OCCUPY WHAT? PREACH WHAT? WEEK 5

What if everybody across the globe sat in at McDonald's occupying each empty seat or space within the building holding an animal, or potted plant, refusing to buy anything, but just stood or sat there, with nothing but smiles and good conversations all around. Would the people working be fed up, call authorities, would big media try and pan in over the controversy and confusion? Would McDonald's buy their way out of being covered by big media? Probably, I mean the Olympics for f**ks sake is sponsored by this god awful place that we all have carried guilt from after eating a chicken nugget or big mac. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GLOBALIZED WORLD?!

I guess we could think of more creative ways of trying to occupy a space because let's face it, people love their McDonald's, and people indulge in that guilt...well because...sometimes it's an unnecessary necessity on a Friday night or on a road trip or after a break up, you feel me?

I say down with McDonald's, Walmart, Kentucky Fried Chicken, maybe even Taco Bell...(maybe) but, let's face it Domino's, Pizza Hut, Subway, Popeye's, Kmart, etc.etc.etc. creates this alienation from people-to-people, people-to-soul, people-to-nature-- this weird awkward fantasy of eating YUMMY food (food, yeah right I worked at Subway and there was about 7 other ingredients in the steak, other than the word steak) and HAVING NECESSARY THINGS. I preach and I know it, but if people only were educated and sought sustainable agriculture and sustainability within their lives then people wouldn't be reduced to working over 40 hrs a week at these corporations getting minimum wage just to get by and adding to this weird, materialistic, hopeless society that we live in by being a main contributor to it.

My roommate and I were talking tonight actually about this topic of 'occupying' or trying to change a specific disruption within our global pattern. What if everybody had to go vegan for a day? How exactly would that impact the world? It's a creative disruption because I believe that people ARE TOO-INDULGENT and honestly, myself included, do not understand the specific impacts we are having on the environment and ourselves.

THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS TO OCCUPY, but I know me and countless others are thinking, "HOW?" and "WHERE?"

That my friend seems like a matter of importance and will and thought.

I guess we have to look at the things that matter most to us. Like Eyon Biddle said, he is confused as to why United State's youth is not so concerned about high tuition costs and the result of never-ending student loans, only letting our passivity take control of our here and now, and truly not planning for the future.

There are countries where education is
 free.
FREE.

Seriously, Wikipedia has listed over 37 countries that have free post-secondary education including Brazil, Germany, and India, and including China looking at policies trying to transition to a free education nation as well. This is important. This is huge. America doesn't want it. WHY.

If we only could create an up-rise, a movement, a 'something' that mattered to people because a lot of people really aren't standing for anything these days besides the hit songs they hear on the radio supporting misogyny and a way of life that is totally unattainable and unhealthy for any human being. I want to shake society and people and make them wake up, it disgusts me (preachin' again)

Alright alright, so I am pretty much ALL TALK. I have ideas. I don't know how to begin and where to begin like I've iterated. It's a matter of creating a people that come together willing to live for changing something that has a valid impact on their lives.


In Milwaukee, maybe there are ways we can come together as a whole to make this city we live in a better place. What really matters? In my eyes what really matters is sustainability, safe walking environments and bike paths, local owners and growers, diversity glorified, women free from sexual assault, people coming together to make the city more beautiful.

Maybe that could be a beginning? Maybe if Milwaukee had one big day where the community comes together, East side for example, and painting a huge mural together, letting art encompass the diversity without constrains." Art-- what's that going to do?" some may say....and then we could respond with "Ya, be jealous you don't live in a city that allows every person to come together and make their mark on their own city they live in."

It doesn't have to be art, but that's just a start, a start of remembering that we are people and citizens, not aliens that treat each other like aliens because we are so muffled up in our god damned business every day that we forget we are all people of the same kind!

Art is a way and means of coming together to create....
....as we are learning that all forms of art can be used in creating an activist approach especially performance.

So, my ideas are mush. melded. their all wrapped up in my brain. we complain day to day about the things that hurt us and the things that 'make life hard.' Maybe some don't complain at all? Maybe they are passive, and O.K. with the way things are, or are uneducated...a sad reality of our day and age.

It's these things I wonder about, and it's this society sometimes I worry about.

Sarah

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Also, there is a poem I've posted below if you have the time to watch the video.

