The Above Ground

People’s Kitchen Detroit held a fabulous skill share on...

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:08:01 -0400

People’s Kitchen Detroit held a fabulous skill share on Wednesday night showing how to cultivate milk! We learned how to make yogurt and cream cheese from cow’s milk and yogurt from nut milk!

"The Declaration of Independence We the people, the students of Mumford High would like a longer..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:04:55 -0400

“

The Declaration of Independence

We the people, the students of Mumford High would like a longer summer vacation. The EAA has taken over all of our accessibility. We want our rights back! Plenty of students in our school have the advantage of getting jobs over the summer. Without a longer vacation that is impossible. We cannot get jobs so that we can have college experience, which will result to no college acceptance. Other students that have the advantage of getting out of school have more advantages than us students who get out in August. Colleges want students who have experience, knowledge, background, exposure and participation.

The EAA does not treat the students fairly. We have been suspended for dress code, truancy, and even no identification. Our rights say that the maximum of truancy is an in school suspension. Being suspended for dress code and not having identification is not written in our student rights handbook. Being a student of the EAA has few pros and many cons. We lack on teachers, education, and responsibility. Why is it that our school cost 54 million dollars but yet we don’t have money for a field trip? Why is it that the seniors of 2013 haven’t had senior trips or activities? What can students of 2014, 2015, 2016 and so on expect? We need answers!

The EAA needs to be stopped; it is a process of confusion. How are seniors going to go to any college without the right amount of credits? We need Detroit Public Schools back. We were cared for when they taught us. Our education was valuable to most DPS teachers. The teachers of the EAA lack showing us that they are interested in our education. The EAA does not provide us with extra curricular activities. We are not treated equally to other public schools.

There should only be one school district and that is DPS. The millions of dollars that were spent on unnecessary things in our school should have been spent on more teachers. We have way too many classes, not many teachers, but most importantly we don’t have enough time in our classes. We have seven classes in a day not including seminar and lunch. We are worn out and tired. Mumford is a public school not a jail. EAA should be put away!

Our List of Demands!
• Longer summer vacations
• More teachers
• Fewer and longer class periods
• Field trips
• School funds
• DPS
• Consideration
• Look for ways to improve our education
• Stop Buzz
• Get more books
• Create a success for us students
• Help us find ways to improve academically
• Innovation
• Help us advance in all subjects
• Develop new ways for us to understand new things
• Stop the EAA

For more information and to join us in our fight subscribe to our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/SJLStudentVoices!

”

- Detroit students organizing against the EAA!

Photo

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:02:02 -0400

More images from the “Windows of Opportunity”...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:59:00 -0400

More images from the “Windows of Opportunity” fundraiser! These images capture the live reenactment of East Michigan Environmental Action Council’s history. In case you can’t tell, in one image, EMEAC is “giving birth” to a movement, and in the other one, EMEAC is out marching for environmental justice! :D

By the way, EMEAC is still accepting donations for their fundraiser! You can donate here! And be sure to spread the word! Thank you!

"Most U.S. and world history textbooks teach students to ignore the role of nature in history. But..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:50:11 -0400

“Most U.S. and world history textbooks teach students to ignore the role of nature in history. But students need to know the environmental history of our current climate crises, including how nature was turned into a commodity to be bought and sold, and used for private profit. If we don’t, they’ll have a hard time recognizing what—and who—is responsible for today’s environmental crisis.”

- The Real History of the Commons and Today’ s Environmental Crisis - Environment - Utne Reader

In the middle of reading this article—super important breakdown of how various school texts describe and explain the commodification of “the commons” and the environment. Haven’t finished reading yet, but I appreciate the particular focus on media and how it is used to erase vitally important information.

"f they think it’s just about Manning and Assange, then they have no conception of what it is that’s..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:33:30 -0400

“f they think it’s just about Manning and Assange, then they have no conception of what it is that’s happening. And, you know, everyone knows, within the administration, within the National Security Council, the effects of climate change, the instability that that will cause, the economic deterioration, which is irreversible, and they want the mechanisms by which they can criminalize any form of dissent. And that’s finally what this is about.”

- Chris Hedges: Monitoring of AP Phones a “Terrifying” Step in State Assault on Press Freedom | Democracy Now!

