YOU Can Help! | crrcwaco

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10. Look forward and back --study

more history. Study, in particular,

the history of the Jim Crow era,

the Great Migration, the Civil Rights

movement.

11. Be very thoughtful about your media diet (and your

children's). Spend less time looking at screens.

13. Think about your network. Who are you touching? What are you putting out and taking in?

14. Understand government better, know that

you are a constituent, and stay in effective

touch with your representatives.

15. Consider running for office or

taking a government job.

22. Reject ever-escalating expectations —for yourself, for others, for your

experiences. Think about the role that social media might be playing

in your perceptions of your life, and of others’ lives.

23. Be joyful about the fact that you are alive, and still have time to make

a difference, in your own life and in the lives of others.

24. Help your kids write actual, physical letters to your elected

representatives at all levels. Urge your kids to remind them of their

responsibility to take care of America’s future.

25. Look people in the eye. Smile and say hello.

26. Don't let barriers deter you. Anytime you say

—to yourself, or out loud— “I can’t go there”

. . . figure out how to go there.

Here are some things* that I have been

doing and that I plan to do more of

going forward. Maybe you’ll want to

try them, too.

1. There is, of course, one very important

thing in the mix besides race and power: MONEY, much of it money that flows

out of our own pockets every day.

Our consumer choices

are under our full control.

2. Think very carefully about every dollar

you spend and where that money

ends up. Don’t fund hate or

corruption or injustice or

environmental degradation.

More specifically, look out for

companies whose owners support agendas that marginalize

minorities, women, children, and immigrants. Reward companies

that try to do good.

3. Support non-profits that do good

work supplementing government

services that may be in jeopardy.

8. Educate yourself on unconscious bias, and try to find some training in that area, maybe through your job. If none exists at your church or workplace, ask them to start it up.

9. Seek out relationships with people who are different from you. Have conversations with people whose opinions are different from yours — including people who voted differently. It is urgent

that you talk with them and learn what they were thinking, and make them part of the plan

to unite our country going forward.

6. In any group setting, seek out points of view different from your own.

Find your own voice, and use it. Amplify voices that are not being heard.

7. Consider, and meditate on, the idea that our core national problems

are failures to truly grapple with institutional racism and sexism.

4. If you’re afraid,don’t give into fear.

5. Get outside your comfort zone in as many ways as you can.

* List by Kelly Bare,

IntegratedSchools.org

What Can YOU Do

To Bring People Together?

“Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance ...so let’s dance. Get to know someone who’s different from you. You may have tried to do this before only to feel excluded or misunderstood. Try again.

The exchange of your stories will serve

as a bridge that connects you.”

Verna Myers,

TED Talks: "How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them!"

The exchange of your stories will serve

as a bridge that connects you.”

12. Check your facts. Check your sources of information. Think critically.

16. Balance careful examination

of data with careful reading of human stories.

17. Strive for emotional intelligence. Nurture it in your

friends, your family.

18. Be vigilant, and speak up for anyone who is being

threatened. Lend your power for good.

20. Stop being “too busy” to connect with other people.

21. Reconsider your definition of "good."

19. Wear your heart on your sleeve —literally. Wear something

that reveals on your outside what you believe on the inside,

and hope that it sparks conversations. Participate in those

conversations. Listen.

27. And finally, crucially:

Go out of your way to join up with people who don’t look

or think like you —at a church, or a community garden,

or a gym, or a sports team, or a club. Then talk to them.

Be open to discovering how much more spiritually

sustaining a more diverse community can be. Be open

to joining, or creating, a beloved community of your own.

Go on a Black Lives Matter march, or join in any march

or rally for a marginalized group.

And if you have kids, put them into the most racially and

socio-economically diverse schools you can. Put your

back into making those schools even more diverse and

making them great, which includes not only fundraising,

but also making them places of real connection and

dialogue.

Participate in that school community to the fullest extent

possible. See what you learn. How it feels. Stay through

the icky and uncomfortable stuff —there will be icky and

uncomfortable stuff.