April 3, 2010
To Live Forever
Discussion
5–6 p.m.
Curator of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art Edward Bleiberg and Objects Conservator Lisa Bruno discuss the process of researching and conserving the objects in To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt.
Music
5–7 p.m.
Arab ensemble Zikrayat combines the atmosphere of Egyptian musical cinema with the music and dance traditions of Egypt, Lebanon, and the greater Arab world.
Object of the Month
5–11 p.m.
Explore the Egyptian sculpture Pair Statue of Nebsen and Nebet-ta, the Museum's featured object for the month of April. Use our Looking Closer guide to gain insight into the artwork.
Film
6:30–p.m.
Academy Award winner Departures (Yojiro Takita, 2008, 130 min., PG-13, English subtitles) tells the story of a Japanese musician who becomes a mortician in a funeral home. Free tickets (330) are available at the Visitor Center at 5 p.m.
Hands-On Art
6:30–8:30 p.m.
Design a copper embossed amulet with Egyptian symbols. Free timed tickets (380) are available at the Visitor Center at 5:30 p.m.
Curator Talk
7–p.m.
Edward Bleiberg, curator of To Live Forever, speaks about the exhibition. A catalogue signing follows. Sign Language interpreted. Free tickets (30) are available at the Visitor Center at 6 p.m.
Young Voices Gallery Talk
8–p.m.
Student Guides give a talk on the afterlife in ancient Egypt.
Book Club
9–10 p.m.
Author Joshua Cohen discusses his book A Heaven of Others, a poetic dream-world novel about a Jewish boy who ends up in Muslim heaven.
Dance Party
9–11 p.m.
DJ Nickodemus and the Spy from Cairo host an Egyptian-inspired funk and Afrobeat dance party.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Who's Policing the police?
You've read the headlines and seen the videos: A cop caught repeatedly beating a man curled up on the street. Or an officer spotted delivering a vicious shoulder check to a biker in Times Square. The stories are shocking, but the NYPD's response is all too often unsurprising: It regularly turns a blind eye to officer misconduct.
But there's momentum building in New York City to strengthen oversight of the NYPD. In just the past month, the City Council has introduced two bills that would give some muscle to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the city body intended to provide accountability for acts of police misconduct.
As part of the NYCLU's continuing Civil Liberties Discussion Series, NYCLU Legislative Director Robert Perry will discuss ways to deal with NYPD misconduct and how to have real oversight over the police.
Please join us on Tuesday, April 6 at 7 p.m. in our offices at 125 Broad Street on the 19th floor.
Following the presentation, we will discuss how we can work together to achieve meaningful reform of New York City's Civilian Complaint Review Board. Pizza will be provided to get the conversation going.
Please be sure to RSVP by emailing discussionseries (at)nyclu.org or calling (212) 607-3358.
But there's momentum building in New York City to strengthen oversight of the NYPD. In just the past month, the City Council has introduced two bills that would give some muscle to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the city body intended to provide accountability for acts of police misconduct.
As part of the NYCLU's continuing Civil Liberties Discussion Series, NYCLU Legislative Director Robert Perry will discuss ways to deal with NYPD misconduct and how to have real oversight over the police.
Please join us on Tuesday, April 6 at 7 p.m. in our offices at 125 Broad Street on the 19th floor.
Following the presentation, we will discuss how we can work together to achieve meaningful reform of New York City's Civilian Complaint Review Board. Pizza will be provided to get the conversation going.
Please be sure to RSVP by emailing discussionseries (at)nyclu.org or calling (212) 607-3358.
Gardening Invite
Pratt Area Community Council Events
YFOP Gardening Invite 4/17/10
Pratt Area Community Council invites you to
our second annual Earth Day planting Event!
Hosted by the Young Friends of PACC
and PACC Property Management
Saturday, April 17th, 2010 from 9:30am - 1:00 pm
at PACC's affordable rental building, "15 Quincy"
15 Quincy Street between Classon and Downing , Clinton Hill Brooklyn
Gardening at Gibb Sujatha Plantingat Gibb
Come out, get your hands dirty, and enjoy making the neighborhood greener! We'll prep soil, then plant flowers, shrubs and trees at 15 Quincy Street, one of PACC's newest affordable housing developments. Before gardening, we'll have a chance to tour the building, with a focus on 15 Quincy's "green" elements. Breakfast, lunch and plenty of water will be served -
featuring food from Desserts by Michael Allen, a local favorite.
Rain Date: Saturday, April 24th
Young Friends of PACC is dedicated to engaging community members in their 20s and 30s in activities supporting affordable housing, tenant rights, community and economic development in Central Brooklyn.
YFOP Gardening Invite 4/17/10
Pratt Area Community Council invites you to
our second annual Earth Day planting Event!
Hosted by the Young Friends of PACC
and PACC Property Management
Saturday, April 17th, 2010 from 9:30am - 1:00 pm
at PACC's affordable rental building, "15 Quincy"
15 Quincy Street between Classon and Downing , Clinton Hill Brooklyn
Gardening at Gibb Sujatha Plantingat Gibb
Come out, get your hands dirty, and enjoy making the neighborhood greener! We'll prep soil, then plant flowers, shrubs and trees at 15 Quincy Street, one of PACC's newest affordable housing developments. Before gardening, we'll have a chance to tour the building, with a focus on 15 Quincy's "green" elements. Breakfast, lunch and plenty of water will be served -
featuring food from Desserts by Michael Allen, a local favorite.
