The ROOTS Project, Inc

Rising Over Oppression Through Solidarity Visit us at www.inclusiveroots.org

[therootsproject]

Life among the Yanomami: An isolated yet imperiled Amazon tribe.

The Yanomami tribe has official protection, but its large reserve in Brazil is coveted by mining companies and large farming enterprises with political clout.

[therootsproject]

"I am not a quiet person. But I can use quiet. To let myself choose quiet is to value my voice, my time, my energy, my words. It is to know that if the words are not there, they will come. To let myself choose quiet is to know that, sometimes, the most important thing is not to change or teach unwilling others, but to take care of myself. Sometimes the loudest thing we can do—the most generative, most disruptive, most rambunctious, most radical, most revolutionary thing we can do—is give ourselves what we need. Time. Space. Rest. Energy. Love. Quiet. Quiet can be useful. I know how to use it, and I’m glad." -MECCA JAMILAH SULLIVAN 

[therootsproject]

Cause really everyone can change the world "People think that if they can’t tackle all of the world’s problems and make it all better overnight, there’s no purpose. I totally disbelieve that. I believe that every action really does contribute to change, and the power that each and every one of us has to decide whether we want to be participants in creating the world we live in or we choose — and this is also a choice that we pretend isn’t — we choose to do nothing."

[therootsproject]

Dave Chappelle Maya Angelou Iconoclasts

[stefwith1f]

A thing that starts happening with uncomfortable frequency, when you start a thing, is that you have to ask for money. A lot. Asking for money still strikes a big portion of my brain as anathema, but here we are. 

The bottom line, the real, no-bullshit bottom line is: we can’t run our program this summer if we can’t help subsidize the cost of the program for some of our students whose schools just don’t have money for summer programs in their budget.

If we can’t lift those students, we can’t run the program. No students get to go. 

It is maddening to be writing and researching programs about the effect of class and socioeconomic status on the privileges afforded to us from a very young age while simultaneously like, playing the home game . While saying, sorry, kid. Your school doesn’t have a spare $700 lying around to send you to camp, so you miss out on exploring your own personal story and learning to value it AND your peers’ stories. Empathy: who needs it?

So, you miss out on learning techniques for relaxation and self-care. Good luck on the PSATs, SAT, college apps, the job you probably have, and just generally being a teenager in the world. 

So, you miss out on picking up tools to fight bullying. I guess we’ll amend that catchy slogan to: Hey. Look. It’ll probably get better, I guess?

I am livid, and stressed out (and I KNOW the damn mindfulness practices!) and heartbroken that this whole thing hinges on money. Stupid money. 

And I look at things like the TAH Kickstarter, or VMars, or Middleman or Paul & Storm, and I get it! I super get it. I donated to a few of those. But it has been hurting me to see people raising money and being so overwhelmed by donations that they have to come up with new premiums. To see a torrent of cash, a SLIVER of which would instantly solve all of our money problems for the rest of the year, plumb knock them down with its force. 

So. Right! I was going to ask you for money. But … I’m not going to. I’m going to just make it easy for you to give if you want to.

I’ve put the link up. You can donate there using Paypal, or a credit card processed securely by same. If you have a coin jar you want to cash in for us, or can only donate by check, or if your office has some money to give - get in touch with me: stefstein at gmail. We can talk details.

Take a look at our site, or the specific page for our summer program, just to get an idea of what we’re about. 

And if you can’t spare anything (and believe me. I can’t even spare anything for us right now. It sucks!), please pass the link around.

Look, I’m not saying to sneak into wherever your neighborhood millionaires hang out and carve it into the mahogany walls of the restrooms, but… actually, wait, I am totally saying that. 

Did you know where the millionaires hung out this whole time? Wow, I don’t know how to feel about that. Hit up those millionaires, I guess.

So. Thanks. If the most you can do is wish us luck? Honey, right now, I’ll take that. I’m hoping this story turns out to be a hacky movie, because at least that way I know this Dark Night of the Soul turns into a happy ending, with us triumphant. 

Triumph, in this case, would look a lot like a bunch of high school kids sitting around a campfire.

And goddammit, I want it more than anything.

