Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep. 82: Showing up for justice when life gets hard (LIVE)

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Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW

This week, we’re bringing you our conversation from our live event on March 23. If we’re being real here (which we ALWAYS are), we know that many of us (especially in the Jewish community) are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and hurt by the state of the world. April and Tracie (and a couple of amazing community members!) give us some helpful framings and tips for processing and moving through our hurt, process our emotions, and get through to the other side. And spoiler alert: you don’t have to suffer in order to powerfully show up for justice!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Find the audio version with the full transcript here.

  1. Tracie mentioned at the beginning of the episode that she has noticed that many people are hurting right now because of what’s happening in the world (herself included). Let’s do a quick check-in. Do you relate? Do you ever find yourself detaching as a form of “solution”?

  2. April says that the fact that she is the daughter of a man who was wrongfully incarcerated guides everything that she does. What does she mean by this? Is there an experience in your life that guides everything or nearly everything that you do?

  3. What is your interpretation and experience of the messaging around self-love? What kind of messaging do you see? What do you make of what April is saying about the importance of self-love and how it is often dismissed as “toxic”?

  4. April describes how she has taken her experiences in an oppressive context during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement and developed liberatory skills to survive (and thrive). And, she’s noticed. If you are Jewish or Jewish-adjacent, what has this moment (in the past couple of months, or in whichever context we are currently in) been like for many in the Jewish community? How have the recent events surrounding the hostage situation in Colleyville, the controversy around Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments, and the war in Ukraine (among other things) impacted many in the Jewish community? What liberatory skills do you have (or not have) in this particular moment?

  5. What does the flower-bulb metaphor that Tracie is describing mean to you? How does it resonate?

  6. What skills for emotional processing do you have? What works for you? What is something that you want to try?

  7. What are the benefits of going through this kind of emotional processing, rather than shutting down, detaching, or ignoring our emotions? What have you noticed in yourself when you have allowed yourself to do this?

COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?

Let us know in the comments below!