Despair sucks!

With so much of it surfacing daily — whether shouted from headlines or poured out from the hearts of loved ones — many people have come to mistake despair for reality. But for the 40,000 volunteers working annually on projects sponsored by members of the Coordinating Committee of International Voluntary Service (CCIVS) the world is ripening with hope and possibility — possibility for environmental sustainability in local communities, for empowerment of marginalized people, and even, for lasting peace. These are not buzzwords, but experiences unfolding in CCIVS worksites across the globe, from impoverished communities on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North America to hotbeds of hatred and conflict in the holy land.

Vanessa Bolin, an Indigenous woman whose people are Choctaw, Saponi and Cherokee, reflects on promising grassroots initiatives like the ones CCIVS sponsors. She recently served as a medic for the Indigenous Wisdom and Permaculture Skills Convergence (IWPSC) held on the Pine Ridge ranch of Lakota visionary and permaculturist Bryan Deans, director of the Oglala Lakota Cultural and Economic Revitalization Initiative (OLCERI). In late summer 2018, Lakota community members and nearly 100 volunteer allies from near and far attended the second annual Convergence. Bolin and her Skoskomish partner traveled 1700 miles one-way from her home in Virginia to support her brothers and sisters and share her experiences as a member of the First Nations of turtle island.

“I’ve lived on a reservation; I know all the problems,” says Bolin. “I think people like Bryan and the community that has come together, the volunteers, are building a sustainable way of life. Bryan has this vision of crowding out all the mess with the [sustainable resources] he is building. This should not be the exception. It should be the rule…. This should be all over, and not just on the reservation, but across the world.”

Victoria Lovelock shares Bolin’s ambition and leads the volunteer movement at the international level as Director of the CCIVS, an independent NGO under the banner of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). She brings unshakeable faith in grassroots initiatives like those being undertaken by Deans and others, directly tackling problems in their immediate communities. Not because she thinks this is righteous or heroic, but because it works!

Demonstration projects at the IWPSC represent the CCIVS spirit in action and point toward what is possible when multiple stakeholder groups come together to support a common cause.

Convergence participants, with guidance from workshop leaders experienced in applying permaculture principles, helped construct the foundation and trombe wall for an Indigenous Wisdom Center using recycled tires and rammed earth; broke ground and amended soil for garden beds to grow edible plants and traditional medicines; erected high tunnels around garden beds to extend the growing season; finished construction of a cob rocket stove for outdoor cooking and comfort; and more.

Deans bundles his passion for environmental stewardship with the traditional wisdom of his Lakota elders, reminding us that, unlike profit-driven enterprises, tribal elders considered the well-being of seven generations into the future. He speaks softly and without malice, summing up struggles common to many marginalized people:

“Here in Lakota territories the damage has been done in 250 years,” Deans points out. “[T]ime is running out that we can do something. We can use the resources we have left to create soil systems, to do conservation practices needed, to change our building styles and to change our consumption styles to a point that it actually works. What we have to do is prepare the 6th and 7th generations for the social change that has to happen. This is a shared vision that I’m putting out here. We all have to think in a holistic fashion in our everyday tasks. I can’t do it by myself.”

Deans discovered strong allies among nationwide permaculture networks. Initially, the idea to expand support for OLCERI’s regenerative projects through on-site workshops originated with fellow permaculture designer Megan Szrom, who interned at OLCERI over the summer of 2012. Since then, the idea has been building momentum, resulting in consecutive events in Spring 2017 and again in Fall 2018.

Deans also has established alliances with like-minded Lakota program directors, notably, Christinia Eala, Executive Director of Colorado-based Tiyospaye Winyan Maka, and who played an instrumental role in engaging the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) at Colorado State University with the Pine Ridge project. After many years of running homesteading projects across Pine Ridge, Eala saw an opportunity to pursue a long-held dream for both organizations: building a community center which could anchor a demonstration site. Eala and Deans imagine flexible work spaces that accommodate teaching classrooms, reservation-based office space, staging areas for community members, perhaps, even a dormitory.

To make it so, Eala plunged into the painstaking paperwork and was designated Community Liaison to the Community Engineering Corps, EWB’s domestic arm. As a result, student engineers from EWB/CSU, along with Glenn Gilbert, project advisor and structural engineer for the Indigenous Wisdom Center, attended the 2018 Convergence to guide Phase 1 of the natural building they helped design.

Lakota leaders have come to realize that OL/CERI is not just a single project for a single tribe. Rather, CERI (Cultural and Economic Revitalization Initiatives) are achievable initiatives for many Indigenous communities. Eala and Deans now look to empower related efforts on behalf of other tribes, many located in reasonable proximity to EWB chapters nationwide.

Similar indigenous awakenings are unfolding globally, reports Lovelock. She explains that 200 voting member organizations of CCIVS represent extensive voluntary networks that dispatch and host volunteers to worksites through grassroots not-for-profit organizations in over 100 different countries. In addition, CCIVS includes associate (non-voting) members and corresponding organizations that also propose and run community-based projects.

Lovelock’s zeal for grassroots initiatives arises from years of experience starting from the bottom up. “I’ve gone through many different levels of the organization,” she says. “I started as a volunteer. I’ve been a facilitator, I’ve been a trainer, I’ve been a work-camp leader.… I volunteered, and it changed my life. Fifteen years later I’m still here.”

As current CCIVS Director, she says, “There’s times when I’m in the office and in a hyper-institutional context, because I do a lot of representation to UNESCO and to the UN. But when [I] go back to the grassroots and meet with the members and see what’s going on … it gives me the energy I need to continue.”

As an example, she cites a Palestinian Territories project she visited in Jericho. Although the planned olive harvest was disrupted, the CCIVS member organization deemed that they could insure the safety of the volunteers. She marvels at this resilience, pointing out, What’s super rich with the international voluntary service is that…in spite of conflict, [international] volunteering is continuous in Palestine.”

Lovelock says, “It’s really about bringing people together from different nationalities and different backgrounds in order to work together for a common cause, and that common cause is defined by the community. It’s a bottom up approach.”

In an effort to better communicate the scope of work going on across the global network, CCIVS members identified five big themes and six different support measures that represent common threads running through the projects. Themes include: peace and human rights; environment and sustainability; poverty reduction and health promotion; cultural heritage and diversity; and participation and social inclusion. Within these themes, CCIVS members define their goals and then create projects that support local problem-solving, self-reliance, and resiliency programs at the grassroots.

Like Lovelock, David Axtel, a project coordinator with founding member Service Civil International (SCI), communicates the allure of peace-building experiences. His passion was ignited by Peace Corps service, and after he enrolled at the University of Colorado, he sought ways to continue. The first opening came while attending programs by CU’s International Club.

“One of the programs in the late 1970’s was a guy that had done nine work-camps with SCI,” Axtel says.

Motivated to learn more, Axtell contacted SCI and within a month had helped organize a project on the Navajo Reservation. From that day to this, Axtel has had no desire to quit. He gradually rose through the SCI ranks and now serves as a SCI-USA project coordinator. He was the first to offer Eala the means to recruit international volunteers for summer homestead builds on Pine Ridge beginning in 2009. Eala structures the experience using the CCIVS model — consecutive camps from 2–3 weeks in duration, each accommodating up to fifteen volunteers, with generally no more than two volunteers per nationality in each camp — an extraordinary multi-cultural encounter.

“Any person that volunteers knows the impact of that experience on their lives,” Lovelock says. “But it’s so hard for us to explain what we do.”

To address the difficulty of measuring the impact of a volunteer experience, CCIVS has been working closely with the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois Champaign. The goal is to develop appropriate metrics to evaluate the impact from two perspectives: impact on individual volunteers and impact on the communities they serve

So far, the findings align with a growing body of evidence supporting the international voluntary service mindset over the development mindset of aids workers. Equipped with proof, Lovelock is cautiously optimistic that data will help CCIVS raise critical resources needed to expand programs on the ground.

Lovelock stands by the 1970s saying from a Queensland, Australia, indigenous group that is at “the core behind everything that we do.” It goes like this:

“If you’ve come to help me you’re wasting your time, but if you’ve come because you believe that your liberation is linked to mine, then let us work together.”

Bolin agrees.

“As a people, our ceremonies, our prayers, our resiliency, our belief in each other and the land, that’s what keeps us going.… I have a sense of hope for the people. We need to build up hope here, all over, on every reservation.”

Through CCIVS, 40,000 volunteers stand ready to help.

Grassroots resiliency points the way to global solution was originally published in Positive Impact (π) Journal: spreading news that works on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Fort Collins, CO, August 2, 2018

Northern Colorado native Geoffrey Schmidt wants a bright future for his two young boys — so he peered into his garbage. Where others saw discarded chicken bones and potato peels, Schmidt imagined opportunity. With that single glimpse into his trash can, Schmidt found himself staring at a rich agricultural resource which, properly handled, could take a huge bite out of global warming.

Rotting food waste in global landfills accounts for roughly eight percent of all global emissions contributing to atmospheric warming, according to Project Drawdown, a coalition of scholars, scientists, entrepreneurs, and advocates that is meticulously assessing global warming and developing comprehensive solutions to the problem. In its first major report, Drawdown, the Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reduce Global Warming, the coalition of experts ranked reducing food waste third on the list of 100 strategic initiatives to reverse climbing temperatures.

Visionary entrepreneurs like Schmidt are stepping up to align business interests with a new bottom line. These enlightened founders see a huge up-side for themselves, their children and grandchildren, by combining the goal of maximizing profit with the goal of becoming conscientious stewards of the planet.

