A good friend and I are developing a joint project about the links between social and environmental justice and art in South America. I am particularly interested in how women and girls are empowering each other to control the path of their community and stop chemical pollution. I'm also in the process of expanding a blog I wrote for Momsrising earlier this year called "Chemical Reform is the New Our Bodies Ourselves, so I thought I would repost it here. I'm really interested in your thoughts on this subject. Feel free to shoot me an email and post comment if you feel inclined. Ciao. Renee Claire
Chemical Reform is the New Our Bodies Ourselves
Originally posted February 16, 2010
Recently, I’ve had some time to sink my teeth into some really good reading. Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenso, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Half the Sky by Nicolas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn to name just a few. I don’t know about you, but many of the books I’ve read in my 30 years stand out as powerful moments in my life. I still remember receiving a book about the suffrage movement from my uncle when I was 9 years old. It was full of pictures including photos of women being arrested for their struggle for equal rights. (A possible origin of my own tendency for getting arrested for environmental and social justice throughout the years)
I also remember the day I first discovered Our Bodies Ourselves. A book that has empowered women to understand and care for their bodies, their health, and their community since it was first written in 1970 by the women at the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Forty years after Our Bodies Ourselves was first published, we are finally starting to see a larger societal understanding that to care for our girls and women is to directly nurture our community at large.
As we see a greater movement towards gender equality, we are also understanding that toxic chemicals are impacting our health, specifically our reproductive system, making this nurturing needlessly more difficult. Reproductive and developmental systems are extremely delicate and without a real commitment to the designing out of toxins, corporate interests are putting our daughter’s right to a healthy and safe future at risk.
This I believe is the next battle of the women’s rights movement. The right to not be poisoned by the things we buy for our homes, our children, and ourselves. And the right to live in our community without being regularly targeted by polluting companies. It is no secret that runaway corporate interests keeping toxic chemicals inside products we use everyday while convincing politicians to beat back regulation is creating serious environmental and health consequences, particularly to women and therefor our entire family.
With the fight to pass comprehensive and transparent federal chemical reform, we are seeing women and girls educate themselves and others on the importance of a toxic free future. Just take a look at your state’s initiatives to ban toxic chemicals and all the groups working to reform of the federal toxics laws. Moms and young women are attending community meetings and putting pressure on corporations to eliminate harmful chemicals, writing articles and talking to their friends and family members. This just isn’t a collection of environmental and health groups tackling the next big issue, this is my generation’s women’s right movement.
For a toxic free future,
Renee Claire
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Monday, July 19, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
A Security Blanket of Radicals and Revolution
Out of frustration of my own limited talent and experience, I am seeking the comfort of one my literary security blankets; Rules for Radicals. Though I have several that I often depend on -- anything Langston Hughes and Alice Walker, A River Runs Through It, To Kill A Mockingbird to name a few. On my trip into the city today, I began my 3rd reading of Rules for Radicals, though I often re-read highlighted passages when the need arises.
I'm at a bit of struggle on a couple fronts, but mostly the oil spill and its impacts to both the people of the gulf and the slow process of galvanizing support for the inevitable switch to cleaner energy. I am balancing in an odd position in which I don't believe I've found myself in before. In all my arguments with my friends and family over my beliefs, I never felt that I was challenging more than their intellectual understanding of an issue, but the ban on offshore drilling is a completely different animal. I am now challenging the identity of some of my family members. The very things that they wake up each morning to do and speak about and think about and provides them the resources to do the things they love.
I am confused. I am frustrated. I don't know the right answer or the right things to say or how to appropriately express love for the Blanchard identity and the need for revolution at the same time. And so I am seeking comfort in my literary security blankets.
pg: xix
"As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sesnse weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be -- it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be."
"If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up pyschological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out."
"Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future."
