Genderful Summer?

At the end of last semester, I auditioned to be in a directing project one-act play. I did theater throughout high school, and after working in the Macalester Theater and Dance department all year, I decided it was time for me to actually get involved in a performance. So, I tried out, and got in. Despite my high hopes to make it into an absurd play entitled “Soap Opera,” I was cast in the melodramatic and slow “Night, Mother.” There were only two parts in the play – a mother and daughter – and the entire play takes place on a Saturday evening when the daughter decides to commit suicide. The play is pretty much carried entirely on dialogue, as the mother, Thelma, tries to convince her child, Jessie, not to go through with her plan. Intimidating role, right? I had done only one lead in high school, and never been in a play this dramatic. There were a million concerns on my mind about conveying this character correctly when I showed up to the first rehearsal, but one element I had not even considered was ironically the first thing on the director’s agenda.

He opened our practice by stating that he understood the “gender and power dynamic” taking place with this project, and that there was something to be noted about one male director asking two female actresses to be incredibly vulnerable on stage. Admittedly, I hadn’t even given it any thought, and the speech sounded so token private liberal arts college. The only thought that ran through my head was, “yup, I’m at Macalester.” I’m not sure I really bought it. In fact, it made me a little uncomfortable.

As did reading this article in the New York Times a couple weeks ago:

...uhh.....

So, as is expected, I was a little apprehensive about the Anti Oppression discussion we had last Thursday for Summer of Solutions. The theme was gender and sexuality. I’m going to go ahead and make a blog-style confession: I consider myself an ardent feminist, but these conversations make me uneasy. I’m fine with yelling about female power, seeing the Vagina Monologues, or talking about gender in politics for a class, but when I’m asked to admit that I, as a woman, am inherently in a position of less priviledge, less entitlement, and institutionalized oppression, makes me nauseous. I guess the same thing can be said about me being an ethnic minority, but I often regard being a Pakistani American Muslim as a transitioning identity – sometimes I’m on the receiving end of racism, sometimes I’m surrounded by people who consider me to be “white.”

In any case, while I wanted to hear these issues being discussed, I hesitate to be labeled as a “have-not” which is inherent in the activity we were about to do. We began by creating “gender boxes” which described all the framework of conduct, appearance, and demeanor within which contemporary societal values have placed each of the genders. So, for men, “appropriate” characteristics are being aggressive, having a tremendous sex drive, and being hairy. For women, we listed things like being attractive, timid, and a follower.

We went on to examine specific instances during the summer where we’ve felt very “aware of our gender.” I suppose this is where the conversation got the most intense.

I have a fear, a real and consistent fear, that I will be demeaned or harassed because of my gender when I’m communicating with partners or community members we’re working with. And I’ve never really admitted it. But this conversation kind of forced me to confess that it was there, because other girls in the room were willing to admit the same thing. Honestly, it was really difficult. What was worse is that I didn’t leave the conversation feeling like I had discovered a solution to the problem, but more like I reached a dead end because this is simply the way things are. I didn’t really have any revelations about what I can do to solve this, except to recognize that it exists and to negate those thoughts when they come into my head.

I did leave this anti oppression session thinking about the list of potential solutions for a “wonderful, genderful summer!” that myself and my fellow Summer of Solutions participants came up with. The one most applicable to me? Recognizing that fear when it comes in my head, because if I don’t negate it the moment it approaches, nobody else will.

Heavy business to think about! And I just wanted to volunteer for a summer! I'm still glad that SoS is forcing me to think about these things – I’ve found that this kind of insight doesn’t come from meditating on my own about these issues. That’s what the core of anti-oppression means: conversation.

MidSummer Slump?!

My sincerest apologies for not posting for a couple days; the SoS folks have been really busy during this first month as our projects have gotten under way. I spent all of last Wednesday working on community gardens with the Harrison Neighborhood Association, one of our community partners in North Minneapolis. A couple other SoS volunteers and myself worked on "beautifying" the gardens by planting flowers around the beds. At one point, though, I found myself questioning the allocation of funds towards flowers when the main concern in this part of Minneapolis is food security. It didn't really make sense to me that the HNA would be spending their money on aesthetics when there are people to be fed. In my past research and work on Urban Agriculture, I considered this to be the primarily goal of community gardening, so I was a little dismayed at this effort.
After a couple hours of early morning work, the plants were all in the soil, and the garden we were working on looked infinitely different. AND THAT'S WHERE I HAD AN EPIPHANY.

