Diversity Equity Inclusion Committee
(formerly Cross Cultural Committee)
Dedicated to Including All Voices
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About Diversity Equity Inclusion Committee
The LWV Duluth Diversity Equity Inclusion Committee is dedicated to including all voices in League activities. This committee works to advance cultural awareness and appreciation through educational programs, dialogue and action. We encourage conversations within LWV Duluth and the community at large about the reality of racism and racial inequities. We place a special emphasis on working with the Voter Service Committee to bring voter registration, voter education and get-out-the-vote efforts to all populations of Duluth, including those that are under-represented. Committee CoChairs: Janet Kennedy, Gail Schoenfelder The committee meets one Saturday a month, September through May. |
Raising Awareness and
Visibility of Asian Americans Saturday, November 13 at 10:00 AM. Click link below to listen to the recording of this event. https://youtu.be/kZ-lWnpNzNY We will hear from members, of the Twin Ports APIDA Collective, a group of Asian Pacific Islander Desi Americans. Join us to learn about what they are doing in the Duluth/Superior area to advocate for awareness and equity of the Asian American community and what League can do as allies to support their work. Join us to welcome our guests, Pakou Ly and Julia Cheng. Heads Up: January-March 2022 the Collective is sponsoring an exhibit at the Duluth Art Institute titled “Like Me, Like You”. Watch for details as the time gets closer. |
Past Events
Reshaping Policing and Public Safety in Duluth
Saturday, September 11,10:00 am via Zoom
Police misconduct disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous people and people of color. During the past year groups across the country studied and considered options to reshape policing and public safety in their communities so that public safety systems work for everyone.
Find out about the policing reforms that the Duluth’s Community Safety Initiative (DCSI) is proposing for Duluth on Saturday, September 11, 10:00 AM, Zoom. Email Gail at gail4duluth@gmail.com for the Zoom link. Guest speaker Blair Powless will discuss DCSI’s “Proposals for Community-led Police Accountability in Duluth” and what the response to these proposals has been to date.
Saturday, September 11,10:00 am via Zoom
Police misconduct disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous people and people of color. During the past year groups across the country studied and considered options to reshape policing and public safety in their communities so that public safety systems work for everyone.
Find out about the policing reforms that the Duluth’s Community Safety Initiative (DCSI) is proposing for Duluth on Saturday, September 11, 10:00 AM, Zoom. Email Gail at gail4duluth@gmail.com for the Zoom link. Guest speaker Blair Powless will discuss DCSI’s “Proposals for Community-led Police Accountability in Duluth” and what the response to these proposals has been to date.
LWV Duluth Cross Cultural Equity and Inclusion Committee Book Read
“Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race”
November 9 and December 14
Building For Women
10:00 - 12:00
All LWV Duluth members are invited to join us for a discussion of Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving. This book takes a thoughtful look at how the average white person in the US learns about race. Since cultural competency is necessary to effectively take part in advocating for democracy for all, our committee believes that discussing this book can advance our work as LWV Duluth.
Please join us on Nov.9 for a discussion of the first half of the book through page 111. The second half will be discussed on Dec. 14. Both discussions will be held at the Building for Women, 32 E. First St., lower level from 10:00 – 12:00.
LWV Duluth is one of many local Leagues that are participating in a statewide book read of Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving.
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National Memorial for Peace and Justice Tour
The Cross Cultural Committee met on Saturday, September 22, 2018 for a special program to learn more about the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Speakers were Henry Banks, Teresa Koenig and LWV Duluth member, Portia Johnson. Several of those who rode the bus to Montgomery shared their experience and how it impacted their lives. A busload from Duluth traveled to Montgomery in April 2018 for the opening week of the Memorial to remember the 4400 African-Americans murdered in lynchings between 1877 and 1950. Their names are engraved on duplicate sets of columns, two for each county where a lynching was documented, including the 1920 lynching in Duluth of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie. |
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Civil Rights Presentation
On May 20, 2017, Kandi Geary and LWV members Gay Trachsel and Gail Schoenfelder shared their experiences on the 2017 UMD Civil Rights History Tour at a meeting hosted by the LWV Cross Cultural Committee. Important sites in the African American Civil Rights Movement were brought to life, including sit-ins, marches, boycotts, and voter drives. Among the high points shared were crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on the 52nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday; visiting Medgar Ever's home in Jackson, Mississippi; and hearing about the questions used to prevent African-Americans from voting in Lexington, Mississippi, (e.g., “Recite the Constitution of the United States“).
The trip reinforced how critical the League's voter registration work is to our own community.
Reading suggestions:
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"Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race," by Debby Irving, 2014
For twenty-five years, Debby Irving sensed inexplicable racial tensions in her personal and professional relationship. As a colleague and neighbor, she worried about offending people she dearly wanted to befriend. As an arts administrator, she didn't understand why her diversity efforts lacked traction. As a teacher, she found her best efforts to reach out to students and families of color left her wondering what she was missing. Then, in 2009, one "aha" moment launched an adventure of discovery and insight that drastically shifted her world view and upended her life plan. Note: This book is the "all LWVMN" read for 2019-20. "Small Great Things," by Jodi Picoult, 2016 “Small Great Things is the most important novel Jodi Picoult has ever written. . . . It will challenge her readers . . . [and] expand our cultural conversation about race and prejudice.”--The Washington Post “A novel that puts its finger on the very pulse of the nation that we live in today . . . a fantastic read from beginning to end, as can always be expected from Picoult, this novel maintains a steady, page-turning pace that makes it hard for readers to put down.”--San Francisco Book Review “A gripping courtroom drama . . . Given the current political climate it is quite prescient and worthwhile. . . . This is a writer who understands her characters inside and out.”—Roxane Gay, The New York Times Book Review “The Myth of Race, The Reality of Racism: Critical Essays," by Mahmoud El-Kati, 2014 “There is an Ashanti proverb that says If you know the beginning well, the end won t trouble you. In this 20th anniversary release of Mahmoud El-Kati s The Myth of Race The Reality of Racism, he poses his thesis on the concept of race and the impact of racism. In this second edition, El-Kati adds several key essays addressing ideas that are often confusing to many such as nationality, culture and ways to address man s most dangerous myth - race. His critical analysis of race, racism and the doctrine of white supremacy provide profound insight into the destruction caused to human dignity and the impact on society’s growth. Mahmoud El-Kati, a historian who taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, lays down the fundamental construct and history of race. He eloquently sheds light on the pseudoscientific underpinnings that has been built into the fabric of this nation - the United States of America.” |
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"Witnessing Whiteness," by Shelly Tochluk Witnessing Whiteness invites educators to consider what it means to be white, describes and critiques strategies used to avoid race issues, and identifies the detrimental effect of avoiding race on cross-race collaborations. "Just Mercy," by Bryan Stevenson “A searing, moving and infuriating memoir . . . Bryan Stevenson may, indeed, be America’s Mandela. For decades he has fought judges, prosecutors and police on behalf of those who are impoverished, black or both. . . . Injustice is easy not to notice when it affects people different from ourselves; that helps explain the obliviousness of our own generation to inequity today. We need to wake up. And that is why we need a Mandela in this country.”—Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times |