“They say that home is where the heart it. I guess I haven’t found my home.”
These are the opening words to Ingrid Michaelson’s song, ‘Are We There Yet’. It’s not a song about racism but there it was, playing in the background while I was reading responses to the racist tweets directed towards Black players on England’s soccer team.
Responses that were reminding anyone who cared to remember that racism has no place here. Assume for the purpose of this article that ‘here’ was anywhere and everywhere that the author of the tweet called home.
Home is where the…
“We don’t all have to agree on approach, as long as we’re in it for the right reasons.”
“We need to be able to bring different perspectives into this topical area. After all, we can’t fight for diversity if we can’t have diverse views.”
I have heard each of these views ad nauseum when it comes to how we advocate in the social justice space. Generally speaking, they arise when people have disagreements about specific aspects of equality, equity, access, and opportunities.
Say, for instance, someone is a D&I consultant but believes in their heart of hearts that you can…
Jordan Alec-Cruise Armstrong died February 9, 1999 at the age of 17 months. He was a vibrant baby boy with a bright future, even if his beginnings were incredibly difficult.
Jordan was born September 4th, 1997 with a rare condition called gastroschisis. In this, his liver and intestines were on the outside of his body and doctors presumed he would not make it. They also presumed that he would not be able to eat by mouth for several years. To be clear, I didn’t blame the doctors for thinking these things, nor was I angry at them for putting a…
This past week, I was teaching a Culture Facilitation course when a student sent me a private chat in Zoom that read, “One day I want to be in the zone like you. I struggle with remaining calm and neutral but I’ll get there”.
Last week, I was facilitating a discussion in the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection when someone came to me during a break and said, “Your ability to remain calm amid incredible tension and searing dialogue is commendable”.
In a related side note, I am constantly reminded that when people give me compliments, I need to just…
Wake up. Take a shower. Brush your teeth. Get breakfast. Jump in the car. Go to work.
Be woken up. Harass your kids to take a shower and brush their teeth. Force feed them some form of breakfast. Get them on the bus. Get yourself presentable in seven minutes. Jump in the car. Go to work. Realize at 10:43 a.m. that the only thing you’ve eaten so far is the pavement you hit whilst you were running to a meeting that started 17 minutes prior to your arrival.
If you have parents living with you, add 15 additional steps.
If…
“I love and respect my teammates, and I stand right there with them in regard to fighting for racial equality and justice,” Brees said. “I also stand with my grandfathers, who risked their lives for this country, and countless other military men and women who do it on a daily basis.”
I believe that Drew Brees, quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, is a good guy and that he meant every word he said. I also believe that he is a naive danger to progress. It starts with him conflating military men and women fighting for this country and Blacks…
As America burns and peoples emotions range from annoyed to somber to angry to tired, there is an underlying question that each and every troubled soul should ask themselves.
What is the primary source of my pain?
This can seem like a simple enough question, particularly as a significant majority of American’s believe that the police murdered George Floyd. Even MSNBCFoxNewsCNN agree that the police committed murder and that is incredibly rare. Still, the aftermath of Floyd’s murder is going to paint a more accurate picture of where America stands in the face of justice. After all, we have been…
With every police killing of a Black man. With every instance of a white man or woman calling the police on a Black person for being Black. With each of these things, there are people looking at their version of the bigger picture and reminding us that, in the scheme of things, the numbers are not bad. They don’t say, “it’s not that bad” in a literal sense of course. Instead, they call for perspective amid the protests that often follow these racist acts. …
“In 2000, while on SNL, I made a terrible decision to do an impersonation of Chris Rock while in blackface. There is no excuse for this,” Fallon wrote on Twitter. “I am very sorry for making this unquestionably offensive decision and thank all of you for holding me accountable.”
Today, the hashtag #JimmyFallonIsOverParty is being floated with social media users calling for him to be cancelled for his impersonation. Some are making parallels to Megyn Kelly being cancelled for defending blackface costumes during Halloween.
We’ve seen this movie before and we will certainly see it again. Such are certainties in…
His is a picture you’ve seen a lot over these past several days.
Not months. Days. For while Ahmaud Arbery has been dead for three months, America is just now waking up to this reality. And as we weep again for a black life cut short, there are some who want us to remember that there are millions of white people who aren’t killing black people. As well, white America has become very good at being grief stricken in the moment and inactive in the long run.
Seeing people as statistics
“It’s not that I don’t think this is tragic. I want those fuckers…
