Denali
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denali.bsky.social
Denali
@denali.bsky.social
Early childhood and public systems researcher.
Rich inner life. No inside voice. I live in Chicago.

Photo by https://www.greginda.com/
This has been making me laugh all day

h/t @mosermostly.bsky.social
January 21, 2026 at 10:37 PM
"From where I sit, this does not look like respect for parents. It looks like the state substituting its judgment for mine while using my voice as political cover."
January 21, 2026 at 1:29 PM
Somewhere my 20 year old son lifts his head, tests the wind and says oh God my mom is being cringe on the Internet isn't she. Except he uses a word for cringe that I don't even know about yet bc I'm whatever that thing is.
January 20, 2026 at 10:30 PM
I want to get them back
January 20, 2026 at 10:15 PM
There are so many moments where I encounter a PAC that would make a great dating site
January 20, 2026 at 8:32 PM
Also EVERYONE gets mad at you when you suggest that people take better care of themselves and I understand it but whew just be ready.
January 19, 2026 at 9:58 PM
A few months ago federal law enforcement was very active in my community and people were rapidly mobilizing I noticed that a lot of people who were jumping in the deep end were experiencing a lot of intense and sometimes debilitating feelings. I started talking to people and writing about it.
January 19, 2026 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Denali
My favorite speech by MLK, and possibly his greatest.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. - April 4, 1967 - Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence [Full Speech]
YouTube video by Servant2All
youtu.be
January 19, 2026 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Denali
On MLK Day, it’s important to remember why MLK Jr. was in Memphis when he was assassinated. He was there to support Black sanitation workers striking for better working conditions and higher wages. This, for me, a critical moment in the emergence of the environmental justice movement.
January 19, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Denali
Making a pot of tea to prepare for my ritual reading of Letter from Birmingham Jail

(Reposting with better link)

www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets...
January 19, 2026 at 4:53 PM
The Chief AI officer at DHS is abbreviated as CAIO and I always read that as Ciao!

Specifically...
January 19, 2026 at 4:34 PM
SNCC had an amazing research department and as a researcher I think it's incredible that they wrote a memo called “At Last!! The Paper You All Have Been Waiting For!! What is The SNCC Research Department…”
January 19, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Denali
i think this MLK day the thing to focus on is the strategic focus and tactical brilliance of the civil rights movement and the way it was laser focused on a set of achievable goals
January 19, 2026 at 3:05 PM
I feel like my particular enthusiasm for catching up on American history is the combination of having immigrant parents, a history teacher mom, being a little in everyone else's business, and being terminally crabby but fundamentally hopeful about the future.
January 19, 2026 at 3:24 PM
This is a topic that is wildly relevant and comes up (or should come up) in mutual aid organizing all the time.
In 1951, King wrote "there is another aspect of Christian social responsibility which is just as compelling. It seeks to tear down unjust conditions and build anew instead of patching things up. It seeks to clear the Jerico road of its robbers as well as caring for the victims of robbery."
"The One-Sided Approach of the Good Samaritan"
kinginstitute.stanford.edu
January 19, 2026 at 3:13 PM
Todays let's learn a new and interesting thing about Martin Luther King Jr is about his engagement with the parable of the Good Samaritan. It seems really relevant right now to think about what we choose to do to support our neighbors, in what spirit, and to what end.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't also revisit the big famous speeches, especially because you can watch and listen to them.

Here is Kings final speech, the famous mountaintop speech, delivered in Memphis
American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr. - I've Been to the Mountaintop (April 3 1968)
Full text and of Martin Luther King's I've Been to the Mountaintop
www.americanrhetoric.com
January 19, 2026 at 3:07 PM
On Martin Luther King Jrs birthday is give yourself the gift of learning something new and interesting about King and the American Civil Rights movement. While your least favorite electeds staff searches Brainy Quote, you can find something that speaks to you in the current season of your life.
January 19, 2026 at 2:32 PM
The best place to watch this game is probably at Soldier Field but the second best place was definitely at the local church that opened up to community members and encampment residents during the stupid cold weather.
January 19, 2026 at 2:50 AM
Husband had a work call and it was just a bunch of people signing off with "Bear Down."
January 18, 2026 at 7:07 PM
Looking at this post and recognizing that this is exactly the way my dad communicates via email. My husband has many favorite emails from my dad but one of them was an exchange about him coming to visit us and it just said "I have a knife!"

What a thing to become ones parents.
Simple instructions that speak to the most effective things they have the power to do!
January 18, 2026 at 5:56 PM
✨Amazing✨

"We need to have more conversations that spur us to think about if and how to agitate and intervene in the collective mechanisms of our governments, regardless of which party is in power. I am as tired writing this as you may be reading it. Yet the necessity of this work is certain."
Consensus is a myth. This idea was shared with me years ago, handed down through others that have worked for decades in facilitation. It’s a phrase that stuck, challenging me constantly to accurately retell events that I’m part of, or witness to.
biancawylie.medium.com/consensus-do...
Consensus Does Not Equal Political Legitimacy
Human(s) in the Loop, Humans are the Loop
biancawylie.medium.com
January 18, 2026 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Denali
if anyone wants details, you can always point them here
our model | artbymox
We try to make cool things. We are sometimes successful.
artbymox.shop
January 18, 2026 at 4:58 PM
Accountability is really important for government agencies and for everyone. But accountability is not exclusively about monitoring and oversight and we have to talk about what else is in the ol' public accountability toolbox.

Your electeds are message testing. Redirect them quickly and clearly.
January 18, 2026 at 4:23 PM
COMMODORE BIGFOOT
January 18, 2026 at 3:09 PM
An example: a white organizer offered to draft my bio from my resume and a brief conversation. The bio was full of her opinions, beliefs and projections and included some factual inaccuracies. I declined to use it. She was distressed. She said I was disrespecting her as a storyteller and organizer.
It feels extremely uncomfortable to try to put these emerging thoughts into words and put them out here but I'm hoping that folks will help me wrap my head around them. Trying to navigate these things has been personally tough for me so I approach cautiously and also know we have to talk about it.
January 18, 2026 at 2:31 PM