Black History Month? Turns out it’s My History Month too. Today I learned that my family and I owe a debt of gratitude to Jan Ernst Matzeliger, the African-American inventor of the Automatic Shoe Lasting Machine. Quoting from an old publication by Compton College that I happened to see today: “His machine created new jobs, […]
Sharing my learning from a recent training with Dr. Heather Hackman about how white privilege and white supremacy interrelate: White privilege is when people like me look at our lives and think, “I earned all of that because I was just better/smarter/harder working than other people,” without seeing how the wind that was at our backs […]
Twenty well-meaning, diverse nonprofit folks sitting in a classroom. “What words does our society use to describe young black males?” Dr. Bryant T. Marks, Sr. asks us. We pull out our phones and text a word to him. He clicks a key on his laptop, and a slide appears on the big screen at the […]
In case you’re wondering why I keep talking about racial justice here? 1. Because it’s helping me to articulate what I’m learning. 2. Because I hope it may help others too. 3. Because the first change I can make is to help make visible what was hidden from me.
60-second video review: Spike Lee’s movie BlackkKlansman brilliantly calls white women and Jewish people (hey, those are me!) into the struggle against white supremacy. P.S. apologies for the background noise, but it does sometimes rain in L.A.!
Holding and sharing encouragement from last week’s White Allyship training: The fears and challenges I’m feeling as I try to join the fight to dismantle racism are super common. I’m not unique, and that’s good news. Brilliant leaders have gone before me, lighting the path. All I need to do is keep walking.
I just finished the audiobook of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I wanted to change up my racial justice commute time, because honestly sometimes it’s hard to feel like I want to immerse myself in a nonfiction book that’s gonna hit me with fact after fact after fact of the history and current […]
Ten years ago today. We watched Barack Obama’s first inauguration from my dad’s hospital room in Concord, MA. Nurn was a flaming liberal who seriously feared W. would refuse to hand over power. But there we were, watching history and hope on screen, knowing it was pretty clear that Nurn’s own history and hope were […]
Happy new year, my dears. You might remember me writing about my beloved and hard-won Rules for who and how I want to be in the world. But I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed by uncertainty for awhile now. I finally had to realize, and admit to myself, that what brought me this far is not […]
Yay holidays mean it’s time for another themed party at work! The whole staff asked me to be in charge of decorations for our celebration to make it fun and festive for everyone… on the usual shoestring budget. Result: “New Leaf” theme, in honor of having a big year ahead with several new team members […]