Category: change
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We are marching
In the past two years, some 20 percent of all Americans have attended a rally or protest or march, reports the Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation. Plus, the foundation’s poll was conducted before the gun violence demonstrations in March and the teacher walkouts in April. The top reason for protesting? Women’s rights, according to the summer…
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Take what you want
“Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want…,” says Ava DuVernay, director of A Wrinkle in Time and Selma. “It’s unfortunate, and it has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed.” Ava DuVernay will speak in Dallas on…
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Emma’s chipping at stone walls in Africa
My niece Emma is coaching a basketball team, cooking chocolate chip cookies and applying band-aids. In Namibia in Africa. Where she is a Peace Corps volunteer. Emma, who played basketball in college and loves to cook, has filled in for a coach at a youth league semi-final game and made cookies for the nurses at…
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Every great dream
“With rare courage, she led over 300 Negroes up from slavery to freedom,” reads a bronze plaque honoring Harriet Tubman. It is placed at the entrance of the Auburn Courthouse in Auburn, New York. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer,” Harriet Tubman once said. “Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience…
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Very bad injustice
When I attended a Girl Scout book club meeting earlier this summer, we discussed the book Who Was Harriet Tubman? by Yona Zeldis McDonough. We learned that Harriet Tubman had to leave her parents when she was six-years-old because she was “hired out” to work for a weaver. When Harriet dropped the yarn, she was…
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Miss America without her swimsuit
The Miss America pageant is scrapping the swimsuit competition, according to an article in the June, 6, 2018, issue of The Dallas Morning News. “We are not going to judge you on your outward appearance,” explained Gretchen Carson, chairwoman of the Miss America Organization. Instead, the organization will focus on women’s talents, intelligence and ideas.…
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Redefining the word princess
Meghan Markle is a biracial, divorced, 36-year-old American feminist, says Sophie Gilbert at TheAtlantic.com. Millions may have tuned in because of fascination with royal tradition, but what we witnessed was “the redefinition of the word princess.” It’s about time we redefined the word!
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An open mind
The last poem in Naomi Shihab Nye’s book A Maze Me is very short. My mind Is always open. I don’t think there’s even a door.
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Amazed forever
When she was in junior high, people always asked the poet Naomi Shihab Nye what she wanted to be when she grew up. In her book A Maze Me, Nye writes that they never asked her “who or how do you want to be.” And, she adds, “I might have said, ‘Amazed forever.’ I wanted…
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Your children will be fine
Long ago, when my children were young, I read a reassuring article. Your children are going to be fine, the author stressed. However, she added, you will never be the same. And, I know for sure that my children have helped me become a better person. “It is not until you become a mother that…