Three key people behind this new public TV documentary, Healing Hate, are from left: Sunayana Dumala, Solomon Shields and Mindy Corporon.

“Hate has no place—because it will touch everybody.”
Mindy Corporon in the documentary Healing Hate

“But both Mindy and Sunayana and their families used the worst days of their lives to empower them to engage the world in positive ways.”
Documentary filmmaker Solomon Shields

See this powerful documentary right now:

Right now, you can learn more about this documentary, created by Kansas City PBS along with filmmaker Solomon Shields, by reading our ReadTheSpirit cover story below.

But, first: Thanks to Kansas City public TV’s YouTube channel, you also can stream the entire half-hour documentary here:

To read Mindy’s entire story, including how she met her friend Sunayana—get a copy of Healing a Shattered Soul in hardcover, paperback or Kindle via Amazon.

‘Healing Hate: Turning Pain into Power’

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit online magazine

After weathering some of the most horrific hate crimes in America over the past decade—including a catastrophic mass shooting at a parade in February—Kliff Kuehl, the CEO of Kansas City’s PBS station, and filmmaker Solomon Shields committed themselves to arousing public action.

Click on the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.

As the resulting 30-minute film debuts this week, Kuehl is telling viewers, “Kansas City PBS is honored to bring Healing Hate to our viewers. This documentary has the potential to inspire and ignite a collective commitment to stand against hate, fostering a more inclusive Kansas City,”

The film’s power springs from the stories of two women who have transformed their grief over losing family members, killed in earlier shootings, into major ongoing efforts to promote compassion, healing and inclusion.

The first of these two friends is author and nationally known advocate for community compassion Mindy Corporon, whose son and father were killed 10 years ago in an antisemitic hate crime outside the  Overland Park, Kansas, Jewish Community Center in 2014. Mindy has published the widely read memoir Healing a Shattered Soul and also is co-founder of the nonprofit community movement known as SevenDays.

Mindy’s friend is Sunayana Dumala, who Mindy met in 2017 after national news broke about the murder of Sunayana’s husband by a shooter in an Olathe, Kansas, restaurant. The murderer declared that he wanted to kill someone from the Middle East—and that he thought his victims were Iranian.

“I worked a lot of long hours with Mindy and Sunayana and many others on this project because all of us know how timely this documentary is,” Solomon Shields said in an interview this week.

The urgency they all feel this spring includes the latest mass shooting at the Kansas City parade—as well as national reports that hate crimes are rising to an all-time high, plus the upcoming April 13th 10-year anniversary of the antisemitic shootings that killed Mindy’s loved ones.

“All of us felt we had to share this documentary with as many people as possible—right now,” Shields said.

What’s so horrifying is: When bullets fly—they can hit anyone

“What’s so astonishing is that in all three tragedies—the gunmen were coming from a place of anger and violence that wound up killing people who they never intended to kill,” Shields said. “That’s one of the main themes of this documentary: When bullets fly, they can hit any of us.”

In 2014, Mindy’s son and father were in a parking lot preparing to participate in a community program being held inside the Jewish center—but they were not Jewish. In 2017, the shooter in Olanthe was raving about Middle Easterners and mistook Sunayana’s Indian-American husband for an Iranian, according to news reports. And, in February 2024, the one death and 22 injuries were caused by several armed young men who opened fire at each other in a personal dispute that had nothing to do with their 23 innocent victims.

“We have to realize: When guns are blazing and bullets are flying, those bullets don’t care what you look like or who is waiting for you at home,” Shields said. “It’s so important for people to understand that we all must take steps to prevent this from happening to others.

“This is definitely something that hits close to home for me as an African American filmmaker,” he said. “I have had friends who have lost their lives to gun violence: wrong place, wrong time and a bullet happens to hit them. I was very honored to work on this project because it’s something I can relate to. I remember both of these earlier shootings and they had a real impact on me.

“The main theme of the documentary is how these two families overcame such unspeakable tragedies so that they could continue to live and build relationships. That’s the flip side of this documentary: Even after such tragedies, we can decide to build relationships that can make our entire community better.

“I am so impressed by the strength of the human spirit in these two women who were able to face the world again after the worst days in their lives,” Shields said. “For a lot of people faced with this—it would have been understandable to simply say: We need our privacy and refuse to talk to anyone anymore. But both women and their families used the worst days of their lives to empower them to engage the world in positive ways.”

