community

Nine Gallons #2: True Stories by Susie Cagle

tina — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

In Nine Gallons #2: True Stories by Susie Cagle, writer and artist Susie Cagle recounts her experiences with Food Not Bombs. For those unfamiliar, Food Not Bombs is a "franchise activist non-organization dedicated to fighting hunger with vegetarian meals comprised mainly from wasted food.” Food Not Bombs chapters are all over the world, though predominantly in major cities.

Though this publication is small, Cagle covers a lot of ground. You learn that it’s not easy being involved with the non-organization. One will face working for free (not everyone can afford to volunteer), unreliable volunteers, and uncertainty over where food and resources will come from. The public responds to your work in varied ways, ranging anywhere from positive support to fevered rudeness. There are also issues of class and racial privilege that come into play. As the writer perfectly states, "a largely white monopoly on Food Not Bombs as a cultural institution is an impediment to people of color self-organizing.”

Though the artist didn't touch on weather being an issue, the climate in which you live greatly affects when and where you can serve food. One year, the Food Not Bombs chapter I was involved in served spaghetti at a park on the fourth of July. With little warning, there was a rainstorm that showered us and our hard work. We couldn't afford a tent or cover of any kind, so the food was flooded and had to be thrown away.

Susie's writing is skilled, her illustrations are well-formed and charming, and her characters are both believable and easy to relate to. The only qualm I had with the zine was her illustration style. The artist draws people from a two-thirds angle and they are usually facing the same way. I am unsure whether she is limiting her angles and facial drawings due to necessity or artistic choice. Either way, this repetition distracts us from good stories that deserve our focus.

Overall, Nine Gallons #2 serves as an easy to read, honest, and articulate recount of working with Food Not Bombs.

Written by: Jacquie Piasta, April 11th 2011

Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community

mandy — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Tamara Mose Brown

New York University Press

When Tamara Mose Brown had her first child in 2004, she began going to different Brooklyn, New York parks on sunny afternoons. In each, she found dozens of West Indian nannies caring for the babies and toddlers of the largely White middle- and upper-income denizens who lived nearby. Questions about both the nannies' work and the race, class, and gender dynamics of their lives prompted Brown—the Canadian-born daughter of Trinidadian immigrants—to begin spending time with these women. Their conversations were eye-opening. For one, Brown came to realize the centrality of paid childcare to U.S. economic life. For another, she was shocked to find that employers who labor at home often require nannies to work outdoors, or in libraries or community centers, for upwards of ten hours a day.

What’s more, Brown quickly recognized that childcare workers, many of them undocumented immigrants, are routinely exploited—underpaid, and required to do household chores far outside their job description, from picking up dry cleaning, to cooking, to going to the pharmacy or market. Nonetheless, she also discovered that domestic workers have found ways to create social networks to make their work lives easier and more enjoyable. Often predicated on a common ethnic heritage, these networks enable childcare workers to share everything from food to gossip. By pre-arranging meetings in public spaces, they can watch the kids in their care while also socializing and breaking the monotony of their jobs.

But, Brown writes in Raising Brooklyn, as wonderful as these networks can be, there’s a down side. To wit, nannies in public spaces are easily observed. Take the website I Saw Your Nanny. In one incident, Brown reports that people with limited information logged onto the site and reported that a toddler had been lured away by a suspicious man while his caretaker—who was eventually identified as the child’s mother and not a nanny—was obliviously chatting. Turns out that the man was the child’s father, but, of course, the notice was posted before this fact was ascertained.

That said, Brown chronicles the ways nannies support one another, whether meeting on a particular park bench at a particular time each day or gathering for story hour at the local library. Cell phones have been a tremendous boon, she continues, giving otherwise isolated workers a way to connect with one another, an easy way to share news from home or strategize about ways to deal with a difficult child or a demanding employer. They’ve also enabled them to organize, and many of the workers Brown interviews are active participants in Domestic Workers United, an organization that successfully pushed the New York state legislature to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010.

