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Tag Archive for: Racial Justice

  • Photo: OWN.

Rest in Power Maya Angelou: Writer, Survivor, former Sex Worker & Icon of Black Female Determination

Profiles | 3 Comments

We lost a phenomenal writer in Maya Angelou.  While many will remember her as an inspirational poet, I will always recall her as a groundbreaking memoirist. She was the first writer whose multi-volume autobiography gave me a vision of the complexity and depth of black women’s lives.

I met Dr. Angelou in 2004, when we were both on the radio show “West Coast Live.”  I was promoting my solo show, and she was promoting her cookbook. How do you tell a living legend how much you admire her? I simply offered a polite thank you for her work, and didn’t take up any more of her time.  Her writing has inspired millions of people, and whatever I might have said about her honesty, her courage, or her fierceness had been said already.  She knew.  She knew who she was, and didn’t need me or anyone to tell her.

But it hadn’t always been that way, and her autobiographical testimony about how she had gone from rejected daughter to celebrated author is a crucial part of the canon of US literature. Since the publication of the first volume in 1969, she has impacted generations.

There are so many standout moments in her work, but in the moment of her passing, I would like to highlight three of them: her experience of sexual violence, her participation in the sex industries, and her determination to integrate the SF Streetcar conductors.

Angelou was the first black woman who wrote of being raped, and as a child.  In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she uses the biblical reference of the camel passing through the eye of a needle to describe the experience:

“The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can’t. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator can’t.”

As painful as the experience was for her, she communicates clearly in her writing that she understands the context of the violation.  She highlights what—in a male-dominated society—is considered flexible and what is considered rigid and unmovable.

Her candor about her sexual experiences, chosen and unchosen, continues throughout her autobiographical series. Later, she describes her experiences in the sex industries.  Her accounts include working as a prostitute in a brothel for Mexican wage-laborers and as a pimp for two lesbian sex workers.  In our current era of respectability politics for black women, we might reduce Angelou to an uplift-the-race interpretation of poems like “Phenomenal Woman”:

When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
[….] ’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

But perhaps we catch a glimpse of her experience as a sex worker in “And Still I Rise”, where she offers a strong image of material wealth to be associated with female sexuality:

…I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs

Poet Langston Hughes is widely remembered as a celebrated African American poet while his identity as a black gay man is often erased.  Similarly, Maya Angelou needs to be celebrated as a complex writer who lived and chronicled her complex, sexual, and sexualized life as a black woman from childhood to elder, not reduced to a sexless role model of an “upstanding” black female.

Finally, I cannot help but recall an iconic moment where a teenage Maya Angelou decides to go to any lengths to get a job conducting streetcars in San Francisco, despite being rejected because she is black: “My mind shouted so energetically that the announcement made my veins stand out, and my mouth tighten into a prune.  I WOULD HAVE THE JOB.  I WOULD BE A CONDUCTORETTE AND SLING A FULL MONEY CHANGER FROM MY BELT.  I WOULD.”

That voice, that determined black girl voice has been crucial in my own black woman’s life.  I have counted on that determination, that way out of no way I WOULD to guide and sustain me in many things.  Most recently, that determination has sustained me in my quest against the odds to get a literary agent and sell a book.  Through perseverance – the kind that made sixteen year old Maya San Francisco’s first conductorette – I finally did get an agent.

In selecting a photo to accompany this essay, I chose the picture of a young Maya from the conductorette era that ran in the Huffington Post. With a sassy outfit and a book on her hip, I love this image.  May all black women hold this vision of ourselves in our hearts: having known both victory and defeat, but still determined, hopeful, and fierce.

—

Feature photo: OWN

  • Photo courtesy of Julie Quiroz

Me, My Sister, & the US Census

By Julie Quiroz   |  May 23, 2014
Reflections | 0 Comments

Fear.

That was my first thought when I read the New York Times headline: “More Hispanics Declaring Themselves White.”

Apparently the preliminary data from a new study show that 2.5 million Americans who identified as Hispanic and “some other race” in 2000 changed their identification in 2010, reporting that they were Hispanic and white. With disturbingly sweeping conclusions Nate Cohn asserts that the data “call into question whether America is destined to become a so-called minority-majority nation, where whites represent a minority of the nation’s population.”   “It is particularly significant,” continues Cohn, “that the shift toward white identification withstood a decade of debate over immigration and the country’s exploding Hispanic population, which might have been expected to inculcate or reinforce a sense of Hispanic identity.”

What about fear?

In 1989 I was working in Washington, DC, which made me the official public policy analyst for my family. I was not surprised when my sister called long distance, wanting my advice on what was her first Census.

“Should I check ‘Hispanic’?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “Why not?”

I could picture my sister, hundreds of miles away, with skin darker than mine, who was often mistaken for Chippewa or one of the other Native American tribes in Michigan where we grew up. My skin was lighter, so people assumed I was Chaldean, part of the large Christian Iraqi community in Detroit. No one ever guessed Ecuadorian.

“I’m just kind of scared,” she said. “Like maybe they’ll use that against me somehow. I mean, could they use it to discriminate against me?”

I assured her that she would be okay and that checking the “Hispanic” box would be helpful for Latino communities needing government resources.

But I was struck by her question and her fear. While my public policy brain could dismiss her concerns, I knew they were real. From FBI surveillance of Cesar Chavez to Department of Homeland Security data used in millions of deportations, I knew that being Latino in the US was never without risk.

“White Supremacy kills,” writes Blanca E. Vega in Latinidad Without Latinos: In Response to the Question: “Will Hispanics be The New White?”

 …it is insignificant to ask how many White people there will be in 2050 and how Latinos will contribute to this number if we don’t consider that the values, beliefs, and practices that uphold White Supremacy are much stronger than our mortal bodies. Yes – we are all carriers of these values, beliefs, and practices. Thus, Latinos “choosing” White could only mean something when we consider what we are taught about Whiteness and the mechanisms that are still firmly in place that make people desire Whiteness and reject Latinidad.

Whatever the numbers are and however we ask the questions, let’s not forget that stepping forward as a person of color in this country has always been a dangerous act. Let’s not forget that courageous organizing – like Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Puente Arizona, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and so much more – is what brings safety and strength to our communities, and allows us to nurture an identity of leadership for a loving and equitable world.

