Social Justice Institute | Rosetta Thurman

In the Joy of a New Beginning: Southern Partners Fund Celebrates 10 Years of Philanthropy

November 24, 2009 by rosettathurman · Leave a Comment

Before lunch Hollis Watkins from Southern Echo leads us in a song. He’s remixed Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (Banana Boat Song)” changing “daylight come and me wanna go home” to:

Freedom! Give us freedom, freedom come and it won’t be long.

Freedom, freedom, freedom come and it won’t be long.

Alta Starr from the Ford Foundation calls Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery to the stage to standing applause. He is our keynote speaker and highly revered for his enduring service to the social justice movement. Hailed as the “Dean of the Civil Rights Movement,” Rev. Dr. Lowery represents a legacy of service and commitment to the nonviolent struggle for the causes of justice, human rights, economic equality, voting rights, peace and human dignity. Rev. Dr. Lowery delivered the Benediction on the occasion of President Obama’s inauguration and is the recent recipient of The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Rev. Dr. Lowery takes us back to the scene of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, where he used the phrase “in the joy of a new beginning” because Obama’s election created new hope in people. He quotes Revelation 21: I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and the old heaven and the old earth passed away.

Our land needs healing and all of you are in the healing business. I love anniversaries because they give you a new beginning. I told my wife we should celebrate our wedding anniversary three-four times a year! Southern Partners Fund’s 10th Anniversary is a new beginning for you. After 10 years of work and stewardship, now you’re looking to the next decade.

Rev. Dr. Lowery says that he supported Barack Obama because he thought God was trying to give us a new beginning. He went around the country asking people why they liked Barack Obama. One white woman said it was because he’s sexy. Rev. Dr. Lowery asked his wife if she thought Barack was sexy. She said, “no comment!” Rev. Dr. Lowery went to Iowa with Obama to see if he would elicit support from a majority white community. He saw white people standing in the cold to hear him, suffering from runny noses and holding signs saying, “Yes, We Can!”

God has given us a new beginning and we need to grab ahold of the joy that comes with that. I know the challenges you’re facing but God says you can look at things in a new way. Black folk and white folk can’t get away from each other. There’s no hiding place. We’re tied together inextricably. We have to work together. He uses the story of the movie The Defiant Ones, starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as two escaped convicts chained together, white and black, who must learn to get along in order to elude capture.

Rev. Dr. Lowery reminds us that power can be generated by a small group of people. The power is in our hands, not in the hands of those who are so blind they can’t see. He says that we’re ushering in a new era and the whole world sees it. Rev. Dr. Lowery just turned 88 years old, and says his old eyes couldn’t see the Lincoln Memorial from the Mall during Obama’s inauguration. But in his mind, he went back to when he heard Martin Luther King, Jr., a 34-old preacher speaking at the Memorial. He said that he’d always thought that someday there would be a Black president, but none of his fellow civil rights leaders thought they’d live to see it. For the first time in his life, when they played the “Star-Spangled Banner,” it sounded pretty good to him.

Freedom come and it won’t be long.

Later in the evening, the freedom theme continues with Southern Partners Fund’s 10th Anniversary Awards Dinner and Gala. With performances by Ballethnic Dance Company, Joyce & Jacque, and Ken Ford Strings, the atmosphere is lively and full of Southern charm and sophistication. In attendance are philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, and most of the community organizers from the day’s Social Justice Institute.

Several awards go out to supporters of social justice in the South. Humanitarian awards are presented to Xernona Clayton, Founder of the Trumpet Awards Foundation and Creator of the Trumpet Awards highlighting African American accomplishments and contributions and Shaffer “Ne-Yo” Smith, Founder of the Compound Foundation. R&B star Ne-Yo’s misses his flight so his mother accepts his award on his behalf. To the audience’s delight, he ends up making it to the celebration at the very end, just in time to take photos with attendees.

We are treated to a special spoken word performance by Mike Molina, telling us to “Be Encouraged” (watch the video here or click the play button below)

We continue to celebrate the other awardees with amazing musical interludes and a lovely dinner.

