Hot Topics Blog
What does Juneteenth mean to you?
Juneteenth is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans after the Civil War. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when news of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation finally reached the last of enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Depending on your identity and lived experience,
Resilient Women in Our Community: Candace Whittaker
This month AMAZEworks celebrates Candace Whittaker as one of our resilient women of 2021. Born and raised in North Minneapolis alongside 10 siblings, Candace Whittaker has been sharing her gifts of resilience with our community for over 40 years. When asked to define resilience in her own words, she says, “It is the ability to
Resources To Support Children During The Derek Chauvin Trial
As the trial of the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin begins, I am struggling to find the right words to say that are beyond platitudes. There is so much uncertainty and trepidation I feel about the outcome of the trial, and I have great concern that it will be George Floyd’s life and not Derek Chauvin’s
Environmental Justice: Countering the effects of environmental racism
Despite systemic denial and minimizing across the world, decades of statistics support the harsh realities of climate change and its catastrophic effects. Since the Industrial Revolution, human-produced greenhouse gas emissions have increased, causing the Earth to warm and its climate to change drastically. Experts predict severe consequences due to climate change. These effects will diminish
Responding to anti-Asian hate and violence
Here we are again. Responding to identity-based hate and violence an organization, as a community, as a nation, and as individuals trying to process, reckon with, and respond to another spate of mass shootings, one of which was rooted in racism and misogyny towards Asian American women in large part because of the past year’s
Resilient Women’s History Month 2021
March is Women’s History Month – a month dedicated to highlighting and celebrating women’s contributions in United States history. Women*, including transgender women, have been advocating for and bringing about social justice change for centuries. Women continue to effect profound change on our society, particularly during this challenging time of a pandemic, social and political
Resilient Women in Our Community: KaYing Yang
AMAZEworks celebrates KaYing Yang as one of our featured resilient women of 2021. As a Hmong refugee who has worked for social and racial justice her entire life, KaYing Yang has cultivated a lifetime of resilience. KaYing’s father had been a foot soldier for the CIA’s Secret Army in Laos during the Vietnam War, and
Teaching about Indigenous Water Protectors and the Big Oil Pipelines
Among the many executive orders President Biden signed on his Inauguration Day, one revoked the Keystone XL pipeline permit, a 1,200-mile crude-oil pipeline system through Canada to the U.S. that cuts through Indigenous land and multiple waterways. In Minnesota, Indigenous people have been leading the resistance of Enbridge’s Line 3 production for years, which would
We need Black History Month more than Ever
Last year, we wrote a blog entitled, “What’s Wrong with Black History Month?”, because we wanted to bring attention to the problems of focusing on any singular “minority” group’s history and achievements mainly during one month of the year. Black history (Asian American history, LGBTQ history, etc.) is AMERICAN history, and we need to incorporate
