Where Are We Going? Backwards or Forward?

By: Rich Feldman

I have read about half of the book: “Blessed Unrest” by Paul Hawken.

Thanks, Grace and Shea, for pushing this book. It is the first book that begins to explain to me why so many of the young people in and around Detroit Summer have moved beyond the thinking of the New and Old Left. They have been raised in the closing decades of the epoch in human history that began with the destruction of indigenous people and the slave trade through industrialization (or the beginning of the destruction of the environment). They are coming of age at the beginning of the new era, moving beyond imperialism and the nation-state to corporate globalization, resistance to which entered a new era with the Zapatistas and the Battle of Seattle in 1999.

Allied Media Conference 2008

The 10th annual Allied Media Conference, entitled Evolution Beyond Survival: Media Strategies for the Next Ten Years, will be held in Detroit from June 20-22. If you don’t know about this conference, and you are interested in Detroit, movement building and/or your role in the future of media, it’s time to do your research.

Register now to attend the AMC 2008.

Relevant For Whom? A look at curriculum and culture.

By: Evan Major

Everyone knows Hamtramck is a contemporary melting pot. Some ingredients mingle in the bowels of the pot to form an exquisite and passionate flavor never before tasted. Some rise to the top as the proverbial cream, allowing the best elements of the cacophony to influence their ascendance. Yet some, despite the chef’s good intentions, remain an antagonistic pairing, thwarting each other’s potential to revel in the greatness of their surroundings.

Living for Change: Obama and MLK

by Grace Lee Boggs

[This article first appeared in the Michigan Citizen, Jan. 20-26, 2008. Then it was published on Saturday, April 5, 2008 by YES! Magazine and appeared on commondreams.org]

The new energies being unleashed by Barack Obama hold great promise. In his person and prose Obama embodies the achievements of the movements of the 20th century and the hope that we can become the change we want to see in the 21st century.

A White Man’s View of Obama’s Race Speech

By Matt Birkhold

[giantmag.com originally featured this article on March 27, 2008]

My father has been a “Jesse Jackson is a pain in the ass” Republican since at least the Carter years. I was shocked to hear that he plans on voting for Barack Obama.

Up until very recently I’ve felt like I pretty much had my people figured out. Throughout college and graduate school, my father and I argued endlessly about the ethics of racial equality. He never supported race-based preferences because he believed they unfairly privileged black people. My father is not unique. His position is deeply rooted in a common belief among white men that they have been victimized by black gains over the last fifty years.

Mind of Tha Musician

By: Timothy A Peoples Jr.

Why do I play when it hurts me so badly to perform?
I imagine this dark room filled with an audience of distinguished gentlemen,
In collard shirts and middle aged wives fantasizing about the color,
Of which I represent while moving my fingers across keys,
Designing a brilliant melody, her mind sets on internal secretion,
Rather than my endowments, and my fluent utterance
In tune I have established, Even So,
I play with the striking desire of wanting to eliminate,
My Audience…

Performing Activism in Detroit

By: Julie Rosier

I am seeking to develop a performance activism project, where a group of people will tell their own stories on stage through a collage performance. This collective storytelling extravaganza will portray under-told personal stories about the intersections of identity, exploring relationships between categories such as class, race, gender, sexuality and the place where each of us is from, with the ultimate intention of spurring grassroots organizing and social change.

Hope for Detroit

By: Larry Gabriel

[This article was featured in the MetroTimes, Detroit's free weekly alternative, on 3/26/08. Grace Lee Boggs and Ron Scott, both members of the Detroit City of Hope campaign, take an alternative position on the resolution of the Detroit's mayoral scandal.]

May you live in interesting times. Things are so interesting in Detroit right now I’m wondering if someone with cosmic pull has laid the oft-quoted Chinese curse on Detroit. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty have been indicted on a combined 12 felony counts of conspiracy, misconduct, obstruction and perjury.

Emerald City: Detroit Featured in O Magazine

This month Oprah’s Magazine highlighted the burgeoning urban agricultural movement here in Detroit. O Magazine reported on the innovative educational practices of Catherine Ferguson High School, a school for teenage mothers, which also is the site of a “most unlikely and inspiring sight….an urban farm that is almost breathtaking in its scope.”

Read the full Emerald City article, as it appeared in the April 2008 issue of O Magazine.

The Next American Revolution

The Next American Revolution
By Grace Lee Boggs
Left Forum Closing Plenary, Cooper Union,
New York, March 16, 2008

I have decided to talk about the next American Revolution because I
believe it is not only the key to global survival but also the most
important step we can take in this period to build a new, more human
and more socially and ecologically responsible nation that all of us,
in every walk of life, whatever our race, ethnicity, gender, faith or
national origin, will be proud to call our own.