I first saw this video on Richard Beck's blog (one of the few I follow regularly). It is the eloquently told story of the early hours of the morning for some of our neighbours.
Watch it and then read on.
Hotel 22 by Elizabeth Lo from Short of the Week on Vimeo.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
[walking in the shoes of another - Timothy Kurek]
Timothy Kurek talks about intentional empathy and the year he spent walking in the shoes of another:
Timothy has also written a book called The Cross in the Closet.
Timothy has also written a book called The Cross in the Closet.
Friday, September 11, 2015
making a difference, one baby at a time
Our white friends to the south managed to do it. Jim Crow laws which enforced racial segregation in the southern states were in place until the 1960's. As the Civil Rights movement brought about legal changes, the state and local laws regarding segregation were overturned. In some ways, however, not that much changed and the U.S. situation evolved to what is known as the new Jim Crow, which is seeing (among other injustices and inequities) high percentages of black people (black men in particular) end up in for-profit prisons and many other barriers in place to prevent equal participation in society.
Here in Canada, one of our historical evils was the Indian residential schools: Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and put into residential schools, forbidden to use their own languages and not allowed to practice their culture. Abuse was wide-spread. This took place roughly from 1876 to the late 1960's. The recent Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls it cultural genocide.
Understandably, Indian residential schools are done with. However, that doesn't mean that those in power suddenly believe that Aboriginal lives matter.
Around the end of the Indian residential school system, the Manitoba government began "systematically apprehending aboriginal children starting in the 1960s and placing them with non-aboriginal families — a practice known as the ’60s Scoop." (source). Read more here and here. Thousands of children were taken and placed in foster and adoptive homes. Just this past June 2015, the Premier of Manitoba apologized on behalf of the province for the 60's scoop. Yes, this is Canada - the Canada we don't here much about.
But is it over? And now what's happening in Manitoba?
Child and Family Services workers are seizing an average of one newborn a day, without assessing the parents or their ability to care for their baby, according to Cora Morgan, First Nations Children's Advocate. She says,
“In this system, you are guilty until you can prove you’re innocent. They’re not going in and investigating to see if there is another side of the story. They’re not going in there to say, ‘How can we help you?’ … They just take the kids.” (source)
You can imagine the effects on a baby of being removed from its mother, put in care for the key months of attachment, and then handed back. And the cycle continues...
Read more about the seizures of babies.
Read Christi Belcourt's indictment of Manitoba's child welfare system.
Estimated numbers:
The numbers of children in the system are staggering – it is estimated that there are today anywhere from 60, 000 – 70, 0000 Native children in foster care in Canada , a much higher proportion than the 20, 000 children taken in the horrific Sixties Scoop, where 20, 000 children were taken and placed into adoption or in residential schools, those institutions meant to “kill the Indian in the child”.
categories:
exclusion,
indigenous,
violence
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Wednesday, September 09, 2015
false apology poems - an explanation
Her poems follow the format used by William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963), who wrote the following:
This Is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
—William Carlos Williams
If you've read any of the false apology poems that I've written, they are neither innocent nor humorous. They are dark and satirical, and are intended to bring the attitudes of white supremacy out into the open. Forgive me.
I welcome any comments and thoughts you might have about them.
See the whole list of false apology poems.
Friday, September 04, 2015
[mc1r photo project challenges how we see race]
Thom Dunn, in a recent Upworthy article, asks:
Despite making up such a small percentage of the population, most of us have the same stereotypical image in our heads when we think of redheads: light-skinned, freckled white people with curls of flaming hair and a fiery temper to match.
Aside from the obvious issue of assigning a temperament to someone based on hair color, there's one other weird conclusion here: Why do we think that all redheads are white?
(source, emphasis added)
Michelle Marshall, a photographer based in London, has been taking portraits of redheaded people who are black or biracial. Dunn's article features some of her portraits interspersed with some of Marshall's thoughts.
