Daily Archives: April 11, 2022

The work she has done crafting her Scripted in Black has been doing an amazing job telling the story of Black art and artists from many different disciplines, McKinney said.

Graham said she was grateful and honored to have been recognized.

What I hear from both of their nomination is my passion for the community, my passion for Black culture, creativity and art, she said. So the fact that that shines through all of the things that I do with Scripted in Black, my intentions with Scripted in Black and just how I carry myself, that makes me feel very good.

Graham formed Scripted in Black as a hobby in 2017, but didnt make it official with Ohio until 2020.

Black and brown identities didnt really have a socially forward and intentional creative space in the community, especially in the Dayton community, that was representative of our stories, who we are, how we operate, how we live, she said. I feel like the traditional creative spaces in the city didnt do a great jobs of keeping us lifted and represented in the types of content of work that they were showcasing. I just felt that there was a need to tell our stories differently, actually in our communities at black-owned businesses that our community frequents, just right there in their face and not having them feel that its not affordable or welcoming.

Throughout the pandemic and the relaunch of her brand, Graham has done an amazing job of highlighting art from a holistic perspective, McKinney said.

Scripted in Black is a place where you can learn, have fun and heal through and with art by highlighting not only important things from our culture, but by also celebrating the people in Dayton who make the art scene special, he said.

Graham said she cant ever say she accomplished what she did by herself.

I would be remiss if I did not mention (visuals and marketing director) Korey Smith and (installment coordinator) Ashley Brooks, who have definitely done amazing with hosting and curating events in the city, she said.

Scripted in Black, she said, helps the underground scene of Black creativity within cities to find their space, find their home and connect with other like-minded individuals and to be able to collaborate in a unique way that may not be mainstream.

Originally posted here:

Community Gem: Dayton woman helps tell the story of Black art and artists - Dayton Daily News

The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on poor and low-income communities across America is laid bare in a new report released on Monday that concludes that while the virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government did.

As the US draws close to the terrible landmark of 1 million deaths from coronavirus, the glaringly disproportionate human toll that has been exacted is exposed by the Poor Peoples Pandemic Report. Based on a data analysis of more than 3,000 counties across the US, it finds that people in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties.

Looking at the most deadly surges of the virus, the disparity in death rates grows even more pronounced. During the third pandemic wave in the US, over the winter of 2020 and 2021, death rates were four and a half times higher in the poorest counties than those with the highest median incomes.

During the recent Omicron wave, that divergence in death rates stood at almost three times.

Such a staggering gulf in outcomes cannot be explained by differences in vaccination rates, the authors find, with more than half of the population of the poorest counties having received two vaccine shots. A more relevant factor is likely to be that the poorest communities had twice the proportion of people who lack health insurance compared with the richer counties.

The findings of this report reveal neglect and sometimes intentional decisions to not focus on the poor, said Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign which jointly prepared the research. The neglect of poor and low-wealth people in this country during a pandemic is immoral, shocking and unjust.

The report was produced by the Poor Peoples Campaign in partnership with a team of economists at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) led by Jeffrey Sachs. They have number-crunched statistics from more than 3,200 counties as a way of comparing the poorest 10% with the richest 10%.

They then interrogate the interplay between Covid death rates and poverty, as well as other crucial demographic factors such as race and occupation.

Until now the extent to which the virus has struck low-income communities has been difficult to gauge because official mortality data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and elsewhere has not systematically factored in income and wealth information.

The new report seeks to fill that gaping hole in understanding of the US pandemic. One of its most striking findings is that within the top 300 counties with the highest death rates, 45% of the population on average lives below the poverty line as defined as 200% of the official poverty measure.

Sachs, a Columbia University professor who is president of the UN SDSN, said the findings underlined how the pandemic was not just a national tragedy but also a failure of social justice. The burden of disease in terms of deaths, illness and economic costs was borne disproportionately by the poor, women, and people of color. The poor were Americas essential workers, on the frontlines, saving lives and also incurring disease and death.

The authors rank US counties according to the intersection of poverty and Covid-19 death rates. Top of the list is Galax county, a small rural community in south-west Virginia.

Its death rate per 100,000 people stands at an astonishing 1,134, compared with 299 per 100,000 nationally. Median income in the county is little more than $33,000, and almost half of the population lives below the poverty line.

Among the counties with punishingly high poverty and death rates is the Bronx in New York City, where 56% of the population is Hispanic and 29% Black. More than half of the borough lives under the poverty line, and the Covid death rate is 538 per 100,000 within the highest 10% in the US.

Racial disparities have been at the centre of the pandemic experience in the US. Early on it became clear that Black people and Hispanics in New York City, for instance, were dying of Covid at twice the rate of whites and Asians.

The consequences of such racial inequity are still only now becoming visible. Last week a study in the journal Social Science & Medicine reached a disturbing conclusion.

It found that when white Americans were informed through the media that Black Americans were dying at higher rates than their demographic group was, their fear of the virus receded and they became less empathetic towards those vulnerable to the disease. They were also more likely to abandon Covid safety precautions such as masks and social distancing.

But low-income predominantly white communities are also in peril. Mingo county in West Virginia, for example, has one of the lowest income levels in the US following the collapse of coal mining and the scourge of the opioid epidemic.

The county is 96% white, with over half its residents living below the poverty line. Its Covid death rate is 470 per 100,000 putting it within the top quarter of counties in the nation for pandemic mortality.

The rest is here:

Covid had devastating toll on poor and low-income communities in US - The Guardian

[Cross-posted toFront Porch Republic]

There is an accusation which has been flung over the decades (if not centuries) at practically every sort of intentional community-building effort, thus oddly discovering something which apparently entirely disparate elements of the right and left have in common. Sometimes that accusation takes the form of condemnations of a supposedly unrealistic idealism, sometimes in terms of contempt for what is labeled a nostalgic myopia. But either way, the heart of all these attacks is the same: attempting to build communities of cooperation, equality, and justice, in contrast to the socio-economic self-interestedness which has been the rule for 300 years or more, is utopian, and thus nonsensical and wrong. The ease of that accusation, and the fact that it has been and still is unthinkingly lobbed at intentional communities of every sort, makes it worthy of push-back, I think.