Schmidt’s inspiration to build a business based on food waste recovery was born during a college permaculture class, part of his Environmental and Sustainable Studies program at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

“During that semester my wife, Brittany, and I decided to start composting our own food waste to be as sustainable and environmentally focused as possible,” says Schmidt. “In the spring when it actually started to warm up and the flies and odors came, we realized you just can’t do this on the back patio of your apartment.”

The Schmidts moved their composting operation to the backyard of Geoff’s mother in Greeley.

By mid-summer, they got the hang of transforming garbage, otherwise destined for a landfill and the release of unwanted methane, into a nutrient rich organic compost with the proper ratio of carbon and nitrogen: a perfect amendment to recycle back into depleted garden soil.

Realizing how many people simply do not have the resources or knowledge to compost food waste for themselves, Schmidt says, “Right there we had the idea to start doing this for other people. We knew there was a learning curve, and we could take advantage of that and operate a business with it.”

In September of 2014 Brittany and Geoff Schmidt launched Common Good Compost, LLC, and set out to transform the germ of a good idea into a viable business. Over the past four years, the Schmidts have shown the grit and determination needed to overcome each challenge as it comes along on the bumpy start-up journey. And there have been many.

Beginning in January of 2015, the Common Good Compost business formula met with success. They provided each customer with a free starter kit including a 2.5-gallon indoor compost bin with aerated lid, a box of compostable bags for the indoor bin, and a 5-gallon outdoor receptacle with lid. They picked up customer food waste curbside on a weekly basis and in the early days hauled it to their facility in Greeley for processing, which at the time was designated as a backyard composter by Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Pledging to be a full-circle residential food waste collection service, they also provided delivery of up to 4 free bags of finished compost a year to customers.

Among the many details they also worked out was setting up efficient collection routes to maximize efficiency and minimize the company’s carbon footprint.

Common Good Compost continued to grow until January of 2016, when the amount of food waste allowable by law for a designated backyard composter was reduced dramatically from 100 cubic yards to 10 cubic yards. There was no way for the Schmidts to continue operating without securing a Class 1 facility permit, requiring a $20,000 application fee and a months-long process to rezone the property from agricultural to commercial. Their original vision to compete with other commercial composting facilities in Colorado, like A-1 Organics and Alpine Organics, faced serious jeopardy in the wake of the regulation change.

So, in true start-up fashion, Schmidt opted to pivot the company’s goal from competition to partnership. He adjusted his costs to accommodate drop-off fees charged by A-1 Organics for commercial composting service and carried on with the sales, management, and curbside pick-up side of the business. He even raised the bar on his competitive advantage as a sustainable business by using a zero emissions electric vehicle for his routes, a practice he backs 100%, hoping one day to charge his electric vehicles using photo voltaic energy from solar arrays.

But, the challenges were not over for the fledgling company. “It was working pretty well until about 4 months ago when I got a call from the COO, Scott Pexton, and he notified me that [A-1 Organics] could no longer accept the compostable bags in Weld county. They determined that [the bags] weren’t being processed adequately,” Schmidt reports. Litter around the A-1 Organics facility was getting out of control and methods put in place to fix the problem were not working.

For about a month Schmidt tried to accommodate the needs of the Weld county facility and went about the unpleasant task of debagging 5-gallon bags of raw compost for all his customers, which by this time exceeded 200.

“I learned the hard way that it was not going to be feasible at all! It was just awful,” Schmidt recalls, “The bags are just an integral part of the whole system. People think of composting as this really gross, messy process and without these bags it really can be.”

Fortunately, in short order Schmidt learned that the east regional landfill near Bennett, Colorado, operated by Alpine Organics, still collected the compostable bags. “So, we’ve been contracting with them,” says Schmidt. “That’s one thing about starting this service: it didn’t exist in any [form] when we started it, so we didn’t have anyone to follow. We absolutely had to think of everything.” He cautions, “If somebody wants to be an entrepreneur, they are. But if somebody doesn’t want to be an entrepreneur, I wouldn’t push them to be, because it takes so much commitment. It’s easy to talk about the up sides about entrepreneurship, but the down-side is that the responsibility is entirely on me.”

Ultimately, the sweet spot for a sustainable business according to Schmidt is to “find a problem that needs a solution,” then go out and put together all the scientific, marketing, business and legal resources necessary to be first at solving it.

Oh, and one more thing: have the foresight to be in the right place at the right time. For Schmidt this meant expanding his service to Greeley’s neighboring community of Fort Collins, Colorado. In 2015, Fort Collins put a “Road to Zero Waste” Plan in place, targeting diversion of all compostable and recyclable material from the Larimer County Landfill by the year 2030 along with the construction of a county-wide compost facility by 2025.

With community support for achieving zero waste, expansion into Fort Collins played a pivotal role in helping Common Good Compost reach the threshold of success. “A couple days ago I had 6 customers sign up in a 24-hour period, and we’re doing NOTHING to market this business at all, except for an online presence on Google,” Schmidt reports. “Now that customers are coming at us very regularly, I have to determine what do I want to do.”

Looking ahead, Schmidt sees many opportunities for expansion, from answering the growing demand for residential service to moving into commercial markets like restaurants and other large institutions. But he also sees risks. Steering a venture toward ongoing sustainability is a whole new level of challenge.

The business “is set up in a way that we provide enough of a convenience to make it worth the money we charge, and we charge enough money to make the business very financially feasible,” the ideal balance from a systems perspective, according to Schmidt. And a big part of that balance is achieved by working with nature.

“Our employees are trillions of bacteria who do the work for us,” he says with a wry smile.

But looking forward, he asks, “Do we look for an investor to bring our business plan to and get this going big and fast? Or do we take out a loan and still do it ourselves?” He also ponders possibilities for franchising, but concludes, “Either way we have to get prepared for growth. The growth is constant; it just doesn’t stop.”

Schmidt pauses and circles back to his original motivation to become an entrepreneur, all those new and less tangible measures of success. “There are just so many opportunities for us to work closely with natural systems to ensure that our environment is dependable and predictable for our kids. That’s my biggest, concern. Our primary goal for this business is diverting food waste from the landfills! If we do it, or somebody else does, it’s a success!”

Rethinking Business as Usual: building a viable company to create a viable future was originally published in Positive Impact (π) Journal: spreading news that works on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

ATTENDING TO VERBS

by Laura Mahal

April 2, 2018

Twenty-five hundred students, parents, and community members had assembled for a peaceful demonstration in Old Town, Fort Collins on February 27, 2018. The students had “walked out” of their classes to draw attention to the need for greater school safety.

As the rally came to a close, the demonstrators began dispersing, invigorated by the positive energy that surged through the crowd.

Energy that was perilously close to tilting in another direction . . . for the permit granted to the Walkout organizers had expired at 2 p.m., and it was now 2:01.

The moment the sixteen student leaders had cleared the stage, counter-protesters had filled the vacuum. A phalanx of thirty adults pressed behind me, chanting in unison: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

Instinctively, I put my body between the counter-protesters now on the stage and the young adults and children who had been drawn back to Old Town Square by the shouting. My three-decades-gone-by military training elevated me from the role of parent volunteer to community protector. It wasn’t until later that evening that I learned my seventeen-year-old daughter, one of the event organizers, had taken up a post a few feet to my left.

She too stood as a bulwark between oppositional forces. She has learned, it seems, that occasionally one must place herself in the direct path of confrontation in order to advocate for peace.

As a writer, I pay attention to the words people use — especially the verbs. The adults who attended the Walkout, many of us now in our forties, fifties, sixties, or more, feel as if we have been mired in battles for increased dialogue about sensible gun safety measures. It has been a slough, trudging through fields laden with landmines around the discussion of gun control.

When some people hear the word “control,” what they really hear is “restriction” or even “takeaway” / “removal.” Those who are most firmly entrenched shut down to conversations that just might result in compromise.

Now listen to the words of today’s young adults, who are organizing Walkouts and a worldwide March for our Lives.

They aren’t planning to drag their feet or sit quietly for a lengthy wait and see period.

They will walk and they will march, because they are all done with running and hiding from school shootings resulting in mass carnage. They will mobilize, and they will utilize social media as a peaceful weapon.

They will energize an entire generation, hopefully reversing a long swell of apathy at the polls. Their key verb may be VOTE. Many are already registered and will turn eighteen before the 2020 elections, if not midterm elections. They will exercise this foundational principle of democracy to impart lasting change.

In fact, some will choose to run for office — to one day lead the charge to bring about the change they wish to see.

This generation will create flyers and post them in coffee shops, encouraging dialogue with their peers, the Interfaith Council, and adult-led advocacy groups. They will meet with lawmakers and present their point of view. They will keep talking until we listen. They will insist on action until we stand alongside them, not as soldiers, but as citizens.

When the counter-protesters shouted more loudly than the organizers of the Walkout, angry adult voices carried, bouncing off of the buildings that line Old Town Square.

Things could have gotten out of hand, and perhaps even tilted in a dangerous direction. There were police snipers on top of a few of the buildings, armed and ready, and there was a police presence ringing the outside of the crowds, standing by in case they were needed.

In the end, our solution was simple. Those of us who had volunteered to help keep the peace during the rally worked our way through the crowds and spoke with the young people who remained behind. We told them to hang on to their sense of accomplishment — that this day had been a fruitful one. Children as young as preschoolers had bonded with people who first took a stand in the 1950s and 60s. We were united in our desire for key conversations to occur.

We explained that the counter-protesters would go away as soon as their target audience disengaged. This was indeed the case. We dispersed from the Square with our dignity intact. Our refusal to fight with physicality meant that future rallies would again draw crowds who wished to dialogue with common sense and a civic-minded maturity.