This last statement is where I stand still with a pregnant pause. Because if the people of the gulf right now, after Katrina, after Rita, after the recession, after 79 days of gushing oil into their homes, don't feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost that they still can't imagine a different economy, a different way of life where those working on the rigs, working in the offices of the oil and gas companies are part of the solutions to climate change, that the people like me, who ask if not this, then what, are the enemy to their family's happiness, then where are we in this battle, in this revolution?
What have we accomplished at all in the discussion of climate change?
From where I stand the primary, most vocal advocates for change, for revolution are still the highly educated, the upper-middle class, the whites at the desks of the big enviros taking pictures and telling everyone else caught in the middle of their mortgage payments and their fear and the reality that this is all real, that we must find an answer today, that your mortgage payment is not the priority, that you are not more important than this Take Action email.
There are so many people who have been hanging on day to day that now will probably lose the last bit that they have because we have been so busy sitting at hip restaurants in Copenhagen polishing our rhetoric that we haven't gone to Broussard, Louisiana to hold a community meeting and ask the Blanchards to be part of finding the solution.
pg xxi:
"To asume that a political revolution can survive without the supporting base of a popular reformation is to ask for the impossible in politics."
pg: 19:
"Between the Haves and the Have-Nots are the Have-a-Little, Want Mores - the middle class. Torn between upholding the status quo to protect the little they have, yet wanting change so they can get more, they become split personalities. They could be described as social, economic, and political schizoids. Generally, they seek the safe way, where they can profit by change and yet not risk losing the little they have. . . . Thermopolitically they are tepid and rooted in inertia."
"Yet in the conflicting interest and contradictions within the Have-a-Little, Want Mores is the genesis of creativity. Out of this class have come, with few exceptions, the great world leaders of change. . . "
I find comfort in reading about and hearing about the radicals and revolutions that came before me. Because then I remember that revolution is possible. Though I still don't know what to say to my uncles and cousins who can't imagine who they are without the Gulf and the rigs.
Ciao,
Renee Claire
I'm at a bit of struggle on a couple fronts, but mostly the oil spill and its impacts to both the people of the gulf and the slow process of galvanizing support for the inevitable switch to cleaner energy. I am balancing in an odd position in which I don't believe I've found myself in before. In all my arguments with my friends and family over my beliefs, I never felt that I was challenging more than their intellectual understanding of an issue, but the ban on offshore drilling is a completely different animal. I am now challenging the identity of some of my family members. The very things that they wake up each morning to do and speak about and think about and provides them the resources to do the things they love.
I am confused. I am frustrated. I don't know the right answer or the right things to say or how to appropriately express love for the Blanchard identity and the need for revolution at the same time. And so I am seeking comfort in my literary security blankets.
pg: xix
"As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sesnse weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be -- it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be."
"If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up pyschological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out."
"Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future."
This last statement is where I stand still with a pregnant pause. Because if the people of the gulf right now, after Katrina, after Rita, after the recession, after 79 days of gushing oil into their homes, don't feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost that they still can't imagine a different economy, a different way of life where those working on the rigs, working in the offices of the oil and gas companies are part of the solutions to climate change, that the people like me, who ask if not this, then what, are the enemy to their family's happiness, then where are we in this battle, in this revolution?
What have we accomplished at all in the discussion of climate change?
From where I stand the primary, most vocal advocates for change, for revolution are still the highly educated, the upper-middle class, the whites at the desks of the big enviros taking pictures and telling everyone else caught in the middle of their mortgage payments and their fear and the reality that this is all real, that we must find an answer today, that your mortgage payment is not the priority, that you are not more important than this Take Action email.
There are so many people who have been hanging on day to day that now will probably lose the last bit that they have because we have been so busy sitting at hip restaurants in Copenhagen polishing our rhetoric that we haven't gone to Broussard, Louisiana to hold a community meeting and ask the Blanchards to be part of finding the solution.
pg xxi:
"To asume that a political revolution can survive without the supporting base of a popular reformation is to ask for the impossible in politics."
pg: 19:
"Between the Haves and the Have-Nots are the Have-a-Little, Want Mores - the middle class. Torn between upholding the status quo to protect the little they have, yet wanting change so they can get more, they become split personalities. They could be described as social, economic, and political schizoids. Generally, they seek the safe way, where they can profit by change and yet not risk losing the little they have. . . . Thermopolitically they are tepid and rooted in inertia."
