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Asha Sanaker's avatar

I am of an age that I *did* watch Happy Days as it was airing. The Fonz wasn't my first tv crush (that would be Speed Racer), but he was fairly high up the list. My greater affection was for Pinky Tuscadero, though. Cool redhead role models in pop culture were few and far between in those days and Pinky was THE BEST.

Your essay is allowing me to put words to something, though, and I'm really appreciating that. Namely, that there is a need (based on an obvious lack) of people in activist spaces whose primary job is to model and push for emotional intelligence. We have to change systems. That's the big goal, yes? But systems are full of people who are affected in a variety of ways connected to identity, trauma, and trauma's close cousins-- rage, disassociation, spiritual bypassing, conflict avoidance, etc. Doing big system change work, in other words, gets us way up in our feelings, but somehow taking the time to acknowledge that and figure out how to support each other through that is often considered indulgent, beside the point, or a deliberate attempt to derail "the work" to coddle the White folks in the room. And it can be indulgent. And it can be derailing. But it doesn't have to be. And I suspect that if we don't figure out how to do that deep emotional work together the big system change work will always eventually be undone because *we* aren't changed in the end.

I'm beginning to suspect that's the thing I actually bring to the work, that commitment to supporting the development of emotional intelligence in our change-making spaces so that the system change we make changes us.

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Jennifer Ward Dudley's avatar

Henry Winkler is a National treasure . I arranged his appearance at a Gala of 500 for The Springer School in Cincinnati. Children with learning issues who go on to become excellent highschool , university and varied professions. He has written Hank Zipzer. Children’s books about different learning issues. Anyway he sat with my husband and me. Spoke to guests 30 plus minutes. Sans notes. He’s dyslexic (you probably know and a Yale grad ) his last words “ Thankyou for listening my parents never did.”

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