Detroit-part 14 (Allied Media Conference, Hurricane Season, Assembly of Anti Zionist Jews )

Excerpts from my journal while in Detroit, moving backwards (not always), last to first.

About deindustrialization, depopulation, residential and commercial vacancy, corruption of capitalism—and the rise of urban gardens, local resistance and activist organizations—ending with news about the US Social Forum, Allied Media Conference, and the first public national gathering of anti-Zionist Jews in the United States.

In several parts, with periodic photos and videos.

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares
she raises her voice.
At the busiest corners she cries out;
at the entrance to the City gates she speaks.

—Proverbs 1:20-21

June 20, 2010, Sunday, Detroit, home of KD

One major epiphany during the Allied Media Conference workshops yesterday: the parallel between the Wounded Knee massacre and the Nakba . Both were pivotal events in the history of the peoples affected, both were deeply meaningful to me, and I suffered neither of them.

This came to me during the indigenous workshops that described the first-ever US indigenous delegation to Israel-Palestine. The official title was Palestine is Turtle Island, Indigenous Organizing to End the Occupation. Last August a group of youth connected with Haskell University in Kansas, once a notoriously punishing American Indian school, saw the parallels between Indians in this country and Palestinians. They met with comparable youth in Palestine and now are hoping to connect with similar groups in this country, namely PEP, the Palestine Education Project. And indeed, this was the source of their insight. They’d attended a PEP workshop last year, inspired by what they learned. The story of the occupation spreads.

Earlier I’d attended a workshop called “Hurricane Season: Unearthing Solutions in an Era of Unnatural Disaster,” which brought me close up to the two women who’d performed the night before at the plenary. They performed more excerpts from the piece called Hurricane Season: the Hidden Messages in Water, traveling to 50 cities across the US with an all women crew. As I wrote X, this was among the best photo presentations I’ve ever seen. I am simultaneously intimidated and inspired. I videoed portions of it, hoping to include also the section with narration by Arundhati Roy—which I was unable to do.

The 2 performers, Alixa and Naima, the soul-sister duo known collectively as Climbing Poetree, ended by inviting people to connect via a rope—say what you’re doing for justice and grab a section of rope. One initiated the rope net by stating what he was doing providing free medical services, another chimed in about a free food service project, etc, until about 10 people were linked together. I thought of adding my volunteer work in Israel-Palestine, but deferred to youth so they could tell their stories.

Continuing the array of exciting workshops I attended was Our Hearts are Bigger Than Their Maps, presented by PEP based in Brooklyn. This is a group of largely high school youth who offer workshops that demonstrate the parallels between life in American cities and life in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. Especially centered on prisons. We were invited to form a prison machine, made by individuals miming some aspect of the prison, such as control, cement, noise. I met again Carlos who I spoke with later about visiting the Brooklyn high school where they work, thinking on one of my trips to visit family I can drop by the school. I videoed portions of this workshop, when folks wrote on large paper what they could do without, and what they needed, such as injustice for the first and fairness for the second.

For the opening workshop I arrived late, How Social Media can Amplify Palestinian Voices and Support the Global Movement for BDS (Boycott-Divestment-Sanction). I remet the woman from American Muslims for Palestine as she and 2 others from Jewish Voice for Peace laid out action plans for supporting the BDS movement.

In each workshop I was moved and learned a great deal. In the BDS workshop I was moved to tears during a series of videoed interviews with University of California Berkeley students working for divestment, especially when Jews were shown, so heartful and honest and courageous.

On the bus to the center of Detroit, from where I was staying to the Conference, I finally realized I could make a video showing the vacant lots, empty store fronts, wide streets (perhaps planned to encourage auto use), and the people who inhabit these areas, largely black and poor. So I made one long take out the window, with a dim reflection showing passengers. I continued this and heard, nearly missed hearing, a discussion between a passenger and the driver about Grand Boulevard, my connecting stop. Good grief, this is my stop! Forgetting to turn the camera off I continued videoing as I confirmed with the driver that this was the connection with the Dexter Ave bus and where to catch it. Just in time, all on video.

By now, as I suggested to Karen, I’m becoming an expert on some sections of Detroit. Just in time to leave. Altho since I’m committed to nearly 3 weeks in or around Motown, I have a few more days to build and demonstrate my expertise. Meeting Karen at the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network assembly, we drove home together, a ride of about 15 minutes, compared with 1 hour by bus in the morning when all is well, and 3 hours at night when all is not well.

