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How We Treat Our Organizations
Being “woke” means little if we are unwilling to hold ourselves – and our organizations – accountable. Awareness may expose the problems in our communities, but it takes honest, disciplined, and sometimes uncomfortable work to actually change them. We have become too comfortable protecting organizations from criticism and too hesitant to challenge leaders when they…
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The Process of Being Woke
“Woke” did not begin as an insult or a punchline. Rooted in African-American vernacular of the early twentieth century, it emerged as shorthand for a simple idea: staying alert to the social and political conditions harming Black communities, and to the need for solutions. It named something specific awareness of structural inequality, discrimination, and mistreatment…
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Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
Having noted that both the Arab store-keeper and his sister were able to attend college and drive late-model cars while only working short shifts in their family store, an African-American youth, who sometimes did odd jobs for them, asked how they managed to do, and have, so much. The young Arab answered, “in my family…
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Voting is our Civic Responsibility