Our young people will keep the peace, as long as we lend them the stage from time to time. They have much to teach us, because this is their time, and they are paying attention to data and to trends, to what is working elsewhere and what is not working here in the U.S.

Let’s pay attention to verbs, and move in the direction of marching, rallying, engaging, dialoguing, and uniting. Let’s move away from skirmishes and by all means, from shooting the messenger, or anyone else, for that matter.

Featured Genre: Constructive Journalism tackles gun violence was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Elissa J. Tivona, Editor-in-Chief the Peace Correspondent

April 1, 2018

The Peace Correspondent paused. We took time to reflect, to breathe deeply and to “reboot” our effort to transform the media into an intentional force for public good.

In that short time and continuing on, young people in America have ignited a movement with an unmistakable message: Enough is enough! The youth are speaking through action, demanding responsible leadership to end an epidemic of gun violence. And their fierce determination shows no sign of abating.

One result: The premiere issue of the Peace Correspondent Volume 2 offers coverage on the topic Gun Violence: Enough is Enough. But we offer this coverage in an experimental way.

After months of research into new and emerging journalistic approaches, we have selected four genres — Peace Journalism, Solutions Journalism, Restorative Narratives and Constructive Journalism — that represent the most promising trends to heal a broken world by changing the stories we tell about that world. Instead of harping on brokenness, we present the alternatives from four distinct and powerful points-of-view. These stories are written by the journalists and thought-leaders who have helped shape media transformation through a turbulent decade.

Take note that the Peace Correspondent has an impressive counterpart in mainstream media. We recently discovered that The Guardian, a long-standing and dependable source for news, has made a commitment to promote stories for the “public good” based on the hard results of an 18-month study. I will be closely following their ground-breaking commitment, as I continue the work of implementing the Peace Correspondent experiment.

In the new format, each story will be accompanied by a sidebar giving a summary of the journalism genre and links to websites and other media featuring foremost advocates. The editorial board has selected exemplary stories by leading journalists to follow directly after. We invite you to engage with this content and to offer plenty of feedback and guidance as we venture into a new world where media makes sense and gives us tools to build more peaceful tomorrows.

Enough! Gun Violence from 4 views. was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Australia’s gun destruction prevented about 16 mass shootings

By Philip Alpers

13 March 2018 9:11 AM

As America prepares for the world’s largest gun control protest, statisticians say the evidence is now in: by destroying a million firearms, Australia prevented about 16 mass shootings.

Australia suffered 13 gun massacres, then in 1996 enforced new gun control laws and destroyed more than a million firearms — perhaps a third of the country’s private gun stock. Mass shootings simply ceased, and in the past 22 years there have been none.

This was no accident” says study co-author Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney. “Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked.”

In hundreds of student-led rallies in America and around the world on 24 March, Alpers says “Marchers deserve to feel hope. A country can save many lives if it wants to. Australia, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Brazil have already shown this.”

In their study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, professors of mathematics, statistics and public health from Sydney and Macquarie Universities found “strong evidence to reject” the idea that Australia’s result was a matter of chance. The study estimates that if the country’s gun control laws had not been tightened, the odds are that 16 additional mass shootings could have occurred.

“Gun lobby-affiliated and other researchers have been saying for years that mass shootings are such rare events it could have been a matter of luck they dropped off in the wake of Australia’s gun control laws,” says Alpers. “Instead, we found the odds against this hypothesis are 200,000 to 1. That’s the chance of winning a state lottery.

“America already knows the solution to its epidemic of gun violence. The United States pioneered public health measures to curb the road toll, and that expertise went on to save millions more lives around the world in HIV-AIDS and tobacco-related disease epidemics. But first, leaders must sluice away their archaic belief in the healing power of weapons. Guns are not the solution, they’re part of the problem,” says professor Alpers.

The full report and statistical supplement are available at:

http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2675234/fatal-firearm-incidents-before-after-australia-s-1996-national-firearms

Featured Genre: Australian Peace Journalists tackle gun violence was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

RESTORATIVE NARRATIVE

A Restorative Narrative is a story that shows how people and communities are learning to rebuild and recover after experiencing difficult times. While these narratives are often about restoration after a tragedy, they can also focus on restoration in the midst of chronic situations — such as Detroit’s bankruptcy, poverty in a city, etc. These types of narratives can be found in all types of media — journalism, documentary film, photography, gaming and more. Additionally they:

§ Capture hard truths.

§ Highlight a meaningful progression.

§ Reveal universal truths that awaken a sense of human connection.

§ Are sustained inquiries.

§ Are authentic.

§ Are strength-based.

I’m the Daughter of an NRA Member — and a Journalist

reprinted from previous posting in Medium.com

In polarizing times like these, it feels like I have two lives — it’s time to tell my story

Kellianne Jones

Feb 26

I used to avoid telling anyone about my background. I had culture shock after leaving my rural hometown for a private college on the East Coast; that shock manifested itself as a feeling that I didn’t belong.

I conquered that feeling for my parents, not for myself. I’d remember my father’s teary eyes when I got accepted to college, making me the first in our family to attend. I would recall my mother’s desperate voice on the phone with the school, pleading with them to award me financial aid. Eventually, my gratitude for my parents evolved into pride for my blue-collar roots.

I never planned to write about my rural Appalachian Ohio hometown, or about being the daughter of a factory worker. But it’s a story I have to tell. It is time that I speak up.

Since last week, it has felt like my family is in the crossfire of the gun control debate sparked by the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. My father has been an N.R.A. member for decades. Because of that membership, my family, by proxy, is accused of being complicit to mass murder. N.R.A. members like my father are being called “evil,” “scared, paranoid, radicalized,” and equated with the KKK. While some activists, and some pundits, have focused specifically on criticizing the N.R.A. leadership, those statements are at odds with the movement, #boycottNRA, which directly targets the organization’s members.

In polarizing times like these, it feels like I have two lives. First, there’s the life I created. I’m a journalist with a master’s degree from an Ivy League school. I have lived in major cities, including New York City and Washington, and I have traveled around the world. My former life is the one I made the choice to shed, but I carry it with me in my heart. I was a girl who grew up dreaming big in Fayetteville, a place where about 75 percent of the town voted for President Trump, and where more people are dying of drug overdoses per capita than nearly anywhere else in the state. Many of my 68 classmates didn’t go to college.

The 2016 election exposed an ugly rift in our society between the people of my present and those of my past. In my present, there are my neighbors, urbanites who tend to vote blue. Pollsters might assume I identify with this population because of geography and education. But not long ago, I would have been grouped with rural America’s voters, people like my parents and brother, who helped put President Trump in office.

I call the urban-rural divide an ugly rift because that’s what it became. It was simply a divide before the election. The divide was under layers and layers of more pressing societal issues. I noticed it, but only because it was personal to me; I’ve had one foot in the city and one in the country ever since I left home. When ballots were cast in November 2016, what was once a divide turned into a glaring ugly rift.

Because my parents chose to cast a vote for Donald Trump — a vote they believed was in their best interest — they were called, among a long list of other derogatory things, white supremacists and racists.

My parents didn’t notice as much as I did. I consume news constantly. Those words felt like they were everywhere. I suspect that many of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues from this life, my current one, share the notion that my parents, and maybe myself by association, are indeed a combination of those dreadful adjectives so prevalent in our nation’s lexicon, especially after the election. I don’t plan on asking.

No matter where you stand, you are entitled to your opinions. As a journalist, I wholeheartedly believe in the dying principle of impartiality, so I’m not writing this to attack your opinions or share my own.

But I am writing this to warn that the ugly rift is widening. This is a plea to at least see humanity in the fellow Americans you think you’re at odds with. This is a plea to see humanity in my parents and in me.

I wasn’t raised by white supremacists or murderers. My parents were the type that taught me to believe I could do anything. Both my brother and I were urged to choose fulfilling careers, not necessarily lucrative ones. We were taken across the country to national parks and museums. When I was accepted to a program to study Islam, something I wanted to do for my future reporting career, my Catholic parents used the last of their savings to fund it. When they should have been enjoying retirement, my mom and dad took in three children, and a struggling family member, who needed a home.

Maybe these examples aren’t extraordinary, but that’s the point. My parents are just like a lot of parents. They wanted to give their children the tools to lead a better life than they had.

One of those tools, in my dad’s eyes, was teaching us about guns. Guns have been part of my life for as far back as I can remember. The same goes for fishing poles, camping tents, and hikes in the woods. He wanted us to share his love for the outdoors. More than that, he wanted us to be individualists. He taught us to survive and to be self-sufficient. When it came to guns, safety rules were repeated so often that I can still remember the tone and inflection my dad used when he said to treat them like they’re loaded at all times.

My father’s interest in guns began as a young man who saved up to buy 60 acres in the Maine wilderness where he could hunt, inspired by tales of Daniel Boone. When he had a family, guns morphed into a way to defend his wife and children in a town without a readily available police force. We always had an N.R.A. sticker on the back of our truck. I didn’t think much about it.

Twice a year, we went to Friendship, Indiana, home to the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association, a group that promotes early American guns. My father has also been member to that organization. I wrote about Friendship a few years ago in hopes of challenging stereotypes about gun enthusiasts. Like my father, many of the people who go there are also N.R.A. members.

Maybe it was the naïve nature of a young, idealistic journalist, but despite my best effort, that piece didn’t play a role in the country’s discourse on guns like I had hoped. But the reason I wrote it — to challenge stereotypes — is one of the reasons I got into journalism. In that respect, I have no shortage of story ideas having to do with other people.