The caveat which those who fling the accusation will insist upon, of course, is that it is not all community-building activities which they think deserves their condemnation and contempt; only comprehensive community-building. And for most critics, thats probably correctit would require an insanely individualist outlook to describe every effort to strengthen neighborhood ties (organizing a block party!), to secure social justice (expanding handicap accessibility!), or to serve the public through the provision of common goods (health insurance, public schools, environmental protection, the Veterans Administration, and more!) as instances of utopianism. (That some people do in fact affirm such anihilistic libertarianismis worth noting but not much more. There are also people who make life-size nude sculptures of Richard Nixon out of butter, and more power to them.) The great majority of those who look askance upon community-building would insist that they do not mean to reject every communitarian project; rather, what they reject is community-building visions and efforts that aspire to comprehensivenessor, on my reading, the ones that aspire totopography.

My point in invoking topography is to bring up that element which everyone with the slightest interest in or affection for localism must take seriously: the topos, the place or location or referent upon on which one stands or acts. Such language is, of course, what gave birth to the accusation in the first place: Thomas Mores 16th-centuryUtopia, the rationally organized no-place of agrarian communism, communal eating, universal health care, and chamber pots made of gold (so as to subliminally communicate a contempt for wealth). Mores neologism, it should be noted, was perhaps not his intended one;Utopiaconcludes with an addendum in which More remarks upon the pun in his books title, suggesting that the city is should be understood less as a dreamy no-place and more as a good-place that inspires: not Utopia, but rather rightly my name is Eutopia, a place of felicity. Whatever his intent, though, the history of the term is grasped easily enough: throughout history, there have been 1) those captivated by comprehensive visions of how to cooperate rather than compete, to encourage virtue and inclusion, to establish peace and justice, and to witness to the truth as they understand it, with the material articulations central to those visions involving the establishment of a distinct community, and 2) those who find any and all such visions dangerous and simply flawed. (And, of course, one can find plenty of capitalists in group 2) who will insist the placeness inherent to mostpopulist challenges,distributist arguments, andmutualist alternativesmeans theyre all in the same camp as the socialists and radicals in group 1), but lets stick with the clear communalist examples for now.)

The danger which canand, tragically, often doesaccompany any effort to establish a complete community in accordance with specific intentions, whether religious or ideological or both, is well established, both historically and theoretically. The genocidal historical record of many comprehensive society-shaping visions is incontestable (though whether the kill-count of all such revolutionary movements is greater or fewer than the kill-count of non-comprehensive, profit-motivated world historical slaughters like the African slave trade or the European colonization of the Americas is something I leave to the terminally morbid to calculate). Theoretically as well, the problems with this conceptualization of humanitys fundamentally social and political nature are large, though not insurmountable. Humankinds embodiment as distinct individuals means an organic, evolving pluralism willalwaysbe present in all our social and political orders, and the rationalist temptation which is entailed by many communitarian visions directly contradicts that, with frequently destructive results.

But the emphasis there must be placed on frequently, as opposed to always. Human beings, despite (or perhaps as part of) our pluralism, regularly tend towards the dialogical and aspirational and spiritual, which means that what we trulyarealways reasoning about and reaching forthanks to God or nature or bothis how to make our lives fit with that we consider to just and right and good: to achieveeudaimoniain our places, ourtopoi, and then make those places available to others. So while dangers and flaws of comprehensiveness must always be attended to, the topographical aspect of our spiritual and ideological longings is too central to the human character to dismiss it entirely. Indeed, if Wendell Berry is any guide, much of contemporary thinking reflects an overlearning (or an encouragement towards overlearning by those who benefit from our individualistic status quo) of the lessons of comprehensiveness. To automatically reject communitarian efforts and imaginings which involve the making of actual cooperativeplacesas obviously pointless from the start is to succumb to a false sense of inevitabilityan economic and technological determinism, as heartless as it is ignorant (Berry,The Art of Loading Brush, p. 51; morehere).

So perhaps we can allow that the accusation of utopianism is not necessarily, or at least should not beacceptedas necessarily, fatal to the communitarian imagination. But does that allowance have anything to do with localist projects, which, while obviously centrally concerned with places, rarely approach thosetopoiwith any comprehensive vision in mind? While it is true that the watch-word for most genuinely localist politics today is incremental, eschewing comprehensive reforms for the humble and the partial, there is, I think, a utopian element usually present nonetheless, hidden in the idea of intentionality.

Every localist concern involves looking at a neighborhood, an association, or a community, and tending to it. That tending, however, unless wholly and unthinkingly reactionary (and if it were, then no communitarian tending would take place over the long haul at all, because to think outside of ones own immediate interest and ones own temporal moment isinvariablyaspirational), cannot help but involve an ideal, a visionsomething that isintended. That intentionality, like comprehensiveness, can be dangerous is a simple sociological fact, but it is also that which grants community the transformative promisewhether personal or collective or bothwhich it has always held, separating us,as Aristotle observed, from otherwise equally gregarious animals like bees.

The difficult-to-dispute point that we form communities for the sake of collective ideals and not just individual interestssomething every Bible-reader, at the very least, should have realized as soon as they came to the second chapter of Actshas, perhaps, been made harder to swallow for many by the legacy of 19th and 20th-century socialisms, particularly the statist, scientific socialisms of the Marxist variety. But even there, a fuller appreciation of the history such surprising diversity. The Oxford political theoristDavid Leopoldhas made a career out of exploring and undermining (or at least seriously complicating) the rationalist, universalist, non-utopian reading of Marxs legacy, arguing that even within the first century of the modern European socialist movement, when the materialist assumption of universal revolution were strongest, you nonetheless can find robust expressions of and arguments about the age-old understanding of socialism as a cooperative, communitarian ideal, as something that must necessarily be rooted in the organically constructed architecture of a locality and place. The intermingling of these became even more pronounced as the revolutionary determinism of Marxs early interpreters was replaced with a recognition of the inevitability, even sometimes the value, of party politics in democratic countries. Ultimately,Leopold suggests, the differences between place-obsessed reformers like Robert Owen, the founder of New Harmony who constantly experimented with forming small, cooperative, egalitarian communities (what Leopold calls the communal or horizontal strategy), and detail-oriented policy wonks like Sidney Webb and Beatrice Potter, early members of the Fabian Society who worked within the Labor party to introduce specific egalitarian and collective policies to the whole of the United Kingdom (what Leopold calls the political or vertical strategy), are not nearly as great as their similarities.