Wow.

"The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges joins us to discuss what could mark the most..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:28:56 -0400

“The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges joins us to discuss what could mark the most significant government intrusion on freedom of the press in decades. The Justice Department has acknowledged seizing the work, home and cellphone records used by almost 100 reporters and editors at the Associated Press. The phones targeted included the general AP office numbers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Connecticut, and the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. The action likely came as part of a probe into the leaks behind an AP story on the U.S. intelligence operation that stopped a Yemen-based al-Qaeda bombing plot on a U.S.-bound airplane. Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and former New York Times reporter, calls the monitoring “one more assault in a long series of assault against freedom of information and freedom of the press.” Highlighting the Obama administration’s targeting of government whistleblowers, Hedges adds: “Talk to any investigative journalist who must investigate the government, and they will tell you that there is a deep freeze. People are terrified of speaking, because they’re terrified of going to jail.””

- Chris Hedges: Monitoring of AP Phones a “Terrifying” Step in State Assault on Press Freedom | Democracy Now!

East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) officially...

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:13:00 -0400

East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) officially kicked off their “Windows of Opportunity” fundraiser on Friday, May 10th, 2013 with a community wine and cheese tasting.

During the night’s celebrations, newly appointed EMEAC co-director, Dr. Ife Kilimanjaro, discussed why shared leadership and leadership of traditionally marginalized people is so essential.

Excerpts from Dr. Kilimanjaro’s presentation:

“I couldn’t ask for a better place to learn, grow and advance important justice work here in Detroit and beyond. EMEAC is the first place I’ve worked where it feels as though i am valued as a human being, as a whole person, and not just for what i can give endlessly.”

My co-workers are an exemplary group of workers who are leaders and leaders who are workers. I gain so much from working alongside Diana Copeland, Lottie Spady, William Copeland, Sanaa NiaJoy, Priscilla Dziubek,Siwatu Salama-Ra, Charity Mahouna Hicks, Dee, and Kim. And i value what has been learned, shared and struggled out with allies Sarah Lynn (Fender Bender Detroit) and Anjela Kosmala Newsom (People’s Kitchen Detroit).

“Tonight we honor and celebrate leadership of women and people of color in the progressive march of history. Populations often valued in words, but in practice continue to face barriers to a variety of institutions, fields of study and careers; populations that are disproportionately and increasingly unable to meet basic needs and subject to the harmful impacts of ecological injustices and climate change; populations that are systematically kept out of positions of power where decisive decisions are made; and populations that often carry out added responsibility of caring emotionally, psychologically and physically for others. We celebrate women and people of color as leaders.”

“Tonight we celebrate the principle and practice of shared leadership by honoring the many ways that every person in a formal or informal group contributes to the advancement of its work. I applaud the courage of EMEAC staff to be open to and participate in this change.”

Dr. Kilimanjaro also contextualized why EMEAC was engaging in the Windows of Opportunity fundraising campaign:

“And tonight we also celebrate the launch of our windows campaign. Our aim is to raise $10,000 toward renovation costs of the windows in two of the buildings in this complex. Buildings that house organizations who might have been priced out of this rapidly changing community under other circumstances. Help us to install energy efficient windows that will save resources and make it possible to carry out our work year round, particularly during the hottest and coldest times of the year.”

You can donate here!

2brwngrls: Oh, goodie! More racist fashion editorials! This...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:43:09 -0400

2brwngrls:

Oh, goodie! More racist fashion editorials!

This time, it’s Diva magazine’s photospread entitled “Be My Slave.” Pakistani designer Aamna Aqeel decided, for whatever reason, that the best way to showcase her fashions was via these seriously offensive images, which feature a white model clad in chic duds, accompanied by a little boy playing her “slave.”

When confronted about the photos, Aqeel insisted that the spread’s concept was to bring awareness to child labor, and that the fact that the boy is dark-skinned and dressed in ~*tribal*~ gear was purely coincidental.

However International Herald Tribune writer Salima Feerasta has quite rightly called bullshit on Aqeel’s flimsly excuse, saying: It’s facetious of the designer to claim that she was trying to stimulate a debate on child labour. The model wearing her clothes is clearly comfortable with her dominant position. She is not made up in a way that shows her to be the villain of the piece. The use of a dark skinned child in a shoot entitled “Be My Slave” certainly reeks of racism, however much the designer may deny it. And if anything, the shoot seems to condone child labour.”

