Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

In an achievement-oriented culture, how do we risk vulnerability in order to move toward personal and racial healing? Cognitive therapist Niro Feliciano talks with Amy Julia about the complexities of privilege, race and identity, affluence and anxiety, and the hurt and the hope found within communities of faith.SHOW NOTES:Niro Feliciano is a certified cognitive therapist and co-founder of a multi-specialty mental health group in Connecticut where she treats anxiety in adults and adolescents. Connect with Niro: nirofeliciano.com, her All Things Life podcast, @niro_feliciano on Instagram, and Niro Feliciano, The Incidental Therapist on Facebook.“Race is a part of my identity and it is so much a part of my relationships.”“Affluence contributes to...anxiety and depression.”“Identity and value is so linked to accomplishment.”“Starting in the home, we have to validate our families and our kids for who they are and not what they do. We can’t constantly be focused on the achievement.”“I am sure about Jesus. When we say Christianity and the Church has not always been inclusive, my feeling is—Jesus always has been.”“Be compassionate towards yourself. Forgive yourself.”On the Podcast:Podcast episodes with Niro: Super Bowl episode and White Picket Fences episodeNiro’s podcast: All Things Life“The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” by James Weldon Johnson“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race” by Beverly Tatum“Caste: The Origins of Discontents” by Isabel WilkersonNiro’s blog post on ridgefieldmom.comThank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book “White Picket Fences,” and today we are talking about chapter 7. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

Fear often inhabits both wealth and poverty. How does viewing money and self-sacrifice through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus bring freedom and joy? Writer and speaker Marlena Graves, author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself, talks with Amy Julia about wealth, poverty, faith, and the freedom that comes from being filled up with God’s love.SHOW NOTESMarlena Graves received her M.Div. from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York and is pursuing her Ph.D. in American Culture Studies as she researches the influence American culture has on Evangelicals’ view of immigration, race, and poverty. Connect with Marlena: marlenagraves.com; @marlena.graves on Instagram, @marlena.propergraves on Facebook, and @MarlenaGraves on Twitter.“Money can’t buy happiness or joy or peace. We can use money that God has given us for God’s ways, but to think that [money by itself] is going to satisfy—it really doesn’t.”“The way of Jesus is to use whatever God has given us and whatever station of life we are in for God’s Kingdom.”“The only way I can love people, love my neighbor, is if I am in tune and paying attention to God.”“Prayer is putting your gaze upon God.”On the Podcast:Scripture: Amos 5:24; James 5:1-6; Matthew 13; Matthew 19:24; Luke 5:27–32; Luke 19:1-10; Luke 9:51-56; Mark 9:35; Matthew 25Rich MullinsPope FrancisPenny’s diagnosis of Down syndromeThank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences, and today we are talking about chapters 6 and 7. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

What is the difference between equality and equity and how does that affect education? Subira Gordan, executive director of ConnCAN, talks with Amy Julia about the lack of equity in education, the effects this has on opportunities for children, the role of antiracism in education, and the questions we can ask to move our communities toward affirming antiracist policies.SHOW NOTES:Subira Gordan is the executive director of ConnCAN, an organization that is “leading a movement to improve education outcomes for Connecticut’s kids...to ensure that all kids in The Constitution State have access to a high-quality education, regardless of their address.” Connect with ConnCAN at @ConnCAN on Facebook and @conncan on Twitter.“Your ZIP code should not determine your future.”“Education is a great equalizer.”“Everyone wants to keep what they have, and they don’t recognize that what they have was made possible by government policies.”“We should be talking about how as a community we can affirm antiracist policies.”On the Podcast:Episode with Patricia RaybonResearch about Connecticut schools provided by ConnCANWhite Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