You dont need to work out the historical implications of such political theories to recognize the truth of that judgment, thoughyou could, instead, simply look at the real world example of dozens of intentional communities and communes and collective projects throughout history, and the mixed perspectives they embodied. You could look at theBruderhof, an Amish-inspired movement of deeply traditional Christians, organized into communities of cooperation and equality around the world, whose communal devotion have led them to a political position ofuncompromising pacifism. Or you could look atKoinonia Farm, an intentional community of believers in Georgia who humbly practice sustainable agriculture, but were also central to shaping, in the face of enormous racial hostility,the non-violent resistancewhich politically defined much of the civil rights movement in America.

Or, much less celebratedly but with no less admiration, you could look to the Solidarity Collective, a cooperative association of activists, artists, and democratic socialists, deeply committed to the vision of living sustainably and defending justice in Laramie, Wyoming. Close to four years ago, the collective was founded by several passionate workers and dreamers, one of whom is an old and dear friend; its charter (read it here!) is frankly revolutionary in its vision of a fully democratic and inclusive socialism, while its actual operations reflect the difficult, patient, humbling work of living in accordance with utopian ideals of cooperation and consensus. It was at the invitation of my old friend that I began to seriously reflect on the particularityincluding thetopographicparticularity, or simply the localityincumbent to the physically and emotionally demanding labor and negotiations involved in building a home, a refuge, and a community that seeks to exemplify its ideals, and has only the material and psychological resources which its own members can bring to it. As no doubt everyone who has ever been part of an attempt to comprehend and bring to life a community (or a church, a labor union, a co-op, or any other such idealistic effort), sometimes it seems that community always fails. With typical honesty, the members of the collective turned their own impasses intoa podcast episode, talking about how impossible it sometimes seems to bring everyone laborious work into union with one anotherand why they keep trying anyway. (Hint: its because, in part, they genuinely believe in theplacethe house, the farm, the community, and the human resources through which they are enabling to flourishwhich theyre building.)

Listening to that podcast, as members of the collective honestly and searchingly challenge one another regarding the roots of their manifold struggles, I was struck at how intentionally and comprehensively pushing against the norms of capitalist modernity in the 21st-century requires practices that have not changed much since the 19th century, or earlier. In Chris Jennings wonderful history, Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism(though his focus is really just the story of the early utopian movements which emerged in the context of Protestant revivals in Europe and America and the Great Awakenings they were part of), he lays out one of the secrets of the success of the Oneida Community, whose radical communismwhich included the sharing of not just all property and work, but of sexual partners as wellendured in the face intense opposition and deep internal divisions for more than a generation:

[T]he biggest reason the Perfectionists were able to maintain communal harmony despite such fraught circumstances was institutional: a form of weekly group therapy that they called mutual criticism.[B]y the time the community relocated to Oneida, regular sessions of mutual criticism had become a central pillar of [what the followers of John Humphrey Noyce, the found of the community, called] Bible Communism.As the Perfectionists got better at mutual criticism, most of them came to regard it as a vital catharsis and an essential means of maintaining the colonys delicate social harmony. It functioned like a cross between confession, performance review, and psychoanalysis, but crowdsourced. The fact that everyone had a turn in the hot seat took some of the sting our of the ordeal.One man was cautioned that he had masculinity carried to excess. There is not enough woman in him.Perhaps most important, the regular sessions of mutual criticism allowed the colonists to air the countless minor aggravations that will erode a cooperative colony from within if left to fester (pp. 346-348).

It is probable that Jennings would not entirely agree with my likening of the practices of the comprehensive community-builders of the 19th century with those of today. In his view, while the revival of intentional efforts to create alternative forms of life over the past half-century is admirable[l]ike the nineteenth-century utopians, the long-haired communards of the sixties and seventies rejected the prevailing values of their day as morally corrupt and expressed that rejection through the total reconfiguration of their own daily livestheir intentionality is of a lesser category entirely: [a]lthough the communalists of the sixties and seventies tried (and often succeeded) to build strongholds of cooperation, pleasure, and consciousness amid the mercantile bustle of American life, theyexpressed a secessionist impulsea leave-taking from the World[and thus their] revolution was more personal and, ultimately, far less utopian (pp. 379-380). But I find this unfair, because it wrongly assumes that any envisioning of a place that isnt millenniarianthat is, that doesnt proclaim it to be a model for a world which teeters on the edge of total destruction and/or transformationhas no radicalism, no true utopianism, to it at all.

In a world where the pluralism of the human condition has been, for centuries, from the age of imperialism to that of industrialization and beyond, both subject to and expected to express itself through an ever-evolving, ever-varying, but nonetheless also ever-expanding, technologically-enabled socio-economic universalization, privatization, and individuation, it seems to me thatanyattempt to build into onestoposprinciples and practices that aspire to, or at least are in dialogue with, ideals of social justice and civic strength and equality, cannot help but involve at leasta degreeof comprehensiveness, a degree to utopian hope. To quote the striving local socialists of the Solidarity Collective, there are many potential models of anti-capitalist activism and politics, and the search for cooperative, sustainable systems will always be a matter of good-faith deliberation.

Such deliberationor mutual criticism, for that matterisnt a rejection of the possibility of building a locality of such comprehensive, communitarian felicity that others will be inspired and transformed by it, and thus go forward to build other such eu-topian communities in other places. (That is, in fact, exactly the primary aim of the Solidarity Collective:as they write, We hope that by creating a thriving, fun, and engaged non-capitalist ecosystem we can demonstrate the viability of a more cooperative and less oppressive way of life and hence attract more people to our cause.) What it is, is a recognition that such places shouldnt be conceived as environments that will just rationally unfold, without particular work done by particular people in particulartopoi. Thus, maybe, does incrementalism and utopianism meet. If youre looking intentionally at your locality, wanting to make it more just and more civil and more communalwith, say, cooperative food practices, responsible energy usage, democratic decision-making, and social arrangements premised upon love and respect rather than financial and racial advantagewell, that doesnt automatically make you into a communard, fully engaged in the struggle to build a comprehensively new world. But it does mean, I think, that you probably share more with those inspired folk than you may think.