But what I need to do, it seems, is write about myself. Ever since this rift in our society came to the forefront, I’ve been unable to tell this one story that is intrinsically part of my being. I never wanted to write about my own family or my own hometown. Despite the urging of a mentor of mine for years, I’ve resisted it. But as the ugly rift widens, I realize I have no choice but to try to summon the words, as my mentor once put it, to mediate between the two distant, warring sides.

Featured genre: Restorative Narratives tackle gun violence. was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Solutions Journalism: We train and connect journalists to cover what’s missing in today’s news: how people are responding to problems. We’re working to bring solutions journalism to every newsroom worldwide.

SOLUTIONS JOURNALISM…

· Can be character-driven, but focuses in-depth on a response to a problem and how the response works in meaningful detail

· Focuses on effectiveness, not good intentions, presenting available evidence of results

· Discusses the limitations of the approach

· Seeks to provide insight that others can use

Redneck Revolt — an anti-racist, pro-gun community defense network — is answering crucial questions, while raising others.

Reprinted with author’s permission from Medium.com

By Leigh Ann Smith

Nov 16, 2017

“I don’t know if I want to hold a weapon,” said Lindsay Caesar, a social worker and new member of Redneck Revolt (RR), at the “Charlottesville and Community Defense” event held in Durham, North Carolina over Labor Day weekend. “I’m not sure where I fit in yet, but my ethical imperative is that we have to be doing more than we have been. Personal politics isn’t enough.”

But when the personal is political and the political becomes real weapons wielded by Nazis and white supremacists actively seeking to harm, what is the appropriate response? Just what is enough? And given the staggering number of innocent people who die from guns every year in the U.S. — and the country’s prevalence of mass shootings — what defense can be made for carrying guns as a means of social justice?

Redneck Revolt is an anti-racist, pro-gun community defense network providing answers to these questions, while raising a host of others. The organization purposefully counters white supremacist messaging and organizing in traditionally white-held spaces — where the hard right is known to recruit — like NASCAR races, flea markets, and gun shows. Members do so with an inclusive economic message, an authentic affinity for “low-brow” culture (including railings against elites), and smart historical analysis.

Redneck Revolt started as an online off-shoot of the John Brown Gun Club in Lawrence, Kansas, in 2009. Cofounder Dave Strano was involved in the gun club, a community of gun enthusiasts focused on self-protection, and radical organizing work taking place in the Lawrence community in response to the rising Tea Party movement.

Within the local culture of social movements, he saw a need to create space for firearms education and training, while demystifying gun culture and gun use to activists on the left. He began blogging and experimenting with different ways to communicate about guns, the struggles of the white working class and poor, and understanding the historical role the white working class played in promoting and upholding systemic racism. The initial blog was a short lived venture going offline for a few years. Yet, it planted the seed for Strano to re-launch Redneck Revolt in June 2016, now expanded as a national network with a substantial online following and on-the-ground presence.

The term “Redneck” brings with it significant cultural baggage. It is both a trope rolled out to demean working, blue-collar people by elites, and a badge of honor for some on the right who believe in a certain portrayal of the hyper-masculinized, politically incorrect, gun-toting white guy wearing a MAGA hat.

In reality however the term is decidedly neither. “Redneck” is squarely rooted in a progressive piece of working class history. In the 1900s, a multi-racial coalition of coal miners fought for their right to organize in West Virginia, one of the largest labor uprisings in U.S. history. Coal company owners paid workers in scrip, not dollars, and required coal miners to shop only at approved company stores.

To make matters worse for workers, the company stores routinely inflated the prices of necessary goods. The miners — many of whom were immigrants and people of color — were fed up and began to formally strike against their working conditions. To identify each other as allies, they all tied red bandanas around their neck, and the term took root. Redneck Revolt is continuing this tradition, with participants identified at protests and community events by their red bandanas.

The broader history of the white working class is also one of oppression and terror of others through enslavement and genocide, working in collaboration with and on behalf of white economic elites. Redneck Revolt sees in this collective history significant challenge and opportunity. White supremacy is both a system that the white working class has protected and benefited from, and a tool used against all working people. Helping the white working class better understand this history and connect the dots to their current economic struggles is a big part of the counter-recruitment efforts the group engages in.

Brett M., a Southeast Michigan Redneck Revolt chapter representative, grew up working class. His family and community were hit particularly hard by NAFTA and the loss of manufacturing jobs.

“There is a lot of misplaced blame and anger out there,” says Brett. “So much of the left lives in this very sterile environment, where there is no connection to the working class.” When he discovered RR and their mission, he knew it was the kind of work he wanted to be doing.

He is not alone. In January of this year, the group had 13 chapters nationwide, and now boasts 34 branches, with 26 of those branches in states that went for Trump.

Poverty and economic hardship is a lived reality for most folks Brett and others are in dialogue with. In recent years, studies have shown huge spikes in suicide and drug abuse among working class whites without college degrees. Redneck Revolt members largely hail from the working class communities they organize within. Many members are white, but the organization reflects the diversity of the working class itself, cutting across race, class, gender, regional, religious, and political affiliations.

“You are not going to get very far at a gun show, for example, talking about dialectical materialism,” says Brett. “You say, ‘hey, the government has left you behind. We are in the same boat. We are all in this fight together. It isn’t brown or black keeping you down or immigrants. We are all being used as an apparatus of the state, and the only people looking out for working people are other working people. Isn’t it wild that so many working people supported some Yankee billionaire?”

This approach, according to Nadine Hubbs, Professor of Women’s Studies and Music at the University of Michigan and author of Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, is spot on. She adds, “If we are to dismantle white supremacy, we need to get the working class on board.”

The organization’s counter-recruitment praxis is not without criticism, namely that they are romanticizing the white working class and enabling the very complicity in white supremacy they are supposedly dismantling. Jamil, a first generation Palestinian-American, Muslim cis male who joined the organization in 2016, offered this response to these concerns.

“Real, material anti-racist work requires not only acknowledging the blatancy of privilege in our analysis, but putting our own bodies on the line. As folks working directly on the ground, we are accountable to the oppressed people in our communities. We build coalitions with them, cross-train with them on community defense, and build trust via our conduct and follow-through….Although our principles explicitly state zero desire to deny the irrefutable complicity of white folks in white supremacy, we also acknowledge the existence of nuance within that complicity. This all falls under our strategy of meeting people where they are at — one which has netted us real results.

While Redneck Revolt is not the only path…..it is one of very few which takes reactionary elements directly to task…facing down the most brazen threads of white supremacy that threaten and target folks in our community — because we see it as a shared one. The other part of the work requires us to hold our own in white-held spaces, which serve as breeding grounds for white supremacy — spaces which liberals and radicals have, in most recent history, steered clear of.”

Alongside counter-recruitment, RR aides in communal self-care amid dire circumstances. “You can’t shoot poverty. You can’t shoot homelessness,” says Dwayne Dixon, a Silver Valley Redneck Revolt member, who grew up in a military family in North Carolina. “We are about liberation. We focus on alleviating poverty, not just [on] guns.”

Poverty is seen as a systemic problem, though the organization steers clear of political advocacy efforts and electoral politics, choosing to solve specific needs as they arise. In Southeast Michigan, the group has held “Rent Parties,” wherein they’ve raised money to help families struggling to avoid eviction. The Silver Valley Branch in North Carolina grows a community garden to aid in feeding the hungry healthy food. In Kansas, transgender health clinics are run to help people receive primary care, surgical referrals, and gender affirming hormones.

For brown, black, LGBTQ, and ethnic communities, RR offers firearms and self-defense training — and armed protection when requested. RR distinguishes between responsibly owning a gun for self-defense and lauding support for the arms industry and the military. To them, the gun lobby industry and the NRA are economic elites manipulating poor folks for profit.

When it comes to gun control, as evidenced by their statement on the mass shooting in Las Vegas, they assert that pundits, economic elites, and elected officials leverage and coopt these moments for their own purposes, but care little about actual public safety. These forces are invested in maintaining gun manufacturing monopolies and policing populations, determining which people get to protect themselves and which ones don’t. This never works to the benefit of the marginalized.

In June of this year, the Somali community in Lansing, Michigan requested RR show up armed in a neighborhood thought to be under threat by ACT for America, a group that bills itself as the NRA of national security and which organized more than two dozen anti-Sharia-law rallies around the country. ACT believes Somali refugees are a terror threat. RR was not able to stop ACT’s larger protest in Lansing, but was able to repel the ACT march of terror through a major Somali neighborhood.

“Current threats are deadly serious. Our defense strategies should be too,” says Brett M. “The left has a very long history of being non-aggressive and there’s been a hesitation to use firearms (or other show of force). The overall reaction by alt-right organizations has been one of shock — when they see a bunch of folks in red bandannas, armed. They’ve been more hesitant to do the proactive things they would have done.”

Following President Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, the trans administrator for the Northeast Kansas RR branch posted this to their 1,600+ Facebook followers:

“We exist to put our bodies in the way, to get you out of dangerous situations, to guard your home if you feel threatened, to escort you where you need to go in daily life, to help equip and train you if you feel it necessary to acquire body armor for use in the home or in the street, to begin carrying a weapon for self defense, or both. Get in contact with us so that we can be ready to back you up.

We know well that the temptation of self-harm is magnified by owning a firearm, too, so do not be ashamed if you feel unsafe about the idea. You don’t need to be made any more uncomfortable than existing in this world already is for people like you and me.

We carry the gun for you. We will carry you. We’ll get through this time of increased persecution together. They can try whatever they want, but we won’t go quietly.”

