Bellingen is a buzzy little town straddling the gorgeous Waterfall Way, which links the serene beaches of the New South Wales mid-north coast with the escarpments of the Great Dividing Range. Bello to the locals, its had many lives, from timber-mill town and dairy hub to hippie hideout, environmentalist holdout and hipster hangout.

Logging trucks still roll through town past the hemp store, butter factory-turned-craft centre, spiffed-up Victorian and Art Deco shopfronts, and an edgy Japanese restaurant in a ramshackle wooden house. Locals sing in a Gumbaynggirr-language choir at the community centre. Hearthfire Bakery creates breads from local flours and, across the road, second-generation butchers, Thorns Gourmet Meats and Smokehouse, sell some of the countrys finest pork, beef and small goods. Local kids play in the acclaimed Bellingen Youth Orchestra when theyre not rewilding in the bush. And as the sun sets across the lime-green alluvial valley, everyone is invited to join Bellos progressives on Friday nights at the Cedar Bar (at least in pre-Covid-19 times).

Aboriginal elder and Gumbaynggirr language teacher Micklo Jarrett explains how our Dreamtime stories describe the ocean 120km east of where it is now, which proves our people have been in this region for more than 10,000 years. Today, the Gumbaynggirr people have been active in stopping logging for wood chips in the nearby Nambucca state forest. All we want to do is preserve the land for everyone, he says.

Meanwhile, the National Parks Association of NSW is lobbying the government to establish the Great Koala national park nearby, to link protected forests so the dwindling koala population can thrive again.

Journalist Peter Geddes turned up with his family in the 1970s. Hes working on a documentary about Bellingens hippie era, when alternative lifestylers rented houses for $2 a week and used to ride into town on horseback. We made something out of nothing and eventually the old-timers came to accept that Bellingen turned out pretty well with a sustainable lifestyle, he says. Im a little surprised how straight its become, though. People wear clothes now.

Yet, Bello has held on to its free-thinking spirit, and over the years has attracted creative types inspired by the beauty of the surroundings. Peter Carey was living in a Richard Leplastrier-designed treehouse in the Promised Land, across the Bellinger River, when he conceived his Booker prize-winning novel Oscar and Lucinda, which is inspired by the little church in Gleniffer.

Bellingen remains a bubble of progressive politics in National party heartland. Kevin and Lowanna Doye are part of the new wave. After cycling from the UK to Sydney (it took over a year and a cargo ship was involved) to highlight the environmental impact of air travel, they moved into one of Bellos 27 multiple-occupancy intentional communities and opened Kombu Wholefoods in 2004, to sell local organic produce at affordable prices. Bellingen shire ranges from subtropical coastal regions to 1,500 metres elevation on the escarpment so they can source everything from mangoes, bananas, avocados, macadamia nuts and pineapples to all sorts of greens, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, citrus and stone fruits.

I live in a beautiful place connected with my family doing something I believe in. Our philosophy is all about strengthening the local community.

In times like these, it all makes perfect sense.

The Bellingen Community Markets are held every third Saturday at Bellingen Park. Sample orange Jaffa and caramelised fig and marsala gelato at Bellingen Gelato.

Browse Australian fashion brands, linens and beauty products at the Art Deco HYDE Bellingen, as well as Emporium Bellingen in the 1900s Hammond and Wheatley building.

In normal times, the festival calendar (Camp Creative, the Bellingen fine music festival, The Bellingen readers and writers festival, etc) is brilliant.

Whod have thought Middle Eastern street food and hip Japanese fusion would be the local go-to spots in a NSW country town but this is Bellingen, after all. Qudo dishes up dazzling barramundi teriyaki and sushi rolls infused with greens, while Zaatar cafe offers falafel, hummus plates and lamb kofta in fluffy pita bread. Black Bear cafe is the spot for breakfast on the sunny terrace. And for excellent pizzas, craft beer and a pared-back urban vibe, head to Bellingen Brewery.

Rent a cottage in the Promised Land through Airbnb and other agencies. The best campgrounds are Reflections Holiday Parks beside the Kalang River estuary in Urunga and a free camping site next to the general store in Thora, on the drive up the escarpment to Dorrigo.

Go canoeing on the Bellinger River to spot sea eagles, azure kingfishers, flooded gums and dairy cow river crossings, or drive the loop around the Promised Land and dip your toes in Never Never Creek.

Visit the Dorrigo Rainforest Centre for escarpment vistas of the Gondwana rainforest, or hike into the world heritage-listed rainforest on the two-hour Wonga Walk.

Walk the Urunga boardwalk along the river estuary to the spectacular Hungry Head ocean beach.

Almost halfway between Sydney (5.5 hours drive north) and Brisbane (five hours drive south); Bellingen is around 30 minutes drive south-west from Coffs Harbour airport. While there is some public transport available in the area, having a car is strongly recommended.

Excerpt from:

A visitor's guide to Bellingen: 'Im surprised how straight its become people wear clothes now' - The Guardian

TheCalifornia Fair Political Practices Commission, the states campaign finance watchdog is moving forward with an investigation of drug company executive Michael Weinsteins AIDS Health Foundation on a complaint by California YIMBY for allegedly failing to report tens of thousands of dollars of campaign spending. AHF is the funder of Proposition 21, a rent control measure on the November 3rd ballot, opposed by affordable housing, veterans, labor and taxpayer groups. The title of Prop. 21 is, Expands Local Governments Authority To Enact Rent Control On Residential Property.

The initiative is a revised version of Proposition 10, Weinsteins 2018 rent control initiative to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Prop. 10 failed to pass, 59% to 40% at the polls, despite $25 million in campaign spending by Weinsteins AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Supporters raised $25.30 million, with 89 percent of funds received from theAIDS Healthcare Foundation, Ballotpedia reported. Five ballot measure committee registered in opposition to Proposition 10Californians for Responsible Housing,Californians For Affordable Housing,No On Prop 10,Issues PAC of Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, andSanta Barbara Housing Providers Against Proposition 10. Together, the committees raised $71.37 million. The committees spent $72.11 million, according to Ballotpedia.

California YIMBY, which stands for Yes In My Back Yard, says yes affordable housing, yes to inclusive, equitable communities, yes to opportunity, and yes to more neighbors!

The FPPC confirmed it is investigating the AIDS Health Foundation for violating multiple state campaign finance laws to oppose Senate Bill 50, a controversial housing bill defeated in the Legislature earlier this year. In the complaint, California YIMBY alleges that AIDS Healthcare Foundation failed to report its spending for radio and social media advertisements, direct mail pieces, a website, and other activities attacking the legislation. Included are controversial and inaccurate mailers from Weinsteins group that were assailed by the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, and other organizations as racist and offensive.

AHF is aware of the requirements of Californias Political Reform Act and nonetheless disregarded the plain fact these expenses are clearly reportable under California law, the complaint alleges.

According to CaliforniaYIMBY, In recent years, AIDS Healthcare Foundation has established itself through its political disinformation campaigns, running an array of dirty tricks campaigns that deploy aggressive lobbying tactics, and undisclosed political spending to advance its secretive agenda.With an annual budget of $1.5 billion, Weinsteins organization has grown into a powerful political and lobbying group for Weinsteins pet causes with ample resources to ensure compliance with the law.

Weinsteins violations of the lobby disclosure provisions of the Political Reform Act appear to be an intentional attempt to deny the public vital information regarding the organizations lobbying expenditures, California YIMBYs CEO Brian Hanlon said in a statement in February. While were confident this is a violation of state law, were also disturbed by the fact that it goes against the spirit of charitable organizations, a cornerstone of American civil society. Rather than devote resources in accordance with their healthcare mission, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation chose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars dishonestly attacking both SB 50 and state Senator Scott Wiener for authoring legislation to make California more affordable and inclusive. While it is Michael Weinsteins right to oppose affordable home building, it is not his right to violate political finance law, and to spend charitable dollars for political purposes, possibly in violation of tax law.

In February, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the AIDS Health Foundation was delinquent in its nonprofit status after the group failed to file documents required to meet the requirements to claim charitable standing in the state.

Last August, Senator Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) alsocalled on the Attorney Generalto investigate the AIDS Health Care Foundation, charging thatthe group was fraudulently misusing savings from a federal drug-discount program designed to help low-income patients.

The FPPC finedthe AIDS Healthcare Foundations committee in 2018 for its failure to disclose political campaign spending on Measure S, a housing ballot measure in Los Angeles.

Advocacy at AHF has been pushing the boundaries in the name of basic human rights for over thirty years, AHF says on its website. Its as fundamental to our organization as the care we give our patients. AHF has advocated for reducing drug prices, and has sued numerous pharmaceutical companies over exorbitant drug prices and antitrust and patent violations.

You can read California YIMBYs complaint here.

See the original post here:

FPPC Probing Weinstein's AIDS Health Foundation for Campaign Finance Violations - California Globe

Empathy: The First Step Towards Inclusion was co-written by Dr. Adetoun Yeaman and Dr. Sreyoshi Bhaduri.

Even as the world grapples with the debilitating COVID-19 pandemic, the past few weeks have found many in our communities struggling with the repercussions of another long, vicious pandemic that of racism. Some of us had the privilege to switch off the news and take a break from social media. But for about 25% of the United States, which includes people of color, even stepping away to seek respite and bolster mental health is a privilege that few can afford. In these times, more than ever, empathy is an important skill which can help individuals work towards better inclusion.

Empathy is the ability to see the world through anothers perspective. Casually, empathy is defined as the act of putting oneself in another persons shoes. Through being in another persons shoes, an individual may have the opportunity to gain a deeper or more meaningful understanding of what someone else may have lived and experienced. This ability thus allows individuals to be sensitized to others needs and sufferings. The way past indifference and towards allyship aimed at inclusion is illuminated primarily through empathy. Author Chinua Achebe, in his collection of essays, hints at lack of empathy being a result of an unimaginative brain.

Like any other professional development skill, empathy is one that needs to be developed and once developed, continually honed. For engineers, this skill is twice-blessed; it allows engineers to connect not only with the people they impact but also the individuals they work with, as they work in teams to solve problems, engage in design and innovate on technologies. While empathy is a human ability, possessed by everyone, studies suggest it can be enhanced or diminished in various instances.

In the United States, empathy found prominence in conversations on race and racial disparities through the works of Kenneth Clark in the second quarter of the 20th century. There has been more recent discourse on empathy and its importance in the engineering field in the 21st century. Many intentional efforts are being made to incorporate empathy into engineering curricula and prepare future engineers to be more empathic. Some conceptualizations of empathy relevant to engineering include the framework for empathy in design, which describes empathy as a process of discovery followed by immersion, connection and detachment; and the model of empathy in engineering, which presents empathy as a way of being, a practice orientation and a learnable skill. People can learn to be empathic!

Empathy is a good starting point on the journey to inclusion in engineering. However, empathy alone will likely not be enough, and at times, may be grossly inadequate. The argument against empathy puts forth the rationale that differences in power dynamics disallow individuals to truly put themselves in anothers shoes or understand their lived experiences. These power dynamics are exacerbated when people interact with individuals who have significantly diverse lives because of intersections of race, gender or socio-economic status, among others.

Consider as an example, a manager, M, who needs to decide among two team members, A and B, to lead a high-visibility project. A, although better skilled than B for this project, is also a new parent. M was a new parent once and puts themselves in As shoes. M recalls their own lived experiences as a new parent and remembers how difficult managing time was for them during those days with the new baby. Empathizing with A, M may then decide to give the project to B, intending to not add unnecessary stress for A. However, while this act may arise from empathy-backed intentions, the outcome may not always be for the better. As lived experiences are different from the managers (Ms). Going beyond empathy, and asking A to decide for themselves, while giving them the option to back out, may have been a better solution since it allows more autonomy for the employee who is directly impacted by such decisions.

Thus, empathy alone may often not be enough for inclusive decision-making or working in teams. However, empathy is a good first step sensitizing individuals to struggles that others around them may be facing and informing considerate decision making.

We must be careful to not stop at empathy alone. Empathy helps us get to allyship, where we are sensitized towards and lend support to those who have been systematically marginalized and disadvantaged. However, true inclusion can only happen when we go beyond empathy and extend allyship to accompliceship,where, in the latter, we actively partake in dismantling oppressive structures.

Inclusion can be thought of as a journey of a thousand miles, and empathy its first step.

Are you actively honing your empathic skills today?