Teaser photo credit: New Harmony, Indiana, a Utopian attempt, depicted as proposed byRobert Owen. By Drawn and engraved by F. Bate. Published by "The Association of all Classes of all Nations", at their institution, 69, Great Queen Street. Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, 1838.Published by "The Association of all Classes of all Nations", at their institution, 69, Great Queen Street. Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, 1838. Alamy, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77106397

See the rest here:

Localism, Intentionality, and Utopia (Socialist or otherwise) - Resilience

This article was written by the Terra staff for the 2021-2022 academic year. Terra is one of the largest co-ops, tucked in Cowell Cluster (right behind Vaden) and its the unofficial LGBTQIA+ theme dorm. This means that we center and prioritize the needs of queer and trans folk on this campus, and globally. Terra values the loving community that has emerged from centering QT folk but is simultaneously aware of the ways Stanford and co-op communities exacerbate exclusion on the basis of race, class and ability. Were committing to centering Black and Indigenous QT folk, disabled QT folk, undocumented QT folk and other historically marginalized members of our communities. Queer and trans liberation cannot happen without overturning systems of white supremacy, settler colonialism and capitalism. As a result, we have a zero-tolerance policy against any form of discrimination, including homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, ableism, classism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and more. We will also not tolerate any form of assault, abuse or violence. Our community is our home, and we want all of our residents to feel safe.

The issue is not with trans people. Its with policies that allow men to enter spaces designed to keep women safe. And its with the people who take advantage of those policies to harass, intimidate, assault and terrorize women in such places. Lucy Kross Wallace.

On March 31, 2022, the International Trans Day of Visibility, The Stanford Daily published the article From the community | I stand with J.K. Rowling, and so should you filled with transphobic sentiments and bad-faith arguments about the experiences of J.K. Rowling to further the authors harmful transphobic beliefs. As the student staff of Terra, Stanfords only queer-trans themed dorm, we found it necessary to respond immediately.

This article is nothing short of the pure rot of the American culture war which has regurgitated the same points since 2014 and presents them as revelatory truth; the author probably does not care for either issue except to grift from the outrageous claims she has consistently published for the past two years. The term outrage politics encapsulates this best: the author hides behind terms such as free speech, tolerance and liberal-democratic values. If this was about standing with women, she would discuss single mothers across the country who struggle to feed their children, trans girls who are abused and ostracized by their families and the domestic labor that women are expected to do without compensation. Yet, she would rather stand with an elite celebrity who hides in her vampire castle and writes snarky articles about the downtrodden of our world. We say downtrodden because it is known that trans folk are ostracized and consistently subjected to abuse by both civil society and the state.

All over America, trans people are at risk of violence and death. They may often need to enter precarious situations due to the lack of support they receive from traditional institutions such as family, legal institutions and school. Even at Stanford, an oasis from the worst that trans folk encounter, TGNC (transgender and gender nonconforming) students are universally at the highest risk of violence. The results of the 2019 AAU survey conducted by Stanford show that 30% of TGNC undergrads have experienced unwanted sexual contact by their fourth year, and 55% have experienced harassment.

It is laughable to say that J.K. Rowling represents women: she has more in common with the rich men who sell out our country and make life unbearable for women. But the delusion of the culture war obscures the obvious under abstract terms and knee-jerk arguments.

The populist right want to believe they are for the common people, as the author posits herself as an ally to women. Yet, she utilizes women as fodder to protect a multi-millionaire, just as the populist right protect any politician, celebrity or whomever else they believe to be oppressed by a mob. It is delusional, and insulting to any cause that is truly for the people.

At Stanford, we often repeat the adage assume intent, acknowledge impact as we navigate issues that impact vulnerable community members. However, the Rowling article is filled with transphobic sentiments obscured by rationality. As we began with the article, the author states how the issue is not with trans people. Its with policies that allow men to enter spaces designed to keep women safe. And its with the people who take advantage of those policies to harass, intimidate, assault and terrorize women in such places. This is an intentional jab at calling trans women men, which is a tired joke that sounds more like a middle school sneer than the remarks of a reputable adult. We cannot assume that you had any good intentions towards trans people. It is very clear that we cannot change your mind or educate you further on gender expansiveness, but we still felt moved to write this statement as part of the queer community. There is no place for transphobia at Stanford, and we all have a responsibility to ensure that.

The Rowling article calls for empathy for Ms. Rowling amidst the doxxing and death threats she is receiving. Terra staff do not condone any form of violence: physical, sexual, emotional, verbal or digital. Ms. Rowling does not deserve to fear for her life, no matter how vile her positions are. We believe that harassment towards Ms. Rowling is wrong and should be criticized. However, we must ask you; why do you have empathy in abundance for Ms. Rowling, a wealthy, white, cis celebrity who has used her platform to endanger vulnerable people yet such little empathy for your trans classmates and community members?

Ms. Rowling wrote about her own experiences as a survivor in further defense of the vile and harmful beliefs she has. Again, it is awful that these things have happened to her, but it gives her no right to be malicious towards our trans community members. Why do we prioritize her needs and her trauma over the experiences of trans survivors, trans elderly, trans youth and trans children? Trans people are globally at the most risk for gender-based violence and share similar traumatic experiences.

Finally, we as Terra staff are incredibly disappointed in the author, the Opinions editors and The Stanford Daily at large for publishing such a transphobic, ignorant article on the same day as International Trans Day of Visibility. As Stanford University has a very high population of LGBT community members, it felt like a slap in the face to an integral, yet vulnerable part of the Stanford community. The Stanford Daily is read far beyond Stanford, from Bay Area residents to powerful alumni to prospective students. Statements like this do not reflect us at all. As the author writes, the rest of us do have a choice.

The right one, however, will never be rooted in transphobia.