That took an enormous amount of emotional strength within these families—as readers learn when they read Mindy’s memoir. In this new public TV film, viewers also will see and hear these two friends talk about that process of transforming anger into hope.

Shields said he continues to be amazed at their strength. “I realize that they may not ever have a perfect day again after such tragedies—because every day they will remember the loved ones they lost. That’s why this film is so inspiring. These women chose not to close themselves off to the world. They decided to show the rest of us that there is still life worth living, if we can work on these issues together.

“When people see this documentary, I want them to come away, first, feeling informed about all the reasons this is such a timely message. Second, I want viewers to feel inspired that, even though these horrible things continue to happen, there are relationships we can form that can help us, our families and our communities—that is, if we are willing to search for those new relationships.

“Finally, I want people to feel that there are things they can do whoever they are and wherever they are,” Shields said. It’s a lesson he took to heart as he worked with these families and the Kansas City PBS staff to produce this film. “That’s what I could do right now. I’m a filmmaker here in Kansas City and I did something: I created this documentary that can share this story with so many people out there. And, now, I appreciate that others are out there trying to encourage more people to see this film.”

And one last reminder …

Wherever you live across the U.S., you can contact your local PBS station and urge the management to seek out this documentary to broadcast in your region. If you have never done this before—simply find the website of your “local” PBS station, contact station management through their website and share a link to this story. Most public TV stations appreciate local viewers making such recommendations.

To read Mindy’s entire story, including how she met her friend Sunayana—get a copy of Healing a Shattered Soul in hardcover, paperback or Kindle via Amazon.

Could a family member or neighbor be an unheralded light in our world?

Click on this cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine

In my half century as a journalist covering religious and cultural diversity, I have profiled hundreds of “outsider” artists whose unique creations in music, visual arts, filmmaking, poetry and sculpture have been a rich part of global cultures for thousands of years. I am continually looking for those overlooked men and women who are spreading joy—or are sharing their laments—through whatever art-forms they can envision.

I once profiled an Appalachian artist who constructed his entire two-story home to look like a gigantic duck (covering the entire duck-shaped home in shingles that looked like feathers) as his tribute to the birds he loved. In Asia, I profiled an artist who created an enormous shrine to his ancestors made entirely of seashells and beautiful stones he found along the ocean shore. I profiled an Appalachian coal miner who recreated the entire book of Genesis in wood-carved tableaux that eventually wound up at the Smithsonian. And, perhaps my personal favorite: I profiled an Appalachian woman who fashioned musical instruments from gourds so that she and her friends could play gospel tunes.

So, you can see right away why I was so eager to read and review this beautiful, fascinating, 634-page tribute to the comic books created by the until-now-unknown comic pioneer Frank Johnson. The debut of this selection of Johnson’s comics now will redraw our official history of American comic books. That will take some time, but that rewriting is sure to come—especially since this book was produced by the highly respected Fantagraphics and includes extensive opening essays by curator and historian Chris Byrne and fine artist and graphic novelist Keith Mayerson.

At this point, though, Frank Johnson does not even have a Wikipedia page—although that is certain to change over the next year or so. And Wikipedia still sums up the official history of American comic books pretty much like all the other history books, to date:

The term comic book derives from American comic books once being a compilation of comic strips of a humorous tone. The first modern American-style comic book, Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, was released in the U.S. in 1933 and was a reprinting of earlier newspaper humor comic strips, which had established many of the story-telling devices used in comics.

This new Fantagraphics volume contains examples from half a century of the comic books Frank Johnson drew in blank, bound notebooks that were available in stores for students and office workers from the 1920s until his death in 1979. In other words, Johnson was creating full-fledged comic books a decade before Famous Funnies. His own private creative instincts led him to envision, plan, write and draw what is now considered an important American art form—years before there was any example on the market.

What could possibly have kept Frank Johnson going for so long in this private pursuit?

Minnie Black’s All-Gourd Band: ‘A Joyful Noise Unto the Good Lord’

I remember interviewing Minnie Black, the Appalachian gourd artist who created an entire band’s worth of instruments from gourds. She eventually appeared nationwide on radio and TV and had a sampling of her work collected by the Smithsonian—but in her early years as a gourd artist, her friends thought she was a bit eccentric even by Appalachian standards.

“Minnie, you created the first all-gourd band anyone has ever heard,” I said. “What made you think of this? And what kept you going even when no one seemed interested, at first?”

