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Community Conversations on Youth Detention - After Action Report

10/31/2021

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Community Conversations on Youth Detention - After Action Report 

Davenport Bearing Witness

Although I am not in leadership with Davenport Bearing Witness, I wanted to share this information with our community. The following is an excerpt from Praxis: the Davenport Bearing Witness Newsletter. It describes the successful presentations on October 28th and 29th that we wrote about in this PACG blog post, Community Conversations - Youth Detention: Short and Long-Term Implications in Today's Issues. Many PACG members participated in the three offered events. I was proud to look around the room to see so many familiar faces! In addition, Davenport Bearing Witness now has a Facebook page to help you find out how you can connect to work on these important issues.

From Praxis: Ubuntu, is an African humanist philosophy based on a culture of sharing, openness, mutual dependence, dialogue and interpersonal encounter.
In Ubuntu, human existence reaches fulfillment as part of whole, society thrives on a common humanity, and forgiveness and reconciliation are prerequisites for preserving social harmony.
 

From We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities,
by Zach Norris.

"Now more than ever we need to engage with each other and with our democracy. We need to build our tolerance for constructive disagreement so that we feel safe participating. We need to make our voice heard in support of the kinds of government spending and programs that will support our well-being and safety. We know what the impact is of members in the community and neighbors who engage, who listen to each other across differences and become involved in helping each other out, and who help solve domestic challenges and share with each other."


Over the last 48 - 72 hours many of us experienced just a small taste of what an Ubuntu experience can feel like. The gatherings on Thursday evening and Friday were also reminders of the democratic process Zach Norris describes above. In a democracy, all of us have a role and accountable for keeping each other safe.

Big picture. Democracy is pretty cool. Slowly emerging out of the pandemic, it may have been a while since many of us have been in settings like we experienced at Friends of MLK Interpretive Center on Thursday and Eastern Iowa Community College on Friday. Dr. Wilson created a safe and inclusive space for us to embody and experience democracy. 

Our panelists - Mike Guster, Scott Hobart, Jeremy Kaiser, and Marcy Mistrett - were awesome in respecting their differences of opinion. And even more impressively, and more frequently - areas where they are in agreement. 

We will remember Thursday evening's powerful witness of young people and young adults, parents and grandparents, neighbors from all over Davenport.
The space was not large enough to hold all of our physical bodies.
On Friday, representatives from the faith, business, education, research and advocacy, philanthropic, elected officials and policy makers and community organizations also participated in a witness of the potential power of democracy.

In all, over 150 of us experienced and created a space for public discourse and democracy.  Thank you all!

Our work ahead is to make sure the Scott County Board of Supervisors is listening.

The Quad-Cities Times wrote an article about these meetings here.


Allison Ambrose
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No Hate In Our States - Phillis Wheatley

10/28/2021

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Phillis Wheatley: The First Published African-American Poet

Have you heard of poet Phillis Wheatley? Listen to this short podcast to learn her story.

https://youtu.be/cEzrary7sOY

Julie Ross
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November Green Drinks - River Action Programs

10/26/2021

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November Green Drinks via Zoom
Tuesday, November 2nd at 5:00 pm

Environmental Forum

Kathy Wine from River Action, Inc. is going to speak to us at our November Green Drinks on Tuesday, November 2nd at 5:00 pm.. She'll share with us the work that River Action staff and members have been doing to improve the waterways in the Quad Cities.

Please R.S.V.P. at zoom.us/meeting/register/

Susan Leuthauser

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PACG Member J Gardner Passes - A Message from the Board

10/24/2021

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PACG Member J Gardner Passes

A Message from the Board

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of long-time PACG member Dr. J Gardner, MD. 

Dr J H Gardner was a great friend and supporter of PACG. As a physician he was especially interested in health care reform, but his vast and varied life experiences made him supportive of many different progressive causes. He believed in our work at PACG, and was a generous donor. 
 
As he aged it became more difficult for him to attend our meetings, many of which are in the evenings. The pandemic was especially isolating for him because he couldn’t go out with his friends or get to the Y to work out. But, ironically, it did lead to him becoming a regular attendee at the PACG Book Club!
 
Early in the pandemic PACG Board member Alta Price reached out to some of our older and less tech-savvy members to get them connected via Zoom. She says that, “No one had as little trouble getting on Zoom as Dr. Gardner, who was 91 at the time!” 
 
“J was a loyal member of Book Club during the pandemic. We will miss his insight and the wisdom gained from a long life filled with incredible experiences. J suggested many great books for us to read and discuss. I know our Book Club enriched his life as well. When he joined us in reading Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi it was the first fantasy novel J had ever read - at age 91! He shared that it was strange, but he enjoyed it. All of our regular Book Club members will really miss him,” reports Alta.
 