Rain Date: Saturday, April 24th
Young Friends of PACC is dedicated to engaging community members in their 20s and 30s in activities supporting affordable housing, tenant rights, community and economic development in Central Brooklyn.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ditmas Park Blog promotes hate through "moderated" comments
The Ditmas Park Blog is promoting hate through their moderated comments. The Ditmas Park Blog is promoting a story petaled by the questionable "news paper" NY Post about a 15-20 year old Hispanic kid mugging someone. They have a mug shot prominently displayed and 2 posts with more to come. Some of the most visceral and hateful comments on the "moderated" blog followed. One said:
"this is shitty parenting. it was a kid that did something so awful? when they find this waste of human scum, they should put whoever was in charge of raising him in jail too." Followed by their in-house white supremacist NoSlappz who chimes in "I think the kid committed the robbery so he could go to jail and live with his father full time instead of visiting the old man on alternate weekends." The hateful comments continued on with the climax of "keep abortion legal, ’s all i’m sayin’.". Yet no one could deny that is the suspect was a white kid the comments would not be so visceral or hateful. As a matter of fact if the suspect was a white kid the narrative would have been about how this was a youthful indiscretion or he must have had some "emotional problems." What now has to be done is to call them out on there obvious bias, smear and assault on the minority community. Ask yourself this... Why is the Ditmas Park jumping on a petty crime such as a mugging by a teen, while a few weeks back and all year long they completely ignored the Police Sodomy case? Fox News' Glenn Beck's advertisers were made to either stand by him or denounce his inflammatory show. Most of the reputable companies has since taken their Ads of the Glenn Beck show. It is time to hold the people who continue to support the Ditmas Park blog and it's incendiary posts and comments to the same standard as Glenn Beck's Advertisers. I will be in the next week give the advertisers on the Ditmas Park blog the opportunity to respond as to why they continue to advertise on what is essentially a divisive and racially insensitive blog.
As of 3/30/2010
here are the advertisers on the Ditmas Park Blog and the email that I will send to clarify why they will continue their relationship with the Ditmas Park Blog.
"The Ditmas Park blog has been involved in a number of questionable and racially insensitive post on their blog. You are one of their advertisers. As such I would like to get a comment on whether you support the practices of the blog you advertise on. The most recent questionable post on this blog has been a post about a mugging where a number of hateful comments (including a hateful comment that either a pro-choice or pro-life person would find extremely atrocious)on the moderated comments section was allowed."
1. Sycomore Brooklyn
2. Olive Design
3. Flatbush Community Church
4. Small World Pet sitters
5. NYdogworld
6. The Farm on Aderly
7. Brooklyn hearth Realtors
"this is shitty parenting. it was a kid that did something so awful? when they find this waste of human scum, they should put whoever was in charge of raising him in jail too." Followed by their in-house white supremacist NoSlappz who chimes in "I think the kid committed the robbery so he could go to jail and live with his father full time instead of visiting the old man on alternate weekends." The hateful comments continued on with the climax of "keep abortion legal, ’s all i’m sayin’.". Yet no one could deny that is the suspect was a white kid the comments would not be so visceral or hateful. As a matter of fact if the suspect was a white kid the narrative would have been about how this was a youthful indiscretion or he must have had some "emotional problems." What now has to be done is to call them out on there obvious bias, smear and assault on the minority community. Ask yourself this... Why is the Ditmas Park jumping on a petty crime such as a mugging by a teen, while a few weeks back and all year long they completely ignored the Police Sodomy case? Fox News' Glenn Beck's advertisers were made to either stand by him or denounce his inflammatory show. Most of the reputable companies has since taken their Ads of the Glenn Beck show. It is time to hold the people who continue to support the Ditmas Park blog and it's incendiary posts and comments to the same standard as Glenn Beck's Advertisers. I will be in the next week give the advertisers on the Ditmas Park blog the opportunity to respond as to why they continue to advertise on what is essentially a divisive and racially insensitive blog.
As of 3/30/2010
here are the advertisers on the Ditmas Park Blog and the email that I will send to clarify why they will continue their relationship with the Ditmas Park Blog.
"The Ditmas Park blog has been involved in a number of questionable and racially insensitive post on their blog. You are one of their advertisers. As such I would like to get a comment on whether you support the practices of the blog you advertise on. The most recent questionable post on this blog has been a post about a mugging where a number of hateful comments (including a hateful comment that either a pro-choice or pro-life person would find extremely atrocious)on the moderated comments section was allowed."
1. Sycomore Brooklyn
2. Olive Design
3. Flatbush Community Church
4. Small World Pet sitters
5. NYdogworld
6. The Farm on Aderly
7. Brooklyn hearth Realtors
Monday, March 29, 2010
Flatbush PSA
I've lived in my Building for years. I see this same white woman every mourning. Yet never a hello or hi. She still snatches her bag every time I see her in the elevator. If I was going to mug you, I think I would've done it the first 600 times I saw your arse. When I saw this youtube video, I had to dedicate it. This is a Special PSA for all my "creative types" (wink wink). Don't fret.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
NY Times covers nypd corruption
CASE file: His night began in the bars of Staten Island, and by 2 a.m., he was buying crack cocaine. Inside his car, he flicked a lighter and inhaled. He picked up a woman; they got high together. She left after he spotted the authorities. More
NY Times Review
Nell Irvin Painter’s title, “The History of White People,” is a provocation in several ways: it’s monumental in sweep, and its absurd grandiosity should call to mind the fact that writing a “History of Black People” might seem perfectly reasonable to white people. But the title is literally accurate, because the book traces characterizations of the lighter-skinned people we call white today, starting with the ancient Scythians. For those who have not yet registered how much these characterizations have changed, let me assure you that sensory observation was not the basis of racial nomenclature. More
Dollar Van Concert Tonight
DOLLARVAN DEMOSTM
“Brilliant... Incredible.” – Guardian UK
“Certainly an entertaining ride.” – News12 Brooklyn
“Flatbush Avenue just got a little more musical.” – NY Daily News
LIVE CONCERT
SOUTHPAW PARK SLOPE BROOKLYN
SHOWTIME 8PM TICKETS $10
SUNDAY MARCH 28
featuring
Plus Special Guests
WORDSPIT POISON PEN
LEEIA MUSIC
FINAL OUTLAW
MISNOMER(S)
COCOA SARAI
ZUZUKA
CROSBY
P MARZ
AN EVENING OF HOT HIP HOP & ROOTS REGGAE
ENJOY SPECIAL GIVEAWAYS & DRINK SPECIALS!
