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writing the journey

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  • #WakingUpWhite
  • Events
  • Comment Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Me
  • Books and Other Works

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  • American Exceptionalism,  family,  justice,  musicals,  racism

    Carefully Taught, Thoroughly Educated

    October 21, 2019 /

    You’ve Got to Be Taught You’ve got to be taught To hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught From year to year, It’s got to be drummed In your dear little ear You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught to be afraid.Of people whose eyes are oddly made,And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,Before you are six or seven or eight,To hate all the people your relatives hate,You’ve got to be carefully taught!(RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN “SOUTH PACIFIC” – © 1958) I don’t know how much more obvious we have to…

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    Feats of Clay

    December 31, 2018

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 15: The Whole Story

    March 14, 2019
    Red pipe going up and over an obstacle

    When We Don’t Want to Know

    September 28, 2019
  • American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  justice,  movies,  racism,  reviews

    I Am MLK Jr

    October 21, 2019 /

    A film from the Paramount Network. I was 13 when Dr. King was murdered. I could not comprehend what I was watching on TV from my safe, comfortable living room. The screen was too small, maybe, and my town was too far, and my community too different. I watched cities burn in April 1968, but I did not understand. I watched more since then and I understand more now of what I was seeing. This film is that moment for me, recapitulated, but now I see with the eyes of an adult who has lived through the America of the sixties and into the teens of the 21st century. I’m…

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 10: The Melting Pot

    February 22, 2019
    Six people participate in a close group hug.

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 25: Belonging

    May 14, 2019
    Red pipe going up and over an obstacle

    When We Don’t Want to Know

    September 28, 2019
  • faith,  history,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    Walking in and out of Justice

    October 20, 2019 /

    Sometimes we can choose our inconveniences. I was watching a video late last night, far past midnight, and stopped about half-way through because it was one o’clock or so in the morning. Released by Paramount, I Am MLK, Jr., is a powerful new (2018) film about the life of the man who shaped America and was murdered for it. One thing that struck me, again, was the immediacy and fragility of the Civil Rights Movement. It was a seat-of-your-pants operation with multiple streams and leaders, even though MLK had become, for many, the leader, the Man for Justice. I’m sure there was planning — the councils and commissions comprised serious…

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    Seeing with a New Tongue

    August 27, 2023

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 17: My Good People

    March 20, 2019
    Four sheep facing the viewer. They are standing in a field.

    To My Evangelical Faith Family

    August 29, 2020
  • Man sitting on bench by church
    Black Lives Matter,  essays,  faith,  justice,  racism

    A Place We Cannot Enter

    October 14, 2019 /

    I've watched my friends express their shock, their hurt, their anger, their outrage, their fury, their fear, their hopelessness, their isolation, their understanding of their own oppression in a society that does not see them. Does not value them. Does not, from beginning to end, love them.

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    Sihouette of man walking toward light

    Shadows on the Wall

    July 15, 2021
    A white man in a hat smiles at a white woman who smiles back.

    REVIEW: Good White Racist?

    May 24, 2021
    bronze bust of Julius Caesar seen from the side

    Jesus as Emperor

    March 22, 2022
  • Man staring out window
    #WakingUpWhite,  American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 32: Getting Over Myself

    October 14, 2019 /

    The liberation of letting go of my self-image. Choosing to engage in the effort to dismantle racism promises to bring with it discomfort, yet how can I compare my discomfort to what people of color endure? While I don’t like this for a few reasons, I think I understand the meaning behind it. Still, it doesn’t help to say “your feelings don’t count because other people have it worse.” This is what we’re told when we feel bad or angry or disappointed—and it’s a way to dismiss the validity of our feelings. White people who work to dismantle racism—to become, as Dr. Kendi says, “actively antiracist,” will experience discomfort, and…

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    #Waking Up White Chapter 13: Invisibility