Dr. Sreyoshi Bhaduri is a SWE Member and a board member of the SWE New York and Long Island section. Dr. Sreyoshi Bhaduri leads Global People Research & Analytics at McGraw Hill, where she works on research leveraging employee data from across 45 countries to generate data-driven insights for policy decisions impacting organizational effectiveness, culture, and talent. Dr. Bhaduri has interdisciplinary expertise with a Ph.D. in Engineering Education and Masters degrees (M.A. and M.S.) in Statistics and Mechanical Engineering, from Virginia Tech. Her research areas include women in STEM, inclusion, and diversity initiatives within the tech industry, as well as employing innovative, ethical, and inclusive mixed-methods research approaches to uncovering data-driven insights to meet the challenges of the 21st-century workforce. Dr. Bhaduri has been recognized as an Academy for Teaching Excellence fellow and a Diversity scholar at Virginia Tech, and was inducted in the National Bouchet Honor Society at Yale.

Dr. Adetoun Yeaman is an Engineering Education Post-doctoral Fellow at Wake Forest University. She earned her doctorate from Virginia Tech. Her dissertation research focused on how empathy plays out in the experiences of undergraduate engineering students in service-learning courses. She received her M.S. degree in 2013 in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2011, both from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has a strong interest in the ways that people interact and the role that engineering and technology play in society. To this end, she continues to look for ways to promote social competencies of people, such as empathy, within engineering education and practice. Her research interests include empathy in engineering, design education, spatial visualization and multimedia learning. In her new role as post-doctoral fellow, she will be contributing to the development of an emerging engineering curriculum that incorporates research-based practices on character and human virtues.

Read more:

Empathy: The First Step Towards Inclusion - All Together - Society of Women Engineers

Hank Willis Thomas is a name many in the art world are familiar with, and not just because he is the son of lauded historian Deborah Willis (though that helps).And a lot more people could soon be familiar with him and what he stands for.

The multimedia artist, who tackles some of the most difficult and complex issues of our timesystemic racism, marginalized communities, media bias, and income inequality, among othersis also the cofounder of For Freedoms, a super PAC turned nonprofit organization promoting civic engagement in the creative community.

Thomas once said that his personal experiences prompted him to create art that could change the world in a more intentional way. And now, more than ever, he is doing just that.

Through July 16, he and his Los Angeles gallery, Kayne Griffin Corcoran, are teaming up with Artnet Auctions to present Bid forPeace,a single-lot sale of Thomass striking sculpture,Peace, from 2019.

All proceeds from the auction, including the buyers premium, will be donated toGays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society (G.L.I.T.S), a non-profit organization that protects the rights of transgender sex workers.

Thomas took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the evolution of his studio practice, artists importance in bringing about civic transformation, and whether you might someday see his name on a ballot near you.

You can listen to a condensed version of this interview on Artnet Newss Art Angle podcast.

Before we get into what youre up to now, lets go back to where you come from. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing and how you became an artist.

Well, I think were all artists. I was born an artist and have over the past couple of decades really been in a process of discovering more and more what that can mean, every day.

And I do have the fortune of being the son of Deborah Willis, whos an incredible person, as well as an art historian and photographer and photo historian. And I grew upat the Schomburg Center for Research in Black culture, where she worked, watching her discover and tell new narratives about American history, along with her colleagues and fellow artists and peers.

Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas speak at TEDWomen 2017New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED.

And so I think I learned the value of art through osmosis. I didnt really appreciate it or respect it until I was about 30. And by that time I already had a BFA and an MFA. I thought that I was just asking questions and on my own path. And then I realized that was very much following in my mothers footsteps as if shed been pulling the puppet strings all along.

I remember I told my mother that I didnt want to be an artist because all of her friends were broke little did I know.

She won a MacArthur Grant in 2004 for her scholarship on photography and she is renown as a real force in the reconsideration of the tradition of African-American photography and more broadly photography in America. What did she teach you about photography and how it intersects with the tangled story of this country?

I think the fundamental thing that I learned from my mother is that history is waiting to be told. Photography and the landscape of visual representation has always been a contentious space, especially for people who were from what we now call marginalized communities, communities that werent in control of the mainstream narrative. Nevertheless, there were people and will always be people who are part of these communities making images, taking photographs, and telling stories that are in stark contrast to the prevailing narratives, and are also much more accurate.

Theres another way your family history has shaped your work, in a far more tragic sense. Can you talk about your cousin Songha Willis?

Songha was my best friend, big brother, and mentor; my life plan was to be his backup singer. In February 2000, his mother went out of town so he went to Philadelphia, where hed grown up, to look after my grandmother and see some friends from junior high school. They went to a night club and the friends he was with were robbed for some necklaces. The robbers had seen my cousin with them, but he didnt have anything worth taking, so they made him lay face down in the snow and they shot him in the back of the head and killed him.

That was obviously a traumatic experience for me, it was also a life re-centering moment, because I literally had no plan or real dreams for my own life other than to be a part of his, so I had to discover who I was independent of my cousin.

I was really shocked, not only by the horror of the act, but also that the people who killed my cousin were young men, barely out of their teens, and now their lives were also over to an extent after they were caught. The history of our country has been tied to starving people into desperate circumstances where they partake in sometimes heinous acts as a means to feel relevant and important.

So a lot of my work has been in the spirit of reuniting us, collectively, with people who society has tried to alienate us, even from ourselves.

You once said that after his passing you felt that you needed to make art that could change the world in a more intentional way. How did you go about constructing a path to do that?

I first started to look at the stories that were told and who was telling the stories in the media and beyond. I tried to find alternative methods of communicating ideas, one of the most popular ones being advertising. I realized advertising is the most ubiquitous form of communication in the modern world, and that its a language that can be translated across cultural boundaries because weve all become media literate. So I tried through various projects to use the language of advertising to talk about issues beyond what advertising was discussing.

Hank Willis Thomas, Priceless (2004). Courtesy of the artist.

One of your most powerful works, and one of the first times you chose to show something outside of a museum instead of inside, was with your MasterCard ad which you changed into a kind of retelling of your cousins story. Can you talk a bit about how you approachedthat particular image?

The name of the piece isPriceless and it consisted of a photograph of my cousins and a lot of my family members in a state of mourning. I used the language of the Mastercard Priceless campaign, where they would build up nostalgia about all these things you could do with your credit card like take your child to a baseball game, or get someone a gift. I said that picking out the perfect casket for your son was priceless.

I wanted to talk about how even in grief and mourning were still being marketed to, and all of the pomp and circumstance that we go through to prove the value of a life after its been taken.

One of your most famous photographsfrom the branded series was of a Black athletes head with the Nike swoosh literally, with a branding iron, seared onto his head. Just a little while ago you had a show at the Portland Museum of Art and you flew this image on a banner outside the museum, in the city where Nike is headquartered. What is it that draws you to sports, and in particular to the way that African American athletes exist in the sports world?

I think everyone has been conditioned to believe sports are important if only because theyre part of every nightly news broadcast alongside major weather reports and political events. A lot of the success or progress that was made for people who are traditionally marginalized is through sports.

The fact that sports is an opportunity for people to be seen as valuable is something we take for granted.There are many multibillion-dollar industries fueled by the labor of descendants of slaves.

Hank Willis Thomas, Raise Up (2014). at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Courtesy Hank Willis Thomas.

As time went on you started to move from photography toward monumental sculpture, how did that transition take place?

Around 2003 I was living in the Bay Area of San Francisco and there was an uptick in homicides, especially in certain neighborhoods. I wanted to create a memorial because I had been in DC and seen all these memorials to fallen soldiers and to presidents, and I wanted to make work that really commemorated all of the other fallen soldiers, the fallen stars in our society who would not be appreciated for their contributions because they were civilians killed.

So I created a piece calledAbsolute Winning Seven for the victims of homicide in Oakland and San Francisco in 2004, made of bullets. I wasreally wanting to think about what it means to create monuments for people who arent seen as valuable or important or society.

One sculpture that really captures this of yours isRaise Up, what was the story behind that piece?

It was based off of a photograph by Ernest Cole, from in a book calledHouse of Bondage that I found in South Africa, whichwas comprised of photographs that he smuggled out during apartheid, before the true horrors of apartheid hadbeen revealed. The picture showed miners completely nude, facing a wall with their hands up; Id always felt it was exploitative looking at the photograph, like I was in some way complicit, leaning in and gawking. I wanted to represent it in a way that was ethical, if it was possible. I created a sculpture based on that photograph, cropping it at the shoulders, and titled itRaise Up in February 2014.

I was really contemplating how a gesture of surrender could be interpreted as a gesture of resistance, and then in July when Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, Missouri, and the call to action was hands up, dont shoot it had an incredible resonance with the work.

Many of us in the creative field know in our hearts that our work, at its best, lives outside of the space-time continuum, and can speak to the past as elegantly as it can to the future.

Installation view at the Portland Art Museum. Courtesy of the Portland Art Museum.

A co-curator of your show at the Portland Museum said, we are often surprised by how his [Thomass] work dealing with race and bias becomes more and more relevant.

I can relate to that. Oftentimes when Ive made work I thought I was being self-involved and stuck in the past, and then my eyes were openedoften in really harsh waysthat I was tapped into something deeper than I was even aware of when I started. Thats why Im so fanatic about promoting other artists work because what we do in our studio is almost always the result of a research practice, so all of the independent researchers delving into these elements of our society that are under-researched and therefore underreported. I love the opportunity to promote the work of others because through their work we see radical progression and the evolution of our society.

To round out the monument topic, youre now working on a monument of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King, embracing that will debut in the Boston Commons in 2022. That is a decidedly uplifting image, but at the same time there is this movement across the country where monuments are being torn. As an artist whos creating this work, how are you experiencing this moment?

Im experiencing it with a lot of enthusiasm, for the audacity of the people who are forcing us to do things that should have been done a long time ago. Public space belongs to the public and they should have a say in what kinds of images and objects represent the society.

Its also important that things get reconsidered from time to time. Maybe once a century, at least, you have a reconsideration of all these monuments to men who are celebrated often as a way to put down and disrespect other people.

What do you think art can do when it comes to creating change?

Everyone who engages with art, whether they know it or not, is being changed and affected; the proof of that is that artists who were seen as radical 40 and 50 years ago for dealing with issues related to LGBTQ+, or multiculturism, or womens rights, those are mainstream issues now.

For Freedoms interpretation of Norman Rockwells Freedom of Speech, featuring actor and activist Jesse Williams (standing). Photo courtesy of For Freedoms.

Lets talk a bit about the non-art work youre doing to change unjust institutions. What is the story behind your nonprofit For Freedoms, and why of all things, did you decide to create a Super PAC?

Well, it is still art. Have you ever thought about laws as conceptual art? The whole way we govern society is based around concepts, and I recognize that there are avowed non-creative people literally designing our society through the laws they create in the narratives they choose. By and large, members of the creative community dont even have an opportunity to participate in those narratives, so then how could they ever shape or affect the laws? So my friends and I thought if we created this PAC to elevate the voices of artists as a form of political civic engagement, we could start the movement toward radically changing society.

We realized that there are institutions, museums, that have audiences in the millions and tens of millions that walk in with open minds to be challenged, and those institutions often dont feel like they have the place to speak to the current moment politically or even at all. So weve started to do exhibitions and town halls and billboards to attract the attention of those people. Were attempting to promote the critical work artists are doing by framing it as political speech, because we know that when you say something is political it implies theres something at stake.

Trevor Paglens Nov. 6, 2018 billboard in Hartford, CT. Photo via Instagram courtesy For Freedoms.

I realized back in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected, he was a relatively unknown person who used slogans like Hope and change and that was really great branding to inspire people and earn the nations trust. The fact that these two relatively meaningless statements could be such radical tools for engagement and enthusiasm was kind of frightening to me, and I recognized it was no longer about money in politics, it was really about how you can tell the best story.

For Freedoms is an act of creative patriotism, and we hope that it will continue as a model for generations, because its terrible to see political discourse without critical discourse.

In the spring right before the coronavirus outbreak shut down the US, you staged a For Freedoms convention in Los Angeles. What happened there, and now that the stakes are higher than ever, how are your efforts changing in the run up to this election?

That was a great event, we brought 500 delegates and people from all fifty states plus DC and Puerto Rico to develop a creative plan of action around civic engagement, in an election year; and a week after we got home my wife got sick with the coronavirus.

Wow.

The world changed forever, and the old rules we were engaging with had changed. We realized we needed to start playing a new game and the rules would need to be rewritten. With the protests now, it really harkens back to a moment of change around 1860 when a group of abolitionists came together across the nation to reimagine what society was possible. They were called the Wide Awakes, and they chose then-candidate Abraham Lincoln to support, and through these creative, non-violent performances that had singing, music, and graphic design elements, inspired a movement that pushed our country to a better place.

