Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: An Announcement!

Tuesday, June 01, 2021

An Announcement!

I delay this morning’s post until it has become official.

I have been appointed to the Governor’s Hate Crimes Advisory Council. It is a great honor to be appointed to the governor's council and I hope that I measure up to the honor. I was appointed because I am the Executive Director of CT TransAdvocacy Coalition.

Around the beginning of 2021 I was asked in an email if I wanted to be on the council and you know me I never turn down a request to try something new… so I said yes.

I then got a seven page form to fill out.

Then silence… oh well it would have been interesting.

Then last week I get an email saying congratulations, you have been appointed to the council!

This morning at a press conference it was made office… now I just have to figure out the duties of the council.

The law creating the council says...

(c) The council shall meet at least semiannually to encourage and coordinate programs to increase community awareness and reporting of hate crimes and to combat such crimes and make recommendations for any legislation concerning such crimes, including, but not limited to, recommendations concerning restitution for victims of such crimes, community service designed to remedy damage caused by any such crime or that is related to the commission of any such crime and additional alternative sentencing programs for first time offenders and juvenile offenders.

I have an idea of who nominated me, as many of you know I am also on the legislative LGBTQ+ Health and Human Services Network and the committee is chaired by the Executive Director of the The Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity & Opportunity and I have a feeling that he put my name in the hopper since one other network member was appointed to the council.

Looking at the names of the other members I will know at one other on the council, the former director of True Colors, and YIKES some of the other names on the council are some heavy hitters… the president of thee CT Bar Association, the Chief State’s Attorney, the Office of the Public Defenders, and other both private and government prominent people. I am humbled to be counted with them.

4 comments:

Connie6/1/21, 2:50 PM
Congratulations!
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susan collins6/1/21, 5:12 PM
congrats! everyone on the council is a heavy hitter...you indluded! :)
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Richard Nelson6/1/21, 5:46 PM
Congratulations!! Just remember that you and Robin have been down with the people. You know the pulse and the heartbeat. Many times heavy hitters are busy being heavy hitters. Well we all know the rest of the story.
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Stana6/1/21, 10:33 PM
That is fantastic! Congratulations!
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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers