Note: I met Robert Awkward last year during his internship with Erin Polley and the "If I Had a Trillion Dollars" (IHTD) youth film festival. The festival invites young people around the country to engage in conversations around how to shift our nation's budget priorities from militarism and war, to supporting the resources that communities need to thrive. 

Michelle Alexander points out that mass incarceration and the war on drugs is built on the foundation of demonizing people of color, particularly brown and black men and boys. A very strong thread in her message was that in order to end the system of mass incarceration in a way that keeps it from being reconstructed, all of us must be able “to see and value the humanity in one another.” 

Niyonu Spann and I presented a keynote address at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sessions this summer in which we examined the anatomy of racism in individuals and organizations and explored how the Spirit can break through the dynamics of white supremacy to offer healing and transformation. The session was described in the yearly meeting epistle this way:

AFSC’s Sharon Goens-Bradley says that the desire to be seen as “good” causes much of the harm in the world, and that the difficulty of hearing when we’ve caused harm can cover up opportunities to truly heal.

Note: I took a walk recently with my son and partner in Tinicum, also known as the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge.

This poem is a reflection on that walk and the conversation we had. We noticed that the destruction of the environment far away is also here in our midst, all around us.

Note: I first met Jill Anderson a couple years ago at Intermountain Yearly Meeting and got to know her better at the World Conference of Friends in Kenya.

Friends Meeting of Washington hosted an event on the American Friends Service Committee and Friends Committee on National Legislation publication "Shared Security: Reimagining US foreign policy." Listen to this short audio story to hear more about the document, as well as how audience members responded to the presentation and discussion on beginning the work of creating a world that prioritizes human rights and the peaceful resolution to conflict.