Helllllllo Daily Kos readers! I’m Michelle, and I’m on the Daily Kos Equity Council. The Equity Council is a Staff (and Community!) resource that is working to make Daily Kos a place where everyone can thrive. We’ve put together a great list of content we found this month under the cut. Grab some snacks and fresh drinks, and put on your favorite playlist for reading. Let’s learn together!
First up, two pieces from our own fearless Faith, who wrote this piece on microaggressions and this piece following up on an in-house microaggression panel we held for the Daily Kos Staff. If you missed either of these, be sure to check them out. Faith is much better with words than I am, but I appreciate the effort we’re all putting in to making Daily Kos a place where all progressive folks can feel like they belong.
Related to the above, here’s an interview from 2020 with one of the panelists, Dr. Kevin Nadal, on NPR, about the long- and short-term effects of microaggressions for those who experience them. Microaggressions Are A Big Deal: How To Talk Them Out And When To Walk Away
Here’s a great piece directed at managers who want to make their workplaces safer for marginalized employees by Sheena Daree Miller on Idealist. Reducing Personal Bias | Tips for Managers
The Equity Council is hosting a second panel for Daily Kos Staff, on fighting ableism, in December. We’ll share the video and details with y’all, as well, but if you’d like to do a little reading before that kicks off, I recommend this piece from Culture Amp’s blog: Disability in the workplace: Barriers to employment & retention. Making an accessible workplace is not rocket surgery, and companies lose out on hiring and keeping great employees by not acknowledging that.
Here’s an excerpt from a new book by Kyla Schuller, The Trouble with White Women, that appeared in Slate this week: For Me, but Not for Thee: How white feminism failed Native Americans in the late-19th century. Schuller’s book takes a look back at several of white feminism’s icons and contrasts them with BIPOC activists who were fighting for actual equity at the same time. This excerpt looks at Alice Fletcher, a late 19th-century white feminist who was as instrumental in separating Indigenous people from their land and children as she was in pushing the boundaries on (white) women’s roles in society, and contrasts her against Frances E.W. Harper, the Black activist and writer who once shared a stage with Fletcher. Harper’s rebuttal of Fletcher on that stage is a work of art. While I have not yet read Schuller’s book, Harper’s and Fletcher’s stories illustrate that “for their time” is a poor defense for racist actions, no matter when they occurred. Fletcher, as well as many other icons of white feminism, were well aware of the harm they were causing in the moments they were doing the harm. Both Fletcher the living woman and Fletcher the white feminist icon benefited directly from the harm she did to Indigenous Americans.
Related to the above, and also a little bit to some links below, this is a piece from 2014 by a writer who is very dear to me, and it helps me, a white lady, every day. What I Mean When I Say White Feminism, by Cate Young.
Next is this thoughtful piece from The Mary Sue, Retellings Aren’t “Overdone” Just Because Marginalized Authors Finally Have a Chance, by Alyssa Shotwell. This stood out in particular for me:
In news of the painfully obvious, here’s Nicole Narea at Vox on how we fix the worker shortage: by fixing the absurdly and unnecessarily complicated immigration system. Immigrants Could Fix the US Labor Shortage.
Some context on this next one. As phrased by a lovely colleague of mine, “NY likes to think they did it first.” Well, several other cities (including Detroit) have, in fact, done what NYC talks about in the link below, they declared racism a public health crisis. Racism is Declared a Public Health Crisis in New York City (NYT).
Finally, a fantastic and well-researched video from Khadija Mbowe on the missing people who are ignored when we get caught up in “Missing White Woman Syndrome.”
YouTube Video
Mbowe’s YouTube channel is worth a subscribe if you aren’t aware of her work. Check out her video descriptions for even more resources, and, frequently, lists of great places that could use your donations.
Thanks for joining me on our first link tour! What have you been reading/watching/learning this week?
First up, two pieces from our own fearless Faith, who wrote this piece on microaggressions and this piece following up on an in-house microaggression panel we held for the Daily Kos Staff. If you missed either of these, be sure to check them out. Faith is much better with words than I am, but I appreciate the effort we’re all putting in to making Daily Kos a place where all progressive folks can feel like they belong.
Related to the above, here’s an interview from 2020 with one of the panelists, Dr. Kevin Nadal, on NPR, about the long- and short-term effects of microaggressions for those who experience them. Microaggressions Are A Big Deal: How To Talk Them Out And When To Walk Away
Here’s a great piece directed at managers who want to make their workplaces safer for marginalized employees by Sheena Daree Miller on Idealist. Reducing Personal Bias | Tips for Managers
The Equity Council is hosting a second panel for Daily Kos Staff, on fighting ableism, in December. We’ll share the video and details with y’all, as well, but if you’d like to do a little reading before that kicks off, I recommend this piece from Culture Amp’s blog: Disability in the workplace: Barriers to employment & retention. Making an accessible workplace is not rocket surgery, and companies lose out on hiring and keeping great employees by not acknowledging that.
Here’s an excerpt from a new book by Kyla Schuller, The Trouble with White Women, that appeared in Slate this week: For Me, but Not for Thee: How white feminism failed Native Americans in the late-19th century. Schuller’s book takes a look back at several of white feminism’s icons and contrasts them with BIPOC activists who were fighting for actual equity at the same time. This excerpt looks at Alice Fletcher, a late 19th-century white feminist who was as instrumental in separating Indigenous people from their land and children as she was in pushing the boundaries on (white) women’s roles in society, and contrasts her against Frances E.W. Harper, the Black activist and writer who once shared a stage with Fletcher. Harper’s rebuttal of Fletcher on that stage is a work of art. While I have not yet read Schuller’s book, Harper’s and Fletcher’s stories illustrate that “for their time” is a poor defense for racist actions, no matter when they occurred. Fletcher, as well as many other icons of white feminism, were well aware of the harm they were causing in the moments they were doing the harm. Both Fletcher the living woman and Fletcher the white feminist icon benefited directly from the harm she did to Indigenous Americans.
Related to the above, and also a little bit to some links below, this is a piece from 2014 by a writer who is very dear to me, and it helps me, a white lady, every day. What I Mean When I Say White Feminism, by Cate Young.
Next is this thoughtful piece from The Mary Sue, Retellings Aren’t “Overdone” Just Because Marginalized Authors Finally Have a Chance, by Alyssa Shotwell. This stood out in particular for me:
In news of the painfully obvious, here’s Nicole Narea at Vox on how we fix the worker shortage: by fixing the absurdly and unnecessarily complicated immigration system. Immigrants Could Fix the US Labor Shortage.
Some context on this next one. As phrased by a lovely colleague of mine, “NY likes to think they did it first.” Well, several other cities (including Detroit) have, in fact, done what NYC talks about in the link below, they declared racism a public health crisis. Racism is Declared a Public Health Crisis in New York City (NYT).
Finally, a fantastic and well-researched video from Khadija Mbowe on the missing people who are ignored when we get caught up in “Missing White Woman Syndrome.”
YouTube Video
Mbowe’s YouTube channel is worth a subscribe if you aren’t aware of her work. Check out her video descriptions for even more resources, and, frequently, lists of great places that could use your donations.
Thanks for joining me on our first link tour! What have you been reading/watching/learning this week?