The pro-gun tactics, even when requested and willfully chosen by members, is not without critique. “The fixation on firearms on their homepage struck me,” says Hubbs. “A lot of people might not get past that, people who would otherwise be interested in their political analysis.”

Since the Orlando night club shooting in early June 2016, there have been 556 mass shootings in the United States. Each year, the CDC estimates nearly 12,000 gun related homicides take place, and for every person shot, there are at least two more estimated to be injured by a gun. The individuals and communities experiencing post-traumatic stress and injury either directly or indirectly from gun violence is vast. The presence of armed protesters at community events, regardless of purpose, may trigger fear in many.

The organization’s gun stance is rooted in the belief that there are individuals and communities all across the country which feel unsafe and abandoned. The violence and potential violence against them is so real and so visceral, at a physical and systemic level, that arming themselves or leveraging armed protection from neighbors — many of whom they’ve likely never met before — is seen as the only option. If you are on your own, with the expectation that those in power will not aid you, radical self-determination becomes not so much a philosophical statement on the role of government in society, but an act of survival.

That the Somalis in Michigan or trans people in Kansas or organizations like Muslims for Social Justice or Black Lives Matter cannot reasonably and completely count on the police to protect them at protests or in their day to day life — that is a root failure that should be roundly condemned and fixed. Local governments, and political and relief organizations, are falling short.

RR members at the Charlottesville debrief were clear that they’d rather have spent their weekend doing almost anything else than holding the line against Nazis, who were armed. Dixon spoke about the gripping, traumatizing fear he felt that comes with possibly stopping a bullet with his own body. He is a parent — many of the people in the audience who had also gone to Charlottesville were moms and dads. To them, they aren’t choosing violence, so much as violence is here, it is now, and it is on the attack.

Whether or not arming oneself or joining armed protests is the only response, an escalating response, or one of many reasonable responses to a newly ascendant and unafraid white supremacy is a question, unfortunately, we are all being asked to answer.

Featured Genre: Solutions Journalism tackles gun violence was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

with Robert C. Koehler story The Cheapening of Human Life.

Peace journalism is defined “when editors and reporters make choices of what to report and how to report it that create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict” (Lynch and McGoldrick, 2005)

Originally conceived by the eminent peace scholar, Johan Galtung, the Peace Journalism model is a sources of practical options for journalists; a lead in to media monitoring for peace activists and offers a firm basis for drawing distinctions in content analysis by academics researchers.

THE CHEAPENING OF HUMAN LIFE

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM COMMON WONDERS

By Robert C. Koehler

Feb 21, 2018

The cries of terror and disbelief continue. Teenagers lie down in front of the White House to protest the nation’s tepid, stalled gun-control legislation. Parents grieve for their children and stare at the wound carved into the American soul. Assault rifles have more rights than schoolchildren.

A movement simmers, or so it seems, a week after the latest deadly school shooting: seventeen people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, many more injured. A disturbed loner — yet another one — is arrested.

It’s not simply violence, but wildly profound violation, yet again, yet again, of the deepest of human values: Life is sacred.

Isn’t it? How can this keep happening?

There’s a bigger problem embedded in the social order than our lack of effective gun laws, and I hope the movement that emerges out of the Parkland massacre makes the leap beyond anger and single-issue politics. The nation’s weak gun laws — the easy availability of AR-15 assault rifles — are, in fact, a symptom of the general cheapening of human life in American society, which is reflected in the nation’s ever-expanding obsession with war and a military budget the size of Godzilla. War always has a way of coming home.

Back in 2006, a few years after the invasion of Iraq, I wrote: “Bush’s war to promote terror — the perfect self-sustaining fear machine — isn’t just generating an endless supply of hardened enemies beyond our borders. It is also creating the conditions of social breakdown and psychological blowback within our borders. Guess what? Under Plan Bush, we’ll never be safe.”

The kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School might agree. Of course, Plan Bush has morphed into Plan Obama and, now, Plan Trump, whose recent budget proposal for next year allots $716 billion to the Department of Defense.

The problem with this, beyond the fact that this kind of spending on “defense” shrivels social spending to a bare minimum, is that planning for war — celebrating war, glorifying war — has a long-term psychological impact on a large segment of society. To prepare for war begins with belief in an enemy and, eventually, the will to kill that enemy.

But as David Grossman, a psychologist and former military man, pointed out some years ago in his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, most people have a natural aversion to killing other human beings, which is a problem for those in charge of waging war. Grossman points out that researchers in World War II discovered, based on a large number of interviews with soldiers who had been in combat, that no more than 15 or 20 percent of them would actually point their guns at the enemy and fire.

This led to changes in the training process meant to “disengage” recruits from their troublesome aversion to killing, such as replacing bull’s-eye targets with human figures during marksmanship training. The process of “disengagement” became a standard part of basic training, and its success was seen during the Vietnam War, when soldiers’ willingness to fire at the enemy soared to over 90 percent, according to Grossman.

As I wrote in my 2006 column, “Blowback from a Bad War”: “The romanticization of war and militarism within the general culture — the proliferation of ‘point and shoot’ video games, for instance, along with formula revenge-motivated movie and TV violence — expand the ‘disengagement training’ to non-vets, contributing, along with plentiful handgun availability, to a state of domestic insecurity far more serious than the threat of outside terror that Bush has turned into his political meal ticket.”

In that column, I also happened to quote the words of a certain lieutenant general who was gaining a reputation for his homicidal candor. Addressing soldiers during a panel discussion, he said: “It’s fun to shoot some people. . . . You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

The guy’s name was Mad Dog Mattis. He’s now, of course, America’s secretary of defense.

Once again, I go back to the gargantuan military budget, and the preparations underway for eternal investment in the culture of death. AsDanny Sjursen pointed out recently at TomDispatch, the Pentagon’s game plan includes preparation for conflict with world competitors at every level: from Russia and China to Iran and North Korea to the array of stateless terrorists our wars have created across the Middle East and Africa.

On the domestic front, conservatives like Rush Limbaugh shill for gun manufacturers by calling for arming America’s schoolteachers rather than controlling the sale of firearms.

Another well-known Mattis utterance — “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet” — “even made it into a popular video game,” according to Politico. When I read that, I felt the connection between militarism and popular culture settle eerily into place. “Killing is sometimes necessary” morphs into “killing is fun.”

And a disturbed 19-year-old who has just been expelled from his high school can purchase an assault rifle and ammo without a problem.

I have a dark fear that it’s all connected.

Featured Genre: Peace Journalism tackles gun violence was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Bear with me as I make an effort to make best use of Medium.com’s Publications feature. What follows is the first issue of an experimental news journal of the International NGO, Writing for Peace. Continue on to read the complete issue featuring seven distinctive voices of emerging Peace Correspondents. There will be more coming!

Editorial Outlook, The Peace Correspondent

By Elissa J. Tivona

Welcome readers and cautious optimists,

I am humbled and honored to put the finishing touches on the premier edition of the Peace Correspondent, an enduring journalistic dream of mine. My first encounter with the pioneers of peace journalism was a fortunate accident. In 2010 I submitted my research on the 1000 PeaceWomen Across the Globe for presentation at the International Peace Research Association conference. The paper was accepted and then assigned to the Peace Journalism Convention chair, Jake Lynch, acknowledged leader of the emerging peace journalism movement. My first reaction was, “The what?”

Years before, I had walked away from an established media production career. Following the Columbine High School shooting 20 miles from my home, I became deeply troubled by media’s incessant and sensational coverage. I yearned for stories to enlighten, to provide context for this incomprehensible tragedy. Instead of light I found noise: hyped up stories, produced by journalists competing for breaking news of another horrific incident. I banged hard against an inescapable conclusion: news media stoke the fires of fear; we are complicit in creating the cultures of violence and hopelessness that saturate communities.

But what I can’t walk away from are the hundreds of peace narratives that pour into my life from every direction on a regular basis. Every time I feel compelled to distribute another news bulletin, whether covering a project by Combatants for Peace in Israel and Palestine, or BloodBonds, a collaborative blood drive among Christians, Jews and Muslims in Fort Collins, I get the same response from readers. “How do you know about this? Why doesn’t the media write these stories?” Well, I’m here to say that NOW it does!

The Peace Correspondent stands at the intersection between reporting and narrative. This intentional mash-up is to provide readers with context. Peace Correspondents understand that social unrest is never a simple matter of good guys vanquishing evil-doers, not in the shocking and polarizing ways currently depicted in conventional media. We will attempt to listen deeply to voices of people at the margins and people who live at the heart of conflict and struggle, the people who are trying their best to effect more peaceful outcomes for themselves, for all their relations and for all of us.

We also commit to fact-finding and fact checking around the issues we report on. When we bump up against bias in ourselves or in others we will do our best to disclose it. We will eschew the simplistic and the outlandish. What we’re reaching for is to elevate solutions and creativity above controversy for its own sake. When we research and report these stories, multitudes come into focus — the ordinary and the extraordinary people who stand at the nexus of struggle but forsake violence. We also discover that there are no limits to creativity and to potential ways forward, the optimistic signposts for cultures of peace.

I want to acknowledge my deep gratitude to Carmel Mawle, director of Writing For Peace, who is generously providing a platform for the Peace Correspondent, and to Melody Rautenstraus, student intern, and Andrea Doray, Board Member for W4P. When we came together as an editorial board, we set a modest calendar for the first year. But our lead theme was anything but modest. We boldly put forward the theme of Racial and Social Justice. What you find in these pages are people reporting and reflecting in new ways on critical issues. Peace Correspondents stepped forward to talk about Black Lives Matter and how public schools can address a racialized America; the Water Protectors at Standing Rock North Dakota and a gathering of Christian, Jewish and Muslim youngsters from Jerusalem and the U.S, who refuse to succumb to hopelessness. But enough from me, read and be inspired by the peace journalists themselves.