Once on Zoom, J also served on our Finance Committee, which benefited greatly from his suggestions and guidance.

PACG Board member, Treasurer and Fundraising Chair Ann McCluskey had the following remembrance to share: "I met Dr. J H Gardner long ago over lunch. He was interested in a wide range of issues but we mostly we talked about our love of books and shared authors and book titles.

"Over the past year, Dr. Gardner was an active member of the PACG Fundraising Committee. He was responsible for introducing the concept of QCD to us, the way of giving to PACG via a Qualified Charitable Distribution. He explained that a QCD allows traditional IRA owners over 70 ½ years old to deduct from their required minimum distribution if they donate money directly from their traditional IRA to a qualified charity, explaining that the donor can give up to $100,000 to a qualified charity of their choice, lower their adjusted gross income (AGI) and effectively reduce their income taxes. Dr. Gardner was looking for a way to do more with his charitable donations and for all of us to be ongoing stewards of Progressive Action for the Common Good. We quickly adopted the QCD concept into our 2021 Fundraising Campaign. And we will use it in future campaigns.

"Dr. Gardner was interested in making sure that PACG would continue its work on progressive issues for generations to come."

PACG Book Club members Laura and Sharon shared this: "
We were always glad to see Dr. Garner's smiling face on the Zoom Book Club meetings. His comments were always insightful. We will miss him."
 
This wonderful obituary in the Quad City Times, details some of his incredible life story. Dr. Gardner will be missed by all of us at PACG.


Donations can be made in J's honor to Planned Parenthood,​ the YMCA of Davenport and the Kay Gardner Memorial Foundation Fund at the Quad Cities Community Foundation.

We will let our community know when information becomes available about a memorial service.


Alta Price
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PACG Book Club for January 2022

10/24/2021

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PACG Book Club for January 2022 - War on Us: How the War on Drugs & Myths About Addiction Have Created a War on All of Us  by Colleen Cowles

We will meet via Zoom on Monday, January 17th at 5:30 pm to discuss War on Us: How the War on Drugs & Myths About Addiction Have Created a War on All of Us by Colleen Cowles. We are not meeting in December, so you will have two months to read this book. Although it is long, it is reported to be very engaging and easy to read. Also, it is not as long as you might think since there are lots of references at the end!

I spent some time at the waronus.com website. This book is very relevant to the work the Civil Rights Forum is doing on criminal justice reform and juvenile justice reform. I wonder if PACG and its coalition partners might want to bring the author here (probably by Zoom) to speak?

Here is some information about the book from Goodreads:


"While the War on Drugs may have sounded like a good idea at one time, the consequences have been catastrophic. From physicians persecuted for providing health care to their patients to parents grieving the loss of their children to overdose or prison — we've all become victims of this war.


Our health, our families, our assets, our safety and our freedom are at risk:
 
  • One in three adults in the U.S. now has a criminal record.
  • Patients with severe illnesses or chronic pain are denied access to proven pain medications.
  • Over a trillion in taxpayer dollars in the U.S. alone has 'bought' the highest drug use, the highest overdose and the highest incarceration rates in the world.  
In War on Us, Colleen Cowles raises the alarm and offers practical, proven reforms. There are answers, as long as we have the will to implement change. It’s time to end the War on Drugs — and the war on all of us. This book is the roadmap to do just that." 

Click on my name for a Zoom link to the discussion.


Alta Price


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PACG Book Club for November 2021

10/24/2021

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PACG Book  Club for November 2021 - The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde

On Monday, November 15th at 5:30 pm we will meet via Zoom to discuss The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde.

Here is a review from Kirkus Reviews:

​"Rabbits, foxes, weasels, and other creatures live as humans, among humans in Fforde’s wonderfully absurd new novel.

