Rightwing power grab renders Supreme Court illegitimate

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization an illegitimate, radical, rightwing court overturned half a century of settled law established by Roe v. Wade to advance a political agenda. But why do I refer to the current US Supreme Court as...

All Policy is Health Policy

Where we live shouldn’t determine the length or the quality of our lives. We all belong in communities whose conditions allow us to live the healthiest lives possible. These conditions include stable housing, access to quality healthcare, jobs with...

Six Actions to Make Belonging Real in Tech

What would it take to collectively own our data? How could we regulate the environmental impact of resource-intensive technologies? These are just some of the big questions about technology facing us on a global scale. In our 2021 landscape scan on...

Taking Equitable Development to the Next Level

An ordinance recently passed in Richmond, California, shows a new pathway to ensure that major economic development projects in low-income communities of color are designed for more equitable benefits by delivering local jobs, inclusive hiring, and...

Radicalism or pragmatism? A look at another divide in racial justice advocacy

Today we launched the “ Structural Racism Remedies Project ,” a vast repository of scholarship, advocacy, and policy ideas for interventions to dismantle structural and systemic racism. The policies contained in this repository take many forms and...

“Inherit the Wind” Redux

Nearly a century ago, the state of Tennessee prosecuted a high school teacher for instructing students on the theory of evolution in violation of a state law. The state law was based on a fear that teaching evolution would undermine religious...

A tribute to my dear friend, Lani Guinier

As we begin to settle into 2022, my heart and mind are weighed down by the losses we suffered at the end of 2021 and the beginning of this year. With the normal flow of life and death I know there are always those passing on and those joining us...

Blog: Jan. 6 happened because we ignored George Washington's final warning

Many Americans across the political spectrum would readily admit that political polarization and extreme partisanship have become major problems in our society. Partisanship and polarization are not the same thing (you can have one without the other)...

#PandemicTruths: A declaration of interdependence

Othering and belonging seem to me to be the critical issues for our species at this point in our history. I am recently retired. For the past 30 years, I worked in food banking. In that time, I have had a chance to observe and appreciate the way our...

#PandemicTruths: Moving beyond our safe spaces

If we truly believe in humanity, in the possibility of the evolution of the human spirit, this must be a time of expanding our reach in a way that ensures everyone's most basic needs are met, their birthright to dream and become, supported and...

Poem: A Love Supreme

Across seven seas and barren borders, we are all connected and conjoined. Through the pain and the pandemic, the exploitation and the expropriation, Through the crisis of the changing climate and the desolate deserts without food, Through the oil...

Covid-19: What Will We Remember?

What will we care to re-member about the era of the Covid-19 pandemic? Some events become a generational marker, an experience shared by so many in such profound ways that the ripples last decades. The “Great Depression” of the 1930s and the US war...

Can we disarm vigilantes by bridging?

Today, another vigilante escaped justice. Somehow, a jury in Wisconsin found that Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in driving across a state border and killing two protesters, wounding a third, and firing on a fourth with a semi-automatic rifle. I can...

The Role of Religion in Bridging Work

"When I took my shahada," said Curtis Toler, "my past sins were erased and I could start a new life." Curtis had spent many years as a high-ranking gang leader in Chicago, and he had hurt many people. But he had reached what author Amanda Ripley...

Blog: The US Owes a Debt to Haiti and to Haitian Migrants

The scenes of Haitian migrants being herded like cattle and whipped like slaves by Border Patrol agents on horseback at the US-Mexico border at Del Rio, Texas are typical of how Haitians have been treated since the 1804 Haitian revolution. Haiti is...

Explore Othering and Belonging

E-Newsletter Archive

An Archive of past issues of our bi-weekly newsletter.
Apr
8

Targeted Universalism Explained

Register Here Join us on Tuesday, April 8 at 10:30am PT for the live launch of our new course on Targeted Unversalism. We're hosting a live conversation between our TU creators and experts, OBI Director john a. powell, Assistant Director...

Video: How to make sense of this moment

On Monday, March 24, 2025 OBI Director john a. powell and researchers tried to contextualize the current moment our world is experiencing in a 90-minute virtual conversation. They looked at what is driving the rise of authoritarianism across the...