One place where everything comes together

Informed

Informed

Movie Review: I saw Vice and it reminded me why I want to move to Mexico

Reading Time: 4 minutes Almost all the political junkies out there have already seen Vice. So, if you haven’t gone, it can most certainly wait until it comes out on video. This is not a movie with the kind of big-screen special effects you need to see in the theater. However, when it does come out on video, I recommend seeing it because this movie reminds us how quickly things become history and how long history can haunt us by changing the course of a nation and impacting literally more lives than we can count.

Read More
Informed

To Hair or Not to Care

Reading Time: 4 minutes Our largest institutions and practices – military, sports and prisons – ask black people like me to conform to how white supremacist culture believes we should show up in the world. This expression of systemic racism says I am acceptable only if I conform and behave and look like a white person.

That is not equality. That is not equity. That is not inclusion. That is death. You ask me to die to myself so I can live like you.

We are on a cusp of a new year. What are you going to do differently to make sure you are not a part of systems that say people like me must conform to the ways of people like you so I can fit in for people like you?

Read More
Informed

Vice: Elizabeth Warren is running for president

Reading Time: 2 minutes Warren announced the move with an email to supporters that included a video framing her mission as taking on big banks and corporations and fighting for America’s middle class, themes that helped make her a progressive star in the wake of the financial crisis a decade ago.

“I’ve spent my career getting to the bottom of why America’s promise works for some families, but why other families, who work just as hard, slip through the cracks into disaster,” she said. “These are cracks America’s families are falling into, they’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack.”

Read More
Informed

Yes Magazine: My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest

Reading Time: 10 minutes As to you “being part of the problem,” trust me, nobody is mad at you for being white. Nobody. Just like nobody should be mad at me for being black. Or female. Or whatever. But what IS being asked of you is to acknowledge that white privilege DOES exist and not only to treat people of races that differ from yours “with respect and humor,” but also to stand up for fair treatment and justice, not to let “jokes” or “off-color” comments by friends, co-workers, or family slide by without challenge, and to continually make an effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, so we may all cherish and respect our unique and special contributions to society as much as we do our common ground.

Read More
EvolveInformed

HuffPo: Instagram Influencers Are All Starting To Look The Same. Here’s Why.

Reading Time: 6 minutes There’s no need to shame those who participate or find solace in conforming to the current beauty trends. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to fit in, but, as Engeln explained, when we’re constantly seeing images that are so far from what people look like in real life, there can be some psychological costs.

“It’s not just [that] you see that picture of someone else looking perfect and you feel bad,” she said. “Even for the person who posted that picture ― they have to contend with the gap between [what’s in a] picture they made of their own face and what they see in the mirror when they wake up in the morning.”

“Most of us do not wake up flawless,” she said.

Read More
Informed

The Grio: Black student leader sued her racist online harassers and wins groundbreaking settlement

Reading Time: 2 minutes The student leader sued Evan James McCarty of Eugene, Ore., and two other defendants, including the publisher of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, after she was pummeled with racist pictures and derogatory messages online. As part of the settlement, filed this past week, McCarty said he will apologize, repudiate white supremacy, go to counseling and join forces with civil rights organizations to help them fight hatred and racism, according to The New York Times.

Dumpson, 22, told the newspaper that this should serve as a warning to racists who hide behind the cover of the Internet or the shield of night to do their cowardly deeds, “that they’re going to be held accountable.”

Read More