VOICES FROM THE PEACE FRONT: Feature stories, the Water Protectors at Standing Rock.

1000 Grandmothers to Stand in Solidarity for the Water Protectors.

by Christinia Eala

Good morning and a warm handshake to each of you whose eyes see this story. I will pack to travel to Chicago very soon to visit my daughter and two beautiful grandchildren. I struggled with the decision to travel that way because I want also to be back at the Protectors camp in North Dakota to help with preparations for winter, but first I NEEDED to reach out to each of you who have taken the time to join this page and to “speak” words that have been on my mind. Foremost, I am thrilled to be a part of this 1000 Grandmothers stand and know that like each one of you, wherever we stand, wherever we are, we complete this Sacred Circle.

I offer thanks and much love to my sister/friends, Elissa Tivona who thought of this lovely idea, Carol Rothman, (Elissa’s dear friend from protests past) whose encouragement and organizational skills mean the world to us, and Mary Dorgan, an Irish lass who created this page for us with much love coursing through her fingertips with each stroke of the key, …and of course Holly Near, who wrote the lyrics of her song “1000 Grandmothers” which has such power and meaning for those of us of a certain, grandmotherly age. The first time I listened to it (two weeks ago, or thereabouts)) I choked on air through my tears. And still, when I listen I can’t speak through the thick emotions that arise in my throat. Thank you Ms. Near for a song that has awakened and brought forward the Warrior Goddess me and so many grandmothers.

As I write this thinking of the ‘1000 grandmothers song’ the words that grabbed my heart and attention were these:

“If you think these women are too soft to face the world at hand

Then you’ve never known the power of love and you fail to understand

An old woman holds a powerful force when she no longer needs to please

She can cut your shallow life to bits and bring you to your knees

We best get down on our knees”

http://www.songlyrics.com/holly-…/1000-grandmothers-lyrics/…

As I heard those words for the first time, I found my mind starting to wander to the many stories and songs I’ve read and heard about the strength of grandmothers and one of those brought is the story of “Two Old Women” by Velma Wallis. It is “based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generation from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.

Though these women have been known to complain more than contribute, they now must either survive on their own or die trying. In simple but vivid detail, Velma Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community and forgiveness ‘speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness and wisdom’. (Ursula K. LeGuin).

At the time that I first read this book, these two old women made me think of the many journeys my sister and I traveled together and how as children we depended on each other for survival many times; and then one day, we found we had to travel separate ways and so we did…for many years. She married and had her first daughter at the very tender age of 17 while I left home at that same age and made my way to Los Angeles in order to explore and possibly re-invent myself. I believe that my dear sister was carefully molded to become a caretaker of others, (whether this was by the Creator of All That Is or

our parents no longer matters) but that is what she did her entire life, was take care of others.

She cared for a neighbor’s wife as well as our mother admirably, and then her half-side when he became very ill. She was by the side of each of them when they crossed over. After her half-side made his Journey…she realized, at 68, she no longer knew who she was or what her purpose in this life was. I offered to show her many ways that she might find other roles, which would still be in service to others, but after much reflection, I believe she was too sad for what she never had; the freedom to choose for herself what her life would have become, and too tired to come explore with me, so she left me…her little sister, which is where her care-taking began. But that is another story. I pray that when it is time for me to transition, she will be among the first to greet me with a warm hug and show me around.

Her crossing had a huge impact on her children and mine of course. It awakened them to the REALITY that life is NOT INFINITE after all. So when I had open heart surgery they became very protective of me…over-protective. But six weeks post surgery, I went hiking with friends in the canyons of beautiful Colorado, and felt the Earth Mother beneath my feet again. I inhaled the scent of the mountain environment we were in, I listened to the sound of the wind singing through the trees in harmony with the birds and the insects, and I felt a hunger course through my body. A hunger to see, feel, hear, smell and touch everything the Creator of All That Is gave each one of us to enjoy.

So I set out to do just that, but my beloved children had other plans for me. They wanted me to stay home and stay safe but in my mind, that would make me in-valid as a woman who still has much to do before I exit stage left. As it’s said “I’ve got places to go, things to do, breathtaking sunsets to see, great people I have yet to love and hug.” So while I understand and try to respect my children’s concerns and reluctance to let me continue my explorations…explore I continue to do because like the ‘two old women’, my inner strength, that I allowed to become dormant, has been reawakened and I realized playing the societal role expected of us dear “old grannies” was just not who I am…I still want to visit the Indigenous Peoples of every nation, in every environment around the globe and do ceremony with them and eat their food and dance their dances…and fight the GOOD FIGHT with them, and each of you…and me by their side.

It was this…and so much more that took me to Standing Rock to be with the People of ALL NATIONS. As everyone I met there has said…I could not have NOT traveled there.

I love you all and I offer each of you Wicosani in your life.

Fact Finding in North Dakota

by E. J. Tivona

I roll to a stop at a roadblock along North Dakota county road 1806; a camouflage-garbed youth, toting a semi-automatic, strolls up to my rental car.

“Do you know what’s happening 25 miles down the road?”

“Yes sir, I do.” He flashes a friendly smile, and cautions,

“Well, a lot of people are walking along the road so slow down; drive carefully.” The National Guard’s equivalent of “Have a nice day.”

I’m stopped a second time by Lakota security as I turn into the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires) camp near the Standing Rock Reservation. An unarmed young man walks up to my rolled down window. Do I plan to camp? Yes, I do. He ties a yellow ribbon on my door handle and clears me to drive down an impressive roadway lined with flags from nations across the globe.

After parking, I stroll through the camp and connect with a number of proud, generous, and good-humored people. I also sense their suspicion, those whose hearts have been besieged by centuries of broken promises. The Hunkpapa Lakota and Yankonai Dakota people, who make their homes on the land spanning North and South Dakota, stand firm in the commitment to halt construction of Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline, granted by permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Richard Smallteacher of CorpWatch reports, “The company did not consult with the tribes whose lands are likely to be affected, such as the Standing Rock Sioux, despite the fact that the pipeline will pass under the Missouri River a half-mile from their Reservation.”

The Army Corps of Engineers approved plans for the 1170-mile pipeline intended to transport 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from fracking sites in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. In a public statement, Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, says, “We have laws that require federal agencies to consider environmental risks and protection of Indian historic and sacred sites, but the Army Corps has ignored all those laws and fast­tracked this massive project just to meet the pipeline’s aggressive construction schedule.”

I’m directed to Karen Antelope’s camp across the Cannonball River from the main Oceti Sakowin, where I find my longtime colleague and director of a sustainable homestead project on the Pine Ridge reservation. Christinia Eala is a Lakota elder, originally from Rosebud Indian Reservation, present at Standing Rock to protect safe drinking water into the future for her 13 grandchildren.

“This is not just for [Lakota] children, but for ALL the children. If the pipeline breaks and contaminates drinking water, everyone will be affected,” says Eala.

In fact, the original route planned for the pipeline was to run under the Missouri 10 miles north of Bismarck; however, the Army Corps concluded that the Bismarck route jeopardized municipal water supply wells. Standing Rock residents are left to wonder why the pipeline represents a risk for the people of Bismarck but not for the Lakota people.

I quickly settle into the cozy dome tent Christinia has set up with cots. I know she is eager to join the sweat lodge this evening. Even so, she has waited for my arrival and welcomes me with her unique brand of Lakota hospitality — a charming blend of glee and mischief, which I have grown to love about working together. She runs off to find a skirt so I can join her in the sweat lodge and returns with a XXL cotton print dress, which billows over my size medium body. I’m in undies, teeth chattering, and by the time we’re done rushing about, we are both reduced to belly laughs.

So begins my brief fact-finding trip. Over the next three days, I will take part in several direct actions along with water protectors. The first is the one that lingers.

Early on the morning following my arrival, I stumble from the warmth of my sleeping bag, piled high with quilts, and emerge into the nippy North Dakota haze. Once my blood gets moving, I intend to help organize the camp kitchen and sort through mountains of donations. However, I’m summoned by a call to action by Red Fawn, the daughter of Christinia’s longtime Lakota friend, Troylynn Yellowood. Red Fawn is urging us to jump in cars, drive over to the main camp and join the multitudes in an action at a DAPL worksite.

Except by the time we get to security across the river, the line of cars we were expecting is gone. Red Fawn knows the route to the worksite and so we drive. I don’t realize we’re headed nearly 25 miles across gravel, backcountry roads to intersect the slash in the earth delineating the path of the pipeline across the Dakotas. The cut is referred to among indigenous people as the black snake.

The ride takes over an hour and when we turn up the access road to the site, we are surprised to find we’re the only ones there: we joke that we are two old crones (Christinia and I), a mother (Red Fawn) and three maidens (three of Red Fawn’s young nieces, who are producing a documentary film for school). We turn the car around, park and continue walking up the access road, arriving at an active work site. We have no intention of violating law; there are no posted signs warning against trespassing. In fact there are no signs at all. We begin taking pictures.

At the top of a rise, we gaze out over several miles of disconnected pipe, laid end to end in a slash of rough roadway some 50 yards wide. About a half-mile away from where we stand, we watch a tractor grading the earth along one side of the pipes, pushing scoops of dirt across the hillside.