Not really. Part of my understanding of this effort is that we need to prioritize our goals, and I will always consider food security to be a primary goal. However, I did come to a realization about the targets we set, and I may be looking at things the wrong way. Certainly, it's easy to arrange them in a list: task 1, task 2, task 3. But, something I've noticed about community development is that it's integrative. A beautified garden - in this case, HNA's Gramercy "Perennial Peace Garden" - is communicating something about the community wide values that go hand in hand with goals like food security and job creation. The work that we did on the garden was in order to create a useful, beautiful, valuable green space for the residents of a community that is considered a "food desert" because of the lack of fresh produce available. In this case, I guess I came to the realization that the goals that seem less "concrete" than food security are just as important because they nourish the community values (pun intended!) necessary for development on a wider scale.

Here's a photo!

This is the HNA's Logan Garden in North Minneapolis. We spent a lot of time putting compost on the beds and staking up tomatoes and beans on Wednesday.



Most of the rest of last week, I was working on research for the ARISE coalition, our partner for Green Industry. At this point in the summer, it's pretty easy to drown under the workload and focus on specific tasks rather than the overall vision that brought me here. This week especially, I found myself stressing about making specific contacts and completing mini projects. I had a moment on Wednesday night where I was looking online for information about year round farming techniques on industrial sites, and began to panic that this work was futile and never would be realistically implemented.
For ARISE, we're trying to compile a template that can be used for re developing industrial sites into multiple use green manufacturing centers. The sites will include residential space, commercial space, food production, industrial buildings, transportation, and a slew of other really awesome things. The only glitch is, this tremendous undertaking can be a little intimidating at times. I suppose I was starting to feel that my rudimentary Google search of "green roof job creation" wasn't going to take us anywhere. Which is a legitimate concern, I think.
It wasn't until Thursday morning's meeting when we reanalyzed our goals that I felt a little more stable about this effort. I suppose one of my main concerns is getting bogged down in the semantics of each project, and losing sight of the ultimate goal. ARISE has our eyes on a few sites throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul, and we've made contacts in relation to each one. We've been speaking to city council members and other political entities. Everyone has completed a ton of research up until this point. In short, we are making amazing progress for a project that was allocated only 2 months of our time.

So, moral of the story: the Midsummer Slump has probably been hitting SoS volunteers all over the place, but I think handling it is just a matter of considering the integrative effort we're laying down while we're here. And, of course, the long term goal of changing the world. Probably something to be excited about.

Oh, and P.S.: This is Inextricably Linked to Everything.

While I’m going to town getting hyper defensive about my intentions with SoS, I may as well explain the “why” that brought me here. There’s the obvious: I wanted something to do with my summer, I wanted to be busy, I wanted to learn, make connections. I could even slap on “ I care so deeply about this” for a more skeptical audience.

Honestly, however, I do want to say some things that, in my experience, have been overlooked by people who are not directly involved in this movement. There’s a face that goes charmingly words like sustainability or environmentalism. Think upper middle class, typically white, with an amount of disposable income that can be devoted to promoting “a good cause.” And this is where I’d like to make my point: this vague nature thing, glorified by hippies and politicians alike, is not a good cause, it is the good cause. Sound biased? Read on:

This is linked to EVERYTHING.

Something that frustrates me most about the image that goes with environmentalists is the assumption that we’re doing this for one specific reason. Allow me to refute that argument: I’m not here to save the polar bears. Or protect forests. All these things are important, certainly, but I’m not spending 30 hours a week on this because I love nature. While that may be true, it's irrelevant. I’m an advocate of going green because I believe that the unsustainable economy is linked to every single aspect of our lives. Our dependence on a single energy source is why wars are being fought worldwide. It's why people living in urban areas face dozens more health risks than those who don't. It's one of the reasons the poor are exploited. It’s why women, and minorities like American Muslims (like me), face discrimination.

Do I even need to mention the gulf of Mexico? Ok, so the water there does not look pretty after the BP oil spill. Tons of wildlife is being sacrificed, but I want to redirect the focus towards the people who are suffering. Businesses that will never recover. Families that will starve because they don't have a stable income. It terrifies me to think of what will happen when hurricane season comes around. Are we equipped to deal with another disaster, when the Katrina cleanup is still taking place?

Last Friday, Majora Carter, an environmental and social activist, came to the Twin Cities to speak at a forum titled "Green the Ghetto." She was emphasizing the role of low income, minority communities (like the one she grew up in) in sustainable practices. Honestly, I thought it was a pretty awesome idea because she's essentially trying to change the face of environmentalism so that it applies to more people. Majora talked about the South Bronx, her childhood neighborhood, an area that has felt the repercussions of the unsustainable economy more than others. She talked about how banks made the decision not to give out loans within a certain area covering the South Bronx. They just named that area a "no loan zone." Sounds like institutionalized racism to me. It made me nauseous. So instead of new businesses forming in this area, waste management facilities started to take over the neighborhood.

