I’ve been working around a lot of groups of younger activists and there are some that click together on the issues facing the group well, but the inner dynamics could use improvement.
Ask yourself… are you adding labels to this image?
If you honestly reply that you do, then what do you believe the motivating factors are? They say a picture tells a story… then who’s story is it? It would seem that it is the viewer’s story created by their perspectives on the world. There’s nothing wrong in the image itself, merely how we judge it to be.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”Stephen Boyle” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Strive to be conscious of your thoughts and beliefs, live from your heart and be with the world at large. [/perfectpullquote] More
Urgent Call to Action: Rally at Wayne State University Student Center on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 5PM
Photo: Fuzzytek. June 21, 2015
We need you to reach out to mobilize families with children in your circles, youth leaders, children and youth activities to compel them to represent a moral voice to stop water shut offs for the most vulnerable people in Detroit. Three quarters of the children in Detroit are living below 150% of the federal poverty level ($35,775 for a family of four). Exposing children to an opportunity to care about other children is a way to nurture their humanity by caring for other children in need. Please make the sacrifice of time to personally compel people to join in and wage love…
“Even as the quality of available water is constantly diminishing, in some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatize this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity.” – Pope Francis, Laudato Si
The Allied Media Conference has agreed to support our cause by spreading the word nationwide about Mayor Duggan’s refusal to accept the warnings that massive water shut offs are a threat to public health and an assault, punishing vulnerable people who cannot afford the current payment rates and policies. There is not a reasonable process in place for evaluating shut offs for vulnerable populations such as elderly, pregnant women, persons with serious medical conditions or chronic health challenges, young children in the home, or landlord tenant discrepancies. This is unreasonable and unacceptable. Like Flint we have been persistent as advocates, now we have decided to lift up the children’s voices to call out to the Mayor in front of the nation.More
Let’s get honest here – white privilege America has adopted a colloquial phrase that needs to STOP. “Pulling The Race Card” showed up as a manner of marking an action foul to the person judging it with the statement. It rests on exacerbated “racial difference”. It continues to propogate in part it is because what you resist will thrive simply because of awareness.
I’ve even been told “that was very white of you”, as a reminder that I do carry white privilege. At first I rebuffed the statement, but giving it pause and reflection I’ve learned more deeply about white privilege. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“that was very white of you”, as a reminder that I do carry white privilege[/pullquote]I’m thankful for being with elders that had courage enough to speak up and teach. Each day we should be able to learn something and appreciate life’s lessons.
One of the most apparent differences we have is the color of skin. Our genetic composition offers visual features that relate our ancestory. Beneath those features we are all human with muscles, bones, and organs that function in a very similar manner. Even our skin and hair is similar in structure.
Culture is something we gain from society, the environment into which we are born and adopt as our own. If aa newborn is raised in a different culture from which they originated, that newborn will grow up with a different culture than their parents.
Male Un-Fair Campaign poster
Un-Fair campaign poster 1
Un-Fair Campaign poster 3
Race doesn’t show up unless society perpetuates it. We have created something called “race” in society today as a matter of saying there are physical differences between us. The phrase “pulling the race card” has been stretched to include cultural differences. Those with more power (or privilege) in society have greater access to create the structures it follows. As those whom have been racially challenged in their path to success gain recognition and position we’ll be seeing positive change in society accepting difference instead of dominating to repress it.
SOLUTION:
Stop using the colloquial phrase and let it be buried as history.
Accept gentle reminders that privilege is being used in an undesirable manner.
NOTE: I realize this post is NOT burying the phrase in history. This post is bringing up awareness of something being resisted. However it is offering solutions. Perhaps it gets shared, or simply taken in as something you’ll personally work on (preferred).
Imagine being hit with the statement as a person oppressed by the fact they are categorized by race. It works in every direction to increase divide between people and cultures.
