Beyond Protests: 5 More Ways to Channel Anger into Action
"A lot of people of color are tired. We're tired of being the unseen and misunderstood," says Inger E Burnett-Zeigler, a psychologist and associate professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She'd like to see more voices at the table. "I think it's important for everyone, regardless of race, to ask, 'What is my role in this system?' " she says. Ask yourself, 'Have I b... posted on Jun 08 2020, 4,283 reads

bell hooks: Love as The Practice of Freedom
Social commentator, essayist, memoirist, and poet bell hooks is a feminist theorist who speaks on contemporary issues of race, gender, and media representation in America.In Black Looks (1994), she writes, "It struck me that for black people, the pain of learning that we cannot control our images, how we see ourselves (if our vision is not decolonized), or how we are seen is so intense that it ren... posted on Jun 07 2020, 4,190 reads

Notice the Rage. Notice the Silence.
The best laws and diversity training have not gotten us anywhere near where we want to go. Therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem is working with old wisdom and very new science about our bodies and nervous systems, and all we condense into the word "race." Krista Tippett sat down with him in Minneapolis, where they both live and work, before the pandemic lockdown began. Says Menakem, "You... posted on Jun 06 2020, 18,961 reads

30 Articles on Nonviolent Protest
"Even under aggressive provocation, nonviolence remains the key to success in the struggle against injustice. But nonviolence is a complex and challenging field of strategy, methodology and tactics which are always context-specific, eschewing easy generalizations about 'what works' from one time and place to another. To explore these complexities -- and often borrowing material from incredible par... posted on Jun 05 2020, 4,416 reads

7 Ways Protestors Showed Up For Black Lives
Amid the outpouring of outrage over George Floyd's killing, are glimpses of solidarity and hope around the world. YES! Magazine shares more.
... posted on Jun 04 2020, 8,180 reads

Deep Water-- A Conversation with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee of the Global Oneness Project is a surfer, a filmmaker and an environmentalist inner and outer. His love of water led to his film, Elemental. The destruction of our water systems is a prime example of how separated we've become from whats fundamental to our survival. Rajendra Singh is one of the three people in Vaughan-Lees film. He brought seven rivers back to life in an ari... posted on Jun 03 2020, 2,431 reads

Activism in a Pandemic : Progressive Examples from Australia
Each month the Commons Library provides a small taste of actions and events which challenged the status quo and pointed to better ways forward via their ever growing "From Little Things Big Things Grow: Events That Changed Australia" list. These posts generally focus on events from a particular month, but in response to the Coronavirus pandemic they are sharing protests, campaigns and events from ... posted on Jun 02 2020, 4,814 reads

Zadie Smith on Optimism and Despair
"Caught in the maelstrom of the moment, we forget this cyclical nature of history -- history being merely the rosary of moments the future strings of its pasts. We forget that the present always looks different from the inside than it does from the outside -- something James Baldwin knew when, in considering why Shakespeare endures, he observed: "It is said that his time was easier than ours, but ... posted on Jun 01 2020, 8,728 reads

Eight Verses for Training the Mind
The Prison Mindfulness Institute's mission is to provide prisoners, prison staff and prison volunteers, with the most effective, evidence-based tools for rehabilitation, self-transformation, and personal & professional development. In particular, they provide and promote the use of proven effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBI's). Their dual focus is on transforming individual lives as wel... posted on May 31 2020, 19,317 reads

Wells of Living Water
Poet and writer, Ron Hobbs, has explored life from many angles and has the stories to prove it. He writes, Many years later I was working on a tramp-steamer that had pulled into Haiti. I hiked off on my own to learn the island. It was hot and mid-afternoon and I thirsted. I saw an old woman working her garden. Ma'am. Ma'am! Excuse me. I'm a stranger here and I am thirsty. Could I please have a dri... posted on May 30 2020, 3,240 reads