—

Feature photo: Courtesy of Julie Quiroz

  • Photo: Michael McCauslin (CC BY 2.0)

The Five Stages of Diversity

By Aya de Leon   |  May 16, 2014
Reflections | 2 Comments

In recent weeks, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed participating in conversations on twitter about diversity in media. This recent round began in March with the publication of a New York Times article by Walter Dean Myers citing a study which found that of 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about Black people.

In April, the twitterverse responded to the massive lack of diversity in the speakers and panels at New York’s scheduled BookCon expo: 30 authors, all white. “There are more cats than people of color scheduled,” Jeff O’Neal, the founder of the website BookRiot, wrote soon afterward. In response, a group of 22 writers, publishers and bloggers launched the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, which went viral. While did it manage to bring a diversity panel to BookCon (some say too little too late), it also showed that there’s a passionate, active groundswell of readers, writers and industry professionals who want diverse books. People spoke about race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, ability, mental health, and the need to see the diversity of the world represented in books. Around the same moment, Dominican author Junot Diaz wrote a piece in the New Yorker “MFA vs. POC” about the racism he and others had experienced in creative writing MFA programs.  Daniel  José Older also explored this theme in “Diversity Is Not Enough: Race, Power, Publishing” where he asserted, “The publishing industry looks a lot like these best-selling teenage dystopias: white and full of people destroying each other to survive.”

Yesterday, Hood Feminist co-founder Mikki Kendall started the hash tag #DiversityIsNot as she prepared to write about diversity in media. The hash tag elicited so many tweets about failed attempts at diversity, some quite well meaning. Whatever the intent to diversify, the impact is documented in the twitter conversation: the media in our society, at best pays lip service to diversity, but fails to produce it at a significant level in any of the above categories of diversity.

As I read through the tweets, I was struck by different categories of failure. The well meaning but incompetent. The outraged and defensive. If we saw diversity as a transformative process, perhaps there could be stages. It reminded me of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ powerful model of the 5 Stages of Grief. I learned the stages in my 20s and still know them by heart: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The stages have been applied to other things. Why not diversity? I began to tweet them out on Kendall’s hash tag yesterday.

While I do have a sense of parody and humor about this, the underlying sentiments are quite serious. In a conversation about lack of equity and access that’s been happening for decades, people are deeply frustrated. But I always like to lighten the mood a little while we gear ourselves up for the next round of battle to demand that the cultural institutions of the society accurately reflect our world.

The Five Stages of Diversity

1 Oblivious Homogeneity: Really? We’re all ____? Everyone? (looks around) I guess I never noticed.

The first stage is when someone inside a group realizes (or more likely someone from outside the group points out) that the group is deeply lacking in diversity. This can be an aha moment, but is more likely a huh? moment. Group members are often disoriented, as they have to reframe their community from “who we are” or “how it is” to notice that some form of elitism, exclusion, or exclusivity is at play. For those marginalized, particularly those who speak up, the transition of the insiders from obliviousness to foggy awareness is intensely frustrating. But we, by virtue of our exclusion, are acutely aware of the lack of diversity. In some cases, we feel it every moment of our lives. Other times, it’s just a hum in the background. We tune it out, except when we feel the fresh sting of a new exclusion.

2 Insensitive Tokenism: Look class we have a new student who is ___. Perfect for all your Qs about ___!

This is the first failed attempt to solve the problem. In the mind of the privileged, the systematic exclusion and subordination of various groups in society can get reduced to a surface mix up. No _____s in the group. Let’s just go get one! The facilitator from the dominant group, having failed to look deeper into the situation, views the newcomer through a lens of entitlement. Teachers, bosses, and other power holders are notorious for expecting the lone token to stand in for, and often speak for, the missing members of their group.

Yes, Miss _____. What do women want?

_____, what do black people think about that rapper _____?

_____, I guess all the gay people are happy today about _____, right?

_____, you’re Asian, what did you think of that martial arts movie?

This an insidious form of exploitation by the dominant group. In addition, for the lone individual who enters the previously exclusionary space, it is seen as a form of upward mobility. But their token status engenders isolation from their original community, and no peers to face a hostile environment.

3 Defensive Self-Righteousness: How dare you accuse me of ___ism? Some of my best friends are ___!

At some point, however, the balance tips a bit. What used to be one diverse person becomes several or many. These people begin to push on the institution and make demands. In this climate, the institution pushes back. We see this in the social media world, where demands for equity and justice are dismissed as “political correctness.” Also, in many cases the subordinated group has been subject to documented institutional discrimination over decades or centuries. However, these members of the dominant group are completely focused on the encroachment on their privilege. At times, they equate their recent and limited loss of complete privilege with historical inequality. At other times, they are completely preoccupied with their imagined victimization and can’t even see that the other group has any valid claims. In the above example from my tweet, the individual feels threatened and develops an absurd defense to prove their lack of prejudice. They position themselves as the offended party by virtue of the accusation of bias. However, in recent years, particularly in the era of the Internet, people are “embracing” their bias. Instead of a huffy denial, they fully claim the right to dominate. As such, they lash out with viciousness, verbal violence, and threats of physical or sexual violence.

4 Mindless Deference: Sure! Eldridge Cleaver sounds great for Black History Month heroes! (look it up)

This is another failed attempt to solve the problem. In progressive circles, sometimes members of the excluded group are invited into positions of leadership or influence. Overall, this should be an improvement. However, in too many cases, the group or institution lacks strong relationships with people in the marginalized group. They have low expectations or deep discomfort in having authentic discussions. Sometimes the person is unprepared to lead, or has toxic issues that poison their work. These situations are worse than lack of diversity. I wrote about an example in my first Let’s Talk post, where white institutions refuse to check African American men’s anger and sexism. The above example from my tweet has the same dynamic: Eldridge Cleaver is a former Black Panther who, at one point, believed that raping white women was an appropriate and effective strategy to combat racism (he “practiced” on African American women first). The last thing the African American community needs is anyone justifying sexual violence.

We need members of dominant groups to listen to members of our group, but not to be yes-men and women to every idea that any of us have, particularly the ones that are obviously dysfunctional or disastrous. Not only does this wreak havoc with our organizations and communities, the lack of oversight guarantees failure. Conservative forces recast the failure of their institutions to effectively implement diversity as a failure of diversity. See, that’s why we didn’t hire any _____ for all those years.