You shared a pretty gnomic Instagram post of an album cover for a band apparently called the Wide Awakes recently, that featured an inverted pyramid with an eye inscribed in it, and it piqued my interest, realizing as you said that Lincoln actually used the historical group as a get out the vote mechanism. Is this new Wide Awakes 2020 as you called it going to be similarly involved?

We hope so! It depends on if you all join in. For Freedoms has always been anti-partisan because we recognize that the left-right binary doesnt make space for the rest of us, its really through an unwillingness to think outside the box that we get trapped in tit-for-tat arguments rather than truly engaging with issues we care about.

Would you ever consider treading over the line from art and politics into solely politics?

I think anyone who cares at all should consider it. I would hope that Im not the only artist whos seriously considering it, and I will probably at some point, try to run for some office. Id rather my wife do that because I think there are so many women I know who would make much better leaders, but I would never want them to do something I wouldnt be willing to do myself.

Is there anything that makes you really hopeful right now?

I feel hopeful because I have never known the world to be more mindful and more aware of every breath, and of the value of every breath and the necessity for us to speak up for what we truly believe in.

Excerpt from:

I Have Never Known the World to Be More Mindful of Every Breath: Artist Hank Willis Thomas on How Art Intersects With Politics - artnet News

In the last few weeks, the Supreme Court has shocked many observers, affirming several civil rights protections, despite the widespread fear that the courts conservative majority would go the other way.

The court held that discrimination against gay or transgendered individuals counted as sex discrimination barred by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It struck down the attempt by Louisiana to constrict access to abortion by imposing burdensome regulations on reproductive health providers. And for now, it has preserved Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the immigration program that protects young, undocumented residents from deportation.

These decisions will protect millions of Americans and their communities from the threat of hostile government action. And yet, the truth is, these rulings are a reprieve, not a victory, for civil rights.

The Roberts court itself continues to winnow away civil rights through other avenues: its religious liberty rulings will enable some employers to avoid providing contraception coverage in healthcare plans for employees. The DACA ruling, similarly, leaves open the possibility of dismantling protections for people brought to this country illegally as children.

The task of assuring an equitable, inclusive democracy now requires going beyond litigation and court rulings. Litigation dependent on a federal judiciary increasingly stacked with Trump-appointed judges and bound by decades-old statutes will simply not be enough to make civil rights protections real for the people who need them most. Besides, focusing narrowly on individual instances of discrimination often leaves in place workplace policies and the power structures that perpetuate systemic discrimination against Black and brown communities in particular.

Another route is possible. The nationwide protests and Black Lives Matter have forced Americans to confront the need to dismantle systematic forms of racial, gender and economic inequities that shape our economy and society. If we are to take these demands seriously, we have to do more than look to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. or other judges to save us.

What does this mean?

First, it means expanding our conventional understanding of civil rights to encompass more than legal claims that victims can make in court. For example, we can reduce workplace discrimination by giving workers more power and the ability to walk away from bad employers by creating a strong universal safety net with living wages and universal healthcare. It means expanding the rights of workers to bargain for better treatment through stronger unionization initiatives and offsetting the power of short-term profit-seeking investors by putting workers on corporate boards.

Second, we need to expand our approach to civil rights enforcement beyond individualized cases. The Civil Rights Act is an exemplar of this approach.

Part of that law empowers federal agencies to make compliance with civil rights standards a requirement for receiving federal funds. Such provisions were also written broadly, so that regulators can address patterns of discrimination without having to show specific intentional discrimination by decision-makers, which is a high bar. So, if a citys housing and zoning plan disproportionately harms communities of color, this disparate impact could be the basis of a federal action that forces the local government to adopt a better alternative.

Third, the enforcement of such laws requires powerful and energetic regulatory agencies. During the civil rights movement, the push to desegregate hospitals, for example, was successful because bureaucrats at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare used their authority to require hospitals getting Medicare payments to desegregate.

Where these laws and regulatory tools have been weakened, we have seen the protections for racial equity erode. The Trump administration has stopped several federal disparate impact enforcement actions, allowing private businesses and local governments to carry on discriminatory practices. Meanwhile, the judiciary has for years been chipping away at the authority for agencies to tackle systemic racial disparities, weakening it in the employment context, for example.

Adopting a structural approach to securing civil rights leaning more on legislatures and regulators as the enforcers of rights would be a sharp departure from a court- and litigation-first model.

More than 50 years ago, the civil rights movement embraced an expansive vision of equity. The Movement for Black Lives recently released its vision for a modern-day civil rights bill, the BREATHE Act, which outlines many of the structural changes needed to end police violence and dismantle systems of racial violence, as well as policies to tackle racial disparities in employment and housing.

If progressives win big in the November election, there may be an opportunity to push forward a new civil rights movement that continues the legacy of the 1960s. Anything less will leave Americans at the mercy of a constricted, litigation model of rights one that depends too heavily on a fickle and skeptical judiciary.

K. Sabeel Rahman is the president of Demos, a think tank working to advance racial equity and democracy. He is also an associate professor of law at Brooklyn Law School.

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Op-Ed: Civil rights lawsuits alone won't give us the America we want - Los Angeles Times

New Fund Will Make Grants of $5000-20000 to Up to Eight Programs

Two iconic American rowing institutions today announced that they will partner to create a new fund that will provide financial and programmatic support to emerging and under-resourced rowing programs throughout the United States, as part of a new commitment to create more inclusivity and diversity within the sport of rowing.

Applications to the fund can begin immediately and will be accepted until Aug. 15. Grant recipients will be announced by Sept. 15.

The Head of the Charles Regatta of Boston and the Gold Cup of Philadelphia will join forces to provide $100,000 in seed capital to launch the Head of the Charles/Gold Cup Fund that will make annual grants to rowing programs that serve under-resourced youth and communities throughout the US. The fund also will provide in-kind equipment and mentoring services that will allow the programs to field competitive teams of 19-and-under youth.

In addition, the new fund will immediately launch a nationwide fundraising campaign to encourage contributions to the fund as it creates an endowment for ongoing annual grantmaking.

"It is long past time for the sport of rowing to honestly confront its lack of diversity and implement concrete actions to attract, mentor and retain a diverse set of athletes, coaches and supporters," said Blair Crawford, chair of the board of the Head of the Charles Regatta. "As a highly visible leader in the sport, the Head of the Charles Regatta must do better. Establishing this fund is just the beginning phase of our intentional and sustained commitment to supporting greater equity in rowing."

Since its beginning, the sport of rowing has primarily been made up of white athletes and has been seen as posing significant barriers to entry in terms of access to boathouses, boats and other equipment, and training and coaching opportunities. While there has been a growth in the number of rowing outreach programs for youth from economically disadvantaged communities in recent years, many of them continue to be significantly under resourced and lacking in ongoing financial and community support. "The Head of the Charles/Gold Cup Fund is designed to provide capital, equipment and opportunities to this new ecosystem of rowing programs and help position them for continuing success in their efforts to field competitive teams made up of promising young athletes," said William McNabb, one of the founders of The Gold Cup regatta of Philadelphia. "One of the particularly important elements of our fund is its commitment to provide year-long mentors from the rowing community and access to ongoing connections."

The new fund will be overseen by a diverse board made up representatives of the two organizations, along with civic leaders from the two host cities, as well as members of the business and sports communities.

The new entity envisions making annual grants of $5,000 to $20,000 to a maximum of eight rowing programs that will be selected each year as part of a competitive application process by a Grant Review Committee. The committee will be primarily comprised of rowers of color from throughout the United States. In addition to choosing the grantees, the committee members will serve as mentors to each of the programs throughout the year. Olympic and world-class rowers from throughout the world also will serve as mentors to the chosen programs.

In order to be eligible for funding, rowing programs need to be committed to fielding competitive racing teams for youth 19 and under who come from under-resourced communities and may be unable to access a range of supports and services. The programs need to be committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in all of their efforts, as well as following USRowing Safe Sport standards.

More information about the Head of the Charles/Gold Cup Fund application process and eligibility criteria, along with a PDF of the application itself can be found on the Head of the Charles Regatta (www.hocr.org) and The Gold Cup (www.thegoldcup.org) websites. Any questions about the fund should be directed to GoldCupHOCRgrant@gmail.com.

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Head of the Charles Regatta and Gold Cup Partner to Establish Grant Fund to Support Rowing Programs in Under-Resourced Communities - row2k.com

5 min read1,118 views and 151 shares Posted July 13, 2020

Lebanon County has received a $300,000 federal grant to increase its COVID-19 testing capacity.

In an interview with LebTown, Welsh Mountain Health Center CEO Jackie Concepcion said a program to launch testing will begin this Tuesday and will continue Tuesdays and Thursdays through the end of August.

Each event will offer free COVID-19 testing to county residents as well as the distribution of free masks, hand sanitizer and information packets concerning ways to limit the spread of the virus. In addition, two of the events will include the distribution of food donated by the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Concepcion added.

Prior to receiving the funding, we had been in conversations with the PA Department of Health because Lebanon County has been a hot spot, especially in Lebanon city on the north side of town where there has been elevated levels of COVID-positive cases particularly among minorities, Concepcion said. If you remember a few weeks ago, when everyone was going yellow or green, Lebanon was being held back because it was still a hot spot.

While two of the events will be held at the health centers 920 Church Street location, including the one this Tuesday, the other six will be held at various locations around the city.

We are collaborating with Latino Connection and Aetna Better Health to use their mobile unit called CORA, Concepcion said. Between now and the end of August, CORA will allow us to get out into the greater community. Were opening up the testing to anyone in the community who has symptoms but also to anyone who has been in close contact with someone who is positive. We will also provide testing to anyone who believes they may have the virus.

Concepcion said she is grateful to have access to CORA which is short for the Spanish word corazn, or heart to increase their testing outreach within the community.

If people have barriers to get to our testing site, they dont have to worry, Concepcion said. Well be able to offer testing at that very local level of where these people live thanks to CORA.

George Fernandez, CEO, Latino Connection said his organizations participation helps fulfill their mission to bring together members of the Latino community and his clients, including those from the healthcare industry.

Latino Connection remains committed to the community and intentional in partnering with organizations providing valuable resources to underserved populations, especially amidst the current state of the world, Fernandez said in a written statement. The time is now more than ever to mobilize and improve outreach, access and increase testing in vulnerable communities, especially those areas of the state with surging COVID cases.

Concepcion said food, which has been donated by the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, will be distributed this Tuesday and on Tuesday, Aug. 11. Two boxes, one filled with dry goods and one with fresh produce, will be provided per car or to those who are walk-ins to the event.

The food bank has generously donated 150 boxes of dried food and an additional 20 pounds of fresh produce, Concepcion said. So not only will they be getting fresh, wholesome foods, but we will be giving them free information on everything related to COVID on top of that.

Andy Dessel, Health Innovations Manager, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. said the food distribution is part of an ongoing effort to help people in their time of need.

As the COVID-19 situation continues to present challenges to our neighbors, the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank understands the essential connection between access to nutritious foods and health, Dessel said in a written statement. The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank is proud to once again partner with the team at Welsh Mountain Health Center to help meet the health needs of the Lebanon community particularly those affected by the health and economic consequences of COVID-19. Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and Welsh Mountain are committed to ensuring that all community members have access to nutritious foods and high quality healthcare services.

Concepcion said the testing and food distribution are part of an ongoing effort, and part of the centers mission, to address social determinants of health, which are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status.

All of our centers have social workers whose jobs are to address issues around food insecurity, housing, education needs, employment or anything that is a barrier that often prevents them from being healthy, Concepcion said. What weve found through screening our patients is that many of our clients have food insecurities.

Read more: [Photo Story] Local leaders tour Lebanon Community Health Center

Concepcion added that food insecurity is a major issue within the Latino community and the main reason they are partnering with the food bank at two of these events.

Weve found that many of our patients in Lebanon have food insecurities, Concepcion said. We have people who dont have enough food to get them through the month. Others are diabetic and have diet needs and when we speak to them about getting healthy and becoming more active, they tell us they dont have enough food to make it through the month. Or, they dont have healthy foods in their homes.

Concepcion added that this eight-day testing program, along with the food distribution, is part of an ongoing initiative with the goal of helping people improve their health. At a previous event, the local food bank distributed 200 boxes of food to about 120 cars and to walk ups.

All of the boxes were gone within 1.5 hours, Concepcion said. So there is this need, a huge need here in Lebanon County.

