Caste: A Conversation and Discussion, Brought to you by the Just Peace Exploratory Team
Book and Multimedia Study Facilitators, Ellen Tuttle and John Charles, invite Friedens disciples and friends to their next study and discussion. Folks are invited to engage in self-study, at your own pace, then join others for two discussions, on Thursday, May 27th and Thursday, June 3rd, both at 7:00pm EST. Discussions are facilitated virtually, via Zoom.
The discussion topic involves Isabel Wilkerson’s award-winning book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents. But we’re taking a different approach for this study. The book is 477 pages long! While you are certainly free to read the book, it is not required to participate in the discussion.
Ellen and John invite you to view an hour-long YouTube conversation between the author and Bryan Stevenson, an attorney, author, and Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Stevenson is also the subject of the film Just Mercy, based on his book of the same title. Wilkerson and Stevenson discuss the major ideas contained in Wilkerson’s book.
Though not required, if you wish to dig deeper into the material, you may find on Apple Podcasts, a series of 8, 30 minutes sessions featuring Oprah Winfrey and Isabel Wilkerson. Together, they discuss and explain the 8 pillars of the caste system articulated in Wilkerson’s book.
Interested participants may view one or both of these digital options, at your own pace, before meeting to discuss the book.
Please email Ellen or John before May 20, 2021 to express your interest, and they will send the Zoom link, along with a list of questions to ponder shortly before each session.
We hope to see you then!
About Caste
A #1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club Pick, Caste is, “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far,” writes Dwight Garner for The New York Times. In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
About the Just Peace Exploratory Team
Authorized by the Friedens Council in July 2020, the Just Peace Exploratory Team, or “JPET” for short, is a 15-member team of Friedens members who are researching the steps to become a Just Peace Church and offering recommendations to the Council to pursue this designation. The Just Peace designation is a Covenant of the UCC that commits local churches to peace, justice, and equity through nonviolence. JPET has organized several book studies, a conversation with the Burmese American Cultural Institute Executive Director, a series of Yoga sessions to incorporate movement and breath into our wellness practices, testimonials, and a weekly “Peaceful Prose” section in the e-newsletter, authored by team member Janet Raker. Contact leader Adam Hayden to learn more.
