True Social Justice & Racial Equity Is Hard Work
By ShaRhonda Knott Dawson I love my community. I live in an incredibly diverse cluster of suburbs in West Suburban Cook County (Chicago.) By far, the most popular suburb of my local suburban cluster is Oak Park. It is a beautiful village, full of stunning architectural homes by famed architect, […]
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address. Like many other U.S. citizens, I see our current president as deeply flawed, lacking in empathy, racist and unable to take responsibility for his actions. But as a Black woman, I view Donald Trump as just another tone-deaf, […]
THIS IS A POST FOR PEOPLE WHO IDENTIFY AS BLACK OR ARE MIXED WITH BLACK Okay, I’ve been warned by multiple people, not to write this, because I will be vilified. And, I tried to let it go out of my spirit, but I couldn’t. After a particularly difficult conversation, […]
Around middle school, I began to grasp the civil rights movement. In a real way; not the way we teach it in school. I understood, on visceral level, the terrorism my family endured in Arkansas and Illinois. I could conceptualize the historical structural and institutional reality of American racism that was: Slavery, The […]
January 29, 2018 An interesting phrase, with an equally interesting hashtag, has started to go around: #StayWoke. This phrase was especially present during the Women’s March after the inauguration of President Trump. There are many different ways to interpret what it means to “Be Woke;” but I posit, that instead of just focusing […]
“God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.”- Dr. King, “Strength to Love”, 1963 Although I’m not a history teacher, I love history and work hard to teach true history to my daughters. One of the hardest […]
As a parent, it is important to teach my children their history. Often the opportunities to teach them about their culture happen spontaneously through conversations. My eldest daughter and I have great history lessons during our car rides. Here is one of my favorite conversations. – ShaRhonda R: Mom, let’s talk […]
Happy Thanksgiving and/or Happy Holiday Season! In the spirit of the holidays, I want to ask you a favor. Let me first confess something to you: I am exhausted. Racism is exhausting! With Nazi signs being painted on garages, racist graffiti at OPRF, and a banana, blackface, Bob-Marley Becky in […]
Recently, there has been an uptick in racism in my community. While I have been keenly aware of the dangerous racial rhetoric in our nation that came from the election of President Trump and writing and fighting to stop it, I didn’t think it the direct racism, of MAGA crew, […]
“I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.” – James Baldwin Our West suburban community has been captivated by the Starz docu-series, “America to Me.” In the series, Oak Park parent and documentary filmmaker Steve James highlights some of the racial issues that continue to plague […]