WWW.DOLLARVANDEMOS.COM 21+
AGES
“Brilliant... Incredible.” – Guardian UK
“Certainly an entertaining ride.” – News12 Brooklyn
“Flatbush Avenue just got a little more musical.” – NY Daily News
LIVE CONCERT
SOUTHPAW PARK SLOPE BROOKLYN
SHOWTIME 8PM TICKETS $10
SUNDAY MARCH 28
featuring
Plus Special Guests
WORDSPIT POISON PEN
LEEIA MUSIC
FINAL OUTLAW
MISNOMER(S)
COCOA SARAI
ZUZUKA
CROSBY
P MARZ
AN EVENING OF HOT HIP HOP & ROOTS REGGAE
ENJOY SPECIAL GIVEAWAYS & DRINK SPECIALS!
WWW.DOLLARVANDEMOS.COM 21+
AGES
Sunday, March 21, 2010
An “Opening Day” Tradition in Prospect Park.
In just one month, nearly 2,000 Little League players will start the 2010 baseball season in Prospect Park. The pint-sized players will be joined by their friends, families, local community leaders and elected officials for a parade through Park Slope and on into the Park. Everyone then will gather at the Prospect Park Bandshell for a ceremonial first ball toss to start another great season of baseball and softball at the seven fields in Prospect Park’s Long Meadow and the six fields at the historic Parade Ground.
The Little League Parade gets underway at 10 a.m., starting at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street, then moving along Seventh Avenue to 9th Street before turning up 9th Street into the Park and ending at the Bandshell. The Opening Day ceremony at the Bandshell will begin at approximately 11 a.m.
Also worth cheering for are Prospect Park’s dedicated volunteers who will be holding an Opening Day Clean-Up, April 10 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Anyone wanting to lend a hand can meet near the Tennis House, near 9th St. and Prospect Park West. Call or email for more information: (718) 965-8960, volunteers@prospectpark.org.
Young children can get into the spring cleaning spirit at the Park’s Lefferts Historic House during Spring Wash Day, 1 – 4 p.m. (both April 10 and April 11). Out come the washtubs and washboards as Lefferts turns back the clock to when Brooklynites cleaned without the help of electricity. Free.
Opening Day is the perfect time to take a ride on the Park’s historic 1912 Carousel, visit the interactive nature exhibits at the Prospect Park Audubon Center, or visit with the more than 80 species of wildlife at the Prospect Park Zoo!
For more information on Prospect Park events, programs, membership and volunteering, call the Park Hotline at (718) 965-8999 or visit www.prospectpark.org
The Little League Parade gets underway at 10 a.m., starting at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street, then moving along Seventh Avenue to 9th Street before turning up 9th Street into the Park and ending at the Bandshell. The Opening Day ceremony at the Bandshell will begin at approximately 11 a.m.
Also worth cheering for are Prospect Park’s dedicated volunteers who will be holding an Opening Day Clean-Up, April 10 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Anyone wanting to lend a hand can meet near the Tennis House, near 9th St. and Prospect Park West. Call or email for more information: (718) 965-8960, volunteers@prospectpark.org.
Young children can get into the spring cleaning spirit at the Park’s Lefferts Historic House during Spring Wash Day, 1 – 4 p.m. (both April 10 and April 11). Out come the washtubs and washboards as Lefferts turns back the clock to when Brooklynites cleaned without the help of electricity. Free.
Opening Day is the perfect time to take a ride on the Park’s historic 1912 Carousel, visit the interactive nature exhibits at the Prospect Park Audubon Center, or visit with the more than 80 species of wildlife at the Prospect Park Zoo!
For more information on Prospect Park events, programs, membership and volunteering, call the Park Hotline at (718) 965-8999 or visit www.prospectpark.org
The NYPD
Last year the NYPD stopped and interrogated enough completely innocent people to fill Yankee Stadium nine times over.
This month, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called the Police Department's stop-and-frisk practices "Jim Crow policing" because not only are police stopping hundreds of thousands of innocent people every year, but 85 percent of those stopped are black or Latino.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has been leading the fight against the NYPD's racial profiling for years. We have shown that hundreds of thousands of innocent people are subjected to the added injustice of having their personal information stored indefinitely in a sprawling NYPD database. With this vast database, the NYPD has turned more than 1 million innocent black and Latino New Yorkers into criminal suspects.
But the push back has begun.
Last week, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sent a letter to Police Chief Ray Kelly demanding that the NYPD stop collecting the personal information of innocent New Yorkers stopped by the police, and telling the Department to delete the information it's already collected.
