Our hearts are heavy with the death of even more people of color murdered at the hands of police. As we see the pain, exhaustion, and outrage across the country, we come back to some of our core values:

• to courageously face stories and narratives that are hard for us to hear;
• to seek growth and learning in moments when it would be easier to take refuge in our own perspectives;
• to connect with those who challenge us from a place of love, and to challenge others from a place of love.

Here are some resources we are turning to that help us do that work.

Our colleagues at the Divided Community Project created a Virtual Toolkit for communities dealing with unrest, pain, and struggle.

Let’s keep asking the tough questions about inclusion and diversity in our own field of alternative dispute resolution: (The Inclusion Network; https://blc.law/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/HoffmanStallworth-branchmainlanguagedefault.pdf), and about how current practices of ADR affect outcomes for people of color (https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4700&context=smulr).

We need to engage both the past and the present to understand and stay grounded in the important context, perspective, and nuances of systemic racism that have brought America to the boiling point:

• Washington Post article on how Covid-19 disproportionately affects the black community
• CodeSwitch Podcast, “A decade of watching black people die”
• 1619 Podcast

Art and artists help us to go beyond the intellectual into the deep, devastating, and confounding heart of the effects of systemic racism, not just on communities, but on families and individuals:

• “Becoming a parent in the age of black lives matter” by Clint Smith in The Atlantic
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• “Do the Right Thing” by Spike Lee
• Kara Walker’s art

Please share with us what you’re turning to/reading/listening to stay engaged in this moment.