I found out about this from a fellow folklorist on a folklore list serve. I thought many would find it informative and interesting. This is not a partisan statement.
The last few days I have been very upset about Palin’s comments about community organizers.
I wrote a lengthy post on my facebook account about how her comments reflect that she has no respect for everyday citizens who work to make this world a more just place. I firmly believe community workers and grassroots activists are the heart of a democratic nation.
I found this article last night and encourage everyone to read it and pass it on.
As folklorists, we too are community organizers. Some of us may be overt activists and some of us not. But we are all community service workers, and I believe we can not stand for having those in power mock our democratic struggle. I encourage everyone to talk to your family, your neighbors, your friends, about the importance of community work. We can not afford a leader in office who does not understand the value of everyday citizens working for change. It’s unacceptable.
Democracy Now! is a nationally syndicated show that airs on public television and radio stations across the nation. Amy Goodman is a highly respected and nationally recognized journalist. Producers Nicole Salazer and Sharif Abdel Kouddous were arrested while covering the protests and Goodman was arrested when she tried to find out more information about staff members arrests.
According to Democracy Now!:
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a “peace officer.
You can read the original report here.
Here is an update with video of arrest.
See also an earlier report about the 300 arrested during the peace protests at the RNC here.
Social Justice educational publishers and organizations Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change have published a middle and high school history curriculum based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. A copy is available for free download here. To download a free copy you must agree to respond to a survey and provide feedback after completing the book. You need not be a middle or high school teacher to download a copy.
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This very important film was produced out of Appalshop’s hiphop radio program, Holler to the Hood.
The film synopsis reads:
Up the Ridge is a one-hour television documentary produced by Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ’s for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.
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I recently saw this exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. The artist, Nora Naranjo-Morse, who is a Santa Clara Pueblo, is the first Native American woman to make an outdoor sculpture in D.C. What amazed me most about these beautiful sculptures is they will eventually be worn away by the wind and rain, thus purposefully eroding over time.
You can listen to the podcasts about this exhibit here.
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Just the other day my friend Dr. Kristin Dowell, an anthropologist who works with Native American communities, suggested I look into a project called Native Seeds, a seed bank and cultural memory bank based in the southwest. It am so excited about the information that I had to post about it.
Native Seeds
Started in 1983, this organization was one of the founders of RAFT (Renewing America’s Food Traditions ), and safegaurds seeds native to Native American communities in the southwest. What’s even more amazing is not only do they safegaurd the seeds, they also maintain what they refer to as a Cultural Memory Bank. Their website explains it this way:
“In the late 1990s, NS/S undertook to expand our seed bank efforts to include a cultural component, integrating cultural information – the agricultural practices, stories, songs, and recipes associated with specific crops in the seed bank – with our existing database of collection information. In effect, we would combine the geneticist’s concern for conserving unique traits of a crop with a folklorist’s concern for conserving oral history about the crop.”
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(the links for the seed shop and the foodbank’s blog can be found at the bottom of this post).
I am learning more everyday about the importance of eating locally grown food, especially food grown from heirloom seeds (a catchall term for seeds that have not been genetically modified). A few recent conversations with a close friend who is involved with Slow Foods and the Fayetteville Farmers Market reminded me about how I have been wanting to post some information about a great place to get heirloom seeds in Arkansas. Read the rest of this entry »
This month religious and human rights groups across the nation are drawing attention to the immoral nature of torture and sending a message to the president that the American people do not support torture.
While listening to a recent radio segment on Air America’s State of Belief (one of my new favorite radio shows), I heard about the National Religious Campaign to End Torture. This month churches around the nation are hanging banners that announce their belief that torture is not a political issue but a moral issue.
For more information or to order a banner for your organization, visit their site:
National Religious Campaign to End Torture.
The intersection of faith and social justice is particularly interesting on both a very personal gut level and on a folkloric one as well.
I am curious–from a folklore and belief perspective, what would Don Yoder and Primiano make of this campaign and this larger intersection between belief and action toward political change?
In conducting some preliminary research about Post Office Murals in Arkansas, I came across this helpful resource:
Arkansas Post Office Mural Project
The webpage is currently under construction, but still contains helpful information. I discovered that the Dardanelle post office mural was created by an artist who was originally from Armenia.
This mural plays important role in my life. I can remember my mother pointing out the artwork to me when I was a small child and telling me about my grandparents (her parents) who, just like the people in the mural, had picked cotton in the Cardon Bottoms.
I am currently beginning preparatory work for a radio piece about Dardanelle’s mural and what it means to those who live here. I am in search of personal stories and any deep background information that might be related. If you have any ideas, comments, suggestions, please let me know!
I will be updating this entry as the research continues.
http://www.wpamurals.com/arkansas.htm