1 Entry Points: Music and Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, interviewed by NPR’s Diane Rehm on his work in Haiti and many other places around the world. Farmer’s latest book, To Repair the World, takes its title from a central tenet of Jewish spirituality that I reference in Hope Sings: tikkun olam, which means “the reparation,” the “making good,” the “rescuing to make good what is left of this smashed world.”

 

 

 

 

Gerard Fortune, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1990

 

 

 

 

Jean Walton, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1979

 

 

 

The Landfill Harmonic, the children of Catuera, Paraguay, and their “recycled” orchestra

 

 

 

Sweet Honey in the Rock (official website)

“Wade in the Water” (Ysaye Barnwell in this performance is seated third from left)

“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”

 

 

 

Odetta sings “Motherless Child”

 

 

 

 

Negro spirituals: a website devoted to the spirituals, their history, meaning, and performance

 

“Rejoice Always,” James Martin, SJ, reflects on the coincidence of joy and sorrow in the Christian life, and especially in the African American spirituals tradition. 

 

 

Bobby McFerrin, NPR interview, on the spirituals as sung prayer

 

 

 

 

“Tell the Truth” – Poet Maxine Hong Kingston, in this interview with Bill Moyers, describes her work with military veterans and their families to help bring healing and hope through storytelling, poetry and community. A stunning window into the sacramental power of language to unite and build-up persons and community, rather than divide. To act so as to make something different happen through words.

Additional resources for Chapter 1

 

Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Mark Curnutte describes his experiences of becoming “one of them” while waiting on line at the Freestore Food Bank in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati. (Photo by Michael E. Keating)

Mark reports from Cincinnati’s urban core. He has also written a deeply moving account of his time in Haiti. Sr. Helen Prejean has justly called him “the conscience of Cincinnati.” I’m honored Mark will be blogging here at “Raids Across the Color Line.”

 

 

Author Sally Steenland here offers a cogent analysis of racism as a “structural sin” or institutionalized evil, bound up with a constellation of systemic causes and effects of public policy in US society. Steenland takes her starting point from the controversy, in June 2013, surrounding celebrity chef Paula Deen and her admission of using racist language.

 

 

 

“Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequality”: filmmaker Shakti Butler explains why she made the film, with other clips and resources, including interviews with Michelle Alexander, Tim Wise, and many others.