When the Catholic Youth Organization in New Jersey mandated that coed teams were only allowable through 4th grade, 5th-graders on the coed St. John’s Chargers basketball team unanimously voted to forfeit the remainder of their season including the playoffs. The boys on the team refused to play without their two girl teammates. After referees refused… Keep reading...
When someone we care about is in pain, we want to take that pain away, we want them to feel better. To do this, we often try to offer silver linings, or get them to look on the bright side. This is offering sympathy. The advocacy model for supporting someone experiencing trauma is rooted in… Keep reading...
Empathy–the ability to understand the emotional experience of another person–is, not hyperbolically, the beginning step to answering most of the problems we face as a society. We are currently experiencing an era of increased “Othering” in which we are encouraged to see the differences in other people, and not the similarities. And because of those differences we are… Keep reading...
Silence is perhaps the greatest threat to the safety and well-being of children. It is often thought that trying to “protect” children from adult themes or topics means pretending they do not exist, ignoring them, or talking about them in coded ways. But by sheltering children from the realities of sex and of violence, we… Keep reading...
Rethinking the Relationship Between The Words We Use, The Actions We Take, and the Thoughts We Think Part 3. The Thoughts We Think ~~~ Continued from Part 1. The Words We Use and Part 2. The Actions We Take ~~~ Civil Rights vs. Human Rights Legal rights ground legal claims to protect already established legal entitlements. Human… Keep reading...
Rethinking the Relationship Between The Words We Use, The Actions We Take, and the Thoughts We Think Part 2. The Actions We Take Continued from: Part 1. The Words We Use ~~~ Charity vs. Mutual Aid The dictionary tells us that poor is the opposite of rich, and we often think of poverty to mean simply that –… Keep reading...
Rethinking the Relationship Between The Words We Use, The Actions We Take, and the Thoughts We Think Part 1. The Words We Use ~~~ I spend a lot of my waking life in my head. I like to think. And I give a lot of thought to the words that I speak, and the ways I… Keep reading...
Moonlight is what shines on us during dark times. It illuminates the darkness. Moonlight is a film that is not afraid to show the darkness and the struggle to find a little bit of light. The film tells the story of Chiron through three vignettes of his identity and growth: young Little, teen Chiron, and… Keep reading...