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… filling in the negative space with positively everything

Wellstone Fellowship for Social Justice Open for Applications

Families USA will select one talented and motivated candidate to fill the Wellstone Fellowship: http://www.familiesusa.org/about/wellstone-fellowship.html

Through this 12-month fellowship, Families USA hopes to expand the pool of talented social justice advocates from underrepresented economic, racial and ethnic minority groups, including black/African American, Latino, Native American, and Asian and Pacific Islander communities. The goals of the Wellstone Fellowship program are three-fold:

  1. To address disparities in access to health care;
  2. To inspire Wellstone Fellows to continue to work for social justice throughout their lives; and
  3. To increase the number and racial and ethnic diversity of up-and-coming social justice advocates and leaders.

If you know of anyone who’d be interested, please share this information with them. Thanks! -G

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Frozen Out of the SleepOut

A few people have asked me how the SleepOut went this past weekend. All I have to say is, thank Science Matthew arrived there first, because I would’ve been livid at what happened.

We basically disqualified ourselves from the SleepOut because:
1) Smoking wasn’t allowed…and we’re smokers.
2) Drinking wasn’t allowed…and we’re drinkers.
3) Pets weren’t allowed…and Matthew had D’Arcy with him (the new Caroline Collective puppy!).
4) You weren’t allowed to leave the park until 8am the next day - at all - and we’re averse to being locked up.
5) It was freezing out, and we didn’t want anyone on our team to get sick.

We also had a moral objection to the fact that NO HOMELESS PEOPLE WERE ALLOWED IN THE PARK!

All the acts canceled, it was freezing, and Andrew Zarnavas and Clory Martin were playing at Leon’s Lounge; so we opted to put the sleeping bags away and go see them perform. All’s well that ends well.

The most interesting story of the evening: Matthew said that while he was waiting outside of the park, a guy walked up with all this gear; and Matthew said, “Wow! You even brought your guitar!” … And the guy said, “What? What is this?” HE WAS ACTUALLY A HOMELESS PERSON! After Matthew told him what the SleepOut was about, the guy huffed a derisive “what a crock of …” and walked away. Man, we’re right there with you.

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Post-Election Racism: What Future Are We Building?

From the Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/6114464.html)

“Someone once said racism is like cancer: It’s never totally wiped out, it’s in remission.”

If so, America’s remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama’s victory.

Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.

The student’s mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: “Whether you like it or not, we’re in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision.”

Other incidents include:

—Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: “Let’s shoot that (N-word) in the head.” Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

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