Brown has done a masterful job—as a participant observer—of reflecting the everyday world of female domestic laborers. While she, herself, straddles two worlds—belonging to an Afro Caribbean community that is victimized by racism while simultaneously having the financial resources to hire a part-time nanny to care for her two children—her ethnic identity allowed her access to an insular community. The result is both fascinating and compelling. Although Brown occasionally lapses into sociological jargon, Raising Brooklyn is generally accessible and insightful. Her own insider-outsider status is clearly presented; at the same time, her compassion for the twenty-five nannies she interviewed makes Raising Brooklyn a wonderful testament to the valuable contribution working class women of color make to life in the U.S. of A.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 7th 2011

El Espiritu De La Salsa (The Spirit of Salsa)

brittany — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Directed by Tim Sternberg, Francisco Bell

HBO Films

I love to dance, but I am not gifted with quick feet. As a teen, this made me a hesitant and awkward dance student. Thankfully, when I discovered African dance, it changed my outlook in many positive ways. In the first year, my intimate class included a grandmother in her seventies and her teenage granddaughter. By creating art through movement together, we also created community and bonds similar to an extended family. It was empowering to know the class would be about feeling the music and loving the movement, about celebrating the pure power of music to move and connect humans, not about self-criticism. Sure enough, under the guidance of a gifted teacher, my feet eventually found the rhythm.

In many ways, El Espiritu De La Salsa embodies the spirit of what I experienced in African dance. This HBO documentary shows salsa dance as an art form with tremendous power to transform lives. In this film, ten amateur dancers train for their first performance, under the guidance of Tomas Guerrero of the Santo Rico Dance Company, founded in 1995. These dancers come from all walks of life to a dance studio in New York’s Spanish Harlem, to study, sweat, and sow seeds of positive change in their lives.

During the film viewers see glimpses of six salsa classes, the conflicts that arise, and the advice dancers receive from Guerrero. In between, there are shots of dancers practicing—while waiting for the light to change, on a park stage, in their apartments. Very brief biographical scenes of the dancers are interspersed. They are enough for the viewer to see the diversity of the dancers: a multiracial group including an emergency room doctor, bodega owner, NYPD lieutenant, commodities trader, retired teachers, single parent, man with chronic fatigue, building contractor, caterer. However, with less than an hour of film and so many individuals to include, we do not get to know any of the dancers beyond a glimpse.

Each dancer shares their reasons for studying salsa. Several people hope to meet friends or find romance, while for others, stress release is the biggest draw. Watching Dr. Michelle Quash race from the emergency room in Brooklyn uptown to East Harlem for class, the importance of salsa in her life becomes very clear. In fact, viewers who think they have no time to take classes might find inspiration in her example.

The film notes that Guerrero “is determined to prove that anyone can dance salsa—and they can,” and this theme recurs during several of the dance classes. The viewer gets a taste of Guerrero’s teaching style. In one session in which the students were feeling stressed an uninspired, he asks the dancers to reach inside and recall a time when they overcame a challenge. He offers reminders to smile, but also, as any excellent trainer would, he can be demanding. I was surprised that the film does not provide much background about Guerrero. We get to know him only through his interactions with students, and a very few observations directed at the camera.

The film’s soundtrack features notable salseros including Tito Puente, Eddie Santiago, Ismael Rivera, and Héctor Lavoe, as well as original music by Daniel Freiberg and sounds from contemporary artists. I presume that the film title is Spanish as a way to honor the roots of the salsa music, from Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands where enslaved Africans had contributed their instruments and rhythms.

For me, the film could be credited a success if one viewer, drawn to dance but hesitant, would walk into a dance studio and take the risk. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone, leaving ego at the door, and exploring irresistible Afro-Cuban beats could lead to an adventure on the dance floor.

El Espiritu De La Salsa (The Spirit of Salsa) premieres on HBO tonight

Written by: Lisa Rand, September 20th 2010

African Americans Doing Feminism: Putting Theory into Everyday Practice

brittany — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Edited by Aaronette M. White

SUNY Press

There are many well-meaning people in society who identify as feminists, yet do not know what they can do to put their feminist ideals into action. African Americans Doing Feminism is an excellent resource for these people. The book is collection of essays written by women and men from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, but the unifying theme among the contributors is that all of them have been impacted by feminism in some way at various stages in their lives.

In her introduction, Aaronette M. White explains that when she put out the call for contributors, she did not want to define “feminist.” As a result, “feminism,” “womanism,” and “Black feminism” are all discussed in varying degrees throughout the book. Some authors use the terms interchangeably—a fact that may not sit well with some readers—while others prefer specific terminology. What is clear, however, is that regardless of their preferred term (or lack thereof), all of the authors interpret feminism in terms of the negative effects created by patriarchy and other systems of oppression.

The book is split into five parts: Family Values; Community Building; Romantic Partnerships; Healing Practices; Career Dilemmas. Some of the most poignant essays came from people who had participated in sexist/oppressive practices in the past. Dorothy M., for example, writes about growing up at the hands of her abusive sister. Dorothy went on to become an advocate and educator on domestic abuse issues, only to find herself as the abuser in her own personal relationship.

