Blog
Democratizing Our Data: Covid-19 Impacts on Black and Brown Businesses
The economic impact of Covid-19 on small businesses is unprecedented. Between February and April of 2020, 22% of small businesses disappeared. The number of active white business owners dropped...
CovidGram: Vaccine Effectiveness and Safety – December 25, 2020
FRONT PAGE Vaccination effectiveness. What percentage of the U.S. population will have to get vaccinated to have an impact on the spread of the pandemic? Herd immunity is an end stage of a...
CovidGram: Vaccine effectiveness – December 11, 2020
a Covid news digest for the period November 21 – December 11, 2020 FINAL EDITION FRONT PAGE Vaccines – how effective are they and how often do they need to be repeated? There are four...
CovidGram: Contact tracing app, mask recommendation – November 20, 2020
a Covid news digest for the period October 24 – November 20, 2020 FINAL EDITION FRONT PAGE CovidGram is back now after a few weeks off. On the other hand,...
CovidGram: Testing and aerosol transmission – August 14, 2020
I. Testing What are the barriers preventing better testing in the U.S.? How can the U.S. get faster accurate testing results? How widespread is contact tracing? Is the reason for paper tests’...
CovidGram – Racial disparities in disease rates- October 16, 2020
a Covid news digest for the two-week period of October 3 – October 16, 2020 FINAL EDITION FRONT PAGE More on airborne transmission and institutional reliability. The CDC has...
CovidGram: Making sense of the latest research
KHEPRW COVID CONVO presents COVIDGRAM, a weekly news digest How CovidGram helps you stay on top of the COVID pandemic CovidGram is a COVID information sanctuary that grew out of a...
State Violence: A Public Statement by the Kheprw Institute
Dreasjon Reed was killed on Wednesday May 6th, his murder recorded on Facebook live. Over the course of 24 hours, 3 people were killed by IMPD. They were McHale Rose, Ashlynn Lisby and her unborn...
Pandemics & Community Wealth: 4 Stories of Resilience
“We can, Each of us, Do the impossible As long as we can convince ourselves That it has been done before.” – Earthseed: The Books of the Living, Octavia Butler Race, class, patriarchy and...
7 Steps to Community Social Innovation
“Chaos is another word for opportunity.” – I Ching The buzz words just keep coming. Inclusive Growth Race and Equity Sustainability Social Determinants of Health And of course last, but...
Emergence, Afrofuturism and Desired Future States
“Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. I suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories....
Are training programs the answer to racial equity?
In a recent Indiana Business Journal (IBJ) article author Hayleigh Colombo shared data from the recent Opportunity Atlas study showing major persistent income disparities between Blacks and...
Black People and Institutional Power Structures
“They usually say the races here are getting along amicably now, and we do not want these peaceful relationships disturbed by teaching of new political thought. What they mean to say with respect...
Setup a #GivingTuesday Facebook Fundraiser for Kheprw Institute!
Start Your Fundraiser Early, Before Matching Funds Run Out! Hello friends! Thanks for deciding to help us fundraise on Facebook. Remember everything you raise on #GivingTuesday November 27, after...
A Critical Moment: The Struggle to Make Indianapolis a More Equitable City
Recently, the word equity has become more prominent in discussions of how to address growing poverty and inequality along lines of race, class and gender. Some examples in Indianapolis: The Indy...
Interview with Imhotep Adisa: Culture Shift Masterclass & Scarabys
Q: What is the Culture Shift Masterclass? M: First, I’d like to say something about culture. Culture is what people use to maintain the social fabric – beliefs, ideas, etc. and most of the...
Worf Journey of Blackness
Star Trek’s Lt. Cmdr. Worf and his Journey of Ontological Blackness Klingon-ness Maurice Broaddus’s work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Weird Tales, Apex Magazine, Asimov’s, Cemetery Dance,...
Survival Strategies for when the Dystopia Arrives
The theme of our Afrofuturism Fridays discussions is to ponder the questions “Where are we now?” “Where do we want to be?” and “How do we get there?” because we have to imagine the future we want...
Dance our way to a better Future
“Afrofuturism is me, us, as Black people, seeing ourselves in the future. Being as magical as we want to be.” –Janelle Monae Why Afrofuturism? Because we have to imagine the future we want to...
Protect our Water: Take Action on Coal Ash
PROTECT OUR WATER Take Action on Coal Ash in IndianaINFORMATION PROVIDED BY Hoosier Environmental Council HEC has been leading the push for safe disposal of coal ash in Indiana for more than a...
We Run This: Up and Running!
KI'S NEWEST SOCIAL ENTERPRISE We Run This: Up and RunningFood is a powerful tool to build community. Across all cultures, you will find that people gather for large feasts for family, community,...
Fight Like Ida, Octavia and Mari
By IMHOTEP ADISA Fight Like Ida, Octavia and MariThese are challenging times:The “coming out of the closet” of white nationalists in the United States and the worldThe unrelenting impact of...
#CREATECHANGE: Community Controlled Food Initiative (CCFI) Brings Healthy Food to the Community
Above: CCFI Team with a beautiful bunch of kohlbari greens from the Lawrence Community Garden for the food share distribution At the Kheprw Institute, we believe the people who live and reside...
It’s Not About Gentrification
Now that the question of gentrification is not a subject only talked about behind closed doors, it’s time to dig deeper into the root causes of gentrification. While we continue to debate whether...
Tatjana Rebelle
poet, spoken word artist, activist, hosts open mic, VOCAB...
Community Controlled Food in October!!
Thanks to Anne Fassnacht of Wit Wisdom & Food for contributing this blog post October should be feeling a lot like fall, but it seems to be holding back a little bit. Some of our produce this...
Early Childhood Education: Strategies for Combatting the Ills of Urban Education
by Kahlil Mwaafrika Often referred to as “daycare,” Early Childhood Education has the potential to close the achievement and developmental gap between inner city children and affluence. To avoid...
CCFI in September: Fresh Food as Fall Approaches!
Thanks to Anne Fassnacht of Wit Wisdom & Food for contributing this blog post! We have passed the last holiday of summer and while we still have a few weeks until it is technically Fall, you...
A Shift Towards Social Entrepreneurship
– Contributed by Dr. Stephanie Fernhaber Violence. Gentrification. Poverty. Affordable housing. Food access. These are just a few of the many social issues being faced here in Indianapolis....
Growing Organic Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship
I’m going to talk about what I learned about social entrepreneurship through working on the Community Controlled Food Initiative (CCFI). So, there are about a million and one things I’ve...
What’s Happening with CCFI in August!?
Hard to believe it has been a month since we all got together and celebrated our community and picked up our bag of Community Controlled Food Initiative (CCFI) produce. This month is another...
Gentrifying Indy: A Close Look at the Numbers
By WildStyle – Keith R. Paschall II According to a study commissioned by LISC Indy, 5 census tracts have experienced displacement causing the percentage of African-Americans to drop some...
Police Reform Revisited?
“A reform that begins with the officer on the beat is not reform at all. It’s avoidance. It’s a continuance of the American preference for considering the actions of bad...
July 2017 CCFI Food Shares and Recipes
Tomorrow is the monthly Community Controlled Food Initiative (CCFI) food pick up and Good Food Feast. We will be gathering at Kheprw Institute, on July 8th from 3-5pm, as we do every Second...
From Indy Community Innovation Lab Emerges “New Music”
What is the Community Innovation Lab and why is KI involved? The lab will bring divergent voices across sectors together periodically over the next 18 months to dig deeper around a specific...
Gentrification by Flood: Welcome to “New” New Orleans
When I was a little girl, we moved to northern Indiana from New Mexico. New Mexico didn’t have hurricanes. Indiana, on the other hand, had a lot of tornado… threats. The nightly news would...
Losers and Winners of IPS School Closings
In April, 2017 IPS announced the possible closing of 3 High Schools. An open community meeting to discuss the issue, not sponsored by IPS, will be held on June 5th at 6 pm at the Purpose of Life...
Get Ready for eSTEAM!
Summer in the near northwest side community is marked by the scents of charcoal and fresh cut grass, screams and laughs from children freshly out of school, and beads of sweat from the intense...
From the Closing of Double 8 to Marsh: Food Access Apocalypse in Central Indiana
The recent closing of 10+ Marsh grocery stores across Indianapolis has me reflecting on the challenge of food access in Central Indiana. I remember as if it were yesterday when all the Double 8...
