Category Archives: Make a Difference

Projects that are making a difference, improving lives, and building communities.

Authors A-H, Social Issues, Teams & Leaders, Trends 2021

Diversity and Speech Part 17: Diversity Training – by Carlos E. Cortés

2020 turned into a momentous year for diversity training.  The COVID-19 pandemic forced many diversity trainers, myself included, to re-invent themselves by adapting their workshops into an online format.  The Memorial Day killing of George Floyd thrust anti-racism into the center of diversity training, challenging those presenters who had generally soft-pedaled the issue.  President Donald Trump’s September 22 executive order, “Race and Sex Stereotyping,” caused government agencies and contractors, including some higher education institutions, to suspend or mute their diversity training.

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Black-Jewish Dialogue, Levine articles

Black-Jewish Dialogue – January 2021

Our Black-Jewish Dialogue for January 2021 featured presenters Mike Green and Dov Wilker. Many thanks to them and Mizpah Congregation, our co-host.

Mike Green
ADR Advisor Mike Green

Mike Green is an award-winning journalist headquartered in Colorado. He is the Chief Economic Strategist for The National Institute for Inclusive Competitiveness (niicusa.org) and also co-founder of Common Ground Conversations on Race in America.
He is also co-founder of ScaleUp Partners LLC, a nationally networked consulting practice  focused on changing the nation’s economic narrative.

Dov WilkerDov Wilker is the National Director for. Black-Jewish Relations for the American Jewish Committee  and heads the AJC Atlanta Regional Office  with the goal of enhancing the well being of the Jewish people worldwide and advancing human rights and democratic values in the United States and around the world. The office has worked with the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition for nearly 35 years.

CLICK NOW for
BLACK-JEWISH DIALOGUE – January 2021

CLICK HERE for information on our Black-Jewish Dialogues and links to additional dialogue recordings

Dialogue Partners:
American Diversity Report,  Chattanooga News Chronicle, Mizpah Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, C.U.R.B. – Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda.

Authors A-H, Politics, Social Issues, Trends 2021

Bystanders and the Sergeant Schultz Syndrome – by Terry Howard

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Why, in many instances of social unrest, do we look the other way; that we do nothing? But before we offer some possible answers, last week’s rampage in Washington gives us some context, a starting point.

Like millions, I watched in disbelief thousands of “protesters” (or whatever you choose to call them) converge on the Capital building. The images of them scaling walls, overwhelming police and breaking windows while lawmakers cowered in hiding or were rushed out for their safety will be etched into my memory forever.

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Authors A-H, Social Issues, Trends 2021

Feeling Like An Outsider? – by Martin Kimeldorf

OutsiderChatting off-topic one day with one of my favorite editors, Deborah Levine,  I talked  about feeling like an outsider at age 7 in my own family. Perhaps she had not discussed her similar feelings before because she embraced the topic and told about similar feelings in her childhood. Deborah told her mom how she believed she belonged to gypsy parents who must have left her on the doorstep.  Then without surprise or forethought she asked her mom, “Would you please return me to where I really belong?” Her mom was amused by her hyperactive daughter with the quick mind and tongue.

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Authors A-H, Social Issues, Trends 2021

The Future: Coming Trends – by Marc Brenman

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We don’t know yet what the future will bring. We never know what the future will bring. Analysts often say it’s a mistake to predict the future by extrapolating the trends of the past. The world is too complicated a place. With the current pandemic, it’s been “up jump the Devil.” But never in our lifetimes has a Devil occupied the White House. Will we forget an important lesson we should have learned—that Evil exists, and walks among us? I’ve said for years that many people believe in good, but deny that evil exists also. Yet there can be no good without evil.

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Authors R-Z, Education, Social Issues, Trends 2021

Let’s Deconstruct the Stereotype – Dr. Julia Wai-Yin So

In the 1960s, sociologist Harold Garfinkel founded a new field of inquiry called ethnomethodology. As such, Garfinkel uses the term indexing to describe how we depend on whatever information and experience we have to make sense of every social context. We call this social cues. For example, when a man in the US meets a person who is wearing a dress and a pair of high heels while carrying a lady’s purse, the man instantly concludes that this is a woman and therefore will instantaneously interact with this person according to the social etiquette between a man and a woman.

Garfinkel calls such mental exercise indexing. When we are unaware of social cues because we have not had interaction with members of a particular social group, we would depend on the common information available, whether true or not. This is when stereotyping comes into play.

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Black-Jewish Dialogue, International Podcasts

Dr. Janét Aizenstros Podcast: Global Social Entrepreneur

JanetDr. Janét Aizenstros is a signatory with the United Nations Business Action Hub (UNBAH) for the United Nations Global Compact Network. She is an award-winning businesswoman with several leadership awards such as the Top 40 under 40, a recipient of the 2020 WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneur Award: Top 100, the Stevie® Award winner for Female Entrepreneur of the Year Canada. She also received Employer Of The Year for Canadian Business which ranked her company 12th on Canadian Business ’s 2020 Growth List. Thus, she became the first Black Canadian woman in history to scale a 9-figure organization and sole female founder to be featured on the list.

Dr. Janét Aizenstros is also a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO), a participant with Concordia Leadership Council and a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the Global Goodwill Ambassadors Foundation.

CLICK for interview of DR. JANET AIZENSTROS

Authors I-Q, Social Issues

Peace: Through Religion Cast Anew – by Andrew Lefton

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How does one consider achieving peace while living in a world that is currently confused, polarized and disunited? How do we live in a manner that leads to peaceful cooperation? We have, historically, tried various political and economic systems and yet we, as a society, continue to exist in a seemingly endless downward spiral with only brief peace-like respites. Given our current set of conditions, we can guess where it all leads if a fundamental change doesn’t occur.

It appears that humanity is in need of asking itself certain fundamental questions, such as: Who am I? What is the purpose for my existence? What do I believe in? How should I correctly act towards others?  Once we begin to discern answers to these and other questions of value and character can we start to move ourselves and our society towards a more unified and productive direction. A direction that leads us out of ourselves and begins to widen our vision.

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Authors I-Q, Social Issues

Good Works: Perspective from India  – by Tuhin Mukharjee

Look inside to shape your impact

This pandemic has affected the world population and we are facing different kinds of problems. But we believe that we will come out much stronger from this crisis. Hence we need to take some steps to ensure that the world becomes a better place for living in post pandemic era. We need to take some steps towards that. Helping others is not only good for them and a good thing to do; it also makes us happier & healthier too. It also helps us to build a strong communities & a society at large. It is not only making money & creating wealth, but also sharing time, energy and ideas.

“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane… Change yourself – you are in control.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

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