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1619 Project Podcast Discussions – Going Virtual

Mar 20, 2020

The 1619 Project Podcast Discussions at FUUN:

1619 Project Podcast Discussions — NEW PLAN

We are going virtual with the last two episodes of the 1619 podcasts. We will listen to the podcast episodes individually, and then join a WebEx audio/video conference to discuss the episode. Discussion on the next session (episode 5) will be Sunday, March 29 at 10:30 a.m. The last (episode 6) will be the following week, Sunday April 5 at 10:30 a.m. This is a new thing we’re trying, using online meeting technology for group discussions. It requires having a computer and Internet. Hopefully, we can continue with our great discussions on these programs.

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Join the Beloved Community Committee to listen to podcast episodes from the 1619 Project and discuss how what you learn from them affects you individually and all of us collectively as Unitarian Universalists. The 1619 Project observes the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery and aims to re-frame the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are. We will listen to each podcast together, and then discuss.

 

Discussion Questions for 1619 Podcast Listening Sessions – FUUN, Jan-Mar, 2020

Next sessions:

Episode 5   The Land of our Fathers, Part 1 

Episode 5 The Land of our Fathers, Part 1 – Sunday, Mar 29 at 10:30 a.m.

Please listen to the podcast prior to the meeting here: https://lnns.co/UsB73-oPFcY

To join the discussion, go here: https://oneexperian.webex.com/meet/tom.surface54

More than a century and a half after the promise of 40 acres and a mule, the story of black land ownership in America remains one of loss and dispossession. June and Angie Provost, who trace their family line to the enslaved workers on Louisiana’s sugar-cane plantations, know this story well. In this episode the Provosts spoke with Adizah Eghan and Annie Brown, producers for “1619.”

More than a century and a half after the promise of 40 acres and a mule, the story of black land ownership in America remains one of loss and dispossession. June and Angie Provost, who trace their family line to the enslaved workers on Louisiana’s sugar-cane plantations, know this story well. In this episode the Provosts spoke with Adizah Eghan and Annie Brown, producers for “1619.” Part 2 of Land of our Fathers will be Sunday Mar 29, which will include further stories about Black farmers in America.

Discussion questions for episode 5:

  1. The Provosts’ problems with getting sufficient crop loans began with a new bank, just at the cusp of the 2008 recession. You can read all about the pending lawsuit with the bank on the web. How do you feel about the accusation that the bank was discriminatory against the Provosts?
  2. Compare the situation the bank put the Provosts in with the common practices of White landowners and their Black sharecroppers after the Civil War. And with the broken promise of 40 acres and a mule.
  3. Here are some statistics to consider …
    • US census of agriculture statistics show a 44.7% decrease in black farm operators in Iberia parish – where the Provosts live – between 2007 and 2012, compared with a 12.3% decrease in white farm operators.
    • In neighboring Vermillion parish, where June farmed the majority of his sugarcane, black farm operators decreased by 17% between 2002 and 2012, while white farmers increased by 6%.
    • Nationally, less than 2% of farmers are black.
    • June Provost has kept a neatly printed list of Black sugarcane farmers in his area. In 1983, there were approximately 60. By 2000, that number had dwindled to 17. Today, June and Angie count only four.

Optional Reading: The Barbaric History of Sugar in America Art10-The Barbaric History of Sugar in America – The New York Times

Episode 6: The Land of our Fathers, Part 2 – Sunday Apr 5 at 10:30 a.m.

Listen to the podcast prior to the meeting here: https://lnns.co/E-p1T5rAkmQ

To join the discussion, go here: https://oneexperian.webex.com/meet/tom.surface54

The Provosts, a family of sugar-cane farmers in Louisiana, had worked the same land for generations. When it became harder and harder to keep hold of that land, June Provost and his wife, Angie, didn’t know why — and then a phone call changed their understanding of everything. In the finale of “1619,” we hear the rest of June and Angie’s story, and its echoes in a past case that led to the largest civil rights settlement in American history.

Here are some statistics to consider:

1. US census of agriculture statistics show a 44.7% decrease in black farm operators in Iberia parish – where the Provosts live – between 2007 and 2012, compared with a 12.3% decrease in white farm operators.

2. In neighboring Vermillion parish, where June farmed the majority of his sugarcane, black farm operators decreased by 17% between 2002 and 2012, while white farmers increased by 6%.

3. Nationally, less than 2% of farmers are black.

4. June Provost has kept a neatly printed list of Black sugarcane farmers in his area. In 1983, there were approximately 60. By 2000, that number had dwindled to 17. Today, June and Angie count only four

Optional reading: How America’s Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew <include link to PDF, Art11…>

Art11-How America’s Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew_ By Plunder – The New York Times (1)

Past Sessions

Episode 1 – Sunday, Jan. 19 10:30 a.m. in the Fireside Room,  The Fight for True Democracy

Discussion questions for episode 1:

  1. How have laws, policies, and systems developed to enforce the enslavement of black Americans before the Civil War influenced laws, policies, and systems in years since?
  2. How has activism by black Americans throughout U.S. history led to policies that benefit all people living in the U.S.?
  3. How do you feel about the incongruity shown in stories about our founding fathers, such as the one about enslaved people owned by Thomas Jefferson’s while he’s writing the famous words, “all men are created equal”?

For those who missed it, episode 1 can be heard here:

Optional Pre-read: Art01-America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One – The New York Times

Episode 2 – Sunday Feb 2 at 10:30 a.m. in the Fireside Room.

It’s titled The Economy That Slavery Built. “In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation.” In this podcast, we will hear stories of how slavery was great for business, and key to building our new country’s economy.

Here’s an optional pre-read: Art02-American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation. – The New York Times

Discussion questions for episode 2:

1. How was the expansion of the U.S. shaped and made possible by slave labor?

2. How much were you aware of the investments pre-civil war banks were making in enslaved people?

3. What impacts did slavery have on financial systems, both in this country, and across the globe?

Episode 3 – Sunday, Feb 16 at 10:30 a.m. in the Fireside Room, The Birth of American Music,Black music, forged in captivity, became the sound of complete artistic freedom. It also became the sound of America. In episode 3, we hear from Wesley Morris, a critic-at-large for The New York Times.

Here’s an optional pre-read: Art06-Why Is Everyone Always Stealing Black Music, The New York Times

Discussion questions for episode 3:

  1. How has popular music throughout history used traditions and styles developed by black Americans?
  2. How does the podcast describe black music and blackness in music? What’s the difference?

Episode 4 – Sunday, Mar 1 at 10:30 a.m. in the Fireside Room, How The Bad Blood Started

Black Americans were denied access to doctors and hospitals for decades. From the shadows of this exclusion, they pushed to create the nation’s first federal healthcare programs. In episode 4, we hear from Jeneen Interlandi, a member of The New York Times’s editorial board and a writer for The Times Magazine, and Yaa Gyasi, the author of “Homegoing.”

Discussion questions for episode 4:

  1. How have healthcare policies, city planning, and other government systems in the U.S. limited who has access to healthcare services?
  2. According to the podcast, what factors help diseases spread in a community?
  3. How have racist medical practices and attitudes influenced the medical treatment that black Americans have received throughout history, and continue to receive today?

Optional Reading: Why Doesn’t America Have Universal Healthcare?