by Camille Taylor YWCA McLean County, Illinois (Blank) are usually good dancers, (Blank) people smell, special classes are for??? If you’re human, you couldn’t help but fill in the blanks with an image or a word that popped into your mind. A stereotype is a popular belief about a specific type of individual based on… Continue Reading Moving Beyond Stereotypes
by Paulette T. Cross, Ph.D. Transitional Housing Economic Empowerment Specialist, YWCA Salt Lake City If someone or anyone had responded to the Trayvon Martin incident, perhaps he would still be alive today. Response methods are critical in doing “social justice” work. When do you respond? What do you say? What if the intervention is wrong? … Continue Reading Anti-Discrimination Training as a Response to Racism
by Vanessa Wood YWCA New Hampshire I write this post from my own perspective, experiences, and observations. I’m a white woman and I don’t know what it feels like to be a person of color. I was raised in a very privileged environment; I went to the best schools, had terrific opportunities, and skin color… Continue Reading Raising My Awareness about Racism
by Margaret A. Mitchell President & CEO, YWCA Greater Cleveland The year was 1937. My mother and her sisters were playing in the front yard of their Greensborough, North Carolina, home when a speeding delivery truck jumped the soft earthen curb, hitting and killing three-year-old Anita Shoffner. The driver, who was drunk and white, was… Continue Reading 10 Steps Towards Bridging Our Painful Racial Divide
by Erica Thurman YWCA McLean County (Ill.) “Excuse me young man, are you lost?” It may have been just that simple. Seven words may have made all the difference in the world to the family of Trayvon Martin. As the nation — and much of the world — looks for answers, it may be more… Continue Reading We Are George Zimmerman