Blog Posts
-
September Community Partner – Women for Afghan Women
Historically, human rights for women and girls in particular have suffered greatly under Taliban rule. With the US’s chaotic exit and the re-ascendece of the Taliban, Afghan women are likely to lose many of the gains they’ve made in recent years toward equality and self-determination under Afghan law. Further, the fall of US-backed political and…
-
Early September Invitation to Engagement
This month’s Ask comes hard on the heels of August, one of the most important months in the history of Lace on Race. After weeks of planning, we devised games which were fun, to be sure, but also informative, and took you on a tour of our newly refreshed website. Y’all. We have poured so…
-
-
September Ask from Julie
Hello again community! Last time I wrote was in April. It’s always a blessing to abide in this community. At the time, we were celebrating the birds and the bees, flowers in bloom and the beautiful aromas of new growth. We are transitioning to fall – leaves are changing, trees will start shedding, wafts of…
-
Bruised Oranges Matter Too – Revisited
At Lace on Race, we talk a lot–a lot–about capacity, agency, and volition. This is an essay where we take a deep dive into these three elements for reliable and effective applied praxis. The commentary was meant as an encouragement, but morphed (as so many of my encouragements tend to do) into an exhortation–that not…
-
The 6 Tenets: Tenet 5 – Grow Up
When people lose their patience with the process and or the method–and or with me– it’s this next tenet which gets mentioned most, either covertly or overtly. My insistence on growing up; of bringing our full adult selves into the work of racial justice chaps a lot of people’s hides. I understand why; on the…
-
The Six Tenets: Tenet 4 – Grow In
Interior Work Ensures Effective Outward Praxis The tenet we are going to speak about now, Grow In, is an important element; it’s in what could be a tagline, right next to our North Star. It’s crucial. It is what differentiates Lace on Race from other spaces. Our insistence that interior work is a linchpin of…
-
The Six Tenets: Tenet Three-Plant Roots
Gather the tools. Invest in the new. Read the directions. Then follow them. Ask for help. Raise your hand and just ask. Ask and watch and learn. Plant mustard greens. Plow over. Do it again. And again. Amend. Anywhere weeds grow, good growth can happen. These are the lessons embedded in this installment of the…
-
The Six Tenets: Tenet 2 – Dig Deep – ALL NEW
I remember digging. Easy digging. On the beach, in a bathing suit with ruffles on the bottom, just after eating sandwiches and apples with a light dusting of sand; muddy feet and sunbonnets on a perfect San Diego beach day. My sister and I, with plastic buckets and pails, making sandcastles and mud pies, while…
-
The Six Tenets: Tenet 1 – Lean in
When I first penned this essay, we examined the real dissonance between what Sheryl Sandberg exhorted women to do and the real difference in realities between the world in which Sandberg lives–and the very specific, Eurocentric, economically and socially privileged cohort to whom she was speaking–and the lives of the vast majority of women carved…