What do you guys think? Will the fashion world ever get a clue?

latimes: climateadaptation: The Guardian has a multi-part,...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:34:52 -0400

latimes:

climateadaptation:

The Guardian has a multi-part, video heavy media set on climate refugees in America. I’d argue that the title “first” is a misnomer and would point to the coastal communities in Texas, New Orleans, and the Carolinas who’ve been retreating from the coasts for several years. But, the point is made - that sea-level rise and coastal erosion is much more aggressive than at anytime in history. Thus, tens of thousands of people are at immediate risk, especially the poor.

The above is one minute.

The people of Newtok, on the west coast of Alaska and about 400 miles south of the Bering Strait that separates the state from Russia, are living a slow-motion disaster that will end, very possibly within the next five years, with the entire village being washed away.

The Ninglick River coils around Newtok on three sides before emptying into the Bering Sea. It has steadily been eating away at the land, carrying off 100ft or more some years, in a process moving at unusual speed because of climate change. Eventually all of the villagers will have to leave, becoming America’s first climate change refugees.

Some great work here!

theartofanimation: Paul Davey

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:33:57 -0400

theartofanimation:

Paul Davey

"Theresa Landrum, 56, has lived on the same block of Liddesdale since she was born. She can list the..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:33:12 -0400

“

Theresa Landrum, 56, has lived on the same block of Liddesdale since she was born. She can list the diseases that have hit nearly every house: asthma, leukemia, sarcoidosis and multiple cancers. In one neighbor’s house, four children have asthma, and their father died last year of cancer.

Landrum’s parents both died of cancer, and she is a cancer survivor. In 2007, while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, she showed up wearing a scarf over her bald head at Detroit City Council meetings opposing the expansion of Marathon’s refinery, a fight the neighbors lost. The $2-billion project is expected to be finished in 2012.

Roland Wahl, 66, has lived on Colonial Street in the Oakwood Heights section of the ZIP code since 1961. His wife has had several types of cancer, and several of his eight grandchildren have asthma.

“We’ve suffered too long with pollution,” he said. “We feel our health problems are the result of the worst air in the state.”

Vincent Martin, who moved to the area from Cuba as a child in the 1960s, helps care for his 40-year-old brother, who has diabetes, renal failure and lung problems. Martin, 48, said he knows not every disease or death is caused directly by pollution, but that pollution exacerbates existing health issues.

“What we get here is illnesses on top of illnesses,” he said.

Linda Martin, who is no relation to Vincent Martin, has lived on Colonial Street since 1974. Her family’s health problems include lung and brain tumors and asthma. The air often smells too bad to sit on the porch, and since there’s no air-conditioning in her two-story home, the family opens the windows in warm months.

She quit growing vegetables in her garden because she’s concerned that the soil is contaminated. “I’m tired of it,” said Martin, 60. “I would have left a long time ago if I could.”

”

- 48217: Life in Michigan’s most polluted ZIP code | Detroit Free Press | freep.com (via iinventedeverything)

"Meditations under a state of Emergency It was not martial law, but pretty close to it—a..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:34:00 -0400

“

Meditations under a state of Emergency

It was not martial law, but pretty close to it—a “state of emergency”. Belatedly, Mr. Johnson authorized the sending in of federal troops to restore order. And he proclaimed a “day of Prayer” for Detroit. But by that time the statistics were mounting: 477 buildings on 86 Detroit streets, damaged by fire; 42 dead; over 2,000 injured; 5,000 homeless; 2,900 imprisoned; the over-all loss upwards of a billion dollars.

And Detroit was the place where it was not going to happen. After the privies riot in 1943, the city had geared itself to prevent a recurrence. A Commission on Human Relations had become a part of the municipal structure. A Co-ordinating Council on Human Relations involved large numbers of the city’s social service, educational and religious leaders. A Commission on Equal Opportunity enlisted the active participation of the community’s business and industrial as well as education and religious leaders. (The Unitarian minister in Detroit was a member of both the latter bodies.)

