Learn, Grow, and Improve

Hi Friends,

Normally I have something inspiring and cohesive to share with all of you before launching into a huge number of resources on many topics. I feel like the last few weeks since my last update have been full of springtime hope and sunshine as well as cold, dark days and nights (and losing an hour!) to remind me that we’re not “there” yet, wherever “there” is.

Please remember that “going back to normal” is something we need to let go of. We need to embrace a new normal, a new way of doing things that shows that we have learned something along the way and would like to continue learning and growing and improving. That’s what this work is about.

As some of you may know, my heart in this work is in educational equity, so I’d like to highlight the work of Jennifer DePaoli, Laura E. Hernández, Roberta C. Furger, and Linda Darling-Hammond, who write “A Restorative Approach for Equitable Education” (Learning Policy Institute, 3/16/21).

I feel like today’s update includes so many more topics than usual, all of them intertwined and overlapping. Check out insights below about the latest Dr. Seuss news, Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah, local events, actions, and news, and as always, resources that shed light on the systemic discrimination that our community members face every day. Thank you for continuing to engage in this work.

EVENTS/ACTIONS:
- The National Low Income Housing Coalition is hosting “NLIHC Virtual Housing Policy Forum 2021: A New Day” on March 30–31.
- Arlington County is requesting feedback on the “Affordable Housing Master Plan Review” by March 31. You can also learn more about Arlington’s Missing Middle Housing here.
- Challenging Racism is hosting “Challenging Racism: Continued — Voting Rights and Voter Suppression” on March 24.
- Maryland Humanities is hosting “Beyond the Statements: Leading Racial Equity in Humanities Organizations with Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan” on March 22.
- The DC Mutual Aid Network is hosting “Solidarity Saturdays: Building Community Through Mutual Aid” monthly from now through September.
- Sanctuary DMV and Free Them All VA are hosting “Donate your Stimulus Check to Migrant Families!”

LOCAL UPDATES:
- Martin Austermuhle writes “All Legislation In D.C. Will Now Be Assessed For Racial Equity” (DCist, 1/27/21)
- Alexandria has a robust process in place for prioritizing vaccines for its most vulnerable populations. How does Arlington match up? You can look up vaccine demographics on the Virginia Department of Health website.
- Three core organizers from Black Lives Matter DC have started a new venture called Harriet’s Wildest Dreams. Check it out!
- APS’s DEI office has a page on its website called “Equity in Action at APS” where you can see what has been undertaken so far.
- Symone Walker writes “Ed Talk: We Need to Elect County Board Members Who Prioritize Arlington Students” (ArlNow, 3/5/21)
- Arlington For Justice hosted “Let’s Talk Tuesday- Gettin’ Lucky: Educational Equity”

RECENT NEWS:
- Taylor Telford writes “Some Dr. Seuss books with racist imagery will go out of print” (Washington Post, 3/2/21)
- Ron Charles writes “The time is right to cancel Dr. Seuss’s racist books” (Washington Post, 3/2/21)
- I will also point back to one of my posts from March 6, 2019 that called attention to the problematic depictions in Dr. Seuss books. This has obviously been a problem longer than that.
- Michele L. Norris writes “Opinion: The royal family saga is a mirror of America” (Washington Post, 3/9/21)

ALLYSHIP and SELF-WORK:
- A Challenging Racism newsletter shared about Jelani Memory and his company A Kids Book About, which includes A Kids Book About Racism, A Kids Book About Systemic Racism, and A Kids Book About White Privilege, among other impactful titles.
- America & Moore have a “21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge” (2014)
- The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
- Margaret Sullivan writes “Some journalists are debating when it’s okay to use the n-word. But this one should be easy.” (Washington Post, 2/25/21)
- Matthew Yglesias writes “Not all ‘anti-racist’ ideas are good ones. The left isn’t being honest about this.” (Washington Post, 2/23/21)
- Michael Gerson writes “Opinion: The GOP is now just the party of white grievance” (Washington Post, 3/1/21)
- Griff Witte, Abigail Hauslohner and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux write “In the shadow of its exceptionalism, America fails to invest in the basics” (Washington Post, 3/13/21)
- Chris Moody writes “The lynching that Black Chattanooga never forgot takes center stage downtown” (Washington Post, 3/11/21)
- Ariel Aberg-Riger writes “‘Solidarity, Not Charity’: A Visual History of Mutual Aid” (CityLab, 12/22/20)
- Liz Vinson writes “History Uncovered: Virtual tour of Richmond, Va., reveals hidden suffering of Black community” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 3/12/21)
- Derrick Johnson and Geoffrey Starks write “We have to close the digital divide. That means internet access for everyone” (CNN, 3/9/21)
- EmbraceRace shared that its Resources are searchable by type and topic.

