Lisa Lee — Director of the Hull-House

Alice Kim — Director of the Public Square

SUBJECT: Organizing in Chicago — sites of resistance.  How to engage the public in social justice issues

Notes:

Lisa Lee speaking

Theory itself is only liberated in practice and in relationships.  Grassroots organizing is more than uniforms of knowledge, critical theory.  Thinking is the first active resistance.

What kind of spaces bridge academics and activists?  — Founded Center for Public Intellectuals! to fill that space.

reflecting on C. West’s “Race Matters” — return to thinking of the Common Good “we must focus our attention on the public square…the vitality of any public square determines the quality of our life as a common person”

Last 10 years, the Public Square in Chicago is building laboratory space for praxis.

“Imminent critique” — implement strategies of the oppressor and use the tools to defeat the oppressor

Began her work at the museum, in charge of this “dusty house” into a vibrant center of engagement.

Hull House — Jane Adams, one of the founders, first women to win Nobel Peace Prize — believes in peace and justice as relationship.  JA was also considered to be a public enemy and a dangerous person.  Her NPP is displayed next to her FBI profile in the museum. “JA is probably a member of more organizations than any other one individual in the US.  REsponsible for …radical meetings…and where subversive breeds have found shelter.”  She was under servaillance for creating opportunities to discuss ideas for marginalized women.  That’s what Hull House was and that’s what it strives to be again.

The best way to preserve history is to make it relevant to current struggles for social justice.

–shift in presentation —

how do we create social change and provide environment that supports the way we think and move?

talking about the cooks and bakers in Chicago who got fed up with fine dining and wanted to do something more about the earth, agriculture and growing obesity epidemics in the poor populations in Chicago.  Their engagement with food was inspiring.

How do their tastes change when you’re exposed to other ethnic food?  Leads to how to feed a family, public health…all beginning with issue of food.  Led to coffee, soup and rolls service.

This led to the dining hall space of the museum to be used a modern day soup kitchen — once a week, bring people together to discuss the most pressing issues surrounding food.

Food is the issue that pushes everyone to talk.  It’s what brings people together to eat and pushes us to think differently about its distribution, how its created, who we choose to eat with and how it’s prepared.

Brings together eaters, farmers, economists, engineering issues, contemporary food justice movement and diversity issues.

This is all about creating the opportunities to cross lines of difference.  They try to make links between issues.  E.g.  when you eat a bowl of soup — inform and educate about the locality of those tomatoes and bring in advocates to inform about who picked those tomotoes and what they’re paid so people think if they like tomoato soup, they’ll care about social justice issues –.

Also created an urban farm, creating a seed library – where people can check out their own seeds, just like a book with fees and fee policy.  At the farm, we highlight the dazzling diversity of food and focus on the issue of diversity of food and the diversity of the earth.  mono-cultural food is dangerous for the planet.  similar to languages.  we have hudnreds of thousands of languages but only a handful are spoken.  we do this work on the farm: ou can’t talk about sustainability without talking about culture and social issues, it’s not just about economics.

Food preservation — e.g.  grow your own in the summer and preserve it for the winter.

Hul house began canning and preserving the excess produce of the farm.  They began selling their stuff and realized how sexist and racist the food labels are (Aunt Jemima) and began highlight stories of women home economists in their selling their items.  E.g. Ellen Swaller Richards — radical home economist

“Survival pending Revolution” use this term in their work.

CHANGE SPEAKERS

Alice Kim

How do we create the world anew?

Reclaim public, private, institutional, uknown spaces into places of dialogue and change.  Transform spaces in our everyday lives for intentional and meaningful dialogue.

Activist circles: disparage talk about dialogue. E.g.  “The philosophers talk about the world, but the world needs to be changed.”  Deep conversation about anything more than just weather is becoming more rare.  How to talk about issues that matter to us: media blackout in puerto rico, wisconsin rallies of protest — these issues are brought up in unconventional places turned places for dialogue.

The point is to resist and interrupt a cultural of silence and consumerism.  Coordinate spaces to be democratic to dream and debate.  These spaces are few and far between.

— Alice reflecting on growing up, loving books, but then realized she never read about girls that look like me.  Made me want to read more.  In college

Adrian rooks, bell hooks, cherri moraga — introduced terms like alienation and what was previous unnameable [memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts] Personal sharing of life shtory of coming into knowledge that moved her into feminism, orientatlism, theory of oppression, helped me to see my onw agency and make the world anew.  New ways of seeing gave way to activism — against war, for repro rights.  Natural connection between activism and idea.  Issues of identity were the first round of transformation but it was issues of class that propelled me to go deeper.

Working with women who were HIV positive (after college) — went to grad school and left academy and knew that the ivory towers were not the place of the revolution so I left after my masters and decided not to pursue PhD.

Worked at Cook County Hospital…met with a man who was brutally beaten by the police and led her to criminal justice reform work and anti-death penalty.  Links between slavery and capital punishment and how discrimination is still in the center of that.  Our work is to bridge of ideas to the world of activism.

Creating spaces — CAFE SOCIETY

quoting Gwendolyn Brookes — consider another’s business as our own business, about rethinking the notion of community and going beyond traditoinal notions about geography and building, insist that the classroom is not the only place where ideas are exchanged.

Black and Brown Unity in the Age of Obama  — (topic of discussion as example)

place for conversation that might not otherwise happen  like “Why Do We Still Dream” — posed this question at Cafe Society.

–showing media clip —

Shwoing slides of Cafe Society Discussions where they hold dialogue.  Facilitator is always present to guide the conversation to help unpack the wisdom at the table.  Provide frame and links for more resources so there is shared knowledge.  next slide — BROWN SUGAR BAKERY — conversation was recorded then uploaded online for further discussion.  CAFE AFIDOS (?)  led in Spanish for spanish speaking community.  CHRISTOPHER HOUSE came on board to host discussions for their English as a Second Language exercise so ESL students were also involved.  BARBERSHOP — people are talking, author and scholars included — to have their hair cut and talk about these issues.  Barbershop was filled with organizers, writers, citizens listen.  MUSEUMS also used for conversations, “Art of Dissent” cafe discussions.

Created a toolkit DIY Cafe Toolkit — wants to act as generators of dialogue to promote others to facilitate their own programs.  Toolkit is a call to action, to create their own dynamic spaces to transform themselves and community.

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.”  – Emma Goldman

Lisa Lee back to talking —

Public sphere is a contested space and needs to be re-imagined all the time and our lovers, family, friends, and coworkers should fill those spaces.  The personal should be brought out and the “secret self” should be separate from activism has been debunked by theorists and this notion only benefits the private sector.  The personal is political!

For the work to be effective, it has to be extremely pleasurable!  Remember the joy of doing this work!

In research to learn more about reformers, discovered these “serious” people who closed sweatshops and dedicated their own lives for activism has been about their right to simple pleasures.  Long bike rides, dancing, skinny dipping, and eating with one another.  Our sensual selves is critical in our struggle.

To create the world anew is not just about what we’re against but what we are for!

its’ essential to rethink our work, our organizing and practice public discourse and embrace a politics of imagination.  what are the other sites of resistance now?  how do we transcend bitterness and embrace dreams of freedom?

“we must tap the well of our collective imagination and do what our ancestors did: dream.”  Its essential to know what to build and to know what to knock down.

Dream, dream, dream.

Embrace the intellect and the creative of us.  “If we came from nowhere here, why can’t we go somewhere there?”