The spiritual basis for healing and transformation is a core need for justice movements. I am glad that I’m still associated with practices aligned with this orientation. And yet, it’s also essential that white people invested in spirituality have a racial justice orientation....
There has been no shortage of words spoken and printed on the primary subjects of this piece. I offer my voice now to highlight some of the important messages I received....
What I have since realized is that saying “vanilla” is the same as “plain” is like saying that being white has no flavor, that it is plain and has no associated culture via generalizable assumptions, tendencies, or beliefs....
I tire of the sound bites and the irrationality so regularly displayed in the national media and via endless internet chatter. It seems that the stories that arrive and disappear with relatively little fanfare somehow touch something in me....
Two particularly insightful clips from Stephen’s “The Word” segment are really useful. Their penetrating and hilarious treatment of relatively recent events prompted me to build a workshop around them for some high school students last year....
An examination of the contributing factors of one public official's use of an image depicting Obama's head on a chimpanzee's body and her subsequent hollow apology....
Thanks for your patience as I delved headlong into my work this semester. Two issues to report....
I just want to alert you to a current issue/debate going on here in California that can be used to help us increase our ability to see how white privilege often shows up in our public debate....
This is a story about how my anti-racism practice shows up in my work world....
Oakland, CA. White cop. Unarmed Black man lying face down. Shot in back. Murder or mistake?...
I know this isn’t new. But, I think this blog post from Alter Net could be a good resource for those of us who are trying to figure out how to talk to our progressive/liberal white friends/colleagues about race....
So, what’s up? Insufficient funding WHILE the city takes advantage of its services (without paying for them)....
Not much of a street demonstrator myself, I decided to venture out this year to stand (too crowded to really march) in solidarity with the working people of Los Angeles....
For me, a few lessons learned and/or renewed this year include......
What follows is a short essay written recently by one of my former students and current AWARE-LA allies. It’s a great example of the critical thinking required when good hearted white people decide to offer ourselves to support young people living in inner cities....
n case you haven’t heard, the University of California at San Diego has been the location of some extremely overt racially motivated and hateful events in the last couple of weeks. Although many may say that “it all started when…”, that would be in error....
Please take a moment to learn about how a network of women in Haiti have been able to mobilize quickly to distribute funds to get the economy moving again....
It looks like James Arthur Ray will be facing charges stemming from the $9,695-a-person “spiritual warrior” workshop he led last October which included a sweat lodge as a final activity…and the death of three of the participants....
There are many that rightly question how white people doing anti-racism benefit markedly from the work. How many of us are called to speak more often because of the very privilege that we’re trying to dismantle?...
When we think about how businesses can really serve people, this is what should come to mind. What a beautiful example of people supporting one another....
Cultural appropriation often distorts the beauty of the original form. Worse, blind appropriation and defensive egos shield people from recognizing the harm they perpetuate on others....
Here we have it, reason enough that law enforcement and immigration officials should NOT work together in a way that makes undocumented people in our cities fear the police. This is a warning to all those in Arizona who are about to make life extremely dangerous for those in their state....
What do you do when someone does something that requires critique?...
For a few months I decided to do something different. I decided to say “yes” to anything that sounded like a good idea, even if I wasn’t sure that I’d have time to accomplish it....
I learned something about myself last week. It is this: No, I cannot share substantially with someone for even 8 minutes without talking about race. No, I will not submit to surface level chatter to avoid it. And, no, I am not afraid of what that might bring....