RESOURCES AND RECAP
Led by: Katie Loncke
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SPEAKER: KATIE LONCKE, BUDDHIST PEACE FELLOWSHIP
Watch this webinar:
SPEAKER: KATIE LONCKE, Buddhist Peace Fellowship
*Real-time captioning will be provided for this webinar.
As a mindfulness practice community, we aim to support the unraveling of our conditioning into anti-black racism, as well as the growth of inclusive, equitable, and beloved communities. In order to do that, we must first understand the experience of people of African descent, including understanding how anti-blackness can be as overt as police killings and as subtle as unmindful speech or being passed over for a work promotion.
Anti-black racism is the cause of enormous wealth disparities between White and Black individuals. And, anti-black racism is at the root of high rates of maternal disease and infant mortality rates in Black women, as well as the root cause of the inequity of deaths from COVID-19 today.
The COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting communities of color because of the systemic racism that allows segments of our population to have less access to healthcare and health insurance and therefore worse health outcomes. At the same time, Black people continue to face exposure to the virus because they provide the essential skills that keep our country going, such as transportation, nursing, restaurant work, and so much more.
There are many more ways that anti-black racism affects our country and individual people with black skin on a daily basis. We must understand how anti-black racism continues to survive in our communities and how we can dismantle it together. Please join us for what will be a very important and inspiring webinar.
Resources shared by Katie
Feel free to explore before the webinar, although it is not a prerequisite for joining.
1. Sade, "Immigrant" (YouTube, with lyrics)
2. Guardian, "Black Americans Are Dying In Greater Numbers from Covid-19"
3. [Forthcoming April 17th] GET OUT: Wisdom for Scary Times, interview with Kate Johnson and Larry Ward (transcript will be available)
4. [Optional Bonus]: if you want to know what kind of dharma(s) the kids are listening to... Mama Solaris, "Live Energy Update" (YouTube, 1 hour, no transcript) (content advisory: cursing, frank discussion of sexuality)
Katie Lonke (they/them), Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship will lead this webinar. Katie has traveled among "angelic troublemakers"* for over 20 years; engaged Buddhists for over 12;** and Black liberation lineages for generations — with family stretching back to West Africa via the Caribbean and so-called West Indies.
Katie will share their experience and knowledge about these and other aspects of anti-black racism:
How anti-Black racism shows up in the COVID-19 pandemic
Blackness as a social construct, both 'real' and 'not-real,' and relevance to non/duality
Black is Beautiful: appreciation vs. appropriation among Black & non-Black people
*A favorite, famous phrase from queer Black Civil Rights genius Bayard Rustin.
**Primarily in the Insight / Theravada lineage via S.N. Goenka, Ajahn Chah, Venerable Sayadaw U Pandita, and their Western students, including anti-racist teachers at the world-renowned East Bay Meditation Center.
Read more about Katie below:
Katie graduated from Harvard University with a focus on Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; a minor in African American studies; and a nontrivial degree of bitter disappointment at the dubious relevance of Ivy League education to the everyday struggles of Black and Brown people.
Apprenticing under undocumented immigrants; revolutionary feminists in addiction and recovery; queer and trans prison abolitionists; tree-sitters; anti-capitalists; labor union organizers; and disability justice leaders; Katie has applied theory, writing, mutual aid, and nonviolent direct action in a wide range of cutting-edge intersectional issues — from housing justice, to Arctic drilling, police brutality, solidarity with indigenous sovereignty, and the Black Lives Matter movement to end state violence against Black bodies, domestically and internationally. For the past 8 years Katie has served as a Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, supporting "secret Buddhists" embedded in social movements, and living into the paradox of accepting the world as it is, while fighting like heck to change it. Katie loves a good pun, a long walk, and a cool drink on a hot and humid summer day.
Please join us for this webinar to hear more about Katie’s story and learn how to be part of the solution to anti-blackness. With your support and presence, we will continue to bring awareness and transformation to these injustices.