Friends of Darrius Stewart have created a Go FundMe Page for Darrius’ family. This too is part of the movement and we are asking you to contribute what you can. Below is the ask: This fund will be used to help finance the affairs of Darrius Stewart who suffered a premature death. We all know that death is costly and the arrangements necessary to bury a loved one with dignity is often expensive. This fund is in no way an... Read more
First posted at Tribal Church The person has been robbed and beaten. He’s bleeding on the side of the road. Unlike the Good Samaritan, we step over him. But we have really great reasons for why we do it. 1) We don’t want to put on a bandage, because we would not be fixing the deeper problems. I often hear this as a criticism of people who are actually doing the work of feeding the hungry. It is presented as an... Read more
On July 17, 2015, Officer Conner Schilling shot and killed Darrius Stewart after a routine traffic stop for a busted tail light. We here at R3 are following the story in an attempt to keep our readers informed and to report how the media is framing the story. The reporting here is from July 19-26. The Commercial Appeal (as well as other Memphis media outlets) is reporting the Officer Schilling is receiving death threats. “There have been threats and we... Read more
First posted at Rainbows and Lilacs I have always found the term post-racial to not only be peculiar and oxymoronic, but flat out asinine. (didn’t want to say stupid) How on God’s green Earth, and, more specifically God’s chosen land via the notion of the European settlers’ ideology of manifest destiny, which was an inkling of their impetus to settle in the New World, now known as the United States of America, a nation built and defined on the aesthetics of color and Race,... Read more
I attended yet another prayer vigil for an unarmed African American shot and killed by a police officer. No, I was not in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Charleston or in the state of Florida. I was here in Memphis, Tennessee. On Friday night, July 17, 2015, 26-year-old Memphis Police Officer Connor Schilling shot and killed 19– year old Darrius Stewart in front of one of our largest churches. According to police reports, officer Schilling pulled over a... Read more
R3 founder and managing editor, Dr. Andre E. Johnson, will offer the Topics in Rhetoric seminar class for the Fall 2015 term titled, “They Make This World So Damn Uncomfortable”: The African American Prophetic Tradition.” Dr. Johnson will teach the class on Thursday Nights starting August 27, 2015 from 5:30pm-8:30pm as part of the Graduate Program in Communication at the University of Memphis. Classes in the Topics of Rhetoric seminar typically focus on an important aspect of the history, theory, or criticism of rhetoric. Moreover,... Read more
Here are the top posts for the week of July 13-19, 2015 on the Rhetoric Race and Religion Blog. We ask that you share this with others. 1. We Have to Dismantle White Supremacy Before We Can Forgive by Leah C.K. Lewis Black—and usually Christian—forgiveness given freely, publicly, and without demand for recourse and redress of injury is exceedingly problematic in our communal quest for justice—personal and social. African Americans historically have been conditioned to humble ourselves at the altar of white... Read more
A documentary film by Kamasi Hill. Born in the Struggle is a documentary film that explores the lives of the children of 1960’s and 1970’s Radical Activists. In the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a resurgence of pride, identity, and a reclamation of power and self-determination. My family was a part of this movement and as I child, I was inculcated in it with my African name, my celebration of Kwanzaa, and my parents insistence that I understand and... Read more
On June 29, 2014, my dear SistaFriend, Mrs. Lakisha Michelle Fitzgerald Mitchell, transitioned from earth to eternity. We had been sisters, friends, confidants, laughing buddies, prayer partners, and leaning posts for what seemed like forever, but was really almost a couple of decades. I never had a biological sister. She was more than my sister – she was MY GIRL! Upon taking a few moments to reflect on where I was and what I was doing this time last year,... Read more
by Leah C.K. Lewis First posted at forharriet.com Shortly after the murders of the Mother Emanuel 9 in Charleston, our nation began a “conversation” about forgiveness. Nadine Collier, Ethel Lance’s daughter, forgave her mother’s murderer in what seemed like mere hours of the shooting. This stunning act of forgiveness provided us with a point of reflection. Then, at the terrorist’s bond hearing, Myra Thompson’s grandson, Anthony Thompson, conveyed his forgiveness. Christopher Singleton and his sister Camryn similarly forgave this same man who murdered their mother,... Read more
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