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Jordan Davis was killed over loud music. Now his parents tell their story in a gripping new film.

Jordan Davis was killed over loud music. Now his parents tell their story in a gripping new film.

31⁄2 minutes.

That's all it took for 45-year-old Michael Dunn to approach black boys listening to loud music at a gas station, shoot 10 bullets into the car of unarmed teens, and leave 17-year-old Jordan Davis dead.

Those 3 1⁄2 minutes in Jacksonville, Florida, on Nov. 23, 2012, didn't just end Jordan's life. They sparked a case ("the loud music murder") that transfixed the nation. They added a landmark story to an ongoing movement about gun violence and the deadly impact of racism.

And those 3 1⁄2 minutes changed the lives of Jordan's parents, Ron Davis and Lucy McBath, forever.

"31⁄2 Minutes: Ten Bullets," the Sundance Award-winning documentary premiering Monday, Nov. 23 on HBO (three years to the day after Jordan's murder), is an intimate look inside the courtroom of the riveting and at times unbelievable trial as well as an up-close and personal look at Jordan's short life.

I had the honor of speaking individually with each of Jordan's parents in advance of the HBO premiere.

I've shared my dialogue with them below, edited for brevity and clarity. At the end of the interview, Lucy gives a chilling reason why you — and everyone — should tune in and watch the film.

EWS: Why was it important for you to share your story, Jordan's story, with the world? Why did you want this film made?

Lucy: Well, because we had paid heed to previous cases, specifically Travyon [Martin]'s case. We watched how Trayvon had been vilified and demonized as a young man of color who was up to no good, even though he wasn't doing anything other than just existing. And so we decided very early on that our truth needed to be told. And it needed to be told by us, his parents. That we didn't need anybody to speak for us. We would tell our story, it would be honest, and it would be raw.

We also wanted to prick the [consciousness] of those that are watching the film. We wanted to open conversations in people's homes and in churches and in businesses and academia about implicit bias, Dunn's racism, and gun violence. We knew that the only way that we could really elevate what we were trying to do is to expose ourselves as a means to motivate people to create some kind of change.

Jordan Davis. Photo by Cady & Cady Studios, courtesy of HBO.

EWS: So how did you know the time was right?

Ron: Very early on, people started approaching us about doing a film, and nothing felt right. But then my lawyer received a letter from Minette Nelson, the woman in charge of The Filmmaker Fund in San Francisco. In the letter, she told me how her son had a friend that was 16 years old who had been killed, and his name was also Jordan. An article about our Jordan in Rolling Stone touched him so much that he brought it to her and she read it and cried and said "Look, I'm going to try to reach out."

When I read the letter, it was so heartfelt. It felt like this person got it. I picked up the phone and called her and we had a 30 minute cry-all conversation, both of us crying and I said, “You get it."

"We decided very early on that our truth needed to be told. And it needed to be told by us, his parents. That we didn't need anybody to speak for us. We would tell our story, it would be honest, and it would be raw."
— Lucy McBath

EWS: How does it feel to go through such personal, emotional moments on film? Did you forget the camera was there or was it always on your mind?

Ron: Most of the time, we forgot the camera was there. You see my emotion at the table when I start taking about Jordan in the beginning of the film and just start crying. I forgot the camera was there then. I was just being emotional. Whether I was talking or swimming or crying, I was just living my life.

Ron Davis grieving and remembering his son at the cemetery. Photo courtesy of HBO.

EWS: There were so many moments like that one, that showed what it was like as a parent who has lost a child. Have you heard from other parents about that?

Ron: Yes. Not just other grieving parents, but also other parents who have experienced something similar. For example, we do work with the family of Oscar Grant [who was killed by a police officer in California and whose story is told in the film "Fruitvale Station"], his Uncle Bobby, his mother.

When Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, I happened to be speaking at the United Nations conference in Geneva and I was the first person to talk to the UN about it as an example of racial discrimination in the United States.

Then I went to Ferguson and I welcomed Michael Brown's father into a club that no one wants to be a member of, just like Trayvon Martin's father had welcomed me into that club right after Jordan's death.