Accepting a general invitation from the Media Conference organizers to “dump” our video and photo files for their later use, I visited the media lab. Participants were building small output radio transmitters, learning how to make music via computer, editing videos, and one, me, was dumping files. How these will be used, whether these will be used are questions I cannot answer. In the spirit of sharing and trust, I donate my work.

By contrast with the Media Conference and its spirited use of popular education teaching principles—interactive, engaging, fun, lively, sharing wisdom and knowledge—the 2010 US Assembly of Jews Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid used, at least last night for its opening session, that old banking model. This is the top down, lecture mode: assemble a group of experts who will impart their knowledge to a relatively empty vessel, you and me. As thrilled as I am to be a small part of the first-ever such assembly, an historic occasion no doubt, after the buzz of the Media Conference, last night’s Assembly was dull.

But I learned a few things: Barbara Lubin, co-founder and director of MECA, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, is Jewish and not happy with Jewish-only organizations working on Israel-Palestine. I’m not sure why, maybe because the spread should be wider, as evidenced by MECA. Someone else compared snowflakes to diligent activism: snowflakes are virtually weightless, but when enough of them land and collect on a tree limb they can break it. Same with popular movements. The Israel Lobby has alerted its membership to the activity of this Assembly and the Assembly organizers have taken steps to prevent trouble, namely, organizing a group of peacekeepers and keeping tight security. Registration is required and all must wear their nametags. Those wishing not to be identified wear orange stickers on their nametags.

But beyond all this, the picture laid out by Mich Levy, formerly of Israel apparently—about the fact of Zionism being racist, that the Assembly is not going to debate Zionism, the anti Zionist struggle is part of a larger struggle against colonialism and imperialism, and action is the main theme—was comprehensive and itself—despite my reservations about the banking model—educational and powerful. I’d like to read it again, delve into its superb analysis.

The constituency differed also, from that of the Media Conference. Older, whiter, more conservatively dressed, but with the same presence of young daring vibrant women, probably many of them gay. Short hair predominated, across the age spectrum. As was true at the Media Conference. The young women are bucking the fashion of long, blow-dried hair prevailing with their peers.

Later, after KD and I had met, feeling the same mild zing with her that I felt and reported earlier, as if a dear long term friend I’ve known for decades, growing up together, fitting naturally together, not necessarily a romantic sexual partnership, we together, almost a couple, met Rick and his 4 friends, including Grove. We are all together in Karen’s house, me at the early hour of 5:30 AM, at the moment apparently the only one awake and working. Once again not much sleep, no nap, little food, the usual pattern for a conference, a fine opportunity to ditch my routine and not be so damned bored.

Today, the final day of the Media Conference, I’ve chosen to continue attending the Conference, despite my draw to the Anti Zionist Assembly, partly to attend certain workshops that appeal, such as the video conference between American Indian and Palestine youth, also to continue forging new relationships with fellow travelers. One of the benefits of staying with the Israel-Palestine theme in choosing workshops and events is I see the same people over and over and begin to form alliances. As with Carlos, for instance, and renew friendships, with Dunya and Hannah for other examples. Then the closing ceremony and I shall attempt to find my colleagues later at the Jewish Assembly.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

International Jewish Anti Zionist Network statement

Hurricane Season: the Hidden Messages in Water (link may not work)

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Detroit-part 13 (Allied Media Conference, urban gardening, the Heidelberg Project)

Excerpts from my journal while in Detroit, moving backwards (not always), last to first.

About deindustrialization, depopulation, residential and commercial vacancy, corruption of capitalism—and the rise of urban gardens, local resistance and activist organizations—ending with news about the US Social Forum, Allied Media Conference, and the first public national gathering of anti-Zionist Jews in the United States.

In several parts, with periodic photos and videos.

The lands have a mixture of sand, and in the neighboring forests there are bottoms almost constantly under water; however, these very lands have produced wheat eighteen years successively without the least manure, and you have no great way to go to find the finest soil in the world. With respect to woods, without going a great way from the fort [Ponchartrain] I have seen as I have been walking such as may vie with our noblest forests.

