There I was pecking away on my keyboard. Part Two of “Hey, Speak English,” was coming along nicely when last week, “the racial week that was,” kicked the legs out from beneath my comfort zone. In a dreadful span of 72 hours, seven lives were senselessly snuffed out in Baton Rouge, Minneapolis and Dallas. Of course, many more lives ended that week, but thanks to the combustible mix of race, firearms and mobile devices, these are the ones that owned the headlines.
Category Archives: Social Issues
Social causes, activism, and projects
Examining Rank and Privilege – by Rosalie Chamberlain
Discussion of rank and privilege is not an everyday topic. In fact, it is often avoided and stirs up a multitude of feelings and emotions. It is too often a taboo topic and avoided. We need to discuss this important issue. In one of my speaking engagements on rank and privilege, just before going into the room, I overheard someone say they would not go to that particular discussion because they anticipated it would be too heated. It was not, and it does not have to be.
Continue reading Examining Rank and Privilege – by Rosalie Chamberlain
Don’t interrupt me, for crying out loud! – by Terry Howard
(To Hillary) “Excuse me, I’m talking!” ” I’m not finished; don’t interrupt me!” – Bernie Sanders, Democratic Debate
I glared in awe at the TV screen during the recent Republican and Democrat presidential debates while trying my best to keep tabs on the number of times the debaters interrupted each other. With Republican one, I simply lost account. Insults clearly spearheaded every interruption as the four men duked it out with each other on a variety of issues, including one candidate’s “hand size.”
Research has it that men tend to interrupt women more than women interrupt men. That was my reference point a week later when a woman and a man, Hillary and Bernie, took the debate stage. I was curious as to how the interruption dynamic would manifest itself across gender lines. Not sure if there’s a gender message here – is it? – but Sanders seemed to be the most irritated by being interrupted.
Continue reading Don’t interrupt me, for crying out loud! – by Terry Howard
Convergence of the Extremes: Journaling about our Mortality – by Martin Kimeldorf
Today the word Mortality is being examined in bold letters regarding for our species and in smaller plain print by individuals in this convergent moment. Scientists and religious fundamentalist have been busy writing an obituary for our species in upper case letters. As the Baby Boomers globally turn into Elder Boomers, they again challenge conventional routines and rituals. Likewise younger people put on the zombie costumes of the walking dead and extend the discussion of mortality across space and generations.
Continue reading Convergence of the Extremes: Journaling about our Mortality – by Martin Kimeldorf
Dealing with Death and Grief in a Diverse World – by Terry Howard
A week into 2016 and it was David Bowie. Then it was Natalie Cole. And it seems that every year a number of news sources will publish a list consisting of “those we lost last year.” Now like so many others, I got an uneasy reminder of the reality of death in 2015 with the loss of my brother and, before that, vicariously through related stories of others.
Continue reading Dealing with Death and Grief in a Diverse World – by Terry Howard
Diversity, Dialogue, and Mindsight – by Greg Nees
Have you ever entered a conversation with the best of intentions, only to end up in an argument? I suspect we have all had this experience and I’d like to suggest that one reason this happens so often is because of mind distance. When we try to communicate with people whose experiences and world views are very different from our own, we often run into invisible walls. It’s like trying to describe colors to a friend who has been blind from birth. No matter how much we try to explain what the world looks, sounds, and feels like to us, if the other person’s experiences have been significantly different, they will have trouble listening and understanding. In my work as an interculturalist, I encounter such mind distance on a regular basis.
Continue reading Diversity, Dialogue, and Mindsight – by Greg Nees
French Introspection & Action: Aftermath Of The Paris Attacks – by Andrew Scharf
All of a sudden, the French find themselves front and center on the world stage: continued slow economic growth, the surge of refugees across Europe and now, dealing with the aftermath of November 13. Since the carnage that hit Paris, President Hollande has been on hyper-drive: air strikes in Syria, intensified security, and persistent lobbying among key world leaders for a coordinated war against ISIS.
Continue reading French Introspection & Action: Aftermath Of The Paris Attacks – by Andrew Scharf
Creating Cultural Tolerance, One Meal at a Time – by Elisabeth Falcone
My daughter came home from Middle School where they were studying the Holocaust and asked me “Mommy, was grandpa a Nazi?” How do you answer such a question? Easy! I said “No”, because all of my life I had heard my parents rail against the Hitler regime. They sent my father to the Russian front and my mother to the basement for shelter from the Allied bombers attacking Berlin. But thirty years later, a fifth-grader in my French class, who was also learning about the Holocaust, asked me, “Why are the German people so awful?” Now the answer was not so easy, because the student unwittingly used a stereotype painting all present-day German people as Nazi criminals. Without going into the history of WWII, I briefly explained that not all Germans are awful, just like not all Americans are awful. Still, seeing an opportunity for a lesson, I taught the French words for “war and peace” (la guerre et la paix) and went on with class.
Continue reading Creating Cultural Tolerance, One Meal at a Time – by Elisabeth Falcone
Don’t get mad, get home safely – by Terry Howard
PROLOG: It’s 11 PM and from our living room we could hear the cranking sound of the garage door opening. Seconds later we heard his Mazda pull in. And a minute later he walked into the room, smile on face, and greeted us: “Hi mom, hi dad, I’m home!” From the perspective of African American parents of a young black male, there’re no sweeter sounds than those six words…. “Hi mom, hi dad, I’m home!”…., particularly given the current dangerous state of race relations in the USA.
Continue reading Don’t get mad, get home safely – by Terry Howard
Chattanoogans Mourn the Fallen Five – by Deborah Levine
The traffic was fierce on Martin Luther King Boulevard as people flocked to the community-wide interfaith service at Mount Olivet Baptist Church. Olivet, had grown from humble beginning in the 1920s to one of the city’s largest African-American churches. Yet, the church was packed, overflowing with elected officials, police officers and FBI, military veterans, and media among the diverse crowd of Black & White, Christians, Jews, and Muslim. Together, we prayed over the loss of four marines and a wounded sailor, who would die just hours later. We prayed over the trauma to our entire community inflicted by lone gunman, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.
Continue reading Chattanoogans Mourn the Fallen Five – by Deborah Levine