February 2025
Opening Letter
Dear members and friends of WOC & WWAR:
As we write this Black History month letter, I am reminded of the role of historians in capturing, analyzing, and interpreting the past. Near the turn of the last century (i.e. 2000), I recall asking an historian about how we would look back on the 20th century. The response was that is was too soon – not enough had yet played out, but the prevailing ideas were that it would either be considered a century of the great world wars, or a century that would be marked by the global movement from a rural society to a predominantly urban one.
January 2025
Opening Letter
Dear colleagues and friends and followers:
It seems too late to wish you a Happy New Year, as we are now at the end of January and much has transpired since January 1. However, we add our wishes for energy and vision for what you are trying to accomplish in 2025.
As you think about where you will focus your time, we share a new framework from the Muhammad Ali Center here in Louisville based on their work on Compassion. It was unveiled in New York City on January 16th and revealed five layers of compassion (see the full report here):
December 2024
Opening Letter
Dear WOC & WWAR Members and Friends:
We loved this image and share it with you as our holiday card bringing warmest greetings and all good wishes for 2025!
​
​
We are likely to gather with family and friends, and we hope you’ll douse those moments with joy and kindness and laughter. Rest if you need it (and can), and then bring your energy to the issues and needs of the next year. At WOC & WWAR, we plan to put our attention on how we might collaborate to create national events (lectures/panels/webinars/etc.) in 2025, aiming to host two of them. If you have ideas for us, please share them.
November 2024
Opening Letter
Dear colleagues and friends,
Life presents us with all kinds of choices, including those over which we have a lot of control, and those over which we have much less control. My mother, a social worker, always used to say, “Tell me where you were born, and I’ll tell you who you are.” I’m sure it was shorthand for the deep sociological imprint that we each receive from our upbringing. As we gain maturity, we can see the consequences of that socialization in our lives, and our choice to embrace or reject it. We are also able, if we choose, to find out about how others have been affected by their families and life experiences. We are doing a little of that each time we meet as Black and White Women.
October 2024
Opening Letter
Dear friends and colleagues,
I am wonderfully overwhelmed by this season. My yard has a veneer of colorful leaves and pine needles in the splurge before winter sets in. My television has a surplus of political ads. (One of the Presidential candidates is a Black woman.). My focus can be drawn to any number of sports events and festivals. Work and school are intensive as we near the end of the calendar year. Our attention is drawn to many issues and actions, and not only in our hand-held devices.
September 2024
Opening Letter
Dear colleagues, friends and supporters,
The following quote came into my (Phoebe) inbox recently and I knew immediately that it would resonate with WOC & WWAR:
“I am only one; but still, I am one, I cannot do everything; but still, I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
August 2024
Opening Letter
Dear colleagues,
I heard the most matter-of-fact discussion of bias—and removing bias—sometime in the last month. It caught my attention because it was delivered by a leader of a group that produces educational materials. The executive was describing what procedure was used in removing bias in testing. The “standard” tests would come in for processing, and then the professionals would remove the bias, and reissue the (unbiased) tests.
July 2024
Opening Letter
Dear Members and Friends of WOC & WWAR:
We have been listening to an audiobook “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap” by Louise Story and Ebony Reed. (We are doing so in preparation for meeting the authors next month.) Told as vignettes along with statistics, it retraces several individuals as well as the founding of Greenwood Bank. As Harper Collins summarizes: “…the twists and turns of Greenwood’s journey also raise tough questions about what equality really means.” And the real-life stories bring it alive.
June 2024
Opening Letter
Dear colleagues,
I heard the most matter-of-fact discussion of bias—and removing bias—sometime in the last month. It caught my attention because it was delivered by a leader of a group that produces educational materials. The executive was describing what procedure was used in removing bias in testing. The “standard” tests would come in for processing, and then the professionals would remove the bias, and reissue the (unbiased) tests.
May 2024
Opening Letter
Dear fellow members of our group, and others who are interested,
Welcome to the summer months! It’s the time when we find ourselves attending graduations, outdoor events, and concerts, and preparing for how we will spend the warmer months. Many of us are collecting the titles of books we are planning to read, including the easy/breezy ones at the beach!
With this focus, my attention was piqued one morning while I was listening to an interview on NPR of the author of a new book: The White Bonus by journalist Tracie McMillan, profiling five families of the middle class, and how race has affected them. She puts an exact number on the benefits of being White: $371,934.30. When I went to investigate further, the book stands in parallel to The Black Tax: The Cost of Being Black in America by Shawn Rochester. I researched enough to know that each of them used quantitative techniques to derive their conclusions, which are indeed sobering. And our highest recommendation for a book to read: Caste (author: Isabelle Wilkerson) puts the cost of buying the benefits of being White as $1 million.
April 2024
Opening Letter
Hello friends and advocates:
Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, wrote “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
What an affirmation of power available to a group of people! And what a call to be thoughtful and to be committed right here in our community. I am struck by her use of the word “citizen” as it implies connection and community. That is our mission as well, creating connection and community between women of color and white women.
March 2024
Opening Letter
Hello members and friends of WOC & WWAR:
March is the month of surprises. No one understands what happens in March Madness! No one forecasted the 18-24 inches of snow that had me fleeing Minnesota this weekend! No one knows when something special happens or when a chance encounter or unexpected moment can change a life or a perspective. Our WOC & WWAR group experienced some of that this month at the Filson Historical Society where we saw the People, Passage, Place Exhibit and conceived of a Black/White Ball to be held in the future. We highlight this idea because most formal or fancy dress parties in Louisville seem to be remarkably segregated, and we want to create something very different. (Stay tuned.)
We also learned that the Community Foundation of Louisville is underwriting several more showings of the movie “Origin” at the Speed Cinema (to be held April 7th, 2024). We highly recommend that you see it. It contains additional biographical information about the author of the book “Caste” but mostly tells the story of Isabel Wilkerson’s research of caste in America.
February 2024
Opening Letter
Hello members and friends of WOC & WWAR:
What are you planning to do with the extra day this month? Many businesses will report better earnings because they are open another day compared to the last three years. Those born on February 29th will be forever young (if you only count the number of times the calendar will register 2/29.) But for most of us it will just be Thursday……unless we consciously choose it to be otherwise!
January 2024
Opening Letter
Friends and Colleagues:
January is the traditional month for making resolutions for change in the year ahead – goals to be set, behavior to change, etc. But it might be better thought of as the time where we consciously choose where and on what to spend our time. We are so used to keeping financial metrics (after all, don’t we hear how the market has done every day?) but we might want to consider keeping track of where we are spending/investing our time. As leaders of this group, we have consciously chosen to spend our time on our mission: Creating relationships among Black and White women that would not ordinarily exist.