5 Conscious Partnership: between equals from under and overrepresented groups.

This is the final goal. There’s an acknowledgement of the history of inequality, but an intention to stand on footing that is as equal as possible. In this model, people work together to carry out the goals of their organization or company, as well as to address the ongoing challenges of diversity. The historically dominant groups take a step back and the historically marginalized groups take a step up. It works best if there’s more than one person from marginalized groups and their relationships are supported. During the token phase, there was only room for one from any group and competition between the formerly excluded has become all too common.

None of this is easy to accomplish. Prejudice is deeply ingrained in the minds and impulses of those in dominant groups. Internalized oppression is deeply ingrained in those from subordinated groups. But I have seen enough instances of true partnership across differences that I have begun to trust that it’s possible. Also, in spite of Internet trolls and the slow pace of institutional change, I see a groundswell of individuals reaching for diversity that includes connection and equality across difference. At the end of the day, I deeply believe that the drive for that connected equality is the truth about human beings.

—

Feature photo: Michael McCauslin (CC BY 2.0)

  • Photo: Flickr.com/twbuckner, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Discrimination Today: One Education Organizer’s Outrage

By Pecolia Manigo   |  May 15, 2014
Reflections | 1 Comment

Today our collective failure to provide real educational opportunity for youth of color leaves me shaken and emboldened to speak. It’s been 60 years since Brown v. Board struck down segregation laws in schools – and 16 years since I began organizing with low-income parents and students to achieve a decent education for youth of color.

In 2008 I took a job as Campaign Organizer for the “Campaign for College and Career,” launched by the members of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth in San Francisco. As Campaign Organizer, it was my job to educate, train, and organize African American, Latino, and Pacific Islander parents and students to work with allies to push for resources to ensure students’ access to the minimum requirements for entry into California public universities (called the “A-G” course requirements).

The campaign pushed for San Francisco Unified School District to graduate 60% of all students to be college and career ready by aligning the graduation requirement with “A-G.” We also demanded student access to socio-emotional supports, tutoring, alternatives to suspension and options for retaking failed classes.

When we started the campaign, lack of access and supports meant that only one out of six African American and one out of five Latino students in SFUSD were graduating with these courses completed. Each and every year we advocated and organized for increases in resources for students to be successful and graduate on time. Each and every year, we discovered barrier after barrier that went way beyond policy changes.

The results of this work have been bitterly disappointing: According to SFUSD’s New Graduation Requirement Task Force, in 2014 less than half of African American, Latino, and Pacific Islander students are on track to complete the A-G requirements needed for graduation. By comparison, more than two thirds of White students are on track, as well as more than four fifths of Asian students. Watching the presentation of these not-yet-released data to the school board I could barely contain my anger and frustration. The data showed that the goal we had worked so hard for – the goal of graduating more than 60 percent of all subgroups – had not been achieved.

I am outraged but not surprised. In my analysis of data during implementation – and every conversation with principals, teachers, counselors, department chairs, and countless other staff and adults at all levels in and out of the classroom – the biggest barrier was people who did not believe African American, Latino, and Pacific Islander students should be college and career ready, who blatantly did not follow policy, who would not change their interpersonal practice, and who refused to give students access to the courses they needed to stay on track to graduation. More difficult to witness were the adults who did shift their interpersonal practice, who advocated and coached their colleagues, but were too few to have impact or who did not feel they had the power to be the whistleblower on their colleagues’ destructive behaviors and practices.

As the campaign organizer who fought so hard for these policies, I am enraged and disappointed that everything we did resulted in so little change for my community.

My personal experience in the education system has taught me that oppression creates the tracking system so many education justice organizers, parent leaders, and youth leaders are fighting to dismantle. For example, I entered public middle school after a year of being homeless and transitioning from my Catholic elementary school. Right away I noticed that sixth  graders in “General Education” were covering material from my fourth  grade lessons in Catholic School. My biggest shock was when I was identified for the Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) Program, then skipped to seventh grade Honors, that I quickly recognized as the college prep track. I learned that in public school someone was clearly deciding who would and wouldn’t get the opportunity to be college or career prepared. In fact, from eighth to eleventh grade, I was among fewer than five African American students each grade year who were in the Honors track. This was not my decision, nor was it the decision of those left behind.

How did “the system” get so entrenched in tracking? How do we accept that a school-to-prison pipeline exists? How are we okay with a majority of graduates struggling for low wage work and glass ceiling careers? How did education become the home of data-driven practices rather than the well being of every student?

I believe that the US education system has an ugly problem: it is a system run by adults. Adults don’t change quickly, unless the most critical reality is brought to their face and they are forced to make changes.

Oppression in the education system has everything to do with adults whose ideology and interpersonal and internalized oppression impact their actions. Adults create the majority of the laws, regulations, and policies, and perpetuate the practices that make it possible to have an institution. The tracking system exists because adults hold beliefs about who will be college or career prepared.

As an education justice movement, we need to be better at articulating what the school-to-prison pipeline is — a tracking system. We must go beyond throwing more money at a system designed to track. Tests are no longer needed for the tracking system to work because individual adults in the system — proponents or not — sustain tracking as a standard practice due to their personal ideologies.

In my new position as Program Director for Parent Leadership Action Network (PLAN), an organization that works primarily in the Oakland Unified School District, I continue to find that true change in education – and any other movement sector – requires us to shift the beliefs of adults to see all humans have the capacity to learn. At PLAN, we believe that increasing the skills, knowledge, and confidence of parents is critical to empowering them to transform schools so that all students have access to an education. We create trainings that require both parents and school staff to learn about how to navigate the system, how to talk about institutional racism, and how to begin building relationships that change behavior and improve school climate.

I applaud the work of groups like Kenwood Oakland Community Organizations and Journey for Justice who supported cities across the nation to file civil rights complaints with the Department of Education, demonstrating how school closures and disproportionate suspensions and expulsions are devastating Black and Latino neighborhoods. Campaigns such as these begin to call national attention to what discrimination looks like today.

All education organizers, parent leaders, student leaders, and community leaders need to tell the truth about how discrimination and adults’ personal ideology are deciding the future of students. We must never stop telling the stories of our members, leaders, and schools that live through the discrimination. We must tell the truth that oppression is so normal that it is indeed unconsciously accepted in our communities and supported in the US education system.

