Ep 71: Tu B’Shvat and MLK Day: Deepening the Roots of Racial Justice
Jan 13, 2022Episode 71
April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker
As MLK Day and Tu B'Shvat overlap this coming week, April and Tracie unpack the lessons we can learn from trees and their growth in our racial justice journeys. They get into the nuances and differences between treating the symptoms of oppression and injustice – often addressed through “service” – and diagnosing and healing the root causes. And, they think about what we can do to genuinely honor Dr. King’s legacy.
As MLK Day and Tu B'Shvat overlap this coming week, April and Tracie unpack the lessons we can learn from trees and their growth in our racial justice journeys. They get into the nuances and differences between treating the symptoms of oppression and injustice – often addressed through “service” – and diagnosing and healing the root causes. And, they think about what we can do to genuinely honor Dr. King’s legacy.
- [Tracie] January 17th, 2022 is both Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish new year of the trees, and Martin Luther King Jr day. For this convergence, we're holding the wisdom of the Talmud that tells us study is better than action, because it leads to action. And also the wisdom of Doctor King himself who reminded us, if we can not do great things, we can do small things in great ways.- [April] This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice with April and Tracie. A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker. In a complex world, change takes courage. Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- We have a very special weekend coming up, Tracie.- Indeed, indeed.- Yes, it includes both the new year for the trees Tu BiShvat which is such a fantastic holiday, and MLK day, woohoo! cue the confetti.(April whooshing air) Yay. And I think we spoke about this in our episode last year, but the first thing that immediately comes to mind, I think for both of us, when we see the proximity of these two wonderfully rich important holidays is how it aligns with our various teachings, and how we use often use a tree to represent one's journey. Our communities and individual, an individual's journey around powerfully, advancing racial justice. What's happening? Roots and taking time to grow, and eventually getting to the fruit. But after we've really established deep roots and a strong, trunk and relationships that are the branches that enable us to reach and grow and expand. And that this is a pathway of sustainable dynamic learning that is in alignment with the rigor and caliber, and brilliance of Doctor King's teachings, that challenge and encourage and implore us to move in the direction of courageous systemic change. So that's like the opening thought and frame of like, Ooh, this is so interesting. And, we took a little time to think about what slant we might take and you shared something that was really interesting, Tracie. So, I'd love.- Yeah, I wanna like very quickly have a footnote actually even just for, specifically for the trees. Even more this year, I'm remembering that the first three years of a fruit tree fruiting, like you're not allowed to eat the fruit. Like there's a there's kind of like a grace period where you give the tree time to just like be itself and grow. And, and that's really that's really resonating for me now in the way that we talk about, you know, our teaching about not rushing into action, like giving the roots and the relationships a chance to actually be who they will be before we start consuming. So anyway, I wanted to just like quickly footnote that, and then--- So good- Yeah, thank you. That it was feeling resonant for me as you were talking. And I was thinking about Tu BiShvat which this year is on MLK observed, right? So, erev Tu B'Shvat is Sunday. And then Tu B'shvat is Monday, which is.- I didn't realize they directly overlapped.- This year they do. So one of the things that we talked about before we hit record that's that's on my mind is I have heard people say that, you know, encouraged service work on Martin Luther King Day, and they want, they say,"It's not, it shouldn't be a day off, its a day on." Which is nice. And also a little misaligned in my mind. And as you and I talked about it, a little misaligned with Doctor King's legacy. And so far as though obviously King, and his co-conspirators took a lot of direct action. They were organizers working to try to address the root causes of oppression and poverty, and racism and--- Upstream.- Yeah, yeah. They were actually trying to get at what was causing those things and change them, as opposed to, as you say, downstream adjusting the symptoms of those things. And service almost always is symptoms, is addressing symptoms. I don't wanna use a like a superlative statement. I'm having a hard time thinking of a time it's not symptoms, treating symptoms. But that doesn't mean there aren't some, and that's not to say that if someone is suffering, we shouldn't try to ease suffering. But if we only ease suffering and don't try to root out the cause of suffering, then it's a never ending.- It's that to me, both are needed. We need systemic change and we need service. The key part here is from an anti-racist lens. If you are going to be honoring the legacy of a powerful systemic change agent? Like Doctor Martin Luther King, I don't want to necessarily poopoo that people are doing service. I think something is better than nothing, but I think that in time there is a higher bar that we can set, particularly for folks and institutions that are resourced to be able and have access to support, and move in the direction of advancing liberation in a more powerful sense. Basically, what I'm trying to say is to me, what's key about this is less about whether or not services useful, because I think both Tracie and I would agree that we need both, right? It's really important to prioritize the upstream interventions, and do the systemic work and in the meantime, people are suffering. And so there's places for all of us.'Cause all of us in all of that work. So, I want to be clear about that. But I think, what where we're trying