race

Tim Nation, Executive Director and Cofounder of Peace Learning Center While we reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King's life and legacy, 2014 will stand as a watershed year for a civil rights awakening that is both sad and hopeful. Sad because racial disparities continue to rise despite Dr. King's call for all people to come together understanding we are all one human family - children of God.  Schools, child services, police and courts continue to suspend, expel, remove from their homes and punish people of color disproportionately by ranges from 200% to even 1200% more than white people. Police action shootings and recent grand jury decisions bring attention to these disparities sparking a younger generation to wake up to these injustices realizing they could no longer say we are in a post racial society and that the civil rights movement was their parents’ and grandparents' fight. Hopeful because many people recognize we must address these problems.  Our institutions are reflections of our history and cultural so we must know how we got to this place to be able to change things. Fear is a powerful force.  Our country's dark history of slavery used fear as an economic tool.  Imagine the mindset of slave-holding plantation owners - every night wondering if their prisoners would rise up at night and overpower them. Worried that their slaves would flee, the myth of the runaway dangerous slave who would rape white women