Education organizing is a critical element for achieving any level of justice within any sector. It is where oppression beats down the sparks of light in the next generation and trains them to believe they cannot learn, they do not matter, that they belong in prison or dead. It is our organizing, our leadership development, and our faith in our students and parents that, in the darkest times, keeps their hope alive for creating a different life for themselves,

A movement that cares about every child can look amazing. It can look like boycotting percentages being used in data and seeing every student as more than a number. It can look like honest conversations about oppression – across roles and jobs  – that are beautiful, uncomfortable, and dynamic.

A movement that cares about every child does not look like silence. Silence is compliance, permission for the end result of students of color to be in the school-to-prison pipeline. I am thankful every day that I was trained to be an organizer, that I am blessed with the chance to remind our parents and students that collectively we can transform education.

—

Feature photo: twbuckner, licensed under CC BY 2.0

  • City Heights BMoC Camp. Photo: Mid-City Community Advocacy Network

Help Youth Organizing Lead My Brother’s Keeper

By Carmen Iniguez   |  May 2, 2014
Reflections | 0 Comments

Do you believe in youth organizing? Do you want to see youth organizing take leadership in shaping My Brother’s Keeper – the national initiative President Obama launched to “measurably improve the expected educational and life outcomes for, and address the persistent opportunity gaps faced by, boys and young men of color”?

Then please – right away – spread the word about a national survey of boys and young men of color (ages 13-25) being conducted by the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) and Movement Strategy Center, the co-facilitators of the “youth table” that is gathering recommendations of youth themselves for My Brother’s Keeper.

The deadline for participating in the survey is Tuesday, May 6, 2014.

FCYO and MSC are asking youth organizing groups to get young boys/men of color (ages 13-25) to take a survey and to complete the organizational survey.

In February President Obama announced the creation of My Brother’s Keeper, asserting that, “Groups that have had the odds stacked against them in unique ways…require unique solutions.” The centerpiece of My Brother’s Keeper is a policy task force that will put together national, state, and local recommendations. In tandem with My Brother’s Keeper, a group of foundations announced a five-year $200 million investment in programs for Black and Latino boys and young men.

Youth organizing is crucial for boys and young men of color — and must be a core strategy in any effort to address the racial inequity that has been built into every institution, system, and structure. According to a recent FCYO study, 80% of students involved in youth organizing “felt confident that they could research a problem in their community, create a plan to address the problem, and get other people to care about the problem,” 90% “expressed a desire to stay involved in activism and remain committed to long-term social change efforts,” 80% “noted their grades improved,” and 60% “reported that they took more challenging coursework due to their involvement in organizing.”

“The diverse and collective efforts to transform the conditions, lives, and leadership of boys and men of color in California hold great transformative promise,” writes Jeremy Lahoud in What Works: Transforming Conditions & Health Outcomes for Boys and Men of Color. “Through on the ground efforts in places across California, young activists, adult allies, systems leaders, and nonprofit organizations are creating ‘best practices’ that exemplify pathways to pivot toward more effective movement building.”

Please help ensure that youth organizing – among Black, Latino, Asian, queer, immigrant, and other boys and young men of color – plays a leadership role in My Brother’s Keeper.

For more information please contact carmen[at]movementstrategy.org.

—

Feature photo: City Heights BMoC Camp. Photo: Mid-City Community Advocacy Network

  • Photo: © iStockphoto.com/digitalskllet

My Queer Chicana Eye on My Brother’s Keeper

By Carmen Iniguez   |  April 1, 2014
Reflections | 2 Comments

Gender Justice Series. Gender is shifting in the U.S., spawning deep soul searching, fear, and backlash – as well as new opportunities for social transformation. In our Gender Justice series Let’s Talk will explore how gender is woven together with other social identities such as race and class, and how a liberative approach to gender can inform and strengthen a wide range of social movements.


I am a queer Chicana building an alliance with boys and men of color.

The connections between who I am and who I work with may not seem obvious to you or to many people, including those launching My Brother’s Keeper, President Obama’s new initiative aimed at empowering boys and young men of color. In fact, the connections weren’t even completely clear to me just three years ago.

Three years ago I was pregnant and bombarded with the question, “What do you want – a boy or a girl?”  “A healthy baby,” I would answer.

A month into my second trimester I had a vivid dream, my wise curandera Tereza rubbed my swollen belly and gave me a consejo to take care of the little girl inside of me. I woke up from that dream thinking about how I would raise this child with the least amount of pink and dolls, and with the greatest amount of spunk and spirit.

Weeks later at the ultrasound that would confirm the sex of our baby, I looked at my partner with disbelief as the technician ceremoniously announced that we were having a boy. I was incredulous. Over and over I asked the technician to check again. In the end my partner and I were sent home with an ultrasound picture with an arrow pointing to our son’s anatomy and capitalized letters that read BOY!!!

The awesome responsibility of raising a boy of color weighed on me heavily. Having grown up with two brothers in a predominantly people of color community, I am painfully and intimately familiar with the low expectations, school tracking, and racial profiling boys and men of color are subjected to. I know that youth and men of color are seen as expendable by systems that are stacked against them.

Unconsciously I decided that the best way of protecting my yet unborn child was to keep him inside of me for as long as I could. I felt that he would be safer inside of me. Because how could I possibly protect him from the outside world? I was in denial about birthing him. Fortunately for me, I was in the care of an experienced and intuitive midwife, Eva, who saw right through my fright. At our 39th week visit, Eva and my partner gently confronted me and started chipping away at my fears. I was flooded with emotion, realizing that my role was to guide this baby into, and in, this world.

My son was born on his due date, one ounce shy of nine pounds. My fears of the world around him have not disappeared but have been abated by the network of people and organizations engaged in Boys and Men of Color (BMOC) work in local communities and through statewide initiatives funded by The California Endowment.

As a queer mami of color, my faith in a better world is restored through this work as I hear, witness, and engage in challenging yet healthy struggles about the boys of color who are traditionally left out of the conversation – queer identified and transgender boys of color. It’s undeniable that outcomes for boys and men of color are dire when it comes to higher education, employment, health, and life expectancy. These issues are compounded when we talk about queer and transgender boys and men of color.

