February 2023

03/07 at 6:00 p.m. - Native + Indigenous Table Talk - Awareness & Education Around Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women


03/21 at 10:30 a.m. - Jane H. & Rabbi Sidney H. Brooks Conversations for Change Series


03/28 at 6:00 p.m. - Omaha Table Talk - What is Environmental Racism?

View Full Inclusive Communities Schedule Here

A Letter to Our Trans Youth

To our transgender and non-binary youth,


It is a frightening time as anti-trans bills continue to be introduced in Nebraska and across the nation, spreading messaging across our news feeds and social media platforms that says your identity doesn’t matter. We want you to know that isn’t the case. Throughout history, in cultures all around the world, transgender individuals were held in high regard and viewed as sacred beings. The Galli of Ancient Rome, were androgynous and transgender priests who spoke their own dialect, wore feminine presenting attire and jewelry, took on feminine presenting names, and identified as women.


In Indigenous communities the term two-spirit was coined to describe those, spanning generations, who embody both a male and female spirit and are said to be “blessed by their Creator to see life through the eyes of both genders."


Your resilience against hate and oppression is admirable, and let’s face it, your existence should not be a war or test of how much you can withstand before you’re even old enough to vote on the laws that seek to harm your very existence. We will always take on the fight for you.


Know that you are loved for exactly who you are. Your identity matters. Your joy matters. Your life matters. Our hope is that we can build a world in which you are able to grow to your fullest potential of self. You help to make our communities whole.


We see you and we celebrate you.


With all of our love,


Cammy + Maggie

Executive Directors

Two extremely impactful bills have passed their respective committees and made it to the full legislature for debate.


LB 626, the "Nebraska Heartbeat Act", would effectively ban abortion procedures at six weeks, if a heartbeat can be detected.


LB 574, the "Let Them Grow Act" blocks any gender-affirming medical care prior to an individual's 19th birthday.


These bills reflect an unnecessary political overstep that infringes on the right to bodily autonomy, while also taking away the rights of Nebraska families and medical professionals to make collectively informed decisions with regard to their healthcare.


Our youth deserve to grow up in a society that allows them to embrace their full selves without the impact of harmful legislation.

Find & Contact My State Senator

There isn't enough room in our newsletter to detail all of the happenings in the legislature, which is why we want to give a shoutout to our friends at Coalition for a Strong Nebraska for their highly detailed weekly blog Capitol Fly on the Wall! Learn about all of the committee hearings, floor action, and what's up next each week!


RESERVE YOUR SEAT

Reserve your seat to the Jane H. & Rabbi Sidney H. Brooks Conversations for Change Series, with featured guest Kal Penn! Conversations for Change will take place on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at 10:30 a.m. at the Holland Performing Arts Center in downtown Omaha.


Tickets are FREE, but reservations are required and are on a first come first serve basis.

RESERVE YOUR SEAT

If you have any questions, contact Brittany Wright, Director of Operations at brittany@inclusive-communities.org, or Ang Bennett, Communications Manager, at ang@inclusive-communities.org.

NATIVE + INDIGENOUS TABLE TALK

REGISTER for our upcoming Native + Indigenous Table Talk!


Awareness & Education Around Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center

6400 University Drive South

Omaha, NE 68182

Register Here

There is a virtual and in-person option to attend. If attending in person, food will be provided.

INCLUCITY

an update by Katie Petry & Colin McGrew

Our February camp was one for the books! We hosted 21 youth delegates from four schools and organizations. In addition, we had 12 counselors, including six Counselors-in-Training! Culture night, which is the delegates' time to showcase and discuss the nuances of cultural identity, was fantastic. The evening was filled with plenty of discussions, applause, laughter, and learning.


On our final night at camp, we had the opportunity to host one of our closing exercises around a campfire. Rarely does the weather permit for this to happen, so it was a real treat. We shared highlights and affirmations for the group at large. It was a beautiful night further decorated with the blossoming bonds and friendships that had formed throughout the weekend.


Our final IncluCity camp for the academic year will be from March 31-April 3.


Thank you to our delegates, volunteers, and faculty who continue to make our camps a success!

Previously on Omaha Table Talk

Food Insecurity: Cultivating Sustainable Resources

You can catch all of our past Omaha Table Talk events on our YouTube channel!

Work, work, work, work...WORK

by Maggie Wood

I was invited to write this blog on something “besides work” – Ha!


“Give people a sense of who you really are, Maggie.”


“What have you been thinking about lately?”


“Don’t make it about your cats!”


Full transparency, I am having trouble thinking back to a time when my personality hasn’t been driven or shaped by where I worked, whom I worked for, and with whom I aligned to make my money. This is something I’m talking regularly about with other folks and simultaneously unpacking in my own life. I realize it goes deep for me. It has seeped into all parts of my being; it’s in my groundwater.


It started with the message from my parents - in between drags off a cigarette - to “find a job with insurance.” I grew up in small-town Illinois in the ’70s and ’80s and couldn’t wait to get out and go - somewhere else. I’d be leaving behind loosely held illusions around security and a demonstratable precedent for bearing down in a long-term job that you may or may not hate your soul because you must do it every day, but you just swallow it down and go and maybe you’re miserable, but what else is there to do? Oh yeah, we got an Olive Garden.


I moved to Washington D.C. in my early 20’s, circa 1994-1995. I had a part-time job making legal copies for law firms on Pennsylvania Avenue. I remember for the first time internalizing the term Generation X and the descriptors of us as an age group- apathetic or lacking bearings...slackers. 


I read an article in a magazine that suggested that you should never ask someone what they do for a living the first time you meet them. Some folks might not be working in an industry that defines who they are as a person or “making a living” based on their skills, artistry, and talents. That resonated with me because I wasn’t in love with making copies and never felt like what I did for a living had anything to do with who I was or wanted to be. From ages 21-45, I was more focused on how I was going to get the dollars to support my life outside of work. I only ever made enough money to hold it together barely. I really wasn’t thinking about a career or climbing the corporate ladder. I had to have both a full-time and part-time job until I was 37. I wasn’t interested in power. I was interested in paying my power bill.


In 2005, I was sitting with a friend in the Elbow Room having a drink, when she told me she didn’t like me when I didn’t like my job. OUCH. Harsh? Yes. True? Also, yes. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives, or so they say.


At that moment, I vowed to myself that I would only work for places where I believed in what they do. I wanted to feel whole-hearted about whatever I was selling. I could no longer work in an industry where my passion and skills did not meet. I left my job, took a pay cut, and started working for non-profits.


The first 15 years of my working life were spent in the corporate sector. The last 15 years have been in non-profit work. Now 30 years in, I’m asking myself, how do I chip away at work as an identity? Choosing what career and company to work for is a way to carve out a sense of identity for me. It’s never been more clear to me than in the past seven years how much of a cultural creature I am and how I’ve been shaped by a series of inherited norms about what it means to have a job and go to work. Work is an interesting thing. Of course, I want to talk about it!


I think about where the world is, the state of business, and the state of organizations. People are experiencing burnout. Folks are tired. We all need a break. Now is an extremely fertile time to start thinking about how we can make things different for the future of earning a living and what it means to break the cycles of generations that have been building up around us. It doesn’t have to hurt. It can be quieter, and gentler. Doesn’t that sound nice? 


Want to talk about that? Or should we talk about my cats?

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