Culture

Once White in America: Raising Black Sons in a White Country

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It is 2015 and I could list so many names. I would pray, but I am not a believer, as people call us now, but I do believe in action, in what has always been called struggle, in what I insist on calling faith in the human capacity and responsibility to know and feel another human story. I witness my son, now a man of 40, marching from Washington Square Park up Fifth Avenue, across 34th Street, downtown on Sixth, long renamed Avenue of the Americas, to One Police Plaza. He marches and shouts with colleagues and friends: I can’t breathe! Black lives matter!

Culture

Generosity Versus Violence

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Some will say the Global Marshall Plan is not realistic. But some of us remember when landing a human on the moon was considered a joke. Contact your Congressperson to lobby for Resolution 1078, the Global Marshall Plan.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

Over 1,000 Muslims form 'ring of peace' around Oslo synagogue, chanting "No to anti-Semitism."

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An anti-hate campaign launched by Norway’s Muslim community last week, after a tragic attack on a Denmark synagogue, culminated tonight with over 1,000 Muslims forming a ‘ring of peace’ around an Oslo synagogue. Citizens linked hands, chanted anti-hate slogans and offered a show of solidarity with Norway’s Jewish community, one of the smallest in Europe.

Culture

Say "No" to Netanyahu's Attempt to Drag the US into a War with Iran

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Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is coming here to popularize the idea that the U.S. should essentially make impossible Obama’s efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, hence putting the U.S. and Israel on path toward war with Iran. We are taking a full-page ad in the NY Times, if we get enough people to donate to make it happen.

Culture

Oliver vs. Cleveland: Beyond Right & Wrong

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Labels aren’t helpful unless we seek to understand why we’re using them in the first place. I will admit that I use them in this article, though in using them I also hope to draw attention to their meaning, and to build a bridge where we can become conscious of our usage of such words and seek to translate them.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

Reflections on Collaborative Leadership

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I continue to have complete conviction that change is possible, and to keep coming back to the same conclusion: what can get us to a new level of functioning as a species, where we can channel our enormous power to create and participate instead of consume and destroy, must include learning to collaborate with each other and within systems.

Culture

Blasting Away Black Faces and Lives

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What members of the Florida National Guard found when they showed up at a shooting range for their annual weapons qualifying training shocked and angered them. Before they arrived, the North Miami Beach Police Department conducted sniper training at the site using mug shots of African American men for target practice. For Guard Sargent Valerie Deant, this was extremely traumatic: one of the hanging mug shots was of her brother, Woody Deant.