I also told him to find your voice. When these things happen, it's hard to find your voice. That's why you hear so many representatives — like the Al Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons — because as a parent you're so devastated, it's hard to find your voice. But for me, I knew that no one was going to tell the story of Jordan right but his parents, because no one knows my son better than us. So I didn't want anyone to speak for us.

EWS: One of the things that struck me about this case is that it got at the heart of so many issues — racism, gun violence, "stand your ground" — has the film been able to spark meaningful conversations around those issues?

Lucy: At a recent film festival, I had grown men coming up to me and crying, crying. Three of them. Two were young white males, millennials, and one was an older black male, maybe in his 40s. All of them bawling.

The older black gentleman said, "I know that this has existed, I know I've experienced it. But I have been remiss in not doing anything about it. And I'm a teacher. And I'm going to go back and have these discussions in my classroom. It awakened a sense of activism in me."

"When you're 17 and you see another 17-year-old get killed, guess what you feel? You feel like it could be you any day, any time. And I hate that. I hate that they have to feel their mortality."
— Ron Davis

One of the young white men was sobbing and saying: “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that my people have done this to you." But beyond saying "we're sorry for your loss," people are saying something's got to change and I've got to be a part of the change. And that's what we need people to do. It's like a spiritual awakening in a sense because we're dealing with a heart issue, a moral issue.

People have the propensity to not be concerned about what is not their reality. But when you expose the reality to people, when you show them the truth, anybody that has a sense of moral fiber can't go away from it not being affected.

Lucy McBath testifying before Congress against "stand your ground" laws. Photo courtesy of HBO.

EWS: During one of your prayers in the film, you say “I'm still human because I doubt." What about now? Do you still doubt? Or do you have hope?

Lucy: Well, I have to have hope. You have to have hope to do this kind of justice work. It's a very heavy mantle. Anytime you're doing it, you have to hope that change is gonna come. Ron and I have T-shirts that say "Hope Dealers" because that's what we want to offer the nation and communities that are disproportionately affected by the violence: a sense of hope.

We want them to know that there is an awakening happening now. You've got the Black Lives Matter folks that are mobilizing, you've got gun violence prevention advocacy, you've got mothers groups, grassroots groups popping up all over the country. People are definitely paying attention to what is happening, and that has to instill in you a sense of hope.

People do have to understand that this is going to be a long, long, long fight and battle. When you talk about how long it's taken to build this culture of fear and implicit bias and racism and policing — these structures have been building for years, and you don't tear them down overnight.

Anytime you change a culture — like with LGBT equality, like with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, like with the tobacco industry — it begins long before you see the victories in the newspaper or on TV. But yeah, there's hope because it — protecting the sanctity of life as God intended for us — is the moral, right thing to do.

EWS: What message does Michael Dunn's guilty verdict send to America?

Lucy: I don't think the guilty verdict was enough. It offers some semblance of hope, but it's not enough because we're one of the only cases that did see justice. There are far more cases where they did not receive justice, there's no indictment, there's no conviction than there are cases like ours. So there's a lot more work that needs to be done.

Police interviewing Michael Dunn after Jordan's killing. Photo by Ana Hop, courtesy of HBO.

EWS: And to you, Ron? What did the verdict symbolize to you?

Ron: It said that this black life matters. Also, the state of Florida said that Michael Dunn was not right in coming into Jacksonville and killing one of its citizens. I wanted that validation from the state of Florida to say that Jordan's life matters and that Michael Dunn had no right to kill him.

EWS: Aside from the obvious trauma of losing your son, how have you changed over these past three years? Do you see the world any differently?

Lucy: Like anyone else, when you're working day to day and you're trying to raise children and you're trying to, you know, keep a roof over your head — trying to do all the things that you normally have to do just to exist — you hear the news, hear things that are happening in the country, and in some way you think: “Well, that's not going to happen to me. That's really not going to affect me." And you kind of go on about your own reality and live your life kind of in a bubble.