—Frances Xavier Charlevoix, a French settler and priest,
early 18th century

The Detroit area was a major crossroads for many indigenous tribes, including; Huron, Ottawa, Potawatomie, Wyandot, Iroquois, Chippewa, Ojibwa, Delaware, Shawnee and Miami (Poremba, 2001). The Native Americans extensively managed the lands of pre-European southern Michigan. They burned prairies and planted fruit trees and other crops, suppressing woodlands from large swaths of land and keeping hunting grounds open.

…By the end of World War 2, Detroit would produce over 90% of the vehicles used in the war, almost 90% of the bombs and helmets, and about 50% of the engines, tanks and machine guns (Poremba, 2001a). 500,000 Detroit men and women were enlisted in the services and participated in war efforts. Detroit was given the moniker ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ for its major industrial contributions to the war.

—Michael Yun, “Alternative Uses for Vacant Land in Detroit, Michigan”

PHOTOS

June 21, 2010, Monday, Detroit, home of KD

Summer solstice. Moon waxing. Father’s Day yesterday (Joey called, P wrote on my Facebook wall, no word yet from Katy).

As part of the Allied Media Conference , I attended a tour of Detroit called Another Detroit is Happening, A Look at Detroit’s Industrial Past and Visionary Future. Indicating the sentiments and perspectives of much of the media community, this tour was clearly oversubscribed, some 100 people, very eager to learn. We overwhelmed the tour leader, Rich Feldman. The trajectory was brilliantly composed: 1^st the Packard automotive plant, abandoned since the 1950’s and left alone, 2^nd, the General Motors Poletown plant as a form of transition between old and current, and finally the Feedom Freedom (Feedom is intended) growers, which is an urban garden, and the Heidelberg project, street art from junk.

This provided ample opportunities for photos and videos, plus background on Detroit which I’ll now list in no particular order:

Detroit is French for by the river. The city was founded by the French in the late 1770s, sits along a river connecting two Great Lakes, Huron and Erie, and was an Underground Railroad terminal into Canada. French urban planning loves boulevards, also parks. This explains the wide roads, and contradicts my earlier theory that they were built by auto manufacturers to encourage automobile use. No parks, or very few. What happened to the parks, did parks once exist at one stage of Detroit’s evolution? Are the numerous vacant lots the contemporary form of parks, a corrupted concept of park?

(Checking my map I learn that by the river borders the Detroit River, Lake St Clair on the north, Lake Erie on the south, indeed—by the river. Windsor Ontario is the Canadian city on the opposite side of the river.

The land area of Detroit matches Manhattan and San Francisco combined, roughly 240 square miles. The population in 1900 was approximately 1 million, 50 years later, about 2 million, and now has shriveled to around 900,000. While the current combined population of Manhattan and San Francisco is more than 9 million.

City owned Detroit vacancies (in black)

Some 1/3 of homes and lots are now vacant. Between 1978 and 1998 only 9000 building permits were issued for new homes in Detroit, while the city doled out over 108,000 demolition permits. Which indicates the scale of destitution and abandonment.

Related to the auto industry, Detroit hosted the first urban mall and the first interstate highway. This led to white flight, a major contributor to Detroit’s demise.

Possibly originating in Detroit, Devil’s Night is or was a tradition of deliberately burning houses on July 4^th, Independence Day, perhaps an offshoot of fireworks. A citizens’ group rose up and protected certain regions. On one street, Humboldt I believe, during one particular July 4^th, no homes burned, protected by neighbors, whereas on other nearby streets many homes were torched. In that region Devil’s Night became Angel’s Night.

Clicking on the image will produce a clearer version
of the demographic map

Detroit is segregated. The tour explored the East Side; I’m living in the west. I do not know the demographics of Detroit, maybe I can learn during my final week here.

The Studebaker automotive company bought Packard, then someone bought Studebaker and abandoned the plant. People now store boats on the property. One small side note: as I was photographing I noticed one woman of our group sitting against a graffitied wall. I photographed her, noticing out of the corner of my eye that she’d hiked her skirt on this hot day. I tried to get her attention before photographing, using the Lou Jones technique for asking permission [incrementally entering a scene, step by step, gradually photographing, observing body and oral language]. Either she didn’t notice me or didn’t react. After that exposure, she rearranged her skirt. I made one more photo, continued making photos of people against buildings, partly because I was interested in the theme, partly to demonstrate to her that I’d not singled her out because of her exposed panties.