Read the whole article -- easy (and beautiful) to read and thought-provoking at the same time.
Visit Michelle Marshall's website for more photos.
Friday, August 28, 2015
an apology from the Portsmouth Police and the Hampton Roads Jail
In memory of Jamycheal Mitchell, age 24, found dead in his jail cell at Hampton Roads Regional Jail on August 19, 2015, four months after being arrested for allegedly stealing $5 of food.
This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
we just want to sayHungry?bad choice thattaking a mountain dew snickersand zebra cakejailed in aprilyou wasted awaytaking up spacewaiting for a hospital bedForgive usfor wasting tax dollarswe should have executed youat the scene of the crimepoem by rob g
This poem seems more harsh than some of the others. I think I'm feeling particularly angry today. Don't know how our black brothers and sisters cope with it, and especially as they know that any given day might be their last, just because they're black.
This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
[voice of witness]
"Voice of Witness (VOW) is a non-profit dedicated to fostering a more nuanced, empathy-based understanding of contemporary human rights crises. We do this by amplifying the voices of individuals most closely affected by injustice, and by providing curricular and training support to educators and invested communities."
To date, they have published thirteen books of oral histories, with stories from Palestine, Chicago Public Housing, Columbia, and more.
Check them out!
Read this excerpt from Refugee Hotel online:
Or check out your local library -- the Edmonton Public Library, where I live, has three titles from Voice of Witness.
categories:
books,
embrace,
human rights,
margins,
prison
Thursday, August 20, 2015
[re-imagining disability]
Portraits of L'Arche Daybreak members by Warren Pot. See more of them here.
Related to this, Professor Pamela Cushing discusses how photographs tell a story, and can also accomplish ethical work and confer the dignity of full personhood on their subjects.
Here's an excerpt:
However, photos can also accomplish ethical work. They can influence how we think about people who are different from us. Formal photos like portraits can be particularly transformative since they disrupt public expectations. The subject of a portrait is recognized as worthy of being photographed. The format implies that you are worthy of contemplation and commemoration. So the very acts of staging and taking the photos symbolize their membership in a valued group – those who ought to be gazed at.
(source, emphasis added)
Read her succinct and interesting post here.
categories:
disability,
embrace,
portraits
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
[... space that protected and cared for the most fragile bodies]
Richard Beck, in his series discussing "The Gospel According to Ta-Nehisi Coates" (particularly in reference to Coates' book Between the World and Me), says this about what Jesus' kingdom looked like:
Jesus, by contrast, created communities centered around giving care to the most vulnerable in his society. Jesus carved out of Empire space that protected and cared for the most fragile bodies. That's what Jesus did as he moved from town to town, he created a community where the most oppressed and marginalized were welcomed and cared for. Communities of care that were open to agents of Empire, tax collectors and Roman soldiers, who were willing to work to buffer fragile bodies.
And this is what the early church did as well. The church carved out of Empire communities of care. Imperial Rome knew Christianity to be religion popular with women and slaves because of how these communities buffered their fragile bodies from the ravages of Empire.
To my eye, these communities of care carved out of Empire are what Jesus meant when he said "the kingdom of God is in your midst."
(source, emphasis added)
Read the rest of the article (the really good stuff is in the latter half of the post).
Read the series from Part 1.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
an apology from NJ State Troopers and the Mercer County Sheriff's Office
For Radazz Hearn, age 14. Shot seven times on Friday, August 7, 2015, by New Jersey state troopers and Mercer County Sheriff's officer for running away. In stable condition in hospital.
we just want to say
You went off at a run
in your sweatpants
red as blood
and reached for a ?
our instinct said gun
we shot seven times
to protect the neighbourhood
from thugs like you
Forgive us
for not liking you black and red fashion
it clashes with white folks'
sense of decorum
poem by rob g
Read an apology from the Waller County Sheriff's Office.
This is a false apology poem in the style of William Carlos Williams.
Read an explanation of false apology poems.
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