Bingo Action Page

Arts

• The 35 best black movie directors, producers, and screenplay writers (link)
• The 25 Best Black Movies of the 21st Century - IndieWire (link)

• 25 Books by Black Authors You Should Read This February (link)
• Attica Locke: Bluebird, Bluebird and Heaven, My Home; The Cutting Season (link)
• Books By Contemporary Black Female Authors (link)
• Videos By Contemporary Black Female Authors (link)

• Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas (link)
  This arts organization works out of Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, and solely presents emerging Black artists.
• X The Life and Times of Malcolm X, 2/24 - 3/9/24 at McCaw Hall, Seattle (link)
• Seattle Opera's 'X' spurs discussion of opera's relationship with Black audiences - "X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X," the first opera by a Black composer to run on Seattle Opera's mainstage, is on pace to break ticket sale records. Here's what the production means to cast and community members. (link)

• All-American, on Netflix and CW

Legislative

• prohibiting physical constraint of children in schools
• requiring paid sick leave for parents during school closures

• Volunteer with voter registration
• voter turnout in minority communities
• restoring the vote for incarcerated individuals

• Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy (link) by Darryl Pinckney
  As young Americans take to the streets to say black lives matter, they're often told to vote. While voting is important, it's also important to remember how black political representation has been chipped away by voter ID laws, gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement. Blackballed addresses the struggle for voting rights and for racial equality more broadly, drawing on Pinckney's own experiences and writings of civil rights leaders to create a complicated picture of black political identity.

• Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (link) by Ian Haney Lopez
  "Entitlement mentality." "Quotas." "Welfare queens." From Barry Goldwater to Bill Clinton to the Tea Party, politicians have relied on racially coded language to win over white voters and decimate social programs. Dog Whistle Politics makes the case that not only does this strategy endanger people of color, but it also hinders economic mobility for all Americans.

• abolishing solitary confinement
• retaining limits on police chases
• Join efforts to repeal the 13th amendment's exception clause that still allows slavery as a punishment for a crime.
• Since I Been Down streaming on Amazon Prime (link) ( from Hal)
• Books recommended by NPR:
  • From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (link) by Elizabeth Hinton
    The origins of mass incarceration - which disproportionately puts black people behind bars - are often pinned on Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But Hinton argues the carceral state was erected "by a consensus of liberals and conservatives who privileged punitive responses to urban problems as a reaction to the civil rights movement." The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act, part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society plan, led to today's police militarization. This account of history poses relevant questions for today's land of the free.
  • Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor (link) by Virginia Eubanks
    Algorithms are made by humans, so they are susceptible to human biases. From deciding which neighborhoods get policed to who gets welfare benefits, discrimination has gone digital. By scrutinizing statistical models and telling personal stories, Eubanks shows that machines do not correct racist systems - they only shift blame.
  • The End of Policing (link) by Alex S. Vitale
    In the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality, the same ideas forreform are trotted out - implicit bias training, body cameras, police-community dialogues. But Vitale argues that this fails to get to the root of the problem - policing itself. While calls to abolish the police are often met with skepticism, academics and activists have long-discussed alternatives to addressing homelessness, domestic disputes and substance abuse. A free ebook of The End of Policing is available now. (And you can read Code Switch editor extraordinaire Leah Donnella's conversation with Vitale here. )
• Films recommended by NPR:
  • 13th (link)
    The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and a third of U.S. prisoners are black. In this infuriating documentary, director Ava DuVernay argues that mass incarceration, Jim Crow and slavery are "the three major racialized systems of control adopted in the United States to date."
  • I Am Not Your Negro (link)
    Narrated by the words of James Baldwin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro connects the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Although Baldwin died nearly 30 years before the film's release, his observations about racial conflict are as incisive today as they were when he made them.
  • Whose Streets? (link)
    The 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. was one of the deaths that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Frustrated by media coverage of unrest in Ferguson, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis documented how locals felt about police in riot gear filling their neighborhoods with tear gas. As one resident says, "They don't tell you the fact that the police showed up to a peaceful candlelight vigil...and boxed them in, and forced them onto a QuikTrip lot."
  • LA 92 (link)
    LA 92 is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage - no talking heads needed. It's chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, "No justice, no peace."

Bills that are still alive in the 2024 Legislature as of 2/26/24

• SB 5890 - Reducing ballot rejection rates. Washington disproportionately rejects ballots of people of color and young voters for signature issues. This bill would create a standardized process for voters to be notified about and correct their ballot errors.
• HB 1368 - Zero emission school buses Requires that any school buses purchased by school districts, charter schools, or state-tribal education compact schools be zero-emission school buses beginning September 1, 2035.
• SB 5241 - Concerning material changes to the operation and governance structure of participants in the healthcare marketplace. Grants the state Attorney General authority to intervene in proposed health care mergers, acquisitions or contracting affiliations. This includes obtaining additional documentation related to charity care; access to care, including reproductive, gender-affirming, emergency, and end-of-life care; and determining if the transaction would detrimentally affect the continued existence of accessible, affordable health care in the state.
• HB 1798 - Relating to allowed earned release time for certain offenses and enhancements. Allows for earned release time for good behavior and good performance.
• SB 6009 - Prohibiting the use of hog tying. Defines hog tying as excessive force and prohibits officers from hog tying a person or assisting in putting a person in hog tie.
• HB 1945 - Streamlining and enhancing program access for persons eligible for food assistance. Makes it easier for families that are eligible for food assistance to access quality, affordable child care and early learning services.
• HB 1991 - Relating to paid sick leave. Allows an employee to use paid sick leave when employee's child's school or place of care has been closed due to a public emergency.

