"Becoming a mother increased my compassion for human existence...how can one child be safe if all children are not safe?" - Amana Harris

Meet Amana Harris, Executive Director of The Center for ArtEsteeem, which empowers individuals to be self-aware and inspired through art, creativity, and education, and to make positive choices to break the cycle of violence for themselves and their communities. They also promote the understanding that we can choose peace over conflict and love over fear.

Love over fear. That's a new one. Well actually it is not at all, as it was/is a fundamental tenet of most of the world's major religions, but it is something we easily forget, particularly in times of fear, when it becomes much easier to blame others. 

LISTEN IN as Amana eloquently talks on: 

• apartheid schools
• creativity 
• finding value in every individual
• the power of art to develop the critical voices of young people
• cultivating compassion in places of privilege
• having hard conversations
• being vulnerable and the deep internal work White people must do to shift systemic racism
• and the power and importance of passing on history.

RESOURCES

• RACE: The Power of An Illusion, PBS
  
  
• The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America  by Jonathan Kozol 
  
  
• Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals
  
  
• Color Theory: Race Is a Useful Illusion by Aeeshah Clottey and Kokomon Clottey
  
  
• So Much! by Trish Cooke

To see some of the Oakland Mural Project visit www.ahc-oakland.org/oakland-mural-project

Learn more about Amana's work at Center for ArtEsteem.