Apr
27
Creative Fuel
Filed Under Guest Post | By Lara O'Toole | 1 Comment
I’m in love. Just when I had my fill of the boring and the burnt out and so many people throwing up their hands at the state of the world, I discovered the social justice + hip hop scene in Austin. Call it spoken word; call it poetry. Whatever you call it, all you really need to do is listen. Local groups like The Ciph
er, the Texas Youth Word Collective, the Xenogia Spoken Word Collective, UpRise! Productions, and Blacklisted Individuals grab your attention and pack a punch with their honesty, their power, and their stage presence. Through wordplay, artists of all ages offer up stories of abuse and survivorship, hopes and dreams, encounters with discrimination and hatred, and social commentary in all directions.
Recently, I had the privilege of watching adult artists (Zell Miller, III and Da’Shade Moonbeam) lead a new crop of kids to find their voices and perform for the first time. Writing prompts on power and oppression sparked the kids to think and, more importantly, to express themselves and be heard. I’ve always loved hip hop, – it’s beats, power, and rebellion – but have felt like a traitor to the social justice movement when lyrics that glorify violence, sexism, and homophobia came on my radio. (Am I alone?) These artists and their work is a much-needed alternative.
This is how we work for social justice. We do it by finding innovative ways to fight the fight. We do it by uncovering the artist in us and by inspiring others to fuel their own passions. Art is not limited to performing lyrics or visual displays; it is the unique way that each of us crafts our lives to work for what we believe.
I think that our work to end sexual violence and change our society for the better needs constant sparks and ideas that forget about “the box†altogether. Socially conscious spoken word is one of many creative ways to engage supporters and propel the movement forward. I know there are many others.
Please comment. Throw out creative projects, ideas, and artists that add to the social justice movement. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Lara O’Toole is the former co-chair of TAASA’s Diversity Task Force and is a graduate student in social work leadership at The University of Texas at Austin. She has worked in the anti-violence movement for eight years.
*Upcoming event:
Tuesday, May 4th: Youth Voices: Socially Conscious Spoken Word, 6 pm, Southwest Key Programs Community Room
(6002 Jain Lane, Austin TX 78721), FREE, food and drinks provided.
Apr
22
“It’s Just Words”
Filed Under Guest Post | By Jeremy Flowers | 3 Comments
They can come from a fascinating verse in a song, or even the whole chorus. They can be a line out of a poem or in a movie that makes your heart melt and sends a tingly feeling over your body. They can even be more influential with a beat in the background that makes your blood pump rapidly and makes you want to jump up and down or throw your hands in the air. Sometimes, they even come from the person sitting beside you and create chills that crawl down your arms, make hairs stand up on the back of your neck, or bring a tear to your eye. And some people say they don’t affect us?
Whether from an everyday conversation, a book, magazine, TV, or the radio – words and lyrics constantly project into our minds. The messages most normalized are also the ones that filter into our subconscious, left to stagnate or resurface later.  Often we let these messages sit in our filters so long they become a part of our traditional mindset. When is the last time you cleaned out your filter and started over fresh?
Words are extremely powerful. We all have that one song we could listen to a million times.  But, again — they’re only words, right?  I hear that a lot. It’s only words from the Bible preached weekly, yet scripture has impacted people’s lives for generations. Words are a crucial component in the development of our beliefs about others and ourselves.  It’s only words that were said to the 13-year-old boy in North Texas that led him to feel so worthless he took his own life. If “it’s only words,” then how are they doing so much damage? How can they have so much force and power?
As parents, teachers, coaches, music, film and TV reinforce messages daily, we can become numb to them or obsess over them. They become norms for our attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. We can become immune to the negative effects of language. We hear men talking about women in sexual and objectifying ways. The XM Top 20 on 20 includes “Sexy Bitch†by David Guetta Ft. Akon, “How Low Can You Go?†by Ludacris and Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad.†  Find these lyrics or countless others, and you’ll see how men use words to completely devalue and dehumanize women into sexual objects. These videos normalize objectification and sexism to the extreme. When we hear negative or degrading statements about or to women, they become more “normal” to us, and we become desensitized. Also, we must realize that if consciously or unconsciously we make a degrading, derogatory, or dehumanizing statement to or about a woman, we send the message to others that it’s acceptable. And disguising them as humor doesn’t lessen the effect.
Reality is if we allow others to act with misogynistic or violent outbursts in our presence and do not intervene, then we’re complicit in the negative effects of that behavior, no matter what form it’s in. That being said –  it’s time to clean our filters and explore new ways to use our words!
Written by Jeremy Flowers, co-founder of Step Up. You can follow Jeremy on Twitter or check out his blog.
Apr
8
Modern Day School Segregation: Is it Really About Race? Part Two
Filed Under Guest Post | By Stuart McDonald | Leave a Comment
Perhaps more than anything else, parental involvement is paramount in their child’s educational process. If the parents are not actively involved in their child’s school work, striving to create environments that nurture good study habits and foster creative thinking, no institution, no matter how incredible and innovative, can overcome that. When parents are not critically concerned with and invested in the educational experience that their child is receiving—either financially or voluntarily—the child is the one that suffers.
One way to gauge parental involvement is by a school’s Parent Teacher Association. In the case of Straus and Lower Lab, there’s a massive contrast. In his Village Voice article Thrasher brings attention to the fact that, “The Straus PTA is described as ‘almost nonexistent,’ ‘not much to talk about,’ and ‘well-meaning, but not very powerful’ by several people. One parent (incorrectly) thought Straus didn’t even have a PTA.†On the other hand, Lower Lab’s PTA held a fundraising auction for the 2006–2007 school year which brought in over $165,000. The same year, parents and other individuals donated more than a quarter of a million dollars and the Lower Lab PTA reported over $400,000 in total assets.
Apr
7
Modern Day School Segregation: Is it Really About Race?
Filed Under Guest Post | By Stuart McDonald | 1 Comment
In America, race and class are inextricably linked. Whether by chance, or 
more likely, by purpose, that is the reality that we must live with. Most of the children who attend New York’s Lower Laboratory School for Gifted Education and Straus School, and their parents, know this all too well.
Straus and Lower Lab inhabit the same building in New York’s Upper East Side—P.S. 198—yet the two schools couldn’t be more different. The only thing they share is the building. While they utilize the same halls and bathrooms, the two schools never interact, even during lunch or recess. There’s an even more striking area they don’t share—the front door. Lower Lab, along with its student and teachers, gets to use the front door while the Straus students are forced to go around the side of the building to use the back door.
In Steven Thrasher’s article, “Inside a Divided Upper East Side Public School,†published in New York’s Village Voice, he describes the scene at P.S. 198 by saying, “If you’re a white student and you arrive at the public elementary school building on 95th Street and Third Avenue, you’ll probably walk through the front door. If you’re a black student, you’ll probably come in through the back.â€