(Note: All of our Team members are available for speaking engagements.)
Meet Harry Allen
Born and raised in New York City, Harry Allen is a successful freelance writer and a regular contributor to VIBE, The Village Voice, ESSENCE, The Source and numerous other print and web publications. He is nationally recognized for his pieces on race issues and popular culture and is considered a leading authority on hip hop culture and music. For five years he has hosted a highly acclaimed weekly radio show on WBAI called NONFICTION on which he interviews the best and brightest of today’s artists, authors, architects, and politicians. In his spare time he posts as often as five times a day to his blog, Media Assassin. Harry’s incisive intellect, fearless commitment to the truth, and extraordinary command of language make his a unique voice in the fragmented world of today’s media. At the turn of a phrase, Harry Allen can build a temple or burn down the house.
Meet Cicily Corbett
Cicily Corbett, English Professor, cataloger of Judaica and columnist uncommon, finds that close relationships fuel her passion for excellence. Cicily bears the torch of a tribe silent in the eyes of many. Trekking nooks of the globe has uncovered gems one finds woven within her wisdom. But her greatest uncovery is the secret Secret of Success: List your goals on a napkin!
Meet Victor Escalante
Victor Escalante is often described as a straight shooter. His unique perspective and cultural style lends a new outlook to his many talents. Some of these include writing, professional consulting, photography, and communications coaching. His professional experience encompasses skills that vary from being a radio producer and talk show host to being an account executive in Hispanic marketing. As an award winning photographer, he travels with his cameras to capture and freeze the human experience. His background and personal growth blends all that personifies the quintessential American. Born in a small pueblito in Jalisco, Mexico, his struggles taught him to make his own opportunities and this became a fundamental principle that guides his life. This is summed up by saying “If I can do it, I will teach you, so you can do it bigger and better.” He faces challenges with a head-on approach and the tenacity to get the job done and do it well. His desire is to connect two minds, two hearts, two souls and ignite the world. He lives in Houston Texas with his wife, two dogs, and is a proud father to a first generational child living the American dream.
Meet Berkeley Grimball
“Days are for work, nights are for music
That’s the only way we can get along”
From the song Days are for Work by B. Grimball
Berkeley Grimball spends his days at Grimball Jewelers which he started with a torch and a prayer in 1985 and which has become the premier jewelry store in Chapel Hill, NC. (Go Tar Heels!) “Jewelry is not a luxury, but a cultural necessity. There has never been a human society past or present, primitive or advanced, that has not worn jewelry. We are hardwired to love small shiny objects”. He spends his nights playing plucked strings and woodwinds and writing songs while his wife, Catherine, says, “You’re playing it too fast.” An amateur ventriloquist (“You just have to talk without nuving your liks”), he sometimes makes videos with his puppet daughter, Molly, for his grandson, Caden.
Meet Oz Jaxxon
Talking about a touchy subject like racism requires brains, courage, and plenty of heart. Oz has the gift of making people understand that they already have those qualities within themselves. Originally trained to heal, which he calls “the completion of God’s work,” Oz now turns his powers to healing the wounds we inflict on ourselves and others. “Greater becomes the harvest when I am doing for someone else,” he says. “Self is always fulfilled, and more, when the focus is on the needs others first.” Fond of his home, he openly invites others, “Hang a left at Jupiter; it’s the first on the right.”
Meet Jim Knutsen
A journalist by training, Jim Knutsen now applies that skill on behalf of business. Jim is the founder of Boatz Knutsen, the leading provider of organizational story consulting for leaders. Boatz Knutsen employs the power of story on behalf of some of the biggest brands in the world – and some of the smallest. The principle is the same: Story holds the power to focus people and activity, align and engage teams, and build stronger brands. Founded in 1999, Boatz Knutsen has offices in Colorado, Minneapolis and Philadelphia.
Race is a more complex story than most. Jim sees this blog as a journey, an exploration of our subconsciously-held ideas and notions. He believes an open mind and open dialogue are the key to any progress, and invites you to join the journey, and the conversation.