The article by Micah White of Occupy Wall Street provides great advice on movement building and evolution. I’ve had people here in Detroit interested in movement building on new ventures and they’ve seen recent efforts not going so well. The reasons are continued attempts using the same methods. Once you become predictable you are conquerable and become consequentially passed over by the press and people watching it. The efforts to be heard fall short of desired goals.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Normal has never changed anything ever — Stephen Boyle[/pullquote]
Evolving movements must realize that establishing a normal process is what corporate training leads them toward. Corporatizing movements is compromizing why activism happens. We aren’t interested in normal! “Normal has never changed anything ever.” I’ve been saying this for a few years now and each time someone hears it a “lightbulb appears”. Radical change requires radical means and efforts. Guerilla warfare is an example and how the Americas won the Revolutionary War leading to independence from English regime. Much of America has lost its luster, there is little gleam in the eye of those here wishing for change. The only way it’ll happen is moving beyond those influences we hold sacred (and reliable). Relying on something is where we are losing it. We’re forgetting how to produce on our own. Community building has to learn that doing different shouldn’t be shunned but needs to be embraced as the evolutionary path needed. Getting involved in the evolution means listening and doing. Being outspoken and responsible at the same time.
As one of the original co-creators of the Occupy Wall Street movement, I’ve watched student protests sweep across campuses in Cape Town,Missouri, London and Los Angeles with a growing sense of optimism. The history of protest suggests that students are often the first to sense the opportunity for revolutionary change.
I suspect that the new wave of campus protests could be the foreshock to the global social movement that activists have been hoping for since the end of Occupy. To increase the odds, here is some advice to student protesters, based on the lessons from my time with Occupy.
First, never protest the same way twice. The birth of a new movement is exciting. But the effectiveness of a protest diminishes if the same tactic is used repeatedly. Once the occupation tactic stopped working in the face of police crackdowns and the onset of winter weather, Occupy Wall Street stopped existing.
The ah-ha moment not lost Shared experiences not tossed.
It is all interconnected Society recognizing and disconnected.
Quotes Collection
I’ve been aware that I need to start compiling quotes that have inspired me as well as those I’ve been creating. You’ll find a new sidebar on the website sharing a random quote that I’ve entered into the collection. This is powered by the Quotes Collection plug-in. I’ve also created a Quotes page where this collection can be found. Not every quote will be a blog post as this one is.
GoodReads Quotes
There is an existing sidebar item pulling a random quote that I’ve liked over at GoodReads.com. Feel free to add my profile as a friend and lets share inspiration.
Municipal leaders from three counties of southeast Michigan agreed to allow Detroit to lease its water system to the newly formed GLWA – Great Lakes Water Authority.
For years the surrounding counties – Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb – have been buying their water from the city. They’ve long complained they didn’t get enough say over their rates or big decisions about the system.
This deal will, at least in theory, give suburbanites more direct power over the system, and (they hope) lower rates in the long run.
In exchange, the authority will pay Detroit $50 million a year in lease payments.
And it will set up a $4.5 million regional water assistance fund for low-income customers behind on their bills.[ref]Detroit, suburbs reach water deal, Michigan Public Radio, June 12, 2015[/ref]
Some will draw a line between Hip Hop and spoken word. For the sake of reading to your fullest enjoyment, please set aside this divide to enjoy this post fully. I was fortunate to be tagged by a Facebook friend on a share of this article on The Spiritual Age of Hip Hop in the Syracuse New Times.
Hip Hop is extremely diverse, cultured, educated, emotional and is constantly evolving. The next evolution is taking us to a higher plane, one where more artists are expressing their spiritual views of life in their music. Welcome to #TheSpiritualAgeOfHipHop.
The article lists so many Detroit talents within whom we #WageLove in our communities locally and globally. The awareness to what we face at home seems to be overlooked by far too many. We need #FireSpit to clear the misconceptions that maligned mainstream media have clouded the truth from general consciousness.
Truly raising consciousness is what we must request of our talent. We can acknowledge the divide which society drones into our existence and overpopulizes through marketing and fiat currency value. But we must rise above with a higher message. Those from human compassion and dignity. Our society is no better than how we treat the least among us. Those people and situations which are the “least common denominator” are the claims we must own and raise up. Surround them with love and seek to perceive what can be when united in peace. Peace is far more than silence, it is moving and active, forging bonds of interconnectivity and trust.
