felt it was just a new way to say ideas I was already familiar with, namely intention does not equal impact. But the more I processed this essay, the more I realized Avi Killip is actually saying something more nuanced. Killip overlays categories of injury from the Talmud onto racism. These categories were articulated b

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Blue fear vs. Black lives

Jun 17, 2017
3 min

Blue fear vs. Black lives

This morning, I spontaneously awoke before five. In my mind was the image of Philando Castille, bleeding to death in the passenger seat of a car, a gun still pointed at him. The world watched his last breaths alongside his fiancee, with their little girl in the backseat. He was executed by an officer who was sworn to protect the Constitution. His crime was making the officer afraid--so afraid that he unloaded seven rounds from his state-issued weapon. Yesterday, a jury acquit

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My President Was Black

May 12, 2017
5 min

My President Was Black

Ta-Nehisi Coates rose to the nation’s attention when his book, Between the World and Me won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. I selected that book for our reading discussion group in March of 2016, and then in April we read Coates’ Atlantic article, The Case for Reparations, published in 2014. I have found Coates to be a master of our shared language and an insightful commentator on race and history, so I read hungrily when, in the January/February issue of the Atl

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