    March 7, 2019
    White Doors of Opportunity

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 19: My Good Luck

    April 1, 2019
    Domino tiles laid out on a wooden table

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 40: Bull in a China Shop

    January 26, 2020
  • Two men having a conversation
    #WakingUpWhite,  American Exceptionalism,  Celebrate Recovery,  faith,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 31: Courageous Conversations

    October 6, 2019 /

    Learning to listen and speak across differences Before I start into this chapter, I wanted to update this series on something that is related to this journey. I took part in some conversations this week, and one of them highlighted something that I may have heard before, but it resonated this time: We are not trying to be good white people, but safe white people. There’s a lot to unpack here for me, but I can say that part of my struggle is attempting to deal with what I think and feel, which then becomes what I do and say. I struggle with all the nonsense that it in me,…

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    stephen matlock 6 Comments

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 35: If Only You’d Be More Like Me

    November 15, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 22: Why Do I Always End Up with White People?

    April 29, 2019
    Boxes and cups and bottles all stacked on shelves

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 37: Boxes and Labels

    November 29, 2019
  • Red pipe going up and over an obstacle
    American Exceptionalism,  essays,  history,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    When We Don’t Want to Know

    September 28, 2019 /

    Ignorance is sometimes a lack of opportunity. We don’t have access to resources, including people and their lived experiences, to understand the width and depth of racism. I can understand that there might be such people, although in the connected world of today, I can’t accept that it is a frequent occurrence. But in almost every case, our ignorance is deliberate and our culpability in our lack of understanding is a deliberate choice to avoid the hard truths of American racism, and to avoid the very hard work of breaking that. That awareness and confession and breaking apply to our own individual selves, of course. It is such a common…

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    The Barley Soup Recipe

    January 2, 2019
    three women with laptops conversing

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 43: From Tolerance to Engagement

    March 18, 2020

    Making Good in Trouble

    March 29, 2022
  • American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  questions,  racism,  writing

    Sliding Away from Relevancy

    September 24, 2019 /

    If you haven’t been tracking the news, there’s been a dust-up in the American Evangelical world. An influential publishing outfit that produces RELEVANT magazine has been having some of its more dysfunctional efforts and people come to light. You can go read the initial posts by Mr. Andre Henry (a former Managing Editor) here, or related posts from Ms. Rebecca Marie Jo here. You can then read RELEVANT’s official response and the response from Mr. Cameron Strang, as well as a fine commentary by Ms. Ally Henny here. And you can read Mr. Henry’s reply to RELEVANT here. It’s kind of a mess, and the temptation is just to say…

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    Maybe the Tree Is Bad

    April 16, 2021
    Boxes and cups and bottles all stacked on shelves

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 37: Boxes and Labels

    November 29, 2019

    Carefully Taught, Thoroughly Educated

    October 21, 2019
  • Community and Acceptance
    American Exceptionalism,  Celebrate Recovery,  essays,  faith,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  musings,  racism,  writing

    What Is the Home That Shuts Its Doors to You?

    September 23, 2019 /

    ETA: I misnamed Ms. Ally Henny in this article & have corrected it. My apologies for misnaming her. I follow people in social media, and try hard to follow people who give me insight into their worlds that I don’t see. I follow people all over the world, mostly English speakers (but I throw in other languages and attempt to puzzle out their meaning with translation tools). Most of the people I follow are here in North America, specifically in the United States of America, and one them recently posted a blog entry about “Leaving Home.” (You can read it here: https://thearmchaircommentary.com/2019/09/22/leaving-home/) It is the story of Ally Henny and…

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 11: Headwinds and Tailwinds

    February 26, 2019

    To Study Portuguese

    February 20, 2019

    Maybe the Tree Is Bad

    April 16, 2021
  • Leaf floating on water
    American Exceptionalism,  Celebrate Recovery,  Contests,  essays,  faith,  flash fiction,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  musings,  writing

    When You Fall

    September 21, 2019 /

    I write and edit for a living, and I write for fun. I have a few novels in progress, with one released (so far); I write short stories and poems; I develop short screenplays and radio scripts, some which have been performed. That’s an incredibly heady feeling—to see your words expressed through actors on a stage or from a microphone! Often my stories and scripts come from a prompt as part of a competition. The poems are just extra—no one wants to read my poetry which is their sad loss. I try to be authentic and real, and I work hard—danged hard!—on creating characters who ring true, who speak like…

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    stephen matlock 0 Comments

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    What Would You Do If You Could Bring Conciliation?