Social Justice Leadership Award for Justice

Marguerite Casey Foundation

Social Justice Leadership Award for Freedom

Southern Echo (President Hollis Watkins pictured accepting award below)

Social Justice Leadership Award for Peace

Barbara Meyer of the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation (BAMM) (pictured accepting award below)

Barbara had these words of wisdom for the group:

Learn how to stop and breath deeply when chaos surrounds you.
Remember that unasked-for advice can be heard as criticism.
The most important thing is life is to learn how to give love and let it come in. Love is the only rational act.

It was a great way to end an inspiring day. When the music started up for dancing afterwards, you could tell that this wasn’t just any old gala with your rubber chicken and empty recognitions. For the Southern Partners Fund and their grantees, this was truly a party. A time for them to raise a glass to their 10 years of hard work and revel in the joy of a new beginning for the next 10 years.

Full disclosure: Southern Partners Fund paid me to provide blogging services for this event to leverage the power of social media to share their stories with the wider philanthropic community. The views expressed here are solely my own, however, and I stand by my commitment to authentic coverage of these issues. Would you like to hire me? Visit my portfolio to see samples of my work.

Filed Under: African Americans, Leaders of Color, Leadership, Leading by Faith, Philanthropy · Tagged With: Barbara Meyer, Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation, Compound Foundation, Hollis Watkins, Marguerite Casey Foundation, Mike Molina, Ne-Yo, Shaffer "Ne-Yo" Smith, Social justice, Social Justice Institute, Social justice philanthropy, Southern Partners Fund, Xernona Clayton

Census 2010: Community Organizing for a Complete Count

November 23, 2009 by rosettathurman · 2 Comments

Leroy Johnson and Mike Sayers from Southern Echo present a fantastic workshop about the 2010 Census and Redistricting process as part of Southern Partners Fund’s inaugural Social Justice Institute.

In the room are organizations like Alliance for Justice, Latinos for Educational Justice, and SEIU, all wanting to learn more about next year’s census process and what it means for communities of color and other marginalized groups.

Why is the 2010 Census and Redistricting so important? Watch this brief video from Mike Sayers to find out.

Community Organizers Can Ensure “Hard to Count” Populations Get Counted

The workshop serves to underscore the importance of making sure “hard to count” communities get counted. Leroy says that there has been “drive by counting” from folks who don’t care about our communities, and we need to be the ones to go in and ensure the accuracy of next year’s Census. Right now the Census Bureau is in its 2nd round of hiring, and you can find out more about becoming a census taker here. Community organizers have the opportunity to connect census work with organizing work, to integrate with the work we’re already doing. We can we use this process to expand participation of people to carry this through the next ten years. It can be understood as a building block that we need to organize for a complete and full count to help our communities. There was a 67% participation rate in the last Census, meaning one-third of people did not get counted. The goal this year is just 69%, even though the constitutional mandate is that everyone gets counted.

The Census Bureau knows they can’t get it done alone. We are the people who have to breathe life into “we the people” in regards to this Census. 69% is not good for our folks, for those who are hard to count. Hard to count populations: people of color, people of low wealth, people of limited English, people in apartments, young people, Black and Latino males, people without a permanent residence. Yet the outcome is important to our folks who are marginalized & “invisibilized.” The Census impacts electorate for presidential and congressional elections, $400 billion dollars is allocated among communities based on census data which is sensitive to the redistribution of the population. This is our opportunity to put out analysis and understanding – to address directly people’s fear of coming out of the dark into the light of the political process. The U.S. Census is the largest, most accurate poll in the world – 300 million people. Their margin of error is smaller than other polls because of size. This poll is about finding our folks. Who are we and where are we?

Importance of Census in Redistricting Process

Leroy informs us that despite the Census’ relative accuracy, we do have both an undercount and an overcount problem with people either not being counted or being counted twice. Middle and upper-income whites often get counted more than once, enabling a shift in representation of resources and power in relation to undercounted communities. Many upper-class folks have two home, children at colleges, etc. which contributes to an overcount.

Overcounts also created where there are prisons, inmates counted at home and in the prison, creating “phantom districts.” An entirely new district can be created because of a large prison population, yet only the people who can vote in that community can benefit. Often the whites in certain communities receive extra political power due to this distortion. In 2000, there was a 3.6 million overcount and a 3.8 million undercount.

Some states will get additional seats through redistricting due to shifts in populations, but there will be a disproportionate benefit. States can lose districts when population shifts and can lose when other states gain disproportionately larger numbers of people. See the census map for each state here.

The 2010 Census will be a “hard count” instead of the way it was done in 2000, augmented by accurate statistical sampling. If you’re not physically counted, you don’t count. How good the count is though, is not the only measure of success. That’s where organizing process comes in – some officials only want to count legal U.S. citizens, setting certain populations up for every legal and civil discrimination. Redistricting is about redistribution of power and there are always goals in mind. These goals can be fair or unfair depending on your perspective. Redistricting was used in the past to restrict people of color from voting themselves into power. What basis was used? Census data. The redistricting process was used successfully because people in our communities didn’t participate in a meaningful way. In the past, when redistricting has been done well, the organizing hasn’t been done afterwards. But now we need to go from a “my district” mentality to an “our district” mentality. The districts don’t belong to the candidates. They belong to the community. We need to make these candidates more accountable to the people who live in the districts.

Challenges to Getting a Complete Count

One problem is that our communities are not always of one mind. We don’t want to fight against officials of color who treat us just as bad as the white politicians. So we have to combine organizers with elected officials to build good policy and make sure it’s implemented. Census is not just about 2010, but the next steps to take beyond that. Freeedom is a constant struggle. Before you know it, another ten years have gone by. Many have been trying to create fear tactics to prevent immigrants from filling out Census forms. Fear that census data will be used and accessed by Homeland Security. Yes, there is risk, we can’t say that won’t happen illegally. There is no basis to know that the ban on the government of using census data trumps the Patriot Act. So we need to show the overriding benefits of creating power in communities which will ultimately mean less risk. We can disperse it, but not eliminate it.

Leroy and Mike encourage us to join or start “Complete Count Committees” in our state – the Census is a political animal and community organizers need to be involved. Southern Echo can also design Census and Redistricting trainings for your group or create customized factsheets like these. Contact them at 601-982-6400 or souecho@southernecho.org.

Full disclosure: Southern Partners Fund paid me to provide blogging services for this event to leverage the power of social media to share their stories with the wider philanthropic community. The views expressed here are solely my own, however, and I stand by my commitment to authentic coverage of these issues. Would you like to hire me? Visit my portfolio to see samples of my work.

Filed Under: African Americans, Leaders of Color, Leadership, Politics, Race · Tagged With: Census 2010, Census Bureau, Leroy Johnson, Mike Sayers, Social Justice Institute, Southern Echo, Southern Partners Fund

Structural Racism: Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of Obama

November 23, 2009 by rosettathurman · 1 Comment

After the morning’s armchair discussion, Southern Partners Fund’s inaugural Social Justice Institute kicks off a full day of workshops. The room fills quickly for the one on structural racism. Maya Wiley founded the Center for Social Inclusion after working as a civil rights lawyer, senior advisor on race and poverty to the Director of U.S. Programs of the Open Society Institute, and helped develop and implement the Open Society Foundation — South Africa’s Criminal Justice Initiative. She has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Department, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. in the Poverty and Justice Program and the Civil Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

After all of this experience, she tells us what she has learned is that the best way to end structural racism is not through litigation. She’d had enough of banging her head against the wall. Rather, we should be working on creating new and better policies that will work for everyone. Maya spends the next hour and a half convincing us of this fact during an eye-opening presentation on structural racism. She wants us to think of ideas for how we can combat it using the opportunity of having a new president. She asks us what are the opportunities for change in the midst of the economic crisis. We do have some assets we didn’t have before:

Opportunities for new elected leadership, more people saying they want to step up
A more informed community
People realize we can’t do it alone, that we can do more together
Country finally starting to acknowledge and understand the practices that got us in this economic mess in the first place
Realization that we have a collective fate
Opportunities to form partnerships across lines – with government, with business/banking community

One woman in the workshop says that President Obama can tend to bring people together and move toward compromise. Which means that the left needs to go more left.

There are many ways to examine structural racism, but today we’re looking through the lens of the economy. Someone else points out that you can’t have an open society in a closed south – and over half of black community lives in the south.

Maya teaches us that structural racism is not the same as institutional racism.

