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We live in a moment in America where our politics is increasingly defined by race and ideas about race relations. However, what is race? What is ethnicity? How do social constructs reflect biological differences, and to what extent can any race actually be identified as a stable classification? These are issue we hope to explore, while opening the discussion to a wider and wider audience. Join us in this national conversation.
We are building a community, a discussion space, and a set of ideas that we hope can forward the discussion of race in America in a respectful, productive and enlightening manner. Stay tuned as we continue to add not only to this site, but to the conversation.
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On this week of Martin Luther King’s birthday, I celebrate the contributions made by civil rights workers, including the brave, heroic and long-lasting actions taken by Representative John Lewis. Through its grassroots actions, court cases, and advocacy for fair laws, I celebrate the civil rights movement that helped create the foundation for fair housing and open public accommodations. I celebrate the civil rights activists who got lawmakers, courts, and executive branch officials to carry out Brown vs. the Board of Education and to press for integrated, anti-discriminatory workplaces, which helped everyone in America. In addition, this week I thank the civil rights-informed public schools teachers who had the courage and commitment to teach multicultural curricula and who worked to educate all students about the historical leadership provided by all cultural groups in America.These social resources should have been available to all from the beginning of the republic, but it took the civil rights movement to make it happen. The civil rights movement benefited all Americans. And it continues to show us a way that everyone can work together for the good of all, as it inspires us to invent new ways to work together for the benefit of everyone.
We’re only beginning to see the necessary changes that must take place if we are to create a just society in all these areas. Among other things, it’s critical to: provide quality and affordable universal health care, end police violence and create just courts, expand quality public education and meaningful well-paying work (and end mass incarceration), uphold the Civil Rights Act and extend voting rights protections, end all violence against women, offer low-cost and/or free vocational and college education, create new collective business models and sustainable work options, address global warming through education and work-based approaches, create peaceful solutions to regional world conflicts, and meet people’s other needs and dreams.
I propose that all of us, from all walks of life and various political affiliations, express our commitment to compassionate and sustainable change by dressing in black on Mondays. This will be an extension of Moral Mondays. This will show how many people are working for change. Soon we’ll know that a large majority of Americans are working for change. By visually showing our solidarity, we’ll be able to work together more efficiently and to join together as we press for inclusive changes that benefit everyone.
This expresses the thoughts of Torry Dickinson, not the view of NCOR’s Board of Directors.