In “‘Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone’: Why the Feminist I Loved Left Me,” William Dotson reflects on a tumultuous relationship with a woman who left an indelible effect on his life. He writes, “feminism ‘did’ more to me than I ‘did’ to or with it.” Though Dotson was considered progressive in activist circles, he could not and would not see past his sexism and patriarchal oppressiveness. He was in a relationship with a feminist woman whom he loved deeply, but his attitude cost him their relationship; it was not until years later that he began to regretfully analyze his abusive behaviors.

Other essays serve as a rallying call for change. One of my favorite essays is written by Sister Sojourner Truth, who writes that, “Being an African American feminist nun has never been a contradiction for me,” and goes on to write that she is, “comfortable with the idea that the Catholic Church might have to get rid of terms such as nun, priest, and even pope in order to be open to the creative possibility of a nonhierarchical, nonpatriarchal church.” Talk about radical! Sister Sojourner goes on to discuss the systematic abuses committed by the church; though the sexual abuse of children got worldwide coverage, she points out how other abuses are still kept silent, such as the rapes of nuns by priests. Her form of practicing feminism is to speak out at all times.

Another fascinating essay is, “Gay, Gray, and a Place to Stay: Living It Up and Out in an RV Park,” by Aaronette M. White and Vera C. Martin. The essay mostly takes place in the form of a conversation between White and Marin. It revolves around Martin’s experiences as an African American living in a predominantly white RV park for aging lesbians, and her experiences as an activist for aging lesbians.

African Americans Doing Feminism shows readers that feminist activism can be put into everyday practice through even the smallest actions. Though a lot of the contributors in this book are professional activists and educators, a lot of them are just regular people whose actions can have a large impact. They show that being a man and talking to other men about sexism and violence against women, being a mother who seeks to destigmatize breastfeeding, or simply being a person who is honest about health issues such as depression is a powerful form of feminist activism. Most importantly, the writers realize the different systems of oppression affecting women and people of color, and they have found ways to address some of these issues in their own lives.

Written by: Melissa Arjona, September 16th 2010

High Water

brittany — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Directed by Dana Brown

Apostrophe Films

In his second full-length documentary, High Water, surf journalist Dana Brown composes a love letter to Hawaii’s North Shore by chronicling the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing big wave competition. Home to the largest rideable waves on the planet and nicknamed “The Seven Mile Miracle," this stretch of sand is the place where legends are made; a natural Mecca for those who worship the sea and a place where one wave can change your life. The son of famed surf photographer and documentarian Bruce Brown, whose 1966 documentary The Endless Summer was the first to bring attention and awareness to surfing, Dana Brown grew up on beaches around the world, saturated in surf culture. Concerned that surfing has been eroded into a competitive sport and lucrative commodity, Brown was inspired to capture what he fears are the final glory days of a lifestyle choice rooted in love for the planet and a deep commitment to community.

Perhaps the most obvious difference in the changing surf landscape is the proliferation of female bodies on the North Shore, where the women’s pro-tour garners nearly as much attention as the men's, both in sponsorship and spectators. Brown relates this point via the development of women’s surf clothes, currently a billion dollar industry that was nonexistent twenty years ago. There is a loyalty among surfers that is unique to a competitive sports environment, and an absence of traditional social markers like race and gender. Surprisingly, all of the men interviewed by Brown were receptive and supportive of the growing participation of women, though the sport has been historically male dominated and testosterone fueled.

Local legend and infamous badass Sunny Garcia grew up on the North Shore, where surfing is a private and personal relationship to your environment and your community with distinct places of belonging. If you’re not getting your ass kicked by the ocean, you have just as good a chance getting it kicked on shore. The contrast is that these hyper-masculine bodies who punch each other’s lights out over a wave are the same bodies that channel the energy of the sea and navigate the movement of the most powerful waves on the planet.

The submission to and respect for something much larger than humanity is what makes Brown’s film as inspirational as it is educational. Interviews with surfers, lifeguards, photographers, parents, and craftsman all with their own personal anecdotes, mythical stories, and life philosophies form a collective voice paying homage to the supreme authority of the ocean. The most powerful example of this is illustrated by the response to the death of competitor Malik Joyeux, one of the best big wave riders of his generation. Taking to the water, friends, family, and competitors sit on their boards in a giant circle, splashing laughing and crying out “Malik” as a helicopter rains flowers from above.

