Clare Consultation, LLCSeeing Privilege
It’s going to take a while. I don’t want to speak for blacks, but from my perspective being a black man with what I have observed in my lifetime, I will feel as though I’m going to be shortchanged because of the history behind us. I will feel that until I see some definite improvement. If they tell you that you can be equal, but you never make any gains, you’re going… Read More
Year Three Begins: Change in Everyday America
Two years ago, today I was interviewing Kate and Georgiana, #s 002 and 003 on the EX:Change. They are both women in the middle of their careers. They are both artists and teachers. I was interviewing them about change, the word and the concept that had gained such notoriety in the 2008 presidential election. Kate said this: “It’s really my strength and my weakness, this penchant for change. I can get impatient… Read More
Open Letter to LOUD MOUTH
2011-2011-2011-2011-2011-2011-2011 Well…open-ish. Excerpts really. There’s a small publishing house with a very cool name (Loud Mouth Press http://www.loudmouthpress.org/). The editorial staff has been in touch about possibilities for turning the EX:Change material into a book. Nothing has been agreed to or signed, but it’s gotten me thinking. And since, from the beginning EX:Change has necessarily been a ‘group’ project (what with the 100 voices, the embarrassment of riches in the form of… Read More
Only a Person
Yesterday evening I walked into the little Whole Foods in my neighborhood. It was actually more like late afternoon on a typically chilly, misty and too-soon-dark December 1 in Oregon. But, I needed B vitamins and am always looking for a motive to get a bit of walking. I walked into the warmth of the store, headed toward the supplement area and turned a corner to see an older Tibetan man adorned… Read More
Just Listen
Yesterday I came home, grabbed the blue nylon bag I use for light trips to the grocery store, and took off in search of … well … Rice Dream. Really – borderline hippie; soy, dairy and gluten free. It’s my latest answer to the love song of my sweetest tooth. To walk to the grocery store, I take the back steps and follow the sidewalk around to the front of the house. … Read More
We are Different & We are the Same: Voting from Here
The United States is voting. Or at least that’s an option for the next four days. Because of the way my mind works…I’ve been thinking about that. Voting. In the past 48 hours or so I’ve been in more-than-passing conversations with people – all American citizens – who, in the history of our country would not have been eligible to vote. That means they were variously (or in some combination) immigrants, women,… Read More
Columbus Day: Do You Know Where You Are?
Yesterday I sat again across a small table from Dr. Dapo, one of the 100 voices of EX:Change (EX:C blog, “What’s in a Name?” 4-13-2010). We had seen one another on Multnomah Ave. several weeks earlier. I was walking fast toward the Max Station and Dapo was driving in the opposite direction. He honked and we stopped traffic for long enough to promise to find yesterday’s tea and coffee. Dapo (as he… Read More
When our Greatest Hope is Boring
There is a quickening in human consciousness. Yep, right here in and among the species of which readers, bloggers, warriors and prophets are a part. I saw this quickening on the road and still see it daily. I heard it in American voices across the 100 days of the EX:Change interviews and daily I continue hearing it. A quickening is an acceleration, a vitalizing, a coming or returning to life. Ours is… Read More
“It says ‘Islam'”
I met Cheri Carter on February 11, 2009 in a coffee shop in Tucson, AZ. We were seated in the two cushiest chairs in the place, both hooked up to the shop’s wifi. She looked to me to be a white woman in her 60’s, carefully dressed, of slight build and great earrings. At one point, still a stranger, she leaned over to ask me something about my laptop. It was the… Read More