Structural racism defined:

Multi-institutional – involves more than one institution ex. schools financing connected to tax structure, connect to school board, etc.
Policy driven – structural racism didn’t just happen naturally, happened because of how policies worked
Not race neutral – the things that are happening are impacted because of race, it doesn’t make sense to find the racists because it’s a larger problem that doesn’t need to say anything about race to impact people of color, policies aren’t race neutral just because they’re race silent
Intent to discriminate not required – elected officials who just do their jobs and follow the law will still produce disparities in communities because the policies are set up that way
Racial disparities are symptoms of the illness – they tell us where the systems are broken, otherwise fairness would prevail and there would be no disparity by race

Maya asks, how long has there been a middle class? The answer is not very long. America created it, it did not happen naturally. Policies created the middle class in 1950s-60s such as Social Security, Federal Housing Administration, G.I. Bill, Federal Highway Act. We didn’t have anything like this before the Great Depression, it took a crisis to produce these opportunities. These policies were race-silent, but the intent was there because the government knew what it would produce. For instance, domestics and agricultural workers were not eligible for Social Security when it was first created. These were jobs that most people of color held. What happened was that 60% of all blacks did not benefit from Social Security because of this structural arrangement. People of color were already segregated into certain job categories because of policies and our lack of education because of segregation. The Social Security program just exacerbated this.

Federal Housing Act gave opportunities not just for homeownership, but also for refinancing homes to start small businesses and pay for college degrees. By the 1950s, the federal government was guaranteeing loans for 50% of all homes in America. Their loans supported racially restrictive convenants, and would downgrade credit ratings for those who wanted to move into integrated communities. So many people of color weren’t able to become homeowners under this program. Lack of homeownership meant not being able to do other things which would have increased wealth for people of color.

Maya asserts that we’re more racially segregated now in America than we were in the 1950s because of policies. While 200,000 people earned college degrees from G.I. Bill, few of them were people of color although the policy was race silent. But who was getting into the military? Not people of color – the Tuskegee Airmen had to fight to get into the military. Stereotype of “flat feet” and others kept Blacks from getting in. Even programs to help veterans get jobs after they came out of the war were also impacted by race. Whites were tracked to management roles, while people of color were not, which impacted their future earnings and benefits.

The Federal Highway Act created more highways even though people of color are six times more likely to use transit. The majority of our tax dollars went to highways versus transit. Poor people ended up subsidizing the white middle class, who are the commuters. We essentially paid for the infrastructure of white flight to the suburbs. Even today, people of color are bearing the brunt of the recession.

All these policies built on each other to cause the conditions we see today. But then Maya gives us the good news.

Structural racism is not inevitable. But it can’t be dismantled without new policy.

john powell from the Kirwan Institute often asks, which straw broke the camel’s back? All of them, all policies build to have a cumulative impact across generations. There’s no question that privilege comes from opportunities given to our families in the past – owning land, homeownership, learning a trade in slavery, etc. How is it that two-thirds of people living in concentrated urban poverty are Black or Latino?

Even if policies are race neutral, the outcomes will not be. Race matters. Look at how structures impact on racial lines. Once we all get healthcare, we’re still not done. It’s race, not poverty. Sub-prime loans have pulled down global economies, yet 60% of all those who got sub-prime loans were actually eligible for a prime rate. This is not a poverty problem. Blacks earning $350,000 a year were more likely to get sub-prime mortgage than a white person earning $50,000 a year. This is not a poverty problem. This is a race problem.

Someone recommends the book, The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash if you want to understand the financial crisis.

Even with universal healthcare, there will be racial disparities – we will still have issues with access, unemployment. The healthcare bill can actually harm communities of color because of public hospitals closing. The bill is the first step, and we have to be ready for the next level of fights.

The real strategy is in fixing the root cause of the problem, not attacking the symptoms. The frame is also important – people of color have been scapegoats in policy debate – Latinos as criminals, illegal immigrants getting free healthcare. Yet only 5% of recipients might be undocumented compared to 95% of citizens who will be helped. It’s about who gets to define the moral center. We have to do it first before the right defines it for us. We need to know where trends are going so we can put our race lens on it and get out ahead of the issues.