    January 17, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 11: Headwinds and Tailwinds

    February 26, 2019
    Man staring out window

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 32: Getting Over Myself

    October 14, 2019
  • essays,  faith,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism,  writing

    Of Course I’m Racist

    September 16, 2019 /

    I don’t think I’ve ever been called a racist—not because I’m not, but because the people in my life are simply too kind and too gentle, and treat me as if I’m terribly fragile. But I will say, with the same level of clear-eyed truth about being in recovery for my addictions, that I am a racist. Thoroughly dipped and dyed, all the way through, head to heart, sole to soul, from earliest memory until today. Being called a racist will not kill you. It might sting because it attacks your self-image of being “not a racist.” Actually being a racist is what kills you. It deadens you to humanity.…

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    Potter making a clay dish

    Pride and Prejudice, Staged

    October 26, 2019
    white man with gray hair faces away from camera, sitting in empty stone church.

    Making the Past the Past

    August 1, 2020

    Feats of Clay

    December 31, 2018
  • Red poppies blooming in the sunset
    competitions,  flash fiction,  writing

    All the Years Like Yesterdays Departed

    September 11, 2019 /

    I write for fun outside of the lugubrious essays you might find here. One of my favorite places that incites me to write is New York Midnight, which runs contests five times a year for flash fiction, short stories, short screenplays, and now microfiction. Contests typically have 3 or 4 rounds, where by the process of elimination only the top scorers in each round advance to the next round. For the latest contest, Flash Fiction, I had to write a 1000-word story in 48 hours. And not just some random story. I’m assigned a genre, a location, and a prop, which I don’t find out until the moment the contest…

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    stephen matlock 0 Comments
  • Man sitting on subway
    #WakingUpWhite,  American Exceptionalism,  faith,  family,  Life Recovery Skills,  musings,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 30: Feelings and the Culture of Niceness

    September 10, 2019 /

    It’s been a while since my last post (7/29/19!). I’ve been busy over the summer, far busier than I expected. I’ve gotten more involved in some relationships and responsibilities, and my writing output for short stories, scripts, and essays has jumped considerably. (I even had Ms. Irving stop by a set of Facebook posts…) But it’s time to get back to this book. Ms. Irving is still processing her experiences at a conference, and so this chapter opens with an incredibly important insight, one that I’d like you to read a few times to consider what this means. It’s that necessary: One of my first challenges in the hours and…

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 15: The Whole Story

    March 14, 2019

    #Waking Up White Chapter 13: Invisibility

    March 7, 2019
    Runners' track waiting for the race

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 39: Equality Starts with Equity

    January 18, 2020
  • musings

    Author Interview @ NFReads

    August 28, 2019 /

    NF Reads asked me for an interview recently, and published it. You can find the interview here https://www.nfreads.com/interview-with-author-stephen-j-matlock/

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    It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

    February 6, 2019

    The Purpose-Driven Lie

    October 23, 2019
    Leaf floating on water

    When You Fall

    September 21, 2019
  • faith,  justice

    A Non-Traditional Blessing

    August 20, 2019 /

    Text composed by Sister Ruth Fox, OSB, from the Sacred Heart Monastery in Richardton, North Dakota, in 1985.

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    Six people participate in a close group hug.