In our work with BMOC we have found that focusing on gender and sexuality is crucial for empowering men of color. For example, the experiences of youth leaders in the Young Men’s Empowerment Program (YMEP) at the Long Beach-based Khmer Girls in Action (KGA) illustrate the power of creating safe spaces to address gender identity and sexuality with young men of color. In the words of Seng So, Young Men’s Empowerment Coordinator at KGA and a leader in the Brothers Sons Selves coalition in Los Angeles County,

YMEP serves as a safe space where young Southeast Asian men share in collective knowledge, growth, and transformation…Through YMEP we are redefining the markers of manhood, reshaping masculinity and the role that we play in being allies to our sisters and young women who are fighting to dismantle patriarchy.

Seng So describes how the empowerment of young men has allowed some to come out to their friends, family, and community – serving as leaders and advocates of LGBTQ rights in the process. Through YMEP young men are developing into effective organizers in their local communities, fighting for wellness centers and restorative discipline practices in their schools.

As Seng So’s story illustrates, focusing on gender means broadening the definition of “what a man is,” how masculinity is defined, enforced in our families, cultures, and society. In statewide gatherings and curriculum for BMOC, participants explore and challenge limiting concepts of what a man looks like. This exploration goes beyond breaking down familiar stereotypes to challenging the gender binary and widening the lens to look at the intersections of gender and sexuality.

Ultimately, a focus on gender means an inclusive way of looking at issues that affect all of us. How do we uplift our black and brown, young people of color without leaving out part of who they are – gender identity and sexuality? How do we raise our children to express their full humanity and all of who they are — for gender to support that expression — not be a prison, an expectation, a limitation, a target for state violence, a purveyor of unearned privilege and power.

Understanding and exploring gender is important for all men and boys as an essential part of their development and empowerment. Understanding and exploring gender is necessary for any program or initiative because otherwise we end up excluding and discriminating and traumatizing those who don’t fit into the established boxes, and reinforcing oppression for all.

My hope is that my son will grow to become a kind, thoughtful, community oriented human being: someone who believes in inclusion, who will struggle to find another way, a third way, that transcends the “either-or” options to which we’ve limited ourselves.

Let’s have this conversation as if the lives of all boys of color are on the line, because they are. Just like the lives of girls of color are on the line. Let’s find another way, a third way, to include boys of color in all of their wholeness.

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Feature photo: © iStockphoto.com/digitalskllet

  • Photo: Brooke Anderson

Movement Lie #4: Parenting Makes You Less Effective

By Jidan Koon   |  February 4, 2014
Reflections | 3 Comments

Becoming a parent is a doozy for anyone. And it plays out in specific ways for folks who have made their life about progressive social change. Consciously or not, most of us have fallen prey to one of the biggest movement lies around: the belief that parenting makes it hard to be an effective activist.

Living with this belief, I’ve been waging an inner battle that pits my social change work against my family building, feeling like I can’t effectively do both. That’s why I – and a dozen activist mamas and a baba – joined a monthly sharing circle led by Mimi Ho and Rebecca Aced-Molina. In this circle we parents were invited to try on a radical idea: what if your role as a parent is making you more effective in social change, not less?

For a month I embraced this mantra. Now, I can wholeheartedly attest that I am absolutely more effective as a warrior for social change through being a mom. The level of long-term strategic thinking and compassion building that comes from mothering is severely undervalued in our world, as well as in most of our social change efforts. While mothering isn’t the only way to develop these movement skills, here’s how becoming a mommy has made me a more effective social justice warrior.

Priorities. If I thought 25 hours in a day was the Holy Grail before kids, 30 hours wouldn’t begin to cover it after kids. Ultimately, if nothing came off my plate, something would break: my health, my marriage, and my job. To keep sane, the only thing to do was to shave down dramatically on my commitments – on the work side as well as the family side. After several unsuccessful vacations, I’m now totally committed to Keep It Simple for holidays, parties, and the like. I am adamant about keeping my workweek to 40 hours. I rarely do meetings in the evenings and weekends without taking comp time in the regular workweek. The result is what the Social Transformation Project calls strategic disciplined work, rather than busyness. Every day I learn to shape my life around goals and priorities, saying no when I lack the capacity to be truly present for either work or child. I am lucky to be at a work place that views this as modeling good work planning, rather than a lack of commitment.

Negotiation. I believe the racial justice movement is coming out of a narrow view of self-interest as defined solely by most impacted communities. What I am seeing now is racial justice leadership around what is better for everyone – led by impacted communities. It’s what Movement Strategy Center calls a “movement pivot” we are making from marginalized thinking to powerfulness grounded in people, community, and history. In the most basic sense, it means seeing 99% of folks as allies and finding ways to engage them in working for a larger vision that includes us all.

Finding this win-win perspective lies at the heart of negotiation. My daughter, who is in her two’s, is my biggest teacher. Often, when I make a request she doesn’t want to go along with, I feel like she has to lose for me to win, which makes for escalating battles. Now I’m trying a new approach, framing my requests using her self-interests, connecting to her goals and aspirations. When she won’t leave the park I ask, “Do you want to close the park gate by yourself?” Instantly Mila comes to the gate, remembering how she insisted on opening it when we came in and avoiding the anger that would have resulted from “I’m going to count to 5; if you don’t come now, you can’t watch videos.” These are small moments but I’m confident that I’m getting better at breaking out of confrontational dynamics, seeing what another person finds meaningful, and making win-win propositions.

Honoring Life. The best warriors love life and avoid inflicting pain needlessly. As I am pregnant again now, I am reminded how close we mothers can be to the beating heart that everything comes from and returns to. Somehow war, Trayvon Martin, and all the horrors inflicted on children and communities seem even more tragic, while my emotion turns from anger to profound sadness. While I don’t judge the use of violence for self-defense, I am more determined than ever to wage peace in my home and in the world. And I have deeper compassion for those who need to protect themselves and their families by any means necessary. The mama bear in me can relate to that.

The Long View. Soon after I learned I was pregnant again, a radical minister told me, “Go and build that nation.” Oftentimes I forget that raising children is nation building: political and human evolution work.