Reflections on How to Kill a City by Peter Moskowitz| Part I
In his opening remarks, Peter Moskowitz lays out an utopian village where urban living allows everyone to thrive. He then plunges deep into the causes of its collapse. Raised in the West Village...
Voyage Along the Horizon Between the United States and Brazil
I arrived in Salvador a 21-year old black male, raised by the Indianapolis community that created me, to embark on a journey to discover lessons from another chapter of the African Diaspora. I...
Spirit & Place and Kheprw Institute’s 8-part Series on Gentrification
[fancy_heading title=”From the Ground Up Meetings” icon=”icon-heart-line” image=”” style=”color” class=””] 2nd Sundays, 3-5pm KI, 3549...
Indianapolis Equity Profile from PolicyLink
Presentation created by Alexis Stephens, Senior Communications Associate at PolicyLink. Presented at Kheprw Institute on September 25, 2016 at Gentrify: Equitable Development vs. Economic Development....
KI’s 2016 Year in Review
Wow. What a year. 2016 proved to be a watershed year for Kheprw Institute. While there are many things I could focus on from our growing relationships with a variety of institutions,...
Is Gentrification the Problem in Indianapolis?
Is Gentrification the Problem in Indianapolis? A recent report by the Center for Community Progress was presented at Development on Tap, a monthly discussion hosted by LISC (Local Initiative...
Chalkbeat Indiana Distorts the Truth About IPS Board Election Campaign Funding
Jim Scheurich, Indianapolis citizen & IUPUI university professor On Friday, October 28th, the Recorder published an article by McCoy of Chalkbeat Indiana called, “Out-of-state money seems to...
The Road So Far
I Just turn 20 recently, and the brief time before and after I became of age, there has been a swell of changes in my life. One of the most prominent is my recent enrollment into IUPUI. Today...
MARIANETTE
Republished with permission from gaylecosby.wordpress.com __ Dear Reader, Did you know that Marian University now owns a lot more land than it used to? That’s right. Indianapolis Public Schools...
Business is a Horrible Model for Education and “Educational Reform”
Jim Scheurich, Professor IUPUI School of Education The Mind Trust is not a single organization. It is a host of organizations all deceptively working together to control IPS education (see...
The IPS Innovation Network: Public Forum 7/25/16
Monday July 25th, 2016 | 6:00pm-8pm Julia Carson Government Center | 300 East Fall Creek Pkwy North Join a discussion with Dr. Jim Scheurich Professor IUPUI Urban Education Doctoral Program with...
Subversion At Your Table
I’m going to connect how subversion has always been a tactic to undermine the rising “Black Consciousness.” My examples will be Ida B. Wells and Aunt Jemima, the 1965-68 Race Riots in Detroit,...
IPS Research Group Presentation on the Mind Trust
Click Below to View/Download the Presentation. Want more information like this? Sign-up for Kheprw Institute’s Newsletter! [mc4wp_form]...
Indy Communities Taking Control of Their Food
With the loss of Double 8 foods in our communities last year, the people searched for an alternative means of obtaining affordable produce without having to drive all over creation to access...
The KI Equation: Challenging Conversations + Aliveness = Liberation
The Kheprw Institute, with all its limitations, remains a location of conversations about possibilities. In that field of possibility we’ve the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of...
Gentrification: Interview with Imhotep Adisa
Members of the Kheprw blog team recently sat down with Imhotep Adisa (M) Executive Director of Kheprw Institute to talk about gentrification in Indianapolis as part of a series focused on...
Book Review: Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Paley
The topic is controversial; the author herself is courageous for taking on such an underreported story. Dawn succeeds in connecting transnational business with paramilitaries, drug cartels, and...
The Mind Trust is a Trojan Horse That Is Destroying Indianapolis Public Education
by Jim Scheurich, Professor, School of Education, IUPUI I am sure you know what a Trojan horse is. It looks so new, so exciting, you bring it inside your city. However, as soon as you do, out...
Community Development Versus Gentrifcation
The President of the Near North Development Corporation (NNDC), Michael Osborne, has recently said in the Near North News (September 12, 2013) that raising the property values in the Near North...