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 25: Belonging

    May 14, 2019

    Little Things with Great Love

    February 10, 2019

    To Study Portuguese

    February 20, 2019
  • musicals,  reviews,  reviews,  Taproot

    A Review of BRIGHT STAR the Musical

    August 11, 2019 /

    This is a bluegrass musical set in the comfortable hills around Asheville, NC and outlying districts. In the 1920s in Hayes Creek, NC, a young girl, Alice, falls in love with Jimmy; in the 1940s, just after the war, Alice is in Asheville editing a southern journal, looking for new writers, Jimmy is still back home, and a young man appears with a gift for story-telling. The show switches seamlessly between the time periods until all is laid bare and forgiven. It’s an engaging arc, and based on a true story that became the inspiration for a 1900s folk song and a 2013 collaboration between Martin and Brickell. The cast…

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    stephen matlock 0 Comments

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    Potter making a clay dish

    Pride and Prejudice, Staged

    October 26, 2019

    Carefully Taught, Thoroughly Educated

    October 21, 2019
  • musings

    What I mean when I say I am a “Recovering Evangelical”

    August 1, 2019 /

    Goodness, so much here to consider. via What I mean when I say I am a “Recovering Evangelical”

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    My Dear White People

    November 10, 2019

    The Voices Are Coming from Inside the House

    July 12, 2019

    It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

    February 6, 2019
  • musings

    Sermon Podcast: “A Legend in Our Own Mind”

    July 30, 2019 /

    A good word about the guts of the faith. We who believe in Jesus must be more than mental followers. Else why believe at all? via Sermon Podcast: “A Legend in Our Own Mind“

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    It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

    February 6, 2019

    Six Freedoms Black People Do Not Have Under a White Supremacy

    April 29, 2019

    Great Expectations

    June 4, 2019
  • musings

    Sermon Podcast: “Rooted and Fruited”

    July 30, 2019 /

    This is right where I’m at. I want to be digging into the Scriptures, and I also want to be digging into our community. via Sermon Podcast: “Rooted and Fruited”

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    I’m Just Here to Dance

    February 16, 2019
    White cat stretching on a brown wooden plank

    Two Things

    June 29, 2024
    graffito silhouette of girl reaching for red heart on a string

    Words of Apology

    May 9, 2020
  • Cannon facing the harbor ready to fire
    #WakingUpWhite,  American Exceptionalism,  essays,  faith,  justice,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 29: Intent and Impact

    July 24, 2019 /

    The process of "waking up white" isn't just to be aware of whiteness. It is to wake up, and then to leave it. To go to something that's better and more life-affirming and full of health. And to not even be sure where the destination is, but with the calm assurance that it's out there.

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    #Waking Up White Chapter 21: Straddling Two Worlds

    April 13, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 42: Solidarity and Accountability

    March 16, 2020

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 5: Within the Walls

    February 4, 2019
  • American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism,  writing

    Moral Switzerlands

    July 15, 2019 /

    This is a prescient verse from 3000 years or so ago: “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15, AV White people are gonna have to choose, every single time. Every single time we choose complacency and choose safety and choose white solidarity we are choosing wickedness and cruelty and destruction. Whether we want to be honest about…

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 4: Optimism

    February 2, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 35: If Only You’d Be More Like Me

    November 15, 2019
    An ocean shore in the tropics. A line of palms stretches from the lower left to the middle right.

    When you think you want to help

    April 28, 2023
  • American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  Life Recovery Skills,  musings,  racism

    The Voices Are Coming from Inside the House

    July 12, 2019 /

    Before this day in 1957, Hazel Massery (white) had never met Elizabeth Eckford (Black). After this day, they did not meet again until a decade later. And yet Ms. Massery became the face of white reaction to the mere presence of Black people in their reserved spaces. Without prompting, she exploded in anger and fury—and yes, hate. Something in whiteness trains us to be like this. To simply hate not only the “other” but the “inferior.” We’re trained to believe in the innate superiority of white people; in things where we appear to fail we say we have no interest. What was the actual problem Ms. Eckford caused that would…

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    stephen matlock 1 Comment

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    I Am MLK Jr

    October 21, 2019
    A man is checking a map to see where he goes next

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 38: The Rugged Individual

    December 20, 2019

    The Purpose-Driven Lie

    October 23, 2019
  • #WakingUpWhite,  American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 28: I Am the Elephant

