Pages tagged "Culture"

Life Lessons From a Bad Quaker: A Humble Stumble Toward Simplicity and Grace Written by J. Brent Bill Reviewed by Rick Ells

An interview with Brent Bill

A story about Jim Corbett and friends.

Dear Editor: I want to thank Mr. Urner for a very provocative article, “Sticking Out Like Sore Thumbs.” I, too, have often asked myself:  What happened to the progressive movement? I want to focus on what we might have done better, rather than resting on our laurels.

Quaker Oaks Farm is a place where we, Darlene and Melissa, children of families from very different backgrounds, are creating new stories together. We are characters in the stories, and we are authors. The stories are about what happens when non-Native and Native people risk engaging with the uncomfortable conundrum of how to go forward together, In A Good Way, given all the injustices delivered to Native people over the centuries and which continue today. The stories are about ways that Native peoples, settlers’ descendants, and newer immigrants might co-exist in true harmony.

an interview with Anna Fritz by Natalie Ramsland

So, where’s all the Indians?” asked Yaynicut Franco, one of the Wukchumni adults. The whiteness of the conference was a bit shocking to us, given the title: “Quakers, First Nations, and American Indians.”

Part of my dad’s job with the American Friends Service Committee was to take speakers around to various college campuses, churches, and summer institutes. As a kid, I sometimes went along and got to meet such spiritual giants as peace activist A.J. Muste and civil rights leaders Bayard Rustin and Ralph Abernathy. During spring vacation in 1956, my dad decided to take my brother Paul and me to Montgomery, where the bus boycott was four months old.

The image of the cowboy was created in Western movies and novels as a hard living, hard drinking gambler who is quick with a gun and lonely for women.  Quakers are also viewed in popular culture through erroneous stereotypes, and are believed to be extinct, except for their image on the Quaker Oats box. 

“This isn’t working. We need to start over.” Virtually nobody ever wants to hear that. Our natural tendency is to protect our accomplishments and hang onto what we’ve got, even if that might not be good for us. Our brains are not designed to assess risk accurately. We underrate the risks of the mundane (cars, bathrooms) and overrate the risks of the dramatic (airplanes, tornadoes). The Known typically appears safer than The Unknown.