Contact Speaker Quinn to thank her for her important stand and to urge her to keep the pressure on. And call 311 and tell Mayor Bloomberg to scale back the NYPD's overly aggressive stop-and-frisk policy and to stop collecting the personal information of innocent New Yorkers stopped by the police.
We are so close to ending this invasion of privacy. The Police Department is feeling immense public pressure and said - for the first time ever - that it is reconsidering its practice of keeping the personal information of innocent New Yorkers in its database. We need to keep the pressure on.
Contact Speaker Quinn right now, and forward this email to every New Yorker you know. We can win this one - we just need your help.
Thank you for all that you do,
- The New York Civil Liberties Union
This month, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called the Police Department's stop-and-frisk practices "Jim Crow policing" because not only are police stopping hundreds of thousands of innocent people every year, but 85 percent of those stopped are black or Latino.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has been leading the fight against the NYPD's racial profiling for years. We have shown that hundreds of thousands of innocent people are subjected to the added injustice of having their personal information stored indefinitely in a sprawling NYPD database. With this vast database, the NYPD has turned more than 1 million innocent black and Latino New Yorkers into criminal suspects.
But the push back has begun.
Last week, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sent a letter to Police Chief Ray Kelly demanding that the NYPD stop collecting the personal information of innocent New Yorkers stopped by the police, and telling the Department to delete the information it's already collected.
Contact Speaker Quinn to thank her for her important stand and to urge her to keep the pressure on. And call 311 and tell Mayor Bloomberg to scale back the NYPD's overly aggressive stop-and-frisk policy and to stop collecting the personal information of innocent New Yorkers stopped by the police.
We are so close to ending this invasion of privacy. The Police Department is feeling immense public pressure and said - for the first time ever - that it is reconsidering its practice of keeping the personal information of innocent New Yorkers in its database. We need to keep the pressure on.
Contact Speaker Quinn right now, and forward this email to every New Yorker you know. We can win this one - we just need your help.
Thank you for all that you do,
- The New York Civil Liberties Union
SHARON JONES & the DAP-KINGS
SHARON JONES & the DAP-KINGS
To Kick Off Their Fourth Full-Length Album with a
Live Performance at WNYC’s The Greene Space
The heralded soul singer to perform
during a live broadcast of Soundcheck with host John Schaefer
Chilean Hip-Hop Artist ANA TIJOUX Also to Perform
Tuesday, April 6th at 2pm
(March 16, 2010 – New York, NY) – Soul singer SHARON JONES went from appearing as a wedding singer while making a living as a corrections officer to appearing on CNN, MTV News, VH1, and Late Show with David Letterman, among other national outlets. Now, she is readying the release of her fourth album with the DAP-KINGS, “I Learned the Hard Way.”
On Tuesday, April 6th at 2pm, the day of the album’s release, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will kick off their new album with a special performance at WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, hosted by WNYC’s daily music and conversation program, Soundcheck.
The group will join host John Schaefer in front of a studio audience to play songs from “I Learned the Hard Way” and chat about its unique recording process – using an Ampex eight-track tape machine. Schaefer will talk to the band about its gilded and gritty gospel, soul and funk sound and the role it played in helping return today’s soul music to its more traditional sound.
Also performing on the show is ANA TIJOUX, regarded as one of the leading female MCs in Latin America today. Born in France to a French mother and a Chilean father in political exile during Pinochet's dictatorship, Tijoux will discuss how her childhood has influenced her music, how collaborating with Julieta Venegas helped launch her career, and her evolution into a politically charged hip-hop singer.
This special edition of Soundcheck, live from The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, will broadcast on 93.9FM and will be available as a videocast at www.wnyc.org/thegreenespace.
WHAT: Soundcheck with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Ana Tijoux
WHEN: Tuesday, April 6th at 2 pm
WHERE: The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space
44 Charlton Street (at Varick Street)
New York, NY 10014
TICKETS: $10, available at https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/8013235
More information: (646) 829-4000
To Kick Off Their Fourth Full-Length Album with a
Live Performance at WNYC’s The Greene Space
The heralded soul singer to perform
during a live broadcast of Soundcheck with host John Schaefer
Chilean Hip-Hop Artist ANA TIJOUX Also to Perform
Tuesday, April 6th at 2pm
(March 16, 2010 – New York, NY) – Soul singer SHARON JONES went from appearing as a wedding singer while making a living as a corrections officer to appearing on CNN, MTV News, VH1, and Late Show with David Letterman, among other national outlets. Now, she is readying the release of her fourth album with the DAP-KINGS, “I Learned the Hard Way.”
On Tuesday, April 6th at 2pm, the day of the album’s release, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will kick off their new album with a special performance at WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, hosted by WNYC’s daily music and conversation program, Soundcheck.
The group will join host John Schaefer in front of a studio audience to play songs from “I Learned the Hard Way” and chat about its unique recording process – using an Ampex eight-track tape machine. Schaefer will talk to the band about its gilded and gritty gospel, soul and funk sound and the role it played in helping return today’s soul music to its more traditional sound.
Also performing on the show is ANA TIJOUX, regarded as one of the leading female MCs in Latin America today. Born in France to a French mother and a Chilean father in political exile during Pinochet's dictatorship, Tijoux will discuss how her childhood has influenced her music, how collaborating with Julieta Venegas helped launch her career, and her evolution into a politically charged hip-hop singer.
This special edition of Soundcheck, live from The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, will broadcast on 93.9FM and will be available as a videocast at www.wnyc.org/thegreenespace.