    June 24, 2019 /

    This chapter explores the meaning behind not only identifying as white (which is simple enough when we check off the census form), but also identifying white as a race in the same construct that black is a race. Being white, or whiteness, is a construct, with similar rules and roles and obligations as those that are imposed upon being black, or blackness. “[B]eing a part of American organizations, institutions, and traditions came so easily to me, I couldn’t imagine what could be so tough about adjusting to them.” There are at least two parts to being white. One is that we have an entire set of behaviors and standards, of…

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    stephen matlock 0 Comments

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 5: Within the Walls

    February 4, 2019
    White Doors of Opportunity

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 19: My Good Luck

    April 1, 2019
    People standing and walking down the corridor of a brightly lighted shiny conference hallway

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 36: The Dominant White Culture

    November 21, 2019
  • banknotes
    American Civil War,  American Exceptionalism,  faith,  family,  history,  justice,  musings,  racism

    Juneteenth, Reparations, and What Do I Do About It?

    June 19, 2019 /

    Today is June 19th, a day when we remember that our American experiment with freedom included over 200 years of enslavement for Africans stolen and sold to white slavers. Today is the day when HR#40, a bill to set up a commission to study reparations, was introduced for discussion in a House subcommittee hearing. And today I considered the long and winding road of my own presence in America. I have a history, y’all. My father’s family came to America in the early 1700s from England—the region where Matlock, Derbyshire sits. The family split early into Northern and Southern branches, with one group leaving for North and West, from North…

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    stephen matlock 2 Comments

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 6: From Confusion to Shock

    February 8, 2019
    Street view of the F. W. Woolworth building in Greensboro, North Carolina. There are a dozen people standing on the sidewalk in front of the building.

    When We Hide the Past in Plain Sight

    July 14, 2025
  • #WakingUpWhite,  American Exceptionalism,  faith,  history,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 27: Living into Expectations

    June 18, 2019 /

    This was a fascinating chapter for me, in that I hadn’t really dived into this before: what is it that we thought about ourselves when we were young that has somehow determined who we are as adults, based upon the choices we made from youth to adulthood. I was talking about this today on the bus with a friend. In high school the guidance counselors said “You can pretty much do whatever you want—you have no one specific passion.” And I’ve done that in life, settling on my current career of doing something interesting in tech while I wait for something to pique my interest elsewhere. I’ve done all sorts…

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 24: Everyone Is Different; Everyone Belongs

    May 6, 2019
    White Doors of Opportunity

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 19: My Good Luck

    April 1, 2019
    Slices of lemons and grapefruit

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 26: Surviving Versus Thriving

    June 12, 2019
  • musings

    In Response to the Dangers of “Social Justice”

    June 14, 2019 /

    Good words about the necessity of hands and feet working out the effects of the Gospel on hearts and minds. https://wp.me/p4qMcC-Bu

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    stephen matlock 0 Comments

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    SPEAKASY: An interview with Elyse Douglas

    May 4, 2022

    Hope

    March 6, 2019

    The Voices Are Coming from Inside the House

    July 12, 2019
  • Slices of lemons and grapefruit
    #WakingUpWhite,  justice,  Life Recovery Skills,  racism

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 26: Surviving Versus Thriving

    June 12, 2019 /

    In this chapter Ms. Irving recalls a famous experiment conducted in 1968 by Ms. Jane Elliott on a class of third graders, and then repeated in other circumstances with adults in various settings, including corporate settings where the participants came in order to learn about prejudice and race issues—and yet they were unable to process their experiences and feelings even though they knew they were there for such training and understanding. The experiences of discrimination overruled their intentions and their self-knowledge. “I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve felt underappreciated, invisible, or misunderstood. I can’t imagine feeling that way most of the time at school, at work, on the train,…

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    stephen matlock 0 Comments

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    #Waking Up White Chapter 13: Invisibility

    March 7, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 28: I Am the Elephant

    June 24, 2019
    Runners' track waiting for the race

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 39: Equality Starts with Equity

    January 18, 2020
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