Testing & Food Distribution (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)Lebanon Community Health Center 920 Church Street, Lebanon

Testing (1 p.m. to 3 p.m.)Webster Manor 1012 Brock Drive, Lebanon

Testing (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)River of Life Church 825 N. 7th Street, Lebanon

Testing (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)Living Christian Church 370 N. 7th Street, Lebanon

Testing (10 a.m. to 12 pm.)Village Apartments 201 Village Drive, Lebanon

Testing (10 a.m. to 12 p.m.)Optimist Park 1400 Elder Street, Lebanon

TENTATIVE Testing (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)St. Benedict the Abbot Church 1300 Lehman Street, Lebanon

Testing (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)Lebanon Community Library 125 N. 7th Street, Lebanon

Testing and Food Distribution (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)Lebanon Community Health Center 920 Church Street, Lebanon

TENTATIVE Testing (11 a.m. to 1 p.m.)Free Bird Chicken Plant 2609 US 22, Fredericksburg

Testing (5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)Walnut Street Park 1551 Walnut Street, Lebanon

Read all of LebTowns COVID-19 coverage here.

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Welsh Mountain receives approval as COVID testing center, thought to be first walk-up facility in county - LebTown

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A group of senior recruitment and consultancy professionals, with over 50 years of industry experience between them, are pleased to announce the launch of BIPOC Executive Search Inc., a professional services firm specializing in the recruitment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour for organizations across Canada.

The new venture is inspired by the BlackNorth Initiativea program calling on Canadian organizations to, by 2025, ensure Black leaders hold 3.5% of executive and board member roles, at minimum. BIPOC Executive Search Inc. seeks to support organizations in their quest to fulfill this critically important mission.

Jason Murray, Founder and President of BIPOC Executive Search Inc. says, It is encouraging to see leaders, across sectors, become more intentional about increasing the representation of Black people around decision-making tables. Many of these leaders are now asking where do we go from here to ensure the work gets done? At BIPOC Executive Search Inc., our teammade up of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) community membersbrings professional and lived experience to each client engagement. With a team reflective of the community that organizations seek to attract, when retaining BIPOC Executive Search Inc. clients are assured that Black candidates are pursued for positions at the most senior levels.

BIPOC Executive Search Inc. is the first recruitment firm of its kind in Canada with such a pronounced BIPOC mandate. Black people are often at the forefront of diversity initiatives; while the firm is keen to ensure that the Black population is represented in senior-level positions, work still needs to be done to increase Indigenous and POC representation at senior tables. Among others, joining Murray as senior team members of the new firm are Helen Mekonen, Jefferson Darrell, Jessica Yamoah, Candice Frederick, Sedina Fiati, Stacy-Ann Buchanan, and Erica Ing.

Jason is a leader in the executive search business, and one of a few Black executive search recruiters in Canada, said Wes Hall, Founder and Chairman of the BlackNorth Initiative. With his experience and drive, and with the strength of the BIPOC Executive Search team, its very good to know that organizations across the country will have a specialized resource for increasing Black, Indigenous, and racialized senior hires.

As many workplaces are steeped in historical and institutional structures often responsible for disenfranchising Indigenous and/or racialized employees, BIPOC Executive Search Inc. will provide a range of solutions, services, and training, including Organizational EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Audits, Cultural Transformation Support, Human Resources EDI Support, Succession Management for BIPOC Staff, Cultural Sensitivity Training, Unconscious Bias Training, and more.

BIPOC Executive Search Inc. is a mission-driven organization. With respect to our purpose, thats twofold: by working with clients to attract, develop, and retain a workforce truly representative of diverse populations, as global citizens well build greater capacity to innovate while we meaningfully tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time, Murray added.

Since research has shown that companies inclusive of Black, Indigenous, and communities of colour perform better fiscally, aside from the moral argument around inclusivity our economy is not realizing its true potential when diversity at the executive level is lacking. Intuitively, we know that many companies share the belief that a diverse team is both good and necessary. Where racial diversity is lacking in an organization and where cultural reform is needed, BIPOC Executive Search Inc. can help.

For more information, please visit http://www.bipocsearch.com.

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BIPOC Executive Search Inc. Launches With a Mandate to Help Organizations Increase BIPOC Representation - Business Wire

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) Tuesday, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution and funding to help tackle health disparities during the COVID-19 health crisis.

Commissioners voted to initiate a $175,000 contract with the African American Male Wellness Walk and Make a Safer Community. The groups will use the money to promote awareness and expand access to adequate care within the black community.

Marlon Platt of the African American Male Wellness said, What we want to do is go about educating those in these hard to reach, underserved communities about how they can, one, get healthier with nutrition and preventative care and two, by providing resources such as masks and sanitizer.

He explained the pandemic, as with other health issues like heart disease and high blood pressure, disproportionately affects black men. To address the inequities, the organization is canvassing high-risk neighborhoods. Staff and volunteers will hand out care packages with masks, hand sanitizer and other hygiene supplies. Theyll also educate families and individuals about preventative healthcare and the risks associated with COVID-19.

Theyve blanketed the entire county and theyre being extremely intentional about addressing those high-concentration areas that were seeing right now, said Joy Bivens, the director of Franklin County Job and Family Services.

In addition to the preventative measures, the project also plans to expand access to free COVID-19 testing in vulnerable communities.

The $175,000 project is expected to reach more than 100,000 people.

See original here:

Franklin County initiative to tackle COVID-19 health disparities in black community - NBC4 WCMH-TV

For the first time, local, regional and statewide funders have committed to raising $5 million over two years to invest in Black-led organizations in the Inland Empire.

The Inland Empire Funders Alliance on Tuesday, July 14, announced its partnership with the Black Equity Initiative of the Inland Empire to launch the Black Equity Fund, a regional pooled fund, which comes with the promise of long-term investments in local Black-led organizations. The seed money for this fund is coming from The California Endowment and the Inland Empire Community Foundation with the rest of the $5 million to be raised over the next two years.

Black-led organizations in the Inland Empire in particular have been struggling because they dont get as much funding or support, said Dina Walker, president and CEO of BLU Educational Foundation in San Bernardino, which provides services for area youth.

Were excited because this is a forward-thinking plan in which we, the organizations, will be part of the decision-making process and get to decide how the funds are distributed, she said.

Walker said they are in the process of mapping out Black-led organizations across Riverside and San Bernardino counties that focus on issues crucial to the African American community including education, criminal justice, health and housing. She said she is aware of 20 Black-led organizations that currently want to be part of this initiative.

The Black Equity Fund will hopefully provide opportunities for organizations in the Inland Empire that have not been able to build themselves because of the lack of resources and investment, said the Rev. Samuel Casey, executive director of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement.

I hope these Black-led groups can finally get in the game, he said. They need to be able to not just hire staff, but pay them well. I hope this will help us expand our reach.

The Black community in the Inland Empire has been expressing its needs for more than a decade, but its taken something as seismic as the death of George Floyd in the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, to really move the needle on this issue, Casey said.

Its certainly a step in the right direction, he said. Its intentional and its a long-term investment.

Funders need to repair the damage caused by decades of under-investment in Black communities, said Michelle Decker, CEO of the Inland Empire Community Foundation, a co-investor in the Black Equity Fund.

We need to come together in a manner that honors the expertise of Black-led organizations, she said in an issued statement. The economic and health challenges of COVID-19, as well as the collective trauma of the killing of Black lives, have shown us that the success of the region will rise or fall based on its progress on racial equity.

This type of investment should have occurred a long time ago, said Margarita Luna, senior program manager at The California Endowment. She said these organizations have been historically overlooked because they were viewed by funders as a risky investment.

When funders look at where to invest, they look at operating budgets, Luna said. If that budget doesnt hit a certain level, they consider it a risky investment. So, these organizations have been caught in a vicious cycle where they dont get much-needed funding because they dont have those healthy budgets.

Local organizations such as Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, which were instrumental in getting San Bernardino County to declare racism a public health crisis, should be credited for their leadership, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, director of the Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside, which is also a partner in the Black Equity Fund.

George Floyds murder shocked the consciousness of the nation in ways that other killings should have, but did not, he said. Weve seen statements made by philanthropists and titans in the corporate world. Were seeing words matched by actions and investment.

People typically think of South Los Angeles or Oakland as the epicenter of Black power, not often the Inland Empire, Ramakrishnan said.

But, you saw San Bernardino County, which has not had the strongest reputation with racial equity take the kind of stance they did by declaring racism a public health crisis, he said. This shows the innovation and leadership of local Black-led organizations.

Ramakrishnan says the Black Equity Fund will be a game changer because it gives more power to the organizations by recognizing their expertise and leadership and the Center for Social Innovation will be a data partner in this initiative, helping monitor its progress and efficacy.

The older model was when these organizations had to prove themselves time and again, he said. With this initiative, the hope is that well see more consistent money for Black-led organizations.

View original post here:

$5 million coming for Black-led organizations in the Inland Empire with new initiative - Press-Enterprise

Hundreds of people watch as actor Michael Gene Sullivan performs during the San Francisco Mime Troupes annual outdoor summer show in Dolores Park. Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle 2018

Last month, I wrote a column posing questions to theater leaders, particularly white ones, about how our art form and industry can rebuild from the pandemic and from anti-Blackness. Now I present the promised Part II, in which I ask local Black theater artists and workers what their own questions are.

Even those who declined to participate often gave thought-provoking reasons why. One was consumed with reclaiming Black joy and time. A second wrote, I feel like the work needs to come from these theater companies. The questions have already been asked but not answered. A third, the playwright Cleavon Smith, said, Questions seem to put me in a position to be reactionary, and frankly thats not a place in which I feel comfortable right now. Its as if Im asking, What are you willing to give or give up? rather than stating clearly what it is I expect in a relationship thats mutually beneficial, a relationship where all parties are acknowledged, a relationship in which our efforts support all parties well-being and the actualization of our best selves.

Those who did participate were equally thoughtful. Here are their questions, edited for length and clarity.

Oakland actor and director

What are you doing outside of theater to dismantle white supremacy?

What would it be like if Black women theater artists were financially compensated for our emotional labor as the cultural and intellectual resource we are in our theater community? What would that world look like?

How can you make me feel safe in the room? How do we own our own stories when we cant control the rooms? How can we have more control over the rooms we work in? What support are you willing to give (labor, financial, institutional) when we do lead the room?

How do we protect our hearts and still risk? Will you back me up even if I dont ask you to? How can you make space for my full self?

Where are my stories of joy on your stages?

Oakland playwright, performer, educator, author

Can the making of anti-anti-Black art change the way we experience caricature or racism in the Black psyche?

Oakland administrator, actor, executive director, board chair, writer and DJ

How are the Bay Area theaters, predominantly those whose administrators are non-color my vanilla babies how are they protecting the psyche of the actors and administrators who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color)? What practices are they going to have in place so that we are protected, given the external conditions and the racial systemic practices that are embedded consciously and subconsciously within these institutions?

When are they going to put a BIPOC on the marketing team so that we can actually have theater exposed to the BIPOC watering holes?

Look whos on your team, especially when you have a show thats of color, and then we feel like were singing and dancing again because the audience is not of color.

Oakland social justice performer and playwright

What do the streets know that theater doesnt?

How is it that my work (turned down by most theaters that Ive approached) gains traction on the streets?

San Francisco actor, playwright and director

How do you address anti-Blackness knowing that Black people are not a homogeneous blob with the exact same backgrounds, levels of privilege and aesthetic values?

How do we disconnect from corporate values (like celebrity and marketability) that get in the way of true equity?

What does it say about theaters relevance to society when the most vocal industry responses to police violence are demands for greater recognition and compensation and not how we can use theater to push for the political change our communities so desperately need?

A theatrical director and arts educator who resides in both the East Bay and the Pacific Northwest

Are we entering the age of real change or another phase of performative anti-racist lip service?

What is your private (behind closed doors) response to Black Lives Matter? What is your plan to educate yourself, your staff, your board to create transparent equity, restorative justice, reparations and space for Black lives?

How will you consider the reality of the cost of living, the cost of real estate, health care, food, transportation and the direct impact of the latter in regard to play making?

And I ask you as I would ask anyone who lives in the whiteness mind-set: Are you ready to challenge an entire civilization?

Oakland actor, director and educator

Why now? Why has it taken you so long to step up?

Are you willing to share your funding resources with black theater companies?

How will you protect my black body in your white space or your white institution?

San Francisco actor, director, playwright and activist

The board of directors model is basically rich donors and organizations keeping an eye on the artists, making sure they dont blow the money. But if you spend all your time asking the economic aristocracy for money, eventually, you will do what they want to get it and that will include erasing any activist theater. Can theaters commit to having more economically diverse boards?