I thought that this country was more “post-racial" than it actually is. Because to tell you the truth, we lived in an upscale neighborhood, and Jordan had access to good schooling. His father and I did well financially and have always been able to provide. We never struggled. So we were living in our own little reality. I did not really understand the depth of racism in this country until these cases like Trayvon and Jordan. I certainly didn't understand how systemic it is.

"People have the propensity to not be concerned about what is not their reality. But when you expose the reality to people, when you show them the truth, anybody that has a sense of moral fiber can't go away from it not being affected."
— Lucy McBath

I'm shocked because of my experience living in my father's house, entrenched in the civil rights movement, and being hauled around in the car with him as children as he was speaking around the country. I have pictures of my father with Lyndon Baines Johnson as he signed the Civil Rights Act and Eleanor Roosevelt and Roy Wilkins and all the work that he did. And so I can't believe that I'm still fighting the same fight that Daddy fought 50 years later.

EWS: What response do get from young people when they see this film?

Ron: They come up to me and most of them say, “I hope my parents are going to be this strong for me if something ever happens to me." They feel their mortality. When you're 17 and you see another 17-year-old get killed, guess what you feel? You feel like it could be you any day, any time. And I hate that. I hate that they have to feel their mortality. They're supposed to be able to love and embrace life and live like they're gonna live another 80 years, you know?

Young protesters outside the courthouse during Michael Dunn's trial. Photo courtesy of HBO.

EWS: One of the most beautiful and unforgettable moments in the film is when you are watching footage of your son and bobbing your head along with him. What was going through your head in that moment?

Ron: I was remembering how Jordan use to hate riding in my car because I don't have an MP3 receiver, so he used to listen to my Motown records. He knew all the Motown songs.

One of his favorite groups was The Brothers Johnson "Strawberry Letter 23." He liked that bass. So I was thinking about that as I saw him dancing and listening to his music, and I said to myself: “I wish I had more days of listening to his music with him. I wish I had more days of bobbing my head to his music, even though I'm not into hip-hop. I would have loved to just one more time bob my head to his music while he was listening."

And so I felt that kinship with him, and it made me smile. And cry.

Ron Davis and Lucia McBath. Photo courtesy of HBO.

EWS: What do you want this film to do?

Ron: It's gonna reconnect the public with the families and victims. I remember thinking in the Trayvon Martin case, the jury was disconnected from him. They connected more with George Zimmerman. And this is a way to help people who serve on juries, people who don't have exposure to young black kids or to African-Americans period, to see us.

They have to, some way, connect with what we go through and what these kids go through. Looking at this film, they'll connect with us and say, “They look just like us, they have heartaches just like us, they doubt, they hope, and they look for the justice system to prevail just like we do." So I want everyone to take from this film who we are, how much we hurt when we lose a loved one. And our humanity.

EWS: And why should people tune in and watch it?

Lucy: Because their lives may depend upon it.

"31⁄2 Minutes" premieres Nov. 23, 2015, on HBO at 9 p.m. ET/PT. It will replay on Nov. 24 at 3:05 a.m. ET/PT and Nov. 28 at 1:45 p.m. ET/PT. It will also be available on HBO Now and HBO Go.

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Tory Burch
Tory Burch Empowered Women
Empowered Women

Why this woman created an organization to protect an Indonesia ecosystem

Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan
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Growing up in Indonesia, Farwiza Farhan always loved the ocean. It's why she decided to study marine biology. But the more she learned, the more she realized that it wasn't enough to work in the ocean. She needed to protect it.

"I see the ocean ecosystem collapsing due to overfishing and climate change," she says. "I felt powerless and didn't know what to do [so] I decided to pursue my master's in environmental management."

This choice led her to work in environmental protection, and it was fate that brought her back home to the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia — one of the last places on earth where species such as tigers, orangutans, elephants and Sumatran rhinoceros still live in the wild today. It's also home to over 300 species of birds, eight of which are endemic to the region.

"When I first flew over the Leuser Ecosystem, I saw an intact landscape, a contiguous block of lush, diverse vegetation stretched through hills and valleys. The Leuser is truly a majestic landscape — one of a kind."