ANTI-ASIAN RACISM:
- Marian Liu and Rachel Hatzipanagos write “‘Nobody came, nobody helped’: Fears of anti-Asian violence rattle the community” (Washington Post, 2/25/21)

NATIVE AMERICANS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE:
- Congratulations to Deb Haaland on being named Secretary of the Interior! The Lakota People’s Project shared “Chase and Company Dissect the Importance of Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior”
- Donald Liebenson reviews Kliph Nesteroff’s We Had a Little Real Estate Problem (Washington Post, 2/22/21)
- Day of Empathy Roundtable Discussion 2021 regarding criminal justice reform (shared by Lakota People’s Law Project)
- Vox hosted “How the US poisoned Navajo Nation” (10/12/20)

HOUSING, POVERTY AND ENVIRONMENT:
- Emily Holden, Caty Enders, Niko Kommenda and Vivian Ho write “More than 25m drink from the worst US water systems, with Latinos most exposed” (The Guardian, 2/26/21)
- Of particular interest to those serving immigrant families, the public charge rule is no longer in effect (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 3/15/21)
- Paul Schwartzman writes “How George Floyd’s death is fueling a push for affordable housing in mostly White parts of D.C.” (Washington Post, 3/1/21)
- Michael E. Ruane, Rebecca Tan and Paul Duggan write “More than 1 million coronavirus cases reported in D.C., Maryland and Virginia” (Washington Post, 3/1/21)
- Christopher Ingraham writes “Homes in poor neighborhoods are taxed at roughly twice the rate of those in rich areas, study shows” (Washington Post, 3/12/21)
- Linda Poon writes “Housing Discrimination Made Summers Even Hotter” (CityLab, 1/22/20)
- Kriston Capps and Christopher Cannon write “Redlined, Now Flooding” (CityLab, 3/15/21)
- Kriston Capps writes “To Tackle Homelessness, Santa Fe Found a Better Plan” (CityLab, 3/4/21)
- Brentin Mock writes “What It Will Take to Close the Race Gap in Home Appraisals” (CityLab, 3/3/21)
- Alexandra Villarreal writes “Undocumented Texans are reeling from last month’s storm — and they’re cut off from federal aid” (The Guardian, 3/9/21)
- Jacqueline Simmons writes “My Family’s Long-Gone Texas Land Shows How Black Wealth Is Won and Lost” (CityLab, 3/11/21)
- Jason Grotto writes “How Unfair Property Taxes Keep Black Families From Gaining Wealth” (CityLab, 3/9/21)
- Jerusalem Demsas writes “Why people are getting evicted for calling 911” (Vox, 3/15/21)
- Andre Perry writes “COLUMN: The American Rescue Plan will halve child poverty, but we haven’t won the second War on Poverty yet” (The Hechinger Report, 3/16/21)

HEALTH AND VACCINE ACCESS:
- Gregg Gonsalves, Amy Kapczynski and David Herman write “We’ll never reach herd immunity if we don’t vaccinate more non-White people” (Washington Post, 2/26/21)
- Karen Bass, Marc Morial and Cheryl Grills write “Opinion: Vaccine hesitancy is not the problem among people of color. It’s vaccine access.” (Washington Post, 3/9/21)
- Sarah Holder writes “Mental Health Is A Matter of Public Health, Too” (CityLab, 3/3/21)
- Fola Akinnibi and Sarah Holder write “‘All the Systems Failed’: Inside America’s Mental Health Crisis” (CityLab, 3/9/21)
- Elizabeth Yuko writes “Why Are Black Communities Being Singled Out as Vaccine Hesitant?” (Rolling Stone, 3/9/21)
- Tanvi Misra writes “The Link Between Immigration Enforcement and Babies’ Health” (CityLab, 3/10/21)

