As an African American woman, I can speak to my own reasons for avoiding talking about money. To get excited about flourishing in capitalist models calls integrity into question every time! Money does and always will manifest as the whip of my ancestors. I have often been faced with the intentional choice to avoid the “Devil’s handshake” (when I am asked to give something of my mission and vision up to obtain the capital to survive). Therefore, part of my “wake work” is to consider money as something generative, to transform my relationship to money so that I may achieve, steward, and facilitate the reparations and social justice I want to see in the world
Read moreLiberation from a Living Systems View: Women, Leadership, & Feminism
For the most part among feminist thinkers, equity and justice resonates. We want systems that uphold these values. To work toward equity and justice, we have to be in relationship with ourselves first (knowing our personal values, goals, and aspirations) and pursue knowledge from those communities we see ourselves advocating for or call ourselves a member. Interpersonally, we have to work first and foremost on relationship: communication, working with, and sharing space of all kinds (labor, emotional, psychological, mental, and vision/aspiration). And at the institutional level, we must find our points of intersection, learn how to be in better relationship at those intersections, and learn to follow when it is time to fall back.
Read moreGwendolyn VanSant and Tuti Scott on Embodied Leadership
By working intentionally with high impact cohorts of women leaders and through trainings with organizations, I know we can shift the tide. People are ready for systems change. People are owning that our systems don’t work, owning all the “isms”. Now it’s just figuring out how to be brave enough to move through them. This is the time we’re in: people have to act, and there needs to be some guidance. Anybody doing anything positive and well-intentioned is better than nothing. Then we can get organized to do the really powerful work.
Read moreCoalition Building Always Starts At Home
True collaboration takes time, attention, and intention. So often we feel the urgency in our racial and social justice organizing and cannot wait. Both are true. We all must work while educating, self-assessing, and building relationship... and there is no time to spare in any relationship: home, work, and government
Read moreWomen’s Advocacy Day Remarks at Massachusetts State House 2016
We are women living well above and well below the poverty line, women of African American heritage, women who are transgender, women who are of Latina heritage, women of the millennial generation, women of Muslim faith, women seeking refuge in our new country, women with disabilities, women of European descent, women who identify as survivors or in recovery. And all of our voices and collective wisdom are needed… We should speak whenever, however we can because now, more than ever, I am convinced women will save the world alongside our counterpart at board tables, in the workplace, right here in the State House as well as in our neighborhoods, churches, school committee meetings and town meetings and Chambers throughout the Commonwealth.
Read moreWomen’s Advocacy Day Remarks at Massachusetts State House 2014
We have community organizers, non-profit leaders, business owners, social workers, and educators. We are native Berkshire families and “transplants”. We aim to ignite our networks and form a strong collaborative much like in the history of the origins of our commission. Our energy and focus comes from our collective personal and professional experience. We are a diverse group of women and strong group of activists, and we have a clear vision. We take seriously our job to represent the voices of the women and girls of Berkshire County, the real Western Massachusetts.
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