Just Conversations with Jamal and Nate Ignatian Solidarity Network

After its hiatus, Just Conversations with Jamal and Nate is back! This episode, the pair interview Chris Kerr, Executive Director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network, as well as Clarissa Aljentera, Director of Education for Justice, and AJ Rowe, ISN's Digital Communications Coordinator and the editor of the show.

Live from the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice in Washington, D.C., Nate and Jamal record this episode in front of a crowd of high school and college-level delegations from across the nation. The kickoff of season 2, Nate and Jamal take questions from their audience and hope to provide guidance towards many of the issues we face today when progressing in DEI work, and how that intersects with mission.

In this episode, the guys discuss their history of teaching and studying DEI+A throughout their careers, touching on both the roadblocks that they frequently encounter, as well as some strategies that they feel have been effective in overcoming them.

June 19, otherwise known as Juneteenth, liberation day, and other names, commemorates the official nationwide enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation and what is largely accepted as the end of the American Civil War. This episode, the guys discuss the cultural and contemporary relevance of the holiday well over 100 years after its occurrence, and dive into why the holiday's unofficial title of "liberation day" may, indeed, be misleading.

In the wake of the tragedy that was the Buffalo shooting, Nate and Jamal take a step back to discuss resilience and healing when confronted with the reality of racially motivated violence in the world around us.

This episode, Jamal and Nate are joined by close friend F. Douglas Brown, the author of two poetry collections, ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018), and Zero to Three (University of Georgia, 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith. He also co-authored with poet Geffrey Davis, Begotten (URB Books, 2016), a chapbook of poetry as part of the Floodgate Poetry Series. Brown, an educator for over 25 years, currently teaches African American Poetry and African American Studies at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, where he serves as the Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion. When he is not teaching, writing or with his children, he is busy DJing in the greater Los Angeles area.
Resources cited/read during the show:
Affinity Literary Organizations: Cave Canem, Kundiman, Furious Flower Poetry Center, #Blackpoetsspeakout, Canto Mundo, Lambda Literary, Macondo Writers Workshop, VIDA, Vona
Books: Zero to Three, ICON, both by F. Douglas Brown; Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature
Schools: Gesu School Philadelphia
Music: The O’Jays: Message in our Music; Prince: Sign’O The Times
Essays: Josefina Ludmer’s “Literaturas Posautónomas” translated by Shaj Mathew; Susan Willis: “Eruptions of the Funk: Historicizing Toni Morrison”
Poems: Ishmael Reed: “beware: do not read this poem”; Ross Gay: “Feet”; Geffrey Davis: “King County Metro”; Mahogany Browne: “Working Title”; Jayne Cortez: “Don't Ask/1980”