POETRY POST

Writing for me is my sacred outlet when I need to discover more about myself and push myself to somehow organize my thoughts. I feel like I've taken this class right at the exact moment when I needed it because I feel really strongly about certain topics that we have been discussing. The conversations we have in class are sometimes the conversations I wish I were having with the people around me. There is too much passivity in my life, and just talking about the issues creates awareness in my mind. I struggle to find ways of becoming an active person who wants to be a part of something bigger than just myself-my life-alone. I guess writing has always been a way for me to express this longing I have.

This has nothing to do with the Week 5 post we are supposed to do, but since we talked about poetry and have viewed poems in class I thought I'd share a video I created. I made this about three weeks ago after a day of exhaustion-- mental exhaustion to be specific. I felt a fire within me and I needed to express it. I received good feedback from this video among friends, but I hope to continue writing and making more videos.

Video is untitled.

Black Panther Movement

I never have ever been taught anything about the Black Panther movement- not in elementary school, middle or high school. I can honestly say that I have never been educated ever about this group, and I have never really known who Malcolm X was besides the fact that he was the leader of the movement.

It's from outside sources like TV shows, films, documentaries, and word of mouth of where I have heard about the Panthers. Even when I went on my Civil Rights Pilgrimage, we never really spoke about the Black Panthers. We focused mainly on the non-violent movement.

I am glad I was shown the film in class because it really, really solidified and expanded this idea I had in my mind about what this particular activist group consisted of. I didn't know that they were so militant-- with the marching, the black leather jackets and hats tipped to the side, the guns that they bared. Guns they they would have out in the open to threaten authority-- kids who were holding them. It's a really good way to get your point across, "Here, I have a gun. I am threatening. Look at me, NOW." You know what I mean? I suppose I am saying this sarcastically.

I think that most of the Black Panthers aspirations were true and definitely respectable, but the way in which they tried to achieve those was totally the wrong way to go about doing it. Yes, I am bias because I think weapons and fighting and all that really isn't worth it in the end., but I also think that this is pretty much a factual truth.

Seeing Malcom X speak on the videos we were shown in class almost made me blush a little. He was this handsome man, but yet so manipulating in a way. The fact that he could turn every interviewer's question around in his haunting demeanor really made me feel like he was a man of mystery. Sometimes I wonder how some people truly impact others with have such power, reign, and force with the words they speak and ideas they try to live by.  After watching that video, I can see why many people looked up to this articulate phenomenon of a man.

ALL IN ALL,
I felt like the black people of the Black Panther movement were just done, fed up with this countries unfairness, the highly corrupted government and skewed actions that took place that overwhelmed their lives. It's like the day they were born they had been told they are not good enough and wore an invisible cloak called racism. Racism as people were looking at them, racism seen in every institution they were every going to be a part of, and the government- the "thing" that creates and determines the laws, access, what your freedom will actually be in your current choice or maybe it's not your choice, but of where you are living.  That cloak grew heavy and it's the young people that wanted to make a change because they were going to be damned if they never said anything or fought for something that could change not only their lives, but the younger generations that followed.

This movement was real, it was empowering for those involved, and the government took any precautions they could before it got too bedazzled and out of hand- hence the heroin involved that they tried to get members of the movement addicted to.

Even though the movement eventually failed and was disconnected to it's purpose, I think what they achieved was still incredible.

Week 3--. Non-violence protest

Civil Rights, Pilgrimage, RatCO & Non-violent protesting

Over winter break I went on a civil rights pilgrimage which is offered at UW- Eau Claire. I heard about the trip from my brother who went on it the previous winter and he strongly encouraged me to go. Not only did I go, but I did it alone and was able to gain so much from the experience. 

Myself and one of the original Freedom Riders, Charles Person. 

This man encouraged us to get involved in our communities, 

to represent something bigger than ourselves, 

and to not be afraid to fight for our passions.

A homeless woman I got the chance to photograph 

and meet/hug in Birmingham, Alabama outside of 16th St. Baptist Church.

The church was bombed in 1963 due to the violence that

resonated from the Civil Rights Movement-- four girls

died in result from the bombing.