Parenting is the long term, multi-generational conduit of ancestral memory and culture, of fulfilling dreams and struggles begun millennia ago. When I look at the generations of my family I can see clearly that the arc of history truly does bend towards justice.

My maternal great grandmother had bound feet and my paternal grandmother was the one surviving child of 13 in agrarian China. My maternal grandmother was college educated and taught in a Chinese school in San Francisco’s Chinatown and mothered five children. My mother was a part of the Third World Strike and became a doctor after having two children.

I have yet to complete my journey and have so many choices that my foremothers didn’t. Mila is a magnetic, joyful, and creative Blasian child. We are so blessed to live in an area where grannies of all colors greet her, give her snacks, and call her “smart,” “cute,” and “beautiful.” While many things, including income inequality and climate change, have gotten worse, many other things have gotten better. I can rest in that faith, knowing that all parts of my life add up to one unified political project. My contribution is a very small but truly precious part of the great turning. This can take some of the pressure off when I’m dealing with short-term losses and frustrations.

There is nothing like the long view to maintain our inspiration and keep our eyes on the prize.


 

This post is the second in the Let’s Talk series “Movement Lies We Tell Ourselves.”

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Feature photo: Brooke Anderson

  • 710

2014: Give Our Inner Bullies a Break

By Rebecca Aced-Molina   |  January 15, 2014
Reflections | 3 Comments

I am ready to admit: I am burnt out.

I’ve been working towards social justice, in one way or another, for at least twenty years. I’ve been a popular educator, a policy analyst, an organizer, an evaluator, and a facilitator for small and large non-profits and public agencies. The passion I once felt about the possibility of collective action, community organizing, and policy change to bring about a more equal world is fizzling. And it isn’t just me; I regularly hear a real yearning for change from activists and change agents of all kinds.

I believe the root of our exhaustion is the amount of time we spend blaming ourselves for our lack of progress, blaming each other, and blaming the power brokers. I believe in accountability and taking responsibility for healing our world, but I also believe our movements have over-dosed on blame.

In my coaching practice, I hear from leaders who are often publicly revered for their contributions to social justice yet confess an inner state of dissatisfaction with themselves. They almost seem to believe they just aren’t good enough, telling me they don’t work hard enough, think hard enough, fight hard enough, and on and on. Activists don’t just have inner critics, they have inner bullies. But our inner bullies don’t actually serve the movement. And like real bullies – they are really hard to escape.

Coaching has taught me some ways to move beyond blame, first by understanding the shame underneath. Shame is blame turned inward – the belief that we really aren’t worthy of love and belonging. I want to share three coaching practices that I believe have the potential to transform our inner bullies into inner allies.

#1: Practice Unconditional Love & Forgiveness

I believe the practice of unconditional love and forgiveness is essential to free ourselves from shame and blame, and that it’s a practice that begins with ourselves. In my social change work, I have clung tightly to the notion that every mistake was a learning opportunity. In my mind I tirelessly analyzed my mistakes, as if my commitment to learning could orchestrate a state of near perfection.

Once, when I was being coached, my coach asked me to try forgiving myself. I balked. My inner bully wanted none of this self-help, self-indulgent, new-age coach talk! But the comment struck a chord with me so I took a deep breath and gave it a try. Over time I found that being in a loving relationship with my mistakes wasn’t self-indulgence. I wasn’t “letting myself off the hook.” By forgiving myself – not analyzing – I was freeing myself to do more. Later that year when I started a new consulting project, I discovered that I had taken on a whole new attitude towards my work, and myself. I was able to listen more and longer, to create more space for others’ ideas, and to resist the urge to take on more than my actual responsibility for the work — which led to fewer mistakes!

Forgiveness and unconditional love are also the foundations of non-violent social movement building. The practice of unconditional love and forgiveness isn’t unique to coaching; it’s the premise that fueled some of the greatest changes this country has ever experienced. Martin Luther King, for example, inspired by Gandhi, was driven not only by rage, but also by the hope and inner calm that comes from practicing forgiveness and unconditional love.

Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars…Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. (Martin Luther King, 1956).

This doesn’t mean that I see goodness exhibited in violent behavior or unfair policies. But I do believe those who perpetrate violence can transform, and that their transformation is most likely when I believe in their potential. Believing in my own worth feeds my ability to make room for my colleagues’ full contributions, which deepens my faith that even those who don’t share my values have a spot of grace.

#2: Reveal Racial & Economic Injustice

Let me be clear: Practicing unconditional love and forgiveness does not mean ignoring racial and economic injustice. I believe focusing on the power of love and forgiveness can empower us to bravely reveal what we know about racial and economic injustice in a way that creates connection. But dealing with the facts of racial and economic injustice can be tricky. Activists often fall into a data trap, lifting up statistic after statistic, assuming the “facts” are enough to instigate action. Others fear that lifting up data on racial inequality might shame our communities. Those on the right use data to blame people of color for their condition.

While honestly examining facts sounds easy enough, it is actually really hard. Neuroscience demonstrates that our brain does three things nearly simultaneously: it perceives facts, has an emotional reaction, and assigns a story to the facts, all in the blink of an eye. Not convinced? Try reading this fact from a recent Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) report: “In fourth grade 84 percent of Black public school students cannot read at grade level and 83 percent cannot do math at grade level.” As you were reading this you most likely had an emotional reaction as well as the inklings of a story of why this is happening, who’s at fault, or how it should be solved, right?

When it comes to looking at race and inequality, separating the facts from the emotions and the stories is especially challenging, no matter what side of an issue you’re on.

john powell, expert on race and collective consciousness, writes that many Americans (both white and of color) reach a conclusion that poor people (who are predominately people of color) are at fault for their condition and that “this assessment process is largely unconscious and fairly immune to the facts.” Rather, their assessment depends more on their stories and emotions.

Activists of color often get triggered around race. With information like that from CDF I’ve heard my colleagues say, “I can’t share this data. People will think I am racist for bringing it up.” Our feelings of rage and frustration at injustice fuel our inner bully, pumping him up to fight back. It is important to remember that the fighter in us has helped us make some important strides for ourselves and for the movement. But letting the fighter/bully run the show also limits our potential. Powell urges us to re-embrace a “higher order love” such as used by Dr. King, while simultaneously examining the facts that demonstrate unequal opportunities built into our systems and structures.

