Racial Justice

Our Mission:

• Increase self-awareness of our own implicit biases and privilege
• Build awareness in our congregation about our own diversity and celebrate it
• Create and ensure a safe environment for all people involved with CBI
• Educate our congregation about the Jewish values of tikkun olam and racial justice
• Increase awareness of issues of racial injustice, bias, privilege and systemic racism
• Develop ways for congregants to become involved in efforts to further racial justice in our congregation, the Reform Jewish movement and the larger community

Our Vision: CBI WILL

• Be inclusive of people of all backgrounds and races and celebrate diversity
• Further awareness of systemic oppression faced by people of color and privileges of those perceived as white
• Through social and political action efforts, be an active ally in working with the Reform Jewish movement and local community groups involved in racial justice efforts

2021 Activities

Click HERE for more information about our NEW online learning series looking at the historical roots of today’s racial disparities in Sacramento and what we can do about them.
 

• The Fire Next Time … and This Time – Sunday, April 4, 4:00 – 5:30 pm. We continue CBI’s discussion of race in America. At this event, we’ll talk about three essays that can help us better understand the experiences of African Americans: 
  - James Baldwin’s essay, in the form to a letter to his nephew, from The Fire Next Time (1963)
  - Garnette Cadogan’s “ Black and Blue/Walking While Black ” (2016) from Jesmyn Ward’s The Fire This Time
  - Heather McGhee’s recent New York Times Op Ed, “ The Way Out of America’s Zero-Sum Thinking on Race and Wealth .” 

2020 Activities

Click HERE for more information about congregational discussions about the Movement for Black Lives. 

• 8/2/20: Book/video discussion: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and
  How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. (Zoom)
• 8/16/20: Article discussion: America, This Is Your Chance, Michelle Alexander’s NY Times Op-Ed, conversation with CBI members and civil rights attorneys Dorothy and Brian Landsberg (Zoom)
• 8/30/20: Discussion: Where Do We Go from Here?
  —an Oprah Winfrey Network Special with Black thought leaders about systemic racism and the current state of America. (Zoom)

Earlier this year:

1/14/20 Film discussion: 13th – Ava DuVernay’s award winning 2016 documentary about the U.S. prison system. Potluck dinner, film viewing, and discussion with Rabbi Alfi and confirmation class

1/19/20 Mitzvah Day activity: making signs for next day’s MLK, Jr. March for the Dream

1/20/20 Congregational participation: MLK, Jr. March for the Dream

3/29/20 Book discussion: The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity
by Eric L. Goldstein (Zoom) 

5/31/20: Congregational Discussion on ACA 5: Should CBI support this legislation to put repeal of Proposition 209 (1996 ballot measure that banned affirmative action in CA) on the November 2020 Ballot?

Selected Committee Events 2017-2019

• 1/20/17 Scholar in Residence Weekend with Ilana Kaufman, Public Affairs and Civic Engagement Director, Jewish Community Relations Council of the S.F. Bay Area
• 2/4/17 Embracing Sacramento Diversity Speaker Series: Ginger Rutland, Current Political Climate with respect to Minority Communities
• 3/26/17 Embracing Sacramento Diversity Speaker Series:  Eileen Sarasohn, A Jewish Perspective on the History of Japanese Americans in Sacramento
• 9/8/17 Embracing Sacramento Diversity Speaker Series:  Jason Lindo, A Native Hawaiian Living in the Sacramento Diaspora
• 10/8/17 Sukkot Teach-In with Brian Landsberg: The Construction of Race in US Courts and Public Policy 
• 10/29/17 Author Sheryll Cashin: Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy, co-sponsored with Sacramento Faces Race
• 12/9/17 Embracing Sacramento Diversity Speaker Series: Durriya Syed, Insight into Work Within the Interfaith and Muslim Communities
• 1/14/18 Mitzvah Day participation: landscaping at Bret Harte Elementary School
• 1/15/18 Congregational participation: MLK, Jr. March for the Dream 
• 3/24/18 Embracing Sacramento Diversity Speaker Series: The Hon. Emily Vasquez, Speaking from the Heart: The Long Journey as an Immigrant Latina in California
• 9/28/18 Drash and oneg sponsorship as lead- up to The New Jim Crow book discussion
• 10/14/18 and 11/18/18 B’nai Israel Reads: Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow book discussion 
• 12/9/18 The New Jim Crow Speaker: Local attorney Keith Staten
• 1/20/19 Mitzvah Day: making signs for next day’s MLK, Jr. March for the Dream
• 1/21/19 March for the Dream: walking together with South Sacramento Christian Center
• 1/27/19 Co-sponsored Rabbi Alfi’s book discussion: Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice
• 2/3/19 Theo Goodwin and panelists:  The Internment of Japanese Americans as Seen Through Jewish Law 
• 2/6/19 H.E.A.T. and Build.Black Panel: Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, Police Chief Daniel Hahn, ACT Community Organizer Ryan McClinton, CA Urban Partnership President Malaki Seku-Amen, Sierra Health Foundation consultant Tracy Stigler
• 9/8/19 Kick-off for Civil Right Tour Programming: Struggle & Romance in the Civil Rights Movement—Brian and Dorothy Landsberg’s Story
• 9/29/19 Cosponsored Sacramento premiere of award-winning documentary, ALTERNATIVE FACTS: The Lies of Executive Order 9066, panel discussion with filmmaker Jon Osaki and others
• 11/3/19 Film and discussion: The Hate U Give 
• 11/24/19 Book discussion: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson 
• 12/15/19 Article discussion: The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and related articles