culture

New Work New Culture Conference

August 18, 2014 New Work New Culture Conference, www.reimaginingwork.org Create! Alternatives, Conference, culture, Detroit, Work

From October 18-20 in Detroit, Michigan several hundred activists, organizers, theorists, farmers, culture creators, builders, inventors and entrepreneurs will meet to exchange ideas and experiences. A vendors and exhibitors area will feature new machines and new ways to use them. It will also include displays on global communication and community based production of food, energy, housing, transportation, education, recreation, art and durable goods. Featured presenters, facilitators and dialogue leaders include, but are not limited to, Frithjof Bergmann, Blair Evans, Emmanuel Pratt, Rebecca Solnit, Gar Alperovitz, Grace Lee Boggs, Kathi Weeks, Tawana “Honeycomb” Petty, Mischa Schaub, Frank Joyce, Kim Sherrobi, Michael Hardt, Judith Snow, Adrienne Marie Brown and Halima Cassells.

All Of Us Are Connected — None Of These Words Are Mine Alone

July 19, 2014 Henia Belalia, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Arts, Community, culture, Stories

The act of writing can be just as excruciating as it can be exhilarating — in this case as part of a process to explore interconnectedness and reclaimed histories as tools we can use toward collective liberation. How often I’ve sat in front of a blank page, the words tangled up in my gut, stuck between tears and broken memories. How often I’ve waited for that thrill when the words are unleashed, when the stories I’ve been dying to tell finally come out in narratives that can be heard and seen by those around me. In this era of media stunts, celebrities and executive directors, there’s something fundamental for us to recognize: that none of these words are ever ours alone. I’ve progressively centered more of my organizing and writing on intersectionality, to which many have contributed through their words and actions. There have been many people with whom I’ve worked through entangled ideas and identities, as we’ve attempted to better understand our undeniable connections and what that means within our social justice movements. A comrade organizing in the ‘hoods of New York City recently reminded me to show gratitude, to give credit to those who’ve shaped me along the way. In honor of that sentiment, I owe deep thanks… … to the undocumented sister who shows me bravery with every fiber of her being, with her unflinching integrity, with her every truth that she speaks to challenge the empire’s narrative.

How Movements Can Win More Victories Like Gay Marriage

July 10, 2014 Mark Engler and Paul Engler, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! culture, Gay Marriage, Law, LGBTQ, Movement

Not long ago, same-sex marriage in America was not merely an unpopular cause; it was a politically fatal one — a third-rail issue that could end the career of any politician foolish enough to touch it. The idea that gay and lesbian couples would be able to legally exchange vows in states throughout the United States was regarded, at best, as a far-off fantasy and, at worst, as a danger to the republic. It can be difficult to remember how hostile the terrain was for LGBT advocates in even recent decades. As of 1990, three-quarters of Americans saw homosexual sex as immoral. Less than a third condoned same-sex marriage — something no country in the world permitted. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman and denied federal benefits to same-sex couples, passed by an overwhelming 85-14 margin in the U.S. Senate. Figures including Democratic Sen. Joe Biden voted for it, and Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the act, affirming, “I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages.”

Rethinking Cinco De Mayo

May 5, 2014 Sudie Hofmann, www.zinnedproject.org Educate! culture, Mexico

I recently came across a flier in an old backpack of my daughter’s:Wanted: Committee Chairs for this Spring’s Cinco de Mayo All School Celebration. The flier was replete with cultural props including a sombrero, cactus tree, donkey, taco, maracas, and chili peppers. Seeing this again brought back the moment when, years earlier, my daughter had handed the flier to me, and I’d thought, “Oh, no.” The local K-6 elementary school’s Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) was sponsoring a stereotypical Mexican American event. There were no Chicana/o students, parents, or staff members who I was aware of in the school community and I was concerned about the event’s authenticity. I presumed the PTSA meant well, and was attempting to provide a multicultural experience for students and families, but it seemed they were likely to get it wrong. After making some inquiries, I was told the school wanted to celebrate Cinco de Mayo because it was Mexico’s Independence Day. However, Cinco de Mayo is actually Battle of Puebla Day, commemorating the defeat of Napoleon III in 1862. Mexico’s Independence Day is Sept. 16. I wrote the school and asked if they might consider canceling the event. I was concerned that the stereotypes associated with Chicana/os, such as fast-food items, piñatas, sombreros, and serapes would be central to the event. Unfortunately, I was correct.

Engage The Battlefield Of Ideas For Social Good

April 25, 2014 Joe Brewer and B. Laszlo Karafiath, www.culture2inc.com Strategize! culture

Changes in societies are driven by “culture wars” and the battle of ideas. Epic idea battles arose between capitalism and communism, religious fundamentalism and secular humanism, pro-choice and pro-life, emos and goths, etc. Great advances have been made along the way in the realms of public health, human rights, representative government, trade and business, and the development of technology. The road to human progress is often presented as a continuous path. Reality simply doesn’t work that way. History is rife with conflict and tension, collaboration and resistance, competing agendas that battle for supremacy. Progress is not linear. It moves in cycles and waves, pulses and push-backs, tension and release. Culture is a complex system made up of many actors with diverse relationships among them. Change is emergent from the countless interacting parts. And memes are always at the center of the action. Memes are the elements of culture that replicate, mutate, and spread from one person to another. Memes are structured information that flows across a society, always in dynamic tension with one another. As such, the science of social change is a science of meme evolution.

Reclaiming Memory And Reconciling Identity

April 20, 2014 Henia Belalia, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! culture, Racism

This Abuelita Knowledge has shown up for me in many ways: in ritual and ceremony, music and dance, shared food, and the slowing down of time. Healing happens through shared tears over cups of tea, at poetry readings surrounded by dozens of other migrants and refugees, and during the time we take to bring our community together for cross-cultural dinners. Reclamation lies in our story-telling circles, in the rituals that call in our ancestors, in the anecdotes and recipes from our homelands. The reconciliation happens with the questions we raise as we connect the dots between our struggles and the care we take in not perpetuating subtle but toxic systemic oppressions. Rather than coming together in ways that continue to compromise the healing of historical traumas, many of which are still playing out as violent realities for our communities, let’s be more demanding — more demanding in how we show up for each other, in how we sit through the inconvenient conversations, in how we honor the complexities of our identities.

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