At one point, Christinia walks up to the nearest pipe, puts her head near the opening and begins to sing a ceremonial prayer. The sound of her voice spills out in ripples from the other end of the pipe, a haunting melody of supplication and strength. For those moments we all stand motionless and listen.

We move on, walking close to a different tractor parked in the road. Our proximity to the pipes and to DAPL equipment must have triggered alarm in nearby security forces, even though we were doing nothing more than recording video and taking photos.

We turn back and start toward the car, each of us lost in a tight clot of emotions. Two security trucks rush to the spot we just vacated and block any return access behind us. Two men get out of the truck, wielding smart phones, and for a while we snap dueling photos.

Then a lanky, balding man walks toward us, confronts the six of us, and reads the following statement.

Sir/Ma’am, We respect your first amendment right to assemble and protest. Due to safety concerns we ask that you leave the vicinity of our worksite as you are currently affecting the workflow of previously approved operations. If you do not leave the worksite, law enforcement will be called to remove you from the site.

He walks back to the truck and returns carrying two no trespassing signs. He pounds the first into one side of the county road, crosses over to the other side, and attempts to pound in the second, but it breaks in two. Undaunted, he hammers the puny half sign into the dirt and marches stiffly off. The Lakota women don’t even try to contain their laughter. We wander back and forth across the road for a short period; I continue taking photos while my friends jeer and shame these men for defiling mother earth. As we slowly make our way to our car, the two trucks advance steadily toward us. Apparently law enforcement has been summoned and the guards are heading to meet them. We know our safest course of action is to leave.

Two days later, a large contingent of water protectors return to that same worksite for an action. Their intention, much like our own two days prior, is to pray and conduct ceremony.

But that afternoon, as the crowd is dispersing and returning to cars, riot police march to the rear flank. Other authorities have set up a roadblock, preventing demonstrators’ cars from exiting along the access road. Helicopters circle ominously overhead. Red Fawn is the first to be arrested, followed by 20 others.

But five of us in that crowd (two elder women and three girls) bear witness: two days earlier the pipeline was just a string of scattered, disconnected pipe. Today it is a welded back snake creeping ever closer to the Missouri River and the Standing Rock reservation.

At the Oceti Sakowin camp, water protectors have prominently posted principles to guide indigenous people and allies involved in resistance to the pipeline. The principles detail specifics of engagements with authorities. Some statements guide practices for lawful and non-violent ceremony, deliberately free from criminal trespass. Other principles direct those intending to engage in civil disobedience to required training, including instruction on disciplined response and police liaison responsibilities. Veterans for Peace activists have volunteered as liaisons and also help demonstrators navigate the boundary between civil disobedience and lawful protest.

The lines are not always clear. Often, in the heat of action, people over-react. Sadly, over-reaction more frequently occurs on the part of police and military ordered to disperse crowds. As I observe, police and guards react out of fear and employ much greater force than is required. The blatant show of power rarely fails to incite and too often leads both sides to dangerous confrontation.

Regardless, the people of Standing Rock and their allies have reached the tipping point. They maintain an unwavering resolve to protect their first medicine — the sacred water of life.

Naomi Klein, in her book and film of the same name This Changes Everything, extensively documents the history of repeated victimization of native populations and wholesale extraction of natural resources on indigenous lands, solely for corporate profit. Klein points out:

“Our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction of humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”

How this war ends is up to each one of us. The indigenous people of Standing Rock, as leaders and stewards, point the way for all of us. However, survival will require our collective will to make the critical transition from reliance on fossil fuels to reliance on renewables.

GUEST PEACE CORRESPONDENT reprinted with author’s permission

THE FUTURE CRIES OUT: ‘WATER IS LIFE’

By Robert C. Koehler

The dogs growl, the pepper spray bites, the bulldozers tear up the soil.

“Water is life!” they cry. “Water is life!”

This isn’t Flint, Michigan, but I feel the presence of its suffering in this cry of outrage at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. No more, no more. You will not poison our water or continue ravaging Planet Earth: mocking its sacredness, destroying its eco-diversity, reshaping and slowly killing it for profit.

The dogs growl, the pepper spray bites, the bulldozers tear up the soil and a judge rules against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s demand that construction of the Dakota Access pipeline be stopped. Sorry, the wishes of the rich and powerful come first. And you protesters are just common criminals.

But sometimes the forces of corporate supremacy don’t get the final word. Something about this tribal-led protest could not be ignored, even by politicians. Initially, the permit application to build the 1,172-mile pipeline, from North Dakota to Illinois, had been fast-track through the federal bureaucracy. No matter that it would cut under the Missouri River or destroy ancestral burial grounds.

Environmental and tribal concerns were not considered. The permit was granted and that was that. But shortly after the judge’s ruling upholding the permit, three branches of the Obama administration — the departments of Justice, the Interior and the Army — issued a joint statement temporarily suspending pipeline construction . . . and, good God, suggesting the intervention of a larger consciousness:

“. . . this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects.”

Water is life? And the feds give a damn?

As Rebecca Solnit wrote a few days later in The Guardian: “What’s happening at Standing Rock feels like a new civil rights movement” — one, she said, “that takes place at the confluence of environmental and human rights” awareness.

“Indigenous people have played a huge role, as (have) the people in many of the places where extracting and transporting fossil fuel take place, as protectors of particular places and ecosystems from rivers to forests, from the Amazon to the Arctic, as people with a strong sense of the past and the future, of the deep time in which short-term profit turns into long-term damage, and of the rights of the collective over individual profit. All these forces are antithetical to capitalism, and it to them.”

This extraordinary movement is also taking place at the confluence of the past and the future. David Archambault II, Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman, put it this way recently in a New York Times op-ed: “As American citizens, we all have a responsibility to speak for a vision of the future that is safe and productive for our grandchildren.”

The world’s most powerful governmental bodies have demonstrated an alarminginability to do this on their own, beholden as they are to the military-industrial status quo and its need for endless growth. This is the maw of capitalism, which could care less about the future.

“We are also a resilient people who have survived unspeakable hardships in the past, so we know what is at stake now,” Archambault writes. “As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline.

“As one of our greatest leaders, Chief Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota, once said: ‘Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.’ That appeal is as relevant today as it was more than a century ago.”

As Winona LaDuke said of the Missouri River itself, this is a force to be reckoned with.

“Water is life!” they cry. “Water is life!”

“It is early evening, the moon full,” she writes. “If you close your eyes, you can remember the 50 million buffalo — the single largest migratory herd in the world. The pounding of their hooves would vibrate the Earth, make the grass grow.

There were once 250 species of grass. Today the buffalo are gone, replaced by 28 million cattle, which require grain, water, and hay. Many of the fields are now in a single GMO crop, full of so many pesticides that the monarch butterflies are dying off. But in my memory, the old world remains.”

So the monarch is also part of the protest, part of the movement, with its drumbeat reverberating across the planet. The tribal peoples of Earth are making their voices heard in so many ways. Their mission is to reconnect the modern world with the circle of life — a circle that much of humanity left behind maybe ten millennia ago, in pursuit of the Agricultural Revolution and dominion over nature. In the process, we’ve succeeded in changing the climate and, perhaps, establishing a troubling new geological epoch. Now it’s time to rethink “progress.”

Building another pipeline is its antithesis.

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

© 2016 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, INC.

SPOTLIGHT ON SOLUTIONS: Peace clips from around the world

Focus on Cincinnati: When Lives Matter, Listening Matters

by E. S. Gray

Racial justice is a strange construct. On the surface, it is sometimes easy to distinguish between extremes in traits — the degree of melanin, the shape of certain facial features, even fundamental differences in the way cow’s milk is digested. It would seem we are truly different; then, layer upon those physical markers the cultural variations in our language, the way we express emotion and concern, and the way we laugh at ourselves. All these things can be observed in a community, and yet at the same time we find that intentionally or not, we influence each other, by mixing not just our DNA, but our musical styles, philosophical outlooks, jokes, and rhythms. We constantly connect with each other. In fact I do not know if there was a single instance in human history where two differing communities met and did not leave having shared something.

In this very basic sense of human recognition, racial justice is a paradox. On the one hand we want to reconcile real differences, and how those differences have been historically exploited or redefined to fit a cruel agenda. On the other hand, “all lives matter” echoes back, as if to say those differences are all relative. There have been many conversations lately that pit the two truths against each other, so that “black lives matter” or “all lives matter” are offenses and attacks, rather than statements of empowerment or solidarity. Semantics seems to be the trickster in this story — the modern day manifestation of “Eshu” who walks between communities, manipulating perspectives to create conflict among gullible people.

Race is not a skin color, or a static culture captured in photographs or “traditional” styles of music. Race is a shared story, and like the grand epics of India, every generation adds a new chapter or verse to this unfathomably long adventure. We each have stories to share; some include sad, long struggles, and feelings of oppression or fear. Some are happy, involve a sense of family, security, and tradition. They shift and change with each person, which makes one single narrative (or single racial history) difficult to crystalize into a blanket statement or fact.

Even within the refrain “black lives matter”, there are layers and layers of differing understandings. Go to Ferguson and ask what this means to a person, and go to Cincinnati and ask what this means, and there will be some similarities, but many differences.

Which means that in order to understand one another, semantics is not just a trickster, it is a tool that we need to use to communicate and do what is so natural to us — leave the conversation having shared and exchanged something. If we cannot leave a mark on each other, something positive that we can value and use to remember our coming together, we will have failed.

It is important to honor our stories, and sing them to the skies for all to hear and appreciate, but it is just as important to listen. If a mass of people march through the streets crying with tears and blood that they have something to share, we risk destroying their humanity by ignoring their voices. Even if the message seems unsavory, perhaps it is our own insecurities, our own sense of separation that generates a fear of confrontation.