She fell in love. "I had my first orangutan encounter in the Leuser Ecosystem," she remembers. "As the baby orangutan swung from the branches, seemingly playing and having fun, the mother was observing us. I was moved by the experience."

Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

"Over the years," she continues, "the encounters with wildlife, with people, and with the ecosystem itself compounded. My curiosity and interest towards nature have turned into a deep desire to protect this biodiversity."

So, she began working for a government agency tasked to protect it. After the agency dismantled for political reasons in the country, Farhan decided to create the HAkA Foundation.

"The goals [of HAkA] are to protect, conserve and restore the Leuser Ecosystem while at the same time catalyzing and enabling just economic prosperity for the region," she says.

"Wild areas and wild places are rare these days," she continues. "We think gold and diamonds are rare and therefore valuable assets, but wild places and forests, like the Leuser Ecosystems, are the kind of natural assets that essentially provide us with life-sustaining services."

"The rivers that flow through the forest of the Leuser Ecosystem are not too dissimilar to the blood that flows through our veins. It might sound extreme, but tell me — can anyone live without water?"

Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

So far, HAkA has done a lot of work to protect the region. The organization played a key role in strengthening laws that bring the palm oil companies that burn forests to justice. In fact, their involvement led to an unprecedented, first-of-its-kind court decision that fined one company close to $26 million.

In addition, HAkA helped thwart destructive infrastructure plans that would have damaged critical habitat for the Sumatran elephants and rhinos. They're working to prevent mining destruction by helping communities develop alternative livelihoods that don't damage the forests. They've also trained hundreds of police and government rangers to monitor deforestation, helping to establish the first women ranger teams in the region.

"We have supported multiple villages to create local regulation on river and land protection, effectively empowering communities to regain ownership over their environment."

She is one of Tory Burch's Empowered Women this year. The donation she receives as a nominee is being awarded to the Ecosystem Impact Foundation. The small local foundation is working to protect some of the last remaining habitats of the critically endangered leatherback turtle that lives on the west coast of Sumatra.

"The funds will help the organization keep their ranger employed so they can continue protecting the islands, endangered birds and sea turtle habitats," she says.

To learn more about Tory Burch and Upworthy's Empowered Women program visit https://www.toryburch.com/empoweredwomen. Do you know an inspiring woman like Farwiza? Nominate her today!

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Family

What nobody warns you enough about when it comes to having kids

Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

Here are some things new parents need to know.

Parenting is as old as time, but there's never been a time in history when we've talked about it more. If you go into any bookstore, you'll find shelf after shelf filled with books about how to raise your kids. If you have questions about any element of parenting, there are countless websites and online groups you can consult.

And yet, most of us still go into it unaware of the reality of it, because let's face it, there's no way to adequately prepare for parenthood. No matter what you picture it being like going in, parenting will yank that image right out of your head, smash it into the ground and grind its heel right into the heart of it.

Okay, that's a bit dramatic. But only a bit. Parenting is the hardest, most rewarding job on earth—a thrill ride that takes you on the highest highs and plunges you to the lowest lows. Up and down you go, over and over again, sometimes squealing with delight, sometimes thinking you might puke and sometimes screaming "Stop the ride, I wanna get off!"

While it's not possible to truly prepare, it's good to hear from experienced parents what you might expect. Every kid, every parent, every family is different, but there are some near-universal things that people really should know going in.

A user on Reddit asked, "What is something nobody warns people about enough when it comes to having kids," and the answers didn't disappoint. Here are some highlights:

You have less control over how your kids turn out than you think.

"There's a very good chance they won't turn out like you think," wrote one commenter. That's not to say that you have no influence whatsoever, but each kid is their own unique person with their own individuality, and they also change as they grow. If you're too attached to an idea of how they should be, you may not fully appreciate who they are.

"People seem to often forget that they're raising people," shared another commenter, "as in, independent-thinking individuals whose actions, values, personalities, interests, and capabilities will potentially be completely unlike yours. I've seen a lot of parents struggle hard with that, and frankly, that's a possibility you should have made your peace with before you became a parent, imo."