"Yet in the conflicting interest and contradictions within the Have-a-Little, Want Mores is the genesis of creativity. Out of this class have come, with few exceptions, the great world leaders of change. . . "
I find comfort in reading about and hearing about the radicals and revolutions that came before me. Because then I remember that revolution is possible. Though I still don't know what to say to my uncles and cousins who can't imagine who they are without the Gulf and the rigs.
Ciao,
Renee Claire
Friday, March 12, 2010
Friday Gumbo: Community Arts Project
Washington DC: A couple weeks ago I talked to you about my friend Josef's new arts foundation in Columbia Heights called CHARTS. So, I wanted to tell you about a project that he is working on. Every couple months CHARTS hosts a Salon Series and the next one is on May 22. Josef and his co-conspirators are creating an art installation of our obituaries. And they need submissions.
Here what Josef says:
Amsterdam: Next Sunday I'm hosting a drinks and writing games at my favorite local bar with a bunch of Amsterdam based writers. I asked everyone to bring a writing exercise with them and I'm going to bring the obituary one as mine. A local writers magazine offered to print our final pieces from Sunday's event, which I thought was pretty great.
I managed this internship program a couple jobs ago and one of the pre-written questions I had to ask during interviews was, "If the New York Times wrote an article about you in ten years, what would it say?" I ran into a former intern a couple months back and he brought that up to me. He said he still thought about how he should have answered it. I'm not sure it's worth a couple years of thought, but it might be another good writing exercise. Except maybe for Sunday's event, I would change it to how would the headline of a New York Times article about you in ten years read.
Oakland: As I'm on the job hunt these days, I recently discovered this arts community center in Oakland called Community Rejuvenation Project. It's mission is:
Trail of Dreams: There is a really great blog by Favianna Rodriguez. She is an artist and social justice advocate and received notice this week that she will be inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in Alameda County. Established in 1993, the purpose of the Women's Hall of Fame is to recognize outstanding women for their achievements and contributions to the overall well being of our county and its citizens. In addition to honoring outstanding women, in the past, the event has generated funds to help provide comprehensive breast cancer prevention, education, and treatment services in Alameda County.
I first read about the Trail of Dreams on her blog. The Trail of Dreams is a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington DC by four undocumented young people. They are hoping to raise awareness about our broken immigration system and the reality of talented and hard working young people slipping through the cracks while undocumented in the US. You can follow their journey here.
They are currently in Gwinnett County, Georgia. A county known for its fierce (not in the good way) Sheriff who under the 287-G program is being called dangerous by the local community. The 287-G program trains local law enforcement to enforce nation wide immigration laws. But has proven in recent years that all this power easily goes to some local authorities heads, especially those of the xenophobic variety. Most notoriously used by that swine Sheriff in Arizona. His qualifications were taken away in the Fall of 2009 because of severe abuses, racial profiling, violence, and harassment of the latino community.
The three Latinos and one Latina on this journey is planning on talking with the Georgia Sheriff and are being met by hundreds of activists along the way. Just before entering Atlanta they were also met by a KKK anti-immigration rally. Oh, America . . . you're disgusting at times.
And just because I have a huge tattoo of a skull.
Ciao,
Renee Claire
Here what Josef says:
Please help me create a new art installation to be exhibited at the next Columbia Heights Salon Series, presented by my new community-based arts foundation, CHARTS, by sending your handwritten obituary to me. The theme for the event itself is based on creation/life due to the spring season, which is why I find it intriguing to challenge people to think about death as an inevitable component to life, rather than something that's stigmatized or not openly discussed. You can write, not type, your obituary on anything — a page from your Moleskine, a cocktail napkin, a painted canvas, anything — and I'll assemble my installation on a wall to be displayed at the upcoming Salon Series on May 22.You can send your submission to directly to Josef at josef.palermo[at]gmail[dot]com.