#3: Rewrite the Narrative

I have learned from coaching that it is possible to direct our consciousness. We can step back and say “Oh! Those are my feelings!” and “Oh! That’s the interpretation of meaning!”, and “Oh! Those are the facts!” I’ve learned that new possibilities emerge, not from outsmarting the problems, pointing the finger at my rage, or finding fault (like my inner bully wants), but from simply being willing to look at things as they are and being willing to ask, “What now?”

Once we come to “What now?” we have the opportunity to change the narrative. The “narrative” is the collectively embraced story about why inequality persists. john powell shares that our policy decisions are “powerfully influenced by the stories we embrace to allocate meaning, a power that can be more impactful than material conditions.” He encourages us to be deliberate in the stories we create so that we can foster a wider sense of belonging for all people. Once we realize that our stories are actually inventions we can choose to create new ones.

So, this year, thank your Inner Bully for all he’s done for you over the years. Then find a willing partner – a friend, a coach, or a mentor – to listen while you release your anger and frustration about injustice. Then show yourself some unconditional love by telling yourself: you are already enough! And, without blame, recognize injustice and shift the story to emphasize love and belonging for all. This year, let’s set out to re-write the narrative, give our inner bullies a break, and truly open ourselves and each other up to make real changes in the lives of our communities.

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Feature photo: Deep_In_Platos_Cave, licensed under CC BY 2.0

  • Keystone XL Pipeline protest

From French Fries to Fracking — Inspiring Movement Moments of 2013

Year in Review | 2 Comments

Remember this spring, when the Associated Press finally dropped the I-word, and youth of color defeated prison-to-pipeline policies in Los Angeles public schools?

Or remember back in February when 50,000 people rallied in DC against the XL Pipeline?  And then in October when the protests of 5,000 young people linked the pipeline, fracking, and the whole mess of fossil fuel development?

How about September, when legendary Black activist Chokwe Lumumba scored a grassroots electoral victory in the Jackson, Mississippi mayoral race?

McDonald's strike

Photo: Jordan Flaherty

Or just this month, when fast food workers chucked the french fries and grabbed headlines and policy attention with strikes in over 100 cities?

Each of these moments is part of movement-building — the labor of love that keeps our work alive in quiet times, ignites movement sparks in loud times, and fans movement embers when the work gets really tough.

Thanks to the passionate collective work of so many people, organizations, alliances, and networks, 2013 was full of “movement moments” that shifted how people thought and felt, changed policies and institutions, uplifted the spirits and ambitions of everyone who participated, and sometimes even hit the sweet spot of all three.

Gathering and telling the stories of these movements – to each other, our families, our children –opens our hearts, nourishes our minds, and expands our vision for what’s possible.

Below, we’ve compiled some inspiring movement movements that emerged in the US in 2013 and give us hope for 2014 and beyond.

What movement moments inspired you this year?  Let us know in the comments and we’ll add them to the list!

Inspiring Movement Moments of 2013

Keystone XL Pipeline protest

Photo: Jmcdaid, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Challenging the XL Pipeline.

In the biggest climate justice rally in US history, an estimated 50,000 protestors gathered in Washington, DC at a February rally against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Throughout the year local protests continued in communities across the country.

Defend Womens Rights

Photo: Elvert Barnes, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Violence Against Women Act Extended and Strengthened.

Native American women, immigrant women, and gay, lesbian, and transgendered people brought a years-long battle to victory in March when President Obama signed the VAWA extension with new inclusive provisions for their communities.

I am not an ILLEGAL

Source: Drop the I Word Campaign

No More “I” Word.

After ten years, Race Forward (formerly Applied Research Center) won a major victory in its Drop the I Word campaign in April when the Associated Press eliminated the term “illegal immigrant” from its style guide.

Willful Defiance

Source: Every Student Matters Campaign

Challenging School-to-Prison Policies.

In May, years of organizing by youth of color convinced Los Angeles Unified School District to do away with “willful defiance” policies that have resulted in disproportionate expulsion of boys and men of color. In November, Florida’s Broward County public schools also shifted stance to overhaul its approach to discipline.

Prop 8

Photo: Steve Rhodes, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Upholding the Dignity and Humanity of Queer People.

Decades of organizing built a majority of public support for gay marriage, contributing to the Supreme Court’s June decision to require that federal benefits apply to gay spouses, and to deny standing to proponents of California’s Proposition 8, which had banned gay marriage.

Abortion Rights
Filibustering Against Abortion Restrictions.

Watched by millions via social media and television, thousands of abortion rights supporters descended on the Texas state capitol building in June as state legislator Wendy Davis pursued an 11-hour filibuster to prevent the passage of draconian abortion restrictions.

Prisoners Hunger Strike

Photo: Debra Sweet / World Can’t Wait, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Hunger Strike for Human Rights.

A hunger strike by California state inmates grew to over 30,000 in July, the largest prison strike in American history. This massive action intensified public outcry against the inhumane use of solitary confinement.

2013 March for Travon

Photo: Debra Sweet / World Can’t Wait, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Standing Up to “Stand Your Ground”.

A youth-led group called Dream Defenders captured national attention by holding the longest-known sit-in at the Florida governor’s office in July. The Dream Defenders protested George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the murder of Trayvon Martin, championed new policies to end the “stand your ground” laws reinforcing racist violence, and called attention to the role of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) in all of it.

Travon Martin Hoodie

Photo: thetortmaster, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Cultural Expressions of Outrage.

In a unifying cultural action, millions of people – including professional basketball teams and black medical school students – shared and created images of hoodies to express outrage at the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer.

Immigrant Youth / Bring Them Home

Source: National Immigrant Youth Alliance

Direct Action on the Border.

The Immigrant Youth Network’s Dream 9 – nine undocumented immigrants ages 19 to 37 – called attention to brutal immigration policies in July when they re-entered the US from Mexico and were immediately arrested and detained.

Chokwe Lumumba

Photo: NatalieMaynor is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Black Electoral Organizing Wins Mayors Race.

Co-Founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) Chokwe Lumumba galvanized grassroots electoral organizing to win electoral victory in the July Jackson, Mississippi mayoral race.

Strong Families

Source: Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski, Strong Families

Ending Phone Price Gouging of Prisoner’s Families.