Signed,

Terra Staff 2021-2022

Munira Alimire, External RA-C (2021-2022), Kitchen Manager (2019-2020), ASSU President (2020), ASSU 21st Undergraduate Senate Chair (2019-2020)

Lois Wi, Queer Health Associate (2021-2022)

Elias Aceves, Community Manager (2021-2022), Queer Health Associate (2022-2023), Stanford YDSA Co-Chair (2021-2022)

Noor Fakih, House Manager (2021-2022), Kitchen Manager (2019-2020), Member of Abolish Greek Stanford.

Phillip Ipock, Financial Manager (2021-2022), Community Manager (2022-2023).

Megan Hall, Kitchen Manager (2021-2022)

Jacky Lin, Kitchen Manager (2021-2022)

Callum Tresnan, Terra RA (2022-2023)

This article has been updated to change the headline from In support of Rick Riordan to We stand against transphobia and so should you at the request of the authors.

Link:

From the community | We stand against transphobia, and so should you - The Stanford Daily

Investing in real estate to build wealth is hardly a new concept as owning property has always been a significant driver of capital. Generational wealth includes financial assets such as property, investments, money, NFTs or anything with a monetary value that you pass down from one generation to the next. Intangibles like financial education, values and habits are an equally important part of the equation.

As a thought leader and tuned-in trailblazer, my mission is to generate wealth for my clients through real estate. I provide top-tier resources and the means to work with wealth professionalswho look like you, are trustworthy and are at the top of their field. Fellows Luxury Group provides direct access to esteemed African American wealth management pros and entertainment attorneys who not only look like us but understand the disparities and challenges we face. Real estate is just the beginning when you join forces with a wealth manager and surround yourself with the best team, true generational wealth building will begin.

The first economic conversation that we have with our clients is about the equity they will profit from as a result of owning property. The next question is: What will you do with that equity? The easy answer is to buy another property and build a real estate empire, but I implore everyone to think ever broader than real estate. I realized that my clients were benefactors of my more than 15 years in private wealth management, and they wanted information on how to create generational wealth.

Most times my clients werent sure what to do with the influx of income from their achievements.Assistant Vice President, Wealth Advisorof Bernstein Private Wealth Management E.J. Fortenberry gives his insight:

I believe the narrative starts with the fact that when we think about wealth, we have to be mindful that the wealthy of tomorrow may look quite different than the wealthy of today. There is this evolving landscapewhere the color of wealth is changing, and more Black and brown people are contributing to wealth creation and wealth innovation. We have to recognize and acknowledge that there are gaps, there are potholes, there are landmines that may be ahead of us on this journey of creating, sustaining, and transferring wealth that require a different approach to education.

We always think about wealth creation and attaining wealth as more money, more problems, which is true to some degree, but the focus should be on trying to find the right people to come along with you on that journey. So the question becomes: Who is on your bus? When you think about filling your bus, you need to make sure your team has people who have the ability to meet you where you are. Two people might have the same source of wealth and income (like when we think about athletes or entertainers or business owners), but how they access that wealth is very different, which brings us to the idea of equitable wealth management or equitable advice. Financial literacy is fundamental. Your team should be an ecosystem of professionals who help provide the information that will allow you to do what people of color have not been able to do with their wealth historically.

SVP/National Director and Head of Diverse Markets Strategy at Bernstein Private Wealth Management James Seth Thompson shares his perspective:

How we like to think about this is equity, exposure, education and experience. When I think about the needs to create and sustain and transfer wealth, you really have to work with individuals, you have to be part of an ecosystem that has the right professionals at your table. You have to think about wealth management, you have to think about your CPA, you have to think about your lawyers and the business managers. These are the people in your circle that are going to help you deal with the anxiety and the complexity that comes with income and managing wealth.

Wealth creation starts with income but when that income starts being generated, you also need to have a goal for it. You have to be self-aware enough to understand you need a clear roadmap. Youll also need to start to educate yourself if you want to accumulate and generate wealth. For a long time, Black and brown people felt they couldnt trust those on the other side of the table who were giving them advice and theyve had every right to feel that way. But, the faces of those people at the other end of the table are changing and since that is the case, we have to start reaching out and become intentional with our income and the goals we have for it.

Thompson took a moment to share with me what advice he would give to younger generations:

Generations of all types, shapes and sizes will have to think about coin versus cash, digital currency versus traditional capital markets, etc. But if you have a goal for your wealth, it helps you define what role core investing and capital markets will have versus some newer but nontraditional forms of attaining wealth. So, you really want to understand what is going to support and diversify how you think about growing your wealth. You cant turn your back on the most traditional ways people and families have created wealth over generations and generations. A lot of times that gets lost due to the fact that many of our newer generations may not trust the sources of the advice. That comes with the traditional ways of creating a legacy and transferring wealth.

Think through a plan for your wealth and be intentional about it every step of the way, from budgeting and saving to where you allocate capital for investment. You have to develop healthy spending and saving habits, or it wont matter whether you made $10 or $10 million when its time to step away from the income-creating job you had, without good habitsyou wont have anything left. When you think about athletes and entertainers who make millions over their careers but somehow end up broke 2-3 years into retirement, you think to yourself, How could this happen? The answer is really simple: They had no plan and were not intentional about their finances. The team that they had around them werent intentional about preserving and growing their wealth, either. I would urge younger generations to educate themselves on basic budgeting, planning and saving exercises. Then, when your wealth starts to accumulate and grow, start to build your ecosystem of trusted advisors.

On that note, one myth I would like to address is that professionals of color are not equipped to handle your business. As a people, weve had trust issues and we all need to be part of the change in that narrative. What do you say to people of color who may be distrustful of investing or distrusting of the professionals in those industries?

Fortenberry and Thompson share this perspective on that issue:

When looking at the historical context of Black people being distrustful of the market, being a conservative population in general, what were not able to physically touch and hold on to when it comes to assets have been things that we have tended not to invest in. Now, when you think about wealth and the face of wealth, historically, it has not looked like us. To be really blunt, most people of color looked at that world as a white people opportunity because the industry, banking system and financial services in general have not been equitable to us as a people. However, the same way that the face of wealth is changing, the faces of the people giving the advice is rapidly changing as well. There are a greater number of people of color that are now professionals in the financial services industry. Those professionals now have a greater chance of helping dispel some of the myths and misconceptions and empowering and encouraging people of color. There is an affinity to the culture, an affinity to the struggle and an affinity to the opportunity.