Whether you’re a surfer, an ocean lover, or neither of the two, High Water is an emotional tribute to “meaningful meaninglessness” and a reminder of what awesome beauty exists in our own backyard.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, September 13th 2010

Surviving the Witch-Hunt: Battle Notes from Portland’s 82nd Avenue, 2007-2010

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Emi Koyama

Confluere Publications

Surviving the Witch-Hunt is collection of artifacts and commentary from 2007 to the present and catalogues the community forces that emerged after the City of Portland removed its controversial Prostitution Free Zones (PFZ). These zones had allowed the police to issue exclusion orders for those who had been arrested for sex work, even if they had never been charged. For ninety days, anyone arrested for prostitution in the designated area was not allowed to return without submitting an appeal, segregating public space and criminalizing behavior without actual legal indictment.

The uproar from community figures after the removal of the PFZs demonstrated the discriminatory sentiments of many of those living in the 82nd Avenue neighborhood. Those who opposed the end of the PFZs claimed that there was an increase in crime and a correlating decrease in their property value, and they united to fight the “problem” of sex work in their communities. Emi Koyama collected documents that demonstrate their anger toward sex workers and bolsters these artifacts with some social justice commentary, raising arguments that protect the rights of all women and advance a more holistic view of community development. This booklet uses the 82nd Avenue case study as an example of how multifaceted problems cannot be solved via law enforcement but through broader advances in social and economic justice.

Countering the arguments of outraged neighbors near 82nd Avenue, Koyama’s documents describe the harm PFZs do to women who work in the sex industry. The fliers in the collection address the underlying causes of sex work, and explain that improved access to housing, employment, and treatment services are a better response than criminalization. The documents also catalogue the efforts of anti-prostitution advocates who focus on educating men about the social dangers of purchasing sex. This was the most interesting part of the compilation to me, since many anti-prostitution feminists are pushing educational programs as a way to end sex work. Koyama’s work shows that decreasing the demand for sex work, while a seemingly laudable goal, actually harms women. Decreasing demand also reduces the price for services, so sex workers have to do more acts for less money, and it pushes sex work to more remote areas, causing potential dangers for workers. Also, johns who are rational regarding risk taking will be taken out of the pool, leaving a group of riskier men purchasing the services of sex workers. These men are more likely to act violently towards sex workers and are less likely to take safe precautions during sex.

As someone who recognizes that the problems associated with sex work have no simple solutions, I am thankful that Koyama lays out these rebuttals to anti-prostitution groups. Criminalizing and even reducing the amount of sex work will do little to address the more serious problems in our communities. Sadly, the deeply rooted social, racial, and gendered inequities that necessitate sex work too often go unnoticed by policymakers, concerned citizens, and others trying to improve their communities.

As a human rights lawyer, I am personally outraged at the discriminatory attitudes of too many in the 82nd Avenue community regarding the end of PFZs, and I am somewhat embarrassed that I had not known about these events before reading this collection. Many local stories of civil rights conflict, of discrimination, and of survival often don’t reach further than the affected community. By effectively curating a compilation of documents from the 82nd Avenue community, Koyama demonstrates the importance of capturing a historical moment in the trajectory towards justice. The fliers, newspaper articles, notices about community meetings, and email messages Koyama collected were probably designed to be temporary, but in this small archive they combine to tell a powerful story of the strength of community activism.

Written by: Andrea Gittleman, August 18th 2010

Masquerades

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Lyès Salem

Global Film Initiative

The first feature film of Lyès Salem, Masquerades is a lighthearted and quirky comedy about an Algerian gardener, Mounir Mekbek, who dreams of a life beyond the confines of his sleepy village. His arrogance combined with his “responsibility” for a narcoleptic younger sister, Rym, make him the laughingstock of his community. He is a misunderstood dreamer who has aspirations, but can’t quite seem to pull himself together to meet the goals he has set for himself. He blames his humiliation on his sister’s illness and dreams of using the prospect of finding a good match for her to improve his standing in his village.

Following an incident at a wedding, an inebriated Mounir declares to the entire village that he has promised Rym to the wealthy foreigner. As a means of damage control, the family leaves town, in order to return and state that Rym was not interested in the gentleman. However, in order to motivate her sweetheart, Khliffa, to propose to her, Rym declares her intentions to marry the stranger.

Thus, the entire village becomes involved in the exciting lie as everyone wants to be a part of, not only planning the wedding, but the new fortune of the Mekbek family. Salem does a great job of portraying the views and reactions of the village, as well as the aspirations of the other villagers. It becomes evident that Mounir was not ridiculed for his sister, or lack of material wealth, but because of his haughty attitude towards his neighbours. Mounir is swept away in the newfound respect that he earns for commanding the regard of such a highly regarded foreigner. The introduction of the wealthy foreigner is an effective device to show the hypocrisy, but ultimately the desire Mounir has to make a better life for his wife, son, and sister.

