Racial Justice
Racial Justice
Awareness to Action: 21 Days Toward Racial Justice is a three-week effort to confront racism, address our privilege, and stand up for racial justice.
The three weeks from July 8 (Tzom Tamuz) to July 30 (Tisha b’Av) mark a period of grieving for the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. During this time, our community will reflect on the baseless hatred that leads to oppression and persecution in our day.
Drawing on our collective narrative as Americans and Jews, the JCJ community will challenge ourselves to grasp the devastating effects of racism on our community members and neighbors of color.
The Jewish Center for Justice is committed to fighting back against persistent racial injustice that leads to the marginalization of communities and people of color. Black and brown Americans face higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and police violence. As descendants of those who faced extreme oppression, we understand that we cannot stay silent as fellow Americans are treated differently on the basis of their race or skin color.
- Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of incarcerated youth of color. Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today. (Source: Center for American Progress)
- “The formal abolition of slavery did nothing to overcome the harmful ideas created to defend it, and so slavery did not end with emancipation and passage of the 13th Amendment: it evolved.” – (Source: Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director for the Equal Justice Initiative)
Awareness to Action: 21 Days Toward Racial Justice is being presented In partnership with the Casden Institute at USC Dornsife.
Connections: Jewish Sources
Why did God create only one person, Adam? All people are descended from a single human being, Adam… so that no one can say, “my ancestor is worthier than yours.” — Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
Prayer and prejudice cannot dwell in the same heart. Worship without compassion is worse than self-deception; it is an abomination. — Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence
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