Majora went on to explain how fossil fuel emissions actually affect children's learning capabilities, crime rates, and jobs. And this kind of thing is happening in neighborhoods all over America. It brings me back to my main point. Environmentalism is not just for people who love nature. It's about stopping exploitation, oppression, discrimination. It's about lifting people out of poverty, which, as Majora stated, "knows no color." Until we rethink things, people will suffer because of a lack of global consciousness. So that's a (not so) short explanation of why I chose to be here.

What I learn this summer and what I do with that knowledge is going to have a global ripple effect, or at least I hope so.

Wait a minute...Can I Say Something?

READ:

For pretty obvious reasons (i.e., Captain Planet is heroic, I am maniacal).

Really though, I need to make some clarifications before I move forward with this program, and especially with this record of what I'm doing. I have reservations about the effort - I can't help but worry that I'm being seen as a missionary, a charity worker, the most privileged, or the one who gets to do this just because I can. And, what's more, I detest the image that's attached to this kind of work: the upper middle class, pretentious, liberal arts student who's been given a healthy dosage of left-leaning guilt because of socioeconomic standing. I want it to be eliminated completely, but I fear that hope may be problematic because it seems that the more I try to abolish this misconception, the more it perpetuates itself.

On Thursday night, I agreed to facilitate an Anti Oppression workshop at an SoS meeting. Hannah, an SoSer who goes to Barnard College in New York, helped me organize the list of things I wanted to hear people talk about, but I had very specific ideas about where I wanted the discussion to go.

This whole "do-good/help others/make the world a better place" idea, the mindset I believe we're socially conditioned to follow, irritates me. It implies philanthropy, or charity, rather than reciprocity, which is truly why I want to be here. For the Anti Oppression discussion, I asked people to fill out a questionnaire about their socioeconomic background, which made me uncomfortable in the first place, but which I thought was necessary to get at the divides that lie between us. I have always felt privileged. I've never been deprived of anything materially. Yet, growing up in a wealthy suburb of Milwaukee, there were times when I felt less socioeconomic privilege than others. It's absurd to think of how driving a Honda rather than a Lexus to school may have categorized me in a group separate from my peers, but it did. And the experience has forced me to reflect on the significance of context.

There are some clear socioeconomic divides between myself and the people I'm working with this summer. The neighborhood that Summer of Solutions is based in has a median income that is only 35% of the median income in the greater Twin Cities area. Most people living there are people of color or of ethnic minorities. Make no mistake, there is a tremendous contextual gap between the college students working on this program and the residents of the Phillips community. That's where I want to draw a distinction. I am nobody's savior but my own. I don't intend to rescue the planet; although that would be nice, it's just not realistic. It even came up in the discussion that people had concerns about the name "Summer of Solutions" because it implies that we know everything and we're here to impose our beliefs on those who don't.

Two participants in the discussion brought up interesting points about this topic. One said they worried that the only way people regard the "middle class" is as a group of individuals who are perceived to have more wealth than others and are only capable of doing good in the world by redistributing that wealth to who they consider to be the "have nots." Another person's comment also got me thinking: they basically said that if people look to help others in the world without helping themselves, they're stupid. they were getting at a point about everything being reciprocal, and how self interest is embedded in all motivations. I can't stress how much I agree with that notion; the work I am here to do this summer is for mutual benefit, and I intend for it to be perceived no other way.

Ok, so that was a long time rambling about some pretty vague ideas that have been turning over in my head the past couple days. I think it's important though to make it clear what my intentions are for this summer. I heard about the program last semester and figured it would be cool to give it a shot, so here I am. There's a reason I'm not at home in Milwaukee with friends and family - I feel that I'm truly going to have a life changing experience.

On that very exciting note, I'll close this entry. I'm going to be keeping these things in mind as I move forward with SoS and think about my personal goals for the summer. Wooot!!

"Herb" N Agriculture, Building Bikes!

Ok, I'll admit that I didn't actually build my bike by myself (that would be impressive), but I did learn a lot about basic bike maintenance last night at Sibley Bike Depot in St. Paul. Every Tuesday night from 6-9, they host Women and Trans night, an open shop designed specially for women to fix up and learn about their bikes. Alicia is one of the workers at Sibley, and she runs it every week. Last evening, she showed me how to bend the springs in my brakes so I wouldn't need to buy new ones. Yes!

