Best of N.A.H. December 2016

On the 1st of each month, I share links to some of the best posts from my blog, Notes from an Aspiring Humanitarian.

Here are selected notes from December 2016.

Path

“There’s an activity called “Win All You Can” that I’ve used in some of my intergroup dialogue work where participants are split into smaller teams. One of the key components of this activity is how the participants define the word “You.” Does the “you” who is trying to win mean you as an individual, as a sub-group, or does the “you” represent everyone as a collective whole?

As the game progresses, the more folks make decisions that benefit them individually, while they may earn some gains in the short-term, they lose out in the long-term. The more participants understand themselves as part of a larger collective and act accordingly, the more universal the gains are that are experienced.

2016 was a year when so many people were successfully convinced to vote against their own self-interests. This was a year when people made the conscious decision that white supremacy manifested through racism, xenophobia, ableism, sexism, classism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry were small prices to pay to restore some sense of loss of power or lack of attention, or collateral damage on the path to securing issues that were important to them.

N.A.H. Rewind: The Best of 2016

“As 2016 comes to a close, let’s take a look back with a countdown of the Most visited Notes of the year.”

More notes from throughout the years can be found on The Best Of N.A.H.page.

Ubuntu,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones, MSW, LLMSW