Yearning for Change

Kasha Sequoia Slavner was 14 years old when she decided she had enough of a constant barrage of negative news. Terrorism, war, human trafficking and negative political ads filled television screens in her native Canada. Kasha experienced her own time of being surrounded by domestic violence. Her mother was physically abused by her father and divorced him. They were homeless for a period of time before experiencing a stable home life.

At 14 she became involved in a peace and justice committee and began raising money to travel around the world videotaping scenes of people who made a difference in the lives of others. She traveled to Tanzania and interviewed a man who established a school for girls, a desperate need for girls in Africa and the Middle East. She created the documentary, The Sunrise Storyteller, a good news film that provided inspiration for many attending the 61st annual Commission on the Status of Women. I was privileged to represent Dominicans Sisters of North America at this important gathering at the United Nations. Continue reading →

It sounds so simple, but is it?

It sounds so simple: “We are all a part of one race – the human race.”

Yet the reality of that statement – declared more than a century ago by pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas and again in 1950 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – is complicated in our nation, where the undercurrent of systematic racism pulls us down. Living daily in an environment where racism abounds makes it difficult to accept that “race” is not a biological reality but a myth.

When we consider racism (a form of oppression in which one racial group dominates others), which can lead to discrimination – the unfair and unequal treatment of a group based on prejudice – a natural progression is to apply the attitudes that lead to the mistreatment of Native-Americans and African-Americans to other “isms” (sex-ism, age-ism, class-ism, weight-ism, etc.) and phobias, like Islamophobia and homophobia.

It is difficult for me to believe that any of the phobias or “isms” can be resolved until we deal with the elephant in the room – racism. Continue reading →

The Question After the Presidential Election

“What happens next?” has become a common refrain in the weeks after the 2016 Presidential election. How do we deal with and wade through the aftermath of what was perhaps the most divisive and vitriolic campaign season in American history? What will the world do throughout the Trump administration, and what will the Trump administration do to the world? Will global progress be promoted, or reversed? Continue reading →