Women and Trans night is one of a bunch of projects Summer of Solutions is teaming up with Sibley's to work on, alongside community outreach, volunteer coordination, and creating a "bike library" where people can borrow and return bikes as needed. The Twin Cities were recently named the most 'bikeable' cities in America, and Sibley's is working to empower more people to use bikes as a regular form of transportation. Nathan, another Sibley's employee, told Summer of Solutions that he's been completely car free for a year and a half! What I found really cool about the Women's project is that the open shop is not only designed so that ladies can get their bikes fixed up, but also for skills sharing, so that people gain the knowledge they need to ride their bikes more regularly. I attended with fellow solutionary thinker Martha Psowski, who also fixed up her bike. She unfortunately did have to pay for some new brakes, but both of our bikes look great.



There's Martha on the right, putting a rack on her bike.


It reminded me of the movie "Burn After Reading" where Brad Pitt's character sarcastically goes, "You think I ride I Schwinn!"
Yup, Martha's got a Schwinn, and a pretty sexy one at that.


So, changing pace, I spent part of today at my internship in St. Paul, and after being in the office for 3 and a half hours, I was ready to play. I drove over to the SoS house in South Minneapolis and from there some of us walked over to a handful of community gardens just a couple blocks down the street. We spent most of the afternoon in a gardening workshop with Lynn Mayo, one of our community partners. She's set up a group of community gardens open to residents in the Phillips area. When I signed up to do SoS, I was really excited to learn more about urban agriculture, so it was awesome to get my hands dirty and throw earthworms at other volunteers. Lynn showed us one of her gardens that's super diverse (she has everything from strawberries to garlic to medicinal herbs planted there) and talked a little about permacultures and how to avoid soil depletion. We learned how to double dig, a technique that airs out the soil and turns the nutrients over to the top. We also picked a bunch of wild lettuce and garlic to take to the SoS house:


Right to left: there's Brian, a full time participant, Phoebe, a part time intern with the Step Up program, and Willy, a program leader, holding a bucket of wild lettuce to take home. Yum, noms!


In conclusion, here's a random thought: what in the world is this bite on my neck? I think it's a bed bug, but for all I know, it could be some really poisonous spider from the Amazon that found its way to my house in St. Paul. Umm....


I feel like encounters with creepy bugs is some kind of trend among us solutionaries. I still don't have an answer for this one. Those are the updates for now, more solutions later!

Creating Food Security: Empty Plot to Urban Farm

Yesterday morning, a handful of us Summer of Solutions participants and volunteers showed up at the St. Olaf Community Center in North Minneapolis for a "farm raising" event. The goal: turn a grassy plot of unused land into a community garden over the course of one day. Pretty intimidating task, right? Not to mention the fact that parts of North Minneapolis have been labeled a "food desert," where a shortage of fresh fruits and vegetables has had deadly impacts on the health of residents in the area. Most of us have signed up for the Urban Agriculture project as part of the Summer of Solutions; others just came because they had free time. We found ourselves in a parking lot with dozens of other volunteers, ages ranging from under 10 to over 50, with piles of compost, mulch and cardboard in front of us. There was a 40% chance of rain. We were there because we had voiced our commitment to food security, to urban agriculture, to the green economy, and to changing a global mindset.

The Summer of Solutions program I'm participating in this year is based in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Most of the day to day operations take place in a house in the Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis, where many of the participants live. There are a little more than 30 of us, environmentalists and political/social activists from all over the country, who have hopped on board with the Summer of Solutions. SoS is run through Grand Aspirations, a national network of young leaders working to halt climate change, create economic security and ensure social justice. We're driven by all kinds of experiences and ideas, but we find ourselves in the same place - a lower income, minority neighborhood which has faced some of the toughest impacts of climate change and the unsustainable economy. The program will run until July 31st - officially. From there, we'll take what we've learned and try to initiate a pandemic, until we get everyone to start seeing green.

We spent most of Saturday on the St. Olaf Community Center's lawn, laying cardboard over the grass and shoveling soil on top. The volunteer force peaked at about 35 in the middle of the day, and we watched the mountain of compost shrink as the beds were arranged and seeds were planted. There's something humbling about the process of moving dirt and realizing that this is where life comes from, why we live and eat and breathe. Compost is, of course, warm - there's tons of bacteria and nutrients crawling around inside of it. Watching steam rise from the piles in front of our garden - and realizing that food will soon rise out of our collaborative effort - was a reminder that we're growing more than a single farm. We spent about 5 hours working on the garden, and by the end of the day, we sat under a tent in the pouring rain, picking the dirt off our hands and watching as the seeds were buried. The transformation of the land was inspiring because it was visible; we're just using small projects as a means to satisfy a large scale vision. We're starting on a half-block wide plot of land, and this movement won't end until the entire globe is a part of it.