Racial Equity & Justice

Racial Equity & Justice — what we offer to readers on this topic...

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Facing a Disability – One Person’s Journey

Facing a Disability – One Person’s Journey

by | Mar 15, 2022 | ,

My life as a physically disabled person has become my primary justice issue. My disability is a spinal cord injury and I use a wheelchair to live independently. I was born and raised in Japan and lived in an institution from age 4 to 10 years old. After leaving the institution, I attended a special school for the disabled kids for twelve years. The school was not integrated in that, though I was living at home, I was still segregated from mainstream society.

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 Learning about structural racism: One woman’s journey

 Learning about structural racism: One woman’s journey

by | Feb 22, 2022 |

Until 2012, I didn’t know better. I thought that the civil rights legislation of the 1960s had leveled the playing field. I thought, I, as a Black woman, had opportunities to succeed equal to anyone in America. I was living in an illusion, thinking that some people just didn’t try hard enough, and others needed more education. I believed in a meritocracy. I thought if you dressed a certain way, got a certain level of education, talked a certain way, you could, no, you would get ahead in America. Then Trayvon Martin happened.

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Faith and Finding Our Voices

Faith and Finding Our Voices

by | Jan 11, 2022 | ,

Faith is a terribly challenging experience if you take it seriously. It can truly mess up your life. You find yourself picking up the Bible and trying once again to figure out what Jesus meant by his words and actions. Some of them seem so simple and direct. Others seem to put you at risk in standing up for the marginalized and the poor. You know that if you do so it will change relationships. You are challenged to become like a John the Baptist figure and find your voice to speak. John was a “voice crying out in the wilderness!” Many times, that’s where we find ourselves.  In church work and on the political scene we are often in some kind of wilderness trying to cry out and hoping someone hears. Finding your voice, whether it is in the spoken word or the written word or in some kind of action, can be a scary thing. You expose yourself for what you believe is important, and for what you believe is being neglected.

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Giving, Institutions and Working for Justice

Giving, Institutions and Working for Justice

by | Jan 4, 2022 | ,

A sermon I heard Sunday got me thinking about a 12-Step friend, Ralph, who would say to me frequently: “Tom, give up, give in, just give.” Ralph was quite a bit older than me, and I dismissed this saying the same way I did when he told me, “Everything is just the way it is supposed to be.” I concluded his was a point of view that came with age and declining aspirations. Yet, I am growing into an understanding of this idea, but more from a sense of acceptance than the loss of capacity to imagine.

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About Tom Adams

Tom AdamsTom Adams writes and speaks on topics vital to the intersection of our personal lives with our community and global lives. He has for decades been engaged in and written about nonprofit leadership and transitions, spirituality and spiritual growth, how we each contribute to a more just and equitable world and recovery from addictions and the Twelve Step recovery movement.