July 2016

This post first appeared at Waging Nonviolence . “It’s okay mommy…. It’s okay, I’m right here with you…” Those were the words of 4-year-old Dae’Anna, consoling her mother Lavish Reynolds after she witnessed the police shoot and kill her boyfriend Philando Castile. Those words are now scarred into the psyche of America, much like words that came before it: “Hands up, don’t shoot.” “I can’t breathe.” “It’s not real.” [For more of this story, written by Kazu Haga, go to ...

What happens to you, emotionally and psychologically, when you watch the news? What happens when you hear of devastating news within your family, at your workplace, or in society at large? For many of us, the first response is often shock, then fear, and perhaps anger or resentment. For individuals who have a history of trauma, primarily severe trauma, repeatedly watching the news or hearing of traumatic news can cause the individual to regress into further trauma symptoms and sometimes a...

Dehvon Davies remembers the mood of last Thursday’s protest in Dallas, right before shots rang out that would lead to the deaths of five police officers . “Most of the people who kind of seemed like citizens, like your regular person who came to join, were very calm,” says Davies, who identifies as multiracial and grew up in a suburb of Dallas. The speakers, on the other hand, “were very passionate, and they shared personal experiences, which they were angry about and you could see that.”...

Naja Tunney’s home is filled with books. Sometimes she will pull them from a bookshelf to read during meals. At bedtime, Naja, 5, reads to her 2-year-old sister, Hannah. “We have books anywhere you sit in the living room,” said their mother, Cheryl Tunney, who curls up with her girls on an oversized green chair to read stories. Naja and Hannah are beneficiaries of Reach Out and Read, an early intervention literacy program that collaborates with medical care providers to provide free books...

Political re-alignment happens. Throughout American history, new coalitions of interests periodically take shape in an evolving society and economy. When these new arrangements form — often in unlikely configurations — it creates opportunities for new paradigms to emerge, which in turn shape large-scale policy efforts. It happened after the Great Depression in the 1930s, again in the 1960s with the civil rights movement, and, many argue , that it is happening again today. And when political...

Bartenders were quick to stop a lecherous man’s advances on a woman sitting alone in a bar at ChurchKey in Washington, D.C., last week. She seemed uncomfortable when he put his arm around her. So when he tried to kiss her, one of the bar managers said , “Don’t you think you’re getting a little aggressive there?” The bartenders checked with the woman while he was in the bathroom. She said she “was not really interested but didn’t know how to get out of the situation,” according to the...

Triggers domestic violence survivors face, and how to get through them A survivor might be able to escape a violent partner. But they may experience traumatic stress afterward, including triggers, or unsettling sensory reminders of previous trauma. “A trigger is some form of stimuli that would precipitate a recollection from a person’s past that impacted one of their senses,” explains Mark D. Lerner, Ph.D., a clinical and forensic psychologist, traumatic stress consultant and author of It’s...

Is there any way to improve race relations? Re-watching the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club might help a bit. In one study , white people who watched the movie while empathizing with its characters—all strong, complex Asian-American women—were less likely to be biased against a group labeled “them” in a computer game, as opposed to “us.” Or, we could have white people play dodgeball on a teams full of sportsmanlike African Americans—that too, has shown to reduce bias. These are just a few...

Strengthen city support for schools. Empower parents and community members. Increase access to and opportunities for neighborhood resources. Those are the three most important things that Philadelphia residents want from Mayor Jim Kenney's community schools initiative, findings based on months of discussions with stakeholders and the Mayor's Office of Education. On Wednesday the office released a report on its findings after 14 roundtable discussions with principals, teachers, students,...

It’s not an exaggeration: It really is getting harder to move up in America. Those who make very little money in their first jobs will probably still be making very little decades later, and those who start off making middle-class wages have similarly limited paths. Only those who start out at the top are likely to continue making good money throughout their working lives. That’s the conclusion of a new paper by Michael D. Carr and Emily E. Wiemers, two economists at the University of...

Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has an unwavering vision of the future she wants to live into. Her most recent challenge "…To forge new and unconventional partnerships with the goal of building a Culture of Health that benefits all" provides a strategy for living into a safer, healthier community. Her challenge hit home for me given a recent experience I had. Part of the funds we received from the MARC grant were allocated to holding a 2-day workshop in managing...

Healthy relationships, parenting and family financial management classes are coming to Grimes County thanks to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension’s Family and Community Health Unit. Introducing the program, “Strengthening Families in the Brazos Valley” (SFBV), Thursday, July 7, at the Grimes County Annex in Navasota was Parent Education Program Coordinator Laurie Naumann who said, “What goes on in the family unit affects everything else.” The informal gathering offered city and county...