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Friday, June 5, 2020
Global Health Now. June 5, 2020
Tear gas falls in the realm of a chemical weapon. When YOU allow a system to go unchecked. June 2020
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The Stories We Tell. Change the paradigm. June 2020
This was shared by Lori Peek, Ph.D., Director, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder via the Risk and
Disasters Topical Interest Group (TIG) at the Society for Applied Anthropology
The Stories We Tell
When the stories a society shares are out of tune with its
circumstances, they can become self-limiting, even a threat to survival. That
is our current situation.
David Korten, The Great Turning
Stories
are the threads that weave together the wisdom of the past. They give form to
present values and shape future possibilities. The best stories can open our
minds and hearts so that we build empathy and collectively experience moments
that we might otherwise miss. A story can change the entire trajectory of a
person’s life. That means stories can change the world.
For
this reason, we must pay attention to the stories we tell, as well as to those
that are told to us. But doing so can be uncomfortable among
professionals, in part because it is sometimes difficult to
judge their legitimacy. We all tell stories, though. We tell them to ourselves,
we tell them to those whom we care for and love, and we tell them through our
work. Stories are what connect us as humans. They have helped us to survive and
evolve, so we need them like a thirsty person needs water.
Stories
are often contested, though, and they can even become deadly when the powerful
use them as weapons of oppression. That is why throughout history we see the
dispossessed fighting for their own narratives, often placing their lives in
peril for a higher purpose—from the secret folk tales shared among
enslaved African Americans to the testimonials of tribal elders.
All struggles for liberation and justice are, at their root, about people
trying to tell their own versions of the past, present, and future.
Right
now, we are at a turning point. The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed
almost 400,000 lives globally. In the United States, higher
fatalities have been recorded among older adults, the medically fragile, and
Black, Latino, and Indigenous populations—proving yet again that those who are
marginalized often suffer first and worst in disasters. The devastating effects of climate change continue
unabated as glaciers shrink, sea levels rise, and temperatures climb. Hundreds
of mass protests calling
for an end to police brutality and systemic racism have sprung up across the
United States following the tragic and unconscionable killings of George Floyd
and Breonna Taylor. State-sanctioned violence, civil unrest, rioting, and
looting have ensued.
How
will historians and future generations look back on this time?
How will they
judge us for what we did—or did not do—in the face of mounting incivility,
inequality, and injustice?
What stories will they tell about us?
In
their book Active Hope, Joanna Macy and Chris
Johnstone assert that there are three stories of our time.
The first story,
which they refer to as Business as Usual, assumes that things
are on the right track and we should carry on with our current patterns of
consumption and economic growth.
The second story, the Great
Unraveling, focuses on the collapse of our ecological and social
systems, the depletion of resources, the mass extinction of species, and other
disastrous consequences of our current way of being.
Right
now, the Business as Usual story seems something akin to willful ignorance in
the face of the clear and present dangers that surround us. On the other hand,
viewing current events through the lens of the Great Unraveling is so
nightmarish that it can become psychologically paralyzing.
But
there is a third story, the Great Turning, and it is one of
possibility. The Great Turning requires a shift in our personal consciousness
and a change in our behaviors in order to counter the unraveling of our social
fabric. It requires collective action to help reconfigure our economic and
cultural systems. “In the story of the Great Turning,” Macy and Johnstone
write, “what’s catching on is commitment to act for the sake of life on Earth
as well as the vision, courage, and solidarity to do so.”
This
third story requires a turning away from old practices and systems that no
longer work—and which never worked for the poor, for women, or for racial
minorities. In the process, we have an opportunity to begin turning toward a
more just and sustainable future.
In
the hazards and disasters field, we have been turning toward a new story for a
good while. The notion that natural hazards losses are inextricably linked to
racism, poverty, pollution, and other slow-motion disasters is
now widely accepted. The recognition that the disproportionate damage from
natural hazards often deepens already existing inequalities has
been met by bold calls for embedding justice in our
disaster mitigation and recovery policies.
This
growing body of work—disaster studies rooted in a vision of justice and equity—acknowledges
that our environmental suffering is connected to and worsened by our social
suffering. It recognizes that because risk and vulnerability are the outcomes
of unequal power relations, that confronting risk will
necessarily require confronting power. The logical extension of
these insights is that if we want to reduce natural hazards losses we must work
just as fervently to reduce economic and social inequality and injustice in all
its forms.
These
issues, centuries in the making, might seem overwhelming now.
But each one of
us has a role to play in creating a more just world that we want to live in.
Start by asking yourself what you are most concerned about, and then consider
how you can bring your skills, talents, and strengths to bear on the problem at
hand. Then take the first step forward with the humble recognition that while
none of us know how this story will end, this is the way change always begins.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Emergency and Disaster Response Resources. June 2020
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Why Black People Continue To Remain Behind. 2016 to 2020 and Beyond.
by Santura Pegram
One of the most difficult things for most people to accept in any form is the truth. Although as bitterly distasteful as it usually is, truth is liberating and life-changing. Unfortunately, for change and growth to occur people must be receptive to it and willing to implement it in their daily lives.
Never has such a message been more applicable than to the lack of progressive thinking involving economic conditions facing urban and rural communities of people of color throughout the globe
Never has such a message been more applicable than to the lack of progressive thinking involving economic conditions facing urban and rural communities of people of color throughout the globe
For far too long, generations of African-Americans have used the excuse of racism primarily as their lone justification for the masses of them not achieving higher levels of success. And, while it embarrassingly has been, and continues to be, a legitimate problem even in the 21st century, the fact remains racism alone is not the sole reason for holding most people of minority backgrounds back in life. Such groups of people on both sides of the equation should not continue to ignore how their own ongoing refusal to adapt to cohesive, forward-thinking is causing current and future generations great harm.
