Category Archives: Justice and peace

New Orleans, day three

Day 3 of our service trip to New Orleans

Our work assignment today was at Our School at Blair Grocery in the Lower Ninth Ward. Ten years ago, Blair Grocery had been a grocery, but it went out of business a decade or so ago. In 2008, a school was established to serve young people from the Lower Ninth Ward who basically hadn’t gone to school since Hurricane Katrina. A big part of the curriculum of the school is urban farming, and they sell the produce and eggs they raise in the neighborhood. So the people running Blair Grocery are not only addressing education through youth empowerment, they’re also addressing food security in the Lower Ninth Ward, a part of New Orleans that still doesn’t have a supermarket.

We were assigned two tasks at the beginning of the day. Carol, Maya, Nina, and I went to work on their main compost windrow, which was ten feet high, twenty feet wide, and perhaps fifty feet long. It was spreading out too much so we put up a fence made of pallets to contain one of the long sides. Then we climbed up on top of the heap and began shoveling the pile down against the fence. Compost piles get pretty hot — this one was steaming — and the day was blazing hot, so we took it easy so we didn’t get too overheated.

Blair Grocery is working several empty lots in the Lower Ninth. If you pay taxes on a vacant lot for three years in New Orleans, you wind up owning the lot. Blair Grocery has found some empty lots that are unlikely to be claimed by the old owners, and has been building gardens on them. The soil is not very good, so they truck in composted manure to grow vegetables in. The other group used wheelbarrows to move composted manure from one lot, where there is an established garden, to a new lots they’re now working. When it got too hot to work on the big compost windrow, some of us went over to help with this project. After lunch, we worked on several different things: sifting compost, rebuilding a wood rack

It’s amazing how many empty lots and empty houses there are in the Lower Ninth. This used to be a neighborhood where the houses are close enough together that you could talk with your neighbors next door through an open window; now only one house in ten is occupied, and it seems like more than half the lots no longer have houses. On many blocks, there’s only one occupied house.

We felt good about what we did today. Working at Blair Grocery seemed like a good way to support the community in the Lower Ninth Ward, which was one of the hardest-hit parts of the city, and which has been one of the slowest to recover.

Next post in the trip diary.

New Orleans, day two

It’s late at night, so just a quick summary:

We attended worship this morning with First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans. We got to meet people from the two other groups that are here volunteering through the Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal:– the youth group from the Columbus, Ohio, Unitarian Universalist church, and youth and adults from the Monterey Unitarian Universalist church.

In the afternoon, we received a general orientation, and then cultural sensitivity training, particularly around issues of race, and the peculiarities of New Orleans culture.

This evening, we finally got out work assignments. Work assignments will include Blair Grocery, Rev. Josie’s Food Pantry, Animal Rescue of New Orleans, Green Light, and Growing Home. More on our assignments later.

Next post in the trip diary.

In New Orleans

We arrived in New Orleans about three hours ago, rented our cars, and got to First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans where we’ll be staying. On the plane here, I wound up sitting next to two women from New Orleans. They told us about all the good cheap places to eat, talked about how angry they are with BP, and told me a little bit about how the continued cleanup is going.

Tomorrow, we will attend an orientation session with the groups from the UU churches in Monterey, Calif., and Columbus, Ohio. We will get our final work assignments then.

Next post in the trip diary.

Off to New Orleans

Tomorrow morning, I’m heading off to New Orleans with our church youth group to participate in rebuilding work. Yes, New Orleans is still being rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina. Now, we will not be cleaning up the BP oil spill — apparently volunteers aren’t allowed to work on cleaning up the oil yet (’cause, ya know, BP is doing such a good job on its own).

Will post more from new Orleans beginning tomorrow evening….

Next post in the trip diary.

Three useful acronyms

LULU (loo’ loo) — acronym for “Locally Unwanted Land Uses”; a LULU is something that a developer or land owner wants to build in, but abutters and other neighbors don’t want. LULUs can include prisons, toxic waste dumps, wind turbine farms, high-speed rail lines, halfway houses, churches, etc.

NIMBY (nim’ bee) — acronym for “Not In My Back Yard”.” Both developers and environmentalists use the acronym pejoratively to describe persons who fight to keep a project out of their neighborhood. Environmentalists may call opponents of the Cape Wind projects NIMBYs; developers call environmentalists NIMBYs on a regular basis.

PIBBY (pib’ bee) — acronym for “Put It in the Blacks’ Back Yard” or “Put It in the Browns’ Back Yard.” Used to explain the high incidence of LULUs in communities of color, based on lack of political access for those communities, blindness of mainstream environmentalism, job or economic blackmail, etc. Example: “NIMBYism leads to the PIBBY syndrome.”

Racial wealth gap increases fourfold

Thomas M. Shapiro, Tatjana Meschede, and Laura Sullivan of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (affiliated with the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University) have released a new Research and Policy Brief, “The Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold”. Shapiro et al. summarize their findings in the opening paragraph of the brief:

“New evidence reveals that the wealth gap between white and African American families has more than quadrupled over the course of a generation. Using economic data collected from the same set of families over 23 years (1984 2007), we find that the real wealth gains and losses of families over that time period demonstrate the stampede toward an escalating racial wealth gap.”

In their coverage of this, the BBC quote Shapiro as saying, “There continues to be a persistence of racial segregation.” Later, they quote him as saying, “I was shocked by how large the number was…. I’ve been in this research business, and looking at similar kinds of issues, for a long period of time, but even in my cynical and jaded moments I didn’t expect that outcome over one generation.”

I was going to offer some theological commentary, but I’m too pissed off by this news. This is about the only time I’ve wished I were a hellfire and brimstone preacher.

Network of Spiritual Progressives conference

I wish I could attend the conference held by the Network of Spiritual Progressives June 11-14, “Strategies for Liberals and Progressives for the Obama Years.” It looks like it will be an educational opportunity, a time to worship with spiritual progressives from many faiths, and an opportunity to work on regional strategies (and yes even an chance to demonstrate in front of the White House for those who need it).

This conference has a truly ugly Web page, but I’m impressed by the list of people who will be speaking or leading workshops: Rev. Brian McLaren, Bill McKibben, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Sharon Welch, David Korten, Rev. James Forbes, Gary Dorrien, and other prominent spiritual progressives (Sharon Welch is the only Unitarian Unviersalist whom I recognized). Good grief, even Marianne Williamson will speak. Some of the workshops sound pretty good: “The Legacy of Racism and How It Continues in Obama’s America”; “The Growth of an Indigenous American Fascism”; “America’s Endless Wars: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, North Korea, and What’s Next?” (Pacifist that I am, I would love to attend that last workshop.)

I can’t attend — I’ll be on a service trip with our church’s youth group — but I’m wondering if there are any Unitarian Universalists besides Sharon Welch who will be there. Are you going to this conference?

Straight Edge for our time

A couple of days ago, I happened to be looking up Rev. Hank Peirce, and stumbled on a 2008 interview with Hank in Double Cross, a hardcore fanzine. The interviewer asked Hank about his straight-edge reputation:

[Doublecross:] When did you become Hank Straight Edge and not just Hank? Were you straight edge the second you heard of the concept?… Are you still proudly straight edge?

…You are right on with the description of how I became Straight Edge, as soon as I heard the concept I was sold. I already wasn’t doing drugs or drinking and was so psyched that there was a name for it and bands who were singing about it…. I just looked at how all of the idealism of the 60s shit the bed once drugs were introduced. Fuck, the kids getting high and drunk in [my home]town were the ones who I was getting into fights with every day, so why the fuck would I want to be like them in any way?

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