Can artistic directors recognize that their experiences, because of their skin and gender privileges, have been limited, and that unless they are willing to cede some power of representation, their position as arbiter of relevance narrows their theaters scope and importance?

Look around your office. Look at your stage. If they arent peopled about the same, you are exploiting somebodys experience. What are you going to do about that?

San Francisco theater administrator and educator

We have talked about the systemic racism within a lot of large-scale historically predominately white theaters, but are theaters and their leaders really ready to let black theater makers lead?

How do we as Black artists, makers, administrators not get burnt out when youre having a constant range of micro- and macro-aggressions, having the same conversations on why Black lives matter, having an idea stolen or making way less than your white colleagues? You begin to think, Is this worth it?

Are we as a theater community really ready for the accountability and intentional change that we keep claiming we want? I see a lot of organizations having these conversations, but are there Black people in these rooms? Are the Black people who have been having these conversations for years now are they part of these current discussions and steps of changes? Or are we still further excluded from these conversations?

And are these organizations willing to put their money where they need to, and be better, and continue to grow and challenge the organizations built on white supremacy such as by diversifying boards, mandatory DEI (diversity, equity and inclusive) trainings, inclusive hiring and renter job practices, hiring Black staff in positions of power (and not just as the DEI director), mentoring and supporting incoming Black artists and administrators, admitting their faults and making an actionable plan addressing the hurt that was caused and how they will measure success of anti-Blackness in organizations?

***

If these questions spur you to dig in your pockets for financial support, my interviewees suggest these options:

New Chitlin Circuitry: Reparations Vaudeville: House/Full of Black Women, a ritual performance group co-directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang and including Regina Y. Evans as a performer, seeks funds for its next work at http://www.gofundme.com/f/reparationsvaudeville.

Fund for Black Theatre in the U.S.: Margo Hall and actor and Santa Clara University theater Professor Aldo Billingslea, in partnership with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, created a fund whose donations will be distributed to Black theaters nationwide at http://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-for-black-theatre-in-the-us.

See the article here:

What Bay Areas Black theater artists want to ask industry as nation rebuilds - San Francisco Chronicle

(LWI) Thefirst in a series of monthly webinars on Being Lutheran explores the freedom to participate in the transformation of societies.

Examining a wide range of topics from Martin Luthers teachings to the lyrics of singer-songwriter Beyonc, participants from every region of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) took part in a webinar on 1 July to discuss the meaning of liberation and participation in Gods transformational work in the world.

The online discussion, moderated by the LWF Program Executive for Identity, Communion and Formation Rev. Dr ChadRimmer, was the first in a series of monthly webinars exploring the diversity of ways that Lutherans express their faith in different countries and cultures. The Being Lutheran series is part of the second phase of a study process that began with a global consultation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in October 2019.

Leading the discussion were Danish theologian and philosopher, Prof. Niels Henrik Gregersen and African-American pastor and professor of Congregational and Community Care, Rev. Dr Beverly Wallace. Speaking from their diverse contexts and experiences, both presenters reflected on the way Christians can discern the Holy Spirits call to participate in Gods work of healing and reconciliation.

Gregersen noted that he lives and works in a majority Lutheran country, where 75 percent of the population belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. At the same time, he said, most people donot talkmuch about God in their daily lives and their approach to Christianity and the church is often more intuitive than doctrinal. In the context of this secular-minded society, he said the church should be attentive to the construction of a collaborative democracy, affirming governments that legislate for the common good andcriticizingthem where they fail to protect all members of society.

Referring to Luthers reflections on the family as a household of faith, Gregersen said it is important to see our churches and even our wider societies as families where we have mutual obligations to one another. As people of faith, we are also called to work together for the common good with other truth-seeking and justice-oriented communities, regardless of whether they are Christian or not, he reflected.

In the same way that we see Christ as both the personal face of God and the deep incarnation of compassion towards those around us, Gregersen said we need to develop a corresponding deep sense of the Holy Spirit in the midst of our ordinary lives, in our different households. In this way, we can discern the Spirit as a life-giver, building up communities of faith hope and love and calling us to speak out against injustice, aggression, exclusion and narrow-mindedness.

Rimmerreflected that Lutherans have always been grounded in the Word. And this conversation helped us to remember that Gods Word, or Wisdom that created the cosmos continues to reconcile, heal and transform human society and all creation, and calls us in baptism to find our place in this liberative work in the world. Through diverse communities, genders, languages, and cultures, the Spirit nurtures unique gifts in each one of us to perceive the Spirit, and participate in this reconciliation, he added.

Wallace spoke about perceiving and participating in Gods work, from the perspective of a womanist theologian living in North Carolina where there are very few African-American Lutheran congregations. As a pastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for the past 21 years, she said she has been engaging in the work of God in a practical way as a daughter of Africa living in the American context, focusing her pastoral work on care of the sick and dying.

Looking at the work of the Spirit through the lens of mysticism and imagination, Wallace asked what it means to affirm that God wants abundant life for his people. Grounded in the belief that I cannot know anything without the power of the Holy Spirit, she said her understanding of God at work in the world is experienced through the struggle for freedom, especially that of African-American women like herself. Citing the lyrics of Beyoncs song Freedom, she said the singers words encapsulate the experience of so many African-American women whose liberty continues to be denied. The Spirit is what moves those who experience this denial to engage in creative struggle or mystical activism, pushing us towards freedom of body, mind and spirit, she affirmed.

Since we are saved by Gods grace, Wallace concluded, we are free to pursue this conscious and intentional work of addressing injustice manifested through racism, classism and sexism. Recalling the anguished cry of George Floyd to his mother as he was being murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, she said we continue to hear the Spirit calling us to act within our own context today.

During a breakout into smaller group sessions, participants reflected on contemporary developments in their own countries, as the COVID-19 pandemic has brought both challenges and opportunities as Lutherans in their contexts. Among them was RiaPardedefromthe ProtestantChristian Batak Church (HKBP), the largest Lutheran church in the predominantly Muslim nation. She shared her experience as an active member of a minority church in a country where all religions are protected by law, yet Christians are often viewed with suspicion when they engage in social or pastoral activities.

Pardedenoted that the COVID-19 pandemic has opened a window of interfaith solidarity between the Islamic majority and Lutheran minority. She said, kind deeds which were previously often suspected as an effort to convert are now welcomed with open arms. Furthermore, worship services in the home which were previously not permitted, are accepted since every faith must worship at home, she added. Assisting those forced to self-isolate in their homes is based on a community spirit where difference is no longer a priority, she noted, asking, Is this not the work of the Holy Spirit, the only one which can touch the heart?

See all the Being Lutheran - webinar series videos

The next webinar in theBeing Lutheran series will take place at 16.30 (CET) on 5 August, focusing on the theme, Forming and Informing with speakers from Brazil, Germany and Namibia discussing the differences between churches in minority and majority settings.

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Being Lutheran: Exploring the Spirit at work in the world - The Lutheran World Federation

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The persistent lack of diversity across commercial real estate has long vexed the industry, despite much public acknowledgmentit needs to improve. One group is seizing on a moment of global awakening to directly call on some of the worlds biggest companies to createchange, and laying out seven actionsthey should use to make it happen.

Project REAP, which stands for Real Estate Associate Program, runs a 10-week real estate training program for multicultural talent to give them the skills and networking opportunities to establish themselves in the industry. It is the U.S. commercial real estate industry's largest racial and ethnic diversity initiative.

This week, it is issuing an urgent Call to Action to the C-suites of leading commercial real estate firms and Fortune 500 companies, outlining some of the steps it considers necessary to increase the number of people of color across the industry.

I am perhaps more hopeful than Ive ever been,Lamont Blackstone, the chairman ofProject REAP, said in an interview withBisnow.In the aftermath of the three murders Ahmaud Arbery,Breonna Taylorand George Floyd the notion of social justice, racial justice and racial inequity has really dominated much of the national conversation."

This call to action will be sent this week to more than 40 companies with real estate components, Project REAP officials toldBisnow, includingAmazon, CBRE, Related Cos.,JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Starbucks, Colliers International, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, Marcus & Millichap and the Bozzuto Group.

Project REAP is also writing to Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Starwood Property Trust, Simon Property Group, SVN, Walmart, McDonalds and Bank of America. Top trade associations arealso on thelist.

Any company that wants to publicly pledge to take on the initiative would be welcome to do so, and Blackstonesaid he is pushing the underlying message that diverse companies aremore profitable and successful than homogeneous ones.

"The time for action is now," states the call to action, written as an open letter."The ghosts of the past still haunt the landscape of our industry: the 1921 Tulsa, OK massacre and its destruction of Black wealth, the history of racially restrictive deed covenants, redlining and the urban densification of segregated communities. Inequity of opportunity is not sustainable. Communities of color must feel they have a real stake in the built environment."

Malaika NYC Photography/Courtesy of Project REAP

Osayamen Asemota-Bartholomew

The key initiatives of the Call to Action outlined by the organization are as follows:

Blackstone, who owns a development consulting firm, said he disputes the claimmany corporate leaders still make thatthey cannot find talent from diverse backgrounds to fill positions.

The evidence is there that when opportunities are provided to talented minority professionals, they can rise and perform, Blackstonesaid.

IKEA Group North America Real Estate Cluster President Angele Robinson-Gaylord, a Black woman, is an alumna of the Project REAP program, as is London Kemp, who is also a woman of color and the global head of corporate real estate at Netflix.

Project REAP Chief Program Officer Osayamen Asemota-Bartholomew, whose father is Nigerian and mother is from the Dominican Republic, told Bisnow that while many companies are aware of and acknowledge the importance of diversity, they still practice discrimination when they offer roles toalumni of diversity training programs.

"There is implicit bias there, it will be as if Oh, these are minority students, these are the roles we have,' then I will go on the website, see other jobs and question, Why were these other roles not provided to me? she said. "Many times over the years Ive heard from commercial real estate companies We have a hard time finding diverse talent. Well, its because the strategy is wrong."

She pointed specifically to a need for greater focus on Historically Black Colleges and Universities like her alma mater, Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Since widespread demonstrations began last month, many businesses have spoken out about the need to improve their diversity and address racial injustice. Related CEO Jeff Blau last month acknowledged the lack of diversity in the industry, and said it has a lot of work to do.

Our industry has historically not been very mixed. You can go to a REBNY dinner and look at the composition of the group and I would guess it's 80% white males, maybe more, he said on a Bisnow webinar.

Walker & Dunlop, the largest Fannie Mae lender and one of the largest multifamily finance firms in the country, has set goals to improve the gender and racial diversity of its management team. Company CEO Willy Walker saidduring a Bisnow webinar last month that the firm will aim to increase the percentage of women in its top 20% earners bracket from 7% to 15% and the rate of minorities in its top earners from 4% to 15% by 2025.

So many things that have happened lately, there has been a magnifying glass on embracing diversity," Asemota-Bartholomew said. "A lot of times, when it comes to diversity, it was, like weve checked off the box, we've hired a woman.' But we cant just stop there.We are asking organizations to not only embrace diversity from a multi-gender perspective, it has to be multiracial and multi-ethnic. And you need to be intentional about diversity. Dont just do it because its a trendy thing to do right now.

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CRE Training Group Project REAP Releases Call To Action On Strengthening Diversity At Top Firms - Bisnow

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio has almost completely reopened. There is more traffic on the roads, Ohioans are venturing out and we are seeing more customers in stores. However, the coronavirus remains with us and will for some time.

Small business owners are putting forth an enormous effort to protect the health of their customers and employees by following the safety protocols of the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Without a loyal customer base and dedicated employees, there is no business.

Ohio entrepreneurs have met and will continue to respond to meet the expectations of their employees and customers alike. But, even if entrepreneurs comply with every industry-specific provision on social distancing, thorough cleanings, wearing face coverings, or putting up safety barriers, they could still face another threat -- unjustified lawsuits related to COVID-19.

There are more than 900,000 small businesses in Ohio employing more than 2 million individuals, and a single lawsuit can wipe out any one of those small businesses even if they have done all that is required during this health crisis. About 60,000 small businesses in Ohio were approved for more than $14 billion through the Paycheck Protection Program to help retain their employees during the stay-at-home period.

At this time, more than any other, business owners do not have the resources to fight a lawsuit based on a virus they did not create nor could they prevent. Unfortunately, this will not stop certain trial lawyers from trying to secure a quick payday.

Roger R. Geiger is executive director for Ohio of the National Federation of Independent Business.

As small businesses reopen and do their part to help bring Ohios economy back, financial struggles will remain with so many businesses, and for some time. These businesses deserve the assurance they will not be swallowed under by a flood of lawsuits. At the same time, we must also protect businesses that remained open, often considered essential businesses, to not have the specter of litigation hanging over their heads. A recent survey of National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) members in Ohio indicates nearly 70% are concerned about liability claim increases.