Barriers to undoing structural racism:

Internalized racism - when you test for subconscious racism, blacks have a preference for whites
Systems justification – people will often justify the systems when we start talking about dismantling them
We can’t through policy constrain attitudes (can’t change racists through policy), but we can constrain behavior

Policy opportunities that could help people of color:

Broadband access – will improve education, healthcare (telemedicine), make it easier to open a small businesses
Public transportation dollars – improve transit such as subway and bus lines to make it easier for people of color to get to work – highways generally serve to help whites who have more cars and commute to work

Maya urges us to come up with good infrastructure projects that will help our communities and then advocate for them in this opportune moment with stimulus dollars flowing. How can we get more of them into our communities? We need a structural approach to issues like getting better schools – elect the right people to school board, in Senate, etc. We have to make sure that the people we elected with political power then change the policies.

The information presented in Maya’s workshop made us angry. But not angry enough to quit. Angry enough to continue the fight for social justice. Armed with new data and new insights, community organizers left the room ready to get back to work.

Full disclosure: Southern Partners Fund paid me to provide blogging services for this event to leverage the power of social media to share their stories with the wider philanthropic community. The views expressed here are solely my own, however, and I stand by my commitment to authentic coverage of these issues. Would you like to hire me? Visit my portfolio to see samples of my work.

Filed Under: African Americans, Leadership, Politics, Race · Tagged With: Advocacy, Center for Social Inclusion, Maya Wiley, people of color, Race and Class Issues, Social justice, Social Justice Institute, Southern Partners Fund

The Voice of Community Organizers from the South

November 21, 2009 by rosettathurman · Leave a Comment

Love. Justice. Power. Community. These themes are the common thread for a large, diverse gathering of community organizers from all over the South. Young, old, White, Black, Latino, LGBT, poor, wealthy, and everything in between. Although each face looks different, it’s obvious that for this audience, at least, it is much more about what brings them together rather than what divides them.

On the occasion of their 10th Anniversary, the Southern Partners Fund has gathered over 100 community organizers, grantmakers, nonprofit professionals and young leaders at their inaugural Social Justice Institute, a leadership development and capacity building program designed to enhance the sustainability of SPF’s grantee organizations and other grassroots organizations committed to under resourced individuals and communities in the South. The Institute opens with a poem by Erin Byrd (excerpted below) that sets the stage for the daylong conversation.

We have come too far we can’t turn around
We have music without a message and messengers without substance
Being smart isn’t as cool as dropping out of school

We’ve got to build up leaders, share our stories with our children
Build unity within our communities

We must all stand together or we’ll never be free

The clapping is thunderous. The tone is set for a day of lively conversations about the kinds of subjects that aren’t normally talked about in most circles. Changing power through redistricting. Structural racism. The role of culture in community organizing. Public policy, advocacy and lobbying. Fundraising as a form of organizing.

Alta Starr, program officer at the Ford Foundation is our mistress of ceremonies. She points out the obvious. “There are a lot of people here that really like people, who really do care about each other. People who are about justice and power and love.” Many of Alta’s family members were “freedom fighters” and she says she feels an unpayable debt for how she shows up in the world. There is nodding around the room. Then Alta shares this amazing quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”

Alta leads into moderating a great panel called “Organizing Power: The Voices of Organizers from the South” where we hear about efforts to help Latinos, Vietnamese, Blacks, farmworkers, and LGBT communities in the south.

These are their stories.

Tirso Moreno, Farmworker Association of Florida
I had more to expect from society than what I got as a farmworker in the U.S. The systems are set up to benefit those that are in power and control the industry. When I started organizing, didn’t know what I was doing. When I organized a strike, my family was fired because of what I did. But we worked together even when they told my father he could stay but I had to go. My family was threatened from what they were involved in. We were punished. But we learned how to defend ourselves. The other side doesn’t like that and tries to hurt you where you’re vulnerable. I connect farmworker’s rights to our whole culture – it’s a part of family, communities. Only thing many farmworkers can afford is the most basic housing and food. Some feel like they have better food using food stamps than when they had to buy their own food. When they tried to close schools in migrant camps in Florida we got people ready to go to city government and tell them their interests.