On the tour I observed a large, brown-skinned woman on the school bus photographing with a large Canon camera. While holding coffee. While holding papers. She didn’t use her neck strap—the cool look of the day. She seemed to be photographing randomly out the window. Accidentally we shared a seat on the school bus. At one point we exchanged information about who we were. She told me, as a photojournalist I worked at [such and such]  for years, until I made a discovery and my life changed. Your discovery? The truth. The truth of what? Who I am. And then I caught on: she is a man, or was.

During this conversation on the bus, while she was trying to photograph, she dropped her coffee. A large brown pool beneath her feet, spreading. Coffee had splattered her brown skirt which she then dried by holding its lower portion to the window.

2^nd, the Poletown General Motors plant. This represents a form of transition, from old to new. Displacing hundreds of people, requiring a large infusion of money with promises of many jobs, the city helped build the plant. It works, sort of. Some jobs, some return on the investment, but not much in the eyes of our tour guide.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get in so we stood around for a long period in the sun listening to expert Rich fill us with all he knows about Detroit. Gifted in language, expert in history, deep in personal involvement, he lacks one crucial gift: brevity. Compression. Reading the audience. Ho hum, let’s get back on the bus.

I made a discovery about yet another way to show our crowd: sitting near the front of the bus with my woman-man colleague, I saw that people entering looked like they were rising up, floating up, as if resurrecting. So I used video to try to show this. I don’t think it worked, either because the backlight was too strong, washing out the faces, or too many gaps appeared between entrances, or I had to move to accommodate my late-returning partner.

3^rd, the Feedom Freedom Growers. I quickly spotted a promontory, a 5-foot high mound of earth that became my camera platform. More video [to be edited and posted later], more photos. While the founders of this enterprise, Wayne Curtis and Myrtle Thompson, knowing each other more than 10 years, partnered in this enterprise, recently married, explained the operation. A community garden based on socialist principles, from each, to each, includes a book club and peace zone. The garden helps assure food security, and is a clever and growing (no pun intended) method for reclaiming the vast stretches of burnt out, bombed out, left to rot territory.

Myrtle Thompson and Wayne Curtis

And 4^th, and finally (last and final call as train conductors are fond of announcing), the Heidelberg Project—junk turned into art, another form of reclamation. This is resurrection. Apparently in black urban communities teddy bears are a wide spread symbol of mourning. When someone is killed, a family member or friend places a teddy bear at the site, making a shrine, the bear a sign of innocence. So one house had a multitude of bears adoring its walls. Founded in 1986 by Tyree Guyton, a very persistent fellow because the city had torn down 2 previous manifestations, he returns, reconstructs—an indomitable spirit reminding me of Palestinians who rebuilt their homes demolished viciously by Israel. Rich explained that the neighborhood opposes the art. Reconciliation is in the works.

(I’d seen an earlier version of this on my previous visit to Detroit, around 1997 or so during my photo exhibit with Billy Ledger at the Swords into Plowshares gallery.)

During the tour I made more videos, further attempts to show Detroit as seen by our peripatetic community.

Rich Feldman told us some of his story. In the early 1970s he took a job with an automobile plant, painting the under chassis’s of cars. For some 10 years, specifically to foster the revolution. Then work with the union which he continues to this day. He is also part of organizations creating the new Detroit. Or trying. He has good politics, from my point of view, toward the revolution, from the bottom up, ML King’s revolution of values perhaps. He would be a good ally if I began a photo project here, if I could curtail his talkativeness.

Then the closing ceremony of the Allied Media Conference which was mostly selected workshop tracks exhibiting and talking about the workshops—dance, video, skit. I learned another technique for engaging a large group: the telephone exercise. One person on the end of each aisle spoke a word indicating what they could do without. Passed it to a neighbor, who passed it to a neighbor, etc, until the end of aisle. Then on cue all a the far ends shouted out one word, what we can do without. Misery, poverty, prejudice, etc. And then, cutting this short because of time, all shout out what we need. The facilitator, that young man or maybe woman (one can never be sure at this gathering) who I’d met in the Palestine Education Project workshop, said, I can’t hear all your words but they seem to say love. Which was exactly what I shouted out. Yes, we all need love. Love. Love. Love. All we need is love.

Of the right sort. Which is?