How does “color blindness” actually enable blindness to racism and the system of whiteness? Cara Meredith, author of The Color of Life: A Journey Toward Love and Racial Justice, joins Amy Julia to talk about racism in the north, the harm of “color blindness,” the tenants of whiteness, and creating space to process whiteness in a way that’s “not all about me.”Show Notes:Cara Meredith is a writer, speaker, and coach. Connect with her online: carameredith.com, @carameredithwrites on Facebook and Instagram, and @caramac54 on Twitter.“Love helped me see color”“Blindness [to racism] continues to exist.”"The celebration of who we are as humans - it’s not just our personalities but it is also what we look like on the outside and where we’ve come from.”“Whiteness is the construct. Whiteness is all of those things that keep some people in and some people out...Whiteness is the system that we benefit from.”Continuing the Conversation:Read: The Color of Life (100% of proceeds from book sales through Cara’s website will go to The Swan Dreams Project)On the Podcast:James MeredithOregon’s racist historyThe Warmth of Other SunsJemar Tisby and The Color of Compromisethe Samaritan woman in John 4So You Want to Talk About RaceBe the Bridge and Latasha MorrisonAustin Channing Brown and I’m Still HereRobin DiAngelo and her episode on Krista Tippett’s podcastWhite Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

 Amy Julia is on vacation. Tune back in next week for a new episode and interview. Be sure to check out these interviews from Season 3: White Picket Fences:S3 E1 | Waking Up to Privilege with David BaileyS3 E2 | Living into the Really Real with Micha BoyettS3 E3 | Our Different Stories Divide Us with Patricia RaybonS3 Bonus | Talking with Our Kids about Race, Justice, Love, and PrivilegeS3 E4 | Challenging Comfort, Acknowledging Power, and Using Privilege with Natasha RobinsonS3 E5 | Why I Wrote White Picket FencesS3 E6 | Now Is the Time for Justice with Jemar TisbyWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

How do we find hope, particularly in white American churches, when our history and identity is intertwined with racism? How does knowing who we were—and who we are—help us move toward justice and who we want to become? I talk with historian Jemar Tisby, New York Times bestselling author of The Color of Compromise, about racism’s past and present reality, his sense of a growing darkness, and also where he sees hope.Show Notes:Jemar Tisby is a Christian, historian, speaker, a New York Times best-selling author, and co-host of the Pass the Mic podcast. Connect with him online: jemartisby.com, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.“We can’t heal what we don’t reveal.”“Not knowing our history or misremembering our history—telling part of the story—is actually an assault on our identity. We don’t get the full picture of who we are, whether as a corporate body as a church or as individuals.”“Our own racial history as a church is about our identity. It’s about how we were, who we are, who we want to become.”“If you want to talk about threats to Christianity, particularly in the United States, we need to talk about Christian nationalism.”Continuing the conversation:Join this book study: The Color of Compromise book study group on FacebookPre-Order Jemar’s new book: How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial JusticeLearn more: The Witness—a black Christian collective that engages issues of religion, race, justice, and culture from a biblical perspectiveGive: The Witness Foundation—identifying, training, and funding the next generation of Black Christian leadersIN THE PODCAST:Scripture references: 10 Commandments, King David, Ephesians 3, Paul on Mars HillIndividuals, books, and concepts: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham JailJohn LewisJesus and the Disinherited by Howard ThurmanTa-Nehisi CoatesJohn Meacham’s The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better AngelsBree NewsomeCritical Race TheoryWhite Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

When it comes to the enduring legacy of racism, what place is there for forgiveness, humility, and healing? On today’s episode, Amy Julia’s friend Niro Feliciano interviews her about how she came to write White Picket Fences and what she has learned in talking about social divisions over the past few years. {This episode originally aired on Niro's podcast—All Things Life.}Show Notes:Niro Feliciano is a certified cognitive therapist and is the co-founder of a multi-specialty mental health group—Integrative Counseling and Wellness Group in Wilton, CT. Follow Niro at nirofeliciano.com, on Facebook at Niro Feliciano, The Incidental Therapist, and on Instagram at @niro_feliciano.In our conversation, we talk about Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “beloved community,” which you can read more about here, and we talk about how Black authors topped the New York Times bestseller list. We also discuss talking to children about racism, privilege, and current events, which you can learn more about from my interview with Patricia Raybon and my interview with our children.We mention the shooting of Philando Castile, as well as Head, Heart, Hands, which is an action guide to accompany White Picket Fences, and our family’s Civil Rights tour.I mention Osheta Moore's Dear White Peacemaker podcast.Finally, we mention two Bible passages: Micah 6:8 and Isaiah 20.This podcast season is called White Picket Fences, and it is based on my book White Picket Fences: Turning Towards Love in a World Divided by Privilege. Learn more about White Picket Fences! Also check out free RESOURCES to accompany White Picket Fences—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