WHAT: Soundcheck with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Ana Tijoux
WHEN: Tuesday, April 6th at 2 pm
WHERE: The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space
44 Charlton Street (at Varick Street)
New York, NY 10014
TICKETS: $10, available at https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/8013235
More information: (646) 829-4000
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Join PACC for the Working in the Shadows Book Reading
From PACC
Hosted by the Young Friends of PACC
featuring Gabriel Thompson, author of Working In The Shadows
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton Street
(@ the corner of South Portland)
What is it like doing the back-breaking work of low-wage immigrants? To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent the year working alongside Latino immigrants, who initially thought he was either crazy or an undercover immigration agent. He stooped over lettuce fields in Arizona and worked the graveyard shift at a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama. He dodged taxis as a bicycle delivery “boy” for an upscale Manhattan restaurant and was fired from a flower shop in Chelsea. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Working in the Shadows shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting, and lax government enforcement—while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants and desperate US citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.
Working in the Shadows has been widely featured since its release on February 1st. Check out Gabriel Thompson’s interviews on Tavis Smiley on PBS, Salon.com’s Growers and Producers, and the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC.
Not so long before he went undercover as part of the low-wage immigrant workforce, Brooklyn-based author Gabriel Thompson was the director of community organizing at PACC. The Young Friends of PACC are thrilled to host this book reading at Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene. Light refreshments and wine will be served.
Young Friends of PACC is dedicated to engaging community members in their 20s and 30s in activities supporting affordable housing, tenant rights, community and economic development in Central Brooklyn.
For more info and to RSVP: rsvp@prattarea.org, 718-522-2613 x 14
Travel Info:
C train to Lafayette | G to Fulton
or Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Station trains
B25/B26/B38/B52 run near the bookstore
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Hosted by the Young Friends of PACC
featuring Gabriel Thompson, author of Working In The Shadows
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton Street
(@ the corner of South Portland)
What is it like doing the back-breaking work of low-wage immigrants? To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent the year working alongside Latino immigrants, who initially thought he was either crazy or an undercover immigration agent. He stooped over lettuce fields in Arizona and worked the graveyard shift at a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama. He dodged taxis as a bicycle delivery “boy” for an upscale Manhattan restaurant and was fired from a flower shop in Chelsea. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Working in the Shadows shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting, and lax government enforcement—while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants and desperate US citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.
Working in the Shadows has been widely featured since its release on February 1st. Check out Gabriel Thompson’s interviews on Tavis Smiley on PBS, Salon.com’s Growers and Producers, and the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC.
Not so long before he went undercover as part of the low-wage immigrant workforce, Brooklyn-based author Gabriel Thompson was the director of community organizing at PACC. The Young Friends of PACC are thrilled to host this book reading at Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene. Light refreshments and wine will be served.
Young Friends of PACC is dedicated to engaging community members in their 20s and 30s in activities supporting affordable housing, tenant rights, community and economic development in Central Brooklyn.
For more info and to RSVP: rsvp@prattarea.org, 718-522-2613 x 14
Travel Info:
C train to Lafayette | G to Fulton
or Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Station trains
B25/B26/B38/B52 run near the bookstore
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Financial Course
Pratt Area Community Council Events
please click here to view all our upcoming events
hsbc financial course
Pratt Area Community Council Hosts:
HSBC's Financial Education Workshops
Sessions begin Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
6:30pm - 8:30pm
PACC's Community Room
226 Lefferts Place
at the corner of Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
Highlights Include:
Managing your money * Budgeting & Banking * Credit History & Using Credit Wisely * Basics of Borrowing & Preventing I.D. Theft * Homeownership & Managing your mortgage * Free Individual Credit Counseling
This is a free event - refreshments will be served
For More Info: 718-783-3549
Charrisse Smith Ext. 15
pacc@prattarea.org | www.prattarea.org
Travel Info:
C/S train to Franklin Avenue
B48/B49 stops right outside the building
B25 to Franklin Avenue
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Join Our Mailing List!
Pratt Area Community Council
201 Dekalb Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11205
718-522-2613*22
please click here to view all our upcoming events
hsbc financial course
Pratt Area Community Council Hosts:
HSBC's Financial Education Workshops
Sessions begin Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
6:30pm - 8:30pm
PACC's Community Room
226 Lefferts Place
at the corner of Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
Highlights Include:
Managing your money * Budgeting & Banking * Credit History & Using Credit Wisely * Basics of Borrowing & Preventing I.D. Theft * Homeownership & Managing your mortgage * Free Individual Credit Counseling
This is a free event - refreshments will be served
For More Info: 718-783-3549
Charrisse Smith Ext. 15
pacc@prattarea.org | www.prattarea.org
Travel Info:
C/S train to Franklin Avenue
B48/B49 stops right outside the building
B25 to Franklin Avenue
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Join Our Mailing List!
Pratt Area Community Council
201 Dekalb Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11205
718-522-2613*22
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Gentrification, Models of Whiteness, Ditmas Park Blog and what it means to you.
The website whiteantiracist.org has a pretty nice write up about the different models of whiteness in today's society. Reading this will give you a better perspective into the behaviors of gentrification blogs like the ditmas park blog and others similar to them. What I came away from reading this is that the world is a very complicated place. Some of us choose to be blinded by what goes around us, unless we are directly affected by it. What this mean is that African Americans in particular will feel frustrated and angered when they come in contact with certain white persons who may not see themselves as racist. See below:
Models of Whiteness
This page discusses some models of whiteness currently in use and available to whites in the United States. These are only models, and not real people. Any one white person could fall into more than one category, or change categories over time.
