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I’m watching Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s 2008 documentary “The Garden,” a film about urban farmers in South Central Los Angeles and their fight against developers.
And I’m nearly speechless.
For 14 years, 350 familes grew their own food on this 14 acres, once scorched by riots and pain. It was the largest community garden in the U.S.
In 2006, the garden was bulldozed – all 150 plant species – and plans are underway to build a Forever 21 warehouse and distribution center on this land. This, even though the farmers had raised the money to buy the property from the developer. He’s on record as saying, his words smacking of self-righteous privilege, “Even if they raised $100 million, this group could not buy this property… It’s not about money. It’s about I don’t like their cause and I don’t like their conduct. So there’s no price I would sell it to them for.”
A flood of words get jammed in my fingers when I try to express how I feel about this. Did I mention that most of these farmers are Latinos and Latinas from the community? Are you surprised?
What I can manage to stammer is that this is the mark of everything wrong about the United States, about our dominator society. This is a prime example of what will destroy our national soul.
In the movie, there is footage of heavily armed police officers storming through tall rows of vegetables. If it were fiction, it would be hilarious. But it’s real, and it’s powerful and embarrassing.
The footage of carefully tended, productive, green vegetables, fruits, herbs, being torn up to put in concrete buildings just wrecks me. I feel that loss viscerally, and it makes me hungry for the social upending that will bring in a nurturing, partnership society. Right NOW.
Remember studying The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in Civics class? We read excerpts and made gagging noises when we got to the parts about rat pieces and feces found in American food. Maybe we didn’t quite understand the other call for social reform in the book: to end the profound mistreatment of immigrant workers at the turn of the century. 1906 seemed like another world. We had no idea how close this book hit to home, to now.
Everyone who eats should watch Food, Inc. Or at least the trailer.
Should you buy popcorn and M&Ms? Probably not– unless you can down them during the previews. This documentary isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s tasteful and informative. Most importantly, it argues for our right to knowledge, to be able to find out “what’s in the kitchen.”
This story is almost two years old, but it’s still a fantastic tale of using lively humor to puncture hate.
Posted in its entirety; originally from Asheville Indymedia:
Unfortunately for [VNN] the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.
Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns. http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/7704982.html
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.
This week, I got an exciting e-mail from my friend and fellow 2006 REAL Hot 100 winner, Deanna Zandt. She’s a media technologist and a leading expert in women and technology, and she’s about to add “first-time author” to her resume.
She’s signed with the Berrett-Koehler publishing group to write a book about “the social media moment as a huge opportunity for social change and action.” Women, people of color, queer people, and many more have too often been left in the dust of technological advances (see film, TV, and radio in their formative years). Deanna will use her experience in the feminist community and bring in experts from the fields of racial justice, LGBTQQI organizing, the front lines of the class warfare, and more, to assemble strategies for widening the diversity of voices in social media.
Deanna is a sharp, compassionate, thoughtful person, and her book is going to help women and other sidelined communities release their fear and take advantage of the new technologies. The last thing we need is another place where the dominant culture creates uncontested content that blocks out all other perspectives.
If you’re interested in technology and social justice, you should be reading Deanna’s blog. Also, the publisher doesn’t offer advances, so Deanna is fundraising for living expenses this summer while she writes the book in 4 short months. Even if you have $10 to spare, visit her Feed The Author page and join supporters like the Hightower Lowdown, and Don Hazen and Doug Kreeger (editor and board member of AlterNet). It’s a fantastic project in which to invest.
Her full fundraising letter below the cut.
There’s a free party happening on the East River in Manhattan today from 3pm-7pm, and it celebrates the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the U.S.
DJ Dhundee and DJ Tyler Askew will be spinning, there’s free BBQ all day long, and there’s free beer for the 1st hour. It’s at Solar 1, on the East River Waterfront at East 23rd St, NYC.
Go soak up some of the beautiful day in the company of beautiful, happy people and families!
I’ve heard that THE film to watch in the next year is going to be Precious, based on the incredible novel Push by Sapphire. It won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award and is set to storm Cannes soon. The trailer was just released by Lionsgate:
It will hit theaters in November. I can’t wait.
For more on the director, Lee Daniels. And yes, that’s Mariah Carey as the social worker.