…

The difficulty, of course, was that most of this has been pretty much an “upper-crust” operation with little attention, except in some phases of the anti-poverty program, being paid to a considerable mass of under-privileged, unemployed, largely disenchanted individuals, living precariously on the bare edge of subsistence. Urban renewal, greatly needed and long overdue, had driven these people into the increasingly crowded and congested 12th Street area. It wa a common prediction that someday there would be an explosion. It came on a swelteringly hot summer evening in July.

Congressman John Conyers, Jr., who was a real hero of the occasion, put it this way: “This was in no sense a race riot, but rather an insurrection of the ‘have-nots’”. As reported in the first Life magainze article, the lesson of the Detroit riot, according to a Detroit psychologist is “Learn, Whitey, learn”.

There will still be some resistance to learning as witnessed by the considerable number who immediately sought to fix the blame on some outside force or influence. Scapegoats ran all the way from Black Nationalism to the Communist Party. It is true that there may have been some outside pressures and influences involved, but the important fact is that no outside pressure could have gotten very far unless there existed in the community, conditions ready for the igniting.

It was an interesting experience during the riot week to drive through a long-integrated neighborhood just adjacent to the doubled area. Families were sitting on their front porches, children playing in the yards, fathers working their gardens—while just ten blocks away, the nation’s worst civil disturbance flared….

The important fact, of course, is that what should have been done, and what needs doing, is something that goes far beyond and much deeper than readiness to offer relief once the crisis has occurred. One implication of the riot is that, by and large, the curches have not done a very effective job in implanting and in inspiring the very kind of values that are essential to effective living in the year 1967.

People can allow riot conditions to persist simply because people do not care enough about people really to be concerned (emphasis). We can allow these people, some of them not particularly nice people, to be segregated in a slum area. That gets them out of sight—out of mind.

A valid religion would inspire people to be greatly concerned simply because some portion of the community is deprived and unserved. The white heat of religion in our time has to be that people care about people and their well-being and their future, irrespective of the things that differentiate and divide. The great need is for a church whose inner motivation is a burning concern about human values for all men, a church busily engaged in tearing down the fences and building roads. The basic conviction of religion for our time has to be: that people are people, regardless of whether their skins are black, white blue, green, or magenta.

A lot of people are saying… “Now I should think you’d want to get out of Detroit”. But this is a feeble and futile reaction. Whether you like it or not, the major proportion of American people are increasingly going to be living in cities. The problem is not to desert the cities but to be concerned and active in solving their problems. Already the Detroit Planning Commission (headed by another Unitarian) has on the drawing boards, for presentation to the residents of the community, plans for rehabilitating the area with adequate provision for parks, playgrounds, schools and low-cost housing.

But it will cost too much to clear and re-bulild slum areas! The answer, of course, is quite apparent. If we can afford billions to get to the moon; if, indeed, we could afford four billion dollars to reconstruct war-ravaged Berlin, we can afford it! (Emphasized)

…

White Americans need to understand the genesis and real meaning of the much maligned term “Black Power”. Aside from a few extremists, the term refers to a mounting disillusion in the Negro community over how much real understanding and how much real sympathy and help can be expected from the white community and a growing readiness in the Negro community to assume responsibility for its own organization and progress—a development which has long been cherished by the white community.

Better than passing a very questionable anti-riot bill, Congress had better reconsider such defeated programs as “Model Cities”, “Rent Subsidies”, and “Rat Control”.

The problem and the challenge were well put by New York Reform Rabbi William J Rosenblue (speaking at Temple Isreal): “Our clergymen and the heads of our goodwill organizations as well as leaders in business and industry are always proclaiming the power of goodness and God as stronger than either “black power” or “white power”. The hour has struck for them to find a crash program to translate those holy phrases into a helpful program that will keep our cities from becoming the battlefields in a new civil war.”

Above all, a “people religion”. Of course, programs, but above all—People must care about people!

Sunday Sept 24, 1967 First unitarian-universalist church news letter

”

- When I first read this, I sorta cringed in a few spots—omg, did the person who wrote this (Dr. Tracy Pullman, the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit during this era) *really* just pull the “it doesn’t matter if you’re pink purple blue or green” line?

Did he really just say—“All people are the same”???

