The Joyous Justice Podcast

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Ep 48: Thinking Outside of the Box, part 2 In this week's episode, part 2 of 2, we continue our discussion about the need for outside-the-box thinking by asking what gets in the way. Our conversation leads us to the realization that the resistance to facing and confronting fear and other difficult emotions...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, part 1 of 2, April and Tracie think about new paradigms for the future. Inspired by a song, we use the prison abolition movement & criminal legal system as well as Western medicine as points of reference, investigating the ways inherited systems, received as “natural,” are in fact hu...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Tracie brings up a recent NFL announcement that they will change a racist policy, just another example of the systematic, racist oppression that permeates US society. This leads to a discussion between April and Tracie about the racism found within the United States medical system and why developing an effectiv...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week's episode, April and Tracie discuss Eric Ward’s Skin in the Game point about the conditional whiteness of Ashkenazi Jews, unpacking (with both/and thinking) the reaction some Jews have regarding their whiteness. April uses her experiences as a United States citizen living in Senegal to explain...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week's episode, we respond to a common question about racial justice work and explain that because the Jewish community is a global, multi-racial people, racial justice already is and must continue to be a core Jewish value and issue. Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggesti...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, we talk about the importance of affinity groups, which are spaces for people with shared identity to safely unpack dynamics around oppression. Though it may feel counter-intuitive, affinity spaces are actually important tools as we develop our liberatory consciousness.  Find April and Tr...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode April and Tracie reflect on Juneteenth and continue to think about how liberation from enslavement looked different for Jews and Black people. April also shares the ways in which the importance of rest from labour is an important lesson that resonated with her this Juneteenth.  Find April...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Ep 41 (S3E1): When You Overhear Microaggressions, Pt 2: Responding to a Question One of our listeners posed an interesting question in response to a previous episode (39/Season 2, Episode 19: When You Overhear Microaggressions) asking, “What are good ways to respond when you hear racist microaggressions in gene...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ The feeling of being an outsider is an all too familiar one for most human beings. The experience of a Jewish person being made to feel an outsider in Jewish spaces is eloquently investigated by the Eli Talk by Rabbi Shais Rishon who goes by the moniker MaNishtana. Find April and Tracie's full bios and sub...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Way back in episode 2, April and Tracie spoke about better alternatives to some of the micro-aggressive things white-identified Jews often say to Jews of Color. So what happens if you overhear someone else trot out a micro-aggressive question or comment? What can you do? What should you do? How can you interrup...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW April and Tracie take the time to unpack a phrase that often comes up when Jews Talk Racial Justice: "white supremacy." The phrase has entered the lexicon of individual antiracists and movements alike, but what exactly does it mean? April and Tracie define the term, investigate...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW As the election season concludes, Tracie asks April for advice on working through the negative emotions that sometimes accompany justice work. The two friends unpack the ways we've been taught to associate anger or rage with justice work (and anxiety with intelligence), and April sha...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW Even more than other episodes, you'll find yourself eavesdropping on this conversation. April and Tracie unpack the deep and intergenerational effects of shared trauma and oppression, and the ways either/or and hierarchical thinking can get in the way of healing. Find April and Traci...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW April and Tracie discuss Robin DiAngelo's book, White Fragility. They unpack some of the courage and vulnerability it takes to both give and receive feedback around racism, and imagine a world in which it is safe to do both. Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic sug...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Why do we sometimes find ourselves arguing over whose pain is the worst? What effect does that competition, also known as Oppression Olympics, have on us? How can we find an alternative to the very real impulse to argue? April and Tracie dig into these questions and more. Heads Up! We are taking some time off i...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ April and Tracie unpack the idea that "publicly addressing an organization's mistakes does more harm than good." Though there are some who would advise against drawing attention to past mistakes, April and Tracie argue that accountability and honesty are the only way to create and maintain trust....

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In another episode tied to their "Flip the Script" resource, April and Tracie investigate the notion that the presence of antisemitism in progressive movements disqualifies those movements from Jewish involvement. Recognizing that, like all systemic oppressions, antisemitism is everywhere, Jews Talk R...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ April and Tracie explore the ways the messiness of spring contributes to its beauty and potential. The also notice how structure--whether the practice of counting the Omer, a vine's trellis or their online course Awareness Accelerator--can support the important and messy work of growth. Find April and Trac...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In the second of two Passover episodes, April and Tracie reveal the liberatory wisdom in eight practices from Passover observance. Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www. JewsTalkRacialJustice.com Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fa...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In the first of two Passover-themed shows, April shares her epiphany that despite a resonance between the story of the Israelites leaving mitzrayim (Egypt, the narrow place) and the emancipation of enslaved Africans in the U.S., the two stories diverge in important and significant ways. CONTENT WARNING: Discuss...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ April and Tracie continue to flesh out some of the key obstacles from their flip the script resource with the help of a question from a listener. One of the limiting beliefs that shows up in racial justice work is the sense that you've learned a lot, but not enough to take action. April and Tracie dig into...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ The work of fighting racism can be exhausting. This is especially true for Black folks and other people of color who have to work to dismantle systems that are actively oppressing them. Today April and Tracie talk a bit about strategies and frames to help counter the isolation and the internalized not-good-enou...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Sometimes people, especially white folks, choose not to engage with racial justice work, for fear of making a mistake. April and Tracie dig in to those fears, what's behind them, how they show up, and some strategies for addressing them so that you can keep going. Access a free discussion guide for this ep...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ April and Tracie think about some of the lessons of Purim: hidden identities, the power of 'no,' the power of being in the right place, the importance of joy, and the links between joy and liberation. Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www. JewsTalkRaci...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ Continuing their work in "flipping the script," April and Tracie offer some nuance and context for when white people can and should lead racial justice work. That conversation leads to contemplation on giving and receiving comfort and feedback, both within affinity spaces (with people with a shared id...