Detroit State of Mind
Listen in on “Belle Isle Bountiful” conversation with 5ELA artists DJ LaJedi and Ambiance. These are the situations, thoughts, conversations and unity that bring higher consciousness in our music and lives.
Spoken Word and Cypher from The Raiz Up at #ISMG15
Several of those who were on stage are what I consider the best talent Detroit has to offer. Bringing truth and revelations through their words to those who take the time to soak their soul in them.
ISMG15 is the International Social Movements Gathering, bringing people from Detroit, our region, nationally, and internationally together focused at this time on the Water and Housing situations we face in Detroit and in our society. We have to pay particular attention to the words of introduction for Governor Snyder on Wednesday at the Mackinac Policy Conference – “the template that he is building in Michigan is being watched across the country and internationally”. Are the conditions we encounter of sacrificing the most poor by violating our human rights truly the template to push globally?
When I took a photo of Michael, aka “Dreadlock Mike” a few years before he was murdered by a hit and run driver – I asked him for permission, because I knew how impactful his photo would be in my life. What I mean is not so much the photograph itself. It is the connectivity we have with each other in all our conditions as humans.
Michael, 2012 Fuzzytek Photography
I’d seen Michael around the streets plenty over a decade or more, and he had come to recognize me as well. I had changed from being employed at Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan (roughly 1986 – 2004), to taking up being a freelance photographer, and subsequently from 2011 known more as a community activist. I was fascinated by a photographer’s exhibition at the Russell Industrial Center which contained a lot of photos of Michael, this was after taking this single photo. I suppose my fascination was that I had a barrier to cross for a single photo, and I was encircled by many.
Not long after going into photography (2005) I saw the website Lightstalking.org and became engaged reading about photographers working in so many ways helped me immensely. There were war correspondents, fashion photographers, and so much more connecting through the site. It seemed many were traveling from place to place and connecting through the site for a temporary place to stay while on assignment. You might imagine the perks of coachsurfing to stay with another person sharing your passion and having equipment they might offer use of on the trip. Additionally you get localized during the stay and that can carry so much depth into the photos taken when you are familiar with the issues.
There are so many issues being faced by Detroit and it seems everyone wants to offer advice into the situation. It gets rather difficult to understand the stands around the issues until you look at the level of personal investment and capability of support had by those speaking and taking a stand.
Who Holds An Invested Interest?
City of Detroit residents
Workers in the city
Metropolitan are residents
Workers in metropolitan Detroit
Employers in the city
Employers in the metro area
People that formerly worked in Detroit or in the metro area
People considering coming to Detroit or the metro area
People who may invest in Detroit’s future in some manner
Curious bystanders – oddly this may be one of the largest populations if you follow comment posts made about Detroit that somehow seem to think it should be removed from the face of the planet
James Cole is a lawyer and civil rights fighter
I think that covers just about all the angles, and I’ll say that the weight of personal investment runs highest from the top of the list to the bottom. Those that are at the top of the list quite often have a tough time hearing solutions from people with what is perceived to be a lessor personal investment. That’s common in every community – those impacted directly are undeniably affected the most.
How To Occupy And Support?
Every position has the ability to learn through listening prior to (or while) proposing solutions to issues. Sometimes it will seem like a lot of venting going on with little solution. People just want to see change happen and positive results, be that in the removal of issues or growth of opportunities. Personal accounts can be valuable lessons to those whom haven’t had to deal with them.
For example, today I was in a meeting regarding public transportation and we had several handicapped members attending. I mentioned that many of us don’t personally encounter the difficulty these people do daily until we “break a foot”, then we experience it for a brief spell and can go back to how we’ve known access. We have to consider with some handicap situations there is no “brief time” in the concerns raised. Things won’t just get better unless we do something that makes it better for us. In doing that for ourselves, are we then making it more difficult for others or improving for everyone?
Coming up with a least common denominator (LCD) solution is going to be the answer, however even that can be troubling or difficult to implement. Moderating a discussion to find that LCD can be difficult with a wide number of personal encounters and opinions. This is where consensus building enters and that is one area Occupy movements have championed worldwide. Everyone has a stake in creating a position and taking actions on it that unify.
