Book Discussion for Dalit History Month with Equality Labs

April 9, 2026 | Events

Presented by Equality Labs

🗓️ Thursday, Apr 16 from 7 pm to 8 pm EDT

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Join Equality Labs’ Executive Director Thenmozhi Soundararajan and Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad, author of The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde for a special Dalit History Month conversation on Black and Dalit Liberation. This discussion will highlight luminary thinkers like Audre Lorde and James Baldwin and Dalit leaders like Ambedkar and Shri Guru Ravidas. Select audience members will get copies of Rima’s book!

Register

More from Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad

James Baldwin argued that racism is not a “Black problem” but a white fear-driven delusion that scapegoats Black people and evades interior work. Drawing on Baldwin’s essays and testimony, we discuss his critique of white moral pretentiousness, evasion, and the projection of shame and fear—especially the fear of death—onto Black bodies. We also see how Baldwin’s analysis relates to Buddhist teaching on dependent origination from the Rice Seedling Sutra.

 

In this dharma talk, we investigate the role of Sati—which is translated as knowing, awareness, presence, or mindfulness—in the writings of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, in conversation with early Buddhist writings.
In this dharma talk, we understand the weight of suffering through the eyes of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. We learn how Baldwin gleaned the difference between suffering due to the violence of racism, and suffering that is central to the human experience. We learn about Lorde’s embrace of the idea that pain can teach us something important, but that we need not suffer uselessly.

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