_________________________________________________________________________
White Supremacist
A person who believes that the white race is or should be supreme.
_________________________________________________________________________
What Whiteness?
There are many ways that white people avoid examining their whiteness and consequently, white racism. It is common practice in conversation for white people to mention the race of black or Asian friends, neighbors, or co-workers while never mentioning the whiteness of the white people they know (Dyer, 1997, p. 2). The effect of this and thousands of other cultural practices by whites is to position whites as the “human norm.” Dyer rightly points out, “As long as race is something only applied to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people” (1997, p.1). Dyer argues convincingly that “there is something especially white in this non-located and disembodied position of knowledge, and thus it seems especially important to try to break the hold of whiteness by locating and embodying it in a particular experience of being white” (1997, p.4).
Another way white people avoid naming whiteness is through a subtle manipulation of sentence structure. In “White Silence, White Solidarity,” Christine E. Sleeter gives two examples. When whites say, “racism causes poor education in inner-city schools,” it is unclear who is responsible for the poor education in inner-city schools. Another example to consider is: “Filipinos were brought to Hawaii to work as cheap laborers.” Again, the question remains: Who brought Filipinos to Hawaii and underpaid them? In this way, white people “personify racism, making it (rather than ourselves) the subject of sentences” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 260).
An effective strategy that many whites use to deflect attention from white racism, and their place in the power structure, is to “transmute many issues of racism into depoliticized questions of cultural difference” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 259). A similar strategy is to equate ethnicity with race. By turning race and racism into issues of culture, diversity, and difference, whites erase the story of power and privilege that pits them against people of color. The phrase "celebrate diversity" is often used by organizations and businesses to show their appreciation of difference - while effectively diverting attention from poor labor conditions, racist promotion and hiring practices, etc.
Advocates of colorblindness fall into this model of whiteness, as well. O'Brien (2001) writes that when whites pride themselves on not noticing others' race (as in “I didn't even notice she was black”) “there is an implicit ideology of white as the norm” (p. 46). When whites say things like “it wouldn't matter if she was black, green, yellow or pink,” they are employing a “strategy for avoiding race: it shifts attention away from color differences that make a political difference by embedding meaningful differences among nonmeaningful ones” (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 38).
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Guilty White
The “guilty white” model refers to a white person who is able to identify their whiteness and their position in the racial hierarchy, but is unable to identify their personal responsibility for racism or the manifestations of racism in their own life. Ellen Kaye Scott describes this phenomenon in “From Race Cognizance to Racism Cognizance” (2001). Scott begins by discussing the state of antiracist discourse in the United States . She believes that in this discourse
individuals occupy one of two subject positions: victim or perpetrator. This discourse of agency in racial politics paralyzes action. Activists tend to vie for membership in the victim category and attach a great deal of shame to belonging to the perpetrator category (2001, p. 126).
She analyzes two organizations that use racism awareness workshops for their employees and/or volunteers. Scott finds that even with these racism awareness workshops, “identifying individual agency within a system of racial domination and subordination proved very difficult for these [white] women, despite their willingness to recognize their own white racial identity as a political position” (2001, p. 146). This is the essence of the “guilty white”; she feels guilty for being white in a racist society, but cannot identify the effects of racism, her part in them, or what she can do to change the situation. She is paralyzed with guilt.
_________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Standing Against Most Extreme Forms of Racism
In this model of whiteness, the antiracist white makes a public stand against the actions of groups like the KKK or the neo-Nazis. In her book Whites Confront Racism , Eileen O'Brien describes the group Anti-Racist Action (ARA) as fitting into this category. ARA focuses on “overt forms of racism” as can be seen in their main principles which include:
• We go where they go. Whenever racists/fascists are organizing or active in public, we confront them and do our best to stop them.
• We don't rely on the cops or courts to do our work or to protect us (O'Brien, 2001, p.12).
Groups such as ARA are sometimes criticized for focusing their energies on “fringe” groups like the KKK. However, it can be argued (and ARA does) that these groups are not so fringe in reality (O'Brien, 2001, p.12). Mab Segrest discusses the way that institutional racism allows Klan terrorism to happen, and quotes a black minister she worked with as saying “Our greatest danger is sympathy and cooperation by millions of American people with the Klan” (1994, p. 27). Another critique of groups like ARA and their approach to confronting racism is that members “are aware of institutional racism, but are not reflexive about their own role or position within these institutionalized arrangements” (O'Brien, 2001, p.102). Members also “are less likely to take activist stands within the institutions in which they live and work” because of a focus on overt forms of racism (O'Brien, 2001, p.101). John Garvey gives some examples of these inconsistencies in the lives of white antiracists:
Thus, gentrification in a neighborhood like Park Slope … and its sure-fire accompaniment of homelessness for some, have nothing to do with the movement into the neighborhood of numerous ex-members of the movement of the 1960s. We can live where we want and be advocates for the homeless and critics of governmental inaction. In the case of schools, we can send our children to elite programs within the public schools or to private schools and be teachers of non-white students in schools and colleges and lamenters of the poor quality of education (1996, p. 254).