Can A Revolution Be Consented?
Jasahn Larosa from This Hood Of Ours
One of the concerns is that radical measures may be tough to get passed by consensus. We may be able to inspire a revolution, but personal risks and encounters can stand in the way of being in the active wave of revolution. It takes radical and passionate action that sometimes sees the consequences and is willing to accept that being revolutionary is dangerous. Those that see they can’t take the risks may choose to stand aside or offer support with limited involvement. All of these positions are helpful and needed for revolutionary action and should not be discounted. They are a reflection of personal investment in the situation and may end up changing the allies in your life as you mount an assault on society’s standards.
I’d like to ask people reading to support the world you’d like to see and be as active as you possibly can. You’ll meet people along the way, listen to new ideas, hear testimony, and hopefully be able to offer testimony yourself providing encouragement.
Becoming The Change Desired
I wrote the above two and a half years ago and the conditions at the time – Emergency Manager and Detroit Bankruptcy – have passed, but the impact of these hasn’t changed what intended above. I can say that I’ve been going through personal evolution myself and seeing the power of full and complete dialogue.
Living As a Peace Maker
The only way to get to complete dialogues is through healing and consciousness. We have to connect with the essence of human life in its individual experiences – being mindful that each of us has had encounters that shape the reality we are living. There’s going to be a lot of hurt and denial. Some dialogues bring up pain that we end up healing over and over. Even the notion of going through that path again leads to stress. We avoid confrontation with stress as much as we can. We bond with and circle our selves with those whom we’ve had the most healing and find unity of perspective with.
There’s a problem that happens when highly active people and their communities push back and deny confronting difficult dialogues in our lives. The potential for great work to be done starts to limit how it can occur. The willingness and conditions we place on making progress take on monumental proportions because community acceptance is integral to the respect we carry. This is why consciousness raising for communities is critical and the ability to continue to accept and respect outlying perspectives from community members as a path for evolution.
Consulting “the Elders”
Quite often acceptance has to be sought from elders in the community, those whom we honor with wisdom from their experience of perspectives changing through life and it’s encounters. Those with many encounters and great variations in perspective truly do carry wisdom and age can be inconsequential.
Community status is carried and the gateways for acceptance can be guarded by the elders. You can risk much when proving something outside what is accepted.
I’m going to leave “the chase down the rabbit hole” for another series of posts on consciousness. Bringing this post full circle back to responsibility as a photographer.
Overstepping The Triggers For Social Concern
There will be times that a photographer oversteps the boundaries which society finds comforting. Photographing the homeless, destitute, least privileged, our youth, our elders, the infirm, and those dying or dead – these are triggers for societal concerns. I can even say there are lifestyle choices that are hard to photograph. Some will ask why didn’t the photographer move from observing to being involved. Finding consent sometimes isn’t just with the subject or society, it rests in the photographer’s psyche. As a photographer, my experience is that we carve out what we are comfortable with and how we work with that subject material. Our perceptions are also evolving and that may influence our comfort as well. Some photographs bring thoughts that trigger self-healing and the journey of life – they can raise our consciousness. This can also happen communally.
There are some fine points in how people relate to the activities of those whom are engaged in social justice. Unfortunately many people are listening to the mainstream media news calling people protesters. When protesters are active on negative conditions it creates a double negative, leading to a positive intent. Those approving of negative conditions are deserving of protest when awareness does not lead to creating a solution.
Can we go through some definitions — Protester[ref]protester. (n.d.) American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. (2011). Retrieved May 15 2015 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/protester[/ref]:
pro·test (prə-tĕst′, prō-, prō′tĕst′)
v.pro·test·ed, pro·test·ing, pro·tests
v.tr.
a. To express a strongobjection to (something):protest a jobassignment. b. To participate in a publicdemonstration in opposition to (something):Thousandsprotestedtheelectionfraud.SeeSynonyms at object.
To promise or affirmearnestly, as afterbeingdoubted:“Hecontinuallyprotestedhisprofoundrespect”(FrankNorris).
