The time is always right...

Sunday dinner

Sunday family dinner is great because:
My dad's lo mein is the best
I get my fill of mom news - her version of what's important via newspaper clippings
I laugh a lot

No more tug of war

One thing that I'm finally learning is to walk away from the tug of war.

You want someone to do something and so you pull with all of your might.
The person looks you deep in the eyes from across the pit of mud, holding onto the other end of the rope.

Just write.

Seth Godin is a business/marketing guru and I subscribe to his blog. Today's post stuck with me and I'm going to try a little harder to write every single day.

Concrete Steps

I wrote this poem during the One City One Prompt event coordinated with Swirl and the Creative Righting Center on September 18, 2011.

Concrete Steps

The streets of New York City
become more smoothly choreographed.
We don't bump or push or
get into quarrels because of such small infractions worsened by ego.
We glide past one another,
light breezes, punctuated by easy smiles.

"What Are You?"

Originally published at The Brooklyn Historical Society Blog

Today’s guest post is by Jen Chau, founder of Swirl, a multi-ethnic, anti-racist organization that promotes cross-cultural dialogue.  “What are you?” is one of those questions like “Where are you from, I mean from from?” that people pose (sometimes ungracefully) when they are curious about someone’s racial/ethnic identity. What Are You? is also the title of an upcoming event (Monday, September 26th at 7pm), part of the Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations series, hosted here at the Brooklyn Historical Society and co-sponsored by Loving Day.  BHS is learning more about Brooklyn’s overlapping, interweaving communities and we hope you’ll join the conversation here in the comments and at upcoming events.

From invincible to in tune

Today - this weekend - a lot of us are spending time thinking back to our lives and where we were when the Twin Towers fell. It's hard to believe that it was ten years ago, many of us say. It seems like we were gathered in the streets staring up at the sky, mouths agape, just yesterday. And then again, it seems that it has taken ten years to come to grips with what happened.

On Interracial Dating: The Mixed Panel

I was asked by Racialicious to participate in one of their roundtables on interracial dating. I picked the mixed panel, and here's what we had to say (all three parts of the conversation below!).

Good grief

For the last couple of weeks I have been grieving. Fuzzy passed away on August 1st. He was my grandfather, but more than that, one of my closest childhood friends, my greatest critic and supporter rolled into one, my favorite grouchy senior.

Practice makes progress

In my years of diversity work, I am pretty sure about one thing. The people who are "good" at talking about race issues are those who have practiced.

As a participant in discussions about race, I have heard certain white individuals (not all) lament, "I just don't know how to talk about this stuff." And then I have heard some people of color (not all) in turn, say, "I am tired of talking about this stuff every day."

What me, vulnerable?

It has been nearly two months since I left my full-time job to start out on my own - consulting non-profits and educational orgs, and building my own organization, Swirl.