And it goes both ways. For reasons that are perfectly reasonable, mistrust exists between (seemingly) separate communities in our country. An action of persecution towards a person has repercussions generations down the line. Why? Because that story is told, in words, in DNA and hormones, in avoidance and interactions, to each person in that family or community. It is not that Angels keep vigorous records of our lives, it is us. From father and mother to child and grandchild. As keenly as we remember a nursery rhyme passed down hundreds of years, we can remember, vividly, the harm that was inflicted on our peoples.

The history cannot be altered. The memory cannot be erased; but the interpretation of its meaning to us can always transform. How? By adding a chapter that sheds new light on something. Do not all stories contain within them “revelations” and opportunities for change?

The imagination can create infinite variety in how our country will move forward with racial and social justice. However, we can recognize that at this point in history, we have the chance to move the story in whatever direction we want. In this sense, we could choose to celebrate this opportunity to communicate and add something to our narratives that was not quite there before. In every investigation of truth, a story is to be told, so let us ask, listen, and add a verse that marks that exchange with new understanding- with something genuinely shared.

Manuel Gray (E.S. Gray) was born and raised in Cincinnati, experiencing in his formative years the nightly curfews following the 2001 Cincinnati riots over the police killing of black teenager Timothy Thomas. Growing up he has been very mindful of the racial tension that exists in his city and cities around the country. Coming from a mixed family with members of varying understandings of race in development, policy, and enforcement, he remains motivated to find innovative ways of promoting communication and empowerment among diverse folks.

Focus on Boston: Kids4Peace Boston

by John Vernaglia

24 kids: 12 from Boston, 12 from Jerusalem: 12 boys, 12 girls: 8 Jews, 8 Christians, 8 Muslims all coming together for 1 life-changing experience. This is Kids4Peace Boston. This innovative program was created as a chapter of Kids4Peace International, whose mission is to “inspire hope” in the seemingly hopeless Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

However, the unique part of Kids4Peace is kids themselves, who are learning and doing the actual peacemaking. As Peggy Stevens, founder of Kids4Peace Boston described, it is about “getting kids to value crossing boundaries.”

Stevens was inspired to start a chapter while visiting Israel/Palestine, where she learned that the International program was turning away more than 100 enthusiastic applicants a year; so in 2011, she held the first Kids4Peace Boston session.

The Kids4Peace Boston experience begins when 12 year olds from Jerusalem and Boston meet for the first time for a two-week intensive camp experience. Not only does this camp give kids a chance to learn about each others’ religions, but also to do team-building activities so they become good friends. What has separated Kids4Peace Boston from other chapters is the continuation program, keeping youth involved through their high school years.

As Elizabeth Nies Greeley, a 12th grade Christian participant, describes, “Kids4Peace isn’t authoritative, it’s a family. It includes kids, teens and families.” This “family” only becomes more powerful through the connections between the kids and the work they are able to do together.

For Yasmine El-Kattan, an 11th grade Muslim, one of the most powerful experiences for her occurred during the continuation program when she had the opportunity to recite her own prayers in a church. “It showed me that although we come from different religions we are all connected and can coexist in this world.”

This encapsulates the core of Kids4Peace mission: getting kids to appreciate their similarities and see the possibility of greater peace.

Discussing the future direction of Kids4Peace Boston, Executive Director Sindy Wayne states, “We need to grow the number of kids involved.” At the same time, Wayne points out that current participants need to stay engaged as Kids4Peace Boston has turned a summer camp experience into a 6-year program. Throughout it all, the mission is clear. Wayne explains, “Youth can make a difference.” The program now includes an annual High School Interfaith Conference led by teens. Teen leaders s[eal at local houses of worship and participate in social justice and service projects. Their work is far from finished, but they hope to build on their already strong foundation as peace leaders in the community and abroad.

Teen leader Greeley confidently states, “I used to believe peace was possible, but now I know it is.”

John Vernaglia joined Kids4Peace Boston in 2012. He is currently a junior at Concord Academy in Massachusetts. John is serving his second term on the Advisory Board for Creative Kids magazine, where he is a frequent contributor. John’s poetry and writing have resulted in more than forty publications and awards.

FOCUS ON DENVER

Black Empowerment: What the School System Needs to Address a Racialized America

by Amal Kassir

Jen Renaldi is a self-proclaimed “white girl from Connecticut raised by hippies.” She is a Black Literature teacher at South High School, one of the most diverse schools in the Denver Public Schools system. With 74% non-White students, Renaldi says of her school: “Diversity cannot be overlooked”.

The purpose of her class, Renaldi says, is to expose her students to great Black writers and great literature. Social justice is an intrinsic part of the class. “How could I teach a Black Lit course in the US without talking about police brutality and race? This class is meant to empower Black students and inform all students.” She emphasizes that her course is decidedly pro-Black and will always be so.

Renaldi says that because her school serves students from more than 67 countries, it can be hard to acknowledge every single person’s experience. One thing the administration and her Black Lit course does ensure, however is that every student knows that his or her experiences are valid.

“Much of the material presented has nothing in common with them,” Renaldi says So she brings in a guest poet every two weeks, ranging from Oklahoman ex-prisoner poets to Denver vegan hip hop artists, to celebrate diversity and reinforce the idea that all voices are valid.

“It’s important to me to never shame kids for what they’ve been taught. I want to teach them that even saying ‘All Lives Matter’ is racist, but do so without shaming them,” Renaldi says. Renaldi believes she must address these ideas in non-threatening ways to correct subliminal racist values effectively.

“Many students don’t have a class where they get their voices treated as valid,” she says.

Anas Mohammad is a Denver-born Black Lives Matter hip hop artist and activist. His first experience of race was in elementary school.

The ideal curriculum to address race, Mohammad says that people need to “kindly take the back seat,”. emphasizing that to educate the community effectively, people must be willing to open their ears and listen. “They need to let go of the delusion of the mainstream narrative,” he says.

Mohammad references the Quran, saying that we must be “nations and tribes that recognize one another. Not what we look like, but actually understanding backgrounds and sensitivities.” Mohammad explains how an education system can achieve this only by empowering the Black voice and teaching Black history. “We need a system that does not push a Black inferiority complex and a White supremacy complex.

“There are different experiences for different people and not everyone is equal. Black people specifically are dealing with deprogramming,” he says.”

“We need a system that does not push a black inferiority complex and white supremacy complex. We need inclusion of real black history and real black stories.”

He argues that curricula must be tailored for black children specifically if they are to have that conversation in the first place. “There are different experiences for different people and not everyone is equal. Black people specifically are dealing with de-programming.”

Theo Wilson, a Denver spoken word artist, actor, and singer, echoes the belief that school curricula must be tailored to Black children if they are to deal with the race issue. Wilson talks about the early Black Wall Street in Oklahoma that was burnt to the ground by Whites after a race-riot in 1921. He explains that in the height of segregation, Black communities mobilized and created flourishing self-sustaining economies that did not require the interference of Whites. Wilson paralleled this historical event to the necessity of teaching Black children their own history. He said that to empower young Black children, we must help them understand where they come from, who they are, and the power they hold. Otherwise, he says, these children will grow up in a system of White supremacy and feel that they are unequipped to achieve the same privileges as their White counterparts.

“The White man had a 400-year head start on economic and social prosperity by the time Africans were freed from slavery, Wilson says.” He describes the systematic poverty and lack of education in the Black community as a result of having been pushed into housing projects and stripped of true Black history that has denied Black people of their self-efficacy. He explains that with only a White narrative in schools, Black children are taught that Africa started with slavery, and Black people have moved up from slavery to poverty to police brutality. Teaching this to White children is a reinforcement of Manifest Destiny, but teaching this to Black children is programming them to believe they are inferior. The only way to combat this is to teach Black children the truth about their roots, Wilson says.

To solve the racial divide, Anas Mohammad suggests a grassroots approach, inter-race dialogue as the main effective strategy. “We need diversity,” he says, “some form of recognition and acknowledgement of the role and presence of Black people, which isn’t achievable without teaching this to young people.”

Theo Wilson agrees that the only way to achieve productive dialogue is to make sure that children who know the “other side” of history. Although Wilson does not believe the racial issues of the United States will be solved, he does believe that the empowerment of Black children is crucial to helping them confront the racial battles.

Jen Renaldi says that, as a White woman instructing Black Literature, she understands how teaching Black children the voices of Black writers can help these children acknowledge the role their own voices play, how they can claim their struggles and be survivors of it. Renaldi’s Black Literature course empowers her Black students, and helps change the mindsets of her non-Black students. “This is the power of learning the story from the storyteller,” she says.

Although Renaldi is more hopeful about the racial issue than Mohammad and Wilson, the three do agree that young people need exposure to survivor stories and require the truth about their history to learn. Schools must accommodate the voices of the Black community and address the social, political, and economic realities these students face, as well as the historical circumstances that brought them there. Without this, the school system remains stagnant in addressing the racialized state of the United States

Amal Kassir is a Syrian American international spoken word poet. In addition to the war in Syria that has taken the lives of 31 members of her family, she is also a Muslim in the United States and actively works to build bridges and correct misconceptions through her poetry. She is a full-time college student, traveling artist, and waitress at her father’s Syrian restaurant. She is publishing her first poetry book, Scud Missile Blues, about Syria in December 2016, and all proceeds will go toward education for Syrian refugee children.

Welcome to the Premiere of the Peace Correspondent. was originally published in The Peace Correspondent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.