So, what’s the appropriate greeting today: “Happy April Fools’”? I hope you haven’t been tricked too severely. (My long-time favorite resource for verifying questionable information is Snopes.com, by the way. For future reference.)
I’ve been thinking about fools and sacred clowns today, appropriately enough. One of the movies I saw at SXSW was The Yes Men Fix The World, a documentary about the culture jamming activists called the Yes Men. This group uses inventive mischief and deceit to expose the wrongdoing of powerful corporations and governmental offices. The movie features Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, but they’re only two members of the larger group.
The Yes Men have created politically-charged hijinks like:
In February, as news about the Chris Brown and Rihanna Fenty situation spread through the internet, Jay Smooth over at Ill Doctrine consulted with Elizabeth Mendez Berry, who wrote an article in 2005 called Love Hurts in Vibe Magazine, about domestic violence within (and without) hip-hop. (Here’s a link to the video of that interview, originally published on February 14th.)
Last week, Elizabeth Mendez Berry published a powerful follow-up commentary about the issue over at Ill Doctrine. Her piece begins in a “gang awareness” meeting with fifteen Bronx teenagers, discussing domestic violence. The conversation lands on this “bottom line: sometimes you’ve got to teach a woman a lesson if she gets out of line.” Until this moment:
In the midst of the rationalizing, one usually talkative young man stood up and walked out. When he returned twenty minutes later, he quietly told the group that his aunt had recently been murdered by her abusive boyfriend. It was no longer a hypothetical conversation. The jokes stopped. Young men who were significantly invested in their inner gangsters gave them time off, and started talking about how domestic violence had affected their lives–and it had affected most of them. The young woman, who minutes before had been arguing in favor of beating females who didn’t know their place, talked about how despite the rules, male gang members beat up on female gang members. Behind her swagger, she seemed anxious.
The rest of the article is as beautiful and honest as this excerpt — I highly recommend reading the whole thing. She’s a sharp reporter and writer, and this issue is a matter of life or death for too many women.
That’s right, folks, I watched six movies in twelve hours today. I think it’s my personal record. Even more surprising than the sheer amount of movies is the fact that they were all good — in fact, four were excellent, moving films.
In the interest of my bedtime and ability to do this again tomorrow, here are my top four, in the order I saw them, and with high recommendations that you see all of them if you get the chance:
1) Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
This movie follows Youssou Ndour, Grammy Award-winning Senegalese singer and hero, over two years as he releases “Egypt,” an ambitious and controversial album on which he sings about his beloved Islam. (Western listeners not familiar with his name will certainly recognize his voice — he sang backing vocals on Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”)
Ndour’s story and the movie’s telling of it brought me to tears several times; from the sheer power of his voice in performance, to the scenes with his grandmother, the film was beautiful and I want to see it again.
Trailer, and three more stellar films after the jump.
I am often accused, by one person in particular, of hating white people.
I do not hate white people.
It’s true, I ask questions, complain, and react to things in ways that makes this one person in particular think that I hate white people. But I don’t.
I heart them.
“She has to be at least 30.”
Check.
“She has to live in New York”
Check.
“She has to love Hip-Hop.”
Check.
“She can’t only speak English.”
We were on a first date. I was crushing hard. He was describing his qualifications for a relationship. For a second there, it was ON. Until, the “She can’t only speak English.” part.
Read more…
“In America, they hunt black people.” These words were spoken four years ago during my first months in Spain — by a German, of all people.
The movie “Crash,” which I despised, was adored by many of my Spanish friends who saw it. They loved how it presented a long-awaited honest depiction of America: one riddled with large and small currents of bigotry.
It was difficult for me to hear these opinions, not because I have a knee-jerk opposition to criticism – if anything, living abroad has only illuminated the nuances of my country’s shortcomings – or because they weren’t at some level true. It was because of the blatant double standard. With easy blinders-on righteousness, Europeans have long enjoyed disparaging what they perceive to be America’s inherently racist society without taking a sidelong glance at the glaring inequalities of their own lands. My anger resulted, therefore, from the bravado with which the pot was calling the kettle racist. Read more…
When I lived in New York City and I told people that I was from Texas, I often got a pitying look that implied that I had somehow escaped a fate worse than death by moving to NYC. They would not believe me when I told them about my middle and high school experiences of growing up in an incredibly diverse community, where the four Ronnettes in our high school production of Little Shop of Horrors were Vietnamese-American, Lebanese-American, African-American, and a blonde Caucasian.