According to research, African-Americans as a group are collectively spending an eye-bulging estimated $1.3 TRILLION (with a “T”) dollars annually on everything from food/alcohol at restaurants, nightclubs and bars, clothes/shoes, automobiles, jewelry, cell phones/I-Pads/computers, haircare products and miscellaneous services like hotel/resort/spa visits or flight/travel excursions from companies which are often owned and operated by people who look nothing like them. On top of that, consider the fact that most urban and rural communities are doing worse today in many ways than they were 30-plus years ago (despite having a far greater number of black elected officials and senior executives in place who have seats at major ‘tables of discussion’), many enlightened thinkers continue to wonder when are black people going to wake up from falling asleep at the wheel of reality?
Think about it, the only tangible institutions and sectors of business black people can be considered “majority stakeholders” in today are churches, jails/prisons and cemeteries, where such entities are over-populated, especially the churches with their easy-to-manipulate people who will not think twice about giving their last dollar to a so-called “faith-based organization”(whom most have done very little or nothing impactful whatsoever for the black community). And, if not a faith-based organization, then it’s usually another sad ‘We Are The World’ quasi-humanitarian purpose, but yet those same donors are struggling with how to figure out ways to keep a roof over their head, food in their refrigerator, and cover other basic financial-related necessities from day to day, week to week.
Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, the brilliant and noted scholar, illustrated that there are three (3) types of churches: ENTERTAINMENT, CONTAINMENT and LIBERATION. According to Dr. Kunjufu, “the entertainment church is known for singing and dancing, singing and dancing all day long throughout their services; they love to holler and shout, but they actually do very little work, if any, in the larger community outside of the church.”
The second type of church is the containment church, which are known “to open basically only on Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 pm. (and maybe for an hour or two during each week for a mid-week service) and take the millions of dollars raised collectively from each weekly service with them; at times, willing to help only a small percentage of their members. Yet, unwilling to invest anything back into their own local communities. They function, almost obliviously, to the problems of the greater community around them outside of the church and prefer to abstain far away from political, economic and/or social justice issues taking place outside of the doors or walls of their environment.”
And the third are liberation churches, which “not only have a liberation theology modeled out of Luke 4:18-19 and the 58th chapter of Isaiah, but they also attract larger numbers of men and women and whose members most often better understand, among all types of faith-based congregations, the SERIOUS need for economic empowerment.”
Keep in mind that according to researchers, black-owned companies received just 1.7% of the overall loans distributed by the U.S. Small Business Administration in 2013. (A stark difference from the 8.2% black businesses received in 2008 from SBA loan dollars). And, those statistics have not improved much since then. In knowing that, Dr. Kunjufu has proposed some very thought-provoking, although disturbing, questions in his assessment. Among them, most disturbing is his question of “WHY is the black community in its present condition with our roughly $1.3 TRILLION DOLLARS in collective economic spending potential, five million college graduates, 9,000-plus elected officials, and 85,000 churches nationwide?”
If other ethnic groups of people (who often may be unrelated) can invest together in projects and initiatives, pooling a percentage of their weekly/bi-weekly finances together to send something back to their family members in their native country on a regular basis each month, and/or use their collective resources to launch small businesses, then black people who are U.S.-born citizens should surely be doing similar acts of “pooling their resources” to start a business or invest in the stock market. * ( Read “Pooling Our Resources to Foster Black Progress: An Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing Framework” by Michael J. Isimbabi).
African-Americans cannot continue to blame the lack of togetherness, like everything else, on the “lingering effects of slavery” or other foolish cop-out excuses that hold us back. Every ethnic group of people help their own except African-Americans. Therefore, progressive-thinking faith-based congregations should be including frequent financial literacy and investment education workshops, conferences with licensed financial advisors, as well as entrepreneurial and community empowerment initiatives in their ministries if they ever expect to truly uplift generations of suffering people here in this lifetime.
Racism and classism may still be relevant obstacles today, but Starbucks Inc., Waffle House restaurants, Walt Disney World theme park, luxury clothing brands, upscale eateries, automobile brands and other establishments cannot enrich themselves while treating African-Americans less than human beings if people of color begin patronizing businesses and brands that reciprocate their financial support or opening businesses that produce the same product(s) or service(s). The future of black people depends on such concepts and churches play a critical role in our survival besides merely attempting to sell the message as being the “place to be to save our souls.”
Which leads to proposing two more closing questions: What type of church do you represent or do you attend: entertainment, containment or liberation? And, what impactful things is your church doing to make everyday conditions better for ordinary people of color outside of your church?
About the Author:
* Santura Pegram is a freelance writer and business professional. A former protégé-aide to the “Political Matriarch of the State of Florida” – M. Athalie Range – Santura often writes on topics ranging from socially relevant issues to international business to politics. He can be reached at: santura.pegram@yahoo.com
* Santura Pegram is a freelance writer and business professional. A former protégé-aide to the “Political Matriarch of the State of Florida” – M. Athalie Range – Santura often writes on topics ranging from socially relevant issues to international business to politics. He can be reached at: santura.pegram@yahoo.com
https://www.blackeoejournal.com/2018/06/black-people-continue-remain-behind/
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
June 2020 Upcoming Funding Opportunity Announcement
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