Amsterdam: Next Sunday I'm hosting a drinks and writing games at my favorite local bar with a bunch of Amsterdam based writers. I asked everyone to bring a writing exercise with them and I'm going to bring the obituary one as mine. A local writers magazine offered to print our final pieces from Sunday's event, which I thought was pretty great.
I managed this internship program a couple jobs ago and one of the pre-written questions I had to ask during interviews was, "If the New York Times wrote an article about you in ten years, what would it say?" I ran into a former intern a couple months back and he brought that up to me. He said he still thought about how he should have answered it. I'm not sure it's worth a couple years of thought, but it might be another good writing exercise. Except maybe for Sunday's event, I would change it to how would the headline of a New York Times article about you in ten years read.
Oakland: As I'm on the job hunt these days, I recently discovered this arts community center in Oakland called Community Rejuvenation Project. It's mission is:
The Community Rejuvenation Project cultivates healthy communities through beautification education, and celebration. We achieve this mission through experiential programs that promote professional development, artistic, and cultural expression and community empowerment.They paint murals with local artists to pretty up neighborhoods. It's pretty amazing stuff! Check out the webpage, there are videos and photos. This is one of my favorites.
Trail of Dreams: There is a really great blog by Favianna Rodriguez. She is an artist and social justice advocate and received notice this week that she will be inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in Alameda County. Established in 1993, the purpose of the Women's Hall of Fame is to recognize outstanding women for their achievements and contributions to the overall well being of our county and its citizens. In addition to honoring outstanding women, in the past, the event has generated funds to help provide comprehensive breast cancer prevention, education, and treatment services in Alameda County.
I first read about the Trail of Dreams on her blog. The Trail of Dreams is a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington DC by four undocumented young people. They are hoping to raise awareness about our broken immigration system and the reality of talented and hard working young people slipping through the cracks while undocumented in the US. You can follow their journey here.
They are currently in Gwinnett County, Georgia. A county known for its fierce (not in the good way) Sheriff who under the 287-G program is being called dangerous by the local community. The 287-G program trains local law enforcement to enforce nation wide immigration laws. But has proven in recent years that all this power easily goes to some local authorities heads, especially those of the xenophobic variety. Most notoriously used by that swine Sheriff in Arizona. His qualifications were taken away in the Fall of 2009 because of severe abuses, racial profiling, violence, and harassment of the latino community.
The three Latinos and one Latina on this journey is planning on talking with the Georgia Sheriff and are being met by hundreds of activists along the way. Just before entering Atlanta they were also met by a KKK anti-immigration rally. Oh, America . . . you're disgusting at times.
And just because I have a huge tattoo of a skull.
Ciao,
Renee Claire
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Photos, Art, & Activism
I just stumbled upon this great initiative from Healthy Schools Campaign, 21st Century School Fund, and Critical Exposure called Through Your Lens: School Facilities Across America. It's amazing!!! They have students take photos of their falling apart school buildings. As you may our nation's schools are reaching 50 years of age on average and with looming school staff cutbacks, suffering state budgets and a tradition of not investing in our nation's educational system, it isn't looking so good for healthy and safe places of learning.
Healthy Schools Campaign is a great organization based out of Chicago, IL that has helped mobilize parents and students around healthy food for a better education and coordinating an effort to pass green cleaning policies at a state level. IL was the second state to pass a green cleaning in schools policy. Speaking of green cleaning, I just wrote a blog over at Momsrising about it.
You can download a book of a collection of the photos from these students. When my sister and I traveled India we gave the kids we met during the week at this school disposable cameras and let them run around and take all the photos they wanted. It was so wonderful to watch! They took the best photos, nothing either one of us could have found or hoped to witness if we had taken the photos.