Dr. Carol Prejean Zippert, Tuskegee University, Society of Folk Arts and Culture
I was raised to help others get what they need – using artistry, gardening in rurual areas, because you care about people around you. My mom used to cook and call us in the house to eat, and everyone who was in the yard at the time came in to eat, too. We belonged to each other. Caring and helping people get to a good life. A good life meaning having others recognize you are a good person just as you are. My civil rights work started out in Louisiana where I got involved and was sent to integrate lunch counters. I was disappointed when they served me! I was ready. When the Civil Rights Act was passed, we said, so what? We wanted to be in charge. We realized there were other grassroots folks who were thinking the same thing. So what? You can go to the restaurant and the hotels, but it’s not yours. You’re not in charge. In the Blackbelt, we realized our political strength in numbers. Once you get people registered to vote, the pendulum could swing with 80% of the Black vote. In Georgia, they ended up wanting to change to districts so minority whites could have a voice. Somebody asked me, do you want to remove your oppressor to become the oppressor? Once we were able to win elections and be in charge, sometimes we didn’t get good folk and we had to deal with that, too.

James Bui, Mary Queen of Viet Nam CDC
I think of an old Vietnamese proverb: When you drink from the water, remember the well. It means to be grateful for the water but also keep in mind those that will need to drink it after you. I’ve always felt this tension of trying to claim this historical past, a complex time period of trying to struggle for independence in South Asia. Most older Vietnamese see being in the U.S. as a blessing. As a younger generation it’s a challenge to work with previous generations who ascribe to this belief. I’m always grateful for education, but I’ve always felt like in school there’s miseducation, that to be an engineer is to let go of your Vietnamese roots. I had to inject my own values – how do I become a person who adds value to my history?

Paulina Hernandez, Southerners on New Ground (SONG)
We were politicized by farmworker issues. I was a part of the Latino community that was experiencing violence within the community and hate violence from outside of the community. Our goal as a community was to say that we were going to build up our class by working hard, get bank accounts, to make our families honorable. To me, that was a really shitty choice. I was lucky as a student to come into cntact with a farmworker’s project. It’s one thing to be angry and pissed off about something and another to say this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. But it’s easy to be great when you’re surrounded by great people.

Alta Starr mentions the Audre Lorde poem, “A Litany for Survival,” pointing out that the systems put in place were never meant to enable our peoples to survive.

Dr. Zippert says we just need to keep moving. “When I think of movement, being in movement is action. Hopefully if you move enough, people will come behind you. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think we were meant to survive.”

The audience starts to pipe up. There’s a lot of wisdom to share. A lot of questions to answer. What can we do about racism in this work? Margarita Romo from Farmworkers Self-Help stands up and tells us that someone asked her about tensions between Blacks and Latinos. She exhorted the group not to allow themselves to be divided:

We need to be very careful that people do not divide us because that’s what they’ve been doing for years. We have to understand each other and start talking each other’s language. We have to keep in mind not to leave the door open for the devil to come in. We must get to know each other well, build unity now. If we don’t build it now, get to know each by name, where you come from and what it is we’re trying to say. We don’t have our Martin Luther King, our marches. But you can help us with your history.

Dr. Carol Prejean Zippert: You got to talk about it before the fences can come down. People want to talk about the racists. No, let’s talk about racism.

Paulina Hernandez: I went to an interfaith service led by gay and lesbian ministers during Atlanta Gay Pride. One of the ministers said – everybody didn’t do so bad in Egypt. Some people just ain’t coming. We have to work with people that are really engaged, not worry about the ones that aren’t. We can engage in “magical realism” – what is it that we want for our people and who is ready to come with us? I’m tired of hearing “there’s no leadership” because that’s just not the case.

Tirso Moreno: There is competition in our communities, we need good real collaboration with some of our brothers and sisters in power and in local governments who are connected. We have to look for alliances. If our aim is social justice, we have to deal with those things. There shouldn’t be racism.

We must all stand together or we’ll never be free

Full disclosure: Southern Partners Fund paid me to provide blogging services for this event to leverage the power of social media to share their stories with the wider philanthropic community. The views expressed here are solely my own, however, and I stand by my commitment to authentic coverage of these issues. Would you like to hire me? Visit my portfolio to see samples of my work.