Yes, he did. But as I started to go through and educate myself more on this amazing U.U. history and all the people who made up the community—i started to realize that you can’t read this article from Dr. Pullman about the ‘67 riots in Detroit without contextualizing it.

First—civil rights language had not been co-opted yet, at least not in the same way it is today. When people today say “We’re all the same, it doesn’t matter what color you are!” they mean something very different than what Dr. Pullman is talking about in this article.

Today’s “we’re all the same” means “Stop critiquing white people. It doesn’t matter what color we all are!” and then they usually throw in an MLK quote for good measure. They are saying it operating under the assumption that black people are considered human beings in today’s world (a questionable assumption) and it is *white* people who are being attacked and belittled based on their skin color.

But contextualizing Dr. Pullman’s words during the time that they were written—black people weren’t considered fully human. There is a reason the black community did the famous “I am a Man” protests. Dr. Pullman wasn’t arguing that black people need to stop attacking white people—he was arguing that black people were human beings, just like white people.

A radical statement in the 60s—and sadly, a radical statement even today.

This article is also interesting to read given our current state of EFM control in Detroit. It’s interesting to see the differences in not only solutions brought on by crisis (Build parks! More affordable housing! versus “Shut everything down.”)—but also the different ways the “emergencies” were understood (We failed those who need the most help as an institution and as a community versus Corruption! Decay! Spending out of control!).

How beautiful to see a community molded by crisis inspired towards love and commitment to people and people’s power. When people today keep saying that “Detroit will return to her glory days again!” is this what they are talking about?

How I wish it were.

(MAR. 18) BURNS SELF IN PROTEST—Mrs. Alice Herz, 82, who...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:07:06 -0400

(MAR. 18) BURNS SELF IN PROTEST—Mrs. Alice Herz, 82, who poured cleaning fluid on the shoulders of her coat and turned herself into a flaming torch on a busy corner in northwest Detroit Tuesday night. Passersby beat out the flames. Firemen rushing her to the hospital said she told them “I did it to protest the arms race all over the world.” She is in critical condition but may live, doctors said.

(AP Wirephoto) (FN50845fam) ‘65

This was perhaps the hardest and saddest story for me to learn about in connection to the history of the UU Church/The Commons.

Alice Herz was a long time member of the First Universalist Unitarian Church of Detroit. The year Alice died, 1965, was a time when US militarism was increasing dramatically and the war in Vietnam was intensifying on a daily basis. The Civil Rights movement was in full gear, the anti-war movement was heating up and the murders of leftist organizers had already begun.

It was a radical time, and so on the one the one hand, I totally understand why Alice Herz decided that setting herself on fire was a good thing. Influenced by the political protest of Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist whose on immolation was to protest injustice against the Buddhist community in Vietnam, Herz’s actions feel to me as a loving if desperate attempt to make a difference.

On the other hand, her actions also feel similar to a lot of the misguided actions of many other white people who imitate/mimic ceremonial rituals of people of color under the belief that people of color do not have complex centuries old ceremonies that require community and elder/experts to perform. What a tragedy for Alice (or any of the other US citizens who set themselves on fire as an act of political protest ) to think that it really was as simple as setting oneself on fire.

But then I saw this image of Herz, and I read the various stories about her being so deeply grounded in the Unitarian Universalist community and Rev. Tracy Pullman’s words about her—and I see an old immigrant woman whose life had already been completely uprooted by a world war once before and who had seen constant military actions throughout the world since then. I see a woman who lived during a time when women over a certain age had very little value (how much have things changed, really?), and whose actions immediately faded into the background when the younger fellow Unitarian Universalist member, Viola Liuzzo, was killed by the KKK just a few days later.

When have little old ladies ever made good news?

I wonder if Viola and Alice knew each other. I wonder what Viola thought when she found out about Alice. I wonder what their fellow UU community thought and felt.

I realize that I have to just be content to be confused and feel ambiguous about Alice Herz. To see what she did as a tragic and brave and undefinable act all at the same time.

Sometimes, our history is like that. And it’s that history that we must always choose to make visible and necessary. It is that history that has birthed The Commons into existence—and in Alice’s memory, I carry on.

"At age 35 Liuzzo, a high school dropout, trained for a career as a medical laboratory assistant at..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:23:00 -0400

“

At age 35 Liuzzo, a high school dropout, trained for a career as a medical laboratory assistant at the Carnegie Institute of Detroit, 1961-62. In 1963, to further enhance her education, she enrolled in classes at Wayne State University.

