Gather Birth Cooperative is getting ready to launch our website and I have been hard at work entering in written content by one of my amazing partners and writing a few blogs! Speaking of blogs, a few of my favorite Real Postpartum moments were featured in this gorgeous roundup by Mother Mag! When I wasn’t glued to my computer working on the Gather site, I was stuck to my couch dealing with a pretty brutal summer cold. Scroll on for links!
First: The Amazon Rainforest is burning. The Amazon Rainforest provides 20% of the Earth’s oxygen, is home to more than 400 indigenous groups, and houses 30% of the world’s species. It’s currently burning at an unprecedented rate—up more than 80% from this time last year—thanks in large part to environmental deregulation that has encouraged deforestation.
Consider supporting Indigenous people and their fight to protect the Amazon rainforest by donating to Instituto Socioambiental (ISA).
Read more here about Indigenous activists working to save the Amazon Rainforest.
Purchase Rain Forest Alliance certified goods. Support companies that champion ethical rubber production. Consider the source of agricultural products like beef, soy, and palm oil, many of which rely on deforestation of the Amazon for production.
Now, my weekly links:
Life with Lyme Disease
Call-Out Culture: is it toxic?
An app that helps you avoid giving money to the bad guys
Simple steps to help you enjoy life
When marriage is war
“Lonely George died on New Year’s Day 2019. He was a Hawai‘ian tree snail…”
Do you know the most effective climate change solutions?
I would have LOVED to have been part of a dropping when I was younger. Still would, in fact!
Interested in living more consciously? Watch these movies to learn more
The funeral industry is worth $17 billion… Have you considered another option?
Finally, two older links that are still very relevant:
“10 Books About Race To Read Instead Of Asking A Person Of Color To Explain Things To You”
(I own several of these books and would be happy to lend any of them to you!)
In integrated spaces, patterns of white dominance are inevitable. These patterns include things like being legitimized for using academic language, an expectation of “getting it right” (i.e., perfectionism), fear of open conflict, scapegoating those who cause discomfort, and a sense of urgency that takes precedence over inclusion.
These patterns happen even when white people are doing the work of examining their privilege. They can happen even when facilitators design and model more inclusive ways of being together. Why?
The values of whiteness are the water in which we all swim. No one is immune. Those values dictate who speaks, how loud, when, the words we use, what we don’t say, what is ignored, who is validated and who is not. Unless we are actively and persistently dismantling these constructs, we are abiding by them. In integrated spaces (where we are less likely to be ourselves given the divisions that white dominance has created), we fall into the roles society has assigned us. As a person of color, and perhaps the only one in the room, it’s exhausting to always be swimming upstream. To survive in this society, we learn to hold our tongue, to “code switch” to fit in. This is about survival and the basic human need to feel that we belong.
If you’re in Minneapolis and St. Paul, check out these fantastic businesses:
Hola Postpartum: a fantastic postpartum meal delivery service
Doula du Nord: an excellent postpartum doula who is now offering tuck-in support and evening support to families in the Twin Cities
Soul Lao: Lao food made with heart
Did you do anything fun this week? Do you have any big plans for the weekend? I’m hoping to get out on my bike or my kayak (or both!) for some time in this gorgeous late-summer air.
