Category Archives: activism

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Save Our Sponge Concert Tonight

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On Thursday, February 1, 2018, Woodlands Conservancy will host a celebration of 17 years of the nonprofit land trust organization’s work to Save Our Sponge, the 800 plus acres of bottomland hardwood forest serving as a protective stormwater and wind barrier for the Greater New Orleans area.
The Patron Party begins at 6 p.m. with gourmet appetizers and spirits while listening to music by Harry Hardin’s Jazz Quartet and perusing an array of Silent Auction items. Patron Party admission includes VIP seating at the Save Our Sponge Concert and complimentary cocktails throughout the evening.
Doors open at 7 p.m. for guests arriving for the Save Our Sponge Concert. The SOS Concert begins at 7:30 p.m. with Tom McDermott on the Steinway Grand Piano in the Concert Hall followed by Lost Bayou Ramblers.
Proceeds benefit Woodlands Conservancy, a nonprofit, 501 (c) (3) land trust organization
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7th Ward Haiku

Peter Boutte
August 27, 2016

“Like a house of cards”

The weight of the world
Is balanced on our shoulder
Divide we fall

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“the smallest possible gesture”

This is what a friend wrote today, as Lee is removed from his place on our city streets, the last of the 4 main monuments defiling our public streets that were placed to strengthen the white supremacy movement in the decades after the Civil War. (There are, however, 3 more Confederate statues of much less prominence that still need removal. Still, as my pal says beautifully here: we are beginning to approach the truth.)

…Black children can expect and, by every measure, will receive, substantially worse treatment than their white peers within the educational system, the healthcare system, the policing and justice systems, the housing and financial markets, in terms of their prospective employment and earnings. Hell, they will have a harder time on Tinder and Grinder.
Parents of black children already get to explain why this is and try their best to prepare their children to navigate these evidence-based realities.
One less white supremacist being honored in the street is actually the smallest possible gesture available that we can bestow on these children.

One less statue doesn’t change these realities. But it begins to approach the truth. There has never been truth and reconciliation in this country, so we keep recycling white supremacy into different iterations, instead of dismantling it (Jim Crow! Mass Incarceration!).

We can’t begin to face white supremacy without truth telling. And most Americans (of all backgrounds) are not taught the fullness of the truth about the founding of this country or how it prospered. Most aren’t taught what slavery entailed, or how it persists in different forms today. Taking down Lee is simply acknowledging these truths.

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Writers Resist New Orleans

Writers Resist New Orleans is being held in collaboration with PEN America, as part of a international day of readings championing freedom of speech, and the power of expression to change the world.

Representatives from New Orleans’ diverse writer’s community will be reading selections from great political, activist, and literary works of our past including words from:

Martin Luther King, Jr
James Baldwin
Audre Lorde
Allen Ginsberg
Angela Davis

and many more to come.

We hope to provide a space for the New Orleans community to come together during this time of national anxiety. We view this as an opportunity to connect, seek solace, and rebuild. We welcome ALL.

A note from the national organizers:
Writers Resist is not affiliated with a political party. We wish to bypass direct political discourse in favor of an inspired focus on the future, and how we, as writers, can be a unifying force for the protection of Democracy. In order for us to heal and move forward, individually and as a nation, we believe people need something to be for in this anxious moment. The only thing we “resist” is that which attacks or seeks to undermine those most basic principles of freedom and justice for all.

http://writersresist.org/

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WATCHING PEOPLE MOURN AN AMERICA THAT NEVER WAS

I found this one of the best things I’ve read. Part of that is because it reminds me of the truth in the fractured, violent and yet sweet place that I call home. It reminds me that we can all show up for the Saints games, but not all of us get to hang out in the fancy bars afterward without sidelong glances being thrown. That Mardi Gras is a street thing, but some of those krewes are locked up tight.  Or, that job we disdain or the apartment we moan about is not open to anyone and everyone. And the other part of it is that Ruffin writes simply and poignantly and with fire in his veins.

 

We would have laughed in the face of your naïveté if we didn’t like you so much. It was sweet the way your eyes widened as your understanding of what we saw in our everyday lives played across your face. You were dismayed that your own blood didn’t care about the lofty constitutional precepts of justice and the pursuit of happiness for all. Your recognition of our separateness saddened us. It was like watching a child learn the truth about Santa Claus.

 

Maurice Ruffin’s piece

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Second Line For Equal Justice by John Calhoun – GoFundMe

My name is John Calhoun, and I am working with over a dozen Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and the Orleans Public Defenders Office to plan a Second Line For Equal Justice to raise awareness about the crisis our public defenders office is facing and to encourage our city and state governments to adequately fund indigent defense.

Source: GoFundMe

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Vanishing Foodways Campaign

I have been a Slow Food member in the past and have always been a supporter of their innovative food system work. By supporting all aspects of the cultural milieu in which local farmers, foragers, and harvesters create and sustain their livelihoods, Slow Food is a key component in food sovereignty work locally and globally. Campaigns like this one illustrate the inclusive and thoughtful approach of many of their chapters.
Slow Food New Orleans is launching Vanishing Foodways  as an ongoing effort to collect stories from people and regions whose foodways and cultural traditions that are at risk of vanishing.  Please visit our GoFundMe campaign and become part of this initiative.  The GoFundMe campaign features a  fabulous video created by artist Voice Monet, who will be part of our 25-person Louisiana-Vietnam delegation to Terra Madre,  the international gathering of people from 150+ countries in Italy, September 22-26.

The Louisiana-Vietnam delegation to Terra Madre is the beginning of the the cross-cultural connections that the Vanishing Foodways seeks to create.  The Louisiana Coast and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are two of the most abundant food producing regions in the world, yet are also two of the world’s most rapidly disappearing regions. Vanishing Foodways will video-document the Louisiana-Vietnam delegation’s experience at Terra Madre along with collecting stories from Terra Madre delegates representing regions that are experiencing the disappearance of their traditional and cultural foodways.

By collecting and sharing these stories, Vanishing Foodways aims to; 1) educate people that endangered foodways are not simply someone else’s problem,  2) engage people in the shared plight of all of our foodways & 3) empower people with simple daily choices that each of us can make to move the world towards reclaiming and preserving our vital cultural foodways that sustainably feed the world.