We are not all free. We are not free unless all of us are free. Don’t convince yourself otherwise. This is what institutional racism and modern-day slavery look like. How do more of us move from caring in our hearts, to not settling down until transformative change has happened? In this article, the author Casey […]
Author Archives: ashley
How a City Chooses to Spend Its Money
How do you think your tax dollars should be spent? In response to the fact that Asheville Police Department gets $26,880,621 (with seemingly less than $7,000,000 going towards salaries), local organizers named some other areas that need financial attention: Fund mental health programs Fund cooperative economic initiatives Fund truth and reconciliation and transformative justice Pay […]
Police Brutality in Asheville
In case you’re not following this local incident of police brutality, abuse of power, and racial profiling by the Asheville Police Department, here’s an update from my perspective. And please follow this story, as this is the horrid underbelly that is alive and thriving in Asheville. You can find this information yourself in City of […]
People Are Murdered and Criminalized for Speaking out for Justice
Berta Didn’t Die, She Multiplied! 30 Minute cut from Sam Vinal- Mutual Aid Media on Vimeo. (Film in Spanish) Around the world, including in the US, North Carolina and even Asheville, activists are harmed, harassed, murdered, incarcerated, or wrongly convicted for standing up for the rights of the people and the land — they are criminalized […]
Talking About Race with Young Children
As a teacher, I witnessed racial prejudice in 4 and 5 year olds — explicitly racist behavior from a child who lived in a home with racist beliefs and racist behavior from children who had never interacted with other children (or likely adults) who were not white. Silence is violence… in so many different ways. […]
White Women Waking Up
[Photo credit |The Reel Network] More reflections on the ways that white women silence women of color: The Purposeful Silencing of Black Women in Educational Leadership “Naively and ignorantly, I believed that we as women shared the same experience. It wasn’t until I was under the leadership of an incredible, Black, female leader, that I […]
Reflections on Power: In the Role of a Facilitator & the Body of a White Woman
I recently facilitated a session where someone shared in the closing reflections that they felt dehumanized. For anyone to feel dehumanized by my actions is, for me, a fail. When I mess up, it’s imperative for me to own it, learn from the experience, act differently in the future, and make amends as best as I am able. […]