Natasha Sistrunk Robinson grew up as a Black woman in a patriotic family in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She went on to serve as a United States Marine and later worked in the Department of Homeland Security. She is now an author, speaker, and leader. Today we talk about her most recent book, A Sojourner’s Truth: Choosing Freedom and Courage in a Divided World. We also cover the topic of patriotism, whether or not churches should seek to become multicultural spaces, and how white people can name both the injustices and the goodness within their lives and use it to serve God’s good purposes.Show Notes:Patricia Raybon wrote the forward for both Natasha’s book, A Sojourner's Truth, and for my book, White Picket Fences. We talk about the times we have been co-speakers at events—here’s an example.Natasha mentions the Orangeburg Massacre, which occurred in her hometown. We talk about monuments in the South, which you can read more about here. We talk about several books and people: Divided by Faith, James Baldwin, and Frederick Douglass’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. Natasha also references an article she wrote for Christianity Today, and we mention Acts 17 and the book of Exodus from the Bible, as well as research from Pew Research Center and this article on Ed Stetzer’s Christianity Today blog: Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Biblical Ethics.Natasha and I talk about supporting organizations led by people of color. Read more about this here.This podcast season is called White Picket Fences, and it is based on my book White Picket Fences: Turning Towards Love in a World Divided by Privilege. Learn more about White Picket Fences! Also check out free RESOURCES to accompany White Picket Fences—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.Follow Natasha online: www.natashasrobinson.com; Facebook; Instagram; TwitterT3 Leadership Solutions, IncLeadership LINKS, IncWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

In this follow up to last week’s interview with Patricia Raybon, Amy Julia interviews her three children. Penny, William, and Marilee all talk about what they’ve learned from books, museums, and the recent protests after the death of George Floyd.Show Notes:We begin our conversation by talking about our family’s Civil Rights tour in 2019. Here’s a description of our four-day tour, as well as a recommended itinerary, which includes the Whitney Plantation that Marilee mentions, as well as the Legacy Museum, which is where we saw the jars of dirt that Penny talks about.We talk about the death of George Floyd.Penny mentions the song Way Maker.All three children talk about books/resources they recommend for learning more about race and privilege. Go here for links to the resources they mention (as well as many more resources!). In relation to this conversation and reading books from different perspectives, Marilee mentions the Little House series.This podcast season is called White Picket Fences, and it is based on my book White Picket Fences: Turning Towards Love in a World Divided by Privilege. Learn more about White Picket Fences! Also check out free RESOURCES to accompany White Picket Fences—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

How do white parents talk with their children about race and racism? Why do white evangelical and Black Christians seem so socially and politically divided? How can we move towards one another in love even when we disagree? Author Patricia Raybon and Amy Julia discuss these questions and more in this conversation about race, books and reading, parenting, and faith. (Also, check back next week for a bonus episode where Amy Julia talks with her kids about what they’ve learned from talking about racism and injustice at home.)Show Notes:Patricia begins by talking a bit about her background. Go here to learn more about her career in journalism and as a professor of journalism.We mention my Patricia begins with talking a bit about her history. Go here to learn more about her writings and career in journalism and as a professor of journalism.We talk about my essay series about racial healing on my Christianity Today blog and the connection to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Patricia wrote an article entitled “A White Cop and a Black Lady” that was published on my CT blog following this essay series.We mention Brené Brown, Kelli Trujillo, and Howard Thurman.We talk about mortgage discrimination, economic disparities, and white privilege.Patricia recommends reading Alex Haley’s book Roots: The Saga of an American Family, as well as Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.Patrician mentions an article she wrote entitled “Will We Judge Young Looters or Love Them?” Find Patrica Rabyon online: patriciaraybon.com. She also writes for Our Daily Bread Ministries, DaySpring’s (in)courage, Charles Stanley’s InTouch Ministries, and Christianity Today.If you would like to read more from Patricia, she recommends starting with My First White Friend, and then reading I Told the Mountain to Move, which is a prequel to Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace. Two additional books that Patricia recommended to me but not mentioned in the podcast are: Born a Crime and Cry, the Beloved Country.This podcast season is called White Picket Fences, and it is based on my book White Picket Fences: Turning Towards Love in a World Divided by Privilege. Learn more about White Picket Fences! Also check out free RESOURCES to accompany White Picket Fences—action guide, discussion guidesWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!