10 Days of Connection will challenge us to listen to others’ viewpoints
to going back to “normal.” There’s no better time to reconnect with our communities through 10 Days of Connection taking place from May 1-10.
The Miami Herald and five other local organizations — The Children’sTrust, MCCJ, The Miami Foundation, United Way Miami and Radical Partners — created this annual initiative after the 2016 elections to address divisiveness, the growing incidence of hate and the lack tolerance for different points of views and backgrounds. The program and participating organizations have been growing each year and, in 2018, it expanded to Broward County.
In 2021, there will be 68 organizations hosting and co-hosting 65 events, most of them online, with the goal to close connection gaps and address critical issues in our communities, from race to immigration and veterans.
At noon, May 7, the Herald’s Editorial Board will host our own event, titled “Let’s Cancel ‘Cancel Culture’: A conversation on conflict and how to move forward.” This discussion will be livestreamed on the Herald’s website, Facebook or YouTube pages. We will talk about what cancel culture is, what isn’t and the best way to hold people accountable for their comments and actions. Our guests will be: Gail Price-Wise, co-founder of the Florida Center for Cultural Competence; Angela Sailor, vice president of The Feulner Institute at The Heritage
Foundation; and Pushpa Iyer, professor of conflict analysis and resolution and director of the Center for Conflict Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
To register for this event, go to miamiherald.com/opinion.
Other events range from acts of kindness, to feelgood interactions with people from different backgrounds, volunteering opportunities and hardhitting discussions that will make you think and question your role in society.
To see this year’s calendar, visit 10daysofconnection.org. Here are some of the connection opportunities:
A virtual discussion of the book “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi on May 3 and 10.
A “Secret Identity”
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virtual experience that seeks to challenge society’s assumptions about women by inviting them to reveal their true selves on at 4 p.m., May 4 .
An in-person event by United Way of Miami to pack 200 book boxes that will be filled with diverse books and stories. This event on at 5 p.m., May 5, will be indoors. Masks are required as well as filling out a health form.
“Motivational Hip Hop Fusion,” a dance event at a distance at Heartland, an outdoor Miami restaurant in Miami, at 8 p.m., May 5.
It’s up to you to decide how deep you want to go and how much you want to challenge yourself. Join in.
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Isadora Rangel is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board.