RESOURCES

Upcoming events

Links

Recommended readings

Upcoming events and items of note

Fall 2008.  12 Transformation Tips® Pilot Program.

Is your company interested in introducing or enhancing inclusiveness? Pilot a program based on our diversity action product, 12 Transformation Tips®.  This program will use 12 Transformation Tips® to equip executives, managers and decision-makers with tools to drive good diversity practices deep into the way business is done. info

A pocket-sized tool with big action ideas that you can use right now!

August 22-23, 2008.  EVERYBODY WELCOME! A Celebration of Culture and Diversity. A FREE downtown event.  

http://cospdiversityforum.org.

Links of interest

Remember to go beyond the internet to real interaction with others in your workplace, school and community!

http://www.coppercolo.org/

http://www.cospdiversityforum.org

http://www.asalh.org - Founders of Black History Month™     

http://www.naacp.org - 99th anniversary

http://www.pewhispanic.org/index.jsp

http://www.internews.org/activities/gender_issues/gender_issues.htm

Photo Essay:
http://www.internews.org/activities/gender_issues/wday2005/frame0001.htm

"We need mutual understanding among different beliefs and civilizations more than any time in history." —Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey, after a 2006 meeting with the Pope. 

"We would not learn less of George Washington... but we would learn... also of the three thousand Negro soldiers of the American Revolution."  —Carter G. Woodson

Recommended readings

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan.  2001. An avid gardener and accessible science writer, Pollan investigates four basic human desires (sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control) from the points of view of the plants that fulfill them (apple, tulip, marijuana and potato).  This highly readable, sometimes hilarious and always thought-provoking book will change the way you look at the co-relationships among “us” and “them” and will give you as much food for thought about the food you eat as it does about the meaning of diversity for life on the planet.

A Testament of Hope:  The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Edited by James M. Washington. 1991.  If you heard or read the original, you will find new meaning.  If you've never read the original, now is the time.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones.  2003.  This extraordinary novel begins with the death of Henry Townsend, a black slave-owner in the antebellum south.  It revolves around the lives Henry touched and the ways in which the evil of slavery touches all - then and now.  (Of particular inspiration to some of a certain generation is that this novel - Jones' first and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize - was written when Jones was 53 years old.)

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brian.  1990.  Informed, at least, by the author's experiences in Viet Nam, this book raises the deep questions about about life and death; about truth and how to tell it...  More

Final Gifts by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley.  1993. Two hospice nurses share what they've learned about the special awareness, needs and communications of the dying.  Through their eyes, we meet people from all walks of life, at the end of life.  Through their expertise, we learn how to hear, respect and respond to diverse human needs for the full measure of life. 

Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism by Bob Edwards. 2004. Besides telling the story of this trailblazing investigative journalist (most recently celebrated in the film, “Good Night and Good Luck"), Edwards reminds us of the critical role of substantive, well-researched news and of the constant tension between journalistic integrity and corporate profit.

Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall. This searing 1994 memoir serves as powerful entrée to discussion on the experience of young black men in the U. S.  In a recent interview, best-selling author McCall, formerly a Washington Post journalist and now professor of journalism and African-American studies at Emory University, and Harry Edwards, professor emeritus of sociology at CU Berkeley, comment on current issues: http://www.npr.org/template/story/story.php?storyId=4966879.

Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. 2001.  Subtitled, "On Not Getting By in America", this little book was also a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book of the year.  Ehrenreich goes undercover to live the life and examine the world of the low-wage worker, calling us to action with sharp insight and wit.

The Wisdom of Crowds:  Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki. 2004. What the title doesn't say is that Surowiecki has identified what it takes for groups, teams and communities to be wise crowds rather than unruly mobs. Diversity and independence of information are two keys. 

Race Matters by Cornell West.  1993, 2001.  With the second edition published just months before 9/11, Cornell West’s short and powerful collection of essays remains a definitive work on race in the United States. West’s compassionate analysis of complex issues is no less relevant for the changes that have occurred on the world stage since the book’s publication.  Reading this classic work—or rereading—offers new opportunity to contemplate the meaning of “liberty and justice for all”, a central concept in the national identity of the U.S.

The State of Black America 2004:  The Complexity of Black Progress.  Published by the National Urban League, this publication unveils the Urban League’s “Equality Index”, a measure drawn from information in education, economics, health, social justice and civic engagement.  Consider this:  the Equality Index suggests “that now, 216 years after the Constitution of the U.S. was voted into being, black Americans, once defined as three-fifths of a person (by the U.S. government) now stand at less than three-quarters of where white America stands.”  62% of African Americans feel that the country is moving in the wrong direction (p.12).