 Sleeping on a coach bus and hotel after hotel is not for the faint of heart. It was all worth it though. We followed the path of Martin Luther King Jr. and went to many civil rights museums. We saw where Bloody Sunday went down and also walked across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama. We met Joanne Bland, a woman who was part of the civil rights movement in Selma. Ms. Bland told us horrific stories of seeing violence in the streets on Bloody Sunday and witnessing it at such a young age--she actually had been to jail about 5 times by the time she was 12 she said. Ms. Bland had been a part of the non-violent protesting going on during the civil rights movement. She is a hero of the movement and many heroes of the movement are forgotten about because their names may have not been in the paper or on the television screens, but it's these people that used non-violent means and were part of the mass that accredited for the elimination of segregation that helped evolve the United States of America in to what it is today. We've come a long way, but by no means are we perfect in equality or justice. 

A $40,000 cash reward for a Ku Klux Klan general's

stone head in Selma, AL. The government is predominantly

run by members of the clan, and unfortunately

the town's black citizens are forced

to witness inequality.

I want to focus on non-violent protesting. Modern non-violence protesting (or sometimes referred to as "resistance" and civil disobedience) was popularized by Ghandi, the freedom fighter of India. Ghandi set the stage for many movement leaders to come due to his resilient efforts. Non-violent protesting allows the persons/corporations/institutions/laws/etc. being protested against to rethink their actions/notions/barriers because people protesting are able to come up with creative and innovative methods that try to first recognize them and then create ways to reform them. By using non-violent means, protesters are able to ask for what they want hoping that they receive it without using brute force and violence. In the situation of Bloody Sunday, non-violent protesters were seen to ensue violence upon them from the police in return for their strength, vigilance, and direct action which was seen in Joanne Bland's story. Violent protesting is a thing of the past and has proven faulty in order to accomplish any sort of goal. It makes the protesters look weak, arrogant, and unjust in themselves and organization. I can only hope that non-violence protesting, meditation, civil disobedience, and other forms of direct action and peacemaking can only leak further in to more individuals and more societies...

 The church where Martin Luther King and MLK Jr. 

preached at as pastors of the Sweet Auburn community.

 Pastor F.D. Reese who helped MLK Jr. 

set up the march of Bloody Sunday

 across Edmund Pettus bridge.

The one, the only...Rosa Parks.

So teaching non-violence may be a way to create self-love and love of others, but also demands what you want and what you need without inflicting any physical harm? Yes. 

One part of the trip that really stuck out to me about non-violence protesting was when we visited RatCo (Random Acts of Theater Company). RatCo defines themselves like this, 

----"So much more than a community theatre program, Random Acts of Theatre Company (RATCo for short), goes all out to empower young people – no matter their background, economic status, physical ability, race or ethnicity – by teaching teamwork, self-expression, and the value of giving back." 

Here's a little more in-depth look at what they do exactly and how they operate: The Freedom Foundation is really a group of remarkable volunteers that are committed to seeing the next generation have a good chance at life. The organization is completely 

volunteer-based, and is run by people who want to help develop, educate, train, encourage and assist the next generation. They are old, young, rich, poor, working and retired, but the one thing all volunteers have in common is a heart to serve. It’s pretty amazing how a common cause can bring such diverse people together. Some volunteers give their time on the front lines with the kids at weekly rehearsals, while others support through coordinating events or fundraising activities, and still others donate their professional skills such as marketing or accounting to help keep the organization going. For example, this entire website was made possible through donated time and talent of our volunteers – pretty incredible, huh? There is a place for everyone to serve in the Freedom Foundation – just let us know what your interest is and we’ll find a place for you.

They turned a church building in Selma in to a place for these kids/children/teenagers to express themselves and feel loved. They fed all 90 of us on the trip with a home cooked meal prepared by all volunteers, and then we watched the kids perform a few dances on the stage...break dances as well-- and they killed it! One teenage boy recited a free verse poem/piece of writing that brought tears to my eyes. He spoke of the violence in Selma, the gangs, and that his best friend had died less than a year ago due to the harsh reality of living in Selma. He expressed that RatCo had given him a second chance and gives him the safety and love he so longs for. RatCo has become a home to many and is just one example of a way to teach non-violent ways of expressing oneself through art and dance. RatCo also teaches a non-violent protesting class, which I am hoping to take one day. I think it's so important that we as people realize there are other ways of getting what you want without hurting anybody in the process. Non-violent classes can help boost our creativity and thinking in how we can go about changing a certain problem that is affecting our lives. This could help us in our personal life, relationships, friendships, and so much more. 

Non-violence to me is like.......so rad. 

I'll end it there. 

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http://freedomfoundation.org/

http://uweccivilrightspilgrimage.blogspot.com/