Good Reading

Wading through the post-election news, I ran across a great blog on race and feminism. Marjorie Valbrun writes in the Root about the unique concerns of black women in her article, Does Race Trump Gender? You can read the article at theroot.com. .

Another blog worth reading today is published by Perla Ni in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (thank to my friend who sent it to me). Ni interviews Wharton marketing professor Deborah Small about how fundraisers can most effectively communicate sympathy through storytelling and other strategies. Small asserts that sympathy is not just about the existence of a situation (such as homelessness), but it’s also about a change in status (from being housed to homeless). You can read the article at ssireview.org.

Small’s views about sympathy and storytelling rings true. Last weekend I read the novel “What is What” by Dave Eggers, which is the true story of Valentino Achak Deng’s journey from a childhood in southern Sudan to his heartbreaking navigation of the civil war to his resettlement in the United States. I had followed news accounts of the war but after reading the book went directly online to get involved. You can get more information at valentinoachakdeng.org. The book is beautifully written.