Sunday Slow Burn: Weekly Anti-Oppression Education
Hi,
I'm Cydney and I believe in collective liberation and ancestral healing through anti-oppression education. In June of 2020, I decided to start a weekly, free, anti-oppression education project called Sunday Slow Burn.
• • •
When I first started Sunday Slow Burn on June 14th, this is how I introduced it to the world:
About Sunday Slow Burn
Anti-oppression work (especially anti-racism work) is a marathon, not a sprint.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen many people publicly working through their own privilege, grappling with how they have personally benefited from the oppression of others, and beginning to think about what that means in the context of a larger movement like Black Lives Matter.
For all of you first-timers, that’s great. Welcome to the (this is all a part of a messed up system) party. But I hope that as the noise, attention, brownie points for virtue-signaling dies down, you’ll stay in the fight.
I have been doing anti-oppression education and training work in NYC with students, educators, nonprofits, and corporations for a little over ten years. Yep. That’s my day job and I usually use Instagram for… not that.
In light of recent events and with enough people reaching out to me to ask my opinion, apologize for not listening to me in the past when I described my own lived experiences, or send their condolences*, I’ve been thinking about what I could contribute to this conversation.
*Y’all… I’m going to need you to think real hard about that one… did you send your condolences to your white friend the last time a white person’s death in another state made national news?
What I can offer is complexity, nuance, and small pieces of information + context that can be consumed over time. Every Sunday, I’ll post new resources from different perspectives/mediums/levels of engagement and keep them in the highlights under the Sunday Slow Burn section.
Why am I doing this?
Because collective liberation is important to me and I believe in dismantling oppression as a way of life. However, if you want to share this content or if you feel like you are getting something out of it and want to compensate me for my labor, I’ll make sure to add my cash app info at the end of each round of posts.
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Over the last twelve weeks, Sunday Slow Burn has taken off in some really unexpected and amazing ways.
How it started:
- A few resources in Instagram stories
What it is now:
- fully fleshed out curriculum (that's planned 10 weeks at a time)
- 1 anti-oppression concept
- 5 non-book or academic article resources
- a webpage with embedded links to all of the content
- shareable archives
- comment capabilities
- Instagram previews
- content posts of the big points that can more easily be shared with others
And while I'm so excited about how much people are enjoying and sharing the content, at this point I'm doing all of this alone every week as a freelancer.
Each Sunday Slow Burn takes about 16 - 20 hrs a week to put together. Here's the math on a typical SSB week:
~ 8 hours of content research (I watch/listen to everything I share every Sunday... and sometimes things don't make the cut and I have to find something else that is a better fit)
~ 3 hours of writing and organizing notes
~ 5 hours of web design/embedding/formatting
~ 1-2 hours of Instagram content creation and social media work
~ .5 - 3 hours of sharing information, having followup conversations, and unpacking emotional reactions of readers who reach out to me individually.
I believe in this work and I believe that education, especially anti-oppression education should be free. But my labor, especially as a black woman without access to intergenerational wealth or even health care (literally can't afford it right now) should not be free. Think about it, would you expect a public school teacher to teach for 40 hours a week and then get a part-time job so they could make ends meet just so that they could keep providing free education to the kids in the community?
This is why I need your help. There is no government funding and there aren't any unions to make sure I get a fair wage for this project. Sunday Slow Burn is run on sheer willpower at this point and I want to do it. But I can't do it without support.
I want to build Sunday Slow Burn with you. I want to build free access to anti-oppression education for EVERYONE with you. Yup... that's why this isn't a Patreon or exclusive class... before you even ask.
In the next 3 months, my goal is to raise $16,000 to fund the first semester of Sunday Slow Burn next year.
26 weeks of content • Every Sunday • January through June
Many of you who have been following SSB from the beginning have asked how you can help. This is your moment to be a part of the Sunday Slow Burn journey. Please donate what you can when you can, share the content, share this page, and help me reach my goal so that this project can continue into 2021.
Thank you, I appreciate you, I love you.
xo,
Cydney