EDUCATION:
- Javeria Salman writes “When students research the inequality in their own schools” (The Hechinger Report, 1/27/21)
- Jill Barshay writes “PROOF POINTS: New answers to old questions about special education” (The Hechinger Report, 2/1/21)
- Neal Morton writes “If schools don’t overhaul discipline, ‘teachers will still be calling the police on our Black students’” (The Hechinger Report, 2/1/21)
- Javeria Salman writes “How one school is coping with mental health: Social workers delivering technology, food and counseling to kids at home, and open office hours all day — even when school is out” (The Hechinger Report, 2/24/21)
- Hannah Natanson writes “A civil rights hero lacked a historical marker. Then a class of Virginia fourth-graders spoke up.” (Washington Post, 2/24/21)
- Julianne McShane writes “She’s the only Black kid in her fifth-grade class. She spoke up when slavery wasn’t included in a lesson plan.” (The Lily, 2/23/21)
- Moriah Balingit, Hannah Natanson and Yutao Chen write “As schools reopen, Asian American students are missing from classrooms” (Washington Post, 3/4/21)
- Petula Dvorak writes “Not every student is Christian. So why don’t all school districts recognize that?” (Washington Post, 3/4/21)
- Perry Stein writes “In D.C., fewer restrictions for private schools mean middle- and high-schoolers get more in-person learning” (Washington Post, 3/4/21)
- Cat Zakrzewski writes “The Technology 202: Coronavirus relief bill includes more than $7 billion to target the ‘homework gap’” (Washington Post, 3/10/21)
- Toluse Olorunnipa and Moriah Balingit write “Biden’s push for equity faces critical test amid shifting strategies to open schools” (Washington Post, 3/14/21), particularly starting with the section titled “Old inequities, compounded”
- Desiree Carver-Thomas, Melanie Leung and Dion Burns write “California Teachers and COVID-19: How the Pandemic Is Impacting the Teacher Workforce” (Learning Policy Institute, 3/4/21)
- Andre Perry writes “Student Debt and the Disregard for the Black Middle Class” (CityLab, 3/5/21)
- The Learning Policy Institute has a series called “Education and the Path to Equity.” The most recent post is by Janel George called “Federal Action Removes Long-Standing Obstacle to School Integration” (Learning Policy Institute, 3/3/21).
- The Leading Equity Center hosted its Leading Equity podcast, Episode 181 “Why In-school Suspension is Not the Answer to School Discipline with Dr. Tracy Piper”
- James Bridgeforth and Steve Desir write “OPINION: When it comes to reopening schools, it’s time for leaders to listen to Black families” (The Hechinger Report, 3/8/21)
- A group member shared the recent Virginia Equity Center study “Do Virginia Schools Teach Both Black and White Students How to Read?”
- Kareem Weaver writes “A moment for humility and a new path forward on reading” (National Council on Teacher Quality, 1/28/21)
- Danielle Dreilinger writes “An Illinois district proved gifted programs can be racially diverse” (The Hechinger Report, 3/16/21)

GENDER AND IDENTITY:
- Samantha Schmidt writes “1 in 6 Gen Z adults are LGBT. And this number could continue to grow.” (Washington Post, 2/24/21)
- Sian Beilock writes “Why I worry remote schedules could mean fewer women in the office” (Washington Post, 3/3/21)
- Tafeni English writes “Women’s History Month: Just as in the civil rights movement, Black women are leading the way in today’s social justice activism” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 3/10/21)
- Equality Virginia connects the dots between anti-racism and gender justice work.

GOVERNMENT AND VOTING:
- Annie Linskey writes “Many of Biden’s nominees of color run into turbulence in the Senate” (Washington Post, 2/24/21)
- Monica Hesse writes “Rand Paul’s ignorant questioning of Rachel Levine showed why we need her in government” (Washington Post, 2/26/21)
- Ovetta Wiggins writes “How references to structural racism got cut from a Md. bill on health disparities” (Washington Post, 3/2/21)
- Rebecca Tan writes “A Latina lawmaker spoke about racism on Zoom. Over giggles, people discussed her accent.” (Washington Post, 3/3/21)
- Nancy Abudu writes “The Spirit of John Lewis: The passion and commitment of a voting rights icon call us to action” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 3/5/21)
- Aris Folley writes “Advocates warn restrictive voting bills could end Georgia’s record turnout” (The Hill, 3/6/21)
- The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a report on “Overcoming the Unprecedented: Southern Voters’ Battle Against Voter Suppression, Intimidation, and a Virus”

BUSINESSES AND EMPLOYMENT:
- Nitasha Tiku writes “Google’s approach to historically Black schools helps explain why there are few Black engineers in Big Tech” (Washington Post, 3/4/21)
- Angela R. Riley, Sonia K. Katyal and Rachel Lim write “Opinion: The Jeep Cherokee is not a tribute to Indians. Change the name.” (Washington Post, 3/7/21)
- Reed Albergotti writes “She brought diverse skin tones emoji to the iPhone. Now she’s suing Apple.” (Washington Post, 3/10/21)

CRIMINAL SYSTEM:
- Michael J Moore writes “OPINION: Police reform is useless unless it helps those in prison, too” (The Hechinger Report, 2/26/21)
- Jim Daley writes “Killings by Police Declined after Black Lives Matter Protests” (Scientific American, 3/1/21)
- Drew Harwell writes “Home-security cameras have become a fruitful resource for law enforcement — and a fatal risk” (Washington Post, 3/2/21)
- DeVitta Briscoe writes “Opinion: I’ve lost three loved ones to gun violence. Only the one killed by police did not get justice.” (Washington Post, 3/4/21)

Onward together!

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow.