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ellie krug
writer, lawyer, human
Human Inspiration Works, LLC
The Ripple
December 2017 Vol 2
No. 12
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Exercising ARC Over the Holidays
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Dear Friends:
Last week, I was on a panel of LGBTQ people who shared their stories of “coming out” as gay, lesbian or transgender. Two of us are in their sixties; the other two are in their early thirties. The panel was part of a diversity awareness series for Hennepin County (Minneapolis) employees.
The younger panel members, Steven and Ashely, eloquently shared about coming out as gay and lesbian at a time when I thought people would be more open; yet, their stories were consistent with parents turning their backs and shunning them—for years. Thankfully, both have since reconciled with their families.
What struck me most about their stories was recounting how they each lost Christmas with their families. Ashley, in particular, spoke of volunteering to work on Christmas as a way of battling the loneliness and hurt.
Their stories reminded me of how, in transitioning genders, I also lost Christmas. When I still presented as an ostensibly straight white male, my wife and I hosted huge holiday gatherings at our large home in Cedar Rapids—it was several days of festivities. Now, post-divorce, Christmas for the most part is a solitary experience where I do my best to not remember what I lost. (Please know that I’m good; I will be spending Christmas day with my oldest daughter Kate; that will be very nice!)
As you prepare for your holidays, please look around in your life. Who’s alone? If they’re LGBTQ, are they estranged from their family? Even if they’re not LGBTQ, do they have plans for the holidays?
Please remember ARC from Gray Area Thinking®--Awareness of human vulnerability or suffering; Risk-taking to alleviate that suffering; and acting with Compassion and kindness.
The holidays are a great time to exercise ARC to reach out and invite those who are alone. If you want your holiday meal to be “just family,” then ask someone over for desert or out for coffee during the long break from work. Thank you for doing that.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas everyone! I wish you the best as we head into a brand-new year!
I care about you!
ellie
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A Holiday Tradition That Made Me Think
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Some know that I’ve been a Big Sister to “Jasmine” through the Big Brothers/Sisters Program; we’ve been “Big” and “Little” since late 2012 when Jasmine was seven years old.
Beginning in 2012, Jasmine and I made it a holiday tradition to attend the Walker Museum’s (Minneapolis) airing of the British Arrow Awards—TV commercials from England that have won awards in Bronze, Silver, Gold and Commercial of the Year categories. The commercials are both funny and thought-provoking and give one a view of what’s important in another part of the world.
This year’s award-winners are no exception. However, I didn’t expect to be so emotionally taken by three of the commercials.
Two of the spots,
Harry and Ahmed
and
Still the Most Shocking Second a Day
, are about welcoming refugees.
Harry and Ahmed
features a split screen with Harry (a refugee from the Nazi Holocaust) and Ahmed (a teenage refugee from Syria) each talking about their escapes from horror and how they survived only due to the kindness of a host country.
Still the Most Shocking Second a Day
powerfully tells the story of a young European girl (I believe the intent is to portray her as British) whose family is decimated by civil war. We follow as she transforms from happy middle-class child to refugee. The tag line at the end of the ad says it all: “Just because it’s not happening here, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.” (Click
here
,
here
and
here
to see versions of the ad.)
The third commercial,
We’re the Superhumans
,
which scored Commercial of the Year, is about the Paralympics and features many people—athletes, musicians, dancers, and others—with what otherwise might be considered debilitating disabilities. And wow, you’d never know it! The ad’s tagline, “Yes I can!”, has a special pointed twist near the end. (And I won’t give it away.)
If you do nothing else with this month’s
Ripple
newsletter, I urge you to watch and share each of these commercials. I suspect they will expand your perspective in ways that you might not have imagined. I, for one, have been super-charged by the ads to go forward in 2018 with even greater vigor to make this world of ours more inclusive and welcoming to all, regardless of our differences.
In the end, isn’t that what the holidays are really about?
If you’re close to the Twin Cities, the Walker will be showing the British Arrow Awards through Dec. 30.
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Human Goodness Shows Up on I-95
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On a late evening in October, Amanda Hoover, 27. ran out of gas on I-95 in the Philadelphia area. As she fretted about her situation, a disheveled-looking homeless man named Johnny Babbitt appeared. He told Amanda to get in the car and lock the doors while he went to get help. Soon later, after spending his last $20, Johnny appeared with a gas can that allowed Amanda to get on her way. Not having cash on her (which of course many younger people no longer carry), Amanda wasn’t able to pay Johnny back.
Several days later, Amanda and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, returned to the area where Amanda had encountered Johnny. With luck, they found him and soon were befriending Johnny with food, clothing and gift cards. They learned that Johnny, 34, had been homeless for about a year. A Marine Corps. veteran, Johnny had been a certified paramedic who had moved to the Philadelphia area to start a job. Unexpectedly, the job soon ended and through a series of misfortunes, Johnny found himself on the street.
Eventually, with the goal of raising $10,0000 to help Johnny get reestablished, Mark set up a GoFundMe page. The campaign quickly raised $1700 and Amanda and Mark thought it would end there. But the money kept coming in—first, to the level of $34,000. After a local news story, the fund got to $250,000. The story then went viral and the fund reached $376,000 with more than 33,000 people donating!
Johnny plans to give away much of his windfall. In helping Amanda, Johnny said, “I didn’t think anything about it. I wasn’t expecting anything in return…That’s how I got the money to start with…from other people. [I had to] return the favor. I can’t constantly take and not give back.”
As I say in many of my trainings, 99 percent of us have empathetic hearts and want to do good; it’s just that many of us don’t know what that good is or we’re scared to death of doing good. The fact that 33K people gave to Johnny shows that if someone leads the way, many others will follow.
You can read about this remarkable story
here
.
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Inclusivity Tip of the Month
The Value of Lived Experience
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This month’s Inclusivity Tip comes in response to an inquiry to speak on International Women’s Day 2018 (March 8) in Ottawa, Canada. To satisfy that inquiry, I formalized my “Jumping the Gender Fence” training. (You can view the training description
here.)
In doing this, I focused on how it is that transgender humans have a unique window (and perspective) in understanding what it means to live in both (binary) genders. Most often, when I’m asked to speak, the learning inquiry is about what it means to “come out” as trans. Rarely does a sponsor ever ask about my post-gender-transition-life.
Much of what gets in the way between men and women is our inability to fully understand each other. (Remember
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
?) In transitioning genders, I now have a much better idea of how—and to a certain degree, why—things are different. This is a learned, lived experience; and in my case, it’s been a big lesson in understanding what it means to go from a position of privilege to one of marginalization.
From a Human Inclusivity Tip standpoint, I think it’s critically important to hear from people who have the actual experience of living as a marginalized person. Too often, folks train on subjects that they really don’t have the experience of living. Now, let me be clear: there are many fantastic trainers out there regardless of their backgrounds or lived experiences. However, if you are looking for a trainer or speaker, I would urge you to take an additional hour or two in your search to see if you can find someone who has the lived experience with the subject at hand.
Certainly, it’s self-serving, but I’m always a proponent of the idea that if you want to know about what it means to be trans, look for a trainer who’s transgender; the same rule applies with learning about being Latino, Black, Muslim, or a person with a disability. If you can’t find a trainer to fit that category, then look for a nonprofessional from the community who might be willing to speak.
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Odds and Ends: I’m getting a bunch in at the end of the year…
Darn Wonderful:
In the spirit of the season, check out
this story
of a customer who left a $2,000 tip on a $17 bill at a diner; he wrote a note that the money should be split among the diner’s nine employees. And because we humans learn from each other, once the story broke, another customer left a $200 tip at the same diner. Merry Christmas folks!
Best Movie Quote:
If you haven’t seen the movie, “Wonder,” please do. It’s a story about Auggie, a 5
th
grader with a facial deformity, and highlights all that I teach about how humans group and label, and as well, how we’re also hardwired for empathy. The best line comes when the principal of Auggie’s school (played by Mandy Patinkin) says, “Augie can’t change the way he looks; maybe we can change the way we see.” Exactly!
An Atlanta News Anchor Responds on the Air to Being Called the N-Word:
Read and watch
how Atlanta news anchor Sharon Reed takes down the viewer.
Good Writing on Racism:
Adam Serwer writes in
The Atlantic
in a
piece
titled, “The Nationalist’s Delusion” about how the 2016 presidential election really was about race and some very mistaken assumptions.
Comparing the Numbers:
As reported in the December 2017 issue of the
ABA Journal,
of the 42 candidates for U.S. Attorney (the top federal prosecutors in each state) nominated by President Trump, only 1 was a woman. The year after taking office, President Obama nominated 12 female U.S. Attorneys out of 42 nominations.
First Ever:
Read
here
about Mikayla Holmgren, who became the first woman with Down Syndrome to compete in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant. Mikayla was awarded the USA Spirit Award and Director’s Award. Proof that we truly are starting to think and act more inclusively!
Poetic Justice:
A Kentucky gay man, David Ermold, who was denied a marriage license by the Rowan County Clerk, Kim Davis, announced that he plans to run for Davis’s seat. That’s the way we really create change in America! See story
here
.
Recent Writings—mine:
My December
Lavender Magazine
piece
, “Ordinary Heroes” is about the many people I’ve met through my speaking/training who demonstrate daily acts of bravery; some of that bravery has been in the form of simply pushing against systems that fear having a transgender trainer come on site could spark too much internal or public controversy.
Speaking of Banned Words:
As
CNN reported
late last week, the Center for Disease Control has now banned seven words from the agency’s collective vocabulary:
"diversity," "fetus," "transgender," "vulnerable," "entitlement," "science-based" and "evidence-based." Huh? Once you ban the words, it becomes a whole lot easier to ban the people or ideas those words represent…
Kate’s Pick:
My 27-year-old daughter Kate, a writer like me, is a freelancer for
Book Riot
where she reviews books. She also has an entertainment-review website that’s fun and smart,
Snarky Yet Satisfying.
Her book pick for this month is
Dark Matter
by Blake Crouch. A synopsis:
"’
Are you happy with your life?’ Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe."
Writings and Books—by others:
For those who love children’s books, here’s a wonderful
The Atlantic
piece
, “Children’s Books for Uncertain Times,” by Nathan Perl-Rosenthal about the children’s author Barbara Cooney—she was quite the polestar for how society was changing in the 40’s through the 90’s and understood the impact that solitary women with life missions could have.
“Hidden Edges Radio” Shows:
I’ve now done two live (!!) shows—one with Stephanie Glaros (of Humans of Minneapolis) to discuss empathy-building skills and the other with Dr. Kurt Nelson where we talked about loneliness over the holidays. Go figure. Beginning in January (my second year on the air), in addition to my weekly H.E.R. show every Sunday, I’ll also start “Ellie 2.0”—a weekly half hour a.m. drive time show about how to be more inclusive of others and with stories of folks who have done just that. My goal—I’ll just say it unabashedly—is to have a national radio show built around the concept of unifying our country. Yep, I know, that Ellie Krug sure is a big dreamer...You can access the growing list of podcasts
here
.
Continuing Shout-out for Interesting Guest Leads:
Hidden Edges Radio focuses on how all of us are collectively trying to survive the Human Condition. I like to bring in guests who have shown personal grit and resiliency. If you know of people with stories along these lines, please tell me about them (they can be anywhere in the U.S.—we can air telephone interviews) at
Hiddenedgesradio@gmail.com
. Thanks!
Past and Upcoming Talks/Trainings and General Stuff:
I had thought that December would be slower but that’s not been the case; I’ve had many phone and in-person meetings to plan for 2018 trainings. On top of that, I’ve taken on several consulting and volunteer projects. Next month, I will present human inclusivity trainings to a law firm in Mountain View, CA, legal administrators in Baltimore, and a youth/adult mentor program in Boulder. On the horizon is an early February speaking and listening road trip through several Southern states (I will share more about that in the next
Ripple
). I am very lucky that people allow my words to occupy space in their brains!
3021:
That’s the number of recipients of
The Ripple
as of December 15. This time last year, that number was less than 900. Thank you for reading this newsletter!
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Finally....
The Ripple
is a work in progress, so please, I welcome your suggestions and comments! Please share this newsletter with others, too!
Thank you for helping to make the world a better place! I'm at your side, cheering you on, I promise! Please have compassion for yourself and for others.
ellie
Encouraging Open Hearts and Thriving Human Spirits
Human Inspiration Works, LLC: We make "inclusion" an action word
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Ellen (Ellie) Krug
319-360-1692
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