Legislation has been introduced and debated in both the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate to provide businesses with appropriate liability protection, establishing a reckless or intentional conduct or willful or wanton misconduct standard for businesses concerning lawsuits filed during the pandemic period. This standard provides all Ohio small business owners with the confidence they will not face frivolous lawsuits, while ensuring there is recourse for egregious actors.

We must recognize COVID-19 is a new emergency. We must make certain that government orders or directives do not establish new exposures to potential lawsuits when small businesses are already struggling to comply with regularly changing orders and recommendations aiming to protect their employees and the public.

NFIBs goal is for all our members, and small businesses in general, to open and resume the new normal operations. However, we cant expect our members to be subjected to unchecked litigation surrounding a virus they cant prevent or control. The legislation introduced will hopefully be agreed upon, sooner rather than later. By coming together on a clean bill, the Ohio Legislature can offer some level of certainty for the small businesses that are such an integral part of their communities.

The Ohio Senate has now passed a bill, Substitute House Bill 606, solely focusing on COVID-19 liability protection. Small business owners need the Ohio House of Representatives to return promptly to the Statehouse and concur on this pro-small-business legislation.

Roger R. Geiger is executive director for Ohio of the National Federation of Independent Business.

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Struggling Ohio small businesses need protection from COVID-19 lawsuits: Roger R. Geiger - cleveland.com

Its been nearly six months since the HHS Secretary declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. As communities emerge from quarantine, businesses are on high alert regarding potential COVID-19 liability. Some businesses have already been afforded protectionsuppliers of so-called COVID-19 countermeasures may have immunity under the Secretarys Prep Act[1] Declaration,[2] medical providers and nursing homes may have immunity under various state laws and declarations,[3] and others may have defenses based on regulatory guidance.[4]

So what about everyone else? This article explores who else may be exposed to liability and what defenses may be available to them.

Am I Exposed?

Lawyers have consistently shown their boundless creativity when it comes to finding people to sue, and theres no reason to expect COVID-19 will be different. Therefore, the owner of any premises where transmission may be alleged to have occurred, and the maker of any product that may be alleged to have contributed to transmission, must anticipate potential COVID-19 litigation, no matter how frivolous the claims may be. The good news is that such claims will be subject to a number of legal defenses, and, in a small but growing number of states, expanded immunity legislation.

Legislation

While many states have been busy considering legislation intended to protect businesses vulnerable to COVID-19 liability, only a handful of states so far have actually passed their proposed legislation. One such state is Utah, which passed a law affording civil immunity to any person for claims of exposure to COVID-19 while on the persons premises, unless the person engaged in willful misconduct or reckless/intentional harm.[5] North Carolina passed a similar law, but limited its reach to essential businesses and claims from a customer or employee.[6] And in Oklahoma, immunity is tied to the business acting in compliance or consistent with federal or state regulations or other applicable guidance.[7]

Other states are taking a more focused approach. For example, Louisianas legislative package includes a provision specifically immunizing restaurants from suit for injury or death due to COVID-19 infection transmitted through the preparation and serving of food and beverage products by the restaurant, whether via dine-in, takeout, drive-through, or delivery, unless it occurred through gross negligence / intentional misconduct.[8] And Mississippi, the most recent state to pass COVID-19 legislation, is attempting to immunize persons who design, manufacture, sell, or otherwise distribute a qualified product in response to COVID-19 for injury related to that product.[9]

While these legislative efforts are positive steps for businesses, progress is both slow and uncertain, leaving businesses in most states still vulnerable.

Causation

A cognizable negligence claim arising from COVID-19 will require proof of both general causation, i.e. that COVID-19 can be transmitted and contracted in the manner alleged, and specific causation, i.e. that the plaintiff did in fact contract COVID-19 as pled. The substantial unknowns and conflicting information regarding the spread of COVID-19, including how long the virus survives on various surfaces or lingers in the air in different atmospheric conditions, and the incubation period between exposure and symptom onset will make a plaintiffs burden of proof especially difficult to meet.

Several cases illustrate the problems COVID-19 plaintiffs will face on causation. In Korte v. Mead Johnson & Co., 824 F. Supp. 2d 877 (S.D. Iowa 2010), the court granted summary judgment on claims alleging that bacteria in the defendants infant formula caused their child to develop bacterial meningitis. While the defendant conceded general causation, it successfully disputed specific causation based on the absence of a temporal relationship between the infants ingestion of the product and the onset of infection and the plaintiffs failure to rule out other possible sources of infection.

In Parker Land and Cattle Company, Inc. v. United States, 796 F. Supp. 477 (D. Wyo. 1992), the court granted summary judgment on a ranchers claim that its cattle died after contracting a bacterial infection from the defendants elk and bison. Although the court found the defendants were negligent in managing their herds and that some of its animals were infected with the relevant bacteria, the plaintiff failed to meet its burden of proving the defendants infected elk and bison were the actual cause of the outbreak.

Finally, in Ebaseh-Onafa v. McAllen Hospitals, L.P., 2015 WL 2452701 (Tex. Ct. App. May 21, 2015), a hospital obtained summary judgment on claims that the decedent contracted the H1N1 virus while working in the hospitals pediatric ICU. Although the plaintiffs expert testified that there were likely unconfirmed cases of H1N1 in the pediatric ICU because it was spreading in the community at the time, the plaintiff did not demonstrate that the pediatric ICU was actually the source of the decedents H1N1 rather than the community at large.

As these cases reveal, proving causation in an infection disease case is difficult. The numerous unknowns with COVID-19 will make it even more difficult for claimants to prove any one particular place or product was the source of exposure.

Foreseeability, Notice, and Product Misuse

Another prima facie element of a negligence claim, either as a component of duty or proximate cause, is foreseeability. A compelling argument exists that before the current pandemic, premises owners and non-medical product suppliers could not reasonably foresee the risk of COVID-19 transmission as a consequence of their ordinary operations or use.[10] Nor can it reasonably be said that such businesses heretofore had fair notice that they could be held liable for the transmission in a public place of an infectious disease that did not originate from them.[11]

But what if you manufacture a fingerprint scanner that is located in an assisted living facility? Are you protected if someone claims they contracted COVID-19 by placing their bare finger on the scanner to open a door? Does the CDC guidance followed by the assisted living facility shield you? As with most legal answers, it depends. If your product is on a premises with defined guidance, you may have an indemnity claim or third party claim, but the likelihood that you can directly benefit from guidance in the same manner as the premises owner is slim. More likely than not, youll need to turn elsewhere for protection.

Another consideration: what if you manufacture a non-healthcare product that is used in an unintended / unforeseen manner in a healthcare space? For example, using salon or restaurant sterilizer cabinets to sterilize masks in a walk-in clinic. Products defendants routinely raise the defense of misuse in litigation, and true misuse should provide the anticipated protection here. But the defense wont be available if the manufacturer knows of the misuse and encourages it. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the labeling and marketing of medical devices, and the known misuse of a non-healthcare product as a medical device could subject the manufacturer to FDA penalties if the misuse violates FDA regulations.[12]

Beware the Nuisance Claim

There are also emerging instances of claimants bringing common law public and private nuisance claims related to COVID-19. For example, McDonalds and Amazon are currently facing nuisance claims by workers and their family members, who claim that lax workplace safety standards put them in danger of contracting COVID-19.[13] Nuisance claims can be particularly challenging for defendants because they do not always have the same causation and other requirements that negligence claims do. While claims brought by employees against their employers will likely face significant workers compensation or OSHA-related hurdles,[14] those defenses will not be available against nuisance claims brought by non-employees like customers or even neighboring businesses.

Conclusion

The uncertainty of when the COVID-19 era will end comes with it the expectation that additional defense options for products businesses operating during the pandemic will emerge. In the meantime, stay informed, follow applicable guidance, and continue using best practices in your day-to-day operations.

[1] Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, 42 U.S.C. 247d-6d.

[2] Kat Carrington & Mitch Morris, HHS Declares Liability Immunity for Certain COVID-19 Countermeasures; Response Act Expands Protections for Mask Makers (Mar. 19, 2020), available at https://www.butlersnow.com/2020/03/hhs-liability-immunity-covid-19-countermeasures/ (last accessed July 13, 2020).

[3] See, e.g., Y. Peter Kang, 6 States With COVID-19 Medical Immunity, And 2 Without, Law360 (April 17, 2020); Matthew Santoni, Pa. Gives Civil Immunity To COVID-19 Health Care Providers, Law360 (May 6, 2020).

[4] Carrington, Kat, et al., Revisiting Is The Government Said I Could A Civil Liability Defense? During COVID-19 (May 21, 2020), available at https://www.butlersnow.com/2020/05/revisiting-is-the-government-said-i-could-a-civil-liability-defense-during-covid-19/ (last accessed July 13, 2020).

[5] Utah Code Ann. 1953 78B-4-517.

[6] N.C.G.S.A. 66-460(a)(1), (b).

[7] 76 Okla. Stat. Ann. 111.

[8] La. R.S. 29:773.

[9] S.B. 3049, available at http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2020/html/SB/3000-3099/SB3049SG.htm (last accessed July 13, 2020).

[10] See, e.g., N.N.V. v. Am. Assoc. of Blood Banks (1999) 75 Cal. App. 4th 1358 (where plaintiff contracted AIDS through blood transfusion, court held not reasonably foreseeable in 1984 that direct questioning, directed donations and surrogate testing would have reduced the risk of AIDS contaminated blood supply). But see Munn v. Hotchkiss School, 165 A.3d 1167 (Conn. 2017) (public policy did not preclude imposition of duty on school to warn about or protect against foreseeable risk of serious insect-borne disease when organizing trip abroad).

[11] See, e.g., Air & Liquid Sys. Corp. v. DeVries, 139 S. Ct. 986, 999 (2019) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting) (noting fair notice problem with newly-announced duty [defendants] could not have anticipated then and one they cannot discharge now). See also generally https://www.butlersnow.com/2019/04/justices-asbestos-decision-poses-fair-notice-problem/

[12] The penalties for violating these regulations are steep, and the government is not excusing companies during this pandemic; instead, its cracking down on regulatory violations. So far, the FDA has issued more than 80 warning letters to companies selling products that they claim may prevent, diagnose, cure, treat, or mitigate COVID-19, and attorneys general at the state and federal level are filing lawsuits when warning letters are failing to deter the misconduct. See U.S. Food & Drug Admin., Fraudulent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Products, available at https://www.fda.gov/consumers/health-fraud-scams/fraudulent-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-products#Warning%20Letter%20Table (last accessed July 7, 2020).

[13] Vin Gurrieri, Law360, COVID Suits Test Public Nuisance Claim in Workplace Cases (June 9, 2020), available at https://www.law360.com/articles/1281347/covid-suits-test-public-nuisance-claim-in-workplace-cases (last accessed July 13, 2020).

[14] See, e.g., Rural Cmty. Workers All. v. Smithfield Foods, Inc., No. 5:20-CV-06063-DGK, __ F. Supp. 3d__, 2020 WL 2145350, at *1 (W.D. Mo. May 5, 2020) (declining to entertain suit brought meat processing plant workers alleging that the plant failed to adequately protect [them] from the virus that causes COVID-19 based on the primary-jurisdiction doctrine to allow the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) to consider the issues raised by this case).

Continue reading here:

What About Me? Liability Considerations and Protections For Businesses Outside the Drug and Device Space in the COVID-19 Era - JD Supra

The nationwide uprisings against police brutality in the past few months have led to a significant shift in conversations and attitudes about racial inequities in America. While it may be premature to say that these conversations signal an awakening, books about race and racism are topping bestseller lists; millions of posts on social media are proclaiming that Black Lives Matter; and Americans in at least 1,700 communities across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., are marching in the streets to protest generations of racial injustice.

The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and others have galvanized calls and increased support for dramatic changes to policing and criminal justice policies. Many Black leaders and Black-led groups in communities across the country have been working for these changes for decades. It is critically important for newly energized allies, especially those who are not Black, to go beyond hashtag activism and enter this work by listening to the voices of community members and educating themselves on the history, causes, and consequences of systemic racism in the United States.

Allies should also work with Black communities to support efforts to combat structural racism in education, housing, and other social policies. Their opposition, silence, or lack of engagement in these efforts can contribute to the perpetuation of inequities and further limit access to opportunities for communities that are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Because systemic racism in education is a root cause of so many other inequities that BIPOC face, it is critical that allies stand shoulder to shoulder with these communities in calling for large-scale changes to the U.S. education system. Particularly because education is often thought of as a local concern or personal matter for parents and families, it is especially important that allies lift their voices for BIPOC communities to ensure that the call for change is unified and focused. This column details three ways in which allies should leverage their influence and power beyond social media to combat systemic racism in education.

