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Bettina L. Love’s “it’s not too woke. It’s barely even awake” headline is my favorite of the week and feels like a cautionary tale given what we are up against.

And it got me thinking about the difference between the word and the action. How so much of our woke discourse is just that: discourse. And what its going to take for us to truly embody the change we are fighting for. Offering lip service to progressive ideas without changing our behaviors is only reinforcing the status quo. It might look “woke” on social media, but it’s not going to change anything.

Waking up is taking a courageous inventory of how we are implicated in the very systems we are trying to transform. And transformation is turning our words into action.

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

1. Climate disasters Daily? Welcome to the new normal. "This is the last slap upside the head we’re going to get when it might still matter,” said @billmckibben, “It’s obviously a pivotal moment in the Earth’s climatic history. It also needs to be a pivotal moment in the Earth’s political history.”

2. No, Public Education Isn’t Too Woke. It’s Barely Even Awake. The banning of wokeness is banning the ground floor of justice work. It is frightening to think of what they will ban next, but I am certain it will come at the cost of racial justice.

3. 8 Ways State Attorneys General Have Protected Abortion Rights Since the Fall of Roe v. Wade. State attorneys general across the country should follow the example of those who have implemented measures to protect abortion access since the fall of Roe.

4. Loretta Ross: ‘Don’t Let the Chain of Freedom Break at Your Link’ The last 45 years have seen the consolidation of the far Right — while “many white liberals have been so eager to put the ideology of white supremacy behind them that they declare it prematurely dead over and over again.”

5. Reparations are about more than just a check or financial restitution. Check out this exclusive digital series exploring the leading edges of the reparations ecosystem—and revealing a path toward healing and reconciliation.

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Solidarity

It’s #HotStrikeSummer and we’re here for it. Unions build power for working people, protect workers and help close the inequality gap. Across sectors, industries, people are organizing to take action against capital and defend their work. Last week more than 160,000 actors, recording artists, broadcast journalists and other media professionals with SAG-AFTRA joined 11,000 members of the Writers Guild ofAmerica and it is shutting down Hollywood. UPS Teamsters are threatening to strike which would upend logistics worldwide. Even Metro North Rail Workers in New York and Connecticut are rumbling about setting up a picket line.

Support your local workers and strike efforts. Don’t cross the picket line, and listen to what workers are asking for when planning your assistance.

Solidarity on socials! Posting on social media. Boost our message, say you stand with us”.

Start a union: When you and your coworkers unionize your workplace you earn the right to negotiate for higher wages, better benefits, protections from unsafe work environments and advocacy without threat of retaliations. Here’s a guide to get you started.

Follow Perfect Union and Working Families Party for more!

Source: Betches “It’s Gonna Be A Hot Strike Summer”

Practicing Justice

“The purpose of an elegy is to mourn the dead. But I also recognize it as a chance to move the living, to mobilize us to care, in every meaning of the word. To look into the wreckage and, piece by broken piece, find something much like ourselves…By writing an elegy through the words of history, I hope to unearth, or unwater, the dead from beneath a mass of waves.” says Amanda Gorman. Here’s her poem In Memory of Those Still In The Water:

May the took here

Rest.

This an action to recover the value of certain

want—

the perils of the seas, and contrary currents and

other misfortunes, rendered foul

the said ship,

for a quantity did not remain—

died

through thirst and frenzy there

drowned; their lives

a loss not within terms—

port of rule

There appeared in evidence no necessity to justify—

At all events the loss arose not from the perils of the seas,

but from negligence—

The truth was, they took these means of

dying for want of provisions, but no attempt was made—

It has been decided, whether wisely or unwisely

is not now the question, that a portion of our fellow creatures

may be good.

The question is, first, whether any act.

reach currents stronger than apprehension—

Lord—

This is a very uncommon case, and deserves

Loss—

There should be a new

Will—

Justice, of the same—

Justice

is not the same as a stated declaration.

The law is the instrument

to recover

a remedy. Suppose the law clear, that

this declaration could raise that point

absolute

Source: NY Times

We-ness

Reach down and touch it.

Art from Ritual Body

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

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