Meanwhile, I had seen some serious sexism and racism on the streets of New York City that people often liked to ignore, or pretended were just anomalies, as if somehow the Northeast corridor was the direction in which the country was evolving, and everyone else could just go fuck themselves.
So I am not surprised when I see this report from SAALT (South Asian Americans Leading Together) about hate crimes during and after the 2008 election. The four featured incidents took place in two New Jersey towns, Staten Island, and Providence, RI.
What else can I say but
YES!!!
I’m grateful for change, for opportunity, for the privilege of living in this exact historical moment.
I’m grateful to everyone who worked on this campaign, on all sides, for engaging in their passion. I believe that passionate connectivity is what we need — and not just with people who agree with us.
I’m grateful for living in a state where over 3.5 million people voted for Obama, even if our electoral votes did not go to him.
I’m grateful for the simultaneous joy and the wide understanding that this victory does not mean that the work is done. As Atena said in a comment over at Racialicious:
I hope that people can realize that feeling joy and elation over this event is not tantamount to being naive and uninformed as to the state of politics, social relations, economic realities and the implications of living in a country that is dangerously out-of-balance. Some of us are ecstatically happy, even though we are well aware that this victory is not remotely a panacea to all of the nation’s ills.
For the first time in eight years, I believe that our country is closer to the maturity level it requires to hold all those complex emotions at once.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
This guy’s rhymes and adorable parody made me smile and laugh so hard it brought tears to my eyes. He throws in a few stereotypes, but on the whole, he nails it. Especially the pho verse — so damn good!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
“This holiday, show your loved one how much you care with the gift of jewelery,” the radio voice insisted.
What holiday?
“… Come to our Columbus Day sale and find a gift to surprise your love with.”
Well that would be quite the surprise, wouldn’t in? A Columbus Day necklace, perhaps in the shape of a ship. Or a lovely pendant depicting the slaughter of indigenous people. I mean, come on. Who named this a holiday and why is it being used as an excuse to shop?
Several months ago, Courtney proposed an idea for our blog. The premise: each week (or knowing me, every few weeks) we would pose a question for the other to answer. The dialogue is called “Citizen” and we will be thinking and writing about questions of civic life, public responsibility and politics. Here’s the first installment. I wrote it, so it’s too long. Thought the opening of the democratic convention proved an appropriate occasion to finally get this started.
Courtney,
As a way of beginning this dialogue, you asked me: “how much do you think Obama’s election will change circumstances for young black men?” You proposed some other questions as well, but I want to begin with this one because I see it as a way of thinking a bit about Obama – what he is trying to do, what the consequences of his election may be, and why I am both inspired and skeptical about his candidacy and (fingers crossed) election. I want to start with the specificity of this question because it asks for hard thinking about what an Obama presidency means for the country, in particular what it may mean for the unfolding story of how we as a nation reckon with the legacy of slavery.
I just watched this, slack-jawed in awe, over at Racialicious and had to repost it here. Thank you, Jay Smooth, for some sharp intelligence laid down in three short minutes!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Today is Loving Day, the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling that ended 400 years of laws banning interracial marriage and relationships. Richard and Mildred Loving fought for nine years to earn the simple right to be married to each other.
From the Loving Day website:
This year is particularly significant because Mrs. Loving tragically passed away. While we are saddened by this, we can also be inspired by her historic achievement. Mrs. Loving was a regular person from a small town who made a big difference. We can all make a difference as well.
She didn’t speak much publicly. Her husband died in a car accident in 1975, but she never remarried. Their love changed law.
Today, I read on Resist Racism about schools in Glasgow, Scotland, that are introducing anti-racism curriculum in nursery schools, for children as young as three years old. From the Evening Times article:
Research shows racist attitudes can be picked up by children as young as two. A similar programme in 170 city primary schools in 2005 led a slight drop in the number of racism incidents.
I’m delighted by this tidbit, particularly because of the disturbing news out of Iowa last week, where 297 illegal immigrants were sentenced to at least five months’ jail time, followed by deportation, for getting jobs at a meatpacking plant with false documents. This was the largest raid by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a single workplace in U.S. history.