On page 43 of the Through Your Lens, it starts to talk about solutions. I really like this:
If you know me, you know that I am one of those painter, photo taking, studied years and years in fine arts artist types. And that my ultimate goal in this little life I've got going is to make change through art, specifically by empowering children. I'm one of those that has kept every sketch book I've filled in my life and often (embarassingly so) look through them for further inspiration. So type of initiatives like Through Your Lens is particularly inspiring for me. I'm looking forward to volunteering at a local youth/arts community center in my next town (which should be shortly).
Another great program was just started by my friend Josef. He's amazing! He recently quit his job and started CHARTS (Columbia Heights Arts Foundation) He started something called a Salon Series where he hosts potlucks at his house on a regular basis and bring in guests from local non-profits to discuss important issues in his community. How brilliant is that? As you can tell I'm quite the fan of this charming boy. And sad that I'm no longer in the district to help out. If you don't have Facebook, that's where the link above goes, you can keep up with Josef via twitter.
Here is what CHARTS is all about:
Hope you're having a day full of sunshine!!!
Renee Claire
Healthy Schools Campaign is a great organization based out of Chicago, IL that has helped mobilize parents and students around healthy food for a better education and coordinating an effort to pass green cleaning policies at a state level. IL was the second state to pass a green cleaning in schools policy. Speaking of green cleaning, I just wrote a blog over at Momsrising about it.
You can download a book of a collection of the photos from these students. When my sister and I traveled India we gave the kids we met during the week at this school disposable cameras and let them run around and take all the photos they wanted. It was so wonderful to watch! They took the best photos, nothing either one of us could have found or hoped to witness if we had taken the photos.
On page 43 of the Through Your Lens, it starts to talk about solutions. I really like this:
We must take collective action for eliminating substandard school buildings that are barriers to educational achievement, environmental sustainability, and vibrant communities. No single governmental agency can achieve this alone. Rather, we must create a new federal, state, and local partnership to ensure that all communities have sufficient resources to provide higher quality school buildings.I agree that we can not depend on the same system to get us out of this situation that got us into it. We need to mobilize, educate, and empower in order to develop a new paradigm. And we must start by asking; if not this, then what. I don't think we can achieve all that we need through governmental policy after governmental policy, but by making a collective movement forward to making a healthier and safer community a priority. We need to move away from corporate control and thinking that the government is going to solve everything. I'm not sure what that looks like, but we're pretty smart. I bet we can solve some of the problems we are all facing by working together and taking action.
If you know me, you know that I am one of those painter, photo taking, studied years and years in fine arts artist types. And that my ultimate goal in this little life I've got going is to make change through art, specifically by empowering children. I'm one of those that has kept every sketch book I've filled in my life and often (embarassingly so) look through them for further inspiration. So type of initiatives like Through Your Lens is particularly inspiring for me. I'm looking forward to volunteering at a local youth/arts community center in my next town (which should be shortly).
Another great program was just started by my friend Josef. He's amazing! He recently quit his job and started CHARTS (Columbia Heights Arts Foundation) He started something called a Salon Series where he hosts potlucks at his house on a regular basis and bring in guests from local non-profits to discuss important issues in his community. How brilliant is that? As you can tell I'm quite the fan of this charming boy. And sad that I'm no longer in the district to help out. If you don't have Facebook, that's where the link above goes, you can keep up with Josef via twitter.
Here is what CHARTS is all about:
The Columbia Heights Arts Foundation is dedicated to promoting and preserving the rich and diverse arts/culture of Columbia Heights, while making it accessible to the community at-large.
To achieve this objective, CHARTS serves to unite the different communities that live in Columbia Heights through the medium of art -- by extending outreach to all corners of the neighborhood for constructing dialogue on the arts, cultivating talent through community-based art projects, and allowing outlets of expression that are universal in their audience.
Hope you're having a day full of sunshine!!!
Renee Claire
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