White Flour by David LaMotte

Inspired by true events in Knoxville, TN

non-violence

New (free!) White Flour Reading Guide

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Jenn Hales and I are thrilled to announce that we’ve released the first two of three resources that have been created to accompany White Flour in different teaching contexts.  The first is a Reading Guide that supports the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts by giving teachers information and questions to use in a close re-reading of the story with students.

The second is a Sunday School lesson plan designed for church contexts. It was written by Marc VanBulck, and it examines Jesus’ teaching regarding how to respond to violence and aggression, drawing heavily on the work of Walter Wink.

We will soon release a third resource, a Social Studies curriculum. Stay tuned!

Please feel free to distribute these free resources as widely as you like. If there are other resources you would like to see, or elements to these resources that could be improved, please post comments on this page. We enthusiastically welcome your feedback!

Click here to download the White Flour Reading Guide.

Click here to download the White Flour Sunday School lesson plan.

If you do not have Adobe PDF Reader, please click here to download it.

Stay tuned for more…

 

Life Inspires Art (…inspires life)

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This morning I heard from several friends about a KKK rally in Charlotte, NC this past Saturday. It seems that my book White Flour had a hand in inspiring some Charlotte clowns (Charlatans?) to meet hatred with humor, just as the Coup Clutz Clowns did in Knoxville in 2007.

The Klan and Neo-Nazis came to Charlotte to protest against immigration. They were met by a joyful, boisterous group of clowns who seemed to have read my book. I got in touch with Lacey Williams, the lead organizer on the rally, to congratulate her on a great event, and she confirmed that they had based their action on White Flour and the Knoxville clown rally that inspired it.

The story ran on Charlotte TV, WCNC, then was picked up by CNN. Later in the day it hit the Huffington Post, The Raw Story and other outlets. It’s great to see the story getting out there, especially when it inspires effective actions in real life!

Kudos to the Charlotte Clowns! I love how Lacey and other protestors (including a City Councilman!) articulate why they are there.

By the way, I’ve noticed some disparaging comments regarding North Carolina in some of the comments on some of these stories.  It should be noted that the supremacists came in from out of state, and the clowns were local!

Here’s to those who march on…

 

UPDATE (11/13/12):  Top-recommended story on Daily Kos today is about this rally!

 

White Flour is now a video

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Here’s a way to hear and see this story, that doesn’t require buying the book. Please feel free to share it in any context you like, virtual or actual.

 

Asheville Citizen-Times Article

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Here is a beautiful article that ran recently in the Asheville Citizen-Times, Asheville, North Carolina, on the cover of their “Living” section.  If only they could have gotten the picture of me a little bit bigger…

Click on the photo below to read the article (thanks to Paul Choi for the photo below).