Another challenge we have to look at concerns what we have historically had access to. Rising wealth management is not necessarily a brick-and-mortar business and when you think about us as a people, people of color tend to trust brick-and-mortar institutions.POC communities are huge consumers of retail and we trust certain brands, so a business with a physical presence means a lot. However, you dont find a lot of advice in your local bank or at the check cashing place. What you find there are accounts not the advice or education that is actually needed. As you move up on the wealth and innovation spectrum, from where you are today to where you want to be, you will need someone to hold your hand through the process.

Along the way, two things that can derail your journey are anxiety and complexity. Those two components make up what I refer to as sudden wealth syndrome. Its that moment in time when you have the resources and you want to execute, but anxiety and complexity derail you because you arent sure of the next steps.

My team addresses the unknowns. We help our clients see the pitfalls and potholes before they get there, and we help prepare them to navigate those challenges. That is the value of securing adviceinstead of just securing accounts.

The more we see one another successfully engaging an advice model to support our wealth journey, the more POC communities will participate. The way we expedite that process is to be super intentional about meeting the different needs of Black investors. So, for me, thats the call-to-action to all wealth advisors make sure you are very proactive, and make sure youre doing equitable deep discovery to recognize each persons starting point. Everyone in that wealth creators ecosystem has to take it upon themselves to ensure that all people, regardless of background, receive the same types of advice and education because that will ultimately be what it takes to close the wealth gap.

If investing in real estate is how youd like to start your process of building generational wealth, selecting the right real estate team is crucial to the success of buying and selling. For a complimentary consultation please call me at 1-408-9912 or email me at [emailprotected]

If you are a wealth creator and want to start to think about how to build and sustain generational wealth, please reach out to:

James Seth Thompson

SVP/National Director, Head of Diverse Markets Strategy

Bernstein Private Wealth Management

[emailprotected]

212-823-2675

E.J. Fortenberry

Assistant Vice President, Wealth Advisor

Bernstein Private Wealth Management

[emailprotected]

310-286-6097

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The importance of generational wealth in the Black community and how to attain it - REVOLT

Boston residents are ready for change. At public forums, the voting booth and in the community, they are declaring loud and clear that we need to embrace a vision of a more equitable, inclusive and resilient city including along Bostons waterfront.

Stretching more than 40 miles from East Boston to Dorchester, Bostons waterfront is a complex, interconnected and essential resource for our city; it encompasses housing, commercial and industrial areas, beaches and parks, cultural institutions and more. The waterfront is critical to the public health, safety, economic prosperity and wellbeing of every neighborhood and community in Boston.

In this moment of enormous opportunity, when the new administration of Mayor Michelle Wu has demonstrated a willingness to rethink traditional approaches including appointing a new, cabinet-level Chief of Planning how can Boston achieve tangible, sustainable and inclusive change on the waterfront? Along with community-focused work already underway on the waterfront, city officials, advocates and residents can and should consider examples from other cities that have embraced innovative and intentional efforts to improve their waterfronts.

In our work at the Barr Foundation, we have identified three essential components to creating a waterfront all residents can access and benefit from. These components seek to answer three key questions around any new developments: How does planning happen? Who is involved in that planning? And how do projects get funded?

How Planning Happens: Coordinate Waterfront Efforts

To realize a more robust, equitable vision for Bostons waterfront, more intentional city-level coordination of waterfront projects, led by a single individual or entity, should be a key priority for city leaders.

In Seattle, the citys Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects is leading the development of Waterfront Park, a 20-acre redevelopment that will create opportunities for education and recreation, along with vital habitats and natural areas. The park will be among the most accessible areas of downtown Seattle, reachable by bike, bus, foot, ferry, water taxi, light rail and automobile. The Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects is a city entity specifically charged with oversight of waterfront efforts.

Such an entity does not exist in Boston. As a result, strategic planning discussions about the waterfront, opportunities for public engagement, conversations about financing and more are too often siloed in different areas of city government, bogged down by competing interests or deprived of the focus they deserve.

Whos Involved: Engage a Diverse Group of Stakeholders

At the same time, creating a dedicated office or official in City Hall to oversee waterfront projects will not meaningfully improve things unless that office or official remains deeply engaged with every community impacted by changes to the waterfront. In Boston, we must be committed to engaging broad and diverse groups of residents, advocates, businesses and others, from the earliest planning stages through project completion and beyond.

Today, Brooklyn Bridge Park is a jewel of the New York City waterfront an 85-acre park on the Brooklyn side of the East River that includes walking paths, playgrounds, picnic areas and more. Creating the iconic park required decades of evolution from an initial, small group of advocates to a much larger, more diverse group of stakeholders who ultimately joined in the planning. At Philadelphias Bartrams Garden, a public park and 50-acre National Historic Landmark next to a public housing development, inclusivity meant going beyond opportunities for residents to engage in planning. Park officials and leaders first had to help neighbors understand their right to be in the park and enable them to see their community enjoying the space. Clearly, the building blocks of a thriving waterfront evolution are rooted in community.

How Its Paid For: Share the Financial Burden

Finally, given the scale of Bostons waterfront, it is clear that the financial burden cannot fall solely on either public funding, private financing or philanthropy alone; it must be shared across sectors.

The power of collaboration and shared investment is reflected in Seattle, where the total Waterfront Park price tag of $739 million is shared between philanthropy ($110 million), city funding ($262 million), state funding ($207 million) and a local improvement district ($160 million). Going back a little further in Bostons history, the Boston Harbor clean-up in the 1970s and 80s leveraged billions of dollars in public and private investment to safeguard the harbor for generations to come. As we plan for other ambitious projects along Bostons waterfront, city leaders and advocates must be intentional about pulling in different funding streams to generate the necessary resources.

Our city, our community and our waterfront is unique. But as we look to respond to the public call for change and take bold action to make our waterfront more equitable, inclusive, and resilient, we can learn from the experiences and innovations of other cities. Both successful and unsuccessful, urban waterfront revivals can inform how city officials, advocates and communities connected to the waterfront in Boston can work together to build the future of this vital resource.