[therootsproject]

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

[therootsproject]

“We are experiencing a moment in history,” Morris explained."A time and a place where parents are working together, learning together, how best to advocate for their children and celebrate their individuality.”

Learn more about Lindsay Morris’ photo series and Kickstarter campaign.

[therootsproject]

We can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy. But we cannot have both.

Louis Brandeis (1856-1941)

[therootsproject]

Illustration by Maurice Sendak from 'Open House for Butterflies' by Ruth Krauss. Click image for more.

[therootsproject]

"When we deny women and girls representation, we put them in ever smaller boxes," she wrote. "And when we limit their potential, we limit the potential of our culture as a whole. When we limit the contributions of half our society, we cut our potential in two." THERE’S THIS PERVASIVE NOTION THAT WHITE MALE IS THE, LIKE, THE BASIC MODEL HUMAN AND ANYTHING NOT WHITE MALE IS A VARIANT EDITION She added, "If superheroes are meant to reflect the best of us, they should reflect the best of all of us, especially as that message can become confusing, and we can internalize the idea that heterosexual white males are the best of us."

Alex Abad-Santos ,  Marvel is realizing straight white guys aren't the only ones who can save the world

[therootsproject]

Marvel is realizing straight white guys aren't the only ones who can save the world

"When we deny women and girls representation, we put them in ever smaller boxes," she wrote. "And when we limit their potential, we limit the potential of our culture as a whole. When we limit the contributions of half our society, we cut our potential in two." THERE’S THIS PERVASIVE NOTION THAT WHITE MALE IS THE, LIKE, THE BASIC MODEL HUMAN AND ANYTHING NOT WHITE MALE IS A VARIANT EDITION She added, "If superheroes are meant to reflect the best of us, they should reflect the best of all of us, especially as that message can become confusing, and we can internalize the idea that heterosexual white males are the best of us."

 Read More

[therootsproject]

"Today Cinco de Mayo is celebrated more in the US than in Mexico; and many Mexicans have come to resent the holiday as a result of its warped appropriation of Mexican culture."

[therootsproject]

JULIET “We’re trained from a very young age to search for clues about money in the slightest details. And, of course, money matters. It would be untrue to say we spent an afternoon telling each other’s stories and ‘got past that whole difference in class thing.’ But when you tell someone’s story, that’s something precious, and you have to take care of it, you have to take care of them. Afterward, as my partner was making me laugh during all the ‘serious face’ photos, I was really grateful that he had taken as much care with my story as I tried to with his.”

A Tale of Two Schools, 

[therootsproject]

ADAM “As a kid, you’re unaware that there are people who don’t have what you have. Then you realize, Oh, my God, there are people who don’t have anything like what I have. And you realize you’ve been given an unfair advantage. It’s my responsibility to use that advantage for social justice and to make the world a better place.”

The Tale of Two Schools, 

[therootsproject]

The Tale of Two Schools

"University Heights High School is on St. Anns Avenue in the South Bronx, which is part of the poorest congressional district in America, according to the Census Bureau. Six miles away is the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, with its arched stone entrance and celebrities’ children and $43,000-a-year tuition. Eight years ago, as part of a program called Classroom Connections, students from the schools began exchanging letters, which eventually led to a small group from University Heights visiting Fieldston for a day. “At the time in our school, these were tough street kids,” said Lisa Greenbaum, who has been teaching English literature at University Heights for 10 years. “They walked into Fieldston, and they were just overwhelmed. They couldn’t imagine that this was just minutes from where they lived, and they never even knew about it. One kid ran crying off campus. It made them so disheartened about their own circumstances.”

[therootsproject]

"What happens when you pay two monkeys unequally? Watch what happens."

Because inequality is unbearable. 

[therootsproject]

"We need to see people other than ourselves in order to empathize. If we don’t live around others we do ourselves and our society damage because our ability to relate becomes impaired. It’s easy to demonize, or simply dismiss, people you don’t know or see. It’s in this context that we can keep having inane conversations about the “habits” and “culture” of the poor and “inner city” citizens. It’s nearly impossible to commiserate with the unseen and unknown.”

Charles M. Blow,  The Self-Sort