For those of us going to this year’s General Assembly conference, the UUA has compiled a fabulous list of tools to help us prepare. It includes readings, videos, books and activities.
Below are six videos featured in their list of preparatory tools. I’m using them to jump start my preparation. I invite you to do the same. Videos vary from the full length documentary 13th to a 3 minute clip of comedian Aamer Rahman.
Have a team going to General Assembly? Check in on your preparatory education and reflection plans. Besides making sure everyone knows about these tools to prepare for GA, you might want to plan an opportunity to watch one or more of these videos as a group.
I think I’m going to have a GA prep movie night… What about you? ~ Peter
1. Watch 10 Years after Katrina
Watch 10 Years after Katrina: Resilience, Recovery, and Reality (30 Minutes)
August 29, 2015 marks the tenth year since Hurricane Katrina became a platform for a conservative recovery agenda pushed by then President George W. Bush. This agenda spearheaded the privatization of public places and public services in New Orleans and the storm-damaged communities of the Gulf Coast Region. The inequities and unjust outcomes of this agenda are laid bare in the short film Ten Years after Katrina: “Recovery,” “Resilience” & REALITY produced by the Greater New Orleans Organizers Roundtable.
2. Watch the Rev. Dr. William Barber at GA 2016
Watch GA 2016 Event 214 – Rev. Dr. William Barber on The Third Reconstruction (1 Hour, 9 Minutes)
Rev. William Barber, II, leader of Moral Mondays, Forward Together and NAACP NC, speaks on his new book The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement (Beacon Press). He calls for a nation-wide moral revival and offers a blueprint for state-wide grassroots organizing.
Order The Third Reconstruction from the UUA Bookstore
Get The Third Reconstruction for Amazon Kindle
UUA Common Read Discussion Guide
3. Watch 13th on Netflix
Watch the documentary 13th on Netflix. Free month trial available. Directed by Ava DuVernay. (1 Hour, 40 Minutes)
In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
4. Watch Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed at 50th anniversary of the Selma Crossing
Watch the Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed speaking at conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma Crossing. (50 Minutes)
5. Watch TEDx Talk by Jay Smooth
Watch TEDx Talk by Jay Smooth How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race. (12 Minutes)
Jay Smooth is host of New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show, the Underground Railroad on WBAI 99.5 FM in NY, and is an acclaimed commentator on politics and culture.
6. Watch Hot Chicken Video with Devita Davison
Watch Hot Chicken Video with Devita Davison at the Social Capital Markets Conference 2016. (9 Minutes)
Nashville’s most famous chicken dish began as an act of vengeance by a spurned girlfriend of entrepreneur Thornton Prince in the 1930s. Instead of feeling burned, Prince was inspired and turned Hot Chicken into a thriving business. Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack is still in business but never grew outside of Nashville–even though his recipe is making money for others all over the world. At SOCAP16, Devita Davison of FoodLab Detroit told the full story of Hot Chicken, to illustrate cultural appropriation in action and the barriers to success that minority entrepreneurs often face.
6. Watch comic Aamer Rahman on Reverse Racism
Learn more about comedian Aamer Rahman (Fear of a Brown Planet) at aamerrahman.tumblr.com and on Twitter at @aamer_rahman. (3 Minutes)
Is this your first General Assembly? If so, this collaborative unofficial UUA General Assembly Survival Guide is for you!
Peter Bowden 