The Assembly of Anti Zionist Jews overlapped the media conference. The organizers of the Assembly heard complaints from the participants about too much talking and are adjusting the schedule and methods. More lively interchange, shorter presentations, more interactive like the Media Conference. One high point for me was hearing from a young Hampshire College student about the expanding student Anti Zionist network, a youthful level of the larger IJAN, the International Jewish Anti Zionist Network.

Between dinner and Assembly Karen and I stopped by the Unitarian Universalist church to try to view the Nakba photo exhibit, Our Story: Commemorating 60 years of Dispossession. I remembered that I might have contributed to this, invited by Hillary Rantizi months or years ago, not remembering hearing back from her about the final disposition. We couldn’t enter the exhibit—I plan to return—but looking thru the glass door I saw one of my photos from Gaza, women by the wall picking thru garbage.

One novel exercise I learned at the Allied Media Conference that I could use in my workshops, especially those upcoming at the US Social Forum: turn to a partner, answer what brought you to the gathering, what do you bring to the gathering, what do you expect to gain from the gathering, and one more. Each time to and from a different person. This from the Assembly, and applicable to my upcoming hydropolitics workshop.

During the workshop presented by Climbing PoeTree, called Hurricane Season: Unearthing Solutions in an Era of Unnatural Disaster, I noticed the loving couple watching the performance. Sitting immediately behind them, videoing them and the performance, they became part of my movie. Two women locked in an embrace, unsurpassable as an expression of mutual love. How long will they be together?

At the opening session of the Anti Zionist Assembly, commenting to Marla from Cambridge, I realized the Assembly might be like the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, kicking off the contemporary women’s and peace movements: an historic moment, small beginning of a large movement. I understand that a few women, Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucritia Mott and one other, all Quakers, gathered in someone’s kitchen, hit on the idea of a conference or convention bringing together women and their male allies to fight for women’s rights and those of enslaved Africans and their descendents. From such small beginnings do large oaks arise. Could be the same with IJAN.

One very vivid dream: I was launching a large airplane and an attached structure—as a kite, for kids. 1^st I had to launch the plane into the air, held by a few guy wires. I enlisted the help of a young man as an assistant. Once the plane was aloft, I ran to tie the main guy wire to a contraption I’d either found or invented, a large metal structure that had affixing points for the now multiple guy wires. We had to keep the wires taught, as when flying a kite, or the plane would crash. No one was on the plane.

The plane nearly hit the ground when a wire became stuck in trees. We rescued the plane. I placed the wire’s end in a socket on the contraption and signaled the waiting children that the ride was about ready to begin.

What ride? I’d arranged for kids, about 20 of them, around 10 years old, boys and girls, to ride on the contraption pulled by the kite-plane. Either I asked a head teacher for permission to do this or she’d already checked with parents and authorities and all was OK. Despite the obvious danger. This was my 1^st launch ever.

Kids exuberantly scampered thru mud—it was raining—slipping and sliding, and headed for the contraption. When the dream ended.

I don’t recall ever having a dream like this, with the machinery, my role, the kids, and I can’t think of a real life kick off event that might have inspired it. Purely imaginative. Maybe somehow a gift of the media conference. Makes life worth living.

TO BE CONTINUED

LINKS

Detroit Vacant Property Campaign

Alternative Uses for Vacant Land in Detroit, Michigan
A thesis submitted for a Master’s degree by Michael Yun

Detroit Fights Devil’s Night (photos + of other Detroit topics)

Poletown

In 1981 the neighborhood was cleared to make way for the construction of the General Motors Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant. The city of Detroit relied on eminent domain  to compel the displacement of the 4,200 people who lived in the area, along with their 1,300 homes, 140 businesses, six churches and one hospital.

“The Last Days of Poletown” by James Kelly. Reported by Barrett Seaman/Detroit;Barrett Seaman/Detroit

Feedom Freedom Growers, “Moving Detroit Forward via Milwaukee,” by Myrtle Thompson-Curtis and Wayne Curtis, Michigan Citizen, Sept. 26-Oct. 2, 2010

Seneca Falls Convention (July 19-20, 1848)

“Detroit’s Renewal: Can It Inspire the Social Forum?” by Sarah van Gelder in Yes magazine

Detroit is known for its decay, violence, and gas-guzzling cars. With thousands of activists coming to town, will it also become known as a source of hope?

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