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Solutions Privilege: How privilege shapes the expectations of solutions, and why it’s bad for our work addressing systemic injustice

This article examines the phenomenon of “solutions privilege,” which Le defines as “the privilege of expecting easy and instant solutions that would align with one’s worldview and not challenge one’s privilege.” For more read here.

Let’s Get Real About Why Women of Color Are So Tired: Playing by the rules in capitalist America comes at the cost of our mental, physical, and emotional health

This honest article by a woman of color examines why women of color experience actual trauma and suffering working in majority-white nonprofits. Specifically, the article addresses the scarcity mentality and a culture of celebrity and competition that underpin the culture of most nonprofits, including in the environmental and conservation sector. For more read here.

WHITE MALE WORKERS RESPOND POORLY TO WOMEN AND RACIAL MINORITIES IN POWER AND TAKE IT OUT ON COLLEAGUES: REPORT

This article begins “How do white male executives handle it when a woman or person of color become CEOs of their company? Not well, a new study from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business suggests.” We like this article because though many conservation, outdoor, and environmental organizations may be succeeding in recruiting, hiring, and promoting women and BIPOC, these employees will still struggle without concerted efforts to address unconscious bias on the part of their peers. Read more here.

Queer in tech: free stock photos from Mapbox

Mapbox created this photo set to promote the visibility of queer and gender-nonconforming (GNC) people in technology, who are often under-represented as workers powering the creative, technical, and business leadership of groundbreaking tech companies and products. Click here to access the article and here to access the database.

Blindspot: The Hidden Bias of Good People

In this seminal work, the authors of the Implicit Association Test discuss the impetus for their research on implicit biases. The book is peppered with fascinating activities and stories. Because implicit bias is what fundamentally gets in the way of our doing good diversity, equity, and inclusion work, we recommend everybody read this book. For those who are more audiovisual, listen to the podcast we’ve posted with Mazarin Banaji. If you have some time to read, order the book online here.

The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection

This book by Dorceta Taylor reveals the untold stories of the American conservation movement as they relate to race, indigeneity, gender, and other historically marginalized ideas and perspectives. Highly recommended for outdoor education and recreation folks. A must-read for anyone in the conservation or environmental sector (including advocacy, conservation, preservation, land, water, and wildlife management, and environmental education). The book is available for purchase online here.

A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890–1960

This book by Abigail A. Van Slyck examines the unique history and legacy of summer camps in the U.S. For those who don’t want to read the entire book, in our work with camps and outdoor recreation, we found following chapters particularly enlightening:

  • the Introduction
  • Chapter 3 (titled “Housing the Healthy Camper: Tents, Cabins, and Attitudes towards Health.”
  • Chapter 5 (titled “Good and Dirty? Girls, Boys, and Camp Cleanliness”)
  • Chapter 6 (titled “Living Like Savages. Tipis, Council Rings, and Playing Indian”)

The book is available on Amazon here.

Transgender vs. Transgendered

This article describes how “transgendered” is inaccurate language – gender identity is not something that happens to a person, but instead central to their identity. Read more here.

A New Masculinity: Why I Need Feminism as a Man

This article urges us to embrace the paradox of gender by explaining why we need to continue to talk about masculinity and femininity even though gender is a social construct that we need to “blow up.” Read more here.

Madness & Oppression

The people at the Icarus Project put together this mapping tool for anyone to map out how oppression impacts their health.

In the words of the authors, “Mad Maps are documents that we create for ourselves as reminders of our goals, what is important to us, our personal signs of struggle, and our strategies for self-determined well-being.”

You an access the book for free here or, please consider, paying $8 for this resource here.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Justice Vocabulary

We have compiled this vocabulary sheet to provide you with some basic definitions of key words and phrases. This vocabulary sheet represents how we at the Avarna Group commonly talk about DEIJ concepts and are a reflection of our learning over the years. However, this is not meant to be a definitive list and we have provided other resources in this vocabulary sheet that provide more definitions, particularly from impacted communities themselves. Moreover, language and ideas move faster than we have capacity to update this sheet. Please use this information as a starting point for understanding rather than a definitive resource.