Category Archives: Authors R-Z

ADR authors listed by last name R-Z

Letting Go of Perfectionism: an Act of Antiracism – by Janelle Villiers

I’ve attended the Undoing Racism Workshop offered by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, twice. I’ve gone on to facilitate several DEI workshops and I am also  the co-creator of an Intra-Professional Antiracism Dialogue and Discourse Series (IPADDS). While preparing for and facilitating all of these workshops and IPADDS events I was always reminded of a foundational tenant of the Undoing Racism Workshop and that is “Racism de-humanizes us all.” It doesn’t matter what race, Black, White and everything in between, we are all de-humanized by racism.

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Glee, Anger and the Unprecedented State of National Affairs – Elwood Watson

For some people, November 5, 2024, was one of the greatest days in American history. Others may well remember it as a day that will live in political infamy. The 2024 presidential election is over, and Donald Trump has been reelected as the forty-seventh president of the United States of America. One can only imagine what Grover Cleveland would think of this chain of events. Cleveland was the only other president to serve nonconsecutive terms — he was the twenty-second and twenty-fourth US president from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897.

If most people are honest with themselves, they would probably admit that Tuesday’s results shocked but did not totally surprise them. Trump went on to win both the popular vote and the Electoral College. The latter ultimately determines who wins the presidency. In all fairness, despite what many pundits, critics, radio hosts and numerous other commentators assessments, the election was not a blowout as opposed to the democratic presidential elections of 1972 between presidential-election-of-1972 Richard Nixon and George McGovern and 1984 contest between presidential-election-of-1984 Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. These elections were indeed BLOWOUTS!

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A Survivor’s Story of Neo-Nazis: Part 2 – by Kathleen Sullivan

neo-NazisOur country’s government is again in danger. The white supremacists and neo-Nazis who conspired to meet Hitler’s long-term goal of Ordis Templar, Circa 2000 are mostly long-gone. But many of them have recruited, groomed and brainwashed next-generation children and other recruits to fulfill their insanely grandiose goal – specifically, of taking over the US government from the inside-out. And making it an Aryan-run government that would eventually lead the world. 

I have watched many of the brainwashing and so-called “mind control” techniques that were perfected on us as human Guinea pigs, being used regularly by White supremacist and neo-Nazi leaders and media representatives. Those techniques include Ericksonian hypnosis, Neuro-Linguistic programming, wearing down listeners’ mental resistance in a variety of ways, triggering their midbrains and knocking their frontal lobes offline via messages of fear and disgust, and much more. 

Continue reading A Survivor’s Story of Neo-Nazis: Part 2 – by Kathleen Sullivan

A Survivor’s Story of Neo-Nazis: Part 1 – by Kathleen Sullivan

neo-Nazis I have been very concerned about the increasing lack of awareness and basic knowledge and education about the Holocaust, here in the US. And about the events and actions and societal trends in Germany that led up to it. 

Starting at age 3, I was unfortunately raised by a very cruel man who was German/Welsh-American. He had very poor self-esteem and was often ridiculed and bullied by his peers. His family was very poor and his father was the town drunk. All of that changed in college when he was mentored by German professors and was introduced to an eventual cluster of Nazi war criminals who had been relocated to the US by our government and given new names, identities and plum positions in governmental agencies. Specifically, to continue doing various kinds of research here, that they had previously done in Germany. Continue reading A Survivor’s Story of Neo-Nazis: Part 1 – by Kathleen Sullivan

South Asheville Black Community – by Barbara Weitz

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the social, economic, and political development of the black community once  known as South Asheville in the city of  Asheville, North Carolina. It spans the period of slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, Reconstruction and Fusion politics.  From 1865 to 1900, Blacks in Asheville experienced much progress mostly because they felt far less  racial discrimination than what was experienced in  other parts of the South  The mixed racial attitudes of the Whites in Asheville allowed them access to more of the positive things happening in the city so the newly emancipated became a significant part of the boom Asheville experienced after the Civil War.  Since there were very few plantations , formerly enslaved people were not concentrated in small geographic areas of the city,  Some, like Mr. William McDowell, who did,  however, run a slave plantation, did much to help his former slaves and Blacks in general thrive by breaking up his former plantation into small pieces of land which he gave to them or allowed them to purchase at a small price. This created the suburb of Black South Asheville.

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Waymakers: Celebrating and Protecting Diversity in Appalachia – by Joe Tolbert Jr.

The Waymakers Collective is dedicated to supporting community arts and organizations in the heart of Appalachia that are historically underfunded: those led by BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and people of color), youth, LGBTQIA+, and non-English speakers/immigrants. Earlier this month, we held our Annual Gathering to celebrate our community of Appalachian artists, culture workers, organizers, activists, doers, and creatives who are committed to building a just and equitable Appalachian future.

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The Art of Resilience. From Pain to Promise: Book Review – by George Simons

Art of ResilienceFar from being abstract research on the dynamics of resilience, Deborah Levine has provided us with a life story, and highly relevant biography, an ethnography if you will, of the struggle for resilience lived out, day by day. It is filled with the challenges to resilience from health, work, environments, and relationships. Today we speak of the cost of intersectionality on oneself. The term is extremely relevant here, as Deborah herself is bundled into her white female identity, her Jewish ethnicity, the cultural marks of her places of upbringing, her immigrant status, her health vulnerability, and her religious belongings. Each of these shows up repeatedly both as a liability and an asset in her resilience narrative.

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A Closer Look Inside India’s Cleanest City – by Yana Roy

If you can discern the presence of disproportionately more temples than public toilets; wide streets; tri-segregated waste bins lining the intersections of lanes and roads; the selling of meat concealed by humongous black cloths; mannequins, automobiles, absolutely any entity at all being adorned with orange flags depicting the Hindu God, Ram, you have successfully reached Indore. Welcome. Officially known as the cleanest city of India, this city boasts being free of open defecation, of possessing a minimal Air Quality Index (AQI) ranging from 50-80, source segregation of waste, and the list is interminable.

But, what does it mean to be the cleanest city of India? What are we cleaning? And for whom? Who gets to reap the benefits and who is burdened with the colossal task of cleaning? Let us find out.

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Overcoming Bias: A Guide to Skilled Skepticism – by Sondra Thiederman

Don’t you love being right? I sure do. I think that’s one reason most of us are afflicted with what’s called “confirmation bias” – the pesky habit of noticing only the evidence that proves our previously held beliefs correct. In other words, we see what we expect to see.

This is where our biases – our inflexible beliefs about categories of people – trick us into jumping to the wrong conclusions. Once we get it into our heads that members of particular groups “all” – because they are members of that group – share a particular characteristic, our brain just can’t resist proving that bias right.

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The Effects of SCOTUS Decision on One University – by Dr. Julia Wai-Yin So

The Supreme Court’s decision on the two college admission cases in June 2023 has left the 3,400+ colleges and universities in the country (both private and public institutions of higher education) rushing to review and revise their admission practices. By declaring the admission policies of Harvard University and the University of South Carolina had violated the Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment, the ruling essentially ended decades of race-conscious admission practice (which was permissible under Affirmative Action policy) in colleges and universities across the country. 

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