Another person added:

"This is why many parent/child relationships are so strained. Many parents have a child thinking they are programming a perfect human being. Many are disappointed when the child is not the exact person they hoped (or worse, the polar opposite). Perfectly normal children grow into resentful, tired adults because of their parents' unrealistic expectations that have nothing to do with them."

The books aren't all that helpful.

We all want to look to "the experts" when raising our kids, and some things we find in parenting books can be marginally helpful. But they certainly aren't the be-all-end-all of good parenting.

"The books are fine for ideas, your experience, friends thoughts, paediatricians, therapists," wrote one commenter. "But at the end of it all you have this complicated little person you're in charge of with their own preferences, feelings, insecurities, abilities, and you have to do what works for them and your family and, of course, also raise someone who isn't a blight on humanity or menace to society."

Another wrote:

"As my mum says: 'The kid hasn't read the book.'

"Her parents tried to do everything by the book with her and she hated it. She was supposed to have pigtails, wear dresses, learn piano and not go climb trees and play soccer/football. She saved pocket money to get her hair cut short and her dad almost hit her for it. Did she stop pushing to be herself? Nope. She is a strong woman, but boy, does she have some scars on her soul.

"With her own three kids she watched what interests they developed and then helped them explore it further and to not forget to keep an open mind about other possible hobbies, sports, arts etc. I have no idea how to thank her properly for this."

It doesn't go by fast—until suddenly it does.

"The days are loooong and the years are so very short," wrote one person. It's true. When you're in the thick of parenting and someone tells you how fast it goes, you might feel like strangling them. But then you look at your child who has changed so much and it does feel fast in hindsight.

"I've heard older people say this or the equivalent all my life," wrote another. "I always thought I understood. And then I had children. Now I understand. I keep looking at my kids and can't believe how much time has passed. I'll look at them doing something new and just be amazed. Seems like yesterday that my youngest couldn't lift her own head and now she's doing tuck rolls across the house."

"This is it!" shared a parent of young adults. "Mine are 18, 19 & 20. Empty-nest syndrome is a REAL thing. I always look back and think… How the hell did it go by so quick? I used to roll my eyes at people who would say stuff like this when they had 3 different practices, in 3 different places at the same time. It really goes by so quickly."

Your time—and sleep—are no longer yours.

When they're babies, they wake up in the night for all kinds of reasons—to eat, to practice crawling, to say hi, to wail inconsolably for no explicable reason, and so on. When they're older, they wake up because they need to go to the bathroom or a drink of water or they're scared. Then, when they're much older, they suddenly stay up late and want to have deep, heart-to-heart talks at 10 p.m. Most of us expect the baby sleep deprivation stage, but there are sleep disruptions throughout a child's entire childhood.

"When they grow older, you don't have a private life anymore," wrote one commenter. "They stay awake longer than you."

"Never thought of this. The later part of the evening is my time usually," someone responded.

"Used to be my time as well," shared another commenter. "Since becoming a parent, my time is 4-6am. One reason why you start waking up early once you're older, probably."

I have a young adult, a teen and an almost-teen, and I can attest to waking up extra early simply to have uninterrupted time to myself.

You will miss being able to think clearly.

"For me, I stopped having a chance to think anything through without interruption," wrote a commenter. "I had a very hard time with that. I couldn't remember anything, couldn't make decisions, etc because every thought seemed to get interrupted.

"I'd just sit in my car alone sometimes so I could think."

Ah, the beautiful, quiet solitude of the car. Every mother I know enjoys a good "car bath" once in a while.

"I am so glad somebody said this," someone responded. "I was starting to worry I was getting early onset dementia, because my mind just feels like mush all the time. I can't remember things, I start sentences and can't finish them, I forget common words....my mind rarely gets to switch off because someone is always interacting with me or calling my name."

Part of the brain mush is because kids need things all the time. And part of it is that you now have an entire other person's life (multiplied by however many kids you have) to think about. Their health and well-being, their education, their emotional state, their character—it's a lot. So much more than you can really imagine until you're in it.

Take advantage of the middle years.

