“Thinking in terms of networks can enable us see with new eyes.”
– Harold Jarche
Photo by David Shankbone
The biological sciences have revealed that all living things in an ecosystem are interconnected through networks of relationship; that is, they literally depend upon a web of life to survive and to thrive. On the social science front, we are also beginning to appreciate that groups, organizations, and communities depend upon and function in distributed networks of relationship that go beyond contrived boundaries, formal roles, communications, or decision-making protocols. After all, we are a part of life! Read More
Have you seen “Fruitvale Station”? If not, please stop reading this (seriously) and take a moment to make plans to go out and see it. It is probably playing somewhere close to you and, yes, it is that important of a film. The film is difficult and triggering but profoundly beautiful and timely. If you know someone like Oscar (or the thousands of others of young Black men who have lost their lives via extrajudicial killing) this film will hurt. However it succeeds in doing what mainstream portrayals of Black men almost never do by portraying Oscar as a whole, complex, deeply lovable person.
We facilitated a network focused on improving early childhood education and care. The initial focus was to build leadership capacity and facilitate strategy development with stakeholders across a state to design a more holistic statewide structure for decision-making related to early childhood. Read More
The following post has been reblogged from our friends at Grist.org and features our newest colleague Mistinguette Smith. We hope you find it as inspiring as we did! Please note one correction: Smith was born in the Midwest.
Gastronomically enlightened Grist reader that you are, you’ve probably participated in a CSA, or at least heard of them. Community-supported agriculture is so common that in many circles the acronym needs no explanation. (Sorry, mini football helmet collectors, we’re talking about farmers who sell “shares” of their seasonal fruits and veggies, then deliver them to members when they’re ripe.) But a pint of locally sourced strawberries says you didn’t know a black man came up with the idea.
“When somebody says ‘I’m in pain,’ when somebody says ‘I’m being targeted,’ when somebody says ‘there are too many young black boys being killed…’ if our first reaction is to defend ourselves, then that shows a great degree of loveless-ness. Nobody is saying that you hate black people… but I am asking you the question, do you love them?” -Brother Ali
A world that loves, honors and respects young black men must first SEE them. This seeing is a political act.
I am consciously seeing black men more clearly since my friend Victor Lewis hashtagged the Charles Ramsey story #WhatBlackMenDo. Ramsey, who acknowledges that he battered his former partner, stepped up without hesitation to rescue the women held prisoner for a decade in a basement in Cleveland, OH. He assumed that he was witnessing a domestic violence situation and intervened because this is #WhatBlackMenDo.
On Friday, President Obama spoke about the Trayvon Martin tragedy, in terms that were both personal and presidential. If you haven’t heard his talk you can listen here. Read More
“The point is that justice was always going to elude Trayvon Martin, not because the system failed, but because it worked.”
– Robin D. G. Kelley
|Photo by Ben Sutherland|http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensutherland/8496877807|
The post below is a somewhat edited version of one that appeared on this blog a year ago. As we have continued to have conversations at IISC and with our partners about the implications of the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, one thing that has become clear about who and where we are as a country is that there is an overall inability and/or resistance to thinking about racism from a systemic perspective. As evidence, we hear comments such as, “Race did not have anything to do with this verdict. The women on the jury are not racist.” Or, “Justice was done. The jury followed the letter of the law.” Read More
This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
This morning we came into the IISC Boston office ready for a two-hour staff meeting and a four-hour training. We sat down, looked around the table, and began with a question not about what was on the agenda, and instead about what was present in the room. The question was: How does the Zimmerman verdict affect us and our work at IISC?
The following post has been reblogged from our friends at The Huffington Post and written by Judith Brown Dianis. Important to consider during this painful moment of glaring injustice.
It is distressing that George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was gunned down last year by a man who saw him as a threat, not because he posed a threat, but because of the color of his skin. We call on the Department of Justice to act on the violation of Trayvon Martin’s civil rights. There is no more fundamental right than the right to live.
