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Tolerance.org is an elaborate, beautifully organized Web project of
the Southern Poverty Law Center that offers its audience
information and skills to promote tolerance and fight hate. Unlike sites offering
one-size-fits-all programming -- which risk losing their audience through a lack of
focus -- Tolerance.org arranges its content according to age level, with separate
sections for parents, teachers, teenagers, and children.
"Mix It Up," a teen section, describes its work as "support[ing]
the efforts of student activists who are willing to take on the challenge of identifying, questioning
and crossing social boundaries." It promotes an activist approach to fighting segregation and "social
boundaries" in schools, whether based on race, religion, or clique.
Several programmatic approaches are presented on the website. The annual "Mix It Up At Lunch Day"
(November 18) encourages students to sit somewhere new in their school cafeteria, "out of their
comfort zones," and talk to someone they didn't know. Tips for organizing this activity are provided
online in the "How to Mix it Up" page, also available as a one-page downloadable PDF. The site offers
downloadable posters, stickers, iron-on transfers, and even recorded online raps to help build the event.
A second activity, also conducted offline, is the "Mix It Up Dialogue." These are structured
small-group "study circles" where students sit down together to talk frankly about the social
climate in their school and brainstorm ways to improve it. A free handbook on planning and
conducting the "dialogues" can be ordered online. The "dialogues" aim to reinforce a basic civic
value: "Participants don't have to agree with each other, but they do learn how to find common
ground." The website also notes that "dialogues" don't end with talk: "They're also about
taking action -- changing personal behaviors and working on collective projects to improve the
climate at your school."
"Mix It Up," also offers a collection of over fifty activist "stories" by and about student activists
working for change. Among the stories featured on the homepage in February 2004: a 15-year-old
likens the social stratification in her high school to that of ancient Rome; an 18-year-old reflects
on his years of anguish in school as the butt of racial epithets; and a staff writer for Tolerance.org
talks about the marketing of "boys are stupid" t-shirts and books. The
archive of activist accounts
is moving and impressive -- a helpful antidote to
those who would see youth as apathetic and uninvolved.
Other features on the website are polls, sign-ups for an email newsletter, and applications for small
grants from Tolerance.org for school or community projects that build "collaborative efforts across
social boundaries." Also, as a sidebar accompanying one of the featured activist "stories," is a
wealth of resources from the larger Tolerance.org website: tolerance-related news, "The Truth About
Hate Sites," "10 Ways to Fight Hate," and an intriguing electronic site that allows the visitor to
"Explore Your Hidden Biases." This treasure trove lends tremendous depth to the site, and one wonders
why it is not more readily visible. Overall, the "Mix It Up," website combines guidance, inspiration,
resources and opportunities to help students "identify, cross or challenge" the invisible boundaries
of our world.
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