The female cast definitely makes the movie more powerful. The character who shines the most is Habiba, Mounir’s wife, played by Rym Takoucht. She sees right through Mounir’s cocky façade, and brings him back to reality from his schemes to gain respect from the village. Her relationship with Mounir represents the realities that she has had to face, despite having been very in love with him at the time of their courtship. I was grateful that the film did not depict her as a bitter hag, but as a woman who is discontented in a sense, but keeps her family grounded in reality. Their relationship provided an interesting parallel to the courtship of Rym and Khliffa. I became disappointed towards the end of the film, because the lie about the wealthy foreigner simply goes away, and Rym ends up with Khliffa, thus providing a clean and happy ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film, and I thought it was a great depiction of the restlessness that comes with wanting something more in the face of socioeconomic hardship—something that I feel that many can relate to. It was also refreshing to watch a film in which an Islamic community was not depicted as the barbaric site of oppression of women, but rather showed the complex nuances of life in a small village in a changing world.

Written by: Sara Yasin, August 15th 2010

Habits of the Heartland: Small-Town Life in Modern America

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Lyn C. Macgregor

Cornell University Press

I am really worried about Viroqua, Wisconsin. Not because Lyn C. Macgregor made it the subject of a two-year community study, which she writes about in Habits of the Heartland, but because in a footnote on page forty-eight she mentions that the Utne Reader had an article about the town as a good place to live. In the age of the Internet, attractive places to live do not stay secret long. Combined with the commodification of lifestyle, the publicity can change the character of a locality. I date the demise of my own Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, to gentrification from a recommendation of that same publication that it was a hip place to live. Good luck, Viroqua!

Like the majority of United States residents, I do not live in the country or a small rural town—and my experience with small towns was the romance of “going to town” while vacationing on my grandparents' farm in Jasper County, Illinois. The names of nearby towns—Oblong, Robinson, Paris—recall adventure and mysteries of the beyond—that famous cities do not conjure up.

In Habits of the Heartland, Macgregor jumps right in to address a common claim about small town life, that everyone knows your business. Well, she says, it's true. The clerk at the optician's knew that she had been pulled over for not having a current registration ticket on her plate. It turned out that the clerk was also a member of the ambulance squad and had heard about the incident on the police scanner.

Macgregor reveals her sociological findings right away. She sees not just one but three social groups in Viroqua: the Alternatives, anchored by a Waldorf school; the Main Streeters, active in preservation of the buildings on Main Street and in mitigating the effects of a Wal-Mart on its businesses; and the Regulars, who just want to live there. She introduces these subgroups by recounting how each of them celebrate Halloween, a vibrant explication of their different folkways and values. She then devotes a chapter to each of these groups and concludes Part I with her view of their interactions. In Part II, she slices her research a different way, in terms of civic engagement, retailing, and consumption. Esoteric but still readable comments about her methodology and the place of her study in the sociology of small towns are relegated to an appendix at the end of the book.

Why does an ordinary reader crack open a sociology book? For me, sociology casts a cool eye on one's life lived with others. Macgregor's glance is kind and her accounts gleam with lived experience. She refers to Herbert Gans's Urban Villagers in her appendix. Reading Gans as a young woman, I discovered some of my Italian-American father's quirks were not unique to him but were common in the immigrant Italian communities who settled in the United States.

Macgregor's work, too, gave me an insight about my own counterculture politics. Her argument that people think very differently about community and whether and how it can be made. The vulnerability in this alternative, outside-the-system politics is the potential for isolation from the larger society. Active in a community-supported agriculture group—Viroqua, like Brooklyn, has a lot of them—I bristle when people call this foods movement elitist. Macgregor’s comment, “The Alternatives were proud of all they had accomplished in Viroqua, and this pride made them feel that their deliberately made community was distinctly superior to other organizations and people in town,” stopped me cold. Even alternative communities become just another “gated community” unless they are open to the outside world. Not bad for a book about one small town.

Written by: Frances Chapman, July 17th 2010

Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Tiffany M. Gill

University of Illinois Press

In Beauty Shop Politics, Tiffany M. Gill documents the central role that Black beauticians played in the struggle against Jim Crow laws. Beauty shops were one of the few industries that offered Black women some economic stability and upward mobility in the face of segregation. The industry also offered Black women a respectable alternative to domestic labor, as well as a chance to not work for White people. As political tensions rose, civil rights organizers increasingly turned to Black beauticians for disseminating social and political information.