“I just wanted to make a joyful noise unto the Good Lord and I saw a gourd one day that was shaped like a dulcimer—and the next thing I knew, I was seeing gourds that looked like other instruments, too,” she said.

Minnie was a full-fledged artist—the Smithsonian would call her a “folk” or “naive” artist—for years before the world discovered her body of work.

‘Cautionary humor’ about life’s great challenges?

What’s so fascinating about Johnson’s body of work, beyond his pioneering creative vision, is that—like Minnie Black’s gourds—his comics reflect the challenges of his life.

The book opens with selections of Johnson’s Bowser Boys comic books, whose “heroes” are a group of homeless alcoholic friends who pursue booze with clever twists and turns every day of their lives. They rise to the challenges of daily life—even though their clothes are rags, they are covered in grime and Johnson draws them with flies buzzing around their heads.

As it turns out: At one point in Johnson’s real life, he was an out-of-control alcoholic himself and clearly these comics are a kind of wildly satirical exorcism of that raging addiction. Eventually, he became a devoted member of AA, but that era seems to have remained in his mind and heart for the rest of his life. We don’t know for sure, because Johnson left few biographical details when he died, but these comics could have been cautionary humor to share with friends Johnson got to know at his AA meetings. Perhaps some surviving friend will surface, now that Johnson is receiving more publicity, to fill in that biographical gap.

However, the majority of this book focuses on his decades-long Wally’s Gang series of comic books. This series feels like a first cousin to Archie and Gasoline Alley: a small-town gang of friends forever facing challenges in their relationships—and often pulling pranks on one another.

Some outsider artists—notably Minnie Black, who eventually appeared on Johnny Carson’s late-night talk show—attain a measure of fame in their lifetimes. In fact, I helped with her ascent into the public eye as a journalist, publishing one of the first major profiles of Minnie for a national wire service in the 1970s. She thoroughly enjoyed all the attention she received until she eventually died in 1996 at age 97.

But far too many “outsiders” only shine posthumously. Keith Mayerson captures the bittersweet truth of Frank Johnson’s career in this haunting line: “Frank Johnson laid out the future of comics for an audience of no one.”

No one was aware of his astonishing lifetime output until his descendants realized there was value in all those notebooks he had stored away.

If you would like to glimpse what the other kind of outcome for an American outsider artist can look like, you can watch a marvelous 4-minute video of Minnie Black uploaded to YouTube in 2023 by the Appalshop Archive.

For Frank Johnson, the creation of his body of work was enough to keep him going for many decades. The sheer joy he found in creating these stories is obvious in the glee shared by members of Wally’s Gang. And, now, his family can celebrate the true creative genius of their patriarch.

And—Here’s Minnie Black

Jeffrey Munroe (right) with Nicholas and Claire Wolterstorff

EDITOR’S NOTE: “It’s a book so meaningful, strangers tell others to read it.” In 17 years of publishing books, we can tell you: That’s the highest praise an author can aspire to earn. Since our founding in 2007, our authors have shared our mission: “Good media builds healthy community.” That happens when strangers feel compelled to spread the good news to others. Jeff Munroe’s new book, Telling Stories in the Dark, is receiving that valuable word of mouth. In this column, Jeff writes about one of his mentors who impressed him in this same way.

Meeting an author whose life and books have shaped my own

By JEFFREY MUNROE
Author of Telling Stories in the Dark

Sometime in the 1980s, I attended a discussion about dismantling Apartheid, the South African system of discrimination and segregation that allowed a non-White minority to rule that country. One of the speakers was Nicholas Wolterstorff, a professor of philosophy at Yale University. Wolterstorff was joined by Alan Boesak, President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a black South African who had very few civil rights in his own country. Their conversation was enthralling, and after the event I walked into a pop-up store that featured books by the authors.

Nicholas Wolterstorff’s books were on topics like art and aesthetics, reason and religion, and justice and peace. I suspected they were beyond me. (No one was going to suggest I study philosophy at Yale.)

Amid these weighty tomes, there was a small book called Lament for a Son. When I picked it up, a stranger leaned over and said, “Oh, you’ve got to read that one.” As I experienced, it’s a book so meaningful strangers tell others to read it.