• eviction and rent increase limits
• not counting child support and SSI/SSD when determining eligibility for public benefits
• providing a guaranteed minimum income for all Washingtonians
• A Terrible Thing To Waste: Environmental Racism And Its Assault On The American Mind (link) by Harriet A. Washington
  From lead poisoning to toxic waste, Americans of color are disproportionately harmed by environmental hazards. This is detrimental to physical health - air pollution is linked with higher COVID-19 death rates, according to Harvard researchers. But Washington also argues that environmental racism is causing cognitive decline in communities of color. A deconstruction of IQ and an indictment of EPA rollbacks, A Terrible Thing To Waste is a stirring read.

Black people talking to White people

• "me and white supremacy" Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin (link)
• Recommended by NPR:
  • Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race (link) by Beverly Daniel Tatum
    This classic text on the psychology of racism was re-released with new content in 2017, 20 years after its original publication. By providing straight talk on self-segregation and inequality in schools, Tatum shows the importance - and possibility - of cross-racial dialogues starting young.
• I found this great looking page from the National Gallery of Art (link) ( from Hilarie)

• Dr Thelma Jackson's book, "Blacks in Thurston County, Washington, 1950 to 1975: A Community Album"

• Gospel | PBS Hosted by Henry Louis Gates (link)
• Recommended by NPR:
  • Teach Us All (link)
    Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. Teach Us All explains why that is - school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes - and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we've really come.
  • Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise (link)
    In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens. Released days after the 2016 election, some themes of the documentary took on a deeper meaning amid Donald Trump's win. "Think of the civil rights movement to the present as a second Reconstruction - a 50-year Reconstruction - that ended last night," Gates said in an interview with Salon.

• Books recommended by NPR:
  • Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (link) by Deirdre Cooper Owens
    The foundational knowledge of American gynecology relied on the exploitation of enslaved black women's bodies. In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens centers the stories of black women that have been overshadowed by the "discoveries" of white male doctors who experimented on them. Baseless theories about black inferiority and higher pain tolerance still permeate medical schools today.
  • Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination (link) by Alondra Nelson The Black Panther Party is most remembered for its militant action, but health care was also a major pillar of its activism. The People's Free Medical Clinics tested for hypertension and assisted with housing and employment. Its outreach also brought attention to rampant discrimination within mainstream medicine. Nelson writes that the Black Panther Party understood health as a human right, echoing today's fight for universal health care. You can read Body and Soul online for free.
• Podcasts recommended by NPR:
  • Floodlines (link) from The Atlantic
    An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. "As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn't care about you," said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.
  • Intersectionality Matters! (link) from The African American Policy Forum
    Hosted by Kimberle Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term "intersectionality," this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. This recent episode on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.

History and Culture

• Celebrating and spotlighting the dynamic creativity of the Black arts community in Seattle. (link)

• Northwest African American Museum (link)
  NAAM's mission is to spread knowledge, understanding, and enjoyment of the histories, arts and cultures of people of African descent for the enrichment of all.
• Take a self-guided Olympia Area Black Pioneers walking tour download the free walking tour map and follow along.

• King, A Life by Jonathan Eig (link) ( from Hal)
• CODE SWITCH (link)
  What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society - from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation - because we're all part of the story.
• 10 Podcasts Hosted By Black Creators You Need To Listen To (link)
• Podcasts recommended by NPR:
  • Floodlines (link) from The Atlantic
    An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. "As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn't care about you," said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.
  • 1619 (link) from The New York Times
    "In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began." Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 audio series chronicles how black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.
  • Intersectionality Matters! (link) from The African American Policy Forum
    Hosted by Kimberle Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term "intersectionality," this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. This recent episode on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.
  • Throughline (link) from NPR
    Every week at Throughline, our pals Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei "go back in time to understand the present." To understand the history of systemic racism in America, we recommend "American Police," "Mass Incarceration" and "Milliken v. Bradley."

• 10 Must Watch Black History Documentaries (link)
• Grief Out Loud: The Realities of Black Grief (link)

• Toni Morrison The Pieces I Am (link)
• 14 Powerful Documentaries To Stream For Black History Month (link)

Put your time and money where your mouth is

• Great list here, includes Black Lives Matter but many, many more. Some based in Seattle, some national. (link)
• Seattle Foundation: Racially Equitable Philanthropy Aimed at Initiating Reparations (REPAIR) (link)

• Seattle Black Owned Businesses (link)
• Find Black Owned Businesses in Olympia (link)
• Black Owned Everything
  Directory that highlights Black-owned brands across all categories. (link)
• EatOkra
  Eat Okra is an app-based directory to find local Black-owned restaurants across the United States. (link)
• The Intentionalist
  A robust online guide to small businesses with filters for Black-owned, woman-owned, LGBTQ-owned, and more. (link)
• We Buy Black
  The largest online marketplace for Black owned Businesses. (link)

• ASHHO Cultural Community Center (link)