to go with this, and to be clear, I'm making this clear I'm endeavoring to make this clear for you, the listener, not Tracie. I think Tracie and I are aligned. I'm just taking it further, but I think some people might hear it as me being in dialogue with Tracie I'm endeavoring to build on what Tracie has said and to add more emphasis, and a little bit more blackness to it, which is to say that MLK's legacy was not primarily about service. It was about radical courageous change in the direction of collective liberation and having the courage and bravery, and clarity to face things that feel unfaceble, to face things that are difficult and say,"I believe there's a better way." And through beloved community, through love, and through an unending commitment to justice, we're going to work to move this forward. So to me, that raises an interesting question around, now what do we do? And I was really clear with Tracie before we started recording that I'm really not endeavoring to critique what people specifically do on the holiday. Because again, particularly as someone who is a very a strong proponent of incremental shift and growth, and evolution, I don't think it's helpful to critique in my practice. I don't think it's helpful to critique people who are doing something. So, this is less about a critique of what is currently happening on MLK day, and to be clear in synagogues and Jewish organizations, and other communities, institutions all over the country, there's all kinds of fantastic efforts that are happening, and specifically on MLK day, some amazingly rich programs, that are not only great on that day, but also tie to that organization's work year round. So, I also want to lift up that there are great things happening before I get into a little bit more of what I want, and perhaps what Tracie wants too, right? But here's what I do want to say in honor of Doctor King's legacy and in the spirit of Tu BiShvat. That to me, one of the themes of Tu BiShvat is all, is in reflecting in the trees. To me, one of the core themes that arises around growth, and longevity and intergenerational change. Trees often live a very long time, longer than many humans, and they take a long time to grow, and they are mighty and strong over time. And so that feels important to note here, and to be additional context before what I say, what I'm going to say, which is that I, what I'm talking about is both a part of the journey, and in the branches of the mighty oak, right? But in time, so people who are doing service work, who have signed up to do service work, you're listening to listening to this, or you just saw that service work was happening, and you thought that was good, in a world where a lot of service work isn't happening, that is good. I'm not saying that's not good. And what I would love in time to see is people taking time and having opportunities to dive more deeply into Doctor King's thought leadership and writings. Besides the sound bites and the water down sound bites, and get into the nuance and the depth, and the courage and the bravery and take time to study that. At times, and I've already acknowledged that there's some really wonderful things happening, right? And I think for a lot of different groups at the same time, MLK day is a checkbox. So they do it. They didn't used to do it and now they do it, and it's a checkbox and they do some service, and then they move on. And that is fundamentally not what MLK's vision and legacy is about. That's not what his leadership was about. That's not what his legacy is about. And so to honor his legacy and the peoples and values, and vision he stood for. Here's some things that I think we could do instead, or in addition to in time. I think having different va'ads or study circles that culminate on MLK day or that launch on MLK day, that dive deeply into different texts of passages he wrote. And also perhaps you could include the passages of different women, queer and other male leaders of that time with whom he was in relationship, right? So, you could also take a bit of a movement lens, and read those texts and engage with them, pull out from them or better yet, perhaps also pull in some of the thought leadership of more contemporary leaders who have already done that work, contemporary leaders of color, who have already pulled out, who don't often get lifted up as much, who are brilliant scholars and social change makers who are highly respected. I'm not talking about Billy from around the corner, talking about the various, I don't want to lift any one specific, but just different scholars and respected folks who have already done some of this work. And I've written works that summarize this and say,"After studying this work for years or an extended period of time, here are the key takeaways from this, right? Or if you want to, you can also go through and pull them out yourself and say,"So what is MLK saying from this? And then do that, and then check and check and see if that aligns with the thought leadership of respected black leadership around this, and liberation leaders. And from there in the context in which you're in, and your specific identity and positionality start to consider one potentially, did you understand what you read? Because as we often know know, or as Tracie and I are aware, people read things and they get part of it, but they don't get others. So take more time, like the rings of a tree. Like you got the little circle, get a bigger circle, get a bigger circle, like go deeper. Like, and or if we go, we'll go with the root metaphor, like dig your roots deeper into not only becoming aware, but actually really understanding, and be in relationship with the text. And this is something as Jews that we have a lot of relationship and history, and interpersonal spiritual technology around of how to engage vigorously with a text, and endeavor to unpack it, right? And then from there begin to consider and, or start to take action. But I think people go to take action often too quickly. How can you start to incorporate this insight into your life? And if it feels hard, don't rush. Take on one piece at a time. If it takes you a while to really consider after reading a text, boy, goodness, I really don't see every person as my sibling. That feels like a real stretch. You could just take some time working on that part.