Meet Barbara Leveque
Barbara Leveque listens so intently you know she really means it when she says, “listening is the key to everything.” Barbara, WorkFirst Director, an employment training program for low-income working parents in Bellingham, Washington, not only contributes to helping those in her community improve their employment prospects, she teaches the active listening skills she practices as an instructor of Speech and Communication at Whatcom, a local community college. “Active listening means you aren’t planning your response while someone else is speaking,” she explains.
Barbara, the mother of an adult daughter, returned to school as a single mother at age 39 and completed her BS in Communication Arts at Lewis-Clark State College one year before her daughter graduated from the University of Washington. She has since completed a MS degree in Communication and Adult Education. Barbara, like many of the white majority in her town, was not fully aware that the experiences of minorities were much different than her own experience until she attended a diversity panel during her Master’s program. When she started teaching in Bellingham, with the help of the Ethnic Student Association, she organized an annual panel on diversity inviting students from a wide-variety of racial, ethnic, physical capabilities and sexual orientations to speak. “Until we all began to listen to our panelists, my students tended to think that everything regarding racial equality was taken care of back in the 60s.”
Meet Lisa Miles
Lisa Miles lives and plays in Maine. Her drive and entrepreneurial spirit has catapulted her to manage three radio stations where she started out in advertising sales. She has been on a spiritual path with her feet firmly planted on the ground and a desire to help her community. You will feel empowered and inspired to read Lisa’s articles that shed light on the shadows of a sinister social problem. She has earned the right to speak about the subject matter as her words paint vivid pictures of a personal struggle. It is with this perspective that she will lift you to a new level of awareness of what it means to be powerless and to rise above it.
Meet Monica Rix Paxson
Monica is a professional writer and creative consultant who has enjoyed a history in both the publishing and Internet worlds. Co-author of the Ben Franklin award-winning book, Dead Mars, Dying Earth, with Dr. John Brandenburg (best science/environmental book in 2001), she has toured North America and the UK making appearances on the BBC, CNN and Good Morning America speaking on topics as diverse as how to give a garage sale and the perils of global warming. She considers Mexico to be her second home and is a partner in Spanglish.info, a Spanish/English language service. In Chicago, Monica loves the diverse neighborhood she shares with immigrants from Russia, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Albania, Korea as well as Black and Hispanic families, creating a neighborhood where as a white woman she is in the minority. Her personal blog and creative works can be viewed at RelentlesslyCreative.com.
Meet Lena L. West
Lena West jumps out of airplanes. This is literally true – she devours the skies above Long Island every chance she gets – but then, Lena has always believed the parachute would open. She talked her way into information technology with no formal training, trusting that she’d figure it out when she got there. She turned that into a successful web design business, launched before the dot-com bubble, and thriving now as a social media strategy firm long after the burst. Lena knows from hard experience what it is like to live in many worlds and not to be fully acceped in one. Part writer, part public speaker, part businesswoman, and part social experimenter (right now, she’s contemplating the link between social media, social constructs and racism). But listen…here’s why Lena West thrives: She is all moxie, 100% direct, and completely committed to what is possible.
Meet Tom Worth
Tom Worth could be characterized as a white, corporate finance/I.T. stiff with a beautiful and intelligent working wife, 2 amazingly brilliant (no, they really are!) kids, an adopted mutt of a dog, and a home in Arlington, Texas. Living the dream since the day he was born in late December, 1969.
That, however, would leave out some of the other really important aspects of his life, including: his spiritually seeking nature; his irrepressible optimism and the associated ability and willingness to locate that silver lining (it’s ALWAYS there somewhere); his ongoing daily awareness that family is more important than anything and that our children are the future of this world; his love of historical, religious, and philosophical books (mostly of the audio variety, since all of that daily commute time needs to be maximized); and most importantly, his overriding desire to know and understand his fellow humans, hopefully making himself a more valuable member of the species as a result.