Monthly Archives:: June 2020

I was 5 years old when I recognized the difference between my parents. It wasn’t based on the fact that their skin tones were different. Or that my mom has beautiful blue eyes and my dad has lovely chocolate ones. It had nothing to do with the obvious physical characteristics that we so urgently assign...

It has been a month since the brutal murder of George Floyd. Over these past few weeks I have felt incredible grief over what transpired in those agonizing and grueling 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Since then, I have been overcome with sadness that often feels like rage. I think a lot about the complexity...

I grew up in Portland before it became the progressive haven people now believe it to be. For people of color there has always been, and continues to be, fewer opportunities, limited access to basic services, and risk of displacement. I came out as a gay man in my early 20s, although to be honest,...

This week, we felt that it was important to continue the conversation we have been having for the past few weeks by exploring the intersection of being Black and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. In pre-pandemic times, during the month of June, LGBTQ+ people would come from all over our region to gather at...

The past three months have been a crazy time in our lives, and I don’t think that I have experienced such a convergence of cataclysmic cultural shifts in my entire life. There have been some amazing things that have arisen as we have navigated these challenges as a community. Whether it is beginning the collective...

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision on DACA, everybody should fill out the Census. It’s a tool for change and a way to ensure immigrant communities have resources/human rights they need, build political power (especially for those who are unable to vote), see full messaging here.    DACA messaging and guidance: United We Dream Decision...

Last week, GOSW presented the voices of 5 incredible Black women who shared their perspectives as Black people in leadership in philanthropy. As the community conversation continues about issues related to race and racism, we have committed to further engage our members in an ongoing dialogue during this critical moment in our history. This has...

It’s almost impossible for me to talk about the George Floyd killing and what we are engulfed in without shutting down. I’m weary, frustrated and angry, at “them” and equally at me for believing that my family’s and my Black community’s place in this nation was ever going to change. Will the day ever come...

The recent case of Amy Cooper, a White woman in New York City’s Central Park, who threatened to call the police on Christian Cooper, a black man, to say he was “threatening” her and her dog, despite video evidence to the contrary is a constant reminder to my personal story as a black man in...

I am a Black man, running a culturally specific, nonprofit organization, in Portland, Oregon. That sentence in and of itself is almost oxymoronic as, in our region, there are few Black men, fewer culturally specific nonprofits, and even fewer still Executive Directors of such entities. How I got to this place is a circuitous tale...