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Dialog on Immigrant Rights Report Back

Be the Resistance: White people Showing up for Immigrant Rights March 15 dialog Opening:  Talked in pairs about what we would have to put in place to take care of things if we suddenly were removed from our family. Communal responses were: Get kids’ passports, sign guardianship documents Find a …

The Fire This Time: Read This Book

Book review by Judy Helfand I am writing about the Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward, because I want folks to read it. But I barely know what to say. When I finished “Message to My Daughters” by Edwidge Danticat, the final essay …

Is Free Speech an Absolute?

The day after the protests against Milo Yiannopolous speaking at U.C. Berkeley, a colleague wrote that the Berkeley “riot” demonstrated the need for non-violence training on college campuses as a way to contain those who believe property destruction is an effective political tactic (in this case, Black Bloc revolutionary anarchists). …

As a White Mother of Black Sons

by Kate Riffle Roper As a white mother of two black children, three white children, who all have a white father, I have something to say. Racism exists. It is real. And it is everywhere, all the time. When I brought my boys home they were the cutest, sweetest babies …

Balm for Trying Times

by Judy Helfand Recently various friends have asked me if I’m scared about the upcoming presidential election, which prompted some self-reflection as to why I’m not. There’s nothing surprising to me about the outpouring of hate and racial invective. Trump does not seem like the devil incarnate, simply another manifestation …

Grief and Re-Membering:

The Spirituality of Confronting Privilege, Entitlement, and Cultural Appropriation by Christopher Bowers Grief and Re-Membering: The Spirituality of Confronting Privilege, Entitlement, and Cultural Appropriation was originally published at Satya Lightworks | Rekindling Ancient Wisdom I live in a beautiful, affluent little town infused with the legacy of 60s-era hippie activism …

Exposure

As told to Z It was a quiet summer afternoon and I was just getting home from playing tennis with my daughter.  I parked in front of my home and was unloading my gear from my car.  A silver car slowed down as it was passing me and the white …