Sunday, July 27, 2025
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Author: Confluence

Informed
Confluence

Possibilities: From Tokenism to Community

Reading Time: 8 minutes Veterans of racial justice work have discovered that tokenism is often coupled with assimilation. When a person gets chosen to “break the glass ceiling,” implicit in that selection is the message that “We invited you into our exclusive group. You represent (x) (x=marginalized group). You must act like us, speak like us, behave like us and be loyal to us, what we stand for, our values, our ways, and our foundations.”

This action of tokenism is done as “the method of limited access that gives false hope to those left behind and blames them for ‘not making it.’ Tokenism is a form of co-optation. It takes the brightest and best of the most assimilated, reward them with position and money (though rarely genuine leadership and power) and then uses them as a model of what is necessary to succeed, even though there are often no more openings for others who may follow the model.”

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ElevateThrive
Confluence

I Want to be a Woman of a Certain Age

Reading Time: 2 minutes I want to be a woman of a certain age.

I want to earn my laugh lines. I want to cackle like a madwoman who doesn’t care who’s watching. I want to laugh until I cry or maybe even pee my pants, just a little. I want to find humor in things that only someone who’s seen some things come and go, can find. I want to giggle with children because I’ve learned what they already know; nothing is ever that serious.

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Engage
Confluence

Women Crowned Trump and Now They Need to Uncrown Him

Reading Time: 4 minutes “Grab ’em by the pussy.” The words will live in infamy for a very long time.
I don’t need to tell you who’s words those were, because we all know.

More shocking than the words themselves was the fact that after that audio was broadcast on national television for all the world to hear, women went to the polls days later and voted for him. White middle-class suburban women didn’t seem to care that our now President bragged about sexual assault. They followed their husbands to the polls, coasting on their privilege and voted for a man many of us think is a monster.

That one inescapable fact set us up for a Presidency with unthinkable consequences. Donald J. Trump believed he could run the board without the checks and balances that most presidents have to work under. Those checks and balances aren’t about the legislature and the courts. I’m talking about the checks and balances politicians have to ride based on a representation of the people.

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Informed
Confluence

Kavanaugh, Rape Culture, and the Time for an Important Course Correction

Reading Time: 6 minutes What if there were a groundswell of not just women but men, all calling out the entitled mentality that normalizes the displays of dominance included in every assault? There are those who lament that every small physical gesture is scrutinized and labeled, these days. I think this is a small price to pay as we try to change a worldwide culture where rape is a weapon and a silent epidemic rages, in the form of the indelible, excruciating memories of the victims, without any real consequences for the vast majority of their tormentors.

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Informed
Confluence

Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story | Robin DiAngelo

Reading Time: 3 minutes While we who are white tend to be fragile in that it doesn’t take much to upset us around race, the impact of our response is not fragile at all. It’s a kind of weaponized defensiveness, weaponized hurt feelings. And it functions really, really effectively to repel the challenge. As a white person I move through the world racially comfortable virtually 24/7. It is exceptional for me to be outside of my racial comfort zone, and most of my life I’ve been warned not to go outside my racial comfort zone.

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Engage
Confluence

Business Insider: 5 Quick And Easy Ways To Encrypt Your Life Safely In Less Than An Hour.

Reading Time: 4 minutes Just try to recall how many public figures’ personal information or photos leaked to the public over the last 10 years. And look at what’s just recently happened to Emma Watson and Amanda Seyfriend with their private photos on the phone got hacked.

In fact, the leakage of personal information has become so easily that even the FBI director covered his personal laptop’s webcam with a piece of tape. He suggested us to cover our in-computer webcam with a tape because this is an essential security step that everyone should take.

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