'Hate is always local': the Swedish city that said no to neo-Nazis

A highly popular German sports club named Borussia Dortmund is taking advantage of its fanbase and following to promote anti-extremist messages, praise diversity, and celebrate inclusion. They do so in a variety of ways, including elevating and supporting independent fan initiatives like ballspiel.vereint!, requiring fan clubs and members to sign statues that reject far-right ideology, hosting educational field trips to former concentration camps for youth, and donating over a million dollars to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

After the 2016 elections, division, issues of bigotry and racism led to prejudice and resentment. Research studies at different universities around the country have shown that by opening dialogue with people across racial, gender, and class lines, tensions defuse. With conversations, people are more likely to have empathy toward people that are different from them.

A school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, has been specifically engineered to reflect the true diversity of NYC. It's one of the only schools in the district that does so: 39% white, 33% black, 20% combined Hispanic and Asian, and 8% "other."

A very special 15-person book club in Battle Creek, Michigan is using the book club format to discuss hard topics like race. The conversations steer profound, intimate, and personal, and many members testify to how much it has changed them. In addition to having read 68 books, the group also performs social justice work such as donating to the Equal Justice Initiative, rolling bandages for doctors in the DRC, and donating food and goods to local pantries.

In Durham, New Hampshire, police officers have been undergoing training on their state’s hate crime laws and how to prevent such crimes from occurring. The workshops are organized by two advocacy groups, and while there is still much debate amongst law enforcement about the existence of hate crime laws, the officers who attended still recognized the need for such training in order to maintain trust and recognize bias in their community.

Students at East High School in Salt Lake City took matters into their own hands when they were confronted with the realities of segregation and separatist attitudes at their school. After 43 students had some hard conversations about privilege, cliques, and inequity, they greatly improved representation in the student governing body and started to break down the social (segregated) barriers of cliques in the lunchroom. Students and teachers still consider a lot of work to be done but can also testify to how much the experience has changed their perspective on things.

After charged discussions and protests around racial injustice within police departments, Baltimore set out to find a solution to bridge the divide created between the city's police force and the kids that lived in stereotyped neighborhoods. Using nature as a common ground, the Outward Bound Police Youth Challenge was born to bring the two sides together and teach them that they have more in common than they may think.

Chicago suffers from violence and tension between police officers and low-income predominantly Black communities. In 2011, the chief of police consulted with a network of university academics and began implementing “procedural justice,” which was an approach that trained police departments to surmount the lack of confidence that residents felt towards officers. The academics and police chief found that by directing social workers to the homes of at-risk community members, and regarding them with respect, there was a reduction in violence—but now the program has stalled.

On average, black students in public schools receive fewer resources giving them a late start. A mostly black university in New Orleans has increased overall achievement by developing students’ shared responsibility for one another’s success.

Women of Winter helps train women of color to become professional ski instructors and make the sport more accessible and diversified. Women from across the country come to join the program, receiving a sense of community and access to scholarships to attend events to further their education and experience.