Liuzzo was also active in local efforts on behalf of reform in education and economic justice. Twice she was arrested, pleaded guilty, and insisted on a trial to publicize the causes for which she was an advocate. Evans said of her friend, “Viola Liuzzo lived a life that combined the care of her family and her home with a concern for the world around her. This involvement with her times was not always understood by her friends; nor was it appreciated by those around her.” In 1964 Liuzzo began attending the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit, two blocks from the Wayne State campus, and, through Evans, became active in the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). That same year Evans and Liuzzo drove to New York City to attend a United Nations Seminar on civil rights sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).

Liuzzo’s spiritual journey included putting hands to work. Unchurched as a child, she had converted to Roman Catholicism when she married Jim. Drawn to Roman Catholic mysticism for a time, she was later interested in Protestant evangelicalism. She sought personal relationship with a God active in the events of human history and herself wanted to make a difference in the world. At First Unitarian Universalist Liuzzo found a faith matching both her ideas and her longing to be of service. She became a full member on March 29, 1964. Many members of the church had been Freedom Riders. Daughter Penny attended the young adult group’s discussions.

”

- Viola Luis

We continue our History of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit (now the Cass Corridor Commons) with this entry on Viola Liuzzo.

Viola Liuzzo is most well known for being murdered by the KKK while transporting SNCC members from one area of the Selma march to another—but I think that THIS part of her life is what really counts. She came from a community that believed in justice, love, and working to right injustice. As we’ll show in future updates, it was a part of the UU church culture to question and challenge the status quo (in a weekly church letter, the UU minster asked about segregation, “Is it too much to expect that a religion of the Unities and the Universaliities shall have a great deal to do with shaping our attitudes and our reactions in these all important matters?”).

But for now, just know, this is the history that the UU church has used to birth the Cass Corridor Commons into existence. We would not be where we are without it. In honor of Viola Liuzzo and all the community that surrounded her, supported her and loved her, we carry on.

"Center for Media and Democracy Research Director Nick Surgey obtained press credentials at the ALEC..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:50:14 -0400

“Center for Media and Democracy Research Director Nick Surgey obtained press credentials at the ALEC registration desk. As he ascended the escalator towards the room where Governor Fallin was speaking, though, he was spotted by two ALEC staffers, and within minutes approached by a uniformed Oklahoma City police officer. “I need those credentials,” the officer said.
“I registered,” Surgey replied. “No, you didn’t,” said a female ALEC staffer, who was accompanying the officer. “I did, downstairs,” he said.
“It was…you shouldn’t have been able to.”
The reason Surgey shouldn’t have been allowed to register, according to the ALEC staffer:
“Because we know who you are.””

- ALEC Ignores First Amendment, Assembles a “Most Wanted” List

latimes: Ray Harryhausen, stop-motion master, passes...

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:42:12 -0400

Scene from "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" showing the special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

Special effects creator Ray Harryhausen poses for photographs with an enlarged model of Medusa from his 1981 film 'Clash Of The Titans.'

Ray Harryhausen manipulates a figure of a serpent-like monster for stop motion animation in 1965.

Ray Harryhausen works with a figure of a dinosaur as a camera rolls.

latimes:

Ray Harryhausen, stop-motion master, passes away

Special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen died today at the age of 92. One of the earliest masters of his craft, Harryhausen was the longstanding king of stop-motion animation, with his work defining films like “Jason and the Argonauts” and “Clash of the Titans.”

From our obituary for Harryhausen:

In the pre-computer-generated-imagery era in which he worked, Harryhausen used the painstaking process of making slight adjustments to the position of his three-dimensional, ball-and-socket-jointed scale models and then shooting them frame-by-frame to create the illusion of movement. Footage of his exotic beasts and creatures was later often combined with live action.

Photos: L.A. County Museum of Art, Peter Macdiarmid, Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Walt Disney Company: Stop their application for the trademark of "Dia de los Muertos."

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:40:14 -0400

Walt Disney Company: Stop their application for the trademark of "Dia de los Muertos.":

sulitati:

STOP DISNEY FROM TRADEMARKING DIA DE LOS MUERTOS! I am signing this petition to stop Walt Disney from appropriating and exploiting Mexican religion and culture.