With the participation of 90,000 individuals and organizations, the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice won a Federal Communications Commission vote in August, ending price gouging of families talking by phone to incarcerated loved ones.

Trans Youth

Photo: Stuart Grout, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Groundbreaking Transgender Law.

Transgender organizing resulted in the August passage of a new California law ensuring equal treatment and protection of transgender students in public schools. Organizing and public education continue as school districts prepare to implement the law in 2014.

School Funding

Photo: shersh is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

Reversing Inequity in School Funding.

Massive local and statewide organizing resulted in the September passage of the new Local Control Funding Formula in California, making it one of the nation’s largest school funding systems to target what will be millions of dollars in resources to students in need (low-income, English Learner, and foster youth).

Sallie Mae Student Debt

Photo: Jobs With Justice

Sallie Mae Leaves ALEC.

Thanks to pressure from campaigns from Jobs With Justice/American Rights at Work, United States Student Association, and the Student Labor Action Project, Sallie Mae announced in September that it would join 49 other corporations in defecting from the American Legislative Exchange Council, the powerhouse representing corporate interests in everything from private prisons to health insurance to tobacco.

Not One More

Photo: sierraromeo [sarah-ji] is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

No More Deportations.

As part of a nationwide effort, protestors chained themselves to the White House to demand “not one more deportation” in September in response to the Obama administration’s deportation of over 2 million immigrants. Dramatic direct action has sprung up in ICE deportation points all across the country during the year, including Tucson, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Elizabeth, New Jersey, and others. By December, more than two dozen House Democrats asked President Obama to suspend deportations and to expand a program that grants temporary legal presence.

Media Justice

Photo: NS Newsflash is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Media Justice Defeat of Koch Brothers.

After the Brothers Koch brothers announced plans to buy the Tribune Newspapers a coalition rose up to stop them. The Service Employees International Union, Courage Campaign, CREDO, Free Press and Forecast the Facts effort succeeded in August when the Koches announced they were no longer buying the papers.

AFL-CIO

Photo: Lost Albatross is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

Racial Justice Infuses AFL-CIO Conference.

The AFL-CIO Convention in September took historical steps toward inclusion of all working people by inviting day laborers, taxi drivers, and other sectors of new labor engaged in the United Workers Congress, honoring domestic workers and passing groundbreaking resolutions on issues such as prisons and profits.

Domestic Workers

Photo: National Domestic Workers Alliance

Domestic Worker Victories.

In September, domestic workers scored major victories at the national and local levels. On September 17, the Obama administration announced new rules extending the Fair Labor Standards Act to include home health workers under the federal government’s wage and hour protections. On September 26 California governor Jerry Brown signed the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, allowing the full spectrum of domestic workers—including live-in nannies and housekeepers—to benefit from the same gains as the home health workers.

Photo:

Photo: Shadia Fayne Wood

Young People Against Fossil Fuels and Fracking.

In October 5,000 young people gathered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for Power Shift 2013 to strategize about climate and environmental justice. The week ended with over 5,000 people protesting the impacts of fossil fuels by demanding a stop to the Keystone Pipeline and fracking that is devastating communities.

Books

Photo: brewbooks, licensed underCC BY-SA 2.0

Textbook Defeat of Creationists & Global Warming Deniers.

In a major victory against the Right’s effort to control public school content, the Texas State Board of Education voted in November to approve science textbooks based on established science, rejecting the intervention of creationists and global warming skeptics. Organizing for the win was led by the Texas Freedom Network’s Stand Up for Science Campaign.

Making Change at Walmart

Source: Making Change at Walmart

Massive Organizing Against Wal-Mart Wages and Practices.

Denouncing poverty wages, 50 Los Angeles Wal-Mart workers were arrested in November in the largest civil disobedience ever waged against the company. Civil disobedience against Wal-Mart took place in dozens of cities across the county as part of the national Our Wal-Mart campaign. Over 1,500 protests took place on Black Friday.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

Photo: jerekeys is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Working Families Vote NYC Mayor.

Propelled by the grassroots electoral strategy of the Working Families Party, Progressive Bill de Blasio wins the November mayoral election in a landslide, winning 95% of the black vote and 85% of the Latino vote.

ABQ Women

Source: Young Women United in collaboration with several photographers and Albuquerque families.

Women of Color Win Reproductive Respect.

Building on women’s stories of their lives and challenges, in November the grassroots campaign led by Respect ABQ Women defeated a proposed 20-week abortion ban and captured national media attention.

McDonald's strike

Photo: Jordan Flaherty

Fast Food Strikes Across the Nation.

In December fast food workers held strikes in 100 cities, generating massive media coverage and building momentum for a new national minimum wage.

Bring on 2014!

  • Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela: Reflections

Profiles | 2 Comments

Over the past few days as I’ve watched people gather in Soweto, Birmingham, Bahia and Deli to sing, dance and celebrate the life of a simple man who changed us all, a flood of memory and imagination has washed over me.

My mind and heart go most often to the story of Nelson Mandela’s prison yard garden, which taught me the extraordinary power of simple things to keep us connected to our deepest roots and to our humanity, even when facing the worst brutality.  Mandela shared the bounty of the garden not only with other inmates and political prisoners, but also with the prison guards who were the instruments of the system that had imprisoned him, the system of violence that had dehumanized him and his people for over 300 years.  His generosity taught me that even in those who cannot see us, a spark of humanity is always there, waiting to be rekindled.

In Nelson Mandela we saw a man with unwavering commitment to his vision and an unencumbered willingness to build deep relationships with all who shared that vision – and even with those who did not, yet, share it.  These qualities carried him through the most trying times and ultimately brought triumph to the movement which shaped him and of which he was a part.

As I think of what was achieved in South Africa and how the movement there seeks to finish the long walk to freedom, I see a new path being forged to overcome the present challenges.  South Africa, like the rest of the world, struggles with an even greater opponent than apartheid: persistent and deepening economic inequality.  We are all complicit in having strengthened this opponent, until we find the courage to create a global economy rooted in valuing human need.  In this shared global struggle, I know that the relentless pursuit of a vision that binds people of different beliefs together must be the praxis and practice of all our movement building, making the most impossible change seem nearer in our every breath.  As we build our vision, let us also stay rooted in our own humanity, and see the humanity in each other, even in those who do not see our own.

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