Money matters in education, with multiple studies showing that increasing funding improves outcomes while cuts hurt them. Still, the United States school funding systems remain inequitable, disproportionately shortchanging BIPOC students. More than 35 percent of public school revenue comes from property taxes that favor and stabilize funding in wealthier areas, while other communities must rely on more volatile state revenues. This is one reason why predominantly nonwhite school districts across the country annually receive $23 billion less than their predominantly white counterparts.

Black, Indigenous, and other non-Black students of color attend schools that are statistically more likely to be under-resourced, outdated, and in many cases hazardous to their health. Last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report that estimated more than half of the nations public school districts needed to update or entirely replace multiple systems, such as HVAC or plumbing, in their school buildingsand many of these districts are concentrated in high-poverty areas. If left unaddressed, these infrastructure problems could pose significant air quality issues, contribute to exacerbating asthma and chronic absenteeism in students, and negatively affect students academic performance. Notably, higher-poverty districts have less local revenue than low-poverty districts to fund the capital construction costs of addressing these kinds of repairs.

While state funding offsets some of these local disparities, it is not enough. As a result of the Great Recession of 2008, most states significantly cut their education fundingan action shown to have disproportionately affected higher-poverty districts. A number of states still had not restored their education funding to prerecession levels years after the recession ended. Now, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, states are once again forecasting massive cuts to their education budgets because of historic shortfalls in income and sales tax revenue.

Allies have a role to play in ensuring that states use stabilization fundsfederal funding allocated to states for education purposes to offset their depleted revenueto prevent these cuts. They should call for increased investments in education as well as fairer and more transparent funding policies at the state and local levels to make sure that capital projects, programs, and overall spending are equitable in schools that serve large numbers of BIPOC students. Organizations such as Gwinnett StoPP and other members of PEER Partners, as well as the Maryland Fair Funding Coalition, include BIPOC-led organizations actively working to advance these efforts.

Within six months of the deadly 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, legislatures in 26 states allocated nearly $960 million for security upgrades and the addition of police officers to school campuses. While gun violence in schools must be prevented, there is evidence that increased policing and surveillance do not effectively address the threat of gun violence in schools. Black students in particular feel less safe in the presence of police and are more likely to be policed than they are to be protected.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights, Black, Hispanic male, and American Indian students face higher rates of school disciplinary consequences such as suspension and expulsion than white students, and they are also subject to more interactions with police in schools in the form of contraband sweeps, interrogations, physical restraints, and arrests. Black students are also more likely to be subjected to social media surveillance and the use of biased artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology.

Additionally, recent data show that approximately 1.7 million students attend schools with police officers but no counselors; 3 million students attend schools with police but no nurses; 6 million students attend schools with police but no psychologist; and 10 million students attend schools with police but no social workers. Middle and high schools with higher concentrations of law enforcement officers compared with mental health staff are more likely to be in areas that serve primarily Black students.

Allies could join one of the many youth- and parent-led BIPOC groups that are part of the Dignity in Schools Campaign to advocate for more counselors, nurses, and social workers in schools instead of increased police presence and security. They should also demand transparency about school discipline data and policies in their local communities to ensure that students civil rights are not being violated.

Sixty-six years ago, the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision declared school segregation unconstitutional, but many public districts and schools remain segregated by race and socioeconomic status today. In many cases, this was an intentional result of the design of school district and neighborhood school assignment boundaries. Since 2000, for example, 128 communities in states from Maine to Utah have attempted to secede from larger school districts. The secession of wealthier and whiter areas takes local tax revenue from districts and increases the number of schools that are racially segregated.

Debates about opportunity hoarding are not limited to particular regions or states. Even in areas that champion their diversity, such as Montgomery County, Marylandwhich borders Washington, D.C.the mere idea of analyzing school attendance boundaries or reassignment plans has caused an uproar. White and Asian parents have protested that any changes to school boundaries that would reduce high concentrations of students from low-income families is unfair to parents who have worked hard to live in more affluent neighborhoods. In Howard County, Maryland, a superintendents plan to reassign students to alleviate crowding and create greater socioeconomic equity resulted in fervent opposition and even a death threat. In addition, the use of screening tests and biased admissions practices for gifted and talented programs in elementary grades and selective middle and high schools have historically woefully underrepresented BIPOC students.

Allies should join with their BIPOC neighbors and show up to their local school board meetings to push for school boundaries and selection criteria that are designed with a race-equity lens. These reforms would ensure that students are not locked out of opportunities based on where they live. In Arlington, Virginia, wealthy and white parents are working with Latinx parents to protest the move of a dual-language immersion school to an area that would be more difficult for Latinx families to attend. Likewise, in Brooklyn, New York, parents of all backgrounds worked together to eliminate gifted tracking programs in favor of enrichment programs available to all students. Allies should also call on their state legislatures and local school boards to create policies that ensure equitable access to rigorous and advanced coursework for all students.

Black communities face injustices that extend beyond the horrifying examples of police killings that have led to calls for big changes to police funding, structures, and policies. Combating the pervasive and deeply rooted forms of systemic racism will require alliesincluding those in affluent communitiesto speak up and speak out.

From the lack of adequate mental health services to inequitable access to advanced and rigorous coursework to unhealthy school buildings, education systems disproportionately fail Black students. Allies can play a role in breaking down these barriers by pushing for change at both state capitols and local school board meetings. They must be vocally supportive of education funding systems that target dollars where they are needed most in order to ensure that opportunities are not restricted based on where people live.

Education budgets are statements of values and should reflect a material commitment to racial equity in schools, not just lip service to diversity. BIPOC students simply cannot afford spending cuts, particularly at a time when they are disproportionately experiencing the worst effects of COVID-19, which will require additional supports and services. Rather than enhanced police and security theater, Black students need more voices calling for equitable resources in schools. Allies must support equitable and diverse schools that improve access to opportunities for BIPOC students and students from low-income families. Parents from affluent communities would not stay silent if their childrens public schools were not equitably funded, so they should not remain silent for other children.

Roby Chatterji is a senior policy analyst for K-12 Education at the Center for American Progress.

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Fighting Systemic Racism in K-12 Education: Helping Allies Move From the Keyboard to the School Board - Center For American Progress

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) The Vancouver Park Board is scheduled to hear from the public again Tuesday after a special meeting the previous day regarding camping in municipal parks was extended after more than 90 speakers signed up.

The Vancouver Park Board is looking at updating the parks control bylaw to reflect a court decision allowing people to camp overnight in parks as long as they pack up by 7 a.m.

Mondays meeting heard from two groups of speakers before it was recessed. A third group is set to speak at Wednesdays meeting, which starts at 6 p.m.

Three sections of the bylaw currently prohibit sleeping in parks: one bans people from entering parks at night; another prevents people from loitering overnight; and the third makes it illegal to erect a tent without permission.

However, the B.C. Supreme Court struck down an Abbotsford bylaw in October 2015 that prohibited homeless people from setting up temporary shelter and sleeping in municipal parks.

Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson determined not allowing homeless people to sleep in parks constitutes a violation of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, which ensures the right to security of the person.

The ruling allows people to erect shelters and sleep in public spaces and parks between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.

In 2009, another court decision involving the City of Victoria ruled homeless people have a constitutional right to erect temporary overnight shelters.

Park board staff acknowledge the court decisions and, in a report, indicate the Vancouver bylaw is not enforced.

Park rangers, according to the report, have been allowing the homeless to seek temporary overnight shelter, but requesting that tents be removed in the morning.

The report says further the bylaw must be updated to ensure it is unenforceable and that it recognizes the needs of all park users.

It also says, although encampments may provide a sense of security, they can negatively impact the health and safety of neighbourhood businesses and residents.

They also require the attention of park rangers.

Currently about eight per cent of available ranger resources are required for monitoring and managing homeless shelter activity in parks, says the report.

According to the park board, park rangers responded to 625 per cent more cases in parks from 2015 to 2019. Cases involving temporary structures rose dramatically from 2017 to 2019.

The updated bylaw would still require tents to be dismantled by 7 a.m.

In order for the board to deliver on its mission, the parks control bylaw must be updated to ensure it is enforceable and that it recognizes the needs of all park users, including those currently experiencing homelessness, says the report.

The discussion comes as the encampment at Vancouvers Strathcona Park grows to about 150 tents.

The proposed bylaw revision would include some restrictions: no tents would be allowed within a 25-metre buffer around playgrounds, near sensitive environments, in forested areas, along trails, and in gardens.

Coun. Pete Fry said at the meeting he doesnt support permanent encampments in any park.

Thats why I like this bylaw because it really gives that emphasis on the temporary side of it, he said.

Fry said hes attended a number of intentional communities and what makes them work is the scale and the rules involved.

But given its size, he doesnt see where the Strathcona Park encampment could be relocated.

Frankly, in the absence of rules for the safety of campers, and that includes around violence and around criminality and predatory behaviour, I dont think I would feel comfortable sanctioning a camp without rules that have been in place.

However, he suggested the city could work with faith-based groups to allow them to sponsor small encampments, in church parking lots for example, that are sober and had good behaviour practices, and a code of ethics and good neighbour agreements to engage in community building.

Church members coming out and building houses for people, that kind of thing.

Kareem Abrahim spoke at the meeting on behalf of UBC law students who support the decriminalization of drugs, as well as harm reduction strategies, and the Law Union of B.C. He said neither supports the proposed bylaw changes.

This bylaw amendment, it does the bare minimum to satisfying current case law, he said.

The very same charter violations that are in question that this bylaw seems to aim to circumvent still are going to be continuing despite these efforts.

He added homelessness is a policy decision.

Its not an inevitable reality, Abrahim said. I imploring you, as the Vancouver Park Board, to do more than the bare minimum.

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Vancouver Park Board hearing more on bylaw allowing camping in parks - News1130

COCO PAPY is a community organizer, policy nerd, and born-and-bred Savannahian who came home to do the work.

As Deeps Director of Development and Communications, she works to shine the spotlight on the young people who are leading the way to a more just and equitable Savannah and push forward grassroots-created policy, advocacy, and legislation. She has a long history with Deep, starting out as an educator in the Young Author Project.

Papy is involved in numerous groups that work across Georgia, serving as a board member of the Planned Parenthood Southeast C4 policy team, co-founder of the Political Rascals PAC, a Highlander Education Center Greensboro Justice Fellow, and a PEN Prison Writing Fellow.

She is an acting member of the Georgia Win List, a political action committee dedicated to changing the face of power in Georgia by recruiting, training, and electing women. She was recently recruited by the People for the American Ways Front Line Leaders Academy, which gives progressive leaders the tools to ensure elected officials reflect the needs of their communities.

Papy is trained in Kingian non-violence and de-escalation practice and recently became certified as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild as part of their mass defense support.

When she is not busy changing the world, Coco Papy makes amazing jam, marmalade, preserves, and raises Silkie chickens at her Twickenham home.

Why does it matter that white people educate themselves?

At this point, there really is no excuse not to. The only reason you would be is that you are intentionally choosing not to. And if we are frank, that is a choice that has been easily supported given the way white supremacy functions.

When I say white supremacy, I dont mean angry racists storming the streets with tiki torches, though that is very much a function of it. I mean that we are a country, a society, a culture, with our institutions, and the very heart of what we value and decide as normal on is centered on being white and male.

Its something as small as flesh tone bandaids that are white and its as massive as the fact that black people are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of white people because Jim Crow and slavery were caste systems that were the template of our current system of mass incarceration. Its saying protestors dilute their message by not being civil and having more sympathy for property rather than black folks dying at the hands of white folks.

Its calling the police because a black man is walking through Ardsley Park and then boasting about it on Nextdoor. Its not speaking up in our church pews and board meetings and in our PTA meetings because we are comfortable.

We and I want to be clear, when I say we in this, I mean white people who Im specifically addressingwe have to understand what it is that has kept and keeps racism in place: institutional policies like redlining, banking policies, mortgage policies, Jim Crow black codes, the criminal justice system, especially with the misdemeanor system, etc.; restrictive laws that were and are designed to limit the freedom of Black people intentionally or simply by unintentional bias of who created them, which is still intentional.

Then there is interpersonal behavior. I find in having conversations on whiteness, white privilege, I have more difficulty talking with people who identify as liberal. If they voted for Stacey Abrams, they couldnt possibly be racist, that good people cant be racist, as opposed to how we function in a racist society that rewards that behavior. We tell ourselves that racism is only about moral values, when it is very much about the survival strategy of systemic power.