__________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Working against Internalized White Supremacy and External Manifestations of White Racism
This model of antiracism acknowledges that “race is not the work of racists” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179). Another way of putting this idea is that white antiracists acknowledge that “we are the problem” (O'Brien, 2001, p.57). In this model, whites acknowledge that institutions in our society perpetuate racism, including “the schools (which define ‘excellence'), the labor market (which defines ‘employment'), the law (which defines ‘crime'), the welfare system (which defines ‘poverty'), and the family (which defines ‘kinship')” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179-180). White people are a part of all these institutions, and in this model the white antiracist works to acknowledge, and take responsibility for, her part in reproducing racism in the institutions she finds herself a part of. The philosophy of this model can be summed up by Dyer's statement, “I did not invent racist thought, it is part of the cultural non-consciousness that we all inhabit. One must take responsibility for it, but that is not the same as being responsible, that is, to blame for it” (1997, p. 7). Rather than being a “guilty white,” this antiracist white takes responsibility for working on her own internalized white supremacy and racism, as well as standing with people of color against overt acts of racism.
__________________________________________________________________________
Race Traitor/Abolitionist
Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey founded the journal Race Traitor in 1992, with the guiding principle “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” They do not identify themselves or their politics as antiracist. They believe antiracism is problematic because it still acknowledges and legitimates the existence of ‘race.' Rather, Ignatiev & Garvey, and their followers, believe that “the key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 10). By this, they do not mean the genocide of white people. In their view,
the existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a determinant of behavior will set off tremors that will lead to its collapse (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p.10).
Or, in other words, when enough white people start acting in unexpected ways, that will be the start of the abolition of the white race. In “Richmond Journal”, Edward H. Peeples, a white man, offers a few examples. As a young child, his father owned a small grocery business that Peeples was expected to work in. It was World War II, and there were shortages of items such as bread, sugar and butter. Peeple's father would hide these items in the store, and when asked by a white customer, would sell them. If a black customer requested one of these scarce items, he would deny having any. He instructed Peeples to do the same. At first, Peeples obeyed his father. But then, one day, a black woman came into the store and demanded a loaf of bread. Peeples sold her a loaf of bread, and from that day forward, secretly disobeyed his father's orders and sold bread to blacks. Another example Peeples gives of being a race traitor is an incident that occurred in 1960 at Richmond's Thalhimer's Department Store. A group of young blacks were challenging segregation. Peeples decided to join their group, and was promptly spat on by an elderly white woman. He stood in silent protest with the rest of the group until the store management summoned the police to throw him out of the store. The last example in “Richmond Journal,” involves Peeples trying to buy the “Richmond Afro-American,” a local alternative newspaper. When the cashier sees what newspaper Peeples has selected, she tells him he doesn't want that newspaper, because it's the “colored newspaper.” She goes on to instruct Peeples where to find the “white newspaper.” He responds, “You must think I'm white,” once again betraying the white race, and carrying out an act of racial sedition by acting outside of accepted norms for white people's behavior (Peeples in Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 82).
Source
Models of Whiteness
This page discusses some models of whiteness currently in use and available to whites in the United States. These are only models, and not real people. Any one white person could fall into more than one category, or change categories over time.
_________________________________________________________________________
White Supremacist
A person who believes that the white race is or should be supreme.
_________________________________________________________________________
What Whiteness?
There are many ways that white people avoid examining their whiteness and consequently, white racism. It is common practice in conversation for white people to mention the race of black or Asian friends, neighbors, or co-workers while never mentioning the whiteness of the white people they know (Dyer, 1997, p. 2). The effect of this and thousands of other cultural practices by whites is to position whites as the “human norm.” Dyer rightly points out, “As long as race is something only applied to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people” (1997, p.1). Dyer argues convincingly that “there is something especially white in this non-located and disembodied position of knowledge, and thus it seems especially important to try to break the hold of whiteness by locating and embodying it in a particular experience of being white” (1997, p.4).
Another way white people avoid naming whiteness is through a subtle manipulation of sentence structure. In “White Silence, White Solidarity,” Christine E. Sleeter gives two examples. When whites say, “racism causes poor education in inner-city schools,” it is unclear who is responsible for the poor education in inner-city schools. Another example to consider is: “Filipinos were brought to Hawaii to work as cheap laborers.” Again, the question remains: Who brought Filipinos to Hawaii and underpaid them? In this way, white people “personify racism, making it (rather than ourselves) the subject of sentences” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 260).
An effective strategy that many whites use to deflect attention from white racism, and their place in the power structure, is to “transmute many issues of racism into depoliticized questions of cultural difference” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 259). A similar strategy is to equate ethnicity with race. By turning race and racism into issues of culture, diversity, and difference, whites erase the story of power and privilege that pits them against people of color. The phrase "celebrate diversity" is often used by organizations and businesses to show their appreciation of difference - while effectively diverting attention from poor labor conditions, racist promotion and hiring practices, etc.
Advocates of colorblindness fall into this model of whiteness, as well. O'Brien (2001) writes that when whites pride themselves on not noticing others' race (as in “I didn't even notice she was black”) “there is an implicit ideology of white as the norm” (p. 46). When whites say things like “it wouldn't matter if she was black, green, yellow or pink,” they are employing a “strategy for avoiding race: it shifts attention away from color differences that make a political difference by embedding meaningful differences among nonmeaningful ones” (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 38).
_________________________________________________________________________
Guilty White
The “guilty white” model refers to a white person who is able to identify their whiteness and their position in the racial hierarchy, but is unable to identify their personal responsibility for racism or the manifestations of racism in their own life. Ellen Kaye Scott describes this phenomenon in “From Race Cognizance to Racism Cognizance” (2001). Scott begins by discussing the state of antiracist discourse in the United States . She believes that in this discourse
individuals occupy one of two subject positions: victim or perpetrator. This discourse of agency in racial politics paralyzes action. Activists tend to vie for membership in the victim category and attach a great deal of shame to belonging to the perpetrator category (2001, p. 126).