Jill Valds Horwood is the Director of the Boston Waterfront Initiative.

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It's time to create a city office dedicated to Boston waterfront projects - GBH News

The dichotomy of the disability community contributes to its rich complexity. Some folks are born into the community, others join it after decades of life. Some folks are exalted as inspiration porn by their nondisabled counterparts while others are demonized and invalidated, accused of falling victim to their own shortcomings. Some folks are loud and proud about their disability while others distance themselves from the community due to internalized ableism. Regardless of a persons history or station in the community, we are all united by a common plight: navigating a health system that prioritizes profit over disabled bodies.

Roughly a month before my 21st birthday, I discovered my place within the disability community. Multiple EKGs, heart monitors, blood tests, specialist visits, an echo, and a cardiac MRI led to a diagnosis of several worrisome arrhythmias. My experience navigating the health care system as a white woman with health insurance displays the complex intersection of marginalization and privilege.

On the one hand, my position in society as a young woman impeded my access to care. For months, I had complained of troubling heart symptoms: prolonged lightheadedness, extreme spikes in resting heartrate, and frequent dyspnea. Despite a family history of heart issues, my complaints were written off as anxiety. I was prescribed therapy and exercise as opposed to a cardiology referral. My care team explained that many young women experience anxiety, and a referral would result in expensive tests that would likely reveal nothing.

For months, I went about my life trying to ignore the debilitating cardiac symptoms, but then something miraculous happened: an unexpected surgery led my family to meet our insurance deductible. Empowered with the knowledge that my healthcare was 100% covered for the remaining two months of the year, I requested the cardiology referral. As predicted, this did lead to a myriad of expensive tests; however, the results revealed that my symptoms were not simply a manifestation of female hysteria but a multitude of arrhythmias.

I am thankful to be in a place where my disability is effectively managed by medication; however, reflecting on my medical journey fills me with dread. My story is not unique. Countless folks with marginalized genders have shared their experiences of invalidation by medical professionals. Misogyny is compounded by white supremacy which increases the barriers to proper medical treatment for women of color, specifically for Black and Indigenous women.

The privilege of health insurance is key to my journey as well. Without access to primary care, I would not have received the pivotal cardiologist referral that led to the diagnosis and treatment of my disability. Over 37% of adults with disabilities in the United States lack access to preventative care due to cost. In a health care system that values profit over lives, the disability community often bears the burden.

Closing the health equity gap for people with disabilities and other marginalized communities requires an active dismantling of white supremacy, ableism, and the patriarchy. Through intentional commitment to affordable and culturally responsive health care, we can create access that improves the health and quality of life for those traditionally left behind.

Excerpt from:

Closing health equity gap requires commitment to affordable and culturally responsive health care - The Kresge Foundation

While social media existed in various less successful and narrow forms in the 1990s, it didnt catch its big break until the 2000s. This year, there are an estimated 3.96 billion social media users worldwide.

Elliot Panek, an associate professor of journalism and creative media with a focus on social media, said researchers refer to social media platforms as mass-personal.

Thats basically a user posting something on a platform, and the audience for that could be one person or it could be a billion people, and you dont really know who the audience is, Panek said.

Panek said he believes mass-personal communication is a primary issue driving social media hostility.

If the audience is a bit more limited, and its a bit more like small group communication, there seem to be fewer problems, Panek said. People get to know one another and feel accountable to some extent and empathize with other people even though theyre not in the same room.

Greg Vander Wal, the executive director of the UA Counseling Center, said social media interactions harbor disconnection.

Any sort of bullying or exclusion can be a real problem, Vander Wal said. I think its a lot easier to engage in some of those destructive and harmful behaviors when youre just typing, or interacting between a social media site than you would in person with someone.

According to a 2021 Anti-Defamation League survey, 41% of Americans who responded said they had experienced online harassment.

Hannah King, a sophomore majoring in speech pathology, said she doesnt believe the benefits of social media outweigh the harassment or miscommunications.

I think that its a positive thing because it is a way for us to stay connected with people in general, but I also have the opinion that it can be negative because things can be swayed in a different direction or you can have miscommunications, King said. People will often make fun of people. People are mean on social media.

Some critics point their fingers at Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and the other tech giants. In a 2021 NPR interview, Yael Eisenstat, the ex-head of election integrity operations at Facebook, discussed concerns from her time working at Facebook.

Eisenstat said she noticed the lack of moderation in regard to political advertisements, and when paired with the algorithm, it made for the perfect storm.

When she suggested changes to the platform, such as fact-checking political advertisements, she said she was given the cold shoulder.

I was pushed out for these kinds of ideas. There just wasnt an appetite from leadership for that, Eisenstat said.

An internal Facebook report found the company helped incite the Capitol riot.

Panek said that in smaller communities online, hostility is lower due to an understood accountability among one another; however, when a community grows larger, toxicity ensues.

I would say its more of a tool that can be used for good or evil, Panek said. I dont think theyre inherently good or bad. It depends a lot on whos using it, how theyre using it, and why theyre using it, but also on the design of the particular platform were talking about.

King said she has found herself in cycles of social media overuse, she doesnt believe that it is an issue, nor does she believe interpersonal relationships are at risk of being replaced by social media.

She said social media has not gotten in the way of her personal life, but she has been alarmed by notifications alerting her of her social media usage and has tried to change her habits accordingly.

Vander Wal said an individuals usage dictates the experience.

Just like with any tool, or anything that we spend our time on, it has the potential to be really good and bring about a lot of positives, but it also has the potential to be overused and to be misused, Vander Wal said. If were finding an appropriate place for social media within our lives as we continue to work towards our goals and values, I think it can be a positive thing, and part of that just means being intentional.

Questions? Email the culture desk at culture@cw.ua.edu.