We have and live within it whether we want to or not, period.Our job is to understand and counteract on that.Not speak for the impacted.Not assume or generalize.But to address ourselves and each other.I think by owning that we have racist behaviors, that we perpetuate them, that we are rewarded for that, we can begin to do the long work on undoing it.

Why should white people not ask black people to help them learn how to not be racist?

Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote a book called Why Im No Longer Talking to White People about Race. It talks about the struggle of trying to convince a white man that what he was saying was perpetuating a white racist standard.

All the while he stared obliviously, completely confused by this pain, trivializing it, ridiculing it.It was exhausting.

Ask yourself this: Do you want to go through the experience of sharing with someone the worst pain you experience only to be told you are making it all up, that it doesnt exist, that if you did X, Y, Z, it wouldnt be like that?Because they havent done the learning needed to understand how your humanity is under assail?

No.And yet we white folks do that all the time.Its not the job of marginalized groups to educate non-marginalized people on history or their experiences. We have got to do the labor. There are endless resources.There are support circles for white people wanting to do anti-racist work.

Because many white people have never been forced to think about our whiteness, to think about the way our race identity carries power into the world, we tend to be incredibly fragile in talking about race.

The center of the harm and damage of racism should always focus on the center of those impacted. But racism, like any -ism, is a double-edged sword that dehumanizes because of participating in oppressive behavior as well.

How am I to believe that my full humanity can be intact if it is based on putting my foot on someone else to keep them down so that I may stay up?Thats not humanity. We have to reject that.I reject that.

What do you say to all lives matter folks?

The person you love most in the world dies. Your child, your spouse, whoever. At the funeral, you go to give the eulogy to talk about what this person meant to you, about the hurt and pain you are experiencing, how much they mattered. A random person grabs the mic and says well actually, all children/spouses matter.

That is what all lives matter is. It is not being able to look past your own inherent myopia and shrinking world so you dont have to understand there is suffering beyond your limited perception.

What are some of your favorite resources that white folks can use to become better people?

Support and amplify the work of black / people of color creators, authors, writers, thinkers. Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Layla F. Saad, Morgan Jerkins, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Christopher Emdin, Rachel Elizabeth Cargle, Adrienne Marie Brown, Ijeoma Oluo google anti-racist reading list and you will access a treasure trove.

Locally, learn about Savannahs history from the folks hereTrelanie Michelle, Amir Toure, Dr. Otis Johnson, Dr. Vaughnette Goode-Walker, Johnny Brown. Learn about Troy Davis, Henry Moore, Robbie Roberson, W.W. Law who they were in this community.

What is the most important thing that white folks can do at this time?

There is no sorry about racism care package. There is only the commitment to anti-racist work, showing up imperfectly and being humble enough to mess up and keep going. No one is born spitting bell hooks quotes off their backhand.

BUT we must, must confront our inevitable and often unaware racist patterns and assumptions. And we have to be willing to do that work with other white people, not just stay silent when someone says something or drag them on Facebook and call that the work for the day.

We have to accept that we will come to the work flawed, accepting of feedback and criticism, with humility, and with a commitment to doing it for the long haul. And we have to bring other white people along with us.

Get rid of the idea of there being a formula - this idea that if we can just figure out a way to be a good ally, to be non racist, to say the right thing, all of this is a by-product of white privilege. Its thinking there is a formula that if we figure it out, all black people will be cool with us. Black folks arent a monolith. Do you see what I mean?

I carry this sentence from Adrienne Marie Brown: Its a devastating weight to carry, to work to be fully myself, humble, and brilliant and messy and great, against a delusion of white supremacy so pervasive and invasive that it can grow within each of us without invitation. But just because something alive violates us does not mean we asked for it, does not mean we partner with it, believe it, or let it live.

cs

Read the rest here:

Voices on the Path: Coco Papy - Connect Savannah.com

The ones that get away haunt me. Derek, a first-year student at the community college where I used to work, stands out. Sitting at a cubicle with his school supplies spread out and his head in his hands, he was in the library when I last saw him years ago.

I approached him and asked how he was doing. He said he was fine, but I didnt believe him.

Are you sure? I responded, maintaining eye contact.

Yeah, Im good. He smirked.

OK, you know where to find me.

Derek knew where to find me because I was his adviser. I sensed he would need additional help when I first met him. He was a Black, low-income student with low high school grades. I kept my eye on him and ensured that he knew I was a resource, but my concerns remained. Sure enough, I stopped seeing him around campus and later confirmed he was no longer enrolled.

Colleges and universities are preparing for how COVID-19 will impact their 2020-21 enrollment. From bracing for the worst to practicing cautious optimism, decisions concerning the upcoming academic year have been varied. The subjects of enrollment management, online learning, faculty needs, leadership, budgets, litigation and student health have dominated the discourse happening in our field.

In this discourse, we should also be addressing the devastation that our most marginalized students are vulnerable to or experiencing due to the pandemic. By acknowledging the bleak realities in America, we will have a greater understanding of how to serve students who face these facts every day:

Such truths are certain to infiltrate into higher education, especially for those of us whose work is focused on Black and Latinx students. How are we centering these students in our responses to COVID-19?

Black and Latinx students have been responding to the disparities and injustices, exacerbated by COVID-19, in their communities. What they have witnessed and endured these past few months has been deeply traumatic.

As if the aforementioned racial inequalities were not enough, the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, Dominique Remmie Fells and Riah Milton have sparked grief and outrage everywhere. Tensions will very likely linger into August and the fall.

Many of us will have returning students who have been organizing and protesting in various ways. We not only have to be prepared for possible COVID-19 outbreaks on our campuses but also for the trauma that our students will be bringing with them. Ensuring campus environments do not further trigger students should be included in our 2020-21 preparation. Students will be evaluating if and how their institutions address the social injustices happening across the country.

How student-centered are the decisions that are our institutions making? Are they planning services, activities and investments with the specific needs of Black and Latinx students in mind? What about the students with disabilities, multiple identity intersections, mental health needs and special health conditions, and/or those dealing with academic hardships?

The needs of marginalized students will be vast. The institutions that are intentional about meeting those needs will be successful.

Of course, the presented challenges are overwhelming, but theyre also opportunities. COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of preparation and what happens when there is none. For preparation to be effective, it needs to be specific. A student is more likely to return if they know their institution will meet their particular needs. Gathering and incorporating much more student feedback into our preparations for the fall will help students feel more connected.

If youre concerned about student retention, the last thing you want is for a student to feel disconnected. Which students are most likely to feel disconnected right now? Why would they feel disconnected? What can be done to prevent such disconnection from happening?

The pandemic is already causing low-income students to fade away. Some colleges and universities have been stepping up, such as in the case of the University of Minnesota ending its contracts with the Minneapolis Police Department. At other institutions, administrators have reached out to support students in other important ways -- for instance, helping LGBTQ students find alternative housing. Hunter Colleges counseling center started a support group for its students experiencing academic and/or personal difficulties due to COVID-19. Students will remember who was there for them during these perilous times.

To this day, I wonder if Derek was going through such times when we last talked. I reflect on what he needed to hear in those moments. I think about all the questions I could have asked, whom I could have connected him with and what information I could have shared. Maybe he had already made up his mind, so it wouldnt have mattered.

But COVID-19 has forever changed our work in student affairs. Derek forever changed how I engage with my students. If youve been working in our field long enough, you have a Derek (or Dereks) of your own. Lets be sure to prepare for those students and their possible traumas, too.

Original post:

In their decisions about this fall, institutions should focus on the specific needs of marginalized students (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

Eating clubs line Prospect Avenue.

The eating clubs of Princeton have a long and convoluted history. On July 3, we commemorated the 30-year anniversary of the official New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that mandated coeducation for eating clubs that had not yet adopted the policy.

While this decision was monumental and essential for the fair treatment of womxn who wanted to join these clubs, this was just another step in a long process that began 50 years ago when the University made the decision to embrace coeducation.

It is important that we address and take responsibility for the long history of our clubs, particularly to recognize that we have so much more work to do not only on gender equity, but on equity for all students in the Princeton community. Only after we do this may we create the future of equality and acceptance that each of our members deserve.

The events that finally turned the tide for womxn in Princetons eating clubs began with the conviction of white woman Sally Frank 80, who filed a lawsuit in 1979 on the basis of gender discrimination against Tiger Inn, Ivy Club, and Cottage Club for refusing to accept womxn on the basis of gender.

While Cottage Club decided to coeducate in 1986, Ivy Club and Tiger Inn were not compelled to do so until 1991. This outcome was already 22 years after the admission of female students to Princeton and to sign-in clubs Terrace Club and Colonial Club in 1969, shortly followed by Quadrangle Club, Cloister Inn, Charter Club, Cap & Gown Club, and Tower Club by 1971.

As eating club presidents, we recognize the 30th anniversary of the coeducation of all clubs as a symbol of the struggle for acceptance within the Princeton community, and as a call to action: If we seek to create spaces where all of our members feel safe and welcome in our clubs, it is our duty to lead our members forward.

The history of social stratification in eating clubs has been integral to their existence eating clubs are reflective of Princetons enrollment, and the first people to attend colleges and universities were white men.

Once womxn were able to attend Princeton, many clubs accepted them immediately, providing a welcoming community for them. In the early days of Princetons coeducation, there were not many womxn at the University, let alone in the clubs.

As more womxn arrived on campus, Sally Frank bravely led the coeducation initiative for the remaining three clubs, ensuring that all womxn would have an equal opportunity to become a part of our club communities. Despite initial changes to club membership, we understand that there are many issues of inclusiveness that the clubs have yet to address.

All eleven eating clubs are different legal entities, and though we all have different histories to reflect upon, we hope to take advantage of our partnership as presidents to become unified in our goal for improving our club communities. We firmly believe our clubs are capable of change. Along with acknowledging our past, we recognize our need to do better.

As leaders, we aim to create inclusive communities for our clubs. In doing so, we must question what inclusivity means and how we treat everyone equitably. To establish equitable treatment includes the acknowledgement of our problematic histories and calling in and calling out injustices that have impacted and continue to impact womxn of color, particularly Black womxn.

As mentioned earlier in our Black Lives Matter statement, our position as some of the oldest and most well-established organizations on campus provides the opportunity to recognize our complex history as part of the Princeton community regarding gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Our ICC Diversity and Inclusion Task Force is in the process of developing programming and platforms to educate our members and improve the true inclusivity and awareness of our club environments.

As individual leaders, we seek to create spaces for dialogue and education about areas for improvement. We choose solidarity through actions to address social and racial stratification in eating clubs, to uphold our commitment towards inclusivity, and move beyond recognition to action. We aim to advocate for our members of color, particularly womxn of color.

To hold ourselves accountable for our privileges and power, we are committed to pushing for meaningful improvements when recognizing racialized exclusions, intentional and unintentional, in social gatherings. We seek to acknowledge racism, and movements against racism within eating clubs that were ignored, brushed aside, covered up, or lost to history. We urge our members to consider what they can do to help change these environments that have ostracized and excluded womxn and students of color from joining, participating, and belonging to our clubs for years.

The changing composition of the Interclub Council has resulted in a more diverse membership that has pushed for sexual harassment policies and advocated for more extensive financial aid programs. In the words of Black womxn author and activist Latham Thomas, who coined the term optical allyship, we cannot participate in allyship that only serves at surface level to platform the ally.

We choose to support and fight for initiatives, working for and led by womxn and people of color, that aim to break away from oppressive systems of power. If you would like to learn more about the actions that the ICC, and/or individual clubs are taking to address social and racial justice in the clubs, we encourage you to contact us for information and resources. If you have ideas that you would like to propose, please reach out to Karthik Ramesh 21 (kramesh@princeton.edu), Thea Zalabak 21 (tzalabak@princeton.edu), or Jaren McKinnie (mckinnie@princeton.edu) 21.

Coming to terms with the privileges we have is not meant to be a pleasant experience. It is natural to feel shame, anger, and guilt for the history of our institutions that we have committed ourselves to leading. Although we recognize this anniversary and celebrate Sally Frank for her bravery, we must remember to keep moving forward.

Sally Frank was not a club officer, and yet she persisted until all the clubs were coeducational. We urge all eating club members, club officers, and alumni to join us in persisting in the fight for equality, with clear intentions and meaningful actions, and as part of the Princeton community.

Signed,

Members of the Interclub Council

Continue reading here:

Interclub Council: Thirty years later, a call to action - The Daily Princetonian