Fifty-five years ago, the Spontaneous Anthropormorphizing Event resulted in 18 rabbits, “six weasels, five guinea pigs, three foxes, a Dalmatian, a badger, nine bees and a caterpillar” inexplicably becoming, well, anthropomorphized. As time went on, the animals continued to reproduce—especially the rabbits—causing a bit of a political crisis for humans, who are loathe to extend human rights to human-adjacent creatures. Rabbits in particular are subject to cruelty and suspicion because of their rapid reproductive rate, causing political parties like the United Kingdom Anti-Rabbit Party and hate groups like TwoLegsGood (because humans, unlike animals, have two legs, get it?) to rise to immense power. Racism as we know it still exists in this world, as does Brexit. Indeed, "the consequences of the Event seemed to highlight areas of the human social experience that perhaps needed greater exploration, understanding and some kind of concerted action...although once a fringe idea, the notion that the event might have been satirically induced was gaining wider acceptance.” And is there anyone who can write satire quite like Fforde? Perhaps the sharpest, most searing aspect of this brilliant satire is the choice of Peter Knox as narrator. An unassuming human who thinks himself a well-meaning cog in a regrettably evil machine, Knox finds himself at the very center of the rabbit resistance. Not only must he make the choice to atone for the part he has played in the violent government organization RabCoT (Rabbit Compliance Taskforce) and put himself in danger for a greater good, but he learns to embrace a supporting role in a struggle that is not about him at all.

An astonishingly well-crafted work of social and political satire."

Click on my name for a Zoom link to the discussion.

​Alta Price
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Community Conversations on Youth Detention - Community Event

10/23/2021

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Community Conversations - Youth Detention:  Short- and Long-Term Implications and Today's Issues
October 28th & 29th, various times

Davenport Bearing Witness

Thursday, October 28, 6:00 pm. - 7:30 pm - MLK Interpretive Center, 501 Brady St, Davenport (map)

Friday, October 29, 8:00 am - 9:30 am - EICC Downtown Campus, 101 W. 3rd St, Davenport (map)

Friday, October 29 11:30 am - 1:00 pm - EICC Downtown Campus, 101 W. 3rd St, Davenport (map)


Panelists include:

Mike Guster, President, Davenport NAACP
Scott Hobart, Chief Juvenile Court Officer, 7th Judicial District
Jeremy Kaiser, Director, Scott County Juvenile Detention Center
Marcy Mistrett, Director of Youth Justice, The Sentencing Project.


The 75-minute conversations will be facilitated by Dr. LaDrina Wilson, founder and CEO of Iman Consulting, LLC. Iman Consulting provides leadership development programming and diversity, equity and inclusion education, and training. Dr. Wilson has spearheaded numerous initiatives to enhance understanding of diversity and social justice. She has volunteered as the state lead for Dream Corps Justice's Day of Empathy, which seeks to create more awareness of criminal justice issues and reform.

Panelists will make brief presentations and the community will participate by offering questions to the panel. Light refreshments will be served. Social distancing and masks will be implemented. For more information please write DavenportBearingWitness@gmail.com.

John DeTaeye
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Museum of Silenced History - No Hate

10/19/2021

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The Museum of Silenced History

From the museum’s description: “The Museum of Silenced History offers a space for minority, underrepresented, and marginalized members of society to share their stories and have their voices heard, perhaps, for the first time. It is a place that such members can identify with, and a place of healing and reconciliation.”

Check it out: https://cc4es2.wixsite.com/museum

Julie Ross
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New Voting Restrictions In Iowa - A Message to Our Members

10/19/2021

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Are You Still Registered to Vote in the Election in Iowa?

 A Message to Our Members

The Iowa legislature recently passed sweeping new voting laws that actually make it harder to vote in our state. If you did not vote in the 2020 election, your voting status becomes inactive. But because we now have to show an ID to vote, once you go to the polls and to vote again, your status moves to active. However, if you do not vote in two general elections, then your voter status is canceled. If you wish to vote in any subsequent election you must re-register to vote.

PACG supported the efforts of Iowa Women United to create an informational flyer about these changes. The second page (shown below) summarizes some of these restrictive measures. Please download and print off the flyer to hand out to your family and friends. 

The right to vote is critical to our democracy. We will continue to fight any laws that restrict that right.

Allison Ambrose


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iowa_women_united_vote_flyer.pdf
File Size: 27 kb
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Download File

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Prof. Kristen Henning's Book is Available! - A Message from the President

10/12/2021

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Prof. Kristen Henning's Book is Available Now!
Read "The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth"

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In June of this year, PACG, along with the Juvenile Justice Coalition of the Quad Cities, LULAC, NAACP, OHF-QCA and UUCQC, sponsored the "Race, Adolescence and Trauma" webinar with guest speaker Professor Kristen Henning of Georgetown Law. We are pleased to announce that Prof. Henning's book, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth has been published and is readily available in local bookstores and digitally. The links below are some of the reviews of the book.

As a result of our webinar, PACG continues to work in coalition with others to address the issues that Prof. Henning raised. These Adolescence, Race and Trauma discussions have been ongoing since June. Please join us if you are interested.

PACG is proud to have been part of bringing this important work to the Quad Cities!


The Rage of Innocence reviews:
LA Times
Good Reads
Penguin Books

Allison Ambrose


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