Wolterstorff had lost a son in a climbing accident a couple of years earlier. Lament for a Son was a full-throated cry of anguish, sorrow, and grief. I took it home, read it in a day, and then read it again. I’ve read it five or six times since—it’s one of those books I keep returning to. There is great comfort in Wolterstorff’s words. He hadn’t put aside his great intellect to write the book, but there was nothing academic or intellectual in an off-putting way about it. It was thoroughly human and riveting and it is a book I treasure.

Fast-forward more than 30 years: As I was working on my book Telling Stories in the Dark, a book about people who have not only faced great loss but have done something redemptive with their loss, I thought of Nicholas Wolterstorff. I wondered if I might interview him for my book. I knew he was about 90, but had a mutual friend who told me Wolterstorff was still at the top of his game. I asked the friend if he would introduce us through email, and, as it turned out, Wolterstorff was happy to talk with me and be in my book.

The pandemic was winding down, so I used Zoom for the interview, which also gave me an easy way to record our conversation. The first thing the distinguished Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff did was insist I call him Nick. Then he mesmerized me as he spoke not only about the loss of his son but of living with this loss for decades. I knew our conversation was going to be very helpful for others.

When the interview ended, I shut down Zoom and waited for my computer to tell me it was storing the recording. Nothing happened. After a few moments of panic, I realized I was so excited about interviewing Nick—I had never hit the “record” button. (I might have said one or two bad words at this point.)

I quickly wrote down everything I could remember—thankfully, I had my list of questions, so used that as an outline. Then I decided the only thing to do was come clean. I decided to go back to him, tell the truth (leaving out the part about messing up because I was nervous about talking to one of the gods on Mt. Olympus), and hope for the best.

He was incredibly gracious. He offered to do the interview again, and also offered to send me some additional things he’d written as background. I used what he sent, augmented my notes, and then sent what I had to him.

He wrote back almost immediately, gave me a few corrections, and told me it was “excellent.” (For a second, I thought maybe I should have studied philosophy at Yale after all.)

I am profoundly grateful that we know each other. Nicholas Wolterstorff is one of our most distinguished philosophers. He has been invited to lecture at virtually every prestigious university in the world. Yet the other day, when I visited his church to lead an adult education class on sorrow and grief, he not only welcomed me enthusiastically—he walked me through the large building so I arrived where I needed to be.

He and his wife sat in my class and expressed gratitude that I had told their story well. His humility and authenticity are remarkable.

And so is his story, which I am exceedingly proud makes up Chapter 9 of Telling Stories in the Dark.

In a rising tide of hate crimes—

Our authors are publishing, teaching and speaking out for equality and inclusion

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(EDITOR’s NOTE: Special thanks to MSU School of Journalism Professor Joe Grimm for writing about this alarming new report on the steep rise in hate crimes among our most vulnerable young people. Joe is one of many authors in our publishing community concerned about equality and inclusion. Right now, for example, Christian ethicist Dr. David Gushee is preparing to deliver the April 14 keynote at the Parent & Family Summit—”Interwoven: Uniting Kids, Parents and Community.” Follow that link to learn more about the event, which you could attend online.)

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By JOE GRIMM
Founder of the MSU School of Journalism Bias Busters

Click the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page

Hate crimes against gay and transgender students are way up, especially in states with laws against transgender rights or teachers’ speech about gender and sexuality, according to The Washington Post. And the crimes are not up by just a little.

FBI statistics on anti-LGBTQ+ school hate crimes doubled from 2015-2019 to 2021-2022. But in the 28 states with new anti-LGBTQ+ laws on the books, such crimes quadrupled, The Post reported.

FBI stats show the most common crimes associated with LGBTQ+ school hate crimes are simple assault, intimidation and vandalism. Forms of bullying, which are lower on the aggression scale, might not rise to the level of being a crime. Recently, however, news stories have linked bullying of LGBTQ+ students to suicide.

On March 13, a summary autopsy report said Oklahoma high school student Nex Benedict died by suicide after being bullied in a restroom at their school because they did not identify as strictly male or female. The Washington Post report came out against that backdrop.

The Post looked at laws that bar students from sports teams or school restrooms that differ from the gender they were assigned at birth. Other laws limit or forbid teachers from talking about gender identity or sexual orientation.

How are state laws related to bullying?

The Post quoted Amy McGehee, an Oklahoma State University doctoral student who researches LGBTQ+ health and well-being. She said, “Policy sets the tone for real-world experiences [and] discriminatory policy just creates a hostile environment.”

The Post also quoted California high school student Max Ibarra, who identifies as nonbinary and transgender: “The school board has made it very clear we’re not welcome here. It’s very clear they don’t want us to exist.”