- So, I'm thinking about another metaphor out of Tu BiShvat. At the Tu BiShvat seder there are four cups of wine, much like our Passover seder. And the difference is you start with, I don't remember, I'm sorry. I don't remember if we start with red and move to white or start with white and move to red, but you start with one and then you, the first is all of one color. And the second is mainly the one color with a little bit of the second. And then the third is reverse and then fourth is all of the second color. And so I'm thinking about that kind of incremental change of the four cups of the seder the Tu BiShvat seder as a way to like ease into moving from service work into like really trying to address root causes if that's the route you need to take. Because both are needed. And we hope to get to a place where we've addressed the root causes, and the services no longer needed in the same way. The other thing that I'm, it's on my mind actually this year, this coming weekend, once you're listening to this, my synagogue through my direction is doing a program about MLK and we have over 20 co-sponsors. And folks, this is the model that I want to lay out. So, we will be reading together the letter from a Birmingham jail and talking about it. We'll be talking about--- We'll be reading a snippet or a quote of a letter, Tracie?- We'll be reading 90% of the letter together. So, we actually have some great, yeah we actually have two drama students from the Baltimore School from the arts, School for the Arts, excuse me, who will be delivering as dramatic readings, two very large sections of the letter. So, we'll be discussing it with organizers, and a black pastor who was also a change maker, and a King scholar, Taylor Branch. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning King scholar, and other historian. And the last thing that we'll say in this session, or we'll be able to invite participants to commit to what their next effort will be because MLK learning can't be...like if we do it once a year, we're totally missing the point. And so, and that next thing is gonna be different for different people, for however many participants we have, we'll have that many next things. For some people, as April says, it's gonna involve like doing some really tough inner work, working on like how, what do I need to do to open the channels of compassion, to think of everyone as my sibling. For other people, it'll be much more direct. Like I wanna take action and show up at the state house to advocate for this policy. There also will be service options, the Jewish Volunteer Connection here in Baltimore, we'll be offering service options the following day. So, I think I guess the TLDR of what I'm saying is, service is great but learning and internal change, and change of structures is also essential. And the one without the other is incomplete.- And ideally should be primary. And I would, I go and I would go further to say, and ideally should be primary. And that if we're doing service, that's not, doesn't have the analysis. That's not grounded in analysis. It has limited. It has a finite capacity to be meaningful.- It's hard to avoid saviorism without the additional analysis. It's hard to like not imagine yourself as that hero who's coming in and rescuing, which takes agency away from people affected when you are like the star of your own movie. And I say this as someone who's a recovering savior. And to that point, I come back to the Tu B'shvat, the Talmud's prohibition against eating the fruit the first three years that a tree fruits. And that's assuming like there are years as it's growing before it's even capable of fruiting. So this is.- Yep, okay. So I think the next part of this Tracie is that I would like to do some visioning. And I also, before I start that, would love to share some prompts with folks, and would love to know that you are also thinking about this and potentially to hear from you, if you wanna email us a hello at joyousjustice.com, and share some of your visions, we'd love to hear them. So, based upon what we've shared and perhaps some of your own preexisting or now new analysis about some of these dynamics, how can we continue to grow and evolve in our observance of MLK day and continue to integrate the blessings of his memory, and thought leadership into elements of our living? What might that look like, right? I would love in time for us to be more deeply engaged in working for systemic change, and to align that work with an understanding that we are when we are doing that work, we are working in alignment with amazing revolutionary brilliant leaders like Doctor King. Because some of us are doing that work. But I think we don't, I would like to make sure that we remember his legacy accurately and also use it to help leverage and support ourselves the numbers in our community and moving toward more courageous action that moves us in the direction of collective liberation. Yavilah McCoy has often said, we have not arrived. We have only agreed to go. So, that's always in a state of evolution, but I would love for MLK days to look more like rigorous study and bold visioning sessions. I would love for it to look like a celebration and honoring of MLK's legacy and a celebration and honoring of the courageous action that community has done over the last year, and taking time to savor it, and debrief it and clarify, okay? How can we continue to be brave or be more brave in the coming year or perhaps that you've done that work prior to the event and then you're sharing it out with that team that's doing that is sharing that out with the community about what are the results of a collective communal process around savoring and celebrating what we've done well and saying, "Okay, where can we be more bold in our action?" Where can we be more loving and compassionate? How can we do a better job of cultivating beloved community? Maybe we're actually taking effective action, but not of our, all of our relationships. Maybe we're not fully in right