"How important the years between 7 and 12 are for building a bond (one that lasts into the teenage years)," wrote a commenter. "They are so hard to listen to at that age with all the starts and stops in conversation and they talk about the most boring thing's BUT it is so important to listen and converse at those ages. They will grow into teenagers that will talk to you, and be fun to talk to, but only if you can get through long boring conversations about Minecraft or whatever thing they are currently into."

Having teens and young adults, I have seen the truth of this advice play out. If you want your teens to talk to you, you have to listen well before they get to that age.

Another user shared what it meant to them when their mother did just that:

"I can remember being about 12 and wanting to share my biggest interest at the time with my mom, that being Bionicle, by reading to her all the books I had been collecting with my allowance. Sometimes she would involuntarily fall asleep, but my God she tried so hard to show an interest. I really didn't appreciate it at the time, focused on all the times she yawned or fell asleep, but now (16 years later) we both remember it fondly as the bonding time it really was."

And another shared just the opposite:

"My god, what an amazing mom you have. I vividly remember coming home from school around 12-13 yo, super excited to tell my mom all about my day, and she's sitting there reading her book, as always. No problem, I'm just telling her my stories while she's reading. Then that one time, I wondered is she actually listening? So I stopped mid-sentence and she didn't notice. I remember my heart just sank, and after that I never told her anything ever again. I don't think she noticed."

Diapering a doll isn't going to prepare you for wrangling a baby.

"Practicing diapers on a doll doesn't count," wrote one commenter. "You're ready when you can do it on a cat."

HA. So true. Others shared their diaper wrangling woes as well:

"My first daughter was patient and would just let us change her. My second daughter wants nothing more than to roll over and crawl away. There's nowhere for her to go but she wants to go anyway."

"It's like, I am physically orders of magnitude stronger than her, how the hell does she still win?"

"My daughter has just perfected the alligator death roll technique when she doesn't want to be changed or put pants on lmao. And because she's 2 and a bit she laughs the whole time cause it's hilarious."

Don't even get me started on trying to get an unwilling jellyfish toddler buckled into a carseat.

All parents are winging it.

"I stupidly thought once I had a child I would automatically 'know' how to parent," wrote one commenter. "You're the same dummy before and after having a child, and you realize how much your parents were winging it."

"Leaving the hospital with that tiny fragile little being was terrifying," wrote another. "C-section delivery so they kept us a couple days longer. Lots of help from the amazing maternity ward, to the moment you realize you and your spouse are alone and now solely responsible for keeping this little baby alive."

"Yeah, it's like: "We can just leave? WITH the baby? Who approved this?" added another.

"The panicked looks my husband and I exchanged the first time we were left alone with our newborn will live forever in my mind," wrote yet another.

It really is surreal that you're just, like, handed a newborn baby and that's it. A whole life in your hands, and you're supposed to just figure out what to do with it. Good luck!

The relentlessness is real.

"Nothing prepared me for the sheer 'unrelentingness' of parenting," shared one parent. "Every day for many years has to be finished with a dinner/bath/bed routine that takes two hours, regardless of how tired, upset or unwell you are. Difficult enough if you've been at work all day, yes. But also if you're on holidays and got a little bit sunburnt, or been to a family wedding and overeaten, or spent the day assembling Ikea furniture and are just exhausted.

"As a childless adult you could occasionally say 'I'm just having takeaway tonight', and flop in front of the TV until bedtime. As a parent, that's not an option."

This is a truth that's hard to fathom but oh so real. Parenting never ends. You don't ever really get a break, even when you're lucky enough to kind of get a break. Your kids' well-being is always on your mind, even when you're not with them.

And it doesn't end at 18, either. Many commenters talked about how parenting is forever. You worry about your adult kids, too, just in a different way than when they were young and you were fully responsible for raising them.

This list might lead people to believe that parenting sucks, but it doesn't. I mean, sometimes it can, but that's true of anything in life. If you're fortunate and put in your best effort, the joy and fulfilment of parenting hopefully outweighs the hard parts. Getting a realistic picture of what it entails—both the delights and the challenges—can help people temper their expectations and take the roller coaster of parenting as it comes.

