November 2021

By Sara Tiana, October 28th, 2021, Imprint News Nestled in posh Santa Monica, La La Land Kind Cafe may appear from the outside to be yet another bougie coffee shop. Its ceremonial grade matcha drinks feature lavender, beetroot and rose saffron. Lattes in shades of baby blue, lavender and sea-green boast butterfly pea flower, CBD and cardamon. But there’s a key ingredient at the cafe affectionately known as La La: Many of the young people making and serving the rock candy and bamboo teas and...

By Diana Lambert, November 1, 2021 for EdSource When Sacramento State professor Otis Scott slammed his fist on the table at a Sacramento Area Black Caucus meeting in 2007, infuriated about the test scores of local Black students, no one knew he was setting in motion the creation of an organization that would eventually fight for the equity and fair treatment of California’s Black and Latino children. In February 2008 a small group of community activists formed the Black Parallel School Board...

Virginia's First Lady Pamela Northam recently organized a Road to Resilience Tour in four regions across Virginia with the state’s network of 27 trauma-informed community groups (TICNs).

While political eyes are on the November 2 Virginia election as an early electoral test for the Biden Administration and precursor to 2022 mid-term elections, the leaders of Virginia’s 27 Trauma-Informed Community Networks are building awareness and support for their work that should be compelling for the victor, regardless of political party.

At the heart of any healthy and productive relationship is trust. However, if their formative years were characterized by physical, emotional, or traumatic abuse, they can be robbed of the ability to trust others both at home and in the workplace. For individuals working as law enforcement professionals, finding ways to build or rebuild trust in the midst of trauma is imperative.

By Jackie Mader, The Hechinger Report, October 25, 2021 At the beginning of 2020, Brisandi Ruiz was hopeful about the year ahead. Her two-year-old was enrolled in a high-quality preschool program near their home in Greenbelt, Maryland. The office manager of a medical technician company, Ruiz was working to validate her medical degree from her home country of the Dominican Republic, so she could practice medicine in the United States. Her husband, Francisco Villar, had steady work in the...

By Reece Jones, The New York Times, October 28, 2021 The searing images of Border Patrol agents on horseback charging at unarmed Haitian men and women shocked many Americans last month, including President Biden. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said , “He believes the footage and photos are horrific. They don’t represent who we are as a country.” Many Democrats made the same argument during the Trump administration, condemning a series of harsh anti-immigrant policies, from the...

By Sherry Glied and Richard Frank, Fast Company, October 28, 2021 At the end of May, tennis star Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open citing anxiety and depression. A few months later Simone Biles missed a significant portion of the Olympics for reasons related to her own mental health. These cases and others have drawn much-needed attention to the toll mental health conditions exact—for employees and employers—in workplaces that go well beyond high-profile athletics to warehouses,...

By Linda Poon and Jeff Green, Bloomberg Equality + City Lab, October 28, 2021 Earlier this year, Philadelphia’s partnership with the student-led group Philly Fighting Covid Inc. abandoned testing sites in Black neighborhoods . It seemed like the latest affront in a long legacy of racism that has fueled distrust in the medical system, dating back to the infamous Tuskegee experiments in the 1930s. But Philadelphia, after a slow start, is closing out the year with one of the highest Black...

In The Black Panther movie, we marveled over Okoye and her magnificent band of the Dora Milaje, powerful female warriors. In this true-to-life depiction, Wakanda is Dahomey, present day, Benin, West Africa. Okoye is a famous female warrior and forgotten queen named Queen Hangbe who lead the most powerful army in West Africa fighting against the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the MINO also known as the Amazon Women of Dahomey. Today, we are remembering their brilliance, fierceness, discipline...

Sharpen announces a free emotional wellness toolkit for educators.

By Henry Louis Gates Jr., The New York Times, October 12, 2021 “The freedom to write”: PEN America’s always resonant motto has a special resonance for Black authors, because for so many of them, that freedom was one they fought hard for. “Liberation” and “literacy” were inextricable. “For the horrors of the American Negro’s life there has been almost no language,” as James Baldwin once noted . Recall, first, that in many states it was illegal for an enslaved person even to learn how to read...