Looking back for clear eyes
Why antiracism work is so crucial
It’s good to be back in my city 🌇
I flew back to NYC yesterday afternoon, and as the plane banked over the city and I could see the glittering lights of the skyline, I honestly teared up a little bit. I love New York, and I’m excited for the holiday season in the city! I have to be careful about my spending this year, but I still want to get out and go work from libraries and meander through markets and just exist in the vibrancy of a New York winter.
From the heart 💗
Let’s talk about racism, shall we? Also the Bible features heavily.
Well, we’re talking more about antiracism in this issue. I’ve been thinking about it lately, as some memories from my college years were excavated, and I spent time in South Carolina last week, and just in general the entire temperature of the country has shifted since the election.
I was applying for a freelance job recently that indicated antiracism was a core value, and I thought — what a relief. What a beautiful thing to see in a job listing, this commitment to undoing systems of white supremacy and fighting back against the status quo.
And then I was thinking about school curriculum, and the battle between those who would teach children to see the past clearly so as not to repeat it, and those who would put a happy smiling face over the travesties this country has committed out of fear that white kids might “hate themselves1.”
Last weekend in Charleston, I shared with my writing retreat housemates a stroy from my college journalism years, in which I had the opportunity to silence a very self-important and self-righteous school administrator by sharing my theory that the Bible is nothing if not a seminal, ancient work of journalism.
I mean, think about it — if you believe that the Bible is a collection of true stories, which most Christians do, what is that if not journalism? A recounting of what happened, the good, bad, and ugly all mixed together and shaken up in a 600-whisper-thin-page tome.
The Bible doesn’t shy away from pointing out when its heroes fuck up. Hello, ever heard of David? He knocked up another man’s wife then had the husband killed. What a shitty thing to do! There are more stories like that, of course, but my mind is blanking ont them2 at the moment. The point stands.
I guess the point is this: stories of the past are often meant to teach us something; sometimes, that something is “hey, y’all were racist and genocidal freaks and you ought to stop doing that.” That’s how I view the history of the US. We came to a land that didn’t belong to us and tried to wipe out by murder or assimilation its existing peoples; we brought with us human beings we’d stolen from another continent and forced them to labor to build wealth and a thriving economy. We’ve never really made reparations for either of those huge crimes. The least — the literal very least — we can do is look at the past with clear eyes, accept our complicity in the white supremacist structure of this country, and meaningfully swear to do better.
Antiracist teaching isn’t about making white kids feel guilty; it’s about making us aware of our past crimes so we see the signs of future crimes and put our feet down to stop them.
From the camera roll 📸
It’s never too early for Christmas lights!
From the shelf 📚
We Could Be So Good3, by Cat Sebastian
Hi, before I get started talking about this book, I just gotta — AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I can maybe be less feral.
MY GOD Y’ALL I NEED EVERY ONE OF YOU TO BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT EXPEDITIOUSLY AND WRITE ME ABOUT IT4.
I just. Fuck. This book. It’s so good. I read it at the insistence of my friend Alex and, having already read the sequel, I knew it would be good. But this book hooked its claws into me from the very first line.
Y’all, the absolute longing this book made me feel. The way I fell into the world so absolutely that I thought I, too, was hanging out in that fourth-story walk-up with Nick and Andy. The way I highlighted so many lines because they could have been yanked from my own soul.
It’s about a newspaper reporter and his BFF the soon-to-be publisher who fall in love in 1960s New York, and it’s simply so gay and glorious and good. Please buy it and talk to me about how perfect it is. Thank you, good-bye!
Alla prossima 👋
I’m all out of words for the week. Be good to each other.
— Karis xoxo
I’m ngl, I have a whole newsletter’s worth of thoughts on the “but the white kids will hate themselves” argument, but that’s….not for today!
Listen, it’s been a few years since I’ve cracked the Bible open. I’m proud I remember anything at all!
That’s a Bookshop.org affiliate link — should you purchase through it, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you!
Oops, still too feral?
Yesss I love this