Excerpt from:

Social media's capacity for chaos - The Crimson White - The University of Alabama Crimson White

Podcast episode focused on upcoming virtual Inclusive Leadership Summit and Career Fair held by university and sponsored by Diverse

PHOENIX, April 08, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--University of Phoenix is pleased to share that Saray Lopez, MBA, director, Student Diversity & Inclusion with the Office of Educational Equity, was a featured guest of "In the Margins" podcast by the publication Diverse: Issues In Higher Education. Diverse is a sponsor of the Universitys first annual free and virtual Inclusive Leadership Summit and Career Fair, April 12-15, 2022.

The podcast episode, "Creating the Intentional Leader of Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond at the Inclusive Leadership Summit, University of Phoenix," was hosted by Jamal Watson, Ph.D., editor-at-large. Watson and Lopez discussed the importance of establishing a learning community devoted to racial justice, equity, and supporting the environments where students and alumni live, and how the event contributes to this work.

"Diversity is in the DNA of our institution," states Lopez. "We have a responsibility and a passion to create the spaces and opportunities for necessary conversations in order to create change and foster inclusive environments."

Lopez discussed the role of the Office of Educational Equity (OEE) at the University of Phoenix, which offers opportunities for professional development and contributes to student experience and belonging, culturally responsive practices, and building community for career enhancement. In addition to the Summit, the OEE has implemented an Inclusive Caf for ongoing faculty and staff conversations, and the monthly Educational Equity webinars open to the public, which provide thought-provoking conversations about equity and inclusion in the classroom, workplace and community. Additionally, Lopez shared the origin and vision of the summit and career fair, and outlined the keynote speakers, topics, and what attendees can expect.

Story continues

Lopez and Tondra Richardson, MBA, director, Student Diversity & Inclusion were both recently selected as honorees of the 2022 class of leading women in higher education by Diverse. The March 3, 2022 edition highlighted Lopez and Richardson as two of 25 women setting the stage for future generations in the academy by tackling some of higher educations toughest challenges, exhibiting extraordinary leadership skills and making a positive difference in their respective communities.

Lopez recently completed the New Leadership Academy Fellowship at University of Michigan in partnership with the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. Lopez is a first-generation Ph.D. student and is passionate about creating access to education and career opportunities to enhance the quality of life of individuals regardless of their ethnicity, country of origin, socio-economic status, or any circumstance. Lopez currently serves on the board of Achieving My Purpose and on various regional committees including Tempe Union High District Community Diversity Advisory Committee, Arizona Multicultural Education Conference Committee, and the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce DATOS Research Committee. Lopez was awarded the Inclusive Leader Award from the Diversity Leadership Alliance and Arizona Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) in November 2019.

Diverse featured the Inclusive Leadership Summit and Career Fair in a March 15 article.

Register for the University of Phoenix Inclusive Leadership Summit here.

About Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

For more than three decades, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education has been Americas premier source of timely news, provocative commentary, insightful interviews and in-depth special reports on diversity in higher education. Savvy individuals who appreciate the crucial and ever-changing role that higher education plays in the lives of students, professionals, their families and their communities make reading Diverse a regular habit.

About University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix is continually innovating to help working adults enhance their careers in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, relevant courses, interactive learning, and Career Services for Life help students more effectively pursue career and personal aspirations while balancing their busy lives. For more information, visit phoenix.edu.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220408005563/en/

Contacts

Sharla HooperUniversity of Phoenixsharla.hooper@phoenix.edu

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University of Phoenix Leader Saray Lopez Featured Guest on Podcast "In the Margins" by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education - Yahoo Finance

I visited one of my favorite little communities this past week.

On Wednesday afternoon, I took an impromptu drive through Morristown. Although I was actually looking for a large group of law enforcement officers who had been called to handle an incident I knew almost nothing about at that point, I couldnt help but notice a few changes in the village.

Morristown was platted 220 years ago, and it was named for settler and innkeeper Duncan Morrison. It was established by Jonathan Zane and William Chaplin along the path of the developing National Road the highway to the West throughout the first half of the 19th century.

The presence of the road and all the traffic it carried led to growth, and hotels, stores, factories and mills grew up around it. Many of those buildings are still standing in Morristown, which is the best preserved example of a Pike Town in Eastern Ohio, according to morristownohio.org.

In the 1850s, there were as many as 40 or 50 businesses in town, including blacksmiths, cigar factories, grocers, clothiers, Saddlers, wagonmakers and many others. Many of those buildings were abandoned in the decades that followed, as a new form of transportation the railroad bypassed Morristown and ran through communities to the south instead, passing from Zanesville to Barnesville and through Bethesda and Belmont on its way to Bellaire.

Today, the remaining 19th century buildings in Morristown are largely occupied again, but they now serve as private homes.

Of course, being from nearby Belmont myself, I know several of the people who occupy or work to preserve these historic structures. And, being a history buff, I also know that many of these buildings were built in the 1840s and 50s.

Its amazing to see how they have stood the test of time!

Whats also amazing to me is how much some of these structures have been improved. Driving along Main Street last week, I noticed some new roofs and siding, as well as equipment stationed at buildings that are being renovated. I was happy to see that all those improvements seem to be in keeping with the original appearance and historic colors of the original construction.

Theres just something special about this little slice of a bygone era. No matter why I visit the village, I always appreciate its character and feel like I can see and hear the shadows of those who came there before me.

So, if you have business to conduct in or around Morristown, take the time to notice just how much of the original community has been spared for posterity.

Or, if you have a leisurely day to spend somewhere in the region, consider making an intentional visit. Buildings on the National Register of Historic Places are clearly marked with bits of their history on plaques near their entrances. A walking tour is also outlined on the website mentioned above.

In addition to its historical significance, Morristown has a 73-acre park with ballfields, playground equipment, disc golf and more. And it is near many other attractions, such as Barkcamp State Park, Pike 40 restaurant, Valleyview Campgrounds where Blame My Roots Fest is held, and the Union Local schools campus.

As for the original reason for my trip to Morristown, that turned out to be an unpleasant, though not terribly serious, situation. A guest at the Arrowhead Motel apparently had refused to pay rent for weeks and became belligerent when asked to leave. The woman had a warrant for her arrest, so Belmont County sheriffs deputies and troopers with the Ohio State Highway Patrol took her into custody.

Its all in a days work for someone in the news business.

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A short drive leads to trip back in time - Martins Ferry Times Leader