Tag

social justice

Jan 09
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Art: Sharing the Soul of Another

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | 4 Comments

I did not expect Bill Drayton, the “father” of Social Entrepreneurship, to describe empathy as the product he most wants to deliver in the twilight of his career. Reducing poverty certainly. Decreasing recidivism sure. Changing campaign finance, maybe. But to hear the squishy idea of empathy be the focus of an enterprising change maker, was surprising.

As I reflect, the disruption of my perspective was the sort that drives meaningful change. It was probably like the experience of hearing the Gatesian/Jobsian vision for home computing in the 1970’s. It feels wrong yet it is just jarring and crazy enough to be right. With a focus on empathy, Drayton is looking at the root of many of the serious problems in a social setting. Empathy is a powerful component of justice. And three years ago I had not heard anyone reference it with regard to societal change.

Empathy, according to Merriam Webster, is the the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions. It is not a solution to the problem being experienced by another or even a projection of one’s own concepts of how someone feels. It is connecting to another person as a human. The pursuit of justice begins with understanding another’s condition.

So what does art have to do with empathy?

And what can the promotion of art do to foster empathy?

Art is a natural place to explore the philosophy of another human. Art is the expression of self, it is a window into the rich experiences of being. Art translates feelings into tactile, visceral material that is shared through sight, sound, touch, taste and all of our senses. Art is the perfect tool to share the highs, the lows and everything in between that encapsulate life. For periods of time, art allows us to live life beyond our own body and with the mind of someone else. Art gives us the soul of another. Art gives us empathy.

Institutions and individuals that work to make art accessible have a profound opportunity to use the power of art. To harness that power, barriers between the person who expresses and the audience must be removed or sharing will not be possible. The primary barriers to accessing the other is context. The intermediaries must translate the contextual differences of our genetics, and our environment. They must be sensitive to the origin of a work, knowledgeable of the present circumstances, and able to provoke thought about the future. As the conduit, the promoter can not project themselves onto the concept or the audience. They must only be open and working to open up the relationship between creator and the person who experiences in all ways. This may include removing physical barriers, financial barriers, cultural barriers, educational barriers and anything else MAN has put in front of fellow man to prevent the sharing of life. Promoters of art must see the opportunity they have to expose ALL human experiences.

IMAGE CREDIT. [RSA Shorts].
Dec 17
0

Tinted Lens

By | Tinted Lens | 10 Comments

“I don’t want no peace, I need equal rights and justice” –Peter Tosh

Language. It encourages the exchange of ideas and information. But merely by opening one’s mouth, it can also betray where you’re from and how people will label you. The words we choose convey much more than their face-value meaning.

But what happens when members of a group use different words? Or the same words with different meaning? How do you move forward? How can you ensure you are actually working towards the same goal?

A few weeks ago, a friend was in a community discussion. She noticed that while the black and longer-term white activists spoke of ‘social justice,’ most of the other white community participants spoke of ‘social change.’

Let’s unpack this: ‘Justice’ is the quality of being just, impartial or fair; the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity while ‘Change’ means to become or make something different.

When people speak of social justice, they hearken to a movement rooted in the concept that there is nothing inherently wrong with the black (and wider low-income) community. Rather, social justice takes issue with everyday ‘norms’ that serve to oppress and marginalize that community. The media perpetuates these ‘norms’ whether it be through reports of crime ‘in the black community’ or advertisements showing whites as good/pure while the black actor or model is evil/primal. These seemingly minor yet persistent depictions and images serve to imprint our collective minds with the thought that one type of people (black) is not to be trusted, that they aren’t as educated as the rest of us (white) and that any poverty is due to their own laziness. Social justice then, seeks to eradicate these lies and other barriers and to paint everyone in the same light, judging all by the content of their characters, to quote Dr. King.

This is intrinsically different from “social change,” which seeks to change behaviors, relationships and interactions independent of larger frameworks at play. It’s the difference between asking “what can we do to change this?” rather than asking why things are that way in the first place.

The social justice vs. social change dynamic can cause schisms and failure even when groups are authentic and well-intentioned. I worked in one community where half the group pushed for more community days (social change) and the others wanted to build mentorship programs and civic engagement training (social justice). The group split up and eventually the community day side was successful; but three years later there was only a minor difference in crime and unemployment was as bad as ever.

Social change is (by comparison) easier, it’s sexier, it results in happy photo ops with food and music. Social justice is work. It is shoulder-to-the-wheel every day, countering habits of privilege people don’t even know they have.

In this neighborhood, aligning successful adults with community youth, both ‘at-risk’ and successful, could have provided role models for youth that lacked images of success in their own homes or blocks. Helping youth and young adults vote, participate and make their voice heard in local issues could have lent a student perspective to school board decisions like the removal of music classes and extracurricular activities.

Here, both groups wanted to improve the neighborhood; one thought it could be done only with breaking bread together while the other wanted to tackle the larger issues without regard to celebrating the small successes. Social change is a part of social justice (it’s hard to imagine an effective mentor program without trust) but unless the larger WHY conversation is had and language explained, there is a disconnect and neither will succeed.

It is this place, at the juncture of two cities: white Baltimore and black Baltimore, that I will endeavor to explore in this column. As a mixed race Baltimore transplant, the lens through which I see this city is tinted by my experiences as a black woman raised in a largely white setting. Right now I have a foot in both Baltimores and am unsure of how to move back and forth between them. I look forward to examining that discomfort zone and discovering just how tinted our lenses really are.

 

IMAGE CREDIT. [Amber Collins].
Feb 04
0

On the Edge of Difference

By | Social Enterprise, The Good Plan | 2 Comments

I would bet many of us have heard the remark, “you’re from Baltimore? Have you seen The Wire?” and I can guarantee you, nothing aggravates me more. The widespread media portrayal of our city implants a preconceived notion we as residents must balance with the greater picture. I have seen The Wire. And while there is lots of truth to the visual disgrace and social injustice captured by HBO, there’s more to Baltimore than Bunk and Bubbles. In our city, poverty is constantly around the corner from stability.

In 2010 I heard community revitalization guru Storm Cunningham speak at TEDxMidAtlantic. Inspired by his approach, I insisted on showing him around when he came to Baltimore in 2011. We looped around the inner harbor and down The Block. With the Pussycat Club providing the appropriate backdrop, he made a remark to the tune of “this is right here? And the harbor is right there? I would have had no idea. They’re just two blocks apart.” We certainly aren’t all crabcakes and waterfront, but we aren’t all Lake Trout and vacants either.

There is often the “out of sight, out of mind” excuse for inaction, yet in the City of Baltimore this is impossible. The social equity discrepancies of the city are perhaps especially jarring because of the proximate adjacencies. It’s hard to find the bad without driving through the good, and vice versa. But I advocate that seeing the other side of the coin can dispel ignorance and foster comprehensive planning.

People proximate to us in place are more likely to have opinions we consider to be valid, though there are only so many recommendations for the familiar. The beauty of distinct neighborhoods is the ability to find the best of something different. Walking outside my census tract I’m opened up to new food, markets, services. The ability to exchange information and break out of sameness is an action any of us can take to transcend the cross-neighborhood divide and enhance and diversify our own community.

Perhaps planning in Baltimore is slow or, dare I say, one-note when it comes to alleviating the impoverished, but by going one street further we can get new references for a world that is not our own, integrating something new, and perhaps eventually, define our neighborhood as one block larger than it used to be.