#justiceOPportunity Thursday: June 4, 2020

It’s #justiceOPportunity Thursday, and we are experiencing deeply troubling times.  Living through these months of varied responses to the pandemic has stretched us all emotionally and physically. The unanticipated adjustments to daily living have left many of us tired and perhaps “on edge.”  And now, we are being tested in the depths of our souls as we come face-to-face with the racism that is so deeply ingrained in our society. Some of you are asking how to respond, what to do, what to say, what to…!

What is needed is both a change of heart and structural change. We would like to suggest various paths toward this and invite you to choose one or all of these knowing that the time has come for each of us to become part of the solution.

• Watch the video clip of Governor Gavin Newsom on the death of George Floyd. If you have already watched this, you might want to watch again and encourage others to watch it with you.  Then reflect on it and discuss the governor’s assessment, insights, and challenges.
  WATCH VIDEO: Governor Newsom on the Death of George Floyd
• Sign up for the Georgetown University Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life webinar at 9 am PST this Friday, June 5 (no cost; RSVP required), “Racism in our Streets and our Structures.”“We must examine our own attitudes and actions in order to seek conversion from sin and turn our hearts towards Christ in order to end personal and structural racism…. This moment calls us to be the Church of hope that Jesus Christ created us to be in a world full of pain and despair.”   —Archbishop Wilton Gregory, May 31, 2020
  LISTEN/RSVP to the Georgetown University Webinar
• DEEPEN AWARENESS through books such as “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, and “Small Great Things” by Jodi Picoult; and with the Netflix documentary “13th,” the movie “Just Mercy” (now free for streaming), the movie “Selma”, and the movie “12 Years a Slave.”
• READ and TAKE ACTION:  75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice and find concrete actions white and non-black individuals can take.