Racism, Racialism and Radical Regeneration

For the last few months I have been watching an online presentation/dialogue called 'New Thought On the News' produced by the AGNT with their executive director, Dr. Barbara Fields serving as host. This particular salon is structured around concepts found in Jim Kenney’s book Thriving in the Cross Current: Clarity and Hope in a Time of Cultural Seachange. These monthly exchanges are a little over an hour and this last one focused on racism, racialism and radical regeneration.

Recognizing that I, as well as Mr. Kenney come from that class of people considered as white, male and privileged and that our lived experience of racism is inadequate to allow us to speak for all people, nevertheless Mr. Kenney’s wisdom is distilled from deep engagement with major global institutions dedicated to establishing peace, justice and understanding in these troubled times. I understand that an hour is a significant commitment for many people and I was moved to produce a 15 minute edit of this last session focusing on Mr. Kenney’s opening remarks. Click on the image below to open the video on my Interfaith Advocate Vimeo site.

The most important takeaways are his development of the idea of two different types of racism and his belief, which I share, that the trend of development in our cultural values is inexorably upward and that there are moments in time where many patterns converge and truly marvelous changes are possible and further that we live in such times. I reached out to Dr. Fields and sent her the link to the video posted below. I was granted permission by the AGNT and Mr. Kenney to share this piece among the interfaith groups I’m working with.
Each of these salon sessions have been very stimulating and useful for me and I suspect they would be too many of you as well so here's the link to the AGNT site where the preliminary materials and all of the sessions thus far are available.