Coronavirus: Every attack on the poor must embolden our agitation!

Back at the beginning of shelter-in-place, I said there were five tasks we had to do to stay same and come out alive.  One was that we must fight for justice.  The outpouring of people into the streets demanding justice makes sense in a time when our fractured, abusive system is laid bare by the deadly progression of coronavirus through the land.

For four years, the 400 Years of Inequality Project has held up the work of Reverend Dr. William Barber II as charting the path away from inequality towards a nation truly for all.  When the Poor People's Campaign announced the Assembly in Washington on June 20th, we pointed our work in that direction.

The time has come.  There are two events we're doing to lead up to the Assembly at 10am this Saturday.

Tonight, we're holding a workshop on the People's Platform for Equity that we wrote based on our 4 years of examining the problem of inequality, including all the observances we got to attend of the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown.  You can join us at tonight (June 17th) at 7pm for an explanation of the People's Platform and how we got there.

Saturday, we've organized a "virtual" bus that will get you to the Assembly on time!  Join us at 9:30am to share signs and chants, as we "go" to Washington to hear the voices of the poor and dispossessed.  Here's a short video from the Poor People's Campaign that will give you a taste of what's to come!

And of course there's the June 20th Assembly of Poor People's Campaign.  Part protest and part programmatic organizing, this Assembly will us get on the same page about the demands we need to place on our governments, local, state and federal, to stop the abuse of the poor, which translates to the abuse of us all.  It will be a crucial moment in this charged era.

Join us!

Be there!

Coronavirus: Finding the hidden figures (Hidden Figures II)

My New School colleague, architect William Morrish, knows how to design a project.  He designed our 400 Years of Inequality project, which has been a smashing success.  Today he joined a text thread on updating the urban policy PhD curriculum to be relevant to the challenges of the times and shared a preliminary proposal for managing the coronavirus pandemic.

William Morrish	12:02 PM (7 hours ago)
to Miodrag, me, Joseph, Michael, Oscar, Evren, Gabriela, ALEX, Cagla, Jennifer

Agree with everyone.  Seeking a new return trajectory to Earth after capsule fire, the Moon astronauts sent this message:  "HOUSTON, we have a situation"...... What is our trajectory for returning into our Earth....  Who is our HOUSTON, and who are our brilliant African-American women mathematicians who will calculate our re-entry by hand on paper... let's deploy people, not technology.  

Coronavirus: How distorted thinking will kill us and what that has to do with slavery

I was heartbroken by the front page of the Times today:

These headlines outline the crisis of bad thinking that we are in, but let me draw your attention to a few indicators.

1. The government knew that something like this pandemic could happen and that the nation was unprepared.  We did not get prepared.  
2. Health care workers have been decrying the shortage of personal protective equipment, but the nation has not revved up production.
3. Unemployment claims are surging, but President Trump asked the states to suppress the numbers.
4. People are working to find a "silver bullet" but not employing proven "magic strategies."
5. And (not shown) a story about rightwing people in Louisiana who scoffed at the coronavirus until one of their own got seriously ill from it.  

I could go on, as could anyone who's been following the news and updates from public health and medicine.  I think, however, that I've proven the point that we are managing this pandemic in a fashion that will increase its devastation to our population.  

I promised to say how this bad thinking is related to slavery, which might have puzzled you as a claim. 

For the past four years, I have worked with a consensus group of organizations on a project called, "400 Years of Inequality."  Our project issued a call in 2018 for the nation to observe 2019 as the 400th anniversary of the first Africans landing at Jamestown to be sold into bondage. Observances were carried out all across the US, in small churches and large concert halls. 

We focused on "inequality" because we saw that as an egregious and enduring harm of slavery that entrained the whole nation.  We were honored to have the Reverend Dr. William Barber II offer the homily at a solemn occasion held at Riverside Church, called "Stolen Lands, Stolen Hands."  He centered his homily on the identification of "seven sins" committed to justify slavery.  These include: bad biology and sick sociology.  He emphasized that we have not scrubbed these distorted ways of thinking from our schools and universities or from our government or our population.  

Philosopher Robert Fullilove had this to say about distorted thinking:

Logicians teach us that, if the premises of thinking are incorrect -- for example, if people postulate that some are not the equals of others -- then they will make conclusions based on these premises that are logically correct (they will have formed a "valid argument"). But here is tricky part: "valid" is not the same as "true."  That does not mean, in other words, that their conclusions will be illogical.  People can make logical arguments beginning with false premises, but sound logic does not make the conclusions we derive from untrue premises to be true.  

And that is the trap that we find ourselves in at this moment.  We are working from false premises and arriving at "valid" but wrong conclusions. It is killing us.  

One immediate step: sign the Poor People's Campaign petition for a "Moral Response to COVID19." Led by Reverend Dr. Barber, this "moral fusion" campaign invites all of us to recognize that inequality harms us all and to fight against it.  

The New Market on Main

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and David Chapin, my Main Street buddy, and I went first to see the cherry blossoms in Newark's Branch Brook Park.  He was astounded at the number of trees, any grove of which would have been cause for pride.  Everybody was out, it being Easter, and 89 degrees, and the Cherry Blossom Festival.  It didn't matter to any of us that the cherries's had passed the prime of bloom -- it was THE day to be in the park.
I proposed that we get some food and cook at my house.  In looking up the directions to Whole Foods, the new Whole Foods in Newark popped so we decided to go see it.  It is in the old Hahne's Department Store building, vacant for decades, but finding new life.  The Whole Foods is an anchor for the new mixed use neighborhood the planners are developing in that area.  We walked in and David was impressed by palatial size and cornucopia of food.  I'm more used to suburban Whole Foods -- it didn't seem that different from the store I usually go to in West Orange.  Except of course, place is everything, and looking out the massive windows onto Military park, being in the heart of downtown Newark in a place I visited as a child but lose to me for a long long time, was very special.

New Whole Foods Market on Broad Street in Newark

A market is a critical anchor institution for a new urban neighborhood.  It could be a little bodega, or palace of food, like Whole Foods.  It is essential to the life and good feeling to be able to walk to grab something for dinner, especially as a city densifies, and parking becomes impossible.  Its other virtues -- creating a crossroads of neighborhood -- should not be overlooked.
As David was getting some roasted red pepper hummus for our snack, I saw a guy wearing a tee shirt that said, "We out." -- Harriet Tubman.  I am doing a project called "400 years of inequality," which calls for an observance of 1619, when the first Africans arrived in Jamestown to be sold into bondage. What better tee shirt that than one?  I debated asking him if I could take his picture, but eventually worked up my courage.  I explained the project and the tee-shirt guy and his friend were immediately intrigued and starting sharing their projects -- including bike tours of the Central Ward.  They also explained that the tee shirt was one of many connecting current expressions to historic figures.  they pulled up the shirt for Rosa Parks, which says, "Nah."

Paul in his tee shirt.

Then they started to talk about their delight in the Whole Foods, and how it was creating a safe space for Newark intellectuals to encounter each other, and promote a conversation about the future of the city.  They credited Mayor Ras Baraka with this great step forward.  And it was so resonant with the experience in the community-supported general store in West River, Vermont.