3 Valuable Books to Help Change Community Thinking

The Michigan State University Journalism School’s Bias Busters series has three guides that address basic questions for people who seek greater understanding.

One book is titled: “100 Questions and Answers About Gender Identity”

Here’s an example of a common question we ran into for that guide:

Do all transgender people have gender-confirming surgery?

The answer:

Most do not. According to the U.S. Transgender Survey, only 25 percent of respondents said they had some type of gender-confirming surgery. Transgender men were more likely than transgender women to have had surgery, 42 percent to 28 percent. Nine percent of nonbinary people have had surgery. Fourteen percent of transgender women and 21 percent of transgender men said they never wanted surgery. Surgery is expensive and insurance doesn’t always cover it. Even if a transgender person does not have or want surgery, their identity is still valid.

A second book is titled: “100 Questions and Answers About Sexual Orientation” https://www.amazon.com/Questions-Orientation-Stereotypes-Surrounding-Sexualities/dp/1641800275

And a third closely related book is: “The New Bullying: How social media, social exclusion, laws and suicide have changed our definition of bullying, and what to do about it”

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Joe Grimm is an MSU journalism professor and founder of the series.

Click the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.

By JOE GRIMM
Head of the MSU Bias Busters project

Whew! Our team of Michigan State University School of Journalism students—known as the Bias Busters—produced our latest book just in time!

For weeks now, journalists and religious leaders have been running in every direction after the latest reports on the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans.

The same new Pew research data is being described in seemingly opposite ways. Headlines have included:

Fox: Religious ‘nones’ decline for first time since 2016, Pew study finds

NPR: Religious ‘Nones’ are now the largest single group in the U.S.

Nether headline is wrong.

While the proportion of religiously unaffiliated people in the U.S. population has declined slightly, other groups, notably Christians and Catholics, declined more. So, everybody wins— or loses.

Reactions within Christian religions to bringing people into churches varied as much as the headlines.

In The Baptist Paper in Alabama, Mark MacDonald wrote, “As believers, we need to decide if we try to reach this unchurched group, who are ‘characterized as morally directionless,’ or shake our heads and not even attempt the challenge. I would argue the question is not ‘if’ but ‘how.’ Remember, nones are not all the same, but they all need Jesus.”

MacDonald is executive director of the Center for Church Communication. He is also a speaker, consultant, author, church branding strategist for BeKnownforSomething.com. MacDonald proposes building bridges with community-helping ministries, sharing stories, leveraging social media, extending inclusive invitations and demonstrating relevance to daily life.

Michael Pakaluk, a social research and business professor at the Catholic University of America, took a harder line in an interview with the Catholic News Agency. He told CNA, “The fields are there and are ripe for the harvest. People recognize that atheism is its own form of religion. It’s harsh and unattractive. Agnosticism was never widespread and has always been limited mainly to educated classes.”

He said that if people identify as “nothing in particular”—“then in my view they are right back where the church started, among pagan nations, and that is great for us, for evangelization.” Pakaluk told CNA the rise of religious unaffiliation is due to “secularized education and the trauma and poor example of divorce.”

Despite his concerns, or maybe because of them, Pakaluk said now is a great time for evangelization. He said, “Catholic parents should think twice, or three times, before they send their children to any colleges except faithful, vibrant, Catholic colleges.”

Writing for Crisis magazine, historian and author W. Crocker III took a harder line. “Before we can reach the adult nones with the good, the beautiful, and the true, we need to shake them out of their willed imbecility. … Until that is achieved, arguments about truth will miss the mark. Christian humility, charity, and generosity will not move them. … You want to win the nones? Treat ’em rough.”

The evangelical Christianity Today ran this headline, “Why Evangelicals Aren’t Afraid of Being Outnumbered by Nones.” In the article Erik Thoennes, professor and department chair of biblical and theological studies at Biola University, said his Generation Z students are turned off by church marketing or bids to make it cool. They want authenticity.

He said he goes with traditional strengths such as the power of Christ. As the article concludes, he is quoted, “I don’t have to stay atop of the latest trends to make sure dechurching doesn’t happen at my church.” He is pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church in La Mirada, California. He said. “It’s simple: Stay focused on Jesus.”

Got questions about our minority friends, neighbors and coworkers?

There are now more than 20 guides in the Bias Busters series. Which ones would you like?