September 2020 Newsletter

Greetings AAUW NJ Members,

AAUW members throughout New Jersey are staying active and carrying on our equity programming despite the current pandemic restrictions - in fact, the use of virtual meeting technology has opened up new opportunities. In order to keep up with these rapidly changing times, our Communications Committee has implemented this monthly newsletter.

Our aim is to highlight AAUW national and state information, feature AAUW NJ events, and to share AAUW NJ Branch programming, that we are hoping will engage all our members (virtually, for now).

A special thank you to Communications Chair, Mariel Kolker; Program VP, Jacquline McGuinness; and the program committee of Atlantic County Branch for the quick responses that were needed to get this first issue out.

Karen Brown, President

September's Featured Program

This webinar will center on systematic racism from the invention of the very concept of race to the codification of racism in today’s laws and government programs. Three of our members, who have studied the origins of systematic racism, will discuss these issues and respond to questions at the conclusion of the program.

The Invention of Race. Carolyn will start prior to the development of the concept of race (Ancient Greece) and detail how economic interests led to using “race” as a justification for creating a source of unpaid labor. She will describe how both science and law maintained this label, especially in the United States.

Redlining. Nadine will show how New Deal (and later) federal housing/mortgage programs, the GI Bill, and legal system failures worsened segregation, created ghettos and led to the wealth gap that exists today between Black and White people.

Mass Incarceration. Ann-Maria will explain how the government’s two-part appeal to Southern voters: the Law and Order strategy and the War on Drugs, resulted in massive arrests with severe mandatory sentences and subsequent loss of rights that has impacted the Black community disproportionately and disenfranchised a large block of voters.

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Wednesday, September 16th

7 pm via Zoom

To Register: AAUW-Atlantic County Branch invites members across the state to join them in this event. Simply send your name, your AAUW branch (if applicable) and your email address to

[email protected] on or before 9 pm September 15th to receive the meeting link. Once you have the Zoom meeting information, simply sign into the Zoom meeting on the 16th between 6:30-7. The Program will begin at 7 pm.

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And here is some very helpful “homework” that will help you prepare: Racial Bias in America, How Did We Get Here and Why Are We Stuck? Part III, a one-hour video by Jeffrey Robinson. If you stay with him to the end I promise, you will never forget the last five minutes!

Election Update for New Jersey

According to Governor Murphy:

Voter Registration deadline: October 13, 2020. You can check your registration status HERE. If you are not registered, you can do online voter registration HERE.
First week of October - ballots will be mailed to all registered voters in NJ. By the second week of October - call your county clerk's office if you have not received your ballot.
You can put your ballot in the mail (mail early due to Post Office delays), drop it in one of several secure boxes to be set up across the state (at least 10 per county), bring it to polling location on Election Day, or vote provisionally in person.

#ItsMyVote: How to GOTV (Get Out the Vote) Using Social Media

Full instructions for the GOTV campaign are on this AAUW page, here are the highlights:

Take a picture/selfie or use one of AAUW’s pictures by clicking HERE and scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
Copy the weekly message and hashtags from this AAUW page. Be sure to include the hashtags--that's what makes it trend!
Go to your own Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account and create your own post by uploading the photo/selfie and pasting the copied message and hash tags.

Let’s activate the collective power of our AAUW New Jersey members to raise awareness about GOTV issues! Your posts will not only be seen and shared within your personal networks, but those topics and hash tags will trend across social media platforms.

Don’t have a social media account?

Don’t let that stop you! Click on a social media platform below for YouTube instructions on how to get started..

AAUW National News

This month we would like to call your attention to the webinars that have replaced the biennial national convention, the "Convening Series: 2020 Vision Marking A Momentous Year," which can be found at:

https://www.aauw.org/resources/member/initiatives/2020-convening/

In the most recent "Policy vs. Practice," AAUW CEO Kim Churches emphasizes the importance of including all people in AAUW efforts to work for equity, not just women with college degrees.

October's Save-the-Date

Saturday, October 10th

10:00 - 11:30 am

Fall Focus – “Let’s Get Engaged” - featuring 2020 AAUW NJ Woman As Agent of Change Jacquelyn Litt, Ph.D. - Dean, Douglass Residential College and Douglass Campus.

Branch News

Mountain Lakes Branch is pleased to invite all AAUW NJ members to its upcoming programs for September and October, both accessible by Zoom:

September 25 at 3:00 p.m. Fall Open House, Celebrating Women in 2020. We'll share our summer membership survey results to plan for the 2020-2021 activity year.
October 22 at 6:45 p.m. Book review and discussion led by Susan Boyar, PhD in Literature. Featuring The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. This multi-generational family saga tackles prickly issues of racial identity and bigotry. The subjects are twin 16 year-old, light-skinned black girls in Louisiana.

To register for either event, please submit your email address to Mary Hager ([email protected]) so she can include you in the Zoom invitation.

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Send your program and news for next month's newsletter ASAP to aauwnj.org with the subject line "Newsletter submission."

[email protected]

Visit the AAUW NJ Website

www.aauw.org

#aauw-nj #aauwnj