Initially, White English and French men dominated the hair care industry. Black men slowly worked their way in, serving as hairdressers for White women, but that period was short-lived, as the stereotype of Black men as sexual predators began to emerge. During the antebellum period, Black women began to emerge as hairdressers in greater numbers; the early twentieth century saw the emergence of Black female entrepreneurs, namely Annie Malone and Madame C.J. Walker, who played an integral role in expanding Black beauty culture.

Through hard work and sheer perseverance, the women fought for beauticians to gain the respect of the general public. The women had to fight charges that they were inhibiting racial uplift, particularly because their products appeared to straighten Black women’s hair at a time when it was culturally looked down upon. Still, the women fought to have beautician courses established at Black colleges, arguing that the industry provided Black women economic stability. They also fiercely promoted themselves to the public by contributing to various philanthropic causes.

In times of economic hardship, the beauty industry offered Black women an opportunity to enter a respectable profession that entailed a steady income and entrepreneurial opportunities. On the national level, women worked to create a national organization that would legitimize their profession. In 1912, Madame Walker argued that “hairdresser” was a derogatory term, and insisted on the use of the term “beauty culturist.” With their economic and professional status now in place, beauty culturists were quickly gaining a strong foothold and establishing their place within their communities.

Because the Black beauty industry was owned and supplied by Blacks, and catered to the Black community, Black beauticians had some insulation from the economic hardships that their peers faced. Thus, they were able to participate in civil rights activism without the fear of losing their jobs or their customer base. Some, for instance, established literacy schools so that their students would be able to pass voter registration tests. Others distributed information through their beauty shops, which had become central locations for community organizing. Gill also extends her research to the present day, noting how the focus has now shifted from civil rights to women’s health initiatives.

Perhaps the best thing about this book is its accessibility to a wide audience. Gill writes in a clear and engaging style that makes the book an excellent choice for a non-academic reader who is interested in the subject. She includes noted figures in Black women’s history such as Madame Walker, Annie Malone, and Septima Clark, and uses compelling anecdotes about women such as Mahalia Jackson and Anne Moody, author of Coming of Age in Mississippi. Most importantly, Gill introduces the reader to a roster of lesser-known figures who also played important roles during this period. The book is an invaluable resource for women’s history and African American history scholars.

Written by: Melissa Arjona, July 6th 2010

Change the World, Change Your Life: Discover Your Life Purpose Through Service

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Angela Perkey

Red Wheel Weiser

Change the World, Change Your Life materialized as the author, Angela Perkey, reflected on how to help others find personal and community connections through donating one’s time. In her formative years, Perkey’s parents instilled in her the importance of volunteering and making a time commitment to help others. Thus, she spent time volunteering in various ways, and the most memorable volunteer experience to her was when she spent time painting the toenails of elderly women in a senior center.

Although she knew that she was providing companionship, she wasn’t wholly invested in the experience. As she got older, she realized she wanted to find volunteer experiences that matched her passions and interests, as well as find an opportunity to volunteer where her talents could be most utilized. Perkey discovered in college that she wanted to form an organization where students could apply for grants to fund their own service projects, and from this, Students Serve, Perkey’s nonprofit, was formed.

In Change the World, Change Your Life, Perkey advocates on how to find a type of giving that matches with one’s goals in life. At one point in the book, Perkey points out that, in reality, most organizations have failed because they have not succeeded in what they have aimed to do, such as eradicating hunger or providing an equal education for all students. Her brashness is a way to emphasize the fact that there are multiple problems which need solving and that maybe we are the ones to solve them.

Perkey also wants her readers to realize that we should be selective in choosing where we give our money and spend our time; in other words, we should think about what a volunteer opportunity is going to do for us as well as what we will be doing for the organization. Will we be happier as a result of the time we spend volunteering? Will we come home invigorated, so that our positive energy is felt by those around us? Perkey points out that only when we feel that we are making worthwhile contributions to our society will we be truly spurred on to continue our efforts, and only then will we be able to really help the causes to which we are dedicated. Furthermore, she creates many guiding questions which are meant to help her readers find the volunteer opportunities that will be the most fulfilling and rewarding, and have the most impact on those we are serving.

If an individual is not already volunteering her or his time to an organization, there are probably a plethora of reasons why she or he will start this important work in the future and not today. I have wanted to volunteer for years, yet my work and home schedule always seemed so hectic, and I couldn’t imagine fitting volunteering into my schedule. Then I had kids, and I wasn’t sure what service opportunities were available for families to do with their children. After starting Perkey’s book, I made a call to a local Meals on Wheels organization. I asked them if I could volunteer with my children, and sure enough, the following week I started taking meals to senior citizens in my town with my four year old and seven month old in tow.

That was a month ago, and now I am wholeheartedly enjoying spending a few hours each week volunteering due to Perkey’s straightforward guidance and gentle prodding to take action sooner rather than later. Any book that can motivate people to take action should be shared, and I’ll happily recommend this to anyone who is looking for a way to become involved in her or his community.

Written by: Kirsha Frye-Matte, July 6th 2010

The Social Philosophy of Jane Addams

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Maurice Hamington

University of Illinois

Personally, what’s best about The Social Philosophy of Jane Addams by Maurice Hamington is something he left out. His focus stays on Addams’s political and philosophical thought with absolutely no mention of her having had, as I do, a twisted spine.

When my condition had just been detected, my eighth-grade health teacher singled me out to write a report on Jane Addams. My classmates got to choose. I was mortified. I had already read a children’s biography of Addams several years previously—subtitled “Little Lame Girl” if I remember correctly—before my scoliosis was noticeable or even present. I wanted nothing to do with Addams or Hull House. I had aspired to be Miss America. I didn’t want a role model for living with a crooked back; I wanted a straight back.

Today, reading a book about someone’s ideas, especially a woman’s ideas, offers a corrective to the current emphasis on “narrative” and “story” that even those who have normal spines can appreciate. Hamington’s biographical “overview” is a scant three pages, though for a figure like Addams, the “personal” is very much intertwined with the “political.” The first half of the book recounts her influences, writings, and unique contribution to philosophy (here Hamington lays out his argument that Addams is a philosopher in the line of American pragmatists and a feminist); and the second is devoted to the issues and subjects she wrote about.

To most of us, Addams is associated with Hull House, to my mind, unfortunately relegated to history as a museum and the settlement house movement. Social work, not philosophy—or even politics—would be the second identifier to come to mind. Sexism, argues Hamington, was what caused Addams to be omitted from the pantheon of American pragmatists and relegated to her position outside academia. William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead, who were influenced by and influenced Addams, were all professors. The author notes that although Addams acknowledged their influence on her work, the reverse was not true. Hamington, who supplies an impressive scholarly apparatus, partly excuses them with the comment: “Writers of the era were less meticulous about attribution than they are today.”

Feminists of a certain age who remember the outing of Addams in the 1970s will find little gossip about lesbianism, but they will find the Hull House culture cast as a prototype of what would be called “women’s space.” Not a separatist, Addams had friends of both sexes (and from all classes) and was much a part of the Progressive movement (1890-1920). Although claims are made about her construct of “lateral progress,” i.e., progress for everyone, as “radical” thinking, I suspect her emphasis on looking at things from all points of view would strike most as rather reformist. In a similar vein, she made important contributions to education, most especially adult education.

As for Addams’s place in feminism, Hamington tests Addams’s positions against a long array of feminisms, and ends up with “cultural” and proclaims her “prefigurative” of today’s more theoretical feminism. Her pacifist stand against American entry into World War I didn’t get Addams deported as Emma Goldman’s opposition did her. After all, Addams was the daughter of an Illinois state senator who corresponded with Abraham Lincoln. Still, this stand brought on bad press and considerably reduced her influence.

Hardly the avid fan of Jane Addams that Hamington is, I have come to value her and her work as I have learned to live with a spinal deformity and participated in social movements. I now more fully recognize the benefits of settlements to those reformers drawn to them as well as the neighborhood people they serve. These settlements, more than 400 of them at their peak, gave activists a direct encounter with the social needs embodied in real people, not “target populations.” This is something too often lacking in the staff of antipoverty, anti-hunger advocacy nonprofits administering services from distant downtown offices. May Hamington’s effort to enhance the legacy of Addams help move her heirs in the direction she championed.

Written by: Frances Chapman, February 22nd 2010

A Community Organizer's Tale: People and Power in San Francisco

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Mike Miller

Heyday Books

A Community Organizer’s Tale: People and Power in San Francisco is a radical history with a heap of theory folded in and a touch of imagery. It would be fascinating and informative to anyone interested in community organizing, housing issues, ethnic and labor struggles, civil rights, the history of San Francisco, or community-friendly city planning. The author, a San Francisco native, has been deeply involved in community organizing in the area for most of seventy-two years. He has a long resume of primary and supportive positions with communities, many central to famous movements and connected to famous organizers in San Francisco and other cities. He touches on details of his experience during the '60s in significant famous events in the civil rights and labor movements and the climates that developed into one another consecutively.