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This Teacher Is Using Inclusive Coloring Books To Encourage Acceptance in Her Classroom

Courtesy of Ms. Lopez
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Marcella Lopez didn't always want to be a teacher — but once she became one, she found her passion. That's why she's stayed in the profession for 23 years, spending the past 16 at her current school in Los Angeles, where she mostly teaches children of color.

"I wanted purpose, to give back, to live a life of public service, to light the spark in others to think critically and to be kind human beings," she says. "More importantly, I wanted my students to see themselves when they saw me, to believe they could do it too."

Ms. Lopez didn't encounter a teacher of color until college. "That moment was life-changing for me," she recalls. "It was the first time I felt comfortable in my own skin as a student. Always remembering how I felt in that college class many years ago has kept me grounded year after year."

It's also guided her teaching. Ms. Lopez says she always selects authors and characters that represent her students and celebrate other ethnicities so students can relate to what they read while also learning about other cultures.

"I want them to see themselves in the books they read, respect those that may not look like them and realize they may have lots in common with [other cultures] they read about," she says.

She also wants her students to have a different experience in school than she did.

When Ms. Lopez was in first grade, she "was speaking in Spanish to a new student, showing her where the restroom was when a staff member overheard our conversation and directed me to not speak in Spanish," she recalls. "In 'this school,' we only speak English," she remembers them saying. "From that day forward, I was made to feel less-than and embarrassed to speak the language of my family, my ancestors; the language I learned to speak first."

Part of her job, she says, is to find new ways to promote acceptance and inclusion in her classroom.

"The worldwide movement around social justice following the death of George Floyd amplified my duty as a teacher to learn how to discuss racial equity in a way that made sense to my little learners," she says. "It ignited me to help them see themselves in a positive light, to make our classroom family feel more inclusive, and make our classroom a safe place to have authentic conversations."

One way she did that was by raising money through DonorsChoose to purchase books and other materials for her classroom that feature diverse perspectives.

Courtesy of Ms. Lopez

The Allstate Foundation recently partnered with DonorsChoose to create a Racial Justice and Representation category to encourage teachers like Ms. Lopez to create projects that address racial equity in the classroom. To launch the category, The Allstate Foundation matched all donations to these projects for a total of $1.5 million. Together, they hope to drive awareness and funding to projects that bring diversity, inclusion, and identity-affirming learning materials into classrooms across the country. You can see current projects seeking funding here.

When Ms. Lopez wanted to incorporate inclusive coloring books into her lesson plans, The Allstate Foundation fully funded her project so she was able to purchase them.

"I'm a lifelong learner, striving to be my best version of myself and always working to inspire my little learners to do the same," she says. Each week, Ms. Lopez and the students would focus on a page in the book and discuss its message. And she plans to do the same again this school year.

"DonorsChoose has been a gamechanger for my students. Without the support of all the donors that come together on this platform, we wouldn't have a sliver of what I've been able to provide for my students, especially during the pandemic," she says.

"My passion is to continue striving to be excellent, and to continue to find ways to use literature as an anchor, depicting images that reflect my students," she says.

To help teachers like Ms. Lopez drive this important mission forward, donate on DonorsChoose.

Courtesy of Ms. Lopez

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30 things people don't realize you're doing because of your depression.

Do any of these speak to you?

This story was originally published on The Mighty and originally appeared here on 07.21.17


Most people imagine depression equals “really sad," and unless you've experienced depression yourself, you might not know it goes so much deeper than that. Depression expresses itself in many different ways, some more obvious than others. While some people have a hard time getting out of bed, others might get to work just fine — it's different for everyone.

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Business

People share some unexpected jobs that aren't nearly as romantic as you'd think

Unsplash, Unsplash, Twitter

Dog groomer, librarian and knight.

Blink 182 said it best: Work sucks, I know.

When we're kids, we dream of becoming astronauts, marine biologists, firefighters … only to discover that these jobs are nowhere near what we imagined them to be. As it turns out, all jobs require work, sadly.

A recent Reddit thread asked: "What is an overly romanticized job?" And though the answers are blunt, they do reveal another side of these so-called "dream jobs."

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work humor
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