She analyzes two organizations that use racism awareness workshops for their employees and/or volunteers. Scott finds that even with these racism awareness workshops, “identifying individual agency within a system of racial domination and subordination proved very difficult for these [white] women, despite their willingness to recognize their own white racial identity as a political position” (2001, p. 146). This is the essence of the “guilty white”; she feels guilty for being white in a racist society, but cannot identify the effects of racism, her part in them, or what she can do to change the situation. She is paralyzed with guilt.
_________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Standing Against Most Extreme Forms of Racism
In this model of whiteness, the antiracist white makes a public stand against the actions of groups like the KKK or the neo-Nazis. In her book Whites Confront Racism , Eileen O'Brien describes the group Anti-Racist Action (ARA) as fitting into this category. ARA focuses on “overt forms of racism” as can be seen in their main principles which include:
• We go where they go. Whenever racists/fascists are organizing or active in public, we confront them and do our best to stop them.
• We don't rely on the cops or courts to do our work or to protect us (O'Brien, 2001, p.12).
Groups such as ARA are sometimes criticized for focusing their energies on “fringe” groups like the KKK. However, it can be argued (and ARA does) that these groups are not so fringe in reality (O'Brien, 2001, p.12). Mab Segrest discusses the way that institutional racism allows Klan terrorism to happen, and quotes a black minister she worked with as saying “Our greatest danger is sympathy and cooperation by millions of American people with the Klan” (1994, p. 27). Another critique of groups like ARA and their approach to confronting racism is that members “are aware of institutional racism, but are not reflexive about their own role or position within these institutionalized arrangements” (O'Brien, 2001, p.102). Members also “are less likely to take activist stands within the institutions in which they live and work” because of a focus on overt forms of racism (O'Brien, 2001, p.101). John Garvey gives some examples of these inconsistencies in the lives of white antiracists:
Thus, gentrification in a neighborhood like Park Slope … and its sure-fire accompaniment of homelessness for some, have nothing to do with the movement into the neighborhood of numerous ex-members of the movement of the 1960s. We can live where we want and be advocates for the homeless and critics of governmental inaction. In the case of schools, we can send our children to elite programs within the public schools or to private schools and be teachers of non-white students in schools and colleges and lamenters of the poor quality of education (1996, p. 254).
__________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Working against Internalized White Supremacy and External Manifestations of White Racism
This model of antiracism acknowledges that “race is not the work of racists” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179). Another way of putting this idea is that white antiracists acknowledge that “we are the problem” (O'Brien, 2001, p.57). In this model, whites acknowledge that institutions in our society perpetuate racism, including “the schools (which define ‘excellence'), the labor market (which defines ‘employment'), the law (which defines ‘crime'), the welfare system (which defines ‘poverty'), and the family (which defines ‘kinship')” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179-180). White people are a part of all these institutions, and in this model the white antiracist works to acknowledge, and take responsibility for, her part in reproducing racism in the institutions she finds herself a part of. The philosophy of this model can be summed up by Dyer's statement, “I did not invent racist thought, it is part of the cultural non-consciousness that we all inhabit. One must take responsibility for it, but that is not the same as being responsible, that is, to blame for it” (1997, p. 7). Rather than being a “guilty white,” this antiracist white takes responsibility for working on her own internalized white supremacy and racism, as well as standing with people of color against overt acts of racism.
__________________________________________________________________________
Race Traitor/Abolitionist
Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey founded the journal Race Traitor in 1992, with the guiding principle “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” They do not identify themselves or their politics as antiracist. They believe antiracism is problematic because it still acknowledges and legitimates the existence of ‘race.' Rather, Ignatiev & Garvey, and their followers, believe that “the key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 10). By this, they do not mean the genocide of white people. In their view,
the existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a determinant of behavior will set off tremors that will lead to its collapse (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p.10).
Or, in other words, when enough white people start acting in unexpected ways, that will be the start of the abolition of the white race. In “Richmond Journal”, Edward H. Peeples, a white man, offers a few examples. As a young child, his father owned a small grocery business that Peeples was expected to work in. It was World War II, and there were shortages of items such as bread, sugar and butter. Peeple's father would hide these items in the store, and when asked by a white customer, would sell them. If a black customer requested one of these scarce items, he would deny having any. He instructed Peeples to do the same. At first, Peeples obeyed his father. But then, one day, a black woman came into the store and demanded a loaf of bread. Peeples sold her a loaf of bread, and from that day forward, secretly disobeyed his father's orders and sold bread to blacks. Another example Peeples gives of being a race traitor is an incident that occurred in 1960 at Richmond's Thalhimer's Department Store. A group of young blacks were challenging segregation. Peeples decided to join their group, and was promptly spat on by an elderly white woman. He stood in silent protest with the rest of the group until the store management summoned the police to throw him out of the store. The last example in “Richmond Journal,” involves Peeples trying to buy the “Richmond Afro-American,” a local alternative newspaper. When the cashier sees what newspaper Peeples has selected, she tells him he doesn't want that newspaper, because it's the “colored newspaper.” She goes on to instruct Peeples where to find the “white newspaper.” He responds, “You must think I'm white,” once again betraying the white race, and carrying out an act of racial sedition by acting outside of accepted norms for white people's behavior (Peeples in Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 82).
Source
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