Law To declare an objectionandreservation of rights of (a claimbeingmade)whiletaking an actionthatwouldotherwiseimplyconsent or agreement.
Archaic To proclaim or makeknown:“unroughyouthsthatevennow / Protesttheirfirst of manhood”(Shakespeare).
v.intr.
a. To express a strongobjection.
b. To participate in a publicdemonstration in opposition to something.
To make an earnestavowal or affirmation.
n.(prō′tĕst′)
A formaldeclaration of disapproval or objectionissued by a concernedperson,group, or organization.
A publicdemonstration or organizedeffort to showdisapprovalaboutsomething,especially a governmentalpolicy or practice.
Law A declaration of objectionandreservation of rights,madewhenactionwouldotherwiseimplyconsent or agreement:paymentunderprotest.
[MiddleEnglishprotesten, fromOldFrenchprotester, fromLatinprōtestārī : prō-, forth; seetestari in Indo-European roots).]
pro′test′er n.
pro·test′ing·lyadv.
Protector
In contrast the definition for protector[ref]protector. (n.d.) American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. (2011). Retrieved May 15 2015 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/protector[/ref]:
pro·tec·tor
alsopro·tect·er(prə-tĕk′tər)
n.
Onewhoprotects; a guardian.
A devicethatprotects; a guard.
Protector
a. A personwhorules a kingdomduringtheminority of a sovereign.
b. Thehead of theCommonwealth of England,Scotland,andIrelandfrom1653 to 1659.
pro·tec′tor·aladj.
pro·tec′tor·ship′ n.
Contrast in Terms
The contrast is fairly obvious with protester carrying negative weight and protector seen as benevolent (in terms of our social constructs). However when our society has suffered egregious harm from those assumed to be protectors through the passage of laws, enforcing policy / procedures that cause suffering to the public ~ the need for guardians of the public interest is needed.
Ready To Protect by Alais Clay
Stephen Boyle speaking at March Against Monsanto rally 2013-10-12
How we act as protectors is by listening to the public as peers seeking to assist. We research the issues. We bring the voices of those not heard up through rallies and in what we write. We seek mainstream media coverage, we rally and organize. We realize many of those channels are controlled by the companies and government that is profiting from business continuity.
Industrial Capitalism and It’s Waste
Marathon DHOUP 2014-06-18
We’ve seen Detroit and SouthEast Michigan targeted for industrial capitalism, and there really hasn’t been any relief offered by those who claim to protect. Our region of the State of Michigan has the most pollution, including the 3rd “dirtiest zip code” in the nation 48217. Industry upon industry emitting into a toxic soup of air and water pollution has made it difficult to point a finger at where the problem lies. It truly does lie with the policies of environmental regulators who continue to allow nonattainment areas to exist with new Permits To Install (usually adding pollution). If you head to the bottom of the Michigan chart on this Green Book from the EPA you’ll see Sulfur Dioxide in Wayne County has not been within limits the entire monitoring period since 1992 on the chart.Sulfur dioxide in concentration or over an extended time burns the skin. When it mixes with water it creates sulfuric acid. There are a number of environmental justice groups here and they are doing their best to be protectors, however harm still heads our way destroying the health of families and environment now and into the future. When you speak negatively about negative conditions – you’re stating a positive.
We’d like to see solutions in our dialogue, but first it is going to take mainstream media and our government (failing to be protectors) correcting the language used around the public PROTECTORS and guardians of our commons — the air, water, food, shelter, and education we need. There is a healing process involved and it shows up when perspectives are shared, heard, understood and taken into account.
Ask yourself… are you adding labels to this image?
I was fortunate to be tagged by a Facebook friend on a share of this article on The Spiritual Age of Hip Hop in the Syracuse New Times. 
Sulfur dioxide in concentration or over an extended time burns the skin. When it mixes with water it creates sulfuric acid. There are a number of environmental justice groups here and they are doing their best to be protectors, however harm still heads our way destroying the health of families and environment now and into the future. When you speak negatively about negative conditions – you’re stating a positive.