Dia de los Muertos is a religious observance during which people, and particularly native peoples, in Mexico, the United States, and abroad, honor ancestors and loved ones who have died. This important religious, spiritual, and cultural observance pre-dates the invasion of Mexico by the Spanish. We celebrate and honor our deceased loved ones by making altars and placing offerings of food such as pan de muertos baked in shapes of skulls and figures, candles, incense, yellow marigolds known as cempaxochitl, and offering prayers and the smoke of copal.

This week, in preparation for East Michigan Environmental Action...

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:46:00 -0400

This week, in preparation for East Michigan Environmental Action Council’s upcoming “Windows Of Opportunity” Celebration, we will be posting bits of history about The Cass Corridor Commons (where EMEAC’s offices reside), formerly the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit.

With the ever increasing pressure of gentrification being put on residents of the Cass Corridor district, we felt that it was especially important at this time to politicize the reality that the history of this community is not a “dead’ thing, but a living, breathing and necessary midwife that is actively birthing our present into existence.

We need our past, just as we need land, air, and water. It is our goal to learn to value our past in the same way we are learning to value our land, air and water. A community has a human right to their history, to the midwife that anchors us to land, to homes, to love. To destroy a community’s connection to their history is to make displacement and removal of the community make sense.

The posts we make this week will be in honor of our history midwife. That midwife that guides and connects us to community and to each other. Like all history, there are some good and bad and confusing aspects. But it is all ours and it grounds us and forms us—in good ways, if we allow it to.

We hope you are able to join us at the community celebration (or you can make a donation!), but even more importantly, we hope that you become inspired to learn and value your own community history in the same way we are learning our own!

(The attached picture is of the Perry McAdow house, which served as the UU church from 1913 until the “official” church building was completed right next door a few years later. Perry McAdow made his fortune through gold mining, an act that puts the environment under incredible stress. That the building now houses an environmental justice organization seems especially fitting and just. You can see the house as it looks now, here.)

Baby Hair: For Gabby, Blue Ivy & Me

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:27:51 -0400

Baby Hair: For Gabby, Blue Ivy & Me:

crunkfeministcollective:

Blue Ivy, last week, post-play

All blackgirls have a hairstory.

I have always had a love-hate relationship with my hair. When I was little my mama called me tender headed when I shrieked at the harsh brush bristles pushing my hair and scalp together until it laid all the way down, or enough to keep the inevitable frizz at bay. I grew used to people making mention and comments about my hair by comparing it to my sister’s. My sister’s was “good” (I am sure then, you can imagine what was said about mine). It was hard to love my hair when it was constantly described with negative descriptions: bad, knotty, kinky, wooly, nappy, messy.

I remember my hair as

stocking caps

blue pomade melting in my mama’s fingers

beads that hit against each other when I whipped my head

sounding like baby bracelets

cornrows

pony tails

plaits

wrapped in rainbow colored plastic bows

barrettes

banana combs

rubber bands

ribbons on Sundays sometimes

picture day at school when I secretly took my hair loose so it would be like the “white girls’,”

my mama’s disappointment and disdain when the pictures came back,

my first grade hair “all over my head” from playing on the playground

sweating out mama’s Saturday sacrifice

of hot combed kinks pulled out for Sunday service

***

The politics of hair reaches back much farther than I can tell it. I remember my mama confessing that she was way more concerned about her hair than her complexion when she was growing up, especially because the same comparisons I heard about me and my sister’s hair, she got about hers. The same chastisement I heard about my hair, she heard. Those kinds of comparisons and judgments lead to blackgirl insecurities. That is one blackgirl legacy we can do without.

Gabby Douglas, last year, after winning a gold medal

When Gabby Douglas won gold at the 2012 Olympics I was shocked and confused when I read the rants of black folk who were more interested in talking about her hair style than her monumental accomplishments (I never look at black woman athletes while they are performing and expect their hair to be “layed”–I’m not sure what folk expected from her). And last week I was again offput when pictures of little Blue Ivy surfaced on the internet to vitriolic comments because she dared be a blackbabygirl without bows and braids in her hair (and oh yeah, not be wearing pink or a dress). Hmmmm.