Major connections are revisited several times, which was helpful for me since I am a reader without a lot of previous understanding of the timing or significance of all the events, as well as terms like urban renewal and model cities. Strategies of urban renewal and model cities, for example, have had different outcomes for each city, depending on how the greater number of individuals and cohesive organizations in the communities responded. If you are wondering what Miller’s opinion of those strategies is, it’s not all good, at least not historically. He presents the simple, logical, and real reasons why.

In addition to describing what was going on nationally and how the top organizers worked, Miller tells of his experience as an organizer, emphasizing his various organizations goals and what political and economic decisions meant for middle class workers, minorities, unemployed, and homeowners and tenants in various communities. If you live in or are familiar with San Francisco, you might be tickled or heartbroken by truths revealed about causes of change in particular neighborhoods. Individual churches, blocks, restaurants, and business people are painted in a favorable light. One of my favorite lines depicting neighborhood politics is where he states, “We were regulars there, so the owner didn’t mind his cook taking breaks to be a community leader.” My other favorite line is a quote before the introduction, a former New York Governor on community organizing: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer... I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

This would be a great educational piece for interested students, or workers in the field. That is, anyone wanting to get up to speed on what has happened in community organizing in San Francisco, Chicago, and nationally. I recommend it to anyone wanting to be part of the future of this movement, because history really does inspire greatness.

Written by: Heather Irvine, December 23rd 2009

A Hole In A Fence

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:44:00 +0000

Directed by D.W. Young

First Run Features

For most films under an hour long, the first ten minutes are critical. In this short window, the story’s framework is established, point of view is explained, and the viewer basically gets to decide if they’re half as committed to following the plot as the film’s director was to sharing his or her vision.

During the first few minutes in A Hole In A Fence, I had no idea what I was watching. Several seemingly unrelated characters were introduced lacking title or affiliation, and some B roll and a clumsy voice-over made me question when the actual narrative would begin. I felt as if I was watching a film school class project, and as a somewhat recent graduate of such a program, I grimaced, long ago ready to put such screenings behind me. Thankfully, I stayed on my sofa, watching closely, and ended up being drawn into a captivating tale of a neglected neighborhood and a big box home goods supplier.

Despite its slow, awkward start, A Hole In A Fence quickly becomes an engaging story of gentrification, homelessness, a community split by poverty, and the loss of a historic Brooklyn waterfront area to a new Ikea and its behemoth parking lot. Having lived in Boston when a similar situation arose—in Beantown’s case, a waterfront Ikea likely to pollute the river it bordered, creating traffic jams, and also forcing out residents and a community arcade out of the low-income neighborhood—Red Hook’s dilemma did not surprise me, despite the sadness it caused.

Red Hook, like any other neighborhood split down the middle by a population of artists and folks in public housing, has as many problems as community-based solutions. While the neighborhood has homeless squatters, wild dogs, and illegal sex work, it also contains historic graffiti, a rare public graving dock, and a youth gardening project and farmer’s market. Throughout the film, you meet several groups campaigning for various neighborhood causes, usually related to sustainable resources or organizations that work with youth. Worried that their efforts will be squashed or at least rendered obsolete when the Swedes roll in, they spoke candidly about their work and their fears for their community’s future.

While mostly thorough in their research, the film’s team neglected one critical element of their story. They did not speak to any city or community officials in support of Ikea, nor did they speak to Ikea representatives. Whether or not the crew attempted such an interview is not mentioned. It is clear the filmmaker’s intention is to tell the story of a neighborhood being torn apart by commerce, but to not offer even a token appearance to the government or retailer makes the arguments against commercialism appear unbalanced and somewhat unfounded. When the question of partnering with Ikea is posed to members of community organizations, they seem open to the idea but lack factual information to support such a proposal.

Anyone familiar with the current state of Red Hook will know in addition to the waterfront Ikea’s arrival last June, MTV’s Real World, now in their seventeenth season, have set up shop in the borough as well. Nothing says gentrification like camera crews and Scandinavian furniture imports.

While Red Hook residents lost their battle, A Hole In A Fence is nevertheless an engaging forty-five minutes, an important historical document and a learning tool for anyone who cares about issues concerning urban planning, gentrification, the rapidly decreasingly public waterfront, architecture, green space, community revival and survival, and “development at the cost of identity.”

Written by: Brittany Shoot, April 23rd 2009