Volume 2, Resources 25: The Wake Up, Happiness Calendar, and Just Watch
Hi friends! I want to send some extra love out to my fellow BIPOCs who are doing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, Justice, Access (DEIBJA) work in their day jobs. It’s already part of what many of us have to do just existing as a BIPOC and many of us are doing additional work as part of working groups and committees at our jobs. It’s often very taxing to be a BIPOC in this space.
In the spirit of “courageous conversations,” in a recent meeting I pushed back hard on the idea of “diversity of thought” in DEIBJA work. Of course diversity of thought is important, but it’s not a pillar of diversity we are talking about in this work and it is often brought up as a false equivalency. No one is getting hate-crimed because of diversity of thought. There are no special legal protections for diversity of thought. No one is whispering, “Oh him? Steve is our diversity hire. Yeah, he believes that the Earth is flat.”
I get it. Folks want to expand the term diversity to include everyone because people don’t want to be left out but the thing is, we are doing this work because people are being left out. If everyone is included, then it’s easy. It’s easy to say, “Look! We’re doing it!” rather than to really dig into who is being left out and why and how do we bring them into the fold.
Anyway, if you are doing DEIBJA work, especially unpaid but still as part of your day job or career, I see you. I appreciate you and yes we should be getting paid because it is work and I hope you’re being gentle with yourself.
It’s a resource week so I’ll get to it after I share this photo of an amazing holiday card and accompanying sticker I got from a friend:
Resource #1: The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change by Michelle Mijung Kim
Speaking of DEIBJA work, this book is an absolute must-read for anyone who is engaging in DEIBJA work whether it is at your job or organization or just in life. Many folks are new to it the past couple of years. This book is so incredibly important for laying groundwork for DEIBJA initiatives that are actually valuable rather than just checking boxes and patting ourselves on the back.
You can hear me talk about it on this episode of All the Books! or buy it through my affiliate links at Bookshop or Libro.fm.
Resource #2: Happiness Calendar from the Greater Good Science Center
This resource may not be for everyone so your mileage may vary. The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley has a monthly happiness calendar that tries to be a day-to-day guide to well-being. Each day has a little something to do, like “Slow down and be present with loved ones” and a link to a related article, podcast, or resource. If you don’t want to constantly open a separate pdf, there are also calendar integrations offered. For instance, I have it added directly to my Google calendar. I wanted to share it now in case you wanted to make it a part of your 2022.
Here’s a link to the happiness calendar for December 2021 and here’s a link to past happiness calendars.
Resource #3: Just Watch
Okay, this resource is very different from everything else I share in this newsletter but it seems like many people I tell about it have never heard of it and then when I share it with them they’re like, “Holy shit this is rad” so I’m sharing it here.
Just Watch is basically a giant search engine for movies and shows on streaming services. There are so many times where I’m like, “I want to watch X, what service is it on?” You can go through each of your streaming services and search and take a million years, or you can go to https://www.justwatch.com/us and search there and it will tell you where it is streaming either for free, with a subscription, for purchase, or for rental. I was surprised at how many things that I want to watch that are streaming for FREE through Kanopy, which is the streaming service through the public library (yes, you can totally stream free films and shows if you have a library card for most major metropolitan library systems).
I have not used the “notify me” option for things I want to watch that aren’t available anywhere so I have no opinion on that.
That’s it for this week! You can shop any books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481. If you want me to send you some happy mail, feel free to give me your address.
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That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
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