Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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It seems like we are experiencing a war of two worlds. On one hand, we are battling old and expired forces that are desperately clinging to power and accumulation. We are drowning in toxic culture, dominant narratives, limiting beliefs and false constructs that have landed on and in our bodies. And we are facing a very uncertain future.

But it is also true that there is new growth pushing up against dying systems, communities organizing and swimming against the tide of domination, individuals choosing to speak truth to power, to do something different, to risk comfort for freedom.

Old fear cannot see new things.

Only when we are brave enough to recover the parts of us that have been denied, neglected, shamed and diminished can we become more whole and true to ourselves and each other. The new world that we are fighting for - that we are yearning for - is ready to emerge…but only when we are.

May we have the courage to do new things.

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

• The Tennessee state government doubled down on its love affair with guns, even in the immediate aftermath of a horrific school shooting. As young people march for their lives, Tennessee crushes dissent and overrides democracy.

• Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election could have a major impact on abortion in the state and the 2024 election. Why everyone should care about the new liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

• For youth, transitioning is often seen as a point of no return. What if we view gender as something that evolves over a lifetime? Kids Deserve a New Gender Paradigm

• It is shameful to use something as noble as Buddhism for something as ignoble as workplace stress relief, especially when it was the workplace that caused the stress in the first place”. How corporations attempt to co-opt Buddhism.

• When Ruth Wilson Gilmore speaks of “abolition” — a radical vision of a world without prisons and another word she’s helped popularize — she is working with a long, long view towards making a whole world.

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Solidarity

Welcome to Dalit History Month! According to Tanuja Jain Gupta:

Dalits are the most oppressed group of people in the “caste” system. For those not familiar, the caste system is a hierarchical system that perpetuates discrimination based on a combination of endogamy, ancestry and class. The caste impacts over 1.9B South Asians globally today (1 in every 4 persons). Dalits, considered ‘untouchable’ because they are considered ‘polluted’. They have been historically subjected to violence and denied access to education, healthcare, land ownership, and other social capital. The impact of this system follows Dalits wherever they go, including the 5.4M South Asians here in America. The caste system excludes Dalits from public and private spaces, from newsrooms to tech workspaces.

Understanding Caste: Caste is a structure of oppression that affects over 1 billion people across the world. It is a system of religiously codified exclusion that was established in Hindu scripture. At birth, every child inherits his or her ancestor’s caste, which determines social status and assigns “spiritual purity”. Check out this unlearning caste reading list to realize the part you can play in ending caste apartheid.

Help end caste discrimination: Buoyed by the groundbreaking legislation in Seattle, (a law that adds caste as a protected category in Seattle’s equal rights law alongside 20 other protected categories including race, gender, sexual orientation and disability) the state of California now seeks to end caste discrimination with SB 403. Here’s how you can help from where ever you are.

Healing caste oppression: In The Trauma of Caste Dalit American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan puts forth a call to awaken and act, not just for readers in South Asia, but all around the world. She ties Dalit oppression to fights for liberation among Black, Indigenous, Latinx, femme, and Queer communities, examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective–and laying bare the grief, trauma, rage, and stolen futures enacted by Brahminical social structures on the caste-oppressed. Get the book.

Source: Equality Labs

Right action

I feel this deeply every time I sit down to write WELLREAD. The many accelerating crises we are facing are coming at us fast and furiously. And while they can feel “too big to fail”, they also affirm our interdependence. Thriving in the face of this will demand a commitment and capacity that none of us can muster on our own. We will need the depth of our courage and the width of our connections if we stand a chance against extreme inequality, mutating pandemics, climate calamity and mass migration. We must reach outside ourselves, across divides, beyond borders and towards one another - not just to ensure our collective survival, but to realize our full potential. Here’s how you can play your part:

Locate yourself. We are all a part of this mess we are impacted and implicated in different and disproportionate ways. Locating yourself allows you to show up with skill and find your right role and responsibility in whole of who we are.

Pull the thread. From your location, how can you disrupt and dismantle the spaces and systems you are a part of? Personally, ho can you pull the threads of your conditioning so as to make more space for freedom and possibility?

Weave a new world. Even while systems collapse, new worlds emerge. What is the world you are dreaming into being? How can you help bring it into being?

Art: Serpent Fire

Just for you

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Click here to register and enter the promo code: REV20ESJ by Sunday April 9th!

WE-NESS

May the revolution be joyful.

Art: @medicinemami

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

Upgrade to paid