I don’t know if it is internalized racism as much as it is internalized standards of beauty within black communities that makes this so commonplace. Well that and an obsession with blackgirl hair that is tamed, in order, slicked down on the sides, wrapped around in braids or covered in curls. We don’t seem to know what to do with blackgirls whose hair is left to do what it will, with baby hairs flying with wild abandon and little afros sticking out every which-a-way. We want black women’s hair to be “fixed” in the same way we want them to be “fixed” (and “right”–whatever that means). And blackgirls are no exception. They are not protected from the harsh judgments about our hair that we oftentimes received ourselves.

***

We had Saturday morning hot comb rituals in my house and I succumbed to them. But at some point, due to the peer pressure of long haired friends in the third grade, I begged for my first box perm, hoping it would both make me feel grown up (for whatever reason getting a perm was a pre-menstrual sign of womanhood) and supposedly make my hair more manageable. It didn’t. Years later, when my hair was damaged I was told that only a jheri curl (as soon as jheri curls went OUT of style) would make my hair grow again. After transitioning back to “straight” hair from my “curl,” a woman-friend of my father’s gave me my first box braids. As she wove the synthetic hair around mine she instructed me to prophesy when people did my hair, and to say “more hair” instead of “thank you” when they finished (it must have been a reverse curse because as a result of those braids my hair thinned out and fell out at the edges…”more hair” my ass).

A combination of worry and stress manifested in temporary alopecia and my hair fell out at the temples when I was in high school, again in college, and when I was working on my Ph.D. Every other year I would have to disguise bald spots with strategically covered bangs or dark gel to cover up the ‘problemed’ areas. I felt lost without my hair and I worried about what people would think and/or say if they knew. I imagined I would be accused of not looking right, of not properly taking care of my hair, of not knowing any better, using the wrong products, going to the wrong stylist…or my mama would be blamed. To this day I get a sickening feeling when it’s time to trim my ends.

***

I never cried about the things people said about my hair in public. I waited until I got home, securely behind closed doors, to stare at myself in the mirror and feel inferior. I will never forget my aunt pulling her permed hair from a roller set in the mirror, combing out the curls and recovering them in a top swoosh with her fingers saying, “when your hair is done it makes your outfit look better.” My insecurity about “looking better” meant I wrapped my hair every night, slept on a silk pillow cover, and kept oil sheen in bulk to help my up-do’s (of the 90s, hard gel style) last longer. I had a standing appointment every two-weeks, drove over an hour to Durham to meet those appointments, and usually spent all day in the salon. Appearance was everything. I gladly traded my Saturdays for temporary pretty.

Me, circa 1980-ish

***

These days I have plenty of hair, but it is usually tucked beneath a weave, head scarf, kangol, or some combination of all three. I get extensions regularly for convenience but I am not preoccupied with my hair the way I was when I was a little girl and/or in my twenties. And I don’t think Gabby should have to, or baby Blue Ivy.

I am grateful that there was no such thing as the internet when I was young. And I am grateful that folk don’t just follow me around taking pictures all willy nilly (cause truth be told, a sista doesn’t doll up to run to the grocery store). Perhaps then blackgirls could go outside and play, or perform their sport without worrying about what they look like doing it.

***

I wonder if Gabby Douglas has a love-hate relationship with her hair. I wonder how she felt, 16 and beautifully brown, when she read twitter taunts about her split ends. I wonder if Beyonce can teach her babygirl what beauty looks like… that all 1 year old little blackgirls are gorgeous, whether they have a head full of hair or none at all.

I wonder what would happen if we praised blackgirls for their beauty instead of looking at them through a lens of criticism.

I wonder what would happen if instead of focusing on Gabby’s hairstyle, people paid attention to her gorgeous eyes and smile.

I wonder what would happen if instead of demanding feminine conformity people saw Blue Ivy’s beautiful curious eyes and pouty lips, looking like a spitting image of her daddy and momma put together.

I wonder what my self-esteem would have been like if my hair length, style, and texture didn’t matter when I was a little girl.

I wonder what would have happened if blackgirl pretty wasn’t culturally defined by hair length/color/texture.

For our sake, I hope we figure it out sooner rather than later.

#blackgirldreams