relationship with each other. And in the spirit of what Doctor King taught, we wanna take some time over the coming year. To keep moving forward with the action, but really start practicing relationship before task, and bringing more humanity and compassion, and intentional love, loving mindfulness, weaving that more intentionally throughout our work, and throughout our interactions together. And recognizing that our relationship with internally with ourselves interpersonally with each other is the epicenter of, and the foundation. Or if we go back to the Tu BiShvat theme, the roots, the roots of this, right? So, we're doing some effective things, but they're not going quite as effectively. And people often focus on the actions, whereas it's better to go back to what are the thoughts we're thinking, 'How are our relationships?" How can we cultivate more trust with each other? And that can often lead to dramatically improved results downstream, right? So, that's my hope. And I don't think, and still, and my hope is that while that's happening, that there is great service work that's happening. And, but that maybe less over time we continue to evolve and strengthen our thinking. And maybe we find a different leader who really represented service and attach that to a holiday that we're acknowledging for them, and stick to doing work that moves us. And even so even still, there's a way in which I could see service work being a part of that. If there was learning that was happening before, and during that, if in fact those folks are the, if that's a ladder of engagement within your organization where they're doing service work, which then moves them in the direction of more deeply understanding. What are the causes of why we even have to do this, and why these constituents are in this situation? And what is the part implicitly or what's that, what's the word I'm looking for a tacitly or perhaps directly that I am the communities, and institutions. I'm a part of have been complicit. That's what that's sort of a complicity is the word I'm looking for have been complicit in this happening, right? If it's a part of a journey that, with that, where that actually we're seeing that through then, that's cool. But I'm really here for everyone feeling good about what they're doing on MLK day, and really honoring his legacy and the legacy of lots of civil rights leaders, especially women and queer leaders who didn't get their same do of duo recognition, but who very much informed and strengthened the movement in general and specifically Doctor King's, thought leadership and thinking. I think we've talked about this in an episode before, too, but we'll probably talk about it again. And all of this also. And if some of this feels like a bit of a stretch, feel free, although it might even be more of a stretch, feel free to check out rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel's, thought leadership and everything we said about Doctor King applies for rabbi Heschel too. It's been sound bitten. And his thought leadership is brilliant and brave, and can be incredibly instructive, inspiring, and inspiring for us. So, my vision is in time in the ways that we need that. Not necessarily everyone, but more leaders in our spaces take some time to become more intellectually intimate with the leadership and dream and visions and wisdom of movement, elders and founders, who we cite today and really aligned with that. To me, it's the equivalent, not the equivalent, but it's kind of similar to a number of people in our Jewish community understandably don't want the Torah misquoted or to cherry pick specific parts, and then leave out others, right? Like there's in most synagogues, they don't have Torah study sporadically, when they have resources to do that. They have it every week. And so I'm not saying that we have to do Doctor King study every week, but there's a principle there around upping the level of integrity and commitment to being proximate to that insight and wisdom, and then getting support like from Joyous Justice and other amazing leaders, many other amazing leaders to figure out how to integrate this into your life.- The last thing I'll say, and this actually kind of goes with the Torah study metaphor is if you're doing, or if you're reading, if you're thinking about King, and this is regardless of your identity, I think, I think. I'm open to being corrected or nuanced on this. But if you're feeling like super comfortable, like, yeah, right on I'm, I'm doing that already. Then you need to keep reading and find something else like it should be making you feel a little uncomfortable King, Heschel. They were spiritual activists. They were driven by their faith, and there's no shirking away. And there's no sort of like,"Oh, well, that doesn't feel good., and So, I'm not gonna do it" when it comes to that kind of faith-driven change. You know? I mean, I think the folks who sort of for king day, like put a quote card on Facebook about the content of character in order to justify their "colorblindness," I'm putting quotes around "colorblind." They need to go back and reread and read something else, read the Letter because, and King spoke too to... in the Letter to fellow clergy-people who were more interested in the absence of conflict than an actual piece and or an actual justice. That's agitational, and it's supposed to be, and King was not well regarded by a lot of people at the time because he said agitational things. And so I guess I'm inviting myself and the rest of us to allow ourselves to be agitated this...- Or stretched.- This MLK weekend so that we can stretch so that we can grow because comfort does not lead to growth.- And honor his legacy, or I'm going to go or opt to not honor his legacy. And just be honest about it.- Right, yes, thank you. Amen.- You know, but if we're going to do it to move in that direction, and like I said, it's fine if it's a scale. And if we if you're not quite where, what we're saying, that's okay. But to be in a process of moving in that direction, even if it's just a little step at a time.- [April] Thanks for tuning in. Our shows theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.