{"id":8798,"date":"2020-01-17T18:52:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T18:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unitycare.org\/?p=8798"},"modified":"2022-02-16T03:18:43","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T03:18:43","slug":"join-us-in-changing-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/join-us-in-changing-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Join Us In Changing The World!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 91 this month. Today, more than 50 years after King was assassinated, his words \u2014 like this thought from his \u201cLetter from a Birmingham Jail\u201d \u2014 still ring with truth: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201c\u2026 we must see the need of having nonviolent\ngadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise\nfrom the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of\nunderstanding and brotherhood.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. King wrote those words in 1963, after he was\nimprisoned for protesting segregation in what he described as \u201cthe most\nthoroughly segregated city in the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here in Silicon Valley, we are a long way from\nAlabama in the 60s, yet we still have much to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We live in the Mecca of technology, where the\nbrightest minds on the globe are solving tomorrow\u2019s technological challenges. In\na small region with just over 3 million people, we\u2019ve given birth to some of the\ngreatest technology companies in history and produced one of the wealthiest\nregions on the planet. In the first quarter of 2019, more than $9.6 billion of venture\ncapital investments poured into this region focused on changing the world<em>.<\/em> The\nphrase \u201cChanging the World\u201d is often\nused when describing the global impact of our region\u2019s innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, there\u2019s a less sexy side of Silicon Valley\nthat isn\u2019t trending across our Instagram and Twitter feeds: the rapidly growing\neconomic gap between the\u201chaves\u201d and the \u201chave-nots\u201d. Homelessness,\npoverty, classism, and racism\nare alive and thriving in our own backyard, and if we don\u2019t mobilize as a\ncommunity, we \u2014 yes, Silicon Valley we \u2014 may wake up one day and find ourselves\namid tragedy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to recent research by <a href=\"https:\/\/jointventure.org\/images\/stories\/pdf\/index2019.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Joint Venture Silicon Valley (opens in a new tab)\">Joint Venture Silicon Valley<\/a> and other organizations, the quality of life data for many of our neighbors \u2014 especially non-White residents \u2014 is alarming. Here in our own community: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Homelessness increased by almost one-third from\n2017 to 2019, and a disproportionate number of individuals experiencing\nhomelessness are of African Ancestry or Latino. African Ancestry residents were\n19% of the homeless population, but only 2.6% of the general population, while Latinos\nwere 26% of the overall population but 43% of the homeless population.<\/li><li>Poverty among Latino and African Ancestry residents\nis more than two times higher than among White residents; more than 57 percent\nof Latino households do not meet the self-sufficiency standard.<\/li><li>Fifteen percent of African Ancestry students and\n24% of Latino students drop out of high school, compared to less than 10% of White\nstudents.<\/li><li>The unemployment rate for African Ancestry residents\nis double that for White residents.<\/li><li>Per-capita income for people of African Ancestry declined\nfrom 2015 to 2017.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For many of us, these harsh facts seem far removed\nfrom our daily lives, and it\u2019s difficult for us to truly connect with the pain\nand trauma of these communities. But many of our brothers and sisters must face\npainful reminders every day that if you\u2019re an adolescent male of African Ancestry\nor Latino, you are public enemy #1, and too often when a crime has been\ncommitted people will say you \u201cfit the\ndescription\u201d.<em> &nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We all want the best for our children \u2014 the best\nneighborhoods, the best schools, and the best opportunities to develop and grow\ninto successful young adults \u2014 however, that will never happen if we as adults are\nnot willing to have honest dialog about our barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the\ncivil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer so eloquently stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;All my life I&#8217;ve been sick and tired. Now I&#8217;m sick\nand tired of being sick and tired.&#8221;<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s time for a radical paradigm shift in the\ndialog to a \u201cWE\u201d society rather than an \u201cI\u201d society. Let us not become entangled\nin the political banter and rhetoric that permeates our airways, but let\u2019s take\nback the dialog and begin a change in creating equality and fairness for every\nchild regardless of the color of their skin. Let\u2019s not allow tragedy after senseless\ntragedy \u2014 like the deaths of Michael Brown and so many other men of African\nAncestry \u2014 to occur, constantly reminding us of our country\u2019s past and present\nindiscretions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his book \u201cCommunity,\u201d Peter Block writes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cCommunity Restoration is created by the kinds of\nconversations and dialog WE initiate with each other. These conversations are\nthe leverage points for an alternative future. The core question that underlies\neach conversation is \u201cwhat can WE create together?\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us be the <em>nonviolent gadflies<\/em> Dr. King\ninvoked. Lend your voice, lend your passion and lend your innovation to <em>truly\nchanging the world<\/em> by collectively confronting our social inequalities with\nthe same voracity used to create the best technological companies on the\nplanet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, as we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr.\nMartin Luther King, Jr., commit to being part of the change. Join us at the\ntable for a true dialog to create a WE society!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 91 this month. Today, more than 50 years after King was assassinated, his words \u2014 like this thought from his \u201cLetter from a Birmingham Jail\u201d \u2014 still ring with truth: \u201c\u2026 we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[74,69,75,76,77,78,79,46,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11824,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8798\/revisions\/11824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrechapman.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}